PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Phillip M. Alday
AU  - Matthias Schlesewsky
AU  - Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky
TI  - Electrophysiology reveals the neural dynamics of naturalistic auditory language processing: event-related potentials reflect continuous model updates
AID  - 10.1101/062299
DP  - 2016 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 062299
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/07/06/062299.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/07/06/062299.full
AB  - The recent trend away from ANOVA-based analyses places experimental investigations into the neurobiology of cognition in more naturalistic and ecologically valid designs within reach. Using mixed-effects models for epoch-based regression, we demonstrate the feasibility of examining event-related potentials (ERPs), and in particular the N400, to study the neural dynamics of auditory language processing in a naturalistic setting. Despite the large variability between trials during naturalistic stimulation, we replicated previous findings from the literature: frequency, animacy, word order. This suggests a new perspective on ERPs, namely as a continuous modulation reflecting continuous model updates (cf. Friston, 2005) instead of a series of discrete and essentially sequential processes.