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Shi K, Li J. High-level construal mindset promotes categorizing information based on thematic associate relations. Mem Cognit 2024:10.3758/s13421-024-01624-6. [PMID: 39192140 DOI: 10.3758/s13421-024-01624-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/23/2024] [Indexed: 08/29/2024]
Abstract
The present study examined whether a high-level construal mindset promotes categorizing information according to thematic relations. In three experiments, the construal-level priming task was used to initiate a high-level versus low-level construal mindset, and then all participants were asked to complete the triad task, which is a task measuring the preference to classify. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 have shown that regardless of whether it was a set of artificially produced objects (Experiment 1) or a set of natural objects (Experiment 2), the high-level construal mindset group exhibited a higher proportion of thematic responses in the triad task. Experiment 3 transformed the stimulus set of the triad task into a set that consisted of many, larger, published, and controlled/optimized stimuli. The results of the experiment still showed that the high-level construal mindset group exhibited a higher proportion of thematic responses in the triad task. The findings suggest that a high-level construal mindset promotes categorizing information based on thematic relations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kai Shi
- Department of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, 730050, People's Republic of China
- Gansu Provincial Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Lanzhou, People's Republic of China
| | - Jiansheng Li
- Department of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, 730050, People's Republic of China.
- Gansu Provincial Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Lanzhou, People's Republic of China.
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2
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Gillen N, Angulo-Chavira AQ, Plunkett K. Prime saliency in semantic priming with 18-month-olds. Cognition 2024; 246:105764. [PMID: 38457951 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105764] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2023] [Revised: 10/17/2023] [Accepted: 02/26/2024] [Indexed: 03/10/2024]
Abstract
This study investigated semantic priming in 18-month-old infants using the inter-modal priming technique, focusing on the effects of prime repetition on saliency. Our findings showed that prime repetition led to longer looking times at target referents for related primes compared to unrelated primes, supporting the existence of a structured semantic system in infants as young as 18 months. The results are consistent with both Spreading Activation and Distributed models of semantic priming. Additionally, our findings highlighted the impact of prime-target stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) on priming effects, revealing positive, negative, or no priming effects depending on the chosen SOA. A post-hoc explanation of this finding points to negative priming as a possible mechanism. The study also demonstrated the utility of the inter-modal priming task in studying lexical-semantic structure in younger infants with its diverse measures of infant behaviour.
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Xu S, Wang H, Li S, Ouyang G. Neural manifestation of L2 novel concept acquisition from multi-contexts via both episodic memory and semantic memory systems. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1320675. [PMID: 38384355 PMCID: PMC10879312 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1320675] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2023] [Accepted: 01/22/2024] [Indexed: 02/23/2024] Open
Abstract
This study aims to examine the process of L2 novel word learning through the combination of episodic and semantic memory, and how the process differs between the formation of thematic and taxonomic relations. The major approach adopted was observing the neural effects of word learning, which is manifested in the N400 from event-related potentials (ERPs). Eighty-eight participants were recruited for the experiment. In the learning session, L2 contextual discourses related to novel words were learned by participants. In the testing session, discourses embedded with incongruous and congruous novel words in the final position were used for participants to judge the congruency which affected the N400 neural activity. The results showed that both recurrent and new-theme discourses elicited significant N400 effects, while taxonomic sentences did not. These results confirmed the formation of episodic and semantic memory during L2 new word learning, in which semantic memory was mainly supported by thematic relations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuang Xu
- Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Hailing Wang
- School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
| | - Shouxin Li
- School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
| | - Guang Ouyang
- Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China
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4
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Bechtold L, Cosper SH, Malyshevskaya A, Montefinese M, Morucci P, Niccolai V, Repetto C, Zappa A, Shtyrov Y. Brain Signatures of Embodied Semantics and Language: A Consensus Paper. J Cogn 2023; 6:61. [PMID: 37841669 PMCID: PMC10573703 DOI: 10.5334/joc.237] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2022] [Accepted: 07/29/2022] [Indexed: 10/17/2023] Open
Abstract
According to embodied theories (including embodied, embedded, extended, enacted, situated, and grounded approaches to cognition), language representation is intrinsically linked to our interactions with the world around us, which is reflected in specific brain signatures during language processing and learning. Moving on from the original rivalry of embodied vs. amodal theories, this consensus paper addresses a series of carefully selected questions that aim at determining when and how rather than whether motor and perceptual processes are involved in language processes. We cover a wide range of research areas, from the neurophysiological signatures of embodied semantics, e.g., event-related potentials and fields as well as neural oscillations, to semantic processing and semantic priming effects on concrete and abstract words, to first and second language learning and, finally, the use of virtual reality for examining embodied semantics. Our common aim is to better understand the role of motor and perceptual processes in language representation as indexed by language comprehension and learning. We come to the consensus that, based on seminal research conducted in the field, future directions now call for enhancing the external validity of findings by acknowledging the multimodality, multidimensionality, flexibility and idiosyncrasy of embodied and situated language and semantic processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura Bechtold
- Institute for Experimental Psychology, Department for Biological Psychology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Samuel H. Cosper
- Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, Germany
| | - Anastasia Malyshevskaya
- Centre for Cognition and Decision making, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, HSE University, Russian Federation
- Potsdam Embodied Cognition Group, Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Germany
| | | | | | - Valentina Niccolai
- Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Claudia Repetto
- Department of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy
| | - Ana Zappa
- Laboratoire parole et langage, Aix-Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France
| | - Yury Shtyrov
- Centre for Cognition and Decision making, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, HSE University, Russian Federation
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Denmark
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5
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Curtis PR, Estabrook R, Roberts MY, Weisleder A. Sensitivity to Semantic Relationships in U.S. Monolingual English-Speaking Typical Talkers and Late Talkers. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2023; 66:2404-2420. [PMID: 37339002 PMCID: PMC10468120 DOI: 10.1044/2023_jslhr-22-00563] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2022] [Revised: 01/09/2023] [Accepted: 03/29/2023] [Indexed: 06/22/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Late talkers (LTs) are a group of children who exhibit delays in language development without a known cause. Although a hallmark of LTs is a reduced expressive vocabulary, little is known about LTs' processing of semantic relations among words in their emerging vocabularies. This study uses an eye-tracking task to compare 2-year-old LTs' and typical talkers' (TTs') sensitivity to semantic relationships among early acquired words. METHOD U.S. monolingual English-speaking LTs (n = 21) and TTs (n = 24) completed a looking-while-listening task in which they viewed two images on a screen (e.g., a shirt and a pizza), while they heard words that referred to one of the images (e.g., Look! Shirt!; target-present condition) or a semantically related item (e.g., Look! Hat!; target-absent condition). Children's eye movements (i.e., looks to the target) were monitored to assess their sensitivity to these semantic relationships. RESULTS Both LTs and TTs looked longer at the semantically related image than the unrelated image on target-absent trials, demonstrating sensitivity to the taxonomic relationships used in the experiment. There was no significant group difference between LTs and TTs. Both groups also looked more to the target in the target-present condition than in the target-absent condition. CONCLUSIONS These results reveal that, despite possessing smaller expressive vocabularies, LTs have encoded semantic relationships in their receptive vocabularies and activate these during real-time language comprehension. This study furthers our understanding of LTs' emerging linguistic systems and language processing skills. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23303987.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philip R. Curtis
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
| | - Ryne Estabrook
- Department of Psychology, University of Illinois Chicago
| | - Megan Y. Roberts
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
| | - Adriana Weisleder
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
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Langland-Hassan P, Davis CP. A context-sensitive and non-linguistic approach to abstract concepts. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2023; 378:20210355. [PMID: 36571133 PMCID: PMC9791476 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0355] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2022] [Accepted: 10/18/2022] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite the recent upsurge in research on abstract concepts, there remain puzzles at the foundation of their empirical study. These are most evident when we consider what is required to assess a person's abstract conceptual abilities without using language as a prompt or requiring it as a response-as in classic non-verbal categorization tasks, which are standardly considered tests of conceptual understanding. After distinguishing two divergent strands in the most common conception of what it is for a concept to be abstract, we argue that neither reliably captures the kind of abstraction required to successfully categorize in non-verbal tasks. We then present a new conception of concept abstractness-termed 'trial concreteness'-that is keyed to individual categorization trials. It has advantages in capturing the context-relativity of the degree of abstraction required for the application of a concept and fittingly correlates with participant success in recent experiments. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Charles P. Davis
- Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, 27708, NC, USA
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7
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Continuous cursor-captured conceptual competition: Investigating the spatiotemporal dynamics of spoken word comprehension. Mem Cognit 2023; 51:290-306. [PMID: 36180769 DOI: 10.3758/s13421-022-01358-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Semantically related concepts are coactivated during spoken word comprehension. Two internet-mediated cursor-tracking experiments examined the spatiotemporal dynamics of this coactivation. Participants viewed visual arrays containing images of a target (e.g., accordion) and a semantically related (e.g., banjo) or unrelated (e.g., plum) distractor whilst hearing the target word (e.g., "accordion"). Participants were tasked with moving their cursor from the bottom of the visual array to the target in one of the upper corners. In contrast to Experiment 1, the onset of stimulus presentation was triggered by cursor movement in Experiment 2. Across both experiments, temporal (e.g., RT) and spatial (e.g., AUC) measures revealed significantly greater attraction to images of semantically related compared with unrelated distractors. These results reveal that online cursor-tracking methods are sensitive to semantic competition and suitable for studying the activation of semantic knowledge during language comprehension.
