The Effects of Multiple Script Priming on Word Recognition by the Two Cerebral Hemispheres: Implications for Discourse Processing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Faust, Miriam; Barak, Ofra; Chiarello, Christine

2006-01-01

The present study examined left (LH) and right (RH) hemisphere involvement in discourse processing by testing the ability of each hemisphere to use world knowledge in the form of script contexts for word recognition. Participants made lexical decisions to laterally presented target words preceded by centrally presented script primes (four…

Voice Onset Time for the Word-Initial Voiceless Consonant /t/ in Japanese Spasmodic Dysphonia-A Comparison With Normal Controls.

PubMed

Yanagida, Saori; Nishizawa, Noriko; Mizoguchi, Kenji; Hatakeyama, Hiromitsu; Fukuda, Satoshi

2015-07-01

Voice onset time (VOT) for word-initial voiceless consonants in adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD) and abductor spasmodic dysphonia (ABSD) patients were measured to determine (1) which acoustic measures differed from the controls and (2) whether acoustic measures were related to the pause or silence between the test word and the preceding word. Forty-eight patients with ADSD and nine patients with ABSD, as well as 20 matched normal controls read a story in which the word "taiyo" (the sun) was repeated three times, each differentiated by the position of the word in the sentence. The target of measurement was the VOT for the word-initial voiceless consonant /t/. When the target syllable appeared in a sentence following a comma, or at the beginning of a sentence following a period, the ABSD patients' VOTs were significantly longer than those of the ADSD patients and controls. Abnormal prolongation of the VOTs was related to the pause or silence between the test word and the preceding word. VOTs in spasmodic dysphonia (SD) may vary according to the SD subtype or speaking conditions. VOT measurement was suggested to be a useful method for quantifying voice symptoms in SD. Copyright © 2015 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Word form Encoding in Chinese Word Naming and Word Typing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Jenn-Yeu; Li, Cheng-Yi

2011-01-01

The process of word form encoding was investigated in primed word naming and word typing with Chinese monosyllabic words. The target words shared or did not share the onset consonants with the prime words. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 100 ms or 300 ms. Typing required the participants to enter the phonetic letters of the target word,…

Exchange of Stuttering From Function Words to Content Words With Age

PubMed Central

Howell, Peter; Au-Yeung, James; Sackin, Stevie

2007-01-01

Dysfluencies on function words in the speech of people who stutter mainly occur when function words precede, rather than follow, content words (Au-Yeung, Howell, & Pilgrim, 1998). It is hypothesized that such function word dysfluencies occur when the plan for the subsequent content word is not ready for execution. Repetition and hesitation on the function words buys time to complete the plan for the content word. Stuttering arises when speakers abandon the use of this delaying strategy and carry on, attempting production of the subsequent, partly prepared content word. To test these hypotheses, the relationship between dysfluency on function and content words was investigated in the spontaneous speech of 51 people who stutter and 68 people who do not stutter. These participants were subdivided into the following age groups: 2–6-year-olds, 7–9-year-olds, 10–12-year-olds, teenagers (13–18 years), and adults (20–40 years). Very few dysfluencies occurred for either fluency group on function words that occupied a position after a content word. For both fluency groups, dysfluency within each phonological word occurred predominantly on either the function word preceding the content word or on the content word itself, but not both. Fluent speakers had a higher percentage of dysfluency on initial function words than content words. Whether dysfluency occurred on initial function words or content words changed over age groups for speakers who stutter. For the 2–6-year-old speakers that stutter, there was a higher percentage of dysfluencies on initial function words than content words. In subsequent age groups, dysfluency decreased on function words and increased on content words. These data are interpreted as suggesting that fluent speakers use repetition of function words to delay production of the subsequent content words, whereas people who stutter carry on and attempt a content word on the basis of an incomplete plan. PMID:10229451

Identification of letters in the predesignated target paradigm: a word superiority effect for the common word the.

PubMed

Peterzell, D H; Sinclair, G P; Healy, A F; Bourne, L E

1990-01-01

The size of the perceptual unit used in reading was addressed using the predesignated target paradigm. Sixteen subjects viewed the following stimuli in random order: the words tee, the, tie, and toe; the nonwords eet, eht, eit, and eot; and the letters e, h, i, and o. Subjects fixated on the location of the center letter and identified the letter as e, h, i, or o, alternatives which were known to them at the onset. A word superiority effect was obtained for the common word the but not for the less common words tee, tie, and toe. The word superiority effect was attributable to bias rather than discriminability: Subjects exhibited a bias to perceive the words in this experiment as the (i.e., there was a bias to perceive h in the t e stimulus presentations). These results suggest that the common word the is processed in reading units that are larger than the letter, and that the system is biased to perceive common rather than uncommon words in data-limited conditions.

Processing of Color Words Activates Color Representations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Richter, Tobias; Zwaan, Rolf A.

2009-01-01

Two experiments were conducted to investigate whether color representations are routinely activated when color words are processed. Congruency effects of colors and color words were observed in both directions. Lexical decisions on color words were faster when preceding colors matched the color named by the word. Color-discrimination responses…

Subliminal convergence of Kanji and Kana words: further evidence for functional parcellation of the posterior temporal cortex in visual word perception.

PubMed

Nakamura, Kimihiro; Dehaene, Stanislas; Jobert, Antoinette; Le Bihan, Denis; Kouider, Sid

2005-06-01

Recent evidence has suggested that the human occipitotemporal region comprises several subregions, each sensitive to a distinct processing level of visual words. To further explore the functional architecture of visual word recognition, we employed a subliminal priming method with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during semantic judgments of words presented in two different Japanese scripts, Kanji and Kana. Each target word was preceded by a subliminal presentation of either the same or a different word, and in the same or a different script. Behaviorally, word repetition produced significant priming regardless of whether the words were presented in the same or different script. At the neural level, this cross-script priming was associated with repetition suppression in the left inferior temporal cortex anterior and dorsal to the visual word form area hypothesized for alphabetical writing systems, suggesting that cross-script convergence occurred at a semantic level. fMRI also evidenced a shared visual occipito-temporal activation for words in the two scripts, with slightly more mesial and right-predominant activation for Kanji and with greater occipital activation for Kana. These results thus allow us to separate script-specific and script-independent regions in the posterior temporal lobe, while demonstrating that both can be activated subliminally.

Morphological effects in children word reading: a priming study in fourth graders.

PubMed

Casalis, Séverine; Dusautoir, Marion; Colé, Pascale; Ducrot, Stéphanie

2009-09-01

A growing corpus of evidence suggests that morphology could play a role in reading acquisition, and that young readers could be sensitive to the morphemic structure of written words. In the present experiment, we examined whether and when morphological information is activated in word recognition. French fourth graders made visual lexical decisions to derived words preceded by primes sharing either a morphological or an orthographic relationship with the target. Results showed significant and equivalent facilitation priming effects in cases of morphologically and orthographically related primes at the shortest prime duration, and a significant facilitation priming effect in the case of only morphologically related primes at the longer prime duration. Thus, these results strongly suggest that a morphological level is involved in children's visual word recognition, although it is not distinct from the formal one at an early stage of word processing.

Dispositional mindfulness and semantic integration of emotional words: Evidence from event-related brain potentials.

PubMed

Dorjee, Dusana; Lally, Níall; Darrall-Rew, Jonathan; Thierry, Guillaume

2015-08-01

Initial research shows that mindfulness training can enhance attention and modulate the affective response. However, links between mindfulness and language processing remain virtually unexplored despite the prominent role of overt and silent negative ruminative speech in depressive and anxiety-related symptomatology. Here, we measured dispositional mindfulness and recorded participants' event-related brain potential responses to positive and negative target words preceded by words congruent or incongruent with the targets in terms of semantic relatedness and emotional valence. While the low mindfulness group showed similar N400 effect pattern for positive and negative targets, high dispositional mindfulness was associated with larger N400 effect to negative targets. This result suggests that negative meanings are less readily accessible in people with high dispositional mindfulness. Furthermore, high dispositional mindfulness was associated with reduced P600 amplitudes to emotional words, suggesting less post-analysis and attentional effort which possibly relates to a lower inclination to ruminate. Overall, these findings provide initial evidence on associations between modifications in language systems and mindfulness. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd and the Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.

Effects of Prediction and Contextual Support on Lexical Processing: Prediction takes Precedence

PubMed Central

Brothers, Trevor; Swaab, Tamara Y.; Traxler, Matthew J.

2014-01-01

Readers may use contextual information to anticipate and pre-activate specific lexical items during reading. However, prior studies have not clearly dissociated the effects of accurate lexical prediction from other forms of contextual facilitation such as plausibility or semantic priming. In this study, we measured electrophysiological responses to predicted and unpredicted target words in passages providing varying levels of contextual support. This method was used to isolate the neural effects of prediction from other potential contextual influences on lexical processing. While both prediction and discourse context influenced ERP amplitudes within the time range of the N400, the effects of prediction occurred much more rapidly, preceding contextual facilitation by approximately 100ms. In addition, a frontal, post-N400 positivity (PNP) was modulated by both prediction accuracy and the overall plausibility of the preceding passage. These results suggest a unique temporal primacy for prediction in facilitating lexical access. They also suggest that the frontal PNP may index the costs of revising discourse representations following an incorrect lexical prediction. PMID:25497522

Eye movements and word skipping during reading: Effects of word length and predictability

PubMed Central

Rayner, Keith; Slattery, Timothy J.; Drieghe, Denis; Liversedge, Simon P.

2012-01-01

The extent to which target words were predictable from prior context was varied: half of the target words were predictable and the other half were unpredictable. In addition, the length of the target word varied: the target words were short (4–6 letters), medium (7–9 letters), or long (10–12 letters). Length and predictability both yielded strong effects on the probability of skipping the target words and on the amount of time readers fixated the target words (when they were not skipped). However, there was no interaction in any of the measures examined for either skipping or fixation time. The results demonstrate that word predictability (due to contextual constraint) and word length have strong and independent influences on word skipping and fixation durations. Furthermore, since the long words extended beyond the word identification span, the data indicate that skipping can occur on the basis of partial information in relation to word identity. PMID:21463086

Skipped words and fixated words are processed differently during reading.

PubMed

Eskenazi, Michael A; Folk, Jocelyn R

2015-04-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether words are processed differently when they are fixated during silent reading than when they are skipped. According to a serial processing model of eye movement control (e.g., EZ Reader) skipped words are fully processed (Reichle, Rayner, Pollatsek, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26(04):445-476, 2003), whereas in a parallel processing model (e.g., SWIFT) skipped words do not need to be fully processed (Engbert, Nuthmann, Richter, Kliegl, Psychological Review, 112(4):777-813, 2005). Participants read 34 sentences with target words embedded in them while their eye movements were recorded. All target words were three-letter, low-frequency, and unpredictable nouns. After the reading session, participants completed a repetition priming lexical decision task with the target words from the reading session included as the repetition prime targets, with presentation of those same words during the reading task acting as the prime. When participants skipped a word during the reading session, their reaction times on the lexical decision task were significantly longer (M = 656.42 ms) than when they fixated the word (M = 614.43 ms). This result provides evidence that skipped words are sometimes not processed to the same degree as fixated words during reading.

Ambiguous function words do not prevent 18-month-olds from building accurate syntactic category expectations: An ERP study.

PubMed

Brusini, Perrine; Dehaene-Lambertz, Ghislaine; van Heugten, Marieke; de Carvalho, Alex; Goffinet, François; Fiévet, Anne-Caroline; Christophe, Anne

2017-04-01

To comprehend language, listeners need to encode the relationship between words within sentences. This entails categorizing words into their appropriate word classes. Function words, consistently preceding words from specific categories (e.g., the ball NOUN , I speak VERB ), provide invaluable information for this task, and children's sensitivity to such adjacent relationships develops early on in life. However, neighboring words are not the sole source of information regarding an item's word class. Here we examine whether young children also take into account preceding sentence context online during syntactic categorization. To address this question, we use the ambiguous French function word la which, depending on sentence context, can either be used as determiner (the, preceding nouns) or as object clitic (it, preceding verbs). French-learning 18-month-olds' evoked potentials (ERPs) were recorded while they listened to sentences featuring this ambiguous function word followed by either a noun or a verb (thus yielding a locally felicitous co-occurrence of la + noun or la + verb). Crucially, preceding sentence context rendered the sentence either grammatical or ungrammatical. Ungrammatical sentences elicited a late positivity (resembling a P600) that was not observed for grammatical sentences. Toddlers' analysis of the unfolding sentence was thus not limited to local co-occurrences, but rather took into account non-adjacent sentence context. These findings suggest that by 18 months of age, online word categorization is already surprisingly robust. This could be greatly beneficial for the acquisition of novel words. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Is semantic priming (ir)rational? Insights from the speeded word fragment completion task.

PubMed

Heyman, Tom; Hutchison, Keith A; Storms, Gert

2016-10-01

Semantic priming, the phenomenon that a target is recognized faster if it is preceded by a semantically related prime, is a well-established effect. However, the mechanisms producing semantic priming are subject of debate. Several theories assume that the underlying processes are controllable and tuned to prime utility. In contrast, purely automatic processes, like automatic spreading activation, should be independent of the prime's usefulness. The present study sought to disentangle both accounts by creating a situation where prime processing is actually detrimental. Specifically, participants were asked to quickly complete word fragments with either the letter a or e (e.g., sh_ve to be completed as shave). Critical fragments were preceded by a prime that was either related (e.g., push) or unrelated (write) to a prohibited completion of the target (e.g., shove). In 2 experiments, we found a significant inhibitory priming effect, which is inconsistent with purely "rational" explanations of semantic priming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Processing negative valence of word pairs that include a positive word.

PubMed

Itkes, Oksana; Mashal, Nira

2016-09-01

Previous research has suggested that cognitive performance is interrupted by negative relative to neutral or positive stimuli. We examined whether negative valence affects performance at the word or phrase level. Participants performed a semantic decision task on word pairs that included either a negative or a positive target word. In Experiment 1, the valence of the target word was congruent with the overall valence conveyed by the word pair (e.g., fat kid). As expected, response times were slower in the negative condition relative to the positive condition. Experiment 2 included target words that were incongruent with the overall valence of the word pair (e.g., fat salary). Response times were longer for word pairs whose overall valence was negative relative to positive, even though these word pairs included a positive word. Our findings support the Cognitive Primacy Hypothesis, according to which emotional valence is extracted after conceptual processing is complete.

[Effect of concreteness of target words on verbal working memory: an evaluation using Japanese version of reading span test].

PubMed

Kondo, H; Osaka, N

2000-04-01

Effects of concreteness and representation mode (kanji/hiragana) of target words on working memory during reading was tested using Japanese version of reading span test (RST), developed by Osaka and Osaka (1994). Concreteness and familiarity of target words and difficulty of sentences were carefully controlled. The words with high concreteness resulted in significantly higher RST scores, which suggests the high efficiency of working memory in processing these words. The results suggest that high concrete noun-words associated with visual clues consume less working memory capacity during reading. The effect of representation mode is different between subjects with high-RST and low-RST scores. Characteristic of the high concrete words that may be responsible for the effectiveness of processing are discussed.

Accuracy of geographically targeted internet advertisements on Google AdWords for recruitment in a randomized trial.

PubMed

Jones, Ray B; Goldsmith, Lesley; Williams, Christopher J; Kamel Boulos, Maged N

2012-06-20

Google AdWords are increasingly used to recruit people into research studies and clinical services. They offer the potential to recruit from targeted control areas in cluster randomized controlled trials (RCTs), but little is known about the feasibility of accurately targeting ads by location and comparing with control areas. To examine the accuracy and contamination of control areas by a location-targeted online intervention using Google AdWords in a pilot cluster RCT. Based on previous use of online cognitive behavioral therapy for depression and population size, we purposively selected 16 of the 121 British postcode areas and randomized them to three intervention and one (do-nothing) control arms. Two intervention arms included use of location-targeted AdWords, and we compared these with the do-nothing control arm. We did not raise the visibility of our research website to normal Web searches. Users who clicked on the ad were directed to our project website, which collected the computer Internet protocol (IP) address, date, and time. Visitors were asked for their postcode area and to complete the Patient Health Questionnaire (depression). They were then offered links to several online depression resources. Google Analytics largely uses IP methods to estimate location, but AdWords uses additional information. We compared locations assessed by (1) Analytics, and (2) as self-identified by users. Ads were shown 300,523 times with 4207 click-throughs. There were few site visits except through AdWord click-throughs. Both methods of location assessment agreed there was little contamination of control areas. According to Analytics, 69.75% (2617/3752) of participants were in intervention areas, only 0% (8/3752) in control areas, but 30.04% (1127/3752) in other areas. However, according to user-stated postcodes, only 20.7% (463/2237) were in intervention areas, 1% (22/2236) in control areas, but 78.31% (1751/2236) in other areas. Both location assessments suggested most

Evidence for Separate Contributions of High and Low Spatial Frequencies during Visual Word Recognition.

PubMed

Winsler, Kurt; Holcomb, Phillip J; Midgley, Katherine J; Grainger, Jonathan

2017-01-01

Previous studies have shown that different spatial frequency information processing streams interact during the recognition of visual stimuli. However, it is a matter of debate as to the contributions of high and low spatial frequency (HSF and LSF) information for visual word recognition. This study examined the role of different spatial frequencies in visual word recognition using event-related potential (ERP) masked priming. EEG was recorded from 32 scalp sites in 30 English-speaking adults in a go/no-go semantic categorization task. Stimuli were white characters on a neutral gray background. Targets were uppercase five letter words preceded by a forward-mask (#######) and a 50 ms lowercase prime. Primes were either the same word (repeated) or a different word (un-repeated) than the subsequent target and either contained only high, only low, or full spatial frequency information. Additionally within each condition, half of the prime-target pairs were high lexical frequency, and half were low. In the full spatial frequency condition, typical ERP masked priming effects were found with an attenuated N250 (sub-lexical) and N400 (lexical-semantic) for repeated compared to un-repeated primes. For HSF primes there was a weaker N250 effect which interacted with lexical frequency, a significant reversal of the effect around 300 ms, and an N400-like effect for only high lexical frequency word pairs. LSF primes did not produce any of the classic ERP repetition priming effects, however they did elicit a distinct early effect around 200 ms in the opposite direction of typical repetition effects. HSF information accounted for many of the masked repetition priming ERP effects and therefore suggests that HSFs are more crucial for word recognition. However, LSFs did produce their own pattern of priming effects indicating that larger scale information may still play a role in word recognition.

Detection of target phonemes in spontaneous and read speech.

PubMed

Mehta, G; Cutler, A

1988-01-01

Although spontaneous speech occurs more frequently in most listeners' experience than read speech, laboratory studies of human speech recognition typically use carefully controlled materials read from a script. The phonological and prosodic characteristics of spontaneous and read speech differ considerably, however, which suggests that laboratory results may not generalise to the recognition of spontaneous speech. In the present study listeners were presented with both spontaneous and read speech materials, and their response time to detect word-initial target phonemes was measured. Responses were, overall, equally fast in each speech mode. However, analysis of effects previously reported in phoneme detection studies revealed significant differences between speech modes. In read speech but not in spontaneous speech, later targets were detected more rapidly than targets preceded by short words. In contrast, in spontaneous speech but not in read speech, targets were detected more rapidly in accented than in unaccented words and in strong than in weak syllables. An explanation for this pattern is offered in terms of characteristic prosodic differences between spontaneous and read speech. The results support claims from previous work that listeners pay great attention to prosodic information in the process of recognising speech.

Affective priming effects of musical sounds on the processing of word meaning.

PubMed

Steinbeis, Nikolaus; Koelsch, Stefan

2011-03-01

Recent studies have shown that music is capable of conveying semantically meaningful concepts. Several questions have subsequently arisen particularly with regard to the precise mechanisms underlying the communication of musical meaning as well as the role of specific musical features. The present article reports three studies investigating the role of affect expressed by various musical features in priming subsequent word processing at the semantic level. By means of an affective priming paradigm, it was shown that both musically trained and untrained participants evaluated emotional words congruous to the affect expressed by a preceding chord faster than words incongruous to the preceding chord. This behavioral effect was accompanied by an N400, an ERP typically linked with semantic processing, which was specifically modulated by the (mis)match between the prime and the target. This finding was shown for the musical parameter of consonance/dissonance (Experiment 1) and then extended to mode (major/minor) (Experiment 2) and timbre (Experiment 3). Seeing that the N400 is taken to reflect the processing of meaning, the present findings suggest that the emotional expression of single musical features is understood by listeners as such and is probably processed on a level akin to other affective communications (i.e., prosody or vocalizations) because it interferes with subsequent semantic processing. There were no group differences, suggesting that musical expertise does not have an influence on the processing of emotional expression in music and its semantic connotations.

Word skipping: effects of word length, predictability, spelling and reading skill.

PubMed

Slattery, Timothy J; Yates, Mark

2017-08-31

Readers eyes often skip over words as they read. Skipping rates are largely determined by word length; short words are skipped more than long words. However, the predictability of a word in context also impacts skipping rates. Rayner, Slattery, Drieghe and Liversedge (2011) reported an effect of predictability on word skipping for even long words (10-13 characters) that extend beyond the word identification span. Recent research suggests that better readers and spellers have an enhanced perceptual span (Veldre & Andrews, 2014). We explored whether reading and spelling skill interact with word length and predictability to impact word skipping rates in a large sample (N=92) of average and poor adult readers. Participants read the items from Rayner et al. (2011) while their eye movements were recorded. Spelling skill (zSpell) was assessed using the dictation and recognition tasks developed by Sally Andrews and colleagues. Reading skill (zRead) was assessed from reading speed (words per minute) and accuracy of three 120 word passages each with 10 comprehension questions. We fit linear mixed models to the target gaze duration data and generalized linear mixed models to the target word skipping data. Target word gaze durations were significantly predicted by zRead while, the skipping likelihoods were significantly predicted by zSpell. Additionally, for gaze durations, zRead significantly interacted with word predictability as better readers relied less on context to support word processing. These effects are discussed in relation to the lexical quality hypothesis and eye movement models of reading.

Word frequency and the attentional blink: the effects of target difficulty on retrieval and consolidation processes.

PubMed

Wierda, Stefan M; Taatgen, Niels A; van Rijn, Hedderik; Martens, Sander

2013-01-01

When a second target (T2) is presented in close succession of a first target (T1) within a stream of non-targets, people often fail to detect T2-a deficit known as the attentional blink (AB). Two types of theories can be distinguished that have tried to account for this phenomenon. Whereas attentional-control theories suggest that protection of consolidation processes induces the AB, limited-resource theories claim that the AB is caused by a lack of resources. According to the latter type of theories, increasing difficulty of one or both targets should increase the magnitude of the AB. Similarly, attentional-control theories predict that a difficult T1 increases the AB due to prolonged processing. However, the prediction for T2 is not as straightforward. Prolonged processing of T2 could cause conflicts and increase the AB. However, if consolidation of T2 is postponed without loss of identity, the AB might be attenuated. Participants performed an AB task that consisted of a stream of distractor non-words and two target words. Difficulty of T1 and T2 was manipulated by varying word-frequency. Overall performance for high-frequency words was better than for low-frequency words. When T1 was highly frequent, the AB was reduced. The opposite effect was found for T2. When T2 was highly frequent, performance during the AB period was relatively worse than for a low-frequency T2. A threaded-cognition model of the AB was presented that simulated the observed pattern of behavior by taking changes in the time-course of retrieval and consolidation processes into account. Our results were replicated in a subsequent ERP study. The finding that a difficult low-frequency T2 reduces the magnitude of the AB is at odds with limited-resource accounts of the AB. However, it was successfully accounted for by the threaded-cognition model, thus providing an explanation in terms of attentional control.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Adolescents' Processing of Pictures and Written Words for Taxonomic Categories in a Priming Task of Semantic Categorization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Degao; Gao, Kejuan; Wu, Xueyun; Chen, Xiaojun; Zhang, Xiaona; Li, Ling; He, Weiwei

2013-01-01

Inspired by research by Li, Yi, and Kim (2011), the authors examined Chinese deaf and hard of hearing adolescents' responses to pictures for taxonomic categories of basic level (exemplar pictures) preceded by exemplar pictures, and to written words for taxonomic categories of basic level (exemplar words) preceded by exemplar words or by written…

Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye: Orthography Enhances Rapid Word Reading in an Exploratory Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neuhaus, Graham F.; Post, Yolanda

2003-01-01

Uses a novel word-reading efficiency measure to determine if articulations or processing times associated with reading the word "aye" were enhanced through the phonological or orthographic qualities contained in the preceding word. Documents the importance of separating phonological and orthographic information in English homophones. (SG)

Tracking the emergence of the consonant bias in visual-word recognition: evidence with developing readers.

PubMed

Soares, Ana Paula; Perea, Manuel; Comesaña, Montserrat

2014-01-01

Recent research with skilled adult readers has consistently revealed an advantage of consonants over vowels in visual-word recognition (i.e., the so-called "consonant bias"). Nevertheless, little is known about how early in development the consonant bias emerges. This work aims to address this issue by studying the relative contribution of consonants and vowels at the early stages of visual-word recognition in developing readers (2(nd) and 4(th) Grade children) and skilled adult readers (college students) using a masked priming lexical decision task. Target words starting either with a consonant or a vowel were preceded by a briefly presented masked prime (50 ms) that could be the same as the target (e.g., pirata-PIRATA [pirate-PIRATE]), a consonant-preserving prime (e.g., pureto-PIRATA), a vowel-preserving prime (e.g., gicala-PIRATA), or an unrelated prime (e.g., bocelo -PIRATA). Results revealed significant priming effects for the identity and consonant-preserving conditions in adult readers and 4(th) Grade children, whereas 2(nd) graders only showed priming for the identity condition. In adult readers, the advantage of consonants was observed both for words starting with a consonant or a vowel, while in 4(th) graders this advantage was restricted to words with an initial consonant. Thus, the present findings suggest that a Consonant/Vowel skeleton should be included in future (developmental) models of visual-word recognition and reading.

Tracking the Emergence of the Consonant Bias in Visual-Word Recognition: Evidence with Developing Readers

PubMed Central

Soares, Ana Paula; Perea, Manuel; Comesaña, Montserrat

2014-01-01

Recent research with skilled adult readers has consistently revealed an advantage of consonants over vowels in visual-word recognition (i.e., the so-called “consonant bias”). Nevertheless, little is known about how early in development the consonant bias emerges. This work aims to address this issue by studying the relative contribution of consonants and vowels at the early stages of visual-word recognition in developing readers (2nd and 4th Grade children) and skilled adult readers (college students) using a masked priming lexical decision task. Target words starting either with a consonant or a vowel were preceded by a briefly presented masked prime (50 ms) that could be the same as the target (e.g., pirata-PIRATA [pirate-PIRATE]), a consonant-preserving prime (e.g., pureto-PIRATA), a vowel-preserving prime (e.g., gicala-PIRATA), or an unrelated prime (e.g., bocelo -PIRATA). Results revealed significant priming effects for the identity and consonant-preserving conditions in adult readers and 4th Grade children, whereas 2nd graders only showed priming for the identity condition. In adult readers, the advantage of consonants was observed both for words starting with a consonant or a vowel, while in 4th graders this advantage was restricted to words with an initial consonant. Thus, the present findings suggest that a Consonant/Vowel skeleton should be included in future (developmental) models of visual-word recognition and reading. PMID:24523917

Effects of blocking and presentation on the recognition of word and nonsense syllables in noise

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Benkí, José R.

2003-10-01

Listener expectations may have significant effects on spoken word recognition, modulating word similarity effects from the lexicon. This study investigates the effect of blocking by lexical status on the recognition of word and nonsense syllables in noise. 240 phonemically matched word and nonsense CVC syllables [Boothroyd and Nittrouer, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 84, 101-108 (1988)] were presented to listeners at different S/N ratios for identification. In the mixed condition, listeners were presented with blocks containing both words and nonwords, while listeners in the blocked condition were presented with the trials in blocks containing either words or nonwords. The targets were presented in isolation with 50 ms of preceding and following noise. Preliminary results indicate no effect of blocking on accuracy for either word or nonsense syllables; results from neighborhood density analyses will be presented. Consistent with previous studies, a j-factor analysis indicates that words are perceived as containing at least 0.5 fewer independent units than nonwords in both conditions. Relative to previous work on syllables presented in a frame sentence [Benkí, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 1689-1705 (2003)], initial consonants were perceived significantly less accurately, while vowels and final consonants were perceived at comparable rates.

The Activation of Embedded Words in Spoken Word Recognition.

PubMed

Zhang, Xujin; Samuel, Arthur G

2015-01-01

The current study investigated how listeners understand English words that have shorter words embedded in them. A series of auditory-auditory priming experiments assessed the activation of six types of embedded words (2 embedded positions × 3 embedded proportions) under different listening conditions. Facilitation of lexical decision responses to targets (e.g., pig) associated with words embedded in primes (e.g., hamster ) indexed activation of the embedded words (e.g., ham ). When the listening conditions were optimal, isolated embedded words (e.g., ham ) primed their targets in all six conditions (Experiment 1a). Within carrier words (e.g., hamster ), the same set of embedded words produced priming only when they were at the beginning or comprised a large proportion of the carrier word (Experiment 1b). When the listening conditions were made suboptimal by expanding or compressing the primes, significant priming was found for isolated embedded words (Experiment 2a), but no priming was produced when the carrier words were compressed/expanded (Experiment 2b). Similarly, priming was eliminated when the carrier words were presented with one segment replaced by noise (Experiment 3). When cognitive load was imposed, priming for embedded words was again found when they were presented in isolation (Experiment 4a), but not when they were embedded in the carrier words (Experiment 4b). The results suggest that both embedded position and proportion play important roles in the activation of embedded words, but that such activation only occurs under unusually good listening conditions.

Chinese Learners of English See Chinese Words When Reading English Words.

PubMed

Ma, Fengyang; Ai, Haiyang

2018-06-01

The present study examines when second language (L2) learners read words in the L2, whether the orthography and/or phonology of the translation words in the first language (L1) is activated and whether the patterns would be modulated by the proficiency in the L2. In two experiments, two groups of Chinese learners of English immersed in the L1 environment, one less proficient and the other more proficient in English, performed a translation recognition task. In this task, participants judged whether pairs of words, with an L2 word preceding an L1 word, were translation words or not. The critical conditions compared the performance of learners to reject distractors that were related to the translation word (e.g., , pronounced as /bei 1/) of an L2 word (e.g., cup) in orthography (e.g., , bad in Chinese, pronounced as /huai 4/) or phonology (e.g., , sad in Chinese, pronounced as /bei 1/). Results of Experiment 1 showed less proficient learners were slower and less accurate to reject translation orthography distractors, as compared to unrelated controls, demonstrating a robust translation orthography interference effect. In contrast, their performance was not significantly different when rejecting translation phonology distractors, relative to unrelated controls, showing no translation phonology interference. The same patterns were observed in more proficient learners in Experiment 2. Together, these results suggest that when Chinese learners of English read English words, the orthographic information, but not the phonological information of the Chinese translation words is activated. In addition, this activation is not modulated by L2 proficiency.

Facilitatory Effects of Multi-Word Units in Lexical Processing and Word Learning: A Computational Investigation.

PubMed

Grimm, Robert; Cassani, Giovanni; Gillis, Steven; Daelemans, Walter

2017-01-01

Previous studies have suggested that children and adults form cognitive representations of co-occurring word sequences. We propose (1) that the formation of such multi-word unit (MWU) representations precedes and facilitates the formation of single-word representations in children and thus benefits word learning, and (2) that MWU representations facilitate adult word recognition and thus benefit lexical processing. Using a modified version of an existing computational model (McCauley and Christiansen, 2014), we extract MWUs from a corpus of child-directed speech (CDS) and a corpus of conversations among adults. We then correlate the number of MWUs within which each word appears with (1) age of first production and (2) adult reaction times on a word recognition task. In doing so, we take care to control for the effect of word frequency, as frequent words will naturally tend to occur in many MWUs. We also compare results to a baseline model which randomly groups words into sequences-and find that MWUs have a unique facilitatory effect on both response variables, suggesting that they benefit word learning in children and word recognition in adults. The effect is strongest on age of first production, implying that MWUs are comparatively more important for word learning than for adult lexical processing. We discuss possible underlying mechanisms and formulate testable predictions.

Facilitatory Effects of Multi-Word Units in Lexical Processing and Word Learning: A Computational Investigation

PubMed Central

Grimm, Robert; Cassani, Giovanni; Gillis, Steven; Daelemans, Walter

2017-01-01

Previous studies have suggested that children and adults form cognitive representations of co-occurring word sequences. We propose (1) that the formation of such multi-word unit (MWU) representations precedes and facilitates the formation of single-word representations in children and thus benefits word learning, and (2) that MWU representations facilitate adult word recognition and thus benefit lexical processing. Using a modified version of an existing computational model (McCauley and Christiansen, 2014), we extract MWUs from a corpus of child-directed speech (CDS) and a corpus of conversations among adults. We then correlate the number of MWUs within which each word appears with (1) age of first production and (2) adult reaction times on a word recognition task. In doing so, we take care to control for the effect of word frequency, as frequent words will naturally tend to occur in many MWUs. We also compare results to a baseline model which randomly groups words into sequences—and find that MWUs have a unique facilitatory effect on both response variables, suggesting that they benefit word learning in children and word recognition in adults. The effect is strongest on age of first production, implying that MWUs are comparatively more important for word learning than for adult lexical processing. We discuss possible underlying mechanisms and formulate testable predictions. PMID:28450842

L2 Gender Facilitation and Inhibition in Spoken Word Recognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Behney, Jennifer N.

2011-01-01

This dissertation investigates the role of grammatical gender facilitation and inhibition in second language (L2) learners' spoken word recognition. Native speakers of languages that have grammatical gender are sensitive to gender marking when hearing and recognizing a word. Gender facilitation refers to when a given noun that is preceded by an…

The Activation of Embedded Words in Spoken Word Recognition

PubMed Central

Zhang, Xujin; Samuel, Arthur G.

2015-01-01

The current study investigated how listeners understand English words that have shorter words embedded in them. A series of auditory-auditory priming experiments assessed the activation of six types of embedded words (2 embedded positions × 3 embedded proportions) under different listening conditions. Facilitation of lexical decision responses to targets (e.g., pig) associated with words embedded in primes (e.g., hamster) indexed activation of the embedded words (e.g., ham). When the listening conditions were optimal, isolated embedded words (e.g., ham) primed their targets in all six conditions (Experiment 1a). Within carrier words (e.g., hamster), the same set of embedded words produced priming only when they were at the beginning or comprised a large proportion of the carrier word (Experiment 1b). When the listening conditions were made suboptimal by expanding or compressing the primes, significant priming was found for isolated embedded words (Experiment 2a), but no priming was produced when the carrier words were compressed/expanded (Experiment 2b). Similarly, priming was eliminated when the carrier words were presented with one segment replaced by noise (Experiment 3). When cognitive load was imposed, priming for embedded words was again found when they were presented in isolation (Experiment 4a), but not when they were embedded in the carrier words (Experiment 4b). The results suggest that both embedded position and proportion play important roles in the activation of embedded words, but that such activation only occurs under unusually good listening conditions. PMID:25593407

Identifiable Orthographically Similar Word Primes Interfere in Visual Word Identification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burt, Jennifer S.

2009-01-01

University students participated in five experiments concerning the effects of unmasked, orthographically similar, primes on visual word recognition in the lexical decision task (LDT) and naming tasks. The modal prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 350 ms. When primes were words that were orthographic neighbors of the targets, and…

Task set persistence modulates word reading following resolution of picture-word interference.

PubMed

Masson, Michael E J; Bub, Daniel N; Ishigami, Yoko

2007-12-01

We extend the finding that word reading slows following successful responses to a color-word Stroop interference task (Masson, Bub, Woodward, & Chan, 2003). Word reading was assessed in a picture-word interference task in which subjects alternated between naming a picture (with either a word or a row of Xs superimposed on it) and reading a word. For the word-reading task, words were presented either in isolation or superimposed on a picture. Word reading was slower after subjects responded to a bivalent stimulus that required resolution of conflict (naming a picture with a word superimposed on it) than after they responded to a stimulus that involved no conflict (naming a picture with Xs superimposed on it), indicating modulation of dominant task performance. This effect was found when word-reading targets were superimposed on pictures but not when those targets were presented in isolation. Modulation of word reading, therefore, appears to be the result of interference from a persistent picture-naming task set, cued by a stimulus configuration that invites execution of both competing tasks.

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

PubMed

Kawakami, A; Hatta, T; Kogure, T

2001-12-01

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

Emotion Words: Adding Face Value.

PubMed

Fugate, Jennifer M B; Gendron, Maria; Nakashima, Satoshi F; Barrett, Lisa Feldman

2017-06-12

Despite a growing number of studies suggesting that emotion words affect perceptual judgments of emotional stimuli, little is known about how emotion words affect perceptual memory for emotional faces. In Experiments 1 and 2 we tested how emotion words (compared with control words) affected participants' abilities to select a target emotional face from among distractor faces. Participants were generally more likely to false alarm to distractor emotional faces when primed with an emotion word congruent with the face (compared with a control word). Moreover, participants showed both decreased sensitivity (d') to discriminate between target and distractor faces, as well as altered response biases (c; more likely to answer "yes") when primed with an emotion word (compared with a control word). In Experiment 3 we showed that emotion words had more of an effect on perceptual memory judgments when the structural information in the target face was limited, as well as when participants were only able to categorize the face with a partially congruent emotion word. The overall results are consistent with the idea that emotion words affect the encoding of emotional faces in perceptual memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Do individuals with autism process words in context? Evidence from language-mediated eye-movements.

PubMed

Brock, Jon; Norbury, Courtenay; Einav, Shiri; Nation, Kate

2008-09-01

It is widely argued that people with autism have difficulty processing ambiguous linguistic information in context. To investigate this claim, we recorded the eye-movements of 24 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and 24 language-matched peers as they monitored spoken sentences for words corresponding to objects on a computer display. Following a target word, participants looked more at a competitor object sharing the same onset than at phonologically unrelated objects. This effect was, however, mediated by the sentence context such that participants looked less at the phonological competitor if it was semantically incongruous with the preceding verb. Contrary to predictions, the two groups evidenced similar effects of context on eye-movements. Instead, across both groups, the effect of sentence context was reduced in individuals with relatively poor language skills. Implications for the weak central coherence account of autism are discussed.

Semantic processing of unattended parafoveal words.

PubMed

Di Pace, E; Longoni, A M; Zoccolotti, P

1991-08-01

The influence that a context word presented either foveally or parafoveally, may exert on the processing of a subsequent target word was studied in a semantic decision task. Fourteen subjects participated in the experiment. They were presented with word-nonword pairs (prime). One member of the pair (which the subjects had to attend to) appeared centrally, the other parafoveally. The prime was followed by a target at two inter-stimulus intervals (ISI; 200 and 2000 msec). The word stimulus of the pair could be semantically related or unrelated to the target. The subjects' task was to classify the target as animal or not animal by pressing one of two buttons as quickly as possible. When the target word was semantically associated with the foveal (attended) word the reaction times were faster for both ISIs; when it was associated with the parafoveal (unattended) word in the prime pair, there were facilitatory effects only in the short ISI condition. A second experiment was run in order to evaluate the possibility that the obtained results were due to identification of the parafoveal stimulus. The same prime-target pairs of experiment 1 (without the target stimuli) were used. The prime-target pairs were presented to fourteen subjects who were requested to name the foveal (attended) stimulus and subsequently, if possible, the parafoveal (unattended) one. Even in this condition, percentage of identification of the unattended word was only 15%, suggesting that previous findings were not due to identification of unattended stimuli. Results are discussed in relation to Posner and Snyder's (1975) dual coding theory.

Searching for the right word: Hybrid visual and memory search for words

PubMed Central

Boettcher, Sage E. P.; Wolfe, Jeremy M.

2016-01-01

In “Hybrid Search” (Wolfe 2012) observers search through visual space for any of multiple targets held in memory. With photorealistic objects as stimuli, response times (RTs) increase linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with memory set size even when over 100 items are committed to memory. It is well established that pictures of objects are particularly easy to memorize (Brady, Konkle, Alvarez, & Olivia, 2008). Would hybrid search performance be similar if the targets were words or phrases where word order can be important and where the processes of memorization might be different? In Experiment One, observers memorized 2, 4, 8, or 16 words in 4 different blocks. After passing a memory test, confirming memorization of the list, observers searched for these words in visual displays containing 2 to 16 words. Replicating Wolfe (2012), RTs increased linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with the length of the word list. The word lists of Experiment One were random. In Experiment Two, words were drawn from phrases that observers reported knowing by heart (E.G. “London Bridge is falling down”). Observers were asked to provide four phrases ranging in length from 2 words to a phrase of no less than 20 words (range 21–86). Words longer than 2 characters from the phrase constituted the target list. Distractor words were matched for length and frequency. Even with these strongly ordered lists, results again replicated the curvilinear function of memory set size seen in hybrid search. One might expect serial position effects; perhaps reducing RTs for the first (primacy) and/or last (recency) members of a list (Atkinson & Shiffrin 1968; Murdock, 1962). Surprisingly we showed no reliable effects of word order. Thus, in “London Bridge is falling down”, “London” and “down” are found no faster than “falling”. PMID:25788035

Comparing different kinds of words and word-word relations to test an habituation model of priming.

