Lexical selection in bilingual speech production does not involve language suppression

The "hard problem" in bilingual lexical access arises when translation-equivalent lexical representations are activated to roughly equal levels and, thus, compete equally for lexical selection. The language suppression hypothesis (D. W. Green, 1998) solves this hard problem through the suppression of lexical representations in the nontarget language. Following from this proposal is the prediction that lexical selection should take longer on a language switch trial because the to-be-selected representation was just suppressed on the previous trial. Inconsistent with this prediction, participants took no longer to name pictures in their dominant language on language switch trials than they did on nonswitch trials. These findings indicate that nontarget lexical representations are not suppressed. The authors suggest that these results undermine the viability of the language suppression hypothesis as a possible solution to the hard problem in bilingual lexical access.     

Planning at the Phonological Level during Sentence Production

In two picture–word interference experiments we examined whether phrase boundaries affected how far in advance speakers plan the sounds of words during sentence production. Participants produced sentences of varying lengths (short determiner + noun + verb or long determiner + adjective + noun + verb) while ignoring phonologically related and unrelated words to the verb of the sentence. Response times to begin producing both types of sentences were faster in the presence of a related versus unrelated distractor. The results suggest that the activation of phonological properties of words outside the first phrase and first and second phonological word affect onset of articulation during sentence production. The results are discussed in the light of previous evidence of phonological planning during multi-word production. Implications for the phonological facilitation effect in the picture–word interference paradigm are also discussed.The research reported in this article served as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD degree at Harvard University for Tatiana T. Schnur     

Effect of retention interval on the simultaneous cognate-noncognate and remember-know mirror effects

Recognition memory for Spanish-Catalan cognate and noncognate words was tested at retention intervals of 30 minutes, 3 days, and 7 days using a remember/know response procedure. We observed a clear mirror effect for the cognate-noncognate stimulus class and a remember-know response categorisation at the immediate retention interval. However, the cognate and noncognate mirror was still observed at 3 and 7 days, whereas the remember-know mirror disappeared at both retention intervals. Also, we ran a repeated testing condition to be able to carry out a sequential item analysis and observe the fate of the original remember and know responses 3 or 7 days later. The analysis supported the idea that there was a loss of contextual information that was at the root of the disappearance of the remember-know mirror effect. These results provide support to the idea that it is the imbalance between recollection and familiarity that is the most likely cause of the mirror effect.     

The representation of homophones: evidence from the distractor-frequency effect

Current models of word production offer different accounts of the representation of homophones in the lexicon. The investigation of how the homophone status of a word affects lexical access can be used to test theories of lexical processing. In this study, homophones appeared as word distractors superimposed on pictures that participants named orally. The authors varied distractor frequency, a variable that has been shown to modulate the interference that distractors produce on picture naming. The results of 3 experiments converged in showing that words interfered in proportion to their individual frequency in the language, even if they have high-frequency homophone mates. This effect of specific-word frequency is compatible with models that assume (a) distinct lexical representations for the individual homophones and (b) that access to such representations is modulated by frequency. The authors discuss the extent to which current models of word production satisfy these constraints.     

LEX I and II: Two databases of surface word forms for psycholinguistic research in Spanish

Two databases of Spanish surface word forms are presented. Surface word forms are words considered as orthographically or phonologically specified without reference to their meaning or syntactic category. The databases are based on the productive written vocabulary of children between the ages of 6 and 10 years. Statistical and structural information is presented concerning surface word-form frequency, consonant-vowel (CV) structure, number of syllables, syllables, syllable CV structure, and subsyllabic units. LEX I was intended to aid in the study of reading processes. Entries were orthographic surface word forms; words were divided in their components following orthographic criteria. LEX II was designed for spoken language research. Accordingly, words were transcribed phonologically and phonological criteria were applied in extracting the internal units. Information about stress location was also provided. Together, LEX I and LEX II represent a useful tool for psycholinguists interested in the study of people acquiring Spanish as a first or foreign language and of Spanish-speaking populations in general.     

Patient classification in neuropsychological research

In a number of papers we have been concerned with the type of inferences that are legitimate in "experiments of nature" where the experimenter does not and cannot control the modifications to the cognitive system that are introduced by brain damage. We have argued that in such cases very restrictive conditions must be met in order to be able to draw valid inferences about the structure of normal cognitive mechanisms. Two consequences of these conditions are (1) patient classification into syndrome types (e.g., phonological dysgraphia, agrammatism, and so forth) can play no useful role in research concerned with issues about the structure of normal cognitive functioning or its dissolution under conditions of brain damage; and (2) only single-patient studies allow valid inferences about the structure of cognitive mechanisms from the analysis of impaired performance. Zurif, Gardner, and Brownell (1989, Brain and Cognition, 10, 237-255) have taken exception to our conclusions and propose to show the limitations of our arguments. In this paper we respond to their criticisms.     

Advancing Creativity Theory and Research: A Socio-cultural Manifesto

This manifesto, discussed by 20 scholars, representing diverse lines of creativity research, marks a conceptual shift within the field. Socio-cultural approaches have made substantial contributions to the concept of creativity over recent decades and today can provide a set of propositions to guide our understanding of past research and to generate new directions of inquiry and practice. These propositions are urgently needed in response to the transition from the Information Society to the Post-Information Society. Through the propositions outlined here, we aim to build common ground and invite the community of creativity researchers and practitioners to reflect up, study, and cultivate creativity as a socio-cultural phenomenon.     

Dominance Measuring Method Performance under Incomplete Information about Weights

In multi‐attribute utility theory, it is often not easy to elicit precise values for the scaling weights representing the relative importance of criteria. A very widespread approach is to gather incomplete information. A recent approach for dealing with such situations is to use information about each alternative's intensity of dominance, known as dominance measuring methods. Different dominance measuring methods have been proposed, and simulation studies have been carried out to compare these methods with each other and with other approaches but only when ordinal information about weights is available. In this paper, we use Monte Carlo simulation techniques to analyse the performance of and adapt such methods to deal with weight intervals, weights fitting independent normal probability distributions or weights represented by fuzzy numbers. Moreover, dominance measuring method performance is also compared with a widely used methodology dealing with incomplete information on weights, the stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA). SMAA is based on exploring the weight space to describe the evaluations that would make each alternative the preferred one. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Individual differences in the Behavioral Inhibition System are associated with orbitofrontal cortex and precuneus gray matter volume

The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) is described in Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory as a hypothetical construct that mediates anxiety in animals and humans. The neuroanatomical correlates of this system are not fully clear, although they are known to involve the amygdala, the septohippocampal system, and the prefrontal cortex. Previous neuroimaging research has related individual differences in BIS with regional volume and functional variations in the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampal formation. The aim of the present work was to study BIS-related individual differences and their relationship with brain regional volume. BIS sensitivity was assessed through the BIS/BAS questionnaire in a sample of male participants (N = 114), and the scores were correlated with brain regional volume in a voxel-based morphometry analysis. The results show a negative correlation between the BIS and the volume of the right and medial orbitofrontal cortices and the precuneus. Our results and previous findings suggest that individual differences in anxiety-related personality traits and their related psychopathology may be associated with reduced brain volume in certain structures relating to emotional control (i.e., the orbitofrontal cortex) and self-consciousness (i.e., the precuneus), as shown by our results.