Transient Networks of Information Transfer During the Processing of Concrete and Abstract Nouns

EEG was recorded while participants had to memorize concrete and abstract nouns. Short-time phase that gives information on the direction and speed of the spread of oscillations was analyzed between different sites of the cortex. Concrete and abstract nouns turned out to induce different transient networks of information transfer. Whereas processing of concrete nouns excites a widespread network for about 800 ms, the interactions during abstract noun processing are restricted to 300-500 ms after word onset. Further, the direction of cerebral information transfer differs for the two word categories and the propagation speed of information is slower for concrete than for abstract nouns.