Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, PO box 9104, 6500 HE, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Brain Res. 2012 Nov 5;1483:63-70. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2012.09.018. Epub 2012 Sep 14.
Rhyme processing is reflected in the electrophysiological signals of the brain as a negative deflection for non-rhyming as compared to rhyming stimuli around 450 ms after stimulus onset. Studies have shown that this N450 component is not solely sensitive to rhyme but also responds to other types of phonological overlap. In the present study, we examined whether the N450 component can be used to gain insight into the global similarity effect, indicating that rhyme judgment skills decrease when participants are presented with word pairs that share a phonological overlap but do not rhyme (e.g., bell-ball). We presented 20 adults with auditory rhyming, globally similar overlapping and unrelated word pairs. In addition to measuring behavioral responses by means of a yes/no button press, we also took EEG measures. The behavioral data showed a clear global similarity effect; participants judged overlapping pairs more slowly than unrelated pairs. However, the neural outcomes did not provide evidence that the N450 effect responds differentially to globally similar and unrelated word pairs, suggesting that globally similar and dissimilar non-rhyming pairs are processed in a similar fashion at the stage of early lexical access.
韵律加工在大脑的电生理信号中表现为，与押韵刺激相比，非押韵刺激在刺激出现后约 450 毫秒时出现负偏转。研究表明，这个 N450 成分不仅对韵律敏感，还对其他类型的音韵重叠有反应。在本研究中，我们探讨了 N450 成分是否可用于深入了解整体相似性效应，该效应表明，当参与者呈现具有音韵重叠但不押韵的词对（如 bell-ball）时，韵律判断技能会下降。我们向 20 名成年人呈现了听觉押韵、整体相似重叠和不相关的词对。除了通过 yes/no 按钮按下来测量行为反应外，我们还进行了 EEG 测量。行为数据显示出明显的整体相似性效应；参与者判断重叠词对比不相关词对更慢。然而，神经结果并没有提供证据表明 N450 效应对整体相似和不相关的词对有不同的反应，这表明在早期词汇通达阶段，整体相似和不相似的非押韵词对以相似的方式被处理。
