Drugs + HIV, Learn the Link

Medline Plus

Full Text Available ... other organizations in your tweets to spread the word even further. Tweet About Learn the Link To ... other organizations in your tweets to spread the word even further. Share with Flickr, Pinterest or Instagram ...

The Minho Word Pool: Norms for imageability, concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 Portuguese words.

Science.gov (United States)

Soares, Ana Paula; Costa, Ana Santos; Machado, João; Comesaña, Montserrat; Oliveira, Helena Mendes

2017-06-01

Words are widely used as stimuli in cognitive research. Because of their complexity, using words requires strict control of their objective (lexical and sublexical) and subjective properties. In this work, we present the Minho Word Pool (MWP), a dataset that provides normative values of imageability, concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 (European) Portuguese words-three subjective measures that, in spite of being used extensively in research, have been scarce for Portuguese. Data were collected with 2,357 college students who were native speakers of European Portuguese. The participants rated 100 words drawn randomly from the full set for each of the three subjective indices, using a Web survey procedure (via a URL link). Analyses comparing the MWP ratings with those obtained for the same words from other national and international databases showed that the MWP norms are reliable and valid, thus providing researchers with a useful tool to support research in all neuroscientific areas using verbal stimuli. The MWP norms can be downloaded along with this article or from http://p-pal.di.uminho.pt/about/databases .

Interactions between Digital Geometry and Combinatorics on Words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Srečko Brlek

2011-08-01

Full Text Available We review some recent results in digital geometry obtained by using a combinatorics on words approach to discrete geometry. Motivated on the one hand by the well-known theory of Sturmian words which model conveniently discrete lines in the plane, and on the other hand by the development of digital geometry, this study reveals strong links between the two fields. Discrete figures are identified with polyominoes encoded by words. The combinatorial tools lead to elegant descriptions of geometrical features and efficient algorithms. Among these, radix-trees are useful for efficiently detecting path intersection, Lyndon and Christoffel words appear as the main tools for describing digital convexity; equations on words allow to better understand tilings by translations.

Words, Words, Words: English, Vocabulary.

Science.gov (United States)

Lamb, Barbara

The Quinmester course on words gives the student the opportunity to increase his proficiency by investigating word origins, word histories, morphology, and phonology. The course includes the following: dictionary skills and familiarity with the "Oxford,""Webster's Third," and "American Heritage" dictionaries; word…

The Word Superiority Effect in central and peripheral vision

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sand, Katrine; Habekost, Thomas; Petersen, Anders

2016-01-01

, which prevents lexical analysis of a word in the periphery. We conclude that perception of words and letters differs according to location in the visual field. Linking our results to previous studies of crowding effects in patients with reading impairments, we hypothesize that similar mechanisms may...

Drugs + HIV, Learn the Link

Medline Plus

Full Text Available ... gov/1kSfBiz ​ Mention your friends, colleagues, or other organizations in your tweets to spread the word even ... 1kSfBiz #LearntheLink Mention your friends, colleagues, or other organizations in your tweets to spread the word even ...

Word form Encoding in Chinese Word Naming and Word Typing

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jenn-Yeu; Li, Cheng-Yi

2011-01-01

The process of word form encoding was investigated in primed word naming and word typing with Chinese monosyllabic words. The target words shared or did not share the onset consonants with the prime words. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 100 ms or 300 ms. Typing required the participants to enter the phonetic letters of the target word,…

A spatially-supported forced-choice recognition test reveals children’s long-term memory for newly learned word forms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katherine R. Gordon

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Children’s memories for the link between a newly trained word and its referent have been the focus of extensive past research. However, memory for the word form itself is rarely assessed among preschool-age children. When it is, children are typically asked to verbally recall the forms, and they generally perform at floor on such tests. To better measure children’s memory for word forms, we aimed to design a more sensitive test that required recognition rather than recall, provided spatial cues to off-set the phonological memory demands of the test, and allowed pointing rather than verbal responses. We taught 12 novel word-referent pairs via ostensive naming to sixteen 4-to-6-year-olds and measured their memory for the word forms after a week-long retention interval using the new spatially-supported form recognition test. We also measured their memory for the word-referent links and the generalization of the links to untrained referents with commonly used recognition tests. Children demonstrated memory for word forms at above chance levels; however, their memory for forms was poorer than their memory for trained or generalized word-referent links. When in error, children were no more likely to select a foil that was a close neighbor to the target form than a maximally different foil. Additionally, they more often selected correct forms that were among the first six than the last six to be trained. Overall, these findings suggest that children are able to remember word forms after a limited number of ostensive exposures and a long-term delay. However, word forms remain more difficult to learn than word-referent links and there is an upper limit on the number of forms that can be learned within a given period of time.

Euclidean Geometry Codes, minimum weight words and decodable error-patterns using bit-flipping

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Høholdt, Tom; Justesen, Jørn; Jonsson, Bergtor

2005-01-01

We determine the number of minimum wigth words in a class of Euclidean Geometry codes and link the performance of the bit-flipping decoding algorithm to the geometry of the error patterns.......We determine the number of minimum wigth words in a class of Euclidean Geometry codes and link the performance of the bit-flipping decoding algorithm to the geometry of the error patterns....

Concreteness in Word Processing: ERP and Behavioral Effects in a Lexical Decision Task

Science.gov (United States)

Barber, Horacio A.; Otten, Leun J.; Kousta, Stavroula-Thaleia; Vigliocco, Gabriella

2013-01-01

Relative to abstract words, concrete words typically elicit faster response times and larger N400 and N700 event-related potential (ERP) brain responses. These effects have been interpreted as reflecting the denser links to associated semantic information of concrete words and their recruitment of visual imagery processes. Here, we examined…

The importance of link evidence in Wikipedia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kamps, J.; Koolen, M.

2008-01-01

Wikipedia is one of the most popular information sources on the Web. The free encyclopedia is densely linked. The link structure in Wikipedia differs from the Web at large: internal links in Wikipedia are typically based on words naturally occurring in a page, and link to another semantically

Caffeine improves left hemisphere processing of positive words.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuchinke, Lars; Lux, Vanessa

2012-01-01

A positivity advantage is known in emotional word recognition in that positive words are consistently processed faster and with fewer errors compared to emotionally neutral words. A similar advantage is not evident for negative words. Results of divided visual field studies, where stimuli are presented in either the left or right visual field and are initially processed by the contra-lateral brain hemisphere, point to a specificity of the language-dominant left hemisphere. The present study examined this effect by showing that the intake of caffeine further enhanced the recognition performance of positive, but not negative or neutral stimuli compared to a placebo control group. Because this effect was only present in the right visual field/left hemisphere condition, and based on the close link between caffeine intake and dopaminergic transmission, this result points to a dopaminergic explanation of the positivity advantage in emotional word recognition.

Caffeine improves left hemisphere processing of positive words.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lars Kuchinke

Full Text Available A positivity advantage is known in emotional word recognition in that positive words are consistently processed faster and with fewer errors compared to emotionally neutral words. A similar advantage is not evident for negative words. Results of divided visual field studies, where stimuli are presented in either the left or right visual field and are initially processed by the contra-lateral brain hemisphere, point to a specificity of the language-dominant left hemisphere. The present study examined this effect by showing that the intake of caffeine further enhanced the recognition performance of positive, but not negative or neutral stimuli compared to a placebo control group. Because this effect was only present in the right visual field/left hemisphere condition, and based on the close link between caffeine intake and dopaminergic transmission, this result points to a dopaminergic explanation of the positivity advantage in emotional word recognition.

Stroop effects from newly learned color words : effects of memory consolidation and episodic context

OpenAIRE

Geukes, Sebastian; Gaskell, M Gareth; Zwitserlood, Pienie

2015-01-01

The Stroop task is an excellent tool to test whether reading a word automatically activates its associated meaning, and it has been widely used in mono- and bilingual contexts. Despite of its ubiquity, the task has not yet been employed to test the automaticity of recently established word-concept links in novel-word-learning studies, under strict experimental control of learning and testing conditions. In three experiments, we thus paired novel words with native language (German) color words...

Word-by-word entrainment of speech rhythm during joint story building

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tommi eHimberg

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Movements and behaviour synchronise during social interaction at many levels, often unintentionally. During smooth conversation, for example, participants adapt to each others' speech rates. Here we aimed to find out to which extent speakers adapt their turn-taking rhythms during a story-building game.Nine sex-matched dyads of adults (12 males, 6 females created two 5-min stories by contributing to them alternatingly one word at a time. The participants were located in different rooms, with audio connection during one story and audiovisual during the other. They were free to select the topic of the story.Although the participants received no instructions regarding the timing of the story building, their word rhythms were highly entrained (R ̅ = 0.70, p < 0.001 even though the rhythms as such were unstable (R ̅ = 0.14 for pooled data. Such high entrainment in the absence of steady word rhythm occurred in every individual story, independently of whether the subjects were connected via audio-only or audiovisual link.The observed entrainment was of similar strength as typical entrainment in finger-tapping tasks where participants are specifically instructed to synchronize their behaviour. Thus speech seems to spontaneously induce strong entrainment between the conversation partners, likely reflecting automatic alignment of their semantic and syntactic processes.

Sound-Symbolism Boosts Novel Word Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Lockwood, Gwilym; Dingemanse, Mark; Hagoort, Peter

2016-01-01

The existence of sound-symbolism (or a non-arbitrary link between form and meaning) is well-attested. However, sound-symbolism has mostly been investigated with nonwords in forced choice tasks, neither of which are representative of natural language. This study uses ideophones, which are naturally occurring sound-symbolic words that depict sensory…

Ixpantepec Nieves Mixtec Word Prosody

Science.gov (United States)

Carroll, Lucien Serapio

This dissertation presents a phonological description and acoustic analysis of the word prosody of Ixpantepec Nieves Mixtec, which involves both a complex tone system and a default stress system. The analysis of Nieves Mixtec word prosody is complicated by a close association between morphological structure and prosodic structure, and by the interactions between word prosody and phonation type, which has both contrastive and non-contrastive roles in the phonology. I contextualize these systems within the phonology of Nieves Mixtec as a whole, within the literature on other Mixtec varieties, and within the literature on cross-linguistic prosodic typology. The literature on prosodic typology indicates that stress is necessarily defined abstractly, as structured prominence realized differently in each language. Descriptions of stress in other Mixtec varieties widely report default stress on the initial syllable of the canonical bimoraic root, though some descriptions suggest final stress or mobile stress. I first present phonological evidence---from distributional restrictions, phonological processes, and loanword adaptation---that Nieves Mixtec word prosody does involve a stress system, based on trochaic feet aligned to the root. I then present an acoustic study comparing stressed syllables to unstressed syllables, for ten potential acoustic correlates of stress. The results indicate that the acoustic correlates of stress in Nieves Mixtec include segmental duration, intensity and periodicity. Building on analyses of other Mixtec tone systems, I show that the distribution of tone and the tone processes in Nieves Mixtec support an analysis in which morae may bear H, M or L tone, where M tone is underlyingly unspecified, and each morpheme may sponsor a final +H or +L floating tone. Bimoraic roots thus host up to two linked tones and one floating tone, while monomoraic clitics host just one linked tone and one floating tone, and tonal morphemes are limited to a single

Combinatorics on words Christoffel words and repetitions in words

CERN Document Server

Berstel, Jean; Reutenauer, Christophe; Saliola, Franco V

2008-01-01

The two parts of this text are based on two series of lectures delivered by Jean Berstel and Christophe Reutenauer in March 2007 at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, Montréal, Canada. Part I represents the first modern and comprehensive exposition of the theory of Christoffel words. Part II presents numerous combinatorial and algorithmic aspects of repetition-free words stemming from the work of Axel Thue-a pioneer in the theory of combinatorics on words. A beginner to the theory of combinatorics on words will be motivated by the numerous examples, and the large variety of exercises, which make the book unique at this level of exposition. The clean and streamlined exposition and the extensive bibliography will also be appreciated. After reading this book, beginners should be ready to read modern research papers in this rapidly growing field and contribute their own research to its development. Experienced readers will be interested in the finitary approach to Sturmian words that Christoffel words offe...

The Relationships among Cognitive Correlates and Irregular Word, Non-Word, and Word Reading

Science.gov (United States)

Abu-Hamour, Bashir; University, Mu'tah; Urso, Annmarie; Mather, Nancy

2012-01-01

This study explored four hypotheses: (a) the relationships among rapid automatized naming (RAN) and processing speed (PS) to irregular word, non-word, and word reading; (b) the predictive power of various RAN and PS measures, (c) the cognitive correlates that best predicted irregular word, non-word, and word reading, and (d) reading performance of…

OpenBook WordPress Plugin: Open Source Access to Bibliographic Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John Miedema

2008-09-01

Full Text Available OpenBook is a WordPress PHP plugin that implements the Open Library APIs to insert book covers, titles, authors and publishers into web pages. The motive behind the development was to provide an easy alternative to the common practice of linking to Amazon. Open Library was selected as a data source because it is both open source and open data.The plugin is useful for book reviewers, library webmasters, anyone who wants to put book covers and data on their WordPress blog or website. The plugin also allows users to add links to publisher websites, a feature that was considered significant to independent publishers.

Word Domain Disambiguation via Word Sense Disambiguation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Tratz, Stephen C.; Gregory, Michelle L.

2006-06-04

Word subject domains have been widely used to improve the perform-ance of word sense disambiguation al-gorithms. However, comparatively little effort has been devoted so far to the disambiguation of word subject do-mains. The few existing approaches have focused on the development of al-gorithms specific to word domain dis-ambiguation. In this paper we explore an alternative approach where word domain disambiguation is achieved via word sense disambiguation. Our study shows that this approach yields very strong results, suggesting that word domain disambiguation can be ad-dressed in terms of word sense disam-biguation with no need for special purpose algorithms.

Forehearing words: Pre-activation of word endings at word onset.

Science.gov (United States)

Roll, Mikael; Söderström, Pelle; Frid, Johan; Mannfolk, Peter; Horne, Merle

2017-09-29

Occurring at rates up to 6-7 syllables per second, speech perception and understanding involves rapid identification of speech sounds and pre-activation of morphemes and words. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the time-course and neural sources of pre-activation of word endings as participants heard the beginning of unfolding words. ERPs showed a pre-activation negativity (PrAN) for word beginnings (first two segmental phonemes) with few possible completions. PrAN increased gradually as the number of possible completions of word onsets decreased and the lexical frequency of the completions increased. The early brain potential effect for few possible word completions was associated with a blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) contrast increase in Broca's area (pars opercularis of the left inferior frontal gyrus) and angular gyrus of the left parietal lobe. We suggest early involvement of the left prefrontal cortex in inhibiting irrelevant left parietal activation during lexical selection. The results further our understanding of the importance of Broca's area in rapid online pre-activation of words. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Learning from input and memory evolution: points of vulnerability on a pathway to mastery in word learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Storkel, Holly L

2015-02-01

Word learning consists of at least two neurocognitive processes: learning from input during training and memory evolution during gaps between training sessions. Fine-grained analysis of word learning by normal adults provides evidence that learning from input is swift and stable, whereas memory evolution is a point of potential vulnerability on the pathway to mastery. Moreover, success during learning from input is linked to positive outcomes from memory evolution. These two neurocognitive processes can be overlaid on to components of clinical treatment with within-session variables (i.e. dose form and dose) potentially linked to learning from input and between-session variables (i.e. dose frequency) linked to memory evolution. Collecting data at the beginning and end of a treatment session can be used to identify the point of vulnerability in word learning for a given client and the appropriate treatment component can then be adjusted to improve the client's word learning. Two clinical cases are provided to illustrate this approach.

Periodic words connected with the Fibonacci words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. M. Barabash

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In this paper we introduce two families of periodic words (FLP-words of type 1 and FLP-words of type 2 that are connected with the Fibonacci words and investigated their properties.

ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH: HOW MUCH DO WE KNOW?

OpenAIRE

Mihaela ABĂLĂESEI

2014-01-01

Since the development of Web 2.0 (or social media) sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and various forums and communities, online users from all over the world have been exposed to a completely new means of information sharing: electronic word of mouth (e-WOM). Due to the fact that it is a recent research phenomenon, its definition is difficult to be phrased and similar to traditional word-of-mouth, the theoretical framework of e-WOM is not very clear. This complex concept is linked to ...

Do domestic dogs learn words based on humans' referential behaviour?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sebastian Tempelmann

Full Text Available Some domestic dogs learn to comprehend human words, although the nature and basis of this learning is unknown. In the studies presented here we investigated whether dogs learn words through an understanding of referential actions by humans rather than simple association. In three studies, each modelled on a study conducted with human infants, we confronted four word-experienced dogs with situations involving no spatial-temporal contiguity between the word and the referent; the only available cues were referential actions displaced in time from exposure to their referents. We found that no dogs were able to reliably link an object with a label based on social-pragmatic cues alone in all the tests. However, one dog did show skills in some tests, possibly indicating an ability to learn based on social-pragmatic cues.

Processing advantage for emotional words in bilingual speakers.

Science.gov (United States)

Ponari, Marta; Rodríguez-Cuadrado, Sara; Vinson, David; Fox, Neil; Costa, Albert; Vigliocco, Gabriella

2015-10-01

Effects of emotion on word processing are well established in monolingual speakers. However, studies that have assessed whether affective features of words undergo the same processing in a native and nonnative language have provided mixed results: Studies that have found differences between native language (L1) and second language (L2) processing attributed the difference to the fact that L2 learned late in life would not be processed affectively, because affective associations are established during childhood. Other studies suggest that adult learners show similar effects of emotional features in L1 and L2. Differences in affective processing of L2 words can be linked to age and context of learning, proficiency, language dominance, and degree of similarity between L2 and L1. Here, in a lexical decision task on tightly matched negative, positive, and neutral words, highly proficient English speakers from typologically different L1s showed the same facilitation in processing emotionally valenced words as native English speakers, regardless of their L1, the age of English acquisition, or the frequency and context of English use. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Predictive coding accelerates word recognition and learning in the early stages of language development.

Science.gov (United States)

Ylinen, Sari; Bosseler, Alexis; Junttila, Katja; Huotilainen, Minna

2017-11-01

The ability to predict future events in the environment and learn from them is a fundamental component of adaptive behavior across species. Here we propose that inferring predictions facilitates speech processing and word learning in the early stages of language development. Twelve- and 24-month olds' electrophysiological brain responses to heard syllables are faster and more robust when the preceding word context predicts the ending of a familiar word. For unfamiliar, novel word forms, however, word-expectancy violation generates a prediction error response, the strength of which significantly correlates with children's vocabulary scores at 12 months. These results suggest that predictive coding may accelerate word recognition and support early learning of novel words, including not only the learning of heard word forms but also their mapping to meanings. Prediction error may mediate learning via attention, since infants' attention allocation to the entire learning situation in natural environments could account for the link between prediction error and the understanding of word meanings. On the whole, the present results on predictive coding support the view that principles of brain function reported across domains in humans and non-human animals apply to language and its development in the infant brain. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: http://hy.fi/unitube/video/e1cbb495-41d8-462e-8660-0864a1abd02c. [Correction added on 27 January 2017, after first online publication: The video abstract link was added.]. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The word-length effect and disyllabic words.

Science.gov (United States)

Lovatt, P; Avons, S E; Masterson, J

2000-02-01

Three experiments compared immediate serial recall of disyllabic words that differed on spoken duration. Two sets of long- and short-duration words were selected, in each case maximizing duration differences but matching for frequency, familiarity, phonological similarity, and number of phonemes, and controlling for semantic associations. Serial recall measures were obtained using auditory and visual presentation and spoken and picture-pointing recall. In Experiments 1a and 1b, using the first set of items, long words were better recalled than short words. In Experiments 2a and 2b, using the second set of items, no difference was found between long and short disyllabic words. Experiment 3 confirmed the large advantage for short-duration words in the word set originally selected by Baddeley, Thomson, and Buchanan (1975). These findings suggest that there is no reliable advantage for short-duration disyllables in span tasks, and that previous accounts of a word-length effect in disyllables are based on accidental differences between list items. The failure to find an effect of word duration casts doubt on theories that propose that the capacity of memory span is determined by the duration of list items or the decay rate of phonological information in short-term memory.

Revealing Word Order: Using Serial Position in Binomials to Predict Properties of the Speaker

Science.gov (United States)

Iliev, Rumen; Smirnova, Anastasia

2016-01-01

Three studies test the link between word order in binomials and psychological and demographic characteristics of a speaker. While linguists have already suggested that psychological, cultural and societal factors are important in choosing word order in binomials, the vast majority of relevant research was focused on general factors and on broadly…

Do handwritten words magnify lexical effects in visual word recognition?

Science.gov (United States)

Perea, Manuel; Gil-López, Cristina; Beléndez, Victoria; Carreiras, Manuel

2016-01-01

An examination of how the word recognition system is able to process handwritten words is fundamental to formulate a comprehensive model of visual word recognition. Previous research has revealed that the magnitude of lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) is greater with handwritten words than with printed words. In the present lexical decision experiments, we examined whether the quality of handwritten words moderates the recruitment of top-down feedback, as reflected in word-frequency effects. Results showed a reading cost for difficult-to-read and easy-to-read handwritten words relative to printed words. But the critical finding was that difficult-to-read handwritten words, but not easy-to-read handwritten words, showed a greater word-frequency effect than printed words. Therefore, the inherent physical variability of handwritten words does not necessarily boost the magnitude of lexical effects.

Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, Alexander M.; Tenenbaum, Joel; Havlin, Shlomo; Stanley, H. Eugene

2012-03-01

We analyze the dynamic properties of 107 words recorded in English, Spanish and Hebrew over the period 1800-2008 in order to gain insight into the coevolution of language and culture. We report language independent patterns useful as benchmarks for theoretical models of language evolution. A significantly decreasing (increasing) trend in the birth (death) rate of words indicates a recent shift in the selection laws governing word use. For new words, we observe a peak in the growth-rate fluctuations around 40 years after introduction, consistent with the typical entry time into standard dictionaries and the human generational timescale. Pronounced changes in the dynamics of language during periods of war shows that word correlations, occurring across time and between words, are largely influenced by coevolutionary social, technological, and political factors. We quantify cultural memory by analyzing the long-term correlations in the use of individual words using detrended fluctuation analysis.

S-LINK, a data link interface specification for the LHC era

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bij, H.C. van der; McLaren, R.A.; Boyle, O.

1996-01-01

In the Technical Proposals for ATLAS, CMS and ALICE there is a requirement for several thousand data links. Although there is an obvious need for standardization, this seems difficult to achieve as the links run at different speeds, over different distances and have various constraints of power consumption, size and radiation hardness. An additional complication is that today we cannot decide which will be the most cost effective technology for the implementation of the final links. Furthermore, we must allow designers of boards at each end of the link, for example readout electronics and input buffers, to work in parallel with the development of the links. The S-LINK is a new concept which should provide the benefits of standardization without the limitations. The S-LINK specification defines, at both ends of the link, a simple FIFO-like user interface which remains independent of the technology used to implement the physical link. The physical link provides transfer of event data and control words, error detection, optional flow control and test facilities. This paper describes the S-LINK specification and gives examples of the use of the S-LINK, the physical links being designed, and the test equipment that is being developed

Emotional reactions to alcohol-related words: Differences between low- and high-risk drinkers.

Science.gov (United States)

Gantiva, Carlos; Delgado, Rafael; Romo-González, Tania

2015-11-01

Research that has examined responses to alcohol-related words in drinkers has mostly linked such responses to memory, attentional, and perceptual bias. However, studies of emotional processing in alcoholics have not received much attention. The main goal of the present study was to identify the features and differences of emotional responses to alcohol-related words in low- and high-risk drinkers. A total of 149 low-risk drinkers and 125 high-risk drinkers evaluated five alcohol-related words and 15 words from the Affective Norms for English Words in the dimensions of valence, arousal, and dominance using the Self-Assessment Manikin. The results indicated that high-risk drinkers evaluated alcohol-related words as more appetitive and arousing. These results, together with findings in the attention and memory research literature, suggest that alcohol-related words can serve as conditioned cues in alcohol consumption. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Activation of Embedded Words in Spoken Word Recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Xujin; Samuel, Arthur G

2015-01-01

The current study investigated how listeners understand English words that have shorter words embedded in them. A series of auditory-auditory priming experiments assessed the activation of six types of embedded words (2 embedded positions × 3 embedded proportions) under different listening conditions. Facilitation of lexical decision responses to targets (e.g., pig) associated with words embedded in primes (e.g., hamster ) indexed activation of the embedded words (e.g., ham ). When the listening conditions were optimal, isolated embedded words (e.g., ham ) primed their targets in all six conditions (Experiment 1a). Within carrier words (e.g., hamster ), the same set of embedded words produced priming only when they were at the beginning or comprised a large proportion of the carrier word (Experiment 1b). When the listening conditions were made suboptimal by expanding or compressing the primes, significant priming was found for isolated embedded words (Experiment 2a), but no priming was produced when the carrier words were compressed/expanded (Experiment 2b). Similarly, priming was eliminated when the carrier words were presented with one segment replaced by noise (Experiment 3). When cognitive load was imposed, priming for embedded words was again found when they were presented in isolation (Experiment 4a), but not when they were embedded in the carrier words (Experiment 4b). The results suggest that both embedded position and proportion play important roles in the activation of embedded words, but that such activation only occurs under unusually good listening conditions.

WORD LEVEL DISCRIMINATIVE TRAINING FOR HANDWRITTEN WORD RECOGNITION

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Chen, W.; Gader, P.

2004-01-01

Word level training refers to the process of learning the parameters of a word recognition system based on word level criteria functions. Previously, researchers trained lexicon­driven handwritten word recognition systems at the character level individually. These systems generally use statistical

The x-word and its usage : Taboo words and swearwords in general, and x-words in newspapers

OpenAIRE

Lindahl, Katarina

2008-01-01

All languages have words that are considered taboo – words that are not supposed to be said or used. Taboo words, or swearwords, can be used in many different ways and they can have different meanings depending on what context they appear in. Another aspect of taboo words is the euphemisms that are used in order to avoid obscene speech. This paper will focus on x-words, words like the f-word or the c-word, which replace the words fuck or cunt, but as the study will show they also have other m...

The Activation of Embedded Words in Spoken Word Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Xujin; Samuel, Arthur G.

2015-01-01

The current study investigated how listeners understand English words that have shorter words embedded in them. A series of auditory-auditory priming experiments assessed the activation of six types of embedded words (2 embedded positions × 3 embedded proportions) under different listening conditions. Facilitation of lexical decision responses to targets (e.g., pig) associated with words embedded in primes (e.g., hamster) indexed activation of the embedded words (e.g., ham). When the listening conditions were optimal, isolated embedded words (e.g., ham) primed their targets in all six conditions (Experiment 1a). Within carrier words (e.g., hamster), the same set of embedded words produced priming only when they were at the beginning or comprised a large proportion of the carrier word (Experiment 1b). When the listening conditions were made suboptimal by expanding or compressing the primes, significant priming was found for isolated embedded words (Experiment 2a), but no priming was produced when the carrier words were compressed/expanded (Experiment 2b). Similarly, priming was eliminated when the carrier words were presented with one segment replaced by noise (Experiment 3). When cognitive load was imposed, priming for embedded words was again found when they were presented in isolation (Experiment 4a), but not when they were embedded in the carrier words (Experiment 4b). The results suggest that both embedded position and proportion play important roles in the activation of embedded words, but that such activation only occurs under unusually good listening conditions. PMID:25593407

Some words on Word

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Janssen, Maarten; Visser, A.

In many disciplines, the notion of a word is of central importance. For instance, morphology studies le mot comme tel, pris isol´ement (Mel’ˇcuk, 1993 [74]). In the philosophy of language the word was often considered to be the primary bearer of meaning. Lexicography has as its fundamental role

Stroop effects from newly learned color words: effects of memory consolidation and episodic context.

Science.gov (United States)

Geukes, Sebastian; Gaskell, M Gareth; Zwitserlood, Pienie

2015-01-01

The Stroop task is an excellent tool to test whether reading a word automatically activates its associated meaning, and it has been widely used in mono- and bilingual contexts. Despite of its ubiquity, the task has not yet been employed to test the automaticity of recently established word-concept links in novel-word-learning studies, under strict experimental control of learning and testing conditions. In three experiments, we thus paired novel words with native language (German) color words via lexical association and subsequently tested these words in a manual version of the Stroop task. Two crucial findings emerged: When novel word Stroop trials appeared intermixed among native-word trials, the novel-word Stroop effect was observed immediately after the learning phase. If no native color words were present in a Stroop block, the novel-word Stroop effect only emerged 24 h later. These results suggest that the automatic availability of a novel word's meaning depends either on supportive context from the learning episode and/or on sufficient time for memory consolidation. We discuss how these results can be reconciled with the complementary learning systems account of word learning.

Stroop effects from newly learned color words: effects of memory consolidation and episodic context

Science.gov (United States)

Geukes, Sebastian; Gaskell, M. Gareth; Zwitserlood, Pienie

2015-01-01

The Stroop task is an excellent tool to test whether reading a word automatically activates its associated meaning, and it has been widely used in mono- and bilingual contexts. Despite of its ubiquity, the task has not yet been employed to test the automaticity of recently established word-concept links in novel-word-learning studies, under strict experimental control of learning and testing conditions. In three experiments, we thus paired novel words with native language (German) color words via lexical association and subsequently tested these words in a manual version of the Stroop task. Two crucial findings emerged: When novel word Stroop trials appeared intermixed among native-word trials, the novel-word Stroop effect was observed immediately after the learning phase. If no native color words were present in a Stroop block, the novel-word Stroop effect only emerged 24 h later. These results suggest that the automatic availability of a novel word's meaning depends either on supportive context from the learning episode and/or on sufficient time for memory consolidation. We discuss how these results can be reconciled with the complementary learning systems account of word learning. PMID:25814973

The missing link? Testing a schema account of unitization.

Science.gov (United States)

Tibon, Roni; Greve, Andrea; Henson, Richard

2018-05-09

Unitization refers to the creation of a new unit from previously distinct items. The concept of unitization has been used to explain how novel pairings between items can be remembered without requiring recollection, by virtue of new, item-like representations that enable familiarity-based retrieval. We tested an alternative account of unitization - a schema account - which suggests that associations between items can be rapidly assimilated into a schema. We used a common operationalization of "unitization" as the difference between two unrelated words being linked by a definition, relative to two words being linked by a sentence, during an initial study phase. During the following relearning phase, a studied word was re-paired with a new word, either related or unrelated to the original associate from study. In a final test phase, memory for the relearned associations was tested. We hypothesized that, if unitized representations act like schemas, then we would observe some generalization to related words, such that memory would be better in the definition than sentence condition for related words, but not for unrelated words. Contrary to the schema hypothesis, evidence favored the null hypothesis of no difference between definition and sentence conditions for related words (Experiment 1), even when each cue was associated with multiple associates, indicating that the associations can be generalized (Experiment 2), or when the schematic information was explicitly re-activated during Relearning (Experiment 3). These results suggest that unitized associations do not generalize to accommodate new information, and therefore provide evidence against the schema account.

Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels.

Science.gov (United States)

El Aissati, Abder; McQueen, James M; Cutler, Anne

2012-07-01

Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring win in twin because t cannot be a word). However, the constraint would be counter-productive in certain languages that allow stand-alone vowelless open-class words. One such language is Berber (where t is indeed a word). Berber listeners here detected words affixed to nonsense contexts with or without vowels. Length effects seen in other languages replicated in Berber, but in contrast to prior findings, word detection was not hindered by vowelless contexts. When words can be vowelless, otherwise universal constraints disfavoring vowelless words do not feature in spoken-word recognition. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Categorizing words through semantic memory navigation

Science.gov (United States)

Borge-Holthoefer, J.; Arenas, A.

2010-03-01

Semantic memory is the cognitive system devoted to storage and retrieval of conceptual knowledge. Empirical data indicate that semantic memory is organized in a network structure. Everyday experience shows that word search and retrieval processes provide fluent and coherent speech, i.e. are efficient. This implies either that semantic memory encodes, besides thousands of words, different kind of links for different relationships (introducing greater complexity and storage costs), or that the structure evolves facilitating the differentiation between long-lasting semantic relations from incidental, phenomenological ones. Assuming the latter possibility, we explore a mechanism to disentangle the underlying semantic backbone which comprises conceptual structure (extraction of categorical relations between pairs of words), from the rest of information present in the structure. To this end, we first present and characterize an empirical data set modeled as a network, then we simulate a stochastic cognitive navigation on this topology. We schematize this latter process as uncorrelated random walks from node to node, which converge to a feature vectors network. By doing so we both introduce a novel mechanism for information retrieval, and point at the problem of category formation in close connection to linguistic and non-linguistic experience.

Stroop effects from newly learned color words: Effects of memory consolidation and episodic context

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sebastian eGeukes

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The Stroop task is an excellent tool to test whether reading a word automatically activates its associated meaning, and it has been widely used in mono- and bilingual contexts. Despite of its ubiquity, the task has not yet been employed to test the automaticity of recently established word-concept links in novel-word-learning studies, under strict experimental control of learning and testing conditions. In three experiments, we thus paired novel words with native language (German color words via lexical association and subsequently tested these words in a manual version of the Stroop task. Two crucial findings emerged: When novel word Stroop trials appeared intermixed among native-word trials, the novel-word Stroop effect was observed immediately after the learning phase. If no native color words were present in a Stroop block, the novel-word Stroop effect only emerged 24 hours later. These results suggest that the automatic availability of a novel word’s meaning depends either on supportive context from the learning episode and/or on sufficient time for memory consolidation. We discuss how these results can be reconciled with the complementary learning systems account of word learning.

Social interaction facilitates word learning in preverbal infants: Word-object mapping and word segmentation.

Science.gov (United States)

Hakuno, Yoko; Omori, Takahide; Yamamoto, Jun-Ichi; Minagawa, Yasuyo

2017-08-01

In natural settings, infants learn spoken language with the aid of a caregiver who explicitly provides social signals. Although previous studies have demonstrated that young infants are sensitive to these signals that facilitate language development, the impact of real-life interactions on early word segmentation and word-object mapping remains elusive. We tested whether infants aged 5-6 months and 9-10 months could segment a word from continuous speech and acquire a word-object relation in an ecologically valid setting. In Experiment 1, infants were exposed to a live tutor, while in Experiment 2, another group of infants were exposed to a televised tutor. Results indicate that both younger and older infants were capable of segmenting a word and learning a word-object association only when the stimuli were derived from a live tutor in a natural manner, suggesting that real-life interaction enhances the learning of spoken words in preverbal infants. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Embedding Metadata and Other Semantics in Word Processing Documents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Sefton

2009-10-01

Full Text Available This paper describes a technique for embedding document metadata, and potentially other semantic references inline in word processing documents, which the authors have implemented with the help of a software development team. Several assumptions underly the approach; It must be available across computing platforms and work with both Microsoft Word (because of its user base and OpenOffice.org (because of its free availability. Further the application needs to be acceptable to and usable by users, so the initial implementation covers only small number of features, which will only be extended after user-testing. Within these constraints the system provides a mechanism for encoding not only simple metadata, but for inferring hierarchical relationships between metadata elements from a ‘flat’ word processing file.The paper includes links to open source code implementing the techniques as part of a broader suite of tools for academic writing. This addresses tools and software, semantic web and data curation, integrating curation into research workflows and will provide a platform for integrating work on ontologies, vocabularies and folksonomies into word processing tools.

A Few Words about Words | Poster

Science.gov (United States)

By Ken Michaels, Guest Writer In Shakepeare’s play “Hamlet,” Polonius inquires of the prince, “What do you read, my lord?” Not at all pleased with what he’s reading, Hamlet replies, “Words, words, words.”1 I have previously described the communication model in which a sender encodes a message and then sends it via some channel (or medium) to a receiver, who decodes the message

Words and possible words in early language acquisition.

Science.gov (United States)

Marchetto, Erika; Bonatti, Luca L

2013-11-01

In order to acquire language, infants must extract its building blocks-words-and master the rules governing their legal combinations from speech. These two problems are not independent, however: words also have internal structure. Thus, infants must extract two kinds of information from the same speech input. They must find the actual words of their language. Furthermore, they must identify its possible words, that is, the sequences of sounds that, being morphologically well formed, could be words. Here, we show that infants' sensitivity to possible words appears to be more primitive and fundamental than their ability to find actual words. We expose 12- and 18-month-old infants to an artificial language containing a conflict between statistically coherent and structurally coherent items. We show that 18-month-olds can extract possible words when the familiarization stream contains marks of segmentation, but cannot do so when the stream is continuous. Yet, they can find actual words from a continuous stream by computing statistical relationships among syllables. By contrast, 12-month-olds can find possible words when familiarized with a segmented stream, but seem unable to extract statistically coherent items from a continuous stream that contains minimal conflicts between statistical and structural information. These results suggest that sensitivity to word structure is in place earlier than the ability to analyze distributional information. The ability to compute nontrivial statistical relationships becomes fully effective relatively late in development, when infants have already acquired a considerable amount of linguistic knowledge. Thus, mechanisms for structure extraction that do not rely on extensive sampling of the input are likely to have a much larger role in language acquisition than general-purpose statistical abilities. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Drugs + HIV, Learn the Link

Medline Plus

Full Text Available ... projects/learn-link-drugs-hiv . 120x90 460x80 486x60 Social Media Send the message to young people and ... gov/1kSfBiz ​ Mention your friends, colleagues, or other organizations in your tweets to spread the word even ...

Developmental Constraints on Learning Artificial Grammars with Fixed, Flexible and Free Word Order

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iga Nowak

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Human learning, although highly flexible and efficient, is constrained in ways that facilitate or impede the acquisition of certain systems of information. Some such constraints, active during infancy and childhood, have been proposed to account for the apparent ease with which typically developing children acquire language. In a series of experiments, we investigated the role of developmental constraints on learning artificial grammars with a distinction between shorter and relatively frequent words (‘function words,’ F-words and longer and less frequent words (‘content words,’ C-words. We constructed 4 finite-state grammars, in which the order of F-words, relative to C-words, was either fixed (F-words always occupied the same positions in a string, flexible (every F-word always followed a C-word, or free. We exposed adults (N = 84 and kindergarten children (N = 100 to strings from each of these artificial grammars, and we assessed their ability to recognize strings with the same structure, but a different vocabulary. Adults were better at recognizing strings when regularities were available (i.e., fixed and flexible order grammars, while children were better at recognizing strings from the grammars consistent with the attested distribution of function and content words in natural languages (i.e., flexible and free order grammars. These results provide evidence for a link between developmental constraints on learning and linguistic typology.

MANIPULATING L2 LEARNERS' ONLINE DICTIONARY USE AND ITS EFFECT ON L2 WORD RETENTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elke Peters

2007-02-01

Full Text Available This study explored the effect of two enhancement techniques on L2 learners' look-up behaviour during a reading task and word retention afterwards amongst Flemish learners of German: a Vocabulary Test Announcement and Task-induced Word Relevance. Eighty-four participants were recruited for this study. They were randomly assigned to one of two groups: 1 not forewarned of an upcoming vocabulary test (incidental condition or 2 forewarned of a vocabulary test (intentional condition. Task-induced Word Relevance was operationalized by a reading comprehension task. The relevance factor comprised two levels: plus-relevant and minus-relevant target words. Plus-relevant words needed to be looked up and used receptively in order to answer the comprehension questions. In other words, the reading comprehension task could not be accomplished without knowing the meaning of the plus-relevant words. The minus-relevant target words, on the other hand, were not linked to the reading comprehension questions. Our findings show a significant effect of Test Announcement and Word Relevance on whether a target word is looked up. In addition, Word Relevance also affects the frequency of clicks on target words. Word retention is only influenced by Task-induced Word Relevance. The effect of Word Relevance is durable.

