Lexically Allusive Content of Semantic Frames (Based on the Works of John Fowles

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Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Akatova

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The semantic frame is a cognitive model, some mental structure that unites the world map and the thesaurus of a person, the hierarchy of meanings and values of the linguistic model of the world. Conceptual-cognitive content of a semantic frame includes three constituents: the reader, the author, and culture. The postmodernistic metatext, a vivid example of which is the metatext of John Fowles, is made of lexical-semantic frames, filled with allusions, general cultural precedent phenomena, cross-references, leitmotif lexemes. The frames of "freedom" and "game" exemplify integrated leitmotif of enclosed space, sea, theater, meta-theatre, god, god's imitations, magician (wizard, and fool. The application of a semantic frames method for the analysis of lexical-allusive elements in the works of John Fowles (The Aristos, The Magus, The Ebony Tower, Daniel Martin, French Lieutenant's Woman, A Maggot, Wormholes allowed to identify the net of allusive inclusions and arrange them into lexical-semantic frames, which helped to decode linguocultural metatext of the society and the individual (author. The interpretation of linguistic and cultural items in the text has lead to distinguishing the dominant frame of the metatext, that is "freedom". It is stated that creativity is freedom in action, responsibility is the condition for complete freedom, the path from the Fool to the Magician is the way from blindness of the stereotypes in the society to the intrinsic vision of internal freedom and unifying meaning of existence.

Semantic interference from distractor pictures in single-picture naming: evidence for competitive lexical selection.

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Jescheniak, Jörg D; Matushanskaya, Asya; Mädebach, Andreas; Müller, Matthias M

2014-10-01

Picture-naming studies have demonstrated interference from semantic-categorically related distractor words, but not from corresponding distractor pictures, and the lack of generality of the interference effect has been argued to challenge theories viewing lexical selection in speech production as a competitive process. Here, we demonstrate that semantic interference from context pictures does become visible, if sufficient attention is allocated to them. We combined picture naming with a spatial-cuing procedure. When participants' attention was shifted to the distractor, semantically related distractor pictures interfered with the response, as compared with unrelated distractor pictures. This finding supports models conceiving lexical retrieval as competitive (Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999) but is difficult to reconcile with the response exclusion hypothesis (Finkbeiner & Caramazza, 2006b) proposed as an alternative.

ERP measures of partial semantic knowledge: left temporal indices of skill differences and lexical quality.

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Frishkoff, Gwen A; Perfetti, Charles A; Westbury, Chris

2009-01-01

This study examines the sensitivity of early event-related potentials (ERPs) to degrees of word semantic knowledge. Participants with strong, average, or weak vocabulary skills made speeded lexical decisions to letter strings. To represent the full spectrum of word knowledge among adult native-English speakers, we used rare words that were orthographically matched with more familiar words and with pseudowords. Since the lexical decision could not reliably be made on the basis of word form, subjects were obliged to use semantic knowledge to perform the task. A d' analysis suggested that high-skilled subjects adopted a more conservative strategy in response to rare versus more familiar words. Moreover, the high-skilled participants showed a trend towards an enhanced "N2c" to rare words, and a similar posterior temporal effect reached significance approximately 650 ms. Generators for these effects were localized to left temporal cortex. We discuss implications of these results for word learning and for theories of lexical semantic access.

Lexical-Semantic Processing and Reading: Relations between Semantic Priming, Visual Word Recognition and Reading Comprehension

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Nobre, Alexandre de Pontes; de Salles, Jerusa Fumagalli

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate relations between lexical-semantic processing and two components of reading: visual word recognition and reading comprehension. Sixty-eight children from private schools in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from 7 to 12 years, were evaluated. Reading was assessed with a word/nonword reading task and a reading…

An Approach to Measuring Semantic Relatedness of Geographic Terminologies Using a Thesaurus and Lexical Database Sources

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Zugang Chen

2018-03-01

Full Text Available In geographic information science, semantic relatedness is important for Geographic Information Retrieval (GIR, Linked Geospatial Data, geoparsing, and geo-semantics. But computing the semantic similarity/relatedness of geographic terminology is still an urgent issue to tackle. The thesaurus is a ubiquitous and sophisticated knowledge representation tool existing in various domains. In this article, we combined the generic lexical database (WordNet or HowNet with the Thesaurus for Geographic Science and proposed a thesaurus–lexical relatedness measure (TLRM to compute the semantic relatedness of geographic terminology. This measure quantified the relationship between terminologies, interlinked the discrete term trees by using the generic lexical database, and realized the semantic relatedness computation of any two terminologies in the thesaurus. The TLRM was evaluated on a new relatedness baseline, namely, the Geo-Terminology Relatedness Dataset (GTRD which was built by us, and the TLRM obtained a relatively high cognitive plausibility. Finally, we applied the TLRM on a geospatial data sharing portal to support data retrieval. The application results of the 30 most frequently used queries of the portal demonstrated that using TLRM could improve the recall of geospatial data retrieval in most situations and rank the retrieval results by the matching scores between the query of users and the geospatial dataset.

The semantic network, lexical access, and reading comprehension in monolingual and bilingual children : An individual differences study

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Spätgens, T.; Schoonen, R.

Using a semantic priming experiment, the influence of lexical access and knowledge of semantic relations on reading comprehension was studied in Dutch monolingual and bilingual minority children. Both context-independent semantic relations in the form of category coordinates and context-dependent

An RT distribution analysis of relatedness proportion effects in lexical decision and semantic categorization reveals different mechanisms.

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de Wit, Bianca; Kinoshita, Sachiko

2015-01-01

The magnitude of the semantic priming effect is known to increase as the proportion of related prime-target pairs in an experiment increases. This relatedness proportion (RP) effect was studied in a lexical decision task at a short prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (240 ms), which is widely assumed to preclude strategic prospective usage of the prime. The analysis of the reaction time (RT) distribution suggested that the observed RP effect reflected a modulation of a retrospective semantic matching process. The pattern of the RP effect on the RT distribution found here is contrasted to that reported in De Wit and Kinoshita's (2014) semantic categorization study, and it is concluded that the RP effect is driven by different underlying mechanisms in lexical decision and semantic categorization.

Graph-Theoretic Properties of Networks Based on Word Association Norms: Implications for Models of Lexical Semantic Memory

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Gruenenfelder, Thomas M.; Recchia, Gabriel; Rubin, Tim; Jones, Michael N.

2016-01-01

We compared the ability of three different contextual models of lexical semantic memory (BEAGLE, Latent Semantic Analysis, and the Topic model) and of a simple associative model (POC) to predict the properties of semantic networks derived from word association norms. None of the semantic models were able to accurately predict all of the network…

Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-speaking Congenital Amusics

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Wan Ting Huang

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Previous research suggests that within Mandarin-speaking congenital amusics, only a subgroup has behavioral lexical tone perception impairments (tone agnosia, whereas the rest of amusics do not. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the categorical nature of lexical tone perception in Mandarin-speaking amusics with and without behavioral lexical tone deficits. Three groups of listeners (controls, pure amusics and amusics with tone agnosia participated in tone identification and discrimination tasks. Indexes of the categorical perception of a physical continuum of fundamental frequencies ranging from a rising to level tone were measured. Specifically, the stimulus durations were manipulated at 100 and 200 ms. For both stimulus durations, all groups exhibited similar categorical boundaries. The pure amusics showed sharp identification slopes and significantly peaked discrimination functions similar to those of normal controls. However, such essential characteristics for the categorical perception of lexical tones were not observed in amusics with tone agnosia. An enlarged step-size from 20 Hz to 35 Hz was not able to produce any discrimination peaks in tone agnosics either. The current study revealed that only amusics with tone agnosia showed a lack of categorical tone perception, while the pure amusics demonstrated typical categorical perception of lexical tones, indicating that the deficit of pitch processing in music does not necessarily result in the deficit in the categorical perception of lexical tones. The different performance between congenital amusics with and without tone agnosia provides a new perspective on the proposition of the relationship between music and speech perception.

Distinct loci of lexical and semantic access deficits in aphasia: Evidence from voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping and diffusion tensor imaging.

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Harvey, Denise Y; Schnur, Tatiana T

2015-06-01

Naming pictures and matching words to pictures belonging to the same semantic category negatively affects language production and comprehension. By most accounts, semantic interference arises when accessing lexical representations in naming (e.g., Damian, Vigliocco, & Levelt, 2001) and semantic representations in comprehension (e.g., Forde & Humphreys, 1997). Further, damage to the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), a region implicated in cognitive control, results in increasing semantic interference when items repeat across cycles in both language production and comprehension (Jefferies, Baker, Doran, & Lambon Ralph, 2007). This generates the prediction that the LIFG via white matter connections supports resolution of semantic interference arising from different loci (lexical vs semantic) in the temporal lobe. However, it remains unclear whether the cognitive and neural mechanisms that resolve semantic interference are the same across tasks. Thus, we examined which gray matter structures [using whole brain and region of interest (ROI) approaches] and white matter connections (using deterministic tractography) when damaged impact semantic interference and its increase across cycles when repeatedly producing and understanding words in 15 speakers with varying lexical-semantic deficits from left hemisphere stroke. We found that damage to distinct brain regions, the posterior versus anterior temporal lobe, was associated with semantic interference (collapsed across cycles) in naming and comprehension, respectively. Further, those with LIFG damage compared to those without exhibited marginally larger increases in semantic interference across cycles in naming but not comprehension. Lastly, the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, connecting the LIFG with posterior temporal lobe, related to semantic interference in naming, whereas the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), connecting posterior with anterior temporal regions related to semantic interference in

Effects of relative embodiment in lexical and semantic processing of verbs.

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Sidhu, David M; Kwan, Rachel; Pexman, Penny M; Siakaluk, Paul D

2014-06-01

Research examining semantic richness effects in visual word recognition has shown that multiple dimensions of meaning are activated in the process of word recognition (e.g., Yap et al., 2012). This research has, however, been limited to nouns. In the present research we extended the semantic richness approach to verb stimuli in order to investigate how verb meanings are represented. We characterized a dimension of relative embodiment for verbs, based on the bodily sense described by Borghi and Cimatti (2010), and collected ratings on that dimension for 687 English verbs. The relative embodiment ratings revealed that bodily experience was judged to be more important to the meanings of some verbs (e.g., dance, breathe) than to others (e.g., evaporate, expect). We then tested the effects of relative embodiment and imageability on verb processing in lexical decision (Experiment 1), action picture naming (Experiment 2), and syntactic classification (Experiment 3). In all three experiments results showed facilitatory effects of relative embodiment, but not imageability: latencies were faster for relatively more embodied verbs, even after several other lexical variables were controlled. The results suggest that relative embodiment is an important aspect of verb meaning, and that the semantic richness approach holds promise as a strategy for investigating other aspects of verb meaning. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Learning new vocabulary during childhood: effects of semantic training on lexical consolidation and integration.

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Henderson, Lisa; Weighall, Anna; Gaskell, Gareth

2013-11-01

Research suggests that word learning is an extended process, with offline consolidation crucial for the strengthening of new lexical representations and their integration with existing lexical knowledge (as measured by engagement in lexical competition). This supports a dual memory systems account, in which new information is initially sparsely encoded separately from existing knowledge and integrated with long-term memory over time. However, previous studies of this type exploited unnatural learning contexts, involving fictitious words in the absence of word meaning. In this study, 5- to 9-year-old children learned real science words (e.g., hippocampus) with or without semantic information. Children in both groups were slower to detect pauses in familiar competitor words (e.g., hippopotamus) relative to control words 24h after training but not immediately, confirming that offline consolidation is required before new words are integrated with the lexicon and engage in lexical competition. Children recalled more new words 24h after training than immediately (with similar improvements shown for the recall and recognition of new word meanings); however, children who were exposed to the meanings during training showed further improvements in recall after 1 week and outperformed children who were not exposed to meanings. These findings support the dual memory systems account of vocabulary acquisition and suggest that the association of a new phonological form with semantic information is critical for the development of stable lexical representations. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Speaker information affects false recognition of unstudied lexical-semantic associates.

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Luthra, Sahil; Fox, Neal P; Blumstein, Sheila E

2018-05-01

Recognition of and memory for a spoken word can be facilitated by a prior presentation of that word spoken by the same talker. However, it is less clear whether this speaker congruency advantage generalizes to facilitate recognition of unheard related words. The present investigation employed a false memory paradigm to examine whether information about a speaker's identity in items heard by listeners could influence the recognition of novel items (critical intruders) phonologically or semantically related to the studied items. In Experiment 1, false recognition of semantically associated critical intruders was sensitive to speaker information, though only when subjects attended to talker identity during encoding. Results from Experiment 2 also provide some evidence that talker information affects the false recognition of critical intruders. Taken together, the present findings indicate that indexical information is able to contact the lexical-semantic network to affect the processing of unheard words.

Effects of Forward and Backward Contextual Elaboration on Lexical Inferences: Evidence from a Semantic Relatedness Judgment Task

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Hamada, Akira

2015-01-01

Three experiments examined whether the process of lexical inferences differs according to the direction of contextual elaboration using a semantic relatedness judgment task. In Experiment 1, Japanese university students read English sentences where target unknown words were semantically elaborated by prior contextual information (forward lexical…

The effects of associative and semantic priming in the lexical decision task.

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Perea, Manuel; Rosa, Eva

2002-08-01

Four lexical decision experiments were conducted to examine under which conditions automatic semantic priming effects can be obtained. Experiments 1 and 2 analyzed associative/semantic effects at several very short stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs), whereas Experiments 3 and 4 used a single-presentation paradigm at two response-stimulus intervals (RSIs). Experiment 1 tested associatively related pairs from three semantic categories (synonyms, antonyms, and category coordinates). The results showed reliable associative priming effects at all SOAs. In addition, the correlation between associative strength and magnitude of priming was significant only at the shortest SOA (66 ms). When prime-target pairs were semantically but not associatively related (Experiment 2), reliable priming effects were obtained at SOAs of 83 ms and longer. Using the single-presentation paradigm with a short RSI (200 ms, Experiment 3), the priming effect was equal in size for associative + semantic and for semantic-only pairs (a 21-ms effect). When the RSI was set much longer (1,750 ms, Experiment 4), only the associative + semantic pairs showed a reliable priming effect (23 ms). The results are interpreted in the context of models of semantic memory.

Portuguese Lexical Clusters and CVC Sequences in Speech Perception and Production.

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Cunha, Conceição

2015-01-01

This paper investigates similarities between lexical consonant clusters and CVC sequences differing in the presence or absence of a lexical vowel in speech perception and production in two Portuguese varieties. The frequent high vowel deletion in the European variety (EP) and the realization of intervening vocalic elements between lexical clusters in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) may minimize the contrast between lexical clusters and CVC sequences in the two Portuguese varieties. In order to test this hypothesis we present a perception experiment with 72 participants and a physiological analysis of 3-dimensional movement data from 5 EP and 4 BP speakers. The perceptual results confirmed a gradual confusion of lexical clusters and CVC sequences in EP, which corresponded roughly to the gradient consonantal overlap found in production. © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.

The modulatory influence of the functional COMT Val158Met polymorphism on lexical decisions and semantic priming.

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Reuter, Martin; Montag, Christian; Peters, Kristina; Kocher, Anne; Kiefer, Markus

2009-01-01

The role of the prefrontal Cortex (PFC) in higher cognitive functions - including working memory, conflict resolution, set shifting and semantic processing - has been demonstrated unequivocally. Despite the great heterogeneity among tasks measuring these phenotypes, due in part to the different cognitive sub-processes implied and the specificity of the stimulus material used, there is agreement that all of these tasks recruit an executive control system located in the PFC. On a biochemical level it is known that the dopaminergic system plays an important role in executive control functions. Evidence comes from molecular genetics relating the functional COMT Val158Met polymorphism to working memory and set shifting. In order determine whether this pattern of findings generalises to linguistic and semantic processing, we investigated the effects of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism in lexical decision making using masked and unmasked versions of the semantic priming paradigm on N = 104 healthy subjects. Although we observed strong priming effects in all conditions (masked priming, unmasked priming with short/long stimulus asynchronies (SOAs), direct and indirect priming), COMT was not significantly related to priming, suggesting no reliable influence on semantic processing. However, COMT Val158Met was strongly associated with lexical decision latencies in all priming conditions if considered separately, explaining between 9 and 14.5% of the variance. Therefore, the findings indicate that COMT mainly influences more general executive control functions in the PFC supporting the speed of lexical decisions.

The modulatory influence of the functional COMT Val158Met polymorphism on lexical decisions and semantic priming

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Martin Reuter

2009-08-01

Full Text Available The role of the prefrontal Cortex (PFC in higher cognitive functions - including working memory, conflict resolution, set shifting and semantic processing - has been demonstrated unequivocally. Despite the great heterogeneity among tasks measuring these phenotypes, due in part to the different cognitive sub-processes implied and the specificity of the stimulus material used, there is agreement that all of these tasks recruit an executive control system located in the PFC. On a biochemical level it is known that the dopaminergic system plays an important role in executive control functions. Evidence comes from molecular genetics relating the functional COMT Val158Met polymorphism to working memory and set shifting. In order determine whether this pattern of findings generalises to linguistic and semantic processing, we investigated the effects of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism in lexical decision making using masked and unmasked versions of the semantic priming paradigm on N=104 healthy subjects. Although we observed strong priming effects in all conditions (masked priming, unmasked priming with short/long stimulus asynchronies (SOAs, direct and indirect priming, COMT was not significantly related to masked priming, suggesting no reliable influence on semantic processing. However, COMT Val158Met was strongly associated with lexical decision latencies in all priming conditions if considered separately, explaining between 9 to 14.5 % of the variance. Therefore, the findings indicate that COMT mainly influences more general executive control functions in the PFC supporting the speed of lexical decisions.

Lexical-semantic knowledge about food in patients with different types of dementia

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Raffaella Ida Rumiati

2014-04-01

Full Text Available While many theories agree that the conceptual knowledge is organized in categories, there is less agreement on the underlying organizational principle (e.g. Warrington & Shallice, 1984, Caramazza & Shelton, 1998; Capitani et al., 2003. Previous neuropsychological studies on semantic categories failed to clearly characterize the status of food as a category as they did not carefully distinguish between natural food and transformed food. Exploring how natural food and transformed food items are processed in patients suffering from primary dementia can allow us to test the theories of how semantic knowledge is organized in the brain. Thirty patients and 15 healthy controls matched for age and education took part in the study . Thirteen patients received a presumptive diagnosis of fronto-temporal dementia (FTD, 3 patients of Semantic Dementia (SD, and 14 of Alzheimer Dementia (AD. All participants performed 3 tasks tapping lexical-semantic knowledge about food and non-food items: confrontation naming (Task 1, categorization (Task 2, and word-to-picture matching (Task 3. Moreover, half food items were natural (e.g., apple and half transformed (e.g. grana cheese, while non-food items were half non edible natural items (e.g., plant and half kitchen implements. The results showed that, overall, patients performed poorer than controls on Tasks 1 and 3, with FTD-SD patients being more impaired than AD patients. When we compared performance on food versus non-food items, we observed that patients performed better on naming food than non-food items (Task 1. Specifically, FTD-SD patients displayed a significant difference between food and non-food items, while AD patients showed no difference. On Task 3 the same pattern was obtained. In addition, we observed that, across tasks, transformed food was processed better than natural food. These findings suggest that lexical-semantic processes are more prone to degradation in patients FTD-SD than in AD patients

A cross-language study of perception of lexical stress in English.

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Yu, Vickie Y; Andruski, Jean E

2010-08-01

This study investigates the question of whether language background affects the perception of lexical stress in English. Thirty native English speakers and 30 native Chinese learners of English participated in a stressed-syllable identification task and a discrimination task involving three types of stimuli (real words/pseudowords/hums). The results show that both language groups were able to identify and discriminate stress patterns. Lexical and segmental information affected the English and Chinese speakers in varying degrees. English and Chinese speakers showed different response patterns to trochaic vs. iambic stress across the three types of stimuli. An acoustic analysis revealed that two language groups used different acoustic cues to process lexical stress. The findings suggest that the different degrees of lexical and segmental effects can be explained by language background, which in turn supports the hypothesis that language background affects the perception of lexical stress in English.

False memories and lexical decision: even twelve primes do not cause long-term semantic priming.

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Zeelenberg, René; Pecher, Diane

2002-03-01

Semantic priming effects are usually obtained only if the prime is presented shortly before the target stimulus. Recent evidence obtained with the so-called false memory paradigm suggests, however, that in both explicit and implicit memory tasks semantic relations between words can result in long-lasting effects when multiple 'primes' are presented. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether these effects would generalize to lexical decision. In four experiments we showed that even as many as 12 primes do not cause long-term semantic priming. In all experiments, however, a repetition priming effect was obtained. The present results are consistent with a number of other results showing that semantic information plays a minimal role in long-term priming in visual word recognition.

Perception of contrastive bi-syllabic lexical stress in unaccented and accented words by younger and older listeners

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Gordon-Salant, Sandra; Yeni-Komshian, Grace H.; Pickett, Erin J.; Fitzgibbons, Peter J.

2016-01-01

This study examined the ability of older and younger listeners to perceive contrastive syllable stress in unaccented and Spanish-accented cognate bi-syllabic English words. Younger listeners with normal hearing, older listeners with normal hearing, and older listeners with hearing impairment judged recordings of words that contrasted in stress that conveyed a noun or verb form (e.g., CONduct/conDUCT), using two paradigms differing in the amount of semantic support. The stimuli were spoken by four speakers: one native English speaker and three Spanish-accented speakers (one moderately and two mildly accented). The results indicate that all listeners showed the lowest accuracy scores in responding to the most heavily accented speaker and the highest accuracy in judging the productions of the native English speaker. The two older groups showed lower accuracy in judging contrastive lexical stress than the younger group, especially for verbs produced by the most accented speaker. This general pattern of performance was observed in the two experimental paradigms, although performance was generally lower in the paradigm without semantic support. The findings suggest that age-related difficulty in adjusting to deviations in contrastive bi-syllabic lexical stress produced with a Spanish accent may be an important factor limiting perception of accented English by older people. PMID:27036250

VALIDITY OF THE CONNECTION INTER-LEXICAL A-SEMANTICS IN THE COGNITIVE MODEL OF PROCESSING PRAXIS

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P. G. Gómez

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Rothia Gonzalez et al. (1991, 1997 postulated a cognitive model of praxis on which changes were proposed (Cubelli et al., 2000, including the removal of the direct path between both input praxicon and output. Was suggested that to validate an inter-lexical a-semantics path (Cubelli et al., 2000 would enough to find a patientwith preserved ability for imitate familiar gestures, but with disturbances in the ability to access to the meaning of familiar gestures and alterations in ability for imitate unfamiliar gestures. The aim of this work is present two patients whose patterns ofperformance on praxis supports the existence of a pathway inter-lexical a-semantic. We evaluated two patients with Alzheimer type dementia unlikely with a battery of cognitive assessment of apraxia (Politis 2003. Both patients show alterations in test of Imitation of unfamiliar gestures and on tasks which assess semantic action objecttool watching and naming by function, with good performance on the task of imitating familiar gestures. Based on cognitive models of praxis Rothia Gonzalez et al. (1991, 1997 and Cubelli et al. (2000 is require a direct connection between both input praxicon and output to explain the performance of these patients. Of thus, the performance pattern showing both patients confirms existence of a pathway.Interlexical asemantics

Lexical competition in nonnative speech comprehension.

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FitzPatrick, Ian; Indefrey, Peter

2010-06-01

Electrophysiological studies consistently find N400 effects of semantic incongruity in nonnative (L2) language comprehension. These N400 effects are often delayed compared with native (L1) comprehension, suggesting that semantic integration in one's second language occurs later than in one's first language. In this study, we investigated whether such a delay could be attributed to (1) intralingual lexical competition and/or (2) interlingual lexical competition. We recorded EEG from Dutch-English bilinguals who listened to English (L2) sentences in which the sentence-final word was (a) semantically fitting and (b) semantically incongruent or semantically incongruent but initially congruent due to sharing initial phonemes with (c) the most probable sentence completion within the L2 or (d) the L1 translation equivalent of the most probable sentence completion. We found an N400 effect in each of the semantically incongruent conditions. This N400 effect was significantly delayed to L2 words but not to L1 translation equivalents that were initially congruent with the sentence context. Taken together, these findings firstly demonstrate that semantic integration in nonnative listening can start based on word initial phonemes (i.e., before a single lexical candidate could have been selected based on the input) and secondly suggest that spuriously elicited L1 lexical candidates are not available for semantic integration in L2 speech comprehension.

Lexicalization patterns in Brazilian Portuguese

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Dorival Gonçalves Santos Filho

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Neolatin languages belong to a lexicalization pattern in which the verbal root expresses semantic primitives of MOVE and PATH, leaving MANNER or CAUSE to be expressed by an adverb or the gerund form. In German origin languages, on the contrary, verbs lexicalize the semantic primitives of MOVE, MANNER or CAUSE; as for the PATH, it is expressed by a grammatical element that is associated to the verb. Taking into consideration some of the concepts of event of move, guided by Cognitive Semantics, and an analysis of examples extracted from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings’ books, the present study aims at showing, at least, three lexicalization patterns in which Brazilian Portuguese fits in.

Combining Semantic and Lexical Methods for Mapping MedDRA to VCM Icons.

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Lamy, Jean-Baptiste; Tsopra, Rosy

2018-01-01

VCM (Visualization of Concept in Medicine) is an iconic language that represents medical concepts, such as disorders, by icons. VCM has a formal semantics described by an ontology. The icons can be used in medical software for providing a visual summary or enriching texts. However, the use of VCM icons in user interfaces requires to map standard medical terminologies to VCM. Here, we present a method combining semantic and lexical approaches for mapping MedDRA to VCM. The method takes advantage of the hierarchical relations in MedDRA. It also analyzes the groups of lemmas in the term's labels, and relies on a manual mapping of these groups to the concepts in the VCM ontology. We evaluate the method on 50 terms. Finally, we discuss the method and suggest perspectives.

Lexical-Semantic Organization in Bilingually Developing Deaf Children with ASL-Dominant Language Exposure: Evidence from a Repeated Meaning Association Task

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Mann, Wolfgang; Sheng, Li; Morgan, Gary

2016-01-01

This study compared the lexical-semantic organization skills of bilingually developing deaf children in American Sign Language (ASL) and English with those of a monolingual hearing group. A repeated meaning-association paradigm was used to assess retrieval of semantic relations in deaf 6-10-year-olds exposed to ASL from birth by their deaf…

Lexical selection in the semantically blocked cyclic naming task: The role of cognitive control and learning

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Jason E. Crowther

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Studies of semantic interference in language production have provided evidence for a role of cognitive control mechanisms in regulating the activation of semantic competitors during naming. The present study investigated the relationship between individual differences in cognitive control abilities, for both younger and older adults, and the degree of semantic interference in a blocked cyclic naming task. We predicted that individuals with lower working memory capacity (as measured by word span, lesser ability to inhibit distracting responses (as measured by Stroop interference, and a lesser ability to resolve proactive interference (as measured by a recent negatives task would show a greater increase in semantic interference in naming, with effects being larger for older adults. Instead, measures of cognitive control were found to relate to specific indices of semantic interference in the naming task, rather than overall degree of semantic interference, and few interactions with age were found, with younger and older adults performing similarly. The increase in naming latencies across naming trials within a cycle were negatively correlated with word span for both related and unrelated conditions, suggesting a strategy of narrowing response alternatives based upon memory for the set of item names. Evidence for a role of inhibition in response selection was obtained, as Stroop interference correlated positively with the change in naming latencies across cycles for the related, but not unrelated, condition. In contrast, recent negatives interference correlated negatively with the change in naming latencies across unrelated cycles, suggesting that individual differences in this tap the degree of strengthening of links in a lexical network based upon prior exposure. Results are discussed in terms of current models of lexical selection and consequences for word retrieval in more naturalistic production.

The role of semantic self-perceptions in temporal distance perceptions toward autobiographical events: the semantic congruence model.

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Gebauer, Jochen E; Haddock, Geoffrey; Broemer, Philip; von Hecker, Ulrich

2013-11-01

Why do some autobiographical events feel as if they happened yesterday, whereas others feel like ancient history? Such temporal distance perceptions have surprisingly little to do with actual calendar time distance. Instead, psychologists have found that people typically perceive positive autobiographical events as overly recent, while perceiving negative events as overly distant. The origins of this temporal distance bias have been sought in self-enhancement strivings and mood congruence between autobiographical events and chronic mood. As such, past research exclusively focused on the evaluative features of autobiographical events, while neglecting semantic features. To close this gap, we introduce a semantic congruence model. Capitalizing on the Big Two self-perception dimensions, Study 1 showed that high semantic congruence between recalled autobiographical events and trait self-perceptions render the recalled events subjectively recent. Specifically, interpersonally warm (competent) individuals perceived autobiographical events reflecting warmth (competence) as relatively recent, but warm (competent) individuals did not perceive events reflecting competence (warmth) as relatively recent. Study 2 found that conscious perceptions of congruence mediate these effects. Studies 3 and 4 showed that neither mood congruence nor self-enhancement account for these results. Study 5 extended the results from the Big Two to the Big Five self-perception dimensions, while affirming the independence of the semantic congruence model from evaluative influences. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Beyond Auditory Sensory Processing Deficits: Lexical Tone Perception Deficits in Chinese Children With Developmental Dyslexia.

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Tong, Xiuhong; Tong, Xiuli; King Yiu, Fung

Increasing evidence suggests that children with developmental dyslexia exhibit a deficit not only at the segmental level of phonological processing but also, by extension, at the suprasegmental level. However, it remains unclear whether such a suprasegmental phonological processing deficit is due to a difficulty in processing acoustic cues of speech rhythm, such as rise time and intensity. This study set out to investigate to what extent suprasegmental phonological processing (i.e., Cantonese lexical tone perception) and rise time sensitivity could distinguish Chinese children with dyslexia from typically developing children. Sixteen children with dyslexia and 44 age-matched controls were administered a Cantonese lexical tone perception task, psychoacoustic tasks, a nonverbal reasoning ability task, and word reading and dictation tasks. Children with dyslexia performed worse than controls on Cantonese lexical tone perception, rise time, and intensity. Furthermore, Cantonese lexical tone perception appeared to be a stable indicator that distinguishes children with dyslexia from controls, even after controlling for basic auditory processing skills. These findings suggest that suprasegmental phonological processing (i.e., lexical tone perception) is a potential factor that accounts for reading difficulty in Chinese.

Semantic and Conceptual Factors in Spanish-English Bilinguals' Processing of Lexical Categories in Their Two Languages

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Gathercole, Virginia C. Mueller; Stadthagen-González, Hans; Pérez-Tattam, Rocío; Yava?, Feryal

2016-01-01

This study examines possible semantic interaction in fully fluent adult simultaneous and early second language (L2) bilinguals. Monolingual and bilingual speakers of Spanish and English (n = 144) were tested for their understanding of lexical categories that differed in their two languages. Simultaneous bilinguals came from homes in which Spanish…

Using semantic analysis to improve speech recognition performance

OpenAIRE

Erdoğan, Hakan; Erdogan, Hakan; Sarıkaya, Ruhi; Sarikaya, Ruhi; Chen, Stanley F.; Gao, Yuqing; Picheny, Michael

2005-01-01

Although syntactic structure has been used in recent work in language modeling, there has not been much effort in using semantic analysis for language models. In this study, we propose three new language modeling techniques that use semantic analysis for spoken dialog systems. We call these methods concept sequence modeling, two-level semantic-lexical modeling, and joint semantic-lexical modeling. These models combine lexical information with varying amounts of semantic information, using ann...

Framing effects reveal discrete lexical-semantic and sublexical procedures in reading: an fMRI study.

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Danelli, Laura; Marelli, Marco; Berlingeri, Manuela; Tettamanti, Marco; Sberna, Maurizio; Paulesu, Eraldo; Luzzatti, Claudio

2015-01-01

According to the dual-route model, a printed string of letters can be processed by either a grapheme-to-phoneme conversion (GPC) route or a lexical-semantic route. Although meta-analyses of the imaging literature support the existence of distinct but interacting reading procedures, individual neuroimaging studies that explored neural correlates of reading yielded inconclusive results. We used a list-manipulation paradigm to provide a fresh empirical look at this issue and to isolate specific areas that underlie the two reading procedures. In a lexical condition, we embedded disyllabic Italian words (target stimuli) in lists of either loanwords or trisyllabic Italian words with unpredictable stress position. In a GPC condition, similar target stimuli were included within lists of pseudowords. The procedure was designed to induce participants to emphasize either the lexical-semantic or the GPC reading procedure, while controlling for possible linguistic confounds and keeping the reading task requirements stable across the two conditions. Thirty-three adults participated in the behavioral study, and 20 further adult participants were included in the fMRI study. At the behavioral level, we found sizeable effects of the framing manipulations that included slower voice onset times for stimuli in the pseudoword frames. At the functional anatomical level, the occipital and temporal regions, and the intraparietal sulcus were specifically activated when subjects were reading target words in a lexical frame. The inferior parietal and anterior fusiform cortex were specifically activated in the GPC condition. These patterns of activation represented a valid classifying model of fMRI images associated with target reading in both frames in the multi-voxel pattern analyses. Further activations were shared by the two procedures in the occipital and inferior parietal areas, in the premotor cortex, in the frontal regions and the left supplementary motor area. These regions are most

When Wine and Apple Both Help the Production of Grapes: ERP Evidence for Post-lexical Semantic Facilitation in Picture Naming.

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Python, Grégoire; Fargier, Raphaël; Laganaro, Marina

2018-01-01

Background : Producing a word in referential naming requires to select the right word in our mental lexicon among co-activated semantically related words. The mechanisms underlying semantic context effects during speech planning are still controversial, particularly for semantic facilitation which investigation remains under-represented in contrast to the plethora of studies dealing with interference. Our aim is to study the time-course of semantic facilitation in picture naming, using a picture-word "interference" paradigm and event-related potentials (ERPs). Methods : We compared two different types of semantic relationships, associative and categorical, in a single word priming and a double word priming paradigm. The primes were presented visually with a long negative Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA), which is expected to cause facilitation. Results : Shorter naming latencies were observed after both associative and categorical primes, as compared to unrelated primes, and even shorter latencies after two primes. Electrophysiological results showed relatively late modulations of waveform amplitudes for both types of primes (beginning ~330 ms post picture onset with a single prime and ~275 ms post picture onset with two primes), corresponding to a shift in latency of similar topographic maps across conditions. Conclusion : The present results are in favor of a post-lexical locus of semantic facilitation for associative and categorical priming in picture naming and confirm that semantic facilitation is as relevant as semantic interference to inform on word production. The post-lexical locus argued here might be related to self-monitoting or/and to modulations at the level of word-form planning, without excluding the participation of strategic processes.

Semantic Convergence in the Bilingual Lexicon

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Ameel, Eef; Malt, Barbara C.; Storms, Gert; Van Assche, Fons

2009-01-01

Bilinguals' lexical mappings for their two languages have been found to converge toward a common naming pattern. The present paper investigates in more detail how semantic convergence is manifested in bilingual lexical knowledge. We examined how semantic convergence affects the centers and boundaries of lexical categories for common household…

Lexical polysynthesis : Should we treat lexical bases and their affixes as a continuum ?

OpenAIRE

Tersis , Nicole

2006-01-01

International audience; Polysynthesis in Inuit appears at both lexical and sentence levels. The analysis of a sampling of 3000 lexical entries and 300 affixes collected in Eastern Greenland (Tunumiisut) shows how polysynthesis works in lexical morphology and how phonetic wastage helps to obscure the motivation for some lexical forms and favors the development of homophones. Furthermore, the analysis of the full set of affixes reveals a number of formal and semantic similarities which relate a...

Oscillatory neuronal activity reflects lexical-semantic feature integration within and across sensory modalities in distributed cortical networks.

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van Ackeren, Markus J; Schneider, Till R; Müsch, Kathrin; Rueschemeyer, Shirley-Ann

2014-10-22

Research from the previous decade suggests that word meaning is partially stored in distributed modality-specific cortical networks. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which semantic content from multiple modalities is integrated into a coherent multisensory representation. Therefore we aimed to characterize differences between integration of lexical-semantic information from a single modality compared with two sensory modalities. We used magnetoencephalography in humans to investigate changes in oscillatory neuronal activity while participants verified two features for a given target word (e.g., "bus"). Feature pairs consisted of either two features from the same modality (visual: "red," "big") or different modalities (auditory and visual: "red," "loud"). The results suggest that integrating modality-specific features of the target word is associated with enhanced high-frequency power (80-120 Hz), while integrating features from different modalities is associated with a sustained increase in low-frequency power (2-8 Hz). Source reconstruction revealed a peak in the anterior temporal lobe for low-frequency and high-frequency effects. These results suggest that integrating lexical-semantic knowledge at different cortical scales is reflected in frequency-specific oscillatory neuronal activity in unisensory and multisensory association networks. Copyright © 2014 the authors 0270-6474/14/3314318-06$15.00/0.

Heterogeneity in semantic priming effect with a lexical decision task in patients after left hemisphere stroke

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Candice Steffen Holderbaum

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Investigations on the semantic priming effect (SPE in patients after left hemisphere (LH lesions have shown disparities that may be explained by the variability in performance found among patients. The aim of the present study was to verify the existence of subgroups of patients after LH stroke by searching for dissociations between performance on the lexical decision task based on the semantic priming paradigm and performance on direct memory, semantic association and language tasks. All 17 patients with LH lesions after stroke (ten non-fluent aphasics and seven non aphasics were analyzed individually. Results indicated the presence of three groups of patients according to SPE: one exhibiting SPE at both stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs, one with SPE only at long SOA, and another, larger group with no SPE.

Richness of information about novel words influences how episodic and semantic memory networks interact during lexicalization.

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Takashima, Atsuko; Bakker, Iske; van Hell, Janet G; Janzen, Gabriele; McQueen, James M

2014-01-01

The complementary learning systems account of declarative memory suggests two distinct memory networks, a fast-mapping, episodic system involving the hippocampus, and a slower semantic memory system distributed across the neocortex in which new information is gradually integrated with existing representations. In this study, we investigated the extent to which these two networks are involved in the integration of novel words into the lexicon after extensive learning, and how the involvement of these networks changes after 24h. In particular, we explored whether having richer information at encoding influences the lexicalization trajectory. We trained participants with two sets of novel words, one where exposure was only to the words' phonological forms (the form-only condition), and one where pictures of unfamiliar objects were associated with the words' phonological forms (the picture-associated condition). A behavioral measure of lexical competition (indexing lexicalization) indicated stronger competition effects for the form-only words. Imaging (fMRI) results revealed greater involvement of phonological lexical processing areas immediately after training in the form-only condition, suggesting that tight connections were formed between novel words and existing lexical entries already at encoding. Retrieval of picture-associated novel words involved the episodic/hippocampal memory system more extensively. Although lexicalization was weaker in the picture-associated condition, overall memory strength was greater when tested after a 24hour delay, probably due to the availability of both episodic and lexical memory networks to aid retrieval. It appears that, during lexicalization of a novel word, the relative involvement of different memory networks differs according to the richness of the information about that word available at encoding. © 2013.

The (null impact of pseudohomophones in lexical decision: No phonological activation in semantic dementia?

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Maximiliano A. Wilson

2014-04-01

The results in controls reproduce those found in literature (Braun et al., 2009. The general impairment and the lack of lexicality effect are also in line with current literature on svPPA and are likely explained by semantic impairment (Rogers et al., 2004. Interestingly, the novel result here is the absence of PsH effect in svPPA. This suggests that phonology is not correctly activated and that O-P mappings are also impaired in svPPA.

Semantic Memory in the Clinical Progression of Alzheimer Disease.

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Tchakoute, Christophe T; Sainani, Kristin L; Henderson, Victor W

2017-09-01

Semantic memory measures may be useful in tracking and predicting progression of Alzheimer disease. We investigated relationships among semantic memory tasks and their 1-year predictive value in women with Alzheimer disease. We conducted secondary analyses of a randomized clinical trial of raloxifene in 42 women with late-onset mild-to-moderate Alzheimer disease. We assessed semantic memory with tests of oral confrontation naming, category fluency, semantic recognition and semantic naming, and semantic density in written narrative discourse. We measured global cognition (Alzheimer Disease Assessment Scale, cognitive subscale), dementia severity (Clinical Dementia Rating sum of boxes), and daily function (Activities of Daily Living Inventory) at baseline and 1 year. At baseline and 1 year, most semantic memory scores correlated highly or moderately with each other and with global cognition, dementia severity, and daily function. Semantic memory task performance at 1 year had worsened one-third to one-half standard deviation. Factor analysis of baseline test scores distinguished processes in semantic and lexical retrieval (semantic recognition, semantic naming, confrontation naming) from processes in lexical search (semantic density, category fluency). The semantic-lexical retrieval factor predicted global cognition at 1 year. Considered separately, baseline confrontation naming and category fluency predicted dementia severity, while semantic recognition and a composite of semantic recognition and semantic naming predicted global cognition. No individual semantic memory test predicted daily function. Semantic-lexical retrieval and lexical search may represent distinct aspects of semantic memory. Semantic memory processes are sensitive to cognitive decline and dementia severity in Alzheimer disease.

COLLOCATION PHRASES IN RELATION TO OTHER LEXICAL PHRASES IN CROATIAN

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Goranka Blagus Bartolec

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The paper analyzes the semantic and lexicological aspects of collocation phrases in Croatian with tendency to separate them from other lexical phrases in Croatian (terms, idioms, names. The collocation phrase is defined as a special lexical phrase on a syntagmatic level, based on the semantic correlation of the two individual lexical components in which their meanings are specified.

Semantic Representatives of the Concept

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Elena N. Tsay

2013-01-01

Full Text Available In the article concept as one of the principle notions of cognitive linguistics is investigated. Considering concept as culture phenomenon, having language realization and ethnocultural peculiarities, the description of the concept “happiness” is presented. Lexical and semantic paradigm of the concept of happiness correlates with a great number of lexical and semantic variants. In the work semantic representatives of the concept of happiness, covering supreme spiritual values are revealed and semantic interpretation of their functioning in the Biblical discourse is given.

Psycholinguistic measures for German verb pairs: Semantic transparency, semantic relatedness, verb family size, and age of reading acquisition.

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Smolka, Eva; Eulitz, Carsten

2018-06-18

A central issue in visual and spoken word recognition is the lexical representation of complex words-in particular, whether the lexical representation of complex words depends on semantic transparency: Is a complex verb like understand lexically represented as a whole word or via its base stand, given that its meaning is not transparent from the meanings of its parts? To study this issue, a number of stimulus characteristics are of interest that are not yet available in public databases of German. This article provides semantic association ratings, lexical paraphrases, and vector-based similarity measures for German verbs, measuring (a) the semantic transparency between 1,259 complex verbs and their bases, (b) the semantic relatedness between 1,109 verb pairs with 432 different bases, and (c) the vector-based similarity measures of 846 verb pairs. Additionally, we include the verb regularity of all verbs and two counts of verb family size for 184 base verbs, as well as estimates of age of acquisition and age of reading for 200 verbs. Together with lemma and type frequencies from public lexical databases, all measures can be downloaded along with this article. Statistical analyses indicate that verb family size, morphological complexity, frequency, and verb regularity affect the semantic transparency and relatedness ratings as well as the age of acquisition estimates, indicating that these are relevant variables in psycholinguistic experiments. Although lexical paraphrases, vector-based similarity measures, and semantic association ratings may deliver complementary information, the interrater reliability of the semantic association ratings for each verb pair provides valuable information when selecting stimuli for psycholinguistic experiments.

Lexical and sublexical units in speech perception.

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Giroux, Ibrahima; Rey, Arnaud

2009-03-01

Saffran, Newport, and Aslin (1996a) found that human infants are sensitive to statistical regularities corresponding to lexical units when hearing an artificial spoken language. Two sorts of segmentation strategies have been proposed to account for this early word-segmentation ability: bracketing strategies, in which infants are assumed to insert boundaries into continuous speech, and clustering strategies, in which infants are assumed to group certain speech sequences together into units (Swingley, 2005). In the present study, we test the predictions of two computational models instantiating each of these strategies i.e., Serial Recurrent Networks: Elman, 1990; and Parser: Perruchet & Vinter, 1998 in an experiment where we compare the lexical and sublexical recognition performance of adults after hearing 2 or 10 min of an artificial spoken language. The results are consistent with Parser's predictions and the clustering approach, showing that performance on words is better than performance on part-words only after 10 min. This result suggests that word segmentation abilities are not merely due to stronger associations between sublexical units but to the emergence of stronger lexical representations during the development of speech perception processes. Copyright © 2009, Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Lexical and Symbolic Meaning of Some Colors in Kazakh Language

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Shara Mazhitaeva

2012-10-01

Full Text Available . Colour is objectified in language by means of lexical units’ group - colour names, therefore colour namings attract a constant interest of the scholars who study mechanisms of categorizing the world around by the person, and they are one of the most investigated concepts in different languages. Colour namings are frequently analyzed in the works devoted to studying color as a special lexical category with great attention paid to a problem of conceptualizing colour space by the person. However a colour owing to certain psychological influence on consciousness of the person possesses the wide associative potential defined not only by specific features of perception but also to great extent, by a cultural heritage of all society including mythological and religious representations. The basic research object is both paroemia and phraseological units and lexical-semantic group of color namings of the Kazakh language.

Interaction between lexical and grammatical language systems in the brain

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Ardila, Alfredo

2012-06-01

This review concentrates on two different language dimensions: lexical/semantic and grammatical. This distinction between a lexical/semantic system and a grammatical system is well known in linguistics, but in cognitive neurosciences it has been obscured by the assumption that there are several forms of language disturbances associated with focal brain damage and hence language includes a diversity of functions (phoneme discrimination, lexical memory, grammar, repetition, language initiation ability, etc.), each one associated with the activity of a specific brain area. The clinical observation of patients with cerebral pathology shows that there are indeed only two different forms of language disturbances (disturbances in the lexical/semantic system and disturbances in the grammatical system); these two language dimensions are supported by different brain areas (temporal and frontal) in the left hemisphere. Furthermore, these two aspects of the language are developed at different ages during child's language acquisition, and they probably appeared at different historical moments during human evolution. Mechanisms of learning are different for both language systems: whereas the lexical/semantic knowledge is based in a declarative memory, grammatical knowledge corresponds to a procedural type of memory. Recognizing these two language dimensions can be crucial in understanding language evolution and human cognition.

The effect of word length and other sublexical, lexical, and semantic variables on developmental reading deficits.

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De Luca, Maria; Barca, Laura; Burani, Cristina; Zoccolotti, Pierluigi

2008-12-01

To examine the effect of word length and several sublexical, and lexico-semantic variables on the reading of Italian children with a developmental reading deficit. Previous studies indicated the role of word length in transparent orthographies. However, several factors that may interact with word length were not controlled for. Seventeen impaired and 34 skilled sixth-grade readers were presented words of different lengths, matched for initial phoneme, bigram frequency, word frequency, age of acquisition, and imageability. Participants were asked to read aloud, as quickly and as accurately as possible. Reaction times at the onset of pronunciation and mispronunciations were recorded. Impaired readers' reaction times indicated a marked effect of word length; in skilled readers, there was no length effect for short words but, rather, a monotonic increase from 6-letter words on. Regression analyses confirmed the role of word length and indicated the influence of word frequency (similar in impaired and skilled readers). No other variables predicted reading latencies. Word length differentially influenced word recognition in impaired versus skilled readers, irrespective of the action of (potentially interfering) sublexical, lexical, and semantic variables. It is proposed that the locus of the length effect is at a perceptual level of analysis. The independent influence of word frequency on the reading performance of both groups of participants indicates the sparing of lexical activation in impaired readers.

Different Loci of Semantic Interference in Picture Naming vs. Word-Picture Matching Tasks.

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Harvey, Denise Y; Schnur, Tatiana T

2016-01-01

Naming pictures and matching words to pictures belonging to the same semantic category impairs performance relative to when stimuli come from different semantic categories (i.e., semantic interference). Despite similar semantic interference phenomena in both picture naming and word-picture matching tasks, the locus of interference has been attributed to different levels of the language system - lexical in naming and semantic in word-picture matching. Although both tasks involve access to shared semantic representations, the extent to which interference originates and/or has its locus at a shared level remains unclear, as these effects are often investigated in isolation. We manipulated semantic context in cyclical picture naming and word-picture matching tasks, and tested whether factors tapping semantic-level (generalization of interference to novel category items) and lexical-level processes (interactions with lexical frequency) affected the magnitude of interference, while also assessing whether interference occurs at a shared processing level(s) (transfer of interference across tasks). We found that semantic interference in naming was sensitive to both semantic- and lexical-level processes (i.e., larger interference for novel vs. old and low- vs. high-frequency stimuli), consistent with a semantically mediated lexical locus. Interference in word-picture matching exhibited stable interference for old and novel stimuli and did not interact with lexical frequency. Further, interference transferred from word-picture matching to naming. Together, these experiments provide evidence to suggest that semantic interference in both tasks originates at a shared processing stage (presumably at the semantic level), but that it exerts its effect at different loci when naming pictures vs. matching words to pictures.

Confusing similar words: ERP correlates of lexical-semantic processing in first language attrition and late second language acquisition.

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Kasparian, Kristina; Steinhauer, Karsten

2016-12-01

First language (L1) attrition is a socio-linguistic circumstance where second language (L2) learning coincides with changes in exposure and use of the native-L1. Attriters often report experiencing a decline in automaticity or proficiency in their L1 after a prolonged period in the L2 environment, while their L2 proficiency continues to strengthen. Investigating the neurocognitive correlates of attrition alongside those of late L2 acquisition addresses the question of whether the brain mechanisms underlying both L1 and L2 processing are strongly determined by proficiency, irrespective of whether the language was acquired from birth or in adulthood. Using event-related-potentials (ERPs), we examined lexical-semantic processing in Italian L1 attriters, compared to adult Italian L2 learners and to Italian monolingual native speakers. We contrasted the processing of classical lexical-semantic violations (Mismatch condition) with sentences that were equally semantically implausible but arguably trickier, as the target-noun was "swapped" with an orthographic neighbor that differed only in its final vowel and gender-marking morpheme (e.g., cappello (hat) vs. cappella (chapel)). Our aim was to determine whether sentences with such "confusable nouns" (Swap condition) would be processed as semantically correct by late L2 learners and L1 attriters, especially for those individuals with lower Italian proficiency scores. We found that lower-proficiency Italian speakers did not show significant N400 effects for Swap violations relative to correct sentences, regardless of whether Italian was the L1 or the L2. Crucially, N400 response profiles followed a continuum of "nativelikeness" predicted by Italian proficiency scores - high-proficiency attriters and high-proficiency Italian learners were indistinguishable from native controls, whereas attriters and L2 learners in the lower-proficiency range showed significantly reduced N400 effects for "Swap" errors. Importantly, attriters

Emotion perception, but not affect perception, is impaired with semantic memory loss.

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Lindquist, Kristen A; Gendron, Maria; Barrett, Lisa Feldman; Dickerson, Bradford C

2014-04-01

For decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have hypothesized that the ability to perceive emotions on others' faces is inborn, prelinguistic, and universal. Concept knowledge about emotion has been assumed to be epiphenomenal to emotion perception. In this article, we report findings from 3 patients with semantic dementia that cannot be explained by this "basic emotion" view. These patients, who have substantial deficits in semantic processing abilities, spontaneously perceived pleasant and unpleasant expressions on faces, but not discrete emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, or sadness, even in a task that did not require the use of emotion words. Our findings support the hypothesis that discrete emotion concept knowledge helps transform perceptions of affect (positively or negatively valenced facial expressions) into perceptions of discrete emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, and sadness. These findings have important consequences for understanding the processes supporting emotion perception.

Lexical access changes in patients with multiple sclerosis: a two-year follow-up study.

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Sepulcre, Jorge; Peraita, Herminia; Goni, Joaquin; Arrondo, Gonzalo; Martincorena, Inigo; Duque, Beatriz; Velez de Mendizabal, Nieves; Masdeu, Joseph C; Villoslada, Pablo

2011-02-01

The aim of the study was to analyze lexical access strategies in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and their changes over time. We studied lexical access strategies during semantic and phonemic verbal fluency tests and also confrontation naming in a 2-year prospective cohort of 45 MS patients and 20 healthy controls. At baseline, switching lexical access strategy (both in semantic and in phonemic verbal fluency tests) and confrontation naming were significantly impaired in MS patients compared with controls. After 2 years follow-up, switching score decreased, and cluster size increased over time in semantic verbal fluency tasks, suggesting a failure in the retrieval of lexical information rather than an impairment of the lexical pool. In conclusion, these findings underline the significant presence of lexical access problems in patients with MS and could point out their key role in the alterations of high-level communications abilities in MS.

Semantic size does not matter: "bigger" words are not recognized faster.

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Kang, Sean H K; Yap, Melvin J; Tse, Chi-Shing; Kurby, Christopher A

2011-06-01

Sereno, O'Donnell, and Sereno (2009) reported that words are recognized faster in a lexical decision task when their referents are physically large than when they are small, suggesting that "semantic size" might be an important variable that should be considered in visual word recognition research and modelling. We sought to replicate their size effect, but failed to find a significant latency advantage in lexical decision for "big" words (cf. "small" words), even though we used the same word stimuli as Sereno et al. and had almost three times as many subjects. We also examined existing data from visual word recognition megastudies (e.g., English Lexicon Project) and found that semantic size is not a significant predictor of lexical decision performance after controlling for the standard lexical variables. In summary, the null results from our lab experiment--despite a much larger subject sample size than Sereno et al.--converged with our analysis of megastudy lexical decision performance, leading us to conclude that semantic size does not matter for word recognition. Discussion focuses on why semantic size (unlike some other semantic variables) is unlikely to play a role in lexical decision.

ERP Evidence for the Activation of Syntactic Structure During Comprehension of Lexical Idiom.

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Zhang, Meichao; Lu, Aitao; Song, Pingfang

2017-10-01

The present study used event-related potentials to investigate whether the syntactic structure was activated in the comprehension of lexical idioms, and if so, whether it varied as a function of familiarity and semantic transparency. Participants were asked to passively read the "1+2" structural Chinese lexical idioms with each being presented following 3-5 contextual "1+2" (congruent-structure condition) or "2+1" structural Chinese phrases (incongruent-structure condition). The N400 ERP responses showed more positivity in congruent-structure condition relative to incongruent-structure condition in idioms with high familiarity and high semantic transparency, but less positivity in congruent-structure condition in idioms with high familiarity but low semantic transparency, idioms with low familiarity but high semantic transparency, and idioms with low familiarity and low semantic transparency. Our results suggest that syntactic structure, as the unnecessarity of lexical idiomatic words, was nevertheless activated, independent of familiarity and semantic transparency.

Crossmodal Semantic Constraints on Visual Perception of Binocular Rivalry

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Yi-Chuan Chen

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Environments typically convey contextual information via several different sensory modalities. Here, we report a study designed to investigate the crossmodal semantic modulation of visual perception using the binocular rivalry paradigm. The participants viewed a dichoptic figure consisting of a bird and a car presented to each eye, while also listening to either a bird singing or car engine revving. Participants' dominant percepts were modulated by the presentation of a soundtrack associated with either bird or car, as compared to the presentation of a soundtrack irrelevant to both visual figures (tableware clattering together in a restaurant. No such crossmodal semantic effect was observed when the participants maintained an abstract semantic cue in memory. We then further demonstrate that crossmodal semantic modulation can be dissociated from the effects of high-level attentional control over the dichoptic figures and of low-level luminance contrast of the figures. In sum, we demonstrate a novel crossmodal effect in terms of crossmodal semantic congruency on binocular rivalry. This effect can be considered a perceptual grouping or contextual constraint on human visual awareness through mid-level crossmodal excitatory connections embedded in the multisensory semantic network.

Electrophysiology of prosodic and lexical-semantic processing during sentence comprehension in aphasia.

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Sheppard, Shannon M; Love, Tracy; Midgley, Katherine J; Holcomb, Phillip J; Shapiro, Lewis P

2017-12-01

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to examine how individuals with aphasia and a group of age-matched controls use prosody and themattic fit information in sentences containing temporary syntactic ambiguities. Two groups of individuals with aphasia were investigated; those demonstrating relatively good sentence comprehension whose primary language difficulty is anomia (Individuals with Anomic Aphasia (IWAA)), and those who demonstrate impaired sentence comprehension whose primary diagnosis is Broca's aphasia (Individuals with Broca's Aphasia (IWBA)). The stimuli had early closure syntactic structure and contained a temporary early closure (correct)/late closure (incorrect) syntactic ambiguity. The prosody was manipulated to either be congruent or incongruent, and the temporarily ambiguous NP was also manipulated to either be a plausible or an implausible continuation for the subordinate verb (e.g., "While the band played the song/the beer pleased all the customers."). It was hypothesized that an implausible NP in sentences with incongruent prosody may provide the parser with a plausibility cue that could be used to predict syntactic structure. The results revealed that incongruent prosody paired with a plausibility cue resulted in an N400-P600 complex at the implausible NP (the beer) in both the controls and the IWAAs, yet incongruent prosody without a plausibility cue resulted in an N400-P600 at the critical verb (pleased) only in healthy controls. IWBAs did not show evidence of N400 or P600 effects at the ambiguous NP or critical verb, although they did show evidence of a delayed N400 effect at the sentence-final word in sentences with incongruent prosody. These results suggest that IWAAs have difficulty integrating prosodic cues with underlying syntactic structure when lexical-semantic information is not available to aid their parse. IWBAs have difficulty integrating both prosodic and lexical-semantic cues with syntactic structure, likely due to a

Semantic word category processing in semantic dementia and posterior cortical atrophy.

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Shebani, Zubaida; Patterson, Karalyn; Nestor, Peter J; Diaz-de-Grenu, Lara Z; Dawson, Kate; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2017-08-01

There is general agreement that perisylvian language cortex plays a major role in lexical and semantic processing; but the contribution of additional, more widespread, brain areas in the processing of different semantic word categories remains controversial. We investigated word processing in two groups of patients whose neurodegenerative diseases preferentially affect specific parts of the brain, to determine whether their performance would vary as a function of semantic categories proposed to recruit those brain regions. Cohorts with (i) Semantic Dementia (SD), who have anterior temporal-lobe atrophy, and (ii) Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA), who have predominantly parieto-occipital atrophy, performed a lexical decision test on words from five different lexico-semantic categories: colour (e.g., yellow), form (oval), number (seven), spatial prepositions (under) and function words (also). Sets of pseudo-word foils matched the target words in length and bi-/tri-gram frequency. Word-frequency was matched between the two visual word categories (colour and form) and across the three other categories (number, prepositions, and function words). Age-matched healthy individuals served as controls. Although broad word processing deficits were apparent in both patient groups, the deficit was strongest for colour words in SD and for spatial prepositions in PCA. The patterns of performance on the lexical decision task demonstrate (a) general lexicosemantic processing deficits in both groups, though more prominent in SD than in PCA, and (b) differential involvement of anterior-temporal and posterior-parietal cortex in the processing of specific semantic categories of words. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

A survey of compiler development aids. [concerning lexical, syntax, and semantic analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Buckles, B. P.; Hodges, B. C.; Hsia, P.

1977-01-01

A theoretical background was established for the compilation process by dividing it into five phases and explaining the concepts and algorithms that underpin each. The five selected phases were lexical analysis, syntax analysis, semantic analysis, optimization, and code generation. Graph theoretical optimization techniques were presented, and approaches to code generation were described for both one-pass and multipass compilation environments. Following the initial tutorial sections, more than 20 tools that were developed to aid in the process of writing compilers were surveyed. Eight of the more recent compiler development aids were selected for special attention - SIMCMP/STAGE2, LANG-PAK, COGENT, XPL, AED, CWIC, LIS, and JOCIT. The impact of compiler development aids were assessed some of their shortcomings and some of the areas of research currently in progress were inspected.

ERP evidence of distinct processes underlying semantic facilitation and interference in word production.

Science.gov (United States)

Python, Grégoire; Fargier, Raphaël; Laganaro, Marina

2018-02-01

In everyday conversations, we take advantage of lexical-semantic contexts to facilitate speech production, but at the same time, we also have to reduce interference and inhibit semantic competitors. The blocked cyclic naming paradigm (BCNP) has been used to investigate such context effects. Typical results on production latencies showed semantic facilitation (or no effect) during the first presentation cycle, and interference emerging in subsequent cycles. Even if semantic contexts might be just as facilitative as interfering, previous BCNP studies focused on interference, which was interpreted as reflecting lemma selection and self-monitoring processes. Facilitation in the first cycle was rarely considered/analysed, although it potentially informs on word production to the same extent as interference. Here we contrasted the event-related potential (ERP) signatures of both semantic facilitation and interference in a BCNP. ERPs differed between homogeneous and heterogeneous blocks from about 365 msec post picture onset in the first cycle (facilitation) and in an earlier time-window (270 msec post picture onset) in the third cycle (interference). Three different analyses of the ERPs converge towards distinct processes underlying semantic facilitation and interference (post-lexical vs lexical respectively). The loci of semantic facilitation and interference are interpreted in the context of different theoretical frameworks of language production: the post-lexical locus of semantic facilitation involves interactive phonological-semantic processes and/or self-monitoring, whereas the lexical locus of semantic interference is in line with selection through increased lexical competition. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic Meaning in Attitudinal Lexemes in the Domain of Kesenangan (Joy in Indonesian: An Analysis of Meaning Components and Lexical Relation

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Prima Gusti Yanti

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The attitudinal lexeme on the domain of kesenangan in Indonesia language has not shown such clear meaning relationship, for both the common and diagnostic meaning of the lexemes. Those lexemes have such circular definitions, confusing upon their use. This study is conducted using a qualitative research approach employing content analysis technique. The aim of this study is to find out lexical relation and semantic meaning in attitudinal lexeme in the domain of kesenangan (joy in Indonesian language. Data is collected from seven Indonesian dictionaries, two magazines, five newspapers, and six literary works. All data is analyzed using a component analysis in the semantic theory. The research findings show that fourteen (14 lexemes (senang, nikmat, enak, puas, asyik, sukacita, ria, bangga, lega, bahagia, gembira, girang, riang, and ceria of attitudinal lexemes are related with the domain of kesenangan. The result shows that hyponymy and synonymy lexical relations occur in the domain of kesenangan. Synonymy relation consists of near-synonymy and propositional synonymy. In this case, absolute synonymy is not found.

Phase synchronization of delta and theta oscillations increase during the detection of relevant lexical information

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Enzo eBrunetti

2013-06-01

Full Text Available During monitoring of the discourse, the detection of the relevance of incoming lexical information could be critical for its incorporation to update mental representations in memory. Because, in these situations, the relevance for lexical information is defined by abstract rules that are maintained in memory, results critical to understand how an abstract level of knowledge maintained in mind mediates the detection of the lower-level semantic information. In the present study, we propose that neuronal oscillations participate in the detection of relevant lexical information, based on ‘kept in mind’ rules deriving from more abstract semantic information. We tested our hypothesis using an experimental paradigm that restricted the detection of relevance to inferences based on explicit information, thus controlling for ambiguities derived from implicit aspects. We used a categorization task, in which the semantic relevance was previously defined based on the congruency between a kept in mind category (abstract knowledge, and the lexical-semantic information presented. Our results show that during the detection of the relevant lexical information, phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations selectively increases in delta and theta frequency bands during the interval of semantic analysis. These increments were independent of the semantic category maintained in memory, had a temporal profile specific for each subject, and were mainly induced, as they had no effect on the evoked mean global field power. Also, recruitment of an increased number of pairs of electrodes was a robust observation during the detection of semantic contingent words. These results are consistent with the notion that the detection of relevant lexical information based on a particular semantic rule, could be mediated by increasing the global phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations, which may contribute to the recruitment of an extended number of cortical regions.

Phase synchronization of delta and theta oscillations increase during the detection of relevant lexical information.

Science.gov (United States)

Brunetti, Enzo; Maldonado, Pedro E; Aboitiz, Francisco

2013-01-01

During monitoring of the discourse, the detection of the relevance of incoming lexical information could be critical for its incorporation to update mental representations in memory. Because, in these situations, the relevance for lexical information is defined by abstract rules that are maintained in memory, a central aspect to elucidate is how an abstract level of knowledge maintained in mind mediates the detection of the lower-level semantic information. In the present study, we propose that neuronal oscillations participate in the detection of relevant lexical information, based on "kept in mind" rules deriving from more abstract semantic information. We tested our hypothesis using an experimental paradigm that restricted the detection of relevance to inferences based on explicit information, thus controlling for ambiguities derived from implicit aspects. We used a categorization task, in which the semantic relevance was previously defined based on the congruency between a kept in mind category (abstract knowledge), and the lexical semantic information presented. Our results show that during the detection of the relevant lexical information, phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations selectively increases in delta and theta frequency bands during the interval of semantic analysis. These increments occurred irrespective of the semantic category maintained in memory, had a temporal profile specific for each subject, and were mainly induced, as they had no effect on the evoked mean global field power. Also, recruitment of an increased number of pairs of electrodes was a robust observation during the detection of semantic contingent words. These results are consistent with the notion that the detection of relevant lexical information based on a particular semantic rule, could be mediated by increasing the global phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations, which may contribute to the recruitment of an extended number of cortical regions.

Shared perceptual processes in phoneme and word perception: Evidence from aphasia

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Heather Raye Dial

2014-04-01

Replicating previous studies, performance on the two word recognition tasks without closely matched distractors (WAB and PWM was at ceiling for some subjects with impairments on consonant discrimination (see Figures 1a/1b. However, as shown in Figures 1c/1d, for word processing tasks matched in phonological discriminability to the consonant discrimination task, scores on consonant discrimination and word processing were highly correlated, and no individual demonstrated substantially better performance on word than phoneme perception. One patient demonstrated worse performance on lexical decision (d’ = .21 than phoneme perception (d’ = 1.72, which can be attributed to impaired lexical or semantic processing. These data argue against the hypothesis that phoneme and word perception rely on different perceptual processes/routes for processing, and instead indicate that word perception depends on perception of sublexical units.

Semantic size of abstract concepts: it gets emotional when you can't see it.

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Yao, Bo; Vasiljevic, Milica; Weick, Mario; Sereno, Margaret E; O'Donnell, Patrick J; Sereno, Sara C

2013-01-01

Size is an important visuo-spatial characteristic of the physical world. In language processing, previous research has demonstrated a processing advantage for words denoting semantically "big" (e.g., jungle) versus "small" (e.g., needle) concrete objects. We investigated whether semantic size plays a role in the recognition of words expressing abstract concepts (e.g., truth). Semantically "big" and "small" concrete and abstract words were presented in a lexical decision task. Responses to "big" words, regardless of their concreteness, were faster than those to "small" words. Critically, we explored the relationship between semantic size and affective characteristics of words as well as their influence on lexical access. Although a word's semantic size was correlated with its emotional arousal, the temporal locus of arousal effects may depend on the level of concreteness. That is, arousal seemed to have an earlier (lexical) effect on abstract words, but a later (post-lexical) effect on concrete words. Our findings provide novel insights into the semantic representations of size in abstract concepts and highlight that affective attributes of words may not always index lexical access.

Differential lexical predictors of reading comprehension in fourth graders

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Swart, N.M.; Muijselaar, M.M.L.; Steenbeek-Planting, E.G.; Droop, M.; de Jong, P.F.; Verhoeven, L.

The mental lexicon plays a central role in reading comprehension (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014). It encompasses the number of lexical entries in spoken and written language (vocabulary breadth), the semantic quality of these entries (vocabulary depth), and the connection strength between lexical

Evaluating lexical characteristics of verbal fluency output in schizophrenia.

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Juhasz, Barbara J; Chambers, Destinee; Shesler, Leah W; Haber, Alix; Kurtz, Matthew M

2012-12-30

Standardized lexical analysis of verbal output has not been applied to verbal fluency tasks in schizophrenia. Performance of individuals with schizophrenia on both a letter (n=139) and semantic (n=137) fluency task was investigated. The lexical characteristics (word frequency, age-of-acquisition, word length, and semantic typicality) of words produced were evaluated and compared to those produced by a healthy control group matched on age, gender, and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition (WAIS-III) vocabulary scores (n=20). Overall, individuals with schizophrenia produced fewer words than healthy controls, replicating past research (see Bokat and Goldberg, 2003). Words produced in the semantic fluency task by individuals with schizophrenia were, on average, earlier acquired and more typical of the category. In contrast, no differences in lexical characteristics emerged in the letter fluency task. The results are informative regarding how individuals with schizophrenia access their mental lexicons during the verbal fluency task. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ontology Matching with Semantic Verification.

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Jean-Mary, Yves R; Shironoshita, E Patrick; Kabuka, Mansur R

2009-09-01

ASMOV (Automated Semantic Matching of Ontologies with Verification) is a novel algorithm that uses lexical and structural characteristics of two ontologies to iteratively calculate a similarity measure between them, derives an alignment, and then verifies it to ensure that it does not contain semantic inconsistencies. In this paper, we describe the ASMOV algorithm, and then present experimental results that measure its accuracy using the OAEI 2008 tests, and that evaluate its use with two different thesauri: WordNet, and the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). These results show the increased accuracy obtained by combining lexical, structural and extensional matchers with semantic verification, and demonstrate the advantage of using a domain-specific thesaurus for the alignment of specialized ontologies.

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

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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."

Beyond the VWFA: The orthography-semantics interface in spelling and reading

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Purcell, Jeremy J.; Shea, Jennifer; Rapp, Brenda

2014-01-01

Lexical orthographic information provides the basis for recovering the meanings of words in reading and for generating correct word spellings in writing. Research has provided evidence that an area of the left ventral temporal cortex, a sub-region of what is often referred to as the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA), plays a significant role specifically in lexical orthographic processing. The current investigation goes beyond this previous work by examining the neurotopography of the interface of lexical orthography with semantics. We apply a novel lesion mapping approach with three individuals with acquired dysgraphia and dyslexia who suffered lesions to left ventral temporal cortex. To map cognitive processes to their neural substrates, this lesion mapping approach applies similar logical constraints as used in cognitive neuropsychological research. Using this approach, this investigation: (1) Identifies a region anterior to the VWFA that is important in the interface of orthographic information with semantics for reading and spelling; (2) Determines that, within this Orthography-Semantics Interface Region (OSIR), access to orthography from semantics (spelling) is topographically distinct from access to semantics from orthography (reading); (3) Provides evidence that, within this region, there is modality-specific access to and from lexical semantics for both spoken and written modalities, in both word production and comprehension. Overall, this study contributes to our understanding of the neural architecture at the lexical orthography-semantic-phonological interface within left ventral temporal cortex. PMID:24833190

Semantic data bank

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anoreewsky, Evelyne; Nicolas, P.; Grillo, J.P.

1977-01-01

A system is proposed for determining semantic relations between lexical items. To do this, a descriptor is associated with each lexical item; two types of algorithms are used to calculate the relationships between descriptors ('similarity' or 'predicativity' relations). This system makes it possible to simulate linguistic experiences. Some results have been predicted and verified experimentally. [fr

The Influence of Semantic and Morphological Complexity of Verbs on Sentence Recall: Implications for the Nature of Conceptual Representation and Category-Specific Deficits

Science.gov (United States)

Mobayyen, F.; de Almeida, R.G.

2005-01-01

One hundred and forty normal undergraduate students participated in a Proactive Interference (PI) experiment with sentences containing verbs from four different semantic and morphological classes (lexical causatives, morphological causatives, and morphologically complex and simplex perception verbs). Past research has shown significant PI build-up…

The Microstructural Treatment of Sub lexical Lemmas in Afrikaans ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

include synonyms and semantic oppositions. Since all Afrikaans descriptive dictionaries supply these lexical relations for lexical lemmas, there is no reason why they should be omitted in the articles of sublexicallemmas. Naturally the synonym or antonym for sublexical lemmas need not be sublexical as well,.

Feature activation during word recognition: action, visual, and associative-semantic priming effects

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Kevin J.Y. Lam

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Embodied theories of language postulate that language meaning is stored in modality-specific brain areas generally involved in perception and action in the real world. However, the temporal dynamics of the interaction between modality-specific information and lexical-semantic processing remain unclear. We investigated the relative timing at which two types of modality-specific information (action-based and visual-form information contribute to lexical-semantic comprehension. To this end, we applied a behavioral priming paradigm in which prime and target words were related with respect to (1 action features, (2 visual features, or (3 semantically associative information. Using a Go/No-Go lexical decision task, priming effects were measured across four different inter-stimulus intervals (ISI = 100 ms, 250 ms, 400 ms, and 1,000 ms to determine the relative time course of the different features . Notably, action priming effects were found in ISIs of 100 ms, 250 ms, and 1,000 ms whereas a visual priming effect was seen only in the ISI of 1,000 ms. Importantly, our data suggest that features follow different time courses of activation during word recognition. In this regard, feature activation is dynamic, measurable in specific time windows but not in others. Thus the current study (1 demonstrates how multiple ISIs can be used within an experiment to help chart the time course of feature activation and (2 provides new evidence for embodied theories of language.

Lexical Planning in Sentence Production Is Highly Incremental: Evidence from ERPs.

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Zhao, Li-Ming; Yang, Yu-Fang

2016-01-01

The scope of lexical planning, which means how far ahead speakers plan lexically before they start producing an utterance, is an important issue for research into speech production, but remains highly controversial. The present research investigated this issue using the semantic blocking effect, which refers to the widely observed effects that participants take longer to say aloud the names of items in pictures when the pictures in a block of trials in an experiment depict items that belong to the same semantic category than different categories. As this effect is often interpreted as a reflection of difficulty in lexical selection, the current study took the semantic blocking effect and its associated pattern of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) as a proxy to test whether lexical planning during sentence production extends beyond the first noun when a subject noun-phrase includes two nouns, such as "The chair and the boat are both red" and "The chair above the boat is red". The results showed a semantic blocking effect both in onset latencies and in ERPs during the utterance of the first noun of these complex noun-phrases but not for the second noun. The indication, therefore, is that the lexical planning scope does not encompass this second noun-phrase. Indeed, the present findings are in line with accounts that propose radically incremental lexical planning, in which speakers plan ahead only one word at a time. This study also provides a highly novel example of using ERPs to examine the production of long utterances, and it is hoped the present demonstration of the effectiveness of this approach inspires further application of ERP techniques in this area of research.

Lexical-semantic Mapping between Chinese and English Controlled Vocabularies in the Domain of Chinese Art

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Shu-Jiun Chen

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This study conducts a lexical-semantic mapping between the Chinese controlled vocabulary developed by the National Palace Museum (NPM-CV in Taiwan and an English controlled vocabulary, the Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT developed by the Getty Research Institute in the U.S. that is primarily based on Western art. The research question is: In mapping a Chinese controlled vocabulary in Chinese art to a Western-centered art thesaurus, what types of relationships can be identified and what are the issues in mapping? The study’s main findings reveal that only one-third of the NPM-CV terms can be mapped as “exact equivalence” to AAT terms and three-fifths of the NPMCV terms have hierarchical relationships (narrower to broader with some AAT terms. Clearly, using AAT alone to index Chinese art collections will lead to insufficient indexing specificity. The study then proposes solutions to improve Chinese-English semantic interoperability for multilingual knowledge organization systems in the domain of Chinese art. [Article content in Chinese

Semantic Size of Abstract Concepts: It Gets Emotional When You Can’t See It

Science.gov (United States)

Yao, Bo; Vasiljevic, Milica; Weick, Mario; Sereno, Margaret E.; O’Donnell, Patrick J.; Sereno, Sara C.

2013-01-01

Size is an important visuo-spatial characteristic of the physical world. In language processing, previous research has demonstrated a processing advantage for words denoting semantically “big” (e.g., jungle) versus “small” (e.g., needle) concrete objects. We investigated whether semantic size plays a role in the recognition of words expressing abstract concepts (e.g., truth). Semantically “big” and “small” concrete and abstract words were presented in a lexical decision task. Responses to “big” words, regardless of their concreteness, were faster than those to “small” words. Critically, we explored the relationship between semantic size and affective characteristics of words as well as their influence on lexical access. Although a word’s semantic size was correlated with its emotional arousal, the temporal locus of arousal effects may depend on the level of concreteness. That is, arousal seemed to have an earlier (lexical) effect on abstract words, but a later (post-lexical) effect on concrete words. Our findings provide novel insights into the semantic representations of size in abstract concepts and highlight that affective attributes of words may not always index lexical access. PMID:24086421

The Role of Temporal Envelope and Fine Structure in Mandarin Lexical Tone Perception in Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder.

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Shuo Wang

Full Text Available Temporal information in a signal can be partitioned into temporal envelope (E and fine structure (FS. Fine structure is important for lexical tone perception for normal-hearing (NH listeners, and listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL have an impaired ability to use FS in lexical tone perception due to the reduced frequency resolution. The present study was aimed to assess which of the acoustic aspects (E or FS played a more important role in lexical tone perception in subjects with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD and to determine whether it was the deficit in temporal resolution or frequency resolution that might lead to more detrimental effects on FS processing in pitch perception. Fifty-eight native Mandarin Chinese-speaking subjects (27 with ANSD, 16 with SNHL, and 15 with NH were assessed for (1 their ability to recognize lexical tones using acoustic E or FS cues with the "auditory chimera" technique, (2 temporal resolution as measured with temporal gap detection (TGD threshold, and (3 frequency resolution as measured with the Q(10dB values of the psychophysical tuning curves. Overall, 26.5%, 60.2%, and 92.1% of lexical tone responses were consistent with FS cues for tone perception for listeners with ANSD, SNHL, and NH, respectively. The mean TGD threshold was significantly higher for listeners with ANSD (11.9 ms than for SNHL (4.0 ms; p < 0.001 and NH (3.9 ms; p < 0.001 listeners, with no significant difference between SNHL and NH listeners. In contrast, the mean Q(10dB for listeners with SNHL (1.8 ± 0.4 was significantly lower than that for ANSD (3.5 ± 1.0; p < 0.001 and NH (3.4 ± 0.9; p < 0.001 listeners, with no significant difference between ANSD and NH listeners. These results suggest that reduced temporal resolution, as opposed to reduced frequency selectivity, in ANSD subjects leads to greater degradation of FS processing for pitch perception.

Lexical processing and organization in bilingual first language acquisition: Guiding future research.

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DeAnda, Stephanie; Poulin-Dubois, Diane; Zesiger, Pascal; Friend, Margaret

2016-06-01

A rich body of work in adult bilinguals documents an interconnected lexical network across languages, such that early word retrieval is language independent. This literature has yielded a number of influential models of bilingual semantic memory. However, extant models provide limited predictions about the emergence of lexical organization in bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA). Empirical evidence from monolingual infants suggests that lexical networks emerge early in development as children integrate phonological and semantic information. These findings tell us little about the interaction between 2 languages in early bilingual memory. To date, an understanding of when and how languages interact in early bilingual development is lacking. In this literature review, we present research documenting lexical-semantic development across monolingual and bilingual infants. This is followed by a discussion of current models of bilingual language representation and organization and their ability to account for the available empirical evidence. Together, these theoretical and empirical accounts inform and highlight unexplored areas of research and guide future work on early bilingual memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Metrical expectations from preceding prosody influence perception of lexical stress.

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Brown, Meredith; Salverda, Anne Pier; Dilley, Laura C; Tanenhaus, Michael K

2015-04-01

Two visual-world experiments tested the hypothesis that expectations based on preceding prosody influence the perception of suprasegmental cues to lexical stress. The results demonstrate that listeners' consideration of competing alternatives with different stress patterns (e.g., 'jury/gi'raffe) can be influenced by the fundamental frequency and syllable timing patterns across material preceding a target word. When preceding stressed syllables distal to the target word shared pitch and timing characteristics with the first syllable of the target word, pictures of alternatives with primary lexical stress on the first syllable (e.g., jury) initially attracted more looks than alternatives with unstressed initial syllables (e.g., giraffe). This effect was modulated when preceding unstressed syllables had pitch and timing characteristics similar to the initial syllable of the target word, with more looks to alternatives with unstressed initial syllables (e.g., giraffe) than to those with stressed initial syllables (e.g., jury). These findings suggest that expectations about the acoustic realization of upcoming speech include information about metrical organization and lexical stress and that these expectations constrain the initial interpretation of suprasegmental stress cues. These distal prosody effects implicate online probabilistic inferences about the sources of acoustic-phonetic variation during spoken-word recognition. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

Body schematics: on the role of the body schema in embodied lexical-semantic representations.

Science.gov (United States)

Rueschemeyer, Shirley-Ann; Pfeiffer, Christian; Bekkering, Harold

2010-02-01

Words denoting manipulable objects activate sensorimotor brain areas, likely reflecting action experience with the denoted objects. In particular, these sensorimotor lexical representations have been found to reflect the way in which an object is used. In the current paper we present data from two experiments (one behavioral and one neuroimaging) in which we investigate whether body schema information, putatively necessary for interacting with functional objects, is also recruited during lexical processing. To this end, we presented participants with words denoting objects that are typically brought towards or away from the body (e.g., cup or key, respectively). We hypothesized that objects typically brought to a location on the body (e.g., cup) are relatively more reliant on body schema representations, since the final goal location of the cup (i.e., the mouth) is represented primarily through posture and body co-ordinates. In contrast, objects typically brought to a location away from the body (e.g., key) are relatively more dependent on visuo-spatial representations, since the final goal location of the key (i.e., a keyhole) is perceived visually. The behavioral study showed that prior planning of a movement along an axis towards and away from the body facilitates processing of words with a congruent action semantic feature (i.e., preparation of movement towards the body facilitates processing of cup.). In an fMRI study we showed that words denoting objects brought towards the body engage the resources of brain areas involved in the processing information about human bodies (i.e., the extra-striate body area, middle occipital gyrus and inferior parietal lobe) relatively more than words denoting objects typically brought away from the body. The results provide converging evidence that body schema are implicitly activated in processing lexical information. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Complex Network Approach to Distributional Semantic Models.

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Akira Utsumi

Full Text Available A number of studies on network analysis have focused on language networks based on free word association, which reflects human lexical knowledge, and have demonstrated the small-world and scale-free properties in the word association network. Nevertheless, there have been very few attempts at applying network analysis to distributional semantic models, despite the fact that these models have been studied extensively as computational or cognitive models of human lexical knowledge. In this paper, we analyze three network properties, namely, small-world, scale-free, and hierarchical properties, of semantic networks created by distributional semantic models. We demonstrate that the created networks generally exhibit the same properties as word association networks. In particular, we show that the distribution of the number of connections in these networks follows the truncated power law, which is also observed in an association network. This indicates that distributional semantic models can provide a plausible model of lexical knowledge. Additionally, the observed differences in the network properties of various implementations of distributional semantic models are consistently explained or predicted by considering the intrinsic semantic features of a word-context matrix and the functions of matrix weighting and smoothing. Furthermore, to simulate a semantic network with the observed network properties, we propose a new growing network model based on the model of Steyvers and Tenenbaum. The idea underlying the proposed model is that both preferential and random attachments are required to reflect different types of semantic relations in network growth process. We demonstrate that this model provides a better explanation of network behaviors generated by distributional semantic models.

The interaction of lexical semantics and cohort competition in spoken word recognition: an fMRI study.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhuang, Jie; Randall, Billi; Stamatakis, Emmanuel A; Marslen-Wilson, William D; Tyler, Lorraine K

2011-12-01

Spoken word recognition involves the activation of multiple word candidates on the basis of the initial speech input--the "cohort"--and selection among these competitors. Selection may be driven primarily by bottom-up acoustic-phonetic inputs or it may be modulated by other aspects of lexical representation, such as a word's meaning [Marslen-Wilson, W. D. Functional parallelism in spoken word-recognition. Cognition, 25, 71-102, 1987]. We examined these potential interactions in an fMRI study by presenting participants with words and pseudowords for lexical decision. In a factorial design, we manipulated (a) cohort competition (high/low competitive cohorts which vary the number of competing word candidates) and (b) the word's semantic properties (high/low imageability). A previous behavioral study [Tyler, L. K., Voice, J. K., & Moss, H. E. The interaction of meaning and sound in spoken word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 7, 320-326, 2000] showed that imageability facilitated word recognition but only for words in high competition cohorts. Here we found greater activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 45, 47) and the right inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47) with increased cohort competition, an imageability effect in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus/angular gyrus (BA 39), and a significant interaction between imageability and cohort competition in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus/middle temporal gyrus (BA 21, 22). In words with high competition cohorts, high imageability words generated stronger activity than low imageability words, indicating a facilitatory role of imageability in a highly competitive cohort context. For words in low competition cohorts, there was no effect of imageability. These results support the behavioral data in showing that selection processes do not rely solely on bottom-up acoustic-phonetic cues but rather that the semantic properties of candidate words facilitate discrimination between competitors.

Peculiarities of Creating Foreign Students’ Lexical Competence

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Aigul Eskermesovna Sadenova

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Teaching of vocabulary includes several aspects of teaching content: linguistic, methodological and psychological. Teaching of vocabulary is a process which is inextricably entwined with understanding relations between new words and phonetic and grammar aspects of the language. On the one hand, simultaneous learning of two languages complicates the tasks set to the students, but, on the other hand, it simplifies the process. The complexity is in the scope of vocabulary to be remembered, as well as in the differences between grammar structures used in Russian and Kazakh. The simplification is in the fact that students are fully aware that lexical competence is formed gradually, and that every language has its lexical base required at the initial stage, and that such base is to be developed for mastering a specific language. Before identifying the methods of vocabulary semantization in the course of teaching a language to foreign students, students shall be offered active vocabulary, used to express their ideas orally and in written form, and passive vocabulary, used to perceive oral and written information. It is not possible to teach semantics only. It is necessary to create paradigmatic, syntactic and associative relations. The formation of lexical skills is connected with the solidity of vocabulary retention. In order to ensure reinforcement of the vocabulary learnt, the students shall be offered exercises contributing to the development of their skills of using vocabulary in listening, speaking, reading and writing. All above mentioned types of vocabulary semantization constitute a unified whole. Different ways of semantization are set forth for methodological purposes, to facilitate the achievement of the desired result. Translation and non-translation techniques for vocabulary presentation, as well as some tips and exercises, are given. The use of basic vocabulary at elementary and advanced levels is suggested. Certain methods for the

Measuring Lexical Diversity in Narrative Discourse of People with Aphasia

Science.gov (United States)

Fergadiotis, Gerasimos; Wright, Heather H.; West, Thomas M.

2013-01-01

Purpose: A microlinguistic content analysis for assessing lexical semantics in people with aphasia (PWA) is lexical diversity (LD). Sophisticated techniques have been developed to measure LD. However, validity evidence for these methodologies when applied to the discourse of PWA is lacking. The purpose of this study was to evaluate four measures…

TMS interferes with lexical-semantic retrieval in left inferior frontal gyrus and posterior middle temporal gyrus: Evidence from cyclical picture naming.

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Krieger-Redwood, Katya; Jefferies, Elizabeth

2014-11-01

We used TMS to investigate the contribution of left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) to lexical/semantic selection and retrieval processes using a cyclical naming paradigm. Participants named pictures that were presented repeatedly across six cycles, either in semantically related or unrelated sets. Previous research has suggested that selection demands are higher for related sets, especially after repetition, since participants experience competition from the activation of semantic neighbours. In contrast, retrieval demands are greater for unrelated sets in the absence of semantic priming, particularly on the first cycle when the target names have not been previously activated. Therefore, this paradigm can reveal independent effects of (i) retrieval demands (i.e., the ease of accessing picture names from visual input) and (ii) selection/competition. We found that rTMS to LIFG and pMTG produced similar behavioural effects: stimulation of both sites disrupted picture naming performance on early cycles (when participants were less practised at producing the picture names) and for semantically-related sets (when there was the potential for increased competition and yet also facilitation from semantic neighbours). There were no effects of TMS when either retrieval or selection requirements were maximal on their own. The data therefore support the view that both LIFG and pMTG contribute to picture name retrieval, with both sites playing a critical role in mediating the semantic facilitation of naming when retrieval demands are high. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic Neighborhood Effects for Abstract versus Concrete Words.

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Danguecan, Ashley N; Buchanan, Lori

2016-01-01

Studies show that semantic effects may be task-specific, and thus, that semantic representations are flexible and dynamic. Such findings are critical to the development of a comprehensive theory of semantic processing in visual word recognition, which should arguably account for how semantic effects may vary by task. It has been suggested that semantic effects are more directly examined using tasks that explicitly require meaning processing relative to those for which meaning processing is not necessary (e.g., lexical decision task). The purpose of the present study was to chart the processing of concrete versus abstract words in the context of a global co-occurrence variable, semantic neighborhood density (SND), by comparing word recognition response times (RTs) across four tasks varying in explicit semantic demands: standard lexical decision task (with non-pronounceable non-words), go/no-go lexical decision task (with pronounceable non-words), progressive demasking task, and sentence relatedness task. The same experimental stimulus set was used across experiments and consisted of 44 concrete and 44 abstract words, with half of these being low SND, and half being high SND. In this way, concreteness and SND were manipulated in a factorial design using a number of visual word recognition tasks. A consistent RT pattern emerged across tasks, in which SND effects were found for abstract (but not necessarily concrete) words. Ultimately, these findings highlight the importance of studying interactive effects in word recognition, and suggest that linguistic associative information is particularly important for abstract words.

ERP correlates of letter identity and letter position are modulated by lexical frequency

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Vergara-Martínez, Marta; Perea, Manuel; Gómez, Pablo; Swaab, Tamara Y.

2013-01-01

The encoding of letter position is a key aspect in all recently proposed models of visual-word recognition. We analyzed the impact of lexical frequency on letter position assignment by examining the temporal dynamics of lexical activation induced by pseudowords extracted from words of different frequencies. For each word (e.g., BRIDGE), we created two pseudowords: A transposed-letter (TL: BRIGDE) and a replaced-letter pseudoword (RL: BRITGE). ERPs were recorded while participants read words and pseudowords in two tasks: Semantic categorization (Experiment 1) and lexical decision (Experiment 2). For high-frequency stimuli, similar ERPs were obtained for words and TL-pseudowords, but the N400 component to words was reduced relative to RL-pseudowords, indicating less lexical/semantic activation. In contrast, TL- and RL-pseudowords created from low-frequency stimuli elicited similar ERPs. Behavioral responses in the lexical decision task paralleled this asymmetry. The present findings impose constraints on computational and neural models of visual-word recognition. PMID:23454070

Neural signatures of lexical tone reading.

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Kwok, Veronica P Y; Wang, Tianfu; Chen, Siping; Yakpo, Kofi; Zhu, Linlin; Fox, Peter T; Tan, Li Hai

2015-01-01

Research on how lexical tone is neuroanatomically represented in the human brain is central to our understanding of cortical regions subserving language. Past studies have exclusively focused on tone perception of the spoken language, and little is known as to the lexical tone processing in reading visual words and its associated brain mechanisms. In this study, we performed two experiments to identify neural substrates in Chinese tone reading. First, we used a tone judgment paradigm to investigate tone processing of visually presented Chinese characters. We found that, relative to baseline, tone perception of printed Chinese characters were mediated by strong brain activation in bilateral frontal regions, left inferior parietal lobule, left posterior middle/medial temporal gyrus, left inferior temporal region, bilateral visual systems, and cerebellum. Surprisingly, no activation was found in superior temporal regions, brain sites well known for speech tone processing. In activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to combine results of relevant published studies, we attempted to elucidate whether the left temporal cortex activities identified in Experiment one is consistent with those found in previous studies of auditory lexical tone perception. ALE results showed that only the left superior temporal gyrus and putamen were critical in auditory lexical tone processing. These findings suggest that activation in the superior temporal cortex associated with lexical tone perception is modality-dependent. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Naive Physics, Event Perception, Lexical Semantics, and Language Acquisition

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1993-04-01

phenomenological primitive. E. J. Gibson, Owsley. Walker . and Megaw-Nyce (1979) found that 3-month-old 156 CHAPTER 8. EVENT PERCEPTION infants extract...Structure-miapping: A theoretical framework for aiialogy. (uugnitu-t>’i 7(2):155-170, April-June 1983. [39] E. J. Gibson. C. J. Owsley, A. Walker ...editor. Thought withoit Lan guagi, chapter 7, pages 168- 184. Clarendon Press. 1988. [90] Jess Stein, Leonore C’. Hauck, and P. Y. Sn. editors. 7’h

Russian nominal semantics and morphology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nørgård-Sørensen, Jens

The principal idea behind this book is that lexis and grammar make up a single coherent structure. It is shown that the grammatical patterns of the different classes of Russian nominals are closely interconnected. They can be described as reflecting a limited set of semantic distinctions which ar...... or weaker, of Russian. Students will see a pattern in what is traditionally described as disparate subsystems, and linguists may be inspired to consider the theoretical points concerning language as a coherent system, determining usage.......The principal idea behind this book is that lexis and grammar make up a single coherent structure. It is shown that the grammatical patterns of the different classes of Russian nominals are closely interconnected. They can be described as reflecting a limited set of semantic distinctions which...... are also rooted in the lexical-semantic classification of Russian nouns. The presentation focuses on semantics, both lexical and grammatical, and not least the connection between these two levels of content. The principal theoretical impact is the insight that grammar and lexis should not be seen...

The Influence of Semantic Neighbours on Visual Word Recognition

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Yates, Mark

2012-01-01

Although it is assumed that semantics is a critical component of visual word recognition, there is still much that we do not understand. One recent way of studying semantic processing has been in terms of semantic neighbourhood (SN) density, and this research has shown that semantic neighbours facilitate lexical decisions. However, it is not clear…

Semantic Priming for Coordinate Distant Concepts in Alzheimer's Disease Patients

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Perri, R.; Zannino, G. D.; Caltagirone, C.; Carlesimo, G. A.

2011-01-01

Semantic priming paradigms have been used to investigate semantic knowledge in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). While priming effects produced by prime-target pairs with associative relatedness reflect processes at both lexical and semantic levels, priming effects produced by words that are semantically related but not associated should…

Lexical Errors and Accuracy in Foreign Language Writing. Second Language Acquisition

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del Pilar Agustin Llach, Maria

2011-01-01

Lexical errors are a determinant in gaining insight into vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary use and writing quality assessment. Lexical errors are very frequent in the written production of young EFL learners, but they decrease as learners gain proficiency. Misspellings are the most common category, but formal errors give way to semantic-based…

Contrast of Lexical Motivation Between English And Chinese

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

周倩

2015-01-01

This thesis aims to make a contrast between English and Chinese in their lexical motivation in order to seek the source of form and meaning to further promote the study,explanation and application of lexical meaning.The contrast of lexical motivation is mainly discussed from three aspects:phonological motivation,morphological motivation and semantic motivation.Through the combination of diachronic study with synchronic study,the conclusion is drawn:the English lexicon is basically arbitrary while the Chinese one is highly motivated,namely,Chinese motivation is much more obvious than that of English for Chinese is an ideographic language and English is a phonemic language.

Contrast of Lexical Motivation Between English And Chinese

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

周倩

2015-01-01

[ABSTRACT]This thesis aims to make a contrast between English and Chinese in their lexical motivation in order to seek the source of form and meaning to further promote the study,explanation and application of lexical meaning.The contrast of lexical motivation is mainly discussed from three aspects:phonological motivation,morphological motivation and semantic motivation.Through the combinationof diachronic study with synchronic study,the conclusion is drawn:the English lexicon is basically arbitrary while the Chinese one is highly motivated,namely,Chinese motivation is much more obvious than that of English for Chinese is an ideographic language and English is a phonemic language.

Perception and recognition memory of words and werds: two-way mirror effects.

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Becker, D Vaughn; Goldinger, Stephen D; Stone, Gregory O

2006-10-01

We examined associative priming of words (e.g., TOAD) and pseudohomophones of those words (e.g., TODE) in lexical decision. In addition to word frequency effects, reliable base-word frequency effects were observed for pseudohomophones: Those based on high-frequency words elicited faster and more accurate correct rejections. Associative priming had disparate effects on high- and low-frequency items. Whereas priming improved performance to high-frequency pseudohomophones, it impaired performance to low-frequency pseudohomophones. The results suggested a resonance process, wherein phonologic identity and semantic priming combine to undermine the veridical perception of infrequent items. We tested this hypothesis in another experiment by administering a surprise recognition memory test after lexical decision. When asked to identify words that were spelled correctly during lexical decision, the participants often misremembered pseudohomophones as correctly spelled items. Patterns of false memory, however, were jointly affected by base-word frequencies and their original responses during lexical decision. Taken together, the results are consistent with resonance accounts of word recognition, wherein bottom-up and top-down information sources coalesce into correct, and sometimes illusory, perception. The results are also consistent with a recent lexical decision model, REM-LD, that emphasizes memory retrieval and top-down matching processes in lexical decision.

LEXICAL STUDY OF VARIATION IN THE PARÁ AMAZON: A LOOK ON THE LINGUISTIC ATLAS OF BRAZIL

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Sandra Regina FEITEIRO

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This article presents an analysis of the semantic-lexical occurrences of speech of residents located in rural Pará Amazon, compared to proposals from the Linguistic Atlas of Brazil (COMITÊ NACIONAL, 2001. Data were collected in situ by applying the Semantic-Lexical Questionnaire (QSL, composed of fourteen semantic fields for four informants that linguistic point. Analyzes were made with the intention of fulfilling the diatopical, diageneric and diageracional dimensions the variation in the speech of informants. This study was also guided by theoretical and methodological assumptions of Sociolinguistics, Dialectology and Linguistic Geography. Therefore, the research appealed to authors like Cardoso and Ferreira (1994, Aguilera (2005, Brandão (2005 and Labov (2008, among others. The results presented in language letters show the importance of dialectologies research to the knowledge of lexical norm of a geographic space, with high productivity variants for the same semantic content and not coincident with the Alib.

Slovene-English Contrastive Phraseology: Lexical Collocations

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Primož Jurko

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Phraseology is seen as one of the key elements and arguably the most productive part of any language. %e paper is focused on collocations and separates them from other phraseological units, such as idioms or compounds. Highlighting the difference between a monolingual and a bilingual (i.e. contrastive approach to collocation, the article presents two distinct classes of collocations: grammatical and lexical. %e latter, treated contrastively, represent the focal point of the paper, since they are an unending source of translation errors to both students of translation and professional translators. %e author introduces a methodology of systematic classification of lexical collocations applied on the Slovene-English language pair and based on structural (lexical congruence and semantic (translational predictability criteria.

Lexical semantic access and letter access are involved in different aspects of reading

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Mads

). In this subset sample, both letter access and lexical access accounted for unique variance in reading fluency. The pattern of effects for lexical access did not change by controlling for serial rapid naming (RAN). Conclusions: The results suggest that letter access and lexical access are important for different......Purpose: This study investigated the effects of lexical access speed and letter access speed on reading fluency and reading comprehension. We hypothesized that 1) letter access speed would correlate with reading fluency but not comprehension, while 2) lexical access speed would influence reading...... comprehension. For readers who are struggling with recoding, most of the reading effort is probably tied up with recoding, leaving little to be explained by lexical access. Therefore we expected that 3) lexical access speed would primarily predict reading fluency for readers who were no longer struggling...

Cascading activation from lexical processing to letter-level processing in written word production.

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Buchwald, Adam; Falconer, Carolyn

2014-01-01

Descriptions of language production have identified processes involved in producing language and the presence and type of interaction among those processes. In the case of spoken language production, consensus has emerged that there is interaction among lexical selection processes and phoneme-level processing. This issue has received less attention in written language production. In this paper, we present a novel analysis of the writing-to-dictation performance of an individual with acquired dysgraphia revealing cascading activation from lexical processing to letter-level processing. The individual produced frequent lexical-semantic errors (e.g., chipmunk → SQUIRREL) as well as letter errors (e.g., inhibit → INBHITI) and had a profile consistent with impairment affecting both lexical processing and letter-level processing. The presence of cascading activation is suggested by lower letter accuracy on words that are more weakly activated during lexical selection than on those that are more strongly activated. We operationalize weakly activated lexemes as those lexemes that are produced as lexical-semantic errors (e.g., lethal in deadly → LETAHL) compared to strongly activated lexemes where the intended target word (e.g., lethal) is the lexeme selected for production.

Subliminal semantic priming in speech.

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Jérôme Daltrozzo

Full Text Available Numerous studies have reported subliminal repetition and semantic priming in the visual modality. We transferred this paradigm to the auditory modality. Prime awareness was manipulated by a reduction of sound intensity level. Uncategorized prime words (according to a post-test were followed by semantically related, unrelated, or repeated target words (presented without intensity reduction and participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT. Participants with slower reaction times in the LDT showed semantic priming (faster reaction times for semantically related compared to unrelated targets and negative repetition priming (slower reaction times for repeated compared to semantically related targets. This is the first report of semantic priming in the auditory modality without conscious categorization of the prime.

Auditory Distraction in Semantic Memory: A Process-Based Approach

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Marsh, John E.; Hughes, Robert W.; Jones, Dylan M.

2008-01-01

Five experiments demonstrate auditory-semantic distraction in tests of memory for semantic category-exemplars. The effects of irrelevant sound on category-exemplar recall are shown to be functionally distinct from those found in the context of serial short-term memory by showing sensitivity to: The lexical-semantic, rather than acoustic,…

Lexical Retrieval is not by Competition: Evidence from the Blocked Naming Paradigm

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Navarrete, Eduardo; Del Prato, Paul; Peressotti, Francesca; Mahon, Bradford Z.

2014-01-01

A central issue in research on speech production is whether or not the retrieval of words from the mental lexicon is a competitive process. An important experimental paradigm to study the dynamics of lexical retrieval is the blocked naming paradigm, in which participants name pictures of objects that are grouped by semantic category (‘homogenous’ or ‘related’ blocks) or not grouped by semantic category (‘heterogeneous’ or ‘unrelated’ blocks). Typically, pictures are repeated multiple times (or cycles) within both related and unrelated blocks. It is known that participants are slower in related than in unrelated blocks when the data are collapsed over all within-block repetitions. This semantic interference effect, as observed in the blocked naming task, is the strongest empirical evidence for the hypothesis of lexical selection by competition. Here we show, contrary to the accepted view, that the default polarity of semantic context effects in the blocked naming paradigm is facilitation, rather than interference. In a series of experiments we find that interference arises only when items repeat within a block, and only because of that repetition: What looks to be ‘semantic interference’ in the blocked naming paradigm is actually less repetition priming in related compared to unrelated blocks. These data undermine the theory of lexical selection by competition and indicate a model in which the most highly activated word is retrieved, regardless of the activation levels of nontarget words. We conclude that the theory of lexical selection by competition, and by extension the important psycholinguistic models based on that assumption, are no longer viable, and frame a new way to approach the question of how words are retrieved in spoken language production. PMID:25284954

The Neural Correlates of the Body-Object Interaction Effect in Semantic Processing

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Ian Scott Hargreaves

2012-02-01

Full Text Available The semantic richness dimension referred to as body-object interaction (BOI measures perceptions of the ease with which people can physically interact with words’ referents. Previous studies have shown facilitated lexical and semantic processing for words rated high in BOI (e.g., belt than for words rated low in BOI (e.g., sun (e.g., Siakaluk, Pexman, Sears, Wilson, Locheed, & Owen, 2008b. These BOI effects have been taken as evidence that embodied information is relevant to word recognition. However, to date there is no evidence linking BOI manipulations to differences in the utilization of perceptual or sensorimotor areas of the brain. The current study used event-related fMRI to examine the neural correlates of BOI in a semantic categorization task (SCT. Sixteen healthy adults participated. Results showed that high BOI words were associated with activation in the left inferior parietal lobule (supramarginal gyrus, BA 40, a sensory association area involved in kinesthetic memory. These results provide evidence that the BOI dimension captures sensorimotor information, and that this contributes to semantic processing.

‘Fundamentalism’ and ‘fundamentalist’ semantically considered: Their lexical origins, early polysemy, and pejoration

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Frederick Hale

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The words fundamentalist(as both a noun and an adjective and fundamentalismwere coined in 1920 within the Northern Baptist Convention when that and other American Protestant denominations were experiencing theological turmoil due to the advance of theological modernism. It is argued in the present article that both terms initially had positive meanings when used by defenders of orthodoxy. However, within weeks of their birth both were criticised by less conservative Christians. Like many other theological terms they underwent semantic change – in this case pejoration and lexical extension. Moreover, by 1923 ‘fundamentalist’ had been extended into political journalism to refer to strict adherents of one ideology or another. The greatest change, however, and one that fixed these neologisms in the public mind in both North America and the United Kingdom, came with the widely published ‘Scopes monkey trial’ of 1925, when the association of ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘fundamentalism’ with anti-intellectualism and obscurantism reached its apogee.

“Pre-semantic” cognition revisited: Critical differences between semantic aphasia and semantic dementia

OpenAIRE

Jefferies, Elizabeth; Rogers, Timothy T.; Hopper, Samantha; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A.

2010-01-01

Patients with semantic dementia show a specific pattern of impairment on both verbal and non-verbal "pre-semantic" tasks, e.g., reading aloud, past tense generation, spelling to dictation, lexical decision, object decision, colour decision and delayed picture copying. All seven tasks are characterised by poorer performance for items that are atypical of the domain and "regularisation errors" (irregular/atypical items are produced as if they were domain-typical). The emergence of this pattern ...

The Design of Lexical Database for Indonesian Language

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Gunawan, D.; Amalia, A.

