Semantic satiation and lexical ambiguity resolution.

This study examines the effects of semantic satiation on lexical ambiguity resolution. On a given trial, participants were presented with a word triad. The first word (e.g., HEART) was presented on average 2.5, 12.5, or 22.5 times, and then participants received 2 new words for relatedness judgments. The first of the two new words was always a homograph (e.g., "ORGAN") and the other word was a related or unrelated pairmate (e.g., "KIDNEY"). In Experiment 1, when blocks of trials were intermixed with concordant (e.g., "HEART-ORGAN-KIDNEY"), discordant (e.g., "PIANO-ORGAN-KIDNEY"), and neutral (e.g., "CEILING-ORGAN-KIDNEY") trials, participants did not produce evidence of semantic satiation. In a second experiment in which only concordant and neutral trials were presented, however, participants did produce evidence of semantic satiation in the concordant condition. Taken together, Experiments 1 and 2 indicate that semantic satiation of the context-appropriate meaning of a homograph may impede ambiguity resolution.     

Bias effects in facilitatory phonological priming

In four experiments, we examined the facilitation that occurs when spoken-word targets rhyme with preceding spoken primes. In Experiment 1, listeners' lexical decisions were faster to words following rhyming words (e.g., ramp-LAMP) than to words following unrelated primes (e.g., pink-LAMP). No facilitation was observed for nonword targets. Targets that almost rhymed with their primes (foils; e.g., bulk-SULSH) were included in Experiment 2; facilitation for rhyming targets was severely attenuated. Experiments 3 and 4 were single-word shadowing variants of the earlier experiments. There was facilitation for both rhyming words and nonwords; the presence of foils had no significant influence on the priming effect. A major component of the facilitation in lexical decision appears to be strategic: listeners are biased to say "yes" to targets that rhyme with their primes, unless foils discourage this strategy. The nonstrategic component of phonological facilitation may reflect speech perception processes that operate prior to lexical access.     

句子语境中语义联系启动作用的研究

通过对比研究正序和乱序两种句子语境对目标词加工的不同影响,来探讨句子语境中语义联系启动作用及作用点问题。实验一采用词汇命名任务研究发现,句法成分影响命名任务,句法违反对命名任务产生较大的抑制作用。语义违反则对命名任务没有产生显著的抑制作用。实验二利用词汇决定任务发现,词序影响决定任务,乱序对词汇决定产生很大的抑制作用。语义违反对决定任务地产生较大的抑制作用。结果表,中义联系启动是短暂的,它的保持和传递需要句法成分的支持。     

Lexical selection is not by competition: a reinterpretation of semantic interference and facilitation effects in the picture-word interference paradigm

The dominant view in the field of lexical access in speech production maintains that selection of a word becomes more difficult as the levels of activation of nontarget words increase--selection by competition. The authors tested this prediction in two sets of experiments. First, the authors show that participants are faster to name pictures of objects (e.g., "bed") in the context of semantically related verb distractors (e.g., sleep) compared with unrelated verb distractors (e.g., shoot). In the second set of experiments, the authors show that target naming latencies (e.g., "horse") are, if anything, faster for within--category semantically close distractor words (e.g., zebra) than for within--category semantically far distractor words (e.g., whale). In the context of previous research, these data ground a new empirical generalization: As distractor words become semantically closer to the target concepts--all else being equal--target naming is facilitated. This fact means that lexical selection does not involve competition, and consequently, that the semantic interference effect does not reflect a lexical level process. This conclusion has important implications for models of lexical access and interpretations of Stroop-like interference effects.     

