After that, presentation of the sounds was random. This randomization resulted in the words and sounds conditions to be fully crossed. Thus, a novel sound could also co-occur with a novel-font word, although this rarely happened (on average on five trials
per participant; see Fig. 1). Figure 1 Schematic representation of the tasks used. Words were shown one by one, and presented either in standard font or in a unique, novel font (e.g., whale). Each word was combined with a sound, which could be a standard tone or a novel sound (e.g., volcano). … For the study phase, participants were instructed to learn the words and ignore the sounds. After the study phase, participants were asked to
Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical recall 40 of the previously learned words (a random 20 standard and all 20 novel). They were cued with the first two letters of each word and then had to complete that cue with a studied word (e.g., Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the “To” had to be completed to “tomato”, if that was a studied word). The cues were all presented in the same format, which Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical was the one used for the standard-font words. After this cued recall phase, a recognition phase was presented. The recognition task included 80 words, all of them presented in standard font; 40 of those were the studied words already tested in the recall phase (20 novel and 20 standard) and 40 lures not presented before. Studied words and lures were all concrete nouns, and were picked randomly from one pool of 120 such nouns. Participants typed “z” for already presented words and “n” for selleck inhibitor not-seen-before Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical words. Experiment 2: procedure and stimuli The second experiment had the study and recall phases of Experiment 1 (but no recognition phase). Major changes with respect to the Experiment 1 were: During the study phase, words were all presented as in the standard-font condition of Experiment 1: black, 17-dot courier new. Additionally, sounds were presented before the words, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical instead of after. Each trial started with the presentation
of a fixation cross with duration varying from 305 to 699 msec (mean 501 msec). Then a sound was presented, while a fixation cross MycoClean Mycoplasma Removal Kit was still on the screen. After a variable delay (ISI from 556 to 944 msec, mean: 757), the words were presented for 2 sec. As in Experiment 1, 58 of 80 sounds were standard and 22 novel, and were presented randomly. Instructions for participants were the same as for Experiment 1, with the difference that it was explained that sounds would occur before the words. After the study phase, participants were asked to recall all the previously learned words; again using a cued recall task (see Fig. 1). Data analysis In Experiment 1, comparisons were made between novel and standard conditions for both fonts (visual novelty) and sounds (auditory novelty), based on font- and sound-stimulus-locked ERPs.