Electrophysiological correlates of early processing of visual word recognition: N2 as an index of visual category feature processing

A fundamental question in second language learning is how the brain separates inputs from different languages into distinct representation systems prior to semantic activation. The present study investigated this question using a silent reading task in which Latin letters and simple Chinese characters (including real characters and pseudocharacters) appeared randomly for 100 milliseconds (ms). High-density event-related potentials were employed to record the electrophysiological correlates of visual word recognition prior to motor response. The results showed that real Chinese characters and pseudocharacters produced a larger N2 response than letters within 200-300ms time window. However, no significant differences between real Chinese characters and pseudocharacters were found. The separation of two languages into their own systems might occur in the time window when N2 was elicited. The segregation of real Chinese characters and pseudocharacters was observed in a later time window (350-450ms). The category feature processing of stimuli might be responsible for the N2 response; the processing allows stimuli of the same category to be analyzed in their specific units and distinguishes different stimuli.