Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Association Areas of the Cortex01:21

Association Areas of the Cortex

5.7K
Association areas are regions of the cerebral cortex that do not have a specific sensory or motor function. Instead, they integrate and interpret information from various sources to enable higher cognitive processes such as memory, learning, and decision-making. Some key association areas include the following:
Prefrontal Association Area: This area is located in the frontal lobe and is involved in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. It connects with primary motor areas,...
5.7K

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Pharmacokinetic robustness of direct oral anticoagulants vs. phenprocoumon in the emergency setting: impact of renal and hepatic impairment.

European journal of internal medicine·2026
Same author

Fixation-related potentials reveal that confusing program code elicits a late frontal positivity.

Scientific reports·2026
Same author

How the brain segments experience: ERP evidence of event boundaries enhancing memory formation in narratives.

Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience·2026
Same author

The search for meaning: Age-related differences in the semantic N400 effect for picture pairs are unrelated to semantic benefits in episodic memory.

Psychology and aging·2026
Same author

Unexpected words that become your best memories: How sentential constraint and word expectedness affect memory retrieval.

Frontiers in human neuroscience·2025
Same author

Discrepancy attribution depends on retrieval context: Evidence from the word-frequency mirror effect.

Memory & cognition·2025

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 11, 2025

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology
05:38

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology

Published on: June 29, 2021

2.4K

Task context dissociates the FN400 and the N400.

Regine Bader1, Luca Tarantini1,2, Axel Mecklinger1

  • 1Experimental Neuropsychology Unit, Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.

Psychophysiology
|February 4, 2023
PubMed
Summary

The FN400 event-related potential reflects familiarity-based recognition, showing greater amplitude for less familiar stimuli when participants aim to remember. This brain response is linked to attributing processing fluency to familiarity during recognition decisions.

Keywords:
ERPsFN400N400familiarityfluency attributionrecognition memoryretrieval intention

More Related Videos

Dissociation of the Confounding Influences of Expectancy and Integrative Difficulty Residing in Anomalous Sentences in Event-related Potential Studies
05:22

Dissociation of the Confounding Influences of Expectancy and Integrative Difficulty Residing in Anomalous Sentences in Event-related Potential Studies

Published on: May 9, 2019

5.4K
Revised and Neuroimaging-Compatible Versions of the Dual Task Screen
07:52

Revised and Neuroimaging-Compatible Versions of the Dual Task Screen

Published on: October 5, 2020

3.6K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Aug 11, 2025

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology
05:38

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology

Published on: June 29, 2021

2.4K
Dissociation of the Confounding Influences of Expectancy and Integrative Difficulty Residing in Anomalous Sentences in Event-related Potential Studies
05:22

Dissociation of the Confounding Influences of Expectancy and Integrative Difficulty Residing in Anomalous Sentences in Event-related Potential Studies

Published on: May 9, 2019

5.4K
Revised and Neuroimaging-Compatible Versions of the Dual Task Screen
07:52

Revised and Neuroimaging-Compatible Versions of the Dual Task Screen

Published on: October 5, 2020

3.6K

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Psychology
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Familiarity-based recognition is often linked to the FN400, a positive-going event-related potential (ERP) waveform.
  • The FN400 is observed 300-500 ms after stimulus onset, primarily at frontal electrodes.
  • The exact cognitive process underlying the FN400 remains debated, with theories suggesting it reflects familiarity or processing fluency.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether the FN400 reflects the attribution of processing fluency to familiarity.
  • To test if the FN400 is greater for less familiar stimuli, where fluency is less expected.
  • To determine if the FN400 is modulated by the goal of remembering and correctly attributed to past experiences.

Main Methods:

  • An incidental study-test design was employed using words of varying life-time familiarity (low and high).
  • Participants performed a pleasantness judgment task on half the studied words and a recognition memory test on the other half.
  • Old/new effects were compared across tasks to isolate the influence of retrieval goals and fluency attribution.

Main Results:

  • No significant differences in the FN400 were found for low versus high life-time familiarity items.
  • A frontally distributed FN400 was observed during the recognition test, consistent with familiarity attribution.
  • The old/new effect in the pleasantness task resembled an N400, suggesting no episodic attribution of fluency.

Conclusions:

  • The FN400 ERP component is specifically associated with attributing processing fluency to familiarity during recognition memory decisions.
  • The findings support the role of the FN400 in familiarity-based recognition when participants have a goal to remember.
  • The study differentiates the FN400 from the N400 based on the cognitive context and retrieval goals.