During communication, information structure can be used to highlight the most relevant piece of information, so that sufficient amount of attention can be allocated to the most important information. This paper aims to review the cognitive function of information structure during language comprehension from a neurocognitve perspective. First, we gave a brief introduction to the concept of information structure that has been studied mostly in linguistic field. Then we introduced recent studies on information structure using electrophysiological and neuroimaging techniques. After that, we discussed the relationship between attention and language processing more generally. Finally, we discussed potential directions for future studies.
Keywords: Attention; ERP; Focus; Information structure; Language processing; fMRI.