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Sample records for semantic processing tasks

  1. Intelligence related upper alpha desynchronization in a semantic memory task.

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    Doppelmayr, M; Klimesch, W; Hödlmoser, K; Sauseng, P; Gruber, W

    2005-07-30

    Recent evidence shows that event-related (upper) alpha desynchronization (ERD) is related to cognitive performance. Several studies observed a positive, some a negative relationship. The latter finding, interpreted in terms of the neural efficiency hypothesis, suggests that good performance is associated with a more 'efficient', smaller extent of cortical activation. Other studies found that ERD increases with semantic processing demands and that this increase is larger for good performers. Studies supporting the neural efficiency hypothesis used tasks that do not specifically require semantic processing. Thus, we assume that the lack of semantic processing demands may at least in part be responsible for the reduced ERD. In the present study we measured ERD during a difficult verbal-semantic task. The findings demonstrate that during semantic processing, more intelligent (as compared to less intelligent) subjects exhibited a significantly larger upper alpha ERD over the left hemisphere. We conclude that more intelligent subjects exhibit a more extensive activation in a semantic processing system and suggest that divergent findings regarding the neural efficiency hypotheses are due to task specific differences in semantic processing demands.

  2. The Effect of Signal-to-Noise Ratio on Linguistic Processing in a Semantic Judgment Task: An Aging Study.

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    Stanley, Nicholas; Davis, Tara; Estis, Julie

    2017-03-01

    Aging effects on speech understanding in noise have primarily been assessed through speech recognition tasks. Recognition tasks, which focus on bottom-up, perceptual aspects of speech understanding, intentionally limit linguistic and cognitive factors by asking participants to only repeat what they have heard. On the other hand, linguistic processing tasks require bottom-up and top-down (linguistic, cognitive) processing skills and are, therefore, more reflective of speech understanding abilities used in everyday communication. The effect of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on linguistic processing ability is relatively unknown for either young (YAs) or older adults (OAs). To determine if reduced SNRs would be more deleterious to the linguistic processing of OAs than YAs, as measured by accuracy and reaction time in a semantic judgment task in competing speech. In the semantic judgment task, participants indicated via button press whether word pairs were a semantic Match or No Match. This task was performed in quiet, as well as, +3, 0, -3, and -6 dB SNR with two-talker speech competition. Seventeen YAs (20-30 yr) with normal hearing sensitivity and 17 OAs (60-68 yr) with normal hearing sensitivity or mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss within age-appropriate norms. Accuracy, reaction time, and false alarm rate were measured and analyzed using a mixed design analysis of variance. A decrease in SNR level significantly reduced accuracy and increased reaction time in both YAs and OAs. However, poor SNRs affected accuracy and reaction time of Match and No Match word pairs differently. Accuracy for Match pairs declined at a steeper rate than No Match pairs in both groups as SNR decreased. In addition, reaction time for No Match pairs increased at a greater rate than Match pairs in more difficult SNRs, particularly at -3 and -6 dB SNR. False-alarm rates indicated that participants had a response bias to No Match pairs as the SNR decreased. Age-related differences were

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. A new semantic vigilance task: vigilance decrement, workload, and sensitivity to dual-task costs.

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    Epling, Samantha L; Russell, Paul N; Helton, William S

    2016-01-01

    Cognitive resource theory is a common explanation for both the performance decline in vigilance tasks, known as the vigilance decrement, and the limited ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. The limited supply of cognitive resources may be utilized faster than they are replenished resulting in a performance decrement, or may need to be allocated among multiple tasks with some performance cost. Researchers have proposed both domain-specific, for example spatial versus verbal processing resources, and domain general cognitive resources. One challenge in testing the domain specificity of cognitive resources in vigilance is the current lack of difficult semantic vigilance tasks which reliably produce a decrement. In the present research, we investigated whether the vigilance decrement was found in a new abbreviated semantic discrimination vigilance task, and whether there was a performance decrement in said vigilance task when paired with a word recall task, as opposed to performed individually. As hypothesized, a vigilance decrement in the semantic vigilance task was found in both the single-task and dual-task conditions, along with reduced vigilance performance in the dual-task condition and reduced word recall in the dual-task condition. This is consistent with cognitive resource theory. The abbreviated semantic vigilance task will be a useful tool for researchers interested in determining the specificity of cognitive resources utilized in vigilance tasks.

  6. Task choice and semantic interference in picture naming.

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    Piai, Vitória; Roelofs, Ardi; Schriefers, Herbert

    2015-05-01

    Evidence from dual-task performance indicates that speakers prefer not to select simultaneous responses in picture naming and another unrelated task, suggesting a response selection bottleneck in naming. In particular, when participants respond to tones with a manual response and name pictures with superimposed semantically related or unrelated distractor words, semantic interference in naming tends to be constant across stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) between the tone stimulus and the picture-word stimulus. In the present study, we examine whether semantic interference in picture naming depends on SOA in case of a task choice (naming the picture vs reading the word of a picture-word stimulus) based on tones. This situation requires concurrent processing of the tone stimulus and the picture-word stimulus, but not a manual response to the tones. On each trial, participants either named a picture or read aloud a word depending on the pitch of a tone, which was presented simultaneously with picture-word onset or 350 ms or 1000 ms before picture-word onset. Semantic interference was present with tone pre-exposure, but absent when tone and picture-word stimulus were presented simultaneously. Against the background of the available studies, these results support an account according to which speakers tend to avoid concurrent response selection, but can engage in other types of concurrent processing, such as task choices. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. 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.…

  8. Situated conceptualization and semantic processing: effects of emotional experience and context availability in semantic categorization and naming tasks.

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    Moffat, Michael; Siakaluk, Paul D; Sidhu, David M; Pexman, Penny M

    2015-04-01

    It has been proposed that much of conceptual knowledge is acquired through situated conceptualization, such that both external (e.g., agents, objects, events) and internal (e.g., emotions, introspections) environments are considered important (Barsalou, 2003). To evaluate this proposal, we characterized two dimensions by which situated conceptualization may be measured and which should have different relevance for abstract and concrete concepts; namely, emotional experience (i.e., the ease with which words evoke emotional experience; Newcombe, Campbell, Siakaluk, & Pexman, 2012) and context availability (i.e., the ease with which words evoke contexts in which their referents may appear; Schwanenflugel & Shoben, 1983). We examined the effects of these two dimensions on abstract and concrete word processing in verbal semantic categorization (VSCT) and naming tasks. In the VSCT, emotional experience facilitated processing of abstract words but inhibited processing of concrete words, whereas context availability facilitated processing of both types of words. In the naming task in which abstract words and concrete words were not blocked by emotional experience, context availability facilitated responding to only the abstract words. In the naming task in which abstract words and concrete words were blocked by emotional experience, emotional experience facilitated responding to only the abstract words, whereas context availability facilitated responding to only the concrete words. These results were observed even with several lexical (e.g., frequency, age of acquisition) and semantic (e.g., concreteness, arousal, valence) variables included in the analyses. As such, the present research suggests that emotional experience and context availability tap into different aspects of situated conceptualization and make unique contributions to the representation and processing of abstract and concrete concepts.

  9. Semantic encoding and retrieval in the left inferior prefrontal cortex: a functional MRI study of task difficulty and process specificity.

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    Demb, J B; Desmond, J E; Wagner, A D; Vaidya, C J; Glover, G H; Gabrieli, J D

    1995-09-01

    Prefrontal cortical function was examined during semantic encoding and repetition priming using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a noninvasive technique for localizing regional changes in blood oxygenation, a correlate of neural activity. Words studied in a semantic (deep) encoding condition were better remembered than words studied in both easier and more difficult nonsemantic (shallow) encoding conditions, with difficulty indexed by response time. The left inferior prefrontal cortex (LIPC) (Brodmann's areas 45, 46, 47) showed increased activation during semantic encoding relative to nonsemantic encoding regardless of the relative difficulty of the nonsemantic encoding task. Therefore, LIPC activation appears to be related to semantic encoding and not task difficulty. Semantic encoding decisions are performed faster the second time words are presented. This represents semantic repetition priming, a facilitation in semantic processing for previously encoded words that is not dependent on intentional recollection. The same LIPC area activated during semantic encoding showed decreased activation during repeated semantic encoding relative to initial semantic encoding of the same words. This decrease in activation during repeated encoding was process specific; it occurred when words were semantically reprocessed but not when words were nonsemantically reprocessed. The results were apparent in both individual and averaged functional maps. These findings suggest that the LIPC is part of a semantic executive system that contributes to the on-line retrieval of semantic information.

  10. Information and processes underlying semantic and episodic memory across tasks, items, and individuals.

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    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).

  11. Flexible recruitment of semantic richness: Context modulates body-object interaction effects in lexical-semantic processing

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    Cody eTousignant

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available Body-object interaction (BOI is a semantic richness variable that measures the perceived ease with which the human body can physically interact with a word’s referent. Lexical and semantic processing is facilitated when words are associated with relatively more bodily experience (high BOI words, e.g., belt. To date, BOI effects have been examined in only one semantic decision context (is it imageable?. It has been argued that semantic processing is dynamic and can be modulated by context. We examined these influences by testing how task knowledge modulated BOI effects. We presented the same stimuli (high- and low-BOI entity words and a set of action words in each of four action/entity semantic categorization tasks (SCTs. Task framing was manipulated: participants were told about one (actions or entities or both (actions and entities categories of words in the decision task. Facilitatory BOI effects were observed when participants knew that ‘entity’ was part of the decision category, regardless of whether the high- and low-BOI entity words appeared on the affirmative or negative side of the decision. That BOI information was only useful when participants had expectations that object words would be presented suggests a strong role for the decision context in lexical-semantic processing, and supports a dynamic view of conceptual knowledge.

  12. Food words distract the hungry: Evidence of involuntary semantic processing of task-irrelevant but biologically-relevant unexpected auditory words.

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    Parmentier, Fabrice B R; Pacheco-Unguetti, Antonia P; Valero, Sara

    2018-01-01

    Rare changes in a stream of otherwise repeated task-irrelevant sounds break through selective attention and disrupt performance in an unrelated visual task by triggering shifts of attention to and from the deviant sound (deviance distraction). Evidence indicates that the involuntary orientation of attention to unexpected sounds is followed by their semantic processing. However, past demonstrations relied on tasks in which the meaning of the deviant sounds overlapped with features of the primary task. Here we examine whether such processing is observed when no such overlap is present but sounds carry some relevance to the participants' biological need to eat when hungry. We report the results of an experiment in which hungry and satiated participants partook in a cross-modal oddball task in which they categorized visual digits (odd/even) while ignoring task-irrelevant sounds. On most trials the irrelevant sound was a sinewave tone (standard sound). On the remaining trials, deviant sounds consisted of spoken words related to food (food deviants) or control words (control deviants). Questionnaire data confirmed state (but not trait) differences between the two groups with respect to food craving, as well as a greater desire to eat the food corresponding to the food-related words in the hungry relative to the satiated participants. The results of the oddball task revealed that food deviants produced greater distraction (longer response times) than control deviants in hungry participants while the reverse effect was observed in satiated participants. This effect was observed in the first block of trials but disappeared thereafter, reflecting semantic saturation. Our results suggest that (1) the semantic content of deviant sounds is involuntarily processed even when sharing no feature with the primary task; and that (2) distraction by deviant sounds can be modulated by the participants' biological needs.

  13. Localizing semantic interference from distractor sounds in picture naming: A dual-task study.

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    Mädebach, Andreas; Kieseler, Marie-Luise; Jescheniak, Jörg D

    2017-10-13

    In this study we explored the locus of semantic interference in a novel picture-sound interference task in which participants name pictures while ignoring environmental distractor sounds. In a previous study using this task (Mädebach, Wöhner, Kieseler, & Jescheniak, in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 43, 1629-1646, 2017), we showed that semantically related distractor sounds (e.g., BARKING dog ) interfere with a picture-naming response (e.g., "horse") more strongly than unrelated distractor sounds do (e.g., DRUMMING drum ). In the experiment reported here, we employed the psychological refractory period (PRP) approach to explore the locus of this effect. We combined a geometric form classification task (square vs. circle; Task 1) with the picture-sound interference task (Task 2). The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the tasks was systematically varied (0 vs. 500 ms). There were three central findings. First, the semantic interference effect from distractor sounds was replicated. Second, picture naming (in Task 2) was slower with the short than with the long task SOA. Third, both effects were additive-that is, the semantic interference effects were of similar magnitude at both task SOAs. This suggests that the interference arises during response selection or later stages, not during early perceptual processing. This finding corroborates the theory that semantic interference from distractor sounds reflects a competitive selection mechanism in word production.

  14. Evidence for the contribution of a threshold retrieval process to semantic memory.

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    Kempnich, Maria; Urquhart, Josephine A; O'Connor, Akira R; Moulin, Chris J A

    2017-10-01

    It is widely held that episodic retrieval can recruit two processes: a threshold context retrieval process (recollection) and a continuous signal strength process (familiarity). Conversely the processes recruited during semantic retrieval are less well specified. We developed a semantic task analogous to single-item episodic recognition to interrogate semantic recognition receiver-operating characteristics (ROCs) for a marker of a threshold retrieval process. We fitted observed ROC points to three signal detection models: two models typically used in episodic recognition (unequal variance and dual-process signal detection models) and a novel dual-process recollect-to-reject (DP-RR) signal detection model that allows a threshold recollection process to aid both target identification and lure rejection. Given the nature of most semantic questions, we anticipated the DP-RR model would best fit the semantic task data. Experiment 1 (506 participants) provided evidence for a threshold retrieval process in semantic memory, with overall best fits to the DP-RR model. Experiment 2 (316 participants) found within-subjects estimates of episodic and semantic threshold retrieval to be uncorrelated. Our findings add weight to the proposal that semantic and episodic memory are served by similar dual-process retrieval systems, though the relationship between the two threshold processes needs to be more fully elucidated.

  15. Functional heterogeneity within the default network during semantic processing and speech production.

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    Mohamed L Seghier

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available This fMRI study investigated the functional heterogeneity of the core nodes of the default mode network (DMN during language processing. The core nodes of the DMN were defined as task-induced deactivations over multiple tasks in 94 healthy subjects. We used a factorial design that manipulated different tasks (semantic matching or speech production and stimuli (familiar words and objects or unfamiliar stimuli, alternating with periods of fixation/rest. Our findings revealed several consistent effects in the DMN, namely less deactivations in the left inferior parietal lobule during semantic than perceptual matching in parallel with greater deactivations during semantic matching in anterior subdivisions of the posterior cingulate cortex and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. This suggests that, when the brain is engaged in effortful semantic tasks, a part of the DMN in the left angular gyrus was less deactivated as five other nodes of the DMN were more deactivated. These five DMN areas, where deactivation was greater for semantic than perceptual matching, were further differentiated because deactivation was greater in (i posterior ventromedial prefrontal cortex for speech production relative to semantic matching, (ii posterior precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex for perceptual processing relative to speech production and (iii right inferior parietal cortex for pictures of objects relative to written words during both naming and semantic decisions. Our results thus highlight that task difficulty alone cannot fully explain the functional variability in task-induced deactivations. Together these results emphasize that core nodes within the DMN are functionally heterogeneous and differentially sensitive to the type of language processing.

  16. 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.

  17. Task choice and semantic interference in picture naming

    OpenAIRE

    Piai, V.; Roelofs, A.P.A.; Schriefers, H.J.

    2015-01-01

    Evidence from dual-task performance indicates that speakers prefer not to select simultaneous responses in picture naming and another unrelated task, suggesting a response selection bottleneck in naming. In particular, when participants respond to tones with a manual response and name pictures with superimposed semantically related or unrelated distractor words, semantic interference in naming tends to be constant across stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) between the tone stimulus and the pic...

  18. 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.

  19. What do information reuse and automated processing require in engineering design? Semantic process

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    Ossi Nykänen

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: The purpose of this study is to characterize, analyze, and demonstrate machine-understandable semantic process for validating, integrating, and processing technical design information. This establishes both a vision and tools for information reuse and semi-automatic processing in engineering design projects, including virtual machine laboratory applications with generated components.Design/methodology/approach: The process model has been developed iteratively in terms of action research, constrained by the existing technical design practices and assumptions (design documents, expert feedback, available technologies (pre-studies and experiments with scripting and pipeline tools, benchmarking with other process models and methods (notably the RUP and DITA, and formal requirements (computability and the critical information paths for the generated applications. In practice, the work includes both quantitative and qualitative components.Findings: Technical design processes may be greatly enhanced in terms of semantic process thinking, by enriching design information, and automating information validation and transformation tasks. Contemporary design information, however, is mainly intended for human consumption, and needs to be explicitly enriched with the currently missing data and interfaces. In practice, this may require acknowledging the role of technical information or knowledge engineer, to lead the development of the semantic design information process in a design organization. There is also a trade-off between machine-readability and system complexity that needs to be studied further, both empirically and in theory.Research limitations/implications: The conceptualization of the semantic process is essentially an abstraction based on the idea of progressive design. While this effectively allows implementing semantic processes with, e.g., pipeline technologies, the abstraction is valid only when technical design is organized into

  20. A dual contribution to the involuntary semantic processing of unexpected spoken words.

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    Parmentier, Fabrice B R; Turner, Jacqueline; Perez, Laura

    2014-02-01

    Sounds are a major cause of distraction. Unexpected to-be-ignored auditory stimuli presented in the context of an otherwise repetitive acoustic background ineluctably break through selective attention and distract people from an unrelated visual task (deviance distraction). This involuntary capture of attention by deviant sounds has been hypothesized to trigger their semantic appraisal and, in some circumstances, interfere with ongoing performance, but it remains unclear how such processing compares with the automatic processing of distractors in classic interference tasks (e.g., Stroop, flanker, Simon tasks). Using a cross-modal oddball task, we assessed the involuntary semantic processing of deviant sounds in the presence and absence of deviance distraction. The results revealed that some involuntary semantic analysis of spoken distractors occurs in the absence of deviance distraction but that this processing is significantly greater in its presence. We conclude that the automatic processing of spoken distractors reflects 2 contributions, one that is contingent upon deviance distraction and one that is independent from it.

  1. How "mere" is the mere ownership effect in memory? Evidence for semantic organization processes.

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    Englert, Julia; Wentura, Dirk

    2016-11-01

    Memory is better for items arbitrarily assigned to the self than for items assigned to another person (mere ownership effect, MOE). In a series of six experiments, we investigated the role of semantic processes for the MOE. Following successful replication, we investigated whether the MOE was contingent upon semantic processing: For meaningless stimuli, there was no MOE. Testing for a potential role of semantic elaboration using meaningful stimuli in an encoding task without verbal labels, we found evidence of spontaneous semantic processing irrespective of self- or other-assignment. When semantic organization was manipulated, the MOE vanished if a semantic classification task was added to the self/other assignment but persisted for a perceptual classification task. Furthermore, we found greater clustering of self-assigned than of other-assigned items in free recall. Taken together, these results suggest that the MOE could be based on the organizational principle of a "me" versus "not-me" categorization. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. 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.

  3. Attentional Sensitization of Unconscious Cognition: Task Sets Modulate Subsequent Masked Semantic Priming

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    Kiefer, Markus; Martens, Ulla

    2010-01-01

    According to classical theories, automatic processes are autonomous and independent of higher level cognitive influence. In contrast, the authors propose that automatic processing depends on attentional sensitization of task-congruent processing pathways. In 3 experiments, the authors tested this hypothesis with a modified masked semantic priming…

  4. Context effects in embodied lexical-semantic processing

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    Wessel O Van Dam

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available The embodied view of language comprehension proposes that the meaning of words is grounded in perception and action rather than represented in abstract amodal symbols. Support for embodied theories of language processing comes from behavioural studies showing that understanding a sentence about an action can modulate congruent and incongruent physical responses, suggesting motor involvement during comprehension of sentences referring to bodily movement. Additionally, several neuroimaging studies have provided evidence that comprehending single words denoting manipulable objects elicits specific responses in the neural motor system. An interesting question that remains is whether action semantic knowledge is directly activated as motor simulations in the brain, or rather modulated by the semantic context in which action words are encountered. In the current paper we investigated the nature of conceptual representations using a go/no-go lexical decision task. Specifically, target words were either presented in a semantic context that emphasized dominant action features (features related to the functional use of an object or non-dominant action features. The response latencies in a lexical decision task reveal that participants were faster to respond to words denoting objects for which the functional use was congruent with the prepared movement. This facilitation effect, however, was only apparent when the semantic context emphasized corresponding motor properties. These findings suggest that motor involvement during comprehension of sentences is not automatic. Rather, the results suggest that conceptual processing is a context-dependent process that incorporates motor-related knowledge in a flexible manner.

  5. Comparison of the neural substrates mediating the semantic processing of Korean and English words using positron emission tomography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Jea Jin; Kim, Myung Sun; Cho, Sang Soo; Kwon, Jun Soo; Lee, Jae Sung; Lee, Dong Soo; Chung, June Key; Lee, Myung Chul

    2001-01-01

    This study was performed to search the relatively specific brain regions related to the semantic processing of Korean and English words on the one hand and the regions common to both on the other. Regional cerebral blood flow associated with different semantic tasks was examined using ( 15 O)H 2 O positron emission tomography in 13 healthy volunteers. The tasks consisted of semantic tasks for Korean words, semantic tasks for English words and control tasks using simple pictures. The regions specific and common to each language were identified by the relevant subtraction analysis using statistical parametric mapping. Common to the semantic processing of both words, the activation site was observed in the fusiform gyrus, particularly the left side. In addition, activation of the left inferior temporal gyrus was found only in the semantic processing of English words. The regions specific to Korean words were observed in multiple areas, including the right primary auditory cortex; whereas the regions specific to English words were limited to the right posterior visual area. Internal phonological process is engaged in performing the visual semantic task for Korean words of the high proficiency, whereas visual scanning plays an important role in performing the task for English words of the low proficiency

  6. 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...

  7. The neural substrates of musical memory revealed by fMRI and two semantic tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Groussard, M; Rauchs, G; Landeau, B; Viader, F; Desgranges, B; Eustache, F; Platel, H

    2010-12-01

    Recognizing a musical excerpt without necessarily retrieving its title typically reflects the existence of a memory system dedicated to the retrieval of musical knowledge. The functional distinction between musical and verbal semantic memory has seldom been investigated. In this fMRI study, we directly compared the musical and verbal memory of 20 nonmusicians, using a congruence task involving automatic semantic retrieval and a familiarity task requiring more thorough semantic retrieval. In the former, participants had to access their semantic store to retrieve musical or verbal representations of melodies or expressions they heard, in order to decide whether these were then given the right ending or not. In the latter, they had to judge the level of familiarity of musical excerpts and expressions. Both tasks revealed activation of the left inferior frontal and posterior middle temporal cortices, suggesting that executive and selection processes are common to both verbal and musical retrievals. Distinct patterns of activation were observed within the left temporal cortex, with musical material mainly activating the superior temporal gyrus and verbal material the middle and inferior gyri. This cortical organization of musical and verbal semantic representations could explain clinical dissociations featuring selective disturbances for musical or verbal material. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Facial and semantic emotional interference: A pilot study on the behavioral and cortical responses to the dual valence association task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Petroni Agustín

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Integration of compatible or incompatible emotional valence and semantic information is an essential aspect of complex social interactions. A modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT called Dual Valence Association Task (DVAT was designed in order to measure conflict resolution processing from compatibility/incompatibly of semantic and facial valence. The DVAT involves two emotional valence evaluative tasks which elicits two forms of emotional compatible/incompatible associations (facial and semantic. Methods Behavioural measures and Event Related Potentials were recorded while participants performed the DVAT. Results Behavioural data showed a robust effect that distinguished compatible/incompatible tasks. The effects of valence and contextual association (between facial and semantic stimuli showed early discrimination in N170 of faces. The LPP component was modulated by the compatibility of the DVAT. Conclusions Results suggest that DVAT is a robust paradigm for studying the emotional interference effect in the processing of simultaneous information from semantic and facial stimuli.

  9. Efecto de la riqueza semántica en distintos niveles del procesamiento léxico-semántico (Semantic richness effect at different levels of lexical-semantic processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mauro Fragapane

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available Semantic richness is a multidimensional construct that refers to the extent of variability of information associated with the meaning of a word. The Number of Features (NoF is a dimension of semantic richness that has been shown to have a major influence on lexical and semantic processing. Several studies have shown that concepts with a higher NoF allow faster lexical processing than those with a lower NoF. The current study is the first to use a NoF measure based on norms obtained from a sample of Spanish-speaking participants. The aim was to study the effect of this variable in visual word recognition. The sample included 90 young native Spanish-speaking adults. Three tasks were administered that require access to different lexico-semantic levels: lexical decision, concreteness semantic categorization (concrete/abstract, and domain semantic categorization (living/non-living. A semantic richness effect was found in lexical decision and domain semantic categorization tasks, with greater effect in the latter task. Results are interpreted within the framework of the General Domain Interactive Activation model.

  10. Age-related vulnerability in the neural systems supporting semantic processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jonathan E Peelle

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Our ability to form abstract representations of objects in semantic memory is crucial to language and thought. The utility of this information relies both on the representations of sensory-motor feature knowledge stored in long-term memory and the executive processes required to retrieve, manipulate, and evaluate this semantic knowledge in a task-relevant manner. These complementary components of semantic memory can be differentially impacted by aging. We investigated semantic processing in normal aging using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI. Young and older adults were asked to judge whether two printed object names match on a particular feature (for example, whether a tomato and strawberry have the same color. The task thus required both retrieval of relevant visual feature knowledge of object concepts and evaluating this information. Objects were drawn from either natural kinds or manufactured objects, and were queried on either color or shape in a factorial design. Behaviorally, all subjects performed well, but older adults could be divided into those whose performance matched that of young adults (better performers and those whose performance was worse (poorer performers. All subjects activated several cortical regions while performing this task, including bilateral inferior and lateral temporal cortex and left frontal and prefrontal cortex. Better performing older adults showed increased overall activity in bilateral premotor cortex and left lateral occipital cortex compared to young adults, and increased activity in these brain regions relative to poorer performing older adults who also showed gray matter atrophy in premotor cortex. These findings highlight the contribution of domain-general executive processing brain regions to semantic memory, and illustrate differences in how these regions are recruited in healthy older adults.

  11. The effect of a prospected reward on semantic processing : An N400 EEG study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Ven, Sanne H. G.; van Touw, Sven A. C.; van Hoogmoed, Anne H.; Janssen, Eva M.; Leseman, Paul P. M.

    2016-01-01

    Promised rewards are often used in education to stimulate learning behaviour. The present study tested whether a reward prospect affects semantic processing and recall of learned materials. Thirty-nine females participated in an electroencephalogram (EEG) task measuring semantic processing using the

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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…

  13. Process-oriented semantic web search

    CERN Document Server

    Tran, DT

    2011-01-01

    The book is composed of two main parts. The first part is a general study of Semantic Web Search. The second part specifically focuses on the use of semantics throughout the search process, compiling a big picture of Process-oriented Semantic Web Search from different pieces of work that target specific aspects of the process.In particular, this book provides a rigorous account of the concepts and technologies proposed for searching resources and semantic data on the Semantic Web. To collate the various approaches and to better understand what the notion of Semantic Web Search entails, this bo

  14. Effect of semantic coherence on episodic memory processes in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Battal Merlet, Lâle; Morel, Shasha; Blanchet, Alain; Lockman, Hazlin; Kostova, Milena

    2014-12-30

    Schizophrenia is associated with severe episodic retrieval impairment. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility that schizophrenia patients could improve their familiarity and/or recollection processes by manipulating the semantic coherence of to-be-learned stimuli and using deep encoding. Twelve schizophrenia patients and 12 healthy controls of comparable age, gender, and educational level undertook an associative recognition memory task. The stimuli consisted of pairs of words that were either related or unrelated to a given semantic category. The process dissociation procedure was used to calculate the estimates of familiarity and recollection processes. Both groups showed enhanced memory performances for semantically related words. However, in healthy controls, semantic relatedness led to enhanced recollection, while in schizophrenia patients, it induced enhanced familiarity. The familiarity estimates for related words were comparable in both groups, indicating that familiarity could be used as a compensatory mechanism in schizophrenia patients. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Why all the confusion? Experimental task explains discrepant semantic priming effects in schizophrenia under "automatic" conditions: evidence from Event-Related Potentials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kreher, Donna A; Goff, Donald; Kuperberg, Gina R

    2009-06-01

    The schizophrenia research literature contains many differing accounts of semantic memory function in schizophrenia as assessed through the semantic priming paradigm. Most recently, Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) have been used to demonstrate both increased and decreased semantic priming at a neural level in schizophrenia patients, relative to healthy controls. The present study used ERPs to investigate the role of behavioral task in determining neural semantic priming effects in schizophrenia. The same schizophrenia patients and healthy controls completed two experiments in which word stimuli were identical, and the time between the onset of prime and target remained constant at 350 ms: in the first, participants monitored for words within a particular semantic category that appeared only in filler items (implicit task); in the second, participants explicitly rated the relatedness of word-pairs (explicit task). In the explicit task, schizophrenia patients showed reduced direct and indirect semantic priming in comparison with healthy controls. In contrast, in the implicit task, schizophrenia patients showed normal or, in positively thought-disordered patients, increased direct and indirect N400 priming effects compared with healthy controls. These data confirm that, although schizophrenia patients with positive thought disorder may show an abnormally increased automatic spreading activation, the introduction of semantic decision-making can result in abnormally reduced semantic priming in schizophrenia, even when other experimental conditions bias toward automatic processing.

  16. An fMRI study of semantic processing in men with schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kubicki, M.; McCarley, R.W.; Nestor, P.G.; Huh, T.; Kikinis, R.; Shenton, M.E.; Wible, C.G.

    2009-01-01

    As a means toward understanding the neural bases of schizophrenic thought disturbance, we examined brain activation patterns in response to semantically and superficially encoded words in patients with schizophrenia. Nine male schizophrenic and 9 male control subjects were tested in a visual levels of processing (LOP) task first outside the magnet and then during the fMRI scanning procedures (using a different set of words). During the experiments visual words were presented under two conditions. Under the deep, semantic encoding condition, subjects made semantic judgments as to whether the words were abstract or concrete. Under the shallow, nonsemantic encoding condition, subjects made perceptual judgments of the font size (uppercase/lowercase) of the presented words. After performance of the behavioral task, a recognition test was used to assess the depth of processing effect, defined as better performance for semantically encoded words than for perceptually encoded words. For the scanned version only, the words for both conditions were repeated in order to assess repetition-priming effects. Reaction times were assessed in both testing scenarios. Both groups showed the expected depth of processing effect for recognition, and control subjects showed the expected increased activation of the left inferior prefrontal cortex (LIPC) under semantic encoding relative to perceptual encoding conditions as well as repetition priming for semantic conditions only. In contrast, schizophrenics showed similar patterns of fMRI activation regardless of condition. Most striking in relation to controls, patients showed decreased LIFC activation concurrent with increased left superior temporal gyrus activation for semantic encoding versus shallow encoding. Furthermore, schizophrenia subjects did not show the repetition priming effect, either behaviorally or as a decrease in LIPC activity. In patients with schizophrenia, LIFC underactivation and left superior temporal gyrus

  17. An fMRI study of semantic processing in men with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kubicki, M; McCarley, R W; Nestor, P G; Huh, T; Kikinis, R; Shenton, M E; Wible, C G

    2003-12-01

    As a means toward understanding the neural bases of schizophrenic thought disturbance, we examined brain activation patterns in response to semantically and superficially encoded words in patients with schizophrenia. Nine male schizophrenic and 9 male control subjects were tested in a visual levels of processing (LOP) task first outside the magnet and then during the fMRI scanning procedures (using a different set of words). During the experiments visual words were presented under two conditions. Under the deep, semantic encoding condition, subjects made semantic judgments as to whether the words were abstract or concrete. Under the shallow, nonsemantic encoding condition, subjects made perceptual judgments of the font size (uppercase/lowercase) of the presented words. After performance of the behavioral task, a recognition test was used to assess the depth of processing effect, defined as better performance for semantically encoded words than for perceptually encoded words. For the scanned version only, the words for both conditions were repeated in order to assess repetition-priming effects. Reaction times were assessed in both testing scenarios. Both groups showed the expected depth of processing effect for recognition, and control subjects showed the expected increased activation of the left inferior prefrontal cortex (LIPC) under semantic encoding relative to perceptual encoding conditions as well as repetition priming for semantic conditions only. In contrast, schizophrenics showed similar patterns of fMRI activation regardless of condition. Most striking in relation to controls, patients showed decreased LIFC activation concurrent with increased left superior temporal gyrus activation for semantic encoding versus shallow encoding. Furthermore, schizophrenia subjects did not show the repetition priming effect, either behaviorally or as a decrease in LIPC activity. In patients with schizophrenia, LIFC underactivation and left superior temporal gyrus

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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…

  19. Interacting Memory Systems—Does EEG Alpha Activity Respond to Semantic Long-Term Memory Access in a Working Memory Task?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Barbara Berger

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Memory consists of various individual processes which form a dynamic system co-ordinated by central (executive functions. The episodic buffer as direct interface between episodic long-term memory (LTM and working memory (WM is fairly well studied but such direct interaction is less clear in semantic LTM. Here, we designed a verbal delayed-match-to-sample task specifically to differentiate between pure information maintenance and mental manipulation of memory traces with and without involvement of access to semantic LTM. Task-related amplitude differences of electroencephalographic (EEG oscillatory brain activity showed a linear increase in frontal-midline theta and linear suppression of parietal beta amplitudes relative to memory operation complexity. Amplitude suppression at upper alpha frequency, which was previously found to indicate access to semantic LTM, was only sensitive to mental manipulation in general, irrespective of LTM involvement. This suggests that suppression of upper EEG alpha activity might rather reflect unspecific distributed cortical activation during complex mental processes than accessing semantic LTM.

  20. Semantic processing in deaf and hard-of-hearing children: Large N400 mismatch effects in brain responses, despite poor semantic ability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Petter Kallioinen

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Difficulties in auditory and phonological processing affect semantic processing in speech comprehension of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH children. However, little is known about brain responses of semantic processing in this group. We investigated event-related potentials (ERPs in DHH children with cochlear implants (CI and/or hearing aids (HA, and in normally hearing controls (NH. We used a semantic priming task with spoken word primes followed by picture targets. In both DHH children and controls, response differences between matching and mismatching targets revealed a typical N400-effect associated with semantic processing. Children with CI had the largest mismatch response despite poor semantic abilities overall, children with CI also had the largest ERP differentiation between mismatch types, with small effects of within-category mismatches (target from same category as prime and large effects between-category mismatches (were target is from a different category than prime. NH and HA children had similar responses to both mismatch types. While the large and differentiated ERP responses in the CI group were unexpected and should be interpreted with caution, the results could reflect less precision in semantic processing among children with CI, or a stronger reliance on predictive processing.

  1. Semantic Neighborhood Effects for Abstract versus Concrete Words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  2. Neural changes associated with semantic processing in healthy aging despite intact behavioral performance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lacombe, Jacinthe; Jolicoeur, Pierre; Grimault, Stephan; Pineault, Jessica; Joubert, Sven

    2015-10-01

    Semantic memory recruits an extensive neural network including the left inferior prefrontal cortex (IPC) and the left temporoparietal region, which are involved in semantic control processes, as well as the anterior temporal lobe region (ATL) which is considered to be involved in processing semantic information at a central level. However, little is known about the underlying neuronal integrity of the semantic network in normal aging. Young and older healthy adults carried out a semantic judgment task while their cortical activity was recorded using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Despite equivalent behavioral performance, young adults activated the left IPC to a greater extent than older adults, while the latter group recruited the temporoparietal region bilaterally and the left ATL to a greater extent than younger adults. Results indicate that significant neuronal changes occur in normal aging, mainly in regions underlying semantic control processes, despite an apparent stability in performance at the behavioral level. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. The effects of gender and self-insight on early semantic processing.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xu Xu

    Full Text Available This event-related potential (ERP study explored individual differences associated with gender and level of self-insight in early semantic processing. Forty-eight Chinese native speakers completed a semantic judgment task with three different categories of words: abstract neutral words (e.g., logic, effect, concrete neutral words (e.g., teapot, table, and emotion words (e.g., despair, guilt. They then assessed their levels of self-insight. Results showed that women engaged in greater processing than did men. Gender differences also manifested in the relationship between level of self-insight and word processing. For women, level of self-insight was associated with level of semantic activation for emotion words and abstract neutral words, but not for concrete neutral words. For men, level of self-insight was related to processing speed, particularly in response to abstract and concrete neutral words. These findings provide electrophysiological evidence for the effects of gender and self-insight on semantic processing and highlight the need to take into consideration subject variables in related research.

  4. Semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not vary with reading ability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piai, Vitória; Roelofs, Ardi; Roete, Ingeborg

    2015-01-01

    Previous dual-task studies examining the locus of semantic interference of distractor words in picture naming have obtained diverging results. In these studies, participants manually responded to tones and named pictures while ignoring distractor words (picture-word interference, PWI) with varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between tone and PWI stimulus. Whereas some studies observed no semantic interference at short SOAs, other studies observed effects of similar magnitude at short and long SOAs. The absence of semantic interference in some studies may perhaps be due to better reading skill of participants in these than in the other studies. According to such a reading-ability account, participants' reading skill should be predictive of the magnitude of their interference effect at short SOAs. To test this account, we conducted a dual-task study with tone discrimination and PWI tasks and measured participants' reading ability. The semantic interference effect was of similar magnitude at both short and long SOAs. Participants' reading ability was predictive of their naming speed but not of their semantic interference effect, contrary to the reading ability account. We conclude that the magnitude of semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not depend on reading skill.

  5. Brain oscillatory subsequent memory effects differ in power and long-range synchronization between semantic and survival processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fellner, Marie-Christin; Bäuml, Karl-Heinz T; Hanslmayr, Simon

    2013-10-01

    Memory crucially depends on the way information is processed during encoding. Differences in processes during encoding not only lead to differences in memory performance but also rely on different brain networks. Although these assumptions are corroborated by several previous fMRI and ERP studies, little is known about how brain oscillations dissociate between different memory encoding tasks. The present study therefore compared encoding related brain oscillatory activity elicited by two very efficient encoding tasks: a typical deep semantic item feature judgment task and a more elaborative survival encoding task. Subjects were asked to judge words either for survival relevance or for animacy, as indicated by a cue presented prior to the item. This allowed dissociating pre-item activity from item-related activity for both tasks. Replicating prior studies, survival processing led to higher recognition performance than semantic processing. Successful encoding in the semantic condition was reflected by a strong decrease in alpha and beta power, whereas successful encoding in the survival condition was related to increased alpha and beta long-range phase synchrony. Moreover, a pre-item subsequent memory effect in theta power was found which did not vary with encoding condition. These results show that measures of local synchrony (power) and global long range-synchrony (phase synchronization) dissociate between memory encoding processes. Whereas semantic encoding was reflected in decreases in local synchrony, increases in global long range synchrony were related to elaborative survival encoding, presumably reflecting the involvement of a more widespread cortical network in this task. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. Atypical temporal activation pattern and central-right brain compensation during semantic judgment task in children with early left brain damage.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Yi-Tzu; Lin, Shih-Che; Meng, Ling-Fu; Fan, Yang-Teng

    In this study we investigated the event-related potentials (ERPs) during the semantic judgment task (deciding if the two Chinese characters were semantically related or unrelated) to identify the timing of neural activation in children with early left brain damage (ELBD). The results demonstrated that compared with the controls, children with ELBD had (1) competitive accuracy and reaction time in the semantic judgment task, (2) weak operation of the N400, (3) stronger, earlier and later compensational positivities (referred to the enhanced P200, P250, and P600 amplitudes) in the central and right region of the brain to successfully engage in semantic judgment. Our preliminary findings indicate that temporally postlesional reorganization is in accordance with the proposed right-hemispheric organization of speech after early left-sided brain lesion. During semantic processing, the orthography has a greater effect on the children with ELBD, and a later semantic reanalysis (P600) is required due to the less efficient N400 at the former stage for semantic integration. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Semantic processing of unattended parafoveal words.

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    1991-08-01

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

  8. Imaginal, semantic, and surface-level processing of concrete and abstract words: an electrophysiological investigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    West, W C; Holcomb, P J

    2000-11-01

    Words representing concrete concepts are processed more quickly and efficiently than words representing abstract concepts. Concreteness effects have also been observed in studies using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The aim of this study was to examine concrete and abstract words using both reaction time (RT) and ERP measurements to determine (1) at what point in the stream of cognitive processing concreteness effects emerge and (2) how different types of cognitive operations influence these concreteness effects. Three groups of subjects performed a sentence verification task in which the final word of each sentence was concrete or abstract. For each group the truthfulness judgment required either (1) image generation, (2) semantic decision, or (3) evaluation of surface characteristics. Concrete and abstract words produced similar RTs and ERPs in the surface task, suggesting that postlexical semantic processing is necessary to elicit concreteness effects. In both the semantic and imagery tasks, RTs were shorter for concrete than for abstract words. This difference was greatest in the imagery task. Also, in both of these tasks concrete words elicited more negative ERPs than abstract words between 300 and 550 msec (N400). This effect was widespread across the scalp and may reflect activation in a linguistic semantic system common to both concrete and abstract words. ERPs were also more negative for concrete than abstract words between 550 and 800 msec. This effect was more frontally distributed and was most evident in the imagery task. We propose that this later anterior effect represents a distinct ERP component (N700) that is sensitive to the use of mental imagery. The N700 may reflect the a access of specific characteristics of the imaged item or activation in a working memory system specific to mental imagery. These results also support the extended dual-coding hypothesis that superior associative connections and the use of mental imagery both contribute

  9. Morphological Cues for Lexical Semantics

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Light, Marc

    1996-01-01

    Most natural language processing tasks require lexical semantic information such as verbal argument structure and selectional restrictions, corresponding nominal semantic class, verbal aspectual class...

  10. Control Deficit Subjects are Superior for Man-Made Objects on a Verbal Semantic Task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos Roncero

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available When semantic deficits occur following brain damage, the subjects generally show anomia as well as deficits on semantic matching tasks such as the Camels and Cactus test. Such individuals can be further characterized as demonstrating either a semantic control deficit or a storage deficit (Jeffries & Lambon Ralph, 2006. Semantic control subjects show improved performance when responses are constrained, but storage subjects do not. In the present study, we categorized 17 subjects with neurodegenerative diseases – Alzheimer’s disease and Primary Progressive Aphasia - as Semantic Storage or Semantic Control patterns of deficit, based on their performance on three semantic tasks—Naming, Cued Naming, and Word-to-Picture Matching. This was done independent of both the subject’s localization of brain damage and clinical diagnosis. Subjects who demonstrated impaired performance on the Naming task, but showed normal performance on Cued Naming and Word-to-Picture Matching, were classified as showing a control deficit (N = 8, while subjects who were impaired on all three semantic tasks were classified as anomic subjects with a storage deficit (N = 9. Despite only using these three semantic tasks, the identified sub-groups demonstrated different patterns of semantic knowledge consistent with either a control deficit or a storage deficit. The identified sub-groups, for example, were comparable for letter fluency, but subjects with a storage deficit were significantly worse for animal fluency. Accessing subjects’ semantic knowledge with the word and picture versions of the Camels and Cactus test, we also found that storage deficit subjects’ performance was equally poor on both versions compared to normal elderly participants, whereas control deficit subjects were relatively impaired only in the word version. Finally, comparing FDG PET scans for these subjects, we noted storage deficit subjects typically had bilateral temporal damage—all but one

  11. Differences in Processing of Taxonomic and Sequential Relations in Semantic Memory: An fMRI Investigation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuchinke, Lars; van der Meer, Elke; Krueger, Frank

    2009-01-01

    Conceptual knowledge of our world is represented in semantic memory in terms of concepts and semantic relations between concepts. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the cortical regions underlying the processing of sequential and taxonomic relations. Participants were presented verbal cues and performed three tasks:…

  12. Semantic Priming During Sentence Processing by Young and Older Adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burke, Deborah M.; Yee, Penny L.

    1984-01-01

    Compares the semantic processing skills of younger adults (mean age 25) and older adults (mean age 68). After reading a sentence, subjects performed a task in which responses did not depend on retention. Results provided no evidence for age-related changes, including those associated with access to implied information. (Author/RH)

  13. From perceptual to lexico-semantic analysis--cortical plasticity enabling new levels of processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  14. Semantic Business Process Modeling

    OpenAIRE

    Markovic, Ivan

    2010-01-01

    This book presents a process-oriented business modeling framework based on semantic technologies. The framework consists of modeling languages, methods, and tools that allow for semantic modeling of business motivation, business policies and rules, and business processes. Quality of the proposed modeling framework is evaluated based on the modeling content of SAP Solution Composer and several real-world business scenarios.

  15. Semantic, syntactic, and phonological processing of written words in adult developmental dyslexic readers: an event-related brain potential study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Johannes Sönke

    2007-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The present study used event-related brain potentials to investigate semantic, phonological and syntactic processes in adult German dyslexic and normal readers in a word reading task. Pairs of German words were presented one word at a time. Subjects had to perform a semantic judgment task (house – window; are they semantically related?, a rhyme judgment task (house – mouse; do they rhyme? and a gender judgment task (das – Haus [the – house]; is the gender correct? [in German, house has a neutral gender: das Haus]. Results Normal readers responded faster compared to dyslexic readers in all three tasks. Onset latencies of the N400 component were delayed in dyslexic readers in the rhyme judgment and in the gender judgment task, but not in the semantic judgment task. N400 and the anterior negativity peak amplitudes did not differ between the two groups. However, the N400 persisted longer in the dyslexic group in the rhyme judgment and in the semantic judgment tasks. Conclusion These findings indicate that dyslexics are phonologically impaired (delayed N400 in the rhyme judgment task but that they also have difficulties in other, non-phonological aspects of reading (longer response times, longer persistence of the N400. Specifically, semantic and syntactic integration seem to require more effort for dyslexic readers and take longer irrespective of the reading task that has to be performed.

  16. The surplus value of semantic annotations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Marx, M.

    2010-01-01

    We compare the costs of semantic annotation of textual documents to its benefits for information processing tasks. Semantic annotation can improve the performance of retrieval tasks and facilitates an improved search experience through faceted search, focused retrieval, better document summaries,

  17. Functional MRI approach for assessing hemispheric predominance of regions activated by a phonological and a semantic task

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cousin, Emilie; Peyrin, Carole; Pichat, Cedric [Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition, UMR CNRS 5105, Universite Pierre Mendes-France, BP 47, 38040 Grenoble Cedex 09 (France); Lamalle, Laurent; Le Bas, Jean-Francois [Unite IRM, IFR1, CHU Grenoble (France); Baciu, Monica [Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition, UMR CNRS 5105, Universite Pierre Mendes-France, BP 47, 38040 Grenoble Cedex 09 (France)], E-mail: mbaciu@upmf-grenoble.fr

    2007-08-15

    This fMRI study performed in healthy subjects aimed at using a statistical approach in order to determine significant functional differences between hemispheres and to assess specialized regions activated during a phonological and during a semantic task. This approach ('flip' method and subsequent statistical analyses of the parameter estimates extracted from regions of interest) allows identifying: (a) hemispheric specialized regions for each language task [semantic (living categorization) and phonological (rhyme detection)] and (b) condition-specific regions with respect to paradigm conditions (task and control). Our results showed that the rhyme-specific task regions were the inferior frontal (sub-region of BA 44, 45) and left inferior parietal (BA 40, 39) lobules. Furthermore, within the inferior parietal lobule, the angular gyrus was specific to target (rhyming) items (related to successfully grapho-phonemic processing). The categorization-specific task regions were the left inferior frontal (sub-region of BA 44, 45) and superior temporal (BA 22) cortices. Furthermore, the superior temporal gyrus was related to non-target (non-living) items (correlated to task difficulty). The relatively new approach used in this study has the advantage of providing: (a) statistical significance of the hemispheric specialized regions for a given language task and (b) supplementary information in terms of paradigm condition-specificity of the activated regions. The results (standard hemispheric specialized regions for a semantic and for a phonological task) obtained in healthy subjects may constitute a basement for mapping language and assessing hemispheric predominance in epileptic patients before surgery and avoiding post-surgical impairments of language.

  18. Functional MRI approach for assessing hemispheric predominance of regions activated by a phonological and a semantic task

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cousin, Emilie; Peyrin, Carole; Pichat, Cedric; Lamalle, Laurent; Le Bas, Jean-Francois; Baciu, Monica

    2007-01-01

    This fMRI study performed in healthy subjects aimed at using a statistical approach in order to determine significant functional differences between hemispheres and to assess specialized regions activated during a phonological and during a semantic task. This approach ('flip' method and subsequent statistical analyses of the parameter estimates extracted from regions of interest) allows identifying: (a) hemispheric specialized regions for each language task [semantic (living categorization) and phonological (rhyme detection)] and (b) condition-specific regions with respect to paradigm conditions (task and control). Our results showed that the rhyme-specific task regions were the inferior frontal (sub-region of BA 44, 45) and left inferior parietal (BA 40, 39) lobules. Furthermore, within the inferior parietal lobule, the angular gyrus was specific to target (rhyming) items (related to successfully grapho-phonemic processing). The categorization-specific task regions were the left inferior frontal (sub-region of BA 44, 45) and superior temporal (BA 22) cortices. Furthermore, the superior temporal gyrus was related to non-target (non-living) items (correlated to task difficulty). The relatively new approach used in this study has the advantage of providing: (a) statistical significance of the hemispheric specialized regions for a given language task and (b) supplementary information in terms of paradigm condition-specificity of the activated regions. The results (standard hemispheric specialized regions for a semantic and for a phonological task) obtained in healthy subjects may constitute a basement for mapping language and assessing hemispheric predominance in epileptic patients before surgery and avoiding post-surgical impairments of language

  19. Design issues in the semantics and scheduling of asynchronous tasks.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Olivier, Stephen L.

    2013-07-01

    The asynchronous task model serves as a useful vehicle for shared memory parallel programming, particularly on multicore and manycore processors. As adoption of model among programmers has increased, support has emerged for the integration of task parallel language constructs into mainstream programming languages, e.g., C and C++. This paper examines some of the design decisions in Cilk and OpenMP concerning semantics and scheduling of asynchronous tasks with the aim of informing the efforts of committees considering language integration, as well as developers of new task parallel languages and libraries.

