No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Automatic and attentional processing: An event-related brain potential analysis of semantic priming*1
Abstract
Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures (reaction time and percentage errors) were measured in a semantic priming lexical decision task. In one block of trials, instructions and the proportion of related word pairs were designed to influence subjects to process the first member of each pair (prime) automatically. In another block, subjects were induced to attend to the meaning of each prime. ERPs to the primes were more positive between 200 and 600 msec and more negative between 750 and 1150 msec when subjects attended to the primes as opposed to when only automatic processing was required. Target word ERP activity between 200 and 525 msec (N400) was more negative in the neutral than in the semantically related condition in both blocks of trials, but more so in the attentional block, while a late ERP positively between 525 and 1100 msec (Slow Wave) was more positive in the unrelated than the neutral condition, but only in the attentional block. The results are discussed in terms of the two-process model proposed by Posner and Snyder (1975a, 1975b).
... found at short SOAs (Besson, Fischler, Boaz, & Raney, 1992;Boddy, 1986) and even with simultaneous presentation of prime and target (Anderson & Holcomb, 1995). The N400 effect occurs when the task is orthographic (i.e., nonsemantic; Besson et al., 1992;Kutas & Hillyard, 1989) and when the proportion of related prime-target pairs is low (Holcomb, 1988). Recently, the N400 to auditorily presented words has been demonstrated even in sleep (Brualla, Romero, Serrano, & Valdizan, 1998). ...
... On the other hand, the N400 presupposes focused spatial attention (McCarthy & Nobre, 1993), and it does not interact with stimulus degradation (Holcomb, 1993) as would be expected of a prelexical effect. It is influenced by expectancy (Bentin, 1987), and it is larger in an attention-promoting condition than in a low-attention condition (Holcomb, 1988) and earlier at long than at short SOAs (Anderson & Holcomb, 1995). Most pertinent for our present purposes, two studies with masked primes (Brown & Hagoort, 1993;Mttnte & Heinze, 1991) have failed to find N400 effects for the target words, although there was reaction-time priming in one of these studies (Brown & Hagoort, 1993). ...
... To these belong studies showing priming at short SOAs (Anderson & Holcomb, 1995) as well as a degree of independence of task (Besson et al., 1992;Kutas & Hillyard, 1989) and attention (Brualla et al., 1998). On the other hand, a number of other studies indicate the importance of attention (Holcomb, 1988;McCarthy & Nobre, 1993) and of having a semantically oriented task (Chwilla, Brown, & Hagoort, 1995). The literature suggests that controlled processing, if not necessary, is at least influential in producing the N400 and that "the N400 component reflects both automatic and controlled aspects of priming" (Anderson & Holcomb, 1995, p. 189). ...
Three event-related potential (ERP) experiments examined whether semantic content can be accessed from visually presented words that cannot be consciously identified. Category labels were shown to participants, followed by masked, briefly exposed words that were either exemplars of the category or not exemplars. The task was to verify the category, by guessing if necessary, and to identify the word, naming it if possible. Exposure durations were selected to allow identification in approximately half the trials. For identified words, there was a marked difference in the ERP response between in-category and out-of-category words because of an N400 component. For unidentified words, there was a similar although smaller difference. Conscious identification was defined using a variety of approaches: verbal report, 6-alternative forced choice, and binary categorization (in the context of the regression method; A. G. Greenwald, M. R. Klinger, & E. S. Schuh, 1995). By any definition, ERPs for unidentified words showed evidence of semantic processing. In addition, there were differences in the neuronal populations recruited to process above-threshold versus below-threshold words, suggesting qualitative differences.
... In that study, subjects either detected and counted nonwords among a list of spoken words or studied the words in anticipation of a subsequent recognition test. Consistent with a "levels of processing" framework, the difference between the amplitude of N400 elicited by unprimed and primed words was significantly larger when words were studied for recognition than in the lexical decision task (see also Holcomb, 1988). The present study was designed in light of these results. ...
... However, this contradiction can be reconciled by assuming that at least some aspects of semantic priming of unattended words are automatic and that N400 is not sensitive to these aspects. Such an assumption is congruent with findings that N400 is modulated by expectancy or other nonautomatic aspects of processing words in context (e.g., Bentin, 1987;Holcomb, 1988Holcomb, , 1993Kutas, Lindamood, & Hillyard, 1984). Moreover, Bentin and McCarthy (1994) recently found that N400 is sensitive to the complexity of tasks in which the subjects are engaged, suggesting that its modulation is influenced by attention mediated strategies (see also Bentin et al., 1993;Bentin & Peled, 1990;Karanaydis, Andrews, Ward, & McConaghi, 1991). ...
... As has been demonstrated in several studies, attention plays an important role in semantic priming (e.g., Fishier 1977;Fishier & Bloom, 1979;Neely, 1991), and it is the attentionally mediated component of priming that might account for the N400 modulation in Phase 1 (cf. Holcomb, 1988). Additional support for this hypothesis was obtained in a previous study in which the semantic priming effect on N400 was found to be smaller in a shallow task (counting nonwords) than in a deep task (memorize words) (Bentin et al., 1993). ...
Thirty-two Ss studied words presented to 1 ear, while ignoring a concurrent word list presented to the opposite ear. The N400 component of the event-related potentials elicited by attended words was modulated by semantic priming between successive words. The N400 elicited by unattended words was insensitive to semantic manipulation. Recognition memory was better for attended than for unattended words. However, the percentage of false positives was elevated equally for lures that were semantically related to “old” words, whether they had been attended or unattended. Words that were initially attended induced similar repetition effects in a lexical decision task as words that were initially unattended. Hence, both attended and unattended words are semantically processed and activate semantic representations. However, attended words form traces that are subsequently more available to conscious recollection than unattended words.
... When pairs or list of words are presented visually, the amplitude of the N400 is smaller if the eliciting word is semantically related to the prior word. Furthermore, some investigators used letter strings instead of words (Bentin et al., 1985;Dentin, 1987a;Rugg, & Nagy, 1987;and Holcomb, 1988). They foimd that orthographically legal and pronounceable nonwords (pseudowords) also elicit large N400 but unpronounceable nonwords elicit little or no N400 activity. ...
... A growing number of studies have shown that N400 is sensitive to certain linguistic manipulations and have suggested that N400 can reflect some aspect of the operations involved in the recognition of words and non-words (Kutas & Hillyard, 1980cFischler, et al., 1983;Bentin et al., 1985;Rugg, 1985aRugg, , 1987Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb & Neville, 1990;Holcomb, 1993;and Nobre & McCarthy, 1992). However, the major difference between my experiment in the present study and the previous studies in this field is that the word is not presented in isolation but in company witli a picture simultaneously to determine if it is congruent or incongruent with it. ...
... This study provided more evidence that both semantic and syntactic, and perhaps otiier types of information, are used early on during structural analysis and messagelevel computations because they are needed for comprehension. However, several experiments have demonstiated that the N400 is larger when attention is directed at the semantic relations between the stimuh (Kutas, 1985;Holcomb, 1988;Besson et al., 1992;Bentin et al., 1993;Heinz et al. 1998). Thus, more research is needed to clarify the exact meclianisms which underlie the N400. ...
p>The N400 and P600 components of cognitive evoked potentials or event-related potentials (ERP) are context related and usually recordable after a priming stimulus or context consisting of words or any meaningful stimuli. All studies previous to this one used a sequential presentation of stimuli to elicit the ERPs. In this study, however, the picture and word stimuli were presented simultaneously. ERPs were recorded from 79 neurologically normal subjects including 62 right-handed, 10 left-handed and 7 subjects who were suffering from temporal lobe brain damage. Subjects were either asked to respond as to whether the stimuli were congruent, incongruent or non-sensical (semantic incongruency) or as to whether they were 'new' or 'old' (recognition memory). The number of correct responses and the reaction time were both measured. ERPs were recorded using an electrode cap which consisted of 16-channel scalp electrode montage (an enhanced international 10/20 electrode placement system) with linked mastoids as reference electrodes. Data was acquired and analysed using Neuroscan signal averaging and mapping software.
In all the experimental conditions studied the tasks were performed accurately but reaction time was significantly longer for the incongruent stimuli. The same occurred for 'new' items as opposed to 'old' items. In the ERP recordings the N400 and P600 components were independent. The N400 peak was recorded maximally over the frontal locations while the P600 was mainly a parietal component. Differences were observed in their latency, amplitude and spatial distribution within the various test conditions.</p
... Kounios & Holcomb, 1994;Holcomb, Kounios, Anderson & West, 1999;Amsel, 2011;Rabovsky, Sommer & Abdel Rahman, 2012), and when they have more overlapping orthographic neighbors (core > kiwi; Holcomb, Grainger & O'Rouke, 2002;Laszlo & Federmeier, 2007;Laszlo & Federmeier, 2011;Laszlo & Federmeier, 2014). In addition, the N400 is also modulated in simple priming tasks: Repeated target words (e.g., nursenurse; Rugg, 1985;Misra & Holcomb, 2003) and semantically related target words (e.g., doctor -nurse, Bentin, McCarthy &Wood, 1985;Rugg, 1985;Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb & Neville, 1990) produce smaller N400 responses than target words that are unrelated to their preceding primes (e.g., taco -nurse). ...
... In addition to these lexical effects, Cheyette and Plaut also extended Laszlo & Armstrong (2014)'s "neural fatigue" approach (albeit using a slightly different activity-dependent decay function) to simulate both repetition priming and semantic priming effects on the N400 (e.g. Bentin, McCarthy &Wood, 1985;Rugg, 1985;Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb & Neville, 1990). They distinguished between two types of semantic priming effects: semantic feature priming in which the prime and target share semantic features but are not necessarily associated, and semantic associative priming in which the prime and target co-occur in the same contexts, even when they share few semantic features (see Moss, Ostrin, Tyler & Marslen-Wilson, 1995 for a discussion of this distinction). ...
... Rugg, 1985), we were also able to simulate semantic priming (cf. Bentin, McCarthy &Wood, 1985;Rugg, 1985;Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb & Neville, 1990) because semantic features were sometimes shared between words (e.g., the semantic feature, <is-plant> is shared by the lexical items, lime and corn). As expected, primed target words elicited smaller lexico-semantic prediction errors than unprimed targets. ...
The N400 event-related brain potential is elicited by each word in a sentence and offers an important window into the mechanisms of real-time language comprehension. Since the 1980s, studies investigating the N400 have expanded our understanding of how bottom-up linguistic inputs interact with top-down contextual constraints. More recently, a growing body of computational modeling research has aimed to formalize theoretical accounts of the N400 to better understand the neural and functional basis of this component. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of this literature. We discuss “word-level” models that focus on the N400’s sensitivity to lexical factors and simple priming manipulations, as well as more recent sentence-level models that explain its sensitivity to broader context. We discuss each model's insights and limitations in relation to a set of cognitive and biological constraints that have informed our understanding of language comprehension and the N400 over the past few decades. We then review a novel computational model of the N400 that is based on the principles of predictive coding, which can accurately simulate both word-level and sentence-level phenomena. In this predictive coding account, the N400 is conceptualized as the magnitude of lexico-semantic prediction error produced by incoming words during the process of inferring their meaning. Finally, we highlight important directions for future research, including a discussion of how these computational models can be expanded to explain language-related ERP effects outside the N400 time window, and variation in N400 modulation across different populations.
... There was no semantic congruency effect in either the early N400 or any LPC time windows. This result was consistent with the previous finding that LPC only occurred in task-relevant or attentional conditions, in which participants were explicitly required to focus on semantic processing (Holcomb 1988;Gevins et al. 1997;Kuperberg 2007). Moreover, a direct comparison between the Semantic and the Font-size task in the late N400 time window showed that the magnitude of the N400 effect was larger in the Semantic task (P = 0.006), which was a result of a less negative N400 amplitude to the semantically congruent sentences in the Semantic task (P = 0.002), while there was no significant difference for the semantically incongruent sentences. ...
... In line with many previous findings, we found that participants still processed semantic information even when they were instructed to focus on other aspects of the stimuli (e.g., font size). However, they processed semantic information to a shallower degree as indexed by a relatively delayed and smaller N400 effect in the Font-size task (Holcomb 1988;Brown and Hagoort 1993;Chwilla et al. 1995;Brown et al. 2000). In the following sections, we examine the modulation effects of MPH in the Semantic and the Font-size tasks separately. ...
