The contents of long-term memory and the emergence of knowledge

Through a review of the literature, this paper proposes arguments in favour of a multimodal, dynamic, functional, and situational conception of memory. Memory is assumed to contain traces that reflect past experiences. The properties of these experiences are considered to be distributed across multiple neuronal systems, which are responsible, in particular, for sensorimotor and emotional processing. Memory is dynamic because knowledge emerges almost continuously from the activation and integration of these multimodal components. Memory is functional and situational because knowledge emerges from the subject's activity in a given situation, that is from a type of resonance between the properties of the past experiences that have shaped the neuronal networks and the properties of present experiences.     

The contribution of prefixes to morphological processing of Spanish words

Three series of priming experiments were conducted to probe the morphological and phonological contributions to visual word recognition in Spanish. Prefixed, e.g., INCAPAZ (incapable), and pseudoprefixed, e.g., INDUSTRIA (industry) target words were presented for recognition following a prefixed, e.g., infeliz (unhappy), or pseudoprefixed, e.g., insulto (insult), prime starting with the same syllable as the target, at masked short or long stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). At long SOAs the recognition of prefixed targets was facilitated by prefixed primes and inhibited by pseudoprefixed ones, whereas both prefixed and pseudoprefixed primes facilitated the recognition at short SOAs. In contrast, the recognition of pseudoprefixed targets was unaffected by the kind of prime presented, even when we used pairs of words overlapping in syllables that cannot be prefixes in Spanish. These results support a special status for morphological elements in access to meaning in reading.     

Articulatory coding and phonological judgements on written words and pictures: The role of the phonological output buffer

Abstract

The ability of Italian subjects to make phonological judgements was investigated in three experiments. The judgements comprised initial sound similarity and stress assignment on pain of both written words and pictures. Stress assignment on both words and pictures as well as initial sound similarity on pictures required the activation of phonological lexical representations, but this was not necessarily the case for initial sound similarity judgements on word pairs. The first study assessed the effects of concurrent articulatory suppression on the judgements. Experiment 2 used a concomitant task (chewing), which shares with suppression the use of articulatory components but does not involve speech programming and production. The third experiment investigated the effects of unattended speech on the phonological judgements. The results of these three experiments showed that articulatory suppression had a significant disrupting effect on accuracy in all four conditions, while neither articulatory non-speech (chewing) or unattended auditory speech had any effect on the subjects' performance. The results suggest that these phonological judgements involve the operation of an articulatory speech output component, which is not implemented peripherally and does not require the involvement of a non-articulatory input system.     

About the locus of the distractor frequency effect: Evidence from the production of clitic pronouns

In this study, we report results from two experiments in which pictures were shown with superimposed distractors that varied along two dimensions: frequency (high vs. low) and semantic relation with respect to the picture (related vs. unrelated). In one condition of Experiment 1, participants named pictures with a noun utterance; in the other condition of Experiment 1 and in Experiment 2 participants named pictures with a pronominal utterance. Low frequency distractor words produced greater interference with respect to high frequency words in noun production, but not in pronoun production. Critically, a semantic interference effect, greater interference in the semantically related than unrelated condition, was reported in both experiments, suggesting that distractor words were equally processed in both noun and pronoun conditions. These results are discussed in the context of current models of picture–word interference.     

Dimension‐specific intertrial facilitation in visual search for pop‐out targets: Evidence for a top‐down modulable visual short‐term memory effect

In visual search for pop‐out targets, target detection is expedited when the target‐defining dimension (e.g., colour) is repeated on consecutive trials, but not (or less) when the target feature (e.g., red) is repeated (Found & Müller, 1996). The present study examined whether this dimension‐specific intertrial facilitation (ITF) is mediated by an explicit or an implicit memory of the target on the previous trial. In Experiment 1, observers had no above‐chance knowledge of the target dimension (or feature) when this information was not to be encoded and retained explicitly; yet, they exhibited dimension‐specific ITF. In Experiment 2, the nature of the ITF effect was unaffected by whatever attribute of the target was to be explicitly encoded and memorized, its dimension or feature; however, ITF was increased compared to a no‐memory control condition. In Experiment 3, ITF was not increased when observers had to determine the target dimension, but without having to maintain a memory of it during the intertrial interval. These results suggest that, although an implicit memory is sufficient for producing dimension‐specific ITF, ITF is top‐down modulable by explicit memory instructions.     

WITHSTANDING TRAUMA: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMMA ECKSTEIN'S CIRCUMCISION TO FREUD'S IRMA DREAM

The author considers the medical rationale for Wilhelm Fliess's operation on Emma Eckstein's nose in February 1895 and interprets the possible role that this played in Freud's dream of Irma's injection five months later. The author's main argument is that Emma likely endured female castration as a child and that she therefore experienced the surgery to her nose in 1895 as a retraumatization of her childhood trauma. The author further argues that Freud's unconscious identification with Emma, which broke through in his dream of Irma's injection with resistances and apotropaic defenses, served to accentuate his own “masculine protest”. The understanding brought to light by the present interpretation of Freud's Irma dream, when coupled with our previous knowledge of Freud, allows us to better grasp the unconscious logic and origins of psychoanalysis itself. 1     

聚焦词素语义加工的时间轴——先形后义还是形义并行?

目前学术界在词素的认知加工这一问题上存在两种观点.“先形后义”激活论认为词素加工首先经历词形分离,然后才能激活词素语义;“形义并行”激活论则认为上述两种加工同时发生.它们争论的焦点在于词素语义加工发生的阶段.“先形后义”有两种可能:词素形、义激活均发生于前词汇阶段,但形的激活发生更早些;或词素形的激活发生在前词汇阶段,而义的激活发生在后词汇阶段.“形义并行”则只有一种可能:词素形与义在前词汇阶段同时得到激活.两派观点均有相应的实证和理论支持(前词汇和后词汇模型).未来研究需解决研究范式及理论发展方面的问题.     

Subliminal speech perception and auditory streaming

Current theories of consciousness assume a qualitative dissociation between conscious and unconscious processing: while subliminal stimuli only elicit a transient activity, supraliminal stimuli have long-lasting influences. Nevertheless, the existence of this qualitative distinction remains controversial, as past studies confounded awareness and stimulus strength (energy, duration). Here, we used a masked speech priming method in conjunction with a submillisecond interaural delay manipulation to contrast subliminal and supraliminal processing at constant prime, mask and target strength. This delay induced a perceptual streaming effect, with the prime popping out in the supraliminal condition. By manipulating the prime-target interval (ISI), we show a qualitatively distinct profile of priming longevity as a function of prime awareness. While subliminal priming disappeared after half a second, supraliminal priming was independent of ISI. This shows that the distinction between conscious and unconscious processing depends on high-level perceptual streaming factors rather than low-level features (energy, duration).     

The developmental turnpoint of orthographic consistency effects in speech recognition

The influence of orthography on children's online auditory word recognition was studied from the end of Grade 4 to the end of Grade 9 by examining the orthographic consistency effect in auditory lexical decision. Fourth-graders showed evidence of a widespread influence of orthography in their spoken word recognition system; words with rimes that can be spelled in two different ways (inconsistent) produced longer auditory lexical decision times and more errors than did consistent words. A similar consistency effect was also observed on pseudowords. With adult listeners, on exactly the same material, we replicated the usual pattern of an orthographic consistency effect restricted to words in lexical decision. From Grade 6 onward, this adult pattern of orthographic effect on spoken recognition is already observable.     

整字、部件与笔画对笔画构成汉字的影响

该研究采用笔画构成汉字的实验范式,利用整字、部件、笔画作为启动材料考查了笔画构成汉字过程中整体与部分之间的关系。实验中要求被试用给出的笔画组（四划或五划）构成汉字,并且判断笔画组是否能够构成一个真实的汉字。结果发现整字在笔画构成汉字的实验过程中起到最为关键的作用。其次是笔画存在着明显的启动效应,部件的启动效应最弱。结论：在笔画构成汉字的过程中,主要以整字加工为主,笔画加工也起到了重要作用。