Learning new meanings for old words: effects of semantic relatedness

Changes to our everyday activities mean that adult language users need to learn new meanings for previously unambiguous words. For example, we need to learn that a "tweet" is not only the sound a bird makes, but also a short message on a social networking site. In these experiments, adult participants learned new fictional meanings for words with a single dominant meaning (e.g., "ant") by reading paragraphs that described these novel meanings. Explicit recall of these meanings was significantly better when there was a strong semantic relationship between the novel meaning and the existing meaning. This relatedness effect emerged after relatively brief exposure to the meanings (Experiment 1), but it persisted when training was extended across 7?days (Experiment 2) and when semantically demanding tasks were used during this extended training (Experiment 3). A lexical decision task was used to assess the impact of learning on online recognition. In Experiment 3, participants responded more quickly to words whose new meaning was semantically related than to those with an unrelated meaning. This result is consistent with earlier studies showing an effect of meaning relatedness on lexical decision, and it indicates that these newly acquired meanings become integrated with participants' preexisting knowledge about the meanings of words.     

Cleaving automatic processes from strategic biases in phonological priming

In a phonological priming experiment using spoken Dutch words, Dutch listeners were taught varying expectancies and relatedness relations about the phonological form of target words, given particular primes. They learned to expect that, after a particular prime, if the target was a word, it would be from a specific phonological category. The expectancy either involved phonological overlap (e.g., honk-vonk, "base-spark"; expected related) or did not (e.g., nest-galm, "nest-boom"; expected unrelated, where the learned expectation after hearing nest was a word rhyming in -alm). Targets were occasionally inconsistent with expectations. In these inconsistent expectancy trials, targets were either unrelated (e.g., honk-mest, "base-manure"; unexpected unrelated), where the listener was expecting a related target, or related (e.g., nest-pest, "nest-plague"; unexpected related), where the listener was expecting an unrelated target. Participant expectations and phonological relatedness were thus manipulated factorially for three types of phonological overlap (rhyme, one onset phoneme, and three onset phonemes) at three interstimulus intervals (ISIs; 50, 500, and 2,000 msec). Lexical decisions to targets revealed evidence of expectancy-based strategies for all three types of overlap (e.g., faster responses to expected than to unexpected targets, irrespective of phonological relatedness) and evidence of automatic phonological processes, but only for the rhyme and three-phoneme onset overlap conditions and, most strongly, at the shortest ISI (e.g., faster responses to related than to unrelated targets, irrespective of expectations). Although phonological priming thus has both automatic and strategic components, it is possible to cleave them apart.     

REPETITION BLINDNESS INTERACTS WITH SYNTACTIC GROUPING IN RAPIDLY PRESENTED SENTENCES

Abstract— This study rested for predicted effects of syntax on a repetition deficit (RD) known as repetition blindness, the reduced probability of recall for repeated words in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) sentences The syntactic variable was phrase-congruent versus phrase-incongruent grouping within simultaneous RSVP displays With phrase-congruent grouping, each RSVP display contained a syntactic phrase (e g, "to play sports" in the sentence "They wanted to play sports but sports were not allowed"), whereas with phrase-incongruent grouping, RSVP displays contained nonphrases (e g, "sports but sports") RD was extensive with phrase-incongruent grouping (29%), but nonsignificant (6%) with phrase-congruent grouping, as if phrase-congruent groups free up the extra processing time needed to connect repeated words into phrases in rapidly presented sentences, enabling top-down retrieval of the phrases during recall The present results comport with effects of syntax and prosody on auditory RD, and suggest that visual and auditory RD are identical underlying phenomena.     

Phonological and conceptual activation in speech comprehension

We propose that speech comprehension involves the activation of token representations of the phonological forms of current lexical hypotheses, separately from the ongoing construction of a conceptual interpretation of the current utterance. In a series of cross-modal priming experiments, facilitation of lexical decision responses to visual target words (e.g., time) was found for targets that were semantic associates of auditory prime words (e.g., date) when the primes were isolated words, but not when the same primes appeared in sentence contexts. Identity priming (e.g., faster lexical decisions to visual date after spoken date than after an unrelated prime) appeared, however, both with isolated primes and with primes in prosodically neutral sentences. Associative priming in sentence contexts only emerged when sentence prosody involved contrastive accents, or when sentences were terminated immediately after the prime. Associative priming is therefore not an automatic consequence of speech processing. In no experiment was there associative priming from embedded words (e.g., sedate-time), but there was inhibitory identity priming (e.g., sedate-date) from embedded primes in sentence contexts. Speech comprehension therefore appears to involve separate distinct activation both of token phonological word representations and of conceptual word representations. Furthermore, both of these types of representation are distinct from the long-term memory representations of word form and meaning.     

