Neurolinguistic Processing

What steps does our brain go through when we encounter language, and how can we measure what those steps are? In this week's episode, we talk about event-related brain potentials (ERPs): the small electrical changes that we can see when the brain responds to stimuli. We also go over some of the basic steps in processing language that ERPs can show us, for sounds, meaning, and syntax.
This is Topic #18!
This week's tag language: Korean!
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Our website also has extra content about this week's topic at www.thelingspace.com/episode-18/
We also have forums to discuss this episode, and linguistics more generally.
Looking forward to next week!

[@limignon6049]

[You might think your brain a Ravenclaw, but it's really more of a Hufflepuff.] Topicc 18: Pathways in the brain The brain is super busy. 2:05 EEGs 2:57 ERPs 3:25 step1--N100 & P200: phonology sound 4:00 step2--N400: semantic meaning 5:50 step3--P300: syntax fittness

[@lauraramirez2564]

this is bad ass video! Thank you so much for devoting to do this for all the community outhere

[@nigeliscool657]

Your videos are so great! Lots of information presented in an informal, non-boring manner. Please don't stop making these!

[@thelingspace]

+nigeliscool657 Glad you're getting a lot out of them! We're doing our best to make it informative and fun. We'll keep on going if people keep on watching. ^_^

[@mcharrison23]

Ughhh, your Optimism is killing All of Us, and no, I'm not Trolling.

[@Evanna11LilyLuna]

love all the harry potter references :). also starting a neurolinguistics course soon, looking forward to it *nods*

[@thelingspace]

evanna11 Neurolinguistics is a lot of fun! It's definitely something worth looking forward to. And we're glad you liked the references. ^_^

[@wenyichu3486]

Thank you so much! you made things so clear and easy to understand!

[@beccascott7010]

I can't tell you how helpful this has been, thank you!

[@sev2300]

Your video summed up all the ERP studies I had read to understand how ERPs work, and you did it in a very nice and understandable way. Thanks.

[@thelingspace]

Sure! Thanks for the comment. Glad to be able to help! ^_^

[@BlackPearl35]

This is the best KZbin channel I have ever seen. Thank you.

[@thelingspace]

+İdil Gemici You're welcome! That's really high praise, too. Glad you're liking it. ^_^

[@mcharrison23]

Say Whaaat!!

[@ashwinidsouza1248]

I'm currently writing my master's thesis on semantic processing using N400 among simultaneous bilinguals and your video was very helpful in giving me an overview of ERPs. Thanks! :) P.S. Loved the HP references!

[@thelingspace]

+Ashwini D'Souza Cool! Glad to be able to help. And that sounds like an interesting study! I'd be up for hearing more about this, if you want to share, either here or via email or such. ^_^

[@mcharrison23]

and on and on it goes...

[@louishan9295]

Great work! I am French and started studying linguistics in france last year and your videos make the contents all clear thank you so much!

[@mcharrison23]

Yer wlcom

[@repellomuggletumify]

Thank you so much for these psychology videos! I have a final coming up and I couldn't make sense of any of this ERP stuff before this video. You're a lifesaver.

[@KnospeSpencer]

wow man! soo concise and clear! a job damn well done!

[@mcharrison23]

NERD...whelp, guess I'm Trolling now

[@Legalist_sa]

Thank youuuuuuuuuuu 😘

[@godnnat]

Very informative

[@neutral3570]

very noice!

[@melissasarria7938]

Great explanation! thanks

[@mcharrison23]

ver delcome

[@wenyichu3486]

Is there an episode on eye-tracking and how to interpret the data in language processing? Sorry for the general questions.

[@Pakanahymni]

This was really interesting, thanks.

[@thelingspace]

Pakanahymni Glad you liked it! We really like the neurolinguistics stuff here. ^_^

[@mcharrison23]

der velcm

[@KC-to9xl]

This is so interesting, this is what I wish I could have been doing in college :/

[@ericrodriguezpintle7715]

Why have you stoped making these videos? =/ they were so helpful

[@teacherdkennedy]

Love the shirt! Was wondering if the p and n things happen when reading as well--if you read those sentences rather than heard them. Thanks!

[@thelingspace]

Diana Kennedy Thanks for the question! And I do like that shirt. The N400 and P600 do certainly both occur when reading - many studies trying to get these effects will do them with the words presented visually. When this is done, the words usually appear one at a time in the middle of a screen, so the participant can just focus on one spot without having to move their eyes. If you move your eyes, you introduce noise into the brain signal, and we don't want that! But reading words that blip up in the same place is doable. The N200 effect can be gotten visually, as well, with a variety of different types of stimuli changes - different letters, but also different color, different size, etc. There's a debate as to how much the N200 is really indicative of something specifically to do with language, even if we can get it for phonological manipulations. The auditory N200 is more widely studied and older, but the visual one's attracting a lot of research now, so we'll know more in a few years! ^_^

[@mcharrison23]

O my Dog, pls Stop!

