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PubMed2003

The effect of grammatical gender and semantic context on lexical access in Italian using a timed word-naming paradigm.

The effects of sentence context and grammatical gender on lexical access were investigated in Italian using a timed word-naming paradigm. Large main effects of both sentence context and the gender of the article were observed; the interaction between gender and semantics was significant over subjects. Strong facilitation by both gender and semantics was observed, relative to a neutral-control baseline condition. Results are compared with (1) a prior study with the same design, using a picture-naming paradigm, except that objects described by written words were replaced by pictures (Bentrovato, Devescovi, D'Amico, & Bates, 1999); (2) a separate norming study of timed word reading in a list format, using the same stimuli (D'Amico, Devescovi, & Bates, 2001); and (3) a prior study of German comparing word and picture naming in short, semantically neutral phrases (Jacobsen, 1999). Differences in methodology and in findings between the Italian word naming and the German word naming are compared and discussed. Findings of the present study are interpreted in support of interactive-activation models in which different sources of information are combined on-line to predict, anticipate, or preactivate lexical targets.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Visual and semantic processing in reading Kanji.

A. Nakagawa (1991) showed hemispheric asymmetries during semantic processing of single English words. The right hemisphere passively maintained both strong and weak associations, whereas the left hemisphere maintained only strong associations when subjects were left free to attend. The present study extends the methodology to the study of Kanji characters. Contrary to the study of English characters, there was a general right-hemisphere advantage in single-character Kanji words. A study using a visual cue to direct attention suggested that the right-hemisphere advantage in Kanjii was due to better representation of visual features by the posterior right hemisphere. However, the pattern of semantic priming found in English was replicated. Semantic analysis, mediated by more anterior systems, appears similar in the 2 languages.

Adult↗

PubMed1981

Processing of formational, semantic, and iconic information in American sign language.

Three experiments examined short-term encoding processes of deaf signers for different aspects of signs from American Sign Language. Experiment 1 compared short-term memory for lists of formationally similar signs with memory for matched lists of random signs. Just as acoustic similarity of words interferes with short-term memory or word sequences, formational similarity of signs had a marked debilitating effect on the ordered recall of sequences of signs. Experiment 2 evaluated the effects of the semantic similarity of the signs on short-term memory: Semantic similarity had no significant effect on short-term ordered recall of sequences of signs. Experiment 3 studied the role that the iconic (representational) value of signs played in short-term memory. Iconicity also had no reliable effect on short-term recall. These results provide support for the position that deaf signers code signs from American Sign Language at one level in terms of linguistically significant formational parameters. The semantic and iconic information of signs, however, seems to have little effect on short-term memory.

Deafness↗

PubMed1982

Words, pictures, and priming: on semantic activation, conscious identification, and the automaticity of information processing.

We investigated the encoding mechanisms involved in the perceptual recognition of words and pictures. Latencies in naming word and picture targets were analyzed as a function of several characteristics of a preceding prime, including whether it was a word or a picture, its duration of exposure, the interval between the prime and target onset, and whether or not the prime was consciously identified and reported by the subject. Results indicated that a common semantic code is available that can represent the meaning of either a word or a picture. This semantic representation, however, appears to be more easily activated by picture primes than by word primes and seems to benefit the naming of picture targets more than the naming of word targets. Despite the advantage for pictures with respect to semantic activation, overall processing in the naming task was slower and more attention demanding for pictures than for words. Comparison of our data with data on classification, in which an opposite pattern occurs (overall processing appears to be slower and more attention demanding for words than for pictures), suggests that, on the average, pictures have faster and more automatic access to their meanings than to their names but that words have faster and more automatic access to their names than to their meanings. This conclusion concerning the relative ability of stimuli to activate different kinds of internal representations has implications for a theory of the basis and development of automaticity.

Discrimination Learning↗

PubMed1983

Semantic congruity and expectancy in symbolic judgments.

These experiments assess the degree to which the semantic-congruity effect in comparative judgment can be explained by such expectancy effects as priming, perceptual "set," or strategies used in the task. The first experiment mixed a lexical-decision task with the comparative-judgment task and showed that neither automatic semantic priming nor deliberate preparation can account for the congruity effect. Experiments 2-4 assessed expectancy effects in a different way by presenting the instructions for comparative judgment either before or after the pair to be judged. These experiments included, among other things, a number of safeguards against artifacts in this paradigm. In these three experiments the congruity effect was obtained with both orders of stimuli and instructions, contrary to the prediction of an expectancy hypothesis. The results indicate that when stimuli are not degraded. The semantic-congruity effect depends largely on the relation between the stimuli and the instructions and only to a small degree, if at all, on expectancy.

Cues↗

PubMed1999

Sentence processing in the face of semantic loss: a case study.

The modularity of the sentence processor, or lack thereof, remains a much-debated issue in psycholinguistics. The authors present evidence from a semantically impaired patient (DM) that bears on this issue. As demonstrated elsewhere (S. D. Breedin, E. M. Saffran, & H. B. Coslett, 1994), DM suffered a significant loss of semantic knowledge. Here, the authors show that this impairment did not compromise DM's ability to process syntactic information. DM performed well on grammaticality judgment tasks and on sentence comprehension tasks that required the use of syntactic information for the assignment of thematic roles. The resistance of syntactic operations to semantic loss would seem to pose a challenge for models in which "the syntactic and conceptual aspects of processing are ... inextricably intertwined" (J. L. McClelland, M. St. John, & R. Taraban, 1989, p. 329).

Atrophy↗

PubMed1986

Activation of semantic and phonological codes during reading.

Three experiments used a new paradigm to examine word-coding processes during reading. Subjects read text passages and occasionally responded to lexical-decision probes. Experiment 1 focused on semantic and surface codes. The activation of semantic codes appeared to increase over time, whereas surface codes did not. In addition, subjects who were instructed to remember the exact wording of the passages showed stronger activation of surface codes than did subjects who read for comprehension. Experiments 2 and 3 explored the role of phonological codes. Experiment 2 showed that phonological codes were activated by specific words in a passage. In contrast, Experiment 3 found no evidence that phonological codes were activated by the more general passage context. Taken together, the experiments suggest some of the roles semantic and phonological codes may play during reading.

Cues↗

PubMed1988

Semantic, phonological, and mediated priming in reading and lexical decisions.

Four experiments were conducted to investigate whether semantic activation of a concept spreads to phonologically and graphemically related concepts. In lexical decision or self-paced reading tasks, subjects responded to pairs of words that were semantically related (e.g., light-lamp), that rhymed (e.g., lamp-damp), or that combined both of these relations through a mediating word (e.g., light-damp). In one version of each task, test lists contained word-word pairs (e.g., light-lamp) as well as nonword-word (e.g., pown-table) and word-nonword pairs (e.g., month-poad); in another version, test lists contained only word-word pairs. The lexical decision and self-paced reading tasks were facilitated by semantic and rhyming relations regardless of the presence or absence of nonwords on the test lists. The effect of the mediated relation, however, depended on the presence of nonwords among the stimuli. When only words were included, there was no effect of the mediated relation, but when nonwords were included, lexical decision and self-paced reading responses were inhibited by the mediated relation. These inhibitory effects are attributed to processes occurring after lexical access, and the relative advantages of the self-paced reading task are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

Semantic effects in single-word naming.

Three experiments demonstrated that, for lower frequency words, reading aloud is affected not only by spelling-sound typicality but also by a semantic variable, imageability. Participants were slower and more error prone when naming exception words with abstract meanings (e.g., scarce) than when naming either abstract regular words (e.g., scribe) or imageable exception words (e.g., soot). It is proposed that semantic representations of words have the largest impact on translating orthography to phonology when this translation process is slow or noisy (i.e., for low-frequency exceptions) and that words with rich semantic representations (i.e., high-imageability words) are most likely to benefit from this interaction.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

Priming of visual and functional knowledge on a semantic classification task.

Several lines of evidence suggest that semantic memory may be organized according to domain-specific attributes (e.g., visual or functional). Repetition priming both within and across these semantic knowledge domains was measured in 4 experiments to determine whether retrieval of one attribute can occur independently of retrieval of other attributes. The authors found a strong same-attribute priming advantage that persisted even when the classification task differed between study and test. Also evident was a small but consistent cross-attribute priming effect. Cross-attribute priming was not affected by changes in the modality of the test item, suggesting that the effect reflects the repetition of conceptual, and not perceptual, processes. On the basis of these results, the authors suggest that conceptual priming reflects the recapitulation of both domain-specific and nonspecific semantic processing.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

Semantic and phonological information flow in the production lexicon.

When speakers produce words, lexical access proceeds through semantic and phonological levels of processing. If phonological processing begins based on partial semantic information, processing is cascaded; otherwise, it is discrete. In standard models of lexical access, semantically processed words exert phonological effects only if processing is cascaded. In 3 experiments, speakers named pictures of objects with homophone names (ball), while auditory distractor words were heard beginning 150 ms prior to picture onset. Distractors speeded picture naming (compared with controls) only when related to the nondepicted meaning of the picture (e.g., dance), exhibiting an early phonological effect, thereby supporting the cascaded prediction. Distractors slowed picture naming when categorically (e.g., frisbee) related to the depicted picture meaning, but not when associatively (e.g., game) related to it. An interactive activation model is presented.

Humans↗

PubMed1999

Semantic and phonological codes interact in single word production.

The relationship between semantic-syntactic and phonological levels in speaking was investigated using a picture naming procedure with simultaneously presented visual or auditory distractor words. Previous results with auditory distractors have been used to support the independent stage model (e.g., H. Schriefers, A. S. Meyer, & W. J. M. Levelt, 1990), whereas results with visual distractors have been used to support an interactive view (e.g., P.A. Starreveld & W. La Heij, 1996b). Experiment 1 demonstrated that with auditory distractors, semantic effects preceded phonological effects, whereas the reverse pattern held for visual distractors. Experiment 2 indicated that the results for visual distractors followed the auditory pattern when distractor presentation time was limited. Experiment 3 demonstrated an interaction between phonological and semantic relatedness of distractors for auditory presentation, supporting an interactive account of lexical access in speaking.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2001

Dissociation between syntactic and semantic processing during idiom comprehension.

