Why all the confusion? Experimental task explains discrepant semantic priming effects in schizophrenia under "automatic" conditions: evidence from Event-Related Potentials.

PubMed

Kreher, Donna A; Goff, Donald; Kuperberg, Gina R

2009-06-01

The schizophrenia research literature contains many differing accounts of semantic memory function in schizophrenia as assessed through the semantic priming paradigm. Most recently, Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) have been used to demonstrate both increased and decreased semantic priming at a neural level in schizophrenia patients, relative to healthy controls. The present study used ERPs to investigate the role of behavioral task in determining neural semantic priming effects in schizophrenia. The same schizophrenia patients and healthy controls completed two experiments in which word stimuli were identical, and the time between the onset of prime and target remained constant at 350 ms: in the first, participants monitored for words within a particular semantic category that appeared only in filler items (implicit task); in the second, participants explicitly rated the relatedness of word-pairs (explicit task). In the explicit task, schizophrenia patients showed reduced direct and indirect semantic priming in comparison with healthy controls. In contrast, in the implicit task, schizophrenia patients showed normal or, in positively thought-disordered patients, increased direct and indirect N400 priming effects compared with healthy controls. These data confirm that, although schizophrenia patients with positive thought disorder may show an abnormally increased automatic spreading activation, the introduction of semantic decision-making can result in abnormally reduced semantic priming in schizophrenia, even when other experimental conditions bias toward automatic processing.

Electrophysiological correlates of semantic memory retrieval in Gulf War Syndrome 2 patients.

PubMed

Tillman, Gail D; Calley, Clifford S; Buhl, Virginia I; Chiang, Hsueh-Sheng; Haley, Robert W; Hart, John; Kraut, Michael A

2017-02-15

Gulf War veterans meeting criteria for Haley Syndrome 2 of Gulf War illness endorse a particular constellation of symptoms that include difficulty with processing information, word-finding, and confusion. To explore the neural basis of their word-finding difficulty, we assessed event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with semantic memory retrieval in 22 veterans classified as Syndrome 2 and 28 veterans who served as controls. We recorded EEGs while subjects judged whether pairs of words that represented object features combined to elicit a retrieval of an object memory or no retrieval. Syndrome 2 subjects' responses were significantly slower, and those participants were less accurate than controls on the retrieval trials, but they performed similarly on the nonretrieval trials. Analysis of the ERPs revealed a difference between retrievals and nonretrievals that has previously been detected around 750ms at the left temporal region was present in both the Syndrome 2 patients and controls. However, the Syndrome 2 patients also showed an ERP difference between retrievals and nonretrievals at the midline parietal region that had a scalp voltage polarity opposite from that recorded at the left temporal area. We hypothesize that the similarities between task performance and ERP patterns in Syndrome 2 veterans and in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment reflect disordered thalamic cholinergic neural activity, possibly in the dorsomedial nucleus. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Semantic distance effects on object and action naming.

PubMed

Vigliocco, Gabriella; Vinson, David P; Damian, Markus F; Levelt, Willem

2002-10-01

Graded interference effects were tested in a naming task, in parallel for objects and actions. Participants named either object or action pictures presented in the context of other pictures (blocks) that were either semantically very similar, or somewhat semantically similar or semantically dissimilar. We found that naming latencies for both object and action words were modulated by the semantic similarity between the exemplars in each block, providing evidence in both domains of graded semantic effects.

Counterpoint: Practice versus Process--Rigidity of Reinforcement Requirements Results in Regressive Research: A Reply to Ward.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biederman, Gerald B.; Davey, Valerie A.

1995-01-01

This counterpoint responds to Phillip Ward's commentary on a study by Gerald Biederman and others which concluded that verbal reinforcement in combination with interactive modeling strategies may produce confusion in children with language/learning difficulties. The counterpoint argues that the commentary indicates problems with semantics and with…

Dissociating the semantic function of two neighbouring subregions in the left lateral anterior temporal lobe

PubMed Central

Sanjuán, Ana; Hope, Thomas M.H.; Parker Jones, 'Ōiwi; Prejawa, Susan; Oberhuber, Marion; Guerin, Julie; Seghier, Mohamed L.; Green, David W.; Price, Cathy J.

2015-01-01

We used fMRI in 35 healthy participants to investigate how two neighbouring subregions in the lateral anterior temporal lobe (LATL) contribute to semantic matching and object naming. Four different levels of processing were considered: (A) recognition of the object concepts; (B) search for semantic associations related to object stimuli; (C) retrieval of semantic concepts of interest; and (D) retrieval of stimulus specific concepts as required for naming. During semantic association matching on picture stimuli or heard object names, we found that activation in both subregions was higher when the objects were semantically related (mug–kettle) than unrelated (car–teapot). This is consistent with both LATL subregions playing a role in (C), the successful retrieval of amodal semantic concepts. In addition, one subregion was more activated for object naming than matching semantically related objects, consistent with (D), the retrieval of a specific concept for naming. We discuss the implications of these novel findings for cognitive models of semantic processing and left anterior temporal lobe function. PMID:25496810

Intrusive effects of semantic information on visual selective attention.

PubMed

Malcolm, George L; Rattinger, Michelle; Shomstein, Sarah

2016-10-01

Every object is represented by semantic information in extension to its low-level properties. It is well documented that such information biases attention when it is necessary for an ongoing task. However, whether semantic relationships influence attentional selection when they are irrelevant to the ongoing task remains an open question. The ubiquitous nature of semantic information suggests that it could bias attention even when these properties are irrelevant. In the present study, three objects appeared on screen, two of which were semantically related. After a varying time interval, a target or distractor appeared on top of each object. The objects' semantic relationships never predicted the target location. Despite this, a semantic bias on attentional allocation was observed, with an initial, transient bias to semantically related objects. Further experiments demonstrated that this effect was contingent on the objects being attended: if an object never contained the target, it no longer exerted a semantic influence. In a final set of experiments, we demonstrated that the semantic bias is robust and appears even in the presence of more predictive cues (spatial probability). These results suggest that as long as an object is attended, its semantic properties bias attention, even if it is irrelevant to an ongoing task and if more predictive factors are available.

Semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes

PubMed Central

Hwang, Alex D.; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

2011-01-01

The perception of objects in our visual world is influenced by not only their low-level visual features such as shape and color, but also their high-level features such as meaning and semantic relations among them. While it has been shown that low-level features in real-world scenes guide eye movements during scene inspection and search, the influence of semantic similarity among scene objects on eye movements in such situations has not been investigated. Here we study guidance of eye movements by semantic similarity among objects during real-world scene inspection and search. By selecting scenes from the LabelMe object-annotated image database and applying Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) to the object labels, we generated semantic saliency maps of real-world scenes based on the semantic similarity of scene objects to the currently fixated object or the search target. An ROC analysis of these maps as predictors of subjects’ gaze transitions between objects during scene inspection revealed a preference for transitions to objects that were semantically similar to the currently inspected one. Furthermore, during the course of a scene search, subjects’ eye movements were progressively guided toward objects that were semantically similar to the search target. These findings demonstrate substantial semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes and show its importance for understanding real-world attentional control. PMID:21426914

Semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes.

PubMed

Hwang, Alex D; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

2011-05-25

The perception of objects in our visual world is influenced by not only their low-level visual features such as shape and color, but also their high-level features such as meaning and semantic relations among them. While it has been shown that low-level features in real-world scenes guide eye movements during scene inspection and search, the influence of semantic similarity among scene objects on eye movements in such situations has not been investigated. Here we study guidance of eye movements by semantic similarity among objects during real-world scene inspection and search. By selecting scenes from the LabelMe object-annotated image database and applying latent semantic analysis (LSA) to the object labels, we generated semantic saliency maps of real-world scenes based on the semantic similarity of scene objects to the currently fixated object or the search target. An ROC analysis of these maps as predictors of subjects' gaze transitions between objects during scene inspection revealed a preference for transitions to objects that were semantically similar to the currently inspected one. Furthermore, during the course of a scene search, subjects' eye movements were progressively guided toward objects that were semantically similar to the search target. These findings demonstrate substantial semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes and show its importance for understanding real-world attentional control. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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.

The Systems Approach to School Administration: Some Perceptions on the State of the Art in 1967.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knezevich, S. J.

Concepts which are salient features of the systems approach do not appear to have permeated school administration beyond the threshold of awareness. Confusion among administrators as to the meaning and potential of the systems approach can be partly attributed to its overzealous adherents, semantic difficulties among experts, and its application…

Improving the Clarity of the Interprofessional Field: Implications for Research and Continuing Interprofessional Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldman, Joanne; Zwarenstein, Merrick; Bhattacharyya, Onil; Reeves, Scott

2009-01-01

Significant investments are being made around the world to improve interprofessional collaboration, yet limits in our knowledge of this field restrict the ability of decision makers to base their decisions upon evidence. Clarity of the interprofessional field is blurred by a conceptual and semantic confusion that affects our understanding of key…

The roles of scene gist and spatial dependency among objects in the semantic guidance of attention in real-world scenes.

PubMed

Wu, Chia-Chien; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

2014-12-01

A previous study (Vision Research 51 (2011) 1192-1205) found evidence for semantic guidance of visual attention during the inspection of real-world scenes, i.e., an influence of semantic relationships among scene objects on overt shifts of attention. In particular, the results revealed an observer bias toward gaze transitions between semantically similar objects. However, this effect is not necessarily indicative of semantic processing of individual objects but may be mediated by knowledge of the scene gist, which does not require object recognition, or by known spatial dependency among objects. To examine the mechanisms underlying semantic guidance, in the present study, participants were asked to view a series of displays with the scene gist excluded and spatial dependency varied. Our results show that spatial dependency among objects seems to be sufficient to induce semantic guidance. Scene gist, on the other hand, does not seem to affect how observers use semantic information to guide attention while viewing natural scenes. Extracting semantic information mainly based on spatial dependency may be an efficient strategy of the visual system that only adds little cognitive load to the viewing task. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Eye Movements to Pictures Reveal Transient Semantic Activation during Spoken Word Recognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yee, Eiling; Sedivy, Julie C.

2006-01-01

Two experiments explore the activation of semantic information during spoken word recognition. Experiment 1 shows that as the name of an object unfolds (e.g., lock), eye movements are drawn to pictorial representations of both the named object and semantically related objects (e.g., key). Experiment 2 shows that objects semantically related to an…

Developmental amnesia: Fractionation of developing memory systems.

PubMed

Temple, Christine M; Richardson, Paul

2006-07-01

Study of the developmental amnesias utilizing a cognitive neuropsychological methodology has highlighted the dissociations that may occur between the development of components of memory. M.M., a new case of developmental amnesia, was identified after screening from the normal population on cognitive and memory measures. Retrospective investigation found that he was of low birthweight. M.M. had impaired semantic memory for knowledge of facts and words. There was impaired episodic memory for words and stories but intact episodic memory for visual designs and features. This forms a double dissociation with Dr S. (Temple, 1992), who had intact verbal but impaired visual episodic memory. M.M. also had impaired autobiographical episodic memory. Nevertheless, learning over repeated trials occurred, consistent with previous theorizing that learning is not simply the effect of recurrent episodic memory. Nor is it the same as establishing semantic memory, since for M.M. semantic memory is also impaired. Within reading, there was an impaired lexico-semantic system, elevated levels of homophone confusion, but intact phonological reading, consistent with surface dyslexia and raising issues about the interrelationship of the semantic system and literacy development. The results are compatible with discrete semi-independent components within memory development, whereby deficits are associated with residual normality, but there may also be an explicit relationship between the semantic memory system and both vocabulary and reading acquisition.

Semantic attributes are encoded in human electrocorticographic signals during visual object recognition.

PubMed

Rupp, Kyle; Roos, Matthew; Milsap, Griffin; Caceres, Carlos; Ratto, Christopher; Chevillet, Mark; Crone, Nathan E; Wolmetz, Michael

2017-03-01

Non-invasive neuroimaging studies have shown that semantic category and attribute information are encoded in neural population activity. Electrocorticography (ECoG) offers several advantages over non-invasive approaches, but the degree to which semantic attribute information is encoded in ECoG responses is not known. We recorded ECoG while patients named objects from 12 semantic categories and then trained high-dimensional encoding models to map semantic attributes to spectral-temporal features of the task-related neural responses. Using these semantic attribute encoding models, untrained objects were decoded with accuracies comparable to whole-brain functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), and we observed that high-gamma activity (70-110Hz) at basal occipitotemporal electrodes was associated with specific semantic dimensions (manmade-animate, canonically large-small, and places-tools). Individual patient results were in close agreement with reports from other imaging modalities on the time course and functional organization of semantic processing along the ventral visual pathway during object recognition. The semantic attribute encoding model approach is critical for decoding objects absent from a training set, as well as for studying complex semantic encodings without artificially restricting stimuli to a small number of semantic categories. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Is naming faces different from naming objects? Semantic interference in a face- and object-naming task.

PubMed

Marful, Alejandra; Paolieri, Daniela; Bajo, M Teresa

2014-04-01

A current debate regarding face and object naming concerns whether they are equally vulnerable to semantic interference. Although some studies have shown similar patterns of interference, others have revealed different effects for faces and objects. In Experiment 1, we compared face naming to object naming when exemplars were presented in a semantically homogeneous context (grouped by their category) or in a semantically heterogeneous context (mixed) across four cycles. The data revealed significant slowing for both face and object naming in the homogeneous context. This semantic interference was explained as being due to lexical competition from the conceptual activation of category members. When focusing on the first cycle, a facilitation effect for objects but not for faces appeared. This result permits us to explain the previously observed discrepancies between face and object naming. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, with the exception that half of the stimuli were presented as face/object names for reading. Semantic interference was present for both face and object naming, suggesting that faces and objects behave similarly during naming. Interestingly, during reading, semantic interference was observed for face names but not for object names. This pattern is consistent with previous assumptions proposing the activation of a person identity during face name reading.

Abnormal object recall and anterior cingulate overactivation correlate with formal thought disorder in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Assaf, Michal; Rivkin, Paul R; Kuzu, Cheedem H; Calhoun, Vince D; Kraut, Michael A; Groth, Karyn M; Yassa, Michael A; Hart, John; Pearlson, Godfrey D

2006-03-01

The neural basis of formal thought disorder (FTD) is unknown. An influential theory is that FTD results from impaired semantic memory processing. We explored the neural correlates of semantic memory retrieval in schizophrenia using an imaging task assessing semantic object recall. Sixteen healthy control subjects and sixteen schizophrenia patients whose FTD symptoms were measured with the Thought Disorder Index completed a verbal object-recall task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants viewed two words describing object features that either evoked (object recall) or did not evoke a semantic concept. Schizophrenia patients tended to overrecall objects for feature pairs that did not describe the same object. Functionally, rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activation in patients positively correlated with FTD severity during both correct recalled and overrecalled trials. Compared with control subjects, during object recalling, patients overactivated bilateral ACC, temporooccipital junctions, temporal poles and parahippocampi, right inferior frontal gyrus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, but underactivated inferior parietal lobules. Our results support impaired semantic memory retrieval as underlying FTD pathophysiology. Schizophrenia patients showed abnormal activations of brain areas involved in semantic memory, verbal working memory, and initiation and suppression of conflicting responses, which were associated with semantic overrecall and FTD.

Stuck on semantics: Processing of irrelevant object-scene inconsistencies modulates ongoing gaze behavior.

PubMed

Cornelissen, Tim H W; Võ, Melissa L-H

2017-01-01

People have an amazing ability to identify objects and scenes with only a glimpse. How automatic is this scene and object identification? Are scene and object semantics-let alone their semantic congruity-processed to a degree that modulates ongoing gaze behavior even if they are irrelevant to the task at hand? Objects that do not fit the semantics of the scene (e.g., a toothbrush in an office) are typically fixated longer and more often than objects that are congruent with the scene context. In this study, we overlaid a letter T onto photographs of indoor scenes and instructed participants to search for it. Some of these background images contained scene-incongruent objects. Despite their lack of relevance to the search, we found that participants spent more time in total looking at semantically incongruent compared to congruent objects in the same position of the scene. Subsequent tests of explicit and implicit memory showed that participants did not remember many of the inconsistent objects and no more of the consistent objects. We argue that when we view natural environments, scene and object relationships are processed obligatorily, such that irrelevant semantic mismatches between scene and object identity can modulate ongoing eye-movement behavior.

The Role of Shape in Semantic Memory Organization of Objects: An Experimental Study Using PI-Release.

PubMed

van Weelden, Lisanne; Schilperoord, Joost; Swerts, Marc; Pecher, Diane

2015-01-01

Visual information contributes fundamentally to the process of object categorization. The present study investigated whether the degree of activation of visual information in this process is dependent on the contextual relevance of this information. We used the Proactive Interference (PI-release) paradigm. In four experiments, we manipulated the information by which objects could be categorized and subsequently be retrieved from memory. The pattern of PI-release showed that if objects could be stored and retrieved both by (non-perceptual) semantic and (perceptual) shape information, then shape information was overruled by semantic information. If, however, semantic information could not be (satisfactorily) used to store and retrieve objects, then objects were stored in memory in terms of their shape. The latter effect was found to be strongest for objects from identical semantic categories.

The Dynamic Microstructure of Speech Production: Semantic Interference Built on the Fly

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abdel Rahman, Rasha; Melinger, Alissa

2011-01-01

We present 4 experiments investigating dynamic and flexible aspects of semantic activation spread during speech planning. In a semantic blocking paradigm, pictures of objects were presented in categorically homogeneous blocks consisting of semantic category members (e.g., foods), in blocks consisting of seemingly unrelated objects that could…

An Intelligent Semantic E-Learning Framework Using Context-Aware Semantic Web Technologies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Weihong; Webster, David; Wood, Dawn; Ishaya, Tanko

2006-01-01

Recent developments of e-learning specifications such as Learning Object Metadata (LOM), Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), Learning Design and other pedagogy research in semantic e-learning have shown a trend of applying innovative computational techniques, especially Semantic Web technologies, to promote existing content-focused…

Cognitive and Anatomical Underpinnings of the Conceptual Knowledge for Common Objects and Familiar People: A Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study

PubMed Central

Campanella, Fabio; Fabbro, Franco; Urgesi, Cosimo

2013-01-01

Several studies have addressed the issue of how knowledge of common objects is organized in the brain, whereas the cognitive and anatomical underpinnings of familiar people knowledge have been less explored. Here we applied repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left and right temporal poles before asking healthy individuals to perform a speeded word-to-picture matching task using familiar people and common objects as stimuli. We manipulated two widely used semantic variables, namely the semantic distance and the familiarity of stimuli, to assess whether the semantic organization of familiar people knowledge is similar to that of common objects. For both objects and faces we reliably found semantic distance and familiarity effects, with less accurate and slower responses for stimulus pairs that were more closely related and less familiar. However, the effects of semantic variables differed across categories, with semantic distance effects larger for objects and familiarity effects larger for faces, suggesting that objects and faces might share a partially comparable organization of their semantic representations. The application of rTMS to the left temporal pole modulated, for both categories, semantic distance, but not familiarity effects, revealing that accessing object and face concepts might rely on overlapping processes within left anterior temporal regions. Crucially, rTMS of the left temporal pole affected only the recognition of pairs of stimuli that could be discriminated at specific levels of categorization (e.g., two kitchen tools or two famous persons), with no effect for discriminations at either superordinate or individual levels. Conversely, rTMS of the right temporal pole induced an overall slowing of reaction times that positively correlated with the visual similarity of the stimuli, suggesting a more perceptual rather than semantic role of the right anterior temporal regions. Results are discussed in the light of current models of face and object semantic representations in the brain. PMID:23704999

Distinct progression of the deterioration of thematic and taxonomic links in natural and manufactured objects in Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Simoes Loureiro, Isabelle; Lefebvre, Laurent

2016-10-01

Taxonomic and thematic relationships are core elements of lexico-semantic networks. However, the weight of both links differs in semantic memory, with distinct support for natural and manufactured objects: natural objects tend to be more taxonomically identified while manufactured objects benefit more from the underlying thematic relationships. Alzheimer's disease (AD) causes early semantic memory impairment characterized by a category-specific deterioration, where natural objects are more sensitive to the disease than manufactured objects. However, relatively few studies have examined the progressive deterioration of specific thematic versus taxonomic relations in both categories of objects in AD. To better understand semantic memory disorganization in AD and analyze the potential interaction effect between the category (natural/manufactured), the condition (thematic/taxonomic) and AD, we will investigate the lexico-semantic network in 82 AD patients (divided into three groups depending on their global cognitive deterioration and their performance in a preliminary semantic knowledge questionnaire (mild (AD1), moderate (AD2) and advanced (AD3) stages of semantic knowledge alteration). The experimental protocol contains two tasks: an implicit semantic priming paradigm and an explicit card-sorting test that uses the same items, equally divided between natural and manufactured objects. Results show a distinct taxonomic and thematic evolution pattern with early taxonomic deterioration. Natural objects are also more vulnerable to the disease. Lastly, there is an interaction effect between the category and the condition in the priming task indicating that natural objects are more taxonomically organized and manufactured objects benefit more from both thematic and taxonomic organizations, reinforcing the idea of the robustness of this category. The theoretical accounts of these observations will be discussed in detail. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cross-Domain Shoe Retrieval with a Semantic Hierarchy of Attribute Classification Network.

PubMed

Zhan, Huijing; Shi, Boxin; Kot, Alex C

2017-08-04

Cross-domain shoe image retrieval is a challenging problem, because the query photo from the street domain (daily life scenario) and the reference photo in the online domain (online shop images) have significant visual differences due to the viewpoint and scale variation, self-occlusion, and cluttered background. This paper proposes the Semantic Hierarchy Of attributE Convolutional Neural Network (SHOE-CNN) with a three-level feature representation for discriminative shoe feature expression and efficient retrieval. The SHOE-CNN with its newly designed loss function systematically merges semantic attributes of closer visual appearances to prevent shoe images with the obvious visual differences being confused with each other; the features extracted from image, region, and part levels effectively match the shoe images across different domains. We collect a large-scale shoe dataset composed of 14341 street domain and 12652 corresponding online domain images with fine-grained attributes to train our network and evaluate our system. The top-20 retrieval accuracy improves significantly over the solution with the pre-trained CNN features.

The Semantic Distance Task: Quantifying Semantic Distance with Semantic Network Path Length

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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

2017-01-01

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…

Neural correlates of the object-recall process in semantic memory.

PubMed

Assaf, Michal; Calhoun, Vince D; Kuzu, Cheedem H; Kraut, Michael A; Rivkin, Paul R; Hart, John; Pearlson, Godfrey D

2006-10-30

The recall of an object from features is a specific operation in semantic memory in which the thalamus and pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) are integrally involved. Other higher-order semantic cortices are also likely to be involved. We used the object-recall-from-features paradigm, with more sensitive scanning techniques and larger sample size, to replicate and extend our previous results. Eighteen right-handed healthy participants performed an object-recall task and an association semantic task, while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. During object-recall, subjects determined whether words pairs describing object features combined to recall an object; during the association task they decided if two words were related. Of brain areas specifically involved in object recall, in addition to the thalamus and pre-SMA, other regions included the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal lobule, and middle temporal gyrus, and bilateral rostral anterior cingulate and inferior frontal gyri. These regions are involved in semantic processing, verbal working memory and response-conflict detection and monitoring. The thalamus likely helps to coordinate activity of these different brain areas. Understanding the circuit that normally mediates this process is relevant for schizophrenia, where many regions in this circuit are functionally abnormal and semantic memory is impaired.

A pool of pairs of related objects (POPORO) for investigating visual semantic integration: behavioral and electrophysiological validation.

PubMed

Kovalenko, Lyudmyla Y; Chaumon, Maximilien; Busch, Niko A

2012-07-01

Semantic processing of verbal and visual stimuli has been investigated in semantic violation or semantic priming paradigms in which a stimulus is either related or unrelated to a previously established semantic context. A hallmark of semantic priming is the N400 event-related potential (ERP)--a deflection of the ERP that is more negative for semantically unrelated target stimuli. The majority of studies investigating the N400 and semantic integration have used verbal material (words or sentences), and standardized stimulus sets with norms for semantic relatedness have been published for verbal but not for visual material. However, semantic processing of visual objects (as opposed to words) is an important issue in research on visual cognition. In this study, we present a set of 800 pairs of semantically related and unrelated visual objects. The images were rated for semantic relatedness by a sample of 132 participants. Furthermore, we analyzed low-level image properties and matched the two semantic categories according to these features. An ERP study confirmed the suitability of this image set for evoking a robust N400 effect of semantic integration. Additionally, using a general linear modeling approach of single-trial data, we also demonstrate that low-level visual image properties and semantic relatedness are in fact only minimally overlapping. The image set is available for download from the authors' website. We expect that the image set will facilitate studies investigating mechanisms of semantic and contextual processing of visual stimuli.

Confusing similar words: ERP correlates of lexical-semantic processing in first language attrition and late second language acquisition.

PubMed

Kasparian, Kristina; Steinhauer, Karsten

2016-12-01

First language (L1) attrition is a socio-linguistic circumstance where second language (L2) learning coincides with changes in exposure and use of the native-L1. Attriters often report experiencing a decline in automaticity or proficiency in their L1 after a prolonged period in the L2 environment, while their L2 proficiency continues to strengthen. Investigating the neurocognitive correlates of attrition alongside those of late L2 acquisition addresses the question of whether the brain mechanisms underlying both L1 and L2 processing are strongly determined by proficiency, irrespective of whether the language was acquired from birth or in adulthood. Using event-related-potentials (ERPs), we examined lexical-semantic processing in Italian L1 attriters, compared to adult Italian L2 learners and to Italian monolingual native speakers. We contrasted the processing of classical lexical-semantic violations (Mismatch condition) with sentences that were equally semantically implausible but arguably trickier, as the target-noun was "swapped" with an orthographic neighbor that differed only in its final vowel and gender-marking morpheme (e.g., cappello (hat) vs. cappella (chapel)). Our aim was to determine whether sentences with such "confusable nouns" (Swap condition) would be processed as semantically correct by late L2 learners and L1 attriters, especially for those individuals with lower Italian proficiency scores. We found that lower-proficiency Italian speakers did not show significant N400 effects for Swap violations relative to correct sentences, regardless of whether Italian was the L1 or the L2. Crucially, N400 response profiles followed a continuum of "nativelikeness" predicted by Italian proficiency scores - high-proficiency attriters and high-proficiency Italian learners were indistinguishable from native controls, whereas attriters and L2 learners in the lower-proficiency range showed significantly reduced N400 effects for "Swap" errors. Importantly, attriters and late L2 learners did not differ in their N400 responses when they belonged to the same proficiency subgroup. Attriters also showed an enhanced P600 response to both kinds of lexical-semantic anomalies, which we discuss as reflecting increased conflict-monitoring and conscious "second thought" processes specifically in attriters. Our findings provide some of the first ERP evidence of attrition effects, and are compatible with accounts of ongoing neuroplasticity for language in adulthood. Proficiency, rather than age-of-acquisition, seems to be the key factor in modulating certain neurocognitive responses, not only within L2 learners but also in L1 attriters. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic access occurs outside of awareness for the ground side of a figure.

PubMed

Cacciamani, Laura; Mojica, Andrew J; Sanguinetti, Joseph L; Peterson, Mary A

2014-11-01

Traditional theories of vision assume that figures and grounds are assigned early in processing, with semantics being accessed later and only by figures, not by grounds. We tested this assumption by showing observers novel silhouettes with borders that suggested familiar objects on their ground side. The ground appeared shapeless near the figure's borders; the familiar objects suggested there were not consciously perceived. Participants' task was to categorize words shown immediately after the silhouettes as naming natural versus artificial objects. The words named objects from the same or from a different superordinate category as the familiar objects suggested in the silhouette ground. In Experiment 1, participants categorized words faster when they followed silhouettes suggesting upright familiar objects from the same rather than a different category on their ground sides, whereas no category differences were observed for inverted silhouettes. This is the first study to show unequivocally that, contrary to traditional assumptions, semantics are accessed for objects that might be perceived on the side of a border that will ultimately be perceived as a shapeless ground. Moreover, although the competition for figural status results in suppression of the shape of the losing contender, its semantics are not suppressed. In Experiment 2, we used longer silhouette-to-word stimulus onset asynchronies to test whether semantics would be suppressed later in time, as might occur if semantics were accessed later than shape memories. No evidence of semantic suppression was observed; indeed, semantic activation of the objects suggested on the ground side of a border appeared to be short-lived. Implications for feedforward versus dynamical interactive theories of object perception are discussed.

The elephant in the room: Inconsistency in scene viewing and representation.

PubMed

Spotorno, Sara; Tatler, Benjamin W

2017-10-01

We examined the extent to which semantic informativeness, consistency with expectations and perceptual salience contribute to object prioritization in scene viewing and representation. In scene viewing (Experiments 1-2), semantic guidance overshadowed perceptual guidance in determining fixation order, with the greatest prioritization for objects that were diagnostic of the scene's depicted event. Perceptual properties affected selection of consistent objects (regardless of their informativeness) but not of inconsistent objects. Semantic and perceptual properties also interacted in influencing foveal inspection, as inconsistent objects were fixated longer than low but not high salience diagnostic objects. While not studied in direct competition with each other (each studied in competition with diagnostic objects), we found that inconsistent objects were fixated earlier and for longer than consistent but marginally informative objects. In change detection (Experiment 3), perceptual guidance overshadowed semantic guidance, promoting detection of highly salient changes. A residual advantage for diagnosticity over inconsistency emerged only when selection prioritization could not be based on low-level features. Overall these findings show that semantic inconsistency is not prioritized within a scene when competing with other relevant information that is essential to scene understanding and respects observers' expectations. Moreover, they reveal that the relative dominance of semantic or perceptual properties during selection depends on ongoing task requirements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Using semantic data modeling techniques to organize an object-oriented database for extending the mass storage model

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Campbell, William J.; Short, Nicholas M., Jr.; Roelofs, Larry H.; Dorfman, Erik

1991-01-01

A methodology for optimizing organization of data obtained by NASA earth and space missions is discussed. The methodology uses a concept based on semantic data modeling techniques implemented in a hierarchical storage model. The modeling is used to organize objects in mass storage devices, relational database systems, and object-oriented databases. The semantic data modeling at the metadata record level is examined, including the simulation of a knowledge base and semantic metadata storage issues. The semantic data model hierarchy and its application for efficient data storage is addressed, as is the mapping of the application structure to the mass storage.

The career success of an adult with a learning disability: a psychosocial study of amnesic-semantic aphasia.

PubMed

Kershner, J; Kirkpatrick, T; McLaren, D

1995-02-01

B.I. is a 39-year-old, intellectually gifted (IQ = 130) man with learning disabilities who, without known cause, demonstrated symptoms of amnesic-semantic aphasia at age 13. This led to placement in a public school class for students with mild mental retardation and to his dropping out of school after repeating Grade 9. His aphasia is associated with a severe deficit in speech comprehension, poor reading and writing, spatial confusion, and episodic memory loss. We studied the remarkable behavioral and cognitive adjustments that have enabled him to lead a fulfilling life and become a highly successful business executive. Implications are discussed in the context of patterns of successful functioning and current views of the neuropsychological and neurological bases of such disorders.

Feeling torn when everything seems right: semantic incongruence causes felt ambivalence.

PubMed

Gebauer, Jochen E; Maio, Gregory R; Pakizeh, Ali

2013-06-01

The co-occurrence of positive and negative attributes of an attitude object typically accounts for less than a quarter of the variance in felt ambivalence toward these objects, rendering this evaluative incongruence insufficient for explaining felt ambivalence. The present research tested whether another type of incongruence, semantic incongruence, also causes felt ambivalence. Semantic incongruence arises from inconsistencies in the descriptive content of attitude objects' attributes (e.g., attributes that are not mutually supportive), independent of these attributes' valences. Experiment 1 manipulated evaluative and semantic incongruence using valence norms and semantic norms. Both of these norm-based manipulations independently predicted felt ambivalence, and, in Experiment 2, they even did so over and above self-based incongruence (i.e., participants' idiosyncratic perceptions of evaluative and semantic incongruence). Experiments 3a and 3b revealed that aversive dissonant feelings play a role in the effects of evaluative incongruence, but not semantic incongruence, on felt ambivalence.

Different impairments of semantic cognition in semantic dementia and semantic aphasia: evidence from the non-verbal domain

PubMed Central

Corbett, Faye; Jefferies, Elizabeth; Ehsan, Sheeba

2009-01-01

Disorders of semantic cognition in different neuropsychological conditions result from diverse areas of brain damage and may have different underlying causes. This study used a comparative case-series design to examine the hypothesis that relatively circumscribed bilateral atrophy of the anterior temporal lobe in semantic dementia (SD) produces a gradual degradation of core semantic representations, whilst a deficit of cognitive control produces multi-modal semantic impairment in a subset of patients with stroke aphasia following damage involving the left prefrontal cortex or regions in and around the temporoparietal area; this condition, which transcends traditional aphasia classifications, is referred to as ‘semantic aphasia’ (SA). There have been very few direct comparisons of these patient groups to date and these previous studies have focussed on verbal comprehension. This study used a battery of object-use tasks to extend this line of enquiry into the non-verbal domain for the first time. A group of seven SA patients were identified who failed both word and picture versions of a semantic association task. These patients were compared with eight SD cases. Both groups showed significant deficits in object use but these impairments were qualitatively different. Item familiarity correlated with performance on object-use tasks for the SD group, consistent with the view that core semantic representations are degrading in this condition. In contrast, the SA participants were insensitive to the familiarity of the objects. Further, while the SD patients performed consistently across tasks that tapped different aspects of knowledge and object use for the same items, the performance of the SA participants reflected the control requirements of the tasks. Single object use was relatively preserved in SA but performance on complex mechanical puzzles was substantially impaired. Similarly, the SA patients were able to complete straightforward item matching tasks, such as word-picture matching, but performed more poorly on associative picture-matching tasks, even when the tests involved the same items. The two groups of patients also showed a different pattern of errors in object use. SA patients made substantial numbers of erroneous intrusions in their demonstrations, such as inappropriate object movements. In contrast, response omissions were more common in SD. This study provides converging evidence for qualitatively different impairments of semantic cognition in SD and SA, and uniquely demonstrates this pattern in a non-verbal expressive domain—object use. PMID:19506072

Modelling and approaching pragmatic interoperability of distributed geoscience data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, Xiaogang

2010-05-01

Interoperability of geodata, which is essential for sharing information and discovering insights within a cyberinfrastructure, is receiving increasing attention. A key requirement of interoperability in the context of geodata sharing is that data provided by local sources can be accessed, decoded, understood and appropriately used by external users. Various researchers have discussed that there are four levels in data interoperability issues: system, syntax, schematics and semantics, which respectively relate to the platform, encoding, structure and meaning of geodata. Ontology-driven approaches have been significantly studied addressing schematic and semantic interoperability issues of geodata in the last decade. There are different types, e.g. top-level ontologies, domain ontologies and application ontologies and display forms, e.g. glossaries, thesauri, conceptual schemas and logical theories. Many geodata providers are maintaining their identified local application ontologies in order to drive standardization in local databases. However, semantic heterogeneities often exist between these local ontologies, even though they are derived from equivalent disciplines. In contrast, common ontologies are being studied in different geoscience disciplines (e.g., NAMD, SWEET, etc.) as a standardization procedure to coordinate diverse local ontologies. Semantic mediation, e.g. mapping between local ontologies, or mapping local ontologies to common ontologies, has been studied as an effective way of achieving semantic interoperability between local ontologies thus reconciling semantic heterogeneities in multi-source geodata. Nevertheless, confusion still exists in the research field of semantic interoperability. One problem is caused by eliminating elements of local pragmatic contexts in semantic mediation. Comparing to the context-independent feature of a common domain ontology, local application ontologies are closely related to elements (e.g., people, time, location, intention, procedure, consequence, etc.) of local pragmatic contexts and thus context-dependent. Elimination of these elements will inevitably lead to information loss in semantic mediation between local ontologies. Correspondingly, understanding and effect of exchanged data in a new context may differ from that in its original context. Another problem is the dilemma on how to find a balance between flexibility and standardization of local ontologies, because ontologies are not fixed, but continuously evolving. It is commonly realized that we cannot use a unified ontology to replace all local ontologies because they are context-dependent and need flexibility. However, without coordination of standards, freely developed local ontologies and databases will bring enormous work of mediation between them. Finding a balance between standardization and flexibility for evolving ontologies, in a practical sense, requires negotiations (i.e. conversations, agreements and collaborations) between different local pragmatic contexts. The purpose of this work is to set up a computer-friendly model representing local pragmatic contexts (i.e. geodata sources), and propose a practical semantic negotiation procedure for approaching pragmatic interoperability between local pragmatic contexts. Information agents, objective facts and subjective dimensions are reviewed as elements of a conceptual model for representing pragmatic contexts. The author uses them to draw a practical semantic negotiation procedure approaching pragmatic interoperability of distributed geodata. The proposed conceptual model and semantic negotiation procedure were encoded with Description Logic, and then applied to analyze and manipulate semantic negotiations between different local ontologies within the National Mineral Resources Assessment (NMRA) project of China, which involves multi-source and multi-subject geodata sharing.

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.

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.

Object Recognition Under Semantic Impairment: The Effects of Conceptual Regularities on Perceptual Decisions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rogers, Timothy T.; Hodges, John R.; Ralph, Matthew A. Lambon; Patterson, Karalyn

2003-01-01

Presents evidence that although patients with semantic deficits can sometimes show good performance on tests or object decisions, this pattern applies when nonsee-objects do not respect the regularities of the domain. Patients with semantic dementia viewed line drawings of a real and chimeric animals side-by-side and were asked to decide which was…

Semantics, Pragmatics, and the Nature of Semantic Theories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spewak, David Charles, Jr.

2013-01-01

The primary concern of this dissertation is determining the distinction between semantics and pragmatics and how context sensitivity should be accommodated within a semantic theory. I approach the question over how to distinguish semantics from pragmatics from a new angle by investigating what the objects of a semantic theory are, namely…

Grasping objects by their handles: a necessary interaction between cognition and action

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Creem, S. H.; Proffitt, D. R.; Kaiser, M. K. (Principal Investigator)

2001-01-01

Research has illustrated dissociations between "cognitive" and "action" systems, suggesting that different representations may underlie phenomenal experience and visuomotor behavior. However, these systems also interact. The present studies show a necessary interaction when semantic processing of an object is required for an appropriate action. Experiment 1 demonstrated that a semantic task interfered with grasping objects appropriately by their handles, but a visuospatial task did not. Experiment 2 assessed performance on a visuomotor task that had no semantic component and showed a reversal of the effects of the concurrent tasks. In Experiment 3, variations on concurrent word tasks suggested that retrieval of semantic information was necessary for appropriate grasping. In all, without semantic processing, the visuomotor system can direct the effective grasp of an object, but not in a manner that is appropriate for its use.

Mental representation of symbols as revealed by vocabulary errors in two bonobos (Pan paniscus).

PubMed

Lyn, Heidi

2007-10-01

Error analysis has been used in humans to detect implicit representations and categories in language use. The present study utilizes the same technique to report on mental representations and categories in symbol use from two bonobos (Pan paniscus). These bonobos have been shown in published reports to comprehend English at the level of a two-and-a-half year old child and to use a keyboard with over 200 visuographic symbols (lexigrams). In this study, vocabulary test errors from over 10 years of data revealed auditory, visual, and spatio-temporal generalizations (errors were more likely items that looked like sounded like, or were frequently associated with the sample item in space or in time), as well as hierarchical and conceptual categorizations. These error data, like those of humans, are a result of spontaneous responding rather than specific training and do not solely depend upon the sample mode (e.g. auditory similarity errors are not universally more frequent with an English sample, nor were visual similarity errors universally more frequent with a photograph sample). However, unlike humans, these bonobos do not make errors based on syntactical confusions (e.g. confusing semantically unrelated nouns), suggesting that they may not separate syntactical and semantic information. These data suggest that apes spontaneously create a complex, hierarchical, web of representations when exposed to a symbol system.

Action semantics: A unifying conceptual framework for the selective use of multimodal and modality-specific object knowledge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Elk, Michiel; van Schie, Hein; Bekkering, Harold

2014-06-01

Our capacity to use tools and objects is often considered one of the hallmarks of the human species. Many objects greatly extend our bodily capabilities to act in the physical world, such as when using a hammer or a saw. In addition, humans have the remarkable capability to use objects in a flexible fashion and to combine multiple objects in complex actions. We prepare coffee, cook dinner and drive our car. In this review we propose that humans have developed declarative and procedural knowledge, i.e. action semantics that enables us to use objects in a meaningful way. A state-of-the-art review of research on object use is provided, involving behavioral, developmental, neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies. We show that research in each of these domains is characterized by similar discussions regarding (1) the role of object affordances, (2) the relation between goals and means in object use and (3) the functional and neural organization of action semantics. We propose a novel conceptual framework of action semantics to address these issues and to integrate the previous findings. We argue that action semantics entails both multimodal object representations and modality-specific sub-systems, involving manipulation knowledge, functional knowledge and representations of the sensory and proprioceptive consequences of object use. Furthermore, we argue that action semantics are hierarchically organized and selectively activated and used depending on the action intention of the actor and the current task context. Our framework presents an integrative account of multiple findings and perspectives on object use that may guide future studies in this interdisciplinary domain.

The benefits of sensorimotor knowledge: body-object interaction facilitates semantic processing.

PubMed

Siakaluk, Paul D; Pexman, Penny M; Sears, Christopher R; Wilson, Kim; Locheed, Keri; Owen, William J

2008-04-05

This article examined the effects of body-object interaction (BOI) on semantic processing. BOI measures perceptions of the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. In Experiment 1, BOI effects were examined in 2 semantic categorization tasks (SCT) in which participants decided if words are easily imageable. Responses were faster and more accurate for high BOI words (e.g., mask) than for low BOI words (e.g., ship). In Experiment 2, BOI effects were examined in a semantic lexical decision task (SLDT), which taps both semantic feedback and semantic processing. The BOI effect was larger in the SLDT than in the SCT, suggesting that BOI facilitates both semantic feedback and semantic processing. The findings are consistent with the embodied cognition perspective (e.g., Barsalou's, 1999, Perceptual Symbols Theory), which proposes that sensorimotor interactions with the environment are incorporated in semantic knowledge. 2008 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

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.

The inclusion of biodiversity in environmental impact assessment: Policy-related progress limited by gaps and semantic confusion.

PubMed

Bigard, Charlotte; Pioch, Sylvain; Thompson, John D

2017-09-15

Natural habitat loss and fragmentation, as a result of development projects, are major causes of biodiversity erosion. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is the most commonly used site-specific planning tool that takes into account the effects of development projects on biodiversity by integrating potential impacts into the mitigation hierarchy of avoidance, reduction, and offset measures. However, the extent to which EIA fully address the identification of impacts and conservation stakes associated with biodiversity loss has been criticized in recent work. In this paper we examine the extent to which biodiversity criteria have been integrated into 42 EIA from 2006 to 2016 for small development projects in the Montpellier Metropolitan territory in southern France. This study system allowed us to question how EIA integrates biodiversity impacts on a scale relevant to land-use planning. We examine how biodiversity inclusion has changed over time in relation to new policy for EIA and how the mitigation hierarchy is implemented in practice and in comparison with national guidelines. We demonstrate that the inclusion of biodiversity features into EIA has increased significantly in relation to policy change. Several weaknesses nevertheless persist, including the continued absence of substitution solution assessment, a correct analysis of cumulative impacts, the evaluation of impacts on common species, the inclusion of an ecological network scale, and the lack of monitoring and evaluation measures. We also show that measures for mitigation hierarchy are primarily associated with the reduction of impacts rather than their avoidance, and avoidance and offset measures are often misleadingly proposed in EIA. There is in fact marked semantic confusion between avoidance, reduction and offset measures that may impair stakeholders' understanding. All in all, reconsideration of stakeholders routine practices associated with a more strategic approach towards impact anticipation and avoidance at a land-use planning scale is now necessary for the mitigation hierarchy to become a clear and practical hierarchy for "no net loss" objectives based on conservation priorities. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic-based surveillance video retrieval.

PubMed

Hu, Weiming; Xie, Dan; Fu, Zhouyu; Zeng, Wenrong; Maybank, Steve

2007-04-01

Visual surveillance produces large amounts of video data. Effective indexing and retrieval from surveillance video databases are very important. Although there are many ways to represent the content of video clips in current video retrieval algorithms, there still exists a semantic gap between users and retrieval systems. Visual surveillance systems supply a platform for investigating semantic-based video retrieval. In this paper, a semantic-based video retrieval framework for visual surveillance is proposed. A cluster-based tracking algorithm is developed to acquire motion trajectories. The trajectories are then clustered hierarchically using the spatial and temporal information, to learn activity models. A hierarchical structure of semantic indexing and retrieval of object activities, where each individual activity automatically inherits all the semantic descriptions of the activity model to which it belongs, is proposed for accessing video clips and individual objects at the semantic level. The proposed retrieval framework supports various queries including queries by keywords, multiple object queries, and queries by sketch. For multiple object queries, succession and simultaneity restrictions, together with depth and breadth first orders, are considered. For sketch-based queries, a method for matching trajectories drawn by users to spatial trajectories is proposed. The effectiveness and efficiency of our framework are tested in a crowded traffic scene.

The evolution of meaning: spatio-temporal dynamics of visual object recognition.

PubMed

Clarke, Alex; Taylor, Kirsten I; Tyler, Lorraine K

2011-08-01

Research on the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual object recognition suggests a recurrent, interactive model whereby an initial feedforward sweep through the ventral stream to prefrontal cortex is followed by recurrent interactions. However, critical questions remain regarding the factors that mediate the degree of recurrent interactions necessary for meaningful object recognition. The novel prediction we test here is that recurrent interactivity is driven by increasing semantic integration demands as defined by the complexity of semantic information required by the task and driven by the stimuli. To test this prediction, we recorded magnetoencephalography data while participants named living and nonliving objects during two naming tasks. We found that the spatio-temporal dynamics of neural activity were modulated by the level of semantic integration required. Specifically, source reconstructed time courses and phase synchronization measures showed increased recurrent interactions as a function of semantic integration demands. These findings demonstrate that the cortical dynamics of object processing are modulated by the complexity of semantic information required from the visual input.

Dynamic information processing states revealed through neurocognitive models of object semantics

PubMed Central

Clarke, Alex

2015-01-01

Recognising objects relies on highly dynamic, interactive brain networks to process multiple aspects of object information. To fully understand how different forms of information about objects are represented and processed in the brain requires a neurocognitive account of visual object recognition that combines a detailed cognitive model of semantic knowledge with a neurobiological model of visual object processing. Here we ask how specific cognitive factors are instantiated in our mental processes and how they dynamically evolve over time. We suggest that coarse semantic information, based on generic shared semantic knowledge, is rapidly extracted from visual inputs and is sufficient to drive rapid category decisions. Subsequent recurrent neural activity between the anterior temporal lobe and posterior fusiform supports the formation of object-specific semantic representations – a conjunctive process primarily driven by the perirhinal cortex. These object-specific representations require the integration of shared and distinguishing object properties and support the unique recognition of objects. We conclude that a valuable way of understanding the cognitive activity of the brain is though testing the relationship between specific cognitive measures and dynamic neural activity. This kind of approach allows us to move towards uncovering the information processing states of the brain and how they evolve over time. PMID:25745632

Is meaning implicated in illusory conjunctions?

PubMed

Virzi, R A; Egeth, H E

1984-08-01

According to feature-integration theory, when attention is diverted from a display, features from different objects in that display may be wrongly recombined, giving rise to "illusory conjunctions" (Treisman & Schmidt, 1982). Two experiments are reported that examine the nature of these illusory conjunctions. In displays that contain color names and adjectives printed in colored ink, subjects made two kinds of interesting and previously unreported errors. Consider, for example, a display that included the word BROWN in red ink and the word HEAVY in green ink. Subjects would sometimes incorrectly report that the word RED or the ink color brown had appeared in the display (e.g., RED in green ink or HEAVY in brown ink). It appears that subjects extract semantic representations from input and are sometimes confused about whether a particular representation has been extracted from a word or a color patch. Contrary to feature-integration theory, these findings suggest that illusory conjunctions may occur with high-level codes as well as with perceptual features.

Mirror-Image Confusions: Implications for Representation and Processing of Object Orientation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gregory, Emma; McCloskey, Michael

2010-01-01

Perceiving the orientation of objects is important for interacting with the world, yet little is known about the mental representation or processing of object orientation information. The tendency of humans and other species to confuse mirror images provides a potential clue. However, the appropriate characterization of this phenomenon is not…

Action semantics: A unifying conceptual framework for the selective use of multimodal and modality-specific object knowledge.

PubMed

van Elk, Michiel; van Schie, Hein; Bekkering, Harold

2014-06-01

Our capacity to use tools and objects is often considered one of the hallmarks of the human species. Many objects greatly extend our bodily capabilities to act in the physical world, such as when using a hammer or a saw. In addition, humans have the remarkable capability to use objects in a flexible fashion and to combine multiple objects in complex actions. We prepare coffee, cook dinner and drive our car. In this review we propose that humans have developed declarative and procedural knowledge, i.e. action semantics that enables us to use objects in a meaningful way. A state-of-the-art review of research on object use is provided, involving behavioral, developmental, neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies. We show that research in each of these domains is characterized by similar discussions regarding (1) the role of object affordances, (2) the relation between goals and means in object use and (3) the functional and neural organization of action semantics. We propose a novel conceptual framework of action semantics to address these issues and to integrate the previous findings. We argue that action semantics entails both multimodal object representations and modality-specific sub-systems, involving manipulation knowledge, functional knowledge and representations of the sensory and proprioceptive consequences of object use. Furthermore, we argue that action semantics are hierarchically organized and selectively activated and used depending on the action intention of the actor and the current task context. Our framework presents an integrative account of multiple findings and perspectives on object use that may guide future studies in this interdisciplinary domain. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Representations for Semantic Learning Webs: Semantic Web Technology in Learning Support

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dzbor, M.; Stutt, A.; Motta, E.; Collins, T.

2007-01-01

Recent work on applying semantic technologies to learning has concentrated on providing novel means of accessing and making use of learning objects. However, this is unnecessarily limiting: semantic technologies will make it possible to develop a range of educational Semantic Web services, such as interpretation, structure-visualization, support…

The use of the term 'radiosensitivity' through history of radiation: from clarity to confusion.

PubMed

Britel, Manon; Bourguignon, Michel; Foray, Nicolas

2018-05-01

The term 'radiosensitivity' appeared for the first time at the beginning of the 20th century, few years after the discovery of X-rays. Initially used by French and German radiologists, it illustrated the risk of radiation-induced (RI) skin reactions. From the 1950s, 'radiosensitivity' was progressively found to describe other features of RI response such as RI cancers or cataracts. To date, such confusion may raise legal issues and complexify the message addressed to general public. Here, through an historical review, we aimed to better understand how this confusion appeared. To support our historical review, a quantitative and qualitative wording analysis of the 'radiosensitivity' occurrences and its derived terms was performed with Google books, Pubmed, Web of Science™ databases, and in all the ICRP publications. While 'radiosensitivity' was historically related to RI adverse tissue events attributable to cell death, the first efforts to quantify the RI risk specific to each organ/tissue revealed some different semantic fields that are not necessarily compatible together (e.g. adverse tissue events for skin, cataracts for eyes, RI cancer for breast or thyroid). To avoid such confusion, we propose to keep the historical definition of 'radiosensitivity' to any clinical and cellular consequences of radiation attributable to cell death and to introduce the term 'radiosusceptibility' to describe the RI cancers or any feature that is attributable to cell transformation.

More than a feeling: The bidirectional convergence of semantic visual object and somatosensory processing.

PubMed

Ekstrand, Chelsea; Neudorf, Josh; Lorentz, Eric; Gould, Layla; Mickleborough, Marla; Borowsky, Ron

2017-11-01

Prevalent theories of semantic processing assert that the sensorimotor system plays a functional role in the semantic processing of manipulable objects. While motor execution has been shown to impact object processing, involvement of the somatosensory system has remained relatively unexplored. Therefore, we developed two novel priming paradigms. In Experiment 1, participants received a vibratory hand prime (on half the trials) prior to viewing a picture of either an object interacted primarily with the hand (e.g., a cup) or the foot (e.g., a soccer ball) and reported how they would interact with it. In Experiment 2, the same objects became the prime and participants were required to identify whether the vibratory stimulation occurred to their hand or foot. In both experiments, somatosensory priming effects arose for the hand objects, while foot objects showed no priming benefits. These results suggest that object semantic knowledge bidirectionally converges with the somatosensory system. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Selective Audiovisual Semantic Integration Enabled by Feature-Selective Attention.

PubMed

Li, Yuanqing; Long, Jinyi; Huang, Biao; Yu, Tianyou; Wu, Wei; Li, Peijun; Fang, Fang; Sun, Pei

2016-01-13

An audiovisual object may contain multiple semantic features, such as the gender and emotional features of the speaker. Feature-selective attention and audiovisual semantic integration are two brain functions involved in the recognition of audiovisual objects. Humans often selectively attend to one or several features while ignoring the other features of an audiovisual object. Meanwhile, the human brain integrates semantic information from the visual and auditory modalities. However, how these two brain functions correlate with each other remains to be elucidated. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we explored the neural mechanism by which feature-selective attention modulates audiovisual semantic integration. During the fMRI experiment, the subjects were presented with visual-only, auditory-only, or audiovisual dynamical facial stimuli and performed several feature-selective attention tasks. Our results revealed that a distribution of areas, including heteromodal areas and brain areas encoding attended features, may be involved in audiovisual semantic integration. Through feature-selective attention, the human brain may selectively integrate audiovisual semantic information from attended features by enhancing functional connectivity and thus regulating information flows from heteromodal areas to brain areas encoding the attended features.

Selective preservation of memory for people in the context of semantic memory disorder: patterns of association and dissociation.

PubMed

Lyons, Frances; Kay, Janice; Hanley, J Richard; Haslam, Catherine

2006-01-01

A number of single cases in the literature demonstrate that person-specific semantic knowledge can be selectively impaired after acquired brain damage compared with that of object categories. However, there has been little unequivocal evidence for the reverse dissociation, selective preservation of person-specific semantic knowledge. Recently, three case studies have been published which provide support for the claim that such knowledge can be selectively preserved [Kay, J., & Hanley, J. R. (2002). Preservation of memory for people in semantic memory disorder: Further category-specific semantic dissociation. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 19, 113-134; Lyons, F., Hanley, J. R., & Kay, J. (2002). Anomia for common names and geographical names with preserved retrieval of names of people: A semantic memory disorder. Cortex, 38, 23-35; Thompson, S. A, Graham, K. S., Williams, G., Patterson, K., Kapur, N., & Hodges, J. R. (2004). Dissociating person-specific from general semantic knowledge: Roles of the left and right temporal lobes. Neuropsychologia, 42, 359-370]. In this paper, we supply further evidence from a series of 18 patients with acquired language disorder. Of this set, a number were observed to be impaired on tests of semantic association and word-picture matching using names of object categories (e.g. objects, animals and foods), but preserved on similar tests using names of famous people. Careful methodology was applied to match object and person-specific categories for item difficulty. The study also examined whether preservation of person-specific semantic knowledge was associated with preservation of knowledge of 'biological categories' such as fruit and vegetables and animals, or with preservation of 'token' knowledge of singular categories such as countries. The findings are discussed in the context of a variety of accounts that examine whether semantic memory has a categorical structure.

Get rich quick: the signal to respond procedure reveals the time course of semantic richness effects during visual word recognition.

PubMed

Hargreaves, Ian S; Pexman, Penny M

2014-05-01

According to several current frameworks, semantic processing involves an early influence of language-based information followed by later influences of object-based information (e.g., situated simulations; Santos, Chaigneau, Simmons, & Barsalou, 2011). In the present study we examined whether these predictions extend to the influence of semantic variables in visual word recognition. We investigated the time course of semantic richness effects in visual word recognition using a signal-to-respond (STR) paradigm fitted to a lexical decision (LDT) and a semantic categorization (SCT) task. We used linear mixed effects to examine the relative contributions of language-based (number of senses, ARC) and object-based (imageability, number of features, body-object interaction ratings) descriptions of semantic richness at four STR durations (75, 100, 200, and 400ms). Results showed an early influence of number of senses and ARC in the SCT. In both LDT and SCT, object-based effects were the last to influence participants' decision latencies. We interpret our results within a framework in which semantic processes are available to influence word recognition as a function of their availability over time, and of their relevance to task-specific demands. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Salient object detection method based on multiple semantic features

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Chunyang; Yu, Chunyan; Song, Meiping; Wang, Yulei

2018-04-01

The existing salient object detection model can only detect the approximate location of salient object, or highlight the background, to resolve the above problem, a salient object detection method was proposed based on image semantic features. First of all, three novel salient features were presented in this paper, including object edge density feature (EF), object semantic feature based on the convex hull (CF) and object lightness contrast feature (LF). Secondly, the multiple salient features were trained with random detection windows. Thirdly, Naive Bayesian model was used for combine these features for salient detection. The results on public datasets showed that our method performed well, the location of salient object can be fixed and the salient object can be accurately detected and marked by the specific window.

The Benefits of Sensorimotor Knowledge: Body-Object Interaction Facilitates Semantic Processing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Siakaluk, Paul D.; Pexman, Penny M.; Sears, Christopher R.; Wilson, Kim; Locheed, Keri; Owen, William J.

2008-01-01

This article examined the effects of body-object interaction (BOI) on semantic processing. BOI measures perceptions of the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. In Experiment 1, BOI effects were examined in 2 semantic categorization tasks (SCT) in which participants decided if words are easily imageable.…

Hierarchical layered and semantic-based image segmentation using ergodicity map

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yadegar, Jacob; Liu, Xiaoqing

2010-04-01

Image segmentation plays a foundational role in image understanding and computer vision. Although great strides have been made and progress achieved on automatic/semi-automatic image segmentation algorithms, designing a generic, robust, and efficient image segmentation algorithm is still challenging. Human vision is still far superior compared to computer vision, especially in interpreting semantic meanings/objects in images. We present a hierarchical/layered semantic image segmentation algorithm that can automatically and efficiently segment images into hierarchical layered/multi-scaled semantic regions/objects with contextual topological relationships. The proposed algorithm bridges the gap between high-level semantics and low-level visual features/cues (such as color, intensity, edge, etc.) through utilizing a layered/hierarchical ergodicity map, where ergodicity is computed based on a space filling fractal concept and used as a region dissimilarity measurement. The algorithm applies a highly scalable, efficient, and adaptive Peano- Cesaro triangulation/tiling technique to decompose the given image into a set of similar/homogenous regions based on low-level visual cues in a top-down manner. The layered/hierarchical ergodicity map is built through a bottom-up region dissimilarity analysis. The recursive fractal sweep associated with the Peano-Cesaro triangulation provides efficient local multi-resolution refinement to any level of detail. The generated binary decomposition tree also provides efficient neighbor retrieval mechanisms for contextual topological object/region relationship generation. Experiments have been conducted within the maritime image environment where the segmented layered semantic objects include the basic level objects (i.e. sky/land/water) and deeper level objects in the sky/land/water surfaces. Experimental results demonstrate the proposed algorithm has the capability to robustly and efficiently segment images into layered semantic objects/regions with contextual topological relationships.

"Pre-Semantic" Cognition Revisited: Critical Differences between Semantic Aphasia and Semantic Dementia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jefferies, Elizabeth; Rogers, Timothy T.; Hopper, Samantha; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A.

2010-01-01

Patients with semantic dementia show a specific pattern of impairment on both verbal and non-verbal "pre-semantic" tasks, e.g., reading aloud, past tense generation, spelling to dictation, lexical decision, object decision, colour decision and delayed picture copying. All seven tasks are characterised by poorer performance for items that are…

Verb Production during Action Naming in Semantic Dementia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meligne, D.; Fossard, M.; Belliard, S.; Moreaud, O.; Duvignau, K.; Demonet, J.-F.

2011-01-01

In contrast with widely documented deficits of semantic knowledge relating to object concepts and the corresponding nouns in semantic dementia (SD), little is known about action semantics and verb production in SD. The degradation of action semantic knowledge was studied in 5 patients with SD compared with 17 matched control participants in an…

Semantic and visual determinants of face recognition in a prosopagnosic patient.

