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N400 to Semantically Anomalous Pictures and Words

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N400 to Semantically Anomalous Pictures and Words N400 to Semantically Anomalous Pictures and Words Arti Nigam, James E. Hoffian, and Robert F. Simons University of Delaware Abstract Downloaded from http://mitprc.silverchair.com/jocn/article-pdf/4/1/15/1754910/jocn.1992.4.1.15.pdf by guest on 18 May 2021 The N400 component of the human event-related brain in one condition by a line drawing representing the same potential appears to be related to violations of semantic expec- concept (eg, the word “socks” was replaced by a picture of tancy during language comprehension.The present experiment socks). The N400 recorded in the Pictures Condition was found investigated whether the N400 is related specifically to activity to be identical to the N400 generated by words in terms of in a language system or is an index of a conceptual system that amplitude, scalp distribution, and latency. These results suggest is accessed by both pictures and words. Sentences were visually that the N400 is an index of activity in a conceptual memory presented one word at a time with the last word being replaced that is accessed by both pictures and words. INTRODUCTION 1985a) rather than in a sentence context. The principal finding is that pairs of unrelated words or words that do In a seminal study, Kutas and Hillyard (1980) discovered not fit into the category established by the other words a component of the human event-related brain potential in the series elicit N400s. This is presumably due to (ERP) that appeared to be uniquely associated with lan- priming by semantically related words and words be- guage processing. Their subjects read sentences in which longing to a common category. the last word was occasionally anomalous, for example: Although these results are consistent with the claim “He likes cream and sugar in his socks.” The anomalous that N400 is inversely related to activation of word-level word elicited a negative component (the N400) with a nodes in a mental lexicon, they do not address the issue peak latency of approximately 400 msec and a maximum of whether N400 is specific to the language system. Per- amplitude at centroparietal scalp locations. Some studies haps N400 is a manifestation of a mismatch detection have shown a small right-greater-than-left hemispheric process that is common to a variety of tasks, not just asymmetry (Kutas & Hillyard, 1982), although this finding those involving language. Indeed, several investigators is not always reliable (Bentin, McCarthy, &Wood, 1985). have reported negative deflections to physical mis- Subsequent work showed that N400 was better de- matches in several sensory modalities, e.g., in audition scribed in terms of “cloze probability” rather than se- (Naatanen, 1985) and vision (Ritter, Simpson, &Vaughn, mantic anomaly (Kutas & Hillyard, 1980, 1984a). Thus, 1983). However, studies that have directly compared a semantically acceptable endings that are unexpected variety of linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks within the (e.g., “He likes cream and sugar in his tea.”) elicit an same experiment tend to support the claim that N400 is N400. These findings suggest that N400 amplitude may elicited only in language tasks. be inversely related to the degree of activation .of word Polich (1985b) compared ERPs to expectancy devia- nodes in a mental lexicon. This activation model predicts tions in four different contexts: (1) sentences, (2) se- that all words in a sentence should be associated with mantically related word series, (3) numeric series in an N400, with amplitude decreasing across word posi- simple arithmetic progression, and (4) alphabet series in tions as the increasing contextual constraints provide a similar progression. In this experiment, N400 was elic- greater degrees of “top-down’’activation. This prediction ited by expectancy deviations only in the sentences con- has been confirmed in several papers (Kutas, Van Petten, dition. In every other condition, ERPs to deviant-ending & Besson, 1988; Van Petten & Kutas, 1990, 1991). trials were relatively more positive than ERPs to normal- Additional support for the activation model comes ending trials. Besson and Macar (1987) obtained similar from studies in which words are presented in pairs results; they compared ERF’s to expectancy deviations in (Stuss, Picton, & Cerri, 1988; Kutas & Hillyard, 1989) or four contexts: (1) sentences, (2) familiar melodic tunes, series (Harbin, Marsh, & Harvey, 1984; Fischler, Bloom, (3) ascending or descending melodic scales, and (4) Childers, Roucos, & Perry, 1983; Rugg, 1985; Polich, geometric shapes systematically changing in size. A mis- 0 192 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience Volume 4, Number 1 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jocn.1992.4.1.15 by guest on 27 September 2021 match was constructed in melodic tunes by replacing the language system, and a clear test of this hypothesis would last note by a wrong note. In melodic scales, which went be to determine if an N400 is elicited by the