An ERP study on the semantic processing of unambiguous noun, unambiguous verb and verb-noun ambiguous word in Mandarin Chinese

This paper is intended to explore the semantic processing of unambiguous noun, unambiguous verb and verb-noun ambiguous word in Mandarin Chinese by using event-related potentials (ERP). The experiment, which was conducted in the lexical decision task, contained four sets of stimuli: disyllabic unambiguous nouns (UN), unambiguous verbs (UV), verb-biased (V-VN) and noun biased (N-VN) verb-noun ambiguous words. Since both UN and VN had a single meaning, they were less notable in semantic activation, which resulted in less decision confidence and lower LPC amplitudes. The results of LPC reflected the continuum of grammatical classes as 'UV-V-VN-N-VN-UN', which provided the supporting evidence for the conformance of syntax level and semantic level. Adapted from the source document