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On the representation of words and nonwords in visual short‐term memory: Evidence from human electrophysiology
Author(s) -
Predovan David,
Prime David,
Arguin Martin,
Gosselin Frédéric,
Dell'Acqua Roberto,
Jolicœur Pierre
Publication year - 2009
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.1469-8986.2008.00753.x
Subject(s) - psychology , electrophysiology , cognitive psychology , representation (politics) , negativity effect , visual short term memory , word (group theory) , encoding (memory) , communication , neuroscience , visual memory , linguistics , cognition , philosophy , politics , political science , law
Electrophysiological measures were used to investigate the contribution of lexical status on the maintenance of letter strings in visual short‐term memory (VSTM). The sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN), an electrophysiological marker of storage in VSTM, was measured for words and nonwords as well as scrambled letters. A smaller SPCN was found for words than for nonwords (independently of their pronounceability), indicating that lexical status influences storage in VSTM. One possibility is that words produce a smaller SPCN because they can be recoded to a form that does not require a low‐level representation in VSTM. For exploratory purpose, a comparison between the nonwords and the scrambled nonwords was also made. Based on previous research, the SPCN component should not be affected by the size of the region enclosing to‐be‐encoded objects. Surprisingly, significant differences between the SPCN for nonwords and scrambled letters conditions were found, suggesting that special encoding mechanisms may be recruited to encode word‐like letter strings.