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.

Key words: repetition priming, associative priming, N250, N400, ERPs

摘要： 运用事件相关脑电位（ERP）技术，采用快速掩蔽启动范式和Go/Nogo范式，探讨汉语重复启动和语义相关启动中语义激活程度的差异和特点。实验中要求被试执行一个额外的语义判断任务，对关键刺激不做明显的行为反应。结果发现，在重复启动条件下获得了稳定的N400效应，语义相关启动条件下没有N400效应；重复启动和语义相关启动条件均未产生N250效应。在较短的SOA条件下，词频对语义的激活和加工不产生影响。

关键词: 重复启动, 语义相关启动, N250, N400, ERPs