How do valence and meaning interact? The contribution of semantic control

The hub-and-spoke model of semantic cognition proposes that conceptual representations in a heteromodal ‘hub’ interact with and emerge from modality-specific features or ‘spokes’, including valence (whether a concept is positive or negative), along with visual and auditory features. As a result, valence congruency might facilitate our ability to link words conceptually. Semantic relatedness may similarly affect explicit judgements about valence. Moreover, conflict between meaning and valence may recruit semantic control processes. Here we tested these predictions using two-alternative forced-choice tasks, in which participants matched a probe word to one of two possible target words, based on either global meaning or valence. Experiment 1 examined timed responses in healthy young adults, while Experiment 2 examined decision accuracy in semantic aphasia patients with impaired controlled semantic retrieval following left hemisphere stroke. Across both experiments, semantically related targets facilitated valence matching, while related distractors impaired performance. Valence congruency was also found to facilitate semantic decision-making. People with semantic aphasia showed impaired valence matching and had particular difficulty when semantically related distractors were presented, suggesting that the selective retrieval of valence information relies on semantic control processes. Taken together, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that automatic access to the global meaning of written words affects the processing of valence, and that the valence of words is also retrieved even when this feature is task-irrelevant, affecting the efficiency of global semantic judgements.     

语音与词义激活的相对时间进程:来自儿童发展的证据

本研究从儿童语言发展的角度．在已有研究基础上．进一步考察了汉语视觉字词加工中语音与词义激活的相对时间进程。运用启动命名技术,比较了三年级和六年级儿童在语音和语义启动中的表现。结果发现,三年级和六年级儿童都有语音和语义启动效应,且六年级儿童更为显著。但语义启动和同音启动的促进效应之间没有差异,而同音不同声调启动则可能产生抑制作用。文章探讨了这些发现对汉语视觉字词加工中词义信息提取不同观点的含义。     

Semantic distance and single cue use in category search

Perceptual classification may be based either on the physical features of target and background items or on the semantic attributes of the presented items. In this paper we used enumeration tasks to study the role of semantic features in a categorial classification task. This means that subjects were asked to count the number of target words in a display belonging to one semantic category among a number of background items of other categories. Our goal was to study the decision logic in category search by manipulating target background conditions and the semantic distance between target and background classes. In the first experiment we found that the larger the semantic distance between targets and background words, the easier it was to find the targets. In the second experiment we found a "pop-out" effect, in which subjects could use and benefit from a single distinctive semantic feature, "part-likeness", in categorial classification. The results of the two experiments imply that the categorization decision logic is basically the same in physical and semantic perceptual classification.     

Formal reasoning in late adulthood: The role of semantic content and metacognitive strategy

Two experiments explored the availability of deductive or formal reasoning in late adulthood. In Experiment 1, fifty young (M=19.0 years) and 50 elderly adults (M=81.0 years) were assessed using adaptations of Wason's selection task and rated task content for familiarity, affect, and agreement. In Experiment 2, 100 young (M=21.0 years) and 100 elderly adults (M=81.0 years) were similarly assessed, with half of the subjects in each age group receiving a metacognitive strategy to facilitate reasoning. Results from Experiment 1 indicated equivalent reasoning among the groups on problems employed in earlier developmental research. In contrast, problems constructed to entail affect resulted in poorer performance by older adults. In Experiment 2, both young and older adults who used the metacognitive strategy reasoned equally acrossall problems. In both experiments, familiarity and agreement did not play a role in deductive reasoning performance, but affect seemed to be an interfering factor. Results are discussed in terms of competence-procedure and stability-decrement models of adult cognitive development.     

Concerning the integration of sciences: Kinds and stages

The detailed analysis allows to discern seven kinds of integration, namely: I₁ consisting in the synthesis of scientific disciplines from their elements, including disciplinary unification I₁; I₂ inclusion of a science in (reduction to) another, more general; I₃ — links between different sciences, especially establishing of common elements; I₄ — interdisciplines bridging various sciences; I₅ — combination of two (or more) disciplines into a new (complex) science; I₆ — a general approach to several domains or multidisciplinary unification; I₇ — transdisciplinary sciences about relations of the same type in various traditional domains. These kinds of integration are interwoven with processes of differentiation, viz. D₁ — internal differentiation of the sciences resulting of I₁; D₂ — interdisciplinary differentiation concomitant I₄, and D₃ — specialization of I₇ sciences in several sections. As a result integration and differentiation are combined in the pairs I₁ — D₁, I₇ — D₃, and D₂ — I₄. The processes of integration (and differentiation) may be presented schematically in the following (not strictly isolated one of another) sequence: in the 17th century started I₁ followed by D₁, and in the last decades by I₁ during the 18th and the 19th c. cases of I₂ and I₃ appear; I₄ (together with D₂) is unfolding since the late 19th century. Finally, I₇ (and D₃), as well as I₅ and I₆ pertain to the latter half of our century. Representative are for one thing I₁, I₄, and I₇ outlining the main stages of integration and at the same time connected with respective kinds of differentiation.     

