Skip Nav Destination
Close Modal
Update search
NARROW
Format
Journal
TocHeadingTitle
Date
Availability
1-6 of 6
Jonathan Grainger
Close
Follow your search
Access your saved searches in your account
Would you like to receive an alert when new items match your search?
Sort by
Journal Articles
Seeing the Same Words Differently: The Time Course of Automaticity and Top–Down Intention in Reading
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2015) 27 (8): 1542–1551.
Published: 01 August 2015
FIGURES
Abstract
View article
PDF
We investigated how linguistic intention affects the time course of visual word recognition by comparing the brain's electrophysiological response to a word's lexical frequency, a well-established psycholinguistic marker of lexical access, when participants actively retrieve the meaning of the written input (semantic categorization) versus a situation where no language processing is necessary (ink color categorization). In the semantic task, the ERPs elicited by high-frequency words started to diverge from those elicited by low-frequency words as early as 120 msec after stimulus onset. On the other hand, when categorizing the colored font of the very same words in the color task, word frequency did not modulate ERPs until some 100 msec later (220 msec poststimulus onset) and did so for a shorter period and with a smaller scalp distribution. The results demonstrate that, although written words indeed elicit automatic recognition processes in the brain, the speed and quality of lexical processing critically depends on the top–down intention to engage in a linguistic task.
Journal Articles
Jon Andoni Duñabeitia, Maria Dimitropoulou, Jonathan Grainger, Juan Andrés Hernández, Manuel Carreiras
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2012) 24 (7): 1610–1624.
Published: 01 July 2012
FIGURES
Abstract
View article
PDF
This study was designed to explore whether the human visual system has different degrees of tolerance to character position changes for letter strings, digit strings, and symbol strings. An explicit perceptual matching task was used (same–different judgment), and participants' electrophysiological activity was recorded. Materials included trials in which the referent stimulus and the target stimulus were identical or differed either by two character replacements or by transposing two characters. Behavioral results showed clear differences in the magnitude of the transposed-character effect for letters as compared with digit and symbol strings. Electrophysiological data confirmed this observation, showing an N2 character transposition effect that was only present for letter strings. An earlier N1 transposition effect was also found for letters but was absent for symbols and digits, whereas a later P3 effect was found for all types of string. These results provide evidence for a position coding mechanism that is specific to letter strings, that was most prominent in an epoch between 200 and 325 msec, and that operates in addition to more general-purpose position coding mechanisms.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2012) 24 (7): 1645–1655.
Published: 01 July 2012
FIGURES
| View All (7)
Abstract
View article
PDF
We describe a novel method for tracking the time course of visual identification processes, here applied to the specific case of letter perception. We combine a new behavioral measure of letter identification times with single-letter ERP recordings. Letter identification processes are considered to take place in those time windows in which the behavioral measure and ERPs are correlated. A first significant correlation was found at occipital electrode sites around 100 msec poststimulus onset that most likely reflects the contribution of low-level feature processing to letter identification. It was followed by a significant correlation at fronto-central sites around 170 msec, which we take to reflect letter-specific identification processes, including retrieval of a phonological code corresponding to the letter name. Finally, significant correlations were obtained around 220 msec at occipital electrode sites that may well be due to the kind of recurrent processing that has been revealed recently by TMS studies. Overall, these results suggest that visual identification processes are likely to be composed of a first (and probably preconscious) burst of visual information processing followed by a second reentrant processing on visual areas that could be critical for the conscious identification of the visual target.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2011) 23 (7): 1634–1647.
Published: 01 July 2011
FIGURES
| View All (8)
Abstract
View article
PDF
ERPs were used to explore the different patterns of processing of cognate and noncognate words in the first (L1) and second (L2) language of a population of second language learners. L1 English students of French were presented with blocked lists of L1 and L2 words, and ERPs to cognates and noncognates were compared within each language block. For both languages, cognates had smaller amplitudes in the N400 component when compared with noncognates. L1 items that were cognates showed early differences in amplitude in the N400 epoch when compared with noncognates. L2 items showed later differences between cognates and noncognates than L1 items. The results are discussed in terms of how cognate status affects word recognition in second language learners.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2006) 18 (10): 1631–1643.
Published: 01 October 2006
Abstract
View article
PDF
The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the time course of visual word recognition using a masked repetition priming paradigm. Participants monitored target words for occasional animal names, and ERPs were recorded to nonanimal critical items that were full repetitions, partial repetitions, or unrelated to the immediately preceding masked prime word. The results showed a strong modulation of the N400 and three earlier ERP components (P150, N250, and the P325) that we propose reflect sequential overlapping steps in the processing of printed words.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2002) 14 (6): 938–950.
Published: 15 August 2002
Abstract
View article
PDF
In two experiments participants read words and pseudo-words that belonged to either large or small lexical neighborhoods while event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from their scalps. In Experiment 1, participants made speeded lexical decisions to all items, while in Experiment 2 they engaged in a go/no-go semantic categorization task in which the critical items did not require an overt behavioral response. In both experiments, words and pseudo-words produced a consistent pattern of ERP effects: items with many lexical neighbors (large neighborhoods) generated larger N400s than similar items with relatively fewer lexical neighbors (small neighborhoods). Reaction time (RT, Experiment 1), on the other hand, showed a different pattern consistent with previous behavioral studies. While words tended to produce a facilitation in RT for larger neighborhoods, pseudowords produced an inhibition effect. The findings are discussed in terms of recent theories of word recognition and the functional significance of the N400.