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8
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Merck C, Noël A, Jamet E, Robert M, Salmon A, Belliard S, Kalénine S. Nonspecific Effects of Normal Aging on Taxonomic and Thematic Semantic Processing. Exp Aging Res 2023; 49:18-40. [PMID: 35234091 DOI: 10.1080/0361073x.2022.2046948] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE This study aimed to assess the effect of normal aging on the processing of taxonomic and thematic semantic relations. METHOD We used the Visual-World-Paradigm coupled with eye-movement recording. We compared performance of healthy younger and older adults on a word-to-picture matching task in which participants had to identify each target among semantically related (taxonomic or thematic) and unrelated distractors. RESULTS Younger and older participants exhibited similar patterns of gaze fixations in the two semantic conditions. The effect of aging took the form of an overall reduction in sensitivity to semantic competitors, with no difference between the taxonomic and thematic conditions. Moreover, comparison of the proportions of fixations between the younger and older participants indicated that targets were identified equally quickly in both age groups. This was not the case when mouse-click reaction times were analyzed. CONCLUSIONS Findings argue in favor of nonspecific effects of normal aging on semantic processing that similarly affect taxonomic and thematic processing. There are important clinical implications, as pathological aging has been repeatedly shown to selectively affect either taxonomic or thematic relations. Measuring eye-movements in a semantic task is also an interesting approach in the elderly, as these seem to be less impacted by aging than other motor responses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Catherine Merck
- Service de Neurologie, Cmrr Haute Bretagne, Chu Pontchaillou, Rennes, France.,Normandie Univ, Unicaen, Psl Research University, Ephe, Inserm, U1077, Chu de Caen, Neuropsychologie Et Imagerie de la Mémoire Humaine, Caen, France
| | - Audrey Noël
- Univ Rennes, LP3C (Psychology of Cognition, Behavior & Communication Laboratory) - Ea 1285, Rennes, France
| | - Eric Jamet
- Univ Rennes, LP3C (Psychology of Cognition, Behavior & Communication Laboratory) - Ea 1285, Rennes, France
| | - Maxime Robert
- Univ Rennes, LP3C (Psychology of Cognition, Behavior & Communication Laboratory) - Ea 1285, Rennes, France
| | - Anne Salmon
- Service de Neurologie, Cmrr Haute Bretagne, Chu Pontchaillou, Rennes, France
| | - Serge Belliard
- Service de Neurologie, Cmrr Haute Bretagne, Chu Pontchaillou, Rennes, France.,Normandie Univ, Unicaen, Psl Research University, Ephe, Inserm, U1077, Chu de Caen, Neuropsychologie Et Imagerie de la Mémoire Humaine, Caen, France
| | - Solène Kalénine
- Univ. Lille, Cnrs, Chu Lille, Umr 9193 - SCALab - Sciences Cognitives Et Sciences Affectives, Lille, France
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Borovsky A. Drivers of Lexical Processing and Implications for Early Learning. ANNUAL REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2022; 4:21-40. [PMID: 38846449 PMCID: PMC11156262 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-devpsych-120920-042902] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/09/2024]
Abstract
Understanding words in unfolding speech requires the coordination of many skills to support successful and rapid comprehension of word meanings. This multifaceted ability emerges before our first birthday, matures over a protracted period of development, varies widely between individuals, forecasts future learning outcomes, and is influenced by immediate context, prior knowledge, and lifetime experience. This article highlights drivers of early lexical processing abilities while exploring questions regarding how learners begin to acquire, represent, and activate meaning in language. The review additionally explores how lexical processing and representation are connected while reflecting on how network science approaches can support richly detailed insights into this connection in young learners. Future research avenues are considered that focus on addressing how language processing and other cognitive skills are connected.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arielle Borovsky
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
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10
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Plunkett K, Delle Luche C, Hills T, Floccia C. Tracking the associative boost in infancy. INFANCY 2022; 27:1179-1196. [PMID: 36066941 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12502] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2021] [Revised: 07/09/2022] [Accepted: 08/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Do words that are both associatively and taxonomically related prime each other in the infant mental lexicon? We explore the impact of these semantic relations in the emerging lexicon. Using the head-turn preference procedure, we show that 18-month-old infants have begun to construct a semantic network of associatively and taxonomically related words, such as dog-cat or apple-cheese. We demonstrate that priming between words is longer-lasting when the relationship is both taxonomic and associative, as opposed to purely taxonomic, reflecting the associative boost reported in the adult priming literature. Our results demonstrate that 18-month-old infants are able to construct a lexical-semantic network based on associative and taxonomic relations between words in the network, and that lexical-semantic links are more robust when they are both associative and taxonomic in character. Furthermore, the manner in which activation is propagated through the emerging lexical-semantic network appears to depend upon the type of semantic relation between words. We argue that 18-month-old infants have a mental lexicon that shares important structural and processing properties with that of the adult system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kim Plunkett
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Claire Delle Luche
- Centre for Research in Language Development Throughout the Lifespan, Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
| | - Thomas Hills
- Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, University Road, Coventry, UK
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11
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Litovsky CP, Finley AM, Zuckerman B, Sayers M, Schoenhard JA, Kenett YN, Reilly J. Semantic flow and its relation to controlled semantic retrieval deficits in the narrative production of people with aphasia. Neuropsychologia 2022; 170:108235. [PMID: 35430236 PMCID: PMC9978996 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108235] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2021] [Revised: 04/04/2022] [Accepted: 04/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Aphasia has had a profound influence on our understanding of how language is instantiated within the human brain. Historically, aphasia has yielded an in vivo model for elucidating the effects of impaired lexical-semantic access on language comprehension and production. Aphasiology has focused intensively on single word dissociations. Yet, less is known about the integrity of combinatorial semantic processes required to construct well-formed narratives. Here we addressed the question of how controlled lexical-semantic retrieval deficits (a hallmark of aphasia) might compound over the course of longer narratives. We specifically examined word-by-word flow of taxonomic vs. thematic semantic distance in the storytelling narratives of individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia (n = 259) relative to age-matched controls (n = 203). We first parsed raw transcribed narratives into content words and computed inter-word semantic distances for every running pair of words in each narrative (N = 232,490 word transitions). The narratives of people with aphasia showed significant reductions in taxonomic and thematic semantic distance relative to controls. Both distance metrics were strongly predictive of offline measures of semantic impairment and aphasia severity. Since individuals with aphasia often exhibit perseverative language output (i.e., repetitions), we performed additional analyses with repetitions excluded. When repetitions were excluded, group differences in semantic distances persisted and thematic distance was still predictive of semantic impairment, although some findings changed. These results demonstrate the cumulative impact of deficits in controlled word retrieval over the course of narrative production. We discuss the nature of semantic flow between words as a novel metric of characterizing discourse and elucidating the nature of lexical-semantic access impairment in aphasia at multiword levels.
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Affiliation(s)
- Celia P Litovsky
- Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
| | - Ann Marie Finley
- Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Bonnie Zuckerman
- Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Matthew Sayers
- Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Julie A Schoenhard
- Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Yoed N Kenett
- Faculty of Industrial Engineering & Management, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
| | - Jamie Reilly
- Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
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12
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Sia MY, Mayor J. Improvements of Statistical Learning Skills Allow Older Children to Go Beyond Single-Hypothesis Testing When Learning Words. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2021; 49:1-13. [PMID: 34519266 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000921000532] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Children learn words in ambiguous situations, where multiple objects can potentially be referents for a new word. Yet, researchers debate whether children maintain a single word-object hypothesis - and revise it if falsified by later information - or whether children establish a network of word-object associations whose relative strengths are modulated with experience. To address this issue, we presented 4- to 12-year-old children with sets of mutual exclusivity (fast-mapping) trials: offering them with obvious initial hypotheses (that the novel object is the referent for the novel word). We observe that children aged six years and above, despite showing a novelty bias and retaining this novel word - novel object association, also formed an association between the novel word and the name-known object, thereby suggesting that older children attend to more than one word-object association, in a manner similar to associative learning. We discuss our findings in the context of competing theoretical accounts related to word learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ming Yean Sia
- The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Julien Mayor
- University of Oslo, Forskningsveien 3A, 0373 Oslo, Norway
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13
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Flick G, Abdullah O, Pylkkänen L. From letters to composed concepts: A magnetoencephalography study of reading. Hum Brain Mapp 2021; 42:5130-5153. [PMID: 34402114 PMCID: PMC8449097 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.25608] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2020] [Revised: 06/23/2021] [Accepted: 07/20/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Language comprehension requires the recognition of individual words and the combination of their meanings to yield complex concepts or interpretations. This combinatory process often requires the insertion of unstated semantic material between words, based on thematic or feature knowledge. For example, the phrase horse barn is not interpreted as a blend of a horse and a barn, but specifically a barn where horses are kept. Previous neuroscientific evidence suggests that left posterior and anterior temporal cortex underpin thematic and feature‐based concept knowledge, respectively, but much remains unclear about how these areas contribute to combinatory language processing. Using magnetoencephalography, we contrasted source‐localized responses to modifier‐noun phrases involving thematic relations versus feature modifications, while also examining how lower‐level orthographic processing fed composition. Participants completed three procedures examining responses to letter‐strings, adjective‐noun phrases, and noun–noun combinations that varied the semantic relations between words. We found that sections of the left anterior temporal lobe, posterior temporal lobe, and cortex surrounding the angular gyrus were all engaged in the minimal composition of adjective‐noun phrases, a more distributed network than in most prior studies of minimal composition. Of these regions, only the left posterior temporal lobe was additionally sensitive to implicit thematic relations between composing words, suggesting that it houses a specialized relational processing component in a wider composition network. We additionally identified a left occipitotemporal progression from orthographic to lexical processing, feeding ventral anterior areas engaged in the combination of word meanings. Finally, by examining source signal leakage, we characterized the degree to which these responses could be distinguished from one another using source estimation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Graham Flick
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, USA.,NYUAD Research Institute, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
| | - Osama Abdullah
- NYUAD Research Institute, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
| | - Liina Pylkkänen
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, USA.,NYUAD Research Institute, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.,Department of Linguistics, New York University, New York, New York, USA
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14
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Choi M, Yoon S. Asymmetric Underlying Mechanisms of Relation-Based and Property-Based Noun-Noun Conceptual Combination. Front Psychol 2021; 12:567971. [PMID: 34393869 PMCID: PMC8359794 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.567971] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2020] [Accepted: 06/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Conceptual combination is a fundamental human cognitive ability by which people can experience infinite thinking by artfully combining finite knowledge. For example, one can instantly combine “cactus” and “fish” together as “prickly fish” even if one has never previously heard of a “cactus fish.” Although two major combinatorial types—property and relational combinations—have been identified, the underlying processes of each remain elusive. This study investigates the asymmetric processing mechanisms underlying property and relational combinations by examining differential semantic activation during noun–noun conceptual combination. Across two experiments utilizing each combinatorial process as semantic priming and implementing a lexical decision task immediately after combination, we measure and compare the semantic activation patterns of intrinsic and extrinsic semantic features in these two combinatorial types. We found converging evidence that property and relational combinations involve asymmetric semantic information and entail distinct processing mechanisms. In property combination, the intrinsic feature in the modifier concept showed greater activation than the semantic feature of the same dimension in the head concept. In contrast, in relational combination, the extrinsic semantic feature in the head concept and the whole modifier concept showed similar levels of activation. Moreover, our findings also showed that these patterns of semantic activation occurred only when the combinatorial process was complete, indicating that accessing the same lexical-semantic information is not sufficient to observe asymmetric patterns. These findings demonstrate that property combination involves replacing a specific semantic feature of the head noun with that of the modifier noun, whereas relational combination involves completing the semantic feature of the head noun with the whole modifier concept. We discuss the implications of these findings, research limitations, and future research directions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingyeong Choi
- Institute of Social Science Research, Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea
| | - Sangsuk Yoon
- Department of Marketing, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, United States
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15
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Troyer M, McRae K. Thematic and other semantic relations central to abstract (and concrete) concepts. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2021; 86:2399-2416. [PMID: 34115192 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01484-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2020] [Accepted: 01/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
In this article, we discuss multiple types of meaningful (semantic) relations underlying abstract (as compared to concrete) concepts. We adopt the viewpoint that words act as cues to meaning (Elman in Ment Lexicon 6(1):1-34, 2011; Lupyan and Lewis in Lang Cogn Neurosci 34(10):1319-1337, 2019), which is dependent on the dynamic contents of a comprehender's mental model of the situation. This view foregrounds the importance of both linguistic and real-world context as individuals make sense of words, flexibly access relevant knowledge, and understand described events and situations. We discuss theories of, and experimental work on, abstract concepts through the lens of the importance of thematic and other semantic relations. We then tie these findings to the sentence processing literature in which such meaningful relations within sentential contexts are often experimentally manipulated. In this literature, some specific classes/types of abstract words have been studied, although not comprehensively, and with limited connection to the literature on knowledge underlying abstract concepts reviewed herein. We conclude by arguing that the ways in which humans understand relatively more abstract concepts, in particular, can be informed by the careful study of words presented not in isolation, but rather in situational and linguistic contexts, and as a function of individual differences in knowledge, goals, and beliefs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melissa Troyer
- Department of Psychology, Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
| | - Ken McRae
- Department of Psychology, Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
- University of Western Ontario, Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, Room 5148, London, ON, N6A 5C2, Canada.
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16
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Thye M, Geller J, Szaflarski JP, Mirman D. Intracranial EEG evidence of functional specialization for taxonomic and thematic relations. Cortex 2021; 140:40-50. [PMID: 33933929 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.03.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2020] [Revised: 02/19/2021] [Accepted: 03/12/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
The dual-hub account posits that the neural organization of semantic knowledge is segregated by the type of semantic relation with anterior temporal lobe (ATL) specializing for taxonomic relations and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) for thematic relations. This study critically examined this account by recording intracranial EEG from an array of depth electrodes within ATL, IPL, and two regions within the semantic control network, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), while 17 participants with refractory epilepsy completed a semantic relatedness judgment task. We observed a significant difference between relation types in ATL and IPL approximately 600-800 ms after trial presentation, and no significant differences in IFG or pMTG. Within this time window, alpha and theta suppression indexing cognitive effort and memory retrieval was observed in ATL for taxonomic trials and in IPL for thematic trials. These results suggest taxonomic specialization in ATL and thematic specialization in IPL, consistent with the dual-hub account of semantic cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melissa Thye
- Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
| | - Jason Geller
- Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA
| | - Jerzy P Szaflarski
- Department of Neurology and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Epilepsy Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
| | - Daniel Mirman
- Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
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17
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Assessing abstract thought and its relation to language with a new nonverbal paradigm: Evidence from aphasia. Cognition 2021; 211:104622. [PMID: 33601019 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104622] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2020] [Revised: 02/02/2021] [Accepted: 02/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
In recent years, language has been shown to play a number of important cognitive roles over and above the communication of thoughts. One hypothesis gaining support is that language facilitates thought about abstract categories, such as democracy or prediction. To test this proposal, a novel set of semantic memory task trials, designed for assessing abstract thought non-linguistically, were normed for levels of abstractness. The trials were rated as more or less abstract to the degree that answering them required the participant to abstract away from both perceptual features and common setting associations corresponding to the target image. The normed materials were then used with a population of people with aphasia to assess the relationship of abstract thought to language. While the language-impaired group with aphasia showed lower overall accuracy and longer response times than controls in general, of special note is that their response times were significantly longer as a function of a trial's degree of abstractness. Further, the aphasia group's response times in reporting their degree of confidence (a separate, metacognitive measure) were negatively correlated with their language production abilities, with lower language scores predicting longer metacognitive response times. These results provide some support for the hypothesis that language is an important aid to abstract thought and to metacognition about abstract thought.
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Abstract
Eye-tracking is widely used throughout the scientific community, from vision science and psycholinguistics to marketing and human-computer interaction. Surprisingly, there is little consistency and transparency in preprocessing steps, making replicability and reproducibility difficult. To increase replicability, reproducibility, and transparency, a package in R (a free and widely used statistical programming environment) called gazeR was created to read and preprocess two types of data: gaze position and pupil size. For gaze position data, gazeR has functions for reading in raw eye-tracking data, formatting it for analysis, converting from gaze coordinates to areas of interest, and binning and aggregating data. For data from pupillometry studies, the gazeR package has functions for reading in and merging multiple raw pupil data files, removing observations with too much missing data, eliminating artifacts, blink identification and interpolation, subtractive baseline correction, and binning and aggregating data. The package is open-source and freely available for download and installation: https://github.com/dmirman/gazer . We provide step-by-step analyses of data from two tasks exemplifying the package's capabilities.
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19
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From foods to artifacts: Children’s evaluative and taxonomic categorization across multiple domains. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100894] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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20
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Unger L, Vales C, Fisher AV. The Role of Co-Occurrence Statistics in Developing Semantic Knowledge. Cogn Sci 2020; 44:e12894. [PMID: 32929791 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12894] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2019] [Revised: 06/19/2020] [Accepted: 08/12/2020] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
The organization of our knowledge about the world into an interconnected network of concepts linked by relations profoundly impacts many facets of cognition, including attention, memory retrieval, reasoning, and learning. It is therefore crucial to understand how organized semantic representations are acquired. The present experiment investigated the contributions of readily observable environmental statistical regularities to semantic organization in childhood. Specifically, we investigated whether co-occurrence regularities with which entities or their labels more reliably occur together than with others (a) contribute to relations between concepts independently and (b) contribute to relations between concepts belonging to the same taxonomic category. Using child-directed speech corpora to estimate reliable co-occurrences between labels for familiar items, we constructed triads consisting of a target, a related distractor, and an unrelated distractor in which targets and related distractors consistently co-occurred (e.g., sock-foot), belonged to the same taxonomic category (e.g., sock-coat), or both (e.g., sock-shoe). We used an implicit, eye-gaze measure of relations between concepts based on the degree to which children (N = 72, age 4-7 years) looked at related versus unrelated distractors when asked to look for a target. The results indicated that co-occurrence both independently contributes to relations between concepts and contributes to relations between concepts belonging to the same taxonomic category. These findings suggest that sensitivity to the regularity with which different entities co-occur in children's environments shapes the organization of semantic knowledge during development. Implications for theoretical accounts and empirical investigations of semantic organization are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Layla Unger
- Department of Psychology, Ohio State University
| | | | - Anna V Fisher
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University
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21
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Liang X, Xiao F, Zhu Y, Lei Y, Chen Q. How types of prior knowledge and task properties impact the category-based induction: diverging evidence from the P2, N400, and LPC effects. Biol Psychol 2020; 156:107951. [PMID: 32890634 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2020.107951] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2019] [Revised: 04/24/2020] [Accepted: 08/28/2020] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Category-based induction task was combined with ERP to unravel whether prior knowledge and property interact when inferring on genes or diseases. Larger P2 amplitudes for near taxonomic/causal distances relative to far ones, as well as larger LPC for taxonomic relation relative to thematic relation, are found in both gene and disease tasks. However, smaller N400 is found for taxonomic relation in gene task and thematic relation in disease task, respectively, and larger LPC at 700-850 ms for near taxonomic distance in the gene task and near causal distance in the disease task. These results suggested that the category-based inductive reasoning is context-sensitive, and there may be four stages of category-based inductive reasoning: the early automatic comparison of features/relations (P2), features/relations generalization process (N400), the extraction of common relationship/rule (LPC at 550-700 ms), the inference generation (LPC at 700-850 ms).
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiuling Liang
- School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University Health Science Center, Shenzhen, China; College of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China
| | - Feng Xiao
- Department of Education Science, Innovation Center for Fundamental Education Quality Enhancement of Shanxi Province, Shanxi Normal University, Linfen 041000, China
| | - Yuxi Zhu
- College of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China; School of Public Health (Shenzhen), Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Yi Lei
- Institute for Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, 610068, China
| | - Qingfei Chen
- College of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China; Center for Language and Brain, Shenzhen Institute of Neuroscience, Shenzhen, 518057, China.
