Lucas Raynal , Evelyne Clément , Louise Goyet , Pia Rämä , Emmanuel Sander
{"title":"Neural correlates of unconventional verb extensions reveal preschoolers’ analogical abilities","authors":"Lucas Raynal , Evelyne Clément , Louise Goyet , Pia Rämä , Emmanuel Sander","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105984","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the current event-related potential (ERP) study, we assessed 4-year-olds’ ability to extend verbs to new action events on the basis of abstract similarities. Participants were presented with images of actions (e.g., peeling an orange) while hearing sentences containing a conventional verb (e.g., peeling), a verb sharing an abstract relation (i.e., an analogical verb, e.g., undressing), a verb sharing an object type (i.e., an object-related verb, e.g., pressing) with the action, or a pseudoverb (e.g., kebraying). The amplitude of the N400 gradually increased as a function of verb type—from conventional verbs to analogical verbs to object-related verbs to pseudoverbs. These findings suggest that accessing the meaning of a verb is easier when it shares abstract relations with the expected verb. Our results illustrate that measuring brain signals in response to analogical word extensions provides a useful tool to investigate preschools’ analogical abilities.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096524001243/pdfft?md5=1dc106257ebeda14364f3b1dacd12eb6&pid=1-s2.0-S0022096524001243-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096524001243","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In the current event-related potential (ERP) study, we assessed 4-year-olds’ ability to extend verbs to new action events on the basis of abstract similarities. Participants were presented with images of actions (e.g., peeling an orange) while hearing sentences containing a conventional verb (e.g., peeling), a verb sharing an abstract relation (i.e., an analogical verb, e.g., undressing), a verb sharing an object type (i.e., an object-related verb, e.g., pressing) with the action, or a pseudoverb (e.g., kebraying). The amplitude of the N400 gradually increased as a function of verb type—from conventional verbs to analogical verbs to object-related verbs to pseudoverbs. These findings suggest that accessing the meaning of a verb is easier when it shares abstract relations with the expected verb. Our results illustrate that measuring brain signals in response to analogical word extensions provides a useful tool to investigate preschools’ analogical abilities.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Experimental Child Psychology is an excellent source of information concerning all aspects of the development of children. It includes empirical psychological research on cognitive, social/emotional, and physical development. In addition, the journal periodically publishes Special Topic issues.