PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - René Terporten
AU  - Eleanor Huizeling
AU  - Karin Heidlmayr
AU  - Peter Hagoort
AU  - Anne Kösem
TI  - The Interaction of Context Constraints and Predictive Validity during Sentence Reading
AID  - 10.1101/2022.09.21.508808
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.09.21.508808
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/09/22/2022.09.21.508808.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/09/22/2022.09.21.508808.full
AB  - Words are not processed in isolation, instead they are commonly embedded in phrases and sentences. The sentential context influences the perception and processing of a word. However, how this is achieved by brain processes and whether predictive mechanisms underlie this process remains a debated topic. To this end we employed an experimental paradigm in which we orthogonalized sentence context constraints and predictive validity, which was defined as the ratio of congruent to incongruent sentence endings within the experiment. While recording electroencephalography, participants read sentences with three levels of sentential context constraints (high, medium and low). Participants were also separated into two groups, which differed in their ratio of valid congruent to incongruent target words that could be predicted from the sentential context. For both groups we investigated modulations of alpha power before, and N400 amplitude modulations after target word onset. The results reveal that the N400 amplitude gradually decreases with higher context constraints. Contrary, alpha power is non-monotonically influenced, displaying the strongest decrease for high context constraints over frontal electrode sites, while alpha power between medium and low context constraints does not differ. This indicates that both neural correlates are influenced by the degree of context constraint but are not affected by changes in predictive validity. The results therefore suggest that both N400 and alpha power are not unequivocally linked to the predictability of a target word based on larger contextual information.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.