Effect of Typicality in Abstract Word Categories on N400 ERP
Mansoureh Fahimi, Marc Van Hulle
2016
Abstract
We investigate the effect of word typicality-the degree of membership of a word to its superordinate category- on the N400 event-related potential (ERP) using a single trial detection approach based on spatiotemporal beamforming. Unlike the norm in studies, where mostly concrete categories are used (imaginable objects), we considered a total of 6 basic categories: three abstract and unimaginable (emotion, event, illness) one abstract yet clearly imaginable (colour), and two concrete categories, one coherent (mammals) and the other incoherent (furniture). Our results show that, independently of word abstractness or concreteness, word typicality has a clear effect on N400 both in terms of amplitude and scalp localization, which in turn is indicative of differences in difficulty of word processing.
References
- Fujihara, N., Nageishi, Y., Koyama, S., & Nakajima, Y., 1998. Electrophysiological evidence for the typicality effect of human cognitive categorization. Int. J. Psychophys., 29(1), 65-75.
- Kounios, J., & Holcomb, P. J., 1994. Concreteness effects in semantic processing: ERP evidence supporting dual-coding theory. J. Exp. Psychol.: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(4), 804.
- Marian, V., Bartolotti, J., Chabal, S., & Shook, A., 2012 CLEARPOND: Cross-linguistic easy-access resource for phonological and orthographic neighborhood densities. PloS one, 7(8), e43230.
- Rosch, E., 1975. Cognitive representations of semantic categories. J. Exp. Psychol.: General, 104(3), 192.
- Tolentino, L. C., & Tokowicz, N., 2009. Are pumpkins better than heaven? An ERP investigation of order effects in the concrete-word advantage. Brain and Llanguage, 110(1), 12-22.
- Van Vliet, M., Chumerin, N., De Deyne, S., Wiersema, J. R., Fias, W., Storms, G., & Van Hulle, M. M., 2016 Single-Trial ERP Component Analysis Using a Spatiotemporal LCMV Beamformer. IEEE BME, 63(1), 55-66.
Paper Citation
in Harvard Style
Fahimi M. and Van Hulle M. (2016). Effect of Typicality in Abstract Word Categories on N400 ERP . In - NEUROTECHNIX, ISBN , pages 0-0
in Bibtex Style
@conference{neurotechnix16,
author={Mansoureh Fahimi and Marc Van Hulle},
title={Effect of Typicality in Abstract Word Categories on N400 ERP},
booktitle={ - NEUROTECHNIX,},
year={2016},
pages={},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={},
isbn={},
}
in EndNote Style
TY - CONF
JO - - NEUROTECHNIX,
TI - Effect of Typicality in Abstract Word Categories on N400 ERP
SN -
AU - Fahimi M.
AU - Van Hulle M.
PY - 2016
SP - 0
EP - 0
DO -