Distinct morphological processing of recently learned compound words:An ERPstudy

KACZER LAURA; TIMMER KALINKA; LUZ BAVASSI; SCHILLER NIELS

BRAIN RESEARCH

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2015 vol. 1629 p. 309 - 317

0006-8993

Our vocabulary is, at least inprinciple, infinite. We can create new words combining existing ones inmeaningful ways to form new linguistic expressions. The present study investigatedthe morphological processing of novel compound words in overt speechproduction. Native speakers of Dutch learned a series of new compounds (e.g. appelgezicht, ?apple-face?) that were later used as primes in a morphologicalpriming task. In this protocol, primes were compound words morphologicallyrelated to a target?s picture name (e.g, appelgezicht was used for a picture of an apple, Dutch appel).The novel primes were compared with corresponding familiar compounds sharing afree morpheme (e.g. appelmoes, ?applesauce?) and with unrelated compounds. Participants wererequired to read aloud words and to name pictures in a long-lag design. Behavioraland event-related potentials (ERPs) datawere collected in two sessions, separated by 48 h. Clear facilitation ofpicture naming latencies was obtained when pictures were paired withmorphological related words. Notably, our results show that novel compoundshave a stronger priming effect than familiar compounds in both sessions, whichis expressed in a marked reduction in target naming latencies and a decrease inthe N400 amplitude. These results suggest that participants focused more on theseparate constituents when reading novel primes than in the case of existingcompounds.