Memory for pictograms, pictures, and words separately and all mixed up.

PubMed

Haber, R N; Myers, B L

1982-01-01

Pictograms were created in which the outline of a work denoting an object was shaped to be the same as the object itself. A number of objects were presented, some drawn as pictograms, some as outline shapes, and some as normally printed words. The experiment was designed to test if recognition memory was superior for the pictograms as compared to outline pictures or words, and if this would be true whether the subjects were asked to attend to the form or only the content of the stimuli. One group of subjects was trained to respond OLD only if the test item was the same object in the same form, and NEW only to objects never before shown in any form. Recognition accuracy (a signal detection analysis) was greatest for the pictograms, and poorest for the words in both groups. Though the subjects could disregard form, they were most accurate when probed with the same form as presented. But in all comparisons subjects were most accurate when forced to recall both the form and the content. These and other results were taken to be mildly supportive of a dual coding hypothesis, and of the utility of these new stimuli.

Verbal definitions of familiar objects in blind children reflect their peculiar perceptual experience.

PubMed

Vinter, A; Fernandes, V; Orlandi, O; Morgan, P

2013-11-01

The aim of the present study was to examine to what extent the verbal definitions of familiar objects produced by blind children reflect their peculiar perceptual experience and, in consequence, differ from those produced by sighted children. Ninety-six visually impaired children, aged between 6 and 14 years, and 32 age-matched sighted children had to define 10 words denoting concrete animate or inanimate familiar objects. The blind children evoked the tactile and auditory characteristics of objects and expressed personal perceptual experiences in their definitions. The sighted children relied on visual perception, and produced more visually oriented verbalism. In contrast, no differences were observed between children in their propensity to include functional attributes in their verbal definitions. The results are discussed in line with embodied views of cognition that postulate mandatory perceptuomotor processing of words during access to their meaning. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Children acquire the later-greater principle after the cardinal principle

PubMed Central

Le Corre, Mathieu

2014-01-01

Many have proposed that the acquisition of the cardinal principle is a result of the discovery of the numerical significance of the order of the number words in the count list. However, this need not be the case. Indeed, the cardinal principle does not state anything about the numerical significance of the order of the number words. It only states that the last word of a correct count denotes the numerosity of the counted set. Here we test whether the acquisition of the cardinal principle involves the discovery of the later-greater principle – i.e., that the order of the number words corresponds to the relative size of the numerosities they denote. Specifically, we tested knowledge of verbal numerical comparisons (e.g., Is “ten” more than “six”?) in children who had recently learned the cardinal principle. We find that these children can compare number words between “six” and “ten” only if they have mapped them onto non-verbal representations of numerosity. We suggest that this means that the acquisition of the cardinal principle does not involve the discovery of the correspondence between the order of the number words and the relative size of the numerosities they denote. PMID:24372336

Children acquire the later-greater principle after the cardinal principle.

PubMed

Le Corre, Mathieu

2014-06-01

Many have proposed that the acquisition of the cardinal principle (CP) is a result of the discovery of the numerical significance of the order of the number words in the count list. However, this need not be the case. Indeed, the CP does not state anything about the numerical significance of the order of the number words. It only states that the last word of a correct count denotes the numerosity of the counted set. Here, we test whether the acquisition of the CP involves the discovery of the later-greater principle - that is, that the order of the number words corresponds to the relative size of the numerosities they denote. Specifically, we tested knowledge of verbal numerical comparisons (e.g., Is 'ten' more than 'six'?) in children who had recently learned the CP. We find that these children can compare number words between 'six' and 'ten' only if they have mapped them onto non-verbal representations of numerosity. We suggest that this means that the acquisition of the CP does not involve the discovery of the correspondence between the order of the number words and the relative size of the numerosities they denote. © 2013 The British Psychological Society.

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

PubMed

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

2013-01-01

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

Meaning and object in Freud's theory of language.

PubMed

Simanke, Richard Theisen

2017-12-01

This article sets out to challenge the interpretation of Freud's views on the origins of the meaning of language according to which meaning always originates from an act of naming. In Freud's terms, word-presentations would originally denote object- or thing-presentations and gain meaning through this reference. This interpretation claims that this view was already expressed in Freud's On Aphasia (1891) and influenced all his later theory of language. To oppose this claim, three conceptions proposed by Freud are discussed that strongly suggest the participation of language in the construction of the field of objects: a metapsychological hypothesis (the concepts of word-, thing-, and object-presentation), the explanation of a psychopathological phenomenon (the genesis of a fetishistic object-choice), and a concept concerning the foundations of the psychoanalytic method of dream interpretation (secondary elaboration). As a conclusion, it is argued that Freud's early views in On Aphasia (1891) can be alternatively understood such as to allow for a different view of language and its relationship with objects. Copyright © 2017 Institute of Psychoanalysis.

The Basis of James W. Fowler's Understanding of Faith in the Research of Wilfred Cantwell Smith: An Examination from an Evangelical Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Timothy Paul

2004-01-01

This article focuses on the influence of Wilfred Cantwell Smith's presentation of the nature of faith on James W. Fowler's faith-development paradigm. Smith contended that, in the pre-modern era, terms translated by the English words "faith" and "believe" denoted a personal allegiance that did not require assent to any objective assertions. Two…

The roles of shared vs. distinctive conceptual features in lexical access

PubMed Central

Vieth, Harrison E.; McMahon, Katie L.; de Zubicaray, Greig I.

2014-01-01

Contemporary models of spoken word production assume conceptual feature sharing determines the speed with which objects are named in categorically-related contexts. However, statistical models of concept representation have also identified a role for feature distinctiveness, i.e., features that identify a single concept and serve to distinguish it quickly from other similar concepts. In three experiments we investigated whether distinctive features might explain reports of counter-intuitive semantic facilitation effects in the picture word interference (PWI) paradigm. In Experiment 1, categorically-related distractors matched in terms of semantic similarity ratings (e.g., zebra and pony) and manipulated with respect to feature distinctiveness (e.g., a zebra has stripes unlike other equine species) elicited interference effects of comparable magnitude. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated the role of feature distinctiveness with respect to reports of facilitated naming with part-whole distractor-target relations (e.g., a hump is a distinguishing part of a CAMEL, whereas knee is not, vs. an unrelated part such as plug). Related part distractors did not influence target picture naming latencies significantly when the part denoted by the related distractor was not visible in the target picture (whether distinctive or not; Experiment 2). When the part denoted by the related distractor was visible in the target picture, non-distinctive part distractors slowed target naming significantly at SOA of −150 ms (Experiment 3). Thus, our results show that semantic interference does occur for part-whole distractor-target relations in PWI, but only when distractors denote features shared with the target and other category exemplars. We discuss the implications of these results for some recently developed, novel accounts of lexical access in spoken word production. PMID:25278914

An explanatory heuristic gives rise to the belief that words are well suited for their referents.

PubMed

Sutherland, Shelbie L; Cimpian, Andrei

2015-10-01

The mappings between the words of a language and their meanings are arbitrary. There is, for example, nothing inherently dog-like about the word dog. And yet, building on prior evidence (e.g., Brook, 1970; Piaget, 1967), the six studies reported here (N=1062) suggest that both children and (at least to some extent) adults see a special "fit" between objects and their names, as if names were particularly suitable or appropriate for the objects they denote. These studies also provide evidence for a novel proposal concerning the source of these nominal fit beliefs. Specifically, beliefs about nominal fit may be a byproduct of the heuristic processes that people use to make sense of the world more generally (Cimpian & Salomon, 2014a). In sum, the present studies provide new insights into how people conceive of language and demonstrate that these conceptions are rooted in the processes that underlie broader explanatory reasoning. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

On the Word Preferences of Suicidal versus Nonsuicidal College Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thurber, Steven; Torbet, David P.

1978-01-01

A word preference format was used to investigate reactions to verbal stimuli of suicidal and nonsuicidal persons. Words with aggressive or submissive denotative meanings significantly differentiated the two groups. The word "suicide" was selected at a higher frequency level by suicidal individuals when compared to their nonsuicidal counterparts.…

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

PubMed Central

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

2013-01-01

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

Polysemy and the Taxonomic Constraint: Children's Representation of Words That Label Multiple Kinds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Srinivasan, Mahesh; Snedeker, Jesse

2014-01-01

How do children resolve the problem of indeterminacy when learning a new word? By one account, children adopt a "taxonomic assumption" and expect the word to denote only members of a particular taxonomic category. According to one version of this constraint, young children should represent polysemous words that label multiple kinds--for…

Visual Presentation Effects on Identification of Multiple Environmental Sounds

PubMed Central

Masakura, Yuko; Ichikawa, Makoto; Shimono, Koichi; Nakatsuka, Reio

2016-01-01

This study examined how the contents and timing of a visual stimulus affect the identification of mixed sounds recorded in a daily life environment. For experiments, we presented four environment sounds as auditory stimuli for 5 s along with a picture or a written word as a visual stimulus that might or might not denote the source of one of the four sounds. Three conditions of temporal relations between the visual stimuli and sounds were used. The visual stimulus was presented either: (a) for 5 s simultaneously with the sound; (b) for 5 s, 1 s before the sound (SOA between the audio and visual stimuli was 6 s); or (c) for 33 ms, 1 s before the sound (SOA was 1033 ms). Participants reported all identifiable sounds for those audio–visual stimuli. To characterize the effects of visual stimuli on sound identification, the following were used: the identification rates of sounds for which the visual stimulus denoted its sound source, the rates of other sounds for which the visual stimulus did not denote the sound source, and the frequency of false hearing of a sound that was not presented for each sound set. Results of the four experiments demonstrated that a picture or a written word promoted identification of the sound when it was related to the sound, particularly when the visual stimulus was presented for 5 s simultaneously with the sounds. However, a visual stimulus preceding the sounds had a benefit only for the picture, not for the written word. Furthermore, presentation with a picture denoting a sound simultaneously with the sound reduced the frequency of false hearing. These results suggest three ways that presenting a visual stimulus affects identification of the auditory stimulus. First, activation of the visual representation extracted directly from the picture promotes identification of the denoted sound and suppresses the processing of sounds for which the visual stimulus did not denote the sound source. Second, effects based on processing of the conceptual information promote identification of the denoted sound and suppress the processing of sounds for which the visual stimulus did not denote the sound source. Third, processing of the concurrent visual representation suppresses false hearing. PMID:26973478

"Mode of Acquisition" of Word Meanings: The Viability of a Theoretical Construct.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wauters, Loes N.; Tellings, Agnes E. J. M.; Van Bon, Wim H. J.; Van Haaften, A. Wouter

2003-01-01

Examines the reliability and validity of the construct, "mode of acquisition" (MOA). The MOA of a word denotes the way in which the word's meaning is learned. Subjects in one study were volunteers from third year special education courses and in a second study, educational professionals. (Author/VWL)

Fragments of a larger whole: retrieval cues constrain observed neural correlates of memory encoding.

PubMed

Otten, Leun J

2007-09-01

Laying down a new memory involves activity in a number of brain regions. Here, it is shown that the particular regions associated with successful encoding depend on the way in which memory is probed. Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging signals were acquired while subjects performed an incidental encoding task on a series of visually presented words denoting objects. A recognition memory test using the Remember/Know procedure to separate responses based on recollection and familiarity followed 1 day later. Critically, half of the studied objects were cued with a corresponding spoken word, and half with a corresponding picture. Regardless of cue, activity in prefrontal and hippocampal regions predicted subsequent recollection of a word. Type of retrieval cue modulated activity in prefrontal, temporal, and parietal cortices. Words subsequently recognized on the basis of a sense of familiarity were at study also associated with differential activity in a number of brain regions, some of which were probe dependent. Thus, observed neural correlates of successful encoding are constrained by type of retrieval cue, and are only fragments of all encoding-related neural activity. Regions exhibiting cue-specific effects may be sites that support memory through the degree of overlap between the processes engaged during encoding and those engaged during retrieval.

Homeland Security as a Stock Market: Antifragility as a Strategy for Homeland Security

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-12-01

analogy.”27 Merriam-Webster defines metaphor as “a figure of speech in which one word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in...things agree with one another in some respects they will probably agree in others.”39 Wolfe expands this definition as “a figure of speech where one or...and Sedition Acts, the rise of the Red Scare in the 1950s and arguably the unsustainable post-9/11 buildup of homeland security resources and laws

Neural Systems behind Word and Concept Retrieval

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Damasio, H.; Tranel, D.; Grabowski, T.; Adolphs, R.; Damasio, A.

2004-01-01

Using both the lesion method and functional imaging (positron emission tomography) in large cohorts of subjects investigated with the same experimental tasks, we tested the following hypotheses: (A) that the retrieval of words which denote concrete entities belonging to distinct conceptual categories depends upon partially segregated regions in…

Study on Students' Impression Data in Practical Training Using Text Mining Method-Analysis of Considerable Communication.

PubMed

Teramachi, Hitomi; Sugita, Ikuto; Ino, Yoko; Hayashi, Yuta; Yoshida, Aki; Otsubo, Manami; Ueno, Anri; Katsuno, Hayato; Noguchi, Yoshihiro; Iguchi, Kazuhiro; Tachi, Tomoya

2017-09-01

We analyzed impression data and the scale of communication skills of students using text mining method to clarify which area a student was conscious of in communication in practical training. The results revealed that students tended to be conscious of the difference between practical hospital training and practical pharmacy training. In practical hospital training, specific expressions denoting relationships were "patient-visit", "counseling-conduct", "patient-counseling", and "patient-talk". In practical pharmacy training, specific expressions denoting relationships were "patient counseling-conduct", "story-listen", "patient-many", and "patient-visit". In practical hospital training, the word "patient" was connected to many words suggesting that students were conscious of a patient-centered communication. In practical pharmacy training, words such as "patient counseling", "patient", and "explanation" were placed in center and connected with many other words and there was an independent relationship between "communication" and "accept". In conclusion, it was suggested that students attempted active patient-centered communication in practical hospital training, while they were conscious of listening closely in patient counseling in practical pharmacy training.

New insights into name category-related effects: is the Age of Acquisition a possible factor?

PubMed

Adorni, Roberta; Proverbio, Alice Mado

2009-07-29

Electrophysiological, hemodynamic and neuropsychological studies have provided evidence of dissociation in the way words belonging to different semantic categories (e.g., animals, tools, actions) are represented in the brain. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether a word's semantic domain may affect the amplitude and latency of ERP components, independently of any other factor. EEGs were recorded from 16 volunteers engaged in a lexical decision task (word/non-word discrimination) involving 100 words (flora and fauna names). This task allowed us to evaluate differences in processing between words belonging to different categories (fauna vs. flora) independently of task demands. All stimuli were balanced in terms of length, frequency of occurrence, familiarity and imageability. Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (LORETA) was performed on ERP difference waves of interest. Our findings showed that the two categories were discriminated as early as 200 ms post-stimulus, with larger responses to flora names over the left occipito-temporal areas, namely BA37 and BA20. Category-related ERP differences were also observed in the amplitudes of the later centro-parietal N400, posterior P300 and anterior LP components. Behavioral responses to words denoting fauna were more accurate than to words denoting flora. Overall, it seems that it was easier to access the lexical properties of fauna, probably because of their biologically relevant status. The results are discussed in the light of the possible role played by different factors.

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.

Objects as closures: Abstract semantics of object oriented languages

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reddy, Uday S.

1989-01-01

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

Intact Associative Learning in Patients with Schizophrenia: Evidence from a Go/NoGo Paradigm

PubMed Central

Woolard, Austin A.; Kose, Samet; Woodward, Neil D.; Verbruggen, Frederick; Logan, Gordon D.; Heckers, Stephan

2010-01-01

Objective Schizophrenia is associated with deficits in executive control and associative learning. In the present study, we investigated the effect of associative learning during a Go/NoGo task in healthy controls subjects and patients with schizophrenia. Methods Thirty patients with schizophrenia and 30 age-and-gender matched healthy control subjects performed 15 blocks of training and 3 blocks of test trials. The trials consisted of responding to words denoting either living or non-living objects. In the training condition, subjects were instructed to respond by pressing the space bar (Go-task) to one of the word types (living or non-living objects), but not the other. In the test phase, the Go/NoGo mapping was reversed. Subjects were instructed to respond as quickly and as accurately as possible. Reaction times (RT) and accuracy were recorded for each trial and all subjects were debriefed upon completion of the test trials. Results Patients with schizophrenia had significantly longer Go RTs when compared to the control group, during both training and test trials. However, the two groups did not differ on any measure of associative learning. Conclusions Our findings suggest that associative learning is intact in schizophrenia patients during the performance of a relational Go/NoGo paradigm. PMID:20226631

What does "disability" mean for medical students? An exploration of the words medical students associate with the term "disability".

PubMed

Byron, Margaret; Cockshott, Zoë; Brownett, Hilary; Ramkalawan, Tina

2005-02-01

Disability teaching is a core theme in undergraduate medical education. Medical students bring a range of experiences of disability to their medical training. The principal aim of this study was to explore the words that medical students associate with the term "disability" and to consider how the resulting information could inform teaching. A secondary aim was to see if a short disability course changed the word associations. Students were asked to write down 2 words that came to mind when they heard the word "disability", before and after a 4-day course in disability. Words from 4 cohorts were analysed by frequency and the following word dichotomies: visual icons/personal attributes; loss/enabling, and medical model/social model. A random sample of students took part in focus groups at the beginning and end of the course. A total of 381 students provided 667 before-course words and 189 students provided 336 after-course words. Before the course, words denoting visual icons of disability, and loss were prominent, accounting for 85% of the words, and 74% of the words describing personal attributes were negative. Focus group responses at this stage reflected an eagerness to help but patronising terms were prominent, along with concern about political correctness. Students also expressed nervousness about encountering disabled people. In response, teaching was adapted to make it more learner-focused, to offer a safe environment in which students can test out their language, to build on the positive associations and to develop a range of pre-course creative activities with disabled people. After the course a considerable and significant shift in emphasis was observed, with a reduction in the use of visual icon words, an increase in words denoting enablement, and an increase in words relating to the social model of disability and to positive personal attributes (P < 0.001). Focus group participants at this stage reported greater confidence in approaching disabled people but continued to question political correctness. Medical students associate disability predominantly with depersonalised or negative words. A short disability course appears to change these associations. Reasons for this and implications for teaching are discussed.

Objects as closures - Abstract semantics of object oriented languages

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reddy, Uday S.

1988-01-01

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

Mathematical values in the processing of Chinese numeral classifiers and measure words.

PubMed

Her, One-Soon; Chen, Ying-Chun; Yen, Nai-Shing

2017-01-01

A numeral classifier is required between a numeral and a noun in Chinese, which comes in two varieties, sortal classifer (C) and measural classifier (M), also known as 'classifier' and 'measure word', respectively. Cs categorize objects based on semantic attributes and Cs and Ms both denote quantity in terms of mathematical values. The aim of this study was to conduct a psycholinguistic experiment to examine whether participants process C/Ms based on their mathematical values with a semantic distance comparison task, where participants judged which of the two C/M phrases was semantically closer to the target C/M. Results showed that participants performed more accurately and faster for C/Ms with fixed values than the ones with variable values. These results demonstrated that mathematical values do play an important role in the processing of C/Ms. This study may thus shed light on the influence of the linguistic system of C/Ms on magnitude cognition.

Office Automation: A Look Beyond Word Processing.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-06-01

implying the type and nature of work performed by white-collar employees , and "products" will denote the techniques and type of equipment necessary...REPORT & PERIOD COVERED Office Automation: A Look Beyond Master’s Thesis Word Processing June 1983 6. PERFORMING ORG. REPORT NUMUER 7. AUTYOH) S...look at the problems of implementing an automated office and the possible impact it can have on human office workers. The purpose of this thesis is thus

Complement Coercion: The Joint Effects of Type and Typicality.

PubMed

Zarcone, Alessandra; McRae, Ken; Lenci, Alessandro; Padó, Sebastian

2017-01-01

Complement coercion ( begin a book → reading ) involves a type clash between an event-selecting verb and an entity-denoting object, triggering a covert event ( reading ). Two main factors involved in complement coercion have been investigated: the semantic type of the object (event vs. entity), and the typicality of the covert event ( the author began a book → writing ). In previous research, reading times have been measured at the object. However, the influence of the typicality of the subject-object combination on processing an aspectual verb such as begin has not been studied. Using a self-paced reading study, we manipulated semantic type and subject-object typicality, exploiting German word order to measure reading times at the aspectual verb. These variables interacted at the target verb. We conclude that both type and typicality probabilistically guide expectations about upcoming input. These results are compatible with an expectation-based view of complement coercion and language comprehension more generally in which there is rapid interaction between what is typically viewed as linguistic knowledge, and what is typically viewed as domain general knowledge about how the world works.

Complement Coercion: The Joint Effects of Type and Typicality

PubMed Central

Zarcone, Alessandra; McRae, Ken; Lenci, Alessandro; Padó, Sebastian

2017-01-01

Complement coercion (begin a book →reading) involves a type clash between an event-selecting verb and an entity-denoting object, triggering a covert event (reading). Two main factors involved in complement coercion have been investigated: the semantic type of the object (event vs. entity), and the typicality of the covert event (the author began a book →writing). In previous research, reading times have been measured at the object. However, the influence of the typicality of the subject–object combination on processing an aspectual verb such as begin has not been studied. Using a self-paced reading study, we manipulated semantic type and subject–object typicality, exploiting German word order to measure reading times at the aspectual verb. These variables interacted at the target verb. We conclude that both type and typicality probabilistically guide expectations about upcoming input. These results are compatible with an expectation-based view of complement coercion and language comprehension more generally in which there is rapid interaction between what is typically viewed as linguistic knowledge, and what is typically viewed as domain general knowledge about how the world works. PMID:29225585

Spectra of English evolving word co-occurrence networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liang, Wei

2017-02-01

Spectral analysis is a powerful tool that provides global measures of the network properties. In this paper, 200 English articles are collected. A word co-occurrence network is constructed from each single article (denoted by single network). Furthermore, 5 large English word co-occurrence networks are constructed (denoted by large network). Spectra of their adjacency matrices are computed. The largest eigenvalue, λ1, depends on the network size N and the number of edges E as λ1 ∝N0.66 and λ1 ∝E0.54, respectively. The number of different eigenvalues, Nλ, increase in the manner of Nλ ∝N0.58 and Nλ ∝E0.47. The middle part of the spectral distribution can be fitted by a line with slope - 0.01 in each of the large networks, whereas two segments with the same slope - 0.03 for 0 ≪ N < 260 and - 0.02 for 260 < N < 2800 are needed for the single networks. An "M"-shape distribution appears in each of the spectral densities of the large networks. These and other results can provide useful insight into the structural properties of English linguistic networks.

TACT glossary: toys.

PubMed

Taffoni, F; Von, Hofsten

2010-01-01

Toys denote objects used in playing. From the first examples of toys made of materials available in the environment and manufactured by parents or by children themselves only for recreational purpose, toys have evolved into more sophisticated devices which integrate mechanics, electronics and informatics (mechatronic toys) used in several different application fields. There are two main kinds of mechatronic toys: sensorized toys are passive toys equipped with a set of sensors used to record user/toy interactions; robotic toys are artefacts or computers, usually self-propelled with the help of motors, which collect information from the surrounding environment by sensors, and decode this information into behaviors consistent with them. This entry explores the use of the word "toys" from a technological point of view focussing on mechatronic toys and their applications.

Phoenix, a High-Performance UNIX with an Emphasis on Dynamic Modification, Real-Time Response and Survivability

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-12-02

Include Area Code) I22c. OFIICE 5YMBOL Dr. David W. Hislop I I DD FORM 1473,84 MAR d3 APR edition may oe used until exnausteo. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF...Emulator for Performance Evaluation, CommUicanions ofILheACM23, 2 (Feb. 1980 ), 71-80. (4) Wirth, N., Microprocessor Architectures: A Comparison Based on...byte-addressing and has a 16-bit word 1980 decimal size. 3764B octal (denoted by the trailing "B") OCADH hexadeci’nal (denoted by the mailing "H") 1.1

Rhetoric in Logotypes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Cosio, Maria Gonzalez

1998-01-01

Presents examples of logotypes of the word "Mexico" by second-semester typography students from the Universidad de las Americas in Puebla, Mexico. Analyzes each according to its unity, coherence, and emphasis. Discusses the context, syntactic and semantic rhetorical figures, metaphor, and the denotation and connotation of each. (CR)

The Implications of Orthographic Intraference for the Teaching and Description of ESL: The Educated Nigerian English Examples (Implicaciones de la Intraferencia Ortográfica para la Enseñanza y Descripción del Inglés como Segunda Lengua: Ejemplos Inglés Nigeriano Formal)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ekundayo, Omowumi Steve Bode

2015-01-01

This paper examines orthographic intraference and its implications for teaching and describing English as a second language (ESL). Orthographic intraference is used here to denote instances of single word spelling, acronyms, mix up of homophones, homonyms and compound word spelling arising not from interference but from orthographic rules and…

Activating Event Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hare, Mary; Jones, Michael; Thomson, Caroline; Kelly, Sarah; McRae, Ken

2009-01-01

An increasing number of results in sentence and discourse processing demonstrate that comprehension relies on rich pragmatic knowledge about real-world events, and that incoming words incrementally activate such knowledge. If so, then even outside of any larger context, nouns should activate knowledge of the generalized events that they denote or…

Lexical Innovation in Ghanaian English.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bamiro, Edmund O.

An analysis of lexical innovation in Ghanaian English uses ten linguistic categories identified in earlier research on Nigerian English, offering an explanation of each category and a number of examples. The categories include: loanshifts (English words manipulated to produce and transmit meanings beyond purely denotative reference and conveying a…

Visualizing the Verbal and Verbalizing the Visual.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Braden, Roberts A.

This paper explores relationships of visual images to verbal elements, beginning with a discussion of visible language as represented by words printed on the page. The visual flexibility inherent in typography is discussed in terms of the appearance of the letters and the denotative and connotative meanings represented by type, typographical…

Syntactic Cues to Individuation in Mandarin Chinese

PubMed Central

Cheung, Pierina; Barner, David; Li, Peggy

2012-01-01

When presented with an entity (e.g., a wooden honey-dipper) labeled with a novel noun, how does a listener know that the noun refers to an instance of an object kind (honey-dipper) rather than to a substance kind (wood)? While English speakers draw upon count-mass syntax for clues to the noun’s meaning, linguists have proposed that classifier languages, which lack count-mass syntax, provide other syntactic cues. Three experiments tested Mandarin-speakers’ sensitivity to the diminutive suffix -zi and the general classifier ge when interpreting novel nouns. Experiment 1 found that -zi occurs more frequently with nouns that denote object kinds. Experiment 2 demonstrated Mandarin-speaking adults’ sensitivity to ge and -zi when inferring novel word meanings. Experiment 3 tested Mandarin three- to six-year-olds’ sensitivity to ge. We discuss differences in the developmental course of these cues relative to cues in English, and the impact of this difference to children’s understanding of individuation. PMID:23193387

The Searching Effectiveness of Social Tagging in Museum Websites

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cho, Chung-Wen; Yeh, Ting-Kuang; Cheng, Shu-Wen; Chang, Chun-Yen

2012-01-01

This paper explores the search effectiveness of social tagging which allows the public to freely tag resources, denoted as keywords, with any words as well as to share personal opinions on those resources. Social tagging potentially helps users to organize, manage, and retrieve resources. Efficient retrieval can help users put more of their focus…

Is "Two" a Plural Marker in Early Child Language?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barner, David; Lui, Toni; Zapf, Jennifer

2012-01-01

Is "two" ever a plural marker in child language? By some accounts, children bootstrap the distinction between the words "one" and "two" by observing their use with singular-plural marking ("one ball/two balls"). Others argue that the numeral "two" marks plurality before children begin using numerals to denote precise quantities. We tested the…

Density: A Definition, a Concept, or Both?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gaides, G. Edward

1989-01-01

Many words which have been treated in the denotative sense are actually connotative in nature. That is to say that citing a definition or stating a fact should not be a learning goal. Rather, a "conceptualization" should be what teachers are striving for. A series of activities dealing with density have been provided for demonstrations or…

49 CFR 173.225 - Packaging requirements and other provisions for organic peroxides.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... applicable provisions of the table. The column headings of the Organic Peroxides Table are as follows: (1) Technical name. The first column specifies the technical name. (2) ID number. The second column specifies... table. The word “EXEMPT” appearing in the column denotes that the material is not regulated as an...

49 CFR 173.225 - Packaging requirements and other provisions for organic peroxides.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... applicable provisions of the table. The column headings of the Organic Peroxides Table are as follows: (1) Technical name. The first column specifies the technical name. (2) ID number. The second column specifies... table. The word “EXEMPT” appearing in the column denotes that the material is not regulated as an...

Unconscious relational inference recruits the hippocampus.

PubMed

Reber, Thomas P; Luechinger, Roger; Boesiger, Peter; Henke, Katharina

2012-05-02

Relational inference denotes the capacity to encode, flexibly retrieve, and integrate multiple memories to combine past experiences to update knowledge and improve decision-making in new situations. Although relational inference is thought to depend on the hippocampus and consciousness, we now show in young, healthy men that it may occur outside consciousness but still recruits the hippocampus. In temporally distinct and unique subliminal episodes, we presented word pairs that either overlapped ("winter-red", "red-computer") or not. Effects of unconscious relational inference emerged in reaction times recorded during unconscious encoding and in the outcome of decisions made 1 min later at test, when participants judged the semantic relatedness of two supraliminal words. These words were either episodically related through a common word ("winter-computer" related through "red") or unrelated. Hippocampal activity increased during the unconscious encoding of overlapping versus nonoverlapping word pairs and during the unconscious retrieval of episodically related versus unrelated words. Furthermore, hippocampal activity during unconscious encoding predicted the outcome of decisions made at test. Hence, unconscious inference may influence decision-making in new situations.

The Interplay between Value and Relatedness as Bases for Metacognitive Monitoring and Control: Evidence for Agenda-Based Monitoring

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Soderstrom, Nicholas C.; McCabe, David P.

2011-01-01

Two experiments are reported examining how value and relatedness interact to influence metacognitive monitoring and control processes. Participants studied unrelated and related word pairs, each accompanied by point values denoting how important the items were to remember. These values were presented either before or after each pair in a…

Microfinanciers in Training: Teaching Students to Become Entrepreneurs of Social and Material Capital

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Orcutt, Bonnie L.

2007-01-01

Before long, microfinance was, if not a household word, at least a popular term among economists and aid workers denoting a strategy of trying to improve the circumstances of disadvantaged populations by making loans as small as $25 to support microenterprise. At the same time, globalization, diversification and civic engagement were gaining…

Extending the Security Net: The Impact of Rangeland Insurance on Ranching Economy and Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rowley, Rex J.

2008-01-01

Crop insurance is a relatively recent invention that attempts to level the playing field in our contest with the environment. It well represents the complexity and interaction within the human-land relationship. Ranching is another symbol of this relationship. The word stewardship captures a rancher's connection to the land. It denotes a respect…

16 CFR 23.11 - Definition and misuse of the word “diamond.”

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... fashioned with at least seventeen (17) polished facets. Note 1 to paragraph (b): It is unfair or deceptive... not been symmetrically fashioned with at least seventeen (17) polished facets when in immediate... diamond or the name of a type of diamond that denotes shape and that usually has less than seventeen (17...

16 CFR 23.11 - Definition and misuse of the word “diamond.”

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... fashioned with at least seventeen (17) polished facets. Note 1 to paragraph (b): It is unfair or deceptive... not been symmetrically fashioned with at least seventeen (17) polished facets when in immediate... diamond or the name of a type of diamond that denotes shape and that usually has less than seventeen (17...

16 CFR 23.11 - Definition and misuse of the word “diamond.”

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... fashioned with at least seventeen (17) polished facets. Note 1 to paragraph (b): It is unfair or deceptive... not been symmetrically fashioned with at least seventeen (17) polished facets when in immediate... diamond or the name of a type of diamond that denotes shape and that usually has less than seventeen (17...

16 CFR 23.11 - Definition and misuse of the word “diamond.”

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... fashioned with at least seventeen (17) polished facets. Note 1 to paragraph (b): It is unfair or deceptive... not been symmetrically fashioned with at least seventeen (17) polished facets when in immediate... diamond or the name of a type of diamond that denotes shape and that usually has less than seventeen (17...

State Ombudsman Programs. Juvenile Justice Practices Series. Juvenile Justice Bulletin. NCJ 204607

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Judith; Cohn, Alvin W.

2005-01-01

"Ombudsman" is derived from the Swedish word meaning agent or representative. It has come to denote a trusted commissioner or agent who looks after the interests or legal affairs of a particular group. Through their unique access to information and investigative authority, ombudsmen often bring endemic problems within child serving systems to the…

Strategic retrieval in a reality monitoring task.

PubMed

Rosburg, Timm; Mecklinger, Axel; Johansson, Mikael

2011-08-01

Strategic recollection refers to control processes that allow the retrieval of information that is relevant for a specific situation. These processes can be studied in memory exclusion tasks, which require the retrieval of particular kinds of episodic information. In the current study, we investigated strategic recollection in reality monitoring by event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants studied object words, followed by a picture of the denoted object (perceive condition) or followed by the instruction to imagine such a picture (imagine condition). At test, subjects had to identify words of one study condition and to reject words of the second study condition together with newly presented items. Data analysis showed that object names were better identified when items of the perceive condition were targeted. In this test condition, a left parietal old/new effect (the ERP correlate of recollection) was observed only in response to targets. In contrast, both targets and nontargets elicited this old/new effect when items of the imagine condition were targeted. The magnitude of the left parietal old/new effect to nontargets in this condition (but no other left parietal old/new effect) correlated positively with the discrimination indices of both test conditions. In addition, ERPs to targets and nontargets differed at right frontal electrode sites at longer latencies (1500-1800 ms), with more positive ERPs for targets. Findings indicate that subjects retrieved nontarget information in the more difficult task condition, while they relied on target information alone in the less difficult task. This kind of strategic retrieval was not mirrored in other old/new effects. The correlation between the left parietal old/new effect for nontargets in the imagined item target condition and the discrimination indices of both conditions may indicate that the ease of nontarget retrieval, rather than the difficulty of target retrieval, increases the likelihood that nontarget information is actually retrieved. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Feature space trajectory for distorted-object classification and pose estimation in synthetic aperture radar

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Casasent, David P.; Shenoy, Rajesh

1997-10-01

Classification and pose estimation of distorted input objects are considered. The feature space trajectory representation of distorted views of an object is used with a new eigenfeature space. For a distorted input object, the closest trajectory denotes the class of the input and the closest line segment on it denotes its pose. If an input point is too far from a trajectory, it is rejected as clutter. New methods for selecting Fukunaga-Koontz discriminant vectors, the number of dominant eigenvectors per class and for determining training, and test set compatibility are presented.

Origin of the Words Denoting Some of the Most Ancient Old World Pulse Crops and Their Diversity in Modern European Languages

PubMed Central

Mikić, Aleksandar

2012-01-01

This preliminary research was aimed at finding the roots in various Eurasian proto-languages directly related to pulses and giving the words denoting the same in modern European languages. Six Proto-Indo-European roots were indentified, namely arnk(')- (‘a leguminous plant’), *bhabh- (‘field bean’), * (‘a kernel of leguminous plant’, ‘pea’), ghArs- (‘a leguminous plant’), *kek- (‘pea’) and *lent- (‘lentil’). No Proto-Uralic root was attested save hypothetically *kača (‘pea’), while there were two Proto-Altaic roots, *bŭkrV (‘pea’) and * (‘lentil’). The Proto-Caucasianx root * denoted pea, while another one, *hōwł(ā) (‘bean’, ‘lentil’) and the Proto-Basque root *iłha-r (‘pea’, ‘bean’, ‘vetch’) could have a common Proto-Sino-Caucasian ancestor, *hVwłV (‘bean’) within the hypothetic Dené-Caucasian language superfamily. The Modern Maltese preserved the memory of two Proto-Semitic roots, *'adaš- (‘lentil’) and *pūl- (‘field bean’). The presented results prove that the most ancient Eurasian pulse crops were well-known and extensively cultivated by the ancestors of all modern European nations. The attested lexicological continuum witnesses the existence of a millennia-long links between the peoples of Eurasia to their mutual benefit. This research is meant to encourage interdisciplinary concerted actions between plant scientists dealing with crop evolution and biodiversity, archaeobotanists and language historians. PMID:22973458

TOY SAFETY SURVEILLANCE FROM ONLINE REVIEWS

PubMed Central

Winkler, Matt; Abrahams, Alan S.; Gruss, Richard; Ehsani, Johnathan P.

2016-01-01

Toy-related injuries account for a significant number of childhood injuries and the prevention of these injuries remains a goal for regulatory agencies and manufacturers. Text-mining is an increasingly prevalent method for uncovering the significance of words using big data. This research sets out to determine the effectiveness of text-mining in uncovering potentially dangerous children’s toys. We develop a danger word list, also known as a ‘smoke word’ list, from injury and recall text narratives. We then use the smoke word lists to score over one million Amazon reviews, with the top scores denoting potential safety concerns. We compare the smoke word list to conventional sentiment analysis techniques, in terms of both word overlap and effectiveness. We find that smoke word lists are highly distinct from conventional sentiment dictionaries and provide a statistically significant method for identifying safety concerns in children’s toy reviews. Our findings indicate that text-mining is, in fact, an effective method for the surveillance of safety concerns in children’s toys and could be a gateway to effective prevention of toy-product-related injuries. PMID:27942092

Preserved visual lexicosemantics in global aphasia: a right-hemisphere contribution?

PubMed

Gold, B T; Kertesz, A

2000-12-01

Extensive testing of a patient, GP, who encountered large-scale destruction of left-hemisphere (LH) language regions was undertaken in order to address several issues concerning the ability of nonperisylvian areas to extract meaning from printed words. Testing revealed recognition of superordinate boundaries of animals, tools, vegetables, fruit, clothes, and furniture. GP was able to distinguish proper names from other nouns and from nonwords. GP was also able to differentiate words representing living things from those denoting nonliving things. The extent of LH infarct resulting in a global impairment to phonological and syntactic processing suggests LH specificity for these functions but considerable right-hemisphere (RH) participation in visual lexicosemantic processing. The relative preservation of visual lexicosemantic abilities despite severe impairment to all aspects of phonological coding demonstrates the importance of the direct route to the meaning of single printed words.

Neural Correlates of Encoding Within- and Across-Domain Inter-Item Associations

PubMed Central

Park, Heekyeong; Rugg, Michael D.

2012-01-01

The neural correlates of the encoding of associations between pairs of words, pairs of pictures, and word-picture pairs were compared. The aims were to determine first, whether the neural correlates of associative encoding vary according to study material and second, whether encoding of across- versus within-material item pairs is associated with dissociable patterns of hippocampal and perirhinal activity, as predicted by the ‘domain dichotomy’ hypothesis of medial temporal lobe (MTL) function. While undergoing fMRI scanning, subjects (n = 24) were presented with the three classes of study pairs, judging which of the denoted objects fit into the other. Outside of the scanner, subjects then undertook an associative recognition task, discriminating between intact study pairs, rearranged pairs comprising items that had been presented on different study trials, and unstudied item pairs. The neural correlates of successful associative encoding – subsequent associative memory effects – were operationalized as the difference in activity between study pairs correctly judged intact versus pairs incorrectly judged rearranged on the subsequent memory test. Pair type-independent subsequent memory effects were evident in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the hippocampus. Picture-picture pairs elicited material-selective effects in regions of fusiform cortex that were also activated to a greater extent on picture trials than word trials, while word-word pairs elicited material-selective subsequent memory effects in left lateral temporal cortex. Contrary to the domain-dichotomy hypothesis, neither hippocampal nor perirhinal subsequent memory effects differed depending on whether they were elicited by within- versus across-material study pairs. It is proposed that the left IFG plays a domain-general role in associative encoding, that associative encoding can also be facilitated by enhanced processing in material-selective cortical regions, and that the hippocampus and perirhinal cortex contribute equally to the formation of inter-item associations regardless of whether the items belong to the same or to different processing domains. PMID:21254802

Artful terms: A study on aesthetic word usage for visual art versus film and music.

PubMed

Augustin, M Dorothee; Carbon, Claus-Christian; Wagemans, Johan

2012-01-01

Despite the importance of the arts in human life, psychologists still know relatively little about what characterises their experience for the recipient. The current research approaches this problem by studying people's word usage in aesthetics, with a focus on three important art forms: visual art, film, and music. The starting point was a list of 77 words known to be useful to describe aesthetic impressions of visual art (Augustin et al 2012, Acta Psychologica139 187-201). Focusing on ratings of likelihood of use, we examined to what extent word usage in aesthetic descriptions of visual art can be generalised to film and music. The results support the claim of an interplay of generality and specificity in aesthetic word usage. Terms with equal likelihood of use for all art forms included beautiful, wonderful, and terms denoting originality. Importantly, emotion-related words received higher ratings for film and music than for visual art. To our knowledge this is direct evidence that aesthetic experiences of visual art may be less affectively loaded than, for example, experiences of music. The results render important information about aesthetic word usage in the realm of the arts and may serve as a starting point to develop tailored measurement instruments for different art forms.

Artful terms: A study on aesthetic word usage for visual art versus film and music

PubMed Central

Augustin, M Dorothee; Carbon, Claus-Christian; Wagemans, Johan

2012-01-01

Despite the importance of the arts in human life, psychologists still know relatively little about what characterises their experience for the recipient. The current research approaches this problem by studying people's word usage in aesthetics, with a focus on three important art forms: visual art, film, and music. The starting point was a list of 77 words known to be useful to describe aesthetic impressions of visual art (Augustin et al 2012, Acta Psychologica 139 187–201). Focusing on ratings of likelihood of use, we examined to what extent word usage in aesthetic descriptions of visual art can be generalised to film and music. The results support the claim of an interplay of generality and specificity in aesthetic word usage. Terms with equal likelihood of use for all art forms included beautiful, wonderful, and terms denoting originality. Importantly, emotion-related words received higher ratings for film and music than for visual art. To our knowledge this is direct evidence that aesthetic experiences of visual art may be less affectively loaded than, for example, experiences of music. The results render important information about aesthetic word usage in the realm of the arts and may serve as a starting point to develop tailored measurement instruments for different art forms. PMID:23145287

Unipacs: A Language Arts Curriculum Theory, Abstractions, Statements in Context, and Language Change; And Instructional Packets: Symbol-Referent, Denotation and Connotation, Appropriateness, Dialect, Occasion, and Form and Media.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Madison Public Schools, WI.

Based on the belief that the most appropriate focus of a language arts curriculum is the process and content of communication, these several unipacs (instructional packets) explore some essential elements of communication which should be incorporated into a curricular theory: (1) abstraction , which is the assertion that words may be classified as…

Social Salience Discriminates Learnability of Contextual Cues in an Artificial Language.

PubMed

Rácz, Péter; Hay, Jennifer B; Pierrehumbert, Janet B

2017-01-01

We investigate the learning of contextual meaning by adults in an artificial language. Contextual meaning here refers to the non-denotative contextual information that speakers attach to a linguistic construction. Through a series of short games, played online, we test how well adults can learn different contextual meanings for a word-formation pattern in an artificial language. We look at whether learning contextual meanings depends on the social salience of the context, whether our players interpret these contexts generally, and whether the learned meaning is generalized to new words. Our results show that adults are capable of learning contextual meaning if the context is socially salient, coherent, and interpretable. Once a contextual meaning is recognized, it is readily generalized to related forms and contexts.

Word Generalization by a Dog (Canis familiaris): Is Shape Important?

PubMed Central

van der Zee, Emile; Zulch, Helen; Mills, Daniel

2012-01-01

We investigated the presence of a key feature of human word comprehension in a five year old Border Collie: the generalization of a word referring to an object to other objects of the same shape, also known as shape bias. Our first experiment confirmed a solid history of word learning in the dog, thus making it possible for certain object features to have become central in his word comprehension. Using an experimental paradigm originally employed to establish shape bias in children and human adults we taught the dog arbitrary object names (e.g. dax) for novel objects. Two experiments showed that when briefly familiarized with word-object mappings the dog did not generalize object names to object shape but to object size. A fourth experiment showed that when familiarized with a word-object mapping for a longer period of time the dog tended to generalize the word to objects with the same texture. These results show that the dog tested did not display human-like word comprehension, but word generalization and word reference development of a qualitatively different nature compared to humans. We conclude that a shape bias for word generalization in humans is due to the distinct evolutionary history of the human sensory system for object identification and that more research is necessary to confirm qualitative differences in word generalization between humans and dogs. PMID:23185321

Word generalization by a dog (Canis familiaris): is shape important?

PubMed

van der Zee, Emile; Zulch, Helen; Mills, Daniel

2012-01-01

We investigated the presence of a key feature of human word comprehension in a five year old Border Collie: the generalization of a word referring to an object to other objects of the same shape, also known as shape bias. Our first experiment confirmed a solid history of word learning in the dog, thus making it possible for certain object features to have become central in his word comprehension. Using an experimental paradigm originally employed to establish shape bias in children and human adults we taught the dog arbitrary object names (e.g. dax) for novel objects. Two experiments showed that when briefly familiarized with word-object mappings the dog did not generalize object names to object shape but to object size. A fourth experiment showed that when familiarized with a word-object mapping for a longer period of time the dog tended to generalize the word to objects with the same texture. These results show that the dog tested did not display human-like word comprehension, but word generalization and word reference development of a qualitatively different nature compared to humans. We conclude that a shape bias for word generalization in humans is due to the distinct evolutionary history of the human sensory system for object identification and that more research is necessary to confirm qualitative differences in word generalization between humans and dogs.

