Predictive processing of aspectual information: evidence from event-related brain potentials

要旨

We conducted an event-related potential experiment using aspectual coercion to examine whether aspectual information is predictively processed prior to verb input in Japanese. In the experiment, experimental sentences were presented with two presentation durations (500 ms vs. 800 ms) to manipulate the temporal predictability of a verb. Aspectually coerced sentences elicited an early anterior negativity (AN) only when participants had a sufficient time to generate an aspectual prediction for a verb. A late AN was observed in aspectual coercion irrespective of the manipulation of the duration. This result indicates that early AN is elicited by a prediction error pertaining to aspectual information, suggesting that aspectual information is computed predictively based on adverbials without waiting for verb information.

主題