So, take it from the top...

Someone famous once said, "the best place to start is from the beginning."

The past entry kind of skipped that. So, if you're just tuning in, here it goes.

"Reading, The Brain, and Reading the Brain" is the title of my Div3 (aka thesis) project at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. It combines three fields I'm intensely interested in: neuroscience/neuropsychology, language, and human development. I can't just tell you what it is, though. If I were to say to you, "It's an investigation into the link between working memory and the N400 in children and adults," I'd bet 10 dollars you wouldn't understand more than half of that statement.

Let's start with the basics: what is an N400? It's a component (aka, part of) an ERP. An ERP stands for Event Related Potential. An Event Related Potential is a specific electronic peak that your brain gives in response to various stimuli. That is, your brain reacts differently when it's analyzing a face versus when it reads a normal sentence versus is neutral. We've been able to track down various stimuli-response events, and they're temporally related, most times.

What is an ERP, though? Every moment of every day that you live (and sometimes, after death) your brain is sending electricity around itself and to your body. That electricity extends through your bones, guts, and skin. If we limit motion, we can isolate the brain's response to various stimuli. ERP's are measured in microvolts; using just your potential brain electricity, we'd need about 9,000 people to have the same charge as a AA battery. That's why millions of people charge what is known as the Matrix.

P=positive N=negative. P=N in terms of the effect. Just like negative current is the same
as positive. P100=P1=Positive charge 100 miliseconds post-stimulus. P3=positive wave 300 miliseconds post-stimulus. N4=negative wave 400ms p-s.

With me so far? So, to recap: brain gives off electricity, we can isolate electronic components (the waves are referred to as components because these timings aren't exact). The N400 is semantically related. That is, almost no other stimulus besides words makes the N400. Grammar doesn't even trigger the N400, that's been isolated to the P600, which is an up-and-coming field of research; that there could very well be hard-wired brain function related to grammar.

To learn more, read these:
Luck, SJ (2005) An Introduction to the Event-Related Potentials and Their Neural Origins
in An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique. MIT Press, Boston. 1-50.

Kutas, M., Hillyard, SA., 1980 Reading Senseless Sentences: Brain Potentials Reflect Semantic Incongruity. Science 207(4427) 203-205

Osterhout, L, Nicol, J. (1999) On the Distinctiveness, Independence, and Course of the Brain Responses to Syntactic and Semantic Anomalies. Language and Cognitive Processes 14 (3) 283-317

I think that's enough for this lesson. When I'm back to procrastinating, I'll be back with you.