Topic: lexical processing

Humans can make an on-the-fly rapid inference when presented with a novel word, using prior knowledge and context. While this is an everyday occurrence necessary for effective communication, the mechanisms of rapid inference and learning during reading are not well understood. One reason for this complexity is that the processes of inference are shrouded by those associated with processing any familiar word. To isolate potential mechanisms of inference alone, we designed a zero-shot learning task where a novel word was presented in a highly constrained context allowing for easy inference of it

Speech comprehension involves an active neural process mapping sounds into meaning, with lexical predictions supporting comprehension based on the preceding context. Methods like the Temporal Response Function (TRF) have proven effective in probing the neural processing of sounds properties such as the acoustic envelope based on EEG/MEG. However, examining how the human brain processes words during continuous speech listening remains challenging.This study presents an assessment of encoding TRF methodologies for the measurement of lexical processing, quantifying and explaining their limitation