Stroop interference based on the multimodal correlates of haptic size and auditory pitch

In a preliminary experiment subjects were asked to explore three wooden knobs of different sizes and to rate each one on a series of 7-point scales. The results confirmed that an object may possess a number of multimodal qualities that are contingent on its haptic size. The pattern of intercorrelations between the qualities was consistent with the pattern that is observed when subjects respond to pure auditory tones varying in pitch. For example, small (high-pitched) sounds, like small objects, are judged to be sharp, thin, light, weak, fast, tense, and bright. The main experiments used a paradigm based on the Stroop interference effect. Subjects were required to press one of two keys as quickly as possible depending on which of four possible words appeared in the centre of the screen. A 50 Hz or a 5500 Hz tone accompanied each test word, and subjects responded on two keys that differed in size. Subjects were found to respond more slowly when either the pitch of the incidental sound or the size of the key on which they responded was incongruent with the multimodal features represented by the test word. The results confirm that people are automatically and immediately sensitive to the multimodal features of a stimulus when direct sensory evidence for the features is absent.     

Task choice and semantic interference in picture naming

Evidence from dual-task performance indicates that speakers prefer not to select simultaneous responses in picture naming and another unrelated task, suggesting a response selection bottleneck in naming. In particular, when participants respond to tones with a manual response and name pictures with superimposed semantically related or unrelated distractor words, semantic interference in naming tends to be constant across stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) between the tone stimulus and the picture–word stimulus. In the present study, we examine whether semantic interference in picture naming depends on SOA in case of a task choice (naming the picture vs reading the word of a picture–word stimulus) based on tones. This situation requires concurrent processing of the tone stimulus and the picture–word stimulus, but not a manual response to the tones. On each trial, participants either named a picture or read aloud a word depending on the pitch of a tone, which was presented simultaneously with picture–word onset or 350 ms or 1000 ms before picture–word onset. Semantic interference was present with tone pre-exposure, but absent when tone and picture-word stimulus were presented simultaneously. Against the background of the available studies, these results support an account according to which speakers tend to avoid concurrent response selection, but can engage in other types of concurrent processing, such as task choices.     

汉语双字词超音段信息在语义激活中的作用

采用眼动方法,通过两个实验考察了汉语双字词超音段信息在语义激活中的作用。结果显示：（1）汉语双字词语义激活过程中,分别改变首字声调和尾字声调对语义激活起到抑制作用,首字声调改变时的抑制作用更大。结果支持了Cohort模型。（2）语义相关词的注视点和注视时间远远多于其控制词,但没有发现词频效应。（3）汉语声调的加工过程与声韵母一样,独立作用于语义激活过程。     

Influences of lexical tone and pitch on word recognition in bilingual infants

Infants' abilities to discriminate native and non-native phonemes have been extensively investigated in monolingual learners, demonstrating a transition from language-general to language-specific sensitivities over the first year after birth. However, these studies have mostly been limited to the study of vowels and consonants in monolingual learners. There is relatively little research on other types of phonetic segments, such as lexical tone, even though tone languages are very well represented across languages of the world. The goal of the present study is to investigate how Mandarin Chinese-English bilingual learners contend with non-phonemic pitch variation in English spoken word recognition. This is contrasted with their treatment of phonemic changes in lexical tone in Mandarin spoken word recognition. The experimental design was cross-sectional and three age-groups were sampled (7.5months, 9months and 11months). Results demonstrated limited generalization abilities at 7.5months, where infants only recognized words in English when matched in pitch and words in Mandarin that were matched in tone. At 9months, infants recognized words in Mandarin Chinese that matched in tone, but also falsely recognized words that contrasted in tone. At this age, infants also recognized English words whether they were matched or mismatched in pitch. By 11months, infants correctly recognized pitch-matched and - mismatched words in English but only recognized tonal matches in Mandarin Chinese.     

