Friendly drug-dealers and terrifying puppies: Affective primacy can attenuate the N400 effect in emotional discourse contexts

Words that are semantically congruous with their preceding discourse context are easier to process than words that are semantically incongruous with their context. This facilitation of semantic processing is reflected by an attenuation of the N400 event-related potential (ERP). We asked whether this was true of emotional words in emotional contexts where discourse congruity was conferred through emotional valence. ERPs were measured as 24 participants read two-sentence scenarios with critical words that varied by emotion (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral) and congruity (congruous or incongruous). Semantic predictability, constraint, and plausibility were comparable across the neutral and emotional scenarios. As expected, the N400 was smaller to neutral words that were semantically congruous (vs. incongruous) with their neutral discourse context. No such N400 congruity effect was observed on emotional words following emotional discourse contexts. Rather, the amplitude of the N400 was small to all emotional words (pleasant and unpleasant), regardless of whether their emotional valence was congruous with the valence of their emotional discourse context. However, consistent with previous studies, the emotional words produced a larger late positivity than did the neutral words. These data suggest that comprehenders bypassed deep semantic processing of valence-incongruous emotional words within the N400 time window, moving rapidly on to evaluate the words’ motivational significance.     

Many-Valued Logic and Event-Related Potentials

In previous experiments on event-related potentials (ERPs) during linguistic judgments, the subjects' decisions have been categorical (e.g., true vs false). In this experiment, more realistic variations in truth value and subject certainty were used. Thirty-eight naive undergraduates read a story about a fictional murder. ERPs were recorded as the subjects rated the strength of their beliefs about statements relating to suspects in the crime. Because no subject was sure which of the suspects was guilty of committing the crime, binary (true–false) category judgments were inappropriate. Three components of the ERP waveforms were affected by the experimental manipulations. An early positive component was largest to sentences concerning the suspect considered most likely to have committed the crime. A subsequent broad posterior positivity (LPC) also showed significant sentence-type differences, but it was larger to sentences considered probable—whether they were true or false—than to more ambiguous sentences. A third ERP component (N400) was negative at midline electrode sites and peaked at approximately 420 ms. Subjects' truth-value judgments had no effect on the N400. N400 was, however, affected by the subject's task. It was more negative when subjects made graded judgments about truth value than when they made binary true–false judgments. Overall, naturalistic judgments of sentence validity produced a variety of brain responses that reflected different aspects of linguistic decision making.     

Brain potentials for derivational morphology: an ERP study of deadjectival nominalizations in Spanish

This study investigates brain potentials to derived word forms in Spanish. Two experiments were performed on derived nominals that differ in terms of their productivity and semantic properties but are otherwise similar, an acceptability judgment task and a reading experiment using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in which correctly and incorrectly formed derived words were presented in sentence contexts. The first experiment indicated productivity differences between the different nominalization processes in Spanish. The second experiment yielded a pattern of ERP responses that differed from both the familiar lexical-semantic and grammatical ERP effects. Violations of derivational morphology elicited an increased N400 component plus a late positivity (P600), unlike gender-agreement violations, which produced the biphasic LAN/P600 ERP pattern known from previous studies of morpho-syntactic violations. We conclude that the recognition of derived word forms engages both word-level (lexical-semantic) and decompositional (morpheme-based) processes.     

Lexical integration: Sequential effects of syntactic and semantic information

Both semantic and syntactic context constraints can influence word processing at the level of lexical integration. In event-related brain potentials (ERPs), semantic integration is reflected by a negativity around 400 msec (N400), whereas phrase structure assignment and syntactic integration are assumed to be reflected by an early left anterior negativity and a late positivity (P600), respectively. An ERP study is presented in which participants read different types of sentences whose terminal verb was either congruent with the preceding context or incongruent due to a phrase structure violation, a semantic violation, or both. The main finding was that only the pure semantic violation condition, but not the combined semantic and syntactic violation condition, elicited a large N400. The two conditions containing phrase structure violations were predominantly characterized by a P600. Both semantic violation conditions, moreover, displayed a late negativity around 700 msec that overlapped with the P600 in the double violation condition. The absence of an N400 effect for elements that are syntactically as well as semantically incongruent with prior context suggests an early influence of phrase structure information on processes of lexical-semantic integration. The present data are discussed in comparison to previous ERP findings, and a new view of lexical integration processes is proposed.     

