Snapshots of Children's Changing Biases during Language Development: Differential Weighting of Perceptual and Linguistic Factors Predicts Noun Age of Acquisition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ramey, Christopher H.; Chrysikou, Evangelia G.; Reilly, Jamie

2013-01-01

Word learning is a lifelong activity constrained by cognitive biases that people possess at particular points in development. Age of acquisition (AoA) is a psycholinguistic variable that may prove useful toward gauging the relative weighting of different phonological, semantic, and morphological factors at different phases of language acquisition…

Cognitive Differences in Pictorial Reasoning between High-Functioning Autism and Asperger's Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sahyoun, Cherif P.; Soulieres, Isabelle; Belliveau, John W.; Mottron, Laurent; Mody, Maria

2009-01-01

We investigated linguistic and visuospatial processing during pictorial reasoning in high-functioning autism (HFA), Asperger's syndrome (ASP), and age and IQ-matched typically developing participants (CTRL), using three conditions designed to differentially engage linguistic mediation or visuospatial processing (visuospatial, V; semantic, S;…

Recognition and identification of famous faces in patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy.

PubMed

Seidenberg, Michael; Griffith, Randall; Sabsevitz, David; Moran, Maria; Haltiner, Alan; Bell, Brian; Swanson, Sara; Hammeke, Thomas; Hermann, Bruce

2002-01-01

We examined the performance of 21 patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and hippocampal damage (10 lefts, and 11 rights) and 10 age-matched controls on the recognition and identification (name and occupation) of well-known faces. Famous face stimuli were selected from four time periods; 1970s, 1980s, 1990-1994, and 1995-1996. Differential patterns of performance were observed for the left and right TLE group across distinct face processing components. The left TLE group showed a selective impairment in naming famous faces while they performed similar to the controls in face recognition and semantic identification (i.e. occupation). In contrast, the right TLE group was impaired across all components of face memory; face recognition, semantic identification, and face naming. Face naming impairment in the left TLE group was characterized by a temporal gradient with better naming performance for famous faces from more distant time periods. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of the temporal lobe system for the acquisition, retention, and retrieval of face semantic networks, and the differential effects of lateralized temporal lobe lesions in this process.

Combining a semantic differential with fMRI to investigate brands as cultural symbols

PubMed Central

Rotte, Michael

2010-01-01

Traditionally, complex cultural symbols like brands are investigated with psychological approaches. Often this is done by using semantic differentials, in which participants are asked to rate a brand regarding different pairs of adjectives. Only recently, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to examine brands. In the current work we used fMRI in combination with a semantic differential to cross-validate both methods and to improve the characterization of the basic factors constituting the semantic space. To this end we presented pictures of brands while recording subject's brain activity during an fMRI experiment. Results of the semantic differential arranged the brands in a semantic space illustrating their relationships to other cultural symbols. FMRI results revealed activation of the medial prefrontal cortex for brands that loaded high on the factor ‘social competence’, suggesting an involvement of a cortical network associated with social cognitions. In contrast, brands closely related to the factor ‘potency’ showed decreased activity in the superior frontal gyri, possibly related to working memory during task performance. We discuss the results as a different engagement of the prefrontal cortex when perceiving brands as cultural symbols. PMID:20080877

Three-Mode Models and Individual Differences in Semantic Differential Data.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murakami, Takashi; Kroonenberg, Pieter M.

2003-01-01

Demonstrated how individual differences in semantic differential data can be modeled and assessed using three-mode models by studying the characterization of Chopin's "Preludes" by 38 Japanese college students. (SLD)

Using Life Histories to Individualize Nursing Home Staff Attitudes toward Residents.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pietrukowicz, Mary E.; Johnson, Mitzi M. S.

1991-01-01

Nurse's aides (n=43) at two institutions answered questions about their experience and knowledge of aging and rated nursing home residents on a semantic differential (attitude) scale. Results indicated including a brief life history in a routine medical chart caused aides to perceive residents in a more positive manner. (Author/ABL)

Differentiation of perceptual and semantic subsequent memory effects using an orthographic paradigm.

PubMed

Kuo, Michael C C; Liu, Karen P Y; Ting, Kin Hung; Chan, Chetwyn C H

2012-11-27

This study aimed to differentiate perceptual and semantic encoding processes using subsequent memory effects (SMEs) elicited by the recognition of orthographs of single Chinese characters. Participants studied a series of Chinese characters perceptually (by inspecting orthographic components) or semantically (by determining the object making sounds), and then made studied or unstudied judgments during the recognition phase. Recognition performance in terms of d-prime measure in the semantic condition was higher, though not significant, than that of the perceptual condition. The between perceptual-semantic condition differences in SMEs at P550 and late positive component latencies (700-1000ms) were not significant in the frontal area. An additional analysis identified larger SME in the semantic condition during 600-1000ms in the frontal pole regions. These results indicate that coordination and incorporation of orthographic information into mental representation is essential to both task conditions. The differentiation was also revealed in earlier SMEs (perceptual>semantic) at N3 (240-360ms) latency, which is a novel finding. The left-distributed N3 was interpreted as more efficient processing of meaning with semantically learned characters. Frontal pole SMEs indicated strategic processing by executive functions, which would further enhance memory. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Comparing nouns and verbs in a lexical task.

PubMed

Cordier, Françoise; Croizet, Jean-Claude; Rigalleau, François

2013-02-01

We analyzed the differential processing of nouns and verbs in a lexical decision task. Moderate and high-frequency nouns and verbs were compared. The characteristics of our material were specified at the formal level (number of letters and syllables, number of homographs, orthographic neighbors, frequency and age of acquisition), and at the semantic level (imagery, number and strength of associations, number of meanings, context dependency). A regression analysis indicated a classical frequency effect and a word-type effect, with latencies for verbs being slower than for nouns. The regression analysis did not permit the conclusion that semantic effects were involved (particularly imageability). Nevertheless, the semantic opposition between nouns as prototypical representations of objects, and verbs as prototypical representation of actions was not tested in this experiment and remains a good candidate explanation of the response time discrepancies between verbs and nouns.

Development and psychometric testing of a semantic differential scale of sexual attitude for the older person.

PubMed

Park, Hyojung; Shin, Sunhwa

2015-12-01

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a semantic differential scale of sexual attitudes for older people in Korea. The scale was based on items derived from a literature review and focus group interviews. A methodological study was used to test the reliability and validity of the instrument. A total of 368 older men and women were recruited to complete the semantic differential scale. Fifteen pairs of adjective ratings were extracted through factor analysis. Total variance explained was 63.40%. To test for construct validity, group comparisons were implemented. The total score of sexual attitudes showed significant differences depending on gender and availability of sexual activity. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency was 0.96. The findings of this study demonstrate that the semantic differential scale of sexual attitude is a reliable and valid instrument. © 2015 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Informatics in radiology: radiology gamuts ontology: differential diagnosis for the Semantic Web.

PubMed

Budovec, Joseph J; Lam, Cesar A; Kahn, Charles E

2014-01-01

The Semantic Web is an effort to add semantics, or "meaning," to empower automated searching and processing of Web-based information. The overarching goal of the Semantic Web is to enable users to more easily find, share, and combine information. Critical to this vision are knowledge models called ontologies, which define a set of concepts and formalize the relations between them. Ontologies have been developed to manage and exploit the large and rapidly growing volume of information in biomedical domains. In diagnostic radiology, lists of differential diagnoses of imaging observations, called gamuts, provide an important source of knowledge. The Radiology Gamuts Ontology (RGO) is a formal knowledge model of differential diagnoses in radiology that includes 1674 differential diagnoses, 19,017 terms, and 52,976 links between terms. Its knowledge is used to provide an interactive, freely available online reference of radiology gamuts ( www.gamuts.net ). A Web service allows its content to be discovered and consumed by other information systems. The RGO integrates radiologic knowledge with other biomedical ontologies as part of the Semantic Web. © RSNA, 2014.

The Effect of Signal-to-Noise Ratio on Linguistic Processing in a Semantic Judgment Task: An Aging Study.

PubMed

Stanley, Nicholas; Davis, Tara; Estis, Julie

2017-03-01

Aging effects on speech understanding in noise have primarily been assessed through speech recognition tasks. Recognition tasks, which focus on bottom-up, perceptual aspects of speech understanding, intentionally limit linguistic and cognitive factors by asking participants to only repeat what they have heard. On the other hand, linguistic processing tasks require bottom-up and top-down (linguistic, cognitive) processing skills and are, therefore, more reflective of speech understanding abilities used in everyday communication. The effect of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on linguistic processing ability is relatively unknown for either young (YAs) or older adults (OAs). To determine if reduced SNRs would be more deleterious to the linguistic processing of OAs than YAs, as measured by accuracy and reaction time in a semantic judgment task in competing speech. In the semantic judgment task, participants indicated via button press whether word pairs were a semantic Match or No Match. This task was performed in quiet, as well as, +3, 0, -3, and -6 dB SNR with two-talker speech competition. Seventeen YAs (20-30 yr) with normal hearing sensitivity and 17 OAs (60-68 yr) with normal hearing sensitivity or mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss within age-appropriate norms. Accuracy, reaction time, and false alarm rate were measured and analyzed using a mixed design analysis of variance. A decrease in SNR level significantly reduced accuracy and increased reaction time in both YAs and OAs. However, poor SNRs affected accuracy and reaction time of Match and No Match word pairs differently. Accuracy for Match pairs declined at a steeper rate than No Match pairs in both groups as SNR decreased. In addition, reaction time for No Match pairs increased at a greater rate than Match pairs in more difficult SNRs, particularly at -3 and -6 dB SNR. False-alarm rates indicated that participants had a response bias to No Match pairs as the SNR decreased. Age-related differences were limited to No Match pair accuracies at -6 dB SNR. The ability to correctly identify semantically matched word pairs was more susceptible to disruption by a poor SNR than semantically unrelated words in both YAs and OAs. The effect of SNR on this semantic judgment task implies that speech competition differentially affected the facilitation of semantically related words and the inhibition of semantically incompatible words, although processing speed, as measured by reaction time, remained faster for semantically matched pairs. Overall, the semantic judgment task in competing speech elucidated the effect of a poor listening environment on the higher order processing of words. American Academy of Audiology

A Method for Overcoming the Problem of Concept-Scale Interaction in Semantic Differential Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bynner, John; Romney, David

1972-01-01

Data collected in a study of hospital staff attitudes to drug addicts and other types of patients are used to illustrate the problem of concept-scale interaction in semantic differential research. (Authors)

No grammatical gender effect on affective ratings: evidence from Italian and German languages.

PubMed

Montefinese, Maria; Ambrosini, Ettore; Roivainen, Eka

2018-06-06

In this study, we tested the linguistic relativity hypothesis by studying the effect of grammatical gender (feminine vs. masculine) on affective judgments of conceptual representation in Italian and German. In particular, we examined the within- and cross-language grammatical gender effect and its interaction with participants' demographic characteristics (such as, the raters' age and sex) on semantic differential scales (affective ratings of valence, arousal and dominance) in Italian and German speakers. We selected the stimuli and the relative affective measures from Italian and German adaptations of the ANEW (Affective Norms for English Words). Bayesian and frequentist analyses yielded evidence for the absence of within- and cross-languages effects of grammatical gender and sex- and age-dependent interactions. These results suggest that grammatical gender does not affect judgments of affective features of semantic representation in Italian and German speakers, since an overt coding of word grammar is not required. Although further research is recommended to refine the impact of the grammatical gender on properties of semantic representation, these results have implications for any strong view of the linguistic relativity hypothesis.

Is semantic fluency differentially impaired in schizophrenic patients with delusions?

PubMed

Rossell, S L; Rabe-Hesketh, S S; Shapleske, J S; David, A S

1999-10-01

The study of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia has recently focused upon semantics: the study of meaning. Delusions are a plausible manifestation of abnormal semantics because by definition they involve changes in personal meaning and belief. A symptom-based approach was used to investigate semantic and phonological fluency in a group of schizophrenic patients subdivided into those with delusions and those with no current delusions. The results demonstrated that deluded patients only were differentially impaired on a test of semantic fluency in comparison to phonological fluency. All subjects showed the same decline in performance over the time course of both tests indicating that retrieval speed in schizophrenia is no different from that of normal controls. Further analysis of word associations in two semantic categories (animals and body parts), revealed that deluded subjects have a more idiosyncratic organisation for animals. The findings of reduced semantic fluency production and poor logical word associations may represent a disorganised storage of semantic information in deluded patients, which in turn affects efficient access.

Environmental Attitudes Semantic Differential.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mehne, Paul R.; Goulard, Cary J.

This booklet is an evaluation instrument which utilizes semantic differential data to assess environmental attitudes. Twelve concepts are included: regulated access to beaches, urban planning, dune vegetation, wetlands, future cities, reclaiming wetlands for building development, city parks, commercial development of beaches, existing cities,…

Semantic Priming Revisited: In Search of Structural Age Change in Semantic Knowledge.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mergler, Nancy L.; And Others

Contradictory previous research results showing that (1) language knowledge does not decrease with age; and (2) age differences exist in semantic strategies for memory recall provide the impetus for a study of semantic priming in young adults (mean age = 20) and older adults (mean age = 70) by providing target and prime words with six different…

Clinical Diagnostics in Human Genetics with Semantic Similarity Searches in Ontologies

PubMed Central

Köhler, Sebastian; Schulz, Marcel H.; Krawitz, Peter; Bauer, Sebastian; Dölken, Sandra; Ott, Claus E.; Mundlos, Christine; Horn, Denise; Mundlos, Stefan; Robinson, Peter N.

2009-01-01

The differential diagnostic process attempts to identify candidate diseases that best explain a set of clinical features. This process can be complicated by the fact that the features can have varying degrees of specificity, as well as by the presence of features unrelated to the disease itself. Depending on the experience of the physician and the availability of laboratory tests, clinical abnormalities may be described in greater or lesser detail. We have adapted semantic similarity metrics to measure phenotypic similarity between queries and hereditary diseases annotated with the use of the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) and have developed a statistical model to assign p values to the resulting similarity scores, which can be used to rank the candidate diseases. We show that our approach outperforms simpler term-matching approaches that do not take the semantic interrelationships between terms into account. The advantage of our approach was greater for queries containing phenotypic noise or imprecise clinical descriptions. The semantic network defined by the HPO can be used to refine the differential diagnosis by suggesting clinical features that, if present, best differentiate among the candidate diagnoses. Thus, semantic similarity searches in ontologies represent a useful way of harnessing the semantic structure of human phenotypic abnormalities to help with the differential diagnosis. We have implemented our methods in a freely available web application for the field of human Mendelian disorders. PMID:19800049

Beneficial effects of semantic memory support on older adults' episodic memory: Differential patterns of support of item and associative information.

PubMed

Mohanty, Praggyan Pam; Naveh-Benjamin, Moshe; Ratneshwar, Srinivasan

2016-02-01

The effects of two types of semantic memory support-meaningfulness of an item and relatedness between items-in mitigating age-related deficits in item and associative, memory are examined in a marketing context. In Experiment 1, participants studied less (vs. more) meaningful brand logo graphics (pictures) paired with meaningful brand names (words) and later were assessed by item (old/new) and associative (intact/recombined) memory recognition tests. Results showed that meaningfulness of items eliminated age deficits in item memory, while equivalently boosting associative memory for older and younger adults. Experiment 2, in which related and unrelated brand logo graphics and brand name pairs served as stimuli, revealed that relatedness between items eliminated age deficits in associative memory, while improving to the same degree item memory in older and younger adults. Experiment 2 also provided evidence for a probable boundary condition that could reconcile seemingly contradictory extant results. Overall, these experiments provided evidence that although the two types of semantic memory support can improve both item and associative memory in older and younger adults, older adults' memory deficits can be eliminated when the type of support provided is compatible with the type of information required to perform well on the test. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

I see/hear what you mean: semantic activation in visual word recognition depends on perceptual attention.

PubMed

Connell, Louise; Lynott, Dermot

2014-04-01

How does the meaning of a word affect how quickly we can recognize it? Accounts of visual word recognition allow semantic information to facilitate performance but have neglected the role of modality-specific perceptual attention in activating meaning. We predicted that modality-specific semantic information would differentially facilitate lexical decision and reading aloud, depending on how perceptual attention is implicitly directed by each task. Large-scale regression analyses showed the perceptual modalities involved in representing a word's referent concept influence how easily that word is recognized. Both lexical decision and reading-aloud tasks direct attention toward vision, and are faster and more accurate for strongly visual words. Reading aloud additionally directs attention toward audition and is faster and more accurate for strongly auditory words. Furthermore, the overall semantic effects are as large for reading aloud as lexical decision and are separable from age-of-acquisition effects. These findings suggest that implicitly directing perceptual attention toward a particular modality facilitates representing modality-specific perceptual information in the meaning of a word, which in turn contributes to the lexical decision or reading-aloud response.

Contribution of Pretesting to Several Measures of Semantic Desensitization Effectiveness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Israel, Allen C.; And Others

1977-01-01

Snake- or spider-phobic subjects (N=32) were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Subjects receiving semantic desensitization therapy showed less posttest anxiety on the semantic differential than control subjects regardless of testing condition. (Author)

Computer Programs for the Semantic Differential: Further Modifications.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lawson, Edwin D.; And Others

The original nine programs for semantic differential analysis have been condensed into three programs which have been further refined and augmented. They yield: (1) means, standard deviations, and standard errors for each subscale on each concept; (2) Evaluation, Potency, and Activity (EPA) means, standard deviations, and standard errors; (3)…

The semantic differential in landscape research

Treesearch

H. E. Echelberger

1979-01-01

On-site reactions of groups of viewers to six timber harvesting procedures were measured by direct and indirect measuring techniques. Using the direct technique, groups recorded their overall impressions of harvested tracts on five-point scales ranging from very favorable to very unfavorable. For the indirect technique, semantic differential procedures were used....

Semantic word category processing in semantic dementia and posterior cortical atrophy.

PubMed

Shebani, Zubaida; Patterson, Karalyn; Nestor, Peter J; Diaz-de-Grenu, Lara Z; Dawson, Kate; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2017-08-01

There is general agreement that perisylvian language cortex plays a major role in lexical and semantic processing; but the contribution of additional, more widespread, brain areas in the processing of different semantic word categories remains controversial. We investigated word processing in two groups of patients whose neurodegenerative diseases preferentially affect specific parts of the brain, to determine whether their performance would vary as a function of semantic categories proposed to recruit those brain regions. Cohorts with (i) Semantic Dementia (SD), who have anterior temporal-lobe atrophy, and (ii) Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA), who have predominantly parieto-occipital atrophy, performed a lexical decision test on words from five different lexico-semantic categories: colour (e.g., yellow), form (oval), number (seven), spatial prepositions (under) and function words (also). Sets of pseudo-word foils matched the target words in length and bi-/tri-gram frequency. Word-frequency was matched between the two visual word categories (colour and form) and across the three other categories (number, prepositions, and function words). Age-matched healthy individuals served as controls. Although broad word processing deficits were apparent in both patient groups, the deficit was strongest for colour words in SD and for spatial prepositions in PCA. The patterns of performance on the lexical decision task demonstrate (a) general lexicosemantic processing deficits in both groups, though more prominent in SD than in PCA, and (b) differential involvement of anterior-temporal and posterior-parietal cortex in the processing of specific semantic categories of words. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

The effects of context on processing words during sentence reading among adults varying in age and literacy skill.

PubMed

Steen-Baker, Allison A; Ng, Shukhan; Payne, Brennan R; Anderson, Carolyn J; Federmeier, Kara D; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A L

2017-08-01

The facilitation of word processing by sentence context reflects the interaction between the build-up of message-level semantics and lexical processing. Yet, little is known about how this effect varies through adulthood as a function of reading skill. In this study, Participants 18-64 years old with a range of literacy competence read simple sentences as their eye movements were monitored. We manipulated the predictability of a sentence-final target word, operationalized as cloze probability. First fixation durations showed an interaction between age and literacy skill, decreasing with age among more skilled readers but increasing among less skilled readers. This pattern suggests that age-related slowing may impact reading when not buffered by skill, but with continued practice, automatization of reading can continue to develop in adulthood. In absolute terms, readers were sensitive to predictability, regardless of age or literacy, in both early and later measures. Older readers showed differential contextual sensitivity in regression patterns, effects not moderated by literacy skill. Finally, comprehension performance increased with age and literacy skill, but performance among less skilled readers was especially reduced when predictability was low, suggesting that low-literacy adults (regardless of age) struggle when creating mental representations under weaker semantic constraints. Collectively, these findings suggest that aging readers (regardless of reading skill) are more sensitive to context for meaning-integration processes; that less skilled adult readers (regardless of age) depend more on a constrained semantic representation for comprehension; and that the capacity for literacy engagement enables continued development of efficient lexical processing in adult reading development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Early Childhood Stuttering and Electrophysiological Indices of Language Processing

PubMed Central

Weber-Fox, Christine; Wray, Amanda Hampton; Arnold, Hayley

2013-01-01

We examined neural activity mediating semantic and syntactic processing in 27 preschool-age children who stutter (CWS) and 27 preschool-age children who do not stutter (CWNS) matched for age, nonverbal IQ and language abilities. All participants displayed language abilities and nonverbal IQ within the normal range. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were elicited while participants watched a cartoon video and heard naturally spoken sentences that were either correct or contained semantic or syntactic (phrase structure) violations. ERPs in CWS, compared to CWNS, were characterized by longer N400 peak latencies elicited by semantic processing. In the CWS, syntactic violations elicited greater negative amplitudes for the early time window (150–350 ms) over medial sites compared to CWNS. Additionally, the amplitude of the P600 elicited by syntactic violations relative to control words was significant over the left hemisphere for the CWNS but showed the reverse pattern in CWS, a robust effect only over the right hemisphere. Both groups of preschoolage children demonstrated marked and differential effects for neural processes elicited by semantic and phrase structure violations; however, a significant proportion of young CWS exhibit differences in the neural functions mediating language processing compared to CWNS despite normal language abilities. These results are the first to show that differences in event-related brain potentials reflecting language processing occur as early as the preschool years in CWS and provide the first evidence that atypical lateralization of hemispheric speech/language functions previously observed in the brains of adults who stutter begin to emerge near the onset of developmental stuttering. PMID:23773672

Interest Inventory. [Includes Academic Interest Measure, Pupil Activity Inventory, and Semantic Differential].

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA. Harvard Project Physics.

This Interest Inventory contains three inventories: Academic Interest Measure (AIM), Pupil Activity Inventory (PAI), and Semantic Differential test (SD). The AIM measures six subscales of academic interests; the PAI measures non-school activities in science; and the SD measures attitudes toward science and physics. The inventories are designed for…

Social Concepts and Judgments: A Semantic Differential Analysis of the Concepts Feminist, Man, and Woman

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pierce, W. David; Sydie, R. A.; Stratkotter, Rainer

2003-01-01

Male and female participants (N = 274) made judgments about the social concepts of "feminist," "man," and "woman" on 63 semantic differential items. Factor analysis identified three basic dimensions termed evaluative, potency, and activity as well as two secondary factors called expressiveness and sexuality. Results for the evaluative dimension…

Differential electrophysiological signatures of semantic and syntactic scene processing.

PubMed

Võ, Melissa L-H; Wolfe, Jeremy M

2013-09-01

In sentence processing, semantic and syntactic violations elicit differential brain responses observable in event-related potentials: An N400 signals semantic violations, whereas a P600 marks inconsistent syntactic structure. Does the brain register similar distinctions in scene perception? To address this question, we presented participants with semantic inconsistencies, in which an object was incongruent with a scene's meaning, and syntactic inconsistencies, in which an object violated structural rules. We found a clear dissociation between semantic and syntactic processing: Semantic inconsistencies produced negative deflections in the N300-N400 time window, whereas mild syntactic inconsistencies elicited a late positivity resembling the P600 found for syntactic inconsistencies in sentence processing. Extreme syntactic violations, such as a hovering beer bottle defying gravity, were associated with earlier perceptual processing difficulties reflected in the N300 response, but failed to produce a P600 effect. We therefore conclude that different neural populations are active during semantic and syntactic processing of scenes, and that syntactically impossible object placements are processed in a categorically different manner than are syntactically resolvable object misplacements.

Functional imaging of the semantic system: retrieval of sensory-experienced and verbally learned knowledge.

PubMed

Noppeney, Uta; Price, Cathy J

2003-01-01

This paper considers how functional neuro-imaging can be used to investigate the organization of the semantic system and the limitations associated with this technique. The majority of the functional imaging studies of the semantic system have looked for divisions by varying stimulus category. These studies have led to divergent results and no clear anatomical hypotheses have emerged to account for the dissociations seen in behavioral studies. Only a few functional imaging studies have used task as a variable to differentiate the neural correlates of semantic features more directly. We extend these findings by presenting a new study that contrasts tasks that differentially weight sensory (color and taste) and verbally learned (origin) semantic features. Irrespective of the type of semantic feature retrieved, a common semantic system was activated as demonstrated in many previous studies. In addition, the retrieval of verbally learned, but not sensory-experienced, features enhanced activation in medial and lateral posterior parietal areas. We attribute these "verbally learned" effects to differences in retrieval strategy and conclude that evidence for segregation of semantic features at an anatomical level remains weak. We believe that functional imaging has the potential to increase our understanding of the neuronal infrastructure that sustains semantic processing but progress may require multiple experiments until a consistent explanatory framework emerges.

An Investigation into Semantic and Phonological Processing in Individuals with Williams Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Cheryl S.; Binder, Katherine S.

2014-01-01

Purpose: The current study examined semantic and phonological processing in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS). Previous research in language processing in individuals with WS suggests a complex linguistic system characterized by "deviant" semantic organization and differential phonological processing. Method: Two experiments…

Distinct behavioural profiles in frontotemporal dementia and semantic dementia

PubMed Central

Snowden, J; Bathgate, D; Varma, A; Blackshaw, A; Gibbons, Z; Neary, D

2001-01-01

OBJECTIVE—To test predictions that frontotemporal dementia and semantic dementia give rise to distinct patterns of behavioural change.
METHODS—An informant based semistructured behavioural interview, covering the domains of basic and social emotions, social and personal behaviour, sensory behaviour, eating and oral behaviour, repetitive behaviours, rituals, and compulsions, was administered to carers of 41 patients with semantic dementia and with apathetic (FTD-A) and disinhibited (FTD-D) forms of frontotemporal dementia.
RESULTS—Consistent with prediction, emotional changes differentiated FTD from semantic dementia. Whereas lack of emotional response was pervasive in FTD, it was more selective in semantic dementia, affecting particularly the capacity to show fear. Social avoidance occurred more often in FTD and social seeking in semantic dementia. Patients with FTD showed reduced response to pain, whereas patients with semantic dementia more often showed exaggerated reactions to sensory stimuli. Gluttony and indiscriminate eating were characteristic of FTD, whereas patients with semantic dementia were more likely to exhibit food fads. Hyperorality, involving inedible objects, was unrelated to gluttony, indicating different underlying mechanisms. Repetitive behaviours were common in both FTD and semantic dementia, but had a more compulsive quality in semantic dementia. Behavioural differences were greater between semantic dementia and FTD-A than FTD-D. A logistic regression analysis indicated that emotional and repetitive, compulsive behaviours discriminated FTD from semantic dementia with 97% accuracy.
CONCLUSION—The findings confirm predictions regarding behavioural differences in frontotemporal and semantic dementia and point to differential roles of the frontal and temporal lobes in affect, social functioning, eating, and compulsive behaviour.

 PMID:11181853

Predicting Word Maturity from Frequency and Semantic Diversity: A Computational Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jorge-Botana, Guillermo; Olmos, Ricardo; Sanjosé, Vicente

2017-01-01

Semantic word representation changes over different ages of childhood until it reaches its adult form. One method to formally model this change is the word maturity paradigm. This method uses a text sample for each age, including adult age, and transforms the samples into a semantic space by means of Latent Semantic Analysis. The representation of…

Neural differentiation of lexico-syntactic categories or semantic features? event-related potential evidence for both.

PubMed

Kellenbach, Marion L; Wijers, Albertus A; Hovius, Marjolijn; Mulder, Juul; Mulder, Gijsbertus

2002-05-15

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate whether processing differences between nouns and verbs can be accounted for by the differential salience of visual-perceptual and motor attributes in their semantic specifications. Three subclasses of nouns and verbs were selected, which differed in their semantic attribute composition (abstract, high visual, high visual and motor). Single visual word presentation with a recognition memory task was used. While multiple robust and parallel ERP effects were observed for both grammatical class and attribute type, there were no interactions between these. This pattern of effects provides support for lexical-semantic knowledge being organized in a manner that takes account both of category-based (grammatical class) and attribute-based distinctions.

The Case for the Semantic Differential in Organizational and Business Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Piotrowski, Chris; Guyette, Roger W., Jr.

2010-01-01

Attitude measurement has been and continues to be a central component in the field of social psychology. The semantic differential technique has proven to be a well-respected measuring device of attitudes since the 1960s, particularly in the social sciences. Given the importance of attitudes in the business world with reference to preferences in…

Autobiographical narratives relate to Alzheimer's disease biomarkers in older adults.

PubMed

Buckley, Rachel F; Saling, Michael M; Irish, Muireann; Ames, David; Rowe, Christopher C; Villemagne, Victor L; Lautenschlager, Nicola T; Maruff, Paul; Macaulay, S Lance; Martins, Ralph N; Szoeke, Cassandra; Masters, Colin L; Rainey-Smith, Stephanie R; Rembach, Alan; Savage, Greg; Ellis, Kathryn A

2014-10-01

Autobiographical memory (ABM), personal semantic memory (PSM), and autonoetic consciousness are affected in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) but their relationship with Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers are unclear. Forty-five participants (healthy controls (HC) = 31, MCI = 14) completed the Episodic ABM Interview and a battery of memory tests. Thirty-one (HC = 22, MCI = 9) underwent β-amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. Fourteen participants (HC = 9, MCI = 5) underwent one imaging modality. Unlike PSM, ABM differentiated between diagnostic categories but did not relate to AD biomarkers. Personal semantic memory was related to neocortical β-amyloid burden after adjusting for age and apolipoprotein E (APOE) ɛ4. Autonoetic consciousness was not associated with AD biomarkers, and was not impaired in MCI. Autobiographical memory was impaired in MCI participants but was not related to neocortical amyloid burden, suggesting that personal memory systems are impacted by differing disease mechanisms, rather than being uniformly underpinned by β-amyloid. Episodic and semantic ABM impairment represent an important AD prodrome.

Levels of Processing and the Cue-Dependent Nature of Recollection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mulligan, Neil W.; Picklesimer, Milton

2012-01-01

Dual-process models differentiate between two bases of memory, recollection and familiarity. It is routinely claimed that deeper, semantic encoding enhances recollection relative to shallow, non-semantic encoding, and that recollection is largely a product of semantic, elaborative rehearsal. The present experiments show that this is not always the…

Dissociation between Semantic Representations for Motion and Action Verbs: Evidence from Patients with Left Hemisphere Lesions

PubMed Central

Taylor, Lawrence J.; Evans, Carys; Greer, Joanna; Senior, Carl; Coventry, Kenny R.; Ietswaart, Magdalena

2017-01-01

This multiple single case study contrasted left hemisphere stroke patients (N = 6) to healthy age-matched control participants (N = 15) on their understanding of action (e.g., holding, clenching) and motion verbs (e.g., crumbling, flowing). The tasks required participants to correctly identify the matching verb or associated picture. Dissociations on action and motion verb content depending on lesion site were expected. As predicted for verbs containing an action and/or motion content, modified t-tests confirmed selective deficits in processing motion verbs in patients with lesions involving posterior parietal and lateral occipitotemporal cortex. In contrast, deficits in verbs describing motionless actions were found in patients with more anterior lesions sparing posterior parietal and lateral occipitotemporal cortex. These findings support the hypotheses that semantic representations for action and motion are behaviorally and neuro-anatomically dissociable. The findings clarify the differential and critical role of perceptual and motor regions in processing modality-specific semantic knowledge as opposed to a supportive but not necessary role. We contextualize these results within theories from both cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience that make claims over the role of sensory and motor information in semantic representation. PMID:28261070

The Impact of Age, Background Noise, Semantic Ambiguity, and Hearing Loss on Recognition Memory for Spoken Sentences.

PubMed

Koeritzer, Margaret A; Rogers, Chad S; Van Engen, Kristin J; Peelle, Jonathan E

2018-03-15

The goal of this study was to determine how background noise, linguistic properties of spoken sentences, and listener abilities (hearing sensitivity and verbal working memory) affect cognitive demand during auditory sentence comprehension. We tested 30 young adults and 30 older adults. Participants heard lists of sentences in quiet and in 8-talker babble at signal-to-noise ratios of +15 dB and +5 dB, which increased acoustic challenge but left the speech largely intelligible. Half of the sentences contained semantically ambiguous words to additionally manipulate cognitive challenge. Following each list, participants performed a visual recognition memory task in which they viewed written sentences and indicated whether they remembered hearing the sentence previously. Recognition memory (indexed by d') was poorer for acoustically challenging sentences, poorer for sentences containing ambiguous words, and differentially poorer for noisy high-ambiguity sentences. Similar patterns were observed for Z-transformed response time data. There were no main effects of age, but age interacted with both acoustic clarity and semantic ambiguity such that older adults' recognition memory was poorer for acoustically degraded high-ambiguity sentences than the young adults'. Within the older adult group, exploratory correlation analyses suggested that poorer hearing ability was associated with poorer recognition memory for sentences in noise, and better verbal working memory was associated with better recognition memory for sentences in noise. Our results demonstrate listeners' reliance on domain-general cognitive processes when listening to acoustically challenging speech, even when speech is highly intelligible. Acoustic challenge and semantic ambiguity both reduce the accuracy of listeners' recognition memory for spoken sentences. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5848059.

The Relationship Between Responses to Science Concepts on a Semantic Differential Instrument and Achievement in Freshman Physics and Chemistry.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rothman, Arthur Israel

Students taking freshman physics and freshman chemistry at The State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNYAB) were administered a science-related semantic differential instrument. This same test was administered to physics and chemistry graduate students from SUNYAB and the University of Rochester. A scoring procedure was developed which…

The Use of the Semantic Differential Method in Assessing Attitudes and Predicting Final Grades in a Gross Anatomy Course.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Mickey M.; And Others

Whether a change in dental students' attitudes toward three preselected concepts would occur as a result of a traditionally difficult dental education course as measured by the semantic differential method is determined. This study attempted to determine the predictive value of a student's attitudes in determining his/her final grade. The sample…

Attention to Distinct Goal-relevant Features Differentially Guides Semantic Knowledge Retrieval.

PubMed

Hanson, Gavin K; Chrysikou, Evangelia G

2017-07-01

A critical aspect of conceptual knowledge is the selective activation of goal-relevant aspects of meaning. Although the contributions of ventrolateral prefrontal and posterior temporal areas to semantic cognition are well established, the precise role of posterior parietal cortex in semantic control remains unknown. Here, we examined whether this region modulates attention to goal-relevant features within semantic memory according to the same principles that determine the salience of task-relevant object properties during visual attention. Using multivoxel pattern analysis, we decoded attentional referents during a semantic judgment task, in which participants matched an object cue to a target according to concrete (i.e., color, shape) or abstract (i.e., function, thematic context) semantic features. The goal-relevant semantic feature participants attended to (e.g., color or shape, function or theme) could be decoded from task-associated cortical activity with above-chance accuracy, a pattern that held for both concrete and abstract semantic features. A Bayesian confusion matrix analysis further identified differential contributions to representing attentional demands toward specific object properties across lateral prefrontal, posterior temporal, and inferior parietal regions, with the dorsolateral pFC supporting distinctions between higher-order properties and the left intraparietal sulcus being the only region supporting distinctions across all semantic features. These results are the first to demonstrate that patterns of neural activity in the parietal cortex are sensitive to which features of a concept are attended to, thus supporting the contributions of posterior parietal cortex to semantic control.

Category specific deficits in Alzheimer's disease: fact or artefact?

PubMed

Tippett, Lynette J; Meier, Sandra L; Blackwood, Kirsty; Diaz-Asper, Catherine

2007-10-01

Impairments in semantic memory commonly occur in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) but do these occur along category-specific lines? We administered a confrontation naming task comprising living and nonliving items to 68 individuals with AD and 59 age-matched control participants, in a study designed to address some of the methodological issues affecting investigation of category effects. In Experiment 1, stimuli were matched for familiarity and word frequency and also visual complexity, and the AD group showed a differential deficit in nonliving things. In Experiment 2, however, living and nonliving stimuli were matched for age-of-acquisition, name agreement, word frequency, and naming accuracy of elderly controls and there was no categorical impairment in the AD group. The AD group was subdivided first into mild and moderate AD, and then into normal or impaired overall naming groups and performance was reanalysed, but there was still no significant category deficit in any group. Converging evidence was provided by hierarchical regressions across items, as age-of-acquisition, name agreement and word frequency were significant predictors of naming performance in mild and moderate AD groups, but category was not. In Experiment 3, stimulus items were matched for familiarity and naming accuracy of elderly controls when their performance was off-ceiling, and again no differential effect of category was found. When we reduced slightly how closely matched stimuli were for familiarity we then found a differential impairment in living things in the AD group. When reviewing the changing pattern of results from use of different stimulus sets, we concluded that the main determinant of whether or not a categorical impairment of either sort is found in AD is which stimulus properties are controlled during stimulus selection. We conclude that AD does not generally lead to a selective category loss in semantic knowledge.

Semantic Richness and Aging: The Effect of Number of Features in the Lexical Decision Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robert, Christelle; Rico Duarte, Liliana

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine whether the effect of semantic richness in visual word recognition (i.e., words with a rich semantic representation are faster to recognize than words with a poorer semantic representation), is changed with aging. Semantic richness was investigated by manipulating the number of features of words (NOF), i.e.,…

Neural Substrates of Semantic Prospection – Evidence from the Dementias

PubMed Central

Irish, Muireann; Eyre, Nadine; Dermody, Nadene; O’Callaghan, Claire; Hodges, John R.; Hornberger, Michael; Piguet, Olivier

2016-01-01

The ability to envisage personally relevant events at a future time point represents an incredibly sophisticated cognitive endeavor and one that appears to be intimately linked to episodic memory integrity. Far less is known regarding the neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning the capacity to envisage non-personal future occurrences, known as semantic future thinking. Moreover the degree of overlap between the neural substrates supporting episodic and semantic forms of prospection remains unclear. To this end, we sought to investigate the capacity for episodic and semantic future thinking in Alzheimer’s disease (n = 15) and disease-matched behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (n = 15), neurodegenerative disorders characterized by significant medial temporal lobe (MTL) and frontal pathology. Participants completed an assessment of past and future thinking across personal (episodic) and non-personal (semantic) domains, as part of a larger neuropsychological battery investigating episodic and semantic processing, and their performance was contrasted with 20 age- and education-matched healthy older Controls. Participants underwent whole-brain T1-weighted structural imaging and voxel-based morphometry analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between gray matter integrity and episodic and semantic future thinking. Relative to Controls, both patient groups displayed marked future thinking impairments, extending across episodic and semantic domains. Analyses of covariance revealed that while episodic future thinking deficits could be explained solely in terms of episodic memory proficiency, semantic prospection deficits reflected the interplay between episodic and semantic processing. Distinct neural correlates emerged for each form of future simulation with differential involvement of prefrontal, lateral temporal, and medial temporal regions. Notably, the hippocampus was implicated irrespective of future thinking domain, with the suggestion of lateralization effects depending on the type of information being simulated. Whereas episodic future thinking related to right hippocampal integrity, semantic future thinking was found to relate to left hippocampal integrity. Our findings support previous observations of significant MTL involvement for semantic forms of prospection and point to distinct neurocognitive mechanisms which must be functional to support future-oriented forms of thought across personal and non-personal contexts. PMID:27252632

Design-Based Guidelines for the Semantic Perception of Emergency Signs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Chin-Wei; Hsiao, Hung-Yi; Tang, Chieh-Hsin; Chuang, Ying-Ji; Lin, Ching-Yuan

2010-01-01

The current study applies semantic differential to explore the semantic perception of emergency signs, in an attempt to analyze the meanings of emergency signs in regard to the psychological exigencies of the general public. The results indicate that problems concerning recognition accuracy have been observed, but also that the evaluation of the…

An individual differences approach to semantic cognition: Divergent effects of age on representation, retrieval and selection.

PubMed

Hoffman, Paul

2018-05-25

Semantic cognition refers to the appropriate use of acquired knowledge about the world. This requires representation of knowledge as well as control processes which ensure that currently-relevant aspects of knowledge are retrieved and selected. Although these abilities can be impaired selectively following brain damage, the relationship between them in healthy individuals is unclear. It is also commonly assumed that semantic cognition is preserved in later life, because older people have greater reserves of knowledge. However, this claim overlooks the possibility of decline in semantic control processes. Here, semantic cognition was assessed in 100 young and older adults. Despite having a broader knowledge base, older people showed specific impairments in semantic control, performing more poorly than young people when selecting among competing semantic representations. Conversely, they showed preserved controlled retrieval of less salient information from the semantic store. Breadth of semantic knowledge was positively correlated with controlled retrieval but was unrelated to semantic selection ability, which was instead correlated with non-semantic executive function. These findings indicate that three distinct elements contribute to semantic cognition: semantic representations that accumulate throughout the lifespan, processes for controlled retrieval of less salient semantic information, which appear age-invariant, and mechanisms for selecting task-relevant aspects of semantic knowledge, which decline with age and may relate more closely to domain-general executive control.

The semantic and episodic subcomponents of famous person knowledge: dissociation in healthy subjects.

PubMed

Piolino, Pascale; Lamidey, Virginie; Desgranges, Béatrice; Eustache, Francis

2007-01-01

Fifty-two subjects between ages 40 and 79 years were administered a questionnaire assessing their ability to recall semantic information about famous people from 4 different decades and to recollect its episodic source of acquisition together with autonoetic consciousness via the remember-know paradigm. In addition, they underwent a battery of standardized neuropsychological tests to assess episodic and semantic memory and executive functions. The analyses of age reveal differences for the episodic source score but no differences between age groups for the semantic scores within each decade. Regardless of the age of people, the analyses also show that semantic memory subcomponents of the famous person test are highly associated with each other as well as with the source component. The recall of semantic information on the famous person test relies on participants' semantic abilities, whereas the recall of its episodic source depends on their executive functions. The present findings confirm the existence of an episodic-semantic distinction in knowledge about famous people. They provide further evidence that personal source and semantic information are at once distinct and highly interactive within the framework of remote memory. (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved.

An Analysis of Perceptions and Attitudes Toward the Concepts "Disabled" and "Handicapped" and the Effects of Pre-Structured Definition Upon the Concepts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ianacone, Robert N.; Stodden, Robert A.

The semantic differential technique was used in a study involving 40 undergraduate trainees in the area of special education to analyze the concepts "disabled" and "handicapped" and the effects of structured knowledge or definition on the participants' perceptions of and attitudes toward the concepts. The Semantic differential consisted of bipolar…

Cognitive Differences in Pictorial Reasoning between High-Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome

PubMed Central

Sahyoun, Cherif P.; Soulières, Isabelle; Belliveau, John W.; Mottron, Laurent; Mody, Maria

2013-01-01

We investigated linguistic and visuospatial processing during pictorial reasoning in high-functioning autism (HFA), Asperger’s syndrome (ASP), and age and IQ-matched typically developing participants (CTRL), using three conditions designed to differentially engage linguistic mediation or visuospatial processing (Visuospatial, V; Semantic, S; Visuospatial+Semantic, V+S). The three groups did not differ in accuracy, but showed different response time profiles. ASP and CTRL participants were fastest on V+S, amenable to both linguistic and nonlinguistic mediation, whereas HFA participants were equally fast on V and V+S, where visuospatial strategies were available, and slowest on S. HFA participants appeared to favor visuospatial over linguistic mediation. The results support the use of linguistic vs. visuospatial tasks for characterizing subtypes on the autism spectrum. PMID:19267190

Mandarin-Speaking Children's Speech Recognition: Developmental Changes in the Influences of Semantic Context and F0 Contours.

PubMed

Zhou, Hong; Li, Yu; Liang, Meng; Guan, Connie Qun; Zhang, Linjun; Shu, Hua; Zhang, Yang

2017-01-01

The goal of this developmental speech perception study was to assess whether and how age group modulated the influences of high-level semantic context and low-level fundamental frequency ( F 0 ) contours on the recognition of Mandarin speech by elementary and middle-school-aged children in quiet and interference backgrounds. The results revealed different patterns for semantic and F 0 information. One the one hand, age group modulated significantly the use of F 0 contours, indicating that elementary school children relied more on natural F 0 contours than middle school children during Mandarin speech recognition. On the other hand, there was no significant modulation effect of age group on semantic context, indicating that children of both age groups used semantic context to assist speech recognition to a similar extent. Furthermore, the significant modulation effect of age group on the interaction between F 0 contours and semantic context revealed that younger children could not make better use of semantic context in recognizing speech with flat F 0 contours compared with natural F 0 contours, while older children could benefit from semantic context even when natural F 0 contours were altered, thus confirming the important role of F 0 contours in Mandarin speech recognition by elementary school children. The developmental changes in the effects of high-level semantic and low-level F 0 information on speech recognition might reflect the differences in auditory and cognitive resources associated with processing of the two types of information in speech perception.

Recall from Semantic and Episodic Memory.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gillund, Gary; Perlmutter, Marion

Although research in episodic recall memory, comparing younger and older adults, favors the younger adults, findings in semantic memory research are less consistent. To examine age differences in semantic and episodic memory recall, 72 young adults (mean age, 20.8) and 72 older adults (mean age 71) completed three memory tests under varied…

Preliminary Exploration of the Chromatic Differential: The Measurement of the Meaning of Color.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Edward A.

A study investigated the reciprocal relationship between colors and semantic terms--just as certain semantic terms elicit thoughts of particular colors, so those colors may also elicit their reciprocal semantic terms. Twenty-six students were each shown 18 words: 3 each of bipolar pairs that expressed evaluation, activity, or potency. The students…

Complexity and Hemispheric Abilities: Evidence for a Differential Impact on Semantics and Phonology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tremblay, Tania; Monetta, Laura; Joanette, Yves

2009-01-01

The main goal of this study was to determine whether the phonological and semantic processing of words are similarly influenced by an increase in processing complexity. Thirty-six French-speaking young adults performed both semantic and phonological word judgment tasks, using a divided visual field procedure. The phonological complexity of words…

Differential pattern of semantic memory organization between bipolar I and II disorders.

PubMed

Chang, Jae Seung; Choi, Sungwon; Ha, Kyooseob; Ha, Tae Hyon; Cho, Hyun Sang; Choi, Jung Eun; Cha, Boseok; Moon, Eunsoo

2011-06-01

Semantic cognition is one of the key factors in psychosocial functioning. The aim of this study was to explore the differences in pattern of semantic memory organization between euthymic patients with bipolar I and II disorders using the category fluency task. Study participants included 23 euthymic subjects with bipolar I disorder, 23 matched euthymic subjects with bipolar II disorder and 23 matched control subjects. All participants were assessed for verbal learning, recall, learning strategies, and fluency. The combined methods of hierarchical clustering and multidimensional scaling were used to compare the pattern of semantic memory organization among the three groups. Quantitative measures of verbal learning, recall, learning strategies, and fluency did not differ between the three groups. A two-cluster structure of semantic memory organization was identified for the three groups. Semantic structure was more disorganized in the bipolar I disorder group compared to the bipolar II disorder. In addition, patients with bipolar II disorder used less elaborate strategies of semantic memory organization than those of controls. Compared to healthy controls, strategies for categorization in semantic memory appear to be less knowledge-based in patients with bipolar disorders. A differential pattern of semantic memory organization between bipolar I and II disorders indicates a higher risk of cognitive abnormalities in patients with bipolar I disorder compared to patients with bipolar II disorder. Exploring qualitative nature of neuropsychological domains may provide an explanatory insight into the characteristic behaviors of patients with bipolar disorders. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of Age of Acquisition and Semantic Transparency on Reading Characters in Chinese Dyslexia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Law, Sam-Po; Yeung, Olivia

2010-01-01

This study examined the effects of the age of acquisition (AOA) and semantic transparency on the reading aloud ability of a Chinese dyslexic individual, TWT, who relied on the semantic pathway to name characters. Both AOA and semantic transparency significantly predicted naming accuracy and distinguished the occurrence of correct responses and…

A systematic approach to advanced cockpit warning systems for air transport operations: Line pilot preferences

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Williams, D. H.; Simpson, C. A.

1976-01-01

Line pilots (fifty captains, first officers, and flight engineers) from 8 different airlines were administered a structured questionnaire relating to future warning system design and solutions to current warning system problems. This was followed by a semantic differential to obtain a factor analysis of 18 different cockpit warning signals on scales such as informative/distracting, annoying/soothing. Half the pilots received a demonstration of the experimental text and voice synthesizer warning systems before answering the questionnaire and the semantic differential. A control group answered the questionnaire and the semantic differential first, thus providing a check for the stability of pilot preferences with and without actual exposure to experimental systems. Generally, the preference data obtained revealed much consistency and strong agreement among line pilots concerning advance cockpit warning system design.

Differential Phonological and Semantic Modulation of Neurophysiological Responses to Visual Word Recognition.

PubMed

Drakesmith, Mark; El-Deredy, Wael; Welbourne, Stephen

2015-01-01

Reading words for meaning relies on orthographic, phonological and semantic processing. The triangle model implicates a direct orthography-to-semantics pathway and a phonologically mediated orthography-to-semantics pathway, which interact with each other. The temporal evolution of processing in these routes is not well understood, although theoretical evidence predicts early phonological processing followed by interactive phonological and semantic processing. This study used electroencephalography-event-related potential (ERP) analysis and magnetoencephalography (MEG) source localisation to identify temporal markers and the corresponding neural generators of these processes in early (∼200 ms) and late (∼400 ms) neurophysiological responses to visual words, pseudowords and consonant strings. ERP showed an effect of phonology but not semantics in both time windows, although at ∼400 ms there was an effect of stimulus familiarity. Phonological processing at ~200 ms was localised to the left occipitotemporal cortex and the inferior frontal gyrus. At 400 ms, there was continued phonological processing in the inferior frontal gyrus and additional semantic processing in the anterior temporal cortex. There was also an area in the left temporoparietal junction which was implicated in both phonological and semantic processing. In ERP, the semantic response at ∼400 ms appeared to be masked by concurrent processes relating to familiarity, while MEG successfully differentiated these processes. The results support the prediction of early phonological processing followed by an interaction of phonological and semantic processing during word recognition. Neuroanatomical loci of these processes are consistent with previous neuropsychological and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. The results also have implications for the classical interpretation of N400-like responses as markers for semantic processing.

The origins of age of acquisition and typicality effects: Semantic processing in aphasia and the ageing brain.

PubMed

Räling, Romy; Schröder, Astrid; Wartenburger, Isabell

2016-06-01

Age of acquisition (AOA) has frequently been shown to influence response times and accuracy rates in word processing and constitutes a meaningful variable in aphasic language processing, while its origin in the language processing system is still under debate. To find out where AOA originates and whether and how it is related to another important psycholinguistic variable, namely semantic typicality (TYP), we studied healthy, elderly controls and semantically impaired individuals using semantic priming. For this purpose, we collected reaction times and accuracy rates as well as event-related potential data in an auditory category-member-verification task. The present results confirm a semantic origin of TYP, but question the same for AOA while favouring its origin at the phonology-semantics interface. The data are further interpreted in consideration of recent theories of ageing. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Handedness and language learning disability differentially distribute in progressive aphasia variants.

PubMed

Miller, Zachary A; Mandelli, Maria Luisa; Rankin, Katherine P; Henry, Maya L; Babiak, Miranda C; Frazier, Darvis T; Lobach, Iryna V; Bettcher, Brianne M; Wu, Teresa Q; Rabinovici, Gil D; Graff-Radford, Neill R; Miller, Bruce L; Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa

2013-11-01

Primary progressive aphasia is a neurodegenerative clinical syndrome that presents in adulthood with an isolated, progressive language disorder. Three main clinical/anatomical variants have been described, each associated with distinctive pathology. A high frequency of neurodevelopmental learning disability in primary progressive aphasia has been reported. Because the disorder is heterogeneous with different patterns of cognitive, anatomical and biological involvement, we sought to identify whether learning disability had a predilection for one or more of the primary progressive aphasia subtypes. We screened the University of California San Francisco Memory and Aging Center's primary progressive aphasia cohort (n = 198) for history of language-related learning disability as well as hand preference, which has associations with learning disability. The study included logopenic (n = 48), non-fluent (n = 54) and semantic (n = 96) variant primary progressive aphasias. We investigated whether the presence of learning disability or non-right-handedness was associated with differential effects on demographic, neuropsychological and neuroimaging features of primary progressive aphasia. We showed that a high frequency of learning disability was present only in the logopenic group (χ(2) = 15.17, P < 0.001) and (χ(2) = 11.51, P < 0.001) compared with semantic and non-fluent populations. In this group, learning disability was associated with earlier onset of disease, more isolated language symptoms, and more focal pattern of left posterior temporoparietal atrophy. Non-right-handedness was instead over-represented in the semantic group, at nearly twice the prevalence of the general population (χ(2) = 6.34, P = 0.01). Within semantic variant primary progressive aphasia the right-handed and non-right-handed cohorts appeared homogeneous on imaging, cognitive profile, and structural analysis of brain symmetry. Lastly, the non-fluent group showed no increase in learning disability or non-right-handedness. Logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia and developmental dyslexia both manifest with phonological disturbances and posterior temporal involvement. Learning disability might confer vulnerability of this network to early-onset, focal Alzheimer's pathology. Left-handedness has been described as a proxy for atypical brain hemispheric lateralization. As non-right-handedness was increased only in the semantic group, anomalous lateralization mechanisms might instead be related to frontotemporal lobar degeneration with abnormal TARDBP. Taken together, this study suggests that neurodevelopmental signatures impart differential trajectories towards neurodegenerative disease.

Age-related reduction of adaptive brain response during semantic integration is associated with gray matter reduction.

PubMed

Zhu, Zude; Yang, Fengjun; Li, Dongning; Zhou, Lianjun; Liu, Ying; Zhang, Ying; Chen, Xuezhi

2017-01-01

While aging is associated with increased knowledge, it is also associated with decreased semantic integration. To investigate brain activation changes during semantic integration, a sample of forty-eight 25-75 year-old adults read sentences with high cloze (HC) and low cloze (LC) probability while functional magnetic resonance imaging was conducted. Significant age-related reduction of cloze effect (LC vs. HC) was found in several regions, especially the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), which play an important role in semantic integration. Moreover, when accounting for global gray matter volume reduction, the age-cloze correlation in the left MFG and right IFG was absent. The results suggest that brain structural atrophy may disrupt brain response in aging brains, which then show less brain engagement in semantic integration.

Lexical and semantic ability in groups of children with cochlear implants, language impairment and autism spectrum disorder.

PubMed

Löfkvist, Ulrika; Almkvist, Ove; Lyxell, Björn; Tallberg, Ing-Mari

2014-02-01

Lexical-semantic ability was investigated among children aged 6-9 years with cochlear implants (CI) and compared to clinical groups of children with language impairment (LI) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as well as to age-matched children with normal hearing (NH). In addition, the influence of age at implantation on lexical-semantic ability was investigated among children with CI. 97 children divided into four groups participated, CI (n=34), LI (n=12), ASD (n=12), and NH (n=39). A battery of tests, including picture naming, receptive vocabulary and knowledge of semantic features, was used for assessment. A semantic response analysis of the erroneous responses on the picture-naming test was also performed. The group of children with CI exhibited a naming ability comparable to that of the age-matched children with NH, and they also possessed a relevant semantic knowledge of certain words that they were unable to name correctly. Children with CI had a significantly better understanding of words compared to the children with LI and ASD, but a worse understanding than those with NH. The significant differences between groups remained after controlling for age and non-verbal cognitive ability. The children with CI demonstrated lexical-semantic abilities comparable to age-matched children with NH, while children with LI and ASD had a more atypical lexical-semantic profile and poorer sizes of expressive and receptive vocabularies. Dissimilar causes of neurodevelopmental processes seemingly affected lexical-semantic abilities in different ways in the clinical groups. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Quantifying Semantic Linguistic Maturity in Children.

PubMed

Hansson, Kristina; Bååth, Rasmus; Löhndorf, Simone; Sahlén, Birgitta; Sikström, Sverker

2016-10-01

We propose a method to quantify semantic linguistic maturity (SELMA) based on a high dimensional semantic representation of words created from the co-occurrence of words in a large text corpus. The method was applied to oral narratives from 108 children aged 4;0-12;10. By comparing the SELMA measure with maturity ratings made by human raters we found that SELMA predicted the rating of semantic maturity made by human raters over and above the prediction made using a child's age and number of words produced. We conclude that the semantic content of narratives changes in a predictable pattern with children's age and argue that SELMA is a measure quantifying semantic linguistic maturity. The study opens up the possibility of using quantitative measures for studying the development of semantic representation in children's narratives, and emphasizes the importance of word co-occurrences for understanding the development of meaning.

Age-related differences in resolving semantic and phonological competition during receptive language tasks.

PubMed

Zhuang, Jie; Johnson, Micah A; Madden, David J; Burke, Deborah M; Diaz, Michele T

2016-12-01

Receptive language (e.g., reading) is largely preserved in the aging brain, and semantic processes in particular may continue to develop throughout the lifespan. We investigated the neural underpinnings of phonological and semantic retrieval in older and younger adults during receptive language tasks (rhyme and semantic similarity judgments). In particular, we were interested in the role of competition on language retrieval and varied the similarities between a cue, target, and distractor that were hypothesized to affect the mental process of competition. Behaviorally, all participants responded faster and more accurately during the rhyme task compared to the semantic task. Moreover, older adults demonstrated higher response accuracy than younger adults during the semantic task. Although there were no overall age-related differences in the neuroimaging results, an Age×Task interaction was found in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), with older adults producing greater activation than younger adults during the semantic condition. These results suggest that at lower levels of task difficulty, older and younger adults engaged similar neural networks that benefited behavioral performance. As task difficulty increased during the semantic task, older adults relied more heavily on largely left hemisphere language regions, as well as regions involved in perception and internal monitoring. Our results are consistent with the stability of language comprehension across the adult lifespan and illustrate how the preservation of semantic representations with aging may influence performance under conditions of increased task difficulty. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Individual differences in children's memory and reading comprehension: an investigation of semantic and inhibitory deficits.

PubMed

Cain, Kate

2006-07-01

Three experiments compared the verbal memory skills of children with poor reading comprehension with that of same-age good comprehenders. The aims were to determine if semantic and/or inhibitory deficits explained comprehenders' problems on measures of verbal short-term memory and verbal working memory. In Experiment 1 there were no group differences on word- and number-based measures of short-term storage and no evidence that semantic knowledge mediated word recall. In Experiment 2 poor comprehenders were impaired on word- and number-based assessments of working memory, the greatest deficit found on the word-based task. Error analysis of both word-based tasks revealed that poor comprehenders were more likely to recall items that should have been inhibited than were good comprehenders. Experiment 3 extended this finding: Poor comprehenders were less able to inhibit information that was no longer relevant. Together, these findings suggest that individual differences in inhibitory processing influence the ability to regulate the contents of working memory, which may contribute to the differential memory performance of good and poor comprehenders.

Frontal lobe damage impairs process and content in semantic memory: evidence from category-specific effects in progressive non-fluent aphasia.

PubMed

Reilly, Jamie; Rodriguez, Amy D; Peelle, Jonathan E; Grossman, Murray

2011-06-01

Portions of left inferior frontal cortex have been linked to semantic memory both in terms of the content of conceptual representation (e.g., motor aspects in an embodied semantics framework) and the cognitive processes used to access these representations (e.g., response selection). Progressive non-fluent aphasia (PNFA) is a neurodegenerative condition characterized by progressive atrophy of left inferior frontal cortex. PNFA can, therefore, provide a lesion model for examining the impact of frontal lobe damage on semantic processing and content. In the current study we examined picture naming in a cohort of PNFA patients across a variety of semantic categories. An embodied approach to semantic memory holds that sensorimotor features such as self-initiated action may assume differential importance for the representation of manufactured artifacts (e.g., naming hand tools). Embodiment theories might therefore predict that patients with frontal damage would be differentially impaired on manufactured artifacts relative to natural kinds, and this prediction was borne out. We also examined patterns of naming errors across a wide range of semantic categories and found that naming error distributions were heterogeneous. Although PNFA patients performed worse overall on naming manufactured artifacts, there was no reliable relationship between anomia and manipulability across semantic categories. These results add to a growing body of research arguing against a purely sensorimotor account of semantic memory, suggesting instead a more nuanced balance of process and content in how the brain represents conceptual knowledge. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

The Influence of rTMS over Prefrontal and Motor Areas in a Morphological Task: Grammatical vs. Semantic Effects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

LoGerfo, Emanuele; Oliveri, Massimiliano; Torriero, Sara; Salerno, Silvia; Koch, Giacomo; Caltagirone, Carlo

2008-01-01

We investigated the differential role of two frontal regions in the processing of grammatical and semantic knowledge. Given the documented specificity of the prefrontal cortex for the grammatical class of verbs, and of the primary motor cortex for the semantic class of action words, we sought to investigate whether the prefrontal cortex is also…

A methodology for the analysis of differential coexpression across the human lifespan.

