ABSTRACT
Neuroimaging methods are meant to create visualizations of the brain and to map brain activity, usually in response to the presentation of a stimulus or event. In the case of discourse psychologists, researchers are interested in how the brain engages in processing language, broadly defined. The event-related potentials (ERP) methodology has been used to investigate many aspects of language processing. A common method for ERP in language comprehension is to have participants read a unit of text and then encounters a word that fits the sentential or discourse context to varying degrees of acceptability. The ERP technique is a common method to measure changes in electrical activity on the scalp, whereas magnetoencephalography is used to measure changes in magnetic fields on the scalp. In summary, it is clear that discourse researchers have a large set of neuroscience methods available to investigate language processing.