How to Detect Deception in Everyday Life and the Reasons Underlying It

The autobiographical Implicit Association Test (aIAT) evaluates which of two contrasting autobiographical events is true for an individual on the basis of implicit associations and corresponding reaction times in classifying sentences. In this research, white lies and corresponding reasons to lie were investigated. White lies are social lies. They are widespread in our in our daily lives, in the business world and in the forensic contexts. The ability to deceive is essential for polite interactions and, at times, self‐preservation, but little research was conducted so far on this type of deception. The authors tested the efficiency of the aIAT in identifying a white lie and the real reason for producing a white lie, contrasting each participant's real motivation for lying and a false (faked) one. In both cases, aIAT differentiated truth from white lies and also identified the real reason from the faked one for all 20 participants. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Task-dependent modulation of word processing mechanisms during modified visual search tasks

During visual search for words, the impact of the visual and semantic features of words varies as a function of the search task. This event-related potential (ERP) study focused on the way these features of words are used to detect similarities between the distractor words that are glanced at and the target word, as well as to then reject the distractor words. The participants had to search for a target word that was either given literally or defined by a semantic clue among words presented sequentially. The distractor words included words that resembled the target and words that were semantically related to the target. The P2a component was the first component to be modulated by the visual and/or semantic similarity of distractors to the target word, and these modulations varied according to the task. The same held true for the later N300 and N400 components, which confirms that, depending on the task, distinct processing pathways were sensitized through attentional modulation. Hence, the process that matches what is perceived with the target acts during the first 200?ms after word presentation, and both early detection and late rejection processes of words depend on the search task and on the representation of the target stored in memory.     

Believe it or not: on the possibility of suspending belief

We present two experiments that cast doubt on existing evidence suggesting that it is impossible to suspend belief in a comprehended proposition. In Experiment 1, we found that interrupting the encoding of a statement's veracity decreased memory for the statement's falsity when the false version of the statement was uninformative, but not when the false version was informative. This suggests that statements that are informative when false are not represented as if they were true. In Experiment 2, participants made faster lexical decisions to words implied by preceding statements when they were told that the statements were true than when the veracity of the statements was unknown or when the statements were false. The findings suggest that comprehending a statement may not require believing it, and that it may be possible to suspend belief in comprehended propositions.     

Detecting lies about consumer attitudes using the timed antagonistic response alethiometer

The Timed Antagonistic Response Alethiometer (TARA) is a true–false statement classification task that diagnoses lying on the basis of slower average response speeds. Previous research (Gregg in Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 621–647, 2007) showed that a computer-based TARA was about 80 % accurate when its statements conveyed demographic facts or religious views. Here, we tested the TARA’s diagnostic potential when its statements conveyed attitudes—here, toward both branded and generic consumer products—across different versions of the TARA (Exps. 1a, 1b, and 1c), as well as across consecutive administrations (Exp. 2). The results generalized well across versions, and maximal accuracy rates exceeding 80 % were obtained, although accuracy declined somewhat upon readministration. Overall, the TARA shows promise as a comparatively cheap, convenient, and diagnostic index of lying about attitudes.     

