Dimensions of affective semantic meaning — behavioral and evoked potential correlates in Chinese subjects

The affective meaning of words can be quantified statistically by the 'semantic differential technique'. We studied a total of 55 Chinese adults in two experiments: first, 210 nouns were rated by 32 subjects. Factor analysis on these data yielded three independent semantic dimensions. Semantically unique words were used in electrophysiological experiments in another group of 23 healthy right-handed adults. Words of similar physical appearance belonging to different semantic classes were presented visually in random order. The electroencephalogram [corrected] was recorded in 32 channels. Evoked activity was computed for each semantic class. Significant differences in electrical brain activation between semantic word classes were seen as early as 80 ms after stimulus onset confirming related findings in German subjects. These results illustrate similar early neural activation in subject groups of different language and culture.

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