Are pumpkins better than heaven? An ERP investigation of order effects in the concrete-word advantage

Semantic processing of highly repeated concepts presented in single-word trials: Electrophysiological and behavioral correlates

“…It was also greater over left lateral sites as found by Zhang et al (2006) and Tolentino and Tokowicz (2009) (see below and general discussion). Crucially, these N400-like effects were only significant when repetitions occurred in nonconsecutive trials.…”

“…The fact that the N400-like deflection peaked earlier than it is usually observed for the N400 (see also Debruille and Renoult, 2009;Renoult and Debruille, 2010) perhaps allowed observing the influence of this component as a separate deflection in the ERPs. Observations of ERP figures of previous studies sometimes reveal the presence of a second bump during the N400 deflection, especially at right frontal sites (e.g., Kounios and Holcomb, 1994: experiment 2;West and Holcomb, 2000;Tolentino and Tokowicz, 2009). It is thus possible that depending on its timing of activation, a similar fronto-central component could have influenced the distribution of both N400 and LPC effects in other studies.…”

“…This difference was mirrored by the results of dipole source analysis which revealed a left parahippocampal generator in the first experiment and a right parahippocampal source in the second. This variation in lateralization is representative of the ERP literature in which right lateralization (Kounios and Holcomb, 1994;Holcomb et al, 1999), left lateralization (Zhang et al, 2006;Tolentino and Tokowicz, 2009) or no lateralization (West and Holcomb, 2000;Nittono et al, 2002;Swaab et al, 2002;Kanske and Kotz, 2007;Tsai et al, 2009) have been described. These various findings are also reminiscent of the findings of fMRI studies.…”

“…Similar to some of these studies 1 , this effect was also greater over anterior than posterior lateral sites (Kounios and Holcomb, 1994;Holcomb et al, 1999;Swaab et al, 2002), and slightly right lateralized (Kounios and Holcomb, 1994; see also Holcomb et al, 1999 for a similar trend). Other findings include a left lateralization of the effect (Zhang et al, 2006;Tolentino and Tokowicz, 2009) or no lateralization (West and Holcomb, 2000;Nittono et al, 2002;Swaab et al, 2002;Kanske and Kotz, 2007;Tsai et al, 2009). Variations in the lateralization of concreteness effects will be further considered in the general discussion.…”

“…We chose to test this hypothesis for the effect of concreteness, as this effect is one of the best known correlates of the organization of conceptual knowledge. It is well described by behavioral (Paivio, 1991;Schwanenflugel, 1991) and ERP studies (Kounios and Holcomb, 1994;Holcomb et al, 1999;West and Holcomb, 2000;Zhang et al, 2006;Kanske and Kotz, 2007;Tolentino and Tokowicz, 2009;Tsai et al, 2009) and the demonstration of its resistance to repetition would complement findings obtained for the effects of semantic congruity and category.…”