Conceptual Integration of Arithmetic Operations With Real‐World Knowledge: Evidence From Event‐Related Potentials

Research on language processing has shown that the disruption of conceptual integration gives rise to specific patterns of event‐related brain potentials (ERPs)—N400 and P600 effects. Here, we report similar ERP effects when adults performed cross‐domain conceptual integration of analogous semantic and mathematical relations. In a problem‐solving task, when participants generated labeled answers to semantically aligned and misaligned arithmetic problems (e.g., 6 roses + 2 tulips  = ? vs. 6 roses + 2 vases  = ?), the second object label in misaligned problems yielded an N400 effect for addition (but not division) problems. In a verification task, when participants judged arithmetically correct but semantically misaligned problem sentences to be “unacceptable,” the second object label in misaligned sentences elicited a P600 effect. Thus, depending on task constraints, misaligned problems can show either of two ERP signatures of conceptual disruption. These results show that well‐educated adults can integrate mathematical and semantic relations on the rapid timescale of within‐domain ERP effects by a process akin to analogical mapping.     

Historical Semantic Chaining and Efficient Communication: The Case of Container Names

Semantic categories in the world's languages often reflect a historical process of chaining: A name for one referent is extended to a conceptually related referent, and from there on to other referents, producing a chain of exemplars that all bear the same name. The beginning and end points of such a chain might in principle be rather dissimilar. There is also evidence supporting a contrasting picture: Languages tend to support efficient, informative communication, often through semantic categories in which all exemplars are similar. Here, we explore this tension through computational analyses of existing cross‐language naming and sorting data from the domain of household containers. We find (a) formal evidence for historical semantic chaining, and (b) evidence that systems of categories in this domain nonetheless support near‐optimally efficient communication. Our results demonstrate that semantic chaining is compatible with efficient communication, and they suggest that chaining may be constrained by the functional need for efficient communication.     

Non-semantic contributions to “semantic” redundancy gain

Recently, two groups of researchers have reported redundancy gains (enhanced performance with multiple, redundant targets) in tasks requiring semantic categorization. Here we report two experiments aimed at determining whether the gains found by one of these groups resulted from some form of semantic coactivation. We asked undergraduate psychology students to complete choice RT tasks requiring the semantic categorization of visually presented words, and compared performance with redundant targets from the same semantic category to performance with redundant targets from different semantic categories. If the redundancy gains resulted from the combination of information at a semantic level, they should have been greater in the former than the latter situation. However, our results showed no significant differences in redundancy gain (for latency and accuracy) between same-category and different-category conditions, despite gains appearing in both conditions. Thus, we suggest that redundancy gain in the semantic categorization task may result entirely from statistical facilitation or combination of information at non-semantic levels.     

Additivity of semantic and phonological effects: Evidence from speech production in Mandarin

A number of previous studies using picture–word interference (PWI) tasks conducted with speakers of Western languages have demonstrated non-additive effects of semantic and form overlap between pictures and words, which may indicate underlying non-discrete processing stages in lexical retrieval. The present study used Mandarin speakers and presented Chinese characters as distractors. In two experiments, we crossed semantic relatedness with “pure” phonological (i.e., orthographically unrelated) relatedness and found statistically additive effects. In a third experiment, semantic relatedness was crossed with orthographic overlap (phonological overlap was avoided), and once again we found an additive pattern. The results are discussed with regard to possible cross-linguistic differences between Western and non-Western languages in terms of phonological encoding, as well as concerning the locus of relatedness effects in PWI tasks.     

Alcohol-aggression expectancies and dispositional rumination moderate the effect of alcohol consumption on alcohol-related aggression and hostility

Alcohol consumption increases aggression, but only in some drinkers. This study extends previous work to show how expectancies for alcohol-induced aggression and dispositional rumination moderate the link between alcohol consumption and alcohol-related aggression and hostility in a sample of 285 men and women. Alcohol-aggression expectancies and quantity of alcohol interacted to predict alcohol-related hostility and aggression. Trait rumination moderated the effect of alcohol consumption on aggressive acts. Finally, women who ruminated were more likely to report alcohol-related aggression than were men who ruminated. These results suggest that alcohol expectancies for aggression and rumination constitute two important cognitive facilitators of alcohol-related aggression and hostility, and that gender plays an important role in these relations.     

The alcohol-aggression link: children's aggression expectancies in marital arguments as a function of the sobriety or intoxication of the arguing couple

Children's expectancies of man-woman and woman-man aggression during arguments between individuals who were either intoxicated or sober were examined. The role of child and familial characteristics in influencing these expectancies was assessed. We examined children's expectations of interadult verbal/psychological and physical aggression during simulated arguments presented to children on videotapes. A community sample (N = 156) of children and young adolescents (6-14-year olds) participated. Children expected higher levels of aggression during conflict when they thought that one or both participants in conflict were intoxicated versus sober. Further, higher levels of verbal versus physical interadult conflict were expected during the disputes. These findings build on the literature by demonstrating that elementary school age children and young adolescents exhibit expectancies that link the consumption of alcohol with increased verbal and physical aggression in marital arguments. These alcohol-aggression expectancies were robust and were evident in relation to either the man's or woman's perpetration of aggression against the spouse. Elucidation of factors that can influence associations between aggression and alcohol consumption are of importance and have broad implications for family functioning.     

The semantic/episodic distinction: The case for social information processing

The directed-forgetting paradigm was used in order to dissociate episodic from semantic processes in an impression formation task. Results demonstrate that incongruent behaviors are more prone to manipulations that disrupt episodic memory, whereas congruent behaviors are unaffected by such manipulations. The results suggest that the distinction between episodic and semantic memory processes is central for the understanding of social information processing. An explanation is put forward according to which the incongruency effect, a signature effect of impression formation, is due to an episodic encoding advantage for incongruent behaviors because of their semantically isolated nature, and their impoverished semantic encoding.     

Memory and metamemory for semantic information in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Several studies have been conducted on OCD patients' memory and metamemory performance in episodic tasks. However, there is a clear lack of research addressing these issues for semantic memory (i.e., retrieval of information from long-term memory). Although findings regarding a memory deficit is somewhat equivocal, the empirical evidence clearly demonstrates that OCD patients with primarily checking compulsions show reduced confidence in their memory performance. The purpose of the present study was to investigate memory and metamemory performance of checkers in semantic memory domain. We compared checker OCD patients, non-checker OCD patients and normal controls on their ability to retrieve answers to general knowledge questions with a recall as well as a recognition test. We also investigated prospective (feeling-of-knowing (FOK)) and retrospective (confidence) metamemory judgments. Checker OCs were not poorer in retrieving semantic information from long-term memory. Neither were they less confident about their ability to remember currently unrecallable information in the future (FOK judgments) or about the accuracy of retrieved information (confidence judgments). Moreover, accuracy of metamemory judgments were comparable across groups. Overall, our results revealed that checker OCs do not show a memory or metamemory deficit when semantic memory was concerned, suggesting that any memory and metamemory deficit may be special to recently experienced materials.     

Facial expressions and subjective assessments of emotions

There was conducted an experimental comparison of the objective (FaceReader 4.0) and subjective assessment of the severity of emotions on different scales. As objects, 18 short (no more than 2 s) videos were used, on which the same person (actress) expressed the given emotions by pronouncing the word “Yes”. These stimuli were selected based on previously conducted subjective scaling experiments. We used (1) a direct subjective quantitative assessment of each video clip separately for each of the parameters selected in the FaceReader 4.0 program (neutral, happy, angry, disgust, fear, sad, surprise) – the severity of the corresponding emotion was evaluated in points; (2) a direct subjective assessment of each video clip for each of the parameters allocated in the 4-dimensional spherical model of emotions (bad – good; confidence – surprise; attraction; defensive reaction: fear – aggression); (3) the methodology of the Semantic Differential Scaling (SD) by C. Osgood; (4) the PXLab Self-Assessment-Manikin Scales. As a result, the relationship of all the scales used was investigated and it was shown that the objective qualification of emotions (using the FaceReader 4.0 program) does not coincide with the results of subjective assessment of the same samples.     

新颖性寻求对创造性行为表现的影响：语义网络的中介作用

研究采用物品多用途任务、中文复合远距离联想任务和汉语双字词词对相关性判断任务,考察新颖性寻求特质水平对创造性表现的影响,探明语义网络在其中的作用。结果发现：高新颖性寻求个体在物品多用途任务中有更高的新颖性得分,而在中文复合远距离联想任务中与低新颖性寻求个体表现一致;在低相关词对判断时,高新颖性寻求个体反应时更短;低相关词对的判断反应时在新颖性寻求对创造性行为表现的影响中起部分中介作用。结果预示,新颖性寻求特质有利于个体建构形成能快速激活远距离信息的语义网络,进而促进创造性行为表现。