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The time course of lexical access in morphologically complex words.
Henning Holle1, Thomas C Gunter, Dirk Koester
1School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, UK. h.holle@sussex.ac.uk
Neuroreport
|February 11, 2010
Summary
Lexical access for German compound words occurs immediately, not after the final word. This study used electroencephalogram (EEG) to show that initial word parts are processed right away.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Computational Linguistics
Background:
- Compounding, the joining of words (e.g., dishwasher), is a key linguistic process.
- Debate exists on whether all parts of a compound word are accessed simultaneously or sequentially.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the timing of lexical access for the initial constituent of German two-constituent compounds.
- To determine if processing is immediate or delayed until the compound's head is encountered.
Main Methods:
- Electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded brain activity in participants listening to German compounds.
- Four conditions varied whether the initial and head constituents were real words or nonwords.
- Event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically the N400 component, were analyzed.
Main Results:
- A significantly larger N400 amplitude was observed for initial nonword constituents compared to word constituents.
- This N400 effect suggests that the brain attempted lexical access for the initial part of the compound.
- Processing was not delayed until the head constituent was presented.
Conclusions:
- Provides direct electrophysiological evidence for immediate lexical access of transparent compound constituents in German.
- Challenges theories suggesting delayed access until the compound head is processed.
- Supports models of compound word processing that involve early activation of constituent meanings.
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