PubMed

Rieth, Cory A; Huber, David E

2017-06-01

Huber and O'Reilly (2003) proposed that neural habituation exists to solve a temporal parsing problem, minimizing blending between one word and the next when words are visually presented in rapid succession. They developed a neural dynamics habituation model, explaining the finding that short duration primes produce positive priming whereas long duration primes produce negative repetition priming. The model contains three layers of processing, including a visual input layer, an orthographic layer, and a lexical-semantic layer. The predicted effect of prime duration depends both on this assumed representational hierarchy and the assumption that synaptic depression underlies habituation. The current study tested these assumptions by comparing different kinds of words (e.g., words versus non-words) and different kinds of word-word relations (e.g., associative versus repetition). For each experiment, the predictions of the original model were compared to an alternative model with different representational assumptions. Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction that non-words and inverted words require longer prime durations to eliminate positive repetition priming (i.e., a slower transition from positive to negative priming). Experiment 2 confirmed the prediction that associative priming increases and then decreases with increasing prime duration, but remains positive even with long duration primes. Experiment 3 replicated the effects of repetition and associative priming using a within-subjects design and combined these effects by examining target words that were expected to repeat (e.g., viewing the target word 'BACK' after the prime phrase 'back to'). These results support the originally assumed representational hierarchy and more generally the role of habituation in temporal parsing and priming. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Effects of Target Word Properties on the Incidental Acquisition of Vocabulary through Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reynolds, Barry Lee

2016-01-01

The primary aim of this investigation was to determine what combination of target word variables (frequency, patternedness, length, cognateness, lexicalization) could best predict the difficulty of incidentally acquiring vocabulary through reading. A group of adult English First Language (EL1) (n = 20) and adult English as a Foreign Language (EFL)…

Visual attention shift to printed words during spoken word recognition in Chinese: The role of phonological information.

PubMed

Shen, Wei; Qu, Qingqing; Tong, Xiuhong

2018-05-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which phonological information mediates the visual attention shift to printed Chinese words in spoken word recognition by using an eye-movement technique with a printed-word paradigm. In this paradigm, participants are visually presented with four printed words on a computer screen, which include a target word, a phonological competitor, and two distractors. Participants are then required to select the target word using a computer mouse, and the eye movements are recorded. In Experiment 1, phonological information was manipulated at the full-phonological overlap; in Experiment 2, phonological information at the partial-phonological overlap was manipulated; and in Experiment 3, the phonological competitors were manipulated to share either fulloverlap or partial-overlap with targets directly. Results of the three experiments showed that the phonological competitor effects were observed at both the full-phonological overlap and partial-phonological overlap conditions. That is, phonological competitors attracted more fixations than distractors, which suggested that phonological information mediates the visual attention shift during spoken word recognition. More importantly, we found that the mediating role of phonological information varies as a function of the phonological similarity between target words and phonological competitors.

Searching for the right word: Hybrid visual and memory search for words.

PubMed

Boettcher, Sage E P; Wolfe, Jeremy M

2015-05-01

In "hybrid search" (Wolfe Psychological Science, 23(7), 698-703, 2012), observers search through visual space for any of multiple targets held in memory. With photorealistic objects as the stimuli, response times (RTs) increase linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with the memory set size, even when over 100 items are committed to memory. It is well-established that pictures of objects are particularly easy to memorize (Brady, Konkle, Alvarez, & Oliva Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 14325-14329, 2008). Would hybrid-search performance be similar if the targets were words or phrases, in which word order can be important, so that the processes of memorization might be different? In Experiment 1, observers memorized 2, 4, 8, or 16 words in four different blocks. After passing a memory test, confirming their memorization of the list, the observers searched for these words in visual displays containing two to 16 words. Replicating Wolfe (Psychological Science, 23(7), 698-703, 2012), the RTs increased linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with the length of the word list. The word lists of Experiment 1 were random. In Experiment 2, words were drawn from phrases that observers reported knowing by heart (e.g., "London Bridge is falling down"). Observers were asked to provide four phrases, ranging in length from two words to no less than 20 words (range 21-86). All words longer than two characters from the phrase, constituted the target list. Distractor words were matched for length and frequency. Even with these strongly ordered lists, the results again replicated the curvilinear function of memory set size seen in hybrid search. One might expect to find serial position effects, perhaps reducing the RTs for the first (primacy) and/or the last (recency) members of a list (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; Murdock Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 482-488, 1962). Surprisingly, we showed no reliable effects of word order

Learning words and learning sounds: Advances in language development.

PubMed

Vihman, Marilyn M

2017-02-01

Phonological development is sometimes seen as a process of learning sounds, or forming phonological categories, and then combining sounds to build words, with the evidence taken largely from studies demonstrating 'perceptual narrowing' in infant speech perception over the first year of life. In contrast, studies of early word production have long provided evidence that holistic word learning may precede the formation of phonological categories. In that account, children begin by matching their existing vocal patterns to adult words, with knowledge of the phonological system emerging from the network of related word forms. Here I review evidence from production and then consider how the implicit and explicit learning mechanisms assumed by the complementary memory systems model might be understood as reconciling the two approaches. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.

The emotional carryover effect in memory for words.

PubMed

Schmidt, Stephen R; Schmidt, Constance R

2016-08-01

Emotional material rarely occurs in isolation; rather it is experienced in the spatial and temporal proximity of less emotional items. Some previous researchers have found that emotional stimuli impair memory for surrounding information, whereas others have reported evidence for memory facilitation. Researchers have not determined which types of emotional items or memory tests produce effects that carry over to surrounding items. Six experiments are reported that measured carryover from emotional words varying in arousal to temporally adjacent neutral words. Taboo, non-taboo emotional, and neutral words were compared using different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), recognition and recall tests, and intentional and incidental memory instructions. Strong emotional memory effects were obtained in all six experiments. However, emotional items influenced memory for temporally adjacent words under limited conditions. Words following taboo words were more poorly remembered than words following neutral words when relatively short SOAs were employed. Words preceding taboo words were affected only when recall tests and relatively short retention intervals were used. These results suggest that increased attention to the emotional items sometimes produces emotional carryover effects; however, retrieval processes also contribute to retrograde amnesia and may extend the conditions under which anterograde amnesia is observed.

Semantic context effects and priming in word association.

PubMed

Zeelenberg, René; Pecher, Diane; Shiffrin, Richard M; Raaijmakers, Jeroen G W

2003-09-01

Two experiments investigated priming in word association, an implicit memory task. In the study phase of Experiment 1, semantically ambiguous target words were presented in sentences that biased their interpretation. The appropriate interpretation of the target was either congruent or incongruent with the cue presented in a subsequent word association task. Priming (i.e., a higher proportion of target responses relative to a nonstudied baseline) was obtained for the congruent condition, but not for the incongruent condition. In Experiment 2, study sentences emphasized particular meaning aspects of nonambiguous targets. The word association task showed a higher proportion of target responses for targets studied in the more congruent sentence context than for targets studied in the less congruent sentence context. These results indicate that priming in word association depends largely on the storage of information relating the cue and target.

Time-compressed spoken word primes crossmodally enhance processing of semantically congruent visual targets.

PubMed

Mahr, Angela; Wentura, Dirk

2014-02-01

Findings from three experiments support the conclusion that auditory primes facilitate the processing of related targets. In Experiments 1 and 2, we employed a crossmodal Stroop color identification task with auditory color words (as primes) and visual color patches (as targets). Responses were faster for congruent priming, in comparison to neutral or incongruent priming. This effect also emerged for different levels of time compression of the auditory primes (to 30 % and 10 % of the original length; i.e., 120 and 40 ms) and turned out to be even more pronounced under high-perceptual-load conditions (Exps. 1 and 2). In Experiment 3, target-present or -absent decisions for brief target displays had to be made, thereby ruling out response-priming processes as a cause of the congruency effects. Nevertheless, target detection (d') was increased by congruent primes (30 % compression) in comparison to incongruent or neutral primes. Our results suggest semantic object-based auditory-visual interactions, which rapidly increase the denoted target object's salience. This would apply, in particular, to complex visual scenes.

CarPrice versus CarpRice: Word Boundary Ambiguity Influences Saccade Target Selection during the Reading of Chinese Sentences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yan, Ming; Kliegl, Reinhold

2016-01-01

As a contribution to a theoretical debate about the degree of high-level influences on saccade targeting during sentence reading, we investigated eye movements during the reading of structurally ambiguous Chinese character strings and examined whether parafoveal word segmentation could influence saccade-target selection. As expected, ambiguous…

THE EFFECT OF WORD ASSOCIATIONS ON THE RECOGNITION OF FLASHED WORDS.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

SAMUELS, S. JAY

THE HYPOTHESIS THAT WHEN ASSOCIATED PAIRS OF WORDS ARE PRESENTED, SPEED OF RECOGNITION WILL BE FASTER THAN WHEN NONASSOCIATED WORD PAIRS ARE PRESENTED OR WHEN A TARGET WORD IS PRESENTED BY ITSELF WAS TESTED. TWENTY UNIVERSITY STUDENTS, INITIALLY SCREENED FOR VISION, WERE ASSIGNED RANDOMLY TO ROWS OF A 5 X 5 REPEATED-MEASURES LATIN SQUARE DESIGN.…

Conceptual processing in music as revealed by N400 effects on words and musical targets.

PubMed

Daltrozzo, Jérôme; Schön, Daniele

2009-10-01

The cognitive processing of concepts, that is, abstract general ideas, has been mostly studied with language. However, other domains, such as music, can also convey concepts. Koelsch et al. [Koelsch, S., Kasper, E., Sammler, D., Schulze, K., Gunter, T., & Friederici, A. D. Music, language and meaning: Brain signatures of semantic processing. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 302-307, 2004] showed that 10 sec of music can influence the semantic processing of words. However, the length of the musical excerpts did not allow the authors to study the effect of words on musical targets. In this study, we decided to replicate Koelsch et al. findings using 1-sec musical excerpts (Experiment 1). This allowed us to study the reverse influence, namely, of a linguistic context on conceptual processing of musical excerpts (Experiment 2). In both experiments, we recorded behavioral and electrophysiological responses while participants were presented 50 related and 50 unrelated pairs (context/target). Experiments 1 and 2 showed a larger N400 component of the event-related brain potentials to targets following a conceptually unrelated compared to a related context. The presence of an N400 effect with musical targets suggests that music may convey concepts. The relevance of these results for the comprehension of music as a structured set of conceptual units and for the domain specificity of the mechanisms underlying N400 effects are discussed.

Time course of syllabic and sub-syllabic processing in Mandarin word production: Evidence from the picture-word interference paradigm.

PubMed

Wang, Jie; Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen; Chen, Hsuan-Chih

2017-06-05

The time course of phonological encoding in Mandarin monosyllabic word production was investigated by using the picture-word interference paradigm. Participants were asked to name pictures in Mandarin while visual distractor words were presented before, at, or after picture onset (i.e., stimulus-onset asynchrony/SOA = -100, 0, or +100 ms, respectively). Compared with the unrelated control, the distractors sharing atonal syllables with the picture names significantly facilitated the naming responses at -100- and 0-ms SOAs. In addition, the facilitation effect of sharing word-initial segments only appeared at 0-ms SOA, and null effects were found for sharing word-final segments. These results indicate that both syllables and subsyllabic units play important roles in Mandarin spoken word production and more critically that syllabic processing precedes subsyllabic processing. The current results lend strong support to the proximate units principle (O'Seaghdha, Chen, & Chen, 2010), which holds that the phonological structure of spoken word production is language-specific and that atonal syllables are the proximate phonological units in Mandarin Chinese. On the other hand, the significance of word-initial segments over word-final segments suggests that serial processing of segmental information seems to be universal across Germanic languages and Chinese, which remains to be verified in future studies.

The linguistic context effects on the processing of body-object interaction words: An ERP study on second language learners.

PubMed

Xue, Jin; Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando; Pei, Xuna

2015-07-10

Embodied theories of cognition argue that the processing of both concrete and abstract concepts requires the activation of sensorimotor systems. The present study examined the time course for embedding a sensorimotor context in order to elicit sensitivity to the sensorimotor consequences of understanding body-object interaction (BOI) words. In the study, Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) were recorded while subjects performed a sentence acceptability task. Target BOI words were preceded by rich or poor sensorimotor sentential contexts. The behavioural results replicated previous findings in that high BOI words received a response faster than low BOI words. In addition to this, however, there was a context effect in the sensorimotor region as well as a BOI effect in the parietal region (involved in object representation). The results indicate that the sentential sensorimotor context contributes to the subsequent BOI processing and that action-and perception-related language leads to the activation of the same brain areas, which is consistent with the embodiment theory. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of Three Comprehensive Models of Vocabulary Instruction during Shared Storybook Read Alouds on Kindergartener's Tier Two Target Word Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Steuber, Julie Ann

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of three researcher-designed experimental models of vocabulary instruction during shared storybook read alouds on kindergarten children's Tier Two target word learning and maintenance of word knowledge. The Integrated Model consisted of two readings of the same storybook, direct…

Specific-Language-Impaired Children's Quick Incidental Learning of Words: The Effect of a Pause.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rice, Mabel L.; And Others

1992-01-01

Comparison of 2 methods of presenting novel words, either preceded by a pause or in normal prosody, on initial word comprehension of 20 5-year-old children with language impairments (and 2 control groups matched for either age or mean length of utterance) found no effect for presentation method. (Author/DB)

[Representation of letter position in visual word recognition process].

PubMed

Makioka, S

1994-08-01

Two experiments investigated the representation of letter position in visual word recognition process. In Experiment 1, subjects (12 undergraduates and graduates) were asked to detect a target word in a briefly-presented probe. Probes consisted of two kanji words. The latters which formed targets (critical letters) were always contained in probes. (e.g. target: [symbol: see text] probe: [symbol: see text]) High false alarm rate was observed when critical letters occupied the same within-word relative position (left or right within the word) in the probe words as in the target word. In Experiment 2 (subject were ten undergraduates and graduates), spaces adjacent to probe words were replaced by randomly chosen hiragana letters (e.g. [symbol: see text]), because spaces are not used to separate words in regular Japanese sentences. In addition to the effect of within-word relative position as in Experiment 1, the effect of between-word relative position (left or right across the probe words) was observed. These results suggest that information about within-word relative position of a letter is used in word recognition process. The effect of within-word relative position was explained by a connectionist model of word recognition.

Perceiving non-native speech: Word segmentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mondini, Michèle; Miller, Joanne L.

2004-05-01

One important source of information listeners use to segment speech into discrete words is allophonic variation at word junctures. Previous research has shown that non-native speakers impose their native-language phonetic norms on their second language; as a consequence, non-native speech may (in some cases) exhibit altered patterns of allophonic variation at word junctures. We investigated the perceptual consequences of this for word segmentation by presenting native-English listeners with English word pairs produced either by six native-English speakers or six highly fluent, native-French speakers of English. The target word pairs had contrastive word juncture involving voiceless stop consonants (e.g., why pink/wipe ink; gray ties/great eyes; we cash/weak ash). The task was to identify randomized instances of each individual target word pair (as well as control pairs) by selecting one of four possible choices (e.g., why pink, wipe ink, why ink, wipe pink). Overall, listeners were more accurate in identifying target word pairs produced by the native-English speakers than by the non-native English speakers. These findings suggest that one contribution to the processing cost associated with listening to non-native speech may be the presence of altered allophonic information important for word segmentation. [Work supported by NIH/NIDCD.

Predictability Effects on Durations of Content and Function Words in Conversational English

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

Bell, Alan; Brenier, Jason; Gregory, Michelle L.

Content and function word duration are affected differently by their frequency and predictability. Regression analyses of conversational speech show that content words are shorter when they are more frequent, but function words are not. Repeated content words are shorter, but function words are not. Furthermore, function words have shorter pronunciations, after controlling for frequency and predictability. both content and function words are strongly affected by predictability from the word following them, and only very frequent function words show sensitivity to predictability from the preceding word. The results support the view that content and function words are accessed by different productionmore » mechanisms. We argue that words’ form differences due to frequency or repetition stem from their faster or slower lexical access, mediated by a general mechanism that coordinates the pace of higher-level planning and the execution of the articulatory plan.« less

Effects of Grammatical Structure of Compound Words on Word Recognition in Chinese

PubMed Central

Cui, Lei; Cong, Fengjiao; Wang, Jue; Zhang, Wenxin; Zheng, Yuwei; Hyönä, Jukka

2018-01-01

Two lexical priming experiments were conducted to examine effects of grammatical structure of Chinese two-constituent compounds on their recognition. The target compound words conformed to two types of grammatical structure: subordinate and coordinative compounds. Subordinate compounds follow a structure where the first constituent modifies the second constituent (e.g., , meaning snowball); here the meaning of the second constituent (head) is modified by the first constituent (modifier). On the other hand, in coordinative compounds both constituents contribute equally to the word meaning (e.g., , wind and rain, meaning storm where the two constituent equally contribute to the word meaning). In Experiment 1 that was a replication attempt of Liu and McBride-Chang (2010), possible priming effects of word structure and semantic relatedness were examined. In lexical decision latencies only a semantic priming effect was observed. In Experiment 2, compound word structure and individual constituents were primed by the prime and target sharing either the first or second constituent. A structure priming effect was obtained in lexical decision times for subordinate compounds when the prime and target compound shared the same constituent. This suggests that a compound word constituent (either the modifier or the head) has to be simultaneously active with the structure information in order for the structure information to exert an effect on compound word recognition in Chinese. For the coordinative compounds the structure priming effect was non-significant. When the meaning of the whole word was primed (Experiment 1), no structure effect was observable. The pattern of results suggests that effects of structure priming are constituent-specific and no general structure priming was observable. PMID:29593594

Pitch enhancement facilitates word learning across visual contexts

PubMed Central

Filippi, Piera; Gingras, Bruno; Fitch, W. Tecumseh

2014-01-01

This study investigates word-learning using a new experimental paradigm that integrates three processes: (a) extracting a word out of a continuous sound sequence, (b) inferring its referential meanings in context, (c) mapping the segmented word onto its broader intended referent, such as other objects of the same semantic category, and to novel utterances. Previous work has examined the role of statistical learning and/or of prosody in each of these processes separately. Here, we combine these strands of investigation into a single experimental approach, in which participants viewed a photograph belonging to one of three semantic categories while hearing a complex, five-word utterance containing a target word. Six between-subjects conditions were tested with 20 adult participants each. In condition 1, the only cue to word-meaning mapping was the co-occurrence of word and referents. This statistical cue was present in all conditions. In condition 2, the target word was sounded at a higher pitch. In condition 3, random words were sounded at a higher pitch, creating an inconsistent cue. In condition 4, the duration of the target word was lengthened. In conditions 5 and 6, an extraneous acoustic cue and a visual cue were associated with the target word, respectively. Performance in this word-learning task was significantly higher than that observed with simple co-occurrence only when pitch prominence consistently marked the target word. We discuss implications for the pragmatic value of pitch marking as well as the relevance of our findings to language acquisition and language evolution. PMID:25566144

Comprehension and Production of Word Order in Stage I.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roberts, Kenneth

1983-01-01

The notion that partial control of full agent-action-patient word order in comprehension may precede its production was examined. Reversible active sentences including the verbs "kiss,""hug," and "tickle" were presented to a triad of listeners consisting of a test child, a familiar adult caretaker, and a familiar…

Words and Melody Are Intertwined in Perception of Sung Words: EEG and Behavioral Evidence

PubMed Central

Gordon, Reyna L.; Schön, Daniele; Magne, Cyrille; Astésano, Corine; Besson, Mireille

2010-01-01

Language and music, two of the most unique human cognitive abilities, are combined in song, rendering it an ecological model for comparing speech and music cognition. The present study was designed to determine whether words and melodies in song are processed interactively or independently, and to examine the influence of attention on the processing of words and melodies in song. Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs) and behavioral data were recorded while non-musicians listened to pairs of sung words (prime and target) presented in four experimental conditions: same word, same melody; same word, different melody; different word, same melody; different word, different melody. Participants were asked to attend to either the words or the melody, and to perform a same/different task. In both attentional tasks, different word targets elicited an N400 component, as predicted based on previous results. Most interestingly, different melodies (sung with the same word) elicited an N400 component followed by a late positive component. Finally, ERP and behavioral data converged in showing interactions between the linguistic and melodic dimensions of sung words. The finding that the N400 effect, a well-established marker of semantic processing, was modulated by musical melody in song suggests that variations in musical features affect word processing in sung language. Implications of the interactions between words and melody are discussed in light of evidence for shared neural processing resources between the phonological/semantic aspects of language and the melodic/harmonic aspects of music. PMID:20360991

Bilingual reading of compound words.

PubMed

Ko, In Yeong; Wang, Min; Kim, Say Young

2011-02-01

The present study investigated whether bilingual readers activate constituents of compound words in one language while processing compound words in the other language via decomposition. Two experiments using a lexical decision task were conducted with adult Korean-English bilingual readers. In Experiment 1, the lexical decision of real English compound words was more accurate when the translated compounds (the combination of the translation equivalents of the constituents) in Korean (the nontarget language) were real words than when they were nonwords. In Experiment 2, when the frequency of the second constituents of compound words in English (the target language) was manipulated, the effect of lexical status of the translated compounds was greater on the compounds with high-frequency second constituents than on those with low-frequency second constituents in the target language. Together, these results provided evidence for morphological decomposition and cross-language activation in bilingual reading of compound words.

Deaf and hard of hearing adolescents' processing of pictures and written words for taxonomic categories in a priming task of semantic categorization.

PubMed

Li, Degao; Gao, Kejuan; Wu, Xueyun; Chen, Xiaojun; Zhang, Xiaona; Li, Ling; He, Weiwei

2013-01-01

Inspired by research by Li, Yi, and Kim (2011), the authors examined Chinese deaf and hard of hearing adolescents' responses to pictures for taxonomic categories of basic level (exemplar pictures) preceded by exemplar pictures, and to written words for taxonomic categories of basic level (exemplar words) preceded by exemplar words or by written words for those of superordinate level (category names), in a priming task of semantic categorization. Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was manipulated. The adolescents were less aware of taxonomic relations and were more likely to show the advantage of pictures over written words than their hearing counterparts. Their processing of exemplar primes steadily deepened as SOA increased, reaching its deepest level when SOA was 237 ms. Their processing of category names seemed immune to changes in SOA, probably because of their fuzzy representations of taxonomic categories of superordinate level.

The word class effect in the picture–word interference paradigm

PubMed Central

Janssen, Niels; Melinger, Alissa; Mahon, Bradford Z.; Finkbeiner, Matthew; Caramazza, Alfonso

2010-01-01

The word class effect in the picture–word interference paradigm is a highly influential finding that has provided some of the most compelling support for word class constraints on lexical selection. However, methodological concerns called for a replication of the most convincing of those effects. Experiment 1 was a direct replication of Pechmann and Zerbst (2002; Experiment 4). Participants named pictures of objects in the context of noun and adverb distractors. Naming took place in bare noun and sentence frame contexts. A word class effect emerged in both bare noun and sentence frame naming conditions, suggesting a semantic origin of the effect. In Experiment 2, participants named objects in the context of noun and verb distractors whose word class relationship to the target and imageability were orthogonally manipulated. As before, naming took place in bare noun and sentence frame naming contexts. In both naming contexts, distractor imageability but not word class affected picture naming latencies. These findings confirm the sensitivity of the picture–word interference paradigm to distractor imageability and suggest the paradigm is not sensitive to distractor word class. The results undermine the use of the word class effect in the picture–word interference paradigm as supportive of word class constraints during lexical selection. PMID:19998070

Evidence for simultaneous syntactic processing of multiple words during reading.

PubMed

Snell, Joshua; Meeter, Martijn; Grainger, Jonathan

2017-01-01

A hotly debated issue in reading research concerns the extent to which readers process parafoveal words, and how parafoveal information might influence foveal word recognition. We investigated syntactic word processing both in sentence reading and in reading isolated foveal words when these were flanked by parafoveal words. In Experiment 1 we found a syntactic parafoveal preview benefit in sentence reading, meaning that fixation durations on target words were decreased when there was a syntactically congruent preview word at the target location (n) during the fixation on the pre-target (n-1). In Experiment 2 we used a flanker paradigm in which participants had to classify foveal target words as either noun or verb, when those targets were flanked by syntactically congruent or incongruent words (stimulus on-time 170 ms). Lower response times and error rates in the congruent condition suggested that higher-order (syntactic) information can be integrated across foveal and parafoveal words. Although higher-order parafoveal-on-foveal effects have been elusive in sentence reading, results from our flanker paradigm show that the reading system can extract higher-order information from multiple words in a single glance. We propose a model of reading to account for the present findings.

Does Temporal Integration Occur for Unrecognizable Words in Visual Crowding?

PubMed Central

Zhou, Jifan; Lee, Chia-Lin; Li, Kuei-An; Tien, Yung-Hsuan; Yeh, Su-Ling

2016-01-01

Visual crowding—the inability to see an object when it is surrounded by flankers in the periphery—does not block semantic activation: unrecognizable words due to visual crowding still generated robust semantic priming in subsequent lexical decision tasks. Based on the previous finding, the current study further explored whether unrecognizable crowded words can be temporally integrated into a phrase. By showing one word at a time, we presented Chinese four-word idioms with either a congruent or incongruent ending word in order to examine whether the three preceding crowded words can be temporally integrated to form a semantic context so as to affect the processing of the ending word. Results from both behavioral (Experiment 1) and Event-Related Potential (Experiment 2 and 3) measures showed congruency effect in only the non-crowded condition, which does not support the existence of unconscious multi-word integration. Aside from four-word idioms, we also found that two-word (modifier + adjective combination) integration—the simplest kind of temporal semantic integration—did not occur in visual crowding (Experiment 4). Our findings suggest that integration of temporally separated words might require conscious awareness, at least under the timing conditions tested in the current study. PMID:26890366

Effects of semantic relatedness on recall of stimuli preceding emotional oddballs.

PubMed

Smith, Ryan M; Beversdorf, David Q

2008-07-01

Semantic and episodic memory networks function as highly interconnected systems, both relying on the hippocampal/medial temporal lobe complex (HC/MTL). Episodic memory encoding triggers the retrieval of semantic information, serving to incorporate contextual relationships between the newly acquired memory and existing semantic representations. While emotional material augments episodic memory encoding at the time of stimulus presentation, interactions between emotion and semantic memory that contribute to subsequent episodic recall are not well understood. Using a modified oddball task, we examined the modulatory effects of negative emotion on semantic interactions with episodic memory by measuring the free-recall of serially presented neutral or negative words varying in semantic relatedness. We found increased free-recall for words related to and preceding emotionally negative oddballs, suggesting that negative emotion can indirectly facilitate episodic free-recall by enhancing semantic contributions during encoding. Our findings demonstrate the ability of emotion and semantic memory to interact to mutually enhance free-recall.

Embedded Words in Visual Word Recognition: Does the Left Hemisphere See the Rain in Brain?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCormick, Samantha F.; Davis, Colin J.; Brysbaert, Marc

2010-01-01

To examine whether interhemispheric transfer during foveal word recognition entails a discontinuity between the information presented to the left and right of fixation, we presented target words in such a way that participants fixated immediately left or right of an embedded word (as in "gr*apple", "bull*et") or in the middle…

Activating Situation Schemas: The Effects of Multiple Thematic Roles on Related Verbs in a Continuous Priming Paradigm

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herlofsky, Stacey M.; Edmonds, Lisa A.

2013-01-01

Extensive evidence has shown that presentation of a word (target) following a related word (prime) results in faster reaction times compared to unrelated words. Two primes preceding a target have been used to examine the effects of multiple influences on a target. Several studies have observed greater, or additive, priming effects of multiple…

47 CFR 213.5 - Precedence designators.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 5 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Precedence designators. 213.5 Section 213.5 Telecommunication OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC CORRESPONDENCE TELECOMMUNICATIONS PRECEDENCE SYSTEM § 213.5 Precedence designators. (a) The following precedence...

47 CFR 213.5 - Precedence designators.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 5 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Precedence designators. 213.5 Section 213.5 Telecommunication OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC CORRESPONDENCE TELECOMMUNICATIONS PRECEDENCE SYSTEM § 213.5 Precedence designators. (a) The following precedence...

47 CFR 213.5 - Precedence designators.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 5 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Precedence designators. 213.5 Section 213.5 Telecommunication OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC CORRESPONDENCE TELECOMMUNICATIONS PRECEDENCE SYSTEM § 213.5 Precedence designators. (a) The following precedence...

47 CFR 213.5 - Precedence designators.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 5 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Precedence designators. 213.5 Section 213.5 Telecommunication OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC CORRESPONDENCE TELECOMMUNICATIONS PRECEDENCE SYSTEM § 213.5 Precedence designators. (a) The following precedence...

47 CFR 213.5 - Precedence designators.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 5 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Precedence designators. 213.5 Section 213.5 Telecommunication OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC CORRESPONDENCE TELECOMMUNICATIONS PRECEDENCE SYSTEM § 213.5 Precedence designators. (a) The following precedence...

The Role of Feedback and Differences between Good and Poor Decoders in a Repeated Word Reading Paradigm in First Grade

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Gorp, Karly; Segers, Eliane; Verhoeven, Ludo

2017-01-01

The direct, retention, and transfer effects of repeated word and pseudoword reading were studied in a pretest, training, posttest, retention design. First graders (48 good readers, 47 poor readers) read 25 CVC words and 25 CVC pseudowords in ten repeated word reading sessions, preceded and followed by a transfer task with a different set of items.…

Auditory phonological priming in children and adults during word repetition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cleary, Miranda; Schwartz, Richard G.

2004-05-01

Short-term auditory phonological priming effects involve changes in the speed with which words are processed by a listener as a function of recent exposure to other similar-sounding words. Activation of phonological/lexical representations appears to persist beyond the immediate offset of a word, influencing subsequent processing. Priming effects are commonly cited as demonstrating concurrent activation of word/phonological candidates during word identification. Phonological priming is controversial, the direction of effects (facilitating versus slowing) varying with the prime-target relationship. In adults, it has repeatedly been demonstrated, however, that hearing a prime word that rhymes with the following target word (ISI=50 ms) decreases the time necessary to initiate repetition of the target, relative to when the prime and target have no phonemic overlap. Activation of phonological representations in children has not typically been studied using this paradigm, auditory-word + picture-naming tasks being used instead. The present study employed an auditory phonological priming paradigm being developed for use with normal-hearing and hearing-impaired children. Initial results from normal-hearing adults replicate previous reports of faster naming times for targets following a rhyming prime word than for targets following a prime having no phonemes in common. Results from normal-hearing children will also be reported. [Work supported by NIH-NIDCD T32DC000039.

Infant Word Segmentation Revisited: Edge Alignment Facilitates Target Extraction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seidl, Amanda; Johnson, Elizabeth K.

2006-01-01

In a landmark study, Jusczyk and Aslin (1995 ) demonstrated that English-learning infants are able to segment words from continuous speech at 7.5 months of age. In the current study, we explored the possibility that infants segment words from the edges of utterances more readily than the middle of utterances. The same procedure was used as in…

Semantic information mediates visual attention during spoken word recognition in Chinese: Evidence from the printed-word version of the visual-world paradigm.

PubMed

Shen, Wei; Qu, Qingqing; Li, Xingshan

2016-07-01

In the present study, we investigated whether the activation of semantic information during spoken word recognition can mediate visual attention's deployment to printed Chinese words. We used a visual-world paradigm with printed words, in which participants listened to a spoken target word embedded in a neutral spoken sentence while looking at a visual display of printed words. We examined whether a semantic competitor effect could be observed in the printed-word version of the visual-world paradigm. In Experiment 1, the relationship between the spoken target words and the printed words was manipulated so that they were semantically related (a semantic competitor), phonologically related (a phonological competitor), or unrelated (distractors). We found that the probability of fixations on semantic competitors was significantly higher than that of fixations on the distractors. In Experiment 2, the orthographic similarity between the spoken target words and their semantic competitors was manipulated to further examine whether the semantic competitor effect was modulated by orthographic similarity. We found significant semantic competitor effects regardless of orthographic similarity. Our study not only reveals that semantic information can affect visual attention, it also provides important new insights into the methodology employed to investigate the semantic processing of spoken words during spoken word recognition using the printed-word version of the visual-world paradigm.

Elevating Baseline Activation Does Not Facilitate Reading of Unattended Words

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lien, Mei-Ching; Kouchi, Scott; Ruthruff, Eric; Lachter, Joel B.

2009-01-01

Previous studies have disagreed the extent to which people extract meaning from words presented outside the focus of spatial attention. The present study, examined a possible explanation for such discrepancies, inspired by attenuation theory: unattended words can be read more automatically when they have a high baseline level of activation (e.g., due to frequent repetition or due to being expected in a given context). We presented a brief prime word in lowercase, followed by a target word in uppercase. Participants indicated whether the target word belonged to a particular category (e.g., "sport"). When we drew attention to the prime word using a visual cue, the prime produced substantial priming effects on target responses (i.e., faster responses when the prime and target words were identical or from the same category than when they belonged to different categories). When prime words were not attended, however, they produced no priming effects. This finding replicated even when there were only 4 words, each repeated 160 times during the experiment. Even with a very high baseline level of activation, it appears that very little word processing is possible without spatial attention.

Does the advantage of the upper part of words occur at the lexical level?

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Comesaña, Montserrat; Soares, Ana P

2012-11-01

Several recent studies have shown that the upper part of words is more important than the lower part in visual word recognition. Here, we examine whether or not this advantage arises at the lexical or at the letter (letter feature) level. To examine this issue, we conducted two lexical decision experiments in which words/pseudowords were preceded by a very brief (50-ms) presentation of their upper or lower parts (e.g., ). If the advantage for the upper part of words arises at the letter (letter feature) level, the effect should occur for both words and pseudowords. Results revealed an advantage for the upper part of words, but not for pseudowords. This suggests that the advantage for the upper part of words occurs at the lexical level, rather than at the letter (or letter feature) level.

Orthographic versus semantic matching in visual search for words within lists.

PubMed

Léger, Laure; Rouet, Jean-François; Ros, Christine; Vibert, Nicolas

2012-03-01

An eye-tracking experiment was performed to assess the influence of orthographic and semantic distractor words on visual search for words within lists. The target word (e.g., "raven") was either shown to participants before the search (literal search) or defined by its semantic category (e.g., "bird", categorical search). In both cases, the type of words included in the list affected visual search times and eye movement patterns. In the literal condition, the presence of orthographic distractors sharing initial and final letters with the target word strongly increased search times. Indeed, the orthographic distractors attracted participants' gaze and were fixated for longer times than other words in the list. The presence of semantic distractors related to the target word also increased search times, which suggests that significant automatic semantic processing of nontarget words took place. In the categorical condition, semantic distractors were expected to have a greater impact on the search task. As expected, the presence in the list of semantic associates of the target word led to target selection errors. However, semantic distractors did not significantly increase search times any more, whereas orthographic distractors still did. Hence, the visual characteristics of nontarget words can be strong predictors of the efficiency of visual search even when the exact target word is unknown. The respective impacts of orthographic and semantic distractors depended more on the characteristics of lists than on the nature of the search task.

Utterance-final position and pitch marking aid word learning in school-age children.

PubMed

Filippi, Piera; Laaha, Sabine; Fitch, W Tecumseh

2017-08-01

We investigated the effects of word order and prosody on word learning in school-age children. Third graders viewed photographs belonging to one of three semantic categories while hearing four-word nonsense utterances containing a target word. In the control condition, all words had the same pitch and, across trials, the position of the target word was varied systematically within each utterance. The only cue to word-meaning mapping was the co-occurrence of target words and referents. This cue was present in all conditions. In the Utterance-final condition, the target word always occurred in utterance-final position, and at the same fundamental frequency as all the other words of the utterance. In the Pitch peak condition, the position of the target word was varied systematically within each utterance across trials, and produced with pitch contrasts typical of infant-directed speech (IDS). In the Pitch peak + Utterance-final condition, the target word always occurred in utterance-final position, and was marked with a pitch contrast typical of IDS. Word learning occurred in all conditions except the control condition. Moreover, learning performance was significantly higher than that observed with simple co-occurrence ( control condition) only for the Pitch peak + Utterance-final condition. We conclude that, for school-age children, the combination of words' utterance-final alignment and pitch enhancement boosts word learning.

Presentation of words to separate hemispheres prevents interword illusory conjunctions.

PubMed

Liederman, J; Sohn, Y S

1999-03-01

We tested the hypothesis that division of inputs between the hemispheres could prevent interword letter migrations in the form of illusory conjunctions. The task was to decide whether a centrally-presented consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) target word matched one of four CVC words presented to a single hemisphere or divided between the hemispheres in a subsequent test display. During half of the target-absent trials, known as conjunction trials, letters from two separate words (e.g., "tag" and "cop") in the test display could be mistaken for a target word (e.g., "top"). For the other half of the target-absent trails, the test display did not match any target consonants (Experiment 1, N = 16) or it matched one target consonant (Experiment 2, N = 29), the latter constituting true "feature" trials. Bi- as compared to unihemispheric presentation significantly reduced the number of conjunction, but not feature, errors. Illusory conjunctions did not occur when the words were presented to separate hemispheres.

Early attentional bias for negative words when competition is induced.

PubMed

Ho, Ming-Chou; Li, Shuo-Heng; Yeh, Su-Ling

2016-05-01

Previous research (Zeelenberg, Wagenmakers, & Rotteveel, 2006) revealed that emotionally meaningful words were identified significantly better than neutral words, with no difference between positive and negative words. Since in that study only a single target word was displayed at a time, we hypothesized that the equivalent performances for positive and negative words were due to a lack of competition. To test this, in our Experiment 1, we replicated Zeelenberg and colleagues' finding, using emotion-laden Chinese words and the identical data-limited method, which measured the accuracy of a briefly shown target. We then introduced competition in Experiment 2 by simultaneously presenting two words during the target frame, and found evidence for an early attentional bias to negative words. In Experiment 3, we confirmed that the bias in Experiment 2 was not due to the inevitable repetition of stimuli. Taken together, these results support our hypothesis that, in the presence of competition, negative words receive attentional priority and consequently have enhanced perceptual representations.

Rapid modulation of spoken word recognition by visual primes.

PubMed

Okano, Kana; Grainger, Jonathan; Holcomb, Phillip J

2016-02-01

In a masked cross-modal priming experiment with ERP recordings, spoken Japanese words were primed with words written in one of the two syllabary scripts of Japanese. An early priming effect, peaking at around 200ms after onset of the spoken word target, was seen in left lateral electrode sites for Katakana primes, and later effects were seen for both Hiragana and Katakana primes on the N400 ERP component. The early effect is thought to reflect the efficiency with which words in Katakana script make contact with sublexical phonological representations involved in spoken language comprehension, due to the particular way this script is used by Japanese readers. This demonstrates fast-acting influences of visual primes on the processing of auditory target words, and suggests that briefly presented visual primes can influence sublexical processing of auditory target words. The later N400 priming effects, on the other hand, most likely reflect cross-modal influences on activity at the level of whole-word phonology and semantics.

Rapid modulation of spoken word recognition by visual primes

PubMed Central

Okano, Kana; Grainger, Jonathan; Holcomb, Phillip J.

2015-01-01

In a masked cross-modal priming experiment with ERP recordings, spoken Japanese words were primed with words written in one of the two syllabary scripts of Japanese. An early priming effect, peaking at around 200ms after onset of the spoken word target, was seen in left lateral electrode sites for Katakana primes, and later effects were seen for both Hiragana and Katakana primes on the N400 ERP component. The early effect is thought to reflect the efficiency with which words in Katakana script make contact with sublexical phonological representations involved in spoken language comprehension, due to the particular way this script is used by Japanese readers. This demonstrates fast-acting influences of visual primes on the processing of auditory target words, and suggests that briefly presented visual primes can influence sublexical processing of auditory target words. The later N400 priming effects, on the other hand, most likely reflect cross-modal influences on activity at the level of whole-word phonology and semantics. PMID:26516296

Utterance-final position and pitch marking aid word learning in school-age children

PubMed Central

Laaha, Sabine; Fitch, W. Tecumseh

2017-01-01

We investigated the effects of word order and prosody on word learning in school-age children. Third graders viewed photographs belonging to one of three semantic categories while hearing four-word nonsense utterances containing a target word. In the control condition, all words had the same pitch and, across trials, the position of the target word was varied systematically within each utterance. The only cue to word–meaning mapping was the co-occurrence of target words and referents. This cue was present in all conditions. In the Utterance-final condition, the target word always occurred in utterance-final position, and at the same fundamental frequency as all the other words of the utterance. In the Pitch peak condition, the position of the target word was varied systematically within each utterance across trials, and produced with pitch contrasts typical of infant-directed speech (IDS). In the Pitch peak + Utterance-final condition, the target word always occurred in utterance-final position, and was marked with a pitch contrast typical of IDS. Word learning occurred in all conditions except the control condition. Moreover, learning performance was significantly higher than that observed with simple co-occurrence (control condition) only for the Pitch peak + Utterance-final condition. We conclude that, for school-age children, the combination of words' utterance-final alignment and pitch enhancement boosts word learning. PMID:28878961

Rapid formation and flexible expression of memories of subliminal word pairs.

