Early morphological processing is morphosemantic and not simply morpho-orthographic: A violation of form-then-meaning accounts of word recognition

Many studies have suggested that a word’s orthographic form must be processed before its meaning becomes available. Some interpret the (null) finding of equal facilitation after semantically transparent and opaque morphologically related primes in early stages of morphological processing as consistent with this view. Recent literature suggests that morphological facilitation tends to be greater after transparent than after opaque primes, however. To determine whether the degree of semantic transparency influences parsing into a stem and a suffix (morphological decomposition) in the forward masked priming variant of the lexical decision paradigm, we compared patterns of facilitation between semantically transparent (e.g., coolant—cool) and opaque (e.g., rampant—ramp) prime—target pairs. Form properties of the stem (frequency, neighborhood size, and prime—target letter overlap), as well as related—unrelated and transparent—opaque affixes, were matched. Morphological facilitation was significantly greater for semantically transparent pairs than for opaque pairs. Ratings of prime—target relatedness predicted the magnitude of facilitation. The results limit the scope of form-then-meaning models of word recognition and demonstrate that semantic similarity can influence even early stages of morphological processing. The research reported here was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Development Grant HD-01994 to Haskins Laboratories.     

Conjunction errors and semantic transparency

Memory conjunction errors occur when aspects of two different events are falsely recognized or recalled as having occurred as parts of the same event. One theoretical account of conjunction errors is rooted in traditional dual-process models of recognition judgments, in which responses are based on an item’s familiarity or the retrieval of recollected details associated with the encoding of that item. We manipulated the familiarity of test probes by varying their semantic overlap with studied items, taking advantage of the inherent semantic transparency of compound words. Transparent compounds are those whose component parts (lexemes) are semantically related to the meaning of the entire word. In contrast, opaque compounds’ lexemes do not contribute directly to the meaning of the compound. We showed that the familiarity of semantically transparent assembly lures created from their lexemes (study dog and house, test on doghouse) is greater than the familiarity of opaque assembly lures (study back and draw, test on drawback). A response-signal experiment revealed no evidence for the use of a recall-to-reject process for either semantically transparent or opaque lures.     

书面字形在汉语低年级儿童口语词汇学习中的作用

采用配对联想学习范式, 通过2个实验, 系统考察了书面字形在汉语低年级儿童口语词汇学习中的作用。实验一以40名二年级学生为研究对象, 控制了假字的形旁透明度, 操纵了声旁的规则性, 要求儿童分别在规则字、不规则字和无字形条件下学习4个新异物体的名称, 结果发现呈现不规则汉字阻碍了儿童口语词汇的学习;实验二以27名一年级学生为研究对象, 采用相同的配对联想学习范式, 同时操纵了假字的声旁规则性和形旁透明度, 再次发现了不规则汉字的阻碍效应, 并且发现透明形旁对口语词汇学习的促进作用。整个研究表明, 书面字形在汉语儿童口语词汇学习中具有重要作用, 这对今后的教学实践和理论研究都具有重要启示意义。     

二、三和五年级儿童对形旁语义的加工

结合启动范式和汉字判断任务,通过操纵目标字语义透明度,在汉字阅读过程探查了二、三、五年级儿童对形旁语义的加工。采用 3×2×2 混合实验设计,自变量为被试类型（小学二、三、五年级儿童）、启动字类型（字形相关 vs. 无关）和目标字类型（透明字 vs. 模糊字）。结果发现启动字类型、目标字类型和年级三者交互作用显著。随后分析在三五年级儿童中发现了显著的独立于字形的形旁语义启动效应,启动字中的共享形旁对模糊字的识别产生了更大的抑制作用,而在二年级儿童中并没有发现这种效应。说明形旁语义在儿童的心理词典中存在独立表征,可以被激活并促进儿童对汉字的识别,但是需要儿童的阅读理解能力发展到一定程度。     

Gender-specific common nouns: Sex differences in self-use

Males and females completed questionnaires on self-esteem and on their use, applied to themselves, of (a) girl/boy, (b) gal/guy, (c) lady/gentleman, and (d) woman/man in 10 situations. Terms chosen did not vary with self-esteem or with psychiatric vs nonpsychiatric status. Older subjects preferred lady/gentleman and woman/man. Females seldom chose gal, and used it less often than males used guy. Both sexes chose girl/boy most in negative situations. Females used girl more than males used boy in self-praise situations. Females preferred both sexes to think of them as ladies. Males preferred females to think of them as gentlemen and thought that term most complimentary, but preferred males to think of them as men. These results are discussed in terms of societal sex roles.The authors wish to thank Gary Leonardson, Ph.D., and Nancy Henley, Ph.D., for their aid in completing this study.     

