Event-related potential markers of expectation violation in an artificial grammar learning task

To investigate the neural correlates of artificial grammar learning, we recorded the electroencephalogram while experimental participants listened to phonological sequences. We compared event-related potential responses to expectancy violations in two participant conditions; training and a no-training control group. During the test phase, participants in both types of training heard ill-formed sequences. This allowed us to explore the relationship among expectancy violations because of three aspects of a stimulus: physical characteristics, the mental representation of the vocabulary of an artificial grammar, and learned patterns of sequential regularities. Unexpected phonological elements in the test sequences elicited N2b/Pb components. Difference waveforms demonstrated that training had a significant effect on the event-related potential response to deviant items.