CONCEPTUAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SPOKEN WORDS AND ENVIRONMENTAL SOUNDS - EVENT-RELATED BRAIN POTENTIAL MEASURES

Identifiable nonspeech sounds were paired with spoken words. In Experi ment 1, words preceded by related sounds yielded faster lexical decisi on times than those preceded by unrelated sounds. In Experiment 2, sub jects were presented with sound/word and word/sound pairs while event- related potentials were recorded. Words preceded by related sounds eli cited smaller N400 components than those preceded by unrelated sounds; this N400 context effect was slightly larger at electrode sites over the right hemisphere. A context effect similar in latency and morpholo gy was observed for sounds-a smaller negative wave for related than un related sounds. The context effect for sounds was significantly larger at left than right recording sites, suggesting differential hemispher ic involvement in the processing of word meanings than the ''meanings' ' of environmental sounds.