PubMed

Reber, Thomas P; Henke, Katharina

2011-01-01

Our daily experiences are incidentally and rapidly encoded as episodic memories. Episodic memories consist of numerous associations (e.g., who gave what to whom where and when) that can be expressed flexibly in new situations. Key features of episodic memory are speed of encoding, its associative nature, and its representational flexibility. Another defining feature of human episodic memory has been consciousness of encoding/retrieval. Here, we show that humans can rapidly form associations between subliminal words and minutes later retrieve these associations even if retrieval words were conceptually related to, but different from encoding words. Because encoding words were presented subliminally, associative encoding, and retrieval were unconscious. Unconscious association formation and retrieval were dependent on a preceding understanding of task principles. We conclude that key computations underlying episodic memory - rapid encoding and flexible expression of associations - can operate outside consciousness.

Differential Processing for Actively Ignored Pictures and Words.

PubMed

Walker, Maegen; Ciraolo, Margeaux; Dewald, Andrew; Sinnett, Scott

2017-01-01

Previous work suggests that, when attended, pictures may be processed more readily than words. The current study extends this research to assess potential differences in processing between these stimulus types when they are actively ignored. In a dual-task paradigm, facilitated recognition for previously ignored words was found provided that they appeared frequently with an attended target. When adapting the same paradigm here, previously unattended pictures were recognized at high rates regardless of how they were paired with items during the primary task, whereas unattended words were later recognized at higher rates only if they had previously been aligned with primary task targets. Implicit learning effects obtained by aligning unattended items with attended task-targets may apply only to conceptually abstract stimulus types, such as words. Pictures, on the other hand, may maintain direct access to semantic information, and are therefore processed more readily than words, even when being actively ignored.

The Development of Word Frequency Lists Prior to the 1944 Thorndike-Lorge List.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bontrager, Terry

1991-01-01

Examines the word frequency studies that preceded the 1944 Thorndike-Lorge count and places those investigations in their broad, cultural perspective. Draws attention to the impact of the studies on knowledge about language and its development, educational curriculum and assessment, and methods of research. (MG)

Perception of Words and Non-Words in the Upper and Lower Visual Fields

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Darker, Iain T.; Jordan, Timothy R.

2004-01-01

The findings of previous investigations into word perception in the upper and the lower visual field (VF) are variable and may have incurred non-perceptual biases caused by the asymmetric distribution of information within a word, an advantage for saccadic eye-movements to targets in the upper VF and the possibility that stimuli were not projected…

Differential Processing for Actively Ignored Pictures and Words

PubMed Central

Ciraolo, Margeaux

2017-01-01

Previous work suggests that, when attended, pictures may be processed more readily than words. The current study extends this research to assess potential differences in processing between these stimulus types when they are actively ignored. In a dual-task paradigm, facilitated recognition for previously ignored words was found provided that they appeared frequently with an attended target. When adapting the same paradigm here, previously unattended pictures were recognized at high rates regardless of how they were paired with items during the primary task, whereas unattended words were later recognized at higher rates only if they had previously been aligned with primary task targets. Implicit learning effects obtained by aligning unattended items with attended task-targets may apply only to conceptually abstract stimulus types, such as words. Pictures, on the other hand, may maintain direct access to semantic information, and are therefore processed more readily than words, even when being actively ignored. PMID:28122022

L2 Word Recognition: Influence of L1 Orthography on Multi-syllabic Word Recognition.

PubMed

Hamada, Megumi

2017-10-01

L2 reading research suggests that L1 orthographic experience influences L2 word recognition. Nevertheless, the findings on multi-syllabic words in English are still limited despite the fact that a vast majority of words are multi-syllabic. The study investigated whether L1 orthography influences the recognition of multi-syllabic words, focusing on the position of an embedded word. The participants were Arabic ESL learners, Chinese ESL learners, and native speakers of English. The task was a word search task, in which the participants identified a target word embedded in a pseudoword at the initial, middle, or final position. The search accuracy and speed indicated that all groups showed a strong preference for the initial position. The accuracy data further indicated group differences. The Arabic group showed higher accuracy in the final than middle, while the Chinese group showed the opposite and the native speakers showed no difference between the two positions. The findings suggest that L2 multi-syllabic word recognition involves unique processes.

Connectivity precedes function in the development of the visual word form area.

PubMed

Saygin, Zeynep M; Osher, David E; Norton, Elizabeth S; Youssoufian, Deanna A; Beach, Sara D; Feather, Jenelle; Gaab, Nadine; Gabrieli, John D E; Kanwisher, Nancy

2016-09-01

What determines the cortical location at which a given functionally specific region will arise in development? We tested the hypothesis that functionally specific regions develop in their characteristic locations because of pre-existing differences in the extrinsic connectivity of that region to the rest of the brain. We exploited the visual word form area (VWFA) as a test case, scanning children with diffusion and functional imaging at age 5, before they learned to read, and at age 8, after they learned to read. We found the VWFA developed functionally in this interval and that its location in a particular child at age 8 could be predicted from that child's connectivity fingerprints (but not functional responses) at age 5. These results suggest that early connectivity instructs the functional development of the VWFA, possibly reflecting a general mechanism of cortical development.

Space-valence priming with subliminal and supraliminal words.

PubMed

Ansorge, Ulrich; Khalid, Shah; König, Peter

2013-01-01

To date it is unclear whether (1) awareness-independent non-evaluative semantic processes influence affective semantics and whether (2) awareness-independent affective semantics influence non-evaluative semantic processing. In the current study, we investigated these questions with the help of subliminal (masked) primes and visible targets in a space-valence across-category congruence effect. In line with (1), we found that subliminal space prime words influenced valence classification of supraliminal target words (Experiment 1): classifications were faster with a congruent prime (e.g., the prime "up" before the target "happy") than with an incongruent prime (e.g., the prime "up" before the target "sad"). In contrast to (2), no influence of subliminal valence primes on the classification of supraliminal space targets into up- and down-words was found (Experiment 2). Control conditions showed that standard masked response priming effects were found with both subliminal prime types, and that an across-category congruence effect was also found with supraliminal valence primes and spatial target words. The final Experiment 3 confirmed that the across-category congruence effect indeed reflected priming of target categorization of a relevant meaning category. Together, the data jointly confirmed prediction (1) that awareness-independent non-evaluative semantic priming influences valence judgments.

Space-Valence Priming with Subliminal and Supraliminal Words

PubMed Central

Ansorge, Ulrich; Khalid, Shah; König, Peter

2013-01-01

To date it is unclear whether (1) awareness-independent non-evaluative semantic processes influence affective semantics and whether (2) awareness-independent affective semantics influence non-evaluative semantic processing. In the current study, we investigated these questions with the help of subliminal (masked) primes and visible targets in a space-valence across-category congruence effect. In line with (1), we found that subliminal space prime words influenced valence classification of supraliminal target words (Experiment 1): classifications were faster with a congruent prime (e.g., the prime “up” before the target “happy”) than with an incongruent prime (e.g., the prime “up” before the target “sad”). In contrast to (2), no influence of subliminal valence primes on the classification of supraliminal space targets into up- and down-words was found (Experiment 2). Control conditions showed that standard masked response priming effects were found with both subliminal prime types, and that an across-category congruence effect was also found with supraliminal valence primes and spatial target words. The final Experiment 3 confirmed that the across-category congruence effect indeed reflected priming of target categorization of a relevant meaning category. Together, the data jointly confirmed prediction (1) that awareness-independent non-evaluative semantic priming influences valence judgments. PMID:23439863

Rapid Formation and Flexible Expression of Memories of Subliminal Word Pairs

PubMed Central

Reber, Thomas P.; Henke, Katharina

2011-01-01

Our daily experiences are incidentally and rapidly encoded as episodic memories. Episodic memories consist of numerous associations (e.g., who gave what to whom where and when) that can be expressed flexibly in new situations. Key features of episodic memory are speed of encoding, its associative nature, and its representational flexibility. Another defining feature of human episodic memory has been consciousness of encoding/retrieval. Here, we show that humans can rapidly form associations between subliminal words and minutes later retrieve these associations even if retrieval words were conceptually related to, but different from encoding words. Because encoding words were presented subliminally, associative encoding, and retrieval were unconscious. Unconscious association formation and retrieval were dependent on a preceding understanding of task principles. We conclude that key computations underlying episodic memory – rapid encoding and flexible expression of associations – can operate outside consciousness. PMID:22125545

Asymmetrical Switch Costs in Bilingual Language Production Induced by Reading Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peeters, David; Runnqvist, Elin; Bertrand, Daisy; Grainger, Jonathan

2014-01-01

We examined language-switching effects in French-English bilinguals using a paradigm where pictures are always named in the same language (either French or English) within a block of trials, and on each trial, the picture is preceded by a printed word from the same language or from the other language. Participants had to either make a language…

The role of spatial attention in visual word processing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mccann, Robert S.; Folk, Charles L.; Johnston, James C.

1992-01-01

Subjects made lexical decisions on a target letter string presented above or below fixation. In Experiments 1 and 2, target location was cued 100 ms in advance of target onset. Responses were faster on validly than on invalidly cued trials. In Experiment 3, the target was sometimes accompanied by irrelevant stimuli on the other side of fixation; in such cases, responses were slowed (a spatial filtering effect). Both cuing and filtering effects on response time were additive with effects of word frequency and lexical status (words vs. nonwords). These findings are difficult to reconcile with claims that spatial attention is less involved in processing familiar words than in unfamiliar words and nonwords. The results can be reconciled with a late-selection locus of spatial attention only with difficulty, but are easily explained by early-selection models.

Effects of ocular transverse chromatic aberration on peripheral word identification.

PubMed

Yang, Shun-Nan; Tai, Yu-chi; Laukkanen, Hannu; Sheedy, James E

2011-11-01

Transverse chromatic aberration (TCA) smears the retinal image of peripheral stimuli. We previously found that TCA significantly reduces the ability to recognize letters presented in the near fovea by degrading image quality and exacerbating crowding effect from adjacent letters. The present study examined whether TCA has a significant effect on near foveal and peripheral word identification, and whether within-word orthographic facilitation interacts with TCA effect to affect word identification. Subjects were briefly presented a 6- to 7-letter word of high or low frequency in each trial. Target words were generated with weak or strong horizontal color fringe to attenuate the TCA in the right periphery and exacerbate it in the left. The center of the target word was 1°, 2°, 4°, and 6° to the left or right of a fixation point. Subject's eye position was monitored with an eye-tracker to ensure proper fixation before target presentation. They were required to report the identity of the target word as soon and accurately as possible. Results show significant effect of color fringe on the latency and accuracy of word recognition, indicating existing TCA effect. Observed TCA effect was more salient in the right periphery, and was affected by word frequency more there. Individuals' subjective preference of color-fringed text was correlated to the TCA effect in the near periphery. Our results suggest that TCA significantly affects peripheral word identification, especially when it is located in the right periphery. Contextual facilitation such as word frequency interacts with TCA to influence the accuracy and latency of word recognition. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Coordination of Word Recognition and Oculomotor Control During Reading: The Role of Implicit Lexical Decisions

PubMed Central

Choi, Wonil; Gordon, Peter C.

2013-01-01

The coordination of word-recognition and oculomotor processes during reading was evaluated in two eye-tracking experiments that examined how word skipping, where a word is not fixated during first-pass reading, is affected by the lexical status of a letter string in the parafovea and ease of recognizing that string. Ease of lexical recognition was manipulated through target-word frequency (Experiment 1) and through repetition priming between prime-target pairs embedded in a sentence (Experiment 2). Using the gaze-contingent boundary technique the target word appeared in the parafovea either with full preview or with transposed-letter (TL) preview. The TL preview strings were nonwords in Experiment 1 (e.g., bilnk created from the target blink), but were words in Experiment 2 (e.g., sacred created from the target scared). Experiment 1 showed greater skipping for high-frequency than low-frequency target words in the full preview condition but not in the TL preview (nonword) condition. Experiment 2 showed greater skipping for target words that repeated an earlier prime word than for those that did not, with this repetition priming occurring both with preview of the full target and with preview of the target’s TL neighbor word. However, time to progress from the word after the target was greater following skips of the TL preview word, whose meaning was anomalous in the sentence context, than following skips of the full preview word whose meaning fit sensibly into the sentence context. Together, the results support the idea that coordination between word-recognition and oculomotor processes occurs at the level of implicit lexical decisions. PMID:23106372

The semantic origin of unconscious priming: Behavioral and event-related potential evidence during category congruency priming from strongly and weakly related masked words.

PubMed

Ortells, Juan J; Kiefer, Markus; Castillo, Alejandro; Megías, Montserrat; Morillas, Alejandro

2016-01-01

The mechanisms underlying masked congruency priming, semantic mechanisms such as semantic activation or non-semantic mechanisms, for example response activation, remain a matter of debate. In order to decide between these alternatives, reaction times (RTs) and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in the present study, while participants performed a semantic categorization task on visible word targets that were preceded either 167 ms (Experiment 1) or 34 ms before (Experiment 2) by briefly presented (33 ms) novel (unpracticed) masked prime words. The primes and targets belonged to different categories (unrelated), or they were either strongly or weakly semantically related category co-exemplars. Behavioral (RT) and electrophysiological masked congruency priming effects were significantly greater for strongly related pairs than for weakly related pairs, indicating a semantic origin of effects. Priming in the latter condition was not statistically reliable. Furthermore, priming effects modulated the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component, an electrophysiological index of semantic processing, but not ERPs in the time range of the N200 component, associated with response conflict and visuo-motor response priming. The present results demonstrate that masked congruency priming from novel prime words also depends on semantic processing of the primes and is not exclusively driven by non-semantic mechanisms such as response activation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Emotionally enhanced memory for negatively arousing words: storage or retrieval advantage?

PubMed

Nadarevic, Lena

2017-12-01

People typically remember emotionally negative words better than neutral words. Two experiments are reported that investigate whether emotionally enhanced memory (EEM) for negatively arousing words is based on a storage or retrieval advantage. Participants studied non-word-word pairs that either involved negatively arousing or neutral target words. Memory for these target words was tested by means of a recognition test and a cued-recall test. Data were analysed with a multinomial model that allows the disentanglement of storage and retrieval processes in the present recognition-then-cued-recall paradigm. In both experiments the multinomial analyses revealed no storage differences between negatively arousing and neutral words but a clear retrieval advantage for negatively arousing words in the cued-recall test. These findings suggest that EEM for negatively arousing words is driven by associative processes.

The Edge Factor in Early Word Segmentation: Utterance-Level Prosody Enables Word Form Extraction by 6-Month-Olds

PubMed Central

Johnson, Elizabeth K.; Seidl, Amanda; Tyler, Michael D.

2014-01-01

Past research has shown that English learners begin segmenting words from speech by 7.5 months of age. However, more recent research has begun to show that, in some situations, infants may exhibit rudimentary segmentation capabilities at an earlier age. Here, we report on four perceptual experiments and a corpus analysis further investigating the initial emergence of segmentation capabilities. In Experiments 1 and 2, 6-month-olds were familiarized with passages containing target words located either utterance medially or at utterance edges. Only those infants familiarized with passages containing target words aligned with utterance edges exhibited evidence of segmentation. In Experiments 3 and 4, 6-month-olds recognized familiarized words when they were presented in a new acoustically distinct voice (male rather than female), but not when they were presented in a phonologically altered manner (missing the initial segment). Finally, we report corpus analyses examining how often different word types occur at utterance boundaries in different registers. Our findings suggest that edge-aligned words likely play a key role in infants’ early segmentation attempts, and also converge with recent reports suggesting that 6-month-olds’ have already started building a rudimentary lexicon. PMID:24421892

Neurological Evidence Linguistic Processes Precede Perceptual Simulation in Conceptual Processing

PubMed Central

Louwerse, Max; Hutchinson, Sterling

2012-01-01

There is increasing evidence from response time experiments that language statistics and perceptual simulations both play a role in conceptual processing. In an EEG experiment we compared neural activity in cortical regions commonly associated with linguistic processing and visual perceptual processing to determine to what extent symbolic and embodied accounts of cognition applied. Participants were asked to determine the semantic relationship of word pairs (e.g., sky – ground) or to determine their iconic relationship (i.e., if the presentation of the pair matched their expected physical relationship). A linguistic bias was found toward the semantic judgment task and a perceptual bias was found toward the iconicity judgment task. More importantly, conceptual processing involved activation in brain regions associated with both linguistic and perceptual processes. When comparing the relative activation of linguistic cortical regions with perceptual cortical regions, the effect sizes for linguistic cortical regions were larger than those for the perceptual cortical regions early in a trial with the reverse being true later in a trial. These results map upon findings from other experimental literature and provide further evidence that processing of concept words relies both on language statistics and on perceptual simulations, whereby linguistic processes precede perceptual simulation processes. PMID:23133427

Neurological evidence linguistic processes precede perceptual simulation in conceptual processing.

PubMed

Louwerse, Max; Hutchinson, Sterling

2012-01-01

There is increasing evidence from response time experiments that language statistics and perceptual simulations both play a role in conceptual processing. In an EEG experiment we compared neural activity in cortical regions commonly associated with linguistic processing and visual perceptual processing to determine to what extent symbolic and embodied accounts of cognition applied. Participants were asked to determine the semantic relationship of word pairs (e.g., sky - ground) or to determine their iconic relationship (i.e., if the presentation of the pair matched their expected physical relationship). A linguistic bias was found toward the semantic judgment task and a perceptual bias was found toward the iconicity judgment task. More importantly, conceptual processing involved activation in brain regions associated with both linguistic and perceptual processes. When comparing the relative activation of linguistic cortical regions with perceptual cortical regions, the effect sizes for linguistic cortical regions were larger than those for the perceptual cortical regions early in a trial with the reverse being true later in a trial. These results map upon findings from other experimental literature and provide further evidence that processing of concept words relies both on language statistics and on perceptual simulations, whereby linguistic processes precede perceptual simulation processes.

The Mechanism of Word Crowding

PubMed Central

Yu, Deyue; Akau, Melanie M. U.; Chung, Susana T. L.

2011-01-01

Word reading speed in peripheral vision is slower when words are in close proximity of other words (Chung, 2004). This word crowding effect could arise as a consequence of interaction of low-level letter features between words, or the interaction between high-level holistic representations of words. We evaluated these two hypotheses by examining how word crowding changes for five configurations of flanking words: the control condition — flanking words were oriented upright; scrambled — letters in each flanking word were scrambled in order; horizontal-flip — each flanking word was the left-right mirror-image of the original; letter-flip — each letter of the flanking word was the left-right mirror-image of the original; and vertical-flip — each flanking word was the up-down mirror-image of the original. The low-level letter feature interaction hypothesis predicts similar word crowding effect for all the different flanker configurations, while the high-level holistic representation hypothesis predicts less word crowding effect for all the alternative flanker conditions, compared with the control condition. We found that oral reading speed for words flanked above and below by other words, measured at 10° eccentricity in the nasal field, showed the same dependence on the vertical separation between the target and its flanking words, for the various flanker configurations. The result was also similar when we rotated the flanking words by 90° to disrupt the periodic vertical pattern, which presumably is the main structure in words. The remarkably similar word crowding effect irrespective of the flanker configurations suggests that word crowding arises as a consequence of interactions of low-level letter features. PMID:22079315

The mechanism of word crowding.

PubMed

Yu, Deyue; Akau, Melanie M U; Chung, Susana T L

2012-01-01

Word reading speed in peripheral vision is slower when words are in close proximity of other words (Chung, 2004). This word crowding effect could arise as a consequence of interaction of low-level letter features between words, or the interaction between high-level holistic representations of words. We evaluated these two hypotheses by examining how word crowding changes for five configurations of flanking words: the control condition - flanking words were oriented upright; scrambled - letters in each flanking word were scrambled in order; horizontal-flip - each flanking word was the left-right mirror-image of the original; letter-flip - each letter of the flanking word was the left-right mirror-image of the original; and vertical-flip - each flanking word was the up-down mirror-image of the original. The low-level letter feature interaction hypothesis predicts similar word crowding effect for all the different flanker configurations, while the high-level holistic representation hypothesis predicts less word crowding effect for all the alternative flanker conditions, compared with the control condition. We found that oral reading speed for words flanked above and below by other words, measured at 10° eccentricity in the nasal field, showed the same dependence on the vertical separation between the target and its flanking words, for the various flanker configurations. The result was also similar when we rotated the flanking words by 90° to disrupt the periodic vertical pattern, which presumably is the main structure in words. The remarkably similar word crowding effect irrespective of the flanker configurations suggests that word crowding arises as a consequence of interactions of low-level letter features. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic priming from crowded words.

PubMed

Yeh, Su-Ling; He, Sheng; Cavanagh, Patrick

2012-06-01

Vision in a cluttered scene is extremely inefficient. This damaging effect of clutter, known as crowding, affects many aspects of visual processing (e.g., reading speed). We examined observers' processing of crowded targets in a lexical decision task, using single-character Chinese words that are compact but carry semantic meaning. Despite being unrecognizable and indistinguishable from matched nonwords, crowded prime words still generated robust semantic-priming effects on lexical decisions for test words presented in isolation. Indeed, the semantic-priming effect of crowded primes was similar to that of uncrowded primes. These findings show that the meanings of words survive crowding even when the identities of the words do not, suggesting that crowding does not prevent semantic activation, a process that may have evolved in the context of a cluttered visual environment.

Words, words, words!

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2015-09-01

Words matter. They are the "atoms" of written and oral communication. Students rely on words in textbooks and other instructional resources and in classroom lectures and discussions. As instructors, there are times when we need to think carefully about the words we use. Sometimes there are problems that may not be initially apparent and we may introduce confusion when we were aiming for clarity.

Long-lasting attentional influence of negative and taboo words in an auditory variant of the emotional Stroop task.

PubMed

Bertels, Julie; Kolinsky, Régine; Pietrons, Elise; Morais, José

2011-02-01

Using an auditory adaptation of the emotional and taboo Stroop tasks, the authors compared the effects of negative and taboo spoken words in mixed and blocked designs. Both types of words elicited carryover effects with mixed presentations and interference with blocked presentations, suggesting similar long-lasting attentional effects. Both were also relatively resilient to the long-lasting influence of the preceding emotional word. Hence, contrary to what has been assumed (Schmidt & Saari, 2007), negative and taboo words do not seem to differ in terms of the temporal dynamics of the interdimensional shifting, at least in the auditory modality. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved.

Deployment of spatial attention to words in central and peripheral vision.

PubMed

Ducrot, Stéphanie; Grainger, Jonathan

2007-05-01

Four perceptual identification experiments examined the influence of spatial cues on the recognition of words presented in central vision (with fixation on either the first or last letter of the target word) and in peripheral vision (displaced left or right of a central fixation point). Stimulus location had a strong effect on word identification accuracy in both central and peripheral vision, showing a strong right visual field superiority that did not depend on eccentricity. Valid spatial cues improved word identification for peripherally presented targets but were largely ineffective for centrally presented targets. Effects of spatial cuing interacted with visual field effects in Experiment 1, with valid cues reducing the right visual field superiority for peripherally located targets, but this interaction was shown to depend on the type of neutral cue. These results provide further support for the role of attentional factors in visual field asymmetries obtained with targets in peripheral vision but not with centrally presented targets.

Development of a Home Food Safety Questionnaire Based on the PRECEDE Model: Targeting Iranian Women.

PubMed

Esfarjani, Fatemeh; Hosseini, Hedayat; Mohammadi-Nasrabadi, Fatemeh; Abadi, Alireza; Roustaee, Roshanak; Alikhanian, Haleh; Khalafi, Marjan; Kiaee, Mohammad Farhad; Khaksar, Ramin

2016-12-01

Food safety is an essential public health issue for all countries. This study was the first attempt to design and develop a home food safety questionnaire (HFSQ), in the conceptual framework of the PRECEDE (predisposing, reinforcing, and enabling constructs in educational diagnosis and evaluation) model, and to assess its validity and reliability. The HFSQ was developed by reviewing electronic databases and 12 focus group discussions with 96 women volunteers. Ten panel members reviewed the questionnaire, and the content validity ratio and content validity index were computed. Twenty women completed the HFSQ, and face validity was assessed. Women who were responsible for food handling in their households (n =320) were selected randomly from 10 health centers and completed the HFSQ based on the PRECEDE model. To examine the construct validity, a principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation was used. Internal consistency was determined with Cronbach's α. Reproducibility was checked by Kendall's τ after 4 weeks with 30 women. The developed HSFQ was considered acceptable with a content validity index of 0.88. Face validity revealed that 95% of the participants understood the questions and found them easy to answer, and 90% confirmed the appearance of the HFSQ and declared the layout acceptable. Principal component factor analysis revealed that the HFSQ could explain 33.7, 55.3, 34.8, and 60.0% of the total variance of the predisposing, reinforcing, practice, and enabling components, respectively. Cronbach's α was acceptable at 0.73. For Kendall's τ c , r = 0.89, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.85 to 0.93. The HFSQ developed based on the PRECEDE model met the standards of acceptable reliability and validity, which can be generalized to a wider population. These results can provide information for the development of effective communication strategies to promote home food safety.

Selective attention in perceptual adjustments to voice.

PubMed

Mullennix, J W; Howe, J N

1999-10-01

The effects of perceptual adjustments to voice information on the perception of isolated spoken words were examined. In two experiments, spoken target words were preceded or followed within a trial by a neutral word spoken in the same voice or in a different voice as the target. Over-all, words were reproduced more accurately on trials on which the voice of the neutral word matched the voice of the spoken target word, suggesting that perceptual adjustments to voice interfere with word processing. This result, however, was mediated by selective attention to voice. The results provide further evidence of a close processing relationship between perceptual adjustments to voice and spoken word recognition.

Increasing adolescents' depth of understanding of cross-curriculum words: an intervention study.

PubMed

Spencer, Sarah; Clegg, Judy; Lowe, Hilary; Stackhouse, Joy

2017-09-01

There is some evidence that vocabulary intervention is effective for children, although further research is needed to confirm the impact of intervention within contexts of social disadvantage. Very little is known about the effectiveness of interventions to increase adolescent knowledge of cross-curriculum words. To evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention programme designed to develop adolescents' knowledge of cross-curriculum words. Participants were 35 adolescents aged between 12 and 14 years who were at risk of educational underachievement with low scores on a range of assessments. Participants received a 10-week intervention programme in small groups, targeting 10 cross-curriculum words (e.g., 'summarize'). This was evaluated using a bespoke outcome measure (the Word Knowledge Profile). The study involved an AABA design, with a repeated baseline, delayed intervention cohort and blind assessment. Intervention included both semantic and phonological information about the target words and involved the adolescents using the words in multiple contexts. Results were promising and participants' knowledge of the targeted words significantly increased following intervention. Progress was demonstrated on the Word Knowledge Profile on the item requiring participants to define the word (for the summer intervention group only). This increase in depth of knowledge was seen on taught words but not on matched non-taught words. Cross-curriculum words are not consistently understood by adolescents at risk of low educational attainment within a low socio-economic context. A 10-week intervention programme resulted in some increases to the depth of knowledge of targeted cross-curriculum words. © 2017 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Is attention confined to one word at a time? The spatial distribution of parafoveal preview benefits during reading.

PubMed

Wang, Chin-An; Inhoff, Albrecht W; Radach, Ralph

2009-10-01

Eye movements were recorded while participants read declarative sentences. Each sentence contained a critical three-word sequence with a three-letter target word (n), a spatially adjacent post-target word (n+1), and a subsequent nonadjacent post-target word (n+2). The parafoveal previews of words n and n+2 were manipulated so that they were either fully visible or masked until they were fixated. The results revealed longer word n and word n+1 viewing durations when word n had been masked in the parafovea, and this occurred irrespective of whether the target was skipped or fixated. Furthermore, masking of word n diminished the usefulness of the preview of word n+2. These results indicate that the effect of a parafoveally available target preview was not strictly localized. Instead, it influenced target viewing and the viewing of the two subsequent words in the text. These results are difficult to reconcile with the assumption that attention is confined to one word at a time until that word is recognized and that attention is then shifted from the recognized word to the next.

Vocabulary Word Instruction for Students Who Read Braille

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Savaiano, Mackenzie E.; Compton, Donald L.; Hatton, Deborah D.; Lloyd, Blair P.

2016-01-01

The association made between the meaning, spelling, and pronunciation of a word has been shown to help children remember the meanings of words. The present study addressed whether the presence of a target word in Braille during instruction facilitated vocabulary learning more efficiently than an auditory-only instructional condition. The authors…

Illusory words: the roles of attention and of top-down constraints in conjoining letters to form words.

PubMed

Treisman, A; Souther, J

1986-02-01

When attention is divided among four briefly exposed syllables, subjects mistakenly detect targets whose letters are present in the display but in the wrong combinations. These illusory conjunctions are somewhat more frequent when the target is a word and when the distractors are nonwords, but the effects of lexical status are small, and no longer reach significance in free report of the same displays. Search performance is further impaired if the nonwords are unpronounceable consonant strings rather than consonant-vowel-consonant strings, but the decrement is due to missed targets rather than to increased conjunction errors. The results are discussed in relation to feature-integration theory and to current models of word perception.

Improving Learners' Vocabulary through Strategy Training and Recycling the Target Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akin, Ayse; Seferoglu, Golge

2004-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine whether an approach combining creating strategy awareness and recycling words will result in better vocabulary learning (delayed recall) of selected words than teaching vocabulary following the course book alone, for intermediate level English language learners. Two English language classes, a total of 51…

On pleasure and thrill: the interplay between arousal and valence during visual word recognition.

PubMed

Recio, Guillermo; Conrad, Markus; Hansen, Laura B; Jacobs, Arthur M

2014-07-01

We investigated the interplay between arousal and valence in the early processing of affective words. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read words organized in an orthogonal design with the factors valence (positive, negative, neutral) and arousal (low, medium, high) in a lexical decision task. We observed faster reaction times for words of positive valence and for those of high arousal. Data from ERPs showed increased early posterior negativity (EPN) suggesting improved visual processing of these conditions. Valence effects appeared for medium and low arousal and were absent for high arousal. Arousal effects were obtained for neutral and negative words but were absent for positive words. These results suggest independent contributions of arousal and valence at early attentional stages of processing. Arousal effects preceded valence effects in the ERP data suggesting that arousal serves as an early alert system preparing a subsequent evaluation in terms of valence. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Words, Words, Words: English, Vocabulary.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lamb, Barbara

The Quinmester course on words gives the student the opportunity to increase his proficiency by investigating word origins, word histories, morphology, and phonology. The course includes the following: dictionary skills and familiarity with the "Oxford,""Webster's Third," and "American Heritage" dictionaries; word…

Spatiotemporal Neural Dynamics of Word Understanding in 12- to 18-Month-Old-Infants

PubMed Central

Leonard, Matthew K.; Brown, Timothy T.; Hagler, Donald J.; Curran, Megan; Dale, Anders M.; Elman, Jeffrey L.; Halgren, Eric

2011-01-01

Learning words is central in human development. However, lacking clear evidence for how or where language is processed in the developing brain, it is unknown whether these processes are similar in infants and adults. Here, we use magnetoencephalography in combination with high-resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging to noninvasively estimate the spatiotemporal distribution of word-selective brain activity in 12- to 18-month-old infants. Infants watched pictures of common objects and listened to words that they understood. A subset of these infants also listened to familiar words compared with sensory control sounds. In both experiments, words evoked a characteristic event-related brain response peaking ∼400 ms after word onset, which localized to left frontotemporal cortices. In adults, this activity, termed the N400m, is associated with lexico-semantic encoding. Like adults, we find that the amplitude of the infant N400m is also modulated by semantic priming, being reduced to words preceded by a semantically related picture. These findings suggest that similar left frontotemporal areas are used for encoding lexico-semantic information throughout the life span, from the earliest stages of word learning. Furthermore, this ontogenetic consistency implies that the neurophysiological processes underlying the N400m may be important both for understanding already known words and for learning new words. PMID:21209121

Improving Students' Word Analysis Skills by Implementing "Working with Words" from the Four Blocks of Literacy Program.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Velasco, Kelly; Zizak, Amanda

This report describes a program for improving word analysis skills in order to increase sight reading, reading accuracy, and fluency. The targeted population consisted of second and third graders in a suburban area close to a large metropolitan city in a Midwestern state. The problems of low word analysis skills were documented through Qualitative…

Learning builds on learning: Infants' use of native language sound patterns to learn words

PubMed Central

Graf Estes, Katharine

2014-01-01

The present research investigated how infants apply prior knowledge of environmental regularities to support new learning. The experiments tested whether infants could exploit experience with native language (English) phonotactic patterns to facilitate associating sounds with meanings during word learning. Fourteen-month-olds heard fluent speech that contained cues for detecting target words; they were embedded in sequences that occur across word boundaries. A separate group heard the target words embedded without word boundary cues. Infants then participated in an object label-learning task. With the opportunity to use native language patterns to segment the target words, infants subsequently learned the labels. Without this experience, infants failed. Novice word learners can take advantage of early learning about sounds scaffold lexical development. PMID:24980741

Activating situation schemas: the effects of multiple thematic roles on related verbs in a continuous priming paradigm.

PubMed

Herlofsky, Stacey M; Edmonds, Lisa A

2013-02-01

Extensive evidence has shown that presentation of a word (target) following a related word (prime) results in faster reaction times compared to unrelated words. Two primes preceding a target have been used to examine the effects of multiple influences on a target. Several studies have observed greater, or additive, priming effects of multiple related primes compared to single related primes. The present study aims to eliminate attentional factors that may have contributed to findings in previous studies that used explicitly presented primes and targets. Thus, a continuous priming paradigm where targets are unknown to participants is used with noun-noun-verb triads filling agent, patient, and action roles in situation schemas (tourist, car, rent). Results replicate priming of single nouns preceding related verbs but do not suggest an additive effect for two nouns versus one. The absence of additive priming suggests that attentional processes may have been a factor in previous research.

Episodic Specificity in Acquiring Thematic Knowledge of Novel Words from Descriptive Episodes

PubMed Central

Zhang, Meichao; Chen, Shuang; Wang, Lin; Yang, Xiaohong; Yang, Yufang

2017-01-01

The current study examined whether thematic relations of the novel words could be acquired via descriptive episodes, and if yes, whether it could be generalized to thematically related words in a different scenario. In Experiment 1, a lexical decision task was used where the novel words served as primes for target words in four conditions: (1) corresponding concepts of the novel words, (2) thematically related words in the same episodes as that in learning condition, (3) thematically related words in different episodes, or (4) unrelated words served as targets. Event related potentials elicited by the targets revealed that compared to the unrelated words, the corresponding concepts and thematically related words in the same episodes elicited smaller N400s with a frontal-central distribution, whereas the thematically related words in different episodes elicited an enhanced late positive component. Experiment 2 further showed a priming effect of the corresponding concepts on the thematically related words in the same episodes as well as in a different episode, indicating that the absence of a priming effect of the learned novel words on the thematically related words in different episode could not be attributed to inappropriate selection of thematically related words in the two conditions. These results indicate that only the corresponding concepts and the thematically related words in the learning episodes were successfully primed, whereas the thematic association between the novel words and the thematically related words in different scenarios could only be recognized in a late processing stage. Our findings suggest that thematic knowledge of novel words is organized via separate scenarios, which are represented in a clustered manner in the semantic network. PMID:28428766

Episodic Specificity in Acquiring Thematic Knowledge of Novel Words from Descriptive Episodes.

PubMed

Zhang, Meichao; Chen, Shuang; Wang, Lin; Yang, Xiaohong; Yang, Yufang

2017-01-01

The current study examined whether thematic relations of the novel words could be acquired via descriptive episodes, and if yes, whether it could be generalized to thematically related words in a different scenario. In Experiment 1, a lexical decision task was used where the novel words served as primes for target words in four conditions: (1) corresponding concepts of the novel words, (2) thematically related words in the same episodes as that in learning condition, (3) thematically related words in different episodes, or (4) unrelated words served as targets. Event related potentials elicited by the targets revealed that compared to the unrelated words, the corresponding concepts and thematically related words in the same episodes elicited smaller N400s with a frontal-central distribution, whereas the thematically related words in different episodes elicited an enhanced late positive component. Experiment 2 further showed a priming effect of the corresponding concepts on the thematically related words in the same episodes as well as in a different episode, indicating that the absence of a priming effect of the learned novel words on the thematically related words in different episode could not be attributed to inappropriate selection of thematically related words in the two conditions. These results indicate that only the corresponding concepts and the thematically related words in the learning episodes were successfully primed, whereas the thematic association between the novel words and the thematically related words in different scenarios could only be recognized in a late processing stage. Our findings suggest that thematic knowledge of novel words is organized via separate scenarios, which are represented in a clustered manner in the semantic network.

Spectrotemporal processing drives fast access to memory traces for spoken words.

PubMed

Tavano, A; Grimm, S; Costa-Faidella, J; Slabu, L; Schröger, E; Escera, C

2012-05-01

The Mismatch Negativity (MMN) component of the event-related potentials is generated when a detectable spectrotemporal feature of the incoming sound does not match the sensory model set up by preceding repeated stimuli. MMN is enhanced at frontocentral scalp sites for deviant words when compared to acoustically similar deviant pseudowords, suggesting that automatic access to long-term memory traces for spoken words contributes to MMN generation. Does spectrotemporal feature matching also drive automatic lexical access? To test this, we recorded human auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) to disyllabic spoken words and pseudowords within a passive oddball paradigm. We first aimed at replicating the word-related MMN enhancement effect for Spanish, thereby adding to the available cross-linguistic evidence (e.g., Finnish, English). We then probed its resilience to spectrotemporal perturbation by inserting short (20 ms) and long (120 ms) silent gaps between first and second syllables of deviant and standard stimuli. A significantly enhanced, frontocentrally distributed MMN to deviant words was found for stimuli with no gap. The long gap yielded no deviant word MMN, showing that prior expectations of word form limits in a given language influence deviance detection processes. Crucially, the insertion of a short gap suppressed deviant word MMN enhancement at frontocentral sites. We propose that spectrotemporal point-wise matching constitutes a core mechanism for fast serial computations in audition and language, bridging sensory and long-term memory systems. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Anticipatory coarticulation facilitates word recognition in toddlers.

PubMed

Mahr, Tristan; McMillan, Brianna T M; Saffran, Jenny R; Ellis Weismer, Susan; Edwards, Jan

2015-09-01

Children learn from their environments and their caregivers. To capitalize on learning opportunities, young children have to recognize familiar words efficiently by integrating contextual cues across word boundaries. Previous research has shown that adults can use phonetic cues from anticipatory coarticulation during word recognition. We asked whether 18-24 month-olds (n=29) used coarticulatory cues on the word "the" when recognizing the following noun. We performed a looking-while-listening eyetracking experiment to examine word recognition in neutral vs. facilitating coarticulatory conditions. Participants looked to the target image significantly sooner when the determiner contained facilitating coarticulatory cues. These results provide the first evidence that novice word-learners can take advantage of anticipatory sub-phonemic cues during word recognition. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Orthographic Effects in the Word Substitutions of Aphasic Patients: An Epidemic of Right Neglect Dyslexia?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berndt, Rita Sloan; Haendiges, Anne N.; Mitchum, Charlotte C.

2005-01-01

Aphasic patients with reading impairments frequently substitute incorrect real words for target words when reading aloud. Many of these word substitutions have substantial orthographic overlap with their targets and are classified as ''visual errors'' (i.e., sharing 50% of targets' letters in the same relative position). Fifteen chronic aphasic…

8 CFR 103.10 - Precedent decisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 8 Aliens and Nationality 1 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Precedent decisions. 103.10 Section 103.10 Aliens and Nationality DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY IMMIGRATION REGULATIONS IMMIGRATION BENEFITS; BIOMETRIC REQUIREMENTS; AVAILABILITY OF RECORDS Applying for Benefits, Surety Bonds, Fees § 103.10 Precedent...

8 CFR 103.10 - Precedent decisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 8 Aliens and Nationality 1 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Precedent decisions. 103.10 Section 103.10 Aliens and Nationality DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY IMMIGRATION REGULATIONS IMMIGRATION BENEFITS; BIOMETRIC REQUIREMENTS; AVAILABILITY OF RECORDS Applying for Benefits, Surety Bonds, Fees § 103.10 Precedent...

8 CFR 103.10 - Precedent decisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 8 Aliens and Nationality 1 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Precedent decisions. 103.10 Section 103.10 Aliens and Nationality DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY IMMIGRATION REGULATIONS IMMIGRATION BENEFITS; BIOMETRIC REQUIREMENTS; AVAILABILITY OF RECORDS Applying for Benefits, Surety Bonds, Fees § 103.10 Precedent...

Eye Movements and the Use of Parafoveal Word Length Information in Reading

PubMed Central

Juhasz, Barbara J.; White, Sarah J.; Liversedge, Simon P.; Rayner, Keith

2009-01-01

Eye movements were monitored in 4 experiments that explored the role of parafoveal word length in reading. The experiments employed a type of compound word where the deletion of a letter results in 2 short words (e.g., backhand, back and). The boundary technique (K. Rayner, 1975) was employed to manipulate word length information in the parafovea. Accuracy of the parafoveal word length preview significantly affected landing positions and fixation durations. This disruption was larger for 2-word targets, but the results demonstrated that this interaction was not due to the morphological status of the target words. Manipulation of sentence context also demonstrated that parafoveal word length information can be used in combination with sentence context to narrow down lexical candidates. The 4 experiments converge in demonstrating that an important role of parafoveal word length information is to direct the eyes to the center of the parafoveal word. PMID:19045993

Morpho-Semantic Processing in Word Recognition: Evidence from Balanced and Biased Ambiguous Morphemes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tsang, Yiu-Kei; Chen, Hsuan-Chih

2013-01-01

The role of morphemic meaning in Chinese word recognition was examined with the masked and unmasked priming paradigms. Target words contained ambiguous morphemes biased toward the dominant or the subordinate meanings. Prime words either contained the same ambiguous morphemes in the subordinate interpretations or were unrelated to the targets. In…

Skipping of Chinese characters does not rely on word-based processing.

PubMed

Lin, Nan; Angele, Bernhard; Hua, Huimin; Shen, Wei; Zhou, Junyi; Li, Xingshan

2018-02-01

Previous eye-movement studies have indicated that people tend to skip extremely high-frequency words in sentence reading, such as "the" in English and "/de" in Chinese. Two alternative hypotheses have been proposed to explain how this frequent skipping happens in Chinese reading: one assumes that skipping happens when the preview has been fully identified at the word level (word-based skipping); the other assumes that skipping happens whenever the preview character is easy to identify regardless of whether lexical processing has been completed or not (character-based skipping). Using the gaze-contingent display change paradigm, we examined the two hypotheses by substituting the preview of the third character of a four-character Chinese word with the high-frequency Chinese character "/de", which should disrupt the ongoing word-level processing. The character-based skipping hypothesis predicts that this manipulation will enhance the skipping probability of the target character (i.e., the third character of the target word), because the character "/de" has much higher character frequency than the original character. The word-based skipping hypothesis instead predicts a reduction of the skipping probability of the target character because the presence of the character "/de" is lexically infelicitous at word level. The results supported the character-based skipping hypothesis, indicating that in Chinese reading the decision of skipping a character can be made before integrating it into a word.

Is scanning in probed order recall articulatory?

PubMed

Farrell, Simon; Lelièvre, Anna

2009-09-01

We consider how theories of serial recall might apply to other short-term memory tasks involving recall of order. In particular, we consider the possibility that when participants are cued to recall an item at an arbitrary position in a sequence, they covertly serially recall the list up to the cued position. One question is whether such "scanning" is articulatory in nature. Two experiments are presented in which the syllabic length of words preceding and following target positions were manipulated, to test the prediction of an articulatory-based mechanism that time to recall an item at a particular position will depend on the number of preceding long words. Although latency was dependent on target position, no word length effects on latency were observed. Additionally, the effects of word length on accuracy replicate recent demonstrations in serial recall that recall accuracy is dependent on the word length of all list items, not just that of target items, in line with distinctiveness assumptions. It is concluded that if scanning does occur, it is not carried out by covert or overt articulation.

Reduced sensitivity of the N400 and late positive component to semantic congruity and word repetition in left temporal lobe epilepsy.

PubMed

Olichney, John M; Riggins, Brock R; Hillert, Dieter G; Nowacki, Ralph; Tecoma, Evelyn; Kutas, Marta; Iragui, Vicente J

2002-07-01

We studied 14 patients with well-characterized refractory temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), 7 with right temporal lobe epilepsy (RTE) and 7 with left temporal lobe epilepsy (LTE), on a word repetition ERP experiment. Much prior literature supports the view that patients with left TLE are more likely to develop verbal memory deficits, often attributable to left hippocampal sclerosis. Our main objectives were to test if abnormalities of the N400 or Late Positive Component (LPC, P600) were associated with a left temporal seizure focus, or left temporal lobe dysfunction. A minimum of 19 channels of EEG/EOG data were collected while subjects performed a semantic categorization task. Auditory category statements were followed by a visual target word, which were 50% "congruous" (category exemplars) and 50% "incongruous" (non-category exemplars) with the preceding semantic context. These auditory-visual pairings were repeated pseudo-randomly at time intervals ranging from approximately 10-140 seconds later. The ERP data were submitted to repeated-measures ANOVAs, which showed the RTE group had generally normal effects of word repetition on the LPC and the N400. Also, the N400 component was larger to incongruous than congruous new words, as is normally the case. In contrast, the LTE group did not have statistically significant effects of either word repetition or congruity on their ERPs (N400 or LPC), suggesting that this ERP semantic categorization paradigm is sensitive to left temporal lobe dysfunction. Further studies are ongoing to determine if these ERP abnormalities predict hippocampal sclerosis on histopathology, or outcome after anterior temporal lobectomy.

Rapid extraction of gist from visual text and its influence on word recognition.

PubMed

Asano, Michiko; Yokosawa, Kazuhiko

2011-01-01

Two experiments explored rapid extraction of gist from a visual text and its influence on word recognition. In both, a short text (sentence) containing a target word was presented for 200 ms and was followed by a target recognition task. Results showed that participants recognized contextually anomalous word targets less frequently than contextually consistent counterparts (Experiment 1). This context effect was obtained when sentences contained the same semantic content but with disrupted syntactic structure (Experiment 2). Results demonstrate that words in a briefly presented visual sentence are processed in parallel and that rapid extraction of sentence gist relies on a primitive representation of sentence context (termed protocontext) that is semantically activated by the simultaneous presentation of multiple words (i.e., a sentence) before syntactic processing.

An fMRI investigation into the effect of preceding stimuli during visual oddball tasks.

PubMed

Fajkus, Jiří; Mikl, Michal; Shaw, Daniel Joel; Brázdil, Milan

2015-08-15

This study investigates the modulatory effect of stimulus sequence on neural responses to novel stimuli. A group of 34 healthy volunteers underwent event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a three-stimulus visual oddball task, involving randomly presented frequent stimuli and two types of infrequent stimuli - targets and distractors. We developed a modified categorization of rare stimuli that incorporated the type of preceding rare stimulus, and analyzed the event-related functional data according to this sequence categorization; specifically, we explored hemodynamic response modulation associated with increasing rare-to-rare stimulus interval. For two consecutive targets, a modulation of brain function was evident throughout posterior midline and lateral temporal cortex, while responses to targets preceded by distractors were modulated in a widely distributed fronto-parietal system. As for distractors that follow targets, brain function was modulated throughout a set of posterior brain structures. For two successive distractors, however, no significant modulation was observed, which is consistent with previous studies and our primary hypothesis. The addition of the aforementioned technique extends the possibilities of conventional oddball task analysis, enabling researchers to explore the effects of the whole range of rare stimuli intervals. This methodology can be applied to study a wide range of associated cognitive mechanisms, such as decision making, expectancy and attention. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A funny thing happened on the way to articulation: N400 attenuation despite behavioral interference in picture naming

PubMed Central

Blackford, Trevor; Holcomb, Phillip J.; Grainger, Jonathan; Kuperberg, Gina R.

2013-01-01

We measured Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) and naming times to picture targets preceded by masked words (stimulus onset asynchrony: 80 ms) that shared one of three different types of relationship with the names of the pictures: (1) Identity related, in which the prime was the name of the picture (“socks” – ), (2) Phonemic Onset related, in which the initial segment of the prime was the same as the name of the picture (“log” – ), and (3) Semantically related in which the prime was a co–category exemplar and associated with the name of the picture (“cake” – ). Each type of related picture target was contrasted with an Unrelated picture target, resulting in a 3 × 2 design that crossed Relationship Type between the word and the target picture (Identity, Phonemic Onset and Semantic) with Relatedness (Related and Unrelated). Modulation of the N400 component to related (versus unrelated) pictures was taken to reflect semantic processing at the interface between the picture's conceptual features and its lemma, while naming times reflected the end product of all stages of processing. Both attenuation of the N400 and shorter naming times were observed to pictures preceded by Identity related (versus Unrelated) words. No ERP effects within 600 ms, but shorter naming times, were observed to pictures preceded by Phonemic Onset related (versus Unrelated) words. An attenuated N400 (electrophysiological semantic priming) but longer naming times (behavioral semantic interference) were observed to pictures preceded by Semantically related (versus Unrelated) words. These dissociations between ERP modulation and naming times suggest that (a) phonemic onset priming occurred late, during encoding of the articulatory response, and (b) semantic behavioral interference was not driven by competition at the lemma level of representation, but rather occurred at a later stage of production. PMID:22245030

Meaningful Words and Non-Words Repetitive Articulatory Rate (Oral Diadochokinesis) in Persian Speaking Children.

PubMed

Zamani, Peyman; Rezai, Hossein; Garmatani, Neda Tahmasebi

2017-08-01

Repetitive articulatory rate or Oral Diadochokinesis (oral-DDK) shows a guideline for appraisal and diagnosis of subjects with oral-motor disorder. Traditionally, meaningless words repetition has been utilized in this task and preschool children have challenges with them. Therefore, we aimed to determine some meaningful words in order to test oral-DDK in Persian speaking preschool children. Participants were 142 normally developing children, (age range 4-6 years), who were asked to produce /motæka, golabi/ as two meaningful Persian words and /pa-ta-ka/ as non-word in conventional oral-DDK task. We compared the time taken for 10-times fast repetitions of two meaningful Persian words and the tri-syllabic nonsense word /pa-ta-ka/. Praat software was used to calculate the average time that subjects took to produce the target items. In 4-5 year old children, [Formula: see text] of time taken for 10-times repetitions of /pa-ta-ka, motæka, golabi/ were [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] seconds respectively, and in 5-6 year old children were [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] seconds respectively. Findings showed that the main effect of type of words on oral diadochokinesis was significant ([Formula: see text]). Children repeated meaningful words /motæka, golabi/ faster than the non-word /pa-ta-ka/. Sex and age factors had no effect on time taken for repetition of oral-DDK test. It is suggested that Speech Therapists can use meaningful words to facilitate oral-DDK test for children.

Word Learning from Videos: More Evidence from 2-Year-Olds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allen, Rebekah; Scofield, Jason

2010-01-01

Young children are frequently exposed to examples of screen media like videos. The current studies asked whether videos would support word learning and whether word learning from videos might resemble word learning from a live speaker. In Study 1, 2-year-olds saw a video of a target image being labelled with a novel word and were later asked to…

Effects of Word and Fragment Writing during L2 Vocabulary Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barcroft, Joe

2007-01-01

This study examined how writing (copying) target words and word fragments affects intentional second language (L2) vocabulary learning. English-speaking first-semester learners of Spanish attempted to learn 24 Spanish nouns via word-picture repetition in three conditions: (1) word writing, (2) fragment writing, and (3) no writing. After the…

Eye movements when reading sentences with handwritten words.

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Marcet, Ana; Uixera, Beatriz; Vergara-Martínez, Marta

2016-10-17

The examination of how we read handwritten words (i.e., the original form of writing) has typically been disregarded in the literature on reading. Previous research using word recognition tasks has shown that lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) are magnified when reading difficult handwritten words. To examine this issue in a more ecological scenario, we registered the participants' eye movements when reading handwritten sentences that varied in the degree of legibility (i.e., sentences composed of words in easy vs. difficult handwritten style). For comparison purposes, we included a condition with printed sentences. Results showed a larger reading cost for sentences with difficult handwritten words than for sentences with easy handwritten words, which in turn showed a reading cost relative to the sentences with printed words. Critically, the effect of word frequency was greater for difficult handwritten words than for easy handwritten words or printed words in the total times on a target word, but not on first-fixation durations or gaze durations. We examine the implications of these findings for models of eye movement control in reading.

Event-related brain potentials preceding speech and nonspeech oral movements of varying complexity.

PubMed

Wohlert, A B

1993-10-01

Cortical preparation for movement is reflected in the readiness potential (RP) waveform preceding voluntary limb movements. In the case of oral movements, the RP may be affected by the complexity or linguistic nature of the tasks. In this experiment, EEG potentials before a nonspeech task (lip pursing), a speech-like task (lip rounding), and single word production were recorded from scalp electrodes placed at the cranial vertex (Cz) and over the left and right motor strips (C3' and C4'). Seven right-handed female subjects produced at least 70 repetitions of the three tasks, in each of five repeated sessions. EEG records were averaged with respect to EMG onset at the lip. The word task, as opposed to the other tasks, was associated with greater negative amplitude in the RP waveform at the vertex site. Differences between the waveforms recorded at the right- and left-hemisphere sites were insignificant. Although intersubject variability was high, individuals had relatively stable patterns of response across sessions. Results suggest that the RP recorded at the vertex site is sensitive to changes in task complexity. The RP did not reflect lateralized activity indicative of hemispheric dominance.

More than meets the eye: context effects in word identification.

PubMed

Masson, M E; Borowsky, R

1998-11-01

The influence of semantic context on word identification was examined using masked target displays. Related prime words enhanced a signal detection measure of sensitivity in making lexical decisions and in determining whether a probe word matched the target word. When line drawings were used as primes, a similar benefit was obtained with the probe task. Although these results suggest that contextual information affects perceptual encoding, this conclusion is questioned on the grounds that sensitivity in these tasks may be determined by independent contributions of perceptual and contextual information. The plausibility of this view is supported by a simulation of the experiments using a connectionist model in which perceptual and semantic information make independent contributions to word identification. The model also predicts results with two other analytic methods that have been used to argue for priming effects on perceptual encoding.

Cueing listeners to attend to a target talker progressively improves word report as the duration of the cue-target interval lengthens to 2,000 ms.

PubMed

Holmes, Emma; Kitterick, Padraig T; Summerfield, A Quentin

2018-04-25

Endogenous attention is typically studied by presenting instructive cues in advance of a target stimulus array. For endogenous visual attention, task performance improves as the duration of the cue-target interval increases up to 800 ms. Less is known about how endogenous auditory attention unfolds over time or the mechanisms by which an instructive cue presented in advance of an auditory array improves performance. The current experiment used five cue-target intervals (0, 250, 500, 1,000, and 2,000 ms) to compare four hypotheses for how preparatory attention develops over time in a multi-talker listening task. Young adults were cued to attend to a target talker who spoke in a mixture of three talkers. Visual cues indicated the target talker's spatial location or their gender. Participants directed attention to location and gender simultaneously ("objects") at all cue-target intervals. Participants were consistently faster and more accurate at reporting words spoken by the target talker when the cue-target interval was 2,000 ms than 0 ms. In addition, the latency of correct responses progressively shortened as the duration of the cue-target interval increased from 0 to 2,000 ms. These findings suggest that the mechanisms involved in preparatory auditory attention develop gradually over time, taking at least 2,000 ms to reach optimal configuration, yet providing cumulative improvements in speech intelligibility as the duration of the cue-target interval increases from 0 to 2,000 ms. These results demonstrate an improvement in performance for cue-target intervals longer than those that have been reported previously in the visual or auditory modalities.

The Temporal Dynamics of Spoken Word Recognition in Adverse Listening Conditions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brouwer, Susanne; Bradlow, Ann R.

2016-01-01

This study examined the temporal dynamics of spoken word recognition in noise and background speech. In two visual-world experiments, English participants listened to target words while looking at four pictures on the screen: a target (e.g. "candle"), an onset competitor (e.g. "candy"), a rhyme competitor (e.g.…

The Slow Developmental Time Course of Real-Time Spoken Word Recognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rigler, Hannah; Farris-Trimble, Ashley; Greiner, Lea; Walker, Jessica; Tomblin, J. Bruce; McMurray, Bob

2015-01-01

This study investigated the developmental time course of spoken word recognition in older children using eye tracking to assess how the real-time processing dynamics of word recognition change over development. We found that 9-year-olds were slower to activate the target words and showed more early competition from competitor words than…

Additive Effects of Stimulus Quality and Word Frequency on Eye Movements during Chinese Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Pingping; Li, Xingshan; Han, Buxin

2015-01-01

Eye movements of Chinese readers were recorded for sentences in which high- and low-frequency target words were presented normally or with reduced stimulus quality in two experiments. We found stimulus quality and word frequency produced strong additive effects on fixation durations for target words. The results demonstrate that stimulus quality…

The Role of Grammatical Category Information in Spoken Word Retrieval

PubMed Central

Duràn, Carolina Palma; Pillon, Agnesa

2011-01-01

We investigated the role of lexical syntactic information such as grammatical gender and category in spoken word retrieval processes by using a blocking paradigm in picture and written word naming experiments. In Experiments 1, 3, and 4, we found that the naming of target words (nouns) from pictures or written words was faster when these target words were named within a list where only words from the same grammatical category had to be produced (homogeneous category list: all nouns) than when they had to be produced within a list comprising also words from another grammatical category (heterogeneous category list: nouns and verbs). On the other hand, we detected no significant facilitation effect when the target words had to be named within a homogeneous gender list (all masculine nouns) compared to a heterogeneous gender list (both masculine and feminine nouns). In Experiment 2, using the same blocking paradigm by manipulating the semantic category of the items, we found that naming latencies were significantly slower in the semantic category homogeneous in comparison with the semantic category heterogeneous condition. Thus semantic category homogeneity caused an interference, not a facilitation effect like grammatical category homogeneity. Finally, in Experiment 5, nouns in the heterogeneous category condition had to be named just after a verb (category-switching position) or a noun (same-category position). We found a facilitation effect of category homogeneity but no significant effect of position, which showed that the effect of category homogeneity found in Experiments 1, 3, and 4 was not due to a cost of switching between grammatical categories in the heterogeneous grammatical category list. These findings supported the hypothesis that grammatical category information impacts word retrieval processes in speech production, even when words are to be produced in isolation. They are discussed within the context of extant theories of lexical production. PMID

The role of grammatical category information in spoken word retrieval.

PubMed

Duràn, Carolina Palma; Pillon, Agnesa

2011-01-01

We investigated the role of lexical syntactic information such as grammatical gender and category in spoken word retrieval processes by using a blocking paradigm in picture and written word naming experiments. In Experiments 1, 3, and 4, we found that the naming of target words (nouns) from pictures or written words was faster when these target words were named within a list where only words from the same grammatical category had to be produced (homogeneous category list: all nouns) than when they had to be produced within a list comprising also words from another grammatical category (heterogeneous category list: nouns and verbs). On the other hand, we detected no significant facilitation effect when the target words had to be named within a homogeneous gender list (all masculine nouns) compared to a heterogeneous gender list (both masculine and feminine nouns). In Experiment 2, using the same blocking paradigm by manipulating the semantic category of the items, we found that naming latencies were significantly slower in the semantic category homogeneous in comparison with the semantic category heterogeneous condition. Thus semantic category homogeneity caused an interference, not a facilitation effect like grammatical category homogeneity. Finally, in Experiment 5, nouns in the heterogeneous category condition had to be named just after a verb (category-switching position) or a noun (same-category position). We found a facilitation effect of category homogeneity but no significant effect of position, which showed that the effect of category homogeneity found in Experiments 1, 3, and 4 was not due to a cost of switching between grammatical categories in the heterogeneous grammatical category list. These findings supported the hypothesis that grammatical category information impacts word retrieval processes in speech production, even when words are to be produced in isolation. They are discussed within the context of extant theories of lexical production.

The role of semantically related distractors during encoding and retrieval of words in long-term memory.

PubMed

Meade, Melissa E; Fernandes, Myra A

2016-07-01

We examined the influence of divided attention (DA) on recognition of words when the concurrent task was semantically related or unrelated to the to-be-recognised target words. Participants were asked to either study or retrieve a target list of semantically related words while simultaneously making semantic decisions (i.e., size judgements) to another set of related or unrelated words heard concurrently. We manipulated semantic relatedness of distractor to target words, and whether DA occurred during the encoding or retrieval phase of memory. Recognition accuracy was significantly diminished relative to full attention, following DA conditions at encoding, regardless of relatedness of distractors to study words. However, response times (RTs) were slower with related compared to unrelated distractors. Similarly, under DA at retrieval, recognition RTs were slower when distractors were semantically related than unrelated to target words. Unlike the effect from DA at encoding, recognition accuracy was worse under DA at retrieval when the distractors were related compared to unrelated to the target words. Results suggest that availability of general attentional resources is critical for successful encoding, whereas successful retrieval is particularly reliant on access to a semantic code, making it sensitive to related distractors under DA conditions.

Can the meaning of multiple words be integrated unconsciously?

PubMed

van Gaal, Simon; Naccache, Lionel; Meuwese, Julia D I; van Loon, Anouk M; Leighton, Alexandra H; Cohen, Laurent; Dehaene, Stanislas

2014-05-05

What are the limits of unconscious language processing? Can language circuits process simple grammatical constructions unconsciously and integrate the meaning of several unseen words? Using behavioural priming and electroencephalography (EEG), we studied a specific rule-based linguistic operation traditionally thought to require conscious cognitive control: the negation of valence. In a masked priming paradigm, two masked words were successively (Experiment 1) or simultaneously presented (Experiment 2), a modifier ('not'/'very') and an adjective (e.g. 'good'/'bad'), followed by a visible target noun (e.g. 'peace'/'murder'). Subjects indicated whether the target noun had a positive or negative valence. The combination of these three words could either be contextually consistent (e.g. 'very bad - murder') or inconsistent (e.g. 'not bad - murder'). EEG recordings revealed that grammatical negations could unfold partly unconsciously, as reflected in similar occipito-parietal N400 effects for conscious and unconscious three-word sequences forming inconsistent combinations. However, only conscious word sequences elicited P600 effects, later in time. Overall, these results suggest that multiple unconscious words can be rapidly integrated and that an unconscious negation can automatically 'flip the sign' of an unconscious adjective. These findings not only extend the limits of subliminal combinatorial language processes, but also highlight how consciousness modulates the grammatical integration of multiple words.

Word encoding during sleep is suggested by correlations between word-evoked up-states and post-sleep semantic priming

PubMed Central

Ruch, Simon; Koenig, Thomas; Mathis, Johannes; Roth, Corinne; Henke, Katharina

2014-01-01

To test whether humans can encode words during sleep we played everyday words to men while they were napping and assessed priming from sleep-played words following waking. Words were presented during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Priming was assessed using a semantic and a perceptual priming test. These tests measured differences in the processing of words that had been or had not been played during sleep. Synonyms to sleep-played words were the targets in the semantic priming test that tapped the meaning of sleep-played words. All men responded to sleep-played words by producing up-states in their electroencephalogram. Up-states are NREM sleep-specific phases of briefly increased neuronal excitability. The word-evoked up-states might have promoted word processing during sleep. Yet, the mean performance in the priming tests administered following sleep was at chance level, which suggests that participants as a group failed to show priming following sleep. However, performance in the two priming tests was positively correlated to each other and to the magnitude of the word-evoked up-states. Hence, the larger a participant's word-evoked up-states, the larger his perceptual and semantic priming. Those participants who scored high on all variables must have encoded words during sleep. We conclude that some humans are able to encode words during sleep, but more research is needed to pin down the factors that modulate this ability. PMID:25452740

Character Decomposition and Transposition Processes in Chinese Compound Words Modulates Attentional Blink.

PubMed

Cao, Hongwen; Gao, Min; Yan, Hongmei

2016-01-01

The attentional blink (AB) is the phenomenon in which the identification of the second of two targets (T2) is attenuated if it is presented less than 500 ms after the first target (T1). Although the AB is eliminated in canonical word conditions, it remains unclear whether the character order in compound words affects the magnitude of the AB. Morpheme decomposition and transposition of Chinese two-character compound words can provide an effective means to examine AB priming and to assess combinations of the component representations inherent to visual word identification. In the present study, we examined the processing of consecutive targets in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm using Chinese two-character compound words in which the two characters were transposed to form meaningful words or meaningless combinations (reversible, transposed, or canonical words). We found that when two Chinese characters that form a compound word, regardless of their order, are presented in an RSVP sequence, the likelihood of an AB for the second character is greatly reduced or eliminated compared to when the two characters constitute separate words rather than a compound word. Moreover, the order of the report for the two characters is more likely to be reversed when the normal order of the two characters in a compound word is reversed, especially when the interval between the presentation of the two characters is extremely short. These findings are more consistent with the cognitive strategy hypothesis than the resource-limited hypothesis during character decomposition and transposition of Chinese two-character compound words. These results suggest that compound characters are perceived as a unit, rather than two separate words. The data further suggest that readers could easily understand the text with character transpositions in compound words during Chinese reading.

Reward expectation regulates brain responses to task-relevant and task-irrelevant emotional words: ERP evidence.

PubMed

Wei, Ping; Wang, Di; Ji, Liyan

2016-02-01

We investigated the effect of reward expectation on the processing of emotional words in two experiments using event-related potentials (ERPs). A cue indicating the reward condition of each trial (incentive vs non-incentive) was followed by the presentation of a negative or neutral word, the target. Participants were asked to discriminate the emotional content of the target word in Experiment 1 and to discriminate the color of the target word in Experiment 2, rendering the emotionality of the target word task-relevant in Experiment 1, but task-irrelevant in Experiment 2. The negative bias effect, in terms of the amplitude difference between ERPs for negative and neutral targets, was modulated by the task-set. In Experiment 1, P31 and early posterior negativity revealed a larger negative bias effect in the incentive condition than that in the non-incentive condition. However, in Experiment 2, P31 revealed a diminished negative bias effect in the incentive condition compared with that in the non-incentive condition. These results indicate that reward expectation improves top-down attentional concentration to task-relevant information, with enhanced sensitivity to the emotional content of target words when emotionality is task-relevant, but with reduced differential brain responses to emotional words when their content is task-irrelevant. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The Influence of the Phonological Neighborhood Clustering Coefficient on Spoken Word Recognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chan, Kit Ying; Vitevitch, Michael S.

2009-01-01

Clustering coefficient--a measure derived from the new science of networks--refers to the proportion of phonological neighbors of a target word that are also neighbors of each other. Consider the words "bat", "hat", and "can", all of which are neighbors of the word "cat"; the words "bat" and…

What can Written-Words Tell us About Lexical Retrieval in Speech Production?

PubMed Central

Navarrete, Eduardo; Mahon, Bradford Z.; Lorenzoni, Anna; Peressotti, Francesca

2016-01-01

In recent decades, researchers have exploited semantic context effects in picture naming tasks in order to investigate the mechanisms involved in the retrieval of words from the mental lexicon. In the blocked naming paradigm, participants name target pictures that are either blocked or not blocked by semantic category. In the continuous naming task, participants name a sequence of target pictures that are drawn from multiple semantic categories. Semantic context effects in both tasks are a highly reliable phenomenon. The empirical evidence is, however, sparse and inconsistent when the target stimuli are printed-words instead of pictures. In the first part of the present study we review the empirical evidence regarding semantic context effects with written-word stimuli in the blocked and continuous naming tasks. In the second part, we empirically test whether semantic context effects are transferred from picture naming trials to word reading trials, and from word reading trials to picture naming trials. The results indicate a transfer of semantic context effects from picture naming to subsequently read within-category words. There is no transfer of semantic effects from target words that were read to subsequently named within-category pictures. These results replicate previous findings (Navarrete et al., 2010) and are contrary to predictions from a recent theoretical analysis by Belke (2013). The empirical evidence reported in the literature together with the present results, are discussed in relation to current accounts of semantic context effects in speech production. PMID:26779090

Preview Effects of Plausibility and Character Order in Reading Chinese Transposed Words: Evidence from Eye Movements

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yang, Jinmian

2013-01-01

The current paper examined the role of plausibility information in the parafovea for Chinese readers by using two-character transposed words (in which the order of the component characters is reversed but are still words). In two eye-tracking experiments, readers received a preview of a target word that was (1) identical to the target word, (2) a…

[The effects of subliminal and supraliminal presentation of trait-related words on person perception].

PubMed

Mori, T; Sakamoto, A

1997-12-01

The present experiment was conducted to investigate how prior information affects subsequent person perception and when perceivers can control such an effect. One of three types of trait related words (i.e., hostility-related, friendliness-related, and neutral words) was subliminally or supraliminally presented to subjects, and subsequently, subjects rated the impression of four targets: a hostile person, a friendly person, a neutral person and themselves. Although results did not show that supraliminally presented words affected targets' impressions, they showed that the impressions sometimes varied with the valence of subliminally presented words regardless of targets' valence. The mechanism and controllability of priming effects in person perception were discussed.

Taken out of Context: Differential Processing in Contextual and Isolated Word Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin-Chang, Sandra; Levesque, Kyle

2013-01-01

Three experiments are reported that investigate the cognitive processes underlying contextual and isolated word reading. In Phase 1, undergraduate participants were exposed to 75 target words under three conditions. The participants generated 25 words from definitions, read 25 words in context and read 25 in isolation. In Phase 2, volunteers…

The influence of two cognitive-linguistic variables on incidental word learning in 5-year-olds.

PubMed

Abel, Alyson D; Schuele, C Melanie

2014-08-01

The relation between incidental word learning and two cognitive-linguistic variables--phonological memory and phonological awareness--is not fully understood. Thirty-five typically developing, 5-year-old, preschool children participated in a study examining the association between phonological memory, phonological awareness, and incidental word learning. Children were exposed to target words in a read-aloud story that accompanied a wordless picture book. Target word comprehension was assessed before and after two readings of the story. Phonological awareness predicted incidental word learning but phonological memory did not. The influence of phonological awareness and phonological memory on word learning may be dependent on the demands of the word learning task.

How Justice Can Affect Jury Training Abstract Words Promotes Generalization to Concrete Words in Patients with Aphasia

PubMed Central

Sandberg, Chaleece; Kiran, Swathi

2014-01-01

Developing language treatments that not only improve trained items but also promote generalization to untrained items is a major focus in aphasia research. This study is a replication and extension of previous work that found that training abstract words in a particular context-category promotes generalization to concrete words but not vice versa (Kiran, Sandberg, & Abbott, 2009). Twelve persons with aphasia (5 female) with varying types and degrees of severity participated in a generative naming treatment based on the complexity account of treatment efficacy (CATE; Thompson, Shapiro, Kiran, & Sobecks, 2003). All participants were trained to generate abstract words in a particular context-category by analyzing the semantic features of the target words. Two other context-categories were used as controls. Ten of the twelve participants improved on the trained abstract words in the trained context-category. Eight of the ten participants who responded to treatment also generalized to concrete words in the same context-category. These results suggest that this treatment is both efficacious and efficient. We discuss possible mechanisms of training and generalization effects. PMID:24805853

Reconsidering the role of temporal order in spoken word recognition.

PubMed

Toscano, Joseph C; Anderson, Nathaniel D; McMurray, Bob

2013-10-01

Models of spoken word recognition assume that words are represented as sequences of phonemes. We evaluated this assumption by examining phonemic anadromes, words that share the same phonemes but differ in their order (e.g., sub and bus). Using the visual-world paradigm, we found that listeners show more fixations to anadromes (e.g., sub when bus is the target) than to unrelated words (well) and to words that share the same vowel but not the same set of phonemes (sun). This contrasts with the predictions of existing models and suggests that words are not defined as strict sequences of phonemes.

Information status and word order in Croatian Sign Language.

PubMed

Milkovic, Marina; Bradaric-Joncic, Sandra; Wilbur, Ronnie B

2007-01-01

This paper presents the results of research on information structure and word order in narrative sentences taken from signed short stories in Croatian Sign Language (HZJ). The basic word order in HZJ is SVO. Factors that result in other word orders include: reversible arguments, verb categories, locative constructions, contrastive focus, and prior context. Word order in context depends on communication rules, based on the relationship between old (theme) and new (rheme) information, which is predicated of the theme. In accordance with Grice's Maxim of Quantity, HZJ has a tendency to omit old information, or to reduce it to pronominal status. If old information is overtly signed in non-pronominal form, it precedes the rheme. We have observed a variety of sign language mechanisms that are used to show items of reduced contextual significance: use of assigned spatial location for previously introduced referents; eyegaze to indicate spatial location of previously introduced referents; use of the non-dominant hand for backgrounded information; use of a special category of signs known as classifiers as pronominal indicators of previously introduced referents; and complex noun phrases that allow a single occurrence of a noun to simultaneously serve multiple functions. These devices permit information to be conveyed without the need for separate signs for every referent, which would create longer constructions that could be taxing to both production and perception. The results of this research are compatible with well-known word order generalizations - HZJ has its own grammar, independent of spoken language, like any other sign language.

Word Recognition is Affected by the Meaning of Orthographic Neighbours: Evidence from Semantic Decision Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boot, Inge; Pecher, Diane

2008-01-01

Many models of word recognition predict that neighbours of target words will be activated during word processing. Cascaded models can make the additional prediction that semantic features of those neighbours get activated before the target has been uniquely identified. In two semantic decision tasks neighbours that were congruent (i.e., from the…

10 CFR 501.10 - Order of precedence.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Order of precedence. 501.10 Section 501.10 Energy DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (CONTINUED) ALTERNATE FUELS ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES AND SANCTIONS General Provisions § 501.10 Order of precedence. If there is any conflict or inconsistency between the provisions of this...

10 CFR 501.10 - Order of precedence.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Order of precedence. 501.10 Section 501.10 Energy DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (CONTINUED) ALTERNATE FUELS ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES AND SANCTIONS General Provisions § 501.10 Order of precedence. If there is any conflict or inconsistency between the provisions of this...

10 CFR 501.10 - Order of precedence.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Order of precedence. 501.10 Section 501.10 Energy DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (CONTINUED) ALTERNATE FUELS ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES AND SANCTIONS General Provisions § 501.10 Order of precedence. If there is any conflict or inconsistency between the provisions of this...

Does Discourse Congruence Influence Spoken Language Comprehension before Lexical Association? Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

PubMed Central

Boudewyn, Megan A.; Gordon, Peter C.; Long, Debra; Polse, Lara; Swaab, Tamara Y.

2011-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine how lexical association and discourse congruence affect the time course of processing incoming words in spoken discourse. In an ERP norming study, we presented prime-target pairs in the absence of a sentence context to obtain a baseline measure of lexical priming. We observed a typical N400 effect when participants heard critical associated and unassociated target words in word pairs. In a subsequent experiment, we presented the same word pairs in spoken discourse contexts. Target words were always consistent with the local sentence context, but were congruent or not with the global discourse (e.g., “Luckily Ben had picked up some salt and pepper/basil”, preceded by a context in which Ben was preparing marinara sauce (congruent) or dealing with an icy walkway (incongruent). ERP effects of global discourse congruence preceded those of local lexical association, suggesting an early influence of the global discourse representation on lexical processing, even in locally congruent contexts. Furthermore, effects of lexical association occurred earlier in the congruent than incongruent condition. These results differ from those that have been obtained in studies of reading, suggesting that the effects may be unique to spoken word recognition. PMID:23002319

Unconscious Semantic Activation Depends on Feature-Specific Attention Allocation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spruyt, Adriaan; De Houwer, Jan; Everaert, Tom; Hermans, Dirk

2012-01-01

We examined whether semantic activation by subliminally presented stimuli is dependent upon the extent to which participants assign attention to specific semantic stimulus features and stimulus dimensions. Participants pronounced visible target words that were preceded by briefly presented, masked prime words. Both affective and non-affective…

Early Acquisition of Basic Word Order in Japanese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sugisaki, Koji

2008-01-01

The acquisition of word order has been one of the central issues in the study of child language. One striking finding from the detailed investigation of various child languages is that from the earliest observable stages, children are highly sensitive to the basic word order of their target language. However, the evidence so far comes mainly from…

Influence of Lexical Factors on Word-Finding Accuracy, Error Patterns, and Substitution Types

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Newman, Rochelle S.; German, Diane J.; Jagielko, Jennifer R.

2018-01-01

This retrospective, exploratory investigation examined the types of target words that 66 children with/without word-finding difficulties (WFD) had difficulty naming, and the types of errors they made. Words were studied with reference to lexical factors (LFs) that might influence naming performance: word frequency, familiarity, length, phonotactic…

Arabic word recognizer for mobile applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khanna, Nitin; Abdollahian, Golnaz; Brame, Ben; Boutin, Mireille; Delp, Edward J.

2011-03-01

When traveling in a region where the local language is not written using a "Roman alphabet," translating written text (e.g., documents, road signs, or placards) is a particularly difficult problem since the text cannot be easily entered into a translation device or searched using a dictionary. To address this problem, we are developing the "Rosetta Phone," a handheld device (e.g., PDA or mobile telephone) capable of acquiring an image of the text, locating the region (word) of interest within the image, and producing both an audio and a visual English interpretation of the text. This paper presents a system targeted for interpreting words written in Arabic script. The goal of this work is to develop an autonomous, segmentation-free Arabic phrase recognizer, with computational complexity low enough to deploy on a mobile device. A prototype of the proposed system has been deployed on an iPhone with a suitable user interface. The system was tested on a number of noisy images, in addition to the images acquired from the iPhone's camera. It identifies Arabic words or phrases by extracting appropriate features and assigning "codewords" to each word or phrase. On a dictionary of 5,000 words, the system uniquely mapped (word-image to codeword) 99.9% of the words. The system has a 82% recognition accuracy on images of words captured using the iPhone's built-in camera.

Effects of Opportunities for Word Retrieval during Second Language Vocabulary Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barcroft, Joe

2007-01-01

Research suggests that memory for an item improves when one is allowed to retrieve the item (Slamecka & Graf, 1978). This study explored benefits of providing opportunities for target-word retrieval during second language vocabulary learning. English speakers studied new Spanish words while viewing 24 word-picture pairs. They first viewed all 24…

An Analysis of Mongolian Culture-Loaded Words and Their Translation Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Jian-Jun; He, Long

2014-01-01

With massive cultural exchanges in the world, the translation of culture-loaded words is drawing the attention of translators. Because of different cultural backgrounds and mentalities, the translation of culture-loaded words may lead to misunderstanding or confusion to target readers. Thus, a good mastery of culture-loaded words is a must for…

Test-retest reliability and stability of N400 effects in a word-pair semantic priming paradigm.

PubMed

Kiang, Michael; Patriciu, Iulia; Roy, Carolyn; Christensen, Bruce K; Zipursky, Robert B

2013-04-01

Elicited by any meaningful stimulus, the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component is reduced when the stimulus is related to a preceding one. This N400 semantic priming effect has been used to probe abnormal semantic relationship processing in clinical disorders, and suggested as a possible biomarker for treatment studies. Validating N400 semantic priming effects as a clinical biomarker requires characterizing their test-retest reliability. We assessed test-retest reliability of N400 semantic priming in 16 healthy adults who viewed the same related and unrelated prime-target word pairs in two sessions one week apart. As expected, N400 amplitudes were smaller for related versus unrelated targets across sessions. N400 priming effects (amplitude differences between unrelated and related targets) were highly correlated across sessions (r=0.85, P<0.0001), but smaller in the second session due to larger N400s to related targets. N400 priming effects have high reliability over a one-week interval. They may decrease with repeat testing, possibly because of motivational changes. Use of N400 priming effects in treatment studies should account for possible magnitude decreases with repeat testing. Further research is needed to delineate N400 priming effects' test-retest reliability and stability in different age and clinical groups, and with different stimulus types. Copyright © 2012 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Phonological and Semantic Cues to Learning from Word-Types

PubMed Central

Richtsmeier, Peter

2017-01-01

Word-types represent the primary form of data for many models of phonological learning, and they often predict performance in psycholinguistic tasks. Word-types are often tacitly defined as phonologically unique words. Yet, an explicit test of this definition is lacking, and natural language patterning suggests that word meaning could also act as a cue to word-type status. This possibility was tested in a statistical phonotactic learning experiment in which phonological and semantic properties of word-types varied. During familiarization, the learning targets—word-medial consonant sequences—were instantiated either by four related word-types or by just one word-type (the experimental frequency factor). The expectation was that more word-types would lead participants to generalize the target sequences. Regarding semantic cues, related word-types were either associated with different referents or all with a single referent. Regarding phonological cues, related word-types differed from each other by one, two, or more phonemes. At test, participants rated novel wordforms for their similarity to the familiarization words. When participants heard four related word-types, they gave higher ratings to test words with the same consonant sequences, irrespective of the phonological and semantic manipulations. The results support the existing phonological definition of word-types. PMID:29187914

Surviving blind decomposition: A distributional analysis of the time-course of complex word recognition.

PubMed

Schmidtke, Daniel; Matsuki, Kazunaga; Kuperman, Victor

2017-11-01

The current study addresses a discrepancy in the psycholinguistic literature about the chronology of information processing during the visual recognition of morphologically complex words. Form-then-meaning accounts of complex word recognition claim that morphemes are processed as units of form prior to any influence of their meanings, whereas form-and-meaning models posit that recognition of complex word forms involves the simultaneous access of morphological and semantic information. The study reported here addresses this theoretical discrepancy by applying a nonparametric distributional technique of survival analysis (Reingold & Sheridan, 2014) to 2 behavioral measures of complex word processing. Across 7 experiments reported here, this technique is employed to estimate the point in time at which orthographic, morphological, and semantic variables exert their earliest discernible influence on lexical decision RTs and eye movement fixation durations. Contrary to form-then-meaning predictions, Experiments 1-4 reveal that surface frequency is the earliest lexical variable to exert a demonstrable influence on lexical decision RTs for English and Dutch derived words (e.g., badness ; bad + ness ), English pseudoderived words (e.g., wander ; wand + er ) and morphologically simple control words (e.g., ballad ; ball + ad ). Furthermore, for derived word processing across lexical decision and eye-tracking paradigms (Experiments 1-2; 5-7), semantic effects emerge early in the time-course of word recognition, and their effects either precede or emerge simultaneously with morphological effects. These results are not consistent with the premises of the form-then-meaning view of complex word recognition, but are convergent with a form-and-meaning account of complex word recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Can Writing a New Word Detract from Learning It? More Negative Effects of Forced Output during Vocabulary Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barcroft, Joe

2006-01-01

This study examined effects of word writing on second language vocabulary learning. In two experiments, English-speaking learners of Spanish attempted to learn 24 Spanish nouns while viewing word-picture pairs. The participants copied 12 target words and wrote nothing for the other 12 target words being studied. Productive vocabulary learning on…

Can monaural temporal masking explain the ongoing precedence effect?

