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Right Hemisphere Activation during Indirect Semantic Priming: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Brain and LanguagePublished 1 October 1998
Markus Kiefer, Matthias Weisbrod, Isabel Kern, Sabine Maier, Manfred Spitzer
Citations142
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score0.93
SNIP1.03

TL;DR

The hypothesis that the right hemisphere semantic system is involved in processing of remote semantic information is supported by the results of a semantic priming paradigm study on healthy subjects.

Abstract

Healthy subjects performed a lexical decision task in a semantic priming paradigm while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 64 channels. Semantic distance between prime and target was varied by including directly, indirectly, and nonrelated word pairs. At centro-parietal electrodes an N400 to nonrelated pairs was elicited bilaterally which was sensitive only to direct, but not to indirect semantic priming. These N400 priming effects were mirrored by the RT data. At inferior fronto-temporal sites directly related words showed ERP priming effects over both hemispheres. However, indirectly related words only elicited ERP priming effects over the right hemisphere. These results support the hypothesis that the right hemisphere semantic system is involved in processing of remote semantic information.

Keywords

PsychologyNeuroscience