Effects of syntactic expectations on speech segmentation

Although the effect of acoustic cues on speech segmentation has been extensively investigated, the role of higher order information (e.g., syntax) has received less attention. Here, the authors examined whether syntactic expectations based on subject-verb agreement have an effect on segmentation and whether they do so despite conflicting acoustic cues. Although participants detected target words faster in phrases containing adequate acoustic cues ("spins" in take spins and "pins" in takes pins), this acoustic effect was suppressed when the phrases were appended to a plural context (those women take spins/*takes pins [with the asterisk indicating a syntactically unacceptable parse]). The syntactically congruent target ("spins") was detected faster regardless of the acoustics. However, a singular context (that woman *take spins/takes pins) had no effect on segmentation, and the results resembled those of the neutral phrases. Subsequent experiments showed that the discrepancy was due to the relative time course of syntactic expectations and acoustics cues. Taken together, the data suggest that syntactic knowledge can facilitate segmentation but that its effect is substantially attenuated if conflicting acoustic cues are encountered before full realization of the syntactic constraint.     

Being forward not backward: lexical limits to masked priming

This study investigated whether masked priming is mediated by existing memory representations by determining whether nonwords targets would show repetition priming. To avoid the potential confound that nonword repetition priming would be obscured by a familiarity response bias, the standard lexical decision and naming tasks were modified to make targets unfamiliar. Participants were required to read a target string from right to left (i.e., "ECAF" should be read as "FACE") and then make a response. To examine if priming was based on lexical representations, repetition primes consisted of words when read forwards or backwards (e.g., "face", "ecaf") and nonwords (e.g., "pame", "emap"). Forward and backward primes were used to test if task instruction affected prime encoding. The lexical decision and naming tasks showed the same pattern of results: priming only occurred for forward primes with word targets (e.g., "face-ECAF"). Additional experiments to test if response priming affected the LDT indicated that the lexical status of the prime per se did not affect target responses. These results showed that the encoding of masked primes was unaffected by the novel task instruction and support the view that masked priming is due to the automatic triggering of pre-established computational processes based on stored information.     

Heating up or cooling up the brain? MEG evidence that phrasal verbs are lexical units

There is a considerable linguistic debate on whether phrasal verbs (e.g., turn up, break down) are processed as two separate words connected by a syntactic rule or whether they form a single lexical unit. Moreover, views differ on whether meaning (transparency vs. opacity) plays a role in determining their syntactically-connected or lexical status. As linguistic arguments could not settle these issues, we used neurophysiological brain imaging to address them. Applying a multi-feature Mismatch Negativity (MMN) design with subjects instructed to ignore speech stimuli, we recorded magnetic brain responses to particles (up, down) auditorily presented as infrequent "deviant" stimuli in the context of frequently occurring verb "standard" stimuli. Already at latencies below 200ms, magnetic brain responses were larger to particles appearing in existing phrasal verbs (e.g. rise up) than to particles appearing in non-existing combinations (e.g. ?fall up), regardless of whether particles carried a literal or metaphorical sense (e.g. rise up, heat up). Previous research found an enhanced MMN response to morphemes in existing (as opposed to non-existing) words but a reduced MMN to words in grammatically acceptable (as opposed to unacceptable) combinations. The increased brain activation to particles in real phrasal verbs reported here is consistent with the lexical enhancement but inconsistent with the syntactic reduction of the MMN, thus providing neurophysiological support that a congruent verb-particle sequence is not assembled syntactically but rather accessed as a single lexical chunk.     

