A unilateral field advantage for detecting repeated elements

Previous studies have shown that letter repetitions are detected more rapidly when presented bilaterally (one letter in each visual field) than when presented unilaterally (both in the same field) when subjects have to report matches independently of case or font (e.g., Aa). This pattern of results is referred to as a bilateral field advantage. Here, we present evidence of an opposite pattern of results for detecting repeated items when they are physically identical. In our repetition detection paradigm, subjects indicated whether there was a repetition of any two of four presented items, one in each quadrant of the visual field. Stimulus classes tested included letters, color, size, orientation, and motion paths. The subjects were significantly faster at detecting unilateral versus bilateral repetitions for four out of the five stimuli classes tested, with a trend in the same direction for the fifth. This unilateral field advantage suggests that low-level processes group physically identical items more efficiently within hemifields than across.     

The bank of standardized stimuli (BOSS): comparison between French and English norms

Throughout the last decades, numerous picture data sets have been developed, such as the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) set, and have been normalized for variables such as name and familiarity; however, due to cultural and linguistic differences, norms can vary from one country to another. The effect due specifically to culture has already been demonstrated by comparing samples from different countries where the same language is spoken. On the other hand, it is still not clear how differences between languages may affect norms. The present study explores this issue by collecting and comparing norms on names and many other features from French Canadian speakers and English Canadian speakers living in Montreal, who thus live in similar cultural environments. Norms were collected for the photos of objects from the Bank of Standardized Stimuli (BOSS) by asking participants to name the objects, to categorize them, and to rate their familiarity, visual complexity, object agreement, viewpoint agreement, and manipulability. Names and ratings from the French speakers are available in Appendix A, available in the supplemental materials. The results show that most of the norms are comparable across linguistic groups and also that the ratings given are correlated across linguistic groups. The only significant group differences were found in viewpoint agreement and visual complexity. Overall, there was good concordance between the norms collected from French and English native speakers living in the same cultural setting.     

Do Nonnative Language Speakers Chew the Fat and Spill the Beans with Different Brain Hemispheres? Investigating Idiom Decomposability with the Divided Visual Field Paradigm

The purpose of this study was to explore possible cerebral asymmetries in the processing of decomposable and nondecomposable idioms by fluent nonnative speakers of English. In the study, native language (Polish) and foreign language (English) decomposable and nondecomposable idioms were embedded in ambiguous (neutral) and unambiguous (biasing figurative meaning) context and presented centrally, followed by laterally presented target words related to the figurative meaning of the idiom or literal meaning of the last word of the idiom. The target appeared either immediately at sentence offset (Experiment 1), or 400 ms (Experiment 2) after sentence offset. Results are inconsistent with the Idiom Decomposition Hypothesis (Gibbs et al. in Mem Cogn 17:58–68, 1989a; J Mem Lang 28:576–593, 1989b) and only partially consistent with the idea of the differential cerebral involvement in processing (non)decomposable idioms [the Fine/Coarse Coding Theory, Beeman (Right hemisphere language comprehension: perspectives from cognitive neuroscience, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 1998)]. A number of factors, rather than compositionality per se, emerge as crucial in determining idiom processing, such as language status (native vs. nonnative), salience, or context.     

Accessing word meaning in two languages: an event-related brain potential study of beginning bilinguals

Twenty-eight native-English speakers enrolled in beginning and intermediate university Spanish courses participated in a mixed language semantic categorization task in which critical words were presented in English (L1) and Spanish (L2) and repetitions of these words (within- and between-languages) were presented on subsequent trials (i.e., immediate repetition). Event-related potentials were recorded to all items allowing for comparisons of the N400 component to repetitions within- and between-languages as well as to words presented for the first time. Three important findings were observed in this sample of participants during relatively early stages of acquiring a second language. First, in the typical N400 window (300-500ms), between-language repetition (translation) produced a smaller reduction in N400 amplitude than did within-language repetition. Second, the time-course of between-language repetition effects tended to be more extended in time and differed as a function of language with L2-L1 repetitions producing larger priming effects early (during the typical N400 window) and L1-L2 repetitions producing larger priming effects later (during windows after the typical N400). Third, a greater negativity in the ERP waveforms was observed when the word on the directly preceding trial was from the other language. Within the time frame of the N400, this language switch effect arose only when the target word was Spanish and the preceding word English (i.e., L1-L2). The results are discussed within the framework of current models of bilingual lexical processing.     

Predictors of timed picture naming in Persian

In this study, we report normative data by native Persian speakers for concept familiarity, age of acquisition (AoA), imageability, image agreement, name agreement, and visual complexity, as well as values for word frequency, word length, and naming latency for 200 of the colored Snodgrass and Vanderwart (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 6:174-215, 1980) pictures created by Rossion and Pourtois (Perception 33:217-236, 2004). Using multiple regression analysis, we found independent effects of name agreement, image agreement, word frequency, and AoA on picture naming by native Persian speakers from Iran. We concluded that the psycholinguistic properties identified in studies of picture naming in many other languages also predict timed picture naming in Persian. Normative data for the ratings and picture-naming latencies for the 200 Persian object nouns are provided as an Excel file in the Supplemental materials.     

The unilateral field advantage in repetition detection: Effects of perceptual grouping and task demands

This study examines interhemispheric interactions in detecting objects that are simultaneously repeated in an array of objects. Previous studies have shown that presenting two identical objects to a single hemifield speeds up repetition detection. This unilateral field advantage (UFA) is often attributed to the relatively low-level processing demands for detecting a perceptual repetition, and more specifically, to more efficient perceptual grouping processes within a hemisphere than between hemispheres. To directly examine the impact of perceptual grouping and task demands on interhemispheric interactions, we asked participants to judge whether four items, one presented in each visual quadrant, were all different, or whether any two were the same, along an instructed dimension. We found that in comparison with the UFA for identical objects, the UFA for repetition detection in accuracy was similar or greater when the matching objects were not perceptually identical and differed in color, size, or viewpoint. Thus, decreasing grouping strength and increasing computational complexity did not reduce the UFA. Results are interpreted in terms of the callosal degradation account of the UFA.     

The hot-hand fallacy in cognitive control: Repetition expectancy modulates the congruency sequence effect

In this study, the role of expectancies in cognitive control was tested. On the basis of the original interpretation of the congruency sequence effect (Gratton, Coles, & Donchin, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 121:480–506, 1992), we sought evidence for a repetition bias steering attentional control. In a series of four Stroop experiments, we investigated how participants’ explicit predictions about the upcoming (in)congruency proactively influenced subsequent Stroop performance. Similar to the fallacious “hot-hand” belief in gambling, repeating stimulus events were overpredicted, as participants consistently expected more repetitions of the congruency level than the actual presented number of congruency-level repetitions (50 %). Moreover, behavioral adjustments (i.e., a congruency sequence effect) were only found when participants anticipated a congruency-level repetition, whereas no modulation of the Stroop effect was found following alternation predictions. We propose that proactive control processes in general, and repetition expectancy in particular, should be given more attention in current theorizing and modeling of cognitive control, which is characterized by an emphasis on reactive, conflict-induced control adjustments.     

Quantitative and Qualitative Hemispheric Asymmetry for Processing Japanese Kana

Native Japanese speakers identified three-letter kana stimuli presented to the left visual field and right hemisphere (LVF/RH), to the right visual field and left hemisphere (RVF/LH), or to both visual fields and hemispheres simultaneously (BILATERAL trials). There were fewer errors on RVF/LH and BILATERAL trials than on LVF/RH trials. Qualitative analysis of error patterns indicated that there were many fewer errors of first-letter identification than of last-letter identification, suggesting top-to-bottom scanning of the kana characters. In contrast to similar studies presenting nonword letter trigrams to native English speakers, qualitative error patterns were identical for the three visual field conditions. Taken together with the results of earlier studies, the results of the present experiment indicate that the ubiquitous RVF/LH advantage reflects a left-hemisphere superiority for phonetic processing that generalizes across specific languages. At the same time, qualitative aspects of hemispheric asymmetry differ from one language to the next and may depend on such things as the way in which individual characters map onto the pronunciation of words and nonwords.     

低频汉字词语的反知觉干扰效应

为了考察记忆的知觉干扰效应机制,实验采用“学习-测验”范式,探索了在不同程度视觉干扰条件下,再认测验里低频汉字及双字词的记忆成绩。结果发现：（1）在对低频汉字的记忆中,知觉干扰条件引起了“反知觉干扰效应”,知觉干扰条件削弱了对汉字的记忆;（2）低频双字词不存在记忆的“反知觉干扰效应”。结果可以解释为,记忆的知觉干扰效应反映语音加工优势。     

Affective norms for 210 British English and Finnish nouns

This article presents affective ratings for 210 British English and Finnish nouns, including taboo words. The norms were collected with 135 native British English and 304 native Finnish speakers, who rated the words according to their emotional valence, emotional charge, offensiveness, concreteness, and familiarity. The ratings between the two languages were found to be strongly correlated. The present ratings were also strongly correlated with the American English emotional valence and arousal ratings available in the Affective Norms for English Words database (Bradley & Lang, 1999) and the Janschewitz (2008) database for taboo words. These ratings will help researchers to select stimulus materials for a wide range of experiments involving both monolingual and bilingual processing of British English and Finnish emotional words. Materials associated with this article may be accessed as an online supplement from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Predicting naming latencies for action pictures: Dutch norms

The present study provides Dutch norms for age of acquisition, familiarity, imageability, image agreement, visual complexity, word frequency, and word length (in syllables) for 124 line drawings of actions. Ratings were obtained from 117 Dutch participants. Word frequency was determined on the basis of the SUBTLEX-NL corpus (Keuleers, Brysbaert, & New, Behavior Research Methods, 42, 643–650, 2010). For 104 of the pictures, naming latencies and name agreement were determined in a separate naming experiment with 74 native speakers of Dutch. The Dutch norms closely corresponded to the norms for British English. Multiple regression analysis showed that age of acquisition, imageability, image agreement, visual complexity, and name agreement were significant predictors of naming latencies, whereas word frequency and word length were not. Combined with the results of a principal-component analysis, these findings suggest that variables influencing the processes of conceptual preparation and lexical selection affect latencies more strongly than do variables influencing word-form encoding.     

Abstraction and the (Misnamed) Language Familiarity Effect

Talkers are recognized more accurately if they are speaking the listeners’ native language rather than an unfamiliar language. This “language familiarity effect” has been shown not to depend upon comprehension and must instead involve language sound patterns. We further examine the level of sound‐pattern processing involved, by comparing talker recognition in foreign languages versus two varieties of English, by (a) English speakers of one variety, (b) English speakers of the other variety, and (c) non‐native listeners (more familiar with one of the varieties). All listener groups performed better with native than foreign speech, but no effect of language variety appeared: Native listeners discriminated talkers equally well in each, with the native variety never outdoing the other variety, and non‐native listeners discriminated talkers equally poorly in each, irrespective of the variety's familiarity. The results suggest that this talker recognition effect rests not on simple familiarity, but on an abstract level of phonological processing.     

The consequences of language proficiency and difficulty of lexical access for translation performance and priming

Repetition priming was used to assess how proficiency and the ease or difficulty of lexical access influence bilingual translation. Two experiments, conducted at different universities with different Spanish–English bilingual populations and materials, showed repetition priming in word translation for same-direction and different-direction repetitions. Experiment 1, conducted in an English-dominant environment, revealed an effect of translation direction but not of direction match, whereas Experiment 2, conducted in a more balanced bilingual environment, showed an effect of direction match but not of translation direction. A combined analysis on the items common to both studies revealed that bilingual proficiency was negatively associated with response time (RT), priming, and the degree of translation asymmetry in RTs and priming. An item analysis showed that item difficulty was positively associated with RTs, priming, and the benefit of same-direction over different-direction repetition. Thus, although both participant accuracy and item accuracy are indices of learning, they have distinct effects on translation RTs and on the learning that is captured by the repetition-priming paradigm.     

The speed of recognition of personally familiar faces

Despite the generally accepted notion that humans are very good and fast at recognising familiar individuals from their faces, the actual speed with which this fundamental brain function can be achieved remains largely unknown. Here, two groups of participants were required to respond by finger-lift when presented with either a photograph of a personally familiar face (classmate), or an unfamiliar one. This speeded manual go/no-go categorisation task revealed that personally familiar faces could be categorised as early as 380 ms after presentation, about 80 ms faster than unfamiliar faces. When response times were averaged across all 8 stimulus presentations, we found that minimum RTs for both familiar and unfamiliar face decisions were substantially lower (310 ms and 370 ms). Analyses confirmed that stimulus repetition enhanced the speed with which faces were categorised, irrespective of familiarity, and that repetition did not affect the observed benefit in RTS for familiar over unfamiliar faces. These data, representing the elapsed time from stimulus onset to motor output, put constraints on the time course of familiar face recognition in the human brain, which can be tracked more precisely by high temporal resolution electrophysiological measures.     

Cross-Language Perception of Cantonese Vowels Spoken by Native and Non-native Speakers

This study examined the effect of native language background on listeners’ perception of native and non-native vowels spoken by native (Hong Kong Cantonese) and non-native (Mandarin and Australian English) speakers. They completed discrimination and an identification task with and without visual cues in clear and noisy conditions. Results indicated that visual cues did not facilitate perception, and performance was better in clear than in noisy conditions. More importantly, the Cantonese talker’s vowels were the easiest to discriminate, and the Mandarin talker’s vowels were as intelligible as the native talkers’ speech. These results supported the interlanguage speech native intelligibility benefit patterns proposed by Hayes-Harb et al. (J Phonetics 36:664–679, 2008). The Mandarin and English listeners’ identification patterns were similar to those of the Cantonese listeners, suggesting that they might have assimilated Cantonese vowels to their closest native vowels. In addition, listeners’ perceptual patterns were consistent with the principles of Best’s Perceptual Assimilation Model (Best in Speech perception and linguistic experience: issues in cross-language research. York Press, Timonium, 1995).     

Asymmetry of automatic change detection shown by the visual mismatch negativity: An additional feature is identified faster than missing features

In two experiments, we demonstrated that an asymmetric effect of the brain electric activity that is elicited by nonattended visual stimuli is similar to the one found in responses observed in the performance of visual search tasks. The automatic detection of violated sequential regularities was investigated by measuring the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). In Experiment 1, within a sequence of stimulus displays with O characters, infrequently presented Q characters elicited an earlier vMMN than did infrequent O characters within a sequence of Q characters. In Experiment 2, similar asymmetric results emerged if only 16 % of the characters were different within an infrequent display. In both experiments, these stimuli were irrelevant; during the stimulus sequences, participants performed a demanding videogame. We suggest that the underlying match/mismatch and decision processes are similar in the vMMN and in the attention-related visual search paradigm, at least in the case of the stimuli in the present experiments.     

Reading performance in middle-aged adults with declines in accommodation

The present study investigated the effects of presbyopia on the reading ability of middle-aged adults in a Japanese reading context, using the rapid serial visual presentation paradigm. Japanese words, each consisting of three characters, were sequentially presented at the same location on a display screen. Participants were instructed to read the words aloud as accurately as possible, irrespective of their order within the sequence. Experiment 1 showed that the reading performance for the presbyopes was far worse for the near-viewing (35?cm) than for the far-viewing (70?cm) conditions when the words were presented at 0.4° in character size. Experiment 2 investigated in detail the effect of luminance contrast on reading at a viewing distance of 35?cm. The minimums of the exposure durations within which the participants could read the words above 89.9?% correct (minimum exposure duration) were 498?ms/word for the presbyopes and 134?ms/word for the nonpresbyopes, both of which values were obtained at 100?% contrast. The critical contrast??that is, the contrast that doubled the minimum exposure duration that had been obtained at 100?% contrast??was considerably higher for the presbyopes (39.2?%) than for the nonpresbyopes (16.4?%). However, the reading performance for the presbyopes was improved more than threefold when the contrast was increased to 100?% in both experiments. Thus, our results provide psychophysical evidence for the dependency of presbyopes?? reading on viewing distance and luminance contrast.     

Semantic memory: A feature-based analysis and new norms for Italian

Semantic norms for properties produced by native speakers are valuable tools for researchers interested in the structure of semantic memory and in category-specific semantic deficits in individuals following brain damage. The aims of this study were threefold. First, we sought to extend existing semantic norms by adopting an empirical approach to category (Exp. 1) and concept (Exp. 2) selection, in order to obtain a more representative set of semantic memory features. Second, we extensively outlined a new set of semantic production norms collected from Italian native speakers for 120 artifactual and natural basic-level concepts, using numerous measures and statistics following a feature-listing task (Exp. 3b). Finally, we aimed to create a new publicly accessible database, since only a few existing databases are publicly available online.