PubMed

Freyman, Richard L; Morse-Fortier, Charlotte; Griffin, Amanda M; Zurek, Patrick M

2018-02-01

The precedence effect for transient sounds has been proposed to be based primarily on monaural processes, manifested by asymmetric temporal masking. This study explored the potential for monaural explanations with longer ("ongoing") sounds exhibiting the precedence effect. Transient stimuli were single lead-lag noise burst pairs; ongoing stimuli were trains of 63 burst pairs. Unlike with transients, monaural masking data for ongoing sounds showed no advantage for the lead, and are inconsistent with asymmetric audibility as an explanation for ongoing precedence. This result, along with supplementary measurements of interaural time discrimination, suggests different explanations for transient and ongoing precedence.

Ease of identifying words degraded by visual noise.

PubMed

Barber, P; de la Mahotière, C

1982-08-01

A technique is described for investigating word recognition involving the superimposition of 'noise' on the visual target word. For this task a word is printed in the form of letters made up of separate elements; noise consists of additional elements which serve to reduce the ease whereby the words may be recognized, and a threshold-like measure can be obtained in terms of the amount of noise. A word frequency effect was obtained for the noise task, and for words presented tachistoscopically but in conventional typography. For the tachistoscope task, however, the frequency effect depended on the method of presentation. A second study showed no effect of inspection interval on performance on the noise task. A word-frequency effect was also found in a third experiment with tachistoscopic exposure of the noise task stimuli in undegraded form. The question of whether common processes are drawn on by tasks entailing different ways of varying ease of recognition is addressed, and the suitability of different tasks for word recognition research is discussed.

Facilitating Word Recognition and Spelling Using Word Boxes and Word Sort Phonic Procedures.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Joseph, Laurice M.

2002-01-01

Word boxes and word sorts are two word study phonics approaches that involve teaching phonemic awareness, making letter-sound associations, and teaching spelling through the use of well-established behavioral principles. The current study examines the effectiveness of word boxes and word sorts. Findings revealed that word boxes and word sort…

Phonological Words and Stuttering on Function Words

PubMed Central

Au-Yeung, James; Howell, Peter; Pilgrim, Lesley

2007-01-01

Stuttering on function words was examined in 51 people who stutter. The people who stutter were subdivided into young (2 to 6 years), middle (6 to 9 years), and older (9 to 12 years) child groups; teenagers (13 to 18 years); and adults (20 to 40 years). As reported by previous researchers, children up to about age 9 stuttered more on function words (pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs), whereas older people tended to stutter more on content words (nouns, main verbs, adverbs, adjectives). Function words in early positions in utterances, again as reported elsewhere, were more likely to be stuttered than function words at later positions in an utterance. This was most apparent for the younger groups of speakers. For the remaining analyses, utterances were segmented into phonological words on the basis of Selkirk’s work (1984). Stuttering rate was higher when function words occurred in early phonological word positions than other phonological word positions whether the phonological word appeared in initial position in an utterance or not. Stuttering rate was highly dependent on whether the function word occurred before or after the single content word allowed in Selkirk’s (1984) phonological words. This applied, once again, whether the phonological word was utterance-initial or not. It is argued that stuttering of function words before their content word in phonological words in young speakers is used as a delaying tactic when the forthcoming content word is not prepared for articulation. PMID:9771625

Reading speed benefits from increased vertical word spacing in normal peripheral vision.

PubMed

Chung, Susana T L

2004-07-01

Crowding, the adverse spatial interaction due to proximity of adjacent targets, has been suggested as an explanation for slow reading in peripheral vision. The purposes of this study were to (1) demonstrate that crowding exists at the word level and (2) examine whether or not reading speed in central and peripheral vision can be enhanced with increased vertical word spacing. Five normal observers read aloud sequences of six unrelated four-letter words presented on a computer monitor, one word at a time, using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). Reading speeds were calculated based on the RSVP exposure durations yielding 80% correct. Testing was conducted at the fovea and at 5 degrees and 10 degrees in the inferior visual field. Critical print size (CPS) for each observer and at each eccentricity was first determined by measuring reading speeds for four print sizes using unflanked words. We then presented words at 0.8x or 1.4x CPS, with each target word flanked by two other words, one above and one below the target word. Reading speeds were determined for vertical word spacings (baseline-to-baseline separation between two vertically separated words) ranging from 0.8x to 2x the standard single-spacing, as well as the unflanked condition. At the fovea, reading speed increased with vertical word spacing up to about 1.2x to 1.5x the standard spacing and remained constant and similar to the unflanked reading speed at larger vertical word spacings. In the periphery, reading speed also increased with vertical word spacing, but it remained below the unflanked reading speed for all spacings tested. At 2x the standard spacing, peripheral reading speed was still about 25% lower than the unflanked reading speed for both eccentricities and print sizes. Results from a control experiment showed that the greater reliance of peripheral reading speed on vertical word spacing was also found in the right visual field. Increased vertical word spacing, which presumably decreases the

The Penefit of Salience: Salient Accented, but Not Unaccented Words Reveal Accent Adaptation Effects.

PubMed

Grohe, Ann-Kathrin; Weber, Andrea

2016-01-01

In two eye-tracking experiments, the effects of salience in accent training and speech accentedness on spoken-word recognition were investigated. Salience was expected to increase a stimulus' prominence and therefore promote learning. A training-test paradigm was used on native German participants utilizing an artificial German accent. Salience was elicited by two different criteria: production and listening training as a subjective criterion and accented (Experiment 1) and canonical test words (Experiment 2) as an objective criterion. During training in Experiment 1, participants either read single German words out loud and deliberately devoiced initial voiced stop consonants (e.g., Balken-"beam" pronounced as (*) Palken), or they listened to pre-recorded words with the same accent. In a subsequent eye-tracking experiment, looks to auditorily presented target words with the accent were analyzed. Participants from both training conditions fixated accented target words more often than a control group without training. Training was identical in Experiment 2, but during test, canonical German words that overlapped in onset with the accented words from training were presented as target words (e.g., Palme-"palm tree" overlapped in onset with the training word (*) Palken) rather than accented words. This time, no training effect was observed; recognition of canonical word forms was not affected by having learned the accent. Therefore, accent learning was only visible when the accented test tokens in Experiment 1, which were not included in the test of Experiment 2, possessed sufficient salience based on the objective criterion "accent." These effects were not modified by the subjective criterion of salience from the training modality.

Adapting Word Embeddings from Multiple Domains to Symptom Recognition from Psychiatric Notes

PubMed Central

Zhang, Yaoyun; Li, Hee-Jin; Wang, Jingqi; Cohen, Trevor; Roberts, Kirk; Xu, Hua

2018-01-01

Mental health is increasingly recognized an important topic in healthcare. Information concerning psychiatric symptoms is critical for the timely diagnosis of mental disorders, as well as for the personalization of interventions. However, the diversity and sparsity of psychiatric symptoms make it challenging for conventional natural language processing techniques to automatically extract such information from clinical text. To address this problem, this study takes the initiative to use and adapt word embeddings from four source domains – intensive care, biomedical literature, Wikipedia and Psychiatric Forum – to recognize symptoms in the target domain of psychiatry. We investigated four different approaches including 1) only using word embeddings of the source domain, 2) directly combining data of the source and target to generate word embeddings, 3) assigning different weights to word embeddings, and 4) retraining the word embedding model of the source domain using a corpus of the target domain. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work of adapting multiple word embeddings of external domains to improve psychiatric symptom recognition in clinical text. Experimental results showed that the last two approaches outperformed the baseline methods, indicating the effectiveness of our new strategies to leverage embeddings from other domains. PMID:29888086

The Effects of Receptive and Productive Learning of Word Pairs on Vocabulary Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Webb, Stuart

2009-01-01

English as a foreign language students in Japan learned target words in word pairs receptively and productively. Five aspects of vocabulary knowledge--orthography, association, syntax, grammatical functions, and meaning and form--were each measured by receptive and productive tests. The study uses an innovative methodology in that each target word…

Predictive coding accelerates word recognition and learning in the early stages of language development.

PubMed

Ylinen, Sari; Bosseler, Alexis; Junttila, Katja; Huotilainen, Minna

2017-11-01

The ability to predict future events in the environment and learn from them is a fundamental component of adaptive behavior across species. Here we propose that inferring predictions facilitates speech processing and word learning in the early stages of language development. Twelve- and 24-month olds' electrophysiological brain responses to heard syllables are faster and more robust when the preceding word context predicts the ending of a familiar word. For unfamiliar, novel word forms, however, word-expectancy violation generates a prediction error response, the strength of which significantly correlates with children's vocabulary scores at 12 months. These results suggest that predictive coding may accelerate word recognition and support early learning of novel words, including not only the learning of heard word forms but also their mapping to meanings. Prediction error may mediate learning via attention, since infants' attention allocation to the entire learning situation in natural environments could account for the link between prediction error and the understanding of word meanings. On the whole, the present results on predictive coding support the view that principles of brain function reported across domains in humans and non-human animals apply to language and its development in the infant brain. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: http://hy.fi/unitube/video/e1cbb495-41d8-462e-8660-0864a1abd02c. [Correction added on 27 January 2017, after first online publication: The video abstract link was added.]. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Concurrent Processing of Words and Their Replacements during Speech

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hartsuiker, Robert J.; Catchpole, Ciara M.; de Jong, Nivja H.; Pickering, Martin J.

2008-01-01

Two picture naming experiments, in which an initial picture was occasionally replaced with another (target) picture, were conducted to study the temporal coordination of abandoning one word and resuming with another word in speech production. In Experiment 1, participants abandoned saying the initial name, and resumed with the name of the target…

Revisiting Huey: on the importance of the upper part of words during reading.

PubMed

Perea, Manuel

2012-12-01

Recent research has shown that that the upper part of words enjoys an advantage over the lower part of words in the recognition of isolated words. The goal of the present article was to examine how removing the upper/lower part of the words influences eye movement control during silent normal reading. The participants' eye movements were monitored when reading intact sentences and when reading sentences in which the upper or the lower portion of the text was deleted. Results showed a greater reading cost (longer fixations) when the upper part of the text was removed than when the lower part of the text was removed (i.e., it influenced when to move the eyes). However, there was little influence on the initial landing position on a target word (i.e., on the decision as to where to move the eyes). In addition, lexical-processing difficulty (as inferred from the magnitude of the word frequency effect on a target word) was affected by text degradation. The implications of these findings for models of visual-word recognition and reading are discussed.

An ERP investigation of the co-development of hemispheric lateralization of face and word recognition

PubMed Central

Dundas, Eva M.; Plaut, David C.; Behrmann, Marlene

2014-01-01

The adult human brain would appear to have specialized and independent neural systems for the visual processing of words and faces. Extensive evidence has demonstrated greater selectivity for written words in the left over right hemisphere, and, conversely, greater selectivity for faces in the right over left hemisphere. This study examines the emergence of these complementary neural profiles, as well as the possible relationship between them. Using behavioral and neurophysiological measures, in adults, we observed the standard finding of greater accuracy and a larger N170 ERP component in the left over right hemisphere for words, and conversely, greater accuracy and a larger N170 in the right over the left hemisphere for faces. We also found that, although children aged 7-12 years revealed the adult hemispheric pattern for words, they showed neither a behavioral nor a neural hemispheric superiority for faces. Of particular interest, the magnitude of their N170 for faces in the right hemisphere was related to that of the N170 for words in their left hemisphere. These findings suggest that the hemispheric organization of face recognition and of word recognition do not develop independently, and that word lateralization may precede and drive later face lateralization. A theoretical account for the findings, in which competition for visual representations unfolds over the course of development, is discussed. PMID:24933662

An ERP investigation of the co-development of hemispheric lateralization of face and word recognition.

PubMed

Dundas, Eva M; Plaut, David C; Behrmann, Marlene

2014-08-01

The adult human brain would appear to have specialized and independent neural systems for the visual processing of words and faces. Extensive evidence has demonstrated greater selectivity for written words in the left over right hemisphere, and, conversely, greater selectivity for faces in the right over left hemisphere. This study examines the emergence of these complementary neural profiles, as well as the possible relationship between them. Using behavioral and neurophysiological measures, in adults, we observed the standard finding of greater accuracy and a larger N170 ERP component in the left over right hemisphere for words, and conversely, greater accuracy and a larger N170 in the right over the left hemisphere for faces. We also found that although children aged 7-12 years revealed the adult hemispheric pattern for words, they showed neither a behavioral nor a neural hemispheric superiority for faces. Of particular interest, the magnitude of their N170 for faces in the right hemisphere was related to that of the N170 for words in their left hemisphere. These findings suggest that the hemispheric organization of face recognition and of word recognition does not develop independently, and that word lateralization may precede and drive later face lateralization. A theoretical account for the findings, in which competition for visual representations unfolds over the course of development, is discussed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neural Signatures of Language Co-activation and Control in Bilingual Spoken Word Comprehension

PubMed Central

Chen, Peiyao; Bobb, Susan C.; Hoshino, Noriko; Marian, Viorica

2017-01-01

To examine the neural signatures of language co-activation and control during bilingual spoken word comprehension, Korean-English bilinguals and English monolinguals were asked to make overt or covert semantic relatedness judgments on auditorily-presented English word pairs. In two critical conditions, participants heard word pairs consisting of an English-Korean interlingual homophone (e.g., the sound /mu:n/ means “moon” in English and “door” in Korean) as the prime and an English word as the target. In the homophone-related condition, the target (e.g., “lock”) was related to the homophone’s Korean meaning, but not related to the homophone’s English meaning. In the homophone-unrelated condition, the target was unrelated to either the homophone’s Korean meaning or the homophone’s English meaning. In overtly responded situations, ERP results revealed that the reduced N400 effect in bilinguals for homophone-related word pairs correlated positively with the amount of their daily exposure to Korean. In covertly responded situations, ERP results showed a reduced late positive component for homophone-related word pairs in the right hemisphere, and this late positive effect was related to the neural efficiency of suppressing interference in a non-linguistic task. Together, these findings suggest 1) that the degree of language co-activation in bilingual spoken word comprehension is modulated by the amount of daily exposure to the non-target language; and 2) that bilinguals who are less influenced by cross-language activation may also have greater efficiency in suppressing interference in a non-linguistic task. PMID:28372943

Neural signatures of language co-activation and control in bilingual spoken word comprehension.

PubMed

Chen, Peiyao; Bobb, Susan C; Hoshino, Noriko; Marian, Viorica

2017-06-15

To examine the neural signatures of language co-activation and control during bilingual spoken word comprehension, Korean-English bilinguals and English monolinguals were asked to make overt or covert semantic relatedness judgments on auditorily-presented English word pairs. In two critical conditions, participants heard word pairs consisting of an English-Korean interlingual homophone (e.g., the sound /mu:n/ means "moon" in English and "door" in Korean) as the prime and an English word as the target. In the homophone-related condition, the target (e.g., "lock") was related to the homophone's Korean meaning, but not related to the homophone's English meaning. In the homophone-unrelated condition, the target was unrelated to either the homophone's Korean meaning or the homophone's English meaning. In overtly responded situations, ERP results revealed that the reduced N400 effect in bilinguals for homophone-related word pairs correlated positively with the amount of their daily exposure to Korean. In covertly responded situations, ERP results showed a reduced late positive component for homophone-related word pairs in the right hemisphere, and this late positive effect was related to the neural efficiency of suppressing interference in a non-linguistic task. Together, these findings suggest 1) that the degree of language co-activation in bilingual spoken word comprehension is modulated by the amount of daily exposure to the non-target language; and 2) that bilinguals who are less influenced by cross-language activation may also have greater efficiency in suppressing interference in a non-linguistic task. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cross-cultural evidence for multimodal motherese: Asian Indian mothers' adaptive use of synchronous words and gestures.

PubMed

Gogate, Lakshmi; Maganti, Madhavilatha; Bahrick, Lorraine E

2015-01-01

In a quasi-experimental study, 24 Asian Indian mothers were asked to teach novel (target) names for two objects and two actions to their children of three different levels of lexical mapping development: prelexical (5-8 months), early lexical (9-17 months), and advanced lexical (20-43 months). Target naming (n=1482) and non-target naming (other, n=2411) were coded for synchronous spoken words and object motion (multimodal motherese) and other naming styles. Indian mothers abundantly used multimodal motherese with target words to highlight novel word-referent relations, paralleling earlier findings from American mothers. They used it with target words more often for prelexical infants than for advanced lexical children and to name target actions later in children's development. Unlike American mothers, Indian mothers also abundantly used multimodal motherese to name target objects later in children's development. Finally, monolingual mothers who spoke a verb-dominant Indian language used multimodal motherese more often than bilingual mothers who also spoke noun-dominant English to their children. The findings suggest that within a dynamic and reciprocal mother-infant communication system, multimodal motherese adapts to unify novel words and referents across cultures. It adapts to children's level of lexical development and to ambient language-specific lexical dominance hierarchies. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Beat gestures improve word recall in 3- to 5-year-old children.

PubMed

Igualada, Alfonso; Esteve-Gibert, Núria; Prieto, Pilar

2017-04-01

Although research has shown that adults can benefit from the presence of beat gestures in word recall tasks, studies have failed to conclusively generalize these findings to preschool children. This study investigated whether the presence of beat gestures helps children to recall information when these gestures have the function of singling out a linguistic element in its discourse context. A total of 106 3- to 5-year-old children were asked to recall a list of words within a pragmatically child-relevant context (i.e., a storytelling activity) in which the target word was or was not accompanied by a beat gesture. Results showed that children recalled the target word significantly better when it was accompanied by a beat gesture than when it was not, indicating a local recall effect. Moreover, the recall of adjacent non-target words did not differ depending on the condition, revealing that beat gestures seem to have a strictly local highlighting function (i.e., no global recall effect). These results demonstrate that preschoolers benefit from the pragmatic contribution offered by beat gestures when they function as multimodal markers of prominence. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Defining a Conceptual Topography of Word Concreteness: Clustering Properties of Emotion, Sensation, and Magnitude among 750 English Words

PubMed Central

Troche, Joshua; Crutch, Sebastian J.; Reilly, Jamie

2017-01-01

Cognitive science has a longstanding interest in the ways that people acquire and use abstract vs. concrete words (e.g., truth vs. piano). One dominant theory holds that abstract and concrete words are subserved by two parallel semantic systems. We recently proposed an alternative account of abstract-concrete word representation premised upon a unitary, high dimensional semantic space wherein word meaning is nested. We hypothesize that a range of cognitive and perceptual dimensions (e.g., emotion, time, space, color, size, visual form) bound this space, forming a conceptual topography. Here we report a normative study where we examined the clustering properties of a sample of English words (N = 750) spanning a spectrum of concreteness in a continuous manner from highly abstract to highly concrete. Participants (N = 328) rated each target word on a range of 14 cognitive dimensions (e.g., color, emotion, valence, polarity, motion, space). The dimensions reduced to three factors: Endogenous factor, Exogenous factor, and Magnitude factor. Concepts were plotted in a unified, multimodal space with concrete and abstract concepts along a continuous continuum. We discuss theoretical implications and practical applications of this dataset. These word norms are freely available for download and use at http://www.reilly-coglab.com/data/. PMID:29075224

Defining a Conceptual Topography of Word Concreteness: Clustering Properties of Emotion, Sensation, and Magnitude among 750 English Words.

PubMed

Troche, Joshua; Crutch, Sebastian J; Reilly, Jamie

2017-01-01

Cognitive science has a longstanding interest in the ways that people acquire and use abstract vs. concrete words (e.g., truth vs. piano). One dominant theory holds that abstract and concrete words are subserved by two parallel semantic systems. We recently proposed an alternative account of abstract-concrete word representation premised upon a unitary, high dimensional semantic space wherein word meaning is nested. We hypothesize that a range of cognitive and perceptual dimensions (e.g., emotion, time, space, color, size, visual form) bound this space, forming a conceptual topography. Here we report a normative study where we examined the clustering properties of a sample of English words ( N = 750) spanning a spectrum of concreteness in a continuous manner from highly abstract to highly concrete. Participants ( N = 328) rated each target word on a range of 14 cognitive dimensions (e.g., color, emotion, valence, polarity, motion, space). The dimensions reduced to three factors: Endogenous factor, Exogenous factor, and Magnitude factor. Concepts were plotted in a unified, multimodal space with concrete and abstract concepts along a continuous continuum. We discuss theoretical implications and practical applications of this dataset. These word norms are freely available for download and use at http://www.reilly-coglab.com/data/.

The role of gestures in the transition from one- to two-word speech in a variety of children with intellectual disabilities.

PubMed

Vandereet, Joke; Maes, Bea; Lembrechts, Dirk; Zink, Inge

2011-01-01

Over the past decades the links between gesture and language have become intensively studied. For example, the emergence of requesting and commenting gestures has been found to signal the onset of intentional communication. Furthermore, in typically developing children, gestures play a transitional role in the acquisition of early lexical and syntactic milestones. Previous research has demonstrated that, particularly supplementary, gesture-word combinations not only precede, but also reliably predict the onset of two-word speech. However, the gestural correlates of two-word speech have rarely been studied in children with intellectual disabilities. The primary aim was to investigate developmental changes in speech and gesture use as well as to relate the use of gesture-word combinations to the onset of two-word speech in children with intellectual disabilities. A supplementary aim was to investigate differences in speech and gesture use between requests and comments in children with intellectual disabilities. Participants in this study were 16 children with intellectual disabilities (eight girls, eight boys). Chronological ages at the start of the study were between 3;1 and 5;7 years; mental ages were between 1;5 and 3;3 years. Every 4 months within a 2-year period children's requests and comments were sampled during structured interactions. All gestures and words used communicatively to request and comment were transcribed. Although children's use of spoken words as well as the diversity in their spoken vocabularies increased over time, gestures were used with a constant rate over time. Temporal tendencies similar to those described in typically developing children were observed: gesture-word combinations typically preceded, rather than followed, two-word speech. Furthermore, gestures (deictic gestures in particular) were more often used to request than to comment. Overall, gestures were used as a transitional tool towards children's first two-word utterances

Word-identification priming for ignored and attended words

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stone, M.; Ladd, S. L.; Vaidya, C. J.; Gabrieli, J. D.

1998-01-01

Three experiments examined contributions of study phase awareness of word identity to subsequent word-identification priming by manipulating visual attention to words at study. In Experiment 1, word-identification priming was reduced for ignored relative to attended words, even though ignored words were identified sufficiently to produce negative priming in the study phase. Word-identification priming was also reduced after color naming relative to emotional valence rating (Experiment 2) or word reading (Experiment 3), even though an effect of emotional valence upon color naming (Experiment 2) indicated that words were identified at study. Thus, word-identification priming was reduced even when word identification occurred at study. Word-identification priming may depend on awareness of word identity at the time of study.

Anticipating words and their gender: an event-related brain potential study of semantic integration, gender expectancy, and gender agreement in Spanish sentence reading.

PubMed

Wicha, Nicole Y Y; Moreno, Eva M; Kutas, Marta

2004-09-01

Recent studies indicate that the human brain attends to and uses grammatical gender cues during sentence comprehension. Here, we examine the nature and time course of the effect of gender on word-by-word sentence reading. Event-related brain potentials were recorded to an article and noun, while native Spanish speakers read medium- to high-constraint Spanish sentences for comprehension. The noun either fit the sentence meaning or not, and matched the preceding article in gender or not; in addition, the preceding article was either expected or unexpected based on prior sentence context. Semantically anomalous nouns elicited an N400. Gender-disagreeing nouns elicited a posterior late positivity (P600), replicating previous findings for words. Gender agreement and semantic congruity interacted in both the N400 window--with a larger negativity frontally for double violations--and the P600 window--with a larger positivity for semantic anomalies, relative to the prestimulus baseline. Finally, unexpected articles elicited an enhanced positivity (500-700 msec post onset) relative to expected articles. Overall, our data indicate that readers anticipate and attend to the gender of both articles and nouns, and use gender in real time to maintain agreement and to build sentence meaning.

A Comparison of Two Flashcard Drill Methods Targeting Word Recognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Volpe, Robert J.; Mule, Christina M.; Briesch, Amy M.; Joseph, Laurice M.; Burns, Matthew K.

2011-01-01

Traditional drill and practice (TD) and incremental rehearsal (IR) are two flashcard drill instructional methods previously noted to improve word recognition. The current study sought to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of these two methods, as assessed by next day retention assessments, under 2 conditions (i.e., opportunities to respond…

The Penefit of Salience: Salient Accented, but Not Unaccented Words Reveal Accent Adaptation Effects

PubMed Central

Grohe, Ann-Kathrin; Weber, Andrea

2016-01-01

In two eye-tracking experiments, the effects of salience in accent training and speech accentedness on spoken-word recognition were investigated. Salience was expected to increase a stimulus' prominence and therefore promote learning. A training-test paradigm was used on native German participants utilizing an artificial German accent. Salience was elicited by two different criteria: production and listening training as a subjective criterion and accented (Experiment 1) and canonical test words (Experiment 2) as an objective criterion. During training in Experiment 1, participants either read single German words out loud and deliberately devoiced initial voiced stop consonants (e.g., Balken—“beam” pronounced as *Palken), or they listened to pre-recorded words with the same accent. In a subsequent eye-tracking experiment, looks to auditorily presented target words with the accent were analyzed. Participants from both training conditions fixated accented target words more often than a control group without training. Training was identical in Experiment 2, but during test, canonical German words that overlapped in onset with the accented words from training were presented as target words (e.g., Palme—“palm tree” overlapped in onset with the training word *Palken) rather than accented words. This time, no training effect was observed; recognition of canonical word forms was not affected by having learned the accent. Therefore, accent learning was only visible when the accented test tokens in Experiment 1, which were not included in the test of Experiment 2, possessed sufficient salience based on the objective criterion “accent.” These effects were not modified by the subjective criterion of salience from the training modality. PMID:27375540

The Relationships among Cognitive Correlates and Irregular Word, Non-Word, and Word Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abu-Hamour, Bashir; University, Mu'tah; Urso, Annmarie; Mather, Nancy

2012-01-01

This study explored four hypotheses: (a) the relationships among rapid automatized naming (RAN) and processing speed (PS) to irregular word, non-word, and word reading; (b) the predictive power of various RAN and PS measures, (c) the cognitive correlates that best predicted irregular word, non-word, and word reading, and (d) reading performance of…

Can colours be used to segment words when reading?

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Tejero, Pilar; Winskel, Heather

2015-07-01

Rayner, Fischer, and Pollatsek (1998, Vision Research) demonstrated that reading unspaced text in Indo-European languages produces a substantial reading cost in word identification (as deduced from an increased word-frequency effect on target words embedded in the unspaced vs. spaced sentences) and in eye movement guidance (as deduced from landing sites closer to the beginning of the words in unspaced sentences). However, the addition of spaces between words comes with a cost: nearby words may fall outside high-acuity central vision, thus reducing the potential benefits of parafoveal processing. In the present experiment, we introduced a salient visual cue intended to facilitate the process of word segmentation without compromising visual acuity: each alternating word was printed in a different colour (i.e., ). Results only revealed a small reading cost of unspaced alternating colour sentences relative to the spaced sentences. Thus, present data are a demonstration that colour can be useful to segment words for readers of spaced orthographies. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An ERP investigation of visual word recognition in syllabary scripts.

PubMed

Okano, Kana; Grainger, Jonathan; Holcomb, Phillip J

2013-06-01

The bimodal interactive-activation model has been successfully applied to understanding the neurocognitive processes involved in reading words in alphabetic scripts, as reflected in the modulation of ERP components in masked repetition priming. In order to test the generalizability of this approach, in the present study we examined word recognition in a different writing system, the Japanese syllabary scripts hiragana and katakana. Native Japanese participants were presented with repeated or unrelated pairs of Japanese words in which the prime and target words were both in the same script (within-script priming, Exp. 1) or were in the opposite script (cross-script priming, Exp. 2). As in previous studies with alphabetic scripts, in both experiments the N250 (sublexical processing) and N400 (lexical-semantic processing) components were modulated by priming, although the time course was somewhat delayed. The earlier N/P150 effect (visual feature processing) was present only in "Experiment 1: Within-script priming", in which the prime and target words shared visual features. Overall, the results provide support for the hypothesis that visual word recognition involves a generalizable set of neurocognitive processes that operate in similar manners across different writing systems and languages, as well as pointing to the viability of the bimodal interactive-activation framework for modeling such processes.

An ERP Investigation of Visual Word Recognition in Syllabary Scripts

PubMed Central

Okano, Kana; Grainger, Jonathan; Holcomb, Phillip J.

2013-01-01

The bi-modal interactive-activation model has been successfully applied to understanding the neuro-cognitive processes involved in reading words in alphabetic scripts, as reflected in the modulation of ERP components in masked repetition priming. In order to test the generalizability of this approach, the current study examined word recognition in a different writing system, the Japanese syllabary scripts Hiragana and Katakana. Native Japanese participants were presented with repeated or unrelated pairs of Japanese words where the prime and target words were both in the same script (within-script priming, Experiment 1) or were in the opposite script (cross-script priming, Experiment 2). As in previous studies with alphabetic scripts, in both experiments the N250 (sub-lexical processing) and N400 (lexical-semantic processing) components were modulated by priming, although the time-course was somewhat delayed. The earlier N/P150 effect (visual feature processing) was present only in Experiment 1 where prime and target words shared visual features. Overall, the results provide support for the hypothesis that visual word recognition involves a generalizable set of neuro-cognitive processes that operate in a similar manner across different writing systems and languages, as well as pointing to the viability of the bi-modal interactive activation framework for modeling such processes. PMID:23378278

Lexical Competition in Non-Native Spoken-Word Recognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weber, Andrea; Cutler, Anne

2004-01-01

Four eye-tracking experiments examined lexical competition in non-native spoken-word recognition. Dutch listeners hearing English fixated longer on distractor pictures with names containing vowels that Dutch listeners are likely to confuse with vowels in a target picture name ("pencil," given target "panda") than on less confusable distractors…

On the role of attention for the processing of emotions in speech: sex differences revisited.

PubMed

Schirmer, Annett; Kotz, Sonja A; Friederici, Angela D

2005-08-01

In a previous cross-modal priming study [A. Schirmer, A.S. Kotz, A.D. Friederici, Sex differentiates the role of emotional prosody during word processing, Cogn. Brain Res. 14 (2002) 228-233.], we found that women integrated emotional prosody and word valence earlier than men. Both sexes showed a smaller N400 in the event-related potential to emotional words when these words were preceded by a sentence with congruous compared to incongruous emotional prosody. However, women showed this effect with a 200-ms interval between prime sentence and target word whereas men showed the effect with a 750-ms interval. The present study was designed to determine whether these sex differences prevail when attention is directed towards the emotional content of prosody and word meaning. To this end, we presented the same prime sentences and target words as in our previous study. Sentences were spoken with happy or sad prosody and followed by a congruous or incongruous emotional word or pseudoword. The interval between sentence offset and target onset was 200 ms. In addition to performing a lexical decision, participants were asked to decide whether or not a word matched the emotional prosody of the preceding sentence. The combined lexical and congruence judgment failed to reveal differences in emotional-prosodic priming between men and women. Both sexes showed smaller N400 amplitudes to emotionally congruent compared to incongruent words. This suggests that the presence of sex differences in emotional-prosodic priming depends on whether or not participants are instructed to take emotional prosody into account.

ERP evidence for memory and predictive mechanisms in word-to-text integration

PubMed Central

Stafura, Joseph Z.; Rickles, Benjamin; Perfetti, Charles A.

2016-01-01

During reading, word-to-text integration processes proceed quickly and incrementally through both prospective (predictive) and retrospective (memory) processes. Across a sentence boundary, where prediction may be less functional, memorial processes may be especially important. We tested predictive and memory mechanisms with event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded on the first content word across a sentence boundary by manipulating the direction of association between this word and one from the preceding sentence. For comparison with this text comprehension (TC) task, we tested these same word pairs in a word meaning judgment (MJ) task. In both tasks we found reduced N400 amplitudes over central scalp electrodes when the two words were either forward-associated (FA) or backward-associated (BA), relative to task-specific baseline conditions. In the MJ task, FA pairs produced a greater reduction in the N400 reduction than BA pairs over right parietal areas. However, in the TC task, BA pairs produced a greater N400 reduction than FA pairs over left parietal electrodes. A temporal principal component analysis of TC and MJ data showed a component reflecting the central N400. Additional components from TC data reflected FA-BA differences during early (N200) and late (parietal N400 and LPC) phases of processing. Comprehension skill predicted association effects in the MJ task, especially FA, and the BA central N400 effects in the TC task. The results demonstrate that, beyond N400 indicators of prediction effects, ERPs reflect the role of memory processes in word-to-text integration across sentences, part of a dynamic interplay between anticipatory and memorial processes that support comprehension. PMID:27110578

Getting ahead of yourself: Parafoveal word expectancy modulates the N400 during sentence reading

DOE PAGES

Stites, Mallory C.; Payne, Brennan R.; Federmeier, Kara D.

2017-01-18

An important question in the reading literature regards the nature of the semantic information readers can extract from the parafovea (i.e., the next word in a sentence). Recent eye-tracking findings have found a semantic parafoveal preview benefit under many circumstances, and findings from event-related brain potentials (ERPs) also suggest that readers can at least detect semantic anomalies parafoveally. We use ERPs to ask whether fine-grained aspects of semantic expectancy can affect the N400 elicited by a word appearing in the parafovea. In an RSVP-with-flankers paradigm, sentences were presented word by word, flanked 2° bilaterally by the previous and upcoming words.more » Stimuli consisted of high constraint sentences that were identical up to the target word, which could be expected, unexpected but plausible, or anomalous, as well as low constraint sentences that were always completed with the most expected ending. Findings revealed an N400 effect to the target word when it appeared in the parafovea, which was graded with respect to the target’s expectancy and congruency within the sentence context. Moreover, when targets appeared at central fixation, this graded congruency effect was mitigated, suggesting that the semantic information gleaned from parafoveal vision functionally changes the semantic processing of those words when foveated.« less

Getting ahead of yourself: Parafoveal word expectancy modulates the N400 during sentence reading

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

Stites, Mallory C.; Payne, Brennan R.; Federmeier, Kara D.

An important question in the reading literature regards the nature of the semantic information readers can extract from the parafovea (i.e., the next word in a sentence). Recent eye-tracking findings have found a semantic parafoveal preview benefit under many circumstances, and findings from event-related brain potentials (ERPs) also suggest that readers can at least detect semantic anomalies parafoveally. We use ERPs to ask whether fine-grained aspects of semantic expectancy can affect the N400 elicited by a word appearing in the parafovea. In an RSVP-with-flankers paradigm, sentences were presented word by word, flanked 2° bilaterally by the previous and upcoming words.more » Stimuli consisted of high constraint sentences that were identical up to the target word, which could be expected, unexpected but plausible, or anomalous, as well as low constraint sentences that were always completed with the most expected ending. Findings revealed an N400 effect to the target word when it appeared in the parafovea, which was graded with respect to the target’s expectancy and congruency within the sentence context. Moreover, when targets appeared at central fixation, this graded congruency effect was mitigated, suggesting that the semantic information gleaned from parafoveal vision functionally changes the semantic processing of those words when foveated.« less

Cognitive Predictors of Spoken Word Recognition in Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorders.

PubMed

Evans, Julia L; Gillam, Ronald B; Montgomery, James W

2018-05-10

This study examined the influence of cognitive factors on spoken word recognition in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and typically developing (TD) children. Participants included 234 children (aged 7;0-11;11 years;months), 117 with DLD and 117 TD children, propensity matched for age, gender, socioeconomic status, and maternal education. Children completed a series of standardized assessment measures, a forward gating task, a rapid automatic naming task, and a series of tasks designed to examine cognitive factors hypothesized to influence spoken word recognition including phonological working memory, updating, attention shifting, and interference inhibition. Spoken word recognition for both initial and final accept gate points did not differ for children with DLD and TD controls after controlling target word knowledge in both groups. The 2 groups also did not differ on measures of updating, attention switching, and interference inhibition. Despite the lack of difference on these measures, for children with DLD, attention shifting and interference inhibition were significant predictors of spoken word recognition, whereas updating and receptive vocabulary were significant predictors of speed of spoken word recognition for the children in the TD group. Contrary to expectations, after controlling for target word knowledge, spoken word recognition did not differ for children with DLD and TD controls; however, the cognitive processing factors that influenced children's ability to recognize the target word in a stream of speech differed qualitatively for children with and without DLDs.

What You See Isn’t Always What You Get: Auditory Word Signals Trump Consciously Perceived Words in Lexical Access

PubMed Central

Ostrand, Rachel; Blumstein, Sheila E.; Ferreira, Victor S.; Morgan, James L.

2016-01-01

Human speech perception often includes both an auditory and visual component. A conflict in these signals can result in the McGurk illusion, in which the listener perceives a fusion of the two streams, implying that information from both has been integrated. We report two experiments investigating whether auditory-visual integration of speech occurs before or after lexical access, and whether the visual signal influences lexical access at all. Subjects were presented with McGurk or Congruent primes and performed a lexical decision task on related or unrelated targets. Although subjects perceived the McGurk illusion, McGurk and Congruent primes with matching real-word auditory signals equivalently primed targets that were semantically related to the auditory signal, but not targets related to the McGurk percept. We conclude that the time course of auditory-visual integration is dependent on the lexicality of the auditory and visual input signals, and that listeners can lexically access one word and yet consciously perceive another. PMID:27011021

Repetition priming effects from attended vs. ignored single words in a semantic categorization task.

PubMed

Ortells, Juan J; Fox, Elaine; Noguera, Carmen; Abad, María J F

2003-10-01

The present research examines priming effects from a centrally presented single-prime word to which participants were instructed to either attend or ignore. The prime word was followed by a single central target word to which participants made a semantic categorization (animate vs. inanimate) task. The main variables manipulated across experiments were attentional instructions (attend vs. ignore the prime word), presentation duration of the prime word (20, 50, 80 or 100 ms), prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA; 300 vs. 800 ms), and temporal presentation of instructions (before vs. after the prime word). The results showed (a) a consistent interaction between attentional instructions and repetition priming and (b) a qualitatively different ignored priming pattern as a function of prime duration: reduced positive priming (relative to the attend instruction) for prime exposures of 80 and 100 ms, and reliable negative priming for the shorter prime exposures of 20 and 50 ms. In addition (c), the differential priming pattern for attend and ignore trials was observed at a prime-target SOA of 800 ms (but not at a shorter 300-ms SOA) and only when instructions were presented before the prime word. Methodological and theoretical implications of the present findings for the extant negative priming literature are discussed.

Consolidation of novel word learning in native English-speaking adults.

PubMed

Kurdziel, Laura B F; Spencer, Rebecca M C

2016-01-01

Sleep has been shown to improve the retention of newly learned words. However, most methodologies have used artificial or foreign language stimuli, with learning limited to word/novel word or word/image pairs. Such stimuli differ from many word-learning scenarios in which definition strings are learned with novel words. Thus, we examined sleep's benefit on learning new words within a native language by using very low-frequency words. Participants learned 45 low-frequency English words and, at subsequent recall, attempted to recall the words when given the corresponding definitions. Participants either learned in the morning with recall in the evening (wake group), or learned in the evening with recall the following morning (sleep group). Performance change across the delay was significantly better in the sleep than the wake group. Additionally, the Levenshtein distance, a measure of correctness of the typed word compared with the target word, became significantly worse following wake, whereas sleep protected correctness of recall. Polysomnographic data from a subsample of participants suggested that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep may be particularly important for this benefit. These results lend further support for sleep's function on semantic learning even for word/definition pairs within a native language.

A designated odor-language integration system in the human brain.

PubMed

Olofsson, Jonas K; Hurley, Robert S; Bowman, Nicholas E; Bao, Xiaojun; Mesulam, M-Marsel; Gottfried, Jay A

2014-11-05

Odors are surprisingly difficult to name, but the mechanism underlying this phenomenon is poorly understood. In experiments using event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the physiological basis of odor naming with a paradigm where olfactory and visual object cues were followed by target words that either matched or mismatched the cue. We hypothesized that word processing would not only be affected by its semantic congruency with the preceding cue, but would also depend on the cue modality (olfactory or visual). Performance was slower and less precise when linking a word to its corresponding odor than to its picture. The ERP index of semantic incongruity (N400), reflected in the comparison of nonmatching versus matching target words, was more constrained to posterior electrode sites and lasted longer on odor-cue (vs picture-cue) trials. In parallel, fMRI cross-adaptation in the right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) was observed in response to words when preceded by matching olfactory cues, but not by matching visual cues. Time-series plots demonstrated increased fMRI activity in OFC and ATL at the onset of the odor cue itself, followed by response habituation after processing of a matching (vs nonmatching) target word, suggesting that predictive perceptual representations in these regions are already established before delivery and deliberation of the target word. Together, our findings underscore the modality-specific anatomy and physiology of object identification in the human brain. Copyright © 2014 the authors 0270-6474/14/3414864-10$15.00/0.

