Given that the N400 does not readily map onto specific sub-processes posited in traditional frameworks, which have been built largely from behavioral and linguistic evidence, it may prove more fruitful to use what has been learned about the N400 to reshape the underlying conceptualizations of how comprehension unfolds, in ways that are more constrained by our understanding of neural processing. In the context of the typical stream of brain activity triggered by an incoming stimulus, the N400 can be characterized as a temporal interval in which unimodal sensory analysis gives way to multimodal associations in a manner that makes use of – and has consequences for – long term memory. Processing in the first 200 or so milliseconds after the onset of a potentially meaningful stimulus is dominated by brain activity related to perceptual analysis, which differs across modality in its spatial and temporal characteristics as well as in its sensitivity to factors like attention. With the N400, then, these different input streams converge -- temporally, spatially and functionally. Given notable variability across stimuli in factors such as familiarity and