Recurrent Partial Words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francine Blanchet-Sadri

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Partial words are sequences over a finite alphabet that may contain wildcard symbols, called holes, which match or are compatible with all letters; partial words without holes are said to be full words (or simply words. Given an infinite partial word w, the number of distinct full words over the alphabet that are compatible with factors of w of length n, called subwords of w, refers to a measure of complexity of infinite partial words so-called subword complexity. This measure is of particular interest because we can construct partial words with subword complexities not achievable by full words. In this paper, we consider the notion of recurrence over infinite partial words, that is, we study whether all of the finite subwords of a given infinite partial word appear infinitely often, and we establish connections between subword complexity and recurrence in this more general framework.

Effects of Word Width and Word Length on Optimal Character Size for Reading of Horizontally Scrolling Japanese Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Teramoto, Wataru; Nakazaki, Takuyuki; Sekiyama, Kaoru; Mori, Shuji

2016-01-01

The present study investigated, whether word width and length affect the optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words, using reading speed as a measure. In Experiment 1, three Japanese words, each consisting of four Hiragana characters, sequentially scrolled on a display screen from right to left. Participants, all Japanese native speakers, were instructed to read the words aloud as accurately as possible, irrespective of their order within the sequence. To quantitatively measure their reading performance, we used rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, where the scrolling rate was increased until the participants began to make mistakes. Thus, the highest scrolling rate at which the participants' performance exceeded 88.9% correct rate was calculated for each character size (0.3°, 0.6°, 1.0°, and 3.0°) and scroll window size (5 or 10 character spaces). Results showed that the reading performance was highest in the range of 0.6° to 1.0°, irrespective of the scroll window size. Experiment 2 investigated whether the optimal character size observed in Experiment 1 was applicable for any word width and word length (i.e., the number of characters in a word). Results showed that reading speeds were slower for longer than shorter words and the word width of 3.6° was optimal among the word lengths tested (three, four, and six character words). Considering that character size varied depending on word width and word length in the present study, this means that the optimal character size can be changed by word width and word length in scrolling Japanese words.

Abelian primitive words

OpenAIRE

Domaratzki, Michael; Rampersad, Narad

2011-01-01

We investigate Abelian primitive words, which are words that are not Abelian powers. We show that unlike classical primitive words, the set of Abelian primitive words is not context-free. We can determine whether a word is Abelian primitive in linear time. Also different from classical primitive words, we find that a word may have more than one Abelian root. We also consider enumeration problems and the relation to the theory of codes. Peer reviewed

Effects of word width and word length on optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wataru eTeramoto

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The present study investigated whether word width and length affect the optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words, using reading speed as a measure. In Experiment 1, three Japanese words, each consisting of 4 Hiragana characters, sequentially scrolled on a display screen from right to left. Participants, all Japanese native speakers, were instructed to read the words aloud as accurately as possible, irrespective of their order within the sequence. To quantitatively measure their reading performance, we used rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, where the scrolling rate was increased until the participants began to make mistakes. Thus, the highest scrolling rate at which the participants’ performance exceeded 88.9% correct rate was calculated for each character size (0.3, 0.6, 1.0, and 3.0° and scroll window size (5 or 10 character spaces. Results showed that the reading performance was highest in the range of 0.6° to 1.0°, irrespective of the scroll window size. Experiment 2 investigated whether the optimal character size observed in Experiment 1 was applicable for any word width and word length (i.e., the number of characters in a word. Results showed that reading speeds were slower for longer than shorter words and the word width of 3.6° was optimal among the word lengths tested (3, 4, and 6 character words. Considering that character size varied depending on word width and word length in the present study, this means that the optimal character size can be changed by word width and word length.

Semantic and Syntactic Associations During Word Search Modulate the Relationship Between Attention and Subsequent Memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Wei; Mo, Fei; Zhang, Yunhong; Ding, Jinhong

2017-01-01

Two experiments were conducted to investigate how linguistic information influences attention allocation in visual search and memory for words. In Experiment 1, participants searched for the synonym of a cue word among five words. The distractors included one antonym and three unrelated words. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to judge whether the five words presented on the screen comprise a valid sentence. The relationships among words were sentential, semantically related or unrelated. A memory recognition task followed. Results in both experiments showed that linguistically related words produced better memory performance. We also found that there were significant interactions between linguistic relation conditions and memorization on eye-movement measures, indicating that good memory for words relied on frequent and long fixations during search in the unrelated condition but to a much lesser extent in linguistically related conditions. We conclude that semantic and syntactic associations attenuate the link between overt attention allocation and subsequent memory performance, suggesting that linguistic relatedness can somewhat compensate for a relative lack of attention during word search.

Conceptual control across modalities: graded specialisation for pictures and words in inferior frontal and posterior temporal cortex

OpenAIRE

Krieger-Redwood, Katya; Teige, Catarina; Davey, James; Hymers, Mark; Jefferies, Elizabeth

2015-01-01

Controlled semantic retrieval to words elicits co-activation of inferior frontal (IFG) and left posterior temporal cortex (pMTG), but research has not yet established (i) the distinct contributions of these regions or (ii) whether the same processes are recruited for non-verbal stimuli. Words have relatively flexible meanings – as a consequence, identifying the context that links two specific words is relatively demanding. In contrast, pictures are richer stimuli and their precise meaning is ...

Universal Lyndon Words

OpenAIRE

Carpi, Arturo; Fici, Gabriele; Holub, Stepan; Oprsal, Jakub; Sciortino, Marinella

2014-01-01

A word $w$ over an alphabet $\\Sigma$ is a Lyndon word if there exists an order defined on $\\Sigma$ for which $w$ is lexicographically smaller than all of its conjugates (other than itself). We introduce and study \\emph{universal Lyndon words}, which are words over an $n$-letter alphabet that have length $n!$ and such that all the conjugates are Lyndon words. We show that universal Lyndon words exist for every $n$ and exhibit combinatorial and structural properties of these words. We then defi...

Word skipping: effects of word length, predictability, spelling and reading skill.

Science.gov (United States)

Slattery, Timothy J; Yates, Mark

2017-08-31

Readers eyes often skip over words as they read. Skipping rates are largely determined by word length; short words are skipped more than long words. However, the predictability of a word in context also impacts skipping rates. Rayner, Slattery, Drieghe and Liversedge (2011) reported an effect of predictability on word skipping for even long words (10-13 characters) that extend beyond the word identification span. Recent research suggests that better readers and spellers have an enhanced perceptual span (Veldre & Andrews, 2014). We explored whether reading and spelling skill interact with word length and predictability to impact word skipping rates in a large sample (N=92) of average and poor adult readers. Participants read the items from Rayner et al. (2011) while their eye movements were recorded. Spelling skill (zSpell) was assessed using the dictation and recognition tasks developed by Sally Andrews and colleagues. Reading skill (zRead) was assessed from reading speed (words per minute) and accuracy of three 120 word passages each with 10 comprehension questions. We fit linear mixed models to the target gaze duration data and generalized linear mixed models to the target word skipping data. Target word gaze durations were significantly predicted by zRead while, the skipping likelihoods were significantly predicted by zSpell. Additionally, for gaze durations, zRead significantly interacted with word predictability as better readers relied less on context to support word processing. These effects are discussed in relation to the lexical quality hypothesis and eye movement models of reading.

Comparing different kinds of words and word-word relations to test an habituation model of priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Rieth, Cory A; Huber, David E

2017-06-01

Huber and O'Reilly (2003) proposed that neural habituation exists to solve a temporal parsing problem, minimizing blending between one word and the next when words are visually presented in rapid succession. They developed a neural dynamics habituation model, explaining the finding that short duration primes produce positive priming whereas long duration primes produce negative repetition priming. The model contains three layers of processing, including a visual input layer, an orthographic layer, and a lexical-semantic layer. The predicted effect of prime duration depends both on this assumed representational hierarchy and the assumption that synaptic depression underlies habituation. The current study tested these assumptions by comparing different kinds of words (e.g., words versus non-words) and different kinds of word-word relations (e.g., associative versus repetition). For each experiment, the predictions of the original model were compared to an alternative model with different representational assumptions. Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction that non-words and inverted words require longer prime durations to eliminate positive repetition priming (i.e., a slower transition from positive to negative priming). Experiment 2 confirmed the prediction that associative priming increases and then decreases with increasing prime duration, but remains positive even with long duration primes. Experiment 3 replicated the effects of repetition and associative priming using a within-subjects design and combined these effects by examining target words that were expected to repeat (e.g., viewing the target word 'BACK' after the prime phrase 'back to'). These results support the originally assumed representational hierarchy and more generally the role of habituation in temporal parsing and priming. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Signal Words

Science.gov (United States)

SIGNAL WORDS TOPIC FACT SHEET NPIC fact sheets are designed to answer questions that are commonly asked by the ... making decisions about pesticide use. What are Signal Words? Signal words are found on pesticide product labels, ...

Processing negative valence of word pairs that include a positive word.

Science.gov (United States)

Itkes, Oksana; Mashal, Nira

2016-09-01

Previous research has suggested that cognitive performance is interrupted by negative relative to neutral or positive stimuli. We examined whether negative valence affects performance at the word or phrase level. Participants performed a semantic decision task on word pairs that included either a negative or a positive target word. In Experiment 1, the valence of the target word was congruent with the overall valence conveyed by the word pair (e.g., fat kid). As expected, response times were slower in the negative condition relative to the positive condition. Experiment 2 included target words that were incongruent with the overall valence of the word pair (e.g., fat salary). Response times were longer for word pairs whose overall valence was negative relative to positive, even though these word pairs included a positive word. Our findings support the Cognitive Primacy Hypothesis, according to which emotional valence is extracted after conceptual processing is complete.

ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH: HOW MUCH DO WE KNOW?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mihaela ABĂLĂESEI

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Since the development of Web 2.0 (or social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and various forums and communities, online users from all over the world have been exposed to a completely new means of information sharing: electronic word of mouth (e-WOM. Due to the fact that it is a recent research phenomenon, its definition is difficult to be phrased and similar to traditional word-of-mouth, the theoretical framework of e-WOM is not very clear. This complex concept is linked to viral marketing, user generated content, stealth marketing, opinion sharing, decision making and other aspects. Considering the multiple areas that e-WOM has an influence on, this article presents an overview of what has been researched with respect to this subject. Using the findings of this paper, it may be possible to set up the base of a conceptual model to measure electronic word of mouth.

Do good and poor readers make use of morphemic structure in English word recognition?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lynne G. Duncan

2011-06-01

Full Text Available The links between oral morphological awareness and the use of derivational morphology are examined in the English word recognition of 8-year-old good and poor readers. Morphological awareness was assessed by a sentence completion task. The role of morphological structure in lexical access was examined by manipulating the presence of embedded words and suffixes in items presented for lexical decision. Good readers were more accurate in the morphological awareness task but did not show facilitation for real derivations even though morpho-semantic information appeared to inform their lexical decisions. The poor readers, who were less accurate, displayed a strong lexicality effect in lexical decision and the presence of an embedded word led to facilitation for words and inhibition for pseudo-words. Overall, the results suggest that both good and poor readers of English are sensitive to the internal structure of written words, with the better readers showing most evidence of morphological analysis.

Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels

NARCIS (Netherlands)

El Aissati, A.; McQueen, J.M.; Cutler, A.

2012-01-01

Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring win in twin because t cannot be a word). However, the

Don’t words come easy?A psychophysical exploration of word superiority

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Randi eStarrfelt

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Words are made of letters, and yet sometimes it is easier to identify a word than a single letter. This word superiority effect (WSE has been observed when written stimuli are presented very briefly or degraded by visual noise. We compare performance with letters and words in three experiments, to explore the extents and limits of the WSE. Using a carefully controlled list of three letter words, we show that a word superiority effect can be revealed in vocal reaction times even to undegraded stimuli. With a novel combination of psychophysics and mathematical modelling, we further show that the typical WSE is specifically reflected in perceptual processing speed: single words are simply processed faster than single letters. Intriguingly, when multiple stimuli are presented simultaneously, letters are perceived more easily than words, and this is reflected both in perceptual processing speed and visual short term memory capacity. So, even if single words come easy, there is a limit to the word superiority effect.

Don't words come easy? A psychophysical exploration of word superiority

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Starrfelt, Randi; Petersen, Anders; Vangkilde, Signe Allerup

2013-01-01

Words are made of letters, and yet sometimes it is easier to identify a word than a single letter. This word superiority effect (WSE) has been observed when written stimuli are presented very briefly or degraded by visual noise. We compare performance with letters and words in three experiments, ...... and visual short term memory capacity. So, even if single words come easy, there is a limit to the word superiority effect....

Changing word usage predicts changing word durations in New Zealand English.

Science.gov (United States)

Sóskuthy, Márton; Hay, Jennifer

2017-09-01

This paper investigates the emergence of lexicalized effects of word usage on word duration by looking at parallel changes in usage and duration over 130years in New Zealand English. Previous research has found that frequent words are shorter, informative words are longer, and words in utterance-final position are also longer. It has also been argued that some of these patterns are not simply online adjustments, but are incorporated into lexical representations. While these studies tend to focus on the synchronic aspects of such patterns, our corpus shows that word-usage patterns and word durations are not static over time. Many words change in duration and also change with respect to frequency, informativity and likelihood of occurring utterance-finally. Analysis of changing word durations over this time period shows substantial patterns of co-adaptation between word usage and word durations. Words that are increasing in frequency are becoming shorter. Words that are increasing/decreasing in informativity show a change in the same direction in duration (e.g. increasing informativity is associated with increasing duration). And words that are increasingly appearing utterance-finally are lengthening. These effects exist independently of the local effects of the predictors. For example, words that are increasing utterance-finally lengthen in all positions, including utterance-medially. We show that these results are compatible with a number of different views about lexical representations, but they cannot be explained without reference to a production-perception loop that allows speakers to update their representations dynamically on the basis of their experience. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A WORD-OF-MOUSE APPROACH FOR WORD-OF-MOUTH MEASUREMENT

OpenAIRE

Andreia Gabriela ANDREI

2012-01-01

Despite of the fact that word-of-mouth phenomenon gained unseen dimensions, only few studies have focused on its measurement and only three of them developed a word-of-mouth construct. Our study develops a bi-dimensional scale which assigns usual word-of-mouth mechanisms available in online networking sites (eg: Recommend, Share, Like, Comment) into the WOM (+) - positive word-of-mouth valence dimension - respectively into the WOM (-) - negative word-of-mouth valence dimension. We adapted e-W...

WORD OF MOUTH – FROM VERBALLY COMMUNICATION TO COMMUNICATION ONLINE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana Raluca CHIOSA

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The Internet has become essential in linking the brand with consumers. This enables them to share their opinions, preferences or experiences with others. The paper seeks to provide the concept of word-of-mouth, starting from the definition, characteristics, to manifestation in the online environment and the effects on consumer behavior, creating opportunities for word-of-mouth marketing. Social Media become important in building a brand, as consumer reactions can be decisive in enhancing or destroying it. For effective use of social media tools, brands need to identify the influential people among consumers, to capture the recommendations received from the users and measure their impact.

Learning Spoken Words via the Ears and Eyes: Evidence from 30-Month-Old Children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mélanie Havy

2017-12-01

Full Text Available From the very first moments of their lives, infants are able to link specific movements of the visual articulators to auditory speech signals. However, recent evidence indicates that infants focus primarily on auditory speech signals when learning new words. Here, we ask whether 30-month-old children are able to learn new words based solely on visible speech information, and whether information from both auditory and visual modalities is available after learning in only one modality. To test this, children were taught new lexical mappings. One group of children experienced the words in the auditory modality (i.e., acoustic form of the word with no accompanying face. Another group experienced the words in the visual modality (seeing a silent talking face. Lexical recognition was tested in either the learning modality or in the other modality. Results revealed successful word learning in either modality. Results further showed cross-modal recognition following an auditory-only, but not a visual-only, experience of the words. Together, these findings suggest that visible speech becomes increasingly informative for the purpose of lexical learning, but that an auditory-only experience evokes a cross-modal representation of the words.

Word/sub-word lattices decomposition and combination for speech recognition

OpenAIRE

Le , Viet-Bac; Seng , Sopheap; Besacier , Laurent; Bigi , Brigitte

2008-01-01

International audience; This paper presents the benefit of using multiple lexical units in the post-processing stage of an ASR system. Since the use of sub-word units can reduce the high out-of-vocabulary rate and improve the lack of text resources in statistical language modeling, we propose several methods to decompose, normalize and combine word and sub-word lattices generated from different ASR systems. By using a sub-word information table, every word in a lattice can be decomposed into ...

Right word making sense of the words that confuse

CERN Document Server

Morrison, Elizabeth

2012-01-01

'Affect' or 'effect'? 'Right', 'write' or 'rite'? English can certainly be a confusing language, whether you're a native speaker or learning it as a second language. 'The Right Word' is the essential reference to help people master its subtleties and avoid making mistakes. Divided into three sections, it first examines homophones - those tricky words that sound the same but are spelled differently - then looks at words that often confuse before providing a list of commonly misspelled words.

A word association response approach toward lexical relationships within the mental lexicon of second language learners: pedagogic ideas from testing McCarthy's theories on Japanese students.

Science.gov (United States)

Murphy, Robert S; Post, Michael D

2009-06-01

Through use of word association as detailed in McCarthy (1990) this paper will explore pedagogic implications derived from the following three points in relation to the lexical development of Japanese learners of English: 1) the ability of word association tests to examine the mental links between words in learners' developing mental lexicon, 2) the importance of phonological similarities for lower level students and 3) the correlation between the results from a word association test with the characteristic types of word association patterns discussed in McCarthy (1990). It will be argued that while lexical development within the mental lexicon is difficult to delineate due to overlap of organizational categories, the patterns of syntactic, semantic and conceptual relations between learned words is apparent within the retrieval process for word association and that additionally, context may play a vital role in how words are construed along the links within the mental lexicon. Pedagogic ideas and future research ideas are detailed.

Smashing WordPress Themes Making WordPress Beautiful

CERN Document Server

Hedengren, Thord Daniel

2011-01-01

The ultimate guide to WordPress Themes - one of the hottest topics on the web today WordPress is so much more than a blogging platform, and Smashing WordPress Themes teaches readers how to make it look any way they like - from a corporate site, to a photography gallery and moreWordPress is one of the hottest tools on the web today and is used by sites including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, flickr, CNN, NASA and of course Smashing MagazineBeautiful full colour throughout - web designers expect nothing lessSmashing Magazine will fully support this book by by promoting it through their webs

Auditory word recognition is not more sensitive to word-initial than to word-final stimulus information

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vlugt, van der M.J.; Nooteboom, S.G.

1986-01-01

Several accounts of human recognition of spoken words a.!!llign special importance to stimulus-word onsets. The experiment described here was d~igned to find out whether such a word-beginning superiority effect, which ill supported by experimental evidence of various kinds, is due to a special

Effects of providing word sounds during printed word learning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Reitsma, P.; Dongen, van A.J.N.; Custers, E.

1984-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of the availability of the spoken sound of words along with the printed forms during reading practice. Firstgrade children from two normal elementary schools practised reading several unfamiliar words in print. For half of the printed words the

Neuroimaging studies of word and pseudoword reading: consistencies, inconsistencies, and limitations.

Science.gov (United States)

Mechelli, Andrea; Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa; Price, Cathy J

2003-02-15

Several functional neuroimaging studies have compared words and pseudowords to test different cognitive models of reading. There are difficulties with this approach, however, because cognitive models do not make clear-cut predictions at the neural level. Therefore, results can only be interpreted on the basis of prior knowledge of cognitive anatomy. Furthermore, studies comparing words and pseudowords have produced inconsistent results. The inconsistencies could reflect false-positive results due to the low statistical thresholds applied or confounds from nonlexical aspects of the stimuli. Alternatively, they may reflect true effects that are inconsistent across subjects; dependent on experimental parameters such as stimulus rate or duration; or not replicated across studies because of insufficient statistical power. In this fMRI study, we investigate consistent and inconsistent differences between word and pseudoword reading in 20 subjects, and distinguish between effects associated with increases and decreases in activity relative to fixation. In addition, the interaction of word type with stimulus duration is explored. We find that words and pseudowords activate the same set of regions relative to fixation, and within this system, there is greater activation for pseudowords than words in the left frontal operculum, left posterior inferior temporal gyrus, and the right cerebellum. The only effects of words relative to pseudowords consistent over subjects are due to decreases in activity for pseudowords relative to fixation; and there are no significant interactions between word type and stimulus duration. Finally, we observe inconsistent but highly significant effects of word type at the individual subject level. These results (i) illustrate that pseudowords place increased demands on areas that have previously been linked to lexical retrieval, and (ii) highlight the importance of including one or more baselines to qualify word type effects. Furthermore, (iii

When small words foretell academic success: the case of college admissions essays.

Science.gov (United States)

Pennebaker, James W; Chung, Cindy K; Frazee, Joey; Lavergne, Gary M; Beaver, David I

2014-01-01

The smallest and most commonly used words in English are pronouns, articles, and other function words. Almost invisible to the reader or writer, function words can reveal ways people think and approach topics. A computerized text analysis of over 50,000 college admissions essays from more than 25,000 entering students found a coherent dimension of language use based on eight standard function word categories. The dimension, which reflected the degree students used categorical versus dynamic language, was analyzed to track college grades over students' four years of college. Higher grades were associated with greater article and preposition use, indicating categorical language (i.e., references to complexly organized objects and concepts). Lower grades were associated with greater use of auxiliary verbs, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and negations, indicating more dynamic language (i.e., personal narratives). The links between the categorical-dynamic index (CDI) and academic performance hint at the cognitive styles rewarded by higher education institutions.

When small words foretell academic success: the case of college admissions essays.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

James W Pennebaker

Full Text Available The smallest and most commonly used words in English are pronouns, articles, and other function words. Almost invisible to the reader or writer, function words can reveal ways people think and approach topics. A computerized text analysis of over 50,000 college admissions essays from more than 25,000 entering students found a coherent dimension of language use based on eight standard function word categories. The dimension, which reflected the degree students used categorical versus dynamic language, was analyzed to track college grades over students' four years of college. Higher grades were associated with greater article and preposition use, indicating categorical language (i.e., references to complexly organized objects and concepts. Lower grades were associated with greater use of auxiliary verbs, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and negations, indicating more dynamic language (i.e., personal narratives. The links between the categorical-dynamic index (CDI and academic performance hint at the cognitive styles rewarded by higher education institutions.

When Small Words Foretell Academic Success: The Case of College Admissions Essays

Science.gov (United States)

Pennebaker, James W.; Chung, Cindy K.; Frazee, Joey; Lavergne, Gary M.; Beaver, David I.

2014-01-01

The smallest and most commonly used words in English are pronouns, articles, and other function words. Almost invisible to the reader or writer, function words can reveal ways people think and approach topics. A computerized text analysis of over 50,000 college admissions essays from more than 25,000 entering students found a coherent dimension of language use based on eight standard function word categories. The dimension, which reflected the degree students used categorical versus dynamic language, was analyzed to track college grades over students' four years of college. Higher grades were associated with greater article and preposition use, indicating categorical language (i.e., references to complexly organized objects and concepts). Lower grades were associated with greater use of auxiliary verbs, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and negations, indicating more dynamic language (i.e., personal narratives). The links between the categorical-dynamic index (CDI) and academic performance hint at the cognitive styles rewarded by higher education institutions. PMID:25551217

The Role of Elicited Verbal Imitation in Toddlers' Word Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Hodges, Rosemary; Munro, Natalie; Baker, Elise; McGregor, Karla; Docking, Kimberley; Arciuli, Joanne

2016-01-01

This study is about the role of elicited verbal imitation in toddler word learning. Forty-eight toddlers were taught eight nonwords linked to referents. During training, they were asked to imitate the nonwords. Naming of the referents was tested at three intervals (one minute later [uncued], five minutes, and 1-7 days later [cued]) and recognition…

Word Sense Disambiguation Based on Large Scale Polish CLARIN Heterogeneous Lexical Resources

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paweł Kędzia

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Word Sense Disambiguation Based on Large Scale Polish CLARIN Heterogeneous Lexical Resources Lexical resources can be applied in many different Natural Language Engineering tasks, but the most fundamental task is the recognition of word senses used in text contexts. The problem is difficult, not yet fully solved and different lexical resources provided varied support for it. Polish CLARIN lexical semantic resources are based on the plWordNet — a very large wordnet for Polish — as a central structure which is a basis for linking together several resources of different types. In this paper, several Word Sense Disambiguation (henceforth WSD methods developed for Polish that utilise plWordNet are discussed. Textual sense descriptions in the traditional lexicon can be compared with text contexts using Lesk’s algorithm in order to find best matching senses. In the case of a wordnet, lexico-semantic relations provide the main description of word senses. Thus, first, we adapted and applied to Polish a WSD method based on the Page Rank. According to it, text words are mapped on their senses in the plWordNet graph and Page Rank algorithm is run to find senses with the highest scores. The method presents results lower but comparable to those reported for English. The error analysis showed that the main problems are: fine grained sense distinctions in plWordNet and limited number of connections between words of different parts of speech. In the second approach plWordNet expanded with the mapping onto the SUMO ontology concepts was used. Two scenarios for WSD were investigated: two step disambiguation and disambiguation based on combined networks of plWordNet and SUMO. In the former scenario, words are first assigned SUMO concepts and next plWordNet senses are disambiguated. In latter, plWordNet and SUMO are combined in one large network used next for the disambiguation of senses. The additional knowledge sources used in WSD improved the performance

Web-based depression treatment: associations of clients' word use with adherence and outcome.

Science.gov (United States)

Van der Zanden, Rianne; Curie, Keshia; Van Londen, Monique; Kramer, Jeannet; Steen, Gerard; Cuijpers, Pim

2014-05-01

The growing number of web-based psychological treatments, based on textual communication, generates a wealth of data that can contribute to knowledge of online and face-to-face treatments. We investigated whether clients' language use predicted treatment outcomes and adherence in Master Your Mood (MYM), an online group course for young adults with depressive symptoms. Among 234 participants from a randomised controlled trial of MYM, we tested whether their word use on course application forms predicted baseline levels of depression, anxiety and mastery, or subsequent treatment adherence. We then analysed chat session transcripts of course completers (n=67) to investigate whether word use changes predicted changes in treatment outcomes. Depression improvement was predicted by increasing use of 'discrepancy words' during treatment (e.g. should). At baseline, more discrepancy words predicted higher mastery level. Adherence was predicted by more words used at application, more social words and fewer discrepancy words. Many variables were included, increasing the chance of coincidental results. This risk was constrained by examining only those word categories that have been investigated in relation to depression or adherence. This is the first study to link word use during treatment to outcomes of treatment that has proven to be effective in an RCT. The results suggest that paying attention to the length of problem articulation at application and to 'discrepancy words' may be wise, as these seem to be psychological markers. To expand knowledge of word use as psychological marker, research on web-based treatment should include text analysis. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Infants Track Word Forms in Early Word-Object Associations

Science.gov (United States)

Zamuner, Tania S.; Fais, Laurel; Werker, Janet F.

2014-01-01

A central component of language development is word learning. One characterization of this process is that language learners discover objects and then look for word forms to associate with these objects (Mcnamara, 1984; Smith, 2000). Another possibility is that word forms themselves are also important, such that once learned, hearing a familiar…

Positive words or negative words: whose valence strength are we more sensitive to?

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Jiemin; Zeng, Jing; Meng, Xianxin; Zhu, Liping; Yuan, Jiajin; Li, Hong; Yusoff, Nasir

2013-10-02

The present study investigates the human brains' sensitivity to the valence strength of emotionally positive and negative chinese words. Event-Related Potentials were recorded, in two different experimental sessions, for Highly Positive (HP), Mildly Positive (MP) and neutral (NP) words and for Highly Negative (HN), Mildly Negative (MN) and neutral (NN) words, while subjects were required to count the number of words, irrespective of word meanings. The results showed a significant emotion effect in brain potentials for both HP and MP words, and the emotion effect occurred faster for HP words than MP words: HP words elicited more negative deflections than NP words in N2 (250-350 ms) and P3 (350-500 ms) amplitudes, while MP words elicited a significant emotion effect in P3, but not in N2, amplitudes. By contrast, HN words elicited larger amplitudes than NN words in N2 but not in P3 amplitudes, whereas MN words produced no significant emotion effect across N2 and P3 components. Moreover, the size of emotion-neutral differences in P3 amplitudes was significantly larger for MP compared to MN words. Thus, the human brain is reactive to both highly and mildly positive words, and this reactivity increased with the positive valence strength of the words. Conversely, the brain is less reactive to the valence of negative relative to positive words. These results suggest that human brains are equipped with increased sensitivity to the valence strength of positive compared to negative words, a type of emotional stimuli that are well known for reduced arousal. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Age of acquisition effects in word recognition and production in first and second languages

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrew W. Ellis

2002-01-01

Full Text Available Four experiments explored the age of acquisition effects in the first and second languages of dominant Spanish-English bilinguals. In Experiment 1 (picture naming task and Experiment 2 (lexical decision task, an age of acquisition effect was observed in a second language acquired after childhood as well as in the first language. The results suggest that age of acquisition effects reflect the order of word acquisition, which may in turn reflect the state of the lexical network when new words are learnt. The results do not support the idea that age of acquisition effects reflect differences between words learned during some critical period in childhood and words learned later in life. In Experiments 3 and 4, the age/order of second language acquisition affected lexical decision latencies regardless of the age at which translation equivalents were acquired in the first language, suggesting that the age of acquisition effect is linked to the acquisition of word forms rather than meanings.

Competition between multiple words for a referent in cross-situational word learning

Science.gov (United States)

Benitez, Viridiana L.; Yurovsky, Daniel; Smith, Linda B.

2016-01-01

Three experiments investigated competition between word-object pairings in a cross-situational word-learning paradigm. Adults were presented with One-Word pairings, where a single word labeled a single object, and Two-Word pairings, where two words labeled a single object. In addition to measuring learning of these two pairing types, we measured competition between words that refer to the same object. When the word-object co-occurrences were presented intermixed in training (Experiment 1), we found evidence for direct competition between words that label the same referent. Separating the two words for an object in time eliminated any evidence for this competition (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 demonstrated that adding a linguistic cue to the second label for a referent led to different competition effects between adults who self-reported different language learning histories, suggesting both distinctiveness and language learning history affect competition. Finally, in all experiments, competition effects were unrelated to participants’ explicit judgments of learning, suggesting that competition reflects the operating characteristics of implicit learning processes. Together, these results demonstrate that the role of competition between overlapping associations in statistical word-referent learning depends on time, the distinctiveness of word-object pairings, and language learning history. PMID:27087742

Acoustic Masking Disrupts Time-Dependent Mechanisms of Memory Encoding in Word-List Recall

Science.gov (United States)

Cousins, Katheryn A.Q.; Dar, Jonathan; Wingfield, Arthur; Miller, Paul

2013-01-01

Recall of recently heard words is affected by the clarity of presentation: even if all words are presented with sufficient clarity for successful recognition, those that are more difficult to hear are less likely to be recalled. Such a result demonstrates that memory processing depends on more than whether a word is simply “recognized” versus “not-recognized”. More surprising is that when a single item in a list of spoken words is acoustically masked, prior words that were heard with full clarity are also less likely to be recalled. To account for such a phenomenon, we developed the Linking by Active Maintenance Model (LAMM). This computational model of perception and encoding predicts that these effects are time dependent. Here we challenge our model by investigating whether and how the impact of acoustic masking on memory depends on presentation rate. We find that a slower presentation rate causes a more disruptive impact of stimulus degradation on prior, clearly heard words than does a fast rate. These results are unexpected according to prior theories of effortful listening, but we demonstrate that they can be accounted for by LAMM. PMID:24838269

BioWord: A sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anzaldi Laura J

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. Results BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. Conclusions BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms.

BioWord: A sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-01

Background The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. Results BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. Conclusions BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms. PMID:22676326

BioWord: a sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word.

Science.gov (United States)

Anzaldi, Laura J; Muñoz-Fernández, Daniel; Erill, Ivan

2012-06-07

The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms.

Eye movements and word skipping during reading: Effects of word length and predictability

Science.gov (United States)

Rayner, Keith; Slattery, Timothy J.; Drieghe, Denis; Liversedge, Simon P.

2012-01-01

The extent to which target words were predictable from prior context was varied: half of the target words were predictable and the other half were unpredictable. In addition, the length of the target word varied: the target words were short (4–6 letters), medium (7–9 letters), or long (10–12 letters). Length and predictability both yielded strong effects on the probability of skipping the target words and on the amount of time readers fixated the target words (when they were not skipped). However, there was no interaction in any of the measures examined for either skipping or fixation time. The results demonstrate that word predictability (due to contextual constraint) and word length have strong and independent influences on word skipping and fixation durations. Furthermore, since the long words extended beyond the word identification span, the data indicate that skipping can occur on the basis of partial information in relation to word identity. PMID:21463086

The automatic visual simulation of words: A memory reactivated mask slows down conceptual access.

Science.gov (United States)

Rey, Amandine E; Riou, Benoit; Vallet, Guillaume T; Versace, Rémy

2017-03-01

How do we represent the meaning of words? The present study assesses whether access to conceptual knowledge requires the reenactment of the sensory components of a concept. The reenactment-that is, simulation-was tested in a word categorisation task using an innovative masking paradigm. We hypothesised that a meaningless reactivated visual mask should interfere with the simulation of the visual dimension of concrete words. This assumption was tested in a paradigm in which participants were not aware of the link between the visual mask and the words to be processed. In the first phase, participants created a tone-visual mask or tone-control stimulus association. In the test phase, they categorised words that were presented with 1 of the tones. Results showed that words were processed more slowly when they were presented with the reactivated mask. This interference effect was only correlated with and explained by the value of the visual perceptual strength of the words (i.e., our experience with the visual dimensions associated with concepts) and not with other characteristics. We interpret these findings in terms of word access, which may involve the simulation of sensory features associated with the concept, even if participants were not explicitly required to access visual properties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Word Pocket Guide

CERN Document Server

Glenn, Walter

2004-01-01

Millions of people use Microsoft Word every day and, chances are, you're one of them. Like most Word users, you've attained a certain level of proficiency--enough to get by, with a few extra tricks and tips--but don't get the opportunity to probe much further into the real power of Word. And Word is so rich in features that regardless of your level of expertise, there's always more to master. If you've ever wanted a quick answer to a nagging question or had the thought that there must be a better way, then this second edition of Word Pocket Guide is just what you need. Updated for Word 2003

Does "a picture is worth 1000 words" apply to iconic Chinese words? Relationship of Chinese words and pictures.

Science.gov (United States)

Lo, Shih-Yu; Yeh, Su-Ling

2018-05-29

The meaning of a picture can be extracted rapidly, but the form-to-meaning relationship is less obvious for printed words. In contrast to English words that follow grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence rule, the iconic nature of Chinese words might predispose them to activate their semantic representations more directly from their orthographies. By using the paradigm of repetition blindness (RB) that taps into the early level of word processing, we examined whether Chinese words activate their semantic representations as directly as pictures do. RB refers to the failure to detect the second occurrence of an item when it is presented twice in temporal proximity. Previous studies showed RB for semantically related pictures, suggesting that pictures activate their semantic representations directly from their shapes and thus two semantically related pictures are represented as repeated. However, this does not apply to English words since no RB was found for English synonyms. In this study, we replicated the semantic RB effect for pictures, and further showed the absence of semantic RB for Chinese synonyms. Based on our findings, it is suggested that Chinese words are processed like English words, which do not activate their semantic representations as directly as pictures do.

WordPress Bible

CERN Document Server

Brazell, Aaron

2010-01-01

The WordPress Bible provides a complete and thorough guide to the largest self hosted blogging tool. This guide starts by covering the basics of WordPress such as installing and the principles of blogging, marketing and social media interaction, but then quickly ramps the reader up to more intermediate to advanced level topics such as plugins, WordPress Loop, themes and templates, custom fields, caching, security and more. The WordPress Bible is the only complete resource one needs to learning WordPress from beginning to end.

FN400 and LPC memory effects for concrete and abstract words.

Science.gov (United States)

Stróżak, Paweł; Bird, Christopher W; Corby, Krystin; Frishkoff, Gwen; Curran, Tim

2016-11-01

According to dual-process models, recognition memory depends on two neurocognitive mechanisms: familiarity, which has been linked to the frontal N400 (FN400) effect in studies using ERPs, and recollection, which is reflected by changes in the late positive complex (LPC). Recently, there has been some debate over the relationship between FN400 familiarity effects and N400 semantic effects. According to one view, these effects are one and the same. Proponents of this view have suggested that the frontal distribution of the FN400 could be due to stimulus concreteness: recognition memory experiments commonly use highly imageable or concrete words (or pictures), which elicit semantic ERPs with a frontal distribution. In the present study, we tested this claim using a recognition memory paradigm in which subjects memorized concrete and abstract nouns; half of the words changed font color between study and test. FN400 and LPC old/new effects were observed for abstract as well as concrete words, and were stronger over right hemisphere electrodes for concrete words. However, there was no difference in anteriority of the FN400 effect for the two word types. These findings challenge the notion that the frontal distribution of the FN400 old/new effect is fully explained by stimulus concreteness. © 2016 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

FN400 and LPC memory effects for concrete and abstract words

Science.gov (United States)

Stróżak, Paweł; Bird, Christopher W.; Corby, Krystin; Frishkoff, Gwen; Curran, Tim

2016-01-01

According to dual-process models, recognition memory depends on two neurocognitive mechanisms: familiarity, which has been linked to the "frontal N400" (FN400) effect in studies using event-related potentials (ERPs), and recollection, which is reflected by changes in the late positive complex (LPC). Recently, there has been some debate over the relationship between FN400 familiarity effects and N400 semantic effects. According to one view, these effects are one and the same. Proponents of this view have suggested that the frontal distribution of the FN400 could be due to stimulus concreteness: recognition memory experiments commonly use highly imageable or concrete words (or pictures), which elicit semantic ERPs with a frontal distribution. In the present study we tested this claim using a recognition memory paradigm in which subjects memorized concrete and abstract nouns; half of the words changed font color between study and test. FN400 and LPC old/new effects were observed for abstract, as well as concrete words, and were stronger over right hemisphere electrodes for concrete words. However, there was no difference in anteriority of the FN400 effect for the two word types. These findings challenge the notion that the frontal distribution of the FN400 old/new effect is fully explained by stimulus concreteness. PMID:27463978

From Word Alignment to Word Senses, via Multilingual Wordnets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dan Tufis

2006-05-01

Full Text Available Most of the successful commercial applications in language processing (text and/or speech dispense with any explicit concern on semantics, with the usual motivations stemming from the computational high costs required for dealing with semantics, in case of large volumes of data. With recent advances in corpus linguistics and statistical-based methods in NLP, revealing useful semantic features of linguistic data is becoming cheaper and cheaper and the accuracy of this process is steadily improving. Lately, there seems to be a growing acceptance of the idea that multilingual lexical ontologisms might be the key towards aligning different views on the semantic atomic units to be used in characterizing the general meaning of various and multilingual documents. Depending on the granularity at which semantic distinctions are necessary, the accuracy of the basic semantic processing (such as word sense disambiguation can be very high with relatively low complexity computing. The paper substantiates this statement by presenting a statistical/based system for word alignment and word sense disambiguation in parallel corpora. We describe a word alignment platform which ensures text pre-processing (tokenization, POS-tagging, lemmatization, chunking, sentence and word alignment as required by an accurate word sense disambiguation.

Self-descriptions on LinkedIn: Recruitment or friendship identity?

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, Danilo; Cloninger, Kevin M; Granjard, Alexandre; Molander-Söderholm, Kristian; Amato, Clara; Sikström, Sverker

2018-04-26

We used quantitative semantics to find clusters of words in LinkedIn users' self-descriptions to an employer or a friend. Some of these clusters discriminated between worker and friend conditions (e.g., flexible vs. caring) and between LinkedIn users with high and low education (e.g., analytical vs. messy). © 2018 The Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Spoken word recognition without a TRACE

Science.gov (United States)

Hannagan, Thomas; Magnuson, James S.; Grainger, Jonathan

2013-01-01

How do we map the rapid input of spoken language onto phonological and lexical representations over time? Attempts at psychologically-tractable computational models of spoken word recognition tend either to ignore time or to transform the temporal input into a spatial representation. TRACE, a connectionist model with broad and deep coverage of speech perception and spoken word recognition phenomena, takes the latter approach, using exclusively time-specific units at every level of representation. TRACE reduplicates featural, phonemic, and lexical inputs at every time step in a large memory trace, with rich interconnections (excitatory forward and backward connections between levels and inhibitory links within levels). As the length of the memory trace is increased, or as the phoneme and lexical inventory of the model is increased to a realistic size, this reduplication of time- (temporal position) specific units leads to a dramatic proliferation of units and connections, begging the question of whether a more efficient approach is possible. Our starting point is the observation that models of visual object recognition—including visual word recognition—have grappled with the problem of spatial invariance, and arrived at solutions other than a fully-reduplicative strategy like that of TRACE. This inspires a new model of spoken word recognition that combines time-specific phoneme representations similar to those in TRACE with higher-level representations based on string kernels: temporally independent (time invariant) diphone and lexical units. This reduces the number of necessary units and connections by several orders of magnitude relative to TRACE. Critically, we compare the new model to TRACE on a set of key phenomena, demonstrating that the new model inherits much of the behavior of TRACE and that the drastic computational savings do not come at the cost of explanatory power. PMID:24058349

On avoided words, absent words, and their application to biological sequence analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Almirantis, Yannis; Charalampopoulos, Panagiotis; Gao, Jia; Iliopoulos, Costas S; Mohamed, Manal; Pissis, Solon P; Polychronopoulos, Dimitris

2017-01-01

The deviation of the observed frequency of a word w from its expected frequency in a given sequence x is used to determine whether or not the word is avoided . This concept is particularly useful in DNA linguistic analysis. The value of the deviation of w , denoted by [Formula: see text], effectively characterises the extent of a word by its edge contrast in the context in which it occurs. A word w of length [Formula: see text] is a [Formula: see text]-avoided word in x if [Formula: see text], for a given threshold [Formula: see text]. Notice that such a word may be completely absent from x . Hence, computing all such words naïvely can be a very time-consuming procedure, in particular for large k . In this article, we propose an [Formula: see text]-time and [Formula: see text]-space algorithm to compute all [Formula: see text]-avoided words of length k in a given sequence of length n over a fixed-sized alphabet. We also present a time-optimal [Formula: see text]-time algorithm to compute all [Formula: see text]-avoided words (of any length) in a sequence of length n over an integer alphabet of size [Formula: see text]. In addition, we provide a tight asymptotic upper bound for the number of [Formula: see text]-avoided words over an integer alphabet and the expected length of the longest one. We make available an implementation of our algorithm. Experimental results, using both real and synthetic data, show the efficiency and applicability of our implementation in biological sequence analysis. The systematic search for avoided words is particularly useful for biological sequence analysis. We present a linear-time and linear-space algorithm for the computation of avoided words of length k in a given sequence x . We suggest a modification to this algorithm so that it computes all avoided words of x , irrespective of their length, within the same time complexity. We also present combinatorial results with regards to avoided words and absent words.

Auditory word recognition: extrinsic and intrinsic effects of word frequency.

Science.gov (United States)

Connine, C M; Titone, D; Wang, J

1993-01-01

Two experiments investigated the influence of word frequency in a phoneme identification task. Speech voicing continua were constructed so that one endpoint was a high-frequency word and the other endpoint was a low-frequency word (e.g., best-pest). Experiment 1 demonstrated that ambiguous tokens were labeled such that a high-frequency word was formed (intrinsic frequency effect). Experiment 2 manipulated the frequency composition of the list (extrinsic frequency effect). A high-frequency list bias produced an exaggerated influence of frequency; a low-frequency list bias showed a reverse frequency effect. Reaction time effects were discussed in terms of activation and postaccess decision models of frequency coding. The results support a late use of frequency in auditory word recognition.

Brain activation during word identification and word recognition

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jernigan, Terry L.; Ostergaard, Arne L.; Law, Ian

1998-01-01

Previous memory research has suggested that the effects of prior study observed in priming tasks are functionally, and neurobiologically, distinct phenomena from the kind of memory expressed in conventional (explicit) memory tests. Evidence for this position comes from observed dissociations...... between memory scores obtained with the two kinds of tasks. However, there is continuing controversy about the meaning of these dissociations. In recent studies, Ostergaard (1998a, Memory Cognit. 26:40-60; 1998b, J. Int. Neuropsychol. Soc., in press) showed that simply degrading visual word stimuli can...... dramatically alter the degree to which word priming shows a dissociation from word recognition; i.e., effects of a number of factors on priming paralleled their effects on recognition memory tests when the words were degraded at test. In the present study, cerebral blood flow changes were measured while...

Assessing the Usefulness of Google Books’ Word Frequencies for Psycholinguistic Research on Word Processing

Science.gov (United States)

Brysbaert, Marc; Keuleers, Emmanuel; New, Boris

2011-01-01

In this Perspective Article we assess the usefulness of Google's new word frequencies for word recognition research (lexical decision and word naming). We find that, despite the massive corpus on which the Google estimates are based (131 billion words from books published in the United States alone), the Google American English frequencies explain 11% less of the variance in the lexical decision times from the English Lexicon Project (Balota et al., 2007) than the SUBTLEX-US word frequencies, based on a corpus of 51 million words from film and television subtitles. Further analyses indicate that word frequencies derived from recent books (published after 2000) are better predictors of word processing times than frequencies based on the full corpus, and that word frequencies based on fiction books predict word processing times better than word frequencies based on the full corpus. The most predictive word frequencies from Google still do not explain more of the variance in word recognition times of undergraduate students and old adults than the subtitle-based word frequencies. PMID:21713191

Chinese Learners of English See Chinese Words When Reading English Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Fengyang; Ai, Haiyang

2018-06-01

The present study examines when second language (L2) learners read words in the L2, whether the orthography and/or phonology of the translation words in the first language (L1) is activated and whether the patterns would be modulated by the proficiency in the L2. In two experiments, two groups of Chinese learners of English immersed in the L1 environment, one less proficient and the other more proficient in English, performed a translation recognition task. In this task, participants judged whether pairs of words, with an L2 word preceding an L1 word, were translation words or not. The critical conditions compared the performance of learners to reject distractors that were related to the translation word (e.g., , pronounced as /bei 1/) of an L2 word (e.g., cup) in orthography (e.g., , bad in Chinese, pronounced as /huai 4/) or phonology (e.g., , sad in Chinese, pronounced as /bei 1/). Results of Experiment 1 showed less proficient learners were slower and less accurate to reject translation orthography distractors, as compared to unrelated controls, demonstrating a robust translation orthography interference effect. In contrast, their performance was not significantly different when rejecting translation phonology distractors, relative to unrelated controls, showing no translation phonology interference. The same patterns were observed in more proficient learners in Experiment 2. Together, these results suggest that when Chinese learners of English read English words, the orthographic information, but not the phonological information of the Chinese translation words is activated. In addition, this activation is not modulated by L2 proficiency.

Word learning mechanisms.

Science.gov (United States)

He, Angela Xiaoxue; Arunachalam, Sudha

2017-07-01

How do children acquire the meanings of words? Many word learning mechanisms have been proposed to guide learners through this challenging task. Despite the availability of rich information in the learner's linguistic and extralinguistic input, the word-learning task is insurmountable without such mechanisms for filtering through and utilizing that information. Different kinds of words, such as nouns denoting object concepts and verbs denoting event concepts, require to some extent different kinds of information and, therefore, access to different kinds of mechanisms. We review some of these mechanisms to examine the relationship between the input that is available to learners and learners' intake of that input-that is, the organized, interpreted, and stored representations they form. We discuss how learners segment individual words from the speech stream and identify their grammatical categories, how they identify the concepts denoted by these words, and how they refine their initial representations of word meanings. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1435. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1435 This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language Acquisition Psychology > Language. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Toddlers' language-mediated visual search: they need not have the words for it

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Johnson, E.K.; McQueen, J.M.; Hüttig, F.

2011-01-01

Eye movements made by listeners during language-mediated visual search reveal a strong link between visual processing and conceptual processing. For example, upon hearing the word for a missing referent with a characteristic colour (e.g., “strawberry”), listeners tend to fixate a colour-matched

WordPress Bible

CERN Document Server

Brazell, Aaron

2011-01-01

Get the latest word on the biggest self-hosted blogging tool on the marketWithin a week of the announcement of WordPress 3.0, it had been downloaded over a million times. Now you can get on the bandwagon of this popular open-source blogging tool with WordPress Bible, 2nd Edition. Whether you're a casual blogger or programming pro, this comprehensive guide covers the latest version of WordPress, from the basics through advanced application development. If you want to thoroughly learn WordPress, this is the book you need to succeed.Explores the principles of blogging, marketing, and social media

Phonotactics Constraints and the Spoken Word Recognition of Chinese Words in Speech

Science.gov (United States)

Yip, Michael C.

2016-01-01

Two word-spotting experiments were conducted to examine the question of whether native Cantonese listeners are constrained by phonotactics information in spoken word recognition of Chinese words in speech. Because no legal consonant clusters occurred within an individual Chinese word, this kind of categorical phonotactics information of Chinese…

Linking vs. Juncturing Makes All the Difference in Conveying and Understanding the Meaning of an Utterance

Science.gov (United States)

Yurtbasi, Metin

2016-01-01

An ability for a speaker to unite (link) words or to separate (break, juncture) them with a pause in his utterance gives him a special advantage to convey his intended meaning to his audience. If he knows where to unite his words and where to pause between them in speech he is better able to communicate with his listeners, and his words are…

WordPress for dummies

CERN Document Server

Sabin-Wilson, Lisa

2014-01-01

The bestselling WordPress guide, fully updated to cover the 2013 enhancements WordPress has millions of users, and this popular guide has sold more than 105,000 copies in its previous editions. With the newest releases of WordPress, author and WordPress expert Lisa Sabin-Wilson has completely updated the book to help you use and understand all the latest features. You'll learn about both the hosted WordPress.com version and the more flexible WordPress.org, which requires third-party hosting. Whether you're switching to WordPress from another blogging platform or just beginning to blog, you'll

The Influence of Concreteness of Concepts on the Integration of Novel Words into the Semantic Network.

Science.gov (United States)

Ding, Jinfeng; Liu, Wenjuan; Yang, Yufang

2017-01-01

On the basis of previous studies revealing a processing advantage of concrete words over abstract words, the current study aimed to further explore the influence of concreteness on the integration of novel words into semantic memory with the event related potential (ERP) technique. In the experiment during the learning phase participants read two-sentence contexts and inferred the meaning of novel words. The novel words were two-character non-words in Chinese language. Their meaning was either a concrete or abstract known concept which could be inferred from the contexts. During the testing phase participants performed a lexical decision task in which the learned novel words served as primes for either their corresponding concepts, semantically related or unrelated targets. For the concrete novel words, the semantically related words belonged to the same semantic categories with their corresponding concepts. For the abstract novel words, the semantically related words were synonyms of their corresponding concepts. The unrelated targets were real words which were concrete or abstract for the concrete or abstract novel words respectively. The ERP results showed that the corresponding concepts and the semantically related words elicited smaller N400s than the unrelated words. The N400 effect was not modulated by the concreteness of the concepts. In addition, the concrete corresponding concepts elicited a smaller late positive component (LPC) than the concrete unrelated words. This LPC effect was absent for the abstract words. The results indicate that although both concrete and abstract novel words can be acquired and linked to their related words in the semantic network after a short learning phase, the concrete novel words are learned better. Our findings support the (extended) dual coding theory and broaden our understanding of adult word learning and changes in concept organization.

The Influence of Concreteness of Concepts on the Integration of Novel Words into the Semantic Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jinfeng Ding

2017-12-01

Full Text Available On the basis of previous studies revealing a processing advantage of concrete words over abstract words, the current study aimed to further explore the influence of concreteness on the integration of novel words into semantic memory with the event related potential (ERP technique. In the experiment during the learning phase participants read two-sentence contexts and inferred the meaning of novel words. The novel words were two-character non-words in Chinese language. Their meaning was either a concrete or abstract known concept which could be inferred from the contexts. During the testing phase participants performed a lexical decision task in which the learned novel words served as primes for either their corresponding concepts, semantically related or unrelated targets. For the concrete novel words, the semantically related words belonged to the same semantic categories with their corresponding concepts. For the abstract novel words, the semantically related words were synonyms of their corresponding concepts. The unrelated targets were real words which were concrete or abstract for the concrete or abstract novel words respectively. The ERP results showed that the corresponding concepts and the semantically related words elicited smaller N400s than the unrelated words. The N400 effect was not modulated by the concreteness of the concepts. In addition, the concrete corresponding concepts elicited a smaller late positive component (LPC than the concrete unrelated words. This LPC effect was absent for the abstract words. The results indicate that although both concrete and abstract novel words can be acquired and linked to their related words in the semantic network after a short learning phase, the concrete novel words are learned better. Our findings support the (extended dual coding theory and broaden our understanding of adult word learning and changes in concept organization.

Different Neural Correlates of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An ERP Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juan Zhang

2017-09-01

Full Text Available It is well-documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical decision task in which they should judge whether a two-character compound stimulus was a real word or not. Results showed that (1 emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicited similar P100 at the posteriors sites, (2 larger N170 was found for emotion-label words than for emotion-laden words at the occipital sites on the right hemisphere, and (3 negative emotion-label words elicited larger Late Positivity Complex (LPC on the right hemisphere than on the left hemisphere while such effect was not found for emotion-laden words and positive emotion-label words. The results indicate that emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicit different cortical responses at both early (N170 and late (LPC stages. In addition, right hemisphere advantage for emotion-label words over emotion-laden words can be observed in certain time windows (i.e., N170 and LPC while fails to be detected in some other time window (i.e., P100. The implications of the current findings for future emotion research were discussed.

Different Neural Correlates of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An ERP Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Juan; Wu, Chenggang; Meng, Yaxuan; Yuan, Zhen

2017-01-01

It is well-documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding) can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP) measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical decision task in which they should judge whether a two-character compound stimulus was a real word or not. Results showed that (1) emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicited similar P100 at the posteriors sites, (2) larger N170 was found for emotion-label words than for emotion-laden words at the occipital sites on the right hemisphere, and (3) negative emotion-label words elicited larger Late Positivity Complex (LPC) on the right hemisphere than on the left hemisphere while such effect was not found for emotion-laden words and positive emotion-label words. The results indicate that emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicit different cortical responses at both early (N170) and late (LPC) stages. In addition, right hemisphere advantage for emotion-label words over emotion-laden words can be observed in certain time windows (i.e., N170 and LPC) while fails to be detected in some other time window (i.e., P100). The implications of the current findings for future emotion research were discussed.

The word concreteness effect occurs for positive, but not negative, emotion words in immediate serial recall.

Science.gov (United States)

Tse, Chi-Shing; Altarriba, Jeanette

2009-02-01

The present study examined the roles of word concreteness and word valence in the immediate serial recall task. Emotion words (e.g. happy) were used to investigate these effects. Participants completed study-test trials with seven-item study lists consisting of positive or negative words with either high or low concreteness (Experiments 1 and 2) and neutral (i.e. non-emotion) words with either high or low concreteness (Experiment 2). For neutral words, the typical word concreteness effect (concrete words are better recalled than abstract words) was replicated. For emotion words, the effect occurred for positive words, but not for negative words. While the word concreteness effect was stronger for neutral words than for negative words, it was not different for the neutral words and the positive words. We conclude that both word valence and word concreteness simultaneously contribute to the item and order retention of emotion words and discuss how Hulme et al.'s (1997) item redintegration account can be modified to explain these findings.

Mathematical Tasks without Words and Word Problems: Perceptions of Reluctant Problem Solvers

Science.gov (United States)

Holbert, Sydney Margaret

2013-01-01

This qualitative research study used a multiple, holistic case study approach (Yin, 2009) to explore the perceptions of reluctant problem solvers related to mathematical tasks without words and word problems. Participants were given a choice of working a mathematical task without words or a word problem during four problem-solving sessions. Data…

Image reconstruction by domain-transform manifold learning

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Bo; Liu, Jeremiah Z.; Cauley, Stephen F.; Rosen, Bruce R.; Rosen, Matthew S.

2018-03-01

Image reconstruction is essential for imaging applications across the physical and life sciences, including optical and radar systems, magnetic resonance imaging, X-ray computed tomography, positron emission tomography, ultrasound imaging and radio astronomy. During image acquisition, the sensor encodes an intermediate representation of an object in the sensor domain, which is subsequently reconstructed into an image by an inversion of the encoding function. Image reconstruction is challenging because analytic knowledge of the exact inverse transform may not exist a priori, especially in the presence of sensor non-idealities and noise. Thus, the standard reconstruction approach involves approximating the inverse function with multiple ad hoc stages in a signal processing chain, the composition of which depends on the details of each acquisition strategy, and often requires expert parameter tuning to optimize reconstruction performance. Here we present a unified framework for image reconstruction—automated transform by manifold approximation (AUTOMAP)—which recasts image reconstruction as a data-driven supervised learning task that allows a mapping between the sensor and the image domain to emerge from an appropriate corpus of training data. We implement AUTOMAP with a deep neural network and exhibit its flexibility in learning reconstruction transforms for various magnetic resonance imaging acquisition strategies, using the same network architecture and hyperparameters. We further demonstrate that manifold learning during training results in sparse representations of domain transforms along low-dimensional data manifolds, and observe superior immunity to noise and a reduction in reconstruction artefacts compared with conventional handcrafted reconstruction methods. In addition to improving the reconstruction performance of existing acquisition methodologies, we anticipate that AUTOMAP and other learned reconstruction approaches will accelerate the development

On universal partial words

OpenAIRE

Chen, Herman Z. Q.; Kitaev, Sergey; Mütze, Torsten; Sun, Brian Y.

2016-01-01

A universal word for a finite alphabet $A$ and some integer $n\\geq 1$ is a word over $A$ such that every word in $A^n$ appears exactly once as a subword (cyclically or linearly). It is well-known and easy to prove that universal words exist for any $A$ and $n$. In this work we initiate the systematic study of universal partial words. These are words that in addition to the letters from $A$ may contain an arbitrary number of occurrences of a special `joker' symbol $\\Diamond\

Word type effects in false recall: concrete, abstract, and emotion word critical lures.

Science.gov (United States)

Bauer, Lisa M; Olheiser, Erik L; Altarriba, Jeanette; Landi, Nicole

2009-01-01

Previous research has demonstrated that definable qualities of verbal stimuli have implications for memory. For example, the distinction between concrete and abstract words has led to the finding that concrete words have an advantage in memory tasks (i.e., the concreteness effect). However, other word types, such as words that label specific human emotions, may also affect memory processes. This study examined the effects of word type on the production of false memories by using a list-learning false memory paradigm. Participants heard lists of words that were highly associated to nonpresented concrete, abstract, or emotion words (i.e., the critical lures) and then engaged in list recall. Emotion word critical lures were falsely recalled at a significantly higher rate (with the effect carried by the positively valenced critical lures) than concrete and abstract critical lures. These findings suggest that the word type variable has implications for our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie recall and false recall.

Searching for the right word: Hybrid visual and memory search for words.

Science.gov (United States)

Boettcher, Sage E P; Wolfe, Jeremy M

2015-05-01

In "hybrid search" (Wolfe Psychological Science, 23(7), 698-703, 2012), observers search through visual space for any of multiple targets held in memory. With photorealistic objects as the stimuli, response times (RTs) increase linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with the memory set size, even when over 100 items are committed to memory. It is well-established that pictures of objects are particularly easy to memorize (Brady, Konkle, Alvarez, & Oliva Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 14325-14329, 2008). Would hybrid-search performance be similar if the targets were words or phrases, in which word order can be important, so that the processes of memorization might be different? In Experiment 1, observers memorized 2, 4, 8, or 16 words in four different blocks. After passing a memory test, confirming their memorization of the list, the observers searched for these words in visual displays containing two to 16 words. Replicating Wolfe (Psychological Science, 23(7), 698-703, 2012), the RTs increased linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with the length of the word list. The word lists of Experiment 1 were random. In Experiment 2, words were drawn from phrases that observers reported knowing by heart (e.g., "London Bridge is falling down"). Observers were asked to provide four phrases, ranging in length from two words to no less than 20 words (range 21-86). All words longer than two characters from the phrase, constituted the target list. Distractor words were matched for length and frequency. Even with these strongly ordered lists, the results again replicated the curvilinear function of memory set size seen in hybrid search. One might expect to find serial position effects, perhaps reducing the RTs for the first (primacy) and/or the last (recency) members of a list (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; Murdock Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 482-488, 1962). Surprisingly, we showed no reliable effects of word order

Recalling taboo and nontaboo words.

Science.gov (United States)

Jay, Timothy; Caldwell-Harris, Catherine; King, Krista

2008-01-01

People remember emotional and taboo words better than neutral words. It is well known that words that are processed at a deep (i.e., semantic) level are recalled better than words processed at a shallow (i.e., purely visual) level. To determine how depth of processing influences recall of emotional and taboo words, a levels of processing paradigm was used. Whether this effect holds for emotional and taboo words has not been previously investigated. Two experiments demonstrated that taboo and emotional words benefit less from deep processing than do neutral words. This is consistent with the proposal that memories for taboo and emotional words are a function of the arousal level they evoke, even under shallow encoding conditions. Recall was higher for taboo words, even when taboo words were cued to be recalled after neutral and emotional words. The superiority of taboo word recall is consistent with cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging research.

Customer Protest: Exit, Voice or Negative Word of Mouth

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Solvang, B. K.

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Of the three forms of protest the propensity of word of mouth (WOM seems to be the most common, and the most exclusive form of protest seems to be exit. The propensity for voice lies in between. The costs linked to voice influence the propensity for WOM. The customers seem to do an evaluation between the three forms of protest, yet the rational picture of the customers should be moderated.Leaders should improve their treatment of the customers making complaints. The more they can treat customer complaints in an orderly and nice way the less informal negative word of mouth activity they will experience and they will reduce the exit propensity and lead the customers to the complain organisation. They should also ensure that their customers feel they get equal treatment by the staff.

Baby's first 10 words.

Science.gov (United States)

Tardif, Twila; Fletcher, Paul; Liang, Weilan; Zhang, Zhixiang; Kaciroti, Niko; Marchman, Virginia A

2008-07-01

Although there has been much debate over the content of children's first words, few large sample studies address this question for children at the very earliest stages of word learning. The authors report data from comparable samples of 265 English-, 336 Putonghua- (Mandarin), and 369 Cantonese-speaking 8- to 16-month-old infants whose caregivers completed MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories and reported them to produce between 1 and 10 words. Analyses of individual words indicated striking commonalities in the first words that children learn. However, substantive cross-linguistic differences appeared in the relative prevalence of common nouns, people terms, and verbs as well as in the probability that children produced even one of these word types when they had a total of 1-3, 4-6, or 7-10 words in their vocabularies. These data document cross-linguistic differences in the types of words produced even at the earliest stages of vocabulary learning and underscore the importance of parental input and cross-linguistic/cross-cultural variations in children's early word-learning.

Do word associations assess word knowledge? A comparison of L1 and L2, child and adult word associations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cremer, M.; Dingshoff, D.; de Beer, M.; Schoonen, R.

2011-01-01

Differences in word associations between monolingual and bilingual speakers of Dutch can reflect differences in how well seemingly familiar words are known. In this (exploratory) study mono-and bilingual, child and adult free word associations were compared. Responses of children and of monolingual

How vertical hand movements impact brain activity elicited by literally and metaphorically related words: an ERP study of embodied metaphor

Science.gov (United States)

Bardolph, Megan; Coulson, Seana

2014-01-01

Embodied metaphor theory suggests abstract concepts are metaphorically linked to more experientially basic ones and recruit sensorimotor cortex for their comprehension. To test whether words associated with spatial attributes reactivate traces in sensorimotor cortex, we recorded EEG from the scalp of healthy adults as they read words while performing a concurrent task involving either upward- or downward- directed arm movements. ERPs were time-locked to words associated with vertical space—either literally (ascend, descend) or metaphorically (inspire, defeat)—as participants made vertical movements that were either congruent or incongruent with the words. Congruency effects emerged 200–300 ms after word onset for literal words, but not until after 500 ms post-onset for metaphorically related words. Results argue against a strong version of embodied metaphor theory, but support a role for sensorimotor simulation in concrete language. PMID:25566041

The (in)dependence of articulation and lexical planning during isolated word production.

Science.gov (United States)

Buz, Esteban; Jaeger, T Florian

The number of phonological neighbors to a word (PND) can affect its lexical planning and pronunciation. Similar parallel effects on planning and articulation have been observed for other lexical variables, such as a word's contextual predictability. Such parallelism is frequently taken to indicate that effects on articulation are mediated by effects on the time course of lexical planning. We test this mediation assumption for PND and find it unsupported. In a picture naming experiment, we measure speech onset latencies (planning), word durations, and vowel dispersion (articulation). We find that PND predicts both latencies and durations. Further, latencies predict durations. However, the effects of PND and latency on duration are independent: parallel effects do not imply mediation. We discuss the consequences for accounts of lexical planning, articulation, and the link between them. In particular, our results suggest that ease of planning does not explain effects of PND on articulation.

Word classes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rijkhoff, Jan

2007-01-01

in grammatical descriptions of some 50 languages, which together constitute a representative sample of the world’s languages (Hengeveld et al. 2004: 529). It appears that there are both quantitative and qualitative differences between word class systems of individual languages. Whereas some languages employ...... a parts-of-speech system that includes the categories Verb, Noun, Adjective and Adverb, other languages may use only a subset of these four lexical categories. Furthermore, quite a few languages have a major word class whose members cannot be classified in terms of the categories Verb – Noun – Adjective...... – Adverb, because they have properties that are strongly associated with at least two of these four traditional word classes (e.g. Adjective and Adverb). Finally, this article discusses some of the ways in which word class distinctions interact with other grammatical domains, such as syntax and morphology....

Reading Big Words: Instructional Practices to Promote Multisyllabic Word Reading Fluency

Science.gov (United States)

Toste, Jessica R.; Williams, Kelly J.; Capin, Philip

2017-01-01

Poorly developed word recognition skills are the most pervasive and debilitating source of reading challenges for students with learning disabilities (LD). With a notable decrease in word reading instruction in the upper elementary grades, struggling readers receive fewer instructional opportunities to develop proficient word reading skills, yet…

Flexible Word Classes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

• First major publication on the phenomenon • Offers cross-linguistic, descriptive, and diverse theoretical approaches • Includes analysis of data from different language families and from lesser studied languages This book is the first major cross-linguistic study of 'flexible words', i.e. words...... that cannot be classified in terms of the traditional lexical categories Verb, Noun, Adjective or Adverb. Flexible words can - without special morphosyntactic marking - serve in functions for which other languages must employ members of two or more of the four traditional, 'specialised' word classes. Thus......, flexible words are underspecified for communicative functions like 'predicating' (verbal function), 'referring' (nominal function) or 'modifying' (a function typically associated with adjectives and e.g. manner adverbs). Even though linguists have been aware of flexible world classes for more than...

From word superiority to word inferiority: Visual processing of letters and words in pure alexia

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Habekost, Thomas; Petersen, Anders; Behrmann, Marlene

2014-01-01

Visual processing and naming of individual letters and short words were investigated in four patients with pure alexia. To test processing at different levels, the same stimuli were studied across a naming task and a visual perception task. The normal word superiority effect was eliminated in bot...

WordPress For Dummies

CERN Document Server

Sabin-Wilson, Lisa

2011-01-01

The bestselling guide to WordPress, fully updated to help you get your blog going! Millions of bloggers rely on WordPress, the popular, free blogging platform. This guide covers all the features and improvements in the most up-to-date version of WordPress. Whether you are switching to WordPress from another blogging platform or just starting your first blog, you'll find the advice in this friendly guide gets you up to speed on both the free-hosted WordPress.com version and WordPress.org, which requires the purchase of web hosting services, and figure out which version is best for you. You'll b

Word 2013 for dummies

CERN Document Server

Gookin, Dan

2013-01-01

This bestselling guide to Microsoft Word is the first and last word on Word 2013 It's a whole new Word, so jump right into this book and learn how to make the most of it. Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate the new features of Word 2013. Completely in tune with the needs of the beginning user, Gookin explains how to use Word 2013 quickly and efficiently so that you can spend more time working on your projects and less time trying to figure it all out. Walks you through the capabilit

Early language development in children with profound hearing loss fitted with a device at a young age: part I--the time period taken to acquire first words and first word combinations.

Science.gov (United States)

Nott, Pauline; Cowan, Robert; Brown, P Margaret; Wigglesworth, Gillian

2009-10-01

significantly earlier (i.e., in fewer days from production of the first word) than the HL group; however, the size of the single-word lexicon when word combinations emerged was similar for both groups. The results of this study suggest that despite fitting of a device at an early age, HL continues to impact early lexical acquisition and the emergence of word combinations. Further, similarities between the hearing and HL groups, such as the overall pattern of lexical acquisition and a lexicogrammatical link, suggest that the processes underpinning early language acquisition for hearing children and those with HL may also be similar.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of word retrieval in speech production revealed by cortical high-frequency band activity.

Science.gov (United States)

Riès, Stephanie K; Dhillon, Rummit K; Clarke, Alex; King-Stephens, David; Laxer, Kenneth D; Weber, Peter B; Kuperman, Rachel A; Auguste, Kurtis I; Brunner, Peter; Schalk, Gerwin; Lin, Jack J; Parvizi, Josef; Crone, Nathan E; Dronkers, Nina F; Knight, Robert T

2017-06-06

Word retrieval is core to language production and relies on complementary processes: the rapid activation of lexical and conceptual representations and word selection, which chooses the correct word among semantically related competitors. Lexical and conceptual activation is measured by semantic priming. In contrast, word selection is indexed by semantic interference and is hampered in semantically homogeneous (HOM) contexts. We examined the spatiotemporal dynamics of these complementary processes in a picture naming task with blocks of semantically heterogeneous (HET) or HOM stimuli. We used electrocorticography data obtained from frontal and temporal cortices, permitting detailed spatiotemporal analysis of word retrieval processes. A semantic interference effect was observed with naming latencies longer in HOM versus HET blocks. Cortical response strength as indexed by high-frequency band (HFB) activity (70-150 Hz) amplitude revealed effects linked to lexical-semantic activation and word selection observed in widespread regions of the cortical mantle. Depending on the subsecond timing and cortical region, HFB indexed semantic interference (i.e., more activity in HOM than HET blocks) or semantic priming effects (i.e., more activity in HET than HOM blocks). These effects overlapped in time and space in the left posterior inferior temporal gyrus and the left prefrontal cortex. The data do not support a modular view of word retrieval in speech production but rather support substantial overlap of lexical-semantic activation and word selection mechanisms in the brain.

Word 2010 Bible

CERN Document Server

Tyson, Herb

2010-01-01

In-depth guidance on Word 2010 from a Microsoft MVP. Microsoft Word 2010 arrives with many changes and improvements, and this comprehensive guide from Microsoft MVP Herb Tyson is your expert, one-stop resource for it all. Master Word's new features such as a new interface and customized Ribbon, major new productivity-boosting collaboration tools, how to publish directly to blogs, how to work with XML, and much more. Follow step-by-step instructions and best practices, avoid pitfalls, discover practical workarounds, and get the very most out of your new Word 2010 with this packed guide. Coverag

Words and melody are intertwined in perception of sung words: EEG and behavioral evidence.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Reyna L Gordon

Full Text Available Language and music, two of the most unique human cognitive abilities, are combined in song, rendering it an ecological model for comparing speech and music cognition. The present study was designed to determine whether words and melodies in song are processed interactively or independently, and to examine the influence of attention on the processing of words and melodies in song. Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs and behavioral data were recorded while non-musicians listened to pairs of sung words (prime and target presented in four experimental conditions: same word, same melody; same word, different melody; different word, same melody; different word, different melody. Participants were asked to attend to either the words or the melody, and to perform a same/different task. In both attentional tasks, different word targets elicited an N400 component, as predicted based on previous results. Most interestingly, different melodies (sung with the same word elicited an N400 component followed by a late positive component. Finally, ERP and behavioral data converged in showing interactions between the linguistic and melodic dimensions of sung words. The finding that the N400 effect, a well-established marker of semantic processing, was modulated by musical melody in song suggests that variations in musical features affect word processing in sung language. Implications of the interactions between words and melody are discussed in light of evidence for shared neural processing resources between the phonological/semantic aspects of language and the melodic/harmonic aspects of music.

Partial Word Knowledge: Frontier Words in the L2 Mental Lexicon

Science.gov (United States)

Zareva, Alla

2012-01-01

The study set out to examine the partial word knowledge of native speakers, L2 advanced, and intermediate learners of English with regard to four word features from Richards' (1976) taxonomy of aspects describing what knowing a word entails. To capture partial familiarity, the participants completed in writing a test containing low and mid…

Word Frequency As a Cue For Identifying Function Words In Infancy

Science.gov (United States)

Hochmann, Jean-Remy; Endress, Ansgar D.; Mehler, Jacques

2010-01-01

While content words (e.g., 'dog') tend to carry meaning, function words (e.g., 'the') mainly serve syntactic purposes. Here, we ask whether 17-month old infants can use one language-universal cue to identify function word candidates: their high frequency of occurrence. In Experiment 1, infants listened to a series of short, naturally recorded…

How does language change as a lexical network? An investigation based on written Chinese word co-occurrence networks

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Heng; Chen, Xinying

2018-01-01

Language is a complex adaptive system, but how does it change? For investigating this process, four diachronic Chinese word co-occurrence networks have been built based on texts that were written during the last 2,000 years. By comparing the network indicators that are associated with the hierarchical features in language networks, we learn that the hierarchy of Chinese lexical networks has indeed evolved over time at three different levels. The connections of words at the micro level are continually weakening; the number of words in the meso-level communities has increased significantly; and the network is expanding at the macro level. This means that more and more words tend to be connected to medium-central words and form different communities. Meanwhile, fewer high-central words link these communities into a highly efficient small-world network. Understanding this process may be crucial for understanding the increasing structural complexity of the language system. PMID:29489837

Reader, Word, and Character Attributes Contributing to Chinese Children's Concept of Word

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jing; Lin, Tzu-Jung; Ku, Yu-Min; Zhang, Jie; O'Connell, Ann

2018-01-01

Concept of word--the awareness of how words differ from nonwords or other linguistic properties--is important to learning to read Chinese because words in Chinese texts are not separated by space, and most characters can be productively compounded with other characters to form new words. The current study examined the effects of reader, word, and…

Knowledge inhibition and N400: a study with words that look like common words.

Science.gov (United States)

Debruille, J B

1998-04-01

In addition to their own representations, low frequency words, such as BRIBE, can covertly activate the representations of higher frequency words they look like (e.g., BRIDE). Hence, look-alike words can activate knowledge that is incompatible with the knowledge corresponding to accurate representations. Comparatively, eccentric words, that is, low frequency words that do not look as much like higher frequency words, are less likely to activate incompatible knowledge. This study focuses on the hypothesis that the N400 component of the event-related potential reflects the inhibition of incompatible knowledge. This hypothesis predicts that look-alike words elicit N400s of greater amplitudes than eccentric words in conditions where incompatible knowledge is inhibited. Results from a single item lexical decision experiment are reported which support the inhibition hypothesis. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

Oral-diadochokinetic rates for Hebrew-speaking school-age children: real words vs. non-words repetition.

Science.gov (United States)

Icht, Michal; Ben-David, Boaz M

2015-02-01

Oral-diadochokinesis (DDK) tasks are a common tool for evaluating speech disorders. Usually, these tasks involve repetitions of non-words. It has been suggested that repeating real words can be more suitable for preschool children. But, the impact of using real words with elementary school children has not been studied yet. This study evaluated oral-DDK rates for Hebrew-speaking elementary school children using non-words and real words. The participants were 60 children, 9-11 years old, with normal speech and language development, who were asked to repeat "pataka" (non-word) and "bodeket" (Hebrew real word). Data replicate the advantage generally found for real word repetition with preschoolers. Children produced real words faster than non-words for all age groups, and repetition rates were higher for the older children. The findings suggest that adding real words to the standard oral-DDK task with elementary school children may provide a more comprehensive picture of oro-motor function.

Ins-Robust Primitive Words

OpenAIRE

Srivastava, Amit Kumar; Kapoor, Kalpesh

2017-01-01

Let Q be the set of primitive words over a finite alphabet with at least two symbols. We characterize a class of primitive words, Q_I, referred to as ins-robust primitive words, which remain primitive on insertion of any letter from the alphabet and present some properties that characterizes words in the set Q_I. It is shown that the language Q_I is dense. We prove that the language of primitive words that are not ins-robust is not context-free. We also present a linear time algorithm to reco...

Grounding action words in the sensorimotor interaction with the world: experiments with a simulated iCub humanoid robot

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Davide Marocco

2010-05-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a cognitive robotics model for the study of the embodied representation of action words. The present research will present how a iCub humanoid robot can learn the meaning of action words (i.e. words that represent dynamical events that happen in time by physically acting on the environment and linking the effects of its own actions with the behaviour observed on the objects before and after the action. The control system of the robot is an artificial neural network trained to manipulate an object through a Back-Propagation Through Time algorithm. We will show that in the presented model the grounding of action words relies directly to the way in which an agent interacts with the environment and manipulates it.

Remembering New Words: Integrating Early Memory Development into Word Learning

OpenAIRE

Wojcik, Erica H.

2013-01-01

In order to successfully acquire a new word, young children must learn the correct associations between labels and their referents. For decades, word-learning researchers have explored how young children are able to form these associations. However, in addition to learning label-referent mappings, children must also remember them. Despite the importance of memory processes in forming a stable lexicon, there has been little integration of early memory research into the study of early word lear...

English words structure, history, usage

CERN Document Server

Katamba, Francis

2015-01-01

How do we find the right word for the job? Where does that word come from? Why do we spell it like that? And how do we know what it means? Words are all around us - we use them every day to communicate our joys, fears, hopes, opinions, wishes and demands - but we don't often think about them too deeply. In this highly accessible introduction to English words, the reader will discover what the study of words can tell them about the extraordinary richness and complexity of our daily vocabulary and about the nature of language in general. Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, the book covers a wide range of topics, including the structure of words, the meaning of words, how their spelling relates to pronunciation, how new words are manufactured or imported from other languages, and how the meaning of words changes with the passage of time. It also investigates how the mind deals with words by highlighting the amazing intellectual feat performed routinely when the right word is retrieved from the mental dic...

Grasp it loudly! Supporting actions with semantically congruent spoken action words.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raphaël Fargier

Full Text Available Evidence for cross-talk between motor and language brain structures has accumulated over the past several years. However, while a significant amount of research has focused on the interaction between language perception and action, little attention has been paid to the potential impact of language production on overt motor behaviour. The aim of the present study was to test whether verbalizing during a grasp-to-displace action would affect motor behaviour and, if so, whether this effect would depend on the semantic content of the pronounced word (Experiment I. Furthermore, we sought to test the stability of such effects in a different group of participants and investigate at which stage of the motor act language intervenes (Experiment II. For this, participants were asked to reach, grasp and displace an object while overtly pronouncing verbal descriptions of the action ("grasp" and "put down" or unrelated words (e.g. "butterfly" and "pigeon". Fine-grained analyses of several kinematic parameters such as velocity peaks revealed that when participants produced action-related words their movements became faster compared to conditions in which they did not verbalize or in which they produced words that were not related to the action. These effects likely result from the functional interaction between semantic retrieval of the words and the planning and programming of the action. Therefore, links between (action language and motor structures are significant to the point that language can refine overt motor behaviour.

The Effect of Colour-Word Interference on Children's Memory for Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Malliet, Gineva M.

The Stroop color-word test involves a conflict situation in which subjects are asked to say aloud the ink color used to print a color word on a card. Interference occurs when the ink color is in conflict with the color word, such as 'red' printed in green ink. On the other hand, little interference occurs when asked to name the color words…

Attention and gaze control in picture naming, word reading, and word categorizing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roelofs, A.P.A.

2007-01-01

The trigger for shifting gaze between stimuli requiring vocal and manual responses was examined. Participants were presented with picture–word stimuli and left- or right-pointing arrows. They vocally named the picture (Experiment 1), read the word (Experiment 2), or categorized the word (Experiment

Emotion Words: Adding Face Value.

Science.gov (United States)

Fugate, Jennifer M B; Gendron, Maria; Nakashima, Satoshi F; Barrett, Lisa Feldman

2017-06-12

Despite a growing number of studies suggesting that emotion words affect perceptual judgments of emotional stimuli, little is known about how emotion words affect perceptual memory for emotional faces. In Experiments 1 and 2 we tested how emotion words (compared with control words) affected participants' abilities to select a target emotional face from among distractor faces. Participants were generally more likely to false alarm to distractor emotional faces when primed with an emotion word congruent with the face (compared with a control word). Moreover, participants showed both decreased sensitivity (d') to discriminate between target and distractor faces, as well as altered response biases (c; more likely to answer "yes") when primed with an emotion word (compared with a control word). In Experiment 3 we showed that emotion words had more of an effect on perceptual memory judgments when the structural information in the target face was limited, as well as when participants were only able to categorize the face with a partially congruent emotion word. The overall results are consistent with the idea that emotion words affect the encoding of emotional faces in perceptual memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Word length, set size, and lexical factors: Re-examining what causes the word length effect.

Science.gov (United States)

Guitard, Dominic; Gabel, Andrew J; Saint-Aubin, Jean; Surprenant, Aimée M; Neath, Ian

2018-04-19

The word length effect, better recall of lists of short (fewer syllables) than long (more syllables) words has been termed a benchmark effect of working memory. Despite this, experiments on the word length effect can yield quite different results depending on set size and stimulus properties. Seven experiments are reported that address these 2 issues. Experiment 1 replicated the finding of a preserved word length effect under concurrent articulation for large stimulus sets, which contrasts with the abolition of the word length effect by concurrent articulation for small stimulus sets. Experiment 2, however, demonstrated that when the short and long words are equated on more dimensions, concurrent articulation abolishes the word length effect for large stimulus sets. Experiment 3 shows a standard word length effect when output time is equated, but Experiments 4-6 show no word length effect when short and long words are equated on increasingly more dimensions that previous demonstrations have overlooked. Finally, Experiment 7 compared recall of a small and large neighborhood words that were equated on all the dimensions used in Experiment 6 (except for those directly related to neighborhood size) and a neighborhood size effect was still observed. We conclude that lexical factors, rather than word length per se, are better predictors of when the word length effect will occur. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Promoting Word Consciousness to Close the Vocabulary Gap in Young Word Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Neugebauer, Sabina Rak; Gámez, Perla B.; Coyne, Michael D.; McCoach, D. Betsy; Cólon, Ingrid T.; Ware, Sharon

2017-01-01

A proposed avenue for increasing students' vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension is instruction that promotes students' enthusiasm and attention to words, referred to as "word consciousness". This study seeks to investigate, at the utterance level, whether and how word consciousness talk is used in classrooms with young word…

Reassessing word frequency as a determinant of word recognition for skilled and unskilled readers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuperman, Victor; Van Dyke, Julie A

2013-06-01

The importance of vocabulary in reading comprehension emphasizes the need to accurately assess an individual's familiarity with words. The present article highlights problems with using occurrence counts in corpora as an index of word familiarity, especially when studying individuals varying in reading experience. We demonstrate via computational simulations and norming studies that corpus-based word frequencies systematically overestimate strengths of word representations, especially in the low-frequency range and in smaller-size vocabularies. Experience-driven differences in word familiarity prove to be faithfully captured by the subjective frequency ratings collected from responders at different experience levels. When matched on those levels, this lexical measure explains more variance than corpus-based frequencies in eye-movement and lexical decision latencies to English words, attested in populations with varied reading experience and skill. Furthermore, the use of subjective frequencies removes the widely reported (corpus) Frequency × Skill interaction, showing that more skilled readers are equally faster in processing any word than the less skilled readers, not disproportionally faster in processing lower frequency words. This finding challenges the view that the more skilled an individual is in generic mechanisms of word processing, the less reliant he or she will be on the actual lexical characteristics of that word. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

Reassessing word frequency as a determinant of word recognition for skilled and unskilled readers

Science.gov (United States)

Kuperman, Victor; Van Dyke, Julie A.

2013-01-01

The importance of vocabulary in reading comprehension emphasizes the need to accurately assess an individual’s familiarity with words. The present article highlights problems with using occurrence counts in corpora as an index of word familiarity, especially when studying individuals varying in reading experience. We demonstrate via computational simulations and norming studies that corpus-based word frequencies systematically overestimate strengths of word representations, especially in the low-frequency range and in smaller-size vocabularies. Experience-driven differences in word familiarity prove to be faithfully captured by the subjective frequency ratings collected from responders at different experience levels. When matched on those levels, this lexical measure explains more variance than corpus-based frequencies in eye-movement and lexical decision latencies to English words, attested in populations with varied reading experience and skill. Furthermore, the use of subjective frequencies removes the widely reported (corpus) frequency-by-skill interaction, showing that more skilled readers are equally faster in processing any word than the less skilled readers, not disproportionally faster in processing lower-frequency words. This finding challenges the view that the more skilled an individual is in generic mechanisms of word processing the less reliant he/she will be on the actual lexical characteristics of that word. PMID:23339352

Is processing of symbols and words influenced by writing system? Evidence from Chinese, Korean, English, and Greek.

Science.gov (United States)

Altani, Angeliki; Georgiou, George K; Deng, Ciping; Cho, Jeung-Ryeul; Katopodi, Katerina; Wei, Wei; Protopapas, Athanassios

2017-12-01

We examined cross-linguistic effects in the relationship between serial and discrete versions of digit naming and word reading. In total, 113 Mandarin-speaking Chinese children, 100 Korean children, 112 English-speaking Canadian children, and 108 Greek children in Grade 3 were administered tasks of serial and discrete naming of words and digits. Interrelations among tasks indicated that the link between rapid naming and reading is largely determined by the format of the tasks across orthographies. Multigroup path analyses with discrete and serial word reading as dependent variables revealed commonalities as well as significant differences between writing systems. The path coefficient from discrete digits to discrete words was greater for the more transparent orthographies, consistent with more efficient sight-word processing. The effect of discrete word reading on serial word reading was stronger in alphabetic languages, where there was also a suppressive effect of discrete digit naming. However, the effect of serial digit naming on serial word reading did not differ among the four language groups. This pattern of relationships challenges a universal account of reading fluency acquisition while upholding a universal role of rapid serial naming, further distinguishing between multi-element interword and intraword processing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cultural Image of Animal Words

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

邓海燕

2017-01-01

This paper,after introducing the definition and forms of cultural image,focuses on the detailed comparison and analysis of cultural image of animal words both in English and in Chinese from four aspects,that is,same animal word,same cultural image;same animal word,different cultural images;different animal words,same cultural image;different animal words,different cultural images.

L2 Word Recognition: Influence of L1 Orthography on Multi-syllabic Word Recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Hamada, Megumi

2017-10-01

L2 reading research suggests that L1 orthographic experience influences L2 word recognition. Nevertheless, the findings on multi-syllabic words in English are still limited despite the fact that a vast majority of words are multi-syllabic. The study investigated whether L1 orthography influences the recognition of multi-syllabic words, focusing on the position of an embedded word. The participants were Arabic ESL learners, Chinese ESL learners, and native speakers of English. The task was a word search task, in which the participants identified a target word embedded in a pseudoword at the initial, middle, or final position. The search accuracy and speed indicated that all groups showed a strong preference for the initial position. The accuracy data further indicated group differences. The Arabic group showed higher accuracy in the final than middle, while the Chinese group showed the opposite and the native speakers showed no difference between the two positions. The findings suggest that L2 multi-syllabic word recognition involves unique processes.

Lexical analysis in schizophrenia: how emotion and social word use informs our understanding of clinical presentation.

Science.gov (United States)

Minor, Kyle S; Bonfils, Kelsey A; Luther, Lauren; Firmin, Ruth L; Kukla, Marina; MacLain, Victoria R; Buck, Benjamin; Lysaker, Paul H; Salyers, Michelle P

2015-05-01

The words people use convey important information about internal states, feelings, and views of the world around them. Lexical analysis is a fast, reliable method of assessing word use that has shown promise for linking speech content, particularly in emotion and social categories, with psychopathological symptoms. However, few studies have utilized lexical analysis instruments to assess speech in schizophrenia. In this exploratory study, we investigated whether positive emotion, negative emotion, and social word use was associated with schizophrenia symptoms, metacognition, and general functioning in a schizophrenia cohort. Forty-six participants generated speech during a semi-structured interview, and word use categories were assessed using a validated lexical analysis measure. Trained research staff completed symptom, metacognition, and functioning ratings using semi-structured interviews. Word use categories significantly predicted all variables of interest, accounting for 28% of the variance in symptoms and 16% of the variance in metacognition and general functioning. Anger words, a subcategory of negative emotion, significantly predicted greater symptoms and lower functioning. Social words significantly predicted greater metacognition. These findings indicate that lexical analysis instruments have the potential to play a vital role in psychosocial assessments of schizophrenia. Future research should replicate these findings and examine the relationship between word use and additional clinical variables across the schizophrenia-spectrum. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Head First WordPress

CERN Document Server

Siarto, Jeff

2010-01-01

Whether you're promoting your business or writing about your travel adventures, Head First WordPress will teach you not only how to make your blog look unique and attention-grabbing, but also how to dig into the more complex features of WordPress 3.0 to make your website work well, too. You'll learn how to move beyond the standard WordPress look and feel by customizing your blog with your own URL, templates, plugin functionality, and more. As you learn, you'll be working with real WordPress files: The book's website provides pre-fab WordPress themes to download and work with as you follow al

AARP Word 2010 for dummies

CERN Document Server

Gookin, Dan

2011-01-01

It's a whole new Word - make the most of it! Here's exactly what you need to know to get going with Word 2010. From firing up Word, using the spell checker, and working with templates to formatting documents, adding images, and saving your stuff, you'll get the first and last word on Word 2010 with this fun and easy mini guide. So get ready to channel your inner writer and start creating Word files that wow! Open the book and find:Tips for navigating Word with the keyboard and mouseAdvice on using the RibbonHow to edit text and undo mistakesThings to know

WordPress multisite administration

CERN Document Server

Longren, Tyler

2013-01-01

This is a simple, concise guide with a step-by-step approach, packed with screenshots and examples to set up and manage a network blog using WordPress.WordPress Multisite Administration is ideal for anyone wanting to familiarize themselves with WordPress Multisite. You'll need to know the basics about WordPress, and having at least a broad understanding of HTML, CSS, and PHP will help, but isn't required.

Whole-Word Phonological Representations of Disyllabic Words in the Chinese Lexicon: Data From Acquired Dyslexia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sam-Po Law

2005-01-01

Full Text Available This study addresses the issue of the existence of whole-word phonological representations of disyllabic and multisyllabic words in the Chinese mental lexicon. A Cantonese brain-injured dyslexic individual with semantic deficits, YKM, was assessed on his abilities to read aloud and to comprehend disyllabic words containing homographic heterophonous characters, the pronunciation of which can only be disambiguated in word context. Superior performance on reading to comprehension was found. YKM could produce the target phonological forms without understanding the words. The dissociation is taken as evidence for whole-word representations for these words at the phonological level. The claim is consistent with previous account for discrepancy of the frequencies of tonal errors between reading aloud and object naming in Cantonese reported of another case study of similar deficits. Theoretical arguments for whole-word form representations for all multisyllabic Chinese words are also discussed.

Different Neural Correlates of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An ERP Study

OpenAIRE

Zhang, Juan; Wu, Chenggang; Meng, Yaxuan; Yuan, Zhen

2017-01-01

It is well-documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding) can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP) measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical...

Attention and Gaze Control in Picture Naming, Word Reading, and Word Categorizing

Science.gov (United States)

Roelofs, Ardi

2007-01-01

The trigger for shifting gaze between stimuli requiring vocal and manual responses was examined. Participants were presented with picture-word stimuli and left- or right-pointing arrows. They vocally named the picture (Experiment 1), read the word (Experiment 2), or categorized the word (Experiment 3) and shifted their gaze to the arrow to…

Auditory Processing, Linguistic Prosody Awareness, and Word Reading in Mandarin-Speaking Children Learning English

Science.gov (United States)

Chung, Wei-Lun; Jarmulowicz, Linda; Bidelman, Gavin M.

2017-01-01

This study examined language-specific links among auditory processing, linguistic prosody awareness, and Mandarin (L1) and English (L2) word reading in 61 Mandarin-speaking, English-learning children. Three auditory discrimination abilities were measured: pitch contour, pitch interval, and rise time (rate of intensity change at tone onset).…

Tracking the time course of word-frequency effects in auditory word recognition with event-related potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Dufour, Sophie; Brunellière, Angèle; Frauenfelder, Ulrich H

2013-04-01

Although the word-frequency effect is one of the most established findings in spoken-word recognition, the precise processing locus of this effect is still a topic of debate. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to track the time course of the word-frequency effect. In addition, the neighborhood density effect, which is known to reflect mechanisms involved in word identification, was also examined. The ERP data showed a clear frequency effect as early as 350 ms from word onset on the P350, followed by a later effect at word offset on the late N400. A neighborhood density effect was also found at an early stage of spoken-word processing on the PMN, and at word offset on the late N400. Overall, our ERP differences for word frequency suggest that frequency affects the core processes of word identification starting from the initial phase of lexical activation and including target word selection. They thus rule out any interpretation of the word frequency effect that is limited to a purely decisional locus after word identification has been completed. Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Modeling within-word and cross-word pronunciation variation to improve the performance of a Dutch CSR

OpenAIRE

Kessens, J.M.; Wester, M.; Strik, H.

1999-01-01

This paper describes how the performance of a continuous speech recognizer for Dutch has been improved by modeling within-word and cross-word pronunciation variation. Within-word variants were automatically generated by applying five phonological rules to the words in the lexicon. For the within-word method, a significant improvement is found compared to the baseline. Cross-word pronunciation variation was modeled using two different methods: 1) adding cross-word variants directly to the lexi...

The Self-Organization of a Spoken Word

Science.gov (United States)

Holden, John G.; Rajaraman, Srinivasan

2012-01-01

Pronunciation time probability density and hazard functions from large speeded word naming data sets were assessed for empirical patterns consistent with multiplicative and reciprocal feedback dynamics – interaction dominant dynamics. Lognormal and inverse power law distributions are associated with multiplicative and interdependent dynamics in many natural systems. Mixtures of lognormal and inverse power law distributions offered better descriptions of the participant’s distributions than the ex-Gaussian or ex-Wald – alternatives corresponding to additive, superposed, component processes. The evidence for interaction dominant dynamics suggests fundamental links between the observed coordinative synergies that support speech production and the shapes of pronunciation time distributions. PMID:22783213

Towards linking user interface translation needs to lexicographic ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

user

Lexikos 25 (AFRILEX-reeks/series 25: 2015): 136-150. Towards Linking ... interfaces are faced with new challenges, such as the use of existing words in new contexts or in ... ros Afrikaans–Engels/English–Afrikaans Dictionary (Du Plessis et al. ..... utterance (or text) near or adjacent to a unit which is the focus of attention [...].

Neural correlates of visualizations of concrete and abstract words in preschool children: A developmental embodied approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amedeo eD'angiulli

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The neural correlates of visualization underlying word comprehension were examined in preschool children. On each trial, a concrete or abstract word was delivered binaurally (part 1: post-auditory visualization, followed by a four-picture array (a target plus three distractors (part 2: matching visualization. Children were to select the picture matching the word they heard in part 1. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs locked to each stimulus presentation and task interval were averaged over sets of trials of increasing word abstractness. ERP time-course during both parts of the task showed that early activity (i.e. < 300 ms was predominant in response to concrete words, while activity in response to abstract words became evident only at intermediate (i.e. 300-699 ms and late (i.e. 700-1000 ms ERP intervals. Specifically, ERP topography showed that while early activity during post-auditory visualization was linked to left temporo-parietal areas for concrete words, early activity during matching visualization occurred mostly in occipito-parietal areas for concrete words, but more anteriorly in centro-parietal areas for abstract words. In intermediate ERPs, post-auditory visualization coincided with parieto-occipital and parieto-frontal activity in response to both concrete and abstract words, while in matching visualization a parieto-central activity was common to both types of words. In the late ERPs for both types of words, the post-auditory visualization involved right-hemispheric activity following a post-anterior pathway sequence: occipital, parietal and temporal areas; conversely, matching visualization involved left-hemispheric activity following an ant-posterior pathway sequence: frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital areas. These results suggest that, similarly for concrete and abstract words, meaning in young children depends on variably complex visualization processes integrating visuo-auditory experiences and supramodal embodying

Acoustic-phonetic cues to word boundary location: Evidence from word spotting

OpenAIRE

Dumay, Nicolas; Content, Alain; Frauenfelder, Ulrich Hans

1999-01-01

This research examined acoustic-phonetic cues to word boundary location in French consonant clusters, and assessed their use in on-line lexical segmentation. Two word-spotting experiments manipulated the alignment between word targets and syllable boundaries. A perceptual cost of such misalignment was observed for obstruent-liquid clusters but not for /s/ + obstruent clusters. For the former clusters, the analysis of a corpus of utterances showed systematic variations in segment durations as ...

THE SPECIAL STATUS OF EXOGENOUS WORD-FORMATION WITHIN THE GERMAN WORD-FORMATION SYSTEM

OpenAIRE

Zhilyuk Sergey Aleksandrovich

2014-01-01

The article presents the properties of exogenous word-formation system taking into account the existence of two word-formation systems in modern German. On the basis of foreign research which reveal modern trends in German word-formation connected with the internationalization and the development of new European Latin language. The author defines key features of exogenous word-formation, i.e. foreign origin of wordformation units, unmotivated units, unmotivated interchange in base and affixes...

L2 Word Recognition: Influence of L1 Orthography on Multi-Syllabic Word Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Hamada, Megumi

2017-01-01

L2 reading research suggests that L1 orthographic experience influences L2 word recognition. Nevertheless, the findings on multi-syllabic words in English are still limited despite the fact that a vast majority of words are multi-syllabic. The study investigated whether L1 orthography influences the recognition of multi-syllabic words, focusing on…

Event-related potentials during word mapping to object shape predict toddlers’ vocabulary size

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kristina eBorgström

2015-02-01

Full Text Available What role does attention to different object properties play in early vocabulary development? This longitudinal study using event-related potentials in combination with behavioral measures investigated 20- and 24-month-olds’ (n = 38; n = 34; overlapping n = 24 ability to use object shape and object part information in word-object mapping. The N400 component was used to measure semantic priming by images containing shape or detail information. At 20 months, the N400 to words primed by object shape varied in topography and amplitude depending on vocabulary size, and these differences predicted productive vocabulary size at 24 months. At 24 months, when most of the children had vocabularies of several hundred words, the relation between vocabulary size and the N400 effect in a shape context was weaker. Detached object parts did not function as word primes regardless of age or vocabulary size, although the part-objects were identified behaviorally. The behavioral measure, however, also showed relatively poor recognition of the part-objects compared to the shape-objects. These three findings provide new support for the link between shape recognition and early vocabulary development.

Effects of Word Recognition Training in a Picture-Word Interference Task: Automaticity vs. Speed.

Science.gov (United States)

Ehri, Linnea C.

First and second graders were taught to recognize a set of written words either more accurately or more rapidly. Both before and after word training, they named pictures printed with and without these words as distractors. Of interest was whether training would enhance or diminish the interference created by these words in the picture naming task.…

Understanding Medical Words

Science.gov (United States)

... Bar Home Current Issue Past Issues Understanding Medical Words Past Issues / Summer 2009 Table of Contents For ... Medicine that teaches you about many of the words related to your health care Do you have ...

Grafted Cross-Linked Polyolefin Substrates for Peptide Synthesis and Assays

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

1999-01-01

suited for use in solid-phase biosystems, notably bioassays, such as immunoassays, DNA hybridization assays or PCR amplification. The grafted chains may bear substituents which are such that the polymer-grafted cross-linked polyolefin substrate is swellable by water or aqueous media, in other words...

Towards industry strength mapping of AUTOSAR automotive functionality on multicore architectures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Avasalcai, Cosmin Florin; Budhrani, Dhanesh; Pop, Paul

2017-01-01

The automotive electronic architectures have moved from federated architectures, where one function is implemented in one ECU (Electronic Control Unit), to distributed architectures, consisting of several multicore ECUs. In addition, multicore ECUs are being adopted because of better performance,...... engineer in the mapping task. We have successfully evaluated AUTOMAP on several realistic use cases from Volvo Trucks....

Finding Rising and Falling Words

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tjong Kim Sang, E.

2016-01-01

We examine two different methods for finding rising words (among which neologisms) and falling words (among which archaisms) in decades of magazine texts (millions of words) and in years of tweets (billions of words): one based on correlation coefficients of relative frequencies and time, and one

Links in the Chain: Bringing Together Literacy and Science

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, Neil; Hansford, Diane; Rizk, Nadya; Taylor, Subhashni

2017-01-01

In Australia, the Federal Government and the Australian Academy of Science have developed a programme entitled "Primary Connections" (primaryconnections.org. au), aimed at supporting the teaching of science in the primary sector. The programme makes strong and explicit links between science and literacy through the use of word walls,…

Lexical availability of young Spanish EFL learners: emotion words versus non-emotion words

OpenAIRE

Jiménez Catalán, R.; Dewaele, Jean-Marc

2017-01-01

This study intends to contribute to L2 emotion vocabulary research by looking at the words that primary school EFL learners produce in response to prompts in a lexical availability task. Specifically, it aims to ascertain whether emotion prompts (Love, Hate, Happy and Sad) generate a greater number of words than non-emotion prompts (School and Animals). It also seeks to identify the words learners associate with each semantic category to determine whether the words produced in response to emo...

Essential words for the TOEFL

CERN Document Server

Matthiesen, Steven J

2017-01-01

This revised book is specifically designed for ESL students preparing to take the TOEFL. Includes new words and phrases, a section on purpose words, a list of vocabulary words with definitions, sample sentences, practice exercises for 500 need-to-know words, practice test with answer key, and more.

Reduplication Facilitates Early Word Segmentation

Science.gov (United States)

Ota, Mitsuhiko; Skarabela, Barbora

2018-01-01

This study explores the possibility that early word segmentation is aided by infants' tendency to segment words with repeated syllables ("reduplication"). Twenty-four nine-month-olds were familiarized with passages containing one novel reduplicated word and one novel non-reduplicated word. Their central fixation times in response to…

Frequency Analysis of the Words in the Academic Word List (AWL) and Non-AWL Content Words in Applied Linguistics Research Papers

Science.gov (United States)

Vongpumivitch, Viphavee; Huang, Ju-yu; Chang, Yu-Chia

2009-01-01

This study is a corpus-based lexical study that aims to explore the use of words in Coxhead's (2000) Academic Word List (AWL) in journal articles in the field of applied linguistics. A 1.5 million-word corpus called the Applied Linguistics Research Articles Corpus (ALC) was created for this study. The corpus consists of 200 research articles that…

Hearing taboo words can result in early talker effects in word recognition for female listeners.

Science.gov (United States)

Tuft, Samantha E; MᶜLennan, Conor T; Krestar, Maura L

2018-02-01

Previous spoken word recognition research using the long-term repetition-priming paradigm found performance costs for stimuli mismatching in talker identity. That is, when words were repeated across the two blocks, and the identity of the talker changed reaction times (RTs) were slower than when the repeated words were spoken by the same talker. Such performance costs, or talker effects, followed a time course, occurring only when processing was relatively slow. More recent research suggests that increased explicit and implicit attention towards the talkers can result in talker effects even during relatively fast processing. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether word meaning would influence the pattern of talker effects in an easy lexical decision task and, if so, whether results would differ depending on whether the presentation of neutral and taboo words was mixed or blocked. Regardless of presentation, participants responded to taboo words faster than neutral words. Furthermore, talker effects for the female talker emerged when participants heard both taboo and neutral words (consistent with an attention-based hypothesis), but not for participants that heard only taboo or only neutral words (consistent with the time-course hypothesis). These findings have important implications for theoretical models of spoken word recognition.

Actual Arabic loan-words of religious content (on the material of modern foreign words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Al Shammari Majid Jamil Ashur

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Application of thematic classification of actual vocabulary as a whole to the formation of loan words allows to see the uniqueness of seperate groups of the vocabulary. English loan words prevail relating to the sphere of economy, science and technology, loan words from Arabic dominate from the religious vocabulary. Application of field approach to the analysis of actual religious Arabisms revealed both nuclear and peripheral components of the field. At the core of the field there are such Arabisms as Allah and Islam, which can be characterized as key words. However, in unifying the features of these words vary at a number of parameters. The word Allah has zero derivation productivity and at lexicographical description (as opposed to functioning in the language of the media is free of connotations. Arabism, Islam, by contrast, has a high derivation productivity and derived words can express evaluation. Lexicographic description of the Arabism Islam is also quite diverse stylistically and in contents. The core of the field “Muslim religion” also includes a number of words fixed in most modern dictionaries of foreign words. At the periphery of the field there are Arabisms that do not have high levels of frequency, but at the same time as an indicator of dominant Arabisms of religious content among topical Arabisms.

Semantic Change Type in Old Javanese Word and Sanskrit Loan Word to Modern Javanese

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hendy Yuniarto

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This research aims to describe type classifier of semantic change and to explain the factors causing semantic change. This research was conducted with a qualitative-descriptive approach. The research method is conducted by comparing the meaning of words from the Old Javanese and Sanskrit loan wordto Modern Javanese. The collection data is done by looking for words that the meaning suspected change in Old Javanese dictionary. Words meaning determined precisely by tracing to the Old Javanese text. Furthermore, words meaning are compared to present time meaning through Modern Javanese dictionary. In addition, searching Modern Javanese meaning are also using Javanese news on the internet pages. The analysis of this research is to classify Old Javanese words and Sanskrit loan words meaning that undergo change to Modern Javanese. It’s also explained why the change in the word meaning can occur. The result shows that, semantic change of Old Javanese words and Sanskrit loan words to Modern Javanese can be classified into seven types, involving widening, narrowing, shifting, metaphor, metonymy, pejoration, and euphemism. In addition, the result shows that semantic change can occur because of some factors. Psychological factor concerning emotive and taboo, and polysemy. religion spreading, the growth of science and technology, the socio-political development, and the needs of a new name.   DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2013.160101

Teach yourself visually WordPress

CERN Document Server

Majure, Janet

2012-01-01

Get your blog up and running with the latest version of WordPress WordPress is one of the most popular, easy-to-use blogging platforms and allows you to create a dynamic and engaging blog, even if you have no programming skills or experience. Ideal for the visual learner, Teach Yourself VISUALLY WordPress, Second Edition introduces you to the exciting possibilities of the newest version of WordPress and helps you get started, step by step, with creating and setting up a WordPress site. Author and experienced WordPress user Janet Majure shares advice, insight, and best practices for taking full

Meaningful Words and Non-Words Repetitive Articulatory Rate (Oral Diadochokinesis) in Persian Speaking Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Zamani, Peyman; Rezai, Hossein; Garmatani, Neda Tahmasebi

2017-08-01

Repetitive articulatory rate or Oral Diadochokinesis (oral-DDK) shows a guideline for appraisal and diagnosis of subjects with oral-motor disorder. Traditionally, meaningless words repetition has been utilized in this task and preschool children have challenges with them. Therefore, we aimed to determine some meaningful words in order to test oral-DDK in Persian speaking preschool children. Participants were 142 normally developing children, (age range 4-6 years), who were asked to produce /motæka, golabi/ as two meaningful Persian words and /pa-ta-ka/ as non-word in conventional oral-DDK task. We compared the time taken for 10-times fast repetitions of two meaningful Persian words and the tri-syllabic nonsense word /pa-ta-ka/. Praat software was used to calculate the average time that subjects took to produce the target items. In 4-5 year old children, [Formula: see text] of time taken for 10-times repetitions of /pa-ta-ka, motæka, golabi/ were [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] seconds respectively, and in 5-6 year old children were [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] seconds respectively. Findings showed that the main effect of type of words on oral diadochokinesis was significant ([Formula: see text]). Children repeated meaningful words /motæka, golabi/ faster than the non-word /pa-ta-ka/. Sex and age factors had no effect on time taken for repetition of oral-DDK test. It is suggested that Speech Therapists can use meaningful words to facilitate oral-DDK test for children.

Clusters of word properties as predictors of elementary school children's performance on two word tasks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tellings, A.E.J.M.; Coppens, K.M.; Gelissen, J.P.T.M.; Schreuder, R.

2013-01-01

Often, the classification of words does not go beyond "difficult" (i.e., infrequent, late-learned, nonimageable, etc.) or "easy" (i.e., frequent, early-learned, imageable, etc.) words. In the present study, we used a latent cluster analysis to divide 703 Dutch words with scores for eight word

Words can slow down category learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Brojde, Chandra L; Porter, Chelsea; Colunga, Eliana

2011-08-01

Words have been shown to influence many cognitive tasks, including category learning. Most demonstrations of these effects have focused on instances in which words facilitate performance. One possibility is that words augment representations, predicting an across the-board benefit of words during category learning. We propose that words shift attention to dimensions that have been historically predictive in similar contexts. Under this account, there should be cases in which words are detrimental to performance. The results from two experiments show that words impair learning of object categories under some conditions. Experiment 1 shows that words hurt performance when learning to categorize by texture. Experiment 2 shows that words also hurt when learning to categorize by brightness, leading to selectively attending to shape when both shape and hue could be used to correctly categorize stimuli. We suggest that both the positive and negative effects of words have developmental origins in the history of word usage while learning categories. [corrected

Manipulating Objects and Telling Words: A Study on Concrete and Abstract Words Acquisition

Science.gov (United States)

Borghi, Anna M.; Flumini, Andrea; Cimatti, Felice; Marocco, Davide; Scorolli, Claudia

2011-01-01

Four experiments (E1–E2–E3–E4) investigated whether different acquisition modalities lead to the emergence of differences typically found between concrete and abstract words, as argued by the words as tools (WAT) proposal. To mimic the acquisition of concrete and abstract concepts, participants either manipulated novel objects or observed groups of objects interacting in novel ways (Training 1). In TEST 1 participants decided whether two elements belonged to the same category. Later they read the category labels (Training 2); labels could be accompanied by an explanation of their meaning. Then participants observed previously seen exemplars and other elements, and were asked which of them could be named with a given label (TEST 2). Across the experiments, it was more difficult to form abstract than concrete categories (TEST 1); even when adding labels, abstract words remained more difficult than concrete words (TEST 2). TEST 3 differed across the experiments. In E1 participants performed a feature production task. Crucially, the associations produced with the novel words reflected the pattern evoked by existing concrete and abstract words, as the first evoked more perceptual properties. In E2–E3–E4, TEST 3 consisted of a color verification task with manual/verbal (keyboard–microphone) responses. Results showed the microphone use to have an advantage over keyboard use for abstract words, especially in the explanation condition. This supports WAT: due to their acquisition modality, concrete words evoke more manual information; abstract words elicit more verbal information. This advantage was not present when linguistic information contrasted with perceptual one. Implications for theories and computational models of language grounding are discussed. PMID:21716582

An ERP assessment of hemispheric projections in foveal and extrafoveal word recognition.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Timothy R Jordan

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The existence and function of unilateral hemispheric projections within foveal vision may substantially affect foveal word recognition. The purpose of this research was to reveal these projections and determine their functionality. METHODOLOGY: Single words (and pseudowords were presented to the left or right of fixation, entirely within either foveal or extrafoveal vision. To maximize the likelihood of unilateral projections for foveal displays, stimuli in foveal vision were presented away from the midline. The processing of stimuli in each location was assessed by combining behavioural measures (reaction times, accuracy with on-line monitoring of hemispheric activity using event-related potentials recorded over each hemisphere, and carefully-controlled presentation procedures using an eye-tracker linked to a fixation-contingent display. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Event-related potentials 100-150 ms and 150-200 ms after stimulus onset indicated that stimuli in extrafoveal and foveal locations were projected unilaterally to the hemisphere contralateral to the presentation hemifield with no concurrent projection to the ipsilateral hemisphere. These effects were similar for words and pseudowords, suggesting this early division occurred before word recognition. Indeed, event-related potentials revealed differences between words and pseudowords 300-350 ms after stimulus onset, for foveal and extrafoveal locations, indicating that word recognition had now occurred. However, these later event-related potentials also revealed that the hemispheric division observed previously was no longer present for foveal locations but remained for extrafoveal locations. These findings closely matched the behavioural finding that foveal locations produced similar performance each side of fixation but extrafoveal locations produced left-right asymmetries. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that an initial division in unilateral hemispheric projections occurs in

An ERP Assessment of Hemispheric Projections in Foveal and Extrafoveal Word Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Jordan, Timothy R.; Fuggetta, Giorgio; Paterson, Kevin B.; Kurtev, Stoyan; Xu, Mengyun

2011-01-01

Background The existence and function of unilateral hemispheric projections within foveal vision may substantially affect foveal word recognition. The purpose of this research was to reveal these projections and determine their functionality. Methodology Single words (and pseudowords) were presented to the left or right of fixation, entirely within either foveal or extrafoveal vision. To maximize the likelihood of unilateral projections for foveal displays, stimuli in foveal vision were presented away from the midline. The processing of stimuli in each location was assessed by combining behavioural measures (reaction times, accuracy) with on-line monitoring of hemispheric activity using event-related potentials recorded over each hemisphere, and carefully-controlled presentation procedures using an eye-tracker linked to a fixation-contingent display. Principal Findings Event-related potentials 100–150 ms and 150–200 ms after stimulus onset indicated that stimuli in extrafoveal and foveal locations were projected unilaterally to the hemisphere contralateral to the presentation hemifield with no concurrent projection to the ipsilateral hemisphere. These effects were similar for words and pseudowords, suggesting this early division occurred before word recognition. Indeed, event-related potentials revealed differences between words and pseudowords 300–350 ms after stimulus onset, for foveal and extrafoveal locations, indicating that word recognition had now occurred. However, these later event-related potentials also revealed that the hemispheric division observed previously was no longer present for foveal locations but remained for extrafoveal locations. These findings closely matched the behavioural finding that foveal locations produced similar performance each side of fixation but extrafoveal locations produced left-right asymmetries. Conclusions These findings indicate that an initial division in unilateral hemispheric projections occurs in foveal vision

Activation of extrastriate and frontal cortical areas by visual words and word-like stimuli

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Petersen, S.E.; Fox, P.T.; Snyder, A.Z.; Raichle, M.E.

1990-01-01

Visual presentation of words activates extrastriate regions of the occipital lobes of the brain. When analyzed by positron emission tomography (PET), certain areas in the left, medial extrastriate visual cortex were activated by visually presented pseudowords that obey English spelling rules, as well as by actual words. These areas were not activated by nonsense strings of letters or letter-like forms. Thus visual word form computations are based on learned distinctions between words and nonwords. In addition, during passive presentation of words, but not pseudowords, activation occurred in a left frontal area that is related to semantic processing. These findings support distinctions made in cognitive psychology and computational modeling between high-level visual and semantic computations on single words and describe the anatomy that may underlie these distinctions

The influence of spelling on phonological encoding in word reading, object naming, and word generation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roelofs, A.P.A.

2006-01-01

Does the spelling of a word mandatorily constrain spoken word production, or does it do so only when spelling is relevant for the production task at hand? Damian and Bowers (2003) reported spelling effects in spoken word production in English using a prompt–response word generation task. Preparation

Situated Word Learning: Words of the Year (WsOY) and Social Studies Inquiry

Science.gov (United States)

Heafner, Tina L.; Triplett, Nicholas; Handler, Laura; Massey, Dixie

2018-01-01

Current events influence public interest and drive Internet word searches. For over a decade, linguists and dictionary publishers have analyzed big data from Internet word searches to designate "Words of the Year" (WsOY). In this study, we examine how WsOY can foster critical digital literacy and illuminate essential aspects of inquiry…

Word segmentation in children’s literacy: a study about word awareness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Débora Mattos Marques

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The present research aimed to investigate how linguistic awareness regarding the concept of “word” may influence some mistakes on segmenting words in children’s writing in the Elementary School. The observed data comprised those of hyper and hyposegmentation which were then related to word awareness. For the analysis of linguistic awareness data, the Representational Redescription, proposed by Karmillof-Smith (1986-1992, has been used. It postulates four levels where knowledge is redescribed in the human mind, becoming accessible for awareness and verbalization along with the time. The research methodology consisted of six tests, out of which four were applied in order to verify word awareness, and, the other two tests, to obtain samples of writing data. Thus, it was noticed that a great part of the segmentation mistakes identified in the collected writings are related to the informants' ability to distinguish between different words until the moment they were observed. As a result, the uncommon segmentation mistakes found in the analyzed data evidenced that not only are they motivated by prosodic or phonological matters, but they are also influenced by linguistic awareness issues involving the informants’ understanding of word.

Behavioral predispositions to approach or avoid emotional words in schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Sevos, Jessica; Grosselin, Anne; Fedotova, Tatyana; Massoubre, Catherine

2016-07-30

Many data suggest a disjunction between decreased emotional expressions and relatively preserved experience of and ability to assess emotions in schizophrenia. Based in an embodied approach of cognition, several studies have highlighted affective stimulus-response congruency effect in healthy subjects that show a direct link between the perception of emotion and associated motor responses. This study investigated whether the categorization of emotional words involves an automatic sensorimotor simulation of approach and avoidance behaviors. We asked 28 subjects with schizophrenia and 28 controls to execute arm movements of approach or avoidance to categorize emotional words, according to their valence (positive or negative). Controls were faster to respond to a positive stimulus with a movement of approach and a negative stimulus with a movement of avoidance (congruent condition) than to perform the inverted response movements (incongruent condition). However, responses of patients with schizophrenia did not differ according to congruence condition. Our results support the apparent non-involvement of covert sensorimotor simulation of approach and avoidance in the categorization of emotional stimuli by patients with schizophrenia, despite their understanding of the emotional valence of words. This absence of affective stimulus-response compatibility effect would imply a decoupling between emotional and bodily states in patients with schizophrenia. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Multisyllabic Word Dilemma: Helping Students Build Meaning, Spell, and Read "Big" Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Cunningham, Patricia M.

1998-01-01

Looks at what is known about multisyllabic words, which is a lot more than educators knew when the previous generation of multisyllabic word instruction was created. Reviews the few studies that have carried out instructional approaches to increase students' ability to decode big words. Outlines a program of instruction, based on what is currently…

Gesture en route to words

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen de López, Kristine M.

2010-01-01

This study explores the communicative production of gestrural and vocal modalities by 8 normally developing children in two different cultures (Danish and Zapotec: Mexican indigenous) 16 to 20 months). We analyzed spontaneous production of gestrures and words in children's transition to the two-word...... the children showed an early preference for the gestural or vocal modality. Through Analyzes of two-element combinations of words and/or gestures, we observd a relative increase in cross-modal (gesture-word and two-word) combinations. The results are discussed in terms understanding gestures as a transition...

