Contribution of the visual perception and graphic production systems to the copying of complex geometrical drawings: A developmental study

The aim of this study was to determine the contribution of the visual perception and graphic production systems [Van Sommers, P. (1989). A system for drawing and drawing-related neuropsychology. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 6, 117–164] to the manifestation of the “Centripetal Execution Principle” (CEP), a graphic rule for the copying of drawings consisting of embedded simple geometric shapes from the outside shape to the inside shape. Children aged 4–8 years copied two types of model that differed in the visual salience of one of the simple geometric shapes (drawn in bold or normal weight lines), producing the drawings either by graphic execution (freehand) or by superimposing the simple geometric shapes. The results indicated that the frequency of CEP depended both on the type of model and on the drawing context in the youngest children. They suggest that the CEP is determined by the structure of the representation of the models and the planning of the execution of the drawings. The developmental differences in the effects of visual salience and execution context are discussed in the light of the development of representational flexibility and planning abilities. These data are consistent with a dissociation between the visual perception and graphic production systems and account for their interaction.     

The role of orthography in speech production revisited

The language production system of literate adults comprises an orthographic system (used during written language production) and a phonological system (used during spoken language production). Recent psycholinguistic research has investigated possible influences of the orthographic system on the phonological system. This research has produced contrastive results, with some studies showing effects of orthography in the course of normal speech production while others failing to show such effects. In this article, we review the available evidence and consider possible explanations for the discrepancy. We then report two form-preparation experiments which aimed at testing for the effects of orthography in spoken word-production. Our results provide clear evidence that the orthographic properties of the words do not influence their spoken production in picture naming. We discuss this finding in relation to psycholinguistic and neuropsychological investigations of the relationship between written and spoken word-production.     

前额叶在双语词汇通达中的抑制作用——对一例前额叶损伤双语病人的研究

先前研究表明,双语词汇产生和双语词汇理解过程中存在着抑制机制。本实验以一例前额叶损伤中-英双语病人为研究对象,通过让其完成系统的语言测试任务和认知实验任务,考察了双语词汇通达过程中抑制机制的神经基础。总的实验结果初步表明,前额叶在双语词汇通达过程中发挥着重要的抑制作用。     

Rethinking Collaborative Learning Through Participation in an Interdisciplinary Research Project: Tensions and Negotiations as Key Points in Knowledge Production

As social and cultural psychologists of learning, we are persuaded of the crucial role of interaction in development and learning. But how do we experience this assumption in our own research practices and in our collaboration with colleagues? Taking as our object of study our own participation in a European Research and Development project that aimed to enhance interactive and argumentative skills in learning settings, this study shows how collaboration among project partners is not something that is to be taken for granted, but something that is elaborated and evolves in time, takes diverse forms, and is mediated by multiple tools. The psychological processes—more particularly tensions and negotiation—involved in collaboration are developed and discussed. The study explores the processes of establishing collaboration and, through the analysis of specific zones of tensions, sheds light on the way new knowledge (on how to do research, how to communicate, how to work together) is constructed. It contributes to the understanding of the issues and conditions for the development of a community of practice.     

Naming analog clocks conceptually facilitates naming digital clocks

This study investigates how speakers of Dutch compute and produce relative time expressions. Naming digital clocks (e.g., 2:45, say "quarter to three") requires conceptual operations on the minute and hour information for the correct relative time expression. The interplay of these conceptual operations was investigated using a repetition priming paradigm. Participants named analog clocks (the primes) directly before naming digital clocks (the targets). The targets referred to the hour (e.g., 2:00), half past the hour (e.g., 2:30), or the coming hour (e.g., 2:45). The primes differed from the target in one or two hour and in five or ten minutes. Digital clock naming latencies were shorter with a five- than with a ten-min difference between prime and target, but the difference in hour had no effect. Moreover, the distance in minutes had only an effect for half past the hour and the coming hour, but not for the hour. These findings suggest that conceptual facilitation occurs when conceptual transformations are shared between prime and target in telling time.     

Effects of syllable frequency in speech production

In the speech production model proposed by [Levelt, W. J. M., Roelofs, A., Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, pp. 1-75.], syllables play a crucial role at the interface of phonological and phonetic encoding. At this interface, abstract phonological syllables are translated into phonetic syllables. It is assumed that this translation process is mediated by a so-called Mental Syllabary. Rather than constructing the motor programs for each syllable on-line, the mental syllabary is hypothesized to provide pre-compiled gestural scores for the articulators. In order to find evidence for such a repository, we investigated syllable-frequency effects: If the mental syllabary consists of retrievable representations corresponding to syllables, then the retrieval process should be sensitive to frequency differences. In a series of experiments using a symbol-position association learning task, we tested whether high-frequency syllables are retrieved and produced faster compared to low-frequency syllables. We found significant syllable frequency effects with monosyllabic pseudo-words and disyllabic pseudo-words in which the first syllable bore the frequency manipulation; no effect was found when the frequency manipulation was on the second syllable. The implications of these results for the theory of word form encoding at the interface of phonological and phonetic encoding; especially with respect to the access mechanisms to the mental syllabary in the speech production model by (Levelt et al.) are discussed.     

Set size and repetition in the picture--word interference paradigm: implications for models of naming

Caramazza and Costa (Cognition 75 (2000) B51) reported results which demonstrate that a semantically related word distractor interferes in picture naming even when it is not in the response set and there is no possibility for mediated interference. They interpreted the results to be problematic for the model of lexical access proposed by Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer (Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (1999) 1). Roelofs (Cognition 80 (2001, this issue 283--90)) argues that those results are not inconsistent with Levelt et al.'s model when certain new assumptions about the mechanism of lexical selection are considered. Here we show that even with these assumptions the model still makes the wrong predictions. We report new results which demonstrate that the semantic interference and facilitation effects that are obtained respectively in the basic-level and category-level naming variants of the picture-word interference paradigm are not the result of response set size and response repetitions.     

The vulnerable C-domain

The purpose of this article is to document the existence of a group of natural language speakers who display non-target-like production of the syntax at the highest structural level, the C-domain, but produce the syntax of lower structural levels in a target-like way. This group consists of very early L1 learners, children with Specific Language Impairment, adult L2 learners, and patients with Broca's aphasia. The group is established on the basis of data from Swedish and German, but can presumably be discerned for any language. The assumption that the non-target-like production of C-domain syntax is related to Broca's area is discussed, as are some consequences for modern syntactic theory.