Psychobiological evidence for the distinction between episodic and semantic memory

The evidence for discrete neurobiological mechanisms that underlie episodic and semantic memory is reviewed. Published data from three separate lines of research are considered: studies of human amnesic patients, psychopharmacological studies of normal human subjects, and studies of working and reference memory in rodents, a distinction that is arguably analogous to the episodic/semantic dichotomy. It is concluded that the available evidence does not indicate that episodic and semantic memory are mediated by discrete neural subsystems. An alternative model of human memory is discussed, based on the concept of parallel distributed processing.An earlier version of this paper was submitted as part of the author's qualifying examination at Emory University.     

The attribute priming effect in patients with Alzheimer's disease

Experiments with semantic priming (SP) paradigms have documented early hypopriming in patients with AD when concepts are used as primes and attribute concept features as targets, suggesting that concept attributes are vulnerable to damage very early in the disease course. The aims of this study were to confirm early priming reduction in the attribute condition in patients with AD and to determine which of several semantic indexes (such as the level of distinctiveness, correlation or feature dominance of concept features) best predicts the priming effect size in AD. We administered an SP attribute condition paradigm to 20 mildly demented patients with AD and to 10 NCs. We used concept–attribute pairs for which normative data of semantic indexes relative to both concept primes (i.e., number, type, mean level of dominance, distinctiveness and correlation of features constituting the concepts) and target features (i.e., level of feature dominance, correlation and distinctiveness) were available. Results showed that compared to NCs, the AD group obtained very reduced priming facilitation. Furthermore, the item regression analyses showed that the priming decrement in the AD group was predicted by the feature dominance of the target in the related pairs; that is, the lower the target feature dominance, the lower the priming effect elicited. These results confirmed hypopriming in the attribute condition from the very early phase of AD and support the view that attributes which are more salient for the identification of a given concept are also those most resistant to semantic memory degradation in AD pathology.     

Mechanical knowledge does matter to tool use even when assessed with a non-production task: Evidence from left brain-damaged patients

In the literature on apraxia of tool use, it is now accepted that using familiar tools requires semantic and mechanical knowledge. However, mechanical knowledge is nearly always assessed with production tasks, so one may assume that mechanical knowledge and familiar tool use are associated only because of their common motor mechanisms. This notion may be challenged by demonstrating that familiar tool use depends on an alternative tool selection task assessing mechanical knowledge, where alternative uses of tools are assumed according to their physical properties but where actual use of tools is not needed. We tested 21 left brain-damaged patients and 21 matched controls with familiar tool use tasks (pantomime and single tool use), semantic tasks and an alternative tool selection task. The alternative tool selection task accounted for a large amount of variance in the single tool use task and was the best predictor among all the semantic tasks. Concerning the pantomime of tool use task, group and individual results suggested that the integrity of the semantic system and preserved mechanical knowledge are neither necessary nor sufficient to produce pantomimes. These results corroborate the idea that mechanical knowledge is essential when we use tools, even when tasks assessing mechanical knowledge do not require the production of any motor action. Our results also confirm the value of pantomime of tool use, which can be considered as a complex activity involving several cognitive abilities (e.g., communicative skills) rather than the activation of gesture engrams.     

ERP与语言研究

语言加工是连续的、具有多个分析层次的复杂过程。而新近发展起来的ERP技术具有精确的时间分辨率和多维探测指标,可以对语言进行连续的测量,同时对不同层次的分析有不同的敏感指标。该文着重介绍了与语音层次加工有关的ERP成分N200,与语义加工相关的RP和N400,以及与句法加工有关的LAN和P600,以期为语言领域的ERP研究提供启发和帮助作用。     

义符在中文名词和动词分类中的作用

通过3个实验,考察了义符在中文名词和动词分类中的作用。实验1表明,义符提供了重要的语法种类信息,在中文名词和动词分类中有重要作用。当义符与词类一致时分类快,与词类相反时对分类起干扰作用。实验2表明,高频词分类时间短,错误率亦低。义符和词频有显著的交互作用,义符对低频词分类作用更大。实验3表明,具体性高的词分类时间短,错误率亦低。义符和具体性之间无显著的交互作用。整个研究表明,义符不仅是结构的“块”,也是语义的“块”,还是语法的“块”。所以如此,与中文名词和动词的结构特点有关。中文名词大多用义符标记事物的物质组成,动词大多用义符标记动作发出的器官或完成动作的工具。义符的语法意义的发现丰富了中文和中文认知的理论,对中文教学也有重要启示