Event-related potentials to event-related words: Grammatical class and semantic attributes in the representation of knowledge

Abstract

A number of recent studies have provided contradictory evidence on the question of whether grammatical class plays a role in the neural representation of lexical knowledge. Most of the previous studies comparing the processing of nouns and verbs, however, confounded word meaning and grammatical class by comparing verbs referring to actions with nouns referring to objects. Here, we recorded electrical brain activity from native Italian speakers reading single words all referring to events (e.g., corsa [the run]; correre [to run]), thus avoiding confounding nouns and verbs with objects and actions. We manipulated grammatical class (noun versus verb) as well as semantic attributes (motor versus sensory events). Activity between 300 and 450 ms was more negative for nouns than verbs, and for sensory than motor words, over posterior scalp sites. These grammatical class and semantic effects were not dissociable in terms of latency, duration, or scalp distribution. In a later time window (450–110 ms) and at frontal regions, grammatical class and semantic effects interacted; motor verbs were more positive than the other three word categories. We suggest that the lack of a temporal and topographical dissociation between grammatical class and semantic effects in the time range of the N400 component is compatible with an account in which both effects reflect the same underlying process related to meaning retrieval, and we link the later effect with working memory operations associated to the experimental task.