词素的结构对称效应:结构对称汉语成语认知特点的进一步研究

运用词素启动作业,进一步考察了结构对称性汉语成语的识别过程.结果发现(1)无论是用成语的前二个字还是后二个字启动,在成语识别过程中都存在明显的词素结构对称效应,即结构对称成语中的词素启动效应明显大于非对称成语中的词素启动效应.(2)成语的结构对称性、熟悉度和启动词素位置之间存在显著的三阶相互作用.简单效应的分析表明无论成语前二个字还是后二个字启动,词素的结构对称效应均只在低熟悉度成语的识别过程中显著;在前二个字启动时,非对称成语的识别还存在熟悉度效应.     

Unconscious auditory information can prime visual word processing: a process-dissociation procedure study

Whether information perceived without awareness can affect overt performance, and whether such effects can cross sensory modalities, remains a matter of debate. Whereas influence of unconscious visual information on auditory perception has been documented, the reverse influence has not been reported. In addition, previous reports of unconscious cross-modal priming relied on procedures in which contamination of conscious processes could not be ruled out. We present the first report of unconscious cross-modal priming when the unaware prime is auditory and the test stimulus is visual. We used the process-dissociation procedure [Debner, J. A., & Jacoby, L. L. (1994). Unconscious perception: Attention, awareness and control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 304-317] which allowed us to assess the separate contributions of conscious and unconscious perception of a degraded prime (either seen or heard) to performance on a visual fragment-completion task. Unconscious cross-modal priming (auditory prime, visual fragment) was significant and of a magnitude similar to that of unconscious within-modality priming (visual prime, visual fragment). We conclude that cross-modal integration, at least between visual and auditory information, is more symmetrical than previously shown, and does not require conscious mediation.     

The effect of nonmasking distractors on the priming of motor responses

Masked stimuli (primes) can affect the preparation of a motor response to subsequently presented target. In numerous studies, it has been shown that the compatibility effect is biphasic as it develops over time: positive (benefits for compatible trials and costs for incompatible trials) for short prime-target temporal distances and negative (benefits for incompatible trials and costs for compatible trials) for long ones. What triggers the 2nd phase is the matter of the current debate. According to the self-inhibition hypothesis, the motor response elicited by a prime is automatically followed by an inhibition phase. The object-updating and mask-triggered inhibition hypotheses assume that this phase is triggered by the mask, provided that it contains features calling for the alternative response. In the present study, the author shows that the compatibility effect is modulated on the temporal position of a nonmasking distractor presented after the prime and before the target. With a distractor possessing task-relevant features, the compatibility effect was found to be negative for short prime- distractor intervals and for moderate prime-target intervals. The consequences of these results for the 3 hypotheses are discussed.     

The rise of information in an evolutionary universe

This paper outlines the grand scenario of cosmic evolution by examining the ongoing changes among radiation, matter and life in standard, big‐bang cosmology. Using aspects of non‐equilibrium thermodynamics and information science, we argue that it is the contrasting temporal behavior of various energy densities that have given rise to the environments needed for the emergence of galaxies, stars, planets, and life forms. We furthermore argue that a necessary (though perhaps not sufficient) condition—a veritable prime mover—for the emergence of such ordered structures of growing complexity is the expansion of the Universe itself. Neither demon‐strably new science nor appeals to non‐science are needed to explain the impressive hierarchy of developmental change, from quark to quasar, from microbe to mind.     

The Obligation Dilemma

I motivate a dilemma to show that nothing can be obligatory for anyone regardless of whether determinism or indeterminism (the falsity of determinism) is true. The deterministic horn, to which prime attention is directed, exploits the thesis that obligation requires freedom to do otherwise. Since determinism precludes such freedom, it precludes obligation too. The indeterministic horn allows for freedom to do otherwise but assumes the burden of addressing whether indeterministically caused choices or actions are too much of a matter of luck to be obligatory for anyone. I critically discuss a response to the deterministic horn that invokes the distinction between alternatives compatible with determinism (weak alternatives) and those incompatible with determinism (strong alternatives).     

Moral Madness

One clear reason why human agents often act badly is because they are insufficiently attentive to moral considerations and concerns, or tempted to ignore these in pursuit of more immediate satisfactions. In so far as madness, insanity or mental instability may be regarded as undermining moral agency, it might also be supposed that such madness attaches more to the non‐moral than the moral reasons or motives of agents. Still, the well‐known quote from Chesterton at the start of this paper may give pause to conventional thought on this matter. With reference to the ideas of Plato and Freud, as well as attention to literary and cinematic “case studies,” this paper argues that moral reasons and motives – of an apparently Chestertonian kind – may be a prime source of morally “insane” conduct.     

Is "Blank" a suitable neutral prime for event-related potential experiments?

We report an experiment that evaluates whether BLANK or an unrelated prime is a more suitable baseline for assessing priming for an ERP study. Sixteen subjects performed a lexical decision task with a 1 s prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony. Increased amplitude for the N400 was observed for targets in the unrelated prime condition whereas targets in the BLANK prime condition evoked activity that was more like that in the related prime condition. Theoretically, we conclude that the N400 reflects semantic integration. Pragmatically, we conclude that the BLANK prime is a better neutral prime but that unrelated primes yield stronger N400 effects.     

The time course of temporal attention effects on nonconscious prime processing

We presented a masked prime at various prime–target intervals (PTIs) before a target that required a speeded motor response and investigated the impact of temporal attention on the nonconscious prime processing. The allocation of temporal attention to the target was manipulated by presenting an accessory tone and comparing that condition with a no-tone condition. The results showed that, independently of the visibility of the prime, temporal attention led to an enhanced effect of prime–target congruency on the reaction times, and that the amount of the enhancement increased with increasing PTIs. This effect pattern is consistent with the assumption of increasing influences of temporal attention and of the increasing PTI on nonconscious prime processing; it argues against the hypothesis that temporal attention narrows the time period in which the prime may affect target processing. An accumulator model is proposed assuming that target-related temporal attention increases the accumulation rate for masked primes and, thus, enhances the impact of the prime on the speed of choice decisions.     

正面自我标签对建议采纳的影响

研究设想给决策者“贴标签”会影响其建议采纳, 即当决策者受到某一词语或文字(标签)的描述, 其往往向标签所预示的方向发展。通过三个依次递进的研究, 探讨在有无获益希望及公开与否三种不同组合的决策场景中, 启动决策者正面自我标签对其建议采纳的影响。实验1采用2(正面自我标签：启动/未启动)×2(获益希望：有/无)组间设计, 实验2和实验3分别进一步研究无获益希望的公开场景和有希望获益的不公开场景, 分别以91、135和96名在校大学生为被试。结果发现：决策者正面自我标签启动使得其更容易采纳建议; 无获益希望公开条件下, 受印象管理或社会赞许性影响而显著提高建议采纳; 有获益希望的公开条件下, 决策者正面自我标签启动使得其积极情绪得到提升, 并进而促进其采纳建议, 而积极意义发现在积极情绪和建议采纳之间起中介作用。     

Interpretation-based processing: a unified theory of semantic sentence comprehension

We present interpretation-based processing—a theory of sentence processing that builds a syntactic and a semantic representation for a sentence and assigns an interpretation to the sentence as soon as possible. That interpretation can further participate in comprehension and in lexical processing and is vital for relating the sentence to the prior discourse. Our theory offers a unified account of the processing of literal sentences, metaphoric sentences, and sentences containing semantic illusions. It also explains how text can prime lexical access. We show that word literality is a matter of degree and that the speed and quality of comprehension depend both on how similar words are to their antecedents in the preceding text and how salient the sentence is with respect to the preceding text. Interpretation-based processing also reconciles superficially contradictory findings about the difference in processing times for metaphors and literals. The theory has been implemented in ACT-R [Anderson and Lebiere, The Atomic Components of Thought, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, Mahwah, NJ, 1998].     

