EEG Sentence Meaning and the N400

EEG can be used to study how the brain handles sentence meaning and unexpected words. In this task, participants read sentences that end with either a word that fits or a word that does not fit the sentence meaning. The brain's response to these endings can be compared with event-related potentials, or ERPs, which are measur...

Understanding language involves complex cognitive processes, and?given the incredible number of word choices and arrangements that can form a single sentence?the brain must be able to distinguish between coherent and incoherent combinations.

A person?s comprehension of a sentence, whether spoken?like when a mother tells her son that she?s ...