Numerical morphology supports early number word learning: Evidence from a comparison of young Mandarin and English learners

PubMed Central

Corre, Mathieu Le; Li, Peggy; Huang, Becky H.; Jia, Gisela; Carey, Susan

2016-01-01

Previous studies showed that children learning a language with an obligatory singular/plural distinction (Russian and English) learn the meaning of the number word for one earlier than children learning Japanese, a language without obligatory number morphology (Barner, Libenson, Cheung, & Takasaki, 2009; Sarnecka, Kamenskaya, Yamana, Ogura, & Yudovina, 2007). This can be explained by differences in number morphology, but it can also be explained by many other differences between the languages and the environments of the children who were compared. The present study tests the hypothesis that the morphological singular/plural distinction supports the early acquisition of the meaning of the number word for one by comparing young English learners to age and SES matched young Mandarin Chinese learners. Mandarin does not have obligatory number morphology but is more similar to English than Japanese in many crucial respects. Corpus analyses show that, compared to English learners, Mandarin learners hear number words more frequently, are more likely to hear number words followed by a noun, and are more likely to hear number words in contexts where they denote a cardinal value. Two tasks show that, despite these advantages, Mandarin learners learn the meaning of the number word for one three to six months later than do English learners. These results provide the strongest evidence to date that prior knowledge of the numerical meaning of the distinction between singular and plural supports the acquisition of the meaning of the number word for one. PMID:27423486

Competition between multiple words for a referent in cross-situational word learning

PubMed Central

Benitez, Viridiana L.; Yurovsky, Daniel; Smith, Linda B.

2016-01-01

Three experiments investigated competition between word-object pairings in a cross-situational word-learning paradigm. Adults were presented with One-Word pairings, where a single word labeled a single object, and Two-Word pairings, where two words labeled a single object. In addition to measuring learning of these two pairing types, we measured competition between words that refer to the same object. When the word-object co-occurrences were presented intermixed in training (Experiment 1), we found evidence for direct competition between words that label the same referent. Separating the two words for an object in time eliminated any evidence for this competition (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 demonstrated that adding a linguistic cue to the second label for a referent led to different competition effects between adults who self-reported different language learning histories, suggesting both distinctiveness and language learning history affect competition. Finally, in all experiments, competition effects were unrelated to participants’ explicit judgments of learning, suggesting that competition reflects the operating characteristics of implicit learning processes. Together, these results demonstrate that the role of competition between overlapping associations in statistical word-referent learning depends on time, the distinctiveness of word-object pairings, and language learning history. PMID:27087742

Interference and facilitation in overt speech production investigated with event-related potentials.

PubMed

Hirschfeld, Gerrit; Jansma, Bernadette; Bölte, Jens; Zwitserlood, Pienie

2008-08-06

We report an event-related potential study investigating the neural basis of interference and facilitation in the picture-word interference paradigm with immediate overt naming. We used the high temporal resolution of the electrophysiological response to dissociate general and specific interference processes, by comparing unrelated word distractors to nonlinguistic (a row of Xs), surface feature denoting, and category member distractors. Our results first indicate that the increased naming latencies for linguistic relative to nonlinguistic distractors are because of general conflict-monitoring processes, associated with early event-related potential effects (120-220 ms) and increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex. Next, distractors specifying a surface feature of the picture seem to facilitate its identification within the same time window, which involves widespread networks. Finally, nonlinguistic and surface feature distractors also reduced the N400 amplitude, relative to unrelated word distractors. Taken together our results support the view that several distinct processes give rise to the reaction time results often observed in picture naming.

Animates are better remembered than inanimates: further evidence from word and picture stimuli.

PubMed

Bonin, Patrick; Gelin, Margaux; Bugaiska, Aurélia

2014-04-01

In three experiments, we showed that animate entities are remembered better than inanimate entities. Experiment 1 revealed better recall for words denoting animate than inanimate items. Experiment 2 replicated this finding with the use of pictures. In Experiment 3, we found better recognition for animate than for inanimate words. Importantly, we also found a higher recall rate of “remember” than of “know” responses for animates, whereas the recall rates were similar for the two types of responses for inanimate items. This finding suggests that animacy enhances not only the quantity but also the quality of memory traces, through the recall of contextual details of previous experiences (i.e., episodic memory). Finally, in Experiment 4, we tested whether the animacy effect was due to animate items being richer in terms of sensory features than inanimate items. The findings provide further evidence for the functionalist view of memory championed by Nairne and coworkers (Nairne, 2010; Nairne & Pandeirada, Cognitive Psychology, 61 :1–22, 2010a, 2010b).

Reading sky and seeing a cloud: On the relevance of events for perceptual simulation.

PubMed

Ostarek, Markus; Vigliocco, Gabriella

2017-04-01

Previous research has shown that processing words with an up/down association (e.g., bird, foot) can influence the subsequent identification of visual targets in congruent location (at the top/bottom of the screen). However, as facilitation and interference were found under similar conditions, the nature of the underlying mechanisms remained unclear. We propose that word comprehension relies on the perceptual simulation of a prototypical event involving the entity denoted by a word in order to provide a general account of the different findings. In 3 experiments, participants had to discriminate between 2 target pictures appearing at the top or the bottom of the screen by pressing the left versus right button. Immediately before the targets appeared, they saw an up/down word belonging to the target's event, an up/down word unrelated to the target, or a spatially neutral control word. Prime words belonging to target event facilitated identification of targets at a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 250 ms (Experiment 1), but only when presented in the vertical location where they are typically seen, indicating that targets were integrated in the simulations activated by the prime words. Moreover, at the same SOA, there was a robust facilitation effect for targets appearing in their typical location regardless of the prime type. However, when words were presented for 100 ms (Experiment 2) or 800 ms (Experiment 3), only a location nonspecific priming effect was found, suggesting that the visual system was not activated. Implications for theories of semantic processing are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Verbal-spatial and visuospatial coding of power-space interactions.

PubMed

Dai, Qiang; Zhu, Lei

2018-05-10

A power-space interaction, which denotes the phenomenon that people responded faster to powerful words when they are placed higher in a visual field and faster to powerless words when they are placed lower in a visual field, has been repeatedly found. The dominant explanation of this power-space interaction is that it results from a tight correspondence between the representation of power and visual space (i.e., a visuospatial coding account). In the present study, we demonstrated that the interaction between power and space could be also based on a verbal-spatial coding in absence of any vertical spatial information. Additionally, the verbal-spatial coding was dominant in driving the power-space interaction when verbal space was contrasted with the visual space. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Social Salience Discriminates Learnability of Contextual Cues in an Artificial Language

PubMed Central

Rácz, Péter; Hay, Jennifer B.; Pierrehumbert, Janet B.

2017-01-01

We investigate the learning of contextual meaning by adults in an artificial language. Contextual meaning here refers to the non-denotative contextual information that speakers attach to a linguistic construction. Through a series of short games, played online, we test how well adults can learn different contextual meanings for a word-formation pattern in an artificial language. We look at whether learning contextual meanings depends on the social salience of the context, whether our players interpret these contexts generally, and whether the learned meaning is generalized to new words. Our results show that adults are capable of learning contextual meaning if the context is socially salient, coherent, and interpretable. Once a contextual meaning is recognized, it is readily generalized to related forms and contexts. PMID:28194122

Action Priority: Early Neurophysiological Interaction of Conceptual and Motor Representations

PubMed Central

Koester, Dirk; Schack, Thomas

2016-01-01

Handling our everyday life, we often react manually to verbal requests or instruction, but the functional interrelations of motor control and language are not fully understood yet, especially their neurophysiological basis. Here, we investigated whether specific motor representations for grip types interact neurophysiologically with conceptual information, that is, when reading nouns. Participants performed lexical decisions and, for words, executed a grasp-and-lift task on objects of different sizes involving precision or power grips while the electroencephalogram was recorded. Nouns could denote objects that require either a precision or a power grip and could, thus, be (in)congruent with the performed grasp. In a control block, participants pointed at the objects instead of grasping them. The main result revealed an event-related potential (ERP) interaction of grip type and conceptual information which was not present for pointing. Incongruent compared to congruent conditions elicited an increased positivity (100–200 ms after noun onset). Grip type effects were obtained in response-locked analyses of the grasping ERPs (100–300 ms at left anterior electrodes). These findings attest that grip type and conceptual information are functionally related when planning a grasping action but such an interaction could not be detected for pointing. Generally, the results suggest that control of behaviour can be modulated by task demands; conceptual noun information (i.e., associated action knowledge) may gain processing priority if the task requires a complex motor response. PMID:27973539

The company objects keep: Linking referents together during cross-situational word learning.

PubMed

Zettersten, Martin; Wojcik, Erica; Benitez, Viridiana L; Saffran, Jenny

2018-04-01

Learning the meanings of words involves not only linking individual words to referents but also building a network of connections among entities in the world, concepts, and words. Previous studies reveal that infants and adults track the statistical co-occurrence of labels and objects across multiple ambiguous training instances to learn words. However, it is less clear whether, given distributional or attentional cues, learners also encode associations amongst the novel objects. We investigated the consequences of two types of cues that highlighted object-object links in a cross-situational word learning task: distributional structure - how frequently the referents of novel words occurred together - and visual context - whether the referents were seen on matching backgrounds. Across three experiments, we found that in addition to learning novel words, adults formed connections between frequently co-occurring objects. These findings indicate that learners exploit statistical regularities to form multiple types of associations during word learning.

Numerical morphology supports early number word learning: Evidence from a comparison of young Mandarin and English learners.

PubMed

Le Corre, Mathieu; Li, Peggy; Huang, Becky H; Jia, Gisela; Carey, Susan

2016-08-01

Previous studies showed that children learning a language with an obligatory singular/plural distinction (Russian and English) learn the meaning of the number word for one earlier than children learning Japanese, a language without obligatory number morphology (Barner, Libenson, Cheung, & Takasaki, 2009; Sarnecka, Kamenskaya, Yamana, Ogura, & Yudovina, 2007). This can be explained by differences in number morphology, but it can also be explained by many other differences between the languages and the environments of the children who were compared. The present study tests the hypothesis that the morphological singular/plural distinction supports the early acquisition of the meaning of the number word for one by comparing young English learners to age and SES matched young Mandarin Chinese learners. Mandarin does not have obligatory number morphology but is more similar to English than Japanese in many crucial respects. Corpus analyses show that, compared to English learners, Mandarin learners hear number words more frequently, are more likely to hear number words followed by a noun, and are more likely to hear number words in contexts where they denote a cardinal value. Two tasks show that, despite these advantages, Mandarin learners learn the meaning of the number word for one three to six months later than do English learners. These results provide the strongest evidence to date that prior knowledge of the numerical meaning of the distinction between singular and plural supports the acquisition of the meaning of the number word for one. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Distance-dependent processing of pictures and words.

PubMed

Amit, Elinor; Algom, Daniel; Trope, Yaacov

2009-08-01

A series of 8 experiments investigated the association between pictorial and verbal representations and the psychological distance of the referent objects from the observer. The results showed that people better process pictures that represent proximal objects and words that represent distal objects than pictures that represent distal objects and words that represent proximal objects. These results were obtained with various psychological distance dimensions (spatial, temporal, and social), different tasks (classification and categorization), and different measures (speed of processing and selective attention). The authors argue that differences in the processing of pictures and words emanate from the physical similarity of pictures, but not words, to the referents. Consequently, perceptual analysis is commonly applied to pictures but not to words. Pictures thus impart a sense of closeness to the referent objects and are preferably used to represent such objects, whereas words do not convey proximity and are preferably used to represent distal objects in space, time, and social perspective.

Why is number word learning hard? Evidence from bilingual learners.

PubMed

Wagner, Katie; Kimura, Katherine; Cheung, Pierina; Barner, David

2015-12-01

Young children typically take between 18 months and 2 years to learn the meanings of number words. In the present study, we investigated this developmental trajectory in bilingual preschoolers to examine the relative contributions of two factors in number word learning: (1) the construction of numerical concepts, and (2) the mapping of language specific words onto these concepts. We found that children learn the meanings of small number words (i.e., one, two, and three) independently in each language, indicating that observed delays in learning these words are attributable to difficulties in mapping words to concepts. In contrast, children generally learned to accurately count larger sets (i.e., five or greater) simultaneously in their two languages, suggesting that the difficulty in learning to count is not tied to a specific language. We also replicated previous studies that found that children learn the counting procedure before they learn its logic - i.e., that for any natural number, n, the successor of n in the count list denotes the cardinality n+1. Consistent with past studies, we found that children's knowledge of successors is first acquired incrementally. In bilinguals, we found that this knowledge exhibits item-specific transfer between languages, suggesting that the logic of the positive integers may not be stored in a language-specific format. We conclude that delays in learning the meanings of small number words are mainly due to language-specific processes of mapping words to concepts, whereas the logic and procedures of counting appear to be learned in a format that is independent of a particular language and thus transfers rapidly from one language to the other in development. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.

When envy leads to schadenfreude.

PubMed

van de Ven, Niels; Hoogland, Charles E; Smith, Richard H; van Dijk, Wilco W; Breugelmans, Seger M; Zeelenberg, Marcel

2015-01-01

Previous research has yielded inconsistent findings concerning the relationship between envy and schadenfreude. Three studies examined whether the distinction between benign and malicious envy can resolve this inconsistency. We found that malicious envy is related to schadenfreude, while benign envy is not. This result held both in the Netherlands where benign and malicious envy are indicated by separate words (Study 1: Sample A, N = 139; Sample B, N = 150), and in the USA where a single word is used to denote both types (Study 2, N = 180; Study 3, N = 349). Moreover, the effect of malicious envy on schadenfreude was independent of other antecedents of schadenfreude (such as feelings of inferiority, disliking the target person, anger, and perceived deservedness). These findings improve our understanding of the antecedents of schadenfreude and help reconcile seemingly contradictory findings on the relationship between envy and schadenfreude.

Virtopsy: Touch-free autopsy.

PubMed

Badam, Raj Kumar; Sownetha, Triekan; Babu, D B Gandhi; Waghray, Shefali; Reddy, Lavanya; Garlapati, Komali; Chavva, Sunanda

2017-01-01

The word "autopsy" denotes "to see with own eyes." Autopsy (postmortem) is a process that includes a thorough examination of a corpse noting everything related to anatomization, surface wounds, histological and culture studies. Virtopsy is a term extracted from two words "virtual" and "autopsy." It employs imaging methods that are routinely used in clinical medicine such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging in the field of autopsy, to find the reason for death. Virtopsy is a multi-disciplinary technology that combines forensic medicine and pathology, roentgenology, computer graphics, biomechanics, and physics. It is rapidly gaining importance in the field of forensics. This approach has been recently used by forensic odontologists, but yet to make its own mark in the field. This article mainly deals with "virtopsy" where in various articles were web searched, relevant data was selected, extracted, and summarized here.

On avoided words, absent words, and their application to biological sequence analysis.

PubMed

Almirantis, Yannis; Charalampopoulos, Panagiotis; Gao, Jia; Iliopoulos, Costas S; Mohamed, Manal; Pissis, Solon P; Polychronopoulos, Dimitris

2017-01-01

The deviation of the observed frequency of a word w from its expected frequency in a given sequence x is used to determine whether or not the word is avoided . This concept is particularly useful in DNA linguistic analysis. The value of the deviation of w , denoted by [Formula: see text], effectively characterises the extent of a word by its edge contrast in the context in which it occurs. A word w of length [Formula: see text] is a [Formula: see text]-avoided word in x if [Formula: see text], for a given threshold [Formula: see text]. Notice that such a word may be completely absent from x . Hence, computing all such words naïvely can be a very time-consuming procedure, in particular for large k . In this article, we propose an [Formula: see text]-time and [Formula: see text]-space algorithm to compute all [Formula: see text]-avoided words of length k in a given sequence of length n over a fixed-sized alphabet. We also present a time-optimal [Formula: see text]-time algorithm to compute all [Formula: see text]-avoided words (of any length) in a sequence of length n over an integer alphabet of size [Formula: see text]. In addition, we provide a tight asymptotic upper bound for the number of [Formula: see text]-avoided words over an integer alphabet and the expected length of the longest one. We make available an implementation of our algorithm. Experimental results, using both real and synthetic data, show the efficiency and applicability of our implementation in biological sequence analysis. The systematic search for avoided words is particularly useful for biological sequence analysis. We present a linear-time and linear-space algorithm for the computation of avoided words of length k in a given sequence x . We suggest a modification to this algorithm so that it computes all avoided words of x , irrespective of their length, within the same time complexity. We also present combinatorial results with regards to avoided words and absent words.

Infants Track Word Forms in Early Word-Object Associations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zamuner, Tania S.; Fais, Laurel; Werker, Janet F.

2014-01-01

A central component of language development is word learning. One characterization of this process is that language learners discover objects and then look for word forms to associate with these objects (Mcnamara, 1984; Smith, 2000). Another possibility is that word forms themselves are also important, such that once learned, hearing a familiar…

Associative vocabulary learning: development and testing of two paradigms for the (re-) acquisition of action- and object-related words.

PubMed

Freundlieb, Nils; Ridder, Volker; Dobel, Christian; Enriquez-Geppert, Stefanie; Baumgaertner, Annette; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Gerloff, Christian; Hummel, Friedhelm C; Liuzzi, Gianpiero

2012-01-01

Despite a growing number of studies, the neurophysiology of adult vocabulary acquisition is still poorly understood. One reason is that paradigms that can easily be combined with neuroscientfic methods are rare. Here, we tested the efficiency of two paradigms for vocabulary (re-) acquisition, and compared the learning of novel words for actions and objects. Cortical networks involved in adult native-language word processing are widespread, with differences postulated between words for objects and actions. Words and what they stand for are supposed to be grounded in perceptual and sensorimotor brain circuits depending on their meaning. If there are specific brain representations for different word categories, we hypothesized behavioural differences in the learning of action-related and object-related words. Paradigm A, with the learning of novel words for body-related actions spread out over a number of days, revealed fast learning of these new action words, and stable retention up to 4 weeks after training. The single-session Paradigm B employed objects and actions. Performance during acquisition did not differ between action-related and object-related words (time*word category: p = 0.01), but the translation rate was clearly better for object-related (79%) than for action-related words (53%, p = 0.002). Both paradigms yielded robust associative learning of novel action-related words, as previously demonstrated for object-related words. Translation success differed for action- and object-related words, which may indicate different neural mechanisms. The paradigms tested here are well suited to investigate such differences with neuroscientific means. Given the stable retention and minimal requirements for conscious effort, these learning paradigms are promising for vocabulary re-learning in brain-lesioned people. In combination with neuroimaging, neuro-stimulation or pharmacological intervention, they may well advance the understanding of language learning to optimize therapeutic strategies.

Object Permanence and Relational Words: A Lexical Training Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tomasello, Michael; Farrar, Michael Jeffrey

1986-01-01

Describes a lexical training program developed to teach object, visible movement, and invisible movement words to children at stage 5 (N=7) and stage 6 (N=16) object permanence development. Stage 6 children learned all three types of words equally well, while stage 5 children learned object and visible movement but not invisible movement words.…

Is Accessing of Words Affected by Affective Valence Only? A Discrete Emotion View on the Emotional Congruency Effect

PubMed Central

Chen, Xuqian; Liu, Bo; Lin, Shouwen

2016-01-01

This paper advances the discussion on which emotion information affects word accessing. Emotion information, which is formed as a result of repeated experiences, is primary and necessary in learning and representing word meanings. Previous findings suggested that valence (i.e., positive or negative) denoted by words can be automatically activated and plays a role in many significant cognitive processes. However, there has been a lack of discussion about whether discrete emotion information (i.e., happiness, anger, sadness, and fear) is also involved in these processes. According to the hierarchy model, emotions are considered organized within an abstract-to-concrete hierarchy, in which emotion prototypes are organized following affective valence. By controlling different congruencies of emotion relations (i.e., matches or mismatches between valences and prototypes of emotion), the present study showed both an evaluative congruency effect (Experiment 1) and a discrete emotional congruency effect (Experiment 2). These findings indicate that not only affective valences but also discrete emotions can be activated under the present priming lexical decision task. However, the present findings also suggest that discrete emotions might be activated at the later priming stage as compared to valences. The present work provides evidence that information about discrete emotion could be involved in word processing. This might be a result of subjects’ embodied experiences. PMID:27379000

Is Accessing of Words Affected by Affective Valence Only? A Discrete Emotion View on the Emotional Congruency Effect.

PubMed

Chen, Xuqian; Liu, Bo; Lin, Shouwen

2016-01-01

This paper advances the discussion on which emotion information affects word accessing. Emotion information, which is formed as a result of repeated experiences, is primary and necessary in learning and representing word meanings. Previous findings suggested that valence (i.e., positive or negative) denoted by words can be automatically activated and plays a role in many significant cognitive processes. However, there has been a lack of discussion about whether discrete emotion information (i.e., happiness, anger, sadness, and fear) is also involved in these processes. According to the hierarchy model, emotions are considered organized within an abstract-to-concrete hierarchy, in which emotion prototypes are organized following affective valence. By controlling different congruencies of emotion relations (i.e., matches or mismatches between valences and prototypes of emotion), the present study showed both an evaluative congruency effect (Experiment 1) and a discrete emotional congruency effect (Experiment 2). These findings indicate that not only affective valences but also discrete emotions can be activated under the present priming lexical decision task. However, the present findings also suggest that discrete emotions might be activated at the later priming stage as compared to valences. The present work provides evidence that information about discrete emotion could be involved in word processing. This might be a result of subjects' embodied experiences.

Word and Pseudoword Superiority Effects: Evidence From a Shallow Orthography Language.

PubMed

Ripamonti, Enrico; Luzzatti, Claudio; Zoccolotti, Pierluigi; Traficante, Daniela

2017-08-03

The Word Superiority Effect (WSE) denotes better recognition of a letter embedded in a word rather than in a pseudoword. Along with WSE, also a Pseudoword Superiority Effect (PSE) has been described: it is easier to recognize a letter in a legal pseudoword than in an unpronounceable nonword. At the current state of the art, both WSE and PSE have been mainly tested with English speakers. The present study uses the Reicher-Wheeler paradigm with native speakers of Italian (a shallow orthography language). Differently from English and French, we found WSE for RTs only, whereas PSE was significant for both accuracy and reaction times (RTs). This finding indicates that, in the Reicher-Wheeler task, readers of a shallow orthography language can effectively rely on both the lexical and the sublexical routes. As to the effect of letter position, a clear advantage for the first letter position emerged, a finding suggesting a fine-grained processing of the letter strings with coding of letter position, and indicating the role of visual acuity and crowding factors.

Named Entity Recognition in Chinese Clinical Text Using Deep Neural Network.

PubMed

Wu, Yonghui; Jiang, Min; Lei, Jianbo; Xu, Hua

2015-01-01

Rapid growth in electronic health records (EHRs) use has led to an unprecedented expansion of available clinical data in electronic formats. However, much of the important healthcare information is locked in the narrative documents. Therefore Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies, e.g., Named Entity Recognition that identifies boundaries and types of entities, has been extensively studied to unlock important clinical information in free text. In this study, we investigated a novel deep learning method to recognize clinical entities in Chinese clinical documents using the minimal feature engineering approach. We developed a deep neural network (DNN) to generate word embeddings from a large unlabeled corpus through unsupervised learning and another DNN for the NER task. The experiment results showed that the DNN with word embeddings trained from the large unlabeled corpus outperformed the state-of-the-art CRF's model in the minimal feature engineering setting, achieving the highest F1-score of 0.9280. Further analysis showed that word embeddings derived through unsupervised learning from large unlabeled corpus remarkably improved the DNN with randomized embedding, denoting the usefulness of unsupervised feature learning.

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.

Object activation in semantic memory from visual multimodal feature input.

PubMed

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

2002-01-01

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

The Development of Word-Object Associations in Typically Developing Infants and Infants and Toddlers with Williams Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ha, Oh Ryeong

2013-01-01

The ability to form associations between words and objects rapidly with a short amount of exposure is a marker of more proficient word learners in typically developing (TD) infants. Investigating the underlying mechanisms for how words are associated with objects is necessary for understanding early word learning in the TD population as well as in…

Virtopsy: Touch-free autopsy

PubMed Central

Badam, Raj Kumar; Sownetha, Triekan; Babu, D. B. Gandhi; Waghray, Shefali; Reddy, Lavanya; Garlapati, Komali; Chavva, Sunanda

2017-01-01

The word “autopsy” denotes “to see with own eyes.” Autopsy (postmortem) is a process that includes a thorough examination of a corpse noting everything related to anatomization, surface wounds, histological and culture studies. Virtopsy is a term extracted from two words “virtual” and “autopsy.” It employs imaging methods that are routinely used in clinical medicine such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging in the field of autopsy, to find the reason for death. Virtopsy is a multi-disciplinary technology that combines forensic medicine and pathology, roentgenology, computer graphics, biomechanics, and physics. It is rapidly gaining importance in the field of forensics. This approach has been recently used by forensic odontologists, but yet to make its own mark in the field. This article mainly deals with “virtopsy” where in various articles were web searched, relevant data was selected, extracted, and summarized here. PMID:28584475

Distinctions between manipulation and function knowledge of objects: evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging.

PubMed

Boronat, Consuelo B; Buxbaum, Laurel J; Coslett, H Branch; Tang, Kathy; Saffran, Eleanor M; Kimberg, Daniel Y; Detre, John A

2005-05-01

A prominent account of conceptual knowledge proposes that information is distributed over visual, tactile, auditory, motor and verbal-declarative attribute domains to the degree to which these features were activated when the knowledge was acquired [D.A. Allport, Distributed memory, modular subsystems and dysphagia, In: S.K. Newman, R. Epstein (Eds.), Current perspectives in dysphagia, Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1985, pp. 32-60]. A corollary is that when drawing upon this knowledge (e.g., to answer questions), particular aspects of this distributed information is re-activated as a function of the requirements of the task at hand [L.J. Buxbaum, E.M. Saffran, Knowledge of object manipulation and object function: dissociations in apraxic and non-apraxic subjects. Brain and Language, 82 (2002) 179-199; L.J. Buxbaum, T. Veramonti, M.F. Schwartz, Function and manipulation tool knowledge in apraxia: knowing 'what for' but not 'how', Neurocase, 6 (2000) 83-97; W. Simmons, L. Barsalou, The similarity-in-topography principle: Reconciling theories of conceptual deficits, Cognitive Neuropsychology, 20 (2003) 451-486]. This account predicts that answering questions about object manipulation should activate brain regions previously identified as components of the distributed sensory-motor system involved in object use, whereas answering questions about object function (that is, the purpose that it serves) should activate regions identified as components of the systems supporting verbal-declarative features. These predictions were tested in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in which 15 participants viewed picture or word pairs denoting manipulable objects and determined whether the objects are manipulated similarly (M condition) or serve the same function (F condition). Significantly greater and more extensive activations in the left inferior parietal lobe bordering the intraparietal sulcus were seen in the M condition with pictures and, to a lesser degree, words. These findings are consistent with the known role of this region in skilled object use [K.M. Heilman, L.J. Gonzalez Rothi, Apraxia, In: K.M. Heilman, E. Valenstein (Eds.), Clinical Neuropsychology, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993, pp. 141-150] as well as previous fMRI results [M. Kellenbach, M. Brett, K. Patterson, Actions speak louder than functions: the importance of manipulability and action in tool representation, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15 (2003) 30-46] and behavioral findings in brain-lesion patients [L.J. Buxbaum, E.M. Saffran, Knowledge of object manipulation and object function: dissociations in apraxic and non-apraxic subjects, Brain and Language, 82 (2002) 179-199]. No brain regions were significantly more activated in the F than M condition. These data suggest that brain regions specialized for sensory-motor function are a critical component of distributed representations of manipulable objects.

Objective age of acquisition norms for a set of 286 words in Russian: relationships with other psycholinguistic variables.

PubMed

Grigoriev, Andrei; Oshhepkov, Ivan

2013-12-01

Normative data on the objective age of acquisition (AoA) for 286 Russian words are presented in this article. In addition, correlations between the objective AoA and subjective ratings, name agreement, picture name agreement, imageability, familiarity, word frequency, and word length are provided, as are correlations between the objective AoA and two measures of exemplar dominance (exemplar generation frequency and the number of times an exemplar was named first). The correlations between the aforementioned variables are generally consistent with the correlations reported in other normative studies. The objective AoA data are highly correlated with the subjective AoA ratings, whereas the correlations between the objective AoA and other psycholinguistic variables are moderate. The correlations between the objective AoA of Russian words and similar data for other languages are moderately high. The complete word norms may be downloaded from supplementary material.

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.

The origins of word learning: Brain responses of 3-month-olds indicate their rapid association of objects and words.

PubMed

Friedrich, Manuela; Friederici, Angela D

2017-03-01

The present study explored the origins of word learning in early infancy. Using event-related potentials (ERP) we monitored the brain activity of 3-month-old infants when they were repeatedly exposed to several initially novel words paired consistently with each the same initially novel objects or inconsistently with different objects. Our results provide strong evidence that these young infants extract statistic regularities in the distribution of the co-occurrences of objects and words extremely quickly. The data suggest that this ability is based on the rapid formation of associations between the neural representations of objects and words, but that the new associations are not retained in long-term memory until the next day. The type of brain response moreover indicates that, unlike in older infants, in 3-month-olds a semantic processing stage is not involved. Their ability to combine words with meaningful information is caused by a primary learning mechanism that enables the formation of proto-words and acts as a precursor for the acquisition of genuine words. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

By any other name: when will preschoolers produce several labels for a referent?

PubMed

Deák, G O; Yen, L; Pettit, J

2001-10-01

Two experiments investigated why preschool children sometimes produce multiple words for a referent (i.e. polynomy), but other times seem to allow only one word. In Experiment 1, 40 three- and four-year-olds completed a modification of Deák & Maratsos' (1998) naming task. Although social demands to produce multiple words were reduced, children produced, on average, more than two words per object. Number of words produced was predicted by receptive vocabulary. Lexical insight (i.e. knowing that a word refers to function or appearance) and metalexical beliefs (i.e. that a hypothetical referent has one label, or more than one) were not preconditions of polynomy. Polynomy was independent of bias to map novel words to unfamiliar referents. In Experiment 2, 40 three- and four-year-olds learned new words for nameable objects. Children showed a correction effect, yet produced more than two words per object. Children do not have a generalized one-word-per-object bias, even during word learning. Other explanations (e.g. contextual restriction of lexical access) are discussed.

Explaining the forgetting bias effect on value judgments: The influence of memory for a past test.

PubMed

Rhodes, Matthew G; Witherby, Amber E; Castel, Alan D; Murayama, Kou

2017-04-01

People often feel that information that was forgotten is less important than remembered information. Prior work has shown that participants assign higher importance to remembered information while undervaluing forgotten information. The current study examined two possible accounts of this finding. In three experiments, participants studied lists of words in which each word was randomly assigned a point value denoting the value of remembering the word. Following the presentation of each list participants engaged in a free recall test. After the presentation of all lists participants were shown each of the words they had studied and asked to recall the point value that was initially paired with each word. Experiment 1 tested a fluency-based account by presenting items for value judgments in a low-fluency or high-fluency format. Experiment 2 examined whether value judgments reflect attributions based on the familiarity of an item when value judgments are made. Finally, in Experiment 3, we evaluated whether participants believe that forgotten words are less important by having them judge whether an item was initially recalled or forgotten prior to making a value judgment. Manipulating the fluency of an item presented for judgment had no influence on value ratings (Experiment 1) and familiarity exerted a limited influence on value judgments (Experiment 2). More importantly, participants' value judgments appeared to reflect a theory that remembered information is more valuable than forgotten information (Experiment 3). Overall, the present work suggests that individuals may apply a theory about remembering and forgetting to retrospectively assess the value of information.

Affixation in semantic space: Modeling morpheme meanings with compositional distributional semantics.

PubMed

Marelli, Marco; Baroni, Marco

2015-07-01

The present work proposes a computational model of morpheme combination at the meaning level. The model moves from the tenets of distributional semantics, and assumes that word meanings can be effectively represented by vectors recording their co-occurrence with other words in a large text corpus. Given this assumption, affixes are modeled as functions (matrices) mapping stems onto derived forms. Derived-form meanings can be thought of as the result of a combinatorial procedure that transforms the stem vector on the basis of the affix matrix (e.g., the meaning of nameless is obtained by multiplying the vector of name with the matrix of -less). We show that this architecture accounts for the remarkable human capacity of generating new words that denote novel meanings, correctly predicting semantic intuitions about novel derived forms. Moreover, the proposed compositional approach, once paired with a whole-word route, provides a new interpretative framework for semantic transparency, which is here partially explained in terms of ease of the combinatorial procedure and strength of the transformation brought about by the affix. Model-based predictions are in line with the modulation of semantic transparency on explicit intuitions about existing words, response times in lexical decision, and morphological priming. In conclusion, we introduce a computational model to account for morpheme combination at the meaning level. The model is data-driven, theoretically sound, and empirically supported, and it makes predictions that open new research avenues in the domain of semantic processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

The Origins of Word Learning: Brain Responses of 3-Month-Olds Indicate Their Rapid Association of Objects and Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Friedrich, Manuela; Friederici, Angela D.

2017-01-01

The present study explored the origins of word learning in early infancy. Using event-related potentials (ERP) we monitored the brain activity of 3-month-old infants when they were repeatedly exposed to several initially novel words paired consistently with each the same initially novel objects or inconsistently with different objects. Our results…

What is a sports injury?

PubMed

Timpka, Toomas; Jacobsson, Jenny; Bickenbach, Jerome; Finch, Caroline F; Ekberg, Joakim; Nordenfelt, Lennart

2014-04-01

Current sports injury reporting systems lack a common conceptual basis. We propose a conceptual foundation as a basis for the recording of health problems associated with participation in sports, based on the notion of impairment used by the World Health Organization. We provide definitions of sports impairment concepts to represent the perspectives of health services, the participants in sports and physical exercise themselves, and sports institutions. For each perspective, the duration of the causative event is used as the norm for separating concepts into those denoting impairment conditions sustained instantly and those developing gradually over time. Regarding sports impairment sustained in isolated events, 'sports injury' denotes the loss of bodily function or structure that is the object of observations in clinical examinations; 'sports trauma' is defined as an immediate sensation of pain, discomfort or loss of functioning that is the object of athlete self-evaluations; and 'sports incapacity' is the sidelining of an athlete because of a health evaluation made by a legitimate sports authority that is the object of time loss observations. Correspondingly, sports impairment caused by excessive bouts of physical exercise is denoted as 'sports disease' (overuse syndrome) when observed by health service professionals during clinical examinations, 'sports illness' when observed by the athlete in self-evaluations, and 'sports sickness' when recorded as time loss from sports participation by a sports body representative. We propose a concerted development effort in this area that takes advantage of concurrent ontology management resources and involves the international sporting community in building terminology systems that have broad relevance.

Attention to Maternal Multimodal Naming by 6- to 8-Month-Old Infants and Learning of Word-Object Relations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gogate, Lakshmi J.; Bolzani, Laura H.; Betancourt, Eugene A.

2006-01-01

We examined whether mothers' use of temporal synchrony between spoken words and moving objects, and infants' attention to object naming, predict infants' learning of word-object relations. Following 5 min of free play, 24 mothers taught their 6- to 8-month-olds the names of 2 toy objects, "Gow" and "Chi," during a 3-min play…

The First Slow Step: Differential Effects of Object and Word-Form Familiarization on Retention of Fast-Mapped Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kucker, Sarah C.; Samuelson, Larissa K.

2012-01-01

Recent research demonstrated that although 24-month-old infants do well on the initial pairing of a novel word and novel object in fast-mapping tasks, they are unable to retain the mapping after a 5 min delay. The current study examines the role of familiarity with the objects and words on infants' ability to bridge between the initial fast…

Two-Year-Olds Interpret Novel Phonological Neighbors as Familiar Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Swingley, Daniel

2016-01-01

When children hear a novel word in a context presenting a novel object and a familiar one, they usually assume that the novel word refers to the novel object. In a series of experiments, we tested whether this behavior would be found when 2-year-olds interpreted novel words that differed phonologically from familiar words in only 1 sound, either a…

Detection of eating disorders in 16-20 year old female students--perspective from Islamabad, Pakistan.

PubMed

Shaikh, Masood Ali; Kayani, Ayesha

2014-03-01

There are no studies on eating disorders in Pakistani adolescent girls. This study was conducted to determine the opinions, and behaviours pertaining to dieting and body size among 16 to 20 year old female school and college students in Islamabad, Pakistan. This was done through a five-item questionnaire to determine the SCOFF score. The SCOFF acronym has been derived from 'S' from the word "sick" in question number 1.'C' from the word "control" in question number 2. The 'O' comes from the word 'one' in the original question number 3; this original question number 3 of the SCOFF asks about having lost more than 'one' stone weight in the past three months. This question was rephrased to read as whether more than 15 pounds or 6 kilogrammes have been lost. The two 'F's come from questions number 4 and 5 denoting words "fat" and "food", respectively. A total of 1,134 female students participated in the study and 736 (64.9%) respondents scored two or higher on the SCOFF scale; 461 (66.5%) out of 693 were aged 16 to 18, while 275 (62.4%) out of 441 were aged 19 to 20. Results indicated a need for developing clinical practice guidelines for general practitioners and paediatricians to proactively identify and treat potential eating disorders in young Pakistani women.

Word and face processing engage overlapping distributed networks: Evidence from RSVP and EEG investigations.

PubMed

Robinson, Amanda K; Plaut, David C; Behrmann, Marlene

2017-07-01

Words and faces have vastly different visual properties, but increasing evidence suggests that word and face processing engage overlapping distributed networks. For instance, fMRI studies have shown overlapping activity for face and word processing in the fusiform gyrus despite well-characterized lateralization of these objects to the left and right hemispheres, respectively. To investigate whether face and word perception influences perception of the other stimulus class and elucidate the mechanisms underlying such interactions, we presented images using rapid serial visual presentations. Across 3 experiments, participants discriminated 2 face, word, and glasses targets (T1 and T2) embedded in a stream of images. As expected, T2 discrimination was impaired when it followed T1 by 200 to 300 ms relative to longer intertarget lags, the so-called attentional blink. Interestingly, T2 discrimination accuracy was significantly reduced at short intertarget lags when a face was followed by a word (face-word) compared with glasses-word and word-word combinations, indicating that face processing interfered with word perception. The reverse effect was not observed; that is, word-face performance was no different than the other object combinations. EEG results indicated the left N170 to T1 was correlated with the word decrement for face-word trials, but not for other object combinations. Taken together, the results suggest face processing interferes with word processing, providing evidence for overlapping neural mechanisms of these 2 object types. Furthermore, asymmetrical face-word interference points to greater overlap of face and word representations in the left than the right hemisphere. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Intuition in the Context of Object Perception: Intuitive Gestalt Judgments Rest on the Unconscious Activation of Semantic Representations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bolte, Annette; Goschke, Thomas

2008-01-01

Intuition denotes the ability to judge stimulus properties on the basis of information that is activated in memory, but not consciously retrieved. In three experiments we show that participants discriminated better than chance fragmented line drawings depicting meaningful objects (coherent fragments) from fragments consisting of randomly displaced…

Fourteen-Month-Olds' Decontextualized Understanding of Words for Absent Objects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hendrickson, Kristi; Sundara, Megha

2017-01-01

The majority of research examining infants' decontextualized word knowledge comes from studies in which words and pictures are presented simultaneously. However, comprehending utterances about unseen objects is a hallmark of language. Do infants demonstrate decontextualized absent object knowledge early in the second year of life? Further, to what…

Attempting to "Increase Intake from the Input": Attention and Word Learning in Children with Autism.

PubMed

Tenenbaum, Elena J; Amso, Dima; Righi, Giulia; Sheinkopf, Stephen J

2017-06-01

Previous work has demonstrated that social attention is related to early language abilities. We explored whether we can facilitate word learning among children with autism by directing attention to areas of the scene that have been demonstrated as relevant for successful word learning. We tracked eye movements to faces and objects while children watched videos of a woman teaching them new words. Test trials measured participants' recognition of these novel word-object pairings. Results indicate that for children with autism and typically developing children, pointing to the speaker's mouth while labeling a novel object impaired performance, likely because it distracted participants from the target object. In contrast, for children with autism, holding the object close to the speaker's mouth improved performance.

Northeast Artificial Intelligence Consortium Annual Report. Volume 7. 1988 Research in Automated Photointerpretation

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-10-01

weight based on how powerful the corresponding feature is for object recognition and discrimination. For example, consider an arbitrary weight, denoted...quality of the segmentation, how powerful the features and spatial constraints in the knowledge base are (as far as object recognition is concern...that are powerful for object recognition and discrimination. At this point, this selection is performed heuristically through trial-and-error. As a

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

PubMed

Cuppini, C; Magosso, E; Ursino, M

2009-06-01

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

A Western apache writing system: the symbols of silas john.

PubMed

Basso, K H; Anderson, N

1973-06-08

At the outset of this article, it was observed that the adequacy of an etic typology of written symbols could be judged by its ability to describe all the emic distinctions in all the writing systems of the world. In conclusion, we should like to return to this point and briefly examine the extent to which currently available etic concepts can be used to describe the distinctions made by Western Apaches in relation to the writing system of Silas John. Every symbol in the Silas John script may be classified as a phonetic-semantic sign. Symbols of this type denote linguistic expressions that consist of one or more words and contrast as a class with phonetic-nonsemantic signs, which denote phonemes (or phoneme clusters), syllables (or syllable clusters), and various prosodic phenomena (2, pp. 2, 248). Phonetic semantic signs are commonly partitioned into two subclasses: alogographs (which denote single words) and phraseographs (which denote on or more words). Although every symbol in the Silas John script can be assigned to one or the other of these categories, such an exercise is without justification (21). We have no evidence to suggest that Western Apaches classify symbols according to the length or complexity of their linguistic referents, and therefore the imposition of distinctions based on these criteria would be inappropriate and misleading. A far more useful contrast, and one we have already employed, is presented in most etic typologies as an opposition between compound (composite) and noncompound (noncomposite) symbols. Used to break down the category of phonetic-semantic signs, these two concepts enable us to describe more or less exactly the distinction Apaches draw between "symbol elements put together" (ke?escin ledidilgoh) and "symbol elements standing alone" (ke?- escin doledidildaahi). The former may now be defined as consisting of compound phonetic-semantic signs, while the latter is composed of noncompound phonetic-semantic signs. Up to this point, etic concepts have served us well. However, a deficiency appears when we search for a terminology that allows us to describe the distinction between "symbols that tell what to say" and "symbols that tell what to do." As far as we have been able to determine, standard typologies make no provision for this kind of contrast, apparently because their creators have tacitly assumed that systems composed of phonetic-semantic signs serve exclusively to communicate linguistic information. Consequently, the possibility that these systems might also convey nonlinguistic information seems to have been ignored. This oversight may be a product of Western ethnocentrism; after all, it is. we who use alphabets who most frequently associate writing with language (22). On the other hand, it may simply stem from the fact that systems incorporating symbols with kinesic referents are exceedingly rare and have not yet been reported. In any case, it is important to recognize that the etic inventory is not complete. Retaining the term "phonetic sign" as a label for written symbols. that denote linguistic phenomena, we propose that the term "kinetic sign" be introduced to label symbols that denote sequences of nonverbal behavior. Symbols of the latter type that simultaneously denote some unit of language may be classified as "phonetic-kinetic" signs. With these concepts, the contrast between " symbols that tell what to say" and "symbols that tell what to do" can be rephrased as one that distinguishes phonetic signs (by definition nonkinetic) from phonetic-kinetic signs. Purely kinetic signs-symbols that refer solely to physical gestures-are absent from the Silas John script. The utility of the kinetic sign and the phonetic-kinetic sign as comparative concepts must ultimately be judged on the basis of their capacity to clarify and describe emic distinctions in other systems of writing. However, as we have previously pointed out, ethnographic studies of American Indian systems that address themselves to the identification of these distinctions-and thus provide the information necessary to evaluate the relevance and applicability of etic concepts-are in very short supply. As a result, meaningful comparisons cannot be made. At this point, we simply alack the data with which to determine whether the kinetic component so prominen in the Silas John script is unique or whether it had counterparts else-where in North America. The view is still prevalent among anthropologists and linguists that the great majority of American Indian writing systems conform to one or two global "primitive" types. Our study of the Silas John script casts doubt upon this position, for it demonstrates that fundamental emic distinctions remain to be discovered and that existing etic frameworks are less than adequatelyequipped to describe them. The implications of these findings are clear. On the one hand, we must acknowledge the possibility that several structurally distinct forms of writing were developed by North America's Indian cultures. Concomitantly, we must be prepared to aabandon traditional ideas of typological similarity and simplicity among thes systems in favor of those that take into account variation and complexity.

Near or far: The effect of spatial distance and vocabulary knowledge on word learning.