Iconic gestures prime related concepts: An ERP study

To assess priming by iconic gestures, we recorded EEG (at 29 scalp sites) in two experiments while adults watched short, soundless videos of spontaneously produced, cospeech iconic gestures followed by related or unrelated probe words. In Experiment 1, participants classified the relatedness between gestures and words. In Experiment 2, they attended to stimuli, and performed an incidental recognition memory test on words presented during the EEG recording session. Event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to the onset of probe words were measured, along with response latencies and word recognition rates. Although word relatedness did not affect reaction times or recognition rates, contextually related probe words elicited less-negative ERPs than did unrelated ones between 300 and 500 msec after stimulus onset (N400) in both experiments. These findings demonstrate sensitivity to semantic relations between iconic gestures and words in brain activity engendered during word comprehension.     

Levels of selection and capacity limits

Subjects performed a visual target-detection task in eight experiments. We examined the effects of word relevancy (word in relevant or irrelevant location) and display load (1-4 words) on physical, semantic, and controlled processing of nontargets. Interwoven with the detection task was a test-word identification task that was used to measure priming potency of nontargets. Physical and semantic levels of processing were measured in terms of identity and semantic priming, respectively. Nontarget primes were repeated as test words in identity priming. Nontarget primes were semantic associates of test words in semantic priming. Controlled processing of nontargets was measured in terms of recognition memory on a subsequent test. All measures increased with word relevancy and decreased with display load. The priming effects remained intact even when word presentation was speeded up and controlled processing was sharply curtailed. The data indicate that all levels of processing are selective and capacity limited.     

Pure-tone perception and ear advantages in dichotic listening

A same-different matching task was used to investigate how subjects perceived a dichotic pair of pure tones. Pairs of stimulus tones in four frequency ranges (center frequencies of 400–1,700 Hz), with separations between 40 and 400 Hzt were tested. Five types of test tones were matched to the stimulus pair: the stimulus pair presented again (control) or crossed over (same tones, different ears), the geometric mean of the two tones, or a binaural tone of the low or high tone of the pair. In the lowest frequency range and the highest with maximum separation, the crossed-over test tones were perceived as different from the same stimulus tones. A bias for perceiving the higher tone of a pair was evident in the frequency ranges with separations of 40-200 Hz. In the lowest frequency range, the bias was for perceiving the higher tone in the right ear. This restricted ear advantage in the perception of pure tones was not significantly related to the right-ear advantage in dichotic word monitoring.     

Behavioral and neural analyses of connotative meaning: Word classes and rating scales

Behavioral (semantic differential) and neural (Evoked Potentials, EPs) responses were related to connotative meaning. The approach was based on Osgood's semantic analyses and dimensions of Evaluation (E), Potency (P), and Activity (A). The experimental variables were (1) the semantic class of the stimulus word (E+, E-, P+, P-, A+, A-) and (2) the dimension of the semantic scale (E, P, A) which the subject used to rate the stimulus words. These variables were experimentally combined such that on each trial the subject used a designated semantic scale to judge a specified stimulus word while brain activity was recorded. Using multivariate analyses, the effects on the EPs of stimulus word class, scale dimension, and their interaction were analyzed. The EP effects of stimulus word class were similar whether the subjects were merely saying the words or rating the words on a variety of semantic scales. Different EPs were found for six word classes, three semantic scale dimensions, and the 18 groups formed by their combination. The success rates in EP identification of (1) word class and (2) scale dimension did not depend on whether these two kinds of semantic variables involved the same or different semantic dimensions. The two kinds of semantic effects in EPs were largely independent. The behavioral data supported Osgood's results and showed that our subjects were appropriately processing the semantic information. The common analyses of data from all subjects suggest the universality of the connotative EP effects across individuals. This parallels, at the neural level, the universality of the connotative dimensions found at the behavioral level by semantic differential ratings. The EP effects imply that the neural representation of meaning is similar in different individuals.     

