Abstract
Semantic priming is an important research topic in the field of cognitive neuroscience. Previous studies have shown that the uni-modal semantic priming effect can be modulated by attention. However, the influence of attention on cross-modal semantic priming is unclear. To investigate this issue, the present study combined a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm with an auditory spatial attention paradigm, presenting the visual pictures as the prime stimuli and the semantically related or unrelated sounds as the target stimuli. Event-related potentials results showed that when the target sound was attended to, the N400 effect was evoked. The N400 effect was also observed when the target sound was not attended to, demonstrating that the cross-modal semantic priming effect persists even though the target stimulus is not focused on. Further analyses revealed that the N400 effect evoked by the unattended sound was significantly lower than the effect evoked by the attended sound. This contrast provides new evidence that the cross-modal semantic priming effect can be modulated by attention.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bentin S, Kutas M, Hillyard SA (1995) Semantic processing and memory for attended and unattended words in dichotic listening: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 21:54–67
Berkum JV, Hagoort P, Brown C (1999) Semantic integration in sentences and discourse: evidence from the N400. J Cogn Neurosci 11:657–671
Brualla J, Romero MAF, Serrano MA, Valdizán JR (1998) Auditory event-related potentials to semantic priming during sleep. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol Evoked Potentials Sect 108:283–290
Chwilla DJ, Brown CM, Hagoort P (1995) The N400 as a function of the level of processing. Psychophysiology 32:274–285
Cummings A, Čeponienė R, Dick F, Saygin AP, Townsend J (2008) A developmental ERP study of verbal and non-verbal semantic processing. Brain Res 1208:137–149
Gao H, Ouyang M, Zhang D, Hong B (2011) An auditory brain-computer interface using virtual sound field. In: Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC, 2011 annual international conference of the IEEE. IEEE, pp 4568–4571
Holcomb PJ, Anderson JE (1993) Cross-modal semantic priming: a time-course analysis using event-related brain potentials. Lang Cogn Processes 8:379–412
Ibáñez A, López V, Cornejo C (2006) ERPs and contextual semantic discrimination: degrees of congruence in wakefulness and sleep. Brain Lang 98:264–275
Ito J, Koyama S, Nageishi Y (1997) Event-related potentials during lexical decision task. Differences in N400 between concrete and abstract words. Int J Psychophysiol 25:29–30
Kiefer M, Martens U (2010) Attentional sensitization of unconscious cognition: task sets modulate subsequent masked semantic priming. J Exp Psychol Gen 139:464–489
Kutas M, Federmeier KD (2011) Thirty years and counting: finding meaning in the N400 component of the event related brain potential (ERP). Annu Rev Psychol 62:621–647
Kutas M, Hillyard SA (1980) Reading senseless sentences: brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science 207:203–205
Kutas M, Iragui V (1998) The N400 in a semantic categorization task across 6 decades. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol Evoked Potentials Sect 108:456–471
Liu B, Jin Z, Qing Z, Wang Z (2011a) The processing of phonological, orthographical, and lexical information of Chinese characters in sentence contexts: an ERP study. Brain Res 1372:81–91
Liu B, Wang Z, Wu G, Meng X (2011b) Cognitive integration of asynchronous natural or non-natural auditory and visual information in videos of real-world events: an event-related potential study. Neuroscience 180:181–190
Liu B, Wu G, Wang Z, Meng X, Wang Q (2011c) Semantic association of ecologically unrelated synchronous audio-visual information in cognitive integration: an event-related potential study. Neuroscience 192:494–499
Liu B, Wu G, Meng X, Dang J (2013) Correlation between prime duration and semantic priming effect: evidence from N400 effect. Neuroscience 238:319–326
Meyer DE, Schvaneveldt RW (1971) Facilitation in recognizing pairs of words: evidence of a dependence between retrieval operations. J Exp Psychol 90:227–234
Okita T, Jibu T (1998) Selective attention and N400 attenuation with spoken word repetition. Psychophysiology 35:260–271
Oldfield RC (1971) The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia 9:97–113
Orgs G, Lange K, Dombrowski J-H, Heil M (2006) Conceptual priming for environmental sounds and words: an ERP study. Brain Cogn 62:267–272
Perrin F, Garcıa-Larrea L (2003) Modulation of the N400 potential during auditory phonological/semantic interaction. Cogn Brain Res 17:36–47
Relander K, Rämä P, Kujala T (2009) Word semantics is processed even without attentional effort. J Cogn Neurosci 21:1511–1522
Schneider TR, Engel AK, Debener S (2008) Multisensory identification of natural objects in a two-way crossmodal priming paradigm. Exp Psychol 55:121–132
Senkowski D, Talsma D, Grigutsch M, Herrmann CS, Woldorff MG (2007) Good times for multisensory integration: effects of the precision of temporal synchrony as revealed by gamma-band oscillations. Neuropsychologia 45:561–571
Tavakoli P, Muller-Gass A, Campbell K (2015) Partial sleep deprivation does not alter processes involved in semantic word priming: event-related potential evidence. Brain Cogn 94:17–23
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program (973 Program) of China (Nos. 2013CB329301 and 2012CB316301) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61271128, 61571327 and 61503278).
Author's contribution
The author HW, GZ, BL contributed to the design of the work. The author HW performed the experiments. The author HW, GZ, BL contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data for the work. The author HW, GZ, BL drafted the work for important intellectual content. The author HW, GZ, BL finally approved the version to be submitted. The author GZ and BL contributed to the revision of this work. All the authors agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
We declare that we have no actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work.
Additional information
Hongyan Wang and Gaoyan Zhang contributed equally to this study.
Appendix
Appendix
The stimuli set included 15 animals and 15 artificial objects. Animals consisted of chicken, pigeon, wolf, dog, tiger, elephant, goose, bird, frog, cattle, sheep, duck, pig, horse and cat. Artificial objects included clock, billiards, bicycle, tap, camera, bell, guitar, hatchet, train, boat, match, stapler, telephone, car and mouse.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, H., Zhang, G. & Liu, B. Influence of auditory spatial attention on cross-modal semantic priming effect: evidence from N400 effect. Exp Brain Res 235, 331–339 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4792-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4792-4