PubMed

Axelsson, Emma L; Perry, Lynn K; Scott, Emilly J; Horst, Jessica S

2016-01-01

The current study investigated the role of spatial distance in word learning. Two-year-old children saw three novel objects named while the objects were either in close proximity to each other or spatially separated. Children were then tested on their retention for the name-object associations. Keeping the objects spatially separated from each other during naming was associated with increased retention for children with larger vocabularies. Children with a lower vocabulary size demonstrated better retention if they saw objects in close proximity to each other during naming. This demonstrates that keeping a clear view of objects during naming improves word learning for children who have already learned many words, but keeping objects within close proximal range is better for children at earlier stages of vocabulary acquisition. The effect of distance is therefore not equal across varying vocabulary sizes. The influences of visual crowding, cognitive load, and vocabulary size on word learning are discussed. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Feature-level sentiment analysis by using comparative domain corpora

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Quan, Changqin; Ren, Fuji

2016-06-01

Feature-level sentiment analysis (SA) is able to provide more fine-grained SA on certain opinion targets and has a wider range of applications on E-business. This study proposes an approach based on comparative domain corpora for feature-level SA. The proposed approach makes use of word associations for domain-specific feature extraction. First, we assign a similarity score for each candidate feature to denote its similarity extent to a domain. Then we identify domain features based on their similarity scores on different comparative domain corpora. After that, dependency grammar and a general sentiment lexicon are applied to extract and expand feature-oriented opinion words. Lastly, the semantic orientation of a domain-specific feature is determined based on the feature-oriented opinion lexicons. In evaluation, we compare the proposed method with several state-of-the-art methods (including unsupervised and semi-supervised) using a standard product review test collection. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of using comparative domain corpora.

[Spatiotemporal pattern analysis of event-related potentials elicited by emotional Stroop task].

PubMed

Liu, Qi; Liu, Ling; He, Hui; Zhou, Shu

2007-05-01

To investigate the spatiotemporal pattern of event-related potentials (ERPs) induced by emotional Stroop task. The ERPs of 19 channels were recorded from 13 healthy subjects while performing emotional Stroop task by pressing the buttons representing the colors in which the words denoting different emotions were displayed. A repeated-measures factorial design was adopted with three levels (word valence: positive, neutral and negative). The result of ERP analysis was presented in the form of statistical parametric mapping (SPM) of F value. No significant difference was found in either reaction time or accuracy. The SPM of ERPs suggested significant emotional valence effects in the occipital region (200-220 ms), the left and central frontal regions (270-300 ms), and the bilateral temporal and parietal cortex (560-580 and 620-630 ms, respectively). Processing of task-irrelevant emotional valence information involves the dynamic operation of extensive brain regions. The ERPs are more sensitive than the behavioral indices in emotional evaluation.

Encoding the world around us: motor-related processing influences verbal memory.

PubMed

Madan, Christopher R; Singhal, Anthony

2012-09-01

It is known that properties of words such as their imageability can influence our ability to remember those words. However, it is not known if other object-related properties can also influence our memory. In this study we asked whether a word representing a concrete object that can be functionally interacted with (i.e., high-manipulability word) would enhance the memory representations for that item compared to a word representing a less manipulable object (i.e., low-manipulability word). Here participants incidentally encoded high-manipulability (e.g., CAMERA) and low-manipulability words (e.g., TABLE) while making word judgments. Using a between-subjects design, we varied the depth-of-processing involved in the word judgment task: participants judged the words based on personal experience (deep/elaborative processing), word length (shallow), or functionality (intermediate). Participants were able to remember high-manipulability words better than low-manipulability words in both the personal experience and word length groups; thus presenting the first evidence that manipulability can influence memory. However, we observed better memory for low- than high-manipulability words in the functionality group. We explain this surprising interaction between manipulability and memory as being mediated by automatic vs. controlled motor-related cognition. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Bootstrapping Model of Frequency and Context Effects in Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kachergis, George; Yu, Chen; Shiffrin, Richard M.

2017-01-01

Prior research has shown that people can learn many nouns (i.e., word--object mappings) from a short series of ambiguous situations containing multiple words and objects. For successful cross-situational learning, people must approximately track which words and referents co-occur most frequently. This study investigates the effects of allowing…

Body-part-specific representations of semantic noun categories.

PubMed

Carota, Francesca; Moseley, Rachel; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2012-06-01

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

Biology is more theoretical than physics.

PubMed

Gunawardena, Jeremy

2013-06-01

The word "theory" is used in at least two senses--to denote a body of widely accepted laws or principles, as in "Darwinian theory" or "quantum theory," and to suggest a speculative hypothesis, often relying on mathematical analysis, that has not been experimentally confirmed. It is often said that there is no place for the second kind of theory in biology and that biology is not theoretical but based on interpretation of data. Here, ideas from a previous essay are expanded upon to suggest, to the contrary, that the second kind of theory has always played a critical role and that biology, therefore, is a good deal more theoretical than physics.

Anglicisms in the Romanian business and technology vocabulary

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Todea, L.; Demarcsek, R.

2016-08-01

Multinational companies in Romania have imposed the use of the predominant language, in most cases - English, in professional communication. In contexts related to workplace communication, the main motivation for foreign borrowings is the need to denote concepts and activities. The article focuses on the English language as a wide source for a great number of innovations both at the lexical and the morphological level in the Romanian vocabulary related to business and technology. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that Romanian language displays a natural disposition towards adopting and adapting foreign words, especially borrowed English terms, in the field of computer science and business without endangering its identity.

Evidence for the Activation of Sensorimotor Information during Visual Word Recognition: The Body-Object Interaction Effect

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Siakaluk, Paul D.; Pexman, Penny M.; Aguilera, Laura; Owen, William J.; Sears, Christopher R.

2008-01-01

We examined the effects of sensorimotor experience in two visual word recognition tasks. Body-object interaction (BOI) ratings were collected for a large set of words. These ratings assess perceptions of the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. A set of high BOI words (e.g., "mask") and a set of low BOI…

Cross-modal metaphorical mapping of spoken emotion words onto vertical space.

PubMed

Montoro, Pedro R; Contreras, María José; Elosúa, María Rosa; Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando

2015-01-01

From the field of embodied cognition, previous studies have reported evidence of metaphorical mapping of emotion concepts onto a vertical spatial axis. Most of the work on this topic has used visual words as the typical experimental stimuli. However, to our knowledge, no previous study has examined the association between affect and vertical space using a cross-modal procedure. The current research is a first step toward the study of the metaphorical mapping of emotions onto vertical space by means of an auditory to visual cross-modal paradigm. In the present study, we examined whether auditory words with an emotional valence can interact with the vertical visual space according to a 'positive-up/negative-down' embodied metaphor. The general method consisted in the presentation of a spoken word denoting a positive/negative emotion prior to the spatial localization of a visual target in an upper or lower position. In Experiment 1, the spoken words were passively heard by the participants and no reliable interaction between emotion concepts and bodily simulated space was found. In contrast, Experiment 2 required more active listening of the auditory stimuli. A metaphorical mapping of affect and space was evident but limited to the participants engaged in an emotion-focused task. Our results suggest that the association of affective valence and vertical space is not activated automatically during speech processing since an explicit semantic and/or emotional evaluation of the emotionally valenced stimuli was necessary to obtain an embodied effect. The results are discussed within the framework of the embodiment hypothesis.

Cross-modal metaphorical mapping of spoken emotion words onto vertical space

PubMed Central

Montoro, Pedro R.; Contreras, María José; Elosúa, María Rosa; Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando

2015-01-01

From the field of embodied cognition, previous studies have reported evidence of metaphorical mapping of emotion concepts onto a vertical spatial axis. Most of the work on this topic has used visual words as the typical experimental stimuli. However, to our knowledge, no previous study has examined the association between affect and vertical space using a cross-modal procedure. The current research is a first step toward the study of the metaphorical mapping of emotions onto vertical space by means of an auditory to visual cross-modal paradigm. In the present study, we examined whether auditory words with an emotional valence can interact with the vertical visual space according to a ‘positive-up/negative-down’ embodied metaphor. The general method consisted in the presentation of a spoken word denoting a positive/negative emotion prior to the spatial localization of a visual target in an upper or lower position. In Experiment 1, the spoken words were passively heard by the participants and no reliable interaction between emotion concepts and bodily simulated space was found. In contrast, Experiment 2 required more active listening of the auditory stimuli. A metaphorical mapping of affect and space was evident but limited to the participants engaged in an emotion-focused task. Our results suggest that the association of affective valence and vertical space is not activated automatically during speech processing since an explicit semantic and/or emotional evaluation of the emotionally valenced stimuli was necessary to obtain an embodied effect. The results are discussed within the framework of the embodiment hypothesis. PMID:26322007

Event-related potentials during word mapping to object shape predict toddlers' vocabulary size

PubMed Central

Borgström, Kristina; Torkildsen, Janne von Koss; Lindgren, Magnus

2015-01-01

What role does attention to different object properties play in early vocabulary development? This longitudinal study using event-related potentials in combination with behavioral measures investigated 20- and 24-month-olds' (n = 38; n = 34; overlapping n = 24) ability to use object shape and object part information in word-object mapping. The N400 component was used to measure semantic priming by images containing shape or detail information. At 20 months, the N400 to words primed by object shape varied in topography and amplitude depending on vocabulary size, and these differences predicted productive vocabulary size at 24 months. At 24 months, when most of the children had vocabularies of several hundred words, the relation between vocabulary size and the N400 effect in a shape context was weaker. Detached object parts did not function as word primes regardless of age or vocabulary size, although the part-objects were identified behaviorally. The behavioral measure, however, also showed relatively poor recognition of the part-objects compared to the shape-objects. These three findings provide new support for the link between shape recognition and early vocabulary development. PMID:25762957

Infants' Acceptance of Phonotactically Illegal Word Forms as Object Labels

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vukatana, Ena; Curtin, Suzanne; Graham, Susan A.

2016-01-01

We investigated 16- and 20-month-olds' flexibility in mapping phonotactically illegal words to objects. Using an associative word-learning task, infants were presented with a training phase that either highlighted or did not highlight the referential status of a novel label. Infants were then habituated to two novel objects, each paired with a…

Caregivers' Gestures Direct Infant Attention during Early Word Learning: The Importance of Dynamic Synchrony

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rader, Nancy de Villiers; Zukow-Goldring, Patricia

2012-01-01

How do young infants discover word meanings? We have theorized that caregivers educate infants' attention (cf. Gibson, J.J., 1966) by synchronizing the saying of a word with a dynamic gesture displaying the object/referent (Zukow-Goldring, 1997). Detecting an amodal invariant across gesture and speech brackets the word and object within the…

Understanding measurement in light of its origins.

PubMed

Humphry, Stephen

2013-01-01

During the course of history, the natural sciences have seen the development of increasingly convenient short-hand symbolic devices for denoting physical quantities. These devices ultimately took the form of physical algebra. However, the convenience of algebra arguably came at a cost - a loss of the clarity of direct insights by Euclid, Galileo, and Newton into natural quantitative relations. Physical algebra is frequently interpreted as ordinary algebra; i.e., it is interpreted as though symbols denote (a) numbers and operations on numbers, as opposed to (b) physical quantities and quantitative relations. The paper revisits the way in which Newton understood and expressed physical definitions and laws. Accordingly, it reviews a compact form of notation that has been used to denote both: (a) ratios of physical quantities; and (b) compound ratios, involving two or more kinds of quantity. The purpose is to show that it is consistent with historical developments to regard physical algebra as a device for denoting relations among ratios. Understood in the historical context, the objective of measurement is to establish that a physical quantity stands in a specific ratio to another quantity of the same kind. To clarify the meaning of measurement in terms of the historical origins of physics carries basic implications for the way in which measurement is understood and approached. Possible implications for the social sciences are considered.

Seeing and hearing a word: combining eye and ear is more efficient than combining the parts of a word.

PubMed

Dubois, Matthieu; Poeppel, David; Pelli, Denis G

2013-01-01

To understand why human sensitivity for complex objects is so low, we study how word identification combines eye and ear or parts of a word (features, letters, syllables). Our observers identify printed and spoken words presented concurrently or separately. When researchers measure threshold (energy of the faintest visible or audible signal) they may report either sensitivity (one over the human threshold) or efficiency (ratio of the best possible threshold to the human threshold). When the best possible algorithm identifies an object (like a word) in noise, its threshold is independent of how many parts the object has. But, with human observers, efficiency depends on the task. In some tasks, human observers combine parts efficiently, needing hardly more energy to identify an object with more parts. In other tasks, they combine inefficiently, needing energy nearly proportional to the number of parts, over a 60∶1 range. Whether presented to eye or ear, efficiency for detecting a short sinusoid (tone or grating) with few features is a substantial 20%, while efficiency for identifying a word with many features is merely 1%. Why? We show that the low human sensitivity for words is a cost of combining their many parts. We report a dichotomy between inefficient combining of adjacent features and efficient combining across senses. Joining our results with a survey of the cue-combination literature reveals that cues combine efficiently only if they are perceived as aspects of the same object. Observers give different names to adjacent letters in a word, and combine them inefficiently. Observers give the same name to a word's image and sound, and combine them efficiently. The brain's machinery optimally combines only cues that are perceived as originating from the same object. Presumably such cues each find their own way through the brain to arrive at the same object representation.

Generating descriptive visual words and visual phrases for large-scale image applications.

PubMed

Zhang, Shiliang; Tian, Qi; Hua, Gang; Huang, Qingming; Gao, Wen

2011-09-01

Bag-of-visual Words (BoWs) representation has been applied for various problems in the fields of multimedia and computer vision. The basic idea is to represent images as visual documents composed of repeatable and distinctive visual elements, which are comparable to the text words. Notwithstanding its great success and wide adoption, visual vocabulary created from single-image local descriptors is often shown to be not as effective as desired. In this paper, descriptive visual words (DVWs) and descriptive visual phrases (DVPs) are proposed as the visual correspondences to text words and phrases, where visual phrases refer to the frequently co-occurring visual word pairs. Since images are the carriers of visual objects and scenes, a descriptive visual element set can be composed by the visual words and their combinations which are effective in representing certain visual objects or scenes. Based on this idea, a general framework is proposed for generating DVWs and DVPs for image applications. In a large-scale image database containing 1506 object and scene categories, the visual words and visual word pairs descriptive to certain objects or scenes are identified and collected as the DVWs and DVPs. Experiments show that the DVWs and DVPs are informative and descriptive and, thus, are more comparable with the text words than the classic visual words. We apply the identified DVWs and DVPs in several applications including large-scale near-duplicated image retrieval, image search re-ranking, and object recognition. The combination of DVW and DVP performs better than the state of the art in large-scale near-duplicated image retrieval in terms of accuracy, efficiency and memory consumption. The proposed image search re-ranking algorithm: DWPRank outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithm by 12.4% in mean average precision and about 11 times faster in efficiency.

Word Learning and Attention Allocation Based on Word Class and Category Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hupp, Julie M.

2015-01-01

Attention allocation in word learning may vary developmentally based on the novelty of the object. It has been suggested that children differentially learn verbs based on the novelty of the agent, but adults do not because they automatically infer the object's category and thus treat it like a familiar object. The current research examined…

Capable Reader Program: Language Arts. Volume II. Objectives for Units B2 through B4. Bulletin No. 335.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Long, Sandra; And Others

Part of a curriculum series for academically gifted elementary students in the area of reading, the document presents objectives and activities for language arts instruction. There are three major objectives: (1) recognizing persuasive use of words, vague and imprecise words, multiple meanings conveyed by a single word, and propaganda techniques;…

Twelve-Month-Olds Privilege Words over Other Linguistic Sounds in an Associative Learning Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

MacKenzie, Heather; Graham, Susan A.; Curtin, Suzanne

2011-01-01

We examined whether 12-month-old infants privilege words over other linguistic stimuli in an associative learning task. Sixty-four infants were presented with sets of either word-object, communicative sound-object, or consonantal sound-object pairings until they habituated. They were then tested on a "switch" in the sound to determine whether they…

Object words modulate the activity of the mirror neuron system during action imitation.

PubMed

Wu, Haiyan; Tang, Honghong; Ge, Yue; Yang, Suyong; Mai, Xiaoqin; Luo, Yue-Jia; Liu, Chao

2017-11-01

Although research has demonstrated that the mirror neuron system (MNS) plays a crucial role in both action imitation and action-related semantic processing, whether action-related words can inversely modulate the MNS activity remains unclear. Here, three types of task-irrelevant words (body parts, verbs, and manufactured objects) were presented to examine the modulation effect of these words on the MNS activity during action observation and imitation. Twenty-two participants were recruited for the fMRI scanning and remaining data from 19 subjects were reported here. Brain activity results showed that word types elicited different modulation effects over nodes of the MNS (i.e., the right inferior frontal gyrus, premotor cortex, inferior parietal lobule, and STS), especially during the imitation stage. Compared with other word conditions, action imitation following manufactured objects words induced stronger activation in these brain regions during the imitation stage. These results were consistent in both task-dependent and -independent ROI analysis. Our findings thus provide evidence for the unique effect of object words on the MNS during imitation of action, which may also confirm the key role of goal inference in action imitation.

You changed your mind! Infants interpret a change in word as signaling a change in an agent's goals.

PubMed

Jin, Kyong-Sun; Song, Hyun-Joo

2017-10-01

Language provides information about our psychological states. For instance, adults can use language to convey information about their goals or preferences. The current research examined whether 14- and 12-month-old infants could interpret a change in an agent's word as signaling a change in her goals. In two experiments, 14-month-olds (Experiment 1) and 12-month-olds (Experiment 2) were first familiarized to an event in which an agent uttered a novel word and then reached for one of two novel objects. During the test trials, the agent uttered a different novel word (different-word condition) or the same word (same-word condition) and then reached for the same object or the other object. Both 14- and 12-month-olds in the different-word condition expected the agent to change her goal and reach for the other object. In contrast, the infants in the same-word condition expected the agent to maintain her goal. In Experiment 3, 12-month-olds who heard two distinct sounds instead of the agent's novel words expected the agent to maintain her goal regardless of the change in the nonlinguistic sounds. Together, these results indicate that by 12months of age infants can use an agent's verbal information to detect a change in her goals. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Futurist Art: Motion and Aesthetics As a Function of Title

PubMed Central

Mastandrea, Stefano; Umiltà, Maria A.

2016-01-01

Very often the titles of Futurist paintings contain words denoting movement in order to satisfy their artistic poetic focused on motion and velocity. The aim of the present study is to investigate the reported dynamism and aesthetic quality of several Futurist artworks as a function of their title. Ten Futurist artworks with a movement-related word in the title were selected for this study. The titles were manipulated, resulting in four conditions for each painting: the “original title” with the movement word; an “increased” title in which an adjective was added in order to intensify the sense of dynamism; a “decreased” title, in which the movement word was eliminated; no title. Participants evaluated the movement suggested by each painting in the four different title conditions, rated their beauty and reported how much they liked the work. Results showed that the manipulation of the title had an effect on the reported movement: compared to the others, paintings presented with the “original” and with the “increased” title received significant higher movement scores. Of interest, beauty did not differ across conditions, but liking was higher for the conditions with more movement. Lastly, positive correlations between the quantity of perceived movement and aesthetic evaluation were found. From the present results it can be concluded that Futurists attributed much relevance to the titles of their artworks in order to effectively increase the expression of the movement represented. PMID:27242471

Geometry as Objective Science in Elementary School Classrooms: Mathematics in the Flesh. Routledge International Studies in the Philosophy of Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roth, Wolff-Michael

2011-01-01

This study examines the origins of geometry in and out of the intuitively given everyday lifeworlds of children in a second-grade mathematics class. These lifeworlds, though pre-geometric, are not without model objects that denote and come to anchor geometric idealities that they will understand at later points in their lives. Roth's analyses…

Failure to learn from feedback underlies word learning difficulties in toddlers at risk for autism.

PubMed

Bedford, R; Gliga, T; Frame, K; Hudry, K; Chandler, S; Johnson, M H; Charman, T

2013-01-01

Children's assignment of novel words to nameless objects, over objects whose names they know (mutual exclusivity; ME) has been described as a driving force for vocabulary acquisition. Despite their ability to use ME to fast-map words (Preissler & Carey, 2005), children with autism show impaired language acquisition. We aimed to address this puzzle by building on studies showing that correct referent selection using ME does not lead to word learning unless ostensive feedback is provided on the child's object choice (Horst & Samuelson, 2008). We found that although toddlers aged 2;0 at risk for autism can use ME to choose the correct referent of a word, they do not benefit from feedback for long-term retention of the word-object mapping. Further, their difficulty using feedback is associated with their smaller receptive vocabularies. We propose that difficulties learning from social feedback, not lexical principles, limits vocabulary building during development in children at risk for autism.

The Organization of Words and Symbolic Gestures in 18-Month-Olds’ Lexicons: Evidence from a Disambiguation Task

PubMed Central

Suanda, Sumarga H.; Namy, Laura L.

2012-01-01

Infants’ early communicative repertoires include both words and symbolic gestures. The current study examined the extent to which infants organize words and gestures in a single unified lexicon. As a window into lexical organization, eighteen-month-olds’ (N = 32) avoidance of word-gesture overlap was examined and compared to avoidance of word-word overlap. The current study revealed that when presented with novel words, infants avoided lexical overlap, mapping novel words onto novel objects. In contrast, when presented with novel gestures, infants sought overlap, mapping novel gestures onto familiar objects. The results suggest that infants do not treat words and gestures as equivalent lexical items and that during a period of development when word and symbolic gesture processing share many similarities, important differences also exist between these two symbolic forms. PMID:23539273

Eye-tracking the time-course of novel word learning and lexical competition in adults and children.

PubMed

Weighall, A R; Henderson, L M; Barr, D J; Cairney, S A; Gaskell, M G

2017-04-01

Lexical competition is a hallmark of proficient, automatic word recognition. Previous research suggests that there is a delay before a new spoken word becomes engaged in this process, with sleep playing an important role. However, data from one method - the visual world paradigm - consistently show competition without a delay. We trained 42 adults and 40 children (aged 7-8) on novel word-object pairings, and employed this paradigm to measure the time-course of lexical competition. Fixations to novel objects upon hearing existing words (e.g., looks to the novel object biscal upon hearing "click on the biscuit") were compared to fixations on untrained objects. Novel word-object pairings learned immediately before testing and those learned the previous day exhibited significant competition effects, with stronger competition for the previous day pairings for children but not adults. Crucially, this competition effect was significantly smaller for novel than existing competitors (e.g., looks to candy upon hearing "click on the candle"), suggesting that novel items may not compete for recognition like fully-fledged lexical items, even after 24h. Explicit memory (cued recall) was superior for words learned the day before testing, particularly for children; this effect (but not the lexical competition effects) correlated with sleep-spindle density. Together, the results suggest that different aspects of new word learning follow different time courses: visual world competition effects can emerge swiftly, but are qualitatively different from those observed with established words, and are less reliant upon sleep. Furthermore, the findings fit with the view that word learning earlier in development is boosted by sleep to a greater degree. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Seeing and Hearing a Word: Combining Eye and Ear Is More Efficient than Combining the Parts of a Word

PubMed Central

Dubois, Matthieu; Poeppel, David; Pelli, Denis G.

2013-01-01

To understand why human sensitivity for complex objects is so low, we study how word identification combines eye and ear or parts of a word (features, letters, syllables). Our observers identify printed and spoken words presented concurrently or separately. When researchers measure threshold (energy of the faintest visible or audible signal) they may report either sensitivity (one over the human threshold) or efficiency (ratio of the best possible threshold to the human threshold). When the best possible algorithm identifies an object (like a word) in noise, its threshold is independent of how many parts the object has. But, with human observers, efficiency depends on the task. In some tasks, human observers combine parts efficiently, needing hardly more energy to identify an object with more parts. In other tasks, they combine inefficiently, needing energy nearly proportional to the number of parts, over a 60∶1 range. Whether presented to eye or ear, efficiency for detecting a short sinusoid (tone or grating) with few features is a substantial 20%, while efficiency for identifying a word with many features is merely 1%. Why? We show that the low human sensitivity for words is a cost of combining their many parts. We report a dichotomy between inefficient combining of adjacent features and efficient combining across senses. Joining our results with a survey of the cue-combination literature reveals that cues combine efficiently only if they are perceived as aspects of the same object. Observers give different names to adjacent letters in a word, and combine them inefficiently. Observers give the same name to a word’s image and sound, and combine them efficiently. The brain’s machinery optimally combines only cues that are perceived as originating from the same object. Presumably such cues each find their own way through the brain to arrive at the same object representation. PMID:23734220

Word comprehension facilitates object individuation in 10- and 11-month-old infants.

PubMed

Rivera, Susan M; Zawaydeh, Aseen Nancie

2007-05-18

The present study investigated the role that comprehending words for objects plays in 10- and 11-month-old infants' ability to individuate those objects in a spatiotemporally ambiguous event. To do this, we employed an object individuation task in which infants were familiarized to two objects coming in and out from behind a screen in alternation, and then the screen was removed to reveal either both or only one of the objects. Results show that only when 10- and 11-month-olds comprehend words for both objects seen do they exhibit looking behavior that is consistent with object individuation (i.e., looking longer when one of the objects is surreptitiously removed). Neither level of object permanence reasoning nor overall receptive vocabulary had an effect on performance in the object individuation task, indicating that the effect was specific to the immediate parameters of the situation, and not a function of overall precocity on the part of the succeeding infants. These results suggest that comprehending the words for occluded/disoccluded objects provides a kind of "glue" which allows infants to bind the mental index of an object with its perceptual features (thus precipitating the formation of two mental indexes, rather than one). They further suggest that a shift from object indexing driven by the where (dorsal) system to one which is driven by integration of the ventral and dorsal neural systems, usually not observed until 12 months of age, can be facilitated by word comprehension in 10- and 11-month-old infants.

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.

Enhanced-Contrast Viewing of White-Hot Objects in Furnaces

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Witherow, William K.; Holmes, Richard R.; Kurtz, Robert L.

2006-01-01

An apparatus denoted a laser image contrast enhancement system (LICES) increases the contrast with which one can view a target glowing with blackbody radiation (a white-hot object) against a background of blackbody radiation in a furnace at a temperature as high as approximately 1,500 C. The apparatus utilizes a combination of narrowband illumination, along with band-pass filtering and polarization filtering to pass illumination reflected by the target while suppressing blackbody light from both the object and its background.

The influence of object pre-exposure on two-year-olds' disambiguation of novel labels.

PubMed

Graham, Susan A; Turner, Juanita N; Henderson, Annette M E

2005-02-01

We investigated whether manipulating the perceived novelty of nameless objects would influence two-year-olds' tendency to map novel words to these objects. In Experiment 1, children who had been pre-exposed to target nameless objects were more likely to map novel words onto those objects than children who were not pre-exposed to the objects or children who were pre-exposed to non-target members of the nameless object categories. In Experiment 2, children who were pre-exposed to a nameless object were more likely to assign the novel label to that object than to either a familiar object or an unfamiliar object that had not been pre-exposed. The results of these studies suggest that reducing the novelty of nameless objects increases two-year-olds' tendency to map a novel word to a nameless object.

Children’s level of word knowledge predicts their exclusion of familiar objects as referents of novel words

PubMed Central

Grassmann, Susanne; Schulze, Cornelia; Tomasello, Michael

2015-01-01

When children are learning a novel object label, they tend to exclude as possible referents familiar objects for which they already have a name. In the current study, we wanted to know if children would behave in this same way regardless of how well they knew the name of potential referent objects, specifically, whether they could only comprehend it or they could both comprehend and produce it. Sixty-six monolingual German-speaking 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children participated in two experimental sessions. In one session the familiar objects were chosen such that their labels were in the children’s productive vocabularies, and in the other session the familiar objects were chosen such that their labels were only in the children’s receptive vocabularies. Results indicated that children at all three ages were more likely to exclude a familiar object as the potential referent of the novel word if they could comprehend and produce its name rather than comprehend its name only. Indeed, level of word knowledge as operationalized in this way was a better predictor than was age. These results are discussed in the context of current theories of word learning by exclusion. PMID:26322005

Collaborative Filtering Based on Sequential Extraction of User-Item Clusters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Honda, Katsuhiro; Notsu, Akira; Ichihashi, Hidetomo

Collaborative filtering is a computational realization of “word-of-mouth” in network community, in which the items prefered by “neighbors” are recommended. This paper proposes a new item-selection model for extracting user-item clusters from rectangular relation matrices, in which mutual relations between users and items are denoted in an alternative process of “liking or not”. A technique for sequential co-cluster extraction from rectangular relational data is given by combining the structural balancing-based user-item clustering method with sequential fuzzy cluster extraction appraoch. Then, the tecunique is applied to the collaborative filtering problem, in which some items may be shared by several user clusters.

Interplay Between the Object and Its Symbol: The Size-Congruency Effect

PubMed Central

Shen, Manqiong; Xie, Jiushu; Liu, Wenjuan; Lin, Wenjie; Chen, Zhuoming; Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando; Wang, Ruiming

2016-01-01

Grounded cognition suggests that conceptual processing shares cognitive resources with perceptual processing. Hence, conceptual processing should be affected by perceptual processing, and vice versa. The current study explored the relationship between conceptual and perceptual processing of size. Within a pair of words, we manipulated the font size of each word, which was either congruent or incongruent with the actual size of the referred object. In Experiment 1a, participants compared object sizes that were referred to by word pairs. Higher accuracy was observed in the congruent condition (e.g., word pairs referring to larger objects in larger font sizes) than in the incongruent condition. This is known as the size-congruency effect. In Experiments 1b and 2, participants compared the font sizes of these word pairs. The size-congruency effect was not observed. In Experiments 3a and 3b, participants compared object and font sizes of word pairs depending on a task cue. Results showed that perceptual processing affected conceptual processing, and vice versa. This suggested that the association between conceptual and perceptual processes may be bidirectional but further modulated by semantic processing. Specifically, conceptual processing might only affect perceptual processing when semantic information is activated. The current study PMID:27512529

Advanced Daily Prediction Model for National Suicide Numbers with Social Media Data

PubMed Central

Lee, Kyung Sang; Lee, Hyewon; Myung, Woojae; Song, Gil-Young; Lee, Kihwang; Kim, Ho; Carroll, Bernard J.; Kim, Doh Kwan

2018-01-01

Objective Suicide is a significant public health concern worldwide. Social media data have a potential role in identifying high suicide risk individuals and also in predicting suicide rate at the population level. In this study, we report an advanced daily suicide prediction model using social media data combined with economic/meteorological variables along with observed suicide data lagged by 1 week. Methods The social media data were drawn from weblog posts. We examined a total of 10,035 social media keywords for suicide prediction. We made predictions of national suicide numbers 7 days in advance daily for 2 years, based on a daily moving 5-year prediction modeling period. Results Our model predicted the likely range of daily national suicide numbers with 82.9% accuracy. Among the social media variables, words denoting economic issues and mood status showed high predictive strength. Observed number of suicides one week previously, recent celebrity suicide, and day of week followed by stock index, consumer price index, and sunlight duration 7 days before the target date were notable predictors along with the social media variables. Conclusion These results strengthen the case for social media data to supplement classical social/economic/climatic data in forecasting national suicide events. PMID:29614852

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.

Situational Behavior Modeling

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-06-30

VIStology, Inc. June 30, 2009 Page 16 Figure 3. Situations and Perception Figure 3 shows four planes, each referring to a different level...the computer, as shown in the figure. The next layer is denoted as “ Perception .” The dots on this plane represent objects from the World that are...which then feeds the computer, which in turn generates the object representations. The label “ Perception ” represents the fact that this kind of

Body-object interaction ratings for 1,618 monosyllabic nouns.

PubMed

Tillotson, Sherri M; Siakaluk, Paul D; Pexman, Penny M

2008-11-01

Body-object interaction (BOI) assesses the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. Recent research has shown that BOI influences visual word recognition processes in such a way that responses to high-BOI words (e.g., couch) are faster and less error prone than responses to low-BOI words (e.g., cliff). Importantly, the high-BOI words and the low-BOI words that were used in those studies were matched on imageability. In the present study, we collected BOI ratings for a large set of words. BOI ratings, on a 1-7 scale, were obtained for 1,618 monosyllabic nouns. These ratings allowed us to test the generalizability of BOI effects to a large set of items, and they should be useful to researchers who are interested in manipulating or controlling for the effects of BOI. The body-object interaction ratings for this study may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society's Archive of Norms, Stimuli, and Data, www.psychonomic.org/archive.

Connecting numbers to discrete quantification: a step in the child's construction of integer concepts.

PubMed

Slusser, Emily; Ditta, Annie; Sarnecka, Barbara

2013-10-01

The present study asks when young children understand that number words quantify over sets of discrete individuals. For this study, 2- to 4-year-old children were asked to extend the number word five or six either to a cup containing discrete objects (e.g., blocks) or to a cup containing a continuous substance (e.g., water). In Experiment 1, only children who knew the exact meanings of the words one, two and three extended higher number words (five or six) to sets of discrete objects. In Experiment 2, children who only knew the exact meaning of one extended higher number words to discrete objects under the right conditions (i.e., when the problem was first presented with the number words one and two). These results show that children have some understanding that number words pertain to discrete quantification from very early on, but that this knowledge becomes more robust as children learn the exact, cardinal meanings of individual number words. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Debunking the Buzz Words Or Can Hermeneutic Analysis Be Used To Evaluate Pedagogically Based Learning Objects Designed from Constructivist Epistemological Ontologies Defined in XML Metadata?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stuckey, Bronwyn; Hensman, Jim; Hofmann, Tobias; Dewey, Barbara; Brown, Helen; Cameron, Sonja

Arguably the biggest "buzz word" of the current year has been "learning or knowledge object". To understand the learning object and why it should be such a highly desirable commodity, it is necessary to unpack not only this concept but more importantly revisit some contributing concepts and constructs (more buzz words) that support the building of…

Influence of automatic word reading on motor control.

PubMed

Gentilucci, M; Gangitano, M

1998-02-01

We investigated the possible influence of automatic word reading on processes of visuo-motor transformation. Six subjects were required to reach and grasp a rod on whose visible face the word 'long' or 'short' was printed. Word reading was not explicitly required. In order to induce subjects to visually analyse the object trial by trial, object position and size were randomly varied during the experimental session. The kinematics of the reaching component was affected by word presentation. Peak acceleration, peak velocity, and peak deceleration of arm were higher for the word 'long' with respect to the word 'short'. That is, during the initial movement phase subjects automatically associated the meaning of the word with the distance to be covered and activated a motor program for a farther and/or nearer object position. During the final movement phase, subjects modified the braking forces (deceleration) in order to correct the initial error. No effect of the words on the grasp component was observed. These results suggest a possible influence of cognitive functions on motor control and seem to contrast with the notion that the analyses executed in the ventral and dorsal cortical visual streams are different and independent.

Distance-Dependent Processing of Pictures and Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amit, Elinor; Algom, Daniel; Trope, Yaacov

2009-01-01

A series of 8 experiments investigated the association between pictorial and verbal representations and the psychological distance of the referent objects from the observer. The results showed that people better process pictures that represent proximal objects and words that represent distal objects than pictures that represent distal objects and…

Word Learning by Preschoolers with SLI: Effect of Phonotactic Probability and Object Familiarity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gray, Shelley; Brinkley, Shara; Svetina, Dubravka

2012-01-01

Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated whether previous findings of a low phonotactic probability/unfamiliar object word-learning advantage in preschoolers could be replicated, whether this advantage would be apparent at different "stages" of word learning, and whether findings would differ for preschoolers with specific language…

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

PubMed

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

2005-05-01

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

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

PubMed Central

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. PMID:27729880

Sound Symbolism in the Languages of Australia

PubMed Central

Haynie, Hannah; Bowern, Claire; LaPalombara, Hannah

2014-01-01

The notion that linguistic forms and meanings are related only by convention and not by any direct relationship between sounds and semantic concepts is a foundational principle of modern linguistics. Though the principle generally holds across the lexicon, systematic exceptions have been identified. These “sound symbolic” forms have been identified in lexical items and linguistic processes in many individual languages. This paper examines sound symbolism in the languages of Australia. We conduct a statistical investigation of the evidence for several common patterns of sound symbolism, using data from a sample of 120 languages. The patterns examined here include the association of meanings denoting “smallness” or “nearness” with front vowels or palatal consonants, and the association of meanings denoting “largeness” or “distance” with back vowels or velar consonants. Our results provide evidence for the expected associations of vowels and consonants with meanings of “smallness” and “proximity” in Australian languages. However, the patterns uncovered in this region are more complicated than predicted. Several sound-meaning relationships are only significant for segments in prominent positions in the word, and the prevailing mapping between vowel quality and magnitude meaning cannot be characterized by a simple link between gradients of magnitude and vowel F2, contrary to the claims of previous studies. PMID:24752356

The story of 'Scientist: The Story of a Word'.

PubMed

Miller, David Philip

2017-10-01

This examination of an important paper by Sydney Ross is the first in a projected series of occasional reflections on 'Annals of Science Classic Papers' that have had enduring utility within the field of history of science and beyond. First the messages of the paper are examined, some well known but others, particularly Ross's own contemporary concerns about the use of the word 'scientist', less so. The varied uses made of the paper by scholars are then traced before Ross's biography is examined in order to try to understand how a figure professionally marginal to the field of history of science came to write such a significant piece. Ross's interest in the topic appears to have been informed by a romantically tinged scientific progressivism and a deep concern with the importance of linguistic precision in science and in public affairs. The inspirations of the author and the interests of his audience have been only partially aligned, but the paper's insights remain of broad historical interest and have wider ramifications since the denotation 'scientist' and its proper application are much debated today in contests over the authority of science.

Lexical is as lexical does: computational approaches to lexical representation

PubMed Central

Woollams, Anna M.

2015-01-01

In much of neuroimaging and neuropsychology, regions of the brain have been associated with ‘lexical representation’, with little consideration as to what this cognitive construct actually denotes. Within current computational models of word recognition, there are a number of different approaches to the representation of lexical knowledge. Structural lexical representations, found in original theories of word recognition, have been instantiated in modern localist models. However, such a representational scheme lacks neural plausibility in terms of economy and flexibility. Connectionist models have therefore adopted distributed representations of form and meaning. Semantic representations in connectionist models necessarily encode lexical knowledge. Yet when equipped with recurrent connections, connectionist models can also develop attractors for familiar forms that function as lexical representations. Current behavioural, neuropsychological and neuroimaging evidence shows a clear role for semantic information, but also suggests some modality- and task-specific lexical representations. A variety of connectionist architectures could implement these distributed functional representations, and further experimental and simulation work is required to discriminate between these alternatives. Future conceptualisations of lexical representations will therefore emerge from a synergy between modelling and neuroscience. PMID:25893204

Synaesthetic perception of colour and visual space in a blind subject: an fMRI case study.

PubMed

Niccolai, Valentina; van Leeuwen, Tessa M; Blakemore, Colin; Stoerig, Petra

2012-06-01

In spatial sequence synaesthesia (SSS) ordinal stimuli are perceived as arranged in peripersonal space. Using fMRI, we examined the neural bases of SSS and colour synaesthesia for spoken words in a late-blind synaesthete, JF. He reported days of the week and months of the year as both coloured and spatially ordered in peripersonal space; parts of the days and festivities of the year were spatially ordered but uncoloured. Words that denote time-units and triggered no concurrents were used in a control condition. Both conditions inducing SSS activated the occipito-parietal, infero-frontal and insular cortex. The colour area hOC4v was engaged when the synaesthetic experience included colour. These results confirm the continued recruitment of visual colour cortex in this late-blind synaesthetes. Synaesthesia also involved activation in inferior frontal cortex, which may be related to spatial memory and detection, and in the insula, which might contribute to audiovisual integration related to the processing of inducers and concurrents. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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

2009-09-01

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

Evidence for the activation of sensorimotor information during visual word recognition: the body-object interaction effect.

PubMed

Siakaluk, Paul D; Pexman, Penny M; Aguilera, Laura; Owen, William J; Sears, Christopher R

2008-01-01

We examined the effects of sensorimotor experience in two visual word recognition tasks. Body-object interaction (BOI) ratings were collected for a large set of words. These ratings assess perceptions of the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. A set of high BOI words (e.g., mask) and a set of low BOI words (e.g., ship) were created, matched on imageability and concreteness. Facilitatory BOI effects were observed in lexical decision and phonological lexical decision tasks: responses were faster for high BOI words than for low BOI words. We discuss how our findings may be accounted for by (a) semantic feedback within the visual word recognition system, and (b) an embodied view of cognition (e.g., Barsalou's perceptual symbol systems theory), which proposes that semantic knowledge is grounded in sensorimotor interactions with the environment.

The Effects of Object Orientation and Object Type on Children's Interpretation of the Word BIG.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coley, John D.; Gelman, Susan A.

1989-01-01

Investigated the interpretation of the word "big" by 40 children of 3 to 5 years. The type and orientation of objects used in the study were varied. Results demonstrated that contextual factors influenced children's responses. (RJC)

Infants Encode Phonetic Detail during Cross-Situational Word Learning

PubMed Central

Escudero, Paola; Mulak, Karen E.; Vlach, Haley A.

2016-01-01

Infants often hear new words in the context of more than one candidate referent. In cross-situational word learning (XSWL), word-object mappings are determined by tracking co-occurrences of words and candidate referents across multiple learning events. Research demonstrates that infants can learn words in XSWL paradigms, suggesting that it is a viable model of real-world word learning. However, these studies have all presented infants with words that have no or minimal phonological overlap (e.g., BLICKET and GAX). Words often contain some degree of phonological overlap, and it is unknown whether infants can simultaneously encode fine phonological detail while learning words via XSWL. We tested 12-, 15-, 17-, and 20-month-olds’ XSWL of eight words that, when paired, formed non-minimal pairs (MPs; e.g., BON–DEET) or MPs (e.g., BON–TON, DEET–DIT). The results demonstrated that infants are able to learn word-object mappings and encode them with sufficient phonetic detail as to identify words in both non-minimal and MP contexts. Thus, this work suggests that infants are able to simultaneously discriminate phonetic differences between words and map words to referents in an implicit learning paradigm such as XSWL. PMID:27708605

Engineering Design Handbook. Joining of Advanced Composites

DTIC Science & Technology

1979-03-01

4.50 " Traversing Mechanisms.. .. . .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. . .. . .. .. . $ 4.50 Wheeled Amphibians...o < ., ~ tO .... ., ;> < 0 DENOTES 1-IN. SCARF b. DENOTES 1-1/2-IN. SCARF CLOSED SYMBOL DENOTES RUNOUT 2.0 ~-----------L...PATTERN 0 DENOTES 2-IN. LAP, 0/45/-45/0 PATTERN b. DENOTES 2-IN. LAP, 45/0/0/-45 PATTERN CLOSED SYMBOL DENOTES RUNOUT b.----•:. • 0

Comparison between bilateral cochlear implants and Neurelec Digisonic(®) SP Binaural cochlear implant: speech perception, sound localization and patient self-assessment.

PubMed

Bonnard, Damien; Lautissier, Sylvie; Bosset-Audoit, Amélie; Coriat, Géraldine; Beraha, Max; Maunoury, Antoine; Martel, Jacques; Darrouzet, Vincent; Bébéar, Jean-Pierre; Dauman, René

2013-01-01

An alternative to bilateral cochlear implantation is offered by the Neurelec Digisonic(®) SP Binaural cochlear implant, which allows stimulation of both cochleae within a single device. The purpose of this prospective study was to compare a group of Neurelec Digisonic(®) SP Binaural implant users (denoted BINAURAL group, n = 7) with a group of bilateral adult cochlear implant users (denoted BILATERAL group, n = 6) in terms of speech perception, sound localization, and self-assessment of health status and hearing disability. Speech perception was assessed using word recognition at 60 dB SPL in quiet and in a 'cocktail party' noise delivered through five loudspeakers in the hemi-sound field facing the patient (signal-to-noise ratio = +10 dB). The sound localization task was to determine the source of a sound stimulus among five speakers positioned between -90° and +90° from midline. Change in health status was assessed using the Glasgow Benefit Inventory and hearing disability was evaluated with the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit. Speech perception was not statistically different between the two groups, even though there was a trend in favor of the BINAURAL group (mean percent word recognition in the BINAURAL and BILATERAL groups: 70 vs. 56.7% in quiet, 55.7 vs. 43.3% in noise). There was also no significant difference with regard to performance in sound localization and self-assessment of health status and hearing disability. On the basis of the BINAURAL group's performance in hearing tasks involving the detection of interaural differences, implantation with the Neurelec Digisonic(®) SP Binaural implant may be considered to restore effective binaural hearing. Based on these first comparative results, this device seems to provide benefits similar to those of traditional bilateral cochlear implantation, with a new approach to stimulate both auditory nerves. Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Object Familiarity Facilitates Foreign Word Learning in Preschoolers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sera, Maria D.; Cole, Caitlin A.; Oromendia, Mercedes; Koenig, Melissa A.

2014-01-01

Studying how children learn words in a foreign language can shed light on how language learning changes with development. In one experiment, we examined whether three-, four-, and five-year-olds could learn and remember words for familiar and unfamiliar objects in their native English and a foreign language. All age groups could learn and remember…

Optimal Contrast: Competition between Two Referents Improves Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zosh, Jennifer M.; Brinster, Meredith; Halberda, Justin

2013-01-01

Does making an inference lead to better learning than being instructed directly? Two experiments evaluated preschoolers' ability to learn new words, comparing their memory for words learned via inference or instruction. On Inference trials, one familiar and one novel object was presented and children were asked to "Point at the [object name (i.e.,…

24-month-olds’ sensitivity to the prior inaccuracy of the source: Possible mechanisms

PubMed Central

Koenig, Melissa A.; Woodward, Amanda L.

