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Updated: Aug 24, 2026
Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology
Published on: June 29, 2021
Similarities and differences in the coding of numerical and alphabetical order using acoustic stimulation as revealed
1Research Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), Department of Psychophysiology, Group of Developmental Psychophysiology, Szondi utca 83-85, H-1068, Budapest, Hungary. denes@cogpsyphy.hu
Abstract:
We analyzed event-related potential (ERP) correlates of numerical and alphabetical positional judgements. Sixteen subjects classified whether acoustically presented numbers (1, 4, 6 or 9) were smaller or larger than 5 or whether phonemes (a, d, f or i) stood before or after letter 'e' in the alphabet. Stimulus non-specific effects in the amplitude of P2p and in the latency of N2f and N2p (220-255 ms) were found. In contrast, in the amplitude of the right parietal N2p and in response-locked ERPs, stimulus-specific distance effects were found. The topography of ERPs was similar in both tasks. However, stimulus-specific effects may reflect differences in the ordinal coding of numerical and alphabetical information. Similarity to former results is discussed and a possible scenario of executing magnitude comparison tasks is sketched.
