AUTHOR=Du Yingchun , Hu Weiping , Fang Zhuo , Zhang John xuexin 

TITLE=Electrophysiological correlates of morphological processing in Chinese compound word recognition

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

VOLUME=7

YEAR=2013

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00601

DOI=10.3389/fnhum.2013.00601

ISSN=1662-5161

ABSTRACT=<p>The present study investigated the electrophysiological correlates of morphological processing in Chinese compound word reading using a delayed repetition priming paradigm. Participants were asked to passively view lists of two-character compound words containing prime-target pairs separated by a few items. In a <italic>Whole Word</italic> repetition condition, the prime and target were the same real words (e.g., <graphic xlink:href="fnhum-07-00601-i0001.tif" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" />, manager-manager). In a <italic>Constituent</italic> repetition condition, the prime and target were swapped in terms of their constituent position (e.g., <graphic xlink:href="fnhum-07-00601-i0002.tif" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" />, the former is a pseudo-word and the later means <italic>nurse</italic>). Two ERP components including N200 and N400 showed repetition effects. The N200 showed a negative shift upon repetition in the <italic>Whole Word</italic> condition but this effect was delayed for the <italic>Constituent</italic> condition. The N400 showed comparable amplitude reduction across the two priming conditions. The results reveal different aspects of morphological processing with an early stage associated with N200 and a late stage with N400. There was also a possibility that the N200 effect reflect general cognitive processing, i.e., the detection of low-probability stimuli.</p>