Exploring the time course of semantic interference and associative priming in the picture-word interference task

The picture-word interference (PWI) task is a widely used technique for exploring effects of semantic context on lexical access. In this task, printed words are superimposed over pictures to be named, with the timing of the interfering word relative to the picture systematically manipulated. Two experiments (N = 24 adults in each) explored the time course of effects of associates (e.g., CARROT superimposed on a picture of a rabbit) versus coordinates (e.g., CHIPMUNK superimposed on a picture of a rabbit) on naming latencies. Associates led to faster picture naming than did unrelated words, with facilitative effects occurring at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs, in ms) ranging from -450 to 0. Coordinates led to slower naming latencies, with the interference effect restricted to SOAs of -150 and 0. The overlapping time course of associative priming and coordinate interference provides important constraints on models of lexical access in speech production.     

Age differences in self-reported anxiety and psychomotor performance

10 young and 10 older adults completed a self-report questionnaire on Debilitative and Facilitative Anxiety both prior to and following 10 psychomotor coding trials. Older adults were higher on Facilitative Anxiety at both times. These scores were negatively correlated with coding task performance for the total group but not for the individual age groups. There was no age effect for Debilitative Anxiety, although it was lower at Time 2, particularly for older adults. Debilitative Anxiety was not correlated with psychomotor performance. These results do not support the hypothesis that the psychomotor performance of older adults is differentially negatively affected by anxiety.     

Cues trained apart compete for behavioral control in rats: convergence with the associative interference literature

Contemporary theories of associative learning require cues be trained in compound for cue competition (interference) to occur. That is, Cues A and X should compete for behavioral control only if training consists of AX-outcome (O) trials and not if each cue is separately paired with O (i.e., X-O and A-O). Research with humans challenges this view by showing that A-O trials interpolated between training and testing of a X-O association impair responding to X (i.e., retroactive interference). In six conditioned suppression studies with rats, the authors demonstrate that two cues trained apart can each interfere with the potential of the other to predict the outcome. The authors conclude that this type of interference (a) reflects a failure to retrieve the target association due to priming at test of the interfering association and (b) is attenuated if the outcome is of high biological significance. These findings parallel previous reports in verbal learning research and suggest that a similar associative structure underlies some types of associations in nonverbal subjects.     

Proactive interference and concurrent inhibitory processes do not differentially affect item and associative recognition: Implication for the age-related associative memory deficit

Previous studies have suggested an associative deficit hypothesis [Naveh-Benjamin, M. (2000 Naveh-Benjamin, M., &; Guez, J. (2000). The effects of divided attention on encoding and retrieval processes: Assessment of attentional costs and a componential analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26(6), 1461–1482.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Adult age differences in memory performance: Tests of an associative deficit hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 1170–1187] to explain age-related episodic memory declines. The hypothesis attributes part of the deficient episodic memory performance in older adults to a difficulty in creating and retrieving cohesive episodes. In this article, we further evaluate this hypothesis by testing two alternative processes that potentially mediate associative memory deficits in older adults. Four experiments are presented that assess whether failure of inhibitory processes (proactive interference in Experiments 1 and 2), and concurrent inhibition (in Experiments 3 and 4) are mediating factors in age-related associative deficits. The results suggest that creating conditions that require the operation of inhibitory processes, or that interfere with such processes, cannot simulate associative memory deficit in older adults. Instead, such results support the idea that associative memory deficits reflect a unique binding failure in older adults. This failure seems to be independent of other cognitive processes, including inhibitory and other resource-demanding processes.     

Validation of two devices for evaluation of human psychomotor performance

The Pursuit Meter III (PM III) and the Simultaneous Hand and Foot Tracking (SHAFT) task are microcomputer-based devices for the evaluation of human psychomotor performance. Both devices are pursuit-tracking tasks. The primary task (PM III) requires a subject superimpose a line over a computer-generated sine wave. The computer wave is black and the subject's wave is red. The vertical position of the subject's wave is determined by a joystick controller. The SHAFT adds a second simultaneous tracking task (FTT) that is operated by means of a foot control. Ten naive subjects performed either device for 5 sessions/day over a three-day period. Each session consisted of 5 sweeps of the sine wave pattern. Mean performance on both tasks generally improved over the assessment period, and differential stability was reached within 10 sweeps for each device.     

Drug-preexposure effects in flavor-aversion learning: associative interference by conditioned environmental stimuli

Previous research has documented that exposure to a drug reduces the ability of the drug to support subsequent flavor-aversion learning. The four experiments reported here examined the hypothesis that this drug-preexposure effect is due to associative interference from environmental stimuli associated with the drug effects during preexposure. When distinctive environmental stimuli (confinement in a black compartment) were present during drug preexposure, these stimuli significantly disrupted subsequent flavor-aversion learning. Furthermore, flavor conditioning was not significantly disrupted when drug preexposure occurred in the absence of salient environmental stimuli or when the previously conditioned environmental stimuli were extinguished prior to flavor conditioning. It is significant, and in contrast to other published research, that flavor conditioning was not disrupted when the distinctive cues paired with the drug during preexposure were absent at the time of the flavor-drug pairing. These results are thus consistent with results from conventional studies of stimulus blocking and suggest that associative processes can play a major role in the drug-preexposure effect.     

Diurnal time courses in psychomotor performance and waking EEG frequencies

The present study examined the similarities between the diurnal time courses in the waking EEG activity and the psychomotor performance. The aim was to verify if some ongoing changes in the excitability of the cortical nerve cells across the daytime could facilitate the sensorimotor processing. EEG recordings and performance results for the Four Choice Reaction Time Test (FCRTT) were obtained every two hours, from morning to late evening period, in 8 young normal subjects (21.3 +/- 0.5 years). ANOVAs were used to verify the presence of diurnal variations in the two measures. Nonparametric correlations were obtained to test the similarity between the changes across the day in the two measures. Three EEG frequency bands (delta, sigma, and beta1) and the reaction time measures varied across the daytime. The changes in the sigma (12.00-13.75 Hz) and the beta1 (14.00-19.75 Hz) bands were similar to the diurnal variations in the reaction time measures. It is suggested that the changes in the sigma and the beta1 bands may facilitate the processing of the sensorimotor treatment.     

Semantic interference and associative facilitation from words presented in rapid serial visual presentation

Semantic interference in picture naming is readily obtained when categorically related distractor words are displayed with picture targets; however, this is not typically the case when both primes and targets are words. Researchers have argued that to obtain semantic interference for word primes and targets, the prime must be shown for a sufficient duration, prime processing must be made difficult, and participants must attend to the primes. In this article, we used a novel procedure for prime presentation to investigate semantic interference in word naming. Primes were presented as the last word of a rapid serial visual presentation stream, with the target following 600-1,200 msec later. Semantic interference was observed for categorically related targets, whereas facilitation was found for associatively related targets.