Language ERPs: N400 & P600
SEMANTIC & SYNTACTIC VIOLATIONS — MIDLINE CENTRAL–PARIETAL (Cz / Pz)
CONGRUENTShe stirred her coffee with a spoon.
SEMANTIC VIOLATIONShe stirred her coffee with a bicycle.
SYNTACTIC VIOLATIONShe stirred her coffee with a swiftly.
The N400 indexes semantic integration difficulty — its amplitude inversely tracks a word's contextual fit (cloze probability). The P600 reflects syntactic reanalysis, elicited by phrase-structure violations, agreement errors, and garden-path sentences. Their classic double dissociation supports distinct neural substrates for meaning and structure in language comprehension.
Click any component label to explore its properties. References: Kutas & Hillyard (1980) · Osterhout & Holcomb (1992) · Kutas & Federmeier (2011) · Kuperberg (2007)