Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of La Laguna, Spain.
Brain Lang. 2013 Apr;125(1):47-53. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2013.01.005. Epub 2013 Feb 26.
Relative to abstract words, concrete words typically elicit faster response times and larger N400 and N700 event-related potential (ERP) brain responses. These effects have been interpreted as reflecting the denser links to associated semantic information of concrete words and their recruitment of visual imagery processes. Here, we examined whether there are ERP differences between concrete and abstract stimuli controlled for a large number of factors including context availability (i.e., richness of semantic associations) and imageability. We found that abstract words elicited faster behavioral responses but that concrete words still elicited larger N400 and N700 responses. We propose that once all other factors, including imageability and context availability are controlled, abstract words may trigger a larger number of superficial linguistic associations that can be quickly used for response decisions. The ERP differences, however, would index the greater semantic processing (integration of multimodal information) for concrete than abstract words during meaning activation.
与抽象词相比，具体词通常会引发更快的反应时间和更大的 N400 和 N700 事件相关电位 (ERP) 脑反应。这些效应被解释为反映了具体词与相关语义信息的更密集联系，以及它们对视觉意象过程的招募。在这里，我们研究了在控制大量因素（包括上下文可用性（即语义联想的丰富度）和形象性）的情况下，具体词和抽象词之间是否存在 ERP 差异。我们发现，抽象词会引发更快的行为反应，但具体词仍然会引发更大的 N400 和 N700 反应。我们提出，一旦控制了所有其他因素，包括形象性和上下文可用性，抽象词可能会引发更多的表面语言联想，这些联想可以快速用于反应决策。然而，ERP 差异将指示在意义激活过程中，具体词比抽象词需要进行更多的语义处理（多模态信息的整合）。
