Word Semantics Is Processed Even without Attentional Effort

Abstract

We examined the attentional modulation of semantic priming and the N400 effect for spoken words. The aim was to find out how the semantics of spoken language is processed when attention is directed to another modality (passive task), to the phonetics of spoken words (phonological task), or to the semantics of spoken words (word task). Equally strong behavioral priming effects were obtained in the phonological and the word tasks. A significant N400 effect was found in all tasks. The effect was stronger in the word and the phonological tasks than in the passive task, but there was no difference in the magnitude of the effect between the phonological and the word tasks. The latency of the N400 effect did not differ between the tasks. Although the N400 effect had a centroparietal maximum in the phonological and the word tasks, it was largest at the parietal recording sites in the passive task. The effect was more pronounced at the left than right recording sites in the phonological task, but there was no laterality effect in the other tasks. The N400 effect in the passive task indicates that semantic priming occurs even when spoken words are not actively attended. However, stronger N400 effect in the phonological and the word tasks than in the passive task suggests that controlled processes modulate the N400 effect. The finding that there were no differences in the N400 effect between the phonological and the word tasks indicates that the semantics of attended spoken words is processed regardless of whether semantic processing is relevant for task performance.

Effect of Perceptual Load on Semantic Access by Speech in Children

“…This interpretation is compatible with theories proposing that speech input activates lexical-semantic information as it unfolds, according to the match between the evolving input and representations in memory (e.g., Marslen-Wilson, 1987). The behavioral results also agree with electrophysiological findings in adults indicating that semantic access by speech, as indexed by the N400 potential, occurs even when the semantic content is irrelevant (e.g., Kutas & Federmeier, 2011; Relander, Rama, & Kujala, 2008). …”

Task instructions modulate the attentional mode affecting the auditory MMN and the semantic N400

“…These findings support the N400 as a potential to detect higher cognitive functions that require directed attention and confirm previous studies showing strong attenuation or extinction of the N400 effect when attention is not directed toward the stimuli (McCarthy and Nobre, 1993; Chwilla et al, 1995). However, other studies did not find that N400 is modulated by the depth of processing level (Connolly, 1990; Relander et al, 2009). In their review, Deacon and Shelley-Tremblay (2000) concluded that the N400 does not necessarily require attention but only occurs if the processing of the stimuli is not actively inhibited.…”

Neural Dissociations between Action Verb Understanding and Motor Imagery

“…We cannot definitely rule out this possibility, but it is unlikely to be an adequate alternative explanation of these data for several reasons. First, previous research indicates that LD leads to processing up to the semantic level, as indexed by modulations of the N400 component (e.g., Relander, Rama, & Kujala, 2009;Chwilla, Brown, & Hagoort, 1995), RT studies (see Neely, 1991) and overlapping neural correlates between more explicit semantic tasks and LD task (Ruff, Blumstein, Myers, & Hutchison, 2008). Second, the pseudowords were all phonotactically legal and all ended in the suffix indicating the infinitive in Dutch, which necessitates full reading of the verb to be able to perform the task.…”