  20. Human ecstasy (MDMA) polydrug users have altered brain activation during semantic processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watkins, Tristan J; Raj, Vidya; Lee, Junghee; Dietrich, Mary S; Cao, Aize; Blackford, Jennifer U; Salomon, Ronald M; Park, Sohee; Benningfield, Margaret M; Di Iorio, Christina R; Cowan, Ronald L

    2013-05-01

    Ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine [MDMA]) polydrug users have verbal memory performance that is statistically significantly lower than that of control subjects. Studies have correlated long-term MDMA use with altered brain activation in regions that play a role in verbal memory. The aim of our study was to examine the association of lifetime ecstasy use with semantic memory performance and brain activation in ecstasy polydrug users. A total of 23 abstinent ecstasy polydrug users (age = 24.57 years) and 11 controls (age = 22.36 years) performed a two-part functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) semantic encoding and recognition task. To isolate brain regions activated during each semantic task, we created statistical activation maps in which brain activation was greater for word stimuli than for non-word stimuli (corrected p ecstasy polydrug users had greater activation during semantic encoding bilaterally in language processing regions, including Brodmann areas 7, 39, and 40. Of this bilateral activation, signal intensity with a peak T in the right superior parietal lobe was correlated with lifetime ecstasy use (r s = 0.43, p = 0.042). Behavioral performance did not differ between groups. These findings demonstrate that ecstasy polydrug users have increased brain activation during semantic processing. This increase in brain activation in the absence of behavioral deficits suggests that ecstasy polydrug users have reduced cortical efficiency during semantic encoding, possibly secondary to MDMA-induced 5-HT neurotoxicity. Although pre-existing differences cannot be ruled out, this suggests the possibility of a compensatory mechanism allowing ecstasy polydrug users to perform equivalently to controls, providing additional support for an association of altered cerebral neurophysiology with MDMA exposure.

  1. Supporting open collaboration in science through explicit and linked semantic description of processes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gil, Yolanda; Michel, Felix; Ratnakar, Varun; Read, Jordan S.; Hauder, Matheus; Duffy, Christopher; Hanson, Paul C.; Dugan, Hilary

    2015-01-01

    The Web was originally developed to support collaboration in science. Although scientists benefit from many forms of collaboration on the Web (e.g., blogs, wikis, forums, code sharing, etc.), most collaborative projects are coordinated over email, phone calls, and in-person meetings. Our goal is to develop a collaborative infrastructure for scientists to work on complex science questions that require multi-disciplinary contributions to gather and analyze data, that cannot occur without significant coordination to synthesize findings, and that grow organically to accommodate new contributors as needed as the work evolves over time. Our approach is to develop an organic data science framework based on a task-centered organization of the collaboration, includes principles from social sciences for successful on-line communities, and exposes an open science process. Our approach is implemented as an extension of a semantic wiki platform, and captures formal representations of task decomposition structures, relations between tasks and users, and other properties of tasks, data, and other relevant science objects. All these entities are captured through the semantic wiki user interface, represented as semantic web objects, and exported as linked data.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  3. Emotion processing in the aging brain is modulated by semantic elaboration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ritchey, Maureen; Bessette-Symons, Brandy; Hayes, Scott M.; Cabeza, Roberto

    2010-01-01

    The neural correlates of emotion processing have been shown to vary with age: older adults (OAs) exhibit increased frontal activations and, under some circumstances, decreased amygdala activations relative to young adults (YAs) during emotion processing. Some of these differences are additionally modulated by valence, with age-related biases toward positive versus negative stimuli, and are thought to depend on OAs’ capacity for controlled elaboration. However, the role of semantic elaboration in mediating valence effects in the aging brain has not yet been explicitly tested. In the present study, YAs and OAs were scanned while they viewed negative, neutral, and positive pictures during either a deep, elaborative task or a shallow, perceptual task. FMRI results reveal that emotion-related activity in the amygdala is preserved in aging and insensitive to elaboration demands. This study provides novel evidence that differences in valence processing are modulated by elaboration: relative to YAs, OAs show enhanced activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) and ventrolateral PFC in response to positive versus negative stimuli, but only during elaborative processing. These positive valence effects are predicted by individual differences in executive function in OAs for the deep but not shallow task. Finally, psychophysiological interaction analyses reveal age effects on valence-dependent functional connectivity between medial PFC and ventral striatum, as well as age and task effects on medial PFC-retrosplenial cortex interactions. Altogether, these findings provide support for the hypothesis that valence shifts in the aging brain are mediated by controlled processes such as semantic elaboration, self-referential processing, and emotion regulation. PMID:20869375

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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

  5. Semantic multimedia analysis and processing

    CERN Document Server

    Spyrou, Evaggelos; Mylonas, Phivos

    2014-01-01

    Broad in scope, Semantic Multimedia Analysis and Processing provides a complete reference of techniques, algorithms, and solutions for the design and the implementation of contemporary multimedia systems. Offering a balanced, global look at the latest advances in semantic indexing, retrieval, analysis, and processing of multimedia, the book features the contributions of renowned researchers from around the world. Its contents are based on four fundamental thematic pillars: 1) information and content retrieval, 2) semantic knowledge exploitation paradigms, 3) multimedia personalization, and 4)

  6. Memory for emotional words: The role of semantic relatedness, encoding task and affective valence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferré, Pilar; Fraga, Isabel; Comesaña, Montserrat; Sánchez-Casas, Rosa

    2015-01-01

    Emotional stimuli have been repeatedly demonstrated to be better remembered than neutral ones. The aim of the present study was to test whether this advantage in memory is mainly produced by the affective content of the stimuli or it can be rather accounted for by factors such as semantic relatedness or type of encoding task. The valence of the stimuli (positive, negative and neutral words that could be either semantically related or unrelated) as well as the type of encoding task (focused on either familiarity or emotionality) was manipulated. The results revealed an advantage in memory for emotional words (either positive or negative) regardless of semantic relatedness. Importantly, this advantage was modulated by the encoding task, as it was reliable only in the task which focused on emotionality. These findings suggest that congruity with the dimension attended at encoding might contribute to the superiority in memory for emotional words, thus offering us a more complex picture of the underlying mechanisms behind the advantage for emotional information in memory.

  7. The contribution of executive control to semantic cognition: Convergent evidence from semantic aphasia and executive dysfunction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Hannah E; Almaghyuli, Azizah; Noonan, Krist A; Barak, Ohr; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2018-01-03

    Semantic cognition, as described by the controlled semantic cognition (CSC) framework (Rogers et al., , Neuropsychologia, 76, 220), involves two key components: activation of coherent, generalizable concepts within a heteromodal 'hub' in combination with modality-specific features (spokes), and a constraining mechanism that manipulates and gates this knowledge to generate time- and task-appropriate behaviour. Executive-semantic goal representations, largely supported by executive regions such as frontal and parietal cortex, are thought to allow the generation of non-dominant aspects of knowledge when these are appropriate for the task or context. Semantic aphasia (SA) patients have executive-semantic deficits, and these are correlated with general executive impairment. If the CSC proposal is correct, patients with executive impairment should not only exhibit impaired semantic cognition, but should also show characteristics that align with those observed in SA. This possibility remains largely untested, as patients selected on the basis that they show executive impairment (i.e., with 'dysexecutive syndrome') have not been extensively tested on tasks tapping semantic control and have not been previously compared with SA cases. We explored conceptual processing in 12 patients showing symptoms consistent with dysexecutive syndrome (DYS) and 24 SA patients, using a range of multimodal semantic assessments which manipulated control demands. Patients with executive impairments, despite not being selected to show semantic impairments, nevertheless showed parallel patterns to SA cases. They showed strong effects of distractor strength, cues and miscues, and probe-target distance, plus minimal effects of word frequency on comprehension (unlike semantic dementia patients with degradation of conceptual knowledge). This supports a component process account of semantic cognition in which retrieval is shaped by control processes, and confirms that deficits in SA patients reflect

  8. Emotion processing in the aging brain is modulated by semantic elaboration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ritchey, Maureen; Bessette-Symons, Brandy; Hayes, Scott M; Cabeza, Roberto

    2011-03-01

    The neural correlates of emotion processing have been shown to vary with age: older adults (OAs) exhibit increased frontal activations and, under some circumstances, decreased amygdala activations relative to young adults (YAs) during emotion processing. Some of these differences are additionally modulated by valence, with age-related biases toward positive versus negative stimuli, and are thought to depend on OAs' capacity for controlled elaboration. However, the role of semantic elaboration in mediating valence effects in the aging brain has not yet been explicitly tested. In the present study, YAs and OAs were scanned while they viewed negative, neutral, and positive pictures during either a deep, elaborative task or a shallow, perceptual task. fMRI results reveal that emotion-related activity in the amygdala is preserved in aging and insensitive to elaboration demands. This study provides novel evidence that differences in valence processing are modulated by elaboration: relative to YAs, OAs show enhanced activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) and ventrolateral PFC in response to positive versus negative stimuli, but only during elaborative processing. These positive valence effects are predicted by individual differences in executive function in OAs for the deep but not shallow task. Finally, psychophysiological interaction analyses reveal age effects on valence-dependent functional connectivity between medial PFC and ventral striatum, as well as age and task effects on medial PFC-retrosplenial cortex interactions. Altogether, these findings provide support for the hypothesis that valence shifts in the aging brain are mediated by controlled processes such as semantic elaboration, self-referential processing, and emotion regulation. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Exploring the role of the posterior middle temporal gyrus in semantic cognition: Integration of anterior temporal lobe with executive processes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davey, James; Thompson, Hannah E; Hallam, Glyn; Karapanagiotidis, Theodoros; Murphy, Charlotte; De Caso, Irene; Krieger-Redwood, Katya; Bernhardt, Boris C; Smallwood, Jonathan; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2016-08-15

    Making sense of the world around us depends upon selectively retrieving information relevant to our current goal or context. However, it is unclear whether selective semantic retrieval relies exclusively on general control mechanisms recruited in demanding non-semantic tasks, or instead on systems specialised for the control of meaning. One hypothesis is that the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) is important in the controlled retrieval of semantic (not non-semantic) information; however this view remains controversial since a parallel literature links this site to event and relational semantics. In a functional neuroimaging study, we demonstrated that an area of pMTG implicated in semantic control by a recent meta-analysis was activated in a conjunction of (i) semantic association over size judgements and (ii) action over colour feature matching. Under these circumstances the same region showed functional coupling with the inferior frontal gyrus - another crucial site for semantic control. Structural and functional connectivity analyses demonstrated that this site is at the nexus of networks recruited in automatic semantic processing (the default mode network) and executively demanding tasks (the multiple-demand network). Moreover, in both task and task-free contexts, pMTG exhibited functional properties that were more similar to ventral parts of inferior frontal cortex, implicated in controlled semantic retrieval, than more dorsal inferior frontal sulcus, implicated in domain-general control. Finally, the pMTG region was functionally correlated at rest with other regions implicated in control-demanding semantic tasks, including inferior frontal gyrus and intraparietal sulcus. We suggest that pMTG may play a crucial role within a large-scale network that allows the integration of automatic retrieval in the default mode network with executively-demanding goal-oriented cognition, and that this could support our ability to understand actions and non

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  11. The role of domain-general frontal systems in language comprehension: evidence from dual-task interference and semantic ambiguity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rodd, Jennifer M; Johnsrude, Ingrid S; Davis, Matthew H

    2010-12-01

    Neuroimaging studies have shown that the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) plays a critical role in semantic and syntactic aspects of speech comprehension. It appears to be recruited when listeners are required to select the appropriate meaning or syntactic role for words within a sentence. However, this region is also recruited during tasks not involving sentence materials, suggesting that the systems involved in processing ambiguous words within sentences are also recruited for more domain-general tasks that involve the selection of task-relevant information. We use a novel dual-task methodology to assess whether the cognitive system(s) that are engaged in selecting word meanings are also involved in non-sentential tasks. In Experiment 1, listeners were slower to decide whether a visually presented letter is in upper or lower case when the sentence that they are simultaneously listening to contains words with multiple meanings (homophones), compared to closely matched sentences without homophones. Experiment 2 indicates that this interference effect is not tied to the occurrence of the homophone itself, but rather occurs when listeners must reinterpret a sentence that was initially misparsed. These results suggest some overlap between the cognitive system involved in semantic disambiguation and the domain-general process of response selection required for the case-judgement task. This cognitive overlap may reflect neural overlap in the networks supporting these processes, and is consistent with the proposal that domain-general selection processes in inferior frontal regions are critical for language comprehension. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. Effective Connectivity between Ventral Occipito-Temporal and Ventral Inferior Frontal Cortex during Lexico-Semantic Processing. A Dynamic Causal Modeling Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available It has been suggested that dorsal and ventral pathways support distinct aspects of language processing. Yet, the full extent of their involvement and their inter-regional connectivity in visual word recognition is still unknown. Studies suggest that they might reflect the dual-route model of reading, with the dorsal pathway more involved in grapho-phonological conversion during phonological tasks, and the ventral pathway performing lexico-semantic access during semantic tasks. Furthermore, this subdivision is also suggested at the level of the inferior frontal cortex, involving ventral and dorsal parts for lexico-semantic and phonological processing, respectively. In the present study, we assessed inter-regional brain connectivity and task-induced modulations of brain activity during a phoneme detection and semantic categorization tasks, using fMRI in healthy subject. We used a dynamic causal modeling approach to assess inter-regional connectivity and task demand modulation within the dorsal and ventral pathways, including the following network components: the ventral occipito-temporal cortex (vOTC; dorsal and ventral, the superior temporal gyrus (STG; dorsal, the dorsal inferior frontal gyrus (dIFG; dorsal, and the ventral IFG (vIFG; ventral. We report three distinct inter-regional interactions supporting orthographic information transfer from vOTC to other language regions (vOTC -> STG, vOTC -> vIFG and vOTC -> dIFG regardless of task demands. Moreover, we found that (a during semantic processing (direct ventral pathway the vOTC -> vIFG connection strength specifically increased and (b a lack of modulation of the vOTC -> dIFG connection strength by the task that could suggest a more general involvement of the dorsal pathway during visual word recognition. Results are discussed in terms of anatomo-functional connectivity of visual word recognition network.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  14. Semantic Query Processing : Estimating Relational Purity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kalo, Jan-Christoph; Lofi, C.; Maseli, René Pascal; Balke, Wolf-Tilo; Leyer, M.

    2017-01-01

    The use of semantic information found in structured knowledge bases has become an integral part of the processing pipeline of modern intelligent in-
    formation systems. However, such semantic information is frequently insuffi-cient to capture the rich semantics demanded by the applications, and

  15. The neural mechanisms of semantic and response conflicts: an fMRI study of practice-related effects in the Stroop task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Zhencai; Lei, Xu; Ding, Cody; Li, Hong; Chen, Antao

    2013-02-01

    Previous studies have demonstrated that there are separate neural mechanisms underlying semantic and response conflicts in the Stroop task. However, the practice effects of these conflicts need to be elucidated and the possible involvements of common neural mechanisms are yet to be established. We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a 4-2 mapping practice-related Stroop task to determine the neural substrates under these conflicts. Results showed that different patterns of brain activations are associated with practice in the attentional networks (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and posterior parietal cortex (PPC)) for both conflicts, response control regions (e.g., inferior frontal junction (IFJ), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)/insula, and pre-supplementary motor areas (pre-SMA)) for semantic conflict, and posterior cortex for response conflict. We also found areas of common activation in the left hemisphere within the attentional networks, for the early practice stage in semantic conflict and the late stage in "pure" response conflict using conjunction analysis. The different practice effects indicate that there are distinct mechanisms underlying these two conflict types: semantic conflict practice effects are attributable to the automation of stimulus processing, conflict and response control; response conflict practice effects are attributable to the proportional increase of conflict-related cognitive resources. In addition, the areas of common activation suggest that the semantic conflict effect may contain a partial response conflict effect, particularly at the beginning of the task. These findings indicate that there are two kinds of response conflicts contained in the key-pressing Stroop task: the vocal-level (mainly in the early stage) and key-pressing (mainly in the late stage) response conflicts; thus, the use of the subtraction method for the exploration of semantic and response conflicts

  16. Self-referential processing is distinct from semantic elaboration: evidence from long-term memory effects in a patient with amnesia and semantic impairments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sui, Jie; Humphreys, Glyn W

    2013-11-01

    We report data demonstrating that self-referential encoding facilitates memory performance in the absence of effects of semantic elaboration in a severely amnesic patient also suffering semantic problems. In Part 1, the patient, GA, was trained to associate items with the self or a familiar other during the encoding phase of a memory task (self-ownership decisions in Experiment 1 and self-evaluation decisions in Experiment 2). Tests of memory showed a consistent self-reference advantage, relative to a condition where the reference was another person in both experiments. The pattern of the self-reference advantage was similar to that in healthy controls. In Part 2 we demonstrate that GA showed minimal effects of semantic elaboration on memory for items he semantically classified, compared with items subject to physical size decisions; in contrast, healthy controls demonstrated enhanced memory performance after semantic relative to physical encoding. The results indicate that self-referential encoding, not semantic elaboration, improves memory in amnesia. Self-referential processing may provide a unique scaffold to help improve learning in amnesic cases. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Stroop Interference in a Delayed Match-to-Sample Task: Evidence for Semantic Competition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bradley R. Sturz

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available Discussions of the source of the Stroop interference effect continue to pervade the literature. Semantic competition posits that interference results from competing semantic activation of word and color dimensions of the stimulus prior to response selection. Response competition posits that interference results from competing responses for articulating the word dimension versus the color dimension at the time of response selection. We embedded Stroop stimuli into a delayed match-to-sample task in an attempt to test semantic and response competition accounts of the interference effect. Participants viewed a sample color word in black or colored fonts that were congruent or incongruent with respect to the color word itself. After a 5s delay, participants were presented with two targets (i.e., a match and a foil and were instructed to select the correct match. We probed each dimension independently during target presentations via color targets (i.e., two colors or word targets (i.e., two words and manipulated whether the semantic content of the foil was related to the semantic content of the irrelevant sample dimension (e.g., word sample red in blue font with the word red as the match and the word blue as the foil. We provide evidence for Stroop interference such that response times increased for incongruent trials even in the presence of a response option with semantic content unrelated to the semantic content of the irrelevant sample dimension. Accuracy also deteriorated during the related foil trials. A follow-up experiment with a 10s delay between sample and targets replicated the results. Results appear to provide converging evidence for Stroop interference in a delayed match-to-sample task in a manner that is consistent with an explanation based upon semantic competition and inconsistent with an explanation based upon response competition.

  18. Relating UMLS semantic types and task-based ontology to computer-interpretable clinical practice guidelines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Anand; Ciccarese, Paolo; Quaglini, Silvana; Stefanelli, Mario; Caffi, Ezio; Boiocchi, Lorenzo

    2003-01-01

    Medical knowledge in clinical practice guideline (GL) texts is the source of task-based computer-interpretable clinical guideline models (CIGMs). We have used Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) semantic types (STs) to understand the percentage of GL text which belongs to a particular ST. We also use UMLS semantic network together with the CIGM-specific ontology to derive a semantic meaning behind the GL text. In order to achieve this objective, we took nine GL texts from the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) and marked up the text dealing with a particular ST. The STs we took into consideration were restricted taking into account the requirements of a task-based CIGM. We used DARPA Agent Markup Language and Ontology Inference Layer (DAML + OIL) to create the UMLS and CIGM specific semantic network. For the latter, as a bench test, we used the 1999 WHO-International Society of Hypertension Guidelines for the Management of Hypertension. We took into consideration the UMLS STs closest to the clinical tasks. The percentage of the GL text dealing with the ST "Health Care Activity" and subtypes "Laboratory Procedure", "Diagnostic Procedure" and "Therapeutic or Preventive Procedure" were measured. The parts of text belonging to other STs or comments were separated. A mapping of terms belonging to other STs was done to the STs under "HCA" for representation in DAML + OIL. As a result, we found that the three STs under "HCA" were the predominant STs present in the GL text. In cases where the terms of related STs existed, they were mapped into one of the three STs. The DAML + OIL representation was able to describe the hierarchy in task-based CIGMs. To conclude, we understood that the three STs could be used to represent the semantic network of the task-bases CIGMs. We identified some mapping operators which could be used for the mapping of other STs into these.

  19. Total sleep deprivation does not significantly degrade semantic encoding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Honn, K A; Grant, D A; Hinson, J M; Whitney, P; Van Dongen, Hpa

    2018-01-17

    Sleep deprivation impairs performance on cognitive tasks, but it is unclear which cognitive processes it degrades. We administered a semantic matching task with variable stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) and both speeded and self-paced trial blocks. The task was administered at the baseline and 24 hours later after 30.8 hours of total sleep deprivation (TSD) or matching well-rested control. After sleep deprivation, the 20% slowest response times (RTs) were significantly increased. However, the semantic encoding time component of the RTs remained at baseline level. Thus, the performance impairment induced by sleep deprivation on this task occurred in cognitive processes downstream of semantic encoding.

  20. The functional connectivity of semantic task changes in the recovery from stroke aphasia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Jie; Wu, Xia; Yao, Li; Li, Kun-Cheng; Shu, Hua; Dong, Qi

    2007-03-01

    Little is known about the difference of functional connectivity of semantic task between the recovery aphasic patients and normal subject. In this paper, an fMRI experiment was performed in a patient with aphasia following a left-sided ischemic lesion and normal subject. Picture naming was used as semantic activation task in this study. We compared the preliminary functional connectivity results of the recovery aphasic patient with the normal subject. The fMRI data were separated by independent component analysis (ICA) into 90 components. According to our experience and other papers, we chose a region of interest (ROI) of semantic (x=-57, y=15, z=8, r=11mm). From the 90 components, we chose one component as the functional connectivity of the semantic ROI according to one criterion. The criterion is the mean value of the voxels in the ROI. So the component of the highest mean value of the ROI is the functional connectivity of the ROI. The voxel with its value higher than 2.4 was thought as activated (pgyrus and inferior/middle temporal gyrus are larger than the ones of normal. The activated area of the right inferior frontal gyrus is smaller than the ones of normal. The functional connectivity of stroke aphasic patient under semantic condition is different with the normal one. The focus of the stroke aphasic patient can affect the functional connectivity.

  1. Phonological and semantic processing during comprehension in Wernicke's aphasia: An N400 and Phonological Mapping Negativity Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robson, Holly; Pilkington, Emma; Evans, Louise; DeLuca, Vincent; Keidel, James L

    2017-06-01

    Comprehension impairments in Wernicke's aphasia are thought to result from a combination of impaired phonological and semantic processes. However, the relationship between these cognitive processes and language comprehension has only been inferred through offline neuropsychological tasks. This study used ERPs to investigate phonological and semantic processing during online single word comprehension. EEG was recorded in a group of Wernicke's aphasia n=8 and control participants n=10 while performing a word-picture verification task. The N400 and Phonological Mapping Negativity/Phonological Mismatch Negativity (PMN) event-related potential components were investigated as an index of semantic and phonological processing, respectively. Individuals with Wernicke's aphasia displayed reduced and inconsistent N400 and PMN effects in comparison to control participants. Reduced N400 effects in the WA group were simulated in the control group by artificially degrading speech perception. Correlation analyses in the Wernicke's aphasia group found that PMN but not N400 amplitude was associated with behavioural word-picture verification performance. The results confirm impairments at both phonological and semantic stages of comprehension in Wernicke's aphasia. However, reduced N400 responses in Wernicke's aphasia are at least partially attributable to earlier phonological processing impairments. The results provide further support for the traditional model of Wernicke's aphasia which claims a causative link between phonological processing and language comprehension impairments. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Specific default mode subnetworks support mentalizing as revealed through opposing network recruitment by social and semantic FMRI tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hyatt, Christopher J; Calhoun, Vince D; Pearlson, Godfrey D; Assaf, Michal

    2015-08-01

    The ability to attribute mental states to others, or "mentalizing," is posited to involve specific subnetworks within the overall default mode network (DMN), but this question needs clarification. To determine which default mode (DM) subnetworks are engaged by mentalizing processes, we assessed task-related recruitment of DM subnetworks. Spatial independent component analysis (sICA) applied to fMRI data using relatively high-order model (75 components). Healthy participants (n = 53, ages 17-60) performed two fMRI tasks: an interactive game involving mentalizing (Domino), a semantic memory task (SORT), and a resting state fMRI scan. sICA of the two tasks split the DMN into 10 subnetworks located in three core regions: medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC; five subnetworks), posterior cingulate/precuneus (PCC/PrC; three subnetworks), and bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ). Mentalizing events increased recruitment in five of 10 DM subnetworks, located in all three core DMN regions. In addition, three of these five DM subnetworks, one dmPFC subnetwork, one PCC/PrC subnetwork, and the right TPJ subnetwork, showed reduced recruitment by semantic memory task events. The opposing modulation by the two tasks suggests that these three DM subnetworks are specifically engaged in mentalizing. Our findings, therefore, suggest the unique involvement of mentalizing processes in only three of 10 DM subnetworks, and support the importance of the dmPFC, PCC/PrC, and right TPJ in mentalizing as described in prior studies. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  3. Semantics and the multisensory brain: how meaning modulates processes of audio-visual integration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doehrmann, Oliver; Naumer, Marcus J

    2008-11-25

    By using meaningful stimuli, multisensory research has recently started to investigate the impact of stimulus content on crossmodal integration. Variations in this respect have often been termed as "semantic". In this paper we will review work related to the question for which tasks the influence of semantic factors has been found and which cortical networks are most likely to mediate these effects. More specifically, the focus of this paper will be on processing of object stimuli presented in the auditory and visual sensory modalities. Furthermore, we will investigate which cortical regions are particularly responsive to experimental variations of content by comparing semantically matching ("congruent") and mismatching ("incongruent") experimental conditions. In this context, recent neuroimaging studies point toward a possible functional differentiation of temporal and frontal cortical regions, with the former being more responsive to semantically congruent and the latter to semantically incongruent audio-visual (AV) stimulation. To account for these differential effects, we will suggest in the final section of this paper a possible synthesis of these data on semantic modulation of AV integration with findings from neuroimaging studies and theoretical accounts of semantic memory.

  4. The effect of childhood bilingualism on episodic and semantic memory tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kormi-Nouri, Reza; Shojaei, Razie-Sadat; Moniri, Sadegheh; Gholami, Ali-Reza; Moradi, Ali-Reza; Akbari-Zardkhaneh, Saeed; Nilsson, Lars-Göran

    2008-04-01

    Kormi-Nouri, Moniri and Nilsson (2003) demonstrated that Swedish-Persian bilingual children recalled at a higher level than Swedish monolingual children, when they were tested using Swedish materials. The present study was designed to examine the bilingual advantage of children who use different languages in their everyday life but have the same cultural background and live in their communities in the same way as monolingual children. In four experiments, 488 monolingual and bilingual children were compared with regard to episodic and semantic memory tasks. In experiments 1 and 2 there were 144 boys and 144 girls in three school groups (aged 9-10 years, 13-14 years and 16-17 years) and in three language groups (Persian monolingual, Turkish-Persian bilingual, and Kurdish-Persian bilingual). In experiments 3 and 4, there were 200 male students in two school groups (aged 9-10 years and 16-17 years) and in two language groups (Persian monolingual and Turkish-Persian bilingual). In the episodic memory task, children learned sentences (experiments 1-3) and words (Experiment 4). Letter and category fluency tests were used as measures of semantic memory. To change cognitive demands in memory tasks, in Experiment 1, the integration of nouns and verbs within sentences was manipulated by the level of association between verb and noun in each sentence. At retrieval, a recognition test was used. In experiments 2 and 3, the organization between sentences was manipulated at encoding in Experiment 2 and at both encoding and retrieval in Experiment 3 through the use of categories among the objects. At retrieval, free recall or cued recall tests were employed. In Experiment 4, the bilingual children were tested with regard to both their first and their second language. In all four experiments, a positive effect of bilingualism was found on episodic and semantic memory tasks; the effect was more pronounced for older than younger children. The bilingual advantage was not affected by

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  7. Memory systems, processes, and tasks: taxonomic clarification via factor analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bruss, Peter J; Mitchell, David B

    2009-01-01

    The nature of various memory systems was examined using factor analysis. We reanalyzed data from 11 memory tasks previously reported in Mitchell and Bruss (2003). Four well-defined factors emerged, closely resembling episodic and semantic memory and conceptual and perceptual implicit memory, in line with both memory systems and transfer-appropriate processing accounts. To explore taxonomic issues, we ran separate analyses on the implicit tasks. Using a cross-format manipulation (pictures vs. words), we identified 3 prototypical tasks. Word fragment completion and picture fragment identification tasks were "factor pure," tapping perceptual processes uniquely. Category exemplar generation revealed its conceptual nature, yielding both cross-format priming and a picture superiority effect. In contrast, word stem completion and picture naming were more complex, revealing attributes of both processes.

  8. [Electrophysiological bases of semantic processing of objects].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kahlaoui, Karima; Baccino, Thierry; Joanette, Yves; Magnié, Marie-Noële

    2007-02-01

    How pictures and words are stored and processed in the human brain constitute a long-standing question in cognitive psychology. Behavioral studies have yielded a large amount of data addressing this issue. Generally speaking, these data show that there are some interactions between the semantic processing of pictures and words. However, behavioral methods can provide only limited insight into certain findings. Fortunately, Event-Related Potential (ERP) provides on-line cues about the temporal nature of cognitive processes and contributes to the exploration of their neural substrates. ERPs have been used in order to better understand semantic processing of words and pictures. The main objective of this article is to offer an overview of the electrophysiologic bases of semantic processing of words and pictures. Studies presented in this article showed that the processing of words is associated with an N 400 component, whereas pictures elicited both N 300 and N 400 components. Topographical analysis of the N 400 distribution over the scalp is compatible with the idea that both image-mediated concrete words and pictures access an amodal semantic system. However, given the distinctive N 300 patterns, observed only during picture processing, it appears that picture and word processing rely upon distinct neuronal networks, even if they end up activating more or less similar semantic representations.

  9. Modulation of Task Demands Suggests That Semantic Processing Interferes with the Formation of Episodic Associations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Long, Nicole M.; Kahana, Michael J.

    2017-01-01

    Although episodic and semantic memory share overlapping neural mechanisms, it remains unclear how our pre-existing semantic associations modulate the formation of new, episodic associations. When freely recalling recently studied words, people rely on both episodic and semantic associations, shown through temporal and semantic clustering of…

  10. Crossmodal semantic congruence can affect visuo-spatial processing and activity of the fronto-parietal attention networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Serena eMastroberardino

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Previous studies have shown that multisensory stimuli can contribute to attention control. Here we investigate whether irrelevant audio-visual stimuli can affect the processing of subsequent visual targets, in the absence of any direct bottom-up signals generated by low-level sensory changes and any goal-related associations between the multisensory stimuli and the visual targets. Each trial included two pictures (cat/dog, one in each visual hemifield, and a central sound that was semantically congruent with one of the two pictures (i.e. either meow or woof sound. These irrelevant audio-visual stimuli were followed by a visual target that appeared either where the congruent or the incongruent picture had been presented (valid/invalid trials. The visual target was a Gabor patch requiring an orientation discrimination judgment, allowing us to uncouple the visual task from the audio-visual stimuli. Behaviourally we found lower performance for invalid than valid trials, but only when the task demands were high (Gabor target presented together with a Gabor distractor vs. Gabor target alone. The fMRI analyses revealed greater activity for invalid than for valid trials in the dorsal and the ventral fronto-parietal attention networks. The dorsal network was recruited irrespective of task demands, while the ventral network was recruited only when task demands were high and target discrimination required additional top-down control. We propose that crossmodal semantic congruence generates a processing bias associated with the location of congruent picture, and that the presentation of the visual target on the opposite side required updating these processing priorities. We relate the activation of the attention networks to these updating operations. We conclude that the fronto-parietal networks mediate the influence of crossmodal semantic congruence on visuo-spatial processing, even in the absence of any low-level sensory cue and any goal-driven task

  11. Effects of level of processing at encoding and types of retrieval task in mild cognitive impairment and normal aging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Froger, Charlotte; Taconnat, Laurence; Landré, Lionel; Beigneux, Katia; Isingrini, Michel

    2009-04-01

    A total of 16 young (M = 27.25 years), 13 healthy elderly (M = 75.38 years), and 10 older adults with probable mild cognitive impairment (MCI; M = 78.6 years) carried out a task under two different encoding conditions (shallow vs. semantic) and two retrieval conditions (free recall vs. recognition). For the shallow condition, participants had to decide whether the first or last letter of each word in a list was "E." For the semantic condition, they had to decide whether each word represented a concrete or abstract entity. The MCI group was only able to benefit from semantic encoding to the same extent as the healthy older adults in the recognition task, whereas the younger and healthy older adults benefited in both retrieval tasks. These results suggest that the MCI group required cognitive support at retrieval to make effective use of semantic processing carried out at encoding. In the discussion, we suggest that adults with MCI engage more in deep processing, using the semantic network, than hitherto thought.

  12. Elucidating semantic disorganisation from a word comprehension task: do patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder show differential processing of nouns, verbs and adjectives?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rossell, Susan L; Batty, Rachel A

    2008-07-01

    Memory deficits have been reported in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, the precise impact of semantic memory deficits on word comprehension, particularly across grammatical categories, has not been adequately investigated in these disorders. Furthermore, previous studies examining semantic memory have predominantly been designed so that most healthy controls perform at ceiling, questioning the validity of observed differences between patient and control groups. A new word definition task examined word comprehension across grammatical categories, i.e. nouns, verbs and adjectives, and was designed to overcome the ceiling effect. It was administered to 32 schizophrenia patients, 28 bipolar disorder patients and 32 matched healthy controls. Schizophrenia patients had a global impairment on the task but bipolar patients were only impaired on a recognition memory component. Word comprehension, however, across grammatical categories was comparable across groups.

  13. Semantic Memory in the Clinical Progression of Alzheimer Disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  15. Auto-Generated Semantic Processing Services

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Rodney; Hupf, Greg

    2009-01-01

    Auto-Generated Semantic Processing (AGSP) Services is a suite of software tools for automated generation of other computer programs, denoted cross-platform semantic adapters, that support interoperability of computer-based communication systems that utilize a variety of both new and legacy communication software running in a variety of operating- system/computer-hardware combinations. AGSP has numerous potential uses in military, space-exploration, and other government applications as well as in commercial telecommunications. The cross-platform semantic adapters take advantage of common features of computer- based communication systems to enforce semantics, messaging protocols, and standards of processing of streams of binary data to ensure integrity of data and consistency of meaning among interoperating systems. The auto-generation aspect of AGSP Services reduces development time and effort by emphasizing specification and minimizing implementation: In effect, the design, building, and debugging of software for effecting conversions among complex communication protocols, custom device mappings, and unique data-manipulation algorithms is replaced with metadata specifications that map to an abstract platform-independent communications model. AGSP Services is modular and has been shown to be easily integrable into new and legacy NASA flight and ground communication systems.

  16. Semantic processing of EHR data for clinical research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Hong; Depraetere, Kristof; De Roo, Jos; Mels, Giovanni; De Vloed, Boris; Twagirumukiza, Marc; Colaert, Dirk

    2015-12-01

    There is a growing need to semantically process and integrate clinical data from different sources for clinical research. This paper presents an approach to integrate EHRs from heterogeneous resources and generate integrated data in different data formats or semantics to support various clinical research applications. The proposed approach builds semantic data virtualization layers on top of data sources, which generate data in the requested semantics or formats on demand. This approach avoids upfront dumping to and synchronizing of the data with various representations. Data from different EHR systems are first mapped to RDF data with source semantics, and then converted to representations with harmonized domain semantics where domain ontologies and terminologies are used to improve reusability. It is also possible to further convert data to application semantics and store the converted results in clinical research databases, e.g. i2b2, OMOP, to support different clinical research settings. Semantic conversions between different representations are explicitly expressed using N3 rules and executed by an N3 Reasoner (EYE), which can also generate proofs of the conversion processes. The solution presented in this paper has been applied to real-world applications that process large scale EHR data. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  19. Semantic priming without association: a meta-analytic review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lucas, M

    2000-12-01

    A meta-analysis of 26 studies indicated that automatic semantic priming can occur without association. Priming did not vary substantially with differences in variables that affect automatic versus strategic processing, such as time spent processing the prime and target, relationship proportion, and task (except that average effects were smaller in the naming task). Although category coordinates were investigated in the majority of studies, synonyms, antonyms, and script relations also demonstrated priming; functional relations showed greater priming, and essential and perceptual relations showed less. The average effect size for semantic priming was smaller than that for associative priming, suggesting that there is an "associative boost" from adding an associative relationship to a semantic one. The implications of these findings for the modularity thesis and for models of semantic priming are discussed.

  20. An fMRI study of semantic processing in men with schizophrenia

    OpenAIRE

    Kubicki, M.; McCarley, R.W.; Nestor, P.G.; Huh, T.; Kikinis, R.; Shenton, M.E.; Wible, C.G.

    2003-01-01

    As a means toward understanding the neural bases of schizophrenic thought disturbance, we examined brain activation patterns in response to semantically and superficially encoded words in patients with schizophrenia. Nine male schizophrenic and 9 male control subjects were tested in a visual levels of processing (LOP) task first outside the magnet and then during the fMRI scanning procedures (using a different set of words). During the experiments visual words were presented under two conditi...

  1. Towards Universal Semantic Tagging

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Abzianidze, Lasha; Bos, Johan

    2017-01-01

    The paper proposes the task of universal semantic tagging---tagging word tokens with language-neutral, semantically informative tags. We argue that the task, with its independent nature, contributes to better semantic analysis for wide-coverage multilingual text. We present the initial version of

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  3. Retrieval and Monitoring Processes during Visual Working Memory: An ERP Study of the Benefit of Visual Semantics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elizabeth Orme

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available In this study, we examined electrophysiological indices of episodic remembering whilst participants recalled novel shapes, with and without semantic content, within a visual working memory paradigm. The components of interest were the parietal episodic (PE; 400–800 ms and late posterior negativity (LPN; 500–900 ms, as these have previously been identified as reliable markers of recollection and post-retrieval monitoring, respectively. Fifteen young adults completed a visual matrix patterns task, assessing memory for low and high semantic visual representations. Matrices with either low semantic or high semantic content (containing familiar visual forms were briefly presented to participants for study (1500 ms, followed by a retention interval (6000 ms and finally a same/different recognition phase. The event-related potentials of interest were tracked from the onset of the recognition test stimuli. Analyses revealed equivalent amplitude for the earlier PE effect for the processing of both low and high semantic stimulus types. However, the LPN was more negative-going for the processing of the low semantic stimuli. These data are discussed in terms of relatively ‘pure’ and complete retrieval of high semantic items, where support can readily be recruited from semantic memory. However, for the low semantic items additional executive resources, as indexed by the LPN, are recruited when memory monitoring and uncertainty exist in order to recall previously studied items more effectively.

  4. Retrieval and Monitoring Processes during Visual Working Memory: An ERP Study of the Benefit of Visual Semantics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orme, Elizabeth; Brown, Louise A; Riby, Leigh M

    2017-01-01

    In this study, we examined electrophysiological indices of episodic remembering whilst participants recalled novel shapes, with and without semantic content, within a visual working memory paradigm. The components of interest were the parietal episodic (PE; 400-800 ms) and late posterior negativity (LPN; 500-900 ms), as these have previously been identified as reliable markers of recollection and post-retrieval monitoring, respectively. Fifteen young adults completed a visual matrix patterns task, assessing memory for low and high semantic visual representations. Matrices with either low semantic or high semantic content (containing familiar visual forms) were briefly presented to participants for study (1500 ms), followed by a retention interval (6000 ms) and finally a same/different recognition phase. The event-related potentials of interest were tracked from the onset of the recognition test stimuli. Analyses revealed equivalent amplitude for the earlier PE effect for the processing of both low and high semantic stimulus types. However, the LPN was more negative-going for the processing of the low semantic stimuli. These data are discussed in terms of relatively 'pure' and complete retrieval of high semantic items, where support can readily be recruited from semantic memory. However, for the low semantic items additional executive resources, as indexed by the LPN, are recruited when memory monitoring and uncertainty exist in order to recall previously studied items more effectively.

  5. Retrieval and Monitoring Processes during Visual Working Memory: An ERP Study of the Benefit of Visual Semantics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orme, Elizabeth; Brown, Louise A.; Riby, Leigh M.

    2017-01-01

    In this study, we examined electrophysiological indices of episodic remembering whilst participants recalled novel shapes, with and without semantic content, within a visual working memory paradigm. The components of interest were the parietal episodic (PE; 400–800 ms) and late posterior negativity (LPN; 500–900 ms), as these have previously been identified as reliable markers of recollection and post-retrieval monitoring, respectively. Fifteen young adults completed a visual matrix patterns task, assessing memory for low and high semantic visual representations. Matrices with either low semantic or high semantic content (containing familiar visual forms) were briefly presented to participants for study (1500 ms), followed by a retention interval (6000 ms) and finally a same/different recognition phase. The event-related potentials of interest were tracked from the onset of the recognition test stimuli. Analyses revealed equivalent amplitude for the earlier PE effect for the processing of both low and high semantic stimulus types. However, the LPN was more negative-going for the processing of the low semantic stimuli. These data are discussed in terms of relatively ‘pure’ and complete retrieval of high semantic items, where support can readily be recruited from semantic memory. However, for the low semantic items additional executive resources, as indexed by the LPN, are recruited when memory monitoring and uncertainty exist in order to recall previously studied items more effectively. PMID:28725203

  6. Semantic Service Design for Collaborative Business Processes in Internetworked Enterprises

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bianchini, Devis; Cappiello, Cinzia; de Antonellis, Valeria; Pernici, Barbara

    Modern collaborating enterprises can be seen as borderless organizations whose processes are dynamically transformed and integrated with the ones of their partners (Internetworked Enterprises, IE), thus enabling the design of collaborative business processes. The adoption of Semantic Web and service-oriented technologies for implementing collaboration in such distributed and heterogeneous environments promises significant benefits. IE can model their own processes independently by using the Software as a Service paradigm (SaaS). Each enterprise maintains a catalog of available services and these can be shared across IE and reused to build up complex collaborative processes. Moreover, each enterprise can adopt its own terminology and concepts to describe business processes and component services. This brings requirements to manage semantic heterogeneity in process descriptions which are distributed across different enterprise systems. To enable effective service-based collaboration, IEs have to standardize their process descriptions and model them through component services using the same approach and principles. For enabling collaborative business processes across IE, services should be designed following an homogeneous approach, possibly maintaining a uniform level of granularity. In the paper we propose an ontology-based semantic modeling approach apt to enrich and reconcile semantics of process descriptions to facilitate process knowledge management and to enable semantic service design (by discovery, reuse and integration of process elements/constructs). The approach brings together Semantic Web technologies, techniques in process modeling, ontology building and semantic matching in order to provide a comprehensive semantic modeling framework.

  7. Musical and verbal semantic memory: two distinct neural networks?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Groussard, M; Viader, F; Hubert, V; Landeau, B; Abbas, A; Desgranges, B; Eustache, F; Platel, H

    2010-02-01

    Semantic memory has been investigated in numerous neuroimaging and clinical studies, most of which have used verbal or visual, but only very seldom, musical material. Clinical studies have suggested that there is a relative neural independence between verbal and musical semantic memory. In the present study, "musical semantic memory" is defined as memory for "well-known" melodies without any knowledge of the spatial or temporal circumstances of learning, while "verbal semantic memory" corresponds to general knowledge about concepts, again without any knowledge of the spatial or temporal circumstances of learning. Our aim was to compare the neural substrates of musical and verbal semantic memory by administering the same type of task in each modality. We used high-resolution PET H(2)O(15) to observe 11 young subjects performing two main tasks: (1) a musical semantic memory task, where the subjects heard the first part of familiar melodies and had to decide whether the second part they heard matched the first, and (2) a verbal semantic memory task with the same design, but where the material consisted of well-known expressions or proverbs. The musical semantic memory condition activated the superior temporal area and inferior and middle frontal areas in the left hemisphere and the inferior frontal area in the right hemisphere. The verbal semantic memory condition activated the middle temporal region in the left hemisphere and the cerebellum in the right hemisphere. We found that the verbal and musical semantic processes activated a common network extending throughout the left temporal neocortex. In addition, there was a material-dependent topographical preference within this network, with predominantly anterior activation during musical tasks and predominantly posterior activation during semantic verbal tasks. Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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…

  9. Overlap in the functional neural systems involved in semantic and episodic memory retrieval.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rajah, M N; McIntosh, A R

    2005-03-01

    Neuroimaging and neuropsychological data suggest that episodic and semantic memory may be mediated by distinct neural systems. However, an alternative perspective is that episodic and semantic memory represent different modes of processing within a single declarative memory system. To examine whether the multiple or the unitary system view better represents the data we conducted a network analysis using multivariate partial least squares (PLS ) activation analysis followed by covariance structural equation modeling (SEM) of positron emission tomography data obtained while healthy adults performed episodic and semantic verbal retrieval tasks. It is argued that if performance of episodic and semantic retrieval tasks are mediated by different memory systems, then there should differences in both regional activations and interregional correlations related to each type of retrieval task, respectively. The PLS results identified brain regions that were differentially active during episodic retrieval versus semantic retrieval. Regions that showed maximal differences in regional activity between episodic retrieval tasks were used to construct separate functional models for episodic and semantic retrieval. Omnibus tests of these functional models failed to find a significant difference across tasks for both functional models. The pattern of path coefficients for the episodic retrieval model were not different across tasks, nor were the path coefficients for the semantic retrieval model. The SEM results suggest that the same memory network/system was engaged across tasks, given the similarities in path coefficients. Therefore, activation differences between episodic and semantic retrieval may ref lect variation along a continuum of processing during task performance within the context of a single memory system.

  10. Semantic memory in object use.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silveri, Maria Caterina; Ciccarelli, Nicoletta

    2009-10-01

    We studied five patients with semantic memory disorders, four with semantic dementia and one with herpes simplex virus encephalitis, to investigate the involvement of semantic conceptual knowledge in object use. Comparisons between patients who had semantic deficits of different severity, as well as the follow-up, showed that the ability to use objects was largely preserved when the deficit was mild but progressively decayed as the deficit became more severe. Naming was generally more impaired than object use. Production tasks (pantomime execution and actual object use) and comprehension tasks (pantomime recognition and action recognition) as well as functional knowledge about objects were impaired when the semantic deficit was severe. Semantic and unrelated errors were produced during object use, but actions were always fluent and patients performed normally on a novel tools task in which the semantic demand was minimal. Patients with severe semantic deficits scored borderline on ideational apraxia tasks. Our data indicate that functional semantic knowledge is crucial for using objects in a conventional way and suggest that non-semantic factors, mainly non-declarative components of memory, might compensate to some extent for semantic disorders and guarantee some residual ability to use very common objects independently of semantic knowledge.

  11. Speed and Accuracy in the Processing of False Statements About Semantic Information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ratcliff, Roger

    1982-01-01

    A standard reaction time procedure and a response signal procedure were used on data from eight experiments on semantic verifications. Results suggest that simple models of the semantic verification task that assume a single yes/no dimension on which discrimination is made are not correct. (Author/PN)

  12. The influence of valence and arousal on reasoning: Affective priming in the semantic verification task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Orlić Ana

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of affective valence and arousal on the reasoning process. Reasoning was measured using a semantic verification task and the influence of valence and arousal was tracked using the affective priming paradigm. Primes were photographs varied on two dimensions - emotional valence (positive, neutral, negative and arousal (high, low. Forty-nine psychology students participated in the experiment. Results showed that reaction time needed for semantic verification was significantly faster for positive-high arousing in comparison to positive-low arousing condition and for neutral high arousing in comparison to neutral-low arousing condition, but there were no significant differences in negative low and high arousing conditions. Also, significant differences were found among all three valences in high arousing conditions and there were no such differences in low arousing conditions. These results reveal the importance of both arousal and valence in the research on the influence of emotions on the reasoning process. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 179033

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  16. The Effect of Concurrent Semantic Categorization on Delayed Serial Recall

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2011-01-01

    The influence of semantic processing on the serial ordering of items in short-term memory was explored using a novel dual-task paradigm. Participants engaged in 2 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…

  17. Semantic search during divergent thinking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hass, Richard W

    2017-09-01

    Divergent thinking, as a method of examining creative cognition, has not been adequately analyzed in the context of modern cognitive theories. This article casts divergent thinking responding in the context of theories of memory search. First, it was argued that divergent thinking tasks are similar to semantic fluency tasks, but are more constrained, and less well structured. Next, response time distributions from 54 participants were analyzed for temporal and semantic clustering. Participants responded to two prompts from the alternative uses test: uses for a brick and uses for a bottle, for two minutes each. Participants' cumulative response curves were negatively accelerating, in line with theories of search of associative memory. However, results of analyses of semantic and temporal clustering suggested that clustering is less evident in alternative uses responding compared to semantic fluency tasks. This suggests either that divergent thinking responding does not involve an exhaustive search through a clustered memory trace, but rather that the process is more exploratory, yielding fewer overall responses that tend to drift away from close associates of the divergent thinking prompt. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  18. The Effect of Concurrent Semantic Categorization on Delayed Serial Recall

    Science.gov (United States)

    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

  19. Designing equivalent semantic models for process creation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    P.H.M. America (Pierre); J.W. de Bakker (Jaco)

    1986-01-01

    textabstractOperational and denotational semantic models are designed for languages with process creation, and the relationships between the two semantics are investigated. The presentation is organized in four sections dealing with a uniform and static, a uniform and dynamic, a nonuniform and

  20. The special status of verbal knowledge in semantic memory: evidence from performance of semantically impaired subjects on verbalizable and non-verbalizable versions of the object decision task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zannino, Gian Daniele; Perri, Roberta; Monaco, Marco; Caltagirone, Carlo; Luzzi, Simona; Carlesimo, Giovanni A

    2014-01-01

    According to the semantic hub hypothesis, a supramodal semantic hub is equally needed to deal with verbal and extraverbal "surface" representations. Damage to the supramodal hub is thought to underlie the crossmodal impairment observed in selective semantic deficits. In the present paper, we provide evidence supporting an alternative view: we hold that semantic impairment is not equal across domains but affects verbal behavior disproportionately. We investigated our hypothesis by manipulating the verbal load in an object decision task. Two pathological groups showing different levels of semantic impairment were enrolled together with their normal controls. The severe group included 10 subjects with semantic dementia and the mild group 10 subjects with Alzheimer's disease. In keeping with our hypothesis, when shifting from the low verbal load to the high verbal load condition, brain-damaged individuals, as compared to controls, showed a disproportionate impairment as a function of the severity of their semantic deficit. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Depth of processing effects on neural correlates of memory encoding: relationship between findings from across- and within-task comparisons.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Otten, L J; Henson, R N; Rugg, M D

    2001-02-01

    Neuroimaging studies have implicated the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal areas in the successful encoding of verbal material into episodic memory. The present study used event-related functional MRI to investigate whether the brain areas associated with successful episodic encoding of words in a semantic study task are a subset of those demonstrating depth of processing effects. In addition, we tested whether the brain areas associated with successful episodic encoding differ depending on the nature of the study task. At study, 15 volunteers were cued to make either animacy or alphabetical decisions about words. A recognition memory test including confidence judgements followed after a delay of 15 min. Prefrontal and medial temporal regions showed greater functional MRI activations for semantically encoded words relative to alphabetically encoded words. Two of these regions (left anterior hippocampus and left ventral inferior frontal gyrus) showed greater activation for semantically encoded words that were subsequently recognized confidently. However, other regions (left posterior hippocampus and right inferior frontal cortex) demonstrated subsequent memory effects, but not effects of depth of processing. Successful memory for alphabetically encoded words was also associated with greater activation in the left anterior hippocampus and left ventral inferior frontal gyrus. The findings suggest that episodic encoding for words in a semantic study task involves a subset of the regions activated by deep relative to shallow processing. The data provide little evidence that successful episodic encoding during a shallow study task depends upon regions different from those that support the encoding of deeply studied words. Instead, the findings suggest that successful episodic encoding during a shallow study task relies on a subset of the regions engaged during successful encoding in a deep task.

