[Q:] When would you prefer a SOSSAGE to a SAUSAGE? [A:] At about 100 msec. ERP correlates of orthographic typicality and lexicality in written word recognition.

Full Abstract

Using a speeded lexical decision task, event-related potentials (ERPs), and minimum norm current source estimates, we investigated early spatiotemporal aspects of cortical activation elicited by words and pseudo-words that varied in their orthographic typicality, that is, in the frequency of their component letter pairs (bi-grams) and triplets (tri-grams). At around 100 msec after stimulus onset, the ERP pattern revealed a significant typicality effect, where words and pseudo-words with atypical orthography (e.g., yacht, cacht) elicited stronger brain activation than items characterized by typical spelling patterns (cart, yart). At approximately 200 msec, the ERP pattern revealed a significant lexicality effect, with pseudo-words eliciting stronger brain activity than words. The two main factors interacted significantly at around 160 msec, where words showed a typicality effect but pseudo-words did not. The principal cortical sources of the effects of both typicality and lexicality were localized in the inferior temporal cortex. Around 160 msec, atypical words elicited the stronger source currents in the left anterior inferior temporal cortex, whereas the left perisylvian cortex was the site of greater activation to typical words. Our data support distinct but interactive processing stages in word recognition, with surface features of the stimulus being processed before the word as a meaningful lexical entry. The interaction of typicality and lexicality can be explained by integration of information from the early form-based system and lexicosemantic processes.

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Author information

Author/s: Hauk, O (O); Patterson, K (K); Woollams, A (A); Watling, L (L); Pulvermüller, F (F); Rogers, T T (TT);

Affiliation: MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK. olaf.hauk(-atsign-)mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk

Grants: MH64445 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

Journal: Journal of cognitive neuroscience (J Cogn Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-May; vol 18 (issue 5) : pp 818-32

Dates: Created 2006/06/13; Completed 2006/09/14; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 16768380, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Brain Mapping
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Electroencephalography - methods
Evoked Potentials - physiology

Humans
Male
Phonetics
Reaction Time - physiology
Recognition (Psychology) - physiology
Word Association Tests
Writing

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