The organization of words and environmental sounds in memory

In the present study we used event-related potentials to compare the organization of linguistic and meaningful nonlinguistic sounds in memory. We examined N400 amplitudes as adults viewed pictures presented with words or environmental sounds that matched the picture (Match), that shared semantic features with the expected match (Near Violation), and that shared relatively few semantic features with the expected match (Far Violation). Words demonstrated incremental N400 amplitudes based on featural similarity from 300-700 ms, such that both Near and Far Violations exhibited significant N400 effects, however Far Violations exhibited greater N400 effects than Near Violations. For environmental sounds, Far Violations but not Near Violations elicited significant N400 effects, in both early (300-400 ms) and late (500-700 ms) time windows, though a graded pattern similar to that of words was seen in the mid-latency time window (400-500 ms). These results indicate that the organization of words and environmental sounds in memory is differentially influenced by featural similarity, with a consistently fine-grained graded structure for words but not sounds.