EEG coherence within the 13-18 Hz band as a correlate of a distinct lexical organisation of concrete and abstract nouns in humans

Coherence analysis was applied to the EEG of 19 female participants who had to memorise auditorily presented abstract and concrete nouns. The EEG was recorded from 19 scalp electrodes (10/20 system). Significant differences between both word classes were found only in the beta 1-band (13-18 Hz) whereas the alpha 1-band (8-10 Hz) revealed coherence patterns which were identical for both word classes. These results indicate that the alpha 1-band reflects cognitive processes that were common to both word classes, whereas the beta 1-band seems to be closely related to associative processes and more complex cognitive functions.