PubMed

Dixon, M J; Bub, D N; Arguin, M

1998-05-01

Prosopagnosia is the neuropathological inability to recognize familiar people by their faces. It can occur in isolation or can coincide with recognition deficits for other nonface objects. Often, patients whose prosopagnosia is accompanied by object recognition difficulties have more trouble identifying certain categories of objects relative to others. In previous research, we demonstrated that objects that shared multiple visual features and were semantically close posed severe recognition difficulties for a patient with temporal lobe damage. We now demonstrate that this patient's face recognition is constrained by these same parameters. The prosopagnosic patient ELM had difficulties pairing faces to names when the faces shared visual features and the names were semantically related (e.g., Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, and Josee Chouinard -three ice skaters). He made tenfold fewer errors when the exact same faces were associated with semantically unrelated people (e.g., singer Celine Dion, actress Betty Grable, and First Lady Hillary Clinton). We conclude that prosopagnosia and co-occurring category-specific recognition problems both stem from difficulties disambiguating the stored representations of objects that share multiple visual features and refer to semantically close identities or concepts.

SCEGRAM: An image database for semantic and syntactic inconsistencies in scenes.

PubMed

Öhlschläger, Sabine; Võ, Melissa Le-Hoa

2017-10-01

Our visual environment is not random, but follows compositional rules according to what objects are usually found where. Despite the growing interest in how such semantic and syntactic rules - a scene grammar - enable effective attentional guidance and object perception, no common image database containing highly-controlled object-scene modifications has been publically available. Such a database is essential in minimizing the risk that low-level features drive high-level effects of interest, which is being discussed as possible source of controversial study results. To generate the first database of this kind - SCEGRAM - we took photographs of 62 real-world indoor scenes in six consistency conditions that contain semantic and syntactic (both mild and extreme) violations as well as their combinations. Importantly, always two scenes were paired, so that an object was semantically consistent in one scene (e.g., ketchup in kitchen) and inconsistent in the other (e.g., ketchup in bathroom). Low-level salience did not differ between object-scene conditions and was generally moderate. Additionally, SCEGRAM contains consistency ratings for every object-scene condition, as well as object-absent scenes and object-only images. Finally, a cross-validation using eye-movements replicated previous results of longer dwell times for both semantic and syntactic inconsistencies compared to consistent controls. In sum, the SCEGRAM image database is the first to contain well-controlled semantic and syntactic object-scene inconsistencies that can be used in a broad range of cognitive paradigms (e.g., verbal and pictorial priming, change detection, object identification, etc.) including paradigms addressing developmental aspects of scene grammar. SCEGRAM can be retrieved for research purposes from http://www.scenegrammarlab.com/research/scegram-database/ .

When bees hamper the production of honey: lexical interference from associates in speech production.

PubMed

Abdel Rahman, Rasha; Melinger, Alissa

2007-05-01

In this article, the authors explore semantic context effects in speaking. In particular, the authors investigate a marked discrepancy between categorically and associatively induced effects; only categorical relationships have been reported to cause interference in object naming. In Experiments 1 and 2, a variant of the semantic blocking paradigm was used to induce two different types of semantic context effects. Pictures were either named in the context of categorically related objects (e.g., animals: bee, cow, fish) or in the context of associatively related objects from different semantic categories (e.g., apiary: bee, honey, bee keeper). Semantic interference effects were observed in both conditions, relative to an unrelated context. Experiment 3 replicated the classic effects of categorical interference and associative facilitation in a picture-word interference paradigm with the material used in Experiment 2. These findings suggest that associates are active lexical competitors and that the microstructure of lexicalization is highly flexible and adjustable to the semantic context in which the utterance takes place.

Semantic memory retrieval circuit: role of pre-SMA, caudate, and thalamus.

PubMed

Hart, John; Maguire, Mandy J; Motes, Michael; Mudar, Raksha Anand; Chiang, Hsueh-Sheng; Womack, Kyle B; Kraut, Michael A

2013-07-01

We propose that pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA)-thalamic interactions govern processes fundamental to semantic retrieval of an integrated object memory. At the onset of semantic retrieval, pre-SMA initiates electrical interactions between multiple cortical regions associated with semantic memory subsystems encodings as indexed by an increase in theta-band EEG power. This starts between 100-150 ms after stimulus presentation and is sustained throughout the task. We posit that this activity represents initiation of the object memory search, which continues in searching for an object memory. When the correct memory is retrieved, there is a high beta-band EEG power increase, which reflects communication between pre-SMA and thalamus, designates the end of the search process and resultant in object retrieval from multiple semantic memory subsystems. This high beta signal is also detected in cortical regions. This circuit is modulated by the caudate nuclei to facilitate correct and suppress incorrect target memories. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Linking consistency with object/thread semantics - An approach to robust computation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chen, Raymond C.; Dasgupta, Partha

1989-01-01

This paper presents an object/thread based paradigm that links data consistency with object/thread semantics. The paradigm can be used to achieve a wide range of consistency semantics from strict atomic transactions to standard process semantics. The paradigm supports three types of data consistency. Object programmers indicate the type of consistency desired on a per-operation basis and the system performs automatic concurrency control and recovery management to ensure that those consistency requirements are met. This allows programmers to customize consistency and recovery on a per-application basis without having to supply complicated, custom recovery management schemes. The paradigm allows robust and nonrobust computation to operate concurrently on the same data in a well defined manner. The operating system needs to support only one vehicle of computation - the thread.

Sensory and semantic activations evoked by action attributes of manipulable objects: Evidence from ERPs

PubMed Central

Lee, Chia-lin; Huang, Hsu-Wen; Federmeier, Kara D.; Buxbaum, Laurel J.

2018-01-01

“Two route” theories of object-related action processing posit different temporal activation profiles of grasp-to-move actions (rapidly evoked based on object structure) versus skilled use actions (more slowly activated based on semantic knowledge). We capitalized on the exquisite temporal resolution and multidimensionality of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to directly test this hypothesis. Participants viewed manipulable objects (e.g., calculator) preceded by objects sharing either “grasp”, “use”, or no action attributes (e.g., bar of soap, keyboard, earring, respectively), as well as by action-unrelated but taxonomically-related objects (e.g., abacus); participants judged whether the two objects were related. The results showed more positive responses to “grasp-to-move” primed objects than “skilled use” primed objects or unprimed objects starting in the P1 (0–150 ms) time window and continuing onto the subsequent N1 and P2 components (150–300 ms), suggesting that only “grasp-to-move”, but not “skilled use”, actions may facilitate visual attention to object attributes. Furthermore, reliably reduced N400s (300–500 ms), an index of semantic processing, were observed to taxonomically primed and “skilled use” primed objects relative to unprimed objects, suggesting that “skilled use” action attributes are a component of distributed, multimodal semantic representations of objects. Together, our findings provide evidence supporting two-route theories by demonstrating that “grasp-to-move” and “skilled use” actions impact different aspects of object processing and highlight the relationship of “skilled use” information to other aspects of semantic memory. PMID:29183777

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.

Body-part-specific representations of semantic noun categories.

PubMed

Carota, Francesca; Moseley, Rachel; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2012-06-01

Word meaning processing in the brain involves ventrolateral temporal cortex, but a semantic contribution of the dorsal stream, especially frontocentral sensorimotor areas, has been controversial. We here examine brain activation during passive reading of object-related nouns from different semantic categories, notably animal, food, and tool words, matched for a range of psycholinguistic features. Results show ventral stream activation in temporal cortex along with category-specific activation patterns in both ventral and dorsal streams, including sensorimotor systems and adjacent pFC. Precentral activation reflected action-related semantic features of the word categories. Cortical regions implicated in mouth and face movements were sparked by food words, and hand area activation was seen for tool words, consistent with the actions implicated by the objects the words are used to speak about. Furthermore, tool words specifically activated the right cerebellum, and food words activated the left orbito-frontal and fusiform areas. We discuss our results in the context of category-specific semantic deficits in the processing of words and concepts, along with previous neuroimaging research, and conclude that specific dorsal and ventral areas in frontocentral and temporal cortex index visual and affective-emotional semantic attributes of object-related nouns and action-related affordances of their referent objects.

Biologically Inspired Model for Visual Cognition Achieving Unsupervised Episodic and Semantic Feature Learning.

PubMed

Qiao, Hong; Li, Yinlin; Li, Fengfu; Xi, Xuanyang; Wu, Wei

2016-10-01

Recently, many biologically inspired visual computational models have been proposed. The design of these models follows the related biological mechanisms and structures, and these models provide new solutions for visual recognition tasks. In this paper, based on the recent biological evidence, we propose a framework to mimic the active and dynamic learning and recognition process of the primate visual cortex. From principle point of view, the main contributions are that the framework can achieve unsupervised learning of episodic features (including key components and their spatial relations) and semantic features (semantic descriptions of the key components), which support higher level cognition of an object. From performance point of view, the advantages of the framework are as follows: 1) learning episodic features without supervision-for a class of objects without a prior knowledge, the key components, their spatial relations and cover regions can be learned automatically through a deep neural network (DNN); 2) learning semantic features based on episodic features-within the cover regions of the key components, the semantic geometrical values of these components can be computed based on contour detection; 3) forming the general knowledge of a class of objects-the general knowledge of a class of objects can be formed, mainly including the key components, their spatial relations and average semantic values, which is a concise description of the class; and 4) achieving higher level cognition and dynamic updating-for a test image, the model can achieve classification and subclass semantic descriptions. And the test samples with high confidence are selected to dynamically update the whole model. Experiments are conducted on face images, and a good performance is achieved in each layer of the DNN and the semantic description learning process. Furthermore, the model can be generalized to recognition tasks of other objects with learning ability.

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.

The special status of verbal knowledge in semantic memory: evidence from performance of semantically impaired subjects on verbalizable and non-verbalizable versions of the object decision task.

PubMed

Zannino, Gian Daniele; Perri, Roberta; Monaco, Marco; Caltagirone, Carlo; Luzzi, Simona; Carlesimo, Giovanni A

2014-01-01

According to the semantic hub hypothesis, a supramodal semantic hub is equally needed to deal with verbal and extraverbal "surface" representations. Damage to the supramodal hub is thought to underlie the crossmodal impairment observed in selective semantic deficits. In the present paper, we provide evidence supporting an alternative view: we hold that semantic impairment is not equal across domains but affects verbal behavior disproportionately. We investigated our hypothesis by manipulating the verbal load in an object decision task. Two pathological groups showing different levels of semantic impairment were enrolled together with their normal controls. The severe group included 10 subjects with semantic dementia and the mild group 10 subjects with Alzheimer's disease. In keeping with our hypothesis, when shifting from the low verbal load to the high verbal load condition, brain-damaged individuals, as compared to controls, showed a disproportionate impairment as a function of the severity of their semantic deficit. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

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.

Selective Audiovisual Semantic Integration Enabled by Feature-Selective Attention

PubMed Central

Li, Yuanqing; Long, Jinyi; Huang, Biao; Yu, Tianyou; Wu, Wei; Li, Peijun; Fang, Fang; Sun, Pei

2016-01-01

An audiovisual object may contain multiple semantic features, such as the gender and emotional features of the speaker. Feature-selective attention and audiovisual semantic integration are two brain functions involved in the recognition of audiovisual objects. Humans often selectively attend to one or several features while ignoring the other features of an audiovisual object. Meanwhile, the human brain integrates semantic information from the visual and auditory modalities. However, how these two brain functions correlate with each other remains to be elucidated. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we explored the neural mechanism by which feature-selective attention modulates audiovisual semantic integration. During the fMRI experiment, the subjects were presented with visual-only, auditory-only, or audiovisual dynamical facial stimuli and performed several feature-selective attention tasks. Our results revealed that a distribution of areas, including heteromodal areas and brain areas encoding attended features, may be involved in audiovisual semantic integration. Through feature-selective attention, the human brain may selectively integrate audiovisual semantic information from attended features by enhancing functional connectivity and thus regulating information flows from heteromodal areas to brain areas encoding the attended features. PMID:26759193

Core Knowledge Confusions among University Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lindeman, Marjaana; Svedholm, Annika M.; Takada, Mikito; Lonnqvist, Jan-Erik; Verkasalo, Markku

2011-01-01

Previous studies have demonstrated that university students hold several paranormal beliefs and that paranormal beliefs can be best explained with core knowledge confusions. The aim of this study was to explore to what extent university students confuse the core ontological attributes of lifeless material objects (e.g. a house, a stone), living…

The perception of ego-motion change in environments with varying depth: Interaction of stereo and optic flow.

PubMed

Ott, Florian; Pohl, Ladina; Halfmann, Marc; Hardiess, Gregor; Mallot, Hanspeter A

2016-07-01

When estimating ego-motion in environments (e.g., tunnels, streets) with varying depth, human subjects confuse ego-acceleration with environment narrowing and ego-deceleration with environment widening. Festl, Recktenwald, Yuan, and Mallot (2012) demonstrated that in nonstereoscopic viewing conditions, this happens despite the fact that retinal measurements of acceleration rate-a variable related to tau-dot-should allow veridical perception. Here we address the question of whether additional depth cues (specifically binocular stereo, object occlusion, or constant average object size) help break the confusion between narrowing and acceleration. Using a forced-choice paradigm, the confusion is shown to persist even if unambiguous stereo information is provided. The confusion can also be demonstrated in an adjustment task in which subjects were asked to keep a constant speed in a tunnel with varying diameter: Subjects increased speed in widening sections and decreased speed in narrowing sections even though stereoscopic depth information was provided. If object-based depth information (stereo, occlusion, constant average object size) is added, the confusion between narrowing and acceleration still remains but may be slightly reduced. All experiments are consistent with a simple matched filter algorithm for ego-motion detection, neglecting both parallactic and stereoscopic depth information, but leave open the possibility of cue combination at a later stage.

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.

Eye Movements and Visual Memory for Scenes

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-01-01

Scene memory research has demonstrated that the memory representation of a semantically inconsistent object in a scene is more detailed and/or complete... memory during scene viewing, then changes to semantically inconsistent objects (which should be represented more com- pletely) should be detected more... semantic description. Due to the surprise nature of the visual memory test, any learning that occurred during the search portion of the experiment was

Representational similarity analysis reveals commonalities and differences in the semantic processing of words and objects.

PubMed

Devereux, Barry J; Clarke, Alex; Marouchos, Andreas; Tyler, Lorraine K

2013-11-27

Understanding the meanings of words and objects requires the activation of underlying conceptual representations. Semantic representations are often assumed to be coded such that meaning is evoked regardless of the input modality. However, the extent to which meaning is coded in modality-independent or amodal systems remains controversial. We address this issue in a human fMRI study investigating the neural processing of concepts, presented separately as written words and pictures. Activation maps for each individual word and picture were used as input for searchlight-based multivoxel pattern analyses. Representational similarity analysis was used to identify regions correlating with low-level visual models of the words and objects and the semantic category structure common to both. Common semantic category effects for both modalities were found in a left-lateralized network, including left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LpMTG), left angular gyrus, and left intraparietal sulcus (LIPS), in addition to object- and word-specific semantic processing in ventral temporal cortex and more anterior MTG, respectively. To explore differences in representational content across regions and modalities, we developed novel data-driven analyses, based on k-means clustering of searchlight dissimilarity matrices and seeded correlation analysis. These revealed subtle differences in the representations in semantic-sensitive regions, with representations in LIPS being relatively invariant to stimulus modality and representations in LpMTG being uncorrelated across modality. These results suggest that, although both LpMTG and LIPS are involved in semantic processing, only the functional role of LIPS is the same regardless of the visual input, whereas the functional role of LpMTG differs for words and objects.

You shall know an object by the company it keeps: An investigation of semantic representations derived from object co-occurrence in visual scenes.

PubMed

Sadeghi, Zahra; McClelland, James L; Hoffman, Paul

2015-09-01

An influential position in lexical semantics holds that semantic representations for words can be derived through analysis of patterns of lexical co-occurrence in large language corpora. Firth (1957) famously summarised this principle as "you shall know a word by the company it keeps". We explored whether the same principle could be applied to non-verbal patterns of object co-occurrence in natural scenes. We performed latent semantic analysis (LSA) on a set of photographed scenes in which all of the objects present had been manually labelled. This resulted in a representation of objects in a high-dimensional space in which similarity between two objects indicated the degree to which they appeared in similar scenes. These representations revealed similarities among objects belonging to the same taxonomic category (e.g., items of clothing) as well as cross-category associations (e.g., between fruits and kitchen utensils). We also compared representations generated from this scene dataset with two established methods for elucidating semantic representations: (a) a published database of semantic features generated verbally by participants and (b) LSA applied to a linguistic corpus in the usual fashion. Statistical comparisons of the three methods indicated significant association between the structures revealed by each method, with the scene dataset displaying greater convergence with feature-based representations than did LSA applied to linguistic data. The results indicate that information about the conceptual significance of objects can be extracted from their patterns of co-occurrence in natural environments, opening the possibility for such data to be incorporated into existing models of conceptual representation. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Jumping across biomedical contexts using compressive data fusion

PubMed Central

Zitnik, Marinka; Zupan, Blaz

2016-01-01

Motivation: The rapid growth of diverse biological data allows us to consider interactions between a variety of objects, such as genes, chemicals, molecular signatures, diseases, pathways and environmental exposures. Often, any pair of objects—such as a gene and a disease—can be related in different ways, for example, directly via gene–disease associations or indirectly via functional annotations, chemicals and pathways. Different ways of relating these objects carry different semantic meanings. However, traditional methods disregard these semantics and thus cannot fully exploit their value in data modeling. Results: We present Medusa, an approach to detect size-k modules of objects that, taken together, appear most significant to another set of objects. Medusa operates on large-scale collections of heterogeneous datasets and explicitly distinguishes between diverse data semantics. It advances research along two dimensions: it builds on collective matrix factorization to derive different semantics, and it formulates the growing of the modules as a submodular optimization program. Medusa is flexible in choosing or combining semantic meanings and provides theoretical guarantees about detection quality. In a systematic study on 310 complex diseases, we show the effectiveness of Medusa in associating genes with diseases and detecting disease modules. We demonstrate that in predicting gene–disease associations Medusa compares favorably to methods that ignore diverse semantic meanings. We find that the utility of different semantics depends on disease categories and that, overall, Medusa recovers disease modules more accurately when combining different semantics. Availability and implementation: Source code is at http://github.com/marinkaz/medusa Contact: marinka@cs.stanford.edu, blaz.zupan@fri.uni-lj.si PMID:27307649

Managerial Semantics: Where Again All The Nervous Centers Are Involved.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rice, Joseph A.; Elliott, F. J.

The term "managerial semantics" brings together aspects of communication, behavior, semantics, and management. An investigation of semantic principles as they are applied in industry today shows that although Korzybski's emphasis on differences between objects and individuals may have been useful when first formulated, it is less useful…

Function Follows Form: Activation of Shape and Function Features during Object Identification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yee, Eiling; Huffstetler, Stacy; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L.

2011-01-01

Most theories of semantic memory characterize knowledge of a given object as comprising a set of semantic features. But how does conceptual activation of these features proceed during object identification? We present the results of a pair of experiments that demonstrate that object recognition is a dynamically unfolding process in which function…

Approaching semantic interoperability in Health Level Seven

PubMed Central

Alschuler, Liora

2010-01-01

‘Semantic Interoperability’ is a driving objective behind many of Health Level Seven's standards. The objective in this paper is to take a step back, and consider what semantic interoperability means, assess whether or not it has been achieved, and, if not, determine what concrete next steps can be taken to get closer. A framework for measuring semantic interoperability is proposed, using a technique called the ‘Single Logical Information Model’ framework, which relies on an operational definition of semantic interoperability and an understanding that interoperability improves incrementally. Whether semantic interoperability tomorrow will enable one computer to talk to another, much as one person can talk to another person, is a matter for speculation. It is assumed, however, that what gets measured gets improved, and in that spirit this framework is offered as a means to improvement. PMID:21106995

A neural network model of semantic memory linking feature-based object representation and words.

PubMed

Cuppini, C; Magosso, E; Ursino, M

2009-06-01

Recent theories in cognitive neuroscience suggest that semantic memory is a distributed process, which involves many cortical areas and is based on a multimodal representation of objects. The aim of this work is to extend a previous model of object representation to realize a semantic memory, in which sensory-motor representations of objects are linked with words. The model assumes that each object is described as a collection of features, coded in different cortical areas via a topological organization. Features in different objects are segmented via gamma-band synchronization of neural oscillators. The feature areas are further connected with a lexical area, devoted to the representation of words. Synapses among the feature areas, and among the lexical area and the feature areas are trained via a time-dependent Hebbian rule, during a period in which individual objects are presented together with the corresponding words. Simulation results demonstrate that, during the retrieval phase, the network can deal with the simultaneous presence of objects (from sensory-motor inputs) and words (from acoustic inputs), can correctly associate objects with words and segment objects even in the presence of incomplete information. Moreover, the network can realize some semantic links among words representing objects with shared features. These results support the idea that semantic memory can be described as an integrated process, whose content is retrieved by the co-activation of different multimodal regions. In perspective, extended versions of this model may be used to test conceptual theories, and to provide a quantitative assessment of existing data (for instance concerning patients with neural deficits).

Processing of visual semantic information to concrete words: temporal dynamics and neural mechanisms indicated by event-related brain potentials( ).

PubMed

van Schie, Hein T; Wijers, Albertus A; Mars, Rogier B; Benjamins, Jeroen S; Stowe, Laurie A

2005-05-01

Event-related brain potentials were used to study the retrieval of visual semantic information to concrete words, and to investigate possible structural overlap between visual object working memory and concreteness effects in word processing. Subjects performed an object working memory task that involved 5 s retention of simple 4-angled polygons (load 1), complex 10-angled polygons (load 2), and a no-load baseline condition. During the polygon retention interval subjects were presented with a lexical decision task to auditory presented concrete (imageable) and abstract (nonimageable) words, and pseudowords. ERP results are consistent with the use of object working memory for the visualisation of concrete words. Our data indicate a two-step processing model of visual semantics in which visual descriptive information of concrete words is first encoded in semantic memory (indicated by an anterior N400 and posterior occipital positivity), and is subsequently visualised via the network for object working memory (reflected by a left frontal positive slow wave and a bilateral occipital slow wave negativity). Results are discussed in the light of contemporary models of semantic memory.

The representation of semantic knowledge in a child with Williams syndrome.

PubMed

Robinson, Sally J; Temple, Christine M

2009-05-01

This study investigated whether there are distinct types of semantic knowledge with distinct representational bases during development. The representation of semantic knowledge in a teenage child (S.T.) with Williams syndrome was explored for the categories of animals, fruit, and vegetables, manipulable objects, and nonmanipulable objects. S.T.'s lexical stores were of a normal size but the volume of "sensory feature" semantic knowledge she generated in oral descriptions was reduced. In visual recognition decisions, S.T. made more false positives to nonitems than did controls. Although overall naming of pictures was unimpaired, S.T. exhibited a category-specific anomia for nonmanipulable objects and impaired naming of visual-feature descriptions of animals. S.T.'s performance was interpreted as reflecting the impaired integration of distinctive features from perceptual input, which may impact upon nonmanipulable objects to a greater extent than the other knowledge categories. Performance was used to inform adult-based models of semantic representation, with category structure proposed to emerge due to differing degrees of dependency upon underlying knowledge types, feature correlations, and the acquisition of information from modality-specific processing modules.

Psychoanalysis, Islam, and the other of Liberalism.

PubMed

Massad, Joseph

2009-01-01

This paper examines the terms and methods used by psychoanalytic authors to explain and understand something they other as "Islam." The paper engages critically and psycho-analytically with these authors' attempts to read "Islam" psychoanalytically, and finds that more often than not they subject it to liberal principles that are not defined in psychoanalytic terms. Focusing on the work of Tunisian author Fethi Benslama, the paper analyses and deconstructs certain key semantic and conceptual confusions of "Islam" and "Islamism" that are manifest in the general psychoanalytic literature on "Islam".

Real-time object detection and semantic segmentation for autonomous driving

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Baojun; Liu, Shun; Xu, Weichao; Qiu, Wei

2018-02-01

In this paper, we proposed a Highly Coupled Network (HCNet) for joint objection detection and semantic segmentation. It follows that our method is faster and performs better than the previous approaches whose decoder networks of different tasks are independent. Besides, we present multi-scale loss architecture to learn better representation for different scale objects, but without extra time in the inference phase. Experiment results show that our method achieves state-of-the-art results on the KITTI datasets. Moreover, it can run at 35 FPS on a GPU and thus is a practical solution to object detection and semantic segmentation for autonomous driving.

Relaxation as a Factor in Semantic Desensitization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bechtel, James E.; McNamara, J. Regis

1975-01-01

Relaxation and semantic desensitization were used to alleviate the fear of phobic females. Results showed that semantic desensitization, alone or in combination with relaxation, failed to modify the evaluative meanings evoked by the feared object. (SE)

Apraxia, mechanical problem solving and semantic knowledge: contributions to object usage in corticobasal degeneration.

PubMed

Spatt, Josef; Bak, Thomas; Bozeat, Sasha; Patterson, Karalyn; Hodges, John R

2002-05-01

To investigate the nature of the apraxia in corticobasal degeneration (CBD) five patients with CBD and five matched controls were compared on tests of: i) meaningless and symbolic gesture production, ii) a battery of semantic tasks based on 20 everyday items (involving naming and picture-picture matching according to semantic attributes, matching gestures-to-objects, object usage from name and with the real object) and iii) a novel tool test of mechanical problem solving. All five patients showed severe impairment in the production of meaningless and symbolic gestures from command, and by imitation, and were also impaired when using real objects. Deficits were not, however, restricted to action production: four were unable to match gestures to objects and all five showed impairment in the selection and usage of novel tools in the mechanical problem solving task. Surprising was the finding of an additional semantic knowledge breakdown in three cases, two of whom were markedly anomic. The apraxia in CBD is, therefore, multifactorial. There is profound breakdown in the organisation and co-ordination of motor programming. In addition, patients show central deficits in action knowledge and mechanical problem solving, which has been linked to parietal lobe pathology. General semantic memory may also be affected in CBD in some cases and this may then contribute to impaired object usage. This combination of more than one deficit relevant for object use may explain why CBD patients are far more disabled by their dyspraxia in everyday life than any other patient group.

Neurology of anomia in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia

PubMed Central

Rogalski, Emily; Wieneke, Christina; Cobia, Derin; Rademaker, Alfred; Thompson, Cynthia; Weintraub, Sandra

2009-01-01

The semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is characterized by the combination of word comprehension deficits, fluent aphasia and a particularly severe anomia. In this study, two novel tasks were used to explore the factors contributing to the anomia. The single most common factor was a blurring of distinctions among members of a semantic category, leading to errors of overgeneralization in word–object matching tasks as well as in word definitions and object descriptions. This factor was more pronounced for natural kinds than artifacts. In patients with the more severe anomias, conceptual maps were more extensively disrupted so that inter-category distinctions were as impaired as intra-category distinctions. Many objects that could not be named aloud could be matched to the correct word in patients with mild but not severe anomia, reflecting a gradual intensification of the semantic factor as the naming disorder becomes more severe. Accurate object descriptions were more frequent than accurate word definitions and all patients experienced prominent word comprehension deficits that interfered with everyday activities but no consequential impairment of object usage or face recognition. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed three characteristics: greater atrophy of the left hemisphere; atrophy of anterior components of the perisylvian language network in the superior and middle temporal gyri; and atrophy of anterior components of the face and object recognition network in the inferior and medial temporal lobes. The left sided asymmetry and perisylvian extension of the atrophy explains the more profound impairment of word than object usage and provides the anatomical basis for distinguishing the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia from the partially overlapping group of patients that fulfil the widely accepted diagnostic criteria for semantic dementia. PMID:19506067

Neurology of anomia in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia.

PubMed

Mesulam, Marsel; Rogalski, Emily; Wieneke, Christina; Cobia, Derin; Rademaker, Alfred; Thompson, Cynthia; Weintraub, Sandra

2009-09-01

The semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is characterized by the combination of word comprehension deficits, fluent aphasia and a particularly severe anomia. In this study, two novel tasks were used to explore the factors contributing to the anomia. The single most common factor was a blurring of distinctions among members of a semantic category, leading to errors of overgeneralization in word-object matching tasks as well as in word definitions and object descriptions. This factor was more pronounced for natural kinds than artifacts. In patients with the more severe anomias, conceptual maps were more extensively disrupted so that inter-category distinctions were as impaired as intra-category distinctions. Many objects that could not be named aloud could be matched to the correct word in patients with mild but not severe anomia, reflecting a gradual intensification of the semantic factor as the naming disorder becomes more severe. Accurate object descriptions were more frequent than accurate word definitions and all patients experienced prominent word comprehension deficits that interfered with everyday activities but no consequential impairment of object usage or face recognition. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed three characteristics: greater atrophy of the left hemisphere; atrophy of anterior components of the perisylvian language network in the superior and middle temporal gyri; and atrophy of anterior components of the face and object recognition network in the inferior and medial temporal lobes. The left sided asymmetry and perisylvian extension of the atrophy explains the more profound impairment of word than object usage and provides the anatomical basis for distinguishing the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia from the partially overlapping group of patients that fulfil the widely accepted diagnostic criteria for semantic dementia.

Representational Similarity Analysis Reveals Commonalities and Differences in the Semantic Processing of Words and Objects

PubMed Central

Devereux, Barry J.; Clarke, Alex; Marouchos, Andreas; Tyler, Lorraine K.

2013-01-01

Understanding the meanings of words and objects requires the activation of underlying conceptual representations. Semantic representations are often assumed to be coded such that meaning is evoked regardless of the input modality. However, the extent to which meaning is coded in modality-independent or amodal systems remains controversial. We address this issue in a human fMRI study investigating the neural processing of concepts, presented separately as written words and pictures. Activation maps for each individual word and picture were used as input for searchlight-based multivoxel pattern analyses. Representational similarity analysis was used to identify regions correlating with low-level visual models of the words and objects and the semantic category structure common to both. Common semantic category effects for both modalities were found in a left-lateralized network, including left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LpMTG), left angular gyrus, and left intraparietal sulcus (LIPS), in addition to object- and word-specific semantic processing in ventral temporal cortex and more anterior MTG, respectively. To explore differences in representational content across regions and modalities, we developed novel data-driven analyses, based on k-means clustering of searchlight dissimilarity matrices and seeded correlation analysis. These revealed subtle differences in the representations in semantic-sensitive regions, with representations in LIPS being relatively invariant to stimulus modality and representations in LpMTG being uncorrelated across modality. These results suggest that, although both LpMTG and LIPS are involved in semantic processing, only the functional role of LIPS is the same regardless of the visual input, whereas the functional role of LpMTG differs for words and objects. PMID:24285896

Speed Limits: Orientation and Semantic Context Interactions Constrain Natural Scene Discrimination Dynamics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rieger, Jochem W.; Kochy, Nick; Schalk, Franziska; Gruschow, Marcus; Heinze, Hans-Jochen

2008-01-01

The visual system rapidly extracts information about objects from the cluttered natural environment. In 5 experiments, the authors quantified the influence of orientation and semantics on the classification speed of objects in natural scenes, particularly with regard to object-context interactions. Natural scene photographs were presented in an…

Semantic Segmentation of Building Elements Using Point Cloud Hashing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chizhova, M.; Gurianov, A.; Hess, M.; Luhmann, T.; Brunn, A.; Stilla, U.

2018-05-01

For the interpretation of point clouds, the semantic definition of extracted segments from point clouds or images is a common problem. Usually, the semantic of geometrical pre-segmented point cloud elements are determined using probabilistic networks and scene databases. The proposed semantic segmentation method is based on the psychological human interpretation of geometric objects, especially on fundamental rules of primary comprehension. Starting from these rules the buildings could be quite well and simply classified by a human operator (e.g. architect) into different building types and structural elements (dome, nave, transept etc.), including particular building parts which are visually detected. The key part of the procedure is a novel method based on hashing where point cloud projections are transformed into binary pixel representations. A segmentation approach released on the example of classical Orthodox churches is suitable for other buildings and objects characterized through a particular typology in its construction (e.g. industrial objects in standardized enviroments with strict component design allowing clear semantic modelling).

Does the Sound of a Barking Dog Activate its Corresponding Visual Form? An fMRI Investigation of Modality-Specific Semantic Access

PubMed Central

Reilly, Jamie; Garcia, Amanda; Binney, Richard J.

2016-01-01

Much remains to be learned about the neural architecture underlying word meaning. Fully distributed models of semantic memory predict that the sound of a barking dog will conjointly engage a network of distributed sensorimotor spokes. An alternative framework holds that modality-specific features additionally converge within transmodal hubs. Participants underwent functional MRI while covertly naming familiar objects versus newly learned novel objects from only one of their constituent semantic features (visual form, characteristic sound, or point-light motion representation). Relative to the novel object baseline, familiar concepts elicited greater activation within association regions specific to that presentation modality. Furthermore, visual form elicited activation within high-level auditory association cortex. Conversely, environmental sounds elicited activation in regions proximal to visual association cortex. Both conditions commonly engaged a putative hub region within lateral anterior temporal cortex. These results support hybrid semantic models in which local hubs and distributed spokes are dually engaged in service of semantic memory. PMID:27289210

Core Knowledge Confusions Among University Students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindeman, Marjaana; Svedholm, Annika M.; Takada, Mikito; Lönnqvist, Jan-Erik; Verkasalo, Markku

2011-05-01

Previous studies have demonstrated that university students hold several paranormal beliefs and that paranormal beliefs can be best explained with core knowledge confusions. The aim of this study was to explore to what extent university students confuse the core ontological attributes of lifeless material objects (e.g. a house, a stone), living organisms (e.g. plants), and mental states (e.g., thoughts); whether some core knowledge confusions are more common than others; whether the confusions differ between students from different fields of study, and to replicate the finding that paranormal beliefs increase together with core knowledge confusions. The results showed that half of the participants considered at least four, and one quarter of the participants considered 8-30 confusion statements to be literally true and that the confusions were strongly and positively associated with the amount of paranormal beliefs. The findings indicate that university education does not abolish the misconceptions that characterize children's thinking.

Object activation in semantic memory from visual multimodal feature input.

PubMed

Kraut, Michael A; Kremen, Sarah; Moo, Lauren R; Segal, Jessica B; Calhoun, Vincent; Hart, John

2002-01-01

The human brain's representation of objects has been proposed to exist as a network of coactivated neural regions present in multiple cognitive systems. However, it is not known if there is a region specific to the process of activating an integrated object representation in semantic memory from multimodal feature stimuli (e.g., picture-word). A previous study using word-word feature pairs as stimulus input showed that the left thalamus is integrally involved in object activation (Kraut, Kremen, Segal, et al., this issue). In the present study, participants were presented picture-word pairs that are features of objects, with the task being to decide if together they "activated" an object not explicitly presented (e.g., picture of a candle and the word "icing" activate the internal representation of a "cake"). For picture-word pairs that combine to elicit an object, signal change was detected in the ventral temporo-occipital regions, pre-SMA, left primary somatomotor cortex, both caudate nuclei, and the dorsal thalami bilaterally. These findings suggest that the left thalamus is engaged for either picture or word stimuli, but the right thalamus appears to be involved when picture stimuli are also presented with words in semantic object activation tasks. The somatomotor signal changes are likely secondary to activation of the semantic object representations from multimodal visual stimuli.

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.

An object-oriented design for automated navigation of semantic networks inside a medical data dictionary.

PubMed

Ruan, W; Bürkle, T; Dudeck, J

2000-01-01

In this paper we present a data dictionary server for the automated navigation of information sources. The underlying knowledge is represented within a medical data dictionary. The mapping between medical terms and information sources is based on a semantic network. The key aspect of implementing the dictionary server is how to represent the semantic network in a way that is easier to navigate and to operate, i.e. how to abstract the semantic network and to represent it in memory for various operations. This paper describes an object-oriented design based on Java that represents the semantic network in terms of a group of objects. A node and its relationships to its neighbors are encapsulated in one object. Based on such a representation model, several operations have been implemented. They comprise the extraction of parts of the semantic network which can be reached from a given node as well as finding all paths between a start node and a predefined destination node. This solution is independent of any given layout of the semantic structure. Therefore the module, called Giessen Data Dictionary Server can act independent of a specific clinical information system. The dictionary server will be used to present clinical information, e.g. treatment guidelines or drug information sources to the clinician in an appropriate working context. The server is invoked from clinical documentation applications which contain an infobutton. Automated navigation will guide the user to all the information relevant to her/his topic, which is currently available inside our closed clinical network.

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

Knowledge-based understanding of aerial surveillance video

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cheng, Hui; Butler, Darren

2006-05-01

Aerial surveillance has long been used by the military to locate, monitor and track the enemy. Recently, its scope has expanded to include law enforcement activities, disaster management and commercial applications. With the ever-growing amount of aerial surveillance video acquired daily, there is an urgent need for extracting actionable intelligence in a timely manner. Furthermore, to support high-level video understanding, this analysis needs to go beyond current approaches and consider the relationships, motivations and intentions of the objects in the scene. In this paper we propose a system for interpreting aerial surveillance videos that automatically generates a succinct but meaningful description of the observed regions, objects and events. For a given video, the semantics of important regions and objects, and the relationships between them, are summarised into a semantic concept graph. From this, a textual description is derived that provides new search and indexing options for aerial video and enables the fusion of aerial video with other information modalities, such as human intelligence, reports and signal intelligence. Using a Mixture-of-Experts video segmentation algorithm an aerial video is first decomposed into regions and objects with predefined semantic meanings. The objects are then tracked and coerced into a semantic concept graph and the graph is summarized spatially, temporally and semantically using ontology guided sub-graph matching and re-writing. The system exploits domain specific knowledge and uses a reasoning engine to verify and correct the classes, identities and semantic relationships between the objects. This approach is advantageous because misclassifications lead to knowledge contradictions and hence they can be easily detected and intelligently corrected. In addition, the graph representation highlights events and anomalies that a low-level analysis would overlook.

Can social semantic web techniques foster collaborative curriculum mapping in medicine?

PubMed

Spreckelsen, Cord; Finsterer, Sonja; Cremer, Jan; Schenkat, Hennig

2013-08-15

Curriculum mapping, which is aimed at the systematic realignment of the planned, taught, and learned curriculum, is considered a challenging and ongoing effort in medical education. Second-generation curriculum managing systems foster knowledge management processes including curriculum mapping in order to give comprehensive support to learners, teachers, and administrators. The large quantity of custom-built software in this field indicates a shortcoming of available IT tools and standards. The project reported here aims at the systematic adoption of techniques and standards of the Social Semantic Web to implement collaborative curriculum mapping for a complete medical model curriculum. A semantic MediaWiki (SMW)-based Web application has been introduced as a platform for the elicitation and revision process of the Aachen Catalogue of Learning Objectives (ACLO). The semantic wiki uses a domain model of the curricular context and offers structured (form-based) data entry, multiple views, structured querying, semantic indexing, and commenting for learning objectives ("LOs"). Semantic indexing of learning objectives relies on both a controlled vocabulary of international medical classifications (ICD, MeSH) and a folksonomy maintained by the users. An additional module supporting the global checking of consistency complements the semantic wiki. Statements of the Object Constraint Language define the consistency criteria. We evaluated the application by a scenario-based formative usability study, where the participants solved tasks in the (fictional) context of 7 typical situations and answered a questionnaire containing Likert-scaled items and free-text questions. At present, ACLO contains roughly 5350 operational (ie, specific and measurable) objectives acquired during the last 25 months. The wiki-based user interface uses 13 online forms for data entry and 4 online forms for flexible searches of LOs, and all the forms are accessible by standard Web browsers. The formative usability study yielded positive results (median rating of 2 ("good") in all 7 general usability items) and produced valuable qualitative feedback, especially concerning navigation and comprehensibility. Although not asked to, the participants (n=5) detected critical aspects of the curriculum (similar learning objectives addressed repeatedly and missing objectives), thus proving the system's ability to support curriculum revision. The SMW-based approach enabled an agile implementation of computer-supported knowledge management. The approach, based on standard Social Semantic Web formats and technology, represents a feasible and effectively applicable compromise between answering to the individual requirements of curriculum management at a particular medical school and using proprietary systems.

Getting the Picture: Iconicity Does Not Affect Representation-Referent Confusion

PubMed Central

Wimmer, Marina C.; Robinson, Elizabeth J.; Koenig, Laura; Corder, Emma

2014-01-01

Three experiments examined 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 428) understanding of the relationship between pictorial iconicity (photograph, colored drawing, schematic drawing) and the real world referent. Experiments 1 and 2 explored pictorial iconicity in picture-referent confusion after the picture-object relationship has been established. Pictorial iconicity had no effect on referential confusion when the referent changed after the picture had been taken/drawn (Experiment 1) and when the referent and the picture were different from the outset (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 investigated whether children are sensitive to iconicity to begin with. Children deemed photographs from a choice of varying iconicity representations as best representations for object reference. Together, findings suggest that iconicity plays a role in establishing a picture-object relation per se but is irrelevant once children have accepted that a picture represents an object. The latter finding may reflect domain general representational abilities. PMID:25247708

Multiple Semantic Matching on Augmented N-partite Graph for Object Co-segmentation.

PubMed

Wang, Chuan; Zhang, Hua; Yang, Liang; Cao, Xiaochun; Xiong, Hongkai

2017-09-08

Recent methods for object co-segmentation focus on discovering single co-occurring relation of candidate regions representing the foreground of multiple images. However, region extraction based only on low and middle level information often occupies a large area of background without the help of semantic context. In addition, seeking single matching solution very likely leads to discover local parts of common objects. To cope with these deficiencies, we present a new object cosegmentation framework, which takes advantages of semantic information and globally explores multiple co-occurring matching cliques based on an N-partite graph structure. To this end, we first propose to incorporate candidate generation with semantic context. Based on the regions extracted from semantic segmentation of each image, we design a merging mechanism to hierarchically generate candidates with high semantic responses. Secondly, all candidates are taken into consideration to globally formulate multiple maximum weighted matching cliques, which complements the discovery of part of the common objects induced by a single clique. To facilitate the discovery of multiple matching cliques, an N-partite graph, which inherently excludes intralinks between candidates from the same image, is constructed to separate multiple cliques without additional constraints. Further, we augment the graph with an additional virtual node in each part to handle irrelevant matches when the similarity between two candidates is too small. Finally, with the explored multiple cliques, we statistically compute pixel-wise co-occurrence map for each image. Experimental results on two benchmark datasets, i.e., iCoseg and MSRC datasets, achieve desirable performance and demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed framework.

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.

Semantics and types of cough

PubMed Central

Chung, Kian Fan; Bolser, Don; Davenport, Paul; Fontana, Giovanni; Morice, Alyn; Widdicombe, John

2010-01-01

The panel considered the different types of cough in terms of basic mechanisms and clinical manifestations; both experimentally and clinically cough could occur in single efforts and as ‘bouts’ or ‘epochs’. There were different definitions of cough but, provided the definition used was clear, this did not seem to be a major concern. The methods available for determining the nature or type of clinical cough were discussed, in particular automated cough counting in the clinic and more sophisticated methods available in the laboratory. With regard to semantics, there has been great variation in the names used; this applies to nervous sensors for cough, to cough reflexes and epochs, to clinical names for cough, and to cough sounds. Some simplification and uniformity of nomenclature seemed desirable although, provided the use of a name was clear, little confusion probably existed. The panel felt that the cough nomenclature would evolve with time and would prove to be useful for investigators, clinicians and coughers. PMID:19136069

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…

Evolvix BEST Names for semantic reproducibility across code2brain interfaces

PubMed Central

Scheuer, Katherine S.; Keel, Seth A.; Vyas, Vaibhav; Liblit, Ben; Hanlon, Bret; Ferris, Michael C.; Yin, John; Dutra, Inês; Pietsch, Anthony; Javid, Christine G.; Moog, Cecilia L.; Meyer, Jocelyn; Dresel, Jerdon; McLoone, Brian; Loberger, Sonya; Movaghar, Arezoo; Gilchrist‐Scott, Morgaine; Sabri, Yazeed; Sescleifer, Dave; Pereda‐Zorrilla, Ivan; Zietlow, Andrew; Smith, Rodrigo; Pietenpol, Samantha; Goldfinger, Jacob; Atzen, Sarah L.; Freiberg, Erika; Waters, Noah P.; Nusbaum, Claire; Nolan, Erik; Hotz, Alyssa; Kliman, Richard M.; Mentewab, Ayalew; Fregien, Nathan; Loewe, Martha

2016-01-01

Names in programming are vital for understanding the meaning of code and big data. We define code2brain (C2B) interfaces as maps in compilers and brains between meaning and naming syntax, which help to understand executable code. While working toward an Evolvix syntax for general‐purpose programming that makes accurate modeling easy for biologists, we observed how names affect C2B quality. To protect learning and coding investments, C2B interfaces require long‐term backward compatibility and semantic reproducibility (accurate reproduction of computational meaning from coder‐brains to reader‐brains by code alone). Semantic reproducibility is often assumed until confusing synonyms degrade modeling in biology to deciphering exercises. We highlight empirical naming priorities from diverse individuals and roles of names in different modes of computing to show how naming easily becomes impossibly difficult. We present the Evolvix BEST (Brief, Explicit, Summarizing, Technical) Names concept for reducing naming priority conflicts, test it on a real challenge by naming subfolders for the Project Organization Stabilizing Tool system, and provide naming questionnaires designed to facilitate C2B debugging by improving names used as keywords in a stabilizing programming language. Our experiences inspired us to develop Evolvix using a flipped programming language design approach with some unexpected features and BEST Names at its core. PMID:27918836

Semantic Processing of Mathematical Gestures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lim, Vanessa K.; Wilson, Anna J.; Hamm, Jeff P.; Phillips, Nicola; Iwabuchi, Sarina J.; Corballis, Michael C.; Arzarello, Ferdinando; Thomas, Michael O. J.

2009-01-01

Objective: To examine whether or not university mathematics students semantically process gestures depicting mathematical functions (mathematical gestures) similarly to the way they process action gestures and sentences. Semantic processing was indexed by the N400 effect. Results: The N400 effect elicited by words primed with mathematical gestures…

Syntactic processing in the absence of awareness and semantics.

PubMed

Hung, Shao-Min; Hsieh, Po-Jang

2015-10-01

The classical view that multistep rule-based operations require consciousness has recently been challenged by findings that both multiword semantic processing and multistep arithmetic equations can be processed unconsciously. It remains unclear, however, whether pure rule-based cognitive processes can occur unconsciously in the absence of semantics. Here, after presenting 2 words consciously, we suppressed the third with continuous flash suppression. First, we showed that the third word in the subject-verb-verb format (syntactically incongruent) broke suppression significantly faster than the third word in the subject-verb-object format (syntactically congruent). Crucially, the same effect was observed even with sentences composed of pseudowords (pseudo subject-verb-adjective vs. pseudo subject-verb-object) without any semantic information. This is the first study to show that syntactic congruency can be processed unconsciously in the complete absence of semantics. Our findings illustrate how abstract rule-based processing (e.g., syntactic categories) can occur in the absence of visual awareness, even when deprived of semantics. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Implicit Semantic Perception in Object Substitution Masking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goodhew, Stephanie C.; Visser, Troy A. W.; Lipp, Ottmar V.; Dux, Paul E.

2011-01-01

Decades of research on visual perception has uncovered many phenomena, such as binocular rivalry, backward masking, and the attentional blink, that reflect "failures of consciousness". Although stimuli do not reach awareness in these paradigms, there is evidence that they nevertheless undergo semantic processing. Object substitution masking (OSM),…

Can Social Semantic Web Techniques Foster Collaborative Curriculum Mapping In Medicine?

PubMed Central

Finsterer, Sonja; Cremer, Jan; Schenkat, Hennig

2013-01-01

Background Curriculum mapping, which is aimed at the systematic realignment of the planned, taught, and learned curriculum, is considered a challenging and ongoing effort in medical education. Second-generation curriculum managing systems foster knowledge management processes including curriculum mapping in order to give comprehensive support to learners, teachers, and administrators. The large quantity of custom-built software in this field indicates a shortcoming of available IT tools and standards. Objective The project reported here aims at the systematic adoption of techniques and standards of the Social Semantic Web to implement collaborative curriculum mapping for a complete medical model curriculum. Methods A semantic MediaWiki (SMW)-based Web application has been introduced as a platform for the elicitation and revision process of the Aachen Catalogue of Learning Objectives (ACLO). The semantic wiki uses a domain model of the curricular context and offers structured (form-based) data entry, multiple views, structured querying, semantic indexing, and commenting for learning objectives (“LOs”). Semantic indexing of learning objectives relies on both a controlled vocabulary of international medical classifications (ICD, MeSH) and a folksonomy maintained by the users. An additional module supporting the global checking of consistency complements the semantic wiki. Statements of the Object Constraint Language define the consistency criteria. We evaluated the application by a scenario-based formative usability study, where the participants solved tasks in the (fictional) context of 7 typical situations and answered a questionnaire containing Likert-scaled items and free-text questions. Results At present, ACLO contains roughly 5350 operational (ie, specific and measurable) objectives acquired during the last 25 months. The wiki-based user interface uses 13 online forms for data entry and 4 online forms for flexible searches of LOs, and all the forms are accessible by standard Web browsers. The formative usability study yielded positive results (median rating of 2 (“good”) in all 7 general usability items) and produced valuable qualitative feedback, especially concerning navigation and comprehensibility. Although not asked to, the participants (n=5) detected critical aspects of the curriculum (similar learning objectives addressed repeatedly and missing objectives), thus proving the system’s ability to support curriculum revision. Conclusions The SMW-based approach enabled an agile implementation of computer-supported knowledge management. The approach, based on standard Social Semantic Web formats and technology, represents a feasible and effectively applicable compromise between answering to the individual requirements of curriculum management at a particular medical school and using proprietary systems. PMID:23948519

Semantic framework for mapping object-oriented model to semantic web languages

PubMed Central

Ježek, Petr; Mouček, Roman

2015-01-01

The article deals with and discusses two main approaches in building semantic structures for electrophysiological metadata. It is the use of conventional data structures, repositories, and programming languages on one hand and the use of formal representations of ontologies, known from knowledge representation, such as description logics or semantic web languages on the other hand. Although knowledge engineering offers languages supporting richer semantic means of expression and technological advanced approaches, conventional data structures and repositories are still popular among developers, administrators and users because of their simplicity, overall intelligibility, and lower demands on technical equipment. The choice of conventional data resources and repositories, however, raises the question of how and where to add semantics that cannot be naturally expressed using them. As one of the possible solutions, this semantics can be added into the structures of the programming language that accesses and processes the underlying data. To support this idea we introduced a software prototype that enables its users to add semantically richer expressions into a Java object-oriented code. This approach does not burden users with additional demands on programming environment since reflective Java annotations were used as an entry for these expressions. Moreover, additional semantics need not to be written by the programmer directly to the code, but it can be collected from non-programmers using a graphic user interface. The mapping that allows the transformation of the semantically enriched Java code into the Semantic Web language OWL was proposed and implemented in a library named the Semantic Framework. This approach was validated by the integration of the Semantic Framework in the EEG/ERP Portal and by the subsequent registration of the EEG/ERP Portal in the Neuroscience Information Framework. PMID:25762923

Semantic framework for mapping object-oriented model to semantic web languages.

PubMed

Ježek, Petr; Mouček, Roman

2015-01-01

The article deals with and discusses two main approaches in building semantic structures for electrophysiological metadata. It is the use of conventional data structures, repositories, and programming languages on one hand and the use of formal representations of ontologies, known from knowledge representation, such as description logics or semantic web languages on the other hand. Although knowledge engineering offers languages supporting richer semantic means of expression and technological advanced approaches, conventional data structures and repositories are still popular among developers, administrators and users because of their simplicity, overall intelligibility, and lower demands on technical equipment. The choice of conventional data resources and repositories, however, raises the question of how and where to add semantics that cannot be naturally expressed using them. As one of the possible solutions, this semantics can be added into the structures of the programming language that accesses and processes the underlying data. To support this idea we introduced a software prototype that enables its users to add semantically richer expressions into a Java object-oriented code. This approach does not burden users with additional demands on programming environment since reflective Java annotations were used as an entry for these expressions. Moreover, additional semantics need not to be written by the programmer directly to the code, but it can be collected from non-programmers using a graphic user interface. The mapping that allows the transformation of the semantically enriched Java code into the Semantic Web language OWL was proposed and implemented in a library named the Semantic Framework. This approach was validated by the integration of the Semantic Framework in the EEG/ERP Portal and by the subsequent registration of the EEG/ERP Portal in the Neuroscience Information Framework.

Learning the Language of Healthcare Enabling Semantic Web Technology in CHCS

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-09-01

tuples”, (subject, predicate, object), to relate data and achieve semantic interoperability . Other similar technologies exist, but their... Semantic Healthcare repository [5]. Ultimately, both of our data approaches were successful. However, our current test system is based on the CPRS demo...to extract system dependencies and workflows; to extract semantically related patient data ; and to browse patient- centric views into the system . We

Automatic textual annotation of video news based on semantic visual object extraction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boujemaa, Nozha; Fleuret, Francois; Gouet, Valerie; Sahbi, Hichem

2003-12-01

In this paper, we present our work for automatic generation of textual metadata based on visual content analysis of video news. We present two methods for semantic object detection and recognition from a cross modal image-text thesaurus. These thesaurus represent a supervised association between models and semantic labels. This paper is concerned with two semantic objects: faces and Tv logos. In the first part, we present our work for efficient face detection and recogniton with automatic name generation. This method allows us also to suggest the textual annotation of shots close-up estimation. On the other hand, we were interested to automatically detect and recognize different Tv logos present on incoming different news from different Tv Channels. This work was done jointly with the French Tv Channel TF1 within the "MediaWorks" project that consists on an hybrid text-image indexing and retrieval plateform for video news.

A User-Centric Knowledge Creation Model in a Web of Object-Enabled Internet of Things Environment

PubMed Central

Kibria, Muhammad Golam; Fattah, Sheik Mohammad Mostakim; Jeong, Kwanghyeon; Chong, Ilyoung; Jeong, Youn-Kwae

2015-01-01

User-centric service features in a Web of Object-enabled Internet of Things environment can be provided by using a semantic ontology that classifies and integrates objects on the World Wide Web as well as shares and merges context-aware information and accumulated knowledge. The semantic ontology is applied on a Web of Object platform to virtualize the real world physical devices and information to form virtual objects that represent the features and capabilities of devices in the virtual world. Detailed information and functionalities of multiple virtual objects are combined with service rules to form composite virtual objects that offer context-aware knowledge-based services, where context awareness plays an important role in enabling automatic modification of the system to reconfigure the services based on the context. Converting the raw data into meaningful information and connecting the information to form the knowledge and storing and reusing the objects in the knowledge base can both be expressed by semantic ontology. In this paper, a knowledge creation model that synchronizes a service logistic model and a virtual world knowledge model on a Web of Object platform has been proposed. To realize the context-aware knowledge-based service creation and execution, a conceptual semantic ontology model has been developed and a prototype has been implemented for a use case scenario of emergency service. PMID:26393609

A User-Centric Knowledge Creation Model in a Web of Object-Enabled Internet of Things Environment.

PubMed

Kibria, Muhammad Golam; Fattah, Sheik Mohammad Mostakim; Jeong, Kwanghyeon; Chong, Ilyoung; Jeong, Youn-Kwae

2015-09-18

User-centric service features in a Web of Object-enabled Internet of Things environment can be provided by using a semantic ontology that classifies and integrates objects on the World Wide Web as well as shares and merges context-aware information and accumulated knowledge. The semantic ontology is applied on a Web of Object platform to virtualize the real world physical devices and information to form virtual objects that represent the features and capabilities of devices in the virtual world. Detailed information and functionalities of multiple virtual objects are combined with service rules to form composite virtual objects that offer context-aware knowledge-based services, where context awareness plays an important role in enabling automatic modification of the system to reconfigure the services based on the context. Converting the raw data into meaningful information and connecting the information to form the knowledge and storing and reusing the objects in the knowledge base can both be expressed by semantic ontology. In this paper, a knowledge creation model that synchronizes a service logistic model and a virtual world knowledge model on a Web of Object platform has been proposed. To realize the context-aware knowledge-based service creation and execution, a conceptual semantic ontology model has been developed and a prototype has been implemented for a use case scenario of emergency service.

Seek and you shall remember: Scene semantics interact with visual search to build better memories

PubMed Central

Draschkow, Dejan; Wolfe, Jeremy M.; Võ, Melissa L.-H.

2014-01-01

Memorizing critical objects and their locations is an essential part of everyday life. In the present study, incidental encoding of objects in naturalistic scenes during search was compared to explicit memorization of those scenes. To investigate if prior knowledge of scene structure influences these two types of encoding differently, we used meaningless arrays of objects as well as objects in real-world, semantically meaningful images. Surprisingly, when participants were asked to recall scenes, their memory performance was markedly better for searched objects than for objects they had explicitly tried to memorize, even though participants in the search condition were not explicitly asked to memorize objects. This finding held true even when objects were observed for an equal amount of time in both conditions. Critically, the recall benefit for searched over memorized objects in scenes was eliminated when objects were presented on uniform, non-scene backgrounds rather than in a full scene context. Thus, scene semantics not only help us search for objects in naturalistic scenes, but appear to produce a representation that supports our memory for those objects beyond intentional memorization. PMID:25015385

RuleML-Based Learning Object Interoperability on the Semantic Web

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biletskiy, Yevgen; Boley, Harold; Ranganathan, Girish R.

2008-01-01

Purpose: The present paper aims to describe an approach for building the Semantic Web rules for interoperation between heterogeneous learning objects, namely course outlines from different universities, and one of the rule uses: identifying (in)compatibilities between course descriptions. Design/methodology/approach: As proof of concept, a rule…

Contextually guided very-high-resolution imagery classification with semantic segments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Wenzhi; Du, Shihong; Wang, Qiao; Emery, William J.

2017-10-01

Contextual information, revealing relationships and dependencies between image objects, is one of the most important information for the successful interpretation of very-high-resolution (VHR) remote sensing imagery. Over the last decade, geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) technique has been widely used to first divide images into homogeneous parts, and then to assign semantic labels according to the properties of image segments. However, due to the complexity and heterogeneity of VHR images, segments without semantic labels (i.e., semantic-free segments) generated with low-level features often fail to represent geographic entities (such as building roofs usually be partitioned into chimney/antenna/shadow parts). As a result, it is hard to capture contextual information across geographic entities when using semantic-free segments. In contrast to low-level features, "deep" features can be used to build robust segments with accurate labels (i.e., semantic segments) in order to represent geographic entities at higher levels. Based on these semantic segments, semantic graphs can be constructed to capture contextual information in VHR images. In this paper, semantic segments were first explored with convolutional neural networks (CNN) and a conditional random field (CRF) model was then applied to model the contextual information between semantic segments. Experimental results on two challenging VHR datasets (i.e., the Vaihingen and Beijing scenes) indicate that the proposed method is an improvement over existing image classification techniques in classification performance (overall accuracy ranges from 82% to 96%).

Facilitation and Interference in Identification of Pictures and Words

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-10-05

semantic activation and episodic memory encoding. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22, 88-104. Becker, C. A. (1979). Semantic context...set of items, such as pictures of common objects or known words, which have representations in semantic memory . To test this, we compared the...activation model in particular because nonwords have no memorial representation in semantic memory and thus cannot interfere with ore another. 2. Long-term

The Role of Context in Remembering Familiar Persons: Insights from Semantic Dementia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Joubert, Sven; Mauries, Sandrine; Barbeau, Emmanuel; Ceccaldi, Mathieu; Poncet, Michel

2004-01-01

Semantic dementia (SD) is a progressive condition characterized by an insidious and gradual breakdown in semantic knowledge. Patients suffering from this condition gradually lose their knowledge of objects and their attributes, concepts, famous persons, and public events. In contrast, these patients maintain a striking preservation of…

Priming Addition Facts with Semantic Relations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bassok, Miriam; Pedigo, Samuel F.; Oskarsson, An T.

