# Lexical representation explains cortical entrainment during speech comprehension

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.05656 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.05656/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 18 Jun 2017.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Hierarchical Frequency Tagging Probe (HFTP): A Unified Approach to Investigate Syntactic Structure Representations in Large Language Models and the Human Brain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.13255/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Results from a recent neuroimaging study on spoken sentence comprehension have been interpreted as evidence for cortical entrainment to hierarchical syntactic structure. We present a simple computational model that predicts the power spectra from this study, even though the model's linguistic knowledge is restricted to the lexical level, and word-level representations are not combined into higher-level units (phrases or sentences). Hence, the cortical entrainment results can also be explained from the lexical properties of the stimuli, without recourse to hierarchical syntax.