Eliciting false memories on implicit and explicit memory tests after incidental learning

Abstract: In a false memory experiment, lists of semantic associates (e.g., newspaper, letter, book, etc.) were presented to three groups of participants to induce false memories for critical nonpresented (CN) words (e.g., read) in an incidental learning task. The control group simply estimated the frequency rate in everyday Japanese discourse of each word on a list. The imagery instruction group received an additional instruction to imagine a thematically related converging word from the target words on a list. Participants in the imagery plus writing group received the same instructions as those in the imagery instruction group, but were also required to write down the word they imagined for each list. The results from the implicit and explicit memory tests given after the incidental learning episode showed that the level of priming for CN words was equivalent to that for actually presented target words for all three groups on the implicit test, whereas explicit memory results showed that participants explicitly recognized more target words than CN words. The implications for implicit associative response and fuzzy‐trace theories of false memory, as well as implicit priming, are discussed.     

Semantic meaning and associative responding

Abstract.— The hypothesis tested was that the search for a response word in a single word, free association situation proceeds in the direction of decreasing semantic similarity between the stimulus and response words. Semantic features were assigned to the 50 first Kent-Rosanoff words and each of the three most frequent response words to each stimulus word, obtained in a single word, free association situation (N =176). An index for the number of semantic features shared by the stimulus and response words was found to decrease with increasing response latency, thus confirming the hypothesis. The findings further supports the assumption that semantic meanings of stimulus and response words are determinants of free. associative responding.     

Semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not vary with reading ability

Previous dual-task studies examining the locus of semantic interference of distractor words in picture naming have obtained diverging results. In these studies, participants manually responded to tones and named pictures while ignoring distractor words (picture–word interference, PWI) with varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between tone and PWI stimulus. Whereas some studies observed no semantic interference at short SOAs, other studies observed effects of similar magnitude at short and long SOAs. The absence of semantic interference in some studies may perhaps be due to better reading skill of participants in these than in the other studies. According to such a reading-ability account, participants’ reading skill should be predictive of the magnitude of their interference effect at short SOAs. To test this account, we conducted a dual-task study with tone discrimination and PWI tasks and measured participants’ reading ability. The semantic interference effect was of similar magnitude at both short and long SOAs. Participants’ reading ability was predictive of their naming speed but not of their semantic interference effect, contrary to the reading ability account. We conclude that the magnitude of semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not depend on reading skill.     

Specifying levels of processing

This study examines the nature of stimulus processing under semantic and nonsemantic orienting instructions. Two experiments are reported in which subjects were presented with a series of trials each beginning with the presentation of a “decision word” about which they made either a semantic or non-semantic orienting decision. This decision was followed by a word in coloured ink whose colour subjects were required to name as quickly as possible. On half the trails the coloured word was the primary associate of the decision word whilst on the other half the two words were normatively unrelated. On completion of the experiments the subjects were given an unexpected free recall test. The semantic orienting condition led to longer colour naming latencies on associate trials whilst no such difference was found in the non-semantic condition. The semantic condition also produced higher levels of incidental recall although paradoxically an analysis of associative clustering in recall failed to show any difference between the two orienting conditions. The results are interpreted as support for the “Levels of Processing” approach to memory since they provide an index of processing depth which is independent of retention performance.     

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

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

The effect of age of acquisition in visual word processing: further evidence for the semantic hypothesis

The authors investigated whether the meaning of visually presented words is activated faster for early-acquired words than for late-acquired words. They addressed the issue using the semantic Simon paradigm. In this paradigm, participants are instructed to decide whether a stimulus word is printed in uppercase or lowercase letters. However, they have to respond with a verbal label ("living" or "nonliving") that is either congruent with the meaning of the word (e.g., saying "living" to the stimulus DOG) or incongruent (e.g., saying "nonliving" to the stimulus dog). Results showed a significant congruency effect that was stronger for early-acquired words than for late-acquired words. The authors conclude that the age of acquisition is an important variable in the activation of the meaning of visually presented words.     

Spatial Orienting Controlled without Awareness: A Semantically Based Implicit Learning Effect

Three experiments tested whether spatial attention can be influenced by a predictive relation between incidental information and the location of target events. Subjects performed a simple dot detection task; 600 msec prior to each target a word was presented briefly 5 to the left or right of fixation. There was a predictive relationship between the semantic category (living or non-living) of the words and target location. However, subjects were instructed to ignore the words, and a post-experiment questionnaire confirmed that they remained unaware of the word-target relationship. In all three experiments, given some practice on the task, response times were faster when targets appeared at likely ( p = 0.8), compared to unlikely ( p = 0.2) locations, in relation to lateral word category. Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed that this effect was driven by semantic encoding of the irrelevant words, and not by repetition of individual stimuli. Theoretical implications of this finding are discussed.     