... This is the first study demonstrating a clear neuropharmacological effect of MPH on semantic processing during sentence comprehension in a healthy population. Results from the current study confirmed that semantic incongruency always elicits an N400 effect irrespective of task requirements or drug administration, which demonstrated the automaticity of semantic processing (Holcomb 1988;Deacon and Shelley-Tremblay 2000;Küper and Heil 2009). The main novelty of the current finding is that MPH affects language processing in a task-dependent manner: MPH "attenuated" the N400 effect when semantic processing was task-relevant but "elevated" the N400 effect when semantic processing was task-irrelevant. ...
Catecholamine (CA) function has been widely implicated in cognitive functions that are tied to the prefrontal cortex and striatal areas. The present study investigated the effects of methylphenidate, which is a CA agonist, on the electroencephalogram (EEG) response related to semantic processing using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, crossover, within-subject design. Forty-eight healthy participants read semantically congruent or incongruent sentences after receiving 20-mg methylphenidate or a placebo while their brain activity was monitored with EEG. To probe whether the catecholaminergic modulation is task-dependent, in one condition participants had to focus on comprehending the sentences, while in the other condition, they only had to attend to the font size of the sentence. The results demonstrate that methylphenidate has a task-dependent effect on semantic processing. Compared to placebo, when semantic processing was task-irrelevant, methylphenidate enhanced the detection of semantic incongruence as indexed by a larger N400 amplitude in the incongruent sentences; when semantic processing was task-relevant, methylphenidate induced a larger N400 amplitude in the semantically congruent condition, which was followed by a larger late positive complex effect. These results suggest that CA-related neurotransmitters influence language processing, possibly through the projections between the prefrontal cortex and the striatum, which contain many CA receptors.
... Specifically, neutral items elicited a fronto-centrally distributed negative-going deflection, peaking around 400 msec, that was approximately 3/tV greater than the deflection elicited by negative words. One possibility is that this effect reflects the modulation of one or more of the generators of the 'N400', an ERP component well known for its sensitivity to semantic relatedness and association (Kutas and Hillyard, 1980;Rugg, 1985;Bentin, McCarthy and Wood, 1985;Holcomb, 1988). According to this hypothesis, the high level of inter-item association between members of the negatively valenced word set meant that these items tended to prime one another semantically, leading to an attenuation of N400 in a fashion similar to that seen in studies of semantic priming (e.g. ...
... According to this hypothesis, the high level of inter-item association between members of the negatively valenced word set meant that these items tended to prime one another semantically, leading to an attenuation of N400 in a fashion similar to that seen in studies of semantic priming (e.g. Rugg, 1985;Holcomb, 1988). To the extent that this account is correct, it underscores the differences that exist with respect to semantic 'cohesiveness' between otherwise unselected sets of emotionally negative and neutral words. ...
... Effects which are independent of either familiarity-driven processing or post-retrieval strategic processing adopted by the participants should be less affected by the test format and differences in the strategic processing adopted by the participant. The same attenuation of the N400 component for negative items is predicted since the high-level of inter-item association between negatively valenced word sets should still entail that these items prime one another semantically (see discussion of experiment 1, also Kutas and Hillyard, 1983;Holcomb, 1988). Similarly, when items were randomly mixed, the reduced left parietal effect for such items was proposed to reflect the capacity of new negative items to elicit spurious or 'illusory' episodic memory. ...
The neural correlates of emotional episodic memory are investigated in a series of neuroimaging experiments (ERP, fMRI) through the comparison of memory effects elicited during retrieval of emotional relative to neutral information. In the first two ERP studies, it is revealed that emotionally-valenced words influence recognition memory primarily by virtue of their high levels of 'semantic-cohesiveness'. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the arrangement of emotional and neutral retrieval cues at test (blocked versus intermixed) influences processing carried out upon retrieved emotional episodic information. The findings across the third and fourth ERP studies indicate that incidental retrieval of emotional context (encoding environment) gives rise to greater activity in neural systems supporting episodic retrieval than does retrieval of non-emotional context. When context retrieval is intentional, by contrast, emotional and non-emotional episodic memory are associated with equivalent levels of engagement. The findings of the fourth ERP study are consistent with the existence of additional neural circuitry that is activated selectively by emotionally toned episodic information. In a final event-related fMRI study it is revealed that the retrieval of emotionally negative relative to emotionally neutral context elicits enhanced activity in brain regions including prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus and retrosplenial cortex. Recognition of words from positive relative to neutral contexts is associated with increased activity in prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex, and in the left anterior temporal lobe. The fMRI findings provide further support for the proposal that the incidental retrieval of emotional information enhances activity in networks supporting episodic retrieval of neutral information. In addition, the fMRI findings suggest that regions known to be activated when emotional information is encountered in the environment are also active when emotional information is retrieved from memory. Whilst the findings are noteworthy in their own right, they also have implications for future studies of emotional memory. It is proposed that the employment of paradigms which involve the retrieval of emotional context through presentation of non-emotional retrieval cues may offer advantages over paradigms wherein the retrieval cues themselves are emotional.
... We compared the performance of the three classification methods using EEG data from two visual word priming experiments conducted in our laboratories (Experiment 1, Brothers et al., 2016 ; Experiment 2, Kappenman et al., 2021 ). In these studies, we examined the effects of prediction and semantic relatedness on a well-established event-related potential (ERP), the N400, which reflects facilitation of word processing in supportive contexts (e.g., Bentin et al., 1993 ;Chwilla et al., 1995 ;Holcomb;1988 ; Delaney-Bush et al., 2019 ;Lau et al., 2013 ; see Swaab et al., 2012 ). In both studies, participants read related (e.g., circus -clown) and unrelated (e.g., napkin -clown) word pairs. ...
... We compared the performance of the three classification methods using EEG data from two visual word priming experiments conducted in our laboratories (Experiment 1, Brothers et al., 2016 ; Experiment 2, Kappenman et al., 2021 ). In these studies, we examined the effects of prediction and semantic relatedness on a well-established event-related potential (ERP), the N400, which reflects facilitation of word processing in supportive contexts (e.g., Bentin et al., 1993 ;Chwilla et al., 1995 ;Holcomb;1988 ; Delaney-Bush et al., 2019 ;Lau et al., 2013 ; see Swaab et al., 2012 ). In both studies, participants read related (e.g., circus -clown) and unrelated (e.g., napkin -clown) word pairs. ...
Machine-learning (ML) decoding methods have become a valuable tool for analyzing information represented in electroencephalogram (EEG) data. However, a systematic quantitative comparison of the performance of major ML classifiers for the decoding of EEG data in neuroscience studies of cognition is lacking. Using EEG data from two visual word-priming experiments examining well-established N400 effects of prediction and semantic relatedness, we compared the performance of three major ML classifiers that each use different algorithms: support vector machine (SVM), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and random forest (RF). We separately assessed the performance of each classifier in each experiment using EEG data averaged over cross-validation blocks and using single-trial EEG data by comparing them with analyses of raw decoding accuracy, effect size, and feature importance weights. The results of these analyses demonstrated that SVM outperformed the other ML methods on all measures and in both experiments.
... At the critical word, we observed that, at least for frontal gestures, the processing of words primed by incongruent gestures elicited a classic N400 effect in terms of both latency and scalp distribution (Holcomb, 1988;Kutas & Hillyard, 1984). In addition, this N400 effect was modulated when participants integrate the critical word to laterally presented gesture primes. ...
... This finding, to our knowledge, is a first report showing that body orientation, or potentially socialcommunicative aspects of gestures, may interfere with the semantic interaction between gesture and language. Gestures, like word primes (Holcomb, 1988), semantically predict an upcoming event as described in the target sentences. At the critical word when this semantic prediction is verified/violated, one should have observed an N400 effect upon semantic incongruency, as observed in the frontal gesture condition. ...
Body orientation of gesture entails social-communicative intention, and may thus influence how gestures are perceived and comprehended together with auditory speech during face-to-face communication. To date, despite the emergence of neuro-scientific literature on the role of body orientation on hand action perception, limited studies have directly investigated the role of body orientation in the interaction between gesture and language. To address this research question, we carried out an electroencephalography (EEG) experiment presenting to participants (n = 21) videos of frontal and lateral communicative hand gestures of 5 s (e.g., raising a hand), followed by visually presented sentences that are either congruent or incongruent with the gesture (e.g., "the mountain is high/low…"). Participants underwent a semantic probe task, judging whether a target word is related or unrelated to the gesture-sentence event. EEG results suggest that, during the perception phase of handgestures, while both frontal and lateral gestures elicited a power decrease in both the alpha (8-12 Hz) and the beta (16-24 Hz) bands, lateral versus frontal gestures elicited reduced power decrease in the beta band, source-located to the medial prefrontal cortex. For sentence comprehension , at the critical word whose meaning is congruent/incongruent with the gesture prime, frontal gestures elicited an N400 effect for gesture-sentence incongruency. More importantly, this incongruency effect was significantly reduced for lateral gestures. These findings suggest that body orientation plays an important role in gesture perception, and that its inferred social-communicative intention may influence gesture-language interaction at semantic level.
... While several pieces of evidence indeed point to a role for violated predictions (DeLong & Kutas, 2020;Kuperberg, Brothers, & Wlotko, 2020;Lau, Holcomb, & Kuperberg, 2013), other empirical results are more naturally explained by a hypothesis in terms of the amount of lexical activation. For example, the observation that semantic priming reduces the N400 was first taken to indicate that overlapping semantic features would reduce processing of the primed word, leading to a lower N400 (Holcomb, 1988;Lau, Holcomb, & Kuperberg, 2013). Moreover, an unpredictable word that is semantically related to context words produces a smaller N400 than a similarly unpredicted word not related to the context (DeLong & Kutas, 2020) This again suggests that the N400 is sensitive to whether a word activates semantic features not yet activated by the context. ...
Research into reading has benefitted from the emergence of powerful computational models that account for reading behavior at different levels. Such models become more powerful when the underlying anatomy, architecture or ‘physiology’ can be linked to the behavior of interest. OB1-reader is a reading model that simulates the processes underlying reading in the human brain. Previous studies showed that OB1-reader can account for various phenomena in the word recognition and text reading literatures. Here we aim to extend OB1’s scope, by simulating behavioral performance and evoked EEG activity for two experimental word-recognition tasks: a flanker task in which unrelated flankers generated less accurate responses combined with a larger N400, and a sentence reading task in which words were recognized more accurately at central positions and within intact sentences, than at peripheral positions and in scrambled sentences. OB1 simulated several behavioral findings in both paradigms, including the so-called sentence superiority effect. Moreover, virtual event-related potentials (ERPs) generated from node activity in OB1 were compared to human ERPs. More lexical activity in OB1 predicted the size of the N400 component of human readers in both experiments, but not the N250.
... limelime vs. flowlime: Rugg, 1985;Misra & Holcomb, 2003) and smaller to semantically related than unrelated targets in semantic priming paradigms (e.g. sourlime vs. flowlime: Bentin et al., 1985;Rugg, 1985;Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb & Neville, 1990). Additionally, several studies have shown that the repetition priming effect is larger than the semantic priming effect (Deacon, Dynowska, Ritter, & Grose-Fifer, 2004;Rugg, 1985). ...
... Several results in the literature indicate that N400 amplitude is modulated by semantic association or relationship within word pairs, with smaller N400s in response to related as opposed to unrelated targets (Bentin et al., 1985;Besson, Fischler, et al., 1992;Boddy, 1986;Brown & Hagoort, 1993;Fischler, Bloom, Childers, Roucos, & Perry, 1983;Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb & Neville, 1990;Kutas & Hillyard, 1989). Furthermore, showed that the N400 to sentence endings is not only sensitive to a word's expectancy but also to semantic relations. ...
Event-related potential (ERP) and cued-recall performance were used to investigate the influence of (a) context, (b) repeating a word's meaning to word repetition priming, and (c) repetition on the ERP difference related to memory (Dm). Sentences ended with either nonhomographs or homographs. For nonhomographs, either the sentence context, the final word, both, or neither were repeated. Homographs were repeated in their original context or in new sentences that biased the same or an alternative meaning. Large repetition effects were found for all words repeated in their original contexts; in contrast, changing contexts led to no repetition effects whether the meaning of the repeated words was preserved or not. These results favor an episodic contribution to word repetition priming and suggest a common process for Dm and repetition.
... Instead, the more fine-grained trial-approach reduced N400 when targets follow associatively related primes (e.g., salt-pepper) compared to unrelated primes. This effect was stronger in trial blocks with 50% related trials than in blocks with only 10% related trials, suggesting a relatedness proportion effect in semantic priming which has often been reported in behavioral measures (e.g., Hutchison, 2007; see also Brown, Hagoort & Chwilla, 2000;Holcomb, 1988). Such a pattern demonstrates adaptation albeit not necessarily rational adaptation. ...
