Languagelike-Specificity of Event-Related Potentials From a Minimalist Program Perspective

In this mini-review, I use event-related potential (ERP) studies to test the minimalist program (MP) prediction that organisms with the faculty of language cognitively process languagelike systems in a qualitatively distinct manner. I first discuss “languagelike” as a technical term defined by recursion criteria. From this definition and using a generative perspective, I show that certain domains of math and music can be considered languagelike. These domains are then used as case studies to test whether or not different languagelike systems are cognitively processed in a similar manner. This is done by investigating the elicitation of common language-related ERPs (namely, the left-anterior negativity (LAN), N400, and P600) in these languagelike systems. I show that these systems do indeed elicit the same language-related ERPs, supporting the claim that different languagelike systems are processed similarly. I then discuss discrepancies between these systems, as exemplified by the P3, and I provide plausible accounts for interpreting those results. I ultimately conclude that present data on the LAN, N400, and P600 disprove language-specificity but that languagelike-specificity remains plausible, and as yet there is no reason to reject MP’s prediction that languagelike systems are processed in a qualitatively distinct way.