PubMed

Gillis, Jesse; Pavlidis, Paul

2009-09-22

Differential coexpression is a change in coexpression between genes that may reflect 'rewiring' of transcriptional networks. It has previously been hypothesized that such changes might be occurring over time in the lifespan of an organism. While both coexpression and differential expression of genes have been previously studied in life stage change or aging, differential coexpression has not. Generalizing differential coexpression analysis to many time points presents a methodological challenge. Here we introduce a method for analyzing changes in coexpression across multiple ordered groups (e.g., over time) and extensively test its validity and usefulness. Our method is based on the use of the Haar basis set to efficiently represent changes in coexpression at multiple time scales, and thus represents a principled and generalizable extension of the idea of differential coexpression to life stage data. We used published microarray studies categorized by age to test the methodology. We validated the methodology by testing our ability to reconstruct Gene Ontology (GO) categories using our measure of differential coexpression and compared this result to using coexpression alone. Our method allows significant improvement in characterizing these groups of genes. Further, we examine the statistical properties of our measure of differential coexpression and establish that the results are significant both statistically and by an improvement in semantic similarity. In addition, we found that our method finds more significant changes in gene relationships compared to several other methods of expressing temporal relationships between genes, such as coexpression over time. Differential coexpression over age generates significant and biologically relevant information about the genes producing it. Our Haar basis methodology for determining age-related differential coexpression performs better than other tested methods. The Haar basis set also lends itself to ready interpretation in terms of both evolutionary and physiological mechanisms of aging and can be seen as a natural generalization of two-category differential coexpression. paul@bioinformatics.ubc.ca.

The semantic-similarity effect in children: influence of long-term knowledge on verbal short-term memory.

PubMed

Monnier, Catherine; Bonthoux, Françoise

2011-11-01

The present research was designed to highlight the relation between children's categorical knowledge and their verbal short-term memory (STM) performance. To do this, we manipulated the categorical organization of the words composing lists to be memorized by 5- and 9-year-old children. Three types of word list were drawn up: semantically similar context-dependent (CD) lists, semantically similar context-independent (CI) lists, and semantically dissimilar lists. In line with the procedure used by Poirier and Saint-Aubin (1995), the dissimilar lists were produced using words from the semantically similar lists. Both 5- and 9-year-old children showed better recall for the semantically similar CD lists than they did for the unrelated lists. In the semantic similar CI condition, semantic similarity enhanced immediate serial recall only at age 9 but contributed to item information memory both at ages 5 and 9. These results, which indicate a semantic influence of long-term memory (LTM) on serial recall from age 5, are discussed in the light of current models of STM. Moreover, we suggest that differences between results at 5 and 9 years are compatible with pluralist models of development. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

Generation of Signs Within Semantic and Phonological Categories: Data from Deaf Adults and Children Who Use American Sign Language.

PubMed

Beal-Alvarez, Jennifer S; Figueroa, Daileen M

2017-04-01

Two key areas of language development include semantic and phonological knowledge. Semantic knowledge relates to word and concept knowledge. Phonological knowledge relates to how language parameters combine to create meaning. We investigated signing deaf adults' and children's semantic and phonological sign generation via one-minute tasks, including animals, foods, and specific handshapes. We investigated the effects of chronological age, age of sign language acquisition/years at school site, gender, presence of a disability, and geographical location (i.e., USA and Puerto Rico) on participants' performance and relations among tasks. In general, the phonological task appeared more difficult than the semantic tasks, students generated more animals than foods, age, and semantic performance correlated for the larger sample of U.S. students, and geographical variation included use of fingerspelling and specific signs. Compared to their peers, deaf students with disabilities generated fewer semantic items. These results provide an initial snapshot of students' semantic and phonological sign generation. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Neural changes associated with semantic processing in healthy aging despite intact behavioral performance.

PubMed

Lacombe, Jacinthe; Jolicoeur, Pierre; Grimault, Stephan; Pineault, Jessica; Joubert, Sven

2015-10-01

Semantic memory recruits an extensive neural network including the left inferior prefrontal cortex (IPC) and the left temporoparietal region, which are involved in semantic control processes, as well as the anterior temporal lobe region (ATL) which is considered to be involved in processing semantic information at a central level. However, little is known about the underlying neuronal integrity of the semantic network in normal aging. Young and older healthy adults carried out a semantic judgment task while their cortical activity was recorded using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Despite equivalent behavioral performance, young adults activated the left IPC to a greater extent than older adults, while the latter group recruited the temporoparietal region bilaterally and the left ATL to a greater extent than younger adults. Results indicate that significant neuronal changes occur in normal aging, mainly in regions underlying semantic control processes, despite an apparent stability in performance at the behavioral level. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of age on cognitive control during semantic categorization.

PubMed

Mudar, Raksha A; Chiang, Hsueh-Sheng; Maguire, Mandy J; Spence, Jeffrey S; Eroh, Justin; Kraut, Michael A; Hart, John

2015-01-01

We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to study age effects of perceptual (basic-level) vs. perceptual-semantic (superordinate-level) categorization on cognitive control using the go/nogo paradigm. Twenty-two younger (11 M; 21 ± 2.2 years) and 22 older adults (9 M; 63 ± 5.8 years) completed two visual go/nogo tasks. In the single-car task (SiC) (basic), go/nogo responses were made based on single exemplars of a car (go) and a dog (nogo). In the object animal task (ObA) (superordinate), responses were based on multiple exemplars of objects (go) and animals (nogo). Each task consisted of 200 trials: 160 (80%) 'go' trials that required a response through button pressing and 40 (20%) 'nogo' trials that required inhibition/withholding of a response. ERP data revealed significantly reduced nogo-N2 and nogo-P3 amplitudes in older compared to younger adults, whereas go-N2 and go-P3 amplitudes were comparable in both groups during both categorization tasks. Although the effects of categorization levels on behavioral data and P3 measures were similar in both groups with longer response times, lower accuracy scores, longer P3 latencies, and lower P3 amplitudes in ObA compared to SiC, N2 latency revealed age group differences moderated by the task. Older adults had longer N2 latency for ObA compared to SiC, in contrast, younger adults showed no N2 latency difference between SiC and ObA. Overall, these findings suggest that age differentially affects neural processing related to cognitive control during semantic categorization. Furthermore, in older adults, unlike in younger adults, levels of categorization modulate neural processing related to cognitive control even at the early stages (N2). Published by Elsevier B.V.

Developmental Levels of Processing in Metaphor Interpretation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Janice; Pascual-Leone, Juan

1989-01-01

Outlines a theory of metaphor that posits varying levels of semantic processing and formalizes the levels in terms of kinds of semantic mapping operators. Predicted complexity of semantic mapping operators was tested using metaphor interpretations of 204 children aged 6-12 years and 24 adults. Processing score increased predictably with age. (SAK)

Differential cognitive processing of Kanji and Kana words: do orthographic and semantic codes function in parallel in word matching task.

PubMed

Kawakami, A; Hatta, T; Kogure, T

2001-12-01

Relative engagements of the orthographic and semantic codes in Kanji and Hiragana word recognition were investigated. In Exp. 1, subjects judged whether the pairs of Kanji words (prime and target) presented sequentially were physically identical to each other in the word condition. In the sentence condition, subjects decided whether the target word was valid for the prime sentence presented in advance. The results showed that the response times to the target swords orthographically similar (to the prime) were significantly slower than to semantically related target words in the word condition and that this was also the case in the sentence condition. In Exp. 2, subjects judged whether the target word written in Hiragana was physically identical to the prime word in the word condition. In the sentence condition, subjects decided if the target word was valid for the previously presented prime sentence. Analysis indicated that response times to orthographically similar words were slower than to semantically related words in the word condition but not in the sentence condition wherein the response times to the semantically and orthographically similar words were largely the same. Based on these results, differential contributions of orthographic and semantic codes in cognitive processing of Japanese Kanji and Hiragana words was discussed.

School-aged children can benefit from audiovisual semantic congruency during memory encoding.

PubMed

Heikkilä, Jenni; Tiippana, Kaisa

2016-05-01

Although we live in a multisensory world, children's memory has been usually studied concentrating on only one sensory modality at a time. In this study, we investigated how audiovisual encoding affects recognition memory. Children (n = 114) from three age groups (8, 10 and 12 years) memorized auditory or visual stimuli presented with a semantically congruent, incongruent or non-semantic stimulus in the other modality during encoding. Subsequent recognition memory performance was better for auditory or visual stimuli initially presented together with a semantically congruent stimulus in the other modality than for stimuli accompanied by a non-semantic stimulus in the other modality. This congruency effect was observed for pictures presented with sounds, for sounds presented with pictures, for spoken words presented with pictures and for written words presented with spoken words. The present results show that semantically congruent multisensory experiences during encoding can improve memory performance in school-aged children.

The word processing deficit in semantic dementia: all categories are equal, but some categories are more equal than others.

PubMed

Pulvermüller, Friedemann; Cooper-Pye, Elisa; Dine, Clare; Hauk, Olaf; Nestor, Peter J; Patterson, Karalyn

2010-09-01

It has been claimed that semantic dementia (SD), the temporal variant of fronto-temporal dementia, is characterized by an across-the-board deficit affecting all types of conceptual knowledge. We here confirm this generalized deficit but also report differential degrees of impairment in processing specific semantic word categories in a case series of SD patients (N = 11). Within the domain of words with strong visually grounded meaning, the patients' lexical decision accuracy was more impaired for color-related than for form-related words. Likewise, within the domain of action verbs, the patients' performance was worse for words referring to face movements and speech acts than for words semantically linked to actions performed with the hand and arm. Psycholinguistic properties were matched between the stimulus groups entering these contrasts; an explanation for the differential degrees of impairment must therefore involve semantic features of the words in the different conditions. Furthermore, this specific pattern of deficits cannot be captured by classic category distinctions such as nouns versus verbs or living versus nonliving things. Evidence from previous neuroimaging research indicates that color- and face/speech-related words, respectively, draw most heavily on anterior-temporal and inferior-frontal areas, the structures most affected in SD. Our account combines (a) the notion of an anterior-temporal amodal semantic "hub" to explain the profound across-the-board deficit in SD word processing, with (b) a semantic topography model of category-specific circuits whose cortical distributions reflect semantic features of the words and concepts represented.

Semantic deficits in Spanish-English bilingual children with language impairment.

PubMed

Sheng, Li; Peña, Elizabeth D; Bedore, Lisa M; Fiestas, Christine E

2012-02-01

To examine the nature and extent of semantic deficits in bilingual children with language impairment (LI). Thirty-seven Spanish-English bilingual children with LI (ranging from age 7;0 [years;months] to 9;10) and 37 typically developing (TD) age-matched peers generated 3 associations to 12 pairs of translation equivalents in English and Spanish. Responses were coded as paradigmatic (e.g., dinner-lunch, cena-desayuno [dinner-breakfast]), syntagmatic (e.g., delicious-pizza, delicioso-frijoles [delicious-beans]), and errors (e.g., wearing-where, vestirse-mal [to get dressed-bad]). A semantic depth score was derived in each language and conceptually by combining children's performance in both languages. The LI group achieved significantly lower semantic depth scores than the TD group after controlling for group differences in vocabulary size. Children showed higher conceptual scores than single-language scores. Both groups showed decreases in semantic depth scores across multiple elicitations. Analyses of individual performances indicated that semantic deficits (1 SD below the TD mean semantic depth score) were manifested in 65% of the children with LI and in 14% of the TD children. School-age bilingual children with and without LI demonstrated spreading activation of semantic networks. Consistent with the literature on monolingual children with LI, sparsely linked semantic networks characterize a considerable proportion of bilingual children with LI.

On developing a knowledge base in infancy.

PubMed

Mandler, J M; McDonough, L

1998-11-01

The development of conceptual categories from 7 to 11 months of age was explored in 5 experiments using an object-examination task. Infants in this age range categorized the global domains of animals, vehicles, and furniture. Plants and kitchen utensils were tested at 11 months, and these domains were also categorized. When 9-month-olds were tested on kitchen utensils, they did not categorize them. Subdivisions within the animal and furniture domains were also examined. Infants did not show any subcategorization of furniture. In the animal domain both 9- and 11-month-olds responded to the life-form distinction between dogs and birds, but they did not differentiate the mammal categories of dogs and cats until 11 months. This early organization of the conceptual system into global domains that become increasingly differentiated is discussed in relation to the adult conceptual system and its breakdown in semantic dementia.

The Semantic Network at Work and Rest: Differential Connectivity of Anterior Temporal Lobe Subregions.

PubMed

Jackson, Rebecca L; Hoffman, Paul; Pobric, Gorana; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A

2016-02-03

The anterior temporal lobe (ATL) makes a critical contribution to semantic cognition. However, the functional connectivity of the ATL and the functional network underlying semantic cognition has not been elucidated. In addition, subregions of the ATL have distinct functional properties and thus the potential differential connectivity between these subregions requires investigation. We explored these aims using both resting-state and active semantic task data in humans in combination with a dual-echo gradient echo planar imaging (EPI) paradigm designed to ensure signal throughout the ATL. In the resting-state analysis, the ventral ATL (vATL) and anterior middle temporal gyrus (MTG) were shown to connect to areas responsible for multimodal semantic cognition, including bilateral ATL, inferior frontal gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex, angular gyrus, posterior MTG, and medial temporal lobes. In contrast, the anterior superior temporal gyrus (STG)/superior temporal sulcus was connected to a distinct set of auditory and language-related areas, including bilateral STG, precentral and postcentral gyri, supplementary motor area, supramarginal gyrus, posterior temporal cortex, and inferior and middle frontal gyri. Complementary analyses of functional connectivity during an active semantic task were performed using a psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis. The PPI analysis highlighted the same semantic regions suggesting a core semantic network active during rest and task states. This supports the necessity for semantic cognition in internal processes occurring during rest. The PPI analysis showed additional connectivity of the vATL to regions of occipital and frontal cortex. These areas strongly overlap with regions found to be sensitive to executively demanding, controlled semantic processing. Previous studies have shown that semantic cognition depends on subregions of the anterior temporal lobe (ATL). However, the network of regions functionally connected to these subregions has not been demarcated. Here, we show that these ventrolateral anterior temporal subregions form part of a network responsible for semantic processing during both rest and an explicit semantic task. This demonstrates the existence of a core functional network responsible for multimodal semantic cognition regardless of state. Distinct connectivity is identified in the superior ATL, which is connected to auditory and language areas. Understanding the functional connectivity of semantic cognition allows greater understanding of how this complex process may be performed and the role of distinct subregions of the anterior temporal cortex. Copyright © 2016 Jackson et al.

The Semantic Network at Work and Rest: Differential Connectivity of Anterior Temporal Lobe Subregions

PubMed Central

Jackson, Rebecca L.; Hoffman, Paul; Pobric, Gorana

2016-01-01

The anterior temporal lobe (ATL) makes a critical contribution to semantic cognition. However, the functional connectivity of the ATL and the functional network underlying semantic cognition has not been elucidated. In addition, subregions of the ATL have distinct functional properties and thus the potential differential connectivity between these subregions requires investigation. We explored these aims using both resting-state and active semantic task data in humans in combination with a dual-echo gradient echo planar imaging (EPI) paradigm designed to ensure signal throughout the ATL. In the resting-state analysis, the ventral ATL (vATL) and anterior middle temporal gyrus (MTG) were shown to connect to areas responsible for multimodal semantic cognition, including bilateral ATL, inferior frontal gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex, angular gyrus, posterior MTG, and medial temporal lobes. In contrast, the anterior superior temporal gyrus (STG)/superior temporal sulcus was connected to a distinct set of auditory and language-related areas, including bilateral STG, precentral and postcentral gyri, supplementary motor area, supramarginal gyrus, posterior temporal cortex, and inferior and middle frontal gyri. Complementary analyses of functional connectivity during an active semantic task were performed using a psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis. The PPI analysis highlighted the same semantic regions suggesting a core semantic network active during rest and task states. This supports the necessity for semantic cognition in internal processes occurring during rest. The PPI analysis showed additional connectivity of the vATL to regions of occipital and frontal cortex. These areas strongly overlap with regions found to be sensitive to executively demanding, controlled semantic processing. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Previous studies have shown that semantic cognition depends on subregions of the anterior temporal lobe (ATL). However, the network of regions functionally connected to these subregions has not been demarcated. Here, we show that these ventrolateral anterior temporal subregions form part of a network responsible for semantic processing during both rest and an explicit semantic task. This demonstrates the existence of a core functional network responsible for multimodal semantic cognition regardless of state. Distinct connectivity is identified in the superior ATL, which is connected to auditory and language areas. Understanding the functional connectivity of semantic cognition allows greater understanding of how this complex process may be performed and the role of distinct subregions of the anterior temporal cortex. PMID:26843633

Potential role of monkey inferior parietal neurons coding action semantic equivalences as precursors of parts of speech.

PubMed

Yamazaki, Yumiko; Yokochi, Hiroko; Tanaka, Michio; Okanoya, Kazuo; Iriki, Atsushi

2010-01-01

The anterior portion of the inferior parietal cortex possesses comprehensive representations of actions embedded in behavioural contexts. Mirror neurons, which respond to both self-executed and observed actions, exist in this brain region in addition to those originally found in the premotor cortex. We found that parietal mirror neurons responded differentially to identical actions embedded in different contexts. Another type of parietal mirror neuron represents an inverse and complementary property of responding equally to dissimilar actions made by itself and others for an identical purpose. Here, we propose a hypothesis that these sets of inferior parietal neurons constitute a neural basis for encoding the semantic equivalence of various actions across different agents and contexts. The neurons have mirror neuron properties, and they encoded generalization of agents, differentiation of outcomes, and categorization of actions that led to common functions. By integrating the activities of these mirror neurons with various codings, we further suggest that in the ancestral primates' brains, these various representations of meaningful action led to the gradual establishment of equivalence relations among the different types of actions, by sharing common action semantics. Such differential codings of the components of actions might represent precursors to the parts of protolanguage, such as gestural communication, which are shared among various members of a society. Finally, we suggest that the inferior parietal cortex serves as an interface between this action semantics system and other higher semantic systems, through common structures of action representation that mimic language syntax.

Potential role of monkey inferior parietal neurons coding action semantic equivalences as precursors of parts of speech

PubMed Central

Yamazaki, Yumiko; Yokochi, Hiroko; Tanaka, Michio; Okanoya, Kazuo; Iriki, Atsushi

2010-01-01

The anterior portion of the inferior parietal cortex possesses comprehensive representations of actions embedded in behavioural contexts. Mirror neurons, which respond to both self-executed and observed actions, exist in this brain region in addition to those originally found in the premotor cortex. We found that parietal mirror neurons responded differentially to identical actions embedded in different contexts. Another type of parietal mirror neuron represents an inverse and complementary property of responding equally to dissimilar actions made by itself and others for an identical purpose. Here, we propose a hypothesis that these sets of inferior parietal neurons constitute a neural basis for encoding the semantic equivalence of various actions across different agents and contexts. The neurons have mirror neuron properties, and they encoded generalization of agents, differentiation of outcomes, and categorization of actions that led to common functions. By integrating the activities of these mirror neurons with various codings, we further suggest that in the ancestral primates' brains, these various representations of meaningful action led to the gradual establishment of equivalence relations among the different types of actions, by sharing common action semantics. Such differential codings of the components of actions might represent precursors to the parts of protolanguage, such as gestural communication, which are shared among various members of a society. Finally, we suggest that the inferior parietal cortex serves as an interface between this action semantics system and other higher semantic systems, through common structures of action representation that mimic language syntax. PMID:20119879

Language Networks Associated with Computerized Semantic Indices

PubMed Central

Pakhomov, Serguei V. S.; Jones, David T.; Knopman, David S.

2014-01-01

Tests of generative semantic verbal fluency are widely used to study organization and representation of concepts in the human brain. Previous studies demonstrated that clustering and switching behavior during verbal fluency tasks is supported by multiple brain mechanisms associated with semantic memory and executive control. Previous work relied on manual assessments of semantic relatedness between words and grouping of words into semantic clusters. We investigated a computational linguistic approach to measuring the strength of semantic relatedness between words based on latent semantic analysis of word co-occurrences in a subset of a large online encyclopedia. We computed semantic clustering indices and compared them to brain network connectivity measures obtained with task-free fMRI in a sample consisting of healthy participants and those differentially affected by cognitive impairment. We found that semantic clustering indices were associated with brain network connectivity in distinct areas including fronto-temporal, fronto-parietal and fusiform gyrus regions. This study shows that computerized semantic indices complement traditional assessments of verbal fluency to provide a more complete account of the relationship between brain and verbal behavior involved organization and retrieval of lexical information from memory. PMID:25315785

Buckets: Aggregative, Intelligent Agents for Publishing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nelson, Michael L.; Maly, Kurt; Shen, Stewart N. T.; Zubair, Mohammad

1998-01-01

Buckets are an aggregative, intelligent construct for publishing in digital libraries. The goal of research projects is to produce information. This information is often instantiated in several forms, differentiated by semantic types (report, software, video, datasets, etc.). A given semantic type can be further differentiated by syntactic representations as well (PostScript version, PDF version, Word version, etc.). Although the information was created together and subtle relationships can exist between them, different semantic instantiations are generally segregated along currently obsolete media boundaries. Reports are placed in report archives, software might go into a software archive, but most of the data and supporting materials are likely to be kept in informal personal archives or discarded altogether. Buckets provide an archive-independent container construct in which all related semantic and syntactic data types and objects can be logically grouped together, archived, and manipulated as a single object. Furthermore, buckets are active archival objects and can communicate with each other, people, or arbitrary network services.

Apathy, not depressive symptoms, as a predictor of semantic and phonemic fluency task performance in stroke and transient ischemic attack.

PubMed

Fishman, Keera N; Ashbaugh, Andrea R; Lanctôt, Krista L; Cayley, Megan L; Herrmann, Nathan; Murray, Brian J; Sicard, Michelle; Lien, Karen; Sahlas, Demetrios J; Swartz, Richard H

2018-06-01

This study examined the relationship between apathy and cognition in patients with cerebrovascular disease. Apathy may result from damage to frontal subcortical circuits causing dysexecutive syndromes, but apathy is also related to depression. We assessed the ability of apathy to predict phonemic fluency and semantic fluency performance after controlling for depressive symptoms in 282 individuals with stroke and/or transient ischemic attack. Participants (N = 282) completed the Phonemic Fluency Test, Semantic Fluency Test, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and Apathy Evaluation Scale. A cross-sectional correlational design was utilized. Using hierarchical linear regressions, apathy scores significantly predicted semantic fluency performance (β = -.159, p = .020), but not phonemic fluency performance (β = -.112, p = .129) after scaling scores by age and years of education and controlling for depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms entered into the first step of both hierarchical linear regressions did not predict semantic fluency (β = -.035, p = .554) or phonemic fluency (β = -.081, p = .173). Apathy and depressive symptoms were moderately correlated, r(280) = .58, p < .001. The results of this study are consistent with research supporting a differentiation between phonemic and semantic fluency tasks, whereby phonemic fluency tasks primarily involve frontal regions, and semantic fluency tasks involve recruitment of more extended networks. The results also highlight a distinction between apathy and depressive symptoms and suggest that apathy may be a more reliable predictor of cognitive deficits than measures of mood in individuals with cerebrovascular disease. Apathy may also be more related to cognition due to overlapping motivational and cognitive frontal subcortical circuitry. Future research should explore whether treatments for apathy could be a novel target for improving cognitive outcomes after stroke.

Lexical Processing in School-Age Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Children with Specific Language Impairment: The Role of Semantics.

PubMed

Haebig, Eileen; Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Ellis Weismer, Susan

2015-12-01

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and specific language impairment (SLI) often have immature lexical-semantic knowledge; however, the organization of lexical-semantic knowledge is poorly understood. This study examined lexical processing in school-age children with ASD, SLI, and typical development, who were matched on receptive vocabulary. Children completed a lexical decision task, involving words with high and low semantic network sizes and nonwords. Children also completed nonverbal updating and shifting tasks. Children responded more accurately to words from high than from low semantic networks; however, follow-up analyses identified weaker semantic network effects in the SLI group. Additionally, updating and shifting abilities predicted lexical processing, demonstrating similarity in the mechanisms which underlie semantic processing in children with ASD, SLI, and typical development.

Lexical Processing in School-Age Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Children with Specific Language Impairment: The Role of Semantics

PubMed Central

Haebig, Eileen; Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Weismer, Susan Ellis

2016-01-01

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and specific language impairment (SLI) often have immature lexical-semantic knowledge; however, the organization of lexical-semantic knowledge is poorly understood. This study examined lexical processing in school-age children with ASD, SLI, and typical development, who were matched on receptive vocabulary. Children completed a lexical decision task, involving words with high and low semantic network sizes and nonwords. Children also completed nonverbal updating and shifting tasks. Children responded more accurately to words from high than from low semantic networks; however, follow-up analyses identified weaker semantic network effects in the SLI group. Additionally, updating and shifting abilities predicted lexical processing, demonstrating similarity in the mechanisms which underlie semantic processing in children with ASD, SLI, and typical development. PMID:26210517

Development of an Instrument for Measuring Clinicians’ Power Perceptions in the Workplace

PubMed Central

Bartos, Christa E.; Fridsma, Douglas B.; Butler, Brian S.; Penrod, Louis E.; Becich, Michael J.; Crowley, Rebecca S.

2008-01-01

We report on the development of an instrument to measure clinicians’ perceptions of their personal power in the workplace in relation to resistance to computerized physician order entry (CPOE). The instrument is based on French and Raven’s six bases of social power and uses a semantic differential methodology. A measurement study was conducted to determine the reliability and validity of the survey. The survey was administered online and distributed via a URL by email to 19 physicians, nurses, and health unit coordinators from a university hospital. Acceptable reliability was achieved by removing or moving some semantic differential word pairs used to represent the six power bases (alpha range from 0.76–0.89). The Semantic Differential Power Perception (SDPP) survey validity was tested against an already validated instrument and found to be acceptable (correlation range from 0.51–0.81). The SDPP survey instrument was determined to be both reliable and valid. PMID:18375189

Age Invariance in Semantic and Episodic Metamemory: Both Younger and Older Adults Provide Accurate Feeling of Knowing For Names of Faces

PubMed Central

Eakin, Deborah K.; Hertzog, Christopher; Harris, William

2013-01-01

Age differences in feeling-of-knowing (FOK) accuracy were examined for both episodic memory and semantic memory. Younger and older adults either viewed pictures of famous faces (semantic memory) or associated nonfamous faces and names (episodic memory) and were tested on their memory for the name of the presented face. Participants viewed the faces again and made a FOK prediction about future recognition of the name associated with the presented face. Finally, four-alternative forced-choice recognition memory for the name, cued by the face, was tested and confidence judgments (CJs) were collected for each recognition response. Age differences were not obtained in semantic memory or the resolution of semantic FOKs, defined by within-person correlations of FOKs with recognition memory performance. Although age differences were obtained in level of episodic memory, there were no age differences in the resolution of episodic FOKs. FOKs for correctly recognized items correlated reliably with CJs for both types of materials, and did not differ by age group. The results indicate age invariance in monitoring of retrieval processes for name-face associations. PMID:23537379

Age invariance in semantic and episodic metamemory: both younger and older adults provide accurate feeling-of-knowing for names of faces.

PubMed

Eakin, Deborah K; Hertzog, Christopher; Harris, William

2014-01-01

Age differences in feeling-of-knowing (FOK) accuracy were examined for both episodic memory and semantic memory. Younger and older adults either viewed pictures of famous faces (semantic memory) or associated non-famous faces and names (episodic memory) and were tested on their memory for the name of the presented face. Participants viewed the faces again and made a FOK prediction about future recognition of the name associated with the presented face. Finally, four-alternative forced-choice recognition memory for the name, cued by the face, was tested and confidence judgments (CJs) were collected for each recognition response. Age differences were not obtained in semantic memory or the resolution of semantic FOKs, defined by within-person correlations of FOKs with recognition memory performance. Although age differences were obtained in level of episodic memory, there were no age differences in the resolution of episodic FOKs. FOKs for correctly recognized items correlated reliably with CJs for both types of materials, and did not differ by age group. The results indicate age invariance in monitoring of retrieval processes for name-face associations.

Semantic dementia Brazilian study of nineteen cases

PubMed Central

Senaha, Mirna Lie Hosogi; Caramelli, Paulo; Porto, Claudia Sellitto; Nitrini, Ricardo

2007-01-01

The term semantic dementia was devised by Snowden et al. in 1989 and nowadays, the semantic dementia syndrome is recognized as one of the clinical forms of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and is characterized by a language semantic disturbance associated to non-verbal semantic memory impairment. Objectives The aim of this study was to describe a Brazilian sample of 19 semantic dementia cases, emphasizing the clinical characteristics important for differential diagnosis of this syndrome. Methods Nineteen cases with semantic dementia were evaluated between 1999 and 2007. All patients were submitted to neurological evaluation, neuroimaging exams and cognitive, language and semantic memory evaluation. Results All patients presented fluent spontaneous speech, preservation of syntactic and phonological aspects of the language, word-finding difficulty, semantic paraphasias, word comprehension impairment, low performance in visual confrontation naming tasks, impairment on tests of non-verbal semantic memory and preservation of autobiographical memory and visuospatial skills. Regarding radiological investigations, temporal lobe atrophy and/or hypoperfusion were found in all patients. Conclusions The cognitive, linguistic and of neuroimaging data in our case series corroborate other studies showing that semantic dementia constitutes a syndrome with well defined clinical characteristics associated to temporal lobe atrophy. PMID:29213413

Semantic and Phonological Loop Effects on Verbal Working Memory in Middle-Age Adults with Mental Retardation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kittler, Phyllis; Krinsky-McHale, Sharon J.; Devenny, Darlynne A.

2004-01-01

Semantic and phonological loop effects on verbal working memory were examined among middle-age adults with Down syndrome and those with unspecified mental retardation in the context of Baddeley's working memory model. Recall was poorer for phonologically similar, semantically similar, and long words compared to recall of dissimilar short words.…

Lexical Processing in School-Age Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Children with Specific Language Impairment: The Role of Semantics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haebig, Eileen; Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Weismer, Susan Ellis

2015-01-01

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and specific language impairment (SLI) often have immature lexical-semantic knowledge; however, the organization of lexical-semantic knowledge is poorly understood. This study examined lexical processing in school-age children with ASD, SLI, and typical development, who were matched on receptive…

General practitioners' knowledge of ageing and attitudes towards older people in China.

PubMed

Yang, Yanni; Xiao, Lily Dongxia; Ullah, Shahid; Deng, Lanlan

2015-06-01

To explore general practitioners (GPs)knowledge of ageing, attitudes towards older people and factors affecting their knowledge and attitudes in a Chinese context. Four hundred GPs were surveyed using the Chinese version of the Aging Semantic Differential (CASD) and the Chinese version of the Facts on Aging Quiz (CFAQ1) scale. The CASD scores indicated that GPs had a neutral attitude towards older people. The CFAQ1 scores indicated a low level of knowledge about ageing. GPs' awareness of the mental and social facts of ageing was poorer compared to that of physical facts. Male GPs had a significantly higher negative bias score than female GPs. No other variables had a statistically significant influence on knowledge and attitudes. The findings suggest the need for education interventions for GPs regarding knowledge of ageing and also provide evidence to guide future development of continuing medical programs for this group of medical doctors. © 2013 ACOTA.

Semantic associative relations and conceptual processing.

PubMed

Di Giacomo, Dina; De Federicis, Lucia Serenella; Pistelli, Manuela; Fiorenzi, Daniela; Passafiume, Domenico

2012-02-01

We analysed the organisation of semantic network using associative mechanisms between different types of information and studied the progression of the use of these associative relations during development. We aimed to verify the linkage of concepts with the use of semantic associative relations. The goal of this study was to analyse the cognitive ability to use associative relations between various items when describing old and/or new concepts. We examined the performance of 100 subjects between the ages of 4 and 7 years on an experimental task using five associative relations based on verbal encoding. The results showed that children are able to use the five semantic associative relations at age 4, but performance with each of the different associative relations improves at different times during development. Functional and part/whole relations develop at an early age, whereas the superordinate relations develop later. Our study clarified the characteristics of the progression of semantic associations during development as well as the roles that associative relations play in the structure and improvement of the semantic store.

Premorbid expertise produces category-specific impairment in a domain-general semantic disorder.

PubMed

Jefferies, Elizabeth; Rogers, Timothy T; Ralph, Matthew A Lambon

2011-10-01

For decades, category-specific semantic impairment - i.e., better comprehension of items from one semantic category than another - has been the driving force behind many claims about the organisation of conceptual knowledge in the brain. Double dissociations between patients with category-specific disorders are widely interpreted as showing that different conceptual domains are necessarily supported by functionally independent systems. We show that, to the contrary, even strong or classical dissociations can also arise from individual differences in premorbid expertise. We examined two patients with global and progressive semantic degradation who, unusually, had known areas of premorbid expertise. Patient 1, a former automotive worker, showed selective preservation of car knowledge, whereas Patient 2, a former botanist, showed selective preservation of information about plants. In non-expert domains, these patients showed the typical pattern: i.e., an inability to differentiate between highly similar concepts (e.g., rose and daisy), but retention of broader distinctions (e.g., between rose and cat). Parallel distributed processing (PDP) models of semantic cognition show that expertise in a particular domain increases the differentiation of specific-level concepts, such that the semantic distance between these items resembles non-expert basic-level distinctions. We propose that these structural changes interact with global semantic degradation, particularly when expert knowledge is acquired early and when exposure to expert concepts continues during disease progression. Therefore, category-specific semantic impairment can arise from at least two distinct mechanisms: damage to representations that are critical for a particular category (e.g., knowledge of hand shape and action for the category 'tools') and differences in premorbid experience. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Event Congruency and Episodic Encoding: A Developmental fMRI Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maril, Anat; Avital, Rinat; Reggev, Niv; Zuckerman, Maya; Sadeh, Talya; Sira, Liat Ben; Livneh, Neta

2011-01-01

A known contributor to adults' superior memory performance compared to children is their differential reliance on an existing knowledge base. Compared to those of adults, children's semantic networks are less accessible and less established, a difference that is also thought to contribute to children's relative resistance to semantically related…

Differential Lexical Predictors of Reading Comprehension in Fourth Graders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Swart, Nicole M.; Muijselaar, Marloes M. L.; Steenbeek-Planting, Esther G.; Droop, Mienke; de Jong, Peter F.; Verhoeven, L.

2017-01-01

The mental lexicon plays a central role in reading comprehension (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014). It encompasses the number of lexical entries in spoken and written language (vocabulary breadth), the semantic quality of these entries (vocabulary depth), and the connection strength between lexical representations (semantic relatedness); as such, it…

Development of Category-based Induction and Semantic Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fisher, Anna V.; Godwin, Karrie E.; Matlen, Bryan J.; Unger, Layla

2015-01-01

Category-based induction is a hallmark of mature cognition; however, little is known about its origins. This study evaluated the hypothesis that category-based induction is related to semantic development. Computational studies suggest that early on there is little differentiation among concepts, but learning and development lead to increased…

Differential Processing of Thematic and Categorical Conceptual Relations in Spoken Word Production

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Zubicaray, Greig I.; Hansen, Samuel; McMahon, Katie L.

2013-01-01

Studies of semantic context effects in spoken word production have typically distinguished between categorical (or taxonomic) and associative relations. However, associates tend to confound semantic features or morphological representations, such as whole-part relations and compounds (e.g., BOAT-anchor, BEE-hive). Using a picture-word interference…

Developing a semantic web model for medical differential diagnosis recommendation.

PubMed

Mohammed, Osama; Benlamri, Rachid

2014-10-01

In this paper we describe a novel model for differential diagnosis designed to make recommendations by utilizing semantic web technologies. The model is a response to a number of requirements, ranging from incorporating essential clinical diagnostic semantics to the integration of data mining for the process of identifying candidate diseases that best explain a set of clinical features. We introduce two major components, which we find essential to the construction of an integral differential diagnosis recommendation model: the evidence-based recommender component and the proximity-based recommender component. Both approaches are driven by disease diagnosis ontologies designed specifically to enable the process of generating diagnostic recommendations. These ontologies are the disease symptom ontology and the patient ontology. The evidence-based diagnosis process develops dynamic rules based on standardized clinical pathways. The proximity-based component employs data mining to provide clinicians with diagnosis predictions, as well as generates new diagnosis rules from provided training datasets. This article describes the integration between these two components along with the developed diagnosis ontologies to form a novel medical differential diagnosis recommendation model. This article also provides test cases from the implementation of the overall model, which shows quite promising diagnostic recommendation results.

Diagnostic and prognostic role of semantic processing in preclinical Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Venneri, Annalena; Jahn-Carta, Caroline; Marco, Matteo De; Quaranta, Davide; Marra, Camillo

2018-06-13

Relatively spared during most of the timeline of normal aging, semantic memory shows a subtle yet measurable decline even during the pre-clinical stage of Alzheimer's disease. This decline is thought to reflect early neurofibrillary changes and impairment is detectable using tests of language relying on lexical-semantic abilities. A promising approach is the characterization of semantic parameters such as typicality and age of acquisition of words, and propositional density from verbal output. Seminal research like the Nun Study or the analysis of the linguistic decline of famous writers and politicians later diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease supports the early diagnostic value of semantic processing and semantic memory. Moreover, measures of these skills may play an important role for the prognosis of patients with mild cognitive impairment.

Age-related differences in the neural bases of phonological and semantic processes

PubMed Central

Diaz, Michele T.; Johnson, Micah A.; Burke, Deborah M.; Madden, David J.

2014-01-01

Changes in language functions during normal aging are greater for phonological compared to semantic processes. To investigate the behavioral and neural basis for these age-related differences, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine younger and older adults who made semantic and phonological decisions about pictures. The behavioral performance of older adults was less accurate and less efficient than younger adults’ in the phonological task, but did not differ in the semantic task. In the fMRI analyses, the semantic task activated left-hemisphere language regions, while the phonological task activated bilateral cingulate and ventral precuneus. Age-related effects were widespread throughout the brain, and most often expressed as greater activation for older adults. Activation was greater for younger compared to older adults in ventral brain regions involved in visual and object processing. Although there was not a significant Age x Condition interaction in the whole-brain fMRI results, correlations examining the relationship between behavior and fMRI activation were stronger for younger compared to older adults. Our results suggest that the relationship between behavior and neural activation declines with age and this may underlie some of the observed declines in performance. PMID:24893737

Language networks associated with computerized semantic indices.

PubMed

Pakhomov, Serguei V S; Jones, David T; Knopman, David S

2015-01-01

Tests of generative semantic verbal fluency are widely used to study organization and representation of concepts in the human brain. Previous studies demonstrated that clustering and switching behavior during verbal fluency tasks is supported by multiple brain mechanisms associated with semantic memory and executive control. Previous work relied on manual assessments of semantic relatedness between words and grouping of words into semantic clusters. We investigated a computational linguistic approach to measuring the strength of semantic relatedness between words based on latent semantic analysis of word co-occurrences in a subset of a large online encyclopedia. We computed semantic clustering indices and compared them to brain network connectivity measures obtained with task-free fMRI in a sample consisting of healthy participants and those differentially affected by cognitive impairment. We found that semantic clustering indices were associated with brain network connectivity in distinct areas including fronto-temporal, fronto-parietal and fusiform gyrus regions. This study shows that computerized semantic indices complement traditional assessments of verbal fluency to provide a more complete account of the relationship between brain and verbal behavior involved organization and retrieval of lexical information from memory. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Impaired language abilities and white matter abnormalities in children born very preterm and/or very low birth weight

PubMed Central

Reidy, Natalie; Morgan, Angela; Thompson, Deanne K; Inder, Terrie E.; Doyle, Lex W; Anderson, Peter J

2012-01-01

Objectives To investigate language abilities in children born very preterm (VPT; <32 weeks’ gestational age (GA)) or very low birth weight (VLBW; <1500 g) at 7 years of age and compare their performances with children born at term, and to determine whether group differences could be explained by cerebral white matter abnormality on neonatal MRI. Study design A cohort of 198 children born <30 weeks’ GA and/or <1250 g, and 70 term controls were examined. White matter abnormalities were rated quantitatively on brain MRI at term-equivalent age. Language was assessed at age 7 years using standardized language tests. Differences between groups were tested in the five language sub-domains of phonological awareness, semantics, grammar, discourse, and pragmatics. A mediation effect was tested between birth group, white matter abnormality, and language sub-domains. Results The VPT/VLBW group performed significantly worse than controls on all language sub-domains (all p <.001). White matter abnormality mediated the effect of group differences on phonological awareness, and partly mediated this effect for semantics, grammar and discourse. White matter abnormality was not significantly associated with pragmatics (p = .13). Conclusions Language is an important area of concern in children born VPT/VLBW. Neonatal white matter abnormality is an important predictor of outcome; however, different language abilities are differentially associated with neonatal white matter abnormality. PMID:23158026

The Berlin Affective Word List for Children (kidBAWL): Exploring Processing of Affective Lexical Semantics in the Visual and Auditory Modalities

PubMed Central

Sylvester, Teresa; Braun, Mario; Schmidtke, David; Jacobs, Arthur M.

2016-01-01

While research on affective word processing in adults witnesses increasing interest, the present paper looks at another group of participants that have been neglected so far: pupils (age range: 6–12 years). Introducing a variant of the Berlin Affective Wordlist (BAWL) especially adapted for children of that age group, the “kidBAWL,” we examined to what extent pupils process affective lexical semantics similarly to adults. In three experiments using rating and valence decision tasks in both the visual and auditory modality, it was established that children show the two ubiquitous phenomena observed in adults with emotional word material: the asymmetric U-shaped function relating valence to arousal ratings, and the inversely U-shaped function relating response times to valence decision latencies. The results for both modalities show large structural similarities between pupil and adult data (taken from previous studies) indicating that in the present age range, the affective lexicon and the dynamic interplay between language and emotion is already well-developed. Differential effects show that younger children tend to choose less extreme ratings than older children and that rating latencies decrease with age. Overall, our study should help to develop more realistic models of word recognition and reading that include affective processes and offer a methodology for exploring the roots of pleasant literary experiences and ludic reading. PMID:27445930

Episodic and Semantic Autobiographical Memory and Everyday Memory during Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

PubMed Central

Willoughby, Karen A.; Desrocher, Mary; Levine, Brian; Rovet, Joanne F.

2012-01-01

Few studies have examined both episodic and semantic autobiographical memory (AM) performance during late childhood and early adolescence. Using the newly developed Children’s Autobiographical Interview (CAI), the present study examined the effects of age and sex on episodic and semantic AM and everyday memory in 182 children and adolescents. Results indicated that episodic and semantic AM both improved between 8 and 16 years of age; however, age-related changes were larger for episodic AM than for semantic AM. In addition, females were found to recall more episodic AM details, but not more semantic AM details, than males. Importantly, this sex difference in episodic AM recall was attenuated under conditions of high retrieval support (i.e., the use of probing questions). The ability to clearly visualize past events at the time of recollection was related to children’s episodic AM recall performance, particularly the retrieval of perceptual details. Finally, similar age and sex effects were found between episodic AM and everyday memory ability (e.g., memory for everyday activities). More specifically, older participants and females exhibited better episodic AM and everyday memory performance than younger participants and males. Overall, the present study provides important new insight into both episodic and semantic AM performance, as well as the relation between episodic AM and everyday memory, during late childhood and adolescence. PMID:22403560

Episodic and Semantic Autobiographical Memory and Everyday Memory during Late Childhood and Early Adolescence.

PubMed

Willoughby, Karen A; Desrocher, Mary; Levine, Brian; Rovet, Joanne F

2012-01-01

Few studies have examined both episodic and semantic autobiographical memory (AM) performance during late childhood and early adolescence. Using the newly developed Children's Autobiographical Interview (CAI), the present study examined the effects of age and sex on episodic and semantic AM and everyday memory in 182 children and adolescents. Results indicated that episodic and semantic AM both improved between 8 and 16 years of age; however, age-related changes were larger for episodic AM than for semantic AM. In addition, females were found to recall more episodic AM details, but not more semantic AM details, than males. Importantly, this sex difference in episodic AM recall was attenuated under conditions of high retrieval support (i.e., the use of probing questions). The ability to clearly visualize past events at the time of recollection was related to children's episodic AM recall performance, particularly the retrieval of perceptual details. Finally, similar age and sex effects were found between episodic AM and everyday memory ability (e.g., memory for everyday activities). More specifically, older participants and females exhibited better episodic AM and everyday memory performance than younger participants and males. Overall, the present study provides important new insight into both episodic and semantic AM performance, as well as the relation between episodic AM and everyday memory, during late childhood and adolescence.

SEMANTICS AND CRITICAL READING.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

FLANIGAN, MICHAEL C.

PROFICIENCY IN CRITICAL READING CAN BE ACCELERATED BY MAKING STUDENTS AWARE OF VARIOUS SEMANTIC DEVICES THAT HELP CLARIFY MEANINGS AND PURPOSES. EXCERPTS FROM THE ARTICLE "TEEN-AGE CORRUPTION" FROM THE NINTH-GRADE SEMANTICS UNIT WRITTEN BY THE PROJECT ENGLISH DEMONSTRATION CENTER AT EUCLID, OHIO, ARE USED TO ILLUSTRATE HOW SEMANTICS RELATE TO…

The semantic distance task: Quantifying semantic distance with semantic network path length.

PubMed

Kenett, Yoed N; Levi, Effi; Anaki, David; Faust, Miriam

2017-09-01

Semantic distance is a determining factor in cognitive processes, such as semantic priming, operating upon semantic memory. The main computational approach to compute semantic distance is through latent semantic analysis (LSA). However, objections have been raised against this approach, mainly in its failure at predicting semantic priming. We propose a novel approach to computing semantic distance, based on network science methodology. Path length in a semantic network represents the amount of steps needed to traverse from 1 word in the network to the other. We examine whether path length can be used as a measure of semantic distance, by investigating how path length affect performance in a semantic relatedness judgment task and recall from memory. Our results show a differential effect on performance: Up to 4 steps separating between word-pairs, participants exhibit an increase in reaction time (RT) and decrease in the percentage of word-pairs judged as related. From 4 steps onward, participants exhibit a significant decrease in RT and the word-pairs are dominantly judged as unrelated. Furthermore, we show that as path length between word-pairs increases, success in free- and cued-recall decreases. Finally, we demonstrate how our measure outperforms computational methods measuring semantic distance (LSA and positive pointwise mutual information) in predicting participants RT and subjective judgments of semantic strength. Thus, we provide a computational alternative to computing semantic distance. Furthermore, this approach addresses key issues in cognitive theory, namely the breadth of the spreading activation process and the effect of semantic distance on memory retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Mechanisms of remembering the past and imagining the future--new data from autobiographical memory tasks in a lifespan approach.

PubMed

Abram, M; Picard, L; Navarro, B; Piolino, P

2014-10-01

We investigated the episodic/semantic distinction in remembering the past and imagining the future and explored cognitive mechanisms predicting events' specificity throughout the lifespan. Eighty-three 6- to 81-year-old participants, divided into 5 age groups, underwent past, present and future episodic (events' evocation) and semantic (self-descriptions) autobiographical tasks and a complementary cognitive test battery (executive functions, working and episodic memory). The main results showed age effects on episodic events' evocation indicating an inverted U function (i.e., developmental progression from 6 to 21years and aging decline). By contrast, age effects were slighter on self-descriptions while self-defining events' evocation increased with age. Furthermore, age effects on episodic events' evocation were mainly mediated by age effects on cognitive functions and personal semantics. These new findings indicate a developmental and aging episodic/semantic distinction for both remembering the past and imagining the future, and suggest that above similarities, these abilities could have a fundamentally different basis. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mechanisms of masked evaluative priming: task sets modulate behavioral and electrophysiological priming for picture and words differentially

PubMed Central

Liegel, Nathalie; Zovko, Monika; Wentura, Dirk

2017-01-01

Abstract Research with the evaluative priming paradigm has shown that affective evaluation processes reliably influence cognition and behavior, even when triggered outside awareness. However, the precise mechanisms underlying such subliminal evaluative priming effects, response activation vs semantic processing, are matter of a debate. In this study, we determined the relative contribution of semantic processing and response activation to masked evaluative priming with pictures and words. To this end, we investigated the modulation of masked pictorial vs verbal priming by previously activated perceptual vs semantic task sets and assessed the electrophysiological correlates of priming using event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Behavioral and electrophysiological effects showed a differential modulation of pictorial and verbal subliminal priming by previously activated task sets: Pictorial priming was only observed during the perceptual but not during the semantic task set. Verbal priming, in contrast, was found when either task set was activated. Furthermore, only verbal priming was associated with a modulation of the N400 ERP component, an index of semantic processing, whereas a priming-related modulation of earlier ERPs, indexing visuo-motor S-R activation, was found for both picture and words. The results thus demonstrate that different neuro-cognitive processes contribute to unconscious evaluative priming depending on the stimulus format. PMID:27998994

Differential Prefrontal and Frontotemporal Oxygenation Patterns during Phonemic and Semantic Verbal Fluency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tupak, Sara V.; Badewien, Meike; Dresler, Thomas; Hahn, Tim; Ernst, Lena H.; Herrmann, Martin J.; Fallgatter, Andreas J.; Ehlis, Ann-Christine

2012-01-01

Movement artifacts are still considered a problematic issue for imaging research on overt language production. This motion-sensitivity can be overcome by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). In the present study, 50 healthy subjects performed a combined phonemic and semantic overt verbal fluency task while frontal and temporal cortex…

The modulating effect of education on semantic interference during healthy aging.

PubMed

Paolieri, Daniela; Marful, Alejandra; Morales, Luis; Bajo, María Teresa

2018-01-01

Aging has traditionally been related to impairments in name retrieval. These impairments have usually been explained by a phonological transmission deficit hypothesis or by an inhibitory deficit hypothesis. This decline can, however, be modulated by the educational level of the sample. This study analyzed the possible role of these approaches in explaining both object and face naming impairments during aging. Older adults with low and high educational level and young adults with high educational level were asked to repeatedly name objects or famous people using the semantic-blocking paradigm. We compared naming when exemplars were presented in a semantically homogeneous or in a semantically heterogeneous context. Results revealed significantly slower rates of both face and object naming in the homogeneous context (i.e., semantic interference), with a stronger effect for face naming. Interestingly, the group of older adults with a lower educational level showed an increased semantic interference effect during face naming. These findings suggest the joint work of the two mechanisms proposed to explain age-related naming difficulties, i.e., the inhibitory deficit and the transmission deficit hypothesis. Therefore, the stronger vulnerability to semantic interference in the lower educated older adult sample would possibly point to a failure in the inhibitory mechanisms in charge of interference resolution, as proposed by the inhibitory deficit hypothesis. In addition, the fact that this interference effect was mainly restricted to face naming and not to object naming would be consistent with the increased age-related difficulties during proper name retrieval, as suggested by the transmission deficit hypothesis.

The modulating effect of education on semantic interference during healthy aging

PubMed Central

Morales, Luis; Bajo, María Teresa

2018-01-01

Aging has traditionally been related to impairments in name retrieval. These impairments have usually been explained by a phonological transmission deficit hypothesis or by an inhibitory deficit hypothesis. This decline can, however, be modulated by the educational level of the sample. This study analyzed the possible role of these approaches in explaining both object and face naming impairments during aging. Older adults with low and high educational level and young adults with high educational level were asked to repeatedly name objects or famous people using the semantic-blocking paradigm. We compared naming when exemplars were presented in a semantically homogeneous or in a semantically heterogeneous context. Results revealed significantly slower rates of both face and object naming in the homogeneous context (i.e., semantic interference), with a stronger effect for face naming. Interestingly, the group of older adults with a lower educational level showed an increased semantic interference effect during face naming. These findings suggest the joint work of the two mechanisms proposed to explain age-related naming difficulties, i.e., the inhibitory deficit and the transmission deficit hypothesis. Therefore, the stronger vulnerability to semantic interference in the lower educated older adult sample would possibly point to a failure in the inhibitory mechanisms in charge of interference resolution, as proposed by the inhibitory deficit hypothesis. In addition, the fact that this interference effect was mainly restricted to face naming and not to object naming would be consistent with the increased age-related difficulties during proper name retrieval, as suggested by the transmission deficit hypothesis. PMID:29370252

Dynamic switching between semantic and episodic memory systems.

PubMed

Kompus, Kristiina; Olsson, Carl-Johan; Larsson, Anne; Nyberg, Lars

2009-09-01

It has been suggested that episodic and semantic long-term memory systems interact during retrieval. Here we examined the flexibility of memory retrieval in an associative task taxing memories of different strength, assumed to differentially engage episodic and semantic memory. Healthy volunteers were pre-trained on a set of 36 face-name pairs over a 6-week period. Another set of 36 items was shown only once during the same time period. About 3 months after the training period all items were presented in a randomly intermixed order in an event-related fMRI study of face-name memory. Once presented items differentially activated anterior cingulate cortex and a right prefrontal region that previously have been associated with episodic retrieval mode. High-familiar items were associated with stronger activation of posterior cortices and a left frontal region. These findings fit a model of memory retrieval by which early processes determine, on a trial-by-trial basis, if the task can be solved by the default semantic system. If not, there is a dynamic shift to cognitive control processes that guide retrieval from episodic memory.

Form and meaning in early morphological processing: Comment on Feldman, O'Connor, and Moscoso del Prado Martin (2009).

PubMed

Davis, Matthew H; Rastle, Kathleen

2010-10-01

Feldman, O'Connor, and Moscoso del Prado Martín (2009) reported evidence for differential priming of semantically transparent (talker-talk) and semantically opaque (corner-corn) morphological pairs under masked presentation conditions. The present commentary argues that these data should not call into question the theory that morphologically structured words undergo a segmentation process based solely on form, because (1) these results do not contradict existing evidence for morpho-orthographic segmentation, (2) funnel plots suggest that the lack of priming observed for semantically opaque items in this study is inconsistent with findings in the existing literature, and (3) orthographic characteristics of the semantically opaque pairs in this study (rather than semantic factors) are the most likely explanation for these discrepant results.

Biomarker validation of a decline in semantic processing in preclinical Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Papp, Kathryn V; Mormino, Elizabeth C; Amariglio, Rebecca E; Munro, Catherine; Dagley, Alex; Schultz, Aaron P; Johnson, Keith A; Sperling, Reisa A; Rentz, Dorene M

2016-07-01

Differentially worse performance on category versus letter fluency suggests greater semantic versus retrieval difficulties. This discrepancy, combined with reduced episodic memory, has widespread clinical utility in diagnosing Alzheimer's disease (AD). Our objective was to investigate whether changes in semantic processing, as measured by the discrepancy between category and letter fluency, was detectable in preclinical AD: in clinically normal older adults with abnormal β-amyloid (Aβ) deposition on positron emission tomography (PET) neuroimaging. Clinically normal older adults (mean Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) score = 29) were classified as Aβ+ (n = 70) or Aβ- (n = 205) using Pittsburgh Compound B-(PET) imaging. Participants completed letter fluency (FAS; word generation to letters F-A-S) and category fluency (CAT; word generation to animals, vegetables, fruits) annually (mean follow-up = 2.42 years). The effect of Aβ status on fluency over time was examined using linear mixed models controlling for age, sex, and education. To dissociate effects related to semantic (CAT) versus retrieval processes (CAT and FAS), we repeated models predicting CAT over time, controlling for FAS and likewise for CAT controlling for FAS. At baseline, the Aβ+ group performed better on FAS compared with the Aβ- group but comparably on CAT. Longitudinally, the Aβ+ group demonstrated greater decline on CAT compared with the Aβ- group (p = .0011). This finding remained significant even when covarying for FAS (p = .0107). Aβ+ participants similarly declined compared with Aβ- participants on FAS (p = .0112), but this effect became insignificant when covarying for CAT (p = .1607). These findings provide biomarker validation for the greater specificity of declines in category versus letter fluency to underlying AD pathology. Our results also suggest that changes in semantic processing occur earlier in the AD trajectory than previously hypothesized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

ERPs, semantic processing and age.

PubMed

Miyamoto, T; Katayama, J; Koyama, T

1998-06-01

ERPs (N400, LPC and CNV) were elicited in two sets of subjects grouped according to age (young vs. elderly) using a word-pair category matching paradigm. Each prime consisted of a Japanese noun (constructed from two to four characters of the Hiragana) followed by one Chinese character (Kanji) as the target, this latter representing one of five semantic categories. There were two equally probable target conditions: match or mismatch. Each target was preceded by a prime, either belonging to, or not belonging to, the same semantic category. The subjects were required to respond with a specified button press to the given target according to the condition. We found RTs to be longer in the elderly subjects and under the mismatch condition. N400 amplitude was reduced in the elderly subjects under the mismatch condition and there was no difference between match and mismatch response, which were similar in amplitude to that under match condition for the young subjects. In addition, the CNV amplitudes were larger in the elderly subjects. These results suggested that functional changes in semantic processing through aging (larger semantic networks and diffuse semantic activation) were the cause of this N400 reduction, attributing a subsidiary role to attentional disturbance. We also discuss the importance of taking age-related changes into consideration in clinical studies.

Quality of pre-school children's pretend play and subsequent development of semantic organization and narrative re-telling skills.

PubMed

Stagnitti, Karen; Lewis, Fiona M

2015-04-01

This study investigated if the quality of pre-school children's pretend play predicted their semantic organization and narrative re-telling ability when they were in early primary school. It was hypothesized that the elaborateness of a child's play and the child's use of symbols in play were predictors of their semantic organization and narrative re-tell scores of the School Age Oral Language Assessment. Forty-eight children were assessed using the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment when they were aged 4-5 years. Three-to-five years after this assessment their semantic organization and narrative re-telling skills were assessed. Results indicate that the elaborateness of a child's play and their ability to use symbols was predictive of semantic organization skills. Use of symbols in play was the strongest play predictor of narrative re-telling skills. The quality of a pre-school child's ability to elaborate complex sequences in pretend play and use symbols predicted up to 20% of a child's semantic organization and narrative re-telling skills up to 5 years later. The study provides evidence that the quality of pretend play in 4-5 year olds is important for semantic organization and narrative re-telling abilities in the school-aged child.

An Attribute-Treatment Interaction Study: Lexical-Set versus Semantically-Unrelated Vocabulary Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hashemi, Mohammad Reza; Gowdasiaei, Farah

2005-01-01

The purpose of the current study was (a) to assess the effectiveness of the lexical-set (LS) and the semantically-unrelated (SU) vocabulary instruction, separately and relative to each other, and (b) to assess the differential effects of the two methods for students of lower and upper English proficiency levels. Two intact EFL classes were…

The Construct Validity of Higher Order Factors Emphasizing Symbolic and Semantic Content Abilities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khattab, Ali-Maher

This study investigates the extent to which the higher order factors of symbolic and semantic content are differentiated. The main concern is an expository description of the use of confirmatory factor analysis in establishing factorial validity. Reanalyzed data originally collected in 1968 involved a sample of 197 tenth, eleventh and twelfth…

Developmental changes in the neural influence of sublexical information on semantic processing.

PubMed

Lee, Shu-Hui; Booth, James R; Chou, Tai-Li

2015-07-01

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the developmental changes in a group of normally developing children (aged 8-12) and adolescents (aged 13-16) during semantic processing. We manipulated association strength (i.e. a global reading unit) and semantic radical (i.e. a local reading unit) to explore the interaction of lexical and sublexical semantic information in making semantic judgments. In the semantic judgment task, two types of stimuli were used: visually-similar (i.e. shared a semantic radical) versus visually-dissimilar (i.e. did not share a semantic radical) character pairs. Participants were asked to indicate if two Chinese characters, arranged according to association strength, were related in meaning. The results showed greater developmental increases in activation in left angular gyrus (BA 39) in the visually-similar compared to the visually-dissimilar pairs for the strong association. There were also greater age-related increases in angular gyrus for the strong compared to weak association in the visually-similar pairs. Both of these results suggest that shared semantics at the sublexical level facilitates the integration of overlapping features at the lexical level in older children. In addition, there was a larger developmental increase in left posterior middle temporal gyrus (BA 21) for the weak compared to strong association in the visually-dissimilar pairs, suggesting conflicting sublexical information placed greater demands on access to lexical representations in the older children. All together, these results suggest that older children are more sensitive to sublexical information when processing lexical representations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Local Geometry of Multiattribute Tradeoff Preferences

PubMed Central

McGeachie, Michael; Doyle, Jon

2011-01-01

Existing representations for multiattribute ceteris paribus preference statements have provided useful treatments and clear semantics for qualitative comparisons, but have not provided similarly clear representations or semantics for comparisons involving quantitative tradeoffs. We use directional derivatives and other concepts from elementary differential geometry to interpret conditional multiattribute ceteris paribus preference comparisons that state bounds on quantitative tradeoff ratios. This semantics extends the familiar economic notion of marginal rate of substitution to multiple continuous or discrete attributes. The same geometric concepts also provide means for interpreting statements about the relative importance of different attributes. PMID:21528018

Longitudinal Study of a Novel, Performance-based Measure of Daily Function

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-06-01

have functional impairments, and healthy age matched controls on the UPSA, as well as measures of cognition (e.g., episodic memory , semantic memory ...controls on the UPSA, as well as measures of cognition (e.g., episodic memory , semantic memory , executive function, speed). We found that patients with...diagnosis have functional impairments, and healthy age matched controls on the UPSA, as well as measures of cognition (e.g., episodic memory , semantic

Acoustic and semantic interference effects in words and pictures.