... That is, these learners are expected to overuse the (instead of a) in the indefinite specific context. Second, in an SPRT and based on studies on the event-related potentials (ERPs) of semantic anomalies (Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb & Neville, 1990;Kutas & Hillyard, 1980, 1984, 1989Rugg, 1985Rugg, , 1987, a semantic mismatch between the article and its context is expected to slow processing, yielding longer latencies. Therefore, the use of a or the in an incongruent context would require longer processing time. ...
Purpose. This study explores the processing of English articles by native speakers of Hejazi Arabic, a language with articles. The research aims to answer the question of whether offline (explicit) knowledge of specificity in English article choice mirrors online (implicit) knowledge. Existing research has found that Hejazi-Arabic learners of English misuse articles in the indefinite specific context when answering a written task; however, their performance is target-like in all other contexts of article use, which indicates that their production may be sensitive to specificity, similar to the production of learners from languages that do not include articles. Little has been done, though, to explore this phenomenon using online measures. Methods. To answer the research question, 68 speakers of Hejazi-Arabic were recruited alongside 23 native English speakers. The participants and native English speakers completed an article elicitation task and self-paced reading task. Results. The results of the article elicitation task show learners’ overuse of the in the indefinite specific context, which is consistent with the findings of existing research. Similarly, the real-time processing results indicate that there is a wider gap in reaction times between natives and L2 learners in the indefinite specific context, suggesting that learners’ online performance is not on target in this context. Conclusion. The study concludes that Hejazi Arabic speakers’ online knowledge of English articles show some resemblance to their offline knowledge. Theoretical implications and methodological issues are also discussed.
... Single words that are preceded by a prime word that is relevant to the target are processed more quickly and correctly than targets that are preceded by a prime word that is not relevant to the target (Meyer & Schaveneveldt, 1971;Neely, 1991). Both behavioural tests (for example, quicker naming and lexical judgements) and ERP investigations have shown this to be the case (Bentin, McCarthy, & Wood, 1985;Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb & Neville, 1990;Kutas & Hillyard, 1989;Swaab, Baynes, & Knight, 2002). Studies of event-related potentials (ERPs) have shown that associative priming has an influence on the N400 (lower amplitude) and on the late positive complex (LPC). ...
The current research looked at how relatedness affected the length of a fixation and the size of a saccade during a word recognition test. Twenty individuals had their eyes tracked while they were shown related and irrelevant word pairings. The findings revealed that whereas saccade amplitude did not substantially change across conditions, fixation length was considerably longer for related words compared to unrelated terms. These results imply that processing linked words cognitively can demand greater attentional resources, leading to longer fixation times. Future research implications and directions are suggested.
... limelime vs. flowlime: Rugg, 1985;Misra & Holcomb, 2003) and smaller to semantically related than unrelated targets in semantic priming paradigms (e.g. sourlime vs. flowlime: Bentin, McCarthy &Wood, 1985;Rugg, 1985;Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb & Neville, 1990). Additionally, several studies have shown that the repetition priming effect is larger than the semantic priming effect (Rugg, 1985;Deacon, Dynowska, Ritter & 2 The scalp distribution of the semantic richness/concreteness effect on the N400 is more frontal than the classic centroparietal N400 effect. ...
The N400 event-related component has been widely used to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying real-time language comprehension. However, despite decades of research, there is still no unifying theory that can explain both its temporal dynamics and functional properties. In this work, we show that predictive coding – a biologically plausible algorithm for approximating Bayesian inference – offers a promising framework for characterizing the N400. Using an implemented predictive coding computational model, we demonstrate how the N400 can be formalized as the lexico-semantic prediction error produced as the brain infers meaning from linguistic form of incoming words. We show that the magnitude of lexico-semantic prediction error mirrors the functional sensitivity of the N400 to various lexical variables, priming, contextual effects, as well as their higher-order interactions. We further show that the dynamics of the predictive coding algorithm provide a natural explanation for the temporal dynamics of the N400, and a biologically plausible link to neural activity. Together, these findings directly situate the N400 within the broader context of predictive coding research, and suggest that the brain may use the same computational mechanism for inference across linguistic and non-linguistic domains.
... A number of investigators have suggested the brain activity underlying the N400 reflects both predictive preactivation and contextual semantic similarity. Some of these suggest that the contextual semantic similarity system operates by default, and the predictive system is engaged under conditions of increased attention (Federmeier, 2021), or when predictions are more likely to be successful, as when a high proportion of word pairs are semantically related (Holcomb, 1988;Lau et al., 2013). Some studies have shown that conditions that foster prediction result in N400 effects with an earlier onset latency than Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/nol/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/nol_a_00105/2078560/nol_a_00105.pdf by guest on 08 April 2023 conditions that do not, such as those with little time between words (Anderson & Holcomb, 1995;Luka & Van Petten, 2014), or a small proportion of related word pairs (Lau et al., 2013). ...
Theoretical accounts of the N400 are divided as to whether the amplitude of the N400 response to a stimulus reflects the extent to which the stimulus was predicted, the extent to which the stimulus is semantically similar to its preceding context, or both. We use state-of-the-art machine learning tools to investigate which of these three accounts is best supported by the evidence. GPT-3, a neural language model (LM) trained to compute the conditional probability of any word based on the words that precede it, was used to operationalize contextual predictability. In particular, we used an information theoretical construct known as surprisal (the negative logarithm of the conditional probability). Contextual semantic similarity was operationalized by using two high-quality co-occurrence-derived vector-based meaning representations for words: GloVe and fastText. The cosine between the vector representation of the sentence frame and final word was used to derive Contextual Cosine Similarity (CCS) estimates. A series of regression models were constructed, where these variables, along with cloze probability and plausibility ratings, were used to predict single trial N400 amplitudes recorded from healthy adults as they read sentences whose final word varied in its predictability, plausibility, and semantic relationship to the likeliest sentence completion. Statistical model comparison indicated GPT-3 surprisal provided the best account of N400 amplitude and suggested that apparently disparate N400 effects of expectancy, plausibility and contextual semantic similarity can be reduced to variations in the predictability of words. The results are argued to support predictive coding in the human language network.
... Within final sentences alone, canonical critical words were more similar to their contexts than noncanonical words, but when we include the full story context, it is the noncanonical critical words that are more similar to their contexts. It is already well-established that the amplitude of the N400 to a given word is reduced when it is semantically related to a previously-seen word (Bentin, McCarthy, & Wood, 1985;Rugg, 1985;Van Petten & Kutas, 1988;Kutas & Hillyard, 1989;Holcomb, 1988;Kutas, 1993;Lau, Holcomb, & Kuperberg, 2013). Overall, then, our results show that in principle, it is possible that the pattern in the N400 responses reported by Nieuwland and van Berkum (2006) may not rely on situation models or even event-level priming, but rather reflect some form of lexical priming. ...
The context in which a sentence appears can drastically alter our expectations about upcoming words - for example, following a short story involving an anthropomorphic peanut, experimental participants are more likely to expect the sentence 'the peanut was in love' than 'the peanut was salted', as indexed by N400 amplitude (Nieuwland & van Berkum, 2006). This rapid and dynamic updating of comprehenders' expectations about the kind of events that a peanut may take part in based on context has been explained using the construct of Situation Models - updated mental representations of key elements of an event under discussion, in this case, the peanut protagonist. However, recent work showing that N400 amplitude can be predicted based on distributional information alone raises the question whether situation models are in fact necessary for the kinds of contextual effects observed in previous work. To investigate this question, we attempt to model the results of Nieuwland and van Berkum (2006) using six computational language models and three sets of word vectors, none of which have explicit situation models or semantic grounding. We find that the effect found by Nieuwland and van Berkum (2006) can be fully modeled by two language models and two sets of word vectors, with others showing a reduced effect. Thus, at least some processing effects normally explained through situation models may not in fact require explicit situation models.
... The findings of this signal have been used to identify the emergence of literacy by measuring the variations in neuronal activity as a function of literacy training in children (Maurer et al., 2006;Romanovska et al., 2022). In addition to the analysis of auditory and visual processing, electrophysiological investigations have determined that ERP signals near 400 ms post stimulus correlate with semantic evaluation (Deacon et al., 2000;Gomes et al., 1997;Holcomb, 1988;Kutas & Hillyard, 1984;Morgan et al., 2020). Furthermore, fMRI studies have identified the location of neuronal networks involved in reading. ...
Objectives
Brain imaging techniques have broadened our understanding of structural and functional properties of neuronal networks in children with developmental disabilities. The present work examines current models of neuronal response properties implicated in dyslexia and reading difficulties.
Methods
This review analyzes the use of functional techniques (fMRI and EEG) employed in the assessment of neuronal markers associated with reading ability.
Results
Neuro-imaging studies have provided evidence of neuronal networks involved in the emergence of reading fluency. Using this information, it is now possible to employ physiological assessments in the screening of reading ability before behavioral evaluations can be conducted.
Conclusions
Analyses of neuro-imaging studies show that abnormal neuronal activation in specific brain areas can be used to help identify reading impairments in children. These neuronal assessments permit earlier identification of dyslexia than those requiring behavioral assessments.
... Although the widespread N400 reduction across the two blocks of the non-learning condition was somewhat unexpected, we may speculate that this effect was mediated by a reduced allocation of attentional resources to the pictures that could not be associated with a specific word over time. Such an interpretation can be deduced from previous studies showing an inverse relationship between N400 amplitudes and attentional engagement (Deacon and Shelley-Tremblay, 2000;Holcomb, 1988;Okita and Jibu, 1998), and would also make sense in light of the finding that attention during semantic encoding facilitates the binding of events to the context in which they occurred (Cowan, 1995;Okita and Jibu, 1998;Otten, 1996). Since in the non-learning condition the binding between pictures and words was not possible, the participants possibly focused less attention on the figural representations, resulting in a general depression of the N400 component along the entire anteriorposterior topographical axis. ...
Human beings continuously make use of learned associations to generate predictions about future occurrences in the environment. Such memory-related predictive processes provide a scaffold for learning in that mental representations of foreseeable events can be adjusted or strengthened based on a specific outcome. Learning the meaning of novel words through picture-word associations constitutes a prime example of associative learning because pictures preceding words can trigger word prediction through the pre-activation of the related mnemonic representations. In the present electroencephalography (EEG) study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to compare neural indices of word pre-activation between a word learning condition with maximal prediction likelihood and a non-learning control condition with low prediction. Results revealed that prediction-related N400 amplitudes in response to pictures decreased over time at central electrodes as a function of word learning, whereas late positive component (LPC) amplitudes increased. Notably, N400 but not LPC changes were also predictive of word learning performance, suggesting that the N400 component constitutes a sensitive marker of word pre-activation during associative word learning.
... It is made available under a preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in The copyright holder for this this version posted https://doi.org/10.1101https://doi.org/10. /2022 4 word but also on the experimental setup, in this case the proportion of valid primes in the design (Brown et al., 2000;Holcomb, 1988;Lau et al., 2012). Specifically, Lau and colleagues (2012) demonstrated that changes in predictive validity modulated the N400 amplitude for highly predictable word pairs. ...
Words are not processed in isolation, instead they are commonly embedded in phrases and sentences. The sentential context influences the perception and processing of a word. However, how this is achieved by brain processes and whether predictive mechanisms underlie this process remains a debated topic. To this end we employed an experimental paradigm in which we orthogonalized sentence context constraints and predictive validity, which was defined as the ratio of congruent to incongruent sentence endings within the experiment. While recording electroencephalography, participants read sentences with three levels of sentential context constraints (high, medium and low). Participants were also separated into two groups, which differed in their ratio of valid congruent to incongruent target words that could be predicted from the sentential context. For both groups we investigated modulations of alpha power before, and N400 amplitude modulations after target word onset. The results reveal that the N400 amplitude gradually decreases with higher context constraints. Contrary, alpha power is non-monotonically influenced, displaying the strongest decrease for high context constraints over frontal electrode sites, while alpha power between medium and low context constraints does not differ. This indicates that both neural correlates are influenced by the degree of context constraint but are not affected by changes in predictive validity. The results therefore suggest that both N400 and alpha power are not unequivocally linked to the predictability of a target word based on larger contextual information.
... However, given that the results of cluster-based permutation tests are quite precise and reported to the millisecond, interpretations on temporal, spatial, and frequency precision should rather be considered approximately and not in absolute (Sassenhagen & Draschkow, 2019), and these interpretations should be taken with caution. In comparing the differences of these effects, it is important to capture the functional interpretation of the N400 beyond spreading activation (Holcomb, 1988;Kiefer, 2002;Lau et al., 2008) and semantic integration (Bentin et al., 1993(Bentin et al., , 1995Kutas & Federmeier, 2011). Other functional interpretations of the N400 include features such as predictability (semanticlevel), plausibility (sentence-level), and similarity (low-level semantic relationship based on co-occurrence) (Nieuwland et al., 2020). ...
Despite humans’ ability to communicate about concepts relating to different senses, word learning research tends to largely focus on labeling visual objects. Although sensory modality is known to influence memory and learning, its specific role for word learning remains largely unclear. We investigated associative word learning in adults, that is the association of an object with its label, by means of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). We evaluated how learning is affected by object modality (auditory vs. visual) and temporal synchrony of object-label presentations (sequential vs. simultaneous). Across 4 experiments, adults were, in training phases, presented either visual objects (real-world images) or auditory objects (environmental sounds) in temporal synchrony with or followed by novel pseudowords (2 x 2 design). Objects and pseudowords were paired either in a consistent or an inconsistent manner. In subsequent testing phases, the consistent pairs were presented in matching or violated pairings. Here, behavioral and ERP responses should reveal whether consistent object-pseudoword pairs had been successfully associated with one another during training. The visual-object experiments yielded behavioral learning effects and an increased N400 amplitude for violated vs. matched pairings indicating short-term retention of object-word associations, in both the simultaneous and sequential presentation conditions. For the auditory-object experiments, only the simultaneous, but not the sequential presentation, revealed similar results. Across all experiments, we found behavioral and ERP correlates of associative word learning to be affected by both sensory modality and partly, by temporal synchrony of object-label combinations. Based on our findings, we argue for independent advantages of temporal synchrony and visual modality in associative word learning.
... Although the stimuli composed of facial expressions, compared with negative emotions such as fear, the positive emotions of the peripheral multiple faces may have had broader positive semantic information than the central target positive face. N400 is sensitive to semantic information and has the character of automatic processing (Holcomb, 1988;Kiefer, 2002;Wang et al., 2012). Therefore, automatic processing of emotional differences in multiple faces in 480-520 ms could be interpreted as the automatic processing of the semantic emotions of multiple faces. ...
The rapid detection of changes in facial expressions is an important social and survival skill. The detection of multiple facial emotions includes not only the information of emotional valence but also differences in emotional valence, that is, emotional valence consistency and inconsistency. Thus, we explored whether changes in multiple facial expressions could be automatically detected, as indexed by the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) response. Participants were presented with a set of facial stimuli while performing a visual facial identity detection task; the stimulus was presented in the center of the visual field. The facial stimuli set consisted of five different facial identities and were presented in an oddball sequence, with four peripherally expressing the same positive or negative emotion and one in the center expressing congruent or incongruent emotions. We found vMMN responses to changes in positive congruent deviant emotions between 210 and 320 ms and in all deviant emotions between 480 and 560 ms over bilateral temporal-occipital sites. In addition, at 480–520 ms, the positive congruent stimulus versus the incongruent stimulus and the negative incongruent stimulus versus the congruent stimulus induced more negative vMMN amplitude in the left temporal-occipital electrodes. This shows that individuals can automatically identify the changes in multiple faces’ emotional differences (emotional valence inconsistency), and that the emotional valence of the target face affects the automatic processing of multi-face emotional valence differences information. Furthermore, these results can be utilized in future research investigating automatic processing mechanisms.
... This suggests that the locus of the effect may be different and that it is not simply because aspects of consistent words are processed more quickly or easily than inconsistent words. Such differences have not typically been reported in semantic priming studies with adults using EEG 38,39,44 , and we would also not have found significant differences had we not manipulated the spelling-sound consistency of the target words. ...
The speed at which semantics is accessed by words with consistent (simple) and inconsistent (difficult) spelling–sound correspondences can be used to test predictions of models of reading aloud. Dual-route models that use a word-form lexicon predict consistent words may access semantics before inconsistent words. The Triangle model, alternatively, uses only a semantic system and no lexicons. It predicts inconsistent words may access semantics before consistent words, at least for some readers. We tested this by examining event-related potentials in a semantic priming task using consistent and inconsistent target words with either unrelated/related or unrelated/nonword primes. The unrelated/related primes elicited an early effect of priming on the N1 with consistent words. This result supports dual-route models but not the Triangle model. Correlations between the size of early priming effects between the two prime groups with inconsistent words were also very weak, suggesting early semantic effects with inconsistent words were not predictable by individual differences. Alternatively, there was a moderate strength correlation between the size of the priming effect with consistent and inconsistent words in the related/unrelated prime group on the N400. This offers a possible locus of individual differences in semantic processing that has not been previously reported.
... conscious interpretation) are processed within 200 to 600 milliseconds of exposure (1 second = 1,000 milliseconds); however, when interpretation of the meaning of a word is required, the time is extended to between 750 to 1150 milliseconds 44 . The priming of meaning and interpretation shows us that a person's response to a word, phrase, or statement begins before that person is conscious of it and is shaped by both nonconscious and conscious processes. ...
The purpose of this paper is to examine the psychographic method against current research and theory in social psychology, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. The paper considers the psychographic method against research on language processing and language processing outside of conscious awareness. The paper also examines the lack of precision in the assessment of psychological attributes. It also considers issues around self-referential processing, the meaning of actions, linguistic context, mental frames, personality, and the application of cluster analysis in psychographic segmentation. In the end, this review supports a framework for redefining the psychographic method and justifying its broader application beyond its original discipline. The paper closes by offering a new definition of the psychographic method along with recommendations for improving its use.
... P3: Amplitude of this wave has been reported to be related to sensitivity to the event expectancy, and decision making regarding to the importance of stimulus. Latency and amplitude of this wave is associated with cognitive performance skills [35]. ...
Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) onset in childhood and its symptoms can last up till adulthood. Recently, electroencephalography (EEG) has emerged as a tool to investigate the neurophysiological connection of ADHD and the brain. In this study, we investigated the differentiation of attention process of healthy subjects with or without ADHD symptoms under visual continuous performance test (VCPT). In our experiments, artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm achieved 98.4% classification accuracy with 0.98 sensitivity when P2 event related potential (ERP) was used. Additionally, our experimental results showed that fronto-central channels were the most contributing. Overall, we conclude that the attention process of adults with or without ADHD symptoms become a key feature to separate individuals especially in fronto-central regions under VCPT condition. In addition, using P2 ERP component under VCPT task can be a highly accurate approach to investigate EEG signal differentiation on ADHD-symptomatic adults.
... As far as we know, no experimental study has directly tested this hypothesis in the context of syntactic priming. Studies on lexical priming, however, have shown that drawing participants' attention to the relatedness between primes and targets, either explicitly (Holcomb, 1988) or implicitly by manipulating the proportion of semantically associated prime-target pairs (Lau et al., 2013), can increase the degree to which the prime affects the processing of the target. Similarly, Brothers et al. (2017) demonstrated that effects of lexical prediction during sentence processing were enhanced when participants were explicitly instructed to try and predict the last word of a passage, as well as when the overall validity of predictive cues across the experiment was increased. ...
... The difference in the N400 amplitude in different semantic priming conditions is referred to as the N400 priming effect, and it can occur even in the absence of response time (RT) priming effect (Chwilla & Kolk, 2003;Chwilla et al., 2000), suggesting a higher sensitivity. Many studies using a semantic priming paradigm have shown a relationship between the N400 amplitude and the strength of prime-target associative relatedness (Bentin et al., 1985;Holcomb, 1988;Rugg, 1985). ...
Categorization-whether of objects, ideas, or events-is a cognitive process that is essential for human thinking, reasoning, and making sense of everyday experiences. Categorization abilities are typically measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) similarity subtest, which consists of naming the shared category of two items (e.g., 'How are beer and coffee alike'). Previous studies show that categorization, as measured by similarity tasks, requires executive control functions. However, other theories and studies indicate that semantic memory is organized into taxonomic and thematic categories that can be activated implicitly in semantic priming tasks. To explore whether categories can be primed during a similarity task, we developed a double semantic priming paradigm. We measured the priming effect of two primes on a target word that was taxonomically or thematically related to both primes (double priming) or only one of them (single priming). Our results show a larger and additive priming effect in the double priming condition compared to the single priming condition, as measured by both response times and, more consistently, event-related potential. Our results support the view that taxonomic and thematic categorization can occur during a double priming task and contribute to improving our knowledge on the organization of semantic memory into categories. These findings show how abstract categories can be activated, which likely shapes the way we think and interact with our environment. Our study also provides a new cognitive tool that could be useful to understand the categorization difficulties of neurological patients.
https://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/ICM/hal-03282300v1
... Within semantic integration, some view the N400 to reflect processes associated with post-lexical integration of words into the given context Baggio and Hagoort, 2011), whereas others position the component to be at the level of semantic access (Van Berkum, 2009;Thornhill and Van Petten, 2012). Nevertheless, whatever its interpretation is, it is clear that the N400 in adults indexes a broad sensitivity to lexical-semantic processing ranging from lower-level to higher contextual factors, indicating that the presence of the N400 can reflect both automatic and more controlled lexical semantic processes (Bentin, 1987;Holcomb, 1988;Kiefer, 2002;Lau et al., 2008). This makes the N400 component an ideal component to study the emerging vocabularies in infancy and factors that contribute to word learning. ...
The N400 ERP component is a direct neural index of word meaning. Studies show that the N400 component is already present in early infancy, albeit often delayed. Many researchers capitalize on this finding, using the N400 component to better understand how early language acquisition unfolds. However, variability in how researchers quantify the N400 makes it difficult to set clear predictions or build theory. Not much is known about how the N400 component develops in the first 2 years of life in terms of its latency and topographical distributions, nor do we know how task parameters affect its appearance. In the current paper we carry out a systematic review, comparing over 30 studies that report the N400 component as a proxy of semantic processing elicited in infants between 0 and 24 months old who listened to linguistic stimuli. Our main finding is that there is large heterogeneity across semantic-priming studies in reported characteristics of the N400, both with respect to latency and to distributions. With age, the onset of the N400 insignificantly decreases, while its offset slightly increases. We also examined whether the N400 appears different for recently-acquired novel words vs. existing words: both situations reveal heterogeneity across studies. Finally, we inspected whether the N400 was modulated differently with studies using a between-subject design. In infants with more proficient language skills the N400 was more often present or showed itself here with earlier latency, compared to their peers; but no consistent patterns were observed for distribution characteristics of the N400. One limitation of the current review is that we compared studies that widely differed in choice of EEG recordings, pre-processing steps and quantification of the N400, all of which could affect the characteristics of the infant N400. The field is still missing research that systematically tests development of the N400 using the same paradigm across infancy.
... The two main interpretations are first, spreading activation | 39 (Posner & Snyder, 1975), an automatic process where activation is forwarded from a prime (e.g., object) to associated items (e.g., the target word); and second, semantic integration, a process of relating the prime to the target in order to form a combined meaning (for a review, see Kutas & Federmeier, 2011). Although some findings report on the N400 only reflecting semantic integration (Bentin, Kutas, & Hillyard, 1993, other studies have suggested spreading activation as a likely mechanism (Holcomb, 1988;Kiefer, 2002;Lau, Phillips, & Poeppel, 2008). Hence, the presence of the N400 priming effect can be interpreted as evidence for both automatic and more controlled lexical-semantic processes. ...
The world in which we live is filled with sensory experiences. Language provides us with a manner in which to communicate these experiences with one another. In order to partake in this communication, it is necessary to acquire labels for things we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. Much is known about how we learn words for things we can see, but this bias in the literature leaves many open questions about words attributed to other modalities. This cumulative dissertation aims to close this gap by investigating how both 10- to-12-month old infants and adults map novel pseudowords onto environmental sounds in an auditory associative word learning task with the aim to explore how humans learn words for things that cannot be seen, such as thunder, siren, and, lullaby. Infants were found, via event-related potentials (ERPs), to be successful at auditory associative word learning, while adults are much stronger learners in multimodal audio-visual conditions. Across the lifespan, sensory modality was found to affect word learning differently in infants than in adults. Where infants benefitted from unimodal auditory word learning, adults were more successful in multimodal audiovisual paradigms. Furthermore, the modality of the object being labelled modulated the temporal onset and the topological distribution of the N400 ERP component of violated lexical-semantic expectation. Lastly, the temporal congruency of presented stimuli affected word learning in adults in an inverted manner to other forms of statistical learning. Word learning is sensitive to age, modality, and means of presentation, providing evidence for various intertwined learning mechanisms and bringing us a step closer towards understanding human linguistic cognition.
