Hearing a word that was already expected often facilitates comprehension, attenuating the amplitude of the N400 event-related brain potential component. On the other hand, hearing a word that was not expected elicits a larger N400. In the present study, we examined whether the N400 would be attenuated when a person hears something that is not exactly what they expected but is a viable alternative pronunciation of the morpheme they expected. This was done using Mandarin syllables, some of which can be pronounced with different lexical tones depending on the context. In two large-sample experiments (total n = 160) testing syllables in isolation and in phonologically viable contexts, we found little evidence that hearing an alternative pronunciation of the expected word attenuates the N400. These results suggest that comprehenders do not take advantage of their knowledge about systematic phonological alternations during the early stages of prediction or discrimination.

听到一个已经预料到的单词通常有助于理解，减弱与 N400 事件相关的脑电位分量的幅度。另一方面，听到一个没有预料到的单词会引发更大的 N400。在本研究中，我们检查了当一个人听到的内容与他们所期望的不完全一样，但却是他们所期望的语素的一种可行的替代发音时，N400 是否会衰减。这是使用普通话音节完成的，其中一些音节可以根据上下文以不同的词汇音调发音。在两个大样本实验中（总共n= 160）在孤立和语音上可行的上下文中测试音节，我们发现几乎没有证据表明听到预期单词的替代发音会减弱 N400。这些结果表明，在预测或辨别的早期阶段，理解者没有利用他们关于系统语音交替的知识。