PubMed

Dhawan, M; Pellegrino, J W

1977-05-01

Interference effects for pictures and words were investigated using a probe-recall task. Word stimuli showed acoustic interference effects for items at the end of the list and semantic interference effects for items at the beginning of the list, similar to results of Kintsch and Buschke (1969). Picture stimuli showed large semantic interference effects at all list positions with smaller acoustic interference effects. The results were related to latency data on picture-word processing and interpreted in terms of the differential order, probability, and/or speed of access to acoustic and semantic levels of processing. A levels of processing explanation of picture-word retention differences was related to dual coding theory. Both theoretical positions converge on an explanation of picture-word retention differences as a function of the relative capacity for semantic or associative processing.

A Diffusion Model Analysis of Adult Age Differences in Episodic and Semantic Long-Term Memory Retrieval

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spaniol, Julia; Madden, David J.; Voss, Andreas

2006-01-01

Two experiments investigated adult age differences in episodic and semantic long-term memory tasks, as a test of the hypothesis of specific age-related decline in context memory. Older adults were slower and exhibited lower episodic accuracy than younger adults. Fits of the diffusion model (R. Ratcliff, 1978) revealed age-related increases in…

The Development of Semantic Knowledge Systems for Realistic Goals.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldman, Susan R.

This study investigates age differences in children's semantic expectations regarding causal relations in stories about three realistic goal situations (being friendly, getting a dog, and doing chores). Twenty children at each of three age levels (ages 6, 9, and 12) were asked to produce stories and answer probe questions about wanting and not…

Semantic Priming During Sentence Processing by Young and Older Adults.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burke, Deborah M.; Yee, Penny L.

1984-01-01

Compares the semantic processing skills of younger adults (mean age 25) and older adults (mean age 68). After reading a sentence, subjects performed a task in which responses did not depend on retention. Results provided no evidence for age-related changes, including those associated with access to implied information. (Author/RH)

Age-related differences in recall for words using semantics and prosody.

PubMed

Sober, Jonathan D; VanWormer, Lisa A; Arruda, James E

2016-01-01

The positivity effect is a developmental shift seen in older adults to be increasingly influenced by positive information in areas such as memory, attention, and decision-making. This study is the first to examine the age-related differences of the positivity effect for emotional prosody. Participants heard a factorial combination of words that were semantically positive or negative said with either positive or negative intonation. Results showed a semantic positivity effect for older adults, and a prosody positivity effect for younger adults. Additionally, older adults showed a significant decrease in recall for semantically negative words said in an incongruent prosodically positive tone.

Adult and Child Semantic Neighbors of the Kroll and Potter (1984) Nonobjects

PubMed Central

Storkel, Holly L.; Adlof, Suzanne M.

2008-01-01

Purpose The purpose was to determine the number of semantic neighbors, namely semantic set size, for 88 nonobjects (Kroll & Potter, 1984) and determine how semantic set size related to other measures and age. Method Data were collected from 82 adults and 92 preschool children in a discrete association task. The nonobjects were presented via computer, and participants reported the first word that came to mind that was meaningfully related to the nonobject. Words reported by two or more participants were considered semantic neighbors. The strength of each neighbor was computed as the proportion of participants who reported the neighbor. Results Results showed that semantic set size was not significantly correlated with objectlikeness ratings or object decision reaction times from Kroll and Potter (1984). However, semantic set size was significantly negatively correlated with the strength of the strongest neighbor(s). In terms of age effects, adult and child semantic set sizes were significantly positively correlated and the majority of numeric differences were on the order of 0–3 neighbors. Comparison of actual neighbors showed greater discrepancies; however, this varied by neighbor strength. Conclusions Semantic set size can be determined for nonobjects. Specific guidelines are suggested for using these nonobjects in future research. PMID:19252127

Modulation of the inter-hemispheric processing of semantic information during normal aging. A divided visual field experiment.

PubMed

Hoyau, E; Cousin, E; Jaillard, A; Baciu, M

2016-12-01

We evaluated the effect of normal aging on the inter-hemispheric processing of semantic information by using the divided visual field (DVF) method, with words and pictures. Two main theoretical models have been considered, (a) the HAROLD model which posits that aging is associated with supplementary recruitment of the right hemisphere (RH) and decreased hemispheric specialization, and (b) the RH decline theory, which assumes that the RH becomes less efficient with aging, associated with increased LH specialization. Two groups of subjects were examined, a Young Group (YG) and an Old Group (OG), while participants performed a semantic categorization task (living vs. non-living) in words and pictures. The DVF was realized in two steps: (a) unilateral DVF presentation with stimuli presented separately in each visual field, left or right, allowing for their initial processing by only one hemisphere, right or left, respectively; (b) bilateral DVF presentation (BVF) with stimuli presented simultaneously in both visual fields, followed by their processing by both hemispheres. These two types of presentation permitted the evaluation of two main characteristics of the inter-hemispheric processing of information, the hemispheric specialization (HS) and the inter-hemispheric cooperation (IHC). Moreover, the BVF allowed determining the driver-hemisphere for processing information presented in BVF. Results obtained in OG indicated that: (a) semantic categorization was performed as accurately as YG, even if more slowly, (b) a non-semantic RH decline was observed, and (c) the LH controls the semantic processing during the BVF, suggesting an increased role of the LH in aging. However, despite the stronger involvement of the LH in OG, the RH is not completely devoid of semantic abilities. As discussed in the paper, neither the HAROLD nor the RH decline does fully explain this pattern of results. We rather suggest that the effect of aging on the hemispheric specialization and inter-hemispheric cooperation during semantic processing is explained not by only one model, but by an interaction between several complementary mechanisms and models. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mechanisms of masked evaluative priming: task sets modulate behavioral and electrophysiological priming for picture and words differentially.

PubMed

Kiefer, Markus; Liegel, Nathalie; Zovko, Monika; Wentura, Dirk

2017-04-01

Research with the evaluative priming paradigm has shown that affective evaluation processes reliably influence cognition and behavior, even when triggered outside awareness. However, the precise mechanisms underlying such subliminal evaluative priming effects, response activation vs semantic processing, are matter of a debate. In this study, we determined the relative contribution of semantic processing and response activation to masked evaluative priming with pictures and words. To this end, we investigated the modulation of masked pictorial vs verbal priming by previously activated perceptual vs semantic task sets and assessed the electrophysiological correlates of priming using event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Behavioral and electrophysiological effects showed a differential modulation of pictorial and verbal subliminal priming by previously activated task sets: Pictorial priming was only observed during the perceptual but not during the semantic task set. Verbal priming, in contrast, was found when either task set was activated. Furthermore, only verbal priming was associated with a modulation of the N400 ERP component, an index of semantic processing, whereas a priming-related modulation of earlier ERPs, indexing visuo-motor S-R activation, was found for both picture and words. The results thus demonstrate that different neuro-cognitive processes contribute to unconscious evaluative priming depending on the stimulus format. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Dissociation of lexical syntax and semantics: evidence from focal cortical degeneration.

PubMed

Garrard, P; Carroll, E; Vinson, D; Vigliocco, G

2004-10-01

The question of whether information relevant to meaning (semantics) and structure (syntax) relies on a common language processor or on separate subsystems has proved difficult to address definitively because of the confounds involved in comparing the two types of information. At the sentence level syntactic and semantic judgments make different cognitive demands, while at the single word level, the most commonly used syntactic distinction (between nouns and verbs) is confounded with a fundamental semantic difference (between objects and actions). The present study employs a different syntactic contrast (between count nouns and mass nouns), which is crossed with a semantic difference (between naturally occurring and man-made substances) applying to words within a circumscribed semantic field (foodstuffs). We show, first, that grammaticality judgments of a patient with semantic dementia are indistinguishable from those of a group of age-matched controls, and are similar regardless of the status of his semantic knowledge about the item. In a second experiment we use the triadic task in a group of age-matched controls to show that similarity judgments are influenced not only by meaning (natural vs. manmade), but also implicitly by syntactic information (count vs. mass). Using the same task in a patient with semantic dementia we show that the semantic influences on the syntactic dimension are unlikely to account for this pattern in normals. These data are discussed in relation to modular vs. nonmodular models of language processing, and in particular to the semantic-syntactic distinction.

When the Wedding March becomes sad: Semantic memory impairment for music in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia.

PubMed

Macoir, Joël; Berubé-Lalancette, Sarah; Wilson, Maximiliano A; Laforce, Robert; Hudon, Carol; Gravel, Pierre; Potvin, Olivier; Duchesne, Simon; Monetta, Laura

2016-12-01

Music can induce particular emotions and activate semantic knowledge. In the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (svPPA), semantic memory is impaired as a result of anterior temporal lobe (ATL) atrophy. Semantics is responsible for the encoding and retrieval of factual knowledge about music, including associative and emotional attributes. In the present study, we report the performance of two individuals with svPPA in three experiments. NG with bilateral ATL atrophy and ND with atrophy largely restricted to the left ATL. Experiment 1 assessed the recognition of musical excerpts and both patients were unimpaired. Experiment 2 studied the emotions conveyed by music and only NG showed impaired performance. Experiment 3 tested the association of semantic concepts to musical excerpts and both patients were impaired. These results suggest that the right ATL seems essential for the recognition of emotions conveyed by music and that the left ATL is involved in binding music to semantics. They are in line with the notion that the ATLs are devoted to the binding of different modality-specific properties and suggest that they are also differentially involved in the processing of factual and emotional knowledge associated with music.

Personal semantics: Is it distinct from episodic and semantic memory? An electrophysiological study of memory for autobiographical facts and repeated events in honor of Shlomo Bentin.

PubMed

Renoult, Louis; Tanguay, Annick; Beaudry, Myriam; Tavakoli, Paniz; Rabipour, Sheida; Campbell, Kenneth; Moscovitch, Morris; Levine, Brian; Davidson, Patrick S R

2016-03-01

Declarative memory is thought to consist of two independent systems: episodic and semantic. Episodic memory represents personal and contextually unique events, while semantic memory represents culturally-shared, acontextual factual knowledge. Personal semantics refers to aspects of declarative memory that appear to fall somewhere in between the extremes of episodic and semantic. Examples include autobiographical knowledge and memories of repeated personal events. These two aspects of personal semantics have been studied little and rarely compared to both semantic and episodic memory. We recorded the event-related potentials (ERPs) of 27 healthy participants while they verified the veracity of sentences probing four types of questions: general (i.e., semantic) facts, autobiographical facts, repeated events, and unique (i.e., episodic) events. Behavioral results showed equivalent reaction times in all 4 conditions. True sentences were verified faster than false sentences, except for unique events for which no significant difference was observed. Electrophysiological results showed that the N400 (which is classically associated with retrieval from semantic memory) was maximal for general facts and the LPC (which is classically associated with retrieval from episodic memory) was maximal for unique events. For both ERP components, the two personal semantic conditions (i.e., autobiographical facts and repeated events) systematically differed from semantic memory. In addition, N400 amplitudes also differentiated autobiographical facts from unique events. Autobiographical facts and repeated events did not differ significantly from each other but their corresponding scalp distributions differed from those associated with general facts. Our results suggest that the neural correlates of personal semantics can be distinguished from those of semantic and episodic memory, and may provide clues as to how unique events are transformed to semantic memory. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Age-Related Brain Activation Changes during Rule Repetition in Word-Matching.

PubMed

Methqal, Ikram; Pinsard, Basile; Amiri, Mahnoush; Wilson, Maximiliano A; Monchi, Oury; Provost, Jean-Sebastien; Joanette, Yves

2017-01-01

Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore the age-related brain activation changes during a word-matching semantic-category-based task, which required either repeating or changing a semantic rule to be applied. In order to do so, a word-semantic rule-based task was adapted from the Wisconsin Sorting Card Test, involving the repeated feedback-driven selection of given pairs of words based on semantic category-based criteria. Method: Forty healthy adults (20 younger and 20 older) performed a word-matching task while undergoing a fMRI scan in which they were required to pair a target word with another word from a group of three words. The required pairing is based on three word-pair semantic rules which correspond to different levels of semantic control demands: functional relatedness, moderately typical-relatedness (which were considered as low control demands), and atypical-relatedness (high control demands). The sorting period consisted of a continuous execution of the same sorting rule and an inferred trial-by-trial feedback was given. Results: Behavioral performance revealed increases in response times and decreases of correct responses according to the level of semantic control demands (functional vs. typical vs. atypical) for both age groups (younger and older) reflecting graded differences in the repetition of the application of a given semantic rule. Neuroimaging findings of significant brain activation showed two main results: (1) Greater task-related activation changes for the repetition of the application of atypical rules relative to typical and functional rules, and (2) Changes (older > younger) in the inferior prefrontal regions for functional rules and more extensive and bilateral activations for typical and atypical rules. Regarding the inter-semantic rules comparison, only task-related activation differences were observed for functional > typical (e.g., inferior parietal and temporal regions bilaterally) and atypical > typical (e.g., prefrontal, inferior parietal, posterior temporal, and subcortical regions). Conclusion: These results suggest that healthy cognitive aging relies on the adaptive changes of inferior prefrontal resources involved in the repetitive execution of semantic rules, thus reflecting graded differences in support of task demands.

Distinct neural substrates for semantic knowledge and naming in the temporoparietal network.

PubMed

Gesierich, Benno; Jovicich, Jorge; Riello, Marianna; Adriani, Michela; Monti, Alessia; Brentari, Valentina; Robinson, Simon D; Wilson, Stephen M; Fairhall, Scott L; Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa

2012-10-01

Patients with anterior temporal lobe (ATL) lesions show semantic and lexical retrieval deficits, and the differential role of this area in the 2 processes is debated. Functional neuroimaging in healthy individuals has not clarified the matter because semantic and lexical processes usually occur simultaneously and automatically. Furthermore, the ATL is a region challenging for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) due to susceptibility artifacts, especially at high fields. In this study, we established an optimized ATL-sensitive fMRI acquisition protocol at 4 T and applied an event-related paradigm to study the identification (i.e., association of semantic biographical information) of celebrities, with and without the ability to retrieve their proper names. While semantic processing reliably activated the ATL, only more posterior areas in the left temporal and temporal-parietal junction were significantly modulated by covert lexical retrieval. These results suggest that within a temporoparietal network, the ATL is relatively more important for semantic processing, and posterior language regions are relatively more important for lexical retrieval.

Differential patterns of contextual organization of memory in first-episode psychosis.

PubMed

Murty, Vishnu P; McKinney, Rachel A; DuBrow, Sarah; Jalbrzikowski, Maria; Haas, Gretchen L; Luna, Beatriz

2018-02-15

Contextual information is used to support and organize episodic memory. Prior research has reliably shown memory deficits in psychosis; however, little research has characterized how this population uses contextual information during memory recall. We employed an approach founded in a computational framework of free recall to quantify how individuals with first episode of psychosis (FEP, N = 97) and controls (CON, N = 55) use temporal and semantic context to organize memory recall. Free recall was characterized using the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R). We compared FEP and CON on three measures of free recall: proportion recalled, temporal clustering, and semantic clustering. Measures of temporal/semantic clustering quantified how individuals use contextual information to organize memory recall. We also assessed to what extent these measures relate to antipsychotic use and differentiated between different types of psychosis. We also explored the relationship between these measures and intelligence. In comparison to CON, FEP had reduced recall and less temporal clustering during free recall (p < 0.05, Bonferroni-corrected), and showed a trend towards greater semantic clustering (p = 0.10, Bonferroni-corrected). Within FEP, antipsychotic use and diagnoses did not differentiate between free recall accuracy or contextual organization of memory. IQ was related to free recall accuracy, but not the use of contextual information during recall in either group (p < 0.05, Bonferroni-corrected). These results show that in addition to deficits in memory recall, FEP differed in how they organize memories compared to CON.

Phonological fluency strategy of switching differentiates relapsing-remitting and secondary progressive multiple sclerosis patients.

PubMed

Messinis, L; Kosmidis, M H; Vlahou, C; Malegiannaki, A C; Gatzounis, G; Dimisianos, N; Karra, A; Kiosseoglou, G; Gourzis, P; Papathanasopoulos, P

2013-01-01

The strategies used to perform a verbal fluency task appear to be reflective of cognitive abilities necessary for successful daily functioning. In the present study, we explored potential differences in verbal fluency strategies (switching and clustering) used to maximize word production by patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) versus patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS). We further assessed impairment rates and potential differences in the sensitivity and specificity of phonological versus semantic verbal fluency tasks in discriminating between those with a diagnosis of MS and healthy adults. We found that the overall rate of impaired verbal fluency in our MS sample was consistent with that in other studies. However, we found no differences between types of MS (SPMS, RRMS), on semantic or phonological fluency word production, or the strategies used to maximize semantic fluency. In contrast, we found that the number of switches differed significantly in the phonological fluency task between the SPMS and RRMS subtypes. The clinical utility of semantic versus phonological fluency in discriminating MS patients from healthy controls did not indicate any significant differences. Further, the strategies used to maximize performance did not differentiate MS subgroups or MS patients from healthy controls.

Application of a Brazilian test of expressive vocabulary in European Portuguese children.

PubMed

Cáceres-Assenço, Ana Manhani; Ferreira, Sandra Cristina Araújo; Santos, Anabela Cruz; Befi-Lopes, Debora Maria

2018-01-01

Objective to investigate the performance of European Portuguese children in a Brazilian test of expressive vocabulary, seeking to identify differences between age groups and gender, and to verify its applicability in this population. Methods the sample consisted of 150 typical developed children, of both genders, between the ages of 5 and 6. All children attended public schools in the north area of Portugal. To assess the semantic performance, the expressive vocabulary sub-test of the language test (ABFW) was used, considering the percentage of usual verbal assignments and the classification (adequate/inadequate) according to the Brazilian reference values. Results the performance of the European Portuguese children indicated that at age 6 they have a higher percentage of correct answers in expressive vocabulary. As for the gender, there were only occasional differences: the girls showed a greater dominance in the semantic fields of clothing (both ages) and furniture and utensils (at age 5), whereas the boys showed more dominance in the semantic field means of transportation (6 years). Regarding classification, there was no difference between age groups in overall performance. Only the semantic field shapes and colors had more individuals of 6 years with inadequate performance. Conclusion the reference values adopted in the Brazilian population for semantic performance indicated that more than 80% of the children of each age group could have their performance classified as adequate. Such evidence suggests that this tool shows potential as an instrument of quantitative vocabulary's assessment of 5 and 6-years old children in European Portuguese.

A Semantic Labeling of the Environment Based on What People Do.

PubMed

Crespo, Jonathan; Gómez, Clara; Hernández, Alejandra; Barber, Ramón

2017-01-29

In this work, a system is developed for semantic labeling of locations based on what people do. This system is useful for semantic navigation of mobile robots. The system differentiates environments according to what people do in them. Background sound, number of people in a room and amount of movement of those people are items to be considered when trying to tell if people are doing different actions. These data are sampled, and it is assumed that people behave differently and perform different actions. A support vector machine is trained with the obtained samples, and therefore, it allows one to identify the room. Finally, the results are discussed and support the hypothesis that the proposed system can help to semantically label a room.

Semantic Development in Spanish-English Bilingual Children: Effects of Age and Language Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sheng, Li; Bedore, Lisa M.; Pena, Elizabeth D.; Fiestas, Christine

2013-01-01

This study examines semantic development in 60 Spanish-English bilingual children, ages 7 years 3 months to 9 years 11 months, who differed orthogonally in age (younger, older) and language experience (higher English experience [HEE], higher Spanish experience [HSE]). Children produced 3 associations to 12 pairs of translation equivalents. Older…

Differences in age-dependent neural correlates of semantic processing between youths with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing youths.

PubMed

Chen, Pin-Jane; Gau, Susan Shur-Fen; Lee, Shu-Hui; Chou, Tai-Li

2016-12-01

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have aberrant neural activity during semantic judgments. We aimed to examine age-dependent neural correlates of semantic processing in boys with ASD as compared to typically developing boys (TD). We used functional MRI to investigate 37 boys with ASD (mean age = 13.3 years, standard deviation = 2.4) and 35 age-, sex-, Intelligence quotient (IQ)- and handedness-matched TD boys (mean age = 13.3 years, standard deviation = 2.7) from age 8 to 18 years. Participants had to indicate whether pairs of Chinese characters presented visually were related in meaning. Group (ASD, TD) × Age (Old, Young) ANOVA was used to examine the difference of age-related changes. Direct comparisons between the adolescent group and the child group were also performed. The behavioral results showed that the ASD group had lower accuracy in the related condition relative to the TD group. The neuroimaging results showed greater activation in the cuneus and less activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus in boys with ASD than TD boys. Children with ASD produced greater activation in the cuneus than TD children. Adolescents with ASD showed reduced left IFG activation as compared to TD adolescents. Our findings suggest that TD boys may engage more in higher-level processing of retrieving or selecting semantic features while boys with ASD may rely more on lower-level visual processing during semantic judgments. The findings imply different functional organizations of the semantic system between the two groups. Autism Res 2016, 9: 1263-1273. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Inducing and assessing differentiated emotion-feeling states in the laboratory.

PubMed

Philippot, P

1993-03-01

Two questions are addressed. The first question pertains to the capacity of film segments to induce emotional states that are: (a) as comparable as possible to naturally occurring emotions; (b) similar across individuals; and (c) clearly differentiated across the intended emotions. The second question concerns the discriminant capacity of self-report questionnaires of emotion-feeling states differing in their theoretical assumptions. Subjects viewed six short film segments and rated the strength of their responses on one of three kinds of questionnaires. The questionnaires were: (1) the Differential Emotions Scale that postulates category-based distinctions between emotions; (2) the Semantic Differential that postulates that emotions are distinguished along bipolar dimensions; and (3) free labelling of their feelings by the subjects (control condition with no theoretical a priori). Overall, results indicate that film segments can elicit a diversity of predictable emotions, in the same way, in a majority of individuals. In the present procedure, the Differential Emotions Scale yielded a better discrimination between emotional states than the Semantic Differential. Implications for emotion research and theories of the cognitive structure of emotion are discussed.

Differential interference effects of negative emotional states on subsequent semantic and perceptual processing

PubMed Central

Gorlick, Marissa A.; Mather, Mara

2012-01-01

Past studies have revealed that encountering negative events interferes with cognitive processing of subsequent stimuli. The present study investigated whether negative events affect semantic and perceptual processing differently. Presentation of negative pictures produced slower reaction times than neutral or positive pictures in tasks that require semantic processing, such as natural/man-made judgments about drawings of objects, commonness judgments about objects, and categorical judgments about pairs of words. In contrast, negative picture presentation did not slow down judgments in subsequent perceptual processing (e.g., color judgments about words, and size judgments about objects). The subjective arousal level of negative pictures did not modulate the interference effects on semantic/perceptual processing. These findings indicate that encountering negative emotional events interferes with semantic processing of subsequent stimuli more strongly than perceptual processing, and that not all types of subsequent cognitive processing are impaired by negative events. PMID:22142207

On the influence of affective states on intuitive coherence judgements.

PubMed

Balas, Robert; Sweklej, Joanna; Pochwatko, Grzegorz; Godlewska, Malgorzata

2012-01-01

Recent research has shown that coherence judgements of semantically related word triads are facilitated by a subtle positive response triggered by their increased fluency of processing. Such positive affective response serves as a cue indicating semantic coherence. However, we argue that the fluency of processing is not the only source of affective response that can influence intuitive judgements. The present study investigated differential influences of mood and affective valence of solution words on intuitive coherence judgements. We show that affective cues resulting from processing fluency can be strengthened or weakened by inducing positive or negative affective response through the activation of solutions to semantically coherent triads. Also, mood is shown to impact the breadth of activated associations therefore affecting not only judgements of semantic coherence but also solvability of word triads. We discuss the implications of our findings for how people might form intuitive judgements of semantic coherence.

Differential interference effects of negative emotional states on subsequent semantic and perceptual processing.

PubMed

Sakaki, Michiko; Gorlick, Marissa A; Mather, Mara

2011-12-01

Past studies have revealed that encountering negative events interferes with cognitive processing of subsequent stimuli. The present study investigates whether negative events affect semantic and perceptual processing differently. Presentation of negative pictures produced slower reaction times than neutral or positive pictures in tasks that require semantic processing, such as natural or man-made judgments about drawings of objects, commonness judgments about objects, and categorical judgments about pairs of words. In contrast, negative picture presentation did not slow down judgments in subsequent perceptual processing (e.g., color judgments about words, size judgments about objects). The subjective arousal level of negative pictures did not modulate the interference effects on semantic or perceptual processing. These findings indicate that encountering negative emotional events interferes with semantic processing of subsequent stimuli more strongly than perceptual processing, and that not all types of subsequent cognitive processing are impaired by negative events. (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved.

Semantic Differential Scale Method Can Reveal Multi-Dimensional Aspects of Mind Perception.

PubMed

Takahashi, Hideyuki; Ban, Midori; Asada, Minoru

2016-01-01

As humans, we tend to perceive minds in both living and non-living entities, such as robots. From a questionnaire developed in a previous mind perception study, authors found that perceived minds could be located on two dimensions "experience" and "agency." This questionnaire allowed the assessment of how we perceive minds of various entities from a multi-dimensional point of view. In this questionnaire, subjects had to evaluate explicit mental capacities of target characters (e.g., capacity to feel hunger). However, we sometimes perceive minds in non-living entities, even though we cannot attribute these evidently biological capacities to the entity. In this study, we performed a large-scale web survey to assess mind perception by using the semantic differential scale method. We revealed that two mind dimensions "emotion" and "intelligence," respectively, corresponded to the two mind dimensions (experience and agency) proposed in a previous mind perception study. We did this without having to ask about specific mental capacities. We believe that the semantic differential scale is a useful method to assess the dimensions of mind perception especially for non-living entities that are hard to be attributed to biological capacities.

Semantic and episodic memory in children with temporal lobe epilepsy: do they relate to literacy skills?

PubMed

Lah, Suncica; Smith, Mary Lou

2014-01-01

Children with temporal lobe epilepsy are at risk for deficits in new learning (episodic memory) and literacy skills. Semantic memory deficits and double dissociations between episodic and semantic memory have recently been found in this patient population. In the current study we investigate whether impairments of these 2 distinct memory systems relate to literacy skills. 57 children with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy completed tests of verbal memory (episodic and semantic) and literacy skills (reading and spelling accuracy, and reading comprehension). For the entire group, semantic memory explained over 30% of variance in each of the literacy domains. Episodic memory explained a significant, but rather small proportion (< 10%) of variance in reading and spelling accuracy, but not in reading comprehension. Moreover, when children with opposite patterns of specific memory impairments (intact semantic/impaired episodic, intact episodic/impaired semantic) were compared, significant reductions in literacy skills were evident only in children with semantic memory impairments, but not in children with episodic memory impairments relative to the norms and to children with temporal lobe epilepsy who had intact memory. Our study provides the first evidence for differential relations between episodic and semantic memory impairments and literacy skills in children with temporal lobe epilepsy. As such, it highlights the urgent need to consider semantic memory deficits in management of children with temporal lobe epilepsy and undertake further research into the nature of reading difficulties of children with semantic memory impairments.

Episodic, semantic and procedural memory in a case of amnesia at an early age.

PubMed

Ostergaard, A L

1987-01-01

The patient C.C. developed an amnesic syndrome at the age of 10 yr. Like adult amnesics, C.C. demonstrated impaired episodic memory for both verbal and visual materials although immediate memory span was spared. However, striking deficits were also observed on a wide variety of semantic memory tasks, including reading vocabulary and verbal fluency tests, semantic classification and lexical decision tasks and tests of verbal intelligence. On the other hand, C.C. showed normal learning and retention of two procedural tasks. It was argued that this evidence is inconsistent with the view that the amnesic syndrome represents a selective defect of episodic memory that leaves semantic memory relatively unaffected.

Aging and Semantic Activation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Howard, Darlene V.

Three studies tested the theory that long term memory consists of a semantically organized network of concept nodes interconnected by leveled associations or relations, and that when a stimulus is processed, the corresponding concept node is assumed to be temporarily activated and this activation spreads to nearby semantically related nodes. In…

Neural correlates of lexical-semantic memory: A voxel-based morphometry study in mild AD, aMCI and normal aging

PubMed Central

Balthazar, Marcio L.F.; Yasuda, Clarissa L.; Lopes, Tátila M.; Pereira, Fabrício R.S.; Damasceno, Benito Pereira; Cendes, Fernando

2011-01-01

Neuroanatomical correlations of naming and lexical-semantic memory are not yet fully understood. The most influential approaches share the view that semantic representations reflect the manner in which information has been acquired through perception and action, and that each brain area processes different modalities of semantic representations. Despite these anatomical differences in semantic processing, generalization across different features that have similar semantic significance is one of the main characteristics of human cognition. Methods We evaluated the brain regions related to naming, and to the semantic generalization, of visually presented drawings of objects from the Boston Naming Test (BNT), which comprises different categories, such as animals, vegetables, tools, food, and furniture. In order to create a model of lesion method, a sample of 48 subjects presenting with a continuous decline both in cognitive functions, including naming skills, and in grey matter density (GMD) was compared to normal young adults with normal aging, amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Semantic errors on the BNT, as well as naming performance, were correlated with whole brain GMD as measured by voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Results The areas most strongly related to naming and to semantic errors were the medial temporal structures, thalami, superior and inferior temporal gyri, especially their anterior parts, as well as prefrontal cortices (inferior and superior frontal gyri). Conclusion The possible role of each of these areas in the lexical-semantic networks was discussed, along with their contribution to the models of semantic memory organization. PMID:29213726

Linguistic Context Versus Semantic Competition in Word Recognition by Younger and Older Adults With Cochlear Implants.

PubMed

Amichetti, Nicole M; Atagi, Eriko; Kong, Ying-Yee; Wingfield, Arthur

The increasing numbers of older adults now receiving cochlear implants raises the question of how the novel signal produced by cochlear implants may interact with cognitive aging in the recognition of words heard spoken within a linguistic context. The objective of this study was to pit the facilitative effects of a constraining linguistic context against a potential age-sensitive negative effect of response competition on effectiveness of word recognition. Younger (n = 8; mean age = 22.5 years) and older (n = 8; mean age = 67.5 years) adult implant recipients heard 20 target words as the final words in sentences that manipulated the target word's probability of occurrence within the sentence context. Data from published norms were also used to measure response entropy, calculated as the total number of different responses and the probability distribution of the responses suggested by the sentence context. Sentence-final words were presented to participants using a word-onset gating paradigm, in which a target word was presented with increasing amounts of its onset duration in 50 msec increments until the word was correctly identified. Results showed that for both younger and older adult implant users, the amount of word-onset information needed for correct recognition of sentence-final words was inversely proportional to their likelihood of occurrence within the sentence context, with older adults gaining differential advantage from the contextual constraints offered by a sentence context. On the negative side, older adults' word recognition was differentially hampered by high response entropy, with this effect being driven primarily by the number of competing responses that might also fit the sentence context. Consistent with previous research with normal-hearing younger and older adults, the present results showed older adult implant users' recognition of spoken words to be highly sensitive to linguistic context. This sensitivity, however, also resulted in a greater degree of interference from other words that might also be activated by the context, with negative effects on ease of word recognition. These results are consistent with an age-related inhibition deficit extending to the domain of semantic constraints on word recognition.

Automatic Semantic Facilitation in Anterior Temporal Cortex Revealed through Multimodal Neuroimaging

PubMed Central

Gramfort, Alexandre; Hämäläinen, Matti S.; Kuperberg, Gina R.

2013-01-01

A core property of human semantic processing is the rapid, facilitatory influence of prior input on extracting the meaning of what comes next, even under conditions of minimal awareness. Previous work has shown a number of neurophysiological indices of this facilitation, but the mapping between time course and localization—critical for separating automatic semantic facilitation from other mechanisms—has thus far been unclear. In the current study, we used a multimodal imaging approach to isolate early, bottom-up effects of context on semantic memory, acquiring a combination of electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurements in the same individuals with a masked semantic priming paradigm. Across techniques, the results provide a strikingly convergent picture of early automatic semantic facilitation. Event-related potentials demonstrated early sensitivity to semantic association between 300 and 500 ms; MEG localized the differential neural response within this time window to the left anterior temporal cortex, and fMRI localized the effect more precisely to the left anterior superior temporal gyrus, a region previously implicated in semantic associative processing. However, fMRI diverged from early EEG/MEG measures in revealing semantic enhancement effects within frontal and parietal regions, perhaps reflecting downstream attempts to consciously access the semantic features of the masked prime. Together, these results provide strong evidence that automatic associative semantic facilitation is realized as reduced activity within the left anterior superior temporal cortex between 300 and 500 ms after a word is presented, and emphasize the importance of multimodal neuroimaging approaches in distinguishing the contributions of multiple regions to semantic processing. PMID:24155321

The differential contributions of pFC and temporo-parietal cortex to multimodal semantic control: exploring refractory effects in semantic aphasia.

PubMed

Gardner, Hannah E; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A; Dodds, Naomi; Jones, Theresa; Ehsan, Sheeba; Jefferies, Elizabeth

2012-04-01

Aphasic patients with multimodal semantic impairment following pFC or temporo-parietal (TP) cortex damage (semantic aphasia [SA]) have deficits characterized by poor control of semantic activation/retrieval, as opposed to loss of semantic knowledge per se. In line with this, SA patients show "refractory effects"; that is, declining accuracy in cyclical word-picture matching tasks when semantically related sets are presented rapidly and repeatedly. This is argued to follow a build-up of competition between targets and distractors. However, the link between poor semantic control and refractory effects is still controversial for two reasons. (1) Some theories propose that refractory effects are specific to verbal or auditory tasks, yet SA patients show poor control over semantic processing in both word and picture semantic tasks. (2) SA can result from lesions to either the left pFC or TP cortex, yet previous work suggests that refractory effects are specifically linked to the left inferior frontal cortex. For the first time, verbal, visual, and nonverbal auditory refractory effects were explored in nine SA patients who had pFC (pFC+) or TP cortex (TP-only) lesions. In all modalities, patient accuracy declined significantly over repetitions. This refractory effect at the group level was driven by pFC+ patients and was not shown by individuals with TP-only lesions. These findings support the theory that SA patients have reduced control over multimodal semantic retrieval and, additionally, suggest there may be functional specialization within the posterior versus pFC elements of the semantic control network.

Effects of semantic relatedness on age-related associative memory deficits: the role of theta oscillations.

PubMed

Crespo-Garcia, Maite; Cantero, Jose L; Atienza, Mercedes

2012-07-16

Growing evidence suggests that age-related deficits in associative memory are alleviated when the to-be-associated items are semantically related. Here we investigate whether this beneficial effect of semantic relatedness is paralleled by spatio-temporal changes in cortical EEG dynamics during incidental encoding. Young and older adults were presented with faces at a particular spatial location preceded by a biographical cue that was either semantically related or unrelated. As expected, automatic encoding of face-location associations benefited from semantic relatedness in the two groups of age. This effect correlated with increased power of theta oscillations over medial and anterior lateral regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and lateral regions of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in both groups. But better-performing elders also showed increased brain-behavior correlation in the theta band over the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) as compared to young adults. Semantic relatedness was, however, insufficient to fully eliminate age-related differences in associative memory. In line with this finding, poorer-performing elders relative to young adults showed significant reductions of theta power in the left IFG that were further predictive of behavioral impairment in the recognition task. All together, these results suggest that older adults benefit less than young adults from executive processes during encoding mainly due to neural inefficiency over regions of the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). But this associative deficit may be partially compensated for by engaging preexistent semantic knowledge, which likely leads to an efficient recruitment of attentional and integration processes supported by the left PPC and left anterior PFC respectively, together with neural compensatory mechanisms governed by the right VLPFC. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Retrograde Amnesia for Episodic and Semantic Memories in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment.

PubMed

De Simone, Maria Stefania; Fadda, Lucia; Perri, Roberta; De Tollis, Massimo; Aloisi, Marta; Caltagirone, Carlo; Carlesimo, Giovanni Augusto

2017-01-01

Retrograde amnesia (RA), which includes loss of memory for past personal events (autobiographical RA) and for acquired knowledge (semantic RA), has been largely documented in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). However, previous studies have produced controversial results particularly concerning the temporal extent of memory impairment. Here we investigated whether, with the onset of hippocampal pathology, age of memory acquisition and retrieval frequency play different roles in modulating the progressive loss of semantic and episodic contents of retrograde memory respectively. For this purpose, aMCI patients and healthy controls were tested for the ability to recall semantic and autobiographical information related to famous public events as a function of both age of acquisition and retrieval frequency. In aMCI patients, we found that the impairment in recollecting past personal incidents was modulated by the combined action of memory age and retrieval frequency, because older and more frequently retrieved episodes are less susceptible to loss than more recent and less frequently retrieved ones. On the other side, we found that the loss of semantic information depended only on memory age, because the remoteness of the trace allows for better preservation of the memory. Our results provide evidence that the loss of the two components of retrograde memory is regulated by different mechanisms. This supports the view that diverse neural mechanisms are involved in episodic and semantic memory trace storage and retrieval, as postulated by the Multiple Trace Theory.

Activation of Phonological and Semantic Codes in Toddlers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mani, Nivedita; Durrant, Samantha; Floccia, Caroline

2012-01-01

What are the processes underlying word recognition in the toddler lexicon? Work with adults suggests that, by 5-years of age, hearing a word leads to cascaded activation of other phonologically, semantically and phono-semantically related words (Huang & Snedeker, 2010; Marslen-Wilson & Zwitserlood, 1989). Given substantial differences in…

Autobiographical memory in semantic dementia: implication for theories of limbic-neocortical interaction in remote memory.

PubMed

McKinnon, Margaret C; Black, Sandra E; Miller, Bruce; Moscovitch, Morris; Levine, Brian

2006-01-01

We examined autobiographical memory performance in two patients with semantic dementia using a novel measure, the Autobiographical Interview [Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch (2002). Aging and autobiographical memory: Dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval. Psychology and Aging, 17, 677-689], that is capable of dissociating episodic and personal semantic recall under varying levels of retrieval support. Earlier reports indicated that patients with semantic dementia demonstrate autobiographical episodic memory loss following a "reverse gradient" by which recent memories are preserved relative to remote memories. We found limited evidence for this pattern at conditions of low retrieval support. When structured probing was provided, patients' autobiographical memory performance was similar to that of controls. Retesting of one patient after 1 year indicated that retrieval support was insufficient to bolster performance following progressive prefrontal volume loss, as documented with quantified structural neuroimaging. These findings are discussed in relation to theories of limbic-neocortical interaction in autobiographical memory.

Differences between patterns of brain activity associated with semantics and those linked with phonological processing diminish with age.

PubMed

Martins, Ruben; Simard, France; Monchi, Oury

2014-01-01

It is widely believed that language function tends to show little age-related performance decline. Indeed, some older individuals seem to use compensatory mechanisms to maintain a high level of performance when submitted to lexical tasks. However, how these mechanisms affect cortical and subcortical activity during semantic and phonological processing has not been extensively explored. The purpose of this study was to look at the effect of healthy aging on cortico-subcortical routes related to semantic and phonological processing using a lexical analogue of the Wisconsin Cart-Sorting Task. Our results indicate that while young adults tend to show increased activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the fusiform gyrus, the ventral temporal lobe and the caudate nucleus during semantic decisions and in the posterior Broca's area (area 44), the temporal lobe (area 37), the temporoparietal junction (area 40) and the motor cortical regions during phonological decisions, older individuals showed increased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and motor cortical regions during both semantic and phonological decisions. Furthermore, when semantic and phonological decisions were contrasted with each other, younger individuals showed significant brain activity differences in several regions while older individuals did not. Therefore, in older individuals, the semantic and phonological routes seem to merge into a single pathway. These findings represent most probably neural reserve/compensation mechanisms, characterized by a decrease in specificity, on which the elderly rely to maintain an adequate level of performance.

Distinct loci of lexical and semantic access deficits in aphasia: Evidence from voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping and diffusion tensor imaging.

PubMed

Harvey, Denise Y; Schnur, Tatiana T

2015-06-01

Naming pictures and matching words to pictures belonging to the same semantic category negatively affects language production and comprehension. By most accounts, semantic interference arises when accessing lexical representations in naming (e.g., Damian, Vigliocco, & Levelt, 2001) and semantic representations in comprehension (e.g., Forde & Humphreys, 1997). Further, damage to the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), a region implicated in cognitive control, results in increasing semantic interference when items repeat across cycles in both language production and comprehension (Jefferies, Baker, Doran, & Lambon Ralph, 2007). This generates the prediction that the LIFG via white matter connections supports resolution of semantic interference arising from different loci (lexical vs semantic) in the temporal lobe. However, it remains unclear whether the cognitive and neural mechanisms that resolve semantic interference are the same across tasks. Thus, we examined which gray matter structures [using whole brain and region of interest (ROI) approaches] and white matter connections (using deterministic tractography) when damaged impact semantic interference and its increase across cycles when repeatedly producing and understanding words in 15 speakers with varying lexical-semantic deficits from left hemisphere stroke. We found that damage to distinct brain regions, the posterior versus anterior temporal lobe, was associated with semantic interference (collapsed across cycles) in naming and comprehension, respectively. Further, those with LIFG damage compared to those without exhibited marginally larger increases in semantic interference across cycles in naming but not comprehension. Lastly, the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, connecting the LIFG with posterior temporal lobe, related to semantic interference in naming, whereas the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), connecting posterior with anterior temporal regions related to semantic interference in comprehension. These neuroanatomical-behavioral findings have implications for models of the lexical-semantic language network by demonstrating that semantic interference in language production and comprehension involves different representations which differentially recruit a cognitive control mechanism for interference resolution. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Differential Medial Temporal Lobe and Parietal Cortical Contributions to Real-world Autobiographical Episodic and Autobiographical Semantic Memory.

PubMed

Brown, Thackery I; Rissman, Jesse; Chow, Tiffany E; Uncapher, Melina R; Wagner, Anthony D

2018-04-18

Autobiographical remembering can depend on two forms of memory: episodic (event) memory and autobiographical semantic memory (remembering personally relevant semantic knowledge, independent of recalling a specific experience). There is debate about the degree to which the neural signals that support episodic recollection relate to or build upon autobiographical semantic remembering. Pooling data from two fMRI studies of memory for real-world personal events, we investigated whether medial temporal lobe (MTL) and parietal subregions contribute to autobiographical episodic and semantic remembering. During scanning, participants made memory judgments about photograph sequences depicting past events from their life or from others' lives, and indicated whether memory was based on episodic or semantic knowledge. Results revealed several distinct functional patterns: activity in most MTL subregions was selectively associated with autobiographical episodic memory; the hippocampal tail, superior parietal lobule, and intraparietal sulcus were similarly engaged when memory was based on retrieval of an autobiographical episode or autobiographical semantic knowledge; and angular gyrus demonstrated a graded pattern, with activity declining from autobiographical recollection to autobiographical semantic remembering to correct rejections of novel events. Collectively, our data offer insights into MTL and parietal cortex functional organization, and elucidate circuitry that supports different forms of real-world autobiographical memory.

How are 'Barack Obama' and 'President Elect' differentially stored in the brain? An ERP investigation on the processing of proper and common noun pairs.

PubMed

Proverbio, Alice Mado; Mariani, Serena; Zani, Alberto; Adorni, Roberta

2009-09-23

One of the most debated issues in the cognitive neuroscience of language is whether distinct semantic domains are differentially represented in the brain. Clinical studies described several anomic dissociations with no clear neuroanatomical correlate. Neuroimaging studies have shown that memory retrieval is more demanding for proper than common nouns in that the former are purely arbitrary referential expressions. In this study a semantic relatedness paradigm was devised to investigate neural processing of proper and common nouns. 780 words (arranged in pairs of Italian nouns/adjectives and the first/last names of well known persons) were presented. Half pairs were semantically related ("Woody Allen" or "social security"), while the others were not ("Sigmund Parodi" or "judicial cream"). All items were balanced for length, frequency, familiarity and semantic relatedness. Participants were to decide about the semantic relatedness of the two items in a pair. RTs and N400 data suggest that the task was more demanding for common nouns. The LORETA neural generators for the related-unrelated contrast (for proper names) included the left fusiform gyrus, right medial temporal gyrus, limbic and parahippocampal regions, inferior parietal and inferior frontal areas, which are thought to be involved in the conjoined processing a familiar face with the relevant episodic information. Person name was more emotional and sensory vivid than common noun semantic access. When memory retrieval is not required, proper name access (conspecifics knowledge) is not more demanding. The neural generators of N400 to unrelated items (unknown persons and things) did not differ as a function of lexical class, thus suggesting that proper and common nouns are not treated differently as belonging to different grammatical classes.

How Are ‘Barack Obama’ and ‘President Elect’ Differentially Stored in the Brain? An ERP Investigation on the Processing of Proper and Common Noun Pairs

PubMed Central

Proverbio, Alice Mado; Mariani, Serena; Zani, Alberto; Adorni, Roberta

2009-01-01

Background One of the most debated issues in the cognitive neuroscience of language is whether distinct semantic domains are differentially represented in the brain. Clinical studies described several anomic dissociations with no clear neuroanatomical correlate. Neuroimaging studies have shown that memory retrieval is more demanding for proper than common nouns in that the former are purely arbitrary referential expressions. In this study a semantic relatedness paradigm was devised to investigate neural processing of proper and common nouns. Methodology/Principal Findings 780 words (arranged in pairs of Italian nouns/adjectives and the first/last names of well known persons) were presented. Half pairs were semantically related (“Woody Allen” or “social security”), while the others were not (“Sigmund Parodi” or “judicial cream”). All items were balanced for length, frequency, familiarity and semantic relatedness. Participants were to decide about the semantic relatedness of the two items in a pair. RTs and N400 data suggest that the task was more demanding for common nouns. The LORETA neural generators for the related-unrelated contrast (for proper names) included the left fusiform gyrus, right medial temporal gyrus, limbic and parahippocampal regions, inferior parietal and inferior frontal areas, which are thought to be involved in the conjoined processing a familiar face with the relevant episodic information. Person name was more emotional and sensory vivid than common noun semantic access. Conclusions/Significance When memory retrieval is not required, proper name access (conspecifics knowledge) is not more demanding. The neural generators of N400 to unrelated items (unknown persons and things) did not differ as a function of lexical class, thus suggesting that proper and common nouns are not treated differently as belonging to different grammatical classes. PMID:19774070

Age-related effects on perceptual and semantic encoding in memory.

PubMed

Kuo, M C C; Liu, K P Y; Ting, K H; Chan, C C H

2014-03-07

This study examined the age-related subsequent memory effect (SME) in perceptual and semantic encoding using event-related potentials (ERPs). Seventeen younger adults and 17 older adults studied a series of Chinese characters either perceptually (by inspecting orthographic components) or semantically (by determining whether the depicted object makes sounds). The two tasks had similar levels of difficulty. The participants made studied or unstudied judgments during the recognition phase. Younger adults performed better in both conditions, with significant SMEs detected in the time windows of P2, N3, P550, and late positive component (LPC). In the older group, SMEs were observed in the P2 and N3 latencies in both conditions but were only detected in the P550 in the semantic condition. Between-group analyses showed larger frontal and central SMEs in the younger sample in the LPC latency regardless of encoding type. Aging effect appears to be stronger on influencing perceptual than semantic encoding processes. The effects seem to be associated with a decline in updating and maintaining representations during perceptual encoding. The age-related decline in the encoding function may be due in part to changes in frontal lobe function. Copyright © 2013 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The semantic component of the evoked potential of differentiation.

PubMed

Izmailov, Chingis A; Korshunova, Svetlana G; Sokolov, Yevgeniy N

2008-05-01

This work analyzes data from recordings of (occipital and temporal) cortical evoked potentials (called evoked potentials of differentiation (EPD) occurring in humans in response to an abrupt substitution of stimuli. As stimuli we used three groups of words: the names of the ten basic colors taken from Newton's color circle; the names of seven basic emotions forming Shlossberg's circle of emotions; and seven nonsense words comprised of random combinations of letters. Within each group of word stimuli we constructed a matrix of the differences between the amplitudes of mid-latency components of EPD for each pair of words. This matrix was analyzed using the method of multidimensional scaling. As a result of this analysis we were able to distinguish the semantic and configurational components of EPD amplitude. The semantic component of EPD amplitude was evaluated by comparing structure of the data obtained to the circular structures of emotion and color names. The configurational component was evaluated on the basis of the attribute of word length (number of letters). It was demonstrated that the semantic component of the EPD can only be detected in the left occipital lead at an interpeak amplitude of P120-N180. The configurational component is reflected in the occipital and temporal leads to an identical extent, but only in the amplitude of a later (N180-P230) component of the EPD. The results obtained are discussed in terms of the coding of categorized, configurational, and semantic attributes of a visual stimulus.

Ageing and autobiographical memory for emotional and neutral events

PubMed Central

St. Jacques, Peggy L.; Levine, Brian

2007-01-01

We investigated age-related effects in recall of emotional and neutral autobiographical memories. Protocols were scored according to episodic and non-episodic detail categories using the Autobiographical Interview. Young adults recalled a greater number of episodic details compared to older adults, whereas older adults recalled more semantic details, replicating previous findings. Both young and older adults’ emotional memories contained more overall detail than neutral ones, with the enhancement from emotion-specific to episodic details, but this did not alter the effect of age group on the pattern of episodic and semantic details. However, the age effect on episodic details was attenuated for neutral autobiographical memories. The findings suggest that age differences for emotional autobiographical recollection might reflect a more general pattern of age-related changes in memory, with impaired recall of episodic components and relative sparing of semantic aspects of autobiographical memory in older adults when compared to young adults. PMID:17534107

Pedophiles' ratings of adult and child photographs using a semantic differential.

PubMed

Hambridge, J A

1994-03-01

Recent knowledge of the widespread extent of child sexual abuse and its consequences has led to an increasing interest in the understanding and treatment of perpetrators. This study examined a group of pedophiles in an English Special Hospital to determine possible characteristics that make children attractive and adults unattractive to them, using Repertory Grid technique and Semantic Differential. A small number of significant findings suggest that pedophiles may perceive some children and women in an unusual way. The large number of insignificant findings are discussed with reference to the sensitivity of the instrument; the pedophiles' desire to give socially acceptable answers; and subject characteristics of low IQ and "psychopathic disorder." Future directions for research are suggested.

Empathy in Dentistry: How Attitudes and Interaction With Older Adults Make a Difference.

PubMed

Waldrop, Deborah; Nochajski, Thomas; Davis, Elaine L; Fabiano, Jude; Goldberg, Louis

2016-01-01

The development of empathy and positive attitudes are essential elements of professional education. This study explored the nature of empathy and its association with attitudes about, and exposure to older patients in a sample of dental students. Students completed an adapted version of the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE), the Aging Semantic Differential (ASD) and answered questions about their exposure to older people. Factor analysis was used to identify four factors: (1) Empathy is Valuable, (2) Empathy is Demonstrated, (3) Empathy is not Influential, and (4) Empathy is Difficult to Accomplish. Higher empathy scores were related to the ASD subscale attitude of acceptability of aging and to greater exposure to older adults outside of clinical practice. There were no demographic predictors of higher empathy scores.

Application of a methodology for categorizing and differentiating urban soundscapes using acoustical descriptors and semantic-differential attributes.

PubMed

Torija, Antonio J; Ruiz, Diego P; Ramos-Ridao, A F

2013-07-01

A subjective and physical categorization of an ambient sound is the first step to evaluate the soundscape and provides a basis for designing or adapting this ambient sound to match people's expectations. For this reason, the main goal of this work is to develop a categorization and differentiation analysis of soundscapes on the basis of acoustical and perceptual variables. A hierarchical cluster analysis, using 15 semantic-differential attributes and acoustical descriptors to include an equivalent sound-pressure level, maximum-minimum sound-pressure level, impulsiveness of the sound-pressure level, sound-pressure level time course, and spectral composition, was conducted to classify soundscapes into different typologies. This analysis identified 15 different soundscape typologies. Furthermore, based on a discriminant analysis the acoustical descriptors, the crest factor (impulsiveness of the sound-pressure level), and the sound level at 125 Hz were found to be the acoustical variables with the highest impact in the differentiation of the recognized types of soundscapes. Finally, to determine how the different soundscape typologies differed from each other, both subjectively and acoustically, a study was performed.

The effect of word length and other sublexical, lexical, and semantic variables on developmental reading deficits.

PubMed

De Luca, Maria; Barca, Laura; Burani, Cristina; Zoccolotti, Pierluigi

2008-12-01

To examine the effect of word length and several sublexical, and lexico-semantic variables on the reading of Italian children with a developmental reading deficit. Previous studies indicated the role of word length in transparent orthographies. However, several factors that may interact with word length were not controlled for. Seventeen impaired and 34 skilled sixth-grade readers were presented words of different lengths, matched for initial phoneme, bigram frequency, word frequency, age of acquisition, and imageability. Participants were asked to read aloud, as quickly and as accurately as possible. Reaction times at the onset of pronunciation and mispronunciations were recorded. Impaired readers' reaction times indicated a marked effect of word length; in skilled readers, there was no length effect for short words but, rather, a monotonic increase from 6-letter words on. Regression analyses confirmed the role of word length and indicated the influence of word frequency (similar in impaired and skilled readers). No other variables predicted reading latencies. Word length differentially influenced word recognition in impaired versus skilled readers, irrespective of the action of (potentially interfering) sublexical, lexical, and semantic variables. It is proposed that the locus of the length effect is at a perceptual level of analysis. The independent influence of word frequency on the reading performance of both groups of participants indicates the sparing of lexical activation in impaired readers.

Semantic Knowledge Use in Discourse: Influence of Age

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kintz, Stephen; Wright, Heather Harris

2017-01-01

Semantic memory is relatively stable across the lifespan (LaBarge, Edwards, & Knesevich, 1986). However, most research has been conducted at the single concept level (LaBarge et al., 1986, Spaniol et al., 2006). Few researchers have examined how semantic knowledge is used in discourse. The purpose of the study, then, was to determine the…

Quantifying Semantic Linguistic Maturity in Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hansson, Kristina; Bååth, Rasmus; Löhndorf, Simone; Sahlén, Birgitta; Sikström, Sverker

2016-01-01

We propose a method to quantify "semantic linguistic maturity" (SELMA) based on a high dimensional semantic representation of words created from the co-occurrence of words in a large text corpus. The method was applied to oral narratives from 108 children aged 4;0-12;10. By comparing the SELMA measure with maturity ratings made by human…

Audio-Visual and Meaningful Semantic Context Enhancements in Older and Younger Adults.

PubMed

Smayda, Kirsten E; Van Engen, Kristin J; Maddox, W Todd; Chandrasekaran, Bharath

2016-01-01

Speech perception is critical to everyday life. Oftentimes noise can degrade a speech signal; however, because of the cues available to the listener, such as visual and semantic cues, noise rarely prevents conversations from continuing. The interaction of visual and semantic cues in aiding speech perception has been studied in young adults, but the extent to which these two cues interact for older adults has not been studied. To investigate the effect of visual and semantic cues on speech perception in older and younger adults, we recruited forty-five young adults (ages 18-35) and thirty-three older adults (ages 60-90) to participate in a speech perception task. Participants were presented with semantically meaningful and anomalous sentences in audio-only and audio-visual conditions. We hypothesized that young adults would outperform older adults across SNRs, modalities, and semantic contexts. In addition, we hypothesized that both young and older adults would receive a greater benefit from a semantically meaningful context in the audio-visual relative to audio-only modality. We predicted that young adults would receive greater visual benefit in semantically meaningful contexts relative to anomalous contexts. However, we predicted that older adults could receive a greater visual benefit in either semantically meaningful or anomalous contexts. Results suggested that in the most supportive context, that is, semantically meaningful sentences presented in the audiovisual modality, older adults performed similarly to young adults. In addition, both groups received the same amount of visual and meaningful benefit. Lastly, across groups, a semantically meaningful context provided more benefit in the audio-visual modality relative to the audio-only modality, and the presence of visual cues provided more benefit in semantically meaningful contexts relative to anomalous contexts. These results suggest that older adults can perceive speech as well as younger adults when both semantic and visual cues are available to the listener.

Audio-Visual and Meaningful Semantic Context Enhancements in Older and Younger Adults

PubMed Central

Smayda, Kirsten E.; Van Engen, Kristin J.; Maddox, W. Todd; Chandrasekaran, Bharath

2016-01-01

Speech perception is critical to everyday life. Oftentimes noise can degrade a speech signal; however, because of the cues available to the listener, such as visual and semantic cues, noise rarely prevents conversations from continuing. The interaction of visual and semantic cues in aiding speech perception has been studied in young adults, but the extent to which these two cues interact for older adults has not been studied. To investigate the effect of visual and semantic cues on speech perception in older and younger adults, we recruited forty-five young adults (ages 18–35) and thirty-three older adults (ages 60–90) to participate in a speech perception task. Participants were presented with semantically meaningful and anomalous sentences in audio-only and audio-visual conditions. We hypothesized that young adults would outperform older adults across SNRs, modalities, and semantic contexts. In addition, we hypothesized that both young and older adults would receive a greater benefit from a semantically meaningful context in the audio-visual relative to audio-only modality. We predicted that young adults would receive greater visual benefit in semantically meaningful contexts relative to anomalous contexts. However, we predicted that older adults could receive a greater visual benefit in either semantically meaningful or anomalous contexts. Results suggested that in the most supportive context, that is, semantically meaningful sentences presented in the audiovisual modality, older adults performed similarly to young adults. In addition, both groups received the same amount of visual and meaningful benefit. Lastly, across groups, a semantically meaningful context provided more benefit in the audio-visual modality relative to the audio-only modality, and the presence of visual cues provided more benefit in semantically meaningful contexts relative to anomalous contexts. These results suggest that older adults can perceive speech as well as younger adults when both semantic and visual cues are available to the listener. PMID:27031343

A SEMantic and EPisodic Memory Test (SEMEP) Developed within the Embodied Cognition Framework: Application to Normal Aging, Alzheimer's Disease and Semantic Dementia.

PubMed

Vallet, Guillaume T; Hudon, Carol; Bier, Nathalie; Macoir, Joël; Versace, Rémy; Simard, Martine

2017-01-01

Embodiment has highlighted the importance of sensory-motor components in cognition. Perception and memory are thus very tightly bound together, and episodic and semantic memories should rely on the same grounded memory traces. Reduced perception should then directly reduce the ability to encode and retrieve an episodic memory, as in normal aging. Multimodal integration deficits, as in Alzheimer's disease, should lead to more severe episodic memory impairment. The present study introduces a new memory test developed to take into account these assumptions. The SEMEP (SEMantic-Episodic) memory test proposes to assess conjointly semantic and episodic knowledge across multiple tasks: semantic matching, naming, free recall, and recognition. The performance of young adults is compared to healthy elderly adults (HE), patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and patients with semantic dementia (SD). The results show specific patterns of performance between the groups. HE commit memory errors only for presented but not to be remembered items. AD patients present the worst episodic memory performance associated with intrusion errors (recall or recognition of items never presented). They were the only group to not benefit from a visual isolation (addition of a yellow background), a method known to increase the distinctiveness of the memory traces. Finally, SD patients suffer from the most severe semantic impairment. To conclude, confusion errors are common across all the elderly groups, whereas AD was the only group to exhibit regular intrusion errors and SD patients to show severe semantic impairment.

Dissociating the effects of semantic grouping and rehearsal strategies on event-related brain potentials.

PubMed

Schleepen, T M J; Markus, C R; Jonkman, L M

2014-12-01

The application of elaborative encoding strategies during learning, such as grouping items on similar semantic categories, increases the likelihood of later recall. Previous studies have suggested that stimuli that encourage semantic grouping strategies had modulating effects on specific ERP components. However, these studies did not differentiate between ERP activation patterns evoked by elaborative working memory strategies like semantic grouping and more simple strategies like rote rehearsal. Identification of neurocognitive correlates underlying successful use of elaborative strategies is important to understand better why certain populations, like children or elderly people, have problems applying such strategies. To compare ERP activation during the application of elaborative versus more simple strategies subjects had to encode either four semantically related or unrelated pictures by respectively applying a semantic category grouping or a simple rehearsal strategy. Another goal was to investigate if maintenance of semantically grouped vs. ungrouped pictures modulated ERP-slow waves differently. At the behavioral level there was only a semantic grouping benefit in terms of faster responding on correct rejections (i.e. when the memory probe stimulus was not part of the memory set). At the neural level, during encoding semantic grouping only had a modest specific modulatory effect on a fronto-central Late Positive Component (LPC), emerging around 650 ms. Other ERP components (i.e. P200, N400 and a second Late Positive Component) that had been earlier related to semantic grouping encoding processes now showed stronger modulation by rehearsal than by semantic grouping. During maintenance semantic grouping had specific modulatory effects on left and right frontal slow wave activity. These results stress the importance of careful control of strategy use when investigating the neural correlates of elaborative encoding. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of grammatical categories on children's visual language processing: Evidence from event-related brain potentials.

