Testâretest reliability of the N400 component in a sentence-reading paradigm

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group The N400 component of the event-related potential is considered an index of semantic processing and therefore may be an ideal biomarker of semantic system disorders or individual differences. To this purpose, it is necessary to assess its testâretest reliability. Only one previous study has addressed this question, reporting good testâretest reliability (râ=â0.85). However, that study had used a word-pair priming paradigm, which differs in many respects from the more typical and ecologically valid sentence-reading. The present study surveys testâretest reliability of the N400 in a sentence-reading paradigm. The best value obtained was râ=â0.63, implying a relatively poor testâretest reliability. Crucial factors for this result may be the long interval between context and critical word as well as more complex contexts in sentence-reading paradigms. These factors might make the N400 effects in sentences more vulnerable to linguistic and non-linguistic factors increasing the variance across sessions.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex