When a ROWS is a ROSE: Phonological effects in written word comprehension

When skilled readers make speeded categorization judgements about printed words, errors occur to homophones of real category exemplars. In Experiments 1 and 2, for example, subjects incorrectly accepted both the word STEAL (as a member of the category A METAL) and the nonword JEAP (as A VEHICLE) significantly more often than incorrect non-homophonic items matched in orthographic similarity to real exemplars. Experiment 3 demonstrated equivalent error rates for homophone targets differing from real exemplars by various types of single-letter change, but reduced error rates, especially for non-word homophones, when subjects were instructed to accept only correctly spelled instances. Experiments 4 and 5 established that the magnitude of the homophone effect is predicted by the degree of orthographic similarity between homophonic mates but not by spelling-sound regularity of the presented homophone. The results suggest that automatic phonological activation plays a major role in the comprehension of written words.     

IDENTITIES IN HARMONY: GENDER–WORK IDENTITY INTEGRATION MODERATES FRAME SWITCHING IN COGNITIVE PROCESSING

Professional women's identity integration—the perceived compatibility between work and gender identities—plays a role in how task or relationship information is processed. Seventy female business school students were primed with either their professional or their gender identity. Business women with higher identity integration showed an assimilation effect to the primed cue. Specifically, they showed higher task orientation than relationship orientation in a recognition task when primed with their professional identity, but less so when primed with their gender identity. Business women with lower identity integration showed a contrast effect to the primed cue: Their recognition reflected a task-relationship orientation opposite to the primed cue. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding women's performance at work.     

Self-defining memories in complicated grief

There is increasing attention to the mechanisms underpinning maladaptive responses to bereavement. This study indexed self-defining memories in bereaved individuals with and without complicated grief (CG). Participants with and without complicated grief (N = 40) were asked to describe three self-defining memories. Results showed that CG participants provided more self-defining memories involving the deceased. Both groups were equally likely to report their loved one's death as a self-defining moment, however, the no-CG group showed more evidence of benefit finding in their memory narratives and experienced less negative emotion on recall. The findings suggest that CG is associated with distinctive patterns of autobiographical memory that are linked to self-identity. The pattern is consistent with self-memory system models of autobiographical remembering, and suggests that grieving individuals who experience ongoing yearning for their loved one view their self-identity as more closely linked to the deceased are more distressed by memories involving the loss.     

Electrophysiological evidence for the time-course of verifying text ideas

We examined how verb factivity influences the ability of readers to detect and resolve the mismatch of receiving false referents in relation to true referents in discourse contexts. Factive verbs (e.g., know), but not nonfactive verbs (believe), entail the truth of their complements. Recent research by Singer [Singer, M. (2006). Verification of text ideas during reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 54, 574-591] suggests that there are pragmatic costs associated with knowing something that is clearly false and only believing something that is clearly true. However, because Singer measured reading times for full sentences, it could not be determined whether these costs were initiated upon the appearance of the critical target word (i.e., the word that validated or invalidated previous text ideas) or at a later point in the sentences. In the present research we recorded event-related brain potentials while people read the same passages for comprehension and analyzed potentials evoked to the critical target words. Our results demonstrate that the brain distinguishes between true and false target words by at least 200ms after their onset, and that the pragmatic costs identified by Singer lead to interactions between verb factivity and truth in both early (P2) and later occurring brain components (late phase of N400 and late frontal positivity). In general, the results suggest readers had greater difficulty integrating false nouns than true nouns following factive than nonfactive verbs, and that detection of this mismatch also occurred earlier following factive verbs. Our results provide insight into the time-course of the processes that underlie the verification of text ideas, and extend neurocognitive research on anaphoric resolution.     

Sexual orientation across the life span: introduction to the special section

What impact does sexual orientation have on human development over the life span? As questions related to sexual orientation have become increasingly topics of public discussion and debate in recent years, psychological study of the issues has also burgeoned. What was once a new frontier for research has matured into a large, complex, and rapidly growing area of knowledge. Important research is being conducted on many issues, by diverse investigators, from a number of theoretical perspectives, in many parts of the world. The articles in this special section provide only a sampling of current research, but they begin to suggest the vitality and excitement of a field that is coming into its own.     

I still think it was a banana: memorable 'lies' and forgettable 'truths'

Interpersonal influences on cognition can distort memory judgements. Two experiments examined the nature of these 'social' influences, and whether their persistence is independent of their accuracy. Experiment 1 found that a confederate's social proximity, as well as the content and the confidence of their utterances, interactively modulates participants' immediate conformity. Notably, errant confederate statements that 'lied' about encoded material had a particularly strong immediate distorting influence on memory judgements. Experiment 2 revealed that these 'lies' were also memorable, continuing a day later to impair memory accuracy, while accurate confederate statements failed to produce a corresponding and lasting beneficial effect on memory. These findings suggest that an individual's 'informational' social influence can be selectively heightened when they express misinformation to someone who suspects no deceptive intent. The methods newly introduced here thus allow multiple social and cognitive factors impinging on memory accuracy to be manipulated and examined during realistic, precisely controlled dyadic social interactions.     

Engagement in Activities Is Associated With Affective Arousal in Alzheimer's Caregivers: A Preliminary Examination of the Temporal Relations Between Activity and Affect

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the synchronous and temporal relations between engagement in activities and the two primary dimensions of affect—namely, positive and negative affect—using an intensive time-series design called concomitant time series analysis (CTSA). Twenty-four dementia caregivers completed 56 diary measures (4 times per day for 2 weeks) assessing their experience of positive and negative affect as well as engagement in a variety of activities. Total number of activities was significantly correlated with positive affect (r = .40), but not negative affect (r = -.12). Obtained pleasure from activities was significantly correlated with both positive (r = .42) and negative affect (r = - .17). These results may help further develop behavioral models of depression by suggesting that behavioral or self-reinforcing activities are associated primarily (or more saliently) with one's experience of positive affect. Future research examining the effect of behavioral interventions on both positive and negative affect is suggested, as is the examination of factors that may be more strongly associated with negative affect.     

Behavioral evidence for task-dependent "what" versus "where" processing within and across modalities

Task-dependent information processing for the purpose of recognition or spatial perception is considered a principle common to all the main sensory modalities. Using a dual-task interference paradigm, we investigated the behavioral effects of independent information processing for shape identificationand localization ofobject features within and across vision and touch. In Experiment 1, we established that color and texture processing (i.e., a "what" task) interfered with both visual and haptic shape-matching tasks and that mirror image and rotation matching (i.e., a "where" task) interfered with a feature-location-matching task in both modalities. In contrast, interference was reduced when a "where" interference task was embedded in a "what" primary task and vice versa. In Experiment 2, we replicated this finding within each modality, using the same interference and primary tasks throughout. In Experiment 3, the interference tasks were always conducted in a modality other than the primary task modality. Here, we found that resources for identification and spatial localization are independent of modality. Our findings further suggest that multisensory resources for shape recognition also involve resources for spatial localization. These results extend recent neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings and have important implications for our understanding of high-level information processing across the human sensory systems.     

Neuroanatomical distribution of five semantic components of verbs: evidence from fMRI

The Simulation Framework, also known as the Embodied Cognition Framework, maintains that conceptual knowledge is grounded in sensorimotor systems. To test several predictions that this theory makes about the neural substrates of verb meanings, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan subjects' brains while they made semantic judgments involving five classes of verbs-specifically, Running verbs (e.g., run, jog, walk), Speaking verbs (e.g., shout, mumble, whisper), Hitting verbs (e.g., hit, poke, jab), Cutting verbs (e.g., cut, slice, hack), and Change of State verbs (e.g., shatter, smash, crack). These classes were selected because they vary with respect to the presence or absence of five distinct semantic components-specifically, ACTION, MOTION, CONTACT, CHANGE OF STATE, and TOOL USE. Based on the Simulation Framework, we hypothesized that the ACTION component depends on the primary motor and premotor cortices, that the MOTION component depends on the posterolateral temporal cortex, that the CONTACT component depends on the intraparietal sulcus and inferior parietal lobule, that the CHANGE OF STATE component depends on the ventral temporal cortex, and that the TOOL USE component depends on a distributed network of temporal, parietal, and frontal regions. Virtually all of the predictions were confirmed. Taken together, these findings support the Simulation Framework and extend our understanding of the neuroanatomical distribution of different aspects of verb meaning.