English Listeners Use Suprasegmental Cues to Lexical Stress Early During Spoken-Word Recognition

PubMed Central

Poellmann, Katja; Kong, Ying-Yee

2017-01-01

Purpose We used an eye-tracking technique to investigate whether English listeners use suprasegmental information about lexical stress to speed up the recognition of spoken words in English. Method In a visual world paradigm, 24 young English listeners followed spoken instructions to choose 1 of 4 printed referents on a computer screen (e.g., “Click on the word admiral”). Displays contained a critical pair of words (e.g., ˈadmiral–ˌadmiˈration) that were segmentally identical for their first 2 syllables but differed suprasegmentally in their 1st syllable: One word began with primary lexical stress, and the other began with secondary lexical stress. All words had phrase-level prominence. Listeners' relative proportion of eye fixations on these words indicated their ability to differentiate them over time. Results Before critical word pairs became segmentally distinguishable in their 3rd syllables, participants fixated target words more than their stress competitors, but only if targets had initial primary lexical stress. The degree to which stress competitors were fixated was independent of their stress pattern. Conclusions Suprasegmental information about lexical stress modulates the time course of spoken-word recognition. Specifically, suprasegmental information on the primary-stressed syllable of words with phrase-level prominence helps in distinguishing the word from phonological competitors with secondary lexical stress. PMID:28056135

Teaching Children to Fluently Decode Nonsense Words in Lists: Generalized Effects to Oral Reading Fluency of Connected Text

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Werder, Candace Susan

2012-01-01

The present study examined the generalized effects of training children to fluently blend nonsense words containing target vowel teams on their reading of untrained real words in lists and passages. Eight second-grade students participated. Nonsense words containing each of 3 target vowel teams ("aw," "oi," and "au")…

Word, Words, Words: Ellul and the Mediocritization of Language

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Foltz, Franz; Foltz, Frederick

2012-01-01

The authors explore how technique via propaganda has replaced the word with images creating a mass society and limiting the ability of people to act as individuals. They begin by looking at how words affect human society and how they have changed over time. They explore how technology has altered the meaning of words in order to create a more…

Cross-Cultural Evidence for Multimodal Motherese: Asian-Indian Mothers’ Adaptive Use of Synchronous Words and Gestures

PubMed Central

Maganti, Madhavilatha; Bahrick, Lorraine E.

2014-01-01

In a quasi-experimental study, twenty-four Asian-Indian mothers were asked to teach novel (target) names for two objects and two actions to their children of three different levels of lexical-mapping development, pre-lexical (5–8 months), early-lexical (9–17 months), and advanced-lexical (20–43 months). Target (N = 1482) and non-target (other, N = 2411) naming was coded for synchronous spoken words and object motion (multimodal motherese) and other naming styles. Indian mothers abundantly used multimodal motherese with target words to highlight novel word-referent relations, paralleling earlier findings from American mothers (Gogate, Bahrick, & Watson, 2000). They used it with target words more often for pre-lexical infants than advanced-lexical children, and to name target actions later into children’s development. Unlike American mothers, Indian mothers also abundantly used multimodal motherese to name target objects later into children’s development. Finally, monolingual mothers who spoke a verb-dominant Indian language used multimodal motherese more often than bilingual mothers who also spoke noun-dominant English to their child. The findings suggest that within a dynamic and reciprocal mother-infant communication system, multimodal motherese adapts to unify novel words and referents across cultures. It adapts to children’s level of lexical development and to ambient language-specific lexical-dominance hierarchies. PMID:25285369

Mrs. Malaprop's Neighborhood: Using Word Errors to Reveal Neighborhood Structure

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Goldrick, Matthew; Folk, Jocelyn R.; Rapp, Brenda

2010-01-01

Many theories of language production and perception assume that in the normal course of processing a word, additional non-target words (lexical neighbors) become active. The properties of these neighbors can provide insight into the structure of representations and processing mechanisms in the language processing system. To infer the properties of…

Measuring word complexity in speech screening: single-word sampling to identify phonological delay/disorder in preschool children.

PubMed

Anderson, Carolyn; Cohen, Wendy

2012-01-01

Children's speech sound development is assessed by comparing speech production with the typical development of speech sounds based on a child's age and developmental profile. One widely used method of sampling is to elicit a single-word sample along with connected speech. Words produced spontaneously rather than imitated may give a more accurate indication of a child's speech development. A published word complexity measure can be used to score later-developing speech sounds and more complex word patterns. There is a need for a screening word list that is quick to administer and reliably differentiates children with typically developing speech from children with patterns of delayed/disordered speech. To identify a short word list based on word complexity that could be spontaneously named by most typically developing children aged 3;00-5;05 years. One hundred and five children aged between 3;00 and 5;05 years from three local authority nursery schools took part in the study. Items from a published speech assessment were modified and extended to include a range of phonemic targets in different word positions in 78 monosyllabic and polysyllabic words. The 78 words were ranked both by phonemic/phonetic complexity as measured by word complexity and by ease of spontaneous production. The ten most complex words (hereafter Triage 10) were named spontaneously by more than 90% of the children. There was no significant difference between the complexity measures for five identified age groups when the data were examined in 6-month groups. A qualitative analysis revealed eight children with profiles of phonological delay or disorder. When these children were considered separately, there was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.005) between the mean word complexity measure of the group compared with the mean for the remaining children in all other age groups. The Triage 10 words reliably differentiated children with typically developing speech from those with delayed or

Retroactive interference in short-term memory and the word-length effect.

PubMed

Campoy, Guillermo

2011-09-01

Two experiments investigated the possibility that the word-length effect in short-term memory (STM) is a consequence of long words generating a greater level of retroactive interference than shorter words. In Experiment 1, six-word lists were auditorily presented under articulatory suppression for immediate serial reconstruction of only the first three words. These three words were always drawn from a single set of middle-length words, whereas the last three positions were occupied by either short or long interfering words. The results showed worse memory performance when the to-be-remembered words were followed by long words. In Experiment 2, a recent-probes task was used, in which recent negative probes matched a target word in trial n-2. The results showed lower levels of proactive interference when trial n-1 involved long words instead of short words, suggesting that long words displaced previous STM content to a greater extent. By two different experimental approaches, therefore, this study shows that long words produce more retroactive interference than short words, supporting an interference-based account for the word-length effect. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Individual differences in online spoken word recognition: Implications for SLI

PubMed Central

McMurray, Bob; Samelson, Vicki M.; Lee, Sung Hee; Tomblin, J. Bruce

2012-01-01

Thirty years of research has uncovered the broad principles that characterize spoken word processing across listeners. However, there have been few systematic investigations of individual differences. Such an investigation could help refine models of word recognition by indicating which processing parameters are likely to vary, and could also have important implications for work on language impairment. The present study begins to fill this gap by relating individual differences in overall language ability to variation in online word recognition processes. Using the visual world paradigm, we evaluated online spoken word recognition in adolescents who varied in both basic language abilities and non-verbal cognitive abilities. Eye movements to target, cohort and rhyme objects were monitored during spoken word recognition, as an index of lexical activation. Adolescents with poor language skills showed fewer looks to the target and more fixations to the cohort and rhyme competitors. These results were compared to a number of variants of the TRACE model (McClelland & Elman, 1986) that were constructed to test a range of theoretical approaches to language impairment: impairments at sensory and phonological levels; vocabulary size, and generalized slowing. None were strongly supported, and variation in lexical decay offered the best fit. Thus, basic word recognition processes like lexical decay may offer a new way to characterize processing differences in language impairment. PMID:19836014

Interaction between Phonemic Abilities and Syllable Congruency Effect in Young Readers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chetail, Fabienne; Mathey, Stephanie

2013-01-01

This study investigated whether and to what extent phonemic abilities of young readers (Grade 5) influence syllabic effects in reading. More precisely, the syllable congruency effect was tested in the lexical decision task combined with masked priming in eleven-year-old children. Target words were preceded by a pseudo-word prime sharing the first…

Spoken Word Recognition in Toddlers Who Use Cochlear Implants

PubMed Central

Grieco-Calub, Tina M.; Saffran, Jenny R.; Litovsky, Ruth Y.

2010-01-01

Purpose The purpose of this study was to assess the time course of spoken word recognition in 2-year-old children who use cochlear implants (CIs) in quiet and in the presence of speech competitors. Method Children who use CIs and age-matched peers with normal acoustic hearing listened to familiar auditory labels, in quiet or in the presence of speech competitors, while their eye movements to target objects were digitally recorded. Word recognition performance was quantified by measuring each child’s reaction time (i.e., the latency between the spoken auditory label and the first look at the target object) and accuracy (i.e., the amount of time that children looked at target objects within 367 ms to 2,000 ms after the label onset). Results Children with CIs were less accurate and took longer to fixate target objects than did age-matched children without hearing loss. Both groups of children showed reduced performance in the presence of the speech competitors, although many children continued to recognize labels at above-chance levels. Conclusion The results suggest that the unique auditory experience of young CI users slows the time course of spoken word recognition abilities. In addition, real-world listening environments may slow language processing in young language learners, regardless of their hearing status. PMID:19951921

Individual Differences in Inhibitory Control Relate to Bilingual Spoken Word Processing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mercier, Julie; Pivneva, Irina; Titone, Debra

2014-01-01

We investigated whether individual differences in inhibitory control relate to bilingual spoken word recognition. While their eye movements were monitored, native English and native French English-French bilinguals listened to English words (e.g., "field") and looked at pictures corresponding to the target, a within-language competitor…

Diminutives facilitate word segmentation in natural speech: cross-linguistic evidence.

PubMed

Kempe, Vera; Brooks, Patricia J; Gillis, Steven; Samson, Graham

2007-06-01

Final-syllable invariance is characteristic of diminutives (e.g., doggie), which are a pervasive feature of the child-directed speech registers of many languages. Invariance in word endings has been shown to facilitate word segmentation (Kempe, Brooks, & Gillis, 2005) in an incidental-learning paradigm in which synthesized Dutch pseudonouns were used. To broaden the cross-linguistic evidence for this invariance effect and to increase its ecological validity, adult English speakers (n=276) were exposed to naturally spoken Dutch or Russian pseudonouns presented in sentence contexts. A forced choice test was given to assess target recognition, with foils comprising unfamiliar syllable combinations in Experiments 1 and 2 and syllable combinations straddling word boundaries in Experiment 3. A control group (n=210) received the recognition test with no prior exposure to targets. Recognition performance improved with increasing final-syllable rhyme invariance, with larger increases for the experimental group. This confirms that word ending invariance is a valid segmentation cue in artificial, as well as naturalistic, speech and that diminutives may aid segmentation in a number of languages.

Task-Dependent Masked Priming Effects in Visual Word Recognition

PubMed Central

Kinoshita, Sachiko; Norris, Dennis

2012-01-01

A method used widely to study the first 250 ms of visual word recognition is masked priming: These studies have yielded a rich set of data concerning the processes involved in recognizing letters and words. In these studies, there is an implicit assumption that the early processes in word recognition tapped by masked priming are automatic, and masked priming effects should therefore be invariant across tasks. Contrary to this assumption, masked priming effects are modulated by the task goal: For example, only word targets show priming in the lexical decision task, but both words and non-words do in the same-different task; semantic priming effects are generally weak in the lexical decision task but are robust in the semantic categorization task. We explain how such task dependence arises within the Bayesian Reader account of masked priming (Norris and Kinoshita, 2008), and how the task dissociations can be used to understand the early processes in lexical access. PMID:22675316

Acquiring concepts and features of novel words by two types of learning: direct mapping and inference.

PubMed

Chen, Shuang; Wang, Lin; Yang, Yufang

2014-04-01

This study examined the semantic representation of novel words learnt in two conditions: directly mapping a novel word to a concept (Direct mapping: DM) and inferring the concept from provided features (Inferred learning: IF). A condition where no definite concept could be inferred (No basic-level meaning: NM) served as a baseline. The semantic representation of the novel word was assessed via a semantic-relatedness judgment task. In this task, the learned novel word served as a prime, while the corresponding concept, an unlearned feature of the concept, and an unrelated word served as targets. ERP responses to the targets, primed by the novel words in the three learning conditions, were compared. For the corresponding concept, smaller N400s were elicited in the DM and IF conditions than in the NM condition, indicating that the concept could be obtained in both learning conditions. However, for the unlearned feature, the targets in the IF condition produced an N400 effect while in the DM condition elicited an LPC effect relative to the NM learning condition. No ERP difference was observed among the three learning conditions for the unrelated words. The results indicate that conditions of learning affect the semantic representation of novel word, and that the unlearned feature was only activated by the novel word in the IF learning condition. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Grammar and Frequency Effects in the Acquisition of Prosodic Words in European Portuguese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vigario, Marina; Freitas, Maria Joao; Frota, Sonia

2006-01-01

This paper investigates the acquisition of prosodic words in European Portuguese (EP) through analysis of grammatical and statistical properties of the target language and child speech. The analysis of grammatical properties shows that there are solid cues to the prosodic word (PW) in EP, and the presence of early word-based phonology in child…

Developmental differences in masked form priming are not driven by vocabulary growth.

PubMed

Bhide, Adeetee; Schlaggar, Bradley L; Barnes, Kelly Anne

2014-01-01

As children develop into skilled readers, they are able to more quickly and accurately distinguish between words with similar visual forms (i.e., they develop precise lexical representations). The masked form priming lexical decision task is used to test the precision of lexical representations. In this paradigm, a prime (which differs by one letter from the target) is briefly flashed before the target is presented. Participants make a lexical decision to the target. Primes can facilitate reaction time by partially activating the lexical entry for the target. If a prime is unable to facilitate reaction time, it is assumed that participants have a precise orthographic representation of the target and thus the prime is not a close enough match to activate its lexical entry. Previous developmental work has shown that children and adults' lexical decision times are facilitated by form primes preceding words from small neighborhoods (i.e., very few words can be formed by changing one letter in the original word; low N words), but only children are facilitated by form primes preceding words from large neighborhoods (high N words). It has been hypothesized that written vocabulary growth drives the increase in the precision of the orthographic representations; children may not know all of the neighbors of the high N words, making the words effectively low N for them. We tested this hypothesis by (1) equating the effective orthographic neighborhood size of the targets for children and adults and (2) testing whether age or vocabulary size was a better predictor of the extent of form priming. We found priming differences even when controlling for effective neighborhood size. Furthermore, age was a better predictor of form priming effects than was vocabulary size. Our findings provide no support for the hypothesis that growth in written vocabulary size gives rise to more precise lexical representations. We propose that the development of spelling ability may be a more

Effect of Syllable Congruency in Sixth Graders in the Lexical Decision Task with Masked Priming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chetail, Fabienne; Mathey, Stephanie

2012-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the syllable in visual recognition of French words in Grade 6. To do so, the syllabic congruency effect was examined in the lexical decision task combined with masked priming. Target words were preceded by pseudoword primes sharing the first letters that either corresponded to the syllable…

Tracking lexical consolidation with ERPs: Lexical and semantic-priming effects on N400 and LPC responses to newly-learned words.

PubMed

Bakker, Iske; Takashima, Atsuko; van Hell, Janet G; Janzen, Gabriele; McQueen, James M

2015-12-01

Novel words can be recalled immediately and after little exposure, but require a post-learning consolidation period to show word-like behaviour such as lexical competition. This pattern is thought to reflect a qualitative shift from episodic to lexical representations. However, several studies have reported immediate effects of meaningful novel words on semantic processing, suggesting that integration of novel word meanings may not require consolidation. The current study synthesises and extends these findings by showing a dissociation between lexical and semantic effects on the electrophysiological (N400, LPC) response to novel words. The difference in N400 amplitude between novel and existing words (a lexical effect) decreased significantly after a 24-h consolidation period, providing novel support for the hypothesis that offline consolidation aids lexicalisation. In contrast, novel words preceded by semantically related primes elicited a more positive LPC response (a semantic-priming effect) both before and after consolidation, indicating that certain semantic effects can be observed even when words have not been fully lexicalised. We propose that novel meanings immediately start to contribute to semantic processing, but that the underlying neural processes may shift from strategic to more automatic with consolidation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Anticipating Words and Their Gender: An Event-related Brain Potential Study of Semantic Integration, Gender Expectancy, and Gender Agreement in Spanish Sentence Reading

PubMed Central

Wicha, Nicole Y. Y.; Moreno, Eva M.; Kutas, Marta

2012-01-01

Recent studies indicate that the human brain attends to and uses grammatical gender cues during sentence comprehension. Here, we examine the nature and time course of the effect of gender on word-by-word sentence reading. Event-related brain potentials were recorded to an article and noun, while native Spanish speakers read medium- to high-constraint Spanish sentences for comprehension. The noun either fit the sentence meaning or not, and matched the preceding article in gender or not; in addition, the preceding article was either expected or unexpected based on prior sentence context. Semantically anomalous nouns elicited an N400. Gender-disagreeing nouns elicited a posterior late positivity (P600), replicating previous findings for words. Gender agreement and semantic congruity interacted in both the N400 window—with a larger negativity frontally for double violations—and the P600 window—with a larger positivity for semantic anomalies, relative to the prestimulus baseline. Finally, unexpected articles elicited an enhanced positivity (500–700 msec post onset) relative to expected articles. Overall, our data indicate that readers anticipate and attend to the gender of both articles and nouns, and use gender in real time to maintain agreement and to build sentence meaning. PMID:15453979

Seeing red primes tomato: evidence for comparable priming from colour and colour name primes to semantically related word targets.

PubMed

Nijboer, Tanja C W; van Zandvoort, Martine J E; de Haan, Edward H F

2006-12-01

There is ample evidence that an independent processing stream exists that subserves the perception and appreciation of colour. Neurophysiological research has identified separate brain mechanisms for the processing of wavelength and colour, and neuropsychological studies have revealed selective colour disorders, such as achromatopsia, colour agnosia, and colour anomia. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether the perception of colour may, despite its independent processing, influence other cognitive functions. Specifically, we investigate the possibility that the perception of a colour influences higher order processes such as the activation of semantically related concepts. We designed an associative priming task involving a colour prime (e.g. a red patch or the word RED) and a lexical decision response to a semantically related ('tomato' vs. 'timato') or unrelated ('grass' vs. 'griss') word target. The results of this experiment indicate that there is comparable facilitation of accessing colour-related semantics through the perception of a colour or the reading of a colour name. This suggests that colour has a direct effect on higher order level, cognitive processing. These results are discussed in terms of current models of colour processing.

Novel word retention in bilingual and monolingual speakers

PubMed Central

Kan, Pui Fong; Sadagopan, Neeraja

2014-01-01

The goal of this research was to examine word retention in bilinguals and monolinguals. Long-term word retention is an essential part of vocabulary learning. Previous studies have documented that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in terms of retrieving newly-exposed words. Yet, little is known about whether or to what extent bilinguals are different from monolinguals in word retention. Participants were 30 English-speaking monolingual adults and 30 bilingual adults who speak Spanish as a home language and learned English as a second language during childhood. In a previous study (Kan et al., 2014), the participants were exposed to the target novel words in English, Spanish, and Cantonese. In this current study, word retention was measured a week after the fast mapping task. No exposures were given during the one-week interval. Results showed that bilinguals and monolinguals retain a similar number of words. However, participants produced more words in English than in either Spanish or Cantonese. Correlation analyses revealed that language knowledge plays a role in the relationships between fast mapping and word retention. Specifically, within- and across-language relationships between bilinguals' fast mapping and word retention were found in Spanish and English, by contrast, within-language relationships between monolinguals' fast mapping and word retention were found in English and across-language relationships between their fast mapping and word retention performance in English and Cantonese. Similarly, bilinguals differed from monolinguals in the relationships among the word retention scores in three languages. Significant correlations were found among bilinguals' retention scores. However, no such correlations were found among monolinguals' retention scores. The overall findings suggest that bilinguals' language experience and language knowledge most likely contribute to how they learn and retain new words. PMID:25324789

Novel word retention in bilingual and monolingual speakers.

PubMed

Kan, Pui Fong; Sadagopan, Neeraja

2014-01-01

The goal of this research was to examine word retention in bilinguals and monolinguals. Long-term word retention is an essential part of vocabulary learning. Previous studies have documented that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in terms of retrieving newly-exposed words. Yet, little is known about whether or to what extent bilinguals are different from monolinguals in word retention. Participants were 30 English-speaking monolingual adults and 30 bilingual adults who speak Spanish as a home language and learned English as a second language during childhood. In a previous study (Kan et al., 2014), the participants were exposed to the target novel words in English, Spanish, and Cantonese. In this current study, word retention was measured a week after the fast mapping task. No exposures were given during the one-week interval. Results showed that bilinguals and monolinguals retain a similar number of words. However, participants produced more words in English than in either Spanish or Cantonese. Correlation analyses revealed that language knowledge plays a role in the relationships between fast mapping and word retention. Specifically, within- and across-language relationships between bilinguals' fast mapping and word retention were found in Spanish and English, by contrast, within-language relationships between monolinguals' fast mapping and word retention were found in English and across-language relationships between their fast mapping and word retention performance in English and Cantonese. Similarly, bilinguals differed from monolinguals in the relationships among the word retention scores in three languages. Significant correlations were found among bilinguals' retention scores. However, no such correlations were found among monolinguals' retention scores. The overall findings suggest that bilinguals' language experience and language knowledge most likely contribute to how they learn and retain new words.

The time course of morphological processing during spoken word recognition in Chinese.

PubMed

Shen, Wei; Qu, Qingqing; Ni, Aiping; Zhou, Junyi; Li, Xingshan

2017-12-01

We investigated the time course of morphological processing during spoken word recognition using the printed-word paradigm. Chinese participants were asked to listen to a spoken disyllabic compound word while simultaneously viewing a printed-word display. Each visual display consisted of three printed words: a semantic associate of the first constituent of the compound word (morphemic competitor), a semantic associate of the whole compound word (whole-word competitor), and an unrelated word (distractor). Participants were directed to detect whether the spoken target word was on the visual display. Results indicated that both the morphemic and whole-word competitors attracted more fixations than the distractor. More importantly, the morphemic competitor began to diverge from the distractor immediately at the acoustic offset of the first constituent, which was earlier than the whole-word competitor. These results suggest that lexical access to the auditory word is incremental and morphological processing (i.e., semantic access to the first constituent) that occurs at an early processing stage before access to the representation of the whole word in Chinese.

Perception of Canadian-French Word-Final Vowels in Lexical and Morphosyntactic Minimal Pairs by Canadian English Learners of French

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Law, Franzo II

2011-01-01

This study investigated the perception of Canadian French word-final vowels by English-dominant and French-dominant bilinguals living in Montreal. In a modified identification task, listeners selected the response that rhymed with the target word, embedded in a carrier sentence. Minimal sets of real and nonsense target words were used, contrasting…

Therapist activities preceding setbacks in the assimilation process.

PubMed

Gabalda, Isabel Caro; Stiles, William B; Pérez Ruiz, Sergio

2016-11-01

This study examined the therapist activities immediately preceding assimilation setbacks in the treatment of a good-outcome client treated with linguistic therapy of evaluation (LTE). Setbacks (N = 105) were defined as decreases of one or more assimilation stages from one passage to the next dealing with the same theme. The therapist activities immediately preceding those setbacks were classified using two kinds of codes: (a) therapist interventions and (b) positions the therapist took toward the client's internal voices. Preceding setbacks to early assimilation stages, where the problem was unformulated, the therapist was more often actively listening, and the setbacks were more often attributable to pushing a theme beyond the client's working zone. Preceding setbacks to later assimilation stages, where the problem was at least formulated, the therapist was more likely to be directing clients to consider alternatives, following the LTE agenda, and setbacks were more often attributable to the client following these directives shifting attention to less assimilated (but nevertheless formulated) aspects of the problem. At least in this case, setbacks followed systematically different therapist activities depending on the problem's stage of assimilation. Possible implications for the assimilation model's account of setbacks and for practice are discussed.

The word-length effect and disyllabic words.

PubMed

Lovatt, P; Avons, S E; Masterson, J

2000-02-01

Three experiments compared immediate serial recall of disyllabic words that differed on spoken duration. Two sets of long- and short-duration words were selected, in each case maximizing duration differences but matching for frequency, familiarity, phonological similarity, and number of phonemes, and controlling for semantic associations. Serial recall measures were obtained using auditory and visual presentation and spoken and picture-pointing recall. In Experiments 1a and 1b, using the first set of items, long words were better recalled than short words. In Experiments 2a and 2b, using the second set of items, no difference was found between long and short disyllabic words. Experiment 3 confirmed the large advantage for short-duration words in the word set originally selected by Baddeley, Thomson, and Buchanan (1975). These findings suggest that there is no reliable advantage for short-duration disyllables in span tasks, and that previous accounts of a word-length effect in disyllables are based on accidental differences between list items. The failure to find an effect of word duration casts doubt on theories that propose that the capacity of memory span is determined by the duration of list items or the decay rate of phonological information in short-term memory.

Semantic transparency in free stems: The effect of Orthography-Semantics Consistency on word recognition.

PubMed

Marelli, Marco; Amenta, Simona; Crepaldi, Davide

2015-01-01

A largely overlooked side effect in most studies of morphological priming is a consistent main effect of semantic transparency across priming conditions. That is, participants are faster at recognizing stems from transparent sets (e.g., farm) in comparison to stems from opaque sets (e.g., fruit), regardless of the preceding primes. This suggests that semantic transparency may also be consistently associated with some property of the stem word. We propose that this property might be traced back to the consistency, throughout the lexicon, between the orthographic form of a word and its meaning, here named Orthography-Semantics Consistency (OSC), and that an imbalance in OSC scores might explain the "stem transparency" effect. We exploited distributional semantic models to quantitatively characterize OSC, and tested its effect on visual word identification relying on large-scale data taken from the British Lexicon Project (BLP). Results indicated that (a) the "stem transparency" effect is solid and reliable, insofar as it holds in BLP lexical decision times (Experiment 1); (b) an imbalance in terms of OSC can account for it (Experiment 2); and (c) more generally, OSC explains variance in a large item sample from the BLP, proving to be an effective predictor in visual word access (Experiment 3).

8 CFR 1103.3 - Denials, appeals, and precedent decisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... types of cases may be appealed. Decisions under the appellate jurisdiction of the Board of Immigration... 8 Aliens and Nationality 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Denials, appeals, and precedent decisions... JUSTICE IMMIGRATION REGULATIONS APPEALS, RECORDS, AND FEES § 1103.3 Denials, appeals, and precedent...

Do handwritten words magnify lexical effects in visual word recognition?

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Gil-López, Cristina; Beléndez, Victoria; Carreiras, Manuel

2016-01-01

An examination of how the word recognition system is able to process handwritten words is fundamental to formulate a comprehensive model of visual word recognition. Previous research has revealed that the magnitude of lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) is greater with handwritten words than with printed words. In the present lexical decision experiments, we examined whether the quality of handwritten words moderates the recruitment of top-down feedback, as reflected in word-frequency effects. Results showed a reading cost for difficult-to-read and easy-to-read handwritten words relative to printed words. But the critical finding was that difficult-to-read handwritten words, but not easy-to-read handwritten words, showed a greater word-frequency effect than printed words. Therefore, the inherent physical variability of handwritten words does not necessarily boost the magnitude of lexical effects.

Estimating affective word covariates using word association data.

PubMed

Van Rensbergen, Bram; De Deyne, Simon; Storms, Gert

2016-12-01

Word ratings on affective dimensions are an important tool in psycholinguistic research. Traditionally, they are obtained by asking participants to rate words on each dimension, a time-consuming procedure. As such, there has been some interest in computationally generating norms, by extrapolating words' affective ratings using their semantic similarity to words for which these values are already known. So far, most attempts have derived similarity from word co-occurrence in text corpora. In the current paper, we obtain similarity from word association data. We use these similarity ratings to predict the valence, arousal, and dominance of 14,000 Dutch words with the help of two extrapolation methods: Orientation towards Paradigm Words and k-Nearest Neighbors. The resulting estimates show very high correlations with human ratings when using Orientation towards Paradigm Words, and even higher correlations when using k-Nearest Neighbors. We discuss possible theoretical accounts of our results and compare our findings with previous attempts at computationally generating affective norms.

Decision Preceding Negativity in the Iowa Gambling Task: An ERP study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bianchin, Marta; Angrilli, Alessandro

2011-01-01

The present study aimed to investigate the slow negative potential (termed Decision Preceding Negativity, DPN, from the family of the Readiness Potential) which precedes a willed risky decision. To this end, evoked potentials preceding and following an economic choice were measured in a sample of 16 male students during the Iowa Gambling Task…

Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Petersen, Alexander M.; Tenenbaum, Joel; Havlin, Shlomo; Stanley, H. Eugene

2012-03-01

We analyze the dynamic properties of 107 words recorded in English, Spanish and Hebrew over the period 1800-2008 in order to gain insight into the coevolution of language and culture. We report language independent patterns useful as benchmarks for theoretical models of language evolution. A significantly decreasing (increasing) trend in the birth (death) rate of words indicates a recent shift in the selection laws governing word use. For new words, we observe a peak in the growth-rate fluctuations around 40 years after introduction, consistent with the typical entry time into standard dictionaries and the human generational timescale. Pronounced changes in the dynamics of language during periods of war shows that word correlations, occurring across time and between words, are largely influenced by coevolutionary social, technological, and political factors. We quantify cultural memory by analyzing the long-term correlations in the use of individual words using detrended fluctuation analysis.

The Effects of Word Frequency and Context Variability in Cued Recall

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Criss, Amy H.; Aue, William R.; Smith, Larissa

2011-01-01

Normative word frequency and context variability affect memory in a range of episodic memory tasks and place constraints on theoretical development. In four experiments, we independently manipulated the word frequency and context variability of the targets (to-be-generated items) and cues in a cued recall paradigm. We found that high frequency…

Categorizing Words Using "Frequent Frames": What Cross-Linguistic Analyses Reveal about Distributional Acquisition Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chemla, Emmanuel; Mintz, Toben H.; Bernal, Savita; Christophe, Anne

2009-01-01

Mintz (2003 ) described a distributional environment called a frame, defined as the co-occurrence of two context words with one intervening target word. Analyses of English child-directed speech showed that words that fell within any frequently occurring frame consistently belonged to the same grammatical category (e.g. noun, verb, adjective,…

Retention of New Words: Quantity of Encounters, Quality of Task, and Degree of Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laufer, Batia; Rozovski-Roitblat, Bella

2015-01-01

We examined how learning new second language (L2) words was affected by three "task type" conditions (reading only, reading with a dictionary, reading and word focused exercises), three "number of encounters" conditions and their combinations. Three groups of L2 learners (n = 185) were exposed to 30 target words (one group in…

8 CFR 103.3 - Denials, appeals, and precedent decisions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 8 Aliens and Nationality 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Denials, appeals, and precedent decisions... POWERS AND DUTIES; AVAILABILITY OF RECORDS § 103.3 Denials, appeals, and precedent decisions. (a) Denials and appeals—(1) General—(i) Denial of application or petition. When a Service officer denies an...

An improved car-following model with two preceding cars' average speed

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yu, Shao-Wei; Shi, Zhong-Ke

2015-01-01

To better describe cooperative car-following behaviors under intelligent transportation circumstances and increase roadway traffic mobility, the data of three successive following cars at a signalized intersection of Jinan in China were obtained and employed to explore the linkage between two preceding cars' average speed and car-following behaviors. The results indicate that two preceding cars' average velocity has significant effects on the following car's motion. Then an improved car-following model considering two preceding cars' average velocity was proposed and calibrated based on full velocity difference model and some numerical simulations were carried out to study how two preceding cars' average speed affected the starting process and the traffic flow evolution process with an initial small disturbance, the results indicate that the improved car-following model can qualitatively describe the impacts of two preceding cars' average velocity on traffic flow and that taking two preceding cars' average velocity into account in designing the control strategy for the cooperative adaptive cruise control system can improve the stability of traffic flow, suppress the appearance of traffic jams and increase the capacity of signalized intersections.

Differences in word associations to pictures and words.

PubMed

Saffran, Eleanor M; Coslett, H Branch; Keener, Matthew T

2003-01-01

Normal subjects were asked to produce the "first word that comes to mind" in response to pictures or words that differed with respect to manipulability and animacy. In separate analyses across subjects and items, normal subjects produced a significantly higher proportion of action words (that is, verbs) to pictures as compared to words, to manipulable as compared to non-manipulable stimuli and to inanimate as compared to animate stimuli. The largest proportion of action words was elicited by pictures of non-living, manipulable objects. Furthermore, associates to words matched standard word associates significantly more often than those elicited by pictures. These data suggest that pictures and words initially contact different forms of conceptual information and are consistent with an account of semantic organization that assumes that information is distributed across different domains reflecting the mode of acquisition of that knowledge.

Impact of Diglossia on Word and Non-word Repetition among Language Impaired and Typically Developing Arabic Native Speaking Children.

PubMed

Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor; Ghawi-Dakwar, Ola

2017-01-01

The study tested the impact of the phonological and lexical distance between a dialect of Palestinian Arabic spoken in the north of Israel (SpA) and Modern Standard Arabic (StA or MSA) on word and non-word repetition in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and in typically developing (TD) age-matched controls. Fifty kindergarten children (25 SLI, 25 TD; mean age 5;5) and fifty first grade children (25 SLI, 25 TD; mean age 6:11) were tested with a repetition task for 1-4 syllable long real words and pseudo words; Items varied systematically in whether each encoded a novel StA phoneme or not, namely a phoneme that is only used in StA but not in the spoken dialect targeted. Real words also varied in whether they were lexically novel, meaning whether the word is used only in StA, but not in SpA. SLI children were found to significantly underperform TD children on all repetition tasks indicating a general phonological memory deficit. More interesting for the current investigation is the observed strong and consistent effect of phonological novelty on word and non-word repetition in SLI and TD children, with a stronger effect observed in SLI. In contrast with phonological novelty, the effect of lexical novelty on word repetition was limited and it did not interact with group. The results are argued to reflect the role of linguistic distance in phonological memory for novel linguistic units in Arabic SLI and, hence, to support a specific Linguistic Distance Hypothesis of SLI in a diglossic setting. The implications of the findings for assessment, diagnosis and intervention with Arabic speaking children with SLI are discussed.

Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death

PubMed Central

Petersen, Alexander M.; Tenenbaum, Joel; Havlin, Shlomo; Stanley, H. Eugene

2012-01-01

We analyze the dynamic properties of 107 words recorded in English, Spanish and Hebrew over the period 1800–2008 in order to gain insight into the coevolution of language and culture. We report language independent patterns useful as benchmarks for theoretical models of language evolution. A significantly decreasing (increasing) trend in the birth (death) rate of words indicates a recent shift in the selection laws governing word use. For new words, we observe a peak in the growth-rate fluctuations around 40 years after introduction, consistent with the typical entry time into standard dictionaries and the human generational timescale. Pronounced changes in the dynamics of language during periods of war shows that word correlations, occurring across time and between words, are largely influenced by coevolutionary social, technological, and political factors. We quantify cultural memory by analyzing the long-term correlations in the use of individual words using detrended fluctuation analysis. PMID:22423321

Attention blinks for selection, not perception or memory: reading sentences and reporting targets.

PubMed

Potter, Mary C; Wyble, Brad; Olejarczyk, Jennifer

2011-12-01

In whole report, a sentence presented sequentially at the rate of about 10 words/s can be recalled accurately, whereas if the task is to report only two target words (e.g., red words), the second target suffers an attentional blink if it appears shortly after the first target. If these two tasks are carried out simultaneously, is there an attentional blink, and does it affect both tasks? Here, sentence report was combined with report of two target words (Experiments 1 and 2) or two inserted target digits, Arabic numerals or word digits (Experiments 3 and 4). When participants reported only the targets an attentional blink was always observed. When they reported both the sentence and targets, sentence report was quite accurate but there was an attentional blink in picking out the targets when they were part of the sentence. When targets were extra digits inserted in the sentence there was no blink when viewers also reported the sentence. These results challenge some theories of the attentional blink: Blinks result from online selection, not perception or memory.

A Few Words about Words | Poster

Cancer.gov

By Ken Michaels, Guest Writer In Shakepeare’s play “Hamlet,” Polonius inquires of the prince, “What do you read, my lord?” Not at all pleased with what he’s reading, Hamlet replies, “Words, words, words.”1 I have previously described the communication model in which a sender encodes a message and then sends it via some channel (or medium) to a receiver, who decodes the message and, ideally, understands what was sent. Surely the most common way of encoding a message is in choosing the most appropriate words for the listener or reader.

Napping facilitates word learning in early lexical development.

PubMed

Horváth, Klára; Myers, Kyle; Foster, Russell; Plunkett, Kim

2015-10-01

Little is known about the role that night-time sleep and daytime naps play in early cognitive development. Our aim was to investigate how napping affects word learning in 16-month-olds. Thirty-four typically developing infants were assigned randomly to nap and wake groups. After teaching two novel object-word pairs to infants, we tested their initial performance with an intermodal preferential looking task in which infants are expected to increase their target looking time compared to a distracter after hearing its auditory label. A second test session followed after approximately a 2-h delay. The delay contained sleep for the nap group or no sleep for the wake group. Looking behaviour was measured with an automatic eye-tracker. Vocabulary size was assessed using the Oxford Communicative Development Inventory. A significant interaction between group and session was found in preferential looking towards the target picture. The performance of the nap group increased after the nap, whereas that of the wake group did not change. The gain in performance correlated positively with the expressive vocabulary size in the nap group. These results indicate that daytime napping helps consolidate word learning in infancy. © 2015 European Sleep Research Society.

Bilingual and Monolingual Idiom Processing Is Cut from the Same Cloth: The Role of the L1 in Literal and Figurative Meaning Activation

PubMed Central

Beck, Sara D.; Weber, Andrea

2016-01-01

The present study examines non-native (L2) and native (L1) listeners' access to figurative idiomatic meaning and literal constituent meaning in two cross-modal priming experiments. Proficient German learners of English (L2) and native speakers of American English (L1) responded to English target words preceded by English idioms embedded in non-biasing prime sentences in a lexical decision task. English idioms differed in levels of translatability: Lexical level idioms had word-for-word translation equivalents in German, while post-lexical level idioms had matching idiomatic concepts in German but could not be translated word for word. Target words either related to the figurative meaning of the idiom or related to the literal meaning of the final constituent word of the idiom (e.g., to pull someone's leg, literal target: walk, figurative target: joke). Both L1 and L2 listeners showed facilitatory priming for literally- and figuratively-related target words compared to unrelated control target words, with only marginal differences between the listener groups. No effect of translatability was found; that is, the existence of word-for-word translation equivalents in German neither facilitated nor hindered meaning activation for German L2 listeners. The results are interpreted in the context of L1 and L2 models of idiom processing as well as further relevant translation studies. PMID:27667979

Bilingual and Monolingual Idiom Processing Is Cut from the Same Cloth: The Role of the L1 in Literal and Figurative Meaning Activation.

PubMed

Beck, Sara D; Weber, Andrea

2016-01-01

The present study examines non-native (L2) and native (L1) listeners' access to figurative idiomatic meaning and literal constituent meaning in two cross-modal priming experiments. Proficient German learners of English (L2) and native speakers of American English (L1) responded to English target words preceded by English idioms embedded in non-biasing prime sentences in a lexical decision task. English idioms differed in levels of translatability: Lexical level idioms had word-for-word translation equivalents in German, while post-lexical level idioms had matching idiomatic concepts in German but could not be translated word for word. Target words either related to the figurative meaning of the idiom or related to the literal meaning of the final constituent word of the idiom (e.g., to pull someone's leg, literal target: walk, figurative target: joke). Both L1 and L2 listeners showed facilitatory priming for literally- and figuratively-related target words compared to unrelated control target words, with only marginal differences between the listener groups. No effect of translatability was found; that is, the existence of word-for-word translation equivalents in German neither facilitated nor hindered meaning activation for German L2 listeners. The results are interpreted in the context of L1 and L2 models of idiom processing as well as further relevant translation studies.

