Dorothee Chwilla - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Dorothee Chwilla
Neuropsychologia, Jul 1, 2013
According to the monitoring theory of language perception, language errors can create strong conf... more According to the monitoring theory of language perception, language errors can create strong conflicts between expected and observed representations. When a strong conflict is present this functions as a bottom-up signal to bias attention towards the unexpected representation for reprocessing to check for possible processing errors. This monitoring process, encompassing both the conflict and reprocessing, is thought to be reflected in the late positivity or P600 effect. The present ERP study compared sentences with syntactic agreement violations to sentences containing visually degraded words. The latter could also signal that control adjustments are needed, because of a lack of bottom-up information. The results showed that both agreement violations and degraded words elicited long-lasting positivities--though with different onsets and some distributional differences. It is proposed that the general process underlying these positivities is similar. Both language errors and degraded words signal the need for adjustments in control to reprocess the input--either to check for errors, or to identify the word. However, depending on the type and complexity of the information that interrupts comprehension, the positivities vary in onset and/or scalp distribution. An unexpected finding was that the ERP pattern to agreement violations was influenced by presentation order. Participants who had seen the syntactic block first showed a P600 effect to agreement violations, while participants who had seen the degradation block first showed an N400 effect. This finding might indicate that different strategies develop to process agreement violations, depending on the context in which they are embedded.
Brain Research, Aug 1, 2006
We present evidence for a monitoring process in language perception at the word level, reflected ... more We present evidence for a monitoring process in language perception at the word level, reflected by a P600. This P600 is triggered when a conflict evolves because the brain encounters an unexpected linguistic item when another item is highly expected. To resolve this conflict between representations, the brain monitors the input to check for possible processing errors. A P600 was hypothesized to occur after orthographic anomalies, like pseudohomophones, in particular when the word from which the pseudohomophone is derived is highly expected. This hypothesis was tested by recording ERPs while participants read high-cloze sentences ('In that library the pupils borrow books ….') and low-cloze sentences ('The pillows are stuffed with books ….'). In a pretest, the high-cloze sentences were produced by more than 90% of the subjects, while the low-cloze sentences were never produced. In half of the sentences, the critical word books was replaced by a pseudohomophone (e.g., bouks), which in the high-cloze sentences orthographically and phonologically resembles the highly expected word. Consistent with the monitoring hypothesis, only pseudohomophones in high-cloze sentences elicited a widely distributed P600 effect while pseudohomophones in low-cloze sentences did not. A standard N400 effect of cloze probability occurred both for words and pseudohomophones. The present ERP results support the view that there is a process of monitoring that takes place in language perception which is reflected by the P600. It occurs whenever a conflict between a strong tendency to accept and one to reject a word brings the cognitive system in state of indecision.
The aim of this paper was to further define the antecedent conditions for establishing reaction t... more The aim of this paper was to further define the antecedent conditions for establishing reaction time (RT) mediated priming effects. Specifically, it was tested whether a lexical decision to both the prime and the target is critical for finding two-step RT priming. To further determine the locus of the RT effect we used the N400 - that is, an Event-Related Brain Potential component - alongside RT measures. The results clearly show that RT and N400 two-step priming effects can be obtained in lexical decision if a lexical decision to both the prime and the target letter string is required. The implications for current semantic priming models are discussed.
Brain and Language, Aug 1, 2003
We investigated the effects of two primes that converged onto the same semantic target representa... more We investigated the effects of two primes that converged onto the same semantic target representation (e.g., LION-STRIPES-TIGER) or diverged onto different semantic target representations (e.g., KIDNEY-PIANO-ORGAN). Balota and Paul (1996) showed that the RT effects of two related primes in naming and lexical decision are additive, both for unambiguous and ambiguous words. Only in a relatedness judgment task ambiguous words showed underadditivity, whereas unambiguous words again showed additivity. This underadditivity was interpreted to reflect inhibition of alternative meanings of ambiguous words. In this article we tested whether inhibition occurs for N400, assumed to index postlexical integration. In lexical decision, we found additive N400 and RT effects for unambiguous and for ambiguous words. In a relatedness judgment task we observed differences between measures: (1) for unambiguous words overadditivity for N400 vs. additivity for RT; (2) although, for ambiguous words underadditivity occurred for N400 and RT, the effects were different. For RT, the alternative meaning was only less available, whereas for N400 the alternative meaning appeared completely unavailable. Our results have implications for our understanding of inhibitory processes in the processing of ambiguous words and for the functional significance of N400.
Journal of Memory and Language, Apr 1, 2000
Mediated priming (e.g., from LION to STRIPES via TIGER) is predicted by spreading activation mode... more Mediated priming (e.g., from LION to STRIPES via TIGER) is predicted by spreading activation models but only by some integration models. The goal of the present research was to localize mediated priming by assessing two-step priming effects on N400 and reaction times (RT). We propose that the N400 priming effect mainly reflects integration processes but, in contrast with RT, does not reflect spreading activation. The results show that RT and N400 effects can dissociate. In a standard lexical decision task, we found mediated priming for N400 but not for RT. When a lexical decision to both the prime and the target was required, mediated priming was observed for both measures, but the RT effect was not influenced by list composition, whereas the N400 effect was. We conclude that two qualitatively different processes underlie the two types of mediated priming. A process of "global integration" yields an N400 effect, whereas an RT effect is evoked by spreading activation.
Brain Research, 2006
Using a semantic priming paradigm, this study examines the effects of semantic and lexical-orthog... more Using a semantic priming paradigm, this study examines the effects of semantic and lexical-orthographic context on reaction times (RTs) and event-related potentials (ERPs) for interlingual homographs. Dutch-English bilinguals performed an English lexical decision task in which homographs like STEM (meaning "voice" in Dutch) were preceded by primes like ROOT or FOOL that were semantically related or unrelated to the English reading of the target word. Homographs were responded to faster following semantically related primes than following unrelated primes. The responses in both conditions were modulated by the relative frequencies of the two readings of the homographs: responses were faster when their English word frequency was high or when their Dutch word frequency was low. In the ERPs, N400 effects, taken to reflect processes of semantic integration, were found for homographs preceded by related primes. Remarkably, the amplitude of the N400 effect was also modulated by word frequency in both the first (Dutch, L1) and the second (English, L2) language. The observed relationship between lexical and semantic variables supports a model for bilingual semantic priming that extends the language nonselective BIA+ model for bilingual word recognition.
Biological Psychology, Apr 1, 2007
Semantic anomalies like &... more Semantic anomalies like "the fox that hunted the poacher" elicit P600 effects. Kolk et al. [Kolk, H.J., Chwilla, D.J., Van Herten, M., Oor, P.J.W., 2003. Structure and limited capacity in verbal working memory: a study with event related potentials. Brain and language, 85(1), 1-36] proposed that this P600 effect is triggered by a conflict between the outcome of a lexical strategy with that of the parsing routine. Specifically, when the lexical strategy indicates that the poacher hunted the fox, the full parse leads to the conclusion that the fox was the one who did the hunting. We tested this hypothesis by replicating the study cited above but manipulating the context by means of instruction. Participants were informed that semantic anomalies were created on purpose and that they should not be misled by these anomalies but instead focus on syntax or sentence structure. This instruction led to a strong reduction in P600 effect. This result supports the view that expectations play an important role in the generation of P600 effects to semantic anomalies, as proposed by Kolk et al. [Kolk, H.J., Chwilla, D.J., Van Herten, M., Oor, P.J.W., 2003. Structure and limited capacity in verbal working memory: a study with event related potentials. Brain and language, 85(1), 1-36].
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2010
& In the language domain, most studies of error monitoring have been devoted to language producti... more & In the language domain, most studies of error monitoring have been devoted to language production. However, in language perception, errors are made as well and we are able to detect them. According to the monitoring theory of language perception, a strong conflict between what is expected and what is observed triggers reanalysis to check for possible perceptual errors, a process reflected by the P600. This is at variance with the dominant view that the P600 reflects syntactic reanalysis or repair, after syntactic violations or ambiguity. In the present study, the prediction of the monitoring theory of language perception was tested, that only a strong conflict between expectancies triggers reanalysis to check for possible perceptual errors, reflected by the P600. Therefore, we manipulated plausibility, and hypothesized that when a critical noun is mildly implausible in the given sentence (e.g., ''The eye consisting of among other things a pupil, iris, and eyebrow. . .''), a mild conflict arises between the expected and unexpected event; integration difficulties arise due to the unexpectedness but they are resolved successfully, thereby eliciting an N400 effect. When the noun is deeply implausible however (e.g., ''The eye consisting of among other things a pupil, iris, and sticker. . .''), a strong conflict arises; integration fails and reanalysis is triggered, eliciting a P600 effect. Our hypothesis was confirmed; only when the conflict between the expected and unexpected event is strong enough, reanalysis is triggered. &
Brain Research, Dec 1, 2007
A substantial part of language understanding depends on our previous experiences, but part of it ... more A substantial part of language understanding depends on our previous experiences, but part of it consists of the creation of new meanings. Such new meanings cannot be retrieved from memory but still have to be constructed. The goals of this article were: first, to explore the nature of new meaning creation, and second, to test abstract symbol theories against embodied theories of meaning. We presented context-setting sentences followed by a test sentence to which ERPs were recorded that described a novel sensible or novel senseless situation (e.g., "The boys searched for branches/bushes [sensible/senseless] with which they went drumming..."). Novel sensible contexts that were not associatively nor semantically related were matched to novel senseless contexts in terms of familiarity and semantic similarity by Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). Abstract symbol theories like LSA cannot explain facilitation for novel sensible situations, whereas the embodied theory of Glenberg and Robertson [Glenberg, A.M., Robertson, D.A., 2000. Symbol grounding and meaning: A comparison of high-dimensional and embodied theories of meaning. Journal of Memory and Language, 43, 379-401.] in which meaning is grounded in perception and action can account for facilitation. Experiment 1 revealed an N400 effect in a sensibility judgment task. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this effect generalizes to a situation in which participants read for comprehension. Our findings support the following conclusions: First, participants can establish new meanings not stored in memory. Second, this is the first ERP study that shows that N400 is sensitive to new meanings and that these are created immediatelythat is, in the same time frame as associative and semantic relations. Third, our N400 effects support embodied theories of meaning and challenge abstract symbol theories that can only discover meaningfulness by consulting stored symbolic knowledge.
Language and Linguistics Compass, Aug 20, 2009
... A possibility could be that, as Núñez-Peña and Honrubia-Serrano (2004) proposed, the P600 ref... more ... A possibility could be that, as Núñez-Peña and Honrubia-Serrano (2004) proposed, the P600 reflects a general index of rule violations. ... Nan van de Meerendonk is a PhD student at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at the Radboud University Nijmegen ...
Objective: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia show phenomenological overlap and ha... more Objective: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia show phenomenological overlap and have been proposed to share a common underlying pathogenesis. We investigate whether both psychopathological conditions can be conceptualized as disorders of attention. Participants and Methods: To examine attentional processing, eventrelated potentials (ERPs) were recorded in an oddball paradigm. Previously, infrequent stimuli in this paradigm elicit a large positivity (P300). P300 has been proposed as the neural signature of the working memory update of changes in the environment. Specifically, variations in P300 latency and amplitude have been taken to reflect differences in the degree and quality of attentional mechanisms required to change the mental model of the environment. In the present ERP experiment, 10 patients with ASD, 10 patients with schizophrenia, and 10 healthy controls were exposed to a visual oddball task (frequent stimulus: large circle; odd stimulus: small circle). All participants were asked to silently count the odd stimuli. Results: A centroparietally distributed P300 effect was elicited for both controls, patients with ASD and schizophrenia. For controls, the P300 effect was more broadly distributed compared to the P300 in ASD patients and schizophrenia patients and was also present at bilateral occipital sites. Conclusions: The smaller scalp distribution of P300 in ASD and schizophrenia could reflect differences in the amount of attentional resources allocated in processing target stimuli. These differences can both be associated with hypervigilance and inattention observed in patients with ASD and schizophrenia. The present ERP findings suggest that both ASD and schizophrenia can be conceptualized as disorders of attention and speak in favor of a common pathogenesis. Future research should reveal whether similar attentional mechanisms also play a role in higher-order cognitive disturbances in both ASD and schizophrenia.
Psychophysiology, 2000
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Neuropsychologia, 2008
This article was published in an Elsevier journal. The attached copy is furnished to the author f... more This article was published in an Elsevier journal. The attached copy is furnished to the author for non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the author's institution, sharing with colleagues and providing to institution administration. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit:
Memory & Cognition, Mar 1, 2002
We are grateful to Timothy McNamara for his stimulating feedback on the very first plans to inves... more We are grateful to Timothy McNamara for his stimulating feedback on the very first plans to investigate mediated priming. We thank Michael Masson and Steve Joordens for valuable comments on a previous version of this paper. We are grateful to Rob Schreuder and Harald Baayen for giving us access to the Trouw corpus for computing the co-occurrence statistics. Finally, we thank Kathleen Jenks and Uli Chwilla for their assistance in analyzing the data. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to D.
Neuropsychologia, Jul 1, 2013
According to the monitoring theory of language perception, language errors can create strong conf... more According to the monitoring theory of language perception, language errors can create strong conflicts between expected and observed representations. When a strong conflict is present this functions as a bottom-up signal to bias attention towards the unexpected representation for reprocessing to check for possible processing errors. This monitoring process, encompassing both the conflict and reprocessing, is thought to be reflected in the late positivity or P600 effect. The present ERP study compared sentences with syntactic agreement violations to sentences containing visually degraded words. The latter could also signal that control adjustments are needed, because of a lack of bottom-up information. The results showed that both agreement violations and degraded words elicited long-lasting positivities--though with different onsets and some distributional differences. It is proposed that the general process underlying these positivities is similar. Both language errors and degraded words signal the need for adjustments in control to reprocess the input--either to check for errors, or to identify the word. However, depending on the type and complexity of the information that interrupts comprehension, the positivities vary in onset and/or scalp distribution. An unexpected finding was that the ERP pattern to agreement violations was influenced by presentation order. Participants who had seen the syntactic block first showed a P600 effect to agreement violations, while participants who had seen the degradation block first showed an N400 effect. This finding might indicate that different strategies develop to process agreement violations, depending on the context in which they are embedded.
Brain Research, Aug 1, 2006
We present evidence for a monitoring process in language perception at the word level, reflected ... more We present evidence for a monitoring process in language perception at the word level, reflected by a P600. This P600 is triggered when a conflict evolves because the brain encounters an unexpected linguistic item when another item is highly expected. To resolve this conflict between representations, the brain monitors the input to check for possible processing errors. A P600 was hypothesized to occur after orthographic anomalies, like pseudohomophones, in particular when the word from which the pseudohomophone is derived is highly expected. This hypothesis was tested by recording ERPs while participants read high-cloze sentences ('In that library the pupils borrow books ….') and low-cloze sentences ('The pillows are stuffed with books ….'). In a pretest, the high-cloze sentences were produced by more than 90% of the subjects, while the low-cloze sentences were never produced. In half of the sentences, the critical word books was replaced by a pseudohomophone (e.g., bouks), which in the high-cloze sentences orthographically and phonologically resembles the highly expected word. Consistent with the monitoring hypothesis, only pseudohomophones in high-cloze sentences elicited a widely distributed P600 effect while pseudohomophones in low-cloze sentences did not. A standard N400 effect of cloze probability occurred both for words and pseudohomophones. The present ERP results support the view that there is a process of monitoring that takes place in language perception which is reflected by the P600. It occurs whenever a conflict between a strong tendency to accept and one to reject a word brings the cognitive system in state of indecision.
The aim of this paper was to further define the antecedent conditions for establishing reaction t... more The aim of this paper was to further define the antecedent conditions for establishing reaction time (RT) mediated priming effects. Specifically, it was tested whether a lexical decision to both the prime and the target is critical for finding two-step RT priming. To further determine the locus of the RT effect we used the N400 - that is, an Event-Related Brain Potential component - alongside RT measures. The results clearly show that RT and N400 two-step priming effects can be obtained in lexical decision if a lexical decision to both the prime and the target letter string is required. The implications for current semantic priming models are discussed.
Brain and Language, Aug 1, 2003
We investigated the effects of two primes that converged onto the same semantic target representa... more We investigated the effects of two primes that converged onto the same semantic target representation (e.g., LION-STRIPES-TIGER) or diverged onto different semantic target representations (e.g., KIDNEY-PIANO-ORGAN). Balota and Paul (1996) showed that the RT effects of two related primes in naming and lexical decision are additive, both for unambiguous and ambiguous words. Only in a relatedness judgment task ambiguous words showed underadditivity, whereas unambiguous words again showed additivity. This underadditivity was interpreted to reflect inhibition of alternative meanings of ambiguous words. In this article we tested whether inhibition occurs for N400, assumed to index postlexical integration. In lexical decision, we found additive N400 and RT effects for unambiguous and for ambiguous words. In a relatedness judgment task we observed differences between measures: (1) for unambiguous words overadditivity for N400 vs. additivity for RT; (2) although, for ambiguous words underadditivity occurred for N400 and RT, the effects were different. For RT, the alternative meaning was only less available, whereas for N400 the alternative meaning appeared completely unavailable. Our results have implications for our understanding of inhibitory processes in the processing of ambiguous words and for the functional significance of N400.
Journal of Memory and Language, Apr 1, 2000
Mediated priming (e.g., from LION to STRIPES via TIGER) is predicted by spreading activation mode... more Mediated priming (e.g., from LION to STRIPES via TIGER) is predicted by spreading activation models but only by some integration models. The goal of the present research was to localize mediated priming by assessing two-step priming effects on N400 and reaction times (RT). We propose that the N400 priming effect mainly reflects integration processes but, in contrast with RT, does not reflect spreading activation. The results show that RT and N400 effects can dissociate. In a standard lexical decision task, we found mediated priming for N400 but not for RT. When a lexical decision to both the prime and the target was required, mediated priming was observed for both measures, but the RT effect was not influenced by list composition, whereas the N400 effect was. We conclude that two qualitatively different processes underlie the two types of mediated priming. A process of "global integration" yields an N400 effect, whereas an RT effect is evoked by spreading activation.
Brain Research, 2006
Using a semantic priming paradigm, this study examines the effects of semantic and lexical-orthog... more Using a semantic priming paradigm, this study examines the effects of semantic and lexical-orthographic context on reaction times (RTs) and event-related potentials (ERPs) for interlingual homographs. Dutch-English bilinguals performed an English lexical decision task in which homographs like STEM (meaning "voice" in Dutch) were preceded by primes like ROOT or FOOL that were semantically related or unrelated to the English reading of the target word. Homographs were responded to faster following semantically related primes than following unrelated primes. The responses in both conditions were modulated by the relative frequencies of the two readings of the homographs: responses were faster when their English word frequency was high or when their Dutch word frequency was low. In the ERPs, N400 effects, taken to reflect processes of semantic integration, were found for homographs preceded by related primes. Remarkably, the amplitude of the N400 effect was also modulated by word frequency in both the first (Dutch, L1) and the second (English, L2) language. The observed relationship between lexical and semantic variables supports a model for bilingual semantic priming that extends the language nonselective BIA+ model for bilingual word recognition.
Biological Psychology, Apr 1, 2007
Semantic anomalies like &... more Semantic anomalies like "the fox that hunted the poacher" elicit P600 effects. Kolk et al. [Kolk, H.J., Chwilla, D.J., Van Herten, M., Oor, P.J.W., 2003. Structure and limited capacity in verbal working memory: a study with event related potentials. Brain and language, 85(1), 1-36] proposed that this P600 effect is triggered by a conflict between the outcome of a lexical strategy with that of the parsing routine. Specifically, when the lexical strategy indicates that the poacher hunted the fox, the full parse leads to the conclusion that the fox was the one who did the hunting. We tested this hypothesis by replicating the study cited above but manipulating the context by means of instruction. Participants were informed that semantic anomalies were created on purpose and that they should not be misled by these anomalies but instead focus on syntax or sentence structure. This instruction led to a strong reduction in P600 effect. This result supports the view that expectations play an important role in the generation of P600 effects to semantic anomalies, as proposed by Kolk et al. [Kolk, H.J., Chwilla, D.J., Van Herten, M., Oor, P.J.W., 2003. Structure and limited capacity in verbal working memory: a study with event related potentials. Brain and language, 85(1), 1-36].
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2010
& In the language domain, most studies of error monitoring have been devoted to language producti... more & In the language domain, most studies of error monitoring have been devoted to language production. However, in language perception, errors are made as well and we are able to detect them. According to the monitoring theory of language perception, a strong conflict between what is expected and what is observed triggers reanalysis to check for possible perceptual errors, a process reflected by the P600. This is at variance with the dominant view that the P600 reflects syntactic reanalysis or repair, after syntactic violations or ambiguity. In the present study, the prediction of the monitoring theory of language perception was tested, that only a strong conflict between expectancies triggers reanalysis to check for possible perceptual errors, reflected by the P600. Therefore, we manipulated plausibility, and hypothesized that when a critical noun is mildly implausible in the given sentence (e.g., ''The eye consisting of among other things a pupil, iris, and eyebrow. . .''), a mild conflict arises between the expected and unexpected event; integration difficulties arise due to the unexpectedness but they are resolved successfully, thereby eliciting an N400 effect. When the noun is deeply implausible however (e.g., ''The eye consisting of among other things a pupil, iris, and sticker. . .''), a strong conflict arises; integration fails and reanalysis is triggered, eliciting a P600 effect. Our hypothesis was confirmed; only when the conflict between the expected and unexpected event is strong enough, reanalysis is triggered. &
Brain Research, Dec 1, 2007
A substantial part of language understanding depends on our previous experiences, but part of it ... more A substantial part of language understanding depends on our previous experiences, but part of it consists of the creation of new meanings. Such new meanings cannot be retrieved from memory but still have to be constructed. The goals of this article were: first, to explore the nature of new meaning creation, and second, to test abstract symbol theories against embodied theories of meaning. We presented context-setting sentences followed by a test sentence to which ERPs were recorded that described a novel sensible or novel senseless situation (e.g., "The boys searched for branches/bushes [sensible/senseless] with which they went drumming..."). Novel sensible contexts that were not associatively nor semantically related were matched to novel senseless contexts in terms of familiarity and semantic similarity by Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). Abstract symbol theories like LSA cannot explain facilitation for novel sensible situations, whereas the embodied theory of Glenberg and Robertson [Glenberg, A.M., Robertson, D.A., 2000. Symbol grounding and meaning: A comparison of high-dimensional and embodied theories of meaning. Journal of Memory and Language, 43, 379-401.] in which meaning is grounded in perception and action can account for facilitation. Experiment 1 revealed an N400 effect in a sensibility judgment task. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this effect generalizes to a situation in which participants read for comprehension. Our findings support the following conclusions: First, participants can establish new meanings not stored in memory. Second, this is the first ERP study that shows that N400 is sensitive to new meanings and that these are created immediatelythat is, in the same time frame as associative and semantic relations. Third, our N400 effects support embodied theories of meaning and challenge abstract symbol theories that can only discover meaningfulness by consulting stored symbolic knowledge.
Language and Linguistics Compass, Aug 20, 2009
... A possibility could be that, as Núñez-Peña and Honrubia-Serrano (2004) proposed, the P600 ref... more ... A possibility could be that, as Núñez-Peña and Honrubia-Serrano (2004) proposed, the P600 reflects a general index of rule violations. ... Nan van de Meerendonk is a PhD student at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at the Radboud University Nijmegen ...
Objective: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia show phenomenological overlap and ha... more Objective: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia show phenomenological overlap and have been proposed to share a common underlying pathogenesis. We investigate whether both psychopathological conditions can be conceptualized as disorders of attention. Participants and Methods: To examine attentional processing, eventrelated potentials (ERPs) were recorded in an oddball paradigm. Previously, infrequent stimuli in this paradigm elicit a large positivity (P300). P300 has been proposed as the neural signature of the working memory update of changes in the environment. Specifically, variations in P300 latency and amplitude have been taken to reflect differences in the degree and quality of attentional mechanisms required to change the mental model of the environment. In the present ERP experiment, 10 patients with ASD, 10 patients with schizophrenia, and 10 healthy controls were exposed to a visual oddball task (frequent stimulus: large circle; odd stimulus: small circle). All participants were asked to silently count the odd stimuli. Results: A centroparietally distributed P300 effect was elicited for both controls, patients with ASD and schizophrenia. For controls, the P300 effect was more broadly distributed compared to the P300 in ASD patients and schizophrenia patients and was also present at bilateral occipital sites. Conclusions: The smaller scalp distribution of P300 in ASD and schizophrenia could reflect differences in the amount of attentional resources allocated in processing target stimuli. These differences can both be associated with hypervigilance and inattention observed in patients with ASD and schizophrenia. The present ERP findings suggest that both ASD and schizophrenia can be conceptualized as disorders of attention and speak in favor of a common pathogenesis. Future research should reveal whether similar attentional mechanisms also play a role in higher-order cognitive disturbances in both ASD and schizophrenia.
Psychophysiology, 2000
Item does not contain fulltext0ntbrkt;1 p
Neuropsychologia, 2008
This article was published in an Elsevier journal. The attached copy is furnished to the author f... more This article was published in an Elsevier journal. The attached copy is furnished to the author for non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the author's institution, sharing with colleagues and providing to institution administration. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit:
Memory & Cognition, Mar 1, 2002
We are grateful to Timothy McNamara for his stimulating feedback on the very first plans to inves... more We are grateful to Timothy McNamara for his stimulating feedback on the very first plans to investigate mediated priming. We thank Michael Masson and Steve Joordens for valuable comments on a previous version of this paper. We are grateful to Rob Schreuder and Harald Baayen for giving us access to the Trouw corpus for computing the co-occurrence statistics. Finally, we thank Kathleen Jenks and Uli Chwilla for their assistance in analyzing the data. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to D.