2017-03-01

Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI), an official dictionary for Indonesian language, provides lists of words with their meaning. The online version can be accessed via Internet network. Another online dictionary is Kateglo. KBBI online and Kateglo only provides an interface for human. A machine cannot retrieve data from the dictionary easily without using advanced techniques. Whereas, lexical of words is required in research or application development which related to natural language processing, text mining, information retrieval or sentiment analysis. To address this requirement, we need to build a lexical database which provides well-defined structured information about words. A well-known lexical database is WordNet, which provides the relation among words in English. This paper proposes the design of a lexical database for Indonesian language based on the combination of KBBI 4th edition, Kateglo and WordNet structure. Knowledge representation by utilizing semantic networks depict the relation among words and provide the new structure of lexical database for Indonesian language. The result of this design can be used as the foundation to build the lexical database for Indonesian language.

Word-embeddings Italian semantic spaces: A semantic model for psycholinguistic research

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Marelli Marco

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Distributional semantics has been for long a source of successful models in psycholinguistics, permitting to obtain semantic estimates for a large number of words in an automatic and fast way. However, resources in this respect remain scarce or limitedly accessible for languages different from English. The present paper describes WEISS (Word-Embeddings Italian Semantic Space, a distributional semantic model based on Italian. WEISS includes models of semantic representations that are trained adopting state-of-the-art word-embeddings methods, applying neural networks to induce distributed representations for lexical meanings. The resource is evaluated against two test sets, demonstrating that WEISS obtains a better performance with respect to a baseline encoding word associations. Moreover, an extensive qualitative analysis of the WEISS output provides examples of the model potentialities in capturing several semantic phenomena. Two variants of WEISS are released and made easily accessible via web through the SNAUT graphic interface.

White matter disease correlates with lexical retrieval deficits in primary progressive aphasia

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John P. Powers

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Objective: To relate fractional anisotropy changes associated with the semantic and logopenic variants of primary progressive aphasia to measures of lexical retrieval.Methods: We collected neuropsychological testing, volumetric MRI, and diffusion-weighted imaging on semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (n=11 and logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia (n=13 patients diagnosed using published criteria. We also acquired neuroimaging data on a group of demographically comparable healthy seniors (n=34. Fractional anisotropy was calculated and analyzed using a white matter tract-specific analysis approach. This approach utilizes anatomically guided data reduction to increase sensitivity and localizes results within canonically defined tracts. We used non-parametric, cluster-based statistical analysis to relate language performance to fractional anisotropy and determine regions of reduced fractional anisotropy in patients. Results: We found widespread fractional anisotropy reductions in white matter for both variants of primary progressive aphasia. Fractional anisotropy was related to both confrontation naming and category naming fluency performance in left uncinate fasciculus and corpus callosum in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia and left superior and inferior longitudinal fasciculi in logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia. Conclusions: Semantic variant primary progressive aphasia and logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia are associated with distinct disruptions of a large-scale network implicated in lexical retrieval, and the white matter disease in each phenotype may contribute to language impairments including lexical retrieval.

Optimality Theory and Lexical Interpretation and Selection

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hogeweg, L.; Legendre, G.; Putnam, M.T.; de Swart, H.; Zaroukian, E.

2016-01-01

This chapter argues for an optimization approach to the selection and interpretation of words. Several advantages of such an approach to lexical semantics are discussed. First of all, it will be argued that competition, entailing that words and interpretations are always judged in relation to other

The N400 as a snapshot of interactive processing: evidence from regression analyses of orthographic neighbor and lexical associate effects

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Laszlo, Sarah; Federmeier, Kara D.

2010-01-01

Linking print with meaning tends to be divided into subprocesses, such as recognition of an input's lexical entry and subsequent access of semantics. However, recent results suggest that the set of semantic features activated by an input is broader than implied by a view wherein access serially follows recognition. EEG was collected from participants who viewed items varying in number and frequency of both orthographic neighbors and lexical associates. Regression analysis of single item ERPs replicated past findings, showing that N400 amplitudes are greater for items with more neighbors, and further revealed that N400 amplitudes increase for items with more lexical associates and with higher frequency neighbors or associates. Together, the data suggest that in the N400 time window semantic features of items broadly related to inputs are active, consistent with models in which semantic access takes place in parallel with stimulus recognition. PMID:20624252

Ontology lexicalization: Relationship between content and meaning in the context of Information Retrieval

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Marcelo SCHIESSL

Full Text Available Abstract The proposal presented in this study seeks to properly represent natural language to ontologies and vice-versa. Therefore, the semi-automatic creation of a lexical database in Brazilian Portuguese containing morphological, syntactic, and semantic information that can be read by machines was proposed, allowing the link between structured and unstructured data and its integration into an information retrieval model to improve precision. The results obtained demonstrated that the methodology can be used in the risco financeiro (financial risk domain in Portuguese for the construction of an ontology and the lexical-semantic database and the proposal of a semantic information retrieval model. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed model, documents containing the main definitions of the financial risk domain were selected and indexed with and without semantic annotation. To enable the comparison between the approaches, two databases were created based on the texts with the semantic annotations to represent the semantic search. The first one represents the traditional search and the second contained the index built based on the texts with the semantic annotations to represent the semantic search. The evaluation of the proposal was based on recall and precision. The queries submitted to the model showed that the semantic search outperforms the traditional search and validates the methodology used. Although more complex, the procedure proposed can be used in all kinds of domains.

Semantic priming effects of synonyms, antonyms, frame, implication and verb-object categories

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Elsa Skënderi-Rakipllari

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Semantic priming has been a major subject of interest for psycholinguists, whose aim is to discover how lexical memory is structured and organized. The facilitation process of word retrieval through semantic priming has long been studied. The present research is aimed to reveal which semantic category has the best priming effect. Through a lexical decision task experiment we compared the reaction times of masked primed pairs and unprimed pairs. In addition, we analyzed the reaction times and priming effect of connected semantic relations: antonymy, frame, synonymy, implication and verb-object. The data collected and interpreted unveiled that the mean reaction times of primed pairs were shorter than those of unprimed pairs. As to semantic priming, the most significantly primed pairs were those of implications and verb- objects, and not those of synonymy or antonymy as it might be expected.

Priming in Episodic and Semantic Memory.

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McKoon, Gail; Ratcliff, Roger

1979-01-01

Four experiments examined priming between newly learned paired associates through two procedures, lexical decision and item recognition. Results argue against a functional separation of the semantic and episodic memory systems. (Author/AM)

A Follow-Up Study on Music and Lexical Tone Perception in Adult Mandarin-Speaking Cochlear Implant Users.

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Gu, Xin; Liu, Bo; Liu, Ziye; Qi, Beier; Wang, Shuo; Dong, Ruijuan; Chen, Xueqing; Zhou, Qian

2017-12-01

The aim was to evaluate the development of music and lexical tone perception in Mandarin-speaking adult cochlear implant (CI) users over a period of 1 year. Prospective patient series. Tertiary hospital and research institute. Twenty five adult CI users, with ages ranging from 19 to 75 years old, participated in a year-long follow-up evaluation. There were also 40 normal hearing adult subjects who participated as a control group to provide the normal value range. Musical sounds in cochlear implants (Mu.S.I.C.) test battery was undertaken to evaluate music perception ability. Mandarin Tone Identification in Noise Test (M-TINT) was used to assess lexical tone recognition. The tests for CI users were completed at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after the CI switch-on. Quantitative and statistical analysis of their results from music and tone perception tests. The performance of music perception and tone recognition both demonstrated an overall improvement in outcomes during the entire 1-year follow-up process. The increasing trends were obvious in the early period especially in the first 6 months after switch-on. There was a significant improvement in the melody discrimination (p music and tone perception during the 1-year follow-up. The improvement was the most prominent in the first 6 months of CI use. It is essential to strengthen the rehabilitation training within the first 6 months.

Category Priming in the Lexical Decision Task and Evidence of Repetition Effects.

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Sanza, James

Semantic priming is the process by which a subject performing a lexical decision task is prepared for a target word through the presentation of a semantically related word. Repetition of a given word at specific intervals is one form of priming that has been shown to reduce subject reaction time in word recognition tasks. A study was conducted to…

Suggestion-Induced Modulation of Semantic Priming during Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

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Ulrich, Martin; Kiefer, Markus; Bongartz, Walter; Grön, Georg; Hoenig, Klaus

2015-01-01

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging during a primed visual lexical decision task, we investigated the neural and functional mechanisms underlying modulations of semantic word processing through hypnotic suggestions aimed at altering lexical processing of primes. The priming task was to discriminate between target words and pseudowords presented 200 ms after the prime word which was semantically related or unrelated to the target. In a counterbalanced study design, each participant performed the task once at normal wakefulness and once after the administration of hypnotic suggestions to perceive the prime as a meaningless symbol of a foreign language. Neural correlates of priming were defined as significantly lower activations upon semantically related compared to unrelated trials. We found significant suggestive treatment-induced reductions in neural priming, albeit irrespective of the degree of suggestibility. Neural priming was attenuated upon suggestive treatment compared with normal wakefulness in brain regions supporting automatic (fusiform gyrus) and controlled semantic processing (superior and middle temporal gyri, pre- and postcentral gyri, and supplementary motor area). Hence, suggestions reduced semantic word processing by conjointly dampening both automatic and strategic semantic processes. PMID:25923740

Suggestion-Induced Modulation of Semantic Priming during Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

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Martin Ulrich

Full Text Available Using functional magnetic resonance imaging during a primed visual lexical decision task, we investigated the neural and functional mechanisms underlying modulations of semantic word processing through hypnotic suggestions aimed at altering lexical processing of primes. The priming task was to discriminate between target words and pseudowords presented 200 ms after the prime word which was semantically related or unrelated to the target. In a counterbalanced study design, each participant performed the task once at normal wakefulness and once after the administration of hypnotic suggestions to perceive the prime as a meaningless symbol of a foreign language. Neural correlates of priming were defined as significantly lower activations upon semantically related compared to unrelated trials. We found significant suggestive treatment-induced reductions in neural priming, albeit irrespective of the degree of suggestibility. Neural priming was attenuated upon suggestive treatment compared with normal wakefulness in brain regions supporting automatic (fusiform gyrus and controlled semantic processing (superior and middle temporal gyri, pre- and postcentral gyri, and supplementary motor area. Hence, suggestions reduced semantic word processing by conjointly dampening both automatic and strategic semantic processes.

The effect of combined sensory and semantic components on audio-visual speech perception in older adults

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Corrina eMaguinness

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Previous studies have found that perception in older people benefits from multisensory over uni-sensory information. As normal speech recognition is affected by both the auditory input and the visual lip-movements of the speaker, we investigated the efficiency of audio and visual integration in an older population by manipulating the relative reliability of the auditory and visual information in speech. We also investigated the role of the semantic context of the sentence to assess whether audio-visual integration is affected by top-down semantic processing. We presented participants with audio-visual sentences in which the visual component was either blurred or not blurred. We found that there was a greater cost in recall performance for semantically meaningless speech in the audio-visual blur compared to audio-visual no blur condition and this effect was specific to the older group. Our findings have implications for understanding how aging affects efficient multisensory integration for the perception of speech and suggests that multisensory inputs may benefit speech perception in older adults when the semantic content of the speech is unpredictable.

SoyBase Simple Semantic Web Architecture and Protocol (SSWAP) Services

Science.gov (United States)

Semantic web technologies offer the potential to link internet resources and data by shared concepts without having to rely on absolute lexical matches. Thus two web sites or web resources which are concerned with similar data types could be identified based on similar semantics. In the biological...

Spoken word production: A theory of lexical access

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Levelt, W.J.M.

2001-01-01

A core operation in speech production is the preparation of words from a semantic base. The theory of lexical access reviewed in this article covers a sequence of processing stages beginning with the speaker's focusing on a target concept and ending with the initiation of articulation. The initial

Impaired Orthographic Processing in Chinese Dyslexic Children: Evidence from the Lexicality Effect on N400

Science.gov (United States)

Tzeng, Yu-Lin; Hsu, Chun-Hsien; Lin, Wan-Hsuan; Lee, Chia-Ying

2017-01-01

This study used the lexicality effects on N400 to investigate orthographic processing in children with developmental dyslexia. Participants performed a Go/No-Go semantic judgment task; three types of stimuli--real characters (RC), pseudocharacters (PC), and noncharacters (NC)--were embedded in No-Go trials. Two types of lexicality effects (RC vs.…

“Pæn, Flot, Dejlig, and Lækker: A Lexical Anthropology of Danish Folk Aesthetics”

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Levisen, Carsten

This paper explores the lexical semantics of Danish aesthetic discourse by providing in-depth semantic analysis of four Danish aesthetic “untranslatables”: (i) pæn ‘good-looking, neat, pretty’, (ii) flot, ‘good-looking, attractive, impressive’, (iii) dejlig, ‘lovely, delightful, beautiful’ and (iv...

The naming of gender-marked pronouns supports interactivity in models of lexical access

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Albert Costa

2009-01-01

Full Text Available When a speaker names an object using a gender-marked pronominal form, the referent word corresponding to the target object has to be selected in order to access the grammatical gender. By contrast, the phonological content of the referent word is not needed. In two picture-naming interference experiments we explored whether the lexical selection of a referent word is affected by its phonological properties. In Experiment 1, Spanish participants named pictures using a sentence with a noun or a pronoun while ignoring words semantically or phonologically related. The results showed a semantic interference effect and a Phonological Facilitation Effect (PFE in both type of utterances. In Experiment 2 the PFE was replicated with Italian participants in a different pronominal utterance. The PFE suggests that the lexical selection of the referent word is facilitated by the presentation of a distractor word phonologically related. These findings are consistent with the predictions of interactive models of lexical access.

LEXICAL ANALYSIS OF THE VERB COOK AND LEARNING VOCABULARY: A CORPUS STUDY

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Priyono Priyono

2011-07-01

Full Text Available English verbs have built-in properties that determine how they behave syntactically and generate appropriate meaning associated. With these inherent properties some verbs can fill in only in certain syntactic structures and some in others. The observation of the verb COOK using English corpus has revealed its lexical properties covering the area of syntax, semantics, and collocation suggesting uniqueness of its behaviours that are distinguishable from other verbs. Having found the lexical properties of COOK, this article concludes that the acquisition of lexicon should include lexical properties that reflect their level of competence. It also argues that the acquisition of lexical properties should be implicit, not through meta-linguistic knowledge. This would render early grammar teaching unnecessary. The acquisition of lexical properties should take place through subconscious process, not explicit grammar instruction. Many of these are grammatical aspects such as word order, sentence construction, grammatical and lexical collocations.

Innovative and Lexicalized Metaphors in Slovene

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Kaja Dolar

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The metaphor is a multidisciplinary problem which has been addressed in linguistics as well as in philosophy, psychology, anthropology, etc. In linguistics, the problem of metaphor was dealt with in rhetorics, it occupied a special place in structural linguistics, and it was studied in diverse pragmatic, cognitive and textual analysis. In the present paper, metaphors in Slovene are analyzed from the linguistic point of view: grammatical and syntactic structure (monolexical/polylexical, in praesentia/in absentia, etc., semantic field and semantic transfer and degree of conventionality (ranging from innovative to lexicalized metaphors. The cases are taken from the unconventional linguistic corpus, Razvezani jezik, an online dictionary based on collaborative authorship. Authors can freely add new words (formal neologisms or new meanings of existing ones (semantic neologisms which makes it especially interesting for linguistic innovation research. The results show that zoomorphic metaphors are most common and that there is a significant number of reification metaphors (replacing a living being with an object. Phytomorphic metaphors (related to plants are also present, whereas anthropomorphic ones are scarce. These types of metaphors most often refer to character, personality or human behavior, but also to parts of human body, human actions, etc. The corpus is rich in both, lexicalized, conventional as well as in innovative, so called live metaphors, and it seems that Razvezani jezik, an online database for Slovene, is particularly suitable to register these diverse possibilities and usages.

Semantic impairment disrupts perception, memory, and naming of secondary but not primary colours.

OpenAIRE

Rogers, Timothy T.; Graham, Kim S.; Patterson, Karalyn

2015-01-01

To investigate how basic aspects of perception are shaped by acquired knowledge about the world, we assessed colour perception and cognition in patients with semantic dementia (SD), a disorder that progressively erodes conceptual knowledge. We observed a previously undocumented pattern of impairment to colour perception and cognition characterized by: (i) a normal ability to discriminate between only subtly different colours but an impaired ability to group different colours into categories, ...

O campo lexical Economia em documentos do século XVIII

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Vanessa Regina Duarte Xavier

2010-01-01

Full Text Available This text aims to analyze the lexical field Economy in documents of Goiás from 1751 to 1753, that were submitted to facsimile and semidiplomatic editions, in desideratum of to enable greater contact with the originals and the confrontation of their image to their conservative lesson. In addition, notes on the historical context alluded in the corpus seek clarify it and to explicit the semantic relationships that motivated the grouping of lexical items in fields.

Semantic Primitives of Time and Space in Hong Kong Cantonese.

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Tong, Malindy; And Others

1997-01-01

Semantic primitives for time and space, as proposed in Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory, are examined for lexical equivalents in Hong Kong Cantonese. Temporal primitives are all found to have clear Cantonese exponents that can be combined as predicted with other metalanguage elements, with two exceptions. Spatial primitives all appear to have…

Lexical and semantic representations in the acquisition of L2 cognate and non-cognate words: evidence from two learning methods in children.

Science.gov (United States)

Comesaña, Montserrat; Soares, Ana Paula; Sánchez-Casas, Rosa; Lima, Cátia

2012-08-01

How bilinguals represent words in two languages and which mechanisms are responsible for second language acquisition are important questions in the bilingual and vocabulary acquisition literature. This study aims to analyse the effect of two learning methods (picture- vs. word-based method) and two types of words (cognates and non-cognates) in early stages of children's L2 acquisition. Forty-eight native speakers of European Portuguese, all sixth graders (mean age = 10.87 years; SD= 0.85), participated in the study. None of them had prior knowledge of Basque (the L2 in this study). After a learning phase in which L2 words were learned either by a picture- or a word-based method, children were tested in a backward-word translation recognition task at two times (immediately vs. one week later). Results showed that the participants made more errors when rejecting semantically related than semantically unrelated words as correct translations (semantic interference effect). The magnitude of this effect was higher in the delayed test condition regardless of the learning method. Moreover, the overall performance of participants from the word-based method was better than the performance of participants from the picture-word method. Results were discussed concerning the most significant bilingual lexical processing models. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

Bilinguals Show Weaker Lexical Access during Spoken Sentence Comprehension

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Shook, Anthony; Goldrick, Matthew; Engstler, Caroline; Marian, Viorica

2015-01-01

When bilinguals process written language, they show delays in accessing lexical items relative to monolinguals. The present study investigated whether this effect extended to spoken language comprehension, examining the processing of sentences with either low or high semantic constraint in both first and second languages. English-German…

Semantic dementia without surface dyslexia in Spanish: unimpaired reading with impaired semantics.

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Wilson, Maximiliano A; Martínez-Cuitiño, Macarena

2012-01-01

Surface dyslexia has been attributed to an overreliance on the sub-lexical route for reading. Typically, surface dyslexic patients commit regularisation errors when reading irregular words. Also, semantic dementia has often been associated with surface dyslexia, leading to some explanations of the reading impairment that stress the role of semantics in irregular word reading. Nevertheless, some patients have been reported with unimpaired ability to read irregular words, even though they show severe comprehension impairment. We present the case of M.B., the first Spanish-speaking semantic dementia patient to be reported who shows unimpaired reading of non-words, regular words, and - most strikingly - irregular loan words. M.B. has severely impaired comprehension of the same words he reads correctly (whether regular or irregular). We argue that M.B.'s pattern of performance shows that irregular words can be correctly read even with impaired semantic knowledge corresponding to those words.

For a new look at 'lexical errors': evidence from semantic approximations with verbs in aphasia.

Science.gov (United States)

Duvignau, Karine; Tran, Thi Mai; Manchon, Mélanie

2013-08-01

The ability to understand the similarity between two phenomena is fundamental for humans. Designated by the term analogy in psychology, this ability plays a role in the categorization of phenomena in the world and in the organisation of the linguistic system. The use of analogy in language often results in non-standard utterances, particularly in speakers with aphasia. These non-standard utterances are almost always studied in a nominal context and considered as errors. We propose a study of the verbal lexicon and present findings that measure, by an action-video naming task, the importance of verb-based non-standard utterances made by 17 speakers with aphasia ("la dame déshabille l'orange"/the lady undresses the orange, "elle casse la tomate"/she breaks the tomato). The first results we have obtained allow us to consider these type of utterances from a new perspective: we propose to eliminate the label of "error", suggesting that they may be viewed as semantic approximations based upon a relationship of inter-domain synonymy and are ingrained in the heart of the lexical system.

Different Loci of Semantic Interference in Picture Naming vs. Word-Picture Matching Tasks

OpenAIRE

Harvey, Denise Y.; Schnur, Tatiana T.

2016-01-01

Naming pictures and matching words to pictures belonging to the same semantic category impairs performance relative to when stimuli come from different semantic categories (i.e., semantic interference). Despite similar semantic interference phenomena in both picture naming and word-picture matching tasks, the locus of interference has been attributed to different levels of the language system – lexical in naming and semantic in word-picture matching. Although both tasks involve access to shar...

A Semantic Constraint on Syntactic Parsing.

Science.gov (United States)

Crain, Stephen; Coker, Pamela L.

This research examines how semantic information influences syntactic parsing decisions during sentence processing. In the first experiment, subjects were presented lexical strings having syntactically identical surface structures but with two possible underlying structures: "The children taught by the Berlitz method," and "The…

On the universal structure of human lexical semantics.

Science.gov (United States)

Youn, Hyejin; Sutton, Logan; Smith, Eric; Moore, Cristopher; Wilkins, Jon F; Maddieson, Ian; Croft, William; Bhattacharya, Tanmoy

2016-02-16

How universal is human conceptual structure? The way concepts are organized in the human brain may reflect distinct features of cultural, historical, and environmental background in addition to properties universal to human cognition. Semantics, or meaning expressed through language, provides indirect access to the underlying conceptual structure, but meaning is notoriously difficult to measure, let alone parameterize. Here, we provide an empirical measure of semantic proximity between concepts using cross-linguistic dictionaries to translate words to and from languages carefully selected to be representative of worldwide diversity. These translations reveal cases where a particular language uses a single "polysemous" word to express multiple concepts that another language represents using distinct words. We use the frequency of such polysemies linking two concepts as a measure of their semantic proximity and represent the pattern of these linkages by a weighted network. This network is highly structured: Certain concepts are far more prone to polysemy than others, and naturally interpretable clusters of closely related concepts emerge. Statistical analysis of the polysemies observed in a subset of the basic vocabulary shows that these structural properties are consistent across different language groups, and largely independent of geography, environment, and the presence or absence of a literary tradition. The methods developed here can be applied to any semantic domain to reveal the extent to which its conceptual structure is, similarly, a universal attribute of human cognition and language use.

Cognitive Systematicity of Semantic Change: Cross-Linguistic Evidence

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Baseel A. AlBzour

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Banking on intrinsic generative assumptions of cognitive semantics, this paper is a humble attempt that specifically sheds light on some major aspects of overtly intricate yet covertly systematic interaction that steers our conceptual processing of inherent semantic and pragmatic changes. The basic premises of such cognitive operations stem from yet may exceed the limitations of Elizabeth Traugott’s and Eve Sweetser’s historical pragmatic approach that elaborately envisages such lexical changes as meaning relations with their metaphorically polysemous progress in light of relevant epistemic constraints that can help us decode ambiguous components of some functional and lexical categories. Therefore, this paper examines in principle how schematic lexical meaning can be cross-linguistically and cross-culturally traced, handled and perceived in order to cater for an optimal matrix and some rule-governed clues and rules that may explain the internal universal design and flow of semanticity and pragmaticity in charge of such linguistic behavior. The data this study exploits and explores draw on some English and Arabic representative examples that can satisfactorily exhibit an interesting well-established cognitive mechanism that can reveal the role of Homo sapiens’ encyclopedic and collective faculty vis-à-vis such word processing; the data primarily encompass the English words silly, simple, innocent and naïve as well as their Arabic counterparts.

Effects of semantic neighborhood density in abstract and concrete words.

Science.gov (United States)

Reilly, Megan; Desai, Rutvik H

2017-12-01

Concrete and abstract words are thought to differ along several psycholinguistic variables, such as frequency and emotional content. Here, we consider another variable, semantic neighborhood density, which has received much less attention, likely because semantic neighborhoods of abstract words are difficult to measure. Using a corpus-based method that creates representations of words that emphasize featural information, the current investigation explores the relationship between neighborhood density and concreteness in a large set of English nouns. Two important observations emerge. First, semantic neighborhood density is higher for concrete than for abstract words, even when other variables are accounted for, especially for smaller neighborhood sizes. Second, the effects of semantic neighborhood density on behavior are different for concrete and abstract words. Lexical decision reaction times are fastest for words with sparse neighborhoods; however, this effect is stronger for concrete words than for abstract words. These results suggest that semantic neighborhood density plays a role in the cognitive and psycholinguistic differences between concrete and abstract words, and should be taken into account in studies involving lexical semantics. Furthermore, the pattern of results with the current feature-based neighborhood measure is very different from that with associatively defined neighborhoods, suggesting that these two methods should be treated as separate measures rather than two interchangeable measures of semantic neighborhoods. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The role of lexical variables in the visual recognition of Chinese characters: A megastudy analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Sze, Wei Ping; Yap, Melvin J; Rickard Liow, Susan J

2015-01-01

Logographic Chinese orthography partially represents both phonology and semantics. By capturing the online processing of a large pool of Chinese characters, we were able to examine the relative salience of specific lexical variables when this nonalphabetic script is read. Using a sample of native mainland Chinese speakers (N = 35), lexical decision latencies for 1560 single characters were collated into a database, before the effects of a comprehensive range of variables were explored. Hierarchical regression analyses determined the unique item-level variance explained by orthographic (frequency, stroke count), semantic (age of learning, imageability, number of meanings), and phonological (consistency, phonological frequency) factors. Orthographic and semantic variables, respectively, accounted for more collective variance than the phonological variables. Significant main effects were further observed for the individual orthographic and semantic predictors. These results are consistent with the idea that skilled readers tend to rely on orthographic and semantic information when processing visually presented characters. This megastudy approach marks an important extension to existing work on Chinese character recognition, which hitherto has relied on factorial designs. Collectively, the findings reported here represent a useful set of empirical constraints for future computational models of character recognition.

Semantic Memory and Verbal Working Memory Correlates of N400 to Subordinate Homographs

Science.gov (United States)

Salisbury, Dean F.

2004-01-01

N400 is an event-related brain potential that indexes operations in semantic memory conceptual space, whether elicited by language or some other representation (e.g., drawings). Language models typically propose three stages: lexical access or orthographic- and phonological-level analysis; lexical selection or word-level meaning and associate…

Effect of Subliminal Lexical Priming on the Subjective Perception of Images: A Machine Learning Approach

OpenAIRE

Mohan, Dhanya Menoth; Kumar, Parmod; Mahmood, Faisal; Wong, Kian Foong; Agrawal, Abhishek; Elgendi, Mohamed; Shukla, Rohit; Ang, Natania; Ching, April; Dauwels, Justin; Chan, Alice H. D.

2016-01-01

The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of subliminal priming in terms of the perception of images influenced by words with positive, negative, and neutral emotional content, through electroencephalograms (EEGs). Participants were instructed to rate how much they like the stimuli images, on a 7-point Likert scale, after being subliminally exposed to masked lexical prime words that exhibit positive, negative, and neutral connotations with respect to the images. Simultaneously, the EE...

The Semantics of "Violence"

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Levisen, Carsten

This paper presents a semantic analysis of “violence” – a word around which Anglo-internationaldiscourses revolve. Many ethnolinguistic communities around the world are currently adapting thisEnglish lexical concept into their linguistic systems, and, presumably also, the view of the worldembodied...... by the “violence” concept.Based on semantic fieldwork in Port Vila, the creolophone capital of Vanuatu in the SouthPacific, the paper investigates the discursive introduction of “violence” into a community which,until recently, lived by other concepts. I compare and contrast the traditional Bislama concepts...... kilimand faetem with the newly imported English word vaeolens (violence). My study provides newevidence for how cognitive and semantic change co-occur in the context of postcolonial linguisticcommunities, and my paper addresses an important, ongoing controversy related to the notion of“Anglocentric bias...

Episodic and Semantic Memory Influences on Picture Naming in Alzheimer's Disease

Science.gov (United States)

Small, Jeff A.; Sandhu, Nirmaljeet

2008-01-01

This study investigated the relationship between semantic and episodic memory as they support lexical access by healthy younger and older adults and individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD). In particular, we were interested in examining the pattern of semantic and episodic memory declines in AD (i.e., word-finding difficulty and impaired recent…

Opposite patterns of hemisphere dominance for early auditory processing of lexical tones and consonants

OpenAIRE

Luo, Hao; Ni, Jing-Tian; Li, Zhi-Hao; Li, Xiao-Ou; Zhang, Da-Ren; Zeng, Fan-Gang; Chen, Lin

2006-01-01

in tonal languages such as Mandarin Chinese, a lexical tone carries semantic information and is preferentially processed in the left brain hemisphere of native speakers as revealed by the functional MRI or positron emission tomography studies, which likely measure the temporally aggregated neural events including those at an attentive stage of auditory processing. Here, we demonstrate that early auditory processing of a lexical tone at a preattentive stage is actually ...

Semantics, contrastive linguistics and parallel corpora

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Violetta Koseska

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Semantics, contrastive linguistics and parallel corpora In view of the ambiguity of the term “semantics”, the author shows the differences between the traditional lexical semantics and the contemporary semantics in the light of various semantic schools. She examines semantics differently in connection with contrastive studies where the description must necessary go from the meaning towards the linguistic form, whereas in traditional contrastive studies the description proceeded from the form towards the meaning. This requirement regarding theoretical contrastive studies necessitates construction of a semantic interlanguage, rather than only singling out universal semantic categories expressed with various language means. Such studies can be strongly supported by parallel corpora. However, in order to make them useful for linguists in manual and computer translations, as well as in the development of dictionaries, including online ones, we need not only formal, often automatic, annotation of texts, but also semantic annotation - which is unfortunately manual. In the article we focus on semantic annotation concerning time, aspect and quantification of names and predicates in the whole semantic structure of the sentence on the example of the “Polish-Bulgarian-Russian parallel corpus”.

Suprasegmental Features Are Not Acquired Early: Perception and Production of Monosyllabic Cantonese Lexical Tones in 4- to 6-Year-Old Preschool Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Puisan; Tsz-Tin Leung, Carrie

2018-05-17

Previous studies reported that children acquire Cantonese tones before 3 years of age, supporting the assumption in models of phonological development that suprasegmental features are acquired rapidly and early in children. Yet, recent research found a large disparity in the age of Cantonese tone acquisition. This study investigated Cantonese tone development in 4- to 6-year-old children. Forty-eight 4- to 6-year-old Cantonese-speaking children and 28 mothers of the children labeled 30 pictures representing familiar words in the 6 tones in a picture-naming task and identified pictures representing words in different Cantonese tones in a picture-pointing task. To control for lexical biases in tone assessment, tone productions were low-pass filtered to eliminate lexical information. Five judges categorized the tones in filtered stimuli. Tone production accuracy, tone perception accuracy, and correlation between tone production and perception accuracy were examined. Children did not start to produce adultlike tones until 5 and 6 years of age. Four-year-olds produced none of the tones with adultlike accuracy. Five- and 6-year-olds attained adultlike productions in 2 (T5 and T6) to 3 (T4, T5, and T6) tones, respectively. Children made better progress in tone perception and achieved higher accuracy in perception than in production. However, children in all age groups perceived none of the tones as accurately as adults, except that T1 was perceived with adultlike accuracy by 6-year-olds. Only weak association was found between children's tone perception and production accuracy. Contradicting to the long-held assumption that children acquire lexical tone rapidly and early before the mastery of segmentals, this study found that 4- to 6-year-old children have not mastered the perception or production of the full set of Cantonese tones in familiar monosyllabic words. Larger development was found in children's tone perception than tone production. The higher tone perception

19 Additive and Substitutive Borrowing against Semantic ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

reflexes mean 'to forge' and/or 'black-smith' (Ibid, 49). The Theory of Semantic Narrowing and Broadening in the. Realm of Lexical Borrowing ..... should be noticed that the traditional label referred to a hole on the whole of a traditional house ...

Compiling Dictionaries Using Semantic Domains*

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Ronald Moe

2011-10-01

Full Text Available

Abstract: The task of providing dictionaries for all the world's languages is prodigious, re-quiring efficient techniques. The text corpus method cannot be used for minority languages lacking texts. To meet the need, the author has constructed a list of 1 600 semantic domains, which he has successfully used to collect words. In a workshop setting, a group of speakers can collect as many as 17 000 words in ten days. This method results in a classified word list that can be efficiently expanded into a full dictionary. The method works because the mental lexicon is a giant web or-ganized around key concepts. A semantic domain can be defined as an important concept together with the words directly related to it by lexical relations. A person can utilize the mental web to quickly jump from word to word within a domain. The author is developing a template for each domain to aid in collecting words and in de-scribing their semantics. Investigating semantics within the context of a domain yields many in-sights. The method permits the production of both alphabetically and semantically organized dic-tionaries. The list of domains is intended to be universal in scope and applicability. Perhaps due to universals of human experience and universals of linguistic competence, there are striking simi-larities in various lists of semantic domains developed for languages around the world. Using a standardized list of domains to classify multiple dictionaries opens up possibilities for cross-lin-guistic research into semantic and lexical universals.

Keywords: SEMANTIC DOMAINS, SEMANTIC FIELDS, SEMANTIC CATEGORIES, LEX-ICAL RELATIONS, SEMANTIC PRIMITIVES, DOMAIN TEMPLATES, MENTAL LEXICON, SEMANTIC UNIVERSALS, MINORITY LANGUAGES, LEXICOGRAPHY

Opsomming: Samestelling van woordeboeke deur gebruikmaking van se-mantiese domeine. Die taak van die voorsiening van woordeboeke aan al die tale van die wêreld is geweldig en vereis doeltreffende tegnieke. Die

Long-term repetition priming and semantic interference in a lexical-semantic matching task: tapping the links between object names and colors.

Science.gov (United States)

Lloyd-Jones, Toby J; Nakabayashi, Kazuyo

2014-01-01

Using a novel paradigm to engage the long-term mappings between object names and the prototypical colors for objects, we investigated the retrieval of object-color knowledge as indexed by long-term priming (the benefit in performance from a prior encounter with the same or a similar stimulus); a process about which little is known. We examined priming from object naming on a lexical-semantic matching task. In the matching task participants encountered a visually presented object name (Experiment 1) or object shape (Experiment 2) paired with either a color patch or color name. The pairings could either match whereby both were consistent with a familiar object (e.g., strawberry and red) or mismatch (strawberry and blue). We used the matching task to probe knowledge about familiar objects and their colors pre-activated during object naming. In particular, we examined whether the retrieval of object-color information was modality-specific and whether this influenced priming. Priming varied with the nature of the retrieval process: object-color priming arose for object names but not object shapes and beneficial effects of priming were observed for color patches whereas inhibitory priming arose with color names. These findings have implications for understanding how object knowledge is retrieved from memory and modified by learning.

Long-term repetition priming and semantic interference in a lexical-semantic matching task: Tapping the links between object names and colours

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Toby Jonathan Lloyd-Jones

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Using a novel paradigm to engage the long-term mappings between object names and the prototypical colours for objects, we investigated the retrieval of object-colour knowledge as indexed by long-term priming (the benefit in performance from a prior encounter with the same or a similar stimulus; a process about which little is known. We examined priming from object naming on a lexical-semantic matching task. In the matching task participants encountered a visually presented object name (Experiment 1 or object shape (Experiment 2 paired with either a colour patch or colour name. The pairings could either match whereby both were consistent with a familiar object (e.g., strawberry and red or mismatch (strawberry and blue. We used the matching task to probe knowledge about familiar objects and their colours pre-activated during object naming. In particular, we examined whether the retrieval of object-colour information was modality-specific and whether this influenced priming. Priming varied with the nature of the retrieval process: object-colour priming arose for object names but not object shapes and beneficial effects of priming were observed for colour patches whereas inhibitory priming arose with colour names. These findings have implications for understanding how object knowledge is retrieved from memory and modified by learning.

SEMSIN SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC PARSER

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K. K. Boyarsky

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The paper deals with the principle of operation for SemSin semantic and syntactic parser creating a dependency tree for the Russian language sentences. The parser consists of 4 blocks: a dictionary, morphological analyzer, production rules and lexical analyzer. An important logical part of the parser is pre-syntactical module, which harmonizes and complements morphological analysis results, separates the text paragraphs into individual sentences, and also carries out predisambiguation. Characteristic feature of the presented parser is an open type of control – it is done by means of a set of production rules. A varied set of commands provides the ability to both morphological and semantic-syntactic analysis of the sentence. The paper presents the sequence of rules usage and examples of their work. Specific feature of the rules is the decision making on establishment of syntactic links with simultaneous removal of the morphological and semantic ambiguity. The lexical analyzer provides the execution of commands and rules, and manages the parser in manual or automatic modes of the text analysis. In the first case, the analysis is performed interactively with the possibility of step-by-step execution of the rules and scanning the resulting parse tree. In the second case, analysis results are filed in an xml-file. Active usage of syntactic and semantic dictionary information gives the possibility to reduce significantly the ambiguity of parsing. In addition to marking the text, the parser is also usable as a tool for information extraction from natural language texts.

Semantic Interference in Immediate and Delayed Naming and Reading: Attention and Task Decisions

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Piai, Vitoria; Roelofs, Ardi; Schriefers, Herbert

2011-01-01

Disagreement exists about whether lexical selection in word production is a competitive process. Competition predicts semantic interference from distractor words in immediate but not in delayed picture naming. In contrast, Janssen, Schirm, Mahon, and Caramazza (2008) obtained semantic interference in delayed picture naming when participants had to…

The absoluteness of semantic processing: lessons from the analysis of temporal clusters in phonemic verbal fluency.

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Isabelle Vonberg

Full Text Available For word production, we may consciously pursue semantic or phonological search strategies, but it is uncertain whether we can retrieve the different aspects of lexical information independently from each other. We therefore studied the spread of semantic information into words produced under exclusively phonemic task demands.42 subjects participated in a letter verbal fluency task, demanding the production of as many s-words as possible in two minutes. Based on curve fittings for the time courses of word production, output spurts (temporal clusters considered to reflect rapid lexical retrieval based on automatic activation spread, were identified. Semantic and phonemic word relatedness within versus between these clusters was assessed by respective scores (0 meaning no relation, 4 maximum relation.Subjects produced 27.5 (±9.4 words belonging to 6.7 (±2.4 clusters. Both phonemically and semantically words were more related within clusters than between clusters (phon: 0.33±0.22 vs. 0.19±0.17, p<.01; sem: 0.65±0.29 vs. 0.37±0.29, p<.01. Whereas the extent of phonemic relatedness correlated with high task performance, the contrary was the case for the extent of semantic relatedness.The results indicate that semantic information spread occurs, even if the consciously pursued word search strategy is purely phonological. This, together with the negative correlation between semantic relatedness and verbal output suits the idea of a semantic default mode of lexical search, acting against rapid task performance in the given scenario of phonemic verbal fluency. The simultaneity of enhanced semantic and phonemic word relatedness within the same temporal cluster boundaries suggests an interaction between content and sound-related information whenever a new semantic field has been opened.

Teaching Semantic Radicals Facilitates Inferring New Character Meaning in Sentence Reading for Nonnative Chinese Speakers

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Thi Phuong Nguyen

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This study investigates the effects of teaching semantic radicals in inferring the meanings of unfamiliar characters among nonnative Chinese speakers. A total of 54 undergraduates majoring in Chinese Language from a university in Hanoi, Vietnam, who had 1 year of learning experience in Chinese were assigned to two experimental groups that received instructional intervention, called “old-for-new” semantic radical teaching, through two counterbalanced sets of semantic radicals, with one control group. All of the students completed pre- and post-tests of a sentence cloze task where they were required to choose an appropriate character that fit the sentence context among four options. The four options shared the same phonetic radicals but had different semantic radicals. The results showed that the pre-test and post-test score increases were significant for the experimental groups, but not for the control group. Most importantly, the experimental groups successfully transferred the semantic radical strategy to figure out the meanings of unfamiliar characters containing semantic radicals that had not been taught. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of teaching semantic radicals for lexical inference in sentence reading for nonnative speakers, and highlight the ability of transfer learning to acquire semantic categories of sub-lexical units (semantic radicals in Chinese characters among foreign language learners.

Lexical learning in mild aphasia: gesture benefit depends on patholinguistic profile and lesion pattern.

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Kroenke, Klaus-Martin; Kraft, Indra; Regenbrecht, Frank; Obrig, Hellmuth

2013-01-01

Gestures accompany speech and enrich human communication. When aphasia interferes with verbal abilities, gestures become even more relevant, compensating for and/or facilitating verbal communication. However, small-scale clinical studies yielded diverging results with regard to a therapeutic gesture benefit for lexical retrieval. Based on recent functional neuroimaging results, delineating a speech-gesture integration network for lexical learning in healthy adults, we hypothesized that the commonly observed variability may stem from differential patholinguistic profiles in turn depending on lesion pattern. Therefore we used a controlled novel word learning paradigm to probe the impact of gestures on lexical learning, in the lesioned language network. Fourteen patients with chronic left hemispheric lesions and mild residual aphasia learned 30 novel words for manipulable objects over four days. Half of the words were trained with gestures while the other half were trained purely verbally. For the gesture condition, rootwords were visually presented (e.g., Klavier, [piano]), followed by videos of the corresponding gestures and the auditory presentation of the novel words (e.g., /krulo/). Participants had to repeat pseudowords and simultaneously reproduce gestures. In the verbal condition no gesture-video was shown and participants only repeated pseudowords orally. Correlational analyses confirmed that gesture benefit depends on the patholinguistic profile: lesser lexico-semantic impairment correlated with better gesture-enhanced learning. Conversely largely preserved segmental-phonological capabilities correlated with better purely verbal learning. Moreover, structural MRI-analysis disclosed differential lesion patterns, most interestingly suggesting that integrity of the left anterior temporal pole predicted gesture benefit. Thus largely preserved semantic capabilities and relative integrity of a semantic integration network are prerequisites for successful use of

Effect of aging, education, reading and writing, semantic processing and depression symptoms on verbal fluency

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André Luiz Moraes

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Verbal fluency tasks are widely used in (clinical neuropsychology to evaluate components of executive functioning and lexical-semantic processing (linguistic and semantic memory. Performance in those tasks may be affected by several variables, such as age, education and diseases. This study investigated whether aging, education, reading and writing frequency, performance in semantic judgment tasks and depression symptoms predict the performance in unconstrained, phonemic and semantic fluency tasks. This study sample comprised 260 healthy adults aged 19 to 75 years old. The Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression models were used for data analysis. The variables under analysis were associated in different ways and had different levels of contribution according to the type of verbal fluency task. Education had the greatest effect on verbal fluency tasks. There was a greater effect of age on semantic fluency than on phonemic tasks. The semantic judgment tasks predicted the verbal fluency performance alone or in combination with other variables. These findings corroborate the importance of education in cognition supporting the hypothesis of a cognitive reserve and confirming the contribution of lexical-semantic processing to verbal fluency.

Automatic Priming Effects for New Associations in Lexical Decision and Perceptual Identification

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D. Pecher (Diane); J.G.W. Raaijmakers (Jeroen)

1999-01-01

textabstractInformation storage in semantic memory was investigated by looking at automatic priming effects for new associations in two experiments. In the study phase word pairs were presented in a paired-associate learning task. Lexical decision and perceptual identification were used to examine

Semantic category interference in overt picture naming

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Maess, B.; Friederici, A.D.; Damian, M.F.; Meyer, A.S.; Levelt, W.J.M.

2002-01-01

The study investigated the neuronal basis of the retrieval of words from the mental lexicon. The semantic category interference effect was used to locate lexical retrieval processes in time and space. This effect reflects the finding that, for overt naming, volunteers are slower when naming pictures

Semantic relations and compound transparency: A regression study in CARIN theory

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Pham Hien

2013-01-01

Full Text Available According to the CARIN theory of Gagné and Shoben (1997, conceptual relations play an important role in compound interpretation. This study develops three measures gauging the role of conceptual relations, and pits these measures against measures based on latent semantic analysis (Landauer & Dumais, 1997. The CARIN measures successfully predict response latencies in a familiarity categorization task, in a semantic transparency task, and in visual lexical decision. Of the measures based on latent semantic analysis, only a measure orthogonal to the conceptual relations, which instead gauges the extent to which the concepts for the compound’s head and the compound itself are discriminated, also reached significance. Results further indicate that in tasks requiring careful assessment of the meaning of the compound, general knowledge of conceptual relations plays a central role, whereas in the lexical decision task, attention shifts to co-activated meanings and the specifics of the conceptual relations realized in the compound’s modifier family.

Differential age effects on lexical ambiguity resolution mechanisms

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Lee, Chia-lin; Federmeier, Kara D.

2010-01-01

Multiple neurocognitive subsystems are involved in resolving lexical ambiguity under different circumstances. We examined how processing in these subsystems changes with normal aging by comparing ERP responses to homographs and unambiguous words completing congruent sentences (with both semantic and syntactic contextual information) or syntactic prose (syntactic information only). Like young adults in prior work, older adults elicited more negative N400s to homographs in congruent sentences, ...

Speakers' assumptions about the lexical flexibility of idioms.

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Gibbs, R W; Nayak, N P; Bolton, J L; Keppel, M E

1989-01-01

In three experiments, we examined why some idioms can be lexically altered and still retain their figurative meanings (e.g., John buttoned his lips about Mary can be changed into John fastened his lips about Mary and still mean "John didn't say anything about Mary"), whereas other idioms cannot be lexically altered without losing their figurative meanings (e.g., John kicked the bucket, meaning "John died," loses its idiomatic meaning when changed into John kicked the pail). Our hypothesis was that the lexical flexibility of idioms is determined by speakers' assumptions about the ways in which parts of idioms contribute to their figurative interpretations as a whole. The results of the three experiments indicated that idioms whose individual semantic components contribute to their overall figurative meanings (e.g., go out on a limb) were judged as less disrupted by changes in their lexical items (e.g., go out on a branch) than were nondecomposable idioms (e.g., kick the bucket) when their individual words were altered (e.g., punt the pail). These findings lend support to the idea that both the syntactic productivity and the lexical makeup of idioms are matters of degree, depending on the idioms' compositional properties. This conclusion suggests that idioms do not form a unique class of linguistic items, but share many of the properties of more literal language.

Identification and Definition of Lexically Ambiguous Words in Statistics by Tutors and Students

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Richardson, Alice M.; Dunn, Peter K.; Hutchins, Rene

2013-01-01

Lexical ambiguity arises when a word from everyday English is used differently in a particular discipline, such as statistics. This paper reports on a project that begins by identifying tutors' perceptions of words that are potentially lexically ambiguous to students, in two different ways. Students' definitions of nine lexically ambiguous words…

Priming picture naming with a semantic task: an fMRI investigation.

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Shiree Heath

Full Text Available Prior semantic processing can enhance subsequent picture naming performance, yet the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying this effect and its longevity are unknown. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined whether different neurological mechanisms underlie short-term (within minutes and long-term (within days facilitation effects from a semantic task in healthy older adults. Both short- and long-term facilitated items were named significantly faster than unfacilitated items, with short-term items significantly faster than long-term items. Region of interest results identified decreased activity for long-term facilitated items compared to unfacilitated and short-term facilitated items in the mid-portion of the middle temporal gyrus, indicating lexical-semantic priming. Additionally, in the whole brain results, increased activity for short-term facilitated items was identified in regions previously linked to episodic memory and object recognition, including the right lingual gyrus (extending to the precuneus region and the left inferior occipital gyrus (extending to the left fusiform region. These findings suggest that distinct neurocognitive mechanisms underlie short- and long-term facilitation of picture naming by a semantic task, with long-term effects driven by lexical-semantic priming and short-term effects by episodic memory and visual object recognition mechanisms.

Role of Importance and Distinctiveness of Semantic Features in People with Aphasia: A Replication Study

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Mason-Baughman, Mary Beth; Wallace, Sarah E.

2014-01-01

Previous studies suggest that people with aphasia have incomplete lexical-semantic representations with decreased low-importance distinctive (LID) feature knowledge. In addition, decreased LID feature knowledge correlates with ability to discriminate among semantically related words. The current study seeks to replicate and extend previous…

Implicit and explicit processing in deep dyslexia: Semantic blocking as a test for failure of inhibition in the phonological output lexicon.

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Colangelo, Annette; Buchanan, Lori

2006-12-01

The failure of inhibition hypothesis posits a theoretical distinction between implicit and explicit access in deep dyslexia. Specifically, the effects of failure of inhibition are assumed only in conditions that have an explicit selection requirement in the context of production (i.e., aloud reading). In contrast, the failure of inhibition hypothesis proposes that implicit processing and explicit access to semantic information without production demands are intact in deep dyslexia. Evidence for intact implicit and explicit access requires that performance in deep dyslexia parallels that observed in neurologically intact participants on tasks based on implicit and explicit processes. In other words, deep dyslexics should produce normal effects in conditions with implicit task demands (i.e., lexical decision) and on tasks based on explicit access without production (i.e., forced choice semantic decisions) because failure of inhibition does not impact the availability of lexical information, only explicit retrieval in the context of production. This research examined the distinction between implicit and explicit processes in deep dyslexia using semantic blocking in lexical decision and forced choice semantic decisions as a test for the failure of inhibition hypothesis. The results of the semantic blocking paradigm support the distinction between implicit and explicit processing and provide evidence for failure of inhibition as an explanation for semantic errors in deep dyslexia.

Lesions to the left lateral prefrontal cortex impair decision threshold adjustment for lexical selection.

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Anders, Royce; Riès, Stéphanie; Van Maanen, Leendert; Alario, F-Xavier

Patients with lesions in the left prefrontal cortex (PFC) have been shown to be impaired in lexical selection, especially when interference between semantically related alternatives is increased. To more deeply investigate which computational mechanisms may be impaired following left PFC damage due to stroke, a psychometric modelling approach is employed in which we assess the cognitive parameters of the patients from an evidence accumulation (sequential information sampling) modelling of their response data. We also compare the results to healthy speakers. Analysis of the cognitive parameters indicates an impairment of the PFC patients to appropriately adjust their decision threshold, in order to handle the increased item difficulty that is introduced by semantic interference. Also, the modelling contributes to other topics in psycholinguistic theory, in which specific effects are observed on the cognitive parameters according to item familiarization, and the opposing effects of priming (lower threshold) and semantic interference (lower drift) which are found to depend on repetition. These results are developed for the blocked-cyclic picture naming paradigm, in which pictures are presented within semantically homogeneous (HOM) or heterogeneous (HET) blocks, and are repeated several times per block. Overall, the results are in agreement with a role of the left PFC in adjusting the decision threshold for lexical selection in language production.

The Role of Semantic Processing in Reading Japanese Orthographies: An Investigation Using a Script-Switch Paradigm

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Dylman, Alexandra S.; Kikutani, Mariko

2018-01-01

Research on Japanese reading has generally indicated that processing of the logographic script Kanji primarily involves whole-word lexical processing and follows a semantics-to-phonology route, while the two phonological scripts Hiragana and Katakana (collectively called Kana) are processed via a sub-lexical route, and more in a…

FUNCTIONAL INTERACTION OF LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL FACTORS IN THE ENGLISH VERB SYSTEM

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Nina Sergeevna Kotova

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Purpose. The purpose of the research conducted is revealing the peculiarities of lexical paradigmatics influence upon the usage of aspect and temporal verb forms and the opposite impact as well, i.e. the influence of aspect and temporal verb forms upon the lexical meaning of this verb groups under specific conditions of functioning. The lexical paradigmatics is considered as the system of mutually contrasted semantic features of particular verb groups. In this case, we analyze the paradigmatics in the middle language hierarchy for each language level separately. Methodology. The research is conducted synchronically on the material of the contemporary English verb system. Interaction of lexical and grammatical factors in the English verb system is examined in a functional aspect. Such consideration gives a possibility to differentiate the intrasystem phenomena and phenomena of pragmatic character and expose the system-structural mutual relations of lexical and grammatical factors. The research material is the verb as massive word group. From the point of view of interaction of lexical and grammatical factors in the functional and semantic field representing aspectuality, we get interested in the meaning which realizes in the opposition ofatelicity – telicity(telicity correlates the action with the limit, and atelicity demotes the action irrespectively to its limit. The technique applied to the analysis of lexical and grammatical factors in the English verb system is complex combining descriptive and comparative and functional methods. Results. Interrelations and interdependency of lexical and grammatical paradigmatics create particular sustainability in using the lexical unit of this paradigm with aspect and temporal verb forms. In this case, the tendencies of the language sign developing and changing are expressed in the process of the mutual substitution and interpenetration of grammatical forms primarily under the influence of paradigmatic

Lexical-Semantic Reading in a Shallow Orthography: Evidence from a Girl with Williams Syndrome

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Barca, Laura; Bello, Arianna; Volterra, Virginia; Burani, Cristina

2010-01-01

The reading skills of a girl with Williams Syndrome are assessed by a timed word-naming task. To test the efficiency of lexical and nonlexical reading, we considered four marker effects: Lexicality (better reading of words than nonwords), frequency (better reading of high than low frequency words), length (better reading of short than long words),…

Lexical-Semantic Search Under Different Covert Verbal Fluency Tasks: An fMRI Study

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Yunqing Li

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Background: Verbal fluency is a measure of cognitive flexibility and word search strategies that is widely used to characterize impaired cognitive function. Despite the wealth of research on identifying and characterizing distinct aspects of verbal fluency, the anatomic and functional substrates of retrieval-related search and post-retrieval control processes still have not been fully elucidated.Methods: Twenty-one native English-speaking, healthy, right-handed, adult volunteers (mean age = 31 years; range = 21–45 years; 9 F took part in a block-design functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI study of free recall, covert word generation tasks when guided by phonemic (P, semantic-category (C, and context-based fill-in–the-blank sentence completion (S cues. General linear model (GLM, Independent Component Analysis (ICA, and psychophysiological interaction (PPI were used to further characterize the neural substrate of verbal fluency as a function of retrieval cue type.Results: Common localized activations across P, C, and S tasks occurred in the bilateral superior and left inferior frontal gyrus, left anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral supplementary motor area (SMA, and left insula. Differential task activations were centered in the occipital, temporal and parietal regions as well as the thalamus and cerebellum. The context-based fluency task, i.e., the S task, elicited higher differential brain activity in a lateralized frontal-temporal network typically engaged in complex language processing. P and C tasks elicited activation in limited pathways mainly within the left frontal regions. ICA and PPI results of the S task suggested that brain regions distributed across both hemispheres, extending beyond classical language areas, are recruited for lexical-semantic access and retrieval during sentence completion.Conclusion: Study results support the hypothesis of overlapping, as well as distinct, neural networks for covert word generation when

White matter disease correlates with lexical retrieval deficits in primary progressive aphasia.

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Powers, John P; McMillan, Corey T; Brun, Caroline C; Yushkevich, Paul A; Zhang, Hui; Gee, James C; Grossman, Murray

2013-01-01

To relate fractional anisotropy (FA) changes associated with the semantic and logopenic variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) to measures of lexical retrieval. We collected neuropsychological testing, volumetric magnetic resonance imaging, and diffusion-weighted imaging on semantic variant PPA (svPPA) (n = 11) and logopenic variant PPA (lvPPA) (n = 13) patients diagnosed using published criteria. We also acquired neuroimaging data on a group of demographically comparable healthy seniors (n = 34). FA was calculated and analyzed using a white matter (WM) tract-specific analysis approach. This approach utilizes anatomically guided data reduction to increase sensitivity and localizes results within canonically defined tracts. We used non-parametric, cluster-based statistical analysis to relate language performance to FA and determine regions of reduced FA in patients. We found widespread FA reductions in WM for both variants of PPA. FA was related to both confrontation naming and category naming fluency performance in left uncinate fasciculus and corpus callosum in svPPA and left superior and inferior longitudinal fasciculi in lvPPA. SvPPA and lvPPA are associated with distinct disruptions of a large-scale network implicated in lexical retrieval, and the WM disease in each phenotype may contribute to language impairments including lexical retrieval.

Basic lexical and grammatical transformations in translation of German print advertising

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Артур Нарманович Мамедов

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The article presents basic lexical and grammatical transformations, which contribute to preserving the semantic and syntactic structure of a German advertising text and reproducing the image of the advertised product. This shows that the translation has the same communicative effect as that achieved by the source text.

Language networks associated with computerized semantic indices.

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Pakhomov, Serguei V S; Jones, David T; Knopman, David S

2015-01-01

Tests of generative semantic verbal fluency are widely used to study organization and representation of concepts in the human brain. Previous studies demonstrated that clustering and switching behavior during verbal fluency tasks is supported by multiple brain mechanisms associated with semantic memory and executive control. Previous work relied on manual assessments of semantic relatedness between words and grouping of words into semantic clusters. We investigated a computational linguistic approach to measuring the strength of semantic relatedness between words based on latent semantic analysis of word co-occurrences in a subset of a large online encyclopedia. We computed semantic clustering indices and compared them to brain network connectivity measures obtained with task-free fMRI in a sample consisting of healthy participants and those differentially affected by cognitive impairment. We found that semantic clustering indices were associated with brain network connectivity in distinct areas including fronto-temporal, fronto-parietal and fusiform gyrus regions. This study shows that computerized semantic indices complement traditional assessments of verbal fluency to provide a more complete account of the relationship between brain and verbal behavior involved organization and retrieval of lexical information from memory. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Semantic projection: recovering human knowledge of multiple, distinct object features from word embeddings

OpenAIRE

Grand, Gabriel; Blank, Idan Asher; Pereira, Francisco; Fedorenko, Evelina

2018-01-01

The words of a language reflect the structure of the human mind, allowing us to transmit thoughts between individuals. However, language can represent only a subset of our rich and detailed cognitive architecture. Here, we ask what kinds of common knowledge (semantic memory) are captured by word meanings (lexical semantics). We examine a prominent computational model that represents words as vectors in a multidimensional space, such that proximity between word-vectors approximates semantic re...

Semantic equivalences in Romanian medical terminology

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Corina Lungu

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The present paper aims to underline some aspects concerning the presence of synonymy semantic relationship in specialized medical terminology, having as object of study Romanian medical terms. For this study we use a descriptive, conceptual and lexical semantic research method to provide the understanding of different couples, groups or synonymic series where medical terms have several variations: specialized/common terms, syntagms and patronyms of French or different origin. We propose a classification scheme of synonyms of medical lexicon, terms or synonymic syntagms, total and partial, in order to meet the accessibility needs in scientific communication.

Preserved semantic priming effect in alexia.

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Mimura, M; Goodglass, H; Milberg, W

1996-09-01

BH, a left-handed patient with alexia and nonfluent aphasia, was presented with a lexical-decision task in which words and pronounceable pseudowords were preceded by semantically related or unrelated picture primes (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, BH was given an explicit reading task using the word lists from Experiment 1. Performance on Experiment 2 disclosed severe reading deficits in both oral reading and semantic matching of the words to pictures. However, in Experiment 1, BH demonstrated a significant semantic priming effect, responding more accurately and more quickly to words preceded by related primes than by unrelated primes. The present results suggest that even in a patient with severe alexia, implicit access to semantic information can be preserved in the absence of explicit identification. The possibility of categorical gradient in implicit activation (living vs. nonliving) in BH was also discussed, which, however, needs to be clarified in the further investigation.

Assessment of lexical semantic judgment abilities in alcohol-dependent subjects: an fMRI study.

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Bagga, D; Singh, N; Modi, S; Kumar, P; Bhattacharya, D; Garg, M L; Khushu, S

2013-12-01

Neuropsychological studies have shown that alcohol dependence is associated with neurocognitive deficits in tasks requiring memory, perceptual motor skills, abstraction and problem solving, whereas language skills are relatively spared in alcoholics despite structural abnormalities in the language-related brain regions. To investigate the preserved mechanisms of language processing in alcohol-dependents, functional brain imaging was undertaken in healthy controls (n=18) and alcohol-dependents (n=16) while completing a lexical semantic judgment task in a 3 T MR scanner. Behavioural data indicated that alcohol-dependents took more time than controls for performing the task but there was no significant difference in their response accuracy. fMRI data analysis revealed that while performing the task, the alcoholics showed enhanced activations in left supramarginal gyrus, precuneus bilaterally, left angular gyrus, and left middle temporal gyrus as compared to control subjects. The extensive activations observed in alcoholics as compared to controls suggest that alcoholics recruit additional brain areas to meet the behavioural demands for equivalent task performance. The results are consistent with previous fMRI studies suggesting compensatory mechanisms for the execution of task for showing an equivalent performance or decreased neural efficiency of relevant brain networks. However, on direct comparison of the two groups, the results did not survive correction for multiple comparisons; therefore, the present findings need further exploration.

The semantics of English Borrowings in Arabic Media Language: The case of Arab Gulf States Newspapers

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Anwar A. H. Al-Athwary

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The present paper investigates the semantics of English loanwords in Arabic media language (AML. The loanword data are collected from a number of Arab Gulf states newspapers (AGSNs. They  are analyzed semantically from the points of view of semantic change, semantic domains, and the phenomenon of synonymy resulting from lexical borrowing. The semantic analysis has revealed that AML borrowings from English occur in fifteen distinctive semantic domains. Domains that are related to terms of technical and scientific nature are found ranking much higher (9% - 18% than those domains containing nontechnical elements (1% - 8% with the computer and technology category (18% is the most dominant domain. Almost all common mechanisms of semantic change (extension, restriction, amelioration, pejoration, and metaphorical extension are found at work in the context of AML borrowings. The tendency of semantic change in the overwhelming majority of AML borrowings is towards restriction.  Factors like need, semantic similarity, and factors of social and psychological considerations (e.g. prestige, taboo seem to be the potent factors at interplay in semantic change. The first two, i.e. need and semantic similarity, are the most common reasons in most types of semantic change. The problem of synonymy lies in those loanwords that have “Arabic equivalents” in the language. The study claims that this phenomenon could be attributed to the two simultaneous processes of lexical borrowing and?ištiqa:q (the modern efforts of deriving equivalent neologisms.

Newly-acquired words are more phonologically robust in verbal short-term memory when they have associated semantic representations.

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Savill, Nicola; Ellis, Andrew W; Jefferies, Elizabeth

2017-04-01

Verbal short-term memory (STM) is a crucial cognitive function central to language learning, comprehension and reasoning, yet the processes that underlie this capacity are not fully understood. In particular, although STM primarily draws on a phonological code, interactions between long-term phonological and semantic representations might help to stabilise the phonological trace for words ("semantic binding hypothesis"). This idea was first proposed to explain the frequent phoneme recombination errors made by patients with semantic dementia when recalling words that are no longer fully understood. However, converging evidence in support of semantic binding is scant: it is unusual for studies of healthy participants to examine serial recall at the phoneme level and also it is difficult to separate the contribution of phonological-lexical knowledge from effects of word meaning. We used a new method to disentangle these influences in healthy individuals by training new 'words' with or without associated semantic information. We examined phonological coherence in immediate serial recall (ISR), both immediately and the day after training. Trained items were more likely to be recalled than novel nonwords, confirming the importance of phonological-lexical knowledge, and items with semantic associations were also produced more accurately than those with no meaning, at both time points. For semantically-trained items, there were fewer phoneme ordering and identity errors, and consequently more complete target items were produced in both correct and incorrect list positions. These data show that lexical-semantic knowledge improves the robustness of verbal STM at the sub-item level, even when the effect of phonological familiarity is taken into account. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Phi-square Lexical Competition Database (Phi-Lex): an online tool for quantifying auditory and visual lexical competition.

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Strand, Julia F

2014-03-01

A widely agreed-upon feature of spoken word recognition is that multiple lexical candidates in memory are simultaneously activated in parallel when a listener hears a word, and that those candidates compete for recognition (Luce, Goldinger, Auer, & Vitevitch, Perception 62:615-625, 2000; Luce & Pisoni, Ear and Hearing 19:1-36, 1998; McClelland & Elman, Cognitive Psychology 18:1-86, 1986). Because the presence of those competitors influences word recognition, much research has sought to quantify the processes of lexical competition. Metrics that quantify lexical competition continuously are more effective predictors of auditory and visual (lipread) spoken word recognition than are the categorical metrics traditionally used (Feld & Sommers, Speech Communication 53:220-228, 2011; Strand & Sommers, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 130:1663-1672, 2011). A limitation of the continuous metrics is that they are somewhat computationally cumbersome and require access to existing speech databases. This article describes the Phi-square Lexical Competition Database (Phi-Lex): an online, searchable database that provides access to multiple metrics of auditory and visual (lipread) lexical competition for English words, available at www.juliastrand.com/phi-lex .

Lexical effects on speech production and intelligibility in Parkinson's disease

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Chiu, Yi-Fang

Individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) often have speech deficits that lead to reduced speech intelligibility. Previous research provides a rich database regarding the articulatory deficits associated with PD including restricted vowel space (Skodda, Visser, & Schlegel, 2011) and flatter formant transitions (Tjaden & Wilding, 2004; Walsh & Smith, 2012). However, few studies consider the effect of higher level structural variables of word usage frequency and the number of similar sounding words (i.e. neighborhood density) on lower level articulation or on listeners' perception of dysarthric speech. The purpose of the study is to examine the interaction of lexical properties and speech articulation as measured acoustically in speakers with PD and healthy controls (HC) and the effect of lexical properties on the perception of their speech. Individuals diagnosed with PD and age-matched healthy controls read sentences with words that varied in word frequency and neighborhood density. Acoustic analysis was performed to compare second formant transitions in diphthongs, an indicator of the dynamics of tongue movement during speech production, across different lexical characteristics. Young listeners transcribed the spoken sentences and the transcription accuracy was compared across lexical conditions. The acoustic results indicate that both PD and HC speakers adjusted their articulation based on lexical properties but the PD group had significant reductions in second formant transitions compared to HC. Both groups of speakers increased second formant transitions for words with low frequency and low density, but the lexical effect is diphthong dependent. The change in second formant slope was limited in the PD group when the required formant movement for the diphthong is small. The data from listeners' perception of the speech by PD and HC show that listeners identified high frequency words with greater accuracy suggesting the use of lexical knowledge during the

A patient with aphasia using the nonsemantic lexical route for Kanji reading.

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Hashimoto, Kosei; Uno, Akira; Sambai, Ami; Mizumoto, Go

We report a patient with aphasia, caused by cerebral hemorrhage, who probably used the nonsemantic lexical route when reading words aloud. To investigate the mechanisms underlying her reading dysfunction, we analyzed her reading abilities using the Dual-Route Cascaded Model. Language tests resulted in low correct percentages for both reading comprehension and reading nonwords aloud, suggesting problems in the semantic system and the nonlexical route. Conversely, the patient showed high scores on the reading words aloud task. Although she failed to understand many inconsistent-atypical words in the reading comprehension test, she correctly read most words aloud, suggesting that she used the nonsemantic lexical route. In addition, the lexical reading route was analyzed in detail by using inconsistent-atypical Kanji words as stimuli. Finally, we analyzed her reading dysfunction compared with previous cases.

The processing of lexical ambiguity in healthy ageing and Parkinson׳s disease: role of cortico-subcortical networks.

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Ketteler, Simon; Ketteler, Daniel; Vohn, René; Kastrau, Frank; Schulz, Jörg B; Reetz, Kathrin; Huber, Walter

2014-09-18

Previous neuroimaging studies showed that correct resolution of lexical ambiguity relies on the integrity of prefrontal and inferior parietal cortices. Whereas prefrontal brain areas were associated with executive control over semantic selection, inferior parietal areas were linked with access to modality-independent representations of semantic memory. Yet insufficiently understood is the contribution of subcortical structures in ambiguity processing. Patients with disturbed basal ganglia function such as Parkinson׳s disease (PD) showed development of discourse comprehension deficits evoked by lexical ambiguity. To further investigate the engagement of cortico-subcortical networks functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was monitored during ambiguity resolution in eight early PD patients without dementia and 14 age- and education-matched controls. Participants were required to relate meanings to a lexically ambiguous target (homonym). Each stimulus consisted of two words arranged on top of a screen, which had to be attributed to a homonym at the bottom. Brain activity was found in bilateral inferior parietal (BA 39), right middle temporal (BA 21/22), left middle frontal (BA 10) and bilateral inferior frontal areas (BA 45/46). Extent and amplitude of activity in the angular gyrus changed depending on semantic association strength that varied between conditions. Less activity in the left caudate was associated with semantic integration deficits in PD. The results of the present study suggest a relationship between subtle language deficits and early stages of basal ganglia dysfunction. Uncovering impairments in ambiguity resolution may be of future use in the neuropsychological assessment of non-motor deficits in PD. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Many Neighbors are not Silent. fMRI Evidence for Global Lexical Activity in Visual Word Recognition.

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Mario eBraun

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Many neurocognitive studies investigated the neural correlates of visual word recognition, some of which manipulated the orthographic neighborhood density of words and nonwords believed to influence the activation of orthographically similar representations in a hypothetical mental lexicon. Previous neuroimaging research failed to find evidence for such global lexical activity associated with neighborhood density. Rather, effects were interpreted to reflect semantic or domain general processing. The present fMRI study revealed effects of lexicality, orthographic neighborhood density and a lexicality by orthographic neighborhood density interaction in a silent reading task. For the first time we found greater activity for words and nonwords with a high number of neighbors. We propose that this activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex reflects activation of orthographically similar codes in verbal working memory thus providing evidence for global lexical activity as the basis of the neighborhood density effect. The interaction of lexicality by neighborhood density in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex showed lower activity in response to words with a high number compared to nonwords with a high number of neighbors. In the light of these results the facilitatory effect for words and inhibitory effect for nonwords with many neighbors observed in previous studies can be understood as being due to the operation of a fast-guess mechanism for words and a temporal deadline mechanism for nonwords as predicted by models of visual word recognition. Furthermore, we propose that the lexicality effect with higher activity for words compared to nonwords in inferior parietal and middle temporal cortex reflects the operation of an identification mechanism and based on local lexico-semantic activity.

The Spanish word tiempo: its omnipresence and conceptual, logical and lexical versatility

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Karlo Budor

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The common Spanish word tiempo corresponds to three English terms, each of them being a lexical equivalent based on a specific notion: (1 time – physical, astronomical, philosophical reference; (2 weather – geographical, climatological, meteorological reference; (3 tense: linguistic, lexical, grammatical reference. As far as universal and metalinguistic referential distinctions are concerned, all natural languages in fact present a considerable degree of variation ranging from inexistent or very vague to complete differentiation of these terms. In order to express these three types of specific references, some languages have a single word of general usage covering all its lexical acceptations. Therefore in such languages, Spanish included, different references can be distinguished only in part lexically. However, asemantic analysis of the Spanish word tiempo reveals its complexity as well as its conceptual, logical and lexical versatility. This is reflected in its capacity to combine in numerous lexical units, i.e. word compounds and/or phrases, endowed with different or specific semantic meanings. The repertory of these virtual and derived lexical forms appears to be practically unlimited, although their sphere of application and their boundaries are neither always very clear nor precise, which can be illustrated with the examples given in Spanish dictionaries.

The Semantic Shift of the Sensory Verb “ting (听” and Relevant Problems in Chinese Dialects

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Wang Shuaichen

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The semantic shift exists in Chinese dialects. This paper takes the sensory verb “ting (听” as an example to describe its semantic shift and distribution, and to summarize its usage and distinguishing types. Furthermore, it tries to explore the motivations and mechanisms behind the semantic shift from the perspectives of typology, cultural cognition and lexical history.

Diagnostic and prognostic role of semantic processing in preclinical Alzheimer's disease.

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Venneri, Annalena; Jahn-Carta, Caroline; Marco, Matteo De; Quaranta, Davide; Marra, Camillo

2018-06-13

Relatively spared during most of the timeline of normal aging, semantic memory shows a subtle yet measurable decline even during the pre-clinical stage of Alzheimer's disease. This decline is thought to reflect early neurofibrillary changes and impairment is detectable using tests of language relying on lexical-semantic abilities. A promising approach is the characterization of semantic parameters such as typicality and age of acquisition of words, and propositional density from verbal output. Seminal research like the Nun Study or the analysis of the linguistic decline of famous writers and politicians later diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease supports the early diagnostic value of semantic processing and semantic memory. Moreover, measures of these skills may play an important role for the prognosis of patients with mild cognitive impairment.

Perception of Lexical Neutral Tone Among Adults and Infants

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Shanshan Fan

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Neutral tone (T0 is a special tone form in Mandarin that contains tonal and stress information. Compared with canonical tones, T0 has a much shorter duration and reduced pitch contour. Its tonal contour is determined by the preceding canonical tone. However, not much is known about the perception of tonal and stress information in T0. In the current study, we investigate (1 whether T0 can be perceived as lexically unstressed by stress-language listeners; and (2 how Mandarin (tone language- and Dutch (stress language-learning infants perceive T0. Three experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, Dutch adults identified T0 as unstressed when presented with disyllabic sequences ending in T0. In Experiment 2, we used the visual fixation paradigm to test 4- to 6-month-old and 10- to 12-month-old Dutch and Mandarin infants on pseudoword discrimination (/pan1san4/ [high-level + high-falling] and /pan1san0/ [high-level + mid-falling]. T4 and T0 each exhibit a similar falling contour. The results show that (1 after being habituated to neutral tone sequences (/pan1san0/, Dutch infants discriminated the T1T0–T1T4 contrast; and (2 neither age groups of Mandarin infants discriminated the tone contrast. Assuming Mandarin infants’ lack of discrimination might be due to the similar F0 contours, we tested Mandarin infants in Experiment 3 using a more salient contrast, /pan1san2/ (high-level + mid-rising and /pan1san0/. While no overall discrimination was observed, those who were habituated to /pan1san0/ demonstrated discrimination. The continuous discrimination of Dutch infants suggests that they might process neutral–canonical tone contrast as lexical stress rather than as tonal information. Overall, Mandarin infants’ failure implies that the representation of T0 is not complete during their 1st year of life; the acquisition of tonal categories may therefore take longer than we expected.

Lexical Constraints on the Acquisition of Split Intransitivity: Evidence from L2 Japanese.

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Sorace, Antonella; Shomura, Yoko

2001-01-01

Investigates the acquisition of the unaccusative-unergative distinction in second language Japanese by English learners. Aims to establish whether learners of Japanese are sensitive to the lexical-semantic characteristics of verbs in similar ways as learners of Romance languages who were found to follow the split intransitivity hierarchy.…

Semantic impairment disrupts perception, memory, and naming of secondary but not primary colours.

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Rogers, Timothy T; Graham, Kim S; Patterson, Karalyn

2015-04-01

To investigate how basic aspects of perception are shaped by acquired knowledge about the world, we assessed colour perception and cognition in patients with semantic dementia (SD), a disorder that progressively erodes conceptual knowledge. We observed a previously undocumented pattern of impairment to colour perception and cognition characterized by: (i) a normal ability to discriminate between only subtly different colours but an impaired ability to group different colours into categories, (ii) normal perception and memory for the colours red, green, and blue but impaired perception and memory for colours lying between these regions of a fully-saturated and luminant spectrum, and (iii) normal naming of polar colours in the opponent-process colour system (red, green, blue, yellow, white, and black) but impaired naming of other basic colours (brown, gray, pink, and orange). The results suggest that fundamental aspects of perception can be shaped by acquired knowledge about the world, but only within limits. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Semantic impairment disrupts perception, memory, and naming of secondary but not primary colours.

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Rogers, Timothy T.; Graham, Kim S.; Patterson, Karalyn

2015-01-01

To investigate how basic aspects of perception are shaped by acquired knowledge about the world, we assessed colour perception and cognition in patients with semantic dementia (SD), a disorder that progressively erodes conceptual knowledge. We observed a previously undocumented pattern of impairment to colour perception and cognition characterized by: (i) a normal ability to discriminate between only subtly different colours but an impaired ability to group different colours into categories, (ii) normal perception and memory for the colours red, green, and blue but impaired perception and memory for colours lying between these regions of a fully-saturated and luminant spectrum, and (iii) normal naming of polar colours in the opponent-process colour system (red, green, blue, yellow, white, and black) but impaired naming of other basic colours (brown, gray, pink, and orange). The results suggest that fundamental aspects of perception can be shaped by acquired knowledge about the world, but only within limits. PMID:25637227

Neural regions supporting lexical processing of objects and actions: A case series analysis

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Bonnie L Breining

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction. Linking semantic representations to lexical items is an important cognitive process for both producing and comprehending language. Past research has suggested that the bilateral anterior temporal lobes are critical for this process (e.g. Patterson, Nestor, & Rogers, 2007. However, the majority of studies focused on object concepts alone, ignoring actions. The few that considered actions suggest that the temporal poles are not critical for their processing (e.g. Kemmerer et al., 2010. In this case series, we investigated the neural substrates of linking object and action concepts to lexical labels by correlating the volume of defined regions of interest with behavioral performance on picture-word verification and picture naming tasks of individuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA. PPA is a neurodegenerative condition with heterogeneous neuropathological causes, characterized by increasing language deficits for at least two years in the face of relatively intact cognitive function in other domains (Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011. This population displays appropriate heterogeneity of performance and focal atrophy for investigating the neural substrates involved in lexical semantic processing of objects and actions. Method. Twenty-one individuals with PPA participated in behavioral assessment within six months of high resolution anatomical MRI scans. Behavioral assessments consisted of four tasks: picture-word verification and picture naming of objects and actions. Performance on these assessments was correlated with brain volume measured using atlas-based analysis in twenty regions of interest that are commonly atrophied in PPA and implicated in language processing. Results. Impaired performance for all four tasks significantly correlated with atrophy in the right superior temporal pole, left anterior middle temporal gyrus, and left fusiform gyrus. No regions were identified in which volume correlated with performance for both

Semantic category interference in overt picture naming: sharpening current density localization by PCA.

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Maess, Burkhard; Friederici, Angela D; Damian, Markus; Meyer, Antje S; Levelt, Willem J M

2002-04-01

The study investigated the neuronal basis of the retrieval of words from the mental lexicon. The semantic category interference effect was used to locate lexical retrieval processes in time and space. This effect reflects the finding that, for overt naming, volunteers are slower when naming pictures out of a sequence of items from the same semantic category than from different categories. Participants named pictures blockwise either in the context of same- or mixed-category items while the brain response was registered using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Fifteen out of 20 participants showed longer response latencies in the same-category compared to the mixed-category condition. Event-related MEG signals for the participants demonstrating the interference effect were submitted to a current source density (CSD) analysis. As a new approach, a principal component analysis was applied to decompose the grand average CSD distribution into spatial subcomponents (factors). The spatial factor indicating left temporal activity revealed significantly different activation for the same-category compared to the mixed-category condition in the time window between 150 and 225 msec post picture onset. These findings indicate a major involvement of the left temporal cortex in the semantic interference effect. As this effect has been shown to take place at the level of lexical selection, the data suggest that the left temporal cortex supports processes of lexical retrieval during production.

The derived allele of ASPM is associated with lexical tone perception.

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Patrick C M Wong

Full Text Available The ASPM and MCPH1 genes have been implicated in the adaptive evolution of the human brain [Mekel-Bobrov N. et al., 2005. Ongoing adaptive evolution of ASPM, a brain size determinant in homo sapiens. Science 309; Evans P.D. et al., 2005. Microcephalin, a gene regulating brain size, continues to evolve adaptively in humans. Science 309]. Curiously, experimental attempts have failed to connect the implicated SNPs in these genes with higher-level brain functions. These results stand in contrast with a population-level study linking the population frequency of their alleles with the tendency to use lexical tones in a language [Dediu D., Ladd D.R., 2007. Linguistic tone is related to the population frequency of the adaptive haplogroups of two brain size genes, ASPM and microcephalin. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104]. In the present study, we found a significant correlation between the load of the derived alleles of ASPM and tone perception in a group of European Americans who did not speak a tone language. Moreover, preliminary results showed a significant correlation between ASPM load and hemodynamic responses to lexical tones in the auditory cortex, and such correlation remained after phonemic awareness, auditory working memory, and non-verbal IQ were controlled. As in previous studies, no significant correlation between ASPM and cognitive measures were found. MCPH1 did not correlate with any measures. These results suggest that the association between the recently derived allele of ASPM is likely to be specific and is tied to higher level brain functions in the temporal cortex related to human communication.

Automaticity Revisited: When Print Doesn't Activate Semantics

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Elsa Magdalena Labuschagne

2015-02-01

Full Text Available It is widely accepted that the presentation of a printed word automatically triggers processing that ends with full semantic activation. This processing, among other characteristics, is held to occur without intention, and cannot be stopped. The results of the present experiment show that this account is problematic in the context of a variant of the Stroop paradigm. Subjects named the print color of words that were either neutral or semantically related to color. When the letters were all colored, all spatially cued, and the spaces between letters were filled with characters from the top of the keyboard (i.e., 4, #, 5, %, 6, and *, color naming yielded a semantically based Stroop effect and a semantically based negative priming effect. In contrast, the same items yielded neither a semantic Stroop effect nor a negative priming effect when a single target letter was uniquely colored and spatially cued. These findings undermine the widespread view that lexical-semantic activation in word reading is automatic in the sense that it occurs without intention and cannot be derailed.

The Role of Phonological Working Memory and Environmental Factors in Lexical Development in Italian-Speaking Late Talkers: A One-Year Follow-Up Study.

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Marini, Andrea; Ruffino, Milena; Sali, Maria Enrica; Molteni, Massimo

2017-12-20

This follow-up study assessed (a) the influence of phonological working memory (pWM), home literacy environment, and a family history of linguistic impairments in late talkers (LTs); (b) the diagnostic accuracy of a task of nonword repetition (NWR) in identifying LTs; and (c) the persistence of lexical weaknesses after 10 months. Two hundred ninety-three children were assessed at approximately 32 (t1) and 41 (t2) months. At t1, they were administered the Italian adaptation of the Language Development Survey, an NWR task (used to assess pWM), and questionnaires assessing home literacy environment and family history of language impairments. Thirty-three LTs were identified. The linguistic skills of the participants were evaluated at t2 by administering tasks assessing Articulation, Naming, Semantic Fluency, and Lexical Comprehension. At t2, LTs performed more poorly as compared with age-matched typically developing peers in articulatory and naming skills, had reduced lexical comprehension abilities, and had limited lexical knowledge. Their performance on the NWR task at t1 correlated with the extension of their vocabularies at t2 (as estimated with a Semantic Fluency task). The Language Development Survey recently adapted to Italian is sensitive to LTs. Former LTs still have a mild lexical delay at approximately 40 months. As an indirect measure of pWM, the task of NWR is an early indicator of future lexical deficits.

The Syntax and Semantics of Russian Non-Sentence Adverbials

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lorentzen, Elena; Durst-Andersen, Per

2015-01-01

For the first time non-sentence adverbials in Russian are analyzed in their totality, i.e., from a lexical, syntactic and propositional-semantic point of view. They are classified, defined and interpreted according to four propositional structures identified in Russian: (1) state descriptions...... and (2) activity descriptions – both created by simplex verbs; (3) event descriptions and (4) process descriptions – both involving complex verbs. All four structures function as statement models and are used to represent semantic paraphrases of utterances in order to be able to show the exact...

The influence of emotion on lexical processing: insights from RT distributional analysis.

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Yap, Melvin J; Seow, Cui Shan

2014-04-01

In two lexical decision experiments, the present study was designed to examine emotional valence effects on visual lexical decision (standard and go/no-go) performance, using traditional analyses of means and distributional analyses of response times. Consistent with an earlier study by Kousta, Vinson, and Vigliocco (Cognition 112:473-481, 2009), we found that emotional words (both negative and positive) were responded to faster than neutral words. Finer-grained distributional analyses further revealed that the facilitation afforded by valence was reflected by a combination of distributional shifting and an increase in the slow tail of the distribution. This suggests that emotional valence effects in lexical decision are unlikely to be entirely mediated by early, preconscious processes, which are associated with pure distributional shifting. Instead, our results suggest a dissociation between early preconscious processes and a later, more task-specific effect that is driven by feedback from semantically rich representations.

Semantic Size Does Not Matter: “Bigger” Words Are Not Recognised Faster

OpenAIRE

Kang, Sean H.K.; Yap, Melvin J.; Tse, Chi-Shing; Kurby, Christopher A.

2011-01-01

Sereno, O’Donnell, and Sereno (2009) reported that words are recognised faster in a lexical decision task when their referents are physically large rather than small, suggesting that “semantic size” might be an important variable that should be considered in visual word recognition research and modelling. We sought to replicate their size effect, but failed to find a significant latency advantage in lexical decision for “big” words (cf. “small” words), even though we used the same word stimul...

Compound words prompt arbitrary semantic associations in conceptual memory

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Bastien eBoutonnet

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Linguistic relativity theory has received empirical support in domains such as colour perception and object categorisation. It is unknown however, whether relations between words idiosyncratic to language impact nonverbal representations and conceptualisations. For instance, would one consider the concepts of horse and sea as related were it not for the existence of the compound seahorse? Here, we investigated such arbitrary conceptual relationships using a non-linguistic picture relatedness task in participants undergoing event-related brain potential recordings. Picture pairs arbitrarily related because of a compound and presented in the compound order elicited N400 amplitudes similar to unrelated pairs. Surprisingly, however, pictures presented in the reverse order (as in the sequence horse – sea reduced N400 amplitudes significantly, demonstrating the existence of a link in memory between these two concepts otherwise unrelated. These results break new ground in the domain of linguistic relativity by revealing predicted semantic associations driven by lexical relations intrinsic to language.

Semantics of Kinship Terms in Tamil from the Semantic Typology Point of View

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Анна Александровна Смирнитская

2016-12-01

Full Text Available In this article the author examines the lexical-semantic group “kinship terms” in Tamil, applying the attainments of modern semantic typology and the theory of semantic derivation. The kinship terms describing nuclear and extended family are explored. The “semantic shift” relation between two different meanings is established if such relation is realized by synchronous polysemy in one lexeme, semantic derivation, diachronic semantic change, cognates or some other means. The starting point of the study is the typological data from the DatSemShift catalogue of semantic shifts in languages of the world developed by a group of researchers under the guidance of Anna A. Zalizniak in the Institute of Linguistics, RAS. We verify the presence of semantic shifts described in the Database in Tamil. Also, we propose new semantic shifts specific only for this language. We confirm the presence of semantic relation of the studied type among the meanings with English “labels”: father - parents, girl - daughter, to deliver (a child - parents, - child, old woman - wife, owner - wife and others. The data also allows the assumption that the same relation exists between the meanings: old - grandfather, earth - mother, son - courage, unripe - son and others. The meanings of this field are the sources of semantic movements to abstract notions, lexicon of posession, forms of address and others; in addition many inner semantic relations inside this field are revealed. The meanings covering the nuclear part of the kinship system participate in universal semantic shifts described in the DatSemShift catalogue, while the meanings from collateral branches of this bifurcative kinship system (uncle, aunt turn out to be incomparable with kinship terms from indo-european lineal systems. Their meanings can be included in the DatSemShift catalogue only with an indication of system specifics. The information about semantic shifts can be useful for

Forms of encoded pragmatic meaning: semantic prosody. A lexicographic perspective.

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Mojca Šorli

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract – The present paper focuses on ways in which the pragmatic (functional meaning that arises from various contextual features, known in corpus linguistics as semantic prosody (Sinclair 1996, 2004; Louw 1993, etc. can become an integral part of lexicographic descriptions. This is especially important for the treatment of phraseology and idiomatics. The workings of semantic prosody are a good example of the ways pragmatic meaning exploits linguistic means to be codified in the text. We thus investigate the meaning that can only be studied in context, as it is completely dependent on collocation, i.e., syntagmatic relations, and therefore cannot be attributed solely to a concrete word form. Corpus analysis has yielded significant results in areas such as the lexicographic treatment of semantic prosody. We believe that in order to improve teaching pragmatics in all its complexity, it is necessary to recognise and assess various aspects of pragmatic meaning both in written and spoken language. Second/foreign language teaching/learning in particular has been strongly dependent on the inclusion of relevant information in dictionaries, in which, traditionally, pragmatic aspects of meaning have been largely neglected. Language technologies have enabled us both to study the subtleties of pragmatic meaning and to design accurate and more user-friendly (pedagogical dictionaries. We will attempt to demonstrate the value of explicit description of functional pragmatic meaning, i.e. semantic prosody, as implemented in the Slovene Lexical Database (2008-2012. A brief overview of the theoretical background is first provided, after which we describe the definition strategies employed to include pragmatics, as well as presenting a case study and arguing that explicating semantic prosody is crucial in developing pragmatic competence in (young/foreign language learners. Keywords: semantic prosody; pragmatics; lexicographic description; dictionary; lexical

Distribution and Inference: What Philosophical and Computational Semantics can Learn from Each Other

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Ocelák, Radek

2016-01-01

Roč. 23, č. 3 (2016), s. 299-323 ISSN 1335-0668 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA13-21076S Institutional support: RVO:67985955 Keywords : lexical semantics * distribution * compositionality * inferentialism Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion

The many places of frequency: evidence for a novel locus of the lexical frequency effect in word production.

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Knobel, Mark; Finkbeiner, Matthew; Caramazza, Alfonso

2008-03-01

The effect of lexical frequency on language-processing tasks is exceptionally reliable. For example, pictures with higher frequency names are named faster and more accurately than those with lower frequency names. Experiments with normal participants and patients strongly suggest that this production effect arises at the level of lexical access. Further work has suggested that within lexical access this effect arises at the level of lexical representations. Here we present patient E.C. who shows an effect of lexical frequency on his nonword error rate. The best explanation of his performance is that there is an additional locus of frequency at the interface of lexical and segmental representational levels. We confirm this hypothesis by showing that only computational models with frequency at this new locus can produce a similar error pattern to that of patient E.C. Finally, in an analysis of a large group of Italian patients, we show that there exist patients who replicate E.C.'s pattern of results and others who show the complementary pattern of frequency effects on semantic error rates. Our results combined with previous findings suggest that frequency plays a role throughout the process of lexical access.

A LEXICAL ANALYSIS IN GALICIA AND IN BAHIA: DESIGNATIONS FOR ‘BALD’

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Cezar Alexandre Neri Santos

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This paper is part of a lexical research, providing an analysis of the semantic-lexical variation in Galician and Bahia areas and has as more latent benefit the comparison of data in Brazilian Portuguese and Galician, cognate languages within the linguistic genealogy. Thus, with regard to Galicia territory, the Atlas Lingüístico Galego will be analyzed (BLANCO; GARCIA; FERNÁNDEZ, 2005 and, with regard to Brazil, data from Bahia will be analyzed, recorded in Atlas Lingüístico de Sergipe (FERREIRA et al., 1987. The objective is to examine the linguistic designations for ‘bald’ in two biases: i semantic, providing the motive roots of name formation in the paradigmatic plane of language, understanding the language selection as a political-cultural act; ii lexicographical, checking whether these names are and how they are on historical and etymological, Portuguese and Latin Language dictionaries or not, as well as whether such lexicographical markings have meanings related to baldness. Through these Atlas it is intended to check the type of relationship that can be established between the lexicon for ‘bald’ in Galicia and in Bahia.

Speech-in-speech perception and executive function involvement.

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Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti

Full Text Available This present study investigated the link between speech-in-speech perception capacities and four executive function components: response suppression, inhibitory control, switching and working memory. We constructed a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm using a written target word and a spoken prime word, implemented in one of two concurrent auditory sentences (cocktail party situation. The prime and target were semantically related or unrelated. Participants had to perform a lexical decision task on visual target words and simultaneously listen to only one of two pronounced sentences. The attention of the participant was manipulated: The prime was in the pronounced sentence listened to by the participant or in the ignored one. In addition, we evaluate the executive function abilities of participants (switching cost, inhibitory-control cost and response-suppression cost and their working memory span. Correlation analyses were performed between the executive and priming measurements. Our results showed a significant interaction effect between attention and semantic priming. We observed a significant priming effect in the attended but not in the ignored condition. Only priming effects obtained in the ignored condition were significantly correlated with some of the executive measurements. However, no correlation between priming effects and working memory capacity was found. Overall, these results confirm, first, the role of attention for semantic priming effect and, second, the implication of executive functions in speech-in-noise understanding capacities.

FILLING GAPS ONLINE - USE OF LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC INFORMATION IN SENTENCE PROCESSING

NARCIS (Netherlands)

STOWE, LA; TANENHAUS, MK; CARLSON, GN

1991-01-01

Two experiments investigated how people assign an interpretation to question phrases. In order to determine the meaning of the WH-phrase (e.g., who, what), a "gap" must be located and the role associated with the gap assigned to the WH-phrase. Two experiments tested the Lexical Expectation model of

The role of semantic and phonological factors in word recognition: an ERP cross-modal priming study of derivational morphology.

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Kielar, Aneta; Joanisse, Marc F

2011-01-01

Theories of morphological processing differ on the issue of how lexical and grammatical information are stored and accessed. A key point of contention is whether complex forms are decomposed during recognition (e.g., establish+ment), compared to forms that cannot be analyzed into constituent morphemes (e.g., apartment). In the present study, we examined these issues with respect to English derivational morphology by measuring ERP responses during a cross-modal priming lexical decision task. ERP priming effects for semantically and phonologically transparent derived words (government-govern) were compared to those of semantically opaque derived words (apartment-apart) as well as "quasi-regular" items that represent intermediate cases of morphological transparency (dresser-dress). Additional conditions independently manipulated semantic and phonological relatedness in non-derived words (semantics: couch-sofa; phonology: panel-pan). The degree of N400 ERP priming to morphological forms varied depending on the amount of semantic and phonological overlap between word types, rather than respecting a bivariate distinction between derived and opaque forms. Moreover, these effects could not be accounted for by semantic or phonological relatedness alone. The findings support the theory that morphological relatedness is graded rather than absolute, and depend on the joint contribution of form and meaning overlap. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Using ontology-based semantic similarity to facilitate the article screening process for systematic reviews.

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Ji, Xiaonan; Ritter, Alan; Yen, Po-Yin

2017-05-01

Systematic Reviews (SRs) are utilized to summarize evidence from high quality studies and are considered the preferred source of evidence-based practice (EBP). However, conducting SRs can be time and labor intensive due to the high cost of article screening. In previous studies, we demonstrated utilizing established (lexical) article relationships to facilitate the identification of relevant articles in an efficient and effective manner. Here we propose to enhance article relationships with background semantic knowledge derived from Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) concepts and ontologies. We developed a pipelined semantic concepts representation process to represent articles from an SR into an optimized and enriched semantic space of UMLS concepts. Throughout the process, we leveraged concepts and concept relations encoded in biomedical ontologies (SNOMED-CT and MeSH) within the UMLS framework to prompt concept features of each article. Article relationships (similarities) were established and represented as a semantic article network, which was readily applied to assist with the article screening process. We incorporated the concept of active learning to simulate an interactive article recommendation process, and evaluated the performance on 15 completed SRs. We used work saved over sampling at 95% recall (WSS95) as the performance measure. We compared the WSS95 performance of our ontology-based semantic approach to existing lexical feature approaches and corpus-based semantic approaches, and found that we had better WSS95 in most SRs. We also had the highest average WSS95 of 43.81% and the highest total WSS95 of 657.18%. We demonstrated using ontology-based semantics to facilitate the identification of relevant articles for SRs. Effective concepts and concept relations derived from UMLS ontologies can be utilized to establish article semantic relationships. Our approach provided a promising performance and can easily apply to any SR topics in the

Reprint of: Semantic impairment disrupts perception, memory, and naming of secondary but not primary colours.

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Rogers, Timothy T; Graham, Kim S; Patterson, Karalyn

2015-09-01

To investigate how basic aspects of perception are shaped by acquired knowledge about the world, we assessed colour perception and cognition in patients with semantic dementia (SD), a disorder that progressively erodes conceptual knowledge. We observed a previously undocumented pattern of impairment to colour perception and cognition characterized by: (i) a normal ability to discriminate between only subtly different colours but an impaired ability to group different colours into categories, (ii) normal perception and memory for the colours red, green, and blue but impaired perception and memory for colours lying between these regions of a fully-saturated and luminant spectrum, and (iii) normal naming of polar colours in the opponent-process colour system (red, green, blue, yellow, white, and black) but impaired naming of other basic colours (brown, gray, pink, and orange). The results suggest that fundamental aspects of perception can be shaped by acquired knowledge about the world, but only within limits. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Activation of semantic information at the sublexical level during handwriting production: Evidence from inhibition effects of Chinese semantic radicals in the picture-word interference paradigm.

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Chen, Xuqian; Liao, Yuanlan; Chen, Xianzhe

2017-08-01

Using a non-alphabetic language (e.g., Chinese), the present study tested a novel view that semantic information at the sublexical level should be activated during handwriting production. Over 80% of Chinese characters are phonograms, in which semantic radicals represent category information (e.g., 'chair,' 'peach,' 'orange' are related to plants) while phonetic radicals represent phonetic information (e.g., 'wolf,' 'brightness,' 'male,' are all pronounced /lang/). Under different semantic category conditions at the lexical level (semantically related in Experiment 1; semantically unrelated in Experiment 2), the orthographic relatedness and semantic relatedness of semantic radicals in the picture name and its distractor were manipulated under different SOAs (i.e., stimulus onset asynchrony, the interval between the onset of the picture and the onset of the interference word). Two questions were addressed: (1) Is it possible that semantic information could be activated in the sublexical level conditions? (2) How are semantic and orthographic information dynamically accessed in word production? Results showed that both orthographic and semantic information were activated under the present picture-word interference paradigm, dynamically under different SOAs, which supported our view that discussions on semantic processes in the writing modality should be extended to the sublexical level. The current findings provide possibility for building new orthography-phonology-semantics models in writing. © 2017 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Semantic ambiguity processing in sentence context: Evidence from event-related fMRI

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Zempleni, Monika-Zita; Renken, Remco; Hoeks, John C. J.; Hoogduin, Johannes M.; Stowe, Laurie A.

2007-01-01

Lexical semantic ambiguity is the phenomenon when a word has multiple meanings (e.g. 'bank'). The aim of this event-related functional MRI study was to identify those brain areas, which are involved in contextually driven ambiguity resolution. Ambiguous words were selected which have a most

To predict or not to predict: influences of task and strategy on the processing of semantic relations.

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Roehm, Dietmar; Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina; Rösler, Frank; Schlesewsky, Matthias

2007-08-01

We report a series of event-related potential experiments designed to dissociate the functionally distinct processes involved in the comprehension of highly restricted lexical-semantic relations (antonyms). We sought to differentiate between influences of semantic relatedness (which are independent of the experimental setting) and processes related to predictability (which differ as a function of the experimental environment). To this end, we conducted three ERP studies contrasting the processing of antonym relations (black-white) with that of related (black-yellow) and unrelated (black-nice) word pairs. Whereas the lexical-semantic manipulation was kept constant across experiments, the experimental environment and the task demands varied: Experiment 1 presented the word pairs in a sentence context of the form The opposite of X is Y and used a sensicality judgment. Experiment 2 used a word pair presentation mode and a lexical decision task. Experiment 3 also examined word pairs, but with an antonymy judgment task. All three experiments revealed a graded N400 response (unrelated > related > antonyms), thus supporting the assumption that semantic associations are processed automatically. In addition, the experiments revealed that, in highly constrained task environments, the N400 gradation occurs simultaneously with a P300 effect for the antonym condition, thus leading to the superficial impression of an extremely "reduced" N400 for antonym pairs. Comparisons across experiments and participant groups revealed that the P300 effect is not only a function of stimulus constraints (i.e., sentence context) and experimental task, but that it is also crucially influenced by individual processing strategies used to achieve successful task performance.

Corpus–Based Lexicographical Descriptions with a Special Focus on Pragmatics: The Case of the Slovene Lexical Database

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Mojca Šorli

2013-05-01

Full Text Available The present paper focuses on ways in which the pragmatic (functional meaning that arises from various contextual features, known in corpus linguistics as semantic prosody, can become an integral part of lexicographical descriptions as they are represented in the Slovene Lexical Database (SLD. This is particularly important for the treatment of phraseology and idiomatics. First, the theoretical background is provided, with the focus on the prototype theory and its practical implications for monolingual lexicography. A parallel is drawn with the model of meaning analysis in the SLD. The second part begins with a brief introduction to semantic prosody and continues with an analysis of monolingual meaning descriptions in the SLD against a number of authentic corpus examples, investigating how their pragmatic components have been identified. The analysis of corpus data shows that pragmatics is an important contributor to the process of sense discrimination in works of lexical and lexicographic relevance.

Effects of semantic context on access to words of low imageability in deep-phonological dysphasia: a treatment case study.

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McCarthy, Laura Mary; Kalinyak-Fliszar, Michelene; Kohen, Francine; Martin, Nadine

2017-01-01

Deep dysphasia is a relatively rare subcategory of aphasia, characterised by word repetition impairment and a profound auditory-verbal short-term memory (STM) limitation. Repetition of words is better than nonwords (lexicality effect) and better for high-image than low-image words (imageability effect). Another related language impairment profile is phonological dysphasia, which includes all of the characteristics of deep dysphasia except for the occurrence of semantic errors in single word repetition. The overlap in symptoms of deep and phonological dysphasia has led to the hypothesis that they share the same root cause, impaired maintenance of activated representation of words, but that they differ in severity of that impairment, with deep dysphasia being more severe. We report a single-subject multiple baseline, multiple probe treatment study of a person who presented with a pattern of repetition that was consistent with the continuum of deep-phonological dysphasia: imageability and lexicality effects in repetition of single and multiple words and semantic errors in repetition of multiple-word utterances. The aim of this treatment study was to improve access to and repetition of low-imageability words by embedding them in modifier-noun phrases that enhanced their imageability. The treatment involved repetition of abstract noun pairs. We created modifier-abstract noun phrases that increased the semantic and syntactic cohesiveness of the words in the pair. For example, the phrases "long distance" and "social exclusion" were developed to improve repetition of the abstract pair "distance-exclusion". The goal of this manipulation was to increase the probability of accessing lexical and semantic representations of abstract words in repetition by enriching their semantic -syntactic context. We predicted that this increase in accessibility would be maintained when the words were repeated as pairs, but without the contextual phrase. Treatment outcomes indicated that

Semantic Ambiguity Effects in L2 Word Recognition.

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Ishida, Tomomi

2018-06-01

The present study examined the ambiguity effects in second language (L2) word recognition. Previous studies on first language (L1) lexical processing have observed that ambiguous words are recognized faster and more accurately than unambiguous words on lexical decision tasks. In this research, L1 and L2 speakers of English were asked whether a letter string on a computer screen was an English word or not. An ambiguity advantage was found for both groups and greater ambiguity effects were found for the non-native speaker group when compared to the native speaker group. The findings imply that the larger ambiguity advantage for L2 processing is due to their slower response time in producing adequate feedback activation from the semantic level to the orthographic level.

The Potential of Subjective Semantic Methods in Exploring the Perception of Architecture

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Vyrva A.U.,

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This research focuses on empirical explorations of psychological features and mechanisms of the percep¬tion of urban architecture and on the specifics of the perception of buildings of various architectural styles. The techniques employed included those of personality and architectural semantic differential and the Value Spectrum technique. Four factors were found to have a significant impact on an individual’s percep¬tion and understanding of architectural space: ‘passive-active’, ‘whole-split’, ‘open-closed’, and ‘expressive’. People tend to attribute more semantic features and values to listed buildings or buildings that bear witness of a certain historical period than to those buildings that look alike and represent a typical example of mass housing. No significant sex differences were found in the individuals’ evaluations of buildings. Consistent quantitative differences were revealed between the images of listed buildings and of mass housing. The paper describes the relevance of various research methods in explorations of architectural images.

The Effect of Concurrent Semantic Categorization on Delayed Serial Recall

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Acheson, Daniel J.; MacDonald, Maryellen C.; Postle, Bradley R.

2010-01-01

The influence of semantic processing on the serial ordering of items in short-term memory was explored using a novel dual-task paradigm. Subjects engaged in two picture judgment tasks while simultaneously performing delayed serial recall. List material varied in the presence of phonological overlap (Experiments 1 and 2) and in semantic content (concrete words in Experiment 1 and 3; nonwords in Experiments 2 and 3). Picture judgments varied in the extent to which they required accessing visual semantic information (i.e., semantic categorization and line orientation judgments). Results showed that, relative to line orientation judgments, engaging in semantic categorization judgments increased the proportion of item ordering errors for concrete lists but did not affect error proportions for nonword lists. Furthermore, although more ordering errors were observed for phonologically similar relative to dissimilar lists, no interactions were observed between the phonological overlap and picture judgment task manipulations. These results thus demonstrate that lexical-semantic representations can affect the serial ordering of items in short-term memory. Furthermore, the dual-task paradigm provides a new method for examining when and how semantic representations affect memory performance. PMID:21058880

Locus of Semantic Interference in Picture Naming: Evidence from Dual-Task Performance

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Piai, Vitória; Roelofs, Ardi; Schriefers, Herbert

2014-01-01

Disagreement exists regarding the functional locus of semantic interference of distractor words in picture naming. This effect is a cornerstone of modern psycholinguistic models of word production, which assume that it arises in lexical response-selection. However, recent evidence from studies of dual-task performance suggests a locus in…

SEMANTIC DERIVATION OF BORROWINGS

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Shigapova, F.F.

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The author carried out the contrastive analysis of the word спикер borrowed into Russian from English and the English word speaker. The findings of the analysis include confirm (1 different derivational abilities and functions of the borrowed word and the native word; (2 distinctive features in the definitions, i.e. semantic structures, registered in monolingual non-abridged dictionaries; (3 heterogeneous parameters of frequencies recorded in the National Corpus of the Russian language and the British National Corpus; (4 absence of bilingual equivalent collocations with words спикер and speaker. The collocations with words studied revealed new lexical and connotative senses in the meaning of the word. Relevance of the study conducted is justified by the new facts revealed about the semantic adaptation of the borrowed word in the system of the Russian language and its paradigmatic and syntagmatic connections in the system of the recipient language.

Sonority's Effect as a Surface Cue on Lexical Speech Perception of Children With Cochlear Implants.

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Hamza, Yasmeen; Okalidou, Areti; Kyriafinis, George; van Wieringen, Astrid

2018-03-06

Sonority is the relative perceptual prominence/loudness of speech sounds of the same length, stress, and pitch. Children with cochlear implants (CIs), with restored audibility and relatively intact temporal processing, are expected to benefit from the perceptual prominence cues of highly sonorous sounds. Sonority also influences lexical access through the sonority-sequencing principle (SSP), a grammatical phonotactic rule, which facilitates the recognition and segmentation of syllables within speech. The more nonsonorous the onset of a syllable is, the larger is the degree of sonority rise to the nucleus, and the more optimal the SSP. Children with CIs may experience hindered or delayed development of the language-learning rule SSP, as a result of their deprived/degraded auditory experience. The purpose of the study was to explore sonority's role in speech perception and lexical access of prelingually deafened children with CIs. A case-control study with 15 children with CIs, 25 normal-hearing children (NHC), and 50 normal-hearing adults was conducted, using a lexical identification task of novel, nonreal CV-CV words taught via fast mapping. The CV-CV words were constructed according to four sonority conditions, entailing syllables with sonorous onsets/less optimal SSP (SS) and nonsonorous onsets/optimal SSP (NS) in all combinations, that is, SS-SS, SS-NS, NS-SS, and NS-NS. Outcome measures were accuracy and reaction times (RTs). A subgroup analysis of 12 children with CIs pair matched to 12 NHC on hearing age aimed to study the effect of oral-language exposure period on the sonority-related performance. The children groups showed similar accuracy performance, overall and across all the sonority conditions. However, within-group comparisons showed that the children with CIs scored more accurately on the SS-SS condition relative to the NS-NS and NS-SS conditions, while the NHC performed equally well across all conditions. Additionally, adult-comparable accuracy

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

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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

[An effect of semantic satiation in conceptual processing].

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Takashi, Shimokido

2007-12-01

This study examined whether semantic satiation effects for a picture exemplar differ from a word exemplar. If massive repetition of the category name leads to an inhibition of conceptual processing, then semantic satiation effects would be found in both the word and picture exemplar conditions. However, if the repetition leads to an inhibition of lexical processing, then effects would be found for the word exemplar but not the picture exemplar. To examine these hypotheses, 48 college students were asked to judge whether a target pair of exemplars belonged to the same named category. The results showed that semantic satiation effects were found equally in both exemplar conditions. Moreover, the picture-superiority effect was intact regardless of the prime repetitions. The possibility was discussed that word and picture exemplars are integrated into an abstract and amodal conceptual unit; hence category judgment was affected by the satiation effect.

Semantic category interference in overt picture naming: Sharpening current density localization by PCA

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Maess, B.; Friederici, A.D.; Damian, M.F.; Meyer, A.S.; Levelt, W.J.M.

2002-01-01

The study investigated the neuronal basis of the retrieval of words from the mental lexicon. The semantic category interference effect was used to locate lexical retrieval processes in time and space. This effect reflects the finding that, for overt naming, volunteers are slower when naming pictures

Visual Word Recognition in Deaf Readers: Lexicality Is Modulated by Communication Mode

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Barca, Laura; Pezzulo, Giovanni; Castrataro, Marianna; Rinaldi, Pasquale; Caselli, Maria Cristina

2013-01-01

Evidence indicates that adequate phonological abilities are necessary to develop proficient reading skills and that later in life phonology also has a role in the covert visual word recognition of expert readers. Impairments of acoustic perception, such as deafness, can lead to atypical phonological representations of written words and letters, which in turn can affect reading proficiency. Here, we report an experiment in which young adults with different levels of acoustic perception (i.e., hearing and deaf individuals) and different modes of communication (i.e., hearing individuals using spoken language, deaf individuals with a preference for sign language, and deaf individuals using the oral modality with less or no competence in sign language) performed a visual lexical decision task, which consisted of categorizing real words and consonant strings. The lexicality effect was restricted to deaf signers who responded faster to real words than consonant strings, showing over-reliance on whole word lexical processing of stimuli. No effect of stimulus type was found in deaf individuals using the oral modality or in hearing individuals. Thus, mode of communication modulates the lexicality effect. This suggests that learning a sign language during development shapes visuo-motor representations of words, which are tuned to the actions used to express them (phono-articulatory movements vs. hand movements) and to associated perceptions. As these visuo-motor representations are elicited during on-line linguistic processing and can overlap with the perceptual-motor processes required to execute the task, they can potentially produce interference or facilitation effects. PMID:23554976

Visual word recognition in deaf readers: lexicality is modulated by communication mode.

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Laura Barca

Full Text Available Evidence indicates that adequate phonological abilities are necessary to develop proficient reading skills and that later in life phonology also has a role in the covert visual word recognition of expert readers. Impairments of acoustic perception, such as deafness, can lead to atypical phonological representations of written words and letters, which in turn can affect reading proficiency. Here, we report an experiment in which young adults with different levels of acoustic perception (i.e., hearing and deaf individuals and different modes of communication (i.e., hearing individuals using spoken language, deaf individuals with a preference for sign language, and deaf individuals using the oral modality with less or no competence in sign language performed a visual lexical decision task, which consisted of categorizing real words and consonant strings. The lexicality effect was restricted to deaf signers who responded faster to real words than consonant strings, showing over-reliance on whole word lexical processing of stimuli. No effect of stimulus type was found in deaf individuals using the oral modality or in hearing individuals. Thus, mode of communication modulates the lexicality effect. This suggests that learning a sign language during development shapes visuo-motor representations of words, which are tuned to the actions used to express them (phono-articulatory movements vs. hand movements and to associated perceptions. As these visuo-motor representations are elicited during on-line linguistic processing and can overlap with the perceptual-motor processes required to execute the task, they can potentially produce interference or facilitation effects.

Visual word recognition in deaf readers: lexicality is modulated by communication mode.

Science.gov (United States)

Barca, Laura; Pezzulo, Giovanni; Castrataro, Marianna; Rinaldi, Pasquale; Caselli, Maria Cristina

2013-01-01

Evidence indicates that adequate phonological abilities are necessary to develop proficient reading skills and that later in life phonology also has a role in the covert visual word recognition of expert readers. Impairments of acoustic perception, such as deafness, can lead to atypical phonological representations of written words and letters, which in turn can affect reading proficiency. Here, we report an experiment in which young adults with different levels of acoustic perception (i.e., hearing and deaf individuals) and different modes of communication (i.e., hearing individuals using spoken language, deaf individuals with a preference for sign language, and deaf individuals using the oral modality with less or no competence in sign language) performed a visual lexical decision task, which consisted of categorizing real words and consonant strings. The lexicality effect was restricted to deaf signers who responded faster to real words than consonant strings, showing over-reliance on whole word lexical processing of stimuli. No effect of stimulus type was found in deaf individuals using the oral modality or in hearing individuals. Thus, mode of communication modulates the lexicality effect. This suggests that learning a sign language during development shapes visuo-motor representations of words, which are tuned to the actions used to express them (phono-articulatory movements vs. hand movements) and to associated perceptions. As these visuo-motor representations are elicited during on-line linguistic processing and can overlap with the perceptual-motor processes required to execute the task, they can potentially produce interference or facilitation effects.

The Onset and Time Course of Semantic Priming during Rapid Recognition of Visual Words

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Hoedemaker, Renske S.; Gordon, Peter C.

2016-01-01

In two experiments, we assessed the effects of response latency and task-induced goals on the onset and time course of semantic priming during rapid processing of visual words as revealed by ocular response tasks. In Experiment 1 (Ocular Lexical Decision Task), participants performed a lexical decision task using eye-movement responses on a sequence of four words. In Experiment 2, the same words were encoded for an episodic recognition memory task that did not require a meta-linguistic judgment. For both tasks, survival analyses showed that the earliest-observable effect (Divergence Point or DP) of semantic priming on target-word reading times occurred at approximately 260 ms, and ex-Gaussian distribution fits revealed that the magnitude of the priming effect increased as a function of response time. Together, these distributional effects of semantic priming suggest that the influence of the prime increases when target processing is more effortful. This effect does not require that the task include a metalinguistic judgment; manipulation of the task goals across experiments affected the overall response speed but not the location of the DP or the overall distributional pattern of the priming effect. These results are more readily explained as the result of a retrospective rather than a prospective priming mechanism and are consistent with compound-cue models of semantic priming. PMID:28230394

The Semantics of Heart: Translation Problems

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Hortensia Pârlog

2005-06-01

Full Text Available Words hardly ever occur on their own, because they can hardly mean anything on their own, when asked about the meaning of an isolated word, in order to figure it out, what one does is try to place it in a context or use it in a collocation. The verbal contexts in which words appear influence or at least clarify their semantic value, it is because of contextual factors that a word may have more than one meaning. Therefore, the analysis above word level is extremely important. An analysis of translational decisions may also prove to be a valuable source of information in establishing the semantics of a lexical item. The above statements are illustrated by discussing the semantics of heart. The word occurs in a great number of structures in both English and Romanian, of which eight will be analysed: heart + verb, verb + heart, heart + of phrase, adjective + heart, heart + head noun, head noun +of heart, adjective + preposition + heart, heart in sayings or fixed expressions.

ERP characterization of sustained attention effects in visual lexical categorization.

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Clara D Martin

Full Text Available As our understanding of the basic processes underlying reading is growing, the key role played by attention in this process becomes evident. Two research topics are of particular interest in this domain: (1 it is still undetermined whether sustained attention affects lexical decision tasks; (2 the influence of attention on early visual processing (i.e., before orthographic or lexico-semantic processing stages remains largely under-specified. Here we investigated early perceptual modulations by sustained attention using an ERP paradigm adapted from Thierry et al. [1]. Participants had to decide whether visual stimuli presented in pairs pertained to a pre-specified category (lexical categorization focus on word or pseudoword pairs. Depending on the lexical category of the first item of a pair, participants either needed to fully process the second item (hold condition or could release their attention and make a decision without full processing of the second item (release condition. The P1 peak was unaffected by sustained attention. The N1 was delayed and reduced after the second item of a pair when participants released their attention. Release of sustained attention also reduced a P3 wave elicited by the first item of a pair and abolished the P3 wave elicited by the second. Our results are consistent with differential effects of sustained attention on early processing stages and working memory. Sustained attention modulated early processing stages during a lexical decision task without inhibiting the process of stimulus integration. On the contrary, working memory involvement/updating was highly dependent upon the allocation of sustained attention. Moreover, the influence of sustained attention on both early and late cognitive processes was independent of lexical categorization focus.

The facilitation effect of associative and semantic relatedness in word recognition

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Jakić Milena

2011-01-01

Full Text Available In this study we addressed three issues concerning semantic and associative relatedness between two words and how they prime each other. The first issue is whether there is a priming effect of semantic relatedness over and above the effect of associative relatedness. The second issue is how difference in semantic overlap between two words affects priming. In order to specify the semantic overlap we introduce five relation types that differ in number of common semantic components. Three relation types (synonyms, antonyms and hyponyms represent semantic relatedness while two relation types represent associative relatedness, with negligible or no semantic relatedness. Finally, the third issue addressed in this study is whether there is a symmetric priming effect if we swap the position of prime and target, i.e. whether the direction of relatedness between two words affects priming. In two lexical decision experiments we presented five types of word pairs. In both experiments we obtained stronger facilitation for pairs that were both semantically and associatively related. Closer inspection showed that larger semantic overlap between words is paralleled by greater facilitation effect. The effects did not change when prime and target swap their position, indicating that the observed facilitation effects are symmetrical. This outcome complies with predictions of distributed models of memory.

Lexical gaps and morphological decomposition: Evidence from German.

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Schuster, Swetlana; Lahiri, Aditi

2018-04-26

On the evidence of four lexical-decision tasks in German, we examine speakers' sensitivity to internal morphological composition and abstract morphological rules during the processing of derived words, real and novel. In a lexical-decision task with delayed priming, speakers were presented with two-step derived nouns such as Heilung "healing" derived from the adjective heil "intact" via the verb heilen "to heal." These were compared with two sets of derived novel words, one with and the other without an intermediate verb; for example, *Spitzung "sharpening" from spitz "sharp" via spitzen "sharpen" (Experiment 1) and *Hübschung "beautifying" from hübsch "pretty" via *hübschen "beautify" (Experiment 2). The question was whether there would be a difference between the two types of novel words. Both sets were morphologically viable in terms of combinatory possibilities. Results indicated that extant and novel complex words activated their respective base forms; that is, Heilung, *Spitzung, *Hübschung all primed heil, spitz, hübsch. Both sets of novel words were then combined in a third (delayed priming) experiment, where again they primed their bases, but were nevertheless significantly different from each other. Items with real words in the intermediate position (*Spitzung) showed stronger priming effects. Controls that were only related in form or semantics did not prime; neither did structurally unviable pseudowords show priming. A final experiment (Experiment 4), comparing the two types of novel words (*Spitzung vs. *Hübschung) in a simple lexical-decision task, also revealed significant differences across these sets, suggesting that the lexical status of the intermediate derivation affects the processing of novel forms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Listening to Puns Elicits the Co-Activation of Alternative Homophone Meanings during Language Production.

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Sebastian Benjamin Rose

Full Text Available Recent evidence suggests that lexical-semantic activation spread during language production can be dynamically shaped by contextual factors. In this study we investigated whether semantic processing modes can also affect lexical-semantic activation during word production. Specifically, we tested whether the processing of linguistic ambiguities, presented in the form of puns, has an influence on the co-activation of unrelated meanings of homophones in a subsequent language production task. In a picture-word interference paradigm with word distractors that were semantically related or unrelated to the non-depicted meanings of homophones we found facilitation induced by related words only when participants listened to puns before object naming, but not when they heard jokes with unambiguous linguistic stimuli. This finding suggests that a semantic processing mode of ambiguity perception can induce the co-activation of alternative homophone meanings during speech planning.

Lexical Access in Persian Normal Speakers: Picture Naming, Verbal Fluency and Spontaneous Speech

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Zahra Sadat Ghoreishi

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Objectives: Lexical access is the process by which the basic conceptual, syntactical and morpho-phonological information of words are activated. Most studies of lexical access have focused on picture naming. There is hardly any previous research on other parameters of lexical access such as verbal fluency and analysis of connected speech in Persian normal participants. This study investigates the lexical access performance in normal speakers in different issues such as age, sex and education. Methods: The performance of 120 adult Persian speakers in three tasks including picture naming, verbal fluency and connected speech, was examined using "Persian Lexical Access Assessment Package”. The performance of participants between two gender groups (male/female, three education groups (below 5 years, above 12 years, between 5 and 12 years and three age groups (18-35 years, 36-55 years, 56-75 years were compared. Results: According to findings, picture naming increased with increasing education and decreased with increasing age. The performance of participants in phonological and semantic verbal fluency showed improvement with age and education. No significant difference was seen between males and females in verbal fluency task. In the analysis of connected speech there were no significant differences between different age and education groups and just mean length of utterance in males was significantly higher than females. Discussion: The findings could be a primitive scale for comparison between normal subjects and patients in lexical access tasks, furthermore it could be a horizon for planning of treatment goals in patients with word finding problem according to age, gender and education.

Is conversion a syntactic or a lexical process of word formation?

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Alexandra Soares Rodrigues

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Conversion is sometimes described as a syntactic phenomenon by which a lexical item changes its lexical category according to the syntactic environment where it is inserted. This syntactic-ordered approach comes from theoretical fields that conceive the lexicon as the domain of irregularity, whilst regular patterns are treated in syntax (Chomsky 1995. However, Portuguese converted deverbal nouns (remendo ‘event of mending’, curte ‘event of having fun’, trinca ‘event of biting’ manifest a structural behaviour that permits us to situate their formation in the lexicon instead of in the syntax. According to the theoretical allusion we made above, this would characterise converted deverbal nouns as lacking a regular pattern. However, what we mean is that the lexicon is not the field of irregularity. Apart from the irregular material that must be stored in long term memory as to be used by speakers, such as inherited lexemes (e.g. rato ‘mouse’, cão ‘dog’, rir ‘to laugh’, verde ‘green’, etc., the lexicon is the domain of word formation, which is constraint-based (Rodrigues 2008, 2009. This means the word formation part of the lexicon is constrained by regular patterns that are neither directional in principle, nor syntactic in nature. We follow Jackendoff (2002 conception on the lexicon, conceiving it an interface of syntax, phonology and semantics. Converted deverbal nouns formation seems to agree with this conception, since it depends on phonological, semantic and syntactical constraints (Rodrigues 2004, 2009. Portuguese verb-into-noun conversion is not a simple case of syntactic environment. This is specially visible when we confront this lexical conversion with a purely syntactic type of nominalisation (Kerleroux 1996, such as the one that occurs in O estudar matemática traz-me vantagens. ‘Studying maths brings me advantages’ or O remendar roupa é um recurso nesta época. ‘Mending cloths is a good resource

A Semantic Lexicon-Based Approach for Sense Disambiguation and Its WWW Application

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di Lecce, Vincenzo; Calabrese, Marco; Soldo, Domenico

This work proposes a basic framework for resolving sense disambiguation through the use of Semantic Lexicon, a machine readable dictionary managing both word senses and lexico-semantic relations. More specifically, polysemous ambiguity characterizing Web documents is discussed. The adopted Semantic Lexicon is WordNet, a lexical knowledge-base of English words widely adopted in many research studies referring to knowledge discovery. The proposed approach extends recent works on knowledge discovery by focusing on the sense disambiguation aspect. By exploiting the structure of WordNet database, lexico-semantic features are used to resolve the inherent sense ambiguity of written text with particular reference to HTML resources. The obtained results may be extended to generic hypertextual repositories as well. Experiments show that polysemy reduction can be used to hint about the meaning of specific senses in given contexts.

Pitch perception and production in congenital amusia: Evidence from Cantonese speakers.

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Liu, Fang; Chan, Alice H D; Ciocca, Valter; Roquet, Catherine; Peretz, Isabelle; Wong, Patrick C M

2016-07-01

This study investigated pitch perception and production in speech and music in individuals with congenital amusia (a disorder of musical pitch processing) who are native speakers of Cantonese, a tone language with a highly complex tonal system. Sixteen Cantonese-speaking congenital amusics and 16 controls performed a set of lexical tone perception, production, singing, and psychophysical pitch threshold tasks. Their tone production accuracy and singing proficiency were subsequently judged by independent listeners, and subjected to acoustic analyses. Relative to controls, amusics showed impaired discrimination of lexical tones in both speech and non-speech conditions. They also received lower ratings for singing proficiency, producing larger pitch interval deviations and making more pitch interval errors compared to controls. Demonstrating higher pitch direction identification thresholds than controls for both speech syllables and piano tones, amusics nevertheless produced native lexical tones with comparable pitch trajectories and intelligibility as controls. Significant correlations were found between pitch threshold and lexical tone perception, music perception and production, but not between lexical tone perception and production for amusics. These findings provide further evidence that congenital amusia is a domain-general language-independent pitch-processing deficit that is associated with severely impaired music perception and production, mildly impaired speech perception, and largely intact speech production.

Crosslinguistic Perception of Pitch in Language and Music

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Bradley, Evan David

2012-01-01

This dissertation investigates the ways in which experience with lexical tone influences the perception of musical melody, and how musical training influences the perception of lexical tone. The central theoretical basis for the study is a model of perceptual learning, Reverse Hierarchy Theory (Ahissar et al., 2009), in which cognitive processes…

Fine motor skills enhance lexical processing of embodied vocabulary: A test of the nimble-hands, nimble-minds hypothesis.

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Suggate, Sebastian; Stoeger, Heidrun

2017-10-01

Research suggests that fine motor skills (FMS) are linked to aspects of cognitive development in children. Additionally, lexical processing advantages exist for words implying a high body-object interaction (BOI), with initial findings indicating that such words in turn link to children's FMS-for which we propose and evaluate four competing hypotheses. First, a maturational account argues that any links between FMS and lexical processing should not exist once developmental variables are controlled for. Second, functionalism posits that any link between FMS and lexical processing arises due to environmental interactions. Third, the semantic richness hypothesis argues that sensorimotor input improves lexical processing, but predicts no links between FMS and lexical processing. A fourth account, the nimble-hands, nimble minds (NHNM) hypothesis, proposes that having greater FMS improves lexical processing for high-BOI words. In two experiments, the response latencies of preschool children (n = 90, n = 76, ages = 5;1) to 45 lexical items encompassing high-BOI, low-BOI, and less imageable words were measured, alongside measures of FMS, reasoning, and general receptive/expressive vocabulary. High-BOI words appeared to show unique links to FMS, which remained after accounting for low-BOI and less imageable words, general vocabulary, reasoning, and chronological age. Although further work is needed, the findings provide initial support for the NHNM hypothesis.

Using a High-Dimensional Graph of Semantic Space to Model Relationships among Words

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Alice F Jackson

2014-05-01

Full Text Available The GOLD model (Graph Of Language Distribution is a network model constructed based on co-occurrence in a large corpus of natural language that may be used to explore what information may be present in a graph-structured model of language, and what information may be extracted through theoretically-driven algorithms as well as standard graph analysis methods. The present study will employ GOLD to examine two types of relationship between words: semantic similarity and associative relatedness. Semantic similarity refers to the degree of overlap in meaning between words, while associative relatedness refers to the degree to which two words occur in the same schematic context. It is expected that a graph structured model of language constructed based on co-occurrence should easily capture associative relatedness, because this type of relationship is thought to be present directly in lexical co-occurrence. However, it is hypothesized that semantic similarity may be extracted from the intersection of the set of first-order connections, because two words that are semantically similar may occupy similar thematic or syntactic roles across contexts and thus would co-occur lexically with the same set of nodes. Two versions the GOLD model that differed in terms of the co-occurence window, bigGOLD at the paragraph level and smallGOLD at the adjacent word level, were directly compared to the performance of a well-established distributional model, Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA. The superior performance of the GOLD models (big and small suggest that a single acquisition and storage mechanism, namely co-occurrence, can account for associative and conceptual relationships between words and is more psychologically plausible than models using singular value decomposition.

On certain aspects of the semantic development of younger primary school-age children

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Stevanović Jelena

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The ability to understand the meaning of words and sentences is an important determinant of the language development, which also indicates the development of the ability to learn. Bearing this in mind, the research was aimed at studying the level of semantic development of younger primary school-age children. Semantic development was studied from the aspect of understanding the meaning of words and their use in the following lexical relations: homonyms, antonyms, synonyms and metonyms. The research was conducted in three Belgrade primary schools during the school year 2013/2014. The sample was convenient and included 431 second- and third-grade pupils. The Semantic test (by S. Vladisavljevic was used in the study. Research results showed that none of the pupils had provided the correct answer to all administered tasks. The best scores were achieved on the part of the test referring to antonyms, while the pupils were least successful on the tasks referring to metonyms. Additionally, third-grade pupils were more successful than younger participants, while there were no differences according to gender. The results indicated that it was necessary to devote more attention to different lexical and semantic exercises at preschool and early school age, considering the link between semantic development, the acquisition of reading and writing skills and the (unsuccessful mastering of the school curriculum in the majority of subjects. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 179034: Od podsticanja inicijative, saradnje, stvaralaštva u obrazovanju do novih uloga i identiteta u društvu i br. 47008: Unapređivanje kvaliteta i dostupnosti obrazovanja u procesima modernizacije Srbije

Using a high-dimensional graph of semantic space to model relationships among words.

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Jackson, Alice F; Bolger, Donald J

2014-01-01

The GOLD model (Graph Of Language Distribution) is a network model constructed based on co-occurrence in a large corpus of natural language that may be used to explore what information may be present in a graph-structured model of language, and what information may be extracted through theoretically-driven algorithms as well as standard graph analysis methods. The present study will employ GOLD to examine two types of relationship between words: semantic similarity and associative relatedness. Semantic similarity refers to the degree of overlap in meaning between words, while associative relatedness refers to the degree to which two words occur in the same schematic context. It is expected that a graph structured model of language constructed based on co-occurrence should easily capture associative relatedness, because this type of relationship is thought to be present directly in lexical co-occurrence. However, it is hypothesized that semantic similarity may be extracted from the intersection of the set of first-order connections, because two words that are semantically similar may occupy similar thematic or syntactic roles across contexts and thus would co-occur lexically with the same set of nodes. Two versions the GOLD model that differed in terms of the co-occurence window, bigGOLD at the paragraph level and smallGOLD at the adjacent word level, were directly compared to the performance of a well-established distributional model, Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). The superior performance of the GOLD models (big and small) suggest that a single acquisition and storage mechanism, namely co-occurrence, can account for associative and conceptual relationships between words and is more psychologically plausible than models using singular value decomposition (SVD).

Neural substrates for semantic memory of familiar songs: is there an interface between lyrics and melodies?

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Saito, Yoko; Ishii, Kenji; Sakuma, Naoko; Kawasaki, Keiichi; Oda, Keiichi; Mizusawa, Hidehiro

2012-01-01

Findings on song perception and song production have increasingly suggested that common but partially distinct neural networks exist for processing lyrics and melody. However, the neural substrates of song recognition remain to be investigated. The purpose of this study was to examine the neural substrates involved in the accessing "song lexicon" as corresponding to a representational system that might provide links between the musical and phonological lexicons using positron emission tomography (PET). We exposed participants to auditory stimuli consisting of familiar and unfamiliar songs presented in three ways: sung lyrics (song), sung lyrics on a single pitch (lyrics), and the sung syllable 'la' on original pitches (melody). The auditory stimuli were designed to have equivalent familiarity to participants, and they were recorded at exactly the same tempo. Eleven right-handed nonmusicians participated in four conditions: three familiarity decision tasks using song, lyrics, and melody and a sound type decision task (control) that was designed to engage perceptual and prelexical processing but not lexical processing. The contrasts (familiarity decision tasks versus control) showed no common areas of activation between lyrics and melody. This result indicates that essentially separate neural networks exist in semantic memory for the verbal and melodic processing of familiar songs. Verbal lexical processing recruited the left fusiform gyrus and the left inferior occipital gyrus, whereas melodic lexical processing engaged the right middle temporal sulcus and the bilateral temporo-occipital cortices. Moreover, we found that song specifically activated the left posterior inferior temporal cortex, which may serve as an interface between verbal and musical representations in order to facilitate song recognition.

Semantic Drift in Espresso-style Bootstrapping: Graph-theoretic Analysis and Evaluation in Word Sense Disambiguation

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Komachi, Mamoru; Kudo, Taku; Shimbo, Masashi; Matsumoto, Yuji

Bootstrapping has a tendency, called semantic drift, to select instances unrelated to the seed instances as the iteration proceeds. We demonstrate the semantic drift of Espresso-style bootstrapping has the same root as the topic drift of Kleinberg's HITS, using a simplified graph-based reformulation of bootstrapping. We confirm that two graph-based algorithms, the von Neumann kernels and the regularized Laplacian, can reduce the effect of semantic drift in the task of word sense disambiguation (WSD) on Senseval-3 English Lexical Sample Task. Proposed algorithms achieve superior performance to Espresso and previous graph-based WSD methods, even though the proposed algorithms have less parameters and are easy to calibrate.

Homophonic and semantic priming of Japanese Kanji words: a time course study.

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Chen, Hsi-Chin; Yamauchi, Takashi; Tamaoka, Katsuo; Vaid, Jyotsna

2007-02-01

In an examination of the time course of activation of phonological and semantic information in processing kanji script, two lexical decision experiments were conducted with native readers of Japanese. Kanji targets were preceded at short (85-msec) and long (150-msec) intervals by homophonic, semantically related, or unrelated primes presented in kanji (Experiment 1) or by hiragana transcriptions of the kanji primes (Experiment 2). When primes were in kanji, semantic relatedness facilitated kanji target recognition at both intervals but homophonic relatedness did not. When primes were in hiragana, kanji target recognition was facilitated by homophonic relatedness at both intervals and by semantic relatedness only at the longer interval. The absence of homophonic priming of kanji targets by kanji primes challenges the universal phonology principle's claim that phonology is central to accessing meaning from print. The stimuli used in the present study may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.

A Tandem Semantic Interpreter for Incremental Parse Selection

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1990-09-28

syntactic role to semantic role. An exam - ple from Fillmore [10] is the sentence I copied that letter, which can be uttered when point- ing either to...person. We want the word fiddle to have the sort predicate violin as its lexical interpretation, how- ever, notthing. Thus, for Ross went for his fiddle...to receive an interpretation, a sort hierarchy is needed to establish that all violins are things. A well-structured sort hierarchy allows newly added

Spanish norms for age of acquisition, concept familiarity, lexical frequency, manipulability, typicality, and other variables for 820 words from 14 living/nonliving concepts.

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Moreno-Martínez, F Javier; Montoro, Pedro R; Rodríguez-Rojo, Inmaculada C

2014-12-01

This article presents a new corpus of 820 words pertaining to 14 semantic categories, 7 natural (animals, body parts, insects, flowers, fruits, trees, and vegetables) and 7 man-made (buildings, clothing, furniture, kitchen utensils, musical instruments, tools, and vehicles); each word in the database was collected empirically in a previous exemplar generation study. In the present study, 152 Spanish speakers provided data for four psycholinguistic variables known to affect lexical-semantic processing in both neurologically intact and brain-damaged participants: age of acquisition, familiarity, manipulability, and typicality. Furthermore, we collected lexical frequency data derived from Internet search hits, plus three additional Spanish lexical frequency indexes. Word length, number of syllables, and the proportion of respondents citing the exemplar as a category member-which can be useful as an additional measure of typicality-are also provided. Reliability and validity indexes showed that our items display characteristics similar to those of other corpora. Overall, this new corpus of words provides a useful tool for scientists engaged in cognitive- and neuroscience-based research focused on examining language, memory, and object processing. The full set of norms can be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.

Towards a neural basis of processing musical semantics

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Koelsch, Stefan

2011-06-01

Processing of meaning is critical for language perception, and therefore the majority of research on meaning processing has focused on the semantic, lexical, conceptual, and propositional processing of language. However, music is another a means of communication, and meaning also emerges from the interpretation of musical information. This article provides a framework for the investigation of the processing of musical meaning, and reviews neuroscience studies investigating this issue. These studies reveal two neural correlates of meaning processing, the N400 and the N5 (which are both components of the event-related electric brain potential). Here I argue that the N400 can be elicited by musical stimuli due to the processing of extra-musical meaning, whereas the N5 can be elicited due to the processing of intra-musical meaning. Notably, whereas the N400 can be elicited by both linguistic and musical stimuli, the N5 has so far only been observed for the processing of meaning in music. Thus, knowledge about both the N400 and the N5 can advance our understanding of how the human brain processes meaning information.

A Survey on Portuguese Lexical Knowledge Bases: Contents, Comparison and Combination

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Hugo Gonçalo Oliveira

2018-02-01

Full Text Available In the last decade, several lexical-semantic knowledge bases (LKBs were developed for Portuguese, by different teams and following different approaches. Most of them are open and freely available for the community. Those LKBs are briefly analysed here, with a focus on size, structure, and overlapping contents. However, we go further and exploit all of the analysed LKBs in the creation of new LKBs, based on the redundant contents. Both original and redundancy-based LKBs are then compared, indirectly, based on the performance of automatic procedures that exploit them for solving four different semantic analysis tasks. In addition to conclusions on the performance of the original LKBs, results show that, instead of selecting a single LKB to use, it is generally worth combining the contents of all the open Portuguese LKBs, towards better results.

Difusión léxica, cambio semántico y gramaticalización: el caso de haber + participio en español antiguo

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Javier Rodríguez Molina

2004-06-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with the early stages of grammaticalization of haber + participle in Old Spanish and examines the paths of development of anteriority's temporal value that characterizes haber + participle in Modem Spanish. It is claimed that this development was constrained by transitivity, aspectuality and lexical properties of the participle. Semantic change from resultative to anterior meaning was governed by transitive gradience and sprout throughout a lexical diffusion pattern which involved metaphorical transfer between semantic related domains. Contrary to current opinion, the data show that the semantic change to anteriority didn't begin in cognition and perception verbs like cognitum habeo, but in verbs of possession and acquisition, speech verbs and verbs of action used in high transitive clauses.

Building new meanings in technical English from the perspective of the lexical constellation model

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Camino Rea Rizzo

2010-10-01

Full Text Available The need to name and communicate to others new concepts in specific domains of human activity leads to the formation of new terms. However, many of the technical words in English are not new from the point of view of form. They rather derive from the common stock of general language: new lexical units are built from already existing forms and/or meanings. The original form is used for naming a new concept by adding a distinctive specialized lexical feature while keeping some semantic features of the original concept. In this paper, we aim at explaining and visualizing the nature of some of the processes that allow for the construction of new senses in technical words through a branching and expanding process, as explained in the lexical constellation model. The analysis is performed on three words widely used in telecommunication English: “bus”, “hub” and “chip”. The understanding of the process may be of great help for learners of ESP in general and technical English in particular.

Audio-Visual and Meaningful Semantic Context Enhancements in Older and Younger Adults.

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Kirsten E Smayda

Full Text Available Speech perception is critical to everyday life. Oftentimes noise can degrade a speech signal; however, because of the cues available to the listener, such as visual and semantic cues, noise rarely prevents conversations from continuing. The interaction of visual and semantic cues in aiding speech perception has been studied in young adults, but the extent to which these two cues interact for older adults has not been studied. To investigate the effect of visual and semantic cues on speech perception in older and younger adults, we recruited forty-five young adults (ages 18-35 and thirty-three older adults (ages 60-90 to participate in a speech perception task. Participants were presented with semantically meaningful and anomalous sentences in audio-only and audio-visual conditions. We hypothesized that young adults would outperform older adults across SNRs, modalities, and semantic contexts. In addition, we hypothesized that both young and older adults would receive a greater benefit from a semantically meaningful context in the audio-visual relative to audio-only modality. We predicted that young adults would receive greater visual benefit in semantically meaningful contexts relative to anomalous contexts. However, we predicted that older adults could receive a greater visual benefit in either semantically meaningful or anomalous contexts. Results suggested that in the most supportive context, that is, semantically meaningful sentences presented in the audiovisual modality, older adults performed similarly to young adults. In addition, both groups received the same amount of visual and meaningful benefit. Lastly, across groups, a semantically meaningful context provided more benefit in the audio-visual modality relative to the audio-only modality, and the presence of visual cues provided more benefit in semantically meaningful contexts relative to anomalous contexts. These results suggest that older adults can perceive speech as well as younger

On the Ways of Lexicalization of French épigone ‘follower, imitator’ (in Addition to the Article by E. Dupraz and S. Leroy

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Dmitry V. Spiridonov

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The article analyzes the history of the French word épigone ‘follower, imitator’ as well as some general questions of historical and etymological description of the French derivatives from “ancient proper names”. The author maintains that for this type of words it is often possible to suggest multiple ways of lexicalization, the semantic development of the deonym resulting inter alia from semantic loans, either direct or inverse, between living languages under intense contact.

Masked and unmasked priming effects as a function of semantic relatedness and associative strength.

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Sánchez-Casas, Rosa; Ferré, Pilar; Demestre, Josep; García-Chico, Teófilo; García-Albea, José E

2012-11-01

The study presented in this paper aimed to investigate the pattern of semantic priming effects, under masked and unmasked conditions, in the lexical decision task, manipulating type of semantic relation and associative strength. Three different kinds of word relations were examined in two experiments: only-semantically related words [e.g., codo (elbow)-rodilla (knee)] and semantic/associative related words with strong [e.g., mesa (table)-silla (chair) and weak association strength [e.g., sapo (toad)-rana (frog)]. In Experiment 1 a masked priming procedure was used with a prime duration of 56 ms, and in Experiment 2, the prime was presented unmasked for 150 ms. The results showed that there were masked priming effects with strong associates, but no evidence of these effects was found with weak associates or only-semantic related word pairs. When the prime was presented unmasked, the three types of relations produced significant priming effects and they were not influenced by association strength.

Neural differentiation of lexico-syntactic categories or semantic features? event-related potential evidence for both.

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Kellenbach, Marion L; Wijers, Albertus A; Hovius, Marjolijn; Mulder, Juul; Mulder, Gijsbertus

2002-05-15

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate whether processing differences between nouns and verbs can be accounted for by the differential salience of visual-perceptual and motor attributes in their semantic specifications. Three subclasses of nouns and verbs were selected, which differed in their semantic attribute composition (abstract, high visual, high visual and motor). Single visual word presentation with a recognition memory task was used. While multiple robust and parallel ERP effects were observed for both grammatical class and attribute type, there were no interactions between these. This pattern of effects provides support for lexical-semantic knowledge being organized in a manner that takes account both of category-based (grammatical class) and attribute-based distinctions.

Orthographic familiarity, phonological legality and number of orthographic neighbours affect the onset of ERP lexical effects

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Adorni Roberta

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background It has been suggested that the variability among studies in the onset of lexical effects may be due to a series of methodological differences. In this study we investigated the role of orthographic familiarity, phonological legality and number of orthographic neighbours of words in determining the onset of word/non-word discriminative responses. Methods ERPs were recorded from 128 sites in 16 Italian University students engaged in a lexical decision task. Stimuli were 100 words, 100 quasi-words (obtained by the replacement of a single letter, 100 pseudo-words (non-derived and 100 illegal letter strings. All stimuli were balanced for length; words and quasi-words were also balanced for frequency of use, domain of semantic category and imageability. SwLORETA source reconstruction was performed on ERP difference waves of interest. Results Overall, the data provided evidence that the latency of lexical effects (word/non-word discrimination varied as a function of the number of a word's orthographic neighbours, being shorter to non-derived than to derived pseudo-words. This suggests some caveats about the use in lexical decision paradigms of quasi-words obtained by transposing or replacing only 1 or 2 letters. Our findings also showed that the left-occipito/temporal area, reflecting the activity of the left fusiform gyrus (BA37 of the temporal lobe, was affected by the visual familiarity of words, thus explaining its lexical sensitivity (word vs. non-word discrimination. The temporo-parietal area was markedly sensitive to phonological legality exhibiting a clear-cut discriminative response between illegal and legal strings as early as 250 ms of latency. Conclusion The onset of lexical effects in a lexical decision paradigm depends on a series of factors, including orthographic familiarity, degree of global lexical activity, and phonologic legality of non-words.

Lexical Complexity Development from Dynamic Systems Theory Perspective: Lexical Density, Diversity, and Sophistication

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Reza Kalantari

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This longitudinal case study explored Iranian EFL learners’ lexical complexity (LC through the lenses of Dynamic Systems Theory (DST. Fifty independent essays written by five intermediate to advanced female EFL learners in a TOEFL iBT preparation course over six months constituted the corpus of this study. Three Coh-Metrix indices (Graesser, McNamara, Louwerse, & Cai, 2004; McNamara & Graesser, 2012, three Lexical Complexity Analyzer indices (Lu, 2010, 2012; Lu & Ai, 2011, and four Vocabprofile indices (Cobb, 2000 were selected to measure different dimensions of LC. Results of repeated measures analysis of variance (RM ANOVA indicated an improvement with regard to only lexical sophistication. Positive and significant relationships were found between time and mean values in Academic Word List and Beyond-2000 as indicators of lexical sophistication. The remaining seven indices of LC, falling short of significance, tended to flatten over the course of this writing program. Correlation analyses among LC indices indicated that lexical density enjoyed positive correlations with lexical sophistication. However, lexical diversity revealed no significant correlations with both lexical density and lexical sophistication. This study suggests that DST perspective specifies a viable foundation for analyzing lexical complexity

The tool for the automatic analysis of lexical sophistication (TAALES): version 2.0.

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Kyle, Kristopher; Crossley, Scott; Berger, Cynthia

2017-07-11

This study introduces the second release of the Tool for the Automatic Analysis of Lexical Sophistication (TAALES 2.0), a freely available and easy-to-use text analysis tool. TAALES 2.0 is housed on a user's hard drive (allowing for secure data processing) and is available on most operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux). TAALES 2.0 adds 316 indices to the original tool. These indices are related to word frequency, word range, n-gram frequency, n-gram range, n-gram strength of association, contextual distinctiveness, word recognition norms, semantic network, and word neighbors. In this study, we validated TAALES 2.0 by investigating whether its indices could be used to model both holistic scores of lexical proficiency in free writes and word choice scores in narrative essays. The results indicated that the TAALES 2.0 indices could be used to explain 58% of the variance in lexical proficiency scores and 32% of the variance in word-choice scores. Newly added TAALES 2.0 indices, including those related to n-gram association strength, word neighborhood, and word recognition norms, featured heavily in these predictor models, suggesting that TAALES 2.0 represents a substantial upgrade.

‘Fundamentalism’ and ‘fundamentalist’ semantically considered: Their lexical origins, early polysemy, and pejoration

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Frederick Hale

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The words fundamentalist (as both a noun and an adjective and fundamentalism were coined in 1920 within the Northern Baptist Convention when that and other American Protestant denominations were experiencing theological turmoil due to the advance of theological modernism. It is argued in the present article that both terms initially had positive meanings when used by defenders of orthodoxy. However, within weeks of their birth both were criticised by less conservative Christians. Like many other theological terms they underwent semantic change – in this case pejoration and lexical extension. Moreover, by 1923 ‘fundamentalist’ had been extended into political journalism to refer to strict adherents of one ideology or another. The greatest change, however, and one that fixed these neologisms in the public mind in both North America and the United Kingdom, came with the widely published ‘Scopes monkey trial’ of 1925, when the association of ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘fundamentalism’ with anti-intellectualism and obscurantism reached its apogee. Die terme fundamentalis (as ’n selfstandige sowel as byvoeglike naamwoord en fundamentalisme het binne die Noordelike Baptiste-tradisie ontstaan toe hulle en ander Amerikaanse Protestantse denominasies onrus op teologiese gebied beleef het as gevolg van die opkoms van teologiese modernisme. Die betoog in hierdie artikel is dat albei hierdie terme aanvanklik positiewe betekenis gehad het toe dit deur die beskermers van die ortodoksie gebruik is. Albei terme is egter binne weke na hulle ontstaan deur minder konserwatiewe Christene gekritiseer. Soos vele ander teologiese terme, het hierdie woorde ook semantiese veranderinge ondergaan, in hierdie geval met ongunstige betekenis en leksikale uitbreiding. Boonop is die term fundamentalis teen 1923 ook in die politieke joernalistiek gebruik om na die rigiede navolging van een of ander ideologie te verwys. Die grootste verandering, en een wat hierdie

Lexical access in sign language: a computational model.

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Caselli, Naomi K; Cohen-Goldberg, Ariel M

2014-01-01

PSYCHOLINGUISTIC THEORIES HAVE PREDOMINANTLY BEEN BUILT UPON DATA FROM SPOKEN LANGUAGE, WHICH LEAVES OPEN THE QUESTION: How many of the conclusions truly reflect language-general principles as opposed to modality-specific ones? We take a step toward answering this question in the domain of lexical access in recognition by asking whether a single cognitive architecture might explain diverse behavioral patterns in signed and spoken language. Chen and Mirman (2012) presented a computational model of word processing that unified opposite effects of neighborhood density in speech production, perception, and written word recognition. Neighborhood density effects in sign language also vary depending on whether the neighbors share the same handshape or location. We present a spreading activation architecture that borrows the principles proposed by Chen and Mirman (2012), and show that if this architecture is elaborated to incorporate relatively minor facts about either (1) the time course of sign perception or (2) the frequency of sub-lexical units in sign languages, it produces data that match the experimental findings from sign languages. This work serves as a proof of concept that a single cognitive architecture could underlie both sign and word recognition.

Lexical access in sign language: A computational model

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Naomi Kenney Caselli

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Psycholinguistic theories have predominantly been built upon data from spoken language, which leaves open the question: How many of the conclusions truly reflect language-general principles as opposed to modality-specific ones? We take a step toward answering this question in the domain of lexical access in recognition by asking whether a single cognitive architecture might explain diverse behavioral patterns in signed and spoken language. Chen and Mirman (2012 presented a computational model of word processing that unified opposite effects of neighborhood density in speech production, perception, and written word recognition. Neighborhood density effects in sign language also vary depending on whether the neighbors share the same handshape or location. We present a spreading activation architecture that borrows the principles proposed by Chen and Mirman (2012, and show that if this architecture is elaborated to incorporate relatively minor facts about either 1 the time course of sign perception or 2 the frequency of sub-lexical units in sign languages, it produces data that match the experimental findings from sign languages. This work serves as a proof of concept that a single cognitive architecture could underlie both sign and word recognition.

A neural network model of semantic memory linking feature-based object representation and words.

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Cuppini, C; Magosso, E; Ursino, M

2009-06-01

Recent theories in cognitive neuroscience suggest that semantic memory is a distributed process, which involves many cortical areas and is based on a multimodal representation of objects. The aim of this work is to extend a previous model of object representation to realize a semantic memory, in which sensory-motor representations of objects are linked with words. The model assumes that each object is described as a collection of features, coded in different cortical areas via a topological organization. Features in different objects are segmented via gamma-band synchronization of neural oscillators. The feature areas are further connected with a lexical area, devoted to the representation of words. Synapses among the feature areas, and among the lexical area and the feature areas are trained via a time-dependent Hebbian rule, during a period in which individual objects are presented together with the corresponding words. Simulation results demonstrate that, during the retrieval phase, the network can deal with the simultaneous presence of objects (from sensory-motor inputs) and words (from acoustic inputs), can correctly associate objects with words and segment objects even in the presence of incomplete information. Moreover, the network can realize some semantic links among words representing objects with shared features. These results support the idea that semantic memory can be described as an integrated process, whose content is retrieved by the co-activation of different multimodal regions. In perspective, extended versions of this model may be used to test conceptual theories, and to provide a quantitative assessment of existing data (for instance concerning patients with neural deficits).

Neural substrates for semantic memory of familiar songs: is there an interface between lyrics and melodies?

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Yoko Saito

Full Text Available Findings on song perception and song production have increasingly suggested that common but partially distinct neural networks exist for processing lyrics and melody. However, the neural substrates of song recognition remain to be investigated. The purpose of this study was to examine the neural substrates involved in the accessing "song lexicon" as corresponding to a representational system that might provide links between the musical and phonological lexicons using positron emission tomography (PET. We exposed participants to auditory stimuli consisting of familiar and unfamiliar songs presented in three ways: sung lyrics (song, sung lyrics on a single pitch (lyrics, and the sung syllable 'la' on original pitches (melody. The auditory stimuli were designed to have equivalent familiarity to participants, and they were recorded at exactly the same tempo. Eleven right-handed nonmusicians participated in four conditions: three familiarity decision tasks using song, lyrics, and melody and a sound type decision task (control that was designed to engage perceptual and prelexical processing but not lexical processing. The contrasts (familiarity decision tasks versus control showed no common areas of activation between lyrics and melody. This result indicates that essentially separate neural networks exist in semantic memory for the verbal and melodic processing of familiar songs. Verbal lexical processing recruited the left fusiform gyrus and the left inferior occipital gyrus, whereas melodic lexical processing engaged the right middle temporal sulcus and the bilateral temporo-occipital cortices. Moreover, we found that song specifically activated the left posterior inferior temporal cortex, which may serve as an interface between verbal and musical representations in order to facilitate song recognition.

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

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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...

The Effects of Semantic Transparency and Base Frequency on the Recognition of English Complex Words

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Xu, Joe; Taft, Marcus

2015-01-01

A visual lexical decision task was used to examine the interaction between base frequency (i.e., the cumulative frequencies of morphologically related forms) and semantic transparency for a list of derived words. Linear mixed effects models revealed that high base frequency facilitates the recognition of the complex word (i.e., a "base…

Web service discovery among large service pools utilising semantic similarity and clustering

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Chen, Fuzan; Li, Minqiang; Wu, Harris; Xie, Lingli

2017-03-01

With the rapid development of electronic business, Web services have attracted much attention in recent years. Enterprises can combine individual Web services to provide new value-added services. An emerging challenge is the timely discovery of close matches to service requests among large service pools. In this study, we first define a new semantic similarity measure combining functional similarity and process similarity. We then present a service discovery mechanism that utilises the new semantic similarity measure for service matching. All the published Web services are pre-grouped into functional clusters prior to the matching process. For a user's service request, the discovery mechanism first identifies matching services clusters and then identifies the best matching Web services within these matching clusters. Experimental results show that the proposed semantic discovery mechanism performs better than a conventional lexical similarity-based mechanism.

Identifying Meaning Components in the Translation of Medical Terms from English into Indonesian: A Semantic Approach

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I Gusti Agung Sri Rwa Jayantini

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on identifying meaning components in the translation of English medical terms into Indonesian. The data used in this study are the English medical term disorder and its Indonesian equivalent penyakit (disease. The two terms are purposively chosen as the data of the present study, which is a comparative research on the lexical meaning investigation in two different languages. The investigation involving a particular term in one language and its equivalent in the other language is worth doing since the lexicons in every language have their own specific concepts that may be synonymous, yet they are not always interchangeable in all contexts. The analysis into meaning components is called decomposition by means of several semantic theories to analyse the meaning of a lexical item (Löbner 2013. Here, the meaning components of the two compared terms are demonstrated through a semantic approach, particularly Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM supported by the investigation on their synonyms and how the terms are used in different contexts. The results show that the meaning components of a particular term in one language like the English term disorder are not always found in the Indonesian term penyakit, or, conversely, some of the meaning components of the Indonesian term do not always exist in the English term.

A novel co-occurrence-based approach to predict pure associative and semantic priming.

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Roelke, Andre; Franke, Nicole; Biemann, Chris; Radach, Ralph; Jacobs, Arthur M; Hofmann, Markus J

2018-03-15

The theoretical "difficulty in separating association strength from [semantic] feature overlap" has resulted in inconsistent findings of either the presence or absence of "pure" associative priming in recent literature (Hutchison, 2003, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10(4), p. 787). The present study used co-occurrence statistics of words in sentences to provide a full factorial manipulation of direct association (strong/no) and the number of common associates (many/no) of the prime and target words. These common associates were proposed to serve as semantic features for a recent interactive activation model of semantic processing (i.e., the associative read-out model; Hofmann & Jacobs, 2014). With stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) as an additional factor, our findings indicate that associative and semantic priming are indeed dissociable. Moreover, the effect of direct association was strongest at a long SOA (1,000 ms), while many common associates facilitated lexical decisions primarily at a short SOA (200 ms). This response pattern is consistent with previous performance-based accounts and suggests that associative and semantic priming can be evoked by computationally determined direct and common associations.

Making Things Difficult in Lexical Decision: The Impact of Pseudohomophones and Transposed-Letter Nonwords on Frequency and Semantic Priming Effects

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Lupker, Stephen J.; Pexman, Penny M.

2010-01-01

Performance in a lexical decision task is crucially dependent on the difficulty of the word-nonword discrimination. More wordlike nonwords cause not only a latency increase for words but also, as reported by Stone and Van Orden (1993), larger word frequency effects. Several current models of lexical decision making can explain these types of…

Bilingual processing of ASL-English code-blends: The consequences of accessing two lexical representations simultaneously

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Emmorey, Karen; Petrich, Jennifer; Gollan, Tamar H.

2012-01-01

Bilinguals who are fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) and English often produce code-blends - simultaneously articulating a sign and a word while conversing with other ASL-English bilinguals. To investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying code-blend processing, we compared picture-naming times (Experiment 1) and semantic categorization times (Experiment 2) for code-blends versus ASL signs and English words produced alone. In production, code-blending did not slow lexical retrieval for...

The neural basis for simulated drawing and the semantic implications.

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Harrington, Greg S; Farias, Dana; Davis, Christine H

2009-03-01

This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of the mental simulation of drawing (1) investigated the neural substrates of drawing and (2) delineated the semantic aspects of drawing. The goal was to advance our understanding of how drawing a familiar object is linked to lexical semantics and therefore a viable method to use to rehabilitate aphasia. We hypothesized that the semantic aspects of drawing familiar objects compared to drawing non-objects would yield greater activation in the inferior temporal cortex and the inferior frontal cortex of the left hemisphere. To test this hypothesis, eight right-handed subjects performed an fMRI experiment that directly contrasted drawing familiar objects to non-objects using mental imagery. Simulated drawing recruited a large, distributed network of frontal, parietal, and temporal structures. In the contrast comparing drawing familiar objects to non-objects there was stronger activation in the left hemisphere within the inferior temporal, anterior inferior frontal, inferior parietal and superior frontal cortices. The activation within the inferior temporal cortex was associated with visual semantic processing and semantic mediated naming. We suggest that the anterior inferior frontal activation is linked to the inferior temporal cortex and is involved in the selection of specific semantic features of the object as well as retrieval of information regarding the perceptual aspects of the object.

Exceptional Lexical Skills but Executive Language Deficits in School Starters and Young Adults with Turners Syndrome: Implications for X Chromosome Effects on Brain Function

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Temple, Christine M.; Shephard, Elizabeth E.

