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Updated: Jun 19, 2026

Using Informational Connectivity to Measure the Synchronous Emergence of fMRI Multi-voxel Information Across Time
Published on: July 1, 2014
Parafoveal versus foveal N400s dissociate spreading activation from contextual fit
Franziska Kretzschmar1, Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Matthias Schlesewsky
1Department of English and Linguistics, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz 55099, Germany.
Abstract:
Using concurrent electroencephalogram and eye movement measures to track natural reading, this study shows that N400 effects reflecting predictability are dissociable from those owing to spreading activation. In comparing predicted sentence endings with related and unrelated unpredicted endings in antonym constructions ('the opposite of black is white/yellow/nice'), fixation-related potentials at the critical word revealed a predictability-based N400 effect (unpredicted vs. predicted words). By contrast, event-related potentials time locked to the last fixation before the critical word showed an N400 only for the nonrelated unpredicted condition (nice). This effect is attributed to a parafoveal mismatch between the critical word and preactivated lexical features (i.e. features of the predicted word and its associates). In addition to providing the first demonstration of a parafoveally induced N400 effect, our results support the view that the N400 is best viewed as a component family.
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