Judgment heuristics and recognition memory: Prime identification and target-processing fluency

In three experiments, the effect of identification of a briefly presented word (prime) on a subsequent recognition response to that word (target) was investigated. Theories of current processing fluency (e.g., Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989) suggest that prime identification should reduce P(old) relative to prime misidentification because awareness of the prime provides a source to which to attribute target fluency, rendering attributions to prior presentation less likely. However, counter to these predictions, Experiment 1 demonstrated that prime identification increased P(old) relative to misidentified primes. It is hypothesized that this reversed effect was due to participants' using a heuristic that related prime identification success to prior presentation but was not based on current processing fluency. In Experiment 2, participants were induced to avoid using this heuristic by making an alternate source for prime identification success (display duration) highly available. Under these circumstances, prime identification reduced P(old) relative to prime misidentification, suggesting that participants now relied on current processing fluency rather than on prime identification success. Experiment 3 replicated the results of Experiments 1 and 2, but with fixed rather than variable prime displays.     

Automatic processes in lexical access and spreading activation.

The semantic priming effect can be reduced or eliminated depending on how the prime word is processed. The experiments reported here investigate this prime task effect. Two experiments used identity and semantic priming tasks to determine whether the prime word is encoded at a lexical level under letter-search conditions. When the prime task was naming, both identity and semantic priming occurred; however, when a letter-search task was performed on the prime word, only identity priming occurred, thus supporting the argument that the search task affects activation of semantic associates rather than lexical access of the prime word. Another experiment demonstrated that this identity priming was the result of lexical processes rather than of letter-by-letter priming. A cross-modal priming technique demonstrated that the letter-search prime task does not actively suppress activation of semantic associates. The implications of these results for automaticity and for proposed mechanisms of priming are discussed.     

Word-based grouping affects the prime-task effect on semantic priming

Semantic priming between words is reduced or eliminated if a low-level task such as letter search is performed on the prime word (the prime task effect), a finding used to question the automaticity of semantic processing of words. This idea is critically examined in 3 experiments with a new design that allows the search target to occur both inside and outside the prime word. The new design produces the prime task effect (Experiment 1) but shows semantic negative priming when the target letter occurs outside the prime word (Experiments 2 and 3). It is proposed that semantic activation and priming are dissociable and that inhibition and word-based grouping are responsible for reduction of semantic priming in the prime task effect.     

Semantic activation and letter search: Blocking or suppression?

Two experiments investigated associative priming with a letter-search prime task where either the prime and letter probe were presented simultaneously, or the letter probe appeared 200 ms (Experiment 1) or 300 ms (Experiment 2) after the prime. Weak associative priming was observed in both experiments, but unlike Stolz and Besner (1996) we found no evidence that priming was increased when the probe was delayed. However, strong associative priming was observed when a semantic decision had to be made on the prime (Experiment 3). Our results are consistent with an account where semantic activation of the prime occurs but its action on the target is suppressed by the prime task. The persistence of weak priming effects with the letter search task is explained in terms of the low-frequency items used.     

With great expectations, can two "wrongs" prime a "right"?

The proportion of related prime-target pairs (relatedness proportion, RP) and prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was varied to determine the involvement of strategic priming mechanisms in the reduction in semantic priming that occurs when a target follows an unmasked prime that itself receives immediate repetition priming from a masked prime. At 300-ms and 1,200-ms SOAs, (a) strategic semantic priming was operating, in that priming from a nonrepeated prime increased as RP increased from .25 to .75, and (b) for both RPs, prime repetition reduced semantic priming. At a 167-ms SOA, (a) priming from a nonrepeated prime was unaffected by RP, suggesting that strategic priming was not operating, and (b) for both RPs, prime repetition did not reduce semantic priming. Because prime repetition did not reduce priming at the 167-ms SOA (when only spreading activation should have been mediating semantic priming), the reduction in semantic priming produced by prime repetition is not evidence against spreading activation automaticity. Possible mechanisms through which prime repetition reduces semantic priming are discussed.     

