Multiple P3 evidence of a two-stage process in word gender decision.
All French nouns must be assigned to one of two grammatical genders: masculine or feminine. Participants used either the superordinate labels masculin/féminin or the singular indefinite articles un/une to classify French target nouns. Reaction time to the labels masculin/féminin was about 200 ms longer than to the un/une labels. When the indefinite articles were used, a single P3 peak of the event-related potential was elicited. When superordinate labels were used, a double-peaked positivity was observed. The latency of the initial P3 in the masculin/féminin trials was not significantly different from that in the un/une trials. The second positive wave peaked approximately 300 ms following the first. An explanation consistent with these data is that subjects used a two-stage process to classify the nouns appearing with superordinate labels.
Muller-Gass
A
A
School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Canada.
Gonthier
I
I
Desrochers
A
A
Campbell
K B
KB
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004585:Electrooculography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D009864:Ontario; D011930:Reaction Time