Being open but sharp : Openness to Experience associated with the variations of the online processing of category-based semantic relatedness

Research output: Conference PapersPosterpeer-review

View graph of relations

Detail(s)

Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 30 Sept 2022

Conference

Title62nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR 2022)
PlaceCanada
CityVancouver
Period28 September - 2 October 2022

Abstract

Openness as a personality trait describes the continuum of the need and curiosity for intellectual endeavors. With the behavioral manifestation of high openness as creativity and advanced verbal abilities, Openness is considered highly cognitive; more specifically, it implies potential variations in the underlying cognitive mechanisms of language information processing.
To examine such implication, we observed how openness tunes the processing of categorical and semantic associative information with a membership verification task in an ERP experiment. Semantic relatedness is manipulated for category members and non-members, thus 4 conditions in category-target pairs in the prime paradigm: high-typicality (HT), low-typicality (LT), related-violation (RV), and non-related violation (NRV).
High-openness (HO, Openness>28) and low-openness (LO) participants showed different patterns for ERP results but no difference at the behavioral level. Only HO showed condition main effect on frontal P2, indexing primary processing for basic-level features. On N400, contrasting patterns are observed: LT and RV grouped in HO, LT/RV/NRV grouped against HT in LO. Only HO showed significant difference on RV-NRV. Moreover, differences between related targets (HT, LT, RV) to non-related targets (NRV) are positively correlated with the Openness Score. These results may have associated higher openness with a more aware and sensitive cognitive style that pervades basic semantic processing. This finding extends the understanding of what Openness portrays and differentiates in the general population.

Research Area(s)

  • Semantic association, ERP, personality, typicality, individualisation

Bibliographic Note

Research Unit(s) information for this publication is provided by the author(s) concerned.

Citation Format(s)

Being open but sharp: Openness to Experience associated with the variations of the online processing of category-based semantic relatedness. / Li, Bing; Lin, Qiduo; Mak, Hoi Yan et al.
2022. Poster session presented at 62nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR 2022), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Research output: Conference PapersPosterpeer-review