2013-01-01

Three studies examined 24-month-olds’ sensitivity to the prior accuracy of the source and the way in which young children modify their word learning from inaccurate sources. In Experiments 1A, 2 and 3, toddlers interacted with an accurate or inaccurate speaker who trained and tested children's comprehension of a new word-object link. In Experiment 1, children performed less systematically in response to an inaccurate than to the accurate source. In Experiments 2 and 3, after toddlers’ comprehension of the new word-object links was tested by the original source, a second speaker requested the target objects. In Experiment 2, children responded randomly in response to the second speaker's requests when novel words were previously presented by an inaccurate source. In Experiment 3, toddlers responded randomly in response to both speakers in the inaccurate condition when their memory for words was taxed by a brief delay period. Taken together, these findings suggest that toddlers attend to accuracy information, treat inaccuracy as a feature of a particular individual and that the word-object representations formed as a result may be fragile and short-lived. Findings are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms by which children adjust their word-learning from problematic speakers. PMID:20604604

Collaborative Operations for Personnel Recovery

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-02-01

ADDRESS(ES) Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute The University of Edinburgh Appleton Tower, Crichton St. Edinburgh EH8 9LE, UK 8...this issue, • M is a symbol denoting a primitive plan modification activity, and • O1,…,On are plan-space objects, i.e. they are issues, nodes...of this type represents the fact that the plan-space object O was introduced into the plan as part of performing the plan modification activity M

Using speakers' referential intentions to model early cross-situational word learning.

PubMed

Frank, Michael C; Goodman, Noah D; Tenenbaum, Joshua B

2009-05-01

Word learning is a "chicken and egg" problem. If a child could understand speakers' utterances, it would be easy to learn the meanings of individual words, and once a child knows what many words mean, it is easy to infer speakers' intended meanings. To the beginning learner, however, both individual word meanings and speakers' intentions are unknown. We describe a computational model of word learning that solves these two inference problems in parallel, rather than relying exclusively on either the inferred meanings of utterances or cross-situational word-meaning associations. We tested our model using annotated corpus data and found that it inferred pairings between words and object concepts with higher precision than comparison models. Moreover, as the result of making probabilistic inferences about speakers' intentions, our model explains a variety of behavioral phenomena described in the word-learning literature. These phenomena include mutual exclusivity, one-trial learning, cross-situational learning, the role of words in object individuation, and the use of inferred intentions to disambiguate reference.

Symbolic comparisons of objects on color attributes.

PubMed

Paivio, A; te Linde, J

1980-11-01

Symbolic comparisons of object brightness and color were investigated in two experiments using words and outline drawings as stimuli. Both experiments yielded orderly symbolic distance effects. Contrary to prediction, no reliable picture advantages emerged. For color comparison, individual differences in word fluency and color memory predicted decision time with word stimuli. These results contrast sharply with those of previous comparison studies involving concrete dimensions. The results are discussed in terms of dual-coding theory and the role of verbal mechanisms in memory for object color.

Referential Communication in Children with ADHD: Challenges in the Role of a Listener

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nilsen, Elizabeth S.; Mangal, Leilani; MacDonald, Kristi

2013-01-01

Purpose: Successful communication requires that listeners accurately interpret the meaning of speakers' statements. The present work examined whether children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) differ in their ability to interpret referential statements (i.e., phrasesthat denote objects or events) from speakers.…

How To... Get Creative with WordArt

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lindroth, Linda

2004-01-01

WordArt is a wizard feature in MS Word that changes text into a graphic object. It is located in the MS Word menu bar: Insert, Picture, WordArt. Text can be edited to create a multitude of special effects--all with very little, if any, graphic arts training. WordArt is perfect for word processing writing, allowing even primary students to create…

Type of Maternal Object Motion during Synchronous Naming Predicts Preverbal Infants' Learning of Word-Object Relations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matatyaho, Dalit J.; Gogate, Lakshmi J.

2008-01-01

Mothers' use of specific types of object motion in synchrony with object naming was examined, along with infants' joint attention to the mother and object, as a predictor of word learning. During a semistructured 3-min play episode, mothers (N = 24) taught the names of 2 toy objects to their preverbal 6- to 8-month-old infants. The episodes were…

Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referents.

PubMed

Pilley, John W; Reid, Alliston K

2011-02-01

Four experiments investigated the ability of a border collie (Chaser) to acquire receptive language skills. Experiment 1 demonstrated that Chaser learned and retained, over a 3-year period of intensive training, the proper-noun names of 1022 objects. Experiment 2 presented random pair-wise combinations of three commands and three names, and demonstrated that she understood the separate meanings of proper-noun names and commands. Chaser understood that names refer to objects, independent of the behavior directed toward those objects. Experiment 3 demonstrated Chaser's ability to learn three common nouns--words that represent categories. Chaser demonstrated one-to-many (common noun) and many-to-one (multiple-name) name-object mappings. Experiment 4 demonstrated Chaser's ability to learn words by inferential reasoning by exclusion--inferring the name of an object based on its novelty among familiar objects that already had names. Together, these studies indicate that Chaser acquired referential understanding of nouns, an ability normally attributed to children, which included: (a) awareness that words may refer to objects, (b) awareness of verbal cues that map words upon the object referent, and (c) awareness that names may refer to unique objects or categories of objects, independent of the behaviors directed toward those objects. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Word Learning Deficits in Children With Dyslexia

PubMed Central

Hogan, Tiffany; Green, Samuel; Gray, Shelley; Cabbage, Kathryn; Cowan, Nelson

2017-01-01

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate word learning in children with dyslexia to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses during the configuration stage of word learning. Method Children with typical development (N = 116) and dyslexia (N = 68) participated in computer-based word learning games that assessed word learning in 4 sets of games that manipulated phonological or visuospatial demands. All children were monolingual English-speaking 2nd graders without oral language impairment. The word learning games measured children's ability to link novel names with novel objects, to make decisions about the accuracy of those names and objects, to recognize the semantic features of the objects, and to produce the names of the novel words. Accuracy data were analyzed using analyses of covariance with nonverbal intelligence scores as a covariate. Results Word learning deficits were evident for children with dyslexia across every type of manipulation and on 3 of 5 tasks, but not for every combination of task/manipulation. Deficits were more common when task demands taxed phonology. Visuospatial manipulations led to both disadvantages and advantages for children with dyslexia. Conclusion Children with dyslexia evidence spoken word learning deficits, but their performance is highly dependent on manipulations and task demand, suggesting a processing trade-off between visuospatial and phonological demands. PMID:28388708

Surmounting the Tower of Babel: Monolingual and bilingual 2-year-olds' understanding of the nature of foreign language words.

PubMed

Byers-Heinlein, Krista; Chen, Ke Heng; Xu, Fei

2014-03-01

Languages function as independent and distinct conventional systems, and so each language uses different words to label the same objects. This study investigated whether 2-year-old children recognize that speakers of their native language and speakers of a foreign language do not share the same knowledge. Two groups of children unfamiliar with Mandarin were tested: monolingual English-learning children (n=24) and bilingual children learning English and another language (n=24). An English speaker taught children the novel label fep. On English mutual exclusivity trials, the speaker asked for the referent of a novel label (wug) in the presence of the fep and a novel object. Both monolingual and bilingual children disambiguated the reference of the novel word using a mutual exclusivity strategy, choosing the novel object rather than the fep. On similar trials with a Mandarin speaker, children were asked to find the referent of a novel Mandarin label kuò. Monolinguals again chose the novel object rather than the object with the English label fep, even though the Mandarin speaker had no access to conventional English words. Bilinguals did not respond systematically to the Mandarin speaker, suggesting that they had enhanced understanding of the Mandarin speaker's ignorance of English words. The results indicate that monolingual children initially expect words to be conventionally shared across all speakers-native and foreign. Early bilingual experience facilitates children's discovery of the nature of foreign language words. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Subjective Word-Finding Difficulty Reduces Engagement in Social Leisure Activities in Alzheimer’s Disease

PubMed Central

Farrell, Meagan T.; Zahodne, Laura B.; Stern, Yaakov; Dorrejo, Jhedy; Yeung, Philip; Cosentino, Stephanie

2014-01-01

Objectives To assess the influence of subjective word-finding difficulty on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients’ likelihood of engaging in social leisure activities. Design Analysis of data collected from the second cohort of the Multicenter Study of Predictors of Disease Course in Alzheimer’s disease. Setting Four study sites in the U.S. and France. Participants Individuals diagnosed with mild to moderate AD (N = 236) Measurements On separate questionnaires, patients were asked to 1) report whether had trouble finding the right word when speaking (subjective word-finding difficulty), and 2) rate their frequency and enjoyment of both social and nonsocial leisure activities. Objective language measures included object naming and verbal fluency. Measures of dependence, depression, cognitive status, age, sex, and education were also included as covariates in regression analyses. Results Over half (52%) of the sample reported word-finding difficulty, and subjective complaints were correlated with poorer verbal fluency scores. Subjective word-finding difficulty was uniquely related to social activity measures. Endorsers of word-finding difficulty reported reduced frequency and enjoyment of social leisure activities, controlling for covariates. In contrast, engagement in nonsocial activities was associated with higher age and depression scores, but was not related to word-finding complaints. These results were corroborated by the caregivers’ reports, and occurred above and beyond the effect of objective word-finding ability. Conclusion AD patients who are aware of increasing word-finding failures are less likely to participate in and enjoy socially-oriented leisure activities. This finding may have significant implications for clinical and health outcomes in AD. A failure to evaluate subjective language complaints could result in social withdrawal symptoms, thereby threatening the patient’s quality of life as well as increasing caregiver burden. Importantly, reduced social interaction may ultimately exacerbate language symptoms over time. PMID:24890186

Seeing for speaking: Semantic and lexical information provided by briefly presented, naturalistic action scenes

PubMed Central

Bölte, Jens; Hofmann, Reinhild; Meier, Claudine C.; Dobel, Christian

2018-01-01

At the interface between scene perception and speech production, we investigated how rapidly action scenes can activate semantic and lexical information. Experiment 1 examined how complex action-scene primes, presented for 150 ms, 100 ms, or 50 ms and subsequently masked, influenced the speed with which immediately following action-picture targets are named. Prime and target actions were either identical, showed the same action with different actors and environments, or were unrelated. Relative to unrelated primes, identical and same-action primes facilitated naming the target action, even when presented for 50 ms. In Experiment 2, neutral primes assessed the direction of effects. Identical and same-action scenes induced facilitation but unrelated actions induced interference. In Experiment 3, written verbs were used as targets for naming, preceded by action primes. When target verbs denoted the prime action, clear facilitation was obtained. In contrast, interference was observed when target verbs were phonologically similar, but otherwise unrelated, to the names of prime actions. This is clear evidence for word-form activation by masked action scenes. Masked action pictures thus provide conceptual information that is detailed enough to facilitate apprehension and naming of immediately following scenes. Masked actions even activate their word-form information–as is evident when targets are words. We thus show how language production can be primed with briefly flashed masked action scenes, in answer to long-standing questions in scene processing. PMID:29652939

Word order denotes relevance differences: The case of conjoined phrases with lexical gender.

PubMed

Kesebir, Selin

2017-08-01

This work explores the order of linguistic references to the two genders (e.g., men and women vs. women and men). It argues that a gender is more likely to be mentioned first when it is perceived to have higher relevance in a context rather than lower relevance, and audiences assign stronger relevance to a party when the party is mentioned first rather than second. Studies 1-3 document the current prevalence of male-first conjoined phrases in the public (but not family) domain and link the pattern to historical changes in women's public presence over the 20th century. Study 4 shows that contextual relevance cues affect the odds of first mention, such that people are more likely to refer to a woman before a man, when the two are in a primary school classroom rather than a corporate office. At the same time, Studies 4 and 5 find that people often choose to reproduce collectively preferred word order patterns (e.g., men and women). Studies 6 and 7 show that these choices matter because people assign more relevance to a party when it comes first rather than second in a conjoined phrase. Overall, this work offers theoretical grounding and empirical evidence for word order as a means of expressing and perpetuating gender stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

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

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yee, Eiling; Sedivy, Julie C.

2006-01-01

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

The role of partial knowledge in statistical word learning

PubMed Central

Fricker, Damian C.; Yu, Chen; Smith, Linda B.

2013-01-01

A critical question about the nature of human learning is whether it is an all-or-none or a gradual, accumulative process. Associative and statistical theories of word learning rely critically on the later assumption: that the process of learning a word's meaning unfolds over time. That is, learning the correct referent for a word involves the accumulation of partial knowledge across multiple instances. Some theories also make an even stronger claim: Partial knowledge of one word–object mapping can speed up the acquisition of other word–object mappings. We present three experiments that test and verify these claims by exposing learners to two consecutive blocks of cross-situational learning, in which half of the words and objects in the second block were those that participants failed to learn in Block 1. In line with an accumulative account, Re-exposure to these mis-mapped items accelerated the acquisition of both previously experienced mappings and wholly new word–object mappings. But how does partial knowledge of some words speed the acquisition of others? We consider two hypotheses. First, partial knowledge of a word could reduce the amount of information required for it to reach threshold, and the supra-threshold mapping could subsequently aid in the acquisition of new mappings. Alternatively, partial knowledge of a word's meaning could be useful for disambiguating the meanings of other words even before the threshold of learning is reached. We construct and compare computational models embodying each of these hypotheses and show that the latter provides a better explanation of the empirical data. PMID:23702980

Bilingualism Affects 9-Month-Old Infants' Expectations about How Words Refer to Kinds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Byers-Heinlein, Krista

2017-01-01

Infants are precocious word learners, and seem to possess systematic expectations about how words refer to object kinds. For example, while monolingual infants show a one-to-one mapping bias (e.g. mutual exclusivity), expecting each object to have only one basic level label, previous research has shown that this is less robust in bi- and…

A Study of Multimodal Motherese: The Role of Temporal Synchrony between Verbal Labels and Gestures.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gogate, Lakshmi J.; Bahrick, Lorraine E.; Watson, Jilayne D.

2000-01-01

Examined European- and Hispanic-American mothers' multimodal communication to their 5- to 30-month-olds while they taught the children target words by using distinct objects during play. Found that mothers used target words more often than nontarget words in synchrony with object motion and sometimes touch, and tailored communication to infants'…

Semantic Specificity in One-Year-Olds' Word Comprehension

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bergelson, Elika; Aslin, Richard

2017-01-01

The present study investigated infants' knowledge about familiar nouns. Infants (n = 46, 12-20-month-olds) saw two-image displays of familiar objects, or one familiar and one novel object. Infants heard either a matching word (e.g. "foot' when seeing foot and juice), a related word (e.g. "sock" when seeing foot and juice) or a nonce…

Categorization in 3- and 4-Month-Old Infants: An Advantage of Words over Tones

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferry, Alissa L.; Hespos, Susan J.; Waxman, Sandra R.

2010-01-01

Neonates prefer human speech to other nonlinguistic auditory stimuli. However, it remains an open question whether there are any conceptual consequences of words on object categorization in infants younger than 6 months. The current study examined the influence of words and tones on object categorization in forty-six 3- to 4-month-old infants.…

Failure to Learn from Feedback underlies Word Learning Difficulties in Toddlers at Risk for Autism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bedford, R.; Gliga, T.; Frame, K.; Hudry, K.; Chandler, S.; Johnson, M. H.; Charman, T.

2013-01-01

Children's assignment of novel words to nameless objects, over objects whose names they know (mutual exclusivity; ME) has been described as a driving force for vocabulary acquisition. Despite their ability to use ME to fast-map words (Preissler & Carey, 2005), children with autism show impaired language acquisition. We aimed to address…

Audiovisual alignment of co-speech gestures to speech supports word learning in 2-year-olds.

PubMed

Jesse, Alexandra; Johnson, Elizabeth K

2016-05-01

Analyses of caregiver-child communication suggest that an adult tends to highlight objects in a child's visual scene by moving them in a manner that is temporally aligned with the adult's speech productions. Here, we used the looking-while-listening paradigm to examine whether 25-month-olds use audiovisual temporal alignment to disambiguate and learn novel word-referent mappings in a difficult word-learning task. Videos of two equally interesting and animated novel objects were simultaneously presented to children, but the movement of only one of the objects was aligned with an accompanying object-labeling audio track. No social cues (e.g., pointing, eye gaze, touch) were available to the children because the speaker was edited out of the videos. Immediately afterward, toddlers were presented with still images of the two objects and asked to look at one or the other. Toddlers looked reliably longer to the labeled object, demonstrating their acquisition of the novel word-referent mapping. A control condition showed that children's performance was not solely due to the single unambiguous labeling that had occurred at experiment onset. We conclude that the temporal link between a speaker's utterances and the motion they imposed on the referent object helps toddlers to deduce a speaker's intended reference in a difficult word-learning scenario. In combination with our previous work, these findings suggest that intersensory redundancy is a source of information used by language users of all ages. That is, intersensory redundancy is not just a word-learning tool used by young infants. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The neural mechanisms of word order processing revisited: electrophysiological evidence from Japanese.

PubMed

Wolff, Susann; Schlesewsky, Matthias; Hirotani, Masako; Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina

2008-11-01

We present two ERP studies on the processing of word order variations in Japanese, a language that is suited to shedding further light on the implications of word order freedom for neurocognitive approaches to sentence comprehension. Experiment 1 used auditory presentation and revealed that initial accusative objects elicit increased processing costs in comparison to initial subjects (in the form of a transient negativity) only when followed by a prosodic boundary. A similar effect was observed using visual presentation in Experiment 2, however only for accusative but not for dative objects. These results support a relational account of word order processing, in which the costs of comprehending an object-initial word order are determined by the linearization properties of the initial object in relation to the linearization properties of possible upcoming arguments. In the absence of a prosodic boundary, the possibility for subject omission in Japanese renders it likely that the initial accusative is the only argument in the clause. Hence, no upcoming arguments are expected and no linearization problem can arise. A prosodic boundary or visual segmentation, by contrast, indicate an object-before-subject word order, thereby leading to a mismatch between argument "prominence" (e.g. in terms of thematic roles) and linear order. This mismatch is alleviated when the initial object is highly prominent itself (e.g. in the case of a dative, which can bear the higher-ranking thematic role in a two argument relation). We argue that the processing mechanism at work here can be distinguished from more general aspects of "dependency processing" in object-initial sentences.

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

PubMed

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

2016-12-01

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

Cross-Situational Learning of Minimal Word Pairs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Escudero, Paola; Mulak, Karen E.; Vlach, Haley A.

2016-01-01

"Cross-situational statistical learning" of words involves tracking co-occurrences of auditory words and objects across time to infer word-referent mappings. Previous research has demonstrated that learners can infer referents across sets of very phonologically distinct words (e.g., WUG, DAX), but it remains unknown whether learners can…

Children Monitor Individuals' Expertise for Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sobel, David M.; Corriveau, Kathleen H.

2010-01-01

Two experiments examined preschoolers' ability to learn novel words using others' expertise about objects' nonobvious properties. In Experiment 1, 4-year-olds (n = 24) endorsed individuals' labels for objects based on their differing causal knowledge about those objects. Experiment 2 examined the robustness of this inference and its development.…

Sentiment analysis in twitter data using data analytic techniques for predictive modelling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Razia Sulthana, A.; Jaithunbi, A. K.; Sai Ramesh, L.

2018-04-01

Sentiment analysis refers to the task of natural language processing to determine whether a piece of text contains subjective information and the kind of subjective information it expresses. The subjective information represents the attitude behind the text: positive, negative or neutral. Understanding the opinions behind user-generated content automatically is of great concern. We have made data analysis with huge amount of tweets taken as big data and thereby classifying the polarity of words, sentences or entire documents. We use linear regression for modelling the relationship between a scalar dependent variable Y and one or more explanatory variables (or independent variables) denoted X. We conduct a series of experiments to test the performance of the system.

The effects of chronic achievement motivation and achievement primes on the activation of achievement and fun goals.

PubMed

Hart, William; Albarracín, Dolores

2009-12-01

This research examined the hypothesis that situational achievement cues can elicit achievement or fun goals depending on chronic differences in achievement motivation. In 4 studies, chronic differences in achievement motivation were measured, and achievement-denoting words were used to influence behavior. The effects of these variables were assessed on self-report inventories, task performance, task resumption following an interruption, and the pursuit of means relevant to achieving or having fun. Findings indicated that achievement priming (vs. control priming) activated a goal to achieve and inhibited a goal to have fun in individuals with chronically high-achievement motivation but activated a goal to have fun and inhibited a goal to achieve in individuals with chronically low-achievement motivation.

Do you remember where sounds, pictures and words came from? The role of the stimulus format in object location memory.

PubMed

Delogu, Franco; Lilla, Christopher C

2017-11-01

Contrasting results in visual and auditory spatial memory stimulate the debate over the role of sensory modality and attention in identity-to-location binding. We investigated the role of sensory modality in the incidental/deliberate encoding of the location of a sequence of items. In 4 separated blocks, 88 participants memorised sequences of environmental sounds, spoken words, pictures and written words, respectively. After memorisation, participants were asked to recognise old from new items in a new sequence of stimuli. They were also asked to indicate from which side of the screen (visual stimuli) or headphone channel (sounds) the old stimuli were presented in encoding. In the first block, participants were not aware of the spatial requirement while, in blocks 2, 3 and 4 they knew that their memory for item location was going to be tested. Results show significantly lower accuracy of object location memory for the auditory stimuli (environmental sounds and spoken words) than for images (pictures and written words). Awareness of spatial requirement did not influence localisation accuracy. We conclude that: (a) object location memory is more effective for visual objects; (b) object location is implicitly associated with item identity during encoding and (c) visual supremacy in spatial memory does not depend on the automaticity of object location binding.

When is four far more than three? Children's generalization of newly acquired number words.

PubMed

Huang, Yi Ting; Spelke, Elizabeth; Snedeker, Jesse

2010-04-01

What is the relationship between children's first number words and number concepts? We used training tasks to explore children's interpretation of number words as they acquired the words' meanings. Children who had mastered the meanings of only the first two or three number words were systematically provided with varied input on the next word-to-quantity mapping, and their extension of the newly trained word was assessed across a variety of test items. Children who had already mastered number words to three generalized training on four to new objects and nouns, such that their representation of the newly learned number was approximate. In contrast, children who had mastered only one and two learned to apply three reliably within a single count-noun context (e.g., three dogs), but did not generalize training to new objects labeled with different nouns (e.g., three cows). Both findings suggest that children fail to map newly learned words in their counting routine to the fully abstract concepts of natural numbers.

Semantic and phonological schema influence spoken word learning and overnight consolidation.

PubMed

Havas, Viktória; Taylor, Jsh; Vaquero, Lucía; de Diego-Balaguer, Ruth; Rodríguez-Fornells, Antoni; Davis, Matthew H

2018-06-01

We studied the initial acquisition and overnight consolidation of new spoken words that resemble words in the native language (L1) or in an unfamiliar, non-native language (L2). Spanish-speaking participants learned the spoken forms of novel words in their native language (Spanish) or in a different language (Hungarian), which were paired with pictures of familiar or unfamiliar objects, or no picture. We thereby assessed, in a factorial way, the impact of existing knowledge (schema) on word learning by manipulating both semantic (familiar vs unfamiliar objects) and phonological (L1- vs L2-like novel words) familiarity. Participants were trained and tested with a 12-hr intervening period that included overnight sleep or daytime awake. Our results showed (1) benefits of sleep to recognition memory that were greater for words with L2-like phonology and (2) that learned associations with familiar but not unfamiliar pictures enhanced recognition memory for novel words. Implications for complementary systems accounts of word learning are discussed.

"Virtual Feel" Capaciflectors

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Vranish, John M.

2006-01-01

The term "virtual feel" denotes a type of capaciflector (an advanced capacitive proximity sensor) and a methodology for designing and using a sensor of this type to guide a robot in manipulating a tool (e.g., a wrench socket) into alignment with a mating fastener (e.g., a bolt head) or other electrically conductive object. A capaciflector includes at least one sensing electrode, excited with an alternating voltage, that puts out a signal indicative of the capacitance between that electrode and a proximal object.

Two-Year-Olds Exclude Novel Objects as Potential Referents of Novel Words Based on Pragmatics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grassmann, Susanne; Stracke, Maren; Tomasello, Michael

2009-01-01

Many studies have established that children tend to exclude objects for which they already have a name as potential referents of novel words. In the current study we asked whether this exclusion can be triggered by social-pragmatic context alone without pre-existing words as blockers. Two-year-old children watched an adult looking at a novel…

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 of visual search for real-world target objects. Color is a powerful guiding feature when the precise visual properties of these objects are known but seems to be less important when search targets are specified by word cues.

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

PubMed

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

2013-11-27

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

Attention and perceptual implicit memory: effects of selective versus divided attention and number of visual objects.

PubMed

Mulligan, Neil W

2002-08-01

Extant research presents conflicting results on whether manipulations of attention during encoding affect perceptual priming. Two suggested mediating factors are type of manipulation (selective vs divided) and whether attention is manipulated across multiple objects or within a single object. Words printed in different colors (Experiment 1) or flanked by colored blocks (Experiment 2) were presented at encoding. In the full-attention condition, participants always read the word, in the unattended condition they always identified the color, and in the divided-attention conditions, participants attended to both word identity and color. Perceptual priming was assessed with perceptual identification and explicit memory with recognition. Relative to the full-attention condition, attending to color always reduced priming. Dividing attention between word identity and color, however, only disrupted priming when these attributes were presented as multiple objects (Experiment 2) but not when they were dimensions of a common object (Experiment 1). On the explicit test, manipulations of attention always affected recognition accuracy.

The Role of Linguistic Labels in Inductive Generalization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Deng, W.; Sloutsky, Vladimir M.

2013-01-01

What is the role of linguistic labels in inductive generalization? According to one approach labels denote categories and differ from object features, whereas according to another approach labels start out as features and may become category markers in the course of development. This issue was addressed in four experiments with 4- and 5-year-olds…

A Comparison of Abstract Writing Style between English and Chinese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhou, Xiaoying; Liao, Hangjie

2018-01-01

In this paper the authors conducted a comprehensive study on English abstract writing style. Abstraction is the process of forming a theoretical concept based on the observation and classification of object things. This concept has no definite denotation. However in specific situation it can be clearly understood. In English, writing an abstract…

Use of Word Length Information in Utterance Planning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meyer, Antje S.; Belke, Eva; Hacker, Christine; Mortensen, Linda

2007-01-01

Griffin [Griffin, Z. M. (2003). "A reversed length effect in coordinating the preparation and articulation of words in speaking." "Psychonomic Bulletin & Review," 10, 603-609.] found that speakers naming object pairs spent more time before utterance onset looking at the second object when the first object name was short than when it was long. She…

Acquiring Word Class Distinctions in American Sign Language: Evidence from Handshape

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brentari, Diane; Coppola, Marie; Jung, Ashley; Goldin-Meadow, Susan

2013-01-01

Handshape works differently in nouns versus a class of verbs in American Sign Language (ASL) and thus can serve as a cue to distinguish between these two word classes. Handshapes representing characteristics of the object itself ("object" handshapes) and handshapes representing how the object is handled ("handling" handshapes)…

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

PubMed

Bergelson, Elika; Aslin, Richard

2017-01-01

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

Neurology of anomia in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia

PubMed Central

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

2009-01-01

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

Posture Affects How Robots and Infants Map Words to Objects

PubMed Central

Morse, Anthony F.; Benitez, Viridian L.; Belpaeme, Tony; Cangelosi, Angelo; Smith, Linda B.

2015-01-01

For infants, the first problem in learning a word is to map the word to its referent; a second problem is to remember that mapping when the word and/or referent are again encountered. Recent infant studies suggest that spatial location plays a key role in how infants solve both problems. Here we provide a new theoretical model and new empirical evidence on how the body – and its momentary posture – may be central to these processes. The present study uses a name-object mapping task in which names are either encountered in the absence of their target (experiments 1–3, 6 & 7), or when their target is present but in a location previously associated with a foil (experiments 4, 5, 8 & 9). A humanoid robot model (experiments 1–5) is used to instantiate and test the hypothesis that body-centric spatial location, and thus the bodies’ momentary posture, is used to centrally bind the multimodal features of heard names and visual objects. The robot model is shown to replicate existing infant data and then to generate novel predictions, which are tested in new infant studies (experiments 6–9). Despite spatial location being task-irrelevant in this second set of experiments, infants use body-centric spatial contingency over temporal contingency to map the name to object. Both infants and the robot remember the name-object mapping even in new spatial locations. However, the robot model shows how this memory can emerge –not from separating bodily information from the word-object mapping as proposed in previous models of the role of space in word-object mapping – but through the body’s momentary disposition in space. PMID:25785834

Joint attention helps infants learn new words: event-related potential evidence.

PubMed

Hirotani, Masako; Stets, Manuela; Striano, Tricia; Friederici, Angela D

2009-04-22

This study investigated the role of joint attention in infants' word learning. Infants aged 18-21 months were taught new words in two social contexts, joint attention (eye contact, positive tone of voice) or non-joint attention (no eye contact, neutral tone of voice). Event-related potentials were measured as the infants saw objects either congruent or incongruent with the taught words. For both social contexts, an early negativity was observed for the congruent condition, reflecting a phonological-lexical priming effect between objects and the taught words. In addition, for the joint attention, the incongruent condition elicited a late, widely distributed negativity, attributed to semantic integration difficulties. Thus, social cues have an impact on how words are learned and represented in a child's mental lexicon.

Early Word Comprehension in Infants: Replication and Extension

PubMed Central

Bergelson, Elika; Swingley, Daniel

2014-01-01

A handful of recent experimental reports have shown that infants of 6 to 9 months know the meanings of some common words. Here, we replicate and extend these findings. With a new set of items, we show that when young infants (age 6-16 months, n=49) are presented with side-by-side video clips depicting various common early words, and one clip is named in a sentence, they look at the named video at above-chance rates. We demonstrate anew that infants understand common words by 6-9 months, and that performance increases substantially around 14 months. The results imply that 6-9 month olds’ failure to understand words not referring to objects (verbs, adjectives, performatives) in a similar prior study is not attributable to the use of dynamic video depictions. Thus, 6-9 month olds’ experience of spoken language includes some understanding of common words for concrete objects, but relatively impoverished comprehension of other words. PMID:26664329

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

Eat Me If You Can: Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Distance Effect

PubMed Central

Junghans, Astrid F.; Evers, Catharine; De Ridder, Denise T. D.

2013-01-01

Proximal objects provide affordances that activate the motor information involved in interacting with the objects. This effect has previously been shown for artifacts but not for natural objects, such as food. This study examined whether the sight of proximal food, compared to distant food activates eating-related information. In two experiments reaction times to verbal labels following the sight of proximal and distant objects (food and toys) were measured. Verbal labels included function words that were compatible with one object category (eating and playing) and observation words compatible with both object categories. The sight of food was expected to activate eating-related information when presented at proximity but not at distance, as reflected by faster reaction times to proximal than distant compatible eating words and no difference between reaction times to proximal and distant food for observation words (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 additionally compared the reaction times to wrapped and unwrapped food. The distance effect was expected to occur only for unwrapped food because only unwrapped food is readily edible. As expected, Experiment 1 and 2 revealed faster responses to compatible eating words at proximity than at distance. In Experiment 2 this distance effect occurred only for readily edible, unwrapped food but not for wrapped food. For observation words no difference in response times between the distances was found. These findings suggest that the sight of proximal food activates eating-related information, which could explain people’s differential behavioral responses to reachable versus distant food. The activation of eating-related information upon sight of accessible food could provide a cognition-based explanation for mindless eating. PMID:24367684

Communicating with sentences: A multi-word naming game model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lou, Yang; Chen, Guanrong; Hu, Jianwei

2018-01-01

Naming game simulates the process of naming an object by a single word, in which a population of communicating agents can reach global consensus asymptotically through iteratively pair-wise conversations. We propose an extension of the single-word model to a multi-word naming game (MWNG), simulating the case of describing a complex object by a sentence (multiple words). Words are defined in categories, and then organized as sentences by combining them from different categories. We refer to a formatted combination of several words as a pattern. In such an MWNG, through a pair-wise conversation, it requires the hearer to achieve consensus with the speaker with respect to both every single word in the sentence as well as the sentence pattern, so as to guarantee the correct meaning of the saying; otherwise, they fail reaching consensus in the interaction. We validate the model in three typical topologies as the underlying communication network, and employ both conventional and man-designed patterns in performing the MWNG.

Strength of object representation: its key role in object-based attention for determining the competition result between Gestalt and top-down objects.

PubMed

Zhao, Jingjing; Wang, Yonghui; Liu, Donglai; Zhao, Liang; Liu, Peng

2015-10-01

It was found in previous studies that two types of objects (rectangles formed according to the Gestalt principle and Chinese words formed in a top-down fashion) can both induce an object-based effect. The aim of the present study was to investigate how the strength of an object representation affects the result of the competition between these two types of objects based on research carried out by Liu, Wang and Zhou [(2011) Acta Psychologica, 138(3), 397-404]. In Experiment 1, the rectangles were filled with two different colors to increase the strength of Gestalt object representation, and we found that the object effect changed significantly for the different stimulus types. Experiment 2 used Chinese words with various familiarities to manipulate the strength of the top-down object representation. As a result, the object-based effect induced by rectangles was observed only when the Chinese word familiarity was low. These results suggest that the strength of object representation determines the result of competition between different types of objects.

Evidence for a Limited-Cascading Account of Written Word Naming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bonin, Patrick; Roux, Sebastien; Barry, Christopher; Canell, Laura

2012-01-01

We address the issue of how information flows within the written word production system by examining written object-naming latencies. We report 4 experiments in which we manipulate variables assumed to have their primary impact at the level of object recognition (e.g., quality of visual presentation of pictured objects), at the level of semantic…

Two-Year-Olds Use Pragmatic Cues to Differentiate Reference to Objects and Actions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tomasello, Michael; Akhtar, Nameera

1995-01-01

Attempts to determine whether children can use social-pragmatic cues to determine "what kind" of referent, object, or action an adult intends to indicate with a novel word. Doubts that children assume that a novel word refers to whatever nameless object is present. Suggests that lexical acquisition rests fundamentally on children's…

Are Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Initially Attuned to Object Function Rather than Shape for Word Learning?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Field, Charlotte; Allen, Melissa L.; Lewis, Charlie

2016-01-01

We investigate the function bias--generalising words to objects with the same function--in typically developing (TD) children, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with other developmental disorders. Across four trials, a novel object was named and its function was described and demonstrated. Children then selected the other…

Embodied attention and word learning by toddlers

PubMed Central

Yu, Chen; Smith, Linda B.

2013-01-01

Many theories of early word learning begin with the uncertainty inherent to learning a word from its co-occurrence with a visual scene. However, the relevant visual scene for infant word learning is neither from the adult theorist’s view nor the mature partner’s view, but is rather from the learner’s personal view. Here we show that when 18-month old infants interacted with objects in play with their parents, they created moments in which a single object was visually dominant. If parents named the object during these moments of bottom-up selectivity, later forced-choice tests showed that infants learned the name, but did not when naming occurred during a less visually selective moment. The momentary visual input for parents and toddlers was captured via head cameras placed low on each participant’s forehead as parents played with and named objects for their infant. Frame-by-frame analyses of the head camera images at and around naming moments were conducted to determine the visual properties at input that were associated with learning. The analyses indicated that learning occurred when bottom-up visual information was clean and uncluttered. The sensory-motor behaviors of infants and parents were also analyzed to determine how their actions on the objects may have created these optimal visual moments for learning. The results are discussed with respect to early word learning, embodied attention, and the social role of parents in early word learning. PMID:22878116

Intuition and Insight: Two Processes That Build on Each Other or Fundamentally Differ?

PubMed

Zander, Thea; Öllinger, Michael; Volz, Kirsten G

2016-01-01

Intuition and insight are intriguing phenomena of non-analytical mental functioning: whereas intuition denotes ideas that have been reached by sensing the solution without any explicit representation of it, insight has been understood as the sudden and unexpected apprehension of the solution by recombining the single elements of a problem. By face validity, the two processes appear similar; according to a lay perspective, it is assumed that intuition precedes insight. Yet, predominant scientific conceptualizations of intuition and insight consider the two processes to differ with regard to their (dis-)continuous unfolding. That is, intuition has been understood as an experience-based and gradual process, whereas insight is regarded as a genuinely discontinuous phenomenon. Unfortunately, both processes have been investigated differently and without much reference to each other. In this contribution, we therefore set out to fill this lacuna by examining the conceptualizations of the assumed underlying cognitive processes of both phenomena, and by also referring to the research traditions and paradigms of the respective field. Based on early work put forward by Bowers et al. (1990, 1995), we referred to semantic coherence tasks consisting of convergent word triads (i.e., the solution has the same meaning to all three clue words) and/or divergent word triads (i.e., the solution means something different with respect to each clue word) as an excellent kind of paradigm that may be used in the future to disentangle intuition and insight experimentally. By scrutinizing the underlying mechanisms of intuition and insight, with this theoretical contribution, we hope to launch lacking but needed experimental studies and to initiate scientific cooperation between the research fields of intuition and insight that are currently still separated from each other.

Phonological Iconicity Electrifies: An ERP Study on Affective Sound-to-Meaning Correspondences in German

PubMed Central

Ullrich, Susann; Kotz, Sonja A.; Schmidtke, David S.; Aryani, Arash; Conrad, Markus

2016-01-01

While linguistic theory posits an arbitrary relation between signifiers and the signified (de Saussure, 1916), our analysis of a large-scale German database containing affective ratings of words revealed that certain phoneme clusters occur more often in words denoting concepts with negative and arousing meaning. Here, we investigate how such phoneme clusters that potentially serve as sublexical markers of affect can influence language processing. We registered the EEG signal during a lexical decision task with a novel manipulation of the words' putative sublexical affective potential: the means of valence and arousal values for single phoneme clusters, each computed as a function of respective values of words from the database these phoneme clusters occur in. Our experimental manipulations also investigate potential contributions of formal salience to the sublexical affective potential: Typically, negative high-arousing phonological segments—based on our calculations—tend to be less frequent and more structurally complex than neutral ones. We thus constructed two experimental sets, one involving this natural confound, while controlling for it in the other. A negative high-arousing sublexical affective potential in the strictly controlled stimulus set yielded an early posterior negativity (EPN), in similar ways as an independent manipulation of lexical affective content did. When other potentially salient formal features at the sublexical level were not controlled for, the effect of the sublexical affective potential was strengthened and prolonged (250–650 ms), presumably because formal salience helps making specific phoneme clusters efficient sublexical markers of negative high-arousing affective meaning. These neurophysiological data support the assumption that the organization of a language's vocabulary involves systematic sound-to-meaning correspondences at the phonemic level that influence the way we process language. PMID:27588008

Intuition and Insight: Two Processes That Build on Each Other or Fundamentally Differ?

PubMed Central

Zander, Thea; Öllinger, Michael; Volz, Kirsten G.

2016-01-01

Intuition and insight are intriguing phenomena of non-analytical mental functioning: whereas intuition denotes ideas that have been reached by sensing the solution without any explicit representation of it, insight has been understood as the sudden and unexpected apprehension of the solution by recombining the single elements of a problem. By face validity, the two processes appear similar; according to a lay perspective, it is assumed that intuition precedes insight. Yet, predominant scientific conceptualizations of intuition and insight consider the two processes to differ with regard to their (dis-)continuous unfolding. That is, intuition has been understood as an experience-based and gradual process, whereas insight is regarded as a genuinely discontinuous phenomenon. Unfortunately, both processes have been investigated differently and without much reference to each other. In this contribution, we therefore set out to fill this lacuna by examining the conceptualizations of the assumed underlying cognitive processes of both phenomena, and by also referring to the research traditions and paradigms of the respective field. Based on early work put forward by Bowers et al. (1990, 1995), we referred to semantic coherence tasks consisting of convergent word triads (i.e., the solution has the same meaning to all three clue words) and/or divergent word triads (i.e., the solution means something different with respect to each clue word) as an excellent kind of paradigm that may be used in the future to disentangle intuition and insight experimentally. By scrutinizing the underlying mechanisms of intuition and insight, with this theoretical contribution, we hope to launch lacking but needed experimental studies and to initiate scientific cooperation between the research fields of intuition and insight that are currently still separated from each other. PMID:27679592

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

PubMed

Chen, Chi-Hsin; Yu, Chen

2017-06-01

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

Two-year-olds exclude novel objects as potential referents of novel words based on pragmatics.

PubMed

Grassmann, Susanne; Stracke, Marén; Tomasello, Michael

2009-09-01

Many studies have established that children tend to exclude objects for which they already have a name as potential referents of novel words. In the current study we asked whether this exclusion can be triggered by social-pragmatic context alone without pre-existing words as blockers. Two-year-old children watched an adult looking at a novel object while saying a novel word with excitement. In one condition the adult had not seen the object beforehand, and so the children interpreted the adult's utterance as referring to the gazed-at object. In another condition the adult and child had previously played jointly with the gazed-at object. In this case, children less often assumed that the adult was referring to the object but rather they searched for an alternative referent--presumably because they inferred that the gazed-at object was old news in their common ground with the adult and so not worthy of excited labeling. Since this inference based on exclusion is highly similar to that underlying the Principle of Contrast/Mutual Exclusivity, we propose that this principle is not purely lexical but rather is based on children's understanding of how and why people direct one another's attention to things either with or without language.

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

PubMed Central

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

2013-01-01

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

Manipulating Objects and Telling Words: A Study on Concrete and Abstract Words Acquisition

PubMed Central

Borghi, Anna M.; Flumini, Andrea; Cimatti, Felice; Marocco, Davide; Scorolli, Claudia

2011-01-01

Four experiments (E1–E2–E3–E4) investigated whether different acquisition modalities lead to the emergence of differences typically found between concrete and abstract words, as argued by the words as tools (WAT) proposal. To mimic the acquisition of concrete and abstract concepts, participants either manipulated novel objects or observed groups of objects interacting in novel ways (Training 1). In TEST 1 participants decided whether two elements belonged to the same category. Later they read the category labels (Training 2); labels could be accompanied by an explanation of their meaning. Then participants observed previously seen exemplars and other elements, and were asked which of them could be named with a given label (TEST 2). Across the experiments, it was more difficult to form abstract than concrete categories (TEST 1); even when adding labels, abstract words remained more difficult than concrete words (TEST 2). TEST 3 differed across the experiments. In E1 participants performed a feature production task. Crucially, the associations produced with the novel words reflected the pattern evoked by existing concrete and abstract words, as the first evoked more perceptual properties. In E2–E3–E4, TEST 3 consisted of a color verification task with manual/verbal (keyboard–microphone) responses. Results showed the microphone use to have an advantage over keyboard use for abstract words, especially in the explanation condition. This supports WAT: due to their acquisition modality, concrete words evoke more manual information; abstract words elicit more verbal information. This advantage was not present when linguistic information contrasted with perceptual one. Implications for theories and computational models of language grounding are discussed. PMID:21716582

Flexible word meaning in embodied agents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wellens, Peter; Loetzsch, Martin; Steels, Luc

2008-06-01

Learning the meanings of words requires coping with referential uncertainty - a learner hearing a novel word cannot be sure which aspects or properties of the referred object or event comprise the meaning of the word. Data from developmental psychology suggest that human learners grasp the important aspects of many novel words after just a few exposures, a phenomenon known as fast mapping. Traditionally, word learning is viewed as a mapping task, in which the learner has to map a set of forms onto a set of pre-existing concepts. We criticise this approach and argue instead for a flexible nature of the coupling between form and meanings as a solution to the problem of referential uncertainty. We implemented and tested the model in populations of humanoid robots that play situated language games about objects in their shared environment. Results show that the model can handle an exponential increase in uncertainty and allows scaling towards very large meaning spaces, while retaining the ability to grasp an operational meaning almost instantly for a great number of words. In addition, the model captures some aspects of the flexibility of form-meaning associations found in human languages. Meanings of words can shift between being very specific (names) and general (e.g. 'small'). We show that this specificity is biased not by the model itself but by the distribution of object properties in the world.

Spatial Congruity Effects Reveal Metaphorical Thinking, not Polarity Correspondence.

PubMed

Dolscheid, Sarah; Casasanto, Daniel

2015-01-01

Spatial congruity effects have often been interpreted as evidence for metaphorical thinking, but an alternative account based on polarity correspondence (a.k.a. markedness) has challenged this view. Here we compared metaphor- and polarity-correspondence-based explanations for spatial congruity effects, using musical pitch as a testbed. In one experiment, English speakers classified high- and low-frequency pitches as "high" and "low," or as "front" and "back," to determine whether space-pitch congruity effects could be elicited by any marked spatial continuum. Although both pairs of terms describe bipolar spatial continuums, we found congruity effects only for high/low judgments, indicating that markedness is not sufficient to produce space-pitch congruity effects. A second experiment confirmed that there were no space-pitch congruity effects for another pair of terms that have clear markedness (big/small), but which do not denote spatial height. By contrast, this experiment showed congruity effects for words that cued an appropriate vertical spatial schema (tall/short), even though these words are not used conventionally in English to describe pitches, ruling out explanations for the observed pattern of results based on verbal polysemy. Together, results suggest that space-pitch congruity effects reveal metaphorical uses of spatial schemas, not polarity correspondence effects.

Locus of Word Frequency Effects in Spelling to Dictation: Still at the Orthographic Level!

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bonin, Patrick; Laroche, Betty; Perret, Cyril

2016-01-01

The present study was aimed at testing the locus of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation: Are they located at the level of spoken word recognition (Chua & Rickard Liow, 2014) or at the level of the orthographic output lexicon (Delattre, Bonin, & Barry, 2006)? Words that varied on objective word frequency and on phonological…

Effects of focus and definiteness on children's word order: evidence from German five-year-olds' reproductions of double object constructions.

