Effects of Semantic Congruence on Sign Identification: An ERP Study

Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of semantic congruence and incongruence on sign identification by using event-related potentials (ERPs). Background Sign systems have crucial roles in public spaces and traffic facilities. Poorly designed signs can easily confuse pedestrians and drivers and reduce the efficiency of public activities and urban administration. Method Thirty-one participants completed a sign identification experiment independently in a laboratory setting. Experimental materials were selected from GB/T 10001, a Chinese national recommendation standard that is officially named Public Information Graphical Symbols for Use on Signs. All ERP data were processed using MATLAB 13b, and behavioral data were analyzed using Stata 14. Results N170, P200, N300, and N400 components were induced during semantic processing. Statistical analysis revealed that semantic congruence has a main effect on N300 in the frontal region and has a main effect on N400 at FZ in the frontal region, CPZ in the parietal-central region, and PZ in the parietal region. Amplitudes of N300 induced by picture–word matching were considerably different between the two experimental conditions at electrodes FZ and FCZ. Amplitudes of N400 were significantly larger in the incongruent condition than in the congruent condition. Conclusion The study demonstrated that N300 and N400 are promising indicators for measuring semantic congruence in future sign design. Application Our findings provide ERP indicators for measuring the semantic congruence of sign design, which can be easily applied to improve the efficiency of sign design and sign comprehension.

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The Neurobiology of Reading Differs for Deaf and Hearing Adults

The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies in Learning and Cognition ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190054045.013.25 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 346-359

Author(s):

Karen Emmorey

Keyword(s):

Semantic Processing ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Coarse Grained ◽

Reading Success ◽

Deaf Readers ◽

Electrophysiological Studies ◽

Deaf Adults ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Reading System ◽

New Evidence

Recent neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies reveal how the reading system successfully adapts when phonological codes are relatively coarse-grained due to reduced auditory input during development. New evidence suggests that the optimal end-state for the reading system may differ for deaf versus hearing adults and indicates that certain neural patterns that are maladaptive for hearing readers may be beneficial for deaf readers. This chapter focuses on deaf adults who are signers and have achieved reading success. Although the left-hemisphere-dominant reading circuit is largely similar in both deaf and hearing individuals, skilled deaf readers exhibit a more bilateral neural response to written words and sentences than their hearing peers, as measured by event-related potentials and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Skilled deaf readers may also rely more on neural regions involved in semantic processing than hearing readers do. Overall, emerging evidence indicates that the neural markers for reading skill may differ for deaf and hearing adults.

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Abnormal Neural Basis of Emotional Conflict Control in Treatment-Resistant Depression

Clinical EEG and Neuroscience ◽

10.1177/1550059416631658 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 48 (2) ◽

pp. 103-110 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Song Xue ◽

Shanshan Wang ◽

Xia Kong ◽

Jiang Qiu

Keyword(s):

Stroop Task ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Frontal Region ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Treatment Resistant Depression ◽

Treatment Resistant ◽

Neural Basis ◽

Emotional Conflict ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Resistant Depression

Emotional conflict has received increased attention as a research topic. The objective of this study is to confirm that the processing of emotional conflict is impaired in treatment-resistant depression (TRD). We compared the event-related potentials of 17 patients with TRD and 17 healthy controls during the face-word Stroop task, which is an effective way of assessing the effects of emotional conflict directly. Compared with healthy controls, the accuracy scores of the TRD patients were lower in both “congruent stimuli” and “incongruent stimuli” conditions, and their response times were longer. The TRD patients also had larger N2 amplitudes over the frontal region, regardless of stimulus condition, which might reflect that TRD patients pay more attention to emotional information. A larger P3 amplitude over the frontal region for “incongruent stimuli minus congruent stimuli” was also found among patients with TRD, which indicates interference effects in the Stroop task. The results of this study provide novel behavioral and neurophysiological evidence of anomalies in cognitive inhibition among patients with TRD using the word-face task. These findings not only improve our understanding of deficient inhibition in TRD, but also pave the way for a cognitive neuropsychiatric model of depression.

