The Processing Effect Of Semantic Distinctive Feature: An ERP Study

Concept always has many semantic features and the activation between concept and its semantic features is central to understand concept production and to understand concept processing. Recently, some authors reported that distinctive features are considered hold a privileged status in the semantic processing,they activated a concept more strongly,and they are activated more quickly and/or strongly in computation of word meaning (Gree, 2006).However, until now, the question of how distinctive features processed in the brain is still unclear, it need to make further study. This study uesd semantic prime to further explore the question that how distinctive feature activated a concept and how a concep activated its features.This study include two studies(study 1 and study 2):Study 1 used two experiments to explore how a distinctive feature activated its concept. The purpose expreiment 1 was to investigated the semantic priming effect from a distinctive featrue with an SOA of 800ms. the results indicated that when participants have enough cognitive resource to process a semantic feature, a distinctive feature have more strongly priming effect than a share feature; ERP results indicated that a distinctive feature and a share feature have no significance difference in early concept recogintion(N150), but the effect of N400 have significance difference in centrol scalp area and centrol-parietal scalp area and indicated that a distinctive feature is more easy integration than a share feature. The purpose expreiment 2 was to investigated the semantic priming effect from a distinctive featrue with an SOA of 350ms. the result indicated that when participants do not have enough cognitive resource to processing a semantic feature, a distinctive feature have more strongly priming effect than a share feature; But ERP results are different from experiment 1, experiment 2 find that a distinctive feature and a share feature have no significance difference in early concept recogintion(N150) and the effect of N400 do not have significance difference in centrol scalp area and centrol-parietal scalp area, this results indicated that the advantage of inegration from a distinctive feature is lost. The difference of N400 waves in frontal scalp area\left inferior frontal area\left fronto-temporal scalp area indicated that a distinctive feature increase a concept maening retrieval.Study 2 used other two experiments to explore how a concept activated its distinctive feature. The purpose expreiment 3 was to investigated the semantic priming effect from a concept with an SOA of 800ms. the result indicated that when participants have enough cognitive resource to process a concept, a distinctive feature is more strongly activated than a share feature be; ERP result indicated that a distinctive feature and a share feature have no significance difference in early feature retrieval processing (N150), significance differencese of N400 from distinctive feature retrieval and share feature retrieval are found in frontal scalp area\left inferior frontal area\left fronto-temporal scalp area and these indicated that a distinctive feature is more esay to retrieval in a concept processing. The purpose expreiment 4 was further to investigated the semantic priming effect from a concept with an SOA of 350ms. Behavioral results show that despite participants do not have enough cognitive resource to process a concept, but a distinctive feature also more easy retrieval than a share feature. ERP result indicated that a distinctive feature and a share feature have no significance difference in early feature retrieval processing (N150). But ERP results are different from experiment 3, experiment 4 find that the effect of N400 from distinctive feature retrieval and share feature retrieval are widety discover in centrol-parietal scalp area, share feature elici more negative N400 waves, and these indicated that when participants do not have enough cognitive resource to processing a concept, a distinctive feature is more easy integration than a share feature in concept retrieval processing.The results revealed that:(1).Both in processing with enough cognitive resource and with poor cognitive resourcese, distinctive features are more strongly activated a concept meaning; and in concept processing, distinctive features are more quikly and more strongly retrieved. (2).In different cognitive resource conditions, distinctive featuer hold a privileged status in the semantic processing due to different steps in semantic processing:when a feature activated its concept, if participants have enough cognitive resource to process a feature, the privileged status of distinctive feature due to effect of distinctive feature in integrate processing; and if participants have poor cognitive resource to process a feature, the privileged status of distinctive feature due to a distinctive featuer increase a concept meaning retrieved. When a concept activated its semantic feature, either cognitive resource enough or not, a distinctive feature also more easy retrieval than a share feature; but compare to in enough cognitive resource, in poor cognitive resource a distinctive feature is more easy integration than a share feature in concept retrieval processing.