“Capacity” Reconsidered:
Interindividual Differences in Language Comprehension and Individual Alpha Frequency
Abstract
Abstract. The influence of interindividual differences in cognitive mechanisms on language comprehension remains controversial not only due to conflicting experimental findings, but also in view of the difficulty associated with determining which measure should be used in participant classification. Here, we address the latter problem by proposing that an electrophysiological measure, individual alpha frequency (IAF), may be a suitable means of classifying interindividual differences in sentence processing. Interindividual differences in IAF have been shown to correlate with performance on memory tasks and speed of information processing. In two experiments using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), IAF-based participant groups differed systematically with regard to the processing of ambiguous sentences such that the low-IAF group showed a sustained positivity in the ambiguous region, while the high-IAF group did not. These interindividual differences were independent of whether the ambiguity was syntactic (Experiment 1) or sentence-level semantic (Experiment 2). Moreover, they were reliable only when participants were classified according to IAF, but not in classifications based on reading span, speed of processing (reaction time), or accuracy of processing (error rate).
References
(1999). Subject-object ambiguities in German embedded clauses: An across-the-board comparison. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 28, 121– 143
(in press) On the cost of syntactic ambiguity in human language comprehension: An individual differences approach. Cognitive Brain Research,
(1999). Verbal working memory and sentence comprehension. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 77– 94
(1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450– 466
(1998). Working memory constraints on syntactic ambiguity resolution as revealed by electrical brain responses. Biological Psychology, 47, 193– 221
(2003). Wh-movement vs. scrambling: The brain makes a difference. In S. Karimi (Ed.), Word Order and Scrambling (pp. 325-344). Oxford: Blackwell.
(1991). The mechanism of suppression: A component of general comprehension skill. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 17, 245– 262
(2003). Working memory and lexical ambiguity resolution as revealed by ERPs: A difficult case for activation theories. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 643– 657
(2001). A controlled-attention view of working-memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 169– 183
(1995). Who did what and when: Using word- and clause-level ERPs to monitor working memory usage in reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 7, 376– 395
(1994). The structure of long-term memory: A connectivity model of semantic processing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
(1999). EEG alpha and theta oscillations reflect cognitive and memory performance: a review and analysis. Brain Research Reviews, 29, 169– 195
(1996). Alpha frequency, reaction time, and the speed of processing information. Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology, 13, 511– 518
(1984). Quantitative EEG in normals and in patients with cerebral ischemia. In G. Pfurtscheller, E. J. Jonkman, & F. Lopes da Silva (Eds.), Brain Ischemia: Quantitative EEG and Imaging Techniques (pp. 29-50). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
(2001). Working memory span and the role of proactive interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 199– 207
(1992). Working memory constraints on the processing of syntactic ambiguity. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 56– 98
(1995). Processing relative clauses varying on syntactic and semantic dimensions: An analysis with event-related brain potentials. Memory and Cognition, 23, 477– 494
(1988). Relation of EEG alpha background to parietal lobe function in Alzheimer’s disease as measured by positron emission tomography and psychometry. Neurology, 38, 747– 750
(1961). Frequency of the alpha rhythm, reaction time and age. Nature, 191, 823– 824
(2001). Syntactic parsing and working memory: The effects of syntactic complexity, reading span, and concurrent load. Language and Cognitive Processes, 16, 65– 103
(2003). Intersentential syntactic context effects on comprehension: The role of working memory. Cognitive Brain Research, 16, 111– 122
(1999). Sources of variability in correlating syntactic complexity and working memory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 112–
(1996). The measurement of verbal working memory capacity and its relation to reading comprehension. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49, 51– 79
