Context-dependent lexical processing measured by MEG

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Context-dependent lexical processing measured by MEG Norio Fujimaki1* 1 National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan To investigate context effect on lexical processing during reading words, we measured how a preceding word (prime) affected the processing of a following word (target) in MEG priming experiments. Early activation was enhanced by a masked immediate-repetition priming in the occipital area (Occ) (from a time window of 150-200 ms), bilateral ventral occipito-temporal areas (vOT), and anterior temporal areas (aT) (from 200-250 ms). Since our previous studies showed that the Occ/vOT and aT are related to visual-form and lexico-semantic access, respectively, the above effect suggests an automatic spread of context information in these processing areas. We conducted two priming experiments to investigate attentional context effects. In an unmasked semantic priming experiment, we measured activation when a contextually appropriate meaning was selected from multiple candidates of an ambiguous (homonym) target word. From ~200 to 300 ms, the activation in the left anterior inferior frontal cortex (IFC) was larger for ambiguous targets than for unambiguous ones, regardless of context. At ~400 ms, the left anterior and posterior IFC showed a context effect for unambiguous targets but not for ambiguous ones. These differences suggest that the IFC is involved in retrieving meanings and selecting by context. In an unmasked phonological priming experiment with kanji (morphogram) homophone words, the primes were phonologically the same as or different from the targets. Activation was suppressed by phonological repetition at ~400 ms in the left posterior superior temporal/inferior parietal areas (pST/IP) and aT. Since the left pST/IP is related to phonological processing, the result reflects context effect on lexico-semantic access via phonological (indirect) route. These results demonstrate the automatic and attentional (IFC) context effects on lexical processing from visual-form (vOT) to phonological (pST/IP) and lexico-semantic (aT) processing areas. Conference: Biomag 2010 - 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism , Dubrovnik, Croatia, 28 Mar - 1 Apr, 2010. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Language Citation: Fujimaki N (2010). Context-dependent lexical processing measured by MEG. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Biomag 2010 - 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.06.00201 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 30 Mar 2010; Published Online: 30 Mar 2010. * Correspondence: Norio Fujimaki, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Kobe, Japan, fujimaki@po.nict.go.jp Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Norio Fujimaki Google Norio Fujimaki Google Scholar Norio Fujimaki PubMed Norio Fujimaki Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.