This study examined the neural correlates of morphological processing in Sino-Korean prefixed derivations during visual word recognition. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to explore how morphological, semantic, and orthographic priming modulate brain responses across three temporal windows: N250 (200–270 ms), N400 (340–380 ms), and the Late Positive Component (LPC, 380–450 ms). Forty-three native Korean speakers participated in a masked priming lexical decision task while their EEG activity was recorded. The results revealed robust and sustained morphological priming effects across all three components, whereas semantic and orthographic priming produced weak or non-significant effects. The pronounced N250 and N400 effects suggest early morphological decomposition followed by continued lexical reanalysis. In addition, topographic analyses indicated that these effects were localized to language-related cortical regions, confirming the neurocognitive specificity of morphological processing. Collectively, the findings provide converging evidence that morphological information in Sino-Korean derivations is accessed automatically and rapidly at sub-lexical stages of visual word recognition. This supports the view that morphological decomposition operates as an early and continuous process in reading, even in a non–alphabetic language such as Korean. The present study thus extends the cross-linguistic evidence for morphological priming effects beyond alphabetic languages and contributes to a broader understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying complex word recognition.

Authors:
Sun-Young Lee, Cyber Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea
Jinwon Kang, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Sun-Young Lee is a University ProfessorPrincipal Lecturer at Cyber Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in South Korea

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