An ERP study of structural anomalies in native and semantic free artificial grammar: evidence for shared processing mechanisms.

TABULLO Á; SEVILLA Y; SEGURA E; ZANUTTO S; WAINSELBOIM A.

BRAIN RESEARCH

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2013 vol. 1527 p. 149 - 160

0006-8993

Brain Res. 2013 Aug 21;1527:149-60. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2013.05.022. Epub 2013 May 24. An ERP study of structural anomalies in native and semantic free artificial grammar: evidence for shared processing mechanisms. Tabullo Á, Sevilla Y, Segura E, Zanutto S, Wainselboim A. Author information ? Instituto de Medicina y Biología Experimental, Conicet, Argentina. Abstract Artificial grammars have been widely applied to the study of sequential learning in language, but few studies have directly compared the neural correlates of artificial and native grammar processing. In this study, we examined Event Related Potentials (ERPs) elicited by structural anomalies in semantic-free artificial grammar sequences and sentences in the subjects' native language (Spanish). Although ERPs differed during early stages, we observed similar posterior negativities (N400) and P600 effects in a late stage. We interpret these results as evidence of at least partially shared neural mechanisms for processing of language and artificial grammars. We suggest that in both the natural and artificial grammars, the N400 and P600 components we observed can be explained as the result of unfulfilled predictions about incoming stimuli. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KEYWORDS: Artificial grammar, ERPs, Native grammar, P600, Sequential learning PMID: