Rightward collisions and their association with pseudoneglect

Whereas right parietal damage can result in left hemineglect, the general population shows a subtle neglect of the right hemispace-known as pseudoneglect. A recent study has demonstrated that people collide to the right more often and attributed this bias to pseudoneglect. [Nicholls, M. E. R., Loftus, A., Meyer, K., & Mattingley, J.B. (2007). Things that go bump in the right: The effect of unimanual activity on rightward collisions. Neuropsychologia, 45, 1122-1126]. Nicholls examined the effect of unimanual activation by requiring participants to fire projectiles at a target whilst walking and found that the rightward bias was exaggerated or reversed when the left and right hands were active, respectively. However, the act of aiming at a target may have inadvertently biased walking trajectory to the right. The current study addressed this issue by requiring participants (n=149) to walk through a narrow doorway three times whilst entering text into a phone using the (a) left, (b) right or (c) both hands. Despite the fact that entering text into a phone should produce no rightward bias, participants bumped to the right more often. Unlike previous research, no effect of unimanual activation was observed. This lack of effect was attributed to the smaller hand movements for entering numbers compared to firing a toy gun. Finally, this study showed an association for the first time between biases in observable bumping and line bisection performance-suggesting that unilateral bumping is related to pseudoneglect.     

Perceptual-attentional and motor-intentional bias in near and far space

Spatial bias demonstrated in tasks such as line-bisection may stem from perceptual-attentional (PA) "where" and motor-intentional (MI) "aiming" influences. We tested normal participants' line bisection performance in the presence of an asymmetric visual distracter with a video apparatus designed to dissociate PA from MI bias. An experimenter stood as a distractor to the left or right of a video monitor positioned in either near or far space, where participants viewed lines and a laser point they directed under (1) natural and (2) mirror-reversed conditions. Each trial started with the pointer positioned at either the top left or top right corner of the screen, and alternated thereafter. Data analysis indicated that participants made primarily PA leftward errors in near space, but not in far space. Furthermore, PA, but not MI, bias increased bilaterally in the direction of distraction. In contrast, MI, but not PA, bias was shifted bilaterally in the direction of startside. Results support the conclusion that a primarily PA left sided bias in near space is consistent with right hemisphere spatial attentional dominance. A bottom-up visual distractor specifically affected PA "where" spatial bias while top-down motor cuing influenced MI "aiming" bias.     

启动实验中收集基线反应时的必要性问题

启动实验的有效条件之一是,控制组和实验组的目标词在基线反应时上相同,但在实际操作中,不少研究没有收集基线反应时,只是确保了两组目标词在频率上相同.本研究实验结果显示:对于母语而言,如果词频很高,相同频率的词得到相同反应时的机率很大;相反,机率就比较低;对于外语而言,这种机率相对更低.实验说明,相同词频的词不一定能得到相同的反应时,因此收集基线反应时是启动实验不可或缺的步骤.     

Evidence for the activation of sensorimotor information during visual word recognition: the body-object interaction effect

We examined the effects of sensorimotor experience in two visual word recognition tasks. Body-object interaction (BOI) ratings were collected for a large set of words. These ratings assess perceptions of the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. A set of high BOI words (e.g., mask) and a set of low BOI words (e.g., ship) were created, matched on imageability and concreteness. Facilitatory BOI effects were observed in lexical decision and phonological lexical decision tasks: responses were faster for high BOI words than for low BOI words. We discuss how our findings may be accounted for by (a) semantic feedback within the visual word recognition system, and (b) an embodied view of cognition (e.g., Barsalou's perceptual symbol systems theory), which proposes that semantic knowledge is grounded in sensorimotor interactions with the environment.     