... The N400 is a well-studied component in ERP studies on language processing. There is extensive literature showing that a more negative N400 is observed to a target word that is semantically unrelated to the previously presented prime when compared to related prime-target pairs (e.g., Anderson & Holcomb, 1995;Holcomb, 1988;Kiefer & Spitzer, 2000;Kutas & Federmeier, 2011). Researchers have suggested that N400 either reflects automatic spreading of activation via the semantic network (e.g., Collins & Loftus, 1975;Kiefer, 2002) or the difficulty of integrating the currently retrieved word meaning into the preceding context, which is created by the preceding word in a priming paradigm (e.g., Friederici et al., 2002;Hagoort, 2007). ...
Dong et al. (2005) proposed that when an individual learns a word in a second language (L2), they link the features from the translation in their first language (L1) to that word, and as they become proficient in L2, bilinguals drop L1-specific features and add L2-specific features to their L2 conceptual representations. The present study tested this proposal with Chinese–English bilinguals using an English semantic priming task with event related potentials (ERP). Primes were animal names (owl), and targets were either related in English (WISE), in Chinese (MISFORTUNE), or were unrelated. For English monolinguals, a priming effect was observed in the P250, N400, and LPC components only for pairs related in English (owl-WISE). For bilinguals, a priming effect was observed for pairs related in Chinese (owl-MISFORTUNE) in the N400 and LPC, indicating that the bilinguals link L2 words with L1-specific features. An LPC priming effect was also found in bilinguals for pairs related in English (owl-WISE), suggesting that the bilinguals have developed new connections between L2 words and L2-specific features.
... In addition to the above-depicted sentence paradigm with congruent versus incongruent endings, similar results were obtained in experiments with word pairs (Holcomb, 1988). In both paradigms, the response to a word is regarded as a function of the background, or the context, on which the word appears (Weingarten et al., 2016). ...
The study investigated the effect of unintentional learning of semantically unrelated word pairs on event-related brain potentials. Two experiments were conducted, in whose acquisition phase participants listened to five pairs of semantically unrelated words, each pair being repeated twenty times. In the test phase of Experiment 1, these “old” pairs were presented mixed with “new” pairs containing other words. In the test phase of Experiment 2, a third condition was added in which the first word in a pair was one of the words presented during acquisition but the second word was new. In both experiments, the second word in new word pairs elicited an N400 and a late (550-1000 ms) frontal positivity. The amplitude of the N400 to new second words in Experiment 2 was significantly larger when the first word in the pair was an old (previously learnt) word, as compared with the condition in which both first and second words were new. The results indicate that, in addition to a repetition effect, unintentional learning of word pairs results in building new associations between previously unrelated words.
... Consequently, these deficits may also play a role in N400 differences. The N400 can be modulated by attention [66,67] and verbal working memory [68] in healthy participants. Thus, as for age-related N400 differences, multiple aspects of cognitive functions may contribute to the N400 differences observed in AD patients as compared to healthy elderly participants. ...
Semantic deficits are common in individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD). These deficits notably impact the ability to understand words. In healthy aging, semantic knowledge increases but semantic processing (i.e., the ability to use this knowledge) may be impaired. This systematic review aimed to investigate semantic processing in healthy aging and AD through behavioral responses and the N400 brain event-related potential. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses suggested an overall decrease in accuracy and increase in response times in healthy elderly as compared to young adults, as well as in individuals with AD as compared to age-matched controls. The influence of semantic association, as measured by N400 effect amplitudes, appears smaller in healthy aging and even more so in AD patients. Thus, semantic processing differences may occur in both healthy and pathological aging. The establishment of norms of healthy aging for these outcomes that vary between normal and pathological aging could eventually help early detection of AD.
... ; https://doi.org/10.1101/143750 doi: bioRxiv preprint example, in semantic priming paradigms, the degree of N400 attenuation on individual semantically related (versus unrelated) target words is reduced in the presence of a lower (versus a higher) proportion of semantically related word-pairs (Lau, Holcomb, & Kuperberg, 2013;Lau, Weber, Gramfort, Hämäläinen, & Kuperberg, 2014; see also Brown, Hagoort, & Chwilla, 2000;Holcomb, 1988) -a change that is captured by a Bayesian model of expectation adaptation (Delaney-Busch, Lau, Morgan, & Kuperberg, 2017). ...
The extent to which language processing involves prediction of upcoming inputs remains a question of ongoing debate. One important data point comes from DeLong et al. (2005) who reported that an N400-like event-related potential correlated with a probabilistic index of upcoming input. This result is often cited as evidence for gradient probabilistic prediction of form and/or semantics, prior to the bottom-up input becoming available. However, a recent multi-lab study reports a failure to find these effects (Nieuwland et al., 2017). We review the evidence from both studies, including differences in the design and analysis approach between them. Building on over a decade of research on prediction since DeLong et al. (2005)’s original study, we also begin to spell out the computational nature of predictive processes that one might expect to correlate with ERPs that are evoked by a functional element whose form is dependent on an upcoming predicted word. For paradigms with this type of design, we propose an index of anticipatory processing, Bayesian surprise, and apply it to the updating of semantic predictions. We motivate this index both theoretically and empirically. We show that, for studies of the type discussed here, Bayesian surprise can be closely approximated by another, more easily estimated information theoretic index, the surprisal (or Shannon information) of the input. We re-analyze the data from Nieuwland and colleagues using surprisal rather than raw probabilities as an index of prediction. We find that surprisal is gradiently correlated with the amplitude of the N400, even in the data shared by Nieuwland and colleagues. Taken together, our review suggests that the evidence from both studies is compatible with anticipatory semantic processing. We do, however, emphasize the need for future studies to further clarify the nature and degree of form prediction, as well as its neural signatures, during language comprehension.
... The well-known brain signature that indexes semantic processing is the N400 (Kutas and Federmeier, 2000;Kutas and Federmeier, 2011), an electrophysiological brain response peaking around 400 ms after word onset. This response can be elicited by a semantically uncharacteristic word embedded in a sentence (e.g., 'I take coffee with cream and dog') (Kutas and Hillyard, 1980a;Kutas and Hillyard, 1980b) or by a target word preceded by a semantically unrelated prime word (e.g., 'coffee-dog') (Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb and Neville, 1990). However, cumulative evidence suggests that semantic information can be automatically retrieved much earlier than 400 ms after word onset-namely, within the first 200 ms after the critical information necessary for word recognition has been presented (e.g., Hauk and Pulvermuller, 2004;del Prado et al., 2006;Moseley et al., 2013;. ...
The remarkable rapidity and effortlessness of speech perception and word reading by skilled listeners or readers suggest implicit or automatic mechanisms underlying language processing. In speech perception, the implicit mechanisms are reflected by the auditory mismatch negativity (MMN) response, suggesting that phonemic, lexical, semantic, and syntactic information are automatically and rapidly processed in the absence of focused attention. In visual word reading, implicit orthographic and lexical processing are reflected by visual mismatch negativity (vMMN), the visual counterpart of auditory MMN. The semantic processing of spoken words is reflected by MMN. This study investigated whether semantic processing is also reflected by vMMN. For this purpose, visual Chinese words belonging to different semantic categories (color, taste, and action) were presented to participants in oddball paradigms. A set of words belonging to the same semantic category was frequently presented as standards; a word belonging to a different semantic category was presented sporadically as deviant. Participants were instructed to perform a visual cross-change detection task and ignore the words. Significant vMMN was elicited in Experiments 1 to 3, in which the deviant word carried a semantic radical that overtly indicated the word’s semantic category information. The vMMNs were most prominent around 260 ms after word onset, were parieto-occipital distributed, and were significantly left-hemisphere lateralized, suggesting rapid semantic processing of the visual words’ category-related information. No significant vMMN was elicited in Experiment 4, in which the deviant word did not carry any semantic radicals. Thus, the semantic radical, which has a high frequency of occurrence because it is carried by many words, may be critical for the elicitation of vMMN.
... The two main interpretations are first, spreading activation (Posner and Snyder, 1975), an automatic process where activation is forwarded from a prime (e.g., object) to associated items (e.g., the target word); and second, semantic integration, a process of relating the prime to the target in order to form a combined meaning (for a review, see Kutas and Federmeier, 2011). Although some findings report on the N400 only reflecting semantic integration (Bentin et al., 1993(Bentin et al., , 1995, other studies have suggested spreading activation as a likely mechanism (Holcomb, 1988;Kiefer, 2002;Lau et al., 2008). Hence, the presence of the N400 priming effect can be interpreted as evidence for both automatic and more controlled lexical-semantic processes. ...
Despite the prominence of non-visual semantic features for some words (e.g., siren or thunder), little is known about when and how the meanings of those words that refer to auditory objects can be acquired in early infancy. With associative learning being an important mechanism of word learning, we ask the question whether associations between sounds and words lead to similar learning effects as associations between visual objects and words. In an event-related potential (ERP) study, 10- to 12-month-old infants were presented with pairs of environmental sounds and pseudowords in either a consistent (where sound-word mapping can occur) or inconsistent manner. Subsequently, the infants were presented with sound-pseudoword combinations either matching or violating the consistent pairs from the training phase. In the training phase, we observed word-form familiarity effects and pairing consistency effects for ERPs time-locked to the onset of the word. The test phase revealed N400-like effects for violated pairs as compared to matching pairs. These results indicate that associative word learning is also possible for auditory objects before infants’ first birthday. The specific temporal occurrence of the N400-like effect and topological distribution of the ERPs suggests that the object’s modality has an impact on how novel words are processed.
... De Groot, 1984), when the prime is very unlikely to be related to the target (e.g. Holcomb, 1988), and when the prime occurs during an attentional blink (Rolke, Heil, Streb & Henninghausen, 2001). In general in the word processing literature, the idea that semantic activation spreads automatically between related words {automatic spreading activation, e.g. ...
Recent work has shown that the extent to which irrelevant distractors are perceived is determined by the level of perceptual load in relevant processing. While high perceptual load typically reduces distractor perception, low perceptual load typically results in perception of irrelevant distractors (see Lavie, 2001 for review). Thus in situations of low perceptual load, response tendencies toward the perceived yet irrelevant distractors must be prevented from leading to unwanted responses. This thesis provides a new line of behavioural evidence for the suggestion that selective attention involves inhibition of response tendencies to perceived distractors in situations of low perceptual load. Specifically, the present studies examined whether engaging response inhibition in one task would lead to greater response competition effects from irrelevant distractors on responses in a subsequent flanker task. We designed a new paradigm in which a flanker task was preceded by a response inhibition task on each trial. Response inhibition was manipulated either by varying the demand to make a response or to stop it (using a stop signal task - Chapter 2); or by varying the spatial congruency of the mapping between stimuli and responses (Chapter 3); or by varying the congruency between relevant and irrelevant dimensions in a Stroop colour word task (Chapter 4). The results suggest that the engagement of inhibition in the first task of each trial reduces the efficiency with which response tendencies to distractors were suppressed in the following flanker task. Carry-over effects of inhibition were dissociated from the effects of the general difficulty of Task 1; were found to persist across an interval of several seconds between the first and second tasks; and were also found to occur only in situations of low perceptual load. These findings thus provide new support for the suggestion that active inhibition is involved in selective attention.
... In contrast, the N400 is not closely associated with cognitive resource allocation. Although the N400 can be modulated by attentional allocation (Deacon & Shelley-Tremblay, 2000), it is also elicited when attention to meaning is minimized (Holcomb, 1988). Insofar as the N400 does reflect the allocation of attention, it may do only insofar as attention heightens the processing of information relevant to meaning (Kutas & Federmeier, 2011). ...
Objectives:
Listening to speech in adverse listening conditions is effortful. Objective assessment of cognitive spare capacity during listening can serve as an index of the effort needed to understand speech. Cognitive spare capacity is influenced both by signal-driven demands posed by listening conditions and top-down demands intrinsic to spoken language processing, such as memory use and semantic processing. Previous research indicates that electrophysiological responses, particularly alpha oscillatory power, may index listening effort. However, it is not known how these indices respond to memory and semantic processing demands during spoken language processing in adverse listening conditions. The aim of the present study was twofold: first, to assess the impact of memory demands on electrophysiological responses during recognition of degraded, spoken sentences, and second, to examine whether predictable sentence contexts increase or decrease cognitive spare capacity during listening.
Design:
Cognitive demand was varied in a memory load task in which young adult participants (n = 20) viewed either low-load (one digit) or high-load (seven digits) sequences of digits, then listened to noise-vocoded spoken sentences that were either predictable or unpredictable, and then reported the final word of the sentence and the digits. Alpha oscillations in the frequency domain and event-related potentials in the time domain of the electrophysiological data were analyzed, as was behavioral accuracy for both words and digits.