2008-01-01

Results from 2 relational-priming experiments suggest the existence of an automatic analogical coordination between semantic and arithmetic relations. Word pairs denoting object sets served as primes in a task that elicits "obligatory" activation of addition facts (5 + 3 activates 8; J. LeFevre, J. Bisanz, & L. Mrkonjic, 1988). Semantic relations…

Structure and Deterioration of Semantic Memory: A Neuropsychological and Computational Investigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rogers, Timothy T.; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A.; Garrard, Peter; Bozeat, Sasha; McClelland, James L.; Hodges, John R.; Patterson, Karalyn

2004-01-01

Wernicke (1900, as cited in G. H. Eggert, 1977) suggested that semantic knowledge arises from the interaction of perceptual representations of objects and words. The authors present a parallel distributed processing implementation of this theory, in which semantic representations emerge from mechanisms that acquire the mappings between visual…

Semantic Similarity of Labels and Inductive Generalization: Taking a Second Look

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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

2011-01-01

Prior research suggests that preschoolers can generalize object properties based on category information conveyed by semantically-similar labels. However, previous research did not control for co-occurrence probability of labels in natural speech. The current studies re-assessed children's generalization with semantically-similar labels.…

Person- and place-selective neural substrates for entity-specific semantic access.

PubMed

Fairhall, Scott L; Anzellotti, Stefano; Ubaldi, Silvia; Caramazza, Alfonso

2014-07-01

Object-category has a pronounced effect on the representation of objects in higher level visual cortex. However, the influence of category on semantic/conceptual processes is less well characterized. In the present study, we conduct 2 fMRI experiments to investigate the semantic processing of information specific to individual people and places (entities). First, during picture presentation, we determined which brain regions show category-selective increases during access to entity-specific semantic information (i.e., nationality) in comparison to general-category discrimination (person vs. place). In the second experiment, we presented either words or pictures to assess the independence of entity-specific category-selective semantic representations from the processes used to access those representations. Convergent results from these 2 experiments show that brain regions exhibiting a category-selective increase during entity-specific semantic access are the same as those that show a supramodal (word/picture) category-selective response during the same task. These responses were different from classical "perceptual" category-selective responses and were evident in the medial precuneus for people and in the retrosplenial complex as well as anterior/superior sections of the transverse occipital sulcus and parahippocampal gyrus for places. These results reveal the pervasive influence of object-category in cortical organization, which extends to aspects of semantic knowledge arbitrarily related to physical/perceptual properties. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Semantic Integration Processes at Different Levels of Syntactic Hierarchy during Sentence Comprehension: An ERP Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhou, Xiaolin; Jiang, Xiaoming; Ye, Zheng; Zhang, Yaxu; Lou, Kaiyang; Zhan, Weidong

2010-01-01

An event-related potential (ERP) study was conducted to investigate the temporal neural dynamics of semantic integration processes at different levels of syntactic hierarchy during Chinese sentence reading. In a hierarchical structure, "subject noun" + "verb" + "numeral" + "classifier" + "object noun," the object noun is constrained by selectional…

Semantic Size and Contextual Congruency Effects during Reading: Evidence from Eye Movements

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wei, Wei; Cook, Anne E.

2016-01-01

Recent lexical decision studies have produced conflicting evidence about whether an object's semantic size influences word recognition. The present study examined this variable in online reading. Target words representing small and large objects were embedded in sentence contexts that were either neutral, congruent, or incongruent with respect to…

Preschool Children's Understanding of Semantic Relations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fu, Panfang

Two experiments investigated 4- to 5-year olds' understanding of semantic relations and methods for incorporating new words into their lexicon. In one experiment, 24 children were shown a picture of a container and told that an object called "X" was hidden inside it. Children were asked questions about the object X and about…

Reading visually embodied meaning from the brain: Visually grounded computational models decode visual-object mental imagery induced by written text.

PubMed

Anderson, Andrew James; Bruni, Elia; Lopopolo, Alessandro; Poesio, Massimo; Baroni, Marco

2015-10-15

Embodiment theory predicts that mental imagery of object words recruits neural circuits involved in object perception. The degree of visual imagery present in routine thought and how it is encoded in the brain is largely unknown. We test whether fMRI activity patterns elicited by participants reading objects' names include embodied visual-object representations, and whether we can decode the representations using novel computational image-based semantic models. We first apply the image models in conjunction with text-based semantic models to test predictions of visual-specificity of semantic representations in different brain regions. Representational similarity analysis confirms that fMRI structure within ventral-temporal and lateral-occipital regions correlates most strongly with the image models and conversely text models correlate better with posterior-parietal/lateral-temporal/inferior-frontal regions. We use an unsupervised decoding algorithm that exploits commonalities in representational similarity structure found within both image model and brain data sets to classify embodied visual representations with high accuracy (8/10) and then extend it to exploit model combinations to robustly decode different brain regions in parallel. By capturing latent visual-semantic structure our models provide a route into analyzing neural representations derived from past perceptual experience rather than stimulus-driven brain activity. Our results also verify the benefit of combining multimodal data to model human-like semantic representations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated Semantic Indices Related to Cognitive Function and Rate of Cognitive Decline

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pakhomov, Serguei V. S.; Hemmy, Laura S.; Lim, Kelvin O.

2012-01-01

The objective of our study is to introduce a fully automated, computational linguistic technique to quantify semantic relations between words generated on a standard semantic verbal fluency test and to determine its cognitive and clinical correlates. Cognitive differences between patients with Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment are…

Semantics of Context-Free Fragments of Natural Languages.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Suppes, Patrick

The objective of this paper is to combine the viewpoint of model-theoretic semantics and generative grammar, to define semantics for context-free languages, and to apply the results to some fragments of natural language. Following the introduction in the first section, Section 2 describes a simple artificial example to illustrate how a semantic…

Short-term Action Intentions Overrule Long-Term Semantic Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Elk, M.; van Schie, H.T.; Bekkering, H.

2009-01-01

In the present study, we investigated whether the preparation of an unusual action with an object (e.g. bringing a cup towards the eye) could selectively overrule long-term semantic representations. In the first experiment it was found that unusual action intentions activated short-term semantic goal representations, rather than long-term…

Decoding semantic information from human electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals.

PubMed

Wang, Wei; Degenhart, Alan D; Sudre, Gustavo P; Pomerleau, Dean A; Tyler-Kabara, Elizabeth C

2011-01-01

This study examined the feasibility of decoding semantic information from human cortical activity. Four human subjects undergoing presurgical brain mapping and seizure foci localization participated in this study. Electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals were recorded while the subjects performed simple language tasks involving semantic information processing, such as a picture naming task where subjects named pictures of objects belonging to different semantic categories. Robust high-gamma band (60-120 Hz) activation was observed at the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the posterior portion of the superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) with a temporal sequence corresponding to speech production and perception. Furthermore, Gaussian Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machine classifiers, two commonly used machine learning algorithms for pattern recognition, were able to predict the semantic category of an object using cortical activity captured by ECoG electrodes covering the frontal, temporal and parietal cortices. These findings have implications for both basic neuroscience research and development of semantic-based brain-computer interface systems (BCI) that can help individuals with severe motor or communication disorders to express their intention and thoughts.

Porting Social Media Contributions with SIOC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bojars, Uldis; Breslin, John G.; Decker, Stefan

Social media sites, including social networking sites, have captured the attention of millions of users as well as billions of dollars in investment and acquisition. To better enable a user's access to multiple sites, portability between social media sites is required in terms of both (1) the personal profiles and friend networks and (2) a user's content objects expressed on each site. This requires representation mechanisms to interconnect both people and objects on the Web in an interoperable, extensible way. The Semantic Web provides the required representation mechanisms for portability between social media sites: it links people and objects to record and represent the heterogeneous ties that bind each to the other. The FOAF (Friend-of-a-Friend) initiative provides a solution to the first requirement, and this paper discusses how the SIOC (Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities) project can address the latter. By using agreed-upon Semantic Web formats like FOAF and SIOC to describe people, content objects, and the connections that bind them together, social media sites can interoperate and provide portable data by appealing to some common semantics. In this paper, we will discuss the application of Semantic Web technology to enhance current social media sites with semantics and to address issues with portability between social media sites. It has been shown that social media sites can serve as rich data sources for SIOC-based applications such as the SIOC Browser, but in the other direction, we will now show how SIOC data can be used to represent and port the diverse social media contributions (SMCs) made by users on heterogeneous sites.

A Novel Quantitative Approach to Concept Analysis: The Internomological Network

PubMed Central

Cook, Paul F.; Larsen, Kai R.; Sakraida, Teresa J.; Pedro, Leli

2012-01-01

Background When a construct such as patients’ transition to self-management of chronic illness is studied by researchers across multiple disciplines, the meaning of key terms can become confused. This results from inherent problems in language where a term can have multiple meanings (polysemy) and different words can mean the same thing (synonymy). Objectives To test a novel quantitative method for clarifying the meaning of constructs by examining the similarity of published contexts in which they are used. Method Published terms related to the concept transition to self-management of chronic illness were analyzed using the internomological network (INN), a type of latent semantic analysis to calculate the mathematical relationships between constructs based on the contexts in which researchers use each term. This novel approach was tested by comparing results to those from concept analysis, a best-practice qualitative approach to clarifying meanings of terms. By comparing results of the two methods, the best synonyms of transition to self-management, as well as key antecedent, attribute, and consequence terms, were identified. Results Results from INN analysis were consistent with those from concept analysis. The potential synonyms self-management, transition, and adaptation had the greatest utility. Adaptation was the clearest overall synonym, but had lower cross-disciplinary use. The terms coping and readiness had more circumscribed meanings. The INN analysis confirmed key features of transition to self-management, and suggested related concepts not found by the previous review. Discussion The INN analysis is a promising novel methodology that allows researchers to quantify the semantic relationships between constructs. The method works across disciplinary boundaries, and may help to integrate the diverse literature on self-management of chronic illness. PMID:22592387

Classification of Urban Aerial Data Based on Pixel Labelling with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks and Logistic Regression

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yao, W.; Poleswki, P.; Krzystek, P.

2016-06-01

The recent success of deep convolutional neural networks (CNN) on a large number of applications can be attributed to large amounts of available training data and increasing computing power. In this paper, a semantic pixel labelling scheme for urban areas using multi-resolution CNN and hand-crafted spatial-spectral features of airborne remotely sensed data is presented. Both CNN and hand-crafted features are applied to image/DSM patches to produce per-pixel class probabilities with a L1-norm regularized logistical regression classifier. The evidence theory infers a degree of belief for pixel labelling from different sources to smooth regions by handling the conflicts present in the both classifiers while reducing the uncertainty. The aerial data used in this study were provided by ISPRS as benchmark datasets for 2D semantic labelling tasks in urban areas, which consists of two data sources from LiDAR and color infrared camera. The test sites are parts of a city in Germany which is assumed to consist of typical object classes including impervious surfaces, trees, buildings, low vegetation, vehicles and clutter. The evaluation is based on the computation of pixel-based confusion matrices by random sampling. The performance of the strategy with respect to scene characteristics and method combination strategies is analyzed and discussed. The competitive classification accuracy could be not only explained by the nature of input data sources: e.g. the above-ground height of nDSM highlight the vertical dimension of houses, trees even cars and the nearinfrared spectrum indicates vegetation, but also attributed to decision-level fusion of CNN's texture-based approach with multichannel spatial-spectral hand-crafted features based on the evidence combination theory.

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.

Hierarchical semantic cognition for urban functional zones with VHR satellite images and POI data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Xiuyuan; Du, Shihong; Wang, Qiao

2017-10-01

As the basic units of urban areas, functional zones are essential for city planning and management, but functional-zone maps are hardly available in most cities, as traditional urban investigations focus mainly on land-cover objects instead of functional zones. As a result, an automatic/semi-automatic method for mapping urban functional zones is highly required. Hierarchical semantic cognition (HSC) is presented in this study, and serves as a general cognition structure for recognizing urban functional zones. Unlike traditional classification methods, the HSC relies on geographic cognition and considers four semantic layers, i.e., visual features, object categories, spatial object patterns, and zone functions, as well as their hierarchical relations. Here, we used HSC to classify functional zones in Beijing with a very-high-resolution (VHR) satellite image and point-of-interest (POI) data. Experimental results indicate that this method can produce more accurate results than Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) with a larger overall accuracy of 90.8%. Additionally, the contributions of diverse semantic layers are quantified: the object-category layer is the most important and makes 54% contribution to functional-zone classification; while, other semantic layers are less important but their contributions cannot be ignored. Consequently, the presented HSC is effective in classifying urban functional zones, and can further support urban planning and management.

Scene Integration Without Awareness: No Conclusive Evidence for Processing Scene Congruency During Continuous Flash Suppression.

PubMed

Moors, Pieter; Boelens, David; van Overwalle, Jaana; Wagemans, Johan

2016-07-01

A recent study showed that scenes with an object-background relationship that is semantically incongruent break interocular suppression faster than scenes with a semantically congruent relationship. These results implied that semantic relations between the objects and the background of a scene could be extracted in the absence of visual awareness of the stimulus. In the current study, we assessed the replicability of this finding and tried to rule out an alternative explanation dependent on low-level differences between the stimuli. Furthermore, we used a Bayesian analysis to quantify the evidence in favor of the presence or absence of a scene-congruency effect. Across three experiments, we found no convincing evidence for a scene-congruency effect or a modulation of scene congruency by scene inversion. These findings question the generalizability of previous observations and cast doubt on whether genuine semantic processing of object-background relationships in scenes can manifest during interocular suppression. © The Author(s) 2016.

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.

[Does action semantic knowledge influence mental simulation in sentence comprehension?].

PubMed

Mochizuki, Masaya; Naito, Katsuo

2012-04-01

This research investigated whether action semantic knowledge influences mental simulation during sentence comprehension. In Experiment 1, we confirmed that the words of face-related objects include the perceptual knowledge about the actions that bring the object to the face. In Experiment 2, we used an acceptability judgment task and a word-picture verification task to compare the perceptual information that is activated by the comprehension of sentences describing an action using face-related objects near the face (near-sentence) or far from the face (far-sentence). Results showed that participants took a longer time to judge the acceptability of the far-sentence than the near-sentence. Verification times were significantly faster when the actions in the pictures matched the action described in the sentences than when they were mismatched. These findings suggest that action semantic knowledge influences sentence processing, and that perceptual information corresponding to the content of the sentence is activated regardless of the action semantic knowledge at the end of the sentence processing.

Frontotemporal neural systems supporting semantic processing in Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Peelle, Jonathan E; Powers, John; Cook, Philip A; Smith, Edward E; Grossman, Murray

2014-03-01

We hypothesized that semantic memory for object concepts involves both representations of visual feature knowledge in modality-specific association cortex and heteromodal regions that are important for integrating and organizing this semantic knowledge so that it can be used in a flexible, contextually appropriate manner. We examined this hypothesis in an fMRI study of mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). Participants were presented with pairs of printed words and asked whether the words matched on a given visual-perceptual feature (e.g., guitar, violin: SHAPE). The stimuli probed natural kinds and manufactured objects, and the judgments involved shape or color. We found activation of bilateral ventral temporal cortex and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during semantic judgments, with AD patients showing less activation of these regions than healthy seniors. Moreover, AD patients showed less ventral temporal activation than did healthy seniors for manufactured objects, but not for natural kinds. We also used diffusion-weighted MRI of white matter to examine fractional anisotropy (FA). Patients with AD showed significantly reduced FA in the superior longitudinal fasciculus and inferior frontal-occipital fasciculus, which carry projections linking temporal and frontal regions of this semantic network. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that semantic memory is supported in part by a large-scale neural network involving modality-specific association cortex, heteromodal association cortex, and projections between these regions. The semantic deficit in AD thus arises from gray matter disease that affects the representation of feature knowledge and processing its content, as well as white matter disease that interrupts the integrated functioning of this large-scale network.

Visual object naming in patients with small lesions centered at the left temporopolar region.

PubMed

Campo, Pablo; Poch, Claudia; Toledano, Rafael; Igoa, José Manuel; Belinchón, Mercedes; García-Morales, Irene; Gil-Nagel, Antonio

2016-01-01

Naming is considered a left hemisphere function that operates according to a posterior-anterior specificity gradient, with more fine-grained information processed in most anterior regions of the temporal lobe (ATL), including the temporal pole (TP). Word finding difficulties are typically assessed using visual confrontation naming tasks, and have been associated with selective damage to ATL resulting from different aetiologies. Nonetheless, the role of the ATL and, more specifically, of the TP in the naming network is not completely established. Most of the accumulated evidence is based on studies on patients with extensive lesions, often bilateral. Furthermore, there is a considerable variability in the anatomical definition of ATL. To better understand the specific involvement of the left TP in visual object naming, we assessed a group of patients with an epileptogenic lesion centered at the TP, and compared their performance with that of a strictly matched control group. We also administered a battery of verbal and non-verbal semantic tasks that was used as a semantic memory baseline. Patients showed an impaired naming ability, manifesting in a certain degree of anomia and semantically related naming errors, which was influenced by concept familiarity. This pattern took place in a context of mild semantic dysfunction that was evident in different types and modalities of semantic tasks. Therefore, current findings demonstrate that a restricted lesion to the left TP can cause a significant deficit in object naming. Of importance, the observed semantic impairment was far from the devastating degradation observed in semantic dementia and other bilateral conditions.

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…

A confusing world: what to call histology of three-dimensional tumour margins?

PubMed

Moehrle, M; Breuninger, H; Röcken, M

2007-05-01

Complete three-dimensional histology of excised skin tumour margins has a long tradition and, unfortunately, a multitude of names as well. Mohs, who introduced it, called it 'microscopically controlled surgery'. Others have described it as 'micrographic surgery', 'Mohs' micrographic surgery', or simply 'Mohs' surgery'. Semantic confusion became truly rampant when variant forms, each useful in its own way for detecting subclinical outgrowths of malignant skin tumours, were later introduced under such names as histographic surgery, systematic histologic control of the tumour bed, histological control of excised tissue margins, the square procedure, the perimeter technique, etc. All of these methods are basically identical in concept. All involve complete, three-dimensional histological visualization and evaluation of excision margins. Their common goal is to detect unseen tumour outgrowths. For greater clarity, the authors of this paper recommend general adoption of '3D histology' as a collective designation for all the above methods. As an added advantage, 3D histology can also be used in other medical disciplines to confirm true R0 resection of, for example, breast cancer or intestinal cancer.

Temporal Sequence of Hemispheric Network Activation during Semantic Processing: A Functional Network Connectivity Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Assaf, Michal; Jagannathan, Kanchana; Calhoun, Vince; Kraut, Michael; Hart, John, Jr.; Pearlson, Godfrey

2009-01-01

To explore the temporal sequence of, and the relationship between, the left and right hemispheres (LH and RH) during semantic memory (SM) processing we identified the neural networks involved in the performance of functional MRI semantic object retrieval task (SORT) using group independent component analysis (ICA) in 47 healthy individuals. SORT…

An fMRI Study of Sentence-Embedded Lexical-Semantic Decision in Children and Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore-Parks, Erin Nicole; Burns, Erin L.; Bazzill, Rebecca; Levy, Sarah; Posada, Valerie; Muller, Ralph-Axel

2010-01-01

Lexical-semantic knowledge is a core language component that undergoes prolonged development throughout childhood and is therefore highly amenable to developmental studies. Most previous lexical-semantic functional MRI (fMRI) studies have been limited to single-word or word-pair tasks, outside a sentence context. Our objective was to investigate…

Strategic Origins of Early Semantic Facilitation in the Blocked-Cyclic Naming Paradigm

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Belke, Eva; Shao, Zeshu; Meyer, Antje S.

2017-01-01

In the blocked-cyclic naming paradigm, participants repeatedly name small sets of objects that do or do not belong to the same semantic category. A standard finding is that, after a first presentation cycle where one might find semantic facilitation, naming is slower in related (homogeneous) than in unrelated (heterogeneous) sets. According to…

The Interaction between Semantic Representation and Episodic Memory.

PubMed

Fang, Jing; Rüther, Naima; Bellebaum, Christian; Wiskott, Laurenz; Cheng, Sen

2018-02-01

The experimental evidence on the interrelation between episodic memory and semantic memory is inconclusive. Are they independent systems, different aspects of a single system, or separate but strongly interacting systems? Here, we propose a computational role for the interaction between the semantic and episodic systems that might help resolve this debate. We hypothesize that episodic memories are represented as sequences of activation patterns. These patterns are the output of a semantic representational network that compresses the high-dimensional sensory input. We show quantitatively that the accuracy of episodic memory crucially depends on the quality of the semantic representation. We compare two types of semantic representations: appropriate representations, which means that the representation is used to store input sequences that are of the same type as those that it was trained on, and inappropriate representations, which means that stored inputs differ from the training data. Retrieval accuracy is higher for appropriate representations because the encoded sequences are less divergent than those encoded with inappropriate representations. Consistent with our model prediction, we found that human subjects remember some aspects of episodes significantly more accurately if they had previously been familiarized with the objects occurring in the episode, as compared to episodes involving unfamiliar objects. We thus conclude that the interaction with the semantic system plays an important role for episodic memory.

Long-term repetition priming and semantic interference in a lexical-semantic matching task: tapping the links between object names and colors.

PubMed

Lloyd-Jones, Toby J; Nakabayashi, Kazuyo

2014-01-01

Using a novel paradigm to engage the long-term mappings between object names and the prototypical colors for objects, we investigated the retrieval of object-color knowledge as indexed by long-term priming (the benefit in performance from a prior encounter with the same or a similar stimulus); a process about which little is known. We examined priming from object naming on a lexical-semantic matching task. In the matching task participants encountered a visually presented object name (Experiment 1) or object shape (Experiment 2) paired with either a color patch or color name. The pairings could either match whereby both were consistent with a familiar object (e.g., strawberry and red) or mismatch (strawberry and blue). We used the matching task to probe knowledge about familiar objects and their colors pre-activated during object naming. In particular, we examined whether the retrieval of object-color information was modality-specific and whether this influenced priming. Priming varied with the nature of the retrieval process: object-color priming arose for object names but not object shapes and beneficial effects of priming were observed for color patches whereas inhibitory priming arose with color names. These findings have implications for understanding how object knowledge is retrieved from memory and modified by learning.

Semantics and technologies in modern design of interior stairs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kukhta, M.; Sokolov, A.; Pelevin, E.

2015-10-01

Use of metal in the design of interior stairs presents new features for shaping, and can be implemented using different technologies. The article discusses the features of design and production technologies of forged metal spiral staircase considering the image semantics based on the historical and cultural heritage. To achieve the objective was applied structural- semantic method (to identify the organization of structure and semantic features of the artistic image), engineering methods (to justify the construction of the object), anthropometry method and ergonomics (to provide usability), methods of comparative analysis (to reveale the features of the way the ladder in different periods of culture). According to the research results are as follows. Was revealed the semantics influence on the design of interior staircase that is based on the World Tree image. Also was suggested rational calculation of steps to ensure the required strength. And finally was presented technology, providing the realization of the artistic image. In the practical part of the work is presented version of forged staircase.

Attention during natural vision warps semantic representation across the human brain.

PubMed

Çukur, Tolga; Nishimoto, Shinji; Huth, Alexander G; Gallant, Jack L

2013-06-01

Little is known about how attention changes the cortical representation of sensory information in humans. On the basis of neurophysiological evidence, we hypothesized that attention causes tuning changes to expand the representation of attended stimuli at the cost of unattended stimuli. To investigate this issue, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure how semantic representation changed during visual search for different object categories in natural movies. We found that many voxels across occipito-temporal and fronto-parietal cortex shifted their tuning toward the attended category. These tuning shifts expanded the representation of the attended category and of semantically related, but unattended, categories, and compressed the representation of categories that were semantically dissimilar to the target. Attentional warping of semantic representation occurred even when the attended category was not present in the movie; thus, the effect was not a target-detection artifact. These results suggest that attention dynamically alters visual representation to optimize processing of behaviorally relevant objects during natural vision.

Attention During Natural Vision Warps Semantic Representation Across the Human Brain

PubMed Central

Çukur, Tolga; Nishimoto, Shinji; Huth, Alexander G.; Gallant, Jack L.

2013-01-01

Little is known about how attention changes the cortical representation of sensory information in humans. Based on neurophysiological evidence, we hypothesized that attention causes tuning changes to expand the representation of attended stimuli at the cost of unattended stimuli. To investigate this issue we used functional MRI (fMRI) to measure how semantic representation changes when searching for different object categories in natural movies. We find that many voxels across occipito-temporal and fronto-parietal cortex shift their tuning toward the attended category. These tuning shifts expand the representation of the attended category and of semantically-related but unattended categories, and compress the representation of categories semantically-dissimilar to the target. Attentional warping of semantic representation occurs even when the attended category is not present in the movie, thus the effect is not a target-detection artifact. These results suggest that attention dynamically alters visual representation to optimize processing of behaviorally relevant objects during natural vision. PMID:23603707

Nouns, verbs, objects, actions, and abstractions: Local fMRI activity indexes semantics, not lexical categories

PubMed Central

Moseley, Rachel L.; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2014-01-01

Noun/verb dissociations in the literature defy interpretation due to the confound between lexical category and semantic meaning; nouns and verbs typically describe concrete objects and actions. Abstract words, pertaining to neither, are a critical test case: dissociations along lexical-grammatical lines would support models purporting lexical category as the principle governing brain organisation, whilst semantic models predict dissociation between concrete words but not abstract items. During fMRI scanning, participants read orthogonalised word categories of nouns and verbs, with or without concrete, sensorimotor meaning. Analysis of inferior frontal/insula, precentral and central areas revealed an interaction between lexical class and semantic factors with clear category differences between concrete nouns and verbs but not abstract ones. Though the brain stores the combinatorial and lexical-grammatical properties of words, our data show that topographical differences in brain activation, especially in the motor system and inferior frontal cortex, are driven by semantics and not by lexical class. PMID:24727103

Taxonomic and Thematic Semantic Systems

PubMed Central

Mirman, Daniel; Landrigan, Jon-Frederick; Britt, Allison E.

2017-01-01

Object concepts are critical for nearly all aspects of human cognition, from perception tasks like object recognition, to understanding and producing language, to making meaningful actions. Concepts can have two very different kinds of relations: similarity relations based on shared features (e.g., dog – bear), which are called “taxonomic” relations, and contiguity relations based on co-occurrence in events or scenarios (e.g., dog – leash), which are called “thematic” relations. Here we report a systematic review of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience evidence of this distinction in the structure of semantic memory. We propose two principles that may drive the development of distinct taxonomic and thematic semantic systems: (1) differences between which features determine taxonomic vs. thematic relations and (2) differences in the processing required to extract taxonomic vs. thematic relations. This review brings together distinct threads of behavioral, computational, and neuroscience research on semantic memory in support of a functional and neural dissociation, and defines a framework for future studies of semantic memory. PMID:28333494

Nouns, verbs, objects, actions, and abstractions: local fMRI activity indexes semantics, not lexical categories.

PubMed

Moseley, Rachel L; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2014-05-01

Noun/verb dissociations in the literature defy interpretation due to the confound between lexical category and semantic meaning; nouns and verbs typically describe concrete objects and actions. Abstract words, pertaining to neither, are a critical test case: dissociations along lexical-grammatical lines would support models purporting lexical category as the principle governing brain organisation, whilst semantic models predict dissociation between concrete words but not abstract items. During fMRI scanning, participants read orthogonalised word categories of nouns and verbs, with or without concrete, sensorimotor meaning. Analysis of inferior frontal/insula, precentral and central areas revealed an interaction between lexical class and semantic factors with clear category differences between concrete nouns and verbs but not abstract ones. Though the brain stores the combinatorial and lexical-grammatical properties of words, our data show that topographical differences in brain activation, especially in the motor system and inferior frontal cortex, are driven by semantics and not by lexical class. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The OceanLink Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Narock, T.; Arko, R. A.; Carbotte, S. M.; Chandler, C. L.; Cheatham, M.; Finin, T.; Hitzler, P.; Krisnadhi, A.; Raymond, L. M.; Shepherd, A.; Wiebe, P. H.

2014-12-01

A wide spectrum of maturing methods and tools, collectively characterized as the Semantic Web, is helping to vastly improve the dissemination of scientific research. Creating semantic integration requires input from both domain and cyberinfrastructure scientists. OceanLink, an NSF EarthCube Building Block, is demonstrating semantic technologies through the integration of geoscience data repositories, library holdings, conference abstracts, and funded research awards. Meeting project objectives involves applying semantic technologies to support data representation, discovery, sharing and integration. Our semantic cyberinfrastructure components include ontology design patterns, Linked Data collections, semantic provenance, and associated services to enhance data and knowledge discovery, interoperation, and integration. We discuss how these components are integrated, the continued automated and semi-automated creation of semantic metadata, and techniques we have developed to integrate ontologies, link resources, and preserve provenance and attribution.

Preventing dispensing errors by alerting for drug confusions in the pharmacy information system—A survey of users

PubMed Central

Campmans, Zizi; van Rhijn, Arianne; Dull, René M.; Santen-Reestman, Jacqueline; Taxis, Katja

2018-01-01

Introduction Drug confusion is thought to be the most common type of dispensing error. Several strategies can be implemented to reduce the risk of medication errors. One of these are alerts in the pharmacy information system. Objective To evaluate the experiences of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians with alerts for drug name and strength confusion. Methods In May 2017, a cross-sectional survey of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians was performed in community pharmacies in the Netherlands using an online questionnaire. Results Of the 269 respondents, 86% (n = 230) had noticed the alert for drug name confusion, and 26% (n = 67) for drug strength confusion. Of those 230, 9% (n = 20) had experienced that the alert had prevented dispensing the wrong drug. For drug strength confusion, this proportion was 12% (n = 8). Respondents preferred to have an alert for drug name and strength confusion in the pharmacy information system. ‘Alert fatigue’ was an important issue, so alerts should only be introduced for frequent confusions or confusions with serious consequences. Conclusion Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians were positive about having alerts for drug confusions in their pharmacy information system and experienced that alerts contributed to the prevention of dispensing errors. To prevent alert fatigue, it was considered important not to include all possible confusions as a new alert: the potential contribution to the prevention of drug confusion should be weighed against the risk of alert fatigue. PMID:29813099

Semantic Metrics for Analysis of Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Etzkorn, Letha H.; Cox, Glenn W.; Farrington, Phil; Utley, Dawn R.; Ghalston, Sampson; Stein, Cara

2005-01-01

A recently conceived suite of object-oriented software metrics focus is on semantic aspects of software, in contradistinction to traditional software metrics, which focus on syntactic aspects of software. Semantic metrics represent a more human-oriented view of software than do syntactic metrics. The semantic metrics of a given computer program are calculated by use of the output of a knowledge-based analysis of the program, and are substantially more representative of software quality and more readily comprehensible from a human perspective than are the syntactic metrics.

Shindigs, brunches, and rodeos: the neural basis of event words.

PubMed

Bedny, Marina; Dravida, Swethasri; Saxe, Rebecca

2014-09-01

Events (e.g., "running" or "eating") constitute a basic type within human cognition and human language. We asked whether thinking about events, as compared to other conceptual categories, depends on partially independent neural circuits. Indirect evidence for this hypothesis comes from previous studies showing elevated posterior temporal responses to verbs, which typically label events. Neural responses to verbs could, however, be driven either by their grammatical or by their semantic properties. In the present experiment, we separated the effects of grammatical class (verb vs. noun) and semantic category (event vs. object) by measuring neural responses to event nouns (e.g., "the hurricane"). Participants rated the semantic relatedness of event nouns, as well as of two categories of object nouns-animals (e.g., "the alligator") and plants (e.g., "the acorn")-and three categories of verbs-manner of motion (e.g., "to roll"), emission (e.g., "to sparkle"), and perception (e.g., "to gaze"). As has previously been observed, we found larger responses to verbs than to object nouns in the left posterior middle (LMTG) and superior (LSTG) temporal gyri. Crucially, we also found that the LMTG responds more to event than to object nouns. These data suggest that part of the posterior lateral temporal response to verbs is driven by their semantic properties. By contrast, a more superior region, at the junction of the temporal and parietal cortices, responded more to verbs than to all nouns, irrespective of their semantic category. We concluded that the neural mechanisms engaged when thinking about event and object categories are partially dissociable.

Objects as closures: Abstract semantics of object oriented languages

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reddy, Uday S.

1989-01-01

We discuss denotational semantics of object-oriented languages, using the concept of closure widely used in (semi) functional programming to encapsulate side effects. It is shown that this denotational framework is adequate to explain classes, instantiation, and inheritance in the style of Simula as well as SMALLTALK-80. This framework is then compared with that of Kamin, in his recent denotational definition of SMALLTALK-80, and the implications of the differences between the two approaches are discussed.

Common and differential electrophysiological mechanisms underlying semantic object memory retrieval probed by features presented in different stimulus types.

PubMed

Chiang, Hsueh-Sheng; Eroh, Justin; Spence, Jeffrey S; Motes, Michael A; Maguire, Mandy J; Krawczyk, Daniel C; Brier, Matthew R; Hart, John; Kraut, Michael A

2016-08-01

How the brain combines the neural representations of features that comprise an object in order to activate a coherent object memory is poorly understood, especially when the features are presented in different modalities (visual vs. auditory) and domains (verbal vs. nonverbal). We examined this question using three versions of a modified Semantic Object Retrieval Test, where object memory was probed by a feature presented as a written word, a spoken word, or a picture, followed by a second feature always presented as a visual word. Participants indicated whether each feature pair elicited retrieval of the memory of a particular object. Sixteen subjects completed one of the three versions (N=48 in total) while their EEG were recorded simultaneously. We analyzed EEG data in four separate frequency bands (delta: 1-4Hz, theta: 4-7Hz; alpha: 8-12Hz; beta: 13-19Hz) using a multivariate data-driven approach. We found that alpha power time-locked to response was modulated by both cross-modality (visual vs. auditory) and cross-domain (verbal vs. nonverbal) probing of semantic object memory. In addition, retrieval trials showed greater changes in all frequency bands compared to non-retrieval trials across all stimulus types in both response-locked and stimulus-locked analyses, suggesting dissociable neural subcomponents involved in binding object features to retrieve a memory. We conclude that these findings support both modality/domain-dependent and modality/domain-independent mechanisms during semantic object memory retrieval. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Semantic Specificity in One-Year-Olds' Word Comprehension.

PubMed

Bergelson, Elika; Aslin, Richard

2017-01-01

The present study investigated infants' knowledge about familiar nouns. Infants (n = 46, 12-20-month-olds) saw two-image displays of familiar objects, or one familiar and one novel object. Infants heard either a matching word (e.g. "foot' when seeing foot and juice), a related word (e.g. "sock" when seeing foot and juice) or a nonce word (e.g. "fep" when seeing a novel object and dog). Across the whole sample, infants reliably fixated the referent on matching and nonce trials. On the critical related trials we found increasingly less looking to the incorrect (but related) image with age. These results suggest that one-year-olds look at familiar objects both when they hear them labeled and when they hear related labels, to similar degrees, but over the second year increasingly rely on semantic fit. We suggest that infants' initial semantic representations are imprecise, and continue to sharpen over the second postnatal year.

Quality evaluation of value sets from cancer study common data elements using the UMLS semantic groups

PubMed Central

Solbrig, Harold R; Chute, Christopher G

2012-01-01

Objective The objective of this study is to develop an approach to evaluate the quality of terminological annotations on the value set (ie, enumerated value domain) components of the common data elements (CDEs) in the context of clinical research using both unified medical language system (UMLS) semantic types and groups. Materials and methods The CDEs of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Data Standards Repository, the NCI Thesaurus (NCIt) concepts and the UMLS semantic network were integrated using a semantic web-based framework for a SPARQL-enabled evaluation. First, the set of CDE-permissible values with corresponding meanings in external controlled terminologies were isolated. The corresponding value meanings were then evaluated against their NCI- or UMLS-generated semantic network mapping to determine whether all of the meanings fell within the same semantic group. Results Of the enumerated CDEs in the Cancer Data Standards Repository, 3093 (26.2%) had elements drawn from more than one UMLS semantic group. A random sample (n=100) of this set of elements indicated that 17% of them were likely to have been misclassified. Discussion The use of existing semantic web tools can support a high-throughput mechanism for evaluating the quality of large CDE collections. This study demonstrates that the involvement of multiple semantic groups in an enumerated value domain of a CDE is an effective anchor to trigger an auditing point for quality evaluation activities. Conclusion This approach produces a useful quality assurance mechanism for a clinical study CDE repository. PMID:22511016

A extract method of mountainous area settlement place information from GF-1 high resolution optical remote sensing image under semantic constraints

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, H., II

2016-12-01

Spatial distribution information of mountainous area settlement place is of great significance to the earthquake emergency work because most of the key earthquake hazardous areas of china are located in the mountainous area. Remote sensing has the advantages of large coverage and low cost, it is an important way to obtain the spatial distribution information of mountainous area settlement place. At present, fully considering the geometric information, spectral information and texture information, most studies have applied object-oriented methods to extract settlement place information, In this article, semantic constraints is to be added on the basis of object-oriented methods. The experimental data is one scene remote sensing image of domestic high resolution satellite (simply as GF-1), with a resolution of 2 meters. The main processing consists of 3 steps, the first is pretreatment, including ortho rectification and image fusion, the second is Object oriented information extraction, including Image segmentation and information extraction, the last step is removing the error elements under semantic constraints, in order to formulate these semantic constraints, the distribution characteristics of mountainous area settlement place must be analyzed and the spatial logic relation between settlement place and other objects must be considered. The extraction accuracy calculation result shows that the extraction accuracy of object oriented method is 49% and rise up to 86% after the use of semantic constraints. As can be seen from the extraction accuracy, the extract method under semantic constraints can effectively improve the accuracy of mountainous area settlement place information extraction. The result shows that it is feasible to extract mountainous area settlement place information form GF-1 image, so the article proves that it has a certain practicality to use domestic high resolution optical remote sensing image in earthquake emergency preparedness.

Ocean feature recognition using genetic algorithms with fuzzy fitness functions (GA/F3)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ankenbrandt, C. A.; Buckles, B. P.; Petry, F. E.; Lybanon, M.

1990-01-01

A model for genetic algorithms with semantic nets is derived for which the relationships between concepts is depicted as a semantic net. An organism represents the manner in which objects in a scene are attached to concepts in the net. Predicates between object pairs are continuous valued truth functions in the form of an inverse exponential function (e sub beta lxl). 1:n relationships are combined via the fuzzy OR (Max (...)). Finally, predicates between pairs of concepts are resolved by taking the average of the combined predicate values of the objects attached to the concept at the tail of the arc representing the predicate in the semantic net. The method is illustrated by applying it to the identification of oceanic features in the North Atlantic.

Naming of objects, faces and buildings in mild cognitive impairment.

PubMed

Ahmed, Samrah; Arnold, Robert; Thompson, Sian A; Graham, Kim S; Hodges, John R

2008-06-01

Accruing evidence suggests that the cognitive deficits in very early Alzheimer's Disease (AD) are not confined to episodic memory, with a number of studies documenting semantic memory deficits, especially for knowledge of people. To investigate whether this difficulty in naming famous people extends to other proper names based information, three naming tasks - the Graded Naming Test (GNT), which uses objects and animals, the Graded Faces Test (GFT) and the newly designed Graded Buildings Test (GBT) - were administered to 69 participants (32 patients in the early prodromal stage of AD, so-called Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and 37 normal control participants). Patients were found to be impaired on all three tests compared to controls, although naming of objects was significantly better than naming of faces and buildings. Discriminant analysis successfully predicted group membership for 100% controls and 78.1% of patients. The results suggest that even in cases that do not yet fulfil criteria for AD naming of famous people and buildings is impaired, and that both these semantic domains show greater vulnerability than general semantic knowledge. A semantic deficit together with the hallmark episodic deficit may be common in MCI, and that the use of graded tasks tapping semantic memory may be useful for the early identification of patients with MCI.

Sharing Human-Generated Observations by Integrating HMI and the Semantic Sensor Web

PubMed Central

Sigüenza, Álvaro; Díaz-Pardo, David; Bernat, Jesús; Vancea, Vasile; Blanco, José Luis; Conejero, David; Gómez, Luis Hernández

2012-01-01

Current “Internet of Things” concepts point to a future where connected objects gather meaningful information about their environment and share it with other objects and people. In particular, objects embedding Human Machine Interaction (HMI), such as mobile devices and, increasingly, connected vehicles, home appliances, urban interactive infrastructures, etc., may not only be conceived as sources of sensor information, but, through interaction with their users, they can also produce highly valuable context-aware human-generated observations. We believe that the great promise offered by combining and sharing all of the different sources of information available can be realized through the integration of HMI and Semantic Sensor Web technologies. This paper presents a technological framework that harmonizes two of the most influential HMI and Sensor Web initiatives: the W3C's Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces (MMI) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) with its semantic extension, respectively. Although the proposed framework is general enough to be applied in a variety of connected objects integrating HMI, a particular development is presented for a connected car scenario where drivers' observations about the traffic or their environment are shared across the Semantic Sensor Web. For implementation and evaluation purposes an on-board OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) architecture was built, integrating several available HMI, Sensor Web and Semantic Web technologies. A technical performance test and a conceptual validation of the scenario with potential users are reported, with results suggesting the approach is sound. PMID:22778643

Sharing human-generated observations by integrating HMI and the Semantic Sensor Web.

PubMed

Sigüenza, Alvaro; Díaz-Pardo, David; Bernat, Jesús; Vancea, Vasile; Blanco, José Luis; Conejero, David; Gómez, Luis Hernández

2012-01-01

Current "Internet of Things" concepts point to a future where connected objects gather meaningful information about their environment and share it with other objects and people. In particular, objects embedding Human Machine Interaction (HMI), such as mobile devices and, increasingly, connected vehicles, home appliances, urban interactive infrastructures, etc., may not only be conceived as sources of sensor information, but, through interaction with their users, they can also produce highly valuable context-aware human-generated observations. We believe that the great promise offered by combining and sharing all of the different sources of information available can be realized through the integration of HMI and Semantic Sensor Web technologies. This paper presents a technological framework that harmonizes two of the most influential HMI and Sensor Web initiatives: the W3C's Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces (MMI) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) with its semantic extension, respectively. Although the proposed framework is general enough to be applied in a variety of connected objects integrating HMI, a particular development is presented for a connected car scenario where drivers' observations about the traffic or their environment are shared across the Semantic Sensor Web. For implementation and evaluation purposes an on-board OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) architecture was built, integrating several available HMI, Sensor Web and Semantic Web technologies. A technical performance test and a conceptual validation of the scenario with potential users are reported, with results suggesting the approach is sound.

Modality specific semantic knowledge loss for unique items.

PubMed

Kartsounis, L D; Shallice, T

1996-03-01

We report the case of a man who, following a major myocardial infarction, suffered anoxia followed by significant event memory impairment. Investigations indicated that his semantic memory for word concepts and object meanings was well preserved. However, he had great difficulty in identifying in the visual (but not verbal) modality historically known people, such as Queen Elizabeth I and Napoleon, and well known world and London landmarks, such as the Parthenon and Buckingham Palace. This selective impairment could not be accounted for in terms of prosopagnosia or high level visual perceptual deficits and we interpret it as a modality specific semantic memory loss for unique objects.

Hologram representation of design data in an expert system knowledge base

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shiva, S. G.; Klon, Peter F.

1988-01-01

A novel representational scheme for design object descriptions is presented. An abstract notion of modules and signals is developed as a conceptual foundation for the scheme. This abstraction relates the objects to the meaning of system descriptions. Anchored on this abstraction, a representational model which incorporates dynamic semantics for these objects is presented. This representational model is called a hologram scheme since it represents dual level information, namely, structural and semantic. The benefits of this scheme are presented.

Objects as closures - Abstract semantics of object oriented languages

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reddy, Uday S.

1988-01-01

The denotational semantics of object-oriented languages is discussed using the concept of closure widely used in (semi) functional programming to encapsulate side effects. It is shown that this denotational framework is adequate to explain classes, instantiation, and inheritance in the style of Simula as well as SMALLTALK-80. This framework is then compared with that of Kamin (1988), in his recent denotational definition of SMALLTALK-80, and the implications of the differences between the two approaches are discussed.

When Meaning Is Not Enough: Distributional and Semantic Cues to Word Categorization in Child Directed Speech.

PubMed

Feijoo, Sara; Muñoz, Carmen; Amadó, Anna; Serrat, Elisabet

2017-01-01

One of the most important tasks in first language development is assigning words to their grammatical category. The Semantic Bootstrapping Hypothesis postulates that, in order to accomplish this task, children are guided by a neat correspondence between semantic and grammatical categories, since nouns typically refer to objects and verbs to actions. It is this correspondence that guides children's initial word categorization. Other approaches, on the other hand, suggest that children might make use of distributional cues and word contexts to accomplish the word categorization task. According to such approaches, the Semantic Bootstrapping assumption offers an important limitation, as it might not be true that all the nouns that children hear refer to specific objects or people. In order to explore that, we carried out two studies based on analyses of children's linguistic input. We analyzed child-directed speech addressed to four children under the age of 2;6, taken from the CHILDES database. The corpora were selected from the Manchester corpus. The corpora from the four selected children contained a total of 10,681 word types and 364,196 word tokens. In our first study, discriminant analyses were performed using semantic cues alone. The results show that many of the nouns found in parents' speech do not relate to specific objects and that semantic information alone might not be sufficient for successful word categorization. Given that there must be an additional source of information which, alongside with semantics, might assist young learners in word categorization, our second study explores the availability of both distributional and semantic cues in child-directed speech. Our results confirm that this combination might yield better results for word categorization. These results are in line with theories that suggest the need for an integration of multiple cues from different sources in language development.

Shape Similarity, Better than Semantic Membership, Accounts for the Structure of Visual Object Representations in a Population of Monkey Inferotemporal Neurons

PubMed Central

DiCarlo, James J.; Zecchina, Riccardo; Zoccolan, Davide

2013-01-01

The anterior inferotemporal cortex (IT) is the highest stage along the hierarchy of visual areas that, in primates, processes visual objects. Although several lines of evidence suggest that IT primarily represents visual shape information, some recent studies have argued that neuronal ensembles in IT code the semantic membership of visual objects (i.e., represent conceptual classes such as animate and inanimate objects). In this study, we investigated to what extent semantic, rather than purely visual information, is represented in IT by performing a multivariate analysis of IT responses to a set of visual objects. By relying on a variety of machine-learning approaches (including a cutting-edge clustering algorithm that has been recently developed in the domain of statistical physics), we found that, in most instances, IT representation of visual objects is accounted for by their similarity at the level of shape or, more surprisingly, low-level visual properties. Only in a few cases we observed IT representations of semantic classes that were not explainable by the visual similarity of their members. Overall, these findings reassert the primary function of IT as a conveyor of explicit visual shape information, and reveal that low-level visual properties are represented in IT to a greater extent than previously appreciated. In addition, our work demonstrates how combining a variety of state-of-the-art multivariate approaches, and carefully estimating the contribution of shape similarity to the representation of object categories, can substantially advance our understanding of neuronal coding of visual objects in cortex. PMID:23950700

Effects of Semantic Web Based Learning on Pre-Service Teachers' ICT Learning Achievement and Satisfaction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karalar, Halit; Korucu, Agah Tugrul

2016-01-01

Although the Semantic Web offers many opportunities for learners, effects of it in the classroom is not well known. Therefore, in this study explanations have been stated as how the learning objects defined by means of using the terminology in a developed ontology and kept in objects repository should be presented to learners with the aim of…

Perspectives of patients and physicians about neuroendocrine tumors. A qualitative study

PubMed Central

Manolios, Emilie; Rebours, Vinciane; Revah-Levy, Anne; Ruszniewski, Philippe

2018-01-01

Purpose Gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are rare, complex to manage, and often have a chronic course. Qualitative methods are a tool of choice for focusing on patients' and physicians’ points of view especially when dealing with a complex and rare disease. Nonetheless, they remain undeveloped in research related to NETs. This study aimed to explore the experience of NETs among both patients and their physicians and to cross their perspectives for the purpose of finding pathways to improving care. Results Our analysis found two themes: (1) the questions raised by this disease, and (2) the complex experience of this singular disease. Our findings underlined the experience of confusion found among patients regarding the patient's unusual somatic experience and around the question of vocabulary, i.e. the naming of the disease and the semantic field of severity in the medical discourse. Conclusion Means for reducing the confusion that patients experience in this disease are needed. The explanations that the physician offers to the patient must clarify the issues related to NETs. We therefore propose a statement that all physicians can use to support patients diagnosed with neuroendocrine tumors to clear up potential confusion. Methods We conducted a qualitative study, based on 40 semi-structured interviews, in a specialized department of gastro-pancreatology. Participants, purposively selected until data saturation, came from two different sub-samples: (i) patients with a metastatic NETs (N = 20) and (ii) their referring physicians (N = 10). The data were examined by thematic analysis. PMID:29581833

Long-term repetition priming and semantic interference in a lexical-semantic matching task: tapping the links between object names and colors

PubMed Central

Lloyd-Jones, Toby J.; Nakabayashi, Kazuyo

2014-01-01

Using a novel paradigm to engage the long-term mappings between object names and the prototypical colors for objects, we investigated the retrieval of object-color knowledge as indexed by long-term priming (the benefit in performance from a prior encounter with the same or a similar stimulus); a process about which little is known. We examined priming from object naming on a lexical-semantic matching task. In the matching task participants encountered a visually presented object name (Experiment 1) or object shape (Experiment 2) paired with either a color patch or color name. The pairings could either match whereby both were consistent with a familiar object (e.g., strawberry and red) or mismatch (strawberry and blue). We used the matching task to probe knowledge about familiar objects and their colors pre-activated during object naming. In particular, we examined whether the retrieval of object-color information was modality-specific and whether this influenced priming. Priming varied with the nature of the retrieval process: object-color priming arose for object names but not object shapes and beneficial effects of priming were observed for color patches whereas inhibitory priming arose with color names. These findings have implications for understanding how object knowledge is retrieved from memory and modified by learning. PMID:25009522

Why Are Verbs so Hard to Remember? Effects of Semantic Context on Memory for Verbs and Nouns

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Earles, Julie L.; Kersten, Alan W.

2017-01-01

Three experiments test the theory that verb meanings are more malleable than noun meanings in different semantic contexts, making a previously seen verb difficult to remember when it appears in a new semantic context. Experiment 1 revealed that changing the direct object noun in a transitive sentence reduced recognition of a previously seen verb,…

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

Influence of semantic consistency and perceptual features on visual attention during scene viewing in toddlers.

PubMed

Helo, Andrea; van Ommen, Sandrien; Pannasch, Sebastian; Danteny-Dordoigne, Lucile; Rämä, Pia

2017-11-01

Conceptual representations of everyday scenes are built in interaction with visual environment and these representations guide our visual attention. Perceptual features and object-scene semantic consistency have been found to attract our attention during scene exploration. The present study examined how visual attention in 24-month-old toddlers is attracted by semantic violations and how perceptual features (i. e. saliency, centre distance, clutter and object size) and linguistic properties (i. e. object label frequency and label length) affect gaze distribution. We compared eye movements of 24-month-old toddlers and adults while exploring everyday scenes which either contained an inconsistent (e.g., soap on a breakfast table) or consistent (e.g., soap in a bathroom) object. Perceptual features such as saliency, centre distance and clutter of the scene affected looking times in the toddler group during the whole viewing time whereas looking times in adults were affected only by centre distance during the early viewing time. Adults looked longer to inconsistent than consistent objects either if the objects had a high or a low saliency. In contrast, toddlers presented semantic consistency effect only when objects were highly salient. Additionally, toddlers with lower vocabulary skills looked longer to inconsistent objects while toddlers with higher vocabulary skills look equally long to both consistent and inconsistent objects. Our results indicate that 24-month-old children use scene context to guide visual attention when exploring the visual environment. However, perceptual features have a stronger influence in eye movement guidance in toddlers than in adults. Our results also indicate that language skills influence cognitive but not perceptual guidance of eye movements during scene perception in toddlers. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Representation of Semantic Similarity in the Left Intraparietal Sulcus: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Evidence

PubMed Central

Neyens, Veerle; Bruffaerts, Rose; Liuzzi, Antonietta G.; Kalfas, Ioannis; Peeters, Ronald; Keuleers, Emmanuel; Vogels, Rufin; De Deyne, Simon; Storms, Gert; Dupont, Patrick; Vandenberghe, Rik

2017-01-01

According to a recent study, semantic similarity between concrete entities correlates with the similarity of activity patterns in left middle IPS during category naming. We examined the replicability of this effect under passive viewing conditions, the potential role of visuoperceptual similarity, where the effect is situated compared to regions that have been previously implicated in visuospatial attention, and how it compares to effects of object identity and location. Forty-six subjects participated. Subjects passively viewed pictures from two categories, musical instruments and vehicles. Semantic similarity between entities was estimated based on a concept-feature matrix obtained in more than 1,000 subjects. Visuoperceptual similarity was modeled based on the HMAX model, the AlexNet deep convolutional learning model, and thirdly, based on subjective visuoperceptual similarity ratings. Among the IPS regions examined, only left middle IPS showed a semantic similarity effect. The effect was significant in hIP1, hIP2, and hIP3. Visuoperceptual similarity did not correlate with similarity of activity patterns in left middle IPS. The semantic similarity effect in left middle IPS was significantly stronger than in the right middle IPS and also stronger than in the left or right posterior IPS. The semantic similarity effect was similar to that seen in the angular gyrus. Object identity effects were much more widespread across nearly all parietal areas examined. Location effects were relatively specific for posterior IPS and area 7 bilaterally. To conclude, the current findings replicate the semantic similarity effect in left middle IPS under passive viewing conditions, and demonstrate its anatomical specificity within a cytoarchitectonic reference frame. We propose that the semantic similarity effect in left middle IPS reflects the transient uploading of semantic representations in working memory. PMID:28824405

Dazzle camouflage, target tracking, and the confusion effect.

PubMed

Hogan, Benedict G; Cuthill, Innes C; Scott-Samuel, Nicholas E

2016-01-01

The influence of coloration on the ecology and evolution of moving animals in groups is poorly understood. Animals in groups benefit from the "confusion effect," where predator attack success is reduced with increasing group size or density. This is thought to be due to a sensory bottleneck: an increase in the difficulty of tracking one object among many. Motion dazzle camouflage has been hypothesized to disrupt accurate perception of the trajectory or speed of an object or animal. The current study investigates the suggestion that dazzle camouflage may enhance the confusion effect. Utilizing a computer game style experiment with human predators, we found that when moving in groups, targets with stripes parallel to the targets' direction of motion interact with the confusion effect to a greater degree, and are harder to track, than those with more conventional background matching patterns. The findings represent empirical evidence that some high-contrast patterns may benefit animals in groups. The results also highlight the possibility that orientation and turning may be more relevant in the mechanisms of dazzle camouflage than previously recognized.

Syntax does not necessarily precede semantics in sentence processing: ERP evidence from Chinese.

PubMed

Zhang, Yaxu; Li, Ping; Piao, Qiuhong; Liu, Youyi; Huang, Yongjing; Shu, Hua

2013-07-01

Two event-related potential experiments were conducted to examine whether the processing of syntactic category or syntactic subcategorization frame always needs to temporally precede semantic processing during the reading of Chinese sentences of object-subject-verb construction. The sentences contained (a) no anomalies, (b) semantic only anomalies, (c) syntactic category plus semantic anomalies, or (d) transitivity plus semantic anomalies. In both experiments, all three types of anomalies elicited a broad negativity between 300 and 500 ms. This negativity included an N400 effect, given its distribution. Moreover, syntactic category plus semantic anomalies elicited a P600 response, whereas the other two types of anomalies did not. The finding of N400 effects suggests that semantic integration can be attempted even when the processing of syntactic category or syntactic subcategorization frame is unsuccessful. Thus, syntactic processing is not a necessary prerequisite for the initiation of semantic integration in Chinese. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Semantic representation in the white matter pathway

PubMed Central

Fang, Yuxing; Wang, Xiaosha; Zhong, Suyu; Song, Luping; Han, Zaizhu; Gong, Gaolang

2018-01-01

Object conceptual processing has been localized to distributed cortical regions that represent specific attributes. A challenging question is how object semantic space is formed. We tested a novel framework of representing semantic space in the pattern of white matter (WM) connections by extending the representational similarity analysis (RSA) to structural lesion pattern and behavioral data in 80 brain-damaged patients. For each WM connection, a neural representational dissimilarity matrix (RDM) was computed by first building machine-learning models with the voxel-wise WM lesion patterns as features to predict naming performance of a particular item and then computing the correlation between the predicted naming score and the actual naming score of another item in the testing patients. This correlation was used to build the neural RDM based on the assumption that if the connection pattern contains certain aspects of information shared by the naming processes of these two items, models trained with one item should also predict naming accuracy of the other. Correlating the neural RDM with various cognitive RDMs revealed that neural patterns in several WM connections that connect left occipital/middle temporal regions and anterior temporal regions associated with the object semantic space. Such associations were not attributable to modality-specific attributes (shape, manipulation, color, and motion), to peripheral picture-naming processes (picture visual similarity, phonological similarity), to broad semantic categories, or to the properties of the cortical regions that they connected, which tended to represent multiple modality-specific attributes. That is, the semantic space could be represented through WM connection patterns across cortical regions representing modality-specific attributes. PMID:29624578

Relations between Semantic and Cognitive Development in the One-Word Stage: The Specificity Hypothesis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gopnik, Alison; Meltzoff, Andrew N.

1986-01-01

Compares two types of semantic development (the acquisition of disappearance words and success-failure words) to performance on two types of cognitive tasks (object-permanence and means-ends tasks) among infants. (HOD)

Guidance of visual attention by semantic information in real-world scenes

PubMed Central

Wu, Chia-Chien; Wick, Farahnaz Ahmed; Pomplun, Marc

2014-01-01

Recent research on attentional guidance in real-world scenes has focused on object recognition within the context of a scene. This approach has been valuable for determining some factors that drive the allocation of visual attention and determine visual selection. This article provides a review of experimental work on how different components of context, especially semantic information, affect attentional deployment. We review work from the areas of object recognition, scene perception, and visual search, highlighting recent studies examining semantic structure in real-world scenes. A better understanding on how humans parse scene representations will not only improve current models of visual attention but also advance next-generation computer vision systems and human-computer interfaces. PMID:24567724

[Electrophysiological bases of semantic processing of objects].

PubMed

Kahlaoui, Karima; Baccino, Thierry; Joanette, Yves; Magnié, Marie-Noële

2007-02-01

How pictures and words are stored and processed in the human brain constitute a long-standing question in cognitive psychology. Behavioral studies have yielded a large amount of data addressing this issue. Generally speaking, these data show that there are some interactions between the semantic processing of pictures and words. However, behavioral methods can provide only limited insight into certain findings. Fortunately, Event-Related Potential (ERP) provides on-line cues about the temporal nature of cognitive processes and contributes to the exploration of their neural substrates. ERPs have been used in order to better understand semantic processing of words and pictures. The main objective of this article is to offer an overview of the electrophysiologic bases of semantic processing of words and pictures. Studies presented in this article showed that the processing of words is associated with an N 400 component, whereas pictures elicited both N 300 and N 400 components. Topographical analysis of the N 400 distribution over the scalp is compatible with the idea that both image-mediated concrete words and pictures access an amodal semantic system. However, given the distinctive N 300 patterns, observed only during picture processing, it appears that picture and word processing rely upon distinct neuronal networks, even if they end up activating more or less similar semantic representations.

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).

Semantic Specificity in One-Year-Olds’ Word Comprehension

PubMed Central

Bergelson, Elika; Aslin, Richard

2017-01-01

The present study investigated infants’ knowledge about familiar nouns. Infants (n = 46, 12–20-month-olds) saw two-image displays of familiar objects, or one familiar and one novel object. Infants heard either a matching word (e.g. “foot’ when seeing foot and juice), a related word (e.g. “sock” when seeing foot and juice) or a nonce word (e.g. “fep” when seeing a novel object and dog). Across the whole sample, infants reliably fixated the referent on matching and nonce trials. On the critical related trials we found increasingly less looking to the incorrect (but related) image with age. These results suggest that one-year-olds look at familiar objects both when they hear them labeled and when they hear related labels, to similar degrees, but over the second year increasingly rely on semantic fit. We suggest that infants’ initial semantic representations are imprecise, and continue to sharpen over the second postnatal year. PMID:29200981

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

Matching Alternative Addresses: a Semantic Web Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ariannamazi, S.; Karimipour, F.; Hakimpour, F.

