Electrophysiological correlates of connotative meaning in healthy children

The affective, connotative meaning of words can be statistically quantified by the semantic differential technique. Words that are located clearly on one of the three dimensions called "Evaluation", "Potency", and "Activity" were used as visual stimuli in a topographic event related potential study (ERP). Stimuli had been statistically defined in a group of 249 children (Skrandies, Jpn Psychol Res 53: 65-76, 2011). We investigated electrical brain activity in 19 healthy children with normal intelligence and reading skills between 11 and 15 years of age. Words that belonged to different semantic classes were presented at random on a monitor, and EEG was measured from 30 channels. Evoked potentials were computed offline for each semantic class. In the ERP data we observed significant effects of word class on component latency, field strength and topography. Similar as with adult subjects such effects occurred at small latency of about 115 ms after word presentation. The language-evoked components in children were similar but not identical to those reported previously for various groups of adults. Our data show that visually evoked brain activity is modulated by connotative meaning of the stimuli at early processing stages not only in adults but also in children.