Taxonomic/association and N400

Question 1

Pre-schoolers grouping

Answer 1

Tend to group objects thematically (associatively) 60% rather than taxonomically
‘ Look at this, find another one’

except when you name the object
‘ Look at this sud, find another one’
Than they’ll group taxonomically 90% of the time

Question 2

Word labeling

Answer 2

hypothesized that words are invitations to form categories. If spoken by intentional agent
Dinosaur study;
- Shown various dino’s, w a word or a tone
- After that label, show other types of dino’s and ask for familiarization

Categorization (recognizing other dino’s) happened only when presented w words
- 3 mo: familiarity, so they prefer the one’s they saw before
- 4 mo: novelty, so they prefer the new example of a dino

Question 3

N400 ERP

Answer 3

Important effect in lexical semantics.
ERP = event related potential
When there’s incongruence, there’s a larger negative potential called the N400

EG when hearing a list of animals and there’s suddenly a flower in there.

Question 4

Semantics vs Association in N400

Answer 4

Question whether the N400 is about semantics or about the association

Rhodes and Donaldson:
- Presented w pairs of words and measured ERP
- 4 conditions: As, As+Tax, Tax and no relation

Result:
- Unrelated = largest N400
- Tax is similar to unrelated
- Associatives have lower N400

SO the N400 is a reflection of an associative mismatch

Question 5

Function of N400

Answer 5

The N400 is a neural marker for how well a word fits to its context. If the N400 is larger (mismatch), its a sign for the brain to make more effort to integrate the unexpected word into the context.

The brain is a network of associations
- Its even seen in 9mo, but only for their mothers voice.
- And in dogs