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Image memorability, the likelihood that a person will remember a particular image, has been shown to be an intrinsic property of the image that is distinct from many other visual and cognitive features. Research thus far has not identified particular visual features that can sufficiently explain this intrinsic memorability, but one possibility is that more and less memorable images differ in their statistical regularity (i.e., how prototypical or distinctive they are). Statistical regularity is known to affect detection time for images, such that stimuli with higher statistical regularity can be detected with shorter presentation directions. Therefore, in the present study, we probed whether memorability affects how quickly an image can be detected. High- and low-memorability images were presented in an intact/scrambled task wherein participants were asked to indicate whether they saw an intact image or noise, and we estimated the presentation duration necessary for participants to reach 70.7% accuracy. Across two experiments using different stimulus materials, we observed and then replicated that more memorable images are associated with shorter detection thresholds than those for less memorable images. The results support the idea that memorable stimuli may better match stored templates used for image perception and/or recognition. Public Significance Statement: The likelihood that a given image will be remembered has been found to be consistent across people for a variety of image types such as natural scenes, faces, and logos. The present study tested whether image memorability affects the time it takes for people to simply detect the presence of an intact image as opposed to noise. The results show that memorability is associated with enhanced detection, suggesting that more memorable images may also be more readily perceived, consistent with them better matching our stored knowledge of visual scenes and objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not only semantic, but also recently learned arbitrary associations have the potential to facilitate visual processing in everyday life—for example, knowledge of a (moveable) object's location at a specific time may facilitate visual processing of that object. In our prior work, we showed that previewing a scene can facilitate processing of recently associated objects at the level of visual analysis (Smith and Federmeier in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 32(5):783–803, 2020). In the current study, we assess how rapidly this facilitation unfolds by manipulating scene preview duration. We then compare our results to studies using well‐learned object–scene associations in a first‐pass assessment of whether systems consolidation might speed up high‐level visual prediction. In two ERP experiments (N = 60), we had participants study categorically organized novel object–scene pairs in an explicit paired associate learning task. At test, we varied contextual pre‐exposure duration, both between (200 vs. 2500 ms) and within subjects (0–2500 ms). We examined the N300, an event‐related potential component linked to high‐level visual processing of objects and scenes and found that N300 effects of scene congruity increase with longer scene previews, up to approximately 1–2 s. Similar results were obtained for response times and in a separate component‐neutral ERP analysis of visual template matching. Our findings contrast with prior evidence that scenes can rapidly facilitate visual processing of commonly associated objects. This raises the possibility that systems consolidation might mediate different kinds of predictive processing with different temporal profiles. Seeing a scene can bring to mind associated objects, even when those associations are recently learned. Here, we assessed the time‐course of those predictions. In two experiments measuring event‐related potentials, participants learned about novel object‐scene pairings. At test, we varied the time available between the presentation of a scene and a matching or mismatching object. We found that prediction‐related facilitations for matching objects increased with longer scene previews. Thus, at least before learning has been consolidated, forming predictions seems to take up to 1‐2 seconds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictive coding accounts of perception state that the brain generates perceptual predictions in the service of processing incoming sensory data. These predictions are hypothesized to be afforded by the brain's ability to internalize useful patterns, that is, statistical regularities, from the environment. We have previously argued that the N300 ERP component serves as an index of the brain's use of representations of (real-world) statistical regularities. However, we do not yet know whether overt attention is necessary in order for this process to engage. We addressed this question by presenting stimuli of either high or low real-world statistical regularity in terms of their representativeness (good/bad exemplars of natural scene categories) to participants who either fully attended the stimuli or were distracted by another task (attended/distracted conditions). Replicating past work, N300 responses were larger to bad than to good scene exemplars, and furthermore, we demonstrate minimal impacts of distraction on N300 effects. Thus, it seems that overtly focused attention is not required to maintain the brain's sensitivity to real-world statistical regularity. Furthermore, in an exploratory analysis, we showed that providing additional, artificial regularities, formed by altering the proportions of good and bad exemplars within blocks, further enhanced the N300 effect in both attended and distracted conditions, shedding light on the relationship between statistical regularities learned in the real world and those learned within the context of an experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting upcoming words during language comprehension not only affects processing in the moment but also has consequences for memory, although the source of these memory effects (e.g., whether driven by lingering pre-activations, re-analysis following prediction violations, or other mechanisms) remains underspecified. Here, we investigated downstream impacts of prediction on memory in two experiments. First, we recorded EEG as participants read strongly and weakly constraining sentences with expected, unexpected but plausible, or semantically anomalous endings ("He made a holster for his gun / father / train") and were tested on their recognition memory for the sentence endings. Participants showed similar rates of false alarms for predicted but never presented sentence endings whether the prediction violation was plausible or anomalous, suggesting that these arise from pre-activation of the expected words during reading. During sentence reading, especially in strongly constraining sentences, plausible prediction violations elicited an anterior positivity; anomalous endings instead elicited a posterior positivity, whose amplitude was predictive of later memory for those anomalous words. ERP patterns at the time of recognition differentiated plausible and anomalous sentence endings: Words that had been plausible prediction violations elicited enhanced late positive complex amplitudes, suggesting greater episodic recollection, whereas anomalous sentence endings elicited greater N1 amplitudes, suggesting attentional tagging. In a follow-up behavioral study, a separate group of participants read the same sentence stimuli and were tested for sentence-level recall. We found that recall of full sentences was impaired when sentences ended with a prediction violation. Taken together, the results suggest that prediction violations draw attention and affect encoding of the violating word, in a manner that depends on plausibility, and that this, in turn, may impair future memory of the gist of the sentence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is understood about how people strategically process and remember important but complex information, such as sentences. In the current study, we asked whether people can effectively prioritize memory for sentences as a function of their relative importance (operationalized as a reward point value) and whether they do so, in part, by changing their sentence processing strategies when value information is available in advance. We adapted the value-directed remembering paradigm (Castel, Psychol Learn Motiv 48:225–270, 2007) for sentences that varied in constraint and predictability. Each