title: Neural dynamics of object noun, action verb and action noun production in picture naming.
abstract: The verb/noun dissociation has often involved the semantic/grammatical confound. We conducted two event-related potentials (ERPs) studies with the aim of minimizing this confound. In Experiment 1 participants named pictures depicting actions, with verbs or nouns and pictures depicting objects with nouns. In Experiment 2, participants named objects (nouns) or actions (verbs/nouns) from the same set of action pictures. Compatible with lexical-semantic processes, semantic category modulated waveform amplitudes and topographic patterns between 250 and 380 ms after picture-onset in Experiment 1. No such effects were observed in Experiment 2. No effects were found for grammatical class in both experiments suggesting that grammatical information is not mandatorily activated during lexical-semantic processes. Given the absence of dissociation when same pictures were used the results are described as feed-forward effects from visual to semantic processing, indicating differential neural networks for lexical selection of action and object words from their corresponding visual referents.
authors.affiliation: FPSE, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. Electronic address: Raphael.Fargier@unige.ch.
authors.forename: Raphaël
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fargier
authors.affiliation: FPSE, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Laganaro
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Action nouns; Action verbs; ERP; Object nouns; Picture naming; Semantic category; Topographic pattern analysis; Word class; Word production