PubMed

Höhle, Barbara; Hörnig, Robin; Weskott, Thomas; Knauf, Selene; Krüger, Agnes

2014-07-01

Two experiments tested how faithfully German children aged 4 ;5 to 5 ;6 reproduce ditransitive sentences that are unmarked or marked with respect to word order and focus (Exp1) or definiteness (Exp2). Adopting an optimality theory (OT) approach, it is assumed that in the German adult grammar word order is ranked lower than focus and definiteness. Faithfulness of children's reproductions decreased as markedness of inputs increased; unmarked structures were reproduced most faithfully and unfaithful outputs had most often an unmarked form. Consistent with the OT proposal, children were more tolerant against inputs marked for word order than for focus; in conflict with the proposal, children were less tolerant against inputs marked for word order than for definiteness. Our results suggest that the linearization of objects in German double object constructions is affected by focus and definiteness, but that prosodic principles may have an impact on the position of a focused constituent.

Portable Chemical Sterilizer (PCS) for Surgical Instruments

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-12-01

PORTABLE CHEMICAL STERILIZER (PCS) FOR SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS CJ Doona*, FE Feeherry, MA Curtin‡, K Kustin‡, S Kandlikar‡ U.S. Army-Soldier...denotes Contractors) Biomedical Technologies ABSTRACT A novel device called the Portable Chemical Sterilizer (PCS) has been developed for the...rapid, safe, portable, power-free, and convenient sterilization of objects or surfaces contaminated with pathogenic microorganisms that cause

Facing the Sunrise: Cultural Worldview Underlying Intrinsic-Based Encoding of Absolute Frames of Reference in Aymara

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nunez, Rafael E.; Cornejo, Carlos

2012-01-01

The Aymara of the Andes use absolute (cardinal) frames of reference for describing the relative position of ordinary objects. However, rather than encoding them in available absolute lexemes, they do it in lexemes that are intrinsic to the body: "nayra" ("front") and "qhipa" ("back"), denoting east and west,…

Perceptual and conceptual similarities facilitate the generalization of instructed fear.

PubMed

Bennett, Marc; Vervoort, Ellen; Boddez, Yannick; Hermans, Dirk; Baeyens, Frank

2015-09-01

Learned fear can generalize to neutral events due their perceptual and conceptual similarity with threat relevant stimuli. This study simultaneously examined these forms of generalization to model the expansion of fear in anxiety disorders. First, artificial categories involving sounds, nonsense words and animal-like objects were established. Next, the words from one category were paired with threatening information while the words from the other category were paired with safety information. Lastly, we examined if fear generalized to (i) the conceptually related animal-like objects and (ii) other animal like-objects that were perceptually similar. This was measured using behavioral avoidance, US expectancy ratings and self-reported stimulus valence. Animal-like objects conceptually connected to the aversive words evoked heightened fear. Perceptual variants of these animal-like objects also elicit fear. Future research would benefit from the use of online-US expectancy ratings and physiological measures of fear. Investigating the role of both perceptual and conceptual fear generalization is important to better understand the etiology of anxiety disorders symptoms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Disambiguating the species of biomedical named entities using natural language parsers

PubMed Central

Wang, Xinglong; Tsujii, Jun'ichi; Ananiadou, Sophia

2010-01-01

Motivation: Text mining technologies have been shown to reduce the laborious work involved in organizing the vast amount of information hidden in the literature. One challenge in text mining is linking ambiguous word forms to unambiguous biological concepts. This article reports on a comprehensive study on resolving the ambiguity in mentions of biomedical named entities with respect to model organisms and presents an array of approaches, with focus on methods utilizing natural language parsers. Results: We build a corpus for organism disambiguation where every occurrence of protein/gene entity is manually tagged with a species ID, and evaluate a number of methods on it. Promising results are obtained by training a machine learning model on syntactic parse trees, which is then used to decide whether an entity belongs to the model organism denoted by a neighbouring species-indicating word (e.g. yeast). The parser-based approaches are also compared with a supervised classification method and results indicate that the former are a more favorable choice when domain portability is of concern. The best overall performance is obtained by combining the strengths of syntactic features and supervised classification. Availability: The corpus and demo are available at http://www.nactem.ac.uk/deca_details/start.cgi, and the software is freely available as U-Compare components (Kano et al., 2009): NaCTeM Species Word Detector and NaCTeM Species Disambiguator. U-Compare is available at http://-compare.org/ Contact: xinglong.wang@manchester.ac.uk PMID:20053840

[Shunt and short circuit].

PubMed

Rangel-Abundis, Alberto

2006-01-01

Shunt and short circuit are antonyms. In French, the term shunt has been adopted to denote the alternative pathway of blood flow. However, in French, as well as in Spanish, the word short circuit (court-circuit and cortocircuito) is synonymous with shunt, giving rise to a linguistic and scientific inconsistency. Scientific because shunt and short circuit made reference to a phenomenon that occurs in the field of the physics. Because shunt and short circuit are antonyms, it is necessary to clarify that shunt is an alternative pathway of flow from a net of high resistance to a net of low resistance, maintaining the stream. Short circuit is the interruption of the flow, because a high resistance impeaches the flood. This concept is applied to electrical and cardiovascular physiology, as well as to the metabolic pathways.

The Effects of Chronic Achievement Motivation and Achievement Primes on the Activation of Achievement and Fun Goals

PubMed Central

Hart, William; Albarracín, Dolores

2013-01-01

This research examined the hypothesis that situational achievement cues can elicit achievement or fun goals depending on chronic differences in achievement motivation. In 4 studies, chronic differences in achievement motivation were measured, and achievement-denoting words were used to influence behavior. The effects of these variables were assessed on self-report inventories, task performance, task resumption following an interruption, and the pursuit of means relevant to achieving or having fun. Findings indicated that achievement priming (vs. control priming) activated a goal to achieve and inhibited a goal to have fun in individuals with chronically high-achievement motivation but activated a goal to have fun and inhibited a goal to achieve in individuals with chronically low-achievement motivation. PMID:19968423

Young children's fast mapping and generalization of words, facts, and pictograms.

PubMed

Deák, Gedeon O; Toney, Alexis J

2013-06-01

To test general and specific processes of symbol learning, 4- and 5-year-old children learned three kinds of abstract associates for novel objects: words, facts, and pictograms. To test fast mapping (i.e., one-trial learning) and subsequent learning, comprehension was tested after each of four exposures. Production was also tested, as was children's tendency to generalize learned items to new objects in the same taxon. To test for a bias toward mutually exclusive associations, children learned either one-to-one or many-to-many mappings. In Experiment 1, children learned words, facts (with or without incidental novel words), or pictograms. In Experiment 2, children learned words or pictograms. In both of these experiments, children learned words slower than facts and pictograms. Pictograms and facts were generalized more systematically than words, but only in Experiment 1. Children learned one-to-one mappings faster only in Experiment 2, when cognitive load was increased. In Experiment 3, 3- and 4-year-olds were taught facts (with novel words), words, and pictograms. Children learned facts faster than words; however, they remembered all items equally well a week later. The results suggest that word learning follows non-specialized memory and associative learning processes. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Is a Pink Cow Still a Cow? Individual Differences in Toddlers' Vocabulary Knowledge and Lexical Representations.

PubMed

Perry, Lynn K; Saffran, Jenny R

2017-05-01

When a toddler knows a word, what does she actually know? Many categories have multiple relevant properties; for example, shape and color are relevant to membership in the category banana. How do toddlers prioritize these properties when recognizing familiar words, and are there systematic differences among children? In this study, toddlers viewed pairs of objects associated with prototypical colors. On some trials, objects were typically colored (e.g., Holstein cow and pink pig); on other trials, colors were switched (e.g., pink cow and Holstein-patterned pig). On each trial, toddlers were directed to find a target object. Overall, recognition was disrupted when colors were switched, as measured by eye movements. Moreover, individual differences in vocabularies predicted recognition differences: Toddlers who say fewer shape-based words were more disrupted by color switches. "Knowing" a word may not mean the same thing for all toddlers; different toddlers prioritize different facets of familiar objects in their lexical representations. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Nine-month-old infants generalize object labels, but not object preferences across individuals.

PubMed

Henderson, Annette M E; Woodward, Amanda L

2012-09-01

As with all culturally relevant human behaviours, words are meaningful because they are shared by the members of a community. This research investigates whether 9-month-old infants understand this fundamental fact about language. Experiment 1 examined whether infants who are trained on, and subsequently habituated to, a new word-referent link expect the link to be consistent across a second speaker. Experiment 2 examined whether 9-month-old infants distinguish between behaviours that are shared across individuals (i.e. words) from those that are not (i.e. object preferences). The present findings indicate that infants as young as 9 months of age expect new word-referent links, but not object preferences, to be consistent across individuals. Thus, by 9 months, infants have identified at least one of the aspects of human behaviour that is shared across individuals within a community. The implications for children's acquisition of language and culture are discussed. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Semantic Specificity in One-Year-Olds’ Word Comprehension

PubMed Central

Bergelson, Elika; Aslin, Richard

2017-01-01

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

Nine-month-old infants generalize object labels, but not object preferences across individuals

PubMed Central

Woodward, Amanda L.

2012-01-01

As with all culturally relevant human behaviours, words are meaningful because they are shared by the members of a community. This research investigates whether 9-month-old infants understand this fundamental fact about language. Experiment 1 examined whether infants who are trained on, and subsequently habituated to, a new word-referent link expect the link to be consistent across a second speaker. Experiment 2 examined whether 9-month-old infants distinguish between behaviours that are shared across individuals (i.e., words) from those that are not (i.e., object preferences). The present findings indicate that infants as young as 9 months of age expect new word-referent links, but not object preferences, to be consistent across individuals. Thus, by 9 months, infants have identified at least one of the aspects of human behaviour that is shared across individuals within a community. The implications for children’s acquisition of language and culture are discussed. PMID:22925512

Imagery encoding and false recognition errors: Examining the role of imagery process and imagery content on source misattributions.

PubMed

Foley, Mary Ann; Foy, Jeffrey; Schlemmer, Emily; Belser-Ehrlich, Janna

2010-11-01

Imagery encoding effects on source-monitoring errors were explored using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm in two experiments. While viewing thematically related lists embedded in mixed picture/word presentations, participants were asked to generate images of objects or words (Experiment 1) or to simply name the items (Experiment 2). An encoding task intended to induce spontaneous images served as a control for the explicit imagery instruction conditions (Experiment 1). On the picture/word source-monitoring tests, participants were much more likely to report "seeing" a picture of an item presented as a word than the converse particularly when images were induced spontaneously. However, this picture misattribution error was reversed after generating images of words (Experiment 1) and was eliminated after simply labelling the items (Experiment 2). Thus source misattributions were sensitive to the processes giving rise to imagery experiences (spontaneous vs deliberate), the kinds of images generated (object vs word images), and the ways in which materials were presented (as pictures vs words).

Lexical leverage: Category knowledge boosts real-time novel word recognition in two-year- olds

PubMed Central

Borovsky, Arielle; Ellis, Erica M.; Evans, Julia L.; Elman, Jeffrey L.

2016-01-01

Recent research suggests that infants tend to add words to their vocabulary that are semantically related to other known words, though it is not clear why this pattern emerges. In this paper, we explore whether infants to leverage their existing vocabulary and semantic knowledge when interpreting novel label-object mappings in real-time. We initially identified categorical domains for which individual 24-month-old infants have relatively higher and lower levels of knowledge, irrespective of overall vocabulary size. Next, we taught infants novel words in these higher and lower knowledge domains and then asked if their subsequent real-time recognition of these items varied as a function of their category knowledge. While our participants successfully acquired the novel label -object mappings in our task, there were important differences in the way infants recognized these words in real time. Namely, infants showed more robust recognition of high (vs. low) domain knowledge words. These findings suggest that dense semantic structure facilitates early word learning and real-time novel word recognition. PMID:26452444

Word meaning and the control of eye fixation: semantic competitor effects and the visual world paradigm.

PubMed

Huettig, Falk; Altmann, Gerry T M

2005-05-01

When participants are presented simultaneously with spoken language and a visual display depicting objects to which that language refers, participants spontaneously fixate the visual referents of the words being heard [Cooper, R. M. (1974). The control of eye fixation by the meaning of spoken language: A new methodology for the real-time investigation of speech perception, memory, and language processing. Cognitive Psychology, 6(1), 84-107; ]. We demonstrate here that such spontaneous fixation can be driven by partial semantic overlap between a word and a visual object. Participants heard the word 'piano' when (a) a piano was depicted amongst unrelated distractors; (b) a trumpet was depicted amongst those same distractors; and (c), both the piano and trumpet were depicted. The probability of fixating the piano and the trumpet in the first two conditions rose as the word 'piano' unfolded. In the final condition, only fixations to the piano rose, although the trumpet was fixated more than the distractors. We conclude that eye movements are driven by the degree of match, along various dimensions that go beyond simple visual form, between a word and the mental representations of objects in the concurrent visual field.

Neural events that underlie remembering something that never happened.

PubMed

Gonsalves, B; Paller, K A

2000-12-01

We induced people to experience a false-memory illusion by first asking them to visualize common objects when cued with the corresponding word; on some trials, a photograph of the object was presented 1800 ms after the cue word. We then tested their memory for the photographs. Posterior brain potentials in response to words at encoding were more positive if the corresponding object was later falsely remembered as a photograph. Similar brain potentials during the memory test were more positive for true than for false memories. These results implicate visual imagery in the generation of false memories and provide neural correlates of processing differences between true and false memories.

Pragmatically Framed Cross-Situational Noun Learning Using Computational Reinforcement Models

PubMed Central

Najnin, Shamima; Banerjee, Bonny

2018-01-01

Cross-situational learning and social pragmatic theories are prominent mechanisms for learning word meanings (i.e., word-object pairs). In this paper, the role of reinforcement is investigated for early word-learning by an artificial agent. When exposed to a group of speakers, the agent comes to understand an initial set of vocabulary items belonging to the language used by the group. Both cross-situational learning and social pragmatic theory are taken into account. As social cues, joint attention and prosodic cues in caregiver's speech are considered. During agent-caregiver interaction, the agent selects a word from the caregiver's utterance and learns the relations between that word and the objects in its visual environment. The “novel words to novel objects” language-specific constraint is assumed for computing rewards. The models are learned by maximizing the expected reward using reinforcement learning algorithms [i.e., table-based algorithms: Q-learning, SARSA, SARSA-λ, and neural network-based algorithms: Q-learning for neural network (Q-NN), neural-fitted Q-network (NFQ), and deep Q-network (DQN)]. Neural network-based reinforcement learning models are chosen over table-based models for better generalization and quicker convergence. Simulations are carried out using mother-infant interaction CHILDES dataset for learning word-object pairings. Reinforcement is modeled in two cross-situational learning cases: (1) with joint attention (Attentional models), and (2) with joint attention and prosodic cues (Attentional-prosodic models). Attentional-prosodic models manifest superior performance to Attentional ones for the task of word-learning. The Attentional-prosodic DQN outperforms existing word-learning models for the same task. PMID:29441027

Parents' Translations of Child Gesture Facilitate Word Learning in Children with Autism, Down Syndrome and Typical Development

PubMed Central

Dimitrova, Nevena; Özçalışkan, Şeyda; Adamson, Lauren B.

2016-01-01

Typically-developing (TD) children frequently refer to objects uniquely in gesture. Parents translate these gestures into words, facilitating children's acquisition of these words (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2007). We ask whether this pattern holds for children with autism (AU) and with Down syndrome (DS) who show delayed vocabulary development. We observed 23 children with ASD, 23 with DS, and 23 TD children with their parents over a year. Children used gestures to indicate objects before labeling them and parents translated their gestures into words. Importantly, children benefited from this input, acquiring more words for the translated gestures than the not translated ones. Results highlight the role contingent parental input to child gesture plays in language development of children with developmental disorders. PMID:26362150

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

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gopnik, Alison; Meltzoff, Andrew N.

1986-01-01

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

Predictors of photo naming: Dutch norms for 327 photos.

PubMed

Shao, Zeshu; Stiegert, Julia

2016-06-01

In the present study, we report naming latencies and norms for 327 photos of objects in Dutch. We provide norms for eight psycholinguistic variables: age of acquisition, familiarity, imageability, image agreement, objective and subjective visual complexity, word frequency, word length in syllables and letters, and name agreement. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses revealed that the significant predictors of photo-naming latencies were name agreement, word frequency, imageability, and image agreement. The naming latencies, norms, and stimuli are provided as supplemental materials.

More Limitations to Monolingualism: Bilinguals Outperform Monolinguals in Implicit Word Learning.

PubMed

Escudero, Paola; Mulak, Karen E; Fu, Charlene S L; Singh, Leher

2016-01-01

To succeed at cross-situational word learning, learners must infer word-object mappings by attending to the statistical co-occurrences of novel objects and labels across multiple encounters. While past studies have investigated this as a learning mechanism for infants and monolingual adults, bilinguals' cross-situational word learning abilities have yet to be tested. Here, we compared monolinguals' and bilinguals' performance on a cross-situational word learning paradigm that featured phonologically distinct word pairs (e.g., BON-DEET) and phonologically similar word pairs that varied by a single consonant or vowel segment (e.g., BON-TON, DEET-DIT, respectively). Both groups learned the novel word-referent mappings, providing evidence that cross-situational word learning is a learning strategy also available to bilingual adults. Furthermore, bilinguals were overall more accurate than monolinguals. This supports that bilingualism fosters a wide range of cognitive advantages that may benefit implicit word learning. Additionally, response patterns to the different trial types revealed a relative difficulty for vowel minimal pairs than consonant minimal pairs, replicating the pattern found in monolinguals by Escudero et al. (2016) in a different English accent. Specifically, all participants failed to learn vowel contrasts differentiated by vowel height. We discuss evidence for this bilingual advantage as a language-specific or general advantage.

More Limitations to Monolingualism: Bilinguals Outperform Monolinguals in Implicit Word Learning

PubMed Central

Escudero, Paola; Mulak, Karen E.; Fu, Charlene S. L.; Singh, Leher

2016-01-01

To succeed at cross-situational word learning, learners must infer word-object mappings by attending to the statistical co-occurrences of novel objects and labels across multiple encounters. While past studies have investigated this as a learning mechanism for infants and monolingual adults, bilinguals’ cross-situational word learning abilities have yet to be tested. Here, we compared monolinguals’ and bilinguals’ performance on a cross-situational word learning paradigm that featured phonologically distinct word pairs (e.g., BON-DEET) and phonologically similar word pairs that varied by a single consonant or vowel segment (e.g., BON-TON, DEET-DIT, respectively). Both groups learned the novel word-referent mappings, providing evidence that cross-situational word learning is a learning strategy also available to bilingual adults. Furthermore, bilinguals were overall more accurate than monolinguals. This supports that bilingualism fosters a wide range of cognitive advantages that may benefit implicit word learning. Additionally, response patterns to the different trial types revealed a relative difficulty for vowel minimal pairs than consonant minimal pairs, replicating the pattern found in monolinguals by Escudero et al. (2016) in a different English accent. Specifically, all participants failed to learn vowel contrasts differentiated by vowel height. We discuss evidence for this bilingual advantage as a language-specific or general advantage. PMID:27574513

The Role of Gaze Direction and Mutual Exclusivity in Guiding 24-Month-Olds' Word Mappings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graham, Susan A.; Nilsen, Elizabeth S.; Collins, Sarah; Olineck, Kara

2010-01-01

In these studies, we examined how a default assumption about word meaning, the mutual exclusivity assumption and an intentional cue, gaze direction, interacted to guide 24-month-olds' object-word mappings. In Expt 1, when the experimenter's gaze was consistent with the mutual exclusivity assumption, novel word mappings were facilitated. When the…

Word Learning Emerges from the Interaction of Online Referent Selection and Slow Associative Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McMurray, Bob; Horst, Jessica S.; Samuelson, Larissa K.

2012-01-01

Classic approaches to word learning emphasize referential ambiguity: In naming situations, a novel word could refer to many possible objects, properties, actions, and so forth. To solve this, researchers have posited constraints, and inference strategies, but assume that determining the referent of a novel word is isomorphic to learning. We…

Computational Modeling of Morphological Effects in Bangla Visual Word Recognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dasgupta, Tirthankar; Sinha, Manjira; Basu, Anupam

2015-01-01

In this paper we aim to model the organization and processing of Bangla polymorphemic words in the mental lexicon. Our objective is to determine whether the mental lexicon accesses a polymorphemic word as a whole or decomposes the word into its constituent morphemes and then recognize them accordingly. To address this issue, we adopted two…

SHIPMO5: An Updated User’s Manual Incorporating New Wave Spectra and Ship-Referenced Forces

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-04-01

equipment sliding, or of personnel loss-of- balance events, termed motion-induced interruptions. First consider an object on deck and suppose that the object...lateral force estimator in Reference 5. In the present work , this quantity will be called the port sliding estimator function, and denoted by Sport...0.170 , TIME FOR OPERATION " 60.0 a HEADING *$.LATE.LL*$$ **LONGITUDIILL*s TOTAL LFE NIl LFE Nil NI DEG G G 0.0 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.000 30.0 0.061

Abstract Representations of Object-Directed Action in the Left Inferior Parietal Lobule.

PubMed

Chen, Quanjing; Garcea, Frank E; Jacobs, Robert A; Mahon, Bradford Z

2018-06-01

Prior neuroimaging and neuropsychological research indicates that the left inferior parietal lobule in the human brain is a critical substrate for representing object manipulation knowledge. In the present functional MRI study we used multivoxel pattern analyses to test whether action similarity among objects can be decoded in the inferior parietal lobule independent of the task applied to objects (identification or pantomime) and stimulus format in which stimuli are presented (pictures or printed words). Participants pantomimed the use of objects, cued by printed words, or identified pictures of objects. Classifiers were trained and tested across task (e.g., training data: pantomime; testing data: identification), stimulus format (e.g., training data: word format; testing format: picture) and specific objects (e.g., training data: scissors vs. corkscrew; testing data: pliers vs. screwdriver). The only brain region in which action relations among objects could be decoded across task, stimulus format and objects was the inferior parietal lobule. By contrast, medial aspects of the ventral surface of the left temporal lobe represented object function, albeit not at the same level of abstractness as actions in the inferior parietal lobule. These results suggest compulsory access to abstract action information in the inferior parietal lobe even when simply identifying objects.

Age of acquisition persists as the main factor in picture naming when cumulative word frequency and frequency trajectory are controlled.

PubMed

Pérez, Miguel A

2007-01-01

The aim of this study was to address the effect of objective age of acquisition (AoA) on picture-naming latencies when different measures of frequency (cumulative and adult word frequency) and frequency trajectory are taken into account. A total of 80 Spanish participants named a set of 178 pictures. Several multiple regression analyses assessed the influence of AoA, word frequency, frequency trajectory, object familiarity, name agreement, image agreement, image variability, name length, and orthographic neighbourhood density on naming times. The results revealed that AoA is the main predictor of picture-naming times. Cumulative frequency and adult word frequency (written or spoken) appeared as important factors in picture naming, but frequency trajectory and object familiarity did not. Other significant variables were image agreement, image variability, and neighbourhood density. These results (a) provide additional evidence of the predictive power of AoA in naming times independent of word-frequency and (b) suggest that image variability and neighbourhood density should also be taken into account in models of lexical production.

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.

[Conflict as a reality and a cultural challenge in the practice of nurses' management].

PubMed

Prochnow, Adelina Giacomelli; Leite, Joséte Luzia; Erdmann, Alacoque Lorenzini; Trevizan, Maria Auxiliadora

2007-12-01

The practice of nurses' management is permeated by conflicts that can be interpreted through culture references. The objective of this study is to denote cultural specificities, analyzed according to Geertz's Cultural Interpretative Theory, that are expressed as conflicts in the scope of nurses' management at a University Hospital. The results denoted the incorporation of ideological elements and mechanisms of control and power, whose origin can be seen in the way in which the work is organized. The application of policies based on the profession's very values was observed. Practices highlight a cultural construction that elucidates some understandings regarding cognitive, social and behavioral processes, because they organize the interpretations and the answers to the events of nurses' practices in management. The results of this study point out the importance of organizational culture in the practice of Nursing management in the face of labor uncertainties in the complexity of a hospital environment.

Is This a Dax Which I See before Me? Use of the Logical Argument Disjunctive Syllogism Supports Word-Learning in Children and Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Halberda, Justin

2006-01-01

Many authors have argued that word-learning constraints help guide a word-learner's hypotheses as to the meaning of a newly heard word. One such class of constraints derives from the observation that word-learners of all ages prefer to map novel labels to novel objects in situations of referential ambiguity. In this paper I use eye-tracking to…

Dimensional adjectives: factors affecting children's ability to compare objects using novel words.

PubMed

Ryalls, B O

2000-05-01

A series of 3 studies tested the hypothesis that children's difficulty acquiring dimensional adjectives, such as big, little, tall, and short, is a consequence of how these words are used by adults. Three- and 4-year-olds were asked to compare pairs of objects drawn from a novel stimulus series using real dimension words (taller and shorter; Study 1) and novel dimension words (maller and borger; Studies 1-3). Characteristics of testing, including the presence or absence of a categorization task, were manipulated. Findings indicated that children easily acquired novel dimension words when they were used in a strictly comparative fashion but had difficulty when also exposed to the categorical form of usage. It is concluded that having to learn both categorical and comparative meanings at once may impede acquisition of dimensional adjectives. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

Grounding Action Words in the Sensorimotor Interaction with the World: Experiments with a Simulated iCub Humanoid Robot

PubMed Central

Marocco, Davide; Cangelosi, Angelo; Fischer, Kerstin; Belpaeme, Tony

2010-01-01

This paper presents a cognitive robotics model for the study of the embodied representation of action words. The present research will present how an iCub humanoid robot can learn the meaning of action words (i.e. words that represent dynamical events that happen in time) by physically interacting with the environment and linking the effects of its own actions with the behavior observed on the objects before and after the action. The control system of the robot is an artificial neural network trained to manipulate an object through a Back-Propagation-Through-Time algorithm. We will show that in the presented model the grounding of action words relies directly to the way in which an agent interacts with the environment and manipulates it. PMID:20725503

Parents' Translations of Child Gesture Facilitate Word Learning in Children with Autism, Down Syndrome and Typical Development.

PubMed

Dimitrova, Nevena; Özçalışkan, Şeyda; Adamson, Lauren B

2016-01-01

Typically-developing (TD) children frequently refer to objects uniquely in gesture. Parents translate these gestures into words, facilitating children's acquisition of these words (Goldin-Meadow et al. in Dev Sci 10(6):778-785, 2007). We ask whether this pattern holds for children with autism (AU) and with Down syndrome (DS) who show delayed vocabulary development. We observed 23 children with AU, 23 with DS, and 23 TD children with their parents over a year. Children used gestures to indicate objects before labeling them and parents translated their gestures into words. Importantly, children benefited from this input, acquiring more words for the translated gestures than the not translated ones. Results highlight the role contingent parental input to child gesture plays in language development of children with developmental disorders.

tDCS over the motor cortex improves lexical retrieval of action words in poststroke aphasia.

PubMed

Branscheidt, Meret; Hoppe, Julia; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Liuzzi, Gianpiero

2018-02-01

One-third of stroke survivors worldwide suffer from aphasia. Speech and language therapy (SLT) is considered effective in treating aphasia, but because of time constraints, improvements are often limited. Noninvasive brain stimulation is a promising adjuvant strategy to facilitate SLT. However, stroke might render "classical" language regions ineffective as stimulation sites. Recent work showed the effectiveness of motor cortex stimulation together with intensive naming therapy to improve outcomes in aphasia (Meinzer et al. 2016). Although that study highlights the involvement of the motor cortex, the functional aspects by which it influences language remain unclear. In the present study, we focus on the role of motor cortex in language, investigating its functional involvement in access to specific lexico-semantic (object vs. action relatedness) information in poststroke aphasia. To this end, we tested effects of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the left motor cortex on lexical retrieval in 16 patients with poststroke aphasia in a sham-controlled, double-blind study design. Critical stimuli were action and object words, and pseudowords. Participants performed a lexical decision task, deciding whether stimuli were words or pseudowords. Anodal tDCS improved accuracy in lexical decision, especially for words with action-related content and for pseudowords with an "action-like" ending ( t 15  = 2.65, P = 0.036), but not for words with object-related content and pseudowords with "object-like" characteristics. We show as a proof-of-principle that the motor cortex may play a specific role in access to lexico-semantic content. Thus motor-cortex stimulation may strengthen content-specific word-to-semantic concept associations during language treatment in poststroke aphasia. NEW & NOTEWORTHY The role of motor cortex (MC) in language processing has been debated in both health and disease. Recent work has suggested that MC stimulation together with speech and language therapy enhances outcomes in aphasia. We show that MC stimulation has a differential effect on object- and action-word processing in poststroke aphasia. We propose that MC stimulation may specifically strengthen word-to-semantic concept association in aphasia. Our results potentially provide a way to tailor therapies for language rehabilitation.

Real-world visual statistics and infants' first-learned object names

PubMed Central

Clerkin, Elizabeth M.; Hart, Elizabeth; Rehg, James M.; Yu, Chen

2017-01-01

We offer a new solution to the unsolved problem of how infants break into word learning based on the visual statistics of everyday infant-perspective scenes. Images from head camera video captured by 8 1/2 to 10 1/2 month-old infants at 147 at-home mealtime events were analysed for the objects in view. The images were found to be highly cluttered with many different objects in view. However, the frequency distribution of object categories was extremely right skewed such that a very small set of objects was pervasively present—a fact that may substantially reduce the problem of referential ambiguity. The statistical structure of objects in these infant egocentric scenes differs markedly from that in the training sets used in computational models and in experiments on statistical word-referent learning. Therefore, the results also indicate a need to re-examine current explanations of how infants break into word learning. This article is part of the themed issue ‘New frontiers for statistical learning in the cognitive sciences’. PMID:27872373

Tracking Multiple Statistics: Simultaneous Learning of Object Names and Categories in English and Mandarin Speakers.

PubMed

Chen, Chi-Hsin; Gershkoff-Stowe, Lisa; Wu, Chih-Yi; Cheung, Hintat; Yu, Chen

2017-08-01

Two experiments were conducted to examine adult learners' ability to extract multiple statistics in simultaneously presented visual and auditory input. Experiment 1 used a cross-situational learning paradigm to test whether English speakers were able to use co-occurrences to learn word-to-object mappings and concurrently form object categories based on the commonalities across training stimuli. Experiment 2 replicated the first experiment and further examined whether speakers of Mandarin, a language in which final syllables of object names are more predictive of category membership than English, were able to learn words and form object categories when trained with the same type of structures. The results indicate that both groups of learners successfully extracted multiple levels of co-occurrence and used them to learn words and object categories simultaneously. However, marked individual differences in performance were also found, suggesting possible interference and competition in processing the two concurrent streams of regularities. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

The Role of Competition in Word Learning via Referent Selection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Horst, Jessica S.; Scott, Emilly J.; Pollard, Jessica A.

2010-01-01

Previous research suggests that competition among the objects present during referent selection influences young children's ability to learn words in fast mapping tasks. The present study systematically explored this issue with 30-month-old children. Children first received referent selection trials with a target object and either two, three or…

Shape, Material, and Syntax: Interacting Forces in Children's Learning In Novel Words for Objects and Substances.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Subrahmanyam, Kaveri; Landau, Barbara; Gelman, Rochel

1999-01-01

Three studies examined the role of ontological and syntactic information in children's learning of words for physical entities, such as objects and substances. Results reveal a strong and changing developmental interaction for the use of ontologically relevant perceptual information, labels, and syntax. (Author/VWL)

Fall Take a Hike Features a New Poster Puzzler Challenge | Poster

Cancer.gov

The recent Take a Hike event, sponsored by Occupational Health Services, featured a new twist: A Poster Puzzler challenge courtesy of Scientific Publications, Graphics and Media. Participants were asked to identify words on six objects along the Hike path based on photographs that showed the objects with the words blurred out.

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

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wei, Wei; Cook, Anne E.

2016-01-01

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

75 FR 7536 - Culturally Significant Objects Imported for Exhibition Determinations: “The Dead Sea Scrolls...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-02-19

... DEPARTMENT OF STATE [Public Notice 6898] Culturally Significant Objects Imported for Exhibition Determinations: ``The Dead Sea Scrolls: Words That Changed the World'' Summary: Notice is hereby given of the... included in the exhibition ``The Dead Sea Scrolls: Words That Changed the World,'' imported from abroad for...

A Neurocomputational Account of Taxonomic Responding and Fast Mapping in Early Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayor, Julien; Plunkett, Kim

2010-01-01

We present a neurocomputational model with self-organizing maps that accounts for the emergence of taxonomic responding and fast mapping in early word learning, as well as a rapid increase in the rate of acquisition of words observed in late infancy. The quality and efficiency of generalization of word-object associations is directly related to…

Unconscious Congruency Priming from Unpracticed Words Is Modulated by Prime-Target Semantic Relatedness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ortells, Juan J.; Mari-Beffa, Paloma; Plaza-Ayllon, Vanesa

2013-01-01

Participants performed a 2-choice categorization task on visible word targets that were preceded by novel (unpracticed) prime words. The prime words were presented for 33 ms and followed either immediately (Experiments 1-3) or after a variable delay (Experiments 1 and 4) by a pattern mask. Both subjective and objective measures of prime visibility…

Liberty of Word Order in Esperanto. Lektos: Interdisciplinary Working Papers in Language Sciences, Vol. 3, No. 2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Verloren van Themaat, W. A.

The liberty of deviation from the dominant word order in Esperanto and the natural languages is considered. Greenberg's classification of the languages according to four criteria, the liberty of word order in Sanskrit, and the norm of grammaticality in a constructed language are considered. Objection is made to St. Clair's argument that word order…

Universals of Word Order in Esperanto. Lektos: Interdisciplinary Working Papers in Language Sciences, Vol. 3, No. 2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

St. Clair, Robert N.

The contention that Esperanto is a natural linguistic system is discussed. Research is cited concerning universals of word order, dominant word order, polar type languages, Esperanto as a verb-subject-object language, and gapping in Esperanto. It is concluded that contrary to grammatical tradition, word order is not and cannot be completely free.…

The impact of intonation and valence on objective and subjective attention capture by auditory alarms.

PubMed

Ljungberg, Jessica K; Parmentier, Fabrice

2012-10-01

The objective was to study the involuntary capture of attention by spoken words varying in intonation and valence. In studies of verbal alarms, the propensity of alarms to capture attention has been primarily assessed with the use of subjective ratings of their perceived urgency. Past studies suggest that such ratings vary with the alarms' spoken urgency and content. We measured attention capture by spoken words varying in valence (negative vs. neutral) and intonation (urgently vs. nonurgently spoken) through subjective ratings and behavioral measures. The key behavioral measure was the response latency to visual stimuli in the presence of spoken words breaking away from the periodical repetition of a tone. The results showed that all words captured attention relative to a baseline standard tone but that this effect was partly counteracted by a relative speeding of responses for urgently compared with nonurgently spoken words. Word valence did not affect behavioral performance. Rating data showed that both intonation and valence increased significantly perceived urgency and attention grabbing without any interaction. The data suggest a congruency between subjective ratings and behavioral performance with respect to spoken intonation but not valence. This study demonstrates the usefulness and feasibility of objective measures of attention capture to help design efficient alarm systems.

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.

The Evocative Power of Words: Activation of Concepts by Verbal and Nonverbal Means

PubMed Central

Lupyan, Gary; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L.

2014-01-01

A major part of learning a language is learning to map spoken words onto objects in the environment. An open question is what are the consequences of this learning for cognition and perception? Here, we present a series of experiments that examine effects of verbal labels on the activation of conceptual information as measured through picture verification tasks. We find that verbal cues, such as the word “cat,” lead to faster and more accurate verification of congruent objects and rejection of incongruent objects than do either nonverbal cues, such as the sound of a cat meowing, or words that do not directly refer to the object, such as the word “meowing.” This label advantage does not arise from verbal labels being more familiar or easier to process than other cues, and it does extends to newly learned labels and sounds. Despite having equivalent facility in learning associations between novel objects and labels or sounds, conceptual information is activated more effectively through verbal means than through non-verbal means. Thus, rather than simply accessing nonverbal concepts, language activates aspects of a conceptual representation in a particularly effective way. We offer preliminary support that representations activated via verbal means are more categorical and show greater consistency between subjects. These results inform the understanding of how human cognition is shaped by language and hint at effects that different patterns of naming can have on conceptual structure. PMID:21928923

An Alternative to Mapping a Word onto a Concept in Language Acquisition: Pragmatic Frames

PubMed Central

Rohlfing, Katharina J.; Wrede, Britta; Vollmer, Anna-Lisa; Oudeyer, Pierre-Yves

2016-01-01

The classic mapping metaphor posits that children learn a word by mapping it onto a concept of an object or event. However, we believe that a mapping metaphor cannot account for word learning, because even though children focus attention on objects, they do not necessarily remember the connection between the word and the referent unless it is framed pragmatically, that is, within a task. Our theoretical paper proposes an alternative mechanism for word learning. Our main premise is that word learning occurs as children accomplish a goal in cooperation with a partner. We follow Bruner’s (1983) idea and further specify pragmatic frames as the learning units that drive language acquisition and cognitive development. These units consist of a sequence of actions and verbal behaviors that are co-constructed with a partner to achieve a joint goal. We elaborate on this alternative, offer some initial parametrizations of the concept, and embed it in current language learning approaches. PMID:27148105

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.

"What" and "where" in word reading: ventral coding of written words revealed by parietal atrophy.

PubMed

Vinckier, Fabien; Naccache, Lionel; Papeix, Caroline; Forget, Joaquim; Hahn-Barma, Valerie; Dehaene, Stanislas; Cohen, Laurent

2006-12-01

The visual system of literate adults develops a remarkable perceptual expertise for printed words. To delineate the aspects of this competence intrinsic to the occipitotemporal "what" pathway, we studied a patient with bilateral lesions of the occipitoparietal "where" pathway. Depending on critical geometric features of the display (rotation angle, letter spacing, mirror reversal, etc.), she switched from a good performance, when her intact ventral pathway was sufficient to encode words, to severely impaired reading, when her parietal lesions prevented the use of alternative reading strategies as a result of spatial and attentional impairments. In particular, reading was disrupted (a) by rotating word by more than 50 degrees , providing an approximation of the invariance range for words encoding in the ventral pathway; (b) by separating letters with double spaces, revealing the limits of letter grouping into perceptual wholes; (c) by mirror-reversing words, showing that words escape the default mirror-invariant representation of visual objects in the ventral pathway. Moreover, because of her parietal lesions, she was unable to discriminate mirror images of common objects, although she was excellent with reversible pseudowords, confirming that the breaking of mirror symmetry was intrinsic to the occipitotemporal cortex. Thus, charting the display conditions associated with preserved or impaired performance allowed us to infer properties of word coding in the normal ventral pathway and to delineate the roles of the parietal lobes in single-word recognition.

Effect of perceived benefits on reluctance to trade.

PubMed

Lin, Hung-Ming; Kao, Danny T; Chuang, Shih-Chieh

2007-06-01

People often tend to be reluctant to trade an owned object for an alternative object. This concept of reluctance to trade is generally called "endowment effect". Loss aversion, which denotes that losses are weighted more heavily than gains, has been applied to interpret the endowment effect. Specifically, no "reluctance to trade" will occur when no loss is involved. In this research, 172 (90 women, 82 men; M age=21 yr., SD= 1.2) and 152 (82 women, 70 men; M age=21 yr., SD= 1.8) undergraduates voluntarily participated in two experiments, respectively. Results of both experiments indicated that participants were willing to trade an owned object for an alternative object when both objects were of the same benefit type and were reluctant to trade when objects were different. Clearly, an exchange was perceived as lower loss when the owned object and the alternative object were of the same benefit type, leading to no reluctance to trade.

The picture superiority effect in a cross-modality recognition task.

PubMed

Stenbert, G; Radeborg, K; Hedman, L R

1995-07-01

Words and pictures were studied and recognition tests given in which each studied object was to be recognized in both word and picture format. The main dependent variable was the latency of the recognition decision. The purpose was to investigate the effects of study modality (word or picture), of congruence between study and test modalities, and of priming resulting from repeated testing. Experiments 1 and 2 used the same basic design, but the latter also varied retention interval. Experiment 3 added a manipulation of instructions to name studied objects, and Experiment 4 deviated from the others by presenting both picture and word referring to the same object together for study. The results showed that congruence between study and test modalities consistently facilitated recognition. Furthermore, items studied as pictures were more rapidly recognized than were items studied as words. With repeated testing, the second instance was affected by its predecessor, but the facilitating effect of picture-to-word priming exceeded that of word-to-picture priming. The finds suggest a two- stage recognition process, in which the first is based on perceptual familiarity and the second uses semantic links for a retrieval search. Common-code theories that grant privileged access to the semantic code for pictures or, alternatively, dual-code theories that assume mnemonic superiority for the image code are supported by the findings. Explanations of the picture superiority effect as resulting from dual encoding of pictures are not supported by the data.

Brief Report: Generalisation of Word-Picture Relations in Children with Autism and Typically Developing Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hartley, Calum; Allen, Melissa L.

2014-01-01

We investigated whether low-functioning children with autism generalise labels from colour photographs based on sameness of shape, colour, or both. Children with autism and language-matched controls were taught novel words paired with photographs of unfamiliar objects, and then sorted pictures and objects into two buckets according to whether or…

2.5-Year-Olds Use Cross-Situational Consistency to Learn Verbs under Referential Uncertainty

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scott, Rose M.; Fisher, Cynthia

2012-01-01

Recent evidence shows that children can use cross-situational statistics to learn new object labels under referential ambiguity (e.g., Smith & Yu, 2008). Such evidence has been interpreted as support for proposals that statistical information about word-referent co-occurrence plays a powerful role in word learning. But object labels represent only…

Observational Word Learning in Two Bonobos ("Pan Panicus"): Ostensive and Non-Ostensive Contexts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lyn, Heidi; Savage-Rumbaugh, E. Sue

2000-01-01

Using a modified human paradigm, this article explores two language-competent bonobos' abilities to map new words to objects in realistic surroundings with few exposures to the referents. Also investigates the necessity of the apes maintaining visual contact with the item to map the novel name onto the novel object. (Author/VWL)

Formal and Informal Experiential Realms in German as a Foreign Language: A Preliminary Investigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moyer, Alene

2005-01-01

In this study of German as a foreign language, formal classroom experience is compared with informal use of German outside the classroom focusing on three syntactic features: main clause word order (subject-verb-object, or SVO), topicalization (subject-verb inversion), and subordinate word order (subject-object-verb, or SOV). T tests and…

Nine-Month-Old Infants Generalize Object Labels, but Not Object Preferences across Individuals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henderson, Annette M. E.; Woodward, Amanda L.

2012-01-01

As with all culturally relevant human behaviours, words are meaningful because they are shared by the members of a community. This research investigates whether 9-month-old infants understand this fundamental fact about language. Experiment 1 examined whether infants who are trained on, and subsequently habituated to, a new word-referent link…

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

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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

2008-01-01

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

Words Are Not Merely Features: Only Consistently Applied Nouns Guide 4-Year-Olds' Inferences about Object Categories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graham, Susan A.; Booth, Amy E.; Waxman, Sandra R.

2012-01-01

Although there is considerable evidence that nouns highlight category-based commonalities, including both those that are perceptually available and those that reflect underlying conceptual similarity, some have claimed that words function merely as features of objects. Here, we directly test these alternative accounts. Four-year-olds (n = 140)…

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

PubMed

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

2017-01-01

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

The effects of study task on prestimulus subsequent memory effects in the hippocampus.

PubMed

de Chastelaine, Marianne; Rugg, Michael D

2015-11-01

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed to examine the effects of a study task manipulation on pre-stimulus activity in the hippocampus predictive of later successful recollection. Eighteen young participants were scanned while making either animacy or syllable judgments on visually presented study words. Cues presented before each word denoted which judgment should be made. Following the study phase, a surprise recognition memory test was administered in which each test item had to be endorsed as "Remembered," "Known," or "New." As expected, "deep" animacy judgments led to better memory for study items than did "shallow" syllable judgments. In both study tasks, pre-stimulus subsequent recollection effects were evident in the interval between the cue and the study item in bilateral anterior hippocampus. However, the direction of the effects differed according to the study task: whereas pre-stimulus hippocampal activity on animacy trials was greater for later recollected items than items judged old on the basis of familiarity (replicating prior findings), these effects reversed for syllable trials. We propose that the direction of pre-stimulus hippocampal subsequent memory effects depends on whether an optimal pre-stimulus task set facilitates study processing that is conducive or unconducive to the formation of contextually rich episodic memories. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Distribution functions of probabilistic automata

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Vatan, F.

2001-01-01

Each probabilistic automaton M over an alphabet A defines a probability measure Prob sub(M) on the set of all finite and infinite words over A. We can identify a k letter alphabet A with the set {0, 1,..., k-1}, and, hence, we can consider every finite or infinite word w over A as a radix k expansion of a real number X(w) in the interval [0, 1]. This makes X(w) a random variable and the distribution function of M is defined as usual: F(x) := Prob sub(M) { w: X(w) < x }. Utilizing the fixed-point semantics (denotational semantics), extended to probabilistic computations, we investigate the distribution functions of probabilistic automata in detail. Automata with continuous distribution functions are characterized. By a new, and much more easier method, it is shown that the distribution function F(x) is an analytic function if it is a polynomial. Finally, answering a question posed by D. Knuth and A. Yao, we show that a polynomial distribution function F(x) on [0, 1] can be generated by a prob abilistic automaton iff all the roots of F'(x) = 0 in this interval, if any, are rational numbers. For this, we define two dynamical systems on the set of polynomial distributions and study attracting fixed points of random composition of these two systems.

Diazepam dose-dependently increases or decreases implicit priming of alcohol associations in problem drinkers.