  2. Is Semantic Priming (Ir)rational? Insights from the Speeded Word Fragment Completion Task

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heyman, Tom; Hutchison, Keith A.; Storms, Gert

    2016-01-01

    Semantic priming, the phenomenon that a target is recognized faster if it is preceded by a semantically related prime, is a well-established effect. However, the mechanisms producing semantic priming are subject of debate. Several theories assume that the underlying processes are controllable and tuned to prime utility. In contrast, purely…

  3. Examining Lateralized Lexical Ambiguity Processing Using Dichotic and Cross-Modal Tasks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Atchley, Ruth Ann; Grimshaw, Gina; Schuster, Jonathan; Gibson, Linzi

    2011-01-01

    The individual roles played by the cerebral hemispheres during the process of language comprehension have been extensively studied in tasks that require individuals to read text (for review see Jung-Beeman, 2005). However, it is not clear whether or not some aspects of the theorized laterality models of semantic comprehension are a result of the…

  4. High Performance Descriptive Semantic Analysis of Semantic Graph Databases

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Joslyn, Cliff A.; Adolf, Robert D.; al-Saffar, Sinan; Feo, John T.; Haglin, David J.; Mackey, Greg E.; Mizell, David W.

    2011-06-02

    As semantic graph database technology grows to address components ranging from extant large triple stores to SPARQL endpoints over SQL-structured relational databases, it will become increasingly important to be able to understand their inherent semantic structure, whether codified in explicit ontologies or not. Our group is researching novel methods for what we call descriptive semantic analysis of RDF triplestores, to serve purposes of analysis, interpretation, visualization, and optimization. But data size and computational complexity makes it increasingly necessary to bring high performance computational resources to bear on this task. Our research group built a novel high performance hybrid system comprising computational capability for semantic graph database processing utilizing the large multi-threaded architecture of the Cray XMT platform, conventional servers, and large data stores. In this paper we describe that architecture and our methods, and present the results of our analyses of basic properties, connected components, namespace interaction, and typed paths such for the Billion Triple Challenge 2010 dataset.

  5. Neural correlates underlying musical semantic memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Groussard, M; Viader, F; Landeau, B; Desgranges, B; Eustache, F; Platel, H

    2009-07-01

    Numerous functional imaging studies have examined the neural basis of semantic memory mainly using verbal and visuospatial materials. Musical material also allows an original way to explore semantic memory processes. We used PET imaging to determine the neural substrates that underlie musical semantic memory using different tasks and stimuli. The results of three PET studies revealed a greater involvement of the anterior part of the temporal lobe. Concerning clinical observations and our neuroimaging data, the musical lexicon (and most widely musical semantic memory) appears to be sustained by a temporo-prefrontal cerebral network involving right and left cerebral regions.

  6. ERPs, semantic processing and age.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miyamoto, T; Katayama, J; Koyama, T

    1998-06-01

    ERPs (N400, LPC and CNV) were elicited in two sets of subjects grouped according to age (young vs. elderly) using a word-pair category matching paradigm. Each prime consisted of a Japanese noun (constructed from two to four characters of the Hiragana) followed by one Chinese character (Kanji) as the target, this latter representing one of five semantic categories. There were two equally probable target conditions: match or mismatch. Each target was preceded by a prime, either belonging to, or not belonging to, the same semantic category. The subjects were required to respond with a specified button press to the given target according to the condition. We found RTs to be longer in the elderly subjects and under the mismatch condition. N400 amplitude was reduced in the elderly subjects under the mismatch condition and there was no difference between match and mismatch response, which were similar in amplitude to that under match condition for the young subjects. In addition, the CNV amplitudes were larger in the elderly subjects. These results suggested that functional changes in semantic processing through aging (larger semantic networks and diffuse semantic activation) were the cause of this N400 reduction, attributing a subsidiary role to attentional disturbance. We also discuss the importance of taking age-related changes into consideration in clinical studies.

  7. Different Ways to Cue a Coherent Memory System: A Theory for Episodic, Semantic, and Procedural Tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Humphreys, Michael S.; And Others

    1989-01-01

    An associative theory of memory is proposed to serve as a counterexample to claims that dissociations among episodic, semantic, and procedural memory tasks necessitate separate memory systems. The theory is based on task analyses of matching (recognition and familiarity judgments), retrieval (cued recall), and production (free association). (TJH)

  8. Varieties of semantic 'access' deficit in Wernicke's aphasia and semantic aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Hannah E; Robson, Holly; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2015-12-01

    Comprehension deficits are common in stroke aphasia, including in cases with (i) semantic aphasia, characterized by poor executive control of semantic processing across verbal and non-verbal modalities; and (ii) Wernicke's aphasia, associated with poor auditory-verbal comprehension and repetition, plus fluent speech with jargon. However, the varieties of these comprehension problems, and their underlying causes, are not well understood. Both patient groups exhibit some type of semantic 'access' deficit, as opposed to the 'storage' deficits observed in semantic dementia. Nevertheless, existing descriptions suggest that these patients might have different varieties of 'access' impairment-related to difficulty resolving competition (in semantic aphasia) versus initial activation of concepts from sensory inputs (in Wernicke's aphasia). We used a case series design to compare patients with Wernicke's aphasia and those with semantic aphasia on Warrington's paradigmatic assessment of semantic 'access' deficits. In these verbal and non-verbal matching tasks, a small set of semantically-related items are repeatedly presented over several cycles so that the target on one trial becomes a distractor on another (building up interference and eliciting semantic 'blocking' effects). Patients with Wernicke's aphasia and semantic aphasia were distinguished according to lesion location in the temporal cortex, but in each group, some individuals had additional prefrontal damage. Both of these aspects of lesion variability-one that mapped onto classical 'syndromes' and one that did not-predicted aspects of the semantic 'access' deficit. Both semantic aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia cases showed multimodal semantic impairment, although as expected, the Wernicke's aphasia group showed greater deficits on auditory-verbal than picture judgements. Distribution of damage in the temporal lobe was crucial for predicting the initially 'beneficial' effects of stimulus repetition: cases with

  9. Selective Short-Term Memory Deficits Arise from Impaired Domain-General Semantic Control Mechanisms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoffman, Paul; Jefferies, Elizabeth; Ehsan, Sheeba; Hopper, Samantha; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A.

    2009-01-01

    Semantic short-term memory (STM) patients have a reduced ability to retain semantic information over brief delays but perform well on other semantic tasks; this pattern suggests damage to a dedicated buffer for semantic information. Alternatively, these difficulties may arise from mild disruption to domain-general semantic processes that have…

  10. Interference by Process, Not Content, Determines Semantic Auditory Distraction

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2009-01-01

    Distraction by irrelevant background sound of visually-based cognitive tasks illustrates the vulnerability of attentional selectivity across modalities. Four experiments centred on auditory distraction during tests of memory for visually-presented semantic information. Meaningful irrelevant speech disrupted the free recall of semantic…

  11. Task modulation of disyllabic spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese: a unimodal ERP study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Xianjun; Yang, Jin-Chen; Chang, Ruohan; Guo, Chunyan

    2016-05-16

    Using unimodal auditory tasks of word-matching and meaning-matching, this study investigated how the phonological and semantic processes in Chinese disyllabic spoken word recognition are modulated by top-down mechanism induced by experimental tasks. Both semantic similarity and word-initial phonological similarity between the primes and targets were manipulated. Results showed that at early stage of recognition (~150-250 ms), an enhanced P2 was elicited by the word-initial phonological mismatch in both tasks. In ~300-500 ms, a fronto-central negative component was elicited by word-initial phonological similarities in the word-matching task, while a parietal negativity was elicited by semantically unrelated primes in the meaning-matching task, indicating that both the semantic and phonological processes can be involved in this time window, depending on the task requirements. In the late stage (~500-700 ms), a centro-parietal Late N400 was elicited in both tasks, but with a larger effect in the meaning-matching task than in the word-matching task. This finding suggests that the semantic representation of the spoken words can be activated automatically in the late stage of recognition, even when semantic processing is not required. However, the magnitude of the semantic activation is modulated by task requirements.

  12. Electrophysiological Correlates of Semantic Processing during Encoding of Neutral and Emotional Pictures in Patients with ADHD

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krauel, Kerstin; Duzel, Emrah; Hinrichs, Hermann; Lenz, Daniel; Herrmann, Christoph S.; Santel, Stephanie; Rellum, Thomas; Baving, Lioba

    2009-01-01

    The current study investigated the relevance of semantic processing and stimulus salience for memory performance in young ADHD patients and healthy control participants. 18 male ADHD patients and 15 healthy control children and adolescents participated in an ERP study during a visual memory paradigm with two different encoding tasks requiring…

  13. Semantic processes leading to true and false memory formation in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paz-Alonso, Pedro M; Ghetti, Simona; Ramsay, Ian; Solomon, Marjorie; Yoon, Jong; Carter, Cameron S; Ragland, J Daniel

    2013-07-01

    Encoding semantic relationships between items on word lists (semantic processing) enhances true memories, but also increases memory distortions. Episodic memory impairments in schizophrenia (SZ) are strongly driven by failures to process semantic relations, but the exact nature of these relational semantic processing deficits is not well understood. Here, we used a false memory paradigm to investigate the impact of implicit and explicit semantic processing manipulations on episodic memory in SZ. Thirty SZ and 30 demographically matched healthy controls (HC) studied Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists of semantically associated words. Half of the lists had strong implicit semantic associations and the remainder had low strength associations. Similarly, half of the lists were presented under "standard" instructions and the other half under explicit "relational processing" instructions. After study, participants performed recall and old/new recognition tests composed of targets, critical lures, and unrelated lures. HC exhibited higher true memories and better discriminability between true and false memory compared to SZ. High, versus low, associative strength increased false memory rates in both groups. However, explicit "relational processing" instructions positively improved true memory rates only in HC. Finally, true and false memory rates were associated with severity of disorganized and negative symptoms in SZ. These results suggest that reduced processing of semantic relationships during encoding in SZ may stem from an inability to implement explicit relational processing strategies rather than a fundamental deficit in the implicit activation and retrieval of word meanings from patients' semantic lexicon. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Towards a Cognitive Model of Distraction by Auditory Novelty: The Role of Involuntary Attention Capture and Semantic Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parmentier, Fabrice B. R.

    2008-01-01

    Unexpected auditory stimuli are potent distractors, able to break through selective attention and disrupt performance in an unrelated visual task. This study examined the processing fate of novel sounds by examining the extent to which their semantic content is analyzed and whether the outcome of this processing can impact on subsequent behavior.…

  15. Orthographic and Semantic Processing in Young Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Polse, Lara R.; Reilly, Judy S.

    2015-01-01

    This investigation examined orthographic and semantic processing during reading acquisition. Children in first to fourth grade were presented with a target word and two response alternatives, and were asked to identify the semantic match. Words were presented in four conditions: an exact match and unrelated foil (STONE-STONE-EARS), an exact match…

  16. Selective Inhibition and Naming Performance in Semantic Blocking, Picture-Word Interference, and Color-Word Stroop Tasks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shao, Zeshu; Roelofs, Ardi; Martin, Randi C.; Meyer, Antje S.

    2015-01-01

    In 2 studies, we examined whether explicit distractors are necessary and sufficient to evoke selective inhibition in 3 naming tasks: the semantic blocking, picture-word interference, and color-word Stroop task. Delta plots were used to quantify the size of the interference effects as a function of reaction time (RT). Selective inhibition was…

  17. Attenuation of deep semantic processing during mind wandering: an event-related potential study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Judy; Friedman, David; Metcalfe, Janet

    2018-03-21

    Although much research shows that early sensory and attentional processing is affected by mind wandering, the effect of mind wandering on deep (i.e. semantic) processing is relatively unexplored. To investigate this relation, we recorded event-related potentials as participants studied English-Spanish word pairs, one at a time, while being intermittently probed for whether they were 'on task' or 'mind wandering'. Both perceptual processing, indexed by the P2 component, and deep processing, indexed by a late, sustained slow wave maximal at parietal electrodes, was attenuated during periods preceding participants' mind wandering reports. The pattern when participants were on task, rather than mind wandering, is similar to the subsequent memory or difference in memory effect. These results support previous findings of sensory attenuation during mind wandering, and extend them to a long-duration slow wave by suggesting that the deeper and more sustained levels of processing are also disrupted.

  18. Language production in a shared task: Cumulative semantic interference from self- and other-produced context words

    OpenAIRE

    Hoedemaker, R.; Ernst, J.; Meyer, A.; Belke, E.

    2017-01-01

    This study assessed the effects of semantic context in the form of self-produced and other-produced words on subsequent language production. Pairs of participants performed a joint picture naming task, taking turns while naming a continuous series of pictures. In the single-speaker version of this paradigm, naming latencies have been found to increase for successive presentations of exemplars from the same category, a phenomenon known as Cumulative Semantic Interference (CSI). As expected, th...

  19. Impact of Semantic Relatedness on Associative Memory: An ERP Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pierre Desaunay

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Encoding and retrieval processes in memory for pairs of pictures are thought to be influenced by inter-item similarity and by features of individual items. Using Event-Related Potentials (ERP, we aimed to identify how these processes impact on both the early mid-frontal FN400 and the Late Positive Component (LPC potentials during associative retrieval of pictures. Twenty young adults undertook a sham task, using an incidental encoding of semantically related and unrelated pairs of drawings. At test, we conducted a recognition task in which participants were asked to identify target identical pairs of pictures, which could be semantically related or unrelated, among new and rearranged pairs. We observed semantic (related and unrelated pairs and condition effects (old, rearranged and new pairs on the early mid-frontal potential. First, a lower amplitude was shown for identical and rearranged semantically related pairs, which might reflect a retrieval process driven by semantic cues. Second, among semantically unrelated pairs, we found a larger negativity for identical pairs, compared to rearranged and new ones, suggesting additional retrieval processing that focuses on associative information. We also observed an LPC old/new effect with a mid-parietal and a right occipito-parietal topography for semantically related and unrelated old pairs, demonstrating a recollection phenomenon irrespective of the degree of association. These findings suggest that associative recognition using visual stimuli begins at early stages of retrieval, and differs according to the degree of semantic relatedness among items. However, either strategy may ultimately lead to recollection processes.

  20. Modulation of the inter-hemispheric processing of semantic information during normal aging. A divided visual field experiment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoyau, E; Cousin, E; Jaillard, A; Baciu, M

    2016-12-01

    We evaluated the effect of normal aging on the inter-hemispheric processing of semantic information by using the divided visual field (DVF) method, with words and pictures. Two main theoretical models have been considered, (a) the HAROLD model which posits that aging is associated with supplementary recruitment of the right hemisphere (RH) and decreased hemispheric specialization, and (b) the RH decline theory, which assumes that the RH becomes less efficient with aging, associated with increased LH specialization. Two groups of subjects were examined, a Young Group (YG) and an Old Group (OG), while participants performed a semantic categorization task (living vs. non-living) in words and pictures. The DVF was realized in two steps: (a) unilateral DVF presentation with stimuli presented separately in each visual field, left or right, allowing for their initial processing by only one hemisphere, right or left, respectively; (b) bilateral DVF presentation (BVF) with stimuli presented simultaneously in both visual fields, followed by their processing by both hemispheres. These two types of presentation permitted the evaluation of two main characteristics of the inter-hemispheric processing of information, the hemispheric specialization (HS) and the inter-hemispheric cooperation (IHC). Moreover, the BVF allowed determining the driver-hemisphere for processing information presented in BVF. Results obtained in OG indicated that: (a) semantic categorization was performed as accurately as YG, even if more slowly, (b) a non-semantic RH decline was observed, and (c) the LH controls the semantic processing during the BVF, suggesting an increased role of the LH in aging. However, despite the stronger involvement of the LH in OG, the RH is not completely devoid of semantic abilities. As discussed in the paper, neither the HAROLD nor the RH decline does fully explain this pattern of results. We rather suggest that the effect of aging on the hemispheric specialization and inter

  1. Using Text Models In Diagnostic Tasks.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Korostil Yuriy

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available This paper contains developing of a method of solving diagnostic tasks for complex technical objects (STO based on using text models (TMi to describe the functioning of STO. A TMi model is a text description, in normalized form, of all fragments of STO functioning process. The description of TMi is for med using semantic vocabularies of different types, which are generated on the basis of usage of information about all the aspects of STO construction and functioning. Such interpretation description is a subject area for tasks of STO diagnostics. Detection of malfunction and deviations of a functioning process of STO from an established functioning mode is implemented on the basis of analysis of semantic parameters of text description of the STO functioning process in order to determine semantic anomalies which occur in the descriptions of the STO functioning process, as well as in the descriptions of fragments of its functioning. Semantic anomalies occur in case when values of semantic parameters go beyond their established limits.

  2. Behavioral semantics of learning and crossmodal processing in auditory cortex: the semantic processor concept.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scheich, Henning; Brechmann, André; Brosch, Michael; Budinger, Eike; Ohl, Frank W; Selezneva, Elena; Stark, Holger; Tischmeyer, Wolfgang; Wetzel, Wolfram

    2011-01-01

    Two phenomena of auditory cortex activity have recently attracted attention, namely that the primary field can show different types of learning-related changes of sound representation and that during learning even this early auditory cortex is under strong multimodal influence. Based on neuronal recordings in animal auditory cortex during instrumental tasks, in this review we put forward the hypothesis that these two phenomena serve to derive the task-specific meaning of sounds by associative learning. To understand the implications of this tenet, it is helpful to realize how a behavioral meaning is usually derived for novel environmental sounds. For this purpose, associations with other sensory, e.g. visual, information are mandatory to develop a connection between a sound and its behaviorally relevant cause and/or the context of sound occurrence. This makes it plausible that in instrumental tasks various non-auditory sensory and procedural contingencies of sound generation become co-represented by neuronal firing in auditory cortex. Information related to reward or to avoidance of discomfort during task learning, that is essentially non-auditory, is also co-represented. The reinforcement influence points to the dopaminergic internal reward system, the local role of which for memory consolidation in auditory cortex is well-established. Thus, during a trial of task performance, the neuronal responses to the sounds are embedded in a sequence of representations of such non-auditory information. The embedded auditory responses show task-related modulations of auditory responses falling into types that correspond to three basic logical classifications that may be performed with a perceptual item, i.e. from simple detection to discrimination, and categorization. This hierarchy of classifications determine the semantic "same-different" relationships among sounds. Different cognitive classifications appear to be a consequence of learning task and lead to a recruitment of

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kawakami, A; Hatta, T; Kogure, T

    2001-12-01

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

  5. Semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not vary with reading ability

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Piai, V.; Roelofs, A.P.A.; Roete, I.E.C.

    2015-01-01

    Previous dual-task studies examining the locus of semantic interference of distractor words in picture naming have obtained diverging results. In these studies, participants manually responded to tones and named pictures while ignoring distractor words (picture-word interference, PWI) with varying

  6. Varieties of semantic ‘access’ deficit in Wernicke’s aphasia and semantic aphasia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robson, Holly; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A.; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2015-01-01

    Comprehension deficits are common in stroke aphasia, including in cases with (i) semantic aphasia, characterized by poor executive control of semantic processing across verbal and non-verbal modalities; and (ii) Wernicke’s aphasia, associated with poor auditory–verbal comprehension and repetition, plus fluent speech with jargon. However, the varieties of these comprehension problems, and their underlying causes, are not well understood. Both patient groups exhibit some type of semantic ‘access’ deficit, as opposed to the ‘storage’ deficits observed in semantic dementia. Nevertheless, existing descriptions suggest that these patients might have different varieties of ‘access’ impairment—related to difficulty resolving competition (in semantic aphasia) versus initial activation of concepts from sensory inputs (in Wernicke’s aphasia). We used a case series design to compare patients with Wernicke’s aphasia and those with semantic aphasia on Warrington’s paradigmatic assessment of semantic ‘access’ deficits. In these verbal and non-verbal matching tasks, a small set of semantically-related items are repeatedly presented over several cycles so that the target on one trial becomes a distractor on another (building up interference and eliciting semantic ‘blocking’ effects). Patients with Wernicke’s aphasia and semantic aphasia were distinguished according to lesion location in the temporal cortex, but in each group, some individuals had additional prefrontal damage. Both of these aspects of lesion variability—one that mapped onto classical ‘syndromes’ and one that did not—predicted aspects of the semantic ‘access’ deficit. Both semantic aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia cases showed multimodal semantic impairment, although as expected, the Wernicke’s aphasia group showed greater deficits on auditory-verbal than picture judgements. Distribution of damage in the temporal lobe was crucial for predicting the initially

  7. Why all the confusion? Experimental task explains discrepant semantic priming effects in schizophrenia under “automatic” conditions: evidence from Event-Related Potentials

    OpenAIRE

    Kreher, Donna A.; Goff, Donald; Kuperberg, Gina R.

    2009-01-01

    The schizophrenia research literature contains many differing accounts of semantic memory function in schizophrenia as assessed through the semantic priming paradigm. Most recently, Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) have been used to demonstrate both increased and decreased semantic priming at a neural level in schizophrenia patients, relative to healthy controls. The present study used ERPs to investigate the role of behavioral task in determining neural semantic priming effects in schizophren...

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

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

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

    2005-01-01

    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

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

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Schie, H.T. van; Wijers, A.A.; Mars, R.B.; Benjamins, J.S.; Stowe, L.A.

    2005-01-01

    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

  10. When emotional prosody and semantics dance cheek to cheek: ERP evidence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kotz, Sonja A; Paulmann, Silke

    2007-06-02

    To communicate emotionally entails that a listener understands a verbal message but also the emotional prosody going along with it. So far the time course and interaction of these emotional 'channels' is still poorly understood. The current set of event-related brain potential (ERP) experiments investigated both the interactive time course of emotional prosody with semantics and of emotional prosody independent of emotional semantics using a cross-splicing method. In a probe verification task (Experiment 1) prosodic expectancy violations elicited a positivity, while a combined prosodic-semantic expectancy violation elicited a negativity. Comparable ERP results were obtained in an emotional prosodic categorization task (Experiment 2). The present data support different ERP responses with distinct time courses and topographies elicited as a function of prosodic expectancy and combined prosodic-semantic expectancy during emotional prosodic processing and combined emotional prosody/emotional semantic processing. These differences suggest that the interaction of more than one emotional channel facilitates subtle transitions in an emotional sentence context.

  11. Determinants of famous name processing speed: age of acquisition versus semantic connectedness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith-Spark, James H; Moore, Viv; Valentine, Tim

    2013-02-01

    The age of acquisition (AoA) and the amount of biographical information known about celebrities have been independently shown to influence the processing of famous people. In this experiment, we investigated the facilitative contribution of both factors to famous name processing. Twenty-four mature adults participated in a familiarity judgement task, in which the names of famous people were grouped orthogonally by AoA and by the number of bits of biographical information known about them (number of facts known; NoFK). Age of acquisition was found to have a significant effect on both reaction time (RT) and accuracy of response, but NoFK did not. The RT data also revealed a significant AoA×NoFK interaction. The amount of information known about a celebrity played a facilitative role in the processing of late-acquired, but not early-acquired, celebrities. Once AoA is controlled, it would appear that the semantic system ceases to have a significant overall influence on the processing of famous people. The pre-eminence of AoA over semantic connectedness is considered in the light of current theories of AoA and how their influence might interact. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Language and culture modulate online semantic processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  13. Acoustic and semantic interference effects in words and pictures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dhawan, M; Pellegrino, J W

    1977-05-01

    Interference effects for pictures and words were investigated using a probe-recall task. Word stimuli showed acoustic interference effects for items at the end of the list and semantic interference effects for items at the beginning of the list, similar to results of Kintsch and Buschke (1969). Picture stimuli showed large semantic interference effects at all list positions with smaller acoustic interference effects. The results were related to latency data on picture-word processing and interpreted in terms of the differential order, probability, and/or speed of access to acoustic and semantic levels of processing. A levels of processing explanation of picture-word retention differences was related to dual coding theory. Both theoretical positions converge on an explanation of picture-word retention differences as a function of the relative capacity for semantic or associative processing.

  14. The effect of working memory load on semantic illusions: what the phonological loop and central executive have to contribute.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Büttner, Anke Caroline

    2012-01-01

    When asked how many animals of each kind Moses took on the Ark, most people respond with "two" despite the substituted name (Moses for Noah) in the question. Possible explanations for semantic illusions appear to be related to processing limitations such as those of working memory. Indeed, individual working memory capacity has an impact upon how sentences containing substitutions are processed. This experiment examined further the role of working memory in the occurrence of semantic illusions using a dual-task working memory load approach. Participants verified statements while engaging in either articulatory suppression or random number generation. Secondary task type had a significant effect on semantic illusion rate, but only when comparing the control condition to the two dual-task conditions. Furthermore, secondary task performance in the random number generation condition declined, suggesting a tradeoff between tasks. Response time analyses also showed a different pattern of processing across the conditions. The findings suggest that the phonological loop plays a role in representing semantic illusion sentences coherently and in monitoring for details, while the role of the central executive is to assist gist-processing of sentences. This usually efficient strategy leads to error in the case of semantic illusions.

  15. The Role of Executive Function in the Semantic Comprehension Deficits of Stroke Aphasia and Semantic Dementia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Curtiss Chapman

    2015-05-01

    Results from 5 SD patients and 4 SA patients in our ongoing study suggest similar patterns of impairment on both semantic and executive function tasks for both patient groups. Both showed multi-modal semantic deficits via poor performance on at least 3 out of 5 semantic tasks tapping different modalities. Also, SA and SD patients showed no difference in consistency across semantic tasks (see Fig. 1a & b. Both groups also showed consistently poor performance on trail-making and verbal Stroop tasks compared to controls (see Figs. 1c & 1d. SD patients seem to be less impaired on both span measures (word span range: 2.17 – 4.43; digit span: 3.17 – 5.5 than SA patients (word span range: 1.63 – 3.75; digit span: 1.17 – 4.17, and performance was variable for both groups on non-verbal Stroop and picture-word interference. SD patients found many executive tasks too difficult to understand, which may be the reason for limited prior data for them on EF tasks.. These findings suggest that the use of syndrome categories like semantic dementia and comprehension-impaired stroke aphasia are not useful in distinguishing between storage and access deficits. Patients classified as having SD seem as likely as SA patients to have certain kinds of executive deficits and SA patients may be as likely as SD patients to show consistency across semantic tasks. The results imply that some other behavioral or neuroanatomical basis rather than syndrome classification should be used to address the hypothesized separation of storage vs. control aspects of semantic memory.

  16. The right look for the job: decoding cognitive processes involved in the task from spatial eye-movement patterns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Król, Magdalena Ewa; Król, Michał

    2018-02-20

    The aim of the study was not only to demonstrate whether eye-movement-based task decoding was possible but also to investigate whether eye-movement patterns can be used to identify cognitive processes behind the tasks. We compared eye-movement patterns elicited under different task conditions, with tasks differing systematically with regard to the types of cognitive processes involved in solving them. We used four tasks, differing along two dimensions: spatial (global vs. local) processing (Navon, Cognit Psychol, 9(3):353-383 1977) and semantic (deep vs. shallow) processing (Craik and Lockhart, J Verbal Learn Verbal Behav, 11(6):671-684 1972). We used eye-movement patterns obtained from two time periods: fixation cross preceding the target stimulus and the target stimulus. We found significant effects of both spatial and semantic processing, but in case of the latter, the effect might be an artefact of insufficient task control. We found above chance task classification accuracy for both time periods: 51.4% for the period of stimulus presentation and 34.8% for the period of fixation cross presentation. Therefore, we show that task can be to some extent decoded from the preparatory eye-movements before the stimulus is displayed. This suggests that anticipatory eye-movements reflect the visual scanning strategy employed for the task at hand. Finally, this study also demonstrates that decoding is possible even from very scant eye-movement data similar to Coco and Keller, J Vis 14(3):11-11 (2014). This means that task decoding is not limited to tasks that naturally take longer to perform and yield multi-second eye-movement recordings.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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…

  18. Higher language ability is related to angular gyrus activation increase during semantic processing, independent of sentence incongruency

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Helene eVan Ettinger-Veenstra

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available This study investigates the relation between individual language ability and neural semantic processing abilities. Our aim was to explore whether high-level language ability would correlate to decreased activation in language-specific regions or rather increased activation in supporting language regions during processing of sentences. Moreover, we were interested if observed neural activation patterns are modulated by semantic incongruency similarly to previously observed changes upon syntactic congruency modulation. We investigated 27 healthy adults with a sentence reading task - which tapped language comprehension and inference, and modulated sentence congruency - employing functional magnetic resonance imaging. We assessed the relation between neural activation, congruency modulation, and test performance on a high-level language ability assessment with multiple regression analysis. Our results showed increased activation in the left-hemispheric angular gyrus extending to the temporal lobe related to high language ability. This effect was independent of semantic congruency, and no significant relation between language ability and incongruency modulation was observed. Furthermore, a significant increase of activation in the inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally when the sentences were incongruent, indicating that processing incongruent sentences was more demanding than processing congruent sentences and required increased activation in language regions. The correlation of high-level language ability with increased rather than decreased activation in the left angular gyrus, a region specific for language processing is opposed to what the neural efficiency hypothesis would predict. We can conclude that there is no evidence found for an interaction between semantic congruency related brain activation and high-level language performance, even though the semantic incongruent condition shows to be more demanding and evoking more neural activation.

  19. Varieties of semantic cognition revealed through simultaneous decomposition of intrinsic brain connectivity and behaviour.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vatansever, Deniz; Bzdok, Danilo; Wang, Hao-Ting; Mollo, Giovanna; Sormaz, Mladen; Murphy, Charlotte; Karapanagiotidis, Theodoros; Smallwood, Jonathan; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2017-09-01

    Contemporary theories assume that semantic cognition emerges from a neural architecture in which different component processes are combined to produce aspects of conceptual thought and behaviour. In addition to the state-level, momentary variation in brain connectivity, individuals may also differ in their propensity to generate particular configurations of such components, and these trait-level differences may relate to individual differences in semantic cognition. We tested this view by exploring how variation in intrinsic brain functional connectivity between semantic nodes in fMRI was related to performance on a battery of semantic tasks in 154 healthy participants. Through simultaneous decomposition of brain functional connectivity and semantic task performance, we identified distinct components of semantic cognition at rest. In a subsequent validation step, these data-driven components demonstrated explanatory power for neural responses in an fMRI-based semantic localiser task and variation in self-generated thoughts during the resting-state scan. Our findings showed that good performance on harder semantic tasks was associated with relative segregation at rest between frontal brain regions implicated in controlled semantic retrieval and the default mode network. Poor performance on easier tasks was linked to greater coupling between the same frontal regions and the anterior temporal lobe; a pattern associated with deliberate, verbal thematic thoughts at rest. We also identified components that related to qualities of semantic cognition: relatively good performance on pictorial semantic tasks was associated with greater separation of angular gyrus from frontal control sites and greater integration with posterior cingulate and anterior temporal cortex. In contrast, good speech production was linked to the separation of angular gyrus, posterior cingulate and temporal lobe regions. Together these data show that quantitative and qualitative variation in semantic

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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

  2. Enabling task-based information prioritization via semantic web encodings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michaelis, James R.

    2016-05-01

    Modern Soldiers rely upon accurate and actionable information technology to achieve mission objectives. While increasingly rich sensor networks for Areas of Operation (AO) can offer many directions for aiding Soldiers, limitations are imposed by current tactical edge systems on the rate that content can be transmitted. Furthermore, mission tasks will often require very specific sets of information which may easily be drowned out by other content sources. Prior research on Quality and Value of Information (QoI/VoI) has aimed to define ways to prioritize information objects based on their intrinsic attributes (QoI) and perceived value to a consumer (VoI). As part of this effort, established ranking approaches for obtaining Subject Matter Expert (SME) recommendations, such as the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) have been considered. However, limited work has been done to tie Soldier context - such as descriptions of their mission and tasks - back to intrinsic attributes of information objects. As a first step toward addressing the above challenges, this work introduces an ontology-backed approach - rooted in Semantic Web publication practices - for expressing both AHP decision hierarchies and corresponding SME feedback. Following a short discussion on related QoI/VoI research, an ontology-based data structure is introduced for supporting evaluation of Information Objects, using AHP rankings designed to facilitate information object prioritization. Consistent with alternate AHP approaches, prioritization in this approach is based on pairwise comparisons between Information Objects with respect to established criteria, as well as on pairwise comparison of the criteria to assess their relative importance. The paper concludes with a discussion of both ongoing and future work.

  3. CASL The Common Algebraic Specification Language Semantics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Haxthausen, Anne

    1998-01-01

    This is version 1.0 of the CASL Language Summary, annotated by the CoFI Semantics Task Group with the semantics of constructs. This is the first complete but possibly imperfect version of the semantics. It was compiled prior to the CoFI workshop at Cachan in November 1998.......This is version 1.0 of the CASL Language Summary, annotated by the CoFI Semantics Task Group with the semantics of constructs. This is the first complete but possibly imperfect version of the semantics. It was compiled prior to the CoFI workshop at Cachan in November 1998....

  4. Uncertainty modeling process for semantic technology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rommel N. Carvalho

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available The ubiquity of uncertainty across application domains generates a need for principled support for uncertainty management in semantically aware systems. A probabilistic ontology provides constructs for representing uncertainty in domain ontologies. While the literature has been growing on formalisms for representing uncertainty in ontologies, there remains little guidance in the knowledge engineering literature for how to design probabilistic ontologies. To address the gap, this paper presents the Uncertainty Modeling Process for Semantic Technology (UMP-ST, a new methodology for modeling probabilistic ontologies. To explain how the methodology works and to verify that it can be applied to different scenarios, this paper describes step-by-step the construction of a proof-of-concept probabilistic ontology. The resulting domain model can be used to support identification of fraud in public procurements in Brazil. While the case study illustrates the development of a probabilistic ontology in the PR-OWL probabilistic ontology language, the methodology is applicable to any ontology formalism that properly integrates uncertainty with domain semantics.

  5. Task and spatial frequency modulations of object processing: an EEG study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Craddock, Matt; Martinovic, Jasna; Müller, Matthias M

    2013-01-01

    Visual object processing may follow a coarse-to-fine sequence imposed by fast processing of low spatial frequencies (LSF) and slow processing of high spatial frequencies (HSF). Objects can be categorized at varying levels of specificity: the superordinate (e.g. animal), the basic (e.g. dog), or the subordinate (e.g. Border Collie). We tested whether superordinate and more specific categorization depend on different spatial frequency ranges, and whether any such dependencies might be revealed by or influence signals recorded using EEG. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) and time-frequency (TF) analysis to examine the time course of object processing while participants performed either a grammatical gender-classification task (which generally forces basic-level categorization) or a living/non-living judgement (superordinate categorization) on everyday, real-life objects. Objects were filtered to contain only HSF or LSF. We found a greater positivity and greater negativity for HSF than for LSF pictures in the P1 and N1 respectively, but no effects of task on either component. A later, fronto-central negativity (N350) was more negative in the gender-classification task than the superordinate categorization task, which may indicate that this component relates to semantic or syntactic processing. We found no significant effects of task or spatial frequency on evoked or total gamma band responses. Our results demonstrate early differences in processing of HSF and LSF content that were not modulated by categorization task, with later responses reflecting such higher-level cognitive factors.

  6. Partial sleep deprivation does not alter processes involved in semantic word priming: event-related potential evidence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tavakoli, Paniz; Muller-Gass, Alexandra; Campbell, Kenneth

    2015-03-01

    Sleep deprivation has generally been observed to have a detrimental effect on tasks that require sustained attention for successful performance. It might however be possible to counter these effects by altering cognitive strategies. A recent semantic word priming study indicated that subjects used an effortful predictive-expectancy search of semantic memory following normal sleep, but changed to an automatic, effortless strategy following total sleep deprivation. Partial sleep deprivation occurs much more frequently than total sleep deprivation. The present study therefore employed a similar priming task following either 4h of sleep or following normal sleep. The purpose of the study was to determine whether partial sleep deprivation would also lead to a shift in cognitive strategy to compensate for an inability to sustain attention and effortful processing necessary for using the predicative expectancy strategy. Sixteen subjects were presented with word pairs, a prime and a target that were either strongly semantically associated (cat...dog), weakly associated (cow...barn) or not associated (apple...road). The subject's task was to determine if the target word was semantically associated to the prime. A strong priming effect was observed in both conditions. RTs were slower, accuracy lower, and N400 larger to unassociated targets, independent of the amount of sleep. The overall N400 did not differ as a function of sleep. The scalp distribution of the N400 was also similar following both normal sleep and sleep loss. There was thus little evidence of a difference in the processing of the target stimulus as a function of the amount sleep. Similarly, ERPs in the period between the onset of the prime and the subsequent target also did not differ between the normal sleep and sleep loss conditions. In contrast to total sleep deprivation, subjects therefore appeared to use a common predictive expectancy strategy in both conditions. This strategy does however require an

  7. Similarities and Differences between Working Memory and Long-Term Memory: Evidence from the Levels-of-Processing Span Task

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rose, Nathan S.; Myerson, Joel; Roediger, Henry L., III; Hale, Sandra

    2010-01-01

    Two experiments compared the effects of depth of processing on working memory (WM) and long-term memory (LTM) using a levels-of-processing (LOP) span task, a newly developed WM span procedure that involves processing to-be-remembered words based on their visual, phonological, or semantic characteristics. Depth of processing had minimal effect on…

  8. Are there mental lexicons? The role of semantics in lexical decision.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dilkina, Katia; McClelland, James L; Plaut, David C

    2010-12-13

    What is the underlying representation of lexical knowledge? How do we know whether a given string of letters is a word, whereas another string of letters is not? There are two competing models of lexical processing in the literature. The first proposes that we rely on mental lexicons. The second claims there are no mental lexicons; we identify certain items as words based on semantic knowledge. Thus, the former approach - the multiple-systems view - posits that lexical and semantic processing are subserved by separate systems, whereas the latter approach - the single-system view - holds that the two are interdependent. Semantic dementia patients, who have a cross-modal semantic impairment, show an accompanying and related lexical deficit. These findings support the single-system approach. However, a report of an SD patient whose impairment on lexical decision was not related to his semantic deficits in item-specific ways has presented a challenge to this view. If the two types of processing rely on a common system, then shouldn't damage impair the same items on all tasks? We present a single-system model of lexical and semantic processing, where there are no lexicons, and performance on lexical decision involves the activation of semantic representations. We show how, when these representations are damaged, accuracy on semantic and lexical tasks falls off together, but not necessarily on the same set of items. These findings are congruent with the patient data. We provide an explicit explanation of this pattern of results in our model, by defining and measuring the effects of two orthogonal factors - spelling consistency and concept consistency. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Three more semantic serial position functions and a SIMPLE explanation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelley, Matthew R; Neath, Ian; Surprenant, Aimée M

    2013-05-01

    There are innumerable demonstrations of serial position functions-with characteristic primacy and recency effects-in episodic tasks, but there are only a handful of such demonstrations in semantic memory tasks, and those demonstrations have used only two types of stimuli. Here, we provide three more examples of serial position functions when recalling from semantic memory. Participants were asked to reconstruct the order of (1) two cartoon theme song lyrics, (2) the seven Harry Potter books, and (3) two sets of movies, and all three demonstrations yielded conventional-looking serial position functions with primacy and recency effects. The data were well-fit by SIMPLE, a local distinctiveness model of memory that was originally designed to account for serial position effects in short- and long-term episodic memory. According to SIMPLE, serial position functions in both episodic and semantic memory tasks arise from the same type of processing: Items that are more separated from their close neighbors in psychological space at the time of recall will be better remembered. We argue that currently available evidence suggests that serial position functions observed when recalling items that are presumably in semantic memory arise because of the same processes as those observed when recalling items that are presumably in episodic memory.

  10. The Metamemory Approach to Confidence: A Test Using Semantic Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brewer, William F.; Sampaio, Cristina

    2012-01-01

    The metamemory approach to memory confidence was extended and elaborated to deal with semantic memory tasks. The metamemory approach assumes that memory confidence is based on the products and processes of a completed memory task, as well as metamemory beliefs that individuals have about how their memory products and processes relate to memory…

  11. [An effect of semantic satiation in conceptual processing].

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  12. Language production in a shared task: Cumulative semantic interference from self- and other-produced context words

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hoedemaker, R.S.; Ernst, J.; Meyer, A.S.; Belke, E.

    2017-01-01

    This study assessed the effects of semantic context in the form of self-produced and other-produced words on subsequent language production. Pairs of participants performed a joint picture naming task, taking turns while naming a continuous series of pictures. In the single-speaker version of this

  13. A New Semantic List Learning Task to Probe Functioning of the Papez Circuit

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schallmo, Michael-Paul; Kassel, Michelle T.; Weisenbach, Sara L.; Walker, Sara J.; Guidotti-Breting, Leslie M.; Rao, Julia A.; Hazlett, Kathleen E.; Considine, Ciaran M.; Sethi, Gurpriya; Vats, Naalti; Pecina, Marta; Welsh, Robert C.; Starkman, Monica N.; Giordani, Bruno; Langenecker, Scott A.

    2016-01-01

    Introduction List learning tasks are powerful clinical tools for studying memory, yet have been relatively underutilized within the functional imaging literature. This limits understanding of regions such as the Papez circuit which support memory performance in healthy, non-demented adults. Method The current study characterized list learning performance in 40 adults who completed a Semantic List Learning Task (SLLT) with a Brown-Peterson manipulation during functional MRI (fMRI). Cued recall with semantic cues, and recognition memory were assessed after imaging. Internal reliability and convergent and discriminant validity were evaluated. Results Subjects averaged 38% accuracy in recall (62% for recognition), with primacy but no recency effects observed. Validity and reliability were demonstrated by showing that the SLLT was correlated with the California Verbal Learning test (CVLT), but not with executive functioning tests, and high intraclass correlation coefficient across lists for recall (.91). fMRI measurements during Encoding (vs. Silent Rehearsal) revealed significant activation in bilateral hippocampus, parahippocampus, and bilateral anterior and posterior cingulate cortex. Post-hoc analyses showed increased activation in anterior and middle hippocampus, subgenual cingulate, and mammillary bodies specific to Encoding. In addition, increasing age was positively associated with increased activation in a diffuse network, particularly frontal cortex and specific Papez regions for correctly recalled words. Gender differences were specific to left inferior and superior frontal cortex. Conclusions This is a clinically relevant list learning task that can be used in studies of groups for which the Papez circuit is damaged or disrupted, in mixed or crossover studies at imaging and clinical sites. PMID:26313512

  14. Interaction between High-Level and Low-Level Image Analysis for Semantic Video Object Extraction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrea Cavallaro

    2004-06-01

    Full Text Available The task of extracting a semantic video object is split into two subproblems, namely, object segmentation and region segmentation. Object segmentation relies on a priori assumptions, whereas region segmentation is data-driven and can be solved in an automatic manner. These two subproblems are not mutually independent, and they can benefit from interactions with each other. In this paper, a framework for such interaction is formulated. This representation scheme based on region segmentation and semantic segmentation is compatible with the view that image analysis and scene understanding problems can be decomposed into low-level and high-level tasks. Low-level tasks pertain to region-oriented processing, whereas the high-level tasks are closely related to object-level processing. This approach emulates the human visual system: what one “sees” in a scene depends on the scene itself (region segmentation as well as on the cognitive task (semantic segmentation at hand. The higher-level segmentation results in a partition corresponding to semantic video objects. Semantic video objects do not usually have invariant physical properties and the definition depends on the application. Hence, the definition incorporates complex domain-specific knowledge and is not easy to generalize. For the specific implementation used in this paper, motion is used as a clue to semantic information. In this framework, an automatic algorithm is presented for computing the semantic partition based on color change detection. The change detection strategy is designed to be immune to the sensor noise and local illumination variations. The lower-level segmentation identifies the partition corresponding to perceptually uniform regions. These regions are derived by clustering in an N-dimensional feature space, composed of static as well as dynamic image attributes. We propose an interaction mechanism between the semantic and the region partitions which allows to

  15. An Investigation into Semantic and Phonological Processing in Individuals with Williams Syndrome

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Cheryl S.; Binder, Katherine S.

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: The current study examined semantic and phonological processing in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS). Previous research in language processing in individuals with WS suggests a complex linguistic system characterized by "deviant" semantic organization and differential phonological processing. Method: Two experiments…

  16. Does semantic impairment explain surface dyslexia? VLSM evidence for a double dissociation between regularization errors in reading and semantic errors in picture naming

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sara Pillay

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available The correlation between semantic deficits and exception word regularization errors ("surface dyslexia" in semantic dementia has been taken as strong evidence for involvement of semantic codes in exception word pronunciation. Rare cases with semantic deficits but no exception word reading deficit have been explained as due to individual differences in reading strategy, but this account is hotly debated. Semantic dementia is a diffuse process that always includes semantic impairment, making lesion localization difficult and independent assessment of semantic deficits and reading errors impossible. We addressed this problem using voxel-based lesion symptom mapping in 38 patients with left hemisphere stroke. Patients were all right-handed, native English speakers and at least 6 months from stroke onset. Patients performed an oral reading task that included 80 exception words (words with inconsistent orthographic-phonologic correspondence, e.g., pint, plaid, glove. Regularization errors were defined as plausible but incorrect pronunciations based on application of spelling-sound correspondence rules (e.g., 'plaid' pronounced as "played". Two additional tests examined explicit semantic knowledge and retrieval. The first measured semantic substitution errors during naming of 80 standard line drawings of objects. This error type is generally presumed to arise at the level of concept selection. The second test (semantic matching required patients to match a printed sample word (e.g., bus with one of two alternative choice words (e.g., car, taxi on the basis of greater similarity of meaning. Lesions were labeled on high-resolution T1 MRI volumes using a semi-automated segmentation method, followed by diffeomorphic registration to a template. VLSM used an ANCOVA approach to remove variance due to age, education, and total lesion volume. Regularization errors during reading were correlated with damage in the posterior half of the middle temporal gyrus and

  17. Task and spatial frequency modulations of object processing: an EEG study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matt Craddock

    Full Text Available Visual object processing may follow a coarse-to-fine sequence imposed by fast processing of low spatial frequencies (LSF and slow processing of high spatial frequencies (HSF. Objects can be categorized at varying levels of specificity: the superordinate (e.g. animal, the basic (e.g. dog, or the subordinate (e.g. Border Collie. We tested whether superordinate and more specific categorization depend on different spatial frequency ranges, and whether any such dependencies might be revealed by or influence signals recorded using EEG. We used event-related potentials (ERPs and time-frequency (TF analysis to examine the time course of object processing while participants performed either a grammatical gender-classification task (which generally forces basic-level categorization or a living/non-living judgement (superordinate categorization on everyday, real-life objects. Objects were filtered to contain only HSF or LSF. We found a greater positivity and greater negativity for HSF than for LSF pictures in the P1 and N1 respectively, but no effects of task on either component. A later, fronto-central negativity (N350 was more negative in the gender-classification task than the superordinate categorization task, which may indicate that this component relates to semantic or syntactic processing. We found no significant effects of task or spatial frequency on evoked or total gamma band responses. Our results demonstrate early differences in processing of HSF and LSF content that were not modulated by categorization task, with later responses reflecting such higher-level cognitive factors.

  18. CASL - The CoFI Algebraic Specification Language - Semantics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Haxthausen, Anne

    1999-01-01

    This is version 1.0 of the CASL Language Summary, annotated by the CoFI Semantics Task Group with the semantics of constructs. This is the second complete but possibly imperfect version of the semantics. It was compiled prior to the CoFI workshop in Amsterdam in March 1999.......This is version 1.0 of the CASL Language Summary, annotated by the CoFI Semantics Task Group with the semantics of constructs. This is the second complete but possibly imperfect version of the semantics. It was compiled prior to the CoFI workshop in Amsterdam in March 1999....

  19. Between- and within-Ear Congruency and Laterality Effects in an Auditory Semantic/Emotional Prosody Conflict Task

    Science.gov (United States)

    Techentin, Cheryl; Voyer, Daniel; Klein, Raymond M.

    2009-01-01

    The present study investigated the influence of within- and between-ear congruency on interference and laterality effects in an auditory semantic/prosodic conflict task. Participants were presented dichotically with words (e.g., mad, sad, glad) pronounced in either congruent or incongruent emotional tones (e.g., angry, happy, or sad) and…

  20. Resolving Semantic Interference during Word Production Requires Central Attention

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kleinman, Daniel

    2013-01-01

    The semantic picture-word interference task has been used to diagnose how speakers resolve competition while selecting words for production. The attentional demands of this resolution process were assessed in 2 dual-task experiments (tone classification followed by picture naming). In Experiment 1, when pictures and distractor words were presented…

  1. Combining Temporal and Spectral Information with Spatial Mapping to Identify Differences between Phonological and Semantic Networks: A Magnetoencephalographic Approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McNab, Fiona; Hillebrand, Arjan; Swithenby, Stephen J; Rippon, Gina

    2012-01-01

    Early, lesion-based models of language processing suggested that semantic and phonological processes are associated with distinct temporal and parietal regions respectively, with frontal areas more indirectly involved. Contemporary spatial brain mapping techniques have not supported such clear-cut segregation, with strong evidence of activation in left temporal areas by both processes and disputed evidence of involvement of frontal areas in both processes. We suggest that combining spatial information with temporal and spectral data may allow a closer scrutiny of the differential involvement of closely overlapping cortical areas in language processing. Using beamforming techniques to analyze magnetoencephalography data, we localized the neuronal substrates underlying primed responses to nouns requiring either phonological or semantic processing, and examined the associated measures of time and frequency in those areas where activation was common to both tasks. Power changes in the beta (14-30 Hz) and gamma (30-50 Hz) frequency bands were analyzed in pre-selected time windows of 350-550 and 500-700 ms In left temporal regions, both tasks elicited power changes in the same time window (350-550 ms), but with different spectral characteristics, low beta (14-20 Hz) for the phonological task and high beta (20-30 Hz) for the semantic task. In frontal areas (BA10), both tasks elicited power changes in the gamma band (30-50 Hz), but in different time windows, 500-700 ms for the phonological task and 350-550 ms for the semantic task. In the left inferior parietal area (BA40), both tasks elicited changes in the 20-30 Hz beta frequency band but in different time windows, 350-550 ms for the phonological task and 500-700 ms for the semantic task. Our findings suggest that, where spatial measures may indicate overlapping areas of involvement, additional beamforming techniques can demonstrate differential activation in time and frequency domains.

