Basic Lecture Information (Shanghai International Studies University Graduate Academic Training Camp)
Lecture Title: The Influence of the Catecholaminergic System on Syntactic Processing: A Psychopharmacological Study
(Catecholaminergic modulation of garden-path sentence processing: An ERP study with methylphenidate)
Speaker: Tan Yingying
Organizer: Institute of Language Sciences
Date & Time: December 5, 2024 (Thursday), 13:00–14:00
Venue: Room 136, Teaching Building No. 5, Songjiang Campus
Speaker Biography
Tan Yingying is a researcher at the Institute of Language Sciences, Shanghai International Studies University. She completed her undergraduate studies in the Department of Psychology at Peking University and earned her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Rice University in the United States. Between 2015 and 2020, she conducted postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands. Her primary research areas include psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, with a focus on the cognitive neural processes underlying syntactic and semantic processing, the interaction between language processing and working memory as well as executive control functions, and the cognitive processing of emotional information in language. By integrating multidisciplinary approaches such as psycholinguistics, neuroimaging, psychopharmacology, and neuropsychology (aphasia), she aims to unravel the complex mechanisms of language cognition. As first or corresponding author, she has published multiple research findings in journals such as Cerebral Cortex and Neuropsychologia, and serves as a reviewer for international journals including The Journal of Neuroscience. She currently leads national and provincial-level research projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China Youth Project and the Shanghai Natural Science Foundation General Project.
Lecture Content Summary
The catecholaminergic (CA) neurotransmitter system, primarily in the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia, plays a critical role in cognitive control, including semantic unification during sentence processing. However, its involvement in syntactic unification remains unexplored. This study examined the impact of a CA stimulant, methylphenidate (MPH), on the processing of garden-path sentences, which require syntactic revision. Forty participants completed two experimental sessions (MPH vs placebo), reading sentences in ambiguous, unambiguous, and control conditions. EEG was recorded from 32 electrodes. We replicated a P600 effect between the ambiguous and unambiguous sentences. Most important, MPH increased the size of the P600 effect in the ambiguous condition, though no such effect was observed in the unambiguous condition or early part of the sentences. We propose that elevated CA levels enhance the saliency of syntactic unification needs, facilitating real-time adjustment in processing goals and prioritizing syntactic information over others.
