From sublexical facilitation to lexical competition: ERP effects of masked neighbor priming.

From sublexical facilitation to lexical competition: ERP effects of masked neighbor priming.
Brain Res. 2018 Jan 30;:
Authors: Meade G, Grainger J, Midgley KJ, Emmorey K, Holcomb PJ
Abstract
Interactive-activation models posit that visual word recognition involves co-activation of orthographic neighbors (e.g., note, node) and competition among them via lateral inhibitory connections. Behavioral evidence of this lexical competition comes from masked priming paradigms, in which target words elicit slower responses when preceded by a neighbor (e.g., note-NODE) than when preceded by an unrelated word (e.g., kiss-NODE). In the present study, we used ERPs to investigate how masked high frequency word primes influence processing of low frequency word and pseudoword targets. Word targets preceded by a neighbor prime elicited larger negativities within the N400 window than those preceded by an unrelated prime (i.e., reversed priming) across bilateral anterior sites, which we call a reversed N400 priming effect. Consistent with the behavioral literature, the size of the reversed N400 priming effect was larger for targets from high-density orthographic neighborhoods and for participants who scored higher on a behavioral measure of spelling recognition. Indeed, the opposite effect (i.e., smaller negativities within the N400 window for word targets preceded by a neighbor) was observed for words from low-density orthographic neighborhoods and for ...

Source: Brain Research - January 30, 2018 Category: Neurology Authors: Meade G, Grainger J, Midgley KJ, Emmorey K, Holcomb PJ Tags: Brain Res Source Type: research