Learning to fail: reoccurring tip-of-the-tongue states

This experiment looked at elicited tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states to test the hypothesis that making an error once makes people more likely to make it again, via an implicit learning mechanism. We present a methodology that allows us to determine whether error reoccurrences are due to error learning or to the fact that some items tend to pose repeated difficulty to participants. We elicited TOTs by asking participants to supply the word that fitted a given definition. Each time participants indicated that they were experiencing a TOT they were randomly assigned a delay of either 10 or 30 seconds, during which they were asked to keep trying to retrieve the item. After the delay, the correct answer was supplied. We argue that this longer delay in a TOT state amounts to greater implicit learning of the erroneous state. A period of 48 hours later, participants returned to the laboratory and were asked to supply the words for the same definitions as those seen on Day 1. Results showed that TOTs were almost twice as likely to reoccur on words that had elicited a TOT and been followed by a long delay than on those that had been followed by a short delay.     

Creative compromise: Syrian television makers between Secularism and Islamism

Dramatic television serials produced in Syria reach vast audiences in the Arab world and beyond, via a growing number of pan-Arab satellite stations owned by wealthy, religiously conservative Gulf Cooperation Council states and citizens. Drama creators must now accommodate new markets and numerous censors. Privatization and the rise of a star system have spurred transformations within the industry that reflect the wider social and political context. The demise of Ba‘th socialism, the failures of nationalism, and the growing strength of Islamism affect both production and consumption of television programs, and transform relations within the industry. This paper explores how the television drama industry both accommodates and resists the Islamist currents that seek to provide alternatives to discredited nationalist and socialist projects.

The masked onset priming effect in picture naming

Reading aloud is faster when targets (e.g., PAIR) are preceded by visually masked primes sharing just the onset (e.g., pole) compared to all different primes (e.g., take). This effect is known as the masked onset priming effect (MOPE). One crucial feature of this effect is its presumed non-lexical basis. This aspect of the MOPE is tested in the current study. Dutch participants named pictures having bisyllabic names, which were preceded by visually masked primes. Picture naming was facilitated by first-segment but not last-segment primes, and by first-syllable as well as last-syllable primes. Whole-word primes with first or last segment overlap slowed down picture naming latencies significantly. The first-segment priming effect (i.e., MOPE) cannot be accounted for by non-lexical response competition since pictures cannot be named via the non-lexical route. Instead, the effects obtained in this study can be accommodated by a speech-planning account of the MOPE.     

The link between speech perception and production is phonological and abstract: evidence from the shadowing task

This study reports a shadowing experiment, in which one has to repeat a speech stimulus as fast as possible. We tested claims about a direct link between perception and production based on speech gestures, and obtained two types of counterevidence. First, shadowing is not slowed down by a gestural mismatch between stimulus and response. Second, phonetic detail is more likely to be imitated in a shadowing task if it is phonologically relevant. This is consistent with the idea that speech perception and speech production are only loosely coupled, on an abstract phonological level.     

Stevens' power law and the problem of meaningfulness

Frequently, it is postulated that the results of a ratio production (resp., ratio estimation) experiment can be summarized by Stevens' power law psi=alphaphi(beta). In the present article, it is argued that the power law parameters depend, among other things, on the standard stimulus presented as a reference point, and the physical stimulus scale by which the physical intensities are measured. To formalize this idea, a new formulation of Stevens' power law is presented. We show that the exponent in Stevens' power law can only be interpreted in a meaningful way if the stimulus scale is a ratio scale. Furthermore, we present empirically testable axioms (termed invertibility and weak multiplicativity) which are both necessary and sufficient for the power law exponent to be invariant under changes of the standard stimulus. Finally, invertibility and weak multiplicativity are evaluated in a ratio production experiment. Ten participants were required to adjust the area of variable circles to prescribed ratio production factors. Both axioms are violated for all participants. The results cast doubts on the well-established practice of comparing power law exponents across different modalities.     

Tic Tac Toe: effects of predictability and importance on acoustic prominence in language production

Importance and predictability each have been argued to contribute to acoustic prominence. To investigate whether these factors are independent or two aspects of the same phenomenon, na?ve participants played a verbal variant of Tic Tac Toe. Both importance and predictability contributed independently to the acoustic prominence of a word, but in different ways. Predictable game moves were shorter in duration and had less pitch excursion than less predictable game moves, whereas intensity was higher for important game moves. These data also suggest that acoustic prominence is affected by both speaker-centered processes (speaker effort) and listener-centered processes (intent to signal important information to the listener).     

对医学院校科技成果转化措施的探讨

针对目前我国医学院校科技成果转化落后的现状,分析导致医学院校科技成果转化困难的原因.总结出,现有医学院校体制不适应、内部动力不足和资金不足等三个制约科技成果转化的因素,提出了具体的促进措施:加强政策导引,完善投入技术市场、扶植和培育风险投资中介机构、健全机制,增加内动力.     

言语产生过程中语义、语音激活的ERP研究

使用ERP技术考察了言语产生过程中语音和语义的激活情况。图片上有3种条件的干扰词,分别与目标图片名称形成3种关系:语义相关,语音相同,语义、语音、字形都不相关。结果显示,当被试执行延迟命名任务(实验1)时,与目标图片名称语义相关和控制条件的波形比语音相关的波形更趋于负向。说明在图片命名过程中语音有明显的促进作用。当要求被试对上述图片进行延迟语义判断任务(实验2)时,与目标图片名称语义相关、语音相关及控制条件的波形之间无明显差异。说明在语义提取过程中没有语音的促进作用。综合实验1和实验2,本研究的结果更倾向于支持独立两阶段模型。     

Dynamic action units slip in speech production errors

In the past, the nature of the compositional units proposed for spoken language has largely diverged from the types of control units pursued in the domains of other skilled motor tasks. A classic source of evidence as to the units structuring speech has been patterns observed in speech errors--"slips of the tongue". The present study reports, for the first time, on kinematic data from tongue and lip movements during speech errors elicited in the laboratory using a repetition task. Our data are consistent with the hypothesis that speech production results from the assembly of dynamically defined action units--gestures--in a linguistically structured environment. The experimental results support both the presence of gestural units and the dynamical properties of these units and their coordination. This study of speech articulation shows that it is possible to develop a principled account of spoken language within a more general theory of action.