Orthographic-to-Semantic Consistency Effect in Lexical Decision Examinations using Event-Related Brain Potentials

Using the same stimuli used by Hino, Jared and Lupker (2025), we conducted a lexical decision task in which orthographic-to-semantic consistency (OSC) was manipulated based on addition and substitution neighbors, respectively. During the task, Electro-Encephalograms were measured and the OSC effects were examined on Event-Related Brain Potentials. We were successful to replicate Hino et al.’s results in the behavioral data: a significant OSC effect was observed only in the addition neighbor condition. In ERP data, we observed a significant OSC effect at the 450-550 ms time window from the stimulus onset in the addition neighbor condition. In the substitution neighbor condition, on the other hand, we failed to detect an OSC effect. Based on these results, we discussed the reason why the OSC effect was observed in the addition neighbor condition but not in the substitution neighbor condition based on the nature of morphological relationships between the monomorphemic English words and their addition/substitution neighbors.