ERP Indicators of Text Integration for Different Skilled Readers

Event-related potentials (ERPs) experiments of text integration are conducted to examine the modulation of reading skills on the spatiotemporal dynamics of word-to-referent integration processes. Participants read passages that were varied by the target word in one of three ways: lexically explicit (repetition of a word), conceptually (paraphrased), and situationally (inference). ERP results indicate multiple effects related to processes of word-identification and word-to-referent mapping. These effects are found to reflect quality of lexical representations that people acquire as they learn new words (Perfetti, & Hart, 2002). The implication of the results is discussed in light of Kintsch¡¦s construction-integration model (1998) as a function of skill differences in lexical level integration (Perfetti, & Hart, 2002).