新指标捕捉语义连贯性,更好解释阅读时大脑电波变化。
Contextual Semantic Relevance and Word Surprisal Predict N400 and P600 Dynamics During Naturalistic Reading

- 用注意力感知的语义相关性衡量词语与上下文契合度。
- 该指标在N400和P600窗口均显著预测脑电活动,尤其在P600更突出。
- 适合研究语言理解神经机制或计算语言学的学者。
词意外性是语言理解中人类神经反应的经典计算预测因子,但局部语义适配是否在自然阅读中超越词汇预期解释神经反应变异仍不明确。本研究基于都柏林脑电阅读实验语料库(DERCo),检验了语境语义相关性是否能预测单词锁定的脑电活动(N400与P600窗口)。语义相关性以注意力感知的方式计算目标词与其近期话语背景的语义关联强度,并与GPT生成的词意外性对比。对22名参与者、32个脑电通道的数据,采用基于回归的ERP分析和广义加性混合模型,控制词汇变量及重复观测。两个预测因子均与脑电反应显著相关,但时间与头皮分布模式部分不同:意外性反映预期偏差,而语义相关性在N400和P600窗口均表现出强效应,尤其在P600窗口解释力突出。模型比较显示,语义相关性在控制词汇因素和意外性后仍具额外解释价值。结果表明,自然阅读依赖词汇预期与局部语义整合,语义相关性为话语语义契合与脑电动态提供了可解释的计算桥梁。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Word surprisal is a well-established computational predictor of human neural responses during language comprehension, but it remains less clear whether local semantic fit explains neural response variation beyond lexical expectation during naturalistic reading. Using the Dublin EEG-based Reading Experiment Corpus (DERCo), this study examined whether contextual semantic relevance predicts word-locked EEG activity in the N400 and P600 windows. Contextual semantic relevance was computed as an attention-aware measure of how strongly a target word is semantically connected to its recent discourse context, and it was compared with GPT-based word surprisal. Across 22 participants and 32 EEG channels, we tested both predictors using regression-based ERP analyses and generalized additive mixed models while controlling for lexical variables and repeated observations. Both predictors were reliably associated with EEG responses, but they showed partly different temporal and scalp-level patterns. Surprisal captured expectancy-related variation, whereas contextual semantic relevance showed robust effects across N400- and P600-window mean voltages, with particularly strong explanatory support in the P600 window. Model comparisons indicated that contextual semantic relevance contributed explanatory value beyond lexical controls and surprisal. These findings suggest that naturalistic reading depends on both lexical expectation and local semantic integration, and that contextual semantic relevance offers an interpretable computational link between discourse semantic fit and ERP dynamics.
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