Dominancy in Speech Comprehension based on Phoneme-related Representation of Electroencephalography

Abstract

Verbal communication comprises retrieval of both semantic and syntactic information elicited by various kinds of words in a sentence. Content words, such as nouns and verbs, convey essential information about the overall meaning (semantics) of a sentence whereas function words, such as prepositions and pronouns, carry less meaning and support the syntax of the sentence. The aim of this study is to reveal neural correlates of differential information retrieval processes for both content and function words by examining electroencephalography during spoken-sentence comprehension. The distinction between spatiotemporal patterns of cortical responses to different parts of speech provides neurological evidence for the variable effects on comprehension of omitting certain types of words within a sentence. The findings of this study may provide insight to the different contributions of certain types of words over others in overall sentence understanding based.