Meaning and Modality: Influences of Context, Semantic Memory Organization, and Perceptual Predictability on Picture Processing

Kara D. Federmeier, Marta Kutas

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Using event-related potentials (ERPs), the authors investigated the influences of sentence context, semantic memory organization, and perceptual predictability on picture processing. Participants read pairs of highly or weakly constraining sentences that ended with (a) the expected item, (b) an unexpected item from the expected semantic category, or (c) an unexpected item from an unexpected category. Pictures were unfamiliar in Experiment 1 but preexposed in Experiment 2. ERPs to pictures reflected both contextual fit and memory organization, as do ERPs to words in the same contexts (K. D. Federmeier & M. Kutas, 1999). However, different response patterns were observed to pictures than to words. Some of these arose from perceptual predictability differences, whereas others seem to reflect true modality-based differences in semantic feature activation. Although words and pictures may share semantic memory, the authors' results show that semantic processing is not amodal.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)202-224
Number of pages23
JournalJournal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition
Volume27
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2001
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language

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