The Influence of Sentence-Picture Congruency on  Cognitive Control during Picture Naming: An EEG study

Understanding how sentence context influences picture naming provides insight into how cognitive control resolves interference during language production. Although the N400 ERP component in EEG is typically associated with semantic violation, this thesis explored whether the N400 may additionally reflect cognitive control demands. The current novel study investigated the influence of sentence-picture congruency on cognitive control using reaction times and N400 ERP amplitudes at 300-500 ms after picture onset. Thirty-eight participants completed a novel contextual picture naming task. They named a picture after reading a sentence that was either congruent, incongruent or neutral with respect to the picture that completed the sentence. A behavioural and a neural interference effect were hypothesized. Confirming the behavioural interference effect using a linear mixed model, participants were slower to name the pictures following incongruent sentences compared to neutral and congruent...Show moreUnderstanding how sentence context influences picture naming provides insight into how cognitive control resolves interference during language production. Although the N400 ERP component in EEG is typically associated with semantic violation, this thesis explored whether the N400 may additionally reflect cognitive control demands. The current novel study investigated the influence of sentence-picture congruency on cognitive control using reaction times and N400 ERP amplitudes at 300-500 ms after picture onset. Thirty-eight participants completed a novel contextual picture naming task. They named a picture after reading a sentence that was either congruent, incongruent or neutral with respect to the picture that completed the sentence. A behavioural and a neural interference effect were hypothesized. Confirming the behavioural interference effect using a linear mixed model, participants were slower to name the pictures following incongruent sentences compared to neutral and congruent sentences, indicating increased cognitive control demands. Contrary to neural predictions, the ERP results from the cluster-based permutation analysis did not show the predicted neural interference effect. Incongruent trials elicited a smaller N400 than neutral trials, as expected, but produced a smaller N400 than congruent trials. Although behavioural results imply the presence of a behavioural interference effect, the N400 results are inconclusive regarding the neural interference effect and need further research to investigate the relationship with cognitive control. Exploratory analyses suggest the presence of a P300 and P600 effect, overlapping with the N400 window, which may have influenced the N400 amplitudes and should be explored in future experiments.Show less

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The Influence of Sentence-Picture Congruency on Cognitive Control during Picture Naming: An EEG study