Antonym canonicity: Temporal and contextual manipulations
Author
Summary, in English
Abstract in Undetermined
Previous research on antonyms has shown that some pairings form more felicitous couplings than others. Following up on that research, we conducted two semantic categorization experiments using Event Related Potentials to establish whether there are neurophysiological differences related to levels of antonym canonicity. In Experiment 1, the members of canonical antonym pairs (e.g. black-white), non-canonical antonym pairs (e.g. white-dark) and unrelated word pairs (e.g. bumpy-small) were presented in isolation separated either by a short (200ms) or a long (800ms) time interval. The canonical antonyms gave rise to significantly lower N400 amplitudes than both non-canonical antonyms and unrelated pairs, but no significant difference in N400 amplitudes for non-canonical and unrelated pairs was found. In Experiment 2, the same pairs were presented in a congruent context. Significant differences in N400 amplitudes across all three conditions were found, also between non-canonical antonyms and unrelated word pairs.
Previous research on antonyms has shown that some pairings form more felicitous couplings than others. Following up on that research, we conducted two semantic categorization experiments using Event Related Potentials to establish whether there are neurophysiological differences related to levels of antonym canonicity. In Experiment 1, the members of canonical antonym pairs (e.g. black-white), non-canonical antonym pairs (e.g. white-dark) and unrelated word pairs (e.g. bumpy-small) were presented in isolation separated either by a short (200ms) or a long (800ms) time interval. The canonical antonyms gave rise to significantly lower N400 amplitudes than both non-canonical antonyms and unrelated pairs, but no significant difference in N400 amplitudes for non-canonical and unrelated pairs was found. In Experiment 2, the same pairs were presented in a congruent context. Significant differences in N400 amplitudes across all three conditions were found, also between non-canonical antonyms and unrelated word pairs.
Publishing year
2014
Language
English
Pages
1-8
Publication/Series
Brain and Language
Volume
128
Issue
1
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Elsevier
Topic
- General Language Studies and Linguistics
- Psychology
Status
Published
Project
- Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1090-2155