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22
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Honke G, Kurtz KJ, Laszlo S. Similarity judgments predict N400 amplitude differences between taxonomic category members and thematic associates. Neuropsychologia 2020; 141:107388. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107388] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/23/2019] [Revised: 02/01/2020] [Accepted: 02/09/2020] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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23
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Unger L, Savic O, Sloutsky VM. Statistical regularities shape semantic organization throughout development. Cognition 2020; 198:104190. [PMID: 32018121 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104190] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2019] [Revised: 12/20/2019] [Accepted: 01/13/2020] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Our knowledge about the world is represented not merely as a collection of concepts, but as an organized lexico-semantic network in which concepts can be linked by relations, such as "taxonomic" relations between members of the same stable category (e.g., cat and sheep), or association between entities that occur together or in the same context (e.g., sock and foot). To date, accounts of the origins of semantic organization have largely overlooked how sensitivity to statistical regularities ubiquitous in the environment may play a powerful role in shaping semantic development. The goal of the present research was to investigate how associations in the form of statistical regularities with which labels for concepts co-occur in language (e.g., sock and foot) and taxonomic relatedness (e.g., sock and pajamas) shape semantic organization of 4-5-year-olds and adults. To examine these aspects of semantic organization across development, we conducted three experiments examining effects of co-occurrence and taxonomic relatedness on cued recall (Experiment 1), word-picture matching (Experiment 2), and looking dynamics in a Visual World paradigm (Experiment 3). Taken together, the results of the three experiments provide evidence that co-occurrence-based links between concepts manifest in semantic organization from early childhood onward, and are increasingly supplemented by taxonomic links. We discuss these findings in relation to theories of semantic development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Layla Unger
- Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States of America.
| | - Olivera Savic
- Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States of America
| | - Vladimir M Sloutsky
- Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States of America
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24
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Toon J, Kukona A. Activating Semantic Knowledge During Spoken Words and Environmental Sounds: Evidence From the Visual World Paradigm. Cogn Sci 2020; 44:e12810. [PMID: 31960505 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12810] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2018] [Revised: 10/09/2019] [Accepted: 11/11/2019] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Two visual world experiments investigated the activation of semantically related concepts during the processing of environmental sounds and spoken words. Participants heard environmental sounds such as barking or spoken words such as "puppy" while viewing visual arrays with objects such as a bone (semantically related competitor) and candle (unrelated distractor). In Experiment 1, a puppy (target) was also included in the visual array; in Experiment 2, it was not. During both types of auditory stimuli, competitors were fixated significantly more than distractors, supporting the coactivation of semantically related concepts in both cases; comparisons of the two types of auditory stimuli also revealed significantly larger effects with environmental sounds than spoken words. We discuss implications of these results for theories of semantic knowledge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Josef Toon
- Division of Psychology, De Montfort University
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25
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García Coni A, Ison M, Vivas J. Conceptual flexibility in school children: Switching between taxonomic and thematic relations. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100827] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
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26
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Xu P, Qu Q, Shen W, Li X. Co-activation of Taxonomic and Thematic Relations in Spoken Word Comprehension: Evidence From Eye Movements. Front Psychol 2019; 10:964. [PMID: 31130893 PMCID: PMC6509418 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00964] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/16/2019] [Accepted: 04/11/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Evidence from behavior, computational linguistics, and neuroscience studies supported that semantic knowledge is represented in (at least) two semantic systems (i.e., taxonomic and thematic systems). It remains unclear whether, and to what extent taxonomic and thematic relations are co-activated. The present study investigated the co-activation of the two types of semantic representations when both types of semantic relations are simultaneously presented. In a visual-world task, participants listened to a spoken target word and looked at a visual display consisted of a taxonomic competitor, a thematic competitor and two distractors. Growth curve analyses revealed that both taxonomic and thematic competitors attracted visual attention during the processing of the target word but taxonomic competitor received more looks than thematic competitor. Moreover, although fixations on taxonomic competitor rose faster than thematic competitor, these two types of competitors started to attract more fixations than distractor in a similar time window. These findings indicate that taxonomic and thematic relations are co-activated by the spoken word, the activation of taxonomic relation is stronger and rise faster than thematic relation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pingping Xu
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Qingqing Qu
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Wei Shen
- Institute of Psychological Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.,Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Research in Assessment of Cognitive Impairments, Hangzhou, China.,Centre for Cognition and Brain Disorders, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Xingshan Li
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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27
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Karimi H, Brothers T, Ferreira F. Phonological versus semantic prediction in focus and repair constructions: No evidence for differential predictions. Cogn Psychol 2019; 112:25-47. [PMID: 31078824 DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2019.04.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2018] [Revised: 04/13/2019] [Accepted: 04/16/2019] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Evidence suggests that the language processing system is predictive. Although past research has established prediction as a general tendency, it is not yet clear whether comprehenders can modulate their anticipatory strategies in response to cues based on sentence constructions. In two visual world eye-tracking experiments, we investigated whether focus constructions (not the hammer but rather the …) and repair disfluencies (the hammer uh I mean the …) would lead listeners to generate different patterns of predictions. In three offline tasks, we observed that participants preferred semantically related continuations (hammer - nail) following focus constructions and phonologically related continuations (hammer - hammock) following disfluencies. However, these offline preferences were not evident in participants' predictive eye-movements during online language processing: Semantically related (nail) and phonologically related words (hammock) received additional predictive looks regardless of whether the target word appeared in a disfluency or in a focus construction. However, significantly less semantic and phonological activation was observed in two "control" linguistic contexts in which predictive processing was discouraged. These findings suggest that although the prediction system is sensitive to sentence construction, is it not flexible enough to alter the type of prediction generated based on preceding context.
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28
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Similarity is as similarity does? A critical inquiry into the effect of thematic association on similarity. Cognition 2019; 186:115-138. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.01.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2018] [Revised: 01/15/2019] [Accepted: 01/25/2019] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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29
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Vonk J, Rastogi G. The “Sh-Ape Bias” in Non-Linguistic Categorization: Comparisons between Children and Other Apes. JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT 2019. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2019.1603152] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
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30
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Abstract
Current models and theories of semantic knowledge primarily capture taxonomic relationships (DOG and WOLF) and largely do not address the role of thematic relationships in semantic knowledge (DOG and LEASH). Recent evidence suggests that processing or representation of thematic relationships may be distinct from taxonomic relationships. If taxonomic and thematic relations are distinct, then there should be a cost associated with switching between them even when the task remains constant. This hypothesis was tested using two different semantic-relatedness judgment tasks: Experiment 1 used a triads task and Experiment 2 used an oddball task. In both experiments, participants were faster to respond when the same relationship appeared on consecutive trials than when the relationship types were different, even though the task remained the same and the specific relations were different on each trial. These results are consistent with the theory that taxonomic and thematic relations rely on distinct processes or representations.
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31
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Thompson H, Davey J, Hoffman P, Hallam G, Kosinski R, Howkins S, Wooffindin E, Gabbitas R, Jefferies E. Semantic control deficits impair understanding of thematic relationships more than object identity. Neuropsychologia 2017; 104:113-125. [PMID: 28803767 PMCID: PMC5637130 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.08.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2017] [Revised: 06/13/2017] [Accepted: 08/07/2017] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
Recent work has suggested a potential link between the neurocognitive mechanisms supporting the retrieval of events and thematic associations (i.e., knowledge about how concepts relate in a meaningful context) and semantic control processes that support the capacity to shape retrieval to suit the circumstances. Thematic associations and events are inherently flexible: the meaning of an item changes depending on the context (for example, lamp goes with reading, bicycle and police). Control processes might stabilise weak yet currently-relevant interpretations during event understanding. In contrast, semantic retrieval for objects (to understand what items are, and the categories they belong to) is potentially constrained by sensory-motor features (e.g., bright light) that change less across contexts. Semantic control and event understanding produce overlapping patterns of activation in healthy participants in left prefrontal and temporoparietal regions, but the potential causal link between these aspects of semantic cognition has not been examined. We predict that event understanding relies on semantic control, due to associations being necessarily context-dependent and variable. We tested this hypothesis in two ways: (i) by examining thematic associations and object identity in patients with semantic aphasia, who have well-documented deficits of semantic control following left frontoparietal stroke and (ii) using the same tasks in healthy controls under dual-task conditions that depleted the capacity for cognitive control. The patients were impaired on both identity and thematic matching tasks, and they showed particular difficulty on non-dominant thematic associations which required greater control over semantic retrieval. Healthy participants showed the same pattern under conditions of divided attention. These findings support the view that semantic control is necessary for organising and constraining the retrieval of thematic associations.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - James Davey
- Department of Psychology, University of York, UK
| | - Paul Hoffman
- Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, UK
| | - Glyn Hallam
- Department of Psychology, University of York, UK
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32
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Abstract
Knowledge of thematic relations is an area of increased interest in semantic memory research because it is crucial to many cognitive processes. One methodological issue that researchers face is how to identify pairs of thematically related concepts that are well-established in semantic memory for most people. In this article, we review existing methods of assessing thematic relatedness and provide thematic relatedness production norming data for 100 object concepts. In addition, 1,174 related concept pairs obtained from the production norms were classified as reflecting one of the five subtypes of relations: attributive, argument, coordinate, locative, and temporal. The database and methodology will be useful for researchers interested in the effects of thematic knowledge on language processing, analogical reasoning, similarity judgments, and memory. These data will also benefit researchers interested in investigating potential processing differences among the five types of semantic relations.
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33
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Williams A, Reddigari S, Pylkkänen L. Early sensitivity of left perisylvian cortex to relationality in nouns and verbs. Neuropsychologia 2017; 100:131-143. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.04.029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2016] [Revised: 04/09/2017] [Accepted: 04/23/2017] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
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34
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Abstract
Object concepts are critical for nearly all aspects of human cognition, from perception tasks like object recognition, to understanding and producing language, to making meaningful actions. Concepts can have 2 very different kinds of relations: similarity relations based on shared features (e.g., dog-bear), which are called "taxonomic" relations, and contiguity relations based on co-occurrence in events or scenarios (e.g., dog-leash), which are called "thematic" relations. Here, we report a systematic review of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience evidence of this distinction in the structure of semantic memory. We propose 2 principles that may drive the development of distinct taxonomic and thematic semantic systems: differences between which features determine taxonomic versus thematic relations, and differences in the processing required to extract taxonomic versus thematic relations. This review brings together distinct threads of behavioral, computational, and neuroscience research on semantic memory in support of a functional and neural dissociation, and defines a framework for future studies of semantic memory. (PsycINFO Database Record
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Mirman
- Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham
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35
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Zhang M, Chen S, Wang L, Yang X, Yang Y. Episodic Specificity in Acquiring Thematic Knowledge of Novel Words from Descriptive Episodes. Front Psychol 2017; 8:488. [PMID: 28428766 PMCID: PMC5382203 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00488] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2016] [Accepted: 03/15/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The current study examined whether thematic relations of the novel words could be acquired via descriptive episodes, and if yes, whether it could be generalized to thematically related words in a different scenario. In Experiment 1, a lexical decision task was used where the novel words served as primes for target words in four conditions: (1) corresponding concepts of the novel words, (2) thematically related words in the same episodes as that in learning condition, (3) thematically related words in different episodes, or (4) unrelated words served as targets. Event related potentials elicited by the targets revealed that compared to the unrelated words, the corresponding concepts and thematically related words in the same episodes elicited smaller N400s with a frontal-central distribution, whereas the thematically related words in different episodes elicited an enhanced late positive component. Experiment 2 further showed a priming effect of the corresponding concepts on the thematically related words in the same episodes as well as in a different episode, indicating that the absence of a priming effect of the learned novel words on the thematically related words in different episode could not be attributed to inappropriate selection of thematically related words in the two conditions. These results indicate that only the corresponding concepts and the thematically related words in the learning episodes were successfully primed, whereas the thematic association between the novel words and the thematically related words in different scenarios could only be recognized in a late processing stage. Our findings suggest that thematic knowledge of novel words is organized via separate scenarios, which are represented in a clustered manner in the semantic network.
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Affiliation(s)
- Meichao Zhang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of PsychologyBeijing, China.,University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China
| | - Shuang Chen
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal UniversityJinhua, China
| | - Lin Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of PsychologyBeijing, China
| | - Xiaohong Yang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of PsychologyBeijing, China
| | - Yufang Yang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of PsychologyBeijing, China
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Lawson R, Chang F, Wills AJ. Free classification of large sets of everyday objects is more thematic than taxonomic. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2017; 172:26-40. [PMID: 27863296 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2016.11.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2016] [Revised: 08/25/2016] [Accepted: 11/01/2016] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Traditionally it has been thought that the overall organisation of categories in the brain is taxonomic. To examine this assumption, we had adults sort 140-150 diverse, familiar objects from different basic-level categories. Almost all the participants (80/81) sorted the objects more thematically than taxonomically. Sorting was only weakly modulated by taxonomic priming, and people still produced many thematically structured clusters when explicitly instructed to sort taxonomically. The first clusters that people produced were rated as having equal taxonomic and thematic structure. However, later clusters were rated as being increasingly thematically organised. A minority of items were consistently clustered taxonomically, but the overall dominance of thematically structured clusters suggests that people know more thematic than taxonomic relations among everyday objects. A final study showed that the semantic relations used to sort a given item in the initial studies predicted the proportion of thematic to taxonomic word associates generated to that item. However, unlike the results of the sorting task, most of these single word associates were related taxonomically. This latter difference between the results of large-scale, free sorting tasks versus single word association tasks suggests that thematic relations may be more numerous, but weaker, than taxonomic associations in our stored conceptual network. Novel statistical and numerical methods for objectively measuring sorting consistency were developed during the course of this investigation, and have been made publicly available.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rebecca Lawson
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Liverpool, UK.
| | - Franklin Chang
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Liverpool, UK
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Ware EA. Individual and developmental differences in preschoolers' categorization biases and vocabulary across tasks. J Exp Child Psychol 2016; 153:35-56. [PMID: 27684434 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.08.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2015] [Revised: 08/30/2016] [Accepted: 08/31/2016] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
This study bridges prior research on young children's use of taxonomic versus thematic relations to categorize objects with prior research on their use of shared shape versus shared function to categorize artifacts. Specifically, this research examined associations in children's categorization tendencies across these two dichotomies, including assessments of individual differences, developmental trends, and vocabulary level. Preschoolers (3- to 5-year-olds) completed a receptive vocabulary assessment and two match-to-sample tasks: one pitting (superordinate) taxonomic and thematic relations against each other and one pitting shape and function similarity against each other. The results revealed individual and developmental variation in children's cross-task categorization biases, with a predominant tendency to focus on both thematic and function relations that became increasingly stronger with age. In 3- and 5-year-olds, function-based categorization was also positively associated with verb vocabulary. These findings demonstrate an emerging tendency to focus on relational information during the preschool years that, among other learning effects, may benefit verb acquisition. The results are discussed in terms of the real-time processing and developmental factors that might contribute to the development of strategies for learning about objects and categories during early childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth A Ware
- Department of Psychology, Viterbo University, La Crosse, WI 54601, USA.
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Guest D, Gibbert M, Estes Z, Mazursky D, Lam M. Modulation of taxonomic (versus thematic) similarity judgments and product choices by inducing local and global processing. JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 2016. [DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2016.1212057] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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Kalénine S, Buxbaum LJ. Thematic knowledge, artifact concepts, and the left posterior temporal lobe: Where action and object semantics converge. Cortex 2016; 82:164-178. [PMID: 27389801 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.06.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2015] [Revised: 03/21/2016] [Accepted: 06/11/2016] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
Abstract
Converging evidence supports the existence of functionally and neuroanatomically distinct taxonomic (similarity-based; e.g., hammer-screwdriver) and thematic (event-based; e.g., hammer-nail) semantic systems. Processing of thematic relations between objects has been shown to selectively recruit the left posterior temporoparietal cortex. Similar posterior regions have also been shown to be critical for knowledge of relationships between actions and manipulable human-made objects (artifacts). Based on the hypothesis that thematic relationships for artifacts rely, at least in part, on action relationships, we assessed the prediction that the same regions of the left posterior temporoparietal cortex would be critical for conceptual processing of artifact-related actions and thematic relations for artifacts. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated processing of taxonomic and thematic relations for artifacts and natural objects as well as artifact action knowledge (gesture recognition) abilities in a large sample of 48 stroke patients with a range of lesion foci in the left hemisphere. Like control participants, patients identified thematic relations faster than taxonomic relations for artifacts, whereas they identified taxonomic relations faster than thematic relations for natural objects. Moreover, response times (RTs) for identifying thematic relations for artifacts selectively predicted performance in gesture recognition. Whole brain Voxel-based Lesion-Symptom Mapping (VLSM) analyses and Region of Interest (ROI) regression analyses further demonstrated that lesions to the left posterior temporal cortex, overlapping with LTO and visual motion area hMT+, were associated both with relatively slower RTs in identifying thematic relations for artifacts and poorer artifact action knowledge in patients. These findings provide novel insights into the functional role of left posterior temporal cortex in thematic knowledge, and suggest that the close association between thematic relations for artifacts and action representations may reflect their common dependence on visual motion and manipulation information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Solène Kalénine
- Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Elkins Park, PA, USA; Univ. Lille, CNRS, CHU Lille, UMR 9193 SCALab - Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives, Lille, France.
