Brain responses to negated and affirmative meanings in the auditory modality

Negation is frequently used in natural language, yet relatively little is known about its processing. More importantly, what is known regarding the neurophysiological processing of negation is mostly based on results of studies using written stimuli (the word-by-word paradigm). While the results of these studies have suggested processing costs in connection to negation (increased negativities in brain responses), it is difficult to know how this translates into processing of spoken language. We therefore developed an auditory paradigm based on a previous visual study investigating processing of affirmatives, sentential negation (not), and prefixal negation (un-). The findings of processing costs were replicated but differed in the details. Importantly, the pattern of ERP effects suggested less effortful processing for auditorily presented negated forms (restricted to increased anterior and posterior positivities) in comparison to visually presented negated forms. We suggest that the natural flow of spoken language reduces variability in processing and therefore results in clearer ERP patterns.

Automated summary

While little is known about the processing of negation, previous studies have mainly focused on written stimuli, making it difficult to understand how it is processed in spoken language. We developed an auditory paradigm based on a visual study and found that processing costs differed between the two modalities, suggesting that negated forms in spoken language are processed with less effort. The natural flow of spoken language reduces variability in processing and results in clearer ERP patterns.