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An Electrophysiological Study of Semantic Processing in Young and Middle‐Aged Academics
Author(s) -
Gunter Thomas C.,
Jackson Janet L.,
Mulder Gijsbertus
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1992.tb02009.x
Subject(s) - n400 , psychology , p3b , generalizability theory , semantic memory , developmental psychology , event related potential , expectancy theory , stimulus (psychology) , audiology , age groups , cognitive psychology , cognition , social psychology , neuroscience , medicine , demography , sociology
This study explored age differences in the N400 component, described by Kutas and Hillyard as an index of semantic expectancy. A group of young students and a group of middle‐aged academics read a number of congruent and incongruent sentences followed by a recognition task. Age differences were found in both accuracy and speed in the recognition task. The N400 elicited in the reading task was both delayed in latency and reduced in amplitude in the older group. These aging effects could not be attributed to early stimulus input processes because the N1 did not differ between the age groups. A re‐averaging of the event‐related potentials during reading as a function of subsequent recognition showed a small memory‐related positivity for the younger group and a large memory‐related positivity for the older group, suggesting a difference in the encoding strategies of the two groups. To check the generalizability of the results of this particular age group, a further task (a memory scanning task) was carried out. The results, a delayed P3b and an increased reaction time, matched those found in the literature.