conceptual either up or down, and in geometric shapes, which be- processing of pictures. Kutas and Hillyard (1984b) ex- came either larger or smaller within a given trial, mis- amined anomalous ending sentences in which the last matches were made by replacing the last element with word was replaced by a complex, unrecognizable draw- one that did not follow the sequence. As in Polich’s ing. These endings elicited a negative component that experiment (1985b), only unexpected words in the sen- was quite different in latency and scalp distribution from tences condition elicited a readily identifiable N400. Un- the N400 found with all-word anomalous sentences. Sim- expected endings in the tunes, scales, and shapes ilarly, Stuss, Picton, and Cerri (1986) found that unex- conditions elicited a P300, with no evidence of N400. pected pictures in a picture-naming task produced an In evaluating the hypothesis that N400 is uniquely N417 component with a markedly different scalp distri- related to language, it is useful to make a distinction bution than that associated with the N400. Although these between the mental lexicon, which is responsible for results suggest that the negative components elicited by storing knowledge about words, and an amodal system words and pictures are different, it should be noted that Downloaded from http://mitprc.silverchair.com/jocn/article-pdf/4/1/15/1754910/jocn.1992.4.1.15.pdf by guest on 18 May 2021 that represents conceptual knowledge independent of the abstract drawings used by Kutas and Hillyard would input modality (Potter, Kroll, Yachzel, Carpenter, & Sher- not be expected to have representations in a conceptual man, 1986; Theios & Amrhein, 1989). Clearly, language system. It is also unclear whether the naming task used is only one of several surface forms that are available for by Stuss et al. would require access to the conceptual conveying a concept. For example, both pictures and system. written words are visual symbols that may access a com- Similar comments apply to an experiment reported by mon, underlying conceptual system. Potter, Kroll, and Barrett, Rugg, and Perrett (1988) that compared EWs to colleagues have reported several findings in support of matching and nonmatching pairs of photographs of hu- this claim. For example, Potter et al. (1986) presented man faces. Subjects were presented sequentially with sentences to subjects using rapid serial visual presenta- pairs of photographs of famous and unfamiliar people; tion (RSVP) in which a noun was sometimes replaced by on half the trials, the two photographs were identical, a corresponding picture. Speed and accuracy of compre- and on half, they were different. In the famous people hension was comparable for all-word sentences and condition, mismatching faces produced negativity with a those containing a picture (REBUS sentences). In con- latency and scalp distribution similar to the N400. How- trast, naming a picture was about 200 msec slower than ever, for unfamiliar faces, there was no significant differ- naming a word suggesting that performance on REBUS ence in ERPs elicited by matches and mismatches. The sentences was not being mediated by covert naming of difference between the EWs elicited by famous and un- the picture. familiar faces is consistent with the idea that famous faces Additional support for the distinction between surface may have representations in an amodal conceptual sys- form systems and an amodal conceptual system is pro- tem. However, there is also the possibility that subjects vided by 0011 and Potter (1984). They compared a lexical used names to mediate performance in the famous peo- decision task with words and pseudowords to an object ple condition and the resulting N400 could be attributed decision task using drawings of objects and pseudo- to this covert naming. objects. Reaction time in each of these tasks was quite The present study was designed to directly compare similar suggesting the operation of a common conceptual pictures and words in terms of their ability to elicit the system. In contrast, when subjects performed in a com- N400 component. The principal theoretical question is bined version of these tasks in which the surface form whether the cognitive process indexed by the N400 com- of the items was unpredictable, there was a marked ponent reflects activity in a form-specific linguistic system elevation of reaction times, suggesting the presence of or an amodal, conceptual system that supports compre- form-specific systems as well. hension of both words and pictures. This hypothesis was More direct evidence for an amodal conceptual system tested using two kinds of sentences: all-word sentences mediating the comprehension of both words and pic- and sentences in which the last word was replaced by a tures was presented by Kroll and Venugopal(1984). They picture representing the same concept (see Fig. 1). Sim- found that an object decision about a picture was ilar N400s in the two conditions would provide evidence speeded by a preceding linguistic context that was com- favoring the position that the N400 is an index of con- patible with the pictured object.
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