声旁规则性对命名声旁和整字的影响

探讨声旁规则性对命名声旁或整字的影响,在速示与慢示呈现条件下命名声旁或汉字。结果发现：（1）声旁命名在速示呈现时因规则声旁易化;慢示呈现时无显著规则性效应,但受声旁部件数影响;（2）在两种呈现条件下,命名含不表音声旁字的反应时最快,错误率最低;命名含单部件、高频声旁字的反应时慢,错误率高;命名含多部件、低频声旁字的反应时快,错误率低。说明是声旁规则性对声旁命名有易化作用;对整字命名有干扰作用,但与声旁频率与部件数有关。     

Neural correlates of comprehension and production of nouns and verbs in Chinese

This paper reports a conjunction analysis between semantic relatedness judgment and semantic associate generation of Chinese nouns and verbs with concrete or abstract meanings. The results revealed a verb-specific task-independent region in LpSTG&MTG, and task-dependent activation in a left frontal region in semantic judgment and the left SMG in semantic associate production. The observation of word class effects converged on Yu, Law, Han, Zhu, and Bi (2011), but contrasted with null findings in previous reports using a lexical decision task. While word class effects in the left posterior temporal cortices have been described in previous studies of languages with rich inflectional morphology, the significance of this study lies in its demonstration of the effects in these regions in a language known to have little inflectional morphology. In other words, differential neural responses to nouns and verbs can be observed without confounding from morphosyntactic operations or contrasts between actions and objects.     

Neuroscientific Measures of Covert Behavior

In radical behaviorism, the difference between overt and covert responses does not depend on properties of the behavior but on the sensitivity of the measurement tools employed by the experimenter. Current neuroscientific research utilizes technologies that allow measurement of variables that are undetected by the tools typically used by behavior analysts. Data from a specific neuroscientific technique, event-related potential (ERP), suggest that emission of otherwise covert responses can be indexed and that such covert responses are sensitive to stimulus control and selection by consequences. The P3 ERP effect is proposed as indicative of emission. Moreover, ERP results in semantic priming experiments suggest that operants are sensitive to changes in stimulus control even when they are not emitted (latent responses). Changes in response strength of latent responses as a function of stimulus control can in fact be measured by reaction time data and an ERP dependent variable called the N400 effect. If the interpretations provided in this paper are accurate, an index of covertly emitted operants (P3 effect) constitutes experimental evidence suggesting the validity of a Skinnerian radical behaviorist perspective on behavior. Moreover, in a Skinnerian paradigm, measured fluctuations in the response strength of latent operants as a function of environmental changes (N400 effect) would validate Palmer's (2009) concept of the repertoire.     

声符与义符在形声字识别中的影响机制

形声字是汉字的主体,声符和义符作为形声字的构字部件,其各自的功能属性对形声字的识别具有不同的影响。当前研究采用多种实验任务,结合眼动以及脑电等多种技术,对声符和义符各自的功能属性及作用机制进行了较为全面的研究,这为后续研究奠定了良好的基础,并对未来汉字认知领域的研究具有重要的启示作用。     

Redundancy gain in semantic categorisation

Redundancy gain refers to the performance enhancements often associated with the presentation of redundant versus single targets (for example, faster, more accurate, or more forceful responses). Though predominantly observed in relatively simple tasks (e.g., stimulus detection), there have been some efforts to investigate similar phenomena in tasks involving higher level processing. We conducted three experiments aimed at determining (a) whether a redundancy gain would be evident in a task unambiguously requiring higher level processing (the semantic categorisation of visually-presented lexical stimuli), and (b) if so, what accounts might be appropriate to explain such findings. We found that redundancy gains are observed in such tasks, and we conclude that both coactivation and race models can account for these gains.     

Effects of Emotional Experience for Abstract Words in the Stroop Task

In this study, we examined the effects of emotional experience, a relatively new dimension of emotional knowledge that gauges the ease with which words evoke emotional experience, on abstract word processing in the Stroop task. In order to test the context‐dependency of these effects, we accentuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1A by blocking the stimuli such that one block consisted of the stimuli with the highest emotional experience ratings and the other block consisted of the stimuli with the lowest emotional experience ratings. We attenuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1B by intermixing the stimuli. We observed slower color naming performance for words with higher emotional experience ratings only in Experiment 1A, suggesting that the dimension of emotional experience is an aspect of semantic representation for abstract words but that its influence can be modulated by context. We interpret these results more generally using Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews, and Kousta's (2009) framework of semantic representation, and more specifically using Cohen, Dunbar, and McClelland's (1990) model of Stroop task performance.     

Age invariance in semantic and episodic metamemory: Both younger and older adults provide accurate feeling-of-knowing for names of faces

Age differences in feeling-of-knowing (FOK) accuracy were examined for both episodic memory and semantic memory. Younger and older adults either viewed pictures of famous faces (semantic memory) or associated non-famous faces and names (episodic memory) and were tested on their memory for the name of the presented face. Participants viewed the faces again and made a FOK prediction about future recognition of the name associated with the presented face. Finally, four-alternative forced-choice recognition memory for the name, cued by the face, was tested and confidence judgments (CJs) were collected for each recognition response. Age differences were not obtained in semantic memory or the resolution of semantic FOKs, defined by within-person correlations of FOKs with recognition memory performance. Although age differences were obtained in level of episodic memory, there were no age differences in the resolution of episodic FOKs. FOKs for correctly recognized items correlated reliably with CJs for both types of materials, and did not differ by age group. The results indicate age invariance in monitoring of retrieval processes for name–face associations.     

Increasing Levels of Semantic Verbal Fluency in Elderly English Adults

ABSTRACT

Analyses incorporating large independent population-based samples and identical measures are needed to investigate recent trends in cognitive function. Nationally representative independent cohorts of community living individuals in England aged 65 years or older from the MRC Cognitive Function and Ageing Study in 1991 (n = 9458) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing in 2002 (n = 5196) were compared. East Cambridgeshire participants aged 65–69 years in 1991 (n = 680) were also compared to an independent cohort examined in 1996 (n = 600). Semantic verbal fluency, as measured by the animal naming neuropsychological test, increased by 1.1 extra words a minute in England between 1991 and 2002 (95% CI 0.9, 1.3). A similar increase was also observed in East Cambridgeshire. Levels of semantic verbal fluency appear to have increased in the older English population, which may help to buffer the aging population from future increases in dementia.     

The time course of access to semantic information in high-performing older adults: Behavioral evidence for the hemispheric asymmetry reduction in OLDer individuals

ABSTRACT

The possibility that the HAROLD phenomenon (i.e., Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in OLDer adults) is manifested in the course of access to semantic information, in particular the meaning of emotional words, was investigated using the visual half-field priming paradigm. The time course of priming was tracked in the cerebral hemispheres across three SOAs: 150, 300, and 750 ms. The results showed older and young adults had the same level of accuracy. While priming occurred unilaterally in young participants, the pattern of priming in older participants appeared to be bilateral whenever it was present, that is, at the 300- and 750-ms SOAs. The delay in the appearance of priming in older adults may be due to an increase in sensory thresholds that causes older adults to need more time to encode stimuli and fully activate their semantic network. It is concluded that the bilateral pattern of priming in the presence of an equivalent level of performance in older adults provides behavioral evidence supporting the compensatory role of the HAROLD phenomenon for this particular task.