Brain potentials elicited by words: word length and frequency predict the latency of an early negativity Export

@article{citeulike:251230, abstract = {Prior work has suggested that open- and closed-class words elicit negative components in the event-related potential (ERP) that differ in timing and scalp distribution. We tested this hypothesis against the possibility that the word-class effects are attributable to quantitative differences in word length and frequency. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 13 scalp sites while participants read normal or scrambled prose. ERPs were averaged as a function of word class (open vs. closed) and grammatical category (articles, nouns, verbs, etc.). Regression analyses indicated that the latency of an early-occurring negative component was highly correlated with the mean length and normative frequency of words in each grammatical category. Stronger correlations were observed in the scrambled prose condition than in the normal prose condition. Differences in the scalp distributions of these negativities were found to be a function of grammatical category rather than word class. These results are taken to be inconsistent with the claim that open- and closed-class words elicit qualitatively distinct negativities.}, author = {Osterhout, Lee and Bersick, Michael and Mckinnon, Richard}, citeulike-article-id = {251230}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0301-0511(97)05250-2}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6T4T-3W0FS0D-4/2/7cc5f0c731eafdad1a4967d1b7a4072b}, doi = {10.1016/S0301-0511(97)05250-2}, journal = {Biological Psychology}, keywords = {erps, n400, p600, word-frequency, word-length}, month = {August}, number = {2}, pages = {143--168}, posted-at = {2009-11-07 20:20:24}, priority = {2}, title = {Brain potentials elicited by words: word length and frequency predict the latency of an early negativity}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0301-0511(97)05250-2}, volume = {46}, year = {1997} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:251230 L3 - citeulike-article-id:251230 N2 - Prior work has suggested that open- and closed-class words elicit negative components in the event-related potential (ERP) that differ in timing and scalp distribution. We tested this hypothesis against the possibility that the word-class effects are attributable to quantitative differences in word length and frequency. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 13 scalp sites while participants read normal or scrambled prose. ERPs were averaged as a function of word class (open vs. closed) and grammatical category (articles, nouns, verbs, etc.). Regression analyses indicated that the latency of an early-occurring negative component was highly correlated with the mean length and normative frequency of words in each grammatical category. Stronger correlations were observed in the scrambled prose condition than in the normal prose condition. Differences in the scalp distributions of these negativities were found to be a function of grammatical category rather than word class. These results are taken to be inconsistent with the claim that open- and closed-class words elicit qualitatively distinct negativities. IS - 2 JF - Biological Psychology EP - 168 TI - Brain potentials elicited by words: word length and frequency predict the latency of an early negativity VL - 46 SP - 143 KW - erps KW - n400 KW - p600 KW - word-frequency KW - word-length AU - Osterhout, Lee AU - Bersick, Michael AU - Mckinnon, Richard PY - 1997/08/22/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0301-0511(97)05250-2 ER -