Research project Comprehension under pressure
In the present project we will investigate brain responses of semantic processing when comprehension is put under pressure.
Photo: Jens Olof Lasthein
We investigate how the brain responds to degraded speech, distractors, fast pace, unclear articulation and complicated content using event-related potentials (ERPs).
Comprehension takes place at the intersection of bottom-up processing of the speech signal, and top-down processing based on expectations.
When comprehension is difficult, various types of compensatory behaviors are invoked. A speaker may raise their voice in a noisy environment, or slow down and articulate something complicated more clearly. A listener may instead try to be more attentive and use contextual clues from the conversation to reconstruct parts of the message that were unclear.
However, the neural mechanisms of such compensatory comprehension are not known.
We investigate how resources such as semantic context and motivated effort can be used for comprehension under difficult circumstances. We map out when comprehension fails, and what resources are helpful to avoid that.