Syntactic and semantic processing of literal and idiomatic phrases were investigated with a priming procedure. In 3 experiments, participants named targets that were syntactically appropriate or inappropriate completions for semantically unrelated sentence contexts. Sentences ended with incomplete idioms (kick the...) and were biased for either a literal (ball) or an idiomatic (bucket) completion. Syntactically appropriate targets were named more quickly than inappropriate ones for both contextual biases, suggesting that syntactic analysis occurs for idioms. In a final experiment, targets were either concrete (expected) or abstract (unexpected) nouns. For literal sentences, the abstract targets were named more slowly than the concrete targets. In contrast, there was no concreteness effect for idiomatic sentences, suggesting that the literal meaning of the idiom is not processed. Overall, the results provide evidence for dissociation between syntactic and semantic processing.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

A reason to rhyme: phonological and semantic influences on lexical access.

During on-line language production, speakers rapidly select a sequence of words to express their desired meaning. The current study examines whether this lexical selection is also dependent on the existing activation of surface properties of the words. Such surface properties clearly matter in various forms of wordplay, including poetry and musical lyrics. The experiments in this article explore whether language processing more generally is sensitive to these properties. Two experiments examined the interaction between phonological and semantic features for written and verbal productions. In Experiment 1, participants were given printed sentences with a missing word, and were asked to generate reasonable completions. The completions reflected both the semantic and the surface features of the preceding context. In Experiment 2, listeners heard sentence contexts, and were asked to rapidly produce a word to complete the utterance. These spontaneous completions again incorporated surface features activated by the context. The results suggest that lexical access in naturalistic language processing is influenced by an interaction between the surface and semantic features of language.

Auditory Perception↗

PubMed1993

Dimensionality and clustering in the semantic network of patients with Alzheimer's disease.

The organization of semantic memory in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) was investigated with a triadic comparison task. A multidimensional scaling statistic was used to analyze proximity data and to generate 3-dimensional cognitive maps that were then compared by a discriminant function analysis. The results suggest that the structure of semantic memory in AD patients differs from that of elderly normal controls (NC) in 2 ways. First, AD patients are less consistent in using the attributes (predation, domesticity, and size) of concepts. Second, AD patients focus primarily on concrete perceptual information (size), whereas NC Ss stress abstract conceptual knowledge (domesticity). These results are consistent with the notion that AD is characterized by a breakdown in the structure of semantic knowledge.

Aged↗

PubMed1997

Differentiating the roles of the hippocampal complex and the neocortex in long-term memory storage: evidence from the study of semantic dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Several computational models suggest that the hippocampal complex plays a key role in the establishment of new memories, but over time the storage of such memories becomes independent of this region. In support of such models, the authors demonstrate that patients with semantic dementia, who have relative sparing of the hippocampal complex, show a pattern of preserved recent memories and impaired distant memories. In a group study that used the Autobiographical Memory Interview, amnesic patients with Alzheimer's disease showed the more typical temporally graded loss (poor recall of recent memories), whereas patients with semantic dementia showed the reverse pattern. In a single-case study, using the Galton-Crovitz test, a patient with semantic dementia was significantly better at producing autobiographical memories from the most recent 5 years. By contrast, controls provided similarly detailed memories across all time periods back to childhood.

Aged↗

PubMed1999

The disparate effects of Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease on semantic memory.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Huntington's disease (HD) impair performance on semantic memory tasks, but researchers disagree on whether AD and HD cause these impairments in the same manner. According to one view, AD disrupts the storage of semantic memories, whereas HD disrupts the retrieval of semantic memories. Dissenters argue that AD, like HD, disrupts retrieval. In this study, participants generated category exemplars (e.g., kinds of fruits) for 1 min, and response latencies were examined. Relative to healthy controls, the 12 AD patients produced a larger proportion of responses earlier in the recall period, consistent with the view that AD patients quickly exhaust their limited supply of items in storage. By contrast, the 12 HD patients produced a larger proportion of their responses late in the recall period, consistent with the view that HD slows retrieval.

Aged↗

PubMed1999

The effect of time course and context on the facilitation of semantic features in the cerebral hemispheres.

Two divided visual field priming experiments were designed to determine the nature of lexical retrieval in the cerebral hemispheres by studying the facilitation of semantic features of unambiguous nouns. Unambiguous nouns have a single meaning, yet semantic features associated with these nouns may vary in the degree to which they are compatible with this single meaning (e.g., LAMB-WOOL as compared with LAMB-CHOPS). Results suggest that the left hemisphere selects both strongly and weakly associated semantic features that are compatible with the dominant representation of the noun. Dominance compatibility, rather than association strength, seems to be the more important factor for deciding what features are maintained in the left hemisphere. In contrast, the right hemisphere maintains more varied information, including features that are less compatible with the dominant representation (Experiment 1) and context information (Experiment 2).

Brain↗