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Developmental neural incongruency patterns between sentence reading and arithmetic: An ERP study
Poster Session D, Saturday, October 26, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm, Great Hall 3 and 4
Jie MA1, Wai Leung WONG2, Kelvin F.H. LUI3, Shuting HUO4, Catherine MCBRIDE5, Urs MAURER1; 1The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2BCBL, Basque Center on Brain, Language and Cognition, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain, 3Lingnan University, Hong Kong, 4The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 5Purdue University
Language comprehension and arithmetic are often treated as distinct cognitive skills, but they share fundamental similarities. Both can be viewed as structured computational systems, governed by specific rules (e.g. syntax, arithmetic) and composed of coherent semantic units (e.g. words, numbers). When processing these semantic units, individuals form anticipations based on the contextual cues, and exhibit additional processing when their predictions are incongruent with the actual input. Previous research has found that semantic incongruency, where the encountered information conflicts with one's anticipations, elicits a larger N400 effect in both sentence processing and arithmetic tasks. This suggests possible overlap in the neural mechanisms underlying semantic processing across these two domains. However, a direct comparison and the developmental trajectories of these incongruency effects in language and arithmetic is currently lacking. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the developmental patterns of neural incongruency effects during semantic processing in sentence reading and simple addition, using ERP. Sixty children from grades 1, 2 and 3 (MAge=7.48 years) and 43 adults (MAge=19.57 years) judged whether Chinese sentences made sense or not and whether additions were correct or not. ERP maps including all electrodes were analyzed using timepoint-to-timepoint TANOVA with factors incongruency, task and group. Behavioral responses were slower but more accurate in the incongruent condition than in the congruent condition. This incongruency effect was stronger for the arithmetic processing than for sentence reading. Furthermore, a developmental effect was observed, but only for response times - as compared to in the arithmetic task, adults performed stronger incongruency effect than children in the sentence reading task. TANOVA revealed similar incongruency main effects in the N400 (226-442ms) and LPC (490-774ms, 926-1218ms) time ranges for both sentence reading and arithmetic tasks. Moreover, an interaction between group and incongruency showed a N400 effect in adults from 236-346ms, not in children. Topographic analyses further indicated the N400 incongruency effect had similar distributions between adults and children, but with a 100ms latency shift - adults exhibited the effect from 200-400ms, children from 300-500ms. An interaction of group and task was also observed, indicating how brain activity topographies change over time during arithmetic and sentence reading tasks between adults and children. Specifically, compared to sentence reading, arithmetic tasks elicited a more pronounced rightward shift in central-frontal brain activity in children across the 200-800ms time window, while adults showed an even greater rightward shift in central positivity during the narrower 300-400ms time period. In summary, this study sheds light on common processes in solving semantic conflicts, as well as similar developmental speed across language and arithmetic processing. Specifically, adults exhibit earlier and potentially more efficient semantic conflicts processing abilities compared to children. However, the distinct neural activations for adults versus children suggest domain-specific developmental changes in the underlying cognitive and neural systems for language versus arithmetic processing.
Topic Areas: Reading,