ArticleBrain research2021
Dividing attention influences contextual facilitation and revision during language comprehension.
Article in Brain research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Probing Prediction-Related Processes in Language Using an EEG Word Stem Completion Paradigm.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Linking Attention Deficits to Difficulties in the Comprehension of Complex Syntax in Dyslexia.Dyslexia (Chichester, England) · 2026Article
- Neuromodulation of prefrontal cortex promotes deep processing during language comprehension: a tDCS/EEG study.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- Prediction in reading: A review of predictability effects, their theoretical implications, and beyond.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2025Review
- Differential effects of working memory constraints on syntactic and semantic processing: Evidence from ERPs.Brain and language · 2025Article
- Aging and word predictability during reading: Evidence from eye movements and fixation-related potentials.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2025Article
- Divided Attention Has Limited Effects on Speech Sensorimotor Control.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR · 2024Article
- The Impact of Linguistic Prediction Violations on Downstream Recognition Memory and Sentence Recall.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2024Article
- Graded and ungraded expectation patterns: Prediction dynamics during active comprehension.Psychophysiology · 2024Article
- Prediction during language comprehension: what is next?Trends in cognitive sciences · 2023Review
- Patterns of hemispheric asymmetry provide evidence dissociating the semantic and syntactic P600.Neuropsychologia · 2023Article
- Timing in Conversation.Journal of cognition · 2023Article
- Connecting and considering: Electrophysiology provides insights into comprehension.Psychophysiology · 2022Article
- Half-listening or zoned out? It's about the same: the impact of attentional state on word processing in context.Cognitive neuroscienceArticle
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2 authors.
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Abstract
Although we often seem to successfully comprehend language in the face of distraction, few studies have examined the role of sustained attention in critical components of sentence processing, such as integrating information over a sentence and revising predictions when unexpected information is encountered. The current study investigated the impact of attention on sentence processing using a novel dual-task paradigm. Participants read weakly and strongly constraining sentences with expected or unexpected endings while also tracking the motion of dots in the background, and their EEG was recorded. Under full attention, the amplitude of the N400 component of the ERP, a measure of semantic access, was reduced (facilitated) in a graded fashion by contextual strength and fit. This context-based facilitation was attenuated when attention was divided, suggesting that sustained attention is important for building up message-level representations. In contrast, the post-N400 frontal positivity that has been observed to prediction violations and associated with revision processes was unaffected by dividing attention. However, under divided attention, participants also elicited posteriorly-distributed effects to these violations. Thus, predictive processes seem to be engaged even when attention is divided, but additional resources may then be required to process unexpected information.
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