Journal
ANNUAL REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY, VOL 62
Volume 62, Issue -, Pages 621-647Publisher
ANNUAL REVIEWS
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.131123
Keywords
language; memory; context effects; timing; priming; nonlinguistic stimuli
Categories
Funding
- EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH & HUMAN DEVELOPMENT [R01HD022614] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING [R01AG026308, R01AG008313] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NIA NIH HHS [R01 AG008313, R01 AG026308, AG83013, AG26308] Funding Source: Medline
- NICHD NIH HHS [R01 HD022614, HD022614] Funding Source: Medline
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We review the discovery, characterization, and evolving use of the N400, an event-related brain potential response linked to meaning processing. We describe the elicitation of N400s by an impressive range of stimulus types including written, spoken, and signed words or pseudowords; drawings, photos, and videos of faces, objects, and actions; sounds; and mathematical symbols and outline the sensitivity of N400 amplitude (as its latency is remarkably constant) to linguistic and nonlinguistic manipulations. We emphasize the effectiveness of the N400 as a dependent variable for examining almost every aspect of language processing and highlight its expanding use to probe semantic memory and to determine how the neurocognitive system dynamically and flexibly uses bottom-up and top-down information to make sense of the world. We conclude with different theories of the N400's functional significance and offer an N400-inspired reconceptualization of how meaning processing might unfold.
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