Word meanings survive visual crowding: evidence from ERPs
Journal
Language, Cognition and Neuroscience
Journal Volume
31
Journal Issue
9
Pages
1167-1177
Date Issued
2016
Author(s)
Abstract
Conscious identification of an object in the periphery is drastically impaired when it is surrounded by flankers as opposed to when presented in isolation; this is known as visual crowding. However, one previous behavioural study has shown that semantic priming can actually occur from a crowded stimulus [Yeh, He, & Cavanagh, 2012. Semantic priming from crowded words. Psychological Science, 23(6), 608–616. doi:10.1177/0956797611434746]. Based on this finding, the current study used event-related potentials (ERPs; N400 component) to verify that the response facilitation seen in Yeh et al. [2012. Semantic priming from crowded words. Psychological Science, 23(6), 608–616. doi:10.1177/0956797611434746] indeed occurs at the semantic level. We confirmed that the crowded words do produce semantic-level priming. That is, crowded words led to N400 reduction on subsequent targets: the semantically related target elicited a smaller N400 component than did the unrelated targets. And both crowded and isolated primes elicited the same amount of N400 reduction, consistent with the previous behavioural result. Several models on crowding and word processing are discussed and an alternative word processing theory is proposed to explain our results.
SDGs
Type
journal article