Does pleasantness affect the grammatical brain? An ERP study on individual differences

This ERP study used a grammaticality judgement task to analyse the interface between morphosyntactic and affective processing, as well as the modulatory role of individual differences. Participants (mostly women) were presented with Spanish noun phrases (Determiner + Noun + Adjective) in which the noun and the adjective (pleasant or neutral) either agreed or not in gender. Results confirm previous evidence on the existence of two main dominance brain patterns: negative (people showing LAN effects) and positive (people showing P600 effects). They also reveal that the individuals with a negative profile temporarily prioritised grammatical processing over affective processing while the individuals with a positive profile prioritised emotionality over grammaticality. Crucially, interactive effects between these two factors did not emerge in either group or time window. This lack of interaction contradicts previous evidence on unpleasant words. The present findings highlight the relevance of individual differences and word valence in gender agreement processing.