PubMed

Weber-Fox, Christine; Hart, Laura J; Spruill, John E

2006-07-01

This study examined how school-aged children process different grammatical categories. Event-related brain potentials elicited by words in visually presented sentences were analyzed according to seven grammatical categories with naturally varying characteristics of linguistic functions, semantic features, and quantitative attributes of length and frequency. The categories included nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and articles. The findings indicate that by the age of 9-10 years, children exhibit robust neural indicators differentiating grammatical categories; however, it is also evident that development of language processing is not yet adult-like at this age. The current findings are consistent with the hypothesis that for beginning readers a variety of cues and characteristics interact to affect processing of different grammatical categories and indicate the need to take into account linguistic functions, prosodic salience, and grammatical complexity as they relate to the development of language abilities.

"Dyslexia": Toward Semantical Clarification.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manzo, Anthony V.; Duffelmeyer, Fred

A formulated definition of the term dyslexia is proposed in this paper in order to clarify the semantical confusion which exists among both specialists and the general public. Dyslexia is explained as a generic term for severe and puzzling reading disability, found to be both acute (where reading-age lags 25 percent or more below mental age) and…

Aging Influences the Neural Correlates of Lexical Decision but Not Automatic Semantic Priming

PubMed Central

Andersen, Anders H.; Jicha, Greg A.; Smith, Charles D.

2009-01-01

Human behavioral data indicate that older adults are slower to perform lexical decisions (LDs) than young adults but show similar reaction time gains when these decisions are primed semantically. The present study explored the functional neuroanatomic bases of these frequently observed behavioral findings. Young and older groups completed unprimed and primed LD tasks while functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was recorded, using a fully randomized trial design paralleling those used in behavioral research. Results from the unprimed task found that age-related slowing of LD was associated with decreased activation in perceptual extrastriate regions and increased activation in regions associated with higher level linguistic processes, including prefrontal cortex. In contrast to these age-related changes in brain activation, the older group showed a preserved pattern of fMRI decreases in inferior temporal cortex when LD was primed semantically. These findings provide evidence that older adults’ LD abilities benefit from contexts that reduce the need for frontally mediated strategic processes and capitalize on the continued sensitivity of inferior temporal cortex to automatic semantic processes in aging. PMID:19273460

Semantic embodiment, disembodiment or misembodiment? In search of meaning in modules and neuron circuits.

PubMed

Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2013-10-01

"Embodied" proposals claim that the meaning of at least some words, concepts and constructions is grounded in knowledge about actions and objects. An alternative "disembodied" position locates semantics in a symbolic system functionally detached from sensorimotor modules. This latter view is not tenable theoretically and has been empirically falsified by neuroscience research. A minimally-embodied approach now claims that action-perception systems may "color", but not represent, meaning; however, such minimal embodiment (misembodiment?) still fails to explain why action and perception systems exert causal effects on the processing of symbols from specific semantic classes. Action perception theory (APT) offers neurobiological mechanisms for "embodied" referential, affective and action semantics along with "disembodied" mechanisms of semantic abstraction, generalization and symbol combination, which draw upon multimodal brain systems. In this sense, APT suggests integrative-neuromechanistic explanations of why both sensorimotor and multimodal areas of the human brain differentially contribute to specific facets of meaning and concepts. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Data-driven classification of patients with primary progressive aphasia.

PubMed

Hoffman, Paul; Sajjadi, Seyed Ahmad; Patterson, Karalyn; Nestor, Peter J

2017-11-01

Current diagnostic criteria classify primary progressive aphasia into three variants-semantic (sv), nonfluent (nfv) and logopenic (lv) PPA-though the adequacy of this scheme is debated. This study took a data-driven approach, applying k-means clustering to data from 43 PPA patients. The algorithm grouped patients based on similarities in language, semantic and non-linguistic cognitive scores. The optimum solution consisted of three groups. One group, almost exclusively those diagnosed as svPPA, displayed a selective semantic impairment. A second cluster, with impairments to speech production, repetition and syntactic processing, contained a majority of patients with nfvPPA but also some lvPPA patients. The final group exhibited more severe deficits to speech, repetition and syntax as well as semantic and other cognitive deficits. These results suggest that, amongst cases of non-semantic PPA, differentiation mainly reflects overall degree of language/cognitive impairment. The observed patterns were scarcely affected by inclusion/exclusion of non-linguistic cognitive scores. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Word recognition in Alzheimer's disease: Effects of semantic degeneration.

PubMed

Cuetos, Fernando; Arce, Noemí; Martínez, Carmen; Ellis, Andrew W

2017-03-01

Impairments of word recognition in Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been less widely investigated than impairments affecting word retrieval and production. In particular, we know little about what makes individual words easier or harder for patients with AD to recognize. We used a lexical selection task in which participants were shown sets of four items, each set consisting of one word and three non-words. The task was simply to point to the word on each trial. Forty patients with mild-to-moderate AD were significantly impaired on this task relative to matched controls who made very few errors. The number of patients with AD able to recognize each word correctly was predicted by the frequency, age of acquisition, and imageability of the words, but not by their length or number of orthographic neighbours. Patient Mini-Mental State Examination and phonological fluency scores also predicted the number of words recognized. We propose that progressive degradation of central semantic representations in AD differentially affects the ability to recognize low-imageability, low-frequency, late-acquired words, with the same factors affecting word recognition as affecting word retrieval. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

Episodic and Semantic Autobiographical Memory in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crane, Laura; Goddard, Lorna

2008-01-01

Episodic and semantic autobiographical memories were examined in a group of adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and a control group matched for age, gender and IQ. Results demonstrated a personal episodic memory deficit in the ASD group in the absence of a personal semantic memory deficit, suggesting a deficit dissociation between these…

Implicit Phonological and Semantic Processing in Children with Developmental Dyslexia: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jednorog, K.; Marchewka, A.; Tacikowski, P.; Grabowska, A.

2010-01-01

Dyslexia is characterized by a core phonological deficit, although recent studies indicate that semantic impairment also contributes to this condition. In this study, event-related potentials (ERP) were used to examine whether the N400 wave in dyslexic children is modulated by phonological or semantic priming, similarly to age-matched controls.…

The effects of meaningful irrelevant speech and road traffic noise on teachers' attention, episodic and semantic memory.

PubMed

Enmarker, Ingela

2004-11-01

The aim of the present experiment was to examine the effects of meaningful irrelevant speech and road traffic noise on attention, episodic and semantic memory, and also to examine whether the noise effects were age-dependent. A total of 96 male and female teachers in the age range of 35-45 and 55-65 years were randomly assigned to a silent or the two noise conditions. Noise effects found in episodic memory were limited to a meaningful text, where cued recall contrary to expectations was equally impaired by the two types of noise. However, meaningful irrelevant speech also deteriorated recognition of the text, whereas road traffic noise caused no decrement. Retrieval from two word fluency tests in semantic memory showed strong effects of noise exposure, one affected by meaningful irrelevant speech and the other by road traffic noise. The results implied that both acoustic variation and the semantic interference could be of importance for noise impairments. The expected age-dependent noise effects did not show up.

Are all judgments created equal? An fMRI study of semantic and episodic metamemory predictions.

PubMed

Reggev, Niv; Zuckerman, Maya; Maril, Anat

2011-04-01

Metamemory refers to the ability of individuals to monitor and control their own memory performance. Although little theoretical consideration of the possible differences between the monitoring of episodic and of semantic knowledge has been published, results from patient and drug studies that used the "feeling of knowing" (FOK) paradigm show a selective impairment in the accuracy of episodic monitoring but not in its semantic counterpart. Similarly, neuroimaging studies provide indirect evidence for separate patterns of activation during episodic or semantic FOKs. However, the semantic-episodic distinction hypothesis has not been directly addressed. In the current event-related fMRI study, we used a within-subject, within-experiment comparison of the monitoring of semantic and episodic content. Whereas the common neural correlates of episodic and semantic FOKs observed in this study generally replicate the previous neuroimaging findings, several regions were found to be differentially associated with each task. Activity of the right inferior frontal gyrus was modulated by the semantic-episodic factor only during the negative predictions of retrieval, suggesting that negative predictions are based on partially distinct mechanisms during each task. A posterior midline network, known to be activated during episodic retrieval, was activated during episodic and not semantic monitoring, suggesting that episodic FOKs rely, to some extent, on common episodic retrieval processes. These findings suggest that theoretical accounts of the etiology and function of FOKs may benefit from incorporating the prediction directionality (positive/negative) and the memory domain (semantic/episodic) distinctions. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Explicit semantic tasks are necessary to study semantic priming effects with high rates of repetition.

PubMed

Renoult, Louis; Wang, Xiaoxiao; Mortimer, Jennifer; Debruille, J Bruno

2012-04-01

The purpose of the present study was to clarify in which experimental conditions the semantic processing of repeated words is preserved. We contrasted a short (250 ms) and a long (1000 ms) stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) in two different experiments, using a relatively low proportion of related words (30%). One group of participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT) and a second group performed an explicit semantic matching task with the same words (except for pseudowords) and the same task parameters. In both tasks, word stimuli consisted solely of two prime and two target words repeated throughout the experiment. The effects of semantic priming on reaction time (RT) and the amplitude of the N400 ERP were absent for both the short and the long SOA in the LDT. In contrast, in the explicit semantic task, these effects were significant. In this task, the activity of N400 generators in the left superior temporal gyrus and the inferior parietal cortex significantly differentiated primed and unprimed trials but this effect did not interact with SOA. Our results indicate that task instruction is critical to preserve semantic processing with repeated presentations. Using explicit semantic designs, it may be possible to study associative or categorical relations between individual concepts. Copyright © 2011 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic and self-referential processing of positive and negative trait adjectives in older adults

PubMed Central

Glisky, Elizabeth L.; Marquine, Maria J.

2008-01-01

The beneficial effects of self-referential processing on memory have been demonstrated in numerous experiments with younger adults but have rarely been studied in older individuals. In the present study we tested young people, younger-older adults, and older-older adults in a self-reference paradigm, and compared self-referential processing to general semantic processing. Findings indicated that older adults over the age of 75 and those with below average episodic memory function showed a decreased benefit from both semantic and self-referential processing relative to a structural baseline condition. However, these effects appeared to be confined to the shared semantic processes for the two conditions, leaving the added advantage for self-referential processing unaffected These results suggest that reference to the self engages qualitatively different processes compared to general semantic processing. These processes seem relatively impervious to age and to declining memory and executive function, suggesting that they might provide a particularly useful way for older adults to improve their memories. PMID:18608973

Semantic Deficits in Spanish-English Bilingual Children with Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sheng, Li; Pena, Elizabeth D.; Bedore, Lisa M.; Fiestas, Christine E.

2012-01-01

Purpose: To examine the nature and extent of semantic deficits in bilingual children with language impairment (LI). Method: Thirty-seven Spanish-English bilingual children with LI (ranging from age 7;0 [years;months] to 9;10) and 37 typically developing (TD) age-matched peers generated 3 associations to 12 pairs of translation equivalents in…

Age-Related Differences in Face Recognition: Neural Correlates of Repetition and Semantic Priming in Young and Older Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiese, Holger; Komes, Jessica; Tüttenberg, Simone; Leidinger, Jana; Schweinberger, Stefan R.

2017-01-01

Difficulties in person recognition are among the common complaints associated with cognitive ageing. The present series of experiments therefore investigated face and person recognition in young and older adults. The authors examined how within-domain and cross-domain repetition as well as semantic priming affect familiar face recognition and…

Contributions of Response Set and Semantic Relatedness to Cross-Modal Stroop-Like Picture--Word Interference in Children and Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hanauer, John B.; Brooks, Patricia J.

2005-01-01

Resistance to interference from irrelevant auditory stimuli undergoes development throughout childhood. To test whether semantic processes account for age-related changes in a Stroop-like picture-word interference effect, children (3-to 12-year-olds) and adults named pictures while listening to words varying in terms of semantic relatedness to the…

The Role of Self-Teaching in Learning Orthographic and Semantic Aspects of New Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ricketts, Jessie; Bishop, Dorothy V. M.; Pimperton, Hannah; Nation, Kate

2011-01-01

This study explores how children learn the meaning (semantics) and spelling patterns (orthography) of novel words encountered in story context. English-speaking children (N = 88) aged 7 to 8 years read 8 stories and each story contained 1 novel word repeated 4 times. Semantic cues were provided by the story context such that children could infer…

On the influence of typicality and age of acquisition on semantic processing: Diverging evidence from behavioural and ERP responses.

PubMed

Räling, Romy; Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia; Schröder, Astrid; Wartenburger, Isabell

2015-08-01

Various behavioural studies show that semantic typicality (TYP) and age of acquisition (AOA) of a specific word influence processing time and accuracy during the performance of lexical-semantic tasks. This study examines the influence of TYP and AOA on semantic processing at behavioural (response times and accuracy data) and electrophysiological levels using an auditory category-member-verification task. Reaction time data reveal independent TYP and AOA effects, while in the accuracy data and the event-related potentials predominantly effects of TYP can be found. The present study thus confirms previous findings and extends evidence found in the visual modality to the auditory modality. A modality-independent influence on semantic word processing is manifested. However, with regard to the influence of AOA, the diverging results raise questions on the origin of AOA effects as well as on the interpretation of offline and online data. Hence, results will be discussed against the background of recent theories on N400 correlates in semantic processing. In addition, an argument in favour of a complementary use of research techniques will be made. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Memory for pictures and words as a function of level of processing: Depth or dual coding?

PubMed

D'Agostino, P R; O'Neill, B J; Paivio, A

1977-03-01

The experiment was designed to test differential predictions derived from dual-coding and depth-of-processing hypotheses. Subjects under incidental memory instructions free recalled a list of 36 test events, each presented twice. Within the list, an equal number of events were assigned to structural, phonemic, and semantic processing conditions. Separate groups of subjects were tested with a list of pictures, concrete words, or abstract words. Results indicated that retention of concrete words increased as a direct function of the processing-task variable (structural < phonemic

Semantic word impressions expressed by hue.

PubMed

Shinomori, Keizo; Komatsu, Honami

2018-04-01

We investigated the possibility of whether impressions of semantic words showing complex concepts could be stably expressed by hues. Using a paired comparison method, we asked ten subjects to select from a pair of hues the one that more suitably matched a word impression. We employed nine Japanese semantic words and used twelve hues from vivid tones in the practical color coordinate system. As examples of the results, for the word "vigorous" the most frequently selected color was yellow and the least selected was blue to purple; for "tranquil" the most selected was yellow to green and the least selected was red. Principal component analysis of the selection data indicated that the cumulative contribution rate of the first two components was 94.6%, and in the two-dimensional space of the components, all hues were distributed as a hue-circle shape. In addition, comparison with additional data of color impressions measured by a semantic differential method suggested that most semantic word impressions can be stably expressed by hue, but the impression of some words, such as "magnificent" cannot. These results suggest that semantic word impression can be expressed reasonably well by color, and that hues are treated as impressions from the hue circle, not from color categories.

Categorizing words through semantic memory navigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Borge-Holthoefer, J.; Arenas, A.

2010-03-01

Semantic memory is the cognitive system devoted to storage and retrieval of conceptual knowledge. Empirical data indicate that semantic memory is organized in a network structure. Everyday experience shows that word search and retrieval processes provide fluent and coherent speech, i.e. are efficient. This implies either that semantic memory encodes, besides thousands of words, different kind of links for different relationships (introducing greater complexity and storage costs), or that the structure evolves facilitating the differentiation between long-lasting semantic relations from incidental, phenomenological ones. Assuming the latter possibility, we explore a mechanism to disentangle the underlying semantic backbone which comprises conceptual structure (extraction of categorical relations between pairs of words), from the rest of information present in the structure. To this end, we first present and characterize an empirical data set modeled as a network, then we simulate a stochastic cognitive navigation on this topology. We schematize this latter process as uncorrelated random walks from node to node, which converge to a feature vectors network. By doing so we both introduce a novel mechanism for information retrieval, and point at the problem of category formation in close connection to linguistic and non-linguistic experience.

Neural correlates of successful semantic processing during propofol sedation.

PubMed

Adapa, Ram M; Davis, Matthew H; Stamatakis, Emmanuel A; Absalom, Anthony R; Menon, David K

2014-07-01

Sedation has a graded effect on brain responses to auditory stimuli: perceptual processing persists at sedation levels that attenuate more complex processing. We used fMRI in healthy volunteers sedated with propofol to assess changes in neural responses to spoken stimuli. Volunteers were scanned awake, sedated, and during recovery, while making perceptual or semantic decisions about nonspeech sounds or spoken words respectively. Sedation caused increased error rates and response times, and differentially affected responses to words in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the left inferior temporal gyrus (LITG). Activity in LIFG regions putatively associated with semantic processing, was significantly reduced by sedation despite sedated volunteers continuing to make accurate semantic decisions. Instead, LITG activity was preserved for words greater than nonspeech sounds and may therefore be associated with persistent semantic processing during the deepest levels of sedation. These results suggest functionally distinct contributions of frontal and temporal regions to semantic decision making. These results have implications for functional imaging studies of language, for understanding mechanisms of impaired speech comprehension in postoperative patients with residual levels of anesthetic, and may contribute to the development of frameworks against which EEG based monitors could be calibrated to detect awareness under anesthesia. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The effects of marital status on episodic and semantic memory in healthy middle-aged and old individuals.

PubMed

Mousavi-Nasab, S-M-Hossein; Kormi-Nouri, Reza; Sundström, Anna; Nilsson, Lars-Göran

2012-02-01

The present study examined the influences of marital status on different episodic and semantic memory tasks. A total of 1882 adult men and women participated in a longitudinal project (Betula) on memory, health and aging. The participants were grouped into two age cohorts, 35-60 and 65-85, and studied over a period of 5 years. Episodic memory tasks concerned recognition and recall, whereas semantic memory tasks concerned knowledge and fluency. The results showed, after controlling for education, some diseases, chronological age and leisure activity as covariates, that there were significant differences between married and single individuals in episodic memory, but not in semantic memory. Married people showed significantly better memory performances than singles in both subsystems of episodic memory, that is, recall and recognition. Also, the rate of decline in episodic memory was significantly larger for singles and widowed than other groups over the 5-year time period in both age groups. The findings demonstrate that the positive relation found between marriage and health can be extended to the relation between marriage and cognitive performance. This effect might be explained by the role played by cognitive stimulation in memory and cognition. © 2011 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology © 2011 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.

Reading skills in young adolescents with a history of Specific Language Impairment: The role of early semantic capacity.

PubMed

Buil-Legaz, Lucía; Aguilar-Mediavilla, Eva; Rodríguez-Ferreiro, Javier

2015-01-01

This study assessed the reading skills of 19 Spanish-Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and 16 age-matched control children. Children with SLI have difficulties with oral language comprehension, which may affect later reading acquisition. We conducted a longitudinal study examining reading acquisition in these children between 8 and 12 years old and we relate this data with early oral language acquisition at 6 years old. Compared to the control group, the SLI group presented impaired decoding and comprehension skills at age 8, as evidenced by poor scores in all the assessed tasks. Nevertheless, only text comprehension abilities appeared to be impaired at age 12. Individual analyses confirmed the presence of comprehension deficits in most of the SLI children. Furthermore, early semantic verbal fluency at age 6 appeared to significantly predict the reading comprehension capacity of SLI participants at age 12. Our results emphasize the importance of semantic capacity at early stages of oral language development over the consolidation of reading acquisition at later stages. Readers will recognize the relevance of prior oral language impairment, especially semantic capacity, in children with a history of SLI as a risk factor for the development of later reading difficulties. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Spoken Word Recognition in School-Age Children with SLI: Semantic, Phonological, and Repetition Priming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Velez, Melinda; Schwartz, Richard G.

2010-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to contribute to the current understanding of how children with specific language impairment (SLI) organize their mental lexicons. The study examined semantic and phonological priming in children with and without SLI. Method: Thirteen children (7;0-11;3 [years;months]) with SLI and 13 age-matched children…

With Some Help from Others' Hands: Iconic Gesture Helps Semantic Learning in Children with Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vogt, Susanne S.; Kauschke, Christina

2017-01-01

Purpose: Semantic learning under 2 co-speech gesture conditions was investigated in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing (TD) children. Learning was analyzed between conditions. Method: Twenty children with SLI (aged 4 years), 20 TD children matched for age, and 20 TD children matched for language scores were…

Performance of Brazilian children on phonemic and semantic verbal fluency tasks

PubMed Central

Charchat-Fichman, Helenice; Oliveira, Rosinda Martins; da Silva, Andreza Morais

2011-01-01

The most used verbal fluency paradigms are semantic and letter fluency tasks. Studies suggest that these paradigms access semantic memory and executive function and are sensitive to frontal lobe disturbances. There are few studies in Brazilian samples on these paradigms. Objective The present study investigated performance, and the effects of age, on verbal fluency tasks in Brazilian children. The results were compared with those of other studies, and the consistency of the scoring criteria data is presented. Methods A sample of 119 children (7 to 10 years old) was submitted to the three phonemic fluency (F, A, M) tasks and three semantic fluency (animals, clothes, fruits) tasks. The results of thirty subjects were scored by two independent examiners. Results A significant positive correlation was found between the scores calculated by the two independent examiners. Significant positive correlations were found between performance on the semantic fluency task and the phonemic fluency task. The effect of age was significant for both tasks, and a significant difference was found between the 7- and 9-year-old subjects and between the 7- and 10-year-old subjects. The 8-year-old group did not differ to any of the other age groups. Conclusion The pattern of results was similar to that observed in previous Brazilian and international studies. PMID:29213727

Reduced prefrontal activation in pediatric patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder during verbal episodic memory encoding.

PubMed

Batistuzzo, Marcelo Camargo; Balardin, Joana Bisol; Martin, Maria da Graça Morais; Hoexter, Marcelo Queiroz; Bernardes, Elisa Teixeira; Borcato, Sonia; Souza, Marina de Marco E; Querido, Cicero Nardini; Morais, Rosa Magaly; de Alvarenga, Pedro Gomes; Lopes, Antonio Carlos; Shavitt, Roseli Gedanke; Savage, Cary R; Amaro, Edson; Miguel, Euripedes C; Polanczyk, Guilherme V; Miotto, Eliane C

2015-10-01

Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often present with deficits in episodic memory, and there is evidence that these difficulties may be secondary to executive dysfunction, that is, impaired selection and/or application of memory-encoding strategies (mediation hypothesis). Semantic clustering is an effective strategy to enhance encoding of verbal episodic memory (VEM) when word lists are semantically related. Self-initiated mobilization of this strategy has been associated with increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, particularly the orbitofrontal cortex, a key region in the pathophysiology of OCD. We therefore studied children and adolescents with OCD during uncued semantic clustering strategy application in a VEM functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-encoding paradigm. A total of 25 pediatric patients with OCD (aged 8.1-17.5 years) and 25 healthy controls (HC, aged 8.1-16.9) matched for age, gender, handedness, and IQ were evaluated using a block design VEM paradigm that manipulated semantically related and unrelated words. The semantic clustering strategy score (SCS) predicted VEM performance in HC (p < .001, R(2) = 0.635), but not in patients (p = .099). Children with OCD also presented hypoactivation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (cluster-corrected p < .001). Within-group analysis revealed a negative correlation between Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale scores and activation of orbitofrontal cortex in the group with OCD. Finally, a positive correlation between age and SCS was found in HC (p = .001, r = 0.635), but not in patients with OCD (p = .936, r = 0.017). Children with OCD presented altered brain activation during the VEM paradigm and absence of expected correlation between SCS and age, and between SCS and total words recalled. These results suggest that different neural mechanisms underlie self-initiated semantic clustering in OCD. Copyright © 2015 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Overlap in the functional neural systems involved in semantic and episodic memory retrieval.

PubMed

Rajah, M N; McIntosh, A R

2005-03-01

Neuroimaging and neuropsychological data suggest that episodic and semantic memory may be mediated by distinct neural systems. However, an alternative perspective is that episodic and semantic memory represent different modes of processing within a single declarative memory system. To examine whether the multiple or the unitary system view better represents the data we conducted a network analysis using multivariate partial least squares (PLS ) activation analysis followed by covariance structural equation modeling (SEM) of positron emission tomography data obtained while healthy adults performed episodic and semantic verbal retrieval tasks. It is argued that if performance of episodic and semantic retrieval tasks are mediated by different memory systems, then there should differences in both regional activations and interregional correlations related to each type of retrieval task, respectively. The PLS results identified brain regions that were differentially active during episodic retrieval versus semantic retrieval. Regions that showed maximal differences in regional activity between episodic retrieval tasks were used to construct separate functional models for episodic and semantic retrieval. Omnibus tests of these functional models failed to find a significant difference across tasks for both functional models. The pattern of path coefficients for the episodic retrieval model were not different across tasks, nor were the path coefficients for the semantic retrieval model. The SEM results suggest that the same memory network/system was engaged across tasks, given the similarities in path coefficients. Therefore, activation differences between episodic and semantic retrieval may ref lect variation along a continuum of processing during task performance within the context of a single memory system.

Metaphor, Metonymy, and Their Interaction in the Production of Semantic Approximations by Monolingual Children: A Corpus Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pérez-Hernández, Lorena; Duvignau, Karine

2016-01-01

The present study looks into the largely unexplored territory of the cognitive underpinnings of semantic approximations in child language. The analysis of a corpus of 233 semantic approximations produced by 101 monolingual French-speaking children from 1;8 to 4;2 years of age leads to a classification of a significant number of them as instances…

Combining Temporal and Spectral Information with Spatial Mapping to Identify Differences between Phonological and Semantic Networks: A Magnetoencephalographic Approach.

PubMed

McNab, Fiona; Hillebrand, Arjan; Swithenby, Stephen J; Rippon, Gina

2012-01-01

Early, lesion-based models of language processing suggested that semantic and phonological processes are associated with distinct temporal and parietal regions respectively, with frontal areas more indirectly involved. Contemporary spatial brain mapping techniques have not supported such clear-cut segregation, with strong evidence of activation in left temporal areas by both processes and disputed evidence of involvement of frontal areas in both processes. We suggest that combining spatial information with temporal and spectral data may allow a closer scrutiny of the differential involvement of closely overlapping cortical areas in language processing. Using beamforming techniques to analyze magnetoencephalography data, we localized the neuronal substrates underlying primed responses to nouns requiring either phonological or semantic processing, and examined the associated measures of time and frequency in those areas where activation was common to both tasks. Power changes in the beta (14-30 Hz) and gamma (30-50 Hz) frequency bands were analyzed in pre-selected time windows of 350-550 and 500-700 ms In left temporal regions, both tasks elicited power changes in the same time window (350-550 ms), but with different spectral characteristics, low beta (14-20 Hz) for the phonological task and high beta (20-30 Hz) for the semantic task. In frontal areas (BA10), both tasks elicited power changes in the gamma band (30-50 Hz), but in different time windows, 500-700 ms for the phonological task and 350-550 ms for the semantic task. In the left inferior parietal area (BA40), both tasks elicited changes in the 20-30 Hz beta frequency band but in different time windows, 350-550 ms for the phonological task and 500-700 ms for the semantic task. Our findings suggest that, where spatial measures may indicate overlapping areas of involvement, additional beamforming techniques can demonstrate differential activation in time and frequency domains.

Distinct Effects of Lexical and Semantic Competition during Picture Naming in Younger Adults, Older Adults, and People with Aphasia

PubMed Central

Britt, Allison E.; Ferrara, Casey; Mirman, Daniel

2016-01-01

Producing a word requires selecting among a set of similar alternatives. When many semantically related items become activated, the difficulty of the selection process is increased. Experiment 1 tested naming of items with either multiple synonymous labels (“Alternate Names,” e.g., gift/present) or closely semantically related but non-equivalent responses (“Near Semantic Neighbors,” e.g., jam/jelly). Picture naming was fastest and most accurate for pictures with only one label (“High Name Agreement”), slower and less accurate in the Alternate Names condition, and slowest and least accurate in the Near Semantic Neighbors condition. These results suggest that selection mechanisms in picture naming operate at two distinct levels of processing: selecting between similar but non-equivalent names requires two selection processes (semantic and lexical), whereas selecting among equivalent names only requires one selection at the lexical level. Experiment 2 examined how these selection mechanisms are affected by normal aging and found that older adults had significantly more difficulty in the Near Semantic Neighbors condition, but not in the Alternate Names condition. This suggests that aging affects semantic processing and selection more strongly than it affects lexical selection. Experiment 3 examined the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) in these selection processes by testing individuals with aphasia secondary to stroke lesions that either affected the LIFG or spared it. Surprisingly, there was no interaction between condition and lesion group: the presence of LIFG damage was not associated with substantively worse naming performance for pictures with multiple acceptable labels. These results are not consistent with a simple view of LIFG as the locus of lexical selection and suggest a more nuanced view of the neural basis of lexical and semantic selection. PMID:27458393

Autobiographically significant concepts: more episodic than semantic in nature? An electrophysiological investigation of overlapping types of memory.

PubMed

Renoult, Louis; Davidson, Patrick S R; Schmitz, Erika; Park, Lillian; Campbell, Kenneth; Moscovitch, Morris; Levine, Brian

2015-01-01

A common assertion is that semantic memory emerges from episodic memory, shedding the distinctive contexts associated with episodes over time and/or repeated instances. Some semantic concepts, however, may retain their episodic origins or acquire episodic information during life experiences. The current study examined this hypothesis by investigating the ERP correlates of autobiographically significant (AS) concepts, that is, semantic concepts that are associated with vivid episodic memories. We inferred the contribution of semantic and episodic memory to AS concepts using the amplitudes of the N400 and late positive component, respectively. We compared famous names that easily brought to mind episodic memories (high AS names) against equally famous names that did not bring such recollections to mind (low AS names) on a semantic task (fame judgment) and an episodic task (recognition memory). Compared with low AS names, high AS names were associated with increased amplitude of the late positive component in both tasks. Moreover, in the recognition task, this effect of AS was highly correlated with recognition confidence. In contrast, the N400 component did not differentiate the high versus low AS names but, instead, was related to the amount of general knowledge participants had regarding each name. These results suggest that semantic concepts high in AS, such as famous names, have an episodic component and are associated with similar brain processes to those that are engaged by episodic memory. Studying AS concepts may provide unique insights into how episodic and semantic memory interact.

Drifting through Basic Subprocesses of Reading: A Hierarchical Diffusion Model Analysis of Age Effects on Visual Word Recognition

PubMed Central

Froehlich, Eva; Liebig, Johanna; Ziegler, Johannes C.; Braun, Mario; Lindenberger, Ulman; Heekeren, Hauke R.; Jacobs, Arthur M.

2016-01-01

Reading is one of the most popular leisure activities and it is routinely performed by most individuals even in old age. Successful reading enables older people to master and actively participate in everyday life and maintain functional independence. Yet, reading comprises a multitude of subprocesses and it is undoubtedly one of the most complex accomplishments of the human brain. Not surprisingly, findings of age-related effects on word recognition and reading have been partly contradictory and are often confined to only one of four central reading subprocesses, i.e., sublexical, orthographic, phonological and lexico-semantic processing. The aim of the present study was therefore to systematically investigate the impact of age on each of these subprocesses. A total of 1,807 participants (young, N = 384; old, N = 1,423) performed four decision tasks specifically designed to tap one of the subprocesses. To account for the behavioral heterogeneity in older adults, this subsample was split into high and low performing readers. Data were analyzed using a hierarchical diffusion modeling approach, which provides more information than standard response time/accuracy analyses. Taking into account incorrect and correct response times, their distributions and accuracy data, hierarchical diffusion modeling allowed us to differentiate between age-related changes in decision threshold, non-decision time and the speed of information uptake. We observed longer non-decision times for older adults and a more conservative decision threshold. More importantly, high-performing older readers outperformed younger adults at the speed of information uptake in orthographic and lexico-semantic processing, whereas a general age-disadvantage was observed at the sublexical and phonological levels. Low-performing older readers were slowest in information uptake in all four subprocesses. Discussing these results in terms of computational models of word recognition, we propose age-related disadvantages for older readers to be caused by inefficiencies in temporal sampling and activation and/or inhibition processes. PMID:27933029

Drifting through Basic Subprocesses of Reading: A Hierarchical Diffusion Model Analysis of Age Effects on Visual Word Recognition.

PubMed

Froehlich, Eva; Liebig, Johanna; Ziegler, Johannes C; Braun, Mario; Lindenberger, Ulman; Heekeren, Hauke R; Jacobs, Arthur M

2016-01-01

Reading is one of the most popular leisure activities and it is routinely performed by most individuals even in old age. Successful reading enables older people to master and actively participate in everyday life and maintain functional independence. Yet, reading comprises a multitude of subprocesses and it is undoubtedly one of the most complex accomplishments of the human brain. Not surprisingly, findings of age-related effects on word recognition and reading have been partly contradictory and are often confined to only one of four central reading subprocesses, i.e., sublexical, orthographic, phonological and lexico-semantic processing. The aim of the present study was therefore to systematically investigate the impact of age on each of these subprocesses. A total of 1,807 participants (young, N = 384; old, N = 1,423) performed four decision tasks specifically designed to tap one of the subprocesses. To account for the behavioral heterogeneity in older adults, this subsample was split into high and low performing readers. Data were analyzed using a hierarchical diffusion modeling approach, which provides more information than standard response time/accuracy analyses. Taking into account incorrect and correct response times, their distributions and accuracy data, hierarchical diffusion modeling allowed us to differentiate between age-related changes in decision threshold, non-decision time and the speed of information uptake. We observed longer non-decision times for older adults and a more conservative decision threshold. More importantly, high-performing older readers outperformed younger adults at the speed of information uptake in orthographic and lexico-semantic processing, whereas a general age-disadvantage was observed at the sublexical and phonological levels. Low-performing older readers were slowest in information uptake in all four subprocesses. Discussing these results in terms of computational models of word recognition, we propose age-related disadvantages for older readers to be caused by inefficiencies in temporal sampling and activation and/or inhibition processes.

Insights from child development on the relationship between episodic and semantic memory.

PubMed

Robertson, Erin K; Köhler, Stefan

2007-11-05

The present study was motivated by a recent controversy in the neuropsychological literature on semantic dementia as to whether episodic encoding requires semantic processing or whether it can proceed solely based on perceptual processing. We addressed this issue by examining the effect of age-related limitations in semantic competency on episodic memory in 4-6-year-old children (n=67). We administered three different forced-choice recognition memory tests for pictures previously encountered in a single study episode. The tests varied in the degree to which access to semantically encoded information was required at retrieval. Semantic competency predicted recognition performance regardless of whether access to semantic information was required. A direct relation between picture naming at encoding and subsequent recognition was also found for all tests. Our findings emphasize the importance of semantic encoding processes even in retrieval situations that purportedly do not require access to semantic information. They also highlight the importance of testing neuropsychological models of memory in different populations, healthy and brain damaged, at both ends of the developmental continuum.

Electrophysiological evidence for effects of color knowledge in object recognition.

PubMed

Lu, Aitao; Xu, Guiping; Jin, Hua; Mo, Lei; Zhang, Jijia; Zhang, John X

2010-01-29

Knowledge about the typical colors associated with familiar everyday objects (i.e., strawberries are red) is well-known to be represented in the conceptual semantic system. Evidence that such knowledge may also play a role in early perceptual processes for object recognition is scant. In the present ERP study, participants viewed a list of object pictures and detected infrequent stimulus repetitions. Results show that shortly after stimulus onset, ERP components indexing early perceptual processes, including N1, P2, and N2, differentiated between objects in their appropriate or congruent color from these objects in an inappropriate or incongruent color. Such congruence effect also occurred in N3 associated with semantic processing of pictures but not in N4 for domain-general semantic processing. Our results demonstrate a clear effect of color knowledge in early object recognition stages and support the following proposal-color as a surface property is stored in a multiple-memory system where pre-semantic perceptual and semantic conceptual representations interact during object recognition. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Age of Bilingual Exposure Is Related to the Contribution of Phonological and Semantic Knowledge to Successful Reading Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jasinska, Kaja K.; Petitto, Laura-Ann

2018-01-01

Bilingual children's reading as a function of age of first bilingual language exposure (AoE) was examined. Bilingual (varied AoE) and monolingual children (N = 421) were compared in their English language and reading abilities (6-10 years) using phonological awareness, semantic knowledge, and reading tasks. Structural equation modeling was applied…

The Development of Co-Speech Gesture and Its Semantic Integration with Speech in 6- to 12-Year-Old Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

So, Wing-Chee; Wong, Miranda Kit-Yi; Lui, Ming; Yip, Virginia

2015-01-01

Previous work leaves open the question of whether children with autism spectrum disorders aged 6-12?years have delay in producing gestures compared to their typically developing peers. This study examined gestural production among school-aged children in a naturalistic context and how their gestures are semantically related to the accompanying…

Autobiographical memory and well-being in aging: The central role of semantic self-images.

PubMed

Rathbone, Clare J; Holmes, Emily A; Murphy, Susannah E; Ellis, Judi A

2015-05-01

Higher levels of well-being are associated with longer life expectancies and better physical health. Previous studies suggest that processes involving the self and autobiographical memory are related to well-being, yet these relationships are poorly understood. The present study tested 32 older and 32 younger adults using scales measuring well-being and the affective valence of two types of autobiographical memory: episodic autobiographical memories and semantic self-images. Results showed that valence of semantic self-images, but not episodic autobiographical memories, was highly correlated with well-being, particularly in older adults. In contrast, well-being in older adults was unrelated to performance across a range of standardised memory tasks. These results highlight the role of semantic self-images in well-being, and have implications for the development of therapeutic interventions for well-being in aging. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Representational constraints on children's suggestibility.

PubMed

Ceci, Stephen J; Papierno, Paul B; Kulkofsky, Sarah

2007-06-01

In a multistage experiment, twelve 4- and 9-year-old children participated in a triad rating task. Their ratings were mapped with multidimensional scaling, from which euclidean distances were computed to operationalize semantic distance between items in target pairs. These children and age-mates then participated in an experiment that employed these target pairs in a story, which was followed by a misinformation manipulation. Analyses linked individual and developmental differences in suggestibility to children's representations of the target items. Semantic proximity was a strong predictor of differences in suggestibility: The closer a suggested distractor was to the original item's representation, the greater was the distractor's suggestive influence. The triad participants' semantic proximity subsequently served as the basis for correctly predicting memory performance in the larger group. Semantic proximity enabled a priori counterintuitive predictions of reverse age-related trends to be confirmed whenever the distance between representations of items in a target pair was greater for younger than for older children.

Adult age differences in wrap-up during sentence comprehension: evidence from ex-Gaussian distributional analyses of reading time.

PubMed

Payne, Brennan R; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A L

2014-06-01

We report a secondary data analysis investigating age differences in the effects of clause and sentence wrap-up on reading time distributions during sentence comprehension. Residual word-by-word self-paced reading times were fit to the ex-Gaussian distribution to examine age differences in the effects of clause and sentence wrap-up on both the location and shape of participants' reaction time (RT) distributions. The ex-Gaussian distribution showed good fit to the data in both younger and older adults. Sentence wrap-up increased the central tendency, the variability, and the tail of the distribution, and these effects were exaggerated among the old. In contrast, clause wrap-up influenced the tail of the distribution only, and did so differentially for older adults. Effects were confirmed via nonparametric vincentile plots. Individual differences in visual acuity, working memory, speed of processing, and verbal ability were differentially related to ex-Gaussian parameters reflecting wrap-up effects on underlying reading time distributions. These findings argue against simple pause mechanisms to explain end-of-clause and end-of-sentence reading time patterns; rather, the findings are consistent with a cognitively effortful view of wrap-up and suggest that age and individual differences in attentional allocation to semantic integration during reading, as revealed by RT distribution analyses, play an important role in sentence understanding. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Neural dynamics associated with semantic and episodic memory for faces: evidence from multiple frequency bands.

PubMed

Zion-Golumbic, Elana; Kutas, Marta; Bentin, Shlomo

2010-02-01

Prior semantic knowledge facilitates episodic recognition memory for faces. To examine the neural manifestation of the interplay between semantic and episodic memory, we investigated neuroelectric dynamics during the creation (study) and the retrieval (test) of episodic memories for famous and nonfamous faces. Episodic memory effects were evident in several EEG frequency bands: theta (4-8 Hz), alpha (9-13 Hz), and gamma (40-100 Hz). Activity in these bands was differentially modulated by preexisting semantic knowledge and by episodic memory, implicating their different functional roles in memory. More specifically, theta activity and alpha suppression were larger for old compared to new faces at test regardless of fame, but were both larger for famous faces during study. This pattern of selective semantic effects suggests that the theta and alpha responses, which are primarily associated with episodic memory, reflect utilization of semantic information only when it is beneficial for task performance. In contrast, gamma activity decreased between the first (study) and second (test) presentation of a face, but overall was larger for famous than nonfamous faces. Hence, the gamma rhythm seems to be primarily related to activation of preexisting neural representations that may contribute to the formation of new episodic traces. Taken together, these data provide new insights into the complex interaction between semantic and episodic memory for faces and the neural dynamics associated with mnemonic processes.

Neuroanatomic substrates of semantic memory impairment in Alzheimer’s disease: Patterns of functional MRI activation

PubMed Central

SAYKIN, ANDREW J.; FLASHMAN, LAURA A.; FRUTIGER, SALLY A.; JOHNSON, STERLING C.; MAMOURIAN, ALEXANDER C.; MORITZ, CHAD H.; O’JILE, JUDITH R.; RIORDAN, HENRY J.; SANTULLI, ROBERT B.; SMITH, CYNTHIA A.; WEAVER, JOHN B.

2015-01-01

Impairment in semantic processing occurs early in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and differential impact on subtypes of semantic relations have been reported, yet there is little data on the neuroanatomic basis of these deficits. Patients with mild AD and healthy controls underwent 3 functional MRI auditory stimulation tasks requiring semantic or phonological decisions (match–mismatch) about word pairs (category–exemplar, category–function, pseudoword). Patients showed a significant performance deficit only on the exemplar task. On voxel-based fMRI activation analyses, controls showed a clear activation focus in the left superior temporal gyrus for the phonological task; patients showed additional foci in the left dorsolateral prefrontal and bilateral cingulate areas. On the semantic tasks, predominant activation foci were seen in the inferior and middle frontal gyrus (left greater than right) in both groups but patients showed additional activation suggesting compensatory recruitment of locally expanded foci and remote regions, for example, right frontal activation during the exemplar task. Covariance analyses indicated that exemplar task performance was strongly related to signal increase in bilateral medial prefrontal cortex. The authors conclude that fMRI can reveal similarities and differences in functional neuroanatomical processing of semantic and phonological information in mild AD compared to healthy elderly, and can help to bridge cognitive and neural investigations of the integrity of semantic networks in AD. PMID:10439584

Gender as a determinant of some Nigerian adolescents' self-concepts.

PubMed

Olowu, A A

1985-12-01

A review of some theories of sex identification in relation to self-concept was attempted. A self-concept scale (Semantic differential) was administered on 264 boys and 108 girls. The ages range between 15.5 and 17.0 years with a mean of 16.7 years. The subjects were all Nigerians. It was found that the boys had significantly (P less than 0.001) more positive self-concepts than the girls on all the six self-concept areas. The results were discussed in the light of psychological, physiological and social differences of the two groups. The socio-cultural environment of the sample was taken into consideration in discussing the results.

The Abilities and Differential Difficulties of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Children with Specific Language Impairment to Use Semantic and Social Contexts to Infer and Recall Novel Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldman, Melody R.

2010-01-01

Two studies assessed the ability of 12 pre-school children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; N = 7) or Specific Language Impairment (SLI; N = 5) to use semantic context and eye gaze to infer the meanings of novel nouns, and to recall those meanings after a 24-hour delay. In Experiment 1, the children heard statements containing a familiar,…

Mechanisms underlying the production of false memories for famous people's names in aging and Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Plancher, Gaën; Guyard, Anne; Nicolas, Serge; Piolino, Pascale

2009-10-01

It is well known that the occurrence of false memories increases with aging, but the results remain inconsistent concerning Alzheimer's disease (AD). Moreover, the mechanisms underlying the production of false memories are still unclear. Using an experimental episodic memory test with material based on the names of famous people in a procedure derived from the DRM paradigm [Roediger, H. L., III, & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 21, 803-814], we examined correct and false recall and recognition in 30 young adults, 40 healthy older adults, and 30 patients with AD. Moreover, we evaluated the relationships between false memory performance, correct episodic memory performance, and a set of neuropsychological assessments evaluating the semantic memory and executive functions. The results clearly indicated that correct recall and recognition performance decreased with the subjects' age, but it decreased even more with AD. In addition, semantically related false recalls and false recognitions increased with age but not with dementia. On the contrary, non-semantically related false recalls and false recognitions increased with AD. Finally, the regression analyses showed that executive functions mediated related false memories and episodic memory mediated related and unrelated false memories in aging. Moreover, executive functions predicted related and unrelated false memories in AD, and episodic and semantic memory predicted semantically related and unrelated false memories in AD. In conclusion, the results obtained are consistent with the current constructive models of memory suggesting that false memory creation depends on different cognitive functions and, consequently, that the impairments of these functions influence the production of false memories.

Semantic error patterns on the Boston Naming Test in normal aging, amnestic mild cognitive impairment, and mild Alzheimer's disease: is there semantic disruption?

PubMed

Balthazar, Marcio Luiz Figueredo; Cendes, Fernando; Damasceno, Benito Pereira

2008-11-01

Naming difficulty is common in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the nature of this problem is not well established. The authors investigated the presence of semantic breakdown and the pattern of general and semantic errors in patients with mild AD, patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), and normal controls by examining their spontaneous answers on the Boston Naming Test (BNT) and verifying whether they needed or were benefited by semantic and phonemic cues. The errors in spontaneous answers were classified in four mutually exclusive categories (semantic errors, visual paragnosia, phonological errors, and omission errors), and the semantic errors were further subclassified as coordinate, superordinate, and circumlocutory. Patients with aMCI performed normally on the BNT and needed fewer semantic and phonemic cues than patients with mild AD. After semantic cues, subjects with aMCI and control subjects gave more correct answers than patients with mild AD, but after phonemic cues, there was no difference between the three groups, suggesting that the low performance of patients with AD cannot be completely explained by semantic breakdown. Patterns of spontaneous naming errors and subtypes of semantic errors were similar in the three groups, with decreasing error frequency from coordinate to superordinate to circumlocutory subtypes.

Productive extension of semantic memory in school-aged children: Relations with reading comprehension and deployment of cognitive resources.

PubMed

Bauer, Patricia J; Blue, Shala N; Xu, Aoxiang; Esposito, Alena G

2016-07-01

We investigated 7- to 10-year-old children's productive extension of semantic memory through self-generation of new factual knowledge derived through integration of separate yet related facts learned through instruction or through reading. In Experiment 1, an experimenter read the to-be-integrated facts. Children successfully learned and integrated the information and used it to further extend their semantic knowledge, as evidenced by high levels of correct responses in open-ended and forced-choice testing. In Experiment 2, on half of the trials, the to-be-integrated facts were read by an experimenter (as in Experiment 1) and on half of the trials, children read the facts themselves. Self-generation performance was high in both conditions (experimenter- and self-read); in both conditions, self-generation of new semantic knowledge was related to an independent measure of children's reading comprehension. In Experiment 3, the way children deployed cognitive resources during reading was predictive of their subsequent recall of newly learned information derived through integration. These findings indicate self-generation of new semantic knowledge through integration in school-age children as well as relations between this productive means of extension of semantic memory and cognitive processes engaged during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Productive Extension of Semantic Memory in School-aged Children: Relations with Reading Comprehension and Deployment of Cognitive Resources

PubMed Central

Bauer, Patricia J.; Blue, Shala N.; Xu, Aoxiang; Esposito, Alena G.

2016-01-01

We investigated 7- to 10-year-old children’s productive extension of semantic memory through self-generation of new factual knowledge derived through integration of separate yet related facts learned through instruction or through reading. In Experiment 1, an experimenter read the to-be-integrated facts. Children successfully learned and integrated the information and used it to further extend their semantic knowledge, as evidenced by high levels of correct responses in open-ended and forced-choice testing. In Experiment 2, on half of the trials, the to-be-integrated facts were read by an experimenter (as in Experiment 1) and on half of the trials, children read the facts themselves. Self-generation performance was high in both conditions (experimenter- and self-read); in both conditions, self-generation of new semantic knowledge was related to an independent measure of children’s reading comprehension. In Experiment 3, the way children deployed cognitive resources during reading was predictive of their subsequent recall of newly learned information derived through integration. These findings indicate self-generation of new semantic knowledge through integration in school-age children as well as relations between this productive means of extension of semantic memory and cognitive processes engaged during reading. PMID:27253263

Selective sex differences in declarative memory.

PubMed

Maitland, Scott B; Herlitz, Agneta; Nyberg, Lars; Bäckman, Lars; Nilsson, Lars-Göran

2004-10-01

Sex invariance of a six-factor, higher order model of declarative memory (two second-order factors: episodic and semantic memory; and four first-order factors: recall, recognition, fluency, and knowledge) was established for 1,796 participants (35-85 years). Metric invariance of first- and second-order factor loadings across sex was demonstrated. At the second-order level, a female advantage was observed for both episodic and semantic memory. At the first-order level, sex differences in episodic memory were apparent for both recall and recognition, whereas the differences in semantic memory were driven by a female superiority in fluency. Additional tests of sex differences in three age groups (35-50, 55-65, and 70-85 years of age) indicated that the female superiority in declarative memory diminished with advancing age. The factor-specific sex differences are discussed in relation to sex differences in hippocampal function.

(Pea)nuts and bolts of visual narrative: Structure and meaning in sequential image comprehension

PubMed Central

Cohn, Neil; Paczynski, Martin; Jackendoff, Ray; Holcomb, Phillip J.; Kuperberg, Gina R.

2012-01-01

Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, the comprehension of sequential images must also use a cognitive system to distinguish coherent narrative sequences from random strings of images. We conducted experiments analogous to two classic studies of language processing to examine the contributions of narrative structure and semantic relatedness to processing sequential images. We compared four types of comic strips: 1) Normal sequences with both structure and meaning, 2) Semantic Only sequences (in which the panels were related to a common semantic theme, but had no narrative structure), 3) Structural Only sequences (narrative structure but no semantic relatedness), and 4) Scrambled sequences of randomly-ordered panels. In Experiment 1, participants monitored for target panels in sequences presented panel-by-panel. Reaction times were slowest to panels in Scrambled sequences, intermediate in both Structural Only and Semantic Only sequences, and fastest in Normal sequences. This suggests that both semantic relatedness and narrative structure offer advantages to processing. Experiment 2 measured ERPs to all panels across the whole sequence. The N300/N400 was largest to panels in both the Scrambled and Structural Only sequences, intermediate in Semantic Only sequences and smallest in the Normal sequences. This implies that a combination of narrative structure and semantic relatedness can facilitate semantic processing of upcoming panels (as reflected by the N300/N400). Also, panels in the Scrambled sequences evoked a larger left-lateralized anterior negativity than panels in the Structural Only sequences. This localized effect was distinct from the N300/N400, and appeared despite the fact that these two sequence types were matched on local semantic relatedness between individual panels. These findings suggest that sequential image comprehension uses a narrative structure that may be independent of semantic relatedness. Altogether, we argue that the comprehension of visual narrative is guided by an interaction between structure and meaning. PMID:22387723

Word Associations and the Development of Lexical Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Petrey, Sandy

1977-01-01

Endel Tulving's distinction between "episodic" and "semantic" memory defines age differences in word association norms more comprehensively than the usual syntactic classifications. As subjects mature the principal development is an episodic-semantic shift. Young children associate primarily with the stimulus' perceived…

Asymptotically Optimal and Private Statistical Estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, Adam

Differential privacy is a definition of "privacy" for statistical databases. The definition is simple, yet it implies strong semantics even in the presence of an adversary with arbitrary auxiliary information about the database.

Remote semantic memory for public figures in HIV infection, alcoholism, and their comorbidity.

PubMed

Fama, Rosemary; Rosenbloom, Margaret J; Sassoon, Stephanie A; Thompson, Megan A; Pfefferbaum, Adolf; Sullivan, Edith V

2011-02-01

Impairments in component processes of working and episodic memory mark both HIV infection and chronic alcoholism, with compounded deficits often observed in individuals comorbid for these conditions. Remote semantic memory processes, however, have only seldom been studied in these diagnostic groups. Examination of remote semantic memory could provide insight into the underlying processes associated with storage and retrieval of learned information over extended time periods while elucidating spared and impaired cognitive functions in these clinical groups. We examined component processes of remote semantic memory in HIV infection and chronic alcoholism in 4 subject groups (HIV, ALC, HIV + ALC, and age-matched healthy adults) using a modified version of the Presidents Test. Free recall, recognition, and sequencing of presidential candidates and election dates were assessed. In addition, component processes of working, episodic, and semantic memory were assessed with ancillary cognitive tests. The comorbid group (HIV + ALC) was significantly impaired on sequencing of remote semantic information compared with age-matched healthy adults. Free recall of remote semantic information was also modestly impaired in the HIV + ALC group, but normal performance for recognition of this information was observed. Few differences were observed between the single diagnosis groups (HIV, ALC) and healthy adults, although examination of the component processes underlying remote semantic memory scores elicited differences between the HIV and ALC groups. Selective remote memory processes were related to lifetime alcohol consumption in the ALC group and to viral load and depression level in the HIV group. Hepatitis C diagnosis was associated with lower remote semantic memory scores in all 3 clinical groups. Education level did not account for group differences reported. This study provides behavioral support for the existence of adverse effects associated with the comorbidity of HIV infection and chronic alcoholism on selective component processes of memory function, with untoward effects exacerbated by Hepatitis C infection. The pattern of remote semantic memory function in HIV + ALC is consistent with those observed in neurological conditions primarily affecting frontostriatal pathways and suggests that remote memory dysfunction in HIV + ALC may be a result of impaired retrieval processes rather than loss of remote semantic information per se. Copyright © 2010 by the Research Society on Alcoholism.

Syntactic processing as a marker for cognitive impairment in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

PubMed Central

Tsermentseli, Stella; Leigh, P. Nigel; Taylor, Lorna J.; Radunovic, Aleksandar; Catani, Marco; Goldstein, Laura H.

2016-01-01

Despite recent interest in cognitive changes in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), investigations of language function looking at the level of word, sentence and discourse processing are relatively scarce. Data were obtained from 26 patients with sporadic ALS and 26 healthy controls matched for age, education, gender, anxiety, depression and executive function performance. Standardized language tasks included confrontation naming, semantic access, and syntactic comprehension. Quantitative production analysis (QPA) was used to analyse connected speech samples of the Cookie Theft picture description task. Results showed that the ALS patients were impaired on standardized measures of grammatical comprehension and action/verb semantics. At the level of discourse, ALS patients were impaired on measures of syntactic complexity and fluency; however, the latter could be better explained by disease related factors. Discriminant analysis revealed that syntactic measures differentiated ALS patients from controls. In conclusion, patients with ALS exhibit deficits in receptive and expressive language on tasks of comprehension and connected speech production, respectively. Our findings suggest that syntactic processing deficits seem to be the predominant feature of language impairment in ALS and that these deficits can be detected by relatively simple language tests. PMID:26312952

Syntactic processing as a marker for cognitive impairment in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

PubMed

Tsermentseli, Stella; Leigh, P Nigel; Taylor, Lorna J; Radunovic, Aleksandar; Catani, Marco; Goldstein, Laura H

2015-01-01

Despite recent interest in cognitive changes in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), investigations of language function looking at the level of word, sentence and discourse processing are relatively scarce. Data were obtained from 26 patients with sporadic ALS and 26 healthy controls matched for age, education, gender, anxiety, depression and executive function performance. Standardized language tasks included confrontation naming, semantic access, and syntactic comprehension. Quantitative production analysis (QPA) was used to analyse connected speech samples of the Cookie Theft picture description task. Results showed that the ALS patients were impaired on standardized measures of grammatical comprehension and action/verb semantics. At the level of discourse, ALS patients were impaired on measures of syntactic complexity and fluency; however, the latter could be better explained by disease related factors. Discriminant analysis revealed that syntactic measures differentiated ALS patients from controls. In conclusion, patients with ALS exhibit deficits in receptive and expressive language on tasks of comprehension and connected speech production, respectively. Our findings suggest that syntactic processing deficits seem to be the predominant feature of language impairment in ALS and that these deficits can be detected by relatively simple language tests.

Effects of paired-object affordance in search tasks across the adult lifespan.

PubMed

Wulff, Melanie; Stainton, Alexandra; Rotshtein, Pia

2016-06-01

The study investigated the processes underlying the retrieval of action information about functional object pairs, focusing on the contribution of procedural and semantic knowledge. We further assessed whether the retrieval of action knowledge is affected by task demands and age. The contribution of procedural knowledge was examined by the way objects were selected, specifically whether active objects were selected before passive objects. The contribution of semantic knowledge was examined by manipulating the relation between targets and distracters. A touchscreen-based search task was used testing young, middle-aged, and elderly participants. Participants had to select by touching two targets among distracters using two search tasks. In an explicit action search task, participants had to select two objects which afforded a mutual action (e.g., functional pair: hammer-nail). Implicit affordance perception was tested using a visual color-matching search task; participants had to select two objects with the same colored frame. In both tasks, half of the colored targets also afforded an action. Overall, middle-aged participants performed better than young and elderly participants, specifically in the action task. Across participants in the action task, accuracy was increased when the distracters were semantically unrelated to the functional pair, while the opposite pattern was observed in the color task. This effect was enhanced with increased age. In the action task all participants utilized procedural knowledge, i.e., selected the active object before the passive object. This result supports the dual-route account from vision to action. Semantic knowledge contributed to both the action and the color task, but procedural knowledge associated with the direct route was primarily retrieved when the task was action-relevant. Across the adulthood lifespan, the data show inverted U-shaped effects of age on the retrieval of action knowledge. Age also linearly increased the involvement of the indirect (semantic) route and the integration of information of the direct and the indirect routes in selection processes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The cognitive and neural expression of semantic memory impairment in mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Joubert, Sven; Brambati, Simona M; Ansado, Jennyfer; Barbeau, Emmanuel J; Felician, Olivier; Didic, Mira; Lacombe, Jacinthe; Goldstein, Rachel; Chayer, Céline; Kergoat, Marie-Jeanne

2010-03-01

Semantic deficits in Alzheimer's disease have been widely documented, but little is known about the integrity of semantic memory in the prodromal stage of the illness. The aims of the present study were to: (i) investigate naming abilities and semantic memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), early Alzheimer's disease (AD) compared to healthy older subjects; (ii) investigate the association between naming and semantic knowledge in aMCI and AD; (iii) examine if the semantic impairment was present in different modalities; and (iv) study the relationship between semantic performance and grey matter volume using voxel-based morphometry. Results indicate that both naming and semantic knowledge of objects and famous people were impaired in aMCI and early AD groups, when compared to healthy age- and education-matched controls. Item-by-item analyses showed that anomia in aMCI and early AD was significantly associated with underlying semantic knowledge of famous people but not with semantic knowledge of objects. Moreover, semantic knowledge of the same concepts was impaired in both the visual and the verbal modalities. Finally, voxel-based morphometry analyses revealed that semantic impairment in aMCI and AD was associated with cortical atrophy in the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) region as well as in the inferior prefrontal cortex (IPC), some of the key regions of the semantic cognition network. These findings suggest that the semantic impairment in aMCI may result from a breakdown of semantic knowledge of famous people and objects, combined with difficulties in the selection, manipulation and retrieval of this knowledge. Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Aesthetic perception of visual textures: a holistic exploration using texture analysis, psychological experiment, and perception modeling.

PubMed

Liu, Jianli; Lughofer, Edwin; Zeng, Xianyi

2015-01-01

Modeling human aesthetic perception of visual textures is important and valuable in numerous industrial domains, such as product design, architectural design, and decoration. Based on results from a semantic differential rating experiment, we modeled the relationship between low-level basic texture features and aesthetic properties involved in human aesthetic texture perception. First, we compute basic texture features from textural images using four classical methods. These features are neutral, objective, and independent of the socio-cultural context of the visual textures. Then, we conduct a semantic differential rating experiment to collect from evaluators their aesthetic perceptions of selected textural stimuli. In semantic differential rating experiment, eights pairs of aesthetic properties are chosen, which are strongly related to the socio-cultural context of the selected textures and to human emotions. They are easily understood and connected to everyday life. We propose a hierarchical feed-forward layer model of aesthetic texture perception and assign 8 pairs of aesthetic properties to different layers. Finally, we describe the generation of multiple linear and non-linear regression models for aesthetic prediction by taking dimensionality-reduced texture features and aesthetic properties of visual textures as dependent and independent variables, respectively. Our experimental results indicate that the relationships between each layer and its neighbors in the hierarchical feed-forward layer model of aesthetic texture perception can be fitted well by linear functions, and the models thus generated can successfully bridge the gap between computational texture features and aesthetic texture properties.