Blending Words Found In Social Media

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giyatmi Giyatmi

2017-12-01

Full Text Available There are many new words from the social media such as Netizen, Trentop, and Delcon. Those words include in blending. Blending is one of word formations combining two clipped words to form a brand new word. The researchers are interested in analyzing blend words used in the social media such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Blackberry Messenger. This research aims at (1 finding blend words used in the social media (2 describing kinds of blend words used in social media (3 describing the process of blend word formation used in the social media. This research uses some theories dealing with definition of blending and kinds of blending. This research belongs to descriptive qualitative research. Data of the research are English blend words used in social media. Data sources of this research are websites consisting of some English words used in social media and some social media users as the informant. Techniques of data collecting in this research are observation and simak catat. Observation is by observing some websites consisting of some English words used in social media. Simak catat is done by taking some notes on the data and encoding in symbols such as No/Blend words/Kinds of Blending. The researchers use source triangulation to check the data from the researchers with the informant and theory triangulation to determine kinds of blending and blend word formation in social media. There are115 data of blend words. Those data consists of 65 data of Instagram, 47 data of Twitter, 1 datum of Facebook, and 2 data of Blackberry Messenger. There are 2 types of blending used in social media;108 data of blending with clipping and 7 data of blending with overlapping. There are 10 ways of blend word formation found in this research.

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Zhenguang G; Gilbert, Rebecca A; Davis, Matthew H; Gaskell, M Gareth; Farrar, Lauren; Adler, Sarah; Rodd, Jennifer M

2017-11-01

Speech carries accent information relevant to determining the speaker's linguistic and social background. A series of web-based experiments demonstrate that accent cues can modulate access to word meaning. In Experiments 1-3, British participants were more likely to retrieve the American dominant meaning (e.g., hat meaning of "bonnet") in a word association task if they heard the words in an American than a British accent. In addition, results from a speeded semantic decision task (Experiment 4) and sentence comprehension task (Experiment 5) confirm that accent modulates on-line meaning retrieval such that comprehension of ambiguous words is easier when the relevant word meaning is dominant in the speaker's dialect. Critically, neutral-accent speech items, created by morphing British- and American-accented recordings, were interpreted in a similar way to accented words when embedded in a context of accented words (Experiment 2). This finding indicates that listeners do not use accent to guide meaning retrieval on a word-by-word basis; instead they use accent information to determine the dialectic identity of a speaker and then use their experience of that dialect to guide meaning access for all words spoken by that person. These results motivate a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition in which comprehenders determine key characteristics of their interlocutor and use this knowledge to guide word meaning access. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Experience with compound words influences their processing: An eye movement investigation with English compound words.

Science.gov (United States)

Juhasz, Barbara J

2016-11-14

Recording eye movements provides information on the time-course of word recognition during reading. Juhasz and Rayner [Juhasz, B. J., & Rayner, K. (2003). Investigating the effects of a set of intercorrelated variables on eye fixation durations in reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 29, 1312-1318] examined the impact of five word recognition variables, including familiarity and age-of-acquisition (AoA), on fixation durations. All variables impacted fixation durations, but the time-course differed. However, the study focused on relatively short, morphologically simple words. Eye movements are also informative for examining the processing of morphologically complex words such as compound words. The present study further examined the time-course of lexical and semantic variables during morphological processing. A total of 120 English compound words that varied in familiarity, AoA, semantic transparency, lexeme meaning dominance, sensory experience rating (SER), and imageability were selected. The impact of these variables on fixation durations was examined when length, word frequency, and lexeme frequencies were controlled in a regression model. The most robust effects were found for familiarity and AoA, indicating that a reader's experience with compound words significantly impacts compound recognition. These results provide insight into semantic processing of morphologically complex words during reading.

Representation Learning of Logic Words by an RNN: From Word Sequences to Robot Actions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tatsuro Yamada

2017-12-01

Full Text Available An important characteristic of human language is compositionality. We can efficiently express a wide variety of real-world situations, events, and behaviors by compositionally constructing the meaning of a complex expression from a finite number of elements. Previous studies have analyzed how machine-learning models, particularly neural networks, can learn from experience to represent compositional relationships between language and robot actions with the aim of understanding the symbol grounding structure and achieving intelligent communicative agents. Such studies have mainly dealt with the words (nouns, adjectives, and verbs that directly refer to real-world matters. In addition to these words, the current study deals with logic words, such as “not,” “and,” and “or” simultaneously. These words are not directly referring to the real world, but are logical operators that contribute to the construction of meaning in sentences. In human–robot communication, these words may be used often. The current study builds a recurrent neural network model with long short-term memory units and trains it to learn to translate sentences including logic words into robot actions. We investigate what kind of compositional representations, which mediate sentences and robot actions, emerge as the network's internal states via the learning process. Analysis after learning shows that referential words are merged with visual information and the robot's own current state, and the logical words are represented by the model in accordance with their functions as logical operators. Words such as “true,” “false,” and “not” work as non-linear transformations to encode orthogonal phrases into the same area in a memory cell state space. The word “and,” which required a robot to lift up both its hands, worked as if it was a universal quantifier. The word “or,” which required action generation that looked apparently random, was represented as an

Visual word form familiarity and attention in lateral difference during processing Japanese Kana words.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakagawa, A; Sukigara, M

2000-09-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between familiarity and laterality in reading Japanese Kana words. In two divided-visual-field experiments, three- or four-character Hiragana or Katakana words were presented in both familiar and unfamiliar scripts, to which subjects performed lexical decisions. Experiment 1, using three stimulus durations (40, 100, 160 ms), suggested that only in the unfamiliar script condition was increased stimulus presentation time differently affected in each visual field. To examine this lateral difference during the processing of unfamiliar scripts as related to attentional laterality, a concurrent auditory shadowing task was added in Experiment 2. The results suggested that processing words in an unfamiliar script requires attention, which could be left-hemisphere lateralized, while orthographically familiar kana words can be processed automatically on the basis of their word-level orthographic representations or visual word form. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

Sonority and early words

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjærbæk, Laila; Boeg Thomsen, Ditte; Lambertsen, Claus

2015-01-01

Syllables play an important role in children’s early language acquisition, and children appear to rely on clear syllabic structures as a key to word acquisition (Vihman 1996; Oller 2000). However, not all languages present children with equally clear cues to syllabic structure, and since the spec......Syllables play an important role in children’s early language acquisition, and children appear to rely on clear syllabic structures as a key to word acquisition (Vihman 1996; Oller 2000). However, not all languages present children with equally clear cues to syllabic structure, and since...... acquisition therefore presents us with the opportunity to examine how children respond to the task of word learning when the input language offers less clear cues to syllabic structure than usually seen. To investigate the sound structure in Danish children’s lexical development, we need a model of syllable......-29 months. For the two children, the phonetic structure of the first ten words to occur is compared with that of the last ten words to occur before 30 months of age, and with that of ten words in between. Measures related to the sonority envelope, viz. sonority types and in particular sonority rises...

Visuomotor Integration and Executive Functioning Are Uniquely Linked to Chinese Word Reading and Writing in Kindergarten Children

Science.gov (United States)

Chung, Kevin Kien Hoa; Lam, Chun Bun; Cheung, Ka Chun

2018-01-01

This cross-sectional study examined the associations of visuomotor integration and executive functioning with Chinese word reading and writing in kindergarten children. A total of 369 Chinese children (mean age = 57.99 months; 55% of them were girls) from Hong Kong, China, completed tasks on visuomotor integration, executive functioning, and…

WordPress Top Plugins

CERN Document Server

Corbin, Brandon

2010-01-01

Time flies when you're having fun. This is the right way to describe this WordPress Top Plugins book by Brandon Corbin. With real world examples and by showing you the perks of having these plugins installed on your websites, the author is all set to captivate your interest from start to end. Regardless of whether this is your first time working with WordPress, or you're a seasoned WordPress coding ninja, WordPress Top Plugins will walk you through finding and installing the best plugins for generating and sharing content, building communities and reader base, and generating real advertising r

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words

NARCIS (Netherlands)

McQueen, J.M.; Hüttig, F.

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of preexposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase

Large-corpus phoneme and word recognition and the generality of lexical context in CVC word perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Gelfand, Jessica T; Christie, Robert E; Gelfand, Stanley A

2014-02-01

Speech recognition may be analyzed in terms of recognition probabilities for perceptual wholes (e.g., words) and parts (e.g., phonemes), where j or the j-factor reveals the number of independent perceptual units required for recognition of the whole (Boothroyd, 1968b; Boothroyd & Nittrouer, 1988; Nittrouer & Boothroyd, 1990). For consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) nonsense syllables, j ∼ 3 because all 3 phonemes are needed to identify the syllable, but j ∼ 2.5 for real-word CVCs (revealing ∼2.5 independent perceptual units) because higher level contributions such as lexical knowledge enable word recognition even if less than 3 phonemes are accurately received. These findings were almost exclusively determined with the 120-word corpus of the isophonemic word lists (Boothroyd, 1968a; Boothroyd & Nittrouer, 1988), presented one word at a time. It is therefore possible that its generality or applicability may be limited. This study thus determined j by using a much larger and less restricted corpus of real-word CVCs presented in 3-word groups as well as whether j is influenced by test size. The j-factor for real-word CVCs was derived from the recognition performance of 223 individuals with a broad range of hearing sensitivity by using the Tri-Word Test (Gelfand, 1998), which involves 50 three-word presentations and a corpus of 450 words. The influence of test size was determined from a subsample of 96 participants with separate scores for the first 10, 20, and 25 (and all 50) presentation sets of the full test. The mean value of j was 2.48 with a 95% confidence interval of 2.44-2.53, which is in good agreement with values obtained with isophonemic word lists, although its value varies among individuals. A significant correlation was found between percent-correct scores and j, but it was small and accounted for only 12.4% of the variance in j for phoneme scores ≥60%. Mean j-factors for the 10-, 20-, 25-, and 50-set test sizes were between 2.49 and 2.53 and were not

Word Durations in Non-Native English

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Rachel E.; Baese-Berk, Melissa; Bonnasse-Gahot, Laurent; Kim, Midam; Van Engen, Kristin J.; Bradlow, Ann R.

2010-01-01

In this study, we compare the effects of English lexical features on word duration for native and non-native English speakers and for non-native speakers with different L1s and a range of L2 experience. We also examine whether non-native word durations lead to judgments of a stronger foreign accent. We measured word durations in English paragraphs read by 12 American English (AE), 20 Korean, and 20 Chinese speakers. We also had AE listeners rate the `accentedness' of these non-native speakers. AE speech had shorter durations, greater within-speaker word duration variance, greater reduction of function words, and less between-speaker variance than non-native speech. However, both AE and non-native speakers showed sensitivity to lexical predictability by reducing second mentions and high frequency words. Non-native speakers with more native-like word durations, greater within-speaker word duration variance, and greater function word reduction were perceived as less accented. Overall, these findings identify word duration as an important and complex feature of foreign-accented English. PMID:21516172

Learning words

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jaswal, Vikram K.; Hansen, Mikkel

2006-01-01

Children tend to infer that when a speaker uses a new label, the label refers to an unlabeled object rather than one they already know the label for. Does this inference reflect a default assumption that words are mutually exclusive? Or does it instead reflect the result of a pragmatic reasoning...... process about what the speaker intended? In two studies, we distinguish between these possibilities. Preschoolers watched as a speaker pointed toward (Study 1) or looked at (Study 2) a familiar object while requesting the referent for a new word (e.g. 'Can you give me the blicket?'). In both studies......, despite the speaker's unambiguous behavioral cue indicating an intent to refer to a familiar object, children inferred that the novel label referred to an unfamiliar object. These results suggest that children expect words to be mutually exclusive even when a speaker provides some kinds of pragmatic...

Automatic content linking: Speech-based just-in-time retrieval for multimedia archives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Popescu-Belis, A.; Kilgour, J.; Poller, P.; Nanchen, A.; Boertjes, E.; Wit, J. de

2010-01-01

The Automatic Content Linking Device monitors a conversation and uses automatically recognized words to retrieve documents that are of potential use to the participants. The document set includes project related reports or emails, transcribed snippets of past meetings, and websites. Retrieval

Ontological Annotation with WordNet

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Tratz, Stephen C.; Gregory, Michelle L.; Chappell, Alan R.; Whitney, Paul D.; Posse, Christian; Paulson, Patrick R.; Baddeley, Bob; Hohimer, Ryan E.; White, Amanda M.

2006-06-06

Semantic Web applications require robust and accurate annotation tools that are capable of automating the assignment of ontological classes to words in naturally occurring text (ontological annotation). Most current ontologies do not include rich lexical databases and are therefore not easily integrated with word sense disambiguation algorithms that are needed to automate ontological annotation. WordNet provides a potentially ideal solution to this problem as it offers a highly structured lexical conceptual representation that has been extensively used to develop word sense disambiguation algorithms. However, WordNet has not been designed as an ontology, and while it can be easily turned into one, the result of doing this would present users with serious practical limitations due to the great number of concepts (synonym sets) it contains. Moreover, mapping WordNet to an existing ontology may be difficult and requires substantial labor. We propose to overcome these limitations by developing an analytical platform that (1) provides a WordNet-based ontology offering a manageable and yet comprehensive set of concept classes, (2) leverages the lexical richness of WordNet to give an extensive characterization of concept class in terms of lexical instances, and (3) integrates a class recognition algorithm that automates the assignment of concept classes to words in naturally occurring text. The ensuing framework makes available an ontological annotation platform that can be effectively integrated with intelligence analysis systems to facilitate evidence marshaling and sustain the creation and validation of inference models.

Word Translation Entropy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schaeffer, Moritz; Dragsted, Barbara; Hvelplund, Kristian Tangsgaard

This study reports on an investigation into the relationship between the number of translation alternatives for a single word and eye movements on the source text. In addition, the effect of word order differences between source and target text on eye movements on the source text is studied. In p...

Clusters of word properties as predictors of elementary school children’s performance on two word tasks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tellings, A.E.J.M.; Coppens, K.; Gelissen, J.P.T.M.; Schreuder, R.

2013-01-01

Often, the classification of words does not go beyond “difficult” (i.e., infrequent, late-learned, nonimageable, etc.) or “easy” (i.e., frequent, early-learned, imageable, etc.) words. In the present study, we used a latent cluster analysis to divide 703 Dutch words with scores for eight word

How Body Orientation Affects Concepts of Space, Time and Valence: Functional Relevance of Integrating Sensorimotor Experiences during Word Processing.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martin Lachmair

Full Text Available The aim of the present study was to test the functional relevance of the spatial concepts UP or DOWN for words that use these concepts either literally (space or metaphorically (time, valence. A functional relevance would imply a symmetrical relationship between the spatial concepts and words related to these concepts, showing that processing words activate the related spatial concepts on one hand, but also that an activation of the concepts will ease the retrieval of a related word on the other. For the latter, the rotation angle of participant's body position was manipulated either to an upright or a head-down tilted body position to activate the related spatial concept. Afterwards participants produced in a within-subject design previously memorized words of the concepts space, time and valence according to the pace of a metronome. All words were related either to the spatial concept UP or DOWN. The results including Bayesian analyses show (1 a significant interaction between body position and words using the concepts UP and DOWN literally, (2 a marginal significant interaction between body position and temporal words and (3 no effect between body position and valence words. However, post-hoc analyses suggest no difference between experiments. Thus, the authors concluded that integrating sensorimotor experiences is indeed of functional relevance for all three concepts of space, time and valence. However, the strength of this functional relevance depends on how close words are linked to mental concepts representing vertical space.

Source memory enhancement for emotional words.

Science.gov (United States)

Doerksen, S; Shimamura, A P

2001-03-01

The influence of emotional stimuli on source memory was investigated by using emotionally valenced words. The words were colored blue or yellow (Experiment 1) or surrounded by a blue or yellow frame (Experiment 2). Participants were asked to associate the words with the colors. In both experiments, emotionally valenced words elicited enhanced free recall compared with nonvalenced words; however, recognition memory was not affected. Source memory for the associated color was also enhanced for emotional words, suggesting that even memory for contextual information is benefited by emotional stimuli. This effect was not due to the ease of semantic clustering of emotional words because semantically related words were not associated with enhanced source memory, despite enhanced recall (Experiment 3). It is suggested that enhancement resulted from facilitated arousal or attention, which may act to increase organization processes important for source memory.

Concreteness norms for 1,659 French words: Relationships with other psycholinguistic variables and word recognition times.

Science.gov (United States)

Bonin, Patrick; Méot, Alain; Bugaiska, Aurélia

2018-02-12

Words that correspond to a potential sensory experience-concrete words-have long been found to possess a processing advantage over abstract words in various lexical tasks. We collected norms of concreteness for a set of 1,659 French words, together with other psycholinguistic norms that were not available for these words-context availability, emotional valence, and arousal-but which are important if we are to achieve a better understanding of the meaning of concreteness effects. We then investigated the relationships of concreteness with these newly collected variables, together with other psycholinguistic variables that were already available for this set of words (e.g., imageability, age of acquisition, and sensory experience ratings). Finally, thanks to the variety of psychological norms available for this set of words, we decided to test further the embodied account of concreteness effects in visual-word recognition, championed by Kousta, Vigliocco, Vinson, Andrews, and Del Campo (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 14-34, 2011). Similarly, we investigated the influences of concreteness in three word recognition tasks-lexical decision, progressive demasking, and word naming-using a multiple regression approach, based on the reaction times available in Chronolex (Ferrand, Brysbaert, Keuleers, New, Bonin, Méot, Pallier, Frontiers in Psychology, 2; 306, 2011). The norms can be downloaded as supplementary material provided with this article.

KAJIAN LITERATUR: MANAKAH YANG LEBIH EFEKTIF? TRADITIONAL WORD OF MOUTH ATAU ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Putu Adriani Prayustika

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Word of Mouth telah diakui sebagai salah satu strategi komunikasi yang paling efektif dalam transisi informasi perusahaan kepada konsumen. Perusahaan memanfaatkan komunikasi word of mouth untuk kepentingan pemasaran produk dan layanan. Namun, komunikasi WOM konvensional hanya efektif dalam batasan kontak sosial terbatas. Kemajuan teknologi informasi dan munculnya situs jaringan sosial online telah mengubah cara informasi ditransmisikan dan telah melampaui keterbatasan tradisional WOM. Komunikasi word of mouth dengan memanfaatkan teknologi ini sering disebut electronic word of mouth (eWOM, dimana komunikasi ini memanfaatkan media baru, seperti misalnya media sosial. Makalah ini akan membahas kajian literatur dari beberapa penelitian yang telah dilakukan sebelumnya dalam membandingkan efektivitas traditional word of mouth dan electronic word of mouth. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa secara umum dapat dikatakan dengan perkembangan teknologi seperti sekarang, eWOM jauh lebih efektif daripada traditional WOM.

Scientific word, Version 1.0

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Semen Köksal

1993-01-01

Full Text Available Scientific Word is the first fully integrated mathematical word processor in the Windows 3.1 environment, which uses the TEX typesetting language for output. It runs as a Microsoft Windows application program and has two-way interface to TEX. The Scientific Word is an object-oriented WYSIWYG word processor for virtually all users who need typesetting scientific books, manuals and papers. It includes automatic equation numbering, spell checking, and LATEX and DVI previewer.

Appraisal of space words and allocation of emotion words in bodily space.

Science.gov (United States)

Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando; Elosúa, María Rosa; Yamada, Yuki; Hamm, Nicholas Francis; Noguchi, Kimihiro

2013-01-01

The body-specificity hypothesis (BSH) predicts that right-handers and left-handers allocate positive and negative concepts differently on the horizontal plane, i.e., while left-handers allocate negative concepts on the right-hand side of their bodily space, right-handers allocate such concepts to the left-hand side. Similar research shows that people, in general, tend to allocate positive and negative concepts in upper and lower areas, respectively, in relation to the vertical plane. Further research shows a higher salience of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the performance of sensorimotor tasks. The aim of the paper is to examine whether there should be a dominance of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane, not only at a sensorimotor level but also at a conceptual level. In Experiment 1, various participants from diverse linguistic backgrounds were asked to rate the words "up", "down", "left", and "right". In Experiment 2, right-handed participants from two linguistic backgrounds were asked to allocate emotion words into a square grid divided into four boxes of equal areas. Results suggest that the vertical plane is more salient than the horizontal plane regarding the allocation of emotion words and positively-valenced words were placed in upper locations whereas negatively-valenced words were placed in lower locations. Together, the results lend support to the BSH while also suggesting a higher saliency of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the allocation of valenced words.

Appraisal of space words and allocation of emotion words in bodily space.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos

Full Text Available The body-specificity hypothesis (BSH predicts that right-handers and left-handers allocate positive and negative concepts differently on the horizontal plane, i.e., while left-handers allocate negative concepts on the right-hand side of their bodily space, right-handers allocate such concepts to the left-hand side. Similar research shows that people, in general, tend to allocate positive and negative concepts in upper and lower areas, respectively, in relation to the vertical plane. Further research shows a higher salience of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the performance of sensorimotor tasks. The aim of the paper is to examine whether there should be a dominance of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane, not only at a sensorimotor level but also at a conceptual level. In Experiment 1, various participants from diverse linguistic backgrounds were asked to rate the words "up", "down", "left", and "right". In Experiment 2, right-handed participants from two linguistic backgrounds were asked to allocate emotion words into a square grid divided into four boxes of equal areas. Results suggest that the vertical plane is more salient than the horizontal plane regarding the allocation of emotion words and positively-valenced words were placed in upper locations whereas negatively-valenced words were placed in lower locations. Together, the results lend support to the BSH while also suggesting a higher saliency of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the allocation of valenced words.

Appraisal of Space Words and Allocation of Emotion Words in Bodily Space

Science.gov (United States)

Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando; Elosúa, María Rosa; Yamada, Yuki; Hamm, Nicholas Francis; Noguchi, Kimihiro

2013-01-01

The body-specificity hypothesis (BSH) predicts that right-handers and left-handers allocate positive and negative concepts differently on the horizontal plane, i.e., while left-handers allocate negative concepts on the right-hand side of their bodily space, right-handers allocate such concepts to the left-hand side. Similar research shows that people, in general, tend to allocate positive and negative concepts in upper and lower areas, respectively, in relation to the vertical plane. Further research shows a higher salience of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the performance of sensorimotor tasks. The aim of the paper is to examine whether there should be a dominance of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane, not only at a sensorimotor level but also at a conceptual level. In Experiment 1, various participants from diverse linguistic backgrounds were asked to rate the words “up”, “down”, “left”, and “right”. In Experiment 2, right-handed participants from two linguistic backgrounds were asked to allocate emotion words into a square grid divided into four boxes of equal areas. Results suggest that the vertical plane is more salient than the horizontal plane regarding the allocation of emotion words and positively-valenced words were placed in upper locations whereas negatively-valenced words were placed in lower locations. Together, the results lend support to the BSH while also suggesting a higher saliency of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the allocation of valenced words. PMID:24349112

Identification of hybrid node and link communities in complex networks.

Science.gov (United States)

He, Dongxiao; Jin, Di; Chen, Zheng; Zhang, Weixiong

2015-03-02

Identifying communities in complex networks is an effective means for analyzing complex systems, with applications in diverse areas such as social science, engineering, biology and medicine. Finding communities of nodes and finding communities of links are two popular schemes for network analysis. These schemes, however, have inherent drawbacks and are inadequate to capture complex organizational structures in real networks. We introduce a new scheme and an effective approach for identifying complex mixture structures of node and link communities, called hybrid node-link communities. A central piece of our approach is a probabilistic model that accommodates node, link and hybrid node-link communities. Our extensive experiments on various real-world networks, including a large protein-protein interaction network and a large network of semantically associated words, illustrated that the scheme for hybrid communities is superior in revealing network characteristics. Moreover, the new approach outperformed the existing methods for finding node or link communities separately.

Identification of hybrid node and link communities in complex networks

Science.gov (United States)

He, Dongxiao; Jin, Di; Chen, Zheng; Zhang, Weixiong

2015-03-01

Identifying communities in complex networks is an effective means for analyzing complex systems, with applications in diverse areas such as social science, engineering, biology and medicine. Finding communities of nodes and finding communities of links are two popular schemes for network analysis. These schemes, however, have inherent drawbacks and are inadequate to capture complex organizational structures in real networks. We introduce a new scheme and an effective approach for identifying complex mixture structures of node and link communities, called hybrid node-link communities. A central piece of our approach is a probabilistic model that accommodates node, link and hybrid node-link communities. Our extensive experiments on various real-world networks, including a large protein-protein interaction network and a large network of semantically associated words, illustrated that the scheme for hybrid communities is superior in revealing network characteristics. Moreover, the new approach outperformed the existing methods for finding node or link communities separately.

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words.

Science.gov (United States)

McQueen, James M; Huettig, Falk

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of preexposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase (Experiment 3). Auditory stimuli were preceded by primes, which were pictures (Experiments 1 and 3) or those pictures' printed names (Experiment 2). Prime-target pairs were phonologically onset related (e.g., pijl-pijn, arrow-pain), were from the same semantic category (e.g., pijl-zwaard, arrow-sword), or were unrelated on both dimensions. Phonological interference and semantic facilitation were observed in all experiments. Priming magnitude was similar for pictures and printed words and did not vary with picture viewing time or number of pictures in the display (either one or four). These effects arose even though participants were not explicitly instructed to name the pictures and where strategic naming would interfere with lexical decision making. This suggests that, by default, processing of related pictures and printed words influences how quickly we recognize spoken words.

Evaluating the developmental trajectory of the episodic buffer component of working memory and its relation to word recognition in children.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Shinmin; Allen, Richard J; Lee, Jun Ren; Hsieh, Chia-En

2015-05-01

The creation of temporary bound representation of information from different sources is one of the key abilities attributed to the episodic buffer component of working memory. Whereas the role of working memory in word learning has received substantial attention, very little is known about the link between the development of word recognition skills and the ability to bind information in the episodic buffer of working memory and how it may develop with age. This study examined the performance of Grade 2 children (8 years old), Grade 3 children (9 years old), and young adults on a task designed to measure their ability to bind visual and auditory-verbal information in working memory. Children's performance on this task significantly correlated with their word recognition skills even when chronological age, memory for individual elements, and other possible reading-related factors were taken into account. In addition, clear developmental trajectories were observed, with improvements in the ability to hold temporary bound information in working memory between Grades 2 and 3, and between the child and adult groups, that were independent from memory for the individual elements. These findings suggest that the capacity to temporarily bind novel auditory-verbal information to visual form in working memory is linked to the development of word recognition in children and improves with age. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1100 words you must know

CERN Document Server

Bromberg, Murray

2018-01-01

A Barron's best-seller for more than four decades! This brand-new edition has been expanded and updated with word lists and definitions, analogy exercises, words-in-context exercises, idiom indexes, a pronunciation guide, and more. It's the ideal way to strengthen word power!.

Effects of Word Frequency and Transitional Probability on Word Reading Durations of Younger and Older Speakers.

Science.gov (United States)

Moers, Cornelia; Meyer, Antje; Janse, Esther

2017-06-01

High-frequency units are usually processed faster than low-frequency units in language comprehension and language production. Frequency effects have been shown for words as well as word combinations. Word co-occurrence effects can be operationalized in terms of transitional probability (TP). TPs reflect how probable a word is, conditioned by its right or left neighbouring word. This corpus study investigates whether three different age groups-younger children (8-12 years), adolescents (12-18 years) and older (62-95 years) Dutch speakers-show frequency and TP context effects on spoken word durations in reading aloud, and whether age groups differ in the size of these effects. Results show consistent effects of TP on word durations for all age groups. Thus, TP seems to influence the processing of words in context, beyond the well-established effect of word frequency, across the entire age range. However, the study also indicates that age groups differ in the size of TP effects, with older adults having smaller TP effects than adolescent readers. Our results show that probabilistic reduction effects in reading aloud may at least partly stem from contextual facilitation that leads to faster reading times in skilled readers, as well as in young language learners.

Word encoding during sleep is suggested by correlations between word-evoked up-states and post-sleep semantic priming

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simon eRuch

2014-11-01

Full Text Available To test whether humans can encode words during sleep we played everyday words to men while they were napping and assessed priming from sleep-played words following waking. Words were presented during non-rapid eye movement (NREM sleep. Priming was assessed using a semantic and a perceptual priming test. These tests measured differences in the processing of words that had been or had not been played during sleep. Synonyms to sleep-played words were the targets in the semantic priming test that tapped the meaning of sleep-played words. All men responded to sleep-played words by producing up-states in their electroencephalogram. Up-states are NREM sleep-specific phases of briefly increased neuronal excitability. The word-evoked up-states might have promoted word processing during sleep. Yet, the mean performance in the priming tests administered following sleep was at chance level, which suggests that participants as a group failed to show priming following sleep. However, performance in the two priming tests was positively correlated to each other and to the magnitude of the word-evoked up-states. Hence, the larger a participant’s word-evoked up-states, the larger his perceptual and semantic priming. Those participants who scored high on all variables must have encoded words during sleep. We conclude that some humans are able to encode words during sleep, but more research is needed to pin down the factors that modulate this ability.

Using Google AdWords for international multilingual recruitment to health research websites.

Science.gov (United States)

Gross, Margaret S; Liu, Nancy H; Contreras, Omar; Muñoz, Ricardo F; Leykin, Yan

2014-01-20

Google AdWords, the placement of sponsored links in Google search results, is a potent method of recruitment to Internet-based health studies and interventions. However, the performance of Google AdWords varies considerably depending on the language and the location of the target audience. Our goal was to describe differences in AdWords performance when recruiting participants to the same study conducted in four languages and to determine whether AdWords campaigns can be optimized in order to increase recruitment while decreasing costs. Google AdWords were used to recruit participants to the Mood Screener, a multilingual online depression screening tool available in English, Russian, Spanish, and Chinese. Two distinct recruitment periods are described: (1) "Unmanaged", a 6-month period in which ads were allowed to run using only the AdWords tool itself, with no human intervention, and (2) "Managed", a separate 7-week period during which we systematically sought to optimize our recruitment campaigns. During 6 months of unmanaged recruitment, our ads were shown over 1.3 million times, resulting in over 60,000 site visits. The average click-through rate (ratio of ads clicked to ads displayed) varied from 1.86% for Chinese ads to 8.48% for Russian ads, as did the average cost-per-click (from US $0.20 for Chinese ads to US $0.50 for English ads). Although Chinese speakers' click-through rate was lowest, their rate of consenting to participate was the highest, at 3.62%, with English speakers exhibiting the lowest consent rate (0.97%). The conversion cost (cost to recruit a consenting participant) varied from US $10.80 for Russian speakers to US $51.88 for English speakers. During the 7 weeks of "managed" recruitment, we attempted to improve AdWords' performance in regards to the consent rate and cost by systematically deleting underperforming ads and adjusting keywords. We were able to increase the number of people who consent after coming to the site by 91.8% while also

Does "Word Coach" Coach Words?

Science.gov (United States)

Cobb, Tom; Horst, Marlise

2011-01-01

This study reports on the design and testing of an integrated suite of vocabulary training games for Nintendo[TM] collectively designated "My Word Coach" (Ubisoft, 2008). The games' design is based on a wide range of learning research, from classic studies on recycling patterns to frequency studies of modern corpora. Its general usage…

Brief learning induces a memory bias for arousing-negative words: an fMRI study in high and low trait anxious persons.

Science.gov (United States)

Eden, Annuschka S; Dehmelt, Vera; Bischoff, Matthias; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Kugel, Harald; Keuper, Kati; Zwanzger, Peter; Dobel, Christian

2015-01-01

Persons suffering from anxiety disorders display facilitated processing of arousing and negative stimuli, such as negative words. This memory bias is reflected in better recall and increased amygdala activity in response to such stimuli. However, individual learning histories were not considered in most studies, a concern that we meet here. Thirty-four female persons (half with high-, half with low trait anxiety) participated in a criterion-based associative word-learning paradigm, in which neutral pseudowords were paired with aversive or neutral pictures, which should lead to a valence change for the negatively paired pseudowords. After learning, pseudowords were tested with fMRI to investigate differential brain activation of the amygdala evoked by the newly acquired valence. Explicit and implicit memory was assessed directly after training and in three follow-ups at 4-day intervals. The behavioral results demonstrate that associative word-learning leads to an explicit (but no implicit) memory bias for negatively linked pseudowords, relative to neutral ones, which confirms earlier studies. Bilateral amygdala activation underlines the behavioral effect: Higher trait anxiety is correlated with stronger amygdala activation for negatively linked pseudowords than for neutrally linked ones. Most interestingly, this effect is also present for negatively paired pseudowords that participants could not remember well. Moreover, neutrally paired pseudowords evoked higher amygdala reactivity than completely novel ones in highly anxious persons, which can be taken as evidence for generalization. These findings demonstrate that few word-learning trials generate a memory bias for emotional stimuli, indexed both behaviorally and neurophysiologically. Importantly, the typical memory bias for emotional stimuli and the generalization to neutral ones is larger in high anxious persons.

Brief learning induces a memory bias for arousing-negative words: An fMRI study in high and low trait anxious persons

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Annuschka Salima Eden

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Persons suffering from anxiety disorders display facilitated processing of arousing and negative stimuli, such as negative words. This memory bias is reflected in better recall and increased amygdala activity in response to such stimuli. However, individual learning histories were not considered in most studies, a concern that we meet here. Thirty-four female persons (half with high-, half with low trait anxiety participated in a criterion-based associative word-learning paradigm, in which neutral pseudowords were paired with aversive or neutral pictures, which should lead to a valence change for the negatively paired pseudowords. After learning, pseudowords were tested with fMRI to investigate differential brain activation of the amygdala evoked by the newly acquired valence. Explicit and implicit memory was assessed directly after training and in three follow-ups at four-day intervals. The behavioral results demonstrate that associative word-learning leads to an explicit (but no implicit memory bias for negatively linked pseudowords, relative to neutral ones, which confirms earlier studies. Bilateral amygdala activation underlines the behavioral effect: Higher trait anxiety is correlated with stronger amygdala activation for negatively linked pseudowords than for neutrally linked ones. Most interestingly, this effect is also present for negatively paired pseudowords that participants could not remember well. Moreover, neutrally paired pseudowords evoked higher amygdala reactivity than completely novel ones in highly anxious persons, which can be taken as evidence for generalization. These findings demonstrate that few word-learning trials generate a memory bias for emotional stimuli, indexed both behaviorally and neurophysiologically. Importantly, the typical memory bias for emotional stimuli and the generalization to neutral ones is larger in high anxious persons.

Word Recognition in Auditory Cortex

Science.gov (United States)

DeWitt, Iain D. J.

2013-01-01

Although spoken word recognition is more fundamental to human communication than text recognition, knowledge of word-processing in auditory cortex is comparatively impoverished. This dissertation synthesizes current models of auditory cortex, models of cortical pattern recognition, models of single-word reading, results in phonetics and results in…

Syllabic Length Effect in Visual Word Recognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roya Ranjbar Mohammadi

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Studies on visual word recognition have resulted in different and sometimes contradictory proposals as Multi-Trace Memory Model (MTM, Dual-Route Cascaded Model (DRC, and Parallel Distribution Processing Model (PDP. The role of the number of syllables in word recognition was examined by the use of five groups of English words and non-words. The reaction time of the participants to these words was measured using reaction time measuring software. The results indicated that there was syllabic effect on recognition of both high and low frequency words. The pattern was incremental in terms of syllable number. This pattern prevailed in high and low frequency words and non-words except in one syllable words. In general, the results are in line with the PDP model which claims that a single processing mechanism is used in both words and non-words recognition. In other words, the findings suggest that lexical items are mainly processed via a lexical route.  A pedagogical implication of the findings would be that reading in English as a foreign language involves analytical processing of the syllable of the words.

Cluster analysis of word frequency dynamics

Science.gov (United States)

Maslennikova, Yu S.; Bochkarev, V. V.; Belashova, I. A.

2015-01-01

This paper describes the analysis and modelling of word usage frequency time series. During one of previous studies, an assumption was put forward that all word usage frequencies have uniform dynamics approaching the shape of a Gaussian function. This assumption can be checked using the frequency dictionaries of the Google Books Ngram database. This database includes 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008. The corpus contains over 500 billion words in American English, British English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, and Chinese. We clustered time series of word usage frequencies using a Kohonen neural network. The similarity between input vectors was estimated using several algorithms. As a result of the neural network training procedure, more than ten different forms of time series were found. They describe the dynamics of word usage frequencies from birth to death of individual words. Different groups of word forms were found to have different dynamics of word usage frequency variations.

The compressed word problem for groups

CERN Document Server

Lohrey, Markus

2014-01-01

The Compressed Word Problem for Groups provides a detailed exposition of known results on the compressed word problem, emphasizing efficient algorithms for the compressed word problem in various groups. The author presents the necessary background along with the most recent results on the compressed word problem to create a cohesive self-contained book accessible to computer scientists as well as mathematicians. Readers will quickly reach the frontier of current research which makes the book especially appealing for students looking for a currently active research topic at the intersection of group theory and computer science. The word problem introduced in 1910 by Max Dehn is one of the most important decision problems in group theory. For many groups, highly efficient algorithms for the word problem exist. In recent years, a new technique based on data compression for providing more efficient algorithms for word problems, has been developed, by representing long words over group generators in a compres...

Cluster analysis of word frequency dynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maslennikova, Yu S; Bochkarev, V V; Belashova, I A

2015-01-01

This paper describes the analysis and modelling of word usage frequency time series. During one of previous studies, an assumption was put forward that all word usage frequencies have uniform dynamics approaching the shape of a Gaussian function. This assumption can be checked using the frequency dictionaries of the Google Books Ngram database. This database includes 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008. The corpus contains over 500 billion words in American English, British English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, and Chinese. We clustered time series of word usage frequencies using a Kohonen neural network. The similarity between input vectors was estimated using several algorithms. As a result of the neural network training procedure, more than ten different forms of time series were found. They describe the dynamics of word usage frequencies from birth to death of individual words. Different groups of word forms were found to have different dynamics of word usage frequency variations

Every Word Is on Trial: Six-Word Memoirs in the Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Saunders, Jane M.; Smith, Emily E.

2014-01-01

Six-word memoirs are readily available through books, magazine articles, and on the Internet. This teaching tip explores how to use six-word memoirs to guide students through the writing process steps from developing and revising a concise memoir, to employing technology and imagery, to publishing final versions of their work online. Included in…

WordPress 3.7 complete

CERN Document Server

Król, Karol

2013-01-01

WordPress 3.5 Complete: Third Edition is a comprehensive and step-by-step tutorial packed with screenshots and examples to make it easy and quick to pick it up.This WordPress book is a guide to WordPress for online publishers and web developers. If you are new to blogging and want to create your own blog or website from scratch, then ""WordPress 3.5 Complete: Third Edition"" is for you. No prior knowledge of HTML/CSS or PHP is required.

Rapid interactions between lexical semantic and word form analysis during word recognition in context: evidence from ERPs.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Albert; Lai, Vicky

2012-05-01

We used ERPs to investigate the time course of interactions between lexical semantic and sublexical visual word form processing during word recognition. Participants read sentence-embedded pseudowords that orthographically resembled a contextually supported real word (e.g., "She measured the flour so she could bake a ceke…") or did not (e.g., "She measured the flour so she could bake a tont…") along with nonword consonant strings (e.g., "She measured the flour so she could bake a srdt…"). Pseudowords that resembled a contextually supported real word ("ceke") elicited an enhanced positivity at 130 msec (P130), relative to real words (e.g., "She measured the flour so she could bake a cake…"). Pseudowords that did not resemble a plausible real word ("tont") enhanced the N170 component, as did nonword consonant strings ("srdt"). The effect pattern shows that the visual word recognition system is, perhaps, counterintuitively, more rapidly sensitive to minor than to flagrant deviations from contextually predicted inputs. The findings are consistent with rapid interactions between lexical and sublexical representations during word recognition, in which rapid lexical access of a contextually supported word (CAKE) provides top-down excitation of form features ("cake"), highlighting the anomaly of an unexpected word "ceke."

ERP correlates of unexpected word forms in a picture–word study of infants and adults

Science.gov (United States)

Duta, M.D.; Styles, S.J.; Plunkett, K.

2012-01-01

We tested 14-month-olds and adults in an event-related potentials (ERPs) study in which pictures of familiar objects generated expectations about upcoming word forms. Expected word forms labelled the picture (word condition), while unexpected word forms mismatched by either a small deviation in word medial vowel height (mispronunciation condition) or a large deviation from the onset of the first speech segment (pseudoword condition). Both infants and adults showed sensitivity to both types of unexpected word form. Adults showed a chain of discrete effects: positivity over the N1 wave, negativity over the P2 wave (PMN effect) and negativity over the N2 wave (N400 effect). Infants showed a similar pattern, including a robust effect similar to the adult P2 effect. These observations were underpinned by a novel visualisation method which shows the dynamics of the ERP within bands of the scalp over time. The results demonstrate shared processing mechanisms across development, as even subtle deviations from expected word forms were indexed in both age groups by a reduction in the amplitude of characteristic waves in the early auditory evoked potential. PMID:22483072

Smashing WordPress Beyond the Blog

CERN Document Server

Hedengren, Thord Daniel

2011-01-01

Smashing WordPress shows you how to utilize the power of the WordPress platform, and provides a creative spark to help you build WordPress-powered sites that go beyond the obvious. The second edition of Smashing WordPress has been updated for WordPress 3.1+, which includes internal, custom post types, the admin bar, and lots of other useful new features. You will learn the core concepts used to post types, the admin bar, and lots of other useful new features. You will learn the core concepts used to build just about anything in WordPress, resulting in fast deployments and greater design flexib

Smashing WordPress Beyond the Blog

CERN Document Server

Hedengren, Thord Daniel

2012-01-01

The ultimate guide to WordPress, from the world's most popular resource for web designers and developers As one of the hottest tools on the web today for creating a blog, WordPress has evolved to be much more that just a blogging platform and has been pushed beyond its original purpose. With this new edition of a perennially popular WordPress resource, Smashing Magazine offers you the information you need so you can maximize the potential and power of WordPress. WordPress expert Thord Daniel Hedengren takes you beyond the basic blog to show you how to leverage the capabilities of WordPress to

Build an Interactive Word Wall

Science.gov (United States)

Jackson, Julie

2018-01-01

Word walls visually display important vocabulary covered during class. Although teachers have often been encouraged to post word walls in their classrooms, little information is available to guide them. This article describes steps science teachers can follow to transform traditional word walls into interactive teaching tools. It also describes a…

[Emotional valence of words in schizophrenia].

Science.gov (United States)

Jalenques, I; Enjolras, J; Izaute, M

2013-06-01

Emotion recognition is a domain in which deficits have been reported in schizophrenia. A number of emotion classification studies have indicated that emotion processing deficits in schizophrenia are more pronounced for negative affects. Given the difficulty of developing material suitable for the study of these emotional deficits, it would be interesting to examine whether patients suffering from schizophrenia are responsive to positively and negatively charged emotion-related words that could be used within the context of remediation strategies. The emotional perception of words was examined in a clinical experiment involving schizophrenia patients. This emotional perception was expressed by the patients in terms of the valence associated with the words. In the present study, we investigated whether schizophrenia patients would assign the same negative and positive valences to words as healthy individuals. Twenty volunteer, clinically stable, outpatients from the Psychiatric Service of the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand were recruited. Diagnoses were based on DSM-IV criteria. Global psychiatric symptoms were assessed using the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS). The patients had to evaluate the emotional valence of a set of 300 words on a 5-point scale ranging from "very unpleasant" to "very pleasant". . The collected results were compared with those obtained by Bonin et al. (2003) [13] from 97 University students. Correlational analyses of the two studies revealed that the emotional valences were highly correlated, i.e. the schizophrenia patients estimated very similar emotional valences. More precisely, it was possible to examine three separate sets of 100 words each (positive words, neutral words and negative words). The positive words that were evaluated were the more positive words from the norms collected by Bonin et al. (2003) [13], and the negative words were the more negative examples taken from these norms. The neutral words

Words Do Come Easy (Sometimes)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Starrfelt, Randi; Petersen, Anders; Vangkilde, Signe Allerup

multiple stimuli are presented simultaneously: Are words treated as units or wholes in visual short term memory? Using methods based on a Theory of Visual Attention (TVA), we measured perceptual threshold, visual processing speed and visual short term memory capacity for words and letters, in two simple...... a different pattern: Letters are perceived more easily than words, and this is reflected both in perceptual processing speed and short term memory capacity. So even if single words do come easy, they seem to enjoy no advantage in visual short term memory....

Cross-Modal Associations between Sounds and Drink Tastes/Textures: A Study with Spontaneous Production of Sound-Symbolic Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Sakamoto, Maki; Watanabe, Junji

2016-03-01

Many languages have a word class whose speech sounds are linked to sensory experiences. Several recent studies have demonstrated cross-modal associations (or correspondences) between sounds and gustatory sensations by asking participants to match predefined sound-symbolic words (e.g., "maluma/takete") with the taste/texture of foods. Here, we further explore cross-modal associations using the spontaneous production of words and semantic ratings of sensations. In the experiment, after drinking liquids, participants were asked to express their taste/texture using Japanese sound-symbolic words, and at the same time, to evaluate it in terms of criteria expressed by adjectives. Because the Japanese language has a large vocabulary of sound-symbolic words, and Japanese people frequently use them to describe taste/texture, analyzing a variety of Japanese sound-symbolic words spontaneously produced to express taste/textures might enable us to explore the mechanism of taste/texture categorization. A hierarchical cluster analysis based on the relationship between linguistic sounds and taste/texture evaluations revealed the structure of sensation categories. The results indicate that an emotional evaluation like pleasant/unpleasant is the primary cluster in gustation. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Assessing neglect dyslexia with compound words.

Science.gov (United States)

Reinhart, Stefan; Schunck, Alexander; Schaadt, Anna Katharina; Adams, Michaela; Simon, Alexandra; Kerkhoff, Georg

2016-10-01

The neglect syndrome is frequently associated with neglect dyslexia (ND), which is characterized by omissions or misread initial letters of single words. ND is usually assessed with standardized reading texts in clinical settings. However, particularly in the chronic phase of ND, patients often report reading deficits in everyday situations but show (nearly) normal performances in test situations that are commonly well-structured. To date, sensitive and standardized tests to assess the severity and characteristics of ND are lacking, although reading is of high relevance for daily life and vocational settings. Several studies found modulating effects of different word features on ND. We combined those features in a novel test to enhance test sensitivity in the assessment of ND. Low-frequency words of different length that contain residual pronounceable words when the initial letter strings are neglected were selected. We compared these words in a group of 12 ND-patients suffering from right-hemispheric first-ever stroke with word stimuli containing no existing residual words. Finally, we tested whether the serially presented words are more sensitive for the diagnosis of ND than text reading. The severity of ND was modulated strongly by the ND-test words and error frequencies in single word reading of ND words were on average more than 10 times higher than in a standardized text reading test (19.8% vs. 1.8%). The novel ND-test maximizes the frequency of specific ND-errors and is therefore more sensitive for the assessment of ND than conventional text reading tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Voice congruency facilitates word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Campeanu, Sandra; Craik, Fergus I M; Alain, Claude

2013-01-01

Behavioral studies of spoken word memory have shown that context congruency facilitates both word and source recognition, though the level at which context exerts its influence remains equivocal. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) while participants performed both types of recognition task with words spoken in four voices. Two voice parameters (i.e., gender and accent) varied between speakers, with the possibility that none, one or two of these parameters was congruent between study and test. Results indicated that reinstating the study voice at test facilitated both word and source recognition, compared to similar or no context congruency at test. Behavioral effects were paralleled by two ERP modulations. First, in the word recognition test, the left parietal old/new effect showed a positive deflection reflective of context congruency between study and test words. Namely, the same speaker condition provided the most positive deflection of all correctly identified old words. In the source recognition test, a right frontal positivity was found for the same speaker condition compared to the different speaker conditions, regardless of response success. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that the benefit of context congruency is reflected behaviorally and in ERP modulations traditionally associated with recognition memory.

Voice congruency facilitates word recognition.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sandra Campeanu

Full Text Available Behavioral studies of spoken word memory have shown that context congruency facilitates both word and source recognition, though the level at which context exerts its influence remains equivocal. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs while participants performed both types of recognition task with words spoken in four voices. Two voice parameters (i.e., gender and accent varied between speakers, with the possibility that none, one or two of these parameters was congruent between study and test. Results indicated that reinstating the study voice at test facilitated both word and source recognition, compared to similar or no context congruency at test. Behavioral effects were paralleled by two ERP modulations. First, in the word recognition test, the left parietal old/new effect showed a positive deflection reflective of context congruency between study and test words. Namely, the same speaker condition provided the most positive deflection of all correctly identified old words. In the source recognition test, a right frontal positivity was found for the same speaker condition compared to the different speaker conditions, regardless of response success. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that the benefit of context congruency is reflected behaviorally and in ERP modulations traditionally associated with recognition memory.

A collective theory of happiness: words related to the word "happiness" in Swedish online newspapers.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, Danilo; Sikström, Sverker

2013-06-01

It may be suggested that the representation of happiness in online media is collective in nature because it is a picture of happiness communicated by relatively few individuals to the masses. The present study is based on articles published in Swedish daily online newspapers in 2010; the data corpus comprises 1.5 million words. We investigated which words were most (un)common in articles containing the word "happiness" as compared with articles not containing this word. The results show that words related to people (by use of all relevant pronouns: you/me and us/them); important others (e.g., grandmother, mother); the Swedish royal wedding (e.g., Prince Daniel, Princess Victoria); and the FIFA World Cup (e.g., Zlatan, Argentina, Drogba) were highly recurrent in articles containing the word happiness. In contrast, words related to objects, such as money (e.g., millions, billions), bestselling gadgets (e.g., iPad, iPhone), and companies (e.g., Google, Windows), were predictive of contexts not recurrent with the word happiness. The results presented here are in accordance with findings in the happiness literature showing that relationships, not material things, are what make people happy. We suggest that our findings mirror a collective theory of happiness, that is, a shared picture or agreement, among members of a community, concerning what makes people happy. The fact that this representation is made public on such a large scale makes it collective in nature.

Usage of the word 'ether'

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duffy, M.C.

1980-01-01

Confusion has been caused by scientists using the one word 'ether' to classify models differing from each other in important respects. Major roles assigned to the word are examined, and the nature of modern ether theories surveyed. The part played by the several meanings attached to the word, in the ether concept, is outlined. (author)

WORD-MAKING IN PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH.

Science.gov (United States)

SIMONINI, R.C., JR.

WORDS CAN BE STUDIED BY DESCRIBING THEIR ORIGIN INDUCTIVELY OR DEDUCTIVELY. EITHER WAY, A PRECISE DEFINITION OF ETYMOLOGICAL CLASSES WHICH ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE IS NEEDED. PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH IS CLASSIFIED INTO--(1) NATIVE WORDS WHICH CAN BE TRACED BACK TO THE WORD STOCK OF OLD ENGLISH, (2) LOAN WORDS NEW TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE WHICH HAD…

Encoding in the visual word form area: an fMRI adaptation study of words versus handwriting.

Science.gov (United States)

Barton, Jason J S; Fox, Christopher J; Sekunova, Alla; Iaria, Giuseppe

2010-08-01

Written texts are not just words but complex multidimensional stimuli, including aspects such as case, font, and handwriting style, for example. Neuropsychological reports suggest that left fusiform lesions can impair the reading of text for word (lexical) content, being associated with alexia, whereas right-sided lesions may impair handwriting recognition. We used fMRI adaptation in 13 healthy participants to determine if repetition-suppression occurred for words but not handwriting in the left visual word form area (VWFA) and the reverse in the right fusiform gyrus. Contrary to these expectations, we found adaptation for handwriting but not for words in both the left VWFA and the right VWFA homologue. A trend to adaptation for words but not handwriting was seen only in the left middle temporal gyrus. An analysis of anterior and posterior subdivisions of the left VWFA also failed to show any adaptation for words. We conclude that the right and the left fusiform gyri show similar patterns of adaptation for handwriting, consistent with a predominantly perceptual contribution to text processing.

Dynamics of Semantic and Word-Formation Subsystems of the Russian Language: Historical Dynamics of the Word Family

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olga Ivanovna Dmitrieva

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The article provides comprehensive justification of the principles and methods of the synchronic and diachronic research of word-formation subsystems of the Russian language. The authors also study the ways of analyzing historical dynamics of word family as the main macro-unit of word-formation system. In the field of analysis there is a family of words with the stem 'ход-' (the meaning of 'motion', word-formation of which is investigated in different periods of the Russian literary language. Significance of motion-verbs in the process of forming a language picture of the world determined the character and the structure of this word family as one of the biggest in the history of the Russian language. In the article a structural and semantic dynamics of the word family 'ход-' is depicted. The results of the study show that in the ancient period the prefixes of verbal derivatives were formed, which became the apex-branched derivational paradigms existing in modern Russian. The old Russian period of language development is characterized by the appearance of words with connotative meaning (with suffixes -ishk-, -ichn-, as well as the words with possessive semantics (with suffixes –ev-, -sk-. In this period the verbs with the postfix -cz also supplement the analyzed word family. The period of formation of the National Russian language was marked by the loss of a large number of abstract nouns and the appearance of neologisms from some old Russian abstract nouns. The studied family in the modern Russian language is characterized by the following processes: the appearance of terms, the active semantic derivation, the weakening of word-formation variability, the semantic differentiation of duplicate units, the development of subsystem of words with connotative meanings, and the preservation of derivatives in all functional styles.

Differential cognitive processing of Kanji and Kana words: do orthographic and semantic codes function in parallel in word matching task.

Science.gov (United States)

Kawakami, A; Hatta, T; Kogure, T

2001-12-01

Relative engagements of the orthographic and semantic codes in Kanji and Hiragana word recognition were investigated. In Exp. 1, subjects judged whether the pairs of Kanji words (prime and target) presented sequentially were physically identical to each other in the word condition. In the sentence condition, subjects decided whether the target word was valid for the prime sentence presented in advance. The results showed that the response times to the target swords orthographically similar (to the prime) were significantly slower than to semantically related target words in the word condition and that this was also the case in the sentence condition. In Exp. 2, subjects judged whether the target word written in Hiragana was physically identical to the prime word in the word condition. In the sentence condition, subjects decided if the target word was valid for the previously presented prime sentence. Analysis indicated that response times to orthographically similar words were slower than to semantically related words in the word condition but not in the sentence condition wherein the response times to the semantically and orthographically similar words were largely the same. Based on these results, differential contributions of orthographic and semantic codes in cognitive processing of Japanese Kanji and Hiragana words was discussed.

WordPress web application development

CERN Document Server

Ratnayake, Rakhitha Nimesh

2013-01-01

An extensive, practical guide that explains how to adapt WordPress features, both conventional and trending, for web applications.This book is intended for WordPress developers and designers who have the desire to go beyond conventional website development to develop quality web applications within a limited time frame and for maximum profit. Experienced web developers who are looking for a framework for rapid application development will also find this to be a useful resource. Prior knowledge with of WordPress is preferable as the main focus will be on explaining methods for adapting WordPres

Emotion words and categories: evidence from lexical decision.

Science.gov (United States)

Scott, Graham G; O'Donnell, Patrick J; Sereno, Sara C

2014-05-01

We examined the categorical nature of emotion word recognition. Positive, negative, and neutral words were presented in lexical decision tasks. Word frequency was additionally manipulated. In Experiment 1, "positive" and "negative" categories of words were implicitly indicated by the blocked design employed. A significant emotion-frequency interaction was obtained, replicating past research. While positive words consistently elicited faster responses than neutral words, only low frequency negative words demonstrated a similar advantage. In Experiments 2a and 2b, explicit categories ("positive," "negative," and "household" items) were specified to participants. Positive words again elicited faster responses than did neutral words. Responses to negative words, however, were no different than those to neutral words, regardless of their frequency. The overall pattern of effects indicates that positive words are always facilitated, frequency plays a greater role in the recognition of negative words, and a "negative" category represents a somewhat disparate set of emotions. These results support the notion that emotion word processing may be moderated by distinct systems.

Effects of word frequency and transitional probability on word reading durations of younger and older speakers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Moers, C.; Meyer, A.S.; Janse, E.

2017-01-01

High-frequency units are usually processed faster than low-frequency units in language comprehension and language production. Frequency effects have been shown for words as well as word combinations. Word co-occurrence effects can be operationalized in terms of transitional probability (TP). TPs

Word of Jeremiah - Word of God

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Holt, Else Kragelund

2007-01-01

The article examines the relationship between God, prophet and the people in the Book of Jeremiah. The analysis shows a close connection, almost an identification, between the divine word (and consequently God himself) and the prophet, so that the prophet becomes a metaphor for God. This is done...

Gesturing more diminishes recall of abstract words when gesture is allowed and concrete words when it is taboo.

Science.gov (United States)

Matthews-Saugstad, Krista M; Raymakers, Erik P; Kelty-Stephen, Damian G

2017-07-01

Gesture during speech can promote or diminish recall for conversation content. We explored effects of cognitive load on this relationship, manipulating it at two scales: individual-word abstractness and social constraints to prohibit gestures. Prohibited gestures can diminish recall but more so for abstract-word recall. Insofar as movement planning adds to cognitive load, movement amplitude may moderate gesture effects on memory, with greater permitted- and prohibited-gesture movements reducing abstract-word recall and concrete-word recall, respectively. We tested these effects in a dyadic game in which 39 adult participants described words to confederates without naming the word or five related words. Results supported our expectations and indicated that memory effects of gesturing depend on social, cognitive, and motoric aspects of discourse.

Interference Effects on the Recall of Pictures, Printed Words, and Spoken Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Burton, John K.; Bruning, Roger H.

1982-01-01

Nouns were presented in triads as pictures, printed words, or spoken words and followed by various types of interference. Measures of short- and long-term memory were obtained. In short-term memory, pictorial superiority occurred with acoustic, and visual and acoustic, but not visual interference. Long-term memory showed superior recall for…

Interference Effects on the Recall of Pictures, Printed Words and Spoken Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Burton, John K.; Bruning, Roger H.

Thirty college undergraduates participated in a study of the effects of acoustic and visual interference on the recall of word and picture triads in both short-term and long-term memory. The subjects were presented 24 triads of monosyllabic nouns representing all of the possible combinations of presentation types: pictures, printed words, and…

Professional WordPress design and development

CERN Document Server

Williams, Brad; Stern, Hal

2014-01-01

The highest rated WordPress development and design book on the market is back with an all new third edition. Professional WordPress is the only WordPress book targeted to developers, with advanced content that exploits the full functionality of the most popular CMS in the world. Fully updated to align with WordPress 4.1, this edition has updated examples with all new screenshots, and full exploration of additional tasks made possible by the latest tools and features. You will gain insight into real projects that currently use WordPress as an application framework, as well as the basic usage a

Linking vocabulary to imagery: Improving science knowledge through multimedia design

Science.gov (United States)

Adler, Tracy R.

This qualitative study looked at the vocabulary development of four urban sixth-grade students as they used laser disk and computer technologies to view images and then connect those images to textual definitions through multimedia design. Focusing on three science content areas (the water cycle, the rock cycle, and the web of life), students worked in pairs to create their own multimedia stacks that focused on the prescribed vocabulary. Using a combination of text, images, and audio, students demonstrated their understanding of content vocabulary words and how these words are interconnects within a science topic. Further, the study examined the impact that linking images to vocabulary and textual definitions has on helping students memorize definitions of the science content words. It was found that the use of imagery had a positive affect on the students' ability to identify textual definitions and vocabulary words, though it did not have a great impact on their later recall of word/definition connections. In addition, by designing their own multimedia artifacts, students were able to connect the vocabulary and images within a specific content area and explain their function within a broader science concept. The results of this study were inconclusive as to the impact this activity had on the students' ability to transfer their knowledge to correctly answering questions similar to the ones they see on their state proficiency exam.

Recall of short word lists presented visually at fast rates: effects of phonological similarity and word length.

Science.gov (United States)

Coltheart, V; Langdon, R

1998-03-01

Phonological similarity of visually presented list items impairs short-term serial recall. Lists of long words are also recalled less accurately than are lists of short words. These results have been attributed to phonological recoding and rehearsal. If subjects articulate irrelevant words during list presentation, both phonological similarity and word length effects are abolished. Experiments 1 and 2 examined effects of phonological similarity and recall instructions on recall of lists shown at fast rates (from one item per 0.114-0.50 sec), which might not permit phonological encoding and rehearsal. In Experiment 3, recall instructions and word length were manipulated using fast presentation rates. Both phonological similarity and word length effects were observed, and they were not dependent on recall instructions. Experiments 4 and 5 investigated the effects of irrelevant concurrent articulation on lists shown at fast rates. Both phonological similarity and word length effects were removed by concurrent articulation, as they were with slow presentation rates.

Understanding the power of word-of-mouth.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suzana Z. Gildin

2003-06-01

Full Text Available Word-of-mouth has been considered one of the most powerful forms of communication in the market today. Understanding what makes word-of-mouth such a persuasive and powerful communication tool is important to organizations that intend to build strong relationships with consumers. For this reason, organizations are concerned about promoting positive word-of-mouth and retarding negative word-of-mouth, which can be harmful to the image of the company or a brand. This work focuses on the major aspects involving word-of-mouth communication. Recommendations to generate positive word-of-mouth and retard negative word-of-mouth are also highlighted.

The word processing deficit in semantic dementia: all categories are equal, but some categories are more equal than others.

Science.gov (United States)

Pulvermüller, Friedemann; Cooper-Pye, Elisa; Dine, Clare; Hauk, Olaf; Nestor, Peter J; Patterson, Karalyn

2010-09-01

It has been claimed that semantic dementia (SD), the temporal variant of fronto-temporal dementia, is characterized by an across-the-board deficit affecting all types of conceptual knowledge. We here confirm this generalized deficit but also report differential degrees of impairment in processing specific semantic word categories in a case series of SD patients (N = 11). Within the domain of words with strong visually grounded meaning, the patients' lexical decision accuracy was more impaired for color-related than for form-related words. Likewise, within the domain of action verbs, the patients' performance was worse for words referring to face movements and speech acts than for words semantically linked to actions performed with the hand and arm. Psycholinguistic properties were matched between the stimulus groups entering these contrasts; an explanation for the differential degrees of impairment must therefore involve semantic features of the words in the different conditions. Furthermore, this specific pattern of deficits cannot be captured by classic category distinctions such as nouns versus verbs or living versus nonliving things. Evidence from previous neuroimaging research indicates that color- and face/speech-related words, respectively, draw most heavily on anterior-temporal and inferior-frontal areas, the structures most affected in SD. Our account combines (a) the notion of an anterior-temporal amodal semantic "hub" to explain the profound across-the-board deficit in SD word processing, with (b) a semantic topography model of category-specific circuits whose cortical distributions reflect semantic features of the words and concepts represented.

Visual attention shift to printed words during spoken word recognition in Chinese: The role of phonological information.

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Wei; Qu, Qingqing; Tong, Xiuhong

2018-05-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which phonological information mediates the visual attention shift to printed Chinese words in spoken word recognition by using an eye-movement technique with a printed-word paradigm. In this paradigm, participants are visually presented with four printed words on a computer screen, which include a target word, a phonological competitor, and two distractors. Participants are then required to select the target word using a computer mouse, and the eye movements are recorded. In Experiment 1, phonological information was manipulated at the full-phonological overlap; in Experiment 2, phonological information at the partial-phonological overlap was manipulated; and in Experiment 3, the phonological competitors were manipulated to share either fulloverlap or partial-overlap with targets directly. Results of the three experiments showed that the phonological competitor effects were observed at both the full-phonological overlap and partial-phonological overlap conditions. That is, phonological competitors attracted more fixations than distractors, which suggested that phonological information mediates the visual attention shift during spoken word recognition. More importantly, we found that the mediating role of phonological information varies as a function of the phonological similarity between target words and phonological competitors.

Using turbocodes on optical links

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Glenn Claes

2006-04-01

Full Text Available The fast evolving telecommunication world is permanently in search for faster and better communication links. On one hand, turbo codes are like a dream come true. Due to their amazing performance, they have become the reference in the word of error detecting and correcting codes. On the other hand, broadband transmission channels like optical fibres can meet the need for higher transmission velocity. In this paper therefore we will bring these two elements together and thus the performance of turbocodes on optical links will be studied. First the turbocode will be optimised throughout an individual analysis of each of its design parameters. Moreover it wil be shown that turbocodes have much better performance than the well known Reed-Solomon codes. Finally we will show that the 8Bit/10Bit code, which is required to comply with the Gigabit Ethernet standard, becomes superfluous when working with turbocodes. All tests were carried out on multimode graded-index glass fibres.

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words

OpenAIRE

McQueen, J.; Huettig, F.

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of pre-exposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase (Experiment 3). Auditory stimuli were preceded by primes which were pictures (Experiments 1 and 3) or those pictures’ printed names (Experiment 2). Prime-target pairs were phonologically onsetrelated (e.g...

Word Processing for All.

Science.gov (United States)

Abbott, Chris

1991-01-01

Pupils with special educational needs are finding that the use of word processors can give them a new confidence and pride in their own abilities. This article describes the use of such devices as the "mouse," on-screen word lists, spell checkers, and overlay keyboards. (JDD)

Automating Ontological Annotation with WordNet

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Tratz, Stephen C.; Gregory, Michelle L.; Chappell, Alan R.; Whitney, Paul D.; Posse, Christian; Paulson, Patrick R.; Baddeley, Bob L.; Hohimer, Ryan E.; White, Amanda M.

2006-01-22

Semantic Web applications require robust and accurate annotation tools that are capable of automating the assignment of ontological classes to words in naturally occurring text (ontological annotation). Most current ontologies do not include rich lexical databases and are therefore not easily integrated with word sense disambiguation algorithms that are needed to automate ontological annotation. WordNet provides a potentially ideal solution to this problem as it offers a highly structured lexical conceptual representation that has been extensively used to develop word sense disambiguation algorithms. However, WordNet has not been designed as an ontology, and while it can be easily turned into one, the result of doing this would present users with serious practical limitations due to the great number of concepts (synonym sets) it contains. Moreover, mapping WordNet to an existing ontology may be difficult and requires substantial labor. We propose to overcome these limitations by developing an analytical platform that (1) provides a WordNet-based ontology offering a manageable and yet comprehensive set of concept classes, (2) leverages the lexical richness of WordNet to give an extensive characterization of concept class in terms of lexical instances, and (3) integrates a class recognition algorithm that automates the assignment of concept classes to words in naturally occurring text. The ensuing framework makes available an ontological annotation platform that can be effectively integrated with intelligence analysis systems to facilitate evidence marshaling and sustain the creation and validation of inference models.

The Influence of Orthographic Neighborhood Density and Word Frequency on Visual Word Recognition: Insights from RT Distributional Analyses

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephen Wee Hun eLim

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The effects of orthographic neighborhood density and word frequency in visual word recognition were investigated using distributional analyses of response latencies in visual lexical decision. Main effects of density and frequency were observed in mean latencies. Distributional analyses, in addition, revealed a density x frequency interaction: for low-frequency words, density effects were mediated predominantly by distributional shifting whereas for high-frequency words, density effects were absent except at the slower RTs, implicating distributional skewing. The present findings suggest that density effects in low-frequency words reflect processes involved in early lexical access, while the effects observed in high-frequency words reflect late postlexical checking processes.

Exploring the word superiority effect using TVA

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Starrfelt, Randi

Words are made of letters, and yet sometimes it is easier to identify a word than a single letter. This word superiority effect (WSE) has been observed when written stimuli are presented very briefly or degraded by visual noise. It is unclear, however, if this is due to a lower threshold for perc...... simultaneously we find a different pattern: In a whole report experiment with six stimuli (letters or words), letters are perceived more easily than words, and this is reflected both in perceptual processing speed and short term memory capacity....... for perception of words, or a higher speed of processing for words than letters. We have investigated the WSE using methods based on a Theory of Visual Attention. In an experiment using single stimuli (words or letters) presented centrally, we show that the classical WSE is specifically reflected in perceptual...

Eye movements when reading sentences with handwritten words.

Science.gov (United States)

Perea, Manuel; Marcet, Ana; Uixera, Beatriz; Vergara-Martínez, Marta

2016-10-17

The examination of how we read handwritten words (i.e., the original form of writing) has typically been disregarded in the literature on reading. Previous research using word recognition tasks has shown that lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) are magnified when reading difficult handwritten words. To examine this issue in a more ecological scenario, we registered the participants' eye movements when reading handwritten sentences that varied in the degree of legibility (i.e., sentences composed of words in easy vs. difficult handwritten style). For comparison purposes, we included a condition with printed sentences. Results showed a larger reading cost for sentences with difficult handwritten words than for sentences with easy handwritten words, which in turn showed a reading cost relative to the sentences with printed words. Critically, the effect of word frequency was greater for difficult handwritten words than for easy handwritten words or printed words in the total times on a target word, but not on first-fixation durations or gaze durations. We examine the implications of these findings for models of eye movement control in reading.

The Birth of Words: Ten-Month-Olds Learn Words through Perceptual Salience

Science.gov (United States)

Pruden, Shannon M.; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy; Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Hennon, Elizabeth A.

2006-01-01

A core task in language acquisition is mapping words onto objects, actions, and events. Two studies investigated how children learn to map novel labels onto novel objects. Study 1 investigated whether 10-month-olds use both perceptual and social cues to learn a word. Study 2, a control study, tested whether infants paired the label with a…

Towards new information resources for public health--from WordNet to MedicalWordNet.

Science.gov (United States)

Fellbaum, Christiane; Hahn, Udo; Smith, Barry

2006-06-01

In the last two decades, WordNet has evolved as the most comprehensive computational lexicon of general English. In this article, we discuss its potential for supporting the creation of an entirely new kind of information resource for public health, viz. MedicalWordNet. This resource is not to be conceived merely as a lexical extension of the original WordNet to medical terminology; indeed, there is already a considerable degree of overlap between WordNet and the vocabulary of medicine. Instead, we propose a new type of repository, consisting of three large collections of (1) medically relevant word forms, structured along the lines of the existing Princeton WordNet; (2) medically validated propositions, referred to here as medical facts, which will constitute what we shall call MedicalFactNet; and (3) propositions reflecting laypersons' medical beliefs, which will constitute what we shall call the MedicalBeliefNet. We introduce a methodology for setting up the MedicalWordNet. We then turn to the discussion of research challenges that have to be met to build this new type of information resource. We build a database of sentences relevant to the medical domain. The sentences are generated from WordNet via its relations as well as from medical statements broken down into elementary propositions. Two subcorpora of sentences are distinguished, MedicalBeliefNet and MedicalFactNet. The former is rated for assent by laypersons; the latter for correctness by medical experts. The sentence corpora will be valuable for a variety of applications in information retrieval as well as in research in linguistics and psychology with respect to the study of expert and non-expert beliefs and their linguistic expressions. Our work has to meet several considerable challenges. These include accounting for the distinction between medical experts and laypersons, the social issues of expert-layperson communication in different media, the linguistic aspects of encoding medical knowledge, and

Nine Words - Nine Columns

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Trempe Jr., Robert B.; Buthke, Jan

2016-01-01

of computational and mechanical processes towards an anesthetic. Each team received a single word, translating and evolving that word first into a double-curved computational surface, next a ruled computational surface, and then a physically shaped foam mold via a 6-axis robot. The foam molds then operated...

The effect of word concreteness on recognition memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Fliessbach, K; Weis, S; Klaver, P; Elger, C E; Weber, B

2006-09-01

Concrete words that are readily imagined are better remembered than abstract words. Theoretical explanations for this effect either claim a dual coding of concrete words in the form of both a verbal and a sensory code (dual-coding theory), or a more accessible semantic network for concrete words than for abstract words (context-availability theory). However, the neural mechanisms of improved memory for concrete versus abstract words are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the processing of concrete and abstract words during encoding and retrieval in a recognition memory task using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). As predicted, memory performance was significantly better for concrete words than for abstract words. Abstract words elicited stronger activations of the left inferior frontal cortex both during encoding and recognition than did concrete words. Stronger activation of this area was also associated with successful encoding for both abstract and concrete words. Concrete words elicited stronger activations bilaterally in the posterior inferior parietal lobe during recognition. The left parietal activation was associated with correct identification of old stimuli. The anterior precuneus, left cerebellar hemisphere and the posterior and anterior cingulate cortex showed activations both for successful recognition of concrete words and for online processing of concrete words during encoding. Additionally, we observed a correlation across subjects between brain activity in the left anterior fusiform gyrus and hippocampus during recognition of learned words and the strength of the concreteness effect. These findings support the idea of specific brain processes for concrete words, which are reactivated during successful recognition.

Word segmentation in children’s literacy: a study about word awareness

OpenAIRE

Débora Mattos Marques; Aline Lorandi

2016-01-01

The present research aimed to investigate how linguistic awareness regarding the concept of “word” may influence some mistakes on segmenting words in children’s writing in the Elementary School. The observed data comprised those of hyper and hyposegmentation which were then related to word awareness. For the analysis of linguistic awareness data, the Representational Redescription, proposed by Karmillof-Smith (1986-1992), has been used. It postulates four levels where knowledge is redescri...

How Objective a Neutral Word Is? A Neutrosophic Approach for the Objectivity Degrees of Neutral Words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mihaela Colhon

2017-11-01

Full Text Available In the latest studies concerning the sentiment polarity of words, the authors mostly consider the positive and negative constructions, without paying too much attention to the neutral words, which can have, in fact, significant sentiment degrees. More precisely, not all the neutral words have zero positivity or negativity scores, some of them having quite important nonzero scores for these polarities. At this moment, in the literature, a word is considered neutral if its positive and negative scores are equal, which implies two possibilities: (1 zero positive and negative scores; (2 nonzero, but equal positive and negative scores. It is obvious that these cases represent two different categories of neutral words that must be treated separately by a sentiment analysis task. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study about the neutral words applied to English as is developed with the aid of SentiWordNet 3.0: the publicly available lexical resource for opinion mining. We designed our study in order to provide an accurate classification of the so-called “neutral words” described in terms of sentiment scores and using measures from neutrosophy theory. The intended scope is to fill the gap concerning the neutrality aspect by giving precise measurements for the words’ objectivity.

Visual recognition of permuted words

Science.gov (United States)

Rashid, Sheikh Faisal; Shafait, Faisal; Breuel, Thomas M.

2010-02-01

In current study we examine how letter permutation affects in visual recognition of words for two orthographically dissimilar languages, Urdu and German. We present the hypothesis that recognition or reading of permuted and non-permuted words are two distinct mental level processes, and that people use different strategies in handling permuted words as compared to normal words. A comparison between reading behavior of people in these languages is also presented. We present our study in context of dual route theories of reading and it is observed that the dual-route theory is consistent with explanation of our hypothesis of distinction in underlying cognitive behavior for reading permuted and non-permuted words. We conducted three experiments in lexical decision tasks to analyze how reading is degraded or affected by letter permutation. We performed analysis of variance (ANOVA), distribution free rank test, and t-test to determine the significance differences in response time latencies for two classes of data. Results showed that the recognition accuracy for permuted words is decreased 31% in case of Urdu and 11% in case of German language. We also found a considerable difference in reading behavior for cursive and alphabetic languages and it is observed that reading of Urdu is comparatively slower than reading of German due to characteristics of cursive script.

Corticospinal excitability during the processing of handwritten and typed words and non-words.

Science.gov (United States)

Gordon, Chelsea L; Spivey, Michael J; Balasubramaniam, Ramesh

2017-06-09

A number of studies have suggested that perception of actions is accompanied by motor simulation of those actions. To further explore this proposal, we applied Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the left primary motor cortex during the observation of handwritten and typed language stimuli, including words and non-word consonant clusters. We recorded motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) from the right first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle to measure cortico-spinal excitability during written text perception. We observed a facilitation in MEPs for handwritten stimuli, regardless of whether the stimuli were words or non-words, suggesting potential motor simulation during observation. We did not observe a similar facilitation for the typed stimuli, suggesting that motor simulation was not occurring during observation of typed text. By demonstrating potential simulation of written language text during observation, these findings add to a growing literature suggesting that the motor system plays a strong role in the perception of written language. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Study of Synonymous Word "Mistake"

OpenAIRE

Suwardi, Albertus

2016-01-01

This article discusses the synonymous word "mistake*.The discussion will also cover the meaning of 'word' itself. Words can be considered as form whether spoken or written, or alternatively as composite expression, which combine and meaning. Synonymous are different phonological words which have the same or very similar meanings. The synonyms of mistake are error, fault, blunder, slip, slipup, gaffe and inaccuracy. The data is taken from a computer program. The procedure of data collection is...

Filaments of Meaning in Word Space

OpenAIRE

Karlgren, Jussi; Holst, Anders; Sahlgren, Magnus

2008-01-01

Word space models, in the sense of vector space models built on distributional data taken from texts, are used to model semantic relations between words. We argue that the high dimensionality of typical vector space models lead to unintuitive effects on modeling likeness of meaning and that the local structure of word spaces is where interesting semantic relations reside. We show that the local structure of word spaces has substantially different dimensionality and character than the global s...

Electric Symbols: Internet Words And Culture

OpenAIRE

Fraim, John

2002-01-01

The famous Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis posits a linguistic determinism arguing language plays a central role in creation of a worldview. In the sense that language is a product of words, one can say that a culture's worldview is affected and influenced by the words of its particular language. Words both create and communicate worldviews. The greatest potential in history for the observation and analysis of words exists on the Internet. Indeed, the Internet can be considered history's greatest obse...

Directed forgetting: Comparing pictures and words.

Science.gov (United States)

Quinlan, Chelsea K; Taylor, Tracy L; Fawcett, Jonathan M

2010-03-01

The authors investigated directed forgetting as a function of the stimulus type (picture, word) presented at study and test. In an item-method directed forgetting task, study items were presented 1 at a time, each followed with equal probability by an instruction to remember or forget. Participants exhibited greater yes-no recognition of remember than forget items for each of the 4 study-test conditions (picture-picture, picture-word, word-word, word-picture). However, this difference was significantly smaller when pictures were studied than when words were studied. This finding demonstrates that the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect can be reduced by high item memorability, such as when the picture superiority effect is operating. This suggests caution in using pictures at study when the goal of an experiment is to examine potential group differences in the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect. 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Pictures Improve Memory of SAT Vocabulary Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Price, Melva; Finkelstein, Arleen

1994-01-01

Suggests that students can improve their memory of Scholastic Aptitude Test vocabulary words by associating the words with corresponding pictures taken from magazines. Finds that long-term recall of words associated with pictures was higher than recall of words not associated with pictures. (RS)

WordPress all-in-one for dummies

CERN Document Server

Sabin-Wilson, Lisa

2013-01-01

Top WordPress guide, now fully updated for the latest WordPress release! This updated new edition comprises one of the largest collections of practical intermediate to advanced information on WordPress. Fully updated for the latest WordPress release, this in-depth book covers it all, from setting up your software to publishing your site, using SEO and social media, developing and using plug-ins, running multiple sites with WordPress, and more. Veteran author Lisa Sabin-Wilson is a top authority on WordPress, and she and her co-authors pack this book with essential and easy-to-follo

Learning to Read Words: Theory, Findings, and Issues

Science.gov (United States)

Ehri, Linnea C.

