Date of Award
December 2018
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Psychology
Advisor(s)
Natalie Russo
Second Advisor
Lael Schooler
Keywords
EEG, ERP, Prosody, Social Communication
Subject Categories
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
The present study examined electrophysiological responses, specifically the N400 effect, in typically developing adults (N = 37) to spoken questions and statements that contained prosodically congruous and prosodically incongruous contours. In particular, prosodic incongruities were created by cross-splicing the audio signal so that questions ended with a decreasing pitch and statements ended with an increasing pitch. Further, the study examined the extent to which the size of an individual's N400 effect was related to an applied score of social communication as measured by the Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Edition. Results revealed no main effect of sentence congruency, but a main effect of sentence type (question vs. statement). Implications for future research are discussed.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Kaplan, Elizabeth A., "This is a Question? Prosody, Social Communication, and the N400 Effect" (2018). Theses - ALL. 277.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/277
