This article reviews literature on the characteristics and possible interpretations of the event-related potential (ERP) peaks commonly identified in research. The description of each peak includes typical latencies, cortical distributions, and possible brain sources of observed activity as well as the evoking paradigms and underlying psychological processes. The review is intended to serve as a tutorial for general readers interested in neuropsychological research and as a reference source for researchers using ERP techniques.

This chapter expands a broad-based developmental theory of word learning (the emergentist coalition model [ECM]) to illuminate how children acquire language with a specific focus on verb acquisition. In so doing, it demonstrates how the theory of word learning originally developed for the understanding of noun learning can encompass the study of verbs. It also explains a persistent paradox in verb learning — why some verbs appear early even though the class of verbs is generally hard to master.