Editing Neurolinguistics (section)

===Subject tasks===
In many neurolinguistics experiments, subjects do not simply sit and listen to or watch [[Stimulus (physiology)|stimuli]], but also are instructed to perform some sort of task in response to the stimuli.<ref>One common exception to this is studies using the mismatch paradigm, in which subjects are often instructed to watch a silent movie or otherwise not pay attention actively to the stimuli.  See, for example:
*{{cite journal | last1=Pulvermüller | first1=Friedemann |author2=Ramin Assadollahi | title=Grammar or serial order?: discrete combinatorial brain mechanicsms reflected by the syntactic mismatch negativity | year=2007 | journal=Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience | volume=19 | pmid=17536967 | issue=6 | pages=971&ndash;980 | doi=10.1162/jocn.2007.19.6.971| s2cid=6682016 }}
*{{cite journal | last1=Pulvermüller | first1=Friedemann |author2=Yury Shtyrov | year=2003 | journal=NeuroImage | volume=20 | title=Automatic processing of grammar in the human brain as revealed by the mismatch negativity | pages=159&ndash;172 | doi=10.1016/S1053-8119(03)00261-1 | pmid=14527578 | issue=1| s2cid=27124567 }}</ref>  Subjects perform these tasks while recordings (electrophysiological or hemodynamic) are being taken, usually in order to ensure that they are paying attention to the stimuli.<ref name=VP93>{{cite journal | last=Van Petten | first=Cyma | year=1993 | journal=Language and Cognitive Processes | volume=8 | issue=4 | page=490&ndash;91 | title=A comparison of lexical and sentence-level context effects in event-related potentials | doi=10.1080/01690969308407586}}</ref> At least one study has suggested that the task the subject does has an effect on the brain responses and the results of the experiment.<ref name="task effects">{{cite journal | last1=Hahne | first1=Anja |author2=Angela D. Friederici | title=Differential task effects on semantic and syntactic processes as revealed by ERPs | year=2002 | journal=Cognitive Brain Research | volume=13 | pages=339&ndash;356 | doi=10.1016/S0926-6410(01)00127-6 | pmid=11918999 | issue=3| hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-0010-ABA4-1 | hdl-access=free }}</ref>

====Lexical decision====
{{Main|Lexical decision task}}
The [[lexical decision task]] involves subjects seeing or hearing an isolated word and answering whether or not it is a real word.  It is frequently used in [[Priming (psychology)|priming]] studies, since subjects are known to make a lexical decision more quickly if a word has been primed by a related word (as in "doctor" priming "nurse").<ref name="athabasca">{{cite web | url=http://psych.athabascau.ca/html/Psych355/Exp/lexical.shtml?sso=true | access-date=14 December 2008 | date=27 June 2005 | publisher=Athatbasca University | title=Experiment Description: Lexical Decision and Semantic Priming | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091208115451/http://psych.athabascau.ca/html/Psych355/Exp/lexical.shtml?sso=true | archive-date=8 December 2009 | df=dmy-all }}</ref><ref name="fiorentino">{{cite journal | last1=Fiorentino | first1=Robert |author2=David Poeppel | title=Processing of compound words: an MEG study | journal=Brain and Language | volume=103 | issue=1–2 | year=2007 | pages=8&ndash;249 | doi=10.1016/j.bandl.2007.07.009| s2cid=54431968 }}</ref><ref name="probe">{{cite journal | title=Lexical integration: sequential effects of syntactic and semantic information | last1=Friederici | first1=Angela D. |author2=Karsten Steinhauer; Stefan Frisch | year=1999 | journal=Memory & Cognition | volume = 27 | issue=3 | pages=438–453 | doi=10.3758/BF03211539| pmid=10355234 | doi-access=free }}</ref>

====Grammaticality judgment, acceptability judgment====
{{Main|Acceptability judgment task}}

