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Abstract

Studies investigating language commonly isolate one language modality/process, focusing on comprehension or production. We aim to combine both in the CLaP, tapping into comprehension and production within each trial. The trial structure is identical across conditions, presenting an auditory sentence (constrained, unconstrained, reversed) followed by a picture to name (normal, scrambled), reducing task-related confounds between conditions. Next to constrained and uncosntrained picture naming (context effect), we examined ERPs locked to sentence and picture onset comparing neural responses to auditory versus time-reversed speech as well as recognition of real versus scrambled objects. We tested 21 healthy speakers with EEG and replicated the context effect of power decreases in the alpha-beta frequency range (8-25 Hz) during the pre-picture interval in left hemisphere language areas. Picture-locked ERPs showed that visual evoked potentials (VEPs) significantly differ between conditions, especially in the P2 component (200-300ms). Sentence-locked ERPs revealed auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) in response to normal speech (240-400ms) after sentence onset, significantly differing from time-reversed speech. By virtue of the well-matched contrasts across conditions, the CLaP shows promising opportunities to be used with EEG to further investigate language comprehension and production, and their relationship, in a well-controlled setting in neurotypical and neurological populations.