Orthographic priming also depends on the emotional valence of the neighbor and prime duration: An ERP study

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded in two experiments to examine whether the time course of the orthographic priming effect depends on the emotional valence of the orthographic neighbor and on prime duration. Neutral target words (e.g., GICLER [squirt], TINTER [ring]) had only one higher-frequency orthographic neighbor. This orthographic neighbor was negative for half of the targets (e.g., gifler [slap]) and neutral for the other half (e.g., tenter [tempt]). Target words were presented in a primed lexical decision task, preceded either by their orthographic neighbor or by a non-alphabetic control prime. Two prime durations of 66 ms (Experiment 1) and 166 ms (Experiment 2) were used. In Experiment 1, results showed an orthographic priming effect on three ERP components (P150, N200 and N400) that was modulated by the negative emotional valence of orthographic neighbors. In Experiment 2, the same components were influenced by the orthographic priming effect, although their appearance latency was brought forward and their amplitude increased. However, the emotional valence of the neighbor no longer influenced the time course of the orthographic priming effect. The results are discussed in terms of early activation of the emotional content of the orthographic neighbor during word processing.

► The time course of orthographic priming depends on the emotional valence of the neighbor and prime duration. ► Three ERP components (P150, N200 and N400) were influenced by orthographic priming. ► The priming effect found on early components (P150, N200) depended on the emotional valence of the neighbor. ► Prime duration anticipated and enhanced the amplitude of electrophysiological correlates of orthographic priming. ► The results suggest early activation of the emotional content of the orthographic neighbor during word processing.