Loose but normal: a semantic association study

An abnormal facilitation of the spreading activation within semantic networks is thought to under-lie schizophrenics' remote associations and referential ideas. In normal subjects, elevated magical ideation (MI) has also been associated with a style of thinking similar to that of schizotypal subjects. We thus wondered whether normal subjects with a higher MI score would judge "loose associations" as being more closely related than do subjects with a lower MI score. In two experiments, we investigated whether judgments of the semantic distance between stimulus words varied as a function of MI. In the first experiment, random word pairs of two word classes, animals and fruits, were presented. Subjects had to judge the semantic distance between word pairs. In the second experiment, sets of three words were presented, consisting of a pair of indirectly related, or unrelated nouns plus a third noun. Subjects had to judge the semantic distance of the third noun to the word pair The results of both experiments showed that higher MI subjects considered unrelated words as more closely associated than did lower MI subjects. We conjecture that for normal subjects high on MI "loose associations" may not be loose after all. We also note that the tendency to link uncommon, nonobvious, percepts may not only be the basis of paranormal and paranoid ideas of reference, but also a prerequisite of creative thinking.     

Effects of relation similarity on part-whole decisions

Subjects were presented with word pairs (e.g., bed-mattress) and timed as they decided whether one word named part of the item named by the other word. Yes responses were facilitated, and no responses were impeded, by relation similarity (i.e., the similarity of the relation between the two stimulus items to the part-whole relation). Item similarity, the similarity of the two stimulus items to each other, had no effect. The results support the view that similarity effects in semantic decision tasks are due to the comparison of elements of the relation between the two stimulus words against relation elements that serve as criteria for the target relation that the subject has been asked to identify.     

False recognition without intentional learning

Asked to memorize a list of semantically related words, participants often falsely recall or recognize a highly related semantic associate that has not been presented (the critical lure). Does this false memory phenomenon depend on intentional word reading and learning? In Experiment 1, participants performed a color identification task on distractor words from typical false memory lists. In Experiment 2, participants read the same words. In both experiments, the primary task was followed by a surprise recognition test for actually presented and unpresented words, including the critical lures. False alarms to critical lures were robust and quite equivalent across the two experiments. These results are consistent with an activation/monitoring account of false memory, in which processing of semantic associates can evoke false memories even when that processing is incidental.     

Partial awareness creates the "illusion" of subliminal semantic priming

We argue that the lack of consensus regarding the existence of subliminal semantic processing arises from not taking into account the fact that linguistic stimuli are represented across several processing levels (features, letters, word form) that can independently reach or not reach awareness. Using masked words, we constructed conditions in which participants were aware of some letters or fragments of a word, while remaining unaware of the whole word. Three experiments using the Stroop priming paradigm show that when the stimulus set is reduced and participants are encouraged to guess the identity of the prime, such partially perceived stimuli can nonetheless give rise to "semantic" processing. We provide evidence that this effect is due to illusory reconstruction of the incompletely perceived stimulus, followed by usual semantic processing of the result. We conclude that previously reported unconscious Stroop priming is in fact a conscious effect, but applied to a perceptual illusion.     

Presentation format effects in a levels-of-processing task

Three experiments were conducted to examine better performance in long-term memory when stimulus items are pictures or spoken words compared to printed words. Hypotheses regarding the allocation of attention to printed words, the semantic link between pictures and processing, and a rich long-term representation for pictures were tested. Using levels-of-processing tasks eliminated format effects when no memory test was expected and processing was deep (El), and when study and test formats did not match (E3). Pictures produced superior performance when a memory test was expected (El & 2) and when study and test formats were the same (E3). Results of all experiments support the attenuation of attention model and that picture superiority is due to a more direct access to semantic processing and a richer visual code. General principles to guide the processing of stimulus information are discussed.