Effects of semantic context and event-related potentials: N400 correlates with inhibition effect

Two experiments investigated the modulation of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) by semantic context. A prime-target pair was visually presented in each trial of a lexical decision task. For word targets, three types of relatedness conditions were employed: (1) Related word condition (e.g., school-teacher); (2) Neutral word condition (e.g., [symbol: see text] - number); (3) Unrelated word c((e.g., hospital-potato). In Experiment 1, the reaction time for unrelated targets was longer than that for neutral targets (inhibition effect) which was longer than that for related targets (facilitation effect). The N400 amplitude in the unrelated targets was larger compared to those in the related and neutral targets, which did not differ. In Experiment 2, where only the facilitation effect was obtained, the N400 amplitude did not differ among conditions.     

Automatic activation of phonological information in reading: Evidence from the semantic relatedness decision task

A semantic relatedness decision task was used to investigate whether phonological recoding occurs automatically and whether it mediates lexical access in visual word recognition and reading. In this task, subjects read a pair of words and decided whether they were related or unrelated in meaning. In Experiment 1, unrelated word-homophone pairs (e.g., LION-BARE) and their visual controls (e.g., LION-BEAN) as well as related word pairs (e.g., FISH-NET) were presented. Homophone pairs were more likely to be judged as related or more slowly rejected as unrelated than their control pairs, suggesting phonological access of word meanings. In Experiment 2, word-pseudohomophone pairs (e.g., TABLE-CHARE) and their visual controls (e.g., TABLE-CHARK) as well as related and unrelated word pairs were presented. Pseudohomophone pairs were more likely to be judged as related or more slowly rejected as unrelated than their control pairs, again suggesting automatic phonological recoding in reading.     

Strategic reliance on phonological mediation in lexical access

The present study investigated strategic variation in reliance on phonological mediation in visual word recognition. In Experiment 1, semantically related or unrelated word primes preceded word, pseudohomophone (e.g.,trane), or nonpseudohomophone (e.g.,trank) targets in a lexical decision task. Semantic priming effects were found for words, and response latencies to pseudohomophones were longer in related than in unrelated prime conditions. In Experiment 2, related or unrelated word primes preceded word or pseudohomophone targets. A relatedness effect was found for words, although it was significant at a 600-msec prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) and not at a 200-msec SOA. There was no relatedness effect for pseudohomophones. Experiment 3 was a replication of Experiment 2, except that pseudohomophones were replaced by nonpseudohomophonic orthographic controls. Facilitation effects for related target words were greater in Experiment 3 than in Experiment 2. The results reflect apparent variations in the expectation that a related prime reliably indicates that a target is a word. Although reliance on phonological mediation might be strategically contingent, there could be a brief time period in which phonologically mediated lexical access occurs automatically. Whether phonological information is maintained or suppressed subsequently depends on its overall usefulness for the task.     

图词间隔时间影响口语词汇产生中语义效应的机制：图词干扰范式研究

口语词汇产生过程中存在语义抑制和语义促进效应, 可能发生在概念准备和词汇选择或者后词汇水平阶段。本研究采用图画-词汇干扰实验任务, 变化图画与词汇出现点之间的时间间隔(stimulus onset asynchrony, SOA), 运用脑电技术考察口语词汇产生中语义效应发生的时间进程。结果显示, 当SOA为0 ms时表现出语义抑制效应, 语义效应发生在词汇选择阶段(344~418 ms); 当SOA为-400 ms时, 语义效应发生在概念准备阶段(0~76 ms)和词汇选择阶段(274~390 ms); 460~594 ms时间窗口内的语义效应可能表明讲话者对语义信息的自我监测。词汇产生中存在语义促进效应和抑制效应的权衡, 影响了行为结果中语义效应的方向, 上述发现支持了口语词汇产生的词汇竞争假说。     

Implicit memory is vulnerable to proactive interference

We investigated the possibility that implicit memory, like explicit memory, can be disrupted by proactive interference. Participants first viewed a list of words, with nontargets in the first half of the list and targets in the second. Nontargets were either similar in structure (e.g., "ANALOGY") or unrelated (e.g., "URGENCY") to the targets (e.g., "ALLERGY"). After several filler tasks, participants completed an implicit fragment-completion test (e.g., "A_L__ GY") for the target items. Participants who viewed similar nontargets completed fewer fragments with target items and made more intrusions than did participants who viewed unrelated nontargets. Together with previous findings, these results suggest that similar nontargets can compete with target items to produce interference in implicit memory.     