2015-12-01

Rapid development of crowd-sourcing or volunteered geographic information (VGI) provides opportunities for authoritatives that deal with geospatial information. Heterogeneity of multiple data sources and inconsistency of data types is a key characteristics of VGI datasets. The expansion of cities resulted in the growing number of POIs in the OpenStreetMap, a well-known VGI source, which causes the datasets to outdate in short periods of time. These changes made to spatial and aspatial attributes of features such as names and addresses might cause confusion or ambiguity in the processes that require feature's literal information like addressing and geocoding. VGI sources neither will conform specific vocabularies nor will remain in a specific schema for a long period of time. As a result, the integration of VGI sources is crucial and inevitable in order to avoid duplication and the waste of resources. Information integration can be used to match features and qualify different annotation alternatives for disambiguation. This study enhances the search capabilities of geospatial tools with applications able to understand user terminology to pursuit an efficient way for finding desired results. Semantic web is a capable tool for developing technologies that deal with lexical and numerical calculations and estimations. There are a vast amount of literal-spatial data representing the capability of linguistic information in knowledge modeling, but these resources need to be harmonized based on Semantic Web standards. The process of making addresses homogenous generates a helpful tool based on spatial data integration and lexical annotation matching and disambiguating.

Evolvix BEST Names for semantic reproducibility across code2brain interfaces.

PubMed

Loewe, Laurence; Scheuer, Katherine S; Keel, Seth A; Vyas, Vaibhav; Liblit, Ben; Hanlon, Bret; Ferris, Michael C; Yin, John; Dutra, Inês; Pietsch, Anthony; Javid, Christine G; Moog, Cecilia L; Meyer, Jocelyn; Dresel, Jerdon; McLoone, Brian; Loberger, Sonya; Movaghar, Arezoo; Gilchrist-Scott, Morgaine; Sabri, Yazeed; Sescleifer, Dave; Pereda-Zorrilla, Ivan; Zietlow, Andrew; Smith, Rodrigo; Pietenpol, Samantha; Goldfinger, Jacob; Atzen, Sarah L; Freiberg, Erika; Waters, Noah P; Nusbaum, Claire; Nolan, Erik; Hotz, Alyssa; Kliman, Richard M; Mentewab, Ayalew; Fregien, Nathan; Loewe, Martha

2017-01-01

Names in programming are vital for understanding the meaning of code and big data. We define code2brain (C2B) interfaces as maps in compilers and brains between meaning and naming syntax, which help to understand executable code. While working toward an Evolvix syntax for general-purpose programming that makes accurate modeling easy for biologists, we observed how names affect C2B quality. To protect learning and coding investments, C2B interfaces require long-term backward compatibility and semantic reproducibility (accurate reproduction of computational meaning from coder-brains to reader-brains by code alone). Semantic reproducibility is often assumed until confusing synonyms degrade modeling in biology to deciphering exercises. We highlight empirical naming priorities from diverse individuals and roles of names in different modes of computing to show how naming easily becomes impossibly difficult. We present the Evolvix BEST (Brief, Explicit, Summarizing, Technical) Names concept for reducing naming priority conflicts, test it on a real challenge by naming subfolders for the Project Organization Stabilizing Tool system, and provide naming questionnaires designed to facilitate C2B debugging by improving names used as keywords in a stabilizing programming language. Our experiences inspired us to develop Evolvix using a flipped programming language design approach with some unexpected features and BEST Names at its core. © 2016 The Authors. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of New York Academy of Sciences.

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.

Semantic ambiguity effects on traditional Chinese character naming: A corpus-based approach.

PubMed

Chang, Ya-Ning; Lee, Chia-Ying

2017-11-09

Words are considered semantically ambiguous if they have more than one meaning and can be used in multiple contexts. A number of recent studies have provided objective ambiguity measures by using a corpus-based approach and have demonstrated ambiguity advantages in both naming and lexical decision tasks. Although the predictive power of objective ambiguity measures has been examined in several alphabetic language systems, the effects in logographic languages remain unclear. Moreover, most ambiguity measures do not explicitly address how the various contexts associated with a given word relate to each other. To explore these issues, we computed the contextual diversity (Adelman, Brown, & Quesada, Psychological Science, 17; 814-823, 2006) and semantic ambiguity (Hoffman, Lambon Ralph, & Rogers, Behavior Research Methods, 45; 718-730, 2013) of traditional Chinese single-character words based on the Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus, where contextual diversity was used to evaluate the present semantic space. We then derived a novel ambiguity measure, namely semantic variability, by computing the distance properties of the distinct clusters grouped by the contexts that contained a given word. We demonstrated that semantic variability was superior to semantic diversity in accounting for the variance in naming response times, suggesting that considering the substructure of the various contexts associated with a given word can provide a relatively fine scale of ambiguity information for a word. All of the context and ambiguity measures for 2,418 Chinese single-character words are provided as supplementary materials.

Landscape features, standards, and semantics in U.S. national topographic mapping databases

USGS Publications Warehouse

Varanka, Dalia

2009-01-01

The objective of this paper is to examine the contrast between local, field-surveyed topographical representation and feature representation in digital, centralized databases and to clarify their ontological implications. The semantics of these two approaches are contrasted by examining the categorization of features by subject domains inherent to national topographic mapping. When comparing five USGS topographic mapping domain and feature lists, results indicate that multiple semantic meanings and ontology rules were applied to the initial digital database, but were lost as databases became more centralized at national scales, and common semantics were replaced by technological terms.

Preservation of person-specific knowledge in semantic memory disorder: a longitudinal investigation in two cases of dementia.

PubMed

Haslam, Catherine; Sabah, Mazen

2013-03-01

The double dissociation involving person-specific and general semantic knowledge is supported by numerous patient studies, though cases with preservation of the former are few. In this paper, we report longitudinal data from two cases. Their knowledge in both domains was preserved at the start of the investigation, but progressive deterioration was primarily observed on tests of general semantics. These data strengthen the evidence-base for preservation of person-specific knowledge in semantic memory disorder, and support its separate representation from object knowledge. © 2012 The British Psychological Society.

Executive Semantic Processing Is Underpinned by a Large-scale Neural Network: Revealing the Contribution of Left Prefrontal, Posterior Temporal, and Parietal Cortex to Controlled Retrieval and Selection Using TMS

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Whitney, Carin; Kirk, Marie; O'Sullivan, Jamie; Ralph, Matthew A. Lambon; Jefferies, Elizabeth

2012-01-01

To understand the meanings of words and objects, we need to have knowledge about these items themselves plus executive mechanisms that compute and manipulate semantic information in a task-appropriate way. The neural basis for semantic control remains controversial. Neuroimaging studies have focused on the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus…

Visual Information-Processing in the Perception of Features and Objects

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-01-05

or nodes in a semantic memory network, whereas recall and recognition depend on separate episodic memory traces. In our experiment, we used the same...problem for the account in terms of the separation of episodic from semantic memory , since no pre- existing representations of our line patterns were... semantic memory : amnesic patients were thought to have lost the ability to lay down (or retrieve) episodic traces of autobiographical events, but had

Mental Representations of Weekdays

PubMed Central

Ellis, David A.; Wiseman, Richard; Jenkins, Rob

2015-01-01

Keeping social appointments involves keeping track of what day it is. In practice, mismatches between apparent day and actual day are common. For example, a person might think the current day is Wednesday when in fact it is Thursday. Here we show that such mismatches are highly systematic, and can be traced to specific properties of their mental representations. In Study 1, mismatches between apparent day and actual day occurred more frequently on midweek days (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) than on other days, and were mainly due to intrusions from immediately neighboring days. In Study 2, reaction times to report the current day were fastest on Monday and Friday, and slowest midweek. In Study 3, participants generated fewer semantic associations for “Tuesday”, “Wednesday” and “Thursday” than for other weekday names. Similarly, Google searches found fewer occurrences of midweek days in webpages and books. Analysis of affective norms revealed that participants’ associations were strongly negative for Monday, strongly positive for Friday, and graded over the intervening days. Midweek days are confusable because their mental representations are sparse and similar. Mondays and Fridays are less confusable because their mental representations are rich and distinctive, forming two extremes along a continuum of change. PMID:26288194

Intraosseous haemangioma: semantic and medical confusion.

PubMed

Kadlub, N; Dainese, L; Coulomb-L'Hermine, A; Galmiche, L; Soupre, V; Lepointe, H Ducou; Vazquez, M-P; Picard, A

2015-06-01

The literature is rich in case reports of intraosseous haemangioma, although most of these are actually cases of venous or capillary malformations. To illustrate this confusion in terminology, we present three cases of slow-flow vascular malformations misnamed as intraosseous haemangioma. A retrospective study of children diagnosed with intraosseous haemangioma was conducted. Clinical and radiological data were evaluated. Histopathological examinations and immunohistochemical studies were redone by three independent pathologists to classify the lesions according to the International Society for the Study of Vascular Anomalies (ISSVA) and World Health Organization (WHO) classifications. Three children who had presented with jaw haemangiomas were identified. Computed tomography scan patterns were not specific. All tumours were GLUT-1-negative and D2-40-negative. The lesions were classified as central haemangiomas according to the WHO, and as slow-flow malformations according to the ISSVA. The classification of vascular anomalies is based on clinical, radiological, and histological differences between vascular tumours and malformations. Based on this classification, the evolution of the lesion can be predicted and adequate treatment applied. The binary ISSVA classification is widely accepted and should be applied for all vascular lesions. Copyright © 2015 International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Size matters: bigger is faster.

PubMed

Sereno, Sara C; O'Donnell, Patrick J; Sereno, Margaret E

2009-06-01

A largely unexplored aspect of lexical access in visual word recognition is "semantic size"--namely, the real-world size of an object to which a word refers. A total of 42 participants performed a lexical decision task on concrete nouns denoting either big or small objects (e.g., bookcase or teaspoon). Items were matched pairwise on relevant lexical dimensions. Participants' reaction times were reliably faster to semantically "big" versus "small" words. The results are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms, including more active representations for "big" words, due to the ecological importance attributed to large objects in the environment and the relative speed of neural responses to large objects.

Translation-aware semantic segmentation via conditional least-square generative adversarial networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Mi; Hu, Xiangyun; Zhao, Like; Pang, Shiyan; Gong, Jinqi; Luo, Min

2017-10-01

Semantic segmentation has recently made rapid progress in the field of remote sensing and computer vision. However, many leading approaches cannot simultaneously translate label maps to possible source images with a limited number of training images. The core issue is insufficient adversarial information to interpret the inverse process and proper objective loss function to overcome the vanishing gradient problem. We propose the use of conditional least squares generative adversarial networks (CLS-GAN) to delineate visual objects and solve these problems. We trained the CLS-GAN network for semantic segmentation to discriminate dense prediction information either from training images or generative networks. We show that the optimal objective function of CLS-GAN is a special class of f-divergence and yields a generator that lies on the decision boundary of discriminator that reduces possible vanished gradient. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed architecture at translating images from label maps in the learning process. Experiments on a limited number of high resolution images, including close-range and remote sensing datasets, indicate that the proposed method leads to the improved semantic segmentation accuracy and can simultaneously generate high quality images from label maps.

Semantic Image Segmentation with Contextual Hierarchical Models.

PubMed

Seyedhosseini, Mojtaba; Tasdizen, Tolga

2016-05-01

Semantic segmentation is the problem of assigning an object label to each pixel. It unifies the image segmentation and object recognition problems. The importance of using contextual information in semantic segmentation frameworks has been widely realized in the field. We propose a contextual framework, called contextual hierarchical model (CHM), which learns contextual information in a hierarchical framework for semantic segmentation. At each level of the hierarchy, a classifier is trained based on downsampled input images and outputs of previous levels. Our model then incorporates the resulting multi-resolution contextual information into a classifier to segment the input image at original resolution. This training strategy allows for optimization of a joint posterior probability at multiple resolutions through the hierarchy. Contextual hierarchical model is purely based on the input image patches and does not make use of any fragments or shape examples. Hence, it is applicable to a variety of problems such as object segmentation and edge detection. We demonstrate that CHM performs at par with state-of-the-art on Stanford background and Weizmann horse datasets. It also outperforms state-of-the-art edge detection methods on NYU depth dataset and achieves state-of-the-art on Berkeley segmentation dataset (BSDS 500).

Image segmentation via foreground and background semantic descriptors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuan, Ding; Qiang, Jingjing; Yin, Jihao

2017-09-01

In the field of image processing, it has been a challenging task to obtain a complete foreground that is not uniform in color or texture. Unlike other methods, which segment the image by only using low-level features, we present a segmentation framework, in which high-level visual features, such as semantic information, are used. First, the initial semantic labels were obtained by using the nonparametric method. Then, a subset of the training images, with a similar foreground to the input image, was selected. Consequently, the semantic labels could be further refined according to the subset. Finally, the input image was segmented by integrating the object affinity and refined semantic labels. State-of-the-art performance was achieved in experiments with the challenging MSRC 21 dataset.

Cortical regions involved in semantic processing investigated by repetitive navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation and object naming.

PubMed

Sollmann, Nico; Tanigawa, Noriko; Tussis, Lorena; Hauck, Theresa; Ille, Sebastian; Maurer, Stefanie; Negwer, Chiara; Zimmer, Claus; Ringel, Florian; Meyer, Bernhard; Krieg, Sandro M

2015-04-01

Knowledge about the cortical representation of semantic processing is mainly derived from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or direct cortical stimulation (DCS) studies. Because DCS is regarded as the gold standard in terms of language mapping but can only be used during awake surgery due to its invasive character, repetitive navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)—a non-invasive modality that uses a similar technique as DCS—seems highly feasible for use in the investigation of semantic processing in the healthy human brain. A total number of 100 (50 left-hemispheric and 50 right-hemispheric) rTMS-based language mappings were performed in 50 purely right-handed, healthy volunteers during an object-naming task. All rTMS-induced semantic naming errors were then counted and evaluated systematically. Furthermore, since the distribution of stimulations within both hemispheres varied between individuals and cortical regions stimulated, all elicited errors were standardized and subsequently related to their cortical sites by projecting the mapping results into the cortical parcellation system (CPS). Overall, the most left-hemispheric semantic errors were observed after targeting the rTMS to the posterior middle frontal gyrus (pMFG; standardized error rate: 7.3‰), anterior supramarginal gyrus (aSMG; 5.6‰), and ventral postcentral gyrus (vPoG; 5.0‰). In contrast to that, the highest right-hemispheric error rates occurred after stimulation of the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG; 12.4‰), middle superior temporal gyrus (mSTG; 6.2‰), and anterior supramarginal gyrus (aSMG; 6.2‰). Although error rates were low, the rTMS-based approach of investigating semantic processing during object naming shows convincing results compared to the current literature. Therefore, rTMS seems a valuable, safe, and reliable tool for the investigation of semantic processing within the healthy human brain. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic Indexing of Medical Learning Objects: Medical Students' Usage of a Semantic Network

PubMed Central

Gießler, Paul; Ohnesorge-Radtke, Ursula; Spreckelsen, Cord

2015-01-01

Background The Semantically Annotated Media (SAM) project aims to provide a flexible platform for searching, browsing, and indexing medical learning objects (MLOs) based on a semantic network derived from established classification systems. Primarily, SAM supports the Aachen emedia skills lab, but SAM is ready for indexing distributed content and the Simple Knowledge Organizing System standard provides a means for easily upgrading or even exchanging SAM’s semantic network. There is a lack of research addressing the usability of MLO indexes or search portals like SAM and the user behavior with such platforms. Objective The purpose of this study was to assess the usability of SAM by investigating characteristic user behavior of medical students accessing MLOs via SAM. Methods In this study, we chose a mixed-methods approach. Lean usability testing was combined with usability inspection by having the participants complete four typical usage scenarios before filling out a questionnaire. The questionnaire was based on the IsoMetrics usability inventory. Direct user interaction with SAM (mouse clicks and pages accessed) was logged. Results The study analyzed the typical usage patterns and habits of students using a semantic network for accessing MLOs. Four scenarios capturing characteristics of typical tasks to be solved by using SAM yielded high ratings of usability items and showed good results concerning the consistency of indexing by different users. Long-tail phenomena emerge as they are typical for a collaborative Web 2.0 platform. Suitable but nonetheless rarely used keywords were assigned to MLOs by some users. Conclusions It is possible to develop a Web-based tool with high usability and acceptance for indexing and retrieval of MLOs. SAM can be applied to indexing multicentered repositories of MLOs collaboratively. PMID:27731860

A Combination of Thematic and Similarity-Based Semantic Processes Confers Resistance to Deficit Following Left Hemisphere Stroke

PubMed Central

Kalénine, Solène; Mirman, Daniel; Buxbaum, Laurel J.

2012-01-01

Semantic knowledge may be organized in terms of similarity relations based on shared features and/or complementary relations based on co-occurrence in events. Thus, relationships between manipulable objects such as tools may be defined by their functional properties (what the objects are used for) or thematic properties (e.g., what the objects are used with or on). A recent study from our laboratory used eye-tracking to examine incidental activation of semantic relations in a word–picture matching task and found relatively early activation of thematic relations (e.g., broom–dustpan), later activation of general functional relations (e.g., broom–sponge), and an intermediate pattern for specific functional relations (e.g., broom–vacuum cleaner). Combined with other recent studies, these results suggest that there are distinct semantic systems for thematic and similarity-based knowledge and that the “specific function” condition drew on both systems. This predicts that left hemisphere stroke that damages either system (but not both) may spare specific function processing. The present experiment tested these hypotheses using the same experimental paradigm with participants with left hemisphere lesions (N = 17). The results revealed that, compared to neurologically intact controls (N = 12), stroke participants showed later activation of thematic and general function relations, but activation of specific function relations was spared and was significantly earlier for stroke participants than controls. Across the stroke participants, activation of thematic and general function relations was negatively correlated, further suggesting that damage tended to affect either one semantic system or the other. These results support the distinction between similarity-based and complementarity-based semantic relations and suggest that relations that draw on both systems are relatively more robust to damage. PMID:22586383

Semantics-Based Interoperability Framework for the Geosciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sinha, A.; Malik, Z.; Raskin, R.; Barnes, C.; Fox, P.; McGuinness, D.; Lin, K.

2008-12-01

Interoperability between heterogeneous data, tools and services is required to transform data to knowledge. To meet geoscience-oriented societal challenges such as forcing of climate change induced by volcanic eruptions, we suggest the need to develop semantic interoperability for data, services, and processes. Because such scientific endeavors require integration of multiple data bases associated with global enterprises, implicit semantic-based integration is impossible. Instead, explicit semantics are needed to facilitate interoperability and integration. Although different types of integration models are available (syntactic or semantic) we suggest that semantic interoperability is likely to be the most successful pathway. Clearly, the geoscience community would benefit from utilization of existing XML-based data models, such as GeoSciML, WaterML, etc to rapidly advance semantic interoperability and integration. We recognize that such integration will require a "meanings-based search, reasoning and information brokering", which will be facilitated through inter-ontology relationships (ontologies defined for each discipline). We suggest that Markup languages (MLs) and ontologies can be seen as "data integration facilitators", working at different abstraction levels. Therefore, we propose to use an ontology-based data registration and discovery approach to compliment mark-up languages through semantic data enrichment. Ontologies allow the use of formal and descriptive logic statements which permits expressive query capabilities for data integration through reasoning. We have developed domain ontologies (EPONT) to capture the concept behind data. EPONT ontologies are associated with existing ontologies such as SUMO, DOLCE and SWEET. Although significant efforts have gone into developing data (object) ontologies, we advance the idea of developing semantic frameworks for additional ontologies that deal with processes and services. This evolutionary step will facilitate the integrative capabilities of scientists as we examine the relationships between data and external factors such as processes that may influence our understanding of "why" certain events happen. We emphasize the need to go from analysis of data to concepts related to scientific principles of thermodynamics, kinetics, heat flow, mass transfer, etc. Towards meeting these objectives, we report on a pair of related service engines: DIA (Discovery, integration and analysis), and SEDRE (Semantically-Enabled Data Registration Engine) that utilize ontologies for semantic interoperability and integration.

TMS-induced modulation of action sentence priming in the ventral premotor cortex.

PubMed

Tremblay, Pascale; Sato, Marc; Small, Steven L

2012-01-01

Despite accumulating evidence that cortical motor areas, particularly the lateral premotor cortex, are activated during language comprehension, the question of whether motor processes help mediate the semantic encoding of language remains controversial. To address this issue, we examined whether low frequency (1 Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the left ventral premotor cortex (PMv) can interfere with the comprehension of sentences describing manual actions, visual properties of manipulable and non-manipulable objects, and actions of the lips and mouth. Using a primed semantic decision task, sixteen participants were asked to determine for a given sentence whether or not an auditorily presented target word was congruent with the sentence. We hypothesized that if the left PMv is contributing semantic information that is used to comprehend action and object related sentences, then TMS applied over PMv should result in a disruption of semantic priming. Our results show that TMS reduces semantic priming, induces a shift in response bias, and increases response sensitivity, but does so only during the processing of manual action sentences. This suggests a preferential contribution of PMv to the processing of sentences describing manual actions compared to other types of sentences. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

COTARD SYNDROME IN SEMANTIC DEMENTIA

PubMed Central

Mendez, Mario F.; Ramírez-Bermúdez, Jesús

2011-01-01

Background Semantic dementia is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of meaning of words or concepts. semantic dementia can offer potential insights into the mechanisms of content-specific delusions. Objective The authors present a rare case of semantic dementia with Cotard syndrome, a delusion characterized by nihilism or self-negation. Method The semantic deficits and other features of semantic dementia were evaluated in relation to the patient's Cotard syndrome. Results Mrs. A developed the delusional belief that she was wasting and dying. This occurred after she lost knowledge for her somatic discomforts and sensations and for the organs that were the source of these sensations. Her nihilistic beliefs appeared to emerge from her misunderstanding of her somatic sensations. Conclusion This unique patient suggests that a mechanism for Cotard syndrome is difficulty interpreting the nature and source of internal pains and sensations. We propose that loss of semantic knowledge about one's own body may lead to the delusion of nihilism or death. PMID:22054629

Exploring semantic and phonological picture-word priming in adults who stutter using event-related potentials

PubMed Central

Maxfield, Nathan D.; Pizon-Moore, Angela A.; Frisch, Stefan A.; Constantine, Joseph L.

2011-01-01

Objective Our aim was to investigate how semantic and phonological information is processed in adults who stutter (AWS) preparing to name pictures, following-up a report that event-related potentials (ERPs) in AWS evidenced atypical semantic picture-word priming (Maxfield et al., 2010). Methods Fourteen AWS and 14 typically-fluent adults (TFA) participated. Pictures, named at a delay, were followed by probe words. Design elements not used in Maxfield et al. (2010) let us evaluate both phonological and semantic picture-word priming. Results TFA evidenced typical priming effects in probe-elicited ERPs. AWS evidenced diminished Semantic priming, and reverse Phonological N400 priming. Conclusions Results point to atypical processing of semantic and phonological information in AWS. Discussion considers whether AWS ERP effects reflect unstable activation of target label semantic and phonological representations, strategic inhibition of target label phonological neighbors, and/or phonological label-probe competition. Significance Results raise questions about how mechanisms that regulate activation spreading operate in AWS. PMID:22055837

Direct Exploration of the Role of the Ventral Anterior Temporal Lobe in Semantic Memory: Cortical Stimulation and Local Field Potential Evidence From Subdural Grid Electrodes

PubMed Central

Shimotake, Akihiro; Matsumoto, Riki; Ueno, Taiji; Kunieda, Takeharu; Saito, Satoru; Hoffman, Paul; Kikuchi, Takayuki; Fukuyama, Hidenao; Miyamoto, Susumu; Takahashi, Ryosuke; Ikeda, Akio; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A.

2015-01-01

Semantic memory is a crucial higher cortical function that codes the meaning of objects and words, and when impaired after neurological damage, patients are left with significant disability. Investigations of semantic dementia have implicated the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) region, in general, as crucial for multimodal semantic memory. The potentially crucial role of the ventral ATL subregion has been emphasized by recent functional neuroimaging studies, but the necessity of this precise area has not been selectively tested. The implantation of subdural electrode grids over this subregion, for the presurgical assessment of patients with partial epilepsy or brain tumor, offers the dual yet rare opportunities to record cortical local field potentials while participants complete semantic tasks and to stimulate the functionally identified regions in the same participants to evaluate the necessity of these areas in semantic processing. Across 6 patients, and utilizing a variety of semantic assessments, we evaluated and confirmed that the anterior fusiform/inferior temporal gyrus is crucial in multimodal, receptive, and expressive, semantic processing. PMID:25491206

Progress toward a Semantic eScience Framework; building on advanced cyberinfrastructure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McGuinness, D. L.; Fox, P. A.; West, P.; Rozell, E.; Zednik, S.; Chang, C.

2010-12-01

The configurable and extensible semantic eScience framework (SESF) has begun development and implementation of several semantic application components. Extensions and improvements to several ontologies have been made based on distinct interdisciplinary use cases ranging from solar physics, to biologicl and chemical oceanography. Importantly, these semantic representations mediate access to a diverse set of existing and emerging cyberinfrastructure. Among the advances are the population of triple stores with web accessible query services. A triple store is akin to a relational data store where the basic stored unit is a subject-predicate-object tuple. Access via a query is provided by the W3 Recommendation language specification SPARQL. Upon this middle tier of semantic cyberinfrastructure, we have developed several forms of semantic faceted search, including provenance-awareness. We report on the rapid advances in semantic technologies and tools and how we are sustaining the software path for the required technical advances as well as the ontology improvements and increased functionality of the semantic applications including how they are integrated into web-based portals (e.g. Drupal) and web services. Lastly, we indicate future work direction and opportunities for collaboration.

Verbal and non-verbal semantic impairment: From fluent primary progressive aphasia to semantic dementia

PubMed Central

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

2007-01-01

Selective disturbances of semantic memory have attracted the interest of many investigators and the question of the existence of single or multiple semantic systems remains a very controversial theme in the literature. Objectives To discuss the question of multiple semantic systems based on a longitudinal study of a patient who presented semantic dementia from fluent primary progressive aphasia. Methods A 66 year-old woman with selective impairment of semantic memory was examined on two occasions, undergoing neuropsychological and language evaluations, the results of which were compared to those of three paired control individuals. Results In the first evaluation, physical examination was normal and the score on the Mini-Mental State Examination was 26. Language evaluation revealed fluent speech, anomia, disturbance in word comprehension, preservation of the syntactic and phonological aspects of the language, besides surface dyslexia and dysgraphia. Autobiographical and episodic memories were relatively preserved. In semantic memory tests, the following dissociation was found: disturbance of verbal semantic memory with preservation of non-verbal semantic memory. Magnetic resonance of the brain revealed marked atrophy of the left anterior temporal lobe. After 14 months, the difficulties in verbal semantic memory had become more severe and the semantic disturbance, limited initially to the linguistic sphere, had worsened to involve non-verbal domains. Conclusions Given the dissociation found in the first examination, we believe there is sufficient clinical evidence to refute the existence of a unitary semantic system. PMID:29213389

Impact of action primes on implicit processing of thematic and functional similarity relations: evidence from eye-tracking.

PubMed

Pluciennicka, Ewa; Wamain, Yannick; Coello, Yann; Kalénine, Solène

2016-07-01

The aim of this study was to specify the role of action representations in thematic and functional similarity relations between manipulable artifact objects. Recent behavioral and neurophysiological evidence indicates that while they are all relevant for manipulable artifact concepts, semantic relations based on thematic (e.g., saw-wood), specific function similarity (e.g., saw-axe), and general function similarity (e.g., saw-knife) are differently processed, and may relate to different levels of action representation. Point-light displays of object-related actions previously encoded at the gesture level (e.g., "sawing") or at the higher level of action representation (e.g., "cutting") were used as primes before participants identified target objects (e.g., saw) among semantically related and unrelated distractors (e.g., wood, feather, piano). Analysis of eye movements on the different objects during target identification informed about the amplitude and the timing of implicit activation of the different semantic relations. Results showed that action prime encoding impacted the processing of thematic relations, but not that of functional similarity relations. Semantic competition with thematic distractors was greater and earlier following action primes encoded at the gesture level compared to action primes encoded at higher level. As a whole, these findings highlight the direct influence of action representations on thematic relation processing, and suggest that thematic relations involve gesture-level representations rather than intention-level representations.

Automatic image orientation detection via confidence-based integration of low-level and semantic cues.

PubMed

Luo, Jiebo; Boutell, Matthew

2005-05-01

Automatic image orientation detection for natural images is a useful, yet challenging research topic. Humans use scene context and semantic object recognition to identify the correct image orientation. However, it is difficult for a computer to perform the task in the same way because current object recognition algorithms are extremely limited in their scope and robustness. As a result, existing orientation detection methods were built upon low-level vision features such as spatial distributions of color and texture. Discrepant detection rates have been reported for these methods in the literature. We have developed a probabilistic approach to image orientation detection via confidence-based integration of low-level and semantic cues within a Bayesian framework. Our current accuracy is 90 percent for unconstrained consumer photos, impressive given the findings of a psychophysical study conducted recently. The proposed framework is an attempt to bridge the gap between computer and human vision systems and is applicable to other problems involving semantic scene content understanding.

Gist in time: scene semantics and structure enhance recall of searched objects

PubMed Central

Wolfe, Jeremy M.; Võ, Melissa L.-H.

2016-01-01

Previous work has shown that recall of objects that are incidentally encountered as targets in visual search is better than recall of objects that have been intentionally memorized (Draschkow, Wolfe & Võ, 2014). However, this counter-intuitive result is not seen when these tasks are performed with non-scene stimuli. The goal of the current paper is to determine what features of search in a scene contribute to higher recall rates when compared to a memorization task. In each of four experiments, we compare the free recall rate for target objects following a search to the rate following a memorization task. Across the experiments, the stimuli include progressively more scene-related information. Experiment 1 provides the spatial relations between objects. Experiment 2 adds relative size and depth of objects. Experiments 3 and 4 include scene layout and semantic information. We find that search leads to better recall than explicit memorization in cases where scene layout and semantic information are present, as long as the participant has ample time (2500ms) to integrate this information with knowledge about the target object (Exp. 4). These results suggest that the integration of scene and target information not only leads to more efficient search, but can also contribute to stronger memory representations than intentional memorization. PMID:27270227

Gist in time: Scene semantics and structure enhance recall of searched objects.

PubMed

Josephs, Emilie L; Draschkow, Dejan; Wolfe, Jeremy M; Võ, Melissa L-H

2016-09-01

Previous work has shown that recall of objects that are incidentally encountered as targets in visual search is better than recall of objects that have been intentionally memorized (Draschkow, Wolfe, & Võ, 2014). However, this counter-intuitive result is not seen when these tasks are performed with non-scene stimuli. The goal of the current paper is to determine what features of search in a scene contribute to higher recall rates when compared to a memorization task. In each of four experiments, we compare the free recall rate for target objects following a search to the rate following a memorization task. Across the experiments, the stimuli include progressively more scene-related information. Experiment 1 provides the spatial relations between objects. Experiment 2 adds relative size and depth of objects. Experiments 3 and 4 include scene layout and semantic information. We find that search leads to better recall than explicit memorization in cases where scene layout and semantic information are present, as long as the participant has ample time (2500ms) to integrate this information with knowledge about the target object (Exp. 4). These results suggest that the integration of scene and target information not only leads to more efficient search, but can also contribute to stronger memory representations than intentional memorization. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated Inspection of Power Line Corridors to Measure Vegetation Undercut Using Uav-Based Images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maurer, M.; Hofer, M.; Fraundorfer, F.; Bischof, H.

2017-08-01

Power line corridor inspection is a time consuming task that is performed mostly manually. As the development of UAVs made huge progress in recent years, and photogrammetric computer vision systems became well established, it is time to further automate inspection tasks. In this paper we present an automated processing pipeline to inspect vegetation undercuts of power line corridors. For this, the area of inspection is reconstructed, geo-referenced, semantically segmented and inter class distance measurements are calculated. The presented pipeline performs an automated selection of the proper 3D reconstruction method for on the one hand wiry (power line), and on the other hand solid objects (surrounding). The automated selection is realized by performing pixel-wise semantic segmentation of the input images using a Fully Convolutional Neural Network. Due to the geo-referenced semantic 3D reconstructions a documentation of areas where maintenance work has to be performed is inherently included in the distance measurements and can be extracted easily. We evaluate the influence of the semantic segmentation according to the 3D reconstruction and show that the automated semantic separation in wiry and dense objects of the 3D reconstruction routine improves the quality of the vegetation undercut inspection. We show the generalization of the semantic segmentation to datasets acquired using different acquisition routines and to varied seasons in time.

First-pass selectivity for semantic categories in human anteroventral temporal lobe

PubMed Central

Chan, Alexander M.; Baker, Janet M.; Eskandar, Emad; Schomer, Donald; Ulbert, Istvan; Marinkovic, Ksenija; Cash, Sydney S.; Halgren, Eric

2012-01-01

How the brain encodes the semantic concepts represented by words is a fundamental question in cognitive neuroscience. Hemodynamic neuroimaging studies have robustly shown that different areas of posteroventral temporal lobe are selectively activated by images of animals versus manmade objects. Selective responses in these areas to words representing animals versus objects are sometimes also seen, but they are task-dependent, suggesting that posteroventral temporal cortex may encode visual categories, while more anterior areas encode semantic categories. Here, using the spatiotemporal resolution provided by intracranial macroelectrode and microelectrode arrays, we report category-selective responses to words representing animals and objects in human anteroventral temporal areas including inferotemporal, perirhinal and entorhinal cortices. This selectivity generalizes across tasks and sensory modalities, suggesting that it represents abstract lexico-semantic categories. Significant category-specific responses are found in measures sensitive to synaptic activity (local field potentials, high gamma power, current sources and sinks) and unit-firing (multi- and single-unit activity). Category-selective responses can occur at short latency, as early as 130ms, in middle cortical layers and thus are extracted in the first-pass of activity through the anteroventral temporal lobe. This activation may provide input to posterior areas for iconic representations when required by the task, as well as to the hippocampal formation for categorical encoding and retrieval of memories, and to the amygdala for emotional associations. More generally, these results support models in which the anteroventral temporal lobe plays a primary role in the semantic representation of words. PMID:22159123

Strategic origins of early semantic facilitation in the blocked-cyclic naming paradigm.

PubMed

Belke, Eva; Shao, Zeshu; Meyer, Antje S

2017-10-01

In the blocked-cyclic naming paradigm, participants repeatedly name small sets of objects that do or do not belong to the same semantic category. A standard finding is that, after a first presentation cycle where one might find semantic facilitation, naming is slower in related (homogeneous) than in unrelated (heterogeneous) sets. According to competitive theories of lexical selection, this is because the lexical representations of the object names compete more vigorously in homogeneous than in heterogeneous sets. However, Navarrete, del Prato, Peressotti, and Mahon (2014) argued that this pattern of results was not due to increased lexical competition but to weaker repetition priming in homogeneous compared to heterogeneous sets. They demonstrated that when homogeneous sets were not repeated immediately but interleaved with unrelated sets, semantic relatedness induced facilitation rather than interference. We replicate this finding but also show that the facilitation effect has a strategic origin: It is substantial when sets are separated by pauses, making it easy for participants to notice the relatedness within some sets and use it to predict upcoming items. However, the effect is much reduced when these pauses are eliminated. In our view, the semantic facilitation effect does not constitute evidence against competitive theories of lexical selection. It can be accounted for within any framework that acknowledges strategic influences on the speed of object naming in the blocked-cyclic naming paradigm. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Confusion and the Older Adult. Module A-8. Block A. Basic Knowledge of the Aging Process.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harvey, Dexter; Cap, Orest

This instructional module on confusion and the older adult is one in a block of 10 modules designed to provide the human services worker who works with older adults with basic information regarding the aging process. An introduction provides an overview of the module content. A listing of general objectives follows. Three sections present…

Auditing Associative Relations across Two Knowledge Sources

PubMed Central

Vizenor, Lowell T.; Bodenreider, Olivier; McCray, Alexa T.

2009-01-01

Objectives This paper proposes a novel semantic method for auditing associative relations in biomedical terminologies. We tested our methodology on two Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) knowledge sources. Methods We use the UMLS semantic groups as high-level representations of the domain and range of relationships in the Metathesaurus and in the Semantic Network. A mapping created between Metathesaurus relationships and Semantic Network relationships forms the basis for comparing the signatures of a given Metathesaurus relationship to the signatures of the semantic relationship to which it is mapped. The consistency of Metathesaurus relations is studied for each relationship. Results Of the 177 associative relationships in the Metathesaurus, 84 (48%) exhibit a high degree of consistency with the corresponding Semantic Network relationships. Overall, 63% of the 1.8M associative relations in the Metathesaurus are consistent with relations in the Semantic Network. Conclusion The semantics of associative relationships in biomedical terminologies should be defined explicitly by their developers. The Semantic Network would benefit from being extended with new relationships and with new relations for some existing relationships. The UMLS editing environment could take advantage of the correspondence established between relationships in the Metathesaurus and the Semantic Network. Finally, the auditing method also yielded useful information for refining the mapping of associative relationships between the two sources. PMID:19475724

UBioLab: a web-LABoratory for Ubiquitous in-silico experiments.

PubMed

Bartocci, E; Di Berardini, M R; Merelli, E; Vito, L

2012-03-01

The huge and dynamic amount of bioinformatic resources (e.g., data and tools) available nowadays in Internet represents a big challenge for biologists -for what concerns their management and visualization- and for bioinformaticians -for what concerns the possibility of rapidly creating and executing in-silico experiments involving resources and activities spread over the WWW hyperspace. Any framework aiming at integrating such resources as in a physical laboratory has imperatively to tackle -and possibly to handle in a transparent and uniform way- aspects concerning physical distribution, semantic heterogeneity, co-existence of different computational paradigms and, as a consequence, of different invocation interfaces (i.e., OGSA for Grid nodes, SOAP for Web Services, Java RMI for Java objects, etc.). The framework UBioLab has been just designed and developed as a prototype following the above objective. Several architectural features -as those ones of being fully Web-based and of combining domain ontologies, Semantic Web and workflow techniques- give evidence of an effort in such a direction. The integration of a semantic knowledge management system for distributed (bioinformatic) resources, a semantic-driven graphic environment for defining and monitoring ubiquitous workflows and an intelligent agent-based technology for their distributed execution allows UBioLab to be a semantic guide for bioinformaticians and biologists providing (i) a flexible environment for visualizing, organizing and inferring any (semantics and computational) "type" of domain knowledge (e.g., resources and activities, expressed in a declarative form), (ii) a powerful engine for defining and storing semantic-driven ubiquitous in-silico experiments on the domain hyperspace, as well as (iii) a transparent, automatic and distributed environment for correct experiment executions.

Rule-based support system for multiple UMLS semantic type assignments

PubMed Central

Geller, James; He, Zhe; Perl, Yehoshua; Morrey, C. Paul; Xu, Julia

2012-01-01

Background When new concepts are inserted into the UMLS, they are assigned one or several semantic types from the UMLS Semantic Network by the UMLS editors. However, not every combination of semantic types is permissible. It was observed that many concepts with rare combinations of semantic types have erroneous semantic type assignments or prohibited combinations of semantic types. The correction of such errors is resource-intensive. Objective We design a computational system to inform UMLS editors as to whether a specific combination of two, three, four, or five semantic types is permissible or prohibited or questionable. Methods We identify a set of inclusion and exclusion instructions in the UMLS Semantic Network documentation and derive corresponding rule-categories as well as rule-categories from the UMLS concept content. We then design an algorithm adviseEditor based on these rule-categories. The algorithm specifies rules for an editor how to proceed when considering a tuple (pair, triple, quadruple, quintuple) of semantic types to be assigned to a concept. Results Eight rule-categories were identified. A Web-based system was developed to implement the adviseEditor algorithm, which returns for an input combination of semantic types whether it is permitted, prohibited or (in a few cases) requires more research. The numbers of semantic type pairs assigned to each rule-category are reported. Interesting examples for each rule-category are illustrated. Cases of semantic type assignments that contradict rules are listed, including recently introduced ones. Conclusion The adviseEditor system implements explicit and implicit knowledge available in the UMLS in a system that informs UMLS editors about the permissibility of a desired combination of semantic types. Using adviseEditor might help accelerate the work of the UMLS editors and prevent erroneous semantic type assignments. PMID:23041716

Does semantic preactivation reduce inattentional blindness?

PubMed

Kreitz, Carina; Schnuerch, Robert; Furley, Philip A; Gibbons, Henning; Memmert, Daniel

2015-04-01

We are susceptible to failures of awareness if a stimulus occurs unexpectedly and our attention is focused elsewhere. Such inattentional blindness is modulated by various parameters, including stimulus attributes, the observer's cognitive resources, and the observer's attentional set regarding the primary task. In three behavioral experiments with a total of 360 participants, we investigated whether mere semantic preactivation of the color of an unexpected object can reduce inattentional blindness. Neither explicitly mentioning the color several times before the occurrence of the unexpected stimulus nor priming the color more implicitly via color-related concepts could significantly reduce the susceptibility to inattentional blindness. Even putting the specific color concept in the main focus of the primary task did not lead to reduced inattentional blindness. Thus, we have shown that the failure to consciously perceive unexpected objects was not moderated by semantic preactivation of the objects' most prominent feature: its color. We suggest that this finding reflects the rather general principle that preactivations that are not motivationally relevant for one's current selection goals do not suffice to make an unexpected object overcome the threshold of awareness.

Grammatical markers switch roles and elicit different electrophysiological responses under shallow and deep semantic requirements.

PubMed

Soshi, Takahiro; Nakajima, Heizo; Hagiwara, Hiroko

2016-10-01

Static knowledge about the grammar of a natural language is represented in the cortico-subcortical system. However, the differences in dynamic verbal processing under different cognitive conditions are unclear. To clarify this, we conducted an electrophysiological experiment involving a semantic priming paradigm in which semantically congruent or incongruent word sequences (prime nouns-target verbs) were randomly presented. We examined the event-related brain potentials that occurred in response to congruent and incongruent target words that were preceded by primes with or without grammatical case markers. The two participant groups performed either the shallow (lexical judgment) or deep (direct semantic judgment) semantic tasks. We hypothesized that, irrespective of the case markers, the congruent targets would reduce centro-posterior N400 activities under the deep semantic condition, which induces selective attention to the semantic relatedness of content words. However, the same congruent targets with correct case markers would reduce lateralized negativity under the shallow semantic condition because grammatical case markers are related to automatic structural integration under semantically unattended conditions. We observed that congruent targets (e.g., 'open') that were preceded by primes with congruent case markers (e.g., 'shutter-object case') reduced lateralized negativity under the shallow semantic condition. In contrast, congruent targets, irrespective of case markers, consistently yielded N400 reductions under the deep semantic condition. To summarize, human neural verbal processing differed in response to the same grammatical markers in the same verbal expressions under semantically attended or unattended conditions.

SPECTRa-T: machine-based data extraction and semantic searching of chemistry e-theses.

PubMed

Downing, Jim; Harvey, Matt J; Morgan, Peter B; Murray-Rust, Peter; Rzepa, Henry S; Stewart, Diana C; Tonge, Alan P; Townsend, Joe A

2010-02-22

The SPECTRa-T project has developed text-mining tools to extract named chemical entities (NCEs), such as chemical names and terms, and chemical objects (COs), e.g., experimental spectral assignments and physical chemistry properties, from electronic theses (e-theses). Although NCEs were readily identified within the two major document formats studied, only the use of structured documents enabled identification of chemical objects and their association with the relevant chemical entity (e.g., systematic chemical name). A corpus of theses was analyzed and it is shown that a high degree of semantic information can be extracted from structured documents. This integrated information has been deposited in a persistent Resource Description Framework (RDF) triple-store that allows users to conduct semantic searches. The strength and weaknesses of several document formats are reviewed.

Quantifying Narrative Ability in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Computational Linguistic Analysis of Narrative Coherence

PubMed Central

Losh, Molly; Gordon, Peter C.

2014-01-01

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties with social communication and functioning, and ritualistic/repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). While substantial heterogeneity exists in symptom expression, impairments in language discourse skills, including narrative, are universally observed (Tager-Flusberg, Paul, & Lord, 2005). This study applied a computational linguistic tool, Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), to objectively characterize narrative performance in ASD across two narrative contexts differing in interpersonal and cognitive demands. Results indicated that individuals with ASD produced narratives comparable in semantic content to those from controls when narrating from a picture book, but produced narratives diminished in semantic quality in a more demanding narrative recall task. Results are discussed in terms of the utility of LSA as a quantitative, objective, and efficient measure of narrative ability. PMID:24915929

Creating Tension in Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Folta, Bernarr

This paper discusses the rationale and teaching methods for a six-week unit, for a high school freshman English Class, on perception, semantics, and writing, which places special focus on developing tension in student writing. The first four objectives of the course focus on perception and the next two focus on semantics. The seventh…

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…

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

Altered Neural Activity during Semantic Object Memory Retrieval in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment as Measured by Event-Related Potentials.

PubMed

Chiang, Hsueh-Sheng; Mudar, Raksha A; Pudhiyidath, Athula; Spence, Jeffrey S; Womack, Kyle B; Cullum, C Munro; Tanner, Jeremy A; Eroh, Justin; Kraut, Michael A; Hart, John

2015-01-01

Deficits in semantic memory in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) have been previously reported, but the underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain to be clarified. We examined event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with semantic memory retrieval in 16 individuals with aMCI as compared to 17 normal controls using the Semantic Object Retrieval Task (EEG SORT). In this task, subjects judged whether pairs of words (object features) elicited retrieval of an object (retrieval trials) or not (non-retrieval trials). Behavioral findings revealed that aMCI subjects had lower accuracy scores and marginally longer reaction time compared to controls. We used a multivariate analytical technique (STAT-PCA) to investigate similarities and differences in ERPs between aMCI and control groups. STAT-PCA revealed a left fronto-temporal component starting at around 750 ms post-stimulus in both groups. However, unlike controls, aMCI subjects showed an increase in the frontal-parietal scalp potential that distinguished retrieval from non-retrieval trials between 950 and 1050 ms post-stimulus negatively correlated with the performance on the logical memory subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale-III. Thus, individuals with aMCI were not only impaired in their behavioral performance on SORT relative to controls, but also displayed alteration in the corresponding ERPs. The altered neural activity in aMCI compared to controls suggests a more sustained and effortful search during object memory retrieval, which may be a potential marker indicating disease processes at the pre-dementia stage.

[Associative visual agnosia. The less visible consequences of a cerebral infarction].

PubMed

Diesfeldt, H F A

2011-02-01

After a cerebral infarction, some patients acutely demonstrate contralateral hemiplegia, or aphasia. Those are the obvious symptoms of a cerebral infarction. However, less visible but burdensome consequences may go unnoticed without closer investigation. The importance of a thorough clinical examination is exemplified by a single case study of a 72-year-old, right-handed male. Two years before he had suffered from an ischemic stroke in the territory of the left posterior cerebral artery, with right homonymous hemianopia and global alexia (i.e., impairment in letter recognition and profound impairment of reading) without agraphia. Naming was impaired on visual presentation (20%-39% correct), but improved significantly after tactile presentation (87% correct) or verbal definition (89%). Pre-semantic visual processing was normal (correct matching of different views of the same object), as was his access to structural knowledge from vision (he reliably distinguished real objects from non-objects). On a colour decision task he reliably indicated which of two items was coloured correctly. Though he was unable to mime how visually presented objects were used, he more reliably matched pictures of objects with pictures of a mime artist gesturing the use of the object. He obtained normal scores on word definition (WAIS-III), synonym judgment and word-picture matching tasks with perceptual and semantic distractors. He however failed when he had to match physically dissimilar specimens of the same object or when he had to decide which two of five objects were related associatively (Pyramids and Palm Trees Test). The patient thus showed a striking contrast in his intact ability to access knowledge of object shape or colour from vision and impaired functional and associative knowledge. As a result, he could not access a complete semantic representation, required for activating phonological representations to name visually presented objects. The pattern of impairments and preserved abilities is considered to be a specific difficulty to access a full semantic representation from an intact structural representation of visually presented objects, i.e., a form of visual object agnosia.

Supervised guiding long-short term memory for image caption generation based on object classes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Jian; Cao, Zhiguo; Xiao, Yang; Qi, Xinyuan

2018-03-01

The present models of image caption generation have the problems of image visual semantic information attenuation and errors in guidance information. In order to solve these problems, we propose a supervised guiding Long Short Term Memory model based on object classes, named S-gLSTM for short. It uses the object detection results from R-FCN as supervisory information with high confidence, and updates the guidance word set by judging whether the last output matches the supervisory information. S-gLSTM learns how to extract the current interested information from the image visual se-mantic information based on guidance word set. The interested information is fed into the S-gLSTM at each iteration as guidance information, to guide the caption generation. To acquire the text-related visual semantic information, the S-gLSTM fine-tunes the weights of the network through the back-propagation of the guiding loss. Complementing guidance information at each iteration solves the problem of visual semantic information attenuation in the traditional LSTM model. Besides, the supervised guidance information in our model can reduce the impact of the mismatched words on the caption generation. We test our model on MSCOCO2014 dataset, and obtain better performance than the state-of-the- art models.

A lexical semantic hub for heteromodal naming in middle fusiform gyrus.

PubMed

Forseth, Kiefer James; Kadipasaoglu, Cihan Mehmet; Conner, Christopher Richard; Hickok, Gregory; Knight, Robert Thomas; Tandon, Nitin

2018-07-01

Semantic memory underpins our understanding of objects, people, places, and ideas. Anomia, a disruption of semantic memory access, is the most common residual language disturbance and is seen in dementia and following injury to temporal cortex. While such anomia has been well characterized by lesion symptom mapping studies, its pathophysiology is not well understood. We hypothesize that inputs to the semantic memory system engage a specific heteromodal network hub that integrates lexical retrieval with the appropriate semantic content. Such a network hub has been proposed by others, but has thus far eluded precise spatiotemporal delineation. This limitation in our understanding of semantic memory has impeded progress in the treatment of anomia. We evaluated the cortical structure and dynamics of the lexical semantic network in driving speech production in a large cohort of patients with epilepsy using electrocorticography (n = 64), functional MRI (n = 36), and direct cortical stimulation (n = 30) during two generative language processes that rely on semantic knowledge: visual picture naming and auditory naming to definition. Each task also featured a non-semantic control condition: scrambled pictures and reversed speech, respectively. These large-scale data of the left, language-dominant hemisphere uniquely enable convergent, high-resolution analyses of neural mechanisms characterized by rapid, transient dynamics with strong interactions between distributed cortical substrates. We observed three stages of activity during both visual picture naming and auditory naming to definition that were serially organized: sensory processing, lexical semantic processing, and articulation. Critically, the second stage was absent in both the visual and auditory control conditions. Group activity maps from both electrocorticography and functional MRI identified heteromodal responses in middle fusiform gyrus, intraparietal sulcus, and inferior frontal gyrus; furthermore, the spectrotemporal profiles of these three regions revealed coincident activity preceding articulation. Only in the middle fusiform gyrus did direct cortical stimulation disrupt both naming tasks while still preserving the ability to repeat sentences. These convergent data strongly support a model in which a distinct neuroanatomical substrate in middle fusiform gyrus provides access to object semantic information. This under-appreciated locus of semantic processing is at risk in resections for temporal lobe epilepsy as well as in trauma and strokes that affect the inferior temporal cortex-it may explain the range of anomic states seen in these conditions. Further characterization of brain network behaviour engaging this region in both healthy and diseased states will expand our understanding of semantic memory and further development of therapies directed at anomia.

Must Metaethical Realism Make a Semantic Claim?

PubMed

Kahane, Guy

2013-02-01

Mackie drew attention to the distinct semantic and metaphysical claims made by meta ethical realists, arguing that although our evaluative discourse is cognitive and objective, there are no objective evaluative facts. This distinction, however, also opens up a reverse possibility: that our evaluative discourse is antirealist, yet objective values do exist. I suggest that this seemingly far-fetched possibility merits serious attention; realism seems com mitted to its intelligibility, and, despite appearances, it isn't incoherent, ineffable, inherently implausible or impossible to defend. I argue that reflection on this possibility should lead us to revise our understanding of the debate between realists and antirealists. It is not only that the realist's semantic claim is insufficient for realism to be true, as Mackie argued; it's not even necessary. Robust metaethical realism is best understood as making a purely metaphysical claim. It is thus not enough for antirealists to show that our discourse is antirealist. They must directly attack the realist's metaphysical claim.

Must Metaethical Realism Make a Semantic Claim?

PubMed Central

Kahane, Guy

2012-01-01

Mackie drew attention to the distinct semantic and metaphysical claims made by meta ethical realists, arguing that although our evaluative discourse is cognitive and objective, there are no objective evaluative facts. This distinction, however, also opens up a reverse possibility: that our evaluative discourse is antirealist, yet objective values do exist. I suggest that this seemingly far-fetched possibility merits serious attention; realism seems com mitted to its intelligibility, and, despite appearances, it isn’t incoherent, ineffable, inherently implausible or impossible to defend. I argue that reflection on this possibility should lead us to revise our understanding of the debate between realists and antirealists. It is not only that the realist’s semantic claim is insufficient for realism to be true, as Mackie argued; it’s not even necessary. Robust metaethical realism is best understood as making a purely metaphysical claim. It is thus not enough for antirealists to show that our discourse is antirealist. They must directly attack the realist’s metaphysical claim. PMID:23525148

Analyzing Hidden Semantics in Social Bookmarking of Open Educational Resources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Minguillón, Julià

Web 2.0 services such as social bookmarking allow users to manage and share the links they find interesting, adding their own tags for describing them. This is especially interesting in the field of open educational resources, as delicious is a simple way to bridge the institutional point of view (i.e. learning object repositories) with the individual one (i.e. personal collections), thus promoting the discovering and sharing of such resources by other users. In this paper we propose a methodology for analyzing such tags in order to discover hidden semantics (i.e. taxonomies and vocabularies) that can be used to improve descriptions of learning objects and make learning object repositories more visible and discoverable. We propose the use of a simple statistical analysis tool such as principal component analysis to discover which tags create clusters that can be semantically interpreted. We will compare the obtained results with a collection of resources related to open educational resources, in order to better understand the real needs of people searching for open educational resources.

Picture-Induced Semantic Interference Reflects Lexical Competition during Object Naming

PubMed Central

Aristei, Sabrina; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Rahman, Rasha Abdel

2012-01-01

With a picture–picture experiment, we contrasted competitive and non-competitive models of lexical selection during language production. Participants produced novel noun–noun compounds in response to two adjacently displayed objects that were categorically related or unrelated (e.g., depicted objects: apple and cherry; naming response: “apple–cherry”). We observed semantic interference, with slower compound naming for related relative to unrelated pictures, very similar to interference effects produced by semantically related context words in picture–word-interference paradigms. This finding suggests that previous failures to observe reliable interference induced by context pictures may be due to the weakness of lexical activation and competition induced by pictures, relative to words. The production of both picture names within one integrated compound word clearly enhances lexical activation, resulting in measurable interference effects. We interpret this interference as resulting from lexical competition, because the alternative interpretation, in terms of response-exclusion from the articulatory buffer, does not apply to pictures, even when they are named. PMID:22363304

Direct Exploration of the Role of the Ventral Anterior Temporal Lobe in Semantic Memory: Cortical Stimulation and Local Field Potential Evidence From Subdural Grid Electrodes.

PubMed

Shimotake, Akihiro; Matsumoto, Riki; Ueno, Taiji; Kunieda, Takeharu; Saito, Satoru; Hoffman, Paul; Kikuchi, Takayuki; Fukuyama, Hidenao; Miyamoto, Susumu; Takahashi, Ryosuke; Ikeda, Akio; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A

2015-10-01

Semantic memory is a crucial higher cortical function that codes the meaning of objects and words, and when impaired after neurological damage, patients are left with significant disability. Investigations of semantic dementia have implicated the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) region, in general, as crucial for multimodal semantic memory. The potentially crucial role of the ventral ATL subregion has been emphasized by recent functional neuroimaging studies, but the necessity of this precise area has not been selectively tested. The implantation of subdural electrode grids over this subregion, for the presurgical assessment of patients with partial epilepsy or brain tumor, offers the dual yet rare opportunities to record cortical local field potentials while participants complete semantic tasks and to stimulate the functionally identified regions in the same participants to evaluate the necessity of these areas in semantic processing. Across 6 patients, and utilizing a variety of semantic assessments, we evaluated and confirmed that the anterior fusiform/inferior temporal gyrus is crucial in multimodal, receptive, and expressive, semantic processing. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

Mapping the connectivity underlying multimodal (verbal and non-verbal) semantic processing: a brain electrostimulation study.

PubMed

Moritz-Gasser, Sylvie; Herbet, Guillaume; Duffau, Hugues

2013-08-01

Accessing the meaning of words, objects, people and facts is a human ability, made possible thanks to semantic processing. Although studies concerning its cortical organization are proficient, the subcortical connectivity underlying this semantic network received less attention. We used intraoperative direct electrostimulation, which mimics a transient virtual lesion during brain surgery for glioma in eight awaken patients, to map the anatomical white matter substrate subserving the semantic system. Patients performed a picture naming task and a non-verbal semantic association test during the electrical mapping. Direct electrostimulation of the inferior fronto-occipital fascicle, a poorly known ventral association pathway which runs throughout the brain, induced in all cases semantic disturbances. These transient disorders were highly reproducible, and concerned verbal as well as non-verbal output. Our results highlight for the first time the essential role of the left inferior fronto-occipital fascicle in multimodal (and not only in verbal) semantic processing. On the basis of these original findings, and in the lights of phylogenetic considerations regarding this fascicle, we suggest its possible implication in the monitoring of the human level of consciousness related to semantic memory, namely noetic consciousness. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic SenseLab: implementing the vision of the Semantic Web in neuroscience

PubMed Central

Samwald, Matthias; Chen, Huajun; Ruttenberg, Alan; Lim, Ernest; Marenco, Luis; Miller, Perry; Shepherd, Gordon; Cheung, Kei-Hoi

2011-01-01

Summary Objective Integrative neuroscience research needs a scalable informatics framework that enables semantic integration of diverse types of neuroscience data. This paper describes the use of the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and other Semantic Web technologies for the representation and integration of molecular-level data provided by several of SenseLab suite of neuroscience databases. Methods Based on the original database structure, we semi-automatically translated the databases into OWL ontologies with manual addition of semantic enrichment. The SenseLab ontologies are extensively linked to other biomedical Semantic Web resources, including the Subcellular Anatomy Ontology, Brain Architecture Management System, the Gene Ontology, BIRNLex and UniProt. The SenseLab ontologies have also been mapped to the Basic Formal Ontology and Relation Ontology, which helps ease interoperability with many other existing and future biomedical ontologies for the Semantic Web. In addition, approaches to representing contradictory research statements are described. The SenseLab ontologies are designed for use on the Semantic Web that enables their integration into a growing collection of biomedical information resources. Conclusion We demonstrate that our approach can yield significant potential benefits and that the Semantic Web is rapidly becoming mature enough to realize its anticipated promises. The ontologies are available online at http://neuroweb.med.yale.edu/senselab/ PMID:20006477

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

Spatiotemporal proximity effects in visual short-term memory examined by target-nontarget analysis.

PubMed

Sapkota, Raju P; Pardhan, Shahina; van der Linde, Ian

2016-08-01

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is a limited-capacity system that holds a small number of objects online simultaneously, implying that competition for limited storage resources occurs (Phillips, 1974). How the spatial and temporal proximity of stimuli affects this competition is unclear. In this 2-experiment study, we examined the effect of the spatial and temporal separation of real-world memory targets and erroneously selected nontarget items examined during location-recognition and object-recall tasks. In Experiment 1 (the location-recognition task), our test display comprised either the picture or name of 1 previously examined memory stimulus (rendered above as the stimulus-display area), together with numbered square boxes at each of the memory-stimulus locations used in that trial. Participants were asked to report the number inside the square box corresponding to the location at which the cued object was originally presented. In Experiment 2 (the object-recall task), the test display comprised a single empty square box presented at 1 memory-stimulus location. Participants were asked to report the name of the object presented at that location. In both experiments, nontarget objects that were spatially and temporally proximal to the memory target were confused more often than nontarget objects that were spatially and temporally distant (i.e., a spatiotemporal proximity effect); this effect generalized across memory tasks, and the object feature (picture or name) that cued the test-display memory target. Our findings are discussed in terms of spatial and temporal confusion "fields" in VSTM, wherein objects occupy diffuse loci in a spatiotemporal coordinate system, wherein neighboring locations are more susceptible to confusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Naming and categorizing objects: task differences modulate the polarity of semantic effects in the picture-word interference paradigm.