User Evaluation of Neonatology Ward Design.

PubMed

Trujillo, Juan Luis Higuera; Aviñó, Antoni Montañana I; Millán, Carmen Llinares

2017-01-01

The object of this article is to identify the set of affective and emotional factors behind users' assessments of a space in a neonatology unit and to propose design guidelines based on these. The importance of the neonatology service and the variety of users place great demands on the space at all levels. Despite the repercussions, the emotional aspects of the environment have received less attention. To avoid incurring limitations in the user mental scheme, this study uses two complementary methodologies: focus group and semantic differential. The (qualitative) focus group methodology provides exploratory information and concepts. The (quantitative) semantic differential methodology then uses these concepts to extract the conceptual structures that users employ in their assessment of the space. Of the total 175 subjects, 31 took part in focus groups and 144 in semantic differential. Five independent concepts were identified: privacy, functionality and professional nature, spaciousness, lighting, and cleanliness. In relation to the importance of the overall positive assessment of the space, the perception of privacy and sensations of dominance and pleasure are fundamental. Six relevant design aspects were also identified: provide spacious surroundings, facilitate sufficient separation between the different posts or cots, use different colors from those usually found in health-care centers, as some aversion was found to white and especially green, design areas with childhood themes, use warm artificial light, and choose user-friendly equipment. Results provide design recommendations of interest and show the possibilities offered by combining both systems to analyze user response.

Novel word learning in older adults: A role for sleep?

PubMed Central

Kurdziel, Laura B. F.; Mantua, Janna; Spencer, Rebecca M. C.

2016-01-01

Sleep is an offline period during which newly acquired semantic information is transformed into longer-lasting memories. Language acquisition, which requires new word learning and semantic integration, is preferentially benefitted by a period of sleep in children and young adults. Specific features of sleep (e.g., sleep stage characteristics) have been associated with enhanced language acquisition and generalization. However, with increasing age, even in healthy individuals, sleep quality and quantity decrease. Simultaneously, deficits in word retrieval and new word learning emerge. It is unknown whether age-related alterations in language ability are linked with alterations in sleep. The goal of this review is to examine changes in language learning and sleep across the lifespan. We consider how sleep detriments that occur with aging could affect abilities to learn novel words and semantic generalization and propose hypotheses to motivate future research in this area. PMID:27291336

Nonword Repetition and Vocabulary Knowledge as Predictors of Children's Phonological and Semantic Word Learning.

PubMed

Adlof, Suzanne M; Patten, Hannah

2017-03-01

This study examined the unique and shared variance that nonword repetition and vocabulary knowledge contribute to children's ability to learn new words. Multiple measures of word learning were used to assess recall and recognition of phonological and semantic information. Fifty children, with a mean age of 8 years (range 5-12 years), completed experimental assessments of word learning and norm-referenced assessments of receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge and nonword repetition skills. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses examined the variance in word learning that was explained by vocabulary knowledge and nonword repetition after controlling for chronological age. Together with chronological age, nonword repetition and vocabulary knowledge explained up to 44% of the variance in children's word learning. Nonword repetition was the stronger predictor of phonological recall, phonological recognition, and semantic recognition, whereas vocabulary knowledge was the stronger predictor of verbal semantic recall. These findings extend the results of past studies indicating that both nonword repetition skill and existing vocabulary knowledge are important for new word learning, but the relative influence of each predictor depends on the way word learning is measured. Suggestions for further research involving typically developing children and children with language or reading impairments are discussed.

One declarative memory system or two? The relationship between episodic and semantic memory in children with temporal lobe epilepsy.

PubMed

Smith, Mary Lou; Lah, Suncica

2011-09-01

This study explored verbal semantic and episodic memory in children with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy to determine whether they had impairments in both or only 1 aspect of memory, and to examine relations between performance in the 2 domains. Sixty-six children and adolescents (37 with seizures of left temporal lobe onset, 29 with right-sided onset) were given 4 tasks assessing different aspects of semantic memory (picture naming, fluency, knowledge of facts, knowledge of word meanings) and 2 episodic memory tasks (story recall, word list recall). High rates of impairments were observed across tasks, and no differences were found related to the laterality of the seizures. Individual patient analyses showed that there was a double dissociation between the 2 aspects of memory in that some children were impaired on episodic but not semantic memory, whereas others showed intact episodic but impaired semantic memory. This double dissociation suggests that these 2 memory systems may develop independently in the context of temporal lobe pathology, perhaps related to differential effects of dysfunction in the lateral and mesial temporal lobe structures. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved.

Building a biomedical semantic network in Wikipedia with Semantic Wiki Links

PubMed Central

Good, Benjamin M.; Clarke, Erik L.; Loguercio, Salvatore; Su, Andrew I.

2012-01-01

Wikipedia is increasingly used as a platform for collaborative data curation, but its current technical implementation has significant limitations that hinder its use in biocuration applications. Specifically, while editors can easily link between two articles in Wikipedia to indicate a relationship, there is no way to indicate the nature of that relationship in a way that is computationally accessible to the system or to external developers. For example, in addition to noting a relationship between a gene and a disease, it would be useful to differentiate the cases where genetic mutation or altered expression causes the disease. Here, we introduce a straightforward method that allows Wikipedia editors to embed computable semantic relations directly in the context of current Wikipedia articles. In addition, we demonstrate two novel applications enabled by the presence of these new relationships. The first is a dynamically generated information box that can be rendered on all semantically enhanced Wikipedia articles. The second is a prototype gene annotation system that draws its content from the gene-centric articles on Wikipedia and exposes the new semantic relationships to enable previously impossible, user-defined queries. Database URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Gene_Wiki PMID:22434829

Building a biomedical semantic network in Wikipedia with Semantic Wiki Links.

PubMed

Good, Benjamin M; Clarke, Erik L; Loguercio, Salvatore; Su, Andrew I

2012-01-01

Wikipedia is increasingly used as a platform for collaborative data curation, but its current technical implementation has significant limitations that hinder its use in biocuration applications. Specifically, while editors can easily link between two articles in Wikipedia to indicate a relationship, there is no way to indicate the nature of that relationship in a way that is computationally accessible to the system or to external developers. For example, in addition to noting a relationship between a gene and a disease, it would be useful to differentiate the cases where genetic mutation or altered expression causes the disease. Here, we introduce a straightforward method that allows Wikipedia editors to embed computable semantic relations directly in the context of current Wikipedia articles. In addition, we demonstrate two novel applications enabled by the presence of these new relationships. The first is a dynamically generated information box that can be rendered on all semantically enhanced Wikipedia articles. The second is a prototype gene annotation system that draws its content from the gene-centric articles on Wikipedia and exposes the new semantic relationships to enable previously impossible, user-defined queries. DATABASE URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Gene_Wiki.

Neuropsychological differences between men and women with Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Ryan, Joseph J; Glass Umfleet, Laura; Kreiner, David S; Fuller, Amanda M; Paolo, Anthony M

2018-04-01

It has been suggested that men and women with Alzheimer's disease (AD) at comparable levels of global cognitive impairment perform differently on neuropsychological measures. Such differences may have practical implications for designing cognitive interventions that address symptoms of dementia. We compared men (n = 86) and women (n = 96) with AD on tests of immediate and delayed prose memory, verbal fluency, semantic fluency, semantic memory and confrontation naming. Mean years for age, education and duration of illness were 70.81 (SD = 7.55), 13.37 (SD = 3.38) and 2.17 (SD = 1.72) for men and 73.11(SD = 8.53), 12.27 (SD = 2.86) and 2.42 (SD = 1.92) for women. The groups were comparable in global cognitive functioning as indicated by Dementia Rating Scale total scores for men of 89.27 (SD = 29.80) and women of 90.86 (SD = 30.20). Men earned significantly better scores in immediate prose memory, semantic verbal fluency, semantic memory and response naming. Men and women performed similarly on the remaining tests. When the variables of age, education and duration of disease were controlled, the significant effect of gender was maintained only on tests of semantic fluency, semantic memory and confrontation naming. The hypothesis of the study was partially confirmed in that women with AD evidenced greater impairment than men with AD on three of six neuropsychological measures even after potentially confounding variables were controlled.

Brain connections of words, perceptions and actions: A neurobiological model of spatio-temporal semantic activation in the human cortex.

PubMed

Tomasello, Rosario; Garagnani, Max; Wennekers, Thomas; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2017-04-01

Neuroimaging and patient studies show that different areas of cortex respectively specialize for general and selective, or category-specific, semantic processing. Why are there both semantic hubs and category-specificity, and how come that they emerge in different cortical regions? Can the activation time-course of these areas be predicted and explained by brain-like network models? In this present work, we extend a neurocomputational model of human cortical function to simulate the time-course of cortical processes of understanding meaningful concrete words. The model implements frontal and temporal cortical areas for language, perception, and action along with their connectivity. It uses Hebbian learning to semantically ground words in aspects of their referential object- and action-related meaning. Compared with earlier proposals, the present model incorporates additional neuroanatomical links supported by connectivity studies and downscaled synaptic weights in order to control for functional between-area differences purely due to the number of in- or output links of an area. We show that learning of semantic relationships between words and the objects and actions these symbols are used to speak about, leads to the formation of distributed circuits, which all include neuronal material in connector hub areas bridging between sensory and motor cortical systems. Therefore, these connector hub areas acquire a role as semantic hubs. By differentially reaching into motor or visual areas, the cortical distributions of the emergent 'semantic circuits' reflect aspects of the represented symbols' meaning, thus explaining category-specificity. The improved connectivity structure of our model entails a degree of category-specificity even in the 'semantic hubs' of the model. The relative time-course of activation of these areas is typically fast and near-simultaneous, with semantic hubs central to the network structure activating before modality-preferential areas carrying semantic information. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

The role of the right hemisphere in semantic control: A case-series comparison of right and left hemisphere stroke

PubMed Central

Thompson, Hannah E.; Henshall, Lauren; Jefferies, Elizabeth

2016-01-01

Semantic control processes guide conceptual retrieval so that we are able to focus on non-dominant associations and features when these are required for the task or context, yet the neural basis of semantic control is not fully understood. Neuroimaging studies have emphasised the role of left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in controlled retrieval, while neuropsychological investigations of semantic control deficits have almost exclusively focussed on patients with left-sided damage (e.g., patients with semantic aphasia, SA). Nevertheless, activation in fMRI during demanding semantic tasks typically extends to right IFG. To investigate the role of the right hemisphere (RH) in semantic control, we compared nine RH stroke patients with 21 left-hemisphere SA patients, 11 mild SA cases and 12 healthy, aged-matched controls on semantic and executive tasks, plus experimental tasks that manipulated semantic control in paradigms particularly sensitive to RH damage. RH patients had executive deficits to parallel SA patients but they performed well on standard semantic tests. Nevertheless, multimodal semantic control deficits were found in experimental tasks involving facial emotions and the ‘summation’ of meaning across multiple items. On these tasks, RH patients showed effects similar to those in SA cases – multimodal deficits that were sensitive to distractor strength and cues and miscues, plus increasingly poor performance in cyclical matching tasks which repeatedly probed the same set of concepts. Thus, despite striking differences in single-item comprehension, evidence presented here suggests semantic control is bilateral, and disruption of this component of semantic cognition can be seen following damage to either hemisphere. PMID:26945505

A case of amnesia at an early age.

PubMed

Brizzolara, Daniela; Casalini, Claudia; Montanaro, Domenico; Posteraro, Federico

2003-01-01

A dissociation between short- and long-term memory (LTM) and between the episodic and the semantic component of LTM is reported in a young girl who became amnesic at the age of 6 after an episode of acute encephalopathy resulting in bilateral frontal, insular, thalamic, ponto-mesencephalic, hippocampal and temporal lesions, as documented by MRI. The girl became amnesic a few months after starting school. A follow-up investigation showed that she was able to learn to read, write and acquire number facts and procedures and to improve her semantic knowledge. Our results show that the features of adult amnesia can also be found in children and that new semantic knowledge can be acquired in spite of an anterograde memory deficit. This dissociation does not agree with theories viewing long-term declarative memory as a unitary process mediated by the hippocampal system, but supports recent hypotheses that the acquisition of semantic knowledge is independent from episodic memory processes, and takes place through spared cortical regions subjacent to the hippocampi (Vargha-Khadem et al., 1997).

Susceptibility to distraction during reading in young, young-old, and old-old adults.

PubMed

McGinnis, Debra

2012-01-01

BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Susceptibility to distraction during reading may increase with age, resulting in comprehension errors. Neurological integrity and cognitive reserve are possible covariates of age-related distraction susceptibility. The current study investigated distraction susceptibility in three age groups (young, young-old, and old-old), and examined the covariation patterns of variable sets associated with neurological integrity and cognitive reserve. Participants responded to comprehension questions after reading stories that included semantically related or semantically unrelated distractors. Neurological integrity measures consisted of Mini-Mental State Examination, Selective Reminding, and Category Fluency. Cognitive reserve measures consisted of education and vocabulary. Old-old adults were more likely than young and young-old adults to select distractors when responding to comprehension questions (24.02%, 11.95%, 3.68%, respectively). Age-related distraction variance significantly overlapped neurological variance, and became more transparent after cognitive reserve variance was controlled. This study augments previous age-related distraction research by highlighting (a) the increase in distraction susceptibility in adults over 79, particularly when distractors are semantically related; (b) the influence of age-related neurological integrity on distraction; and (c) the possibility that education and verbal experience may decrease distraction susceptibility, consistent with cognitive reserve frameworks.

Characterizing Cognitive Performance in a Large Longitudinal Study of Aging with Computerized Semantic Indices of Verbal Fluency

PubMed Central

Pakhomov, Serguei VS; Eberly, Lynn; Knopman, David

2016-01-01

A computational approach for estimating several indices of performance on the animal category verbal fluency task was validated, and examined in a large longitudinal study of aging. The performance indices included the traditional verbal fluency score, size of semantic clusters, density of repeated words, as well as measures of semantic and lexical diversity. Change over time in these measures was modeled using mixed effects regression in several groups of participants, including those that remained cognitively normal throughout the study (CN) and those that were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia at some point subsequent to the baseline visit. The results of the study show that, with the exception of mean cluster size, the indices showed significantly greater declines in the MCI and AD dementia groups as compared to CN participants. Examination of associations between the indices and cognitive domains of memory, attention and visuospatial functioning showed that the traditional verbal fluency scores were associated with declines in all three domains, whereas semantic and lexical diversity measures were associated with declines only in the visuospatial domain. Baseline repetition density was associated with declines in memory and visuospatial domains. Examination of lexical and semantic diversity measures in subgroups with high vs. low attention scores (but normal functioning in other domains) showed that the performance of individuals with low attention was influenced more by word frequency rather than strength of semantic relatedness between words. These findings suggest that various automatically semantic indices may be used to examine various aspects of cognitive performance affected by dementia. PMID:27245645

Failure to Recover from Proactive Semantic Interference and Abnormal Limbic Connectivity in Asymptomatic, Middle-Aged Offspring of Patients with Late-Onset Alzheimer's Disease.

PubMed

Sánchez, Stella M; Abulafia, Carolina; Duarte-Abritta, Barbara; de Guevara, M Soledad Ladrón; Castro, Mariana N; Drucaroff, Lucas; Sevlever, Gustavo; Nemeroff, Charles B; Vigo, Daniel E; Loewenstein, David A; Villarreal, Mirta F; Guinjoan, Salvador M

2017-01-01

We have obtained previous evidence of limbic dysfunction in middle-aged, asymptomatic offspring of late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) patients, and failure to recover from proactive semantic interference has been shown to be a sensitive cognitive test in other groups at risk for LOAD. To assess the effects of specific proactive semantic interference deficits as they relate to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) neocortical and limbic functional connectivity in middle aged offspring of individuals with LOAD (O-LOAD) and age-equivalent controls. We examined 21 O-LOAD and 20 controls without family history of neurodegenerative disorders (CS) on traditional measures of cognitive functioning and the LASSI-L, a novel semantic interference test uniquely sensitive to the failure to recover from proactive interference (frPSI). Cognitive tests then were correlated to fMRI connectivity of seeds located in entorhinal cortex and anterodorsal thalamic nuclei among O-LOAD and CS participants. Relative to CS, O-LOAD participants evidenced lower connectivity between entorhinal cortex and orbitofrontal, anterior cingulate, and anterior temporal cortex. In the offspring of LOAD patients, LASSI-L measures of frPSI were inversely associated with connectivity between anterodorsal thalamus and contralateral posterior cingulate. Intrusions on the task related to frPSI were inversely correlated with a widespread connectivity network involving hippocampal, insular, posterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, along with precunei and anterior thalamus in this group. Different patterns of connectivity associated with frPSI were observed among controls. The present results suggest that both semantic interference deficits and connectivity abnormalities might reflect limbic circuit dysfunction as a very early clinical signature of LOAD pathology, as previously demonstrated for other limbic phenotypes, such as sleep and circadian alterations.

Self-referencing enhances recollection in both young and older adults

PubMed Central

Leshikar, Eric D.; Dulas, Michael R.; Duarte, Audrey

2014-01-01

Processing information in relation to the self enhances subsequent item recognition in both young and older adults, and further, enhances recollection at least in the young. Because older adults experience recollection memory deficits it is unknown whether self-referencing improves recollection in older adults. We examined recollection benefits from self-referential encoding in older and younger adults and further examined the quality and quantity of episodic details facilitated by self-referencing. We further investigated the influence of valence on recollection given prior findings of age group differences in emotional memory (i.e. “positivity effects”). Across 2 experiments, young and older adults processed positive and negative adjectives either for self-relevance or for semantic meaning. We found that self-referencing, relative to semantic encoding, increased recollection memory in both age groups. In Experiment 1, both groups remembered proportionally more negative than positive items when adjectives were processed semantically; however, when adjectives were processed self-referentially, both groups exhibited evidence of better recollection for the positive items, inconsistent with a positivity effect in aging. In Experiment 2, both groups reported more episodic details associated with recollected items, as measured by a memory characteristic questionnaire (MCQ), for the self-reference relative to the semantic condition. Overall, these data suggest that self-referencing leads to detail-rich memory representations reflected in higher rates of recollection across age. PMID:25264018

Combining Temporal and Spectral Information with Spatial Mapping to Identify Differences between Phonological and Semantic Networks: A Magnetoencephalographic Approach

PubMed Central

McNab, Fiona; Hillebrand, Arjan; Swithenby, Stephen J.; Rippon, Gina

2012-01-01

Early, lesion-based models of language processing suggested that semantic and phonological processes are associated with distinct temporal and parietal regions respectively, with frontal areas more indirectly involved. Contemporary spatial brain mapping techniques have not supported such clear-cut segregation, with strong evidence of activation in left temporal areas by both processes and disputed evidence of involvement of frontal areas in both processes. We suggest that combining spatial information with temporal and spectral data may allow a closer scrutiny of the differential involvement of closely overlapping cortical areas in language processing. Using beamforming techniques to analyze magnetoencephalography data, we localized the neuronal substrates underlying primed responses to nouns requiring either phonological or semantic processing, and examined the associated measures of time and frequency in those areas where activation was common to both tasks. Power changes in the beta (14–30 Hz) and gamma (30–50 Hz) frequency bands were analyzed in pre-selected time windows of 350–550 and 500–700 ms In left temporal regions, both tasks elicited power changes in the same time window (350–550 ms), but with different spectral characteristics, low beta (14–20 Hz) for the phonological task and high beta (20–30 Hz) for the semantic task. In frontal areas (BA10), both tasks elicited power changes in the gamma band (30–50 Hz), but in different time windows, 500–700 ms for the phonological task and 350–550 ms for the semantic task. In the left inferior parietal area (BA40), both tasks elicited changes in the 20–30 Hz beta frequency band but in different time windows, 350–550 ms for the phonological task and 500–700 ms for the semantic task. Our findings suggest that, where spatial measures may indicate overlapping areas of involvement, additional beamforming techniques can demonstrate differential activation in time and frequency domains. PMID:22908001

The influence of rTMS over prefrontal and motor areas in a morphological task: grammatical vs. semantic effects.

PubMed

Gerfo, Emanuele Lo; Oliveri, Massimiliano; Torriero, Sara; Salerno, Silvia; Koch, Giacomo; Caltagirone, Carlo

2008-01-31

We investigated the differential role of two frontal regions in the processing of grammatical and semantic knowledge. Given the documented specificity of the prefrontal cortex for the grammatical class of verbs, and of the primary motor cortex for the semantic class of action words, we sought to investigate whether the prefrontal cortex is also sensitive to semantic effects, and whether the motor cortex is also sensitive to grammatical class effects. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to suppress the excitability of a portion of left prefontal cortex (first experiment) and of the motor area (second experiment). In the first experiment we found that rTMS applied to the left prefrontal cortex delays the processing of action verbs' retrieval, but is not critical for retrieval of state verbs and state nouns. In the second experiment we found that rTMS applied to the left motor cortex delays the processing of action words, both name and verbs, while it is not critical for the processing of state words. These results support the notion that left prefrontal and motor cortex are involved in the process of action word retrieval. Left prefrontal cortex subserves processing of both grammatical and semantic information, whereas motor cortex contributes to the processing of semantic representation of action words without any involvement in the representation of grammatical categories.

The effects of age and education on executive functioning and oral naming performance in greek cypriot adults: the neurocognitive study for the aging.

PubMed

Constantinidou, Fofi; Christodoulou, Marianna; Prokopiou, Juliana

2012-01-01

Age, educational experiences, language and culture can affect linguistic-cognitive performance. This is the first systematic study investigating linguistic-cognitive aging in Greek Cypriot adults focusing on executive functioning (EF) and oral naming performance. Three hundred and fifty-nine participants were included, a group of young-old, aged 60-75 years (n = 231), and a group of old-old participants, aged 76 years and older (n = 128). Participants in each age group were divided into three education groups: 0-4 years (n = 50), 5-9 years (n = 198), and 10 years of education and higher (n = 111). Participants were administered 5 measures of EF along with measures of receptive vocabulary and confrontational naming. There was a significant relationship between the EF composite score and all language measures. MANOVA (α = 0.05) indicated significant age and education effects on most measures of EF and language. Performance on receptive vocabulary and cognitive shift remained stable across age groups, but was mediated by education. Education plays a significant role on all measures requiring semantic organization, speed of information processing, cognitive shift, mental flexibility, receptive vocabulary and confrontational naming. Furthermore, strategic thinking has a role in semantic knowledge, word retrieval and semantic access in healthy aging. We conclude with clinical implications and assessment considerations in aphasia. Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Spatial information semantic query based on SPARQL

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiao, Zhifeng; Huang, Lei; Zhai, Xiaofang

2009-10-01

How can the efficiency of spatial information inquiries be enhanced in today's fast-growing information age? We are rich in geospatial data but poor in up-to-date geospatial information and knowledge that are ready to be accessed by public users. This paper adopts an approach for querying spatial semantic by building an Web Ontology language(OWL) format ontology and introducing SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language(SPARQL) to search spatial semantic relations. It is important to establish spatial semantics that support for effective spatial reasoning for performing semantic query. Compared to earlier keyword-based and information retrieval techniques that rely on syntax, we use semantic approaches in our spatial queries system. Semantic approaches need to be developed by ontology, so we use OWL to describe spatial information extracted by the large-scale map of Wuhan. Spatial information expressed by ontology with formal semantics is available to machines for processing and to people for understanding. The approach is illustrated by introducing a case study for using SPARQL to query geo-spatial ontology instances of Wuhan. The paper shows that making use of SPARQL to search OWL ontology instances can ensure the result's accuracy and applicability. The result also indicates constructing a geo-spatial semantic query system has positive efforts on forming spatial query and retrieval.

Knowledge Representation Issues in Semantic Graphs for Relationship Detection

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Barthelemy, M; Chow, E; Eliassi-Rad, T

2005-02-02

An important task for Homeland Security is the prediction of threat vulnerabilities, such as through the detection of relationships between seemingly disjoint entities. A structure used for this task is a ''semantic graph'', also known as a ''relational data graph'' or an ''attributed relational graph''. These graphs encode relationships as typed links between a pair of typed nodes. Indeed, semantic graphs are very similar to semantic networks used in AI. The node and link types are related through an ontology graph (also known as a schema). Furthermore, each node has a set of attributes associated with it (e.g., ''age'' maymore » be an attribute of a node of type ''person''). Unfortunately, the selection of types and attributes for both nodes and links depends on human expertise and is somewhat subjective and even arbitrary. This subjectiveness introduces biases into any algorithm that operates on semantic graphs. Here, we raise some knowledge representation issues for semantic graphs and provide some possible solutions using recently developed ideas in the field of complex networks. In particular, we use the concept of transitivity to evaluate the relevance of individual links in the semantic graph for detecting relationships. We also propose new statistical measures for semantic graphs and illustrate these semantic measures on graphs constructed from movies and terrorism data.« less

Lack of semantic priming effects in famous person recognition in Mild Cognitive Impairment.

PubMed

Brambati, Simona M; Peters, Frédéric; Belleville, Sylvie; Joubert, Sven

2012-04-01

Growing evidence indicates that individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) manifest semantic deficits that are often more severe for items that are characterized by a unique semantic and lexical association, such as famous people and famous buildings, than common concepts, such as objects. However, it is still controversial whether the semantic deficits observed in MCI are determined by a degradation of semantic information or by a deficit in intentional access to semantic knowledge. Here we used a semantic priming task in order to assess the integrity of the semantic system without requiring explicit access to this system. This paradigm may provide new insights in clarifying the nature of the semantic deficits in MCI. We assessed the semantic and repetition priming effect in 13 individuals with MCI and 13 age-matched controls who engaged in a familiarity judgment task of famous names. In the semantic priming condition, the prime was the name of a member of the same occupation category as the target (Tom Cruise-Brad Pitt), while in the repetition priming condition the prime was the same name as the target (Charlie Chaplin-Charlie Chaplin). The results showed a defective priming effect in MCI in the semantic but not in the repetition priming condition. Specifically, when compared to controls, MCI patients did not show a facilitation effect in responding to the same occupation prime-target pairs, but they showed an equivalent facilitation effect when the target was the same name as the prime. The present results provide support to the hypothesis that the semantic impairments observed in MCI cannot be uniquely ascribed to a deficit in intentional access to semantic information. Instead, these findings point to the semantic nature of these deficits and, in particular, to a degraded representation of semantic information concerning famous people. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

The semantic representation of event information depends on the cue modality: an instance of meaning-based retrieval.

PubMed

Karlsson, Kristina; Sikström, Sverker; Willander, Johan

2013-01-01

The semantic content, or the meaning, is the essence of autobiographical memories. In comparison to previous research, which has mainly focused on the phenomenological experience and the age distribution of retrieved events, the present study provides a novel view on the retrieval of event information by quantifying the information as semantic representations. We investigated the semantic representation of sensory cued autobiographical events and studied the modality hierarchy within the multimodal retrieval cues. The experiment comprised a cued recall task, where the participants were presented with visual, auditory, olfactory or multimodal retrieval cues and asked to recall autobiographical events. The results indicated that the three different unimodal retrieval cues generate significantly different semantic representations. Further, the auditory and the visual modalities contributed the most to the semantic representation of the multimodally retrieved events. Finally, the semantic representation of the multimodal condition could be described as a combination of the three unimodal conditions. In conclusion, these results suggest that the meaning of the retrieved event information depends on the modality of the retrieval cues.

The Semantic Representation of Event Information Depends on the Cue Modality: An Instance of Meaning-Based Retrieval

PubMed Central

Karlsson, Kristina; Sikström, Sverker; Willander, Johan

2013-01-01

The semantic content, or the meaning, is the essence of autobiographical memories. In comparison to previous research, which has mainly focused on the phenomenological experience and the age distribution of retrieved events, the present study provides a novel view on the retrieval of event information by quantifying the information as semantic representations. We investigated the semantic representation of sensory cued autobiographical events and studied the modality hierarchy within the multimodal retrieval cues. The experiment comprised a cued recall task, where the participants were presented with visual, auditory, olfactory or multimodal retrieval cues and asked to recall autobiographical events. The results indicated that the three different unimodal retrieval cues generate significantly different semantic representations. Further, the auditory and the visual modalities contributed the most to the semantic representation of the multimodally retrieved events. Finally, the semantic representation of the multimodal condition could be described as a combination of the three unimodal conditions. In conclusion, these results suggest that the meaning of the retrieved event information depends on the modality of the retrieval cues. PMID:24204561

Semantic knowledge fractionations: verbal propositions vs. perceptual input? Evidence from a child with Klinefelter syndrome.

PubMed

Robinson, Sally J; Temple, Christine M

2013-04-01

This paper addresses the relative independence of different types of lexical- and factually-based semantic knowledge in JM, a 9-year-old boy with Klinefelter syndrome (KS). JM was matched to typically developing (TD) controls on the basis of chronological age. Lexical-semantic knowledge was investigated for common noun (CN) and mathematical vocabulary items (MV). Factually-based semantic knowledge was investigated for general and number facts. For CN items, JM's lexical stores were of a normal size but the volume of correct 'sensory feature' semantic knowledge he generated within verbal item descriptions was significantly reduced. He was also significantly impaired at naming item descriptions and pictures, particularly for fruit and vegetables. There was also weak object decision for fruit and vegetables. In contrast, for MV items, JM's lexical stores were elevated, with no significant difference in the amount and type of correct semantic knowledge generated within verbal item descriptions and normal naming. JM's fact retrieval accuracy was normal for all types of factual knowledge. JM's performance indicated a dissociation between the representation of CN and MV vocabulary items during development. JM's preserved semantic knowledge of facts in the face of impaired semantic knowledge of vocabulary also suggests that factually-based semantic knowledge representation is not dependent on normal lexical-semantic knowledge during development. These findings are discussed in relation to the emergence of distinct semantic knowledge representations during development, due to differing degrees of dependency upon the acquisition and representation of semantic knowledge from verbal propositions and perceptual input.

Perceptions of Family Dependence by the Physically Disabled

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomas, Kenneth R.; Britton, Jean O.

1973-01-01

The ralationship between six demographic characteristics and perceptions of family dependence were investigated for 170 physically disabled adults using Osgood's semantic differential technique. Implications of these findings for rehabilitation practice and further research are presented. (Author)

Children's Communication of Basic Level and Subordinate Level Semantic Contrasts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kossan, Nancy E.

Developmental differences in preschool children's abilities to communicate about basic and subordinate level semantic contrasts were examined in a referential communication situation. Twenty-four three, four, and five-year-old children communicated with children of the same age and adults about pictures' referents. Speakers talked about one…

Semantic Integration and Age of Acquisition Effects in Code-Blend Comprehension

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Giezen, Marcel R.; Emmorey, Karen

2016-01-01

Semantic and lexical decision tasks were used to investigate the mechanisms underlying code-blend facilitation: the finding that hearing bimodal bilinguals comprehend signs in American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English words more quickly when they are presented together simultaneously than when each is presented alone. More robust…

Age-Related Differences in Audiovisual Interactions of Semantically Different Stimuli

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Viggiano, Maria Pia; Giovannelli, Fabio; Giganti, Fiorenza; Rossi, Arianna; Metitieri, Tiziana; Rebai, Mohamed; Guerrini, Renzo; Cincotta, Massimo

2017-01-01

Converging results have shown that adults benefit from congruent multisensory stimulation in the identification of complex stimuli, whereas the developmental trajectory of the ability to integrate multisensory inputs in children is less well understood. In this study we explored the effects of audiovisual semantic congruency on identification of…

Morphosyntax and Logical Abilities in Italian Poor Readers: The Problem of SLI Under-Identification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arosio, Fabrizio; Pagliarini, Elena; Perugini, Maria; Barbieri, Lina; Guasti, Maria Teresa

2016-01-01

The study investigated morphosyntactic abilities and semantic-pragmatic competence in 24 children with developmental dyslexia aged 7-12 years. Morphosyntactic abilities were investgated in a direct object clitic production task, semantic-pragmatic competence in a quantifier comprehension task. Children with dyslexia produced fewer clitics than…

NPI Licensing and Beyond: Children's Knowledge of the Semantics of "Any"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tieu, Lyn; Lidz, Jeffrey

2016-01-01

This article presents a study of preschool-aged children's knowledge of the semantics of the negative polarity item (NPI) "any". NPIs like "any" differ in distribution from non-polarity-sensitive indefinites like "a": "Any" is restricted to downward-entailing linguistic environments (Fauconnier 1975, 1979;…

A pilot study measuring changes in student impressions before and after clinical training using a questionnaire based on the semantic differential technique.

PubMed

Tamura, Naomi; Terashita, Takayoshi; Ogasawara, Katsuhiko

2013-01-01

Students with a positive impression of their studies can become more motivated. This study measured the learning impact of clinical training by comparing student impressions before and after clinical training. The study included 32 students of radiological technology in their final year with the Division of Radiological Science and Technology, Department of Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Hokkaido University. To measure student impressions of x-ray examination training, we developed a questionnaire using the semantic differential technique. The resulting factor analysis identified 2 factors that accounted for 44.9% of the 10 bipolar adjective scales. Factor 1 represented a "resistance" impression of x-ray examination training, and factor 2 represented a "responsibility" impression. The differences in factor scores before and after the clinical training suggest that student impressions are affected by clinical training.

The role of the right hemisphere in semantic control: A case-series comparison of right and left hemisphere stroke.

PubMed

Thompson, Hannah E; Henshall, Lauren; Jefferies, Elizabeth

2016-05-01

Semantic control processes guide conceptual retrieval so that we are able to focus on non-dominant associations and features when these are required for the task or context, yet the neural basis of semantic control is not fully understood. Neuroimaging studies have emphasised the role of left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in controlled retrieval, while neuropsychological investigations of semantic control deficits have almost exclusively focussed on patients with left-sided damage (e.g., patients with semantic aphasia, SA). Nevertheless, activation in fMRI during demanding semantic tasks typically extends to right IFG. To investigate the role of the right hemisphere (RH) in semantic control, we compared nine RH stroke patients with 21 left-hemisphere SA patients, 11 mild SA cases and 12 healthy, aged-matched controls on semantic and executive tasks, plus experimental tasks that manipulated semantic control in paradigms particularly sensitive to RH damage. RH patients had executive deficits to parallel SA patients but they performed well on standard semantic tests. Nevertheless, multimodal semantic control deficits were found in experimental tasks involving facial emotions and the 'summation' of meaning across multiple items. On these tasks, RH patients showed effects similar to those in SA cases - multimodal deficits that were sensitive to distractor strength and cues and miscues, plus increasingly poor performance in cyclical matching tasks which repeatedly probed the same set of concepts. Thus, despite striking differences in single-item comprehension, evidence presented here suggests semantic control is bilateral, and disruption of this component of semantic cognition can be seen following damage to either hemisphere. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Categorizing with gender: does implicit grammatical gender affect semantic processing in 24-month-old toddlers?

PubMed

Bobb, Susan C; Mani, Nivedita

2013-06-01

The current study investigated the interaction of implicit grammatical gender and semantic category knowledge during object identification. German-learning toddlers (24-month-olds) were presented with picture pairs and heard a noun (without a preceding article) labeling one of the pictures. Labels for target and distracter images either matched or mismatched in grammatical gender and either matched or mismatched in semantic category. When target and distracter overlapped in both semantic and gender information, target recognition was impaired compared with when target and distracter overlapped on only one dimension. Results suggest that by 24 months of age, German-learning toddlers are already forming not only semantic but also grammatical gender categories and that these sources of information are activated, and interact, during object identification. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[Picture naming and memory in children: phonological and semantic effects].

PubMed

Scheuer, Claudia Ines; Stivanin, Luciene; Mangilli, Laura Davidson

2004-01-01

[corrected] The relation between picture naming and the short and long term memories. to verify the ability of picture naming based on phonological and semantic queues, relating it to memory. 80 pictures selected from a set of 400 (Cycowicz et al., 1997) were presented to 80 children with ages ranging from 3 to 6 years. Responses were classified in semantic and phonologic errors and number of correct answers. The effect of the articulatory complexity was significant and the effect of the semantic complexity was not significant. Naming is the result of memory activation which is organized in categories, physical properties and function; phonologic effects do interfere in the activity of naming, whereas the semantic effects reflect that the long term memory is organized in categories which are dependant of the context and of the development.

Mental health symptoms and verbal fluency in elderly people: Evidence from the Spanish longitudinal study of aging.

PubMed

Simpson, Ian Craig; Dumitrache, Cristina Gabriela; Calet, Nuria

2018-04-10

Depression and loneliness are highly prevalent in old age. Moreover these mental health symptoms adversely affect the verbal fluency of the elderly. We examined the relationship between depression and loneliness with verbal fluency in people aged 50 years or older. Research data were collected during the pilot study of the Longitudinal Aging Study in Spain (ELES) in which a representative sample of non-institutionalized Spanish older people was assessed. Here, the cross-sectional data for 962 participants were analysed using hierarchical regressions, controlling for age, education level, overall cognitive functioning, social networks and satisfaction with family. Higher levels of cognitive functioning were associated with higher verbal fluency. Females showed higher levels of phonological fluency. Neither depression nor loneliness were significant predictors of phonological fluency but loneliness was a significant predictor of semantic fluency. For mild levels of loneliness, the rate of decline in semantic fluency slows in the oldest ages. In contrast, for severe loneliness the rate of decline in semantic fluency increases in the oldest ages. Depressive symptoms, loneliness and cognitive impairment are all prominent in ageing and therefore their impact on ageing needs to be better understood. Early detection of loneliness, along with the implementation of intervention for individuals diagnosed with loneliness is advisable in order to avoid negative repercussions for the verbal fluency of these individuals.

A meta-analysis of fMRI studies on Chinese orthographic, phonological, and semantic processing.

PubMed

Wu, Chiao-Yi; Ho, Moon-Ho Ringo; Chen, Shen-Hsing Annabel

2012-10-15

A growing body of neuroimaging evidence has shown that Chinese character processing recruits differential activation from alphabetic languages due to its unique linguistic features. As more investigations on Chinese character processing have recently become available, we applied a meta-analytic approach to summarize previous findings and examined the neural networks for orthographic, phonological, and semantic processing of Chinese characters independently. The activation likelihood estimation (ALE) method was used to analyze eight studies in the orthographic task category, eleven in the phonological and fifteen in the semantic task categories. Converging activation among three language-processing components was found in the left middle frontal gyrus, the left superior parietal lobule and the left mid-fusiform gyrus, suggesting a common sub-network underlying the character recognition process regardless of the task nature. With increasing task demands, the left inferior parietal lobule and the right superior temporal gyrus were specialized for phonological processing, while the left middle temporal gyrus was involved in semantic processing. Functional dissociation was identified in the left inferior frontal gyrus, with the posterior dorsal part for phonological processing and the anterior ventral part for semantic processing. Moreover, bilateral involvement of the ventral occipito-temporal regions was found for both phonological and semantic processing. The results provide better understanding of the neural networks underlying Chinese orthographic, phonological, and semantic processing, and consolidate the findings of additional recruitment of the left middle frontal gyrus and the right fusiform gyrus for Chinese character processing as compared with the universal language network that has been based on alphabetic languages. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Episodic and semantic memory in children with mesial temporal sclerosis.

PubMed

Rzezak, Patricia; Guimarães, Catarina; Fuentes, Daniel; Guerreiro, Marilisa M; Valente, Kette Dualibi Ramos

2011-07-01

The aim of this study was to analyze semantic and episodic memory deficits in children with mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS) and their correlation with clinical epilepsy variables. For this purpose, 19 consecutive children and adolescents with MTS (8 to 16 years old) were evaluated and their performance on five episodic memory tests (short- and long-term memory and learning) and four semantic memory tests was compared with that of 28 healthy volunteers. Patients performed worse on tests of immediate and delayed verbal episodic memory, visual episodic memory, verbal and visual learning, mental scanning for semantic clues, object naming, word definition, and repetition of sentences. Clinical variables such as early age at seizure onset, severity of epilepsy, and polytherapy impaired distinct types of memory. These data confirm that children with MTS have episodic memory deficits and add new information on semantic memory. The data also demonstrate that clinical variables contribute differently to episodic and semantic memory performance. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Role of Semantic Diversity in Word Recognition across Aging and Bilingualism

PubMed Central

Johns, Brendan T.; Sheppard, Christine L.; Jones, Michael N.; Taler, Vanessa

2016-01-01

Frequency effects are pervasive in studies of language, with higher frequency words being recognized faster than lower frequency words. However, the exact nature of frequency effects has recently been questioned, with some studies finding that contextual information provides a better fit to lexical decision and naming data than word frequency (Adelman et al., 2006). Recent work has cemented the importance of these results by demonstrating that a measure of the semantic diversity of the contexts that a word occurs in provides a powerful measure to account for variability in word recognition latency (Johns et al., 2012, 2015; Jones et al., 2012). The goal of the current study is to extend this measure to examine bilingualism and aging, where multiple theories use frequency of occurrence of linguistic constructs as central to accounting for empirical results (Gollan et al., 2008; Ramscar et al., 2014). A lexical decision experiment was conducted with four groups of subjects: younger and older monolinguals and bilinguals. Consistent with past results, a semantic diversity variable accounted for the greatest amount of variance in the latency data. In addition, the pattern of fits of semantic diversity across multiple corpora suggests that bilinguals and older adults are more sensitive to semantic diversity information than younger monolinguals. PMID:27458392

Deeper processing is beneficial during episodic memory encoding for adults with Williams syndrome.

PubMed

Greer, Joanna; Hamiliton, Colin; Riby, Deborah M; Riby, Leigh M

2014-07-01

Previous research exploring declarative memory in Williams syndrome (WS) has revealed impairment in the processing of episodic information accompanied by a relative strength in semantic ability. The aim of the current study was to extend this literature by examining how relatively spared semantic memory may support episodic remembering. Using a level of processing paradigm, older adults with WS (aged 35-61 years) were compared to typical adults of the same chronological age and typically developing children matched for verbal ability. In the study phase, pictures were encoded using either a deep (decide if a picture belongs to a particular category) or shallow (perceptual based processing) memory strategy. Behavioural indices (reaction time and accuracy) at retrieval were suggestive of an overall difficulty in episodic memory for WS adults. Interestingly, however, semantic support was evident with a greater recall of items encoded with deep compared to shallow processing, indicative of an ability to employ semantic encoding strategies to maximise the strength of the memory trace created. Unlike individuals with autism who find semantic elaboration strategies problematic, the pattern of findings reported here suggests in those domains that are relatively impaired in WS, support can be recruited from relatively spared cognitive processes. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic Verbal Fluency in Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder: Relationship with Chronological Age and IQ

PubMed Central

Pastor-Cerezuela, Gemma; Fernández-Andrés, Maria-Inmaculada; Feo-Álvarez, Mireia; González-Sala, Francisco

2016-01-01

We administered a semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task to two groups of children (age range from 5 to 8): 47 diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD Group) and 53 with typical development (Comparison Group), matched on gender, chronological age, and non-verbal IQ. Four specific indexes were calculated from the SVF task, reflecting the different underlying cognitive strategies used: clustering (component of generativity and lexical-semantic access), and switching (executive component, cognitive flexibility). First, we compared the performance of the two groups on the different SVF task indicators, with the ASD group scoring lower than the Comparison Group, although the difference was greater on switching than on clustering. Second, we analyzed the relationships between the different SVF measures and chronological age, verbal IQ and non-verbal IQ. While in the Comparison Group chronological age was the main predictor of performance on the SVF task, in the ASD Group verbal IQ was the best predictor. In the children with ASD, therefore, greater linguistic competence would be associated with better performance on the SVF task, which should be taken into account in speech therapies designed to achieve improvements in linguistic generativity and cognitive flexibility. PMID:27379002

Depth and elaboration of processing in relation to age.

PubMed

Simon, E

1979-03-01

Processing at encoding and retrieval was jointly manipulated, and then the retrieval effectiveness of different cues was directly compared to uncover the relative pattern of deep and elaborate processing in relation to both age and different experimental manipulations. In experiment 1 phonemic and semantic cues were effective retrieval aids for to-be-remembered words in the youngest group; with increasing age, semantic cues decreased in effectiveness more than phonemic cues. These data showed phonemic features to have an importance that is not recognized in the data generated by the typical levels paradigm. When elaboration of the words was induced in Experiment 2 by presenting them in sentences, semantic and context cues were most effective in the youngest group whereas phonemic cues were most effective in the oldest group. Since the pattern of cue effectiveness in the elderly was similar to that in Experiment 1, where the same words were presented alone, it was concluded that aging results in poor elaboration, in particular, in inefficient integration of word events with the context of presentation. These age effects were mimicked in young subjects in Experiment 3 by experimentally restricting encoding time. The present approach uses somewhat modified views of depth and elaboration.

On the preservation of vigilant attention to semantic information in healthy aging.

PubMed

Thomson, David R; Hasher, Lynn

2017-07-01

Despite decades of research on younger adults, little is known about the way in which vigilant attention is affected by healthy aging, and the small body of work that does exist has yielded mixed findings. Prior examinations of aging and vigilant attention have focused almost exclusively on sensory/perceptual tasks despite the fact that many real-world vigilance tasks are semantic in nature and it has been shown that older adults exhibit memory and attention deficits in semantic tasks in other domains. Here, we present the first empirical investigation of vigilant attention to verbal stimuli in healthy normal aging. In Experiment 1 we find that older adults are just as able as younger adults to identify critical targets defined by category membership (both overall and over time). In Experiment 2, we increase the difficulty of the task by changing the target category from one block to the next, but again find no age-group effects in accuracy. Response time data, however, show that older adults respond more slowly and subjective ratings indicate that older adults experience higher workload and arousal compared to their younger counterparts. The practical as well as theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Nonword Repetition and Vocabulary Knowledge as Predictors of Children's Phonological and Semantic Word Learning

PubMed Central

Patten, Hannah

2017-01-01

Purpose This study examined the unique and shared variance that nonword repetition and vocabulary knowledge contribute to children's ability to learn new words. Multiple measures of word learning were used to assess recall and recognition of phonological and semantic information. Method Fifty children, with a mean age of 8 years (range 5–12 years), completed experimental assessments of word learning and norm-referenced assessments of receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge and nonword repetition skills. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses examined the variance in word learning that was explained by vocabulary knowledge and nonword repetition after controlling for chronological age. Results Together with chronological age, nonword repetition and vocabulary knowledge explained up to 44% of the variance in children's word learning. Nonword repetition was the stronger predictor of phonological recall, phonological recognition, and semantic recognition, whereas vocabulary knowledge was the stronger predictor of verbal semantic recall. Conclusions These findings extend the results of past studies indicating that both nonword repetition skill and existing vocabulary knowledge are important for new word learning, but the relative influence of each predictor depends on the way word learning is measured. Suggestions for further research involving typically developing children and children with language or reading impairments are discussed. PMID:28241284

Effects of aging on value-directed modulation of semantic network activity during verbal learning

PubMed Central

Cohen, Michael S.; Rissman, Jesse; Suthana, Nanthia A.; Castel, Alan D.; Knowlton, Barbara J.

2015-01-01

While impairments in memory recall are apparent in aging, older adults show a remarkably preserved ability to selectively remember information deemed valuable. Here, we use fMRI to compare brain activation in healthy older and younger adults during encoding of high and low value words to determine whether there are differences in how older adults achieve value-directed memory selectivity. We find that memory selectivity in older adults is associated with value-related changes in activation during word presentation in left hemisphere regions that are involved in semantic processing, similar to young adults. However, highly selective young adults show a relatively greater increase in semantic network activity during encoding of high-value items, whereas highly selective older adults show relatively diminished activity during encoding of low-value items. Additionally, only younger adults showed value-related increases in activity in semantic and reward processing regions during presentation of the value cue preceding each to-be-remembered word. Young adults therefore respond to cue value more proactively than do older adults, yet the magnitude of value-related differences in cue period brain activity did not predict individual differences in memory selectivity. Thus, our data also show that age-related reductions in prestimulus activity do not always lead to inefficient performance. PMID:26244278

Characterizing cognitive performance in a large longitudinal study of aging with computerized semantic indices of verbal fluency.

PubMed

Pakhomov, Serguei V S; Eberly, Lynn; Knopman, David

2016-08-01

A computational approach for estimating several indices of performance on the animal category verbal fluency task was validated, and examined in a large longitudinal study of aging. The performance indices included the traditional verbal fluency score, size of semantic clusters, density of repeated words, as well as measures of semantic and lexical diversity. Change over time in these measures was modeled using mixed effects regression in several groups of participants, including those that remained cognitively normal throughout the study (CN) and those that were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia at some point subsequent to the baseline visit. The results of the study show that, with the exception of mean cluster size, the indices showed significantly greater declines in the MCI and AD dementia groups as compared to CN participants. Examination of associations between the indices and cognitive domains of memory, attention and visuospatial functioning showed that the traditional verbal fluency scores were associated with declines in all three domains, whereas semantic and lexical diversity measures were associated with declines only in the visuospatial domain. Baseline repetition density was associated with declines in memory and visuospatial domains. Examination of lexical and semantic diversity measures in subgroups with high vs. low attention scores (but normal functioning in other domains) showed that the performance of individuals with low attention was influenced more by word frequency rather than strength of semantic relatedness between words. These findings suggest that various automatically semantic indices may be used to examine various aspects of cognitive performance affected by dementia. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Human ecstasy (MDMA) polydrug users have altered brain activation during semantic processing

PubMed Central

Watkins, Tristan J.; Raj, Vidya; Lee, Junghee; Dietrich, Mary S.; Cao, Aize; Blackford, Jennifer U.; Salomon, Ronald M.; Park, Sohee; Benningfield, Margaret M.; Di Iorio, Christina R.; Cowan, Ronald L.

2012-01-01

Rationale Ecstasy (MDMA) polydrug users have verbal memory performance that is statistically significantly lower than comparison control subjects. Studies have correlated long-term MDMA use with altered brain activation in regions that play a role in verbal memory. Objectives The aim of our study was to examine the association of lifetime ecstasy use with semantic memory performance and brain activation in ecstasy polydrug users. Methods 23 abstinent ecstasy polydrug users (age=24.57) and 11 controls (age=22.36) performed a two-part fMRI semantic encoding and recognition task. To isolate brain regions activated during each semantic task, we created statistical activation maps in which brain activation was greater for word stimuli than for non-word stimuli (corrected p<0.05). Results During the encoding phase, ecstasy polydrug users had greater activation during semantic encoding bilaterally in language processing regions, including Brodmann Areas 7, 39, and 40. Of this bilateral activation, signal intensity with a peak T in the right superior parietal lobe was correlated with lifetime ecstasy use (rs=0.43, p=0.042). Behavioral performance did not differ between groups. Conclusions These findings demonstrate that ecstasy polydrug users have increased brain activation during semantic processing. This increase in brain activation in the absence of behavioral deficits suggests that ecstasy polydrug users have reduced cortical efficiency during semantic encoding, possibly secondary to MDMA-induced 5-HT neurotoxicity. Although pre-existing differences cannot be ruled out, this suggests the possibility of a compensatory mechanism allowing ecstasy polydrug users to perform equivalently to controls, providing additional support for an association of altered cerebral neurophysiology with MDMA exposure. PMID:23241648

Deep processing activates the medial temporal lobe in young but not in old adults.

PubMed

Daselaar, Sander M; Veltman, Dick J; Rombouts, Serge A R B; Raaijmakers, Jeroen G W; Jonker, Cees

2003-11-01

Age-related impairments in episodic memory have been related to a deficiency in semantic processing, based on the finding that elderly adults typically benefit less than young adults from deep, semantic as opposed to shallow, nonsemantic processing of study items. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that elderly adults are not able to perform certain cognitive operations under deep processing conditions. We further hypothesised that this inability does not involve regions commonly associated with lexical/semantic retrieval processes, but rather involves a dysfunction of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) memory system. To this end, we used functional MRI on rather extensive groups of young and elderly adults to compare brain activity patterns obtained during a deep (living/nonliving) and a shallow (uppercase/lowercase) classification task. Common activity in relation to semantic classification was observed in regions that have been previously related to semantic retrieval, including mainly left-lateralised activity in the inferior prefrontal, middle temporal, and middle frontal/anterior cingulate gyrus. Although the young adults showed more activity in some of these areas, the finding of mainly overlapping activation patterns during semantic classification supports the idea that lexical/semantic retrieval processes are still intact in elderly adults. This received further support by the finding that both groups showed similar behavioural performances as well on the deep and shallow classification tasks. Importantly, though, the young revealed significantly more activity than the elderly adults in the left anterior hippocampus during deep relative to shallow classification. This finding is in line with the idea that age-related impairments in episodic encoding are, at least partly, due to an under-recruitment of the medial temporal lobe memory system.

[Artificial intelligence meeting neuropsychology. Semantic memory in normal and pathological aging].

PubMed

Aimé, Xavier; Charlet, Jean; Maillet, Didier; Belin, Catherine

2015-03-01

Artificial intelligence (IA) is the subject of much research, but also many fantasies. It aims to reproduce human intelligence in its learning capacity, knowledge storage and computation. In 2014, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started the restoring active memory (RAM) program that attempt to develop implantable technology to bridge gaps in the injured brain and restore normal memory function to people with memory loss caused by injury or disease. In another IA's field, computational ontologies (a formal and shared conceptualization) try to model knowledge in order to represent a structured and unambiguous meaning of the concepts of a target domain. The aim of these structures is to ensure a consensual understanding of their meaning and a univariant use (the same concept is used by all to categorize the same individuals). The first representations of knowledge in the AI's domain are largely based on model tests of semantic memory. This one, as a component of long-term memory is the memory of words, ideas, concepts. It is the only declarative memory system that resists so remarkably to the effects of age. In contrast, non-specific cognitive changes may decrease the performance of elderly in various events and instead report difficulties of access to semantic representations that affect the semantics stock itself. Some dementias, like semantic dementia and Alzheimer's disease, are linked to alteration of semantic memory. We propose in this paper, using the computational ontologies model, a formal and relatively thin modeling, in the service of neuropsychology: 1) for the practitioner with decision support systems, 2) for the patient as cognitive prosthesis outsourced, and 3) for the researcher to study semantic memory.

Some further clarifications on age-related differences in Stroop interference.

PubMed

Augustinova, Maria; Clarys, David; Spatola, Nicolas; Ferrand, Ludovic

2018-04-01

Both the locus and processes underlying the age-related differences in Stroop interference are usually inferred from changes in magnitudes of standard (i.e., overall) Stroop interference. Therefore, this study addressed these still-open issues directly. To this end, a sample of younger (18-26 years old) and healthy older (72-97 years old) was administered the semantic Stroop paradigm (that assesses the relative contribution of semantic compared to response conflict both of which contribute to overall Stroop interference) combined with a single-letter coloring and cuing (SLCC) procedure. Independently of an increased attentional focus on the relevant color dimension of Stroop words induced by SLCC (as compared to all letters colored and cued, ALCC), greater magnitudes of standard Stroop interference were observed in older (as compared to younger) adults. These differences were due to greater magnitudes of response conflict whereas magnitudes of semantic conflict remained significant and unchanged by healthy aging and SLCC. Thus, this direct evidence places the locus of age-related differences in Stroop interference at the level of response conflict (as opposed to semantic and/or both conflicts). In terms of processes underlying these differences, the reported evidence shows that both age-groups are equally (in)efficient in (a) focusing on the relevant color dimension and (b) suppressing the meaning of the irrelevant word-dimension of Stroop words. Healthy older adults are simply less efficient in suppressing the (pre-)response activity primed by the fully processed meaning of the irrelevant word-dimension. Standard interpretations of age-related differences in Stroop interference and a more general issue of how attentional selectivity actually operates in the Stroop task are therefore reconsidered in this paper.

Neural underpinnings for model-oriented therapy of aphasic word production.

PubMed

Abel, Stefanie; Weiller, Cornelius; Huber, Walter; Willmes, Klaus

2014-05-01

Model-oriented therapies of aphasic word production have been shown to be effective, with item-specific therapy effects being larger than generalisation effects for untrained items. However, it remains unclear whether semantic versus phonological therapy lead to differential effects, depending on type of lexical impairment. Functional imaging studies revealed that mainly left-hemisphere, perisylvian brain areas were involved in successful therapy-induced recovery of aphasic word production. However, the neural underpinnings for model-oriented therapy effects have not received much attention yet. We aimed at identifying brain areas indicating (1) general therapy effects using a naming task measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 14 patients before and after a 4-week naming therapy, which comprised increasing semantic and phonological cueing-hierarchies. We also intended to reveal differential effects (2) of training versus generalisation, (3) of therapy methods, and (4) of type of impairment as assessed by the connectionist Dell model. Training effects were stronger than generalisation effects, even though both were significant. Furthermore, significant impairment-specific therapy effects were observed for patients with phonological disorders (P-patients). (1) Left inferior frontal gyrus, pars opercularis (IFGoper), was a positive predictor of therapy gains while the right caudate was a negative predictor. Moreover, less activation decrease due to therapy in left-hemisphere temporo-parietal language areas was positively correlated with therapy gains. (2) Naming of trained compared to untrained words yielded less activation decrease in left superior temporal gyrus (STG) and precuneus, bilateral thalamus, and right caudate due to therapy. (3) Differential therapy effects could be detected in the right superior parietal lobule for the semantic method, and in regions involving bilateral anterior and mid cingulate, right precuneus, and left middle/superior frontal gyrus for the phonological method. (4) Impairment-specific changes of activation were found for P-patients in left IFGoper. Patients with semantic disorders (S-patients) relied on right frontal areas involving IFG, pars triangularis. After therapy, they revealed less activation decrease in areas involving left STG, caudate, paracentral lobule, and right rolandic operculum. Regarding naming performance, the present study corroborates previous findings on training and generalisation effects and reveals differential therapy effects for P-patients. Moreover, brain imaging results confirm a predominance of (1) general effects in the left brain hemisphere. (2) Brain regions related to visual strategy, monitoring/feedback, and articulatory patterns were characteristic for the familiar trained items. (3) Distinct regions associated with strategies, monitoring capacities, and linguistic information indicate the specific therapeutic influence on word retrieval. (4) While P-patients relied more on preserved phonological functions in the left hemisphere, S-patients revealed right-sided compensation of semantic processing as well as increased strategic efforts in both hemispheres. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

The semantics of prosody: acoustic and perceptual evidence of prosodic correlates to word meaning.

PubMed

Nygaard, Lynne C; Herold, Debora S; Namy, Laura L

2009-01-01

This investigation examined whether speakers produce reliable prosodic correlates to meaning across semantic domains and whether listeners use these cues to derive word meaning from novel words. Speakers were asked to produce phrases in infant-directed speech in which novel words were used to convey one of two meanings from a set of antonym pairs (e.g., big/small). Acoustic analyses revealed that some acoustic features were correlated with overall valence of the meaning. However, each word meaning also displayed a unique acoustic signature, and semantically related meanings elicited similar acoustic profiles. In two perceptual tests, listeners either attempted to identify the novel words with a matching meaning dimension (picture pair) or with mismatched meaning dimensions. Listeners inferred the meaning of the novel words significantly more often when prosody matched the word meaning choices than when prosody mismatched. These findings suggest that speech contains reliable prosodic markers to word meaning and that listeners use these prosodic cues to differentiate meanings. That prosody is semantic suggests a reconceptualization of traditional distinctions between linguistic and nonlinguistic properties of spoken language. Copyright © 2009 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Disorganised schizotypy is selectively associated with poorer semantic processing in non-clinical individuals.

PubMed

Tan, Eric Josiah; Rossell, Susan Lee

2017-10-01

The nature and severity of semantic memory (SM) impairments in schizophrenia has been related to symptoms, mainly formal thought disorder (FTD), and other clinical factors like length of illness. Symptom-related studies in schizophrenia are often confounded by clinical factors, for example medication and hospitalisations. We completed a schizotypy analogue study to examine the relationship between SM processing and FTD using an analogue schizotypy score referred to as cognitive disorganisation. Sixty individuals without a history of mental illness (M=22.92, SD=2.70) completed a schizotypy questionnaire and three semantic tasks - naming pictures, category fluency and semantic priming. Only decreasing fluency was associated with increasing cognitive disorganisation scores (p=0.029). In line with the prevailing dyssemantic theories, the results highlight that cognitive disorganisation is associated with some difficulties in SM processes, though not all. The observed differential relationships of SM processes to disorganised schizotypy are discussed in relation to previous work, and in terms of potential developmental trajectories for SM impairment in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Semantic relations differentially impact associative recognition memory: electrophysiological evidence.

PubMed

Kriukova, Olga; Bridger, Emma; Mecklinger, Axel

2013-10-01

Though associative recognition memory is thought to rely primarily on recollection, recent research indicates that familiarity might also make a substantial contribution when to-be-learned items are integrated into a coherent structure by means of an existing semantic relation. It remains unclear how different types of semantic relations, such as categorical (e.g., dancer-singer) and thematic (e.g., dancer-stage) relations might affect associative recognition, however. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we addressed this question by manipulating the type of semantic link between paired words in an associative recognition memory experiment. An early midfrontal old/new effect, typically linked to familiarity, was observed across the relation types. In contrast, a robust left parietal old/new effect was found in the categorical condition only, suggesting a clear contribution of recollection to associative recognition for this kind of pairs. One interpretation of this pattern is that familiarity was sufficiently diagnostic for associative recognition of thematic relations, which could result from the integrative nature of the thematic relatedness compared to the similarity-based nature of categorical pairs. The present study suggests that the extent to which recollection and familiarity are involved in associative recognition is at least in part determined by the properties of semantic relations between the paired associates. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Event Congruency Enhances Episodic Memory Encoding through Semantic Elaboration and Relational Binding

PubMed Central

Staresina, Bernhard P.; Gray, James C.

