Tracking the Time Course of Word‐Frequency Effects in Auditory Word Recognition With Event‐Related Potentials

Abstract

Although the word-frequency effect is one of the most established findings in spoken-word recognition, the precise processing locus of this effect is still a topic of debate. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to track the time course of the word-frequency effect. In addition, the neighborhood density effect, which is known to reflect mechanisms involved in word identification, was also examined. The ERP data showed a clear frequency effect as early as 350 ms from word onset on the P350, followed by a later effect at word offset on the late N400. A neighborhood density effect was also found at an early stage of spoken-word processing on the PMN, and at word offset on the late N400. Overall, our ERP differences for word frequency suggest that frequency affects the core processes of word identification starting from the initial phase of lexical activation and including target word selection. They thus rule out any interpretation of the word frequency effect that is limited to a purely decisional locus after word identification has been completed.

Lexical mediation of phonotactic frequency effects on spoken word recognition: A Granger causality analysis of MRI-constrained MEG/EEG data

“…The onset was chosen to allow Kalman filter predictions to stabilize, and to capture early evoked responses beginning with the N1/M100 auditory potential. The endpoint was chosen based on evidence from MEG, ERP and eyetracking results that show that sensitivity to manipulations of phonotactic frequency or neighborhood density for spoken words between 200 ms and 500 ms for visually presented (Pylkkänen et al, 2002; Stockall, Stringfellow, & Marantz, 2004) and auditorily presented words (Dufour et al, 2013; Hunter, 2013; MacGregor, Pulvermuller, van Casteren, & Shtyrov, 2012). We report all analyses related to the WORD and LOW ENTROPY NONWORD conditions here.…”

“…Dufour et al (2013) provide the strongest evidence that phonological neighborhood and density effects have different timecourses. They found that simultaneous manipulation of phonotactic frequency-density influenced the amplitude of both the PMN and the late N400 (550–650 ms).…”

“…Finally, the latency of M350, measured in the interval between 300–400 ms post onset, places it after the likely onset of lexical activation, which is estimated to be close to 200 ms based on evidence from auditory gating, fragment priming, and eyetracking (Allopenna, Magnuson, & Tanenhaus, 1998; Magnuson, Dixon, Tanenhaus, & Aslin, 2007a; Marslen-Wilson, 1990; Marslen-Wilson & Zwitserlood, 1989). Other ERP studies have shown earlier sensitivity to phonotactic frequency-density manipulations including the phonological mismatch negativity (PMN) (250–330 ms) (Dufour, Brunelliere, & Frauenfelder, 2013), and P2/P200 (190–250 ms) (Cheng, Schafer, & Riddell, 2014; Hunter, 2013). All of these results suggest that phonotactic frequency or phonological neighborhood sensitivity has a timecourse that closely parallels lexical access.…”

What Are You Waiting For? Real‐Time Integration of Cues for Fricatives Suggests Encapsulated Auditory Memory

“…() showed immediate use of lexical information on speech perception (the Ganong effect), and Mitterer and Reinisch () showed that retuned phoneme categories immediately bias perception. Similarly, it has long been known that word frequency affects lexical processing from the earliest moments of perception (Dahan, Magnuson, & Tanenhaus, ; Dufour, Brunellière, & Frauenfelder, ). Thus, the evidence for immediate integration is ubiquitous.…”

Combining Data-Oriented and Process-Oriented Approaches to Modeling Reaction Time Data

“…Word frequency is an example. In lmer, word frequency is used as a predictor; in DIANA the relative word frequency serves as a prior probability during the search ( [17]). The actual effect of word frequency on DIANA's RT depends also on the neighborhood density, which in turn depends on the composition of the lexicon.…”