Oscillatory brain dynamics during sentence reading: A Fixation-related spectral perturbation analysis.

• Main Authors: Lorenzo eVignali, Nicole Alexandra Himmelstoss, Stefan eHawelka, Fabio eRichlan, Florian eHutzler
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-04-01
• Series: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
• Subjects: Electroencephalography; Eye Movements; brain oscillations; sentence processing; semantic violation
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00191/full

The present study investigated oscillatory brain dynamics during self-paced sentence-level processing. Participants read fully correct sentences, sentences containing a semantic violation and sentences in which the order of the words was randomized. At the target word level, fixations on semantically unrelated words elicited a lower-beta band (13-18 Hz) desynchronization. At the sentence level, gamma power (31-55 Hz) increased linearly for syntactically correct sentences, but not when the order of the words was randomized. In the 300 to 900 ms time window after sentence onsets, theta power (4-7 Hz) was greater for syntactically correct sentences as compared to sentences where no syntactic structure was preserved (random words condition). We interpret our results as conforming with a recently formulated predictive-coding framework for oscillatory neural dynamics during sentence-level language comprehension. Additionally, we discuss how our results relate to previous findings with serial visual presentation versus self-paced reading.