Neurophysiological measures of covert semantic processing in neurotypical adolescents actively ignoring spoken sentence inputs: A high-density event-related potential (ERP) study.

Autor: Toffolo KK; The Frederick J. and Marion A. Schindler Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, The Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY 14620, USA., Freedman EG; The Frederick J. and Marion A. Schindler Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, The Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY 14620, USA., Foxe JJ; The Frederick J. and Marion A. Schindler Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, The Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY 14620, USA. Electronic address: John_Foxe@urmc.rochester.edu.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Neuroscience [Neuroscience] 2024 Nov 12; Vol. 560, pp. 238-253. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Oct 05.
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2024.10.008
Abstrakt: Language comprehension requires semantic processing of individual words and their context within a sentence. Well-characterized event-related potential (ERP) components (the N400 and late positivity component (LPC/P600)) provide neuromarkers of semantic processing, and are robustly evoked when semantic errors are introduced into sentences. These measures are useful for evaluating semantic processing in clinical populations, but it is not known whether they can be evoked in more severe neurodevelopmental disorders where explicit attention to the sentence inputs cannot be objectively assessed (i.e., when sentences are passively listened to). We evaluated whether N400 and LPC/P600 could be detected in adolescents who were explicitly ignoring sentence inputs. Specifically, it was asked whether explicit attention to spoken inputs was required for semantic processing, or if a degree of automatic processing occurs when the focus of attention is directed elsewhere? High-density ERPs were acquired from twenty-two adolescents (12-17 years), under two experimental conditions: 1. individuals actively determined whether the final word in a sentence was congruent or incongruent with sentence context, or 2. passively listened to background sentences while watching a video. When sentences were ignored, N400 and LPC/P600 were robustly evoked to semantic errors, albeit with reduced amplitudes and protracted/delayed latencies. Statistically distinct topographic distributions during passive versus active paradigms pointed to distinct generator configurations for semantic processing as a function of attention. Covert semantic processing continues in neurotypical adolescents when explicit attention is withdrawn from sentence inputs. As such, this approach could be used to objectively investigate semantic processing in populations with communication deficits.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
Externí odkaz: