Friendly drug-dealers and terrifying puppies: Affective primacy can attenuate the N400 effect in emotional discourse contexts

Words that are semantically congruous with their preceding discourse context are easier to process than words that are semantically incongruous with their context. This facilitation of semantic processing is reflected by an attenuation of the N400 event-related potential (ERP). We asked whether this was true of emotional words in emotional contexts where discourse congruity was conferred through emotional valence. ERPs were measured as 24 participants read two-sentence scenarios with critical words that varied by emotion (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral) and congruity (congruous or incongruous). Semantic predictability, constraint, and plausibility were comparable across the neutral and emotional scenarios. As expected, the N400 was smaller to neutral words that were semantically congruous (vs. incongruous) with their neutral discourse context. No such N400 congruity effect was observed on emotional words following emotional discourse contexts. Rather, the amplitude of the N400 was small to all emotional words (pleasant and unpleasant), regardless of whether their emotional valence was congruous with the valence of their emotional discourse context. However, consistent with previous studies, the emotional words produced a larger late positivity than did the neutral words. These data suggest that comprehenders bypassed deep semantic processing of valence-incongruous emotional words within the N400 time window, moving rapidly on to evaluate the words’ motivational significance.     

汉英语义通达过程的事件相关电位研究

采用事件相关电位(ERP)技术对双语表征进行了探索。实验考察了句末词呈现之后500ms内英汉两种语言的语言内和语言间语义整合在语义一致和语义不一致两种条件下的P190和N400的潜伏期和波幅。结果显示,P190具有语言的形式加工效应,这种效应在汉英两种语言加工中有明显差异;而N400具有语义加工效应,汉英两种语言的N400模式相同。结果表明双话者两种语言的形态是分别表征的,而语义是共同表征的。     

Making sense of sentences in schizophrenia: electrophysiological evidence for abnormal interactions between semantic and syntactic processing

Event-related potentials to critical verbs were measured as patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls read sentences word by word. Relative to their preceding context, critical verbs were (a) congruous, (b) incongruous and semantically unrelated to individual preceding words (pragmatic-semantic violations), (c) incongruous but semantically related to individual preceding words (animacy-semantic violations), or (d) syntactically anomalous. The N400 was modulated normally in patients, suggesting that semantic integration between individual words within sentences was normal in schizophrenia. The amplitude of the P600 to both syntactic and animacy-semantic violations was reduced in patients relative to controls. The authors suggest that, in schizophrenia, an abnormality in combining semantic and syntactic information online to build up propositional meaning leaves sentence processing to be primarily driven by semantic relationships between individual words.     

Neural correlates of bimodal speech and gesture comprehension

The present study examined the neural correlates of speech and hand gesture comprehension in a naturalistic context. Fifteen participants watched audiovisual segments of speech and gesture while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to the speech. Gesture influenced the ERPs to the speech. Specifically, there was a right-lateralized N400 effect-reflecting semantic integration-when gestures mismatched versus matched the speech. In addition, early sensory components in bilateral occipital and frontal sites differentiated speech accompanied by matching versus non-matching gestures. These results suggest that hand gestures may be integrated with speech at early and late stages of language processing.     

Spoken word recognition in context: evidence from Chinese ERP analyses

Two event-related potential (ERP) experiments were conducted to investigate spoken word recognition in Chinese and the effect of contextual constraints on this process. In Experiment 1, three kinds of incongruous words were formed by altering the first, second or both syllables of the congruous disyllabic terminal words in high constraint spoken sentences. Results showed an increase of N400 amplitude in all three incongruous word conditions and a delayed N400 effect in the cohort incongruous condition as compared with the rhyme incongruous and plain incongruous condition. In addition, unlike results in English, we found that the N400 effect in the rhyme incongruous condition disappeared earlier than in the plain incongruous condition. In Experiment 2, three kinds of nonwords derived from sentence congruous words were constructed by altering few or many phonetic features of the onset or the whole of the first syllable, and the resulting nonwords appeared as disyllabic terminal forms in either high or low constraint sentences. All three nonword conditions elicited the N400 component. In addition, in high constraint sentences but not in low, the amplitude and duration of the N400 varied as a function of the degree of phonetic mismatch between the terminal nonword and the expected congruous word.     

Talking and Thinking With Our Hands

ABSTRACT— When people talk, they gesture. Typically, gesture is produced along with speech and forms a fully integrated system with that speech. However, under unusual circumstances, gesture can be produced on its own, without speech. In these instances, gesture must take over the full burden of communication usually shared by the two modalities. What happens to gesture in this very different context? One possibility is that there are no differences in the forms gesture takes with speech and without it—that gesture is gesture no matter what its function. But that is not what we find. When gesture is produced on its own and assumes the full burden of communication, it takes on a language-like form. In contrast, when gesture is produced in conjunction with speech and shares the burden of communication with that speech, it takes on an unsegmented, imagistic form, often conveying information not found in speech. As such, gesture sheds light on how people think and can even play a role in changing those thoughts. Gesture can thus be part of language or it can itself be language, altering its form to fit its function.     

Semantic categorization and event-related potentials

The N400 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) was examined by presenting subjects with a series of words belonging to the same category and a series of declarative sentences. Half of the word series ended with a semantically unrelated word, while half of the sentences ended with a semantically inappropriate word. In the first experiment, subjects were instructed to read the word series and sentences, while in the second experiment they were instructed to indicate whether the word series or sentences ended appropriately or not with a button-press response. Word series and sentences with semantically incongruous endings produced a robust negative component at 400 msec followed by a positive-going wave for both the reading and decision tasks. When the subjects were required to categorize the word series and sentences endings, the negative component was followed by a robust P3 in both conditions. Analysis of scalp amplitude distributions for each task taken in conjunction with previous findings suggests that the semantically induced N400 component is most likely a "generic" N2. The relationship between the N2, N400, and P3 is discussed.     

基于视听双通道的音乐情绪冲突效应及优势通道研究

为探讨基于视听双通道的音乐情绪冲突效应、冲突情境下的优势加工通道和音乐经验对结果的影响,本研究采用音乐表演视频为材料,比较音乐组和非音乐组被试在一致型和不一致型视听双通道下的情绪评定速度、准确性及强度。结果发现:(1)一致型条件下的情绪评定更准确且更强烈;(2)不一致型条件下,被试更多以听觉通道的情绪线索为依据进行情绪类型评定;(3)非音乐组被试比音乐组被试更依赖视觉通道的情绪线索。结果表明:通道间情绪信息的不一致阻碍了音乐情绪加工; 听觉通道是音乐情绪冲突情境下的优势加工通道; 音乐经验降低了情绪冲突效应对音乐组被试的干扰。     

BINOCULAR RIVALRY AS A FUNCTION OF INCONGRUITY IN MEANING

This is the third of a series of three papers dealing with semantics of facial expressions. The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether the ratings of two stimulus inputs on semantic differential scales would predict the experience of binocular rivalry. The stimuli used were five full-face photographs of a man expressing different emotions. These stimuli were rated on the semantic differential and all possible pairs of these stimuli were used as stereograms. It was hypothesized that semantically incongruous stimulus inputs would lead to binocular rivalry and that congruous ones would lead to an absence of rivalry. The hypothesis was supported.     

Frontal and parietal lobe involvement in the processing of pretence and intention

We assessed whether different processes might be at play during pretence understanding by examining breakdowns of performance in participants with acquired brain damage. In Experiment 1 patients with frontal or parietal lesions and neurologically intact adults were asked to categorize videos of pretend and real actions. In Experiment 2 participants saw three types of videos: real intentional actions, real accidental actions, and pretend actions. In one session they judged whether the actions they saw were intentional or accidental, and in a second session they judged whether the actions were real or pretend. Parietal patients had particular difficulties in the identification of pretend actions, and both parietal and frontal patients were more impaired than controls in understanding the intentional nature of pretence. Analyses of individual patients’ performance revealed that parietal lesions, and in particular lesions to the temporo-parietal junction, impaired the ability to discriminate pretend from real actions. However, this did not necessarily affect the discrimination of intentional from unintentional actions, which instead may be independently disrupted by damage to frontal areas. Moreover, spared ability to discriminate pretend actions from real actions, and intentional actions from accidental actions, did not grant a full conceptual understanding of the intentional nature of pretence. The implications for pretence understanding are discussed.     

