Figure 1.
The hierarchical structure of a seven-character quatrain.
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−.
Figure 2.
Acoustic features of the critical syllables in the four conditions of the example materials.
Correct: V+T+; Tone violation: V+T−; Vowel violation: V−T+; Combined violation: V−T−.
Figure 3.
Reaction times and accuracy rates of the four conditions.
Correct: V+T+; Tone violation: V+T−; Vowel violation: V−T+; Combined violation: V−T−. Error bars indicate the standard error (SE).
Figure 4.
Grand average waveforms and topographical scalp distributions over 20 participants.
(A) The waveforms are time locked to the onset of critical syllable in the end of the first couplet at selected channels of the four conditions. Negative is plotted upward. Correct: V+T+; Tone violation: V+T−; Vowel violation: V−T+; Combined violation: V−T−. (B) Topographical scalp distributions of the N450 and LPC effects evoked by different conditions.