Does familiarity or conflict account for performance in the word-stem completion task? Evidence from behavioural and event-related-potential data.
The conflict monitoring theory (CMT) assumes that word-stems associated with several completions should lead to crosstalk and conflict due to underdetermined responding situation (Botvinick et al. in Psychol Rev 108(3):624-652, 2001). In contrast, the Multiple-Read-Out-Model (MROM) of Jacobs and Grainger (J Exp Psychol 20(6): 1311-1334, 1994) predicts a high level of general lexical activity (GLA) for word-stems with many completions, indicating a higher stimulus familiarity because these stems are more probable to be read. We compared word-stems with several completions against word-stems with one possible completion while measuring response times and electrophysiological recordings. Slowest response times and a distinct FN400 component, which has previously been related to the concept of familiarity (Curran in Memory Cogn 28(6):923-938, 2000), were apparent for word-stems that could only be associated with a single response. These findings support the claims of the MROM. Furthermore, the lack of the N2-component for word-stems with several completions continues to challenge the EEG-extension of the CMT (Yeung et al. in Psychol Rev 111(4):2004).
Klonek
Florian
F
Department of Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany. fklonek@gmx.de
Tamm
Sascha
S
Hofmann
Markus J
MJ
Jacobs
Arthur M
AM
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult