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Free keywords:
Development; Event-relatedpotentials; Lexical-semantic processing; N400
Abstract:
This study investigates by means of the event-related brain potential whether mechanisms of lexical priming and semantic integration are already developed in 14-month-olds. While looking at coloured pictures of known objects children were presented with basic-level words that were either congruous or incongruous to the pictures. The event-related potential of 14-month-olds revealed an early negativity in the lateral frontal brain region for congruous words, and a later N400-like negativity for incongruous words. These results indicate that both lexical priming and semantic integration are already present as early as 14 months.
