Word-pair priming with biased homonyms: N400 and LPC effects

- Biased homonym primes followed by related or unrelated targets with a short SOA.
- Greater N400 priming effect for dominant than subordinate associate targets.
- Similar LPC and RT priming effects for dominant and subordinate associate targets.
- N400 indexes lexical meaning frequency; LPC, post-lexical prime-target relation.
- Separable effects of frequency and context in homonym processing measured by ERPs.

In an ERP investigation of biased homonym processing in minimal context, isolated homonym primes (e.g., ruler) preceded targets that were associated with either the dominant (e.g., inch) or subordinate (e.g., king) meaning of the homonym, were unrelated words (e.g., claw), or were nonwords (e.g., smole), presented 250 ms later in a lexical decision paradigm. Both dominant and subordinate associates elicited smaller amplitude N400s and LPCs than unrelated word targets. The N400 priming effect was greater for dominant than subordinate associates, reflecting sensitivity to meaning frequency and lexical competition between the two homonym meanings. The LPC priming effect was similar for dominant and subordinate associates, reflecting post-lexical relational processing between prime and target. In this paradigm, priming effects of meaning frequency due to automatic spreading activation extended only to the N400 time window; shortly thereafter, effects of lexical dominance disappeared and reprocessing of the binary relatedness of the homonym prime and subsequent word target took precedence.