Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity Modulate Electrophysiological Correlates of Semantic Negative Priming From Single Words

Montserrat Megías; Juan J Ortells; Isabel Carmona; Carmen Noguera; Markus Kiefer

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2021.765290

Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity Modulate Electrophysiological Correlates of Semantic Negative Priming From Single Words

Front Behav Neurosci. 2021 Nov 18:15:765290. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2021.765290. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Montserrat Megías¹, Juan J Ortells^{1

2}, Isabel Carmona^{1

2}, Carmen Noguera^{1

2}, Markus Kiefer³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Almería, Almería, Spain.
² CEINSA, Health Research Center, University of Almería, Almería, Spain.
³ Department of Psychiatry, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.

Abstract

In the present study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were registered during a semantic negative priming (NP) task in participants with higher and lower working memory capacity (WMC). On each trial participants had to actively ignore a briefly presented single prime word, which was followed either immediately or after a delay by a mask. Thereafter, either a semantically related or an unrelated target word was presented, to which participants made a semantic categorization judgment. The ignored prime produced a behavioral semantic NP in delayed (but not in immediate) masking trials, and only for participants with a higher-WMC. Both masking type and WMC also modulated ERP priming effects. When the ignored prime was immediately followed by a mask (which impeded its conscious identification) a reliable N400 modulation was found irrespective of participants' WMC. However, when the mask onset following the prime was delayed (thus allowing its conscious identification), an attenuation of a late positive ERP (LPC) was observed in related compared to unrelated trials, but only in the higher-WMC group showing reliable behavioral NP. The present findings demonstrate for the first time that individual differences in WMC modulate both behavioral measures and electrophysiological correlates of semantic NP.

Keywords: N400 ERP component; event-related potentials; individual differences in working memory capacity; late positive complex; semantic negative priming.