Two experiments investigated the time-course of semantic and syntactic processes in auditory language comprehension as well as their possible functional dependencies, using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Participants listened to sentences which were either correct, semantically incorrect, syntactically incorrect, or both semantically and syntactically incorrect. In experiment 1, partici...

The present study sought to determine whether semantic satiation is merely a by-product of adaptation or satiation of upstream, nonsemantic perceptual processes or whether the effect can have a locus in semantic memory. This was done by measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in a semantic word-detection task involving multiple presentations of primes and critical related and unrelated ...

The existence of differential brain mechanisms of conscious and unconscious processing is a matter of debate nowadays. The present experiment explores whether conscious and unconscious semantic priming in a lexical decision task at a long prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) correlate with overlapping or different event related potential (ERP) effects. Results show that the N400 effect,...

Lavie (1995) have suggested that perceptual processing is influenced by perceptual load. Specifically, relevant information receives additional processing in high load situations exhausting the available capacity. On the other hand, irrelevant information receives less processing with increasing load on a relevant task, as there is a reduced amount of residual processing available. Rees et al. ...

The neural origins of the cortical response to rare sensory events remain poorly understood. Using simultaneous event-related potentials and magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated the anatomical profile of regional activity at various processing stages during performance of auditory and visual variants of an oddball paradigm. The earliest rarity-detection response was found in sensory-spec...

Research has demonstrated that people readily pay more attention to negative than to positive and/or neutral stimuli. However, evidence from recent studies indicated that such an attention bias to negative information is not obligatory but sensitive to various factors. Two experiments using intergroup evaluative tasks (Study 1: a gender-related groups evaluative task and Study 2: a minimal-rela...

Time-consuming processes of task-set reconfiguration have been shown to contribute to the costs of switching between cognitive tasks. We describe and probe a novel mechanism serving to reduce the costs of task-set reconfiguration. We propose that when individuals are uncertain about the currently valid task, one task set is activated for execution while other task sets are maintained at a pre-a...

Memory for the time of events may benefit from reconstructive, location-based, and distance-based processes, but these processes are difficult to dissociate with behavioral methods. Neuropsychological research has emphasized the contribution of prefrontal brain mechanisms to memory for time but has not clearly differentiated location- from distance-based processing. The present experiment recor...

In a shooting video game we investigated whether increased distance reduces moral conflict. We measured and analyzed the event related potential (ERP), including the N2 component, which has previously been linked to cognitive conflict from competing decision tendencies. In a modified Go/No-go task designed to trigger moral conflict participants had to shoot suddenly appearing human like avatars...

Comments on the original article, "Increased attention but more efficient disengagement: Neuroscientific evidence for defensive processing of threatening health information" by L. T. E. Kessels, R. A. C. Ruiter, and B. M. Jansma (see record 2010-14873-005). Kessler et al present an example of Communication Neuroscience as a tool for understanding the mechanisms that lead some health messages to...