PubMed

Hantsch, Ansgar; Jescheniak, Jörg D; Mädebach, Andreas

2012-07-01

The picture-word interference paradigm is a prominent tool for studying lexical retrieval during speech production. When participants name the pictures, interference from semantically related distractor words has regularly been shown. By contrast, when participants categorize the pictures, facilitation from semantically related distractors has typically been found. In the extant studies, however, differences in the task instructions (naming vs. categorizing) were confounded with the response level: While responses in naming were typically located at the basic level (e.g., "dog"), responses were located at the superordinate level in categorization (e.g., "animal"). The present study avoided this confound by having participants respond at the basic level in both naming and categorization, using the same pictures, distractors, and verbal responses. Our findings confirm the polarity reversal of the semantic effects--that is, semantic interference in naming, and semantic facilitation in categorization. These findings show that the polarity reversal of the semantic effect is indeed due to the different tasks and is not an artifact of the different response levels used in previous studies. Implications for current models of language production are discussed.

Semantic size of abstract concepts: it gets emotional when you can't see it.

PubMed

Yao, Bo; Vasiljevic, Milica; Weick, Mario; Sereno, Margaret E; O'Donnell, Patrick J; Sereno, Sara C

2013-01-01

Size is an important visuo-spatial characteristic of the physical world. In language processing, previous research has demonstrated a processing advantage for words denoting semantically "big" (e.g., jungle) versus "small" (e.g., needle) concrete objects. We investigated whether semantic size plays a role in the recognition of words expressing abstract concepts (e.g., truth). Semantically "big" and "small" concrete and abstract words were presented in a lexical decision task. Responses to "big" words, regardless of their concreteness, were faster than those to "small" words. Critically, we explored the relationship between semantic size and affective characteristics of words as well as their influence on lexical access. Although a word's semantic size was correlated with its emotional arousal, the temporal locus of arousal effects may depend on the level of concreteness. That is, arousal seemed to have an earlier (lexical) effect on abstract words, but a later (post-lexical) effect on concrete words. Our findings provide novel insights into the semantic representations of size in abstract concepts and highlight that affective attributes of words may not always index lexical access.

Classification with an edge: Improving semantic image segmentation with boundary detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marmanis, D.; Schindler, K.; Wegner, J. D.; Galliani, S.; Datcu, M.; Stilla, U.

2018-01-01

We present an end-to-end trainable deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) for semantic segmentation with built-in awareness of semantically meaningful boundaries. Semantic segmentation is a fundamental remote sensing task, and most state-of-the-art methods rely on DCNNs as their workhorse. A major reason for their success is that deep networks learn to accumulate contextual information over very large receptive fields. However, this success comes at a cost, since the associated loss of effective spatial resolution washes out high-frequency details and leads to blurry object boundaries. Here, we propose to counter this effect by combining semantic segmentation with semantically informed edge detection, thus making class boundaries explicit in the model. First, we construct a comparatively simple, memory-efficient model by adding boundary detection to the SEGNET encoder-decoder architecture. Second, we also include boundary detection in FCN-type models and set up a high-end classifier ensemble. We show that boundary detection significantly improves semantic segmentation with CNNs in an end-to-end training scheme. Our best model achieves >90% overall accuracy on the ISPRS Vaihingen benchmark.

The interplay of episodic and semantic memory in guiding repeated search in scenes.

PubMed

Võ, Melissa L-H; Wolfe, Jeremy M

2013-02-01

It seems intuitive to think that previous exposure or interaction with an environment should make it easier to search through it and, no doubt, this is true in many real-world situations. However, in a recent study, we demonstrated that previous exposure to a scene does not necessarily speed search within that scene. For instance, when observers performed as many as 15 searches for different objects in the same, unchanging scene, the speed of search did not decrease much over the course of these multiple searches (Võ & Wolfe, 2012). Only when observers were asked to search for the same object again did search become considerably faster. We argued that our naturalistic scenes provided such strong "semantic" guidance-e.g., knowing that a faucet is usually located near a sink-that guidance by incidental episodic memory-having seen that faucet previously-was rendered less useful. Here, we directly manipulated the availability of semantic information provided by a scene. By monitoring observers' eye movements, we found a tight coupling of semantic and episodic memory guidance: Decreasing the availability of semantic information increases the use of episodic memory to guide search. These findings have broad implications regarding the use of memory during search in general and particularly during search in naturalistic scenes. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Semantic classification of urban buildings combining VHR image and GIS data: An improved random forest approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Du, Shihong; Zhang, Fangli; Zhang, Xiuyuan

2015-07-01

While most existing studies have focused on extracting geometric information on buildings, only a few have concentrated on semantic information. The lack of semantic information cannot satisfy many demands on resolving environmental and social issues. This study presents an approach to semantically classify buildings into much finer categories than those of existing studies by learning random forest (RF) classifier from a large number of imbalanced samples with high-dimensional features. First, a two-level segmentation mechanism combining GIS and VHR image produces single image objects at a large scale and intra-object components at a small scale. Second, a semi-supervised method chooses a large number of unbiased samples by considering the spatial proximity and intra-cluster similarity of buildings. Third, two important improvements in RF classifier are made: a voting-distribution ranked rule for reducing the influences of imbalanced samples on classification accuracy and a feature importance measurement for evaluating each feature's contribution to the recognition of each category. Fourth, the semantic classification of urban buildings is practically conducted in Beijing city, and the results demonstrate that the proposed approach is effective and accurate. The seven categories used in the study are finer than those in existing work and more helpful to studying many environmental and social problems.

Joint Attributes and Event Analysis for Multimedia Event Detection.

PubMed

Ma, Zhigang; Chang, Xiaojun; Xu, Zhongwen; Sebe, Nicu; Hauptmann, Alexander G

2017-06-15

Semantic attributes have been increasingly used the past few years for multimedia event detection (MED) with promising results. The motivation is that multimedia events generally consist of lower level components such as objects, scenes, and actions. By characterizing multimedia event videos with semantic attributes, one could exploit more informative cues for improved detection results. Much existing work obtains semantic attributes from images, which may be suboptimal for video analysis since these image-inferred attributes do not carry dynamic information that is essential for videos. To address this issue, we propose to learn semantic attributes from external videos using their semantic labels. We name them video attributes in this paper. In contrast with multimedia event videos, these external videos depict lower level contents such as objects, scenes, and actions. To harness video attributes, we propose an algorithm established on a correlation vector that correlates them to a target event. Consequently, we could incorporate video attributes latently as extra information into the event detector learnt from multimedia event videos in a joint framework. To validate our method, we perform experiments on the real-world large-scale TRECVID MED 2013 and 2014 data sets and compare our method with several state-of-the-art algorithms. The experiments show that our method is advantageous for MED.

Abnormal semantic knowledge in a case of developmental amnesia.

PubMed

Blumenthal, Anna; Duke, Devin; Bowles, Ben; Gilboa, Asaf; Rosenbaum, R Shayna; Köhler, Stefan; McRae, Ken

2017-07-28

An important theory holds that semantic knowledge can develop independently of episodic memory. One strong source of evidence supporting this independence comes from the observation that individuals with early hippocampal damage leading to developmental amnesia generally perform normally on standard tests of semantic memory, despite their profound impairment in episodic memory. However, one aspect of semantic memory that has not been explored is conceptual structure. We built on the theoretically important distinction between intrinsic features of object concepts (e.g., shape, colour, parts) and extrinsic features (e.g., how something is used, where it is typically located). The accrual of extrinsic feature knowledge that is important for concepts such as chair or spoon may depend on binding mechanisms in the hippocampus. We tested HC, an individual with developmental amnesia due to a well-characterized lesion of the hippocampus, on her ability to generate semantic features for object concepts. HC generated fewer extrinsic features than controls, but a similar number of intrinsic features than controls. We also tested her on typicality ratings. Her typicality ratings were abnormal for nonliving things (which more strongly depend on extrinsic features), but normal for living things (which more strongly depend on intrinsic features). In contrast, NB, who has MTL but not hippocampal damage due to surgery, showed no impairments in either task. These results suggest that episodic and semantic memory are not entirely independent, and that the hippocampus is important for learning some aspects of conceptual knowledge. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Vection is modulated by the semantic meaning of stimuli and experimental instructions.

PubMed

Ogawa, Masaki; Seno, Takeharu

2014-01-01

Vection strength is modulated by the semantic meanings of stimuli. In experiment 1--even though vection stimuli were of uniform size, color, and luminance--when they also had semantic meaning as falling objects, vection was inhibited. Specifically, stimuli perceived as feathers, petals, and leaves did not effectively induce vection. In experiment 2 we used the downward motion of identical dots to induce vection. Participants observed stimuli while holding either an umbrella or a wooden sword. Results showed that vection was inhibited when participants held the umbrella and the stimuli was perceived as rain or snow falling. The two experiments suggest that vection is modulated by the semantic meaning of stimuli.

First Steps to Automated Interior Reconstruction from Semantically Enriched Point Clouds and Imagery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Obrock, L. S.; Gülch, E.

2018-05-01

The automated generation of a BIM-Model from sensor data is a huge challenge for the modeling of existing buildings. Currently the measurements and analyses are time consuming, allow little automation and require expensive equipment. We do lack an automated acquisition of semantical information of objects in a building. We are presenting first results of our approach based on imagery and derived products aiming at a more automated modeling of interior for a BIM building model. We examine the building parts and objects visible in the collected images using Deep Learning Methods based on Convolutional Neural Networks. For localization and classification of building parts we apply the FCN8s-Model for pixel-wise Semantic Segmentation. We, so far, reach a Pixel Accuracy of 77.2 % and a mean Intersection over Union of 44.2 %. We finally use the network for further reasoning on the images of the interior room. We combine the segmented images with the original images and use photogrammetric methods to produce a three-dimensional point cloud. We code the extracted object types as colours of the 3D-points. We thus are able to uniquely classify the points in three-dimensional space. We preliminary investigate a simple extraction method for colour and material of building parts. It is shown, that the combined images are very well suited to further extract more semantic information for the BIM-Model. With the presented methods we see a sound basis for further automation of acquisition and modeling of semantic and geometric information of interior rooms for a BIM-Model.

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.

New comparison of psychological meaning of colors in samples and objects with semantic ratings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Tien-Rein

2002-06-01

In color preference and color-meaning research, color chips are widely used as stimuli. Are meanings of isolated color chips generalizeable to contextualized colors? According to Taft (1996), few significant differences exist between chip and object ratings for the same color. A similar survey was performed on 192 college students. This article reports the results of the study comparing semantic rating of color applied to a variety of familiar objects. The objects were a cup, T-shirt, sofa, car, notebook, and MP3 player, all images that represent daily life familiar objects. Subjects rated a set of 16 color chips, against 6 bipolar, 7-step semantic differential scales. The scales consisted of beautiful-ugly, soft-hard, warm-cool, elegant-vulgar, loud- discreet, and masculine-feminine. Analyses performed on the data indicated that unlike Taft's findings on 1996, significant differences existed between chip and object rating for the same color in every scale. The results of the study have implications for the use of color chips in color planning which suggest they are not compatible with the generality of results of the earlier color meaning research. Generally, a color judged to be beautiful, elegant and warm when presented as a chip does not equal beautiful, elegant, and warm when applied to the surface of an object such as a cup, T-shirt, sofa, car.

UBioLab: a web-laboratory for ubiquitous in-silico experiments.

PubMed

Bartocci, Ezio; Cacciagrano, Diletta; Di Berardini, Maria Rita; Merelli, Emanuela; Vito, Leonardo

2012-07-09

The huge and dynamic amount of bioinformatic resources (e.g., data and tools) available nowadays in Internet represents a big challenge for biologists –for what concerns their management and visualization– and for bioinformaticians –for what concerns the possibility of rapidly creating and executing in-silico experiments involving resources and activities spread over the WWW hyperspace. Any framework aiming at integrating such resources as in a physical laboratory has imperatively to tackle –and possibly to handle in a transparent and uniform way– aspects concerning physical distribution, semantic heterogeneity, co-existence of different computational paradigms and, as a consequence, of different invocation interfaces (i.e., OGSA for Grid nodes, SOAP for Web Services, Java RMI for Java objects, etc.). The framework UBioLab has been just designed and developed as a prototype following the above objective. Several architectural features –as those ones of being fully Web-based and of combining domain ontologies, Semantic Web and workflow techniques– give evidence of an effort in such a direction. The integration of a semantic knowledge management system for distributed (bioinformatic) resources, a semantic-driven graphic environment for defining and monitoring ubiquitous workflows and an intelligent agent-based technology for their distributed execution allows UBioLab to be a semantic guide for bioinformaticians and biologists providing (i) a flexible environment for visualizing, organizing and inferring any (semantics and computational) "type" of domain knowledge (e.g., resources and activities, expressed in a declarative form), (ii) a powerful engine for defining and storing semantic-driven ubiquitous in-silico experiments on the domain hyperspace, as well as (iii) a transparent, automatic and distributed environment for correct experiment executions.

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.

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.

Establishing semantic interoperability of biomedical metadata registries using extended semantic relationships.

PubMed

Park, Yu Rang; Yoon, Young Jo; Kim, Hye Hyeon; Kim, Ju Han

2013-01-01

Achieving semantic interoperability is critical for biomedical data sharing between individuals, organizations and systems. The ISO/IEC 11179 MetaData Registry (MDR) standard has been recognized as one of the solutions for this purpose. The standard model, however, is limited. Representing concepts consist of two or more values, for instance, are not allowed including blood pressure with systolic and diastolic values. We addressed the structural limitations of ISO/IEC 11179 by an integrated metadata object model in our previous research. In the present study, we introduce semantic extensions for the model by defining three new types of semantic relationships; dependency, composite and variable relationships. To evaluate our extensions in a real world setting, we measured the efficiency of metadata reduction by means of mapping to existing others. We extracted metadata from the College of American Pathologist Cancer Protocols and then evaluated our extensions. With no semantic loss, one third of the extracted metadata could be successfully eliminated, suggesting better strategy for implementing clinical MDRs with improved efficiency and utility.

Nonconscious semantic processing of emotional words modulates conscious access

PubMed Central

Gaillard, Raphaël; Del Cul, Antoine; Naccache, Lionel; Vinckier, Fabien; Cohen, Laurent; Dehaene, Stanislas

2006-01-01

Whether masked words can be processed at a semantic level remains a controversial issue in cognitive psychology. Although recent behavioral studies have demonstrated masked semantic priming for number words, attempts to generalize this finding to other categories of words have failed. Here, as an alternative to subliminal priming, we introduce a sensitive behavioral method to detect nonconscious semantic processing of words. The logic of this method consists of presenting words close to the threshold for conscious perception and examining whether their semantic content modulates performance in objective and subjective tasks. Our results disclose two independent sources of modulation of the threshold for access to consciousness. First, prior conscious perception of words increases the detection rate of the same words when they are subsequently presented with stronger masking. Second, the threshold for conscious access is lower for emotional words than for neutral ones, even for words that have not been previously consciously perceived, thus implying that written words can receive nonconscious semantic processing. PMID:16648261

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.

Quest for a Computerised Semantics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leslie, Adrian R.

The objective of this thesis was to colligate the various strands of research in the literature of computational linguistics that have to do with the computational treatment of semantic content so as to encode it into a computerized dictionary. In chapter 1 the course of mechanical translation (1947-1960) and quantitative linguistics is traced to…

Cue Conflicts in Context: Interplay between Morphosyntax and Discourse Context in Danish Preschoolers' Semantic Role Assignment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomsen, Ditte Boeg; Poulsen, Mads

2015-01-01

When learning their first language, children develop strategies for assigning semantic roles to sentence structures, depending on morphosyntactic cues such as case and word order. Traditionally, comprehension experiments have presented transitive clauses in isolation, and cross-linguistically children have been found to misinterpret object-first…

When Bees Hamper the Production of Honey: Lexical Interference from Associates in Speech Production

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abdel Rahman, Rasha; Melinger, Alissa

2007-01-01

In this article, the authors explore semantic context effects in speaking. In particular, the authors investigate a marked discrepancy between categorically and associatively induced effects; only categorical relationships have been reported to cause interference in object naming. In Experiments 1 and 2, a variant of the semantic blocking paradigm…

Supporting open collaboration in science through explicit and linked semantic description of processes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gil, Yolanda; Michel, Felix; Ratnakar, Varun; Read, Jordan S.; Hauder, Matheus; Duffy, Christopher; Hanson, Paul C.; Dugan, Hilary

2015-01-01

The Web was originally developed to support collaboration in science. Although scientists benefit from many forms of collaboration on the Web (e.g., blogs, wikis, forums, code sharing, etc.), most collaborative projects are coordinated over email, phone calls, and in-person meetings. Our goal is to develop a collaborative infrastructure for scientists to work on complex science questions that require multi-disciplinary contributions to gather and analyze data, that cannot occur without significant coordination to synthesize findings, and that grow organically to accommodate new contributors as needed as the work evolves over time. Our approach is to develop an organic data science framework based on a task-centered organization of the collaboration, includes principles from social sciences for successful on-line communities, and exposes an open science process. Our approach is implemented as an extension of a semantic wiki platform, and captures formal representations of task decomposition structures, relations between tasks and users, and other properties of tasks, data, and other relevant science objects. All these entities are captured through the semantic wiki user interface, represented as semantic web objects, and exported as linked data.

The left inferior parietal lobe represents stored hand-postures for object use and action prediction

PubMed Central

van Elk, Michiel

2014-01-01

Action semantics enables us to plan actions with objects and to predict others' object-directed actions as well. Previous studies have suggested that action semantics are represented in a fronto-parietal action network that has also been implicated to play a role in action observation. In the present fMRI study it was investigated how activity within this network changes as a function of the predictability of an action involving multiple objects and requiring the use of action semantics. Participants performed an action prediction task in which they were required to anticipate the use of a centrally presented object that could be moved to an associated target object (e.g., hammer—nail). The availability of actor information (i.e., presenting a hand grasping the central object) and the number of possible target objects (i.e., 0, 1, or 2 target objects) were independently manipulated, resulting in different levels of predictability. It was found that making an action prediction based on actor information resulted in an increased activation in the extrastriate body area (EBA) and the fronto-parietal action observation network (AON). Predicting actions involving a target object resulted in increased activation in the bilateral IPL and frontal motor areas. Within the AON, activity in the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and the left premotor cortex (PMC) increased as a function of the level of action predictability. Together these findings suggest that the left IPL represents stored hand-postures that can be used for planning object-directed actions and for predicting other's actions as well. PMID:24795681

Thematic relatedness production norms for 100 object concepts.

PubMed

Jouravlev, Olessia; McRae, Ken

2016-12-01

Knowledge of thematic relations is an area of increased interest in semantic memory research because it is crucial to many cognitive processes. One methodological issue that researchers face is how to identify pairs of thematically related concepts that are well-established in semantic memory for most people. In this article, we review existing methods of assessing thematic relatedness and provide thematic relatedness production norming data for 100 object concepts. In addition, 1,174 related concept pairs obtained from the production norms were classified as reflecting one of the five subtypes of relations: attributive, argument, coordinate, locative, and temporal. The database and methodology will be useful for researchers interested in the effects of thematic knowledge on language processing, analogical reasoning, similarity judgments, and memory. These data will also benefit researchers interested in investigating potential processing differences among the five types of semantic relations.

Language-Mediated Visual Orienting Behavior in Low and High Literates

PubMed Central

Huettig, Falk; Singh, Niharika; Mishra, Ramesh Kumar

2011-01-01

The influence of formal literacy on spoken language-mediated visual orienting was investigated by using a simple look and listen task which resembles every day behavior. In Experiment 1, high and low literates listened to spoken sentences containing a target word (e.g., “magar,” crocodile) while at the same time looking at a visual display of four objects (a phonological competitor of the target word, e.g., “matar,” peas; a semantic competitor, e.g., “kachuwa,” turtle, and two unrelated distractors). In Experiment 2 the semantic competitor was replaced with another unrelated distractor. Both groups of participants shifted their eye gaze to the semantic competitors (Experiment 1). In both experiments high literates shifted their eye gaze toward phonological competitors as soon as phonological information became available and moved their eyes away as soon as the acoustic information mismatched. Low literates in contrast only used phonological information when semantic matches between spoken word and visual referent were not present (Experiment 2) but in contrast to high literates these phonologically mediated shifts in eye gaze were not closely time-locked to the speech input. These data provide further evidence that in high literates language-mediated shifts in overt attention are co-determined by the type of information in the visual environment, the timing of cascaded processing in the word- and object-recognition systems, and the temporal unfolding of the spoken language. Our findings indicate that low literates exhibit a similar cognitive behavior but instead of participating in a tug-of-war among multiple types of cognitive representations, word–object mapping is achieved primarily at the semantic level. If forced, for instance by a situation in which semantic matches are not present (Experiment 2), low literates may on occasion have to rely on phonological information but do so in a much less proficient manner than their highly literate counterparts. PMID:22059083

Model-based object classification using unification grammars and abstract representations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liburdy, Kathleen A.; Schalkoff, Robert J.

1993-04-01

The design and implementation of a high level computer vision system which performs object classification is described. General object labelling and functional analysis require models of classes which display a wide range of geometric variations. A large representational gap exists between abstract criteria such as `graspable' and current geometric image descriptions. The vision system developed and described in this work addresses this problem and implements solutions based on a fusion of semantics, unification, and formal language theory. Object models are represented using unification grammars, which provide a framework for the integration of structure and semantics. A methodology for the derivation of symbolic image descriptions capable of interacting with the grammar-based models is described and implemented. A unification-based parser developed for this system achieves object classification by determining if the symbolic image description can be unified with the abstract criteria of an object model. Future research directions are indicated.

Semantic modeling and structural synthesis of onboard electronics protection means as open information system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhevnerchuk, D. V.; Surkova, A. S.; Lomakina, L. S.; Golubev, A. S.

2018-05-01

The article describes the component representation approach and semantic models of on-board electronics protection from ionizing radiation of various nature. Semantic models are constructed, the feature of which is the representation of electronic elements, protection modules, sources of impact in the form of blocks with interfaces. The rules of logical inference and algorithms for synthesizing the object properties of the semantic network, imitating the interface between the components of the protection system and the sources of radiation, are developed. The results of the algorithm are considered using the example of radiation-resistant microcircuits 1645RU5U, 1645RT2U and the calculation and experimental method for estimating the durability of on-board electronics.

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

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.

Towards semantic interoperability for electronic health records.

PubMed

Garde, Sebastian; Knaup, Petra; Hovenga, Evelyn; Heard, Sam

2007-01-01

In the field of open electronic health records (EHRs), openEHR as an archetype-based approach is being increasingly recognised. It is the objective of this paper to shortly describe this approach, and to analyse how openEHR archetypes impact on health professionals and semantic interoperability. Analysis of current approaches to EHR systems, terminology and standards developments. In addition to literature reviews, we organised face-to-face and additional telephone interviews and tele-conferences with members of relevant organisations and committees. The openEHR archetypes approach enables syntactic interoperability and semantic interpretability -- both important prerequisites for semantic interoperability. Archetypes enable the formal definition of clinical content by clinicians. To enable comprehensive semantic interoperability, the development and maintenance of archetypes needs to be coordinated internationally and across health professions. Domain knowledge governance comprises a set of processes that enable the creation, development, organisation, sharing, dissemination, use and continuous maintenance of archetypes. It needs to be supported by information technology. To enable EHRs, semantic interoperability is essential. The openEHR archetypes approach enables syntactic interoperability and semantic interpretability. However, without coordinated archetype development and maintenance, 'rank growth' of archetypes would jeopardize semantic interoperability. We therefore believe that openEHR archetypes and domain knowledge governance together create the knowledge environment required to adopt EHRs.

Categorizing with Gender: Does Implicit Grammatical Gender Affect Semantic Processing in 24-Month-Old Toddlers?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bobb, Susan C.; Mani, Nivedita

2013-01-01

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…

A Semantic-Oriented Approach for Organizing and Developing Annotation for E-Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brut, Mihaela M.; Sedes, Florence; Dumitrescu, Stefan D.

2011-01-01

This paper presents a solution to extend the IEEE LOM standard with ontology-based semantic annotations for efficient use of learning objects outside Learning Management Systems. The data model corresponding to this approach is first presented. The proposed indexing technique for this model development in order to acquire a better annotation of…

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.

The impact of impaired semantic knowledge on spontaneous iconic gesture production

PubMed Central

Cocks, Naomi; Dipper, Lucy; Pritchard, Madeleine; Morgan, Gary

2013-01-01

Background Previous research has found that people with aphasia produce more spontaneous iconic gesture than control participants, especially during word-finding difficulties. There is some evidence that impaired semantic knowledge impacts on the diversity of gestural handshapes, as well as the frequency of gesture production. However, no previous research has explored how impaired semantic knowledge impacts on the frequency and type of iconic gestures produced during fluent speech compared with those produced during word-finding difficulties. Aims To explore the impact of impaired semantic knowledge on the frequency and type of iconic gestures produced during fluent speech and those produced during word-finding difficulties. Methods & Procedures A group of 29 participants with aphasia and 29 control participants were video recorded describing a cartoon they had just watched. All iconic gestures were tagged and coded as either “manner,” “path only,” “shape outline” or “other”. These gestures were then separated into either those occurring during fluent speech or those occurring during a word-finding difficulty. The relationships between semantic knowledge and gesture frequency and form were then investigated in the two different conditions. Outcomes & Results As expected, the participants with aphasia produced a higher frequency of iconic gestures than the control participants, but when the iconic gestures produced during word-finding difficulties were removed from the analysis, the frequency of iconic gesture was not significantly different between the groups. While there was not a significant relationship between the frequency of iconic gestures produced during fluent speech and semantic knowledge, there was a significant positive correlation between semantic knowledge and the proportion of word-finding difficulties that contained gesture. There was also a significant positive correlation between the speakers' semantic knowledge and the proportion of gestures that were produced during fluent speech that were classified as “manner”. Finally while not significant, there was a positive trend between semantic knowledge of objects and the production of “shape outline” gestures during word-finding difficulties for objects. Conclusions The results indicate that impaired semantic knowledge in aphasia impacts on both the iconic gestures produced during fluent speech and those produced during word-finding difficulties but in different ways. These results shed new light on the relationship between impaired language and iconic co-speech gesture production and also suggest that analysis of iconic gesture may be a useful addition to clinical assessment. PMID:24058228

Sentence processing in anterior superior temporal cortex shows a social-emotional bias.

PubMed

Mellem, Monika S; Jasmin, Kyle M; Peng, Cynthia; Martin, Alex

2016-08-01

The anterior region of the left superior temporal gyrus/superior temporal sulcus (aSTG/STS) has been implicated in two very different cognitive functions: sentence processing and social-emotional processing. However, the vast majority of the sentence stimuli in previous reports have been of a social or social-emotional nature suggesting that sentence processing may be confounded with semantic content. To evaluate this possibility we had subjects read word lists that differed in phrase/constituent size (single words, 3-word phrases, 6-word sentences) and semantic content (social-emotional, social, and inanimate objects) while scanned in a 7T environment. This allowed us to investigate if the aSTG/STS responded to increasing constituent structure (with increased activity as a function of constituent size) with or without regard to a specific domain of concepts, i.e., social and/or social-emotional content. Activity in the left aSTG/STS was found to increase with constituent size. This region was also modulated by content, however, such that social-emotional concepts were preferred over social and object stimuli. Reading also induced content type effects in domain-specific semantic regions. Those preferring social-emotional content included aSTG/STS, inferior frontal gyrus, posterior STS, lateral fusiform, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and amygdala, regions included in the "social brain", while those preferring object content included parahippocampal gyrus, retrosplenial cortex, and caudate, regions involved in object processing. These results suggest that semantic content affects higher-level linguistic processing and should be taken into account in future studies. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Adapting Semantic Natural Language Processing Technology to Address Information Overload in Influenza Epidemic Management

PubMed Central

Keselman, Alla; Rosemblat, Graciela; Kilicoglu, Halil; Fiszman, Marcelo; Jin, Honglan; Shin, Dongwook; Rindflesch, Thomas C.

2013-01-01

Explosion of disaster health information results in information overload among response professionals. The objective of this project was to determine the feasibility of applying semantic natural language processing (NLP) technology to addressing this overload. The project characterizes concepts and relationships commonly used in disaster health-related documents on influenza pandemics, as the basis for adapting an existing semantic summarizer to the domain. Methods include human review and semantic NLP analysis of a set of relevant documents. This is followed by a pilot-test in which two information specialists use the adapted application for a realistic information seeking task. According to the results, the ontology of influenza epidemics management can be described via a manageable number of semantic relationships that involve concepts from a limited number of semantic types. Test users demonstrate several ways to engage with the application to obtain useful information. This suggests that existing semantic NLP algorithms can be adapted to support information summarization and visualization in influenza epidemics and other disaster health areas. However, additional research is needed in the areas of terminology development (as many relevant relationships and terms are not part of existing standardized vocabularies), NLP, and user interface design. PMID:24311971

The accessibility of semantic knowledge for odours that can and cannot be named.

PubMed

Stevenson, Richard J; Mahmut, Mehmet K

2013-01-01

When faces, objects, or voices are encountered, naming lapses can occur, but this does not preclude knowing other specific semantic information about the nameless thing. In the experiments reported here, we examined whether this is also the case for odours, using a procedure based upon the Pyramid and Palm Trees test. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with a target odour, then two pictures, and had to pick the picture semantically associated with the target. In Experiment 2, participants were presented with a target odour, then two test odours, and again had to pick the semantically associated test stimulus. In each experiment, other tests followed, including a parallel verbal-based test, an odour-naming test, and various ratings. Neither experiment found any evidence of specific semantic knowledge about a target odour, unless the target odour name (Experiment 1) or all of the odour names (Experiment 2) were known. Additional tests suggested that these effects were independent of odour familiarity and similarity. We suggest that the absence of specific semantic information in the absence of a name may reflect poor connectivity between olfactory perceptual and semantic memory systems.

Semantic Size of Abstract Concepts: It Gets Emotional When You Can’t See It

PubMed Central

Yao, Bo; Vasiljevic, Milica; Weick, Mario; Sereno, Margaret E.; O’Donnell, Patrick J.; Sereno, Sara C.

2013-01-01

Size is an important visuo-spatial characteristic of the physical world. In language processing, previous research has demonstrated a processing advantage for words denoting semantically “big” (e.g., jungle) versus “small” (e.g., needle) concrete objects. We investigated whether semantic size plays a role in the recognition of words expressing abstract concepts (e.g., truth). Semantically “big” and “small” concrete and abstract words were presented in a lexical decision task. Responses to “big” words, regardless of their concreteness, were faster than those to “small” words. Critically, we explored the relationship between semantic size and affective characteristics of words as well as their influence on lexical access. Although a word’s semantic size was correlated with its emotional arousal, the temporal locus of arousal effects may depend on the level of concreteness. That is, arousal seemed to have an earlier (lexical) effect on abstract words, but a later (post-lexical) effect on concrete words. Our findings provide novel insights into the semantic representations of size in abstract concepts and highlight that affective attributes of words may not always index lexical access. PMID:24086421

Stylization levels of industrial design objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kukhta, M. S.; Sokolov, A. P.; Krauinsh, D. P.; Bouchard, C.

2017-01-01

The urgency of the research of form making problem in design is associated with the necessity of new understanding of visual culture and new approaches to design engineering representing the integration of artistic and designed problems. The aim of this research is to study the levels of stylization of design objects and dependance (relation) on the specific project objectives and existing technologies. On the ground of quantitative evaluation, the stylization measures are emphasized: figurative image, stylized image and abstract image. Theoretic conclusions are complemented by practical problem solution over creating openwork metal lantern. Variants of both the traditional mains supply of the lantern and the autonomic supply system based on solar energy were offered. The role of semantic factor, affecting the depth of perception of design objects semantic space, is represented in this paper.

A novel paradigm for cell and molecule interaction ontology: from the CMM model to IMGT-ONTOLOGY

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background Biology is moving fast toward the virtuous circle of other disciplines: from data to quantitative modeling and back to data. Models are usually developed by mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists to translate qualitative or semi-quantitative biological knowledge into a quantitative approach. To eliminate semantic confusion between biology and other disciplines, it is necessary to have a list of the most important and frequently used concepts coherently defined. Results We propose a novel paradigm for generating new concepts for an ontology, starting from model rather than developing a database. We apply that approach to generate concepts for cell and molecule interaction starting from an agent based model. This effort provides a solid infrastructure that is useful to overcome the semantic ambiguities that arise between biologists and mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists, when they interact in a multidisciplinary field. Conclusions This effort represents the first attempt at linking molecule ontology with cell ontology, in IMGT-ONTOLOGY, the well established ontology in immunogenetics and immunoinformatics, and a paradigm for life science biology. With the increasing use of models in biology and medicine, the need to link different levels, from molecules to cells to tissues and organs, is increasingly important. PMID:20167082

Associated impairment of the categories of conspecifics and biological entities: cognitive and neuroanatomical aspects of a new case.

PubMed

Capitani, Erminio; Chieppa, Francesca; Laiacona, Marcella

2010-05-01

Case A.C.A. presented an associated impairment of visual recognition and semantic knowledge for celebrities and biological objects. This case was relevant for (a) the neuroanatomical correlations, and (b) the relationship between visual recognition and semantics within the biological domain and the conspecifics domain. A.C.A. was not affected by anterior temporal damage. Her bilateral vascular lesions were localized on the medial and inferior temporal gyrus on the right and on the intermediate fusiform gyrus on the left, without concomitant lesions of the parahippocampal gyrus or posterior fusiform. Data analysis was based on a novel methodology developed to estimate the rate of stored items in the visual structural description system (SDS) or in the face recognition unit. For each biological object, no particular correlation was found between the visual information accessed through the semantic system and that tapped by the picture reality judgement. Findings are discussed with reference to whether a putative resource commonality is likely between biological objects and conspecifics, and whether or not either category may depend on an exclusive neural substrate.

Vitalism, purpose and superstition.

PubMed

Lindeman, Marjaana; Saher, Marieke

2007-02-01

Developmental studies have shown that children assign purpose to objects more liberally than adults, and that they explain biological processes in terms of vitalistic causality. This study tested the hypothesis that similar misconceptions can be found among superstitious adults. The results from 116 superstitious and 123 sceptical individuals showed that more than sceptics, superstitious individuals attributed purpose to objects, and explained biological processes in terms of organ intentionality and energy transmission. In addition, they thought of energy as a vital force, attributing life and mental properties to it. These conceptual confusions were positively associated to all types of superstitions as well as belief in alternative medicine. The results support the argument that category mistakes and ontological confusions underlie superstitious and vitalistic thinking.

SciFlo: Semantically-Enabled Grid Workflow for Collaborative Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yunck, T.; Wilson, B. D.; Raskin, R.; Manipon, G.

2005-12-01

SciFlo is a system for Scientific Knowledge Creation on the Grid using a Semantically-Enabled Dataflow Execution Environment. SciFlo leverages Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Web Services and the Grid Computing standards (WS-* standards and the Globus Alliance toolkits), and enables scientists to do multi-instrument Earth Science by assembling reusable SOAP Services, native executables, local command-line scripts, and python codes into a distributed computing flow (a graph of operators). SciFlo's XML dataflow documents can be a mixture of concrete operators (fully bound operations) and abstract template operators (late binding via semantic lookup). All data objects and operators can be both simply typed (simple and complex types in XML schema) and semantically typed using controlled vocabularies (linked to OWL ontologies such as SWEET). By exploiting ontology-enhanced search and inference, one can discover (and automatically invoke) Web Services and operators that have been semantically labeled as performing the desired transformation, and adapt a particular invocation to the proper interface (number, types, and meaning of inputs and outputs). The SciFlo client & server engines optimize the execution of such distributed data flows and allow the user to transparently find and use datasets and operators without worrying about the actual location of the Grid resources. The scientist injects a distributed computation into the Grid by simply filling out an HTML form or directly authoring the underlying XML dataflow document, and results are returned directly to the scientist's desktop. A Visual Programming tool is also being developed, but it is not required. Once an analysis has been specified for a granule or day of data, it can be easily repeated with different control parameters and over months or years of data. SciFlo uses and preserves semantics, and also generates and infers new semantic annotations. Specifically, the SciFlo engine uses semantic metadata to understand (infer) what it is doing and potentially improve the data flow; preserves semantics by saving links to the semantics of (metadata describing) the input datasets, related datasets, and the data transformations (algorithms) used to generate downstream products; generates new metadata by allowing the user to add semantic annotations to the generated data products (or simply accept automatically generated provenance annotations); and infers new semantic metadata by understanding and applying logic to the semantics of the data and the transformations performed. Much ontology development still needs to be done but, nevertheless, SciFlo documents provide a substrate for using and preserving more semantics as ontologies develop. We will give a live demonstration of the growing SciFlo network using an example dataflow in which atmospheric temperature and water vapor profiles from three Earth Observing System (EOS) instruments are retrieved using SOAP (geo-location query & data access) services, co-registered, and visually & statistically compared on demand (see http://sciflo.jpl.nasa.gov for more information).

Semantic data association for planar features in outdoor 6D-SLAM using lidar

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ulas, C.; Temeltas, H.

2013-05-01

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is a fundamental problem of the autonomous systems in GPS (Global Navigation System) denied environments. The traditional probabilistic SLAM methods uses point features as landmarks and hold all the feature positions in their state vector in addition to the robot pose. The bottleneck of the point-feature based SLAM methods is the data association problem, which are mostly based on a statistical measure. The data association performance is very critical for a robust SLAM method since all the filtering strategies are applied after a known correspondence. For point-features, two different but very close landmarks in the same scene might be confused while giving the correspondence decision when their positions and error covariance matrix are solely taking into account. Instead of using the point features, planar features can be considered as an alternative landmark model in the SLAM problem to be able to provide a more consistent data association. Planes contain rich information for the solution of the data association problem and can be distinguished easily with respect to point features. In addition, planar maps are very compact since an environment has only very limited number of planar structures. The planar features does not have to be large structures like building wall or roofs; the small plane segments can also be used as landmarks like billboards, traffic posts and some part of the bridges in urban areas. In this paper, a probabilistic plane-feature extraction method from 3DLiDAR data and the data association based on the extracted semantic information of the planar features is introduced. The experimental results show that the semantic data association provides very satisfactory result in outdoor 6D-SLAM.

Written Language Impairments in Primary Progressive Aphasia: A Reflection of Damage to Central Semantic and Phonological Processes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henry, Maya L.; Beeson, Pelagie M.; Alexander, Gene E.; Rapcsak, Steven Z.

2012-01-01

Connectionist theories of language propose that written language deficits arise as a result of damage to semantic and phonological systems that also support spoken language production and comprehension, a view referred to as the "primary systems" hypothesis. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the primary systems account in a mixed…

Basic English Writing: An Experimental Course Structure against Semantic Misinterpretation in Undergraduate Student Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

In, Fan-yu; Liao, Hui-Chuan

2008-01-01

Course designs for Basic English Writing classes vary from one course to another. The objective of this study was to investigate the semantic misinterpretation of English words found in the English compositions written by native-Chinese-speaking undergraduate students and to overcome if such a barrier occurred in the process of writing. First,…

Grounding statistical learning in context: The effects of learning and retrieval contexts on cross-situational word learning.

PubMed

Chen, Chi-Hsin; Yu, Chen

2017-06-01

Natural language environments usually provide structured contexts for learning. This study examined the effects of semantically themed contexts-in both learning and retrieval phases-on statistical word learning. Results from 2 experiments consistently showed that participants had higher performance in semantically themed learning contexts. In contrast, themed retrieval contexts did not affect performance. Our work suggests that word learners are sensitive to statistical regularities not just at the level of individual word-object co-occurrences but also at another level containing a whole network of associations among objects and their properties.

Ontology-Based Retrieval of Spatially Related Objects for Location Based Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haav, Hele-Mai; Kaljuvee, Aivi; Luts, Martin; Vajakas, Toivo

Advanced Location Based Service (LBS) applications have to integrate information stored in GIS, information about users' preferences (profile) as well as contextual information and information about application itself. Ontology engineering provides methods to semantically integrate several data sources. We propose an ontology-driven LBS development framework: the paper describes the architecture of ontologies and their usage for retrieval of spatially related objects relevant to the user. Our main contribution is to enable personalised ontology driven LBS by providing a novel approach for defining personalised semantic spatial relationships by means of ontologies. The approach is illustrated by an industrial case study.

Contrasting Semantic versus Inhibitory Processing in the Angular Gyrus: An fMRI Study.

PubMed

Lewis, Gwyneth A; Poeppel, David; Murphy, Gregory L

2018-06-06

Recent studies of semantic memory have focused on dissociating the neural bases of two foundational components of human thought: taxonomic categories, which group similar objects like dogs and seals based on features, and thematic categories, which group dissimilar objects like dogs and leashes based on events. While there is emerging consensus that taxonomic concepts are represented in the anterior temporal lobe, there is disagreement over whether thematic concepts are represented in the angular gyrus (AG). We previously found AG sensitivity to both kinds of concepts; however, some accounts suggest that such activity reflects inhibition of irrelevant information rather than thematic activation. To test these possibilities, an fMRI experiment investigated both types of conceptual relations in the AG during two semantic judgment tasks. Each task trained participants to give negative responses (inhibition) or positive responses (activation) to word pairs based on taxonomic and thematic criteria of relatedness. Results showed AG engagement during both negative judgments and thematic judgments, but not during positive judgments about taxonomic pairs. Together, the results suggest that activity in the AG reflects functions that include both thematic (but not taxonomic) processing and inhibiting irrelevant semantic information.

Reanalysis and semantic persistence in native and non-native garden-path recovery.

PubMed

Jacob, Gunnar; Felser, Claudia

2016-01-01

We report the results from an eye-movement monitoring study investigating how native and non-native speakers of English process temporarily ambiguous sentences such as While the gentleman was eating the burgers were still being reheated in the microwave, in which an initially plausible direct-object analysis is first ruled out by a syntactic disambiguation (were) and also later on by semantic information (being reheated). Both participant groups showed garden-path effects at the syntactic disambiguation, with native speakers showing significantly stronger effects of ambiguity than non-native speakers in later eye-movement measures but equally strong effects in first-pass reading times. Ambiguity effects at the semantic disambiguation and in participants' end-of-trial responses revealed that for both participant groups, the incorrect direct-object analysis was frequently maintained beyond the syntactic disambiguation. The non-native group showed weaker reanalysis effects at the syntactic disambiguation and was more likely to misinterpret the experimental sentences than the native group. Our results suggest that native language (L1) and non-native language (L2) parsing are similar with regard to sensitivity to syntactic and semantic error signals, but different with regard to processes of reanalysis.

Joint classification and contour extraction of large 3D point clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hackel, Timo; Wegner, Jan D.; Schindler, Konrad

2017-08-01

We present an effective and efficient method for point-wise semantic classification and extraction of object contours of large-scale 3D point clouds. What makes point cloud interpretation challenging is the sheer size of several millions of points per scan and the non-grid, sparse, and uneven distribution of points. Standard image processing tools like texture filters, for example, cannot handle such data efficiently, which calls for dedicated point cloud labeling methods. It turns out that one of the major drivers for efficient computation and handling of strong variations in point density, is a careful formulation of per-point neighborhoods at multiple scales. This allows, both, to define an expressive feature set and to extract topologically meaningful object contours. Semantic classification and contour extraction are interlaced problems. Point-wise semantic classification enables extracting a meaningful candidate set of contour points while contours help generating a rich feature representation that benefits point-wise classification. These methods are tailored to have fast run time and small memory footprint for processing large-scale, unstructured, and inhomogeneous point clouds, while still achieving high classification accuracy. We evaluate our methods on the semantic3d.net benchmark for terrestrial laser scans with >109 points.

Object Detection Techniques Applied on Mobile Robot Semantic Navigation

PubMed Central

Astua, Carlos; Barber, Ramon; Crespo, Jonathan; Jardon, Alberto

2014-01-01

The future of robotics predicts that robots will integrate themselves more every day with human beings and their environments. To achieve this integration, robots need to acquire information about the environment and its objects. There is a big need for algorithms to provide robots with these sort of skills, from the location where objects are needed to accomplish a task up to where these objects are considered as information about the environment. This paper presents a way to provide mobile robots with the ability-skill to detect objets for semantic navigation. This paper aims to use current trends in robotics and at the same time, that can be exported to other platforms. Two methods to detect objects are proposed, contour detection and a descriptor based technique, and both of them are combined to overcome their respective limitations. Finally, the code is tested on a real robot, to prove its accuracy and efficiency. PMID:24732101

Fuzzy ontologies for semantic interpretation of remotely sensed images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Djerriri, Khelifa; Malki, Mimoun

2015-10-01

Object-based image classification consists in the assignment of object that share similar attributes to object categories. To perform such a task the remote sensing expert uses its personal knowledge, which is rarely formalized. Ontologies have been proposed as solution to represent domain knowledge agreed by domain experts in a formal and machine readable language. Classical ontology languages are not appropriate to deal with imprecision or vagueness in knowledge. Fortunately, Description Logics for the semantic web has been enhanced by various approaches to handle such knowledge. This paper presents the extension of the traditional ontology-based interpretation with fuzzy ontology of main land-cover classes in Landsat8-OLI scenes (vegetation, built-up areas, water bodies, shadow, clouds, forests) objects. A good classification of image objects was obtained and the results highlight the potential of the method to be replicated over time and space in the perspective of transferability of the procedure.

Improving Semantic Updating Method on 3d City Models Using Hybrid Semantic-Geometric 3d Segmentation Technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sharkawi, K.-H.; Abdul-Rahman, A.

2013-09-01

Cities and urban areas entities such as building structures are becoming more complex as the modern human civilizations continue to evolve. The ability to plan and manage every territory especially the urban areas is very important to every government in the world. Planning and managing cities and urban areas based on printed maps and 2D data are getting insufficient and inefficient to cope with the complexity of the new developments in big cities. The emergence of 3D city models have boosted the efficiency in analysing and managing urban areas as the 3D data are proven to represent the real world object more accurately. It has since been adopted as the new trend in buildings and urban management and planning applications. Nowadays, many countries around the world have been generating virtual 3D representation of their major cities. The growing interest in improving the usability of 3D city models has resulted in the development of various tools for analysis based on the 3D city models. Today, 3D city models are generated for various purposes such as for tourism, location-based services, disaster management and urban planning. Meanwhile, modelling 3D objects are getting easier with the emergence of the user-friendly tools for 3D modelling available in the market. Generating 3D buildings with high accuracy also has become easier with the availability of airborne Lidar and terrestrial laser scanning equipments. The availability and accessibility to this technology makes it more sensible to analyse buildings in urban areas using 3D data as it accurately represent the real world objects. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has accepted CityGML specifications as one of the international standards for representing and exchanging spatial data, making it easier to visualize, store and manage 3D city models data efficiently. CityGML able to represents the semantics, geometry, topology and appearance of 3D city models in five well-defined Level-of-Details (LoD), namely LoD0 to LoD4. The accuracy and structural complexity of the 3D objects increases with the LoD level where LoD0 is the simplest LoD (2.5D; Digital Terrain Model (DTM) + building or roof print) while LoD4 is the most complex LoD (architectural details with interior structures). Semantic information is one of the main components in CityGML and 3D City Models, and provides important information for any analyses. However, more often than not, the semantic information is not available for the 3D city model due to the unstandardized modelling process. One of the examples is where a building is normally generated as one object (without specific feature layers such as Roof, Ground floor, Level 1, Level 2, Block A, Block B, etc). This research attempts to develop a method to improve the semantic data updating process by segmenting the 3D building into simpler parts which will make it easier for the users to select and update the semantic information. The methodology is implemented for 3D buildings in LoD2 where the buildings are generated without architectural details but with distinct roof structures. This paper also introduces hybrid semantic-geometric 3D segmentation method that deals with hierarchical segmentation of a 3D building based on its semantic value and surface characteristics, fitted by one of the predefined primitives. For future work, the segmentation method will be implemented as part of the change detection module that can detect any changes on the 3D buildings, store and retrieve semantic information of the changed structure, automatically updates the 3D models and visualize the results in a userfriendly graphical user interface (GUI).

Agent-patient similarity affects sentence structure in language production: evidence from subject omissions in Mandarin

PubMed Central

Hsiao, Yaling; Gao, Yannan; MacDonald, Maryellen C.

2014-01-01

Interference effects from semantically similar items are well-known in studies of single word production, where the presence of semantically similar distractor words slows picture naming. This article examines the consequences of this interference in sentence production and tests the hypothesis that in situations of high similarity-based interference, producers are more likely to omit one of the interfering elements than when there is low semantic similarity and thus low interference. This work investigated language production in Mandarin, which allows subject noun phrases to be omitted in discourse contexts in which the subject entity has been previously mentioned in the discourse. We hypothesize that Mandarin speakers omit the subject more often when the subject and the object entities are conceptually similar. A corpus analysis of simple transitive sentences found higher rates of subject omission when both the subject and object were animate (potentially yielding similarity-based interference) than when the subject was animate and object was inanimate. A second study manipulated subject-object animacy in a picture description task and replicated this result: participants omitted the animate subject more often when the object was also animate than when it was inanimate. These results suggest that similarity-based interference affects sentence forms, particularly when the agent of the action is mentioned in the sentence. Alternatives and mechanisms for this effect are discussed. PMID:25278915

Intelligent Discovery for Learning Objects Using Semantic Web Technologies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hsu, I-Ching

2012-01-01

The concept of learning objects has been applied in the e-learning field to promote the accessibility, reusability, and interoperability of learning content. Learning Object Metadata (LOM) was developed to achieve these goals by describing learning objects in order to provide meaningful metadata. Unfortunately, the conventional LOM lacks the…

Leveraging Large-Scale Semantic Networks for Adaptive Robot Task Learning and Execution.

PubMed

Boteanu, Adrian; St Clair, Aaron; Mohseni-Kabir, Anahita; Saldanha, Carl; Chernova, Sonia

2016-12-01

This work seeks to leverage semantic networks containing millions of entries encoding assertions of commonsense knowledge to enable improvements in robot task execution and learning. The specific application we explore in this project is object substitution in the context of task adaptation. Humans easily adapt their plans to compensate for missing items in day-to-day tasks, substituting a wrap for bread when making a sandwich, or stirring pasta with a fork when out of spoons. Robot plan execution, however, is far less robust, with missing objects typically leading to failure if the robot is not aware of alternatives. In this article, we contribute a context-aware algorithm that leverages the linguistic information embedded in the task description to identify candidate substitution objects without reliance on explicit object affordance information. Specifically, we show that the task context provided by the task labels within the action structure of a task plan can be leveraged to disambiguate information within a noisy large-scale semantic network containing hundreds of potential object candidates to identify successful object substitutions with high accuracy. We present two extensive evaluations of our work on both abstract and real-world robot tasks, showing that the substitutions made by our system are valid, accepted by users, and lead to a statistically significant reduction in robot learning time. In addition, we report the outcomes of testing our approach with a large number of crowd workers interacting with a robot in real time.

Semantic Indexing of Medical Learning Objects: Medical Students' Usage of a Semantic Network.

PubMed

Tix, Nadine; Gießler, Paul; Ohnesorge-Radtke, Ursula; Spreckelsen, Cord

2015-11-11

The Semantically Annotated Media (SAM) project aims to provide a flexible platform for searching, browsing, and indexing medical learning objects (MLOs) based on a semantic network derived from established classification systems. Primarily, SAM supports the Aachen emedia skills lab, but SAM is ready for indexing distributed content and the Simple Knowledge Organizing System standard provides a means for easily upgrading or even exchanging SAM's semantic network. There is a lack of research addressing the usability of MLO indexes or search portals like SAM and the user behavior with such platforms. The purpose of this study was to assess the usability of SAM by investigating characteristic user behavior of medical students accessing MLOs via SAM. In this study, we chose a mixed-methods approach. Lean usability testing was combined with usability inspection by having the participants complete four typical usage scenarios before filling out a questionnaire. The questionnaire was based on the IsoMetrics usability inventory. Direct user interaction with SAM (mouse clicks and pages accessed) was logged. The study analyzed the typical usage patterns and habits of students using a semantic network for accessing MLOs. Four scenarios capturing characteristics of typical tasks to be solved by using SAM yielded high ratings of usability items and showed good results concerning the consistency of indexing by different users. Long-tail phenomena emerge as they are typical for a collaborative Web 2.0 platform. Suitable but nonetheless rarely used keywords were assigned to MLOs by some users. It is possible to develop a Web-based tool with high usability and acceptance for indexing and retrieval of MLOs. SAM can be applied to indexing multicentered repositories of MLOs collaboratively.

Right fusiform response patterns reflect visual object identity rather than semantic similarity.

PubMed

Bruffaerts, Rose; Dupont, Patrick; De Grauwe, Sophie; Peeters, Ronald; De Deyne, Simon; Storms, Gerrit; Vandenberghe, Rik

2013-12-01

We previously reported the neuropsychological consequences of a lesion confined to the middle and posterior part of the right fusiform gyrus (case JA) causing a partial loss of knowledge of visual attributes of concrete entities in the absence of category-selectivity (animate versus inanimate). We interpreted this in the context of a two-step model that distinguishes structural description knowledge from associative-semantic processing and implicated the lesioned area in the former process. To test this hypothesis in the intact brain, multi-voxel pattern analysis was used in a series of event-related fMRI studies in a total of 46 healthy subjects. We predicted that activity patterns in this region would be determined by the identity of rather than the conceptual similarity between concrete entities. In a prior behavioral experiment features were generated for each entity by more than 1000 subjects. Based on a hierarchical clustering analysis the entities were organised into 3 semantic clusters (musical instruments, vehicles, tools). Entities were presented as words or pictures. With foveal presentation of pictures, cosine similarity between fMRI response patterns in right fusiform cortex appeared to reflect both the identity of and the semantic similarity between the entities. No such effects were found for words in this region. The effect of object identity was invariant for location, scaling, orientation axis and color (grayscale versus color). It also persisted for different exemplars referring to a same concrete entity. The apparent semantic similarity effect however was not invariant. This study provides further support for a neurobiological distinction between structural description knowledge and processing of semantic relationships and confirms the role of right mid-posterior fusiform cortex in the former process, in accordance with previous lesion evidence. © 2013.

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.

The function of the left anterior temporal pole: evidence from acute stroke and infarct volume

PubMed Central

Tsapkini, Kyrana; Frangakis, Constantine E.

2011-01-01

The role of the anterior temporal lobes in cognition and language has been much debated in the literature over the last few years. Most prevailing theories argue for an important role of the anterior temporal lobe as a semantic hub or a place for the representation of unique entities such as proper names of peoples and places. Lately, a few studies have investigated the role of the most anterior part of the left anterior temporal lobe, the left temporal pole in particular, and argued that the left anterior temporal pole is the area responsible for mapping meaning on to sound through evidence from tasks such as object naming. However, another recent study indicates that bilateral anterior temporal damage is required to cause a clinically significant semantic impairment. In the present study, we tested these hypotheses by evaluating patients with acute stroke before reorganization of structure–function relationships. We compared a group of 20 patients with acute stroke with anterior temporal pole damage to a group of 28 without anterior temporal pole damage matched for infarct volume. We calculated the average percent error in auditory comprehension and naming tasks as a function of infarct volume using a non-parametric regression method. We found that infarct volume was the only predictive variable in the production of semantic errors in both auditory comprehension and object naming tasks. This finding favours the hypothesis that left unilateral anterior temporal pole lesions, even acutely, are unlikely to cause significant deficits in mapping meaning to sound by themselves, although they contribute to networks underlying both naming and comprehension of objects. Therefore, the anterior temporal lobe may be a semantic hub for object meaning, but its role must be represented bilaterally and perhaps redundantly. PMID:21685458

An Event Related Potentials Study of Semantic Coherence Effect during Episodic Encoding in Schizophrenia Patients

PubMed Central

Blanchet, Alain; Lockman, Hazlin

2018-01-01

The objective of this electrophysiological study was to investigate the processing of semantic coherence during encoding in relation to episodic memory processes promoted at test, in schizophrenia patients, by using the N400 paradigm. Eighteen schizophrenia patients and 15 healthy participants undertook a recognition memory task. The stimuli consisted of pairs of words either semantically related or unrelated to a given category name (context). During encoding, both groups exhibited an N400 external semantic coherence effect. Healthy controls also showed an N400 internal semantic coherence effect, but this effect was not present in patients. At test, related stimuli were accompanied by an FN400 old/new effect in both groups and by a parietal old/new effect in the control group alone. In the patient group, external semantic coherence effect was associated with FN400, while, in the control group, it was correlated to the parietal old/new effect. Our results indicate that schizophrenia patients can process the contextual information at encoding to enhance familiarity process for related stimuli at test. Therefore, cognitive rehabilitation therapies targeting the implementation of semantic encoding strategies can mobilize familiarity which in turn can overcome the recollection deficit, promoting successful episodic memory performance in schizophrenia patients. PMID:29535872

Multiple Regions of a Cortical Network Commonly Encode the Meaning of Words in Multiple Grammatical Positions of Read Sentences.

PubMed

Anderson, Andrew James; Lalor, Edmund C; Lin, Feng; Binder, Jeffrey R; Fernandino, Leonardo; Humphries, Colin J; Conant, Lisa L; Raizada, Rajeev D S; Grimm, Scott; Wang, Xixi

2018-05-16

Deciphering how sentence meaning is represented in the brain remains a major challenge to science. Semantically related neural activity has recently been shown to arise concurrently in distributed brain regions as successive words in a sentence are read. However, what semantic content is represented by different regions, what is common across them, and how this relates to words in different grammatical positions of sentences is weakly understood. To address these questions, we apply a semantic model of word meaning to interpret brain activation patterns elicited in sentence reading. The model is based on human ratings of 65 sensory/motor/emotional and cognitive features of experience with words (and their referents). Through a process of mapping functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging activation back into model space we test: which brain regions semantically encode content words in different grammatical positions (e.g., subject/verb/object); and what semantic features are encoded by different regions. In left temporal, inferior parietal, and inferior/superior frontal regions we detect the semantic encoding of words in all grammatical positions tested and reveal multiple common components of semantic representation. This suggests that sentence comprehension involves a common core representation of multiple words' meaning being encoded in a network of regions distributed across the brain.

The geometric semantics of algebraic quantum mechanics.

PubMed

Cruz Morales, John Alexander; Zilber, Boris

2015-08-06

In this paper, we will present an ongoing project that aims to use model theory as a suitable mathematical setting for studying the formalism of quantum mechanics. We argue that this approach provides a geometric semantics for such a formalism by means of establishing a (non-commutative) duality between certain algebraic and geometric objects. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Event-related potentials to event-related words: grammatical class and semantic attributes in the representation of knowledge.

PubMed

Barber, Horacio A; Kousta, Stavroula-Thaleia; Otten, Leun J; Vigliocco, Gabriella

2010-05-21

A number of recent studies have provided contradictory evidence on the question of whether grammatical class plays a role in the neural representation of lexical knowledge. Most of the previous studies comparing the processing of nouns and verbs, however, confounded word meaning and grammatical class by comparing verbs referring to actions with nouns referring to objects. Here, we recorded electrical brain activity from native Italian speakers reading single words all referring to events (e.g., corsa [the run]; correre [to run]), thus avoiding confounding nouns and verbs with objects and actions. We manipulated grammatical class (noun versus verb) as well as semantic attributes (motor versus sensory events). Activity between 300 and 450ms was more negative for nouns than verbs, and for sensory than motor words, over posterior scalp sites. These grammatical class and semantic effects were not dissociable in terms of latency, duration, or scalp distribution. In a later time window (450-110ms) and at frontal regions, grammatical class and semantic effects interacted; motor verbs were more positive than the other three word categories. We suggest that the lack of a temporal and topographical dissociation between grammatical class and semantic effects in the time range of the N400 component is compatible with an account in which both effects reflect the same underlying process related to meaning retrieval, and we link the later effect with working memory operations associated to the experimental task. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Verbal Semantics Drives Early Anticipatory Eye Movements during the Comprehension of Verb-Initial Sentences.

