The present event‐related potential (ERP) study used picture–sentence verification to investigate the neurolinguistic correlates of the online processing of compositional‐semantic information. To this end, we examined context effects on sentences involving temporal adverbial quantification likeJana war jeden Morgen schwimmen an den Arbeitstagen (“Jana went for a swim every morning during the working week”). We tested whether the conceptual complexity associated with quantifying over time intervals leads to delayed predictions regarding the upcoming words in a sentence. The present study replicated previous results relating to quantification over individuals, which are conceptually less complex than time intervals. Analogous to previous studies, false vs. true sentences elicited an N400 whenever contextual cues did not permit a potential revision of a locally assigned truth value. The present results are compatible with an approach under which contextual cues are immediately considered for predicting how a sentence continues. The fact that the contextual complexity did not lead to processing delays indicates that the processing system quickly abstracts away from the conceptual complexity associated with the linguistic input if such an abstraction is possible.

中文翻译：

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增量句子解释的语境和复杂性：时间量化的 ERP 研究

目前的事件相关电位 (ERP) 研究使用图片-句子验证来研究组合语义信息在线处理的神经语言相关性。为此，我们研究了上下文对涉及时间状语量化的句子的影响，如Jana war jeden Morgen schwimmen an den Arbeitstagen（“Jana 在工作周每天早上都去游泳”）。我们测试了与量化时间间隔相关的概念复杂性是否会导致对句子中即将出现的单词的预测延迟。本研究复制了先前与个体量化相关的结果，这些结果在概念上不如时间间隔复杂。与之前的研究类似，每当上下文提示不允许对本地分配的真值进行潜在修订时，错误与真实的句子都会引发 N400。目前的结果与立即考虑上下文线索以预测句子如何继续的方法兼容。