In search of perceptual influences of sentence context on word recognition

A major issue in the study of word perception concerns the nature (perceptual or nonperceptual) of sentence context effects. The authors compared effects of legal, word replacement, nonword replacement, and transposed contexts on target word performance using the Reicher-Wheeler task to suppress nonperceptual influences of contextual and lexical constraint. Experiment 1 showed superior target word performance for legal (e.g., "it began to flap/flop") over all other contexts and for transposed over word replacement and nonword replacement contexts. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with higher constraint contexts (e.g., "the cellar is dark/dank") and Experiment 3 showed that strong constraint contexts improved performance for congruent (e.g., "born to be wild") but not incongruent (e.g., mild) target words. These findings support the view that the very perception of words can be enhanced when words are presented in legal sentence contexts.     

Reading spoken words: orthographic effects in auditory priming

Three experiments examined the involvement of orthography in spoken word processing using a task - unimodal auditory priming with offset overlap - taken to reflect activation of prelexical representations. Two types of prime-target relationship were compared; both involved phonological overlap, but only one had a strong orthographic overlap (e.g., dream-gleam vs. scheme-gleam). In Experiment 1, which used lexical decision, phonological overlap facilitated target responses in comparison with an unrelated condition (e.g., stove-gleam). More importantly, facilitation was modulated by degree of orthographic overlap. Experiment 2 employed the same design as Experiment 1, but with a modified procedure aimed at eliciting swifter responses. Again, the phonological priming effect was sensitive to the degree of orthographic overlap between prime and target. Finally, to test whether this orthographic boost was caused by congruency between response type and valence of the prime-target overlap, Experiment 3 used a pseudoword detection task, in which participants responded "yes" to novel words and "no" to known words. Once again phonological priming was observed, with a significant boost in the orthographic overlap condition. These results indicate a surprising level of orthographic involvement in speech perception, and provide clear evidence for mandatory orthographic activation during spoken word recognition.     

Children's Production of Unfamiliar Word Sequences Is Predicted by Positional Variability and Latent Classes in a Large Sample of Child-Directed Speech

We explore whether children's willingness to produce unfamiliar sequences of words reflects their experience with similar lexical patterns. We asked children to repeat unfamiliar sequences that were identical to familiar phrases (e.g., A piece of toast) but for one word (e.g., a novel instantiation of A piece of X, like A piece of brick). We explore two predictions-motivated by findings in the statistical learning literature-that children are likely to have detected an opportunity to substitute alternative words into the final position of a four-word sequence if (a) it is difficult to predict the fourth word given the first three words and (b) the words observed in the final position are distributionally similar. Twenty-eight 2-year-olds and thirty-one 3-year-olds were significantly more likely to correctly repeat unfamiliar variants of patterns for which these properties held. The results illustrate how children's developing language is shaped by linguistic experience.     

Global context effect in normal and scrambled musical sequences

The processing of chords is facilitated when they are harmonically related to the context in which they appear. The purpose of this study was to assess whether this harmonic priming effect depends on the version (normal vs. scrambled) of the context chord sequences. Normal sequences were scrambled by permuting chords two-by-two (Experiment 1) or four-by-four (Experiments 2 and 3). Normal chord sequences were judged less coherent than scrambled sequences. However, normal chord sequences showed facilitation for harmonically related rather than for unrelated targets, and this effect of relatedness did not diminish for scrambled sequences (Experiments 1-3). The data of musicians and nonmusicians were interpreted with Bharucha's (1987) spreading activation framework. Simulations suggested that harmonic priming results from activation that spreads via schematic knowledge of Western harmony and accumulates in short-term memory over the course of the chord sequence.