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Schlagwörter:
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Zusammenfassung:
In this event-related brain potentials (E
RP) study, we explored the possibility to
selectively track referential ambiguity during spoken discourse comprehension. Earlier
ERP research has shown that referentially am
biguous nouns (e.g., “the girl” in a two-girl
context) elicit a frontal, sustained negative sh
ift relative to unambiguous control words.
In the current study, we examined whether this ERP effect reflec
ts ‘deep’ situation
model ambiguity or ‘superficial’ textbase am
biguity. We contrast
ed these different
interpretations by investigating whether a discourse-level semantic manipulation that
prevents referential ambiguity also averts t
he elicitation of a referentially induced ERP
effect. We compared ERPs el
icited by nouns that were re
ferentially non-ambiguous but
were associated with two discourse entities (e
.g., “the girl” with two girls introduced in
the context, but one of which has died or le
ft the scene), with referentially ambiguous
and non-ambiguous control words.
While temporally referentially ambiguous
nouns elicited a frontal negative shift
compared to control words, the ‘double bo
und’ but referentially non-ambiguous nouns
did not. These results suggest that it is possible to selectively track referential ambiguity
with ERPs at the level that is most relev
ant to discourse comprehension, the situation
model
