Event-related brain potentials evoked by verbs and nouns in a primed lexical decision task.
We investigated whether verbs and nouns evoke comparable behavioral and N400 effects in a primed lexical decision task. Twenty-nine students were tested, 13 in a pilot study in which only response times and error rates were collected and 16 in a study in which ERPs were recorded from 124 scalp electrodes. Stimuli were noun-noun and verb-verb pairs with the targets bearing either a strong, a moderate, or no semantic association to the prime or being a pseudoword. Behavioral data revealed comparable priming effects for both word categories. These proved to be independent from the SOA (250 and 800 ms) and they followed the well-known pattern of decreasing response times and error rates with increasing relatedness between target and prime. ERPs revealed pronounced N400 effects for both word categories with a larger amplitude for noun than for verb pairs. A systematic analysis of topographic differences between noun- and verb-evoked ERPs and N400 effects, respectively, gave no convincing support to the hypothesis that the two word categories activate distinct neuronal networks.
Rösler
F
F
Experimental and Biological Psychology, Philipps-University Marburg, Germany. roesler@mailer.uni-marburg.de
Streb
J
J
Haan
H
H
D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*