Social priming of dyslexia and reduction of the Stroop effect: What component of the Stroop effect is actually reduced?

Recently, Goldfarb, Aisenberg, and Henik (2011) showed that in a manual format of the Stroop task, dyslexia priming eliminates the normal magnitude of the interference-based Stroop-like findings otherwise exhibited by individuals participating in such research. Goldfarb et al. (2011) consequently concluded that the effect of word reading in a Stroop task (i.e., one automatic behavior) can be effectively controlled through an automatic instruction “do not read” (i.e., another automatic behavior). The present study further investigated these ideas by examining when and how dyslexia priming controls different processes involved in a Stroop task. To this end, the original finding was first replicated (Experiment 1) and subsequently extended to the vocal (instead of manual) response modality to examine whether previously reported eliminations of the Stroop effect persist with this response format (i.e., format producing larger Stroop effects). Since past work (e.g., Augustinova & Ferrand, 2012a; Brown, Joneleit et al., 2002; Ferrand & Augustinova, 2013) had suggested that various interventions were likely to reduce (rather than eliminate) the interference-based Stroop-like findings with vocal responses, a further aim of these experiments was to identify the component of these findings that dyslexia priming actually reduces. To this end, the effects of this intervention were examined in a more fine-grained variant of the Stroop task that distinguished between interference resulting from task-irrelevant processes involved in computing the lexical and semantic representations of the word (i.e., a written distractor to ignore) and task-relevant processes involved in the selection of a response (i.e., a color target to name) that are both involved in this task. In line with our past work (e.g., Augustinova & Ferrand, 2012a; Ferrand & Augustinova, 2013), the results of two experiments (Experiments 2 and 3) showed that in the vocal format, dyslexia priming reduces but does not eliminate the normal magnitude of the interference-based Stroop-like findings and that this reduction is solely due to the control of processes involved in the selection of a response (i.e., a color target to name) – processes that are known to be controllable in this format (Ferrand & Augustinova, 2013). Given that in this format, dyslexia priming had no effect on task-irrelevant processes involved in computing the lexical and semantic representations of a written distractor to be ignored – processes that are known to be automatic – further implications for the control of automatic processes via dyslexia priming are considered and an interpretation in terms of a unitary control mechanism for both the manual and vocal formats is proposed.     

Collusive induction in perverse relating: Perverse enactments and bastions as a camouflage for death anxiety

The author argues that one of the main functions of perverse relatedness is to induce the analyst into becoming the patient's unconscious accomplice in a “perverse pact” against the analytic work aimed at disavowing intolerable aspects of reality. The intense power of collusive induction in perverse relating leads the analyst to participate in transference‐countertransference enactments and to the crystallization of a silent and chronic unconscious collusion between the patient and analyst in the analytic field, stagnating the process (bastion; Baranger and Baranger). The author claims that analysis of perverse pathology should not be limited to interpretation of the patient's intrapsychic functioning but should also focus on the information obtained by the analyst through his participation in collusive enactments; the analyst should also take a “second look” at the analytic “field” to detect underlying bastions. The author reviews the main psychoanalytic contributions that have clarified the phenomenon of collusive induction in perverse relating and as an illustration, describes the analysis of a man with a perverse character; in this patient, one of the main functions of his perverse relatedness was to induce the analyst to become an accomplice in his disavowal of his terror of death. The author highlights the influence of death anxiety in the bastions that develop in the treatment of perverse patients.     

Integrating the Automatic and the Controlled: Strategies in Semantic Priming in an Attractor Network With Latching Dynamics

Semantic priming has long been recognized to reflect, along with automatic semantic mechanisms, the contribution of controlled strategies. However, previous theories of controlled priming were mostly qualitative, lacking common grounds with modern mathematical models of automatic priming based on neural networks. Recently, we introduced a novel attractor network model of automatic semantic priming with latching dynamics. Here, we extend this work to show how the same model can also account for important findings regarding controlled processes. Assuming the rate of semantic transitions in the network can be adapted using simple reinforcement learning, we show how basic findings attributed to controlled processes in priming can be achieved, including their dependency on stimulus onset asynchrony and relatedness proportion and their unique effect on associative, category‐exemplar, mediated and backward prime‐target relations. We discuss how our mechanism relates to the classic expectancy theory and how it can be further extended in future developments of the model.     