sentence was associated with a high or low value for subsequent free recall (whole sentence) and recognition (sentence-final words) tests. Value information appeared after or before each sentence as a between-subject manipulation. Regardless of condition, we observed that high-value sentences were recalled more often than low-value sentences, showing that people can strategically prioritize their encoding of sentences. However, memory patterns differed depending on when value information was available. Recall for high-value sentences that ended unexpectedly (and therefore violated one's predictions) was reduced in the Before compared to the After condition. Before condition participants also showed a greater tendency to false alarm to lures (words that were the predicted – but not obtained – ending) from strongly constraining sentences. These observations suggest that when people try to prioritize sentence-level information that they know is valuable, the reading strategies they employ may paradoxically lead to worse memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Normal aging has variable effects on language comprehension, perhaps because comprehension mechanisms vary in their dependence on network structure versus network dynamics. To test claims that processing dynamics are more affected by age than structure, we used EEG to measure and compare the impact of neighborhood size, a core measure of the structure of the lexico-semantic network, and repetition, a simple measure of processing dynamics, on single word processing. Older adults showed robust effects of neighborhood size on the N400, comparable to those elicited by young adults, but reduced effects of repetition. Furthermore, older adults with greater verbal fluency, print exposure, and reading comprehension showed greater repetition effects, suggesting some older adults can maintain processing dynamics that are similar to those of young adults. Thus, the organizational structure of the semantic network seems stable across normal aging, but (some) older adults may struggle to adjust activation states within that network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictive coding models can simulate known perceptual or neuronal phenomena, but there have been fewer attempts to identify a reliable neural signature of predictive coding for complex stimuli. In a pair of studies, we test whether the N300 component of the event-related potential, occurring 250-350-ms poststimulus-onset, has the response properties expected for such a signature of perceptual hypothesis testing at the level of whole objects and scenes. We show that N300 amplitudes are smaller to representative ("good exemplars") compared with less representative ("bad exemplars") items from natural scene categories. Integrating these results with patterns observed for objects, we establish that, across a variety of visual stimuli, the N300 is responsive to statistical regularity, or the degree to which the input is "expected" (either explicitly or implicitly) based on prior knowledge, with statistically regular images evoking a reduced response. Moreover, we show that the measure exhibits context-dependency; that is, we find the N300 sensitivity to category representativeness when stimuli are congruent with, but not when they are incongruent with, a category pre-cue. Thus, we argue that the N300 is the best candidate to date for an index of perceptual hypotheses testing for complex visual objects and scenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent study has used scalp-recorded electroencephalography to obtain evidence of semantic processing of human speech and objects by domesticated dogs. The results suggest that dogs do comprehend the meaning of familiar spoken words, in that a word can evoke the mental representation of the object to which it refers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When we use language, we combine sounds, signs, and letters into words that then form sentences, which together tell a story. Both language production and language comprehension rely on representations that need to be continuously and rapidly activated, selected, and combined. These representations are specific to language, but many processes that regulate their use, such as inhibition of competitors or updating of working memory, are domain-general abilities that apply across different kinds of tasks. Here, we provide an overview of the behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for domain-general abilities underpinning language skills and describe which aspects of production and comprehension draw on such cognitive resources. We discuss how this line of research reveals important similarities between production and comprehension and also helps establish links between language and other cognitive domains. Finally, we argue that studying how domain-general abilities are used in language leads to important insights into the highly dynamic communication between brain networks that is necessary to successfully go from sounds to stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the effects of literacy on fundamental processes involved in reading, we report a secondary data analysis examining individual differences in global eye-movement measures and first-pass eye-movement distributions in a diverse sample of community-dwelling adults aged 16 to 64. Participants (n = 80) completed an assessment battery probing verbal and non-verbal cognitive abilities and read simple two-sentence passages while their eye movements were recorded. Analyses were focused on characterising the effects of literacy skill on both global indices of eye-fixation distributions and distributional differences in the sensitivity to lexical features. Global reading measures showed that lower literate adults read more slowly on average. However, distributional analyses of fixation durations revealed that the first-pass fixation durations of adults with lower literacy skill were not slower in general (i.e., there was no shift in the fixation duration distribution among lower literate adults). Instead, lower literacy was associated with greater intra-individual variability in first-pass fixation durations, including an increased proportion of extremely long fixations, differentially skewing the distribution of both first-fixation and gaze durations. Exploratory repeated-measures quantile regression analyses of gaze duration revealed differentially greater influences of word length among lower literate readers and greater activation of phonological and orthographic neighbours among higher literate readers, particularly in the tail of the distribution. Collectively, these findings suggest that literacy skill in adulthood is associated with systematic differences in both global and lexically driven eye-movement control during reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its discovery in the 1960s, the P300 has been contributing both directly and indirectly to language research. Perhaps most notably, it has been suggested that the P600, an ERP component that was first characterized in the context of syntactic processing, could be a variant of the P3b subcomponent of the P300. Here, we review studies on both sides of the debate. We also review the "semantic P600," a positivity with a similar time course and distribution to the P600 seen for syntactic manipulations but that is obtained in response to some types of semantic anomalies. Because most current theories of the P600 try to account for both the syntactic and the semantic variant, linking the syntactic P600 to the P3b might also imply a similar link for the semantic P600. However, we describe emerging research in our lab that casts doubt on the idea that the syntactic P600 and the semantic P600 are the same effect. We argue that grouping ERP responses primarily by domain (language vs. nonlanguage) is likely to be misleading and suggest alternative ways of determining whether ERP effects reflect similar or different processing mechanisms. ERP components are commonly categorized according to cognitive domain, such as language or memory. The current article discusses this convention in relation to the P300 component and the semantic and syntactic variants of the traditionally language‐related P600. Existing and emerging evidence is presented to support the idea that alternate categorization methods could inform extant lines of research and potentially open up new ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objects are perceived within rich visual contexts, and statistical associations may be exploited to facilitate their rapid recognition. Recent work using natural scene–object associations suggests that scenes can prime the visual form of associated objects, but it remains unknown whether this relies on an extended learning process. We asked participants to learn categorically structured associations between novel objects and scenes in a paired associate memory task while ERPs were recorded. In the test phase, scenes were first presented (2500 msec), followed by objects that matched or mismatched the scene; degree of contextual mismatch was manipulated along visual and categorical dimensions. Matching objects elicited a reduced N300 response, suggesting visuostructural priming based on recently formed associations. Amplitude of an extended positivity (onset ∼200 msec) was sensitive to visual distance between the presented object and the contextually associated target object, most likely indexing visual template matching. Results suggest recent associative memories may be rapidly recruited to facilitate object recognition in a top–down fashion, with clinical implications for populations with impairments in hippocampal-dependent memory and executive function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pronouns serve a critical referential function, yet the cognitive processes engaged during pronoun comprehension remain incompletely understood. One view is that encountering a pronoun leads the comprehender to reactivate the semantic features of its antecedent. We examined this by manipulating the concreteness of a noun antecedent and assessing whether an Event Related Potential (ERP) concreteness effect was elicited at a downstream pronoun. We observed a robust concreteness effect at the noun, but no similar effect at the pronoun. We also examined whether N400 semantic priming from the antecedent would increase on content words shortly following the pronoun, relative to those preceding it. Again, although we observed semantic priming following the noun, it did not increase following the pronoun. Our data suggest that pronouns do not induce the activation of (much) new semantic information in long-term memory, perhaps instead triggering an attentional shift towards their antecedents’ extant representations within working memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Prediction can help support rapid language processing. However, it is unclear whether prediction has downstream consequences, beyond processing in the moment. In particular, when a prediction is disconfirmed, does it linger, or is it suppressed? This study manipulated whether words were actually seen or were only expected, and probed their fate in memory by presenting the words (again) a few sentences later. If disconfirmed predictions linger, subsequent processing of the previously expected (but never presented) word should be similar to actual word repetition. At initial presentation, electrophysiological signatures of prediction disconfirmation demonstrated that participants had formed expectations. Further downstream, relative to unseen words, repeated words elicited a strong N400 decrease, an enhanced late positive complex (LPC), and late alpha band power decreases. Critically, like repeated words, words previously expected but not presented also attenuated the N400. This "pseudo-repetition effect" suggests that disconfirmed predictions can linger at some stages of processing, and demonstrates that prediction has downstream consequences beyond rapid on-line processing. Highlights • This study manipulated whether words were seen previously or only expected. • Repetition effects were observed on the N400, late positive complex and alpha power. • Like repeated words, previously expected words elicited an N400 repetition effect. • Results suggest that disconfirmed expectations are not fully suppressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arabic numerals have come to be used for many purposes beyond representing a particular quantity (e.g., as a label for an athlete on their jersey), but it remains to be determined how this type of meaningfulness is accessed and utilized by readers. Motivated by previous work showing that item-level ratings of personal familiarity can influence traditional indices of memory retrieval, we recorded ERPs while participants read double-digit Arabic numerals (e.g., “65”), presented in a list, and rated whether or not each was familiar/personally meaningful. All numbers repeated after a few intervening trials. The effect of number repetition on the N400 was not impacted by subjective judgments of familiarity, suggesting that all numbers (personally meaningful or not) make initial contact with semantics, facilitating semantic access on second exposure. However, consistent with findings from prior studies of memory for letter strings and visual patterns, there was a late positivity (LPC) on second presentation, selective to numbers rated as familiar. This is the first electrophysiological evidence that readers can use Arabic numerals to guide explicit retrieval of non-numerical information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language comprehension can be facilitated by the accurate prediction of upcoming words, but prediction effects are not ubiquitous, and comprehenders likely use predictive processing to varying degrees depending on task demands. To ascertain the processing consequences of prioritizing prediction, we here compared ERPs elicited when young adult participants simply read for comprehension with those collected in a subsequent block that required active prediction. We were particularly interested in frontally‐distributed post‐N400 effects for expected and unexpected words in strongly constraining contexts, which have previously been documented as two distinct patterns: an enhanced positivity ("anterior positivity") observed for prediction violations compared to words that are merely unpredictable (because they occur in weakly constraining sentences) and a distinction between expected endings in more constraining contexts and those same weakly constrained words ("frontal negativity" to the strongly predicted words). We found that the size of the anterior positivity effect was unchanged between passive comprehension and active prediction, suggesting that some processes related to prediction may engage state‐like networks. On the other hand, the frontal negativity showed graded patterns from the interaction of task and sentence type. These differing patterns support the hypothesis that there are two separate effects with frontal scalp distributions that occur after the N400 and further suggest that the impact of violating predictions (as long as prediction is engaged at all) is largely stable across varying levels of effort/attention directed toward prediction, whereas other comprehension processes can be modulated by task demands. A comparison of event‐related potentials across a passive comprehension task and an active prediction task examined the consequences of prioritizing prediction and the underlying mechanisms. N400 expectancy effects and a late frontal negativity were enhanced by active prediction, but the late anterior positivity, a marker of prediction consequences, was unchanged, suggesting that some comprehension processes are sensitive to task demands while others are more state‐like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research targeting emotion’s impact on relational episodic memory has largely focused on spatial aspects, but less is known about emotion’s impact on memory for an event’s temporal associations. The present research investigated this topic. Participants viewed a series of interspersed negative and neutral images with instructions to create stories linking successive images. Later, participants performed a surprise memory test, which measured temporal associations between pairs of consecutive pictures where one picture was negative and one was neutral. Analyses focused on how the order of negative and neutral images during encoding influenced retrieval accuracy. Converging results from a discovery study (N = 72) and pre-registered replication study (N = 150) revealed a “forward-favouring” effect of emotion in temporal memory encoding: Participants encoded associations between negative stimuli and subsequent neutral stimuli more strongly than associations between negative stimuli and preceding neutral stimuli. This finding may reflect a novel trade-off regarding emotion’s effects on memory and is relevant for understanding affective disorders, as key clinical symptoms can be conceptualised as maladaptive memory retrieval of temporal details. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study reports the effects of accumulating contextual constraints on neural indices of lexico-semantic processing (i.e., effects of word frequency and orthographic neighborhood) as a function of normal aging. Event-related brain potentials were measured from a sample of older adults as they read sentences that were semantically congruent, provided only syntactic constraints (syntactic prose), or were random word strings. A linear mixed-effects modeling approach was used to probe the effects of accumulating contextual constraints on N400 responses to individual words. Like young adults in prior work, older adults exhibited a classic word position context effect on the N400 in congruent sentences, although the magnitude of the effect was reduced in older relative to younger adults. Moreover, by modeling single-word variability in N400 responses, we observed robust effects of orthographic neighborhood density that were larger in older adults than the young, and preserved effects word frequency. Importantly, in older adults, frequency effects were not modulated by accumulating contextual constraints, unlike in the young. Collectively, these findings indicate that older adults are less likely (or able) to use accumulating top-down contextual constraints, and therefore rely more strongly on bottom-up lexical features to guide semantic access of individual words during sentence comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent ERP data from young adults have revealed that simple syntactic anomalies elicit different patterns of lateralization in right-handed participants depending upon their familial sinistrality profile (whether or not they have left-handed biological relatives). Right-handed participants who do not have left-handed relatives showed a strongly lateralized response pattern, with P600 responses following left-hemisphere-biased presentations and N400 responses following right-hemisphere-biased presentations. Given that the literature on aging has documented a tendency to change across adulthood from asymmetry of function to a more bilateral pattern, we tested the stability of this asymmetric response to syntactic violations by recording ERPs as 24 older adults (age 60+) with no history of familial sinistrality made grammaticality judgments on simple two-word phrases. Results showed that the asymmetric pattern observed in right-handed adults without familial sinistrality indeed changes with age, such that P600 responses come to be elicited not only with left-hemisphere-biased but also with right-hemisphere-biased presentations in older adults. These findings suggest that, as with many other cognitive functions, syntactic processing becomes more bilateral with age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Normative aging is associated with deficits in visual acuity and cognitive control that impact the allocation of visual attention, but little is known about how those changes affect information extraction and integration during visual language comprehension in older adulthood. In the current study, we used a visual hemi-field flanker RSVP paradigm with event-related brain potentials to study how older readers process fine-grained aspects of semantic expectancy in parafoveal and foveal vision. Stimuli consisted of high constraint sentences with expected, unexpected but plausible, or anomalous parafoveal target words, as well as low constraint sentences with neutral but expected target words. Older adults showed graded parafoveal N400 effects that were strikingly similar to younger readers, indicating intact parafoveal semantic processing. However, whereas young adults were able to use this parafoveal pre-processing to facilitate subsequent foveal viewing, resulting in a reduced foveal N400 effect, older adults were not able to. Instead, older adults re-processed the semantics of words in foveal vision, resulting in a larger foveal N400 effect relative to the young. Collectively, our findings suggest that although parafoveal semantic processing per se is preserved in aging, there exists an age-related deficit in the ability to rapidly integrate parafoveal and foveal visual semantic representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A long-standing core question in cognitive science is whether different modalities and representation types (pictures, words, sounds, etc.) access a common store of semantic information. Although different input types have been shown to activate a shared network of brain regions, this does not necessitate that there is a common representation, as the neurons in these regions could still differentially process the different modalities. However, multi-voxel pattern analysis can be used to assess whether, e.g., pictures and words evoke a similar pattern of activity, such that the patterns that separate categories in one modality transfer to the other. Prior work using this method has found support for a common code, but has two limitations: they have either only examined disparate categories (e.g. animals vs. tools) that are known to activate different brain regions, raising the possibility that the pattern separation and inferred similarity reflects only large scale differences between the categories or they have been limited to individual object representations. By using natural scene categories, we not only extend the current literature on cross-modal representations beyond objects, but also, because natural scene categories activate a common set of brain regions, we identify a more fine-grained (i.e. higher spatial resolution) common representation. Specifically, we studied picture- and word-based representations of natural scene stimuli from four different categories: beaches, cities, highways, and mountains. Participants passively viewed blocks of either phrases (e.g. "sandy beach") describing scenes or photographs from those same scene categories. To determine whether the phrases and pictures evoke a common code, we asked whether a classifier trained on one stimulus type (e.g. phrase stimuli) would transfer (i.e. cross-decode) to the other stimulus type (e.g. picture stimuli). The analysis revealed cross-decoding in the occipitotemporal, posterior parietal and frontal cortices. This similarity of neural activity patterns across the two input types, for categories that co-activate local brain regions, provides strong evidence of a common semantic code for pictures and words in the brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) have revealed multiple mechanisms by which contextual constraints impact language processing. At the same time, little work has examined the trial-to-trial dynamics of context use in the brain. In the current study, we probed intraindividual variability in behavioral and neural indices of context processing during reading. In a concurrent self-paced reading and ERP paradigm, participants read sentences that were either strongly or weakly constraining completed with an expected or unexpected target word. Our findings revealed substantial within-subject variability in behavioral and neural responses to contextual constraints. First, context-based amplitude reductions of the N400, a component linked to semantic memory access, were largest among trials eliciting the slowest RTs. Second, the RT distribution of unexpected words in strongly constraining contexts was positively skewed, reflecting an increased proportion of very slow RTs to trials that violated seman- tic predictions. Among those prediction-violating trials eliciting faster RTs, a late sustained anterior positivity was observed. However, among trials producing the differentially slowed RTs to prediction violations, we observed a markedly earlier effect of constraint in the form of an anterior N2, a component linked to conflict resolution and the cognitive control of behavior. The current study provides the first neurophysiological evidence for the direct role of cognitive control functions in the volitional control of reading. Collectively, our findings suggest that context use varies substantially within individual participants and that coregistering behavioral and neural indices of online sentence processing offers a window into these single-item dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arithmetic expressions, like verbal sentences, incrementally lead readers to anticipate potential appropriate completions. Existing work in the language domain has helped us understand how the two hemispheres differently participate in and contribute to the cognitive process of sentence reading, but comparatively little work has been done with mathematical equation processing. In