An ERP investigation on the temporal dynamics of emotional prosody and emotional semantics in pseudo- and lexical-sentence context

Previous evidence supports differential event-related brain potential (ERP) responses for emotional prosodic processing and integrative emotional prosodic/semantic processing. While latter process elicits a negativity similar to the well-known N400 component, transitions in emotional prosodic processing elicit a positivity. To further substantiate this evidence, the current investigation utilized lexical-sentences and sentences without lexical content (pseudo-sentences) spoken in six basic emotions by a female and a male speaker. Results indicate that emotional prosodic expectancy violations elicit a right-lateralized positive-going ERP component independent of basic emotional prosodies and speaker voice. In addition, expectancy violations of integrative emotional prosody/semantics elicit a negativity with a whole-head distribution. The current results nicely complement previous evidence, and extend the results by showing the respective effects for a wider range of emotional prosodies independent of lexical content and speaker voice.     

Embedding lies into truthful stories does not affect their quality

When given the opportunity, liars will embed their lies into otherwise truthful statements. In what way this embedding affects the quality of lies, however, remains largely unknown. This study investigated whether lies that are embedded into truthful stories are richer in detail and contain higher quality details compared to lies that are part of entirely fabricated statements. Participants (N = 111) were asked to provide a statement that was either entirely truthful, entirely fabricated, or had the fabricated element of interest embedded into an otherwise truthful story. Results indicated that lies embedded in a fabricated statement are not qualitatively different from lies embedded in an otherwise truthful statement. Supporting Bayes factors provided moderate to strong evidence for this conclusion. Accordingly, verbal credibility assessment tools based on the verbal content measured in this study may be robust against the embedding of lies.     

Right Hemisphere Activation during Indirect Semantic Priming: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Healthy subjects performed a lexical decision task in a semantic priming paradigm while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 64 channels. Semantic distance between prime and target was varied by including directly, indirectly, and nonrelated word pairs. At centro-parietal electrodes an N400 to nonrelated pairs was elicited bilaterally which was sensitive only to direct, but not to indirect semantic priming. These N400 priming effects were mirrored by the RT data. At inferior fronto-temporal sites directly related words showed ERP priming effects over both hemispheres. However, indirectly related words only elicited ERP priming effects over the right hemisphere. These results support the hypothesis that the right hemisphere semantic system is involved in processing of remote semantic information.     

ERP Evidence for the Activation of Syntactic Structure During Comprehension of Lexical Idiom

The present study used event-related potentials to investigate whether the syntactic structure was activated in the comprehension of lexical idioms, and if so, whether it varied as a function of familiarity and semantic transparency. Participants were asked to passively read the “1+2” structural Chinese lexical idioms with each being presented following 3–5 contextual “1+2” (congruent-structure condition) or “2+1” structural Chinese phrases (incongruent-structure condition). The N400 ERP responses showed more positivity in congruent-structure condition relative to incongruent-structure condition in idioms with high familiarity and high semantic transparency, but less positivity in congruent-structure condition in idioms with high familiarity but low semantic transparency, idioms with low familiarity but high semantic transparency, and idioms with low familiarity and low semantic transparency. Our results suggest that syntactic structure, as the unnecessarity of lexical idiomatic words, was nevertheless activated, independent of familiarity and semantic transparency.     

音乐对情感词加工的情感/意义双启动效应

本研究在前人研究的基础上进一步探讨音乐对情感词的启动机制。采用内隐情感启动范式,运用脑电技术考察多种情感类型的音乐片段对情感意义一致或不一致的词加工的启动影响。行为实验结果显示,音乐对情感词产生启动效应。脑电实验的结果发现,音乐对情感词的启动效应表现为早晚两个子成分的N400效应,首先是音乐直接引发的情绪产生第一个启动,表现为早成分的N400;其次是音乐通过联想引发的情感语义而产生第二个启动,表现为晚成分的N400。据此可以认为,音乐对情感词的启动是双启动模式。     

A funny thing happened on the way to articulation: N400 attenuation despite behavioral interference in picture naming