Rethinking parafoveal processing in reading: Serial-attention models can explain semantic preview benefit and N+2 preview effects

During reading, some information about the word to the right of fixation in the parafovea is typically acquired prior to that word being fixated. Although some degree parafoveal processing is uncontroversial, its precise nature and extent are unclear. For example, can it advance up to the level of semantic processing? Additionally, can it extend across more than two spatially adjacent words? Affirmative answers to either of these questions would seemingly be problematic for serial-attention models of eye-movement control in reading, which maintain that attention is allocated to only one word at a time (see Reichle, 2011). However, in this paper we report simulation results using one such model, E-Z Reader (Reichle, Pollatsek, Fisher, & Rayner, 1998), to examine the two preceding questions. These results suggest the existence of both semantic preview and N+2 preview effects, indicating that they are not incompatible with serial-attention models. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of eye-movement control in reading and provide a new theoretical framework for conceptualizing parafoveal processing during reading and its influence on eye movement behaviour.     

Generalisation of fear and avoidance along a semantic continuum

Directly conditioned fear and avoidance readily generalises to dissimilar but conceptually related stimuli. Here, for the first time, we examined the conceptual/semantic generalisation of both fear and avoidance using real words (synonyms). Participants were first exposed to a differential fear conditioning procedure in which one word (e.g., “broth”; CS+) was followed with brief electric shock [unconditioned stimulus (US)] and another was not (e.g., “assist”; CS–). Next, an instrumental conditioning phase taught avoidance in the presence the CS+ but not the CS–. During generalisation testing, synonyms of the CS+ (e.g., “soup”; GCS+) and CS– (e.g., “help”; GCS–) were presented in the absence of shock. Conditioned fear and avoidance, measured via skin conductance responses, behavioural avoidance and US expectancy ratings, generalised to the semantically related, but not to the semantically unrelated, synonyms. Findings have implications for how natural language categories and concepts mediate the expansion of fear and avoidance repertoires in clinical contexts.     

Masked semantic priming effects from the prime's orthographic neighbours

The present research involved masked priming lexical decision experiments using, in the crucial condition, masked primes with an orthographic neighbour that was semantically related to the target. Regardless of the lexicality of the prime, a significant priming effect was observed when the relatedness proportion (RP, that is, the proportion of primes and targets that were directly related on the “word” trials) was 2/3 (Experiments 1 and 2). No effect emerged, however, when the RP was 0 (Experiment 3). These results indicate that lexical/semantic activation arises automatically for both the prime and its neighbours. This activated lexical/semantic information appears to be evaluated together with the lexical/semantic information activated by the target, creating a decision bias during the decision-making process, but only when that information often provides a clue as to the nature of the correct decision. Our results, therefore, also provide support for the retrospective account of masked semantic priming.     

Global and Local Feature Distinctiveness Effects in Language Acquisition

Various aspects of semantic features drive early vocabulary development, but less is known about how the global and local structure of the overall semantic feature space influences language acquisition. A feature network of English words was constructed from a large database of adult feature production norms such that edges in the network represented feature distances between words (i.e., Manhattan distances of probability distributions of features elicited for each pair of words). A word's global feature distinctiveness is measured with respect to all other words in the network and a word's local feature distinctiveness is measured relative to words in sub-networks derived from clustering analyses. This paper investigates how feature distinctiveness of individual words at local and global scales of the network influences language acquisition. Regression analyses indicate that global feature distinctiveness was associated with earlier age of acquisition ratings, and was a stronger predictor of age of acquisition than local feature distinctiveness. These results suggest that the global structure of the semantic feature network could play an important role in language acquisition, whereby globally distinctive concepts help to structure vocabulary development over the lifespan.     

The robustness of false memory for emotional pictures

Emotional material is commonly reported to be more accurately recognised; however, there is substantial evidence of increased false alarm rates (FAR) for emotional material and several reports of stronger influences on response bias than accuracy. This pattern is more frequently reported for words than pictures. Research on the mechanisms underlying bias differences has mostly focused on word lists under short retention intervals. This article presents four series of experiments examining recognition memory for emotional pictures while varying arousal and the control over the content of the pictures at two retention intervals, and one study measuring the relatedness of the series picture sets. Under the shorter retention interval, emotion increased false alarms and reduced accuracy. Under the longer retention interval emotion increased hit rates and FAR, resulting in reduced accuracy and/or bias. At both retention intervals, the pattern of valence effects differed based on the arousal associated with the picture sets. Emotional pictures were found to be more related than neutral pictures in each set; however, the influence of relatedness alone does not provide an adequate explanation for all emotional differences. The results demonstrate substantial emotional differences in picture recognition that vary based on valence, arousal and retention interval.