Does adding beer to coffee enhance the activation of drinks? An ERP study of semantic category priming

Marcela Ovando-Tellez, Benjamin Rohaut, Nathalie George, Theophile Bieth, Laurent Hugueville, Yoan Ibrahim, Ophelie Courbet, Lionel Naccache, Richard Levy, Béatrice Garcin, Emmanuelle Volle
Cognitive Neuroscience. 2021-07-07; 13(2): 61-76
DOI: 10.1080/17588928.2021.1940117

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Ovando-Tellez M(1), Rohaut B(1)(2)(3), George N(1)(4), Bieth T(1)(2), Hugueville L(4), Ibrahim Y(1), Courbet O(1), Naccache L(1), Levy R(1)(2), Garcin B(1)(5), Volle E(1).

Author information:
(1)Paris Brain Institute (ICM), Sorbonne University, Paris Brain Institute
(ICM), INSERM, CNRS, Paris, France.
(2)Neurology Department, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, AP-HP, Paris, France.
(3)Department of Neurology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
(4)Paris Brain Institute (ICM), Sorbonne University, Paris Brain Institute
(ICM), INSERM, CNRS, Centre MEG-EEG, CENIR, Paris, France.
(5)Neurology Department, Avicenne Hospital, AP-HP, Bobigny, France.

Categorization – whether of objects, ideas, or events – is a cognitive process
that is essential for human thinking, reasoning, and making sense of everyday
experiences. Categorization abilities are typically measured by the Wechsler
Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) similarity subtest, which consists of naming the
shared category of two items (e.g., ‘How are beer and coffee alike’). Previous
studies show that categorization, as measured by similarity tasks, requires
executive control functions. However, other theories and studies indicate that
semantic memory is organized into taxonomic and thematic categories that can be
activated implicitly in semantic priming tasks. To explore whether categories
can be primed during a similarity task, we developed a double semantic priming
paradigm. We measured the priming effect of two primes on a target word that was
taxonomically or thematically related to both primes (double priming) or only
one of them (single priming). Our results show a larger and additive priming
effect in the double priming condition compared to the single priming condition,
as measured by both response times and, more consistently, event-related
potentials. Our results support the view that taxonomic and thematic
categorization can occur during a double priming task and contribute to
improving our knowledge on the organization of semantic memory into categories.
These findings show how abstract categories can be activated, which likely
shapes the way we think and interact with our environment. Our study also
provides a new cognitive tool that could be useful to understand the
categorization difficulties of neurological patients.