Frequency and predictability effects on event-related potentials during reading - PubMed (original) (raw)

Comparative Study

. 2006 Apr 21;1084(1):89-103.

doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2006.02.010. Epub 2006 Mar 20.

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Comparative Study

Michael Dambacher et al. Brain Res. 2006.

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Abstract

Effects of frequency, predictability, and position of words on event-related potentials were assessed during word-by-word sentence reading in 48 subjects in an early and in a late time window corresponding to P200 and N400. Repeated measures multiple regression analyses revealed a P200 effect in the high-frequency range; also the P200 was larger on words at the beginning and end of sentences than on words in the middle of sentences (i.e., a quadratic effect of word position). Predictability strongly affected the N400 component; the effect was stronger for low than for high-frequency words. The P200 frequency effect indicates that high-frequency words are lexically accessed very fast, independent of context information. Effects on the N400 suggest that predictability strongly moderates the late access especially of low-frequency words. Thus, contextual facilitation on the N400 appears to reflect both lexical and post-lexical stages of word recognition, questioning a strict classification into lexical and post-lexical processes.

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