The Activation of Semantic Information in Early Stage of Word Recognition:Evidence from an ERP Study

BO Hua-Jun; HOU You

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2013, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (2) : 258-264.

The Activation of Semantic Information in Early Stage of Word Recognition:Evidence from an ERP Study

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Abstract

The Semantic understanding of written words are fundamental to the process of reading. In the word recognition research, such as alphabet writing, many studies have shown that repetition and semantic priming both produce characteristic differences in ERPs. The most frequently reported effect is that primed words attenuate the N400 component compared to non-primed words. Such N400 ‘‘effects’’ are believed by many to be sensitive to the lexical and/or semantic properties of the stimulus and its context. However，there was prominent debate about the meaning that the N400 effects reflected in the semantic processing. The Chinese characters are ideograms, which different with alphabetic script in strokes, structures and orthographic processing, etc. The present study used event-related potential recordings (ERPs) to explore the traits of semantic processing of Chinese character by adopting short interval masked priming and Go/Nogo paradigms. In order to avoid subjects use the different strategies across experiments, semantic/associated and repetition trials were included within a single session. Fifteen students were randomly chosen from a university. We adpoted a 2(Word Frequency：High and Low)×3(Priming Relationship：repetition priming，associative priming and control condition)within subjects design. Participants performed a semantic categorization task in which they were instructed to monitor all stimuli for occasional exemplars (probes) from the category of animal names, meanwhile there was no required to the critical prime or target stimuli. The results showed that in a short SOA(47ms)，the N400 effects between repetition priming and control condition had Significantly differences. At the same time, the differences between repetition priming and associative priming were also significant. However there was no significant differences between associative priming and control condition. For the earlier component of the N250，there was no evidence of any differences in all Priming relationship conditions. Moreover，Word Frequency did not affect the semantic processing. In conclusion，the current study demonstrated robust N400 effect in the repetition priming condition. However, there was no significant N400 effect in the associative priming condition. The N400 effect of repetition priming in Chinese character also might partly re?ect processing at a form-meaning interface that is sensitive to the compatibility of co-activated form and meaning representations. According to this study and the previous research ,we tentatively calculate that the orthographic processing between Chinese characters and alphabetic script word may be different, and the former is much more likely the whole processing.

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repetition priming / associative priming / N250 / N400 / ERPs

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The Activation of Semantic Information in Early Stage of Word Recognition:Evidence from an ERP Study[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2013, 36(2): 258-264

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