Unilateral brain damage effects on processing homonymous and polysemous words

Using an auditory semantic priming paradigm, the present study investigated the abilities of left-hemisphere-damaged (LHD) non-fluent aphasic, right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) and normal control individuals to access, out of context, the multiple meanings of three types of ambiguous words, namely homonyms (e.g., "punch"), metonymies (e.g., "rabbit"), and metaphors (e.g., "star"). In addition, the study tested certain predictions of the "suppression deficit" and "coarse semantic coding" hypotheses that have been proposed to account for the linguistic deficits typically observed after RH damage. Homonymous, metonymous, and metaphorical words were used as primes followed after a short (100 ms) or a long (1000 ms) inter-stimulus interval (ISI) by dominant-meaning-related, subordinate-meaning-related or unrelated target words. No significant group effects were found, and for both ISIs, dominant- and subordinate-related targets were facilitated relative to unrelated control targets for the homonymy and metonymy conditions. In contrast, for the metaphor condition, only targets related to the dominant meaning were facilitated. These findings provide only partial support for the "suppression deficit" hypothesis and no support for the "coarse semantic coding" hypothesis (as interpreted herein) indicating that patients with focal LH or RH damage can access the multiple meanings of ambiguous words and exhibit processing abilities comparable to those of older normal control subjects, at least at the single-word level.     

Auditory repetition priming is impaired in pure alexic patients

Alexia without agraphia, or "pure" alexia, is an acquired impairment in reading that leaves writing skills intact. Repetition priming for visually presented words is diminished in pure alexia. However, it is not possible to verify whether this priming deficit is modality-specific or modality independent because reading abilities are compromised. Hence, auditory repetition priming was assessed with lexical decision and word stem completion tasks in pure alexic patients with lesions in left inferior temporal-occipital cortex and the splenium. Perceptually based, modality-specific priming models predict intact auditory priming, since auditory association cortex is spared in the patients. Alternatively, modality-independent models, which suggest that priming reflects the temporary modification of an amodal system, might predict impairments. Baseline performance was matched in the patients and controls, although lexical decision priming measures showed an interaction between group and repetition lag. The patients showed intact immediate priming but significantly less priming than controls at longer delays. Furthermore, word stem completion priming was abolished in the patients. One explanation for the deficit is that left inferior temporal-occipital cortex supports amodal aspects of priming, as suggested by recent neuroimaging results. Another possibility is that long-term auditory priming relies on covert orthographic representations which were unavailable in the patients. The results provide support for interactive models of word identification.     

Category size effects revisited: frequency and masked priming effects in semantic categorization

Previous work indicates that semantic categorization decisions for nonexemplars (e.g., deciding that TURBAN is not an animal name) are faster for high-frequency words than low-frequency words. However, there is evidence that this result might depend on category size. When narrow categories are used (e.g., Months, Numbers), there is no frequency effect for nonexemplars. This result is confirmed, and is explained in terms of a category search model, which allows a "No" decision to be generated without access to the lexical entry for the target word. This explains the absence of a frequency effect, but not the presence of a strong masked repetition priming effect, which is assumed to have a lexical source. It is shown that this effect may not be lexical, since nonwords also show similar priming. Both of these priming effects disappear when a larger category is used. This pattern of results is explained on the assumption that category search is only possible with small categories, and that tentative category decisions are generated for the unconsciously perceived prime, which leads to a marked response congruence effect.     

Silent letters and phonological priming

Many written English words contain silent letters. Omitting them produces nonwords pronounced identically to the original words, for example, SALM for PSALM and COLUM for COLUMN. We report two naming and two lexical decision experiments in which targets of 4–11 letters followed primes exposed for 100 ms in mask-prime-mask-target sequences. Priming in SALM-psalm and COLUM-column pairs exceeded priming in orthographic control pairs such as ASTA-pasta and COUSI-cousin, pairs in which pronounced letters are omitted to form the primes. SALM and COLUM, however, were less effective primes than PSALM and COLUMN. Results were discussed in terms of the phonological coherence hypothesis, the role of orthographic codes in filtering phonologically activated representations, and graphemes as reading units.     

Physical and conceptual priming effects on picture and word identification

In the study phase of these experiments, subjects were asked to think of an item suggested by the omission in an incomplete sentence, and then look at a picture or word describing an item and say whether it was the same as theirs. In the test phase, they were asked to identify studied and nonstudied items presented briefly in either picture or word form. Subjects were then required to recall the words or pictures shown in the study phase. Experiment 1, with a within-subjects design, revealed that the studied pictures were identified more readily than studied words and nonstudied pictures. This indicates a physical priming effect. In word identification, studied words were identified more readily than nonstudied words; however, there was no difference between studied words and studied pictures, and the performance for studied pictures and nonstudied items were largely the same. The physical priming effect on picture identification was also shown in Experiment 2, with a between-subjects design. Different processing mechanisms in picture and word identification are discussed.     

The Development of Infant Memory

Over the first year and a half of life, the duration of memory becomes progressively longer, the specificity of the cues required for recognition progressively decreases after short test delays, and the latency of priming progressively decreases to the adult level. The memory dissociations of very young infants on recognition and priming tasks, which presumably tap different memory systems, are also identical to those of adults. These parallels suggest that both memory systems are present very early in development instead of emerging hierarchically over the 1st year, as previously thought. Finally, even young infants can remember an event over the entire "infantile amnesia" period if they are periodically exposed to appropriate nonverbal reminders. In short, the same fundamental mechanisms appear to underlie memory processing in infants and adults.     

遗忘症患者外显与内隐记忆实验研究:语义性启动效应任务

采用ＷＭＳ—ＣＲ和ＭＭＳＥ对临床脑损伤患者进行了认知功能与记忆功能两方面的筛选,获得９名遗忘症患者。然后采用偏好和自由联想两项语义性启动效应任务进行测验,发现遗忘症患者在外显记忆受损情况下,的确存在语义性启动效应,且与正常对照相近。推论语义性启动效应任务与遗忘患者损伤的颞叶或间脑结构无关。同时还讨论了启动效应任务,认为偏好任务采用言语性材料不是理想的方法。     

右侧基底节损伤遗忘症患者的知觉性启动效应与语义性启动效应的分离与定位

采用偏好、自由联想、字根补笔和字辨认等４项任务观察一例单纯性右侧基底节损伤遗忘症患者和两组正常对照的启动效应。结果发现：（１）该患者知觉性启动效应障碍、而语义性启动效应正常。认为知觉性启动效应的神经学基础可能在基底节。（２）该患者知觉性启动效应与语义性启动效应分离。认为神经组织的损伤可导致不同形式启动效应的分解,提出内隐记忆或启动效应的不同形式可能存在不同的神经学基础。     

A parent advice package for family shopping trips: development and evaluation

THIS ARTICLE REPORTS ON THE PRIMARY STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PARENT ADVICE FOR POPULAR DISSEMINATION: (a) developing advice for one specific problem situation, family shopping trips; (b) testing the advice program for benefit to children and convenience to adults; and (c) packaging the advice so it can be used successfully by interested parents. Systematic observation of 12 families using the written advice package on shopping trips revealed its effectiveness in reducing child disruptions and increasing positive interactions between parents and children. These findings, along with interview information from families, showed that the package is usable, effective, and popular with both parents and children, and thus is ready for dissemination to a wide audience of parents-a step that in itself should involve research and evaluation.     

连绵词语音类似的启动效应

研究采用快速启动范型考察了视觉连绵词加工中语音的自动激活.两个实验发现,无论是首字同音还是尾字同音启动都可以促进对连绵词的命名反应,且基本不受目标词熟悉性(词频高低)及真假词的影响.可以推断,至少在连绵词--这种单词素词的词汇通达中存在语音的自动激活,这种语音的激活可以说是前词的装配与词水平上的改变.