Biomedical subjects

Francisco Nievas

Publications and source records attributed to Francisco Nievas.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Lexical processing of ambiguous words: dominance or associative strength?

Four experiments examined the role of meaning frequency (dominance) and associative strength (measured by associative norms) in the processing of ambiguous words in isolation. Participants made lexical decisions to targets words that were associates of the more frequent (dominant) or less frequent (subordinate) meaning of a homograph prime. The first two experiments investigated the role of associative strength at long SOAs (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony) (750 ms.), showing that meaning is facilitated by the targets' associative strength and not by their dominance. The last two experiments traced the role associative strength at short SOAs (250 ms), showing that the manipulation of the associative strength has no effect in the semantic priming. The conclusions are: on the one hand, semantic priming for homographs is due to associative strength manipulations at long SOAs. On the other hand, the manipulation of the associative strength has no effect when automatic processes (short SOAs) are engaged for homographs.

Association Learning↗

PubMed2003

Development of memory structures for homographs using pathfinder network representations.

Some studies with children have shown that there is no semantic priming at short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) in lexical decision and naming tasks for homographs. The predictions of spreading activation theories might explain this missing effect. There may be differences in children's and adults' memory structures. We have explored this hypothesis. The development of memory structure representations for homographs was measured by a Pathfinder algorithm. In Experiment 1, the three dependent variables were: the number of links in the network, closeness measures (C), and distances between nodes. Results revealed developmental differences in network structure representations in adults and children. In Experiment 2, results revealed that these differences were not due to the cohort effect. In Experiment 3, the relationship between associative strength, as measured by associative norms, and distances, as measured by Pathfinder algorithm, was explored. The results of these three experiments and empirical research from semantic priming experiments show that these differences in memory structure representations could be one of the sources of the missing semantic priming effect in children.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Negative priming from the non-selected meaning of the homograph.

In this article we address the question of whether semantic ambiguity resolution involves the central inhibition of the non-selected meaning of a homograph. Most previous studies on this topic have either not clearly required semantic selection, or have induced this disambiguation by manipulating the context. These studies have not observed clear inhibitory effects on the non-selected meaning of the type studied in negative priming. We suggest that this kind of central inhibition may depend on task demands, and will be more easily observed in tasks where meaning selection is clearly required and is not made easier by cueing or context. In this study, participants had to perform a semantic judgment task in the prime display. Semantic priming from both the selected and the non-selected meaning of homographs was measured by showing facilitation for the selected meaning and inhibitory effects of the non-selected meaning. Participants with slow but accurate performance during the task were mainly responsible for this semantic negative priming effect, reflecting the role of inhibition on task-oriented control. The 'negative priming' effect is discussed in relation to current theories of attentional selection.

Adolescent↗