PubMed

Sauppe, Sebastian

2016-01-01

Studies on anticipatory processes during sentence comprehension often focus on the prediction of postverbal direct objects. In subject-initial languages (the target of most studies so far), however, the position in the sentence, the syntactic function, and the semantic role of arguments are often conflated. For example, in the sentence "The frog will eat the fly" the syntactic object ("fly") is at the same time also the last word and the patient argument of the verb. It is therefore not apparent which kind of information listeners orient to for predictive processing during sentence comprehension. A visual world eye tracking study on the verb-initial language Tagalog (Austronesian) tested what kind of information listeners use to anticipate upcoming postverbal linguistic input. The grammatical structure of Tagalog allows to test whether listeners' anticipatory gaze behavior is guided by predictions of the linear order of words, by syntactic functions (e.g., subject/object), or by semantic roles (agent/patient). Participants heard sentences of the type "Eat frog fly" or "Eat fly frog" (both meaning "The frog will eat the fly") while looking at displays containing an agent referent ("frog"), a patient referent ("fly") and a distractor. The verb carried morphological marking that allowed the order and syntactic function of agent and patient to be inferred. After having heard the verb, listeners fixated on the agent irrespective of its syntactic function or position in the sentence. While hearing the first-mentioned argument, listeners fixated on the corresponding referent in the display accordingly and then initiated saccades to the last-mentioned referent before it was encountered. The results indicate that listeners used verbal semantics to identify referents and their semantic roles early; information about word order or syntactic functions did not influence anticipatory gaze behavior directly after the verb was heard. In this verb-initial language, event semantics takes early precedence during the comprehension of sentences, while arguments are anticipated temporally more local to when they are encountered. The current experiment thus helps to better understand anticipation during language processing by employing linguistic structures not available in previously studied subject-initial languages.

Analysis and visualization of disease courses in a semantically-enabled cancer registry.

PubMed

Esteban-Gil, Angel; Fernández-Breis, Jesualdo Tomás; Boeker, Martin

2017-09-29

Regional and epidemiological cancer registries are important for cancer research and the quality management of cancer treatment. Many technological solutions are available to collect and analyse data for cancer registries nowadays. However, the lack of a well-defined common semantic model is a problem when user-defined analyses and data linking to external resources are required. The objectives of this study are: (1) design of a semantic model for local cancer registries; (2) development of a semantically-enabled cancer registry based on this model; and (3) semantic exploitation of the cancer registry for analysing and visualising disease courses. Our proposal is based on our previous results and experience working with semantic technologies. Data stored in a cancer registry database were transformed into RDF employing a process driven by OWL ontologies. The semantic representation of the data was then processed to extract semantic patient profiles, which were exploited by means of SPARQL queries to identify groups of similar patients and to analyse the disease timelines of patients. Based on the requirements analysis, we have produced a draft of an ontology that models the semantics of a local cancer registry in a pragmatic extensible way. We have implemented a Semantic Web platform that allows transforming and storing data from cancer registries in RDF. This platform also permits users to formulate incremental user-defined queries through a graphical user interface. The query results can be displayed in several customisable ways. The complex disease timelines of individual patients can be clearly represented. Different events, e.g. different therapies and disease courses, are presented according to their temporal and causal relations. The presented platform is an example of the parallel development of ontologies and applications that take advantage of semantic web technologies in the medical field. The semantic structure of the representation renders it easy to analyse key figures of the patients and their evolution at different granularity levels.

The apparent size of three-dimensional objects and their silhouettes: a solid-superiority effect.

PubMed

Walker, J T; Walker, M J

1988-01-01

A solid object looks larger than its outline or silhouette under many viewing conditions. This solid-superiority effect may result from the assimilation or confusion of visual contours within the projection of a three-dimensional object on the picture plane. An aspect of the Müller-Lyer illusion may also play a role.

Centrality-based Selection of Semantic Resources for Geosciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cerba, Otakar; Jedlicka, Karel

2017-04-01

Semantical questions intervene almost in all disciplines dealing with geographic data and information, because relevant semantics is crucial for any way of communication and interaction among humans as well as among machines. But the existence of such a large number of different semantic resources (such as various thesauri, controlled vocabularies, knowledge bases or ontologies) makes the process of semantics implementation much more difficult and complicates the use of the advantages of semantics. This is because in many cases users are not able to find the most suitable resource for their purposes. The research presented in this paper introduces a methodology consisting of an analysis of identical relations in Linked Data space, which covers a majority of semantic resources, to find a suitable resource of semantic information. Identical links interconnect representations of an object or a concept in various semantic resources. Therefore this type of relations is considered to be crucial from the view of Linked Data, because these links provide new additional information, including various views on one concept based on different cultural or regional aspects (so-called social role of Linked Data). For these reasons it is possible to declare that one reasonable criterion for feasible semantic resources for almost all domains, including geosciences, is their position in a network of interconnected semantic resources and level of linking to other knowledge bases and similar products. The presented methodology is based on searching of mutual connections between various instances of one concept using "follow your nose" approach. The extracted data on interconnections between semantic resources are arranged to directed graphs and processed by various metrics patterned on centrality computing (degree, closeness or betweenness centrality). Semantic resources recommended by the research could be used for providing semantically described keywords for metadata records or as names of items in data models. Such an approach enables much more efficient data harmonization, integration, sharing and exploitation. * * * * This publication was supported by the project LO1506 of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. This publication was supported by project Data-Driven Bioeconomy (DataBio) from the ICT-15-2016-2017, Big Data PPP call.

The semantic richness of abstract concepts

PubMed Central

Recchia, Gabriel; Jones, Michael N.

2012-01-01

We contrasted the predictive power of three measures of semantic richness—number of features (NFs), contextual dispersion (CD), and a novel measure of number of semantic neighbors (NSN)—for a large set of concrete and abstract concepts on lexical decision and naming tasks. NSN (but not NF) facilitated processing for abstract concepts, while NF (but not NSN) facilitated processing for the most concrete concepts, consistent with claims that linguistic information is more relevant for abstract concepts in early processing. Additionally, converging evidence from two datasets suggests that when NSN and CD are controlled for, the features that most facilitate processing are those associated with a concept's physical characteristics and real-world contexts. These results suggest that rich linguistic contexts (many semantic neighbors) facilitate early activation of abstract concepts, whereas concrete concepts benefit more from rich physical contexts (many associated objects and locations). PMID:23205008

CHIP Demonstrator: Semantics-Driven Recommendations and Museum Tour Generation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aroyo, Lora; Stash, Natalia; Wang, Yiwen; Gorgels, Peter; Rutledge, Lloyd

The main objective of the CHIP project is to demonstrate how Semantic Web technologies can be deployed to provide personalized access to digital museum collections. We illustrate our approach with the digital database ARIA of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. For the semantic enrichment of the Rijksmuseum ARIA database we collaborated with the CATCH STITCH project to produce mappings to Iconclass, and with the MultimediaN E-culture project to produce the RDF/OWL of the ARIA and Adlib databases. The main focus of CHIP is on exploring the potential of applying adaptation techniques to provide personalized experience for the museum visitors both on the Web site and in the museum.

Jargonial-Obfuscation(J-O) DISambiguation Elimination via Siegel-Baez Cognition Category-Semantics(C-S) in Siegel FUZZYICS=CATEGORYICS (Son of TRIZ)/(F=C) Tabular List-Format Dichotomy Truth-Table Matrix Analytics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siegel, Carl Ludwig; Siegel, Edward Carl-Ludwig

2011-03-01

NOT "philosophy" per se but raising serious salient Arnol'd [Huygens and Barrow, Newton and Hooke(96)] questions begged is Rota empiricism Husserl VS. Frege maths-objects Dichotomy controversy: Hill-Haddock[Husserl or Frege?(00)]as manifestly-demonstrated by Hintikka[B.U.]-Critchey[Derrida Deconstruction Ethics(78)] deconstruction; Altshuler TRIZ; Siegel F=C/C-S; Siegel-Baez(UCR) Cognition C-S = "Category-theory ``+'' Cognitive-Semantics[Wierzbica-Langacker-Lakoff-Nunez[Where Maths Comes From(00)]-Fauconnier-Turner[Blending(98)]-Coulson[Semantic-Leaps (00)

An Enriched Unified Medical Language System Semantic Network with a Multiple Subsumption Hierarchy

PubMed Central

Zhang, Li; Perl, Yehoshua; Halper, Michael; Geller, James; Cimino, James J.

2004-01-01

Objective: The Unified Medical Language System's (UMLS's) Semantic Network's (SN's) two-tree structure is restrictive because it does not allow a semantic type to be a specialization of several other semantic types. In this article, the SN is expanded into a multiple subsumption structure with a directed acyclic graph (DAG) IS-A hierarchy, allowing a semantic type to have multiple parents. New viable IS-A links are added as warranted. Design: Two methodologies are presented to identify and add new viable IS-A links. The first methodology is based on imposing the characteristic of connectivity on a previously presented partition of the SN. Four transformations are provided to find viable IS-A links in the process of converting the partition's disconnected groups into connected ones. The second methodology identifies new IS-A links through a string matching process involving names and definitions of various semantic types in the SN. A domain expert is needed to review all the results to determine the validity of the new IS-A links. Results: Nineteen new IS-A links are added to the SN, and four new semantic types are also created to support the multiple subsumption framework. The resulting network, called the Enriched Semantic Network (ESN), exhibits a DAG-structured hierarchy. A partition of the ESN containing 19 connected groups is also derived. Conclusion: The ESN is an expanded abstraction of the UMLS compared with the original SN. Its multiple subsumption hierarchy can accommodate semantic types with multiple parents. Its representation thus provides direct access to a broader range of subsumption knowledge. PMID:14764611

Written language impairments in primary progressive aphasia: a reflection of damage to central semantic and phonological processes.

PubMed

Henry, Maya L; Beeson, Pélagie M; Alexander, Gene E; Rapcsak, Steven Z

2012-02-01

Connectionist theories of language propose that written language deficits arise as a result of damage to semantic and phonological systems that also support spoken language production and comprehension, a view referred to as the "primary systems" hypothesis. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the primary systems account in a mixed group of individuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) by investigating the relation between measures of nonorthographic semantic and phonological processing and written language performance and by examining whether common patterns of cortical atrophy underlie impairments in spoken versus written language domains. Individuals with PPA and healthy controls were administered a language battery, including assessments of semantics, phonology, reading, and spelling. Voxel-based morphometry was used to examine the relation between gray matter volumes and language measures within brain regions previously implicated in semantic and phonological processing. In accordance with the primary systems account, our findings indicate that spoken language performance is strongly predictive of reading/spelling profile in individuals with PPA and suggest that common networks of critical left hemisphere regions support central semantic and phonological processes recruited for spoken and written language.

The effect of grammatical gender on object categorization.

PubMed

Cubelli, Roberto; Paolieri, Daniela; Lotto, Lorella; Job, Remo

2011-03-01

In 3 experiments, we investigated the effect of grammatical gender on object categorization. Participants were asked to judge whether 2 objects, whose names did or did not share grammatical gender, belonged to the same semantic category by pressing a key. Monolingual speakers of English (Experiment 1), Italian (Experiments 1 and 2), and Spanish (Experiments 2 and 3) were tested in their native language. Italian and Spanish participants responded faster to pairs of stimuli sharing the same gender, whereas no difference was observed for English participants. In Experiment 2, the pictures were chosen in such a way that the grammatical gender of the names was opposite in Italian and Spanish. Therefore, the same pair of stimuli gave rise to different patterns depending on the gender congruency of the names in the languages. In Experiment 3, Spanish speakers performed the same task under an articulatory suppression condition, showing no grammatical gender effect. The locus where meaning and gender interact can be located at the level of the lexical representation that specifies syntactic information: Nouns sharing the same grammatical gender activate each other, thus facilitating their processing and speeding up responses, either to semantically related pairs or to semantically unrelated pairs. 2011 APA, all rights reserved

Serial-position effects for items and relations in short-term memory.

PubMed

Jones, Tim; Oberauer, Klaus

2013-04-01

Two experiments used immediate probed recall of words to investigate serial-position effects. Item memory was tested through probing with a semantic category. Relation memory was tested through probing with the word's spatial location of presentation. Input order and output order were deconfounded by presenting and probing items in different orders. Primacy and recency effects over input position were found for both item memory and relation memory. Both item and relation memory declined over output position. The finding of a U-shaped input position function for item memory rules out an explanation purely in terms of positional confusions (e.g., edge effects). Either these serial-position effects arise from variations in the intrinsic memory strength of the items, or they arise from variations in the strength of item-position bindings, together with retrieval by scanning.

Concept indexing and expansion for social multimedia websites based on semantic processing and graph analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lin, Po-Chuan; Chen, Bo-Wei; Chang, Hangbae

2016-07-01

This study presents a human-centric technique for social video expansion based on semantic processing and graph analysis. The objective is to increase metadata of an online video and to explore related information, thereby facilitating user browsing activities. To analyze the semantic meaning of a video, shots and scenes are firstly extracted from the video on the server side. Subsequently, this study uses annotations along with ConceptNet to establish the underlying framework. Detailed metadata, including visual objects and audio events among the predefined categories, are indexed by using the proposed method. Furthermore, relevant online media associated with each category are also analyzed to enrich the existing content. With the above-mentioned information, users can easily browse and search the content according to the link analysis and its complementary knowledge. Experiments on a video dataset are conducted for evaluation. The results show that our system can achieve satisfactory performance, thereby demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed idea.

Semantic processing and response inhibition.

PubMed

Chiang, Hsueh-Sheng; Motes, Michael A; Mudar, Raksha A; Rao, Neena K; Mansinghani, Sethesh; Brier, Matthew R; Maguire, Mandy J; Kraut, Michael A; Hart, John

2013-11-13

The present study examined functional MRI (fMRI) BOLD signal changes in response to object categorization during response selection and inhibition. Young adults (N=16) completed a Go/NoGo task with varying object categorization requirements while fMRI data were recorded. Response inhibition elicited increased signal change in various brain regions, including medial frontal areas, compared with response selection. BOLD signal in an area within the right angular gyrus was increased when higher-order categorization was mandated. In addition, signal change during response inhibition varied with categorization requirements in the left inferior temporal gyrus (lIT). lIT-mediated response inhibition when inhibiting the response only required lower-order categorization, but lIT mediated both response selection and inhibition when selecting and inhibiting the response required higher-order categorization. The findings characterized mechanisms mediating response inhibition associated with semantic object categorization in the 'what' visual object memory system.

How to Constrain and Maintain a Lexicon for the Treatment of Progressive Semantic Naming Deficits: Principles of Item Selection for Formal Semantic Therapy

PubMed Central

Reilly, Jamie

2015-01-01

The progressive degradation of semantic memory is a common feature of many forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s Disease and the semantic variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia (svPPA). One of the most functionally debilitating effects of this semantic impairment is the inability to name common people and objects (i.e., anomia). Clinical management of a progressive, semantically-based anomia presents extraordinary challenge for neurorehabilitation. Techniques such as errorless learning and spaced-retrieval training show promise for retraining forgotten words. However, we lack complementary detail about what to train (i.e., item selection) and how to flexibly adapt the training to a declining cognitive system. In this position paper, I weigh the relative merits of several treatment rationales (e.g., restore vs. compensate) and advocate for maintenance of known words over reacquisition of forgotten knowledge in the context of semantic treatment paradigms. I propose a system for generating an item pool and outline a set of core principles for training and sustaining a micro-lexicon consisting of approximately 100 words. These principles are informed by lessons learned over the course of a Phase I treatment study targeting language maintenance over a 5-year span in Alzheimer’s Disease and Frontotemporal Degeneration. Finally, I propose a semantic training approach that capitalizes on lexical frequency and repeated training on conceptual structure to offset the loss of key vocabulary as disease severity worsens. PMID:25609229

Comparison of Object Recognition Behavior in Human and Monkey

PubMed Central

Rajalingham, Rishi; Schmidt, Kailyn

2015-01-01

Although the rhesus monkey is used widely as an animal model of human visual processing, it is not known whether invariant visual object recognition behavior is quantitatively comparable across monkeys and humans. To address this question, we systematically compared the core object recognition behavior of two monkeys with that of human subjects. To test true object recognition behavior (rather than image matching), we generated several thousand naturalistic synthetic images of 24 basic-level objects with high variation in viewing parameters and image background. Monkeys were trained to perform binary object recognition tasks on a match-to-sample paradigm. Data from 605 human subjects performing the same tasks on Mechanical Turk were aggregated to characterize “pooled human” object recognition behavior, as well as 33 separate Mechanical Turk subjects to characterize individual human subject behavior. Our results show that monkeys learn each new object in a few days, after which they not only match mean human performance but show a pattern of object confusion that is highly correlated with pooled human confusion patterns and is statistically indistinguishable from individual human subjects. Importantly, this shared human and monkey pattern of 3D object confusion is not shared with low-level visual representations (pixels, V1+; models of the retina and primary visual cortex) but is shared with a state-of-the-art computer vision feature representation. Together, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that rhesus monkeys and humans share a common neural shape representation that directly supports object perception. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT To date, several mammalian species have shown promise as animal models for studying the neural mechanisms underlying high-level visual processing in humans. In light of this diversity, making tight comparisons between nonhuman and human primates is particularly critical in determining the best use of nonhuman primates to further the goal of the field of translating knowledge gained from animal models to humans. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first systematic attempt at comparing a high-level visual behavior of humans and macaque monkeys. PMID:26338324

Semantic Differential as One of the Research Tools Suitable for Establishing the Attitudes of Pupils to Old Age and Seniors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Divilová, Sona

2016-01-01

The paper presents the results of the pre-research conducted under the project entitled "Seniors in the Eyes of Children". The main objective of the project was to create and test a research tool in order to establish what the attitudes of pupils to old age and seniors were. Semantic differential was chosen for these purposes. Semantic…

Decoding the Semantic Content of Natural Movies from Human Brain Activity

PubMed Central

Huth, Alexander G.; Lee, Tyler; Nishimoto, Shinji; Bilenko, Natalia Y.; Vu, An T.; Gallant, Jack L.

2016-01-01

One crucial test for any quantitative model of the brain is to show that the model can be used to accurately decode information from evoked brain activity. Several recent neuroimaging studies have decoded the structure or semantic content of static visual images from human brain activity. Here we present a decoding algorithm that makes it possible to decode detailed information about the object and action categories present in natural movies from human brain activity signals measured by functional MRI. Decoding is accomplished using a hierarchical logistic regression (HLR) model that is based on labels that were manually assigned from the WordNet semantic taxonomy. This model makes it possible to simultaneously decode information about both specific and general categories, while respecting the relationships between them. Our results show that we can decode the presence of many object and action categories from averaged blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) responses with a high degree of accuracy (area under the ROC curve > 0.9). Furthermore, we used this framework to test whether semantic relationships defined in the WordNet taxonomy are represented the same way in the human brain. This analysis showed that hierarchical relationships between general categories and atypical examples, such as organism and plant, did not seem to be reflected in representations measured by BOLD fMRI. PMID:27781035

The interplay of episodic and semantic memory in guiding repeated search in scenes

PubMed Central

Võ, Melissa L.-H.; Wolfe, Jeremy M.

2012-01-01

It seems intuitive to think that previous exposure or interaction with an environment should make it easier to search through it and, no doubt, this is true in many real-world situations. However, in a recent study, we demonstrated that previous exposure to a scene does not necessarily speed search within that scene. For instance, when observers performed as many as fifteen searches for different objects in the same, unchanging scene, the speed of search did not decrease much over the course of these multiple searches (Võ & Wolfe, 2012). Only when observers were asked to search for the same object again did search become considerably faster. We argued that our naturalistic scenes provided such strong “semantic” guidance — e.g., knowing that a faucet is usually located near a sink — that guidance by incidental episodic memory — having seen that faucet previously — was rendered less useful. Here, we directly manipulated the availability of semantic information provided by a scene. By monitoring observers’ eye movements, we found a tight coupling of semantic and episodic memory guidance: Decreasing the availability of semantic information increases the use of episodic memory to guide search. These findings have broad implications regarding the use of memory during search in general and particularly during search in naturalistic scenes. PMID:23177141

Classification of high resolution remote sensing image based on geo-ontology and conditional random fields

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hong, Liang

2013-10-01

The availability of high spatial resolution remote sensing data provides new opportunities for urban land-cover classification. More geometric details can be observed in the high resolution remote sensing image, Also Ground objects in the high resolution remote sensing image have displayed rich texture, structure, shape and hierarchical semantic characters. More landscape elements are represented by a small group of pixels. Recently years, the an object-based remote sensing analysis methodology is widely accepted and applied in high resolution remote sensing image processing. The classification method based on Geo-ontology and conditional random fields is presented in this paper. The proposed method is made up of four blocks: (1) the hierarchical ground objects semantic framework is constructed based on geoontology; (2) segmentation by mean-shift algorithm, which image objects are generated. And the mean-shift method is to get boundary preserved and spectrally homogeneous over-segmentation regions ;(3) the relations between the hierarchical ground objects semantic and over-segmentation regions are defined based on conditional random fields framework ;(4) the hierarchical classification results are obtained based on geo-ontology and conditional random fields. Finally, high-resolution remote sensed image data -GeoEye, is used to testify the performance of the presented method. And the experimental results have shown the superiority of this method to the eCognition method both on the effectively and accuracy, which implies it is suitable for the classification of high resolution remote sensing image.

Learning and Forgetting New Names and Objects in MCI and AD

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gronholm-Nyman, Petra; Rinne, Juha O.; Laine, Matti

2010-01-01

We studied how subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), early Alzheimer's disease (AD) and age-matched controls learned and maintained the names of unfamiliar objects that were trained with or without semantic support (object definitions). Naming performance, phonological cueing, incidental learning of the definitions and recognition of the…

On Writing Behavioral Objectives for English.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maxwell, John, Ed.; Tovatt, Anthony, Ed.

This book presents the results of the examination, during 1969, of the behavioral objectives movement in English instruction by the NCTE Commission on the English Curriculum. It points out that, although some major benefits may eventually arise from the writing of English behavioral objectives, "the process bristles with problems in semantics,…

Crowded and Sparse Domains in Object Recognition: Consequences for Categorization and Naming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gale, Tim M.; Laws, Keith R.; Foley, Kerry

2006-01-01

Some models of object recognition propose that items from structurally crowded categories (e.g., living things) permit faster access to superordinate semantic information than structurally dissimilar categories (e.g., nonliving things), but slower access to individual object information when naming items. We present four experiments that utilize…

Creating Usage Context-Based Object Similarities to Boost Recommender Systems in Technology Enhanced Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Niemann, Katja; Wolpers, Martin

2015-01-01

In this paper, we introduce a new way of detecting semantic similarities between learning objects by analysing their usage in web portals. Our approach relies on the usage-based relations between the objects themselves rather then on the content of the learning objects or on the relations between users and learning objects. We then take this new…

Distinct functional contributions of primary sensory and association areas to audiovisual integration in object categorization.

PubMed

Werner, Sebastian; Noppeney, Uta

2010-02-17

Multisensory interactions have been demonstrated in a distributed neural system encompassing primary sensory and higher-order association areas. However, their distinct functional roles in multisensory integration remain unclear. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study dissociated the functional contributions of three cortical levels to multisensory integration in object categorization. Subjects actively categorized or passively perceived noisy auditory and visual signals emanating from everyday actions with objects. The experiment included two 2 x 2 factorial designs that manipulated either (1) the presence/absence or (2) the informativeness of the sensory inputs. These experimental manipulations revealed three patterns of audiovisual interactions. (1) In primary auditory cortices (PACs), a concurrent visual input increased the stimulus salience by amplifying the auditory response regardless of task-context. Effective connectivity analyses demonstrated that this automatic response amplification is mediated via both direct and indirect [via superior temporal sulcus (STS)] connectivity to visual cortices. (2) In STS and intraparietal sulcus (IPS), audiovisual interactions sustained the integration of higher-order object features and predicted subjects' audiovisual benefits in object categorization. (3) In the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), explicit semantic categorization resulted in suppressive audiovisual interactions as an index for multisensory facilitation of semantic retrieval and response selection. In conclusion, multisensory integration emerges at multiple processing stages within the cortical hierarchy. The distinct profiles of audiovisual interactions dissociate audiovisual salience effects in PACs, formation of object representations in STS/IPS and audiovisual facilitation of semantic categorization in vlPFC. Furthermore, in STS/IPS, the profiles of audiovisual interactions were behaviorally relevant and predicted subjects' multisensory benefits in performance accuracy.

Emerald: an object-based language for distributed programming

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

Hutchinson, N.C.

1987-01-01

Distributed systems have become more common, however constructing distributed applications remains a very difficult task. Numerous operating systems and programming languages have been proposed that attempt to simplify the programming of distributed applications. Here a programing language called Emerald is presented that simplifies distributed programming by extending the concepts of object-based languages to the distributed environment. Emerald supports a single model of computation: the object. Emerald objects include private entities such as integers and Booleans, as well as shared, distributed entities such as compilers, directories, and entire file systems. Emerald objects may move between machines in the system, but objectmore » invocation is location independent. The uniform semantic model used for describing all Emerald objects makes the construction of distributed applications in Emerald much simpler than in systems where the differences in implementation between local and remote entities are visible in the language semantics. Emerald incorporates a type system that deals only with the specification of objects - ignoring differences in implementation. Thus, two different implementations of the same abstraction may be freely mixed.« less

A user-centred evaluation framework for the Sealife semantic web browsers

PubMed Central

Oliver, Helen; Diallo, Gayo; de Quincey, Ed; Alexopoulou, Dimitra; Habermann, Bianca; Kostkova, Patty; Schroeder, Michael; Jupp, Simon; Khelif, Khaled; Stevens, Robert; Jawaheer, Gawesh; Madle, Gemma

2009-01-01

Background Semantically-enriched browsing has enhanced the browsing experience by providing contextualised dynamically generated Web content, and quicker access to searched-for information. However, adoption of Semantic Web technologies is limited and user perception from the non-IT domain sceptical. Furthermore, little attention has been given to evaluating semantic browsers with real users to demonstrate the enhancements and obtain valuable feedback. The Sealife project investigates semantic browsing and its application to the life science domain. Sealife's main objective is to develop the notion of context-based information integration by extending three existing Semantic Web browsers (SWBs) to link the existing Web to the eScience infrastructure. Methods This paper describes a user-centred evaluation framework that was developed to evaluate the Sealife SWBs that elicited feedback on users' perceptions on ease of use and information findability. Three sources of data: i) web server logs; ii) user questionnaires; and iii) semi-structured interviews were analysed and comparisons made between each browser and a control system. Results It was found that the evaluation framework used successfully elicited users' perceptions of the three distinct SWBs. The results indicate that the browser with the most mature and polished interface was rated higher for usability, and semantic links were used by the users of all three browsers. Conclusion Confirmation or contradiction of our original hypotheses with relation to SWBs is detailed along with observations of implementation issues. PMID:19796398

Semantics of the visual environment encoded in parahippocampal cortex

PubMed Central

Bonner, Michael F.; Price, Amy Rose; Peelle, Jonathan E.; Grossman, Murray

2016-01-01

Semantic representations capture the statistics of experience and store this information in memory. A fundamental component of this memory system is knowledge of the visual environment, including knowledge of objects and their associations. Visual semantic information underlies a range of behaviors, from perceptual categorization to cognitive processes such as language and reasoning. Here we examine the neuroanatomic system that encodes visual semantics. Across three experiments, we found converging evidence indicating that knowledge of verbally mediated visual concepts relies on information encoded in a region of the ventral-medial temporal lobe centered on parahippocampal cortex. In an fMRI study, this region was strongly engaged by the processing of concepts relying on visual knowledge but not by concepts relying on other sensory modalities. In a study of patients with the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (semantic dementia), atrophy that encompassed this region was associated with a specific impairment in verbally mediated visual semantic knowledge. Finally, in a structural study of healthy adults from the fMRI experiment, gray matter density in this region related to individual variability in the processing of visual concepts. The anatomic location of these findings aligns with recent work linking the ventral-medial temporal lobe with high-level visual representation, contextual associations, and reasoning through imagination. Together this work suggests a critical role for parahippocampal cortex in linking the visual environment with knowledge systems in the human brain. PMID:26679216

Semantics of the Visual Environment Encoded in Parahippocampal Cortex.

PubMed

Bonner, Michael F; Price, Amy Rose; Peelle, Jonathan E; Grossman, Murray

2016-03-01

Semantic representations capture the statistics of experience and store this information in memory. A fundamental component of this memory system is knowledge of the visual environment, including knowledge of objects and their associations. Visual semantic information underlies a range of behaviors, from perceptual categorization to cognitive processes such as language and reasoning. Here we examine the neuroanatomic system that encodes visual semantics. Across three experiments, we found converging evidence indicating that knowledge of verbally mediated visual concepts relies on information encoded in a region of the ventral-medial temporal lobe centered on parahippocampal cortex. In an fMRI study, this region was strongly engaged by the processing of concepts relying on visual knowledge but not by concepts relying on other sensory modalities. In a study of patients with the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (semantic dementia), atrophy that encompassed this region was associated with a specific impairment in verbally mediated visual semantic knowledge. Finally, in a structural study of healthy adults from the fMRI experiment, gray matter density in this region related to individual variability in the processing of visual concepts. The anatomic location of these findings aligns with recent work linking the ventral-medial temporal lobe with high-level visual representation, contextual associations, and reasoning through imagination. Together, this work suggests a critical role for parahippocampal cortex in linking the visual environment with knowledge systems in the human brain.

A user-centred evaluation framework for the Sealife semantic web browsers.

PubMed

Oliver, Helen; Diallo, Gayo; de Quincey, Ed; Alexopoulou, Dimitra; Habermann, Bianca; Kostkova, Patty; Schroeder, Michael; Jupp, Simon; Khelif, Khaled; Stevens, Robert; Jawaheer, Gawesh; Madle, Gemma

2009-10-01

Semantically-enriched browsing has enhanced the browsing experience by providing contextualized dynamically generated Web content, and quicker access to searched-for information. However, adoption of Semantic Web technologies is limited and user perception from the non-IT domain sceptical. Furthermore, little attention has been given to evaluating semantic browsers with real users to demonstrate the enhancements and obtain valuable feedback. The Sealife project investigates semantic browsing and its application to the life science domain. Sealife's main objective is to develop the notion of context-based information integration by extending three existing Semantic Web browsers (SWBs) to link the existing Web to the eScience infrastructure. This paper describes a user-centred evaluation framework that was developed to evaluate the Sealife SWBs that elicited feedback on users' perceptions on ease of use and information findability. Three sources of data: i) web server logs; ii) user questionnaires; and iii) semi-structured interviews were analysed and comparisons made between each browser and a control system. It was found that the evaluation framework used successfully elicited users' perceptions of the three distinct SWBs. The results indicate that the browser with the most mature and polished interface was rated higher for usability, and semantic links were used by the users of all three browsers. Confirmation or contradiction of our original hypotheses with relation to SWBs is detailed along with observations of implementation issues.

The Role of Visual and Semantic Properties in the Emergence of Category-Specific Patterns of Neural Response in the Human Brain.

PubMed

Coggan, David D; Baker, Daniel H; Andrews, Timothy J

2016-01-01

Brain-imaging studies have found distinct spatial and temporal patterns of response to different object categories across the brain. However, the extent to which these categorical patterns of response reflect higher-level semantic or lower-level visual properties of the stimulus remains unclear. To address this question, we measured patterns of EEG response to intact and scrambled images in the human brain. Our rationale for using scrambled images is that they have many of the visual properties found in intact images, but do not convey any semantic information. Images from different object categories (bottle, face, house) were briefly presented (400 ms) in an event-related design. A multivariate pattern analysis revealed categorical patterns of response to intact images emerged ∼80-100 ms after stimulus onset and were still evident when the stimulus was no longer present (∼800 ms). Next, we measured the patterns of response to scrambled images. Categorical patterns of response to scrambled images also emerged ∼80-100 ms after stimulus onset. However, in contrast to the intact images, distinct patterns of response to scrambled images were mostly evident while the stimulus was present (∼400 ms). Moreover, scrambled images were able to account only for all the variance in the intact images at early stages of processing. This direct manipulation of visual and semantic content provides new insights into the temporal dynamics of object perception and the extent to which different stages of processing are dependent on lower-level or higher-level properties of the image.

A Framework of Knowledge Integration and Discovery for Supporting Pharmacogenomics Target Predication of Adverse Drug Events: A Case Study of Drug-Induced Long QT Syndrome.

PubMed

Jiang, Guoqian; Wang, Chen; Zhu, Qian; Chute, Christopher G

2013-01-01

Knowledge-driven text mining is becoming an important research area for identifying pharmacogenomics target genes. However, few of such studies have been focused on the pharmacogenomics targets of adverse drug events (ADEs). The objective of the present study is to build a framework of knowledge integration and discovery that aims to support pharmacogenomics target predication of ADEs. We integrate a semantically annotated literature corpus Semantic MEDLINE with a semantically coded ADE knowledgebase known as ADEpedia using a semantic web based framework. We developed a knowledge discovery approach combining a network analysis of a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and a gene functional classification approach. We performed a case study of drug-induced long QT syndrome for demonstrating the usefulness of the framework in predicting potential pharmacogenomics targets of ADEs.

Reliable Adaptive Video Streaming Driven by Perceptual Semantics for Situational Awareness

PubMed Central

Pimentel-Niño, M. A.; Saxena, Paresh; Vazquez-Castro, M. A.

2015-01-01

A novel cross-layer optimized video adaptation driven by perceptual semantics is presented. The design target is streamed live video to enhance situational awareness in challenging communications conditions. Conventional solutions for recreational applications are inadequate and novel quality of experience (QoE) framework is proposed which allows fully controlled adaptation and enables perceptual semantic feedback. The framework relies on temporal/spatial abstraction for video applications serving beyond recreational purposes. An underlying cross-layer optimization technique takes into account feedback on network congestion (time) and erasures (space) to best distribute available (scarce) bandwidth. Systematic random linear network coding (SRNC) adds reliability while preserving perceptual semantics. Objective metrics of the perceptual features in QoE show homogeneous high performance when using the proposed scheme. Finally, the proposed scheme is in line with content-aware trends, by complying with information-centric-networking philosophy and architecture. PMID:26247057

[Semantic, item, and conceptual equivalence of the Brazilian version of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale for Youth (NEWS-Y)].

PubMed

Lima, Alex Vieira; Rech, Cassiano Ricardo; Reis, Rodrigo Siqueira

2013-12-01

The objective of this study was to describe the process of translation and cultural adaptation of the Brazilian version of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale for Youth (NEWS-Y). The original and the Portuguese versions were independently translated and back-translated into English. An expert panel performed semantic analysis and conceptual adaptations. The translated version of the NEWS-Y was applied to a sample of eight adolescents and showed adequate understanding. After minor changes identified in the translation processes, the expert panel considered the Brazilian version of the NEWS-Y semantically and conceptually equivalent. The translated version of the NEWS-Y required a few adjustments to ensure conceptual, item, and semantic adaptation. Further studies are recommended to examine other steps in the cross-cultural adaptation of the Portuguese-language NEWS-Y version in the Brazilian context.

Large scale healthcare data integration and analysis using the semantic web.

PubMed

Timm, John; Renly, Sondra; Farkash, Ariel

2011-01-01

Healthcare data interoperability can only be achieved when the semantics of the content is well defined and consistently implemented across heterogeneous data sources. Achieving these objectives of interoperability requires the collaboration of experts from several domains. This paper describes tooling that integrates Semantic Web technologies with common tools to facilitate cross-domain collaborative development for the purposes of data interoperability. Our approach is divided into stages of data harmonization and representation, model transformation, and instance generation. We applied our approach on Hypergenes, an EU funded project, where we use our method to the Essential Hypertension disease model using a CDA template. Our domain expert partners include clinical providers, clinical domain researchers, healthcare information technology experts, and a variety of clinical data consumers. We show that bringing Semantic Web technologies into the healthcare interoperability toolkit increases opportunities for beneficial collaboration thus improving patient care and clinical research outcomes.

Semantically induced distortions of visual awareness in a patient with Balint's syndrome.

PubMed

Soto, David; Humphreys, Glyn W

2009-02-01

We present data indicating that visual awareness for a basic perceptual feature (colour) can be influenced by the relation between the feature and the semantic properties of the stimulus. We examined semantic interference from the meaning of a colour word (''RED") on simple colour (ink related) detection responses in a patient with simultagnosia due to bilateral parietal lesions. We found that colour detection was influenced by the congruency between the meaning of the word and the relevant ink colour, with impaired performance when the word and the colour mismatched (on incongruent trials). This result held even when remote associations between meaning and colour were used (i.e. the word ''PEA" influenced detection of the ink colour red). The results are consistent with a late locus of conscious visual experience that is derived at post-semantic levels. The implications for the understanding of the role of parietal cortex in object binding and visual awareness are discussed.

Escaping the recent past: Which stimulus dimensions influence proactive interference?

PubMed Central

Craig, Kimberly S.; Berman, Marc G.; Jonides, John; Lustig, Cindy

2013-01-01

Proactive interference occurs when information from the past disrupts current processing and is a major source of confusion and errors in short-term memory (Wickens, Born & Allen, 1963). The present investigation examines potential boundary conditions for interference, testing the hypothesis that potential competitors must be similar along task-relevant dimensions to influence proactive interference effects. We manipulated both the type of task being completed (Experiments 1, 2 and 3) and dimensions of similarity irrelevant to the current task (Experiments 4 and 5) to determine how the recent presentation of a probe item would affect the speed with which participants could reject that item. Experiments 1, 2 and 3 contrasted short-term memory judgments, which require temporal information, with semantic and perceptual judgments, for which temporal information is irrelevant. In Experiments 4 and 5, task-irrelevant information (perceptual similarity) was manipulated within the recent probes task. We found that interference from past items affected short-term memory (STM) task performance but did not affect performance in semantic or perceptual judgment tasks. Conversely, similarity along a nominally-irrelevant perceptual dimension did not affect the magnitude of interference in STM tasks. Results are consistent with the view that items in STM are represented by noisy codes consisting of multiple dimensions, and that interference occurs when items are similar to each other and thus compete along the dimensions relevant to target selection. PMID:23297049

Escaping the recent past: which stimulus dimensions influence proactive interference?

PubMed

Craig, Kimberly S; Berman, Marc G; Jonides, John; Lustig, Cindy

2013-07-01

Proactive interference occurs when information from the past disrupts current processing and is a major source of confusion and errors in short-term memory (STM; Wickens, Born, & Allen, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2:440-445, 1963). The present investigation examines potential boundary conditions for interference, testing the hypothesis that potential competitors must be similar along task-relevant dimensions to influence proactive interference effects. We manipulated both the type of task being completed (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) and dimensions of similarity irrelevant to the current task (Experiments 4 and 5) to determine how the recent presentation of a probe item would affect the speed with which participants could reject that item. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 contrasted STM judgments, which require temporal information, with semantic and perceptual judgments, for which temporal information is irrelevant. In Experiments 4 and 5, task-irrelevant information (perceptual similarity) was manipulated within the recent probes task. We found that interference from past items affected STM task performance but did not affect performance in semantic or perceptual judgment tasks. Conversely, similarity along a nominally irrelevant perceptual dimension did not affect the magnitude of interference in STM tasks. Results are consistent with the view that items in STM are represented by noisy codes consisting of multiple dimensions and that interference occurs when items are similar to each other and, thus, compete along the dimensions relevant to target selection.

Does AIDS involve some collusion by the neuro-immune system because of positive learning of the disarmament strategy?

PubMed

Sandoz, Patrick

2013-04-01

Korzybski's general semantics recommends considering living beings as organisms-as-a-whole in their environment. Our cognitive abilities, specific to the human species, have thus to be taken into account. In this framework we establish a semantic similarity between particular stressful events of the 20th century and AIDS in which the immune-deficiency-caused is semiotically seen as a biological state of disarmament of the organism. It then appears that: These observations suggest that AIDS could benefit from some collusion by the neuro-immune system because of positive learning of the semiotic concept of disarmament, thus making the terrain favorable to the germ in response to intense stress. The disease would then result from a conditioning process based on semiotics and involve some confusion at the level of the unconscious cognitive system between disarmament toward outside the body and disarmament toward inside the body. This hypothesis is discussed within a multidisciplinary perspective considering the specificities of our modern lifestyles, the cybernetic ability of signs to control metabolism and behavior, and the recent advances of epigenetics and cognition sciences. This hypothesis may explain the multiple cross-species transmissions of the immunodeficiency virus into humans during the 20th century. Further research is suggested for evaluating this hypothesis. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Memory color effect induced by familiarity of brand logos.

PubMed

Kimura, Atsushi; Wada, Yuji; Masuda, Tomohiro; Goto, Sho-Ichi; Tsuzuki, Daisuke; Hibino, Haruo; Cai, Dongsheng; Dan, Ippeita

2013-01-01

When people are asked to adjust the color of familiar objects such as fruits until they appear achromatic, the subjective gray points of the objects are shifted away from the physical gray points in a direction opposite to the memory color (memory color effect). It is still unclear whether the discrepancy between memorized and actual colors of objects is dependent on the familiarity of the objects. Here, we conducted two experiments in order to examine the relationship between the degree of a subject's familiarity with objects and the degree of the memory color effect by using logographs of food and beverage companies. In Experiment 1, we measured the memory color effects of logos which varied in terms of their familiarity (high, middle, or low). Results demonstrate that the memory color effect occurs only in the high-familiarity condition, but not in the middle- and low-familiarity conditions. Furthermore, there is a positive correlation between the memory color effect and the actual number of domestic stores of the brand. In Experiment 2, we assessed the semantic association between logos and food/beverage names by using a semantic priming task to elucidate whether the memory color effect of logos relates to consumer brand cognition, and found that the semantic associations between logos and food/beverage names in the high-familiarity brands were stronger than those in the low-familiarity brands only when the logos were colored correctly, but not when they were appropriately or inappropriately colored, or achromatic. The current results provide behavioral evidence of the relationship between the familiarity of objects and the memory color effect and suggest that the memory color effect increases with the familiarity of objects, albeit not constantly.

Memory Color Effect Induced by Familiarity of Brand Logos

PubMed Central

Kimura, Atsushi; Wada, Yuji; Masuda, Tomohiro; Goto, Sho-ichi; Tsuzuki, Daisuke; Hibino, Haruo; Cai, Dongsheng; Dan, Ippeita

2013-01-01

Background When people are asked to adjust the color of familiar objects such as fruits until they appear achromatic, the subjective gray points of the objects are shifted away from the physical gray points in a direction opposite to the memory color (memory color effect). It is still unclear whether the discrepancy between memorized and actual colors of objects is dependent on the familiarity of the objects. Here, we conducted two experiments in order to examine the relationship between the degree of a subject’s familiarity with objects and the degree of the memory color effect by using logographs of food and beverage companies. Methods and Findings In Experiment 1, we measured the memory color effects of logos which varied in terms of their familiarity (high, middle, or low). Results demonstrate that the memory color effect occurs only in the high-familiarity condition, but not in the middle- and low-familiarity conditions. Furthermore, there is a positive correlation between the memory color effect and the actual number of domestic stores of the brand. In Experiment 2, we assessed the semantic association between logos and food/beverage names by using a semantic priming task to elucidate whether the memory color effect of logos relates to consumer brand cognition, and found that the semantic associations between logos and food/beverage names in the high-familiarity brands were stronger than those in the low-familiarity brands only when the logos were colored correctly, but not when they were appropriately or inappropriately colored, or achromatic. Conclusion The current results provide behavioral evidence of the relationship between the familiarity of objects and the memory color effect and suggest that the memory color effect increases with the familiarity of objects, albeit not constantly. PMID:23874638

Toward semantic-based retrieval of visual information: a model-based approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Park, Youngchoon; Golshani, Forouzan; Panchanathan, Sethuraman

2002-07-01

This paper center around the problem of automated visual content classification. To enable classification based image or visual object retrieval, we propose a new image representation scheme called visual context descriptor (VCD) that is a multidimensional vector in which each element represents the frequency of a unique visual property of an image or a region. VCD utilizes the predetermined quality dimensions (i.e., types of features and quantization level) and semantic model templates mined in priori. Not only observed visual cues, but also contextually relevant visual features are proportionally incorporated in VCD. Contextual relevance of a visual cue to a semantic class is determined by using correlation analysis of ground truth samples. Such co-occurrence analysis of visual cues requires transformation of a real-valued visual feature vector (e.g., color histogram, Gabor texture, etc.,) into a discrete event (e.g., terms in text). Good-feature to track, rule of thirds, iterative k-means clustering and TSVQ are involved in transformation of feature vectors into unified symbolic representations called visual terms. Similarity-based visual cue frequency estimation is also proposed and used for ensuring the correctness of model learning and matching since sparseness of sample data causes the unstable results of frequency estimation of visual cues. The proposed method naturally allows integration of heterogeneous visual or temporal or spatial cues in a single classification or matching framework, and can be easily integrated into a semantic knowledge base such as thesaurus, and ontology. Robust semantic visual model template creation and object based image retrieval are demonstrated based on the proposed content description scheme.

Dissociable identity- and modality-specific neural representations as revealed by cross-modal nonspatial inhibition of return.

PubMed

Chi, Yukai; Yue, Zhenzhu; Liu, Yupin; Mo, Lei; Chen, Qi

2014-08-01

There are ongoing debates on whether object concepts are coded as supramodal identity-based or modality-specific representations in the human brain. In this fMRI study, we adopted a cross-modal "prime-neutral cue-target" semantic priming paradigm, in which the prime-target relationship was manipulated along both the identity and the modality dimensions. The prime and the target could refer to either the same or different semantic identities, and could be delivered via either the same or different sensory modalities. By calculating the main effects and interactions of this 2 (identity cue validity: "Identity_Cued" vs. "Identity_Uncued") × 2 (modality cue validity: "Modality_Cued" vs. "Modality_Uncued") factorial design, we aimed at dissociating three neural networks involved in creating novel identity-specific representations independent of sensory modality, in creating modality-specific representations independent of semantic identity, and in evaluating changes of an object along both the identity and the modality dimensions, respectively. Our results suggested that bilateral lateral occipital cortex was involved in creating a new supramodal semantic representation irrespective of the input modality, left dorsal premotor cortex, and left intraparietal sulcus were involved in creating a new modality-specific representation irrespective of its semantic identity, and bilateral superior temporal sulcus was involved in creating a representation when the identity and modality properties were both cued or both uncued. In addition, right inferior frontal gyrus showed enhanced neural activity only when both the identity and the modality of the target were new, indicating its functional role in novelty detection. Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Anterior Temporal Lobe Morphometry Predicts Categorization Ability.

PubMed

Garcin, Béatrice; Urbanski, Marika; Thiebaut de Schotten, Michel; Levy, Richard; Volle, Emmanuelle

2018-01-01

Categorization is the mental operation by which the brain classifies objects and events. It is classically assessed using semantic and non-semantic matching or sorting tasks. These tasks show a high variability in performance across healthy controls and the cerebral bases supporting this variability remain unknown. In this study we performed a voxel-based morphometry study to explore the relationships between semantic and shape categorization tasks and brain morphometric differences in 50 controls. We found significant correlation between categorization performance and the volume of the gray matter in the right anterior middle and inferior temporal gyri. Semantic categorization tasks were associated with more rostral temporal regions than shape categorization tasks. A significant relationship was also shown between white matter volume in the right temporal lobe and performance in the semantic tasks. Tractography revealed that this white matter region involved several projection and association fibers, including the arcuate fasciculus, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, uncinate fasciculus, and inferior longitudinal fasciculus. These results suggest that categorization abilities are supported by the anterior portion of the right temporal lobe and its interaction with other areas.

Motor knowledge is one dimension for concept organization: further evidence from a Chinese semantic dementia case.

PubMed

Lin, Nan; Guo, Qihao; Han, Zaizhu; Bi, Yanchao

2011-11-01

Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have indicated that motor knowledge is one potential dimension along which concepts are organized. Here we present further direct evidence for the effects of motor knowledge in accounting for categorical patterns across object domains (living vs. nonliving) and grammatical domains (nouns vs. verbs), as well as the integrity of other modality-specific knowledge (e.g., visual). We present a Chinese case, XRK, who suffered from semantic dementia with left temporal lobe atrophy. In naming and comprehension tasks, he performed better at nonliving items than at living items, and better at verbs than at nouns. Critically, multiple regression method revealed that these two categorical effects could be both accounted for by the charade rating, a continuous measurement of the significance of motor knowledge for a concept or a semantic feature. Furthermore, charade rating also predicted his performances on the generation frequency of semantic features of various modalities. These findings consolidate the significance of motor knowledge in conceptual organization and further highlights the interactions between different types of semantic knowledge. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Derivation and evaluation of a labeled hedonic scale.

PubMed

Lim, Juyun; Wood, Alison; Green, Barry G

2009-11-01

The objective of this study was to develop a semantically labeled hedonic scale (LHS) that would yield ratio-level data on the magnitude of liking/disliking of sensation equivalent to that produced by magnitude estimation (ME). The LHS was constructed by having 49 subjects who were trained in ME rate the semantic magnitudes of 10 common hedonic descriptors within a broad context of imagined hedonic experiences that included tastes and flavors. The resulting bipolar scale is statistically symmetrical around neutral and has a unique semantic structure. The LHS was evaluated quantitatively by comparing it with ME and the 9-point hedonic scale. The LHS yielded nearly identical ratings to those obtained using ME, which implies that its semantic labels are valid and that it produces ratio-level data equivalent to ME. Analyses of variance conducted on the hedonic ratings from the LHS and the 9-point scale gave similar results, but the LHS showed much greater resistance to ceiling effects and yielded normally distributed data, whereas the 9-point scale did not. These results indicate that the LHS has significant semantic, quantitative, and statistical advantages over the 9-point hedonic scale.

Towards semantically sensitive text clustering: a feature space modeling technology based on dimension extension.

PubMed

Liu, Yuanchao; Liu, Ming; Wang, Xin

2015-01-01

The objective of text clustering is to divide document collections into clusters based on the similarity between documents. In this paper, an extension-based feature modeling approach towards semantically sensitive text clustering is proposed along with the corresponding feature space construction and similarity computation method. By combining the similarity in traditional feature space and that in extension space, the adverse effects of the complexity and diversity of natural language can be addressed and clustering semantic sensitivity can be improved correspondingly. The generated clusters can be organized using different granularities. The experimental evaluations on well-known clustering algorithms and datasets have verified the effectiveness of our approach.

Towards Semantically Sensitive Text Clustering: A Feature Space Modeling Technology Based on Dimension Extension

PubMed Central

Liu, Yuanchao; Liu, Ming; Wang, Xin

2015-01-01

The objective of text clustering is to divide document collections into clusters based on the similarity between documents. In this paper, an extension-based feature modeling approach towards semantically sensitive text clustering is proposed along with the corresponding feature space construction and similarity computation method. By combining the similarity in traditional feature space and that in extension space, the adverse effects of the complexity and diversity of natural language can be addressed and clustering semantic sensitivity can be improved correspondingly. The generated clusters can be organized using different granularities. The experimental evaluations on well-known clustering algorithms and datasets have verified the effectiveness of our approach. PMID:25794172

Supervised Semantic Classification for Nuclear Proliferation Monitoring

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

Vatsavai, Raju; Cheriyadat, Anil M; Gleason, Shaun Scott

2010-01-01

Existing feature extraction and classification approaches are not suitable for monitoring proliferation activity using high-resolution multi-temporal remote sensing imagery. In this paper we present a supervised semantic labeling framework based on the Latent Dirichlet Allocation method. This framework is used to analyze over 120 images collected under different spatial and temporal settings over the globe representing three major semantic categories: airports, nuclear, and coal power plants. Initial experimental results show a reasonable discrimination of these three categories even though coal and nuclear images share highly common and overlapping objects. This research also identified several research challenges associated with nuclear proliferationmore » monitoring using high resolution remote sensing images.« less

Towards comprehensive syntactic and semantic annotations of the clinical narrative

PubMed Central

Albright, Daniel; Lanfranchi, Arrick; Fredriksen, Anwen; Styler, William F; Warner, Colin; Hwang, Jena D; Choi, Jinho D; Dligach, Dmitriy; Nielsen, Rodney D; Martin, James; Ward, Wayne; Palmer, Martha; Savova, Guergana K

2013-01-01

Objective To create annotated clinical narratives with layers of syntactic and semantic labels to facilitate advances in clinical natural language processing (NLP). To develop NLP algorithms and open source components. Methods Manual annotation of a clinical narrative corpus of 127 606 tokens following the Treebank schema for syntactic information, PropBank schema for predicate-argument structures, and the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) schema for semantic information. NLP components were developed. Results The final corpus consists of 13 091 sentences containing 1772 distinct predicate lemmas. Of the 766 newly created PropBank frames, 74 are verbs. There are 28 539 named entity (NE) annotations spread over 15 UMLS semantic groups, one UMLS semantic type, and the Person semantic category. The most frequent annotations belong to the UMLS semantic groups of Procedures (15.71%), Disorders (14.74%), Concepts and Ideas (15.10%), Anatomy (12.80%), Chemicals and Drugs (7.49%), and the UMLS semantic type of Sign or Symptom (12.46%). Inter-annotator agreement results: Treebank (0.926), PropBank (0.891–0.931), NE (0.697–0.750). The part-of-speech tagger, constituency parser, dependency parser, and semantic role labeler are built from the corpus and released open source. A significant limitation uncovered by this project is the need for the NLP community to develop a widely agreed-upon schema for the annotation of clinical concepts and their relations. Conclusions This project takes a foundational step towards bringing the field of clinical NLP up to par with NLP in the general domain. The corpus creation and NLP components provide a resource for research and application development that would have been previously impossible. PMID:23355458

Learning Shape Descriptions: Generating and Generalizing Models of Visual Objects.

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-09-01

Minsky , Marvin and Seymour Papert, [1969], Perceptrons, MIT Press, Cam- bridge, Ma. Mitchell, T. M., [1978], "Version spaces: A candidiate elimination...with respect to a suitable set of affine transformations. This is one area in which classic perceptrons fall short [ Minsky and Papert 19691. The third...Quillian, M. Ross, [1968], "Semantic Memory" (PhD Thesis), in Semantic Infor- mation Processing, M. Minsky (ed.), MIT Press, Cambridge MA. Schlesinger, G

Multivariate Pattern Analysis Reveals Category-Related Organization of Semantic Representations in Anterior Temporal Cortex.

PubMed

Malone, Patrick S; Glezer, Laurie S; Kim, Judy; Jiang, Xiong; Riesenhuber, Maximilian

2016-09-28

The neural substrates of semantic representation have been the subject of much controversy. The study of semantic representations is complicated by difficulty in disentangling perceptual and semantic influences on neural activity, as well as in identifying stimulus-driven, "bottom-up" semantic selectivity unconfounded by top-down task-related modulations. To address these challenges, we trained human subjects to associate pseudowords (TPWs) with various animal and tool categories. To decode semantic representations of these TPWs, we used multivariate pattern classification of fMRI data acquired while subjects performed a semantic oddball detection task. Crucially, the classifier was trained and tested on disjoint sets of TPWs, so that the classifier had to use the semantic information from the training set to correctly classify the test set. Animal and tool TPWs were successfully decoded based on fMRI activity in spatially distinct subregions of the left medial anterior temporal lobe (LATL). In addition, tools (but not animals) were successfully decoded from activity in the left inferior parietal lobule. The tool-selective LATL subregion showed greater functional connectivity with left inferior parietal lobule and ventral premotor cortex, indicating that each LATL subregion exhibits distinct patterns of connectivity. Our findings demonstrate category-selective organization of semantic representations in LATL into spatially distinct subregions, continuing the lateral-medial segregation of activation in posterior temporal cortex previously observed in response to images of animals and tools, respectively. Together, our results provide evidence for segregation of processing hierarchies for different classes of objects and the existence of multiple, category-specific semantic networks in the brain. The location and specificity of semantic representations in the brain are still widely debated. We trained human participants to associate specific pseudowords with various animal and tool categories, and used multivariate pattern classification of fMRI data to decode the semantic representations of the trained pseudowords. We found that: (1) animal and tool information was organized in category-selective subregions of medial left anterior temporal lobe (LATL); (2) tools, but not animals, were encoded in left inferior parietal lobe; and (3) LATL subregions exhibited distinct patterns of functional connectivity with category-related regions across cortex. Our findings suggest that semantic knowledge in LATL is organized in category-related subregions, providing evidence for the existence of multiple, category-specific semantic representations in the brain. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/3610089-08$15.00/0.

Application of artifical intelligence principles to the analysis of "crazy" speech.

PubMed

Garfield, D A; Rapp, C

1994-04-01

Artificial intelligence computer simulation methods can be used to investigate psychotic or "crazy" speech. Here, symbolic reasoning algorithms establish semantic networks that schematize speech. These semantic networks consist of two main structures: case frames and object taxonomies. Node-based reasoning rules apply to object taxonomies and pathway-based reasoning rules apply to case frames. Normal listeners may recognize speech as "crazy talk" based on violations of node- and pathway-based reasoning rules. In this article, three separate segments of schizophrenic speech illustrate violations of these rules. This artificial intelligence approach is compared and contrasted with other neurolinguistic approaches and is discussed as a conceptual link between neurobiological and psychodynamic understandings of psychopathology.

Geospatial-temporal semantic graph representations of trajectories from remote sensing and geolocation data

DOEpatents

Perkins, David Nikolaus; Brost, Randolph; Ray, Lawrence P.

2017-08-08

Various technologies for facilitating analysis of large remote sensing and geolocation datasets to identify features of interest are described herein. A search query can be submitted to a computing system that executes searches over a geospatial temporal semantic (GTS) graph to identify features of interest. The GTS graph comprises nodes corresponding to objects described in the remote sensing and geolocation datasets, and edges that indicate geospatial or temporal relationships between pairs of nodes in the nodes. Trajectory information is encoded in the GTS graph by the inclusion of movable nodes to facilitate searches for features of interest in the datasets relative to moving objects such as vehicles.

Learning semantic and visual similarity for endomicroscopy video retrieval.

PubMed

Andre, Barbara; Vercauteren, Tom; Buchner, Anna M; Wallace, Michael B; Ayache, Nicholas

2012-06-01

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is a valuable computer vision technique which is increasingly being applied in the medical community for diagnosis support. However, traditional CBIR systems only deliver visual outputs, i.e., images having a similar appearance to the query, which is not directly interpretable by the physicians. Our objective is to provide a system for endomicroscopy video retrieval which delivers both visual and semantic outputs that are consistent with each other. In a previous study, we developed an adapted bag-of-visual-words method for endomicroscopy retrieval, called "Dense-Sift," that computes a visual signature for each video. In this paper, we present a novel approach to complement visual similarity learning with semantic knowledge extraction, in the field of in vivo endomicroscopy. We first leverage a semantic ground truth based on eight binary concepts, in order to transform these visual signatures into semantic signatures that reflect how much the presence of each semantic concept is expressed by the visual words describing the videos. Using cross-validation, we demonstrate that, in terms of semantic detection, our intuitive Fisher-based method transforming visual-word histograms into semantic estimations outperforms support vector machine (SVM) methods with statistical significance. In a second step, we propose to improve retrieval relevance by learning an adjusted similarity distance from a perceived similarity ground truth. As a result, our distance learning method allows to statistically improve the correlation with the perceived similarity. We also demonstrate that, in terms of perceived similarity, the recall performance of the semantic signatures is close to that of visual signatures and significantly better than those of several state-of-the-art CBIR methods. The semantic signatures are thus able to communicate high-level medical knowledge while being consistent with the low-level visual signatures and much shorter than them. In our resulting retrieval system, we decide to use visual signatures for perceived similarity learning and retrieval, and semantic signatures for the output of an additional information, expressed in the endoscopist own language, which provides a relevant semantic translation of the visual retrieval outputs.

Semantic diversity: a measure of semantic ambiguity based on variability in the contextual usage of words.