2005-01-01

Reading words may take several forms. Readers may utilize decoding, analogizing, or predicting to read unfamiliar words. Readers read familiar words by accessing them in memory, called sight word reading. With practice, all words come to be read automatically by sight, which is the most efficient, unobtrusive way to read words in text. The process…

Sensory experience ratings (SERs) for 1,659 French words: Relationships with other psycholinguistic variables and visual word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Bonin, Patrick; Méot, Alain; Ferrand, Ludovic; Bugaïska, Aurélia

2015-09-01

We collected sensory experience ratings (SERs) for 1,659 French words in adults. Sensory experience for words is a recently introduced variable that corresponds to the degree to which words elicit sensory and perceptual experiences (Juhasz & Yap Behavior Research Methods, 45, 160-168, 2013; Juhasz, Yap, Dicke, Taylor, & Gullick Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 1683-1691, 2011). The relationships of the sensory experience norms with other psycholinguistic variables (e.g., imageability and age of acquisition) were analyzed. We also investigated the degree to which SER predicted performance in visual word recognition tasks (lexical decision, word naming, and progressive demasking). The analyses indicated that SER reliably predicted response times in lexical decision, but not in word naming or progressive demasking. The findings are discussed in relation to the status of SER, the role of semantic code activation in visual word recognition, and the embodied view of cognition.

Arabic word recognizer for mobile applications

Science.gov (United States)

Khanna, Nitin; Abdollahian, Golnaz; Brame, Ben; Boutin, Mireille; Delp, Edward J.

2011-03-01

When traveling in a region where the local language is not written using a "Roman alphabet," translating written text (e.g., documents, road signs, or placards) is a particularly difficult problem since the text cannot be easily entered into a translation device or searched using a dictionary. To address this problem, we are developing the "Rosetta Phone," a handheld device (e.g., PDA or mobile telephone) capable of acquiring an image of the text, locating the region (word) of interest within the image, and producing both an audio and a visual English interpretation of the text. This paper presents a system targeted for interpreting words written in Arabic script. The goal of this work is to develop an autonomous, segmentation-free Arabic phrase recognizer, with computational complexity low enough to deploy on a mobile device. A prototype of the proposed system has been deployed on an iPhone with a suitable user interface. The system was tested on a number of noisy images, in addition to the images acquired from the iPhone's camera. It identifies Arabic words or phrases by extracting appropriate features and assigning "codewords" to each word or phrase. On a dictionary of 5,000 words, the system uniquely mapped (word-image to codeword) 99.9% of the words. The system has a 82% recognition accuracy on images of words captured using the iPhone's built-in camera.

Remembering episodic memories is not necessary for forgetting of negative words: Semantic retrieval can cause forgetting of negative words.

Science.gov (United States)

Kobayashi, Masanori; Tanno, Yoshihiko

2015-06-01

Retrieval of a memory can induce forgetting of other related memories, which is known as retrieval-induced forgetting. Although most studies have investigated retrieval-induced forgetting by remembering episodic memories, this also can occur by remembering semantic memories. The present study shows that retrieval of semantic memories can lead to forgetting of negative words. In two experiments, participants learned words and then engaged in retrieval practice where they were asked to recall words related to the learned words from semantic memory. Finally, participants completed a stem-cued recall test for the learned words. The results showed forgetting of neutral and negative words, which was characteristic of semantic retrieval-induced forgetting. A certain degree of overlapping features, except same learning episode, is sufficient to cause retrieval-induced forgetting of negative words. Given the present results, we conclude that retrieval-induced forgetting of negative words does not require recollection of episodic memories.

WORD FORMATION ON DRAGON NEST CHAT LANGUAGE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shavitri Cecillia Harsono

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Word formation is creation of new words, which sometimes changes a word’s meaning. Words can be formed from multi word phrases as well. In many cases vocabularies in language are formed from combination of words (Haspelmath 2010: 102. Word formation does not only involve changing physical form of the word itself, but also changing the meaning of said word. There are also instances where the physical form retain its original form while the meaning changes. The phenomenon is called semantic change (Stockwell-Minkova 2001:149. In this thesis the research proposed that the said phenomenon occur in virtual environment, such as in MMORPG. Multiplayer online games that feature fantasy setting virtual environment. For the purpose of this research, Dragon Nest South East Asia server was chosen as data source. The samples are taken from players perusing [World] communication channel. The result of the data analysis has shown that the phenomenon of word formation could occur in a virtual environment of MMORPG, specifcally in Dragon Nest SEA. There are two word formation processes found: processes that involve physical changes and processes that do not involve physical changes but rather innate meaning. It is done by both processing daily language vocabulary both physically and changing its innate meaning to create new words that suits the said virtual environment context. This fnding may influence future research on a fresh perspective and untilled feld.

Facilitating Decision Making, Re-Use and Collaboration: A Knowledge Management Approach to Acquisition Program Self-Awareness

Science.gov (United States)

2009-06-01

capabilities: web-based, relational/multi-dimensional, client/server, and metadata (data about data) inclusion (pp. 39-40). Text mining, on the other...and Organizational Systems ( CASOS ) (Carley, 2005). Although AutoMap can be used to conduct text-mining, it was utilized only for its visualization...provides insight into how the GMCOI is using the terms, and where there might be redundant terms and need for de -confliction and standardization

Prefixes versus suffixes: a search for a word-beginning superiority effect in word recognition from degraded speech

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nooteboom, S.G.; Vlugt, van der M.J.

1985-01-01

This paper reports on a word recognition experiment in search of evidence for a word- beginning superiority effect in recognition from low-quality speech . In the experiment, lexical redundancy was controlled by combining monosyllable word stems with strongly constraining or weakly constraining

Anticipatory coarticulation facilitates word recognition in toddlers.

Science.gov (United States)

Mahr, Tristan; McMillan, Brianna T M; Saffran, Jenny R; Ellis Weismer, Susan; Edwards, Jan

2015-09-01

Children learn from their environments and their caregivers. To capitalize on learning opportunities, young children have to recognize familiar words efficiently by integrating contextual cues across word boundaries. Previous research has shown that adults can use phonetic cues from anticipatory coarticulation during word recognition. We asked whether 18-24 month-olds (n=29) used coarticulatory cues on the word "the" when recognizing the following noun. We performed a looking-while-listening eyetracking experiment to examine word recognition in neutral vs. facilitating coarticulatory conditions. Participants looked to the target image significantly sooner when the determiner contained facilitating coarticulatory cues. These results provide the first evidence that novice word-learners can take advantage of anticipatory sub-phonemic cues during word recognition. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Processing of Color Words Activates Color Representations

Science.gov (United States)

Richter, Tobias; Zwaan, Rolf A.

2009-01-01

Two experiments were conducted to investigate whether color representations are routinely activated when color words are processed. Congruency effects of colors and color words were observed in both directions. Lexical decisions on color words were faster when preceding colors matched the color named by the word. Color-discrimination responses…

Professional Music Training and Novel Word Learning: From Faster Semantic Encoding to Longer-lasting Word Representations.

Science.gov (United States)

Dittinger, Eva; Barbaroux, Mylène; D'Imperio, Mariapaola; Jäncke, Lutz; Elmer, Stefan; Besson, Mireille

2016-10-01

On the basis of previous results showing that music training positively influences different aspects of speech perception and cognition, the aim of this series of experiments was to test the hypothesis that adult professional musicians would learn the meaning of novel words through picture-word associations more efficiently than controls without music training (i.e., fewer errors and faster RTs). We also expected musicians to show faster changes in brain electrical activity than controls, in particular regarding the N400 component that develops with word learning. In line with these hypotheses, musicians outperformed controls in the most difficult semantic task. Moreover, although a frontally distributed N400 component developed in both groups of participants after only a few minutes of novel word learning, in musicians this frontal distribution rapidly shifted to parietal scalp sites, as typically found for the N400 elicited by known words. Finally, musicians showed evidence for better long-term memory for novel words 5 months after the main experimental session. Results are discussed in terms of cascading effects from enhanced perception to memory as well as in terms of multifaceted improvements of cognitive processing due to music training. To our knowledge, this is the first report showing that music training influences semantic aspects of language processing in adults. These results open new perspectives for education in showing that early music training can facilitate later foreign language learning. Moreover, the design used in the present experiment can help to specify the stages of word learning that are impaired in children and adults with word learning difficulties.

Prophetic sensing of Yahweh’s word

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wilhelm J. Wessels

2015-07-01

Full Text Available This article focuses on Jeremiah 23:18, which implies that the prophet stood in the council of Yahweh (sôd to see and hear the word of Yahweh. In this verse, it seems that the senses of the prophet played a role in receiving Yahweh’s words. Verse 18 forms part of 23:16–22 in which Jeremiah warned the people of Judah not to listen to prophets who mislead them with optimistic messages. In this article, attention is given to the question whether standing in the council of Yahweh is a deciding criterion for receiving true words from Yahweh. The motif of the divine council is also investigated. An argument is presented that ‘sensing’ should be understood in the double sense of the word, namely sensory experience as well as the intellectual activity of understanding. It is argued that both meanings of the word sensing are necessary to determine the truth of Yahweh’s word.

Sound specificity effects in spoken word recognition: The effect of integrality between words and sounds.

Science.gov (United States)

Strori, Dorina; Zaar, Johannes; Cooke, Martin; Mattys, Sven L

2018-01-01

Recent evidence has shown that nonlinguistic sounds co-occurring with spoken words may be retained in memory and affect later retrieval of the words. This sound-specificity effect shares many characteristics with the classic voice-specificity effect. In this study, we argue that the sound-specificity effect is conditional upon the context in which the word and sound coexist. Specifically, we argue that, besides co-occurrence, integrality between words and sounds is a crucial factor in the emergence of the effect. In two recognition-memory experiments, we compared the emergence of voice and sound specificity effects. In Experiment 1 , we examined two conditions where integrality is high. Namely, the classic voice-specificity effect (Exp. 1a) was compared with a condition in which the intensity envelope of a background sound was modulated along the intensity envelope of the accompanying spoken word (Exp. 1b). Results revealed a robust voice-specificity effect and, critically, a comparable sound-specificity effect: A change in the paired sound from exposure to test led to a decrease in word-recognition performance. In the second experiment, we sought to disentangle the contribution of integrality from a mere co-occurrence context effect by removing the intensity modulation. The absence of integrality led to the disappearance of the sound-specificity effect. Taken together, the results suggest that the assimilation of background sounds into memory cannot be reduced to a simple context effect. Rather, it is conditioned by the extent to which words and sounds are perceived as integral as opposed to distinct auditory objects.

Preschool Children’s Memory for Word Forms Remains Stable Over Several Days, but Gradually Decreases after Six Months

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katherine Ruth Gordon

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Research on word learning has focused on children’s ability to identify a target object when given the word form after a minimal number of exposures to novel word-object pairings. However, relatively little research has focused on children’s ability to retrieve the word form when given the target object. The exceptions involve asking children to recall and produce forms, and children typically perform near floor on these measures. In the current study, 3- to 5-year-old children were administered a novel test of word form that allowed for recognition memory and manual responses. Specifically, when asked to label a previously trained object, children were given three forms to choose from: the target, a minimally different form, and a maximally different form. Children demonstrated memory for word forms at three post-training delays: 10 minutes (short-term, 2 to 3 days (long-term, and 6 months to 1 year (very long-term. However, children performed worse at the very long-term delay than the other time points, and the length of the very long-term delay was negatively related to performance. When in error, children were no more likely to select the minimally different form than the maximally different form at all time points. Overall, these results suggest that children remember word forms that are linked to objects over extended post-training intervals, but that their memory for the forms gradually decreases over time without further exposures. Furthermore, memory traces for word forms do not become less phonologically specific over time; rather children either identify the correct form, or they perform at chance.

Emotion words and categories: evidence from lexical decision

OpenAIRE

Scott, Graham; O'Donnell, Patrick; Sereno, Sara C.

2014-01-01

We examined the categorical nature of emotion word recognition. Positive, negative, and neutral words were presented in lexical decision tasks. Word frequency was additionally manipulated. In Experiment 1, "positive" and "negative" categories of words were implicitly indicated by the blocked design employed. A significant emotion–frequency interaction was obtained, replicating past research. While positive words consistently elicited faster responses than neutral words, only low frequency nega...

AUTOMATIC RETRIEVAL AND THE FORMALIZATION OF MULTI WORDS EXPRESSIONS WITH F-WORDS IN THE CORPUS OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ENGLISH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Prihantoro Prihantoro

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The research problems in this research are 1 how lexicogrammar takes role in determining polarity of F-Word1 and 2 how to formalize it for corpus processing. The data is obtained from the Contemporary American English Corpus (COCA. In this corpus, F-word is proven to be highest in frequency as compared to its distribution across corpora. Corpus methodology is applied by sending queries to retrieve F-Words to COCA interface. Tokens combination surrounding F-words resulted in the phrase and clause unit accompanying F-words, which are significant cues to determine F-word polarity. The polarity is later proven to be not necessarily negative. I also designed a computational resource to allow the retrieval of F-words offline so that users might apply it to any digital text collections.

Word Learning Deficits in Children with Dyslexia

Science.gov (United States)

Alt, Mary; Hogan, Tiffany; Green, Samuel; Gray, Shelley; Cabbage, Kathryn; Cowan, Nelson

2017-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate word learning in children with dyslexia to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses during the configuration stage of word learning. Method: Children with typical development (N = 116) and dyslexia (N = 68) participated in computer-based word learning games that assessed word learning in 4 sets…

Emotion Words Affect Eye Fixations during Reading

Science.gov (United States)

Scott, Graham G.; O'Donnell, Patrick J.; Sereno, Sara C.

2012-01-01

Emotion words are generally characterized as possessing high arousal and extreme valence and have typically been investigated in paradigms in which they are presented and measured as single words. This study examined whether a word's emotional qualities influenced the time spent viewing that word in the context of normal reading. Eye movements…

Word-Form Familiarity Bootstraps Infant Speech Segmentation

Science.gov (United States)

Altvater-Mackensen, Nicole; Mani, Nivedita

2013-01-01

At about 7 months of age, infants listen longer to sentences containing familiar words--but not deviant pronunciations of familiar words (Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995). This finding suggests that infants are able to segment familiar words from fluent speech and that they store words in sufficient phonological detail to recognize deviations from a…

The Role of Geminates in Infants' Early Word Production and Word-Form Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Vihman, Marilyn; Majoran, Marinella

2017-01-01

Infants learning languages with long consonants, or geminates, have been found to "overselect" and "overproduce" these consonants in early words and also to commonly omit the word-initial consonant. A production study with thirty Italian children recorded at 1;3 and 1;9 strongly confirmed both of these tendencies. To test the…

Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words.

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Yun; van Heuven, Walter J B

2017-06-01

We present Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words. Chinese-English bilinguals (N = 28) were asked to provide the first Chinese translation that came to mind for 1,429 English words. The results revealed that 71 % of the English words received more than one correct translation indicating the large amount of translation ambiguity when translating from English to Chinese. The relationship between translation ambiguity and word frequency, concreteness and language proficiency was investigated. Although the significant correlations were not strong, results revealed that English word frequency was positively correlated with the number of alternative translations, whereas English word concreteness was negatively correlated with the number of translations. Importantly, regression analyses showed that the number of Chinese translations was predicted by word frequency and concreteness. Furthermore, an interaction between these predictors revealed that the number of translations was more affected by word frequency for more concrete words than for less concrete words. In addition, mixed-effects modelling showed that word frequency, concreteness and English language proficiency were all significant predictors of whether or not a dominant translation was provided. Finally, correlations between the word frequencies of English words and their Chinese dominant translations were higher for translation-unambiguous pairs than for translation-ambiguous pairs. The translation norms are made available in a database together with lexical information about the words, which will be a useful resource for researchers investigating Chinese-English bilingual language processing.

40 CFR 156.64 - Signal word.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 23 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Signal word. 156.64 Section 156.64... REQUIREMENTS FOR PESTICIDES AND DEVICES Human Hazard and Precautionary Statements § 156.64 Signal word. (a... signal word, reflecting the highest Toxicity Category (Category I is the highest toxicity category) to...

Functional Anatomy of Recognition of Chinese Multi-Character Words: Convergent Evidence from Effects of Transposable Nonwords, Lexicality, and Word Frequency.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Nan; Yu, Xi; Zhao, Ying; Zhang, Mingxia

2016-01-01

This fMRI study aimed to identify the neural mechanisms underlying the recognition of Chinese multi-character words by partialling out the confounding effect of reaction time (RT). For this purpose, a special type of nonword-transposable nonword-was created by reversing the character orders of real words. These nonwords were included in a lexical decision task along with regular (non-transposable) nonwords and real words. Through conjunction analysis on the contrasts of transposable nonwords versus regular nonwords and words versus regular nonwords, the confounding effect of RT was eliminated, and the regions involved in word recognition were reliably identified. The word-frequency effect was also examined in emerged regions to further assess their functional roles in word processing. Results showed significant conjunctional effect and positive word-frequency effect in the bilateral inferior parietal lobules and posterior cingulate cortex, whereas only conjunctional effect was found in the anterior cingulate cortex. The roles of these brain regions in recognition of Chinese multi-character words were discussed.

Automatic Prompt System in the Process of Mapping plWordNet on Princeton WordNet

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paweł Kędzia

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Automatic Prompt System in the Process of Mapping plWordNet on Princeton WordNet The paper offers a critical evaluation of the power and usefulness of an automatic prompt system based on the extended Relaxation Labelling algorithm in the process of (manual mapping plWordNet on Princeton WordNet. To this end the results of manual mapping – that is inter-lingual relations between plWN and PWN synsets – are juxtaposed with the automatic prompts that were generated for the source language synsets to be mapped. We check the number and type of inter-lingual relations introduced on the basis of automatic prompts and the distance of the respective prompt synsets from the actual target language synsets.

Sight Word Recognition among Young Children At-Risk: Picture-Supported vs. Word-Only

Science.gov (United States)

Meadan, Hedda; Stoner, Julia B.; Parette, Howard P.

2008-01-01

A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the impact of Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) on sight word recognition by young children identified as "at risk" for academic and social-behavior difficulties. Ten pre-primer and 10 primer Dolch words were presented to 23 students in the intervention group and 8 students in the…

Three Dirty Words Are Killing Education

Science.gov (United States)

Jensen, Deb

2010-01-01

Three words used frequently in debates about education actually cloud the issues. Those words are standardization, rigor, and reform. Standardization is often confused with standards, though they are not the same thing. Similarly, rigor is confused with relevance, and reform with renaissance. Those three words are used because they sound tough and…

Learning during processing Word learning doesn’t wait for word recognition to finish

Science.gov (United States)

Apfelbaum, Keith S.; McMurray, Bob

2017-01-01

Previous research on associative learning has uncovered detailed aspects of the process, including what types of things are learned, how they are learned, and where in the brain such learning occurs. However, perceptual processes, such as stimulus recognition and identification, take time to unfold. Previous studies of learning have not addressed when, during the course of these dynamic recognition processes, learned representations are formed and updated. If learned representations are formed and updated while recognition is ongoing, the result of learning may incorporate spurious, partial information. For example, during word recognition, words take time to be identified, and competing words are often active in parallel. If learning proceeds before this competition resolves, representations may be influenced by the preliminary activations present at the time of learning. In three experiments using word learning as a model domain, we provide evidence that learning reflects the ongoing dynamics of auditory and visual processing during a learning event. These results show that learning can occur before stimulus recognition processes are complete; learning does not wait for ongoing perceptual processing to complete. PMID:27471082

Word Length Effects in Long-Term Memory

Science.gov (United States)

Tehan, Gerald; Tolan, Georgina Anne

2007-01-01

The word length effect has been a central feature of theorising about immediate memory. The notion that short-term memory traces rapidly decay unless refreshed by rehearsal is based primarily upon the finding that serial recall for short words is better than that for long words. The decay account of the word length effect has come under pressure…

[Representation of letter position in visual word recognition process].

Science.gov (United States)

Makioka, S

1994-08-01

Two experiments investigated the representation of letter position in visual word recognition process. In Experiment 1, subjects (12 undergraduates and graduates) were asked to detect a target word in a briefly-presented probe. Probes consisted of two kanji words. The latters which formed targets (critical letters) were always contained in probes. (e.g. target: [symbol: see text] probe: [symbol: see text]) High false alarm rate was observed when critical letters occupied the same within-word relative position (left or right within the word) in the probe words as in the target word. In Experiment 2 (subject were ten undergraduates and graduates), spaces adjacent to probe words were replaced by randomly chosen hiragana letters (e.g. [symbol: see text]), because spaces are not used to separate words in regular Japanese sentences. In addition to the effect of within-word relative position as in Experiment 1, the effect of between-word relative position (left or right across the probe words) was observed. These results suggest that information about within-word relative position of a letter is used in word recognition process. The effect of within-word relative position was explained by a connectionist model of word recognition.

WORD-ATTACK SKILLS FOR INDONESIAN LEARNERS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joko Pranowo

2006-01-01

Full Text Available The typical drawbacks that affect most Indonesian learners studying English as the target language concern the strategies in dealing with new dictions. The rule of thumb is that the learners are usually tempted to directly look up the meaning in a dictionary when other ways such as guessing the meaning from the context or by dissecting the words into smaller units so that they are able to get a hint from the base word cannot be engineered. As a result of this activity then, they miss crucial points in the realm of word enrichment. This article will shed some light on how to deal with new words and claim that it is not the meaning of a new word that should be the first priority.

Mojibake - The rehearsal of word fragments in verbal recall.

Science.gov (United States)

Lange-Küttner, Christiane; Sykorova, Eva

2015-01-01

Theories of verbal rehearsal usually assume that whole words are being rehearsed. However, words consist of letter sequences, or syllables, or word onset-vowel-coda, amongst many other conceptualizations of word structure. A more general term is the 'grain size' of word units (Ziegler and Goswami, 2005). In the current study, a new method measured the quantitative percentage of correctly remembered word structure. The amount of letters in the correct letter sequence as per cent of word length was calculated, disregarding missing or added letters. A forced rehearsal was tested by repeating each memory list four times. We tested low frequency (LF) English words versus geographical (UK) town names to control for content. We also tested unfamiliar international (INT) non-words and names of international (INT) European towns to control for familiarity. An immediate versus distributed repetition was tested with a between-subject design. Participants responded with word fragments in their written recall especially when they had to remember unfamiliar words. While memory of whole words was sensitive to content, presentation distribution and individual sex and language differences, recall of word fragments was not. There was no trade-off between memory of word fragments with whole word recall during the repetition, instead also word fragments significantly increased. Moreover, while whole word responses correlated with each other during repetition, and word fragment responses correlated with each other during repetition, these two types of word recall responses were not correlated with each other. Thus there may be a lower layer consisting of free, sparse word fragments and an upper layer that consists of language-specific, orthographically and semantically constrained words.

Word embeddings and recurrent neural networks based on Long-Short Term Memory nodes in supervised biomedical word sense disambiguation.

Science.gov (United States)

Jimeno Yepes, Antonio

2017-09-01

Word sense disambiguation helps identifying the proper sense of ambiguous words in text. With large terminologies such as the UMLS Metathesaurus ambiguities appear and highly effective disambiguation methods are required. Supervised learning algorithm methods are used as one of the approaches to perform disambiguation. Features extracted from the context of an ambiguous word are used to identify the proper sense of such a word. The type of features have an impact on machine learning methods, thus affect disambiguation performance. In this work, we have evaluated several types of features derived from the context of the ambiguous word and we have explored as well more global features derived from MEDLINE using word embeddings. Results show that word embeddings improve the performance of more traditional features and allow as well using recurrent neural network classifiers based on Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) nodes. The combination of unigrams and word embeddings with an SVM sets a new state of the art performance with a macro accuracy of 95.97 in the MSH WSD data set. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Lexical Availability of Young Spanish EFL Learners: Emotion Words versus Non-Emotion Words

Science.gov (United States)

Jiménez Catalán, Rosa M.; Dewaele, Jean-Marc

2017-01-01

This study intends to contribute to L2 emotion vocabulary research by looking at the words that primary-school English as foreign language learners produce in response to prompts in a lexical availability task. Specifically, it aims to ascertain whether emotion prompts (Love, Hate, Happy and Sad) generate a greater number of words than non-emotion…

Personality correlates of reporting Chinese words from the Deutsch “high-low” word illusion by Chinese-speaking people

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

You Xu; Junpeng Zhu; Wanzhen Chen; Hao Chai; Wei He; Wei Wang

2012-01-01

[Objective] When English-speaking people listen to the Deutseh “high-low” word illusion,they report hearing English words.Whether Chinese-speaking people report Chinese words when listening to the illusion,or whether any reported words might be correlated with personality traits as previous investigations have demonstrated for listening to music in other cultures,is open to question.The present study aimed to address this.[Methods] A total of 308 right-handed,healthy volunteers (177 women and 131 men) were given the illusion test and asked to answer the Zuckerman-Kuhlman personality questionnaire (ZKPQ).Their depressive tendency was measured by the Plutchik-van Praag depression inventory (PVP).[Results] There was no gender effect regarding either the PVP score or the number of reported Chinese words from the illusion.Women scored higher on ZKPQ neuroticism-anxiety than men.The number of meaningful Chinese words reported was correlated with the ZKPQ impulsive sensation-seeking,aggression-hostility,and activity scores.Some words reported by participants who scored higher on these three traits were related in meaning to those scales.[[Conclusion

The Magic of Words Reconsidered: Investigating the Automaticity of Reading Color-Neutral Words in the Stroop Task

Science.gov (United States)

Kinoshita, Sachiko; De Wit, Bianca; Norris, Dennis

2017-01-01

In 2 variants of the color-word Stroop task, we compared 5 types of color-neutral distractors--real words (e.g., "HAT"), pseudowords (e.g., "HIX"), consonant strings (e.g., "HDK"), symbol strings (e.g., #$%), and a row of Xs (e.g., "XXX")--as well as incongruent color words (e.g., "GREEN" displayed…

"Daddy, Where Did the Words Go?" How Teachers Can Help Emergent Readers Develop a Concept of Word in Text

Science.gov (United States)

Flanigan, Kevin

2006-01-01

This article focuses on a concept that has rarely been studied in beginning reading research--a child's concept of word in text. Recent examinations of this phenomenon suggest that a child's ability to match spoken words to written words while reading--a concept of word in text--plays a pivotal role in early reading development. In this article,…

Time course of syllabic and sub-syllabic processing in Mandarin word production: Evidence from the picture-word interference paradigm.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jie; Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen; Chen, Hsuan-Chih

2017-06-05

The time course of phonological encoding in Mandarin monosyllabic word production was investigated by using the picture-word interference paradigm. Participants were asked to name pictures in Mandarin while visual distractor words were presented before, at, or after picture onset (i.e., stimulus-onset asynchrony/SOA = -100, 0, or +100 ms, respectively). Compared with the unrelated control, the distractors sharing atonal syllables with the picture names significantly facilitated the naming responses at -100- and 0-ms SOAs. In addition, the facilitation effect of sharing word-initial segments only appeared at 0-ms SOA, and null effects were found for sharing word-final segments. These results indicate that both syllables and subsyllabic units play important roles in Mandarin spoken word production and more critically that syllabic processing precedes subsyllabic processing. The current results lend strong support to the proximate units principle (O'Seaghdha, Chen, & Chen, 2010), which holds that the phonological structure of spoken word production is language-specific and that atonal syllables are the proximate phonological units in Mandarin Chinese. On the other hand, the significance of word-initial segments over word-final segments suggests that serial processing of segmental information seems to be universal across Germanic languages and Chinese, which remains to be verified in future studies.

Audiovisual alignment of co-speech gestures to speech supports word learning in 2-year-olds.

Science.gov (United States)

Jesse, Alexandra; Johnson, Elizabeth K

2016-05-01

Analyses of caregiver-child communication suggest that an adult tends to highlight objects in a child's visual scene by moving them in a manner that is temporally aligned with the adult's speech productions. Here, we used the looking-while-listening paradigm to examine whether 25-month-olds use audiovisual temporal alignment to disambiguate and learn novel word-referent mappings in a difficult word-learning task. Videos of two equally interesting and animated novel objects were simultaneously presented to children, but the movement of only one of the objects was aligned with an accompanying object-labeling audio track. No social cues (e.g., pointing, eye gaze, touch) were available to the children because the speaker was edited out of the videos. Immediately afterward, toddlers were presented with still images of the two objects and asked to look at one or the other. Toddlers looked reliably longer to the labeled object, demonstrating their acquisition of the novel word-referent mapping. A control condition showed that children's performance was not solely due to the single unambiguous labeling that had occurred at experiment onset. We conclude that the temporal link between a speaker's utterances and the motion they imposed on the referent object helps toddlers to deduce a speaker's intended reference in a difficult word-learning scenario. In combination with our previous work, these findings suggest that intersensory redundancy is a source of information used by language users of all ages. That is, intersensory redundancy is not just a word-learning tool used by young infants. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Noise Hampers Children's Expressive Word Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Riley, Kristine Grohne; McGregor, Karla K.

2012-01-01

Purpose: To determine the effects of noise and speech style on word learning in typically developing school-age children. Method: Thirty-one participants ages 9;0 (years;months) to 10;11 attempted to learn 2 sets of 8 novel words and their referents. They heard all of the words 13 times each within meaningful narrative discourse. Signal-to-noise…

Word Sorts for General Music Classes

Science.gov (United States)

Cardany, Audrey Berger

2015-01-01

Word sorts are standard practice for aiding children in acquiring skills in English language arts. When included in the general music classroom, word sorts may aid students in acquiring a working knowledge of music vocabulary. The author shares a word sort activity drawn from vocabulary in John Lithgow's children's book "Never Play…

Semantic processing of unattended parafoveal words.

Science.gov (United States)

Di Pace, E; Longoni, A M; Zoccolotti, P

1991-08-01

The influence that a context word presented either foveally or parafoveally, may exert on the processing of a subsequent target word was studied in a semantic decision task. Fourteen subjects participated in the experiment. They were presented with word-nonword pairs (prime). One member of the pair (which the subjects had to attend to) appeared centrally, the other parafoveally. The prime was followed by a target at two inter-stimulus intervals (ISI; 200 and 2000 msec). The word stimulus of the pair could be semantically related or unrelated to the target. The subjects' task was to classify the target as animal or not animal by pressing one of two buttons as quickly as possible. When the target word was semantically associated with the foveal (attended) word the reaction times were faster for both ISIs; when it was associated with the parafoveal (unattended) word in the prime pair, there were facilitatory effects only in the short ISI condition. A second experiment was run in order to evaluate the possibility that the obtained results were due to identification of the parafoveal stimulus. The same prime-target pairs of experiment 1 (without the target stimuli) were used. The prime-target pairs were presented to fourteen subjects who were requested to name the foveal (attended) stimulus and subsequently, if possible, the parafoveal (unattended) one. Even in this condition, percentage of identification of the unattended word was only 15%, suggesting that previous findings were not due to identification of unattended stimuli. Results are discussed in relation to Posner and Snyder's (1975) dual coding theory.

Affective Norms for 362 Persian Words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mahdi Bagheri

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Background: During the past two decades, a great deal of research has been conducted on developing affective norms for words in various languages, showing that there is an urgent need to create such norms in Persian language, too. The present study intended to develop a set of 362 Persian words rated according to their emotional valence, arousal, imageability, and familiarity so as to prepare the ground for further research on emotional word processing. This was the first attempt to set affective norms for Persian words in the realm of emotion.  Methods: Prior to the study, a multitude of words were selected from Persian dictionary and academic books in Persian literature. Secondly, three independent proficient experts in the Persian literature were asked to extract the suitable words from the list and to choose the best (defined as grammatically correct and most often used. The database normalization process was based on the ratings by a total of 88 participants using a 9-point Likert scale. Each participant evaluated about 120 words on four different scales.  Results: There were significant relationships between affective dimensions and some psycholinguistic variables. Also, further analyses were carried out to investigate the possible relationship between different features of valences (positive, negative, and neutral and other variables included in the dataset.  Conclusion: These affective norms for Persian words create a useful and valid dataset which will provide researchers with applying standard verbal materials as well as materials applied in other languages, e.g. English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, etc.

Learning word order at birth: A NIRS study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvia Benavides-Varela

2017-06-01

Full Text Available In language, the relative order of words in sentences carries important grammatical functions. However, the developmental origins and the neural correlates of the ability to track word order are to date poorly understood. The current study therefore investigates the origins of infants’ ability to learn about the sequential order of words, using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS with newborn infants. We have conducted two experiments: one in which a word order change was implemented in 4-word sequences recorded with a list intonation (as if each word was a separate item in a list; list prosody condition, Experiment 1 and one in which the same 4-word sequences were recorded with a well-formed utterance-level prosodic contour (utterance prosody condition, Experiment 2. We found that newborns could detect the violation of the word order in the list prosody condition, but not in the utterance prosody condition. These results suggest that while newborns are already sensitive to word order in linguistic sequences, prosody appears to be a stronger cue than word order for the identification of linguistic units at birth.

Identification of vowel length, word stress and compound words and phrases by postlingually-deafened cochlear implant listeners

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Morris, David Jackson; Magnusson, Lennart; Faulkner, Andrew

2013-01-01

Background: The accurate perception of prosody assists a listener in deriving meaning from natural speech. Few studies have addressed the ability of cochlear implant (CI) listeners to perceive the brief duration prosodic cues involved in contrastive vowel length, word stress, and compound word...... word stress, vowel length, and compound words or phrases all of which were presented with minimal-pair response choices. Tests were performed in quiet and in speech-spectrum shaped noise at a 10 dB signal- to-noise ratio. Also, discrimination thresholds for four acoustic properties of a synthetic vowel...... recipients’ ability to perceive brief prosodic cues. This is of interest in the preparation of rehabilitation materials used in training and in developing realistic expectations for potential CI candidates. Key Words: Cochlear implants, speech acoustics, speech intelligibility...

Macrostructural Treatment of Multi-word Lexical Items

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alenka Vrbinc

2011-05-01

Full Text Available The paper discusses the macrostructural treatment of multi-word lexical items in mono- and bilingual dictionaries. First, the classification of multi-word lexical items is presented, and special attention is paid to the discussion of compounds – a specific group of multi-word lexical items that is most commonly afforded headword status but whose inclusion in the headword list may also depend on spelling. Then the inclusion of multi-word lexical items in monolingual dictionaries is dealt with in greater detail, while the results of a short survey on the inclusion of five randomly chosen multi-word lexical items in seven English monolingual dictionaries are presented. The proposals as to how to treat these five multi-word lexical items in bilingual dictionaries are presented in the section about the inclusion of multi-word lexical items in bilingual dictionaries. The conclusion is that it is most important to take the users’ needs into consideration and to make any dictionary as user friendly as possible.

Infinite permutations vs. infinite words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna E. Frid

2011-08-01

Full Text Available I am going to compare well-known properties of infinite words with those of infinite permutations, a new object studied since middle 2000s. Basically, it was Sergey Avgustinovich who invented this notion, although in an early study by Davis et al. permutations appear in a very similar framework as early as in 1977. I am going to tell about periodicity of permutations, their complexity according to several definitions and their automatic properties, that is, about usual parameters of words, now extended to permutations and behaving sometimes similarly to those for words, sometimes not. Another series of results concerns permutations generated by infinite words and their properties. Although this direction of research is young, many people, including two other speakers of this meeting, have participated in it, and I believe that several more topics for further study are really promising.

Reading faces and Facing words

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Robotham, Julia Emma; Lindegaard, Martin Weis; Delfi, Tzvetelina Shentova

unilateral lesions, we found no patient with a selective deficit in either reading or face processing. Rather, the patients showing a deficit in processing either words or faces were also impaired with the other category. One patient performed within the normal range on all tasks. In addition, all patients......It has long been argued that perceptual processing of faces and words is largely independent, highly specialised and strongly lateralised. Studies of patients with either pure alexia or prosopagnosia have strongly contributed to this view. The aim of our study was to investigate how visual...... perception of faces and words is affected by unilateral posterior stroke. Two patients with lesions in their dominant hemisphere and two with lesions in their non-dominant hemisphere were tested on sensitive tests of face and word perception during the stable phase of recovery. Despite all patients having...

How Justice Can Affect Jury Training Abstract Words Promotes Generalization to Concrete Words in Patients with Aphasia

Science.gov (United States)

Sandberg, Chaleece; Kiran, Swathi

2014-01-01

Developing language treatments that not only improve trained items but also promote generalization to untrained items is a major focus in aphasia research. This study is a replication and extension of previous work that found that training abstract words in a particular context-category promotes generalization to concrete words but not vice versa (Kiran, Sandberg, & Abbott, 2009). Twelve persons with aphasia (5 female) with varying types and degrees of severity participated in a generative naming treatment based on the complexity account of treatment efficacy (CATE; Thompson, Shapiro, Kiran, & Sobecks, 2003). All participants were trained to generate abstract words in a particular context-category by analyzing the semantic features of the target words. Two other context-categories were used as controls. Ten of the twelve participants improved on the trained abstract words in the trained context-category. Eight of the ten participants who responded to treatment also generalized to concrete words in the same context-category. These results suggest that this treatment is both efficacious and efficient. We discuss possible mechanisms of training and generalization effects. PMID:24805853

Transcript for Understanding Medical Words: A Tutorial

Science.gov (United States)

... medlineplus.gov/medicalwordstranscript.html Transcript for Understanding Medical Words: A Tutorial To use the sharing features on ... get to what those mean in a minute. Word Roots Word Roots. Let's begin with body parts. ...

Making Your Music Word Wall Work

Science.gov (United States)

Leonhardt, Angela

2011-01-01

This article looks at what a word wall is and its use in the music classroom. The author outlines steps for creation of a word wall within the music classroom as well as the importance of such a resource. The author encourages the creation and consistent use of the word wall as leading to the development of stronger musicians and also independent,…

The role of native-language phonology in the auditory word identification and visual word recognition of Russian-English bilinguals.

Science.gov (United States)

Shafiro, Valeriy; Kharkhurin, Anatoliy V

2009-03-01

Does native language phonology influence visual word processing in a second language? This question was investigated in two experiments with two groups of Russian-English bilinguals, differing in their English experience, and a monolingual English control group. Experiment 1 tested visual word recognition following semantic categorization of words containing four phonological vowel contrasts (/i/-/u/,/I/-/A/,/i/-/I/,/epsilon/-/ae/). Experiment 2 assessed auditory identification accuracy of words containing these four contrasts. Both bilingual groups demonstrated reduced accuracy in auditory identification of two English vowel contrasts absent in their native phonology (/i/-/I/,epsilon/-/ae/). For late- bilinguals, auditory identification difficulty was accompanied by poor visual word recognition for one difficult contrast (/i/-/I/). Bilinguals' visual word recognition moderately correlated with their auditory identification of difficult contrasts. These results indicate that native language phonology can play a role in visual processing of second language words. However, this effect may be considerably constrained by orthographic systems of specific languages.

Sound specificity effects in spoken word recognition: The effect of integrality between words and sounds

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Strori, Dorina; Zaar, Johannes; Cooke, Martin

2017-01-01

Recent evidence has shown that nonlinguistic sounds co-occurring with spoken words may be retained in memory and affect later retrieval of the words. This sound-specificity effect shares many characteristics with the classic voice-specificity effect. In this study, we argue that the sound......-specificity effect is conditional upon the context in which the word and sound coexist. Specifically, we argue that, besides co-occurrence, integrality between words and sounds is a crucial factor in the emergence of the effect. In two recognition-memory experiments, we compared the emergence of voice and sound...... from a mere co-occurrence context effect by removing the intensity modulation. The absence of integrality led to the disappearance of the sound-specificity effect. Taken together, the results suggest that the assimilation of background sounds into memory cannot be reduced to a simple context effect...

