WHO SAID WHAT - AN EVENT-RELATED POTENTIAL INVESTIGATION OF SOURCE AND ITEM MEMORY

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during recognition tasks for spoken words alone (items) or for both words and the voice of the speaker (sources). Neither performance nor ERP measures suggested tha t voice information was retrieved automatically during the item-recogn ition task. In both tasks, correctly recognized old words elicited mor e positive ERPs than new words, beginning around 400 ms poststimulus o nset. In the source task only, old words also elicited a focal prefron tal positivity beginning about 700 ms. The prefrontal task effect did not distinguish trials with accurate acid inaccurate voice judgments a nd is interpreted as reflecting the search for voice information in me mory. More posterior recording sites were sensitive to the successful recovery of voice or source information. The results indicate that wor d and voice information were retrieved hierarchically and distinguish retrieval attempt from retrieval success.