Age-related changes in word retrieval vary by self-reported anxiety but not depression symptoms

Tip-of-the-tongue states (TOTs) are known to increase in frequency across adulthood, but there is wide variability in older adults’ TOT rates, suggesting that individual difference factors contribute to TOT incidence. We investigated the role of affect by examining the relationship between self-reported anxiety and depression symptoms and the frequency of TOTs during a laboratory task. Participants were young, middle-aged and older adults in a population-based sample of adults aged 18–87. Increased anxiety was associated with fewer TOTs for the middle-aged group but more TOTs for the older adult group. There was no relationship between anxiety and TOTs for younger adults and no relationships between depression symptoms and TOT incidence for any age group. We discuss our results in terms of attentional control theory, which provides an explanation of how age may affect the relationship between anxiety and TOTs.     

VoiceRelay: voice key operation using visual basic.

Using a voice key is a popular method for recording vocal response times in a variety of language production tasks. This article describes a class module called VoiceRelay that can be easily utilized in Visual Basic programs for voice key operation. This software-based voice key offers the precision of traditional voice keys (although accuracy is system dependent), as well as the flexibility of volume and sensitivity control. However, VoiceRelay is a considerably less expensive alternative for recording vocal response times because it operates with existing PC hardware and does not require the purchase of external response boxes or additional experiment-generation software. A sample project demonstrating implementation of the VoiceRelay class module may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Web archive, www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Why did I right that? Factors that influence the production of homophone substitution errors

Despite considerable research on language production errors involving speech, little research exists in the complementary domain of writing. Two experiments investigated the production of homophone substitution errors, which occur when a contextually appropriate word (e.g., beech) is replaced with its homophone (e.g., beach tree). Participants wrote down auditorily presented sentences containing dominant or subordinate homophones. Homophones were preceded by a lexical prime that overlapped in phonology and orthography (e.g., teacher) or only orthography (e.g., headmaster) with the target homophone. Results showed more substitution errors when the context elicited a subordinate homophone than when it elicited a dominant homophone. Furthermore, both types of primes equivalently increased production of homophone errors relative to control words (e.g., lawyer), suggesting that only orthographic overlap between the prime and target was necessary to influence errors. These results are explained within dual-route models of spelling, which postulate an interaction between lexical and sublexical routes when spelling.     

Unconscious semantic priming in the absence of partial awareness

In a recent paper in Psychological Science, Kouider and Dupoux reported obtaining unconscious Stroop priming only when subjects had partial awareness of the masked distractor words (i.e., could consciously perceive subword features that enabled reconstruction of whole words). Kouider and Dupoux conjectured that semantic priming occurs only when such partial awareness is present. The present experiments tested this conjecture in an affective categorization priming task that differed from Kouider and Dupoux’s in using masked distractors that subjects had practiced earlier as visible words. Experiment 1 showed priming from practiced words when subjects had no partial awareness of those words. Experiment 2 showed that, in the absence of partial awareness, practiced words yielded priming but not-practiced words did not. Experiment 3 corroborated Experiment 1 and 2s results using a different test of partial awareness. These results suggest that unconscious processing (rather than partial awareness) of subword elements drives masked semantic priming by practiced words.     

Priming of semantic classifications by novel subliminal prime words

Four experiments demonstrate category congruency priming by subliminal prime words that were never seen as targets in a valence-classification task (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) and a gender-classification task (Experiment 3). In Experiment 1, overlap in terms of word fragments of one or more letters between primes and targets of different valences was larger than between primes and targets of the same valence. In Experiments 2 and 3, the sets of prime words and target words were completely disjoint in terms of used letters. In Experiment 4, pictures served as targets. The observed subliminal priming effects for novel primes cannot be driven by partial analysis of primes at the word-fragment level; they suggest instead that primes were processed semantically as whole words contingent upon prime duration.     

The stages and processes of exercise adoption and maintenance in a worksite sample.

We applied the model of the stages and processes of change to exercise adoption and maintenance. This model has shown promise in advancing theory and treatment of the addictions and other negative health behaviors, but there have been few systematic attempts to apply the model to positive health behaviors, such as exercise adoption. Questionnaires dealing with the stages and processes of exercise change were developed and administered to a sample of 1,172 participants in a worksite health promotion project. The sample was split randomly into halves for (a) initial model development and testing and (b) confirmatory measurement model testing. Additional model confirmation was obtained by examining the hierarchical structure of the processes of change and by conducting Stage x Process analyses. Results suggest that the underlying constructs derived from smoking cessation and other addictive behaviors can be generalized to exercise behavior. Understanding the stages and processes of exercise behavior change may yield important information for enhancing exercise adoption, adherence, and relapse prevention at both individual and public health levels.     

Practice and Component Submovements: The Roles of Programming and Feedback in Rapid Aimed Limb Movements

An experiment is reported in which subjects (N = 30) practiced rapid aimed limb movements (wrist rotations), with either full visual feedback, no visual feedback, or delayed visual feedback. Previous research has indicated that, with practice, subjects increase the distance and duration of ballistic primary submovements and decrease the distance and duration of corrective secondary submovements. The design of the present experiment permitted the determination of whether these practice-related changes are results of improved programming of the primary submovement or of more efficient processing involved in the production of secondary submovements. The results suggest that improved programming occurs with practice. Furthermore, it appears that visual feedback is not solely responsible for the production of secondary submovements.     

Cross-language facilitation,semantic blindness,and the relation between language and memory: A reply to Altarriba and Soltano

This comment corrects some inaccuracies, points to some methodological problems, and makes three substantive observations regarding the Altarriba and Soltano (1996) article. First, token individuation theory does not explain what is new and interesting in the Altarriba and Soltano data, namely cross-language semantic facilitation in lists and a list-sentence effect, that is, a large difference in the effect of semantic repetition when identical translation equivalents occurred in sentences versus lists. Second, Altarriba and Soltano’s small and nonsignificant semantic blindness effect for translation equivalents in split-language sentences is attributable to the peculiar nature of their materials, procedures, analyses, and experimental design. These problems nullify their conclusion that semantic blindness does not occur, and we discuss several clear cases where semantic blindness has been demonstrated. Finally, we suggest an explanation for Altarriba and Soltano’s unexplained effects (cross-language facilitation and the list-sentence effect) and show why these effects are important for the general issue of relations between language and memory.     

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.