Many studies, especially violation-based studies, have subjects make a decision about the "acceptability" (usually [[Grammaticality|grammatical acceptability]] or [[Semantics|semantic]] acceptability) of stimuli.<ref name="task effects"/><ref name="yeetal2006">{{cite journal | author1=Zheng Ye |author2=Yue-jia Luo; Angela D. Friederici; Xiaolin Zhou | year=2006 | title=Semantic and syntactic processing in Chinese sentence comprehension: evidence from event-related potentials | journal=Brain Research | issue=1 | pages=186&ndash;196 | pmid=16412999 | doi=10.1016/j.brainres.2005.11.085 | volume=1071|s2cid=18324338 }}</ref><ref name="frisch200">{{cite journal | last1=Frisch | first1=Stefan |author2=Anja Hahne; Angela D. Friederici | title=Word category and verb&ndash;argument structure information in the dynamics of parsing | year=2004 | journal=Cognition | pmid=15168895 | volume=91 | issue=3 | pages=200&ndash;201 | doi=10.1016/j.cognition.2003.09.009| s2cid=44889189 }}</ref><ref name="osterhout">{{cite journal | last=Osterhout | first=Lee | title=On the brain response to syntactic anomalies: manipulations of word position and word class reveal individual differences | journal=Brain and Language | volume=59 | year=1997 | doi=10.1006/brln.1997.1793 | pages=494–522 [500] | pmid=9299074 | issue=3| s2cid=14354089 }}</ref><ref name="hagoort2003">{{cite journal | year=2003 | last=Hagoort | first=Peter | title=Interplay between syntax and semantics during sentence comprehension: ERP effects of combining syntactic and semantic violations | pmid=14511541 | journal=Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience | volume=15 | issue=6 | pages=883&ndash;899 | doi=10.1162/089892903322370807| citeseerx=10.1.1.70.9046 | s2cid=15814199 }}</ref>  Such a task is often used to "ensure that subjects [are] reading the sentences attentively and that they [distinguish] acceptable from unacceptable sentences in the way the [experimenter] expect[s] them to do."<ref name="frisch200"/>

Experimental evidence has shown that the instructions given to subjects in an acceptability judgment task can influence the subjects' brain responses to stimuli.  One experiment showed that when subjects were instructed to judge the "acceptability" of sentences they did not show an [[N400 (neuroscience)|N400]] brain response (a response commonly associated with [[Semantics|semantic]] processing), but that they did show that response when instructed to ignore grammatical acceptability and only judge whether or not the sentences "made sense".<ref name="task effects"/>

====Probe verification====
Some studies use a "probe verification" task rather than an overt acceptability judgment; in this paradigm, each experimental sentence is followed by a "probe word", and subjects must answer whether or not the probe word had appeared in the sentence.<ref name="probe"/><ref name="frisch200"/>  This task, like the acceptability judgment task, ensures that subjects are reading or listening attentively, but may avoid some of the additional processing demands of acceptability judgments, and may be used no matter what type of violation is being presented in the study.<ref name="probe"/>

====Truth-value judgment====
Subjects may be instructed not to judge whether or not the sentence is grammatically acceptable or logical, but whether the [[proposition]] expressed by the sentence is true or false. This task is commonly used in psycholinguistic studies of child language.<ref>{{cite book | last=Gordon | first=Peter | chapter=The Truth-Value Judgment Task | title=Methods for assessing children's syntax | chapter-url=http://faculty.tc.columbia.edu/upload/pg328/TRUTHVALUECHAPT.pdf | editor=D. McDaniel | editor2=C. McKee | editor3=H. Cairns | location=Cambridge | publisher=MIT Press | page=1 | access-date=14 December 2008 | archive-date=9 June 2010 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100609030820/http://faculty.tc.columbia.edu/upload/pg328/TRUTHVALUECHAPT.pdf | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>Crain, Stephen, Luisa Meroni, and Utako Minai. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20050709173234/http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/~scrain/papers/GALA%2704.pdf If Everybody Knows, then Every Child Knows]." University of Maryland at College Park. Retrieved 14 December 2008.</ref>

====Active distraction and double-task====
Some experiments give subjects a "distractor" task to ensure that subjects are not consciously paying attention to the experimental stimuli; this may be done to test whether a certain computation in the brain is carried out automatically, regardless of whether the subject devotes [[Attention|attentional resources]] to it.  For example, one study had subjects listen to non-linguistic tones (long beeps and buzzes) in one ear and speech in the other ear, and instructed subjects to press a button when they perceived a change in the tone; this supposedly caused subjects not to pay explicit attention to grammatical violations in the speech stimuli.  The subjects showed a [[Mismatch negativity|mismatch response]] (MMN) anyway, suggesting that the processing of the grammatical errors was happening automatically, regardless of attention<ref name="pulvermulleretal2008"/>&mdash;or at least that subjects were unable to consciously separate their attention from the speech stimuli.

Another related form of experiment is the double-task experiment, in which a subject must perform an extra task (such as sequential finger-tapping or articulating nonsense syllables) while responding to linguistic stimuli; this kind of experiment has been used to investigate the use of [[working memory]] in language processing.<ref name="rogalskyetal">{{cite journal | title=Broca's Area, Sentence Comprehension, and Working Memory: An fMRI Study | last1=Rogalsky | first1=Corianne |author2=William Matchin; Gregory Hickok | journal=[[Frontiers Research Foundation|Frontiers in Human Neuroscience]] | year=2008 | pages=14 | volume=2 | pmid=18958214 | pmc=2572210 | doi=10.3389/neuro.09.014.2008| doi-access=free }}</ref>