Red-hot: How colour and semantic temperature processing interact in a Stroop-like paradigm

Temperature concepts and colour are commonly associated (i.e., red is “hot” and blue is “cold”), although their direction of influence (unidirectional, bidirectional) is unknown. Semantic Stroop effects, whereby words like fire influence colour categorization, suggest automatic semantic processing influences colour processing. The experiential framework of language comprehension indicates abstract concepts like temperature words simulate concrete experiences in their representation, where expressions like “red-hot” suggest colour processing influences conceptual processing. Participants categorized both colour (Experiment 1: red, blue; Experiment 2: red, green, blue) and word-meaning with matched lists of hot and cold meaning words in each colour. In Experiments 1 and 2, semantic categorization showed congruency effects across hot and cold words, while colour categorization showed facilitation only with hot words in Experiment 2. This asymmetry reflects a more consistent influence of colour categorization on semantic categorization than the reverse, suggesting experiential grounding effects may be more robust than the effects of semantic processing on colour processing.     

The Development of Representations of Pretend Object Substitutions

Many theories of how pretense is mentally represented have been posited, but none have been effectually empirically tested to date. This research is the first to explore how children and adults mentally process simple pretend actions, specifically pretend object substitutions, and whether this representation changes with age. Preschoolers, older children, and undergraduates heard or read about a variety of pretend object substitutions, and their reaction time to name an image related to the object's real identity, pretend identity, or an unrelated image was measured. To test what is unique to pretense, these reaction times were compared to those from participants who responded to the same images after reading about nonpretend versions of the same actions. Results suggest that preschoolers inhibit reality when representing a pretend action, older children activate an object's real and pretend identities equally, and adults activate the object's real identity more than the pretend one. Implications for current theories of pretense representation are discussed.     

Spatial attention can be biased towards an expected dimension

A commonly held view in both exogenous and endogenous orienting is that spatial attention is associated with enhanced processing of all stimuli at the attended location. However, we often search for a specific target at a particular location, so an observer should be able to jointly specify the target identity and expected location. Whether attention can bias dimension-specific processes at a particular location is not yet clear. We used a dual task to examine the effects of endogenous spatial cues on the accuracy of perceptual judgments of different dimensions. Participants responded to a motion target and a colour target, presented at the same or different locations. We manipulated a central cue to predict the location of the motion or colour target. While overall performance in the two tasks was comparable, cueing effects were larger for the target whose location was predicted by the cue, implying that when attending a particular location, processing of the likely dimension was preferentially enhanced. Additionally, an asymmetry between the motion and colour tasks was seen; motion was modulated by attention, and colour was not. We conclude that attention has some ability to select a dimension at a particular location, indicating integration of spatial and feature-based attention.     

口吃者的言语计划缺陷——来自词长效应的证据

口吃者与非口吃者在词长效应上的差异是口吃语音编码缺陷的一个重要的支持证据。本研究在综述词长效应研究的基础上,对这种解释提出了三点置疑,即词频、句法复杂性和发音长度也可能是造成词长效应差异的主要原因,并通过三个实验进行了验证。实验一和实验三在口吃者和非口吃者之间都得到了稳定的词长效应差异,并且排除了词频和发音长度对于这种差异的影响;实验二在控制词长的条件下,发现口吃者对于句法复杂性是敏感的。因此,本研究的结果支持口吃在言语产出中的语音编码和句法编码中都存在缺陷。同时,本研究对于口吃治疗也提供了有价值的参考建议     

Color naming universals: the case of Berinmo

Proponents of a self-identified 'relativist' view of cross-language color naming have confounded two questions: (1) Is color naming largely subject to local linguistic convention? and (2) Are cross-language color naming differences reflected in comparable differences in color cognition by their speakers? The 'relativist' position holds that the correct answer to both questions is Yes, based on data from the Berinmo language of Papua New Guinea. It is shown here that the Berinmo facts instead support a more complex view -- that cross-language color naming follows non-trivial universal tendencies, while cross-language color-naming differences do indeed correlate with differences in color cognition. The rhetoric of 'relativity' versus 'universalism' impedes understanding of cross-language color naming and cognition.     

