Imagining the truth and the moon: An electrophysiological study of abstract and concrete word processing

Abstract

Previous event-related potential studies have indicated that both a widespread N400 and an anterior N700 index differential processing of concrete and abstract words, but the nature of these components in relation to concreteness and imagery has been unclear. Here, we separated the effects of word concreteness and task demands on the N400 and N700 in a single word processing paradigm with a within-subjects, between-tasks design and carefully controlled word stimuli. The N400 was larger to concrete words than to abstract words, and larger in the visualization task condition than in the surface task condition, with no interaction. A marked anterior N700 was elicited only by concrete words in the visualization task condition, suggesting that this component indexes imagery. These findings are consistent with a revised or extended dual coding theory according to which concrete words benefit from greater activation in both verbal and imagistic systems.

Examining the N400 semantic context effect item-by-item: Relationship to corpus-based measures of word co-occurrence

“…The current results using continuous variables confirm prior reports that examined sets of words with extreme values. One confirmatory finding is larger N400s for words with more concrete meanings (Barber et al, 2013;Gulick et al, 2013;Kounios and Holcomb, 1994;Swaab et al, 2002). This "concreteness effect" is taken to reflect retrieval of more semantic information, specifically greater perceptual detail for concrete than abstract words.…”

“…Many studies show that words with concrete meanings elicit larger N400s and faster lexical decision times than words with abstract meanings (Barber et al, 2013;Gulick et al, 2013;Kounios and Holcomb, 1994;Swaab et al, 2002). Concreteness ratings were drawn from a recent large-scale study in which subjects rated words on a scale from 1 (least concrete) to 5 (most concrete, Brysbaert et al, 2014).…”

Early lexico-semantic modulation of motor related areas during action and non-action verb processing

“…Furthermore, effects of mental imagery are reported to occur from 300 (Gullick, Mitra, & Coch, 2013), 500 (West & Holcomb, 2000), or even 700 ms (Welcome, Paivio, McRae, & Joanisse, 2011) …”

“…Gullick et al, 2013). The N400 is generally accepted to reflect semantic processing, more specifically it represents the integration of different kinds of information in large scale networks Kutas & Federmeier, 2000).…”

The effects of single and dual coded multimedia instructional methods on Chinese character learning

“…Studies on how concreteness contributes to word recognition (Sadoski, Goetz and Fritz 1993, Jessen et al 2000, Wang et al 2010, Welcome et al 2011, Gullick, Mitra and Coch 2013 support the dual coding theory as well although there are alternative theories of semantic representation regarding word concreteness (Kousta et al 2011). Abstract words, which are usually less imageable, are processed through verbal coding of the left cerebral hemisphere only, while concrete words, in addition to the verbal-based processing in the left hemisphere, may go through a second image-based processing in the right hemisphere (Paivio and te Linde 1982).…”