2012-01-01

TS school starters had enhanced receptive and expressive language on standardised assessment (CELF-P) and enhanced rhyme judgements, spoonerisms, and lexical decision, indicating enhanced phonological skills and word representations. There was marginal but consistent advantage across lexico-semantic tasks. On executive tasks, speeded naming of…

Speech perception at the interface of neurobiology and linguistics.

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Poeppel, David; Idsardi, William J; van Wassenhove, Virginie

2008-03-12

Speech perception consists of a set of computations that take continuously varying acoustic waveforms as input and generate discrete representations that make contact with the lexical representations stored in long-term memory as output. Because the perceptual objects that are recognized by the speech perception enter into subsequent linguistic computation, the format that is used for lexical representation and processing fundamentally constrains the speech perceptual processes. Consequently, theories of speech perception must, at some level, be tightly linked to theories of lexical representation. Minimally, speech perception must yield representations that smoothly and rapidly interface with stored lexical items. Adopting the perspective of Marr, we argue and provide neurobiological and psychophysical evidence for the following research programme. First, at the implementational level, speech perception is a multi-time resolution process, with perceptual analyses occurring concurrently on at least two time scales (approx. 20-80 ms, approx. 150-300 ms), commensurate with (sub)segmental and syllabic analyses, respectively. Second, at the algorithmic level, we suggest that perception proceeds on the basis of internal forward models, or uses an 'analysis-by-synthesis' approach. Third, at the computational level (in the sense of Marr), the theory of lexical representation that we adopt is principally informed by phonological research and assumes that words are represented in the mental lexicon in terms of sequences of discrete segments composed of distinctive features. One important goal of the research programme is to develop linking hypotheses between putative neurobiological primitives (e.g. temporal primitives) and those primitives derived from linguistic inquiry, to arrive ultimately at a biologically sensible and theoretically satisfying model of representation and computation in speech.

Terminology representation guidelines for biomedical ontologies in the semantic web notations.

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Tao, Cui; Pathak, Jyotishman; Solbrig, Harold R; Wei, Wei-Qi; Chute, Christopher G

2013-02-01

Terminologies and ontologies are increasingly prevalent in healthcare and biomedicine. However they suffer from inconsistent renderings, distribution formats, and syntax that make applications through common terminologies services challenging. To address the problem, one could posit a shared representation syntax, associated schema, and tags. We identified a set of commonly-used elements in biomedical ontologies and terminologies based on our experience with the Common Terminology Services 2 (CTS2) Specification as well as the Lexical Grid (LexGrid) project. We propose guidelines for precisely such a shared terminology model, and recommend tags assembled from SKOS, OWL, Dublin Core, RDF Schema, and DCMI meta-terms. We divide these guidelines into lexical information (e.g. synonyms, and definitions) and semantic information (e.g. hierarchies). The latter we distinguish for use by informal terminologies vs. formal ontologies. We then evaluate the guidelines with a spectrum of widely used terminologies and ontologies to examine how the lexical guidelines are implemented, and whether our proposed guidelines would enhance interoperability. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

MATCHING ALTERNATIVE ADDRESSES: A SEMANTIC WEB APPROACH

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S. Ariannamazi

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Rapid development of crowd-sourcing or volunteered geographic information (VGI provides opportunities for authoritatives that deal with geospatial information. Heterogeneity of multiple data sources and inconsistency of data types is a key characteristics of VGI datasets. The expansion of cities resulted in the growing number of POIs in the OpenStreetMap, a well-known VGI source, which causes the datasets to outdate in short periods of time. These changes made to spatial and aspatial attributes of features such as names and addresses might cause confusion or ambiguity in the processes that require feature’s literal information like addressing and geocoding. VGI sources neither will conform specific vocabularies nor will remain in a specific schema for a long period of time. As a result, the integration of VGI sources is crucial and inevitable in order to avoid duplication and the waste of resources. Information integration can be used to match features and qualify different annotation alternatives for disambiguation. This study enhances the search capabilities of geospatial tools with applications able to understand user terminology to pursuit an efficient way for finding desired results. Semantic web is a capable tool for developing technologies that deal with lexical and numerical calculations and estimations. There are a vast amount of literal-spatial data representing the capability of linguistic information in knowledge modeling, but these resources need to be harmonized based on Semantic Web standards. The process of making addresses homogenous generates a helpful tool based on spatial data integration and lexical annotation matching and disambiguating.

Effect of hearing loss on semantic access by auditory and audiovisual speech in children.

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Jerger, Susan; Tye-Murray, Nancy; Damian, Markus F; Abdi, Hervé

2013-01-01

This research studied whether the mode of input (auditory versus audiovisual) influenced semantic access by speech in children with sensorineural hearing impairment (HI). Participants, 31 children with HI and 62 children with normal hearing (NH), were tested with the authors' new multimodal picture word task. Children were instructed to name pictures displayed on a monitor and ignore auditory or audiovisual speech distractors. The semantic content of the distractors was varied to be related versus unrelated to the pictures (e.g., picture distractor of dog-bear versus dog-cheese, respectively). In children with NH, picture-naming times were slower in the presence of semantically related distractors. This slowing, called semantic interference, is attributed to the meaning-related picture-distractor entries competing for selection and control of the response (the lexical selection by competition hypothesis). Recently, a modification of the lexical selection by competition hypothesis, called the competition threshold (CT) hypothesis, proposed that (1) the competition between the picture-distractor entries is determined by a threshold, and (2) distractors with experimentally reduced fidelity cannot reach the CT. Thus, semantically related distractors with reduced fidelity do not produce the normal interference effect, but instead no effect or semantic facilitation (faster picture naming times for semantically related versus unrelated distractors). Facilitation occurs because the activation level of the semantically related distractor with reduced fidelity (1) is not sufficient to exceed the CT and produce interference but (2) is sufficient to activate its concept, which then strengthens the activation of the picture and facilitates naming. This research investigated whether the proposals of the CT hypothesis generalize to the auditory domain, to the natural degradation of speech due to HI, and to participants who are children. Our multimodal picture word task allowed us

A contrastive analysis of dar ‘give’ in english and brazilian portuguese: semantic-syntactic relationships and implications for L2 instruction

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Christoffersen, Katherine O'Donnell

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In recent years, research on multiword lexical units has influenced second language acquisition research, but little work has been done on light verbs, especially comparing the use of light verbs in English and Brazilian Portuguese. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the syntactic and semantic aspects of dar and ‘give’ through the semantic continuum, event type, denominal verbs and incorporation. This study finds that distinct and varied semantic uses of light verbs present a unique challenge to second language learners in terms of both their understanding and their production. Furthermore, this study analyzes the semantic-syntactic interrelationships and suggests implications for teaching English and Portuguese light verbs to second language learners

Morpho-semantic properties of Serbian nouns: Animacy and gender pairs

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Radanović Jelena

2011-01-01

Full Text Available In this study we investigated whether and how the cognitive system uses morphological markedness of animacy and gender pairs. In the Serbian language masculine nouns are marked for animacy (i.e., genitive-accusative syncretism, while for feminine nouns the animacy distinction is purely semantic. Thus, in Experiment 1 we used this natural, linguistic differentiation to test whether morphological markedness of animacy influences lexical processing. In the same experiment, we tested whether the cognitive system is sensitive to the fact that some animate nouns have a sibling in the other gender (e.g., dečak /”boy”/ - devojčica /”girl”/, while others do not have it (e.g., vojnik /”soldier”/ or žirafa /”giraffe”/. We labeled this indicator sibling presence. The analysis did not confirm the effect of animacy, neither between nor within genders. However, animate nouns with a sibling were processed faster than those without a sibling. Since the majority of sibling nouns are morphologically related (like konobar /”waiter”/ - konobarica /”waitress”/, while the rest are not (e.g., petao /”rooster”/ - kokoška /”hen”/, in Experiment 2 we tested whether morphological relatedness contributed to the effect of sibling presence. Results showed that this is not the case: morphologically related and unrelated masculine-feminine pairs of nouns (siblings were processed equally fast. Furthermore, an interaction between the target’s frequency and the frequency of its sibling was observed: nouns with a more frequent sibling benefited more from their own frequency than those with a less frequent sibling. We argue that sibling support is realized through semantic, not morphological relations. Taken together, our findings suggest that morphological markedness is not used in lexical processing, which is in line with an amorphous approach to lexical processing.

Age of acquisition predicts naming and lexical-decision performance above and beyond 22 other predictor variables: an analysis of 2,342 words.

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Cortese, Michael J; Khanna, Maya M

2007-08-01

Age of acquisition (AoA) ratings were obtained and were used in hierarchical regression analyses to predict naming and lexical-decision performance for 2,342 words (from Balota, Cortese, Sergent-Marshall, Spieler, & Yap, 2004). In the analyses, AoA was included in addition to the set of predictors used by Balota et al. (2004). AoA significantly predicted latency performance on both tasks above and beyond the standard predictor set. However, AoA was more strongly related to lexical-decision performance than to naming performance. Finally, the previously reported effect of imageability on naming latencies by Balota et al. was not significant with AoA included as a factor. These results are consistent with the idea either that AoA has a semantic/lexical locus or that AoA effects emerge primarily in situations in which the input-output mapping is arbitrary.

Speech monitoring and phonologically-mediated eye gaze in language perception and production: a comparison using printed word eye-tracking

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Gauvin, Hanna S.; Hartsuiker, Robert J.; Huettig, Falk

2013-01-01

The Perceptual Loop Theory of speech monitoring assumes that speakers routinely inspect their inner speech. In contrast, Huettig and Hartsuiker (2010) observed that listening to one's own speech during language production drives eye-movements to phonologically related printed words with a similar time-course as listening to someone else's speech does in speech perception experiments. This suggests that speakers use their speech perception system to listen to their own overt speech, but not to their inner speech. However, a direct comparison between production and perception with the same stimuli and participants is lacking so far. The current printed word eye-tracking experiment therefore used a within-subjects design, combining production and perception. Displays showed four words, of which one, the target, either had to be named or was presented auditorily. Accompanying words were phonologically related, semantically related, or unrelated to the target. There were small increases in looks to phonological competitors with a similar time-course in both production and perception. Phonological effects in perception however lasted longer and had a much larger magnitude. We conjecture that this difference is related to a difference in predictability of one's own and someone else's speech, which in turn has consequences for lexical competition in other-perception and possibly suppression of activation in self-perception. PMID:24339809

Novel Word Lexicalization and the Prime Lexicality Effect

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Qiao, Xiaomei; Forster, Kenneth I.

2013-01-01

This study investigates how newly learned words are integrated into the first-language lexicon using masked priming. Two lexical decision experiments are reported, with the aim of establishing whether newly learned words behave like real words in a masked form priming experiment. If they do, they should show a prime lexicality effect (PLE), in…

PREDICATE OF ‘MANGAN’ IN SASAK LANGUAGE: A STUDY OF NATURAL SEMANTIC METALANGUAGE

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Sarwadi

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study were to know semantic meaning of predicate Ngajengan, Daharan, Ngelor, Mangan, Ngrodok (Eating, Kaken (Eating, Suap, Bejijit, (Eating Bekeruak (Eating, Ngerasak (Eating and Nyangklok (Eating. Besides that, to know the lexical meaning of each words and the function of words in every sentences especially the meaning of eating in Sasaknese language. The lexical meaning of Ngajengan, Daharan, Ngelor, Mangan, Ngrodok (Eating, Kaken (Eating, Suap, Bejijit, (Eating Bekeruak (Eating, Ngerasak (Eating and Nyangklok (Eating was doing something to eat but the differences of these words are usage in sentences. Besides that, the word usage based on the subject and object and there is predicate that need tool to state eat meals or food.

Argument structure and the representation of abstract semantics.

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Javier Rodríguez-Ferreiro

Full Text Available According to the dual coding theory, differences in the ease of retrieval between concrete and abstract words are related to the exclusive dependence of abstract semantics on linguistic information. Argument structure can be considered a measure of the complexity of the linguistic contexts that accompany a verb. If the retrieval of abstract verbs relies more on the linguistic codes they are associated to, we could expect a larger effect of argument structure for the processing of abstract verbs. In this study, sets of length- and frequency-matched verbs including 40 intransitive verbs, 40 transitive verbs taking simple complements, and 40 transitive verbs taking sentential complements were presented in separate lexical and grammatical decision tasks. Half of the verbs were concrete and half were abstract. Similar results were obtained in the two tasks, with significant effects of imageability and transitivity. However, the interaction between these two variables was not significant. These results conflict with hypotheses assuming a stronger reliance of abstract semantics on linguistic codes. In contrast, our data are in line with theories that link the ease of retrieval with availability and robustness of semantic information.

Argument structure and the representation of abstract semantics.

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Rodríguez-Ferreiro, Javier; Andreu, Llorenç; Sanz-Torrent, Mònica

2014-01-01

According to the dual coding theory, differences in the ease of retrieval between concrete and abstract words are related to the exclusive dependence of abstract semantics on linguistic information. Argument structure can be considered a measure of the complexity of the linguistic contexts that accompany a verb. If the retrieval of abstract verbs relies more on the linguistic codes they are associated to, we could expect a larger effect of argument structure for the processing of abstract verbs. In this study, sets of length- and frequency-matched verbs including 40 intransitive verbs, 40 transitive verbs taking simple complements, and 40 transitive verbs taking sentential complements were presented in separate lexical and grammatical decision tasks. Half of the verbs were concrete and half were abstract. Similar results were obtained in the two tasks, with significant effects of imageability and transitivity. However, the interaction between these two variables was not significant. These results conflict with hypotheses assuming a stronger reliance of abstract semantics on linguistic codes. In contrast, our data are in line with theories that link the ease of retrieval with availability and robustness of semantic information.

Subgroup differences in the lexical tone mismatch negativity (MMN) among Mandarin speakers with congenital amusia.

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Nan, Yun; Huang, Wan-ting; Wang, Wen-jing; Liu, Chang; Dong, Qi

2016-01-01

The association/dissociation of pitch processing between music and language is a long lasting debate. We examined this music-language relationship by investigating to what extent pitch deficits in these two domains were dissociable. We focused on a special neurodevelopmental pitch disorder - congenital amusia, which primarily affects musical pitch processing. Recent research has also revealed lexical tone deficits in speech among amusics. Approximately one-third of Mandarin amusics exhibits behavioural difficulties in lexical tone perception, which is known as tone agnosia. Using mismatch negativities (MMNs), our current work probed lexical tone encoding at the pre-attentive level among the Mandarin amusics with (tone agnosics) and without (pure amusics) behavioural lexical tone deficits compared with age- and IQ-matched controls. Relative to the controls and the pure amusics, the tone agnosics exhibited reduced MMNs specifically in response to lexical tone changes. Their tone-consonant MMNs were intact and similar to those of the other two groups. Moreover, the tone MMN reduction over the left hemisphere was tightly linked to behavioural insensitivity to lexical tone changes. The current study thus provides the first psychophysiological evidence of subgroup differences in lexical tone processing among Mandarin amusics and links amusics' behavioural tone deficits to impaired pre-attentive tone processing. Despite the overall music pitch deficits, the subgroup differences in lexical tone processing in Mandarin-speaking amusics suggest dissociation of pitch deficits between music and speech. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Acquisition of locative utterances in Norwegian: structure-building via lexical learning.

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Mitrofanova, Natalia; Westergaard, Marit

2018-03-15

This paper focuses on the acquisition of locative prepositional phrases in L1 Norwegian. We report on two production experiments with children acquiring Norwegian as their first language and compare the results to similar experiments conducted with Russian children. The results of the experiments show that Norwegian children at age 2 regularly produce locative utterances lacking overt prepositions, with the rate of preposition omission decreasing significantly by age 3. Furthermore, our results suggest that phonologically strong and semantically unambiguous locative items appear earlier in Norwegian children's utterances than their phonologically weak and semantically ambiguous counterparts. This conclusion is confirmed by a corpus study. We argue that our results are best captured by the Underspecified P Hypothesis (UPH; Mitrofanova, 2017), which assumes that, at early stages of grammatical development, the underlying structure of locative utterances is underspecified, with more complex functional representations emerging gradually based on the input. This approach predicts that the rate of acquisition in the domain of locative PPs should be influenced by the lexical properties of individual language-specific grammatical elements (such as frequency, morphological complexity, phonological salience, or semantic ambiguity). Our data from child Norwegian show that this prediction is borne out. Specifically, the results of our study suggest that phonologically more salient and semantically unambiguous items are mastered earlier than their ambiguous and phonologically less salient counterparts, despite the higher frequency of the latter in the input (Clahsen et al., 1996).

Lexical mediation of phonotactic frequency effects on spoken word recognition: A Granger causality analysis of MRI-constrained MEG/EEG data.

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Gow, David W; Olson, Bruna B

2015-07-01

Phonotactic frequency effects play a crucial role in a number of debates over language processing and representation. It is unclear however, whether these effects reflect prelexical sensitivity to phonotactic frequency, or lexical "gang effects" in speech perception. In this paper, we use Granger causality analysis of MR-constrained MEG/EEG data to understand how phonotactic frequency influences neural processing dynamics during auditory lexical decision. Effective connectivity analysis showed weaker feedforward influence from brain regions involved in acoustic-phonetic processing (superior temporal gyrus) to lexical areas (supramarginal gyrus) for high phonotactic frequency words, but stronger top-down lexical influence for the same items. Low entropy nonwords (nonwords judged to closely resemble real words) showed a similar pattern of interactions between brain regions involved in lexical and acoustic-phonetic processing. These results contradict the predictions of a feedforward model of phonotactic frequency facilitation, but support the predictions of a lexically mediated account.

Load and distinctness interact in working memory for lexical manual gestures

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Mary eRudner

2015-08-01

Full Text Available The Ease of Language Understanding model (ELU, Rönnberg et al., 2013 predicts that decreasing the distinctness of language stimuli increases working memory load; in the speech domain this notion is supported by empirical evidence. Our aim was to determine whether such an over-additive interaction can be generalized to sign processing in sign-naïve individuals and whether it is modulated by experience of computer gaming. Twenty young adults with no knowledge of sign language performed an n-back working memory task based on manual gestures lexicalized in sign language; the visual resolution of the signs and working memory load were manipulated. Performance was poorer when load was high and resolution was low. These two effects interacted over-additively, demonstrating that reducing the resolution of signed stimuli increases working memory load when there is no pre-existing semantic representation. This suggests that load and distinctness are handled by a shared amodal mechanism which can be revealed empirically when stimuli are degraded and load is high, even without pre-existing semantic representation. There was some evidence that the mechanism is influenced by computer gaming experience. Future work should explore how the shared mechanism is influenced by pre-existing semantic representation and sensory factors together with computer gaming experience.

Load and distinctness interact in working memory for lexical manual gestures.

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Rudner, Mary; Toscano, Elena; Holmer, Emil

2015-01-01

The Ease of Language Understanding model (Rönnberg et al., 2013) predicts that decreasing the distinctness of language stimuli increases working memory load; in the speech domain this notion is supported by empirical evidence. Our aim was to determine whether such an over-additive interaction can be generalized to sign processing in sign-naïve individuals and whether it is modulated by experience of computer gaming. Twenty young adults with no knowledge of sign language performed an n-back working memory task based on manual gestures lexicalized in sign language; the visual resolution of the signs and working memory load were manipulated. Performance was poorer when load was high and resolution was low. These two effects interacted over-additively, demonstrating that reducing the resolution of signed stimuli increases working memory load when there is no pre-existing semantic representation. This suggests that load and distinctness are handled by a shared amodal mechanism which can be revealed empirically when stimuli are degraded and load is high, even without pre-existing semantic representation. There was some evidence that the mechanism is influenced by computer gaming experience. Future work should explore how the shared mechanism is influenced by pre-existing semantic representation and sensory factors together with computer gaming experience.

Contextual cueing based on the semantic-category membership of the environment

OpenAIRE

GOUJON, A

2005-01-01

During the analysis of a visual scene, top-down processing is constantly directing the subject's attention to the zones of interest in the scene. The contextual cueing paradigm developed by Chun and Jiang (1998) shows how contextual regularities can facilitate the search for a particular element via implicit learning mechanisms. In the proposed study, contextual cueing task with lexical displays was used. The semantic-category membership of the contextual words predicted the location of the t...

Lack of semantic priming effects in famous person recognition in Mild Cognitive Impairment.

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Brambati, Simona M; Peters, Frédéric; Belleville, Sylvie; Joubert, Sven

2012-04-01

Growing evidence indicates that individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) manifest semantic deficits that are often more severe for items that are characterized by a unique semantic and lexical association, such as famous people and famous buildings, than common concepts, such as objects. However, it is still controversial whether the semantic deficits observed in MCI are determined by a degradation of semantic information or by a deficit in intentional access to semantic knowledge. Here we used a semantic priming task in order to assess the integrity of the semantic system without requiring explicit access to this system. This paradigm may provide new insights in clarifying the nature of the semantic deficits in MCI. We assessed the semantic and repetition priming effect in 13 individuals with MCI and 13 age-matched controls who engaged in a familiarity judgment task of famous names. In the semantic priming condition, the prime was the name of a member of the same occupation category as the target (Tom Cruise-Brad Pitt), while in the repetition priming condition the prime was the same name as the target (Charlie Chaplin-Charlie Chaplin). The results showed a defective priming effect in MCI in the semantic but not in the repetition priming condition. Specifically, when compared to controls, MCI patients did not show a facilitation effect in responding to the same occupation prime-target pairs, but they showed an equivalent facilitation effect when the target was the same name as the prime. The present results provide support to the hypothesis that the semantic impairments observed in MCI cannot be uniquely ascribed to a deficit in intentional access to semantic information. Instead, these findings point to the semantic nature of these deficits and, in particular, to a degraded representation of semantic information concerning famous people. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

Investigating lexical competition and the cost of phonemic restoration.

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Balling, Laura Winther; Morris, David Jackson; Tøndering, John

2017-12-01

Due to phonemic restoration, listeners can reliably perceive words when a phoneme is replaced with noise. The cost associated with this process was investigated along with the effect of lexical uniqueness on phonemic restoration, using data from a lexical decision experiment where noise replaced phonemes that were either uniqueness points (the phoneme at which a word deviates from all nonrelated words that share the same onset) or phonemes immediately prior to these. A baseline condition was also included with no noise-interrupted stimuli. Results showed a significant cost of phonemic restoration, with 100 ms longer word identification times and a 14% decrease in word identification accuracy for interrupted stimuli compared to the baseline. Regression analysis of response times from the interrupted conditions showed no effect of whether the interrupted phoneme was a uniqueness point, but significant effects for several temporal attributes of the stimuli, including the duration and position of the interrupted segment. These results indicate that uniqueness points are not distinct breakpoints in the cohort reduction that occurs during lexical processing, but that temporal properties of the interrupted stimuli are central to auditory word recognition. These results are interpreted in the context of models of speech perception.

Role of working memory and lexical knowledge in perceptual restoration of interrupted speech.

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Nagaraj, Naveen K; Magimairaj, Beula M

2017-12-01

The role of working memory (WM) capacity and lexical knowledge in perceptual restoration (PR) of missing speech was investigated using the interrupted speech perception paradigm. Speech identification ability, which indexed PR, was measured using low-context sentences periodically interrupted at 1.5 Hz. PR was measured for silent gated, low-frequency speech noise filled, and low-frequency fine-structure and envelope filled interrupted conditions. WM capacity was measured using verbal and visuospatial span tasks. Lexical knowledge was assessed using both receptive vocabulary and meaning from context tests. Results showed that PR was better for speech noise filled condition than other conditions tested. Both receptive vocabulary and verbal WM capacity explained unique variance in PR for the speech noise filled condition, but were unrelated to performance in the silent gated condition. It was only receptive vocabulary that uniquely predicted PR for fine-structure and envelope filled conditions. These findings suggest that the contribution of lexical knowledge and verbal WM during PR depends crucially on the information content that replaced the silent intervals. When perceptual continuity was partially restored by filler speech noise, both lexical knowledge and verbal WM capacity facilitated PR. Importantly, for fine-structure and envelope filled interrupted conditions, lexical knowledge was crucial for PR.

A user-centred evaluation framework for the Sealife semantic web browsers.

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Oliver, Helen; Diallo, Gayo; de Quincey, Ed; Alexopoulou, Dimitra; Habermann, Bianca; Kostkova, Patty; Schroeder, Michael; Jupp, Simon; Khelif, Khaled; Stevens, Robert; Jawaheer, Gawesh; Madle, Gemma

2009-10-01

Semantically-enriched browsing has enhanced the browsing experience by providing contextualized dynamically generated Web content, and quicker access to searched-for information. However, adoption of Semantic Web technologies is limited and user perception from the non-IT domain sceptical. Furthermore, little attention has been given to evaluating semantic browsers with real users to demonstrate the enhancements and obtain valuable feedback. The Sealife project investigates semantic browsing and its application to the life science domain. Sealife's main objective is to develop the notion of context-based information integration by extending three existing Semantic Web browsers (SWBs) to link the existing Web to the eScience infrastructure. This paper describes a user-centred evaluation framework that was developed to evaluate the Sealife SWBs that elicited feedback on users' perceptions on ease of use and information findability. Three sources of data: i) web server logs; ii) user questionnaires; and iii) semi-structured interviews were analysed and comparisons made between each browser and a control system. It was found that the evaluation framework used successfully elicited users' perceptions of the three distinct SWBs. The results indicate that the browser with the most mature and polished interface was rated higher for usability, and semantic links were used by the users of all three browsers. Confirmation or contradiction of our original hypotheses with relation to SWBs is detailed along with observations of implementation issues.

Learning Semantic Tags from Big Data for Clinical Text Representation.

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Li, Yanpeng; Liu, Hongfang

2015-01-01

In clinical text mining, it is one of the biggest challenges to represent medical terminologies and n-gram terms in sparse medical reports using either supervised or unsupervised methods. Addressing this issue, we propose a novel method for word and n-gram representation at semantic level. We first represent each word by its distance with a set of reference features calculated by reference distance estimator (RDE) learned from labeled and unlabeled data, and then generate new features using simple techniques of discretization, random sampling and merging. The new features are a set of binary rules that can be interpreted as semantic tags derived from word and n-grams. We show that the new features significantly outperform classical bag-of-words and n-grams in the task of heart disease risk factor extraction in i2b2 2014 challenge. It is promising to see that semantics tags can be used to replace the original text entirely with even better prediction performance as well as derive new rules beyond lexical level.

Segmentation cues in conversational speech: Robust semantics and fragile phonotactics

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Laurence eWhite

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Multiple cues influence listeners’ segmentation of connected speech into words, but most previous studies have used stimuli elicited in careful readings rather than natural conversation. Discerning word boundaries in conversational speech may differ from the laboratory setting. In particular, a speaker’s articulatory effort – hyperarticulation vs hypoarticulation (H&H – may vary according to communicative demands, suggesting a compensatory relationship whereby acoustic-phonetic cues are attenuated when other information sources strongly guide segmentation. We examined how listeners’ interpretation of segmentation cues is affected by speech style (spontaneous conversation vs read, using cross-modal identity priming. To elicit spontaneous stimuli, we used a map task in which speakers discussed routes around stylised landmarks. These landmarks were two-word phrases in which the strength of potential segmentation cues – semantic likelihood and cross-boundary diphone phonotactics – was systematically varied. Landmark-carrying utterances were transcribed and later re-recorded as read speech.Independent of speech style, we found an interaction between cue valence (favourable/unfavourable and cue type (phonotactics/semantics. Thus, there was an effect of semantic plausibility, but no effect of cross-boundary phonotactics, indicating that the importance of phonotactic segmentation may have been overstated in studies where lexical information was artificially suppressed. These patterns were unaffected by whether the stimuli were elicited in a spontaneous or read context, even though the difference in speech styles was evident in a main effect. Durational analyses suggested speaker-driven cue trade-offs congruent with an H&H account, but these modulations did not impact on listener behaviour. We conclude that previous research exploiting read speech is reliable in indicating the primacy of lexically-based cues in the segmentation of natural

Grammatical markers switch roles and elicit different electrophysiological responses under shallow and deep semantic requirements.

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Soshi, Takahiro; Nakajima, Heizo; Hagiwara, Hiroko

2016-10-01

Static knowledge about the grammar of a natural language is represented in the cortico-subcortical system. However, the differences in dynamic verbal processing under different cognitive conditions are unclear. To clarify this, we conducted an electrophysiological experiment involving a semantic priming paradigm in which semantically congruent or incongruent word sequences (prime nouns-target verbs) were randomly presented. We examined the event-related brain potentials that occurred in response to congruent and incongruent target words that were preceded by primes with or without grammatical case markers. The two participant groups performed either the shallow (lexical judgment) or deep (direct semantic judgment) semantic tasks. We hypothesized that, irrespective of the case markers, the congruent targets would reduce centro-posterior N400 activities under the deep semantic condition, which induces selective attention to the semantic relatedness of content words. However, the same congruent targets with correct case markers would reduce lateralized negativity under the shallow semantic condition because grammatical case markers are related to automatic structural integration under semantically unattended conditions. We observed that congruent targets (e.g., 'open') that were preceded by primes with congruent case markers (e.g., 'shutter-object case') reduced lateralized negativity under the shallow semantic condition. In contrast, congruent targets, irrespective of case markers, consistently yielded N400 reductions under the deep semantic condition. To summarize, human neural verbal processing differed in response to the same grammatical markers in the same verbal expressions under semantically attended or unattended conditions.

Developmental changes in mismatch responses to mandarin consonants and lexical tones from early to middle childhood.

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Huei-Mei Liu

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to use mismatch responses (MMRs to explore the dynamic changes of Mandarin speech perception abilities from early to middle childhood. Twenty preschoolers, 18 school-aged children, and 26 adults participated in this study. Two sets of synthesized speech stimuli varying in Mandarin consonant (alveolo-palatal affricate vs. fricative and lexical tone features (rising vs. contour tone were used to examine the developmental course of speech perception abilities. The results indicated that only the adult group demonstrated typical early mismatch negativity (MMN responses, suggesting that the ability to discriminate specific speech cues in Mandarin consonant and lexical tone is a continuing process in preschool- and school-aged children. Additionally, distinct MMR patterns provided evidence indicating diverse developmental courses to different speech characteristics. By incorporating data from the two speech conditions, we propose using MMR profiles consisting of mismatch negativity (MMN, positive mismatch response (p-MMR, and late discriminative negativity (LDN as possible brain indices to investigate speech perception development.

On the flexibility of grammatical advance planning during sentence production: Effects of cognitive load on multiple lexical access.

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Wagner, Valentin; Jescheniak, Jörg D; Schriefers, Herbert

2010-03-01

Three picture-word interference experiments addressed the question of whether the scope of grammatical advance planning in sentence production corresponds to some fixed unit or rather is flexible. Subjects produced sentences of different formats under varying amounts of cognitive load. When speakers described 2-object displays with simple sentences of the form "the frog is next to the mug," the 2 nouns were found to be lexically-semantically activated to similar degrees at speech onset, as indexed by similarly sized interference effects from semantic distractors related to either the first or the second noun. When speakers used more complex sentences (including prenominal color adjectives; e.g., "the blue frog is next to the blue mug") much larger interference effects were observed for the first than the second noun, suggesting that the second noun was lexically-semantically activated before speech onset on only a subset of trials. With increased cognitive load, introduced by an additional conceptual decision task and variable utterance formats, the interference effect for the first noun was increased and the interference effect for second noun disappeared, suggesting that the scope of advance planning had been narrowed. By contrast, if cognitive load was induced by a secondary working memory task to be performed during speech planning, the interference effect for both nouns was increased, suggesting that the scope of advance planning had not been affected. In all, the data suggest that the scope of advance planning during grammatical encoding in sentence production is flexible, rather than structurally fixed.

Lexical Anglicisms in Spanish and Slovak: a Contrastive Study

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Bohdan Ulašin

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This article compares two languages, Castillian Spanish and Slovak and contrasts the status and use of English loanwords in each language. It is a small part of a larger project comparing the lexical and semantic levels of both languages. The article classifies and gives examples of differences in the treatment of anglicisms between the two, starting with phonetic differences (introducing the most notable ones, orthographic, semantic and structural differences, then looking at synonyms and calques and ending with a discussion of the presence or absence of anglicisms in the cases of denotative mismatches. We also emphasize the importance of taking into account the cultural equivalent of the English loanwords in the extralinguistic reality of Spain and Slovakia. The phenomenon of so called pseudo-anglicisms in Spanish is mentioned, as well as the extremely numerous presence of false friends in Spanish (in comparison with Slovak. The article summarises the most typical differences between European Spanish and American Spanish varieties with regard to English loanwords. The article also discusses the case of acronyms, contrasting the use of English international acronyms in Slovak with the tendency to translate them in Spanish.

Semantic similarity between old and new items produces false alarms in recognition memory.

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Montefinese, Maria; Zannino, Gian Daniele; Ambrosini, Ettore

2015-09-01

In everyday life, human beings can report memories of past events that did not occur or that occurred differently from the way they remember them because memory is an imperfect process of reconstruction and is prone to distortion and errors. In this recognition study using word stimuli, we investigated whether a specific operationalization of semantic similarity among concepts can modulate false memories while controlling for the possible effect of associative strength and word co-occurrence in an old-new recognition task. The semantic similarity value of each new concept was calculated as the mean cosine similarity between pairs of vectors representing that new concept and each old concept belonging to the same semantic category. Results showed that, compared with (new) low-similarity concepts, (new) high-similarity concepts had significantly higher probability of being falsely recognized as old, even after partialling out the effect of confounding variables, including associative relatedness and lexical co-occurrence. This finding supports the feature-based view of semantic memory, suggesting that meaning overlap and sharing of semantic features (which are greater when more similar semantic concepts are being processed) have an influence on recognition performance, resulting in more false alarms for new high-similarity concepts. We propose that the associative strength and word co-occurrence among concepts are not sufficient to explain illusory memories but is important to take into account also the effects of feature-based semantic relations, and, in particular, the semantic similarity among concepts.

CzEngClass – Towards a Lexicon of Verb Synonyms with Valency Linked to Semantic Roles

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Urešová Zdeňka

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we introduce our ongoing project about synonymy in bilingual context. This project aims at exploring semantic ‘equivalence’ of verb senses of generally different verbal lexemes in a bilingual (Czech-English setting. Specifically, it focuses on their valency behavior within such equivalence groups. We believe that using bilingual context (translation as an important factor in the delimitation of classes of synonymous lexical units (verbs, in our case may help to specify the verb senses, also with regard to the (semantic roles relation to other verb senses and roles of their arguments more precisely than when using monolingual corpora. In our project, we work “bottom-up”, i.e., from an evidence as recorded in our corpora and not “top-down”, from a predefined set of semantic classes.

Features Of Household Lexics, Their Characteristics And Structural Analysis In The Modern English Language

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Aygun Yusifova

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The present paper aims to analyze the most inherent features and characteristics of household lexis in English. Special emphasis has been placed on their names of the objects used in everyday life, kitchen utensils, animal and birds. Lexical units concerning ceremonies, habits and traditions are also among the scope of the paper. Moreover, the study deals with the structural features of the units under consideration. It is believed that the thematic-semantic characterization of every-day lexis can have both pedagogical and linguistic implications, especially when dealing with comparative structures.

Naming and categorizing objects: task differences modulate the polarity of semantic effects in the picture-word interference paradigm.

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Hantsch, Ansgar; Jescheniak, Jörg D; Mädebach, Andreas

2012-07-01

The picture-word interference paradigm is a prominent tool for studying lexical retrieval during speech production. When participants name the pictures, interference from semantically related distractor words has regularly been shown. By contrast, when participants categorize the pictures, facilitation from semantically related distractors has typically been found. In the extant studies, however, differences in the task instructions (naming vs. categorizing) were confounded with the response level: While responses in naming were typically located at the basic level (e.g., "dog"), responses were located at the superordinate level in categorization (e.g., "animal"). The present study avoided this confound by having participants respond at the basic level in both naming and categorization, using the same pictures, distractors, and verbal responses. Our findings confirm the polarity reversal of the semantic effects--that is, semantic interference in naming, and semantic facilitation in categorization. These findings show that the polarity reversal of the semantic effect is indeed due to the different tasks and is not an artifact of the different response levels used in previous studies. Implications for current models of language production are discussed.

A SEMantic and EPisodic Memory Test (SEMEP) Developed within the Embodied Cognition Framework: Application to Normal Aging, Alzheimer's Disease and Semantic Dementia.

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Vallet, Guillaume T; Hudon, Carol; Bier, Nathalie; Macoir, Joël; Versace, Rémy; Simard, Martine

2017-01-01

Embodiment has highlighted the importance of sensory-motor components in cognition. Perception and memory are thus very tightly bound together, and episodic and semantic memories should rely on the same grounded memory traces. Reduced perception should then directly reduce the ability to encode and retrieve an episodic memory, as in normal aging. Multimodal integration deficits, as in Alzheimer's disease, should lead to more severe episodic memory impairment. The present study introduces a new memory test developed to take into account these assumptions. The SEMEP (SEMantic-Episodic) memory test proposes to assess conjointly semantic and episodic knowledge across multiple tasks: semantic matching, naming, free recall, and recognition. The performance of young adults is compared to healthy elderly adults (HE), patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and patients with semantic dementia (SD). The results show specific patterns of performance between the groups. HE commit memory errors only for presented but not to be remembered items. AD patients present the worst episodic memory performance associated with intrusion errors (recall or recognition of items never presented). They were the only group to not benefit from a visual isolation (addition of a yellow background), a method known to increase the distinctiveness of the memory traces. Finally, SD patients suffer from the most severe semantic impairment. To conclude, confusion errors are common across all the elderly groups, whereas AD was the only group to exhibit regular intrusion errors and SD patients to show severe semantic impairment.

A SEMantic and EPisodic Memory Test (SEMEP Developed within the Embodied Cognition Framework: Application to Normal Aging, Alzheimer's Disease and Semantic Dementia

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Guillaume T. Vallet

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Embodiment has highlighted the importance of sensory-motor components in cognition. Perception and memory are thus very tightly bound together, and episodic and semantic memories should rely on the same grounded memory traces. Reduced perception should then directly reduce the ability to encode and retrieve an episodic memory, as in normal aging. Multimodal integration deficits, as in Alzheimer's disease, should lead to more severe episodic memory impairment. The present study introduces a new memory test developed to take into account these assumptions. The SEMEP (SEMantic-Episodic memory test proposes to assess conjointly semantic and episodic knowledge across multiple tasks: semantic matching, naming, free recall, and recognition. The performance of young adults is compared to healthy elderly adults (HE, patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD, and patients with semantic dementia (SD. The results show specific patterns of performance between the groups. HE commit memory errors only for presented but not to be remembered items. AD patients present the worst episodic memory performance associated with intrusion errors (recall or recognition of items never presented. They were the only group to not benefit from a visual isolation (addition of a yellow background, a method known to increase the distinctiveness of the memory traces. Finally, SD patients suffer from the most severe semantic impairment. To conclude, confusion errors are common across all the elderly groups, whereas AD was the only group to exhibit regular intrusion errors and SD patients to show severe semantic impairment.

Long-term interference at the semantic level: Evidence from blocked-cyclic picture matching.

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Wei, Tao; Schnur, Tatiana T

2016-01-01

Processing semantically related stimuli creates interference across various domains of cognition, including language and memory. In this study, we identify the locus and mechanism of interference when retrieving meanings associated with words and pictures. Subjects matched a probe stimulus (e.g., cat) to its associated target picture (e.g., yarn) from an array of unrelated pictures. Across trials, probes were either semantically related or unrelated. To test the locus of interference, we presented probes as either words or pictures. If semantic interference occurs at the stage common to both tasks, that is, access to semantic representations, then interference should occur in both probe presentation modalities. Results showed clear semantic interference effects independent of presentation modality and lexical frequency, confirming a semantic locus of interference in comprehension. To test the mechanism of interference, we repeated trials across 4 presentation cycles and manipulated the number of unrelated intervening trials (zero vs. two). We found that semantic interference was additive across cycles and survived 2 intervening trials, demonstrating interference to be long-lasting as opposed to short-lived. However, interference was smaller with zero versus 2 intervening trials, which we interpret to suggest that short-lived facilitation counteracted the long-lived interference. We propose that retrieving meanings associated with words/pictures from the same semantic category yields both interference due to long-lasting changes in connection strength between semantic representations (i.e., incremental learning) and facilitation caused by short-lived residual activation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Semantic Involvement of Initial and Final Lexical Embeddings during Sense-Making: The Advantage of Starting Late.

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van Alphen, Petra M; van Berkum, Jos J A

2012-01-01

During spoken language interpretation, listeners rapidly relate the meaning of each individual word to what has been said before. However, spoken words often contain spurious other words, like day in daisy, or dean in sardine. Do listeners also relate the meaning of such unintended, spurious words to the prior context? We used ERPs to look for transient meaning-based N400 effects in sentences that were completely plausible at the level of words intended by the speaker, but contained an embedded word whose meaning clashed with the context. Although carrier words with an initial embedding (day in daisy) did not elicit an embedding-related N400 effect relative to matched control words without embedding, carrier words with a final embedding (dean in sardine) did elicit such an effect. Together with prior work from our lab and the results of a Shortlist B simulation, our findings suggest that listeners do semantically interpret embedded words, albeit not under all conditions. We explain the latter by assuming that the sense-making system adjusts its hypothesis for how to interpret the external input at every new syllable, in line with recent ideas of active sampling in perception.

Semantic involvement of initial and final lexical embeddings during sense-making: The advantage of starting late

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Petra M. Van Alphen

2012-06-01

Full Text Available During spoken language interpretation, listeners rapidly relate the meaning of each individual word to what has been said before. However, spoken words often contain spurious other words, like day in daisy, or dean in sardine. Do listeners also relate the meaning of such unintended, spurious words to the prior context? We used ERPs to look for transient meaning-based N400 effects in sentences that were completely plausible at the level of words intended by the speaker, but contained an embedded word whose meaning clashed with the context. Although carrier words with an initial embedding (day in daisy did not elicit an embedding-related N400 effect relative to matched control words without embedding, carrier words with a final embedding (dean in sardine did elicit such an effect. Together with prior work from our lab and the results of a Shortlist B simulation, our findings suggest that listeners do semantically interpret embedded words, albeit not under all conditions. We explain the latter by assuming that the sense-making system adjusts its hypothesis for how to interpret the external input at every new syllable, in line with recent ideas of active sampling in perception.

BUZZWORDS IN MODERN RUSSIAN AND CHINESE NEWSPAPERS: ORIGIN, SEMANTICS, FUNCTIONS

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- Чэнь Хуань

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Fashion exists in all aspects of human life, including language. In this context, we refer to the phenomenon of language fashion, which became an object of linguistic study in Russia at the turn of the 20th/21st centuries. This article is concerned with the phenomenon of buzzwords in modern Russian and Chinese newspaper texts, from the perspective of comparative analysis. In the article, we clarify the meanings of language fashion and buzzwords, discuss the essential features of this linguistic phenomenon, present a classification of buzzwords, characterise the main ways of enlarging this group of lexical units, and analyse the semantic and functional features of these units. The material for analysis is drawn from newspaper texts in online versions of Russian and Chinese mass media resources, for the period 2016-2017. The results of the research show that there are common features between the buzzwords of the two languages. Firstly, from the point of view of origin, the form or meaning of the buzzwords is associated with novelty and a break with tradition. Secondly, in a semantic sense, there are lexical coincidences in the buzzwords of the two languages. Thirdly, in a functional sense, a buzzword in one or another language can act as a pro-ductive model for creating new words, and a stimulus for the realization of new ideas. The conclusion dis-cusses the prospects of studying buzzwords and language fashion in general.

No one way ticket from orthography to semantics in recognition memory: N400 and P200 effects of associations.

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Stuellein, Nicole; Radach, Ralph R; Jacobs, Arthur M; Hofmann, Markus J

2016-05-15

Computational models of word recognition already successfully used associative spreading from orthographic to semantic levels to account for false memories. But can they also account for semantic effects on event-related potentials in a recognition memory task? To address this question, target words in the present study had either many or few semantic associates in the stimulus set. We found larger P200 amplitudes and smaller N400 amplitudes for old words in comparison to new words. Words with many semantic associates led to larger P200 amplitudes and a smaller N400 in comparison to words with a smaller number of semantic associations. We also obtained inverted response time and accuracy effects for old and new words: faster response times and fewer errors were found for old words that had many semantic associates, whereas new words with a large number of semantic associates produced slower response times and more errors. Both behavioral and electrophysiological results indicate that semantic associations between words can facilitate top-down driven lexical access and semantic integration in recognition memory. Our results support neurophysiologically plausible predictions of the Associative Read-Out Model, which suggests top-down connections from semantic to orthographic layers. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Where Is the Beat? The Neural Correlates of Lexical Stress and Rhythmical Well-formedness in Auditory Story Comprehension.

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Kandylaki, Katerina D; Henrich, Karen; Nagels, Arne; Kircher, Tilo; Domahs, Ulrike; Schlesewsky, Matthias; Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina; Wiese, Richard

2017-07-01

While listening to continuous speech, humans process beat information to correctly identify word boundaries. The beats of language are stress patterns that are created by combining lexical (word-specific) stress patterns and the rhythm of a specific language. Sometimes, the lexical stress pattern needs to be altered to obey the rhythm of the language. This study investigated the interplay of lexical stress patterns and rhythmical well-formedness in natural speech with fMRI. Previous electrophysiological studies on cases in which a regular lexical stress pattern may be altered to obtain rhythmical well-formedness showed that even subtle rhythmic deviations are detected by the brain if attention is directed toward prosody. Here, we present a new approach to this phenomenon by having participants listen to contextually rich stories in the absence of a task targeting the manipulation. For the interaction of lexical stress and rhythmical well-formedness, we found one suprathreshold cluster localized between the cerebellum and the brain stem. For the main effect of lexical stress, we found higher BOLD responses to the retained lexical stress pattern in the bilateral SMA, bilateral postcentral gyrus, bilateral middle fontal gyrus, bilateral inferior and right superior parietal lobule, and right precuneus. These results support the view that lexical stress is processed as part of a sensorimotor network of speech comprehension. Moreover, our results connect beat processing in language to domain-independent timing perception.

Grammatical markers switch roles and elicit different electrophysiological responses under shallow and deep semantic requirements

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Takahiro Soshi

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Static knowledge about the grammar of a natural language is represented in the cortico-subcortical system. However, the differences in dynamic verbal processing under different cognitive conditions are unclear. To clarify this, we conducted an electrophysiological experiment involving a semantic priming paradigm in which semantically congruent or incongruent word sequences (prime nouns–target verbs were randomly presented. We examined the event-related brain potentials that occurred in response to congruent and incongruent target words that were preceded by primes with or without grammatical case markers. The two participant groups performed either the shallow (lexical judgment or deep (direct semantic judgment semantic tasks. We hypothesized that, irrespective of the case markers, the congruent targets would reduce centro-posterior N400 activities under the deep semantic condition, which induces selective attention to the semantic relatedness of content words. However, the same congruent targets with correct case markers would reduce lateralized negativity under the shallow semantic condition because grammatical case markers are related to automatic structural integration under semantically unattended conditions. We observed that congruent targets (e.g., ‘open' that were preceded by primes with congruent case markers (e.g., ‘shutter-object case' reduced lateralized negativity under the shallow semantic condition. In contrast, congruent targets, irrespective of case markers, consistently yielded N400 reductions under the deep semantic condition. To summarize, human neural verbal processing differed in response to the same grammatical markers in the same verbal expressions under semantically attended or unattended conditions. Keyword: Neuroscience

LEXICAL OPERATIONS AND HIGH -LEVEL SYNTACTIC OPERATIONS WITH OLD ENGLISH -A, -E, -O, AND -U

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Miguel Lacalle Palacios

2011-10-01

Full Text Available The aim of this article is to explain the lexical and high-level syntactic operations comprising the Old English suffixes -a, -e, -o and -u. Previous research has dealt with these suffixes, which constitute an area of overlapping between inflection and derivation, in terms of inflection, zero derivation or continuity between inflection and derivation. The position adopted in this article is that these affixes are fully derivational, although interesting points of convergence with inflection arise that deserve discussion. In this respect, a fundamental difference is made between explicit and implicit morphological relations. Such relations are considered in the derivational and the inflectional dimensions. Regarding lexical operations, the analysis concentrates on the subjective and objective functions realized by these suffixes, while, as far as high-level syntactic operations are concerned, a distinction is drawn between motivated and unmotivated inflective relations. The fact that most of the suffixes under scrutiny perform the subjective and the objective function is in keeping with the Separation Hypothesis, in terms of which grammatical morphemes are the output of phonological operations independent of the semantic operations that they realize. The results are also in accordance with the Universal Grammatical Function Theory, which predicts that the functions of inflectional and lexical derivation are the same.

Contrasting lexical similarity and formal definitions in SNOMED CT: consistency and implications.

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Agrawal, Ankur; Elhanan, Gai

2014-02-01

To quantify the presence of and evaluate an approach for detection of inconsistencies in the formal definitions of SNOMED CT (SCT) concepts utilizing a lexical method. Utilizing SCT's Procedure hierarchy, we algorithmically formulated similarity sets: groups of concepts with similar lexical structure of their fully specified name. We formulated five random samples, each with 50 similarity sets, based on the same parameter: number of parents, attributes, groups, all the former as well as a randomly selected control sample. All samples' sets were reviewed for types of formal definition inconsistencies: hierarchical, attribute assignment, attribute target values, groups, and definitional. For the Procedure hierarchy, 2111 similarity sets were formulated, covering 18.1% of eligible concepts. The evaluation revealed that 38 (Control) to 70% (Different relationships) of similarity sets within the samples exhibited significant inconsistencies. The rate of inconsistencies for the sample with different relationships was highly significant compared to Control, as well as the number of attribute assignment and hierarchical inconsistencies within their respective samples. While, at this time of the HITECH initiative, the formal definitions of SCT are only a minor consideration, in the grand scheme of sophisticated, meaningful use of captured clinical data, they are essential. However, significant portion of the concepts in the most semantically complex hierarchy of SCT, the Procedure hierarchy, are modeled inconsistently in a manner that affects their computability. Lexical methods can efficiently identify such inconsistencies and possibly allow for their algorithmic resolution. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

When Language Switching has No Apparent Cost: Lexical Access in Sentence Context

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Gullifer, Jason W.; Kroll, Judith F.; Dussias, Paola E.

2013-01-01

We report two experiments that investigate the effects of sentence context on bilingual lexical access in Spanish and English. Highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals read sentences in Spanish and English that included a marked word to be named. The word was either a cognate with similar orthography and/or phonology in the two languages, or a matched non-cognate control. Sentences appeared in one language alone (i.e., Spanish or English) and target words were not predictable on the basis of the preceding semantic context. In Experiment 1, we mixed the language of the sentence within a block such that sentences appeared in an alternating run in Spanish or in English. These conditions partly resemble normally occurring inter-sentential code-switching. In these mixed-language sequences, cognates were named faster than non-cognates in both languages. There were no effects of switching the language of the sentence. In Experiment 2, with Spanish-English bilinguals matched closely to those who participated in the first experiment, we blocked the language of the sentences to encourage language-specific processes. The results were virtually identical to those of the mixed-language experiment. In both cases, target cognates were named faster than non-cognates, and the magnitude of the effect did not change according to the broader context. Taken together, the results support the predictions of the Bilingual Interactive Activation + Model (Dijkstra and van Heuven, 2002) in demonstrating that bilingual lexical access is language non-selective even under conditions in which language-specific cues should enable selective processing. They also demonstrate that, in contrast to lexical switching from one language to the other, inter-sentential code-switching of the sort in which bilinguals frequently engage, imposes no significant costs to lexical processing. PMID:23750141

When language switching has no apparent cost: Lexical access in sentence context

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Jason W. Gullifer

2013-05-01

Full Text Available We report two experiments that investigate the effects of sentence context on bilingual lexical access in Spanish and English. Highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals read sentences in Spanish and English that included a marked word to be named. The word was either a cognate with similar orthography and/or phonology in the two languages, or a matched non-cognate control. Sentences appeared in one language alone (i.e., Spanish or English and target words were not predictable on the basis of the preceding semantic context. In Experiment 1, we mixed the language of the sentence within a block such that sentences appeared in an alternating run in Spanish or in English. These conditions partly resemble normally occurring inter-sentential code-switching. In these mixed language sequences, cognates were named faster than non-cognates in both languages. There were no effects of switching the language of the sentence. In Experiment 2, with Spanish-English bilinguals matched closely to those who participated in the first experiment, we blocked the language of the sentences to encourage language-specific processes. The results were virtually identical to those of the mixed language experiment. In both cases, target cognates were named faster than non-cognates, and the magnitude of the effect did not change according to the broader context. Taken together, the results support the predictions of the Bilingual Interactive Activation + Model (Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002 in demonstrating that bilingual lexical access is language nonselective even under conditions in which language-specific cues should enable selective processing. They also demonstrate that, in contrast to lexical switching from one language to the other, inter-sentential code-switching of the sort in which bilinguals frequently engage, imposes no significant costs to lexical processing.

