The pragmatic aspects of linguistic negation: Speech act,argumentation and pragmatic inference

This paper is an attempt to give a general explanation of pragmatic aspects of linguistic negation. After a brief survey of classical accounts of negation within pragmatic theories (as speech act theory, argumentation theory and polyphonic theory), the main pragmatic uses of negation (illocutionary negation, external negation, lowering and majoring negation) are discussed within relevance theory. The question of the relevance of negative utterance is raised, and a general inferential schema (based on the so-called invited inference) is proposed and tested for the main uses of negation discussed in the paper.Translated from French by Anne Reboul and Lyne DaSylva.     

Neural correlates of metaphor processing: The roles of figurativeness,familiarity and difficulty

There is currently much interest in investigating the neural substrates of metaphor processing. In particular, it has been suggested that the right hemisphere plays a special role in the comprehension of figurative (non-literal) language, and in particular metaphors. However, some studies find no evidence of right hemisphere involvement in metaphor comprehension (e.g. [Lee, S. S., & Dapretto, M. (2006). Metaphorical vs. literal word meanings: fMRI evidence against a selective role of the right hemisphere. NeuroImage, 29, 536–544; Rapp, A. M., Leube, D. T., Erb, M., Grodd, W., & Kircher, T. T. J. (2004). Neural correlates of metaphor processing. Cognitive Brain Research, 20, 395–402]). We suggest that lateralization differences between literal and metaphorical language may be due to factors such as differences in familiarity ([Schmidt, G. L., DeBuse, C. J., & Seger, C. A. (2007). Right hemisphere metaphor processing? Characterizing the lateralization of semantic processes. Brain and Language, 100, 127–141]), or difficulty ([Bookheimer, S. (2002). Functional MRI of language: New approaches to understanding the cortical organization of semantic processing. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 25, 151–188; Rapp, A. M., Leube, D. T., Erb, M., Grodd, W., & Kircher, T. T. J. (2004). Neural correlates of metaphor processing. Cognitive Brain Research, 20, 395–402]) in addition to figurativeness. The purpose of this study was to separate the effects of figurativeness, familiarity, and difficulty on the recruitment of neural systems involved in language, in particular right hemisphere mechanisms. This was achieved by comparing neural activation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) between four conditions: literal sentences, familiar and easy to understand metaphors, unfamiliar and easy to understand metaphors, and unfamiliar and difficult to understand metaphors. Metaphors recruited the right insula, left temporal pole and right inferior frontal gyrus in comparison with literal sentences. Familiar metaphors recruited the right middle frontal gyrus when contrasted with unfamiliar metaphors. Easy metaphors showed higher activation in the left middle frontal gyrus as compared to difficult metaphors, while difficult metaphors showed selective activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus as compared to easy metaphors. We conclude that the right hemisphere is involved in metaphor processing and that the factors of figurativeness, familiarity and difficulty are important in determining neural recruitment of semantic processing.     

Cognition and hearing aids

The perceptual information transmitted from a damaged cochlea to the brain is more poorly specified than information from an intact cochlea and requires more processing in working memory before language content can be decoded. In addition to making sounds audible, current hearing aids include several technologies that are intended to facilitate language understanding for persons with hearing impairment in challenging listening situations. These include directional microphones, noise reduction, and fast-acting amplitude compression systems. However, the processed signal itself may challenge listening to the extent that with specific types of technology, and in certain listening situations, individual differences in cognitive processing resources may determine listening success. Here, current and developing digital hearing aid signal processing schemes are reviewed in the light of individual working memory (WM) differences. It is argued that signal processing designed to improve speech understanding may have both positive and negative consequences, and that these may depend on individual WM capacity.     

Phonetic recalibration only occurs in speech mode

Upon hearing an ambiguous speech sound dubbed onto lipread speech, listeners adjust their phonetic categories in accordance with the lipread information (recalibration) that tells what the phoneme should be. Here we used sine wave speech (SWS) to show that this tuning effect occurs if the SWS sounds are perceived as speech, but not if the sounds are perceived as non-speech. In contrast, selective speech adaptation occurred irrespective of whether listeners were in speech or non-speech mode. These results provide new evidence for the distinction between a speech and non-speech processing mode, and they demonstrate that different mechanisms underlie recalibration and selective speech adaptation.     

Feel the difference! The influence of ease experiences on the direction of social comparisons

The present work investigates if ease/difficulty experiences associated with social comparison information shape the direction of the comparison. In particular, we test the hypothesis that standards of comparison associated with experiences of ease lead to assimilation whereas standards processed under experiences of difficulty result in comparative contrast. In line with this hypothesis, we found in Experiment 1 that the easy processing of a standard led to assimilation whereas difficult processing of the same standard led to contrast. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2, even though the ease/difficulty experiences were this time introduced independently of the standard. Finally, Experiment 3 tested the boundary conditions of the influence of experiences by showing their flexible use in judgmental processes.     

不同注意提示线索条件下汉字数字加工的SNARC效应

采用Ponser的实验范式.以判断"壹"到"玖"的汉字数字奇偶为任务,探讨不同提示线索时在注意条件与非注意条件下的空间数字反应编码联合效应(SNARC效应).实验结果发现: (1)当有效提示线索为80%时,注意条件下汉字数字出现了SNARC效应,而非注意条件下对汉字数字的加工没有出现SNARC效应; (2)当有效提示线索为50%时,在注意和非注意条件下汉字数字都出现了明显的SNARC效应.结果表明注意水平对SNARC效应产生了影响.     

Lateralization of egocentric and allocentric spatial processing after parietal brain lesions

The purpose of this paper was to verify whether left and right parietal brain lesions may selectively impair egocentric and allocentric processing of spatial information in near/far spaces. Two Right-Brain-Damaged (RBD), 2 Left-Brain-Damaged (LBD) patients (not affected by neglect or language disturbances) and eight normal controls were submitted to the Ego-Allo Task requiring distance judgments computed according to egocentric or allocentric frames of reference in near/far spaces. Subjects also completed a general neuropsychological assessment and the following visuospatial tasks: reproduction of the Rey-Osterreith figure, line length judgement, point position identification, mental rotation, mental construction, line length memory, line length inference, Corsi block-tapping task. LBD patients presented difficulties in both egocentric and allocentric processing, whereas RBD patients dropped in egocentric but not in allocentric judgements, and in near but not far space. Further, RBD patients dropped in perceptually comparing linear distances, whereas LBD patients failed in memory for distances. The overall pattern of results suggests that the right hemisphere is specialized in processing metric information according to egocentric frames of reference. The data are interpreted according to a theoretical model that highlights the close link between egocentric processing and perceptual control of action.     

The Effects of Multiple Presentations on the Ratings and Memorability of Novel Figurative Phrases

How the perceptions of novel figurative phrases change over the course of numerous presentations were addressed in three studies using rating tasks (Studies 1 and 3) and recall tasks (Study 2). The present set of studies replicated much of Schweigert et al.’s (J Psychol Res 32:455–475, 2003) findings of changes in correlations among figurative phrases ratings. The results also suggest that catchiness, frequency heard agreement, and frequency used agreement can be used as predictors of phrase memorability and potential predictors of later idiomaticity.