2009-01-01

Behavioral research consistently shows that congruous events, that is, events whose constituent elements match along some specific dimension, are better remembered than incongruous events. Although it has been speculated that this “congruency subsequent memory effect” (cSME) results from enhanced semantic elaboration, empirical evidence for this account is lacking. Here, we report a set of behavioral and neuroimaging experiments demonstrating that congruous events engage regions along the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG)—consistently related to semantic elaboration—to a significantly greater degree than incongruous events, providing evidence in favor of this hypothesis. Critically, we additionally report 3 novel findings in relation to event congruency: First, congruous events yield superior memory not only for a given study item but also for associated source details. Second, the cSME is evident not only for events that matched a semantic context but also for those that matched a subjective aesthetic schema. Finally, functional magnetic resonance imaging brain/behavior correlation analysis reveals a strong link between 1) across-subject variation in the magnitude of the cSME and 2) differential right hippocampal activation, suggesting that episodic memory for congruous events is effectively bolstered by the extent to which semantic associations are generated and relationally integrated via LIFG-hippocampal–encoding mechanisms. PMID:18820289

Behavioural and magnetoencephalographic evidence for the interaction between semantic and episodic memory in healthy elderly subjects.

PubMed

La Corte, Valentina; Dalla Barba, Gianfranco; Lemaréchal, Jean-Didier; Garnero, Line; George, Nathalie

2012-10-01

The relationship between episodic and semantic memory systems has long been debated. Some authors argue that episodic memory is contingent on semantic memory (Tulving 1984), while others postulate that both systems are independent since they can be selectively damaged (Squire 1987). The interaction between these memory systems is particularly important in the elderly, since the dissociation of episodic and semantic memory defects characterize different aging-related pathologies. Here, we investigated the interaction between semantic knowledge and episodic memory processes associated with faces in elderly subjects using an experimental paradigm where the semantic encoding of famous and unknown faces was compared to their episodic recognition. Results showed that the level of semantic awareness of items affected the recognition of those items in the episodic memory task. Event-related magnetic fields confirmed this interaction between episodic and semantic memory: ERFs related to the old/new effect during the episodic task were markedly different for famous and unknown faces. The old/new effect for famous faces involved sustained activities maximal over right temporal sensors, showing a spatio-temporal pattern partly similar to that found for famous versus unknown faces during the semantic task. By contrast, an old/new effect for unknown faces was observed on left parieto-occipital sensors. These findings suggest that the episodic memory for famous faces activated the retrieval of stored semantic information, whereas it was based on items' perceptual features for unknown faces. Overall, our results show that semantic information interfered markedly with episodic memory processes and suggested that the neural substrates of these two memory systems overlap.

The Basis for Language Acquisition: Congenitally Deaf Infants Discriminate Vowel Length in the First Months after Cochlear Implantation.

PubMed

Vavatzanidis, Niki Katerina; Mürbe, Dirk; Friederici, Angela; Hahne, Anja

2015-12-01

One main incentive for supplying hearing impaired children with a cochlear implant is the prospect of oral language acquisition. Only scarce knowledge exists, however, of what congenitally deaf children actually perceive when receiving their first auditory input, and specifically what speech-relevant features they are able to extract from the new modality. We therefore presented congenitally deaf infants and young children implanted before the age of 4 years with an oddball paradigm of long and short vowel variants of the syllable /ba/. We measured the EEG in regular intervals to study their discriminative ability starting with the first activation of the implant up to 8 months later. We were thus able to time-track the emerging ability to differentiate one of the most basic linguistic features that bears semantic differentiation and helps in word segmentation, namely, vowel length. Results show that already 2 months after the first auditory input, but not directly after implant activation, these early implanted children differentiate between long and short syllables. Surprisingly, after only 4 months of hearing experience, the ERPs have reached the same properties as those of the normal hearing control group, demonstrating the plasticity of the brain with respect to the new modality. We thus show that a simple but linguistically highly relevant feature such as vowel length reaches age-appropriate electrophysiological levels as fast as 4 months after the first acoustic stimulation, providing an important basis for further language acquisition.

Visual discrimination predicts naming and semantic association accuracy in Alzheimer disease.

PubMed

Harnish, Stacy M; Neils-Strunjas, Jean; Eliassen, James; Reilly, Jamie; Meinzer, Marcus; Clark, John Greer; Joseph, Jane

2010-12-01

Language impairment is a common symptom of Alzheimer disease (AD), and is thought to be related to semantic processing. This study examines the contribution of another process, namely visual perception, on measures of confrontation naming and semantic association abilities in persons with probable AD. Twenty individuals with probable mild-moderate Alzheimer disease and 20 age-matched controls completed a battery of neuropsychologic measures assessing visual perception, naming, and semantic association ability. Visual discrimination tasks that varied in the degree to which they likely accessed stored structural representations were used to gauge whether structural processing deficits could account for deficits in naming and in semantic association in AD. Visual discrimination abilities of nameable objects in AD strongly predicted performance on both picture naming and semantic association ability, but lacked the same predictive value for controls. Although impaired, performance on visual discrimination tests of abstract shapes and novel faces showed no significant relationship with picture naming and semantic association. These results provide additional evidence to support that structural processing deficits exist in AD, and may contribute to object recognition and naming deficits. Our findings suggest that there is a common deficit in discrimination of pictures using nameable objects, picture naming, and semantic association of pictures in AD. Disturbances in structural processing of pictured items may be associated with lexical-semantic impairment in AD, owing to degraded internal storage of structural knowledge.

Veridical and False Recall in Adults Who Stutter

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Byrd, Courtney T.; Sheng, Li; Ratner, Nan Bernstein; Gkalitsiou, Zoi

2015-01-01

Purpose: This study used a false memory paradigm to explore the veridical and false recall of adults who stutter. Method: Twelve adults who stutter and 12 age-matched typically fluent peers listened to and then verbally recalled lists of words that consisted of either semantic or phonological associates or an equal number of semantic and…

Semantic Abilities in Children with Pragmatic Language Impairment: The Case of Picture Naming Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ketelaars, Mieke Pauline; Hermans, Suzanne Irene Alphonsus; Cuperus, Juliane; Jansonius, Kino; Verhoeven, Ludo

2011-01-01

Purpose: The semantic abilities of children with pragmatic language impairment (PLI) are subject to debate. The authors investigated picture naming and definition skills in 5-year-olds with PLI in comparison to typically developing children. Method: 84 children with PLI and 80 age-matched typically developing children completed receptive…

Lexical-Semantic Organization in Children with Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sheng, Li; McGregor, Karla K.

2010-01-01

Purpose: To determine whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) show deficits in lexical-semantic organization and, if so, whether these deficits are commensurate with their delay in vocabulary size and whether the deficits affect all children with SLI. Method: Fourteen children with SLI, 14 age matches (AM), and 14 expressive…

Acquired amnesia in childhood: a single case study.

PubMed

Vicari, Stefano; Menghini, Deny; Di Paola, Margherita; Serra, Laura; Donfrancesco, Alberto; Fidani, Paola; Milano, Giuseppe Maria; Carlesimo, Giovanni Augusto

2007-03-02

We report the case of C.L., an 8-year-old child who, following the surgical removal of an ependymoma from the left cerebral ventricle at the age of 4 years, developed significant difficulties in retaining day-to-day events and information. A thorough neuropsychological analysis documented in C.L. a severe anterograde amnesic syndrome, characterised by normal short-term memory, but poor performance on episodic long-term memory tests. In particular, C.L. demonstrated virtually no ability to recollect new verbal information several minutes after the presentation. As for semantic memory, C.L. demonstrated general semantic competencies, which, depending on the test, ranged from the level of a 6-year-old girl to a level corresponding to her actual chronological age. Finding a patient who, despite being severely impaired in the ability to recollect new episodic memories, still demonstrates at least partially preserved abilities to acquire new semantic knowledge suggests that neural circuits implicated in the memorisation of autobiographical events and factual information do not overlap completely. This case is examined in the light of growing literature concerned with the dissociation between episodic and semantic memory in childhood amnesia.

Disruption of Semantic Network in Mild Alzheimer’s Disease Revealed by Resting-State fMRI

PubMed Central

Mascali, Daniele; DiNuzzo, Mauro; Serra, Laura; Mangia, Silvia; Maraviglia, Bruno; Bozzali, Marco; Giove, Federico

2018-01-01

Subtle semantic deficits can be observed in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients even in the early stages of the illness. In this work, we tested the hypothesis that the semantic control network is deregulated in mild AD patients. We assessed the integrity of the semantic control system using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging in a cohort of patients with mild AD (n = 38; mean mini-mental state examination = 20.5) and in a group of age-matched healthy controls (n = 19). Voxel-wise analysis spatially constrained in the left fronto-temporal semantic control network identified two regions with altered functional connectivity (FC) in AD patients, specifically in the pars opercularis (POp, BA44) and in the posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG, BA21). Using whole-brain seed-based analysis, we demonstrated that these two regions have altered FC even beyond the semantic control network. In particular, the pMTG displayed a wide-distributed pattern of lower connectivity to several brain regions involved in language-semantic processing, along with a possibly compensatory higher connectivity to the Wernicke’s area. We conclude that in mild AD brain regions belonging to the semantic control network are abnormally connected not only within the network, but also to other areas known to be critical for language processing. PMID:29197559

Semantic memory impairment for biological and man-made objects in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment or late-life depression.

PubMed

Callahan, Brandy L; Joubert, Sven; Tremblay, Marie-Pier; Macoir, Joël; Belleville, Sylvie; Rousseau, François; Bouchard, Rémi W; Verret, Louis; Hudon, Carol

2015-06-01

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and late-life depression (LLD) both increase the risk of developing Alzheimer disease (AD). Very little is known about the similarities and differences between these syndromes. The present study addresses this issue by examining the nature of semantic memory impairment (more precisely, object-based knowledge) in patients at risk of developing AD. Participants were 17 elderly patients with aMCI, 18 patients with aMCI plus depressive symptoms (aMCI/D+), 15 patients with LLD, and 29 healthy controls. All participants were aged 55 years or older and were administered a semantic battery designed to assess semantic knowledge for 16 biological and 16 man-made items. Overall performance of aMCI/D+ participants was significantly worse than the 3 other groups, and performance for questions assessing knowledge for biological items was poorer than for questions relating to man-made items. This study is the first to show that aMCI/D+ is associated with object-based semantic memory impairment. These results support the view that semantic deficits in aMCI are associated with concomitant depressive symptoms. However, depressive symptoms alone do not account exclusively for semantic impairment, since patients with LLD showed no semantic memory deficit. © The Author(s) 2014.

Effect of semantic coherence on episodic memory processes in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Battal Merlet, Lâle; Morel, Shasha; Blanchet, Alain; Lockman, Hazlin; Kostova, Milena

2014-12-30

Schizophrenia is associated with severe episodic retrieval impairment. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility that schizophrenia patients could improve their familiarity and/or recollection processes by manipulating the semantic coherence of to-be-learned stimuli and using deep encoding. Twelve schizophrenia patients and 12 healthy controls of comparable age, gender, and educational level undertook an associative recognition memory task. The stimuli consisted of pairs of words that were either related or unrelated to a given semantic category. The process dissociation procedure was used to calculate the estimates of familiarity and recollection processes. Both groups showed enhanced memory performances for semantically related words. However, in healthy controls, semantic relatedness led to enhanced recollection, while in schizophrenia patients, it induced enhanced familiarity. The familiarity estimates for related words were comparable in both groups, indicating that familiarity could be used as a compensatory mechanism in schizophrenia patients. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Italian battery for the assessment of semantic memory disorders.

PubMed

Catricalà, Eleonora; Della Rosa, Pasquale A; Ginex, Valeria; Mussetti, Zoe; Plebani, Valentina; Cappa, Stefano F

2013-06-01

We report the construction and standardization of a new comprehensive battery of tests for the assessment of semantic memory disorders. The battery is constructed on a common set of 48 stimuli, belonging to both living and non-living categories, rigidly controlled for several confounding variables, and is based on an empirically derived corpus of semantic features. It includes six tasks, in order to assess semantic memory through different modalities of input and output: two naming tasks, one with colored pictures and the other in response to an oral description, a word-picture matching task, a picture sorting task, a free generation of features task and a sentence verification task. Normative data on 106 Italian subjects pooled across homogenous subgroups for age, sex and education are reported. The new battery allows an in-depth investigation of category-specific disorders and of progressive semantic memory deficits at features level, overcoming some of the limitations of existing tests.

Semantic Encoding Enhances the Pictorial Superiority Effect in the Oldest-Old

PubMed Central

Cherry, Katie E.; Brown, Jennifer Silva; Walker, Erin Jackson; Smitherman, Emily A.; Boudreaux, Emily O.; Volaufova, Julia; Jazwinski, S. Michal

2011-01-01

We examined the effect of a semantic orienting task during encoding on free recall and recognition of simple line drawings and matching words in middle-aged (44 to 59 years), older (60 to 89 years), and oldest-old (90 + years) adults. Participants studied line drawings and matching words presented in blocked order. Half of the participants were given a semantic orienting task and the other half received standard intentional learning instructions. Results confirmed that the pictorial superiority effect was greater in magnitude following semantic encoding compared to the control condition. Analyses of clustering in free recall revealed that oldest-old adults’ encoding and retrieval strategies were generally similar to the two younger groups. Self-reported strategy use was less frequent among the oldest-old adults. These data strongly suggest that semantic elaboration is an effective compensatory mechanism underlying preserved episodic memory performance that persists well into the ninth decade of life. PMID:22053814

Verbal fluency in bilingual Spanish/English Alzheimer's disease patients.

PubMed

Salvatierra, Judy; Rosselli, Monica; Acevedo, Amarilis; Duara, Ranjan

2007-01-01

Studies have demonstrated that in verbal fluency tests, monolinguals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show greater difficulties retrieving words based on semantic rather than phonemic rules. The present study aimed to determine whether this difficulty was reproduced in both languages of Spanish/English bilinguals with mild to moderate AD whose primary language was Spanish. Performance on semantic and phonemic verbal fluency of 11 bilingual AD patients was compared to the performance of 11 cognitively normal, elderly bilingual individuals matched for gender, age, level of education, and degree of bilingualism. Cognitively normal subjects retrieved significantly more items under the semantic condition compared to the phonemic, whereas the performance of AD patients was similar under both conditions, suggesting greater decline in semantic verbal fluency tests. This pattern was produced in both languages, implying a related semantic decline in both languages. Results from this study should be considered preliminary because of the small sample size.

Lexical Semantics and Irregular Inflection

PubMed Central

Huang, Yi Ting; Pinker, Steven

2010-01-01

Whether a word has an irregular inflection does not depend on its sound alone: compare lie-lay (recline) and lie-lied (prevaricate). Theories of morphology, particularly connectionist and symbolic models, disagree on which nonphonological factors are responsible. We test four possibilities: (1) Lexical effects, in which two lemmas differ in whether they specify an irregular form; (2) Semantic effects, in which the semantic features of a word become associated with regular or irregular forms; (3) Morphological structure effects, in which a word with a headless structure (e.g., a verb derived from a noun) blocks access to a stored irregular form; (4) Compositionality effects, in which the stored combination of an irregular word’s meaning (e.g., the verb’s inherent aspect) with the meaning of the inflection (e.g., pastness) doesn’t readily transfer to new senses with different combinations of such meanings. In four experiments, speakers were presented with existing and novel verbs and asked to rate their past-tense forms, semantic similarities, grammatical structure, and aspectual similarities. We found (1) an interaction between semantic and phonological similarity, coinciding with reported strategies of analogizing to known verbs and implicating lexical effects; (2) weak and inconsistent effects of semantic similarity; (3) robust effects of morphological structure, and (4) robust effects of aspectual compositionality. Results are consistent with theories of language that invoke lexical entries and morphological structure, and which differentiate the mode of storage of regular and irregular verbs. They also suggest how psycholinguistic processes have shaped vocabulary structure over history. PMID:21151703

Priming deficiency in male subjects at risk for alcoholism: the N4 during a lexical decision task.

PubMed

Roopesh, Bangalore N; Rangaswamy, Madhavi; Kamarajan, Chella; Chorlian, David B; Stimus, Arthur; Bauer, Lance O; Rohrbaugh, John; O'Connor, Sean J; Kuperman, Samuel; Schuckit, Marc; Porjesz, Bernice

2009-12-01

While there is extensive literature on the relationship between the P3 component of event-related potentials (ERPs) and risk for alcoholism, there are few published studies regarding other potentially important ERP components. One important candidate is the N4(00) component in the context of semantic processing, as abnormalities in this component have been reported for adult alcoholics. A semantic priming task was administered to nonalcohol dependent male offspring (18 to 25 years) of alcoholic fathers [high risk (HR) n = 23] and nonalcoholic fathers [low risk (LR) n = 28] to study whether the 2 groups differ in terms of the N4 component. Subjects were presented with 150 words and 150 nonwords. Among the words, 50 words (primed) were preceded by their antonyms (prime, n = 50), whereas the remaining 50 words were unprimed. For the analysis, N4 amplitude and latency as well as behavioral measures for the primed and unprimed words were considered. A significant interaction effect was observed between semantic condition and group, where HR subjects did not show N4 attenuation for primed stimuli. The lack of N4 attenuation to primed stimuli and/or inability to differentiate between primed and unprimed stimuli, without latency and reaction time being affected, suggest deficits in semantic priming, especially in semantic expectancy and/or postlexical semantic processing in HR male offspring. Further, it indicates that it might be an electrophysiological endophenotype that reflects genetic vulnerability to develop alcoholism.

Electrophysiological signatures of event words: Dissociating syntactic and semantic category effects in lexical processing.

PubMed

Lapinskaya, Natalia; Uzomah, Uchechukwu; Bedny, Marina; Lau, Ellen

2016-12-01

Numerous theories have been proposed regarding the brain's organization and retrieval of lexical information. Neurophysiological dissociations in processing different word classes, particularly nouns and verbs, have been extensively documented, supporting the contribution of grammatical class to lexical organization. However, the contribution of semantic properties to these processing differences is still unresolved. We aim to isolate this contribution by comparing ERPs to verbs (e.g. wade), object nouns (e.g. cookie), and event nouns (e.g. concert) in a paired similarity judgment task, as event nouns share grammatical category with object nouns but some semantic properties with verbs. We find that event nouns pattern with verbs in eliciting a more positive response than object nouns across left anterior electrodes 300-500ms after word presentation. This time-window has been strongly linked to lexical-semantic access by prior electrophysiological work. Thus, the similarity of the response to words referring to concepts with more complex participant structure and temporal continuity extends across grammatical class (event nouns and verbs), and contrasts with the words that refer to objects (object nouns). This contrast supports a semantic, as well as syntactic, contribution to the differential neural organization and processing of lexical items. We also observed a late (500-800ms post-stimulus) posterior positivity for object nouns relative to event nouns and verbs at the second word of each pair, which may reflect the impact of semantic properties on the similarity judgment task. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Research in Human Sexuality Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carmichael, Joan; And Others

1977-01-01

Medical students' attitudes towards concepts in sexuality before and after a five-day sexuality course were tested at the University of Miami School of Medicine and evaluated with Osgood's Semantic Differential. Concepts rated were "my sexuality,""masturbation,""homosexuality," and "my role in understanding…

The use of semantic- and phonological-based feature approaches to treat naming deficits in aphasia.

PubMed

Hashimoto, Naomi

2012-06-01

The aim of the study was to compare approaches highlighting either semantic or phonological features to treat naming deficits in aphasia. Treatment focused on improving picture naming. An alternating treatments design was used with a multiple baseline design across stimuli to examine effects of both approaches in two participants with varying degrees of anomia. The features approaches were modified in that three, rather than six, features were used. Significant differential effects were found across participants; this appeared to be a function of each participant's strengths or preferences over the course of treatment. Modest generalization effects were obtained for one participant. Naming error analyses revealed patterns suggestive of increased lexical access for both participants. These findings provide evidence that using a modified features-based protocol can improve naming when incorporating both semantic and phonological feature cues. Naming error patterns can provide additional evidence of improved naming during treatment.

Levels of word processing and incidental memory: dissociable mechanisms in the temporal lobe.

PubMed

Castillo, E M; Simos, P G; Davis, R N; Breier, J; Fitzgerald, M E; Papanicolaou, A C

2001-11-16

Word recall is facilitated when deep (e.g. semantic) processing is applied during encoding. This fact raises the question of the existence of specific brain mechanisms supporting different levels of information processing that can modulate incidental memory performance. In this study we obtained spatiotemporal brain activation profiles, using magnetic source imaging, from 10 adult volunteers as they performed a shallow (phonological) processing task and a deep (semantic) processing task. When phonological analysis of the word stimuli into their constituent phonemes was required, activation was largely restricted to the posterior portion of the left superior temporal gyrus (area 22). Conversely, when access to lexical/semantic representations was required, activation was found predominantly in the left middle temporal gyrus and medial temporal cortex. The differential engagement of each mechanism during word encoding was associated with dramatic changes in subsequent incidental memory performance.

Elucidating semantic disorganisation from a word comprehension task: do patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder show differential processing of nouns, verbs and adjectives?

PubMed

Rossell, Susan L; Batty, Rachel A

2008-07-01

Memory deficits have been reported in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, the precise impact of semantic memory deficits on word comprehension, particularly across grammatical categories, has not been adequately investigated in these disorders. Furthermore, previous studies examining semantic memory have predominantly been designed so that most healthy controls perform at ceiling, questioning the validity of observed differences between patient and control groups. A new word definition task examined word comprehension across grammatical categories, i.e. nouns, verbs and adjectives, and was designed to overcome the ceiling effect. It was administered to 32 schizophrenia patients, 28 bipolar disorder patients and 32 matched healthy controls. Schizophrenia patients had a global impairment on the task but bipolar patients were only impaired on a recognition memory component. Word comprehension, however, across grammatical categories was comparable across groups.

Serial position effects in semantic memory: reconstructing the order of verses of hymns.

PubMed

Maylor, Elizabeth A

2002-12-01

Serial position effects (primacy and recency) have been consistently demonstrated in both short- and long-term episodic memory tasks. The search for corresponding effects in semantic memory tasks (e.g., reconstructing the order of U.S. presidents) has been confounded by factors such as differential exposure to stimuli. In the present study, the stimuli were six-verse hymns that would have been sung from the first to the last verse by churchgoers on numerous occasions. Participants were presented with the verses of each hymn in random order and were required to reconstruct the correct order. Primacy and recency effects were significantly more evident for churchgoers than for nonchurchgoers. Moreover, error gradients were steeper than chance for churchgoers but not for nonchurchgoers; in other words, churchgoers' errors were more likely to be close to the correct position than further away. These findings provide the first unequivocal demonstration of serial position effects in semantic memory.

A cross-cultural perspective on aging and memory: Comparisons between Bangladesh and Sweden.

PubMed

Sternäng, Ola; Kabir, Zarina N; Hamadani, Jena D; Wahlin, Åke

2012-12-01

Most studies on cognitive aging have been conducted in high-income countries (mainly on Western populations). The main aim of this study was to compare the relative importance of predictors of episodic and semantic memory performance in older people (≥60 years) from Bangladesh (n = 400) and Sweden (n = 1,098). Hierarchical regression models were used in order to study the importance of some commonly used predictors in the two countries. A main finding was that variations in age did not have much impact on episodic and semantic memory performance in Bangladesh. Instead, sex was a strong predictor for semantic memory performance. In Sweden this pattern was reversed. In the Western world, chronological age is believed to be strongly associated with memory performance in cross-sectional studies, particularly in people greater than 60 years of age. This study indicates that the difference between the two countries (in relative importance of the predictors included in this study) is mainly due to the fact that years of education is connected to age in the Western world but to sex in Bangladesh. It remains to be examined whether earlier selective survival is also responsible for the relative absence of cognitive age differences in Bangladesh. © 2012 The Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Memory and emotion processing performance contributes to the diagnosis of non-semantic primary progressive aphasia syndromes.

PubMed

Piguet, Olivier; Leyton, Cristian E; Gleeson, Liam D; Hoon, Chris; Hodges, John R

2015-01-01

The two non-semantic variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA), nonfluent/agrammatic PPA (nfv-PPA) and logopenic variant PPA (lv-PPA), share language features despite their different underlying pathology, and may be difficult to distinguish for non-language experts. To improve diagnostic accuracy of nfv-PPA and lv-PPA using tasks measuring non-language cognition and emotion processing. Thirty-eight dementia patients meeting diagnostic criteria for PPA (nfv-PPA 20, lv-PPA 18) and 21 matched healthy Controls underwent a comprehensive assessment of cognition and emotion processing, as well as a high-resolution structural MRI and a PiB-PET scan, a putative biomarker of Alzheimer's disease. Task performances were compared between the groups and those found to differ significantly were entered into a logistic regression analysis. Analyses revealed a double dissociation between nfv-PPA and lv-PPA. nfv-PPA exhibited significant emotion processing disturbance compared to lv-PPA and Controls. In contrast, only the lv-PPA group was significantly impaired on tasks of episodic memory. Logistic regression analyses showed that 87% of patients were correctly classified using emotion processing and episodic memory composite scores, together with a measure of visuospatial ability. Non-language presenting features can help differentiate between the two non-semantic PPA syndromes, with a double dissociation observed on tasks of episodic memory and emotion processing. Based on performance on these tasks, we propose a decision tree as a complementary method to differentiate between the two non-semantic variants. These findings have important clinical implications, with identification of patients who may potentially benefit existing therapeutic interventions currently available for Alzheimer's disease.

A database of 629 English compound words: ratings of familiarity, lexeme meaning dominance, semantic transparency, age of acquisition, imageability, and sensory experience.

PubMed

Juhasz, Barbara J; Lai, Yun-Hsuan; Woodcock, Michelle L

2015-12-01

Since the work of Taft and Forster (1976), a growing literature has examined how English compound words are recognized and organized in the mental lexicon. Much of this research has focused on whether compound words are decomposed during recognition by manipulating the word frequencies of their lexemes. However, many variables may impact morphological processing, including relational semantic variables such as semantic transparency, as well as additional form-related and semantic variables. In the present study, ratings were collected on 629 English compound words for six variables [familiarity, age of acquisition (AoA), semantic transparency, lexeme meaning dominance (LMD), imageability, and sensory experience ratings (SER)]. All of the compound words selected for this study are contained within the English Lexicon Project (Balota et al., 2007), which made it possible to use a regression approach to examine the predictive power of these variables for lexical decision and word naming performance. Analyses indicated that familiarity, AoA, imageability, and SER were all significant predictors of both lexical decision and word naming performance when they were added separately to a model containing the length and frequency of the compounds, as well as the lexeme frequencies. In addition, rated semantic transparency also predicted lexical decision performance. The database of English compound words should be beneficial to word recognition researchers who are interested in selecting items for experiments on compound words, and it will also allow researchers to conduct further analyses using the available data combined with word recognition times included in the English Lexicon Project.

Recall of Details Never Experienced: Effects of Age, Repetition, and Semantic Cues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holliday, Robyn E.; Reyna, Valerie F.; Brainerd, Charles J.

2008-01-01

To test theoretical predictions about the role of meaning connections in false memory, the effects of semantic cues and list repetition on children's false memories were evaluated across early childhood to mid-adolescence using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. True recall and false recall increased from 7 to 13 years. Study list…

Do Statistical Segmentation Abilities Predict Lexical-Phonological and Lexical-Semantic Abilities in Children with and without SLI?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Evans, Julia L.

2014-01-01

This study tested the predictions of the procedural deficit hypothesis by investigating the relationship between sequential statistical learning and two aspects of lexical ability, lexical-phonological and lexical-semantic, in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Participants included forty children (ages 8;5-12;3), twenty…

Brain Activation during Semantic Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders via Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harris, Gordon J.; Chabris, Christopher F.; Clark, Jill; Urban, Trinity; Aharon, Itzhak; Steele, Shelley; McGrath, Lauren; Condouris, Karen; Tager-Flusberg, Helen

2006-01-01

Language and communication deficits are core features of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), even in high-functioning adults with ASD. This study investigated brain activation patterns using functional magnetic resonance imaging in right-handed adult males with ASD and a control group, matched on age, handedness, and verbal IQ. Semantic processing in…

Lexical-Semantic Organization in Bilingual Children: Evidence from a Repeated Word Association Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sheng, Li; McGregor, Karla K.; Marian, Viorica

2006-01-01

Purpose: This study examined lexical-semantic organization of bilingual children in their 2 languages and in relation to monolingual age-mates. Method: Twelve Mandarin-English bilingual and 12 English monolingual children generated 3 associations to each of 36 words. Responses were coded as paradigmatic ("dog-cat") or syntagmatic ("dog-bark").…

Sensitivity to Phonological, Morphological, and Semantic Cues in Early Reading and Writing in Hebrew.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levin, Iris; Korat, Ofra

1993-01-01

Studied emergent literacy in Hebrew by analyzing nursery and kindergarten children's attempts to write and read pairs of nouns. Found that, with age, children's sensitivity to phonology increased and sensitivity to semantics decreased and that these sensitivities played a greater role in literacy acquisition than did sensitivity to morphology. (MM)

Phonological and Semantic Priming in Children with Reading Disability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Betjemann, Rebecca S.; Keenan, Janice M.

2008-01-01

Lexical priming was assessed in children with reading disability (RD) and in age-matched controls (M= 11.5 years), in visual and auditory lexical decision tasks. In the visual task, children with RD were found to have deficits in semantic (SHIP-BOAT), phonological/graphemic (GOAT-BOAT), and combined (FLOAT-BOAT) priming. The same pattern of…

Investigating Orthographic and Semantic Aspects of Word Learning in Poor Comprehenders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ricketts, Jessie; Bishop, Dorothy V. M.; Nation, Kate

2008-01-01

This study compared orthographic and semantic aspects of word learning in children who differed in reading comprehension skill. Poor comprehenders and controls matched for age (9-10 years), nonverbal ability and decoding skill were trained to pronounce 20 visually presented nonwords, 10 in a consistent way and 10 in an inconsistent way. They then…

Semantic Interference during Object Naming in Agrammatic and Logopenic Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Cynthia K.; Cho, Soojin; Price, Charis; Wieneke, Christina; Bonakdarpour, Borna; Rogalski, Emily; Weintraub, Sandra; Mesulam, M-Marsel

2012-01-01

This study examined the time course of object naming in 21 individuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) (8 agrammatic (PPA-G); 13 logopenic (PPA-L)) and healthy age-matched speakers (n=17) using a semantic interference paradigm with related and unrelated interfering stimuli presented at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of -1000, -500, -100…

Syntactic, Semantic and Pragmatic Correlates of the Acquisition of Exhaustivity in "Wh"-Questions: A Study of Polish Monolingual Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Forys-Nogala, Malgorzata; Haman, Ewa; Katsos, Napoleon; Krajewski, Grzegorz; Schulz, Petra

2017-01-01

This study investigates relationships between acquisition of exhaustivity in single and multiple "wh"-questions, mastery of semantic and pragmatic aspects of quantifier comprehension, and general skills in receptive grammar. The participants of the study were 25 Polish monolingual typically developing children aged 4;02-6;02, who were…

Verbal Memory and Semantic Organization of Children with Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Polychroni, Fotini; Economou, Alexandra; Printezi, Anna; Koutlidi, Ifigeneia

2011-01-01

The present study examined the verbal learning performance and the semantic organization used by Greek reading-disabled readers as compared to a control group using a list-learning task. The sample consisted of 45 elementary school children with reading difficulties and 45 comparison children matched for age and gender. Tests of reading ability,…

A Comparison of Semantic and Syntactic Event Related Potentials Generated by Children and Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Atchley, Ruth Ann; Rice, Mabel L.; Betz, Stacy K.; Kwasny, Kristin M.; Sereno, Joan A.; Jongman, Allard

2006-01-01

The present study employs event related potentials (ERPs) to verify the utility of using electrophysiological measures to study developmental questions within the field of language comprehension. Established ERP components (N400 and P600) that reflect semantic and syntactic processing were examined. Fifteen adults and 14 children (ages 8-13)…

Productive Extension of Semantic Memory in School-Aged Children: Relations with Reading Comprehension and Deployment of Cognitive Resources

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bauer, Patricia J.; Blue, Shala N.; Xu, Aoxiang; Esposito, Alena G.

2016-01-01

We investigated 7- to 10-year-old children's productive extension of semantic memory through self-generation of new factual knowledge derived through integration of separate yet related facts learned through instruction or through reading. In Experiment 1, an experimenter read the to-be-integrated facts. Children successfully learned and…

Naive Physics, Event Perception, Lexical Semantics, and Language Acquisition

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-04-01

settings within a framework of universal grammar. His central claim is that children use primarily unembedded material as evidence for the parameter...differentiate embedded from unembedded material. Deriving such structural information requires that the learner determine constituent order prior io ot her

The Development and Evaluation of Industrial Case Studies to Support a New Laboratory Course in Electrical Engineering.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bolton, B.; Adderley, K. J.

1978-01-01

After viewing videotaped case studies indicating the relevance of electrical laboratory work to professional engineers, student attitudes showed a positive improvement toward laboratory work. Semantic differential tests, questionnaires, and interviews were used. (Author/MH)

DIMENSIONS OF TEACHER'S ATTITUDES TOWARD INSTRUCTIONAL MEDIA.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

TOBIAS, SIGMUND

TEACHERS' RATINGS ON SIX 7-POINT SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL SCALES (GOOD-BAD, WORTHLESS-VALUABLE, FAIR-UNFAIR, MEANINGLESS-MEANINGFUL, WISE-FOOLISH, DISREPUTABLE-REPUTABLE) WERE OBTAINED FOR THE FOLLOWING TERMS--AUTOMATED INSTRUCTION, SELF-INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM, TEACHING MACHINE, MECHANIZED TUTOR, PROGRAMED TEST, PROGRAMED INSTRUCTION, TUTOR TEXT, WORK…

Measuring environmental attitudes of elementary school students

Treesearch

John C. Benjamin; George H. Moeller; Douglas A. Morrison

1977-01-01

A modified semantic differential was developed to measure environmental attitudes of sixth-graders. Classes were selected to represent different socioeconomic and residence backgrounds and degrees of previous exposure to structured environmental programs. Results indicate that: exposure to environmental education fosters favorable environmental attitudes; socioeconomic...

Patient-Therapist Identification in Relation to Both Patient and Therapist Variables and Therapy Outcome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Melnick, Barry

1972-01-01

The results of the study confirmed the hypothesis that greater patient identification with the therapist, as defined by increased similarity between the patient's and therapist's semantic differential ratings, moderately correlated with more successful therapy outcome. (Author)

Multimodal Feature Integration in the Angular Gyrus during Episodic and Semantic Retrieval

PubMed Central

Bonnici, Heidi M.; Richter, Franziska R.; Yazar, Yasemin

2016-01-01

Much evidence from distinct lines of investigation indicates the involvement of angular gyrus (AnG) in the retrieval of both episodic and semantic information, but the region's precise function and whether that function differs across episodic and semantic retrieval have yet to be determined. We used univariate and multivariate fMRI analysis methods to examine the role of AnG in multimodal feature integration during episodic and semantic retrieval. Human participants completed episodic and semantic memory tasks involving unimodal (auditory or visual) and multimodal (audio-visual) stimuli. Univariate analyses revealed the recruitment of functionally distinct AnG subregions during the retrieval of episodic and semantic information. Consistent with a role in multimodal feature integration during episodic retrieval, significantly greater AnG activity was observed during retrieval of integrated multimodal episodic memories compared with unimodal episodic memories. Multivariate classification analyses revealed that individual multimodal episodic memories could be differentiated in AnG, with classification accuracy tracking the vividness of participants' reported recollections, whereas distinct unimodal memories were represented in sensory association areas only. In contrast to episodic retrieval, AnG was engaged to a statistically equivalent degree during retrieval of unimodal and multimodal semantic memories, suggesting a distinct role for AnG during semantic retrieval. Modality-specific sensory association areas exhibited corresponding activity during both episodic and semantic retrieval, which mirrored the functional specialization of these regions during perception. The results offer new insights into the integrative processes subserved by AnG and its contribution to our subjective experience of remembering. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Using univariate and multivariate fMRI analyses, we provide evidence that functionally distinct subregions of angular gyrus (AnG) contribute to the retrieval of episodic and semantic memories. Our multivariate pattern classifier could distinguish episodic memory representations in AnG according to whether they were multimodal (audio-visual) or unimodal (auditory or visual) in nature, whereas statistically equivalent AnG activity was observed during retrieval of unimodal and multimodal semantic memories. Classification accuracy during episodic retrieval scaled with the trial-by-trial vividness with which participants experienced their recollections. Therefore, the findings offer new insights into the integrative processes subserved by AnG and how its function may contribute to our subjective experience of remembering. PMID:27194327

Multimodal Feature Integration in the Angular Gyrus during Episodic and Semantic Retrieval.

PubMed

Bonnici, Heidi M; Richter, Franziska R; Yazar, Yasemin; Simons, Jon S

2016-05-18

Much evidence from distinct lines of investigation indicates the involvement of angular gyrus (AnG) in the retrieval of both episodic and semantic information, but the region's precise function and whether that function differs across episodic and semantic retrieval have yet to be determined. We used univariate and multivariate fMRI analysis methods to examine the role of AnG in multimodal feature integration during episodic and semantic retrieval. Human participants completed episodic and semantic memory tasks involving unimodal (auditory or visual) and multimodal (audio-visual) stimuli. Univariate analyses revealed the recruitment of functionally distinct AnG subregions during the retrieval of episodic and semantic information. Consistent with a role in multimodal feature integration during episodic retrieval, significantly greater AnG activity was observed during retrieval of integrated multimodal episodic memories compared with unimodal episodic memories. Multivariate classification analyses revealed that individual multimodal episodic memories could be differentiated in AnG, with classification accuracy tracking the vividness of participants' reported recollections, whereas distinct unimodal memories were represented in sensory association areas only. In contrast to episodic retrieval, AnG was engaged to a statistically equivalent degree during retrieval of unimodal and multimodal semantic memories, suggesting a distinct role for AnG during semantic retrieval. Modality-specific sensory association areas exhibited corresponding activity during both episodic and semantic retrieval, which mirrored the functional specialization of these regions during perception. The results offer new insights into the integrative processes subserved by AnG and its contribution to our subjective experience of remembering. Using univariate and multivariate fMRI analyses, we provide evidence that functionally distinct subregions of angular gyrus (AnG) contribute to the retrieval of episodic and semantic memories. Our multivariate pattern classifier could distinguish episodic memory representations in AnG according to whether they were multimodal (audio-visual) or unimodal (auditory or visual) in nature, whereas statistically equivalent AnG activity was observed during retrieval of unimodal and multimodal semantic memories. Classification accuracy during episodic retrieval scaled with the trial-by-trial vividness with which participants experienced their recollections. Therefore, the findings offer new insights into the integrative processes subserved by AnG and how its function may contribute to our subjective experience of remembering. Copyright © 2016 Bonnici, Richter, et al.

What role does the anterior temporal lobe play in sentence-level processing? Neural correlates of syntactic processing in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia.

PubMed

Wilson, Stephen M; DeMarco, Andrew T; Henry, Maya L; Gesierich, Benno; Babiak, Miranda; Mandelli, Maria Luisa; Miller, Bruce L; Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa

2014-05-01

Neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies have implicated the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in sentence-level processing, with syntactic structure-building and/or combinatorial semantic processing suggested as possible roles. A potential challenge to the view that the ATL is involved in syntactic aspects of sentence processing comes from the clinical syndrome of semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (semantic PPA; also known as semantic dementia). In semantic PPA, bilateral neurodegeneration of the ATLs is associated with profound lexical semantic deficits, yet syntax is strikingly spared. The goal of this study was to investigate the neural correlates of syntactic processing in semantic PPA to determine which regions normally involved in syntactic processing are damaged in semantic PPA and whether spared syntactic processing depends on preserved functionality of intact regions, preserved functionality of atrophic regions, or compensatory functional reorganization. We scanned 20 individuals with semantic PPA and 24 age-matched controls using structural MRI and fMRI. Participants performed a sentence comprehension task that emphasized syntactic processing and minimized lexical semantic demands. We found that, in controls, left inferior frontal and left posterior temporal regions were modulated by syntactic processing, whereas anterior temporal regions were not significantly modulated. In the semantic PPA group, atrophy was most severe in the ATLs but extended to the posterior temporal regions involved in syntactic processing. Functional activity for syntactic processing was broadly similar in patients and controls; in particular, whole-brain analyses revealed no significant differences between patients and controls in the regions modulated by syntactic processing. The atrophic left ATL did show abnormal functionality in semantic PPA patients; however, this took the unexpected form of a failure to deactivate. Taken together, our findings indicate that spared syntactic processing in semantic PPA depends on preserved functionality of structurally intact left frontal regions and moderately atrophic left posterior temporal regions, but no functional reorganization was apparent as a consequence of anterior temporal atrophy and dysfunction. These results suggest that the role of the ATL in sentence processing is less likely to relate to syntactic structure-building and more likely to relate to higher-level processes such as combinatorial semantic processing.

Effects of donepezil on verbal memory after semantic processing in healthy older adults.

PubMed

FitzGerald, David B; Crucian, Gregory P; Mielke, Jeannine B; Shenal, Brian V; Burks, David; Womack, Kyle B; Ghacibeh, Georges; Drago, Valeria; Foster, Paul S; Valenstein, Edward; Heilman, Kenneth M

2008-06-01

To learn if acetylcholinesterase inhibitors alter verbal recall by improving semantic encoding in a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial. Cholinergic supplementation has been shown to improve delayed recall in adults with Alzheimer disease. With functional magnetic resonance imaging, elderly adults, when compared with younger participants, have reduced cortical activation with semantic processing. There have been no studies investigating the effects of cholinergic supplementation on semantic encoding in healthy elderly adults. Twenty elderly participants (mean age 71.5, SD+/-5.2) were recruited. All underwent memory testing before and after receiving donepezil (5 mg, n=11 or 10 mg, n=1) or placebo (n=8) for 6 weeks. Memory was tested using a Levels of Processing task, where a series of words are presented serially. Subjects were either asked to count consonants in a word (superficially process) or decide if the word was "pleasant" or "unpleasant" (semantically process). After 6 weeks of donepezil or placebo treatment, immediate and delayed recall of superficially and semantically processed words was compared with baseline performance. Immediate and delayed recall of superficially processed words did not show significant changes in either treatment group. With semantic processing, both immediate and delayed recall performance improved in the donepezil group. Our results suggest that when using semantic encoding, older normal subjects may be aided by anticholinesterase treatment. However, this treatment does not improve recall of superficially encoded words.

Disruption of Semantic Network in Mild Alzheimer's Disease Revealed by Resting-State fMRI.

PubMed

Mascali, Daniele; DiNuzzo, Mauro; Serra, Laura; Mangia, Silvia; Maraviglia, Bruno; Bozzali, Marco; Giove, Federico

2018-02-10

Subtle semantic deficits can be observed in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients even in the early stages of the illness. In this work, we tested the hypothesis that the semantic control network is deregulated in mild AD patients. We assessed the integrity of the semantic control system using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging in a cohort of patients with mild AD (n = 38; mean mini-mental state examination = 20.5) and in a group of age-matched healthy controls (n = 19). Voxel-wise analysis spatially constrained in the left fronto-temporal semantic control network identified two regions with altered functional connectivity (FC) in AD patients, specifically in the pars opercularis (POp, BA44) and in the posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG, BA21). Using whole-brain seed-based analysis, we demonstrated that these two regions have altered FC even beyond the semantic control network. In particular, the pMTG displayed a wide-distributed pattern of lower connectivity to several brain regions involved in language-semantic processing, along with a possibly compensatory higher connectivity to the Wernicke's area. We conclude that in mild AD brain regions belonging to the semantic control network are abnormally connected not only within the network, but also to other areas known to be critical for language processing. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Episodic memory and self-reference via semantic autobiographical memory: insights from an fMRI study in younger and older adults.

PubMed

Kalenzaga, Sandrine; Sperduti, Marco; Anssens, Adèle; Martinelli, Penelope; Devauchelle, Anne-Dominique; Gallarda, Thierry; Delhommeau, Marion; Lion, Stéphanie; Amado, Isabelle; Krebs, Marie-Odile; Oppenheim, Catherine; Piolino, Pascale

2014-01-01

Self-referential processing relies mainly on the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and enhances memory encoding (i.e., Self-Reference Effect, SRE) as it improves the accuracy and richness of remembering in both young and older adults. However, studies on age-related changes in the neural correlates of the SRE on the subjective (i.e., autonoetic consciousness) and the objective (i.e., source memory) qualitative features of episodic memory are lacking. In the present fMRI study, we compared the effects of a self-related (semantic autobiographical memory task) and a non self-related (general semantic memory task) encoding condition on subsequent episodic memory retrieval. We investigated encoding-related activity during each condition in two groups of 19 younger and 16 older adults. Behaviorally, the SRE improved subjective memory performance in both groups but objective memory only in young adults. At the neural level, a direct comparison between self-related and non self-related conditions revealed that SRE mainly activated the cortical midline system, especially the MPFC, in both groups. Additionally, in older adults and regardless of the condition, greater activity was found in a fronto-parietal network. Overall, correlations were noted between source memory performance and activity in the MPFC (irrespective of age) and visual areas (mediated by age). Thus, the present findings expand evidence of the role of the MPFC in self-referential processing in the context of source memory benefit in both young and older adults using incidental encoding via semantic autobiographical memory. However, our finding suggests that its role is less effective in aging.

Episodic memory and self-reference via semantic autobiographical memory: insights from an fMRI study in younger and older adults

PubMed Central

Kalenzaga, Sandrine; Sperduti, Marco; Anssens, Adèle; Martinelli, Penelope; Devauchelle, Anne-Dominique; Gallarda, Thierry; Delhommeau, Marion; Lion, Stéphanie; Amado, Isabelle; Krebs, Marie-Odile; Oppenheim, Catherine; Piolino, Pascale

2015-01-01

Self-referential processing relies mainly on the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and enhances memory encoding (i.e., Self-Reference Effect, SRE) as it improves the accuracy and richness of remembering in both young and older adults. However, studies on age-related changes in the neural correlates of the SRE on the subjective (i.e., autonoetic consciousness) and the objective (i.e., source memory) qualitative features of episodic memory are lacking. In the present fMRI study, we compared the effects of a self-related (semantic autobiographical memory task) and a non self-related (general semantic memory task) encoding condition on subsequent episodic memory retrieval. We investigated encoding-related activity during each condition in two groups of 19 younger and 16 older adults. Behaviorally, the SRE improved subjective memory performance in both groups but objective memory only in young adults. At the neural level, a direct comparison between self-related and non self-related conditions revealed that SRE mainly activated the cortical midline system, especially the MPFC, in both groups. Additionally, in older adults and regardless of the condition, greater activity was found in a fronto-parietal network. Overall, correlations were noted between source memory performance and activity in the MPFC (irrespective of age) and visual areas (mediated by age). Thus, the present findings expand evidence of the role of the MPFC in self-referential processing in the context of source memory benefit in both young and older adults using incidental encoding via semantic autobiographical memory. However, our finding suggests that its role is less effective in aging. PMID:25628546

THE EFFECT OF PLAUSIBILITY ON SENTENCE COMPREHENSION AMONG OLDER ADULTS AND ITS RELATION TO COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS

PubMed Central

Yoon, Jungmee; Campanelli, Luca; Goral, Mira; Marton, Klara; Eichorn, Naomi; Obler, Loraine K.

2016-01-01

Background/Study Context Older adults show age-related decline in complex-sentence comprehension. This has been attributed to a decrease in cognitive abilities that may support language processing, such as working memory (e.g., Caplan, DeDe, Waters, & Michaud, 2011,Psychology and Aging, 26, 439–450). The authors examined whether older adults have difficulty comprehending semantically implausible sentences and whether specific executive functions contribute to their comprehension performance. Methods Forty-two younger adults (aged 18–35) and 42 older adults (aged 55–75) were tested on two experimental tasks: a multiple negative comprehension task and an information processing battery. Results Both groups, older and younger adults, showed poorer performance for implausible sentences than for plausible sentences; however, no interaction was found between plausibility and age group. A regression analysis revealed that inhibition efficiency, as measured by a task that required resistance to proactive interference, predicted comprehension of implausible sentences in older adults only. Consistent with the compensation hypothesis, the older adults with better inhibition skills showed better comprehension than those with poor inhibition skills. Conclusion The findings suggest that semantic implausibility, along with syntactic complexity, increases linguistic and cognitive processing loads on auditory sentence comprehension. Moreover, the contribution of inhibitory control to the processing of semantic plausibility, particularly among older adults, suggests that the relationship between cognitive ability and language comprehension is strongly influenced by age. PMID:25978447

The effect of plausibility on sentence comprehension among older adults and its relation to cognitive functions.

PubMed

Yoon, Jungmee; Campanelli, Luca; Goral, Mira; Marton, Klara; Eichorn, Naomi; Obler, Loraine K

2015-01-01

BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Older adults show age-related decline in complex-sentence comprehension. This has been attributed to a decrease in cognitive abilities that may support language processing, such as working memory (e.g., Caplan, DeDe, Waters, & Michaud, 2011,Psychology and Aging, 26, 439-450). The authors examined whether older adults have difficulty comprehending semantically implausible sentences and whether specific executive functions contribute to their comprehension performance. Forty-two younger adults (aged 18-35) and 42 older adults (aged 55-75) were tested on two experimental tasks: a multiple negative comprehension task and an information processing battery. Both groups, older and younger adults, showed poorer performance for implausible sentences than for plausible sentences; however, no interaction was found between plausibility and age group. A regression analysis revealed that inhibition efficiency, as measured by a task that required resistance to proactive interference, predicted comprehension of implausible sentences in older adults only. Consistent with the compensation hypothesis, the older adults with better inhibition skills showed better comprehension than those with poor inhibition skills. The findings suggest that semantic implausibility, along with syntactic complexity, increases linguistic and cognitive processing loads on auditory sentence comprehension. Moreover, the contribution of inhibitory control to the processing of semantic plausibility, particularly among older adults, suggests that the relationship between cognitive ability and language comprehension is strongly influenced by age.

Effects of Tai Chi and Western Exercise on Physical and Cognitive Functioning in Healthy Community-Dwelling Older Adults

PubMed Central

Taylor-Piliae, Ruth E.; Newell, Kathryn A.; Cherin, Rise; Lee, Martin J.; King, Abby C.; Haskell, William L.

2015-01-01

Objective To compare the effects of Tai Chi (TC, n = 37) and Western exercise (WE, n = 39) with an attention-control group (C, n = 56) on physical and cognitive functioning in healthy adults age 69 ± 5.8 yr, in a 2-phase randomized trial. Methods TC and WE involved combined class and home-based protocols. Physical functioning included balance, strength, flexibility, and cardiorespiratory endurance. Cognitive functioning included semantic fluency and digit-span tests. Data were analyzed using intention-to-treat analysis. Results At 6 mo, WE had greater improvements in upper body flexibility (F = 4.67, p = .01) than TC and C. TC had greater improvements in balance (F = 3.36, p = .04) and a cognitive-function measure (F = 7.75, p < .001) than WE and C. The differential cognitive-function improvements observed in TC were maintained through 12 mo. Conclusion The TC and WE interventions resulted in differential improvements in physical functioning among generally healthy older adults. TC led to improvement in an indicator of cognitive functioning that was maintained through 12 mo. PMID:20651414

Divergent Human Cortical Regions for Processing Distinct Acoustic-Semantic Categories of Natural Sounds: Animal Action Sounds vs. Vocalizations

PubMed Central

Webster, Paula J.; Skipper-Kallal, Laura M.; Frum, Chris A.; Still, Hayley N.; Ward, B. Douglas; Lewis, James W.

2017-01-01

A major gap in our understanding of natural sound processing is knowledge of where or how in a cortical hierarchy differential processing leads to categorical perception at a semantic level. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) we sought to determine if and where cortical pathways in humans might diverge for processing action sounds vs. vocalizations as distinct acoustic-semantic categories of real-world sound when matched for duration and intensity. This was tested by using relatively less semantically complex natural sounds produced by non-conspecific animals rather than humans. Our results revealed a striking double-dissociation of activated networks bilaterally. This included a previously well described pathway preferential for processing vocalization signals directed laterally from functionally defined primary auditory cortices to the anterior superior temporal gyri, and a less well-described pathway preferential for processing animal action sounds directed medially to the posterior insulae. We additionally found that some of these regions and associated cortical networks showed parametric sensitivity to high-order quantifiable acoustic signal attributes and/or to perceptual features of the natural stimuli, such as the degree of perceived recognition or intentional understanding. Overall, these results supported a neurobiological theoretical framework for how the mammalian brain may be fundamentally organized to process acoustically and acoustic-semantically distinct categories of ethologically valid, real-world sounds. PMID:28111538

Action-semantic and syntactic deficits in subjects at risk for Huntington's disease.

PubMed

García, Adolfo M; Bocanegra, Yamile; Herrera, Eduar; Pino, Mariana; Muñoz, Edinson; Sedeño, Lucas; Ibáñez, Agustín

2017-03-11

Frontostriatal networks play critical roles in grounding action semantics and syntactic skills. Indeed, their atrophy distinctively disrupts both domains, as observed in patients with Huntington's disease (HD) and Parkinson's disease, even during early disease stages. However, frontostriatal degeneration in these conditions may begin up to 15 years before the onset of clinical symptoms, opening avenues for pre-clinical detection via sensitive tasks. Such a mission is particularly critical in HD, given that patients' children have 50% chances of inheriting the disease. Against this background, we assessed whether deficits in the above-mentioned domains emerge in subjects at risk to develop HD. We administered tasks tapping action semantics, object semantics, and two forms of syntactic processing to 18 patients with HD, 19 asymptomatic first-degree relatives, and sociodemographically matched controls for each group. The patients evinced significant deficits in all tasks, but only those in the two target domains were independent of overall cognitive state. More crucially, relative to controls, the asymptomatic relatives were selectively impaired in action semantics and in the more complex syntactic task, with both patterns emerging irrespective of the subjects' overall cognitive state. Our findings highlight the relevance of these dysfunctions as potential prodromal biomarkers of HD. Moreover, they offer theoretical insights into the differential contributions of frontostriatal hubs to both domains while paving the way for innovations in diagnostic procedures. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

The Stigma of Dying: Attitudes Toward the Terminally Ill

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Epley, Rita J.; McCaghy, Charles H.

1978-01-01

Using a range of semantic differential adjectives, 233 college students indicated attitudes toward young and old people who were healthy, ill, or terminally ill. Attitudes toward each state of health category separate into three factors: attitudes toward healthy, ill, and dying persons. (Author)

User Authentication from Web Browsing Behavior

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-05-01

ourselves with a cognitive personal fingerprint. Attribution is broadly defined as the assignment of an ef- fect to a cause. We differentiate between...reusable patterns of behavior. We encode the semantic and stylistic content Figure 4: Burstiness profile below 1 min aggregated across all sessions for

Age-related differences in audiovisual interactions of semantically different stimuli.

PubMed

Viggiano, Maria Pia; Giovannelli, Fabio; Giganti, Fiorenza; Rossi, Arianna; Metitieri, Tiziana; Rebai, Mohamed; Guerrini, Renzo; Cincotta, Massimo

2017-01-01

Converging results have shown that adults benefit from congruent multisensory stimulation in the identification of complex stimuli, whereas the developmental trajectory of the ability to integrate multisensory inputs in children is less well understood. In this study we explored the effects of audiovisual semantic congruency on identification of visually presented stimuli belonging to different categories, using a cross-modal approach. Four groups of children ranging in age from 6 to 13 years and adults were administered an object identification task of visually presented pictures belonging to living and nonliving entities. Stimuli were presented in visual, congruent audiovisual, incongruent audiovisual, and noise conditions. Results showed that children under 12 years of age did not benefit from multisensory presentation in speeding up the identification. In children the incoherent audiovisual condition had an interfering effect, especially for the identification of living things. These data suggest that the facilitating effect of the audiovisual interaction into semantic factors undergoes developmental changes and the consolidation of adult-like processing of multisensory stimuli begins in late childhood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of executive functions and theory of mind in children's prosocial lie-telling.

PubMed

Williams, Shanna; Moore, Kelsey; Crossman, Angela M; Talwar, Victoria

2016-01-01

Children's prosocial lying was examined in relation to executive functioning skills and theory of mind development. Prosocial lying was observed using a disappointing gift paradigm. Of the 79 children (ages 6-12 years) who completed the disappointing gift paradigm, 47 (59.5%) told a prosocial lie to a research assistant about liking their prize. In addition, of those children who told prosocial lies, 25 (53.2%) maintained semantic leakage control during follow-up questioning, thereby demonstrating advanced lie-telling skills. When executive functioning was examined, children who told prosocial lies were found to have significantly higher performance on measures of working memory and inhibitory control. In addition, children who lied and maintained semantic leakage control also displayed more advanced theory of mind understanding. Although children's age was not a predictor of lie-telling behavior (i.e., truthful vs. lie-teller), age was a significant predictor of semantic leakage control, with older children being more likely to maintain their lies during follow-up questioning. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Semantic processing in connected speech at a uniformly early stage of autopsy-confirmed Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Ahmed, Samrah; de Jager, Celeste A; Haigh, Anne-Marie; Garrard, Peter

2013-01-01

The aim of the present study was to quantify the semantic content of connected speech produced by patients at a uniformly early stage of pathologically proven Alzheimer's disease (AD). A secondary aim was to establish whether semantic units were reduced globally, or whether there was a disproportionate reduction of specific classes of information. Discourse samples were obtained from 18 AD patients and 18 matched controls, all pathologically confirmed. Semantic unit identification was scored overall and for four subclasses: subjects, locations, objects, and actions. Idea density and efficiency were calculated. AD transcripts showed significantly reduced units overall, particularly actions and subjects, as well as reduced efficiency. Total semantic units and a combination of subject-, location-, and object-related units ("noun" units) correlated with the Expression subscore on the Cambridge Cognitive Examination (CAMCOG). Subject related units correlated with the CAMCOG Abstract Thinking scale. Logistic regression analyses confirmed that all measures that were lower in AD than controls were predictive of group membership. An exploratory comparison between units expressed mainly using nouns and those mainly using verbs showed that the latter was the stronger of these two predictors. The present study adds a lexico-semantic dimension to the linguistic profile based on discourse analysis in typical AD, recently described by the same authors. 2012, 83(11): 1056-1062). The suggestion of differential importance of verb and noun use in the present study may be related to the reduction in syntactic complexity that was reported, using the same set of discourse samples, in the earlier study.

Material specific lateralization of medial temporal lobe function: An fMRI investigation.

PubMed

Dalton, Marshall A; Hornberger, Michael; Piguet, Olivier

2016-03-01

The theory of material specific lateralization of memory function posits that left and right MTL regions are asymmetrically involved in mnemonic processing of verbal and nonverbal material respectively. Lesion and functional imaging (fMRI) studies provide robust evidence for a left MTL asymmetry in the verbal memory domain. Evidence for a right MTL/nonverbal asymmetry is not as robust. A handful of fMRI studies have investigated this issue but have generally utilised nonverbal stimuli which are amenable to semantic elaboration. This fMRI study aimed to investigate the neural correlates of recognition memory processing in 20 healthy young adults (mean age = 26 years) for verbal stimuli and nonverbal stimuli that were specifically designed to minimize verbalisation. Analyses revealed that the neural correlates of recognition memory processing for verbal and nonverbal stimuli were differentiable and asymmetrically recruited the left and right MTL respectively. The right perirhinal cortex and hippocampus were preferentially involved in successful recognition memory of items devoid of semantic information. In contrast, the left anterior hippocampus was preferentially involved in successful recognition memory of stimuli which contained semantic meaning. These results suggest that the left MTL is preferentially involved in mnemonic processing of verbal/semantic information. In contrast, the right MTL is preferentially involved in visual/non-semantic mnemonic processing. We propose that during development, the left MTL becomes specialised for verbal mnemonic processing due to its proximity with left lateralised cortical language processing areas while visual/non-semantic mnemonic processing gets 'crowded out' to become predominantly, but not completely, the domain of the right MTL. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

BOLD response to semantic and syntactic processing during hypoglycemia is load-dependent.

PubMed

Schafer, Robin J; Page, Kathleen A; Arora, Jagriti; Sherwin, Robert; Constable, R Todd

2012-01-01

This study investigates how syntactic and semantic load factors impact sentence comprehension and BOLD signal under moderate hypoglycemia. A dual session, whole brain fMRI study was conducted on 16 healthy participants using the glucose clamp technique. In one session, they experienced insulin-induced hypoglycemia (plasma glucose at ∼50mg/dL); in the other, plasma glucose was maintained at euglycemic levels (∼100mg/dL). During scans subjects were presented with sentences of contrasting syntactic (embedding vs. conjunction) and semantic (reversibility vs. irreversibility) load. Semantic factors dominated the overall load effects on both performance (p<0.001) and BOLD response (p<0.01, corrected). Differential BOLD signal was observed in frontal, temporal, temporo-parietal and medio-temporal regions. Hypoglycemia and syntactic factors significantly impacted performance (p=0.002) and BOLD response (p<0.01, corrected) in the reversible clause conditions, more extensively in reversible-embedded than in reversible-conjoined clauses. Hypoglycemia resulted in a robust decrease in performance on reversible clauses and exerted attenuating effects on BOLD unselectively across cortical circuits. The dominance of reversibility in all measures underscores the distinction between the syntactic and semantic contrasts. The syntactic is based in a quantitative difference in algorithms interpreting embedded and conjoined structures. We suggest that the semantic is based in a qualitative difference between algorithmic mapping of arguments in reversible clauses and heuristic linking in irreversible clauses. Because heuristics drastically reduce resource demand, the operations they support would resist the load-dependent cognitive consequences of hypoglycemia. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Nonword Repetition and Vocabulary Knowledge as Predictors of Children's Phonological and Semantic Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adlof, Suzanne M.; Patten, Hannah

2017-01-01

Purpose: This study examined the unique and shared variance that nonword repetition and vocabulary knowledge contribute to children's ability to learn new words. Multiple measures of word learning were used to assess recall and recognition of phonological and semantic information. Method: Fifty children, with a mean age of 8 years (range 5-12…

Conceptual Organization at 6 and 8 Years of Age: Evidence from the Semantic Priming of Object Decisions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hashimoto, Naomi; McGregor, Karla K.; Graham, Anne

2007-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine children's knowledge of semantic relations. Method: In Experiment 1, the 6-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults participated in an object decision task. Participants in the primed group made object decisions in response to primes that were related taxonomically, thematically, or perceptually to the…

Effects of Orthographic, Morphological and Semantic Overlap on Short-Term Memory for Words in Typical and Atypical Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Breadmore, Helen L.; Carroll, Julia M.

2016-01-01

Little is known about implicit morphological processing in typical and atypical readers. These studies investigate this using a probe detection task with lures sharing morphological, orthographic, or semantic overlap with the probe. Intermediate and advanced readers (reading ages = 9;1-12;9) perform more poorly when there is more linguistic…

Event-Related EEG Oscillations to Semantically Unrelated Words in Normal and Learning Disabled Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fernandez, Thalia; Harmony, Thalia; Mendoza, Omar; Lopez-Alanis, Paula; Marroquin, Jose Luis; Otero, Gloria; Ricardo-Garcell, Josefina

2012-01-01

Learning disabilities (LD) are one of the most frequent problems for elementary school-aged children. In this paper, event-related EEG oscillations to semantically related and unrelated pairs of words were studied in a group of 18 children with LD not otherwise specified (LD-NOS) and in 16 children with normal academic achievement. We propose that…

Individual Differences in Very Young Chinese Children's English Vocabulary Breadth and Semantic Depth: Internal and External Factors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sun, He; Steinkrauss, Rasmus; Wieling, Martijn; de Bot, Kees

2018-01-01

This study examines the English vocabulary development of 43 very young child English as a foreign language (FL) learners (age 3.2-6.2) in China. They were tested twice for vocabulary breadth (reception and production) and semantic depth (paradigmatic and syntagmatic vocabulary knowledge). The development of the English vocabulary knowledge…

The Career Success of an Adult with a Learning Disability: A Psychosocial Study of Amnesic-Semantic Aphasia.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kershner, John; And Others

1995-01-01

This case study describes a 39-year-old intellectually gifted man with learning disabilities who demonstrated symptoms of amnesic-semantic aphasia at age 13, leading to placement in a class for students with mental retardation and to dropping out of school. The man's remarkable behavioral and cognitive adjustments led to a fulfilling life and…

Episodic but not semantic order memory difficulties in autism spectrum disorder: evidence from the Historical Figures Task.

PubMed

Gaigg, Sebastian B; Bowler, Dermot M; Gardiner, John M

2014-01-01

Considerable evidence suggests that the episodic memory system operates abnormally in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) whereas the functions of the semantic memory system are relatively preserved. Here we show that the same dissociation also applies to the domain of order memory. We asked adult participants to order the names of famous historical figures either according to their chronological order in history (probing semantic memory) or according to a random sequence shown once on a screen (probing episodic memory). As predicted, adults with ASD performed less well than age- and IQ-matched comparison individuals only on the episodic task. This observation is of considerable importance in the context of developmental theory because semantic and episodic order memory abilities can be dissociated in typically developing infants before they reach the age at which the behavioural markers associated with ASD are first apparent. This raises the possibility that early emerging memory abnormalities play a role in shaping the developmental trajectory of the disorder. We discuss the broader implications of this possibility and highlight the urgent need for greater scrutiny of memory competences in ASD early in development.

Explaining lexical-semantic deficits in specific language impairment: the role of phonological similarity, phonological working memory, and lexical competition.

PubMed

Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Evans, Julia L; Coady, Jeffry A

2010-12-01

In this study, the authors investigated potential explanations for sparse lexical-semantic representations in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing peers. The role of auditory perception, phonological working memory, and lexical competition were investigated. Participants included 32 children (ages 8;5-12;3 [years;months]): Sixteen children with SLI and 16 typically developing age- and nonverbal IQ-matched peers (CA). Children's word definitions were investigated. The words to be defined were manipulated for phonological neighborhood density. Nonword repetition and two lexical competition measures were tested as predictors of word definition abilities. Children with SLI gave word definitions with fewer content details than children in the CA group. Compared with the CA group, the definitions of children in the SLI group were not disproportionately impacted by phonological neighborhood density. Lexical competition was a significant unique predictor of children's word definitions, but nonword repetition was not. Individual differences in richness of lexical semantic representations as well as differences between children with SLI and typically developing peers may-at least, in part-be explained by processes of competition. However, difficulty with auditory perception or phonological working memory does not fully explain difficulties in lexical semantics.

Is semantic verbal fluency impairment explained by executive function deficits in schizophrenia?

PubMed

Berberian, Arthur A; Moraes, Giovanna V; Gadelha, Ary; Brietzke, Elisa; Fonseca, Ana O; Scarpato, Bruno S; Vicente, Marcella O; Seabra, Alessandra G; Bressan, Rodrigo A; Lacerda, Acioly L

2016-04-19

To investigate if verbal fluency impairment in schizophrenia reflects executive function deficits or results from degraded semantic store or inefficient search and retrieval strategies. Two groups were compared: 141 individuals with schizophrenia and 119 healthy age and education-matched controls. Both groups performed semantic and phonetic verbal fluency tasks. Performance was evaluated using three scores, based on 1) number of words generated; 2) number of clustered/related words; and 3) switching score. A fourth performance score based on the number of clusters was also measured. SZ individuals produced fewer words than controls. After controlling for the total number of words produced, a difference was observed between the groups in the number of cluster-related words generated in the semantic task. In both groups, the number of words generated in the semantic task was higher than that generated in the phonemic task, although a significant group vs. fluency type interaction showed that subjects with schizophrenia had disproportionate semantic fluency impairment. Working memory was positively associated with increased production of words within clusters and inversely correlated with switching. Semantic fluency impairment may be attributed to an inability (resulting from reduced cognitive control) to distinguish target signal from competing noise and to maintain cues for production of memory probes.

Further differentiating item and order information in semantic memory: students' recall of words from the "CU Fight Song", Harry Potter book titles, and Scooby Doo theme song.

PubMed

Overstreet, Michael F; Healy, Alice F; Neath, Ian

2017-01-01

University of Colorado (CU) students were tested for both order and item information in their semantic memory for the "CU Fight Song". Following an earlier study by Overstreet and Healy [(2011). Item and order information in semantic memory: Students' retention of the "CU fight song" lyrics. Memory & Cognition, 39, 251-259. doi: 10.3758/s13421-010-0018-3 ], a symmetrical bow-shaped serial position function (with both primacy and recency advantages) was found for reconstructing the order of the nine lines in the song, whereas a function with no primacy advantage was found for recalling a missing word from each line. This difference between order and item information was found even though students filled in missing words without any alternatives provided and missing words came from the beginning, middle, or end of each line. Similar results were found for CU students' recall of the sequence of Harry Potter book titles and the lyrics of the Scooby Doo theme song. These findings strengthen the claim that the pronounced serial position function in semantic memory occurs largely because of the retention of order, rather than item, information.

Patterns of linguistic and numerical performance in aphasia.

PubMed

Rath, Dajana; Domahs, Frank; Dressel, Katharina; Claros-Salinas, Dolores; Klein, Elise; Willmes, Klaus; Krinzinger, Helga

2015-02-04

Empirical research on the relationship between linguistic and numerical processing revealed inconsistent results for different levels of cognitive processing (e.g., lexical, semantic) as well as different stimulus materials (e.g., Arabic digits, number words, letters, non-number words). Information of dissociation patterns in aphasic patients was used in order to investigate the dissociability of linguistic and numerical processes. The aim of the present prospective study was a comprehensive, specific, and systematic investigation of relationships between linguistic and numerical processing, considering the impact of asemantic vs. semantic processing and the type of material employed (numbers compared to letters vs. words). A sample of aphasic patients (n = 60) was assessed with a battery of linguistic and numerical tasks directly comparable for their cognitive processing levels (e.g., perceptual, morpho-lexical, semantic). Mean performance differences and frequencies of (complementary) dissociations in individual patients revealed the most prominent numerical advantage for asemantic tasks when comparing the processing of numbers vs. letters, whereas the least numerical advantage was found for semantic tasks when comparing the processing of numbers vs. words. Different patient subgroups showing differential dissociation patterns were further analysed and discussed. A comprehensive model of linguistic and numerical processing should take these findings into account.

Auditory semantic processing in dichotic listening: effects of competing speech, ear of presentation, and sentential bias on N400s to spoken words in context.

PubMed

Carey, Daniel; Mercure, Evelyne; Pizzioli, Fabrizio; Aydelott, Jennifer

2014-12-01

The effects of ear of presentation and competing speech on N400s to spoken words in context were examined in a dichotic sentence priming paradigm. Auditory sentence contexts with a strong or weak semantic bias were presented in isolation to the right or left ear, or with a competing signal presented in the other ear at a SNR of -12 dB. Target words were congruent or incongruent with the sentence meaning. Competing speech attenuated N400s to both congruent and incongruent targets, suggesting that the demand imposed by a competing signal disrupts the engagement of semantic comprehension processes. Bias strength affected N400 amplitudes differentially depending upon ear of presentation: weak contexts presented to the le/RH produced a more negative N400 response to targets than strong contexts, whereas no significant effect of bias strength was observed for sentences presented to the re/LH. The results are consistent with a model of semantic processing in which the RH relies on integrative processing strategies in the interpretation of sentence-level meaning. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Computational Linguistic Measure of Clustering Behavior on Semantic Verbal Fluency Task Predicts Risk of Future Dementia in the Nun Study

PubMed Central

Pakhomov, Serguei V.S.; Hemmy, Laura S.

2014-01-01

Generative semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tests show early and disproportionate decline relative to other abilities in individuals developing Alzheimer’s disease. Optimal performance on SVF tests depends on the efficiency of using clustered organization of semantically related items and the ability to switch between clusters. Traditional approaches to clustering and switching have relied on manual determination of clusters. We evaluated a novel automated computational linguistic approach for quantifying clustering behavior. Our approach is based on Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) for computing strength of semantic relatedness between pairs of words produced in response to SVF test. The mean size of semantic clusters (MCS) and semantic chains (MChS) are calculated based on pairwise relatedness values between words. We evaluated the predictive validity of these measures on a set of 239 participants in the Nun Study, a longitudinal study of aging. All were cognitively intact at baseline assessment, measured with the CERAD battery, and were followed in 18 month waves for up to 20 years. The onset of either dementia or memory impairment were used as outcomes in Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for age and education and censored at follow up waves 5 (6.3 years) and 13 (16.96 years). Higher MCS was associated with 38% reduction in dementia risk at wave 5 and 26% reduction at wave 13, but not with the onset of memory impairment. Higher (+1 SD) MChS was associated with 39% dementia risk reduction at wave 5 but not wave 13, and association with memory impairment was not significant. Higher traditional SVF scores were associated with 22–29% memory impairment and 35–40% dementia risk reduction. SVF scores were not correlated with either MCS or MChS. Our study suggests that an automated approach to measuring clustering behavior can be used to estimate dementia risk in cognitively normal individuals. PMID:23845236

A computational linguistic measure of clustering behavior on semantic verbal fluency task predicts risk of future dementia in the nun study.

PubMed

Pakhomov, Serguei V S; Hemmy, Laura S

2014-06-01

Generative semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tests show early and disproportionate decline relative to other abilities in individuals developing Alzheimer's disease. Optimal performance on SVF tests depends on the efficiency of using clustered organization of semantically related items and the ability to switch between clusters. Traditional approaches to clustering and switching have relied on manual determination of clusters. We evaluated a novel automated computational linguistic approach for quantifying clustering behavior. Our approach is based on Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) for computing strength of semantic relatedness between pairs of words produced in response to SVF test. The mean size of semantic clusters (MCS) and semantic chains (MChS) are calculated based on pairwise relatedness values between words. We evaluated the predictive validity of these measures on a set of 239 participants in the Nun Study, a longitudinal study of aging. All were cognitively intact at baseline assessment, measured with the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) battery, and were followed in 18-month waves for up to 20 years. The onset of either dementia or memory impairment were used as outcomes in Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for age and education and censored at follow-up waves 5 (6.3 years) and 13 (16.96 years). Higher MCS was associated with 38% reduction in dementia risk at wave 5 and 26% reduction at wave 13, but not with the onset of memory impairment. Higher [+1 standard deviation (SD)] MChS was associated with 39% dementia risk reduction at wave 5 but not wave 13, and association with memory impairment was not significant. Higher traditional SVF scores were associated with 22-29% memory impairment and 35-40% dementia risk reduction. SVF scores were not correlated with either MCS or MChS. Our study suggests that an automated approach to measuring clustering behavior can be used to estimate dementia risk in cognitively normal individuals. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Effects of Age on the Neural Correlates of Recollection Success, Recollection-Related Cortical Reinstatement, and Post-Retrieval Monitoring

PubMed Central

Wang, Tracy H.; Johnson, Jeffrey D.; de Chastelaine, Marianne; Donley, Brian E.; Rugg, Michael D.

2016-01-01

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate whether age-related differences in episodic memory performance are accompanied by a reduction in the specificity of recollected information. We addressed this question by comparing recollection-related cortical reinstatement in young and older adults. At study, subjects viewed objects and concrete words, making 1 of 2 different semantic judgments depending on the study material. Test items were words that corresponded to studied words or the names of studied objects. Subjects indicated whether each test item was recollected, familiar, or novel. Reinstatement of information differentiating the encoding tasks was quantified both with a univariate analysis of the fMRI signal and with a multivoxel pattern analysis, using a classifier that had been trained to discriminate between the 2 classes of study episode. The results of these analyses converged to suggest that reinstatement did not differ according to age. Thus, there was no evidence that specificity of recollected information was reduced in older individuals. Additionally, there were no age effects in the magnitude of recollection-related modulations in regional activity or in the neural correlates of post-retrieval monitoring. Taken together, the findings suggest that the neural mechanisms engaged during successful episodic retrieval can remain stable with advancing age. PMID:25631058

Revealing the Dynamic Modulations That Underpin a Resilient Neural Network for Semantic Cognition: An fMRI Investigation in Patients With Anterior Temporal Lobe Resection.

PubMed

Rice, Grace E; Caswell, Helen; Moore, Perry; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A; Hoffman, Paul

2018-06-06

One critical feature of any well-engineered system is its resilience to perturbation and minor damage. The purpose of the current study was to investigate how resilience is achieved in higher cognitive systems, which we explored through the domain of semantic cognition. Convergent evidence implicates the bilateral anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) as a conceptual knowledge hub. While bilateral damage to this region produces profound semantic impairment, unilateral atrophy/resection or transient perturbation has a limited effect. Two neural mechanisms might underpin this resilience to unilateral ATL damage: 1) the undamaged ATL upregulates its activation in order to compensate; and/or 2) prefrontal regions involved in control of semantic retrieval upregulate to compensate for the impoverished semantic representations that follow from ATL damage. To test these possibilities, 34 postsurgical temporal lobe epilepsy patients and 20 age-matched controls were scanned whilst completing semantic tasks. Pictorial tasks, which produced bilateral frontal and temporal activation, showed few activation differences between patients and control participants. Written word tasks, however, produced a left-lateralized activation pattern and greater differences between the groups. Patients with right ATL resection increased activation in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Patients with left ATL resection upregulated both the right ATL and right IFG. Consistent with recent computational models, these results indicate that 1) written word semantic processing in patients with ATL resection is supported by upregulation of semantic knowledge and control regions, principally in the undamaged hemisphere, and 2) pictorial semantic processing is less affected, presumably because it draws on a more bilateral network.

Computational Cognitive Neuroscience of Early Memory Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Munakata, Yuko

2004-01-01

Numerous brain areas work in concert to subserve memory, with distinct memory functions relying differentially on distinct brain areas. For example, semantic memory relies heavily on posterior cortical regions, episodic memory on hippocampal regions, and working memory on prefrontal cortical regions. This article reviews relevant findings from…

Changes in Vision: Teachers Engaging in Action Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Warren, Susan; Doorn, Dan; Green, James

2008-01-01

This investigation explored the effects of action research on teachers in a graduate education program. Mixed methods were utilized, combining a semantic differential study of student attitudes with qualitative analysis of students' perceptions of their experience as action researchers. Results indicate that participants perceived themselves as…

Attitudes to Normalisation and Inclusive Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sanagi, Tomomi

2016-01-01

The purpose of this paper was to clarify the features of teachers' image on normalisation and inclusive education. The participants of the study were both mainstream teachers and special teachers. One hundred and thirty-eight questionnaires were analysed. (1) Teachers completed the questionnaire of SD (semantic differential) images on…

Integrating Conceptual Knowledge within and across Representational Modalities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McNorgan, Chris; Reid, Jackie; McRae, Ken

2011-01-01

Research suggests that concepts are distributed across brain regions specialized for processing information from different sensorimotor modalities. Multimodal semantic models fall into one of two broad classes differentiated by the assumed hierarchy of convergence zones over which information is integrated. In shallow models, communication within-…

SU30. Long-Term Memory Deficits in Schizophrenia: Are All Things Equal?

PubMed Central

Rossell, Susan

2017-01-01

Abstract Background: Kraepelin and Bleulernoted that patients with schizophrenia had significant cognitive deficits over a century ago; however, their observations with regard to long-term memory have not born out within empirical studies. They reported that episodic memory was intact but indicated that organization of memories, or semantic memory, was disordered. This study aimed to synthesize a century of research in the 2 long-term memory processes of episodic and semantic memory across the psychosis continuum: chronic patients, first-episode patients, high risk for psychosis cohorts, and persons with high schizotypy. Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis was completed within the 2 domains of long-term memory across the psychosis continuum. Search terms included long-term memory, episodic, semantic, and derivations of these terms. The data were synthesized independently for episodic and semantic memory. Four independent populations were investigated: chronic patients, first-episode patients, high risk for psychosis cohorts, and persons with high schizotypy. Our approach followed the PRISMA guidelines. Thus, the pooled mean effect sizes are reported for 8 analyses. These effect sizes represent case cohort in comparison to a healthy control cohort. Results: The results were as follows, for episodic memory: chronic patients d = 1.12, first-episode patients d = 1.12, high risk d = 1.14, and high schizotypy d = 0.13. Thus, establishing that there is poor evidence of episodic memory deficits in persons with high schizotypy. For semantic memory, the literature showed a different pattern: chronic patients d = 1.2, first-episode patients d = 1.08, high risk d = 1.16, and high schizotypy d = 0.95. Thus, a consistent degree of semantic memory deficits across the continuum. Conclusion: The literature suggests a dissociated pattern of long-term memory deficits; whereby semantic memory abnormalities are more likely to be considered endophenotypes or cognitive markers for schizophrenia than episodic memory deficits. Differential patterns of semantic memory organization are argued to be present prior to the onset of the disorder. There is additional evidence to suggest that idiosyncratic storage of semantic material underlies the development of the usual beliefs and speech patterns present in the forms of delusions and formal thought disorder. Consequently, semantic memory might be a useful target for cognitive remediation.

Distinct contributions of the fornix and inferior longitudinal fasciculus to episodic and semantic autobiographical memory.

PubMed

Hodgetts, Carl J; Postans, Mark; Warne, Naomi; Varnava, Alice; Lawrence, Andrew D; Graham, Kim S

2017-09-01

Autobiographical memory (AM) is multifaceted, incorporating the vivid retrieval of contextual detail (episodic AM), together with semantic knowledge that infuses meaning and coherence into past events (semantic AM). While neuropsychological evidence highlights a role for the hippocampus and anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in episodic and semantic AM, respectively, it is unclear whether these constitute dissociable large-scale AM networks. We used high angular resolution diffusion-weighted imaging and constrained spherical deconvolution-based tractography to assess white matter microstructure in 27 healthy young adult participants who were asked to recall past experiences using word cues. Inter-individual variation in the microstructure of the fornix (the main hippocampal input/output pathway) related to the amount of episodic, but not semantic, detail in AMs - independent of memory age. Conversely, microstructure of the inferior longitudinal fasciculus, linking occipitotemporal regions with ATL, correlated with semantic, but not episodic, AMs. Further, these significant correlations remained when controlling for hippocampal and ATL grey matter volume, respectively. This striking correlational double dissociation supports the view that distinct, large-scale distributed brain circuits underpin context and concepts in AM. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Effects of literacy on semantic verbal fluency in an immigrant population.

PubMed

Nielsen, T Rune; Waldemar, Gunhild

2016-09-01

A significant impact of limited schooling and illiteracy has been found on numerous neuropsychological tests, which may partly be due to the ecological relevance of the tests in the context of illiteracy. The aims of this study were to compare the performance of illiterate and literate immigrants on two semantic criteria for the verbal fluency test, and examine the influence of acculturation on test performances. Performances of 20 cognitively unimpaired illiterate and 21 literate Turkish immigrants aged ≥50 years were compared on an animal and supermarket criterion for the semantic verbal fluency test. Also, the influence of acculturation on test performances was examined. Significantly poorer performance of the illiterate compared to the literate group was found for the animal criterion, whereas no differences were found for the supermarket criterion that was considered more ecologically relevant for illiterate individuals. A significant interaction effect was found between the semantic criteria and literacy group, which was mainly related to a large effect of semantic criteria within the illiterate group. Adjusting for years of residence in Denmark and acculturation score did not affect this interaction effect. Overall, our results are in line with previous studies comparing semantic fluency in illiterate and literate individuals. The results lend further support to the strong associations between literacy, semantic verbal fluency performance and ecological relevance of the semantic criterion and extend previous findings to immigrants with different cultural experiences related to the acculturation process.

What role does the anterior temporal lobe play in sentence-level processing? Neural correlates of syntactic processing in semantic PPA

PubMed Central

Wilson, Stephen M.; DeMarco, Andrew T.; Henry, Maya L.; Gesierich, Benno; Babiak, Miranda; Mandelli, Maria Luisa; Miller, Bruce L.; Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa

2014-01-01

Neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies have implicated the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in sentence-level processing, with syntactic structure-building and/or combinatorial semantic processing suggested as possible roles. A potential challenge to the view that the ATL is involved in syntactic aspects of sentence processing comes from the clinical syndrome of semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (semantic PPA, also known as semantic dementia). In semantic PPA, bilateral neurodegeneration of the anterior temporal lobes is associated with profound lexical semantic deficits, yet syntax is strikingly spared. The goal of this study was to investigate the neural correlates of syntactic processing in semantic PPA, in order to determine which regions normally involved in syntactic processing are damaged in semantic PPA, and whether spared syntactic processing depends on preserved functionality of intact regions, preserved functionality of atrophic regions, or compensatory functional reorganization. We scanned 20 individuals with semantic PPA and 24 age-matched controls using structural and functional MRI. Participants performed a sentence comprehension task that emphasized syntactic processing and minimized lexical semantic demands. We found that in controls, left inferior frontal and left posterior temporal regions were modulated by syntactic processing, while anterior temporal regions were not significantly modulated. In the semantic PPA group, atrophy was most severe in the anterior temporal lobes, but extended to the posterior temporal regions involved in syntactic processing. Functional activity for syntactic processing was broadly similar in patients and controls; in particular, whole-brain analyses revealed no significant differences between patients and controls in the regions modulated by syntactic processing. The atrophic left anterior temporal lobe did show abnormal functionality in semantic PPA patients, however this took the unexpected form of a failure to deactivate. Taken together, our findings indicate that spared syntactic processing in semantic PPA depends on preserved functionality of structurally intact left frontal regions and moderately atrophic left posterior temporal regions, but no functional reorganization was apparent as a consequence of anterior temporal atrophy and dysfunction. These results suggest that the role of the anterior temporal lobe in sentence processing is less likely to relate to syntactic structure-building, and more likely to relate to higher level processes such as combinatorial semantic processing. PMID:24345172

Flynn Effects on Sub-Factors of Episodic and Semantic Memory: Parallel Gains over Time and the Same Set of Determining Factors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ronnlund, Michael; Nilsson, Lars-Goran.

2009-01-01

The study examined the extent to which time-related gains in cognitive performance, so-called Flynn effects, generalize across sub-factors of episodic memory (recall and recognition) and semantic memory (knowledge and fluency). We conducted time-sequential analyses of data drawn from the Betula prospective cohort study, involving four age-matched…

The Effect of Verb Semantic Class and Verb Frequency (Entrenchment) on Children's and Adults' Graded Judgements of Argument-Structure Overgeneralization Errors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ambridge, Ben; Pine, Julian M.; Rowland, Caroline F.; Young, Chris R.

2008-01-01

Participants (aged 5-6 yrs, 9-10 yrs and adults) rated (using a five-point scale) grammatical (intransitive) and overgeneralized (transitive causative) uses of a high frequency, low frequency and novel intransitive verb from each of three semantic classes [Pinker, S. (1989a). "Learnability and cognition: the acquisition of argument structure."…

A Characterization of Visual, Semantic and Auditory Memory in Children with Combination-Type Attention Deficit, Primarily Inattentive, and a Control Group

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ramirez, Luz Angela; Arenas, Angela Maria; Henao, Gloria Cecilia

2005-01-01

Introduction: This investigation describes and compares characteristics of visual, semantic and auditory memory in a group of children diagnosed with combined-type attention deficit with hyperactivity, attention deficit predominating, and a control group. Method: 107 boys and girls were selected, from 7 to 11 years of age, all residents in the…

Developmental Differences in the Effects of Phonological, Lexical and Semantic Variables on Word Learning by Infants

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Storkel, Holly L.

2009-01-01

The influence of phonological (i.e. individual sounds), lexical (i.e. whole-word forms) and semantic (i.e. meaning) characteristics on the words known by infants age 1;4 to 2;6 was examined, using an existing database (Dale & Fenson, 1996). For each noun, word frequency, two phonological (i.e. positional segment average, biphone average), two…

The Power and Peril of Web 3.0: It's More than Just Semantics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ohler, Jason

2010-01-01

The Information Age has been built, in part, on the belief that more information is always better. True to that sentiment, people have found ways to make a lot of information available to the masses--perhaps more than anyone ever imagined. The goal of the Semantic Web, often called Web 3.0, is for users to spend less time looking for information…

A basic study on universal design of auditory signals in automobiles.

PubMed

Yamauchi, Katsuya; Choi, Jong-dae; Maiguma, Ryo; Takada, Masayuki; Iwamiya, Shin-ichiro

2004-11-01

In this paper, the impression of various kinds of auditory signals currently used in automobiles and a comprehensive evaluation were measured by a semantic differential method. The desirable acoustic characteristic was examined for each type of auditory signal. Sharp sounds with dominant high-frequency components were not suitable for auditory signals in automobiles. This trend is expedient for the aged whose auditory sensitivity in the high frequency region is lower. When intermittent sounds were used, a longer OFF time was suitable. Generally, "dull (not sharp)" and "calm" sounds were appropriate for auditory signals. Furthermore, the comparison between the frequency spectrum of interior noise in automobiles and that of suitable sounds for various auditory signals indicates that the suitable sounds are not easily masked. The suitable auditory signals for various purposes is a good solution from the viewpoint of universal design.

Emotion processing in the aging brain is modulated by semantic elaboration

PubMed Central

Ritchey, Maureen; Bessette-Symons, Brandy; Hayes, Scott M.; Cabeza, Roberto

2010-01-01

The neural correlates of emotion processing have been shown to vary with age: older adults (OAs) exhibit increased frontal activations and, under some circumstances, decreased amygdala activations relative to young adults (YAs) during emotion processing. Some of these differences are additionally modulated by valence, with age-related biases toward positive versus negative stimuli, and are thought to depend on OAs’ capacity for controlled elaboration. However, the role of semantic elaboration in mediating valence effects in the aging brain has not yet been explicitly tested. In the present study, YAs and OAs were scanned while they viewed negative, neutral, and positive pictures during either a deep, elaborative task or a shallow, perceptual task. FMRI results reveal that emotion-related activity in the amygdala is preserved in aging and insensitive to elaboration demands. This study provides novel evidence that differences in valence processing are modulated by elaboration: relative to YAs, OAs show enhanced activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) and ventrolateral PFC in response to positive versus negative stimuli, but only during elaborative processing. These positive valence effects are predicted by individual differences in executive function in OAs for the deep but not shallow task. Finally, psychophysiological interaction analyses reveal age effects on valence-dependent functional connectivity between medial PFC and ventral striatum, as well as age and task effects on medial PFC-retrosplenial cortex interactions. Altogether, these findings provide support for the hypothesis that valence shifts in the aging brain are mediated by controlled processes such as semantic elaboration, self-referential processing, and emotion regulation. PMID:20869375

Emotion processing in the aging brain is modulated by semantic elaboration.

PubMed

Ritchey, Maureen; Bessette-Symons, Brandy; Hayes, Scott M; Cabeza, Roberto

2011-03-01

The neural correlates of emotion processing have been shown to vary with age: older adults (OAs) exhibit increased frontal activations and, under some circumstances, decreased amygdala activations relative to young adults (YAs) during emotion processing. Some of these differences are additionally modulated by valence, with age-related biases toward positive versus negative stimuli, and are thought to depend on OAs' capacity for controlled elaboration. However, the role of semantic elaboration in mediating valence effects in the aging brain has not yet been explicitly tested. In the present study, YAs and OAs were scanned while they viewed negative, neutral, and positive pictures during either a deep, elaborative task or a shallow, perceptual task. fMRI results reveal that emotion-related activity in the amygdala is preserved in aging and insensitive to elaboration demands. This study provides novel evidence that differences in valence processing are modulated by elaboration: relative to YAs, OAs show enhanced activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) and ventrolateral PFC in response to positive versus negative stimuli, but only during elaborative processing. These positive valence effects are predicted by individual differences in executive function in OAs for the deep but not shallow task. Finally, psychophysiological interaction analyses reveal age effects on valence-dependent functional connectivity between medial PFC and ventral striatum, as well as age and task effects on medial PFC-retrosplenial cortex interactions. Altogether, these findings provide support for the hypothesis that valence shifts in the aging brain are mediated by controlled processes such as semantic elaboration, self-referential processing, and emotion regulation. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Different Context but Similar Cognitive Structures: Older Adults in Rural Bangladesh.

PubMed

Sternäng, Ola; Lövdén, Martin; Kabir, Zarina N; Hamadani, Jena D; Wahlin, Åke

2016-06-01

Most research in cognitive aging is based on literate participants from high-income and Western populations. The extent to which findings generalize to low-income and illiterate populations is unknown. The main aim was to examine the structure of between-person differences in cognitive functions among elderly from rural Bangladesh. We used data from the Poverty and Health in Aging (PHA) project in Bangladesh. The participants (n = 452) were in the age range 60-92 years. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the fit of a five-factor model (episodic recall, episodic recognition, verbal fluency, semantic knowledge, processing speed) and to examine whether the model generalized across age, sex, and literacy. This study demonstrates that an established model of cognition is valid also among older persons from rural Bangladesh. The model demonstrated strong (or scalar) invariance for age, and partial strong invariance for sex and literacy. Semantic knowledge and processing speed showed weak (or metric) sex invariance, and semantic knowledge demonstrated also sensitivity to illiteracy. In general, women performed poorer on all abilities. The structure of individual cognitive differences established in Western populations also fits a population in rural Bangladesh well. This is an important prerequisite for comparisons of cognitive functioning (e.g., declarative memory) across cultures. It is also worth noting that absolute sex differences in cognitive performance among rural elderly in Bangladesh differ from those usually found in Western samples.

An Attempt at Assessing Preferences for Natural Landscapes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Calvin, James S.; And Others

1972-01-01

Investigation of ways in which man makes a psychological assessment of his environment. Concerned with variables in the environment itself, fifteen photographs of natural landscape scenes were rated on each of twenty-one semantic differential scales by college students. Two major dimensions emerged: natural scenic beauty and a natural force…

The Application of Operations Research Techniques to the Evaluation of Military Management Information Systems.

DTIC Science & Technology

systems such as management information systems . To provide a methodology yielding quantitative results which may assist a commander and his staff in...this analysis, it is proposed that management information systems be evaluated as a whole by a technique defined as the semantic differential. Each

Measuring perception of elements in outdoor environments

Treesearch

George H. Moeller; Robert MacLachlan; Douglas A. Morrison

1974-01-01

The meanings of 10 concepts that describe elements of natural outdoor environments were measured with the semantic differential technique. Each concept was evaluated on three factors of meaning - evaluation, potency, and activity. Sixty recreationists were surveyed from each of three user groups - campers, picnickers, and wilderness hikers. Similarities and differences...

Brain Responses Differ to Faces of Mothers and Fathers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arsalidou, Marie; Barbeau, Emmanuel J.; Bayless, Sarah J.; Taylor, Margot J.

2010-01-01

We encounter many faces each day but relatively few are personally familiar. Once faces are familiar, they evoke semantic and social information known about the person. Neuroimaging studies demonstrate differential brain activity to familiar and non-familiar faces; however, brain responses related to personally familiar faces have been more rarely…

A Comparison of Colour and Black and White T. V.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reich, Carol; Meisner, Alan

The relative educational effectiveness of color vs. black and white television has not been exhaustively explored. While previous studies have concentrated on the factual retention of subject matter--bypassing the subjective attitudes--this study was designed to thoroughly analyze both areas. Using Osgood's Semantic Differential and the Liking…

Listeners' Perceptions of Speech and Language Disorders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allard, Emily R.; Williams, Dale F.

2008-01-01

Using semantic differential scales with nine trait pairs, 445 adults rated five audio-taped speech samples, one depicting an individual without a disorder and four portraying communication disorders. Statistical analyses indicated that the no disorder sample was rated higher with respect to the trait of employability than were the articulation,…

Temporal Persistence of Attitudes Induced Through Required Training

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tansik, David A.; Driskill, John D.

1977-01-01

A posttest-only control group design procedure was used with a semantic differential questionnaire to examine the persistence of changes in racial attitudes induced via a required training course for supervisors at a large military installation. There was an immediate, small, positive change which decayed, and a short "sleeper effect". (Author)

The Connotative Dimensions of Selected Display Typefaces.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Benton, Camille L.

The semantic differential ratings of ten typefaces given by a group of 24 subjects were factor analyzed to discover what connotative meanings laypeople applied to typefaces and how these meanings compared with those of professional typographers. The typefaces, five from general categories and five from novelty categories of display typefaces, were…

Experiential Learning about the Elderly: The Geriatric Medication Game.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oliver, Carol H.; And Others

1995-01-01

An active learning simulation game designed to increase pharmacy students' awareness of the physical, psychological, and financial difficulties of the ambulatory elderly in handling their medication is described. Questionnaires before and after the game, including a semantic differential tool, indicate that the program is successful in increasing…

Semantic features of 'stepped' versus 'continuous' contours in German intonation.

PubMed

Dombrowski, Ernst

2013-01-01

This study analyses the meaning spaces of German pitch contours using two modes of melodic movement: continuous or in steps of sustained pitch. Both the continuous and stepped movements are represented by a set of five basic patterns, the latter being derived from the former. Thirty-six German native speakers judged the pattern sets on a 12-scale semantic differential. The semantic profiles confirm that stepped contours can be conceived of as stylized intonation, in a formal as well as in a functional sense. On the one hand, continuous (non-stylized) and stepped (stylized) contours are assigned different overall meanings (especially on the scales astonished - commonplace and interested - not interested). On the other hand, listeners organize the two contour sets in a similar fashion, which speaks in favour of parallel pattern inventories of continuous and stepped movement, respectively. However, the meaning space of the stylized patterns is affected by formal restrictions, for instance in the step transformation of continuous rises. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel.

What is said or how it is said makes a difference: role of the right fronto-parietal operculum in emotional prosody as revealed by repetitive TMS.

PubMed

van Rijn, Sophie; Aleman, André; van Diessen, Eric; Berckmoes, Celine; Vingerhoets, Guy; Kahn, René S

2005-06-01

Emotional signals in spoken language can be conveyed by semantic as well as prosodic cues. We investigated the role of the fronto-parietal operculum, a somatosensory area where the lips, tongue and jaw are represented, in the right hemisphere to detection of emotion in prosody vs. semantics. A total of 14 healthy volunteers participated in the present experiment, which involved transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in combination with frameless stereotaxy. As predicted, compared with sham stimulation, TMS over the right fronto-parietal operculum differentially affected the reaction times for detection of emotional prosody vs. emotional semantics, showing that there is a dissociation at a neuroanatomical level. Detection of withdrawal emotions (fear and sadness) in prosody was delayed significantly by TMS. No effects of TMS were observed for approach emotions (happiness and anger). We propose that the right fronto-parietal operculum is not globally involved in emotion evaluation, but sensitive to specific forms of emotional discrimination and emotion types.

Emotional connotations of words related to authority and community.

PubMed

Schauenburg, Gesche; Ambrasat, Jens; Schröder, Tobias; von Scheve, Christian; Conrad, Markus

2015-09-01

We present a database of 858 German words from the semantic fields of authority and community, which represent core dimensions of human sociality. The words were selected on the basis of co-occurrence profiles of representative keywords for these semantic fields. All words were rated along five dimensions, each measured by a bipolar semantic-differential scale: Besides the classic dimensions of affective meaning (valence, arousal, and potency), we collected ratings of authority and community with newly developed scales. The results from cluster, correlational, and multiple regression analyses on the rating data suggest a robust negativity bias for authority valuation among German raters recruited via university mailing lists, whereas community ratings appear to be rather unrelated to the well-established affective dimensions. Furthermore, our data involve a strong overall negative correlation-rather than the classical U-shaped distribution-between valence and arousal for socially relevant concepts. Our database provides a valuable resource for research questions at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and social psychology. It can be downloaded as supplemental materials with this article.

Functional Fixedness in Creative Thinking Tasks Depends on Stimulus Modality.

PubMed

Chrysikou, Evangelia G; Motyka, Katharine; Nigro, Cristina; Yang, Song-I; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L

2016-11-01

Pictorial examples during creative thinking tasks can lead participants to fixate on these examples and reproduce their elements even when yielding suboptimal creative products. Semantic memory research may illuminate the cognitive processes underlying this effect. Here, we examined whether pictures and words differentially influence access to semantic knowledge for object concepts depending on whether the task is close- or open-ended. Participants viewed either names or pictures of everyday objects, or a combination of the two, and generated common, secondary, or ad hoc uses for them. Stimulus modality effects were assessed quantitatively through reaction times and qualitatively through a novel coding system, which classifies creative output on a continuum from top-down-driven to bottom-up-driven responses. Both analyses revealed differences across tasks. Importantly, for ad hoc uses, participants exposed to pictures generated more top-down-driven responses than those exposed to object names. These findings have implications for accounts of functional fixedness in creative thinking, as well as theories of semantic memory for object concepts.

Functional Fixedness in Creative Thinking Tasks Depends on Stimulus Modality

PubMed Central

Chrysikou, Evangelia G.; Motyka, Katharine; Nigro, Cristina; Yang, Song-I; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L.

2015-01-01

Pictorial examples during creative thinking tasks can lead participants to fixate on these examples and reproduce their elements even when yielding suboptimal creative products. Semantic memory research may illuminate the cognitive processes underlying this effect. Here, we examined whether pictures and words differentially influence access to semantic knowledge for object concepts depending on whether the task is close- or open-ended. Participants viewed either names or pictures of everyday objects, or a combination of the two, and generated common, secondary, or ad hoc uses for them. Stimulus modality effects were assessed quantitatively through reaction times and qualitatively through a novel coding system, which classifies creative output on a continuum from top-down-driven to bottom-up-driven responses. Both analyses revealed differences across tasks. Importantly, for ad hoc uses, participants exposed to pictures generated more top-down-driven responses than those exposed to object names. These findings have implications for accounts of functional fixedness in creative thinking, as well as theories of semantic memory for object concepts. PMID:28344724

Short- and long-term memory contributions to immediate serial recognition: evidence from serial position effects.

PubMed

Purser, Harry; Jarrold, Christopher

2010-04-01

A long-standing body of research supports the existence of separable short- and long-term memory systems, relying on phonological and semantic codes, respectively. The aim of the current study was to measure the contribution of long-term knowledge to short-term memory performance by looking for evidence of phonologically and semantically coded storage within a short-term recognition task, among developmental samples. Each experimental trial presented 4-item lists. In Experiment 1 typically developing children aged 5 to 6 years old showed evidence of phonologically coded storage across all 4 serial positions, but evidence of semantically coded storage at Serial Positions 1 and 2. In a further experiment, a group of individuals with Down syndrome was investigated as a test case that might be expected to use semantic coding to support short-term storage, but these participants showed no evidence of semantically coded storage and evidenced phonologically coded storage only at Serial Position 4, suggesting that individuals with Down syndrome have a verbal short-term memory capacity of 1 item. Our results suggest that previous evidence of semantic effects on "short-term memory performance" does not reflect semantic coding in short-term memory itself, and provide an experimental method for researchers wishing to take a relatively pure measure of verbal short-term memory capacity, in cases where rehearsal is unlikely.

Neural division of labor in reading is constrained by culture: A training study of reading Chinese characters

PubMed Central

Zhao, Jingjing; Wang, Xiaoyi; Frost, Stephen J.; Sun, Wan; Fang, Shin-Yi; Mencl, W. Einar; Pugh, Kenneth R.; Shu, Hua; Rueckl, Jay G.

2014-01-01

Word reading in alphabetic language involves a cortical system with multiple components whose division of labor depends on the transparency of the writing system. To gain insight about the division of labor between phonology and semantics subserving word reading in Chinese, a deep non-alphabetic writing system, fMRI was used to investigate the effects of phonological and semantic training on the cortical circuitry for oral naming of Chinese characters. In a training study, we examined whether a training task that differentially focused readers' attention on the phonological or semantic properties of a Chinese character changes the patterns of cortical activation that was evoked by that character in a subsequent naming task. Our imaging results corroborate that the cortical regions underlying reading in Chinese largely overlaps the left-hemisphere reading system responsible for reading in alphabetic languages, with some cortical regions in the left-hemisphere uniquely recruited for reading in Chinese. However, in contrast to findings from studies of English word naming, we observed considerable overlap in the neural activation patterns associated with phonological and semantic training on naming Chinese characters, which we suggest may reflect a balanced neural division of labor between phonology and semantics in Chinese character reading. The equitable division of labor for Chinese reading might be driven by the special statistical structure of the writing system, which includes equally systematic mappings in the correspondences between written forms and their pronunciations and meanings. PMID:24607883

Lexicality Effects in Word and Nonword Recall of Semantic Dementia and Progressive Nonfluent Aphasia

PubMed Central

Reilly, Jamie; Troche, Joshua; Chatel, Alison; Park, Hyejin; Kalinyak-Fliszar, Michelene; Antonucci, Sharon M.; Martin, Nadine

2012-01-01

Background Verbal working memory is an essential component of many language functions, including sentence comprehension and word learning. As such, working memory has emerged as a domain of intense research interest both in aphasiology and in the broader field of cognitive neuroscience. The integrity of verbal working memory encoding relies on a fluid interaction between semantic and phonological processes. That is, we encode verbal detail using many cues related to both the sound and meaning of words. Lesion models can provide an effective means of parsing the contributions of phonological or semantic impairment to recall performance. Methods and Procedures We employed the lesion model approach here by contrasting the nature of lexicality errors incurred during recall of word and nonword sequences by 3individuals with progressive nonfluent aphasia (a phonological dominant impairment) compared to that of 2 individuals with semantic dementia (a semantic dominant impairment). We focused on psycholinguistic attributes of correctly recalled stimuli relative to those that elicited a lexicality error (i.e., nonword → word OR word → nonword). Outcomes and results Patients with semantic dementia showed greater sensitivity to phonological attributes (e.g., phoneme length, wordlikeness) of the target items relative to semantic attributes (e.g., familiarity). Patients with PNFA showed the opposite pattern, marked by sensitivity to word frequency, age of acquisition, familiarity, and imageability. Conclusions We interpret these results in favor of a processing strategy such that in the context of a focal phonological impairment patients revert to an over-reliance on preserved semantic processing abilities. In contrast, a focal semantic impairment forces both reliance upon and hypersensitivity to phonological attributes of target words. We relate this interpretation to previous hypotheses about the nature of verbal short-term memory in progressive aphasia. PMID:23486736

Language skills and phonological awareness in children with cochlear implants and normal hearing.

PubMed

Soleymani, Zahra; Mahmoodabadi, Najmeh; Nouri, Mina Mohammadi

2016-04-01

Early auditory experience plays a major role in language acquisition. Linguistic and metalinguistic abilities of children aged 5-5.5 years with cochlear implants (CIs) were compared to age-matched children with normal hearing (NH) to investigate the effect of hearing on development of these two skills. Eighteen children with NH and 18 children with CIs took part in the study. The Test of Language Development-Primary, third edition, was used to assess language and metalinguistic skills by assessment of phonological awareness (PA). Language skills and PA were then compared between groups. Hierarchical linear regression was conducted to determine whether the language skills explained the unique variance in PA. There were significant differences between children with NH and those with CIs for language skills and PA (p≤0.001). All language skills (semantics, syntax, listening, spoken language, organizing, and speaking) were uniquely predictive of PA outcome in the CI children. Linear combinations of listening and semantics and listening, semantics, and syntax correlated significantly with PA. The results show that children with CIs may have trouble with language skills and PA. Listening, semantics, and syntax, among other skills, are significant indicators of the variance in PA for children with CIs. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The development of sentence interpretation: effects of perceptual, attentional and semantic interference.

PubMed

Leech, Robert; Aydelott, Jennifer; Symons, Germaine; Carnevale, Julia; Dick, Frederic

2007-11-01

How does the development and consolidation of perceptual, attentional, and higher cognitive abilities interact with language acquisition and processing? We explored children's (ages 5-17) and adults' (ages 18-51) comprehension of morphosyntactically varied sentences under several competing speech conditions that varied in the degree of attentional demands, auditory masking, and semantic interference. We also evaluated the relationship between subjects' syntactic comprehension and their word reading efficiency and general 'speed of processing'. We found that the interactions between perceptual and attentional processes and complex sentence interpretation changed considerably over the course of development. Perceptual masking of the speech signal had an early and lasting impact on comprehension, particularly for more complex sentence structures. In contrast, increased attentional demand in the absence of energetic auditory masking primarily affected younger children's comprehension of difficult sentence types. Finally, the predictability of syntactic comprehension abilities by external measures of development and expertise is contingent upon the perceptual, attentional, and semantic milieu in which language processing takes place.

The Retreat from Locative Overgeneralisation Errors: A Novel Verb Grammaticality Judgment Study

PubMed Central

Bidgood, Amy; Ambridge, Ben; Pine, Julian M.; Rowland, Caroline F.

2014-01-01

Whilst some locative verbs alternate between the ground- and figure-locative constructions (e.g. Lisa sprayed the flowers with water/Lisa sprayed water onto the flowers), others are restricted to one construction or the other (e.g. *Lisa filled water into the cup/*Lisa poured the cup with water). The present study investigated two proposals for how learners (aged 5–6, 9–10 and adults) acquire this restriction, using a novel-verb-learning grammaticality-judgment paradigm. In support of the semantic verb class hypothesis, participants in all age groups used the semantic properties of novel verbs to determine the locative constructions (ground/figure/both) in which they could and could not appear. In support of the frequency hypothesis, participants' tolerance of overgeneralisation errors decreased with each increasing level of verb frequency (novel/low/high). These results underline the need to develop an integrated account of the roles of semantics and frequency in the retreat from argument structure overgeneralisation. PMID:24830412

Evaluating lexical characteristics of verbal fluency output in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Juhasz, Barbara J; Chambers, Destinee; Shesler, Leah W; Haber, Alix; Kurtz, Matthew M

2012-12-30

Standardized lexical analysis of verbal output has not been applied to verbal fluency tasks in schizophrenia. Performance of individuals with schizophrenia on both a letter (n=139) and semantic (n=137) fluency task was investigated. The lexical characteristics (word frequency, age-of-acquisition, word length, and semantic typicality) of words produced were evaluated and compared to those produced by a healthy control group matched on age, gender, and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition (WAIS-III) vocabulary scores (n=20). Overall, individuals with schizophrenia produced fewer words than healthy controls, replicating past research (see Bokat and Goldberg, 2003). Words produced in the semantic fluency task by individuals with schizophrenia were, on average, earlier acquired and more typical of the category. In contrast, no differences in lexical characteristics emerged in the letter fluency task. The results are informative regarding how individuals with schizophrenia access their mental lexicons during the verbal fluency task. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of perceptual similarity but not semantic association on false recognition in aging

PubMed Central

Gill, Emma

2017-01-01

This study investigated semantic and perceptual influences on false recognition in older and young adults in a variant on the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. In two experiments, participants encoded intermixed sets of semantically associated words, and sets of unrelated words. Each set was presented in a shared distinctive font. Older adults were no more likely to falsely recognize semantically associated lure words compared to unrelated lures also presented in studied fonts. However, they showed an increase in false recognition of lures which were related to studied items only by a shared font. This increased false recognition was associated with recollective experience. The data show that older adults do not always rely more on prior knowledge in episodic memory tasks. They converge with other findings suggesting that older adults may also be more prone to perceptually-driven errors. PMID:29302398

Lexical–Semantic Organization in Bilingual Children: Evidence From a Repeated Word Association Task

PubMed Central

Sheng, Li; McGregor, Karla K.; Marian, Viorica

2007-01-01

Purpose This study examined lexical–semantic organization of bilingual children in their 2 languages and in relation to monolingual age-mates. Method Twelve Mandarin–English bilingual and 12 English monolingual children generated 3 associations to each of 36 words. Responses were coded as paradigmatic (dog–cat) or syntagmatic (dog–bark). Results Within the bilingual group, word association performance was comparable and correlated between 1st and 2nd languages. Bilingual and monolingual children demonstrated similar patterns of responses, but subtle group differences were also revealed. When between-group comparisons were made on English measures, there was a bilingual advantage in paradigmatic responding during the 1st elicitation and for verbs. Conclusion Results support previous studies in finding parallel development in bilinguals’ 1st- and 2nd-language lexical–semantic skills and provide preliminary evidence that bilingualism may enhance paradigmatic organization of the semantic lexicon. PMID:16787896

Physiological and Psychological Effects of a Forest Therapy Program on Middle-Aged Females.

PubMed

Ochiai, Hiroko; Ikei, Harumi; Song, Chorong; Kobayashi, Maiko; Miura, Takashi; Kagawa, Takahide; Li, Qing; Kumeda, Shigeyoshi; Imai, Michiko; Miyazaki, Yoshifumi

2015-12-01

The natural environment is increasingly recognized as an effective counter to urban stress, and "Forest Therapy" has recently attracted attention as a relaxation and stress management activity with demonstrated clinical efficacy. The present study assessed the physiological and psychological effects of a forest therapy program on middle-aged females. Seventeen Japanese females (62.2 ± 9.4 years; mean ± standard deviation) participated in this experiment. Pulse rate, salivary cortisol level, and psychological indices were measured on the day before forest therapy and on the forest therapy day. Pulse rate and salivary cortisol were significantly lower than baseline following forest therapy, indicating that subjects were in a physiologically relaxed state. Subjects reported feeling significantly more "comfortable," "relaxed," and "natural" according to the semantic differential (SD) method. The Profile of Mood State (POMS) negative mood subscale score for "tension-anxiety" was significantly lower, while that for "vigor" was significantly higher following forest therapy. Our study revealed that forest therapy elicited a significant (1) decrease in pulse rate, (2) decrease in salivary cortisol levels, (3) increase in positive feelings, and (4) decrease in negative feelings. In conclusion, there are substantial physiological and psychological benefits of forest therapy on middle-aged females.

Selective deficits in episodic feeling of knowing in ageing: a novel use of the general knowledge task.

PubMed

Morson, Suzannah M; Moulin, Chris J A; Souchay, Céline

2015-05-01

Failure to recall an item from memory can be accompanied by the subjective experience that the item is known but currently unavailable for report. The feeling of knowing (FOK) task allows measurement of the predictive accuracy of this reflective judgement. Young and older adults were asked to provide answers to general knowledge questions both prior to and after learning, thus measuring both semantic and episodic memory for the items. FOK judgements were made at each stage for all unrecalled responses, providing a measure of predictive accuracy for semantic and episodic knowledge. Results demonstrated a selective effect of age on episodic FOK resolution, with older adults found to have impaired episodic FOK accuracy while semantic FOK accuracy remained intact. Although recall and recognition measures of episodic memory are equivalent between the two age groups, older adults may have been unable to access contextual details on which to base their FOK judgements. The results suggest that older adults are not able to accurately predict future recognition of unrecalled episodic information, and consequently may have difficulties in monitoring recently encoded memories. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Neural correlates of autobiographical memory retrieval in children and adults.

PubMed

Bauer, Patricia J; Pathman, Thanujeni; Inman, Cory; Campanella, Carolina; Hamann, Stephan

2017-04-01

Autobiographical memory (AM) is a critically important form of memory for life events that undergoes substantial developmental changes from childhood to adulthood. Relatively little is known regarding the functional neural correlates of AM retrieval in children as assessed with fMRI, and how they may differ from adults. We investigated this question with 14 children ages 8-11 years and 14 adults ages 19-30 years, contrasting AM retrieval with semantic memory (SM) retrieval. During scanning, participants were cued by verbal prompts to retrieve previously selected recent AMs or to verify semantic properties of words. As predicted, both groups showed AM retrieval-related increased activation in regions implicated in prior studies, including bilateral hippocampus, and prefrontal, posterior cingulate, and parietal cortices. Adults showed greater activation in the hippocampal/parahippocampal region as well as prefrontal and parietal cortex, relative to children; age-related differences were most prominent in the first 8 sec versus the second 8 sec of AM retrieval and when AM retrieval was contrasted with semantic retrieval. This study is the first to characterise similarities and differences during AM retrieval in children and adults using fMRI.

Determinants of famous name processing speed: age of acquisition versus semantic connectedness.

PubMed

Smith-Spark, James H; Moore, Viv; Valentine, Tim

2013-02-01

The age of acquisition (AoA) and the amount of biographical information known about celebrities have been independently shown to influence the processing of famous people. In this experiment, we investigated the facilitative contribution of both factors to famous name processing. Twenty-four mature adults participated in a familiarity judgement task, in which the names of famous people were grouped orthogonally by AoA and by the number of bits of biographical information known about them (number of facts known; NoFK). Age of acquisition was found to have a significant effect on both reaction time (RT) and accuracy of response, but NoFK did not. The RT data also revealed a significant AoA×NoFK interaction. The amount of information known about a celebrity played a facilitative role in the processing of late-acquired, but not early-acquired, celebrities. Once AoA is controlled, it would appear that the semantic system ceases to have a significant overall influence on the processing of famous people. The pre-eminence of AoA over semantic connectedness is considered in the light of current theories of AoA and how their influence might interact. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of level of processing at encoding and types of retrieval task in mild cognitive impairment and normal aging.

PubMed

Froger, Charlotte; Taconnat, Laurence; Landré, Lionel; Beigneux, Katia; Isingrini, Michel

2009-04-01

A total of 16 young (M = 27.25 years), 13 healthy elderly (M = 75.38 years), and 10 older adults with probable mild cognitive impairment (MCI; M = 78.6 years) carried out a task under two different encoding conditions (shallow vs. semantic) and two retrieval conditions (free recall vs. recognition). For the shallow condition, participants had to decide whether the first or last letter of each word in a list was "E." For the semantic condition, they had to decide whether each word represented a concrete or abstract entity. The MCI group was only able to benefit from semantic encoding to the same extent as the healthy older adults in the recognition task, whereas the younger and healthy older adults benefited in both retrieval tasks. These results suggest that the MCI group required cognitive support at retrieval to make effective use of semantic processing carried out at encoding. In the discussion, we suggest that adults with MCI engage more in deep processing, using the semantic network, than hitherto thought.

Lung cancer signature biomarkers: tissue specific semantic similarity based clustering of digital differential display (DDD) data.

PubMed

Srivastava, Mousami; Khurana, Pankaj; Sugadev, Ragumani

2012-11-02

The tissue-specific Unigene Sets derived from more than one million expressed sequence tags (ESTs) in the NCBI, GenBank database offers a platform for identifying significantly and differentially expressed tissue-specific genes by in-silico methods. Digital differential display (DDD) rapidly creates transcription profiles based on EST comparisons and numerically calculates, as a fraction of the pool of ESTs, the relative sequence abundance of known and novel genes. However, the process of identifying the most likely tissue for a specific disease in which to search for candidate genes from the pool of differentially expressed genes remains difficult. Therefore, we have used 'Gene Ontology semantic similarity score' to measure the GO similarity between gene products of lung tissue-specific candidate genes from control (normal) and disease (cancer) sets. This semantic similarity score matrix based on hierarchical clustering represents in the form of a dendrogram. The dendrogram cluster stability was assessed by multiple bootstrapping. Multiple bootstrapping also computes a p-value for each cluster and corrects the bias of the bootstrap probability. Subsequent hierarchical clustering by the multiple bootstrapping method (α = 0.95) identified seven clusters. The comparative, as well as subtractive, approach revealed a set of 38 biomarkers comprising four distinct lung cancer signature biomarker clusters (panel 1-4). Further gene enrichment analysis of the four panels revealed that each panel represents a set of lung cancer linked metastasis diagnostic biomarkers (panel 1), chemotherapy/drug resistance biomarkers (panel 2), hypoxia regulated biomarkers (panel 3) and lung extra cellular matrix biomarkers (panel 4). Expression analysis reveals that hypoxia induced lung cancer related biomarkers (panel 3), HIF and its modulating proteins (TGM2, CSNK1A1, CTNNA1, NAMPT/Visfatin, TNFRSF1A, ETS1, SRC-1, FN1, APLP2, DMBT1/SAG, AIB1 and AZIN1) are significantly down regulated. All down regulated genes in this panel were highly up regulated in most other types of cancers. These panels of proteins may represent signature biomarkers for lung cancer and will aid in lung cancer diagnosis and disease monitoring as well as in the prediction of responses to therapeutics.

Temporal lobe abnormalities in semantic processing by criminal psychopaths as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging.

PubMed

Kiehl, Kent A; Smith, Andra M; Mendrek, Adrianna; Forster, Bruce B; Hare, Robert D; Liddle, Peter F

2004-04-30

We tested the hypothesis that psychopathy is associated with abnormalities in semantic processing of linguistic information. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to elucidate and characterize the neural architecture underlying lexico-semantic processes in criminal psychopathic individuals and in a group of matched control participants. Participants performed a lexical decision task in which blocks of linguistic stimuli alternated with a resting baseline condition. In each lexical decision block, the stimuli were either concrete words and pseudowords or abstract words and pseudowords. Consistent with our hypothesis, psychopathic individuals, relative to controls, showed poorer behavioral performance for processing abstract words. Analysis of the fMRI data for both groups indicated that processing of word stimuli, compared with the resting baseline condition, was associated with neural activation in bilateral fusiform gyrus, anterior cingulate, left middle temporal gyrus, right posterior superior temporal gyrus, and left and right inferior frontal gyrus. Analyses confirmed our prediction that psychopathic individuals would fail to show the appropriate neural differentiation between abstract and concrete stimuli in the right anterior temporal gyrus and surrounding cortex. The results are consistent with other studies of semantic processing in psychopathy and support the theory that psychopathy is associated with right hemisphere abnormalities for processing conceptually abstract material.

Temporal lobe abnormalities in semantic processing by criminal psychopaths as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging.

PubMed

Kiehl, Kent A; Smith, Andra M; Mendrek, Adrianna; Forster, Bruce B; Hare, Robert D; Liddle, Peter F

2004-01-15

We tested the hypothesis that psychopathy is associated with abnormalities in semantic processing of linguistic information. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to elucidate and characterize the neural architecture underlying lexico-semantic processes in criminal psychopathic individuals and in a group of matched control participants. Participants performed a lexical decision task in which blocks of linguistic stimuli alternated with a resting baseline condition. In each lexical decision block, the stimuli were either concrete words and pseudowords or abstract words and pseudowords. Consistent with our hypothesis, psychopathic individuals, relative to controls, showed poorer behavioral performance for processing abstract words. Analysis of the fMRI data for both groups indicated that processing of word stimuli, compared with the resting baseline condition, was associated with neural activation in bilateral fusiform gyrus, anterior cingulate, left middle temporal gyrus, right posterior superior temporal gyrus, and left and right inferior frontal gyrus. Analyses confirmed our prediction that psychopathic individuals would fail to show the appropriate neural differentiation between abstract and concrete stimuli in the right anterior temporal gyrus and surrounding cortex. The results are consistent with other studies of semantic processing in psychopathy and support the theory that psychopathy is associated with right hemisphere abnormalities for processing conceptually abstract material.

Abnormal dynamics of language in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Stephane, Massoud; Kuskowski, Michael; Gundel, Jeanette

2014-05-30

Language could be conceptualized as a dynamic system that includes multiple interactive levels (sub-lexical, lexical, sentence, and discourse) and components (phonology, semantics, and syntax). In schizophrenia, abnormalities are observed at all language elements (levels and components) but the dynamic between these elements remains unclear. We hypothesize that the dynamics between language elements in schizophrenia is abnormal and explore how this dynamic is altered. We, first, investigated language elements with comparable procedures in patients and healthy controls. Second, using measures of reaction time, we performed multiple linear regression analyses to evaluate the inter-relationships among language elements and the effect of group on these relationships. Patients significantly differed from controls with respect to sub-lexical/lexical, lexical/sentence, and sentence/discourse regression coefficients. The intercepts of the regression slopes increased in the same order above (from lower to higher levels) in patients but not in controls. Regression coefficients between syntax and both sentence level and discourse level semantics did not differentiate patients from controls. This study indicates that the dynamics between language elements is abnormal in schizophrenia. In patients, top-down flow of linguistic information might be reduced, and the relationship between phonology and semantics but not between syntax and semantics appears to be altered. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Interactions between mood and the structure of semantic memory: event-related potentials evidence

PubMed Central

Pinheiro, Ana P.; del Re, Elisabetta; Nestor, Paul G; McCarley, Robert W.; Gonçalves, Óscar F.

2013-01-01

Recent evidence suggests that affect acts as modulator of cognitive processes and in particular that induced mood has an effect on the way semantic memory is used on-line. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine affective modulation of semantic information processing under three different moods: neutral, positive and negative. Fifteen subjects read 324 pairs of sentences, after mood induction procedure with 30 pictures of neutral, 30 pictures of positive and 30 pictures of neutral valence: 108 sentences were read in each mood induction condition. Sentences ended with three word types: expected words, within-category violations, and between-category violations. N400 amplitude was measured to the three word types under each mood induction condition. Under neutral mood, a congruency (more negative N400 amplitude for unexpected relative to expected endings) and a category effect (more negative N400 amplitude for between- than to within-category violations) were observed. Also, results showed differences in N400 amplitude for both within- and between-category violations as a function of mood: while positive mood tended to facilitate the integration of unexpected but related items, negative mood made their integration as difficult as unexpected and unrelated items. These findings suggest the differential impact of mood on access to long-term semantic memory during sentence comprehension. PMID:22434931

Interactions between mood and the structure of semantic memory: event-related potentials evidence.

PubMed

Pinheiro, Ana P; del Re, Elisabetta; Nestor, Paul G; McCarley, Robert W; Gonçalves, Óscar F; Niznikiewicz, Margaret

2013-06-01

Recent evidence suggests that affect acts as modulator of cognitive processes and in particular that induced mood has an effect on the way semantic memory is used on-line. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine affective modulation of semantic information processing under three different moods: neutral, positive and negative. Fifteen subjects read 324 pairs of sentences, after mood induction procedure with 30 pictures of neutral, 30 pictures of positive and 30 pictures of neutral valence: 108 sentences were read in each mood induction condition. Sentences ended with three word types: expected words, within-category violations, and between-category violations. N400 amplitude was measured to the three word types under each mood induction condition. Under neutral mood, a congruency (more negative N400 amplitude for unexpected relative to expected endings) and a category effect (more negative N400 amplitude for between- than to within-category violations) were observed. Also, results showed differences in N400 amplitude for both within- and between-category violations as a function of mood: while positive mood tended to facilitate the integration of unexpected but related items, negative mood made their integration as difficult as unexpected and unrelated items. These findings suggest the differential impact of mood on access to long-term semantic memory during sentence comprehension.

The Topology of a Discussion: The #Occupy Case.

PubMed

Gargiulo, Floriana; Bindi, Jacopo; Apolloni, Andrea

2015-01-01

We analyse a large sample of the Twitter activity that developed around the social movement 'Occupy Wall Street', to study the complex interactions between the human communication activity and the semantic content of a debate. We use a network approach based on the analysis of the bipartite graph @Users-#Hashtags and of its projections: the 'semantic network', whose nodes are hashtags, and the 'users interest network', whose nodes are users. In the first instance, we find out that discussion topics (#hashtags) present a high structural heterogeneity, with a relevant role played by the semantic hubs that are responsible to guarantee the continuity of the debate. In the users' case, the self-organisation process of users' activity, leads to the emergence of two classes of communicators: the 'professionals' and the 'amateurs'. Both the networks present a strong community structure, based on the differentiation of the semantic topics, and a high level of structural robustness when certain sets of topics are censored and/or accounts are removed. By analysing the characteristics of the dynamical networks we can distinguish three phases of the discussion about the movement. Each phase corresponds to a specific moment of the movement: from declaration of intent, organisation and development and the final phase of political reactions. Each phase is characterised by the presence of prototypical #hashtags in the discussion.

The effects of age on the neural correlates of episodic encoding.

PubMed

Grady, C L; McIntosh, A R; Rajah, M N; Beig, S; Craik, F I

1999-12-01

Young and old adults underwent positron emission tomographic scans while encoding pictures of objects and words using three encoding strategies: deep processing (a semantic living/nonliving judgement), shallow processing (size judgement) and intentional learning. Picture memory exceeded word memory in both young and old groups, and there was an age-related decrement only in word recognition. During the encoding tasks three brain activity patterns were found that differentiated stimulus type and the different encoding strategies. The stimulus-specific pattern was characterized by greater activity in extrastriate and medial temporal cortices during picture encoding, and greater activity in left prefrontal and temporal cortices during encoding of words. The older adults showed this pattern to a significantly lesser degree. A pattern distinguishing deep processing from intentional learning of words and pictures was identified, characterized mainly by differences in prefrontal cortex, and this pattern also was of significantly lesser magnitude in the old group. A final pattern identified areas with increased activity during deep processing and intentional learning of pictures, including left prefrontal and bilateral medial temporal regions. There was no group difference in this pattern. These results indicate age-related dysfunction in several encoding networks, with sparing of one specifically involved in more elaborate encoding of pictures. These age-related changes appear to affect verbal memory more than picture memory.

Classification deficits in Alzheimer's disease with special reference to living and nonliving things.

PubMed

Montanes, P; Goldblum, M C; Boller, F

1996-08-01

The present study was conducted to assess the hypothesis that visual similarity between exemplars within a semantic category may affect differentially the recognition process of living and nonliving things, according to task demands, in patients with semantic memory disorders. Thirty-nine Alzheimer's patients and 39 normal elderly subjects were presented with a task in which they had to classify pictures and words, depicting either living or nonliving things, at two levels of classification: subordinate (e.g., mammals versus birds or tools versus vehicles) and attribute (e.g., wild versus domestic animals or fast versus slow vehicles). Contrary to previous results (Montañes, Goldblum, & Boller, 1995) in a naming task, but as expected, living things were better classified than nonliving ones by both controls and patients. As expected, classifications at the subordinate level also gave rise to better performance than classifications at the attribute level. Although (and somewhat unexpectedly) no advantage of picture over word classification emerged, some effects consistent with the hypothesis that visual similarity affects picture classification emerged, in particular within a subgroup of patients with predominant verbal deficits and the most severe semantic memory disorders. This subgroup obtained a better score on classification of pictures than of words depicting living items (that share many visual features) when classification is at the subordinate level (for which visual similarity is a reliable clue to classification), but met with major difficulties when classifying those pictures at the attribute level (for which shared visual features are not reliable clues to classification). These results emphasize the fact that some "normal" effects specific to items in living and nonliving categories have to be considered among the factors causing selective category-specific deficits in patients, as well as their relevance in achieving tasks which require either differentiation between competing exemplars in the same semantic category (naming) or detection of resemblance between those exemplars (categorization).

Lexical learning in mild aphasia: gesture benefit depends on patholinguistic profile and lesion pattern.

PubMed

Kroenke, Klaus-Martin; Kraft, Indra; Regenbrecht, Frank; Obrig, Hellmuth

2013-01-01

Gestures accompany speech and enrich human communication. When aphasia interferes with verbal abilities, gestures become even more relevant, compensating for and/or facilitating verbal communication. However, small-scale clinical studies yielded diverging results with regard to a therapeutic gesture benefit for lexical retrieval. Based on recent functional neuroimaging results, delineating a speech-gesture integration network for lexical learning in healthy adults, we hypothesized that the commonly observed variability may stem from differential patholinguistic profiles in turn depending on lesion pattern. Therefore we used a controlled novel word learning paradigm to probe the impact of gestures on lexical learning, in the lesioned language network. Fourteen patients with chronic left hemispheric lesions and mild residual aphasia learned 30 novel words for manipulable objects over four days. Half of the words were trained with gestures while the other half were trained purely verbally. For the gesture condition, rootwords were visually presented (e.g., Klavier, [piano]), followed by videos of the corresponding gestures and the auditory presentation of the novel words (e.g., /krulo/). Participants had to repeat pseudowords and simultaneously reproduce gestures. In the verbal condition no gesture-video was shown and participants only repeated pseudowords orally. Correlational analyses confirmed that gesture benefit depends on the patholinguistic profile: lesser lexico-semantic impairment correlated with better gesture-enhanced learning. Conversely largely preserved segmental-phonological capabilities correlated with better purely verbal learning. Moreover, structural MRI-analysis disclosed differential lesion patterns, most interestingly suggesting that integrity of the left anterior temporal pole predicted gesture benefit. Thus largely preserved semantic capabilities and relative integrity of a semantic integration network are prerequisites for successful use of the multimodal learning strategy, in which gestures may cause a deeper semantic rooting of the novel word-form. The results tap into theoretical accounts of gestures in lexical learning and suggest an explanation for the diverging effect in therapeutical studies advocating gestures in aphasia rehabilitation. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Age of Acquisition Effects on Word Processing for Chinese Native Learners’ English: ERP Evidence for the Arbitrary Mapping Hypothesis

PubMed Central

Xue, Jin; Liu, Tongtong; Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando; Pei, Xuna

2017-01-01

The present study aimed at distinguishing processing of early learned L2 words from late ones for Chinese natives who learn English as a foreign language. Specifically, we examined whether the age of acquisition (AoA) effect arose during the arbitrary mapping from conceptual knowledge onto linguistic units. The behavior and ERP data were collected when 28 Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to perform semantic relatedness judgment on word pairs, which represented three stages of word learning (i.e., primary school, junior and senior high schools). A 3 (AoA: early vs. intermediate vs. late) × 2 (regularity: regular vs. irregular) × 2 (semantic relatedness: related vs. unrelated) × 2 (hemisphere: left vs. right) × 3 (brain area: anterior vs. central vs. posterior) within-subjects design was adopted. Results from the analysis of N100 and N400 amplitudes showed that early learned words had an advantage in processing accuracy and speed; there is a tendency that the AoA effect was more pronounced for irregular word pairs and in the semantic related condition. More important, ERP results showed early acquired words induced larger N100 amplitudes for early AoA words in the parietal area and more negative-going N400 than late acquire words in the frontal and central regions. The results indicate the locus of the AoA effect might derive from the arbitrary mapping between word forms and semantic concepts, and early acquired words have more semantic interconnections than late acquired words. PMID:28572785

Preserved Proactive Interference in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

PubMed

Carmo, Joana C; Duarte, Elsa; Pinho, Sandra; Filipe, Carlos N; Marques, J Frederico

2016-01-01

In this study, we aimed to evaluate further the functioning and structuring of the semantic system in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We analyzed the performance of 19 high-functioning young adults with ASD and a group of 20 age-, verbal IQ- and education-matched individuals with the Proactive Interference (PI) Paradigm to evaluate semantic functioning in ASD (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, we analyzed the performances of both groups in a PI paradigm with manipulation of the level of typicality. In both experiments, we observed significant effects of trial and group but no trial by group interactions, which we interpreted as robust evidence of preserved PI (build up effect) that indicated the preservation of semantic mechanisms of encoding and retrieval.

Memory illusion in high-functioning autism and Asperger's disorder.

PubMed

Kamio, Yoko; Toichi, Motomi

2007-05-01

In this study, 13 individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA), 15 individuals with Asperger's disorder (AD), and age-, and IQ-matched controls were presented a list of sentences auditorily. Participants then evaluated semantically related but new sentences and reported whether they were old or new. The total rates of false recognition for semantically related sentences were similar among the three groups. Nevertheless, memory illusion on some aspects was reduced in HFA participants. These results suggest that HFA have difficulties in semantic association. Although individuals with AD showed no quantitative abnormalities of memory illusion, some contributing factors were atypical. These findings are discussed in terms of schema theory, enhanced perceptual processing hypothesis, and weak central coherence hypothesis.

Episodic and semantic content of memory and imagination: A multilevel analysis.

PubMed

Devitt, Aleea L; Addis, Donna Rose; Schacter, Daniel L

2017-10-01

Autobiographical memories of past events and imaginations of future scenarios comprise both episodic and semantic content. Correlating the amount of "internal" (episodic) and "external" (semantic) details generated when describing autobiographical events can illuminate the relationship between the processes supporting these constructs. Yet previous studies performing such correlations were limited by aggregating data across all events generated by an individual, potentially obscuring the underlying relationship within the events themselves. In the current article, we reanalyzed datasets from eight studies using a multilevel approach, allowing us to explore the relationship between internal and external details within events. We also examined whether this relationship changes with healthy aging. Our reanalyses demonstrated a largely negative relationship between the internal and external details produced when describing autobiographical memories and future imaginations. This negative relationship was stronger and more consistent for older adults and was evident both in direct and indirect measures of semantic content. Moreover, this relationship appears to be specific to episodic tasks, as no relationship was observed for a nonepisodic picture description task. This negative association suggests that people do not generate semantic information indiscriminately, but do so in a compensatory manner, to embellish episodically impoverished events. Our reanalysis further lends support for dissociable processes underpinning episodic and semantic information generation when remembering and imagining autobiographical events.

Neural evidence for phonologically based language production deficits in older adults: An fMRI investigation of age-related differences in picture-word interference.

PubMed

Rizio, Avery A; Moyer, Karlee J; Diaz, Michele T

2017-04-01

Older adults often show declines in phonological aspects of language production, particularly for low-frequency words, but maintain strong semantic systems. However, there are different theories about the mechanism that may underlie such age-related differences in language (e.g., age-related declines in transmission of activation or inhibition). This study used fMRI to investigate whether age-related differences in language production are associated with transmission deficits or inhibition deficits. We used the picture-word interference paradigm to examine age-related differences in picture naming as a function of both target frequency and the relationship between the target picture and distractor word. We found that the presence of a categorically related distractor led to greater semantic elaboration by older adults compared to younger adults, as evidenced by older adults' increased recruitment of regions including the left middle frontal gyrus and bilateral precuneus. When presented with a phonologically related distractor, patterns of neural activation are consistent with previously observed age deficits in phonological processing, including age-related reductions in the recruitment of regions such as the left middle temporal gyrus and right supramarginal gyrus. Lastly, older, but not younger, adults show increased brain activation of the pre- and postcentral gyri as a function of decreasing target frequency when target pictures are paired with a phonological distractor, suggesting that cuing the phonology of the target disproportionately aids production of low-frequency items. Overall, this pattern of results is generally consistent with the transmission deficit hypothesis, illustrating that links within the phonological system, but not the semantic system, are weakened with age.

Neural mechanisms underlying the facilitation of naming in aphasia using a semantic task: an fMRI study

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Previous attempts to investigate the effects of semantic tasks on picture naming in both healthy controls and people with aphasia have typically been confounded by inclusion of the phonological word form of the target item. As a result, it is difficult to isolate any facilitatory effects of a semantically-focused task to either lexical-semantic or phonological processing. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study examined the neurological mechanisms underlying short-term (within minutes) and long-term (within days) facilitation of naming from a semantic task that did not include the phonological word form, in both participants with aphasia and age-matched controls. Results Behavioral results showed that a semantic task that did not include the phonological word form can successfully facilitate subsequent picture naming in both healthy controls and individuals with aphasia. The whole brain neuroimaging results for control participants identified a repetition enhancement effect in the short-term, with modulation of activity found in regions that have not traditionally been associated with semantic processing, such as the right lingual gyrus (extending to the precuneus) and the left inferior occipital gyrus (extending to the fusiform gyrus). In contrast, the participants with aphasia showed significant differences in activation over both the short- and the long-term for facilitated items, predominantly within either left hemisphere regions linked to semantic processing or their right hemisphere homologues. Conclusions For control participants in this study, the short-lived facilitation effects of a prior semantic task that did not include the phonological word form were primarily driven by object priming and episodic memory mechanisms. However, facilitation effects appeared to engage a predominantly semantic network in participants with aphasia over both the short- and the long-term. The findings of the present study also suggest that right hemisphere involvement may be supportive rather than maladaptive, and that a large distributed perisylvian network in both cerebral hemispheres supports the facilitation of naming in individuals with aphasia. PMID:22882806

A Semantic Differential Evaluation of Attitudinal Outcomes of Introductory Physical Science.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hecht, Alfred Roland

This study was designed to assess the attitudinal outcomes of Introductory Physical Science (IPS) curriculum materials used in schools. Random samples of 240 students receiving IPS instruction and 240 non-science students were assigned to separate Solomon four-group designs with non-equivalent control groups. Random samples of 60 traditional…

Semantic Differential Comparisons of Attributions and Dimensions among Seven Nations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chandler, Theodore A.; Spies, Carl J.

The classifications of 11 attributions according to dimensions of locus, stability, controllability, predictability, and globality by participants in 7 countries (China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Spain, and the United States) were compared in a cross-cultural study. The attributions were: (1) bias; (2) help; (3) luck; (4) ability; (5)…

The Development and Validation of a Behaviorally Defined Interest Instrument for Science.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butzow, John W., Jr.

A semantic differential (SD) instrument, modified by replacing words or noun phrases with phrases describing a behavior, was administered to male freshmen students. Six items discriminated between two groups, 97 science majors and 161 non-science majors, on three axes, labelled as evaluation, potency, and activity. To test whether the instrument…

Adolescents' Perceptions of Foreign-Made Products: Implications for Advertising Strategy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reid, Leonard N.; Vanden Bergh, Bruce G.

A five-point, seven-item semantic differential scale was used to collect data from 130 high school students about their perceptions of foreign-made products and the relation of national stereotypes to product stereotypes. To assure consistency, the same product classes (all products, automobiles, cameras, and mechanical toys) and foreign countries…

Standardization of Selected Semantic Differential Scales with Secondary School Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Evans, G. T.

A basic assumption of this study is that the meaning continuum registered by an adjective pair remains relatively constant over a large universe of concepts and over subjects within a relatively homogeneous population. An attempt was made to validate this assumption by showing the invariance of the factor structure across different types of…

Can Racial Attitudes Be Changed? Synopis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ijaz, M. Ahmed

The attitudes of white Canadian fifth and sixth graders toward blacks and East Indians were examined by means of a semantic differential measure, a social distance scale, and a contact questionnaire. No significant differences in attitudes were found between students in schools with a high and low proportion of black and East Indian students.…

High School Students' Affective Reaction to English Speaking Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jorquera Torres, Oliver Camilo; Mendoza Zapata, Jhon Eliot; Díaz Larenas, Claudio Heraldo

2017-01-01

This study aims to measure fifty-two high school students' affective reactions after doing individual and pair-based speaking activities then completing a semantic differential scale of nine bipolar adjectives. Results do not show significant statistical differences between the two types of activities or the schools involved in this study, but…

Student Attitudes toward Nuclear Power Plants: A Classroom Experiment in the Field of Environmental Psychology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spada, Hans; And Others

1977-01-01

As part of a senior high school physics unit on nuclear power, changes in student attitudes toward nuclear power plants and problems of energy supply were analyzed. Tests included a situational test, semantic differentials, knowledge or achievement, and a final questionnaire. The results are discussed. (CTM)

The Effects of Priming on Children's Attitudes toward Older Individuals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoe, Sony; Davidson, Denise

2002-01-01

The purpose of the present research was to examine younger (7-years-old) and older (10-years-old) children's attitudes toward older individuals following one type of five primes: positive prime, negative prime, elderly prime, grandparent prime, or neutral prime. Overall, children's attitudes on three tests--Apperception, Semantic Differential, and…

The Parochial Education of Menominee Indian Children: A Study of One School.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sherarts, I. Karon; And Others

During May 1969 fieldwork for the National Study of American Indian Education was conducted at a Catholic school in Menominee County, Wisconsin. Data were collected by draw-a-man, student questionnaires, semantic differential, achievement test data, and interviews for 78 Menominee Indian students (55% female; 44% male). This report discussed…

There Is Something about Grammatical Category in Chinese Visual Word Recognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kwong, Oi Yee

2016-01-01

The differential processing of nouns and verbs has been attributed to a combination of morphological, syntactic and semantic factors which are often intertwined with other general lexical properties. This study tested the noun-verb difference with Chinese disyllabic words controlled on various lexical parameters. As Chinese words are free from…

Changes in Perception of Selected Concepts That Accompany Differing Leadership Treatments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Callan, Laurence Brian

A study was made of effects of two different leadership treatments on perception of nonverbal stimuli relating to concepts of leaders, authority, and cohesion as measured by changes in the Semantic Differential Scale. Subjects (28 Yaqui Indian and Mexican-American members of the Neighborhood Youth Corps) were randomly assigned to an autocratic…

Words Matter: A Semantic Differential Study of Recreation, Leisure, Play, Activity, and Sport

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schlag, Paul A.; Yoder, Daniel G.; Sheng, Zhaohui

2015-01-01

Beyond the standard definitions found in the dictionary, words commonly used in the recreation field have subtle, yet powerful connotations of which senders and receivers of information may not be consciously aware. These words elicit different conscious and subconscious reactions that likely bear significant consequences for recreation agencies…

The Effects of Two Types of Exposure on Attitudes toward Aspects of Juvenile Delinquency.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

LeUnes, Arnold; And Others

1996-01-01

Tracks the attitude changes of a group of abnormal psychology students following a tour of a juvenile correctional facility and a presentation by four of the inmates. A 25-item semantic differential scale revealed a noticeable improvement in the students' attitudes towards juvenile delinquents after the visit. (MJP)

76 FR 77203 - Notice of Intent To Seek Approval To Collect Information

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-12-12

... Web pages created and maintained by component organizations of the NAL. On average, 2 million people... interest collections have established a Web presence with a home page and links to sub-pages that provide... Semantic Differential Scale or multiple choice questions, and no more than 4 open-ended response questions...

82 FR 58411 - Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for Office of Management and Budget Review...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2017-12-12

... be in the form of a web page for a fictitious drug targeted toward consumers who have chronic pain or... prescription drug information in multiple formats--including print, television, web, and other modes--would be... framed items. Moreover, the slider questions referenced by the commenter are semantic differentials...

The Differential Role of Phonological and Distributional Cues in Grammatical Categorisation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Monaghan, P.; Chater, N.; Christiansen, M.H.

2005-01-01

Recognising the grammatical categories of words is a necessary skill for the acquisition of syntax and for on-line sentence processing. The syntactic and semantic context of the word contribute as cues for grammatical category assignment, but phonological cues, too, have been implicated as important sources of information. The value of…

Marathon Group Counseling with Illicit Drug Abusers: Effects on Self-Perceptions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Page, Richard C.; And Others

1987-01-01

Compared effects, for illicit drug abusers, of five 16-hour unstructured marathon groups, and five matched, randomly selected control groups. Used semantic differential consisting of the specific adjective pairs and the evaluative scale of the concept My Real Self. Marathon group members rated some adjective pairs differently and rated the…

Blond is Beautiful: Status and Preference by Hair Color.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clayson, Dennis E.; Maughan, Micol R.

Three studies were conducted to investigate stereotypes of men of various hair colors by middle-class Anglo college students. Study 1 found an increase of perceived blondness with status, while lack of status was associated with red hair. Study 2, using semantic differentials (after Osgood), found blonde males to be significantly more beautiful,…

Differential processing of thematic and categorical conceptual relations in spoken word production.

PubMed

de Zubicaray, Greig I; Hansen, Samuel; McMahon, Katie L

2013-02-01

Studies of semantic context effects in spoken word production have typically distinguished between categorical (or taxonomic) and associative relations. However, associates tend to confound semantic features or morphological representations, such as whole-part relations and compounds (e.g., BOAT-anchor, BEE-hive). Using a picture-word interference paradigm and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we manipulated categorical (COW-rat) and thematic (COW-pasture) TARGET-distractor relations in a balanced design, finding interference and facilitation effects on naming latencies, respectively, as well as differential patterns of brain activation compared with an unrelated distractor condition. While both types of distractor relation activated the middle portion of the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) consistent with retrieval of conceptual or lexical representations, categorical relations involved additional activation of posterior left MTG, consistent with retrieval of a lexical cohort. Thematic relations involved additional activation of the left angular gyrus. These results converge with recent lesion evidence implicating the left inferior parietal lobe in processing thematic relations and may indicate a potential role for this region during spoken word production. 2013 APA, all rights reserved

Cross-cultural examination of the semantic dimensions of body postures.

PubMed

Kudoh, T; Matsumoto, D

1985-06-01

In two studies, we examined the cross-cultural validity of the dimensional structures with which postures are judged. In Study 1, 686 Japanese subjects rated 40 posture expressions on sixteen 5-point semantic differential scale items. Subjects inferred an encoder's attitude towards oneself (i.e., the decoding subject) in hypothetical dyadic situations. A principal-component factor analysis yielded evidence for three independent dimensions resembling those proposed by Schlosberg (1954), Osgood (1966), and Williams and Sundene (1965). These three factors were named self-fulfillment, interpersonal positiveness, and interpersonal consciousness. In Study 2, 336 Japanese students again rated the 40 posture expressions on the sixteen 5-point differential items, but an attempt was made to control for the status of the hypothetical encoder. The results of this study essentially replicated those of Study 1. One interesting finding was that although we found the same factors as those found in studies conducted in the West, the order of the factors in our studies was the reverse of the order found in these previous studies. The findings are discussed in terms of proposed cultural differences in the maintenance of human relations.

Focal temporal pole atrophy and network degeneration in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia

PubMed Central

Collins, Jessica A; Montal, Victor; Hochberg, Daisy; Quimby, Megan; Mandelli, Maria Luisa; Makris, Nikos; Seeley, William W; Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa; Dickerson, Bradford C

2017-01-01

Abstract A wealth of neuroimaging research has associated semantic variant primary progressive aphasia with distributed cortical atrophy that is most prominent in the left anterior temporal cortex; however, there is little consensus regarding which region within the anterior temporal cortex is most prominently damaged, which may indicate the putative origin of neurodegeneration. In this study, we localized the most prominent and consistent region of atrophy in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia using cortical thickness analysis in two independent patient samples (n = 16 and 28, respectively) relative to age-matched controls (n = 30). Across both samples the point of maximal atrophy was located in the same region of the left temporal pole. This same region was the point of maximal atrophy in 100% of individual patients in both semantic variant primary progressive aphasia samples. Using resting state functional connectivity in healthy young adults (n = 89), we showed that the seed region derived from the semantic variant primary progressive aphasia analysis was strongly connected with a large-scale network that closely resembled the distributed atrophy pattern in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia. In both patient samples, the magnitude of atrophy within a brain region was predicted by that region’s strength of functional connectivity to the temporopolar seed region in healthy adults. These findings suggest that cortical atrophy in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia may follow connectional pathways within a large-scale network that converges on the temporal pole. PMID:28040670

Biomarker clusters are differentially associated with longitudinal cognitive decline in late midlife

PubMed Central

Racine, Annie M.; Koscik, Rebecca L.; Berman, Sara E.; Nicholas, Christopher R.; Clark, Lindsay R.; Okonkwo, Ozioma C.; Rowley, Howard A.; Asthana, Sanjay; Bendlin, Barbara B.; Blennow, Kaj; Zetterberg, Henrik; Gleason, Carey E.; Carlsson, Cynthia M.

2016-01-01

The ability to detect preclinical Alzheimer’s disease is of great importance, as this stage of the Alzheimer’s continuum is believed to provide a key window for intervention and prevention. As Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by multiple pathological changes, a biomarker panel reflecting co-occurring pathology will likely be most useful for early detection. Towards this end, 175 late middle-aged participants (mean age 55.9 ± 5.7 years at first cognitive assessment, 70% female) were recruited from two longitudinally followed cohorts to undergo magnetic resonance imaging and lumbar puncture. Cluster analysis was used to group individuals based on biomarkers of amyloid pathology (cerebrospinal fluid amyloid-β42/amyloid-β40 assay levels), magnetic resonance imaging-derived measures of neurodegeneration/atrophy (cerebrospinal fluid-to-brain volume ratio, and hippocampal volume), neurofibrillary tangles (cerebrospinal fluid phosphorylated tau181 assay levels), and a brain-based marker of vascular risk (total white matter hyperintensity lesion volume). Four biomarker clusters emerged consistent with preclinical features of (i) Alzheimer’s disease; (ii) mixed Alzheimer’s disease and vascular aetiology; (iii) suspected non-Alzheimer’s disease aetiology; and (iv) healthy ageing. Cognitive decline was then analysed between clusters using longitudinal assessments of episodic memory, semantic memory, executive function, and global cognitive function with linear mixed effects modelling. Cluster 1 exhibited a higher intercept and greater rates of decline on tests of episodic memory. Cluster 2 had a lower intercept on a test of semantic memory and both Cluster 2 and Cluster 3 had steeper rates of decline on a test of global cognition. Additional analyses on Cluster 3, which had the smallest hippocampal volume, suggest that its biomarker profile is more likely due to hippocampal vulnerability and not to detectable specific volume loss exceeding the rate of normal ageing. Our results demonstrate that pathology, as indicated by biomarkers, in a preclinical timeframe is related to patterns of longitudinal cognitive decline. Such biomarker patterns may be useful for identifying at-risk populations to recruit for clinical trials. PMID:27324877

Biomarker clusters are differentially associated with longitudinal cognitive decline in late midlife.

PubMed

Racine, Annie M; Koscik, Rebecca L; Berman, Sara E; Nicholas, Christopher R; Clark, Lindsay R; Okonkwo, Ozioma C; Rowley, Howard A; Asthana, Sanjay; Bendlin, Barbara B; Blennow, Kaj; Zetterberg, Henrik; Gleason, Carey E; Carlsson, Cynthia M; Johnson, Sterling C

2016-08-01

The ability to detect preclinical Alzheimer's disease is of great importance, as this stage of the Alzheimer's continuum is believed to provide a key window for intervention and prevention. As Alzheimer's disease is characterized by multiple pathological changes, a biomarker panel reflecting co-occurring pathology will likely be most useful for early detection. Towards this end, 175 late middle-aged participants (mean age 55.9 ± 5.7 years at first cognitive assessment, 70% female) were recruited from two longitudinally followed cohorts to undergo magnetic resonance imaging and lumbar puncture. Cluster analysis was used to group individuals based on biomarkers of amyloid pathology (cerebrospinal fluid amyloid-β42/amyloid-β40 assay levels), magnetic resonance imaging-derived measures of neurodegeneration/atrophy (cerebrospinal fluid-to-brain volume ratio, and hippocampal volume), neurofibrillary tangles (cerebrospinal fluid phosphorylated tau181 assay levels), and a brain-based marker of vascular risk (total white matter hyperintensity lesion volume). Four biomarker clusters emerged consistent with preclinical features of (i) Alzheimer's disease; (ii) mixed Alzheimer's disease and vascular aetiology; (iii) suspected non-Alzheimer's disease aetiology; and (iv) healthy ageing. Cognitive decline was then analysed between clusters using longitudinal assessments of episodic memory, semantic memory, executive function, and global cognitive function with linear mixed effects modelling. Cluster 1 exhibited a higher intercept and greater rates of decline on tests of episodic memory. Cluster 2 had a lower intercept on a test of semantic memory and both Cluster 2 and Cluster 3 had steeper rates of decline on a test of global cognition. Additional analyses on Cluster 3, which had the smallest hippocampal volume, suggest that its biomarker profile is more likely due to hippocampal vulnerability and not to detectable specific volume loss exceeding the rate of normal ageing. Our results demonstrate that pathology, as indicated by biomarkers, in a preclinical timeframe is related to patterns of longitudinal cognitive decline. Such biomarker patterns may be useful for identifying at-risk populations to recruit for clinical trials. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

An empirical test of sex differences in the emphasis on physical attractiveness in mate selection.

PubMed

Colwell, John

2007-08-01

Within a context provided by social structural theory, social evolutionary theory, and physical attractiveness stereotyping, the importance of physical attractiveness in heterosexual mate selection was explored by presenting 50 male and 50 female psychology students (M age = 22.5 yr.) during a scheduled class with an opposite sex personals advertisement, wherein the advertiser was described as 'average' or 'good-looking'. Dependent variables consisted of a written paragraph and measures of evaluation (Semantic Differential), attraction, advertisement appeal, and success. An interaction for sex x looks on the qualitative measure showed no effect for men, but the good-looking female advertiser was evaluated more positively. However, for quantitative data, the advertisement was seen as more appealing and likely to be successful when the advertiser was good looking as opposed to average looking, irrespective of sex of advertiser. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical perspectives.

Smearing the opposition: implicit and explicit stigmatization of the 2008 U.S. Presidential candidates and the current U.S. President.

PubMed

Kosloff, Spee; Greenberg, Jeff; Schmader, Toni; Dechesne, Mark; Weise, David

2010-08-01

Four studies investigated whether political allegiance and salience of outgroup membership contribute to the phenomenon of acceptance of false, stigmatizing information (smears) about political candidates. Studies 1-3 were conducted in the month prior to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election and together demonstrated that pre-standing opposition to John McCain or Barack Obama, as well as the situational salience of differentiating social categories (i.e., for Obama, race; for McCain, age), contributed to the implicit activation and explicit endorsement of smearing labels (i.e., Obama is Muslim; McCain is senile). The influence of salient differentiating categories on smear acceptance was particularly pronounced among politically undecided individuals. Study 4 clarified that social category differences heighten smear acceptance, even if the salient category is semantically unrelated to the smearing label, showing that, approximately 1 year after the election, the salience of race amplified belief that Obama is a socialist among undecided people and McCain supporters. Taken together, these findings suggest that, at both implicit and explicit cognitive levels, social category differences and political allegiance contribute to acceptance of smears against political candidates. 2010 APA, all rights reserved

Aging and the Picture Superiority Effect in Recall.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winograd, Eugene; And Others

1982-01-01

Compared verbal and visual encoding using the picture superiority effect. One experiment found an interaction between age and type of material. In other experiments, the picture superiority effect was found in both age groups with no interaction. Performing a semantic-orienting task had no effect on recall. (Author/RC)

Depth and Elaboration of Processing in Relation to Age.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Simon, Eileen

1979-01-01

The recall effectiveness of semantic and phonemic cues was compared to uncover the pattern of deep and elaborate processing in relation to age and experimental treatment. It was concluded that aging results in poor elaboration, especially in inefficient integration of word events with the context of presentation. (Author/CP)

Human alteration of the rural landscape: Variations in visual perception

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cloquell-Ballester, Vicente-Agustin, E-mail: cloquell@dpi.upv.es; Carmen Torres-Sibille, Ana del; Cloquell-Ballester, Victor-Andres

2012-01-15

The objective of this investigation is to evaluate how visual perception varies as the rural landscape is altered by human interventions of varying character. An experiment is carried out using Semantic Differential Analysis to analyse the effect of the character and the type of the intervention on perception. Interventions are divided into elements of 'permanent industrial character', 'elements of permanent rural character' and 'elements of temporary character', and these categories are sub-divided into smaller groups according to the type of development. To increase the reliability of the results, the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient tool, is applied to validate the semantic spacemore » of the perceptual responses and to determine the number of subjects required for a reliable evaluation of the scenes.« less

Medical Image Databases

PubMed Central

Tagare, Hemant D.; Jaffe, C. Carl; Duncan, James

1997-01-01

Abstract Information contained in medical images differs considerably from that residing in alphanumeric format. The difference can be attributed to four characteristics: (1) the semantics of medical knowledge extractable from images is imprecise; (2) image information contains form and spatial data, which are not expressible in conventional language; (3) a large part of image information is geometric; (4) diagnostic inferences derived from images rest on an incomplete, continuously evolving model of normality. This paper explores the differentiating characteristics of text versus images and their impact on design of a medical image database intended to allow content-based indexing and retrieval. One strategy for implementing medical image databases is presented, which employs object-oriented iconic queries, semantics by association with prototypes, and a generic schema. PMID:9147338

Neural division of labor in reading is constrained by culture: a training study of reading Chinese characters.

PubMed

Zhao, Jingjing; Wang, Xiaoyi; Frost, Stephen J; Sun, Wan; Fang, Shin-Yi; Mencl, W Einar; Pugh, Kenneth R; Shu, Hua; Rueckl, Jay G

2014-04-01

Word reading in alphabetic language involves a cortical system with multiple components whose division of labor depends on the transparency of the writing system. To gain insight about the neural division of labor between phonology and semantics subserving word reading in Chinese, a deep non-alphabetic writing system, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the effects of phonological and semantic training on the cortical circuitry for oral naming of Chinese characters. In a training study, we examined whether a training task that differentially focused readers' attention on the phonological or semantic properties of a Chinese character changes the patterns of cortical activation that was evoked by that character in a subsequent naming task. Our imaging results corroborate that the cortical regions underlying reading in Chinese largely overlap the left-hemisphere reading system responsible for reading in alphabetic languages, with some cortical regions in the left-hemisphere uniquely recruited for reading in Chinese. However, in contrast to findings from studies of English word naming, we observed considerable overlap in the neural activation patterns associated with phonological and semantic training on naming Chinese characters, which we suggest may reflect a balanced neural division of labor between phonology and semantics in Chinese character reading. The equitable division of labor for Chinese reading might be driven by the special statistical structure of the writing system, which includes equally systematic mappings in the correspondences between written forms and their pronunciations and meanings. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Lost for emotion words: What motor and limbic brain activity reveals about autism and semantic theory

PubMed Central

Moseley, Rachel L.; Shtyrov, Yury; Mohr, Bettina; Lombardo, Michael V.; Baron-Cohen, Simon; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2015-01-01

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are characterised by deficits in understanding and expressing emotions and are frequently accompanied by alexithymia, a difficulty in understanding and expressing emotion words. Words are differentially represented in the brain according to their semantic category and these difficulties in ASC predict reduced activation to emotion-related words in limbic structures crucial for affective processing. Semantic theories view ‘emotion actions’ as critical for learning the semantic relationship between a word and the emotion it describes, such that emotion words typically activate the cortical motor systems involved in expressing emotion actions such as facial expressions. As ASC are also characterised by motor deficits and atypical brain structure and function in these regions, motor structures would also be expected to show reduced activation during emotion-semantic processing. Here we used event-related fMRI to compare passive processing of emotion words in comparison to abstract verbs and animal names in typically-developing controls and individuals with ASC. Relatively reduced brain activation in ASC for emotion words, but not matched control words, was found in motor areas and cingulate cortex specifically. The degree of activation evoked by emotion words in the motor system was also associated with the extent of autistic traits as revealed by the Autism Spectrum Quotient. We suggest that hypoactivation of motor and limbic regions for emotion word processing may underlie difficulties in processing emotional language in ASC. The role that sensorimotor systems and their connections might play in the affective and social-communication difficulties in ASC is discussed. PMID:25278250

Speaking two "Languages" in America: A semantic space analysis of how presidential candidates and their supporters represent abstract political concepts differently.

PubMed

Li, Ping; Schloss, Benjamin; Follmer, D Jake

2017-10-01

In this article we report a computational semantic analysis of the presidential candidates' speeches in the two major political parties in the USA. In Study One, we modeled the political semantic spaces as a function of party, candidate, and time of election, and findings revealed patterns of differences in the semantic representation of key political concepts and the changing landscapes in which the presidential candidates align or misalign with their parties in terms of the representation and organization of politically central concepts. Our models further showed that the 2016 US presidential nominees had distinct conceptual representations from those of previous election years, and these patterns did not necessarily align with their respective political parties' average representation of the key political concepts. In Study Two, structural equation modeling demonstrated that reported political engagement among voters differentially predicted reported likelihoods of voting for Clinton versus Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Study Three indicated that Republicans and Democrats showed distinct, systematic word association patterns for the same concepts/terms, which could be reliably distinguished using machine learning methods. These studies suggest that given an individual's political beliefs, we can make reliable predictions about how they understand words, and given how an individual understands those same words, we can also predict an individual's political beliefs. Our study provides a bridge between semantic space models and abstract representations of political concepts on the one hand, and the representations of political concepts and citizens' voting behavior on the other.

To predict or not to predict: influences of task and strategy on the processing of semantic relations.

PubMed

Roehm, Dietmar; Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina; Rösler, Frank; Schlesewsky, Matthias

2007-08-01

We report a series of event-related potential experiments designed to dissociate the functionally distinct processes involved in the comprehension of highly restricted lexical-semantic relations (antonyms). We sought to differentiate between influences of semantic relatedness (which are independent of the experimental setting) and processes related to predictability (which differ as a function of the experimental environment). To this end, we conducted three ERP studies contrasting the processing of antonym relations (black-white) with that of related (black-yellow) and unrelated (black-nice) word pairs. Whereas the lexical-semantic manipulation was kept constant across experiments, the experimental environment and the task demands varied: Experiment 1 presented the word pairs in a sentence context of the form The opposite of X is Y and used a sensicality judgment. Experiment 2 used a word pair presentation mode and a lexical decision task. Experiment 3 also examined word pairs, but with an antonymy judgment task. All three experiments revealed a graded N400 response (unrelated > related > antonyms), thus supporting the assumption that semantic associations are processed automatically. In addition, the experiments revealed that, in highly constrained task environments, the N400 gradation occurs simultaneously with a P300 effect for the antonym condition, thus leading to the superficial impression of an extremely "reduced" N400 for antonym pairs. Comparisons across experiments and participant groups revealed that the P300 effect is not only a function of stimulus constraints (i.e., sentence context) and experimental task, but that it is also crucially influenced by individual processing strategies used to achieve successful task performance.

Effects of Aging and Education on False Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Yuh-Shiow; Lee, Chia-Lin; Yang, Hua-Te

2012-01-01

This study examined the effects of aging and education on participants' false memory for words that were not presented. Three age groups of participants with either a high or low education level were asked to study lists of semantically related words. Both age and education were found to affect veridical and false memory, as indicated in the…

Age Differences in Recall and Information Processing in Verbal and Spatial Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mungas, Dan; And Others

1991-01-01

Three age groups of 24 people each completed verbal word list tasks and spatial learning tasks 5 times each. Significant age differences were found for total recall and type of task. Younger subjects showed increased levels of clustering--organizing information according to semantic or spatial clusters. Age was not related to temporal order of…

Functional Semantics.

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-01-01

teory. TD T .... A PR 4 983 Dr. H uare’s reerc was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Contract F49620-S0-C-000 I). CoMpO , was...REPORTOATIf., Mathematical & Information Sciences Directorate Air Force Office of Scientific Research -1. NUMBER OF AGE Bolling AFB DC 20332 31 14...programs, that is, prove things about them and their specifications. This pqe describes the so- called "functional semantics" of Mills [8,9], which combines

Acquisition of locative utterances in Norwegian: structure-building via lexical learning.

PubMed

Mitrofanova, Natalia; Westergaard, Marit

2018-03-15

This paper focuses on the acquisition of locative prepositional phrases in L1 Norwegian. We report on two production experiments with children acquiring Norwegian as their first language and compare the results to similar experiments conducted with Russian children. The results of the experiments show that Norwegian children at age 2 regularly produce locative utterances lacking overt prepositions, with the rate of preposition omission decreasing significantly by age 3. Furthermore, our results suggest that phonologically strong and semantically unambiguous locative items appear earlier in Norwegian children's utterances than their phonologically weak and semantically ambiguous counterparts. This conclusion is confirmed by a corpus study. We argue that our results are best captured by the Underspecified P Hypothesis (UPH; Mitrofanova, 2017), which assumes that, at early stages of grammatical development, the underlying structure of locative utterances is underspecified, with more complex functional representations emerging gradually based on the input. This approach predicts that the rate of acquisition in the domain of locative PPs should be influenced by the lexical properties of individual language-specific grammatical elements (such as frequency, morphological complexity, phonological salience, or semantic ambiguity). Our data from child Norwegian show that this prediction is borne out. Specifically, the results of our study suggest that phonologically more salient and semantically unambiguous items are mastered earlier than their ambiguous and phonologically less salient counterparts, despite the higher frequency of the latter in the input (Clahsen et al., 1996).

Toward a Nonspeech Test of Auditory Cognition: Semantic Context Effects in Environmental Sound Identification in Adults of Varying Age and Hearing Abilities

PubMed Central

Sheft, Stanley; Norris, Molly; Spanos, George; Radasevich, Katherine; Formsma, Paige; Gygi, Brian

2016-01-01

Objective Sounds in everyday environments tend to follow one another as events unfold over time. The tacit knowledge of contextual relationships among environmental sounds can influence their perception. We examined the effect of semantic context on the identification of sequences of environmental sounds by adults of varying age and hearing abilities, with an aim to develop a nonspeech test of auditory cognition. Method The familiar environmental sound test (FEST) consisted of 25 individual sounds arranged into ten five-sound sequences: five contextually coherent and five incoherent. After hearing each sequence, listeners identified each sound and arranged them in the presentation order. FEST was administered to young normal-hearing, middle-to-older normal-hearing, and middle-to-older hearing-impaired adults (Experiment 1), and to postlingual cochlear-implant users and young normal-hearing adults tested through vocoder-simulated implants (Experiment 2). Results FEST scores revealed a strong positive effect of semantic context in all listener groups, with young normal-hearing listeners outperforming other groups. FEST scores also correlated with other measures of cognitive ability, and for CI users, with the intelligibility of speech-in-noise. Conclusions Being sensitive to semantic context effects, FEST can serve as a nonspeech test of auditory cognition for diverse listener populations to assess and potentially improve everyday listening skills. PMID:27893791

Visual noise disrupts conceptual integration in reading.

PubMed

Gao, Xuefei; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A L; Noh, Soo Rim; Eskew, Rhea T

2011-02-01

The Effortfulness Hypothesis suggests that sensory impairment (either simulated or age-related) may decrease capacity for semantic integration in language comprehension. We directly tested this hypothesis by measuring resource allocation to different levels of processing during reading (i.e., word vs. semantic analysis). College students read three sets of passages word-by-word, one at each of three levels of dynamic visual noise. There was a reliable interaction between processing level and noise, such that visual noise increased resources allocated to word-level processing, at the cost of attention paid to semantic analysis. Recall of the most important ideas also decreased with increasing visual noise. Results suggest that sensory challenge can impair higher-level cognitive functions in learning from text, supporting the Effortfulness Hypothesis.

Generation Y, wine and alcohol. A semantic differential approach to consumption analysis in Tuscany.

PubMed

Marinelli, Nicola; Fabbrizzi, Sara; Alampi Sottini, Veronica; Sacchelli, Sandro; Bernetti, Iacopo; Menghini, Silvio

2014-04-01

The aim of the study is the elicitation of the consumer's semantic perception of different alcoholic beverages in order to provide information for the definition of communication strategies for both the private sector (and specifically the wine industry) and the public decision maker. Such information can be seen as the basis of a wider social marketing construct aimed at the promotion of responsible drinking among young consumers. The semantic differential approach was used in this study. The data collection was based on a survey to 430 consumers between 18 and 35years old in Tuscany, Italy. The database was organized in a three-way structure, indexing the data in a multiway matrix. The data were processed using a Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA). Moreover, homogeneous clusters of consumers were identified using a Hierarchical Clustering on Principal Components (HCPC) approach. The results of the study highlight that beer and spirits are mainly perceived as "Young", "Social", "Euphoric", "Happy", "Appealing" and "Trendy" beverages, while wine is associated mostly with terms such as "Pleasure", "Quality" and "Comfortable". Furthermore, the cluster analysis allowed for the identification of three groups of individuals with different approaches to alcohol drinking. The results of the study supply a useful information framework for the elaboration of specific communication strategies that, based on the drinking habits of young consumers and their perception of different beverages, can use a language that is very close to the consumer typologies. Such information can be helpful for both private and public communication strategies. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Cognitive and Neural Effects of Semantic Encoding Strategy Training in Older Adults

PubMed Central

Anderson, B. A.; Barch, D. M.; Jacoby, L. L.

2012-01-01

Prior research suggests that older adults are less likely than young adults to use effective learning strategies during intentional encoding. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated whether training older adults to use semantic encoding strategies can increase their self-initiated use of these strategies and improve their recognition memory. The effects of training on older adults' brain activity during intentional encoding were also examined. Training increased older adults' self-initiated semantic encoding strategy use and eliminated pretraining age differences in recognition memory following intentional encoding. Training also increased older adults' brain activity in the medial superior frontal gyrus, right precentral gyrus, and left caudate during intentional encoding. In addition, older adults' training-related changes in recognition memory were strongly correlated with training-related changes in brain activity in prefrontal and left lateral temporal regions associated with semantic processing and self-initiated verbal encoding strategy use in young adults. These neuroimaging results demonstrate that semantic encoding strategy training can alter older adults' brain activity patterns during intentional encoding and suggest that young and older adults may use the same network of brain regions to support self-initiated use of verbal encoding strategies. PMID:21709173

The role of lexical variables in the visual recognition of Chinese characters: A megastudy analysis.

PubMed

Sze, Wei Ping; Yap, Melvin J; Rickard Liow, Susan J

2015-01-01

Logographic Chinese orthography partially represents both phonology and semantics. By capturing the online processing of a large pool of Chinese characters, we were able to examine the relative salience of specific lexical variables when this nonalphabetic script is read. Using a sample of native mainland Chinese speakers (N = 35), lexical decision latencies for 1560 single characters were collated into a database, before the effects of a comprehensive range of variables were explored. Hierarchical regression analyses determined the unique item-level variance explained by orthographic (frequency, stroke count), semantic (age of learning, imageability, number of meanings), and phonological (consistency, phonological frequency) factors. Orthographic and semantic variables, respectively, accounted for more collective variance than the phonological variables. Significant main effects were further observed for the individual orthographic and semantic predictors. These results are consistent with the idea that skilled readers tend to rely on orthographic and semantic information when processing visually presented characters. This megastudy approach marks an important extension to existing work on Chinese character recognition, which hitherto has relied on factorial designs. Collectively, the findings reported here represent a useful set of empirical constraints for future computational models of character recognition.

Implicit semantic priming in Spanish-speaking children and adults: an auditory lexical decision task.

PubMed

Girbau, Dolors; Schwartz, Richard G

2011-05-01

Although receptive priming has long been used as a way to examine lexical access in adults, few studies have applied this method to children and rarely in an auditory modality. We compared auditory associative priming in children and adults. A testing battery and a Lexical Decision (LD) task was administered to 42 adults and 27 children (8;1-10; 11 years-old) from Spain. They listened to Spanish word pairs (semantically related/unrelated word pairs and word-pseudoword pairs), and tone pairs. Then participants pressed one key for word pairs, and another for pairs with a word and a pseudoword. They also had to press the two keys alternatively for tone pairs as a basic auditory control. Both groups of participants, children and adults, exhibited semantic priming, with significantly faster Reaction Times (RTs) to semantically related word pairs than to unrelated pairs and to the two word-pseudoword sets. The priming effect was twice as large in the adults compared to children, and the children (not the adults) were significantly slower in their response to word-pseudoword pairs than to the unrelated word pairs. Moreover, accuracy was somewhat higher in adults than children for each word pair type, but especially in the word-pseudoword pairs. As expected, children were significantly slower than adults in the RTs for all stimulus types, and their RTs decreased significantly from 8 to 10 years of age and they also decreased in relation to some of their language abilities development (e.g., relative clauses comprehension). In both age groups, the Reaction Time average for tone pairs was lower than for speech pairs, but only all adults obtained 100% accuracy (which was slightly lower in children). Auditory processing and semantic networks are still developing in 8-10 year old children.

Dissociating linguistic and non-linguistic gesture processing: electrophysiological evidence from American Sign Language.

PubMed

Grosvald, Michael; Gutierrez, Eva; Hafer, Sarah; Corina, David

2012-04-01

A fundamental advance in our understanding of human language would come from a detailed account of how non-linguistic and linguistic manual actions are differentiated in real time by language users. To explore this issue, we targeted the N400, an ERP component known to be sensitive to semantic context. Deaf signers saw 120 American Sign Language sentences, each consisting of a "frame" (a sentence without the last word; e.g. BOY SLEEP IN HIS) followed by a "last item" belonging to one of four categories: a high-close-probability sign (a "semantically reasonable" completion to the sentence; e.g. BED), a low-close-probability sign (a real sign that is nonetheless a "semantically odd" completion to the sentence; e.g. LEMON), a pseudo-sign (phonologically legal but non-lexical form), or a non-linguistic grooming gesture (e.g. the performer scratching her face). We found significant N400-like responses in the incongruent and pseudo-sign contexts, while the gestures elicited a large positivity. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Foveal splitting causes differential processing of Chinese orthography in the male and female brain.

PubMed

Hsiao, Janet Hui-Wen; Shillcock, Richard

2005-10-01

Chinese characters contain separate phonetic and semantic radicals. A dominant character type exists in which the semantic radical is on the left and the phonetic radical on the right; an opposite, minority structure also exists, with the semantic radical on the right and the phonetic radical on the left. We show that, when asked to pronounce isolated tokens of these two character types, males responded significantly faster when the phonetic information was on the right, whereas females showed a non-significant tendency in the opposite direction. Recent research on foveal structure and reading suggests that the two halves of a centrally fixated character are initially processed in different hemispheres. The male brain typically relies more on the left hemisphere for phonological processing compared with the female brain, causing this gender difference to emerge. This interaction is predicted by an implemented computational model. This study supports the existence of a gender difference in phonological processing, and shows that the effects of foveal splitting in reading extend far enough into word recognition to interact with the gender of the reader in a naturalistic reading task.

Dissociating linguistic and non-linguistic gesture processing: Electrophysiological evidence from American Sign Language

PubMed Central

Grosvald, Michael; Gutierrez, Eva; Hafer, Sarah; Corina, David

2012-01-01

A fundamental advance in our understanding of human language would come from a detailed account of how non-linguistic and linguistic manual actions are differentiated in real time by language users. To explore this issue, we targeted the N400, an ERP component known to be sensitive to semantic context. Deaf signers saw 120 American Sign Language sentences, each consisting of a “frame” (a sentence without the last word; e.g. BOY SLEEP IN HIS) followed by a “last item” belonging to one of four categories: a high-cloze-probability sign (a “semantically reasonable” completion to the sentence; e.g. BED), a low-cloze-probability sign (a real sign that is nonetheless a “semantically odd” completion to the sentence; e.g. LEMON), a pseudo-sign (phonologically legal but non-lexical form), or a non-linguistic grooming gesture (e.g. the performer scratching her face). We found significant N400-like responses in the incongruent and pseudo-sign contexts, while the gestures elicited a large positivity. PMID:22341555

Semantic evaluations of noise with tonal components in Japan, France, and Germany: a cross-cultural comparison.

PubMed

Hansen, Hans; Weber, Reinhard

2009-02-01

An evaluation of tonal components in noise using a semantic differential approach yields several perceptual and connotative factors. This study investigates the effect of culture on these factors with the aid of equivalent listening tests carried out in Japan (n=20), France (n=23), and Germany (n=20). The data's equivalence level is determined by a bias analysis. This analysis gives insight in the cross-cultural validity of the scales used for sound character determination. Three factors were extracted by factor analysis in all cultural subsamples: pleasant, metallic, and power. By employing appropriate target rotations of the factor spaces, the rotated factors were compared and they yield high similarities between the different cultural subsamples. To check cross-cultural differences in means, an item bias analysis was conducted. The a priori assumption of unbiased scales is rejected; the differences obtained are partially linked to bias effects. Acoustical sound descriptors were additionally tested for the semantic dimensions. The high agreement in judgments between the different cultural subsamples contrast the moderate success of the signal parameters to describe the dimensions.

Patterns of brain atrophy associated with episodic memory and semantic fluency decline in aging.

PubMed

Pelletier, Amandine; Bernard, Charlotte; Dilharreguy, Bixente; Helmer, Catherine; Le Goff, Melanie; Chanraud, Sandra; Dartigues, Jean-François; Allard, Michèle; Amieva, Hélène; Catheline, Gwénaëlle

2017-03-09

The cerebral substratum of age-related cognitive decline was evaluated in an elderly-cohort followed for 12 years (n=306). Participants, free of dementia, received neuropsychological assessments every two years and an MRI exam at baseline and four years later. Cognitive decline was evaluated on two broadly used tests to detect dementia: the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT), a verbal episodic memory task, and the Isaacs Set Test (IST), a semantic fluency task. Using voxel-based approach, the relationship between cognitive decline with 1/ baseline grey matter volumes and 2/ grey matter volume loss between the two scans was explored. Baseline volumes analysis revealed that FCSRT and IST declines were both associated with lower volumes of the medial temporal region. Volumes loss analysis confirmed that both declines are related to medial temporal lobe atrophy and revealed that FCSRT decline was specifically associated with atrophy of the posterior cingulate cortex whereas IST decline was specifically related to temporal pole atrophy. These results suggest that cognitive decline across aging is firstly related to structural modifications of the medial temporal lobe, followed by an atrophy in the posterior midline structures for episodic memory and an atrophy of the temporal pole for semantic fluency.

Semantic processing of actions at 9months is linked to language proficiency at 9 and 18months.

PubMed

Kaduk, Katharina; Bakker, Marta; Juvrud, Joshua; Gredebäck, Gustaf; Westermann, Gert; Lunn, Judith; Reid, Vincent M

2016-11-01

The current study uses event-related potential methodologies to investigate how social-cognitive processes in preverbal infants relate to language performance. We assessed 9-month-olds' understanding of the semantic structure of actions via an N400 event-related potential (ERP) response to action sequences that contained expected and unexpected outcomes. At 9 and 18months of age, infants' language abilities were measured using the Swedish Early Communicative Development Inventory (SECDI). Here we show that 9-month-olds' understanding of the semantic structure of actions, evidenced in an N400 ERP response to action sequences with unexpected outcomes, is related to language comprehension scores at 9months and is related to language production scores at 18months of age. Infants who showed a selective N400 response to unexpected action outcomes are those who are classed as above mean in their language proficiency. The results provide evidence that language performance is related to the ability to detect and interpret human actions at 9months of age. This study suggests that some basic cognitive mechanisms are involved in the processing of sequential events that are shared between two conceptually different cognitive domains and that pre-linguistic social understanding skills and language proficiency are linked to one another. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Measurements and Analyses of Science Interest in a School District.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bauman, Daniel Joseph

Reported is a study to investigate the relationship of science interest with three instrument formats: scaled rating, block, and card sort. The scaled rating format was the same form as that used in Likert instruments. The block format was the graphic form used in the typical semantic differential where a single stem or concept is followed by…

Prototypical Images in Condom Scripts among AIDS-Bereaved Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reich, Warren A.; Rubin, Rachel M.

2007-01-01

Twenty-five HIV-negative late adolescents (13 women and 12 men) who had lost a parent to AIDS generated vignettes in which the characters were deciding whether to use a condom (condom scripts). Two clinically trained judges rated the interpersonal tone of the condom scripts on 17 semantic differential scales. Three other clinically trained raters…

Comparison of the Effects of Episodic Organizers and Traditional Notetaking on Story Recall. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Denner, Peter R.

Since the precise nature of the effects of notetaking encoding has not been clearly specified, a study involving 111 suburban seventh graders (southeastern Idaho) explored the differential effects of traditional notetaking and of episodic organizers (a type of semantic web or map) on the encoding of complex narrative passages. Subjects were…

Processing Biological Gender and Number Information during Chinese Pronoun Resolution: ERP Evidence for Functional Differentiation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xu, Xiaodong; Jiang, Xiaoming; Zhou, Xiaolin

2013-01-01

There have been a number of behavioral and neural studies on the processing of syntactic gender and number agreement information, marked by different morpho-syntactic features during sentence comprehension. By using the event-related potential (ERP) technique, the present study investigated whether the processing of semantic gender information and…