Is “Blank” a suitable neutral prime for event-related potential experiments?

We report an experiment that evaluates whether BLANK or an unrelated prime is a more suitable baseline for assessing priming for an ERP study. Sixteen subjects performed a lexical decision task with a 1 s prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony. Increased amplitude for the N400 was observed for targe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain and language 2006-04, Vol.97 (1), p.91-101
Main Authors: Dien, Joseph, Franklin, Michael S., May, Christopher J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain - physiology
Electrophysiology
Evoked Potentials
Expectancy
Experiments
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Language Processing
Male
Measures (Individuals)
N400
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Recognition (Psychology) - physiology
Recognition potential
Semantic integration
Semantic priming
Semantics
Vocabulary
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Description
Summary:We report an experiment that evaluates whether BLANK or an unrelated prime is a more suitable baseline for assessing priming for an ERP study. Sixteen subjects performed a lexical decision task with a 1 s prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony. Increased amplitude for the N400 was observed for targets in the unrelated prime condition whereas targets in the BLANK prime condition evoked activity that was more like that in the related prime condition. Theoretically, we conclude that the N400 reflects semantic integration. Pragmatically, we conclude that the BLANK prime is a better neutral prime but that unrelated primes yield stronger N400 effects.
ISSN:0093-934X
1090-2155
DOI:10.1016/j.bandl.2005.08.002