On the Functional Equivalence of Monolinguals and Bilinguals in "Monolingual Mode": The Bilingual Anticipation Effect in Picture-Word Processing

Previous evidence indicates that bilinguals are slowed when an unexpected language switch occurs when they are reading aloud. This anticipation effect was investigated using a picture-word translation task to compare English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals functioning in "monolingual mode." Monolinguals and half of the bilinguals drew pictures or wrote English words for picture or English word stimuli; the remaining bilinguals drew pictures or wrote Spanish words for picture or Spanish word stimuli. Production onset latency was longer in cross-modality translation than within-modality copying, and the increments were equivalent between groups across stimulus and production modalities. Assessed within participants, bilinguals were slower than monolinguals under intermixed but not under blocked trial conditions. Results indicate that the bilingual anticipation effect is not specific to language-mixing tasks. More generally, stimulus-processing uncertainty prevents establishment of a "base" symbolic-system procedure (concerning recognition, production, and intervening translation) and the inhibition of others. When this uncertainty is removed, bilinguals exhibit functional equivalence to monolinguals.     

A tachistoscopic study of hemispheric processing in stuttering and nonstuttering children

Hemispheric processing, expressed as mean reaction time to various visual stimuli presented to the left and right visual fields, was investigated in eighteen stuttering and nonstuttering children. Tachistoscopic procedures were used to present linguistic stimuli (words and nonwords) as well as nonlinguistic stimuli (familiar and unfamiliar geometric figures) to the visual fields. Subjects responded by pressing a telegraph key when they perceived a real word or a familiar geometric figure. They were to make no response when they perceived nonwords or unfamiliar geometric figures. Faster reaction times were taken as an index of the most efficient or dominant hemisphere for a given task. No significant differences were found in mean reaction times for groups, visual fields, type of task, nor any of their interactions. Likewise, the data on accuracy also did not suggest that a larger proportion of stutters responded more accurately when linguistic stimuli were presented to the right hemisphere. Based on mean reaction times and on accuracy data, the stuttering and nonstuttering children performed with similar efficiencies and processing patterns.     

Associative priming in color naming: interference and facilitation

In Experiment 1, color-naming interference for target stimuli following associated primes was greater in a group making a lexical decision to the prime than in a group reading the prime silently. High-frequency targets were responded to more quickly than low-frequency targets. In Experiment 2, with subjects naming the prime, there was evidence of associative interference when the prime and the target were grouped temporally but not when the intertrial interval was comparable with the prime-target interval. Associative primes presented at a short (120-msec) prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony facilitated color naming in Experiment 3. Taken together, the results suggest that the effect of faster processing of the base word in a color-naming task is facilitatory and that color-naming priming interference arises when associative prime processing increases conflict between word and color responses by enhancing phonological or articulatory activation of the base word.     

Lateralization of lexical codes in auditory word recognition

Three experiments examined the lateralization of lexical codes in auditory word recognition. In Experiment 1 a word rhyming with a binaurally presented cue word was detected faster when the cue and target were spelled similarly than when they were spelled differently. This orthography effect was larger when the target was presented to the right ear than when it was presented to the left ear. Experiment 2 replicated the interaction between ear of presentation and orthography effect when the cue and target were spoken in different voices. In Experiment 3, subjects made lexical decisions to pairs of stimuli presented to the left or the right ear. Lexical decision times and the amount of facilitation which obtained when the target stimuli were semantically related words did not differ as a function of ear of presentation. The results suggest that the semantic, phonological, and orthographic codes for a word are represented in each hemisphere; however, orthographic and phonological representations are integrated only in the left hemisphere.     

Dissociations of personally significant and task-relevant distractors inside and outside the focus of attention: a combined behavioral and psychophysiological study

Studies of attentional capture by personally significant stimuli have reached inconsistent results, possibly because of improper control of the participants' attention. In the present study, the authors controlled visual attention by using a Stroop-like task. Participants responded to a central color and ignored a word presented either centrally (i.e., at the focus of attention) or peripherally (i.e., outside the focus of attention). Central words led to slower reaction times and larger orienting responses for significant items than for neutral items. These effects largely disappeared when the words appeared in a peripheral location. The peripheral words interfered with performance when they were relevant to task demands. These results indicate that there is a fundamental difference between task-relevant words and personally significant words: The former capture attention even when presented peripherally, whereas the latter do not.     

The evaluation-behavior link: Direct and beyond valence

The present research tests the hypothesis that affective stimuli automatically trigger approach/avoidance tendencies. A first experiment showed that in a vigilance task participants responded faster with an approach behavior (i.e., arm flexion) to happy words than to sad words and faster with an avoidance behavior (i.e., arm extension) to sad than to happy words that were presented outside of conscious awareness. These findings were replicated and extended in a second experiment. In this experiment, emotion words presented outside of conscious awareness were responded faster by arm flexion when they were associated with approach than when they were associated with avoidance, irrespective of their valence. Conversely, emotion words associated with avoidance were responded faster by arm extension. Globally, these findings suggest that the implicit perception of affective stimuli automatically triggers the behavioral responses that are associated with them.     

Mere acceptance produces apparent attitude in the Implicit Association Test

Two experiments examined mere acceptance effects in the Implicit Association Test (IAT). They tested whether accepting a stimulus as conforming to a rule produces responding consistent with positive attitude in the IAT. In Experiment 1, accepted stimuli were more easily categorized with pleasant personality characteristics than rejected stimuli; they were preferred according to the logic of the IAT. Accepted word stimuli were also responded to faster overall, suggesting that it was easier to make the accept than the reject response. In Experiment 2, numerical stimuli that conformed to a rule showed the same IAT preference effect over non-confirming stimuli, even when the rule conforming stimuli were more difficult to categorize. Three sources of this apparent preference for rule-conforming stimuli are considered: (1) the semantic relatedness of the concepts “accept” and “pleasant” on the one hand, and “reject” and “unpleasant” on the other; (2) that rejected non-category members are more salient (‘pop-out’) and thus are more easily categorized with the more salient unpleasant personality characteristics; or (3) that accepting rule-conforming stimuli is experienced as a pleasant event. Regardless of the mechanism underlying the mere acceptance effect, the IAT can produce apparent preferences for stimuli towards which participants have no positive attitude.     

Fast automatic translation and morphological decomposition in Chinese-English bilinguals

In this study, we investigated automatic translation from English to Chinese and subsequent morphological decomposition of translated Chinese compounds. In two lexical decision tasks, Chinese-English bilinguals responded to English target words that were preceded by masked unrelated primes presented for 59 ms. Unbeknownst to participants, the Chinese translations of the words in each critical pair consisted of a fully opaque compound word (i.e., a compound with two constituent morphemes that were semantically unrelated to the compound) and a monomorphemic word that was either the first or the second morpheme of the compound. The data revealed that bilinguals responded faster to English word pairs whose Chinese translations repeated the first morpheme than to English word pairs whose Chinese translations did not repeat the first morpheme, but no effect of hidden second-morpheme repetition was found. This effect of hidden first-morpheme repetition suggests that participants translated English words to Chinese and decomposed the translated compounds into their constituent morphemes. Because the primes were presented for only 59 ms, translation and morphological decomposition must be fast and automatic.     

小学2～4年级儿童数学应用题表征策略差异的研究

本研究运用实验法和临床访谈法对某普通小学的123名2～4年级学生进行了数学应用题测验,以考察数学学优生和学差生在解决比较应用题时表征策略的差异。结果表明:(1)从2～4年级儿童解答一致和不一致应用题上看,学优生较多地使用问题模型策略对问题进行表征,学差生较多地使用直接转换策略对问题进行表征;(2)除学差女生的解题正确率低于学差男生的正确率,学差女生自我报告中直接转换策略的使用多于学差男生外,在其它方面,性别差异并不显著;(3)随着年级的升高,学优生在使用问题模型策略上越来越成熟,学差生并没有学会使用更加有效的问题模型表征策略,仍然停留在直接转换策略上,但他们在关于策略使用的认识上有所提高。     

Part-whole relationships in the processing of small visual patterns

Subjects seem to react to a word faster than they react to a letter within a word. One interpretation is that words are processed holistically; another is that all visual stimuli are processed in terms of components, but that more stimulus information is available for use when the targets are words than when they are letters within words. The results of three experiments indicate that the word or pattern-level advantage occurs even when the stimulus information in the two situations is equated, but if the perceptual arrays cannot be unitized (e.g., consonant sequences), a pattern-level advantage does not occur. In addition, the experiments provide substantial evidence to indicate that if letter arrays cannot be unitized, then they are processed on a componentby-component basis, rather than holistically. Finally, the appropriate definition ofholistic processing is considered.     

The role of physical and conceptual properties in preserving object continuity

Six experiments investigated the nature of the object-file representation supporting object continuity. Participants viewed preview displays consisting of 2 stimuli (either line drawings or words) presented within square frames, followed by a target display consisting of a single stimulus (either a word or a picture) presented within 1 of the frames. The relationship between the target and preview stimuli was manipulated. The first 2 experiments found that participants responded more quickly when the target was identical to the preview stimulus in the same frame (object-specific priming). In Experiments 3, 4, 5, and 6, the physical form of the target stimulus (a word or picture in 1 frame) was changed completely from that of either preview stimulus (pictures or words in both frames). Despite this physical change, object-specific priming was observed. It is suggested that object files encode postcategorical information, rather than precise physical information.     

汉语口语词汇产生中的多重音韵激活：单词翻译任务的ERP研究

口语词汇产生过程中, 非目标词是否会产生音韵激活是独立两阶段模型和交互激活模型的争论焦点之一。研究运用事件相关电位技术, 考察了被试在翻译命名任务中是否受到背景图片音韵或语义干扰词的影响。行为反应时中未发现显著的音韵效应, 而语义效应显著, 表明非目标词不会产生音韵激活。事件相关电位的结果显示在目标单词呈现后的400~600 ms时间窗口中出现了显著的语义效应, 在600~700 ms时间窗口内出现了边缘显著的语义效应和音韵效应, 均表现为相关条件比无关条件波幅更正。上述结果表明在将英语翻译成汉语的过程中, 尽管在脑电上呈现出可能存在微弱的多重音韵激活, 但行为结果并不会显示出非目标项的音韵激活。研究结果支持了汉语口语词汇产生遵循独立两阶段模式的观点。     

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

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

Chromatic information processing

The investigation of visual processing mediated solely by chromatic information requires conditions preventing a subject's use of the luminance differences normally accompanying a chromatic change. In Experiment 1, which involved a discriminative reaction time (RT) task, chromatic and white stimuli of the same luminance were presented on a dimmer achromatic background. Subjects were instructed to respond only to the chromatic stimuli. RT was slowest at 570 nm and somewhat faster to short wavelengths than to long wavelengths. In Experiment 2, which compared two discriminative RT tasks, RT was faster when subjects responded to color than when they responded to white. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that a brighter white surround decreased the perceived brightness of chromatic stimuli as well as their perceptual similarity to white, but did not affect RT. The results are discussed in terms of the response strength of the chromatic processing channel.     

A ROWS is a ROSE: Spelling,sound, and reading

Skilled readers generally are assumed to make little or no use of words’ phonological features in visual word identification. Contrary to this assumption, college students’ performance in the present reading experiments showed large effects of stimulus word phonology. In Experiments 1 and 2, these subjects produced larger false positive error rates in a semantic categorization task when they responded to stimulus foils that were homophonic to category exemplars (e.g., ROWS for the category A FLOWER) than when they responded to spelling control foils. Additionally, in Experiment 2, this homophony effect was found under brief-exposure pattern-masking conditions, a result consistent with the possibility that phonology is an early source of constraint in word identification. Subjects did, however, correctly reject most homophone foils in Experiments 1 and 2. Experiment 3 investigated the source of this ability. The results of Experiment 3 suggest that subjects detected homophone impostors, such as ROWS, by verifying target foil spellings against their knowledge of the correct spellings of category exemplars, such as ROSE.     