  2. “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 ...

  3. Behavioural and magnetoencephalographic evidence for the interaction between semantic and episodic memory in healthy elderly subjects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    La Corte, Valentina; Dalla Barba, Gianfranco; Lemaréchal, Jean-Didier; Garnero, Line; George, Nathalie

    2012-10-01

    The relationship between episodic and semantic memory systems has long been debated. Some authors argue that episodic memory is contingent on semantic memory (Tulving 1984), while others postulate that both systems are independent since they can be selectively damaged (Squire 1987). The interaction between these memory systems is particularly important in the elderly, since the dissociation of episodic and semantic memory defects characterize different aging-related pathologies. Here, we investigated the interaction between semantic knowledge and episodic memory processes associated with faces in elderly subjects using an experimental paradigm where the semantic encoding of famous and unknown faces was compared to their episodic recognition. Results showed that the level of semantic awareness of items affected the recognition of those items in the episodic memory task. Event-related magnetic fields confirmed this interaction between episodic and semantic memory: ERFs related to the old/new effect during the episodic task were markedly different for famous and unknown faces. The old/new effect for famous faces involved sustained activities maximal over right temporal sensors, showing a spatio-temporal pattern partly similar to that found for famous versus unknown faces during the semantic task. By contrast, an old/new effect for unknown faces was observed on left parieto-occipital sensors. These findings suggest that the episodic memory for famous faces activated the retrieval of stored semantic information, whereas it was based on items' perceptual features for unknown faces. Overall, our results show that semantic information interfered markedly with episodic memory processes and suggested that the neural substrates of these two memory systems overlap.

  4. The Role of Simple Semantics in the Process of Artificial Grammar Learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Öttl, Birgit; Jäger, Gerhard; Kaup, Barbara

    2017-10-01

    This study investigated the effect of semantic information on artificial grammar learning (AGL). Recursive grammars of different complexity levels (regular language, mirror language, copy language) were investigated in a series of AGL experiments. In the with-semantics condition, participants acquired semantic information prior to the AGL experiment; in the without-semantics control condition, participants did not receive semantic information. It was hypothesized that semantics would generally facilitate grammar acquisition and that the learning benefit in the with-semantics conditions would increase with increasing grammar complexity. Experiment 1 showed learning effects for all grammars but no performance difference between conditions. Experiment 2 replicated the absence of a semantic benefit for all grammars even though semantic information was more prominent during grammar acquisition as compared to Experiment 1. Thus, we did not find evidence for the idea that semantics facilitates grammar acquisition, which seems to support the view of an independent syntactic processing component.

  5. Two-to-one colour-response mapping and the presence of semantic conflict in the Stroop task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nabil eHasshim

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available A series of recent studies have utilised the two-to-one mapping paradigm in the Stroop task. In this paradigm, the word red might be presented in blue when both red and blue share the same response key (same-response trials. This manipulation has been used to show the separate contributions of (within semantic category conflict and response conflict to Stroop interference. Such results evidencing semantic category conflict are incompatible with models of the Stroop task that are based on response conflict only. However, the nature of the same-response trials is unclear since they are also likely to involve response facilitation given that both dimensions of the stimulus provide evidence towards the same response key. In this study we explored this possibility by comparing them with three other trial types. We report strong (Bayesian evidence for no statistical difference between same-response and non-colour word neutral trials, faster responses to same-response trials than to non-response set incongruent trials, and no differences between same-response vs. congruent trials when contingency is controlled. Our results suggest that when RT is the dependent variable, same-response trials are not different from neutral trials indicating that they cannot be used reliably to determine the presence or absence of semantic category conflict. In light of these results, the interpretation of a series of recent studies might have to be reassessed.

  6. 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.

  7. Episodic and semantic content of memory and imagination: A multilevel analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Devitt, Aleea L; Addis, Donna Rose; Schacter, Daniel L

    2017-10-01

    Autobiographical memories of past events and imaginations of future scenarios comprise both episodic and semantic content. Correlating the amount of "internal" (episodic) and "external" (semantic) details generated when describing autobiographical events can illuminate the relationship between the processes supporting these constructs. Yet previous studies performing such correlations were limited by aggregating data across all events generated by an individual, potentially obscuring the underlying relationship within the events themselves. In the current article, we reanalyzed datasets from eight studies using a multilevel approach, allowing us to explore the relationship between internal and external details within events. We also examined whether this relationship changes with healthy aging. Our reanalyses demonstrated a largely negative relationship between the internal and external details produced when describing autobiographical memories and future imaginations. This negative relationship was stronger and more consistent for older adults and was evident both in direct and indirect measures of semantic content. Moreover, this relationship appears to be specific to episodic tasks, as no relationship was observed for a nonepisodic picture description task. This negative association suggests that people do not generate semantic information indiscriminately, but do so in a compensatory manner, to embellish episodically impoverished events. Our reanalysis further lends support for dissociable processes underpinning episodic and semantic information generation when remembering and imagining autobiographical events.

  8. Incorporating Semantic Knowledge into Dynamic Data Processing for Smart Power Grids

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhou, Qunzhi; Simmhan, Yogesh; Prasanna, Viktor

    2012-11-15

    Semantic Web allows us to model and query time-invariant or slowly evolving knowledge using ontologies. Emerging applications in Cyber Physical Systems such as Smart Power Grids that require continuous information monitoring and integration present novel opportunities and challenges for Semantic Web technologies. Semantic Web is promising to model diverse Smart Grid domain knowledge for enhanced situation awareness and response by multi-disciplinary participants. However, current technology does pose a performance overhead for dynamic analysis of sensor measurements. In this paper, we combine semantic web and complex event processing for stream based semantic querying. We illustrate its adoption in the USC Campus Micro-Grid for detecting and enacting dynamic response strategies to peak power situations by diverse user roles. We also describe the semantic ontology and event query model that supports this. Further, we introduce and evaluate caching techniques to improve the response time for semantic event queries to meet our application needs and enable sustainable energy management.

  9. Dynamic information processing states revealed through neurocognitive models of object semantics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clarke, Alex

    2015-01-01

    Recognising objects relies on highly dynamic, interactive brain networks to process multiple aspects of object information. To fully understand how different forms of information about objects are represented and processed in the brain requires a neurocognitive account of visual object recognition that combines a detailed cognitive model of semantic knowledge with a neurobiological model of visual object processing. Here we ask how specific cognitive factors are instantiated in our mental processes and how they dynamically evolve over time. We suggest that coarse semantic information, based on generic shared semantic knowledge, is rapidly extracted from visual inputs and is sufficient to drive rapid category decisions. Subsequent recurrent neural activity between the anterior temporal lobe and posterior fusiform supports the formation of object-specific semantic representations – a conjunctive process primarily driven by the perirhinal cortex. These object-specific representations require the integration of shared and distinguishing object properties and support the unique recognition of objects. We conclude that a valuable way of understanding the cognitive activity of the brain is though testing the relationship between specific cognitive measures and dynamic neural activity. This kind of approach allows us to move towards uncovering the information processing states of the brain and how they evolve over time. PMID:25745632

  10. Brain activation during phonological and semantic processing of Chinese characters in deaf signers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yanyan eLi

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Previous studies found altered brain function in deaf individuals reading alphabetic orthographies. However, it is not known whether similar alterations of brain function are characteristic of non-alphabetic writing systems and whether alterations are specific to certain kinds of lexical tasks. Here we examined differences in brain activation between Chinese congenitally deaf individuals (CD and hearing controls (HC during character reading tasks requiring phonological and semantic judgments. For both tasks, we found that CD showed less activation than HC in left inferior frontal gyrus, but greater activation in several right hemisphere regions including inferior frontal gyrus, angular gyrus and inferior temporal gyrus. Although many group differences were similar across tasks, greater activation in right middle frontal gyrus was more pronounced for the rhyming compared to the meaning task. Finally, within the deaf individuals better performance on the rhyming task was associated with less activation in right inferior parietal lobule and angular gyrus. Our results in Chinese CD are broadly consistent with previous studies in alphabetic languages suggesting greater engagement of inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal cortex for reading that is largely independent of task, with the exception of right middle frontal gyrus for phonological processing. The brain behavior correlations potentially indicate that CD that more efficiently use the right hemisphere are better readers.

  11. Dynamic switching between semantic and episodic memory systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kompus, Kristiina; Olsson, Carl-Johan; Larsson, Anne; Nyberg, Lars

    2009-09-01

    It has been suggested that episodic and semantic long-term memory systems interact during retrieval. Here we examined the flexibility of memory retrieval in an associative task taxing memories of different strength, assumed to differentially engage episodic and semantic memory. Healthy volunteers were pre-trained on a set of 36 face-name pairs over a 6-week period. Another set of 36 items was shown only once during the same time period. About 3 months after the training period all items were presented in a randomly intermixed order in an event-related fMRI study of face-name memory. Once presented items differentially activated anterior cingulate cortex and a right prefrontal region that previously have been associated with episodic retrieval mode. High-familiar items were associated with stronger activation of posterior cortices and a left frontal region. These findings fit a model of memory retrieval by which early processes determine, on a trial-by-trial basis, if the task can be solved by the default semantic system. If not, there is a dynamic shift to cognitive control processes that guide retrieval from episodic memory.

  12. Theta and Alpha Alterations in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment in Semantic Go/NoGo Tasks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lydia T. Nguyen

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Growing evidence suggests that cognitive control processes are impaired in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI; however the nature of these alterations needs further examination. The current study examined differences in electroencephalographic theta and alpha power related to cognitive control processes involving response execution and response inhibition in 22 individuals with aMCI and 22 age-, sex-, and education-matched cognitively normal controls. Two Go/NoGo tasks involving semantic categorization were used. In the basic categorization task, Go/NoGo responses were made based on exemplars of a single car (Go and a single dog (NoGo. In the superordinate categorization task, responses were made based on multiple exemplars of objects (Go and animals (NoGo. Behavioral data showed that the aMCI group had more false alarms during the NoGo trials compared to controls. The EEG data revealed between group differences related to response type in theta (4–7 Hz and low-frequency alpha (8–10 Hz power. In particular, the aMCI group differed from controls in theta power during the NoGo trials at frontal and parietal electrodes, and in low-frequency alpha power during Go trials at parietal electrodes. These results suggest that alterations in theta power converge with behavioral deterioration in response inhibition, whereas alterations in low-frequency alpha power appear to precede behavioral changes in response execution. Both behavioral and electrophysiological correlates combined provide a more comprehensive characterization of cognitive control deficits in aMCI.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  14. Process Mediation, Execution Monitoring and Recovery for Semantic Web Services

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Sycara, K.; Vaculín, Roman

    2008-01-01

    Roč. 31, č. 3 (2008), s. 14-18 ISSN N R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GD201/05/H014; GA MŠk ME08095 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10300504 Keywords : process mediation of semantic web services * semantic web services * OWL-S Subject RIV: IN - Informatics, Computer Science

  15. Connecting long distance: semantic distance in analogical reasoning modulates frontopolar cortex activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Green, Adam E; Kraemer, David J M; Fugelsang, Jonathan A; Gray, Jeremy R; Dunbar, Kevin N

    2010-01-01

    Solving problems often requires seeing new connections between concepts or events that seemed unrelated at first. Innovative solutions of this kind depend on analogical reasoning, a relational reasoning process that involves mapping similarities between concepts. Brain-based evidence has implicated the frontal pole of the brain as important for analogical mapping. Separately, cognitive research has identified semantic distance as a key characteristic of the kind of analogical mapping that can support innovation (i.e., identifying similarities across greater semantic distance reveals connections that support more innovative solutions and models). However, the neural substrates of semantically distant analogical mapping are not well understood. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity during an analogical reasoning task, in which we parametrically varied the semantic distance between the items in the analogies. Semantic distance was derived quantitatively from latent semantic analysis. Across 23 participants, activity in an a priori region of interest (ROI) in left frontopolar cortex covaried parametrically with increasing semantic distance, even after removing effects of task difficulty. This ROI was centered on a functional peak that we previously associated with analogical mapping. To our knowledge, these data represent a first empirical characterization of how the brain mediates semantically distant analogical mapping.

  16. Linguistic expressions and semantic processing a practical approach

    CERN Document Server

    Butler, Alastair

    2015-01-01

    This book introduces formal semantics techniques for a natural language processing audience. Methods discussed involve: (i) the denotational techniques used in model-theoretic semantics, which make it possible to determine whether a linguistic expression is true or false with respect to some model of the way things happen to be; and (ii) stages of interpretation, i.e., ways to arrive at meanings by evaluating and converting source linguistic expressions, possibly with respect to contexts, into output (logical) forms that could be used with (i). The book demonstrates that the methods allow w

  17. E-Government Goes Semantic Web: How Administrations Can Transform Their Information Processes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klischewski, Ralf; Ukena, Stefan

    E-government applications and services are built mainly on access to, retrieval of, integration of, and delivery of relevant information to citizens, businesses, and administrative users. In order to perform such information processing automatically through the Semantic Web,1 machine-readable2 enhancements of web resources are needed, based on the understanding of the content and context of the information in focus. While these enhancements are far from trivial to produce, administrations in their role of information and service providers so far find little guidance on how to migrate their web resources and enable a new quality of information processing; even research is still seeking best practices. Therefore, the underlying research question of this chapter is: what are the appropriate approaches which guide administrations in transforming their information processes toward the Semantic Web? In search for answers, this chapter analyzes the challenges and possible solutions from the perspective of administrations: (a) the reconstruction of the information processing in the e-government in terms of how semantic technologies must be employed to support information provision and consumption through the Semantic Web; (b) the required contribution to the transformation is compared to the capabilities and expectations of administrations; and (c) available experience with the steps of transformation are reviewed and discussed as to what extent they can be expected to successfully drive the e-government to the Semantic Web. This research builds on studying the case of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where semantic technologies have been used within the frame of the Access-eGov3 project in order to semantically enhance electronic service interfaces with the aim of providing a new way of accessing and combining e-government services.

  18. Semantic Complex Event Processing over End-to-End Data Flows

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhou, Qunzhi [University of Southern California; Simmhan, Yogesh; Prasanna, Viktor K.

    2012-04-01

    Emerging Complex Event Processing (CEP) applications in cyber physical systems like SmartPower Grids present novel challenges for end-to-end analysis over events, flowing from heterogeneous information sources to persistent knowledge repositories. CEP for these applications must support two distinctive features - easy specification patterns over diverse information streams, and integrated pattern detection over realtime and historical events. Existing work on CEP has been limited to relational query patterns, and engines that match events arriving after the query has been registered. We propose SCEPter, a semantic complex event processing framework which uniformly processes queries over continuous and archived events. SCEPteris built around an existing CEP engine with innovative support for semantic event pattern specification and allows their seamless detection over past, present and future events. Specifically, we describe a unified semantic query model that can operate over data flowing through event streams to event repositories. Compile-time and runtime semantic patterns are distinguished and addressed separately for efficiency. Query rewriting is examined and analyzed in the context of temporal boundaries that exist between event streams and their repository to avoid duplicate or missing results. The design and prototype implementation of SCEPterare analyzed using latency and throughput metrics for scenarios from the Smart Grid domain.

  19. Semantic similarity estimation of tasks between telecommunications business processes Estimación de la similitud semántica de tareas entre procesos de negocio de telecomunicaciones

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leandro Ordóñez Ante

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available As a measure to improve competitiveness in the telecommunications market, currently companies in the sector create new value added services, in order to extend its services portfolio and to ensure either the retention of its customers or increase the number of its subscribers. These new services must rely on business processes defined by the Telecommunications Service Provider, which arecomposed of operation, management, maintenance and support tasks. Generally, Telco Architects reuse those tasks in order to optimize enterprise resourceand to ensure prompt return on investment, amortizing over the shortest possible time the outgoings due to creation and deployment of the new service.The reuse of Telco tasks involves constraints regarding the speed in selection, since usually, there are hundreds of tasks, and it requires the intervention of technical staff to carry out the recovery operations, based on their subjective interpretation of the business process to be implemented. There exist different approaches to automate the resources selection, generally focused on the semantic matching of concepts that describe their access interfaces (inputs and outputs; however, is shown that the application of these techniques omits relevant information contained in other attributes, such as identifiers. For this reason, this paper proposes a mechanism to determine the semantic similarityof tasks that make up telecommunications business processes, considering two perspectives: the inference on the tasks functionality specified in identifiers,and coverage analysis of inputs and outputs.Como una medida para mejorar la competitividad en el mercado de las telecomunicaciones, actualmente las empresas del sector crean nuevos servicios de valor agregado, con el fin de ampliar su portafolio de servicios y garantizar bien sea la permanencia de sus clientes o ampliar el número de suscriptores. Estos nuevos servicios deben estar soportados en los procesos de

  20. Preparatory neural activity predicts performance on a conflict task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stern, Emily R; Wager, Tor D; Egner, Tobias; Hirsch, Joy; Mangels, Jennifer A

    2007-10-24

    Advance preparation has been shown to improve the efficiency of conflict resolution. Yet, with little empirical work directly linking preparatory neural activity to the performance benefits of advance cueing, it is not clear whether this relationship results from preparatory activation of task-specific networks, or from activity associated with general alerting processes. Here, fMRI data were acquired during a spatial Stroop task in which advance cues either informed subjects of the upcoming relevant feature of conflict stimuli (spatial or semantic) or were neutral. Informative cues decreased reaction time (RT) relative to neutral cues, and cues indicating that spatial information would be task-relevant elicited greater activity than neutral cues in multiple areas, including right anterior prefrontal and bilateral parietal cortex. Additionally, preparatory activation in bilateral parietal cortex and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex predicted faster RT when subjects responded to spatial location. No regions were found to be specific to semantic cues at conventional thresholds, and lowering the threshold further revealed little overlap between activity associated with spatial and semantic cueing effects, thereby demonstrating a single dissociation between activations related to preparing a spatial versus semantic task-set. This relationship between preparatory activation of spatial processing networks and efficient conflict resolution suggests that advance information can benefit performance by leading to domain-specific biasing of task-relevant information.

  1. The facilitative effects of glucose ingestion on memory retrieval in younger and older adults: is task difficulty or task domain critical?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riby, Leigh M; McMurtrie, Hazel; Smallwood, Jonathan; Ballantyne, Carrie; Meikle, Andrew; Smith, Emily

    2006-02-01

    The ingestion of a glucose-containing drink has been shown to improve cognitive performance, particularly memory functioning. However, it remains unclear as to the extent to which task domain and task difficulty moderate the glucose enhancement effect. The aim of this research was to determine whether boosts in performance are restricted to particular classes of memory (episodic v. semantic) or to tasks of considerable cognitive load. A repeated measures (25 g glucose v. saccharin), counterbalanced, double-blind design was used with younger and older adults. Participants performed a battery of episodic (e.g. paired associate learning) and semantic memory (e.g. category verification) tasks under low and high cognitive load. Electrophysiological measures (heart rate and galvanic skin response) of arousal and mental effort were also gathered. The results indicated that whilst glucose appeared to aid episodic remembering, cognitive load did not exaggerate the facilitative effect. For semantic memory, there was little evidence to suggest that glucose can boost semantic memory retrieval even when the load was manipulated. One exception was that glucose facilitated performance during the difficult category fluency task. Regardless, the present findings are consistent with the domain-specific account in which glucose acts primarily on the hippocampal region, which is known to support episodic memory. The possible contribution of the hippocampus in semantic memory processing is also discussed.

  2. Spatial and Semantic Processing between Audition and Vision: An Event-Related Potential Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaoxi Chen

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Using a crossmodal priming paradigm, this study investigated how the brain bound the spatial and semantic features in multisensory processing. The visual stimuli (pictures of animals were presented after the auditory stimuli (sounds of animals, and the stimuli from different modalities may match spatially (or semantically or not. Participants were required to detect the head orientation of the visual target (an oddball paradigm. The event-related potentials (ERPs to the visual stimuli was enhanced by spatial attention (150–170 ms irrespectively of semantic information. The early crossmodal attention effect for the visual stimuli was more negative in the spatial-congruent condition than in the spatial-incongruent condition. By contrast, the later effects of spatial ERPs were significant only for the semantic- congruent condition (250–300 ms. These findings indicated that spatial attention modulated early visual processing, and semantic and spatial features were simultaneously used to orient attention and modulate later processing stages.

  3. The influence of rTMS over prefrontal and motor areas in a morphological task: grammatical vs. semantic effects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gerfo, Emanuele Lo; Oliveri, Massimiliano; Torriero, Sara; Salerno, Silvia; Koch, Giacomo; Caltagirone, Carlo

    2008-01-31

    We investigated the differential role of two frontal regions in the processing of grammatical and semantic knowledge. Given the documented specificity of the prefrontal cortex for the grammatical class of verbs, and of the primary motor cortex for the semantic class of action words, we sought to investigate whether the prefrontal cortex is also sensitive to semantic effects, and whether the motor cortex is also sensitive to grammatical class effects. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to suppress the excitability of a portion of left prefontal cortex (first experiment) and of the motor area (second experiment). In the first experiment we found that rTMS applied to the left prefrontal cortex delays the processing of action verbs' retrieval, but is not critical for retrieval of state verbs and state nouns. In the second experiment we found that rTMS applied to the left motor cortex delays the processing of action words, both name and verbs, while it is not critical for the processing of state words. These results support the notion that left prefrontal and motor cortex are involved in the process of action word retrieval. Left prefrontal cortex subserves processing of both grammatical and semantic information, whereas motor cortex contributes to the processing of semantic representation of action words without any involvement in the representation of grammatical categories.

  4. Semantic Blogging : Spreading the Semantic Web Meme

    OpenAIRE

    Cayzer, Steve

    2004-01-01

    This paper is about semantic blogging, an application of the semantic web to blogging. The semantic web promises to make the web more useful by endowing metadata with machine processable semantics. Blogging is a lightweight web publishing paradigm which provides a very low barrier to entry, useful syndication and aggregation behaviour, a simple to understand structure and decentralized construction of a rich information network. Semantic blogging builds upon the success and clear network valu...

  5. Language networks associated with computerized semantic indices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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…

  7. Subliminal semantic priming in speech.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  8. Hippocampal activation during retrieval of spatial context from episodic and semantic memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoscheidt, Siobhan M; Nadel, Lynn; Payne, Jessica; Ryan, Lee

    2010-10-15

    The hippocampus, a region implicated in the processing of spatial information and episodic memory, is central to the debate concerning the relationship between episodic and semantic memory. Studies of medial temporal lobe amnesic patients provide evidence that the hippocampus is critical for the retrieval of episodic but not semantic memory. On the other hand, recent neuroimaging studies of intact individuals report hippocampal activation during retrieval of both autobiographical memories and semantic information that includes historical facts, famous faces, and categorical information, suggesting that episodic and semantic memory may engage the hippocampus during memory retrieval in similar ways. Few studies have matched episodic and semantic tasks for the degree to which they include spatial content, even though spatial content may be what drives hippocampal activation during semantic retrieval. To examine this issue, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in which retrieval of spatial and nonspatial information was compared during an episodic and semantic recognition task. Results show that the hippocampus (1) participates preferentially in the retrieval of episodic memories; (2) is also engaged by retrieval of semantic memories, particularly those that include spatial information. These data suggest that sharp dissociations between episodic and semantic memory may be overly simplistic and that the hippocampus plays a role in the retrieval of spatial content whether drawn from a memory of one's own life experiences or real-world semantic knowledge. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  9. Automatic and Controlled Semantic Retrieval: TMS Reveals Distinct Contributions of Posterior Middle Temporal Gyrus and Angular Gyrus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davey, James; Cornelissen, Piers L; Thompson, Hannah E; Sonkusare, Saurabh; Hallam, Glyn; Smallwood, Jonathan; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2015-11-18

    Semantic retrieval involves both (1) automatic spreading activation between highly related concepts and (2) executive control processes that tailor this activation to suit the current context or goals. Two structures in left temporoparietal cortex, angular gyrus (AG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), are thought to be crucial to semantic retrieval and are often recruited together during semantic tasks; however, they show strikingly different patterns of functional connectivity at rest (coupling with the "default mode network" and "frontoparietal control system," respectively). Here, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to establish a causal yet dissociable role for these sites in semantic cognition in human volunteers. TMS to AG disrupted thematic judgments particularly when the link between probe and target was strong (e.g., a picture of an Alsatian with a bone), and impaired the identification of objects at a specific but not a superordinate level (for the verbal label "Alsatian" not "animal"). In contrast, TMS to pMTG disrupted thematic judgments for weak but not strong associations (e.g., a picture of an Alsatian with razor wire), and impaired identity matching for both superordinate and specific-level labels. Thus, stimulation to AG interfered with the automatic retrieval of specific concepts from the semantic store while stimulation of pMTG impaired semantic cognition when there was a requirement to flexibly shape conceptual activation in line with the task requirements. These results demonstrate that AG and pMTG make a dissociable contribution to automatic and controlled aspects of semantic retrieval. We demonstrate a novel functional dissociation between the angular gyrus (AG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) in conceptual processing. These sites are often coactivated during neuroimaging studies using semantic tasks, but their individual contributions are unclear. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation and tasks designed to

  10. The contribution of executive control to semantic cognition: Convergent evidence from semantic aphasia and executive dysfunction

    OpenAIRE

    Thompson, Hannah E; Almaghyuli, Azizah; Noonan, Krist A.; Barak, Ohr; Lambon Ralph, Matthew; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2018-01-01

    Semantic cognition, as described by the Controlled Semantic Cognition (CSC) framework (Rogers, Patterson, Jefferies, & Lambon Ralph, 2015), involves two key components: activation of coherent, generalizable concepts within a heteromodal ‘hub’ in combination with modality-specific features (spokes), and a constraining mechanism that manipulates and gates this knowledge to generate time- and task- appropriate behaviour. Executive-semantic goal representations, largely supported by executive...

  11. Semantator: annotating clinical narratives with semantic web ontologies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Dezhao; Chute, Christopher G; Tao, Cui

    2012-01-01

    To facilitate clinical research, clinical data needs to be stored in a machine processable and understandable way. Manual annotating clinical data is time consuming. Automatic approaches (e.g., Natural Language Processing systems) have been adopted to convert such data into structured formats; however, the quality of such automatically extracted data may not always be satisfying. In this paper, we propose Semantator, a semi-automatic tool for document annotation with Semantic Web ontologies. With a loaded free text document and an ontology, Semantator supports the creation/deletion of ontology instances for any document fragment, linking/disconnecting instances with the properties in the ontology, and also enables automatic annotation by connecting to the NCBO annotator and cTAKES. By representing annotations in Semantic Web standards, Semantator supports reasoning based upon the underlying semantics of the owl:disjointWith and owl:equivalentClass predicates. We present discussions based on user experiences of using Semantator.

  12. EEG neural oscillatory dynamics reveal semantic and response conflict at difference levels of conflict awareness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Jun; Zhang, Qinglin; Van Gaal, Simon

    2015-07-14

    Although previous work has shown that conflict can be detected in the absence of awareness, it is unknown how different sources of conflict (i.e., semantic, response) are processed in the human brain and whether these processes are differently modulated by conflict awareness. To explore this issue, we extracted oscillatory power dynamics from electroencephalographic (EEG) data recorded while human participants performed a modified version of the Stroop task. Crucially, in this task conflict awareness was manipulated by masking a conflict-inducing color word preceding a color patch target. We isolated semantic from response conflict by introducing four color words/patches, of which two were matched to the same response. We observed that both semantic as well as response conflict were associated with mid-frontal theta-band and parietal alpha-band power modulations, irrespective of the level of conflict awareness (high vs. low), although awareness of conflict increased these conflict-related power dynamics. These results show that both semantic and response conflict can be processed in the human brain and suggest that the neural oscillatory mechanisms in EEG reflect mainly "domain general" conflict processing mechanisms, instead of conflict source specific effects.

  13. EEG neural oscillatory dynamics reveal semantic and response conflict at difference levels of conflict awareness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Jun; Zhang, Qinglin; Van Gaal, Simon

    2015-01-01

    Although previous work has shown that conflict can be detected in the absence of awareness, it is unknown how different sources of conflict (i.e., semantic, response) are processed in the human brain and whether these processes are differently modulated by conflict awareness. To explore this issue, we extracted oscillatory power dynamics from electroencephalographic (EEG) data recorded while human participants performed a modified version of the Stroop task. Crucially, in this task conflict awareness was manipulated by masking a conflict-inducing color word preceding a color patch target. We isolated semantic from response conflict by introducing four color words/patches, of which two were matched to the same response. We observed that both semantic as well as response conflict were associated with mid-frontal theta-band and parietal alpha-band power modulations, irrespective of the level of conflict awareness (high vs. low), although awareness of conflict increased these conflict-related power dynamics. These results show that both semantic and response conflict can be processed in the human brain and suggest that the neural oscillatory mechanisms in EEG reflect mainly “domain general” conflict processing mechanisms, instead of conflict source specific effects. PMID:26169473

  14. A Framework for Automatic Web Service Discovery Based on Semantics and NLP Techniques

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Asma Adala

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available As a greater number of Web Services are made available today, automatic discovery is recognized as an important task. To promote the automation of service discovery, different semantic languages have been created that allow describing the functionality of services in a machine interpretable form using Semantic Web technologies. The problem is that users do not have intimate knowledge about semantic Web service languages and related toolkits. In this paper, we propose a discovery framework that enables semantic Web service discovery based on keywords written in natural language. We describe a novel approach for automatic discovery of semantic Web services which employs Natural Language Processing techniques to match a user request, expressed in natural language, with a semantic Web service description. Additionally, we present an efficient semantic matching technique to compute the semantic distance between ontological concepts.

  15. Semantic orchestration of image processing services for environmental analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ranisavljević, Élisabeth; Devin, Florent; Laffly, Dominique; Le Nir, Yannick

    2013-09-01

    In order to analyze environmental dynamics, a major process is the classification of the different phenomena of the site (e.g. ice and snow for a glacier). When using in situ pictures, this classification requires data pre-processing. Not all the pictures need the same sequence of processes depending on the disturbances. Until now, these sequences have been done manually, which restricts the processing of large amount of data. In this paper, we present how to realize a semantic orchestration to automate the sequencing for the analysis. It combines two advantages: solving the problem of the amount of processing, and diversifying the possibilities in the data processing. We define a BPEL description to express the sequences. This BPEL uses some web services to run the data processing. Each web service is semantically annotated using an ontology of image processing. The dynamic modification of the BPEL is done using SPARQL queries on these annotated web services. The results obtained by a prototype implementing this method validate the construction of the different workflows that can be applied to a large number of pictures.

  16. The contribution of executive control to semantic cognition: Convergent evidence from semantic aphasia and executive dysfunction

    OpenAIRE

    Thompson, Hannah; Almaghyuli, Azizah; Noonan, Krist A.; barak, Ohr; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A.; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2018-01-01

    Semantic cognition, as described by the controlled semantic cognition (CSC) framework (Rogers et al., 2015, Neuropsychologia, 76, 220), involves two key components: activation of coherent, generalizable concepts within a heteromodal ‘hub’ in combination with modality-specific features (spokes), and a constraining mechanism that manipulates and gates this knowledge to generate time- and task-appropriate behaviour. Executive–semantic goal representations, largely supported by executive regions ...

  17. Dissociating stimulus-stimulus and response-response effects in the Stroop task

    OpenAIRE

    Schmidt, James; Cheesman, J

    2005-01-01

    The separate semantic and response competition interactions between colour and word processing in a manual Stroop task were evaluated by comparing three trial types. Identity trials are both semantically compatible and response compatible (e.g., BLUE in the colour blue), different response trials are both semantically incompatible and response incompatible (e.g., BLUE in the colour green, where blue and green have different response keys), and same response trials are semantically incompatibl...

  18. Semantic memory is impaired in patients with unilateral anterior temporal lobe resection for temporal lobe epilepsy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lambon Ralph, Matthew A; Ehsan, Sheeba; Baker, Gus A; Rogers, Timothy T

    2012-01-01

    Contemporary clinical and basic neuroscience studies have increasingly implicated the anterior temporal lobe regions, bilaterally, in the formation of coherent concepts. Mounting convergent evidence for the importance of the anterior temporal lobe in semantic memory is found in patients with bilateral anterior temporal lobe damage (e.g. semantic dementia), functional neuroimaging and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation studies. If this proposal is correct, then one might expect patients with anterior temporal lobe resection for long-standing temporal lobe epilepsy to be semantically impaired. Such patients, however, do not present clinically with striking comprehension deficits but with amnesia and variable anomia, leading some to conclude that semantic memory is intact in resection for temporal lobe epilepsy and thus casting doubt over the conclusions drawn from semantic dementia and linked basic neuroscience studies. Whilst there is a considerable neuropsychological literature on temporal lobe epilepsy, few studies have probed semantic memory directly, with mixed results, and none have undertaken the same type of systematic investigation of semantic processing that has been conducted with other patient groups. In this study, therefore, we investigated the semantic performance of 20 patients with resection for chronic temporal lobe epilepsy with a full battery of semantic assessments, including more sensitive measures of semantic processing. The results provide a bridge between the current clinical observations about resection for temporal lobe epilepsy and the expectations from semantic dementia and other neuroscience findings. Specifically, we found that on simple semantic tasks, the patients' accuracy fell in the normal range, with the exception that some patients with left resection for temporal lobe epilepsy had measurable anomia. Once the semantic assessments were made more challenging, by probing specific-level concepts, lower frequency

  19. Functional imaging of the semantic system: retrieval of sensory-experienced and verbally learned knowledge.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Noppeney, Uta; Price, Cathy J

    2003-01-01

    This paper considers how functional neuro-imaging can be used to investigate the organization of the semantic system and the limitations associated with this technique. The majority of the functional imaging studies of the semantic system have looked for divisions by varying stimulus category. These studies have led to divergent results and no clear anatomical hypotheses have emerged to account for the dissociations seen in behavioral studies. Only a few functional imaging studies have used task as a variable to differentiate the neural correlates of semantic features more directly. We extend these findings by presenting a new study that contrasts tasks that differentially weight sensory (color and taste) and verbally learned (origin) semantic features. Irrespective of the type of semantic feature retrieved, a common semantic system was activated as demonstrated in many previous studies. In addition, the retrieval of verbally learned, but not sensory-experienced, features enhanced activation in medial and lateral posterior parietal areas. We attribute these "verbally learned" effects to differences in retrieval strategy and conclude that evidence for segregation of semantic features at an anatomical level remains weak. We believe that functional imaging has the potential to increase our understanding of the neuronal infrastructure that sustains semantic processing but progress may require multiple experiments until a consistent explanatory framework emerges.

  20. Differentiation of perceptual and semantic subsequent memory effects using an orthographic paradigm.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuo, Michael C C; Liu, Karen P Y; Ting, Kin Hung; Chan, Chetwyn C H

    2012-11-27

    This study aimed to differentiate perceptual and semantic encoding processes using subsequent memory effects (SMEs) elicited by the recognition of orthographs of single Chinese characters. Participants studied a series of Chinese characters perceptually (by inspecting orthographic components) or semantically (by determining the object making sounds), and then made studied or unstudied judgments during the recognition phase. Recognition performance in terms of d-prime measure in the semantic condition was higher, though not significant, than that of the perceptual condition. The between perceptual-semantic condition differences in SMEs at P550 and late positive component latencies (700-1000ms) were not significant in the frontal area. An additional analysis identified larger SME in the semantic condition during 600-1000ms in the frontal pole regions. These results indicate that coordination and incorporation of orthographic information into mental representation is essential to both task conditions. The differentiation was also revealed in earlier SMEs (perceptual>semantic) at N3 (240-360ms) latency, which is a novel finding. The left-distributed N3 was interpreted as more efficient processing of meaning with semantically learned characters. Frontal pole SMEs indicated strategic processing by executive functions, which would further enhance memory. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. Mechanisms of masked evaluative priming: task sets modulate behavioral and electrophysiological priming for picture and words differentially.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiefer, Markus; Liegel, Nathalie; Zovko, Monika; Wentura, Dirk

    2017-04-01

    Research with the evaluative priming paradigm has shown that affective evaluation processes reliably influence cognition and behavior, even when triggered outside awareness. However, the precise mechanisms underlying such subliminal evaluative priming effects, response activation vs semantic processing, are matter of a debate. In this study, we determined the relative contribution of semantic processing and response activation to masked evaluative priming with pictures and words. To this end, we investigated the modulation of masked pictorial vs verbal priming by previously activated perceptual vs semantic task sets and assessed the electrophysiological correlates of priming using event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Behavioral and electrophysiological effects showed a differential modulation of pictorial and verbal subliminal priming by previously activated task sets: Pictorial priming was only observed during the perceptual but not during the semantic task set. Verbal priming, in contrast, was found when either task set was activated. Furthermore, only verbal priming was associated with a modulation of the N400 ERP component, an index of semantic processing, whereas a priming-related modulation of earlier ERPs, indexing visuo-motor S-R activation, was found for both picture and words. The results thus demonstrate that different neuro-cognitive processes contribute to unconscious evaluative priming depending on the stimulus format. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  2. Electrophysiological signatures of phonological and semantic maintenance in sentence repetition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meltzer, Jed A; Kielar, Aneta; Panamsky, Lilia; Links, Kira A; Deschamps, Tiffany; Leigh, Rosie C

    2017-08-01

    Verbal short-term memory comprises resources for phonological rehearsal, which have been characterized anatomically, and for maintenance of semantic information, which are less understood. Sentence repetition tasks tap both processes interactively. To distinguish brain activity involved in phonological vs. semantic maintenance, we recorded magnetoencephalography during a sentence repetition task, incorporating three manipulations emphasizing one mechanism over the other. Participants heard sentences or word lists and attempted to repeat them verbatim after a 5-second delay. After MEG, participants completed a cued recall task testing how much they remembered of each sentence. Greater semantic engagement relative to phonological rehearsal was hypothesized for 1) sentences vs. word lists, 2) concrete vs. abstract sentences, and 3) well recalled vs. poorly recalled sentences. During auditory perception and the memory delay period, we found highly left-lateralized activation in the form of 8-30 Hz event-related desynchronization. Compared to abstract sentences, concrete sentences recruited posterior temporal cortex bilaterally, demonstrating a neural signature for the engagement of visual imagery in sentence maintenance. Maintenance of arbitrary word lists recruited right hemisphere dorsal regions, reflecting increased demands on phonological rehearsal. Sentences that were ultimately poorly recalled in the post-test also elicited extra right hemisphere activation when they were held in short-term memory, suggesting increased demands on phonological resources. Frontal midline theta oscillations also reflected phonological rather than semantic demand, being increased for word lists and poorly recalled sentences. These findings highlight distinct neural resources for phonological and semantic maintenance, with phonological maintenance associated with stronger oscillatory modulations. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  4. Semantic similarity measure in biomedical domain leverage web search engine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Chi-Huang; Hsieh, Sheau-Ling; Weng, Yung-Ching; Chang, Wen-Yung; Lai, Feipei

    2010-01-01

    Semantic similarity measure plays an essential role in Information Retrieval and Natural Language Processing. In this paper we propose a page-count-based semantic similarity measure and apply it in biomedical domains. Previous researches in semantic web related applications have deployed various semantic similarity measures. Despite the usefulness of the measurements in those applications, measuring semantic similarity between two terms remains a challenge task. The proposed method exploits page counts returned by the Web Search Engine. We define various similarity scores for two given terms P and Q, using the page counts for querying P, Q and P AND Q. Moreover, we propose a novel approach to compute semantic similarity using lexico-syntactic patterns with page counts. These different similarity scores are integrated adapting support vector machines, to leverage the robustness of semantic similarity measures. Experimental results on two datasets achieve correlation coefficients of 0.798 on the dataset provided by A. Hliaoutakis, 0.705 on the dataset provide by T. Pedersen with physician scores and 0.496 on the dataset provided by T. Pedersen et al. with expert scores.

  5. Semantics and analysis of business process models in BPMN

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dijkman, R.M.; Dumas, M.; Ouyang, C.

    2008-01-01

    The Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) is a standard for capturing business processes in the early phases of systems development. The mix of constructs found in BPMN makes it possible to create models with semantic errors. Such errors are especially serious, because errors in the early

  6. Autobiographically significant concepts: more episodic than semantic in nature? An electrophysiological investigation of overlapping types of memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Renoult, Louis; Davidson, Patrick S R; Schmitz, Erika; Park, Lillian; Campbell, Kenneth; Moscovitch, Morris; Levine, Brian

    2015-01-01

    A common assertion is that semantic memory emerges from episodic memory, shedding the distinctive contexts associated with episodes over time and/or repeated instances. Some semantic concepts, however, may retain their episodic origins or acquire episodic information during life experiences. The current study examined this hypothesis by investigating the ERP correlates of autobiographically significant (AS) concepts, that is, semantic concepts that are associated with vivid episodic memories. We inferred the contribution of semantic and episodic memory to AS concepts using the amplitudes of the N400 and late positive component, respectively. We compared famous names that easily brought to mind episodic memories (high AS names) against equally famous names that did not bring such recollections to mind (low AS names) on a semantic task (fame judgment) and an episodic task (recognition memory). Compared with low AS names, high AS names were associated with increased amplitude of the late positive component in both tasks. Moreover, in the recognition task, this effect of AS was highly correlated with recognition confidence. In contrast, the N400 component did not differentiate the high versus low AS names but, instead, was related to the amount of general knowledge participants had regarding each name. These results suggest that semantic concepts high in AS, such as famous names, have an episodic component and are associated with similar brain processes to those that are engaged by episodic memory. Studying AS concepts may provide unique insights into how episodic and semantic memory interact.

  7. Preserved semantic priming effect in alexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  8. Cognitive training of self-initiation of semantic encoding strategies in schizophrenia: A pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guimond, Synthia; Lepage, Martin

    2016-01-01

    Available cognitive remediation interventions have a significant but relatively small to moderate impact on episodic memory in schizophrenia. The present study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and feasibility of a brief novel episodic memory training targeting the self-initiation of semantic encoding strategies. To select patients with such deficits, 28 participants with schizophrenia performed our Semantic Encoding Memory Task (SEMT) that provides a measure of self-initiated semantic encoding strategies. This task identified a deficit in 13 participants who were then offered two 60-minute training sessions one week apart. After the training, patients performed an alternate version of the SEMT. The CVLT-II (a standardised measure of semantic encoding strategies) and the BVMT-R (a control spatial memory task) were used to quantify memory pre- and post-training. After the training, participants were significantly better at self-initiating semantic encoding strategies in the SEMT (p = .004) and in the CVLT-II (p = .002). No significant differences were found in the BVMT-R. The current study demonstrates that a brief and specific training in memory strategies can help patients to improve a deficient memory process in schizophrenia. Future studies will need to test this intervention further using a randomised controlled trial, and to explore its functional impact.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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

  10. Cross-language activation of morphological relatives in cognates: the role of orthographic overlap and task-related processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mulder, Kimberley; Dijkstra, Ton; Baayen, R. Harald

    2015-01-01

    We considered the role of orthography and task-related processing mechanisms in the activation of morphologically related complex words during bilingual word processing. So far, it has only been shown that such morphologically related words (i.e., morphological family members) are activated through the semantic and morphological overlap they share with the target word. In this study, we investigated family size effects in Dutch-English identical cognates (e.g., tent in both languages), non-identical cognates (e.g., pil and pill, in English and Dutch, respectively), and non-cognates (e.g., chicken in English). Because of their cross-linguistic overlap in orthography, reading a cognate can result in activation of family members both languages. Cognates are therefore well-suited for studying mechanisms underlying bilingual activation of morphologically complex words. We investigated family size effects in an English lexical decision task and a Dutch-English language decision task, both performed by Dutch-English bilinguals. English lexical decision showed a facilitatory effect of English and Dutch family size on the processing of English-Dutch cognates relative to English non-cognates. These family size effects were not dependent on cognate type. In contrast, for language decision, in which a bilingual context is created, Dutch and English family size effects were inhibitory. Here, the combined family size of both languages turned out to better predict reaction time than the separate family size in Dutch or English. Moreover, the combined family size interacted with cognate type: the response to identical cognates was slowed by morphological family members in both languages. We conclude that (1) family size effects are sensitive to the task performed on the lexical items, and (2) depend on both semantic and formal aspects of bilingual word processing. We discuss various mechanisms that can explain the observed family size effects in a spreading activation framework

  11. Cross-language activation of morphological relatives in cognates: The role of orthographic overlap and task-related processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kimberley eMulder

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available We considered the role of orthography and task-related processing mechanisms in the activation of morphologically related complex words during bilingual word processing. So far, it has only been shown that such morphologically related words (i.e., morphological family members are activated through the semantic and morphological overlap they share with the target word. In this study, we investigated family size effects in Dutch-English identical cognates (e.g., tent in both languages, non-identical cognates (e.g., pil and pill, in English and Dutch, respectively, and non-cognates (e.g., chicken in English. Because of their cross-linguistic overlap in orthography, reading a cognate can result in activation of family members both languages. Cognates are therefore well-suited for studying mechanisms underlying bilingual activation of morphologically complex words. We investigated family size effects in an English lexical decision task and a Dutch-English language decision task, both performed by Dutch-English bilinguals. English lexical decision showed a facilitatory effect of English and Dutch family size on the processing of English-Dutch cognates relative to English non-cognates. These family size effects were not dependent on cognate type. In contrast, for language decision, in which a bilingual context is created, Dutch and English family size effects were inhibitory. Here, the combined family size of both languages turned out to better predict reaction time than the separate family size in Dutch or English. Moreover, the combined family size interacted with cognate type: The response to identical cognates was slowed by morphological family members in both languages. We conclude that (1 family size effects are sensitive to the task performed on the lexical items, and (2 depend on both semantic and formal aspects of bilingual word processing. We discuss various mechanisms that can explain the observed family size effects in a spreading

  12. The relationships between the amount of spared tissue, percent signal change, and accuracy in semantic processing in aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sims, Jordyn A; Kapse, Kushal; Glynn, Peter; Sandberg, Chaleece; Tripodis, Yorghos; Kiran, Swathi

    2016-04-01

    Recovery from aphasia, loss of language following a cerebrovascular incident (stroke), is a complex process involving both left and right hemispheric regions. In our study, we analyzed the relationships between semantic processing behavioral data, lesion size and location, and percent signal change from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. This study included 14 persons with aphasia in the chronic stage of recovery (six or more months post stroke), along with normal controls, who performed semantic processing tasks of determining whether a written semantic feature matched a picture or whether two written words were related. Using region of interest (ROI) analysis, we found that left inferior frontal gyrus pars opercularis and pars triangularis, despite significant damage, were the only regions to correlate with behavioral accuracy. Additionally, bilateral frontal regions including superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, and anterior cingulate appear to serve as an assistive network in the case of damage to traditional language regions that include inferior frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and angular gyrus. Right hemisphere posterior regions including right middle temporal gyrus, right supramarginal gyrus, and right angular gyrus are engaged in the case of extensive damage to left hemisphere language regions. Additionally, right inferior frontal gyrus pars orbitalis is presumed to serve a monitoring function. These results reinforce the importance of the left hemisphere in language processing in aphasia, and provide a framework for the relative importance of left and right language regions in the brain. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Semantic Tagging with Deep Residual Networks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bjerva, Johannes; Plank, Barbara; Bos, Johan

    2016-01-01

    We propose a novel semantic tagging task, semtagging, tailored for the purpose of multilingual semantic parsing, and present the first tagger using deep residual networks (ResNets). Our tagger uses both word and character representations and includes a novel residual bypass architecture. We evaluate

  14. The Development of Idiom Comprehension: An Investigation of Semantic and Contextual Processing Skills

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cain, Kate; Towse, Andrea S.; Knight, Rachael S.

    2009-01-01

    Two experiments compared 7- and 8-year-olds' and 9- and 10-year-olds' ability to use semantic analysis and inference from context to understand idioms. We used a multiple-choice task and manipulated whether the idioms were transparent or opaque, familiar or novel, and presented with or without a supportive story context. Performance was compared…

  15. Fine-coarse semantic processing in schizophrenia: a reversed pattern of hemispheric dominance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeev-Wolf, Maor; Goldstein, Abraham; Levkovitz, Yechiel; Faust, Miriam

    2014-04-01

    Left lateralization for language processing is a feature of neurotypical brains. In individuals with schizophrenia, lack of left lateralization is associated with the language impairments manifested in this population. Beeman׳s fine-coarse semantic coding model asserts left hemisphere specialization in fine (i.e., conventionalized) semantic coding and right hemisphere specialization in coarse (i.e., non-conventionalized) semantic coding. Applying this model to schizophrenia would suggest that language impairments in this population are a result of greater reliance on coarse semantic coding. We investigated this hypothesis and examined whether a reversed pattern of hemispheric involvement in fine-coarse semantic coding along the time course of activation could be detected in individuals with schizophrenia. Seventeen individuals with schizophrenia and 30 neurotypical participants were presented with two word expressions of four types: literal, conventional metaphoric, unrelated (exemplars of fine semantic coding) and novel metaphoric (an exemplar of coarse semantic coding). Expressions were separated by either a short (250 ms) or long (750 ms) delay. Findings indicate that whereas during novel metaphor processing, controls displayed a left hemisphere advantage at 250 ms delay and right hemisphere advantage at 750 ms, individuals with schizophrenia displayed the opposite. For conventional metaphoric and unrelated expressions, controls showed left hemisphere advantage across times, while individuals with schizophrenia showed a right hemisphere advantage. Furthermore, whereas individuals with schizophrenia were less accurate than control at judging literal, conventional metaphoric and unrelated expressions they were more accurate when judging novel metaphors. Results suggest that individuals with schizophrenia display a reversed pattern of lateralization for semantic coding which causes them to rely more heavily on coarse semantic coding. Thus, for individuals with

  16. Intelligent query processing for semantic mediation of information systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saber Benharzallah

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available We propose an intelligent and an efficient query processing approach for semantic mediation of information systems. We propose also a generic multi agent architecture that supports our approach. Our approach focuses on the exploitation of intelligent agents for query reformulation and the use of a new technology for the semantic representation. The algorithm is self-adapted to the changes of the environment, offers a wide aptitude and solves the various data conflicts in a dynamic way; it also reformulates the query using the schema mediation method for the discovered systems and the context mediation for the other systems.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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

  18. Semantic memory retrieval circuit: role of pre-SMA, caudate, and thalamus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hart, John; Maguire, Mandy J; Motes, Michael; Mudar, Raksha Anand; Chiang, Hsueh-Sheng; Womack, Kyle B; Kraut, Michael A

    2013-07-01

    We propose that pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA)-thalamic interactions govern processes fundamental to semantic retrieval of an integrated object memory. At the onset of semantic retrieval, pre-SMA initiates electrical interactions between multiple cortical regions associated with semantic memory subsystems encodings as indexed by an increase in theta-band EEG power. This starts between 100-150 ms after stimulus presentation and is sustained throughout the task. We posit that this activity represents initiation of the object memory search, which continues in searching for an object memory. When the correct memory is retrieved, there is a high beta-band EEG power increase, which reflects communication between pre-SMA and thalamus, designates the end of the search process and resultant in object retrieval from multiple semantic memory subsystems. This high beta signal is also detected in cortical regions. This circuit is modulated by the caudate nuclei to facilitate correct and suppress incorrect target memories. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Argument structure and the representation of abstract semantics.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  20. Argument structure and the representation of abstract semantics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  1. Episodic but not semantic order memory difficulties in autism spectrum disorder: evidence from the Historical Figures Task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaigg, Sebastian B; Bowler, Dermot M; Gardiner, John M

    2014-01-01

    Considerable evidence suggests that the episodic memory system operates abnormally in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) whereas the functions of the semantic memory system are relatively preserved. Here we show that the same dissociation also applies to the domain of order memory. We asked adult participants to order the names of famous historical figures either according to their chronological order in history (probing semantic memory) or according to a random sequence shown once on a screen (probing episodic memory). As predicted, adults with ASD performed less well than age- and IQ-matched comparison individuals only on the episodic task. This observation is of considerable importance in the context of developmental theory because semantic and episodic order memory abilities can be dissociated in typically developing infants before they reach the age at which the behavioural markers associated with ASD are first apparent. This raises the possibility that early emerging memory abnormalities play a role in shaping the developmental trajectory of the disorder. We discuss the broader implications of this possibility and highlight the urgent need for greater scrutiny of memory competences in ASD early in development.