Results:
Measured during sentence processing, event-related desynchronization of alpha power was greater (more negative) under high load than low load and was also greater for unpredictable than predictable sentences. A complementary pattern was observed for the P300/late positive complex (LPC) to sentence-final words, such that P300/LPC amplitude was reduced under high load compared with low load and for unpredictable compared with predictable sentences. Both words and digits were identified more quickly and accurately on trials in which spoken sentences were predictable.
Conclusions:
Results indicate that during a sentence-recognition task, both cognitive load and sentence predictability modulate electrophysiological indices of cognitive spare capacity, namely alpha oscillatory power and P300/LPC amplitude. Both electrophysiological and behavioral results indicate that a predictive sentence context reduces cognitive demands during listening. Findings contribute to a growing literature on objective measures of cognitive demand during listening and indicate predictable sentence context as a top-down factor that can support ease of listening.
Words are not processed in isolation; instead, they are commonly embedded in phrases and sentences. The sentential context influences the perception and processing of a word. However, how this is achieved by brain processes and whether predictive mechanisms underlie this process remain a debated topic. Here, we employed an experimental paradigm in which we orthogonalized sentence context constraints and predictive validity, which was defined as the ratio of congruent to incongruent sentence endings within the experiment. While recording electroencephalography, participants read sentences with three levels of sentential context constraints (high, medium, and low). Participants were also separated into two groups that differed in their ratio of valid congruent to incongruent target words that could be predicted from the sentential context. For both groups, we investigated modulations of alpha power before, and N400 amplitude modulations after target word onset. The results reveal that the N400 amplitude gradually decreased with higher context constraints and cloze probability. In contrast, alpha power was not significantly affected by context constraint. Neither the N400 nor alpha power were significantly affected by changes in predictive validity.
According to embodied theories (including embodied, embedded, extended, enacted, situated, and grounded approaches to cognition), language representation is intrinsically linked to our interactions with the world around us, which is reflected in specific brain signatures during language processing and learning. Moving on from the original rivalry of embodied vs. amodal theories, this consensus paper addresses a series of carefully selected questions that aim at determining when and how rather than whether motor and perceptual processes are involved in language processes. We cover a wide range of research areas, from the neurophysiological signatures of embodied semantics, e.g., event-related potentials and fields as well as neural oscillations, to semantic processing and semantic priming effects on concrete and abstract words, to first and second language learning and, finally, the use of virtual reality for examining embodied semantics. Our common aim is to better understand the role of motor and perceptual processes in language representation as indexed by language comprehension and learning. We come to the consensus that, based on seminal research conducted in the field, future directions now call for enhancing the external validity of findings by acknowledging the multimodality, multidimensionality, flexibility and idiosyncrasy of embodied and situated language and semantic processes.
It has been found that mind wandering interferes with the sensory and cognitive processing of widespread stimuli. However, it remains unclear what factors can modulate the magnitude of the interference effects of mind wandering. Here, we investigate whether and how word familiarity modulates the interference effects of mind wandering on semantic and reafferent information processing. High- and low-frequency words were used as stimuli to induce high- and low-familiarity contexts in a sustained attention to response task, in which participants were required to respond to Chinese nonanimal words (nontarget) and withhold responses to Chinese animal words (target) as well as to intermittently report whether their state was "on task" or "off task." Behavioral results revealed lower reaction stability for both high- and low-frequency nontarget words preceding "off-task" reports than those preceding "on-task" reports. However, ERP results revealed that low-frequency rather than high-frequency words elicited more negative N400, attenuated late positive complex, and attenuated reafferent potential for "off-task" reports than for "on-task" reports. The results suggest that mind wandering makes semantic extraction and integration more difficult for unfamiliar but not familiar two-character Chinese words and attenuates the reafferent feedback of the motor response. These findings are consistent with the decoupling hypothesis of mind wandering and provide the first neural evidence for how familiarity with external stimuli modulates the interference effects of mind wandering.
Semantic perceptualism is the thesis that meaning experiences are forms of perceptual experiences. According to its defenders, this view is motivated not only by philosophical considerations, but also by empirical evidence. In the present article, I shall provide the first comprehensive and critical review of the empirical evidence in support of semantic perceptualism, including a detailed analysis of the relevant neuroanatomical data. The conclusions of my analysis are largely pessimistic. I believe that the relevant behavioral, cognitive, and patient data are suggestive but hardly conclusive. Moreover, neuroanatomical data speak strongly against semantic perceptualism.
Semantic priming in Turkish was examined in 36 right-handed healthy participants in a
delayed lexical decision task via taxonomic relations using EEG. Prime–target relations
included related- unrelated- and pseudo-words. Taxonomically related words at long stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) were shown to modulate N400 and late positive component
(LPC) amplitudes. N400 semantic priming effect in the time window of 300–500 ms was
the largest for pseudo-words, intermediate for semantically-unrelated targets, and smallest
for semantically-related targets as a reflection of lexical-semantic retrieval. This finding
contributes to the ERP literature showing how remarkably universal the N400 brain potential is, with similar effects across languages and orthography. The ERP data also revealed
different influences of related, unrelated, and pseudo-word conditions on the amplitude of
the LPC. Attention scores and mean LPC amplitudes of related words in parietal region
showed a moderate correlation, indicating LPC may be related to “relationship-detection
process”
In many situations of everyday life, it is important to quickly understand a spoken message despite distraction by an already ongoing activity. Previous dual-task studies recording the N400 component of the event-related potential (ERP) have shown that auditory language comprehension can be strongly delayed by temporally overlapping additional tasks. In the current study, we investigated whether this interference is aggravated by the need for saccadic eye movements and visuospatial attention shifts in the overlapping task. In two dual-task experiments, a synonymy judgment task for spoken words was combined with a visual discrimination task at different stimulus onset asynchronies. In half of the trials, the primary visual task required a 10° exogenous saccade towards a peripheral stimulus. The timing of semantic processing in the secondary task was assessed by recording the N400. We replicated that with increasing temporal overlap between the tasks, the N400 component was strongly delayed. However, additional saccade-related processes in the primary task had no detrimental effects on concurrent spoken language processing on their own. Unexpectedly, we also observed that a preceding saccade consistently facilitated subsequent motoric processing in the visual task (as indexed by manual reaction times and the lateralized readiness potential), suggesting that saccade execution as such can significantly enhance subsequent processing.
Language is a core cognitive faculty. Research on language processing is typically carried out independently of research within other cognitive domains. However, it has been proposed that language shares basic sensorimotor features with non-linguistic cognition at the representational level. The present paper investigates whether processing principles are also shared between linguistic and non-linguistic cognition; specifically, it is investigated whether the N400 is sensitive to global and local manipulations of violation probability as previously reported for markers of non-linguistic conflict detection. In Experiment 1, the global violation probability was manipulated. Here, N400 amplitude was reduced in high violation probability blocks compared to low violation probability blocks. In Experiment 2, N400 amplitude was analysed according to local trial sequence. Here, the N400 amplitude difference between correct and violated sentences was reduced when the preceding trial was a violation compared to a correct trial. The implication of these findings for the architecture of our cognitive system is discussed.
The ability to rapidly and systematically access knowledge stored in long‐term memory in response to incoming sensory information—that is, to derive meaning from the world—lies at the core of human cognition. Research using methods that can precisely track brain activity over time has begun to reveal the multiple cognitive and neural mechanisms that make this possible. In this article, I delineate how a process of connecting affords an effortless, continuous infusion of meaning into human perception. In a relatively invariant time window, uncovered through studies using the N400 component of the event‐related potential, incoming sensory information naturally induces a graded landscape of activation across long‐term semantic memory, creating what might be called “proto‐concepts”. Connecting can be (but is not always) followed by a process of further considering those activations, wherein a set of more attentionally demanding “active comprehension” mechanisms mediate the selection, augmentation, and transformation of the initial semantic representations. The result is a limited set of more stable bindings that can be arranged in time or space, revised as needed, and brought to awareness. With this research, we are coming closer to understanding how the human brain is able to fluidly link sensation to experience, to appreciate language sequences and event structures, and, sometimes, to even predict what might be coming up next. This Presidential Address reviews several decades of work using human electrophysiological methods to build an understanding of how we comprehend the world around us. The brain is able to rapidly and pervasively connect incoming sensory information to knowledge stored in long‐term memory, a process reflected in the N400 component of the event‐related potential. Using attention, this information can then be actively considered further, creating representations that allow prediction, selection, revision, sequencing, and elaboration.
In a recent article in Cognition, Delaney-Busch et al. (2019) claim evidence for ‘rational’, Bayesian adaptation of semantic predictions, using ERP data from Lau, Holcomb, and Kuperberg (2013). Participants read associatively related and unrelated prime-target word pairs in a first block with only 10% related trials and a second block with 50%. Related words elicited smaller N400s than unrelated words, and this difference was strongest in the second block, suggesting greater engagement in predictive processing. Using a rational adaptor model, Delaney-Busch et al. argue that the stronger N400 reduction for related words in the second block developed as a function of the number of related trials, and concluded therefore that participants predicted related words more strongly when their predictions were fulfilled more often. In this critique, I discuss two critical flaws in their analyses, namely the confounding of prediction effects with those of lexical frequency and the neglect of data from the first block. Re-analyses suggest a different picture: related words by themselves did not yield support for their conclusion, and the effect of relatedness gradually strengthened in othe two blocks in a similar way. Therefore, the N400 did not yield evidence that participants rationally adapted their semantic predictions. Within the framework proposed by Delaney-Busch et al., presumed semantic predictions may even be thought of as ‘irrational’. While these results yielded no evidence for rational or probabilistic prediction, they do suggest that participants became increasingly better at predicting target words from prime words.
It is well established that identification of words in noise improves when it is preceded by a semantically related word, but comparatively little is known about the effect of subsequent context in guiding word in noise identification. We build on the findings of a previous behavioural study (Chan & Alain, 2019) by measuring neuro-electric brain activity while manipulating the semantic content of a cue that either preceded or followed a word in noise. Participants were more accurate in identifying the word in noise when it was preceded or followed by a cue that was semantically related. This gain in accuracy coincided with a late positive component, which was time-locked to the word in noise when preceded by a cue and time-locked to the cue when it followed the word in noise. Distributed source analyses of this positive component revealed different patterns in source activity between the two temporal conditions. The effects of relatedness also generated an event-related potential modulation around 400 ms (N400) that was present at cue presentation when it followed the word in noise, but not for the word in noise when preceded by the cue, consistent with findings regarding its sensitivity to signal degradation. Exploratory analyses examined a subset of data based on participants’ subjective perceived clarity, which revealed a posterior deflection over the left hemisphere that showed a relatedness effect. We discuss these findings in light of research on prediction as well as a reflective attention framework.
Using ERP recording technology our purpose is to explore the neural mechanism of the effect of word attribute information and word frequency information on concreteness. Experiment 1: under the lexical judgment task, the relationship between the two variables was investigated. The results showed that in N2 and P3 time window, there were differences between noun and verb processing. In P3 time window, concrete words and abstract words appear separate. In the process of N400, there are differences in the processing of nouns and verbs, concrete words and abstract words. In experiment 2, under the vocabulary judgment task, frequency and vocabulary type were taken as independent variables. The results showed that in N2 time window, high frequency vocabulary and low frequency vocabulary processing were separated. In P3 time window, noun and verb processing differences, concrete and abstract words began to appear separate. In N400, there are differences in the processing of nouns and verbs, concrete words and abstract words. The results suggest that word attributes and word types affect concreteness effect; the concreteness effect occurs in low-frequency words. The processing of concreteness effect of Chinese two-character words supports a single semantic processing model.
The report discusses the use of reaction time measures in modern experimental psychology. Methodological and theoretical issues are raised concerning the logic of experimentation in which reaction time is the major dependent variable and the limitations of interpretation of reaction time in the presence of variable error rates. The relationship between the speed and the accuracy of performance and theoretical models underlying this relation are also discussed.
