ERP experiment on the semantic expectancy in children

This experimental data was created in the context of the project B9; Getting a Grip on Non-Literal Meaning; The Dynamics of Understanding Idiomatic Expressions in Language Learners. It is a ERP experiment.

In this experiment we tested online processing mechnisms for literal, non-formualic expressions in native adults and ten-year-old children. Participants listened to sentences with highly predictable final words. The final words were either (i) expected completions, (ii)  words semantically related to the expected completion or (iii) unrelated words. We measured amplitudes using EEG methods to compare event-related potentials  to final words. Using this paradigm we aimed to measure (1) whether participant groups predict sentence-final words and (2) whether they activate meanings of expected words.