Person-specific intrinsic-timescale topographies persist from rest into sentence processing

Abstract

Language processing does not occur in a vacuum. Language comprehension and production have its own temporal organization, and it unfolds against ongoing neural. We examined whether the base organization persists from rest into sentence processing, and we further examined how it relates to evoked responses and semantic decisions. Sentences crossed linguistic argument versus adjunct completions with semantic plausibility. Anomalies elicited a centroparietal late positivity from 600 to 900 ms (+0.628 microvolt, 95% CI 0.349-0.907). Channel-wise autocorrelation timescales formed person-specific topographies: own-person rest-task similarity exceeded mismatched-person similarity (Fisher-z advantage = 0.463, permutation P = 5.00 x 10^-6), identifying 78.6% of participants against 7.1% chance. The advantage survived Cz re-referencing and surface-Laplacian transformation. In separate ERP predictor tests, longer absolute task timescales accompanied a smaller anomaly effect (cross-fitted Spearman rho = -0.486, Holm-adjusted P = 0.030). Stronger topographic continuity also accompanied greater anomaly-related decision slowing, although the behavioral association fell short of correction across six endpoints (rho = 0.547, familywise P = 0.054). Supporting analyses evaluated larger eligible samples and an eyes-closed subset. The findings place persistent, person-specific temporal organization within sentence processing and link absolute task timescale to the neural response to semantic anomaly.