PubMed

Zack, Martin; Poulos, Constantine X; Woodford, Tracy M

2006-01-01

Words denoting negative affect (NEG) have been found to prime alcohol-related words (ALC) on semantic priming tasks, and this effect is tied to severity of addiction. Previous research suggested that high doses of benzodiazepines may dampen NEG-ALC priming. The present study tested this possibility and the role of motivation for alcohol in this process. A placebo-controlled, double blind, between-within, counterbalanced design was employed. Two groups of male problem drinkers (n = 6/group) received a high (15-mg) or low (5-mg) dose of diazepam versus placebo on two identical test sessions. A lexical decision task assessed priming. Under placebo, significant NEG-->ALC priming emerged in each group. High-dose diazepam selectively reversed this effect, while low-dose selectively enhanced it. Correlations between NEG-->ALC priming and desire for alcohol provided further support that semantic priming of ALC concepts reflects a motivational process. The bi-directional effects found here parallel the effects of high- versus low-dose benzodiazepines on alcohol self-administration in animals. High-dose diazepam reduces prime-induced activation of ALC concepts in problem drinkers. Low-dose diazepam facilitates this process, and cross-priming of motivation for alcohol appears to explain this effect. Neurochemical modulation of the alcohol memory network may contribute to the motivational effects of benzodiazepines in problem drinkers.

The Feline Josephus Problem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ruskey, Frank; Williams, Aaron

In the classic Josephus problem, elements 1, 2,...,n are placed in order around a circle and a skip value k is chosen. The problem proceeds in n rounds, where each round consists of traveling around the circle from the current position, and selecting the kth remaining element to be eliminated from the circle. After n rounds, every element is eliminated. Special attention is given to the last surviving element, denote it by j. We generalize this popular problem by introducing a uniform number of lives ℓ, so that elements are not eliminated until they have been selected for the ℓth time. We prove two main results: 1) When n and k are fixed, then j is constant for all values of ℓ larger than the nth Fibonacci number. In other words, the last surviving element stabilizes with respect to increasing the number of lives. 2) When n and j are fixed, then there exists a value of k that allows j to be the last survivor simultaneously for all values of ℓ. In other words, certain skip values ensure that a given position is the last survivor, regardless of the number of lives. For the first result we give an algorithm for determining j (and the entire sequence of selections) that uses O(n 2) arithmetic operations.

Brady's Geothermal Field - Map of DAS, Nodal, Vibroseis and Reftek Station Deployment

DOE Data Explorer

Kurt Feigl

2016-10-15

Map of DAS, nodal, vibroseis and Reftek stations during March 2016 deployment. The plot on the left has nodal stations labeled; the plot on the right has vibroseis observations labeled. Stations are shown in map-view using Brady's rotated X-Y coordinates with side plots denoting elevation with respect to the WGS84 ellipsoid. Blue circles denote vibroseis data, x symbols denote DAS (cyan for horizontal and magenta for vertical), black asterisks denote Reftek data, and red plus signs denote nodal data. This map can be found on UW-Madison's askja server at /PoroTomo/DATA/MAPS/Deployment_Stations.pdf

Word Processing Competencies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gatlin, Rebecca; And Others

Research indicates that people tend to use only five percent of the capabilities available in word processing software. The major objective of this study was to determine to what extent word processing was used by businesses, what competencies were required by those businesses, and how those competencies were being learned in Mid-South states. A…

First Words and First Memories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morrison, Catriona M.; Conway, Martin A.

2010-01-01

In two experiments autobiographical memories from childhood were recalled to cue words naming common objects, locations, activities and emotions. Participants recalled their earliest specific memory associated with each word and dated their age at the time of the remembered event. A striking and specific finding emerged: age of earliest memory was…

Word Processing for Technical Writers and Teachers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mullins, Carolyn J.; West, Thomas W.

This discussion of the computing network and word processing facilities available to professionals on the Indiana University campuses identifies the word and text processing needs of technical writers and faculty, describes the current computing network, and outlines both long- and short-range objectives, policies, and plans for meeting these…

Fast Mapping Word-Learning Abilities of Language-Delayed Preschoolers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rice, Mabel L.; And Others

1990-01-01

Twenty language-delayed children (age three to six) viewed a presentation incorporating object, action, attribute, and affective state words into a narrative script. In pre- and postviewing word comprehension measurements, subjects scored lower than children matched for chronological age and children matched for mean length of utterance.…

Is color an intrinsic property of object representation?

PubMed

Naor-Raz, Galit; Tarr, Michael J; Kersten, Daniel

2003-01-01

The role of color in object representation was examined by using a variation of the Stroop paradigm in which observers named the displayed colors of objects or words. In experiment 1, colors of color-diagnostic objects were manipulated to be either typical or atypical of the object (eg a yellow banana versus a purple banana). A Stroop-like effect was obtained, with faster color-naming times for the typical as compared to the atypical condition. In experiment 2, naming colors on words specifying these same color-diagnostic objects reversed this pattern, with the typical condition producing longer response times than the atypical condition. In experiment 3, a blocked condition design that used the same words and colors as experiment 2 produced the standard Stroop-like facilitation for the typical condition. These results indicate that color is an intrinsic property of an object's representation at multiple levels. In experiment 4, we examined the specific level(s) at which color-shape associations arise by following the tasks used in experiments 1 and 2 with a lexical-decision task in which some items were conceptually related to items shown during color naming (eg banana/monkey). Priming for these associates was observed following color naming of words, but not pictures, providing further evidence that the color-shape associations responsible for the differing effects obtained in experiments 1 and 2 are due to the automatic activation of color-shape associations at different levels of representation.

Picture-Induced Semantic Interference Reflects Lexical Competition during Object Naming

PubMed Central

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

2012-01-01

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

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

Evaluative judgments are based on evaluative information: Evidence against meaning change in evaluative context effects.

PubMed

Kaplan, M F

1975-07-01

Trait adjectives commonly employed in person perception studies have both evaluative and denotative meanings. Evaluative ratings of single traits shift with variations in the context of other traits ascribed to the stimulus person; the extent to which denotative changes underlie these evaluative context effects has been a theoretical controversy. In the first experiment, it was shown that context effects on quantitative ratings of denotation can be largely accounted for by evaluative halo effects. In the second experiment, increasing the denotative relatedness of context traits to the test trait didnot increase the effect of the context. Only the evaluative meaning of the context affected evaluation of the rated test trait. These studies suggest that the denotative relationship between a test adjective and its context has little influence on context effects in person perception, and that denotative meaning changes do not mediate context effects. Instead, evaluative judgments appear to be based on evaluative meaning.

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

A history of the concept of the stimulus and the role it played in the neurosciences.

PubMed

Cassedy, Steven

2008-01-01

The term stimulus, as it was used in science from its earliest appearance in the sixteenth century up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, shows a gradual progress in denotation from the physical object designed to produce nervous and muscular excitation to the generically conceived event or object that initiates sensory or motor activity. To this shift corresponds a shift in the understanding of sensory experience. Johannes Muller's law of specific energy of sensory nerves played a major role in the shift, and Hermann von Helmholtz gave the shift its most thorough philosophical explanation.

BioWord: A sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. Results BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. Conclusions BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms. PMID:22676326

BioWord: a sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word.

PubMed

Anzaldi, Laura J; Muñoz-Fernández, Daniel; Erill, Ivan

2012-06-07

The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms.

The Role of Prosodic Boundaries in the Resolution of Lexical Embedding in Speech Comprehension

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salverda, Anne Pier; Dahan, Delphine; McQueen, James M.

2003-01-01

Participants' eye movements were monitored as they heard sentences and saw four pictured objects on a computer screen. Participants were instructed to click on the object mentioned in the sentence. There were more transitory fixations to pictures representing monosyllabic words (e.g. "ham") when the first syllable of the target word (e.g.…

Examining the role of social cues in early word learning.

PubMed

Briganti, Alicia M; Cohen, Leslie B

2011-02-01

Infants watched a video of an adult pointing towards two different objects while hearing novel labels. Analyses indicated that 14- and 18-month-olds looked longer at the target object, but only 18-month-olds showed word learning. The results suggest that different types of social cues are available at different ages. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Comprehension of Three Word Orders in Kuwaiti Arabic Child Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aljenaie, Khawla; Farghal, Mohammad

2009-01-01

The present project is a case study of 68 Kuwaiti children (aged between 4 and 8) who acted out their interpretation of verbal stimuli involving three word orders in Kuwaiti Arabic Subject Verb Object (SVO), Verb Subject Object (VSO) and Topic-Comment (T-C) by using a set of props. The purpose is to investigate the way Kuwaiti children comprehend…

Lexical Stress and Phonetic Processing in Word Learning in 20- to 24-Month-Old English-Learning Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Floccia, Caroline; Nazzi, Thierry; Austin, Keith; Arreckx, Frederique; Goslin, Jeremy

2011-01-01

To investigate the interaction between segmental and supra-segmental stress-related information in early word learning, two experiments were conducted with 20- to 24-month-old English-learning children. In an adaptation of the object categorization study designed by Nazzi and Gopnik (2001), children were presented with pairs of novel objects whose…

Real-world visual statistics and infants' first-learned object names.

PubMed

Clerkin, Elizabeth M; Hart, Elizabeth; Rehg, James M; Yu, Chen; Smith, Linda B

2017-01-05

We offer a new solution to the unsolved problem of how infants break into word learning based on the visual statistics of everyday infant-perspective scenes. Images from head camera video captured by 8 1/2 to 10 1/2 month-old infants at 147 at-home mealtime events were analysed for the objects in view. The images were found to be highly cluttered with many different objects in view. However, the frequency distribution of object categories was extremely right skewed such that a very small set of objects was pervasively present-a fact that may substantially reduce the problem of referential ambiguity. The statistical structure of objects in these infant egocentric scenes differs markedly from that in the training sets used in computational models and in experiments on statistical word-referent learning. Therefore, the results also indicate a need to re-examine current explanations of how infants break into word learning.This article is part of the themed issue 'New frontiers for statistical learning in the cognitive sciences'. © 2016 The Author(s).

Topical video object discovery from key frames by modeling word co-occurrence prior.

PubMed

Zhao, Gangqiang; Yuan, Junsong; Hua, Gang; Yang, Jiong

2015-12-01

A topical video object refers to an object, that is, frequently highlighted in a video. It could be, e.g., the product logo and the leading actor/actress in a TV commercial. We propose a topic model that incorporates a word co-occurrence prior for efficient discovery of topical video objects from a set of key frames. Previous work using topic models, such as latent Dirichelet allocation (LDA), for video object discovery often takes a bag-of-visual-words representation, which ignored important co-occurrence information among the local features. We show that such data driven co-occurrence information from bottom-up can conveniently be incorporated in LDA with a Gaussian Markov prior, which combines top-down probabilistic topic modeling with bottom-up priors in a unified model. Our experiments on challenging videos demonstrate that the proposed approach can discover different types of topical objects despite variations in scale, view-point, color and lighting changes, or even partial occlusions. The efficacy of the co-occurrence prior is clearly demonstrated when compared with topic models without such priors.

Racial bias in implicit danger associations generalizes to older male targets.

PubMed

Lundberg, Gustav J W; Neel, Rebecca; Lassetter, Bethany; Todd, Andrew R

2018-01-01

Across two experiments, we examined whether implicit stereotypes linking younger (~28-year-old) Black versus White men with violence and criminality extend to older (~68-year-old) Black versus White men. In Experiment 1, participants completed a sequential priming task wherein they categorized objects as guns or tools after seeing briefly-presented facial images of men who varied in age (younger versus older) and race (Black versus White). In Experiment 2, we used different face primes of younger and older Black and White men, and participants categorized words as 'threatening' or 'safe.' Results consistently revealed robust racial biases in object and word identification: Dangerous objects and words were identified more easily (faster response times, lower error rates), and non-dangerous objects and words were identified less easily, after seeing Black face primes than after seeing White face primes. Process dissociation procedure analyses, which aim to isolate the unique contributions of automatic and controlled processes to task performance, further indicated that these effects were driven entirely by racial biases in automatic processing. In neither experiment did prime age moderate racial bias, suggesting that the implicit danger associations commonly evoked by younger Black versus White men appear to generalize to older Black versus White men.

Object-based attentional selection modulates anticipatory alpha oscillations

PubMed Central

Knakker, Balázs; Weiss, Béla; Vidnyánszky, Zoltán

2015-01-01

Visual cortical alpha oscillations are involved in attentional gating of incoming visual information. It has been shown that spatial and feature-based attentional selection result in increased alpha oscillations over the cortical regions representing sensory input originating from the unattended visual field and task-irrelevant visual features, respectively. However, whether attentional gating in the case of object based selection is also associated with alpha oscillations has not been investigated before. Here we measured anticipatory electroencephalography (EEG) alpha oscillations while participants were cued to attend to foveal face or word stimuli, the processing of which is known to have right and left hemispheric lateralization, respectively. The results revealed that in the case of simultaneously displayed, overlapping face and word stimuli, attending to the words led to increased power of parieto-occipital alpha oscillations over the right hemisphere as compared to when faces were attended. This object category-specific modulation of the hemispheric lateralization of anticipatory alpha oscillations was maintained during sustained attentional selection of sequentially presented face and word stimuli. These results imply that in the case of object-based attentional selection—similarly to spatial and feature-based attention—gating of visual information processing might involve visual cortical alpha oscillations. PMID:25628554

Selective verbal recognition memory impairments are associated with atrophy of the language network in non-semantic variants of primary progressive aphasia.

PubMed

Nilakantan, Aneesha S; Voss, Joel L; Weintraub, Sandra; Mesulam, M-Marsel; Rogalski, Emily J

2017-06-01

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is clinically defined by an initial loss of language function and preservation of other cognitive abilities, including episodic memory. While PPA primarily affects the left-lateralized perisylvian language network, some clinical neuropsychological tests suggest concurrent initial memory loss. The goal of this study was to test recognition memory of objects and words in the visual and auditory modality to separate language-processing impairments from retentive memory in PPA. Individuals with non-semantic PPA had longer reaction times and higher false alarms for auditory word stimuli compared to visual object stimuli. Moreover, false alarms for auditory word recognition memory were related to cortical thickness within the left inferior frontal gyrus and left temporal pole, while false alarms for visual object recognition memory was related to cortical thickness within the right-temporal pole. This pattern of results suggests that specific vulnerability in processing verbal stimuli can hinder episodic memory in PPA, and provides evidence for differential contributions of the left and right temporal poles in word and object recognition memory. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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

2014-11-01

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

Semantic Variability and Word Comprehension. Educational Reports Umea, No. 17.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Backman, Jarl

Swedes in four different age groups (9, 12, 15 and 18 years) judged written words which varied in three dimensions: syntactic category, objective frequency, and polysemy (multiple meaning). The subjects judged ease of comprehension of 24 words in a factorial arrangement. The method used was Thurstone's paired comparisons. A predicted complex…

The Neural Mechanisms of Word Order Processing Revisited: Electrophysiological Evidence from Japanese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolff, Susann; Schlesewsky, Matthias; Hirotani, Masako; Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina

2008-01-01

We present two ERP studies on the processing of word order variations in Japanese, a language that is suited to shedding further light on the implications of word order freedom for neurocognitive approaches to sentence comprehension. Experiment 1 used auditory presentation and revealed that initial accusative objects elicit increased processing…

Word Learning in Children following Cochlear Implantation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Houston, Derek M.; Carter, Allyson K.; Pisoni, David B.; Kirk, Karen Iler; Ying, Elizabeth A.

2005-01-01

An experimental procedure was developed to investigate word-learning skills of children who use cochlear implants (CIs). Using interactive play scenarios, 2- to 5-year olds were presented with sets of objects (Beanie Baby stuffed animals) and words for their names that corresponded to salient perceptual attributes (e.g., "horns" for a goat). Their…

The Left Fusiform Area Is Affected by Written Frequency of Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Proverbio, Alice M.; Zani, Alberto; Adorni, Roberta

2008-01-01

The recent neuroimaging literature gives conflicting evidence about whether the left fusiform gyrus (FG) might recognize words as unitary visual objects. The sensitivity of the left FG to word frequency might provide a neural basis for the orthographic input lexicon theorized by reading models [Patterson, K., Marshall, J. C., & Coltheart, M.…

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.

Investigating the mechanisms underlying affective priming effects using a conditional pronunciation task.

PubMed

Pecchinenda, Anna; Ganteaume, Christiane; Banse, Rainer

2006-01-01

Recently, using a conditional pronunciation task, De Houwer and Randell (2004) reported evidence of affective priming effects only when pronunciation depended on the semantic category of targets. Although these findings support the notion that spreading of activation is the mechanism underlying affective priming effects, an explanation in terms of postlexical mechanism could not be ruled out. To clarify this point, we conducted two experiments in which nouns for both the to-be-pronounced as well as the not-to-be pronounced targets were used and all stimuli were affectively valenced words. In Experiment 1, the to-be-pronounced targets were object-words, and the not-to-be-pronounced targets were person-words, whereas in Experiment 2, the instructions were reversed. Results of experiment 1 showed affective priming effects only when pronunciation of target words was conditional upon their semantic category. Most importantly, affective priming effects were observed for both object-words (Experiment 1) and person-words (Experiment 2). These results are compatible with a spreading activation account, but not with a postlexical mechanism account of affective priming effects in the pronunciation task.

Action and object word writing in a case of bilingual aphasia.

PubMed

Kambanaros, Maria; Messinis, Lambros; Anyfantis, Emmanouil

2012-01-01

We report the spoken and written naming of a bilingual speaker with aphasia in two languages that differ in morphological complexity, orthographic transparency and script Greek and English. AA presented with difficulties in spoken picture naming together with preserved written picture naming for action words in Greek. In English, AA showed similar performance across both tasks for action and object words, i.e. difficulties retrieving action and object names for both spoken and written naming. Our findings support the hypothesis that cognitive processes used for spoken and written naming are independent components of the language system and can be selectively impaired after brain injury. In the case of bilingual speakers, such processes impact on both languages. We conclude grammatical category is an organizing principle in bilingual dysgraphia.

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

Effects of Vocabulary Size on Online Lexical Processing by Preschoolers.

PubMed

Law, Franzo; Edwards, Jan R

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between vocabulary size and the speed and accuracy of lexical processing in preschoolers between the ages of 30-46 months using an automatic eye tracking task based on the looking-while-listening paradigm (Fernald, Zangl, Portillo, & Marchman, 2008) and mispronunciation paradigm (White & Morgan, 2008). Children's eye gaze patterns were tracked while they looked at two pictures (one familiar object, one unfamiliar object) on a computer screen and simultaneously heard one of three kinds of auditory stimuli: correct pronunciations of the familiar object's name, one-feature mispronunciations of the familiar object's name, or a nonword. The results showed that children with larger expressive vocabularies, relative to children with smaller expressive vocabularies, were more likely to look to a familiar object upon hearing a correct pronunciation and to an unfamiliar object upon hearing a novel word. Results also showed that children with larger expressive vocabularies were more sensitive to mispronunciations; they were more likely to look toward the unfamiliar object rather than the familiar object upon hearing a one-feature mispronunciation of a familiar object-name. These results suggest that children with smaller vocabularies, relative to their larger-vocabulary age peers, are at a disadvantage for learning new words, as well as for processing familiar words.

The speech of reality and the speech of the stage: life, science and art.

PubMed

Elezović, Slobodan

2005-06-01

Word is the most frequent way of communication in the human experience. As a mean of communication it influences the sentence formulation, which ought to be the autochthonous expression of thoughts. The experience teaches us that it is necessary to be a sovereign master of our own thoughts and of sentiments of others. This is one of the fundamental postulates of the communication in the word category. To speak correctly means to think correctly and that, on the other hand, means in the grammatical, lexical and stylistic aspect to be able to create a sentence as a way of getting across the thoughts, ideas and contents of the spirit. The community mentality, the person's characteristics (the temper, the type and the intensity), the education level, the range of the knowledge and the volume of their potentially creative synthesis determine the lexical richness and the amplitude of the use and the application of the language with the aim of establishing a high quality communication with words as a basic mean of that process. Within this context a word has its impressive and expressive dimensions. Its impressive dimension is created by the common reliance on the frequency of the use of some lexical possibilities and their variations. It is an individual characteristic of the spoken and the written output of every person and it also determines the singularities of a person's style, to that extent that it helps to detect the author of a text with a high percentage of accuracy even in the cases where the author is unknown. The expressive value of a word denotes the author's level of thinking depending on the situation in which he uses the words to express his thoughts. In this sense the word is chosen with a different approach for the communication on a friendly or intimate level from an approach used in a communication on the official level or in a relation between the individual and the public. All this affirms the word as a mean that is individually chosen and used for the expression of the speaker's ideas, attitudes and points of view in the communication process, which reveals the characteristics and the speaker's level in all the named aspects of the word value assessment. In the case of evaluation., of the word through the experience of the on-stage speech, that is, the words in the experience of the theatre art, the approach to the value assessment is contrary to the assessment carried out in an everyday, real experience. In the artistic language the words are already given, the sentences are formulated and all this is determined by the author's will and the act of creation. The actor is the interpreter of the author, his ideas along with the characters of the protagonists and the spirit of the action and, therefore, he must gradually master the word to the extent where it seems spontaneous from the point of view of the impressive and expressive categories. It also has to sound similar to the natural speech and its suggestive influence. With this counter-natural direction of the treatment of the given word it is important to reach the level of spontaneity of the expression to an almost documentary form in the overall verbal-scenic-mimic articulation. In this process the life and the art mesh and the art illustrates and defends the life.

An Analysis of Escort Formations

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-03-01

error sum of squares" is denoted by SSPE and calculated by SSpE (yjj -) 2 J (5.13) where j = denotes unique design points, and i = denotes the...observations The difference between SSE and SSPE represents the deviation between the observations and the model due to inadequacies in the model. This...difference is called sum of squares due to lack of fit and denoted by SSLF. 5.18 The ratio of SSLF to SSPE , each divided by its respective degrees of freedom

Early Gesture Provides a Helping Hand to Spoken Vocabulary Development for Children with Autism, Down Syndrome, and Typical Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Özçaliskan, Seyda; Adamson, Lauren B.; Dimitrova, Nevena; Baumann, Stephanie

2017-01-01

Typically developing (TD) children refer to objects uniquely in gesture (e.g., point at a cat) before they produce verbal labels for these objects ("cat"). The onset of such gestures predicts the onset of similar spoken words, showing a strong positive relation between early gestures and early words. We asked whether gesture plays the…

Annual Research Progress Report. Fiscal Year 1989. Volume 2

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-10-01

Date : 4 --- ---- Date of Periodic Review - -- Results Objective(s): i) Develop a conscious, tethered or lightly sedated , nonhuman primate model...Approach: All animal studies will be conducted at Incarnate Word College Division of Nursing and the Sciences. All procedures will be done as outlined...Gary Zarr, LTC, AN Academy of Health Sciences Dept/Svc Associate Investigators: Dpartment of Nursing Jeff Serogrham, LTC, AN Key Words: Accumulative

Three-to Four-Year-Olds' Recognition That Symbols Have a Stable Meaning: Pictures Are Understood Before Written Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Apperly, Ian. A.; Williams, Emily; Williams, Joelle

2004-01-01

In 4 experiments 120 three-to four-year-old non readers were asked the identity of a symbolic representation as it appeared with different objects. Consistent with Bialystok (2000), many children judged the identity of written words to vary according to the object with which they appeared but few made such errors with recognizable pictures.…

The Effect of Shyness on Children's Formation and Retention of Novel Word-Object Mappings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hilton, Matt; Westermann, Gert

2017-01-01

This study set out to examine whether shyness, an aversion to novelty and unfamiliar social situations, can affect the processes that underlie early word learning. Twenty-four-month-old children (n = 32 ) were presented with sets of one novel and two familiar objects, and it was found that shyer children were less likely to select a novel object…

The valence of event-based prospective memory cues or the context in which they occur affects their detection.

PubMed

Clark-Foos, Arlo; Brewer, Gene A; Marsh, Richard L; Meeks, J Thadeus; Cook, Gabriel I

2009-01-01

Event-based prospective memory tasks entail detecting cues or reminders in our environment related to previously established intentions. If they are detected at an opportune time, then the intention can be fulfilled. In Experiments 1a-1c, we gave people 3 different nonfocal intentions (e.g., respond to words denoting animals) and discovered that negatively valenced cues delivered the intention to mind less frequently than positively valenced cues. In Experiment 2, this effect was extended to valenced and neutral sentential contexts with convergent results that cues embedded in negatively valenced sentences evoked remembering the intention less often than in positive contexts. In addition, both classes of valence caused the intention to be forgotten more often than a more neutral context. We propose that valence has the ability to usurp attentional resources that otherwise would have supported successful prospective memory performance.

Autography as auto-therapy: psychic pain and the graphic memoir.

PubMed

Williams, Ian

2011-12-01

Over the last three decades, the graphic novel has developed both in sophistication and cultural importance, now being widely accepted as a unique form of literature (Versaci 2007). Autobiography has proved to be a successful genre within comics (the word is used in the plural to denote both the medium and the philosophy of the graphic form) and within this area a sub-genre, the memoir of the artist's own disease or suffering, sometimes known as the graphic pathology, has arisen (Green and Myers 2010). Storytelling and healing have been linked since ancient times, and the disclosure of ones story forms part of the psychotherapeutic treatment of trauma (Herman 1997). This paper will examine, in both graphic and textual form, whether, among the myriad reasons that one might embark upon the labour intensive work of making a graphic memoir, some artists might be seeking some form of healing or catharsis through their work.

Communication training in mute autistic adolescents using the written work.

PubMed

LaVigna, G W

1977-06-01

The expressive and receptive use of three written words was taught to three mute autistic adolescents using a procedure based on Terrace's errorless discrimination model and Premack's language training with chimps. Expressive language was measured by the subject's selection of the appropriate word card from among the available alternatives when the corresponding object was presented. Receptive language was measured by the subject's selection of the appropriate object from among the available alternatives when the corresponding word card was presented. The sequence of the presentations and the order of placement of the available alternatives were randomized. The three subjects required 979, 1,791, and 1,644 trails, respectively, to master both the expressive and receptive use of the three words. The correct response rates for the three subjects over the entire training program were 92, 92, and 90%, respectively. It was concluded that, as concrete visual symbols, written words may provide a viable communication system for the mute autistic. The implications for treatment are discussed and suggestions for future research are made.

The Absence of a Shape Bias in Children's Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cimpian, Andrei; Markman, Ellen M.

2005-01-01

There is debate about whether preschool-age children interpret words as referring to kinds or to classes defined by shape similarity. The authors argue that the shape bias reported in previous studies is a task-induced artifact rather than a genuine word-learning strategy. In particular, children were forced to extend an object's novel label to…

Taking the High Road on Subcortical Transfer

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, M.B.; Kingstone, A.

2005-01-01

Kingstone and Gazzaniga (1995) presented conceptually ambiguous word pairs, such as HOT-DOG, to a split-brain patient. Each hemisphere received only one of the words. With one hand, the patient drew the word pairs literally (e.g., a dog panting in the heat) but never drew the emergent object (e.g., a frankfurter in a bun). This finding suggested…

Word Meanings Evolve to Selectively Preserve Distinctions on Salient Dimensions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Silvey, Catriona; Kirby, Simon; Smith, Kenny

2015-01-01

Words refer to objects in the world, but this correspondence is not one-to-one: Each word has a range of referents that share features on some dimensions but differ on others. This property of language is called underspecification. Parts of the lexicon have characteristic patterns of underspecification; for example, artifact nouns tend to specify…

The Contribution of Morphological Awareness to the Spelling of Morphemes and Morphologically Complex Words in French

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fejzo, Anila

2016-01-01

The goal of this study was to explore the relationship between morphological awareness and the spelling of morphemes and morphologically complex words among 75 third- and fourth-grade Francophone students of low socio-economic status. To reach this objective, we administered a dictation comprised of morphologically complex words with prefixes,…

The Motivation of Secondary School Students in Mathematical Word Problem Solving

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gasco, Javier; Villarroel, Jose-Domingo

2014-01-01

Introduction: Motivation is an important factor in the learning of mathematics. Within this area of education, word problem solving is central in most mathematics curricula of Secondary School. The objective of this research is to detect the differences in motivation in terms of the strategies used to solve word problems. Method: It analyzed the…

Relationship between the Development of Language and Thought in Young Blind Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bigelow, A.

1990-01-01

The relationship between the development of object permanence and early words was studied in three young boys, two totally blind from birth and one severely visually impaired. Subjects acquired early words within the age range for sighted children but their word usage was different. The two blind children were delayed in their development of…

Observations on Word Order in Saudi Arabian Sign Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sprenger, Kristen; Mathur, Gaurav

2012-01-01

This article focuses on the syntactic level of the grammar of Saudi Arabian Sign Language by exploring some word orders that occur in personal narratives in the language. Word order is one of the main ways in which languages indicate the main syntactic roles of subjects, verbs, and objects; others are verbal agreement and nominal case morphology.…

Learning to remember by learning to speak.

PubMed

Ettlinger, Marc; Lanter, Jennifer; Van Pay, Craig K

2014-02-01

Does the language we speak affect the way we think, and if so, how? Previous researchers have considered this question by exploring the cognitive abilities of speakers of different languages. In the present study, we looked for evidence of linguistic relativity within a language and within participants by looking at memory recall for monolingual children ages 3-5 years old. At this age, children use grammatical markers with variable fluency depending on ease of articulation: Children produce the correct plural more often for vowel-final words (e.g., shoes) than plosive-final words (e.g., socks) and for plosive-final words more often than sibilant-final words (e.g., dresses). We examined whether these phonological principles governing plural production also influence children's recall of the plurality of seen objects. Fifty children were shown pictures of familiar objects presented as either singular or multiple instances. After a break, they were required to indicate whether they saw the singular- or multiple-instance version of each picture. Results show that children's memory for object plurality does depend on the phonology of the word. Subsequent tests of each child's production ability showed a correlation between a child's memory and his or her ability to articulate novel plurals with the same phonological properties. That is, what children can say impacts what they can remember.

Spoken words can make the invisible visible-Testing the involvement of low-level visual representations in spoken word processing.

PubMed

Ostarek, Markus; Huettig, Falk

2017-03-01

The notion that processing spoken (object) words involves activation of category-specific representations in visual cortex is a key prediction of modality-specific theories of representation that contrasts with theories assuming dedicated conceptual representational systems abstracted away from sensorimotor systems. In the present study, we investigated whether participants can detect otherwise invisible pictures of objects when they are presented with the corresponding spoken word shortly before the picture appears. Our results showed facilitated detection for congruent ("bottle" → picture of a bottle) versus incongruent ("bottle" → picture of a banana) trials. A second experiment investigated the time-course of the effect by manipulating the timing of picture presentation relative to word onset and revealed that it arises as soon as 200-400 ms after word onset and decays at 600 ms after word onset. Together, these data strongly suggest that spoken words can rapidly activate low-level category-specific visual representations that affect the mere detection of a stimulus, that is, what we see. More generally, our findings fit best with the notion that spoken words activate modality-specific visual representations that are low level enough to provide information related to a given token and at the same time abstract enough to be relevant not only for previously seen tokens but also for generalizing to novel exemplars one has never seen before. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Benefits of augmentative signs in word learning: Evidence from children who are deaf/hard of hearing and children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

van Berkel-van Hoof, Lian; Hermans, Daan; Knoors, Harry; Verhoeven, Ludo

2016-12-01

Augmentative signs may facilitate word learning in children with vocabulary difficulties, for example, children who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) and children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Despite the fact that augmentative signs may aid second language learning in populations with a typical language development, empirical evidence in favor of this claim is lacking. We aim to investigate whether augmentative signs facilitate word learning for DHH children, children with SLI, and typically developing (TD) children. Whereas previous studies taught children new labels for familiar objects, the present study taught new labels for new objects. In our word learning experiment children were presented with pictures of imaginary creatures and pseudo words. Half of the words were accompanied by an augmentative pseudo sign. The children were tested for their receptive word knowledge. The DHH children benefitted significantly from augmentative signs, but the children with SLI and TD age-matched peers did not score significantly different on words from either the sign or no-sign condition. These results suggest that using Sign-Supported speech in classrooms of bimodal bilingual DHH children may support their spoken language development. The difference between earlier research findings and the present results may be caused by a difference in methodology. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neuromagnetic correlates of audiovisual word processing in the developing brain.

PubMed

Dinga, Samantha; Wu, Di; Huang, Shuyang; Wu, Caiyun; Wang, Xiaoshan; Shi, Jingping; Hu, Yue; Liang, Chun; Zhang, Fawen; Lu, Meng; Leiken, Kimberly; Xiang, Jing

2018-06-01

The brain undergoes enormous changes during childhood. Little is known about how the brain develops to serve word processing. The objective of the present study was to investigate the maturational changes of word processing in children and adolescents using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Responses to a word processing task were investigated in sixty healthy participants. Each participant was presented with simultaneous visual and auditory word pairs in "match" and "mismatch" conditions. The patterns of neuromagnetic activation from MEG recordings were analyzed at both sensor and source levels. Topography and source imaging revealed that word processing transitioned from bilateral connections to unilateral connections as age increased from 6 to 17 years old. Correlation analyses of language networks revealed that the path length of word processing networks negatively correlated with age (r = -0.833, p < 0.0001), while the connection strength (r = 0.541, p < 0.01) and the clustering coefficient (r = 0.705, p < 0.001) of word processing networks were positively correlated with age. In addition, males had more visual connections, whereas females had more auditory connections. The correlations between gender and path length, gender and connection strength, and gender and clustering coefficient demonstrated a developmental trend without reaching statistical significance. The results indicate that the developmental trajectory of word processing is gender specific. Since the neuromagnetic signatures of these gender-specific paths to adult word processing were determined using non-invasive, objective, and quantitative methods, the results may play a key role in understanding language impairments in pediatric patients in the future. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

Pleasantness, activation, and sex differences in advertising.

PubMed

Whissell, C; McCall, L

1997-10-01

Advertisements in men's, women's, girls', and boys' magazines (n = 38,195 words) were scored objectively in terms of 15 measures of linguistic style, e.g., use of common words, use of long words, use of specific words and emotional tone (pleasantness and activation, as measured by the Dictionary of Affect). There were several sex- and age-related differences among advertisements from different sources. Advertisements from boys' magazines were extremely active, those from women's and girls' magazines were shorter and unusually pleasant. In two follow-up studies (N = 122 volunteers), objective emotional measures of advertising text proved to be related to ratings of persuasion and of success of appeal for individual advertisements. The most preferred advertisement for women was pleasant and active, that for men unpleasant and active. When men and women created advertisements, women's were shorter and more pleasant.

How you ask matters: an experimental investigation of the influence of mood on memory self-perceptions and their relationship with objective memory.

PubMed

Lineweaver, Tara T; Brolsma, Jessica W

2014-01-01

Stronger relationships often emerge between mood and memory self-efficacy (MSE) than between MSE and memory abilities. We examined how social desirability, mood congruency and framing influence the mood-MSE relationship. Social desirability correlated with all self-report measures, and covarying social desirability diminished the mood-MSE relationship while enhancing the relationship between MSE and objective memory. Participants rated their memory more harshly on positively than neutrally or negatively worded MSE items. Current mood state did not affect MSE overall or when items were worded positively or neutrally. However, on negatively worded items, participants in a negative mood exhibited lower MSE than participants in a positive mood. Thus, both MSE and the mood-MSE relationship depended upon question wording. These results indicate that controlling social desirability and item framing on MSE questionnaires may reduce their confounding influence on memory self-perceptions and the influence of mood on self-reported abilities, allowing subjective memory to more accurately reflect objective memory in healthy and clinical populations.

Cross-Situational Learning with Bayesian Generative Models for Multimodal Category and Word Learning in Robots

PubMed Central

Taniguchi, Akira; Taniguchi, Tadahiro; Cangelosi, Angelo

2017-01-01

In this paper, we propose a Bayesian generative model that can form multiple categories based on each sensory-channel and can associate words with any of the four sensory-channels (action, position, object, and color). This paper focuses on cross-situational learning using the co-occurrence between words and information of sensory-channels in complex situations rather than conventional situations of cross-situational learning. We conducted a learning scenario using a simulator and a real humanoid iCub robot. In the scenario, a human tutor provided a sentence that describes an object of visual attention and an accompanying action to the robot. The scenario was set as follows: the number of words per sensory-channel was three or four, and the number of trials for learning was 20 and 40 for the simulator and 25 and 40 for the real robot. The experimental results showed that the proposed method was able to estimate the multiple categorizations and to learn the relationships between multiple sensory-channels and words accurately. In addition, we conducted an action generation task and an action description task based on word meanings learned in the cross-situational learning scenario. The experimental results showed that the robot could successfully use the word meanings learned by using the proposed method. PMID:29311888

[Electrophysiological bases of semantic processing of objects].

PubMed

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

2007-02-01

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

Fast mapping semantic features: performance of adults with normal language, history of disorders of spoken and written language, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder on a word-learning task.

PubMed

Alt, Mary; Gutmann, Michelle L

2009-01-01

This study was designed to test the word learning abilities of adults with typical language abilities, those with a history of disorders of spoken or written language (hDSWL), and hDSWL plus attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (+ADHD). Sixty-eight adults were required to associate a novel object with a novel label, and then recognize semantic features of the object and phonological features of the label. Participants were tested for overt ability (accuracy) and covert processing (reaction time). The +ADHD group was less accurate at mapping semantic features and slower to respond to lexical labels than both other groups. Different factors correlated with word learning performance for each group. Adults with language and attention deficits are more impaired at word learning than adults with language deficits only. Despite behavioral profiles like typical peers, adults with hDSWL may use different processing strategies than their peers. Readers will be able to: (1) recognize the influence of a dual disability (hDSWL and ADHD) on word learning outcomes; (2) identify factors that may contribute to word learning in adults in terms of (a) the nature of the words to be learned and (b) the language processing of the learner.

Hand gestures support word learning in patients with hippocampal amnesia.

PubMed

Hilverman, Caitlin; Cook, Susan Wagner; Duff, Melissa C

2018-06-01

Co-speech hand gesture facilitates learning and memory, yet the cognitive and neural mechanisms supporting this remain unclear. One possibility is that motor information in gesture may engage procedural memory representations. Alternatively, iconic information from gesture may contribute to declarative memory representations mediated by the hippocampus. To investigate these alternatives, we examined gesture's effects on word learning in patients with hippocampal damage and declarative memory impairment, with intact procedural memory, and in healthy and in brain-damaged comparison groups. Participants learned novel label-object pairings while producing gesture, observing gesture, or observing without gesture. After a delay, recall and object identification were assessed. Unsurprisingly, amnesic patients were unable to recall the labels at test. However, they correctly identified objects at above chance levels, but only if they produced a gesture at encoding. Comparison groups performed well above chance at both recall and object identification regardless of gesture. These findings suggest that gesture production may support word learning by engaging nondeclarative (procedural) memory. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

After-effects of TFT-LCD display polarity and display colour on the detection of low-contrast objects.

PubMed

Mayr, Susanne; Buchner, Axel

2010-07-01

Participants performed a word-non-word discrimination task within a car control display emulated on a thin film transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT-LCD). The task simulated an information read-out from a TFT-LCD-based instrument panel. Subsequently, participants performed a low-contrast object detection task that simulated the detection of objects during night-time driving. In experiment 1, words/non-words were presented black-on-white (positive polarity) or white-on-black (negative polarity). In experiments 2 and 3, display colour was additionally manipulated. A positive polarity advantage in the discrimination task was consistently observed. In contrast, positive displays interfered more than negative displays with subsequent detection. The detrimental after-effect of positive polarity displays was strong with white and blue, reduced with amber and absent with red displays. Subjective measures showed a preference for blue over red, but a slight advantage for amber over blue. Implications for TFT-LCD design are derived from the results. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: When using TFT-LCDs as car instrument panels, positive polarity red TFT-LCDs are very likely to lead to good instrument readability while at the same time minimising - relative to other colours - the negative effects of an illuminated display on low-contrast object detection during night-time driving.

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

PubMed

Hargreaves, Ian S; Pexman, Penny M

2014-05-01

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

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

Nonconscious semantic processing of emotional words modulates conscious access

PubMed Central

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

2006-01-01

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

Attempting to "Increase Intake from the Input": Attention and Word Learning in Children with Autism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tenenbaum, Elena J.; Amso, Dima; Righi, Giulia; Sheinkopf, Stephen J.

2017-01-01

Previous work has demonstrated that social attention is related to early language abilities. We explored whether we can facilitate word learning among children with autism by directing attention to areas of the scene that have been demonstrated as relevant for successful word learning. We tracked eye movements to faces and objects while children…

Word Learning in Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants: Effects of Early Auditory Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Houston, Derek M.; Stewart, Jessica; Moberly, Aaron; Hollich, George; Miyamoto, Richard T.

2012-01-01

Word-learning skills were tested in normal-hearing 12- to 40-month-olds and in deaf 22- to 40-month-olds 12 to 18 months after cochlear implantation. Using the Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm (IPLP), children were tested for their ability to learn two novel-word/novel-object pairings. Normal-hearing children demonstrated learning on this…

Can 18-Month-Old Infants Learn Words by Listening in on Conversations?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Floor, Penelope; Akhtar, Nameera

2006-01-01

Previous research has shown that children as young as 2 can learn words from 3rd-party conversations (Akhtar, Jipson, & Callanan, 2001). The focus of this study was to determine whether younger infants could learn a new word through overhearing. Novel object labels were introduced to 18-month-old infants in 1 of 2 conditions: directly by an…

Apparent Frequency of Words and Pictures as a Function of Pronunciation and Imagery. Technical Report No. 238.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ghatala, Elizabeth S.; And Others

This study applied a frequency theory to measure the superiority of pictures over words in both discrimination learning and recognition memory tasks. Three groups of sixth grade students were given separate instructions before viewing slides of either common objects or words. The first group (control) was asked to study the items shown, the second…

Can Infants Use a Nonhuman Agent's Gaze Direction to Establish Word-Object Relations?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Connell, Laura; Poulin-Dubois, Diane; Demke, Tamara; Guay, Amanda

2009-01-01

Adopting a procedure developed with human speakers, we examined infants' ability to follow a nonhuman agent's gaze direction and subsequently to use its gaze to learn new words. When a programmable robot acted as the speaker (Experiment 1), infants followed its gaze toward the word referent whether or not it coincided with their own focus of…

The Word Writing CAFE: Assessing Student Writing for Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leal, Dorothy J.

2005-01-01

The Word Writing CAFE is a new assessment tool designed for teachers to evaluate objectively students' word-writing ability for fluency, accuracy, and complexity. It is designed to be given to the whole class at one time. This article describes the development of the CAFE and provides directions for administering and scoring it. The author also…

Exemplar Variability Facilitates Retention of Word Learning by Children with Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aguilar, Jessica M.; Plante, Elena; Sandoval, Michelle

2018-01-01

Purpose: Variability in the input plays an important role in language learning. The current study examined the role of object variability for new word learning by preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Eighteen 4- and 5-year-old children with SLI were taught 8 new words in 3 short activities over the course of 3 sessions.…

Translating Missions in James Worral's Game "Grand Theft Auto's Missions"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rahmi, Zelika

2018-01-01

The objectives of the study was to know the difficult words encountered by the gamers and to know their strategies in translating this unknown word. The researcher used interview as the instrument to collect the material needed for this particular study. It is found that unknown word combined with certain feeling such as disappointment creates…

Parents' Translations of Child Gesture Facilitate Word Learning in Children with Autism, Down Syndrome and Typical Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dimitrova, Nevena; Özçaliskan, Seyda; Adamson, Lauren B.

2016-01-01

Typically-developing (TD) children frequently refer to objects uniquely in gesture. Parents translate these gestures into words, facilitating children's acquisition of these words (Goldin-Meadow et al. in "Dev Sci" 10(6):778-785, 2007). We ask whether this pattern holds for children with autism (AU) and with Down syndrome (DS) who show…

Third-Party Social Interaction and Word Learning from Video

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Doherty, Katherine; Troseth, Georgene L.; Shimpi, Priya M.; Goldenberg, Elizabeth; Akhtar, Nameera; Saylor, Megan M.

2011-01-01

In previous studies, very young children have learned words while "overhearing" a conversation, yet they have had trouble learning words from a person on video. In Study 1, 64 toddlers (mean age = 29.8 months) viewed an object-labeling demonstration in 1 of 4 conditions. In 2, the speaker (present or on video) directly addressed the child, and in…

A Bootstrapping Model of Frequency and Context Effects in Word Learning.

PubMed

Kachergis, George; Yu, Chen; Shiffrin, Richard M

2017-04-01

Prior research has shown that people can learn many nouns (i.e., word-object mappings) from a short series of ambiguous situations containing multiple words and objects. For successful cross-situational learning, people must approximately track which words and referents co-occur most frequently. This study investigates the effects of allowing some word-referent pairs to appear more frequently than others, as is true in real-world learning environments. Surprisingly, high-frequency pairs are not always learned better, but can also boost learning of other pairs. Using a recent associative model (Kachergis, Yu, & Shiffrin, 2012), we explain how mixing pairs of different frequencies can bootstrap late learning of the low-frequency pairs based on early learning of higher frequency pairs. We also manipulate contextual diversity, the number of pairs a given pair appears with across training, since it is naturalistically confounded with frequency. The associative model has competing familiarity and uncertainty biases, and their interaction is able to capture the individual and combined effects of frequency and contextual diversity on human learning. Two other recent word-learning models do not account for the behavioral findings. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Pathway Evidence of How Musical Perception Predicts Word-Level Reading Ability in Children with Reading Difficulties

PubMed Central

Cogo-Moreira, Hugo; Brandão de Ávila, Clara Regina; Ploubidis, George B.; de Jesus Mari, Jair

2013-01-01

Objective To investigate whether specific domains of musical perception (temporal and melodic domains) predict the word-level reading skills of eight- to ten-year-old children (n = 235) with reading difficulties, normal quotient of intelligence, and no previous exposure to music education classes. Method A general-specific solution of the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), which underlies a musical perception construct and is constituted by three latent factors (the general, temporal, and the melodic domain), was regressed on word-level reading skills (rate of correct isolated words/non-words read per minute). Results General and melodic latent domains predicted word-level reading skills. PMID:24358358

Lexical competition in young children’s word learning

PubMed Central

Swingley, Daniel; Aslin, Richard N.

2008-01-01

In two experiments, 1.5 year olds were taught novel words whose sound patterns were phonologically similar to familiar words (novel neighbors) or were not (novel nonneighbors). Learning was tested using a picture fixation task. In both experiments, children learned the novel nonneighbors but not the novel neighbors. In addition, exposure to the novel neighbors impaired recognition performance on familiar neighbors. Finally, children did not spontaneously use phonological differences to infer that a novel word referred to a novel object. Thus, lexical competition—inhibitory interaction among words in speech comprehension—can prevent children from using their full phonological sensitivity in judging words as novel. These results suggest that word learning in young children, as in adults, relies not only on the discrimination and identification of phonetic categories, but also on evaluating the likelihood that an utterance conveys a new word. PMID:17054932

77 FR 4822 - Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative: Designation of an Approved Native American Tribal Card...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-01-31

... Tribe of Idaho as an Acceptable Document To Denote Identity and Citizenship AGENCY: U.S. Customs and... to denote identity and citizenship of Kootenai Tribe members entering the United States from... other document or combination of documents as the Secretary deems sufficient to denote identity and...

Action and object processing in brain-injured speakers of Chinese.

PubMed

Arévalo, Analia L; Lu, Ching-Ching; Huang, Lydia B-Y; Bates, Elizabeth A; Dronkers, Nina F

2011-11-01

To see whether action and object processing across different tasks and modalities differs in brain-injured speakers of Chinese with varying fluency and lesion locations within the left hemisphere. Words and pictures representing actions and objects were presented to a group of 33 participants whose native and/or dominant language was Mandarin Chinese: 23 patients with left-hemisphere lesions due to stroke and 10 language-, age- and education-matched healthy control participants. A set of 120 stimulus items was presented to each participant in three different forms: as black and white line drawings (for picture-naming), as written words (for reading) and as aurally presented words (for word repetition). Patients were divided into groups for two separate analyses: Analysis 1 divided and compared patients based on fluency (Fluent vs. Nonfluent) and Analysis 2 compared patients based on lesion location (Anterior vs. Posterior). Both analyses yielded similar results: Fluent, Nonfluent, Anterior, and Posterior patients all produced significantly more errors when processing action (M = 0.73, SD = 0.45) relative to object (M = 0.79, SD = 0.41) stimuli, and this effect was strongest in the picture-naming task. As in our previous study with English-speaking participants using the same experimental design (Arévalo et al., 2007, Arévalo, Moineau, Saygin, Ludy, & Bates, 2005), we did not find evidence for a double-dissociation in action and object processing between groups with different lesion and fluency profiles. These combined data bring us closer to a more informed view of action/object processing in the brain in both healthy and brain-injured individuals.

Separability of Abstract-Category and Specific-Exemplar Visual Object Subsystems: Evidence from fMRI Pattern Analysis

PubMed Central

McMenamin, Brenton W.; Deason, Rebecca G.; Steele, Vaughn R.; Koutstaal, Wilma; Marsolek, Chad J.

2014-01-01

Previous research indicates that dissociable neural subsystems underlie abstract-category (AC) recognition and priming of objects (e.g., cat, piano) and specific-exemplar (SE) recognition and priming of objects (e.g., a calico cat, a different calico cat, a grand piano, etc.). However, the degree of separability between these subsystems is not known, despite the importance of this issue for assessing relevant theories. Visual object representations are widely distributed in visual cortex, thus a multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) approach to analyzing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data may be critical for assessing the separability of different kinds of visual object processing. Here we examined the neural representations of visual object categories and visual object exemplars using multi-voxel pattern analyses of brain activity elicited in visual object processing areas during a repetition-priming task. In the encoding phase, participants viewed visual objects and the printed names of other objects. In the subsequent test phase, participants identified objects that were either same-exemplar primed, different-exemplar primed, word-primed, or unprimed. In visual object processing areas, classifiers were trained to distinguish same-exemplar primed objects from word-primed objects. Then, the abilities of these classifiers to discriminate different-exemplar primed objects and word-primed objects (reflecting AC priming) and to discriminate same-exemplar primed objects and different-exemplar primed objects (reflecting SE priming) was assessed. Results indicated that (a) repetition priming in occipital-temporal regions is organized asymmetrically, such that AC priming is more prevalent in the left hemisphere and SE priming is more prevalent in the right hemisphere, and (b) AC and SE subsystems are weakly modular, not strongly modular or unified. PMID:25528436

Separability of abstract-category and specific-exemplar visual object subsystems: evidence from fMRI pattern analysis.

PubMed

McMenamin, Brenton W; Deason, Rebecca G; Steele, Vaughn R; Koutstaal, Wilma; Marsolek, Chad J

2015-02-01

Previous research indicates that dissociable neural subsystems underlie abstract-category (AC) recognition and priming of objects (e.g., cat, piano) and specific-exemplar (SE) recognition and priming of objects (e.g., a calico cat, a different calico cat, a grand piano, etc.). However, the degree of separability between these subsystems is not known, despite the importance of this issue for assessing relevant theories. Visual object representations are widely distributed in visual cortex, thus a multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) approach to analyzing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data may be critical for assessing the separability of different kinds of visual object processing. Here we examined the neural representations of visual object categories and visual object exemplars using multi-voxel pattern analyses of brain activity elicited in visual object processing areas during a repetition-priming task. In the encoding phase, participants viewed visual objects and the printed names of other objects. In the subsequent test phase, participants identified objects that were either same-exemplar primed, different-exemplar primed, word-primed, or unprimed. In visual object processing areas, classifiers were trained to distinguish same-exemplar primed objects from word-primed objects. Then, the abilities of these classifiers to discriminate different-exemplar primed objects and word-primed objects (reflecting AC priming) and to discriminate same-exemplar primed objects and different-exemplar primed objects (reflecting SE priming) was assessed. Results indicated that (a) repetition priming in occipital-temporal regions is organized asymmetrically, such that AC priming is more prevalent in the left hemisphere and SE priming is more prevalent in the right hemisphere, and (b) AC and SE subsystems are weakly modular, not strongly modular or unified. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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

2008-04-05

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

The influence of print exposure on the body-object interaction effect in visual word recognition.

PubMed

Hansen, Dana; Siakaluk, Paul D; Pexman, Penny M

2012-01-01

We examined the influence of print exposure on the body-object interaction (BOI) effect in visual word recognition. High print exposure readers and low print exposure readers either made semantic categorizations ("Is the word easily imageable?"; Experiment 1) or phonological lexical decisions ("Does the item sound like a real English word?"; Experiment 2). The results from Experiment 1 showed that there was a larger BOI effect for the low print exposure readers than for the high print exposure readers in semantic categorization, though an effect was observed for both print exposure groups. However, the results from Experiment 2 showed that the BOI effect was observed only for the high print exposure readers in phonological lexical decision. The results of the present study suggest that print exposure does influence the BOI effect, and that this influence varies as a function of task demands.

Recognition-induced forgetting of faces in visual long-term memory.

PubMed

Rugo, Kelsi F; Tamler, Kendall N; Woodman, Geoffrey F; Maxcey, Ashleigh M

2017-10-01

Despite more than a century of evidence that long-term memory for pictures and words are different, much of what we know about memory comes from studies using words. Recent research examining visual long-term memory has demonstrated that recognizing an object induces the forgetting of objects from the same category. This recognition-induced forgetting has been shown with a variety of everyday objects. However, unlike everyday objects, faces are objects of expertise. As a result, faces may be immune to recognition-induced forgetting. However, despite excellent memory for such stimuli, we found that faces were susceptible to recognition-induced forgetting. Our findings have implications for how models of human memory account for recognition-induced forgetting as well as represent objects of expertise and consequences for eyewitness testimony and the justice system.

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. Thus, in "London Bridge is falling down," "London" and "down" were found no faster than "falling."

Predicting Growth in Word Level Reading Skills in Children With Developmental Dyslexia Using an Object Rhyming Functional Neuroimaging Task.

PubMed

Farris, Emily A; Ring, Jeremiah; Black, Jeffrey; Lyon, G Reid; Odegard, Timothy N

2016-04-01

An object rhyming task that does not require text reading and is suitable for younger children was used to predict gains in word level reading skills following an intensive 2-year reading intervention for children with developmental dyslexia. The task evoked activation in bilateral inferior frontal regions. Growth in untimed pseudoword reading was associated with increased pre-intervention activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus, and growth in timed word reading was associated with pre-intervention activation of the left and right inferior frontal gyri. These analyses help identify pre-intervention factors that facilitate reading skill improvements in children with developmental dyslexia.

Representational neglect for words as revealed by bisection tasks.

PubMed

Arduino, Lisa S; Marinelli, Chiara Valeria; Pasotti, Fabrizio; Ferrè, Elisa Raffaella; Bottini, Gabriella

2012-03-01

In the present study, we showed that a representational disorder for words can dissociate from both representational neglect for objects and neglect dyslexia. This study involved 14 brain-damaged patients with left unilateral spatial neglect and a group of normal subjects. Patients were divided into four groups based on presence of left neglect dyslexia and representational neglect for non-verbal material, as evaluated by the Clock Drawing test. The patients were presented with bisection tasks for words and lines. The word bisection tasks (with words of five and seven letters) comprised the following: (1) representational bisection: the experimenter pronounced a word and then asked the patient to name the letter in the middle position; (2) visual bisection: same as (1) with stimuli presented visually; and (3) motor bisection: the patient was asked to cross out the letter in the middle position. The standard line bisection task was presented using lines of different length. Consistent with the literature, long lines were bisected to the right and short lines, rendered comparable in length to the words of the word bisection test, deviated to the left (crossover effect). Both patients and controls showed the same leftward bias on words in the visual and motor bisection conditions. A significant difference emerged between the groups only in the case of the representational bisection task, whereas the group exhibiting neglect dyslexia associated with representational neglect for objects showed a significant rightward bias, while the other three patient groups and the controls showed a leftward bisection bias. Neither the presence of neglect alone nor the presence of visual neglect dyslexia was sufficient to produce a specific disorder in mental imagery. These results demonstrate a specific representational neglect for words independent of both representational neglect and neglect dyslexia. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

What Looks Like a Jiggy but Acts like a Zimbo?: A Study of Early Word Meaning Using Artificial Objects. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, Number 15.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gentner, Dedre

A major concern in recent research is whether perceptual or functional information is of primary importance in children's early word meanings. In the study described here, artificial objects were used so that form and function could be independently manipulated. There were 57 subjects, ranging in age from 2.5 years to adulthood. The subjects were…

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.

Presentation Annotated

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ditto, Thomas

2017-01-01

This Report is not the latest word on an old idea but the first word on a new one. The new idea reverses the old one, the axiom that the best primary objective for an astronomical telescope exhibits the least chromatic aberration. That axiomatic distinction goes back to a young Isaac Newton who knew from experiments with prisms and mirrors in the 1660's that magnification with a reflection primary was completely free of the dispersion he saw with refraction. The superiority of reflection primary objectives for eyeball or photographic viewing is now considered obvious. It was this piece of wisdom on achromatic primary objectives that led to the dominance of the parabolic mirror as the means to collect star light. Newton was aware of the problem when he introduced his telescope to the scientific world in 1670.This Report is not the latest word on an old idea but the first word on a new one. The new idea reverses the old one, the axiom that the best primary objective for an astronomical telescope exhibits the least chromatic aberration. That axiomatic distinction goes back to a young Isaac Newton who knew from experiments with prisms and mirrors in the 1660's that magnification with a reflection primary was completely free of the dispersion he saw with refraction. The superiority of reflection primary objectives for eyeball or photographic viewing is now considered obvious. Actually, Newton's design innovation was in a secondary mirror, a plane mirror far more easily fabricated than Gregory's embodiment of 1663 which required two curved mirrors.

Remarks upon the term stereotaxy: a linguistic and historical note.

PubMed

Grunert, Peter; Keiner, Doerthe; Oertel, Joachim

2015-01-01

The correct explanation of the term 'stereotaxy' is linguistically not self-evident because the Greek term stereon means not spatial but 'hard' or 'solid'. The aim of our study was to clarify the term stereotaxy historically and linguistically. We carried out our study by reviewing the neurosurgical and ancient Greek literature. The term stereotaxy is composed of two ancient Greek words: stereon and taxis. Stereon was used in particular as a technical term for geometrical solids in Greek mathematics. This term can be traced back to Platon and Euclid in the 4th and 3rd century BC, respectively. Only in this sense of the word does stereon in stereotaxy actually mean 'spatial' or '3-dimensional'. Taxis is derived from the verb tattein(τάττειν) with the meaning 'to position'. The terms 'stereotaxis' and 'stereotaxic apparatus' were introduced by Clarke and Horsley in 1908 to denote a method for the precise positioning of electrodes into the deep cerebellar nuclei of apes. The target in space was defined by 3 distances in relation to 3 orthogonal planes. Although this concept corresponded exactly to x-, y- and z-coordinates in a cartesian coordinate system, Clarke never used the concept of coordinates. The intuitive explanation of the term stereotaxy as spatial positioning is correct, but linguistically more complex than would be expected. © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.

How Parents Introduce New Words to Young Children: The Influence of Development and Developmental Disorders

PubMed Central

Adamson, Lauren B.; Bakeman, Roger; Brandon, Benjamin

2015-01-01

This study documents how parents weave new words into on-going interactions with children who are just beginning to speak. Dyads with typically developing toddlers and with young children with autism spectrum disorder and Down syndrome (n = 56, 23, and 29) were observed using a Communication Play Protocol during which parents could use novel words to refer to novel objects. Parents readily introduced both labels and sound words even when their child did not respond expressively or produce the words. Results highlight both how parents act in ways that may facilitate their child's appreciation of the relation between a new word and its referent and how they subtly adjust their actions to suit their child's level of word learning and specific learning challenges. PMID:25863927

Acquiring Complex Focus-Marking: Finnish 4- to 5-Year-Olds Use Prosody and Word Order in Interaction

PubMed Central

Arnhold, Anja; Chen, Aoju; Järvikivi, Juhani

2016-01-01

Using a language game to elicit short sentences in various information structural conditions, we found that Finnish 4- to 5-year-olds already exhibit a characteristic interaction between prosody and word order in marking information structure. Providing insights into the acquisition of this complex system of interactions, the production data showed interesting parallels to adult speakers of Finnish on the one hand and to children acquiring other languages on the other hand. Analyzing a total of 571 sentences produced by 16 children, we found that children rarely adjusted input word order, but did systematically avoid marked OVS order in contrastive object focus condition. Focus condition also significantly affected four prosodic parameters, f0, duration, pauses and voice quality. Differing slightly from effects displayed in adult Finnish speech, the children produced larger f0 ranges for words in contrastive focus and smaller ones for unfocused words, varied only the duration of object constituents to be longer in focus and shorter in unfocused condition, inserted more pauses before and after focused constituents and systematically modified their use of non-modal voice quality only in utterances with narrow focus. Crucially, these effects were modulated by word order. In contrast to comparable data from children acquiring Germanic languages, the present findings reflect the more central role of word order and of interactions between word order and prosody in marking information structure in Finnish. Thus, the study highlights the role of the target language in determining linguistic development. PMID:27990130

Taboo words: the effect of emotion on memory for peripheral information.

PubMed

Guillet, Rebecca; Arndt, Jason

2009-09-01

In three experiments, we examined memory for peripheral information that occurred in the same context as emotion-inducing information. In the first two experiments, participants studied either a sentence (Experiment 1) or a pair of words (Experiments 2A-2C) containing a neutral peripheral word, as well as a neutral, negative-valence, or taboo word, to induce an emotional response. At retrieval, the participants were asked to recall the neutral peripheral word from a sentence fragment or emotion-inducing word cue. In Experiment 3, we presented word pairs at encoding and tested memory with associative recognition. In all three experiments, memory for peripheral words was enhanced when it was encoded in the presence of emotionally arousing taboo words but not when it was encoded in the presence of words that were only negative in valence. These data are consistent with priority-binding theory (MacKay et al., 2004) and inconsistent with the attention-narrowing hypothesis (Easterbrook, 1959), as well as with object-based binding theory (Mather, 2007).

The Neuronal Correlates of Indeterminate Sentence Comprehension: An fMRI Study

PubMed Central

de Almeida, Roberto G.; Riven, Levi; Manouilidou, Christina; Lungu, Ovidiu; Dwivedi, Veena D.; Jarema, Gonia; Gillon, Brendan

2016-01-01

Sentences such as The author started the book are indeterminate because they do not make explicit what the subject (the author) started doing with the object (the book). In principle, indeterminate sentences allow for an infinite number of interpretations. One theory, however, assumes that these sentences are resolved by semantic coercion, a linguistic process that forces the noun book to be interpreted as an activity (e.g., writing the book) or by a process that interpolates this activity information in the resulting enriched semantic composition. An alternative theory, pragmatic, assumes classical semantic composition, whereby meaning arises from the denotation of words and how they are combined syntactically, with enrichment obtained via pragmatic inferences beyond linguistic-semantic processes. Cognitive neuroscience studies investigating the neuroanatomical and functional correlates of indeterminate sentences have shown activations either at the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex (vmPFC) or at the left inferior frontal gyrus (L-IFG). These studies have supported the semantic coercion theory assuming that one of these regions is where enriched semantic composition takes place. Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we found that indeterminate sentences activate bilaterally the superior temporal gyrus (STG), the right inferior frontal gyrus (R-IFG), and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), more so than control sentences (The author wrote the book). Activation of indeterminate sentences exceeded that of anomalous sentences (…drank the book) and engaged more left- and right-hemisphere areas than other sentence types. We suggest that the widespread activations for indeterminate sentences represent the deployment of pragmatic-inferential processes, which seek to enrich sentence content without necessarily resorting to semantic coercion. PMID:28066204

The Influence of Age of Acquisition in Word Reading and Other Tasks: A Never Ending Story?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bonin, Patrick; Barry, Christopher; Meot, Alain; Chalard, Marylene

2004-01-01

This paper concerns the influence of age of acquisition (AoA) in word reading and other tasks, and attempts to develop a number of issues raised by Zevin and Seidenberg (2002). Analyses performed on both rated and objective measures of AoA show that the frequency trajectory of words is a reliable predictor of their order of acquisition, which…

Effects of Cumulative Frequency, but Not of Frequency Trajectory, in Lexical Decision Times of Older Adults and Patients with Alzheimer's Disease

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caza, Nicole; Moscovitch, Morris

2005-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the issue of age-limited learning effects on visual lexical decision in normal and pathological aging, by using words with different frequency trajectories and cumulative frequencies. We selected words that objectively changed in frequency trajectory from an early word count (Thorndike, 1921, 1932;…

Word Retrieval Latencies as a Function of Frequency and Age-of-Acquisition Priming, Repeated Trials, and Individual Differences.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carroll, John B.

In three immediately succeeding trials, 45 young adults named 50 pictures of objects as rapidly as possible; word retrieval latencies were measured for each item. Before each trial, one experimental group was given information as to the word frequency (WF) level of the items' names. The other experimental group was given information as to the…

Multiple Labels for Objects in Conversations with Young Children: Parents' Language and Children's Developing Expectations about Word Meanings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Callanan, Maureen A.; Sabbagh, Mark A.

2004-01-01

Children sometimes seem to expect words to have mutually exclusive meanings in certain contexts of early word learning. In 2 studies, 12- to 24-month-old children and their parents were videotaped as they engaged in conversations while playing with sets of toys (sea creatures, vehicles, doll clothing) in free-play, storytelling, and categorization…

Toward an Understanding of Online Word-of-Mouth Message Content and the Booking Intentions of Lodging Consumers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Loon, Gerald

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which the message structure of an online word-of-mouth referral influences the booking intentions of lodging consumers. The objectives were (1) determine what elements of the message structure of an online word-of-mouth referral influenced the booking intention of lodging consumers and (2)…

The Syntax of Word Order Derivation and Agreement in Najrani Arabic: A Minimalist Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fakih, Abdul-Hafeed Ali; Al-Sharif, Hadeel Ali

2017-01-01

The paper aims to explore word order derivation and agreement in Najran Arabic (henceforth, NA) and examines the interaction between the NA data and Chomsky's (2001, 2005) Agree theory which we adopt in this study. The objective is to investigate how word order occurs in NA and provide a satisfactorily unified account of the derivation of SVO and…

What you say matters: exploring visual-verbal interactions in visual working memory.

PubMed

Mate, Judit; Allen, Richard J; Baqués, Josep

2012-01-01

The aim of this study was to explore whether the content of a simple concurrent verbal load task determines the extent of its interference on memory for coloured shapes. The task consisted of remembering four visual items while repeating aloud a pair of words that varied in terms of imageability and relatedness to the task set. At test, a cue appeared that was either the colour or the shape of one of the previously seen objects, with participants required to select the object's other feature from a visual array. During encoding and retention, there were four verbal load conditions: (a) a related, shape-colour pair (from outside the experimental set, i.e., "pink square"); (b) a pair of unrelated but visually imageable, concrete, words (i.e., "big elephant"); (c) a pair of unrelated and abstract words (i.e., "critical event"); and (d) no verbal load. Results showed differential effects of these verbal load conditions. In particular, imageable words (concrete and related conditions) interfered to a greater degree than abstract words. Possible implications for how visual working memory interacts with verbal memory and long-term memory are discussed.

Unintentional Activation of Translation Equivalents in Bilinguals Leads to Attention Capture in a Cross-Modal Visual Task

PubMed Central

Singh, Niharika; Mishra, Ramesh Kumar

2015-01-01

Using a variant of the visual world eye tracking paradigm, we examined if language non- selective activation of translation equivalents leads to attention capture and distraction in a visual task in bilinguals. High and low proficient Hindi-English speaking bilinguals were instructed to programme a saccade towards a line drawing which changed colour among other distractor objects. A spoken word, irrelevant to the main task, was presented before the colour change. On critical trials, one of the line drawings was a phonologically related word of the translation equivalent of the spoken word. Results showed that saccade latency was significantly higher towards the target in the presence of this cross-linguistic translation competitor compared to when the display contained completely unrelated objects. Participants were also slower when the display contained the referent of the spoken word among the distractors. However, the bilingual groups did not differ with regard to the interference effect observed. These findings suggest that spoken words activates translation equivalent which bias attention leading to interference in goal directed action in the visual domain. PMID:25775184

Nanoscale Engineering of Multiferroic Hybrid Composites for Micro- and Nano-scale Devices

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-09-14

saturation field of the nickel ferrite layer [7]. The ME coupling dE coefficient is conventionally defined as am =— (5), where E and H denote the electric...of Co- ferrite in granular composites measured at different electric fields Voltage(V) 0 To realize the first objective a series of NBT-CFO...sample with intermediate (30%) content of Co- ferrite [publications 3,5]. The effect of the electric field on ferromagnetic resonance curves is

Lidar as a Diagnostic of Smoke/Obscurants: Overview and Assessment of the Development with Recommendations

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-10-03

aerosol , and the name " laser radar" is used to denote systems de- signed for the detection of solid objects...34* MEASUREMENW OF T(Li) BY SEPARATE TRANSMISSOMETER . One method of measuring * T(Li) is by a separate transmissometer system operating at the lidar wavelength... transmissometer path may be radially outward from the lidar (along the lidar beam) to save the expense of scanning hardware in a developing lidar system ,

Electrophysiological Correlates of Word Retrieval in Traumatic Brain Injury

PubMed Central

DeLaRosa, Bambi L.; Didehbani, Nyaz; Hart, John; Kraut, Michael A

2017-01-01

Abstract Persons who have had a traumatic brain injury (TBI) often have word retrieval deficits; however, the underlying neural mechanisms of such deficits are yet to be clarified. Previous studies in normal subjects have shown that during a word retrieval task, there is a 750 msec event-related potential (ERP) divergence detected at the left fronto-temporal region when subjects evaluate word pairs that facilitate retrieval compared with responses elicited by word pairs that do not facilitate retrieval. In this study, we investigated the neurophysiological correlates of word retrieval networks in 19 retired professional athletes with TBI and 19 healthy control (HC) subjects. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) in the participants during a semantic object retrieval task. In this task, participants indicated whether presented word pairs did (retrieval) or did not (non-retrieval) facilitate the retrieval of an object name. There were no significant differences in accuracy or reaction time between the two groups. The EEG showed a significant group by condition interaction over the left fronto-temporal region. The HC group mean amplitudes were significantly different between conditions, but the TBI group data did not show this difference, suggesting neurophysiological effects of injury. These findings provide evidence that ERP amplitudes may be used as a marker of disrupted semantic retrieval circuits in persons with TBI even when those persons perform normally. PMID:27596052

Phonological Awareness and Rapid Automatized Naming Are Independent Phonological Competencies With Specific Impacts on Word Reading and Spelling: An Intervention Study.

PubMed

Vander Stappen, Caroline; Reybroeck, Marie Van

2018-01-01

Phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) have been shown to be powerful predictors of reading achievement across many languages. However, literature remains unclear: (a) whether RAN is independent of PA, (b) about the specific influences of PA and RAN on reading and spelling, and (c) about the efficacy of a RAN intervention. This study aims to address these issues by means of an intervention design. Precisely, the objectives are (a) to determine whether training one competence involves or not an effect on the other, (b) to examine whether each intervention based on oral abilities (PA vs. RAN) could improve word reading and word spelling performances, and (c) to assess the efficacy of a RAN-objects' intervention. Thirty-six French-speaking second graders, from two Belgian elementary schools, were divided into two groups, and received either a PA- or a RAN-objects' intervention. Twenty-five-minute lessons took place at school twice a week over a period of 2 months. Both groups were compared on multiple experimental measures (PA, RAN, word reading, and word spelling), before and immediately after the intervention, and 6 months later. Results showed specific efficacy of the two interventions, with participants trained in one ability outperforming those from the other group on this specific ability at post-test. Moreover, the PA intervention revealed transfer effects on the sub-lexical processes of spelling, while the RAN intervention enhanced word reading speed. Finally, the results demonstrated the efficacy of a RAN-objects' intervention for the first time. These findings provide a new piece of evidence showing the independence of PA and RAN, each process influencing the acquisition of literacy skills in a different way. The efficacy and the specific transfer effects of both interventions open up new perspectives for prevention and targeted remediation of reading disabilities.

[French norms of imagery for pictures, for concrete and abstract words].

PubMed

Robin, Frédérique

2006-09-01

This paper deals with French norms for mental image versus picture agreement for 138 pictures and the imagery value for 138 concrete words and 69 abstract words. The pictures were selected from Snodgrass et Vanderwart's norms (1980). The concrete words correspond to the dominant naming response to the pictorial stimuli. The abstract words were taken from verbal associative norms published by Ferrand (2001). The norms were established according to two variables: 1) mental image vs. picture agreement, and 2) imagery value of words. Three other variables were controlled: 1) picture naming agreement; 2) familiarity of objects referred to in the pictures and the concrete words, and 3) subjective verbal frequency of words. The originality of this work is to provide French imagery norms for the three kinds of stimuli usually compared in research on dual coding. Moreover, these studies focus on figurative and verbal stimuli variations in visual imagery processes.

Judgments of duration, figure-ground contrast, and size for words and nonwords.

PubMed

Reber, Rolf; Zimmermann, Thomas D; Wurtz, Pascal

2004-10-01

Does the word-superiority effect on letter discrimination result in a word-superiority effect on duration judgments? We examined this question in five experiments. In the first four experiments, we have demonstrated that (1) words shown for 32-80 msec were judged as presented longer than non-words shown for the same duration; (2) this word-superiority effect persists if the stimuli are shown for an objective duration of up to 250 msec; and (3) these effects can be extended to judgments of figure-ground contrast and letter size. These findings extend existing data on effects of processing fluency on perceptual judgments. In Experiment 5, we found that duration judgments were higher for words than for pronounceable nonwords, and duration judgments were higher for pronounceable non-words than for nonpronounceable nonwords. We discuss the implications of this finding for the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis.

Development of Embodied Word Meanings: Sensorimotor Effects in Children's Lexical Processing.

PubMed

Inkster, Michelle; Wellsby, Michele; Lloyd, Ellen; Pexman, Penny M

2016-01-01

Previous research showed an effect of words' rated body-object interaction (BOI) in children's visual word naming performance, but only in children 8 years of age or older (Wellsby and Pexman, 2014a). In that study, however, BOI was established using adult ratings. Here we collected ratings from a group of parents for children's BOI experience (child-BOI). We examined effects of words' child-BOI and also words' imageability on children's responses in an auditory word naming task, which is suited to the lexical processing skills of younger children. We tested a group of 54 children aged 6-7 years and a comparison group of 25 adults. Results showed significant effects of both imageability and child-BOI on children's auditory naming latencies. These results provide evidence that children younger than 8 years of age have richer semantic representations for high imageability and high child-BOI words, consistent with an embodied account of word meaning.

Objective age of acquisition for 223 Italian words: norms and effects on picture naming speed.

PubMed

Lotto, Lorella; Surian, Luca; Job, Remo

2010-02-01

The present study provides a set of objective age of acquisition (AoA) norms for 223 Italian words that may be useful for conducting cross-linguistic studies or experiments on Italian language processing. The data were collected by presenting children from the ages of 2 to 11 with a normed picture set (Lotto, Dell'Acqua, & Job, 2001). Following the study of Morrison, Chappell, and Ellis (1997), we report two measures of objective AoA. Both measures strongly correlated with each other, and they also showed a good correlation with the rated AoA provided by adult participants. Furthermore, we assessed the relationship between the AoA measures and other variables used in psycholinguistic experiments. Regression analyses showed that familiarity, typicality, and word frequency were significant predictors of AoA. AoA, but not word frequency, was found to determine naming latencies. Finally, we present a path model in which AoA is a mediator in predicting speed in picture naming. The norms and the picture set can also be downloaded from http://dpss.psy.unipd.it/files/strumenti.php and from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

Patterns of brain reorganization subsequent to left fusiform damage: fMRI evidence from visual processing of words and pseudowords, faces and objects.

PubMed

Tsapkini, Kyrana; Vindiola, Manuel; Rapp, Brenda

2011-04-01

Little is known about the neural reorganization that takes place subsequent to lesions that affect orthographic processing (reading and/or spelling). We report on an fMRI investigation of an individual with a left mid-fusiform resection that affected both reading and spelling (Tsapkini & Rapp, 2010). To investigate possible patterns of functional reorganization, we compared the behavioral and neural activation patterns of this individual with those of a group of control participants for the tasks of silent reading of words and pseudowords and the passive viewing of faces and objects, all tasks that typically recruit the inferior temporal lobes. This comparison was carried out with methods that included a novel application of Mahalanobis distance statistics, and revealed: (1) normal behavioral and neural responses for face and object processing, (2) evidence of neural reorganization bilaterally in the posterior fusiform that supported normal performance in pseudoword reading and which contributed to word reading (3) evidence of abnormal recruitment of the bilateral anterior temporal lobes indicating compensatory (albeit insufficient) recruitment of mechanisms for circumventing the word reading deficit. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Using Multi-Objective Genetic Programming to Synthesize Stochastic Processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ross, Brian; Imada, Janine

Genetic programming is used to automatically construct stochastic processes written in the stochastic π-calculus. Grammar-guided genetic programming constrains search to useful process algebra structures. The time-series behaviour of a target process is denoted with a suitable selection of statistical feature tests. Feature tests can permit complex process behaviours to be effectively evaluated. However, they must be selected with care, in order to accurately characterize the desired process behaviour. Multi-objective evaluation is shown to be appropriate for this application, since it permits heterogeneous statistical feature tests to reside as independent objectives. Multiple undominated solutions can be saved and evaluated after a run, for determination of those that are most appropriate. Since there can be a vast number of candidate solutions, however, strategies for filtering and analyzing this set are required.

76 FR 33776 - Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative: Designation of an Approved Native American Tribal Card...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-06-09

... Yaqui Tribe as an Acceptable Document To Denote Identity and Citizenship AGENCY: U.S. Customs and Border... Initiative. The approved card may be used to denote identity and U.S. citizenship of Pascua Yaqui members... denote identity and citizenship for all travel into the United States. See 8 U.S.C. 1185 note. On April 3...

How parents introduce new words to young children: The influence of development and developmental disorders.

PubMed

Adamson, Lauren B; Bakeman, Roger; Brandon, Benjamin

2015-05-01

This study documents how parents weave new words into on-going interactions with children who are just beginning to speak. Dyads with typically developing toddlers and with young children with autism spectrum disorder and Down syndrome (n=56, 23, and 29) were observed using a Communication Play Protocol during which parents could use novel words to refer to novel objects. Parents readily introduced both labels and sound words even when their child did not respond expressively or produce the words. Results highlight both how parents act in ways that may facilitate their child's appreciation of the relation between a new word and its referent and how they subtly adjust their actions to suit their child's level of word learning and specific learning challenges. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evidence in Favor of the Early-Phase Elevated-Attention Hypothesis: The Effects of Letter Frequency and Object Frequency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Criss, Amy H.; Malmberg, Kenneth J.

2008-01-01

One of the most studied and least well understood phenomena in episodic memory is the word frequency effect (WFE). The WFE is expressed as a mirror pattern where uncommon low frequency words (LF) are better recognized than common high frequency words (HF) by way of a higher HR and lower FAR. One explanation for the HR difference is the early-phase…

The Role of Auditory and Visual Speech in Word Learning at 18 Months and in Adulthood

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Havy, Mélanie; Foroud, Afra; Fais, Laurel; Werker, Janet F.

2017-01-01

Visual information influences speech perception in both infants and adults. It is still unknown whether lexical representations are multisensory. To address this question, we exposed 18-month-old infants (n = 32) and adults (n = 32) to new word-object pairings: Participants either heard the acoustic form of the words or saw the talking face in…

Using lexical analysis to identify emotional distress in psychometric schizotypy.

PubMed

Abplanalp, Samuel J; Buck, Benjamin; Gonzenbach, Virgilio; Janela, Carlos; Lysaker, Paul H; Minor, Kyle S

2017-09-01

Through the use of lexical analysis software, researchers have demonstrated a greater frequency of negative affect word use in those with schizophrenia and schizotypy compared to the general population. In addition, those with schizotypy endorse greater emotional distress than healthy controls. In this study, our aim was to expand on previous findings in schizotypy to determine whether negative affect word use could be linked to emotional distress. Schizotypy (n=33) and non-schizotypy groups (n=33) completed an open-ended, semi-structured interview and negative affect word use was analyzed using a validated lexical analysis instrument. Emotional distress was assessed using subjective questionnaires of depression and psychological quality of life (QOL). When groups were compared, those with schizotypy used significantly more negative affect words; endorsed greater depression; and reported lower QOL. Within schizotypy, a trend level association between depression and negative affect word use was observed; QOL and negative affect word use showed a significant inverse association. Our findings offer preliminary evidence of the potential effectiveness of lexical analysis as an objective, behavior-based method for identifying emotional distress throughout the schizophrenia-spectrum. Utilizing lexical analysis in schizotypy offers promise for providing researchers with an assessment capable of objectively detecting emotional distress. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Chinese Character and English Word processing in children's ventral occipitotemporal cortex: fMRI evidence for script invariance.

PubMed

Krafnick, Anthony J; Tan, Li-Hai; Flowers, D Lynn; Luetje, Megan M; Napoliello, Eileen M; Siok, Wai-Ting; Perfetti, Charles; Eden, Guinevere F

2016-06-01

Learning to read is thought to involve the recruitment of left hemisphere ventral occipitotemporal cortex (OTC) by a process of "neuronal recycling", whereby object processing mechanisms are co-opted for reading. Under the same theoretical framework, it has been proposed that the visual word form area (VWFA) within OTC processes orthographic stimuli independent of culture and writing systems, suggesting that it is universally involved in written language. However, this "script invariance" has yet to be demonstrated in monolingual readers of two different writing systems studied under the same experimental conditions. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined activity in response to English Words and Chinese Characters in 1st graders in the United States and China, respectively. We examined each group separately and found the readers of English as well as the readers of Chinese to activate the left ventral OTC for their respective native writing systems (using both a whole-brain and a bilateral OTC-restricted analysis). Critically, a conjunction analysis of the two groups revealed significant overlap between them for native writing system processing, located in the VWFA and therefore supporting the hypothesis of script invariance. In the second part of the study, we further examined the left OTC region responsive to each group's native writing system and found that it responded equally to Object stimuli (line drawings) in the Chinese-reading children. In English-reading children, the OTC responded much more to Objects than to English Words. Together, these results support the script invariant role of the VWFA and also support the idea that the areas recruited for character or word processing are rooted in object processing mechanisms of the left OTC. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Chinese Character and English Word processing in children’s ventral occipitotemporal cortex: fMRI evidence for script invariance

PubMed Central

Krafnick, Anthony J.; Tan, Li-Hai; Flowers, D. Lynn; Luetje, Megan M.; Napoliello, Eileen M.; Siok, Wai-Ting; Perfetti, Charles; Eden, Guinevere F.

2016-01-01

Learning to read is thought to involve the recruitment of left hemisphere ventral occipitotemporal cortex (OTC) by a process of “neuronal recycling”, whereby object processing mechanisms are co-opted for reading. Under the same theoretical framework, it has been proposed that the visual word form area (VWFA) within the OTC processes orthographic stimuli independent of culture and writing systems, suggesting that it is universally involved in written language. However, this “script invariance” has yet to be demonstrated in monolingual readers of two different writing systems studied under the same experimental conditions. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined activity in response to English Words and Chinese Characters in 1st graders in the United States and China, respectively. We examined each group separately and found the readers of English as well as the readers of Chinese to activate the left ventral OTC for their respective native writing systems (using both a whole-brain and a bilateral OTC-restricted analysis). Critically, a conjunction analysis of the two groups revealed significant overlap between them for native writing system processing, located in the VWFA and therefore supporting the hypothesis of script invariance. In the second part of the study, we further examined the left OTC region responsive to each group’s native writing system and found it responded equally to Object stimuli (line drawings) in the Chinese-reading children. In English-reading children, the OTC responded much more to Objects than to English Words. Together, these results support the script invariant role of the VWFA and also support the idea that the areas recruited for character or word processing are rooted in object processing mechanisms of the left OTC. PMID:27012502

Technical support for creating an artificial intelligence system for feature extraction and experimental design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Glick, B. J.

1985-01-01

Techniques for classifying objects into groups or clases go under many different names including, most commonly, cluster analysis. Mathematically, the general problem is to find a best mapping of objects into an index set consisting of class identifiers. When an a priori grouping of objects exists, the process of deriving the classification rules from samples of classified objects is known as discrimination. When such rules are applied to objects of unknown class, the process is denoted classification. The specific problem addressed involves the group classification of a set of objects that are each associated with a series of measurements (ratio, interval, ordinal, or nominal levels of measurement). Each measurement produces one variable in a multidimensional variable space. Cluster analysis techniques are reviewed and methods for incuding geographic location, distance measures, and spatial pattern (distribution) as parameters in clustering are examined. For the case of patterning, measures of spatial autocorrelation are discussed in terms of the kind of data (nominal, ordinal, or interval scaled) to which they may be applied.

Selective activation around the left occipito-temporal sulcus for words relative to pictures: individual variability or false positives?

PubMed

Wright, Nicholas D; Mechelli, Andrea; Noppeney, Uta; Veltman, Dick J; Rombouts, Serge A R B; Glensman, Janice; Haynes, John-Dylan; Price, Cathy J

2008-08-01

We used high-resolution fMRI to investigate claims that learning to read results in greater left occipito-temporal (OT) activation for written words relative to pictures of objects. In the first experiment, 9/16 subjects performing a one-back task showed activation in > or =1 left OT voxel for words relative to pictures (P < 0.05 uncorrected). In a second experiment, another 9/15 subjects performing a semantic decision task activated > or =1 left OT voxel for words relative to pictures. However, at this low statistical threshold false positives need to be excluded. The semantic decision paradigm was therefore repeated, within subject, in two different scanners (1.5 and 3 T). Both scanners consistently localised left OT activation for words relative to fixation and pictures relative to words, but there were no consistent effects for words relative to pictures. Finally, in a third experiment, we minimised the voxel size (1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 mm(3)) and demonstrated a striking concordance between the voxels activated for words and pictures, irrespective of task (naming vs. one-back) or script (English vs. Hebrew). In summary, although we detected differential activation for words relative to pictures, these effects: (i) do not withstand statistical rigour; (ii) do not replicate within or between subjects; and (iii) are observed in voxels that also respond to pictures of objects. Our findings have implications for the role of left OT activation during reading. More generally, they show that studies using low statistical thresholds in single subject analyses should correct the statistical threshold for the number of comparisons made or replicate effects within subject. (c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Selective Activation Around the Left Occipito-Temporal Sulcus for Words Relative to Pictures: Individual Variability or False Positives?

PubMed Central

Wright, Nicholas D; Mechelli, Andrea; Noppeney, Uta; Veltman, Dick J; Rombouts, Serge ARB; Glensman, Janice; Haynes, John-Dylan; Price, Cathy J

2008-01-01

We used high-resolution fMRI to investigate claims that learning to read results in greater left occipito-temporal (OT) activation for written words relative to pictures of objects. In the first experiment, 9/16 subjects performing a one-back task showed activation in ≥1 left OT voxel for words relative to pictures (P < 0.05 uncorrected). In a second experiment, another 9/15 subjects performing a semantic decision task activated ≥1 left OT voxel for words relative to pictures. However, at this low statistical threshold false positives need to be excluded. The semantic decision paradigm was therefore repeated, within subject, in two different scanners (1.5 and 3 T). Both scanners consistently localised left OT activation for words relative to fixation and pictures relative to words, but there were no consistent effects for words relative to pictures. Finally, in a third experiment, we minimised the voxel size (1.5 × 1.5 × 1.5 mm3) and demonstrated a striking concordance between the voxels activated for words and pictures, irrespective of task (naming vs. one-back) or script (English vs. Hebrew). In summary, although we detected differential activation for words relative to pictures, these effects: (i) do not withstand statistical rigour; (ii) do not replicate within or between subjects; and (iii) are observed in voxels that also respond to pictures of objects. Our findings have implications for the role of left OT activation during reading. More generally, they show that studies using low statistical thresholds in single subject analyses should correct the statistical threshold for the number of comparisons made or replicate effects within subject. Hum Brain Mapp 2008. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. PMID:17712786

Conceptual Coherence Affects Phonological Activation of Context Objects during Object Naming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oppermann, Frank; Jescheniak, Jorg D.; Schriefers, Herbert

2008-01-01

In 4 picture-word interference experiments, speakers named a target object that was presented with a context object. Using auditory distractors that were phonologically related or unrelated either to the target object or the context object, the authors assessed whether phonological processing was confined to the target object or not. Phonological…

A Bridge between Pictures and Print.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jeffree, Dorothy

1981-01-01

The experiment investigated the feasibility of bridging the gap between the recognition of pictures and the recognition of words in four mentally handicapped adolescents by adapting a modified version of symbol accentuation (in which a printed word looks like the object it represents). (SB)

An object cue is more effective than a word in ERP-based detection of deception.

PubMed

Cutmore, Tim R H; Djakovic, Tatjana; Kebbell, Mark R; Shum, David H K

2009-03-01

Recent studies of deception have used a form of the guilty knowledge test along with the oddball P300 event-related potential (ERP) to uncover hidden memories. These studies typically have used words as the cuing stimuli. In the present study, a mock crime was enacted by participants to prime their episodic memory and different memory cue types (Words, Pictures of Objects and Faces) were created to investigate their relative efficacy in identifying guilt. A peak-to peak (p-p) P300 response was computed for rare known non-guilty item (target), rare guilty knowledge item (probe) and frequently presented unknown items (irrelevant). Difference in this P300 measure between the probe and irrelevant was the key dependent variable. Object cues were found to be the most effective, particularly at the parietal site. A bootstrap procedure commonly used to detect deception in individual participants by comparing their probe and irrelevant P300 p-p showed the object cues to provide the best discrimination. Furthermore, using all three of the cue types together provided high detection accuracy (94%). These results confirm prior findings on the utility of ERPs for detecting deception. More importantly, they provide support for the hypothesis that direct cueing with a picture of the crime object may be more effective than using a word (consistent with the picture superiority effect reported in the literature). Finally, a face cue (e.g., crime victim) may also provide a useful probe for detection of guilty knowledge but this stimulus form needs to be chosen with due caution.

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

NASA's university program: Active grants and research contracts, fiscal year 1978

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1978-01-01

As basic policy NASA believes that colleges and universities should be encouraged to participate in the space and aeronautics program to the maximum extent practicable. The NASA objective is to have them bring their scientific, engineering, and social research competence to bear on aerospace problems and on the broader social, economic, and international implications of NASA technical and scientific programs. This annual report is one means of documenting the NASA-university relationship, frequently denoted, collectively, as NASA University Program.

Exploring and Making Sense of Large Graphs

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-08-01

and bold) are n × n ; vectors (lower-case bold) are n × 1 column vectors, and scalars (in lower-case plain font) typically correspond to strength of...graph is often denoted as |V| or n . Edges or Links: A finite set E of lines between objects in a graph. The edges represent relationships between the...Adjacency matrix of a simple, unweighted and undirected graph. Adjacency matrix: The adjacency matrix of a graph G is an n × n matrix A, whose element aij

Adaptive Sensing and Fusion of Multi-Sensor Data and Historical Information

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-11-06

integrate MTL and semi-supervised learning into a single framework , thereby exploiting two forms of contextual information. A key new objective of the...this report we integrate MTL and semi-supervised learning into a single framework , thereby exploiting two forms of contextual information. A key new...process [8], denoted as X ∼ BeP (B), where B is a measure on Ω. If B is continuous, X is a Poisson process with intensity B and can be constructed as X = N

The legal regime for private space tourism activities—An overview

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hobe, Stephan

2010-06-01

"Space tourism" denotes any commercial activity that offers customers direct or indirect experience with space travel. Various models for space tourism activities exist including the use of an aircraft and/or spacecraft. The paper surveys some of the most important legal aspects relevant to space tourism activities, such as, the delimitation of airspace and outer space, the applicable legal regime and the definition of aircraft and space object, authorization, registration, liability, as well as the legal status of space tourists.

Transformation of OODT CAS to Perform Larger Tasks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mattmann, Chris; Freeborn, Dana; Crichton, Daniel; Hughes, John; Ramirez, Paul; Hardman, Sean; Woollard, David; Kelly, Sean

2008-01-01

A computer program denoted OODT CAS has been transformed to enable performance of larger tasks that involve greatly increased data volumes and increasingly intensive processing of data on heterogeneous, geographically dispersed computers. Prior to the transformation, OODT CAS (also alternatively denoted, simply, 'CAS') [wherein 'OODT' signifies 'Object-Oriented Data Technology' and 'CAS' signifies 'Catalog and Archive Service'] was a proven software component used to manage scientific data from spaceflight missions. In the transformation, CAS was split into two separate components representing its canonical capabilities: file management and workflow management. In addition, CAS was augmented by addition of a resource-management component. This third component enables CAS to manage heterogeneous computing by use of diverse resources, including high-performance clusters of computers, commodity computing hardware, and grid computing infrastructures. CAS is now more easily maintainable, evolvable, and reusable. These components can be used separately or, taking advantage of synergies, can be used together. Other elements of the transformation included addition of a separate Web presentation layer that supports distribution of data products via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, and provision for full Resource Description Framework (RDF) exports of metadata.

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

PubMed

Chang, Ya-Ning; Lee, Chia-Ying

2017-11-09

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

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

PubMed Central

Moseley, Rachel L.; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2014-01-01

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

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

PubMed

Moseley, Rachel L; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2014-05-01

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

The effects of surface gloss and roughness on color constancy for real 3-D objects.

PubMed

Granzier, Jeroen J M; Vergne, Romain; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

2014-02-21

Color constancy denotes the phenomenon that the appearance of an object remains fairly stable under changes in illumination and background color. Most of what we know about color constancy comes from experiments using flat, matte surfaces placed on a single plane under diffuse illumination simulated on a computer monitor. Here we investigate whether material properties (glossiness and roughness) have an effect on color constancy for real objects. Subjects matched the color and brightness of cylinders (painted red, green, or blue) illuminated by simulated daylight (D65) or by a reddish light with a Munsell color book illuminated by a tungsten lamp. The cylinders were either glossy or matte and either smooth or rough. The object was placed in front of a black background or a colored checkerboard. We found that color constancy was significantly higher for the glossy objects compared to the matte objects, and higher for the smooth objects compared to the rough objects. This was independent of the background. We conclude that material properties like glossiness and roughness can have significant effects on color constancy.

Holistic processing of words modulated by reading experience.

PubMed

Wong, Alan C-N; Bukach, Cindy M; Yuen, Crystal; Yang, Lizhuang; Leung, Shirley; Greenspon, Emma

2011-01-01

Perceptual expertise has been studied intensively with faces and object categories involving detailed individuation. A common finding is that experience in fulfilling the task demand of fine, subordinate-level discrimination between highly similar instances is associated with the development of holistic processing. This study examines whether holistic processing is also engaged by expert word recognition, which is thought to involve coarser, basic-level processing that is more part-based. We adopted a paradigm widely used for faces--the composite task, and found clear evidence of holistic processing for English words. A second experiment further showed that holistic processing for words was sensitive to the amount of experience with the language concerned (native vs. second-language readers) and with the specific stimuli (words vs. pseudowords). The adoption of a paradigm from the face perception literature to the study of expert word perception is important for further comparison between perceptual expertise with words and face-like expertise.

Processing Rhythmic Pattern during Chinese Sentence Reading: An Eye Movement Study

PubMed Central

Luo, Yingyi; Duan, Yunyan; Zhou, Xiaolin

2015-01-01

Prosodic constraints play a fundamental role during both spoken sentence comprehension and silent reading. In Chinese, the rhythmic pattern of the verb-object (V-O) combination has been found to rapidly affect the semantic access/integration process during sentence reading (Luo and Zhou, 2010). Rhythmic pattern refers to the combination of words with different syllabic lengths, with certain combinations disallowed (e.g., [2 + 1]; numbers standing for the number of syllables of the verb and the noun respectively) and certain combinations preferred (e.g., [1 + 1] or [2 + 2]). This constraint extends to the situation in which the combination is used to modify other words. A V-O phrase could modify a noun by simply preceding it, forming a V-O-N compound; when the verb is disyllabic, however, the word order has to be O-V-N and the object is preferred to be disyllabic. In this study, we investigated how the reader processes the rhythmic pattern and word order information by recording the reader's eye-movements. We created four types of sentences by crossing rhythmic pattern and word order in compounding. The compound, embedding a disyllabic verb, could be in the correct O-V-N or the incorrect V-O-N order; the object could be disyllabic or monosyllabic. We found that the reader spent more time and made more regressions on and after the compounds when either type of anomaly was detected during the first pass reading. However, during re-reading (after all the words in the sentence have been viewed), less regressive eye movements were found for the anomalous rhythmic pattern, relative to the correct pattern; moreover, only the abnormal rhythmic pattern, not the violated word order, influenced the regressive eye movements. These results suggest that while the processing of rhythmic pattern and word order information occurs rapidly during the initial reading of the sentence, the process of recovering from the rhythmic pattern anomaly may ease the reanalysis processing at the later stage of sentence integration. Thus, rhythmic pattern in Chinese can dynamically affect both local phrase analysis and global sentence integration during silent reading. PMID:26696942

Processing Rhythmic Pattern during Chinese Sentence Reading: An Eye Movement Study.

PubMed

Luo, Yingyi; Duan, Yunyan; Zhou, Xiaolin

2015-01-01

Prosodic constraints play a fundamental role during both spoken sentence comprehension and silent reading. In Chinese, the rhythmic pattern of the verb-object (V-O) combination has been found to rapidly affect the semantic access/integration process during sentence reading (Luo and Zhou, 2010). Rhythmic pattern refers to the combination of words with different syllabic lengths, with certain combinations disallowed (e.g., [2 + 1]; numbers standing for the number of syllables of the verb and the noun respectively) and certain combinations preferred (e.g., [1 + 1] or [2 + 2]). This constraint extends to the situation in which the combination is used to modify other words. A V-O phrase could modify a noun by simply preceding it, forming a V-O-N compound; when the verb is disyllabic, however, the word order has to be O-V-N and the object is preferred to be disyllabic. In this study, we investigated how the reader processes the rhythmic pattern and word order information by recording the reader's eye-movements. We created four types of sentences by crossing rhythmic pattern and word order in compounding. The compound, embedding a disyllabic verb, could be in the correct O-V-N or the incorrect V-O-N order; the object could be disyllabic or monosyllabic. We found that the reader spent more time and made more regressions on and after the compounds when either type of anomaly was detected during the first pass reading. However, during re-reading (after all the words in the sentence have been viewed), less regressive eye movements were found for the anomalous rhythmic pattern, relative to the correct pattern; moreover, only the abnormal rhythmic pattern, not the violated word order, influenced the regressive eye movements. These results suggest that while the processing of rhythmic pattern and word order information occurs rapidly during the initial reading of the sentence, the process of recovering from the rhythmic pattern anomaly may ease the reanalysis processing at the later stage of sentence integration. Thus, rhythmic pattern in Chinese can dynamically affect both local phrase analysis and global sentence integration during silent reading.

Conscious intention to speak proactively facilitates lexical access during overt object naming

PubMed Central

Strijkers, Kristof; Holcomb, Phillip J.; Costa, Albert

2013-01-01

The present study explored when and how the top-down intention to speak influences the language production process. We did so by comparing the brain’s electrical response for a variable known to affect lexical access, namely word frequency, during overt object naming and non-verbal object categorization. We found that during naming, the event-related brain potentials elicited for objects with low frequency names started to diverge from those with high frequency names as early as 152 ms after stimulus onset, while during non-verbal categorization the same frequency comparison appeared 200 ms later eliciting a qualitatively different brain response. Thus, only when participants had the conscious intention to name an object the brain rapidly engaged in lexical access. The data offer evidence that top-down intention to speak proactively facilitates the activation of words related to perceived objects. PMID:24039339

Pulmonary disorder and present nuclear denotation: A brief summary

PubMed Central

Wiwanitkit, Viroj

2011-01-01

There are many health effects caused by leaked radiation from damaged reactors of a nuclear power plant. However, the effect on pulmonary system is not reported much. Focusing on the present nuclear denotation crisis in Japan, it is wise to review on the specific issue of pulmonary disorder and nuclear denotation. Several disorders of interest, including malignancy and non-malignancy disorders, are mentioned in the literature. PMID:21760839

Negative Transfer Effects on L2 Word Order Processing.

PubMed

Erdocia, Kepa; Laka, Itziar

2018-01-01

Does first language (L1) word order affect the processing of non-canonical but grammatical syntactic structures in second language (L2) comprehension? In the present study, we test whether L1-Spanish speakers of L2-Basque process subject-verb-object (SVO) and object-verb-subject (OVS) non-canonical word order sentences of Basque in the same way as Basque native speakers. Crucially, while OVS orders are non-canonical in both Spanish and Basque, SVO is non-canonical in Basque but is the canonical word order in Spanish. Our electrophysiological results showed that the characteristics of L1 affect the processing of the L2 even at highly proficient and early-acquired bilingual populations. Specifically, in the non-native group, we observed a left anterior negativity-like component when comparing S and O at sentence initial position and a P600 when comparing those elements at sentence final position. Those results are similar of those reported by Casado et al. (2005) for native speakers of Spanish indicating that L2-Basque speakers rely in their L1-Spanish when processing SVO-OVS word order sentences. Our results favored the competition model (MacWhinney, 1997).

Acquired prosopagnosia without word recognition deficits.

PubMed

Susilo, Tirta; Wright, Victoria; Tree, Jeremy J; Duchaine, Bradley

2015-01-01

It has long been suggested that face recognition relies on specialized mechanisms that are not involved in visual recognition of other object categories, including those that require expert, fine-grained discrimination at the exemplar level such as written words. But according to the recently proposed many-to-many theory of object recognition (MTMT), visual recognition of faces and words are carried out by common mechanisms [Behrmann, M., & Plaut, D. C. ( 2013 ). Distributed circuits, not circumscribed centers, mediate visual recognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17, 210-219]. MTMT acknowledges that face and word recognition are lateralized, but posits that the mechanisms that predominantly carry out face recognition still contribute to word recognition and vice versa. MTMT makes a key prediction, namely that acquired prosopagnosics should exhibit some measure of word recognition deficits. We tested this prediction by assessing written word recognition in five acquired prosopagnosic patients. Four patients had lesions limited to the right hemisphere while one had bilateral lesions with more pronounced lesions in the right hemisphere. The patients completed a total of seven word recognition tasks: two lexical decision tasks and five reading aloud tasks totalling more than 1200 trials. The performances of the four older patients (3 female, age range 50-64 years) were compared to those of 12 older controls (8 female, age range 56-66 years), while the performances of the younger prosopagnosic (male, 31 years) were compared to those of 14 younger controls (9 female, age range 20-33 years). We analysed all results at the single-patient level using Crawford's t-test. Across seven tasks, four prosopagnosics performed as quickly and accurately as controls. Our results demonstrate that acquired prosopagnosia can exist without word recognition deficits. These findings are inconsistent with a key prediction of MTMT. They instead support the hypothesis that face recognition is carried out by specialized mechanisms that do not contribute to recognition of written words.

Manipulability impairs association-memory: revisiting effects of incidental motor processing on verbal paired-associates.

PubMed

Madan, Christopher R

2014-06-01

Imageability is known to enhance association-memory for verbal paired-associates. High-imageability words can be further subdivided by manipulability, the ease by which the named object can be functionally interacted with. Prior studies suggest that motor processing enhances item-memory, but impairs association-memory. However, these studies used action verbs and concrete nouns as the high- and low-manipulability words, respectively, confounding manipulability with word class. Recent findings demonstrated that nouns can serve as both high- and low-manipulability words (e.g., CAMERA and TABLE, respectively), allowing us to avoid this confound. Here participants studied pairs of words that consisted of all possible pairings of high- and low-manipulability words and were tested with immediate cued recall. Recall was worse for pairs that contained high-manipulability words. In free recall, participants recalled more high- than low-manipulability words. Our results provide further evidence that manipulability influences memory, likely occurring through automatic motor imagery. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Spatial distance effects on incremental semantic interpretation of abstract sentences: evidence from eye tracking.

PubMed

Guerra, Ernesto; Knoeferle, Pia

2014-12-01

A large body of evidence has shown that visual context information can rapidly modulate language comprehension for concrete sentences and when it is mediated by a referential or a lexical-semantic link. What has not yet been examined is whether visual context can also modulate comprehension of abstract sentences incrementally when it is neither referenced by, nor lexically associated with, the sentence. Three eye-tracking reading experiments examined the effects of spatial distance between words (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2 and 3) on participants' reading times for sentences that convey similarity or difference between two abstract nouns (e.g., 'Peace and war are certainly different...'). Before reading the sentence, participants inspected a visual context with two playing cards that moved either far apart or close together. In Experiment 1, the cards turned and showed the first two nouns of the sentence (e.g., 'peace', 'war'). In Experiments 2 and 3, they turned but remained blank. Participants' reading times at the adjective (Experiment 1: first-pass reading time; Experiment 2: total times) and at the second noun phrase (Experiment 3: first-pass times) were faster for sentences that expressed similarity when the preceding words/objects were close together (vs. far apart) and for sentences that expressed dissimilarity when the preceding words/objects were far apart (vs. close together). Thus, spatial distance between words or entirely unrelated objects can rapidly and incrementally modulate the semantic interpretation of abstract sentences. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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

2016-08-01

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

The Role of Idiomorphs in Emergent Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neumann, Michelle M.; Neumann, David L.

2012-01-01

Psycholinguistics coined the term idiomorph to describe idiosyncratic invented word-like units that toddlers use to refer to familiar objects during their early language development (Haslett & Samter, 1997; Otto, 2008; Reich, 1986; Scovel, 2004; Werner & Kaplan, 1963). Idiomorphs act as "words" because their meanings and phonetic pronunciations…

Implicit integration in a case of integrative visual agnosia.

PubMed

Aviezer, Hillel; Landau, Ayelet N; Robertson, Lynn C; Peterson, Mary A; Soroker, Nachum; Sacher, Yaron; Bonneh, Yoram; Bentin, Shlomo

2007-05-15

We present a case (SE) with integrative visual agnosia following ischemic stroke affecting the right dorsal and the left ventral pathways of the visual system. Despite his inability to identify global hierarchical letters [Navon, D. (1977). Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception. Cognitive Psychology, 9, 353-383], and his dense object agnosia, SE showed normal global-to-local interference when responding to local letters in Navon hierarchical stimuli and significant picture-word identity priming in a semantic decision task for words. Since priming was absent if these features were scrambled, it stands to reason that these effects were not due to priming by distinctive features. The contrast between priming effects induced by coherent and scrambled stimuli is consistent with implicit but not explicit integration of features into a unified whole. We went on to show that possible/impossible object decisions were facilitated by words in a word-picture priming task, suggesting that prompts could activate perceptually integrated images in a backward fashion. We conclude that the absence of SE's ability to identify visual objects except through tedious serial construction reflects a deficit in accessing an integrated visual representation through bottom-up visual processing alone. However, top-down generated images can help activate these visual representations through semantic links.

Factors influencing the response latencies of subnormal children in naming pictures.

PubMed

Elliott, C

1978-08-01

The times taken to name 56 drawings of objects on five separate occasions were analysed for 21 ESN(M) and 21 ESN(S) children, matched for picture-naming vocabulary. The ESN(S) group not only had a higher mean response latency but also showed greater inter- and intra-subject variance. Nine objects were selected whose names have a Thorndike-Lorge language frequency of 50 words per million or greater, and nine others were selected with a frequency of less than 50 words per million. Each object was drawn in two ways, one giving a two-dimensional outline with the addition of important detail, the other drawing also incorporating cues indicating the depth of the object. An analysis of variance of the children's latencies in naming the selected 36 pictures of 18 objects over five trials indicated that the method of drawing had no effect upon naming latencies. Pictures with high-frequency names were named faster than those with lower frequency names, the ESN(S) group showing a greater rate of increase in naming latency for the lower frequency words than the ESN(M) children. Results were discussed in terms of the Oldfield and Lachman models of lexical memory storage and of the search processes required for the retrieval of names.

A Voyage through the Heliosphere (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burlaga, L. F.

2009-12-01

Parker adopted the word “Heliosphere” to denote “the region of interstellar space swept out by the solar wind” His book “Interplanetary Dynamical Processes” (1963) provided “a comprehensive self-consistent dynamical picture of interplanetary activity” on spatial scales from the Larmor radius to the outermost limits of the heliosphere and over a broad range of temporal scales. The spacecraft Voyagers 1 and 2 have taken us on a journey through much of the heliosphere: from Earth, past the termination shock near 90 AU, and into the inner heliosheath. This talk will use magnetic field observations from V1 and V2 to illustrate how Parker’s dynamical picture has been largely confirmed by observations out to ~100 AU. It will also discuss some “complicating aspects of the dynamics…which will turn up in future observations…” that Parker envisaged. With continued funding, the Voyager spacecraft will allow us to explore the heliosheath, cross the boundary of the heliosphere, and sample the local interstellar medium, guided by still untested predictions of Parker.

Flow enhancement of deformable self-driven objects by countercurrent

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mashiko, Takashi; Fujiwara, Takashi

2016-10-01

We report numerical simulations of the mixed flows of two groups of deformable self-driven objects. The objects belonging to the group A (B) have drift coefficient D =DA (DB), where a positive (negative) value of D denotes the rightward (leftward) driving force. For co-current flows (DA ,DB > 0), the result is rather intuitive: the net flow of one group (QA) increases if the driving force of the other group is stronger than its own driving force (i.e., DB >DA), and decreases otherwise (DB

Extreme altitude: words from on high.

PubMed

Lankford, Harvey V

2014-09-01

Medical science has its own objective language for describing the effects of high altitude. Mountaineers' words and metaphors tell the story with subjectivity and feeling. This essay will include only limited physiology about lowlanders and high altitude. Instead, the focus will be literary, using the quotations of 20th-century mountaineers and mountaineer physicians to provide color commentary about the hardship. These are Words From on High. Copyright © 2014 Wilderness Medical Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Top-down processing of symbolic meanings modulates the visual word form area.

PubMed

Song, Yiying; Tian, Moqian; Liu, Jia

2012-08-29

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies on humans have identified a region in the left middle fusiform gyrus consistently activated by written words. This region is called the visual word form area (VWFA). Recently, a hypothesis, called the interactive account, is proposed that to effectively analyze the bottom-up visual properties of words, the VWFA receives predictive feedback from higher-order regions engaged in processing sounds, meanings, or actions associated with words. Further, this top-down influence on the VWFA is independent of stimulus formats. To test this hypothesis, we used fMRI to examine whether a symbolic nonword object (e.g., the Eiffel Tower) intended to represent something other than itself (i.e., Paris) could activate the VWFA. We found that scenes associated with symbolic meanings elicited a higher VWFA response than those not associated with symbolic meanings, and such top-down modulation on the VWFA can be established through short-term associative learning, even across modalities. In addition, the magnitude of the symbolic effect observed in the VWFA was positively correlated with the subjective experience on the strength of symbol-referent association across individuals. Therefore, the VWFA is likely a neural substrate for the interaction of the top-down processing of symbolic meanings with the analysis of bottom-up visual properties of sensory inputs, making the VWFA the location where the symbolic meaning of both words and nonword objects is represented.

A fresh look at the predictors of naming accuracy and errors in Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Cuetos, Fernando; Rodríguez-Ferreiro, Javier; Sage, Karen; Ellis, Andrew W

2012-09-01

In recent years, a considerable number of studies have tried to establish which characteristics of objects and their names predict the responses of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the picture-naming task. The frequency of use of words and their age of acquisition (AoA) have been implicated as two of the most influential variables, with naming being best preserved for objects with high-frequency, early-acquired names. The present study takes a fresh look at the predictors of naming success in Spanish and English AD patients using a range of measures of word frequency and AoA along with visual complexity, imageability, and word length as predictors. Analyses using generalized linear mixed modelling found that naming accuracy was better predicted by AoA ratings taken from older adults than conventional ratings from young adults. Older frequency measures based on written language samples predicted accuracy better than more modern measures based on the frequencies of words in film subtitles. Replacing adult frequency with an estimate of cumulative (lifespan) frequency did not reduce the impact of AoA. Semantic error rates were predicted by both written word frequency and senior AoA while null response errors were only predicted by frequency. Visual complexity, imageability, and word length did not predict naming accuracy or errors. ©2012 The British Psychological Society.

2.5-year-olds use cross-situational consistency to learn verbs under referential uncertainty.

PubMed

Scott, Rose M; Fisher, Cynthia

2012-02-01

Recent evidence shows that children can use cross-situational statistics to learn new object labels under referential ambiguity (e.g., Smith & Yu, 2008). Such evidence has been interpreted as support for proposals that statistical information about word-referent co-occurrence plays a powerful role in word learning. But object labels represent only a fraction of the vocabulary children acquire, and arguably represent the simplest case of word learning based on observations of world scenes. Here we extended the study of cross-situational word learning to a new segment of the vocabulary, action verbs, to permit a stronger test of the role of statistical information in word learning. In two experiments, on each trial 2.5-year-olds encountered two novel intransitive (e.g., "She's pimming!"; Experiment 1) or transitive verbs (e.g., "She's pimming her toy!"; Experiment 2) while viewing two action events. The consistency with which each verb accompanied each action provided the only source of information about the intended referent of each verb. The 2.5-year-olds used cross-situational consistency in verb learning, but also showed significant limits on their ability to do so as the sentences and scenes became slightly more complex. These findings help to define the role of cross-situational observation in word learning. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

2.5-year-olds use cross-situational consistency to learn verbs under referential uncertainty

PubMed Central

Scott, Rose M.; Fisher, Cynthia

2011-01-01

Recent evidence shows that children can use cross-situational statistics to learn new object labels under referential ambiguity (e.g., Smith & Yu, 2008). Such evidence has been interpreted as support for proposals that statistical information about word-referent co-occurrence plays a powerful role in word learning. But object labels represent only a fraction of the vocabulary children acquire, and arguably represent the simplest case of word learning based on observations of world scenes. Here we extended the study of cross-situational word learning to a new segment of the vocabulary, action verbs, to permit a stronger test of the role of statistical information in word learning. In two experiments, on each trial 2.5-year-olds encountered two novel intransitive (e.g., “She’s pimming!”; Experiment 1) or transitive verbs (e.g., “She’s pimming her toy!”; Experiment 2) while viewing two action events. The consistency with which each verb accompanied each action provided the only source of information about the intended referent of each verb. The 2.5-year-olds used cross-situational consistency in verb learning, but also showed significant limits on their ability to do so as the sentences and scenes became slightly more complex. These findings help to define the role of cross-situational observation in word learning. PMID:22104489

Word Recall: Cognitive Performance Within Internet Surveys

PubMed Central

Craig, Benjamin M; Jim, Heather S

2015-01-01

Background The use of online surveys for data collection has increased exponentially, yet it is often unclear whether interview-based cognitive assessments (such as face-to-face or telephonic word recall tasks) can be adapted for use in application-based research settings. Objective The objective of the current study was to compare and characterize the results of online word recall tasks to those of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and determine the feasibility and reliability of incorporating word recall tasks into application-based cognitive assessments. Methods The results of the online immediate and delayed word recall assessment, included within the Women’s Health and Valuation (WHV) study, were compared to the results of the immediate and delayed recall tasks of Waves 5-11 (2000-2012) of the HRS. Results Performance on the WHV immediate and delayed tasks demonstrated strong concordance with performance on the HRS tasks (ρc=.79, 95% CI 0.67-0.91), despite significant differences between study populations (P<.001) and study design. Sociodemographic characteristics and self-reported memory demonstrated similar relationships with performance on both the HRS and WHV tasks. Conclusions The key finding of this study is that the HRS word recall tasks performed similarly when used as an online cognitive assessment in the WHV. Online administration of cognitive tests, which has the potential to significantly reduce participant and administrative burden, should be considered in future research studies and health assessments. PMID:26543924

Telemetry Attributes Transfer Standard (TMATS) Handbook

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-02-01

interpretations of TMATS files so that all parties will benefit from its usage. The RCC gives special acknowledgement for production of this document to the...denoted with a *R-CH10* shall indicate the minimum required RCC IRIG 106, Chapter 10 TMATS Setup Record attributes. b. Code names denoted with a * RO ...supported data channel dependent. c. Code names denoted with a * RO -PAK shall indicate the RCC IRIG 106, Chapter 10 TMATS Setup Record attributes

Cross-situational statistical word learning in young children.

PubMed

Suanda, Sumarga H; Mugwanya, Nassali; Namy, Laura L

2014-10-01

Recent empirical work has highlighted the potential role of cross-situational statistical word learning in children's early vocabulary development. In the current study, we tested 5- to 7-year-old children's cross-situational learning by presenting children with a series of ambiguous naming events containing multiple words and multiple referents. Children rapidly learned word-to-object mappings by attending to the co-occurrence regularities across these ambiguous naming events. The current study begins to address the mechanisms underlying children's learning by demonstrating that the diversity of learning contexts affects performance. The implications of the current findings for the role of cross-situational word learning at different points in development are discussed along with the methodological implications of employing school-aged children to test hypotheses regarding the mechanisms supporting early word learning. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

When canary primes yellow: effects of semantic memory on overt attention.

PubMed

Léger, Laure; Chauvet, Elodie

2015-02-01

This study explored how overt attention is influenced by the colour that is primed when a target word is read during a lexical visual search task. Prior studies have shown that attention can be influenced by conceptual or perceptual overlap between a target word and distractor pictures: attention is attracted to pictures that have the same form (rope--snake) or colour (green--frog) as the spoken target word or is drawn to an object from the same category as the spoken target word (trumpet--piano). The hypothesis for this study was that attention should be attracted to words displayed in the colour that is primed by reading a target word (for example, yellow for canary). An experiment was conducted in which participants' eye movements were recorded whilst they completed a lexical visual search task. The primary finding was that participants' eye movements were mainly directed towards words displayed in the colour primed by reading the target word, even though this colour was not relevant to completing the visual search task. This result is discussed in terms of top-down guidance of overt attention in visual search for words.

Locus of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation: Still at the orthographic level!

PubMed

Bonin, Patrick; Laroche, Betty; Perret, Cyril

2016-11-01

The present study was aimed at testing the locus of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation: Are they located at the level of spoken word recognition (Chua & Rickard Liow, 2014) or at the level of the orthographic output lexicon (Delattre, Bonin, & Barry, 2006)? Words that varied on objective word frequency and on phonological neighborhood density were orally presented to adults who had to write them down. Following the additive factors logic (Sternberg, 1969, 2001), if word frequency in spelling to dictation influences a processing level, that is, the orthographic output level, different from that influenced by phonological neighborhood density, that is, spoken word recognition, the impact of the 2 factors should be additive. In contrast, their influence should be overadditive if they act at the same processing level in spelling to dictation, namely the spoken word recognition level. We found that both factors had a reliable influence on the spelling latencies but did not interact. This finding is in line with an orthographic output locus hypothesis of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Temporal lobe networks supporting the comprehension of spoken words.

PubMed

Bonilha, Leonardo; Hillis, Argye E; Hickok, Gregory; den Ouden, Dirk B; Rorden, Chris; Fridriksson, Julius

2017-09-01

Auditory word comprehension is a cognitive process that involves the transformation of auditory signals into abstract concepts. Traditional lesion-based studies of stroke survivors with aphasia have suggested that neocortical regions adjacent to auditory cortex are primarily responsible for word comprehension. However, recent primary progressive aphasia and normal neurophysiological studies have challenged this concept, suggesting that the left temporal pole is crucial for word comprehension. Due to its vasculature, the temporal pole is not commonly completely lesioned in stroke survivors and this heterogeneity may have prevented its identification in lesion-based studies of auditory comprehension. We aimed to resolve this controversy using a combined voxel-based-and structural connectome-lesion symptom mapping approach, since cortical dysfunction after stroke can arise from cortical damage or from white matter disconnection. Magnetic resonance imaging (T1-weighted and diffusion tensor imaging-based structural connectome), auditory word comprehension and object recognition tests were obtained from 67 chronic left hemisphere stroke survivors. We observed that damage to the inferior temporal gyrus, to the fusiform gyrus and to a white matter network including the left posterior temporal region and its connections to the middle temporal gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, and cingulate cortex, was associated with word comprehension difficulties after factoring out object recognition. These results suggest that the posterior lateral and inferior temporal regions are crucial for word comprehension, serving as a hub to integrate auditory and conceptual processing. Early processing linking auditory words to concepts is situated in posterior lateral temporal regions, whereas additional and deeper levels of semantic processing likely require more anterior temporal regions.10.1093/brain/awx169_video1awx169media15555638084001. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Grammatical and Nongrammatical Contributions to Closed-Class Word Selection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alario, F.-Xavier; Ayora, Pauline; Costa, Albert; Melinger, Alissa

2008-01-01

Closed-class word selection was investigated by focusing on determiner production. Native speakers from three different languages named pictures of objects using determiner plus noun phrases (e.g., in French "la table" (the [subscript feminine] table), while ignoring distractor determiners printed on the pictures (e.g., "le"…

Expression of "Kawaii" ("Cute"): Gender Reinforcement of Young Japanese Female School Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko

2012-01-01

This paper examines the Japanese word "kawaii" "cute". Teachers frequently use "kawaii" to show positive feelings toward objects in the classroom. Female children also are primary users of the word, which suggests that they are acquiring "kawaii" as an index of female gender identity. From a linguistic…

Metrical Phonology: German Sound System.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tice, Bradley S.

Metrical phonology, a linguistic process of phonological stress assessment and diagrammatic simplification of sentence and word stress, is discussed as it is found in the English and German languages. The objective is to promote use of metrical phonology as a tool for enhancing instruction in stress patterns in words and sentences, particularly in…

Fast Mapping in Late-Talking Toddlers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weismer, Susan Ellis; Venker, Courtney E.; Evans, Julia L.; Moyle, Maura Jones

2013-01-01

This study investigated fast mapping in late-talking (LT) toddlers and toddlers with normal language (NL) development matched on age, nonverbal cognition, and maternal education. The fast-mapping task included novel object labels and familiar words. The LT group scored significantly lower than the NL group on novel word comprehension and…

Flexibility in Bilingual Infants' Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graf Estes, Katharine; Hay, Jessica F.

2015-01-01

The present experiments tested bilingual infants' developmental narrowing for the interpretation of sounds that form words. These studies addressed how language specialization proceeds when the environment provides varied and divergent input. Experiment 1 (N = 32) demonstrated that bilingual 14- and 19-month-olds learned a pair of object labels…

From Thoughts to Words.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glaus, Marlene

The activities presented in this book, designed to help children translate their thoughts into spoken and written words, can supplement an elementary teacher's own language arts lessons. Objectives for each activity are listed, with the general focus of the many oral activities being to develop a rich verbal background for future written work. The…

Second Label Learning in Bilingual and Monolingual Infants

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kandhadai, Padmapriya; Hall, D. Geoffrey; Werker, Janet F.

2017-01-01

"Mutual exclusivity" is the assumption that each object has only one category label. Prior research suggests that bilingual infants, unlike monolingual infants, fail to adhere to this assumption to guide word learning. Yet previous work has not addressed whether bilingual infants systematically interpret a novel word for a familiar…

Middle School Children's Problem-Solving Behavior: A Cognitive Analysis from a Reading Comprehension Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pape, Stephen J.

2004-01-01

Many children read mathematics word problems and directly translate them to arithmetic operations. More sophisticated problem solvers transform word problems into object-based or mental models. Subsequent solutions are often qualitatively different because these models differentially support cognitive processing. Based on a conception of problem…

Memory bias in health anxiety is related to the emotional valence of health-related words.

PubMed

Ferguson, Eamonn; Moghaddam, Nima G; Bibby, Peter A

2007-03-01

A model based on the associative strength of object evaluations is tested to explain why those who score higher on health anxiety have a better memory for health-related words. Sixty participants observed health and nonhealth words. A recognition memory task followed a free recall task and finally subjects provided evaluations (emotionality, imageability, and frequency) for all the words. Hit rates for health words, d', c, and psychological response times (PRTs) for evaluations were examined using multi-level modelling (MLM) and regression. Health words had a higher hit rate, which was greater for those with higher levels of health anxiety. The higher hit rate for health words is partly mediated by the extent to which health words are evaluated as emotionally unpleasant, and this was stronger for (moderated by) those with higher levels of health anxiety. Consistent with the associative strength model, those with higher levels of health anxiety demonstrated faster PRTs when making emotional evaluations of health words compared to nonhealth words, while those lower in health anxiety were slower to evaluate health words. Emotional evaluations speed the recognition of health words for high health anxious individuals. These findings are discussed with respect to the wider literature on cognitive processes in health anxiety, automatic processing, implicit attitudes, and emotions in decision making.

[Understanding the symbolic values of Japanese onomatopoeia: comparison of Japanese and Chinese speakers].

PubMed

Haryu, Etsuko; Zhao, Lihua

2007-10-01

Do non-native speakers of the Japanese language understand the symbolic values of Japanese onomatopoeia matching a voiced/unvoiced consonant with a big/small sound made by a big/small object? In three experiments, participants who were native speakers of Japanese, Japanese-learning Chinese, or Chinese without knowledge of the Japanese language were shown two pictures. One picture was of a small object making a small sound, such as a small vase being broken, and the other was of a big object making a big sound, such as a big vase being broken. Participants were presented with two novel onomatopoetic words with voicing contrasts, e.g.,/dachan/vs./tachan/, and were told that each word corresponded to one of the two pictures. They were then asked to match the words to the corresponding pictures. Chinese without knowledge of Japanese performed only at chance level, whereas Japanese and Japanese-learning Chinese successfully matched a voiced/unvoiced consonant with a big/small object respectively. The results suggest that the key to understanding the symbolic values of voicing contrasts in Japanese onomatopoeia is some basic knowledge that is intrinsic to the Japanese language.

True Memory, False Memory, and Subjective Recollection Deficits after Focal Parietal Lobe Lesions

PubMed Central

Drowos, David B.; Berryhill, Marian; André, Jessica M.; Olson, Ingrid R.

2010-01-01

Objective There is mounting evidence that the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) plays an important role in episodic memory. We previously found that patients with PPC damage exhibit retrieval-related episodic memory deficits. Our objective was to assess whether parietal lobe damage affects episodic memory on a different task: the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false-memory paradigm. Method Two patients with bilateral PPC damage and matched controls were tested. In Experiment 1, the task was to remember words; in Experiment 2 the task was to remember pictures of common objects. Prior studies have shown that normal participants have high levels of false memory to words, low levels to pictures. Results The patients exhibited significantly lower levels of false memory to words. The patients' false memories were accompanied by reduced levels of recollection, as tested by a Remember/Know procedure. It is unlikely that a failure of gist processing accounts for these results, as patients accurately remembered thematic elements of short vignettes, but failed to remember details. These results support the view that portions of the PPC play a critical role in objective and subjective aspects of recollection. PMID:20604621

PASCO: Structural panel analysis and sizing code: Users manual - Revised

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Anderson, M. S.; Stroud, W. J.; Durling, B. J.; Hennessy, K. W.

1981-01-01

A computer code denoted PASCO is described for analyzing and sizing uniaxially stiffened composite panels. Buckling and vibration analyses are carried out with a linked plate analysis computer code denoted VIPASA, which is included in PASCO. Sizing is based on nonlinear mathematical programming techniques and employs a computer code denoted CONMIN, also included in PASCO. Design requirements considered are initial buckling, material strength, stiffness and vibration frequency. A user's manual for PASCO is presented.

Ballistics Tests of Fibrous Concrete Dome and Plate Specimens

DTIC Science & Technology

1976-04-01

x 0.22 x 1 in. chopped steel fibers from U.S. Steel. KG denotes 1 in. fiberglass fibers from Owens - Corning . Table 3 Dome Test Results Test Fiber...1 in. drawn steel fibers Innii National Standard. FG denotes fiberglass fibers from Owens - Corning . Table 4b 30-Callber Machine Gun Plate Teat...drawn steel fibers from National Standard. FG denotes fiberglass fibers from Owens - Corning . { ♦ Tabk4c 45-Callbcr Pbtol Plate Teat Reantti lypeof

The effect of object processing in content-dependent source memory

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Previous studies have suggested that the study condition of an item influences how the item is encoded. However, it is still unclear whether subsequent source memory effects are dependent upon stimulus content when the item and context are unitized. The present fMRI study investigated the effect of encoding activity sensitive to stimulus content in source memory via unitization. In the scanner, participants were instructed to integrate a study item, an object in either a word or a picture form, with perceptual context into a single image. Results Subsequent source memory effects independent of stimulus content were identified in the left lateral frontal and parietal regions, bilateral fusiform areas, and the left perirhinal cortex extending to the anterior hippocampus. Content-dependent subsequent source memory effects were found only with words in the left medial frontal lobe, the ventral visual stream, and bilateral parahippocampal regions. Further, neural activity for source memory with words extensively overlapped with the region where pictures were preferentially processed than words, including the left mid-occipital cortex and the right parahippocampal cortex. Conclusions These results indicate that words that were accurately remembered with correct contextual information were processed more like pictures mediated by integrated imagery operation, compared to words that were recognized with incorrect context. In contrast, such processing did not discriminate subsequent source memory with pictures. Taken together, these findings suggest that unitization supports source memory for both words and pictures and that the requirement of the study task interacts with the nature of stimulus content in unitized source encoding. PMID:23848969

A neurocomputational account of taxonomic responding and fast mapping in early word learning.

PubMed

Mayor, Julien; Plunkett, Kim

2010-01-01

We present a neurocomputational model with self-organizing maps that accounts for the emergence of taxonomic responding and fast mapping in early word learning, as well as a rapid increase in the rate of acquisition of words observed in late infancy. The quality and efficiency of generalization of word-object associations is directly related to the quality of prelexical, categorical representations in the model. We show how synaptogenesis supports coherent generalization of word-object associations and show that later synaptic pruning minimizes metabolic costs without being detrimental to word learning. The role played by joint-attentional activities is identified in the model, both at the level of selecting efficient cross-modal synapses and at the behavioral level, by accelerating and refining overall vocabulary acquisition. The model can account for the qualitative shift in the way infants use words, from an associative to a referential-like use, for the pattern of overextension errors in production and comprehension observed during early childhood and typicality effects observed in lexical development. Interesting by-products of the model include a potential explanation of the shift from prototype to exemplar-based effects reported for adult category formation, an account of mispronunciation effects in early lexical development, and extendability to include accounts of individual differences in lexical development and specific disorders such as Williams syndrome. The model demonstrates how an established constraint on lexical learning, which has often been regarded as domain-specific, can emerge from domain-general learning principles that are simultaneously biologically, psychologically, and socially plausible.

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.

New Embedded Denotes Fuzzy C-Mean Application for Breast Cancer Density Segmentation in Digital Mammograms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Othman, Khairulnizam; Ahmad, Afandi

2016-11-01

In this research we explore the application of normalize denoted new techniques in advance fast c-mean in to the problem of finding the segment of different breast tissue regions in mammograms. The goal of the segmentation algorithm is to see if new denotes fuzzy c- mean algorithm could separate different densities for the different breast patterns. The new density segmentation is applied with multi-selection of seeds label to provide the hard constraint, whereas the seeds labels are selected based on user defined. New denotes fuzzy c- mean have been explored on images of various imaging modalities but not on huge format digital mammograms just yet. Therefore, this project is mainly focused on using normalize denoted new techniques employed in fuzzy c-mean to perform segmentation to increase visibility of different breast densities in mammography images. Segmentation of the mammogram into different mammographic densities is useful for risk assessment and quantitative evaluation of density changes. Our proposed methodology for the segmentation of mammograms on the basis of their region into different densities based categories has been tested on MIAS database and Trueta Database.

The relevance of netnography to the harness of Romanian health care electronic word-of-mouth.

PubMed

Bratucu, R; Gheorghe, I R; Radu, A; Purcarea, V L

2014-09-15

Nowadays, consumers use the computer mediated communication to make purchase decisions on a large variety of products and services. Since health care services are archetypal by nature, consumers in this field are one of the most encountered users of electronic word-of-mouth. The objective of this paper is to explain and support the necessity of adopting a different qualitative method when electronic word of mouth is harnessed on health care dedicated forums, that is, netnography.

The relevance of netnography to the harness of Romanian health care electronic word-of-mouth

PubMed Central

Bratucu, R; Gheorghe, IR; Radu, A; Purcarea, VL

2014-01-01

Abstract Nowadays, consumers use the computer mediated communication to make purchase decisions on a large variety of products and services. Since health care services are archetypal by nature, consumers in this field are one of the most encountered users of electronic word-of-mouth. The objective of this paper is to explain and support the necessity of adopting a different qualitative method when electronic word of mouth is harnessed on health care dedicated forums, that is, netnography. PMID:25408755

ERP evidence for telicity effects on syntactic processing in garden-path sentences

PubMed Central

Malaia, Evguenia; Wilbur, Ronnie B.; Weber-Fox, Christine

2009-01-01

Verbs contain multifaceted information about both the semantics of an action, and potential argument structures. Linguistic theory classifies verbs according to whether the denoted action has an inherent (telic) end-point (fall, awaken), or whether it is considered homogenous, or atelic (read, worship). The aim of our study was to examine how this distinction influences online sentence processing, investigating the effects of verbal telicity on the ease of syntactic re-analysis of Object reduced relative clauses. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 22 English speakers as they read sentences in which the main verb was either telic or atelic, e.g., “The actress awakened/worshippedby the writer left in a hurry”. ERPs elicited by telic and atelic verbs, the preposition “by” introducing the second argument (Agent), and the second argument itself, e.g., “writer”, were compared. Additionally, participants were grouped according to receptive syntactic proficiency: normal (NP) or high (HP). ERPs from the NP group first diverged at the second argument, with the atelic condition eliciting larger amplitude negativity at the N100, and continuing to the P200 interval. In contrast, ERPs from the HP group first diverged earlier in the sentence, on the word “by”. ERPs elicited by “by” in the atelic condition were also characterized by increased negativity, in this case significant at P200 and Anterior Negativity between 320-500ms post stimulus onset. Our results support the postulated conceptual/semantic distinction underlying the two verb categories, and demonstrate that world-knowledge about actions designated by verbs and syntactic proficiency are reflected in on-line processing of sentence structure. PMID:18945484

3D Geo: An Alternative Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Georgopoulos, A.

2016-10-01

The expression GEO is mostly used to denote relation to the earth. However it should not be confined to what is related to the earth's surface, as other objects also need three dimensional representation and documentation, like cultural heritage objects. They include both tangible and intangible ones. In this paper the 3D data acquisition and 3D modelling of cultural heritage assets are briefly described and their significance is also highlighted. Moreover the organization of such information, related to monuments and artefacts, into relational data bases and its use for various purposes, other than just geometric documentation is also described and presented. In order to help the reader understand the above, several characteristic examples are presented and their methodology explained and their results evaluated.

Evolution of language: An empirical study at eBay Big Data Lab

PubMed Central

Bodoff, David; Dai, Julie

2017-01-01

The evolutionary theory of language predicts that a language will tend towards fewer synonyms for a given object. We subject this and related predictions to empirical tests, using data from the eBay Big Data Lab which let us access all records of the words used by eBay vendors in their item titles, and by consumers in their searches. We find support for the predictions of the evolutionary theory of language. In particular, the mapping from object to words sharpens over time on both sides of the market, i.e. among consumers and among vendors. In addition, the word mappings used on the two sides of the market become more similar over time. Our research contributes to the literature on language evolution by reporting results of a truly unique large-scale empirical study. PMID:29261686

Evolution of language: An empirical study at eBay Big Data Lab.

PubMed

Bodoff, David; Bekkerman, Ron; Dai, Julie

2017-01-01

The evolutionary theory of language predicts that a language will tend towards fewer synonyms for a given object. We subject this and related predictions to empirical tests, using data from the eBay Big Data Lab which let us access all records of the words used by eBay vendors in their item titles, and by consumers in their searches. We find support for the predictions of the evolutionary theory of language. In particular, the mapping from object to words sharpens over time on both sides of the market, i.e. among consumers and among vendors. In addition, the word mappings used on the two sides of the market become more similar over time. Our research contributes to the literature on language evolution by reporting results of a truly unique large-scale empirical study.

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