this study, we address this gap by examining the ERP response to provided answers to simple multiplication problems, which varied both in levels of correctness (given an equation context) and in visual field of presentation (joint attention in central presentation, or biased processing to the left or right hemisphere through contralateral visual field presentation). When answers were presented to any of the visual fields (hemispheres), there was an effect of correctness prior to the traditional N400 timewindow, which we interpret as a P300 in response to a detected target item (the correct answer). In addition to this response, equation answers also elicited a late positive complex (LPC) for incorrect answers. Notably, this LPC effect was most prominent in the left visual field (right hemisphere), and it was also sensitive to the confusability of the wrong answer – incorrect answers that were closely related to the correct answer elicited a smaller LPC. This suggests a special, prolonged role for the right hemisphere during answer evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study investigates the online processing consequences of encountering compound words with transposed letters (TLs), to determine if cross-morpheme TLs are more disruptive to reading than those within a single morpheme, as would be predicted by accounts of obligatory morpho-orthopgrahic decomposition. Two measures of online processing, eye movements and event-related potentials (ERPs), were collected in separate experiments. Participants read sentences containing correctly spelled compound words (cupcake), or compounds with TLs occurring either across morphemes (cucpake) or within one morpheme (cupacke). Results showed that between- and within-morpheme transpositions produced equal processing costs in both measures, in the form of longer reading times (Experiment 1) and a late posterior positivity (Experiment 2) that did not differ between conditions. Findings converge to suggest that within- and between-morpheme TLs are equally disruptive to recognition, providing evidence against obligatory morpho-orthographic processing and in favour of whole-word access of English compound words during sentence reading. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Gender-based political stereotypes pervade the media environment in the United States, and this may cause voters to automatically activate these stereotypes while evaluating politicians. In the research reported here, we investigate whether voters are able to reduce the automatic activation of unwanted stereotypes and how political sophistication influences this capacity. The current experiment uses self-reports to measure controlled stereotyping, and we develop a new eye movement metric to measure automatic stereotyping. We find that political sophisticates are more effective than novices at reducing unwanted gender-based political stereotypes. This study has two main implications for communication research. First, the results suggest that the effects of gender-based automatic stereotyping—induced by the information environment—on political judgments may not be as powerful as some of the current literature portrays them to be. Second, this study adds eye movements to the arsenal of tools available to communication scholars interested in measuring covert forms of stereotyping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing recognition that some important forms of long-term memory are difficult to classify into one of the well-studied memory subtypes. One example is personal semantics. Like the episodes that are stored as part of one's autobiography, personal semantics is linked to an individual, yet, like general semantic memory, it is detached from a specific encoding context. Access to general semantics elicits an electrophysiological response known as the N400, which has been characterized across three decades of research; surprisingly, this response has not been fully examined in the context of personal semantics. In this study, we assessed responses to congruent and incongruent statements about people's own, personal preferences. We found that access to personal preferences elicited N400 responses, with congruency effects that were similar in latency and distribution to those for general semantic statements elicited from the same participants. These results suggest that the processing of personal and general semantics share important functional and neurobiological features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used eye tracking to investigate the downstream processing consequences of encountering noun/verb (NV) homographs (i.e., park) in semantically neutral but syntactically constraining contexts. Target words were followed by a prepositional phrase containing a noun that was plausible for only 1 meaning of the homograph. Replicating previous work, we found increased first fixation durations on NV homographs compared with unambiguous words, which persisted into the next sentence region. At the downstream noun, we found plausibility effects following ambiguous words that were correlated with the size of a reader's first fixation effect, suggesting that this effect reflects the recruitment of processing resources necessary to suppress the homograph's context-inappropriate meaning. Using these same stimuli, Lee and Federmeier (2012) found a sustained frontal negativity to the NV homographs, and, on the downstream noun, found a plausibility effect that was also positively correlated with the size of a reader's ambiguity effect. Together, these findings suggest that when only syntactic constraints are available, meaning selection recruits inhibitory mechanisms that can be measured in both first fixation slowdown and event-related potential ambiguity effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although left-hemisphere (LH) specialization for language is often viewed as a key example of functional lateralization, there is increasing evidence that the right hemisphere (RH) can also extract meaning from words and sentences. However, the right hemisphere's ability to appreciate syntactic aspects of language remains poorly understood. In the current study, we used separable, functionally well-characterized electrophysiological indices of lexico-semantic and syntactic processes to demonstrate RH sensitivity to syntactic violations among right-handers with a strong manual preference. Critically, however, the nature of this RH sensitivity to structural information was modulated by a genetically determined factor--familial sinistrality. The right hemisphere in right-handers without left-handed family members processed syntactic violations via the words' accompanying lexico-semantic unexpectedness. In contrast, the right hemisphere in right-handers with left-handed family members could process syntactic information in a manner qualitatively similar to that of the left hemisphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differences in how the right and left hemispheres (RH, LH) apprehend visual words were examined using event-related potentials (ERPs) in a repetition paradigm with visual half-field (VF) presentation. In both hemispheres (RH/LVF, LH/RVF), initial presentation of items elicited similar and typical effects of orthographic neighborhood size, with larger N400s for orthographically regular items (words and pseudowords) than for irregular items (acronyms and meaningless illegal strings). However, hemispheric differences emerged on repetition effects. When items were repeated in the LH/RVF, orthographically regular items, relative to irregular items, elicited larger repetition effects on both the N250, a component reflecting processing at the level of visual form (orthography), and on the N400, which has been linked to semantic access. In contrast, in the RH/LVF, repetition effects were biased toward irregular items on the N250 and were similar in size across item types for the N400. The results suggest that processing in the LH is more strongly affected by wordform regularity than in the RH, either due to enhanced processing of familiar orthographic patterns or due to the fact that regular forms can be more readily mapped onto phonology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The N400 has a graded sensitivity to word predictability even for unpredictable words. • The relationship between word predictability and N400 is both linear and logarithmic. • A Transformer-based language model (GPT-2) is a good proxy of cloze probability. Stimuli are easier to process when context makes them predictable, but does context-based facilitation arise from