title: Alive and grasping: stable and rapid semantic access to an object category but not object graspability.
abstract: How quickly do different kinds of conceptual knowledge become available following visual word perception? Resolving this question will inform neural and computational theories of visual word recognition and semantic memory use. We measured real-time brain activity using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during a go/nogo task to determine the upper limit by which category-related knowledge (living/nonliving) and action-related knowledge (graspable/ungraspable) must have been accessed to influence a downstream decision process. We find that decision processes can be influenced by the living/nonliving distinction by 160ms after stimulus onset whereas information about (one-hand) graspability is not available before 300ms. We also provide evidence that rapid access to category-related knowledge occurs for all items, not just a subset of living, nonliving, graspable, or ungraspable ones, and for all participants regardless of their response speed. The latency of the N200 nogo effect by contrast is sensitive to decision speed. We propose a tentative hypothesis of the neural mechanisms underlying semantic access and a subsequent decision process.
authors.affiliation: Center for Research in Language, University of California-San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0515, USA. bamsel@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Ben D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Amsel
authors.forename: Thomas P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Urbach
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kutas
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult