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Integration and structure building across a sentence boundary: ERP indicators of definite/indefinite article, noun repetition, and comprehension skill effects

ABSTRACT Text comprehension requires integrating meanings within and across sentences. However, sentence boundaries mark an occasion for readers to begin a new structure – integration with prior meanings is not immediately required in the absence of a retrieval cue to a text segment in memory. In an ERP study we investigated a grammatical cue for integration, the definite article. We varied whether definite (the) or indefinite articles (a/an) occurred at sentence-initial positions and whether the article was followed by a repeated noun. Evidence for lexical-semantic facilitation for repeated nouns was observed as a centro-parietal N400 effect. Early frontal and Late Positivity Component (LPC) effects differentiated nouns that followed definite articles from those that followed indefinite articles. Following definite articles, an increased LPC occurred when readers encountered new nouns compared with repeated nouns; this effect was not present when nouns followed indefinite articles. Results show readers’ sensitivity to cues for co-referential integration and new structure building.