ERPs and contextual semantic discrimination: Degrees of congruence in wakefulness and sleep [An article from: Brain and Language]

This digital document is a journal article from Brain and Language, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This study explores whether the brain can discriminate degrees of semantic congruency during wakefulness and sleep. Experiment 1 was conducted during wakefulness to test degrees of congruency by means of N400 amplitude. In Experiment 2, the same paradigm was applied to a different group of participants during natural night sleep. Stimuli were 108 sentences (definitions with two attributes) with four possible degrees of congruence as ending targets. In both studies, the amplitude of N400-like effect showed modulation according to the degree of congruency. The results indicate that the brain can accomplish sentential semantic discriminations not only in wakefulness but also in sleep.