Novel word retention in bilingual and monolingual speakers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pui Fong eKan

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The goal of this research was to examine word retention in bilinguals and monolinguals. Long-term word retention is an essential part of vocabulary learning. Previous studies have documented that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in terms of retrieving newly-exposed words. Yet, little is known about whether or to what extent bilinguals are different from monolinguals in word retention. Participants were 30 English-speaking monolingual adults and 30 bilingual adults who speak Spanish as a home language and learned English as a second language during childhood. In a previous study (Kan, Sadagopan, Janich, & Andrade, 2014, the participants were exposed to the target novel words in English, Spanish, and Cantonese. In this current study, word retention was measured a week after the fast mapping task. No exposures were given during the one-week interval. Results showed that bilinguals and monolinguals retain a similar number of words. However, participants produced more words in English than in either Spanish or Cantonese. Correlation analyses revealed that language knowledge plays a role in the relationships between fast mapping and word retention. Specifically, within- and across-language relationships between bilinguals’ fast mapping and word retention were found in Spanish and English, by contrast, within-language relationships between monolinguals’ fast mapping and word retention were found in English and across-language relationships between their fast mapping and word retention performance in English and Cantonese. Similarly, bilinguals differed from monolinguals in the relationships among the word retention scores in three languages. Significant correlations were found among bilinguals’ retention scores. However, no such correlations were found among monolinguals’ retention scores. The overall findings suggest that bilinguals’ language experience and language knowledge most likely contribute to how they learn and retain new words.

Novel word retention in bilingual and monolingual speakers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kan, Pui Fong; Sadagopan, Neeraja

2014-01-01

The goal of this research was to examine word retention in bilinguals and monolinguals. Long-term word retention is an essential part of vocabulary learning. Previous studies have documented that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in terms of retrieving newly-exposed words. Yet, little is known about whether or to what extent bilinguals are different from monolinguals in word retention. Participants were 30 English-speaking monolingual adults and 30 bilingual adults who speak Spanish as a home language and learned English as a second language during childhood. In a previous study (Kan et al., 2014), the participants were exposed to the target novel words in English, Spanish, and Cantonese. In this current study, word retention was measured a week after the fast mapping task. No exposures were given during the one-week interval. Results showed that bilinguals and monolinguals retain a similar number of words. However, participants produced more words in English than in either Spanish or Cantonese. Correlation analyses revealed that language knowledge plays a role in the relationships between fast mapping and word retention. Specifically, within- and across-language relationships between bilinguals' fast mapping and word retention were found in Spanish and English, by contrast, within-language relationships between monolinguals' fast mapping and word retention were found in English and across-language relationships between their fast mapping and word retention performance in English and Cantonese. Similarly, bilinguals differed from monolinguals in the relationships among the word retention scores in three languages. Significant correlations were found among bilinguals' retention scores. However, no such correlations were found among monolinguals' retention scores. The overall findings suggest that bilinguals' language experience and language knowledge most likely contribute to how they learn and retain new words.

Learning word order at birth: A NIRS study.

Science.gov (United States)

Benavides-Varela, Silvia; Gervain, Judit

2017-06-01

In language, the relative order of words in sentences carries important grammatical functions. However, the developmental origins and the neural correlates of the ability to track word order are to date poorly understood. The current study therefore investigates the origins of infants' ability to learn about the sequential order of words, using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) with newborn infants. We have conducted two experiments: one in which a word order change was implemented in 4-word sequences recorded with a list intonation (as if each word was a separate item in a list; list prosody condition, Experiment 1) and one in which the same 4-word sequences were recorded with a well-formed utterance-level prosodic contour (utterance prosody condition, Experiment 2). We found that newborns could detect the violation of the word order in the list prosody condition, but not in the utterance prosody condition. These results suggest that while newborns are already sensitive to word order in linguistic sequences, prosody appears to be a stronger cue than word order for the identification of linguistic units at birth. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The emotional carryover effect in memory for words.

Science.gov (United States)

Schmidt, Stephen R; Schmidt, Constance R

2016-08-01

Emotional material rarely occurs in isolation; rather it is experienced in the spatial and temporal proximity of less emotional items. Some previous researchers have found that emotional stimuli impair memory for surrounding information, whereas others have reported evidence for memory facilitation. Researchers have not determined which types of emotional items or memory tests produce effects that carry over to surrounding items. Six experiments are reported that measured carryover from emotional words varying in arousal to temporally adjacent neutral words. Taboo, non-taboo emotional, and neutral words were compared using different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), recognition and recall tests, and intentional and incidental memory instructions. Strong emotional memory effects were obtained in all six experiments. However, emotional items influenced memory for temporally adjacent words under limited conditions. Words following taboo words were more poorly remembered than words following neutral words when relatively short SOAs were employed. Words preceding taboo words were affected only when recall tests and relatively short retention intervals were used. These results suggest that increased attention to the emotional items sometimes produces emotional carryover effects; however, retrieval processes also contribute to retrograde amnesia and may extend the conditions under which anterograde amnesia is observed.

Is there pain in champagne? Semantic involvement of words within words during sense-making

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Alphen, P.M.; van Berkum, J.J.A.

2010-01-01

In an ERP experiment, we examined whether listeners, when making sense of spoken utterances, take into account the meaning of spurious words that are embedded in longer words, either at their onsets (e.g., pie in pirate) or at their offsets (e.g., pain in champagne). In the experiment, Dutch

Word Reading Aloud Skills: Their Positive Redefinition through Ageing

Science.gov (United States)

Chapleau, Marianne; Wilson, Maximiliano A.; Potvin, Karel; Harvey-Langton, Alexandra; Montembeault, Maxime; Brambati, Simona M.

2017-01-01

Background: Successful reading can be achieved by means of two different procedures: sub-word processes for the pronunciation of words without semantics or pseudowords (PW) and whole-word processes that recruit word-specific information regarding the pronunciation of words with atypical orthography-to-phonology mappings (exception words, EW).…

Electronic Word of Behavior

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kunst, Katrine

It is widely recognized that the transition from Word-of-mouth (WOM) to electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) allows for a wider and faster spread of information. However, little attention has been given to how digital channels expand the types of information consumers share. In this paper, we argue...... that recent years have seen a social media-facilitated move from opinion-centric eWOM (e.g. reviews) to behavior-centric (e.g. information about friends’ music consumption on Spotify). A review of the concepts of WOM and eWOM and a netnographic study reveal that the current definitions and understandings...... of the concepts do not capture this new kind of consumer-to-consumer information transfer about products and services. Consequently, we suggest an extension of those concepts: Electronic Word of Behavior....

Bringing back the body into the mind: gestures enhance word learning in foreign language.

Science.gov (United States)

Macedonia, Manuela

2014-01-01

Foreign language education in the twenty-first century still teaches vocabulary mainly through reading and listening activities. This is due to the link between teaching practice and traditional philosophy of language, where language is considered to be an abstract phenomenon of the mind. However, a number of studies have shown that accompanying words or phrases of a foreign language with gestures leads to better memory results. In this paper, I review behavioral research on the positive effects of gestures on memory. Then I move to the factors that have been addressed as contributing to the effect, and I embed the reviewed evidence in the theoretical framework of embodiment. Finally, I argue that gestures accompanying foreign language vocabulary learning create embodied representations of those words. I conclude by advocating the use of gestures in future language education as a learning tool that enhances the mind.

Bringing back the body into the mind: Gestures enhance word learning in foreign language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manuela eMacedonia

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Foreign language education in the 21st century still teaches vocabulary mainly through reading and listening activities. This is due to the link between teaching practice and traditional philosophy of language, where language is considered to be an abstract phenomenon of the mind. However, a number of studies have shown that accompanying words or phrases of a foreign language with gestures leads to better memory results. In this paper, I review behavioral research on the positive effects of gestures on memory. Then I move to the factors that have been addressed as contributing to the effect, and I embed the reviewed evidence in the theoretical framework of embodiment. Finally, I argue that gestures accompanying foreign language vocabulary learning create embodied representations of those words. I conclude by advocating the use of gestures in future language education as a learning tool that enhances learning the mind.

Wording effects in moral judgments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ross E. O'Hara

2010-12-01

Full Text Available As the study of moral judgments grows, it becomes imperative to compare results across studies in order to create unified theories within the field. These efforts are potentially undermined, however, by variations in wording used by different researchers. The current study sought to determine whether, when, and how variations in wording influence moral judgments. Online participants responded to 15 different moral vignettes (e.g., the trolley problem using 1 of 4 adjectives: ``wrong'', ``inappropriate'', ``forbidden'', or ``blameworthy''. For half of the sample, these adjectives were preceded by the adverb ``morally''. Results indicated that people were more apt to judge an act as wrong or inappropriate than forbidden or blameworthy, and that disgusting acts were rated as more acceptable when ``morally'' was included. Although some wording differences emerged, effects sizes were small and suggest that studies of moral judgment with different wordings can legitimately be compared.

Theology of Jesus’ words from the cross

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bogdan Zbroja

2012-09-01

Full Text Available The article presents a theological message of the last words that Jesus spoke from the height of the cross. Layout content is conveyed in three kinds of Christ’s relations: the words addressed to God the Father; the words addressed to the good people standing by the cross; the so-called declarations that the Master had spoken to anyone but uttered them in general. All these words speak of the Master’s love. They express His full awareness of what is being done and of His decision voluntarily taken. Above all, it is revealed in the Lord’s statements His obedience to the will of God expressed in the inspired words of the Holy Scriptures. Jesus fulfills all the prophecies of the Old Testament by pronounced words and accomplished works that will become content of the New Testament.

Question Word in the Mandarin Language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xu Yunyu

2016-12-01

Full Text Available In an interrogative sentence in Mandarin language, a question word can be placed in the beginning, middle or end of a sentence. Because of the different nation and culture, when a foreign student learns Mandarin, they find it difficult to understand the question words and the position of the question words in that language. Because of that, the writer proposes to explain such problems. This research aims to find out what are the types of question words in Mandarin, and also to explain the function and usage of question words in the Mandarin interrogative sentence. An interrogative sentence is a very important sentence. In Mandarin, the following question words: 谁(shuí “Who”，在哪里(zài nǎli “where”, 在哪儿(zài nǎ’er “where”，为什么(wèi shénme “why”, 怎么(zěnme “why”，多少（duō shǎo） “how many”，多久(duō jiǔ “how long”，什么时候 (shénme shíhòu “when”，什么(shénme “what”，做什么(zuò shénme “why”，干 什么(gàn shénme “why”，干嘛(gànma “why” and so on are used to ask “who”, “where”, “what”, “how much”, “when”, “what time”, and “why”. Those words have different functions and usage. Each sentence has a certain structure and word order. A question word can be placed in the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence. When the place is changed, there is a possibility of miscommunication.   DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2013.160106

Sociophonetics: The Role of Words, the Role of Context, and the Role of Words in Context.

Science.gov (United States)

Hay, Jennifer

2018-03-02

This paper synthesizes a wide range of literature from sociolinguistics and cognitive psychology, to argue for a central role for the "word" as a vehicle of language variation and change. Three crucially interlinked strands of research are reviewed-the role of context in associative learning, the word-level storage of phonetic and contextual detail, and the phonetic consequences of skewed distributions of words across different contexts. I argue that the human capacity for associative learning, combined with attention to fine-phonetic detail at the level of the word, plays a significant role in predicting a range of subtle but systematically robust observed socioindexical patterns in speech production and perception. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Topics in Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Decorporation: officially a word.

Science.gov (United States)

Fisher, D R

2000-05-01

This note is the brief history of a word. Decorporation is a scientific term known to health physicists who have an interest in the removal of internally deposited radionuclides from the body after an accidental or inadvertent intake. Although the word decorporation appears many times in the radiation protection literature, it was only recently accepted by the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary as an entry for their latest edition.

Decorporation: Officially a word

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fisher, D.R.

2000-01-01

This note is the brief history of a word. Decorporation is a scientific term known to health physicists who have an interest in the removal of internally deposited radionuclides from the body after an accidental or inadvertent intake. Although the word decorporation appears many times in the radiation protection literature, it was only recently accepted by the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary as an entry for their latest edition

Decorporation: Officially a word

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fisher, D.R.

2000-05-01

This note is the brief history of a word. Decorporation is a scientific term known to health physicists who have an interest in the removal of internally deposited radionuclides from the body after an accidental or inadvertent intake. Although the word decorporation appears many times in the radiation protection literature, it was only recently accepted by the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary as an entry for their latest edition.

Decorporation: Officially a word

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fisher, Darrell R.

1999-01-01

This note is the brief history of a word. Decorporation is a scientific term known to health physicists who have an interest in the removal of internally deposited radionuclides from the body after an accidental or inadvertent intake. Although the word decorporation appears many times in the radiation protection literature, it was only recently accepted by the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary as an entry for their latest edition

Conceptual control across modalities: graded specialisation for pictures and words in inferior frontal and posterior temporal cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Krieger-Redwood, Katya; Teige, Catarina; Davey, James; Hymers, Mark; Jefferies, Elizabeth

2015-09-01

Controlled semantic retrieval to words elicits co-activation of inferior frontal (IFG) and left posterior temporal cortex (pMTG), but research has not yet established (i) the distinct contributions of these regions or (ii) whether the same processes are recruited for non-verbal stimuli. Words have relatively flexible meanings - as a consequence, identifying the context that links two specific words is relatively demanding. In contrast, pictures are richer stimuli and their precise meaning is better specified by their visible features - however, not all of these features will be relevant to uncovering a given association, tapping selection/inhibition processes. To explore potential differences across modalities, we took a commonly-used manipulation of controlled retrieval demands, namely the identification of weak vs. strong associations, and compared word and picture versions. There were 4 key findings: (1) Regions of interest (ROIs) in posterior IFG (BA44) showed graded effects of modality (e.g., words>pictures in left BA44; pictures>words in right BA44). (2) An equivalent response was observed in left mid-IFG (BA45) across modalities, consistent with the multimodal semantic control deficits that typically follow LIFG lesions. (3) The anterior IFG (BA47) ROI showed a stronger response to verbal than pictorial associations, potentially reflecting a role for this region in establishing a meaningful context that can be used to direct semantic retrieval. (4) The left pMTG ROI also responded to difficulty across modalities yet showed a stronger response overall to verbal stimuli, helping to reconcile two distinct literatures that have implicated this site in semantic control and lexical-semantic access respectively. We propose that left anterior IFG and pMTG work together to maintain a meaningful context that shapes ongoing semantic processing, and that this process is more strongly taxed by word than picture associations. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by

Word segmentation with universal prosodic cues.

Science.gov (United States)

Endress, Ansgar D; Hauser, Marc D

2010-09-01

When listening to speech from one's native language, words seem to be well separated from one another, like beads on a string. When listening to a foreign language, in contrast, words seem almost impossible to extract, as if there was only one bead on the same string. This contrast reveals that there are language-specific cues to segmentation. The puzzle, however, is that infants must be endowed with a language-independent mechanism for segmentation, as they ultimately solve the segmentation problem for any native language. Here, we approach the acquisition problem by asking whether there are language-independent cues to segmentation that might be available to even adult learners who have already acquired a native language. We show that adult learners recognize words in connected speech when only prosodic cues to word-boundaries are given from languages unfamiliar to the participants. In both artificial and natural speech, adult English speakers, with no prior exposure to the test languages, readily recognized words in natural languages with critically different prosodic patterns, including French, Turkish and Hungarian. We suggest that, even though languages differ in their sound structures, they carry universal prosodic characteristics. Further, these language-invariant prosodic cues provide a universally accessible mechanism for finding words in connected speech. These cues may enable infants to start acquiring words in any language even before they are fine-tuned to the sound structure of their native language. Copyright © 2010. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Teach yourself visually Word 2013

CERN Document Server

Marmel, Elaine

2013-01-01

Get up to speed on the newest version of Word with visual instruction Microsoft Word is the standard for word processing programs, and the newest version offers additional functionality you'll want to use. Get up to speed quickly and easily with the step-by-step instructions and full-color screen shots in this popular guide! You'll see how to perform dozens of tasks, including how to set up and format documents and text; work with diagrams, charts, and pictures; use Mail Merge; post documents online; and much more. Easy-to-follow, two-page lessons make learning a snap.Full-

Professional WordPress Plugin Development

CERN Document Server

Williams, Brad; Tadlock, Justin

2011-01-01

Taking WordPress to the next level with advanced plugin developmentWordPress is used to create self-hosted blogs and sites, and it's fast becoming the most popular content management system (CMS) on the Web. Now you can extend it for personal, corporate and enterprise use with advanced plugins and this professional development guide. Learn how to create plugins using the WordPress plugin API: utilize hooks, store custom settings, craft translation files, secure your plugins, set custom user roles, integrate widgets, work with JavaScript and AJAX, create custom post types. You'll find a practic

WordPress 24-Hour Trainer

CERN Document Server

Plumley, George

2011-01-01

The eagerly anticipated second edition, completely updated for WordPress 3.1 As an open source content management system, WordPress allows users to easily build feature-rich web sites with no programming experience. This unique book-and-video package is a friendly, self-paced beginners guide to the latest release of WordPress. Lessons are focused on practical, everyday tasks that users will need to create and maintain their sites: entering new content, creating new pages, managing menus, making content search-engine friendly. Plus you'll find lots of tips based on years of experience teaching

Contextual diversity facilitates learning new words in the classroom.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eva Rosa

Full Text Available In the field of word recognition and reading, it is commonly assumed that frequently repeated words create more accessible memory traces than infrequently repeated words, thus capturing the word-frequency effect. Nevertheless, recent research has shown that a seemingly related factor, contextual diversity (defined as the number of different contexts [e.g., films] in which a word appears, is a better predictor than word-frequency in word recognition and sentence reading experiments. Recent research has shown that contextual diversity plays an important role when learning new words in a laboratory setting with adult readers. In the current experiment, we directly manipulated contextual diversity in a very ecological scenario: at school, when Grade 3 children were learning words in the classroom. The new words appeared in different contexts/topics (high-contextual diversity or only in one of them (low-contextual diversity. Results showed that words encountered in different contexts were learned and remembered more effectively than those presented in redundant contexts. We discuss the practical (educational [e.g., curriculum design] and theoretical (models of word recognition implications of these findings.

Differential emotional processing in concrete and abstract words.

Science.gov (United States)

Yao, Bo; Keitel, Anne; Bruce, Gillian; Scott, Graham G; O'Donnell, Patrick J; Sereno, Sara C

2018-02-12

Emotion (positive and negative) words are typically recognized faster than neutral words. Recent research suggests that emotional valence, while often treated as a unitary semantic property, may be differentially represented in concrete and abstract words. Studies that have explicitly examined the interaction of emotion and concreteness, however, have demonstrated inconsistent patterns of results. Moreover, these findings may be limited as certain key lexical variables (e.g., familiarity, age of acquisition) were not taken into account. We investigated the emotion-concreteness interaction in a large-scale, highly controlled lexical decision experiment. A 3 (Emotion: negative, neutral, positive) × 2 (Concreteness: abstract, concrete) design was used, with 45 items per condition and 127 participants. We found a significant interaction between emotion and concreteness. Although positive and negative valenced words were recognized faster than neutral words, this emotion advantage was significantly larger in concrete than in abstract words. We explored potential contributions of participant alexithymia level and item imageability to this interactive pattern. We found that only word imageability significantly modulated the emotion-concreteness interaction. While both concrete and abstract emotion words are advantageously processed relative to comparable neutral words, the mechanisms of this facilitation are paradoxically more dependent on imageability in abstract words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Information content versus word length in random typing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ferrer-i-Cancho, Ramon; Moscoso del Prado Martín, Fermín

2011-01-01

Recently, it has been claimed that a linear relationship between a measure of information content and word length is expected from word length optimization and it has been shown that this linearity is supported by a strong correlation between information content and word length in many languages (Piantadosi et al 2011 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 108 3825). Here, we study in detail some connections between this measure and standard information theory. The relationship between the measure and word length is studied for the popular random typing process where a text is constructed by pressing keys at random from a keyboard containing letters and a space behaving as a word delimiter. Although this random process does not optimize word lengths according to information content, it exhibits a linear relationship between information content and word length. The exact slope and intercept are presented for three major variants of the random typing process. A strong correlation between information content and word length can simply arise from the units making a word (e.g., letters) and not necessarily from the interplay between a word and its context as proposed by Piantadosi and co-workers. In itself, the linear relation does not entail the results of any optimization process. (letter)

499 words every college student should know a professor's handbook on words essential to great writing and better grades

CERN Document Server

Spignesi, Stephen

2017-01-01

Words equal credibility. The more articulate a person is, the more seriously they will be taken—by everyone. On any given day, you might read “abrogate" used in a USA Today article; or “demagogue" or “fiduciary" used on CNN. You might hear “ensorcelled" and “torpor" in a TV drama; you'll hear a political candidate described as “truculent." You may hear “pedantic" used in a movie. How many of these words are part of most college students' “arsenal of words"? Hopefully all of them, but if not, 499 Words Every College Student Should Know will provide them with what they need to become more articulate in their speaking and writing. It will also enhance their comprehension in their reading, ultimately culminating in what every student aspires to: earning better grades! 499 Words Every College Student Should Know teaches truly important vocabulary words and focuses on Professor Spignesi's classroom-tested Trinity of Vocabulary Use. For each word, the vocabulary-enriched and educated student will be able to...

Neurophysiological evidence for the interplay of speech segmentation and word-referent mapping during novel word learning.

Science.gov (United States)

François, Clément; Cunillera, Toni; Garcia, Enara; Laine, Matti; Rodriguez-Fornells, Antoni

2017-04-01

Learning a new language requires the identification of word units from continuous speech (the speech segmentation problem) and mapping them onto conceptual representation (the word to world mapping problem). Recent behavioral studies have revealed that the statistical properties found within and across modalities can serve as cues for both processes. However, segmentation and mapping have been largely studied separately, and thus it remains unclear whether both processes can be accomplished at the same time and if they share common neurophysiological features. To address this question, we recorded EEG of 20 adult participants during both an audio alone speech segmentation task and an audiovisual word-to-picture association task. The participants were tested for both the implicit detection of online mismatches (structural auditory and visual semantic violations) as well as for the explicit recognition of words and word-to-picture associations. The ERP results from the learning phase revealed a delayed learning-related fronto-central negativity (FN400) in the audiovisual condition compared to the audio alone condition. Interestingly, while online structural auditory violations elicited clear MMN/N200 components in the audio alone condition, visual-semantic violations induced meaning-related N400 modulations in the audiovisual condition. The present results support the idea that speech segmentation and meaning mapping can take place in parallel and act in synergy to enhance novel word learning. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Emotion and language: Valence and arousal affect word recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Brysbaert, Marc; Warriner, Amy Beth

2014-01-01

Emotion influences most aspects of cognition and behavior, but emotional factors are conspicuously absent from current models of word recognition. The influence of emotion on word recognition has mostly been reported in prior studies on the automatic vigilance for negative stimuli, but the precise nature of this relationship is unclear. Various models of automatic vigilance have claimed that the effect of valence on response times is categorical, an inverted-U, or interactive with arousal. The present study used a sample of 12,658 words, and included many lexical and semantic control factors, to determine the precise nature of the effects of arousal and valence on word recognition. Converging empirical patterns observed in word-level and trial-level data from lexical decision and naming indicate that valence and arousal exert independent monotonic effects: Negative words are recognized more slowly than positive words, and arousing words are recognized more slowly than calming words. Valence explained about 2% of the variance in word recognition latencies, whereas the effect of arousal was smaller. Valence and arousal do not interact, but both interact with word frequency, such that valence and arousal exert larger effects among low-frequency words than among high-frequency words. These results necessitate a new model of affective word processing whereby the degree of negativity monotonically and independently predicts the speed of responding. This research also demonstrates that incorporating emotional factors, especially valence, improves the performance of models of word recognition. PMID:24490848

Universal Partial Words over Non-Binary Alphabets

OpenAIRE

Goeckner, Bennet; Groothuis, Corbin; Hettle, Cyrus; Kell, Brian; Kirkpatrick, Pamela; Kirsch, Rachel; Solava, Ryan

2016-01-01

Chen, Kitaev, M\\"{u}tze, and Sun recently introduced the notion of universal partial words, a generalization of universal words and de Bruijn sequences. Universal partial words allow for a wild-card character $\\diamond$, which is a placeholder for any letter in the alphabet. We settle and strengthen conjectures posed in the same paper where this notion was introduced. For non-binary alphabets, we show that universal partial words have periodic $\\diamond$ structure and are cyclic, and we give ...

Priming effect on word reading and recall

OpenAIRE

Faria, Isabel Hub; Luegi, Paula

2008-01-01

This study focuses on priming as a function of exposure to bimodal stimuli of European Portuguese screen centred single words and isolated pictures inserted at the screen’s right upper corner, with four kinds of word-picture relation. The eye movements of 18 Portuguese native university students were registered while reading four sets of ten word-picture pairs, and their respective oral recall lists of words or pictures were kept. The results reveal a higher phonological primin...

Novel word retention in sequential bilingual children.

Science.gov (United States)

Kan, Pui Fong

2014-03-01

Children's ability to learn and retain new words is fundamental to their vocabulary development. This study examined word retention in children learning a home language (L1) from birth and a second language (L2) in preschool settings. Participants were presented with sixteen novel words in L1 and in L2 and were tested for retention after either a 2-month or a 4-month delay. Results showed that children retained more words in L1 than in L2 for both of the retention interval conditions. In addition, children's word retention was associated with their existing language knowledge and their fast-mapping performance within and across language. The patterns of association, however, were different between L1 and L2. These findings suggest that children's word retention might be related to the interactions of various components that are operating within a dynamic system.

Defining a Conceptual Topography of Word Concreteness: Clustering Properties of Emotion, Sensation, and Magnitude among 750 English Words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joshua Troche

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Cognitive science has a longstanding interest in the ways that people acquire and use abstract vs. concrete words (e.g., truth vs. piano. One dominant theory holds that abstract and concrete words are subserved by two parallel semantic systems. We recently proposed an alternative account of abstract-concrete word representation premised upon a unitary, high dimensional semantic space wherein word meaning is nested. We hypothesize that a range of cognitive and perceptual dimensions (e.g., emotion, time, space, color, size, visual form bound this space, forming a conceptual topography. Here we report a normative study where we examined the clustering properties of a sample of English words (N = 750 spanning a spectrum of concreteness in a continuous manner from highly abstract to highly concrete. Participants (N = 328 rated each target word on a range of 14 cognitive dimensions (e.g., color, emotion, valence, polarity, motion, space. The dimensions reduced to three factors: Endogenous factor, Exogenous factor, and Magnitude factor. Concepts were plotted in a unified, multimodal space with concrete and abstract concepts along a continuous continuum. We discuss theoretical implications and practical applications of this dataset. These word norms are freely available for download and use at http://www.reilly-coglab.com/data/.

Defining a Conceptual Topography of Word Concreteness: Clustering Properties of Emotion, Sensation, and Magnitude among 750 English Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Troche, Joshua; Crutch, Sebastian J; Reilly, Jamie

2017-01-01

Cognitive science has a longstanding interest in the ways that people acquire and use abstract vs. concrete words (e.g., truth vs. piano). One dominant theory holds that abstract and concrete words are subserved by two parallel semantic systems. We recently proposed an alternative account of abstract-concrete word representation premised upon a unitary, high dimensional semantic space wherein word meaning is nested. We hypothesize that a range of cognitive and perceptual dimensions (e.g., emotion, time, space, color, size, visual form) bound this space, forming a conceptual topography. Here we report a normative study where we examined the clustering properties of a sample of English words ( N = 750) spanning a spectrum of concreteness in a continuous manner from highly abstract to highly concrete. Participants ( N = 328) rated each target word on a range of 14 cognitive dimensions (e.g., color, emotion, valence, polarity, motion, space). The dimensions reduced to three factors: Endogenous factor, Exogenous factor, and Magnitude factor. Concepts were plotted in a unified, multimodal space with concrete and abstract concepts along a continuous continuum. We discuss theoretical implications and practical applications of this dataset. These word norms are freely available for download and use at http://www.reilly-coglab.com/data/.

Rapid Word Recognition as a Measure of Word-Level Automaticity and Its Relation to Other Measures of Reading

Science.gov (United States)

Frye, Elizabeth M.; Gosky, Ross

2012-01-01

The present study investigated the relationship between rapid recognition of individual words (Word Recognition Test) and two measures of contextual reading: (1) grade-level Passage Reading Test (IRI passage) and (2) performance on standardized STAR Reading Test. To establish if time of presentation on the word recognition test was a factor in…

Chinese Unknown Word Recognition for PCFG-LA Parsing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qiuping Huang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the recognition of unknown words in Chinese parsing. Two methods are proposed to handle this problem. One is the modification of a character-based model. We model the emission probability of an unknown word using the first and last characters in the word. It aims to reduce the POS tag ambiguities of unknown words to improve the parsing performance. In addition, a novel method, using graph-based semisupervised learning (SSL, is proposed to improve the syntax parsing of unknown words. Its goal is to discover additional lexical knowledge from a large amount of unlabeled data to help the syntax parsing. The method is mainly to propagate lexical emission probabilities to unknown words by building the similarity graphs over the words of labeled and unlabeled data. The derived distributions are incorporated into the parsing process. The proposed methods are effective in dealing with the unknown words to improve the parsing. Empirical results for Penn Chinese Treebank and TCT Treebank revealed its effectiveness.

The word frequency effect in first- and second-language word recognition: A lexical entrenchment account

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Diependaele, K.; Lemhöfer, K.M.L.; Brysbaert, M.

2013-01-01

We investigate the origin of differences in the word frequency effect between native speakers and second-language speakers. In a large-scale analysis of English word identification times we find that group-level differences are fully accounted for by the individual language proficiency scores.

Microsoft Word 2013 for law firms

CERN Document Server

Group, The Payne

2014-01-01

Focusing only on those features of Microsoft Word 2013 that are relevant to the legal community, this updated edition of the Payne Group's market-leading guide to Word provides industry-specific information about the computer program that will help legal professionals operate effectively and efficiently in their environment. A companion website also includes customized legal templates and documents, hands-on exercises, and practice files, among many other services. Whether they are using Word for the first time or simply updating to the most recent version, readers will find all of the information they'll need to increase their productivity and make the most out of Microsoft's word processing program in this expert manual.

Language and Law seen through “Canon of Laberia” Greek - Albanian terminological words

OpenAIRE

Marina Kaishi

2018-01-01

Law and language are linked together. If we use a direct language to express law, it will be more understandable for the audience. If we interpret it in the right way, again the audience will better understand law. Moreover if we interpret it right, even the verdict will be disposed the right way. According to the legal terminology, we are interested to the words that Albanian language has taken from Greek language. I am not speaking about modern times, but if we see back in time there are a ...

Comprehension of derivational morphemes in words and pseudo-words in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Noémie Auclair-Ouellet

2014-04-01

The results of the word condition alone cannot rule out the possibility that errors in the svPPA group were caused by difficulty in understanding words rather than in processing derivational morphemes. However, the lexical context provided in this condition did not speed-up the performance of svPPA individuals as it did in the control group. Most importantly, results from the pseudo-word condition showed that in the svPPA group, the association between the morpheme and its meaning was not performed as readily and reliably as in the control group. These results support the involvement of semantic memory in morphological processing.

When does word frequency influence written production?

Science.gov (United States)

Baus, Cristina; Strijkers, Kristof; Costa, Albert

2013-01-01

The aim of the present study was to explore the central (e.g., lexical processing) and peripheral processes (motor preparation and execution) underlying word production during typewriting. To do so, we tested non-professional typers in a picture typing task while continuously recording EEG. Participants were instructed to write (by means of a standard keyboard) the corresponding name for a given picture. The lexical frequency of the words was manipulated: half of the picture names were of high-frequency while the remaining were of low-frequency. Different measures were obtained: (1) first keystroke latency and (2) keystroke latency of the subsequent letters and duration of the word. Moreover, ERPs locked to the onset of the picture presentation were analyzed to explore the temporal course of word frequency in typewriting. The results showed an effect of word frequency for the first keystroke latency but not for the duration of the word or the speed to which letter were typed (interstroke intervals). The electrophysiological results showed the expected ERP frequency effect at posterior sites: amplitudes for low-frequency words were more positive than those for high-frequency words. However, relative to previous evidence in the spoken modality, the frequency effect appeared in a later time-window. These results demonstrate two marked differences in the processing dynamics underpinning typing compared to speaking: First, central processing dynamics between speaking and typing differ already in the manner that words are accessed; second, central processing differences in typing, unlike speaking, do not cascade to peripheral processes involved in response execution.

When does word frequency influence written production?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cristina eBaus

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The aim of the present study was to explore the central (e.g., lexical processing and peripheral processes (motor preparation and execution underlying word production during typewriting. To do so, we tested non-professional typers in a picture typing task while continuously recording EEG. Participants were instructed to write (by means of a standard keyboard the corresponding name for a given picture. The lexical frequency of the words was manipulated: half of the picture names were of high-frequency while the remaining were of low-frequency. Different measures were obtained: 1 first keystroke latency and 2 keystroke latency of the subsequent letters and duration of the word. Moreover, ERPs locked to the onset of the picture presentation were analysed to explore the temporal course of word frequency in typewriting. The results showed an effect of word frequency for the first keystroke latency but not for the duration of the word or the speed to which letter were typed (interstroke intervals. The electrophysiological results showed the expected ERP frequency effect at posterior sites: amplitudes for low-frequency words were more positive than those for high-frequency words. However, relative to previous evidence in the spoken modality, the frequency effect appeared in a later time-window. These results demonstrate two marked differences in the processing dynamics underpinning typing compared to speaking: First, central processing dynamics between speaking and typing differ already in the manner that words are accessed; second, central processing differences in typing, unlike speaking, do not cascade to peripheral processes involved in response execution.

Clinical Strategies for Sampling Word Recognition Performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Schlauch, Robert S; Carney, Edward

2018-04-17

Computer simulation was used to estimate the statistical properties of searches for maximum word recognition ability (PB max). These involve presenting multiple lists and discarding all scores but that of the 1 list that produced the highest score. The simulations, which model limitations inherent in the precision of word recognition scores, were done to inform clinical protocols. A secondary consideration was a derivation of 95% confidence intervals for significant changes in score from phonemic scoring of a 50-word list. The PB max simulations were conducted on a "client" with flat performance intensity functions. The client's performance was assumed to be 60% initially and 40% for a second assessment. Thousands of estimates were obtained to examine the precision of (a) single lists and (b) multiple lists using a PB max procedure. This method permitted summarizing the precision for assessing a 20% drop in performance. A single 25-word list could identify only 58.4% of the cases in which performance fell from 60% to 40%. A single 125-word list identified 99.8% of the declines correctly. Presenting 3 or 5 lists to find PB max produced an undesirable finding: an increase in the word recognition score. A 25-word list produces unacceptably low precision for making clinical decisions. This finding holds in both single and multiple 25-word lists, as in a search for PB max. A table is provided, giving estimates of 95% critical ranges for successive presentations of a 50-word list analyzed by the number of phonemes correctly identified.

Document image retrieval through word shape coding.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Shijian; Li, Linlin; Tan, Chew Lim

2008-11-01

This paper presents a document retrieval technique that is capable of searching document images without OCR (optical character recognition). The proposed technique retrieves document images by a new word shape coding scheme, which captures the document content through annotating each word image by a word shape code. In particular, we annotate word images by using a set of topological shape features including character ascenders/descenders, character holes, and character water reservoirs. With the annotated word shape codes, document images can be retrieved by either query keywords or a query document image. Experimental results show that the proposed document image retrieval technique is fast, efficient, and tolerant to various types of document degradation.

Factors That Influence the Difficulty of Science Words

Science.gov (United States)

Cervetti, Gina N.; Hiebert, Elfrieda H.; Pearson, P. David; McClung, Nicola A.

2015-01-01

This study examines, within the domain of science, the characteristics of words that predict word knowledge and word learning. The authors identified a set of word characteristics--length, part of speech, polysemy, frequency, morphological frequency, domain specificity, and concreteness--that, based on earlier research, were prime candidates to…

The role of reference in cross-situational word learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Felix Hao; Mintz, Toben H

2018-01-01

Word learning involves massive ambiguity, since in a particular encounter with a novel word, there are an unlimited number of potential referents. One proposal for how learners surmount the problem of ambiguity is that learners use cross-situational statistics to constrain the ambiguity: When a word and its referent co-occur across multiple situations, learners will associate the word with the correct referent. Yu and Smith (2007) propose that these co-occurrence statistics are sufficient for word-to-referent mapping. Alternative accounts hold that co-occurrence statistics alone are insufficient to support learning, and that learners are further guided by knowledge that words are referential (e.g., Waxman & Gelman, 2009). However, no behavioral word learning studies we are aware of explicitly manipulate subjects' prior assumptions about the role of the words in the experiments in order to test the influence of these assumptions. In this study, we directly test whether, when faced with referential ambiguity, co-occurrence statistics are sufficient for word-to-referent mappings in adult word-learners. Across a series of cross-situational learning experiments, we varied the degree to which there was support for the notion that the words were referential. At the same time, the statistical information about the words' meanings was held constant. When we overrode support for the notion that words were referential, subjects failed to learn the word-to-referent mappings, but otherwise they succeeded. Thus, cross-situational statistics were useful only when learners had the goal of discovering mappings between words and referents. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of word learning in children's language acquisition. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tracing the time course of picture--word processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, M C; Magee, L E

1980-12-01

A number of independent lines of research have suggested that semantic and articulatory information become available differentially from pictures and words. The first of the experiments reported here sought to clarify the time course by which information about pictures and words becomes available by considering the pattern of interference generated when incongruent pictures and words are presented simultaneously in a Stroop-like situation. Previous investigators report that picture naming is easily disrupted by the presence of a distracting word but that word naming is relatively immune to interference from an incongruent picture. Under the assumption that information available from a completed process may disrupt an ongoing process, these results suggest that words access articulatory information more rapidly than do pictures. Experiment 1 extended this paradigm by requiring subjects to verify the category of the target stimulus. In accordance with the hypothesis that picture access the semantic code more rapidly than words, there was a reversal in the interference pattern: Word categorization suffered considerable disruption, whereas picture categorization was minimally affected by the presence of an incongruent word. Experiment 2 sought to further test the hypothesis that access to semantic and articulatory codes is different for pictures and words by examining memory for those items following naming or categorization. Categorized words were better recognized than named words, whereas the reverse was true for pictures, a result which suggests that picture naming involves more extensive processing than picture categorization. Experiment 3 replicated this result under conditions in which viewing time was held constant. The last experiment extended the investigation of memory differences to a situation in which subjects were required to generate the superordinate category name. Here, memory for categorized pictures was as good as memory for named pictures. Category

Approximate number word knowledge before the cardinal principle.

Science.gov (United States)

Gunderson, Elizabeth A; Spaepen, Elizabet; Levine, Susan C

2015-02-01

Approximate number word knowledge-understanding the relation between the count words and the approximate magnitudes of sets-is a critical piece of knowledge that predicts later math achievement. However, researchers disagree about when children first show evidence of approximate number word knowledge-before, or only after, they have learned the cardinal principle. In two studies, children who had not yet learned the cardinal principle (subset-knowers) produced sets in response to number words (verbal comprehension task) and produced number words in response to set sizes (verbal production task). As evidence of approximate number word knowledge, we examined whether children's numerical responses increased with increasing numerosity of the stimulus. In Study 1, subset-knowers (ages 3.0-4.2 years) showed approximate number word knowledge above their knower-level on both tasks, but this effect did not extend to numbers above 4. In Study 2, we collected data from a broader age range of subset-knowers (ages 3.1-5.6 years). In this sample, children showed approximate number word knowledge on the verbal production task even when only examining set sizes above 4. Across studies, children's age predicted approximate number word knowledge (above 4) on the verbal production task when controlling for their knower-level, study (1 or 2), and parents' education, none of which predicted approximation ability. Thus, children can develop approximate knowledge of number words up to 10 before learning the cardinal principle. Furthermore, approximate number word knowledge increases with age and might not be closely related to the development of exact number word knowledge. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Word recognition in Alzheimer's disease: Effects of semantic degeneration.