Contextual modulation of prime response retrieval processes: Evidence from auditory negative priming

Contextual similarity between learning and test phase has been shown to be beneficial for memory retrieval. Negative priming is known to be caused by multiple processes; one of which is episodic retrieval. Therefore, the contextual similarity of prime and probe presentations should influence the size of the negative priming effect. This has been shown for the visual modality. In Experiment 1, an auditory four-alternative forced choice reaction time task was used to test the influence of prime-probe contextual similarity on negative priming and the processes underlying the modulation by context. The negative priming effect was larger when the auditory context was repeated than when it was changed from prime to probe. The modulation by context was exclusively caused by an increase in prime response retrieval errors in ignored repetition trials with context repetition, whereas repeating only the context but not the prime distractor did not lead to an increase in prime response retrieval. This exact pattern of results was replicated in Experiment 2. The findings suggest that contextual information is integrated with prime distractor and response information. Retrieval of the previous episode, including prime distractor, prime response, and context (event file), can be triggered when the former prime distractor is repeated, whereas a context cue alone does not retrieve the event file. This suggests an event file structure that is more complicated than its usually assumed binary structure.     

The negative compatibility effect: unconscious inhibition influences reaction time and response selection

In the negative compatibility effect (NCE) a masked prime arrow, pointing left or right, is followed by an unmasked (visible) target arrow. The task is to press the left or right switch corresponding to the visible arrow. Surprisingly, reaction time is longer (slowed) when the prime and target indicate the same, rather than different, responses. By contrast, the effect of an unmasked prime is positive-opposite to the NCE. This indicates that the NCE is not attributable to incomplete masking; to the extent that the prime is visible, the NCE would be reduced by this positive influence. Thus, the NCE appears to result from unconscious processing of the prime and, in that sense, may be a form of subliminal perception. Additional findings show that the NCE is due to inhibition of a response code, that it is automatic in that it occurs even if the information in the prime and target could be ignored, and that it also influences response selection.     

Evidence of vocal and manual event files in auditory negative priming

Negative priming with auditory as well as with visual stimuli has been shown to involve the retrieval of prime response information as evidenced by an increase of prime response errors to the probes of ignored repetition trials compared to control trials. We investigated whether prime response retrieval processes were also present for response modalities other than manual responding. In an auditory four alternative forced choice task participants either vocally or manually identified a target sound while ignoring a distractor sound. Negative priming was of equal size in both response modalities. What is more, for both response modalities, there was evidence of increased prime response errors in ignored repetition trials compared to control trials. The findings suggest that retrieval of event files of the prime episode including prime response information is a general mechanism underlying the negative priming phenomenon irrespective of stimulus or response modality.     

Unfinished business: How completeness affects the impact of emotional states and emotion concepts on social judgment

In two studies, we compared the impact of cold emotion concept primes with induced hot emotional states on subsequent social judgments. We hypothesized that the completeness of the prime episode is an important determinant of whether accessible information will lead to emotionally congruent or incongruent judgments. We extend previous research on knowledge and emotion accessibility effects by demonstrating that the effects of incomplete versus completed prime episodes are independent of whether we prime emotion states or emotion concepts. That is, our results show that both hot and cold affective information activated by incomplete prime episodes leads to assimilation, whereas information activated by completed prime episodes leads to contrast effects. Implications for accessibility research are discussed.     

Word frequency in fast priming: Evidence for immediate cognitive control of eye movements during reading

Numerous studies have demonstrated effects of word frequency on eye movements during reading, but the precise timing of this influence has remained unclear. The fast priming paradigm was previously used to study influences of related versus unrelated primes on the target word. Here, we use this procedure to investigate whether the frequency of the prime word has a direct influence on eye movements during reading when the prime–target relation is not manipulated. We found that with average prime intervals of 32 ms readers made longer single fixation durations on the target word in the low than in the high frequency prime condition. Distributional analyses demonstrated that the effect of prime frequency on single fixation durations occurred very early, supporting theories of immediate cognitive control of eye movements. Finding prime frequency effects only 207 ms after visibility of the prime and for prime durations of 32 ms yields new time constraints for cognitive processes controlling eye movements during reading. Our variant of the fast priming paradigm provides a new approach to test early influences of word processing on eye movement control during reading.