Münte T F, Heinze H J
Neurologische Klinik mit klinischer Neurophysiologie der Medizinischen Hochschule Hannover.
EEG EMG Z Elektroenzephalogr Elektromyogr Verwandte Geb. 1991 Mar;22(1):3-9.
There is a hotly debated question as to whether the meaning of a word can be assessed in the lexicon before conscious identification of this word is possible. Some authors have reported shorter lexical decision times for words, which had been preceded by primes, that had been masked below threshold. This effect was taken as evidence for an automatic activation of the lexicon by the unidentified prime. We report an ERP study using the N400 potential and lexical decision time as an index for associative activation of the lexicon. In a condition with supra-threshold primes the typical acceleration of lexical decision time and reduction of N400 amplitude was found for semantically related target words. In the sub-threshold condition, however, no evidence was found for priming in RT and ERP data. This pilot data, as well as previous RT studies, question the findings gathered on sub-threshold priming. No dissociation between RT and ERP parameters was found in the present study.
关于在单词能够被有意识识别之前，其含义是否可以在词汇表中被评估，存在一个激烈争论的问题。一些作者报告说，对于那些之前有低于阈值的掩蔽启动词的单词，词汇判断时间更短。这种效应被视为未被识别的启动词对词汇表自动激活的证据。我们报告了一项ERP研究，使用N400电位和词汇判断时间作为词汇表联想激活的指标。在启动词高于阈值的条件下，对于语义相关的目标词，发现了典型的词汇判断时间加速和N400振幅降低。然而，在低于阈值的条件下，在反应时和ERP数据中均未发现启动效应的证据。这些初步数据以及之前的反应时研究，对关于低于阈值启动效应的研究结果提出了质疑。在本研究中未发现反应时和ERP参数之间的分离。
