COGS 179/279

Electrophysiology of Cognition: Language Processing

Tuesday/Thursday 3:30-4:50 PM (279: also Friday 11-Noon)

CSB 003

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10

Problem Sets

Instructor: Dr. Seana Coulson

Office Hours: Monday/Friday 1-2pm in CSB 161 (or by appointment)

Email: coulson@cogsci.ucsd.edu

Office Phone: 858-534-7486

Course Description and Goals

This course surveys the theory and practice of using recordings of electrical (and magnetic) activity of the brain to study cognition, with a focus on language processing. The course aims to give students (1) knowledge (at both a technical and inferential level) of how electrophysiological techniques can be used to address issues in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, (2) practice with critically reading and evaluating research reports and reviews in the area, and (3) experience developing research questions, designing an experiment to test those questions, and writing a research proposal.

On completion of this course, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a basic level of competence with the technical and theoretical aspects of electrophysiological recordings
• Identify and explain how electrophysiological methods have contributed to our current understanding of various aspects of cognition
• Analyze and evaluate primary research reports in the area
• Develop an interesting and important research question
• Outline a research proposal that documents how that question might be addressed using electrophysiological methods

Readings

Readings consist of review articles and experimental reports, drawn from the primary scientific literature. The articles are available online, and a course reader will be available for purchase.

When reading review articles, keep the following questions in mind:

• What are the issues that the author considers to be central to the area?
• Are electrophysiological techniques suited for addressing those issues?
• How have electrophysiological techniques been used in this area to date?
• What are typical designs for experiments in this area?
• What aspects of the electrophysiological signal have been focused on?
• What insights about cognitive neuroscience have been obtained?

When reading experimental reports, keep the following questions in mind:

• What is the general goal of the study? What specific hypothesis is being tested?
• How does the experimental design address the question?
• What are the possible outcomes of the experiment and what would each mean?
• What was the actual outcome?
• What are the authors’ conclusions?
• Are there any alternative explanations?
• What are some further questions and how might you address them?

Grading

Problem Sets = 60%

10% Problem Set 1 (due Thurssday 1/26)

10% Problem Set 2 (due Tuesday 1/31)

10% Problem Set 3 (due Tuesday 2/7)

10% Problem Set 4 (due Tuesday 2/14)

10% Problem Set 5 (due Tuesday 2/21)

10% Problem Set 6 (due Thursday 3/9)

Research Proposal = 20%

5% for first proposal-related 2-page paper (due Thursday 2/23)

5% for second proposal-related 2-page paper (due Thursday 3/2)

10% for final (5-10 page) proposal (due Friday 3/17)

Final Exam = 20% (Friday 3/24, 3-6 PM in CSB 003)

Problem Sets: Homework is designed to help you consolidate the information covered in the readings and in lecture. Bring completed problem sets to class – emailed assignments will NOT be accepted. (Late problem sets can be turned in to Coulson’s mailbox in CSB; you will be assessed a late penalty, and homework turned in more than one week past the due date will receive no credit.) Be sure to save your graded problem sets so you can study for the final exam.

Research Proposal: The student will be required to review some literature in an area of interest, develop a research question based on the review, and propose an experiment, using electrophysiological methods (along with other methods if desired), to test that question. Writing does count in the evaluation of the paper. Students are expected to be able to write clearly and in a manner stylistically appropriate for a scientific paper. Accurate documentation of sources is essential. Plagiarism in any form will result in a failing grade on the paper. Students may turn in a draft and get feedback on their papers before the final due date.

Final Exam: The final exam will be similar both in format and in content to the problem sets we do over the course of the quarter. The exam will include short answer and essay questions based on material presented in the readings and in lecture. To study for the exam, go over your old problem sets and work on the review problems handed out in class before the exam.

Cheating and Plagiarism

Students are encouraged to work together on problem sets, where working together involves (potentially extensive) discussion, and perhaps the use of a whiteboard for explanatory sketching. However, students are expected to type/write their own answers to problems without consulting any other student’s completed (or partially completed) assignment. Copying another student’s problem set is not considered “working together”. Problem sets that employ identical (or extremely similar) wording will be taken as evidence of cheating by all parties.

Plagiarism is the use of another person’s ideas without attributing the source. If you quote someone, use quotation marks and include adequate citation information. If you restate someone’s idea in your own words, include a citation after the statement. There is a good webpage on this topic at:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html

COGS 179 vs. COGS 279

The graduate version of this course is 279. 279 students are expected to attend classes Tuesday and Thursday as well as the graduate discussion sections on Friday. (179 students are expected to attend classes only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.) 279 students are required to present an article during a Friday discussion section, and give a brief presentation of their research proposal at the end of the quarter. All students (179/279) are expected to complete all problem sets, though they will sometimes include additional questions for 279 students only. All students (179/279) must write a 5-10 page research proposal, as well as the two short proposal-related papers. The final exam will be slightly different for 179 and 279.

COURSE SCHEDULE AND READINGS

Just in case we get behind schedule – Be sure to check the on-line version of the syllabus for the most up-to-date list of reading assignments and due dates.

Week 1: Basics of Event-Related Potentials

Tuesday 1/10: Overview   PDF

Slides
(no reading)

Thursday 1/12: Neural Basis, Technical Details  Slides

Coulson, S. (to appear). Electrifying results: ERP data and cognitive linguistics. In M Gonzalez-Marquez, I Mittelberg, S Coulson, & M Spivey (Eds.), Methods in Cognitive Linguistics: Ithaca. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [review]  PDF

Rugg, Michael D. & Coles, Michael. (1995). Event-related brain potentials: An introduction. In Rugg, Michael D. & Coles, Michael (Eds.), Electrophysiology of Mind: Event-Related Potentials and Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-26. [review]  PDF

Friday 1/13 (279): Grad Discussion

Kutas, M, Federmeier, K, & Sereno, M. (1999). Current approaches to mapping language in electromagnetic space. In CM Brown & P Hagoort (Eds.), The Neurocognition of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 359-387. [review]  PDF

Week 2: Inferences from ERP Data

Tuesday 1/17: Analysis of ERP Data Slides from Tuesday

Otten, Leun & Rugg, Michael D. (2004). Interpreting event-related brain potentials. In Handy, Todd C. (Ed.). Event-related Potentials: A Methods Handbook. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 3-16. [review] PDF

Thursday 1/19: General Inferential Issues (Case Studies)   Slides from Thursday

Kutas, M, McCarthy, G, & Donchin, E. (1977). Augmenting mental chronometry: The P300 as a measure of stimulus evaluation time. Science 197: 792-795. [report]  PDF

Luck, Steven J, Woodman, Geoffrey F, & Vogel, Edward K. (2000). Event-related potential studies of attention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4: 432-440. [review]  PDF

Friday 1/20 (279): Grad Discussion

Ranganath, C & Rainer, G. (2005). Neural mechanisms for detecting and remembering novel events. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4: 193-203. [review]  PDF

Luck, S.J. (1998). Sources of dual task interference: Evidence from human electrophysiology. Psychological Science 9: 223-227. [report]  PDF

Week 3: Speech Perception

Tuesday 1/24: Basics Slides from Tuesday

Fitch, RH, Miller, S, & Tallal, P. (1997). Neurobiology of speech perception. Annual Review of Neuroscience 20: 331-353. [review]  PDF

Naatanen, R, et al. (1997). Language-specific phoneme representations revealed by electric and magnetic brain responses. Nature 385: 432-435. [report]  PDF

• Problem Set 1 is due Thursday 1/26 at the beginning of class.

Thursday 1/26: Integrating ERP and fMRI Data  (No Slides)

Opitz, B, Rinne, T, Mecklinger, A, von Cramon, Y, & Scherger, E. (2002). Differential contribution of frontal and temporal cortices to auditory change detection: fMRI and ERP results. Neuroimage 15: 167-174. [report]  PDF

Friday 1/27 (279): Grad Discussion -- Anna

Cheour, M, Ceponiene, R, Lehtokoski, A, Luuk, A, Allik, J, Alho, K, & Naatanen, R. (1998). Development of language-specific phoneme representations in the infant brain. Nature Neuroscience 1: 351-353. [report]  PDF

Pulvermuller, F. et al. (2001). Memory traces for words as revealed by the Mismatch Negativity. NeuroImage 14: 607-616. [report]  PDF

Week 4:  Audiovisual Integration in Speech Perception

Tuesday 1/31 Classic Studies    Slides from Tuesday

McGurk, Harry & McDonald, John. (1976). Hearing lips and seeing voices. Nature 264: 746-749. [report]  PDF

Sams, M. et al. (1991). Seeing speech: Visual information from lip movements modifies activity in the human auditory cortex. Neuroscience Letters 127: 141-145. [report]  PDF

• Problem Set 2 is due Tuesday 1/31 at the beginning of class.