Is There a Vertical Component to Saccade Targeting in Chinese Reading?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zang, Chuanli; Meng, Hongxia; Liang, Feifei; Bai, Xuejun; Yan, Guoli

2013-01-01

In this study, we examined whether Chinese character structure influenced readers' saccadic targeting in Chinese reading. Readers' eye movements were recorded when they read single sentences containing one-character or two-character target words. Both the one-character words and the two constituent characters of two-character words either had a…

Affective Priming in a Lexical Decision Task: Is There an Effect of Words' Concreteness?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferré, Pilar; Sánchez-Casas, Rosa

2014-01-01

Affective priming occurs when responses to a target are facilitated when it is preceded by a prime congruent in valence. We conducted two experiments in order to test whether this is a genuine emotional effect or rather it can be accounted for by semantic relatedness between primes and targets. With this aim, semantic relatedness and emotional…

Classification of Word Levels with Usage Frequency, Expert Opinions and Machine Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sohsah, Gihad N.; Ünal, Muhammed Esad; Güzey, Onur

2015-01-01

Educational applications for language teaching can utilize the language levels of words to target proficiency levels of students. This paper and the accompanying data provide a methodology for making educational standard-aligned language-level predictions for all English words. The methodology involves expert opinions on language levels and…

Effects of aging and text-stimulus quality on the word-frequency effect during Chinese reading.

PubMed

Wang, Jingxin; Li, Lin; Li, Sha; Xie, Fang; Liversedge, Simon P; Paterson, Kevin B

2018-06-01

Age-related reading difficulty is well established for alphabetic languages. Compared to young adults (18-30 years), older adults (65+ years) read more slowly, make more and longer fixations, make more regressions, and produce larger word-frequency effects. However, whether similar effects are observed for nonalphabetic languages like Chinese remains to be determined. In particular, recent research has suggested Chinese readers experience age-related reading difficulty but do not produce age differences in the word-frequency effect. This might represent an important qualitative difference in aging effects, so we investigated this further by presenting young and older adult Chinese readers with sentences that included high- or low-frequency target words. Additionally, to test theories that suggest reductions in text-stimulus quality differentially affect lexical processing by adult age groups, we presented either the target words (Experiment 1) or all characters in sentences (Experiment 2) normally or with stimulus quality reduced. Analyses based on mean eye-movement parameters and distributional analyses of fixation times for target words showed typical age-related reading difficulty. We also observed age differences in the word-frequency effect, predominantly in the tails of fixation-time distributions, consistent with an aging effect on the processing of high- and low-frequency words. Reducing stimulus quality disrupted eye movements more for the older readers, but the influence of stimulus quality on the word-frequency effect did not differ across age groups. This suggests Chinese older readers' lexical processing is resilient to reductions in stimulus quality, perhaps due to greater experience recognizing words from impoverished visual input. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Spoken Words. Technical Report No. 177.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hall, William S.; And Others

The word frequency lists presented in this publication were compiled to create a database for further research into vocabulary use, especially the variation in vocabulary due to differences in situation and social group membership. Taken from the natural conversations of 40 target children (four and a half to five years old) with their families,…

Reading sentences of uniform word length - II: Very rapid adaptation of the preferred saccade length.

PubMed

Cutter, Michael G; Drieghe, Denis; Liversedge, Simon P

2018-04-25

In the current study we investigated whether readers adjust their preferred saccade length (PSL) during reading on a trial-by-trial basis. The PSL refers to the distance between a saccade launch site and saccade target (i.e., the word center during reading) when participants neither undershoot nor overshoot this target (McConkie, Kerr, Reddix, & Zola in Vision Research, 28, 1107-1118, 1988). The tendency for saccades longer or shorter than the PSL to under or overshoot their target is referred to as the range error. Recent research by Cutter, Drieghe, and Liversedge (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2017) has shown that the PSL changes to be shorter when readers are presented with 30 consecutive sentences exclusively made of three-letter words, and longer when presented with 30 consecutive sentences exclusively made of five-letter words. We replicated and extended this work by this time presenting participants with these uniform sentences in an unblocked design. We found that adaptation still occurred across different sentence types despite participants only having one trial to adapt. Our analyses suggested that this effect was driven by the length of the words readers were making saccades away from, rather than the length of the words in the rest of the sentence. We propose an account of the range error in which readers use parafoveal word length information to estimate the length of a saccade between the center of two parafoveal words (termed the Centre-Based Saccade Length) prior to landing on the first of these words.

The time-course of the cross-modal semantic modulation of visual picture processing by naturalistic sounds and spoken words.

PubMed

Chen, Yi-Chuan; Spence, Charles

2013-01-01

The time-course of cross-modal semantic interactions between pictures and either naturalistic sounds or spoken words was compared. Participants performed a speeded picture categorization task while hearing a task-irrelevant auditory stimulus presented at various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) with respect to the visual picture. Both naturalistic sounds and spoken words gave rise to cross-modal semantic congruency effects (i.e., facilitation by semantically congruent sounds and inhibition by semantically incongruent sounds, as compared to a baseline noise condition) when the onset of the sound led that of the picture by 240 ms or more. Both naturalistic sounds and spoken words also gave rise to inhibition irrespective of their semantic congruency when presented within 106 ms of the onset of the picture. The peak of this cross-modal inhibitory effect occurred earlier for spoken words than for naturalistic sounds. These results therefore demonstrate that the semantic priming of visual picture categorization by auditory stimuli only occurs when the onset of the sound precedes that of the visual stimulus. The different time-courses observed for naturalistic sounds and spoken words likely reflect the different processing pathways to access the relevant semantic representations.

Automatic Semantic Activation of Embedded Words: Is There a ''Hat'' in ''That''

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bowers, J.S.; Davis, C.J.; Hanley, D.A.

2005-01-01

Participants semantically categorized target words that contain subsets (Experiment 1; e.g., target=hatch, subset=hat) or that are parts of supersets (Experiment 2; e.g., target=bee, superset=beer). In both experiments, the targets were categorized in a congruent condition (in which the subset-superset was associated with the same response, e.g.,…

Looking and touching: What extant approaches reveal about the structure of early word knowledge

PubMed Central

Hendrickson, Kristi; Mitsven, Samantha; Poulin-Dubois, Diane; Zesiger, Pascal; Friend, Margaret

2014-01-01

The goal of the current study is to assess the temporal dynamics of vision and action to evaluate the underlying word representations that guide infants’ responses. Sixteen-month-old infants participated in a two-alternative forced-choice word-picture matching task. We conducted a moment-by-moment analysis of looking and reaching behaviors as they occurred in tandem to assess the speed with which a prompted word was processed (visual reaction time) as a function of the type of haptic response: Target, Distractor, or No Touch. Visual reaction times (visual RTs) were significantly slower during No Touches compared to Distractor and Target Touches, which were statistically indistinguishable. The finding that visual RTs were significantly faster during Distractor Touches compared to No Touches suggests that incorrect and absent haptic responses appear to index distinct knowledge states: incorrect responses are associated with partial knowledge whereas absent responses appear to reflect a true failure to map lexical items to their target referents. Further, we found that those children who were faster at processing words were also those children who exhibited better haptic performance. This research provides a methodological clarification on knowledge measured by the visual and haptic modalities and new evidence for a continuum of word knowledge in the second year of life. PMID:25444711

The Roles of Semantic and Phonological Information in Word Production: Evidence from Spanish-English Bilinguals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kennison, Shelia M.; Fernandez, Elaine C.; Bowers, J. Michael

2014-01-01

The research investigated the roles of semantic and phonological processing in word production. Spanish-English bilingual individuals produced English target words when cued with definitions that were also written in English. When the correct word was not produced, a secondary task was performed in which participants rated the ease of…

Word segmentation by alternating colors facilitates eye guidance in Chinese reading.

PubMed

Zhou, Wei; Wang, Aiping; Shu, Hua; Kliegl, Reinhold; Yan, Ming

2018-02-12

During sentence reading, low spatial frequency information afforded by spaces between words is the primary factor for eye guidance in spaced writing systems, whereas saccade generation for unspaced writing systems is less clear and under debate. In the present study, we investigated whether word-boundary information, provided by alternating colors (consistent or inconsistent with word-boundary information) influences saccade-target selection in Chinese. In Experiment 1, as compared to a baseline (i.e., uniform color) condition, word segmentation with alternating color shifted fixation location towards the center of words. In contrast, incorrect word segmentation shifted fixation location towards the beginning of words. In Experiment 2, we used a gaze-contingent paradigm to restrict the color manipulation only to the upcoming parafoveal words and replicated the results, including fixation location effects, as observed in Experiment 1. These results indicate that Chinese readers are capable of making use of parafoveal word-boundary knowledge for saccade generation, even if such information is unfamiliar to them. The present study provides novel support for the hypothesis that word segmentation is involved in the decision about where to fixate next during Chinese reading.

Impact of Diglossia on Word and Non-word Repetition among Language Impaired and Typically Developing Arabic Native Speaking Children

PubMed Central

Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor; Ghawi-Dakwar, Ola

2017-01-01

The study tested the impact of the phonological and lexical distance between a dialect of Palestinian Arabic spoken in the north of Israel (SpA) and Modern Standard Arabic (StA or MSA) on word and non-word repetition in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and in typically developing (TD) age-matched controls. Fifty kindergarten children (25 SLI, 25 TD; mean age 5;5) and fifty first grade children (25 SLI, 25 TD; mean age 6:11) were tested with a repetition task for 1–4 syllable long real words and pseudo words; Items varied systematically in whether each encoded a novel StA phoneme or not, namely a phoneme that is only used in StA but not in the spoken dialect targeted. Real words also varied in whether they were lexically novel, meaning whether the word is used only in StA, but not in SpA. SLI children were found to significantly underperform TD children on all repetition tasks indicating a general phonological memory deficit. More interesting for the current investigation is the observed strong and consistent effect of phonological novelty on word and non-word repetition in SLI and TD children, with a stronger effect observed in SLI. In contrast with phonological novelty, the effect of lexical novelty on word repetition was limited and it did not interact with group. The results are argued to reflect the role of linguistic distance in phonological memory for novel linguistic units in Arabic SLI and, hence, to support a specific Linguistic Distance Hypothesis of SLI in a diglossic setting. The implications of the findings for assessment, diagnosis and intervention with Arabic speaking children with SLI are discussed. PMID:29213248

Object-based attention in Chinese readers of Chinese words: beyond Gestalt principles.

PubMed

Li, Xingshan; Logan, Gordon D

2008-10-01

Most object-based attention studies use objects defined bottom-up by Gestalt principles. In the present study, we defined objects top-down, using Chinese words that were seen as objects by skilled readers of Chinese. Using a spatial cuing paradigm, we found that a target character was detected faster if it was in the same word as the cued character than if it was in a different word. Because there were no bottom-up factors that distinguished the words, these results showed that objects defined by subjects' knowledge--in this case, lexical information--can also constrain the deployment of attention.

Social interaction facilitates word learning in preverbal infants: Word-object mapping and word segmentation.

PubMed

Hakuno, Yoko; Omori, Takahide; Yamamoto, Jun-Ichi; Minagawa, Yasuyo

2017-08-01

In natural settings, infants learn spoken language with the aid of a caregiver who explicitly provides social signals. Although previous studies have demonstrated that young infants are sensitive to these signals that facilitate language development, the impact of real-life interactions on early word segmentation and word-object mapping remains elusive. We tested whether infants aged 5-6 months and 9-10 months could segment a word from continuous speech and acquire a word-object relation in an ecologically valid setting. In Experiment 1, infants were exposed to a live tutor, while in Experiment 2, another group of infants were exposed to a televised tutor. Results indicate that both younger and older infants were capable of segmenting a word and learning a word-object association only when the stimuli were derived from a live tutor in a natural manner, suggesting that real-life interaction enhances the learning of spoken words in preverbal infants. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Examining the Conditions of Using an On-Line Dictionary to Learn Words and Comprehend Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dilenschneider, Robert Francis

2018-01-01

This study investigated three look-up conditions for language learners to learn unknown target words and comprehend a reading passage when their attention is transferred away to an on-line dictionary. The research questions focused on how each look-up condition impacted the recall and recognition of word forms, word meanings, and passage…

Failure of the precedence effect with a noise-band vocoder

PubMed Central

Seeber, Bernhard U.; Hafter, Ervin R.

2011-01-01

The precedence effect (PE) describes the ability to localize a direct, leading sound correctly when its delayed copy (lag) is present, though not separately audible. The relative contribution of binaural cues in the temporal fine structure (TFS) of lead–lag signals was compared to that of interaural level differences (ILDs) and interaural time differences (ITDs) carried in the envelope. In a localization dominance paradigm participants indicated the spatial location of lead–lag stimuli processed with a binaural noise-band vocoder whose noise carriers introduced random TFS. The PE appeared for noise bursts of 10 ms duration, indicating dominance of envelope information. However, for three test words the PE often failed even at short lead–lag delays, producing two images, one toward the lead and one toward the lag. When interaural correlation in the carrier was increased, the images appeared more centered, but often remained split. Although previous studies suggest dominance of TFS cues, no image is lateralized in accord with the ITD in the TFS. An interpretation in the context of auditory scene analysis is proposed: By replacing the TFS with that of noise the auditory system loses the ability to fuse lead and lag into one object, and thus to show the PE. PMID:21428515

The Influence of Concreteness of Concepts on the Integration of Novel Words into the Semantic Network

PubMed Central

Ding, Jinfeng; Liu, Wenjuan; Yang, Yufang

2017-01-01

On the basis of previous studies revealing a processing advantage of concrete words over abstract words, the current study aimed to further explore the influence of concreteness on the integration of novel words into semantic memory with the event related potential (ERP) technique. In the experiment during the learning phase participants read two-sentence contexts and inferred the meaning of novel words. The novel words were two-character non-words in Chinese language. Their meaning was either a concrete or abstract known concept which could be inferred from the contexts. During the testing phase participants performed a lexical decision task in which the learned novel words served as primes for either their corresponding concepts, semantically related or unrelated targets. For the concrete novel words, the semantically related words belonged to the same semantic categories with their corresponding concepts. For the abstract novel words, the semantically related words were synonyms of their corresponding concepts. The unrelated targets were real words which were concrete or abstract for the concrete or abstract novel words respectively. The ERP results showed that the corresponding concepts and the semantically related words elicited smaller N400s than the unrelated words. The N400 effect was not modulated by the concreteness of the concepts. In addition, the concrete corresponding concepts elicited a smaller late positive component (LPC) than the concrete unrelated words. This LPC effect was absent for the abstract words. The results indicate that although both concrete and abstract novel words can be acquired and linked to their related words in the semantic network after a short learning phase, the concrete novel words are learned better. Our findings support the (extended) dual coding theory and broaden our understanding of adult word learning and changes in concept organization. PMID:29255440

The Influence of Concreteness of Concepts on the Integration of Novel Words into the Semantic Network.

PubMed

Ding, Jinfeng; Liu, Wenjuan; Yang, Yufang

2017-01-01

On the basis of previous studies revealing a processing advantage of concrete words over abstract words, the current study aimed to further explore the influence of concreteness on the integration of novel words into semantic memory with the event related potential (ERP) technique. In the experiment during the learning phase participants read two-sentence contexts and inferred the meaning of novel words. The novel words were two-character non-words in Chinese language. Their meaning was either a concrete or abstract known concept which could be inferred from the contexts. During the testing phase participants performed a lexical decision task in which the learned novel words served as primes for either their corresponding concepts, semantically related or unrelated targets. For the concrete novel words, the semantically related words belonged to the same semantic categories with their corresponding concepts. For the abstract novel words, the semantically related words were synonyms of their corresponding concepts. The unrelated targets were real words which were concrete or abstract for the concrete or abstract novel words respectively. The ERP results showed that the corresponding concepts and the semantically related words elicited smaller N400s than the unrelated words. The N400 effect was not modulated by the concreteness of the concepts. In addition, the concrete corresponding concepts elicited a smaller late positive component (LPC) than the concrete unrelated words. This LPC effect was absent for the abstract words. The results indicate that although both concrete and abstract novel words can be acquired and linked to their related words in the semantic network after a short learning phase, the concrete novel words are learned better. Our findings support the (extended) dual coding theory and broaden our understanding of adult word learning and changes in concept organization.

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

PubMed

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

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

Reading without words or target detection? A re-analysis and replication fMRI study of the Landolt paradigm.

PubMed

Heim, Stefan; von Tongeln, Franziska; Hillen, Rebekka; Horbach, Josefine; Radach, Ralph; Günther, Thomas

2018-06-19

The Landolt paradigm is a visual scanning task intended to evoke reading-like eye-movements in the absence of orthographic or lexical information, thus allowing the dissociation of (sub-) lexical vs. visual processing. To that end, all letters in real word sentences are exchanged for closed Landolt rings, with 0, 1, or 2 open Landolt rings as targets in each Landolt sentence. A preliminary fMRI block-design study (Hillen et al. in Front Hum Neurosci 7:1-14, 2013) demonstrated that the Landolt paradigm has a special neural signature, recruiting the right IPS and SPL as part of the endogenous attention network. However, in that analysis, the brain responses to target detection could not be separated from those involved in processing Landolt stimuli without targets. The present study presents two fMRI experiments testing the question whether targets or the Landolt stimuli per se, led to the right IPS/SPL activation. Experiment 1 was an event-related re-analysis of the Hillen et al. (Front Hum Neurosci 7:1-14, 2013) data. Experiment 2 was a replication study with a new sample and identical procedures. In both experiments, the right IPS/SPL were recruited in the Landolt condition as compared to orthographic stimuli even in the absence of any target in the stimulus, indicating that the properties of the Landolt task itself trigger this right parietal activation. These findings are discussed against the background of behavioural and neuroimaging studies of healthy reading as well as developmental and acquired dyslexia. Consequently, this neuroimaging evidence might encourage the use of the Landolt paradigm also in the context of examining reading disorders, as it taps into the orientation of visual attention during reading-like scanning of stimuli without interfering sub-lexical information.

Attention Blinks for Selection, Not Perception or Memory: Reading Sentences and Reporting Targets

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Potter, Mary C.; Wyble, Brad; Olejarczyk, Jennifer

2011-01-01

In whole report, a sentence presented sequentially at the rate of about 10 words/s can be recalled accurately, whereas if the task is to report only two target words (e.g., red words), the second target suffers an attentional blink if it appears shortly after the first target. If these two tasks are carried out simultaneously, is there an…

When Less is More: Feedback, Priming, and the Pseudoword Superiority Effect

PubMed Central

Massol, Stéphanie; Midgley, Katherine J.; Holcomb, Phillip J.; Grainger, Jonathan

2011-01-01

The present study combined masked priming with electrophysiological recordings to investigate orthographic priming effects with nonword targets. Targets were pronounceable nonwords (e.g., STRENG) or consonant strings (e.g., STRBNG), that both differed from a real word by a single letter substitution (STRONG). Targets were preceded by related primes that could be the same as the target (e.g., streng – STRENG, strbng-STRBNG) or the real word neighbor of the target (e.g., strong – STRENG, strong-STRBNG). Independently of priming, pronounceable nonwords were associated with larger negativities than consonant strings, starting at 290 ms post-target onset. Overall, priming effects were stronger and more long-lasting with pronounceable nonwords than consonant strings. However, consonant string targets showed an early effect of word neighbor priming in the absence of an effect of repetition priming, whereas pronounceable nonwords showed both repetition and word neighbor priming effects in the same time window. This pattern of priming effects is taken as evidence for feedback from whole-word orthographic representations activated by the prime stimulus that influences bottom-up processing of prelexical representations during target processing. PMID:21354110

Task-specific Aspects of Goal-directed Word Generation Identified via Simultaneous EEG-fMRI.

PubMed

Shapira-Lichter, Irit; Klovatch, Ilana; Nathan, Dana; Oren, Noga; Hendler, Talma

2016-09-01

Generating words according to a given rule relies on retrieval-related search and postretrieval control processes. Using fMRI, we recently characterized neural patterns of word generation in response to episodic, semantic, and phonemic cues by comparing free recall of wordlists, category fluency, and letter fluency [Shapira-Lichter, I., Oren, N., Jacob, Y., Gruberger, M., & Hendler, T. Portraying the unique contribution of the default mode network to internally driven mnemonic processes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 110, 4950-4955, 2013]. Distinct selectivity for each condition was evident, representing discrete aspects of word generation-related memory retrieval. For example, the precuneus, implicated in processing spatiotemporal information, emerged as a key contributor to the episodic condition, which uniquely requires this information. Gamma band is known to play a central role in memory, and increased gamma power has been observed before word generation. Yet, gamma modulation in response to task demands has not been investigated. To capture the task-specific modulation of gamma power, we analyzed the EEG data recorded simultaneously with the aforementioned fMRI, focusing on the activity locked to and immediately preceding word articulation. Transient increases in gamma power were identified in a parietal electrode immediately before episodic and semantic word generation, however, within a different time frame relative to articulation. Gamma increases were followed by an alpha-theta decrease in the episodic condition, a gamma decrease in the semantic condition. This pattern indicates a task-specific modulation of the gamma signal corresponding to the specific demands of each word generation task. The gamma power and fMRI signal from the precuneus were correlated during the episodic condition, implying the existence of a common cognitive construct uniquely required for this task, possibly the reactivation or processing of

A Few Words about Words | Poster

Cancer.gov

By Ken Michaels, Guest Writer In Shakepeare’s play “Hamlet,” Polonius inquires of the prince, “What do you read, my lord?” Not at all pleased with what he’s reading, Hamlet replies, “Words, words, words.”1 I have previously described the communication model in which a sender encodes a message and then sends it via some channel (or medium) to a receiver, who decodes the message

Tracing the time course of picture--word processing.

PubMed

Smith, M C; Magee, L E

1980-12-01

A number of independent lines of research have suggested that semantic and articulatory information become available differentially from pictures and words. The first of the experiments reported here sought to clarify the time course by which information about pictures and words becomes available by considering the pattern of interference generated when incongruent pictures and words are presented simultaneously in a Stroop-like situation. Previous investigators report that picture naming is easily disrupted by the presence of a distracting word but that word naming is relatively immune to interference from an incongruent picture. Under the assumption that information available from a completed process may disrupt an ongoing process, these results suggest that words access articulatory information more rapidly than do pictures. Experiment 1 extended this paradigm by requiring subjects to verify the category of the target stimulus. In accordance with the hypothesis that picture access the semantic code more rapidly than words, there was a reversal in the interference pattern: Word categorization suffered considerable disruption, whereas picture categorization was minimally affected by the presence of an incongruent word. Experiment 2 sought to further test the hypothesis that access to semantic and articulatory codes is different for pictures and words by examining memory for those items following naming or categorization. Categorized words were better recognized than named words, whereas the reverse was true for pictures, a result which suggests that picture naming involves more extensive processing than picture categorization. Experiment 3 replicated this result under conditions in which viewing time was held constant. The last experiment extended the investigation of memory differences to a situation in which subjects were required to generate the superordinate category name. Here, memory for categorized pictures was as good as memory for named pictures. Category

An auditory cue-depreciation effect.

PubMed

Gibson, J M; Watkins, M J

1991-01-01

An experiment is reported in which subjects first heard a list of words and then tried to identify these same words from degraded utterances. Paralleling previous findings in the visual modality, the probability of identifying a given utterance was reduced when the utterance was immediately preceded by other, more degraded, utterances of the same word. A second experiment replicated this "cue-depreciation effect" and in addition found the effect to be weakened, if not eliminated, when the target word was not included in the initial list or when the test was delayed by two days.

Words and possible words in early language acquisition.

PubMed

Marchetto, Erika; Bonatti, Luca L

2013-11-01

In order to acquire language, infants must extract its building blocks-words-and master the rules governing their legal combinations from speech. These two problems are not independent, however: words also have internal structure. Thus, infants must extract two kinds of information from the same speech input. They must find the actual words of their language. Furthermore, they must identify its possible words, that is, the sequences of sounds that, being morphologically well formed, could be words. Here, we show that infants' sensitivity to possible words appears to be more primitive and fundamental than their ability to find actual words. We expose 12- and 18-month-old infants to an artificial language containing a conflict between statistically coherent and structurally coherent items. We show that 18-month-olds can extract possible words when the familiarization stream contains marks of segmentation, but cannot do so when the stream is continuous. Yet, they can find actual words from a continuous stream by computing statistical relationships among syllables. By contrast, 12-month-olds can find possible words when familiarized with a segmented stream, but seem unable to extract statistically coherent items from a continuous stream that contains minimal conflicts between statistical and structural information. These results suggest that sensitivity to word structure is in place earlier than the ability to analyze distributional information. The ability to compute nontrivial statistical relationships becomes fully effective relatively late in development, when infants have already acquired a considerable amount of linguistic knowledge. Thus, mechanisms for structure extraction that do not rely on extensive sampling of the input are likely to have a much larger role in language acquisition than general-purpose statistical abilities. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Abstract Knowledge of Word Order by 19 Months: An Eye-Tracking Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Franck, Julie; Millotte, Severine; Posada, Andres; Rizzi, Luigi

2013-01-01

Word order is one of the earliest aspects of grammar that the child acquires, because her early utterances already respect the basic word order of the target language. However, the question of the nature of early syntactic representations is subject to debate. Approaches inspired by formal syntax assume that the head-complement order,…

Perceptual Units Training for Improving Word Analysis Skills. Technical Report No. 1.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weaver, Phyllis A.; And Others

A training program was devised to develop automaticity of one subcomponent of reading--locating and disembedding multiletter units within words. The system involved the use of a training task that was implemented in a microcomputer-based game that required students to detect whether a target unit was presented within words that were shown in rapid…

Possible-Word Constraints in Cantonese Speech Segmentation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yip, Michael C. W.

2004-01-01

A Cantonese syllable-spotting experiment was conducted to examine whether the Possible-Word Constraint (PWC), proposed by Norris, McQueen, Cutler, and Butterfield (1997), can apply in Cantonese speech segmentation. In the experiment, listeners were asked to spot out the target Cantonese syllable from a series of nonsense sound strings. Results…

The Role of Color in Search Templates for Real-world Target Objects.

PubMed

Nako, Rebecca; Smith, Tim J; Eimer, Martin

2016-11-01

During visual search, target representations (attentional templates) control the allocation of attention to template-matching objects. The activation of new attentional templates can be prompted by verbal or pictorial target specifications. We measured the N2pc component of the ERP as a temporal marker of attentional target selection to determine the role of color signals in search templates for real-world search target objects that are set up in response to word or picture cues. On each trial run, a word cue (e.g., "apple") was followed by three search displays that contained the cued target object among three distractors. The selection of the first target was based on the word cue only, whereas selection of the two subsequent targets could be controlled by templates set up after the first visual presentation of the target (picture cue). In different trial runs, search displays either contained objects in their natural colors or monochromatic objects. These two display types were presented in different blocks (Experiment 1) or in random order within each block (Experiment 2). RTs were faster, and target N2pc components emerged earlier for the second and third display of each trial run relative to the first display, demonstrating that pictures are more effective than word cues in guiding search. N2pc components were triggered more rapidly for targets in the second and third display in trial runs with colored displays. This demonstrates that when visual target attributes are fully specified by picture cues, the additional presence of color signals in target templates facilitates the speed with which attention is allocated to template-matching objects. No such selection benefits for colored targets were found when search templates were set up in response to word cues. Experiment 2 showed that color templates activated by word cues can even impair the attentional selection of noncolored targets. Results provide new insights into the status of color during the guidance

Beyond capacity limitations II: Effects of lexical processes on word recall in verbal working memory tasks in children with and without specific language impairment

PubMed Central

Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Evans, Julia L.; Coady, Jeffry

2010-01-01

Purpose This study investigated the impact of lexical processes on target word recall in sentence span tasks in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Method Participants were 42 children (ages 8;2–12;3), 21 with SLI and 21 typically developing peers matched on age and nonverbal IQ. Children completed a sentence span task where target words to be recalled varied in word frequency and neighborhood density. Two measures of lexical processes were examined, the number of non-target competitor words activated during a gating task (lexical cohort competition) and word definitions. Results Neighborhood density had no effect on word recall for either group. However, both groups recalled significantly more high than low frequency words. Lexical cohort competition and specificity of semantic representations accounted for unique variance in the number of target word recalled in the SLI and CA groups combined. Conclusions Performance on verbal working memory span tasks for both SLI and CA children is influenced by word frequency, lexical cohorts, and semantic representations. Future studies need to examine the extent to which verbal working memory capacity is a cognitive construct independent of extant language knowledge representations. PMID:20705747

Revisiting Precede-Proceed: A Leading Model for Ecological and Ethical Health Promotion

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Porter, Christine M.

2016-01-01

Background: The Precede-Proceed model has provided moral and practical guidance for the fields of health education and health promotion since Lawrence Green first developed Precede in 1974 and Green and Kreuter added Proceed in 1991. Precede-Proceed today remains the most comprehensive and one of the most used approaches to promoting health.…

Abstract conceptual feature ratings predict gaze within written word arrays: evidence from a Visual Wor(l)d paradigm

PubMed Central

Primativo, Silvia; Reilly, Jamie; Crutch, Sebastian J

2016-01-01

The Abstract Conceptual Feature (ACF) framework predicts that word meaning is represented within a high-dimensional semantic space bounded by weighted contributions of perceptual, affective, and encyclopedic information. The ACF, like latent semantic analysis, is amenable to distance metrics between any two words. We applied predictions of the ACF framework to abstract words using eye tracking via an adaptation of the classical ‘visual word paradigm’. Healthy adults (N=20) selected the lexical item most related to a probe word in a 4-item written word array comprising the target and three distractors. The relation between the probe and each of the four words was determined using the semantic distance metrics derived from ACF ratings. Eye-movement data indicated that the word that was most semantically related to the probe received more and longer fixations relative to distractors. Importantly, in sets where participants did not provide an overt behavioral response, the fixation rates were none the less significantly higher for targets than distractors, closely resembling trials where an expected response was given. Furthermore, ACF ratings which are based on individual words predicted eye fixation metrics of probe-target similarity at least as well as latent semantic analysis ratings which are based on word co-occurrence. The results provide further validation of Euclidean distance metrics derived from ACF ratings as a measure of one facet of the semantic relatedness of abstract words and suggest that they represent a reasonable approximation of the organization of abstract conceptual space. The data are also compatible with the broad notion that multiple sources of information (not restricted to sensorimotor and emotion information) shape the organization of abstract concepts. Whilst the adapted ‘visual word paradigm’ is potentially a more metacognitive task than the classical visual world paradigm, we argue that it offers potential utility for studying

Perceptual asymmetry during free viewing of words and faces: The effect of context on recognition.

PubMed

Vakil, Eli; Liberman, Hadas

2016-11-01

There is ample evidence supporting the dissociation between the role of the left and right cerebral hemispheres in processing words and faces, respectively. Nevertheless, research has not yet studied the effect of perceptual asymmetry in memory context effect tasks using words and faces. Thus, the present study researches the advantages of presenting information in the right versus left hemispace and the effect of context on recognition when using faces compared to words presented in the right versus left hemispace. Participants (n=60) were assigned either to the group presented with pairs of words, or with pairs of faces. One stimulus in each pair was designated as the target (i.e., to be remembered) and the other served as context (i.e., to be ignored). Half of the targets were presented in the right hemispace, and half were presented in the left hemispace. As predicted, words were better recognized when presented in the right hemispace, while faces were better remembered when presented in the left hemispace. The most interesting finding is the influence of context on lateralized processing of words and pictures. That is, only when words or faces were presented in the left hemispace did contextual information affect target memory (though it yielded a different pattern of effect). Hence, the findings of the present study may be interpreted either as reflecting attentional bias to the left hemispace or structural differences between the hemispheres. Thus, cognitive processes and the content of the stimuli determine which hemisphere will be involved in processing contextual information. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Distinct morphological processing of recently learned compound words: An ERP study.

PubMed

Kaczer, Laura; Timmer, Kalinka; Bavassi, Luz; Schiller, Niels O

2015-12-10

Our vocabulary is, at least in principle, infinite. We can create new words combining existing ones in meaningful ways to form new linguistic expressions. The present study investigated the morphological processing of novel compound words in overt speech production. Native speakers of Dutch learned a series of new compounds (e.g. appelgezicht, 'apple-face') that were later used as primes in a morphological priming task. In this protocol, primes were compound words morphologically related to a target's picture name (e.g. appelgezicht was used for a picture of an apple, Dutch appel). The novel primes were compared with corresponding familiar compounds sharing a free morpheme (e.g. appelmoes, 'applesauce') and with unrelated compounds. Participants were required to read aloud words and to name pictures in a long-lag design. Behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) data were collected in two sessions, separated by 48h. Clear facilitation of picture naming latencies was obtained when pictures were paired with morphological related words. Notably, our results show that novel compounds have a stronger priming effect than familiar compounds in both sessions, which is expressed in a marked reduction in target naming latencies and a decrease in the N400 amplitude. These results suggest that participants focused more on the separate constituents when reading novel primes than in the case of existing compounds. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Acquiring L2 Sentence Comprehension: A Longitudinal Study of Word Monitoring in Noise

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oliver, Georgina; Gullberg, Marianne; Hellwig, Frauke; Mitterer, Holger; Indefrey, Peter

2012-01-01

This study investigated the development of second language online auditory processing with ab initio German learners of Dutch. We assessed the influence of different levels of background noise and different levels of semantic and syntactic target word predictability on word-monitoring latencies. There was evidence of syntactic, but not…

The role of feedback and differences between good and poor decoders in a repeated word reading paradigm in first grade.

PubMed

van Gorp, Karly; Segers, Eliane; Verhoeven, Ludo

2017-04-01

The direct, retention, and transfer effects of repeated word and pseudoword reading were studied in a pretest, training, posttest, retention design. First graders (48 good readers, 47 poor readers) read 25 CVC words and 25 CVC pseudowords in ten repeated word reading sessions, preceded and followed by a transfer task with a different set of items. Two weeks after training, trained items were assessed again in a retention test. Participants either received phonics feedback, in which each word was spelled out and repeated; word feedback, in which each word was repeated; or no feedback. During the training, both good and poor readers improved in accuracy and speed. The increase in speed was stronger for poor readers than for good readers. The good readers demonstrated a stronger increase for pseudowords than for words. This increase in speed was most prominent in the first four sessions. Two weeks after training, the levels of accuracy and speed were retained. Furthermore, transfer effects on speed were found for pseudowords in both groups of readers. Good readers performed most accurately during the training when they received no feedback while poor readers performed most accurately during the training with the help of phonics feedback. However, feedback did not differentiate for reading speed or for effects after the training. The effects of repeated word reading were found to be stronger for poor readers than for good readers. Moreover, these effects were found to be stronger for pseudowords than for words. This indicates that repeated word reading can be seen as an important trigger for the improvement of decoding skills.

Lexical association and false memory for words in two cultures.

PubMed

Lee, Yuh-shiow; Chiang, Wen-Chi; Hung, Hsu-Ching

2008-01-01

This study examined the relationship between language experience and false memory produced by the DRM paradigm. The word lists used in Stadler, et al. (Memory & Cognition, 27, 494-500, 1999) were first translated into Chinese. False recall and false recognition for critical non-presented targets were then tested on a group of Chinese users. The average co-occurrence rate of the list word and the critical word was calculated based on two large Chinese corpuses. List-level analyses revealed that the correlation between the American and Taiwanese participants was significant only in false recognition. More importantly, the co-occurrence rate was significantly correlated with false recall and recognition of Taiwanese participants, and not of American participants. In addition, the backward association strength based on Nelson et al. (The University of South Florida word association, rhyme and word fragment norms, 1999) was significantly correlated with false recall of American participants and not of Taiwanese participants. Results are discussed in terms of the relationship between language experiences and lexical association in creating false memory for word lists.

Looking and touching: what extant approaches reveal about the structure of early word knowledge.

PubMed

Hendrickson, Kristi; Mitsven, Samantha; Poulin-Dubois, Diane; Zesiger, Pascal; Friend, Margaret

2015-09-01

The goal of the current study is to assess the temporal dynamics of vision and action to evaluate the underlying word representations that guide infants' responses. Sixteen-month-old infants participated in a two-alternative forced-choice word-picture matching task. We conducted a moment-by-moment analysis of looking and reaching behaviors as they occurred in tandem to assess the speed with which a prompted word was processed (visual reaction time) as a function of the type of haptic response: Target, Distractor, or No Touch. Visual reaction times (visual RTs) were significantly slower during No Touches compared to Distractor and Target Touches, which were statistically indistinguishable. The finding that visual RTs were significantly faster during Distractor Touches compared to No Touches suggests that incorrect and absent haptic responses appear to index distinct knowledge states: incorrect responses are associated with partial knowledge whereas absent responses appear to reflect a true failure to map lexical items to their target referents. Further, we found that those children who were faster at processing words were also those children who exhibited better haptic performance. This research provides a methodological clarification on knowledge measured by the visual and haptic modalities and new evidence for a continuum of word knowledge in the second year of life. © 2014 The Authors Developmental Science Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Effects of Lexical Pitch Accent on Infant Word Recognition in Japanese

PubMed Central

Ota, Mitsuhiko; Yamane, Naoto; Mazuka, Reiko

2018-01-01

Learners of lexical tone languages (e.g., Mandarin) develop sensitivity to tonal contrasts and recognize pitch-matched, but not pitch-mismatched, familiar words by 11 months. Learners of non-tone languages (e.g., English) also show a tendency to treat pitch patterns as lexically contrastive up to about 18 months. In this study, we examined if this early-developing capacity to lexically encode pitch variations enables infants to acquire a pitch accent system, in which pitch-based lexical contrasts are obscured by the interaction of lexical and non-lexical (i.e., intonational) features. Eighteen 17-month-olds learning Tokyo Japanese were tested on their recognition of familiar words with the expected pitch or the lexically opposite pitch pattern. In early trials, infants were faster in shifting their eyegaze from the distractor object to the target object than in shifting from the target to distractor in the pitch-matched condition. In later trials, however, infants showed faster distractor-to-target than target-to-distractor shifts in both the pitch-matched and pitch-mismatched conditions. We interpret these results to mean that, in a pitch-accent system, the ability to use pitch variations to recognize words is still in a nascent state at 17 months. PMID:29375452

Word Spotting.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McQueen, James

1996-01-01

Summarizes the use of word-spotting in psycholinguistic research. Notes that listeners hear a list of nonsense words, some of which contain embedded real words, and they detect those embedded words, a task designed to study the segmentation of continuous speech. Describes the task and summarizes its advantages and disadvantages. (12 references)…

Predicting English Word Reading Skills for Spanish-Speaking Students in First Grade.

PubMed

Páez, Mariela; Rinaldi, Claudia

2006-10-01

This article describes the word reading skills in English and Spanish for a sample of 244 Spanish-speaking, English-learning (hence, bilingual) students in first grade and presents a predictive model for English word reading skills. The children in the study were assessed at the end of kindergarten and first grade, respectively. Data were gathered with 3 subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery and a researcher-developed phonological awareness task. Results showed that, on average, children's English word reading skills were similar to monolingual norms whereas their Spanish word reading skills averaged 1 SD below the mean. English vocabulary, English phonological awareness, and Spanish word reading skills in kindergarten were found to be significant predictors of English word reading skills in first grade. Educational implications for screening language and reading skills and promising areas for targeted instruction for this population are discussed.

Automaticity in reading and the Stroop task: testing the limits of involuntary word processing.

PubMed

Brown, Tracy L; Joneleit, Kelly; Robinson, Cathy S; Brown, Carli Rose

2002-01-01

We investigated the parameters of involuntary word reading in the Stroop task in 7 experiments. Experiments 1-4 varied response modality and the presence of congruent word trials in a test of the claim that presenting a Stroop color word with only one letter in the target color eliminates the Stroop effect. Experiments 5 and 6 addressed the roles of spatial attention and orthographic processing as possible mechanisms behind the reduction of Stroop effects with the single-letter format. Experiment 7 investigated the limits of involuntary reading under optimal conditions for selective processing of rectangular color patch targets. We found that the single-letter format reduced but never eliminated Stroop effects, spatial attention but not orthographic processing plays a role in the effect of the single-letter format, and word reading is not completely prevented even with austere presentation conditions. We conclude with a defense of the involuntariness criterion for automaticity in the Stroop task, particularly when word reading is viewed in the context of a skilled performance.

Working Memory Load Affects Processing Time in Spoken Word Recognition: Evidence from Eye-Movements

PubMed Central

Hadar, Britt; Skrzypek, Joshua E.; Wingfield, Arthur; Ben-David, Boaz M.

2016-01-01

In daily life, speech perception is usually accompanied by other tasks that tap into working memory capacity. However, the role of working memory on speech processing is not clear. The goal of this study was to examine how working memory load affects the timeline for spoken word recognition in ideal listening conditions. We used the “visual world” eye-tracking paradigm. The task consisted of spoken instructions referring to one of four objects depicted on a computer monitor (e.g., “point at the candle”). Half of the trials presented a phonological competitor to the target word that either overlapped in the initial syllable (onset) or at the last syllable (offset). Eye movements captured listeners' ability to differentiate the target noun from its depicted phonological competitor (e.g., candy or sandal). We manipulated working memory load by using a digit pre-load task, where participants had to retain either one (low-load) or four (high-load) spoken digits for the duration of a spoken word recognition trial. The data show that the high-load condition delayed real-time target discrimination. Specifically, a four-digit load was sufficient to delay the point of discrimination between the spoken target word and its phonological competitor. Our results emphasize the important role working memory plays in speech perception, even when performed by young adults in ideal listening conditions. PMID:27242424

Distinguishing familiarity from fluency for the compound word pair effect in associative recognition.

