AN ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL MEASURE OF PRIMING OF VISUAL WORD-FORM

Priming and recollection are expressions of human memory mediated by d ifferent brain events. These brain events were monitored while people discriminated words from non-words. Mean response latencies were short er for words that appeared in an earlier study phase than for new wore -Is. This priming effect was reduced when the letters of words in stud y-phase presentations were presented individually in succession as opp osed to together as complete words. Based on this outcome, visual word -form priming was linked to a brain potential recorded from the scalp over the occipital lobe about 450 ms after word onset. This potential differed from another potential previously associated with recollectio n, suggesting that distinct operations associated with these two types of memory fan be monitored at the precise time that they occur in the human brain. (C) 1998 Academic Press.