PubMed

Hoffman, Paul; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A; Rogers, Timothy T

2013-09-01

Semantic ambiguity is typically measured by summing the number of senses or dictionary definitions that a word has. Such measures are somewhat subjective and may not adequately capture the full extent of variation in word meaning, particularly for polysemous words that can be used in many different ways, with subtle shifts in meaning. Here, we describe an alternative, computationally derived measure of ambiguity based on the proposal that the meanings of words vary continuously as a function of their contexts. On this view, words that appear in a wide range of contexts on diverse topics are more variable in meaning than those that appear in a restricted set of similar contexts. To quantify this variation, we performed latent semantic analysis on a large text corpus to estimate the semantic similarities of different linguistic contexts. From these estimates, we calculated the degree to which the different contexts associated with a given word vary in their meanings. We term this quantity a word's semantic diversity (SemD). We suggest that this approach provides an objective way of quantifying the subtle, context-dependent variations in word meaning that are often present in language. We demonstrate that SemD is correlated with other measures of ambiguity and contextual variability, as well as with frequency and imageability. We also show that SemD is a strong predictor of performance in semantic judgments in healthy individuals and in patients with semantic deficits, accounting for unique variance beyond that of other predictors. SemD values for over 30,000 English words are provided as supplementary materials.

Fine-grained semantic categorization across the abstract and concrete domains.

PubMed

Ghio, Marta; Vaghi, Matilde Maria Serena; Tettamanti, Marco

2013-01-01

A consolidated approach to the study of the mental representation of word meanings has consisted in contrasting different domains of knowledge, broadly reflecting the abstract-concrete dichotomy. More fine-grained semantic distinctions have emerged in neuropsychological and cognitive neuroscience work, reflecting semantic category specificity, but almost exclusively within the concrete domain. Theoretical advances, particularly within the area of embodied cognition, have more recently put forward the idea that distributed neural representations tied to the kinds of experience maintained with the concepts' referents might distinguish conceptual meanings with a high degree of specificity, including those within the abstract domain. Here we report the results of two psycholinguistic rating studies incorporating such theoretical advances with two main objectives: first, to provide empirical evidence of fine-grained distinctions within both the abstract and the concrete semantic domains with respect to relevant psycholinguistic dimensions; second, to develop a carefully controlled linguistic stimulus set that may be used for auditory as well as visual neuroimaging studies focusing on the parametrization of the semantic space beyond the abstract-concrete dichotomy. Ninety-six participants rated a set of 210 sentences across pre-selected concrete (mouth, hand, or leg action-related) and abstract (mental state-, emotion-, mathematics-related) categories, with respect either to different semantic domain-related scales (rating study 1), or to concreteness, familiarity, and context availability (rating study 2). Inferential statistics and correspondence analyses highlighted distinguishing semantic and psycholinguistic traits for each of the pre-selected categories, indicating that a simple abstract-concrete dichotomy is not sufficient to account for the entire semantic variability within either domains.

Fine-Grained Semantic Categorization across the Abstract and Concrete Domains

PubMed Central

Tettamanti, Marco

2013-01-01

A consolidated approach to the study of the mental representation of word meanings has consisted in contrasting different domains of knowledge, broadly reflecting the abstract-concrete dichotomy. More fine-grained semantic distinctions have emerged in neuropsychological and cognitive neuroscience work, reflecting semantic category specificity, but almost exclusively within the concrete domain. Theoretical advances, particularly within the area of embodied cognition, have more recently put forward the idea that distributed neural representations tied to the kinds of experience maintained with the concepts' referents might distinguish conceptual meanings with a high degree of specificity, including those within the abstract domain. Here we report the results of two psycholinguistic rating studies incorporating such theoretical advances with two main objectives: first, to provide empirical evidence of fine-grained distinctions within both the abstract and the concrete semantic domains with respect to relevant psycholinguistic dimensions; second, to develop a carefully controlled linguistic stimulus set that may be used for auditory as well as visual neuroimaging studies focusing on the parametrization of the semantic space beyond the abstract-concrete dichotomy. Ninety-six participants rated a set of 210 sentences across pre-selected concrete (mouth, hand, or leg action-related) and abstract (mental state-, emotion-, mathematics-related) categories, with respect either to different semantic domain-related scales (rating study 1), or to concreteness, familiarity, and context availability (rating study 2). Inferential statistics and correspondence analyses highlighted distinguishing semantic and psycholinguistic traits for each of the pre-selected categories, indicating that a simple abstract-concrete dichotomy is not sufficient to account for the entire semantic variability within either domains. PMID:23825625

MDMA (Ecstasy) use is associated with reduced BOLD signal change during semantic recognition in abstinent human polydrug users: a preliminary fMRI study

PubMed Central

Raj, Vidya; Liang, Han-Chun; Woodward, Neil D.; Bauernfeind, Amy L.; Lee, Junghee; Dietrich, Mary; Park, Sohee; Cowan, Ronald L.

2011-01-01

Objectives MDMA users have impaired verbal memory, and voxel-based morphometry has demonstrated decreased gray matter in Brodmann area (BA) 18, 21 and 45. Because these regions play a role in verbal memory, we hypothesized that MDMA users would show altered brain activation in these areas during performance of an fMRI task that probed semantic verbal memory. Methods Polysubstance users enriched for MDMA exposure participated in a semantic memory encoding and recognition fMRI task that activated left BA 9, 18, 21/22 and 45. Primary outcomes were percent BOLD signal change in left BA 9, 18, 21/22 and 45, accuracy and response time. Results During semantic recognition, lifetime MDMA use was associated with decreased activation in left BA 9, 18 and 21/22 but not 45. This was partly influenced by contributions from cannabis and cocaine use. MDMA exposure was not associated with accuracy or response time during the semantic recognition task. Conclusions During semantic recognition, MDMA exposure is associated with reduced regional brain activation in regions mediating verbal memory. These findings partially overlap with prior structural evidence for reduced gray matter in MDMA users and may, in part, explain the consistent verbal memory impairments observed in other studies of MDMA users. PMID:19304866

Semantic Overlays in Educational Content Networks--The hylOs Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Engelhardt, Michael; Hildebrand, Arne; Lange, Dagmar; Schmidt, Thomas C.

2006-01-01

Purpose: The paper aims to introduce an educational content management system, Hypermedia Learning Objects System (hylOs), which is fully compliant to the IEEE LOM eLearning object metadata standard. Enabled through an advanced authoring toolset, hylOs allows the definition of instructional overlays of a given eLearning object mesh.…

Incidental and Context-Responsive Activation of Structure- and Function-Based Action Features during Object Identification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Chia-lin; Middleton, Erica; Mirman, Daniel; Kalenine, Solene; Buxbaum, Laurel J.

2013-01-01

Previous studies suggest that action representations are activated during object processing, even when task-irrelevant. In addition, there is evidence that lexical-semantic context may affect such activation during object processing. Finally, prior work from our laboratory and others indicates that function-based ("use") and structure-based…

The Effect of Grammatical Gender on Object Categorization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cubelli, Roberto; Paolieri, Daniela; Lotto, Lorella; Job, Remo

2011-01-01

In 3 experiments, we investigated the effect of grammatical gender on object categorization. Participants were asked to judge whether 2 objects, whose names did or did not share grammatical gender, belonged to the same semantic category by pressing a key. Monolingual speakers of English (Experiment 1), Italian (Experiments 1 and 2), and Spanish…

The ontology-based answers (OBA) service: a connector for embedded usage of ontologies in applications.

PubMed

Dönitz, Jürgen; Wingender, Edgar

2012-01-01

The semantic web depends on the use of ontologies to let electronic systems interpret contextual information. Optimally, the handling and access of ontologies should be completely transparent to the user. As a means to this end, we have developed a service that attempts to bridge the gap between experts in a certain knowledge domain, ontologists, and application developers. The ontology-based answers (OBA) service introduced here can be embedded into custom applications to grant access to the classes of ontologies and their relations as most important structural features as well as to information encoded in the relations between ontology classes. Thus computational biologists can benefit from ontologies without detailed knowledge about the respective ontology. The content of ontologies is mapped to a graph of connected objects which is compatible to the object-oriented programming style in Java. Semantic functions implement knowledge about the complex semantics of an ontology beyond the class hierarchy and "partOf" relations. By using these OBA functions an application can, for example, provide a semantic search function, or (in the examples outlined) map an anatomical structure to the organs it belongs to. The semantic functions relieve the application developer from the necessity of acquiring in-depth knowledge about the semantics and curation guidelines of the used ontologies by implementing the required knowledge. The architecture of the OBA service encapsulates the logic to process ontologies in order to achieve a separation from the application logic. A public server with the current plugins is available and can be used with the provided connector in a custom application in scenarios analogous to the presented use cases. The server and the client are freely available if a project requires the use of custom plugins or non-public ontologies. The OBA service and further documentation is available at http://www.bioinf.med.uni-goettingen.de/projects/oba.

The ontology-based answers (OBA) service: a connector for embedded usage of ontologies in applications

PubMed Central

Dönitz, Jürgen; Wingender, Edgar

2012-01-01

The semantic web depends on the use of ontologies to let electronic systems interpret contextual information. Optimally, the handling and access of ontologies should be completely transparent to the user. As a means to this end, we have developed a service that attempts to bridge the gap between experts in a certain knowledge domain, ontologists, and application developers. The ontology-based answers (OBA) service introduced here can be embedded into custom applications to grant access to the classes of ontologies and their relations as most important structural features as well as to information encoded in the relations between ontology classes. Thus computational biologists can benefit from ontologies without detailed knowledge about the respective ontology. The content of ontologies is mapped to a graph of connected objects which is compatible to the object-oriented programming style in Java. Semantic functions implement knowledge about the complex semantics of an ontology beyond the class hierarchy and “partOf” relations. By using these OBA functions an application can, for example, provide a semantic search function, or (in the examples outlined) map an anatomical structure to the organs it belongs to. The semantic functions relieve the application developer from the necessity of acquiring in-depth knowledge about the semantics and curation guidelines of the used ontologies by implementing the required knowledge. The architecture of the OBA service encapsulates the logic to process ontologies in order to achieve a separation from the application logic. A public server with the current plugins is available and can be used with the provided connector in a custom application in scenarios analogous to the presented use cases. The server and the client are freely available if a project requires the use of custom plugins or non-public ontologies. The OBA service and further documentation is available at http://www.bioinf.med.uni-goettingen.de/projects/oba PMID:23060901

A Study on the Difficulties of Learning Phase Transition in Object-Oriented Analysis and Design from the Viewpoint of Semantic Distance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shin, Shin-Shing

2015-01-01

Students in object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) courses typically encounter difficulties transitioning from object-oriented analysis (OOA) to logical design (OOLD). This study conducted an empirical experiment to examine these learning difficulties by evaluating differences between OOA-to-OOLD and OOLD-to-object-oriented-physical-design…

Objects, Events and "to Be" Verbs in Spanish--An ERP Study of the Syntax-Semantics Interface

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leone-Fernandez, Barbara; Molinaro, Nicola; Carreiras, Manuel; Barber, Horacio A.

2012-01-01

In Spanish, objects and events at subject position constrain the selection of different forms of the auxiliary verb "to be": locative predicates about objects require "estar en", while those relating to events require "ser en", both translatable as "to be in". Subjective ratings showed that while the "object + ser + en" is considered as incorrect,…

A PDP model of the simultaneous perception of multiple objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henderson, Cynthia M.; McClelland, James L.

2011-06-01

Illusory conjunctions in normal and simultanagnosic subjects are two instances where the visual features of multiple objects are incorrectly 'bound' together. A connectionist model explores how multiple objects could be perceived correctly in normal subjects given sufficient time, but could give rise to illusory conjunctions with damage or time pressure. In this model, perception of two objects benefits from lateral connections between hidden layers modelling aspects of the ventral and dorsal visual pathways. As with simultanagnosia, simulations of dorsal lesions impair multi-object recognition. In contrast, a large ventral lesion has minimal effect on dorsal functioning, akin to dissociations between simple object manipulation (retained in visual form agnosia and semantic dementia) and object discrimination (impaired in these disorders) [Hodges, J.R., Bozeat, S., Lambon Ralph, M.A., Patterson, K., and Spatt, J. (2000), 'The Role of Conceptual Knowledge: Evidence from Semantic Dementia', Brain, 123, 1913-1925; Milner, A.D., and Goodale, M.A. (2006), The Visual Brain in Action (2nd ed.), New York: Oxford]. It is hoped that the functioning of this model might suggest potential processes underlying dorsal and ventral contributions to the correct perception of multiple objects.

A brain-based account of “basic-level” concepts

PubMed Central

Bauer, Andrew James; Just, Marcel Adam

2017-01-01

This study provides a brain-based account of how object concepts at an intermediate (basic) level of specificity are represented, offering an enriched view of what it means for a concept to be a basic-level concept, a research topic pioneered by Rosch and others (Rosch et al., 1976). Applying machine learning techniques to fMRI data, it was possible to determine the semantic content encoded in the neural representations of object concepts at basic and subordinate levels of abstraction. The representation of basic-level concepts (e.g. bird) was spatially broad, encompassing sensorimotor brain areas that encode concrete object properties, and also language and heteromodal integrative areas that encode abstract semantic content. The representation of subordinate-level concepts (robin) was less widely distributed, concentrated in perceptual areas that underlie concrete content. Furthermore, basic-level concepts were representative of their subordinates in that they were neurally similar to their typical but not atypical subordinates (bird was neurally similar to robin but not woodpecker). The findings provide a brain-based account of the advantages that basic-level concepts enjoy in everyday life over subordinate-level concepts: the basic level is a broad topographical representation that encompasses both concrete and abstract semantic content, reflecting the multifaceted yet intuitive meaning of basic-level concepts. PMID:28826947

The Effect of Consistency on Short-Term Memory for Scenes.

PubMed

Gong, Mingliang; Xuan, Yuming; Xu, Xinwen; Fu, Xiaolan

2017-01-01

Which is more detectable, the change of a consistent or an inconsistent object in a scene? This question has been debated for decades. We noted that the change of objects in scenes might simultaneously be accompanied with gist changes. In the present study we aimed to examine how the alteration of gist, as well as the consistency of the changed objects, modulated change detection. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the semantic content by either keeping or changing the consistency of the scene. Results showed that the changes of consistent and inconsistent scenes were equally detected. More importantly, the changes were more accurately detected when scene consistency changed than when the consistency remained unchanged, regardless of the consistency of the memory scenes. A phase-scrambled version of stimuli was adopted in Experiment 2 to decouple the possible confounding effect of low-level factors. The results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that the effect found in Experiment 1 was indeed due to the change of high-level semantic consistency rather than the change of low-level physical features. Together, the study suggests that the change of consistency plays an important role in scene short-term memory, which might be attributed to the sensitivity to the change of semantic content.

The Effect of Consistency on Short-Term Memory for Scenes

PubMed Central

Gong, Mingliang; Xuan, Yuming; Xu, Xinwen; Fu, Xiaolan

2017-01-01

Which is more detectable, the change of a consistent or an inconsistent object in a scene? This question has been debated for decades. We noted that the change of objects in scenes might simultaneously be accompanied with gist changes. In the present study we aimed to examine how the alteration of gist, as well as the consistency of the changed objects, modulated change detection. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the semantic content by either keeping or changing the consistency of the scene. Results showed that the changes of consistent and inconsistent scenes were equally detected. More importantly, the changes were more accurately detected when scene consistency changed than when the consistency remained unchanged, regardless of the consistency of the memory scenes. A phase-scrambled version of stimuli was adopted in Experiment 2 to decouple the possible confounding effect of low-level factors. The results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that the effect found in Experiment 1 was indeed due to the change of high-level semantic consistency rather than the change of low-level physical features. Together, the study suggests that the change of consistency plays an important role in scene short-term memory, which might be attributed to the sensitivity to the change of semantic content. PMID:29046654

A brain-based account of "basic-level" concepts.

PubMed

Bauer, Andrew James; Just, Marcel Adam

2017-11-01

This study provides a brain-based account of how object concepts at an intermediate (basic) level of specificity are represented, offering an enriched view of what it means for a concept to be a basic-level concept, a research topic pioneered by Rosch and others (Rosch et al., 1976). Applying machine learning techniques to fMRI data, it was possible to determine the semantic content encoded in the neural representations of object concepts at basic and subordinate levels of abstraction. The representation of basic-level concepts (e.g. bird) was spatially broad, encompassing sensorimotor brain areas that encode concrete object properties, and also language and heteromodal integrative areas that encode abstract semantic content. The representation of subordinate-level concepts (robin) was less widely distributed, concentrated in perceptual areas that underlie concrete content. Furthermore, basic-level concepts were representative of their subordinates in that they were neurally similar to their typical but not atypical subordinates (bird was neurally similar to robin but not woodpecker). The findings provide a brain-based account of the advantages that basic-level concepts enjoy in everyday life over subordinate-level concepts: the basic level is a broad topographical representation that encompasses both concrete and abstract semantic content, reflecting the multifaceted yet intuitive meaning of basic-level concepts. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sleep Benefits Memory for Semantic Category Structure While Preserving Exemplar-Specific Information.

PubMed

Schapiro, Anna C; McDevitt, Elizabeth A; Chen, Lang; Norman, Kenneth A; Mednick, Sara C; Rogers, Timothy T

2017-11-01

Semantic memory encompasses knowledge about both the properties that typify concepts (e.g. robins, like all birds, have wings) as well as the properties that individuate conceptually related items (e.g. robins, in particular, have red breasts). We investigate the impact of sleep on new semantic learning using a property inference task in which both kinds of information are initially acquired equally well. Participants learned about three categories of novel objects possessing some properties that were shared among category exemplars and others that were unique to an exemplar, with exposure frequency varying across categories. In Experiment 1, memory for shared properties improved and memory for unique properties was preserved across a night of sleep, while memory for both feature types declined over a day awake. In Experiment 2, memory for shared properties improved across a nap, but only for the lower-frequency category, suggesting a prioritization of weakly learned information early in a sleep period. The increase was significantly correlated with amount of REM, but was also observed in participants who did not enter REM, suggesting involvement of both REM and NREM sleep. The results provide the first evidence that sleep improves memory for the shared structure of object categories, while simultaneously preserving object-unique information.

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 Graph-Based Recovery and Decomposition of Swanson’s Hypothesis using Semantic Predications

PubMed Central

Cameron, Delroy; Bodenreider, Olivier; Yalamanchili, Hima; Danh, Tu; Vallabhaneni, Sreeram; Thirunarayan, Krishnaprasad; Sheth, Amit P.; Rindflesch, Thomas C.

2014-01-01

Objectives This paper presents a methodology for recovering and decomposing Swanson’s Raynaud Syndrome–Fish Oil Hypothesis semi-automatically. The methodology leverages the semantics of assertions extracted from biomedical literature (called semantic predications) along with structured background knowledge and graph-based algorithms to semi-automatically capture the informative associations originally discovered manually by Swanson. Demonstrating that Swanson’s manually intensive techniques can be undertaken semi-automatically, paves the way for fully automatic semantics-based hypothesis generation from scientific literature. Methods Semantic predications obtained from biomedical literature allow the construction of labeled directed graphs which contain various associations among concepts from the literature. By aggregating such associations into informative subgraphs, some of the relevant details originally articulated by Swanson has been uncovered. However, by leveraging background knowledge to bridge important knowledge gaps in the literature, a methodology for semi-automatically capturing the detailed associations originally explicated in natural language by Swanson has been developed. Results Our methodology not only recovered the 3 associations commonly recognized as Swanson’s Hypothesis, but also decomposed them into an additional 16 detailed associations, formulated as chains of semantic predications. Altogether, 14 out of the 19 associations that can be attributed to Swanson were retrieved using our approach. To the best of our knowledge, such an in-depth recovery and decomposition of Swanson’s Hypothesis has never been attempted. Conclusion In this work therefore, we presented a methodology for semi- automatically recovering and decomposing Swanson’s RS-DFO Hypothesis using semantic representations and graph algorithms. Our methodology provides new insights into potential prerequisites for semantics-driven Literature-Based Discovery (LBD). These suggest that three critical aspects of LBD include: 1) the need for more expressive representations beyond Swanson’s ABC model; 2) an ability to accurately extract semantic information from text; and 3) the semantic integration of scientific literature with structured background knowledge. PMID:23026233

Semi-automated ontology generation and evolution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stirtzinger, Anthony P.; Anken, Craig S.

2009-05-01

Extending the notion of data models or object models, ontology can provide rich semantic definition not only to the meta-data but also to the instance data of domain knowledge, making these semantic definitions available in machine readable form. However, the generation of an effective ontology is a difficult task involving considerable labor and skill. This paper discusses an Ontology Generation and Evolution Processor (OGEP) aimed at automating this process, only requesting user input when un-resolvable ambiguous situations occur. OGEP directly attacks the main barrier which prevents automated (or self learning) ontology generation: the ability to understand the meaning of artifacts and the relationships the artifacts have to the domain space. OGEP leverages existing lexical to ontological mappings in the form of WordNet, and Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO) integrated with a semantic pattern-based structure referred to as the Semantic Grounding Mechanism (SGM) and implemented as a Corpus Reasoner. The OGEP processing is initiated by a Corpus Parser performing a lexical analysis of the corpus, reading in a document (or corpus) and preparing it for processing by annotating words and phrases. After the Corpus Parser is done, the Corpus Reasoner uses the parts of speech output to determine the semantic meaning of a word or phrase. The Corpus Reasoner is the crux of the OGEP system, analyzing, extrapolating, and evolving data from free text into cohesive semantic relationships. The Semantic Grounding Mechanism provides a basis for identifying and mapping semantic relationships. By blending together the WordNet lexicon and SUMO ontological layout, the SGM is given breadth and depth in its ability to extrapolate semantic relationships between domain entities. The combination of all these components results in an innovative approach to user assisted semantic-based ontology generation. This paper will describe the OGEP technology in the context of the architectural components referenced above and identify a potential technology transition path to Scott AFB's Tanker Airlift Control Center (TACC) which serves as the Air Operations Center (AOC) for the Air Mobility Command (AMC).

Schematic representations of local environmental space guide goal-directed navigation

PubMed Central

Marchette, Steven A.; Ryan, Jack; Epstein, Russell A.

2016-01-01

To successfully navigate to a target, it is useful to be able to define its location at multiple levels of specificity. For example, the location of a favorite coffee mug can be described in terms of which room it is in, or in terms of where it is within the room. An appealing hypothesis is that these levels of description are retrieved from memory by accessing the same representation at progressively finer levels of granularity—first remembering the general location of an object and then “zooming in.” Here we provide evidence for an alternative view, in which navigational behavior is guided by independent representations at multiple spatial scales. Subjects learned the locations of objects that were positioned within four visually distinct but geometrically similar buildings, which were in turn positioned within a broader virtual park. They were then tested on their knowledge of object location by asking them to navigate to the remembered location of each object. We examined errors during the test phase for confusions among geometrically analogous locations in different buildings—that is, navigating to the right location in the wrong building. We observed that subjects frequently made these confusions, which are analogous to remembering a passage’s location on the page of a book but not remembering the page that the passage is on. This suggests that subjects were recalling the object’s local location without recalling its global location. Further manipulations across seven experiments indicated that geometric confusions were observed even between buildings that were not metrically identical as long as geometrical equivalence could be defined. However, removing the walls so that the larger environment was no longer divided into subspaces abolished these errors. Taken together, our results suggest that human spatial memory contains two separable representations of “where” an object can be found: (i) a schematic map of where an object lies with respect to local landmarks and boundaries; (ii) a representation of the identity and location of each local environment. PMID:27814459

Les Interferences Semantiques Dans Les Oeuvres D'ahmadou Kourouma et De Mongo Beti: Essai D'etude Comparative [Semantic Interference in the Works of Ahmadou Kourouma and Mongo Beti: Test Comparative Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tadoum, Jean Paul

2012-01-01

This dissertation focuses on the works of two well-known African Francophone novelists, Ahmadou Kourouma from the Ivory Coast and Mongo Beti from Cameroon. The objective of this study is to look at the influences of African oral traditions and analyze the literary transposition of semantic structures from African languages and cultures into the…

Comparing source-based and gist-based false recognition in aging and Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Pierce, Benton H; Sullivan, Alison L; Schacter, Daniel L; Budson, Andrew E

2005-07-01

This study examined 2 factors contributing to false recognition of semantic associates: errors based on confusion of source and errors based on general similarity information or gist. The authors investigated these errors in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), age-matched control participants, and younger adults, focusing on each group's ability to use recollection of source information to suppress false recognition. The authors used a paradigm consisting of both deep and shallow incidental encoding tasks, followed by study of a series of categorized lists in which several typical exemplars were omitted. Results showed that healthy older adults were able to use recollection from the deep processing task to some extent but less than that used by younger adults. In contrast, false recognition in AD patients actually increased following the deep processing task, suggesting that they were unable to use recollection to oppose familiarity arising from incidental presentation. (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved.

Subluxation and semantics: a corpus linguistics study.

PubMed

Budgell, Brian

2016-06-01

The purpose of this study was to analyze the curriculum of one chiropractic college in order to discover if there were any implicit consensus definitions of the term subluxation. Using the software WordSmith Tools, the corpus of an undergraduate chiropractic curriculum was analyzed by reviewing collocated terms and through discourse analysis of text blocks containing words based on the root 'sublux.' It was possible to identify 3 distinct concepts which were each referred to as 'subluxation:' i) an acute or instantaneous injurious event; ii) a clinical syndrome which manifested post-injury; iii) a physical lesion, i.e. an anatomical or physiological derangement which in most instances acted as a pain generator. In fact, coherent implicit definitions of subluxation exist and may enjoy broad but subconscious acceptance. However, confusion likely arises from failure to distinguish which concept an author or speaker is referring to when they employ the term subluxation.

Insecticide-induced hormesis and arthropod pest management.

PubMed

Guedes, Raul Narciso C; Cutler, G Christopher

2014-05-01

Ecological backlashes such as insecticide resistance, resurgence and secondary pest outbreaks are frequent problems associated with insecticide use against arthropod pest species. The last two have been particularly important in sparking interest in the phenomenon of insecticide-induced hormesis within entomology and acarology. Hormesis describes a biphasic dose-response relationship that is characterized by a reversal of response between low and high doses of a stressor (e.g. insecticides). Although the concept of insecticide-induced hormesis often does not receive sufficient attention, or has been subject to semantic confusion, it has been reported in many arthropod pest species and natural enemies, and has been linked to pest outbreaks and potential problems with insecticide resistance. The study of hormesis remains largely neglected in entomology and acarology. Here, we examined the concept of insecticide-induced hormesis in arthropods, its functional basis and potential fitness consequences, and its importance in arthropod pest management and other areas. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry.

The role of medial temporal lobe in retrieving spatial and nonspatial relations from episodic and semantic memory.

PubMed

Ryan, Lee; Lin, Chun-Yu; Ketcham, Katie; Nadel, Lynn

2010-01-01

This study examined the involvement of medial temporal lobe, especially the hippocampus, in processing spatial and nonspatial relations using episodic and semantic versions of a relational judgment task. Participants studied object arrays and were tested on different types of relations between pairs of objects. Three prevalent views of hippocampal function were considered. Cognitive map theory (O'Keefe and Nadel (1978) The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map. USA: Oxford University Press) emphasizes hippocampal involvement in spatial relational tasks. Multiple trace theory (Nadel and Moscovitch (1997) Memory consolidation, retrograde amnesia and the hippocampal complex Curr Opin Neurobiol 7:217-227) emphasizes hippocampal involvement in episodic tasks. Eichenbaum and Cohen's ((2001) From Conditioning to Conscious Recollection: Memory Systems of the Brain. USA: Oxford University Press) relational theory predicts equivalent hippocampal involvement in all relational tasks within both semantic and episodic memory. The fMRI results provided partial support for all three theories, though none of them fit the data perfectly. We observed hippocampal activation during all relational tasks, with increased activation for spatial compared to nonspatial relations, and for episodic compared to semantic relations. The placement of activation along the anterior-posterior axis of the hippocampus also differentiated the conditions. We suggest a view of hippocampal function in memory that incorporates aspects of all three theories. Copyright 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The eyes reveal uncertainty about object distinctions in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia.

PubMed

Faria, Andreia V; Race, David; Kim, Kevin; Hillis, Argye E

2018-06-01

At least three distinct variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) have been described, but they are difficult to distinguish early in the course, when individuals experience primarily anomia. People with svPPA are often the hardest to care for, because they have impaired comprehension of words and objects and often have negative changes in comportment. We sought to identify an early marker of semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) and to enhance the understanding of the semantic deficit in svPPA. We hypothesized that the pattern of eye tracking in a word picture matching task can differentiate svPPA from other variants and can predict which participants with unclassifiable PPA will progress to svPPA. We tested 19 individuals with PPA on a word picture matching task with eye tracking. We found that individuals with svPPA were less accurate than other variants when the foils were semantic coordinates (horse-cow) or schematically related (horse-saddle), but not when they were thematically related (saw-horse) or unrelated. Moreover, even in the condition in which they were highly accurate (unrelated foils) they looked much more often to the foils and for longer, than other variants or controls. Unclassifiable PPA participants who eventually developed svPPA showed the same pattern. This abnormal pattern was associated with atrophy in bilateral temporal poles. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Using the Semantic Web for Rapid Integration of WikiPathways with Other Biological Online Data Resources

PubMed Central

Waagmeester, Andra; Pico, Alexander R.

2016-01-01

The diversity of online resources storing biological data in different formats provides a challenge for bioinformaticians to integrate and analyse their biological data. The semantic web provides a standard to facilitate knowledge integration using statements built as triples describing a relation between two objects. WikiPathways, an online collaborative pathway resource, is now available in the semantic web through a SPARQL endpoint at http://sparql.wikipathways.org. Having biological pathways in the semantic web allows rapid integration with data from other resources that contain information about elements present in pathways using SPARQL queries. In order to convert WikiPathways content into meaningful triples we developed two new vocabularies that capture the graphical representation and the pathway logic, respectively. Each gene, protein, and metabolite in a given pathway is defined with a standard set of identifiers to support linking to several other biological resources in the semantic web. WikiPathways triples were loaded into the Open PHACTS discovery platform and are available through its Web API (https://dev.openphacts.org/docs) to be used in various tools for drug development. We combined various semantic web resources with the newly converted WikiPathways content using a variety of SPARQL query types and third-party resources, such as the Open PHACTS API. The ability to use pathway information to form new links across diverse biological data highlights the utility of integrating WikiPathways in the semantic web. PMID:27336457

Convergence of Health Level Seven Version 2 Messages to Semantic Web Technologies for Software-Intensive Systems in Telemedicine Trauma Care

PubMed Central

Cook, Timothy Wayne; Cavalini, Luciana Tricai

2016-01-01

Objectives To present the technical background and the development of a procedure that enriches the semantics of Health Level Seven version 2 (HL7v2) messages for software-intensive systems in telemedicine trauma care. Methods This study followed a multilevel model-driven approach for the development of semantically interoperable health information systems. The Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) ABCDE protocol was adopted as the use case. A prototype application embedded the semantics into an HL7v2 message as an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) file, which was validated against an XML schema that defines constraints on a common reference model. This message was exchanged with a second prototype application, developed on the Mirth middleware, which was also used to parse and validate both the original and the hybrid messages. Results Both versions of the data instance (one pure XML, one embedded in the HL7v2 message) were equally validated and the RDF-based semantics recovered by the receiving side of the prototype from the shared XML schema. Conclusions This study demonstrated the semantic enrichment of HL7v2 messages for intensive-software telemedicine systems for trauma care, by validating components of extracts generated in various computing environments. The adoption of the method proposed in this study ensures the compliance of the HL7v2 standard in Semantic Web technologies. PMID:26893947

Performance comparison of quantitative semantic features and lung-RADS in the National Lung Screening Trial

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Qian; Balagurunathan, Yoganand; Liu, Ying; Schabath, Matthew; Gillies, Robert J.

2016-03-01

Background: Lung-RADS is the new oncology classification guideline proposed by American College of Radiology (ACR), which provides recommendation for further follow up in lung cancer screening. However, only two features (solidity and size) are included in this system. We hypothesize that additional sematic features can be used to better characterize lung nodules and diagnose cancer. Objective: We propose to develop and characterize a systematic methodology based on semantic image traits to more accurately predict occurrence of cancerous nodules. Methods: 24 radiological image traits were systematically scored on a point scale (up to 5) by a trained radiologist, and lung-RADS was independently scored. A linear discriminant model was used on the semantic features to access their performance in predicting cancer status. The semantic predictors were then compared to lung-RADS classification in 199 patients (60 cancers, 139 normal controls) obtained from the National Lung Screening Trial. Result: There were different combinations of semantic features that were strong predictors of cancer status. Of these, contour, border definition, size, solidity, focal emphysema, focal fibrosis and location emerged as top candidates. The performance of two semantic features (short axial diameter and contour) had an AUC of 0.945, and was comparable to that of lung-RADS (AUC: 0.871). Conclusion: We propose that a semantics-based discrimination approach may act as a complement to the lung-RADS to predict cancer status.

Using the Semantic Web for Rapid Integration of WikiPathways with Other Biological Online Data Resources.

PubMed

Waagmeester, Andra; Kutmon, Martina; Riutta, Anders; Miller, Ryan; Willighagen, Egon L; Evelo, Chris T; Pico, Alexander R

2016-06-01

The diversity of online resources storing biological data in different formats provides a challenge for bioinformaticians to integrate and analyse their biological data. The semantic web provides a standard to facilitate knowledge integration using statements built as triples describing a relation between two objects. WikiPathways, an online collaborative pathway resource, is now available in the semantic web through a SPARQL endpoint at http://sparql.wikipathways.org. Having biological pathways in the semantic web allows rapid integration with data from other resources that contain information about elements present in pathways using SPARQL queries. In order to convert WikiPathways content into meaningful triples we developed two new vocabularies that capture the graphical representation and the pathway logic, respectively. Each gene, protein, and metabolite in a given pathway is defined with a standard set of identifiers to support linking to several other biological resources in the semantic web. WikiPathways triples were loaded into the Open PHACTS discovery platform and are available through its Web API (https://dev.openphacts.org/docs) to be used in various tools for drug development. We combined various semantic web resources with the newly converted WikiPathways content using a variety of SPARQL query types and third-party resources, such as the Open PHACTS API. The ability to use pathway information to form new links across diverse biological data highlights the utility of integrating WikiPathways in the semantic web.

Towards a Framework for Developing Semantic Relatedness Reference Standards

PubMed Central

Pakhomov, Serguei V.S.; Pedersen, Ted; McInnes, Bridget; Melton, Genevieve B.; Ruggieri, Alexander; Chute, Christopher G.

2010-01-01

Our objective is to develop a framework for creating reference standards for functional testing of computerized measures of semantic relatedness. Currently, research on computerized approaches to semantic relatedness between biomedical concepts relies on reference standards created for specific purposes using a variety of methods for their analysis. In most cases, these reference standards are not publicly available and the published information provided in manuscripts that evaluate computerized semantic relatedness measurement approaches is not sufficient to reproduce the results. Our proposed framework is based on the experiences of medical informatics and computational linguistics communities and addresses practical and theoretical issues with creating reference standards for semantic relatedness. We demonstrate the use of the framework on a pilot set of 101 medical term pairs rated for semantic relatedness by 13 medical coding experts. While the reliability of this particular reference standard is in the “moderate” range; we show that using clustering and factor analyses offers a data-driven approach to finding systematic differences among raters and identifying groups of potential outliers. We test two ontology-based measures of relatedness and provide both the reference standard containing individual ratings and the R program used to analyze the ratings as open-source. Currently, these resources are intended to be used to reproduce and compare results of studies involving computerized measures of semantic relatedness. Our framework may be extended to the development of reference standards in other research areas in medical informatics including automatic classification, information retrieval from medical records and vocabulary/ontology development. PMID:21044697

On the Antecedents of an Electrophysiological Signature of Retrieval Mode.

PubMed

Williams, Angharad N; Evans, Lisa H; Herron, Jane E; Wilding, Edward L

2016-01-01

It has been proposed that people employ a common set of sustained operations (retrieval mode) when preparing to remember different kinds of episodic information. In two experiments, however, there was no evidence for the pattern of brain activity commonly assumed to index these operations. In both experiments event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded time-locked to alternating preparatory cues signalling that participants should prepare for different retrieval tasks. One cue signalled episodic retrieval: remember the location where the object was presented in a prior study phase. The other signalled semantic retrieval: identify the location where the object is most commonly found (Experiment 1) or identify the typical size of the object (Experiment 2). In both experiments, only two trials of the same task were completed in succession. This enabled ERP contrasts between 'repeat' trials (the cue on the preceding trial signalled the same retrieval task), and 'switch' trials (the cue differed from the preceding trial). There were differences between the ERPs elicited by the preparatory task cues in Experiment 1 only: these were evident only on switch trials and comprised more positive-going activity over right-frontal scalp for the semantic than for the episodic task. These findings diverge from previous outcomes where the activity differentiating cues signalling preparation for episodic or semantic retrieval has been restricted to right-frontal scalp sites, comprising more positive-going activity for the episodic than for the semantic task. While these findings are consistent with the view that there is not a common set of operations engaged when people prepare to remember different kinds of episodic information, an alternative account is offered here, which is that these outcomes are a consequence of structural and temporal components of the experiment designs.

Visual naming deficits in dyslexia: An ERP investigation of different processing domains.

PubMed

Araújo, Susana; Faísca, Luís; Reis, Alexandra; Marques, J Frederico; Petersson, Karl Magnus

2016-10-01

Naming speed deficits are well documented in developmental dyslexia, expressed by slower naming times and more errors in response to familiar items. Here we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine at what processing level the deficits in dyslexia emerge during a discrete-naming task. Dyslexic and skilled adult control readers performed a primed object-naming task, in which the relationship between the prime and the target was manipulated along perceptual, semantic and phonological dimensions. A 3×2 design that crossed Relationship Type (Visual, Phonemic Onset, and Semantic) with Relatedness (Related and Unrelated) was used. An attenuated N/P190 - indexing early visual processing - and N300 - which index late visual processing - was observed to pictures preceded by perceptually related (vs. unrelated) primes in the control but not in the dyslexic group. These findings suggest suboptimal processing in early stages of object processing in dyslexia, when integration and mapping of perceptual information to a more form-specific percept in memory take place. On the other hand, both groups showed an N400 effect associated with semantically related pictures (vs. unrelated), taken to reflect intact integration of semantic similarities in both dyslexic and control readers. We also found an electrophysiological effect of phonological priming in the N400 range - that is, an attenuated N400 to objects preceded by phonemic related primes vs. unrelated - while it showed a more widespread distributed and more pronounced over the right hemisphere in the dyslexics. Topographic differences between groups might have originated from a word form encoding process with different characteristics in dyslexics compared to control readers. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Concept Representation Reflects Multimodal Abstraction: A Framework for Embodied Semantics

PubMed Central

Fernandino, Leonardo; Binder, Jeffrey R.; Desai, Rutvik H.; Pendl, Suzanne L.; Humphries, Colin J.; Gross, William L.; Conant, Lisa L.; Seidenberg, Mark S.

2016-01-01

Recent research indicates that sensory and motor cortical areas play a significant role in the neural representation of concepts. However, little is known about the overall architecture of this representational system, including the role played by higher level areas that integrate different types of sensory and motor information. The present study addressed this issue by investigating the simultaneous contributions of multiple sensory-motor modalities to semantic word processing. With a multivariate fMRI design, we examined activation associated with 5 sensory-motor attributes—color, shape, visual motion, sound, and manipulation—for 900 words. Regions responsive to each attribute were identified using independent ratings of the attributes' relevance to the meaning of each word. The results indicate that these aspects of conceptual knowledge are encoded in multimodal and higher level unimodal areas involved in processing the corresponding types of information during perception and action, in agreement with embodied theories of semantics. They also reveal a hierarchical system of abstracted sensory-motor representations incorporating a major division between object interaction and object perception processes. PMID:25750259

Resolving Conflicts Between Syntax and Plausibility in Sentence Comprehension

PubMed Central

Andrews, Glenda; Ogden, Jessica E.; Halford, Graeme S.

2017-01-01

Comprehension of plausible and implausible object- and subject-relative clause sentences with and without prepositional phrases was examined. Undergraduates read each sentence then evaluated a statement as consistent or inconsistent with the sentence. Higher acceptance of consistent than inconsistent statements indicated reliance on syntactic analysis. Higher acceptance of plausible than implausible statements reflected reliance on semantic plausibility. There was greater reliance on semantic plausibility and lesser reliance on syntactic analysis for more complex object-relatives and sentences with prepositional phrases than for less complex subject-relatives and sentences without prepositional phrases. Comprehension accuracy and confidence were lower when syntactic analysis and semantic plausibility yielded conflicting interpretations. The conflict effect on comprehension was significant for complex sentences but not for less complex sentences. Working memory capacity predicted resolution of the syntax-plausibility conflict in more and less complex items only when sentences and statements were presented sequentially. Fluid intelligence predicted resolution of the conflict in more and less complex items under sequential and simultaneous presentation. Domain-general processes appear to be involved in resolving syntax-plausibility conflicts in sentence comprehension. PMID:28458748

Lexical leverage: Category knowledge boosts real-time novel word recognition in two-year- olds

PubMed Central

Borovsky, Arielle; Ellis, Erica M.; Evans, Julia L.; Elman, Jeffrey L.

2016-01-01

Recent research suggests that infants tend to add words to their vocabulary that are semantically related to other known words, though it is not clear why this pattern emerges. In this paper, we explore whether infants to leverage their existing vocabulary and semantic knowledge when interpreting novel label-object mappings in real-time. We initially identified categorical domains for which individual 24-month-old infants have relatively higher and lower levels of knowledge, irrespective of overall vocabulary size. Next, we taught infants novel words in these higher and lower knowledge domains and then asked if their subsequent real-time recognition of these items varied as a function of their category knowledge. While our participants successfully acquired the novel label -object mappings in our task, there were important differences in the way infants recognized these words in real time. Namely, infants showed more robust recognition of high (vs. low) domain knowledge words. These findings suggest that dense semantic structure facilitates early word learning and real-time novel word recognition. PMID:26452444

Forms Of Memory For Representation Of Visual Objects

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-02-14

description system that functions independently of the episodic memory system that is damaged in amnesia and supports explicit remembering. Miscellaneous...well as semantic and functional information about an object, are preserved in the episodic system. 4. Priming and recognition of depth-cued, 3D objects A...requirement should serve to enhance an object’s distinctiveness in episodic memory . We also predicted robust priming for symmetric objects; this is because

Language and culture modulate online semantic processing.

PubMed

Ellis, Ceri; Kuipers, Jan R; Thierry, Guillaume; Lovett, Victoria; Turnbull, Oliver; Jones, Manon W

2015-10-01

Language has been shown to influence non-linguistic cognitive operations such as colour perception, object categorization and motion event perception. Here, we show that language also modulates higher level processing, such as semantic knowledge. Using event-related brain potentials, we show that highly fluent Welsh-English bilinguals require significantly less processing effort when reading sentences in Welsh which contain factually correct information about Wales, than when reading sentences containing the same information presented in English. Crucially, culturally irrelevant information was processed similarly in both Welsh and English. Our findings show that even in highly proficient bilinguals, language interacts with factors associated with personal identity, such as culture, to modulate online semantic processing. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press.

Winnicott's Transformational Metaphors: A Cognitive-Linguistic Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Casali, Michael A.

2010-01-01

This study examined D.W. Winnicott's construct object usage and related transformational metaphors from a cognitive-linguistic perspective. The paper "The Use of an Object" was positioned historically among extant theoretical models and employed to investigate the semantic evolution of key Winnicottian concepts. Biographical accounts revealed…

Linked Forests: Semantic similarity of geographical concepts "forest"

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Čerba, Otakar; Jedlička, Karel

2016-01-01

Linked Data represents the new trend in geoinformatics and geomatics. It produces a structure of objects (in a form of concepts or terms) interconnected by object relations expressing a type of semantic relationships of various concepts. The research published in this article studies, if objects connected by above mentioned relations are more similar than objects representing the same phenomenon, but standing alone. The phenomenon "forest" and relevant geographical concepts were chosen as the domain of the research. The concepts similarity (Tanimoto coefficient as a specification of Tversky index) was computed on the basis of explicit information provided by thesauri containing particular concepts. Overall in the seven thesauri (AGROVOC, EuroVoc, GEMET, LusTRE/EARTh, NAL, OECD and STW) there was tested if the "forest" concept interconnected by the relation skos:exactMatch are more similar than other, not interlinked concepts. The results of the research are important for the sharing and combining of geographical data, information and knowledge. The proposed methodology can be reused to a comparison of other geographical concepts.

Information Object Definition–based Unified Modeling Language Representation of DICOM Structured Reporting

PubMed Central

Tirado-Ramos, Alfredo; Hu, Jingkun; Lee, K.P.

2002-01-01

Supplement 23 to DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications for Medicine), Structured Reporting, is a specification that supports a semantically rich representation of image and waveform content, enabling experts to share image and related patient information. DICOM SR supports the representation of textual and coded data linked to images and waveforms. Nevertheless, the medical information technology community needs models that work as bridges between the DICOM relational model and open object-oriented technologies. The authors assert that representations of the DICOM Structured Reporting standard, using object-oriented modeling languages such as the Unified Modeling Language, can provide a high-level reference view of the semantically rich framework of DICOM and its complex structures. They have produced an object-oriented model to represent the DICOM SR standard and have derived XML-exchangeable representations of this model using World Wide Web Consortium specifications. They expect the model to benefit developers and system architects who are interested in developing applications that are compliant with the DICOM SR specification. PMID:11751804

tDCS over the motor cortex improves lexical retrieval of action words in poststroke aphasia.

PubMed

Branscheidt, Meret; Hoppe, Julia; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Liuzzi, Gianpiero

2018-02-01

One-third of stroke survivors worldwide suffer from aphasia. Speech and language therapy (SLT) is considered effective in treating aphasia, but because of time constraints, improvements are often limited. Noninvasive brain stimulation is a promising adjuvant strategy to facilitate SLT. However, stroke might render "classical" language regions ineffective as stimulation sites. Recent work showed the effectiveness of motor cortex stimulation together with intensive naming therapy to improve outcomes in aphasia (Meinzer et al. 2016). Although that study highlights the involvement of the motor cortex, the functional aspects by which it influences language remain unclear. In the present study, we focus on the role of motor cortex in language, investigating its functional involvement in access to specific lexico-semantic (object vs. action relatedness) information in poststroke aphasia. To this end, we tested effects of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the left motor cortex on lexical retrieval in 16 patients with poststroke aphasia in a sham-controlled, double-blind study design. Critical stimuli were action and object words, and pseudowords. Participants performed a lexical decision task, deciding whether stimuli were words or pseudowords. Anodal tDCS improved accuracy in lexical decision, especially for words with action-related content and for pseudowords with an "action-like" ending ( t 15  = 2.65, P = 0.036), but not for words with object-related content and pseudowords with "object-like" characteristics. We show as a proof-of-principle that the motor cortex may play a specific role in access to lexico-semantic content. Thus motor-cortex stimulation may strengthen content-specific word-to-semantic concept associations during language treatment in poststroke aphasia. NEW & NOTEWORTHY The role of motor cortex (MC) in language processing has been debated in both health and disease. Recent work has suggested that MC stimulation together with speech and language therapy enhances outcomes in aphasia. We show that MC stimulation has a differential effect on object- and action-word processing in poststroke aphasia. We propose that MC stimulation may specifically strengthen word-to-semantic concept association in aphasia. Our results potentially provide a way to tailor therapies for language rehabilitation.

Spatial distance effects on incremental semantic interpretation of abstract sentences: evidence from eye tracking.

PubMed

Guerra, Ernesto; Knoeferle, Pia

2014-12-01

A large body of evidence has shown that visual context information can rapidly modulate language comprehension for concrete sentences and when it is mediated by a referential or a lexical-semantic link. What has not yet been examined is whether visual context can also modulate comprehension of abstract sentences incrementally when it is neither referenced by, nor lexically associated with, the sentence. Three eye-tracking reading experiments examined the effects of spatial distance between words (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2 and 3) on participants' reading times for sentences that convey similarity or difference between two abstract nouns (e.g., 'Peace and war are certainly different...'). Before reading the sentence, participants inspected a visual context with two playing cards that moved either far apart or close together. In Experiment 1, the cards turned and showed the first two nouns of the sentence (e.g., 'peace', 'war'). In Experiments 2 and 3, they turned but remained blank. Participants' reading times at the adjective (Experiment 1: first-pass reading time; Experiment 2: total times) and at the second noun phrase (Experiment 3: first-pass times) were faster for sentences that expressed similarity when the preceding words/objects were close together (vs. far apart) and for sentences that expressed dissimilarity when the preceding words/objects were far apart (vs. close together). Thus, spatial distance between words or entirely unrelated objects can rapidly and incrementally modulate the semantic interpretation of abstract sentences. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PIDs, Types and the Semantic Web

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schwardmann, Ulrich

2017-04-01

PID Information Types are becoming a crucial role in scientific data management because they can provide state (what) and binding (where) information about digital objects as attributes of the PID. This is a similar but much more flexible approach than the well known mime type characterization, because both of these types concepts allow to decide about preconditions for processes in advance and before touching the data. One aspect of this is the need for standards and correctness of the used types to ensure reliability for the processes operating on the digital objects. This requires registries and schemas for PID InfoTypes and suggests an automated schema generation process. Such a process in combination with data type registries will be described in more detail in the intended talk. Another aspect of PID InfoTypes is its intrinsic grammar as subject-predicate-object triple, with the PID as subject, the type as predicate and its value (often again a PID) as object in this relation. Given the registration of types and the proposed syntactical rigidness of the value, guaranteed by the schema, together with the use of PIDs in subject and predicate, the type concept has the ability to overcome the fuzziness and lack of reliability of semantic web categories with its URL references and possibly changing locations and content. The intended talk will also describe this approach in more detail, discusses the differences to linked data and describes some necessary technological developments for the type concept to keep up with the possibilities currently provided by the semantic web.

Body Schematics: On the Role of the Body Schema in Embodied Lexical-Semantic Representations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rueschemeyer, Shirley-Ann; Pfeiffer, Christian; Bekkering, Harold

2010-01-01

Words denoting manipulable objects activate sensorimotor brain areas, likely reflecting action experience with the denoted objects. In particular, these sensorimotor lexical representations have been found to reflect the way in which an object is used. In the current paper we present data from two experiments (one behavioral and one neuroimaging)…

Object Naming and Later Lexical Development: From Baby Bottle to Beer Bottle

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ameel, Eef; Malt, Barbara; Storms, Gert

2008-01-01

Despite arguments for the relative ease of learning common noun meanings, semantic development continues well past the early years of language acquisition even for names of concrete objects. We studied evolution of the use of common nouns during later lexical development. Children aged 5-14 years and adults named common household objects and their…

Building Interoperable Learning Objects Using Reduced Learning Object Metadata

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saleh, Mostafa S.

2005-01-01

The new e-learning generation depends on Semantic Web technology to produce learning objects. As the production of these components is very costly, they should be produced and registered once, and reused and adapted in the same context or in other contexts as often as possible. To produce those components, developers should use learning standards…

Scene incongruity and attention.

PubMed

Mack, Arien; Clarke, Jason; Erol, Muge; Bert, John

2017-02-01

Does scene incongruity, (a mismatch between scene gist and a semantically incongruent object), capture attention and lead to conscious perception? We explored this question using 4 different procedures: Inattention (Experiment 1), Scene description (Experiment 2), Change detection (Experiment 3), and Iconic Memory (Experiment 4). We found no differences between scene incongruity and scene congruity in Experiments 1, 2, and 4, although in Experiment 3 change detection was faster for scenes containing an incongruent object. We offer an explanation for why the change detection results differ from the results of the other three experiments. In all four experiments, participants invariably failed to report the incongruity and routinely mis-described it by normalizing the incongruent object. None of the results supports the claim that semantic incongruity within a scene invariably captures attention and provide strong evidence of the dominant role of scene gist in determining what is perceived. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Intracerebral stimulation of left and right ventral temporal cortex during object naming.

PubMed

Bédos Ulvin, Line; Jonas, Jacques; Brissart, Hélène; Colnat-Coulbois, Sophie; Thiriaux, Anne; Vignal, Jean-Pierre; Maillard, Louis

2017-12-01

While object naming is traditionally considered asa left hemisphere function, neuroimaging studies have reported activations related to naming in the ventral temporal cortex (VTC) bilaterally. Our aim was to use intracerebral electrical stimulation to specifically compare left and right VTC in naming. In twenty-three epileptic patients tested for visual object naming during stimulation, the proportion of naming impairments was significantly higher in the left than in the right VTC (31.3% vs 13.6%). The highest proportions of positive naming sites were found in the left fusiform gyrus and occipito-temporal sulcus (47.5% and 31.8%). For 17 positive left naming sites, an additional semantic picture matching was carried out, always successfully performed. Our results showed the enhanced role of the left compared to the right VTC in naming and suggest that it may be involved in lexical retrieval rather than in semantic processing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Development of Object Function and Manipulation Knowledge: Evidence from a Semantic Priming Study

PubMed Central

Collette, Cynthia; Bonnotte, Isabelle; Jacquemont, Charlotte; Kalénine, Solène; Bartolo, Angela

2016-01-01

Object semantics include object function and manipulation knowledge. Function knowledge refers to the goal attainable by using an object (e.g., the function of a key is to open or close a door) while manipulation knowledge refers to gestures one has to execute to use an object appropriately (e.g., a key is held between the thumb and the index, inserted into the door lock and then turned). To date, several studies have assessed function and manipulation knowledge in brain lesion patients as well as in healthy adult populations. In patients with left brain damage, a double dissociation between these two types of knowledge has been reported; on the other hand, behavioral studies in healthy adults show that function knowledge is processed faster than manipulation knowledge. Empirical evidence has shown that object interaction in children differs from that in adults, suggesting that the access to function and manipulation knowledge in children might also differ. To investigate the development of object function and manipulation knowledge, 51 typically developing 8-9-10 year-old children and 17 healthy young adults were tested on a naming task associated with a semantic priming paradigm (190-ms SOA; prime duration: 90 ms) in which a series of line drawings of manipulable objects were used. Target objects could be preceded by three priming contexts: related (e.g., knife-scissors for function; key-screwdriver for manipulation), unrelated but visually similar (e.g., glasses-scissors; baseball bat-screwdriver), and purely unrelated (e.g., die-scissors; tissue-screwdriver). Results showed a different developmental pattern of function and manipulation priming effects. Function priming effects were not present in children and emerged only in adults, with faster naming responses for targets preceded by objects sharing the same function. In contrast, manipulation priming effects were already present in 8-year-olds with faster naming responses for targets preceded by objects sharing the same manipulation and these decreased linearly between 8 and 10 years of age, 10-year-olds not differing from adults. Overall, results show that the access to object function and manipulation knowledge changes during development by favoring manipulation knowledge in childhood and function knowledge in adulthood. PMID:27602004

Objectives and considerations for wildland fuel treatment in forested ecosystems of the interior western United States

Treesearch

Elizabeth D. Reinhardt; Robert E. Keane; David E. Calkin; Jack D. Cohen

2008-01-01

Many natural resource agencies and organizations recognize the importance of fuel treatments as tools for reducing fire hazards and restoring ecosystems. However, there continues to be confusion and misconception about fuel treatments and their implementation and effects in fire-prone landscapes across the United States. This paper (1) summarizes objectives, methods,...

Linking Somatic and Symbolic Representation in Semantic Memory: The Dynamic Multilevel Reactivation Framework

PubMed Central

Reilly, Jamie; Peelle, Jonathan E; Garcia, Amanda; Crutch, Sebastian J

2016-01-01

Biological plausibility is an essential constraint for any viable model of semantic memory. Yet, we have only the most rudimentary understanding of how the human brain conducts abstract symbolic transformations that underlie word and object meaning. Neuroscience has evolved a sophisticated arsenal of techniques for elucidating the architecture of conceptual representation. Nevertheless, theoretical convergence remains elusive. Here we describe several contrastive approaches to the organization of semantic knowledge, and in turn we offer our own perspective on two recurring questions in semantic memory research: 1) to what extent are conceptual representations mediated by sensorimotor knowledge (i.e., to what degree is semantic memory embodied)? 2) How might an embodied semantic system represent abstract concepts such as modularity, symbol, or proposition? To address these questions, we review the merits of sensorimotor (i.e., embodied) and amodal (i.e., disembodied) semantic theories and address the neurobiological constraints underlying each. We conclude that the shortcomings of both perspectives in their extreme forms necessitate a hybrid middle ground. We accordingly propose the Dynamic Multilevel Reactivation Framework, an integrative model premised upon flexible interplay between sensorimotor and amodal symbolic representations mediated by multiple cortical hubs. We discuss applications of the Dynamic Multilevel Reactivation Framework to abstract and concrete concept representation and describe how a multidimensional conceptual topography based on emotion, sensation, and magnitude can successfully frame a semantic space containing meanings for both abstract and concrete words. The consideration of ‘abstract conceptual features’ does not diminish the role of logical and/or executive processing in activating, manipulating and using information stored in conceptual representations. Rather, it proposes that the material on which these processes operate necessarily combine pure sensorimotor information and higher-order cognitive dimensions involved in symbolic representation. PMID:27294419

Linking somatic and symbolic representation in semantic memory: the dynamic multilevel reactivation framework.

PubMed

Reilly, Jamie; Peelle, Jonathan E; Garcia, Amanda; Crutch, Sebastian J

2016-08-01

Biological plausibility is an essential constraint for any viable model of semantic memory. Yet, we have only the most rudimentary understanding of how the human brain conducts abstract symbolic transformations that underlie word and object meaning. Neuroscience has evolved a sophisticated arsenal of techniques for elucidating the architecture of conceptual representation. Nevertheless, theoretical convergence remains elusive. Here we describe several contrastive approaches to the organization of semantic knowledge, and in turn we offer our own perspective on two recurring questions in semantic memory research: (1) to what extent are conceptual representations mediated by sensorimotor knowledge (i.e., to what degree is semantic memory embodied)? (2) How might an embodied semantic system represent abstract concepts such as modularity, symbol, or proposition? To address these questions, we review the merits of sensorimotor (i.e., embodied) and amodal (i.e., disembodied) semantic theories and address the neurobiological constraints underlying each. We conclude that the shortcomings of both perspectives in their extreme forms necessitate a hybrid middle ground. We accordingly propose the Dynamic Multilevel Reactivation Framework-an integrative model predicated upon flexible interplay between sensorimotor and amodal symbolic representations mediated by multiple cortical hubs. We discuss applications of the dynamic multilevel reactivation framework to abstract and concrete concept representation and describe how a multidimensional conceptual topography based on emotion, sensation, and magnitude can successfully frame a semantic space containing meanings for both abstract and concrete words. The consideration of 'abstract conceptual features' does not diminish the role of logical and/or executive processing in activating, manipulating and using information stored in conceptual representations. Rather, it proposes that the materials upon which these processes operate necessarily combine pure sensorimotor information and higher-order cognitive dimensions involved in symbolic representation.

Theoretical ecology as etiological from the start.

PubMed

Donhauser, Justin

2016-12-01

The world's leading environmental advisory institutions look to ecological theory and research as an objective guide for policy and resource management decision-making. In addition to the theoretical and broadly philosophical merits of doing so, it is therefore practically significant to clear up confusions about ecology's conceptual foundations and to clarify the basic workings of inferential methods used in the science. Through discussion of key moments in the genesis of the theoretical branch of ecology, this essay elucidates a general heuristic role of teleological metaphors in ecological research and defuses certain enduring confusions about work in ecology. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Working memory training and semantic structuring improves remembering future events, not past events.

PubMed

Richter, Kim Merle; Mödden, Claudia; Eling, Paul; Hildebrandt, Helmut

2015-01-01

Objectives. Memory training in combination with practice in semantic structuring and word fluency has been shown to improve memory performance. This study investigated the efficacy of a working memory training combined with exercises in semantic structuring and word fluency and examined whether training effects generalize to other cognitive tasks. Methods. In this double-blind randomized control study, 36 patients with memory impairments following brain damage were allocated to either the experimental or the active control condition, with both groups receiving 9 hours of therapy. The experimental group received a computer-based working memory training and exercises in word fluency and semantic structuring. The control group received the standard memory therapy provided in the rehabilitation center. Patients were tested on a neuropsychological test battery before and after therapy, resulting in composite scores for working memory; immediate, delayed, and prospective memory; word fluency; and attention. Results. The experimental group improved significantly in working memory and word fluency. The training effects also generalized to prospective memory tasks. No specific effect on episodic memory could be demonstrated. Conclusion. Combined treatment of working memory training with exercises in semantic structuring is an effective method for cognitive rehabilitation of organic memory impairment. © The Author(s) 2014.