Music Training Can Improve Music and Speech Perception in Pediatric Mandarin-Speaking Cochlear Implant Users.

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Cheng, Xiaoting; Liu, Yangwenyi; Shu, Yilai; Tao, Duo-Duo; Wang, Bing; Yuan, Yasheng; Galvin, John J; Fu, Qian-Jie; Chen, Bing

2018-01-01

Due to limited spectral resolution, cochlear implants (CIs) do not convey pitch information very well. Pitch cues are important for perception of music and tonal language; it is possible that music training may improve performance in both listening tasks. In this study, we investigated music training outcomes in terms of perception of music, lexical tones, and sentences in 22 young (4.8 to 9.3 years old), prelingually deaf Mandarin-speaking CI users. Music perception was measured using a melodic contour identification (MCI) task. Speech perception was measured for lexical tones and sentences presented in quiet. Subjects received 8 weeks of MCI training using pitch ranges not used for testing. Music and speech perception were measured at 2, 4, and 8 weeks after training was begun; follow-up measures were made 4 weeks after training was stopped. Mean baseline performance was 33.2%, 76.9%, and 45.8% correct for MCI, lexical tone recognition, and sentence recognition, respectively. After 8 weeks of MCI training, mean performance significantly improved by 22.9, 14.4, and 14.5 percentage points for MCI, lexical tone recognition, and sentence recognition, respectively ( p music and speech performance. The results suggest that music training can significantly improve pediatric Mandarin-speaking CI users' music and speech perception.

Semantic priming increases word frequency judgments: Evidence for the role of memory strength in frequency estimation.

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Woltz, Dan J; Gardner, Michael K

2015-09-01

Previous research has demonstrated a systematic, nonlinear relationship between word frequency judgments and values from word frequency norms. This relationship could reflect a perceptual process similar to that found in the psychophysics literature for a variety of sensory phenomena. Alternatively, it could reflect memory strength differences that are expected for words of varying levels of prior exposure. Two experiments tested the memory strength explanation by semantically priming words prior to frequency judgments. Exposure to related word meanings produced a small but measurable increase in target word frequency ratings. Repetition but not semantic priming had a greater impact on low compared to high frequency words. These findings are consistent with a memory strength view of frequency judgments that assumes a distributed network with lexical and semantic levels of representation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Semantic markup of nouns and adjectives for the Electronic corpus of texts in Tuvan language

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Bajlak Ch. Oorzhak

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The article examines the progress of semantic markup of the Electronic corpus of texts in Tuvan language (ECTTL, which is another stage of adding Tuvan texts to the database and marking up the corpus. ECTTL is a collaborative project by researchers from Tuvan State University (Research and Education Center of Turkic Studies and Department of Information Technologies. Semantic markup of Tuvan lexis will come as a search engine and reference system which will help users find text snippets containing words with desired meanings in ECTTL. The first stage of this process is setting up databases of basic lexemes of Tuvan language. All meaningful lexemes were classified into the following semantic groups: humans, animals, objects, natural objects and phenomena, and abstract concepts. All Tuvan object nouns, as well as both descriptive and relative adjectives, were assigned to one of these lexico-semantic classes. Each class, sub-class and descriptor is tagged in Tuvan, Russian and English; these tags, in turn, will help automatize searching. The databases of meaningful lexemes of Tuvan language will also outline their lexical combinations. The automatized system will contain information on semantic combinations of adjectives with nouns, adverbs with verbs, nouns with verbs, as well as on the combinations which are semantically incompatible.

A Lexical Analysis Tool with Ambiguity Support

OpenAIRE

Quesada, Luis; Berzal, Fernando; Cortijo, Francisco J.

2012-01-01

Lexical ambiguities naturally arise in languages. We present Lamb, a lexical analyzer that produces a lexical analysis graph describing all the possible sequences of tokens that can be found within the input string. Parsers can process such lexical analysis graphs and discard any sequence of tokens that does not produce a valid syntactic sentence, therefore performing, together with Lamb, a context-sensitive lexical analysis in lexically-ambiguous language specifications.

Semantic ambiguity effects on traditional Chinese character naming: A corpus-based approach.

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Chang, Ya-Ning; Lee, Chia-Ying

2017-11-09

Words are considered semantically ambiguous if they have more than one meaning and can be used in multiple contexts. A number of recent studies have provided objective ambiguity measures by using a corpus-based approach and have demonstrated ambiguity advantages in both naming and lexical decision tasks. Although the predictive power of objective ambiguity measures has been examined in several alphabetic language systems, the effects in logographic languages remain unclear. Moreover, most ambiguity measures do not explicitly address how the various contexts associated with a given word relate to each other. To explore these issues, we computed the contextual diversity (Adelman, Brown, & Quesada, Psychological Science, 17; 814-823, 2006) and semantic ambiguity (Hoffman, Lambon Ralph, & Rogers, Behavior Research Methods, 45; 718-730, 2013) of traditional Chinese single-character words based on the Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus, where contextual diversity was used to evaluate the present semantic space. We then derived a novel ambiguity measure, namely semantic variability, by computing the distance properties of the distinct clusters grouped by the contexts that contained a given word. We demonstrated that semantic variability was superior to semantic diversity in accounting for the variance in naming response times, suggesting that considering the substructure of the various contexts associated with a given word can provide a relatively fine scale of ambiguity information for a word. All of the context and ambiguity measures for 2,418 Chinese single-character words are provided as supplementary materials.

Language and culture modulate online semantic processing.

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Ellis, Ceri; Kuipers, Jan R; Thierry, Guillaume; Lovett, Victoria; Turnbull, Oliver; Jones, Manon W

2015-10-01

Language has been shown to influence non-linguistic cognitive operations such as colour perception, object categorization and motion event perception. Here, we show that language also modulates higher level processing, such as semantic knowledge. Using event-related brain potentials, we show that highly fluent Welsh-English bilinguals require significantly less processing effort when reading sentences in Welsh which contain factually correct information about Wales, than when reading sentences containing the same information presented in English. Crucially, culturally irrelevant information was processed similarly in both Welsh and English. Our findings show that even in highly proficient bilinguals, language interacts with factors associated with personal identity, such as culture, to modulate online semantic processing. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press.

Using Predictability for Lexical Segmentation.

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Çöltekin, Çağrı

2017-09-01

This study investigates a strategy based on predictability of consecutive sub-lexical units in learning to segment a continuous speech stream into lexical units using computational modeling and simulations. Lexical segmentation is one of the early challenges during language acquisition, and it has been studied extensively through psycholinguistic experiments as well as computational methods. However, despite strong empirical evidence, the explicit use of predictability of basic sub-lexical units in models of segmentation is underexplored. This paper presents an incremental computational model of lexical segmentation for exploring the usefulness of predictability for lexical segmentation. We show that the predictability cue is a strong cue for segmentation. Contrary to earlier reports in the literature, the strategy yields state-of-the-art segmentation performance with an incremental computational model that uses only this particular cue in a cognitively plausible setting. The paper also reports an in-depth analysis of the model, investigating the conditions affecting the usefulness of the strategy. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Semantic embodiment, disembodiment or misembodiment? In search of meaning in modules and neuron circuits.

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Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2013-10-01

"Embodied" proposals claim that the meaning of at least some words, concepts and constructions is grounded in knowledge about actions and objects. An alternative "disembodied" position locates semantics in a symbolic system functionally detached from sensorimotor modules. This latter view is not tenable theoretically and has been empirically falsified by neuroscience research. A minimally-embodied approach now claims that action-perception systems may "color", but not represent, meaning; however, such minimal embodiment (misembodiment?) still fails to explain why action and perception systems exert causal effects on the processing of symbols from specific semantic classes. Action perception theory (APT) offers neurobiological mechanisms for "embodied" referential, affective and action semantics along with "disembodied" mechanisms of semantic abstraction, generalization and symbol combination, which draw upon multimodal brain systems. In this sense, APT suggests integrative-neuromechanistic explanations of why both sensorimotor and multimodal areas of the human brain differentially contribute to specific facets of meaning and concepts. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What’s in a name depends on the type of name: The relationships between semantic and phonological access, reading fluency and reading comprehension

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Mads; Elbro, Carsten

2013-01-01

examined both components in naming tasks – with isolated letters (phonological) and pictures (semantic). Seventy-five Grade 5 students were administered measures of letter and picture naming speed, word and nonword reading fluency, reading comprehension, together with control measures of vocabulary....... The results showed that letter naming was a unique predictor of word reading fluency, while picture naming was not. Conversely, picture naming speed contributed unique variance to reading comprehension, while letter naming did not. The results indicate that phonological and semantic lexical access speed...

Lexical Discourse Analysis in Translation

Science.gov (United States)

Al Khotaba, Eissa; Al Tarawneh, Khaled

2015-01-01

Lexical Discourse very often depend on lexis. Lexical Discourse analysis, however, has not yet been given enough consideration of the phenomenon of translation. This paper investigates lexical discourse analysis in translation from one language to another. This qualitative study comprises 15 text translated by M.A. students at the Department of…

Effects of Iconicity and Semantic Relatedness on Lexical Access in American Sign Language

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Bosworth, Rain G.; Emmorey, Karen

2010-01-01

Iconicity is a property that pervades the lexicon of many sign languages, including American Sign Language (ASL). Iconic signs exhibit a motivated, nonarbitrary mapping between the form of the sign and its meaning. We investigated whether iconicity enhances semantic priming effects for ASL and whether iconic signs are recognized more quickly than…

The Effect of Semantic Mapping as a Vocabulary Instruction Technique on EFL Learners with Different Perceptual Learning Styles

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Esmaeel Abdollahzadeh

2009-05-01

Full Text Available Traditional and modern vocabulary instruction techniques have been introduced in the past few decades to improve the learners’ performance in reading comprehension. Semantic mapping, which entails drawing learners’ attention to the interrelationships among lexical items through graphic organizers, is claimed to enhance vocabulary learning significantly. However, whether this technique suits all types of learners has not been adequately investigated. This study examines the effectiveness of employing semantic mapping versus traditional approaches in vocabulary instruction to EFL learners with different perceptual modalities. A modified version of Reid’s (1987 perceptual learning style questionnaire was used to determine the learners’ modality types. The results indicate that semantic mapping in comparison to the traditional approaches significantly enhances vocabulary learning of EFL learners. However, although visual learners slightly outperformed other types of learners on the post-test, no significant differences were observed among intermediate learners with different perceptual modalities employing semantic mapping for vocabulary practice.

Ongoing Semantic Change in Seven Swedish Words : A questionnaire-based study

OpenAIRE

Luzhkova, Elena

2015-01-01

The lexical semantics of a language is an area of linguistics that has many important implications for the life of modern society. It is important to understand how language change works and why this change occurs. Thus the aim of the work described in the thesis was to examine how six Swedish words, fett, fräsch, fräck, grym, häftig, and tajt are used by five different age groups of Swedish people in Uppsala region. To accomplish the aim of the study an appropriate questionnaire was compiled...

Semantic attributes based texture generation

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Chi, Huifang; Gan, Yanhai; Qi, Lin; Dong, Junyu; Madessa, Amanuel Hirpa

2018-04-01

Semantic attributes are commonly used for texture description. They can be used to describe the information of a texture, such as patterns, textons, distributions, brightness, and so on. Generally speaking, semantic attributes are more concrete descriptors than perceptual features. Therefore, it is practical to generate texture images from semantic attributes. In this paper, we propose to generate high-quality texture images from semantic attributes. Over the last two decades, several works have been done on texture synthesis and generation. Most of them focusing on example-based texture synthesis and procedural texture generation. Semantic attributes based texture generation still deserves more devotion. Gan et al. proposed a useful joint model for perception driven texture generation. However, perceptual features are nonobjective spatial statistics used by humans to distinguish different textures in pre-attentive situations. To give more describing information about texture appearance, semantic attributes which are more in line with human description habits are desired. In this paper, we use sigmoid cross entropy loss in an auxiliary model to provide enough information for a generator. Consequently, the discriminator is released from the relatively intractable mission of figuring out the joint distribution of condition vectors and samples. To demonstrate the validity of our method, we compare our method to Gan et al.'s method on generating textures by designing experiments on PTD and DTD. All experimental results show that our model can generate textures from semantic attributes.

Prosody and Semantics Are Separate but Not Separable Channels in the Perception of Emotional Speech: Test for Rating of Emotions in Speech

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Ben-David, Boaz M.; Multani, Namita; Shakuf, Vered; Rudzicz, Frank; van Lieshout, Pascal H. H. M.

2016-01-01

Purpose: Our aim is to explore the complex interplay of prosody (tone of speech) and semantics (verbal content) in the perception of discrete emotions in speech. Method: We implement a novel tool, the Test for Rating of Emotions in Speech. Eighty native English speakers were presented with spoken sentences made of different combinations of 5…

Cross-domain correlation in pitch perception, the influence of native language

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Chen, A.; Liu, L.; Kager, R.W.J.

2016-01-01

The current study explores how language experience may shape the correlation between lexical tone and musical pitch perception. A two domains (music and lexical tone) by two languages (tone, Mandarin Chinese and non-tone, Dutch) design is adopted. Participants were tested on their discrimination of

Lexically-based learning and early grammatical development.

Science.gov (United States)

Lieven, E V; Pine, J M; Baldwin, G

1997-02-01

Pine & Lieven (1993) suggest that a lexically-based positional analysis can account for the structure of a considerable proportion of children's early multiword corpora. The present study tests this claim on a second, larger sample of eleven children aged between 1;0 and 3;0 from a different social background, and extends the analysis to later in development. Results indicate that the positional analysis can account for a mean of 60% of all the children's multiword utterances and that the great majority of all other utterances are defined as frozen by the analysis. Alternative explanations of the data based on hypothesizing underlying syntactic or semantic relations are investigated through analyses of pronoun case marking and of verbs with prototypical agent-patient roles. Neither supports the view that the children's utterances are being produced on the basis of general underlying rules and categories. The implications of widespread distributional learning in early language development are discussed.

Spatial and Temporal Features of Superordinate Semantic Processing Studied with fMRI and EEG.

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Michelle E Costanzo

2013-07-01

Full Text Available The relationships between the anatomical representation of semantic knowledge in the human brain and the timing of neurophysiological mechanisms involved in manipulating such information remain unclear. This is the case for superordinate semantic categorization – the extraction of general features shared by broad classes of exemplars (e.g. living vs. non-living semantic categories. We proposed that, because of the abstract nature, of this information, input from diverse input modalities (visual or auditory, lexical or non-lexical should converge and be processed in the same regions of the brain, at similar time scales during superordinate categorization - specifically in a network of heteromodal regions, and late in the course of the categorization process. In order to test this hypothesis, we utilized electroencephalography and event related potentials (EEG/ERP with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI to characterize subjects’ responses as they made superordinate categorical decisions (living vs. nonliving about objects presented as visual pictures or auditory words. Our results reveal that, consistent with our hypothesis, during the course of superordinate categorization, information provided by these diverse inputs appears to converge in both time and space: fMRI showed that heteromodal areas of the parietal and temporal cortices are active during categorization of both classes of stimuli. The ERP results suggest that superordinate categorization is reflected as a late positive component (LPC with a parietal distribution and long latencies for both stimulus types. Within the areas and times in which modality independent responses were identified, some differences between living and non-living categories were observed, with a more widespread spatial extent and longer latency responses for categorization of non-living items.  

Spatial and temporal features of superordinate semantic processing studied with fMRI and EEG.

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Costanzo, Michelle E; McArdle, Joseph J; Swett, Bruce; Nechaev, Vladimir; Kemeny, Stefan; Xu, Jiang; Braun, Allen R

2013-01-01

The relationships between the anatomical representation of semantic knowledge in the human brain and the timing of neurophysiological mechanisms involved in manipulating such information remain unclear. This is the case for superordinate semantic categorization-the extraction of general features shared by broad classes of exemplars (e.g., living vs. non-living semantic categories). We proposed that, because of the abstract nature of this information, input from diverse input modalities (visual or auditory, lexical or non-lexical) should converge and be processed in the same regions of the brain, at similar time scales during superordinate categorization-specifically in a network of heteromodal regions, and late in the course of the categorization process. In order to test this hypothesis, we utilized electroencephalography and event related potentials (EEG/ERP) with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterize subjects' responses as they made superordinate categorical decisions (living vs. non-living) about objects presented as visual pictures or auditory words. Our results reveal that, consistent with our hypothesis, during the course of superordinate categorization, information provided by these diverse inputs appears to converge in both time and space: fMRI showed that heteromodal areas of the parietal and temporal cortices are active during categorization of both classes of stimuli. The ERP results suggest that superordinate categorization is reflected as a late positive component (LPC) with a parietal distribution and long latencies for both stimulus types. Within the areas and times in which modality independent responses were identified, some differences between living and non-living categories were observed, with a more widespread spatial extent and longer latency responses for categorization of non-living items.

Evaluating proposed dorsal and ventral route functions in speech perception and phonological short-term memory: Evidence from aphasia

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Heather Raye Dial

2015-04-01

When the lexical and sublexical stimuli were matched in discriminability, scores were highly correlated and no individual demonstrated substantially better performance on lexical than sublexical perception (Figures 1a-c. However, when the word discriminations were easier (as in prior studies; e.g., Miceli et al., 1980, patients with impaired syllable discrimination were within the control range on word discrimination (Figure 1d. Finally, digit matching showed no significant relation to perception tasks (e.g., Figure 1e. Moreover, there was a wide range of digit matching spans for patients performing well on speech perception tasks (e.g., > 1.5 on syllable discrimination and digit matching ranging from 3.6 to 6.0. These data fail to support dual route claims, suggesting that lexical processing depends on sublexical perception and suggesting that phonological STM depends on a buffer separate from speech perception mechanisms.

Semantic similarity-based alignment between clinical archetypes and SNOMED CT: an application to observations.

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Meizoso García, María; Iglesias Allones, José Luis; Martínez Hernández, Diego; Taboada Iglesias, María Jesús

2012-08-01

One of the main challenges of eHealth is semantic interoperability of health systems. But, this will only be possible if the capture, representation and access of patient data is standardized. Clinical data models, such as OpenEHR Archetypes, define data structures that are agreed by experts to ensure the accuracy of health information. In addition, they provide an option to normalize clinical data by means of binding terms used in the model definition to standard medical vocabularies. Nevertheless, the effort needed to establish the association between archetype terms and standard terminology concepts is considerable. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide an automated approach to bind OpenEHR archetypes terms to the external terminology SNOMED CT, with the capability to do it at a semantic level. This research uses lexical techniques and external terminological tools in combination with context-based techniques, which use information about structural and semantic proximity to identify similarities between terms and so, to find alignments between them. The proposed approach exploits both the structural context of archetypes and the terminology context, in which concepts are logically defined through the relationships (hierarchical and definitional) to other concepts. A set of 25 OBSERVATION archetypes with 477 bound terms was used to test the method. Of these, 342 terms (74.6%) were linked with 96.1% precision, 71.7% recall and 1.23 SNOMED CT concepts on average for each mapping. It has been detected that about one third of the archetype clinical information is grouped logically. Context-based techniques take advantage of this to increase the recall and to validate a 30.4% of the bindings produced by lexical techniques. This research shows that it is possible to automatically map archetype terms to a standard terminology with a high precision and recall, with the help of appropriate contextual and semantic information of both models. Moreover, the

Semantic mechanisms may be responsible for developing synesthesia

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Aleksandra eMroczko-Wąsowicz

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Currently, little is known about how synesthesia develops and which aspects of synesthesia can be acquired through a learning process. We review the increasing evidence for the role of semantic representations in the induction of synesthesia, and argue for the thesis that synesthetic abilities are developed and modified by semantic mechanisms. That is, in certain people semantic mechanisms associate concepts with perception-like experiences—and this association occurs in an extraordinary way. This phenomenon can be referred to as higher synesthesia or ideasthesia. The present analysis suggests that synesthesia develops during childhood and is being enriched further throughout the synesthetes’ lifetime; for example, the already existing concurrents may be adopted by novel inducers or new concurrents may be formed. For a deeper understanding of the origin and nature of synesthesia we propose to focus future research on two aspects: i the similarities between synesthesia and ordinary phenomenal experiences based on concepts, and ii the tight entanglement of perception, cognition and the conceptualization of the world. Most importantly, an explanation of how biological systems get to generate experiences, synesthetic or not, may have to involve an explanation of how we form semantic networks in general and what their role is in our ability to be aware of the surrounding world.

Congenital amusics use a secondary pitch mechanism to identify lexical tones.

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Bones, Oliver; Wong, Patrick C M

2017-09-01

Amusia is a pitch perception disorder associated with deficits in processing and production of both musical and lexical tones, which previous reports have suggested may be constrained to fine-grained pitch judgements. In the present study speakers of tone-languages, in which lexical tones are used to convey meaning, identified words present in chimera stimuli containing conflicting pitch-cues in the temporal fine-structure and temporal envelope, and which therefore conveyed two distinct utterances. Amusics were found to be more likely than controls to judge the word according to the envelope pitch-cues. This demonstrates that amusia is not associated with fine-grained pitch judgements alone, and is consistent with there being two distinct pitch mechanisms and with amusics having an atypical reliance on a secondary mechanism based upon envelope cues. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Semantic Feature Analysis Treatment for Anomia of Two Nonfluent Persian-Speaking Aphasic Patients

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Mozhgan Asadi

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Objectives: Semantic Feature Analysis was designed to improve lexical retrieval of aphasic patients via activation of semantic networks of the words. In this approach, the anomic patients are cured with semantic information to assist oral naming. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Semantic Feature Analysis treatment on anomia of two nonfluent aphasic patients. Methods: A single-subject study with ABA design was applied to two Persian-speaking patients with chronic nonfluent aphasia. Assessment, baseline, ntervention and maintenance phases were carried out respectively during 6 weeks. A picture naming task which was made up of pictures with high name- agreement comprising 12 target, 18 non-treated control and 5 easy words was used for probes and intervention. Intervention was performed in 5 successive days, 60 minutes per session. Descriptive statistics, level, trend & slope analyses, C and d statistics were used for data analysis. Results: Both participants revealed statistically significant improvements in naming target words. Some generalizations to control words was also occured. A minimal decrease in naming of target words was observed in maintenance phase but the naming ability was still above the baseline. The therapy maintenance effect size for both patients were obtained as medium. Discussion: The findings of the current study seems to confirm Semantic Feature Analysis as an effective intervention for improving naming ability of Persian-speaking aphasic patients.

Lexical Sophistication as a Multidimensional Phenomenon: Relations to Second Language Lexical Proficiency, Development, and Writing Quality

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Kim, Minkyung; Crossley, Scott A.; Kyle, Kristopher

2018-01-01

This study conceptualizes lexical sophistication as a multidimensional phenomenon by reducing numerous lexical features of lexical sophistication into 12 aggregated components (i.e., dimensions) via a principal component analysis approach. These components were then used to predict second language (L2) writing proficiency levels, holistic lexical…

Training Of Manual Actions Improves Language Understanding of Semantically-Related Action Sentences

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Matteo eLocatelli

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Conceptual knowledge accessed by language may involve the re-activation of the associated primary sensory-motor processes. Whether these embodied representations are indeed constitutive to conceptual knowledge is hotly debated, particularly since direct evidence that sensory-motor expertise can improve conceptual processing is scarce.In this study, we sought for this crucial piece of evidence, by training naive healthy subjects to perform complex manual actions and by measuring, before and after training, their performance in a semantic language task. 19 participants engaged in 3 weeks of motor training. Each participant was trained in 3 complex manual actions (e.g. origami. Before and after the training period, each subject underwent a series of manual dexterity tests and a semantic language task. The latter consisted of a sentence-picture semantic congruency judgment task, with 6 target congruent sentence-picture pairs (semantically related to the trained manual actions, 6 non-target congruent pairs (semantically unrelated, and 12 filler incongruent pairs.Manual action training induced a significant improvement in all manual dexterity tests, demonstrating the successful acquisition of sensory-motor expertise. In the semantic language task, the reaction times to both target and non-target congruent sentence-image pairs decreased after action training, indicating a more efficient conceptual-semantic processing. Noteworthy, the reaction times for target pairs decreased more than those for non-target pairs, as indicated by the 2x2 interaction. These results were confirmed when controlling for the potential bias of increased frequency of use of target lexical items during manual training.The results of the present study suggest that sensory-motor expertise gained by training of specific manual actions can lead to an improvement of cognitive-linguistic skills related to the specific conceptual-semantic domain associated to the trained actions.

The comparative impact of lexical translation and lexical inferencing on EFL learners’ vocabulary retention

OpenAIRE

Nasim Shangarfam; Neda Ghorbani; Ehsan Safarpoor; Mahshid Maha

2013-01-01

The present study is an attempt to investigate the comparative effects of lexical translation and lexical inferencing techniques on Female intermediate EFL learners’ vocabulary retention. For this purpose, 90 female learners attending the Jahad Daneshgahi Center in Qom took a piloted sample KET test, 60 of whom were selected as homogenous learners. They were randomly divided into two experimental groups-one learning new vocabulary items through lexical translation technique and the other with...

Aphasia in Persian: Implications for cognitive models of lexical processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Bakhtiar, Mehdi; Jafary, Reyhane; Weekes, Brendan S

2017-09-01

Current models of oral reading assume that different routes (sublexical, lexical, and semantic) mediate oral reading performance and reliance on different routes during oral reading depends on the characteristics of print to sound mappings. Studies of single cases of acquired dyslexia in aphasia have contributed to the development of such models by revealing patterns of double dissociation in object naming and oral reading skill that follow brain damage in Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan languages. Print to sound mapping in Persian varies in transparency because orthography to phonology translation depends uniquely on the presence or absence of vowel letters in print. Here a hypothesis is tested that oral reading in Persian requires a semantic reading pathway that is independent of a direct non-semantic reading pathway, by investigating whether Persian speakers with aphasia show selective impairments to object naming and reading aloud. A sample of 21 Persian speakers with aphasia ranging in age from 18 to 77 (mean = 53, SD = 16.9) was asked to name a same set of 200 objects and to read aloud the printed names of these objects in different sessions. As an additional measure of sublexical reading, patients were asked to read aloud 30 non-word stimuli. Results showed that oral reading is significantly more preserved than object naming in Persian speakers with aphasia. However, more preserved object naming than oral reading was also observed in some cases. There was a moderate positive correlation between picture naming and oral reading success (p Persian for the first time. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.

Experiment on building Sundanese lexical database based on WordNet

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Dewi Budiwati, Sari; Nurani Setiawan, Novihana

2018-03-01

Sundanese language is the second biggest local language used in Indonesia. Currently, Sundanese language is rarely used since we have the Indonesian language in everyday conversation and as the national language. We built a Sundanese lexical database based on WordNet and Indonesian WordNet as an alternative way to preserve the language as one of local culture. WordNet was chosen because of Sundanese language has three levels of word delivery, called language code of conduct. Web user participant involved in this research for specifying Sundanese semantic relations, and an expert linguistic for validating the relations. The merge methodology was implemented in this experiment. Some words are equivalent with WordNet while another does not have its equivalence since some words are not exist in another culture.

Cross-modal integration of lexical-semantic features during word processing: evidence from oscillatory dynamics during EEG.

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Markus J van Ackeren

Full Text Available In recent years, numerous studies have provided converging evidence that word meaning is partially stored in modality-specific cortical networks. However, little is known about the mechanisms supporting the integration of this distributed semantic content into coherent conceptual representations. In the current study we aimed to address this issue by using EEG to look at the spatial and temporal dynamics of feature integration during word comprehension. Specifically, participants were presented with two modality-specific features (i.e., visual or auditory features such as silver and loud and asked to verify whether these two features were compatible with a subsequently presented target word (e.g., WHISTLE. Each pair of features described properties from either the same modality (e.g., silver, tiny  =  visual features or different modalities (e.g., silver, loud  =  visual, auditory. Behavioral and EEG data were collected. The results show that verifying features that are putatively represented in the same modality-specific network is faster than verifying features across modalities. At the neural level, integrating features across modalities induces sustained oscillatory activity around the theta range (4-6 Hz in left anterior temporal lobe (ATL, a putative hub for integrating distributed semantic content. In addition, enhanced long-range network interactions in the theta range were seen between left ATL and a widespread cortical network. These results suggest that oscillatory dynamics in the theta range could be involved in integrating multimodal semantic content by creating transient functional networks linking distributed modality-specific networks and multimodal semantic hubs such as left ATL.

The paca that roared: Immediate cumulative semantic interference among newly acquired words.

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Oppenheim, Gary M

2018-08-01

With 40,000 words in the average vocabulary, how can speakers find the specific words that they want so quickly and easily? Cumulative semantic interference in language production provides a clue: when naming a large series of pictures, with a few mammals sprinkled about, naming each subsequent mammal becomes slower and more error-prone. Such interference mirrors predictions from an incremental learning algorithm applied to meaning-driven retrieval from an established vocabulary, suggesting retrieval benefits from a constant, implicit, re-optimization process (Oppenheim et al., 2010). But how quickly would a new mammal (e.g. paca) engage in this re-optimization? In this experiment, 18 participants studied 3 novel and 3 familiar exemplars from each of six semantic categories, and immediately performed a timed picture-naming task. Consistent with the learning model's predictions, naming latencies revealed immediate cumulative semantic interference in all directions: from new words to new words, from new words to old words, from old words to new words, and from old words to old words. Repeating the procedure several days later produced similar-magnitude effects, demonstrating that newly acquired words can be immediately semantically integrated, at least to the extent necessary to produce typical cumulative semantic interference. These findings extend the Dark Side model's scope to include novel word production, and are considered in terms of mechanisms for lexical selection. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

On the accessibility of phonological, orthographic, and semantic aspects of second language vocabulary learning and their relationship with spatial and linguistic intelligences

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Abbas Ali Zarei

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The present study was an attempt to investigate the differences in the accessibility of phonological, semantic, and orthographic aspects of words in L2 vocabulary learning. For this purpose, a sample of 119 Iranian intermediate level EFL students in a private language institute in Karaj was selected. All of the participants received the same instructional treatment. At the end of the experimental period, three tests were administered based on the previously-taught words. A subset of Gardner’s’ (1983 Multiple Intelligences questionnaire was also used for data collection. A repeated measures one-way ANOVA procedure was used to analyze the obtained data. The results showed significant differences in the accessibility of phonological, semantic, and orthographic aspects of words in second language vocabulary learning. Moreover, to investigate the relationships between spatial and linguistic intelligences and the afore-mentioned aspects of lexical knowledge, a correlational analysis was used. No significant relationships were found between spatial and linguistic intelligences and the three aspects of lexical knowledge. These findings may have theoretical and pedagogical implications for researchers, teachers, and learners.

Bedding down new words: Sleep promotes the emergence of lexical competition in visual word recognition.

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Wang, Hua-Chen; Savage, Greg; Gaskell, M Gareth; Paulin, Tamara; Robidoux, Serje; Castles, Anne

2017-08-01

Lexical competition processes are widely viewed as the hallmark of visual word recognition, but little is known about the factors that promote their emergence. This study examined for the first time whether sleep may play a role in inducing these effects. A group of 27 participants learned novel written words, such as banara, at 8 am and were tested on their learning at 8 pm the same day (AM group), while 29 participants learned the words at 8 pm and were tested at 8 am the following day (PM group). Both groups were retested after 24 hours. Using a semantic categorization task, we showed that lexical competition effects, as indexed by slowed responses to existing neighbor words such as banana, emerged 12 h later in the PM group who had slept after learning but not in the AM group. After 24 h the competition effects were evident in both groups. These findings have important implications for theories of orthographic learning and broader neurobiological models of memory consolidation.

Semantic Labeling of Nonspeech Audio Clips

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Xiaojuan Ma

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Human communication about entities and events is primarily linguistic in nature. While visual representations of information are shown to be highly effective as well, relatively little is known about the communicative power of auditory nonlinguistic representations. We created a collection of short nonlinguistic auditory clips encoding familiar human activities, objects, animals, natural phenomena, machinery, and social scenes. We presented these sounds to a broad spectrum of anonymous human workers using Amazon Mechanical Turk and collected verbal sound labels. We analyzed the human labels in terms of their lexical and semantic properties to ascertain that the audio clips do evoke the information suggested by their pre-defined captions. We then measured the agreement with the semantically compatible labels for each sound clip. Finally, we examined which kinds of entities and events, when captured by nonlinguistic acoustic clips, appear to be well-suited to elicit information for communication, and which ones are less discriminable. Our work is set against the broader goal of creating resources that facilitate communication for people with some types of language loss. Furthermore, our data should prove useful for future research in machine analysis/synthesis of audio, such as computational auditory scene analysis, and annotating/querying large collections of sound effects.

The semantic similarity ensemble

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Andrea Ballatore

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Computational measures of semantic similarity between geographic terms provide valuable support across geographic information retrieval, data mining, and information integration. To date, a wide variety of approaches to geo-semantic similarity have been devised. A judgment of similarity is not intrinsically right or wrong, but obtains a certain degree of cognitive plausibility, depending on how closely it mimics human behavior. Thus selecting the most appropriate measure for a specific task is a significant challenge. To address this issue, we make an analogy between computational similarity measures and soliciting domain expert opinions, which incorporate a subjective set of beliefs, perceptions, hypotheses, and epistemic biases. Following this analogy, we define the semantic similarity ensemble (SSE as a composition of different similarity measures, acting as a panel of experts having to reach a decision on the semantic similarity of a set of geographic terms. The approach is evaluated in comparison to human judgments, and results indicate that an SSE performs better than the average of its parts. Although the best member tends to outperform the ensemble, all ensembles outperform the average performance of each ensemble's member. Hence, in contexts where the best measure is unknown, the ensemble provides a more cognitively plausible approach.

Neural overlap of L1 and L2 semantic representations in speech: A decoding approach.

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Van de Putte, Eowyn; De Baene, Wouter; Brass, Marcel; Duyck, Wouter

2017-11-15

Although research has now converged towards a consensus that both languages of a bilingual are represented in at least partly shared systems for language comprehension, it remains unclear whether both languages are represented in the same neural populations for production. We investigated the neural overlap between L1 and L2 semantic representations of translation equivalents using a production task in which the participants had to name pictures in L1 and L2. Using a decoding approach, we tested whether brain activity during the production of individual nouns in one language allowed predicting the production of the same concepts in the other language. Because both languages only share the underlying semantic representation (sensory and lexical overlap was maximally avoided), this would offer very strong evidence for neural overlap in semantic representations of bilinguals. Based on the brain activation for the individual concepts in one language in the bilateral occipito-temporal cortex and the inferior and the middle temporal gyrus, we could accurately predict the equivalent individual concepts in the other language. This indicates that these regions share semantic representations across L1 and L2 word production. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Get rich quick: the signal to respond procedure reveals the time course of semantic richness effects during visual word recognition.

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Hargreaves, Ian S; Pexman, Penny M

2014-05-01

According to several current frameworks, semantic processing involves an early influence of language-based information followed by later influences of object-based information (e.g., situated simulations; Santos, Chaigneau, Simmons, & Barsalou, 2011). In the present study we examined whether these predictions extend to the influence of semantic variables in visual word recognition. We investigated the time course of semantic richness effects in visual word recognition using a signal-to-respond (STR) paradigm fitted to a lexical decision (LDT) and a semantic categorization (SCT) task. We used linear mixed effects to examine the relative contributions of language-based (number of senses, ARC) and object-based (imageability, number of features, body-object interaction ratings) descriptions of semantic richness at four STR durations (75, 100, 200, and 400ms). Results showed an early influence of number of senses and ARC in the SCT. In both LDT and SCT, object-based effects were the last to influence participants' decision latencies. We interpret our results within a framework in which semantic processes are available to influence word recognition as a function of their availability over time, and of their relevance to task-specific demands. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Perception and Lexicon Labeling Ability on a Child with Language Delay Diagnosed As Autistic Spectrum Disorder: A Psycholinguistic Study

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Rohmani Nur Indah

2016-07-01

Full Text Available This research focuses on the semantics acquisition of a child with language delay diagnosed as autistic spectrum disorder (ASD. The research problem is on how the child acquired the ability to comprehend meaning. It aims at answering the questions on how the child identified lexical meanings and how he labeled targeted lexicons of his first language. The approach employed in this research is descriptive qualitative to get adequate explanation on a specific language phenomenon, namely semantics acquisition. Its design is case study with the type neo-ethnographic. As the data collection method, it uses participant observation of longitudinal study considering that the research subject has familial relation with the researcher. The data analysis shows that the semantic acquisition of the research subject has complexity in vocabulary enrichment. The research subject often performs echolalic speech when he is asked to identify or label certain object given. The typical idiosyncratic speech is shown by the unique feature of limited syllable and prosody. In general, his ability to identify lexical meanings is far exceeding his ability to label objects. He also has sensitivity to perceive the non-verbal symbol performed by the people he knows well. The use of verbal language supported by non-verbal language facilitates his perception. He finds it difficult to comprehend the lexicons having similar sound as he assumes that one lexicon represents one object which typically belongs to concrete object. In addition, the ability of the research subject in labeling objects cannot be developed easily because of his difficulty in expressing ideas through words. To pronounce the words correctly, he shows high anxiety by lowering down his speech. In selecting the lexicon he also finds it hard to use pronoun, to label homonyms and to apply both polysemy and hyponym. Accordingly, he tends to communicate only to fulfill his needs by asking things, asking the

FUNCTIONAL AND SEMANTIC PROPERTIES OF LOANWORDS IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE (BASED ON HYPERTEXTS

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Novikov Vladimir Borisovich

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The author studies functional and semantic properties of foreign-language nouns revealed in the form of the oral written language in computer-mediated communication, taking into account the debatability of issues about the borders of a loanword's notion, about the reasons of penetration of foreign-language words into the Russian language and classification of loanwords, which are used in linguistic literature. The actual material (500 foreign-language nouns was selected by the method of continuous sampling of the online texts posted in social networks, news portals and various forums. It is established that the loanwords used in hypertexts reflect the updating of lexical means by generating the words that refer to the new and current phenomena; penetrate into the Russian language along with the borrowing of thing or notion; generate parallels to the existing names (at this, the ability of forming doublet reflection is eliminated by means of semantic and stylistic differentiation of units – a borrowed one and an existing in the language of the recipient. The analysis of lexical content of loanwords revealed that the most numerous LSG are Technology LSG that unites the names of technical devices; Art and Evaluation LSGs. It is proved in the article that foreign-language nouns are used in hypertexts for communicative, nominative, emotive, and metalinguistic functions. However, such lexemes do not participate in the implementation of regulatory and phatic functions.

Priming the semantic neighbourhood during the attentional blink.

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Irina M Harris

2010-09-01

Full Text Available When two targets are presented in close temporal proximity amongst a rapid serial visual stream of distractors, a period of disrupted attention and attenuated awareness lasting 200-500 ms follows identification of the first target (T1. This phenomenon is known as the "attentional blink" (AB and is generally attributed to a failure to consolidate information in visual short-term memory due to depleted or disrupted attentional resources. Previous research has shown that items presented during the AB that fail to reach conscious awareness are still processed to relatively high levels, including the level of meaning. For example, missed word stimuli have been shown to prime later targets that are closely associated words. Although these findings have been interpreted as evidence for semantic processing during the AB, closely associated words (e.g., day-night may also rely on specific, well-worn, lexical associative links which enhance attention to the relevant target.We used a measure of semantic distance to create prime-target pairs that are conceptually close, but have low word associations (e.g., wagon and van and investigated priming from a distractor stimulus presented during the AB to a subsequent target (T2. The stimuli were words (concrete nouns in Experiment 1 and the corresponding pictures of objects in Experiment 2. In both experiments, report of T2 was facilitated when this item was preceded by a semantically-related distractor.This study is the first to show conclusively that conceptual information is extracted from distractor stimuli presented during a period of attenuated awareness and that this information spreads to neighbouring concepts within a semantic network.

Predicting Raters’ Transparency Judgments of English and Chinese Morphological Constituents using Latent Semantic Analysis

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Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Hsu, Li-Chuan; Tien, Yi-Min; Pomplun, Marc

2013-01-01

The morphological constituents of English compounds (e.g., “butter” and “fly” for “butterfly”) and two-character Chinese compounds may differ in meaning from the whole word. Subjective differences and ambiguity of transparency make the judgments difficult, and a computational alternative based on a general model may be a way to average across subjective differences. The current study proposes two approaches based on Latent Semantic Analysis (Landauer & Dumais, 1997): Model 1 compares the semantic similarity between a compound word and each of its constituents, and Model 2 derives the dominant meaning of a constituent based on a clustering analysis of morphological family members (e.g., “butterfingers” or “buttermilk” for “butter”). The proposed models successfully predicted participants’ transparency ratings, and we recommend that experimenters use Model 1 for English compounds and Model 2 for Chinese compounds, due to raters’ morphological processing in different writing systems. The dominance of lexical meaning, semantic transparency, and the average similarity between all pairs within a morphological family are provided, and practical applications for future studies are discussed. PMID:23784009

Macrostructural Treatment of Multi-word Lexical Items

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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.

Unfolding Visual Lexical Decision in Time

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Barca, Laura; Pezzulo, Giovanni

2012-01-01

Visual lexical decision is a classical paradigm in psycholinguistics, and numerous studies have assessed the so-called “lexicality effect" (i.e., better performance with lexical than non-lexical stimuli). Far less is known about the dynamics of choice, because many studies measured overall reaction times, which are not informative about underlying processes. To unfold visual lexical decision in (over) time, we measured participants' hand movements toward one of two item alternatives by recording the streaming x,y coordinates of the computer mouse. Participants categorized four kinds of stimuli as “lexical" or “non-lexical:" high and low frequency words, pseudowords, and letter strings. Spatial attraction toward the opposite category was present for low frequency words and pseudowords. Increasing the ambiguity of the stimuli led to greater movement complexity and trajectory attraction to competitors, whereas no such effect was present for high frequency words and letter strings. Results fit well with dynamic models of perceptual decision-making, which describe the process as a competition between alternatives guided by the continuous accumulation of evidence. More broadly, our results point to a key role of statistical decision theory in studying linguistic processing in terms of dynamic and non-modular mechanisms. PMID:22563419

Lost for words or loss of memories? Autobiographical memory in semantic dementia.

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Moss, H E; Kopelman, M D; Cappelletti, M; Davies, P de Mornay; Jaldow, E

2003-12-01

Recent reports have suggested that patients with semantic dementia show a loss of early (remote) auto-biographical memories with pronounced sparing of recent memories (Graham & Hodges, 1997; Snowden, Griffiths, & Neary, 1996), i.e., a 'reversed' temporal gradient or 'Ribot effect'. At first sight, these findings suggest that the deficits in 'semantic' dementia go beyond the semantic domain, involving aspects of autobiographical (episodic) memory. It has also been proposed that there is a 'step-like' function with personal memories preserved for 18 months to 2 years in the immediate past. This view is consistent with the theory that the hippocampal complex/medial temporal lobe (relatively intact in semantic dementia) plays a time-limited role in the acquisition and storage of memories, while the temporal neocortex (damaged in semantic dementia) is required for long-term storage and retrieval. In this study we ask whether (a) previous tests have underestimated the integrity of remote memory in semantic dementia as a result of not allowing for these patients' comprehension and language production difficulties, and (b) whether a recency effect, if obtained, is genuinely step-like or more graded. We used a cued autobiographical memory interview with semantic dementia patient, IH, to examine the effect of providing increasingly specific lexical cues to probe salient events throughout his lifespan. Results demonstrated that the provision of specific cues enabled IH to access and express memories from his childhood and early adulthood as well as from more recent times. There was a gentle recency effect only for intermediate levels of cueing, indicating that recent memories were easier to retrieve and/or express in the absence of specific cues, but this effect was graded, with no evidence of a step-like cut-off at 18 months or 2 years before testing. In brief, our findings are consistent with the view that the deficits in semantic dementia are predominantly or exclusively

Audiovisual semantic congruency during encoding enhances memory performance.

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Heikkilä, Jenni; Alho, Kimmo; Hyvönen, Heidi; Tiippana, Kaisa

2015-01-01

Studies of memory and learning have usually focused on a single sensory modality, although human perception is multisensory in nature. In the present study, we investigated the effects of audiovisual encoding on later unisensory recognition memory performance. The participants were to memorize auditory or visual stimuli (sounds, pictures, spoken words, or written words), each of which co-occurred with either a semantically congruent stimulus, incongruent stimulus, or a neutral (non-semantic noise) stimulus in the other modality during encoding. Subsequent memory performance was overall better when the stimulus to be memorized was initially accompanied by a semantically congruent stimulus in the other modality than when it was accompanied by a neutral stimulus. These results suggest that semantically congruent multisensory experiences enhance encoding of both nonverbal and verbal materials, resulting in an improvement in their later recognition memory.

Recruitment of Anterior and Posterior Structures in Lexical-Semantic Processing: An fMRI Study Comparing Implicit and Explicit Tasks

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Ruff, Ilana; Blumstein, Sheila E.; Myers, Emily B.; Hutchison, Emmette

2008-01-01

Previous studies examining explicit semantic processing have consistently shown activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). In contrast, implicit semantic processing tasks have shown activation in posterior areas including the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) with less consistent activation in the IFG.…

Ambiguity in the Acquisition of Lexical Information

OpenAIRE

Vanderwende, Lucy

1995-01-01

This paper describes an approach to the automatic identification of lexical information in on-line dictionaries. This approach uses bootstrapping techniques, specifically so that ambiguity in the dictionary text can be treated properly. This approach consists of processing an on-line dictionary multiple times, each time refining the lexical information previously acquired and identifying new lexical information. The strength of this approach is that lexical information can be acquired from de...

Lexical representation of novel L2 contrasts

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Hayes-Harb, Rachel; Masuda, Kyoko

2005-04-01

There is much interest among psychologists and linguists in the influence of the native language sound system on the acquisition of second languages (Best, 1995; Flege, 1995). Most studies of second language (L2) speech focus on how learners perceive and produce L2 sounds, but we know of only two that have considered how novel sound contrasts are encoded in learners' lexical representations of L2 words (Pallier et al., 2001; Ota et al., 2002). In this study we investigated how native speakers of English encode Japanese consonant quantity contrasts in their developing Japanese lexicons at different stages of acquisition (Japanese contrasts singleton versus geminate consonants but English does not). Monolingual English speakers, native English speakers learning Japanese for one year, and native speakers of Japanese were taught a set of Japanese nonwords containing singleton and geminate consonants. Subjects then performed memory tasks eliciting perception and production data to determine whether they encoded the Japanese consonant quantity contrast lexically. Overall accuracy in these tasks was a function of Japanese language experience, and acoustic analysis of the production data revealed non-native-like patterns of differentiation of singleton and geminate consonants among the L2 learners of Japanese. Implications for theories of L2 speech are discussed.

On the influence of typicality and age of acquisition on semantic processing: Diverging evidence from behavioural and ERP responses.

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Räling, Romy; Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia; Schröder, Astrid; Wartenburger, Isabell

2015-08-01

Various behavioural studies show that semantic typicality (TYP) and age of acquisition (AOA) of a specific word influence processing time and accuracy during the performance of lexical-semantic tasks. This study examines the influence of TYP and AOA on semantic processing at behavioural (response times and accuracy data) and electrophysiological levels using an auditory category-member-verification task. Reaction time data reveal independent TYP and AOA effects, while in the accuracy data and the event-related potentials predominantly effects of TYP can be found. The present study thus confirms previous findings and extends evidence found in the visual modality to the auditory modality. A modality-independent influence on semantic word processing is manifested. However, with regard to the influence of AOA, the diverging results raise questions on the origin of AOA effects as well as on the interpretation of offline and online data. Hence, results will be discussed against the background of recent theories on N400 correlates in semantic processing. In addition, an argument in favour of a complementary use of research techniques will be made. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Differential activity in left inferior frontal gyrus for pseudowords and real words: an event-related fMRI study on auditory lexical decision.

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Xiao, Zhuangwei; Zhang, John X; Wang, Xiaoyi; Wu, Renhua; Hu, Xiaoping; Weng, Xuchu; Tan, Li Hai

2005-06-01

After Newman and Twieg and others, we used a fast event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) design and contrasted the lexical processing of pseudowords and real words. Participants carried out an auditory lexical decision task on a list of randomly intermixed real and pseudo Chinese two-character (or two-syllable) words. The pseudowords were constructed by recombining constituent characters of the real words to control for sublexical code properties. Processing of pseudowords and real words activated a highly comparable network of brain regions, including bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, superior, middle temporal gyrus, calcarine and lingual gyrus, and left supramarginal gyrus. Mirroring a behavioral lexical effect, left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was significantly more activated for pseudowords than for real words. This result disconfirms a popular view that this area plays a role in grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, as such a conversion process was unnecessary in our task with auditory stimulus presentation. An alternative view was supported that attributes increased activity in left IFG for pseudowords to general processes in decision making, specifically in making positive versus negative responses. Activation in left supramarginal gyrus was of a much larger volume for real words than for pseudowords, suggesting a role of this region in the representation of phonological or semantic information for two-character Chinese words at the lexical level.

Language and ToM Development in Autism versus Asperger Syndrome: Contrasting Influences of Syntactic versus Lexical/Semantic Maturity

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Paynter, Jessica; Peterson, Candida

2010-01-01

Theory of mind (ToM) development by a sample of 63 children aged 5-12 years (24 with Asperger syndrome, 19 with high-functioning autism, and 20 age-matched typical developers) was assessed with a five-task false-belief battery in relation to both lexical (vocabulary) and syntactic (grammar) language skills. Contrary to some previous research, no…

Word maturity indices with latent semantic analysis: why, when, and where is Procrustes rotation applied?

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Jorge-Botana, Guillermo; Olmos, Ricardo; Luzón, José M

2018-01-01

The aim of this paper is to describe and explain one useful computational methodology to model the semantic development of word representation: Word maturity. In particular, the methodology is based on the longitudinal word monitoring created by Kirylev and Landauer using latent semantic analysis for the representation of lexical units. The paper is divided into two parts. First, the steps required to model the development of the meaning of words are explained in detail. We describe the technical and theoretical aspects of each step. Second, we provide a simple example of application of this methodology with some simple tools that can be used by applied researchers. This paper can serve as a user-friendly guide for researchers interested in modeling changes in the semantic representations of words. Some current aspects of the technique and future directions are also discussed. WIREs Cogn Sci 2018, 9:e1457. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1457 This article is categorized under: Computer Science > Natural Language Processing Linguistics > Language Acquisition Psychology > Development and Aging. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Processing of visual semantic information to concrete words: temporal dynamics and neural mechanisms indicated by event-related brain potentials( ).

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van Schie, Hein T; Wijers, Albertus A; Mars, Rogier B; Benjamins, Jeroen S; Stowe, Laurie A

2005-05-01

Event-related brain potentials were used to study the retrieval of visual semantic information to concrete words, and to investigate possible structural overlap between visual object working memory and concreteness effects in word processing. Subjects performed an object working memory task that involved 5 s retention of simple 4-angled polygons (load 1), complex 10-angled polygons (load 2), and a no-load baseline condition. During the polygon retention interval subjects were presented with a lexical decision task to auditory presented concrete (imageable) and abstract (nonimageable) words, and pseudowords. ERP results are consistent with the use of object working memory for the visualisation of concrete words. Our data indicate a two-step processing model of visual semantics in which visual descriptive information of concrete words is first encoded in semantic memory (indicated by an anterior N400 and posterior occipital positivity), and is subsequently visualised via the network for object working memory (reflected by a left frontal positive slow wave and a bilateral occipital slow wave negativity). Results are discussed in the light of contemporary models of semantic memory.

Spatial distance effects on incremental semantic interpretation of abstract sentences: evidence from eye tracking.

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Guerra, Ernesto; Knoeferle, Pia

2014-12-01

A large body of evidence has shown that visual context information can rapidly modulate language comprehension for concrete sentences and when it is mediated by a referential or a lexical-semantic link. What has not yet been examined is whether visual context can also modulate comprehension of abstract sentences incrementally when it is neither referenced by, nor lexically associated with, the sentence. Three eye-tracking reading experiments examined the effects of spatial distance between words (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2 and 3) on participants' reading times for sentences that convey similarity or difference between two abstract nouns (e.g., 'Peace and war are certainly different...'). Before reading the sentence, participants inspected a visual context with two playing cards that moved either far apart or close together. In Experiment 1, the cards turned and showed the first two nouns of the sentence (e.g., 'peace', 'war'). In Experiments 2 and 3, they turned but remained blank. Participants' reading times at the adjective (Experiment 1: first-pass reading time; Experiment 2: total times) and at the second noun phrase (Experiment 3: first-pass times) were faster for sentences that expressed similarity when the preceding words/objects were close together (vs. far apart) and for sentences that expressed dissimilarity when the preceding words/objects were far apart (vs. close together). Thus, spatial distance between words or entirely unrelated objects can rapidly and incrementally modulate the semantic interpretation of abstract sentences. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Assessment of Lexical and Non-Lexical Spelling in Students in Grades 1-7

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Kohnen, Saskia; Colenbrander, Danielle; Krajenbrink, Trudy; Nickels, Lyndsey

2015-01-01

The main aim of this study was to develop standardised tests that assess some of the most important spelling skills for children in primary school: sound-letter mappings (non-lexical spelling) and word spelling accuracy (lexical spelling). We present normative comparison data for children in Grades 1-7 as well as measures of validity and…

A Lexical Framework for Semantic Annotation of Positive and Negative Regulation Relations in Biomedical Pathways

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zambach, Sine; Lassen, Tine

presented here, we analyze 6 frequently used verbs denoting the regulation relations regulates, positively regulates and negatively regulates through corpus analysis, and propose a formal representation of the acquired knowledge as domain speci¯c semantic frames. The acquired knowledge patterns can thus...