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40
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Harvey DY, Schnur TT. Different Loci of Semantic Interference in Picture Naming vs. Word-Picture Matching Tasks. Front Psychol 2016; 7:710. [PMID: 27242621 PMCID: PMC4865493 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00710] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2014] [Accepted: 04/27/2016] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Naming pictures and matching words to pictures belonging to the same semantic category impairs performance relative to when stimuli come from different semantic categories (i.e., semantic interference). Despite similar semantic interference phenomena in both picture naming and word-picture matching tasks, the locus of interference has been attributed to different levels of the language system - lexical in naming and semantic in word-picture matching. Although both tasks involve access to shared semantic representations, the extent to which interference originates and/or has its locus at a shared level remains unclear, as these effects are often investigated in isolation. We manipulated semantic context in cyclical picture naming and word-picture matching tasks, and tested whether factors tapping semantic-level (generalization of interference to novel category items) and lexical-level processes (interactions with lexical frequency) affected the magnitude of interference, while also assessing whether interference occurs at a shared processing level(s) (transfer of interference across tasks). We found that semantic interference in naming was sensitive to both semantic- and lexical-level processes (i.e., larger interference for novel vs. old and low- vs. high-frequency stimuli), consistent with a semantically mediated lexical locus. Interference in word-picture matching exhibited stable interference for old and novel stimuli and did not interact with lexical frequency. Further, interference transferred from word-picture matching to naming. Together, these experiments provide evidence to suggest that semantic interference in both tasks originates at a shared processing stage (presumably at the semantic level), but that it exerts its effect at different loci when naming pictures vs. matching words to pictures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Denise Y. Harvey
- Department of Neurology, University of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, PA, USA
- Moss Rehabilitation Research InstituteElkins Park, PA, USA
| | - Tatiana T. Schnur
- Baylor College of Medicine, Department of NeurosurgeryHouston, TX, USA
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Role of features and categories in the organization of object knowledge: Evidence from adaptation fMRI. Cortex 2016; 78:174-194. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.01.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/05/2015] [Revised: 12/11/2015] [Accepted: 01/05/2016] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Automatic and Controlled Semantic Retrieval: TMS Reveals Distinct Contributions of Posterior Middle Temporal Gyrus and Angular Gyrus. J Neurosci 2016; 35:15230-9. [PMID: 26586812 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.4705-14.2015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 136] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
UNLABELLED Semantic retrieval involves both (1) automatic spreading activation between highly related concepts and (2) executive control processes that tailor this activation to suit the current context or goals. Two structures in left temporoparietal cortex, angular gyrus (AG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), are thought to be crucial to semantic retrieval and are often recruited together during semantic tasks; however, they show strikingly different patterns of functional connectivity at rest (coupling with the "default mode network" and "frontoparietal control system," respectively). Here, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to establish a causal yet dissociable role for these sites in semantic cognition in human volunteers. TMS to AG disrupted thematic judgments particularly when the link between probe and target was strong (e.g., a picture of an Alsatian with a bone), and impaired the identification of objects at a specific but not a superordinate level (for the verbal label "Alsatian" not "animal"). In contrast, TMS to pMTG disrupted thematic judgments for weak but not strong associations (e.g., a picture of an Alsatian with razor wire), and impaired identity matching for both superordinate and specific-level labels. Thus, stimulation to AG interfered with the automatic retrieval of specific concepts from the semantic store while stimulation of pMTG impaired semantic cognition when there was a requirement to flexibly shape conceptual activation in line with the task requirements. These results demonstrate that AG and pMTG make a dissociable contribution to automatic and controlled aspects of semantic retrieval. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We demonstrate a novel functional dissociation between the angular gyrus (AG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) in conceptual processing. These sites are often coactivated during neuroimaging studies using semantic tasks, but their individual contributions are unclear. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation and tasks designed to assess different aspects of semantics (item identity and thematic matching), we tested two alternative theoretical accounts. Neither site showed the pattern expected for a "thematic hub" (i.e., a site storing associations between concepts) since stimulation disrupted both tasks. Instead, the data indicated that pMTG contributes to the controlled retrieval of conceptual knowledge, while AG is critical for the efficient automatic retrieval of specific semantic information.
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Seckin M, Mesulam MM, Voss JL, Huang W, Rogalski EJ, Hurley RS. Am I looking at a cat or a dog? Gaze in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia is subject to excessive taxonomic capture. JOURNAL OF NEUROLINGUISTICS 2016; 37:68-81. [PMID: 26500393 PMCID: PMC4612367 DOI: 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2015.09.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/15/2023]
Abstract
Object naming impairments or anomias are the most frequent symptom in aphasia, and can be caused by a variety of underlying neurocognitive mechanisms. Anomia in neurodegenerative or primary progressive aphasias (PPA) often appears to be based on taxonomic blurring of word meaning: words such as "dog" and "cat" are still recognized generically as referring to animals, but are no longer conceptually differentiated from each other, leading to coordinate errors in word-object matching. This blurring is the hallmark symptom of the "semantic variant" of PPA, who invariably show focal atrophy in the left anterior temporal lobe. In this study we used eye tracking to characterize information processing online (in real time) as non-aphasic controls, semantic and non-semantic PPA participants completed a word-to-object matching task. All participants (including controls) showed taxonomic capture of gaze, spending more time viewing foils that were from the same category as the target compared to unrelated foils, but capture was more extreme in the semantic PPA group. The semantic group showed heightened capture even on trials where they ultimately pointed to the correct target, demonstrating the superiority of eye movements over traditional testing methods in detecting subtle processing impairments. Heightened capture was primarily driven by a tendency to direct gaze back and forth, repeatedly, between a set of related foils on each trial, a behavior almost never shown by controls or non-semantic participants. This suggests semantic PPA participants were accumulating and weighing evidence for a probabilistic rather than definitive mapping between the noun and several candidate objects. Neurodegeneration in PPA thus appears to distort lexical concepts prior to extinguishing them altogether, causing uncertainty in recognition and word-object matching.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mustafa Seckin
- Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
| | - M.-Marsel Mesulam
- Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
- Department of Neurology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
| | - Joel L. Voss
- Department of Neurology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
- Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
| | - Wei Huang
- Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
| | - Emily J. Rogalski
- Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
| | - Robert S. Hurley
- Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
- Department of Neurology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
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Tarhan LY, Watson CE, Buxbaum LJ. Shared and Distinct Neuroanatomic Regions Critical for Tool-related Action Production and Recognition: Evidence from 131 Left-hemisphere Stroke Patients. J Cogn Neurosci 2015; 27:2491-511. [PMID: 26351989 PMCID: PMC8139360 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_00876] [Citation(s) in RCA: 61] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
The inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobe have been characterized as human homologues of the monkey "mirror neuron" system, critical for both action production (AP) and action recognition (AR). However, data from brain lesion patients with selective impairment on only one of these tasks provide evidence of neural and cognitive dissociations. We sought to clarify the relationship between AP and AR, and their critical neural substrates, by directly comparing performance of 131 chronic left-hemisphere stroke patients on both tasks--to our knowledge, the largest lesion-based experimental investigation of action cognition to date. Using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping, we found that lesions to primary motor and somatosensory cortices and inferior parietal lobule were associated with disproportionately impaired performance on AP, whereas lesions to lateral temporo-occipital cortex were associated with a relatively rare pattern of disproportionately impaired performance on AR. In contrast, damage to posterior middle temporal gyrus was associated with impairment on both AP and AR. The distinction between lateral temporo-occipital cortex, critical for recognition, and posterior middle temporal gyrus, important for both tasks, suggests a rough gradient from modality-specific to abstract representations in posterior temporal cortex, the first lesion-based evidence for this phenomenon. Overall, the results of this large patient study help to bring closure to a long-standing debate by showing that tool-related AP and AR critically depend on both common and distinct left hemisphere neural substrates, most of which are external to putative human mirror regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leyla Y Tarhan
- Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, Elkins Park, PA
| | - Christine E Watson
- Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, Elkins Park, PA
| | - Laurel J Buxbaum
- Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, Elkins Park, PA
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Impact of action primes on implicit processing of thematic and functional similarity relations: evidence from eye-tracking. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2015; 80:566-80. [PMID: 26077343 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-015-0674-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2015] [Accepted: 05/23/2015] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
The aim of this study was to specify the role of action representations in thematic and functional similarity relations between manipulable artifact objects. Recent behavioral and neurophysiological evidence indicates that while they are all relevant for manipulable artifact concepts, semantic relations based on thematic (e.g., saw-wood), specific function similarity (e.g., saw-axe), and general function similarity (e.g., saw-knife) are differently processed, and may relate to different levels of action representation. Point-light displays of object-related actions previously encoded at the gesture level (e.g., "sawing") or at the higher level of action representation (e.g., "cutting") were used as primes before participants identified target objects (e.g., saw) among semantically related and unrelated distractors (e.g., wood, feather, piano). Analysis of eye movements on the different objects during target identification informed about the amplitude and the timing of implicit activation of the different semantic relations. Results showed that action prime encoding impacted the processing of thematic relations, but not that of functional similarity relations. Semantic competition with thematic distractors was greater and earlier following action primes encoded at the gesture level compared to action primes encoded at higher level. As a whole, these findings highlight the direct influence of action representations on thematic relation processing, and suggest that thematic relations involve gesture-level representations rather than intention-level representations.
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Dissociation des relations thématiques et des relations de similarité fonctionnelle entre objets : données issues des propriétés générées à partir de 100 concepts d’objets fabriqués manipulables. ANNEE PSYCHOLOGIQUE 2015. [DOI: 10.4074/s0003503315001049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
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47
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Pluciennicka E, Coello Y, Kalénine S. Dissociation des relations thématiques et des relations de similarité fonctionnelle entre objets : données issues des propriétés générées à partir de 100 concepts d’objets fabriqués manipulables. ANNEE PSYCHOLOGIQUE 2015. [DOI: 10.3917/anpsy.151.0089] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022]
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48
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Wamain Y, Pluciennicka E, Kalénine S. A saw is first identified as an object used on wood: ERP evidence for temporal differences between Thematic and Functional similarity relations. Neuropsychologia 2015; 71:28-37. [PMID: 25725356 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.02.034] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2014] [Revised: 01/28/2015] [Accepted: 02/20/2015] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
The role of functional and motor information in manipulable artifact object semantic organization is still poorly understood. In particular, several types of semantic relations involving object functional knowledge may be distinguished. Functional similarity relations group objects with similar functions at relatively specific (e.g. saw-axe, both used to cut wood) or general (saw-knife, both used to cut) levels. Thematic relations group objects based on their complementarity in events (saw used upon/with wood). Recent eye-tracking data showed distinct temporal time courses for the different semantic relations, with fastest processing of thematic relations and slowest processing of general function similarity relations. Behavioral data suggest the involvement of distinct cognitive mechanisms in manipulable artifact object semantic processing. The aim of the present study was to assess the neural correlates of thematic, and specific and general function similarity relation processing. Specifically, we investigated whether time course differences between semantic relations could be highlighted at the neurophysiological level. We used a protocol combining semantic priming with electroencephalography, and manipulated the type of semantic relation and the duration of the interval between prime and target objects. Two consistent and complementary results were shown. On N1 and P3 components, semantic priming was observed for thematic relations only. On N400 component, the type of semantic relation interacted with interval duration, and semantic priming was visible for all 3 relations after the longest interval only. Results revealed graded processing time courses for thematic, specific function similarity, and general function similarity relations at the neural level, and further indicate that thematic relations impact object processing during the early stages of object recognition. Findings suggest a hierarchical organization of three types of semantic relations based on functional knowledge. The parallel between semantic relations involving manipulable artifact objects and levels of action representations is discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yannick Wamain
- SCALab, CNRS UMR 9193, Université Lille Nord de France, Lille, F-59000, France; UDL3, URECA, Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, F-59653, France.
| | - Ewa Pluciennicka
- SCALab, CNRS UMR 9193, Université Lille Nord de France, Lille, F-59000, France; UDL3, URECA, Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, F-59653, France
| | - Solène Kalénine
- SCALab, CNRS UMR 9193, Université Lille Nord de France, Lille, F-59000, France; UDL3, IRHIS, Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, F-59653, France; CNRS, URM8529, Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, F-59653, France
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Dissociation des relations thématiques et des relations de similarité fonctionnelle entre objets : données issues des propriétés générées à partir de 100 concepts d’objets fabriqués manipulables. ANNEE PSYCHOLOGIQUE 2014. [DOI: 10.4074/s0003503314000025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
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50
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The relation between thematic role computing and semantic relatedness processing during on-line sentence comprehension. PLoS One 2014; 9:e95834. [PMID: 24755643 PMCID: PMC3995949 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0095834] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2013] [Accepted: 04/01/2014] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Sentence comprehension involves timely computing different types of relations between its verbs and noun arguments, such as morphosyntactic, semantic, and thematic relations. Here, we used EEG technique to investigate the potential differences in thematic role computing and lexical-semantic relatedness processing during on-line sentence comprehension, and the interaction between these two types of processes. Mandarin Chinese sentences were used as materials. The basic structure of those sentences is “Noun+Verb+‘le’+a two-character word”, with the Noun being the initial argument. The verb disambiguates the initial argument as an agent or a patient. Meanwhile, the initial argument and the verb are highly or lowly semantically related. The ERPs at the verbs revealed that: relative to the agent condition, the patient condition evoked a larger N400 only when the argument and verb were lowly semantically related; however, relative to the high-relatedness condition, the low-relatedness condition elicited a larger N400 regardless of the thematic relation; although both thematic role variation and semantic relatedness variation elicited N400 effects, the N400 effect elicited by the former was broadly distributed and reached maximum over the frontal electrodes, and the N400 effect elicited by the latter had a posterior distribution. In addition, the brain oscillations results showed that, although thematic role variation (patient vs. agent) induced power decreases around the beta frequency band (15–30 Hz), semantic relatedness variation (low-relatedness vs. high-relatedness) induced power increases in the theta frequency band (4–7 Hz). These results suggested that, in the sentence context, thematic role computing is modulated by the semantic relatedness between the verb and its argument; semantic relatedness processing, however, is in some degree independent from the thematic relations. Moreover, our results indicated that, during on-line sentence comprehension, thematic role computing and semantic relatedness processing are mediated by distinct neural systems.
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