Levels of processing and picture memory: the physical superiority effect.

PubMed

Intraub, H; Nicklos, S

1985-04-01

Six experiments studied the effect of physical orienting questions (e.g., "Is this angular?") and semantic orienting questions (e.g., "Is this edible?") on memory for unrelated pictures at stimulus durations ranging from 125-2,000 ms. Results ran contrary to the semantic superiority "rule of thumb," which is based primarily on verbal memory experiments. Physical questions were associated with better free recall and cued recall of a diverse set of visual scenes (Experiments 1, 2, and 4). This occurred both when general and highly specific semantic questions were used (Experiments 1 and 2). Similar results were obtained when more simplistic visual stimuli--photographs of single objects--were used (Experiments 5 and 6). As in the case of the semantic superiority effect with words, the physical superiority effect for pictures was eliminated or reversed when the same physical questions were repeated throughout the session (Experiments 4 and 6). Conflicts with results of previous levels of processing experiments with words and nonverbal stimuli (e.g., faces) are explained in terms of the sensory-semantic model (Nelson, Reed, & McEvoy, 1977). Implications for picture memory research and the levels of processing viewpoint are discussed.

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

Cultural differences in the visual processing of meaning: detecting incongruities between background and foreground objects using the N400.

PubMed

Goto, Sharon G; Ando, Yumi; Huang, Carol; Yee, Alicia; Lewis, Richard S

2010-06-01

East Asians have been found to allocate relatively greater attention to background objects, whereas European Americans have been found to allocate relatively greater attention to foreground objects. This is well documented across a variety of cognitive measures. We used a modification of the Ganis and Kutas (2003) N400 event-related potential design to measure the degree to which Asian Americans and European Americans responded to semantic incongruity between target objects and background scenes. As predicted, Asian Americans showed a greater negativity to incongruent trials than to congruent trials. In contrast, European Americans showed no difference in amplitude across the two conditions. Furthermore, smaller magnitude N400 incongruity effects were associated with higher independent self-construal scores. These data suggest that Asian Americans are processing the relationship between foreground and background objects to a greater degree than European Americans, which is consistent with hypothesized greater holistic processing among East Asians. Implications for using neural measures, the role of semantic processing to understand cultural differences in cognition, and the relationship between self construal and neural measures of cognition are discussed.

Complement Coercion: The Joint Effects of Type and Typicality.

PubMed

Zarcone, Alessandra; McRae, Ken; Lenci, Alessandro; Padó, Sebastian

2017-01-01

Complement coercion ( begin a book → reading ) involves a type clash between an event-selecting verb and an entity-denoting object, triggering a covert event ( reading ). Two main factors involved in complement coercion have been investigated: the semantic type of the object (event vs. entity), and the typicality of the covert event ( the author began a book → writing ). In previous research, reading times have been measured at the object. However, the influence of the typicality of the subject-object combination on processing an aspectual verb such as begin has not been studied. Using a self-paced reading study, we manipulated semantic type and subject-object typicality, exploiting German word order to measure reading times at the aspectual verb. These variables interacted at the target verb. We conclude that both type and typicality probabilistically guide expectations about upcoming input. These results are compatible with an expectation-based view of complement coercion and language comprehension more generally in which there is rapid interaction between what is typically viewed as linguistic knowledge, and what is typically viewed as domain general knowledge about how the world works.

Complement Coercion: The Joint Effects of Type and Typicality

PubMed Central

Zarcone, Alessandra; McRae, Ken; Lenci, Alessandro; Padó, Sebastian

2017-01-01

Complement coercion (begin a book →reading) involves a type clash between an event-selecting verb and an entity-denoting object, triggering a covert event (reading). Two main factors involved in complement coercion have been investigated: the semantic type of the object (event vs. entity), and the typicality of the covert event (the author began a book →writing). In previous research, reading times have been measured at the object. However, the influence of the typicality of the subject–object combination on processing an aspectual verb such as begin has not been studied. Using a self-paced reading study, we manipulated semantic type and subject–object typicality, exploiting German word order to measure reading times at the aspectual verb. These variables interacted at the target verb. We conclude that both type and typicality probabilistically guide expectations about upcoming input. These results are compatible with an expectation-based view of complement coercion and language comprehension more generally in which there is rapid interaction between what is typically viewed as linguistic knowledge, and what is typically viewed as domain general knowledge about how the world works. PMID:29225585

Electrophysiological evidence for size invariance in masked picture repetition priming

PubMed Central

Eddy, Marianna D.; Holcomb, Phillip J.

2009-01-01

This experiment examined invariance in object representations through measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) to pictures in a masked repetition priming paradigm. Pairs of pictures were presented where the prime was either the same size or half the size of the target object and the target was either presented in a normal orientation or was a normal sized mirror reflection of the prime object. Previous masked repetition priming studies have found a cascade of priming effect sensitive to perceptual (N190/P190) and semantic (N400) properties of the stimulus. This experiment found that both early (N190/P190 effects) and later effects (N400) were invariant to size, whereas only the N190/P190 effect was invariant to mirror reflection. The combination of a small prime and a mirror reflected target led to no significant priming effects. Taken together, the results of this set of experiments suggests that object recognition, more specifically, activating an object representation, occurs in a hierarchical fashion where overlapping perceptual information between the prime and target is necessary, although not always sufficient, to activate a higher level semantic representation. PMID:19560248

Research on Extension of Sparql Ontology Query Language Considering the Computation of Indoor Spatial Relations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, C.; Zhu, X.; Guo, W.; Liu, Y.; Huang, H.

2015-05-01

A method suitable for indoor complex semantic query considering the computation of indoor spatial relations is provided According to the characteristics of indoor space. This paper designs ontology model describing the space related information of humans, events and Indoor space objects (e.g. Storey and Room) as well as their relations to meet the indoor semantic query. The ontology concepts are used in IndoorSPARQL query language which extends SPARQL syntax for representing and querying indoor space. And four types specific primitives for indoor query, "Adjacent", "Opposite", "Vertical" and "Contain", are defined as query functions in IndoorSPARQL used to support quantitative spatial computations. Also a method is proposed to analysis the query language. Finally this paper adopts this method to realize indoor semantic query on the study area through constructing the ontology model for the study building. The experimental results show that the method proposed in this paper can effectively support complex indoor space semantic query.

Why Are Verbs So Hard to Remember? Effects of Semantic Context on Memory for Verbs and Nouns.

PubMed

Earles, Julie L; Kersten, Alan W

2017-04-01

Three experiments test the theory that verb meanings are more malleable than noun meanings in different semantic contexts, making a previously seen verb difficult to remember when it appears in a new semantic context. Experiment 1 revealed that changing the direct object noun in a transitive sentence reduced recognition of a previously seen verb, whereas changing the verb had little impact on noun recognition. Experiment 2 revealed that verbs exhibited context effects more similar to those shown by superordinate nouns rather than basic-level nouns. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the degree of meaning change in a target word resulting from changes in semantic context influenced the magnitude of context effects, but context effects remained larger for verbs than for nouns even when the degree of meaning change was similar for nouns and verbs. These results are discussed with respect to the imageability and grammatical roles played by nouns and verbs in a sentence. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

How Can I Help a Friend Who Cuts?

MedlinePlus

... friend might injure himself or herself on purpose. Cutting — using a sharp object to cut your own ... upsetting to learn that a friend has been cutting. You might feel confused or scared. You may ...

User centered and ontology based information retrieval system for life sciences.

PubMed

Sy, Mohameth-François; Ranwez, Sylvie; Montmain, Jacky; Regnault, Armelle; Crampes, Michel; Ranwez, Vincent

2012-01-25

Because of the increasing number of electronic resources, designing efficient tools to retrieve and exploit them is a major challenge. Some improvements have been offered by semantic Web technologies and applications based on domain ontologies. In life science, for instance, the Gene Ontology is widely exploited in genomic applications and the Medical Subject Headings is the basis of biomedical publications indexation and information retrieval process proposed by PubMed. However current search engines suffer from two main drawbacks: there is limited user interaction with the list of retrieved resources and no explanation for their adequacy to the query is provided. Users may thus be confused by the selection and have no idea on how to adapt their queries so that the results match their expectations. This paper describes an information retrieval system that relies on domain ontology to widen the set of relevant documents that is retrieved and that uses a graphical rendering of query results to favor user interactions. Semantic proximities between ontology concepts and aggregating models are used to assess documents adequacy with respect to a query. The selection of documents is displayed in a semantic map to provide graphical indications that make explicit to what extent they match the user's query; this man/machine interface favors a more interactive and iterative exploration of data corpus, by facilitating query concepts weighting and visual explanation. We illustrate the benefit of using this information retrieval system on two case studies one of which aiming at collecting human genes related to transcription factors involved in hemopoiesis pathway. The ontology based information retrieval system described in this paper (OBIRS) is freely available at: http://www.ontotoolkit.mines-ales.fr/ObirsClient/. This environment is a first step towards a user centred application in which the system enlightens relevant information to provide decision help.

User centered and ontology based information retrieval system for life sciences

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Because of the increasing number of electronic resources, designing efficient tools to retrieve and exploit them is a major challenge. Some improvements have been offered by semantic Web technologies and applications based on domain ontologies. In life science, for instance, the Gene Ontology is widely exploited in genomic applications and the Medical Subject Headings is the basis of biomedical publications indexation and information retrieval process proposed by PubMed. However current search engines suffer from two main drawbacks: there is limited user interaction with the list of retrieved resources and no explanation for their adequacy to the query is provided. Users may thus be confused by the selection and have no idea on how to adapt their queries so that the results match their expectations. Results This paper describes an information retrieval system that relies on domain ontology to widen the set of relevant documents that is retrieved and that uses a graphical rendering of query results to favor user interactions. Semantic proximities between ontology concepts and aggregating models are used to assess documents adequacy with respect to a query. The selection of documents is displayed in a semantic map to provide graphical indications that make explicit to what extent they match the user's query; this man/machine interface favors a more interactive and iterative exploration of data corpus, by facilitating query concepts weighting and visual explanation. We illustrate the benefit of using this information retrieval system on two case studies one of which aiming at collecting human genes related to transcription factors involved in hemopoiesis pathway. Conclusions The ontology based information retrieval system described in this paper (OBIRS) is freely available at: http://www.ontotoolkit.mines-ales.fr/ObirsClient/. This environment is a first step towards a user centred application in which the system enlightens relevant information to provide decision help. PMID:22373375

SADI, SHARE, and the in silico scientific method

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background The emergence and uptake of Semantic Web technologies by the Life Sciences provides exciting opportunities for exploring novel ways to conduct in silico science. Web Service Workflows are already becoming first-class objects in “the new way”, and serve as explicit, shareable, referenceable representations of how an experiment was done. In turn, Semantic Web Service projects aim to facilitate workflow construction by biological domain-experts such that workflows can be edited, re-purposed, and re-published by non-informaticians. However the aspects of the scientific method relating to explicit discourse, disagreement, and hypothesis generation have remained relatively impervious to new technologies. Results Here we present SADI and SHARE - a novel Semantic Web Service framework, and a reference implementation of its client libraries. Together, SADI and SHARE allow the semi- or fully-automatic discovery and pipelining of Semantic Web Services in response to ad hoc user queries. Conclusions The semantic behaviours exhibited by SADI and SHARE extend the functionalities provided by Description Logic Reasoners such that novel assertions can be automatically added to a data-set without logical reasoning, but rather by analytical or annotative services. This behaviour might be applied to achieve the “semantification” of those aspects of the in silico scientific method that are not yet supported by Semantic Web technologies. We support this suggestion using an example in the clinical research space. PMID:21210986

Feels like the real thing: imagery is both more realistic and emotional than verbal thought.

PubMed

Mathews, Andrew; Ridgeway, Valerie; Holmes, Emily A

2013-01-01

The production of mental images involves processes that overlap with perception and the extent of this overlap may contribute to reality monitoring errors (i.e., images misremembered as actual events). We hypothesised that mental images would be more confused with having actually seen a pictured object than would alternative representations, such as verbal descriptions. We also investigated whether affective reactions to images were greater than to verbal descriptions, and whether emotionality was associated with more or less reality monitoring confusion. In two experiments signal detection analysis revealed that mental images were more likely to be confused with viewed pictures than were verbal descriptions. There was a general response bias to endorse all emotionally negative items, but accuracy of discrimination between imagery and viewed pictures was not significantly influenced by emotional valence. In a third experiment we found that accuracy of reality monitoring depended on encoding: images were more accurately discriminated from viewed pictures when rated for affect than for size. We conclude that mental images are both more emotionally arousing and more likely to be confused with real events than are verbal descriptions, although source accuracy for images varies according to how they are encoded.

Picture grammars in classification and semantic interpretation of 3D coronary vessels visualisations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ogiela, M. R.; Tadeusiewicz, R.; Trzupek, M.

2009-09-01

The work presents the new opportunity for making semantic descriptions and analysis of medical structures, especially coronary vessels CT spatial reconstructions, with the use of AI graph-based linguistic formalisms. In the paper there will be discussed the manners of applying methods of computational intelligence to the development of a syntactic semantic description of spatial visualisations of the heart's coronary vessels. Such descriptions may be used for both smart ordering of images while archiving them and for their semantic searches in medical multimedia databases. Presented methodology of analysis can furthermore be used for attaining other goals related performance of computer-assisted semantic interpretation of selected elements and/or the entire 3D structure of the coronary vascular tree. These goals are achieved through the use of graph-based image formalisms based on IE graphs generating grammars that allow discovering and automatic semantic interpretation of irregularities visualised on the images obtained during diagnostic examinations of the heart muscle. The basis for the construction of 3D reconstructions of biological objects used in this work are visualisations obtained from helical CT scans, yet the method itself may be applied also for other methods of medical 3D images acquisition. The obtained semantic information makes it possible to make a description of the structure focused on the semantics of various morphological forms of the visualised vessels from the point of view of the operation of coronary circulation and the blood supply of the heart muscle. Thanks to these, the analysis conducted allows fast and — to a great degree — automated interpretation of the semantics of various morphological changes in the coronary vascular tree, and especially makes it possible to detect these stenoses in the lumen of the vessels that can cause critical decrease in blood supply to extensive or especially important fragments of the heart muscle.

Cognitive tests predict real-world errors: the relationship between drug name confusion rates in laboratory-based memory and perception tests and corresponding error rates in large pharmacy chains

PubMed Central

Schroeder, Scott R; Salomon, Meghan M; Galanter, William L; Schiff, Gordon D; Vaida, Allen J; Gaunt, Michael J; Bryson, Michelle L; Rash, Christine; Falck, Suzanne; Lambert, Bruce L

2017-01-01

Background Drug name confusion is a common type of medication error and a persistent threat to patient safety. In the USA, roughly one per thousand prescriptions results in the wrong drug being filled, and most of these errors involve drug names that look or sound alike. Prior to approval, drug names undergo a variety of tests to assess their potential for confusability, but none of these preapproval tests has been shown to predict real-world error rates. Objectives We conducted a study to assess the association between error rates in laboratory-based tests of drug name memory and perception and real-world drug name confusion error rates. Methods Eighty participants, comprising doctors, nurses, pharmacists, technicians and lay people, completed a battery of laboratory tests assessing visual perception, auditory perception and short-term memory of look-alike and sound-alike drug name pairs (eg, hydroxyzine/hydralazine). Results Laboratory test error rates (and other metrics) significantly predicted real-world error rates obtained from a large, outpatient pharmacy chain, with the best-fitting model accounting for 37% of the variance in real-world error rates. Cross-validation analyses confirmed these results, showing that the laboratory tests also predicted errors from a second pharmacy chain, with 45% of the variance being explained by the laboratory test data. Conclusions Across two distinct pharmacy chains, there is a strong and significant association between drug name confusion error rates observed in the real world and those observed in laboratory-based tests of memory and perception. Regulators and drug companies seeking a validated preapproval method for identifying confusing drug names ought to consider using these simple tests. By using a standard battery of memory and perception tests, it should be possible to reduce the number of confusing look-alike and sound-alike drug name pairs that reach the market, which will help protect patients from potentially harmful medication errors. PMID:27193033

Towards a framework for developing semantic relatedness reference standards.

PubMed

Pakhomov, Serguei V S; Pedersen, Ted; McInnes, Bridget; Melton, Genevieve B; Ruggieri, Alexander; Chute, Christopher G

2011-04-01

Our objective is to develop a framework for creating reference standards for functional testing of computerized measures of semantic relatedness. Currently, research on computerized approaches to semantic relatedness between biomedical concepts relies on reference standards created for specific purposes using a variety of methods for their analysis. In most cases, these reference standards are not publicly available and the published information provided in manuscripts that evaluate computerized semantic relatedness measurement approaches is not sufficient to reproduce the results. Our proposed framework is based on the experiences of medical informatics and computational linguistics communities and addresses practical and theoretical issues with creating reference standards for semantic relatedness. We demonstrate the use of the framework on a pilot set of 101 medical term pairs rated for semantic relatedness by 13 medical coding experts. While the reliability of this particular reference standard is in the "moderate" range; we show that using clustering and factor analyses offers a data-driven approach to finding systematic differences among raters and identifying groups of potential outliers. We test two ontology-based measures of relatedness and provide both the reference standard containing individual ratings and the R program used to analyze the ratings as open-source. Currently, these resources are intended to be used to reproduce and compare results of studies involving computerized measures of semantic relatedness. Our framework may be extended to the development of reference standards in other research areas in medical informatics including automatic classification, information retrieval from medical records and vocabulary/ontology development. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Neuronal Correlates of Indeterminate Sentence Comprehension: An fMRI Study

PubMed Central

de Almeida, Roberto G.; Riven, Levi; Manouilidou, Christina; Lungu, Ovidiu; Dwivedi, Veena D.; Jarema, Gonia; Gillon, Brendan

2016-01-01

Sentences such as The author started the book are indeterminate because they do not make explicit what the subject (the author) started doing with the object (the book). In principle, indeterminate sentences allow for an infinite number of interpretations. One theory, however, assumes that these sentences are resolved by semantic coercion, a linguistic process that forces the noun book to be interpreted as an activity (e.g., writing the book) or by a process that interpolates this activity information in the resulting enriched semantic composition. An alternative theory, pragmatic, assumes classical semantic composition, whereby meaning arises from the denotation of words and how they are combined syntactically, with enrichment obtained via pragmatic inferences beyond linguistic-semantic processes. Cognitive neuroscience studies investigating the neuroanatomical and functional correlates of indeterminate sentences have shown activations either at the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex (vmPFC) or at the left inferior frontal gyrus (L-IFG). These studies have supported the semantic coercion theory assuming that one of these regions is where enriched semantic composition takes place. Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we found that indeterminate sentences activate bilaterally the superior temporal gyrus (STG), the right inferior frontal gyrus (R-IFG), and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), more so than control sentences (The author wrote the book). Activation of indeterminate sentences exceeded that of anomalous sentences (…drank the book) and engaged more left- and right-hemisphere areas than other sentence types. We suggest that the widespread activations for indeterminate sentences represent the deployment of pragmatic-inferential processes, which seek to enrich sentence content without necessarily resorting to semantic coercion. PMID:28066204

Do metrical incongruities disrupt semantic processing in modern Chinese? An event-related potential study.

PubMed

Lee, Yujun; Liu, Xin; Wang, Xiaoming

2015-09-30

The present study examined the relationship between prosody and semantic processing in the written form of modern Chinese by analysing behavioural data and event-related potential data. By manipulating the number of noun syllables in verb-objection, we compare the dynamic neural mechanisms of the structure bisyllabic verb (V2)+monosyllabic noun (N1) (i.e. V2+N1) with V2+N1 (N2, bisyllabic noun). In Chinese, the rhythmic pattern V2+N1 is considered to be a metrical incongruity, whereas V2+N2 is considered to be a metrical congruity. For example, the verb yunshu (to transport) can be followed by liangshi (cereals). However, if yunshu is followed by liang (cereals), yunshu liang is usually considered to be metrically incongruous. This paper shows that (i) V2+N1 elicited more negative amplitudes than V2+N2 in the 90-170 ms and 450-500 ms windows, which indicates that metrical incongruities affect semantic processing in Chinese, and (ii) the acceptance rate for V2+N1 is significantly lower than that of V2+N2, which implies that metrical incongruities disrupt semantic processing in modern Chinese. These results are in agreement with previous studies. This is the first study to find that metrical incongruities disrupt semantic processing in Chinese. This study provides convergent evidence that metrical congruities facilitate semantic processing, whereas metrical incongruities disrupt semantic processing. Video abstract available (Supplemental digital content 1, http://links.lww.com/WNR/A340).

The semantic web in translational medicine: current applications and future directions

PubMed Central

Machado, Catia M.; Rebholz-Schuhmann, Dietrich; Freitas, Ana T.; Couto, Francisco M.

2015-01-01

Semantic web technologies offer an approach to data integration and sharing, even for resources developed independently or broadly distributed across the web. This approach is particularly suitable for scientific domains that profit from large amounts of data that reside in the public domain and that have to be exploited in combination. Translational medicine is such a domain, which in addition has to integrate private data from the clinical domain with proprietary data from the pharmaceutical domain. In this survey, we present the results of our analysis of translational medicine solutions that follow a semantic web approach. We assessed these solutions in terms of their target medical use case; the resources covered to achieve their objectives; and their use of existing semantic web resources for the purposes of data sharing, data interoperability and knowledge discovery. The semantic web technologies seem to fulfill their role in facilitating the integration and exploration of data from disparate sources, but it is also clear that simply using them is not enough. It is fundamental to reuse resources, to define mappings between resources, to share data and knowledge. All these aspects allow the instantiation of translational medicine at the semantic web-scale, thus resulting in a network of solutions that can share resources for a faster transfer of new scientific results into the clinical practice. The envisioned network of translational medicine solutions is on its way, but it still requires resolving the challenges of sharing protected data and of integrating semantic-driven technologies into the clinical practice. PMID:24197933

The semantic web in translational medicine: current applications and future directions.

PubMed

Machado, Catia M; Rebholz-Schuhmann, Dietrich; Freitas, Ana T; Couto, Francisco M

2015-01-01

Semantic web technologies offer an approach to data integration and sharing, even for resources developed independently or broadly distributed across the web. This approach is particularly suitable for scientific domains that profit from large amounts of data that reside in the public domain and that have to be exploited in combination. Translational medicine is such a domain, which in addition has to integrate private data from the clinical domain with proprietary data from the pharmaceutical domain. In this survey, we present the results of our analysis of translational medicine solutions that follow a semantic web approach. We assessed these solutions in terms of their target medical use case; the resources covered to achieve their objectives; and their use of existing semantic web resources for the purposes of data sharing, data interoperability and knowledge discovery. The semantic web technologies seem to fulfill their role in facilitating the integration and exploration of data from disparate sources, but it is also clear that simply using them is not enough. It is fundamental to reuse resources, to define mappings between resources, to share data and knowledge. All these aspects allow the instantiation of translational medicine at the semantic web-scale, thus resulting in a network of solutions that can share resources for a faster transfer of new scientific results into the clinical practice. The envisioned network of translational medicine solutions is on its way, but it still requires resolving the challenges of sharing protected data and of integrating semantic-driven technologies into the clinical practice. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press.

The Development of Clinical Document Standards for Semantic Interoperability in China

PubMed Central

Yang, Peng; Pan, Feng; Wan, Yi; Tu, Haibo; Tang, Xuejun; Hu, Jianping

2011-01-01

Objectives This study is aimed at developing a set of data groups (DGs) to be employed as reusable building blocks for the construction of the eight most common clinical documents used in China's general hospitals in order to achieve their structural and semantic standardization. Methods The Diagnostics knowledge framework, the related approaches taken from the Health Level Seven (HL7), the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), and the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) and 1,487 original clinical records were considered together to form the DG architecture and data sets. The internal structure, content, and semantics of each DG were then defined by mapping each DG data set to a corresponding Clinical Document Architecture data element and matching each DG data set to the metadata in the Chinese National Health Data Dictionary. By using the DGs as reusable building blocks, standardized structures and semantics regarding the clinical documents for semantic interoperability were able to be constructed. Results Altogether, 5 header DGs, 48 section DGs, and 17 entry DGs were developed. Several issues regarding the DGs, including their internal structure, identifiers, data set names, definitions, length and format, data types, and value sets, were further defined. Standardized structures and semantics regarding the eight clinical documents were structured by the DGs. Conclusions This approach of constructing clinical document standards using DGs is a feasible standard-driven solution useful in preparing documents possessing semantic interoperability among the disparate information systems in China. These standards need to be validated and refined through further study. PMID:22259722

Personalized Learning Objects Recommendation Based on the Semantic-Aware Discovery and the Learner Preference Pattern

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Tzone I; Tsai, Kun Hua; Lee, Ming Che; Chiu, Ti Kai

2007-01-01

With vigorous development of the Internet, especially the web page interaction technology, distant E-learning has become more and more realistic and popular. Digital courses may consist of many learning units or learning objects and, currently, many learning objects are created according to SCORM standard. It can be seen that, in the near future,…

Spatial Databases

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-09-19

extended object relations such as boundary, interior, open, closed , within, connected, and overlaps, which are invariant under elastic deformation...is required in a geo-spatial semantic web is challenging because the defining properties of geographic entities are very closely related to space. In...Objects under Primitive will be open (i.e., they will not contain their boundary points) and the objects under Complex will be closed . In addition to

Preserved Tool Knowledge in the Context of Impaired Action Knowledge: Implications for Models of Semantic Memory

PubMed Central

Garcea, Frank E.; Dombovy, Mary; Mahon, Bradford Z.

2013-01-01

A number of studies have observed that the motor system is activated when processing the semantics of manipulable objects. Such phenomena have been taken as evidence that simulation over motor representations is a necessary and intermediary step in the process of conceptual understanding. Cognitive neuropsychological evaluations of patients with impairments for action knowledge permit a direct test of the necessity of motor simulation in conceptual processing. Here, we report the performance of a 47-year-old male individual (Case AA) and six age-matched control participants on a number of tests probing action and object knowledge. Case AA had a large left-hemisphere frontal-parietal lesion and hemiplegia affecting his right arm and leg. Case AA presented with impairments for object-associated action production, and his conceptual knowledge of actions was severely impaired. In contrast, his knowledge of objects such as tools and other manipulable objects was largely preserved. The dissociation between action and object knowledge is difficult to reconcile with strong forms of the embodied cognition hypothesis. We suggest that these, and other similar findings, point to the need to develop tractable hypotheses about the dynamics of information exchange among sensory, motor and conceptual processes. PMID:23641205

Indexing Learning Objects: Vocabularies and Empirical Investigation of Consistency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kabel, Suzanne; De Hoog, Robert; Wielinga, Bob; Anjewierden, Anjo

2004-01-01

In addition to the LOM standard and instructional design specifications, as well as domain specific indexing vocabularies, a structured indexing vocabulary for the more elementary learning objects is advisable in order to support retrieval tasks of developers. Furthermore, because semantic indexing is seen as a difficult task, three issues…

A Computational Model of Semantic Memory Impairment: Modality- Specificity and Emergent Category-Specificity

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-09-01

just one modality (e.g. visual or auditory agnosia ) or impaired manipulation of objects with specific uses, despite intact recognition of them (apraxia...Neurosurgery and itbiatzy, 51, 1201-1207. Farah, M. J. (1991) Patterns of co-occurence among the associative agnosias : Implications for visual object

Remarks on Causative Verbs and Object Deletion in English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Onozuka, Hiromi

2007-01-01

Rappaport Hovav and Levin [Rappaport Hovav, M., Levin, B., 1998. "Building verb meanings." In: Butt, M., Geuder, W. (Eds.), "The Projection of Arguments: Lexical and Compositional Factors." CSLI Publications, Stanford, pp. 97-134] contend that result verbs disallow object deletion because of their lexical semantic properties. Their point is that…

Semantic Technologies and Bio-Ontologies.

PubMed

Gutierrez, Fernando

2017-01-01

As information available through data repositories constantly grows, the need for automated mechanisms for linking, querying, and sharing data has become a relevant factor both in research and industry. This situation is more evident in research fields such as the life sciences, where new experiments by different research groups are constantly generating new information regarding a wide variety of related study objects. However, current methods for representing information and knowledge are not suited for machine processing. The Semantic Technologies are a set of standards and protocols that intend to provide methods for representing and handling data that encourages reusability of information and is machine-readable. In this chapter, we will provide a brief introduction to Semantic Technologies, and how these protocols and standards have been incorporated into the life sciences to facilitate dissemination and access to information.

Selectivity of lexical-semantic disorders in Polish-speaking patients with aphasia: evidence from single-word comprehension.

PubMed

Jodzio, Krzysztof; Biechowska, Daria; Leszniewska-Jodzio, Barbara

2008-09-01

Several neuropsychological studies have shown that patients with brain damage may demonstrate selective category-specific deficits of auditory comprehension. The present paper reports on an investigation of aphasic patients' preserved ability to perform a semantic task on spoken words despite severe impairment in auditory comprehension, as shown by failure in matching spoken words to pictured objects. Twenty-six aphasic patients (11 women and 15 men) with impaired speech comprehension due to a left-hemisphere ischaemic stroke were examined; all were right-handed and native speakers of Polish. Six narrowly defined semantic categories for which dissociations have been reported are colors, body parts, animals, food, objects (mostly tools), and means of transportation. An analysis using one-way ANOVA with repeated measures in conjunction with the Lambda-Wilks Test revealed significant discrepancies among these categories in aphasic patients, who had much more difficulty comprehending names of colors than they did comprehending names of other objects (F((5,21))=13.15; p<.001). Animals were most often the easiest category to understand. The possibility of a simple explanation in terms of word frequency and/or visual complexity was ruled out. Evidence from the present study support the position that so called "global" aphasia is an imprecise term and should be redefined. These results are discussed within the connectionist and modular perspectives on category-specific deficits in aphasia.

Four Scenarios for Determining the Size and Reusability of Learning Objects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schoonenboom, Judith

2012-01-01

The best method for determining the size of learning objects (LOs) so as to optimise their reusability has been a topic of debate for years now. Although there appears to be agreement on basic assumptions, developed guidelines and principles are often in conflict. This study shows that this confusion stems from the fact that in the literature,…

Robust point cloud classification based on multi-level semantic relationships for urban scenes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Qing; Li, Yuan; Hu, Han; Wu, Bo

2017-07-01

The semantic classification of point clouds is a fundamental part of three-dimensional urban reconstruction. For datasets with high spatial resolution but significantly more noises, a general trend is to exploit more contexture information to surmount the decrease of discrimination of features for classification. However, previous works on adoption of contexture information are either too restrictive or only in a small region and in this paper, we propose a point cloud classification method based on multi-level semantic relationships, including point-homogeneity, supervoxel-adjacency and class-knowledge constraints, which is more versatile and incrementally propagate the classification cues from individual points to the object level and formulate them as a graphical model. The point-homogeneity constraint clusters points with similar geometric and radiometric properties into regular-shaped supervoxels that correspond to the vertices in the graphical model. The supervoxel-adjacency constraint contributes to the pairwise interactions by providing explicit adjacent relationships between supervoxels. The class-knowledge constraint operates at the object level based on semantic rules, guaranteeing the classification correctness of supervoxel clusters at that level. International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) benchmark tests have shown that the proposed method achieves state-of-the-art performance with an average per-area completeness and correctness of 93.88% and 95.78%, respectively. The evaluation of classification of photogrammetric point clouds and DSM generated from aerial imagery confirms the method's reliability in several challenging urban scenes.

An ontological system for interoperable spatial generalisation in biodiversity monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nieland, Simon; Moran, Niklas; Kleinschmit, Birgit; Förster, Michael

2015-11-01

Semantic heterogeneity remains a barrier to data comparability and standardisation of results in different fields of spatial research. Because of its thematic complexity, differing acquisition methods and national nomenclatures, interoperability of biodiversity monitoring information is especially difficult. Since data collection methods and interpretation manuals broadly vary there is a need for automatised, objective methodologies for the generation of comparable data-sets. Ontology-based applications offer vast opportunities in data management and standardisation. This study examines two data-sets of protected heathlands in Germany and Belgium which are based on remote sensing image classification and semantically formalised in an OWL2 ontology. The proposed methodology uses semantic relations of the two data-sets, which are (semi-)automatically derived from remote sensing imagery, to generate objective and comparable information about the status of protected areas by utilising kernel-based spatial reclassification. This automatised method suggests a generalisation approach, which is able to generate delineation of Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) of the European biodiversity Natura 2000 network. Furthermore, it is able to transfer generalisation rules between areas surveyed with varying acquisition methods in different countries by taking into account automated inference of the underlying semantics. The generalisation results were compared with the manual delineation of terrestrial monitoring. For the different habitats in the two sites an accuracy of above 70% was detected. However, it has to be highlighted that the delineation of the ground-truth data inherits a high degree of uncertainty, which is discussed in this study.

Visual features as stepping stones toward semantics: Explaining object similarity in IT and perception with non-negative least squares

PubMed Central

Jozwik, Kamila M.; Kriegeskorte, Nikolaus; Mur, Marieke

2016-01-01

Object similarity, in brain representations and conscious perception, must reflect a combination of the visual appearance of the objects on the one hand and the categories the objects belong to on the other. Indeed, visual object features and category membership have each been shown to contribute to the object representation in human inferior temporal (IT) cortex, as well as to object-similarity judgments. However, the explanatory power of features and categories has not been directly compared. Here, we investigate whether the IT object representation and similarity judgments are best explained by a categorical or a feature-based model. We use rich models (>100 dimensions) generated by human observers for a set of 96 real-world object images. The categorical model consists of a hierarchically nested set of category labels (such as “human”, “mammal”, and “animal”). The feature-based model includes both object parts (such as “eye”, “tail”, and “handle”) and other descriptive features (such as “circular”, “green”, and “stubbly”). We used non-negative least squares to fit the models to the brain representations (estimated from functional magnetic resonance imaging data) and to similarity judgments. Model performance was estimated on held-out images not used in fitting. Both models explained significant variance in IT and the amounts explained were not significantly different. The combined model did not explain significant additional IT variance, suggesting that it is the shared model variance (features correlated with categories, categories correlated with features) that best explains IT. The similarity judgments were almost fully explained by the categorical model, which explained significantly more variance than the feature-based model. The combined model did not explain significant additional variance in the similarity judgments. Our findings suggest that IT uses features that help to distinguish categories as stepping stones toward a semantic representation. Similarity judgments contain additional categorical variance that is not explained by visual features, reflecting a higher-level more purely semantic representation. PMID:26493748

Visual features as stepping stones toward semantics: Explaining object similarity in IT and perception with non-negative least squares.

PubMed

Jozwik, Kamila M; Kriegeskorte, Nikolaus; Mur, Marieke

2016-03-01

Object similarity, in brain representations and conscious perception, must reflect a combination of the visual appearance of the objects on the one hand and the categories the objects belong to on the other. Indeed, visual object features and category membership have each been shown to contribute to the object representation in human inferior temporal (IT) cortex, as well as to object-similarity judgments. However, the explanatory power of features and categories has not been directly compared. Here, we investigate whether the IT object representation and similarity judgments are best explained by a categorical or a feature-based model. We use rich models (>100 dimensions) generated by human observers for a set of 96 real-world object images. The categorical model consists of a hierarchically nested set of category labels (such as "human", "mammal", and "animal"). The feature-based model includes both object parts (such as "eye", "tail", and "handle") and other descriptive features (such as "circular", "green", and "stubbly"). We used non-negative least squares to fit the models to the brain representations (estimated from functional magnetic resonance imaging data) and to similarity judgments. Model performance was estimated on held-out images not used in fitting. Both models explained significant variance in IT and the amounts explained were not significantly different. The combined model did not explain significant additional IT variance, suggesting that it is the shared model variance (features correlated with categories, categories correlated with features) that best explains IT. The similarity judgments were almost fully explained by the categorical model, which explained significantly more variance than the feature-based model. The combined model did not explain significant additional variance in the similarity judgments. Our findings suggest that IT uses features that help to distinguish categories as stepping stones toward a semantic representation. Similarity judgments contain additional categorical variance that is not explained by visual features, reflecting a higher-level more purely semantic representation. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Interactions between visual and semantic processing during object recognition revealed by modulatory effects of age of acquisition.

PubMed

Urooj, Uzma; Cornelissen, Piers L; Simpson, Michael I G; Wheat, Katherine L; Woods, Will; Barca, Laura; Ellis, Andrew W

2014-02-15

The age of acquisition (AoA) of objects and their names is a powerful determinant of processing speed in adulthood, with early-acquired objects being recognized and named faster than late-acquired objects. Previous research using fMRI (Ellis et al., 2006. Traces of vocabulary acquisition in the brain: evidence from covert object naming. NeuroImage 33, 958-968) found that AoA modulated the strength of BOLD responses in both occipital and left anterior temporal cortex during object naming. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to explore in more detail the nature of the influence of AoA on activity in those two regions. Covert object naming recruited a network within the left hemisphere that is familiar from previous research, including visual, left occipito-temporal, anterior temporal and inferior frontal regions. Region of interest (ROI) analyses found that occipital cortex generated a rapid evoked response (~75-200 ms at 0-40 Hz) that peaked at 95 ms but was not modulated by AoA. That response was followed by a complex of later occipital responses that extended from ~300 to 850 ms and were stronger to early- than late-acquired items from ~325 to 675 ms at 10-20 Hz in the induced rather than the evoked component. Left anterior temporal cortex showed an evoked response that occurred significantly later than the first occipital response (~100-400 ms at 0-10 Hz with a peak at 191 ms) and was stronger to early- than late-acquired items from ~100 to 300 ms at 2-12 Hz. A later anterior temporal response from ~550 to 1050 ms at 5-20 Hz was not modulated by AoA. The results indicate that the initial analysis of object forms in visual cortex is not influenced by AoA. A fastforward sweep of activation from occipital and left anterior temporal cortex then results in stronger activation of semantic representations for early- than late-acquired objects. Top-down re-activation of occipital cortex by semantic representations is then greater for early than late acquired objects resulting in delayed modulation of the visual response. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. 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.

Visual context modulates potentiation of grasp types during semantic object categorization.

PubMed

Kalénine, Solène; Shapiro, Allison D; Flumini, Andrea; Borghi, Anna M; Buxbaum, Laurel J

2014-06-01

Substantial evidence suggests that conceptual processing of manipulable objects is associated with potentiation of action. Such data have been viewed as evidence that objects are recognized via access to action features. Many objects, however, are associated with multiple actions. For example, a kitchen timer may be clenched with a power grip to move it but pinched with a precision grip to use it. The present study tested the hypothesis that action evocation during conceptual object processing is responsive to the visual scene in which objects are presented. Twenty-five healthy adults were asked to categorize object pictures presented in different naturalistic visual contexts that evoke either move- or use-related actions. Categorization judgments (natural vs. artifact) were performed by executing a move- or use-related action (clench vs. pinch) on a response device, and response times were assessed as a function of contextual congruence. Although the actions performed were irrelevant to the categorization judgment, responses were significantly faster when actions were compatible with the visual context. This compatibility effect was largely driven by faster pinch responses when objects were presented in use-compatible, as compared with move-compatible, contexts. The present study is the first to highlight the influence of visual scene on stimulus-response compatibility effects during semantic object processing. These data support the hypothesis that action evocation during conceptual object processing is biased toward context-relevant actions.

Visual context modulates potentiation of grasp types during semantic object categorization

PubMed Central

Kalénine, Solène; Shapiro, Allison D.; Flumini, Andrea; Borghi, Anna M.; Buxbaum, Laurel J.

2013-01-01

Substantial evidence suggests that conceptual processing of manipulable objects is associated with potentiation of action. Such data have been viewed as evidence that objects are recognized via access to action features. Many objects, however, are associated with multiple actions. For example, a kitchen timer may be clenched with a power grip to move it, but pinched with a precision grip to use it. The present study tested the hypothesis that action evocation during conceptual object processing is responsive to the visual scene in which objects are presented. Twenty-five healthy adults were asked to categorize object pictures presented in different naturalistic visual contexts that evoke either move- or use-related actions. Categorization judgments (natural vs. artifact) were performed by executing a move- or use-related action (clench vs. pinch) on a response device, and response times were assessed as a function of contextual congruence. Although the actions performed were irrelevant to the categorization judgment, responses were significantly faster when actions were compatible with the visual context. This compatibility effect was largely driven by faster pinch responses when objects were presented in use- compared to move-compatible contexts. The present study is the first to highlight the influence of visual scene on stimulus-response compatibility effects during semantic object processing. These data support the hypothesis that action evocation during conceptual object processing is biased toward context-relevant actions. PMID:24186270

Actionable, long-term stable and semantic web compatible identifiers for access to biological collection objects

PubMed Central

Hyam, Roger; Hagedorn, Gregor; Chagnoux, Simon; Röpert, Dominik; Casino, Ana; Droege, Gabi; Glöckler, Falko; Gödderz, Karsten; Groom, Quentin; Hoffmann, Jana; Holleman, Ayco; Kempa, Matúš; Koivula, Hanna; Marhold, Karol; Nicolson, Nicky; Smith, Vincent S.; Triebel, Dagmar

2017-01-01

With biodiversity research activities being increasingly shifted to the web, the need for a system of persistent and stable identifiers for physical collection objects becomes increasingly pressing. The Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities agreed on a common system of HTTP-URI-based stable identifiers which is now rolled out to its member organizations. The system follows Linked Open Data principles and implements redirection mechanisms to human-readable and machine-readable representations of specimens facilitating seamless integration into the growing semantic web. The implementation of stable identifiers across collection organizations is supported with open source provider software scripts, best practices documentations and recommendations for RDF metadata elements facilitating harmonized access to collection information in web portals. Database URL: http://cetaf.org/cetaf-stable-identifiers PMID:28365724

Effects of childhood hearing loss on organization of semantic memory: typicality and relatedness.

PubMed

Jerger, Susan; Damian, Markus F; Tye-Murray, Nancy; Dougherty, Meaghan; Mehta, Jyutika; Spence, Melanie

2006-12-01

The purpose of this research was to study how early childhood hearing loss affects development of concepts and categories, aspects of semantic knowledge that allow us to group and make inferences about objects with common properties, such as dogs versus cats. We assessed category typicality and out-of-category relatedness effects. The typicality effect refers to performance advantage (faster reaction times, fewer errors) for objects with a higher number of a category's characteristic properties; the out-of-category relatedness effect refers to performance disadvantage (slower reaction times and more errors) for out-of-category objects that share some properties with category members. We applied a new children's speeded category-verification task (vote "yes" if the pictured object is clothing). Stimuli were pictures of typical and atypical category objects (e.g., pants, glove) and related and unrelated out-of-category objects (e.g., necklace, soup). Participants were 30 children with hearing impairment (HI) who were considered successful hearing aid users and who attended regular classes (mainstreamed) with some support services. Ages ranged from 5 to 15 yr (mean = 10 yr 8 mo). Results were related to normative data from . Typical objects consistently showed preferential processing (faster reaction times, fewer errors), and related out-of-category objects consistently showed the converse. Overall, results between HI and normative groups exhibited striking similarity. Variation in speed of classification was influenced primarily by age and age-related competencies, such as vocabulary skill. Audiological status, however, independently influenced performance to a lesser extent, with positive responses becoming faster as degree of hearing loss decreased and negative responses becoming faster as age of identification/amplification/education decreased. There were few errors overall. The presence of a typicality effect indicates that 1) the structure of conceptual representations for at least one category in the HI group was based on characteristic properties with an uneven distribution among members, and 2) typical objects with a higher number of characteristic properties were more easily accessed and/or retrieved. The presence of a relatedness effect indicates that the structure of representational knowledge in the HI group allowed them to appreciate semantic properties and understand that properties may be shared between categories. Speculations linked the association 1) between positive responses and degree of hearing loss to an increase in the quality, accessibility, and retrievability of conceptual representations with better hearing; and 2) between negative responses and age of identification/amplification/education to an improvement in effortful, postretrieval decision-making proficiencies with more schooling and amplified auditory experience. This research establishes the value of our new approach to assessing the organization of semantic memory in children with HI.

Web-of-Objects (WoO)-Based Context Aware Emergency Fire Management Systems for the Internet of Things

PubMed Central

Shamszaman, Zia Ush; Ara, Safina Showkat; Chong, Ilyoung; Jeong, Youn Kwae

2014-01-01

Recent advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Web of Things (WoT) accompany a smart life where real world objects, including sensing devices, are interconnected with each other. The Web representation of smart objects empowers innovative applications and services for various domains. To accelerate this approach, Web of Objects (WoO) focuses on the implementation aspects of bringing the assorted real world objects to the Web applications. In this paper; we propose an emergency fire management system in the WoO infrastructure. Consequently, we integrate the formation and management of Virtual Objects (ViO) which are derived from real world physical objects and are virtually connected with each other into the semantic ontology model. The charm of using the semantic ontology is that it allows information reusability, extensibility and interoperability, which enable ViOs to uphold orchestration, federation, collaboration and harmonization. Our system is context aware, as it receives contextual environmental information from distributed sensors and detects emergency situations. To handle a fire emergency, we present a decision support tool for the emergency fire management team. The previous fire incident log is the basis of the decision support system. A log repository collects all the emergency fire incident logs from ViOs and stores them in a repository. PMID:24531299

Web-of-Objects (WoO)-based context aware emergency fire management systems for the Internet of Things.

PubMed

Shamszaman, Zia Ush; Ara, Safina Showkat; Chong, Ilyoung; Jeong, Youn Kwae

2014-02-13

Recent advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Web of Things (WoT) accompany a smart life where real world objects, including sensing devices, are interconnected with each other. The Web representation of smart objects empowers innovative applications and services for various domains. To accelerate this approach, Web of Objects (WoO) focuses on the implementation aspects of bringing the assorted real world objects to the Web applications. In this paper; we propose an emergency fire management system in the WoO infrastructure. Consequently, we integrate the formation and management of Virtual Objects (ViO) which are derived from real world physical objects and are virtually connected with each other into the semantic ontology model. The charm of using the semantic ontology is that it allows information reusability, extensibility and interoperability, which enable ViOs to uphold orchestration, federation, collaboration and harmonization. Our system is context aware, as it receives contextual environmental information from distributed sensors and detects emergency situations. To handle a fire emergency, we present a decision support tool for the emergency fire management team. The previous fire incident log is the basis of the decision support system. A log repository collects all the emergency fire incident logs from ViOs and stores them in a repository.

Automatic and Controlled Semantic Retrieval: TMS Reveals Distinct Contributions of Posterior Middle Temporal Gyrus and Angular Gyrus

PubMed Central

Davey, James; Cornelissen, Piers L.; Thompson, Hannah E.; Sonkusare, Saurabh; Hallam, Glyn; Smallwood, Jonathan

2015-01-01

Semantic retrieval involves both (1) automatic spreading activation between highly related concepts and (2) executive control processes that tailor this activation to suit the current context or goals. Two structures in left temporoparietal cortex, angular gyrus (AG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), are thought to be crucial to semantic retrieval and are often recruited together during semantic tasks; however, they show strikingly different patterns of functional connectivity at rest (coupling with the “default mode network” and “frontoparietal control system,” respectively). Here, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to establish a causal yet dissociable role for these sites in semantic cognition in human volunteers. TMS to AG disrupted thematic judgments particularly when the link between probe and target was strong (e.g., a picture of an Alsatian with a bone), and impaired the identification of objects at a specific but not a superordinate level (for the verbal label “Alsatian” not “animal”). In contrast, TMS to pMTG disrupted thematic judgments for weak but not strong associations (e.g., a picture of an Alsatian with razor wire), and impaired identity matching for both superordinate and specific-level labels. Thus, stimulation to AG interfered with the automatic retrieval of specific concepts from the semantic store while stimulation of pMTG impaired semantic cognition when there was a requirement to flexibly shape conceptual activation in line with the task requirements. These results demonstrate that AG and pMTG make a dissociable contribution to automatic and controlled aspects of semantic retrieval. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We demonstrate a novel functional dissociation between the angular gyrus (AG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) in conceptual processing. These sites are often coactivated during neuroimaging studies using semantic tasks, but their individual contributions are unclear. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation and tasks designed to assess different aspects of semantics (item identity and thematic matching), we tested two alternative theoretical accounts. Neither site showed the pattern expected for a “thematic hub” (i.e., a site storing associations between concepts) since stimulation disrupted both tasks. Instead, the data indicated that pMTG contributes to the controlled retrieval of conceptual knowledge, while AG is critical for the efficient automatic retrieval of specific semantic information. PMID:26586812

Unitary vs multiple semantics: PET studies of word and picture processing.

PubMed

Bright, P; Moss, H; Tyler, L K

2004-06-01

In this paper we examine a central issue in cognitive neuroscience: are there separate conceptual representations associated with different input modalities (e.g., Paivio, 1971, 1986; Warrington & Shallice, 1984) or do inputs from different modalities converge on to the same set of representations (e.g., Caramazza, Hillis, Rapp, & Romani, 1990; Lambon Ralph, Graham, Patterson, & Hodges, 1999; Rapp, Hillis, & Caramazza, 1993)? We present an analysis of four PET studies (three semantic categorisation tasks and one lexical decision task), two of which employ words as stimuli and two of which employ pictures. Using conjunction analyses, we found robust semantic activation, common to both input modalities in anterior and medial aspects of the left fusiform gyrus, left parahippocampal and perirhinal cortices, and left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47). There were modality-specific activations in both temporal poles (words) and occipitotemporal cortices (pictures). We propose that the temporal poles are involved in processing both words and pictures, but their engagement might be primarily determined by the level of specificity at which an object is processed. Activation in posterior temporal regions associated with picture processing most likely reflects intermediate, pre-semantic stages of visual processing. Our data are most consistent with a hierarchically structured, unitary system of semantic representations for both verbal and visual modalities, subserved by anterior regions of the inferior temporal cortex.

Semantic Shot Classification in Sports Video

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duan, Ling-Yu; Xu, Min; Tian, Qi

2003-01-01

In this paper, we present a unified framework for semantic shot classification in sports videos. Unlike previous approaches, which focus on clustering by aggregating shots with similar low-level features, the proposed scheme makes use of domain knowledge of a specific sport to perform a top-down video shot classification, including identification of video shot classes for each sport, and supervised learning and classification of the given sports video with low-level and middle-level features extracted from the sports video. It is observed that for each sport we can predefine a small number of semantic shot classes, about 5~10, which covers 90~95% of sports broadcasting video. With the supervised learning method, we can map the low-level features to middle-level semantic video shot attributes such as dominant object motion (a player), camera motion patterns, and court shape, etc. On the basis of the appropriate fusion of those middle-level shot classes, we classify video shots into the predefined video shot classes, each of which has a clear semantic meaning. The proposed method has been tested over 4 types of sports videos: tennis, basketball, volleyball and soccer. Good classification accuracy of 85~95% has been achieved. With correctly classified sports video shots, further structural and temporal analysis, such as event detection, video skimming, table of content, etc, will be greatly facilitated.

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

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.

Where Is the Semantic System? A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis of 120 Functional Neuroimaging Studies

PubMed Central

Desai, Rutvik H.; Graves, William W.; Conant, Lisa L.

2009-01-01

Semantic memory refers to knowledge about people, objects, actions, relations, self, and culture acquired through experience. The neural systems that store and retrieve this information have been studied for many years, but a consensus regarding their identity has not been reached. Using strict inclusion criteria, we analyzed 120 functional neuroimaging studies focusing on semantic processing. Reliable areas of activation in these studies were identified using the activation likelihood estimate (ALE) technique. These activations formed a distinct, left-lateralized network comprised of 7 regions: posterior inferior parietal lobe, middle temporal gyrus, fusiform and parahippocampal gyri, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and posterior cingulate gyrus. Secondary analyses showed specific subregions of this network associated with knowledge of actions, manipulable artifacts, abstract concepts, and concrete concepts. The cortical regions involved in semantic processing can be grouped into 3 broad categories: posterior multimodal and heteromodal association cortex, heteromodal prefrontal cortex, and medial limbic regions. The expansion of these regions in the human relative to the nonhuman primate brain may explain uniquely human capacities to use language productively, plan, solve problems, and create cultural and technological artifacts, all of which depend on the fluid and efficient retrieval and manipulation of semantic knowledge. PMID:19329570

Text-Content-Analysis based on the Syntactic Correlations between Ontologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tenschert, Axel; Kotsiopoulos, Ioannis; Koller, Bastian

The work presented in this chapter is concerned with the analysis of semantic knowledge structures, represented in the form of Ontologies, through which Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are enriched with new semantic data. The objective of the enrichment process is to enable SLA negotiation in a way that is much more convenient for a Service Users. For this purpose the deployment of an SLA-Management-System as well as the development of an analyzing procedure for Ontologies is required. This chapter will refer to the BREIN, the FinGrid and the LarKC projects. The analyzing procedure examines the syntactic correlations of several Ontologies whose focus lies in the field of mechanical engineering. A method of analyzing text and content is developed as part of this procedure. In order to so, we introduce a formalism as well as a method for understanding content. The analysis and methods are integrated to an SLA Management System which enables a Service User to interact with the system as a service by negotiating the user requests and including the semantic knowledge. Through negotiation between Service User and Service Provider the analysis procedure considers the user requests by extending the SLAs with semantic knowledge. Through this the economic use of an SLA-Management-System is increased by the enhancement of SLAs with semantic knowledge structures. The main focus of this chapter is the analyzing procedure, respectively the Text-Content-Analysis, which provides the mentioned semantic knowledge structures.

Numeracy Skills in Patients With Degenerative Disorders and Focal Brain Lesions

PubMed Central

Cappelletti, Marinella; Butterworth, Brian; Kopelman, Michael

2012-01-01

Objective: To characterize the numerical profile of patients with acquired brain disorders. Method: We investigated numeracy skills in 76 participants—40 healthy controls and 36 patients with neurodegenerative disorders (Alzheimer dementia, frontotemporal dementia, semantic dementia, progressive aphasia) and with focal brain lesions affecting parietal, frontal, and temporal areas as in herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE). All patients were tested with the same comprehensive battery of paper-and-pencil and computerized tasks assessing numerical abilities and calculation. Degenerative and HSE patients also performed nonnumerical semantic tasks. Results: Our results, based on nonparametric group statistics as well as on the analysis of individual patients, and all highly significant, show that: (a) all patients, including those with parietal lesions—a key brain area for numeracy processing—had intact processing of number quantity; (b) patients with impaired semantic knowledge had much better preserved numerical knowledge; and (c) most patients showed impaired calculation skills, with the exception of most semantic dementia and HSE patients. Conclusion: Our results allow us, for the first time, to characterize the numeracy skills in patients with a variety of neurological conditions and to suggest that the pattern of numerical performance can vary considerably across different neurological populations. Moreover, the selective sparing of calculation skills in most semantic dementia and HSE suggest that numerical abilities are an independent component of the semantic system. Finally, our data suggest that, besides the parietal areas, other brain regions might be critical to the understanding and processing of numerical concepts. PMID:22122516

Using Semantic Web technologies for the generation of domain-specific templates to support clinical study metadata standards.

PubMed

Jiang, Guoqian; Evans, Julie; Endle, Cory M; Solbrig, Harold R; Chute, Christopher G

2016-01-01

The Biomedical Research Integrated Domain Group (BRIDG) model is a formal domain analysis model for protocol-driven biomedical research, and serves as a semantic foundation for application and message development in the standards developing organizations (SDOs). The increasing sophistication and complexity of the BRIDG model requires new approaches to the management and utilization of the underlying semantics to harmonize domain-specific standards. The objective of this study is to develop and evaluate a Semantic Web-based approach that integrates the BRIDG model with ISO 21090 data types to generate domain-specific templates to support clinical study metadata standards development. We developed a template generation and visualization system based on an open source Resource Description Framework (RDF) store backend, a SmartGWT-based web user interface, and a "mind map" based tool for the visualization of generated domain-specific templates. We also developed a RESTful Web Service informed by the Clinical Information Modeling Initiative (CIMI) reference model for access to the generated domain-specific templates. A preliminary usability study is performed and all reviewers (n = 3) had very positive responses for the evaluation questions in terms of the usability and the capability of meeting the system requirements (with the average score of 4.6). Semantic Web technologies provide a scalable infrastructure and have great potential to enable computable semantic interoperability of models in the intersection of health care and clinical research.

The temporal evolution of conceptual object representations revealed through models of behavior, semantics and deep neural networks.

PubMed

Bankson, B B; Hebart, M N; Groen, I I A; Baker, C I

2018-05-17

Visual object representations are commonly thought to emerge rapidly, yet it has remained unclear to what extent early brain responses reflect purely low-level visual features of these objects and how strongly those features contribute to later categorical or conceptual representations. Here, we aimed to estimate a lower temporal bound for the emergence of conceptual representations by defining two criteria that characterize such representations: 1) conceptual object representations should generalize across different exemplars of the same object, and 2) these representations should reflect high-level behavioral judgments. To test these criteria, we compared magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings between two groups of participants (n = 16 per group) exposed to different exemplar images of the same object concepts. Further, we disentangled low-level from high-level MEG responses by estimating the unique and shared contribution of models of behavioral judgments, semantics, and different layers of deep neural networks of visual object processing. We find that 1) both generalization across exemplars as well as generalization of object-related signals across time increase after 150 ms, peaking around 230 ms; 2) representations specific to behavioral judgments emerged rapidly, peaking around 160 ms. Collectively, these results suggest a lower bound for the emergence of conceptual object representations around 150 ms following stimulus onset. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Large-scale weakly supervised object localization via latent category learning.

PubMed

Chong Wang; Kaiqi Huang; Weiqiang Ren; Junge Zhang; Maybank, Steve

2015-04-01

Localizing objects in cluttered backgrounds is challenging under large-scale weakly supervised conditions. Due to the cluttered image condition, objects usually have large ambiguity with backgrounds. Besides, there is also a lack of effective algorithm for large-scale weakly supervised localization in cluttered backgrounds. However, backgrounds contain useful latent information, e.g., the sky in the aeroplane class. If this latent information can be learned, object-background ambiguity can be largely reduced and background can be suppressed effectively. In this paper, we propose the latent category learning (LCL) in large-scale cluttered conditions. LCL is an unsupervised learning method which requires only image-level class labels. First, we use the latent semantic analysis with semantic object representation to learn the latent categories, which represent objects, object parts or backgrounds. Second, to determine which category contains the target object, we propose a category selection strategy by evaluating each category's discrimination. Finally, we propose the online LCL for use in large-scale conditions. Evaluation on the challenging PASCAL Visual Object Class (VOC) 2007 and the large-scale imagenet large-scale visual recognition challenge 2013 detection data sets shows that the method can improve the annotation precision by 10% over previous methods. More importantly, we achieve the detection precision which outperforms previous results by a large margin and can be competitive to the supervised deformable part model 5.0 baseline on both data sets.

Mechanisms underlying selecting objects for action

PubMed Central

Wulff, Melanie; Laverick, Rosanna; Humphreys, Glyn W.; Wing, Alan M.; Rotshtein, Pia

2015-01-01

We assessed the factors which affect the selection of objects for action, focusing on the role of action knowledge and its modulation by distracters. Fourteen neuropsychological patients and 10 healthy aged-matched controls selected pairs of objects commonly used together among distracters in two contexts: with real objects and with pictures of the same objects presented sequentially on a computer screen. Across both tasks, semantically related distracters led to slower responses and more errors than unrelated distracters and the object actively used for action was selected prior to the object that would be passively held during the action. We identified a sub-group of patients (N = 6) whose accuracy was 2SDs below the controls performances in the real object task. Interestingly, these impaired patients were more affected by the presence of unrelated distracters during both tasks than intact patients and healthy controls. Note that the impaired patients had lesions to left parietal, right anterior temporal and bilateral pre-motor regions. We conclude that: (1) motor procedures guide object selection for action, (2) semantic knowledge affects action-based selection, (3) impaired action decision making is associated with the inability to ignore distracting information and (4) lesions to either the dorsal or ventral visual stream can lead to deficits in making action decisions. Overall, the data indicate that impairments in everyday tasks can be evaluated using a simulated computer task. The implications for rehabilitation are discussed. PMID:25954177