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Reading Senseless Sentences: Brain Potentials Reflect Semantic Incongruity

Marta Kutas, Steven A. Hillyard

Science · 1980 · 4,988 citations

doi.org/10.1126/science.7350657

Abstract

In a sentence reading task, words that occurred out of context were associated with specific types of event-related brain potentials. Words that were physically aberrant (larger than normal) elecited a late positive series of potentials, whereas semantically inappropriate words elicited a late negative wave (N400). The N400 wave may be an electrophysiological sign of the "reprocessing" of semantically anomalous information.

Cite this paper

Kutas, M., & Hillyard, S. A. (1980). Reading senseless sentences: Brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science, 207(4427), 203–205. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.7350657

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