Research reportN400 solution effect of Chinese character fragments: An orthographic neighborhood size effect

In this study, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by fragments of Chinese single-character words were simultaneously recorded while participants completed a delayed character-matching task as fast as possible, wherein probe characters were matched with their prior fragments. The number of solutions for such fragments was manipulated. Results indicate that fragments completed with several characters elicited greater N400 than did fragments with a single solution. Behavioral results demonstrated that “multiple-solution” responses were slower and had lower accuracy rates than the “one-solution” responses. In this article, both behavioral and N400 solution-effects are interpreted to provide evidence that supports the interactive activation model (IAM) but counters the efficacy of serial search models.

► N400 neighborhood-like effects were found with Chinese character fragments. ► Fragments elicited greater N400 when completed with more than one character. ► Multiple completions impaired fragment-character matching performance. ► Data support the interactive activation model better than the serial models.