言语产生过程中语义、语音激活的ERP研究

使用ERP技术考察了言语产生过程中语音和语义的激活情况。图片上有3种条件的干扰词,分别与目标图片名称形成3种关系:语义相关,语音相同,语义、语音、字形都不相关。结果显示,当被试执行延迟命名任务(实验1)时,与目标图片名称语义相关和控制条件的波形比语音相关的波形更趋于负向。说明在图片命名过程中语音有明显的促进作用。当要求被试对上述图片进行延迟语义判断任务(实验2)时,与目标图片名称语义相关、语音相关及控制条件的波形之间无明显差异。说明在语义提取过程中没有语音的促进作用。综合实验1和实验2,本研究的结果更倾向于支持独立两阶段模型。     

Form and meaning in early morphological processing: Comment on Feldman, O'Connor, and Moscoso del Prado Martin (2009)

Feldman, O’Connor, and Moscoso del Prado Martín (2009) reported evidence for differential priming of semantically transparent (talker—talk) and semantically opaque (corner—corn) morphological pairs under masked presentation conditions. The present commentary argues that these data should not call into question the theory that morphologically structured words undergo a segmentation process based solely on form, because (1) these results do not contradict existing evidence for morphoorthographic segmentation, (2) funnel plots suggest that the lack of priming observed for semantically opaque items in this study is inconsistent with findings in the existing literature, and (3) orthographic characteristics of the semantically opaque pairs in this study (rather than semantic factors) are the most likely explanation for these discrepant results.     

义符启动范式下家族大小和类别一致性对义符语义激活的影响

采用义符启动范式,考察不同加工深度任务中家族大小和类别一致性对义符语义激活的影响。结果发现:在词汇判断中,家族大小影响义符的语义激活,大家族义符的语义不容易激活,小家族义符的语义容易激活。在语义相关判断中,类别一致性影响义符的语义激活,类别一致性高的义符的语义容易激活,并且在错误率上,这一影响受义符的家族大小调节。义符类别一致性影响义符家族效应的作用方向:当类别一致性低时,出现抑制的家族效应;当类别一致性高时,家族效应无影响或表现为促进作用。     

Morphology by itself in planning the production of spoken words

The authors report a study in Dutch that used an on-line preparation paradigm to test the issue of semantic dependency versus morphological autonomy in the production of polymorphemic words. Semantically transparent complex words (likeinput in English) and semantically opaque complex words (likeinvoice) showed clear evidence of morphological structure in word-form encoding, since both exhibited an equally large preparation effect that was much greater than that for morphologically simple words (likeinsect). These results suggest that morphemes may be planning units in the production of complex words, without making a semantic contribution, thereby supporting the autonomy view. Language production establishes itself as a domain in which morphology may operate “by itself” (Aronoff, 1994) without recourse to meaning.     

ERP evidence for the time course of graphic, phonological, and semantic information in Chinese meaning and pronunciation decisions

Two words that varied in their relationship were presented sequentially to Chinese readers who made meaning and pronunciation decisions. In the meaning task, they decided whether the words had the same meaning. In the pronunciation task, they decided whether the words had the same pronunciation. In both tasks, the word pairs represented 1 of 4 relationships: graphically similar, homophonic, semantically related, or unrelated. Event related potentials (ERP) recordings made from the onset of the 2nd word suggested a temporal unfolding of graphic, phonological, and semantic effects. Specifically, graphically-related pairs produced a smaller P200 in the pronunciation task and a smaller N400 in the meaning task. Homophones produced reduced N400 component with bilateral sources in the meaning task.     

汉字形声字声旁的语义加工(英文)

作为汉字书写系统和意义表达基本单位的汉字可分为独体字(占5％)和合体字(占95％)两大类。绝大多数合体字由两部分组成：义旁(通常在左边)和声旁(通常在右边)。声旁能够为这些合体字提供语音信息。根据声旁的读音与整字的读音是否一致,可把合体字分为规则字和不规则字。本研究的目的在于考察合体字声旁的亚词汇加工是否仅仅是一个纯粹的语音事件,只涉及声旁的语音加工,还是同时也是一个语义事件,涉及到声旁语义信息的激活。要求被试对屏幕上先后呈现的合体字(如“冯”)和与其声旁语义相关的字(“牛”)作语义相关判断。整字之间并无语义关系,被试正确的反应应是“否”。实验结果表明,相对于完全无关的控制组(如“冯——后”)来说,被试对声旁相关组的反应明显减慢,出现了抑制效应。这种效应基本不受整字的读音规则性和呈现顺序的影响。这些实验结果表达了合体字加工中的分解和平行激活过程。在整字加工的同时,声旁在心理词典中的语音和语义表征得到了激活。汉字声旁的亚词汇加工既是个语音事件,也是个语义事件,与词汇水平的加工没有本质的区别。     

Learning from your mistakes: does it matter if you’re out in left foot,I mean field?

Studies have shown that generating errors prior to studying information (pencil–?) can improve target retention relative to passive (i.e., errorless) study, provided that cues and targets are semantically related (pencil–ink) and not unrelated (pencil-frog). In two experiments, we manipulated semantic proximity of errors to targets during trial-and-error to examine whether it would modulate this error generation benefit. In Experiment 1, participants were shown a cue (band–?) and asked to generate a related word (e.g., drum). Critically, they were given a target that either matched the semantic meaning of their guess (guitar) or mismatched it (rubber). In Experiment 2, participants studied Spanish words where the English translation either matched their expectations (pariente–relative) or mismatched it (carpeta–folder). Both experiments show that errors benefit memory to the extent that they overlap semantically with targets. Results are discussed in terms of the retrieval benefits of activating related concepts during learning.     

汉语词汇产生中音、形、义三种信息激活的时间进程

采用图-词干扰范式和图片命名方法,探讨语音、语义、字形在汉语词汇产生中激活的时间进程与特点。选择与目标图片名称(如“羊”)具有同音(“阳”)、语义相联(“牛”)、字形相似(“丰”)或无关控制(“冷”)等四种关系的干扰字,依SOA条件呈现在将要被命名的图片上,发现图片命名时间受干扰字的影响：语义干扰效应存在于较早期的SOA(0ms)条件中,在较晚期SOA(150ms)时有很大的减弱;语音促进效应和字形促进效应同时强烈地存在于早期和晚期SOA。实验发现了词条选择(语义激活)和音位编码(语音提取)在激活时间上的重叠现象,与传统的独立两阶段模型的预期存在明显矛盾,倾向于支持交互作用理论的观点。     

The role of semantic transparency in the processing of English compound words

Experiment 1 examined whether the semantic transparency of an English unspaced compound word affected how long it took to process it in reading. Three types of opaque words were each compared with a matched set of transparent words (i.e. matched on the length and frequency of the constituents and the frequency of the word as a whole). Two sets of the opaque words were partially opaque: either the first constituent was not related to the meaning of the compound (opaque‐transparent) or the second constituent was not related to the meaning of the compound (transparent‐opaque). In the third set (opaque‐opaque), neither constituent was related to the meaning of the compound. For all three sets, there was no significant difference between the opaque and the transparent words on any eye‐movement measure. This replicates an earlier finding with Finnish compound words ( Pollatsek & Hyönä, 2005 ) and indicates that, although there is now abundant evidence that the component constituents play a role in the encoding of compound words, the meaning of the compound word is not constructed from the parts, at least for compound words for which a lexical entry exists. Experiment 2 used the same compounds but with a space between the constituents. This presentation resulted in a transparency effect, indicating that when an assembly route is ‘forced’, transparency does play a role.     

