N400 lexicality effect in highly blurred Chinese words: evidence for automatic processing.
This study investigated whether N400 was sensitive to primed, highly degraded Chinese compound words (two-character pairs) that were not consciously identifiable, by recording event-related potentials for lightly or highly blurred words and pseudowords while volunteers performed a lexical-decision task. The results showed that pseudowords elicited significantly larger N400 responses than words did, over the central-parietal recording sites, regardless of the stimulus-degradation levels. Moreover, the N400 latency was proportional to the stimulus-degradation level. The N400 effects thus remained observable even when the character pairs were highly degraded and consciously unidentifiable, in addition to the N400 effects that were observed for lightly blurred and intact character pairs. These findings supported the view that the N400 component indexes an automatic processing, providing evidence against the postlexical account.
Wang
Quanhong
Q
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), MoE, Southwest University, Chongqing, China. quanhong177@yahoo.com
Yuan
Jiajin
J
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D044466:Asian People; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*