  2. Automatic semantic encoding in verbal short-term memory: evidence from the concreteness effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campoy, Guillermo; Castellà, Judit; Provencio, Violeta; Hitch, Graham J; Baddeley, Alan D

    2015-01-01

    The concreteness effect in verbal short-term memory (STM) tasks is assumed to be a consequence of semantic encoding in STM, with immediate recall of concrete words benefiting from richer semantic representations. We used the concreteness effect to test the hypothesis that semantic encoding in standard verbal STM tasks is a consequence of controlled, attention-demanding mechanisms of strategic semantic retrieval and encoding. Experiment 1 analysed the effect of presentation rate, with slow presentations being assumed to benefit strategic, time-dependent semantic encoding. Experiments 2 and 3 provided a more direct test of the strategic hypothesis by introducing three different concurrent attention-demanding tasks. Although Experiment 1 showed a larger concreteness effect with slow presentations, the following two experiments yielded strong evidence against the strategic hypothesis. Limiting available attention resources by concurrent tasks reduced global memory performance, but the concreteness effect was equivalent to that found in control conditions. We conclude that semantic effects in STM result from automatic semantic encoding and provide tentative explanations for the interaction between the concreteness effect and the presentation rate.

  3. Semantic Road Segmentation Via Multi-Scale Ensembles of Learned Features

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Alvarez, J.M.; LeCun, Y.; Gevers, T.; Lopez, A.M.

    2012-01-01

    Semantic segmentation refers to the process of assigning an object label (e.g., building, road, sidewalk, car, pedestrian) to every pixel in an image. Common approaches formulate the task as a random field labeling problem modeling the interactions between labels by combining local and contextual

  4. The impact of semantic impairment on word stem completion in Alzheimer's disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beauregard, M; Chertkow, H; Gold, D; Bergman, S

    2001-01-01

    Both the extent of semantic memory impairment and the level of processing attained during encoding might constitute critical factors in determining the amount of word-stem completion (WSC) priming encountered in Alzheimer's disease (AD) subjects. We investigated the impact of varying encoding level in AD and elderly normal subjects, using a set of stimuli ranked as "intact" or "degraded" in terms of each subject's semantic knowledge on probe questions. For both shallow and deep encoding conditions, overall priming in the two subject groups was equivalent. However, for the deep encoding condition, consisting of a semantic judgment task performed on each target word, the priming effect noted in AD subjects was significantly smaller for semantically degraded items than for semantically intact items. Results indicate that the degree of semantic impairment represents one important variable affecting the amount of WSC priming which results when deep encoding procedures are used at study.

  5. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Semantic Memory as a Presymptomatic Biomarker of Alzheimer’s Disease Risk

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sugarman, Michael A.; Woodard, John L.; Nielson, Kristy A.; Seidenberg, Michael; Smith, J. Carson; Durgerian, Sally; Rao, Stephen M.

    2011-01-01

    Extensive research efforts have been directed toward strategies for predicting risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) prior to the appearance of observable symptoms. Existing approaches for early detection of AD vary in terms of their efficacy, invasiveness, and ease of implementation. Several non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging strategies have been developed for predicting decline in cognitively healthy older adults. This review will survey a number of studies, beginning with the development of a famous name discrimination task used to identify neural regions that participate in semantic memory retrieval and to test predictions of several key theories of the role of the hippocampus in memory. This task has revealed medial temporal and neocortical contributions to recent and remote memory retrieval, and it has been used to demonstrate compensatory neural recruitment in older adults, apolipoprotein E ε4 carriers, and amnestic mild cognitive impairment patients. Recently, we have also found that the famous name discrimination task provides predictive value for forecasting episodic memory decline among asymptomatic older adults. Other studies investigating the predictive value of semantic memory tasks will also be presented. We suggest several advantages associated with the use of semantic processing tasks, particularly those based on person identification, in comparison to episodic memory tasks to study AD risk. Future directions for research and potential clinical uses of semantic memory paradigms are also discussed. PMID:21996618

  6. Recognizable or Not: Towards Image Semantic Quality Assessment for Compression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Dong; Wang, Dandan; Li, Houqiang

    2017-12-01

    Traditionally, image compression was optimized for the pixel-wise fidelity or the perceptual quality of the compressed images given a bit-rate budget. But recently, compressed images are more and more utilized for automatic semantic analysis tasks such as recognition and retrieval. For these tasks, we argue that the optimization target of compression is no longer perceptual quality, but the utility of the compressed images in the given automatic semantic analysis task. Accordingly, we propose to evaluate the quality of the compressed images neither at pixel level nor at perceptual level, but at semantic level. In this paper, we make preliminary efforts towards image semantic quality assessment (ISQA), focusing on the task of optical character recognition (OCR) from compressed images. We propose a full-reference ISQA measure by comparing the features extracted from text regions of original and compressed images. We then propose to integrate the ISQA measure into an image compression scheme. Experimental results show that our proposed ISQA measure is much better than PSNR and SSIM in evaluating the semantic quality of compressed images; accordingly, adopting our ISQA measure to optimize compression for OCR leads to significant bit-rate saving compared to using PSNR or SSIM. Moreover, we perform subjective test about text recognition from compressed images, and observe that our ISQA measure has high consistency with subjective recognizability. Our work explores new dimensions in image quality assessment, and demonstrates promising direction to achieve higher compression ratio for specific semantic analysis tasks.

  7. The Process Mediation Framework for Semantic Web Services

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Vaculín, Roman; Neruda, Roman

    2009-01-01

    Roč. 3, č. 1 (2009), s. 27-58 ISSN 1746-1375 R&D Projects: GA MŠk ME08095; GA AV ČR 1ET100300517 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10300504 Keywords : process mediation * OWL-S * semantic web services * adapter synthesis Subject RIV: IN - Informatics, Computer Science

  8. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of semantic memory as a presymptomatic biomarker of Alzheimer's disease risk.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sugarman, Michael A; Woodard, John L; Nielson, Kristy A; Seidenberg, Michael; Smith, J Carson; Durgerian, Sally; Rao, Stephen M

    2012-03-01

    Extensive research efforts have been directed toward strategies for predicting risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) prior to the appearance of observable symptoms. Existing approaches for early detection of AD vary in terms of their efficacy, invasiveness, and ease of implementation. Several non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging strategies have been developed for predicting decline in cognitively healthy older adults. This review will survey a number of studies, beginning with the development of a famous name discrimination task used to identify neural regions that participate in semantic memory retrieval and to test predictions of several key theories of the role of the hippocampus in memory. This task has revealed medial temporal and neocortical contributions to recent and remote memory retrieval, and it has been used to demonstrate compensatory neural recruitment in older adults, apolipoprotein E ε4 carriers, and amnestic mild cognitive impairment patients. Recently, we have also found that the famous name discrimination task provides predictive value for forecasting episodic memory decline among asymptomatic older adults. Other studies investigating the predictive value of semantic memory tasks will also be presented. We suggest several advantages associated with the use of semantic processing tasks, particularly those based on person identification, in comparison to episodic memory tasks to study AD risk. Future directions for research and potential clinical uses of semantic memory paradigms are also discussed. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Imaging Brain Aging and Neurodegenerative disease. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Language production in a shared task: Cumulative Semantic Interference from self- and other-produced context words.

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    Hoedemaker, Renske S; Ernst, Jessica; Meyer, Antje S; Belke, Eva

    2017-01-01

    This study assessed the effects of semantic context in the form of self-produced and other-produced words on subsequent language production. Pairs of participants performed a joint picture naming task, taking turns while naming a continuous series of pictures. In the single-speaker version of this paradigm, naming latencies have been found to increase for successive presentations of exemplars from the same category, a phenomenon known as Cumulative Semantic Interference (CSI). As expected, the joint-naming task showed a within-speaker CSI effect, such that naming latencies increased as a function of the number of category exemplars named previously by the participant (self-produced items). Crucially, we also observed an across-speaker CSI effect, such that naming latencies slowed as a function of the number of category members named by the participant's task partner (other-produced items). The magnitude of the across-speaker CSI effect did not vary as a function of whether or not the listening participant could see the pictures their partner was naming. The observation of across-speaker CSI suggests that the effect originates at the conceptual level of the language system, as proposed by Belke's (2013) Conceptual Accumulation account. Whereas self-produced and other-produced words both resulted in a CSI effect on naming latencies, post-experiment free recall rates were higher for self-produced than other-produced items. Together, these results suggest that both speaking and listening result in implicit learning at the conceptual level of the language system but that these effects are independent of explicit learning as indicated by item recall. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. 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.

  11. Investigating the possibility of a syntactic impairment in the semantic variant of PPA using a constrained production task: Preliminary findings

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    Jennifer Cupit

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available In the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (svPPA, syntactic skills are generally thought to be preserved, while in the non-fluent variant (nfvPPA syntactic impairment is a core diagnostic feature (Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011. There are, however, some indications in the literature that syntactic processing may not be entirely normal in svPPA. Most studies of syntactic production in svPPA have used unconstrained tasks and have found no syntactic impairment (e.g., Bird et al., 2000; Kave et al., 2007. In the two published studies that have found a syntactic impairment in svPPA, one used a constrained task (Benedet et al., 2006, and the other (Meteyard & Patterson, 2009 did not. However, the authors of the latter article suggested that the observed syntactic errors were subtle. They also suggested that a syntactic impairment in svPPA might not be observed in spontaneous language samples due to an overreliance on simpler structures. In the current study, we used a constrained sentence production task to compare the syntactic abilities of individuals with nfvPPA, svPPA and healthy controls longitudinally, to investigate the existence of a syntactic impairment in the different PPA variants. We predicted that by using a constrained task we would observe a syntactic impairment in both variants of PPA. We tested 18 participants with nfvPPA, 13 with svPPA and 23 control participants. They were tested up to three separate times, with approximately one year between sessions. Groups were matched on age and years of education. The patient groups were matched on Mini Mental State Examination score (Folstein, Folstein & McHugh, 1975 and estimated time post onset of initial symptoms, but the nfvPPA group scored higher than the svPPA group on the Boston Naming Test (Kaplan, Goodglass, & Weintraub, 2001. We used the sentence production task from Caplan and Hanna (1998 to elicit active, passive, dative and dative-passive sentences. A mixed ANOVA (Group X

  12. Non-Interfering Effects of Active Post-Encoding Tasks on Episodic Memory Consolidation in Humans.

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    Varma, Samarth; Takashima, Atsuko; Krewinkel, Sander; van Kooten, Maaike; Fu, Lily; Medendorp, W Pieter; Kessels, Roy P C; Daselaar, Sander M

    2017-01-01

    So far, studies that investigated interference effects of post-learning processes on episodic memory consolidation in humans have used tasks involving only complex and meaningful information. Such tasks require reallocation of general or encoding-specific resources away from consolidation-relevant activities. The possibility that interference can be elicited using a task that heavily taxes our limited brain resources, but has low semantic and hippocampal related long-term memory processing demands, has never been tested. We address this question by investigating whether consolidation could persist in parallel with an active, encoding-irrelevant, minimally semantic task, regardless of its high resource demands for cognitive processing. We distinguish the impact of such a task on consolidation based on whether it engages resources that are: (1) general/executive, or (2) specific/overlapping with the encoding modality. Our experiments compared subsequent memory performance across two post-encoding consolidation periods: quiet wakeful rest and a cognitively demanding n-Back task. Across six different experiments (total N = 176), we carefully manipulated the design of the n-Back task to target general or specific resources engaged in the ongoing consolidation process. In contrast to previous studies that employed interference tasks involving conceptual stimuli and complex processing demands, we did not find any differences between n-Back and rest conditions on memory performance at delayed test, using both recall and recognition tests. Our results indicate that: (1) quiet, wakeful rest is not a necessary prerequisite for episodic memory consolidation; and (2) post-encoding cognitive engagement does not interfere with memory consolidation when task-performance has minimal semantic and hippocampally-based episodic memory processing demands. We discuss our findings with reference to resource and reactivation-led interference theories.

  13. 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.

  14. Neural correlates of rhyming vs. lexical and semantic fluency.

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    Kircher, Tilo; Nagels, Arne; Kirner-Veselinovic, André; Krach, Sören

    2011-05-19

    Rhyming words, as in songs or poems, is a universal feature of human language across all ages. In the present fMRI study a novel overt rhyming task was applied to determine the neural correlates of rhyme production. Fifteen right-handed healthy male volunteers participated in this verbal fluency study. Participants were instructed to overtly articulate as many words as possible either to a given initial letter (LVF) or to a semantic category (SVF). During the rhyming verbal fluency task (RVF), participants had to generate words that rhymed with pseudoword stimuli. On-line overt verbal responses were audiotaped in order to correct the imaging results for the number of generated words. Fewer words were generated in the rhyming compared to both the lexical and the semantic condition. On a neural level, all language tasks activated a language network encompassing the left inferior frontal gyrus, the middle and superior temporal gyri as well as the contralateral right cerebellum. Rhyming verbal fluency compared to both lexical and semantic verbal fluency demonstrated significantly stronger activation of left inferior parietal region. Generating novel rhyme words seems to be mainly mediated by the left inferior parietal lobe, a region previously found to be associated with meta-phonological as well as sub-lexical linguistic processes. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  15. 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.

  16. TRECVid Semantic Indexing of Video: A 6-year Retrospective

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    Awad, G.; Snoek, C.G.M.; Smeaton, A.F.; Quénot, G.

    2016-01-01

    Semantic indexing, or assigning semantic tags to video samples, is a key component for content-based access to video documents and collections. The Semantic Indexing task has been run at TRECVid from 2010 to 2015 with the support of NIST and the Quaero project. As with the previous High-Level

  17. Semantic and episodic memory of music are subserved by distinct neural networks.

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    Platel, Hervé; Baron, Jean-Claude; Desgranges, Béatrice; Bernard, Frédéric; Eustache, Francis

    2003-09-01

    Numerous functional imaging studies have shown that retrieval from semantic and episodic memory is subserved by distinct neural networks. However, these results were essentially obtained with verbal and visuospatial material. The aim of this work was to determine the neural substrates underlying the semantic and episodic components of music using familiar and nonfamiliar melodic tunes. To study musical semantic memory, we designed a task in which the instruction was to judge whether or not the musical extract was felt as "familiar." To study musical episodic memory, we constructed two delayed recognition tasks, one containing only familiar and the other only nonfamiliar items. For each recognition task, half of the extracts (targets) were presented in the prior semantic task. The episodic and semantic tasks were to be contrasted by a comparison to two perceptive control tasks and to one another. Cerebral blood flow was assessed by means of the oxygen-15-labeled water injection method, using high-resolution PET. Distinct patterns of activations were found. First, regarding the episodic memory condition, bilateral activations of the middle and superior frontal gyri and precuneus (more prominent on the right side) were observed. Second, the semantic memory condition disclosed extensive activations in the medial and orbital frontal cortex bilaterally, the left angular gyrus, and predominantly the left anterior part of the middle temporal gyri. The findings from this study are discussed in light of the available neuropsychological data obtained in brain-damaged subjects and functional neuroimaging studies.

  18. Assessing semantic similarity of texts - Methods and algorithms

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    Rozeva, Anna; Zerkova, Silvia

    2017-12-01

    Assessing the semantic similarity of texts is an important part of different text-related applications like educational systems, information retrieval, text summarization, etc. This task is performed by sophisticated analysis, which implements text-mining techniques. Text mining involves several pre-processing steps, which provide for obtaining structured representative model of the documents in a corpus by means of extracting and selecting the features, characterizing their content. Generally the model is vector-based and enables further analysis with knowledge discovery approaches. Algorithms and measures are used for assessing texts at syntactical and semantic level. An important text-mining method and similarity measure is latent semantic analysis (LSA). It provides for reducing the dimensionality of the document vector space and better capturing the text semantics. The mathematical background of LSA for deriving the meaning of the words in a given text by exploring their co-occurrence is examined. The algorithm for obtaining the vector representation of words and their corresponding latent concepts in a reduced multidimensional space as well as similarity calculation are presented.

  19. Embedding Metadata and Other Semantics in Word Processing Documents

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    Peter Sefton

    2009-10-01

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

  20. Age-related changes in ERP components of semantic and syntactic processing in a verb final language

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    Jee Eun Sung

    2014-04-01

    Both syntactic and semantic violations elicited negativity effects at 300-500ms time window, and the negativity effects were slightly attenuated in the elderly group. The results suggested that Korean speakers may process a syntactic component of a case marker under the semantic frame integration, eliciting the negativity effects associated with semantic violations. Elderly adults showed attenuated effects compared to the young group, indicating age-related changes emerged during real-time sentence processing.

  1. A dual task priming investigation of right hemisphere inhibition for people with left hemisphere lesions

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    Smith-Conway Erin R

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background During normal semantic processing, the left hemisphere (LH is suggested to restrict right hemisphere (RH performance via interhemispheric suppression. However, a lesion in the LH or the use of concurrent tasks to overload the LH's attentional resource balance has been reported to result in RH disinhibition with subsequent improvements in RH performance. The current study examines variations in RH semantic processing in the context of unilateral LH lesions and the manipulation of the interhemispheric processing resource balance, in order to explore the relevance of RH disinhibition to hemispheric contributions to semantic processing following a unilateral LH lesion. Methods RH disinhibition was examined for nine participants with a single LH lesion and 13 matched controls using the dual task paradigm. Hemispheric performance on a divided visual field lexical decision semantic priming task was compared over three verbal memory load conditions, of zero-, two- and six-words. Related stimuli consisted of categorically related, associatively related, and categorically and associatively related prime-target pairs. Response time and accuracy data were recorded and analyzed using linear mixed model analysis, and planned contrasts were performed to compare priming effects in both visual fields, for each of the memory load conditions. Results Control participants exhibited significant bilateral visual field priming for all related conditions (p Conclusions The results from the control group are consistent with suggestions of an age related hemispheric asymmetry reduction and indicate that in healthy aging compensatory bilateral activation may reduce the impact of inhibition. In comparison, the results for the LHD group indicate that following a LH lesion RH semantic processing can be manipulated and enhanced by the introduction of a verbal memory task designed to engage LH resources and allow disinhibition of RH processing.

  2. ONTOLOGY BASED MEANINGFUL SEARCH USING SEMANTIC WEB AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES

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    K. Palaniammal

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available The semantic web extends the current World Wide Web by adding facilities for the machine understood description of meaning. The ontology based search model is used to enhance efficiency and accuracy of information retrieval. Ontology is the core technology for the semantic web and this mechanism for representing formal and shared domain descriptions. In this paper, we proposed ontology based meaningful search using semantic web and Natural Language Processing (NLP techniques in the educational domain. First we build the educational ontology then we present the semantic search system. The search model consisting three parts which are embedding spell-check, finding synonyms using WordNet API and querying ontology using SPARQL language. The results are both sensitive to spell check and synonymous context. This paper provides more accurate results and the complete details for the selected field in a single page.

  3. Supporting spatial data harmonization process with the use of ontologies and Semantic Web technologies

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    Strzelecki, M.; Iwaniak, A.; Łukowicz, J.; Kaczmarek, I.

    2013-10-01

    Nowadays, spatial information is not only used by professionals, but also by common citizens, who uses it for their daily activities. Open Data initiative states that data should be freely and unreservedly available for all users. It also applies to spatial data. As spatial data becomes widely available it is essential to publish it in form which guarantees the possibility of integrating it with other, heterogeneous data sources. Interoperability is the possibility to combine spatial data sets from different sources in a consistent way as well as providing access to it. Providing syntactic interoperability based on well-known data formats is relatively simple, unlike providing semantic interoperability, due to the multiple possible data interpretation. One of the issues connected with the problem of achieving interoperability is data harmonization. It is a process of providing access to spatial data in a representation that allows combining it with other harmonized data in a coherent way by using a common set of data product specification. Spatial data harmonization is performed by creating definition of reclassification and transformation rules (mapping schema) for source application schema. Creation of those rules is a very demanding task which requires wide domain knowledge and a detailed look into application schemas. The paper focuses on proposing methods for supporting data harmonization process, by automated or supervised creation of mapping schemas with the use of ontologies, ontology matching methods and Semantic Web technologies.

  4. 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

  5. Electrocortical N400 Effects of Semantic Satiation

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    Kim Ströberg

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Semantic satiation is characterised by the subjective and temporary loss of meaning after high repetition of a prime word. To study the nature of this effect, previous electroencephalography (EEG research recorded the N400, an ERP component that is sensitive to violations of semantic context. The N400 is characterised by a relative negativity to words that are unrelated vs. related to the semantic context. The semantic satiation hypothesis predicts that the N400 should decrease with high repetition. However, previous findings have been inconsistent. Because of these inconsistent findings and the shortcomings of previous research, we used a modified design that minimises confounding effects from non-semantic processes. We recorded 64-channel EEG and analysed the N400 in a semantic priming task in which the primes were repeated 3 or 30 times. Critically, we separated low and high repetition trials and excluded response trials. Further, we varied the physical features (letter case and format of consecutive primes to minimise confounding effects from perceptual habituation. For centrofrontal electrodes, the N400 was reduced after 30 repetitions (vs. 3 repetitions. Explorative source reconstructions suggested that activity decreased after 30 repetitions in bilateral inferior temporal gyrus, the right posterior section of the superior and middle temporal gyrus, right supramarginal gyrus, bilateral lateral occipital cortex, and bilateral lateral orbitofrontal cortex. These areas overlap broadly with those typically involved in the N400, namely middle temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus. The results support the semantic rather than the perceptual nature of the satiation effect.

  6. Person- and place-selective neural substrates for entity-specific semantic access.

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    Fairhall, Scott L; Anzellotti, Stefano; Ubaldi, Silvia; Caramazza, Alfonso

    2014-07-01

    Object-category has a pronounced effect on the representation of objects in higher level visual cortex. However, the influence of category on semantic/conceptual processes is less well characterized. In the present study, we conduct 2 fMRI experiments to investigate the semantic processing of information specific to individual people and places (entities). First, during picture presentation, we determined which brain regions show category-selective increases during access to entity-specific semantic information (i.e., nationality) in comparison to general-category discrimination (person vs. place). In the second experiment, we presented either words or pictures to assess the independence of entity-specific category-selective semantic representations from the processes used to access those representations. Convergent results from these 2 experiments show that brain regions exhibiting a category-selective increase during entity-specific semantic access are the same as those that show a supramodal (word/picture) category-selective response during the same task. These responses were different from classical "perceptual" category-selective responses and were evident in the medial precuneus for people and in the retrosplenial complex as well as anterior/superior sections of the transverse occipital sulcus and parahippocampal gyrus for places. These results reveal the pervasive influence of object-category in cortical organization, which extends to aspects of semantic knowledge arbitrarily related to physical/perceptual properties. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  7. Forms of memory: Investigating the computational basis of semantic-episodic memory interactions

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    Neville, D.A.

    2015-01-01

    The present thesis investigated how the memory systems related to the processing of semantic and episodic information combine to generate behavioural performance as measured in standard laboratory tasks. Across a series of behavioural experiment I looked at different types of interactions between

  8. Functional segregation of the inferior frontal gyrus for syntactic processes: a functional magnetic-resonance imaging study.

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    Uchiyama, Yuji; Toyoda, Hiroshi; Honda, Manabu; Yoshida, Haruyo; Kochiyama, Takanori; Ebe, Kazutoshi; Sadato, Norihiro

    2008-07-01

    We used functional magnetic resonance imaging in 18 normal volunteers to determine whether there is separate representation of syntactic, semantic, and verbal working memory processing in the left inferior frontal gyrus (GFi). We compared a sentence comprehension task with a short-term memory maintenance task to identify syntactic and semantic processing regions. To investigate the effects of syntactic and verbal working memory load while minimizing the differences in semantic processes, we used comprehension tasks with garden-path (GP) sentences, which require re-parsing, and non-garden-path (NGP) sentences. Compared with the short-term memory task, sentence comprehension activated the left GFi, including Brodmann areas (BAs) 44, 45, and 47, and the left superior temporal gyrus. In GP versus NGP sentences, there was greater activity in the left BAs 44, 45, and 46 extending to the left anterior insula, the pre-supplementary motor area, and the right cerebellum. In the left GFi, verbal working memory activity was located more dorsally (BA 44/45), semantic processing was located more ventrally (BA 47), and syntactic processing was located in between (BA 45). These findings indicate a close relationship between semantic and syntactic processes, and suggest that BA 45 might link verbal working memory and semantic processing via syntactic unification processes.

  9. Ways of making-sense: Local gamma synchronization reveals differences between semantic processing induced by music and language.

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    Barraza, Paulo; Chavez, Mario; Rodríguez, Eugenio

    2016-01-01

    Similar to linguistic stimuli, music can also prime the meaning of a subsequent word. However, it is so far unknown what is the brain dynamics underlying the semantic priming effect induced by music, and its relation to language. To elucidate these issues, we compare the brain oscillatory response to visual words that have been semantically primed either by a musical excerpt or by an auditory sentence. We found that semantic violation between music-word pairs triggers a classical ERP N400, and induces a sustained increase of long-distance theta phase synchrony, along with a transient increase of local gamma activity. Similar results were observed after linguistic semantic violation except for gamma activity, which increased after semantic congruence between sentence-word pairs. Our findings indicate that local gamma activity is a neural marker that signals different ways of semantic processing between music and language, revealing the dynamic and self-organized nature of the semantic processing. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. Semantic, phonologic, and verb fluency in Huntington's disease

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    Mariana Jardim Azambuja

    Full Text Available Abstract Verbal fluency tasks have been identified as important indicators of executive functioning impairment in patients with frontal lobe dysfunction. Although the usual evaluation of this ability considers phonologic and semantic criteria, there is some evidence that fluency of verbs would be more sensitive in disclosing frontostriatal physiopathology since frontal regions primarily mediate retrieval of verbs. Huntington's disease usually affects these circuitries. Objective: To compare three types of verbal fluency task in the assessment of frontal-striatal dysfunction in HD subjects. Methods: We studied 26 Huntington's disease subjects, divided into two subgroups: mild (11 and moderate (15 along with 26 normal volunteers matched for age, gender and schooling, for three types of verbal fluency: phonologic fluency (F-A-S, semantic fluency and fluency of verbs. Results: Huntington's disease subjects showed a significant reduction in the number of words correctly generated in the three tasks when compared to the normal group. Both controls and Huntington's disease subjects showed a similar pattern of decreasing task performance with the greatest number of words being generated by semantic elicitation followed by verbs and lastly phonologic criteria. We did not find greater production of verbs compared with F-A-S and semantic conditions. Moreover, the fluency of verbs distinguished only the moderate group from controls. Conclusion: Our results indicated that phonologic and semantic fluency can be used to evaluate executive functioning, proving more sensitive than verb fluency. However, it is important to point out that the diverse presentations of Huntington's disease means that an extended sample is necessary for more consistent analysis of this issue.

  11. An Event Related Potentials Study of Semantic Coherence Effect during Episodic Encoding in Schizophrenia Patients

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    Lâle Battal Merlet

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this electrophysiological study was to investigate the processing of semantic coherence during encoding in relation to episodic memory processes promoted at test, in schizophrenia patients, by using the N400 paradigm. Eighteen schizophrenia patients and 15 healthy participants undertook a recognition memory task. The stimuli consisted of pairs of words either semantically related or unrelated to a given category name (context. During encoding, both groups exhibited an N400 external semantic coherence effect. Healthy controls also showed an N400 internal semantic coherence effect, but this effect was not present in patients. At test, related stimuli were accompanied by an FN400 old/new effect in both groups and by a parietal old/new effect in the control group alone. In the patient group, external semantic coherence effect was associated with FN400, while, in the control group, it was correlated to the parietal old/new effect. Our results indicate that schizophrenia patients can process the contextual information at encoding to enhance familiarity process for related stimuli at test. Therefore, cognitive rehabilitation therapies targeting the implementation of semantic encoding strategies can mobilize familiarity which in turn can overcome the recollection deficit, promoting successful episodic memory performance in schizophrenia patients.

  12. Is semantic verbal fluency impairment explained by executive function deficits in schizophrenia?

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    Arthur A. Berberian

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Objective: To investigate if verbal fluency impairment in schizophrenia reflects executive function deficits or results from degraded semantic store or inefficient search and retrieval strategies. Method: Two groups were compared: 141 individuals with schizophrenia and 119 healthy age and education-matched controls. Both groups performed semantic and phonetic verbal fluency tasks. Performance was evaluated using three scores, based on 1 number of words generated; 2 number of clustered/related words; and 3 switching score. A fourth performance score based on the number of clusters was also measured. Results: SZ individuals produced fewer words than controls. After controlling for the total number of words produced, a difference was observed between the groups in the number of cluster-related words generated in the semantic task. In both groups, the number of words generated in the semantic task was higher than that generated in the phonemic task, although a significant group vs. fluency type interaction showed that subjects with schizophrenia had disproportionate semantic fluency impairment. Working memory was positively associated with increased production of words within clusters and inversely correlated with switching. Conclusion: Semantic fluency impairment may be attributed to an inability (resulting from reduced cognitive control to distinguish target signal from competing noise and to maintain cues for production of memory probes.

  13. Exploring and linking biomedical resources through multidimensional semantic spaces.

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    Berlanga, Rafael; Jiménez-Ruiz, Ernesto; Nebot, Victoria

    2012-01-25

    The semantic integration of biomedical resources is still a challenging issue which is required for effective information processing and data analysis. The availability of comprehensive knowledge resources such as biomedical ontologies and integrated thesauri greatly facilitates this integration effort by means of semantic annotation, which allows disparate data formats and contents to be expressed under a common semantic space. In this paper, we propose a multidimensional representation for such a semantic space, where dimensions regard the different perspectives in biomedical research (e.g., population, disease, anatomy and protein/genes). This paper presents a novel method for building multidimensional semantic spaces from semantically annotated biomedical data collections. This method consists of two main processes: knowledge and data normalization. The former one arranges the concepts provided by a reference knowledge resource (e.g., biomedical ontologies and thesauri) into a set of hierarchical dimensions for analysis purposes. The latter one reduces the annotation set associated to each collection item into a set of points of the multidimensional space. Additionally, we have developed a visual tool, called 3D-Browser, which implements OLAP-like operators over the generated multidimensional space. The method and the tool have been tested and evaluated in the context of the Health-e-Child (HeC) project. Automatic semantic annotation was applied to tag three collections of abstracts taken from PubMed, one for each target disease of the project, the Uniprot database, and the HeC patient record database. We adopted the UMLS Meta-thesaurus 2010AA as the reference knowledge resource. Current knowledge resources and semantic-aware technology make possible the integration of biomedical resources. Such an integration is performed through semantic annotation of the intended biomedical data resources. This paper shows how these annotations can be exploited for

  14. Preserved cumulative semantic interference despite amnesia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gary Michael Oppenheim

    2015-05-01

    As predicted by Oppenheim et al’s (2010 implicit incremental learning account, WRP’s BCN RTs demonstrated strong (and significant repetition priming and semantic blocking effects (Figure 1. Similar to typical results from neurally intact undergraduates, WRP took longer to name pictures presented in semantically homogeneous blocks than in heterogeneous blocks, an effect that increased with each cycle. This result challenges accounts that ascribe cumulative semantic interference in this task to explicit memory mechanisms, instead suggesting that the effect has the sort of implicit learning bases that are typically spared in hippocampal amnesia.

  15. Re-examination of Chinese semantic processing and syntactic processing: evidence from conventional ERPs and reconstructed ERPs by residue iteration decomposition (RIDE.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fang Wang

    Full Text Available A number of studies have explored the time course of Chinese semantic and syntactic processing. However, whether syntactic processing occurs earlier than semantics during Chinese sentence reading is still under debate. To further explore this issue, an event-related potentials (ERPs experiment was conducted on 21 native Chinese speakers who read individually-presented Chinese simple sentences (NP1+VP+NP2 word-by-word for comprehension and made semantic plausibility judgments. The transitivity of the verbs was manipulated to form three types of stimuli: congruent sentences (CON, sentences with a semantically violated NP2 following a transitive verb (semantic violation, SEM, and sentences with a semantically violated NP2 following an intransitive verb (combined semantic and syntactic violation, SEM+SYN. The ERPs evoked from the target NP2 were analyzed by using the Residue Iteration Decomposition (RIDE method to reconstruct the ERP waveform blurred by trial-to-trial variability, as well as by using the conventional ERP method based on stimulus-locked averaging. The conventional ERP analysis showed that, compared with the critical words in CON, those in SEM and SEM+SYN elicited an N400-P600 biphasic pattern. The N400 effects in both violation conditions were of similar size and distribution, but the P600 in SEM+SYN was bigger than that in SEM. Compared with the conventional ERP analysis, RIDE analysis revealed a larger N400 effect and an earlier P600 effect (in the time window of 500-800 ms instead of 570-810ms. Overall, the combination of conventional ERP analysis and the RIDE method for compensating for trial-to-trial variability confirmed the non-significant difference between SEM and SEM+SYN in the earlier N400 time window. Converging with previous findings on other Chinese structures, the current study provides further precise evidence that syntactic processing in Chinese does not occur earlier than semantic processing.

  16. Only time will tell - why temporal information is essential for our neuroscientific understanding of semantics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hauk, Olaf

    2016-08-01

    Theoretical developments about the nature of semantic representations and processes should be accompanied by a discussion of how these theories can be validated on the basis of empirical data. Here, I elaborate on the link between theory and empirical research, highlighting the need for temporal information in order to distinguish fundamental aspects of semantics. The generic point that fast cognitive processes demand fast measurement techniques has been made many times before, although arguably more often in the psychophysiological community than in the metabolic neuroimaging community. Many reviews on the neuroscience of semantics mostly or even exclusively focus on metabolic neuroimaging data. Following an analysis of semantics in terms of the representations and processes involved, I argue that fundamental theoretical debates about the neuroscience of semantics can only be concluded on the basis of data with sufficient temporal resolution. Any "semantic effect" may result from a conflation of long-term memory representations, retrieval and working memory processes, mental imagery, and episodic memory. This poses challenges for all neuroimaging modalities, but especially for those with low temporal resolution. It also throws doubt on the usefulness of contrasts between meaningful and meaningless stimuli, which may differ on a number of semantic and non-semantic dimensions. I will discuss the consequences of this analysis for research on the role of convergence zones or hubs and distributed modal brain networks, top-down modulation of task and context as well as interactivity between levels of the processing hierarchy, for example in the framework of predictive coding.

  17. EEG source reconstruction evidence for the noun-verb neural dissociation along semantic dimensions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Bin; Dang, Jianwu; Zhang, Gaoyan

    2017-09-17

    One of the long-standing issues in neurolinguistic research is about the neural basis of word representation, concerning whether grammatical classification or semantic difference causes the neural dissociation of brain activity patterns when processing different word categories, especially nouns and verbs. To disentangle this puzzle, four orthogonalized word categories in Chinese: unambiguous nouns (UN), unambiguous verbs (UV), ambiguous words with noun-biased semantics (AN), and ambiguous words with verb-biased semantics (AV) were adopted in an auditory task for recording electroencephalographic (EEG) signals from 128 electrodes on the scalps of twenty-two subjects. With the advanced current density reconstruction (CDR) algorithm and the constraint of standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography, the spatiotemporal brain dynamics of word processing were explored with the results that in multiple time periods including P1 (60-90ms), N1 (100-140ms), P200 (150-250ms) and N400 (350-450ms), noun-verb dissociation over the parietal-occipital and frontal-central cortices appeared not only between the UN-UV grammatical classes but also between the grammatically identical but semantically different AN-AV pairs. The apparent semantic dissociation within one grammatical class strongly suggests that the semantic difference rather than grammatical classification could be interpreted as the origin of the noun-verb neural dissociation. Our results also revealed that semantic dissociation occurs from an early stage and repeats in multiple phases, thus supporting a functionally hierarchical word processing mechanism. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Facilitation and interference in naming: A consequence of the same learning process?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hughes, Julie W; Schnur, Tatiana T

    2017-08-01

    Our success with naming depends on what we have named previously, a phenomenon thought to reflect learning processes. Repeatedly producing the same name facilitates language production (i.e., repetition priming), whereas producing semantically related names hinders subsequent performance (i.e., semantic interference). Semantic interference is found whether naming categorically related items once (continuous naming) or multiple times (blocked cyclic naming). A computational model suggests that the same learning mechanism responsible for facilitation in repetition creates semantic interference in categorical naming (Oppenheim, Dell, & Schwartz, 2010). Accordingly, we tested the predictions that variability in semantic interference is correlated across categorical naming tasks and is caused by learning, as measured by two repetition priming tasks (picture-picture repetition priming, Exp. 1; definition-picture repetition priming, Exp. 2, e.g., Wheeldon & Monsell, 1992). In Experiment 1 (77 subjects) semantic interference and repetition priming effects were robust, but the results revealed no relationship between semantic interference effects across contexts. Critically, learning (picture-picture repetition priming) did not predict semantic interference effects in either task. We replicated these results in Experiment 2 (81 subjects), finding no relationship between semantic interference effects across tasks or between semantic interference effects and learning (definition-picture repetition priming). We conclude that the changes underlying facilitatory and interfering effects inherent to lexical access are the result of distinct learning processes where multiple mechanisms contribute to semantic interference in naming. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  19. Elearning Systems Based on the Semantic Web

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    George Nicola Sammour

    2006-06-01

    Full Text Available ELearning has been identified as a strategic resource that can be utilized as an increasing variety of venues such as homes, workplaces, and traditional institutions of learning, education, and training. ELearning systems are becoming technologically sophisticated and complicated, with regard to training management or course management. Their use does not always match well with traditional modes of teaching and learning and much care needs to be taken when considering the use of ELearning in educational institutions. The use of semantic web in eLearning has been explored with regard to two application areas: 1 software that supports teachers in performing their tasks in flexible online educational settings, and 2 software that interpret the structure of distributed, self organized, and self-directed ELearning and web-based learning. The resulting system will be used by learners to perform the tasks they are asked to do more effectively in the context of gaining knowledge out of the material presented by teachers. These two application areas and related tasks require a semantic representation of educational entities and pedagogical material, specifically the structure and the techniques of the teaching-learning process. In most eLearning systems users are able to manage and reuse learning contents according to their needs without any access problems. However the quality of learning is not guaranteed. This paper emphasizes the integration of the semantic web technologies with Elearning systems, taking into consideration the standards and reusable Learning Objects LO. The advantage to improve the descriptions of content, context and structure of the learning materials and the benefits of providing access to the learning materials are also presented.

  20. Semantic and phonological coding in poor and normal readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vellutino, F R; Scanlon, D M; Spearing, D

    1995-02-01

    Three studies were conducted evaluating semantic and phonological coding deficits as alternative explanations of reading disability. In the first study, poor and normal readers in second and sixth grade were compared on various tests evaluating semantic development as well as on tests evaluating rapid naming and pseudoword decoding as independent measures of phonological coding ability. In a second study, the same subjects were given verbal memory and visual-verbal learning tasks using high and low meaning words as verbal stimuli and Chinese ideographs as visual stimuli. On the semantic tasks, poor readers performed below the level of the normal readers only at the sixth grade level, but, on the rapid naming and pseudoword learning tasks, they performed below the normal readers at the second as well as at the sixth grade level. On both the verbal memory and visual-verbal learning tasks, performance in poor readers approximated that of normal readers when the word stimuli were high in meaning but not when they were low in meaning. These patterns were essentially replicated in a third study that used some of the same semantic and phonological measures used in the first experiment, and verbal memory and visual-verbal learning tasks that employed word lists and visual stimuli (novel alphabetic characters) that more closely approximated those used in learning to read. It was concluded that semantic coding deficits are an unlikely cause of reading difficulties in most poor readers at the beginning stages of reading skills acquisition, but accrue as a consequence of prolonged reading difficulties in older readers. It was also concluded that phonological coding deficits are a probable cause of reading difficulties in most poor readers.

  1. 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

  2. Mixing positive and negative valence: Affective-semantic integration of bivalent words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuhlmann, Michael; Hofmann, Markus J; Briesemeister, Benny B; Jacobs, Arthur M

    2016-08-05

    Single words have affective and aesthetic properties that influence their processing. Here we investigated the processing of a special case of word stimuli that are extremely difficult to evaluate, bivalent noun-noun-compounds (NNCs), i.e. novel words that mix a positive and negative noun, e.g. 'Bombensex' (bomb-sex). In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment we compared their processing with easier-to-evaluate non-bivalent NNCs in a valence decision task (VDT). Bivalent NNCs produced longer reaction times and elicited greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) than non-bivalent words, especially in contrast to words of negative valence. We attribute this effect to a LIFG-grounded process of semantic integration that requires greater effort for processing converse information, supporting the notion of a valence representation based on associations in semantic networks.

  3. Lateralized direct and indirect semantic priming effects in subjects with paranormal experiences and beliefs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pizzagalli, D; Lehmann, D; Brugger, P

    2001-01-01

    The present investigation tested the hypothesis that, as an aspect of schizotypal thinking, the formation of paranormal beliefs was related to spreading activation characteristics within semantic networks. From a larger student population (n = 117) prescreened for paranormal belief, 12 strong believers and 12 strong disbelievers (all women) were invited for a lateralized semantic priming task with directly and indirectly related prime-target pairs. Believers showed stronger indirect (but not direct) semantic priming effects than disbelievers after left (but not right) visual field stimulation, indicating faster appreciation of distant semantic relations specifically by the right hemisphere, reportedly specialized in coarse rather than focused semantic processing. These results are discussed in the light of recent findings in schizophrenic patients with thought disorders. They suggest that a disinhibition with semantic networks may underlie the formation of paranormal belief. The potential usefulness of work with healthy subjects for neuropsychiatric research is stressed. Copyright 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel

  4. Modeling Views for Semantic Web Using eXtensible Semantic (XSemantic) Nets

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rajugan, R.; Chang, E.; Feng, L.; Dillon, T.; meersman, R; Tari, Z; herrero, p; Méndez, G.; Cavedon, L.; Martin, D.; Hinze, A.; Buchanan, G.

    2005-01-01

    The emergence of Semantic Web (SW) and the related technologies promise to make the web a meaningful experience. Yet, high level modeling, design and querying techniques proves to be a challenging task for organizations that are hoping utilize the SW paradigm for their industrial applications, which

  5. Congruence from the Operator's Point of View: Compositionality Requirements on Process Semantics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maciej Gazda

    2010-08-01

    Full Text Available One of the basic sanity properties of a behavioural semantics is that it constitutes a congruence with respect to standard process operators. This issue has been traditionally addressed by the development of rule formats for transition system specifications that define process algebras. In this paper we suggest a novel, orthogonal approach. Namely, we focus on a number of process operators, and for each of them attempt to find the widest possible class of congruences. To this end, we impose restrictions on sublanguages of Hennessy-Milner logic, so that a semantics whose modal characterization satisfies a given criterion is guaranteed to be a congruence with respect to the operator in question. We investigate action prefix, alternative composition, two restriction operators, and parallel composition.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  7. EEG neural oscillatory dynamics reveal semantic and response conflict at difference levels of conflict awareness

    OpenAIRE

    Jun Jiang; Qinglin Zhang; Simon Van Gaal

    2015-01-01

    Although previous work has shown that conflict can be detected in the absence of awareness, it is unknown how different sources of conflict (i.e., semantic, response) are processed in the human brain and whether these processes are differently modulated by conflict awareness. To explore this issue, we extracted oscillatory power dynamics from electroencephalographic (EEG) data recorded while human participants performed a modified version of the Stroop task. Crucially, in this task conflict a...

  8. Analysis of Semantic Networks using Complex Networks Concepts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ortiz-Arroyo, Daniel

    2013-01-01

    In this paper we perform a preliminary analysis of semantic networks to determine the most important terms that could be used to optimize a summarization task. In our experiments, we measure how the properties of a semantic network change, when the terms in the network are removed. Our preliminar...

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  10. Belief Shift or Only Facilitation: How Semantic Expectancy Affects Processing of Speech Degraded by Background Noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simeon, Katherine M; Bicknell, Klinton; Grieco-Calub, Tina M

    2018-01-01

    Individuals use semantic expectancy - applying conceptual and linguistic knowledge to speech input - to improve the accuracy and speed of language comprehension. This study tested how adults use semantic expectancy in quiet and in the presence of speech-shaped broadband noise at -7 and -12 dB signal-to-noise ratio. Twenty-four adults (22.1 ± 3.6 years, mean ± SD ) were tested on a four-alternative-forced-choice task whereby they listened to sentences and were instructed to select an image matching the sentence-final word. The semantic expectancy of the sentences was unrelated to (neutral), congruent with, or conflicting with the acoustic target. Congruent expectancy improved accuracy and conflicting expectancy decreased accuracy relative to neutral, consistent with a theory where expectancy shifts beliefs toward likely words and away from unlikely words. Additionally, there were no significant interactions of expectancy and noise level when analyzed in log-odds, supporting the predictions of ideal observer models of speech perception.

  11. Comparison between Phonological Priming and Semantic Priming in the Short Verbal Memory Span in Male 18-25

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Davood Sobhani Rad

    2007-06-01

    Full Text Available Background and Aim: The short-term memory (STM has been studied to a great extent so far. Using some strategies and techniques to help the subject to access to his/her memory is important for Speech pathologist. Priming is a process that increases the chance of accessing to some information of memory by means of some simulations. So, primings are some words which facilitate the retrieval of the target words. The purpose of this study is comparing phonological and semantic priming on the short verbal memory span.Materials and Methods: The research was conducted on sixty-four 18-25 year-old male students in Tehran University of Medical sciences. Due to some distortion factors, including bilingualism, stutter-ing, and articulation problem, that can effect the reaction time, were determined as exclusion critenia. In additiion, subjects with difficulty in Wepman auditory discrimination were ruled out. The test was performed via the second version of programmed DMDX software and reaction time was recorded.Results: Semantic tasks and rhyming tasks were retrieved faster than the other tasks in lexical access respectively. There was a significant difference between the semantic and rime tasks but there is no significant difference between alliteration and unrelated tasks.Conclusion: The result of this research indicates that the semantic level is activated faster than the other levels and the phonological level is activated right after that. The alliteration level is the last level that activated. It has some similarities with some other investigations on the reaction time in phono-logical tasks.

  12. Using semantic memory to boost 'episodic' recall in a case of developmental amnesia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brandt, Karen R; Gardiner, John M; Vargha-Khadem, Faraneh; Baddeley, Alan D; Mishkin, Mortimer

    2006-07-17

    We report two experiments that investigated factors that might boost 'episodic' recall for Jon, a developmental amnesic whose episodic memory is gravely impaired but whose semantic memory seems relatively normal. Experiment 1 showed that Jon's recall improved following a semantic study task compared with a non-semantic study task, as well as following four repeated study trials compared with only one. Experiment 2 additionally revealed that Jon's recall improved after acting compared with reading action phrases at study, but only if the phrases were well integrated semantically. The results provide some support for the hypothesis that Jon's 'episodic' recall depends on the extent to which he is able to retrieve events using semantic memory.

  13. Cerebral activation during Chinese semantic associative task in Xinjiang' Uyghurs: a functional MRI study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang Lixia; Jia Wenxiao; Tang Weijun; Wang Hong; Ding Shuang; Wang Hao

    2010-01-01

    Objective: To explore the cerebral activation in Xinjiang' Uyghurs when performing a Chinese word tasks by the functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI). Methods: Twenty-one healthy Xinjiang' Uyghurs and 11 healthy Hans were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on a 1.5 T MRI scanner with a single run. Different Chinese words were displayed in each block to avoid any practice effect. SPM5.0 software was used for image data processing. To evaluate the inter subject consistency of brain activations associated with Chinese character and word reading, we created penetrance maps by combining binary individual functional maps. Results: For Uyghur-Chinese bilingual subjects, activations related to generated a word that was semantically related to each stimulus. The results indicated that reading Chinese is characterized by extensive activity of the neural systems. Peak activations occurred in the left middle frontal cortex at Brodmann Areas (BA9 and BA47). The left temporal (BA37) cortices were also strongly activated. Other important activated areas included bilateral visual systems (BA17-19) and cerebellum. The location of peak activation in the left frontal regions was similar in Native Uyghurs and Hans. But the active areas in Uyghurs are more extensive than that of Hans. Conclusions: The location of peak activation in the left frontal regions was similar in Native Uyghurs and Hans. More brain areas were needed for Xinjiang' Uyghur speakers during processing Chinese words. (authors)

  14. What Klein’s semantic gradient does and does not really show: decomposing Stroop interference into task and informational conflict components

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yulia eLevin

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available The present study suggests that the idea that Stroop interference originates from multiple components may gain theoretically from integrating two independent frameworks. The first framework is represented by the well-known notion of semantic gradient of interference and the second one is the distinction between two types of conflict – the task and the informational conflict – giving rise to the interference (Goldfarb & Henik, 2007; McLeod & MacDonald, 2000. The proposed integration led to the conclusion that two (i.e., orthographic and lexical components of the four theoretically distinct components represent task conflict, and the other two (i.e., indirect and direct informational conflict components represent informational conflict. The four components were independently estimated in a series of experiments. The results confirmed the contribution of task conflict (estimated by a robust orthographic component and of informational conflict (estimated by a strong direct informational conflict component to Stroop interference. However, the performed critical review of the relevant literature (see General Discussion, as well as the results of the experiments reported, showed that the other two components expressing each type of conflict (i.e., the lexical component of task conflict and the indirect informational conflict were small, and unstable. The present analysis refines our knowledge of the origins of Stroop interference by providing evidence that each type of conflict has its major and minor contributions. The implications for cognitive control of an automatic reading process are also discussed.

  15. Auditory Distraction in Semantic Memory: A Process-Based Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    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,…

  16. A rigorous semantics for BPMN 2.0 process diagrams

    CERN Document Server

    Kossak, Felix; Geist, Verena; Kubovy, Jan; Natschläger, Christine; Ziebermayr, Thomas; Kopetzky, Theodorich; Freudenthaler, Bernhard; Schewe, Klaus-Dieter

    2015-01-01

    This book provides the most complete formal specification of the semantics of the Business Process Model and Notation 2.0 standard (BPMN) available to date, in a style that is easily understandable for a wide range of readers - not only for experts in formal methods, but e.g. also for developers of modeling tools, software architects, or graduate students specializing in business process management. BPMN - issued by the Object Management Group - is a widely used standard for business process modeling. However, major drawbacks of BPMN include its limited support for organizational modeling, i

  17. Extracting semantic representations from word co-occurrence statistics: stop-lists, stemming, and SVD.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bullinaria, John A; Levy, Joseph P

    2012-09-01

    In a previous article, we presented a systematic computational study of the extraction of semantic representations from the word-word co-occurrence statistics of large text corpora. The conclusion was that semantic vectors of pointwise mutual information values from very small co-occurrence windows, together with a cosine distance measure, consistently resulted in the best representations across a range of psychologically relevant semantic tasks. This article extends that study by investigating the use of three further factors--namely, the application of stop-lists, word stemming, and dimensionality reduction using singular value decomposition (SVD)--that have been used to provide improved performance elsewhere. It also introduces an additional semantic task and explores the advantages of using a much larger corpus. This leads to the discovery and analysis of improved SVD-based methods for generating semantic representations (that provide new state-of-the-art performance on a standard TOEFL task) and the identification and discussion of problems and misleading results that can arise without a full systematic study.

  18. Semantic Categorization and Reading Skill across Dutch Primary Grades: Development Yes, Relationship No

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gijsel, Martine A. R.; Ormel, Ellen A.; Hermans, Daan; Verhoeven, L.; Bosman, Anna M. T.

    2011-01-01

    In the present study, the development of semantic categorization and its relationship with reading was investigated across Dutch primary grade students. Three Exemplar-level tasks (Experiment 1) and two Superordinate-level tasks (Experiment 2) with different types of distracters (phonological, semantic and perceptual) were administered to assess…

  19. The neural substrates of semantic memory deficits in early Alzheimer's disease: Clues from semantic priming effects and FDG-PET

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Giffard, B.; Laisney, M.; Mezenge, F.; De la Sayette, V.; Eustache, F.; Desgranges, B.

    2008-01-01

    The neural substrates responsible for semantic dysfunction during the early stages of AD have yet to be clearly identified. After a brief overview of the literature on normal and pathological semantic memory, we describe a new approach, designed to provide fresh insights into semantic deficits in AD. We mapped the correlations between resting-state brain glucose utilisation measured by FDG-PET and semantic priming scores in a group of 17 AD patients. The priming task, which yields a particularly pure measurement of semantic memory, was composed of related pairs of words sharing an attribute relationship (e.g. tiger-stripe). The priming scores correlated positively with the metabolism of the superior temporal areas on both sides, especially the right side, and this correlation was shown to be specific to the semantic priming effect.This pattern of results is discussed in the light of recent theoretical models of semantic memory, and suggests that a dysfunction of the right superior temporal cortex may contribute to early semantic deficits, characterised by the loss of specific features of concepts in AD. (authors)

  20. Effects of age on cognitive control during semantic categorization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mudar, Raksha A; Chiang, Hsueh-Sheng; Maguire, Mandy J; Spence, Jeffrey S; Eroh, Justin; Kraut, Michael A; Hart, John

    2015-01-01

    We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to study age effects of perceptual (basic-level) vs. perceptual-semantic (superordinate-level) categorization on cognitive control using the go/nogo paradigm. Twenty-two younger (11 M; 21 ± 2.2 years) and 22 older adults (9 M; 63 ± 5.8 years) completed two visual go/nogo tasks. In the single-car task (SiC) (basic), go/nogo responses were made based on single exemplars of a car (go) and a dog (nogo). In the object animal task (ObA) (superordinate), responses were based on multiple exemplars of objects (go) and animals (nogo). Each task consisted of 200 trials: 160 (80%) 'go' trials that required a response through button pressing and 40 (20%) 'nogo' trials that required inhibition/withholding of a response. ERP data revealed significantly reduced nogo-N2 and nogo-P3 amplitudes in older compared to younger adults, whereas go-N2 and go-P3 amplitudes were comparable in both groups during both categorization tasks. Although the effects of categorization levels on behavioral data and P3 measures were similar in both groups with longer response times, lower accuracy scores, longer P3 latencies, and lower P3 amplitudes in ObA compared to SiC, N2 latency revealed age group differences moderated by the task. Older adults had longer N2 latency for ObA compared to SiC, in contrast, younger adults showed no N2 latency difference between SiC and ObA. Overall, these findings suggest that age differentially affects neural processing related to cognitive control during semantic categorization. Furthermore, in older adults, unlike in younger adults, levels of categorization modulate neural processing related to cognitive control even at the early stages (N2). Published by Elsevier B.V.

  1. Retrieval from semantic memory.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Noordman-Vonk, Wietske

    1977-01-01

    The present study has been concerned with the retrieval of semantic information. Retrieving semantic information is a fundamental process in almost any kind of cognitive behavior. The introduction presented the main experimental paradigms and results found in the literature on semantic memory as

  2. How Chinese Semantics Capability Improves Interpretation in Visual Communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheng, Chu-Yu; Ou, Yang-Kun; Kin, Ching-Lung

    2017-01-01

    A visual representation involves delivering messages through visually communicated images. The study assumed that semantic recognition can affect visual interpretation ability, and the result showed that students graduating from a general high school achieve satisfactory results in semantic recognition and image interpretation tasks than students…

  3. Learning semantic histopathological representation for basal cell carcinoma classification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gutiérrez, Ricardo; Rueda, Andrea; Romero, Eduardo

    2013-03-01

    Diagnosis of a histopathology glass slide is a complex process that involves accurate recognition of several structures, their function in the tissue and their relation with other structures. The way in which the pathologist represents the image content and the relations between those objects yields a better and accurate diagnoses. Therefore, an appropriate semantic representation of the image content will be useful in several analysis tasks such as cancer classification, tissue retrieval and histopahological image analysis, among others. Nevertheless, to automatically recognize those structures and extract their inner semantic meaning are still very challenging tasks. In this paper we introduce a new semantic representation that allows to describe histopathological concepts suitable for classification. The approach herein identify local concepts using a dictionary learning approach, i.e., the algorithm learns the most representative atoms from a set of random sampled patches, and then models the spatial relations among them by counting the co-occurrence between atoms, while penalizing the spatial distance. The proposed approach was compared with a bag-of-features representation in a tissue classification task. For this purpose, 240 histological microscopical fields of view, 24 per tissue class, were collected. Those images fed a Support Vector Machine classifier per class, using 120 images as train set and the remaining ones for testing, maintaining the same proportion of each concept in the train and test sets. The obtained classification results, averaged from 100 random partitions of training and test sets, shows that our approach is more sensitive in average than the bag-of-features representation in almost 6%.

  4. Context-sensitive grapheme-phoneme conversion rules impairment in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  5. A remember-know analysis of the semantic serial position function.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelley, Matthew R; Neath, Ian; Surprenant, Aimée M

    2014-01-01

    Did the serial position functions observed in certain semantic memory tasks (e.g., remembering the order of books or films) arise because they really tapped episodic memory? To address this issue, participants were asked to make "remember-know" judgments as they reconstructed the release order of the 7 Harry Potter books and 2 sets of movies. For both classes of stimuli, the "remember" and "know" serial position functions were indistinguishable, and all showed the characteristic U-shape with marked primacy and recency effects. These results are inconsistent with a multiple memory systems view, which predicts recency effects only for "remember" responses and no recency effects for "know" responses. However, the data were consistent with a general memory principle account: the relative distinctiveness principle. According to this view, performance on both episodic and semantic memory tasks arises from the same type of processing: Items that are more separated from their close neighbors in psychological space at the time of recall will be better remembered.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  9. A trade-off between local and distributed information processing associated with remote episodic versus semantic memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heisz, Jennifer J; Vakorin, Vasily; Ross, Bernhard; Levine, Brian; McIntosh, Anthony R

    2014-01-01

    Episodic memory and semantic memory produce very different subjective experiences yet rely on overlapping networks of brain regions for processing. Traditional approaches for characterizing functional brain networks emphasize static states of function and thus are blind to the dynamic information processing within and across brain regions. This study used information theoretic measures of entropy to quantify changes in the complexity of the brain's response as measured by magnetoencephalography while participants listened to audio recordings describing past personal episodic and general semantic events. Personal episodic recordings evoked richer subjective mnemonic experiences and more complex brain responses than general semantic recordings. Critically, we observed a trade-off between the relative contribution of local versus distributed entropy, such that personal episodic recordings produced relatively more local entropy whereas general semantic recordings produced relatively more distributed entropy. Changes in the relative contributions of local and distributed entropy to the total complexity of the system provides a potential mechanism that allows the same network of brain regions to represent cognitive information as either specific episodes or more general semantic knowledge.

  10. The semantic category-based grouping in the Multiple Identity Tracking task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wei, Liuqing; Zhang, Xuemin; Li, Zhen; Liu, Jingyao

    2018-01-01

    In the Multiple Identity Tracking (MIT) task, categorical distinctions between targets and distractors have been found to facilitate tracking (Wei, Zhang, Lyu, & Li in Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 589, 2016). The purpose of this study was to further investigate the reasons for the facilitation effect, through six experiments. The results of Experiments 1-3 excluded the potential explanations of visual distinctiveness, attentional distribution strategy, and a working memory mechanism, respectively. When objects' visual information was preserved and categorical information was removed, the facilitation effect disappeared, suggesting that the visual distinctiveness between targets and distractors was not the main reason for the facilitation effect. Moreover, the facilitation effect was not the result of strategically shifting the attentional distribution, because the targets received more attention than the distractors in all conditions. Additionally, the facilitation effect did not come about because the identities of targets were encoded and stored in visual working memory to assist in the recovery from tracking errors; when working memory was disturbed by the object identities changing during tracking, the facilitation effect still existed. Experiments 4 and 5 showed that observers grouped targets together and segregated them from distractors on the basis of their categorical information. By doing this, observers could largely avoid distractor interference with tracking and improve tracking performance. Finally, Experiment 6 indicated that category-based grouping is not an automatic, but a goal-directed and effortful, strategy. In summary, the present findings show that a semantic category-based target-grouping mechanism exists in the MIT task, which is likely to be the major reason for the tracking facilitation effect.

  11. Learning Semantic Segmentation with Diverse Supervision

    OpenAIRE

    Ye, Linwei; Liu, Zhi; Wang, Yang

    2018-01-01

    Models based on deep convolutional neural networks (CNN) have significantly improved the performance of semantic segmentation. However, learning these models requires a large amount of training images with pixel-level labels, which are very costly and time-consuming to collect. In this paper, we propose a method for learning CNN-based semantic segmentation models from images with several types of annotations that are available for various computer vision tasks, including image-level labels fo...

  12. Simultaneous Processing of Noun Cue and to-be-Produced Verb in Verb Generation Task: Electromagnetic Evidence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna V. Butorina

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available A long-standing but implicit assumption is that words strongly associated with a presented cue are automatically activated in the memory through rapid spread of activation within brain semantic networks. The current study was aimed to provide direct evidence of such rapid access to words’ semantic representations and to investigate its neural sources using magnetoencephalography (MEG and distributed source localization technique. Thirty-three neurotypical subjects underwent the MEG recording during verb generation task, which was to produce verbs related to the presented noun cues. Brain responses evoked by the noun cues were examined while manipulating the strength of association between the noun and the potential verb responses. The strong vs. weak noun-verb association led to a greater noun-related neural response at 250–400 ms after cue onset, and faster verb production. The cortical sources of the differential response were localized in left temporal pole, previously implicated in semantic access, and left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC, thought to subserve controlled semantic retrieval. The strength of the left VLPFC’s response to the nouns with strong verb associates was positively correlated to the speed of verbs production. Our findings empirically validate the theoretical expectation that in case of a strongly connected noun-verb pair, successful access to target verb representation may occur already at the stage of lexico-semantic analysis of the presented noun. Moreover, the MEG results suggest that contrary to the previous conclusion derived from fMRI studies left VLPFC supports selection of the target verb representations, even if they were retrieved from semantic memory rapidly and effortlessly. The discordance between MEG and fMRI findings in verb generation task may stem from different modes of neural activation captured by phase-locked activity in MEG and slow changes of blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD signal

  13. Hybrid Semantic Analysis for Mapping Adverse Drug Reaction Mentions in Tweets to Medical Terminology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Emadzadeh, Ehsan; Sarker, Abeed; Nikfarjam, Azadeh; Gonzalez, Graciela

    2017-01-01

    Social networks, such as Twitter, have become important sources for active monitoring of user-reported adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Automatic extraction of ADR information can be crucial for healthcare providers, drug manufacturers, and consumers. However, because of the non-standard nature of social media language, automatically extracted ADR mentions need to be mapped to standard forms before they can be used by operational pharmacovigilance systems. We propose a modular natural language processing pipeline for mapping (normalizing) colloquial mentions of ADRs to their corresponding standardized identifiers. We seek to accomplish this task and enable customization of the pipeline so that distinct unlabeled free text resources can be incorporated to use the system for other normalization tasks. Our approach, which we call Hybrid Semantic Analysis (HSA), sequentially employs rule-based and semantic matching algorithms for mapping user-generated mentions to concept IDs in the Unified Medical Language System vocabulary. The semantic matching component of HSA is adaptive in nature and uses a regression model to combine various measures of semantic relatedness and resources to optimize normalization performance on the selected data source. On a publicly available corpus, our normalization method achieves 0.502 recall and 0.823 precision (F-measure: 0.624). Our proposed method outperforms a baseline based on latent semantic analysis and another that uses MetaMap.

  14. A Familiar Pattern? Semantic Memory Contributes to the Enhancement of Visuo-Spatial Memories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riby, Leigh M.; Orme, Elizabeth

    2013-01-01

    In this study we quantify for the first time electrophysiological components associated with incorporating long-term semantic knowledge with visuo-spatial information using two variants of a traditional matrix patterns task. Results indicated that the matrix task with greater semantic content was associated with enhanced accuracy and RTs in a…

  15. Semantic modeling and interoperability in product and process engineering a technology for engineering informatics

    CERN Document Server

    2013-01-01

    In the past decade, feature-based design and manufacturing has gained some momentum in various engineering domains to represent and reuse semantic patterns with effective applicability. However, the actual scope of feature application is still very limited. Semantic Modeling and Interoperability in Product and Process Engineering provides a systematic solution for the challenging engineering informatics field aiming at the enhancement of sustainable knowledge representation, implementation and reuse in an open and yet practically manageable scale.   This semantic modeling technology supports uniform, multi-facet and multi-level collaborative system engineering with heterogeneous computer-aided tools, such as CADCAM, CAE, and ERP.  This presented unified feature model can be applied to product and process representation, development, implementation and management. Practical case studies and test samples are provided to illustrate applications which can be implemented by the readers in real-world scenarios. �...

  16. Through the eye of the PLC: semantic security monitoring for industrial processes

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hadziosmanovic, D.; Sommer, Robin; Zambon, Emmanuele; Hartel, Pieter H.

    2014-01-01

    Off-the-shelf intrusion detection systems prove an ill fit for protecting industrial control systems, as they do not take their process semantics into account. Specifically, current systems fail to detect recent process control attacks that manifest as unauthorized changes to the configuration of a

  17. Congruence from the operator's point of view: compositionality requirements on process semantics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gazda, M.; Fokkink, W.J.

    2010-01-01

    One of the basic sanity properties of a behavioural semantics is that it constitutes a congruence with respect to standard process operators. This issue has been traditionally addressed by the development of rule formats for transition system specifications that define process algebras. In this

  18. Congruence from the operator's point of view : compositionality requirements on process semantics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gazda, M.W.; Fokkink, W.J.; Aceto, L.; Sobocinski, P.

    2010-01-01

    One of the basic sanity properties of a behavioural semantics is that it constitutes a congruence with respect to standard process operators. This issue has been traditionally addressed by the development of rule formats for transition system specifications that define process algebras. In this

  19. Neural correlates of concreteness in semantic categorization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pexman, Penny M; Hargreaves, Ian S; Edwards, Jodi D; Henry, Luke C; Goodyear, Bradley G

    2007-08-01

    In some contexts, concrete words (CARROT) are recognized and remembered more readily than abstract words (TRUTH). This concreteness effect has historically been explained by two theories of semantic representation: dual-coding [Paivio, A. Dual coding theory: Retrospect and current status. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 45, 255-287, 1991] and context-availability [Schwanenflugel, P. J. Why are abstract concepts hard to understand? In P. J. Schwanenflugel (Ed.), The psychology of word meanings (pp. 223-250). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1991]. Past efforts to adjudicate between these theories using functional magnetic resonance imaging have produced mixed results. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we reexamined this issue with a semantic categorization task that allowed for uniform semantic judgments of concrete and abstract words. The participants were 20 healthy adults. Functional analyses contrasted activation associated with concrete and abstract meanings of ambiguous and unambiguous words. Results showed that for both ambiguous and unambiguous words, abstract meanings were associated with more widespread cortical activation than concrete meanings in numerous regions associated with semantic processing, including temporal, parietal, and frontal cortices. These results are inconsistent with both dual-coding and context-availability theories, as these theories propose that the representations of abstract concepts are relatively impoverished. Our results suggest, instead, that semantic retrieval of abstract concepts involves a network of association areas. We argue that this finding is compatible with a theory of semantic representation such as Barsalou's [Barsalou, L. W. Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 22, 577-660, 1999] perceptual symbol systems, whereby concrete and abstract concepts are represented by similar mechanisms but with differences in focal content.

  20. A Semantic Approach to Cross-Disciplinary Research Collaboration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laurens De Vocht

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available The latest developments in ICT, more specifically Social Media and Web 2.0 tools, facilitate the use of online services in research and education. This is also known as Research 2.0 and Technology Enhanced Learning. Web 2.0 tools are especially useful in cases where experts from different disciplines want to collaborate. We suggest an integrated method that embeds these services in research and learning processes, because it is a laborious task for researchers and learners to check and use all varying types of tools and services. We explain a flexible model that uses state-of-the-art semantic technologies to model both structured and unstructured research data. The research data is extracted from many online resources and Social Media. We implement learning objects as an abstraction of the semantically modeled research data. We propose an environment that improves the scientific research and learning process by allowing researchers to efficiently browse the information and concepts represented as learning objects.

  1. Shielding voices: The modulation of binding processes between voice features and response features by task representations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bogon, Johanna; Eisenbarth, Hedwig; Landgraf, Steffen; Dreisbach, Gesine

    2017-09-01

    Vocal events offer not only semantic-linguistic content but also information about the identity and the emotional-motivational state of the speaker. Furthermore, most vocal events have implications for our actions and therefore include action-related features. But the relevance and irrelevance of vocal features varies from task to task. The present study investigates binding processes for perceptual and action-related features of spoken words and their modulation by the task representation of the listener. Participants reacted with two response keys to eight different words spoken by a male or a female voice (Experiment 1) or spoken by an angry or neutral male voice (Experiment 2). There were two instruction conditions: half of participants learned eight stimulus-response mappings by rote (SR), and half of participants applied a binary task rule (TR). In both experiments, SR instructed participants showed clear evidence for binding processes between voice and response features indicated by an interaction between the irrelevant voice feature and the response. By contrast, as indicated by a three-way interaction with instruction, no such binding was found in the TR instructed group. These results are suggestive of binding and shielding as two adaptive mechanisms that ensure successful communication and action in a dynamic social environment.

  2. Hippocampal activation during episodic and semantic memory retrieval: comparing category production and category cued recall.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ryan, Lee; Cox, Christine; Hayes, Scott M; Nadel, Lynn

    2008-01-01

    Whether or not the hippocampus participates in semantic memory retrieval has been the focus of much debate in the literature. However, few neuroimaging studies have directly compared hippocampal activation during semantic and episodic retrieval tasks that are well matched in all respects other than the source of the retrieved information. In Experiment 1, we compared hippocampal fMRI activation during a classic semantic memory task, category production, and an episodic version of the same task, category cued recall. Left hippocampal activation was observed in both episodic and semantic conditions, although other regions of the brain clearly distinguished the two tasks. Interestingly, participants reported using retrieval strategies during the semantic retrieval task that relied on autobiographical and spatial information; for example, visualizing themselves in their kitchen while producing items for the category kitchen utensils. In Experiment 2, we considered whether the use of these spatial and autobiographical retrieval strategies could have accounted for the hippocampal activation observed in Experiment 1. Categories were presented that elicited one of three retrieval strategy types, autobiographical and spatial, autobiographical and nonspatial, and neither autobiographical nor spatial. Once again, similar hippocampal activation was observed for all three category types, regardless of the inclusion of spatial or autobiographical content. We conclude that the distinction between semantic and episodic memory is more complex than classic memory models suggest.

  3. Actively learning human gaze shifting paths for semantics-aware photo cropping.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Luming; Gao, Yue; Ji, Rongrong; Xia, Yingjie; Dai, Qionghai; Li, Xuelong

    2014-05-01

    Photo cropping is a widely used tool in printing industry, photography, and cinematography. Conventional cropping models suffer from the following three challenges. First, the deemphasized role of semantic contents that are many times more important than low-level features in photo aesthetics. Second, the absence of a sequential ordering in the existing models. In contrast, humans look at semantically important regions sequentially when viewing a photo. Third, the difficulty of leveraging inputs from multiple users. Experience from multiple users is particularly critical in cropping as photo assessment is quite a subjective task. To address these challenges, this paper proposes semantics-aware photo cropping, which crops a photo by simulating the process of humans sequentially perceiving semantically important regions of a photo. We first project the local features (graphlets in this paper) onto the semantic space, which is constructed based on the category information of the training photos. An efficient learning algorithm is then derived to sequentially select semantically representative graphlets of a photo, and the selecting process can be interpreted by a path, which simulates humans actively perceiving semantics in a photo. Furthermore, we learn a prior distribution of such active graphlet paths from training photos that are marked as aesthetically pleasing by multiple users. The learned priors enforce the corresponding active graphlet path of a test photo to be maximally similar to those from the training photos. Experimental results show that: 1) the active graphlet path accurately predicts human gaze shifting, and thus is more indicative for photo aesthetics than conventional saliency maps and 2) the cropped photos produced by our approach outperform its competitors in both qualitative and quantitative comparisons.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  5. One Size Does Not Fit All: Face Emotion Processing Impairments in Semantic Dementia, Behavioural-Variant Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer?s Disease Are Mediated by Distinct Cognitive Deficits

    OpenAIRE

    Miller, Laurie A.; Hsieh, Sharpley; Lah, Suncica; Savage, Sharon; Hodges, John R.; Piguet, Olivier

    2011-01-01

    Patients with frontotemporal dementia (both behavioural variant [bvFTD] and semantic dementia [SD]) as well as those with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show deficits on tests of face emotion processing, yet the mechanisms underlying these deficits have rarely been explored. We compared groups of patients with bvFTD (n = 17), SD (n = 12) or AD (n = 20) to an age- and education-matched group of healthy control subjects (n = 36) on three face emotion processing tasks (Ekman 60, Emotion Matching and E...

  6. Automatic processing of semantic relations in fMRI: neural activation during semantic priming of taxonomic and thematic categories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sachs, Olga; Weis, Susanne; Zellagui, Nadia; Huber, Walter; Zvyagintsev, Mikhail; Mathiak, Klaus; Kircher, Tilo

    2008-07-07

    Most current models of knowledge organization are based on hierarchical or taxonomic categories (animals, tools). Another important organizational pattern is thematic categorization, i.e. categories held together by external relations, a unifying scene or event (car and garage). The goal of this study was to compare the neural correlates of these categories under automatic processing conditions that minimize strategic influences. We used fMRI to examine neural correlates of semantic priming for category members with a short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 200 ms as subjects performed a lexical decision task. Four experimental conditions were compared: thematically related words (car-garage); taxonomically related (car-bus); unrelated (car-spoon); non-word trials (car-derf). We found faster reaction times for related than for unrelated prime-target pairs for both thematic and taxonomic categories. However, the size of the thematic priming effect was greater than that of the taxonomic. The imaging data showed signal changes for the taxonomic priming effects in the right precuneus, postcentral gyrus, middle frontal and superior frontal gyri and thematic priming effects in the right middle frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate. The contrast of neural priming effects showed larger signal changes in the right precuneus associated with the taxonomic but not with thematic priming response. We suggest that the greater involvement of precuneus in the processing of taxonomic relations indicates their reduced salience in the knowledge structure compared to more prominent thematic relations.

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

    OpenAIRE

    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 le...

  8. A semantic perspective on query log analysis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hofmann, K.; de Rijke, M.; Huurnink, B.; Meij, E.

    2009-01-01

    We present our views on the CLEF log file analysis task. We argue for a task definition that focuses on the semantic enrichment of query logs. In addition, we discuss how additional information about the context in which queries are being made could further our understanding of users’ information

  9. Co-speech gestures influence neural activity in brain regions associated with processing semantic information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dick, Anthony Steven; Goldin-Meadow, Susan; Hasson, Uri; Skipper, Jeremy I; Small, Steven L

    2009-11-01

    Everyday communication is accompanied by visual information from several sources, including co-speech gestures, which provide semantic information listeners use to help disambiguate the speaker's message. Using fMRI, we examined how gestures influence neural activity in brain regions associated with processing semantic information. The BOLD response was recorded while participants listened to stories under three audiovisual conditions and one auditory-only (speech alone) condition. In the first audiovisual condition, the storyteller produced gestures that naturally accompany speech. In the second, the storyteller made semantically unrelated hand movements. In the third, the storyteller kept her hands still. In addition to inferior parietal and posterior superior and middle temporal regions, bilateral posterior superior temporal sulcus and left anterior inferior frontal gyrus responded more strongly to speech when it was further accompanied by gesture, regardless of the semantic relation to speech. However, the right inferior frontal gyrus was sensitive to the semantic import of the hand movements, demonstrating more activity when hand movements were semantically unrelated to the accompanying speech. These findings show that perceiving hand movements during speech modulates the distributed pattern of neural activation involved in both biological motion perception and discourse comprehension, suggesting listeners attempt to find meaning, not only in the words speakers produce, but also in the hand movements that accompany speech.

  10. Multimodal Sensor-Based Semantic 3D Mapping for a Large-Scale Environment

    OpenAIRE

    Jeong, Jongmin; Yoon, Tae Sung; Park, Jin Bae

    2018-01-01

    Semantic 3D mapping is one of the most important fields in robotics, and has been used in many applications, such as robot navigation, surveillance, and virtual reality. In general, semantic 3D mapping is mainly composed of 3D reconstruction and semantic segmentation. As these technologies evolve, there has been great progress in semantic 3D mapping in recent years. Furthermore, the number of robotic applications requiring semantic information in 3D mapping to perform high-level tasks has inc...

  11. Semantics of probabilistic processes an operational approach

    CERN Document Server

    Deng, Yuxin

    2015-01-01

    This book discusses the semantic foundations of concurrent systems with nondeterministic and probabilistic behaviour. Particular attention is given to clarifying the relationship between testing and simulation semantics and characterising bisimulations from metric, logical, and algorithmic perspectives. Besides presenting recent research outcomes in probabilistic concurrency theory, the book exemplifies the use of many mathematical techniques to solve problems in computer science, which is intended to be accessible to postgraduate students in Computer Science and Mathematics. It can also be us

  12. The neural substrates of semantic memory deficits in early Alzheimer's disease: Clues from semantic priming effects and FDG-PET

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Giffard, B.; Laisney, M.; Mezenge, F.; De la Sayette, V.; Eustache, F.; Desgranges, B. [Univ Caen Basse Normandie, INSERM, U923, Unite Rech, EPHE, Lab Neuropsychol, CHU Cote Nacre, GIP Cyceron, F-14033 Caen (France)

    2008-07-01

    The neural substrates responsible for semantic dysfunction during the early stages of AD have yet to be clearly identified. After a brief overview of the literature on normal and pathological semantic memory, we describe a new approach, designed to provide fresh insights into semantic deficits in AD. We mapped the correlations between resting-state brain glucose utilisation measured by FDG-PET and semantic priming scores in a group of 17 AD patients. The priming task, which yields a particularly pure measurement of semantic memory, was composed of related pairs of words sharing an attribute relationship (e.g. tiger-stripe). The priming scores correlated positively with the metabolism of the superior temporal areas on both sides, especially the right side, and this correlation was shown to be specific to the semantic priming effect.This pattern of results is discussed in the light of recent theoretical models of semantic memory, and suggests that a dysfunction of the right superior temporal cortex may contribute to early semantic deficits, characterised by the loss of specific features of concepts in AD. (authors)

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  16. Interdiscursive Character of Semantic Development of Coreferential Metaphors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Мансур Фарвазович Гайнаншин

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to establishing the character of semantic development involving coreferential metaphors in interdiscursive space. The solution of this problem is aimed at determining semantic relations between different links in chains made up by a number of coreferential metaphors that share the property of variant imagery nomination. The task is implemented within the boundaries of an interdiscourse viewed as a minimum cultural associative context. Empirical data have been drawn from financial and economic texts in electronic and online versions of leading English mass media resources. The meanings of key language units that underlie metaphoric designations of economic notions are clarified with the help of general English language dictionaries and culturological reference books. The analysis of selected examples is carried out based on componential, contextual, discursive, pragmatic analyses and procedures of semantic interpretation supplemented by linguaculturological methods. The investigation allows us to draw the following conclusions: semantic development of coreferential metaphors occurs on two levels: between variant imagery nominations within metaphorical chains M1 + M2 + M3 + ... Мn and between the head metaphor and submetaphors M1 ® ma + mb + mc +... mn; it has proved the role of interdiscursive contextual relations between metaphors having the same type of reference; it has shown the participation of imagery nominations within coreferential chains in the process of sense profiling; it has demonstrated intensification of semantic tension resulting from metaphoric density in coreferential blocks signaling greater synergetic effect produced on the reader.

  17. Brain and behavioural correlates of action semantic deficits in autism.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  18. The role of medial temporal lobe in retrieving spatial and nonspatial relations from episodic and semantic memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ryan, Lee; Lin, Chun-Yu; Ketcham, Katie; Nadel, Lynn

    2010-01-01

    This study examined the involvement of medial temporal lobe, especially the hippocampus, in processing spatial and nonspatial relations using episodic and semantic versions of a relational judgment task. Participants studied object arrays and were tested on different types of relations between pairs of objects. Three prevalent views of hippocampal function were considered. Cognitive map theory (O'Keefe and Nadel (1978) The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map. USA: Oxford University Press) emphasizes hippocampal involvement in spatial relational tasks. Multiple trace theory (Nadel and Moscovitch (1997) Memory consolidation, retrograde amnesia and the hippocampal complex Curr Opin Neurobiol 7:217-227) emphasizes hippocampal involvement in episodic tasks. Eichenbaum and Cohen's ((2001) From Conditioning to Conscious Recollection: Memory Systems of the Brain. USA: Oxford University Press) relational theory predicts equivalent hippocampal involvement in all relational tasks within both semantic and episodic memory. The fMRI results provided partial support for all three theories, though none of them fit the data perfectly. We observed hippocampal activation during all relational tasks, with increased activation for spatial compared to nonspatial relations, and for episodic compared to semantic relations. The placement of activation along the anterior-posterior axis of the hippocampus also differentiated the conditions. We suggest a view of hippocampal function in memory that incorporates aspects of all three theories. Copyright 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

  19. Students Thinking Process in Compiling Mathematical Proof with Semantics Strategy

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    Abdussakir Abdussakir

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Proses Berpikir Mahasiswa dalam Menyusun Bukti Matematis dengan Strategi Semantik   Abstract: This study is aimed to reveal the thinking process in proof construction performed by students with semantic strategy. This study use descriptive-qualitative approach. The thinking process of students will be analyzed using theoretical framework of David Tall about the three worlds of mathematical thinking. The result are three ways of thinking in semantic strategy, namely (1 started from formal world  then move into the symbolic or embodied-symbolic world with possibility of more than once and ends within or outside of the formal world, (2 started from symbolic world or embodied-symbolic world then move to the formal world with possibility of more than once and ends within or outside of the formal world, and (3 all thinking processes performed outside of formal world that does not obtain formal proof. Key Words: thinking process, mathematical proof, semantic strategy   Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan proses berpikir mahasiswa dalam menyusun bukti matematis dengan strategi semantik. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan deskiptif-kualitatif. Analisis data dilakukan dengan menggunakan kerangka kerja David Tall tentang tiga dunia berpikir matematik. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat enam kemungkinan jalur dalam strategi semantik ditinjau dari teori tiga dunia berpikir matematis. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan ada tiga jalur berpikir mahasiswa dalam menyusun bukti matematis dengan strategi semantik, yaitu (1 bermula dari dunia berpikir formal berpindah ke dunia berpikir wujud-simbolik atau dunia berpikir simbolik dengan proses perpindahan dimungkinkan lebih dari satu kali dan berakhir di dalam atau di luar dunia berpikir formal, (2 bermula dari dunia berpikir wujud simbolik atau dunia berpikir simbolik (non RSP lalu pindah ke dunia berpikir formal dengan proses perpindahan dimungkinkan lebih dari satu kali dan berakhir di

  20. Reduced short-term memory capacity in Alzheimer's disease: the role of phonological, lexical, and semantic processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caza, Nicole; Belleville, Sylvie

    2008-05-01

    Individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are often reported to have reduced verbal short-term memory capacity, typically attributed to their attention/executive deficits. However, these individuals also tend to show progressive impairment of semantic, lexical, and phonological processing which may underlie their low short-term memory capacity. The goals of this study were to assess the contribution of each level of representation (phonological, lexical, and semantic) to immediate serial recall performance in 18 individuals with AD, and to examine how these linguistic effects on short-term memory were modulated by their reduced capacity to manipulate information in short-term memory associated with executive dysfunction. Results showed that individuals with AD had difficulty recalling items that relied on phonological representations, which led to increased lexicality effects relative to the control group. This finding suggests that patients have a greater reliance on lexical/semantic information than controls, possibly to make up for deficits in retention and processing of phonological material. This lexical/semantic effect was not found to be significantly correlated with patients' capacity to manipulate verbal material in short-term memory, indicating that language processing and executive deficits may independently contribute to reducing verbal short-term memory capacity in AD.

  1. The Effect of Semantic Transparency on the Processing of Morphologically Derived Words: Evidence from Decision Latencies and Event-Related Potentials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jared, Debra; Jouravlev, Olessia; Joanisse, Marc F.

    2017-01-01

    Decomposition theories of morphological processing in visual word recognition posit an early morpho-orthographic parser that is blind to semantic information, whereas parallel distributed processing (PDP) theories assume that the transparency of orthographic-semantic relationships influences processing from the beginning. To test these…

  2. Semantic and syntactic interoperability in online processing of big Earth observation data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sudmanns, Martin; Tiede, Dirk; Lang, Stefan; Baraldi, Andrea

    2018-01-01

    The challenge of enabling syntactic and semantic interoperability for comprehensive and reproducible online processing of big Earth observation (EO) data is still unsolved. Supporting both types of interoperability is one of the requirements to efficiently extract valuable information from the large amount of available multi-temporal gridded data sets. The proposed system wraps world models, (semantic interoperability) into OGC Web Processing Services (syntactic interoperability) for semantic online analyses. World models describe spatio-temporal entities and their relationships in a formal way. The proposed system serves as enabler for (1) technical interoperability using a standardised interface to be used by all types of clients and (2) allowing experts from different domains to develop complex analyses together as collaborative effort. Users are connecting the world models online to the data, which are maintained in a centralised storage as 3D spatio-temporal data cubes. It allows also non-experts to extract valuable information from EO data because data management, low-level interactions or specific software issues can be ignored. We discuss the concept of the proposed system, provide a technical implementation example and describe three use cases for extracting changes from EO images and demonstrate the usability also for non-EO, gridded, multi-temporal data sets (CORINE land cover).

  3. Single-Word Predictions of Upcoming Language During Comprehension: Evidence from the Cumulative Semantic Interference Task

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kleinman, Daniel; Runnqvist, Elin; Ferreira, Victor S.

    2015-01-01

    Comprehenders predict upcoming speech and text on the basis of linguistic input. How many predictions do comprehenders make for an upcoming word? If a listener strongly expects to hear the word “sock”, is the word “shirt” partially expected as well, is it actively inhibited, or is it ignored? The present research addressed these questions by measuring the “downstream” effects of prediction on the processing of subsequently presented stimuli using the cumulative semantic interference paradigm. In three experiments, subjects named pictures (sock) that were presented either in isolation or after strongly constraining sentence frames (“After doing his laundry, Mark always seemed to be missing one…”). Naming sock slowed the subsequent naming of the picture shirt – the standard cumulative semantic interference effect. However, although picture naming was much faster after sentence frames, the interference effect was not modulated by the context (bare vs. sentence) in which either picture was presented. According to the only model of cumulative semantic interference that can account for such a pattern of data, this indicates that comprehenders pre-activated and maintained the pre-activation of best sentence completions (sock) but did not maintain the pre-activation of less likely completions (shirt). Thus, comprehenders predicted only the most probable completion for each sentence. PMID:25917550

  4. Are Judgments of Semantic Relatedness Systematically Impaired in Alzheimer's Disease?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hornberger, M.; Bell, B.; Graham, K. S.; Rogers, T. T.

    2009-01-01

    We employed a triadic comparison task in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and healthy controls to contrast (a) multidimensional scaling (MDS) and accuracy-based assessments of semantic memory, and (b) degraded-store versus degraded-access accounts of semantic impairment in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Similar to other studies using triadic…

  5. Episodic and semantic memory functioning in very old age: Explanations from executive functioning and processing speed theories

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pauline E.J. Spaan

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Structural equation modeling was used to investigate whether age-related episodic and semantic memory impairments are better explained by decline in processing speed or executive functioning (or both, rather than directly in terms of memory components. The models tested were based on an extensive review of the literature on cognitive decline in normal aging, up to very old age. A computerized test battery, measuring episodic memory (free and cued recall; recognition, semantic memory (fluency; naming accuracy and latencies, processing speed and executive functioning, was administered to 234 elderly persons ranging from young-old to very old age (55–96 years. To avoid large variance in response times due to physical instead of cognitive limitations, no motor responses were required from participants. Age-related decline in episodic and semantic memory performance was found to be the consequence of declines in processing speed and executive functioning. Processing speed mainly mediated decline of semantic memory, whereas executive functioning mainly mediated episodic memory decline. The most parsimonious model showed that both processing speed and executive functioning attributed to memory decline but independent from one another. The results suggest that at very old age, the impact of executive dysfunctions on episodic memory performance exceeds the influence of cognitive slowing.

  6. Conceptual representation of verbs in bilinguals: semantic field effects and a second-language performance paradox.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Segalowitz, Norman; de Almeida, Roberto G

    2002-01-01

    It is well known that bilinguals perform better in their first language (L1) than in their second lanaguage (L2) in a wide range of linguistic tasks. In recent studies, however, the authors have found that bilingual participants can demonstrate faster response times to L1 stimuli than to L2 stimuli in one classification task and the reverse in a different classification task. In the current study, they investigated the reasons for this "L2-better-than-L1" effect. English-French bilinguals performed one word relatedness and two categorization tasks with verbs of motion (e.g., run) and psychological verbs (e.g., admire) in both languages. In the word relatedness task, participants judged how closely related pairs of verbs from both categories were. In a speeded semantic categorization task, participants classified the verbs according to their semantic category (psychological or motion). In an arbitrary classification task, participants had to learn how verbs had been assigned to two arbitrary categories. Participants performed better in L1 in the semantic classification task but paradoxically better in L2 in the arbitrary classification task. To account for these effects, the authors used the ratings from the word relatedness task to plot three-dimensional "semantic fields" for the verbs. Cross-language field differences were found to be significantly related to the paradoxical performance and to fluency levels. The results have implications for understanding of how bilinguals represent verbs in the mental lexicon. Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

  7. Does dynamic information about the speaker's face contribute to semantic speech processing? ERP evidence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hernández-Gutiérrez, David; Abdel Rahman, Rasha; Martín-Loeches, Manuel; Muñoz, Francisco; Schacht, Annekathrin; Sommer, Werner

    2018-07-01

    Face-to-face interactions characterize communication in social contexts. These situations are typically multimodal, requiring the integration of linguistic auditory input with facial information from the speaker. In particular, eye gaze and visual speech provide the listener with social and linguistic information, respectively. Despite the importance of this context for an ecological study of language, research on audiovisual integration has mainly focused on the phonological level, leaving aside effects on semantic comprehension. Here we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the influence of facial dynamic information on semantic processing of connected speech. Participants were presented with either a video or a still picture of the speaker, concomitant to auditory sentences. Along three experiments, we manipulated the presence or absence of the speaker's dynamic facial features (mouth and eyes) and compared the amplitudes of the semantic N400 elicited by unexpected words. Contrary to our predictions, the N400 was not modulated by dynamic facial information; therefore, semantic processing seems to be unaffected by the speaker's gaze and visual speech. Even though, during the processing of expected words, dynamic faces elicited a long-lasting late posterior positivity compared to the static condition. This effect was significantly reduced when the mouth of the speaker was covered. Our findings may indicate an increase of attentional processing to richer communicative contexts. The present findings also demonstrate that in natural communicative face-to-face encounters, perceiving the face of a speaker in motion provides supplementary information that is taken into account by the listener, especially when auditory comprehension is non-demanding. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Interoperable cross-domain semantic and geospatial framework for automatic change detection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuo, Chiao-Ling; Hong, Jung-Hong

    2016-01-01

    With the increasingly diverse types of geospatial data established over the last few decades, semantic interoperability in integrated applications has attracted much interest in the field of Geographic Information System (GIS). This paper proposes a new strategy and framework to process cross-domain geodata at the semantic level. This framework leverages the semantic equivalence of concepts between domains through bridge ontology and facilitates the integrated use of different domain data, which has been long considered as an essential superiority of GIS, but is impeded by the lack of understanding about the semantics implicitly hidden in the data. We choose the task of change detection to demonstrate how the introduction of ontology concept can effectively make the integration possible. We analyze the common properties of geodata and change detection factors, then construct rules and summarize possible change scenario for making final decisions. The use of topographic map data to detect changes in land use shows promising success, as far as the improvement of efficiency and level of automation is concerned. We believe the ontology-oriented approach will enable a new way for data integration across different domains from the perspective of semantic interoperability, and even open a new dimensionality for the future GIS.

  9. Semantic elaboration in auditory and visual spatial memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taevs, Meghan; Dahmani, Louisa; Zatorre, Robert J; Bohbot, Véronique D

    2010-01-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that semantic information facilitates auditory and visual spatial learning and memory. An auditory spatial task was administered, whereby healthy participants were placed in the center of a semi-circle that contained an array of speakers where the locations of nameable and non-nameable sounds were learned. In the visual spatial task, locations of pictures of abstract art intermixed with nameable objects were learned by presenting these items in specific locations on a computer screen. Participants took part in both the auditory and visual spatial tasks, which were counterbalanced for order and were learned at the same rate. Results showed that learning and memory for the spatial locations of nameable sounds and pictures was significantly better than for non-nameable stimuli. Interestingly, there was a cross-modal learning effect such that the auditory task facilitated learning of the visual task and vice versa. In conclusion, our results support the hypotheses that the semantic representation of items, as well as the presentation of items in different modalities, facilitate spatial learning and memory.

  10. Anterior temporal cortex and semantic memory: reconciling findings from neuropsychology and functional imaging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rogers, Timothy T; Hocking, Julia; Noppeney, Uta; Mechelli, Andrea; Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa; Patterson, Karalyn; Price, Cathy J

    2006-09-01

    Studies of semantic impairment arising from brain disease suggest that the anterior temporal lobes are critical for semantic abilities in humans; yet activation of these regions is rarely reported in functional imaging studies of healthy controls performing semantic tasks. Here, we combined neuropsychological and PET functional imaging data to show that when healthy subjects identify concepts at a specific level, the regions activated correspond to the site of maximal atrophy in patients with relatively pure semantic impairment. The stimuli were color photographs of common animals or vehicles, and the task was category verification at specific (e.g., robin), intermediate (e.g., bird), or general (e.g., animal) levels. Specific, relative to general, categorization activated the antero-lateral temporal cortices bilaterally, despite matching of these experimental conditions for difficulty. Critically, in patients with atrophy in precisely these areas, the most pronounced deficit was in the retrieval of specific semantic information.

  11. Emotion processing in the aging brain is modulated by semantic elaboration

    OpenAIRE

    Ritchey, Maureen; Bessette-Symons, Brandy; Hayes, Scott M.; Cabeza, Roberto

    2010-01-01

    The neural correlates of emotion processing have been shown to vary with age: older adults (OAs) exhibit increased frontal activations and, under some circumstances, decreased amygdala activations relative to young adults (YAs) during emotion processing. Some of these differences are additionally modulated by valence, with age-related biases toward positive versus negative stimuli, and are thought to depend on OAs’ capacity for controlled elaboration. However, the role of semantic elaboration...

  12. Is Syntactic-Category Processing Obligatory in Visual Word Recognition? Evidence from Chinese

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2012-01-01

    Three experiments were conducted to investigate how syntactic-category and semantic information is processed in visual word recognition. The stimuli were two-character Chinese words in which semantic and syntactic-category ambiguities were factorially manipulated. A lexical decision task was employed in Experiment 1, whereas a semantic relatedness…

  13. The role of emotion and attention in semantic processing: Evidence from N400

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Chwilla, D.J.; Tromp, J.

    2013-01-01

    Does emotional state affect language processing? Little yet is known about the interface between language and emotion. With regard to semantic processing we have shown that emotional state modulates the standard N400 effect. In particular, the N400 cloze probability effect was strongly reduced in a

  14. Survival Processing and the Stroop Task

    OpenAIRE

    Stephanie A. Kazanas; Kendra M. Van Valkenburg; Jeanette Altarriba

    2015-01-01

    This study was designed to investigate the impact of survival processing with a novel task for this paradigm: the Stroop color-naming task. As the literature is mixed with regard to task generalizability, with survival processing promoting better memory for words, but not better memory for faces or paired associates, these types of task investigations are important to a growing field of research. Using the Stroop task provides a unique contribution, as identifying items by color is an importa...

  15. Frontal lobe damage impairs process and content in semantic memory: evidence from category-specific effects in progressive non-fluent aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reilly, Jamie; Rodriguez, Amy D; Peelle, Jonathan E; Grossman, Murray

    2011-06-01

    Portions of left inferior frontal cortex have been linked to semantic memory both in terms of the content of conceptual representation (e.g., motor aspects in an embodied semantics framework) and the cognitive processes used to access these representations (e.g., response selection). Progressive non-fluent aphasia (PNFA) is a neurodegenerative condition characterized by progressive atrophy of left inferior frontal cortex. PNFA can, therefore, provide a lesion model for examining the impact of frontal lobe damage on semantic processing and content. In the current study we examined picture naming in a cohort of PNFA patients across a variety of semantic categories. An embodied approach to semantic memory holds that sensorimotor features such as self-initiated action may assume differential importance for the representation of manufactured artifacts (e.g., naming hand tools). Embodiment theories might therefore predict that patients with frontal damage would be differentially impaired on manufactured artifacts relative to natural kinds, and this prediction was borne out. We also examined patterns of naming errors across a wide range of semantic categories and found that naming error distributions were heterogeneous. Although PNFA patients performed worse overall on naming manufactured artifacts, there was no reliable relationship between anomia and manipulability across semantic categories. These results add to a growing body of research arguing against a purely sensorimotor account of semantic memory, suggesting instead a more nuanced balance of process and content in how the brain represents conceptual knowledge. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

  16. Historical Process and Semantic Study of Rhetorical Apostrophe

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdollah Radmard

    2013-05-01

    , foregrounding: apostrophe destroys the familiar and common processes of words and sentences and hence creates pleasure and surprises the reader . Thus, words become foregrounded and more pleasant and tasteful .   2. Art ambiguity : apostrophe creates the sense of defamiliarization a nd unexpected changes and makes the text ambiguous. it makes the reader to explore and understand the ambiguity and the result would be the reader's enjoyment .   3. Increasing text coherence : apostrophe in its broad sense is based on the collocation axis. Semantic cohesion and coherence can be achieved by the collocation of couplets and hemistiches. Although using apostrophe destroys the form and body of the language, it makes more motivation and tension in text and strengthens the vertical axis of the language and finally increases the coherence.

  17. Effects of level of processing but not of task enactment on recognition memory in a case of developmental amnesia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gardiner, John M; Brandt, Karen R; Vargha-Khadem, Faraneh; Baddeley, Alan; Mishkin, Mortimer

    2006-09-01

    We report the performance in four recognition memory experiments of Jon, a young adult with early-onset developmental amnesia whose episodic memory is gravely impaired in tests of recall, but seems relatively preserved in tests of recognition, and who has developed normal levels of performance in tests of intelligence and general knowledge. Jon's recognition performance was enhanced by deeper levels of processing in comparing a more meaningful study task with a less meaningful one, but not by task enactment in comparing performance of an action with reading an action phrase. Both of these variables normally enhance episodic remembering, which Jon claimed to experience. But Jon was unable to support that claim by recollecting what it was that he remembered. Taken altogether, the findings strongly imply that Jon's recognition performance entailed little genuine episodic remembering and that the levels-of-processing effects in Jon reflected semantic, not episodic, memory.

  18. Semantic Search of Web Services

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hao, Ke

    2013-01-01

    This dissertation addresses semantic search of Web services using natural language processing. We first survey various existing approaches, focusing on the fact that the expensive costs of current semantic annotation frameworks result in limited use of semantic search for large scale applications. We then propose a vector space model based service…

  19. Higher Language Ability is Related to Angular Gyrus Activation Increase During Semantic Processing, Independent of Sentence Incongruency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Ettinger-Veenstra, Helene; McAllister, Anita; Lundberg, Peter; Karlsson, Thomas; Engström, Maria

    2016-01-01

    This study investigates the relation between individual language ability and neural semantic processing abilities. Our aim was to explore whether high-level language ability would correlate to decreased activation in language-specific regions or rather increased activation in supporting language regions during processing of sentences. Moreover, we were interested if observed neural activation patterns are modulated by semantic incongruency similarly to previously observed changes upon syntactic congruency modulation. We investigated 27 healthy adults with a sentence reading task—which tapped language comprehension and inference, and modulated sentence congruency—employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We assessed the relation between neural activation, congruency modulation, and test performance on a high-level language ability assessment with multiple regression analysis. Our results showed increased activation in the left-hemispheric angular gyrus extending to the temporal lobe related to high language ability. This effect was independent of semantic congruency, and no significant relation between language ability and incongruency modulation was observed. Furthermore, there was a significant increase of activation in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) bilaterally when the sentences were incongruent, indicating that processing incongruent sentences was more demanding than processing congruent sentences and required increased activation in language regions. The correlation of high-level language ability with increased rather than decreased activation in the left angular gyrus, a region specific for language processing, is opposed to what the neural efficiency hypothesis would predict. We can conclude that no evidence is found for an interaction between semantic congruency related brain activation and high-level language performance, even though the semantic incongruent condition shows to be more demanding and evoking more neural activation. PMID

  20. Right anterior temporal lobe dysfunction underlies theory of mind impairments in semantic dementia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Irish, Muireann; Hodges, John R; Piguet, Olivier

    2014-04-01

    Semantic dementia is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the amodal and profound loss of semantic knowledge attributable to the degeneration of the left anterior temporal lobe. Although traditionally conceptualized as a language disorder, patients with semantic dementia display significant alterations in behaviour and socioemotional functioning. Recent evidence points to an impaired capacity for theory of mind in predominantly left-lateralized cases of semantic dementia; however, it remains unclear to what extent semantic impairments contribute to these deficits. Further the neuroanatomical signature of such disturbance remains unknown. Here, we sought to determine the neural correlates of theory of mind performance in patients with left predominant semantic dementia (n=11), in contrast with disease-matched cases with behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia (n=10) and Alzheimer's disease (n=10), and healthy older individuals (n=14) as control participants. Participants completed a simple cartoons task, in which they were required to describe physical and theory of mind scenarios. Irrespective of subscale, patients with semantic dementia exhibited marked impairments relative to control subjects; however, only theory of mind deficits persisted when we covaried for semantic comprehension. Voxel-based morphometry analyses revealed that atrophy in right anterior temporal lobe structures, including the right temporal fusiform cortex, right inferior temporal gyrus, bilateral temporal poles and amygdalae, correlated significantly with theory of mind impairments in the semantic dementia group. Our results point to the marked disruption of cognitive functions beyond the language domain in semantic dementia, not exclusively attributable to semantic processing impairments. The significant involvement of right anterior temporal structures suggests that with disease evolution, the encroachment of pathology into the contralateral hemisphere heralds the

  1. Inducing task-relevant responses to speech in the sleeping brain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kouider, Sid; Andrillon, Thomas; Barbosa, Leonardo S; Goupil, Louise; Bekinschtein, Tristan A

    2014-09-22

    Falling asleep leads to a loss of sensory awareness and to the inability to interact with the environment [1]. While this was traditionally thought as a consequence of the brain shutting down to external inputs, it is now acknowledged that incoming stimuli can still be processed, at least to some extent, during sleep [2]. For instance, sleeping participants can create novel sensory associations between tones and odors [3] or reactivate existing semantic associations, as evidenced by event-related potentials [4-7]. Yet, the extent to which the brain continues to process external stimuli remains largely unknown. In particular, it remains unclear whether sensory information can be processed in a flexible and task-dependent manner by the sleeping brain, all the way up to the preparation of relevant actions. Here, using semantic categorization and lexical decision tasks, we studied task-relevant responses triggered by spoken stimuli in the sleeping brain. Awake participants classified words as either animals or objects (experiment 1) or as either words or pseudowords (experiment 2) by pressing a button with their right or left hand, while transitioning toward sleep. The lateralized readiness potential (LRP), an electrophysiological index of response preparation, revealed that task-specific preparatory responses are preserved during sleep. These findings demonstrate that despite the absence of awareness and behavioral responsiveness, sleepers can still extract task-relevant information from external stimuli and covertly prepare for appropriate motor responses. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. A Semantic Grid Oriented to E-Tourism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Xiao Ming

    With increasing complexity of tourism business models and tasks, there is a clear need of the next generation e-Tourism infrastructure to support flexible automation, integration, computation, storage, and collaboration. Currently several enabling technologies such as semantic Web, Web service, agent and grid computing have been applied in the different e-Tourism applications, however there is no a unified framework to be able to integrate all of them. So this paper presents a promising e-Tourism framework based on emerging semantic grid, in which a number of key design issues are discussed including architecture, ontologies structure, semantic reconciliation, service and resource discovery, role based authorization and intelligent agent. The paper finally provides the implementation of the framework.

  3. Part-set cueing impairment & facilitation in semantic memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelley, Matthew R; Parihar, Sushmeena A

    2018-01-19

    The present study explored the influence of part-set cues in semantic memory using tests of "free" recall, reconstruction of order, and serial recall. Nine distinct categories of information were used (e.g., Zodiac signs, Harry Potter books, Star Wars films, planets). The results showed part-set cueing impairment for all three "free" recall sets, whereas part-set cueing facilitation was evident for five of the six ordered sets. Generally, the present results parallel those often observed across episodic tasks, which could indicate that similar mechanisms contribute to part-set cueing effects in both episodic and semantic memory. A novel anchoring explanation of part-set cueing facilitation in order and spatial tasks is provided.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  5. Semantic Encoding Enhances the Pictorial Superiority Effect in the Oldest-Old

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cherry, Katie E.; Brown, Jennifer Silva; Walker, Erin Jackson; Smitherman, Emily A.; Boudreaux, Emily O.; Volaufova, Julia; Jazwinski, S. Michal

    2011-01-01

    We examined the effect of a semantic orienting task during encoding on free recall and recognition of simple line drawings and matching words in middle-aged (44 to 59 years), older (60 to 89 years), and oldest-old (90 + years) adults. Participants studied line drawings and matching words presented in blocked order. Half of the participants were given a semantic orienting task and the other half received standard intentional learning instructions. Results confirmed that the pictorial superiority effect was greater in magnitude following semantic encoding compared to the control condition. Analyses of clustering in free recall revealed that oldest-old adults’ encoding and retrieval strategies were generally similar to the two younger groups. Self-reported strategy use was less frequent among the oldest-old adults. These data strongly suggest that semantic elaboration is an effective compensatory mechanism underlying preserved episodic memory performance that persists well into the ninth decade of life. PMID:22053814

  6. Magnetoencephalography of frontotemporal dementia: spatiotemporally localized changes during semantic decisions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nestor, Peter J.; Hodges, John R.; Rowe, James B.

    2011-01-01

    Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia is a neurodegenerative disorder with dysfunction and atrophy of the frontal lobes leading to changes in personality, behaviour, empathy, social conduct and insight, with relative preservation of language and memory. As novel treatments begin to emerge, biomarkers of frontotemporal dementia will become increasingly important, including functionally relevant neuroimaging indices of the neurophysiological basis of cognition. We used magnetoencephalography to examine behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia using a semantic decision task that elicits both frontal and temporal activity in healthy people. Twelve patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (age 50–75) and 16 matched controls made categorical semantic judgements about 400 pictures during continuous magnetoencephalography. Distributed source analysis was used to compare patients and controls. The patients had normal early responses to picture confrontation, indicating intact visual processing. However, a predominantly posterior set of regions including temporoparietal cortex showed reduced source activity 250–310 ms after stimulus onset, in proportion to behavioural measures of semantic association. In contrast, a left frontoparietal network showed reduced source activity at 550–650 ms, proportional to patients’ deficits in attention and orientation. This late deficit probably reflects impairment in the neural substrate of goal-oriented decision making. The results demonstrate behaviourally relevant neural correlates of semantic processing and decision making in behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, and show for the first time that magnetoencephalography can be used to study cognitive systems in the context of frontotemporal dementia. PMID:21840892

  7. The neural dynamics of stimulus and response conflict processing as a function of response complexity and task demands

    Science.gov (United States)

    Donohue, Sarah E.; Appelbaum, Lawrence G.; McKay, Cameron C.; Woldorff, Marty G.

    2016-01-01

    Both stimulus and response conflict can disrupt behavior by slowing response times and decreasing accuracy. Although several neural activations have been associated with conflict processing, it is unclear how specific any of these are to the type of stimulus conflict or the amount of response conflict. Here, we recorded electrical brain activity, while manipulating the type of stimulus conflict in the task (spatial [Flanker] versus semantic [Stroop]) and the amount of response conflict (two versus four response choices). Behaviorally, responses were slower to incongruent versus congruent stimuli across all task and response types, along with overall slowing for higher response-mapping complexity. The earliest incongruency-related neural effect was a short-duration frontally-distributed negativity at ~200 ms that was only present in the Flanker spatial-conflict task. At longer latencies, the classic fronto-central incongruency-related negativity ‘Ninc’ was observed for all conditions, which was larger and ~100 ms longer in duration with more response options. Further, the onset of the motor-related lateralized readiness potential (LRP) was earlier for the two vs. four response sets, indicating that smaller response sets enabled faster motor-response preparation. The late positive complex (LPC) was present in all conditions except the two-response Stroop task, suggesting this late conflict-related activity is not specifically related to task type or response-mapping complexity. Importantly, across tasks and conditions, the LRP onset at or before the conflict-related Ninc, indicating that motor preparation is a rapid, automatic process that interacts with the conflict-detection processes after it has begun. Together, these data highlight how different conflict-related processes operate in parallel and depend on both the cognitive demands of the task and the number of response options. PMID:26827917

  8. Reactive Kripke semantics

    CERN Document Server

    Gabbay, Dov M

    2013-01-01

    This text offers an extension to the traditional Kripke semantics for non-classical logics by adding the notion of reactivity. Reactive Kripke models change their accessibility relation as we progress in the evaluation process of formulas in the model. This feature makes the reactive Kripke semantics strictly stronger and more applicable than the traditional one. Here we investigate the properties and axiomatisations of this new and most effective semantics, and we offer a wide landscape of applications of the idea of reactivity. Applied topics include reactive automata, reactive grammars, rea

  9. False belief and semantic language development in children aged 2 to 4 years

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Milton Eduardo Bermúdez-Jaimes

    2010-02-01

    Full Text Available We intended to explore and characterize the relationships between the development of understanding childhood theories of mind and the semantic development of language. We used three versions of the false belief task,programmed with Flash, and the Early Language Development Battery in order to assess semantic abilities in 116 children aged two to four years. Significant differences among ages were found for task performance, and positive associations between social comprehension and language development were found in two tasks. Results were interpreted through the interaction proposal by Wellman (1994.

  10. Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning (ML), and Semantics in Polar Science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duerr, R.; Ramdeen, S.

    2017-12-01

    One of the interesting features of Polar Science is that it historically has been extremely interdisciplinary, encompassing all of the physical and social sciences. Given the ubiquity of specialized terminology in each field, enabling researchers to find, understand, and use all of the heterogeneous data needed for polar research continues to be a bottleneck. Within the informatics community, semantics has broadly accepted as a solution to these problems, yet progress in developing reusable semantic resources has been slow. The NSF-funded ClearEarth project has been adapting the methods and tools from other communities such as Biomedicine to the Earth sciences with the goal of enhancing progress and the rate at which the needed semantic resources can be created. One of the outcomes of the project has been a better understanding of the differences in the way linguists and physical scientists understand disciplinary text. One example of these differences is the tendency for each discipline and often disciplinary subfields to expend effort in creating discipline specific glossaries where individual terms often are comprised of more than one word (e.g., first-year sea ice). Often each term in a glossary is imbued with substantial contextual or physical meaning - meanings which are rarely explicitly called out within disciplinary texts; meaning which are therefore not immediately accessible to those outside that discipline or subfield; meanings which can often be represented semantically. Here we show how recognition of these difference and the use of glossaries can be used to speed up the annotation processes endemic to NLP, enable inter-community recognition and possible reconciliation of terminology differences. A number of processes and tools will be described, as will progress towards semi-automated generation of ontology structures.

  11. The semantic similarity ensemble

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  12. Semantic knowledge for histopathological image analysis: from ontologies to processing portals and deep learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kergosien, Yannick L.; Racoceanu, Daniel

    2017-11-01

    This article presents our vision about the next generation of challenges in computational/digital pathology. The key role of the domain ontology, developed in a sustainable manner (i.e. using reference checklists and protocols, as the living semantic repositories), opens the way to effective/sustainable traceability and relevance feedback concerning the use of existing machine learning algorithms, proven to be very performant in the latest digital pathology challenges (i.e. convolutional neural networks). Being able to work in an accessible web-service environment, with strictly controlled issues regarding intellectual property (image and data processing/analysis algorithms) and medical data/image confidentiality is essential for the future. Among the web-services involved in the proposed approach, the living yellow pages in the area of computational pathology seems to be very important in order to reach an operational awareness, validation, and feasibility. This represents a very promising way to go to the next generation of tools, able to bring more guidance to the computer scientists and confidence to the pathologists, towards an effective/efficient daily use. Besides, a consistent feedback and insights will be more likely to emerge in the near future - from these sophisticated machine learning tools - back to the pathologists-, strengthening, therefore, the interaction between the different actors of a sustainable biomedical ecosystem (patients, clinicians, biologists, engineers, scientists etc.). Beside going digital/computational - with virtual slide technology demanding new workflows-, Pathology must prepare for another coming revolution: semantic web technologies now enable the knowledge of experts to be stored in databases, shared through the Internet, and accessible by machines. Traceability, disambiguation of reports, quality monitoring, interoperability between health centers are some of the associated benefits that pathologists were seeking. However

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miyamoto, T; Katayama, J I; Kohsaka, M; Koyama, T

    2000-12-01

    We investigated event-related potentials (N400, LPC and CNV) elicited in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients and control subjects from scalp electrodes, using a word-pair category matching paradigm. Each prime consisted of a Japanese noun (constructed from 2-4 characters of the Hiragana) followed by a Chinese character (Kanji) as the target, the latter representing one of five semantic categories. There were two equally probable target conditions: match or mismatch. Each target was preceded by a prime, either belonging to, or not belonging to, the same semantic category. The subjects were required to respond with a specified button press to the given target, according to the condition. We found RTs to be longer under the mismatch condition in both subject groups. The N400 amplitude was reduced in TLE subjects under both conditions, although LPC and CNV amplitudes showed no significant differences. These results suggest that scalp N400 is capable of demonstrating disturbance of semantic processing in TLE non-invasively. Copyright 2000 BEA Trading Ltd.

  14. Attentional Control and the Relatedness Proportion Effect in Semantic Priming

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hutchison, Keith A.

    2007-01-01

    In 2 experiments, participants completed both an attentional control battery (OSPAN, antisaccade, and Stroop tasks) and a modified semantic priming task. The priming task measured relatedness proportion (RP) effects within subjects, with the color of the prime indicating the probability that the to-be-named target would be related. In Experiment…

  15. From Sensory Perception to Lexical-Semantic Processing: An ERP Study in Non-Verbal Children with Autism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cantiani, Chiara; Choudhury, Naseem A; Yu, Yan H; Shafer, Valerie L; Schwartz, Richard G; Benasich, April A

    2016-01-01

    This study examines electrocortical activity associated with visual and auditory sensory perception and lexical-semantic processing in nonverbal (NV) or minimally-verbal (MV) children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Currently, there is no agreement on whether these children comprehend incoming linguistic information and whether their perception is comparable to that of typically developing children. Event-related potentials (ERPs) of 10 NV/MV children with ASD and 10 neurotypical children were recorded during a picture-word matching paradigm. Atypical ERP responses were evident at all levels of processing in children with ASD. Basic perceptual processing was delayed in both visual and auditory domains but overall was similar in amplitude to typically-developing children. However, significant differences between groups were found at the lexical-semantic level, suggesting more atypical higher-order processes. The results suggest that although basic perception is relatively preserved in NV/MV children with ASD, higher levels of processing, including lexical- semantic functions, are impaired. The use of passive ERP paradigms that do not require active participant response shows significant potential for assessment of non-compliant populations such as NV/MV children with ASD.

  16. From Sensory Perception to Lexical-Semantic Processing: An ERP Study in Non-Verbal Children with Autism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cantiani, Chiara; Choudhury, Naseem A.; Yu, Yan H.; Shafer, Valerie L.; Schwartz, Richard G.; Benasich, April A.

    2016-01-01

    This study examines electrocortical activity associated with visual and auditory sensory perception and lexical-semantic processing in nonverbal (NV) or minimally-verbal (MV) children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Currently, there is no agreement on whether these children comprehend incoming linguistic information and whether their perception is comparable to that of typically developing children. Event-related potentials (ERPs) of 10 NV/MV children with ASD and 10 neurotypical children were recorded during a picture-word matching paradigm. Atypical ERP responses were evident at all levels of processing in children with ASD. Basic perceptual processing was delayed in both visual and auditory domains but overall was similar in amplitude to typically-developing children. However, significant differences between groups were found at the lexical-semantic level, suggesting more atypical higher-order processes. The results suggest that although basic perception is relatively preserved in NV/MV children with ASD, higher levels of processing, including lexical- semantic functions, are impaired. The use of passive ERP paradigms that do not require active participant response shows significant potential for assessment of non-compliant populations such as NV/MV children with ASD. PMID:27560378

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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).

  18. A Framework for Semantic Recovery Strategies in Case of Process Activity Failures.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rinderle, S.B.; Bassil, S.; Reichert, M.U.; Manolopoulos, Y.; Filipe, J.; Constantopoulos, P.; Cordeiro, J.

    During automated process execution semantic activity failures may frequently occur, e.g., when a vehicle transporting a container has a breakdown. So far there are no applicable solutions to overcome such exceptional situations. Often the only possibility is to cancel and roll back respective

  19. Adaptive semantics visualization

    CERN Document Server

    Nazemi, Kawa

    2016-01-01

    This book introduces a novel approach for intelligent visualizations that adapts the different visual variables and data processing to human’s behavior and given tasks. Thereby a number of new algorithms and methods are introduced to satisfy the human need of information and knowledge and enable a usable and attractive way of information acquisition. Each method and algorithm is illustrated in a replicable way to enable the reproduction of the entire “SemaVis” system or parts of it. The introduced evaluation is scientifically well-designed and performed with more than enough participants to validate the benefits of the methods. Beside the introduced new approaches and algorithms, readers may find a sophisticated literature review in Information Visualization and Visual Analytics, Semantics and information extraction, and intelligent and adaptive systems. This book is based on an awarded and distinguished doctoral thesis in computer science.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  1. Rational integration of noisy evidence and prior semantic expectations in sentence interpretation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gibson, Edward; Bergen, Leon; Piantadosi, Steven T

    2013-05-14

    Sentence processing theories typically assume that the input to our language processing mechanisms is an error-free sequence of words. However, this assumption is an oversimplification because noise is present in typical language use (for instance, due to a noisy environment, producer errors, or perceiver errors). A complete theory of human sentence comprehension therefore needs to explain how humans understand language given imperfect input. Indeed, like many cognitive systems, language processing mechanisms may even be "well designed"--in this case for the task of recovering intended meaning from noisy utterances. In particular, comprehension mechanisms may be sensitive to the types of information that an idealized statistical comprehender would be sensitive to. Here, we evaluate four predictions about such a rational (Bayesian) noisy-channel language comprehender in a sentence comprehension task: (i) semantic cues should pull sentence interpretation towards plausible meanings, especially if the wording of the more plausible meaning is close to the observed utterance in terms of the number of edits; (ii) this process should asymmetrically treat insertions and deletions due to the Bayesian "size principle"; such nonliteral interpretation of sentences should (iii) increase with the perceived noise rate of the communicative situation and (iv) decrease if semantically anomalous meanings are more likely to be communicated. These predictions are borne out, strongly suggesting that human language relies on rational statistical inference over a noisy channel.

  2. Semantics for Communicating Actors with Interdependent Real-Time Deadlines

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Knoll, Istvan; Ravn, Anders Peter; Skou, Arne

    2009-01-01

    on the results, these tools must use consistent semantics for the model. Yet, a monolithic semantic model is just as complex as the entity it describes. In order to circumvent this issue, we define a three level semantics giving independent definitions of the functionality of actors, the temporal properties...... of communications, and finally imposing deadlines on the timing of dependent actors. With this approach the semantics is used directly in developing a simulator supporting the nondeterminism of the abstract semantics such that e.g. potential race conditions can be detected. The layers are also planned to underpin...... independent specialized verification tools. The verification task for timed, hybrid systems can thus be divided into the continuous, discrete, and timing domains with automated translation to specialized tools, and this promises better scalability than simulation or model checking of one complex model....

  3. Designing learning management system interoperability in semantic web

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anistyasari, Y.; Sarno, R.; Rochmawati, N.

    2018-01-01

    The extensive adoption of learning management system (LMS) has set the focus on the interoperability requirement. Interoperability is the ability of different computer systems, applications or services to communicate, share and exchange data, information, and knowledge in a precise, effective and consistent way. Semantic web technology and the use of ontologies are able to provide the required computational semantics and interoperability for the automation of tasks in LMS. The purpose of this study is to design learning management system interoperability in the semantic web which currently has not been investigated deeply. Moodle is utilized to design the interoperability. Several database tables of Moodle are enhanced and some features are added. The semantic web interoperability is provided by exploited ontology in content materials. The ontology is further utilized as a searching tool to match user’s queries and available courses. It is concluded that LMS interoperability in Semantic Web is possible to be performed.

  4. Age-related effects on perceptual and semantic encoding in memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuo, M C C; Liu, K P Y; Ting, K H; Chan, C C H

    2014-03-07

    This study examined the age-related subsequent memory effect (SME) in perceptual and semantic encoding using event-related potentials (ERPs). Seventeen younger adults and 17 older adults studied a series of Chinese characters either perceptually (by inspecting orthographic components) or semantically (by determining whether the depicted object makes sounds). The two tasks had similar levels of difficulty. The participants made studied or unstudied judgments during the recognition phase. Younger adults performed better in both conditions, with significant SMEs detected in the time windows of P2, N3, P550, and late positive component (LPC). In the older group, SMEs were observed in the P2 and N3 latencies in both conditions but were only detected in the P550 in the semantic condition. Between-group analyses showed larger frontal and central SMEs in the younger sample in the LPC latency regardless of encoding type. Aging effect appears to be stronger on influencing perceptual than semantic encoding processes. The effects seem to be associated with a decline in updating and maintaining representations during perceptual encoding. The age-related decline in the encoding function may be due in part to changes in frontal lobe function. Copyright © 2013 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Semantic integration of gene expression analysis tools and data sources using software connectors

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-01-01

    Background The study and analysis of gene expression measurements is the primary focus of functional genomics. Once expression data is available, biologists are faced with the task of extracting (new) knowledge associated to the underlying biological phenomenon. Most often, in order to perform this task, biologists execute a number of analysis activities on the available gene expression dataset rather than a single analysis activity. The integration of heteregeneous tools and data sources to create an integrated analysis environment represents a challenging and error-prone task. Semantic integration enables the assignment of unambiguous meanings to data shared among different applications in an integrated environment, allowing the exchange of data in a semantically consistent and meaningful way. This work aims at developing an ontology-based methodology for the semantic integration of gene expression analysis tools and data sources. The proposed methodology relies on software connectors to support not only the access to heterogeneous data sources but also the definition of transformation rules on exchanged data. Results We have studied the different challenges involved in the integration of computer systems and the role software connectors play in this task. We have also studied a number of gene expression technologies, analysis tools and related ontologies in order to devise basic integration scenarios and propose a reference ontology for the gene expression domain. Then, we have defined a number of activities and associated guidelines to prescribe how the development of connectors should be carried out. Finally, we have applied the proposed methodology in the construction of three different integration scenarios involving the use of different tools for the analysis of different types of gene expression data. Conclusions The proposed methodology facilitates the development of connectors capable of semantically integrating different gene expression analysis tools

  6. Survival Processing and the Stroop Task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stephanie A. Kazanas

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available This study was designed to investigate the impact of survival processing with a novel task for this paradigm: the Stroop color-naming task. As the literature is mixed with regard to task generalizability, with survival processing promoting better memory for words, but not better memory for faces or paired associates, these types of task investigations are important to a growing field of research. Using the Stroop task provides a unique contribution, as identifying items by color is an important evolutionary adaptation and not specific to humans as is the case with word recall. Our results indicate that survival processing, with its accompanying survival-relevance rating task, remains the best mnemonic strategy for word memory. However, our results also indicate that presenting the survival passage does not motivate better color-naming performance than color-naming alone. In addition, survival processing led to a larger amount of Stroop interference, though not significantly larger than the other conditions. Together, these findings suggest that considering one’s survival when performing memory and attention-based tasks does not enhance cognitive performance generally, although greater allocation of attentional resources to color-incongruent concrete objects could be considered adaptive. These findings support the notion that engaging in deeper processing via survival-relevance ratings may preserve these words across a variety of experimental manipulations.

  7. Towards a neural basis of processing musical semantics

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  8. Type-specific proactive interference in patients with semantic and phonological STM deficits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harris, Lara; Olson, Andrew; Humphreys, Glyn

    2014-01-01

    Prior neuropsychological evidence suggests that semantic and phonological components of short-term memory (STM) are functionally and neurologically distinct. The current paper examines proactive interference (PI) from semantic and phonological information in two STM-impaired patients, DS (semantic STM deficit) and AK (phonological STM deficit). In Experiment 1 probe recognition tasks with open and closed sets of stimuli were used. Phonological PI was assessed using nonword items, and semantic and phonological PI was assessed using words. In Experiment 2 phonological and semantic PI was elicited by an item recognition probe test with stimuli that bore phonological and semantic relations to the probes. The data suggested heightened phonological PI for the semantic STM patient, and exaggerated effects of semantic PI in the phonological STM case. The findings are consistent with an account of extremely rapid decay of activated type-specific representations in cases of severely impaired phonological and semantic STM.

  9. Semantic framework for mapping object-oriented model to semantic web languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ježek, Petr; Mouček, Roman

    2015-01-01

    The article deals with and discusses two main approaches in building semantic structures for electrophysiological metadata. It is the use of conventional data structures, repositories, and programming languages on one hand and the use of formal representations of ontologies, known from knowledge representation, such as description logics or semantic web languages on the other hand. Although knowledge engineering offers languages supporting richer semantic means of expression and technological advanced approaches, conventional data structures and repositories are still popular among developers, administrators and users because of their simplicity, overall intelligibility, and lower demands on technical equipment. The choice of conventional data resources and repositories, however, raises the question of how and where to add semantics that cannot be naturally expressed using them. As one of the possible solutions, this semantics can be added into the structures of the programming language that accesses and processes the underlying data. To support this idea we introduced a software prototype that enables its users to add semantically richer expressions into a Java object-oriented code. This approach does not burden users with additional demands on programming environment since reflective Java annotations were used as an entry for these expressions. Moreover, additional semantics need not to be written by the programmer directly to the code, but it can be collected from non-programmers using a graphic user interface. The mapping that allows the transformation of the semantically enriched Java code into the Semantic Web language OWL was proposed and implemented in a library named the Semantic Framework. This approach was validated by the integration of the Semantic Framework in the EEG/ERP Portal and by the subsequent registration of the EEG/ERP Portal in the Neuroscience Information Framework.

  10. Solving Multiple Isolated, Interleaved, and Blended Tasks through Modular Neuroevolution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schrum, Jacob; Miikkulainen, Risto

    2016-01-01

    Many challenging sequential decision-making problems require agents to master multiple tasks. For instance, game agents may need to gather resources, attack opponents, and defend against attacks. Learning algorithms can thus benefit from having separate policies for these tasks, and from knowing when each one is appropriate. How well this approach works depends on how tightly coupled the tasks are. Three cases are identified: Isolated tasks have distinct semantics and do not interact, interleaved tasks have distinct semantics but do interact, and blended tasks have regions where semantics from multiple tasks overlap. Learning across multiple tasks is studied in this article with Modular Multiobjective NEAT, a neuroevolution framework applied to three variants of the challenging Ms. Pac-Man video game. In the standard blended version of the game, a surprising, highly effective machine-discovered task division surpasses human-specified divisions, achieving the best scores to date in this game. In isolated and interleaved versions of the game, human-specified task divisions are also successful, though the best scores are surprisingly still achieved by machine discovery. Modular neuroevolution is thus shown to be capable of finding useful, unexpected task divisions better than those apparent to a human designer.

  11. Interactive effects in transfer-appropriate processing for event-based prospective memory: the roles of effort, ongoing task, and PM cue properties.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abney, Drew H; McBride, Dawn M; Petrella, Samantha N

    2013-10-01

    Past studies (e.g., Marsh, Hicks, & Cook Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 31:68-75, 2005; Meiser & Schult European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 20:290-311, 2008) have shown that transfer-appropriate processing (TAP) effects in event-based prospective memory (PM) depend on the effort directed toward the ongoing task. In the present study, we addressed mixed findings from these studies and examined monitoring in TAP and transfer-inappropriate processing (TIP) conditions. In two experiments, a semantic or orthographic ongoing task was paired with a PM cue that either was matched in processing (TAP) or did not match in processing (TIP). Within each condition, effort was varied across trials. The results indicated that PM accuracy was higher in TAP than in TIP conditions, regardless of effort condition, supporting the findings reported by Meiser and Schult. Ex-Gaussian functions were fit to the mean reaction times (cf. Brewer Journal of Psychology 219:117-124, 2011) in order to examine monitoring across conditions. The analysis of distributional skew (τ parameter) showed sensitivity to ongoing task instructions and properties of the PM cues. These results support Meiser and Schult's suggestion that TIP conditions require more attentional processing, and they also afford novel discussion on the interactive effects of ongoing task condition, PM cue properties, and manipulations of effort.

  12. Semantic memory: a feature-based analysis and new norms for Italian.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montefinese, Maria; Ambrosini, Ettore; Fairfield, Beth; Mammarella, Nicola

    2013-06-01

    Semantic norms for properties produced by native speakers are valuable tools for researchers interested in the structure of semantic memory and in category-specific semantic deficits in individuals following brain damage. The aims of this study were threefold. First, we sought to extend existing semantic norms by adopting an empirical approach to category (Exp. 1) and concept (Exp. 2) selection, in order to obtain a more representative set of semantic memory features. Second, we extensively outlined a new set of semantic production norms collected from Italian native speakers for 120 artifactual and natural basic-level concepts, using numerous measures and statistics following a feature-listing task (Exp. 3b). Finally, we aimed to create a new publicly accessible database, since only a few existing databases are publicly available online.

  13. An adaptive semantic matching paradigm for reliable and valid language mapping in individuals with aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, Stephen M; Yen, Melodie; Eriksson, Dana K

    2018-04-17

    Research on neuroplasticity in recovery from aphasia depends on the ability to identify language areas of the brain in individuals with aphasia. However, tasks commonly used to engage language processing in people with aphasia, such as narrative comprehension and picture naming, are limited in terms of reliability (test-retest reproducibility) and validity (identification of language regions, and not other regions). On the other hand, paradigms such as semantic decision that are effective in identifying language regions in people without aphasia can be prohibitively challenging for people with aphasia. This paper describes a new semantic matching paradigm that uses an adaptive staircase procedure to present individuals with stimuli that are challenging yet within their competence, so that language processing can be fully engaged in people with and without language impairments. The feasibility, reliability and validity of the adaptive semantic matching paradigm were investigated in sixteen individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia and fourteen neurologically normal participants, in comparison to narrative comprehension and picture naming paradigms. All participants succeeded in learning and performing the semantic paradigm. Test-retest reproducibility of the semantic paradigm in people with aphasia was good (Dice coefficient = 0.66), and was superior to the other two paradigms. The semantic paradigm revealed known features of typical language organization (lateralization; frontal and temporal regions) more consistently in neurologically normal individuals than the other two paradigms, constituting evidence for validity. In sum, the adaptive semantic matching paradigm is a feasible, reliable and valid method for mapping language regions in people with aphasia. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  14. Electrophysiological evidence for the action of a center-surround mechanism on semantic processing in the left hemisphere

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Diana eDeacon

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Physiological evidence was sought for a center-surround attentional mechanism (CSM, which has been proposed to assist in the retrieval of weakly activated items from semantic memory. The CSM operates by facilitating strongly related items in the center of the weakly activated area of semantic memory, and inhibiting less strongly related items in its surround. In this study weak activation was created by having subjects acquire the meanings of new words to a recall criterion of only 50%. Subjects who attained this approximate criterion level of performance were subsequently included in a semantic priming task, during which ERPs were recorded. Primes were newly learned rare words, and targets were either synonyms, nonsynonymously related words, or unrelated words. All stimuli were presented to the RVF/LH (right visual field/left hemisphere or the LVF/RH (left visual field/right hemisphere. Under RVF/LH stimulation the newly learned word primes produced facilitation on N400 for synonym targets, and inhibition for related targets. No differences were observed under LVF/RH stimulation. The LH thus, supports a CSM, whereby a synonym in the center of attention focused on the newly learned word is facilitated, whereas a related word in the surround is inhibited. The data are consistent with the view of this laboratory that semantic memory is subserved by a spreading activation system in the LH. Also consistent with our view, there was no evidence of spreading activation in the RH. The findings are discussed in the context of additional recent theories of semantic memory. Finally, the adult right hemisphere may require more learning than the LH in order to demonstrate evidence of meaning acquisition.

  15. Multimodal Feature Integration in the Angular Gyrus during Episodic and Semantic Retrieval

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonnici, Heidi M.; Richter, Franziska R.; Yazar, Yasemin

    2016-01-01

    Much evidence from distinct lines of investigation indicates the involvement of angular gyrus (AnG) in the retrieval of both episodic and semantic information, but the region's precise function and whether that function differs across episodic and semantic retrieval have yet to be determined. We used univariate and multivariate fMRI analysis methods to examine the role of AnG in multimodal feature integration during episodic and semantic retrieval. Human participants completed episodic and semantic memory tasks involving unimodal (auditory or visual) and multimodal (audio-visual) stimuli. Univariate analyses revealed the recruitment of functionally distinct AnG subregions during the retrieval of episodic and semantic information. Consistent with a role in multimodal feature integration during episodic retrieval, significantly greater AnG activity was observed during retrieval of integrated multimodal episodic memories compared with unimodal episodic memories. Multivariate classification analyses revealed that individual multimodal episodic memories could be differentiated in AnG, with classification accuracy tracking the vividness of participants' reported recollections, whereas distinct unimodal memories were represented in sensory association areas only. In contrast to episodic retrieval, AnG was engaged to a statistically equivalent degree during retrieval of unimodal and multimodal semantic memories, suggesting a distinct role for AnG during semantic retrieval. Modality-specific sensory association areas exhibited corresponding activity during both episodic and semantic retrieval, which mirrored the functional specialization of these regions during perception. The results offer new insights into the integrative processes subserved by AnG and its contribution to our subjective experience of remembering. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Using univariate and multivariate fMRI analyses, we provide evidence that functionally distinct subregions of angular gyrus (An

  16. Multimodal Feature Integration in the Angular Gyrus during Episodic and Semantic Retrieval.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonnici, Heidi M; Richter, Franziska R; Yazar, Yasemin; Simons, Jon S

    2016-05-18

    Much evidence from distinct lines of investigation indicates the involvement of angular gyrus (AnG) in the retrieval of both episodic and semantic information, but the region's precise function and whether that function differs across episodic and semantic retrieval have yet to be determined. We used univariate and multivariate fMRI analysis methods to examine the role of AnG in multimodal feature integration during episodic and semantic retrieval. Human participants completed episodic and semantic memory tasks involving unimodal (auditory or visual) and multimodal (audio-visual) stimuli. Univariate analyses revealed the recruitment of functionally distinct AnG subregions during the retrieval of episodic and semantic information. Consistent with a role in multimodal feature integration during episodic retrieval, significantly greater AnG activity was observed during retrieval of integrated multimodal episodic memories compared with unimodal episodic memories. Multivariate classification analyses revealed that individual multimodal episodic memories could be differentiated in AnG, with classification accuracy tracking the vividness of participants' reported recollections, whereas distinct unimodal memories were represented in sensory association areas only. In contrast to episodic retrieval, AnG was engaged to a statistically equivalent degree during retrieval of unimodal and multimodal semantic memories, suggesting a distinct role for AnG during semantic retrieval. Modality-specific sensory association areas exhibited corresponding activity during both episodic and semantic retrieval, which mirrored the functional specialization of these regions during perception. The results offer new insights into the integrative processes subserved by AnG and its contribution to our subjective experience of remembering. Using univariate and multivariate fMRI analyses, we provide evidence that functionally distinct subregions of angular gyrus (AnG) contribute to the retrieval of

  17. Comparing implicit and explicit semantic access of direct and indirect word pairs in schizophrenia to evaluate models of semantic memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neill, Erica; Rossell, Susan Lee

    2013-02-28

    Semantic memory deficits in schizophrenia (SZ) are profound, yet there is no research comparing implicit and explicit semantic processing in the same participant sample. In the current study, both implicit and explicit priming are investigated using direct (LION-TIGER) and indirect (LION-STRIPES; where tiger is not displayed) stimuli comparing SZ to healthy controls. Based on a substantive review (Rossell and Stefanovic, 2007) and meta-analysis (Pomarol-Clotet et al., 2008), it was predicted that SZ would be associated with increased indirect priming implicitly. Further, it was predicted that SZ would be associated with abnormal indirect priming explicitly, replicating earlier work (Assaf et al., 2006). No specific hypotheses were made for implicit direct priming due to the heterogeneity of the literature. It was hypothesised that explicit direct priming would be intact based on the structured nature of this task. The pattern of results suggests (1) intact reaction time (RT) and error performance implicitly in the face of abnormal direct priming and (2) impaired RT and error performance explicitly. This pattern confirms general findings regarding implicit/explicit memory impairments in SZ whilst highlighting the unique pattern of performance specific to semantic priming. Finally, priming performance is discussed in relation to thought disorder and length of illness. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. The structure of semantic person memory: evidence from semantic priming in person recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wiese, Holger

    2011-11-01

    This paper reviews research on the structure of semantic person memory as examined with semantic priming. In this experimental paradigm, a familiarity decision on a target face or written name is usually faster when it is preceded by a related as compared to an unrelated prime. This effect has been shown to be relatively short lived and susceptible to interfering items. Moreover, semantic priming can cross stimulus domains, such that a written name can prime a target face and vice versa. However, it remains controversial whether representations of people are stored in associative networks based on co-occurrence, or in more abstract semantic categories. In line with prominent cognitive models of face recognition, which explain semantic priming by shared semantic information between prime and target, recent research demonstrated that priming could be obtained from purely categorically related, non-associated prime/target pairs. Although strategic processes, such as expectancy and retrospective matching likely contribute, there is also evidence for a non-strategic contribution to priming, presumably related to spreading activation. Finally, a semantic priming effect has been demonstrated in the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component, which may reflect facilitated access to semantic information. It is concluded that categorical relatedness is one organizing principle of semantic person memory. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

  19. ScholarLens: extracting competences from research publications for the automatic generation of semantic user profiles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bahar Sateli

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Motivation Scientists increasingly rely on intelligent information systems to help them in their daily tasks, in particular for managing research objects, like publications or datasets. The relatively young research field of Semantic Publishing has been addressing the question how scientific applications can be improved through semantically rich representations of research objects, in order to facilitate their discovery and re-use. To complement the efforts in this area, we propose an automatic workflow to construct semantic user profiles of scholars, so that scholarly applications, like digital libraries or data repositories, can better understand their users’ interests, tasks, and competences, by incorporating these user profiles in their design. To make the user profiles sharable across applications, we propose to build them based on standard semantic web technologies, in particular the Resource Description Framework (RDF for representing user profiles and Linked Open Data (LOD sources for representing competence topics. To avoid the cold start problem, we suggest to automatically populate these profiles by analyzing the publications (co-authored by users, which we hypothesize reflect their research competences. Results We developed a novel approach, ScholarLens, which can automatically generate semantic user profiles for authors of scholarly literature. For modeling the competences of scholarly users and groups, we surveyed a number of existing linked open data vocabularies. In accordance with the LOD best practices, we propose an RDF Schema (RDFS based model for competence records that reuses existing vocabularies where appropriate. To automate the creation of semantic user profiles, we developed a complete, automated workflow that can generate semantic user profiles by analyzing full-text research articles through various natural language processing (NLP techniques. In our method, we start by processing a set of research articles for a

  20. Foraging in Semantic Fields: How We Search Through Memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hills, Thomas T; Todd, Peter M; Jones, Michael N

    2015-07-01

    When searching for concepts in memory--as in the verbal fluency task of naming all the animals one can think of--people appear to explore internal mental representations in much the same way that animals forage in physical space: searching locally within patches of information before transitioning globally between patches. However, the definition of the patches being searched in mental space is not well specified. Do we search by activating explicit predefined categories (e.g., pets) and recall items from within that category (categorical search), or do we activate and recall a connected sequence of individual items without using categorical information, with each item recalled leading to the retrieval of an associated item in a stream (associative search), or both? Using semantic representations in a search of associative memory framework and data from the animal fluency task, we tested competing hypotheses based on associative and categorical search models. Associative, but not categorical, patch transitions took longer to make than position-matched productions, suggesting that categorical transitions were not true transitions. There was also clear evidence of associative search even within categorical patch boundaries. Furthermore, most individuals' behavior was best explained by an associative search model without the addition of categorical information. Thus, our results support a search process that does not use categorical information, but for which patch boundaries shift with each recall and local search is well described by a random walk in semantic space, with switches to new regions of the semantic space when the current region is depleted. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  1. Executive Semantic Processing Is Underpinned by a Large-scale Neural Network: Revealing the Contribution of Left Prefrontal, Posterior Temporal, and Parietal Cortex to Controlled Retrieval and Selection Using TMS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whitney, Carin; Kirk, Marie; O'Sullivan, Jamie; Ralph, Matthew A. Lambon; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2012-01-01

    To understand the meanings of words and objects, we need to have knowledge about these items themselves plus executive mechanisms that compute and manipulate semantic information in a task-appropriate way. The neural basis for semantic control remains controversial. Neuroimaging studies have focused on the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus…

  2. Semantic Dementia Shows both Storage and Access Disorders of Semantic Memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yumi Takahashi

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Objective. Previous studies have shown that some patients with semantic dementia (SD have memory storage disorders, while others have access disorders. Here, we report three SD cases with both disorders. Methods. Ten pictures and ten words were prepared as visual stimuli to determine if the patients could correctly answer names and select pictures after hearing the names of items (Card Presentation Task, assessing memory storage disorder. In a second task, the viewing time was set at 20 or 300 msec (Momentary Presentation Task, evaluating memory access disorder using items for which correct answers were given in the first task. The results were compared with those for 6 patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD. Results. The SD patients had lower scores than the AD group for both tasks, suggesting both storage and access disorders. The AD group had almost perfect scores on the Card Presentation Task but showed impairment on the Momentary Presentation Task, although to a lesser extent than the SD cases. Conclusions. These results suggest that SD patients have both storage and access disorders and have more severe access disorder than patients with AD.

  3. Adventures in semantic publishing: exemplar semantic enhancements of a research article.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Shotton

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available Scientific innovation depends on finding, integrating, and re-using the products of previous research. Here we explore how recent developments in Web technology, particularly those related to the publication of data and metadata, might assist that process by providing semantic enhancements to journal articles within the mainstream process of scholarly journal publishing. We exemplify this by describing semantic enhancements we have made to a recent biomedical research article taken from PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, providing enrichment to its content and increased access to datasets within it. These semantic enhancements include provision of live DOIs and hyperlinks; semantic markup of textual terms, with links to relevant third-party information resources; interactive figures; a re-orderable reference list; a document summary containing a study summary, a tag cloud, and a citation analysis; and two novel types of semantic enrichment: the first, a Supporting Claims Tooltip to permit "Citations in Context", and the second, Tag Trees that bring together semantically related terms. In addition, we have published downloadable spreadsheets containing data from within tables and figures, have enriched these with provenance information, and have demonstrated various types of data fusion (mashups with results from other research articles and with Google Maps. We have also published machine-readable RDF metadata both about the article and about the references it cites, for which we developed a Citation Typing Ontology, CiTO (http://purl.org/net/cito/. The enhanced article, which is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0000228.x001, presents a compelling existence proof of the possibilities of semantic publication. We hope the showcase of examples and ideas it contains, described in this paper, will excite the imaginations of researchers and publishers, stimulating them to explore the possibilities of semantic publishing for their own

  4. Effects of Semantic Elaboration and Typicality on Picture Naming in Alzheimer Disease

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morelli, Claudia A.; Altmann, Lori J. P.; Kendall, Diane; Fischler, Ira; Heilman, Kennneth M.

    2011-01-01

    Purpose: Individuals with probable Alzheimer disease (pAD) are frequently impaired at picture naming. This study examined whether a semantic elaboration task would facilitate naming in pAD, and whether training either semantically typical or atypical stimulus items facilitated generalized improvement in picture naming and category generation…

  5. Direct Exploration of the Role of the Ventral Anterior Temporal Lobe in Semantic Memory: Cortical Stimulation and Local Field Potential Evidence From Subdural Grid Electrodes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shimotake, Akihiro; Matsumoto, Riki; Ueno, Taiji; Kunieda, Takeharu; Saito, Satoru; Hoffman, Paul; Kikuchi, Takayuki; Fukuyama, Hidenao; Miyamoto, Susumu; Takahashi, Ryosuke; Ikeda, Akio; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A

    2015-10-01

    Semantic memory is a crucial higher cortical function that codes the meaning of objects and words, and when impaired after neurological damage, patients are left with significant disability. Investigations of semantic dementia have implicated the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) region, in general, as crucial for multimodal semantic memory. The potentially crucial role of the ventral ATL subregion has been emphasized by recent functional neuroimaging studies, but the necessity of this precise area has not been selectively tested. The implantation of subdural electrode grids over this subregion, for the presurgical assessment of patients with partial epilepsy or brain tumor, offers the dual yet rare opportunities to record cortical local field potentials while participants complete semantic tasks and to stimulate the functionally identified regions in the same participants to evaluate the necessity of these areas in semantic processing. Across 6 patients, and utilizing a variety of semantic assessments, we evaluated and confirmed that the anterior fusiform/inferior temporal gyrus is crucial in multimodal, receptive, and expressive, semantic processing. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

  6. Neuroanatomical correlates of encoding in episodic memory: levels of processing effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kapur, S; Craik, F I; Tulving, E; Wilson, A A; Houle, S; Brown, G M

    1994-03-15

    Cognitive studies of memory processes demonstrate that memory for stimuli is a function of how they are encoded; stimuli processed semantically are better remembered than those processed in a perceptual or shallow fashion. This study investigates the neural correlates of this cognitive phenomenon. Twelve subjects performed two different cognitive tasks on a series of visually presented nouns. In one task, subjects detected the presence or absence of the letter a; in the other, subjects categorized each noun as living or nonliving. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans using 15O-labeled water were obtained during both tasks. Subjects showed substantially better recognition memory for nouns seen in the living/nonliving task, compared to nouns seen in the a-checking task. Comparison of the PET images between the two cognitive tasks revealed a significant activation in the left inferior prefrontal cortex (Brodmann's areas 45, 46, 47, and 10) in the semantic task as compared to the perceptual task. We propose that memory processes are subserved by a wide neurocognitive network and that encoding processes involve preferential activation of the structures in the left inferior prefrontal cortex.

  7. Episodic and Semantic Memory Contribute to Familiar and Novel Episodic Future Thinking

    OpenAIRE

    Tong Wang; Tong Yue; Xi ting Huang

    2016-01-01

    Abstract Increasing evidence indicates that episodic future thinking (EFT) relies on both episodic and semantic memory; however, event familiarity may importantly affect the extent to which episodic and semantic memory contribute to EFT. To test this possibility, two behavioral experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, we directly compared the proportion of episodic and semantic memory used in an EFT task. The results indicated that more episodic memory was used when imagining familiar fut...