Complications of Translating the Meanings of the Holy Qur'an at Word Level in the English Language in Relation to Frame Semantic Theory

Science.gov (United States)

Balla, Asjad Ahmed Saeed; Siddiek, Ahmed Gumaa

2017-01-01

The present study is an attempt to investigate the problems resulting from the lexical choice in the translation of the Holy Qur'an to emphasize the importance of the theory of "Frame Semantics" in the translation process. It has been conducted with the aim of measuring the difference in concept between the two languages Arabic and…

Standard-Chinese Lexical Neighborhood Test in normal-hearing young children.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Chang; Liu, Sha; Zhang, Ning; Yang, Yilin; Kong, Ying; Zhang, Luo

2011-06-01

The purposes of the present study were to establish the Standard-Chinese version of Lexical Neighborhood Test (LNT) and to examine the lexical and age effects on spoken-word recognition in normal-hearing children. Six lists of monosyllabic and six lists of disyllabic words (20 words/list) were selected from the database of daily speech materials for normal-hearing (NH) children of ages 3-5 years. The lists were further divided into "easy" and "hard" halves according to the word frequency and neighborhood density in the database based on the theory of Neighborhood Activation Model (NAM). Ninety-six NH children (age ranged between 4.0 and 7.0 years) were divided into three different age groups of 1-year intervals. Speech-perception tests were conducted using the Standard-Chinese monosyllabic and disyllabic LNT. The inter-list performance was found to be equivalent and inter-rater reliability was high with 92.5-95% consistency. Results of word-recognition scores showed that the lexical effects were all significant. Children scored higher with disyllabic words than with monosyllabic words. "Easy" words scored higher than "hard" words. The word-recognition performance also increased with age in each lexical category. A multiple linear regression analysis showed that neighborhood density, age, and word frequency appeared to have increasingly more contributions to Chinese word recognition. The results of the present study indicated that performances of Chinese word recognition were influenced by word frequency, age, and neighborhood density, with word frequency playing a major role. These results were consistent with those in other languages, supporting the application of NAM in the Chinese language. The development of Standard-Chinese version of LNT and the establishment of a database of children of 4-6 years old can provide a reliable means for spoken-word recognition test in children with hearing impairment. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Levisen, Carsten; Sippola, Eeva; Bakker, Peter

2017-01-01

This study presents a semantics-driven lexical comparison of 20 creole languages and five European lexifier languages. Breaking new ground into understanding creole semantics, it utilizes insights from both cognitive semantics (in particular, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach) and phylog......This study presents a semantics-driven lexical comparison of 20 creole languages and five European lexifier languages. Breaking new ground into understanding creole semantics, it utilizes insights from both cognitive semantics (in particular, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach...

Lexically guided perceptual learning in Mandarin Chinese

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Burchfield, L.A.; Luk, S.H.K.; Antoniou, M.; Cutler, A.

2017-01-01

Lexically guided perceptual learni ng refers to the use of lexical knowledge to retune sp eech categories and thereby adapt to a novel talker's pronunciation. This adaptation has been extensively documented, but primarily for segmental-based learning in English and Dutch. In languages with lexical

The Effect of Pinyin Input Experience on the Link Between Semantic and Phonology of Chinese Character in Digital Writing.

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Chen, Jingjun; Luo, Rong; Liu, Huashan

2017-08-01

With the development of ICT, digital writing is becoming much more common in people's life. Differently from keyboarding alphabets directly to input English words, keyboarding Chinese character is always through typing phonetic alphabets and then identify the glyph provided by Pinyin input-method software while in this process which do not need users to produce orthography spelling, thus it is different from traditional written language production model based on handwriting process. Much of the research in this domain has found that using Pinyin input method is beneficial to Chinese characters recognition, but only a small part explored the effects of individual's Pinyin input experience on the Chinese characters production process. We ask whether using Pinyin input-method will strengthen the semantic-phonology linkage or semantic-orthography linkage in Chinese character mental lexicon. Through recording the RT and accuracy of participants completing semantic-syllable and semantic-glyph consistency judgments, the results found the accuracy of semantic-syllable consistency judgments in high Pinyin input experienced group was higher than that in low-experienced group, and RT was reversed. There were no significant differences on semantic-glyph consistency judgments between the two groups. We conclude that using Pinyin input method in Chinese digital writing can strengthen the semantic-phonology linkage while do not weakening the semantic-orthography linkage in mental lexicon at the same time, which means that Pinyin input method is beneficial to lexical processing involving Chinese cognition.

Somatotopic Semantic Priming and Prediction in the Motor System

Science.gov (United States)

Grisoni, Luigi; Dreyer, Felix R.; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2016-01-01

The recognition of action-related sounds and words activates motor regions, reflecting the semantic grounding of these symbols in action information; in addition, motor cortex exerts causal influences on sound perception and language comprehension. However, proponents of classic symbolic theories still dispute the role of modality-preferential systems such as the motor cortex in the semantic processing of meaningful stimuli. To clarify whether the motor system carries semantic processes, we investigated neurophysiological indexes of semantic relationships between action-related sounds and words. Event-related potentials revealed that action-related words produced significantly larger stimulus-evoked (Mismatch Negativity-like) and predictive brain responses (Readiness Potentials) when presented in body-part-incongruent sound contexts (e.g., “kiss” in footstep sound context; “kick” in whistle context) than in body-part-congruent contexts, a pattern reminiscent of neurophysiological correlates of semantic priming. Cortical generators of the semantic relatedness effect were localized in areas traditionally associated with semantic memory, including left inferior frontal cortex and temporal pole, and, crucially, in motor areas, where body-part congruency of action sound–word relationships was indexed by a somatotopic pattern of activation. As our results show neurophysiological manifestations of action-semantic priming in the motor cortex, they prove semantic processing in the motor system and thus in a modality-preferential system of the human brain. PMID:26908635

Semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Hwang, Alex D; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

2011-05-25

The perception of objects in our visual world is influenced by not only their low-level visual features such as shape and color, but also their high-level features such as meaning and semantic relations among them. While it has been shown that low-level features in real-world scenes guide eye movements during scene inspection and search, the influence of semantic similarity among scene objects on eye movements in such situations has not been investigated. Here we study guidance of eye movements by semantic similarity among objects during real-world scene inspection and search. By selecting scenes from the LabelMe object-annotated image database and applying latent semantic analysis (LSA) to the object labels, we generated semantic saliency maps of real-world scenes based on the semantic similarity of scene objects to the currently fixated object or the search target. An ROC analysis of these maps as predictors of subjects' gaze transitions between objects during scene inspection revealed a preference for transitions to objects that were semantically similar to the currently inspected one. Furthermore, during the course of a scene search, subjects' eye movements were progressively guided toward objects that were semantically similar to the search target. These findings demonstrate substantial semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes and show its importance for understanding real-world attentional control. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Field – Football Expressions Dictionary: a lexicographic resource based on the theoretical-methodological approach of frame semantics and corpus linguistics

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Rove Luiza de Oliveira Chishman

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The present article aims at problematizing the relevance of Frame Semantics (Fillmore, 1982 in the development of Field – Dictionary of Football Expressions – which the configuration allows the access to football language through expressions or through scenarios – or semantic frames. Frame Semantics, a theory developed in the realm of Cognitive Linguistics, is based on empirical data collected from the analysis of electronic corpora. The extraction of the data presented in this study was done with the Sketch Engine concordance, while their analysis was relegated to Frame Semantics. Among the results, it is possible to point out at the manner in which Fillmore´s theory contributes to the analysis of polysemy, presenting the different senses of a lexical unit considering different situations – or different frames – in which they appear. This article also emphasizes the pertinence of corpus linguistics and the processing of corpora as resources that allow the analysis of linguistic constructs present in the texts. It is also important to emphasize the applicability of Frame Semantics to a resource devoted to a non-specialized public, once the theory makes the contextualization of language possible through the everyday routine of the speakers.

Lexical need as a two-way reality cognition tool

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Mark Kit

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Lexical need as a two-way reality cognition tool In this paper a concept of lexical need is introduced and its application in research of cognitive aspects of translation is discussed. Further discussion elaborates mechanisms of development of translator’s lexical space in the course of translation. Authors discuss the importance and special nature of low-frequency lexical units and difficulties encountered when studying their usage and suggest that the lexical need concept help these studies. Lexical need analysis can be also used to learn specifics of translator’s lexical space and then to take measures for selection of translators and improvement of their skills.

Predicting Lexical Proficiency in Language Learner Texts Using Computational Indices

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Crossley, Scott A.; Salsbury, Tom; McNamara, Danielle S.; Jarvis, Scott

2011-01-01

The authors present a model of lexical proficiency based on lexical indices related to vocabulary size, depth of lexical knowledge, and accessibility to core lexical items. The lexical indices used in this study come from the computational tool Coh-Metrix and include word length scores, lexical diversity values, word frequency counts, hypernymy…

Lexical Resources and Their Application.

Science.gov (United States)

Gellerstam, Martin

This paper discusses computer-based resources for lexical data and their uses. First, the kinds of lexical data available are described, including those related to form (spelling, pronunciation, inflection, word class), meaning (definition/equivalent, synonyms/antonyms/hyperonyms, thesaurus classification), context (grammatical collocations,…

Context-sensitive grapheme-phoneme conversion rules impairment in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia.

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Joël Macoir

2014-04-01

Results. As shown in Table 1, NG and ND's performance was well preserved in tasks with words and nonwords with n-cGPC rules. However, ND was impaired in all tasks with c-sGPC rules, whilst NG's performance was affected for c-sGPC stimuli only in the rhyming task. Discussion. The processing of regular words and nonwords is assumed to be unimpaired in svPPA since their production do not necessary rely on the lexical-semantic route of reading and spelling. In the present study, this hypothesis was confirmed for n-cGPC rules only. However, both patients presented with difficulty in c-sGPC stimuli. This pattern of performance, never reported before in svPPA, questions the possible role of semantic memory in the reading and spelling of stimuli comprising consistent but contextual GPC rules.

Effect of Subliminal Lexical Priming on the Subjective Perception of Images: A Machine Learning Approach.

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Dhanya Menoth Mohan

Full Text Available The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of subliminal priming in terms of the perception of images influenced by words with positive, negative, and neutral emotional content, through electroencephalograms (EEGs. Participants were instructed to rate how much they like the stimuli images, on a 7-point Likert scale, after being subliminally exposed to masked lexical prime words that exhibit positive, negative, and neutral connotations with respect to the images. Simultaneously, the EEGs were recorded. Statistical tests such as repeated measures ANOVAs and two-tailed paired-samples t-tests were performed to measure significant differences in the likability ratings among the three prime affect types; the results showed a strong shift in the likeness judgment for the images in the positively primed condition compared to the other two. The acquired EEGs were examined to assess the difference in brain activity associated with the three different conditions. The consistent results obtained confirmed the overall priming effect on participants' explicit ratings. In addition, machine learning algorithms such as support vector machines (SVMs, and AdaBoost classifiers were applied to infer the prime affect type from the ERPs. The highest classification rates of 95.0% and 70.0% obtained respectively for average-trial binary classifier and average-trial multi-class further emphasize that the ERPs encode information about the different kinds of primes.

Effect of Subliminal Lexical Priming on the Subjective Perception of Images: A Machine Learning Approach.

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Mohan, Dhanya Menoth; Kumar, Parmod; Mahmood, Faisal; Wong, Kian Foong; Agrawal, Abhishek; Elgendi, Mohamed; Shukla, Rohit; Ang, Natania; Ching, April; Dauwels, Justin; Chan, Alice H D

2016-01-01

The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of subliminal priming in terms of the perception of images influenced by words with positive, negative, and neutral emotional content, through electroencephalograms (EEGs). Participants were instructed to rate how much they like the stimuli images, on a 7-point Likert scale, after being subliminally exposed to masked lexical prime words that exhibit positive, negative, and neutral connotations with respect to the images. Simultaneously, the EEGs were recorded. Statistical tests such as repeated measures ANOVAs and two-tailed paired-samples t-tests were performed to measure significant differences in the likability ratings among the three prime affect types; the results showed a strong shift in the likeness judgment for the images in the positively primed condition compared to the other two. The acquired EEGs were examined to assess the difference in brain activity associated with the three different conditions. The consistent results obtained confirmed the overall priming effect on participants' explicit ratings. In addition, machine learning algorithms such as support vector machines (SVMs), and AdaBoost classifiers were applied to infer the prime affect type from the ERPs. The highest classification rates of 95.0% and 70.0% obtained respectively for average-trial binary classifier and average-trial multi-class further emphasize that the ERPs encode information about the different kinds of primes.

Reusable Lexical Representations for Idioms

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Odijk, J.E.J.M.

2004-01-01

In this paper I introduce (1) a technically simple and highly theory-independent way for lexically representing flexible idiomatic expressions, and (2) a procedure to incorporate these lexical representations in a wide variety of NLP systems. The method is based on Structural EQuivalence Classes

Semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes

OpenAIRE

Hwang, Alex D.; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

2011-01-01

The perception of objects in our visual world is influenced by not only their low-level visual features such as shape and color, but also their high-level features such as meaning and semantic relations among them. While it has been shown that low-level features in real-world scenes guide eye movements during scene inspection and search, the influence of semantic similarity among scene objects on eye movements in such situations has not been investigated. Here we study guidance of eye movemen...

Lexical and articulatory interactions in children's language production.

Science.gov (United States)

Heisler, Lori; Goffman, Lisa; Younger, Barbara

2010-09-01

Traditional models of adult language processing and production include two levels of representation: lexical and sublexical. The current study examines the influence of the inclusion of a lexical representation (i.e. a visual referent and/or object function) on the stability of articulation as well as on phonetic accuracy and variability in typically developing children and children with specific language impairment (SLI). A word learning paradigm was developed so that we could compare children's production with and without lexical representation. The variability and accuracy of productions were examined using speech kinematics as well as traditional phonetic accuracy measures. Results showed that phonetic forms with lexical representation were produced with more articulatory stability than phonetic forms without lexical representation. Using more traditional transcription measures, a paired lexical referent generally did not influence segmental accuracy (percent consonant correct and type token ratio). These results suggest that lexical and articulatory levels of representation are not completely independent. Implications for models of language production are discussed.

Semantic Radicals Contribute More Than Phonetic Radicals to the Recognition of Chinese Phonograms: Behavioral and ERP Evidence in a Factorial Study

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Xieshun Wang

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The Chinese phonograms consist of a semantic radical and a phonetic radical. The two types of radicals have different functional contributions to their host phonogram. The semantic radical typically signifies the meaning of the phonogram, while the phonetic radical usually contains a phonological clue to the phonogram’s pronunciation. However, it is still unclear how they interplay with each other when we attempt to recognize a phonogram because previous studies rarely manipulated the functionality of the two types of radicals in a single design. Using a full factorial design, the present study aimed to probe this issue by directly manipulating the functional validity of the two types of radicals in a lexical decision task with both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP measurements. The results showed that recognition of phonograms which were related to their semantic radicals in meaning took a shorter reaction time, showed a lower error rate, and elicited a smaller P200 and a larger N400 than did recognition of those which had no semantic relation with their semantic radicals. However, the validity of phonetic radicals did not show any main effect or interaction with that of semantic radicals on either behavioral or ERP measurements. These results indicated that semantic radicals played a dominant role in the recognition of phonograms. Transparent semantic radicals, which provide valid semantic cues to phonograms, can facilitate the recognition of phonograms.

Semantics, Conceptual Role

OpenAIRE

Block, Ned

1997-01-01

According to Conceptual Role Semantics ("CRS"), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, e.g. in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well known "use" theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to are not j...

Processing lexical semantic and syntactic information in first and second language: fMRI evidence from German and Russian.

Science.gov (United States)

Rüschemeyer, Shirley-Ann; Fiebach, Christian J; Kempe, Vera; Friederici, Angela D

2005-06-01

We introduce two experiments that explored syntactic and semantic processing of spoken sentences by native and non-native speakers. In the first experiment, the neural substrates corresponding to detection of syntactic and semantic violations were determined in native speakers of two typologically different languages using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results show that the underlying neural response of participants to stimuli across different native languages is quite similar. In the second experiment, we investigated how non-native speakers of a language process the same stimuli presented in the first experiment. First, the results show a more similar pattern of increased activation between native and non-native speakers in response to semantic violations than to syntactic violations. Second, the non-native speakers were observed to employ specific portions of the frontotemporal language network differently from those employed by native speakers. These regions included the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), superior temporal gyrus (STG), and subcortical structures of the basal ganglia.

Information and processes underlying semantic and episodic memory across tasks, items, and individuals.

Science.gov (United States)

Cox, Gregory E; Hemmer, Pernille; Aue, William R; Criss, Amy H

2018-04-01

The development of memory theory has been constrained by a focus on isolated tasks rather than the processes and information that are common to situations in which memory is engaged. We present results from a study in which 453 participants took part in five different memory tasks: single-item recognition, associative recognition, cued recall, free recall, and lexical decision. Using hierarchical Bayesian techniques, we jointly analyzed the correlations between tasks within individuals-reflecting the degree to which tasks rely on shared cognitive processes-and within items-reflecting the degree to which tasks rely on the same information conveyed by the item. Among other things, we find that (a) the processes involved in lexical access and episodic memory are largely separate and rely on different kinds of information, (b) access to lexical memory is driven primarily by perceptual aspects of a word, (c) all episodic memory tasks rely to an extent on a set of shared processes which make use of semantic features to encode both single words and associations between words, and (d) recall involves additional processes likely related to contextual cuing and response production. These results provide a large-scale picture of memory across different tasks which can serve to drive the development of comprehensive theories of memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Lexical priming in Alzheimer's disease and aphasia.

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Arroyo-Anlló, Eva Maria; Beauchamps, Mireille; Ingrand, Pierre; Neau, Jean Philippe; Gil, Roger

2013-01-01

Lexical priming was examined in patients with Alzheimer's disease and in aphasic patients. Control participants were divided into young and elderly [cf. Arroyo-Anlló et al.: Eur J Cogn Psychol 2004;16:535-553]. For lexical priming, a word-stem completion task was used. Normal elderly participants had lexical priming scores that were significantly lower than those of young individuals. Analysis of covariance with age and educational level as covariates showed that the control participants, aphasic and Alzheimer patients did not differ significantly on the lexical priming task. Our results suggest that performance in the lexical priming task diminishes with physiological aging, but is not significantly affected by mild or moderate Alzheimer's disease or by fluent or non-fluent aphasia. Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Visual Semantic Navigation Based on Deep Learning for Indoor Mobile Robots

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Li Wang

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In order to improve the environmental perception ability of mobile robots during semantic navigation, a three-layer perception framework based on transfer learning is proposed, including a place recognition model, a rotation region recognition model, and a “side” recognition model. The first model is used to recognize different regions in rooms and corridors, the second one is used to determine where the robot should be rotated, and the third one is used to decide the walking side of corridors or aisles in the room. Furthermore, the “side” recognition model can also correct the motion of robots in real time, according to which accurate arrival to the specific target is guaranteed. Moreover, semantic navigation is accomplished using only one sensor (a camera. Several experiments are conducted in a real indoor environment, demonstrating the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed perception framework.

Semantics of Temporal Models with Multiple Temporal Dimensions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kraft, Peter; Sørensen, Jens Otto

ending up with lexical data models. In particular we look upon the representations by sets of normalised tables, by sets of 1NF tables and by sets of N1NF/nested tables. At each translation step we focus on how the temporal semantic is consistently maintained. In this way we recognise the requirements...... for representation of temporal properties in different models and the correspondence between the models. The results rely on the assumptions that the temporal dimensions are interdependent and ordered. Thus for example the valid periods of existences of a property in a mini world are dependent on the transaction...... periods in which the corresponding recordings are valid. This is not the normal way of looking at temporal dimensions and we give arguments supporting our assumption....

Prediction signatures in the brain: Semantic pre-activation during language comprehension

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Burkhard Maess

2016-11-01

Full Text Available There is broad agreement that context-based predictions facilitate lexical-semantic processing. A robust index of semantic prediction during language comprehension is an evoked response, known as the N400, whose amplitude is modulated as a function of semantic context. However, the underlying neural mechanisms that utilize relations of the prior context and the embedded word within it are largely unknown. We measured magnetoencephalography (MEG data while participants were listening to simple German sentences in which the verbs were either highly predictive for the occurrence of a particular noun (i.e., provided context or not. The identical set of nouns was presented in both conditions. Hence, differences for the evoked responses of the nouns can only be due to differences in the earlier context. We observed a reduction of the N400 response for highly predicted nouns. Interestingly, the opposite pattern was observed for the preceding verbs: Highly predictive (that is more informative verbs yielded stronger neural magnitude compared to less predictive verbs. A negative correlation between the N400 effect of the verb and that of the noun was found in a distributed brain network, indicating an integral relation between the predictive power of the verb and the processing of the subsequent noun. This network consisted of left hemispheric superior and middle temporal areas and a subcortical area; the parahippocampus. Enhanced activity for highly predictive relative to less predictive verbs, likely reflects establishing semantic features associated with the expected nouns, that is a pre-activation of the expected nouns.

Affective Congruence between Sound and Meaning of Words Facilitates Semantic Decision.

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Aryani, Arash; Jacobs, Arthur M

2018-05-31

A similarity between the form and meaning of a word (i.e., iconicity) may help language users to more readily access its meaning through direct form-meaning mapping. Previous work has supported this view by providing empirical evidence for this facilitatory effect in sign language, as well as for onomatopoetic words (e.g., cuckoo) and ideophones (e.g., zigzag). Thus, it remains largely unknown whether the beneficial role of iconicity in making semantic decisions can be considered a general feature in spoken language applying also to "ordinary" words in the lexicon. By capitalizing on the affective domain, and in particular arousal, we organized words in two distinctive groups of iconic vs. non-iconic based on the congruence vs. incongruence of their lexical (meaning) and sublexical (sound) arousal. In a two-alternative forced choice task, we asked participants to evaluate the arousal of printed words that were lexically either high or low arousing. In line with our hypothesis, iconic words were evaluated more quickly and more accurately than their non-iconic counterparts. These results indicate a processing advantage for iconic words, suggesting that language users are sensitive to sound-meaning mappings even when words are presented visually and read silently.

Lexical need as a two-way reality cognition tool

OpenAIRE

Mark Kit; Elena Berg

2014-01-01

Lexical need as a two-way reality cognition tool In this paper a concept of lexical need is introduced and its application in research of cognitive aspects of translation is discussed. Further discussion elaborates mechanisms of development of translator’s lexical space in the course of translation. Authors discuss the importance and special nature of low-frequency lexical units and difficulties encountered when studying their usage and suggest that the lexical need concept help these stu...

Automatically Assessing Lexical Sophistication: Indices, Tools, Findings, and Application

Science.gov (United States)

Kyle, Kristopher; Crossley, Scott A.

2015-01-01

This study explores the construct of lexical sophistication and its applications for measuring second language lexical and speaking proficiency. In doing so, the study introduces the Tool for the Automatic Analysis of LExical Sophistication (TAALES), which calculates text scores for 135 classic and newly developed lexical indices related to word…

SEMANTIC PROSODY OF WORDS OF EFFECTS IN INDONESIAN

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Prihantoro Prihantoro

2015-07-01

Full Text Available In a cause-and-effect type sentence, the choice of lexis and grammar are of crucial importance. This paper focuses on five near synonymous Indonesian lemmas indicating effect, which are: . In Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia[1] (the online version of the Indonesian reference dictionary used in this study, these lemmas are described without any feature of semantic prosody. Does this mean that the prosody of these words is not important? My study has shown otherwise. I, here, have extracted cause-and-effect sentences from the PAN Localization Corpus[2] (the reference corpus employed in this study. The collocates and grammatical constructions show that the semantic prosody of hasil is flexible. However, discussion of my finding shows that the prosody for the rest of the lemmas tends to be negative. This can be seen from statistics showing lexical preferences for words with negative associations and negative grammatical constructions where the effects are negative or unexpected. This holds true the four text types in the corpus (economy, sport, science and international affairs. For this reason, I recommend that the KBBI development team should incorporate this feature in forthcoming versions of the dictionary. [1] www.daring.kbbi.co.id [2] http://www.panl10n.net/indonesia/

[Language observation protocol for teachers in pre-school education. Effectiveness in the detection of semantic and morphosyntactic difficulties].

Science.gov (United States)

Ygual-Fernández, Amparo; Cervera-Merida, José F; Baixauli-Fortea, Inmaculada; Meliá-De Alba, Amanda

2011-03-01

A number of studies have shown that teachers are capable of recognising pupils with language difficulties if they have suitable guidelines or guidance. To determine the effectiveness of an observation-based protocol for pre-school education teachers in the detection of phonetic-phonological, semantic and morphosyntactic difficulties. The sample consisted of 175 children from public and state-subsidised schools in Valencia and its surrounding province, together with their teachers. The children were aged between 3 years and 6 months and 5 years and 11 months. The protocol that was used asks for information about pronunciation skills (intelligibility, articulation), conversational skills (with adults, with peers), literal understanding of sentences, grammatical precision, expression through discourse, lexical knowledge and semantics. There was a significant correlation between the teachers' observations and the criterion scores on intelligibility, literal understanding of sentences, grammatical expression and lexical richness, but not in the observations concerning articulation and verbal reasoning, which were more difficult for the teachers to judge. In general, the observation protocol proved to be effective, it guided the teachers in their observations and it asked them suitable questions about linguistic data that were relevant to the determination of difficulties in language development. The use of this protocol can be an effective strategy for collecting information for use by speech therapists and school psychologists in the early detection of children with language development problems.

Tendências da aquisição lexical em crianças em desenvolvimento normal e crianças com Alterações Específicas no Desenvolvimento da Linguagem Trends on lexical acquisition in children within normal development and children with developmental language disorder

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Juliana Perina Gândara

2010-01-01

results suggest that the lexical difficulties that constitute one of the first alterations observed in children with developmental language disorder are justified by difficulties in abilities and/or characteristics influenced or directly related to mechanisms involved in information processing, which compromise the quality and the retrieval of phonological and semantic representations corresponding to a new lexical item. However, many studies suggest that ostensive situations and great contextual support emphasizing few novel words facilitate the lexical acquisition of children with developmental language disorder.

Richness of information about novel words influences how episodic and semantic memory networks interact during lexicalization

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Takashima, A.; Bakker, I.; Hell, J.G. van; Janzen, G.; McQueen, J.M.

2014-01-01

The complementary learning systems account of declarative memory suggests two distinct memory networks, a fast-mapping, episodic system involving the hippocampus, and a slower semantic memory system distributed across the neocortex in which new information is gradually integrated with existing

Brain and behavioural correlates of action semantic deficits in autism.

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Rachel Louise Moseley

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Action-perception circuits comprising neurons in the motor system have been proposed as main building blocks of higher cognition; accordingly, motor dysfunction should entail cognitive deficits. Autism spectrum conditions (ASC are marked by motor impairments but the implications of such motor dysfunction for higher cognition remain unclear. We here used word reading and semantic judgement tasks to interrogate action-related motor cognition and its corresponding fMRI brain activation in high-functioning adults with ASC. These participants exhibited hypoactivity of motor cortex in language processing relative to typically developing (TD controls. Crucially, we also found a deficit in semantic processing of action-related words, which, intriguingly, significantly correlated with their underactivation of motor cortex to these items. Furthermore, the word-induced hypoactivity in the motor system also predicted the severity of ASC as expressed by the number of autistic symptoms measured by the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen et al, 2001. These significant correlations between word-induced activation of the motor system and a newly discovered semantic deficit in a condition known to be characterised by motor impairments, along with the correlation of such activation with general autistic traits confirm critical predictions of causal theories explaining cognitive and semantic deficits in ASC, in part, to dysfunctional action-perception circuits and resultant reduction of motor system activation.

Lexical factors and cerebral regions influencing verbal fluency performance in MCI.

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, D G; Wadley, V G; Kapur, P; DeRamus, T P; Singletary, B; Nicholas, A P; Blanton, P D; Lokken, K; Deshpande, H; Marson, D; Deutsch, G

2014-02-01

To evaluate assumptions regarding semantic (noun), verb, and letter fluency in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer disease (AD) using novel techniques for measuring word similarity in fluency lists and a region of interest (ROI) analysis of gray matter correlates. Fifty-eight individuals with normal cognition (NC, n=25), MCI (n=23), or AD (n=10) underwent neuropsychological tests, including 10 verbal fluency tasks (three letter tasks [F, A, S], six noun categories [animals, water creatures, fruits and vegetables, tools, vehicles, boats], and verbs). All pairs of words generated by each participant on each task were compared in terms of semantic (meaning), orthographic (spelling), and phonemic (pronunciation) similarity. We used mixed-effects logistic regression to determine which lexical factors were predictive of word adjacency within the lists. Associations between each fluency raw score and gray matter volumes in sixteen ROIs were identified by means of multiple linear regression. We evaluated causal models for both types of analyses to specify the contributions of diagnosis and various mediator variables to the outcomes of word adjacency and fluency raw score. Semantic similarity between words emerged as the strongest predictor of word adjacency for all fluency tasks, including the letter fluency tasks. Semantic similarity mediated the effect of cognitive impairment on word adjacency only for three fluency tasks employing a biological cue. Orthographic similarity was predictive of word adjacency for the A and S tasks, while phonemic similarity was predictive only for the S task and one semantic task (vehicles). The ROI analysis revealed different patterns of correlations among the various fluency tasks, with the most common associations in the right lower temporal and bilateral dorsal frontal regions. Following correction with gray matter volumes from the opposite hemisphere, significant associations persisted for animals, vehicles, and a composite

A Tale of Two Features: Perception of Cantonese Lexical Tone and English Lexical Stress in Cantonese-English Bilinguals

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Tong, Xiuli; Burnham, Denis

2015-01-01

This study investigated the similarities and differences in perception of Cantonese tones and English stress patterns by Cantonese-English bilingual children, adults, and English monolingual adults. All three groups were asked to discriminate pairs of syllables that minimally differed in either Cantonese tone or in English stress. Bilingual children’s performance on tone perception was comparable to their performance on stress perception. By contrast, bilingual adults’ performance on tone perception was lower than their performance on stress perception, and there was a similar pattern in English monolingual adults. Bilingual adults tended to perform better than English monolingual adults on both the tone and stress perception tests. A significant correlation between tone perception and stress perception performance was found in bilingual children but not in bilingual adults. All three groups showed lower accuracy in the high rising-low rising contrast than any of the other 14 Cantonese tone contrasts. The acoustic analyses revealed that average F0, F0 onset, and F0 major slope were the critical acoustic correlates of Cantonese tones, whereas multiple acoustic correlates were salient in English stress, including average F0, spectral balance, duration and intensity. We argue that participants’ difficulty in perceiving high rising-low rising contrasts originated from the contrasts’ similarities in F0 onset and average F0; indeed the difference between their major slopes was the only cue with which to distinguish them. Acoustic-perceptual correlation analyses showed that although the average F0 and F0 onset were associated with tone perception performance in all three groups, F0 major slope was only associated with tone perception in the bilingual adult group. These results support a dynamic interactive account of suprasegmental speech perception by emphasizing the positive prosodic transfer between Cantonese tone and English stress, and the role that level of

Lexical Complexity Development from Dynamic Systems Theory Perspective: Lexical Density, Diversity, and Sophistication

OpenAIRE

Reza Kalantari; Javad Gholami

2017-01-01

This longitudinal case study explored Iranian EFL learners’ lexical complexity (LC) through the lenses of Dynamic Systems Theory (DST). Fifty independent essays written by five intermediate to advanced female EFL learners in a TOEFL iBT preparation course over six months constituted the corpus of this study. Three Coh-Metrix indices (Graesser, McNamara, Louwerse, & Cai, 2004; McNamara & Graesser, 2012), three Lexical Complexity Analyzer indices (Lu, 2010, 2012; Lu & Ai, 2011...

Lexical neighborhood effects in pseudoword spelling.

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Tainturier, Marie-Josèphe; Bosse, Marie-Line; Roberts, Daniel J; Valdois, Sylviane; Rapp, Brenda

2013-01-01

The general aim of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive processes that underpin skilled adult spelling. More specifically, it investigates the influence of lexical neighbors on pseudo-word spelling with the goal of providing a more detailed account of the interaction between lexical and sublexical sources of knowledge in spelling. In prior research examining this topic, adult participants typically heard lists composed of both words and pseudo-words and had to make a lexical decision to each stimulus before writing the pseudo-words. However, these priming paradigms are susceptible to strategic influence and may therefore not give a clear picture of the processes normally engaged in spelling unfamiliar words. In our two Experiments involving 71 French-speaking literate adults, only pseudo-words were presented which participants were simply requested to write to dictation using the first spelling that came to mind. Unbeknownst to participants, pseudo-words varied according to whether they did or did not have a phonological word neighbor. Results revealed that low-probability phoneme/grapheme mappings (e.g., /o/ -> aud in French) were used significantly more often in spelling pseudo-words with a close phonological lexical neighbor with that spelling (e.g., /krepo/ derived from "crapaud," /krapo/) than in spelling pseudo-words with no close neighbors (e.g., /frøpo/). In addition, the strength of this lexical influence increased with the lexical frequency of the word neighbors as well as with their degree of phonetic overlap with the pseudo-word targets. These results indicate that information from lexical and sublexical processes is integrated in the course of spelling, and a specific theoretical account as to how such integration may occur is introduced.

LEXICAL NEIGHBOURHOOD EFFECTS IN PSEUDOWORD SPELLING

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Marie-Josephe eTainturier

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The general aim of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive processes that underpin skilled adult spelling. More specifically, it investigates the influence of lexical neighbours on pseudo-word spelling with the goal of providing a more detailed account of the interaction between lexical and sublexical sources of knowledge in spelling. In prior research examining this topic, subjects typically heard lists composed of both words and pseudo-words and had to make a lexical decision to each stimulus before writing the pseudo-words. However, these priming paradigms are susceptible to strategic influence and may therefore not give a clear picture of the processes normally engaged in spelling unfamiliar words. In our two Experiments involving 71 French speaking literature adults, only pseudo-words were presented which participants were simply requested to write to dictation using the first spelling that came to mind. Unbeknown to participants, pseudo-words varied according to whether they did or did not have a phonological word neighbour. Results revealed that low-probability phoneme/grapheme mappings (e.g., /o/ -> aud in French were used significantly more often in spelling pseudo-words with a close phonological lexical neighbour with that spelling (e.g., /krepo/ derived from crapaud, /krapo/ than in spelling pseudo-words with no close neighbours (e.g., /frøpo/. In addition, the strength of this lexical influence increased with the lexical frequency of the word neighbours as well as with their degree of phonetic overlap with the pseudo-word targets. These results indicate that the activation from lexical and sublexical processes is integrated in the course of spelling, and a specific theoretical account as to how such integration may occur is introduced.

Disrupting morphosyntactic and lexical semantic processing has opposite effects on the sample entropy of neural signals

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fonseca, Andre; Boboeva, Vezha; Brederoo, Sanne; Baggio, Giosue

2015-01-01

Converging evidence in neuroscience suggests that syntax and semantics are dissociable in brain space and time. However, it is possible that partly disjoint cortical networks, operating in successive time frames, still perform similar types of neural computations. To test the alternative hypothesis,

Lexical tone and stuttering in Cantonese.

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Law, Thomas; Packman, Ann; Onslow, Mark; To, Carol K-S; Tong, Michael C-F; Lee, Kathy Y-S

2018-01-01

Cantonese is a tone language, in which the variation of the fundamental frequency contour of a syllable can change meaning. There are six different lexical tones in Cantonese. While research with Western languages has shown an association between stuttering and syllabic stress, nothing is known about whether stuttering in Cantonese speakers is associated with one or more of the six lexical tones. Such an association has been reported in conversational speech in Mandarin, which is also a tone language, but which varies markedly from Cantonese. Twenty-four native Cantonese-speaking adults who stutter participated in this study, ranging in age from 18-33 years. There were 18 men and 6 women. Participants read aloud 13 Cantonese syllables, each of which was produced with six contrastive lexical tones. All 78 syllables were embedded in the same carrier sentence, to reduce the influence of suprasegmental or linguistic stress, and were presented in random order. No significant differences were found for stuttering moments across the six lexical tones. It is suggested that this is because lexical tones, at least in Cantonese, do not place the task demands on the speech motor system that typify varying syllabic stress in Western languages: variations not only in fundamental frequency, but also in duration and intensity. The findings of this study suggest that treatments for adults who stutter in Western languages, such as speech restructuring, can be used with Cantonese speakers without undue attention to lexical tone.

How lexical is the lexicon? Evidence for integrated auditory memory representations.

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Pufahl, April; Samuel, Arthur G

2014-05-01

Previous research has shown that lexical representations must include not only linguistic information (what word was said), but also indexical information (how it was said, and by whom). The present work demonstrates that even this expansion is not sufficient. Seemingly irrelevant information, such as an unattended background sound, is retained in memory and can facilitate subsequent speech perception. We presented participants with spoken words paired with environmental sounds (e.g., a phone ringing), and had them make an "animate/inanimate" decision for each word. Later performance identifying filtered versions of the words was impaired to a similar degree if the voice changed or if the environmental sound changed. Moreover, when quite dissimilar words were used at exposure and test, we observed the same result when we reversed the roles of the words and the environmental sounds. The experiments also demonstrated limits to these effects, with no benefit from repetition. Theoretically, our results support two alternative possibilities: (1) Lexical representations are memory representations, and are not walled off from those for other sounds. Indexical effects reflect simply one type of co-occurrence that is incorporated into such representations. (2) The existing literature on indexical effects does not actually bear on lexical representations - voice changes, like environmental sounds heard with a word, produce implicit memory effects that are not tied to the lexicon. We discuss the evidence and implications of these two theoretical alternatives. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Structural similarities between brain and linguistic data provide evidence of semantic relations in the brain.

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Colleen E Crangle

Full Text Available This paper presents a new method of analysis by which structural similarities between brain data and linguistic data can be assessed at the semantic level. It shows how to measure the strength of these structural similarities and so determine the relatively better fit of the brain data with one semantic model over another. The first model is derived from WordNet, a lexical database of English compiled by language experts. The second is given by the corpus-based statistical technique of latent semantic analysis (LSA, which detects relations between words that are latent or hidden in text. The brain data are drawn from experiments in which statements about the geography of Europe were presented auditorily to participants who were asked to determine their truth or falsity while electroencephalographic (EEG recordings were made. The theoretical framework for the analysis of the brain and semantic data derives from axiomatizations of theories such as the theory of differences in utility preference. Using brain-data samples from individual trials time-locked to the presentation of each word, ordinal relations of similarity differences are computed for the brain data and for the linguistic data. In each case those relations that are invariant with respect to the brain and linguistic data, and are correlated with sufficient statistical strength, amount to structural similarities between the brain and linguistic data. Results show that many more statistically significant structural similarities can be found between the brain data and the WordNet-derived data than the LSA-derived data. The work reported here is placed within the context of other recent studies of semantics and the brain. The main contribution of this paper is the new method it presents for the study of semantics and the brain and the focus it permits on networks of relations detected in brain data and represented by a semantic model.

Lexical and articulatory interactions in children’s language production

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Heisler, Lori; Goffman, Lisa; Younger, Barbara

2009-01-01

Traditional models of adult language processing and production include two levels of representation: lexical and sublexical. The current study examines the influence of the inclusion of a lexical representation (i.e., a visual referent and/or object function) on the stability of articulation as well as on phonetic accuracy and variability in typically developing children and children with specific language impairment (SLI). A word learning paradigm was developed so that we could compare children’s production with and without lexical representation. The variability and accuracy of productions were examined using speech kinematics as well as traditional phonetic accuracy measures. Results showed that phonetic forms with lexical representation were produced with more articulatory stability than phonetic forms without lexical representation. Using more traditional transcription measures, a paired lexical referent generally did not influence segmental accuracy (percent consonant correct and type token ratio). These results suggest that lexical and articulatory levels of representation are not completely independent. Implications for models of language production are discussed. PMID:20712738

Semantics-Based Intelligent Indexing and Retrieval of Digital Images - A Case Study

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Osman, Taha; Thakker, Dhavalkumar; Schaefer, Gerald

The proliferation of digital media has led to a huge interest in classifying and indexing media objects for generic search and usage. In particular, we are witnessing colossal growth in digital image repositories that are difficult to navigate using free-text search mechanisms, which often return inaccurate matches as they typically rely on statistical analysis of query keyword recurrence in the image annotation or surrounding text. In this chapter we present a semantically enabled image annotation and retrieval engine that is designed to satisfy the requirements of commercial image collections market in terms of both accuracy and efficiency of the retrieval process. Our search engine relies on methodically structured ontologies for image annotation, thus allowing for more intelligent reasoning about the image content and subsequently obtaining a more accurate set of results and a richer set of alternatives matchmaking the original query. We also show how our well-analysed and designed domain ontology contributes to the implicit expansion of user queries as well as presenting our initial thoughts on exploiting lexical databases for explicit semantic-based query expansion.

From perceptual to lexico-semantic analysis--cortical plasticity enabling new levels of processing.

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Schlaffke, Lara; Rüther, Naima N; Heba, Stefanie; Haag, Lauren M; Schultz, Thomas; Rosengarth, Katharina; Tegenthoff, Martin; Bellebaum, Christian; Schmidt-Wilcke, Tobias

2015-11-01

Certain kinds of stimuli can be processed on multiple levels. While the neural correlates of different levels of processing (LOPs) have been investigated to some extent, most of the studies involve skills and/or knowledge already present when performing the task. In this study we specifically sought to identify neural correlates of an evolving skill that allows the transition from perceptual to a lexico-semantic stimulus analysis. Eighteen participants were trained to decode 12 letters of Morse code that were presented acoustically inside and outside of the scanner environment. Morse code was presented in trains of three letters while brain activity was assessed with fMRI. Participants either attended to the stimulus length (perceptual analysis), or evaluated its meaning distinguishing words from nonwords (lexico-semantic analysis). Perceptual and lexico-semantic analyses shared a mutual network comprising the left premotor cortex, the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Perceptual analysis was associated with a strong brain activation in the SMA and the superior temporal gyrus bilaterally (STG), which remained unaltered from pre and post training. In the lexico-semantic analysis post learning, study participants showed additional activation in the left inferior frontal cortex (IFC) and in the left occipitotemporal cortex (OTC), regions known to be critically involved in lexical processing. Our data provide evidence for cortical plasticity evolving with a learning process enabling the transition from perceptual to lexico-semantic stimulus analysis. Importantly, the activation pattern remains task-related LOP and is thus the result of a decision process as to which LOP to engage in. © 2015 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Disentangling Genuine Semantic Stroop Effects in Reading from Contingency Effects: On the Need for Two Neutral Baselines

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Eric eLorentz

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The automaticity of reading is often explored through the Stroop effect, whereby color-naming is affected by color words. Color associates (e.g., ‘sky’ also produce a Stroop effect, suggesting that automatic reading occurs through to the level of semantics, even when reading sub-lexically (e.g., the pseudohomophone ‘skigh’. However, several previous experiments have confounded congruency with contingency learning, whereby faster responding occurs for more frequent stimuli. Contingency effects reflect a higher frequency-pairing of the word with a font color in the congruent condition than in the incongruent condition due to the limited set of congruent pairings. To determine the extent to which the Stroop effect can be attributed to contingency learning of font colors paired with lexical (word-level and sub-lexical (phonetically decoded letter strings, as well as assess facilitation and interference relative to contingency effects, we developed two neutral baselines: each one matched on pair-frequency for congruent and incongruent color words. In Experiments 1 and 3, color words (e.g., ‘blue’ and their pseudohomophones (e.g., ‘bloo’ produced significant facilitation and interference relative to neutral baselines, regardless of whether the onset (i.e., first phoneme was matched to the color words. Color associates (e.g., ‘ocean’ and their pseudohomophones (e.g., ‘oshin’, however, showed no significant facilitation or interference relative to onset matched neutral baselines (Experiment 2. When onsets were unmatched, color associate words produced consistent facilitation on RT (e.g., ‘ocean’ vs. ‘dozen’, but pseudohomophones (e.g., ‘oshin’ vs. ‘duhzen’ failed to produce facilitation or interference. Our findings suggest that the Stroop effects for color and associated stimuli are sensitive to the type of neutral baseline used, as well as stimulus type (word vs. pseudohomophone. In general, contingency learning

The speech perception skills of children with and without speech sound disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Hearnshaw, Stephanie; Baker, Elise; Munro, Natalie

To investigate whether Australian-English speaking children with and without speech sound disorder (SSD) differ in their overall speech perception accuracy. Additionally, to investigate differences in the perception of specific phonemes and the association between speech perception and speech production skills. Twenty-five Australian-English speaking children aged 48-60 months participated in this study. The SSD group included 12 children and the typically developing (TD) group included 13 children. Children completed routine speech and language assessments in addition to an experimental Australian-English lexical and phonetic judgement task based on Rvachew's Speech Assessment and Interactive Learning System (SAILS) program (Rvachew, 2009). This task included eight words across four word-initial phonemes-/k, ɹ, ʃ, s/. Children with SSD showed significantly poorer perceptual accuracy on the lexical and phonetic judgement task compared with TD peers. The phonemes /ɹ/ and /s/ were most frequently perceived in error across both groups. Additionally, the phoneme /ɹ/ was most commonly produced in error. There was also a positive correlation between overall speech perception and speech production scores. Children with SSD perceived speech less accurately than their typically developing peers. The findings suggest that an Australian-English variation of a lexical and phonetic judgement task similar to the SAILS program is promising and worthy of a larger scale study. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

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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.

Primary motor cortex functionally contributes to language comprehension: An online rTMS study.

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Vukovic, Nikola; Feurra, Matteo; Shpektor, Anna; Myachykov, Andriy; Shtyrov, Yury

2017-02-01

Among various questions pertinent to grounding human cognitive functions in a neurobiological substrate, the association between language and motor brain structures is a particularly debated one in neuroscience and psychology. While many studies support a broadly distributed model of language and semantics grounded, among other things, in the general modality-specific systems, theories disagree as to whether motor and sensory cortex activity observed during language processing is functional or epiphenomenal. Here, we assessed the role of motor areas in linguistic processing by investigating the responses of 28 healthy volunteers to different word types in semantic and lexical decision tasks, following repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of primary motor cortex. We found that early rTMS (delivered within 200ms of word onset) produces a left-lateralised and meaning-specific change in reaction speed, slowing down behavioural responses to action-related words, and facilitating abstract words - an effect present only during semantic, but not lexical, decision. We interpret these data in light of action-perception theory of language, bolstering the claim that motor cortical areas play a functional role in language comprehension. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Modulation of the semantic system by word imageability.

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Sabsevitz, D S; Medler, D A; Seidenberg, M; Binder, J R

2005-08-01

A prevailing neurobiological theory of semantic memory proposes that part of our knowledge about concrete, highly imageable concepts is stored in the form of sensory-motor representations. While this theory predicts differential activation of the semantic system by concrete and abstract words, previous functional imaging studies employing this contrast have provided relatively little supporting evidence. We acquired event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data while participants performed a semantic similarity judgment task on a large number of concrete and abstract noun triads. Task difficulty was manipulated by varying the degree to which the words in the triad were similar in meaning. Concrete nouns, relative to abstract nouns, produced greater activation in a bilateral network of multimodal and heteromodal association areas, including ventral and medial temporal, posterior-inferior parietal, dorsal prefrontal, and posterior cingulate cortex. In contrast, abstract nouns produced greater activation almost exclusively in the left hemisphere in superior temporal and inferior frontal cortex. Increasing task difficulty modulated activation mainly in attention, working memory, and response monitoring systems, with almost no effect on areas that were modulated by imageability. These data provide critical support for the hypothesis that concrete, imageable concepts activate perceptually based representations not available to abstract concepts. In contrast, processing abstract concepts makes greater demands on left perisylvian phonological and lexical retrieval systems. The findings are compatible with dual coding theory and less consistent with single-code models of conceptual representation. The lack of overlap between imageability and task difficulty effects suggests that once the neural representation of a concept is activated, further maintenance and manipulation of that information in working memory does not further increase neural activation in

Improving the functionality of dictionary definitions for lexical sets ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2008) approach to the design of lexicographic definitions for members of lexical sets. The questions raised are how to define and identify lexical sets, how lexical conceptual models (LCMs) can support definitional consistency and coherence in ...

The Role of Lexical Cohesion in Writing Quality

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Hmoud Alotaibi

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The idea of whether repetition has any relation with the writing quality of the text has remained an issue that intrigues a number of scholars in linguistics and in writing studies. Michael Hoey (1991, Halliday and Hasan (1976 are two prominent works in presenting detailed and thoughtful analysis of repetition occurrences in the text. This study uses a model of lexical cohesion proposed by Witte and Faigley (1981 which itself is based on the taxonomies of cohesive ties presented by Halliday and Hasan (1976.  The model deals with lexical cohesion and its subclasses, namely, repetition (same type, synonym, near-synonym, super-ordinate item, and general item and collocation. The corpus includes five argumentative essays written by students in the field of English language literature. Five teaching assistants were asked to rank the papers on a five-point scale based on their perception of the papers’ writing quality. The results showed that the paper that received the lowest rating in terms of the writing quality was the one that included the largest number of repetition occurrences of the same type. The study concludes by arguing that repetition may not be considered as monolithic, and suggests that every type of repetition needs to be examined individually in order to determine what enhances and what deteriorates the writing quality.

The effects of bilateral presentations on lateralized lexical decision.

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Fernandino, Leonardo; Iacoboni, Marco; Zaidel, Eran

2007-06-01

We investigated how lateralized lexical decision is affected by the presence of distractors in the visual hemifield contralateral to the target. The study had three goals: first, to determine how the presence of a distractor (either a word or a pseudoword) affects visual field differences in the processing of the target; second, to identify the stage of the process in which the distractor is affecting the decision about the target; and third, to determine whether the interaction between the lexicality of the target and the lexicality of the distractor ("lexical redundancy effect") is due to facilitation or inhibition of lexical processing. Unilateral and bilateral trials were presented in separate blocks. Target stimuli were always underlined. Regarding our first goal, we found that bilateral presentations (a) increased the effect of visual hemifield of presentation (right visual field advantage) for words by slowing down the processing of word targets presented to the left visual field, and (b) produced an interaction between visual hemifield of presentation (VF) and target lexicality (TLex), which implies the use of different strategies by the two hemispheres in lexical processing. For our second goal of determining the processing stage that is affected by the distractor, we introduced a third condition in which targets were always accompanied by "perceptual" distractors consisting of sequences of the letter "x" (e.g., xxxx). Performance on these trials indicated that most of the interaction occurs during lexical access (after basic perceptual analysis but before response programming). Finally, a comparison between performance patterns on the trials containing perceptual and lexical distractors indicated that the lexical redundancy effect is mainly due to inhibition of word processing by pseudoword distractors.

The perception of lexical stress in German: effects of segmental duration and vowel quality in different prosodic patterns.

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Kohler, Klaus J

2012-01-01

Several decades of research, focusing on English, Dutch and German, have set up a hierarchy of acoustic properties for cueing lexical stress. It attributes the strongest cue to criterial-level f0 change, followed by duration, but low weight to energy and to stressed-vowel spectra. This paper re-examines the established view with new data from German. In the natural productions of the German word pair Kaffee 'coffee' - Café 'locality' (with initial vs. final stress in a North German pronunciation), vowel duration was manipulated in a complementary fashion across the two syllables in five steps, spanning the continuum from initial to final stress on each word. The two base words provided different vowel qualities as the second variable, the intervocalic fricative was varied in two values, long and short, taken from Café and Kaffee, and the generated test words were inserted in a low f0 tail and in a high f0 hat-pattern plateau, which both eliminated f0 change as a cue to lexical stress. The sentence stimuli were judged in two listening experiments by 16 listeners in each as to whether the first or the second syllable of the test word was stressed. The results show highly significant effects of vowel duration, vowel quality and fricative duration. The combined vowel-quality and fricative variable can outweigh vowel duration as a cue to lexical stress. The effect of the prosodic frame is only marginal, especially related to a rhythmic factor. The paper concludes that there is no general hierarchy with a fixed ranking of the variables traditionally adduced to signal lexical stress. Every prosodic embedding of segmental sequences defines the hierarchy afresh. Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.

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

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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