title: How the mass counts: an electrophysiological approach to the processing of lexical features.
abstract: Nouns may refer to countable objects such as tables, or to mass entities such as rice. The mass/count distinction has been discussed in terms of both semantic and syntactic features encoded in the mental lexicon. Here we show that event-related potentials (ERPs) can reflect the processing of such lexical features, even in the absence of any feature-related violations. We demonstrate that count (vs mass) nouns elicit a frontal negativity which is independent of the N400 marker for conceptual-semantic processing, but resembles anterior negativities related to grammatical processing. This finding suggests that the brain differentiates between count and mass nouns primarily on a syntactic basis.
authors: Georgetown University, Department of Neuroscience, Washington, DC 20007, USA.
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Steinhauer
authors: R
authors: R
authors: Pancheva
authors: A J
authors: AJ
authors: Newman
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Gennari
authors: M T
authors: MT
authors: Ullman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*