Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies demonstrated that sentential constraint facilitates novel word learning in both adults and pre-adolescents. Specifically, changes in the N400 ERP component elicited by newly acquired pseudowords emerge when these words are initially encountered in highly constraining sentence context. However, relatively little is known about how sentential constraint influences the ability to infer and acquire the meaning of newly encountered words, rather than merely incorporating them in the mental lexicon. The present study examined whether adolescents aged 13–17 exhibit the N400 constraint effect associated with learning novel word meanings from sentences that in contextual constraint. In addition to EEG recording, eye-tracking measures were used to access the impact of sentential constraint on meaning acquisition. The results revealed a robust N400 constraint effect in adolescents, indicating that highly constraining sentential contexts facilitate the acquisition of novel word meanings. These authors contributed equally to this work.
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Semenova et al. (2026) studied this question.
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