ERP responses evoked by the names.

<p>A. Grand averaged waveforms of the two conditions at twelve representative electrodes. Waveforms are time-locked to the onset of the names. Negative is plotted upward. B. Topographies of the congruity effect (Incongruent vs. Congruent) of the critical names in two time windows. The electrodes that showed significant effects over 75% of the selected time windows were marked by *.</p

Examples of four sets of discourses.

<p> Note: The examples were originally in Chinese. The English translations are given in brackets below the original Chinese materials. The critical phrases that created violations are in boldface and italicized. The critical names are underlined.</p

Hierarchical structures for example discourses.

<p>Hierarchical structures for example discourses.</p

How the brain processes emotional meaning of indirect reply: evidence from EEG

People often express their message and emotions through indirect utterances. How the intended meaning of indirect utterances is comprehended remains not completely clear. We investigated how the emotional meaning of indirect replies is processed in the brain. Participants were required to comprehend dialogues. Three types of replies were constructed: direct reply, informative indirect reply and negative indirect reply. Our results showed that both informative and negative indirect replies were understood with lower accuracy and longer behavioural reaction times than direct replies. Moreover, informative indirect replies elicited a larger N400 than direct replies, whereas negative indirect replies (compared to informative indirect replies as well as direct replies) elicited enhanced ERP responses only over the late P600 component. These findings suggest that the cognitive processes involved in and the time course of the comprehension of indirect replies change dynamically as a function of the emotional aspects of the intended meaning.</p

An Example of Experimental Materials^*.

*<p>The bold words are the target words. The italicized words are the focus-particles. Brackets indicate that the words do not exist in the original Chinese materials. The bold, spaces, and italics are shown for illustration purposes only. They were not shown in the actual experiments.</p

The hierarchical structure of a seven-character quatrain.

<p>There are four conditions for each experimental quatrain, which differ in the end of the last syllable of the first couplet (Line 2). The critical syllables are underlined. The Pinyin transcription is presented below each line of the quatrain. Correct: V+T+; Tone violation: V+T−; Vowel violation: V−T+; Combined violation: V−T−.</p

Reaction times and accuracy rates of the four conditions.

<p>Correct: V+T+; Tone violation: V+T−; Vowel violation: V−T+; Combined violation: V−T−. Error bars indicate the standard error (SE).</p

Acoustic features of the critical syllables in the four conditions of the example materials.

<p>Correct: V+T+; Tone violation: V+T−; Vowel violation: V−T+; Combined violation: V−T−.</p

Eye Movement Measures for the Target Region.

<p>Eye Movement Measures for the Target Region.</p

Eye Movement Measures for the Post-target Region.

<p>Eye Movement Measures for the Post-target Region.</p