Influences of age, performance, and item relatedness on verbatim and gist recall of verb-noun pairs

Verb Metaphoric Extension Under Semantic Strain

This paper explores the processes underlying verb metaphoric extension. Work on metaphor processing has largely focused on noun metaphor, despite evidence that verb metaphor is more common. Across three experiments, we collected paraphrases of simple intransitive sentences varying in semantic strain—for example, The motor complained → The engine made strange noises—and assessed the degree of meaning change for the noun and the verb. We developed a novel methodology for this assessment using word2vec. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found that (a) under semantic strain, verb meanings were more likely to be adjusted than noun meanings; (b) the degree of verb meaning adjustment—but not noun meaning adjustment—increased with semantic strain; and (c) verb meaning extension is primarily driven by online adjustment, although sense selection also plays a role. In Experiment 3, we replicated the word2vec results with an assessment using human subjects. The results further showed that nouns and verbs change meaning in qualitatively different ways, with verbs more likely to change meaning metaphorically and nouns more likely to change meaning taxonomically or metonymically. These findings bear on the origin and processing of verb metaphors and provide a link between online sentence processing and diachronic change over language evolution.

Relational categories are more mutable than entity categories

Across three experiments, we explore differences between relational categories-whose members share common relational patterns-and entity categories, whose members share common intrinsic properties. Specifically, we test the claim that relational concepts are more semantically mutable in context, and therefore less stable in memory, than entity concepts. We compared memory for entity nouns and relational nouns, tested either in the same context as at encoding or in a different context. We found that (a) participants show better recognition accuracy for entity nouns than for relational nouns, and (b) recognition of relational nouns is more impaired by a change in context than is recognition of entity nouns. We replicated these findings even when controlling for factors highly correlated with relationality, such as abstractness-concreteness. This suggests that the contextual mutability of relational concepts is due to the core semantic property of conveying relational structure and not simply to accompanying characteristics such as abstractness. We note parallels with the distinction between nouns and verbs and suggest implications for lexical and conceptual structure. Finally, we relate these patterns to proposals that a deep distinction exists between words with an essentially referential function and those with a predicate function.

Manipulability impairs association-memory: revisiting effects of incidental motor processing on verbal paired-associates

Imageability is known to enhance association-memory for verbal paired-associates. High-imageability words can be further subdivided by manipulability, the ease by which the named object can be functionally interacted with. Prior studies suggest that motor processing enhances item-memory, but impairs association-memory. However, these studies used action verbs and concrete nouns as the high- and low-manipulability words, respectively, confounding manipulability with word class. Recent findings demonstrated that nouns can serve as both high- and low-manipulability words (e.g., CAMERA and TABLE, respectively), allowing us to avoid this confound. Here participants studied pairs of words that consisted of all possible pairings of high- and low-manipulability words and were tested with immediate cued recall. Recall was worse for pairs that contained high-manipulability words. In free recall, participants recalled more high- than low-manipulability words. Our results provide further evidence that manipulability influences memory, likely occurring through automatic motor imagery.

Interrupted actions affect output monitoring and event-related potentials (ERPs)

Memory for performed and interrupted actions was measured on source recognition and source recall tests in order to investigate output monitoring (i.e., memory for actions). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the source recognition test to provide insight into the neural basis of output monitoring (OM). Source identification and recall of performed actions was greater than interrupted actions, thereby replicating the enactment effect. Examination of memory errors revealed that interrupted actions were more often mistaken as performed actions. The ERP data indicated that brain activity elicited by performed actions differed from interrupted and new actions. A clear difference in temporal onset of two ERP effects (i.e., a central-parietal and a frontal ERP difference) was observed, and it supports the previous hypothesis that two distinct processes support OM and source monitoring judgements. The pattern of frontal ERP differences suggested that interrupted actions prompted people to use more systematic decision processes overall to make OM judgements. Central-parietal ERP effects suggested that sensori-motor information was not recollected for interrupted actions--rather OM judgements were based on cognitive operations in this case.

Enactment effects and integration processes in younger and older adults' memory for actions

The positive effects of gesturing on memory are robust but their interpretation is still controversial. To clarify the issue, recognition and cued recall of action phrases were compared in 24 younger (M=20 years) and 20 older adults (M=68 years), in three encoding conditions--purely verbal tasks (VTs), subject-performed tasks (SPTs), and experimenter-performed tasks (EPTs)--for well- and poorly integrated phrases. As expected, the effects of these factors were significant, but there was no interaction between age-related differences, enactment effects, and semantic association. In particular, both SPT and EPT displayed similar advantages over VT conditions in both age groups and in the two memory tasks. These results are discussed in relation to the debate between Engelkamp on one side, and Kormi-Nouri and Nilsson on the other side, about the role of motor components in the episodic integration of verbs and nouns in action phrases.