[@reneemeraz1540]

THANK YOU

[@thelingspace]

+Renee Meraz Glad to help! ^_^

[@mcharrison23]

Cheers

[@tiffanyong9715]

So a bigger-than-usual N400 is elicited for semantic anomaly. How about P600? Is it a bigger P600 then usual or it is not there when we process normal sentence with normal syntax?

[@frankharr9466]

I'm sure P600 still happens if the syntax problem is with something like word order rather than bad bad case choices. In German class, I made a mistake and listened to a very careful discussion about how Case in German worked. When given the opportunity I asked, "So it's a feminine word?"

[@aljohani1988]

Thank you so much for the effort; its really helpful and enlightening. I have a question: The N (as in the n400 component) and the P refer to positive and negative. I read it refers to the direction whether its negative or positive, but which or what direction? In other words, what does it mean to be negative or positive? Can it be shown directly from the EEG readings as positive or negative? Plus, I noticed that the negative is represented up in the graph while the positive is downwards! I read its just a convention and can be the opposite! Is it just a convention? Thank you so much Moti :)

[@dragoncurveenthusiast]

It's a voltage, so it can be a positive or a negative potential (because of physics), which is measured in micro Volts. 0:26 If you look at the axis of the figure, you can see that negative values are plotted upwards and vice versa. This is a quite common way to plot ERPs, no idea why.

[@dragoncurveenthusiast]

*the y axis, of course

[@puterahaziman2205]

0:57 I'm having the video at 2x speed... That aside, I think I'm really interested in neurolinguistics and languages in general! I'm not sure if I should pursue this though

[@ericrodriguezpintle7302]

Go for it, we need all the the help we can get.

[@dragoncurveenthusiast]

My family has a couple of (german) expressions describing this weird uncomfortable feeling, all derived from situations one of us actually encountered. Here are two combined into one sentence. German speakers beware, here are 2 nice P600s coming up: Wenn jemand Probleme _mit_ _die_ _Fälle_ hat, dann... ...tut's weh _zwischen_ _die_ _Schulterblättern_ The first one is even kind of meta...

[@DataCab1e]

And now I know that it's a P600 I'm being assaulted by whenever I hear the atrocious construction of "needs" followed immediately by a past-tense verb, e.g. "My car needs fixed."

[@Amphibiot]

Non-native english speaker here: People actually do that? Is that some kind of ebonics thing?

[@DataCab1e]

Oh lordy do they ever. And every time I hear it, I wanna smack somebody upside the head with an Oxford Unabridged (assuming I could lift one.) Though I can't say for sure I heard it until I moved to northeast Ohio, so maybe its a regional dialect thing.

[@Amphibiot]

Northeast Ohio. Cleveland?. It's an interesting point though. Dialects and sociolects. Local varieties of languages with their own sets of rules. But i also assume that people will change their wording, depending on who they are speaking to.

[@dlsalan]

What is your profession? What did you major in and your educational process in this field? I'm very interested in pursuing a career in Applied Linguistics.

[@thelingspace]

+Alan De Los Santos Glad to hear it! Applied linguistics is a pretty exciting place. I majored in Japanese and linguistics, and then went to pursue a PhD in second language acquisition at McGill. I haven't quite finished, but I'm pretty close! I've also worked as a full-time faculty lecturer at Concordia University in Montreal, as well as some classes at McGill, as well. Right now, I'm focusing on doing the channel, as well as finishing up. ^_^

[@kateyaw16]

+The Ling Space cool

[@dragoncurveenthusiast]

Haha, I knew it! A fellow PhD student! Greetings from the non-linguistic neurosciences! ;-)

[@deadman746]

Just beautiful. This is what I mean when I say KZbin is way better than a university. 1980? That idiot Chomsky had no excuse. Plus, the order and gross synchronization, which I am guessing is glial, is exactly what I came up with using computer science for my P/FUNC. Write Jerome Feldman about this. He does write back.

[@suyoungbae9192]

안녕~~ㅎㅎ

[@user-nm1lf6wj3z]

Does the words twist his head or something? I mean good info. But gosh the constant head turns were distracting

[@mcharrison23]

I've found I Like putting things in order, I dont necessarily Love it, if also found I Like being a not so neurotic slob.

[@NaeSremmurd]

You are not Hank