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ERP Evidence for a Sex-Specific Stroop Effect in Emotional Speech

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/089892903322598102 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 15 (8) ◽

pp. 1135-1148 ◽

Cited By ~ 120

Author(s):

Annett Schirmer ◽

Sonja A. Kotz

Keyword(s):

Semantic Processing ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Behavioral Effect ◽

Emotional Prosody ◽

Emotional Speech ◽

Emotional Stimuli ◽

Emotional Information ◽

Men And Women ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Task Irrelevant

The present study investigated the interaction of emotional prosody and word valence during emotional comprehension in men and women. In a prosody-word interference task, participants listened to positive, neutral, and negative words that were spoken with a happy, neutral, and angry prosody. Participants were asked to rate word valence while ignoring emotional prosody, or vice versa. Congruent stimuli were responded faster and more accurately as compared to incongruent emotional stimuli. This behavioral effect was more salient for the word valence task than for the prosodic task and was comparable between men and women. The event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed a smaller N400 amplitude for congruent as compared to emotionally incongruent stimuli. This ERP effect, however, was significant only for the word valence judgment and only for female listeners. The present data suggest that the word valence judgment was more difficult and more easily influenced by task-irrelevant emotional information than the prosodic task in both men and women. Furthermore, although emotional prosody and word valence may have a similar influence on an emotional judgment in both sexes, ERPs indicate sex differences in the underlying processing. Women, but not men, show an interaction between prosody and word valence during a semantic processing stage.

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Auditory Event-Related Potentials during Phonetic and Semantic Processing in Children

Audiology and Neurotology ◽

10.1159/000063739 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. 228-239 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Yael Henkin ◽

Liat Kishon-Rabin ◽

Natan Gadoth ◽

Hillel Pratt

Keyword(s):

Semantic Processing ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Auditory Event ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Auditory Event Related Potentials

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Hemispheric differences in orthographic and semantic processing as revealed by event-related potentials

Neuropsychologia ◽

10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.09.037 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 64 ◽

pp. 230-239 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Danielle S. Dickson ◽

Kara D. Federmeier

Keyword(s):

Semantic Processing ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Hemispheric Differences ◽

Related Potentials

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The role of attention in auditory information processing as revealed by event-related potentials and other brain measures of cognitive function

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x00078407 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 201-233 ◽

Cited By ~ 1141

Author(s):

Risto Näätänen

Keyword(s):

Semantic Processing ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Auditory Stimuli ◽

Stimulus Selection ◽

Auditory Information ◽

Attention Switching ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Physical Features

AbstractThis article examines the role of attention and automaticity in auditory processing as revealed by event-related potential (ERP) research. An ERP component called the mismatch negativity, generated by the brain's automatic response to changes in repetitive auditory input, reveals that physical features of auditory stimuli are fully processed whether or not they are attended. It also suggests that there exist precise neuronal representations of the physical features of recent auditory stimuli, perhaps the traces underlying acoustic sensory (“echoic”) memory. A mechanism of passive attention switching in response to changes in repetitive input is also implicated.Conscious perception of discrete acoustic stimuli might be mediated by some of the mechanisms underlying another ERP component (NI), one sensitive to stimulus onset and offset. Frequent passive attentional shifts might accountforthe effect cognitive psychologists describe as “the breakthrough of the unattended” (Broadbent 1982), that is, that even unattended stimuli may be semantically processed, without assuming automatic semantic processing or late selection in selective attention.The processing negativity supports the early-selection theory and may arise from a mechanism for selectively attending to stimuli defined by certain features. This stimulus selection occurs in the form ofa matching process in which each input is compared with the “attentional trace,” a voluntarily maintained representation of the task-relevant features of the stimulus to be attended. The attentional mechanism described might underlie the stimulus-set mode of attention proposed by Broadbent. Finally, a model of automatic and attentional processing in audition is proposed that is based mainly on the aforementioned ERP components and some other physiological measures.

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A Neurophysiological Study of Semantic Processing in Parkinson’s Disease

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society ◽

10.1017/s1355617716000953 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 78-89 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Anthony J. Angwin ◽

Nadeeka N.W. Dissanayaka ◽

Alison Moorcroft ◽

Katie L. McMahon ◽

Peter A. Silburn ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Semantic Processing ◽

Time Course ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Mean Amplitude ◽

Repetition Effects ◽

Related Potentials ◽

The Mean ◽

Written Word

AbstractObjectives: Cognitive-linguistic impairments in Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been well documented; however, few studies have explored the neurophysiological underpinnings of semantic deficits in PD. This study investigated semantic function in PD using event-related potentials. Methods: Eighteen people with PD and 18 healthy controls performed a semantic judgement task on written word pairs that were either congruent or incongruent. Results: The mean amplitude of the N400 for new incongruent word pairs was similar for both groups, however the onset latency was delayed in the PD group. Further analysis of the data revealed that both groups demonstrated attenuation of the N400 for repeated incongruent trials, as well as attenuation of the P600 component for repeated congruent trials. Conclusions: The presence of N400 congruity and N400 repetition effects in the PD group suggests that semantic processing is generally intact, but with a slower time course as evidenced by the delayed N400. Additional research will be required to determine whether N400 and P600 repetition effects are sensitive to further cognitive decline in PD. (JINS, 2017, 23, 78–89)

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