Lexical- and perceptual-based object effects in the two-rectangle cueing paradigm

Previous studies demonstrate that attentional selection can be object-based, in which the object is defined in terms of Gestalt principles or lexical organizations. Here we investigate how attentional selection functions when the two types of objects are manipulated jointly. Experiment 1 replicated Li and Logan (2008) by showing that attentional shift between two Chinese characters is more efficient when they form a compound word than when they form a nonword. Experiment 2A presented characters either alone or within rectangles (Egly, Driver, & Rafal, 1994) and the characters in a rectangle formed either a word or a nonword. Experiment 2B differed from Experiment 2A in that the two characters forming a word were in different rectangles. Experiment 3A presented the two characters of a word either within a rectangle or in different rectangles. Experiment 3B used the same design as Experiment 3A but presented stimuli of different types in random orders, rather than in blocks as in Experiments 2A, 2B and 3A. In blocked presentation, detection responses to the target color on a character were faster when this character and the cue character formed a word than when they did not, and the size of this lexical-based object effect did not vary according to whether the two characters were presented alone or within or between rectangles. In random presentation, however, the lexical-based object effect was diminished when the two characters of a word were presented in different rectangles. Overall, these findings suggest that the processes that constrain attention deployment over conjoined objects can be strategically adjusted.     

Developmental constraints associated with children's use of the keyword method of foreign language vocabulary learning

Second- and sixth-grade (ages 7 and 11 years, respectively) subjects were instructed to learn simple Spanish vocabulary nouns using the keyword method. To remember a foreign word translation the keyword method user must: (1) associate the foreign word to an English word (the keyword) that sounds like part of the foreign word; and (2) remember an image of the keyword and translation referents interacting. Second-grade keyword users who were provided with interactive pictures remembered more vocabulary items than those who generated their own imagery links when given separate pictures of the keyword and translation referents. Second graders who generated their own linking images when given only the keywords and translation words recalled fewer items than both picture groups, and were not significantly different from control subjects. Sixth graders in the three imagery-link variations performed at comparable levels and better than control subjects. The results are in complete accord with previous speculations about the development of imagery strategies in children.     

Three- and four-year-olds’ perceptual confusions for spoken words

Although infants have the ability to discriminate a variety of speech contrasts, young children cannot always use this ability in the service of spoken-word recognition. The research reported here asked whether the reason young children sometimes fail to discriminate minimal word pairs is that they are less efficient at word recognition than adults, or whether it is that they employ different lexical representations. In particular, the research evaluated the proposal that young children’s lexical representations are more “holistic” than those of adults, and are based on overall acoustic-phonetic properties, as opposed to phonetic segments. Three- and four-year-olds were exposed initially to an invariant target word and were subsequently asked to determine whether a series of auditory stimuli matched or did not match the target. The critical test stimuli were nonwords that varied in their degree of phonetic featural overlap with the target, as well as in terms of the position(s) within the stimuli at which they differed from the target, and whether they differed from the target on one or two segments. Data from four experiments demonstrated that the frequency with which children mistook a nonword stimulus for the target was influenced by extent of featural overlap, but not by word position. The data also showed that, contrary to the predictions of the holistic hypothesis, stimuli differing from the target by two features on a single segment were confused with the target more often than were stimuli differing by a single feature on each of two segments. This finding suggests that children use both phonetic features and segments in accessing their mental lexicons, and that they are therefore much more similar to adults than is suggested by the holistic hypothesis.     

Processing letters in words at different levels

Subjects indicated whether two letters, two words, or a letter and the first letter of a word were the same. Letter targets were matched more quickly than word targets when the stimuli were presented simultaneously. When the target and comparison stimuli were separated by a 3-sec interval, word targets were matched more quickly than a letter and a letter in a word. It was also shown that the physical similarity of the targets and comparison stimuli had a greater effect in the simultaneous matching conditions. These findings are consistent with a model of word processing in which letters are individually compared prior to word identification at a physical level of processing. At a higher level of processing, words may be encoded as a unit, and the identification of the letters within the word may require a decoding of the word unit.