Visual word perception and semantic processing: an electrophysiological perspective.
This paper reports data from three experiments in which semantic priming effects were investigated using the event-related potentials (ERP) technique. In the first experiment, a specific electrophysiological manifestation of semantic priming was demonstrated, and it was related to a previously reported negative component--N400. In the second experiment, it was suggested that the N400 wave does not directly reflect disconfirmation of subjects' expectations, but that it is related to semantic activation and is affected by the amount of lexical processing. In the third experiment, it was demonstrated that priming effects are also evident in natural reading, without any time constraints imposed by the task. It is concluded that the ERP technique provides an important tool in cognitive research in general, and language processing in particular.
D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D006801:Humans; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D012660:Semantics; D012718:Set, Psychology / Q000502:physiology