Prior to each target letter string presented visually to 120 university students in a speeded word–nonword classification task, either {bird, body, building,} or {xxx} appeared as a priming event. Five types of word-prime/word-target trials were used: bird-robin, bird-arm, body-door, body-sparrow, and body-heart. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between prime and target letter string varied between 250 and 2,000 msec. At 2,000-msec SOA, reaction times (RTs) on bird-robin type trials were faster than on xxx-prime trials (facilitation), whereas RTs on bird-arm type trials were slower than on xxx-prime (inhibition). As SOA decreased, the facilitation effect on bird-robin trials remained constant, but the inhibition effect on bird-arm decreased until, at 250-msec SOA, there was no inhibition. For Shift conditions at 2,000-msec SOA, facilitation was obtained on body-door type trials and inhibition was obtained on body-sparrow type. These effects decreased as SOA decreased until there was no facilitation or inhibition. On body-heart type trials, there was an inhibition effect at 2,000 msec SOA, which decreased as SOA decreased until, at 250-msec SOA, it became a facilitation effect. Results support the theory of M. I. Posner and S. R. Snyder (1975) that postulated 2 distinct components of attention: a fast automatic inhibitionless spreading-activation process and a slow limited-capacity conscious-attention mechanism. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Previous research on the effect of sentence context on word recognition has yielded ambiguous results regarding the relative magnitudes of the facilitation and inhibition effects produced by congruous and incongruous contexts. A review of the literature indicates that the pattern of results was task correlated. Experiments in which a lexical-decision (LD) task was used have produced larger inhibition effects than have experiments in which a naming task was employed. In the present article, 2 experiments were conducted in which the different tasks were directly compared using the same Ss (86 undergraduates), stimuli, and experimental methodology. Results indicate that the LD task did produce greater inhibition effects. It is argued that the reason for this is that the responses in the LD task are affected by postlexical message-level processes that detect incongruity. The inhibition was not due to a mismatch between the stimulus word and lexical-level expectations. If the goal of an investigation is to study sentence context effects on the process of word recognition, then the naming task is probably preferable. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Describes the development and testing of a method for determining the durations of mental events; 3 experiments were conducted with 200 undergraduates. The method measures effects of various context stimuli on the speed of responses to a probe stimulus. By varying the interval between onset of the context and the probe, the time courses of these effects are determined. Letters were used as probe and context stimuli, with the letters being assigned to left- and right-hand keypresses. Results reveal 3 effects of context: (a) A facilitatory effect due to stimulus repetition was observed when context and probe were identical. (b) An inhibitory effect due to response competition was observed when context and probe called for different responses. (c) A facilitatory effect due to response biasing was observed when context and probe called for the same response. It was also found that Ss had appreciable control over amount of inhibition produced by response competition when probe and context appeared simultaneously, but no such attentional control was apparent for amount of facilitation produced by stimulus repetition. This last finding suggests that the encoding of a simultaneous context is an automatic process, but Ss have some control over whether they generate the response associated with that context. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Used a classification task to compare the processing demands of letter primes that were to be ignored and had no predictive utility to letter primes that were to be processed and were highly predictive. Approximately 12 undergraduates participated. When Ss deliberately attended to a letter prime, encoding produced more interference (Exp I), but either familiar (Exp I) or non-familiar (Exp II) primes produced significant amounts of interference even when S was trying to ignore the visual input. Results are consistent with the view that the early perceptual components of encoding are both obligatory and resource demanding. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Cost–benefit analysis of RTs has become a popular chronometric tool in the study of cognitive processes. The present authors review the technique, assumptions underlying its application, and pitfalls that are encountered in actually implementing it in various experimental contexts. It is suggested that the unthoughtful application of the technique may cause one to draw improper conclusions about the underlying mechanisms that produce costs and benefits. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Several recent experiments have shown that an appropriate semantic context facilitates word recognition. Lexical (word/nonword)
decisions about a word such as "nurse" are faster when it follows a related word such as "doctor". The present experiment
examines the consequence of varying the proportion of semantically related adjacent words. The effect of semantic context
is found to depend on the overall proportion of related word pairs. More facilitation occurs when there is a greater proportion
of related word pairs. This finding contradicts theories of word recognition which account for context effects solely by postulating
transient increases in the aecessibility of only those words semantically related to the particular preceding stimuli encountered
by the observer. An adequate theory must include an account of strategic or adaptive processes in which the past usefulness
of contextual information modulates its influence in the word recognition process.
The word-by-word time-course of spoken language understanding was investigated in two experiments, focussing simultaneously on word-recognition (local) processes and on structural and interpretative (global) processes. Both experiments used three word-monitoring tasks, which varied the description under which the word-target was monitored for (phonetic, semantic, or both) and three different prose contexts (normal, semantically anomalous, and scrambled), as well as distributing word-targets across nine word-positions in the test-sentences. The presence or absence of a context sentence, varied across the two experiments, allowed an estimate of between-sentence effects on local and global processes. The combined results, presenting a detailed picture of the temporal structuring of these various processes, provided evidence for an on-line interactive language processing theory, in which lexical, structural (syntactic), and interpretative knowledge sources communicate and interact during processing in an optimally efficient and accurate manner.
Describes a model in which perception results from excitatory and
inhibitory interactions of detectors for visual features, letters,
and words. A visual input excites detectors for visual features in
the display and for letters consistent with the active features.
Letter detectors in turn excite detectors for consistent words. It
is suggested that active word detectors mutually inhibit each other
and send feedback to the letter level, strengthening activation and
hence perceptibility of their constituent letters. Computer simulation
of the model exhibits the perceptual advantage for letters in words
over unrelated contexts and is considered consistent with basic facts
about word advantage. Most important, the model produces facilitation
for letters in pronounceable pseudowords as well as words. Pseudowords
activate detectors for words that are consistent with most active
letters, and feedback from the activated words strengthens activations
of the letters in the pseudoword. The model thus accounts for apparently
rule-governed performance without any actual rules. (50 ref) (PsycINFO
Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)
Immediately prior to each visually presented target letter string to which the subject made a speeded word-nonword classification response, a visually presented prime to which no overt response was required was shown for 360, 600, or 2,000 msec. For word (W) target trials, the priming event was either a semantically neutral warning signal (Condition NX), a word semantically related to the target word (Condition R), or a word semantically unrelated to the target word (Condition U); for nonword (N) target trials, the priming event was either the neutral warning signal (Condition NX) or a word prime (Condition WP). For the W target trials, reaction times (RTs) were slower in Condition U than in Condition NX and equally so for all three prime durations; RTs were faster in Condition R than in Condition NX and to a greater degree for the 600- and 2,000-msec prime durations than for the 360-msec prime duration. For the N targets, RTs were faster in Condition WP than in Condition NX and equally so for all prime durations. These results were interpreted within the framework of a two-factor theory of attention proposed by Posner and Snyder (1975a).
The context in which a word occurs could influence either the actual decoding of the word or a postrecognition judgment of
the relatedness of word and context. In this research, we investigated the loci of contextual effects that occur in lexical
priming, when prime and target words are related along different dimensions. Both lexical decision and naming tasks were used
because previous research had suggested that they are differentially sensitive to postlexical processing. Semantic and associative
priming occurred with both tasks. Other facilitative contextual effects, due to syntactic relations between words, backward
associations, or changes in the proportion of related items, occurred only with the lexical decision task. The results indicate
that only associative and semantic priming facilitate the decoding of a target; the other effects are postlexical. The results
are related to the different demands of the naming and lexical decision tasks, and to current models of word recognition.
Event‐related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the performance of a lexical decision task, in which a proportion of the words were either semantic associates or repetitions of the preceding word. Reaction times were faster to both the second member of associated pairs (targets) and repeated words, with the latter facilitatory effect being more than twice that of the former.
ERPs to the semantic primes were more negative‐going than those to targets. This difference peaked around 400–450 ms after stimulus onset. Comparison of unrepeated and repeated words revealed a larger and temporally more extended difference, with a similar scalp topography.
The prime‐target differences are interpreted as a further example of the sensitivity of the ‘N400’ component of the ERP to semantic relationships between words. The differences between the repetition and priming effects in ERPs are considered equivocal with respect to the view that the associated behavioural effects are caused by different cognitive mechanisms.
Two experiments investigated the modulation of event-related potentials (ERPs) by semantic priming and item repetition. In Experiment 1, subjects silently counted occasional non-words against a background of words, a proportion of which were either semantic associates or repetitions of a preceding word. Compared to control items, ERPs to repeated words were distinguished by an early (ca. 200 msec) transient negative-going deflection and a later, topographically widespread and temporally sustained positive-going shift. In contrast, semantically primed words showed a relatively small, topographically and temporally limited positive-going modulation peaking around 500 msec. These data were interpreted as evidence against models of priming and repetition which postulate similar loci for these effects. In Experiment 2, subjects counted occasional words against a background of non-words, some of which were repeated. ERPs to repetitions showed a similar early ERP modulation to that in Experiment 1, and also displayed a later slow positive shift. This latter effect was smaller in magnitude and had a delayed onset in comparison to Experiment 1. It was concluded that the effects of repetition differ as a consequence of whether, prior to their first presentation, items possess a representation in lexical memory.
The chapters in this volume represent a type of current psycholinguistic research that focuses both on the nature of human information processing and the coding of linguistic structure. The chapters and authors are as follows: (1) "The Wherefores and Therefores of the Competence-Performance Distinction," by V. Valian; (2) "Levels of Processing and the Structure of the Language Processor," by K.I. Forster; (3) "Time-Compressed Speech and the Study of Lexical and Syntactic Processing," by M. Chodorow; (4) "Monitoring Sentence Comprehension," by a Cutler and D. Norris; (5) "Intonation and Ambiguity," by R. Wales and H. Toner; (6) "Perceptual Mechanisms and Formal Properties of Main and Subordinate Clauses," by T. Bever and D. Townsend; (7) "Some Hypotheses About Syntactic Processing in Sentence Comprehension," by V. M. Holmes; (8) "Superstrategy," by J. Fodor; (9) "Role of Efference Monitoring in the Detection of Self-Produced Speech Errors," by J. Lackner and B. Tuller; (10) "Speech Errors as Evidence for a Serial-Ordering Mechanism in Sentence Production," by S. Shattuck-Hufnagel; (11) "'Like' Syntax," by J. Ross and W. Cooper; and (12) "Three Cheers for Propositional Attitudes (Some Reflections on D.C. Dennett's 'Intentional Systems')," by J.A. Fodor. (AMH)
The present experiments were designed to devise a technique of manipulating the degree of attention-induced priming in a word-word lexical decision paradigm. Experiment 1 involved six repetitions of a block of prime-target pairs using a stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) of 550 ms between prime and target presentations. The results produced a substantial increase in facilitation over trial blocks for the semantically related and unrelated word-word conditions as measured against a neutral prime condition. Experiment 2 was designed to evaluate whether this growth in facilitation was in fact attention-induced. This experiment was a replication of the first experiment, except for a shorter SOA (100 ms). The interaction between repetition or trial blocks and priming conditions was absent while traditional semantic priming was obtained. Experiments 3 and 4 indicated that the short SOA prevented subjects from implementing attention-induced or paired-associate priming. Finally, Experiment 5 determined that paired-associate priming involves the priming of specific target information as opposed to a more general word or nonword expectation. Implications of these results are discussed within the context of M. I. Posner and C. R. Snyder's dual-process model (1975, Attention and cognitive control, in R. L. Solso (Ed.), Information Processing and Cognition: The Loyola Symposium, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum) and within the context of E. Tulving's distinction between episodic and semantic memory (1983, Elements of Episodic Memory, New York: Oxford Univ. Press).
Subjects performed a visual tracking task while performing a concurrent task in which tones were covertly counted. The P300 component of the event-related potentials elicited by the tones was examined to determine the extent to which its amplitude was affected by variations in the forcing-function bandwidth, or difficulty, of the tracking task. P300 decreased in magnitude when tones were counted in conjunction with the performance of the tracking task, relative to a single-task counting condition. Increasing tracking difficulty failed to reduce P300 amplitude further. A second experiment obviated the possibility that movement-related potentials caused the P300 attenuation resulting from the introduction of the tracking task. In Experiment 3, subjects performed a reaction time task in conjunction with tracking in order to establish the validity of the tracking difficulty manipulation. The results are interpreted in terms of a theory of functionally-specific processing resources.
Studies of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) have shown that attributes of the ERP can be used as dependent variables in the study of human information processing. These variables can complement the information gained from the study of overt, skeletal responses. The manner in which the P300 component of the ERP can be used to study human information processing is illustrated in this report. Specifically, we show that through an analysis of the covariation of the latency of the P300 component and reaction time, it is possible to examine the relation between the probability of a stimulus and the speed of response to that stimulus. Our data indicate that increases in the probability of a stimulus reduce reaction time by decreasing both stimulus-evaluation and response-production times. We also examine changes in reaction time and P300 latency induced by the match or mismatch between two stimuli presented consecutively, again as a function of probability. Models of the effects of stimulus matching on reaction time are evaluated.