Representing object colour in language comprehension

Embodied theories of cognition hold that mentally representing something red engages the neural subsystems that respond to environmental perception of that colour. This paper examines whether implicit perceptual information on object colour is represented during sentence comprehension even though doing so does not necessarily facilitate task performance. After reading a sentence that implied a particular colour for a given object, participants were presented with a picture of the object that either matched or mismatched the implied colour. When asked if the pictured object was mentioned in the preceding sentence, people's responses were faster when the colours mismatched than when they matched, suggesting that object colour is represented differently to other object properties such as shape and orientation. A distinction between stable and unstable embodied representations is proposed to allow embodied theories to account for these findings.     

The role of multiple-exemplar training and naming in establishing derived equivalence in an infant

The conditions under which symmetry and equivalence relations develop are still controversial. This paper reports three experiments that attempt to analyze the impact of multiple-exemplar training (MET) in receptive symmetry on the emergence of visual-visual equivalence relations with a very young child, Gloria. At the age of 15 months 24 days (15m24d), Gloria was tested for receptive symmetry and naming and showed no evidence of either repertoire. In the first experiment, MET in immediate and delayed receptive symmetrical responding or listener behavior (from object-sound to immediate and delayed sound-object selection) proceeded for one month with 10 different objects. This was followed, at 16m25d, by a second test conducted with six new objects. Gloria showed generalized receptive symmetry with a 3-hr delay; however no evidence of naming with new objects was found. Experiment 2 began at 17m with the aim of establishing derived visual-visual equivalence relations using a matching-to-sample format with two comparisons. Visual-visual equivalence responding emerged at 19m, although Gloria still had not shown evidence of naming. Experiment 3 (22m to 23m25d) used a three-comparison matching-to-sample procedure to establish visual-visual equivalence. Equivalence responding emerged as in Experiment 2, and naming emerged by the end of Experiment 3. Results are discussed in terms of the history of training in bidirectional relations responsible for the emergence of visual-visual equivalence relations and of their implications for current theories of stimulus equivalence.     

知觉信息先期呈现下两可图的命名和相似判断

在实物图片或轮廓图先期呈现的条件下研究了6岁、9岁、12岁及成人被试对两可图形的命名或相似判断。结果表明：（1）命名项目或相似判断与线索项目有关时,各年龄被试对判断项的命名或相似判断均表现出与线索项目一致的倾向。（2）轮廓图作为线索项目时．命名或相似判断反应时较长;实物作为线索项目时,命名或相似判断反应时较短。无关项目作为为线索项目时．被试命名或相似判断的反应时居中;命名项目或相似判断项目均与线索项目一致时反应时较短;命名项目或相似判断项目均与线索项目不一致时反应时延长。（3）被试命名或相似判断的反应时随其年龄的增长而下降,6岁和9岁儿童的反应时较长;12岁儿童的反应时较短;成人的反应时最短。     

中-英双语者英语命名图片的一致性

选用中-英双语者对Snodgrass和Vanderwart的标准图片库中的224张图片进行了英语(第二语言)命名一致性研究,最后得到了131张图片的英语命名一致性百分数、概念一致性百分数及H值.建立了这些图片的英语命名一致性常模.本研究还考察了图片命名一致性与图片命名反应时和错误率的关系,结果发现,H值、命名一致性百分数及概念一致性百分数与图片命名反应时、错误率之间均呈现显著的相关,其中命名一致性百分数和概念一致性在预测图片命名反应时和错误率时起重要作用.     

Not the Words: Hymnody,Enacted Theology,and the Lutheran Inupiat

Abstract : The theology of hymnody is not text‐bound. This article asserts that for the Lutheran Inupiat of Anchorage (Alaska), the practice of singing enacts the important theology. The Lutheran Inupiat still use the missionary hymns of the 1880s—early 1900s. This article explores how singing hymns simultaneously perpetuates Inupiaq spiritual culture and participates in the adopted Lutheran heritage. Inupiaq naming‐practices and song‐genealogies enrich Christian understandings of the ‘communion of saints’, which is enacted through singing.