N2 flanker effects depend on evaluative congruency 1 Running head: N2 FLANKER EFFECTS DEPEND ON EVALUATIVE CONGRUENCY Evaluative priming in a semantic flanker task: ERP evidence for a mutual facilitation explanation

In semantic flanker tasks, target categorization response times are affected by the semantic compatibility of flanker and target. Using positive and negative category exemplars, we investigated the influence of evaluative congruency (whether flanker and target share evaluative valence) on the flanker effect, using behavioral and electrophysiological measures. We hypothesized a moderation of the flanker effect by evaluative congruency based on the assumption that evaluatively congruent concepts mutually facilitate each other’s activation (see Schmitz & Wentura, 2012). Applying an onset delay of 50 ms for the flanker, we aimed to decrease the facilitative effect of an evaluatively congruent flanker on target-encoding and, at the same time, increase the facilitative effect of an evaluatively congruent target on flankerencoding. As a consequence of increased flanker-activation in case of evaluative congruency, we expected a semantically incompatible flanker to interfere with the target categorization to a larger extent (compared to an evaluatively incongruent pairing). Confirming our hypotheses, the flanker effect significantly depended on evaluative congruency, both in mean response times and N2 mean amplitudes. Thus, the present study provided behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for the mutual facilitation of evaluatively congruent concepts. Implications for the representation of evaluative connotations of semantic concepts are discussed.