Consolidation Express?: Accelerated dynamics of memory consolidation for novel words and meanings revealed by an ERP study

LUZ BAVASSI; SOFIA DEGIORGI ; MARIA EUGENIA PEDREIRA; LAURA KACZER

Congreso; LABMAN; 2017

Humans are phenomenally good at learning words. An acquired new wordmust be integrated with existing knowledge. The dynamics of this integration isan open topic in the neurolinguistic area. How long does it take for a new wordto become a part of a mental lexicon? The present research assessed thetemporal features of the word memory formation and integration. Young adultswere instructed to learn a set of new words (e.g. ?pefaro?) each associatedwith a picture of a novel object and a definition (e.g. ?pefaro is a tropicalbird?). The integration of word meanings was determined at 30 min or 48 h afterlearning by measuring the extent to which the newly learned words were able toprime semantically related words (e.g. ?pefaro?- ?parrot?). In addition, novelwords were compared with already established words to analyse their lexicalstatus. To make a step towards the identification of the neurophysiologicalmarkers of lexical access for novel words we recorded the EEG event-relatedpotentials during the behavioural priming task. Our results showed that novelwords revealed to be lexically integrated already at 30 min after learning,producing a reliable semantic priming effect and a modulation of the N400component. This pattern of results suggests that novel word representationswere formed and integrated within a very short period of offline consolidation.