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Stem Tones Pre-activate Suffixes in the Brain
Pelle Söderström1, Merle Horne2, Mikael Roll2
1Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Box 201, 221 00, Lund, Sweden. pelle.soderstrom@ling.lu.se.
Abstract:
Results from the present event-related potentials (ERP) study show that tones on Swedish word stems can rapidly pre-activate upcoming suffixes, even when the word stem does not carry any lexical meaning. Results also show that listeners are able to rapidly restore suffixes which are replaced with a cough. Accuracy in restoring suffixes correlated positively with the amplitude of an anterior negative ERP elicited by stem tones. This effect is proposed to reflect suffix pre-activation. Suffixes that were cued by an incorrect tone elicited a left-anterior negativity and a P600, suggesting that the correct processing of the suffix is crucially tied to the activation of the preceding validly associated tone.
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