Event-related potentials and the semantic matching of faces

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while subjects determined whether two sequentially presented famous faces depicted individuals belonging to the same or to different occupational categories. During the 1.56 sec interval between the onset of the faces, ERPs recorded from right hemisphere electrodes were more negative-going than those from electrodes over the left hemisphere. The ERPs evoked by the second face on each trial differed as a consequence of whether or not the person depicted belonged to the occupational category specified by the first face. This difference took the form of a bilaterally-distributed negative-going shift in the ERPs evoked by non-matching as opposed to matching faces. This negativity was maximal around 450 msec post-stimulus. The ERP asymmetries during the inter-stimulus interval are interpreted as evidence for the engagement of cognitive processes lateralized to the right hemisphere. The match/non-match differences are considered to reflect the modulation of an "N400" component similar to that evoked by words, and thus suggest that such components can be modulated by associative priming between non-linguistic stimuli.