ERP measures of partial semantic knowledge: left temporal indices of skill differences and lexical quality.
This study examines the sensitivity of early event-related potentials (ERPs) to degrees of word semantic knowledge. Participants with strong, average, or weak vocabulary skills made speeded lexical decisions to letter strings. To represent the full spectrum of word knowledge among adult native-English speakers, we used rare words that were orthographically matched with more familiar words and with pseudowords. Since the lexical decision could not reliably be made on the basis of word form, subjects were obliged to use semantic knowledge to perform the task. A d' analysis suggested that high-skilled subjects adopted a more conservative strategy in response to rare versus more familiar words. Moreover, the high-skilled participants showed a trend towards an enhanced "N2c" to rare words, and a similar posterior temporal effect reached significance approximately 650 ms. Generators for these effects were localized to left temporal cortex. We discuss implications of these results for word learning and for theories of lexical semantic access.
Frishkoff
Gwen A
GA
Learning Research & Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. gwenf@pitt.edu
Perfetti
Charles A
CA
Westbury
Chris
C
D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012660:Semantics; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult