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Multimodal semantic revision during inferential processing: The role of inhibitory control in text and picture comprehension.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Pérez, A 
Schmidt, E 

Abstract

Although language comprehension usually requires multimodal information, no study to date has investigated how comprehenders deal with the revision of a text's interpretation when different modalities are involved. Twenty-four young adults listened to a story prompting an inference (e.g., polar bear), and then saw a picture that was either consistent (polar bear) or inconsistent but still plausible (penguin). Larger negativity (N400) in the inconsistent picture indicated successful inferential monitoring. Subsequently, a sentence carried the disambiguating word which was either expected ("bear") or unexpected ("penguin") in relation to the auditory-verbal information. Larger negativity in the unexpected word coming from the consistent picture suggested that comprehenders had difficulties selecting the unexpected concept when previous information was contradictory. More importantly, this effect was modulated by inhibitory control, where a higher resistance to distractor interference (flanker task) was associated with a better ability to suppress pictorial information, therefore preventing semantic competition. Similarly, accuracy measured in a final comprehension question demonstrated that higher inhibitory control was related to a more efficient ability to revise the situation model across modalities. Our findings speak to a relationship between story comprehension and mental flexibility during multimodal processing.

Description

Keywords

Inferential monitoring., Inhibitory control, Multimodal information, Revision, Text comprehension, Adult, Attention, Comprehension, Electroencephalography, Evoked Potentials, Executive Function, Female, Humans, Inhibition, Psychological, Male, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Semantics, Speech Perception, Thinking, Young Adult

Journal Title

Neuropsychologia

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0028-3932
1873-3514

Volume Title

138

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/P021255/1)
Wellcome Trust (205067/Z/16/Z)