SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Semantics”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,171 records · Page 65Linked to original sources

PubMed1994

Changes in the generativity and use of semantic relationships concurrent with milieu language intervention.

Changes associated with a milieu language intervention implemented to teach productive semantic relationships (e.g., action-object combinations) were investigated. Subjects were 11 young children with borderline to moderate levels of mental retardation, all in the early stages of language development. Following a baseline period, each subject received three to four training sessions per week in a small group interactive play situation. Measures of generativity were analyzed via pre/post group comparisons. Concurrent with the intervention subjects showed substantial gains in their ability to generatively produce semantic relationships in the intervention context and across settings, adults, and interaction styles. Subjects also correctly responded to an increasing proportion of target probe questions in both the intervention and generalization settings. The results suggest that, for most of the subjects, milieu teaching was associated with enhanced generativity and use of semantic relationships.

Child↗

PubMed2001

Neuromagnetic evidence for early semantic access in word recognition.

Magnetic brain responses recorded in the human magnetoencephalogram (MEG) distinguished between words with different semantics but carefully matched for frequency and length. Multiple recordings from a single subject showed that 100 ms following stimulus onset, significantly stronger neuromagnetic responses were elicited by words with strong multimodal semantic associations than by other word material. At this early processing step, there was a highly significant correlation (0.80) between the magnitude of brain responses to individual words recorded over parieto-occipital areas and their semantic association strengths. Subsequent to this early difference related to word meaning, additional differences in MEG responses emerged for words from different grammatical categories. Together, these results suggest that word meaning can be reflected by early neuromagnetic brain responses and before the grammatical information about the word is encoded.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Verbal fluency in schizophrenia: reduction in semantic store.

OBJECTIVE: This is a study of the word production of patients with schizophrenia using a semantic verbal fluency task to address the unresolved issue of retrieval or storage impairment. METHOD: Twenty-one patients with schizophrenia and 11 matched healthy subjects performed a semantic verbal fluency task on 'food', 'animal' and 'transport' categories in Cantonese for 3 minutes each on five separate trials. RESULTS: Patients generated significantly fewer numbers of words compared with control on each trial. The estimated lexicon size of the patients was significantly smaller than that of the equivalent group. The amount of shared words and variable words generated in all five trials were reduced in the patient group. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that poor verbal fluency in patients with schizophrenia may partly be attributable to reduction in semantic store. The importance of temporal lobe involvement on verbal fluency deficits needs to be emphasised as an integral part of the neurobiological basis of schizophrenia research.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Semantic equivalence of the Nursing Phenomena Classification of ICNP: Alpha Version in Brazilian Portuguese.

This study presents the results obtained in the first phase of research carried out to adapt the Nursing Phenomena Classification of ICNP Alpha to the Brazilian context. This phase intended to attain semantic equivalence of the terms of this classification through the use of the back-translation technique, with some modifications. From the results obtained, it may be stated that the semantic adaptation of the classification attained a rate of agreement of 98% for the titles and the definitions of nursing phenomena. The 2% of terms that did not reach an acceptable rate of agreement are related to coping, in the following phenomena: coping; defensive coping; coping: disabling; ineffective coping specific: rapetrauma, death, divorce; compromised health coping; and inadequate family coping. From this result, it may be concluded that the Nursing Phenomena Classification was translated in a semantically correct form.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2000

Disturbance of semantic processing in temporal lobe epilepsy demonstrated with scalp ERPs.

We investigated event-related potentials (N400, LPC and CNV) elicited in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients and control subjects from scalp electrodes, using a word-pair category matching paradigm. Each prime consisted of a Japanese noun (constructed from 2-4 characters of the Hiragana) followed by a Chinese character (Kanji) as the target, the latter representing one of five semantic categories. There were two equally probable target conditions: match or mismatch. Each target was preceded by a prime, either belonging to, or not belonging to, the same semantic category. The subjects were required to respond with a specified button press to the given target, according to the condition. We found RTs to be longer under the mismatch condition in both subject groups. The N400 amplitude was reduced in TLE subjects under both conditions, although LPC and CNV amplitudes showed no significant differences. These results suggest that scalp N400 is capable of demonstrating disturbance of semantic processing in TLE non-invasively.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Assessment of semantic knowledge: use of feedback and clinical interviewing.

Assessment of semantic knowledge is particularly challenging for clinicians working with children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Vocabulary often reflects individual experiences, home language, and familiarity with school curriculum. Research demonstrates that children from nonmainstream backgrounds often score poorly on vocabulary tests yet may possess knowledge that is not evident in the kinds of tests that they take. Thus, a single word vocabulary test may not adequately capture the scope of such children's semantic knowledge. It is important that, before a diagnosis of language impairment is made, clinicians gain insight into children's semantic knowledge. This article describes the use of two procedures, feedback and the clinical interview, that can be utilized to probe children's language abilities.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed2005

Semantic congruity affects numerical judgments similarly in monkeys and humans.

Monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were trained to order visual arrays based on their number of elements and to conditionally choose the array with the larger or smaller number of elements dependent on a color cue. When the screen background was red, monkeys were reinforced for choosing the smaller numerical value first. When the screen background was blue, monkeys were reinforced for choosing the larger numerical value first. Monkeys showed a semantic congruity effect analogous to that reported for human comparison judgments. Specifically, decision time was systematically influenced by the semantic congruity between the cue ("choose smaller" or "choose larger") and the magnitude of the choice stimuli (small or large numbers of dots). This finding demonstrates a semantic congruity effect in a nonlinguistic animal and provides strong evidence for an evolutionarily primitive magnitude-comparison algorithm common to humans and monkeys.

Animals↗

PubMed2000

Shared cognitive representations of perceptual and semantic structures of basic colors in Chinese and English.

Two perceptual structures (based on colors) and one semantic structure (based on names) of eight basic chromatic colors were obtained from three judged similarity tasks for 41 Mandarin Chinese-speaking females in Taiwan and 35 English-speaking females in the United States. Major findings include the following: (i) there are robust and reliable individual differences among individuals, (ii) the structures for Chinese and English speakers are similar, and (iii) the semantic structure of color names is similar to the perceptual structures of colors. The results place strong constraints on theories relating to individual differences, linguistic relativity, and the relation of perceptual and semantic structures for colors.

China↗

PubMed2003

Semantic relations and repetition of items enhance the free recall of words by multiple sclerosis patients.

We compared 25 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and 24 normal controls on a test of free recall of words. Some lists contained words that were all unrelated, while in others the intermediary words were semantically related. In another set, the mid-list words were repeated across the lists, or, in addition to the repetition, were semantically associated. Immediate recall was assessed using these lists. Delayed recall was assessed using different lists (delay-unrelated and delay-related) after distractor tasks. Recency was not affected in MS patients, but the primacy effect was lower than in controls, this effect being interpreted as due to a deficiency in articulatory rehearsal. The delay interval after each list abolished recency in both groups and resulted in impaired recall in MS patients. However the patients, like the controls, benefited from semantic relations in the middle of the lists and from spaced repetition of words across the lists, in either immediate and delayed recall. The enhancing effects of word relatedness and of spaced repetition are seen as being due to automatic processes preserved in MS patients.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Adults' acquisition of novel dimension words: creating a semantic congruity effect.

The semantic congruity effect is exhibited when adults are asked to compare pairs of items from a series, and their response is faster when the direction of the comparison coincides with the location of the stimuli in the series. For example, people are faster at picking the bigger of 2 big items than the littler of 2 big items. In the 4 experiments presented, adults were taught new dimensional adjectives (mal/ler and borg/er). Characteristics of the learning situation, such as the nature of the stimulus series and the relative frequency of labeling, were varied. Results revealed that the participants who learned the relative meaning of the artificial dimensional adjectives also formed categories and developed a semantic congruity effect regardless of the characteristics of training. These findings have important implications for our understanding of adult acquisition of novel relational words, the relationship between learning such words and categorization, and the explanations of the semantic congruity effect.

Adult↗

PubMed1976

The California Psychological Inventory and the Semantic Differential dimensions.

The feasibility of describing first order factors and scales of the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) by using the factors of the semantic differential and rated adjustment and introversion-extraversion was investigated in samples of 150 male and 80 female college students. Results indicated that both the semantic differential and the ratings significantly overlapped with the CPI, but that the degree of the relationship was not large enough to support the contention that the semantic differential factors are sufficient to describe completely what is being measured by the CPI. The relationships did prove useful, however, in further clarifying the nature of the CPI.

Dependency, Psychological↗

PubMed1999

Episodic and semantic contributions to older adults' autobiographical recall.

The authors examined episodic and semantic contributions to 2 salient features of older adults' autobiographical recall: the reminiscence bump and the retention effect. Forty well-educated and healthy older men (mean age = 72.5 years; SD = 1.1) recalled personal memories in response to a series of cue words. They also categorized each memory as something they remembered from the past (R response) or they knew had happened in the past (K response) and indicated their ages when each memory occurred. The authors assumed that R and K responses reflected the operation of the episodic and semantic memory systems, respectively. Results showed a reminiscence bump and a retention effect for both R and K responses. The authors discuss the implications of this finding concerning the purported bases of the reminiscence bump and the retention effect as well as the notion that aging is more likely to effect episodic memory than semantic memory.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1997

Visual and semantic support for paired-associates recall in young and older adults.

A paired-associates task was used to investigate the degree to which young and older adults benefit from visual and semantic support for recall. Respondents were asked to recall pictorial or verbal items that were either semantically related or unrelated. As has been previously observed in spatial memory tasks, older adults benefited to a greater degree from pictorial materials than did young adults, but only for semantically related items. No such effect was observed for unrelated items. In a second experiment, the imposition of a speed requirement at retrieval eradicated the unequal recall facilitation effect for the older participants. The results of this study are consistent with Craik's (1986) environmental support theory and suggest a link between visuospatial loss and cognitive speed loss in the normal aging process.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Written discourse and acquired brain impairment: evaluation of structural and semantic features of personal letters from a Systemic Functional Linguistic perspective.

This qualitative study investigated written discourse in the form of personal letters written by ten people with aphasia following stroke and ten people with cognitive-language disorder as a consequence of traumatic brain injury, and compared their performance with 15 non brain-damaged writers. Personal letters perform the dual function of providing information and maintaining social relationships. Using the Systemic Functional Linguistics framework for investigation, letters were examined in terms of their dual functions, and at two different strata of language--generic structure and semantic organisation. A small quantum of research suggests that the dissociation between different strata of language (i.e., macro and micro linguistic abilities), identified in the spoken discourse of people with aphasia and people with cognitive-language disorder is mirrored in written discourse. Aphasic writers largely maintain coherent text structure while writers with cognitive-language impairment demonstrate problems with global text coherence and the episodic structure of texts. Results of the generic structure analysis did not support the hypothesis. However, the semantic Move analysis revealed how diminished linguistic resources, most evident in the letters written by the subjects with aphasia, impacted upon the semantic diversity of the text, as well as the interpersonal function of the personal letter. Variable performance as a feature pathology and normality is highlighted and clinical implications discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Negative priming with numbers: no evidence for a semantic locus.

Selective attention has been studied extensively using the negative priming (NP) paradigm. An important issue regards the representational level at which NP occurs. We investigated this issue by using numbers as stimuli. Because numbers have a well-defined semantic organization, which can be clearly measured by means of the distance effect, they are very suitable for testing the assumption that NP is situated at a central semantic level. Four experiments are presented in which the numerical distance between prime distractor and probe target was manipulated. The task was magnitude comparison. Target and distractor were defined on the basis of colour. In Experiment 1, all numbers were presented in Arabic format; NP was observed only with identical prime distractor and probe target, and no distance-related NP was observed. This could not be explained by a decay of inhibition since in Experiment 2 similar results were obtained with a shortened response-to-stimulus interval. Experiment 3 showed that these observations also hold for numbers presented verbally. Nevertheless, a cross-notational experiment with Arabic prime and verbal probe (Experiment 4) revealed no NP whatsoever and excluded the possibility that the absence of distance-related negative priming was the result of a fine-tuned inhibitory mechanism operating at the semantic level. The results are considered in the light of current theories of negative priming.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

An emotional mediation theory of differential age effects in episodic and semantic memories.

Although there is a large decrement in central episodic memory processes as adults age, there is no appreciable decrement in central semantic memory processes (Allen et al., Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 57B, P173-P186, 2002; Allen et al., Experimental Aging Research, 28, 111-142, 2002; Mitchell, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 31-49, 1989). The authors develop a theory of episodic memory's connections to cognitive, emotional, and motivational systems to explain these differential age effects. The theory is discussed within the context of the cognitive neuroscience research regarding limbic system connectivity in conjunction with Damasio's notion of somatic markers (Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain, New York: Grosset/Putnam, 1994). The central hypothesis is that elements of limbic system circuitry, including portions of the medial temporal lobes and frontal cortex, are associated with both working and long-term episodic memory performance, and by extension, with the capacity to engage in emotion-guided, self-regulatory processes that depend heavily on episodic memory. In contrast, the semantic memory system may have less shared interface with episodic and affective networks (i.e., the limbic-related system), and therefore remain independent of neurocognitive changes impacting emotional states and episodic-type memory processes. Accordingly, this framework may account for the pattern of age-related declines in episodic relative to semantic memory, particularly if older adults experience less emotional activation, and therefore fewer somatic markers, than younger adults. An initial empirical examination of this emotional mediation theory is presented, using preexisting data that include indicators of age, chronic tendency to focus on negative emotional stimuli (neuroticism), and working memory performance.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1980

Age differences in integrated semantic memory for abstract sentences.

The Bransford and Franks [4] paradigm of linquistic abstraction was used to examine age differences in the nature of stored semantic information. Twenty-eight young (mean age 18.9 years) and 27 old (mean age 70.8 years) adults served as subjects. Specifically, age differences on two dimensions of memory were examined: (a) integration of related content from separate sentences and (b) retention of precise semantic content. Young and old were found to differ in the precision of retained semantic content. However, both age groups evidenced integration of information as indexed by a strong linear trend of recognition rate across sentence complexity and this trend did not interact with age, supporting the idea that both age groups showed comparable integration of abstract linguistic information into holistic ideas. The implications of these findings are considered in relation to current conceptualizations of age differences in memory, and new directions for research are proposed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1983

A multidimensional scaling analysis of aging and the semantic structure of animal names.

Adult age differences in semantic structure were investigated using nonmetric individual differences multidimensional scaling. Similarity judgments of all possible pairs of 16 animal names were obtained from 20 adults in each of the following six age ranges: 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79. The overall scaling solution revealed a semantic space consisting of the features of size and predativity. Comparisons of the age groups revealed a small but statistically significant tendency for participants in the two oldest groups to emphasize the concrete dimension of size, in contrast with the middle-aged groups who emphasized the abstract dimension of predativity. This abstract-to-concrete trend of adult age differences is compared with the concrete-to-abstract trend for this same semantic domain which has been observed previously among young children.

Adult↗