The many facets of repetition: a cued-recall and event-related potential analysis of repeating words in same versus different sentence contexts

Abstract

Event-related potential (ERP) and cued-recall performance were used to investigate the influence of (a) context, (b) repeating a word's meaning to word repetition priming, and (c) repetition on the ERP difference related to memory (Dm). Sentences ended with either nonhomographs or homographs. For nonhomographs, either the sentence context, the final word, both, or neither were repeated. Homographs were repeated in their original context or in new sentences that biased the same or an alternative meaning. Large repetition effects were found for all words repeated in their original contexts; in contrast, changing contexts led to no repetition effects whether the meaning of the repeated words was preserved or not. These results favor an episodic contribution to word repetition priming and suggest a common process for Dm and repetition.