Fig. 1.

ERP responses to word class and semantically ambiguous words (solid line), word class ambiguous but semantically unambiguous words (dashed line), and word class unambiguous words (dotted line) at eight representative electrodes across the scalp. Positions of the plotted sites are indicated by larger Xs on the small head diagram. Negative is up for this figure and all subsequent ones. Over fronto-central scalp sites, the response to word class and semantically ambiguous words (e.g., ‘duck’) is more negative than the response to word class ambiguous but semantically unambiguous words (e.g., ‘vote’) from around 250 ms to 900 ms post-stimulus-onset, and the response to word class ambiguous but semantically unambiguous words (e.g., ‘vote’) is more positive than the response to class unambiguous words (e.g., ‘sofa/eat’) in the early part of this time window (250–500 ms).