Thursday 2/2 Recent Work

Slides from Thursday

Colin, C, Radeua, M, Soquet, A, Demolin, D, Colin, F. (2002). Mismatch negativity evoked by the McGurk-MacDonald effect: A phonetic representation within short-term memory. Clinical neurophysiology 113: 495-506. [report]  PDF

Stekelenburg, JJ, Vroomen, J, & de Gelder, B. (2004). Illusory sound shifts induced by the ventriloquist illusion evoke the mismatch negativity. Neuroscience Letters 357: 163-166. [report]  PDF

Friday 2/3 (279): Grad Discussion -- discussion of ICA/PCA

recommended:
Makeig, S, Debener, S, Onton, J, Delorme, A. (2004). Mining event-related brain dynamics. Trends in Cognitive Science 8: 204-210.  PDF

optional:
Makeig, S, Westerfield, M, Jung, T-P, Covington, J, Townsend, J, Sejnowski, T, and Courchesne, E.  (1999). Functionally independent components of the late positive event-related potential during visual spatial attention. Journal of Neuroscience 19: 2665-2680.  PDF

really optional:
Raij, T, Uutela, J, & Hari, R. (2000). Audiovisual integration of letters in the human brain. Neuron 28: 617-625. [report]  PDF

Teder-Slejrvi, WA, McDonald, AA, Russo, TJ, & Hillyard, SA. (2002). An analysis of audio-visual cross-modal integration by means of event-related brain potential. Cognitive Brain Research 106-114. [report]  PDF

Week 5:  Language Production

Tuesday 2/7 Lateralized Readiness Potential  Slides from Tuesday

Levelt, WJM. (1999). Models of word production. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 3: 223-233. [review]  PDF

Van Turennout, M, Hagoort, P, & Brown, C. (1998). Brain activity during speaking: From syntax to phonology in 40 milliseconds. Science 280: 572-574. [report]  PDF

• Problem Set 3 is due Tuesday 2/7 at the beginning of class.

Thursday 2/9 Go-NoGo Paradigms  Slides from Thursday

Schmitt, BM, Schiltz, K, Zaake, W, Kutas, M, Muente, TF. (2001). An electrophysiological analysis of the time during tacit picture naming. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 13: 510-522. [report]  PDF

Friday 2/10 (279): Graduate Discussion -- Marguerite

Rodriguez-Fornells, A, van der Lugt, A, Rotte, M, Britti, B, Heinze, H-J, & Munte, TF. (2005). Second language interferes with word production in fluent bilinguals: Brain potential and functional imaging evidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 17: 422-433. [report]   PDF

Week 6:  Semantic Processing

Tuesday 2/14: N400 Slides from Tuesday

Kutas, M. & Hillyard, SA. (1980). Reading senseless sentences: Brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science 207: 203-205. [report]  PDF

Van Petten, C. (1995). Words and sentences: Event-related brain potential measures. Psychophysiology 32: 511-525. [review]PDF

• Problem Set 4 is due Tuesday 2/14 at the beginning of class.

Thursday 2/16: Neural Generators of the N400 Slides from Thursday

Nobre, AC, Allison, T, & McCarthy, G. (1994). Word recognition in the human inferior temporal lobe. Nature 372: 60-63. [report]  PDF

Van Petten, C. & Luka, B. (2006, in press). Neural localization of semantic context effects in electromagnetic and hemodynamic studies. Brain and Language. [review]  PDF

Download movies of reading novel words or hearing novel words

Friday 2/17 (279): Graduate Discussion  -- David

Marinkovic, K. (2004). Spatiotemporal dynamics of word processing in the human cortex. Neuroscientist 10: 142-152. [review]  PDF

Halgren, E, Dhond, R, Christensen, N, Van Petten, C, Marinkovic, K, Lewine, JD, & Dale, AM. (2002). N400-like MEG responses modulated by semantic context, word frequency, and lexical class in sentences. Neuroimage 17: 1101-1116. [report]  PDF

Week 7:  Semantic Processing

Tuesday 2/21: Semantic Processing and Word Identification Slides from Tuesday

Samuel, AG. (2001). Knowing a word affects the fundamental perception of the sounds within it. Psychological Science 12: 348-352. [report]  PDF

Van Petten, C, Coulson, S, Rubin, S, Plante, E, & Parks, M. (1999). Time course of word identification and semantic integration in spoken language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 25: 394-417. [report]  PDF

• Problem Set 5 is due Tuesday 2/21 at the beginning of class.

Thursday 2/23: Open and Closed Class Words Slides from Thursday

Muente, TF, Wieringa, BM, Weyerts, H, Szentkuti, A, Matzke, M, & Johannes, S. (2001). Differences in brain potentials to open and closed class words: class and frequency effects. Neuropsychologia 39: 91-102. [report]  PDF

Ter Keurs, M, Brown, CM, & Hagoort, P. (2002). Lexical processing of vocabulary class in patients with Broca’s aphasia: An event-related brain potential study on agrammatic comprehension. Neuropsychologia 40: 1547-1561. [report]  PDF

• Proposal-related paper #1 is due in class Thursday 2/23. This 2-page paper should describe the topic area you have picked for your final paper, summarize background literature in the area (references go at the end), and describe the question or hypothesis your study will test.

Friday 2/24 (279): Graduate Discussion -- Erin

Van den Brink, D, Brown, CM, & Hagoort, P. (2001). Electrophysiological evidence for early contextual influences during spoken-word recognition: N200 versus N400 effects. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 13: 967-985. [report]  PDF

Osterhout, L, Allen, M, McLaughlin, J. (2002). Words in the brain: Lexical determinants of word-induced brain activity. Journal of Neurolinguistics 15: 171-187. [report]  PDF

Bastiaansen, MCM, van der Linden, M, ter Keurs, M, Dijkstra, T, & Hagoort, P. (2005). Theta responses are involved in lexical-semantic retrieval during language processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 17: 530-541. [report] PDF

Week 8:  Linguistic versus Nonlinguistic Meaning

Tuesday 2/28: Common Sense Slides from Tuesday

Ganis, G, Sereno, MI, & Kutas, M. (1996). The search for “common sense”: An electrophysiological study of the comprehension of words and pictures in reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 8: 89-106. [report]  PDF

Thursday 3/2: Sounds and Music Slides from Thursday

Van Petten, C. & Rheinfelder, H. (1995). Conceptual relationships between spoken words and environmental sounds: Event-related brain potential measures. Neuropsychologia 33: 485-508. [report]  PDF

Koelsch, S, et al. (2004). Music, language, and meaning: Brain signatures of semantic processing. Nature Neuroscience 7: 302-307. [report]  PDF

• Proposal-related paper #2 is due in class Thursday 3/2. This 2-page paper should briefly reiterate your question/hypothesis (from your earlier paper), summarize/sketch the design and methods you will use, and outline the possible pattern of results and what each would mean.

Friday 3/3 (279): Graduate Discussion 

Sitnikova, T, West, WC, Kuperberg, GR, & Holcomb, PJ. (2006, in press). The neural organization of semantic memory: Electrophysiological activity suggests feature-based segregation. Biological Psychology. [report]  PDF

Plante, E, Van Petten, C, Senkfor, AJ. (2000). Electrophysiological dissociation between verbal and nonverbal semantic processing in learning disabled adults. Neuropsychologia 38: 1669-1684. [report]  PDF

Watson, TD, Azizian, A, Berry, S, & Squires, NK. (2005). Event-related potentials as an index of similarity between words and pictures. Psychophysiology 42: 361-368. [report]  PDF

Week 9:  Pragmatic Processing

Tuesday 3/7: Metaphor, Discourse Context Slides from Tuesday

Van Berkum, JJA. (to appear). The electrophysiology of discourse and conversation. In M. Spivey, M. Joanisse, & K. McRae (Eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Psycholinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [review] PDF

Coulson, S. & Van Petten, C. (2002). Conceptual integration and metaphor: An event-related potential study. Memory & Cognition 30: 958-968. [report]  PDF

• Problem Set 6 is due at the beginning of class Thursday 3/9.

Thursday 3/9: Jokes and Puns Slides from Thursday

Coulson, S & Kutas, M. (2001). Getting it: Human event-related brain response to jokes in good and poor comprehenders. Neuroscience Letters 316: 71-74. [report]  PDF

Coulson, S & Severens, E. (2006, in press). Hemispheric asymmetry and pun comprehension: When cowboys have sore calves. Brain & Language. [report]  PDF

Friday 3/10 (279): Graduate Discussion -- Jenny

Hagoort, P, Hald, L, Bastiaansen, M, & Petersson, KM. (2004). Integration of word meaning and world knowledge in language comprehension. Science 304: 438-441. [report]  PDF

Hald, L, Bastiaansen, MCM, & Hagoort, P. (2006). EEG theta and gamma responses to semantic violations in online sentence processing. Brain and Language 96: 90-105. [report]  PDF

Week 10: Plasticity

Tuesday 3/14 Sign Language Slides from Tuesday

Neville, HJ, Coffey, SA, Lawson, DS, Fischer A, Emmorey, K, & Bellugi, U. (1997). Neural systems mediating American Sign Language: Effects of Sensory Experience and age of acquisition. Brain & Language 57: 285-308. [report]  PDF

Thursday 3/16 Plasticity Slides from Thursday

Nager, W, Kohlmetz, C, Altenmuller, E, Rodriguez-Fornells, A, & Munte, TF. (2003). The fate of sound in conductors’ brains: An ERP study. Cognitive Brain Research 17: 83-93. [report] PDF

Roder, B, et al. (1999). Improved auditory spatial tuning in blind humans. Nature 400: 162-166. [report]  PDF

Friday 3/17 (279): Graduate Discussion

All grad students will do brief presentations of their proposed projects

Research Proposal Due: Friday 3/17 by 4pm – please place in Coulson’s mailbox in the Cognitive Science Building

Final Exam: Friday March 24, 3-6 PM in CSB 003