We measured Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) and naming times to picture targets preceded by masked words (stimulus onset asynchrony: 80 ms) that shared one of three different types of relationship with the names of the pictures: (1) Identity related, in which the prime was the name of the picture ("socks" - ), (2) Phonemic Onset related, in which the initial segment of the prime was the same as the name of the picture ("log" - ), and (3) Semantically related in which the prime was a co-category exemplar and associated with the name of the picture ("cake" - ). Each type of related picture target was contrasted with an Unrelated picture target, resulting in a 3×2 design that crossed Relationship Type between the word and the target picture (Identity, Phonemic Onset and Semantic) with Relatedness (Related and Unrelated). Modulation of the N400 component to related (versus unrelated) pictures was taken to reflect semantic processing at the interface between the picture's conceptual features and its lemma, while naming times reflected the end product of all stages of processing. Both attenuation of the N400 and shorter naming times were observed to pictures preceded by Identity related (versus Unrelated) words. No ERP effects within 600 ms, but shorter naming times, were observed to pictures preceded by Phonemic Onset related (versus Unrelated) words. An attenuated N400 (electrophysiological semantic priming) but longer naming times (behavioral semantic interference) were observed to pictures preceded by Semantically related (versus Unrelated) words. These dissociations between ERP modulation and naming times suggest that (a) phonemic onset priming occurred late, during encoding of the articulatory response, and (b) semantic behavioral interference was not driven by competition at the lemma level of representation, but rather occurred at a later stage of production.     

Priming effects on the N400 in the affective priming paradigm with facial expressions of emotion

We studied the effect of facial expression primes on the evaluation of target words through a variant of the affective priming paradigm. In order to make the affective valence of the faces irrelevant to the task, the participants were assigned a double prime–target task in which they were unpredictably asked either to identify the gender of the face or to evaluate whether the word was pleasant or unpleasant. Behavioral and electrophysiological (event-related potential, or ERP) indices of affective priming were analyzed. Temporal and spatial versions of principal components analyses were used to detect and quantify those ERP components associated with affective priming. Although no significant behavioral priming was observed, electrophysiological indices showed a reverse priming effect, in the sense that the amplitude of the N400 was higher in response to congruent than to incongruent negative words. Moreover, a late positive potential (LPP), peaking around 700 ms, was sensitive to affective valence but not to prime–target congruency. This pattern of results is consistent with previous accounts of ERP effects in the affective priming paradigm that have linked the LPP with evaluative priming and the N400 with semantic priming. Our proposed explanation of the N400 priming effects obtained in the present study is based on two assumptions: a double check of affective stimuli in terms of valence and specific emotion content, and the differential specificities of facial expressions of positive and negative emotions.     

The Mechanism Underlying Backward Priming in a Lexical Decision Task: Spreading Activation versus Semantic Matching

Koriat (1981) demonstrated that an association from the target to a preceding prime, in the absence of an association from the prime to the target, facilitates lexical decision and referred to this effect as 'backward priming'. Backward priming is of relevance, because it can provide information about the mechanism underlying semantic priming effects. Following Neely (1991), we distinguish three mechanisms of priming: spreading activation, expectancy, and semantic matching/ integration. The goal was to determine which of these mechanisms causes backward priming, by assessing effects of backward priming on a language-relevant ERP component, the N400, and reaction time (R T). Based on previous work, we propose that the N400 priming effect reflects expectancy and semantic matching/ integration, but in contrast with R T does not reflect spreading activation. Experiment 1 shows a backward priming effect that is qualitatively similar for the N400 and R T in a lexical decision task. This effect was not modulated by an ISI manipulation. Experiment 2 clarifies that the N400 backward priming effect reflects genuine changes in N400 amplitude and cannot be ascribed to other factors. We will argue that these backward priming effects cannot be due to expectancy but are best accounted for in terms of semantic matching/ integration.     

Electrophysiological difference between the representations of causal judgment and associative judgment in semantic memory

Causally related concepts like “virus” and “epidemic” and general associatively related concepts like “ring” and “emerald” are represented and accessed separately. The Evoked Response Potential (ERP) procedure was used to examine the representations of causal judgment and associative judgment in semantic memory. Participants were required to remember a task cue (causal or associative) presented at the beginning of each trial, and assess whether the relationship between subsequently presented words matched the initial task cue. The ERP data showed that an N400 effect (250–450 ms) was more negative for unrelated words than for all related words. Furthermore, the N400 effect elicited by causal relations was more positive than for associative relations in causal cue condition, whereas no significant difference was found in the associative cue condition. The centrally distributed late ERP component (650–750 ms) elicited by the causal cue condition was more positive than for the associative cue condition. These results suggested that the processing of causal judgment and associative judgment in semantic memory recruited different degrees of attentional and executive resources.     

Gender Stereotype Activation versus Lexical Semantic Activation: An ERP Study

It is an open question whether social stereotype activation can be distinguished from nonsocial semantic activation. To address this question, gender stereotype activation (GSA) and lexical semantic activation (LSA) were directly compared. EEGs were recorded in 20 participants as they identified the congruence between prime-target word pairs under four different conditions (stereotype congruent, stereotype incongruent, semantic congruent, and semantic incongruent). We found that congruent targets elicited faster and more accurate responses and reduced N400 amplitudes irrespective of priming category types. The N400 congruency effect (i.e., the difference between incongruity and congruity) started earlier and had greater amplitude for GSA than for LSA. Moreover, gender category priming induced a smaller N400 and a larger P600 than lexical category priming. These findings suggest that the brain is not only sensitive to both stereotype and semantic violation in the post-perceptual processing stage but can also differentiate these two information processes. Further, the findings suggest superior processing (i.e., faster and deeper processing) when the words are associated with social category and convey stereotype knowledge.     

The processing of positive and negative information

An affirmative statement which is known to be false and the complementary negative statement which is known to be true, provide the same information, i.e. that something is not the case. Similarly, an affirmative statement which is known to be true and the complementary negative statement which is known to be false, both imply that something is the case. (If P is false, not-P is true and if P is true, not-P is false.) Hence there are four kinds of statement (“conditions”): true affirmatives, false affirmatives, true negativee and false negatives, but only two kinds of information: positive and negative.

This experiment investigates the times taken to process information presented in these ways. The task was to select two alternative words which would make affirmative or negative conjunctive statements agree or conflict with given situations. The four conditions were presented six times in different serial orders, so that each occurred once in every block of four trials. The mean response times were: true affirmatives 8-99 sec, false affirmatives 11 19 sec., true negatives 12-58 sec, false negatives 15-17 sec. This order was the same at each of the six presentations of the conditions, the differences being significant at the 0 001 level in each case. There was a pronounced decline in errors (without knowledge of results) for three of the conditions. These results are discussed in relation to (i) the assumption of a positive set, established through a long learning process; (ii) the inferential nature of negative information in relation to experience; and (iii) the possible emotional effects of negative terms.     

Gradients versus dichotomies: How strength of semantic context influences event-related potentials and lexical decision times

In experiments devoted to word recognition and/or language comprehension, reaction time in the lexical decision task is perhaps the most commonly used behavioral dependent measure, and the amplitude of the N400 component of the event-related potential (ERP) is the most common neural measure. Both are sensitive to multiple factors, including frequency of usage, orthographic similarity to other words, concreteness of word meaning, and preceding semantic context. All of these factors vary continuously. Published results have shown that both lexical decision times and N400 amplitudes show graded responses to graded changes of word frequency and orthographic similarity, but a puzzling discrepancy in their responsivity to the strength of a semantic context has received little attention. In three experiments, we presented pairs of words varying in the strengths of their semantic relationships, as well as unrelated pairs. In all three experiments, N400 amplitudes showed a gradient from unrelated to weakly associated to strongly associated target words, whereas lexical decision times showed a binary division rather than a gradient across strengths of relationship. This pattern of results suggests that semantic context effects in lexical decision and ERP measures arise from fundamentally different processes.