Catching the news: Processing strategies in listening to dialogs as measured by ERPs

Table 1 Examples of the dialogs with a focus on 'Anna' in the target sentence (F3) or non-focused given information (G3).

*Condition GG*	*Condition FF*
G1: Am Samstag hat Peter mir etwas versprochen. Peter promised me something on Saturday.	F1: Am Samstag hat Peter mir etwas versprochen. Peter promised me something on Saturday.
G2: Hat er dir versprochen, Anna zu entlasten? Did he promise you to support Anna?	F2: Hat er dir versprochen, Frauke zu entlasten? Did he promise you to support Frauke?
G3: Er hat mir versprochen, [Anna]_G zu entlasten und die Küche zu putzen. He promised me to support Anna and to clean the kitchen.	F3: Er hat mir versprochen, [ANNA]_F zu entlasten und die Küche zu putzen. He promised me to support Anna and to clean the kitchen.
*Condition FG*	*Condition GF*
F1: Am Samstag hat Peter mir etwas versprochen.	G1: Am Samstag hat Peter mir etwas versprochen.
F2: Hat er dir versprochen, Frauke zu entlasten?	G2: Hat er dir versprochen, Anna zu entlasten?
G3: Er hat mir versprochen, [Anna]_G zu entlasten und die Küche zu putzen.	F3: Er hat mir versprochen, [ANNA]_F zu entlasten und die Küche zu putzen.

Condition GG = NO FOCUS or GIVEN + appropriate accentuation
Condition FF = FOCUS+ appropriate accentuation
Condition FG = FOCUS + inappropriate accentuation
Condition GF = NO FOCUS or GIVEN + inappropriate accentuation
Appropriate associations of context and target are signaled by identical letters (G1+G2+G3 = condition GG and F1+F2+F3 = condition FF). Inappropriate associations of contextual information and target sentences were created by combining the context of one condition and the target sentence of the opposite condition (G1+G2+F3 = condition GF or F1+F2+G3 = condition FG). Capitalized words signal focus accents.

ISSN: 1744-9081