不同延迟条件下语音词的重复效应

采用连续再认范式, 考察了不同延迟条件下, 汉语口语词的重复效应。结果发现, 立即重复产生了最大的反应时的易化, 随着延迟的增加, 易化作用逐渐减小甚至消失。在ERP上, 与首次呈现相比, 重复呈现的词会诱发广泛分布的更正的波形; 并且随着延迟的增加, 重复效应出现的时间越来越晚：立即重复条件从200ms左右开始, 间隔一个词重复条件从300ms左右开始, 间隔8~10个词时, 重复效应从400ms左右开始。三种条件下的重复效应分别反映了对再次呈现的词的声学语音特征加工的易化、语义加工的易化和情景信息的提取。     

Exaggerated leftward bias in the mental number line of patients with schizophrenia

Several visuo-motor tasks can be used to demonstrate biases towards left hemispace in schizophrenic patients, suggesting a minor right hemineglect. Recent studies in neglect patients used a new number bisection task to highlight a lateralized defect in their visuo-spatial representation of numbers. To test a possible lateralized representational deficit in schizophrenia, we used the number bisection task in 11 schizophrenic patients compared to 11 healthy controls. Participants were required to orally indicate the central number of an interval orally presented. Whereas healthy subjects showed no significant bias, schizophrenic patients presented a significant leftward bias. Therefore, these results suggest an impairment in higher order representations of the number space in patients with schizophrenia, an impairment that is qualitatively similar to the deficit described in neglect patients.     

Eye movements during spoken word recognition in Russian children

This study explores incremental processing in spoken word recognition in Russian 5- and 6-year-olds and adults using free-viewing eye-tracking. Participants viewed scenes containing pictures of four familiar objects and clicked on a target embedded in a spoken instruction. In the cohort condition, two object names shared identical three-phoneme onsets. In the noncohort condition, all object names had unique onsets. Coarse-grain analyses of eye movements indicated that adults produced looks to the competitor on significantly more cohort trials than on noncohort trials, whereas children surprisingly failed to demonstrate cohort competition due to widespread exploratory eye movements across conditions. Fine-grain analyses, in contrast, showed a similar time course of eye movements across children and adults, but with cohort competition lingering more than 1s longer in children. The dissociation between coarse-grain and fine-grain eye movements indicates a need to consider multiple behavioral measures in making developmental comparisons in language processing.     

The KEY to the ROCK: Near-homophony in nonnative visual word recognition

To test the hypothesis that native language (L1) phonology can affect the lexical representations of nonnative words, a visual semantic-relatedness decision task in English was given to native speakers and nonnative speakers whose L1 was Japanese or Arabic. In the critical conditions, the word pair contained a homophone or near-homophone of a semantically associated word, where a near-homophone was defined as a phonological neighbor involving a contrast absent in the speaker’s L1 (e.g., ROCK-LOCK for native speakers of Japanese). In all participant groups, homophones elicited more false positive errors and slower processing than spelling controls. In the Japanese and Arabic groups, near-homophones also induced relatively more false positives and slower processing. The results show that, even when auditory perception is not involved, recognition of nonnative words and, by implication, their lexical representations are affected by the L1 phonology.     

THE EFFECTS OF TEACHING PRECURRENT BEHAVIORS ON CHILDREN'S SOLUTION OF MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION WORD PROBLEMS

We examined the effects of teaching overt precurrent behaviors on the current operant of solving multiplication and division word problems. Two students were taught four precurrent behaviors (identification of label, operation, larger numbers, and smaller numbers) in a different order, in the context of a multiple baseline design. After meeting criterion on three of the four precurrent skills, the students demonstrated the current operant of correct problem solutions. These skills generalized to novel problems. Correct current operant responses (solutions that matched answers revealed by coloring over the space with a special marker) maintained the precurrent behaviors in the absence of any other programmed reinforcement.     

What exactly is a yait anyway: The role of semantics in orthographic learning

This study investigated whether semantic information presented along with novel printed nonwords facilitates orthographic learning and examined predictors of individual differences in this important literacy skill. A sample of 35 fourth graders was tested on a variety of language and literacy tests, and participants were then exposed to 10 target nonwords, 5 of which were presented with semantic information. Children were tested 1 and 4 days later on their ability to correctly recognize and spell the target nonwords. Results revealed a significant main effect on the recognition task, where items presented with semantic information were identified correctly more often than were words presented in isolation. No significant effect of training condition was found for the spelling posttests. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses revealed that both phonological and semantic factors were significant predictors of orthographic learning. The findings support the view that orthographic learning, as measured through visual recognition, involves the integration of phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations.