Separating the FN400 and N400 event-related potential components in masked word priming

•Recognition memory for primed words was tested.•N400 and FN400 components were separated.•N400 is related to conceptual fluency/absolute familiarity.•FN400 is related to changes in relative familiarity. Masked word repetition (priming) increases “old” responses on an episodic recognition test, whic...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain and cognition 2024-12, Vol.182, p.106226, Article 106226
Main Authors: Leynes, P. Andrew, Verma, Yashvi, Santos, Alexandra
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Brain - physiology
Electroencephalography - methods
ERPs
Evoked Potentials - physiology
Female
Fluency
FN400
Humans
Male
N400
Perceptual Masking - physiology
Priming
Reading
Recognition, Psychology - physiology
Repetition Priming - physiology
Semantics
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Recognition memory for primed words was tested.•N400 and FN400 components were separated.•N400 is related to conceptual fluency/absolute familiarity.•FN400 is related to changes in relative familiarity. Masked word repetition (priming) increases “old” responses on an episodic recognition test, which has been attributed to more fluent target processing. Such results hinge on comparisons to a control prime that is “fluency-neutral”. A common practice is to use unrelated word primes for this purpose when some evidence suggests that they actually decrease target word processing fluency (disfluency). ERP and behavioral measures were collected in three experiments that used non-letter symbols as a fluency-neutral control and match primes to increase processing fluency. Experiment 1 compared unrelated word primes and orthographically dissimilar nonword primes to determine whether these primes cause disfluency. Experiment 2 contrasted orthographically dissimilar and similar nonword primes. Experiment 3 examined semantically related primes to test theoretical predictions derived from Experiments 1 and 2. All three experiments provide evidence that the FN400 and N400 are distinct ERP components because many primes altered only one of the components. Relative to the control condition, match (Exps 1 & 2) and semantic primes selectively affected N400 amplitudes, whereas unrelated word primes and orthographically dissimilar nonword primes selectively affected FN400 amplitudes. The Unexpected Fluency Attribution model (Mecklinger & Bader, 2020) provides a framework for understanding the cognitive processes associated with each ERP component.
ISSN:0278-2626
1090-2147
1090-2147
DOI:10.1016/j.bandc.2024.106226