preactivation of a limited set of relatively probable upcoming stimuli (with facilitation then linearly related to probability) or, instead, because the system maintains and updates a probability distribution across all items (with facilitation logarithmically related to probability)? We measured the N400, an index of semantic access, to words of varying probability, including unpredictable words. Word predictability was measured using both cloze probabilities and a state-of-the-art machine learning language model (GPT-2). We reanalyzed five datasets (n = 138) to demonstrate and then replicate that context-based facilitation on the N400 is graded, even among unpredictable words. Furthermore, we established that the relationship between word predictability and context-based facilitation combines linear and logarithmic functions. We argue that this composite function reveals properties of the mapping between words and semantic features and how feature- and word-related information is activated on-line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual word recognition is a process that, both hierarchically and in parallel, draws on different types of information ranging from perceptual to orthographic to semantic. A central question concerns when and how these different types of information come online and interact after a word form is initially perceived. Numerous studies addressing aspects of this question have been conducted with a variety of techniques [e.g., behaviour, eye-tracking, event-related potentials (ERPs)], and divergent theoretical models, suggesting different overall speeds of word processing, have coalesced around clusters of mostly method-specific results. Here, we examine the time course of influence of variables ranging from relatively perceptual (e.g., bigram frequency) to relatively semantic (e.g., the number of lexical associates) on ERP responses, analysed at the single-item level. Our results, in combination with a critical review of the literature, suggest methodological, analytic and theoretical factors that may have led to inconsistency in results of past studies; we will argue that consideration of these factors may lead to a reconciliation between divergent views of the speed of word recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) have been instrumental for discerning the relationship between children’s aerobic fitness and aspects of cognition, yet language processing remains unexplored. ERPs linked to the processing of semantic information (the N400) and the analysis of language structure (the P600) were recorded from higher and lower aerobically fit children as they read normal sentences and those containing semantic or syntactic violations. Results revealed that higher fit children exhibited greater N400 amplitude and shorter latency across all sentence types, and a larger P600 effect for syntactic violations. Such findings suggest that higher fitness may be associated with a richer network of words and their meanings, and a greater ability to detect and/or repair syntactic errors. The current findings extend previous ERP research explicating the cognitive benefits associated with greater aerobic fitness in children and may have important implications for learning and academic performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Voters tend to misattribute issue positions to political candidates that are consistent with their partisan affiliation, even though these candidates have never explicitly stated or endorsed such stances. The prevailing explanation in political science is that voters misattribute candidates’ issue positions because they use their political knowledge to make educated but incorrect guesses. We suggest that voter errors can also stem from a different source: false memories. The current study examined event-related potential (ERP) responses to misattributed and accurately remembered candidate issue information. We report here that ERP responses to misattributed information can elicit memory signals similar to that of correctly remembered old information—a pattern consistent with a false memory rather than educated guessing interpretation of these misattributions. These results suggest that some types of voter misinformation about candidates may be harder to correct than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Eye tracking was used to investigate how younger and older (60 or more years) adults use syntactic and semantic information to disambiguate noun/verb (NV) homographs (e.g., park). In event-related potential (ERP) work using the same materials, Lee and Federmeier (2009, 2011) found that young adults elicited a sustained frontal negativity to NV homographs when only syntactic cues were available (i.e., in syntactic prose); this effect was eliminated by semantic constraints. The negativity was only present in older adults with high verbal fluency. The current study shows parallel findings: Young adults exhibit inflated first fixation durations to NV homographs in syntactic prose, but not semantically congruent sentences. This effect is absent in older adults as a group. Verbal fluency modulates the effect in both age groups: High fluency is associated with larger first fixation effects in syntactic prose. Older, but not younger, adults also show significantly increased rereading of the NV homographs in syntactic prose. Verbal fluency modulates this effect as well: High fluency is associated with a reduced tendency to reread, regardless of age. This relationship suggests a trade-off between initial and downstream process-ing costs for ambiguity during natural reading. Together the eye-tracking and ERP data suggest that effortful meaning selection recruits mechanisms important for suppressing contextually inappropriate meanings, which also slow eye movements. Efficacy of frontotemporal circuitry, as captured by verbal fluency, predicts the success of engaging these mechanisms in both young and older adults. Failure to recruit these processes requires compensatory rereading or leads to comprehension failures (Lee & Federmeier, 2012). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older adults (as a group) are less likely than younger adults to engage in an anticipatory mode of language comprehension, failing to successfully preactivate information about upcoming likely (predict- able) words during online processing. To assess (within one set of materials) age-related changes in the use of sentential context to affect processing of predictable words and in the consequences of violating predictions, event-related brain potentials were recorded while older adults read sentences that varied in sentence-level constraint and expectancy of sentence-final words. Strongly constraining sentences were completed by their most expected, predictable words and weakly constraining sentences were completed by their most expected, less predictable words. Both types of sentences also were completed by unexpected (but plausible) words. Older adults showed reduced and delayed effects of sentential context on processing predictable words. Whereas younger adults elicit an enhanced positive ERP (starting around 500 ms poststimulus onset, largest over prefrontal electrode sites), specifically for unexpected words that violate strong expectancies for a different word, older adults as a group did not exhibit this neural consequence of disconfirmed predictions. Older adults were instead more likely to show a left-lateralized frontal negativity for predictable items. This ERP response has been attributed to processes needed to revisit contextual material in forming an interpretation of message-level meaning, which may be more likely when anticipatory modes of comprehension are not engaged. Taken together, the results suggest that normal aging can affect allocation of resources to different cognitive and neural pathways in achieving comprehension outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We examined how adjective ordering is used in language comprehension by crossing order preference and concreteness in phrases consisting of two adjectives and a noun. We used both more typical phrases in which the preferred order has a concrete second adjective (“exhaustive hardback encyclopedia”) and those with a concrete first adjective in the preferred order (“heavy informative encyclopedia“). We found that concreteness-related modulations of the ERP waveform were likely responsible for prior reports of increased positivity to dispreferred orders (interpreted as a syntactic P600-like effect). When concreteness is controlled, instead, we found that dispreferred orders are associated with larger N400s to the second adjective and following noun. This suggests that dispreferred adjective orders impact lexico-semantic predictability and the ability to generate mental images of the referent but do not result in syntactic processing difficulties. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Factors that modulate the influence of contextual information on semantic processing in language comprehension have been thoroughly investigated with the N400 component of the event-related potential (ERP), a direct measure of initial contact with semantic memory. Although context has a strong and immediate impact on processing, multiple mechanisms contribute to the construction of message-level representations during normal comprehension. Some of these may be engaged after or concurrent with the formation of an initial meaning representation, and can then serve to revise or reshape meaning. In this study, ERPs were recorded while participants read plausible sentences that continuously varied in the amount of contextual constraint for the sentence-final word, defined via extensive norming data including the range of possible alternative completions for the contexts. Consistent with numerous past studies, the amplitude of the N400 was graded with expectancy, as amplitudes decreased with increasing constraint. Additionally, a left-lateralized, broad, slow negativity onsetting around 400–500ms was largest for sentences with moderately strong constraint. Within this range of constraint, the negativity was larger for sentences with fewer alternative completions compared to those with many different ones. The timing and scalp distribution of the effect resemble brain responses linked to engagement of working memory resources, ambiguity resolution, and comprehension of jokes. Similar to cases of “frame-shifting” in non-literal language, this effect may reflect processing associated with reinterpretation or reconsideration of contextual material when multiple interpretations of a sentence were likely. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Contextual information influences multiple aspects of language comprehension extended over time. To determine how age-related changes impact normal comprehension, effects of contextual strength were examined with event-related potentials. Increased contextual constraint facilitated semantic processing (reduced N400s). Effects were smaller and delayed for older adults, and sensitivity to contextual information was diminished for weak contexts. Both groups elicited a later left-lateralized frontal negativity associated with reinterpretation of context when multiple interpretations of a sentence were likely. Older adults evidenced the frontal negativity over a wider range of constraint. The change in the use of contextual information across age is attributed to decreased reliance on predictive processing for older adults. Thus, age-related changes in comprehension lead to differential engagement of processing resources over time for older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: When ambiguity resolution is difficult, younger adults recruit selection-related neural resources that older adults do not. To elucidate the nature of those resources and the consequences of their recruitment for subsequent comprehension, we embedded noun/verb homographs and matched unambiguous words in syntactically well-specified but semantically neutral sentences. Target words were followed by a prepositional phrase whose head noun was plausible for only one meaning of the homograph. Replicating past findings, younger but not older adults elicited sustained frontal negativity to homographs compared to unambiguous words. On the subsequent head nouns, younger adults showed plausibility effects in all conditions, attesting to successful meaning selection through suppression. In contrast, older adults showed smaller plausibility effects following ambiguous words and failed to show plausibility effects when the context picked out the homograph''s non-dominant meaning (i.e., they did not suppress the contextually-irrelevant dominant meaning). Meaning suppression processes, reflected in the frontal negativity, thus become less available with age, with consequences for subsequent comprehension. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Multiple neurocognitive subsystems are involved in resolving lexical ambiguity under different circumstances. We examined how processing in these subsystems changes with normal aging by comparing ERP responses to homographs and unambiguous words completing congruent sentences (with both semantic and syntactic contextual information) or syntactic prose (syntactic information only). Like young adults in prior work, older adults elicited more negative N400s to homographs in congruent sentences, suggesting mismatch between the context and residual activation of the contextually irrelevant sense. However, the frontal negativity seen in young adults to homographs in syntactically well-defined but semantically neutral contexts was absent in older adults as a group, suggesting a decline in recruiting additional neural resources to aid difficult semantic selection. A subset of older adults with high verbal fluency maintained a young-like effect pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'F' in FN400 denotes a more frontal scalp distribution relative to the morphologically similar N400 component-a distinction consistent with the hypothesized distinct roles of FN400 in familiarity memory versus N400 in language. However, no direct comparisons have substantiated these assumed dissimilarities. To this end, we manipulated short-term semantic priming during a recognition test. Semantic priming effects on N400 were indistinguishable from memory effects at the same latency, and semantic priming strongly modulated the 'FN400,' despite having no influence on familiarity memory. Thus, no evidence suggested either electrophysiological or functional differences between the N400 and FN400, and findings were contrary to the linking of the 'FN400' to familiarity. Instead, it appears that semantic/conceptual priming (reflected in the N400) occurs during recognition tests and is frequently (mis)labeled as FN400 and attributed to familiarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linking print with meaning tends to be divided into subprocesses, such as recognition of an input's lexical entry and subsequent access of semantics. However, recent results suggest that the set of semantic features activated by an input is broader than implied by a view wherein access serially follows recognition. EEG was collected from participants who viewed items varying in number and frequency of both orthographic neighbors and lexical associates. Regression analysis of single item ERPs replicated past findings, showing that N400 amplitudes are greater for items with more neighbors, and further revealed that N400 amplitudes increase for items with more lexical associates and with higher frequency neighbors or associates. Together, the data suggest that in the N400 time window semantic features of items broadly related to inputs are active, consistent with models in which semantic access takes place in parallel with stimulus recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: During sentence comprehension, older adults are less likely than younger adults to predict features of likely upcoming words. A pair of experiments assessed whether such differences would extend to tasks with reduced working memory demands and time pressures. In Experiment 1, event-related brain potentials were measured as younger and older adults read short phrases cuing antonyms or category exemplars, followed three seconds later by targets that were either congruent or incongruent and, for congruent category exemplars, of higher or lower typicality. When processing the less expected low typicality targets, younger – but not older – adults elicited a prefrontal positivity (500–900ms) that has been linked to processing consequences of having predictions disconfirmed. Thus, age-related changes in prediction during comprehension generalize across task circumstances. Analyses of individual differences revealed that older adults with higher category fluency were more likely to show the young-like pattern. Experiment 2 showed that these age-related differences were not due to simple slowing of language production mechanisms, as older adults generated overt responses to the cues as quickly as – and more accurately than – younger adults. However, older adults who were relatively faster to produce category exemplars in Experiment 2 were more likely to have shown predictive processing patterns in Experiment 1. Taken together, the results link prediction during language comprehension to language production mechanisms and suggest that although older adults can produce speeded language output on demand, they are less likely to automatically recruit these mechanisms during comprehension unless top-down circuitry is particularly strong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study examined how the two cerebral hemispheres recruit semantic processing mechanisms by combining event-related potential measures and visual half-field methods in a word priming paradigm in which semantic strength and predictability were manipulated using lexically associated word pairs. Activation patterns on the late positive complex (LPC), linked to controlled aspects of processing, showed that previously documented left hemisphere (LH) processing benefits for word pairs with a weak forward but strong backward association stem from the ability to appreciate meaning relations in an order-independent fashion and/or strategically reorder them. Whereas there is a LH benefit for such strategic processing during comprehension in passive tasks, the present study further showed that the right hemisphere (RH) is also able to make use of these mechanisms when explicit semantic judgments are required. In both hemispheres, N400 responses, linked to initial semantic activation, were largely graded by association strength, with more amplitude reduction for forward associates and strong, symmetrically associated pairs compared to backward associates and matched weak, symmetrically associated pairs. However, responses to moderately associated pairs were more facilitated after initial presentation to the LH than to the RH. This pattern converges with sentence-processing findings that point to LH advantages for using context information to predict features of likely upcoming words. Together, the results suggest that an important basis for hemispheric asymmetries in language comprehension arises from when and how each uses top–down semantic mechanisms to shape initial semantic activation over time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Associative processing in the cerebral hemispheres was examined using ERPs and visual half-field (VF) methods. Associative strength was manipulated using asymmetrically associated pairs: viewed in one order (forward), there was a strong prime-to-target association, but in the backward order, predictability was weak. N400 priming was greater for forward than backward pairs in both VFs and not different across VF, suggesting similar semantic representations and automatic meaning activation in the two hemispheres. However, a frontal P2 enhancement for forward pairs restricted to the LH suggests that it uses context to predict likely upcoming words. Also, greater late positive complex priming for backward pairs in the LH than the RH reveals a LH advantage for strategically reshaping meaning activation for weakly related and/or non-canonically ordered pairs. The results link asymmetries in word processing with those observed at the sentence level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ERPs were recorded as older adults decided if a target word was related to a lateralized ambiguous or unambiguous prime; prime-target pairs were preceded by a related or unrelated context word. In an unrelated context, N400 facilitation effects differed from those seen in young adults, with older adults showing priming for the dominant meaning (e.g., BOOM-BANK-DEPOSIT) on right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH) trials and priming for the subordinate meaning (e.g., BOOM-BANK-RIVER) on LVF/RH trials. Higher-functioning older adults, especially those with better inhibition, were more likely to show bilateral activation of the dominant meaning and unilateral activation of the subordinate meaning, suggesting a retention of young-like activation. In a biasing context (e.g., RIVER-BANK-DEPOSIT), older adults selected the contextually-consistent meaning, but were less likely than young adults to revise their selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A biography of Marta Kutas, a cognitive psychophysiologist, is presented. She was born in Hungary and later settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. She attended Oberlin College and selected a psychology major over graphic arts. She obtained her doctoral degree under Dr. Emanuel Donchin who established one of the first cognitive event-related brain potential laboratories in the world in University of Illinois. Kutas received the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychophysiology in 2007.

Abstract: Two event-related potential experiments investigated the effects of syntactic and semantic context information on the processing of noun/verb (NV) homographs (e.g., park). Experiment 1 embedded NV-homographs and matched unambiguous words in contexts that provided only syntactic cues or both syntactic and semantic constraints. Replicating prior work, when only syntactic information was available NV-homographs elicited sustained frontal negativity relative to unambiguous words. Semantic constraints eliminated this frontal ambiguity effect. Semantic constraints also reduced N400 amplitudes, but less so for homographs than unambiguous words. Experiment 2 showed that this reduced N400 facilitation was limited to cases in which the semantic context picks out a non-dominant meaning, likely reflecting the semantic mismatch between the context and residual, automatic activation of the contextually-inappropriate dominant sense. Overall, the findings suggest that ambiguity resolution in context involves the interplay between multiple neural networks, some involving more automatic semantic processing mechanisms and others involving top-down control mechanisms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Two related questions critical to understanding the predictive processes that come online during sentence comprehension are (1) what information is included in the representation created through prediction and (2) at what functional stage does top-down, predicted information begin to affect bottom-up word processing? We investigated these questions by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) as participants read sentences that ended with expected words or with unexpected items (words, pseudowords, or illegal strings) that were either orthographically unrelated to the expected word or were one of its orthographic neighbors. The data show that, regardless of lexical status, attempts at semantic access (N400) for orthographic neighbors of expected words are facilitated relative to the processing of orthographically unrelated items. Our findings support a view of sentence processing wherein orthographically organized information is brought online by prediction and interacts with input prior to any filter on lexical status. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Hemispheric differences in the use of memory retrieval cues were examined in a continuous recognition design, using visual half-field presentation to bias the processing of test words. A speeded recognition task revealed general accuracy and response time advantages for items whose test presentation was biased to the left hemisphere. A second experiment recorded event-related brain potentials in the same design and replicated these behavioral effects, but found no electrophysiological support for the hypothesis that test words biased to the left hemisphere elicit superior recognition. Instead, successful retrieval was accompanied by memory components of identical strength regardless of test field. That robust visual field effects in response accuracy and speed were not mimicked in memory components that generally do correlate with such behavioral differences suggests that patterns in overt responses may be dominated by the left hemisphere’s superior ability to apprehend words. Differences between the data pattern observed in the present study with lateralized retrieval and that in a prior study with lateralized encoding [Evans, K. M., & Federmeier, K. D. (2007). The memory that’s right and the memory that’s left: Event-related potentials reveal hemispheric asymmetries in the encoding and retention of verbal information. Neuropsychologia 45(8), 1777–1790.] support the notion that hemispheric processing is highly integrated in the intact brain, and highlight the need to treat lateralization at different stages as distinct. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]