Gesture offers insight into problem‐solving in adults and children

When asked to explain their solutions to a problem, both adults and children gesture as they talk. These gestures at times convey information that is not conveyed in speech and thus reveal thoughts that are distinct from those revealed in speech. In this study, we use the classic Tower of Hanoi puzzle to validate the claim that gesture and speech taken together can reflect the activation of two cognitive strategies within a single response. The Tower of Hanoi is a well‐studied puzzle, known to be most efficiently solved by activating subroutines at theoretically defined choice points. When asked to explain how they solved the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, both adults and children produced significantly more gesture‐speech mismatches—explanations in which speech conveyed one path and gesture another—at these theoretically defined choice points than they produced at non‐choice points. Even when the participants did not solve the problem efficiently, gesture could be used to indicate where the participants were deciding between alternative paths. Gesture can, thus, serve as a useful adjunct to speech when attempting to discover cognitive processes in problem‐solving.     

Task and sex modulate the brain response to emotional incongruity in Asian listeners

In order to recognize banter or sarcasm in social interactions, listeners must integrate verbal and vocal emotional expressions. Here, we investigated event-related potential correlates of this integration in Asian listeners. We presented emotional words spoken with congruous or incongruous emotional prosody. When listeners classified word meaning as positive or negative and ignored prosody, incongruous trials elicited a larger late positivity than congruous trials in women but not in men. Sex differences were absent when listeners evaluated the congruence between word meaning and emotional prosody. The similarity of these results to those obtained in Western listeners suggests that sex differences in emotional speech processing depend on attentional focus and may reflect culturally independent mechanisms.     

Are depictive gestures like pictures? commonalities and differences in semantic processing

Conversation is multi-modal, involving both talk and gesture. Does understanding depictive gestures engage processes similar to those recruited in the comprehension of drawings or photographs? Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from neurotypical adults as they viewed spontaneously produced depictive gestures preceded by congruent and incongruent contexts. Gestures were presented either dynamically in short, soundless video-clips, or statically as freeze frames extracted from gesture videos. In a separate ERP experiment, the same participants viewed related or unrelated pairs of photographs depicting common real-world objects. Both object photos and gesture stimuli elicited less negative ERPs from 400 to 600 ms post-stimulus when preceded by matching versus mismatching contexts (dN450). Object photos and static gesture stills also elicited less negative ERPs between 300 and 400 ms post-stimulus (dN300). Findings demonstrate commonalities between the conceptual integration processes underlying the interpretation of iconic gestures and other types of image-based representations of the visual world.     

Interpretations,Evaluations, and Consequences of Interpersonal Touch

Key elements of an expectancy violations (EV) framework are forwarded as a possible organizing framework for understanding how touch functions in interpersonal communication. Central to applying an EV framework to touch is assessing the expectedness, interpretations, and evaluations of touch and its influence on such communication outcomes as evaluations of communicator attractiveness and credibility. To address these considerations, an experiment required participants to engage in dyadic problem-solving discussions during which they were touched or not touched by high-valence (attractive, high status, expert) or low-valence (unattractive, low status, inexpert) confederates. Brief touches by high-valence communicators were less expected than from low-valence communicators but positively evaluated from both. Touch also carried many favorable relational message interpretations, and the combination of touch and high communicator valence generally produced the highest credibility and attraction ratings. Some gender effects emerged, which appeared to moderate touch effects. Results suggest that brief touches among strangers may have positive consequences, especially when initiated by high-valence communicators, for whom they may qualify as positive violations.     

人类镜像系统参与音乐情绪的自动加工：来自EEG的证据

大脑中线电极诱发的μ抑制波(包括α和β频段)是人类镜像系统活动的电生理指标。尽管音乐情绪表现被认为是通过模仿个体的心理状态来实现的, 但是尚未有研究探讨人类镜像系统与音乐情绪加工的关系。本研究通过EEG技术, 采用跨通道情绪启动范式, 探究人类镜像系统是否参与和弦情绪的自动加工。愉悦或不愉悦的和弦启动情绪一致与不一致的目标面孔。行为结果显示, 被试对情绪一致面孔的反应显著快于情绪不一致面孔的反应。EEG结果显示, 在听觉刺激出现后的500~650 ms之间, 与情绪一致条件相比, 情绪不一致条件诱发了β频段的去同步化。在听觉刺激出现后的300~450 ms, 无论是情绪一致, 还是不一致条件, 都诱发了α频段的去同步化。源分析结果显示, μ抑制波主要出现在人类镜像系统的相关脑区。这些结果表明, 音乐情绪的自动加工与人类镜像系统的活动密切相关。     

Acquisition-test interactions between

The effects of changes in context on recognition memory were investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1 target items were embedded in congruous or incongruous sentence frames and then tested in the original, new congruous, or new incongruous contexts. Experiment 2 included a third encoding condition; targets were also embedded in abstract definitional sentences. Both experiments revealed a reliable crossover interaction between the initial encoding condition and the mode of the changed context. Congruous items were recognized better in new congruous contexts, whereas incongruous items were recognized better in new incongruous contexts. Recognition of definitional items was equally impaired by both context changes. The results suggest the importance of the symmetry between acquisition and test encoding dimensions. These experiments also point out the need to distinguish between different ways in which the concept “integration” is used in current research.     

Blind Speakers Show Language‐Specific Patterns in Co‐Speech Gesture but Not Silent Gesture

Sighted speakers of different languages vary systematically in how they package and order components of a motion event in speech. These differences influence how semantic elements are organized in gesture, but only when those gestures are produced with speech (co‐speech gesture), not without speech (silent gesture). We ask whether the cross‐linguistic similarity in silent gesture is driven by the visuospatial structure of the event. We compared 40 congenitally blind adult native speakers of English or Turkish (20/language) to 80 sighted adult speakers (40/language; half with, half without blindfolds) as they described three‐dimensional motion scenes. We found an effect of language on co‐speech gesture, not on silent gesture—blind speakers of both languages organized their silent gestures as sighted speakers do. Humans may have a natural semantic organization that they impose on events when conveying them in gesture without language—an organization that relies on neither visuospatial cues nor language structure.     

The generalizability of context effects on word recognition: A reconsideration of the roles of parafoveal priming and sentence context

In three experiments, subjects named target words preceded by congruous, incongruous, or neutral sentence contexts. There was no evidence that the recognition of the target word was affected by the semantic characteristics of a word presented immediately to the right of it. The nature of the preceding sentence context did affect target-naming speed. However, the magnitude of the context effect was considerably smaller in these experiments, in which nonterminal target words were used, than in previous experiments in which the target word was always the final word of the sentence, was highly predictable from the context, and was often semantically related to words in the sentence. The implications of these two findings for theories of reading and context effects are discussed.     

Rumination and intentional forgetting of emotional material

The tendency to respond to negative life events and negative mood states with ruminative thinking has been linked to emotion dysregulation and to a heightened risk for the onset and maintenance of emotional disorders. To further investigate this maladaptive response style, the present study examined whether rumination is linked to individual differences in the ability to intentionally forget emotional material. In a directed forgetting task, participants were instructed to memorise a list of positive and negative words and were subsequently told to forget these words. Next, participants were told to memorise a new list and, finally, recall was tested for all to-be-forgotten and to-be-remembered words. Our results demonstrate a close relation between rumination and recall in the forget condition but not in the remember condition. Specifically, compared to participants who scored low on the Ruminative Responses Scale (RRS), participants who scored high exhibited reduced forgetting of positive and negative to-be-forgotten words. These results remained stable when depression scores were included as a covariate suggesting that irrespective of depressive symptoms, rumination and intentional forgetting of emotional material are closely related.