Díez, E. 1 , Fernández, A. 1 , Alonso, M. A. 2 & Marín, A. 1
1 Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
2 Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
In our previous work, we have found that words that are acquired early are more likely to be falsely recognized following the study of words that are strongly associated to them. A possible explanation for this Age-of-Acquisition (AoA) false memory effect is that early-acquired words are more accessible than late-acquired words during retrieval operations, due to their higher level of connectivity and their higher likelihood of being indirectly activated within a lexical associative network. To further explore this hypothesis, we conducted a memory experiment in which brain electrical activity was recorded during the study of word lists associated to non-presented critical words that varied in AoA. Using a subsequent memory paradigm, false recognition of these words is analyzed in relation to ERP components that can be taken as indicators of the intensity of semantic and associative processing during the study of the lists (e.g., N170, LPC). The results are discussed in terms of the activation mechanisms partially underlying memory illusions.