Presentations

Abstract

Effective communication involves recognizing the disparity between our own perspective and that of the recipient, influenced by factors such as stereotypes and accents. The extent to which Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to ascribe beliefs to others, plays a role in this process is uncertain. We anticipate individuals to speak in line with their beliefs, but what if their words conflict with our expectations? To investigate, we devised a virtual perspective-taking experiment where we manipulated a virtual agent's beliefs. Electroencephalography data were collected as participants listened to statements from the agent that either aligned or clashed with their true or false beliefs. We focused on the N400, an event-related brain component linked to word unexpectedness. As hypothesized, statements inconsistent with the agent's true beliefs triggered more pronounced N400 responses compared to matching statements. Furthermore, we anticipated that when the agent held a false belief, this knowledge would factor into interpreting their statements. Neither statements aligned with nor those diverging from the agent's false beliefs evoked N400 responses. This can be taken as evidence that participants did take the agents perspective into account. These results strongly support the role of Theory of Mind in language comprehension.

Abstract

This talk will be divided into three parts. First I will provide some arguments about why we might want to investigate neural oscillations in relation to cognitive phenomena in the first place. I will then present some data investigating embodied semantics in Spanish using mu oscillations as an index of motor-related cortical activity. Finally, I will offer some (very) preliminary findings from a study investigating the relationship between theta and beta oscillations and the processing of agreement relations (and violations) in Dutch.

Abstract

Oscillatory neuronal dynamics during language comprehension has been investigated at the level of single words, and whole sentences. We have recently extended this work to investigate the influence of discourse-level factors on oscillatory activity measured using electroencephalography (EEG). This talk will be divided into three parts. First, I shall provide some background about discourse comprehension and its place in models of language processing. This will include an introduction to the memory, unification, and control (MUC) framework and how it allows us to relate such processing models to neural circuitry. Second, I shall sketch the background necessary to understand what neuronal oscillations tell us about how the brain processes language. Finally, I shall present some of our own findings illustrating that neuronal oscillations can allow us to track changes in the brain as readers comprehend (or fail to comprehend) short discourses.

Abstract

Language comprehension involves the integration of multiple sources of information extremely quickly and in an ongoing fashion. A highly desireable goal is to investigate the underlying cognitive and neural systems involved during this integration process. ERP approaches have thus far allowed us to obtain only brief glimpses of the temporal dynamics of these systems. While we have gained some important insights, these ERP approaches restrict us to the investigation of short periods of time directly following or preceding some critical stimulus or experimental manipulation. Presumably, most language scientists would be interested in tools which would allow them to extend these types of investigations to address more natural comprehension situations, not restricted to any particular point in time, and potentially spread out over entire sentences or discourses. In this talk I shall outline how investigating changes in oscillatory activity in the EEG signal can provide information, not provided by more traditional ERP approaches, about the temporal dynamics of the language comprehension system. To illustrate this point I shall review some recent experimental work investigating oscillatory changes during sentence comprehension, with modulations of various aspects of linguistic processing selectively altering oscillatory activity in specific frequency bands. I shall then present some of my own research on how we can investigate oscillatory dynamics over the course of short discourses, and what that can tell us about the temporal dynamics of the underlying neural systems responsible for discourse-level semantic comprehension. Finally, I shall outline some tentative ideas about how the research conducted thus far into the oscillatory dynamics involved in language comprehension might fit into a more general framework of the role of oscillatory dynamics in linking cognitive function to neural information processing.