PubMed

Ahmad, Fahad N; Hockley, William E

2017-09-01

We examined whether processing fluency contributes to associative recognition of unitized pre-experimental associations. In Experiments 1A and 1B, we minimized perceptual fluency by presenting each word of pairs on separate screens at both study and test, yet the compound word (CW) effect (i.e., hit and false-alarm rates greater for CW pairs with no difference in discrimination) did not reduce. In Experiments 2A and 2B, conceptual fluency was examined by comparing transparent (e.g., hand bag) and opaque (e.g., rag time) CW pairs in lexical decision and associative recognition tasks. Lexical decision was faster for transparent CWs (Experiment 2A) but in associative recognition, the CW effect did not differ by CW pair type (Experiment 2B). In Experiments 3A and 3B, we examined whether priming that increases processing fluency would influence the CW effect. In Experiment 3A, CW and non-compound word pairs were preceded with matched and mismatched primes at test in an associative recognition task. In Experiment 3B, only transparent and opaque CW pairs were presented. Results showed that presenting matched versus mismatched primes at test did not influence the CW effect. The CW effect in yes-no associative recognition is due to reliance on enhanced familiarity of unitized CW pairs.

Effects of Word Width and Word Length on Optimal Character Size for Reading of Horizontally Scrolling Japanese Words

PubMed Central

Teramoto, Wataru; Nakazaki, Takuyuki; Sekiyama, Kaoru; Mori, Shuji

2016-01-01

The present study investigated, whether word width and length affect the optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words, using reading speed as a measure. In Experiment 1, three Japanese words, each consisting of four Hiragana characters, sequentially scrolled on a display screen from right to left. Participants, all Japanese native speakers, were instructed to read the words aloud as accurately as possible, irrespective of their order within the sequence. To quantitatively measure their reading performance, we used rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, where the scrolling rate was increased until the participants began to make mistakes. Thus, the highest scrolling rate at which the participants’ performance exceeded 88.9% correct rate was calculated for each character size (0.3°, 0.6°, 1.0°, and 3.0°) and scroll window size (5 or 10 character spaces). Results showed that the reading performance was highest in the range of 0.6° to 1.0°, irrespective of the scroll window size. Experiment 2 investigated whether the optimal character size observed in Experiment 1 was applicable for any word width and word length (i.e., the number of characters in a word). Results showed that reading speeds were slower for longer than shorter words and the word width of 3.6° was optimal among the word lengths tested (three, four, and six character words). Considering that character size varied depending on word width and word length in the present study, this means that the optimal character size can be changed by word width and word length in scrolling Japanese words. PMID:26909052

Effects of Word Width and Word Length on Optimal Character Size for Reading of Horizontally Scrolling Japanese Words.

PubMed

Teramoto, Wataru; Nakazaki, Takuyuki; Sekiyama, Kaoru; Mori, Shuji

2016-01-01

The present study investigated, whether word width and length affect the optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words, using reading speed as a measure. In Experiment 1, three Japanese words, each consisting of four Hiragana characters, sequentially scrolled on a display screen from right to left. Participants, all Japanese native speakers, were instructed to read the words aloud as accurately as possible, irrespective of their order within the sequence. To quantitatively measure their reading performance, we used rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, where the scrolling rate was increased until the participants began to make mistakes. Thus, the highest scrolling rate at which the participants' performance exceeded 88.9% correct rate was calculated for each character size (0.3°, 0.6°, 1.0°, and 3.0°) and scroll window size (5 or 10 character spaces). Results showed that the reading performance was highest in the range of 0.6° to 1.0°, irrespective of the scroll window size. Experiment 2 investigated whether the optimal character size observed in Experiment 1 was applicable for any word width and word length (i.e., the number of characters in a word). Results showed that reading speeds were slower for longer than shorter words and the word width of 3.6° was optimal among the word lengths tested (three, four, and six character words). Considering that character size varied depending on word width and word length in the present study, this means that the optimal character size can be changed by word width and word length in scrolling Japanese words.

Lexical enhancement during prime-target integration: ERP evidence from matched-case identity priming.

PubMed

Vergara-Martínez, Marta; Gómez, Pablo; Jiménez, María; Perea, Manuel

2015-06-01

A number of experiments have revealed that matched-case identity PRIME-TARGET pairs are responded to faster than mismatched-case identity prime-TARGET pairs for pseudowords (e.g., JUDPE-JUDPE < judpe-JUDPE), but not for words (JUDGE-JUDGE = judge-JUDGE). These findings suggest that prime-target integration processes are enhanced when the stimuli tap onto lexical representations, overriding physical differences between the stimuli (e.g., case). To track the time course of this phenomenon, we conducted an event-related potential (ERP) masked-priming lexical decision experiment that manipulated matched versus mismatched case identity in words and pseudowords. The behavioral results replicated previous research. The ERP waves revealed that matched-case identity-priming effects were found at a very early time epoch (N/P150 effects) for words and pseudowords. Importantly, around 200 ms after target onset (N250), these differences disappeared for words but not for pseudowords. These findings suggest that different-case word forms (lower- and uppercase) tap into the same abstract representation, leading to prime-target integration very early in processing. In contrast, different-case pseudoword forms are processed as two different representations. This word-pseudoword dissociation has important implications for neural accounts of visual-word recognition.

ERP manifestations of processing printed words at different psycholinguistic levels: time course and scalp distribution.

PubMed

Bentin, S; Mouchetant-Rostaing, Y; Giard, M H; Echallier, J F; Pernier, J

1999-05-01

The aim of the present study was to examine the time course and scalp distribution of electrophysiological manifestations of the visual word recognition mechanism. Event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by visually presented lists of words were recorded while subjects were involved in a series of oddball tasks. The distinction between the designated target and nontarget stimuli was manipulated to induce a different level of processing in each session (visual, phonological/phonetic, phonological/lexical, and semantic). The ERPs of main interest in this study were those elicited by nontarget stimuli. In the visual task the targets were twice as big as the nontargets. Words, pseudowords, strings of consonants, strings of alphanumeric symbols, and strings of forms elicited a sharp negative peak at 170 msec (N170); their distribution was limited to the occipito-temporal sites. For the left hemisphere electrode sites, the N170 was larger for orthographic than for nonorthographic stimuli and vice versa for the right hemisphere. The ERPs elicited by all orthographic stimuli formed a clearly distinct cluster that was different from the ERPs elicited by nonorthographic stimuli. In the phonological/phonetic decision task the targets were words and pseudowords rhyming with the French word vitrail, whereas the nontargets were words, pseudowords, and strings of consonants that did not rhyme with vitrail. The most conspicuous potential was a negative peak at 320 msec, which was similarly elicited by pronounceable stimuli but not by nonpronounceable stimuli. The N320 was bilaterally distributed over the middle temporal lobe and was significantly larger over the left than over the right hemisphere. In the phonological/lexical processing task we compared the ERPs elicited by strings of consonants (among which words were selected), pseudowords (among which words were selected), and by words (among which pseudowords were selected). The most conspicuous potential in these tasks was a

Evaluating the Performance of a Visually Guided Hearing Aid Using a Dynamic Auditory-Visual Word Congruence Task.

PubMed

Roverud, Elin; Best, Virginia; Mason, Christine R; Streeter, Timothy; Kidd, Gerald

2017-12-15

The "visually guided hearing aid" (VGHA), consisting of a beamforming microphone array steered by eye gaze, is an experimental device being tested for effectiveness in laboratory settings. Previous studies have found that beamforming without visual steering can provide significant benefits (relative to natural binaural listening) for speech identification in spatialized speech or noise maskers when sound sources are fixed in location. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the performance of the VGHA in listening conditions in which target speech could switch locations unpredictably, requiring visual steering of the beamforming. To address this aim, the present study tested an experimental simulation of the VGHA in a newly designed dynamic auditory-visual word congruence task. Ten young normal-hearing (NH) and 11 young hearing-impaired (HI) adults participated. On each trial, three simultaneous spoken words were presented from three source positions (-30, 0, and 30 azimuth). An auditory-visual word congruence task was used in which participants indicated whether there was a match between the word printed on a screen at a location corresponding to the target source and the spoken target word presented acoustically from that location. Performance was compared for a natural binaural condition (stimuli presented using impulse responses measured on KEMAR), a simulated VGHA condition (BEAM), and a hybrid condition that combined lowpass-filtered KEMAR and highpass-filtered BEAM information (BEAMAR). In some blocks, the target remained fixed at one location across trials, and in other blocks, the target could transition in location between one trial and the next with a fixed but low probability. Large individual variability in performance was observed. There were significant benefits for the hybrid BEAMAR condition relative to the KEMAR condition on average for both NH and HI groups when the targets were fixed. Although not apparent in the averaged data, some

Primary phonological planning units in spoken word production are language-specific: Evidence from an ERP study.

PubMed

Wang, Jie; Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen; Wang, Suiping; Chen, Hsuan-Chih

2017-07-19

It is widely acknowledged in Germanic languages that segments are the primary planning units at the phonological encoding stage of spoken word production. Mixed results, however, have been found in Chinese, and it is still unclear what roles syllables and segments play in planning Chinese spoken word production. In the current study, participants were asked to first prepare and later produce disyllabic Mandarin words upon picture prompts and a response cue while electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were recorded. Each two consecutive pictures implicitly formed a pair of prime and target, whose names shared the same word-initial atonal syllable or the same word-initial segments, or were unrelated in the control conditions. Only syllable repetition induced significant effects on event-related brain potentials (ERPs) after target onset: a widely distributed positivity in the 200- to 400-ms interval and an anterior positivity in the 400- to 600-ms interval. We interpret these to reflect syllable-size representations at the phonological encoding and phonetic encoding stages. Our results provide the first electrophysiological evidence for the distinct role of syllables in producing Mandarin spoken words, supporting a language specificity hypothesis about the primary phonological units in spoken word production.

Beyond Word Processing. In Microsoft Word 5.0 with Word 5.1 Addendum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hall, Jean Marie; Yoder, Sharon

This book is designed for use with Microsoft Word 5.0; it includes an addendum covering the new features of Word 5.1. The contents of the book are designed to get individuals started using some of the more advanced techniques available in Word. Some of the ideas presented in the book will be of immediate use and others are more complex. All of the…

Word Links: A Strategy for Developing Word Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yopp, Ruth Helen

2007-01-01

Word Links, an effective strategy for developing students' vocabulary, is based on four principles. It provides contextual and definitional information; offers repeated exposure to words and opportunities to practice them; encourages students to think about relationships among word meanings; and involves active engagement in learning tasks. Yopp…

Word categorization from distributional information: frames confer more than the sum of their (Bigram) parts.

PubMed

Mintz, Toben H; Wang, Felix Hao; Li, Jia

2014-12-01

Grammatical categories, such as noun and verb, are the building blocks of syntactic structure and the components that govern the grammatical patterns of language. However, in many languages words are not explicitly marked with their category information, hence a critical part of acquiring a language is categorizing the words. Computational analyses of child-directed speech have shown that distributional information-information about how words pattern with one another in sentences-could be a useful source of initial category information. Yet questions remain as to whether learners use this kind of information, and if so, what kinds of distributional patterns facilitate categorization. In this paper we investigated how adults exposed to an artificial language use distributional information to categorize words. We compared training situations in which target words occurred in frames (i.e., surrounded by two words that frequently co-occur) against situations in which target words occurred in simpler bigram contexts (where an immediately adjacent word provides the context for categorization). We found that learners categorized words together when they occurred in similar frame contexts, but not when they occurred in similar bigram contexts. These findings are particularly relevant because they accord with computational investigations showing that frame contexts provide accurate category information cross-linguistically. We discuss these findings in the context of prior research on distribution-based categorization and the broader implications for the role of distributional categorization in language acquisition. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Word Categorization From Distributional Information: Frames Confer More Than the Sum of Their (Bigram) Parts

PubMed Central

Mintz, Toben H.; Wang, Felix Hao; Li, Vivian Jia

2014-01-01

Grammatical categories, such as noun and verb, are the building blocks of syntactic structure and the components that govern the grammatical patterns of language. However, in many languages words are not explicitly marked with their category information, hence a critical part of acquiring a language is categorizing the words. Computational analyses of child-directed speech have shown that distributional information—information about how words pattern with one another in sentences—could be a useful source of initial category information. Yet questions remain as to whether learners use this kind of information, and if so, what kinds of distributional patterns facilitate categorization. In this paper we investigated how adults exposed to an artificial language use distributional information to categorize words. We compared training situations in which target words occurred in frames (i.e., surrounded by two words that frequently co-occur) against situations in which target words occurred in simpler bigram contexts (where an immediately adjacent word provides the context for categorization). We found that learners categorized words together when they occurred in similar frame contexts, but not when they occurred in similar bigram contexts. These findings are particularly relevant because they accord with computational investigations showing that frame contexts provide accurate category information cross-linguistically. We discuss these findings in the context of prior research on distribution-based categorization and the broader implications for the role of distributional categorization in language acquisition. PMID:25164244

Receptive and Productive Vocabulary Learning: The Effects of Reading and Writing on Word Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Webb, Stuart

2005-01-01

This study investigates the effects of receptive and productive vocabulary learning on word knowledge. Japanese students studying English as a foreign language learned target words in three glossed sentences and in a sentence production task in two experiments. Five aspects of vocabulary knowledge--orthography, syntax, association, grammatical…

Perception without awareness: further evidence from a Stroop priming task.

PubMed

Daza, M Teresa; Ortells, Juan J; Fox, Elaine

2002-11-01

In the present research, we examined the influence of prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) on Stroop-priming effects from masked words. Participants indicated the color of a central target, which was preceded by a 33-msec prime word followed either immediately or after a variable delay by a pattern mask. The prime word was incongruent or congruent with the target color on 75% and 25% of the trials, respectively. The words followed by an immediate mask produced reliable Stroop interference at SOAs of 300 and 400 msec but not at SOAs of 500 and 700 msec. The words followed by a delayed mask produced a reversed (i.e., facilitatory) Stroop effect, which reached significance at an SOA of 400 msec or longer, but never at the shorter 300-msec SOA. Such an differential time course of both types of Stroop priming effects provides further evidence for the existence of qualitative differences between conscious and nonconscious perceptual processes.

Categorizing words using 'frequent frames': what cross-linguistic analyses reveal about distributional acquisition strategies.

PubMed

Chemla, Emmanuel; Mintz, Toben H; Bernal, Savita; Christophe, Anne

2009-04-01

Mintz (2003) described a distributional environment called a frame, defined as the co-occurrence of two context words with one intervening target word. Analyses of English child-directed speech showed that words that fell within any frequently occurring frame consistently belonged to the same grammatical category (e.g. noun, verb, adjective, etc.). In this paper, we first generalize this result to French, a language in which the function word system allows patterns that are potentially detrimental to a frame-based analysis procedure. Second, we show that the discontinuity of the chosen environments (i.e. the fact that target words are framed by the context words) is crucial for the mechanism to be efficient. This property might be relevant for any computational approach to grammatical categorization. Finally, we investigate a recursive application of the procedure and observe that the categorization is paradoxically worse when context elements are categories rather than actual lexical items. Item-specificity is thus also a core computational principle for this type of algorithm. Our analysis, along with results from behavioural studies (Gómez, 2002; Gómez and Maye, 2005; Mintz, 2006), provides strong support for frames as a basis for the acquisition of grammatical categories by infants. Discontinuity and item-specificity appear to be crucial features.

Preschool Children's Memory for Word Forms Remains Stable Over Several Days, but Gradually Decreases after 6 Months.

PubMed

Gordon, Katherine R; McGregor, Karla K; Waldier, Brigitte; Curran, Maura K; Gomez, Rebecca L; Samuelson, Larissa K

2016-01-01

Research on word learning has focused on children's ability to identify a target object when given the word form after a minimal number of exposures to novel word-object pairings. However, relatively little research has focused on children's ability to retrieve the word form when given the target object. The exceptions involve asking children to recall and produce forms, and children typically perform near floor on these measures. In the current study, 3- to 5-year-old children were administered a novel test of word form that allowed for recognition memory and manual responses. Specifically, when asked to label a previously trained object, children were given three forms to choose from: the target, a minimally different form, and a maximally different form. Children demonstrated memory for word forms at three post-training delays: 10 mins (short-term), 2-3 days (long-term), and 6 months to 1 year (very long-term). However, children performed worse at the very long-term delay than the other time points, and the length of the very long-term delay was negatively related to performance. When in error, children were no more likely to select the minimally different form than the maximally different form at all time points. Overall, these results suggest that children remember word forms that are linked to objects over extended post-training intervals, but that their memory for the forms gradually decreases over time without further exposures. Furthermore, memory traces for word forms do not become less phonologically specific over time; rather children either identify the correct form, or they perform at chance.

Effects of Word and Morpheme Familiarity on Reading of Derived Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carlisle, Joanne F.; Katz, Lauren A.

2006-01-01

The purpose of this study is to examine factors that influence students' reading of derived words. Recent research suggests that the lexical quality of a derived word depends on the familiarity of the word, its morphemic constituents (i.e., base word and affixes), and the frequency with which the base word appears in other words (i.e., members of…

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.

Precedent approach to the formation of programs for cyclic objects control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kulakov, S. M.; Trofimov, V. B.; Dobrynin, A. S.; Taraborina, E. N.

2018-05-01

The idea and procedure for formalizing the precedent method of formation of complex control solutions (complex control programs) is discussed with respect to technological or organizational objects, the operation of which is organized cyclically. A typical functional structure of the system of precedent control by complex technological unit is developed, including a subsystem of retrospective optimization of actually implemented control programs. As an example, the problem of constructing replaceable planograms for the operation of the link of a heading-and-winning machine on the basis of precedents is considered.

Providing Controlled Exposure To Target Vocabulary through the Screening and Arranging of Texts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ghadirian, Sina

2002-01-01

Considers how to bring foreign language students with limited vocabulary knowledge, consisting mainly of high-frequency words, to where they can comprehend authentic texts in a target domain. Proposes bridging the vocabulary gap by determining which word families account for 95% of the target domain's running words, and having students learn these…

Experimental Effects of Word Generation on Vocabulary, Academic Language, and Perspective Taking in High Poverty Middle Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Stephanie M.; Kim, James; LaRusso, Maria; Kim, Ha Yeon; Selman, Robert; Uccelli, Paola; Barnes, Sophie; Donovan, Suzanne; Snow, Catherine

2016-01-01

Word Generation (WG) is a research-based vocabulary program for middle school students designed to teach words through language arts, math, science, and social studies classes. The program consists of weekly units that introduce 5 high-utility target words through brief passages designed to spark active examination and discussion of contemporary…

Mark My Words: Tone of Voice Changes Affective Word Representations in Memory

PubMed Central

Schirmer, Annett

2010-01-01

The present study explored the effect of speaker prosody on the representation of words in memory. To this end, participants were presented with a series of words and asked to remember the words for a subsequent recognition test. During study, words were presented auditorily with an emotional or neutral prosody, whereas during test, words were presented visually. Recognition performance was comparable for words studied with emotional and neutral prosody. However, subsequent valence ratings indicated that study prosody changed the affective representation of words in memory. Compared to words with neutral prosody, words with sad prosody were later rated as more negative and words with happy prosody were later rated as more positive. Interestingly, the participants' ability to remember study prosody failed to predict this effect, suggesting that changes in word valence were implicit and associated with initial word processing rather than word retrieval. Taken together these results identify a mechanism by which speakers can have sustained effects on listener attitudes towards word referents. PMID:20169154

Third and fifth graders' processing of parafoveal information in reading: A study in single-word recognition.

PubMed

Khelifi, Rachid; Sparrow, Laurent; Casalis, Séverine

2015-11-01

We assessed third and fifth graders' processing of parafoveal word information using a lexical decision task. On each trial, a preview word was first briefly presented parafoveally in the left or right visual field before a target word was displayed. Preview and target words could be identical, share the first three letters, or have no letters in common. Experiment 1 showed that developing readers receive the same word recognition benefit from parafoveal previews as expert readers. The impact of a change of case between preview and target in Experiment 2 showed that in all groups of readers, the preview benefit resulted from the identification of letters at an abstract level rather than from facilitation at a purely visual level. Fifth graders identified more letters from the preview than third graders. The results are interpreted within the framework of the interactive activation model. In particular, we suggest that although the processing of parafoveal information led to letter identification in developing readers, the processes involved may differ from those in expert readers. Although expert readers' processing of parafoveal information led to activation at the level of lexical representations, no such activation was observed in developing readers. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An EMA analysis of the effect of increasing word length on consonant production in apraxia of speech: a case study.

PubMed

Bartle, Carly J; Goozée, Justine V; Murdoch, Bruce E

2007-03-01

The effect of increasing word length on the articulatory dynamics (i.e. duration, distance, maximum acceleration, maximum deceleration, and maximum velocity) of consonant production in acquired apraxia of speech was investigated using electromagnetic articulography (EMA). Tongue-tip and tongue-back movement of one apraxic patient was recorded using the AG-200 EMA system during word-initial consonant productions in one, two, and three syllable words. Significantly deviant articulatory parameters were recorded for each of the target consonants during one, two, and three syllables words. Word length effects were most evident during the release phase of target consonant productions. The results are discussed with respect to theories of speech motor control as they relate to AOS.

Word Savvy: Integrating Vocabulary, Spelling, and Word Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brand, Max

2004-01-01

Tired of assigning weekly spelling lists that students memorize for the test only to have them misspell the words in their daily writing? Then join Max Brand in his fifth-grade classroom where word learning is integrated fully into literacy workshops. Using spelling investigations, word study notebooks, reading logs, and writers' notebooks,…

Character Decomposition and Transposition Processes of Chinese Compound Words in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation.

PubMed

Cao, Hong-Wen; Yang, Ke-Yu; Yan, Hong-Mei

2017-01-01

Character order information is encoded at the initial stage of Chinese word processing, however, its time course remains underspecified. In this study, we assess the exact time course of the character decomposition and transposition processes of two-character Chinese compound words (canonical, transposed, or reversible words) compared with pseudowords using dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of stimuli appearing at 30 ms per character with no inter-stimulus interval. The results indicate that Chinese readers can identify words with character transpositions in rapid succession; however, a transposition cost is involved in identifying transposed words compared to canonical words. In RSVP reading, character order of words is more likely to be reversed during the period from 30 to 180 ms for canonical and reversible words, but the period from 30 to 240 ms for transposed words. Taken together, the findings demonstrate that the holistic representation of the base word is activated, however, the order of the two constituent characters is not strictly processed during the very early stage of visual word processing.

Threshold of the precedence effect in noise

PubMed Central

Freyman, Richard L.; Griffin, Amanda M.; Zurek, Patrick M.

2014-01-01

Three effects that show a temporal asymmetry in the influence of interaural cues were studied through the addition of masking noise: (1) The transient precedence effect—the perceptual dominance of a leading transient over a similar lagging transient; (2) the ongoing precedence effect—lead dominance with lead and lag components that extend in time; and (3) the onset capture effect—determination by an onset transient of the lateral position of an otherwise ambiguous extended trailing sound. These three effects were evoked with noise-burst stimuli and were compared in the presence of masking noise. Using a diotic noise masker, detection thresholds for stimuli with lead/lag interaural delays of 0/500 μs were compared to those with 500/0 μs delays. None of the three effects showed a masking difference between those conditions, suggesting that none of the effects is operative at masked threshold. A task requiring the discrimination between stimuli with 500/0 and 0/500 μs interaural delays was used to determine the threshold for each effect in noise. The results showed similar thresholds in noise (10–13 dB SL) for the transient and ongoing precedence effects, but a much higher threshold (33 dB SL) for onset capture of an ambiguous trailing sound. PMID:24815272

Observational Word Learning: Beyond Propose-But-Verify and Associative Bean Counting.

PubMed

Roembke, Tanja; McMurray, Bob

2016-04-01

Learning new words is difficult. In any naming situation, there are multiple possible interpretations of a novel word. Recent approaches suggest that learners may solve this problem by tracking co-occurrence statistics between words and referents across multiple naming situations (e.g. Yu & Smith, 2007), overcoming the ambiguity in any one situation. Yet, there remains debate around the underlying mechanisms. We conducted two experiments in which learners acquired eight word-object mappings using cross-situational statistics while eye-movements were tracked. These addressed four unresolved questions regarding the learning mechanism. First, eye-movements during learning showed evidence that listeners maintain multiple hypotheses for a given word and bring them all to bear in the moment of naming. Second, trial-by-trial analyses of accuracy suggested that listeners accumulate continuous statistics about word/object mappings, over and above prior hypotheses they have about a word. Third, consistent, probabilistic context can impede learning, as false associations between words and highly co-occurring referents are formed. Finally, a number of factors not previously considered in prior analysis impact observational word learning: knowledge of the foils, spatial consistency of the target object, and the number of trials between presentations of the same word. This evidence suggests that observational word learning may derive from a combination of gradual statistical or associative learning mechanisms and more rapid real-time processes such as competition, mutual exclusivity and even inference or hypothesis testing.

The Picture-Word Interference Paradigm: Grammatical Class Effects in Lexical Production

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Simone, Flavia; Collina, Simona

2016-01-01

Four picture-word interference experiments aimed to test the role of grammatical class in lexical production. In Experiment 1 target nouns and verbs were produced in presence of semantically unrelated distractors that could also be nouns and verbs. Participants were slower when the distractor was of the same grammatical category of the target. To…

Word Maturity: A New Metric for Word Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Landauer, Thomas K.; Kireyev, Kirill; Panaccione, Charles

2011-01-01

A new metric, Word Maturity, estimates the development by individual students of knowledge of every word in a large corpus. The metric is constructed by Latent Semantic Analysis modeling of word knowledge as a function of the reading that a simulated learner has done and is calibrated by its developing closeness in information content to that of a…

Changing word usage predicts changing word durations in New Zealand English.

PubMed

Sóskuthy, Márton; Hay, Jennifer

2017-09-01

This paper investigates the emergence of lexicalized effects of word usage on word duration by looking at parallel changes in usage and duration over 130years in New Zealand English. Previous research has found that frequent words are shorter, informative words are longer, and words in utterance-final position are also longer. It has also been argued that some of these patterns are not simply online adjustments, but are incorporated into lexical representations. While these studies tend to focus on the synchronic aspects of such patterns, our corpus shows that word-usage patterns and word durations are not static over time. Many words change in duration and also change with respect to frequency, informativity and likelihood of occurring utterance-finally. Analysis of changing word durations over this time period shows substantial patterns of co-adaptation between word usage and word durations. Words that are increasing in frequency are becoming shorter. Words that are increasing/decreasing in informativity show a change in the same direction in duration (e.g. increasing informativity is associated with increasing duration). And words that are increasingly appearing utterance-finally are lengthening. These effects exist independently of the local effects of the predictors. For example, words that are increasing utterance-finally lengthen in all positions, including utterance-medially. We show that these results are compatible with a number of different views about lexical representations, but they cannot be explained without reference to a production-perception loop that allows speakers to update their representations dynamically on the basis of their experience. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Beyond Naïve Cue Combination: Salience and Social Cues in Early Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yurovsky, Daniel; Frank, Michael C.

2017-01-01

Children learn their earliest words through social "interaction," but it is unknown how much they rely on social "information." Some theories argue that word learning is fundamentally social from its outset, with even the youngest infants understanding intentions and using them to infer a social partner's target of reference.…

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

PubMed

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

2017-08-01

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

An improved car-following model accounting for the preceding car's taillight

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jian; Tang, Tie-Qiao; Yu, Shao-Wei

2018-02-01

During the deceleration process, the preceding car's taillight may have influences on its following car's driving behavior. In this paper, we propose an extended car-following model with consideration of the preceding car's taillight. Two typical situations are used to simulate each car's movement and study the effects of the preceding car's taillight on the driving behavior. Meanwhile, sensitivity analysis of the model parameter is in detail discussed. The numerical results show that the proposed model can improve the stability of traffic flow and the traffic safety can be enhanced without a decrease of efficiency especially when cars pass through a signalized intersection.

Reading Spoken Words: Orthographic Effects in Auditory Priming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chereau, Celine; Gaskell, M. Gareth; Dumay, Nicolas

2007-01-01

Three experiments examined the involvement of orthography in spoken word processing using a task--unimodal auditory priming with offset overlap--taken to reflect activation of prelexical representations. Two types of prime-target relationship were compared; both involved phonological overlap, but only one had a strong orthographic overlap (e.g.,…

Effects of context and word class on lexical retrieval in Chinese speakers with anomic aphasia.

PubMed

Law, Sam-Po; Kong, Anthony Pak-Hin; Lai, Loretta Wing-Shan; Lai, Christy

2015-01-01

Differences in processing nouns and verbs have been investigated intensely in psycholinguistics and neuropsychology in past decades. However, the majority of studies examining retrieval of these word classes have involved tasks of single word stimuli or responses. While the results have provided rich information for addressing issues about grammatical class distinctions, it is unclear whether they have adequate ecological validity for understanding lexical retrieval in connected speech which characterizes daily verbal communication. Previous investigations comparing retrieval of nouns and verbs in single word production and connected speech have reported either discrepant performance between the two contexts with presence of word class dissociation in picture naming but absence in connected speech, or null effects of word class. In addition, word finding difficulties have been found to be less severe in connected speech than picture naming. However, these studies have failed to match target stimuli of the two word classes and between tasks on psycholinguistic variables known to affect performance in response latency and/or accuracy. The present study compared lexical retrieval of nouns and verbs in picture naming and connected speech from picture description, procedural description, and story-telling among 19 Chinese speakers with anomic aphasia and their age, gender, and education matched healthy controls, to understand the influence of grammatical class on word production across speech contexts when target items were balanced for confounding variables between word classes and tasks. Elicitation of responses followed the protocol of the AphasiaBank consortium (http://talkbank.org/AphasiaBank/). Target words for confrontation naming were based on well-established naming tests, while those for narrative were drawn from a large database of normal speakers. Selected nouns and verbs in the two contexts were matched for age-of-acquisition (AoA) and familiarity

Finding Words in a Language that Allows Words without Vowels

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

El Aissati, Abder; McQueen, James M.; Cutler, Anne

2012-01-01

Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring "win" in "twin" because "t" cannot be a word). However, the constraint would be counter-productive in…

Assessing the Effectiveness of Monolingual, Bilingual, and "Bilingualised" Dictionaries in the Comprehension and Production of New Words.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laufer, Batia; Hadar, Linor

1997-01-01

Examines the differences in effectiveness of three types of dictionaries--monolingual, bilingual, and "bilingualised" in the comprehension and production of new words by learners of English as a foreign language. The study tested participants on the comprehension of target words and on their ability to use these words in their own sentences. (16…

Word acquisition, retention, and transfer: findings from contextual and isolated word training.

PubMed

Martin-Chang, Sandra Lyn; Levy, Betty Ann; O'Neil, Sara

2007-01-01

Successful reading instruction entails not only acquiring new words but also remembering them after training has finished and accessing their word-specific representations when they are encountered in new text. We report two studies demonstrating that acquisition, retention, and transfer of unfamiliar words were affected differentially by isolated word and context training. Materials were individualized to include only those words that average readers in second grade were unable to name in context. Different words were trained in each condition; context training presented words in stories, and isolated word training presented words on flashcards. Together, the studies show that context training promotes word acquisition beyond that experienced from reading words in isolation. Contrary to the prevailing opinion, memory performance for words trained in context and in isolation did not differ; children demonstrated excellent retention over an 8-day interval in both conditions. Finally, transfer was maximized when the congruency between training and testing was high. Therefore, when reading trained words in novel circumstances, the best method of training was mediated by the transfer task employed at test.

Errorless discrimination and picture fading as techniques for teaching sight words to TMR students.

PubMed

Walsh, B F; Lamberts, F

1979-03-01

The effectiveness of two approaches for teaching beginning sight words to 30 TMR students was compared. In Dorry and Zeaman's picture-fading technique, words are taught through association with pictures that are faded out over a series of trials, while in the Edmark program errorless-discrimination technique, words are taught through shaped sequences of visual and auditory--visual matching-to-sample, with the target word first appearing alone and eventually appearing with orthographically similar words. Students were instructed on two lists of 10 words each, one list in the picture-fading and one in the discrimination method, in a double counter-balanced, repeated-measures design. Covariance analysis on three measures (word identification, word recognition, and picture--word matching) showed highly significant differences between the two methods. Students' performance was better after instruction with the errorless-discrimination method than after instruction with the picture-fading method. The findings on picture fading were interpreted as indicating a possible failure of the shifting of control from picture to printed word that earlier researchers have hypothesized as occurring.

Brand name confusion: Subjective and objective measures of orthographic similarity.

PubMed

Burt, Jennifer S; McFarlane, Kimberley A; Kelly, Sarah J; Humphreys, Michael S; Weatherall, Kimberlee; Burrell, Robert G

2017-09-01

Determining brand name similarity is vital in areas of trademark registration and brand confusion. Students rated the orthographic (spelling) similarity of word pairs (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) and brand name pairs (Experiment 5). Similarity ratings were consistently higher when words shared beginnings rather than endings, whereas shared pronunciation of the stressed vowel had small and less consistent effects on ratings. In Experiment 3 a behavioral task confirmed the similarity of shared beginnings in lexical processing. Specifically, in a task requiring participants to decide whether 2 words presented in the clear (a probe and a later target) were the same or different, a masked prime word preceding the target shortened response latencies if it shared its initial 3 letters with the target. The ratings of students for word and brand name pairs were strongly predicted by metrics of orthographic similarity from the visual word identification literature based on the number of shared letters and their relative positions. The results indicate a potential use for orthographic metrics in brand name registration and trademark law. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Strange Words: Autistic Traits and the Processing of Non-Literal Language.

PubMed

McKenna, Peter E; Glass, Alexandra; Rajendran, Gnanathusharan; Corley, Martin

2015-11-01

Previous investigations into metonymy comprehension in ASD have confounded metonymy with anaphora, and outcome with process. Here we show how these confounds may be avoided, using data from non-diagnosed participants classified using Autism Quotient. Participants read sentences containing target words with novel or established metonymic senses (e.g., Finland, Vietnam) in literal- or figurative-supporting contexts. Participants took longer to read target words in figurative contexts, especially where the metonymic sense was novel. Importantly, participants with higher AQs took longer still to read novel metonyms. This suggests a focus for further exploration, in terms of potential differences between individuals diagnosed with ASD and their neurotypical counterparts, and more generally in terms of the processes by which comprehension is achieved.

Is Semantic Priming (Ir)rational? Insights from the Speeded Word Fragment Completion Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heyman, Tom; Hutchison, Keith A.; Storms, Gert

2016-01-01

Semantic priming, the phenomenon that a target is recognized faster if it is preceded by a semantically related prime, is a well-established effect. However, the mechanisms producing semantic priming are subject of debate. Several theories assume that the underlying processes are controllable and tuned to prime utility. In contrast, purely…

10 CFR 205.11 - Order of precedence.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... precedence. (a) If there is any conflict or inconsistency between the provisions of this part and any other... prenotification and reporting and subpart J of part 212 of this chapter shall control with respect to accounting...

An improved car-following model with multiple preceding cars' velocity fluctuation feedback

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Lantian; Zhao, Xiangmo; Yu, Shaowei; Li, Xiuhai; Shi, Zhongke

2017-04-01

In order to explore and evaluate the effects of velocity variation trend of multiple preceding cars used in the Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) strategy on the dynamic characteristic, fuel economy and emission of the corresponding traffic flow, we conduct a study as follows: firstly, with the real-time car-following (CF) data, the close relationship between multiple preceding cars' velocity fluctuation feedback and the host car's behaviors is explored, the evaluation results clearly show that multiple preceding cars' velocity fluctuation with different time window-width are highly correlated to the host car's acceleration/deceleration. Then, a microscopic traffic flow model is proposed to evaluate the effects of multiple preceding cars' velocity fluctuation feedback in the CACC strategy on the traffic flow evolution process. Finally, numerical simulations on fuel economy and exhaust emission of the traffic flow are also implemented by utilizing VT-micro model. Simulation results prove that considering multiple preceding cars' velocity fluctuation feedback in the control strategy of the CACC system can improve roadway traffic mobility, fuel economy and exhaust emission performance.

Sleep spindles during a nap correlate with post sleep memory performance for highly rewarded word-pairs.

PubMed

Studte, Sara; Bridger, Emma; Mecklinger, Axel

2017-04-01

The consolidation of new associations is thought to depend in part on physiological processes engaged during non-REM (NREM) sleep, such as slow oscillations and sleep spindles. Moreover, NREM sleep is thought to selectively benefit associations that are adaptive for the future. In line with this, the current study investigated whether different reward cues at encoding are associated with changes in sleep physiology and memory retention. Participants' associative memory was tested after learning a list of arbitrarily paired words both before and after taking a 90-min nap. During learning, word-pairs were preceded by a cue indicating either a high or a low reward for correct memory performance at test. The motivation manipulation successfully impacted retention such that memory declined to a greater extent from pre- to post sleep for low rewarded than for high rewarded word-pairs. In line with previous studies, positive correlations between spindle density during NREM sleep and general memory performance pre- and post-sleep were found. In addition to this, however, a selective positive relationship between memory performance for highly rewarded word-pairs at posttest and spindle density during NREM sleep was also observed. These results support the view that motivationally salient memories are preferentially consolidated and that sleep spindles may be an important underlying mechanism for selective consolidation. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Phonological neighborhood and word frequency effects in the stuttered disfluencies of children who stutter.

PubMed

Anderson, Julie D

2007-02-01

The purpose of this study was to examine (a) the role of neighborhood density (number of words that are phonologically similar to a target word) and frequency variables on the stuttering-like disfluencies of preschool children who stutter, and (b) whether these variables have an effect on the type of stuttering-like disfluency produced. A 500+ word speech sample was obtained from each participant (N = 15). Each stuttered word was randomly paired with the firstly produced word that closely matched it in grammatical class, familiarity, and number of syllables/phonemes. Frequency, neighborhood density, and neighborhood frequency values were obtained for the stuttered and fluent words from an online database. Findings revealed that stuttered words were lower in frequency and neighborhood frequency than fluent words. Words containing part-word repetitions and sound prolongations were also lower in frequency and/or neighborhood frequency than fluent words, but these frequency variables did not have an effect on single-syllable word repetitions. Neighborhood density failed to influence the susceptibility of words to stuttering, as well as the type of stuttering-like disfluency produced. In general, findings suggest that neighborhood and frequency variables not only influence the fluency with which words are produced in speech, but also have an impact on the type of stuttering-like disfluency produced.

Neural Correlates of Emotion Processing in Word Detection Task

PubMed Central

Zhao, Wenshuang; Chen, Liang; Zhou, Chunxia; Luo, Wenbo

2018-01-01

In our previous study, we have proposed a three-stage model of emotion processing; in the current study, we investigated whether the ERP component may be different when the emotional content of stimuli is task-irrelevant. In this study, a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task was used to investigate how the emotional content of words modulates the time course of neural dynamics. Participants performed the task in which affectively positive, negative, and neutral adjectives were rapidly presented while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 18 undergraduates. The N170 component was enhanced for negative words relative to positive and neutral words. This indicates that automatic processing of negative information occurred at an early perceptual processing stage. In addition, later brain potentials such as the late positive potential (LPP) were only enhanced for positive words in the 480–580-ms post-stimulus window, while a relatively large amplitude signal was elicited by positive and negative words between 580 and 680 ms. These results indicate that different types of emotional content are processed distinctly at different time windows of the LPP, which is in contrast with the results of studies on task-relevant emotional processing. More generally, these findings suggest that a negativity bias to negative words remains to be found in emotion-irrelevant tasks, and that the LPP component reflects dynamic separation of emotion valence. PMID:29887824

Distant supervision for neural relation extraction integrated with word attention and property features.

PubMed

Qu, Jianfeng; Ouyang, Dantong; Hua, Wen; Ye, Yuxin; Li, Ximing

2018-04-01

Distant supervision for neural relation extraction is an efficient approach to extracting massive relations with reference to plain texts. However, the existing neural methods fail to capture the critical words in sentence encoding and meanwhile lack useful sentence information for some positive training instances. To address the above issues, we propose a novel neural relation extraction model. First, we develop a word-level attention mechanism to distinguish the importance of each individual word in a sentence, increasing the attention weights for those critical words. Second, we investigate the semantic information from word embeddings of target entities, which can be developed as a supplementary feature for the extractor. Experimental results show that our model outperforms previous state-of-the-art baselines. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Is manipulation of color effective in study of the global precedence effect?

PubMed

Vidal-López, Joaquín; Romera-Vivancos, Juan Antonio

2009-04-01

This article evaluates the use of color manipulation in studying the effect of global precedence and the possible involvement of the magnocellular processing system. The analysis shows variations of color used in three studies produced changes on the global precedence effect, but findings based on this technique present some methodological problems and have little theoretical support from the magnocellular processing-system perspective. For this reason, more research is required to develop knowledge about the origin of these variations in global precedence.

Word Learning and Individual Differences in Word Learning Reflected in Event-Related Potentials

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perfetti, Charles A.; Wlotko, Edward W.; Hart, Lesley A.

2005-01-01

Adults learned the meanings of rare words (e.g., gloaming) and then made meaning judgments on pairs of words. The 1st word was a trained rare word, an untrained rare word, or an untrained familiar word. Event-related potentials distinguished trained rare words from both untrained rare and familiar words, first at 140 ms and again at 400-600 ms…

Words, shape, visual search and visual working memory in 3-year-old children.