LE3 .A278 2023

2023

Newman, Randy Lynn

Acadia University

Bachelor of Science

Honours

Psychology

Psychology

The present study examined the influence of orthography on auditory sentence processing using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Participants (N = 12) were presented with auditory sentences in which a target word was embedded within the sentence frame. Target words from the Correct condition formed fully congruent sentences (e.g., The woman’s jacket was made of tweed and was decorated with flowers). However, target words from any of the remaining conditions formed semantically illogical sentences that varied in their phonological (P) and/or orthographic (O) relationship to the expected (i.e., Correct) word. Incorrect target words were either phonologically and orthographically similar to the expected word (P+O+; e.g., The woman’s jacket was made of greed and was decorated with flowers); phonologically similar but orthographically dissimilar (P+O-; e.g., The woman’s jacket was made of plead and was decorated with flowers), or phonologically and orthographically unrelated to the expected word (P-O-/Unrelated; e.g., The merchant would hand spin bench to sell at the market). The current study found no significant difference between the N400 response of the P+O- and Unrelated conditions (no pure phonological effect), and no significant difference between the N400 response of the P+O+ and P+O- conditions (no pure orthographic effect). It is entirely possible that orthographic effects were minimized or diminished by the increased demand for phonological processing that is associated with sentence comprehension.

The author retains copyright in this thesis. Any substantial copying or any other actions that exceed fair dealing or other exceptions in the Copyright Act require the permission of the author.

https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:3988