义符熟悉性对高频形声字词汇通达的影响

采用启动词汇判断范式,考察义符熟悉性对高频汉字形声字认知的影响。结果表明,义符加工与整字加工存在动态的交互作用。在加工早期,高频汉字形声字的整字语义已经激活,但此时义符的语义并未激活。高熟悉性义符的词形启动比低熟悉性义符早。随着SOA增长,高、低熟悉性义符的语义都出现激活。到了加工晚期,汉字形声字整字的语义激活仍然显著,但义符的语义激活消失,表明字词认知的整合过程已经完成。这一结果支持汉字认知中整字加工和部件加工相结合的观点     

Reading Aloud from Logographic and Alphabetic Texts: Comparisons Between Chinese and German

The following study investigated the effect of writing systems (logographic vs. alphabetic) on the temporal organization of reading aloud. More specifically, we wished to test Perfetti and Zhang's (1995) assertion that the reader of an alphabetic system can do better at recovering the phonological form, less well at recovering the semantic category of the word (p. 186f.). Native speakers of Chinese and German read a semantically identical passage from texts written in their own language. The Chinese version consisted of 132 characters (132 syllables), the German of 80 words (also 132 syllables). In accord with Perfetti and Zhang's position, Chinese readers articulated significantly more slowly; they also used significantly more pauses. Moreover, German readers used a set pattern of pause positions, whereas Chinese did not. Logographic and alphabetic determinants of reading aloud are discussed.     

Part-whole science

A scientific explanatory project, part-whole explanation, and a kind of science, part-whole science are premised on identifying, investigating, and using parts and wholes. In the biological sciences, mechanistic, structuralist, and historical explanations are part-whole explanations. Each expresses different norms, explananda, and aims. Each is associated with a distinct partitioning frame for abstracting kinds of parts. These three explanatory projects can be complemented in order to provide an integrative vision of the whole system, as is shown for a detailed case study: the tetrapod limb. My diagnosis of part-whole explanation in the biological sciences as well as in other domains exploring evolved, complex, and integrated systems (e.g., psychology and cognitive science) cross-cuts standard philosophical categories of explanation: causal explanation and explanation as unification. Part-whole explanation is itself one essential aspect of part-whole science.     

Stroop effects on redemption and semantic effects on confession: simultaneous automatic activation of embedded and carrier words

The present study was aimed at assessing whether focusing attention on a task-relevant part of a word prevents processing of its meaning. Participants performed a color-naming task on a prime word followed by lexical decision on a probe. Primes were words, which could contain an embedded color word (e.g., “redemption”) written in an incongruent color. Probes were either semantically related (e.g., “confession”) or unrelated (e.g., “production”) to the prime word. A Stroop effect emerged for color words appearing either in the initial or in the final position of the carrier word. A priming effect also emerged, with faster responses to probes semantically related to the prime. These results are evidence that focusing attention on part of a prime (i.e., the embedded color word) does not prevent the semantic processing of the entire word.     

Activation of morphemic meanings in processing opaque words

Two masked priming experiments were conducted to examine the activation of morphemic forms and meanings during opaque word processing. In Experiment 1, opaque primes significantly facilitated the recognition of transparent targets, which was consistent with previous results. However, transparent primes did not influence the recognition of opaque targets. This asymmetry could not be explained solely by morpho-orthographic processing, but it was consistent with models that have assumed early morpho-semantic activation. Experiment 2 directly tested whether the meanings of the constituent morphemes in opaque words were activated. In the critical condition, the targets were unrelated to the opaque primes at the lexical level, but were semantically related to their morphemes (e.g., “butterfly–bread”). Facilitation was observed in this condition, providing strong evidence of morpho-semantic activation during opaque-word recognition. These findings indicate that although initial morphological decomposition is determined by surface morphological form, it does not necessarily imply that morphemic meanings will be activated at later stages of processing. Rather, the morphemic meanings may be available automatically once segmentation is complete.     

Semantic transparency and masked morphological priming: The case of prefixed words

In four lexical decision experiments, we investigated masked morphological priming with Dutch prefixed words. Reliable effects of morphological relatedness were obtained with visual primes and visual targets in the absence of effects due to pure form overlap. In certain conditions, priming effects were significantly greater with semantically transparent prefixed primes (e.g., rename-name) relative to the priming effects obtained with semantically opaque prefixed words (e.g., relate-late), even with very brief (40-msec) prime durations. With visual primes and auditory targets (cross-modal priming), significant facilitation was found in all related prime conditions, independent of whether or not primes were morphologically related to targets. The results are interpreted within a bimodal hierarchical model of word recognition in which morphological effects arise through the interplay of sublexical (morpho-orthographic) and supralexical (morpho-semantic) representations. The word stimuli from this study may be downloaded as supplemental materials from http://mc.psychonomic-journals .org/content/supplemental.