or incongruent. Relative to the wholly congruent condition, all mismatch conditions yielded larger fronto-central N400s indistinguishable in amplitude, latency or scalp topography. Such data argue against any view of sense-making in which linguistic information is treated differently (in time or nature) than non-linguistic (objects, scenes) information. Indeed, even for linguistic stimuli, emerging N400 data made clear that many different kinds of features, including shared physical shape (e.g., between coin and button: Kellenbach et al 2000) and emotional valence (Schirmer & Kotz 2003), contribute to semantic analysis. The view of the N400 as a marker of “language processing” is thus shifting toward a view of the N400 as reflecting meaning processing more broadly. Correspondingly, the N400 is increasingly appreciated as a tool for examining object and face recognition, as well as action and gesture processing.
