Modulation of Event‐Related Potentials by Word Repetition: The Effects of Inter‐Item Lag

Abstract

The modulation of event-related potentials by word repetition was investigated in two experiments. In both experiments, subjects responded to occasional nonwords interspersed among a series of words. A proportion of the words were repetitions of previously presented items. Words were repeated after 0 or 6 intervening items in Experiment 1 and after 6 or 19 items in Experiment 2. Event-related potentials to repeated words were characterised by a sustained, widespread positive-going shift with an onset of approximately 300 ms. This effect did not vary significantly as a function of lag in either experiment. When words were repeated immediately, this repetition-evoked positive shift was preceded by a transient negative deflection (onset ca. 200 ms) which was absent in event-related potentials to words repeated at longer lags. These results suggest that the modulation of event-related potentials by word repetition is influenced by at least two processes. One of these processes acts relatively early during the processing of a repeated word, but subsides rapidly as inter-item lag between first and second presentations increases. The second process occurs later in time, but is considerably more robust over variations in inter-item lag.

Multimodal access to verbal name codes

“…Because we observed such robust channel summation at the higher SOA values (150, 225 msec), it was suggested by one reviewer that the visual stimulus might prime the auditory stimulus, thus reducing RTs. Evidence from experimental approaches with high temporal fidelity, MEG and ERP, suggests that these effects do not begin until approximately 200-250 msec following presentation of the stimulus (Kim, Lee, Shin, Kwon, & Kim, 2006;Marinkovic et al, 2003;Nagy & Rugg, 1989). Although these paradigms are not precisely identical to the present study, they do evaluate the onset of perceptual priming.…”

Interpreting dissociations between regular and irregular past-tense morphology: Evidence from event-related potentials

“…This was done to avoid the occurrence of N400 reductions due to the second presentation of a word, which has been observed even for extremely large lags (Nagy & Rugg, 1989;Bentin & Peled, 1990). The primary consequence of this decision was that items could not be counterbalanced between primed and unprimed conditions.…”

Not all disfluencies are are equal: The effects of disfluent repetitions on language comprehension

“…We were therefore able to compare the ERPs elicited in response to repetition disfluencies with those associated with acoustically identical control words. Since the words were repeated immediately (as in Nagy and Rugg, 1989) but their occurrence was not predictable (as in , the nature of any effect of repetition under these conditions was one empirical question of considerable interest.…”

“…Relative to the first occurrence of a word, repeated words in lists and sentences are commonly associated with an attenuation of the N400 (Besson, Kutas, and Van Petten, 1992;Besson and Kutas, 1993;Ledoux, Traxler, and Swaab, 2007;. The effect is particularly clear if the repeated word is presented immediately after its first occurrence (Nagy and Rugg, 1989). Consistent with the predominant interpretation of the N400 as indicating semantic integration difficulty (e.g., Federmeier, Wlotko, De Ochoa-Dewald, and Kutas, 2007;Hagoort, Hald, Bastiaansen, and Petersson, 2004;Van Berkum, Brown, and Hagoort, 1999;Van Berkum, Brown, Hagoort, and Zwitserlood, 2003; for evidence that the N400 is driven by word associations rather than semantic features, see these studies suggest that second or later mentions of a word are easier to integrate.…”