ERPs were recorded during a lexical decision task in order to investigate electrophysiological concomitants of semantic priming. The stimuli were 240 words and 240 nonwords presented one per trial at a fixed intertrial interval. Subjects were required to classify each stimulus as a word or nonword by pressing one of two response buttons. ERPs were recorded from 14 scalp locations, the right suborbital ridge, and the left earlobe, all referred to a balanced non-cephalic reference. RT and error data confirmed that semantic priming occurred under the conditions employed: primed words (those preceded by a semantically related word) were identified as words faster and more accurately than were unprimed words (those preceded by semantically unrelated words or nonwords). ERPs for all stimulus types were characterized by a large positivity peaking between 550 and 650 msec, preceded by a negative-going deflection peaking at approximately 400 msec. ERPs for primed and unprimed words were shown to differ significantly, diverging 200-250 msec following stimulus onset, reaching a maximum near the peak of the negative-going deflection at 400 msec. These differences were observed at locations over both hemispheres and were maximal in the centroparietal region. Although P300 latency differences between primed and unprimed words were also obtained, the priming effect on ERPs at shorter latencies could not be explained solely by P300 latency effects. Possible relationships between these ERP concomitants of semantic priming and P300, N200, and N400 were discussed.
The conditions under which dual-task integrality can be fostered were assessed in a study in which we manipulated four factors likely to influence the integrality between tasks: intertask redundancy, the spatial proximity of primary and secondary task displays, the degree to which primary and secondary task displays constitute a single object, and the resource demands of the two tasks. The resource allocation policy is inferred from changes in the amplitude of the P300 component of the event-related brain potential. Twelve subjects participated in three experimental sessions in which they performed both single and dual tasks. The primary task was a pursuit step tracking task. The secondary tasks required subjects to discriminate between different intensities or different spatial positions of a stimulus. Task pairs that required the processing of different properties of the same object resulted in better performance than task pairs that required the processing of different objects. Furthermore, these same object task pairs led to a positive relation between primary task difficulty and the resources allocated to secondary task stimuli. Intertask redundancy and the physical proximity of task displays produced similar effects of reduced magnitude.
In a lexical decision experiment in which primes preceded associatively related words, unrelated words, or non‐words, N1(154 ms)‐P2(245 ms), P2, and P3 (502 ms) increased in amplitude with increasing semantic association, while N2 (340 ms) amplitude, as well as response times, showed an opposite relationship and increased with decreasing semantic association. The relationship, in each case, persisted across a range of stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs: onset‐to‐onset) from 1000 down to 200 ms.
Despite the apparent dissociation of P2 and N2, it could not be unequivocally established that they reflected successive discrete phases of processing. The balance of evidence indicated that the variation of both P2 and N2 across conditions could be attributed to a widely distributed, slow negative process, which began on the N1‐P2 deflection, peaked at N2, and terminated beyond P3, and was enhanced when an automatically generated expectancy of a semantically associated word was violated. It is suggested that the negativity reflects an automatically generated enhancement of arousal that facilitates conscious processing of unexpected stimuli.
CNV, P300 and slow wave amplitude correlates of auditory detection accuracy were studied for both hits and correct rejections. Baseline-to-peak measures gave no indication of the downturn of P300 at very high detection accuracies reported by Hillyard et al. (1971). Principal Components-Varimax Analyses (PCVA) of the event-related potentials (ERPs) were performed. The PCVA basis wave forms for P300 and slow wave showed that baseline-to-peak measures of P300 represent a composite of the two. The weighting coefficients for P300 and slow wave showed an opposite pattern in relationship to accuracy; P300 weighting coefficients increased monotonically with increased accuracy, whereas slow wave weighting coefficients decreased monotonically with increased accuracy. For both P300 and slow wave, findings were similar for both hits and correct rejections. These and earlier findings suggest that overlap between P300 and slow wave should be examined in future P300 experiments. No differences were found in relation to experimental conditions for the CNV in the baseline-to-peak measures or in the PCVA measures. The PCVA showed that there was significant CNV activity in the post-stimulus epoch and therefore the CNV represents another source of overlap with P300 and slow wave when peak-to-baseline measures are used. P300 and slow wave PCVA components have little activity in the pre-stimulus epoch indicating that they are determined by post-stimulus events. The increase of slow wave amplitude with decreasing accuracy is interpreted as reflecting the need for further processing when intensity is so low as to make a decision difficult. This 'further processing' interpretation is consistent with other studies in which slow wave has been shown to vary with task demands.
A comparison was made of evoked and emitted P300 and Slow Wave activity elicited in guessing and signal detection tasks. The stimulus conditions were the same in both tasks. Only the instructions to the subjects were different. Latency corrected averaging was used to compensate for trial-to-trial fluctuation of P300 latency. Principal components-varimax analysis (PCVA) was utilized to deal with overlap among P300, Slow Wave and CNV return-to-baseline. Clear measures (from both conventional and latency corrected averages) of emitted P300 components for correct rejection trials were obtained under the following conditions: (a) stimulus intensity near threshold (detection accuracy approximately equal to 78%, d' approximately equal to 1.9); (b) no simultaneous cueing signal; (c) stimulus presence and absence were equiprobable; (d) estimated contributions of overlap from other event-related potential components were removed from the P300 measurements. A significant difference was found between the Slow Wave topographic profiles elicited in the guessing and detection tasks. For the guessing task Slow Wave was relatively large and positive at vertex whereas in the detection task it was near zero amplitude at vertex. No significant differences due to task were found for the P300s when a PCVA derived estimate of the contribution of Slow Wave overlap was removed from the P300 measures.
Three experiments investigated the impact of five lexical variables (instance dominance, category dominance, word frequency, word length in letters, and word length in syllables) on performance in three different tasks involving word recognition: category verification, lexical decision, and pronunciation. Although the same set of words was used in each task, the relationship of the lexical variables to reaction time varied significantly with the task within which the words were embedded. In particular, the effect of word frequency was minimal in the category verification task, whereas it was significantly larger in the pronunciation task and significantly larger yet in the lexical decision task. It is argued that decision processes having little to do with lexical access accentuate the word-frequency effect in the lexical decision task and that results from this task have questionable value in testing the assumption that word frequency orders the lexicon, thereby affecting time to access the mental lexicon. A simple two-stage model is outlined to account for the role of word frequency and other variables in lexical decision. The model is applied to the results of the reported experiments and some of the most important findings in other studies of lexical decision and pronunciation.
Subjects were shown the terms of simple sentences in sequence (e.g., “A sparrow / is not / a vehicle”) and manually indicated whether the sentence was true or false. When the sentence form was affirmative (i.e., “X is a Y”), false sentences produced scalp potentials that were significantly more negative than those for true sentences, in the region of about 250 to 450 msec following presentation of the sentence object. In contrast, when the sentence form was negative (i.e., “X is not a Y”), it was the true statements that were associated with the ERP negativity. Since both the false-affirmative and the true-negative sentences consist of “mismatched” subject and object terms (e.g., sparrow / vehicle), it was concluded that the negativity in the potentials reflected a semantic mismatch between terms at a preliminary stage of sentence comprehension, rather than the falseness of the sentence taken as a whole. Similarities between the present effects of semantic mismatches and the N400 associated with incongruous sentences (Kutas & Hillyard, 1980) are discussed. The pattern of response latencies and of ERPs taken together supported a model of sentence comprehension in which negatives are dealt with only after the proposition to be negated is understood.
Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a task which required subjects to discriminate between rhyming and non-rhyming visually presented pairs of letter strings, consisting of equal proportions of word-word and word-non-word combinations. Pair members were presented sequentially with an interstimulus interval of 1.56 sec. As in a previous study [Rugg, M. D., Brain Lang. In press], ERPs elicited by rhyming and non-rhyming words were differentiated by a late negative component (N450) in waveforms following the non-rhyming words. This effect was greatest over the midline and the right hemisphere. The same rhyme/non-rhyme difference was also observed, to an equal extent, in ERPs elicited by non-words. It is concluded that N450, presumed to be related to the "N400" component observed under conditions of semantic incongruity [Kutas, M. and Hillyard, S.A., Science 207, 203-205, 1980] does not seem to depend on linguistic processing at the semantic level for its modulation.
The present study examined strategic factors in a semantic-priming, lexical-decision task. The first experiment demonstrated
that the greater the proportion of related word-word pairs to unrelated word-word pairs, the greater the amount of facilitation,
a result which is consistent with others reported in the literature. The second experiment demonstrated that this strategic
factor apparently requires that sufficient time (at least several hundred milliseconds) be available for the processing of
the priming word, and thus is probably caused by attention-driven processes. The third experiment replicated and extended
the results of the first two studies by demonstrating that prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony is an important limiting
factor in determining whether such proportion-induced strategic factors are involved in word-recognition processes, even when
no other aspect or variable of the procedure changes. The results are discussed in the context of Posner and Snyder’s (1975a)
two-process model of word recognition.
Using a procedure that isolates the facilitatory and interfering effects of a semantic context, the present study examines
two distinct patterns of context effects. One pattern shows a dominance of facilitation for target words in a related context,
and the other pattern shows a dominance of interference for target words in an unrelated context. The controlling factor seems
to be the overall characteristics of the stimulus list. For materials that include semantic relationships that are consistent
in the strength of the relationships, facilitation dominance obtains. For materials that include a wide range of semantic
relationship strengths, interference dominance results. These two patterns of facilitation and interference are attributed
to two semantic strategies available to subjects for using context information. The explication of the strategies includes
a theoretical treatment of the present data.
The P300 component of the human average evoked potential has been associated with a host of stimulus and S variables, such as information delivery and stimulus salience. P300 is emitted by the brain in response to either attended events that are surprising or to unattended events that produce orienting. P300 does not appear to be a real-time index of signal (target) selection, since attended low-probability nonsignals also result in P300 and its latency is too long. P300 further appears to be independent of response selection; its latency therefore may or may not correlate with RT, depending on the experimental context. P300 latency does appear to index stimulus evaluation time in that it is not emitted until the stimulus has been cognitively evaluated. P300 amplitude appears sensitive to manipulations of perceptual limited capacity but not sensitive to manipulations of motor limited capacity. It has been proposed that P300's functional role in human information processing is the updating of neurocognitive models concerning future events, although other functions have also been proposed. (5 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In a sentence reading task, words that occurred out of context were associated with specific types of event-related brain
potentials. Words that were physically aberrant (larger than normal) elecited a late positive series of potentials, whereas
semantically inappropriate words elicited a late negative wave (N400). The N400 wave may be an electrophysiological sign of
the "reprocessing" of semantically anomalous information.
We confirm that the latency of the P300 component of the human event-related potential is determined by processes involved
in stimulus evaluation and categorization and is relatively independent of response selection and execution. Stimulus discriminability
and stimulus-response compatibility were manipulated independently in an "additive-factors" design. Choice reaction time and
P300 latency were obtained simultaneously for each trial. Although reaction time was affected by both discriminability and
stimulus-response compatibility, P300 latency was affected only by stimulus discriminability.
ERP related differences in mental ability
- P J Holcomb
- R A Dykman
- D M Oglesby
- V S Johnston
Holcomb, P. J., Dykman, R. A., Oglesby, D. M., & Johnston, V. S. 1982. ERP related differences in mental ability. Psychophysiology, 19, 324
An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: Part 1. An account of basic findings Non-semantic priming in word recognition Unpublished manuscript
- J Mcclelland
- D Rumelhart
- J E Mcdonald
- R Schvaneveldt
McClelland, J., & Rumelhart, D. 1981. An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: Part 1. An account of basic findings. Psychological Review, 88, 375- 407. rERPs AND SEMANTIC PRIMING85 McDonald, J. E., & Schvaneveldt, R. 1982. Non-semantic priming in word recognition. Unpublished manuscript
Cognitive psychophysiology Multivariate analysis of event-related potential data: a tutorial review Multidisciplinary perspectives in event-related brain potentials
- E I Donchin
- Nj Hillsdale
- Erlbaum
- E Donchin
- E Heffley
Donchin, E. (Ed.). 1984. Cognitive psychophysiology Vol. I. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Donchin, E., & Heffley, E. 1978. Multivariate analysis of event-related potential data:
a tutorial review. In D. Otto (Ed.), Multidisciplinary perspectives in event-related
brain potentials. Washington, DC: Office of Research and Development. Pp. 555-
572.
Non-semantic priming in word recognition
- J E Mcdonald
- R Schvaneveldt
McDonald, J. E., & Schvaneveldt, R. 1982. Non-semantic priming in word recognition.
Unpublished manuscript.