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Abstract:
The present study explored a possible interaction between distinct language processes and compo-
nents of phonological short-term memory (pSTM) in a patient with a pSTM profile. Event-related
brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while HG and age-matched controls engaged in auditory and
visual sentence correctness tasks. Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was varied in the visual modality.
Controls showed an early anterior negativity followed by a P600 for syntactic violations and an N400
for semantic violations in the auditory and the short visual SOA condition. In the long visual SOA
condition only a P600 and an N400 were observed. Across all tasks, HG displayed a comparable early
anterior negativity and N400 pattern to controls. However, the P600 was replaced by a centro-parietal
negativity (500–800 ms) that was followed by a very late positivity (900–1300 ms) in the visual modal-
ity, indicating that late syntactic processes are sensitive to SOA manipulation. This result implies that
the cortical regions lesioned in HG may be part of a neural network that engages the pSTM system
during “temporally variable” late syntactic processing in the visual modality. The combined results
indicate that the pSTM system differentially impacts semantic and late syntactic processes.
