Fixed-effects estimates: Response time.

We investigated early electrophysiological responses to spoken English words embedded in neutral sentence frames, using a lexical decision paradigm. As words unfold in time, similar-sounding lexical items compete for recognition within 200 milliseconds after word onset. A small number of studies have previously investigated event-related potentials in this time window in English and French, with results differing in direction of effects as well as component scalp distribution. Investigations of spoken-word recognition in Swedish have reported an early left-frontally distributed event-related potential that increases in amplitude as a function of the probability of a successful lexical match as the word unfolds. Results from the present study indicate that the same process may occur in English: we propose that increased certainty of a ‘word’ response in a lexical decision task is reflected in the amplitude of an early left-anterior brain potential beginning around 150 milliseconds after word onset. This in turn is proposed to be connected to the probabilistically driven activation of possible upcoming word forms.本研究采用词汇判断范式（lexical decision paradigm），探讨了嵌入中性语句框架中的英语口语词汇所诱发的早期电生理反应。随着词汇随时间逐步展开，发音相似的词汇项会在词汇起始后的200毫秒内竞争识别过程。此前已有少量研究针对英语和法语，在该时间窗口内考察了事件相关电位（event-related potentials），其结果在效应方向与成分头皮分布上均存在差异。针对瑞典语口语词汇识别的研究曾报道过一种早期左前额分布的事件相关电位，其振幅随词汇展开过程中成功匹配词汇的概率变化而递增。本研究结果表明，英语中或许也存在相同的加工过程：我们提出，词汇判断任务中“词汇”反应的确定性提升，会反映在词汇起始后约150毫秒出现的早期左前脑电位的振幅上。而该电位反过来被认为与基于概率驱动的、对可能出现的后续词汇形式的激活相关联。