Limits on the role of retrieval cues in memory for actions: enactment effects in the absence of object cues in the environment

Verb-object phrases (open the umbrella, knock on the table) are usually remembered better if they have been enacted during study (also called subject-performed tasks) than if they have merely been learned verbally (verbal tasks). This enactment effect is particularly pronounced for phrases for which the objects (table) are present as cues in the study and test contexts. In previous studies with retrieval cues for some phrases, the enactment effect in free recall for the other phrases has been surprisingly small or even nonexistent. The present study tested whether the often replicated enactment effect in free recall can be found if none of the phrases contains context cues. In Experiment 1, we tested, and corroborated, the suppression hypothesis: The enactment effect for a given type of phrase (marker phrases) is modified by the presence or absence of cues for the other phrases in the list (experimental phrases). Experiments 2 and 3 replicated the enactment effect for phrases without cues. Experiment 2 also showed that the presence of cues either at study or at test is sufficient for obtaining a suppression effect, and Experiment 3 showed that the enactment effect may disappear altogether if retrieval cues are very salient.

Improved episodic integration through enactment: implications for aging

Enactment may improve memory for verb phrases by facilitating episodic integration of object-action components into a unitized whole. It is unclear, however, whether the influence of enactment on episodic integration is related to or independent of the strength of the preexisting semantic relationship between components. To address this issue, the authors examined the influence of enactment on memory for lists of semantically related object-action phrases ("Put money in the wallet") and semantically unrelated phrases created by repairing these objects and actions to make phrases that were unusual but still were possible to perform ("String a thread through the wallet," "Put money in the napkin"). As such, phrases in the related and unrelated lists were matched for familiarity of the individual components and differed only in the associative strength of the object-action relationship. Although verbatim recall of unrelated lists was poorer under standard verbal encoding conditions, enactment succeeded in bringing performance to the level of related lists, indicating that enactment's influence on episodic integration was independent of the semantic relatedness of the object and action components. Analysis of partial recall errors (accurate recall of only one component) suggested that enactment benefited recall in the unrelated lists by improving memory for the action and reducing fragmentation of the association, providing further support for the unitization view. This pattern of results was replicated in normal older adults, a population that exhibits particular difficulty with episodic memory for unrelated associations. The cognitive mechanisms by which enactment may improve episodic integration in both younger and older adults are discussed.

Semantic context influences memory for verbs more than memory for nouns

Three experiments revealed that memory for verbs is more dependent on semantic context than is memory for nouns. The participants in Experiment 1 were asked to remember either nouns or verbs from intransitive sentences. A recognition test included verbatim sentences, sentences with an old noun and a new verb, sentences with an old verb and a new noun, and entirely new sentences. Memory for verbs was significantly better when the verb was presented with the same noun at encoding and at retrieval. This contextual effect was much smaller for nouns. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this effect and provided evidence that context effects reflect facilitation from bringing to mind the same meaning of a verb at encoding and at retrieval. Memory for verbs may be more dependent on semantic context because the meanings of verbs are more variable across semantic contexts than are the meanings of nouns.

Did I do that? An ERP study of memory for performed and planned actions

Memory for performed and planned actions was measured on source recognition and source recall tests. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the source recognition test to index brain activity during output monitoring. Source identification of performed actions was superior to planned actions and more performed actions were recalled, thereby replicating the enactment effect. Examination of recall errors revealed that more planned than performed actions were omitted. In addition, intrusions and source misattributions were equally likely when recalling planned actions, whereas more misattributions were observed when performed actions were recalled. The ERP data indicated that brain activity elicited by performed actions differed from planned and new actions. Furthermore, activity in the left and right frontal lobes appeared to differ for performed and planned actions indicating that performed actions were evaluated with more heuristic decision processes than both planned and new items. The temporal onset of the frontal ERP differences also suggests that heuristic decision processes begin earlier than systematic processes.

Directed forgetting of actions by younger and older adults

Memory for actions that are performed is substantially better than memory for descriptions of actions (e.g., Earles, 1996). In fact, people may form memories for actions even if they do not intend to or want to remember them. The directed forgetting paradigm was used to test the ability of younger and older adults to intentionally forget simple actions (also known as subject-performed tasks, or SPTs). Participants were asked to perform the action described by a verb-noun pair (e.g., break toothpick) or to read the pair, but not to perform the action. Following each pair, the participants were told either to remember or to forget the pair. Younger adults intentionally forgot verbally encoded pairs significantly better than did older adults. Actions that were performed, however, were difficult for both younger and older adults to intentionally forget. The performance of an action thus seems to result in strong item-specific processing that makes the action difficult to intentionally forget even for younger adults who can successfully intentionally forget verbally encoded items.