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Abstract:
Abstract: Speaking involves meaning activation followed by
syntactic and phonological analyses of words. Listening likely
involves the reverse: phonological processing perhaps followed
later or in parallel integration of the word's meaning. We compared
the time course of phonological and semantic information processing
during language production and comprehension, using event-related
brain potentials (ERPs). Participants viewed a series of pictures,
or heard a series of words, and made dual choice go/nogo decisions
based on each item's conceptual features (whether the item was an
animal or an object) and phonological features (whether the item's
German name started with a vowel or a consonant). During picture
processing, both the lateralized readiness potential or LRP
(related to response preparation) and the N200 (related to response
inhibition) indicated that conceptual processing preceded
phonological processing by ~200 ms. During word processing, the
N200 indicated that phonological processing preceded semantic
processing by ~100 ms. The N200 data for picture naming clearly
favor serial or cascade models of language production. The N200
data for word comprehension, also showed seriality to the
processing of phonology and meaning, albeit with a less pronounced
difference than for production.
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