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How Distance Affects Semantic Integration in Discourse: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

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  • Xiaohong Yang
  • Shuang Chen
  • Xuhai Chen
  • Yufang Yang

Abstract

Event-related potentials were used to investigate whether semantic integration in discourse is influenced by the number of intervening sentences between the endpoints of integration. Readers read discourses in which the last sentence contained a critical word that was either congruent or incongruent with the information introduced in the first sentence. Furthermore, for the short discourses, the first and last sentence were intervened by only one sentence while for the long discourses, they were intervened by three sentences. We found that the incongruent words elicited an N400 effect for both the short and long discourses. However, a P600 effect was only observed for the long discourses, but not for the short ones. These results suggest that although readers can successfully integrate upcoming words into the existing discourse representation, the effort required for this integration process is modulated by the number of intervening sentences. Thus, discourse distance as measured by the number of intervening sentences should be taken as an important factor for semantic integration in discourse.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaohong Yang & Shuang Chen & Xuhai Chen & Yufang Yang, 2015. "How Distance Affects Semantic Integration in Discourse: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(11), pages 1-15, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0142967
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142967
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    1. Xiaohong Yang & Xuhai Chen & Shuang Chen & Xiaoying Xu & Yufang Yang, 2013. "Topic Structure Affects Semantic Integration: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-7, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Xiaoyun Wang & Degao Li, 2019. "Processing of Phonological and Orthographic Information in Word Recognition in Discourse Reading," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(3), pages 21582440198, July.

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    1. Xiaoyun Wang & Degao Li, 2019. "Processing of Phonological and Orthographic Information in Word Recognition in Discourse Reading," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(3), pages 21582440198, July.

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