Visual Object Categorization from Whole to Fine: Evidence from ERP

摘要

The phenomenons of basic-level advantage and its reversal to the superordinate level during visual object categorization suggest the flexible and widely automatic semantic activation in human being, which would permit the actions to be consistent with goals and environment. However the under mechanism and the neural relation of visual object categorization is still not clear. By using the technique of ERP (Event-related Potential), with a word-picture matching task, we observed a superordinate-level advantage both in the behavioral reaction time (RT). The ERP activities showed that for the condition of supeordinate-level condition, there was a shortest peak latency in the early visual atten-tional ERP component of P2; then in the middle semantic processing component of N400, there was a strongest amplitude; and finally there was a weakest amplitude in the component of late waveform in the late response period. These results suggest that there would be a processing from whole to fine during visual object categorization.