Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Shared and/or seperate representations of animate/inanimate categories
T2 - an ERP study
AU - Kovic, Vanja
AU - Plunkett, Kim
AU - Westermann, Gert
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - This paper presents an ERP experiment examining the underlying nature of semantic representation of animate and inanimate objects. Time-locking ERP signatures to the onset of visual stimuli we found topological similarities in animate and inanimate object processing. Moreover when mapping more general to more specific representation (auditory to visual stimuli) we found no difference between animates and inanimates in the N400 amplitude either. This study provides further evidence for the theory of unitary semantic organization, but no support for the feature-based prediction of segregated conceptual organization.Surprisingly, it was also found that the P600 component, which has been thus far mostly related to syntactic processing to be a sensitive index of conceptual processing. The most apparent difference regarding P600 component was found between animate and inanimate matches, whereby animate matches elicited more positive ERP signatures in comparison to inanimate matches.
AB - This paper presents an ERP experiment examining the underlying nature of semantic representation of animate and inanimate objects. Time-locking ERP signatures to the onset of visual stimuli we found topological similarities in animate and inanimate object processing. Moreover when mapping more general to more specific representation (auditory to visual stimuli) we found no difference between animates and inanimates in the N400 amplitude either. This study provides further evidence for the theory of unitary semantic organization, but no support for the feature-based prediction of segregated conceptual organization.Surprisingly, it was also found that the P600 component, which has been thus far mostly related to syntactic processing to be a sensitive index of conceptual processing. The most apparent difference regarding P600 component was found between animate and inanimate matches, whereby animate matches elicited more positive ERP signatures in comparison to inanimate matches.
KW - mental representations
KW - animacy
KW - visual stimuli
KW - ERP
KW - N400
KW - EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS
KW - SEMANTIC MEMORY
KW - BRAIN POTENTIALS
KW - CORTICAL REGIONS
KW - LIVING THINGS
KW - ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
KW - LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
KW - ASSOCIATIVE KNOWLEDGE
KW - STRUCTURAL SIMILARITY
KW - OBJECT IDENTIFICATION
U2 - 10.2298/PSI0901005K
DO - 10.2298/PSI0901005K
M3 - Journal article
VL - 42
SP - 5
EP - 26
JO - Psihologija
JF - Psihologija
SN - 0048-5705
IS - 1
ER -