Orthographic neighbourhood & N400

Cards (8)

  • N400
    • negative component
    • peak latency around 400ms
    • bi-lateral slightly posterior distribution - both hemispheres
    N400 effect (amplitude modulation)
    • (mis)match of word meaning with preceding context
    • semantic priming
  • N400: Sensitive to organisation of semantic knowledge? Federmeier & Kutas (1999) - predictions 

    • If N400 sensitive to organization of semantic knowledge = will differ for within-category to between-category violations
    • If not sensitive = same N400 for both kinds of violation
  • N400: sensitive to organisation of semantic knowledge? - Federmeier & Hutas 1999

    • Recorded EEG data while participants viewed sentences with semantic violations
    • N400 = sensitive
    • Within-category violations elicited larger N400 amplitudes / responses compared to between-category violations.
  • Orthographic neighbourhood - Coltheart, Davelaar, Jonasson & Besner, 1977

    Non-words with low lexical neighbourhood recognised as words more quickly than those from large lexical neighbourhoods
    • inhibitory effect of neighbourhood in non-words
  • Orthographic neighbourhood - Andrews, 1989
    Words with large lexical neighbourhood recognised as words more quickly than those from low lexical neighbourhoods
    • Facilitatory effect of neighbourhood in words
  • Orthographic neighbourhood - partial activation of all neighbourhood words - Grainger & Jacobs, 1996

    • Lexical decision based upon activation level of individual word
    or
    • Lexical decisions based upon global lexical activity
  • Orthographic neighbourhood & N400 - Halcomb, Grainger, O'Rourke 2002 

    • N400 sensitive to semantic aspects of word processing For words and non-words
    • N400 larger when word has more semantic association (Kounios & Holcomb, 1992)
  • Orthographic Neighbourhood and the N400 Holcomb, Grainger, & O’Rourke, 2002

    partial activation of orthographic neighbours =
    • Larger semantic activation with larger neighbourhoods
    • Difference in total semantic activation reflected in size of N400
    • Predicts: Larger N400 for larger neighbourhoods - words & non-words