  8. "Neural overlap of L1 and L2 semantic representations across visual and auditory modalities: a decoding approach".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van de Putte, Eowyn; De Baene, Wouter; Price, Cathy J; Duyck, Wouter

    2018-05-01

    This study investigated whether brain activity in Dutch-French bilinguals during semantic access to concepts from one language could be used to predict neural activation during access to the same concepts from another language, in different language modalities/tasks. This was tested using multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA), within and across language comprehension (word listening and word reading) and production (picture naming). It was possible to identify the picture or word named, read or heard in one language (e.g. maan, meaning moon) based on the brain activity in a distributed bilateral brain network while, respectively, naming, reading or listening to the picture or word in the other language (e.g. lune). The brain regions identified differed across tasks. During picture naming, brain activation in the occipital and temporal regions allowed concepts to be predicted across languages. During word listening and word reading, across-language predictions were observed in the rolandic operculum and several motor-related areas (pre- and postcentral, the cerebellum). In addition, across-language predictions during reading were identified in regions typically associated with semantic processing (left inferior frontal, middle temporal cortex, right cerebellum and precuneus) and visual processing (inferior and middle occipital regions and calcarine sulcus). Furthermore, across modalities and languages, the left lingual gyrus showed semantic overlap across production and word reading. These findings support the idea of at least partially language- and modality-independent semantic neural representations. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  9. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of semantic verbal fluency in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jaimes-Bautista, A G; Rodríguez-Camacho, M; Martínez-Juárez, I E; Rodríguez-Agudelo, Y

    2017-08-29

    Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) perform poorly on semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tasks. Completing these tasks successfully involves multiple cognitive processes simultaneously. Therefore, quantitative analysis of SVF (number of correct words in one minute), conducted in most studies, has been found to be insufficient to identify cognitive dysfunction underlying SVF difficulties in TLE. To determine whether a sample of patients with TLE had SVF difficulties compared with a control group (CG), and to identify the cognitive components associated with SVF difficulties using quantitative and qualitative analysis. SVF was evaluated in 25 patients with TLE and 24 healthy controls; the semantic verbal fluency test included 5 semantic categories: animals, fruits, occupations, countries, and verbs. All 5 categories were analysed quantitatively (number of correct words per minute and interval of execution: 0-15, 16-30, 31-45, and 46-60seconds); the categories animals and fruits were also analysed qualitatively (clusters, cluster size, switches, perseverations, and intrusions). Patients generated fewer words for all categories and intervals and fewer clusters and switches for animals and fruits than the CG (Psize and number of intrusions and perseverations (P>.05). Our results suggest an association between SVF difficulties in TLE and difficulty activating semantic networks, impaired strategic search, and poor cognitive flexibility. Attention, inhibition, and working memory are preserved in these patients. Copyright © 2017 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  10. Odor identification: perceptual and semantic dimensions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cain, W S; de Wijk, R; Lulejian, C; Schiet, F; See, L C

    1998-06-01

    Five studies explored identification of odors as an aspect of semantic memory. All dealt in one way or another with the accessibility of acquired olfactory information. The first study examined stability and showed that, consistent with personal reports, people can fail to identify an odor one day yet succeed another. Failure turned more commonly to success than vice versa, and once success occurred it tended to recur. Confidence ratings implied that subjects generally knew the quality of their answers. Even incorrect names, though, often carried considerable information which sometimes reflected a semantic and sometimes a perceptual source of errors. The second study showed that profiling odors via the American Society of Testing and Materials list of attributes, an exercise in depth of processing, effected no increment in the identifiability/accessibility beyond an unelaborated second attempt at retrieval. The third study showed that subjects had only a weak ability to predict the relative recognizability of odors they had failed to identify. Whereas the strength of the feeling that they would 'know' an answer if offered choices did not associate significantly with performance for odors, it did for trivia questions. The fourth study demonstrated an association between ability to discriminate among one set of odors and to identify another, but this emerged only after subjects had received feedback about identity, which essentially changed the task to one of recognition and effectively stabilized access. The fifth study illustrated that feedback improves performance dramatically only for odors involved with it, but that mere retrieval leads to some improvement. The studies suggest a research agenda that could include supplemental use of confidence judgments both retrospectively and prospectively in the same subjects to indicate the amount of accessible semantic information; use of second and third guesses to examine subjects' simultaneously held hypotheses about

  11. Neural Indices of Semantic Processing in Early Childhood Distinguish Eventual Stuttering Persistence and Recovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kreidler, Kathryn; Wray, Amanda Hampton; Usler, Evan; Weber, Christine

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: Maturation of neural processes for language may lag in some children who stutter (CWS), and event-related potentials (ERPs) distinguish CWS who have recovered from those who have persisted. The current study explores whether ERPs indexing semantic processing may distinguish children who will eventually persist in stuttering…

  12. Different Neural Systems Contribute to Semantic Bias and Conflict Detection in the Inclusion Fallacy Task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peipeng eLiang

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available more general conclusion category is considered stronger than a generalization to a specific conclusion category nested within the more general set. Such inferences violate rational norms and are part of the reasoning fallacy literature that provides interesting tasks to explore cognitive and neural basis of reasoning. To explore the functional neuroanatomy of the inclusion fallacy, we used a 2×2 factorial design, with factors for Quantification (explicit and implicit and Response (fallacious and nonfallacious. It was found that a left fronto-temporal system, along with a superior medial frontal system, was specifically activated in response to fallacy responses consistent with a semantic biasing of judgment explanation. A right fronto-parietal system was specifically recruited in response to detecting conflict associated with the heightened fallacy condition. These results are largely consistent with previous studies of reasoning fallacy and support a multiple systems model of reasoning.

  13. Enemies and Friends in the Neighborhood: Orthographic Similarity Effects in Semantic Categorization

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pecher, Diane; Zeelenberg, Rene; Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan

    2005-01-01

    Studies investigating orthographic similarity effects in semantic tasks have produced inconsistent results. The authors investigated orthographic similarity effects in animacy decision and in contrast with previous studies, they took semantic congruency into account. In Experiments 1 and 2, performance to a target (cat) was better if a previously…

  14. Effects of perceptual and semantic cues on ERP modulations associated with prospective memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cousens, Ross; Cutmore, Timothy; Wang, Ya; Wilson, Jennifer; Chan, Raymond C K; Shum, David H K

    2015-10-01

    Prospective memory involves the formation and execution of intended actions and is essential for autonomous living. In this study (N=32), the effect of the nature of PM cues (semantic versus perceptual) on established event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited in PM tasks (N300 and prospective positivity) was investigated. PM cues defined by their perceptual features clearly elicited the N300 and prospective positivity whereas PM cues defined by semantic relatedness elicited prospective positivity. This calls into question the view that the N300 is a marker of general processes underlying detection of PM cues, but supports existing research showing that prospective positivity represents general post-retrieval processes that follow detection of PM cues. Continued refinement of ERP paradigms for understanding the neural correlates of PM is needed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  15. Semantic networks for odors and colors in Alzheimer's disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Razani, Jill; Chan, Agnes; Nordin, Steven; Murphy, Claire

    2010-05-01

    Impairment in odor-naming ability and in verbal and visual semantic networks raised the hypothesis of a breakdown in the semantic network for odors in Alzheimer's disease (AD). The current study addressed this hypothesis. Twenty-four individuals, half patients with probable AD and half control participants, performed triadic-similarity judgments for odors and colors, separately, which, utilizing the multidimensional scaling (MDS) technique of individual difference scaling analysis (INDSCAL), generated two-dimensional configurations of similarity. The abilities to match odors and colors with written name labels were assessed to investigate disease-related differences in ability to identify and conceptualize the stimuli. In addition, responses on attribute-sorting tasks, requiring the odor and color perceptions to be categorized as one polarity of a certain dimension, were obtained to allow for objective interpretation of the MDS spatial maps. Whereas comparison subjects generated spatial maps based predominantly on relatively abstract characteristics, patients with AD classified odors on perceptual characteristics. The maps for patients with AD also showed disorganized groupings and loose associations between odors. Their normal configurations for colors imply that the patients were able to comprehend the task per se. The data for label matching and for attribute sorting provide further evidence for a disturbance in semantic odor memory in AD. The patients performed poorer than controls on both these odor tasks, implying that the ability to identify and/or conceptualize odors is impaired in AD. The results provide clear evidence for deterioration of the structure of semantic knowledge for odors in AD.

  16. Interactions between thalamic and cortical rhythms during semantic memory recall in human

    Science.gov (United States)

    Slotnick, Scott D.; Moo, Lauren R.; Kraut, Michael A.; Lesser, Ronald P.; Hart, John, Jr.

    2002-04-01

    Human scalp electroencephalographic rhythms, indicative of cortical population synchrony, have long been posited to reflect cognitive processing. Although numerous studies employing simultaneous thalamic and cortical electrode recording in nonhuman animals have explored the role of the thalamus in the modulation of cortical rhythms, direct evidence for thalamocortical modulation in human has not, to our knowledge, been obtained. We simultaneously recorded from thalamic and scalp electrodes in one human during performance of a cognitive task and found a spatially widespread, phase-locked, low-frequency rhythm (7-8 Hz) power decrease at thalamus and scalp during semantic memory recall. This low-frequency rhythm power decrease was followed by a spatially specific, phase-locked, fast-rhythm (21-34 Hz) power increase at thalamus and occipital scalp. Such a pattern of thalamocortical activity reflects a plausible neural mechanism underlying semantic memory recall that may underlie other cognitive processes as well.

  17. How and When Accentuation Influences Temporally Selective Attention and Subsequent Semantic Processing during On-Line Spoken Language Comprehension: An ERP Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Xiao-qing; Ren, Gui-qin

    2012-01-01

    An event-related brain potentials (ERP) experiment was carried out to investigate how and when accentuation influences temporally selective attention and subsequent semantic processing during on-line spoken language comprehension, and how the effect of accentuation on attention allocation and semantic processing changed with the degree of…

  18. Mapping lexical-semantic networks and determining hemispheric language dominance: Do task design, sex, age, and language performance make a difference?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Yu-Hsuan A; Javadi, Sogol S; Bahrami, Naeim; Uttarwar, Vedang S; Reyes, Anny; McDonald, Carrie R

    2018-04-01

    Blocked and event-related fMRI designs are both commonly used to localize language networks and determine hemispheric dominance in research and clinical settings. We compared activation profiles on a semantic monitoring task using one of the two designs in a total of 43 healthy individual to determine whether task design or subject-specific factors (i.e., age, sex, or language performance) influence activation patterns. We found high concordance between the two designs within core language regions, including the inferior frontal, posterior temporal, and basal temporal region. However, differences emerged within inferior parietal cortex. Subject-specific factors did not influence activation patterns, nor did they interact with task design. These results suggest that despite high concordance within perisylvian regions that are robust to subject-specific factors, methodological differences between blocked and event-related designs may contribute to parietal activations. These findings provide important information for researchers incorporating fMRI results into meta-analytic studies, as well as for clinicians using fMRI to guide pre-surgical planning. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Children's Incidental Memory for Pictures: Item Processing Versus List Organizations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghatala, Elizabeth S.; Levin, Joel R.

    1981-01-01

    Two experiments which tested recall differences among young children indicated: (1) organizational factors, not item processing per se, influenced previously found differences in children's recall of pictures following semantic and physical orienting tasks; and (2) physical orienting tasks may effectively inhibit subjects' processing of words, but…

  20. The inferior, anterior temporal lobes and semantic memory clarified: novel evidence from distortion-corrected fMRI.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Visser, M; Embleton, K V; Jefferies, E; Parker, G J; Ralph, M A Lambon

    2010-05-01

    The neural basis of semantic memory generates considerable debate. Semantic dementia results from bilateral anterior temporal lobe (ATL) atrophy and gives rise to a highly specific impairment of semantic memory, suggesting that this region is a critical neural substrate for semantic processing. Recent rTMS experiments with neurologically-intact participants also indicate that the ATL are a necessary substrate for semantic memory. Exactly which regions within the ATL are important for semantic memory are difficult to detect from these methods (because the damage in SD covers a large part of the ATL). Functional neuroimaging might provide important clues about which specific areas exhibit activation that correlates with normal semantic performance. Neuroimaging studies, however, have not consistently found anterior temporal lobe activation in semantic tasks. A recent meta-analysis indicates that this inconsistency may be due to a collection of technical limitations associated with previous studies, including a reduced field-of-view and magnetic susceptibility artefacts associated with standard gradient echo fMRI. We conducted an fMRI study of semantic memory using a combination of techniques which improve sensitivity to ATL activations whilst preserving whole-brain coverage. As expected from SD patients and ATL rTMS experiments, this method revealed bilateral temporal activation extending from the inferior temporal lobe along the fusiform gyrus to the anterior temporal regions, bilaterally. We suggest that the inferior, anterior temporal lobe region makes a crucial contribution to semantic cognition and utilising this version of fMRI will enable further research on the semantic role of the ATL. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Semantic web for the working ontologist effective modeling in RDFS and OWL

    CERN Document Server

    Allemang, Dean

    2011-01-01

    Semantic Web models and technologies provide information in machine-readable languages that enable computers to access the Web more intelligently and perform tasks automatically without the direction of users. These technologies are relatively recent and advancing rapidly, creating a set of unique challenges for those developing applications. Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist is the essential, comprehensive resource on semantic modeling, for practitioners in health care, artificial intelligence, finance, engineering, military intelligence, enterprise architecture, and more. Focused on

  2. Autobiographical memory and well-being in aging: The central role of semantic self-images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rathbone, Clare J; Holmes, Emily A; Murphy, Susannah E; Ellis, Judi A

    2015-05-01

    Higher levels of well-being are associated with longer life expectancies and better physical health. Previous studies suggest that processes involving the self and autobiographical memory are related to well-being, yet these relationships are poorly understood. The present study tested 32 older and 32 younger adults using scales measuring well-being and the affective valence of two types of autobiographical memory: episodic autobiographical memories and semantic self-images. Results showed that valence of semantic self-images, but not episodic autobiographical memories, was highly correlated with well-being, particularly in older adults. In contrast, well-being in older adults was unrelated to performance across a range of standardised memory tasks. These results highlight the role of semantic self-images in well-being, and have implications for the development of therapeutic interventions for well-being in aging. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Levels of word processing and incidental memory: dissociable mechanisms in the temporal lobe.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castillo, E M; Simos, P G; Davis, R N; Breier, J; Fitzgerald, M E; Papanicolaou, A C

    2001-11-16

    Word recall is facilitated when deep (e.g. semantic) processing is applied during encoding. This fact raises the question of the existence of specific brain mechanisms supporting different levels of information processing that can modulate incidental memory performance. In this study we obtained spatiotemporal brain activation profiles, using magnetic source imaging, from 10 adult volunteers as they performed a shallow (phonological) processing task and a deep (semantic) processing task. When phonological analysis of the word stimuli into their constituent phonemes was required, activation was largely restricted to the posterior portion of the left superior temporal gyrus (area 22). Conversely, when access to lexical/semantic representations was required, activation was found predominantly in the left middle temporal gyrus and medial temporal cortex. The differential engagement of each mechanism during word encoding was associated with dramatic changes in subsequent incidental memory performance.

  4. Modulation of the N400 component in relation to hypomanic personality traits in a word meaning ambiguity resolution task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raucher-Chéné, Delphine; Terrien, Sarah; Gobin, Pamela; Gierski, Fabien; Kaladjian, Arthur; Besche-Richard, Chrystel

    2017-09-01

    High levels of hypomanic personality traits have been associated with an increased risk of developing bipolar disorder (BD). Changes in semantic content, impaired verbal associations, abnormal prosody, and abnormal speed of language are core features of BD, and are thought to be related to semantic processing abnormalities. In the present study, we used event-related potentials to investigate the relation between semantic processing (N400 component) and hypomanic personality traits. We assessed 65 healthy young adults on the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS). Event-related potentials were recorded during a semantic ambiguity resolution task exploring semantic ambiguity (polysemous word ending a sentence) and congruency (target word semantically related to the sentence). As expected, semantic ambiguity and congruency both elicited an N400 effect across our sample. Correlation analyses showed a significant positive relationship between the Social Vitality subscore of the HPS and N400 modulation in the frontal region of interest in the incongruent unambiguous condition, and in the frontocentral region of interest in the incongruent ambiguous condition. We found differences in semantic processing (i.e., detection of incongruence and semantic inhibition) in individuals with higher Social Vitality subscores. In the light of the literature, we discuss the notion that a semantic processing impairment could be a potential marker of vulnerability to BD, and one that needs to be explored further in this clinical population. © 2017 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2017 Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.

  5. 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...

  6. The roles of scene gist and spatial dependency among objects in the semantic guidance of attention in real-world scenes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Chia-Chien; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

    2014-12-01

    A previous study (Vision Research 51 (2011) 1192-1205) found evidence for semantic guidance of visual attention during the inspection of real-world scenes, i.e., an influence of semantic relationships among scene objects on overt shifts of attention. In particular, the results revealed an observer bias toward gaze transitions between semantically similar objects. However, this effect is not necessarily indicative of semantic processing of individual objects but may be mediated by knowledge of the scene gist, which does not require object recognition, or by known spatial dependency among objects. To examine the mechanisms underlying semantic guidance, in the present study, participants were asked to view a series of displays with the scene gist excluded and spatial dependency varied. Our results show that spatial dependency among objects seems to be sufficient to induce semantic guidance. Scene gist, on the other hand, does not seem to affect how observers use semantic information to guide attention while viewing natural scenes. Extracting semantic information mainly based on spatial dependency may be an efficient strategy of the visual system that only adds little cognitive load to the viewing task. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. The role of orthography in the semantic activation of neighbors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hino, Yasushi; Lupker, Stephen J; Taylor, Tamsen E

    2012-09-01

    There is now considerable evidence that a letter string can activate semantic information appropriate to its orthographic neighbors (e.g., Forster & Hector's, 2002, TURPLE effect). This phenomenon is the focus of the present research. Using Japanese words, we examined whether semantic activation of neighbors is driven directly by orthographic similarity alone or whether there is also a role for phonological similarity. In Experiment 1, using a relatedness judgment task in which a Kanji word-Katakana word pair was presented on each trial, an inhibitory effect was observed when the initial Kanji word was related to an orthographic and phonological neighbor of the Katakana word target but not when the initial Kanji word was related to a phonological but not orthographic neighbor of the Katakana word target. This result suggests that phonology plays little, if any, role in the activation of neighbors' semantics when reading familiar words. In Experiment 2, the targets were transcribed into Hiragana, a script they are typically not written in, requiring readers to engage in phonological coding. In that experiment, inhibitory effects were observed in both conditions. This result indicates that phonologically mediated semantic activation of neighbors will emerge when phonological processing is necessary in order to understand a written word (e.g., when that word is transcribed into an unfamiliar script). PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

  8. The Role of Simple Semantics in the Process of Artificial Grammar Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Öttl, Birgit; Jäger, Gerhard; Kaup, Barbara

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated the effect of semantic information on artificial grammar learning (AGL). Recursive grammars of different complexity levels (regular language, mirror language, copy language) were investigated in a series of AGL experiments. In the with-semantics condition, participants acquired semantic information prior to the AGL…

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  10. The semantic basis of taste-shape associations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos Velasco

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Previous research shows that people systematically match tastes with shapes. Here, we assess the extent to which matched taste and shape stimuli share a common semantic space and whether semantically congruent versus incongruent taste/shape associations can influence the speed with which people respond to both shapes and taste words. In Experiment 1, semantic differentiation was used to assess the semantic space of both taste words and shapes. The results suggest a common semantic space containing two principal components (seemingly, intensity and hedonics and two principal clusters, one including round shapes and the taste word “sweet,” and the other including angular shapes and the taste words “salty,” “sour,” and “bitter.” The former cluster appears more positively-valenced whilst less potent than the latter. In Experiment 2, two speeded classification tasks assessed whether congruent versus incongruent mappings of stimuli and responses (e.g., sweet with round versus sweet with angular would influence the speed of participants’ responding, to both shapes and taste words. The results revealed an overall effect of congruence with congruent trials yielding faster responses than their incongruent counterparts. These results are consistent with previous evidence suggesting a close relation (or crossmodal correspondence between tastes and shape curvature that may derive from common semantic coding, perhaps along the intensity and hedonic dimensions.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2010-09-01

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

  12. Semantic Observation Integration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Werner Kuhn

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Although the integration of sensor-based information into analysis and decision making has been a research topic for many years, semantic interoperability has not yet been reached. The advent of user-generated content for the geospatial domain, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI, makes it even more difficult to establish semantic integration. This paper proposes a novel approach to integrating conventional sensor information and VGI, which is exploited in the context of detecting forest fires. In contrast to common logic-based semantic descriptions, we present a formal system using algebraic specifications to unambiguously describe the processing steps from natural phenomena to value-added information. A generic ontology of observations is extended and profiled for forest fire detection in order to illustrate how the sensing process, and transformations between heterogeneous sensing systems, can be represented as mathematical functions and grouped into abstract data types. We discuss the required ontological commitments and a possible generalization.

  13. Ontology-based approaches for cross-enterprise collaboration: a literature review on semantic business process management

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoang, Hanh H.; Jung, Jason J.; Tran, Chi P.

    2014-11-01

    Based on an in-depth analysis of the existing approaches in applying semantic technologies to business process management (BPM) research in the perspective of cross-enterprise collaboration or so-called business-to-business integration, we analyse, discuss and compare methodologies, applications and best practices of the surveyed approaches with the proposed criteria. This article identifies various relevant research directions in semantic BPM (SBPM). Founded on the result of our investigation, we summarise the state of art of SBPM. We also address areas and directions for further research activities.

  14. Electrophysiological Correlates of Semantic Processing in Williams Syndrome

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pinheiro, Ana P.; Galdo-Alvarez, Santaigo; Sampaio, Adriana; Niznikiewicz, Margaret; Goncalves, Oscar F.

    2010-01-01

    Williams syndrome (WS), a genetic neurodevelopmental disorder due to microdeletion in chromosome 7, has been described as a syndrome with an intriguing socio-cognitive phenotype. Cognitively, the relative preservation of language and face processing abilities coexists with severe deficits in visual-spatial tasks, as well as in tasks involving…

  15. Semantics and metaphysics in informatics: toward an ontology of tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Figdor, Carrie

    2011-04-01

    This article clarifies three principles that should guide the development of any cognitive ontology. First, that an adequate cognitive ontology depends essentially on an adequate task ontology; second, that the goal of developing a cognitive ontology is independent of the goal of finding neural implementations of the processes referred to in the ontology; and third, that cognitive ontologies are neutral regarding the metaphysical relationship between cognitive and neural processes. Copyright © 2011 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  16. Semantic Dysfunction in Women With Schizotypal Personality Disorder

    OpenAIRE

    Niznikiewicz, Margaret A.; Shenton, Martha E.; Voglmaier, Martina; Nestor, Paul G.; Dickey, Chandlee C.; Frumin, Melissa; Seidman, Larry J.; Allen, Christopher G.; McCarley, Robert W.

    2002-01-01

    Objective: This study examined whether early or late processes in semantic networks were abnormal in women with a diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder. The N400 component of the EEG event-related potentials was used as a probe of semantic processes. Method: Word pairs were presented with short and long stimulus-onset asynchronies to investigate, respectively, early and late semantic processes in 16 women with schizotypal personality disorder and 15 normal female comparison subjects. ...

  17. GIF Video Sentiment Detection Using Semantic Sequence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dazhen Lin

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available With the development of social media, an increasing number of people use short videos in social media applications to express their opinions and sentiments. However, sentiment detection of short videos is a very challenging task because of the semantic gap problem and sequence based sentiment understanding problem. In this context, we propose a SentiPair Sequence based GIF video sentiment detection approach with two contributions. First, we propose a Synset Forest method to extract sentiment related semantic concepts from WordNet to build a robust SentiPair label set. This approach considers the semantic gap between label words and selects a robust label subset which is related to sentiment. Secondly, we propose a SentiPair Sequence based GIF video sentiment detection approach that learns the semantic sequence to understand the sentiment from GIF videos. Our experiment results on GSO-2016 (GIF Sentiment Ontology data show that our approach not only outperforms four state-of-the-art classification methods but also shows better performance than the state-of-the-art middle level sentiment ontology features, Adjective Noun Pairs (ANPs.

  18. Emotional verbal fluency: a new task on emotion and executive function interaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sass, Katharina; Fetz, Karolina; Oetken, Sarah; Habel, Ute; Heim, Stefan

    2013-09-01

    The present study introduces "Emotional Verbal Fluency" as a novel (partially computerized) task, which is aimed to investigate the interaction between emotionally loaded words and executive functions. Verbal fluency tasks are thought to measure executive functions but the interaction with emotional aspects is hardly investigated. In the current study, a group of healthy subjects (n = 21, mean age 25 years, 76% females) were asked to generate items that are either part of a semantic category (e.g., plants, toys, vehicles; standard semantic verbal fluency) or can trigger the emotions joy, anger, sadness, fear and disgust. The results of the task revealed no differences between performance on semantic and emotional categories, suggesting a comparable task difficulty for healthy subjects. Hence, these first results on the comparison between semantic and emotional verbal fluency seem to highlight that both might be suitable for examining executive functioning. However, an interaction was found between the category type and repetition (first vs. second sequence of the same category) with larger performance decrease for semantic in comparison to emotional categories. Best performance overall was found for the emotional category "joy" suggesting a positivity bias in healthy subjects. To conclude, emotional verbal fluency is a promising approach to investigate emotional components in an executive task, which may stimulate further research, especially in psychiatric patients who suffer from emotional as well as cognitive deficits.

  19. Emotional Verbal Fluency: A New Task on Emotion and Executive Function Interaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sarah Oetken

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available The present study introduces “Emotional Verbal Fluency” as a novel (partially computerized task, which is aimed to investigate the interaction between emotionally loaded words and executive functions. Verbal fluency tasks are thought to measure executive functions but the interaction with emotional aspects is hardly investigated. In the current study, a group of healthy subjects (n = 21, mean age 25 years, 76% females were asked to generate items that are either part of a semantic category (e.g., plants, toys, vehicles; standard semantic verbal fluency or can trigger the emotions joy, anger, sadness, fear and disgust. The results of the task revealed no differences between performance on semantic and emotional categories, suggesting a comparable task difficulty for healthy subjects. Hence, these first results on the comparison between semantic and emotional verbal fluency seem to highlight that both might be suitable for examining executive functioning. However, an interaction was found between the category type and repetition (first vs. second sequence of the same category with larger performance decrease for semantic in comparison to emotional categories. Best performance overall was found for the emotional category “joy” suggesting a positivity bias in healthy subjects. To conclude, emotional verbal fluency is a promising approach to investigate emotional components in an executive task, which may stimulate further research, especially in psychiatric patients who suffer from emotional as well as cognitive deficits.

  20. Biomedical semantics in the Semantic Web.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Splendiani, Andrea; Burger, Albert; Paschke, Adrian; Romano, Paolo; Marshall, M Scott

    2011-03-07

    The Semantic Web offers an ideal platform for representing and linking biomedical information, which is a prerequisite for the development and application of analytical tools to address problems in data-intensive areas such as systems biology and translational medicine. As for any new paradigm, the adoption of the Semantic Web offers opportunities and poses questions and challenges to the life sciences scientific community: which technologies in the Semantic Web stack will be more beneficial for the life sciences? Is biomedical information too complex to benefit from simple interlinked representations? What are the implications of adopting a new paradigm for knowledge representation? What are the incentives for the adoption of the Semantic Web, and who are the facilitators? Is there going to be a Semantic Web revolution in the life sciences?We report here a few reflections on these questions, following discussions at the SWAT4LS (Semantic Web Applications and Tools for Life Sciences) workshop series, of which this Journal of Biomedical Semantics special issue presents selected papers from the 2009 edition, held in Amsterdam on November 20th.

  1. Hierarchical Semantic Model of Geovideo

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    XIE Xiao

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available The public security incidents were getting increasingly challenging with regard to their new features, including multi-scale mobility, multistage dynamic evolution, as well as spatiotemporal concurrency and uncertainty in the complex urban environment. However, the existing video models, which were used/designed for independent archive or local analysis of surveillance video, have seriously inhibited emergency response to the urgent requirements.Aiming at the explicit representation of change mechanism in video, the paper proposed a novel hierarchical geovideo semantic model using UML. This model was characterized by the hierarchical representation of both data structure and semantics based on the change-oriented three domains (feature domain, process domain and event domain instead of overall semantic description of video streaming; combining both geographical semantics and video content semantics, in support of global semantic association between multiple geovideo data. The public security incidents by video surveillance are inspected as an example to illustrate the validity of this model.

  2. Selective Audiovisual Semantic Integration Enabled by Feature-Selective Attention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Yuanqing; Long, Jinyi; Huang, Biao; Yu, Tianyou; Wu, Wei; Li, Peijun; Fang, Fang; Sun, Pei

    2016-01-13

    An audiovisual object may contain multiple semantic features, such as the gender and emotional features of the speaker. Feature-selective attention and audiovisual semantic integration are two brain functions involved in the recognition of audiovisual objects. Humans often selectively attend to one or several features while ignoring the other features of an audiovisual object. Meanwhile, the human brain integrates semantic information from the visual and auditory modalities. However, how these two brain functions correlate with each other remains to be elucidated. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we explored the neural mechanism by which feature-selective attention modulates audiovisual semantic integration. During the fMRI experiment, the subjects were presented with visual-only, auditory-only, or audiovisual dynamical facial stimuli and performed several feature-selective attention tasks. Our results revealed that a distribution of areas, including heteromodal areas and brain areas encoding attended features, may be involved in audiovisual semantic integration. Through feature-selective attention, the human brain may selectively integrate audiovisual semantic information from attended features by enhancing functional connectivity and thus regulating information flows from heteromodal areas to brain areas encoding the attended features.

  3. Feature relevance assessment for the semantic interpretation of 3D point cloud data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Weinmann

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available The automatic analysis of large 3D point clouds represents a crucial task in photogrammetry, remote sensing and computer vision. In this paper, we propose a new methodology for the semantic interpretation of such point clouds which involves feature relevance assessment in order to reduce both processing time and memory consumption. Given a standard benchmark dataset with 1.3 million 3D points, we first extract a set of 21 geometric 3D and 2D features. Subsequently, we apply a classifier-independent ranking procedure which involves a general relevance metric in order to derive compact and robust subsets of versatile features which are generally applicable for a large variety of subsequent tasks. This metric is based on 7 different feature selection strategies and thus addresses different intrinsic properties of the given data. For the example of semantically interpreting 3D point cloud data, we demonstrate the great potential of smaller subsets consisting of only the most relevant features with 4 different state-of-the-art classifiers. The results reveal that, instead of including as many features as possible in order to compensate for lack of knowledge, a crucial task such as scene interpretation can be carried out with only few versatile features and even improved accuracy.

  4. Semantic Web Approach to Ease Regulation Compliance Checking in Construction Industry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bruno Fies

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Regulations in the Building Industry are becoming increasingly complex and involve more than one technical area, covering products, components and project implementations. They also play an important role in ensuring the quality of a building, and to minimize its environmental impact. Control or conformance checking are becoming more complex every day, not only for industrials, but also for organizations charged with assessing the conformity of new products or processes. This paper will detail the approach taken by the CSTB (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment in order to simplify this conformance control task. The approach and the proposed solutions are based on semantic web technologies. For this purpose, we first establish a domain-ontology, which defines the main concepts involved and the relationships, including one based on OWL (Web Ontology Language [1]. We rely on SBVR (Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules [2] and SPARQL (SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language [3] to reformulate the regulatory requirements written in natural language, respectively, in a controlled and formal language. We then structure our control process based on expert practices. Each elementary control step is defined as a SPARQL query and assembled into complex control processes “on demand”, according to the component tested and its semantic definition. Finally, we represent in RDF (Resource Description Framework [4] the association between the SBVR rules and SPARQL queries representing the same regulatory constraints.

  5. Semantic memory processing is enhanced in preadolescents breastfed compared to those formula-fed as infants: An ERP N400 study of sentential semantic congruity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Studies comparing child cognitive development and brain activity during cognitive functions between children who were fed breast milk (BF), milk formula (MF), or soy formula (SF) have not been reported. We recorded event-related scalp potentials reflecting semantic processing (N400 ERP) from 20 homo...

  6. Semantic Ambiguity Effects in L2 Word Recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  7. Combining the Post-Cue Task and the Perceptual Identification Task to Assess Parallel Activation and Mutual Facilitation of Related Primes and Targets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scherer, Demian; Wentura, Dirk

    2018-03-01

    Recent theories assume a mutual facilitation in case of semantic overlap for concepts being activated simultaneously. We provide evidence for this claim using a semantic priming paradigm. To test for mutual facilitation of related concepts, a perceptual identification task was employed, presenting prime-target pairs briefly and masked, with an SOA of 0 ms (i.e., prime and target were presented concurrently, one above the other). Participants were instructed to identify the target. In Experiment 1, a cue defining the target was presented at stimulus onset, whereas in Experiment 2 the cue was not presented before the offset of stimuli. Accordingly, in Experiment 2, a post-cue task was merged with the perceptual identification task. We obtained significant semantic priming effects in both experiments. This result is compatible with the view that two concepts can both be activated in parallel and can mutually facilitate each other if they are related.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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…

  9. Enhancing biomedical text summarization using semantic relation extraction.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yue Shang

    Full Text Available Automatic text summarization for a biomedical concept can help researchers to get the key points of a certain topic from large amount of biomedical literature efficiently. In this paper, we present a method for generating text summary for a given biomedical concept, e.g., H1N1 disease, from multiple documents based on semantic relation extraction. Our approach includes three stages: 1 We extract semantic relations in each sentence using the semantic knowledge representation tool SemRep. 2 We develop a relation-level retrieval method to select the relations most relevant to each query concept and visualize them in a graphic representation. 3 For relations in the relevant set, we extract informative sentences that can interpret them from the document collection to generate text summary using an information retrieval based method. Our major focus in this work is to investigate the contribution of semantic relation extraction to the task of biomedical text summarization. The experimental results on summarization for a set of diseases show that the introduction of semantic knowledge improves the performance and our results are better than the MEAD system, a well-known tool for text summarization.

  10. Enhancing biomedical text summarization using semantic relation extraction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shang, Yue; Li, Yanpeng; Lin, Hongfei; Yang, Zhihao

    2011-01-01

    Automatic text summarization for a biomedical concept can help researchers to get the key points of a certain topic from large amount of biomedical literature efficiently. In this paper, we present a method for generating text summary for a given biomedical concept, e.g., H1N1 disease, from multiple documents based on semantic relation extraction. Our approach includes three stages: 1) We extract semantic relations in each sentence using the semantic knowledge representation tool SemRep. 2) We develop a relation-level retrieval method to select the relations most relevant to each query concept and visualize them in a graphic representation. 3) For relations in the relevant set, we extract informative sentences that can interpret them from the document collection to generate text summary using an information retrieval based method. Our major focus in this work is to investigate the contribution of semantic relation extraction to the task of biomedical text summarization. The experimental results on summarization for a set of diseases show that the introduction of semantic knowledge improves the performance and our results are better than the MEAD system, a well-known tool for text summarization.

  11. Preserved musical semantic memory in semantic dementia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weinstein, Jessica; Koenig, Phyllis; Gunawardena, Delani; McMillan, Corey; Bonner, Michael; Grossman, Murray

    2011-02-01

    To understand the scope of semantic impairment in semantic dementia. Case study. Academic medical center. A man with semantic dementia, as demonstrated by clinical, neuropsychological, and imaging studies. Music performance and magnetic resonance imaging results. Despite profoundly impaired semantic memory for words and objects due to left temporal lobe atrophy, this semiprofessional musician was creative and expressive in demonstrating preserved musical knowledge. Long-term representations of words and objects in semantic memory may be dissociated from meaningful knowledge in other domains, such as music.

  12. Semantic Business Intelligence - a New Generation of Business Intelligence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dinu AIRINEI

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Business Intelligence Solutions represents applications used by companies to manage process and analyze data to provide substantiated decision. In the context of Semantic Web develop-ment trend is to integrate semantic unstructured data, making business intelligence solutions to be redesigned in such a manner that can analyze, process and synthesize, in addition to traditional data and data integrated with semantic another form and structure. This invariably leads appearance of new BI solution, called Semantic Business Intelligence.

  13. A Developmental Study of Conceptual, Semantic Differential, and Acoustical Dimensions as Encoding Categories in Short-Term Memory. Final Report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pender, Nola J.

    The purpose of this research was to investigate developmental changes in encoding processes. It attempted to determine the extent to which children of varying ages utilize semantic (denotative or connotative) and acoustical encoding categories in a short-term memory task. It appears to be a reasonable assumption that as associational hierarchies…

  14. Effects of TMS on different stages of motor and non-motor verb processing in the primary motor cortex.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liuba Papeo

    Full Text Available The embodied cognition hypothesis suggests that motor and premotor areas are automatically and necessarily involved in understanding action language, as word conceptual representations are embodied. This transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS study explores the role of the left primary motor cortex in action-verb processing. TMS-induced motor-evoked potentials from right-hand muscles were recorded as a measure of M1 activity, while participants were asked either to judge explicitly whether a verb was action-related (semantic task or to decide on the number of syllables in a verb (syllabic task. TMS was applied in three different experiments at 170, 350 and 500 ms post-stimulus during both tasks to identify when the enhancement of M1 activity occurred during word processing. The delays between stimulus onset and magnetic stimulation were consistent with electrophysiological studies, suggesting that word recognition can be differentiated into early (within 200 ms and late (within 400 ms lexical-semantic stages, and post-conceptual stages. Reaction times and accuracy were recorded to measure the extent to which the participants' linguistic performance was affected by the interference of TMS with M1 activity. No enhancement of M1 activity specific for action verbs was found at 170 and 350 ms post-stimulus, when lexical-semantic processes are presumed to occur (Experiments 1-2. When TMS was applied at 500 ms post-stimulus (Experiment 3, processing action verbs, compared with non-action verbs, increased the M1-activity in the semantic task and decreased it in the syllabic task. This effect was specific for hand-action verbs and was not observed for action-verbs related to other body parts. Neither accuracy nor RTs were affected by TMS. These findings suggest that the lexical-semantic processing of action verbs does not automatically activate the M1. This area seems to be rather involved in post-conceptual processing that follows the retrieval of motor

  15. Advantages and disadvantages of intraoperative language tasks in awake surgery: a three-task approach for prefrontal tumors.

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    Rofes, A; Spena, G; Miozzo, A; Fontanella, M M; Miceli, G

    2015-12-01

    Multidisciplinary efforts are being made to provide surgical teams with sensitive and specific tasks for language mapping in awake surgery. Researchers and clinicians have elaborated different tasks over time. A fair amount of work has been directed to study the neurofunctional correlates of some of these tasks, and there is recent interest in their standardization. However, little discussion exists on the advantages and disadvantages that each task poses from the perspective of the cognitive neuroscience of language. Such an approach may be a relevant step to assess task validity, to avoid using tasks that tap onto similar processes, and to provide patients with a surgical treatment that ensures maximal tumor resection while avoiding postoperative language deficits. An understanding of the language components that each task entails may also be relevant to improve the current assessments and the ways in which tasks are administered, and to disentangle neurofunctional questions. We reviewed 17 language mapping tasks that have been used in awake surgery. Overt production tasks have been a preferred choice over comprehension tasks. Tasks tapping lexico-semantic processes, particularly object-naming, maintain their role as gold standards. Automated speech tasks are used to detect speech errors and to set the amplitude of the stimulator. Comprehension tasks, reading and writing tasks, and tasks that assess grammatical aspects of language may be regularly administered in the near future. We provide examples of a three-task approach we are administering to patients with prefrontal lesions. We believe that future advances in this area are contingent upon reviewing gold standards and introducing new assessment tools.

  16. Semantic Modelling of Digital Forensic Evidence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kahvedžić, Damir; Kechadi, Tahar

    The reporting of digital investigation results are traditionally carried out in prose and in a large investigation may require successive communication of findings between different parties. Popular forensic suites aid in the reporting process by storing provenance and positional data but do not automatically encode why the evidence is considered important. In this paper we introduce an evidence management methodology to encode the semantic information of evidence. A structured vocabulary of terms, ontology, is used to model the results in a logical and predefined manner. The descriptions are application independent and automatically organised. The encoded descriptions aim to help the investigation in the task of report writing and evidence communication and can be used in addition to existing evidence management techniques.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  18. Effect of episodic and working memory impairments on semantic and cognitive procedural learning at alcohol treatment entry.

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    Pitel, Anne Lise; Witkowski, Thomas; Vabret, François; Guillery-Girard, Bérengère; Desgranges, Béatrice; Eustache, Francis; Beaunieux, Hélène

    2007-02-01

    Chronic alcoholism is known to impair the functioning of episodic and working memory, which may consequently reduce the ability to learn complex novel information. Nevertheless, semantic and cognitive procedural learning have not been properly explored at alcohol treatment entry, despite its potential clinical relevance. The goal of the present study was therefore to determine whether alcoholic patients, immediately after the weaning phase, are cognitively able to acquire complex new knowledge, given their episodic and working memory deficits. Twenty alcoholic inpatients with episodic memory and working memory deficits at alcohol treatment entry and a control group of 20 healthy subjects underwent a protocol of semantic acquisition and cognitive procedural learning. The semantic learning task consisted of the acquisition of 10 novel concepts, while subjects were administered the Tower of Toronto task to measure cognitive procedural learning. Analyses showed that although alcoholic subjects were able to acquire the category and features of the semantic concepts, albeit slowly, they presented impaired label learning. In the control group, executive functions and episodic memory predicted semantic learning in the first and second halves of the protocol, respectively. In addition to the cognitive processes involved in the learning strategies invoked by controls, alcoholic subjects seem to attempt to compensate for their impaired cognitive functions, invoking capacities of short-term passive storage. Regarding cognitive procedural learning, although the patients eventually achieved the same results as the controls, they failed to automate the procedure. Contrary to the control group, the alcoholic groups' learning performance was predicted by controlled cognitive functions throughout the protocol. At alcohol treatment entry, alcoholic patients with neuropsychological deficits have difficulty acquiring novel semantic and cognitive procedural knowledge. Compared with

  19. Independence of early speech processing from word meaning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Travis, Katherine E; Leonard, Matthew K; Chan, Alexander M; Torres, Christina; Sizemore, Marisa L; Qu, Zhe; Eskandar, Emad; Dale, Anders M; Elman, Jeffrey L; Cash, Sydney S; Halgren, Eric

    2013-10-01

    We combined magnetoencephalography (MEG) with magnetic resonance imaging and electrocorticography to separate in anatomy and latency 2 fundamental stages underlying speech comprehension. The first acoustic-phonetic stage is selective for words relative to control stimuli individually matched on acoustic properties. It begins ∼60 ms after stimulus onset and is localized to middle superior temporal cortex. It was replicated in another experiment, but is strongly dissociated from the response to tones in the same subjects. Within the same task, semantic priming of the same words by a related picture modulates cortical processing in a broader network, but this does not begin until ∼217 ms. The earlier onset of acoustic-phonetic processing compared with lexico-semantic modulation was significant in each individual subject. The MEG source estimates were confirmed with intracranial local field potential and high gamma power responses acquired in 2 additional subjects performing the same task. These recordings further identified sites within superior temporal cortex that responded only to the acoustic-phonetic contrast at short latencies, or the lexico-semantic at long. The independence of the early acoustic-phonetic response from semantic context suggests a limited role for lexical feedback in early speech perception.

  20. Brain activity during divided and selective attention to auditory and visual sentence comprehension tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moisala, Mona; Salmela, Viljami; Salo, Emma; Carlson, Synnöve; Vuontela, Virve; Salonen, Oili; Alho, Kimmo

    2015-01-01

    Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we measured brain activity of human participants while they performed a sentence congruence judgment task in either the visual or auditory modality separately, or in both modalities simultaneously. Significant performance decrements were observed when attention was divided between the two modalities compared with when one modality was selectively attended. Compared with selective attention (i.e., single tasking), divided attention (i.e., dual-tasking) did not recruit additional cortical regions, but resulted in increased activity in medial and lateral frontal regions which were also activated by the component tasks when performed separately. Areas involved in semantic language processing were revealed predominantly in the left lateral prefrontal cortex by contrasting incongruent with congruent sentences. These areas also showed significant activity increases during divided attention in relation to selective attention. In the sensory cortices, no crossmodal inhibition was observed during divided attention when compared with selective attention to one modality. Our results suggest that the observed performance decrements during dual-tasking are due to interference of the two tasks because they utilize the same part of the cortex. Moreover, semantic dual-tasking did not appear to recruit additional brain areas in comparison with single tasking, and no crossmodal inhibition was observed during intermodal divided attention.

  1. Brain activity during divided and selective attention to auditory and visual sentence comprehension tasks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moisala, Mona; Salmela, Viljami; Salo, Emma; Carlson, Synnöve; Vuontela, Virve; Salonen, Oili; Alho, Kimmo

    2015-01-01

    Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we measured brain activity of human participants while they performed a sentence congruence judgment task in either the visual or auditory modality separately, or in both modalities simultaneously. Significant performance decrements were observed when attention was divided between the two modalities compared with when one modality was selectively attended. Compared with selective attention (i.e., single tasking), divided attention (i.e., dual-tasking) did not recruit additional cortical regions, but resulted in increased activity in medial and lateral frontal regions which were also activated by the component tasks when performed separately. Areas involved in semantic language processing were revealed predominantly in the left lateral prefrontal cortex by contrasting incongruent with congruent sentences. These areas also showed significant activity increases during divided attention in relation to selective attention. In the sensory cortices, no crossmodal inhibition was observed during divided attention when compared with selective attention to one modality. Our results suggest that the observed performance decrements during dual-tasking are due to interference of the two tasks because they utilize the same part of the cortex. Moreover, semantic dual-tasking did not appear to recruit additional brain areas in comparison with single tasking, and no crossmodal inhibition was observed during intermodal divided attention. PMID:25745395

  2. Neurological evidence linguistic processes precede perceptual simulation in conceptual processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Louwerse, Max; Hutchinson, Sterling

    2012-01-01

    There is increasing evidence from response time experiments that language statistics and perceptual simulations both play a role in conceptual processing. In an EEG experiment we compared neural activity in cortical regions commonly associated with linguistic processing and visual perceptual processing to determine to what extent symbolic and embodied accounts of cognition applied. Participants were asked to determine the semantic relationship of word pairs (e.g., sky - ground) or to determine their iconic relationship (i.e., if the presentation of the pair matched their expected physical relationship). A linguistic bias was found toward the semantic judgment task and a perceptual bias was found toward the iconicity judgment task. More importantly, conceptual processing involved activation in brain regions associated with both linguistic and perceptual processes. When comparing the relative activation of linguistic cortical regions with perceptual cortical regions, the effect sizes for linguistic cortical regions were larger than those for the perceptual cortical regions early in a trial with the reverse being true later in a trial. These results map upon findings from other experimental literature and provide further evidence that processing of concept words relies both on language statistics and on perceptual simulations, whereby linguistic processes precede perceptual simulation processes.

  3. Effects of semantic relatedness on age-related associative memory deficits: the role of theta oscillations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crespo-Garcia, Maite; Cantero, Jose L; Atienza, Mercedes

    2012-07-16

    Growing evidence suggests that age-related deficits in associative memory are alleviated when the to-be-associated items are semantically related. Here we investigate whether this beneficial effect of semantic relatedness is paralleled by spatio-temporal changes in cortical EEG dynamics during incidental encoding. Young and older adults were presented with faces at a particular spatial location preceded by a biographical cue that was either semantically related or unrelated. As expected, automatic encoding of face-location associations benefited from semantic relatedness in the two groups of age. This effect correlated with increased power of theta oscillations over medial and anterior lateral regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and lateral regions of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in both groups. But better-performing elders also showed increased brain-behavior correlation in the theta band over the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) as compared to young adults. Semantic relatedness was, however, insufficient to fully eliminate age-related differences in associative memory. In line with this finding, poorer-performing elders relative to young adults showed significant reductions of theta power in the left IFG that were further predictive of behavioral impairment in the recognition task. All together, these results suggest that older adults benefit less than young adults from executive processes during encoding mainly due to neural inefficiency over regions of the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). But this associative deficit may be partially compensated for by engaging preexistent semantic knowledge, which likely leads to an efficient recruitment of attentional and integration processes supported by the left PPC and left anterior PFC respectively, together with neural compensatory mechanisms governed by the right VLPFC. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Emotional prosody of task-irrelevant speech interferes with the retention of serial order.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kattner, Florian; Ellermeier, Wolfgang

    2018-04-09

    Task-irrelevant speech and other temporally changing sounds are known to interfere with the short-term memorization of ordered verbal materials, as compared to silence or stationary sounds. It has been argued that this disruption of short-term memory (STM) may be due to (a) interference of automatically encoded acoustical fluctuations with the process of serial rehearsal or (b) attentional capture by salient task-irrelevant information. To disentangle the contributions of these 2 processes, the authors investigated whether the disruption of serial recall is due to the semantic or acoustical properties of task-irrelevant speech (Experiment 1). They found that performance was affected by the prosody (emotional intonation), but not by the semantics (word meaning), of irrelevant speech, suggesting that the disruption of serial recall is due to interference of precategorically encoded changing-state sound (with higher fluctuation strength of emotionally intonated speech). The authors further demonstrated a functional distinction between this form of distraction and attentional capture by contrasting the effect of (a) speech prosody and (b) sudden prosody deviations on both serial and nonserial STM tasks (Experiment 2). Although serial recall was again sensitive to the emotional prosody of irrelevant speech, performance on a nonserial missing-item task was unaffected by the presence of neutral or emotionally intonated speech sounds. In contrast, sudden prosody changes tended to impair performance on both tasks, suggesting an independent effect of attentional capture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  5. The Processing of Causal and Hierarchical Relations in Semantic Memory as Revealed by N400 and Frontal Negativity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiuling Liang

    Full Text Available Most current studies investigating semantic memory have focused on associative (ring-emerald or taxonomic relations (bird-sparrow. Little is known about the question of how causal relations (virus-epidemic are stored and accessed in semantic memory. The goal of this study was to examine the processing of causally related, general associatively related and hierarchically related word pairs when participants were required to evaluate whether pairs of words were related in any way. The ERP data showed that the N400 amplitude (200-500 ms elicited by unrelated related words was more negative than all related words. Furthermore, the late frontal distributed negativity (500-700 ms elicited by causally related words was smaller than hierarchically related words, but not for general associated words. These results suggested the processing of causal relations and hierarchical relations in semantic memory recruited different degrees of cognitive resources, especially for role binding.

  6. Generation of Signs within Semantic and Phonological Categories: Data from Deaf Adults and Children Who Use American Sign Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beal-Alvarez, Jennifer S.; Figueroa, Daileen M.

    2017-01-01

    Two key areas of language development include semantic and phonological knowledge. Semantic knowledge relates to word and concept knowledge. Phonological knowledge relates to how language parameters combine to create meaning. We investigated signing deaf adults' and children's semantic and phonological sign generation via one-minute tasks,…

  7. Efficient multitasking: parallel versus serial processing of multiple tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fischer, Rico; Plessow, Franziska

    2015-01-01

    In the context of performance optimizations in multitasking, a central debate has unfolded in multitasking research around whether cognitive processes related to different tasks proceed only sequentially (one at a time), or can operate in parallel (simultaneously). This review features a discussion of theoretical considerations and empirical evidence regarding parallel versus serial task processing in multitasking. In addition, we highlight how methodological differences and theoretical conceptions determine the extent to which parallel processing in multitasking can be detected, to guide their employment in future research. Parallel and serial processing of multiple tasks are not mutually exclusive. Therefore, questions focusing exclusively on either task-processing mode are too simplified. We review empirical evidence and demonstrate that shifting between more parallel and more serial task processing critically depends on the conditions under which multiple tasks are performed. We conclude that efficient multitasking is reflected by the ability of individuals to adjust multitasking performance to environmental demands by flexibly shifting between different processing strategies of multiple task-component scheduling.

  8. Semantic annotation in biomedicine: the current landscape.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jovanović, Jelena; Bagheri, Ebrahim

    2017-09-22

    The abundance and unstructured nature of biomedical texts, be it clinical or research content, impose significant challenges for the effective and efficient use of information and knowledge stored in such texts. Annotation of biomedical documents with machine intelligible semantics facilitates advanced, semantics-based text management, curation, indexing, and search. This paper focuses on annotation of biomedical entity mentions with concepts from relevant biomedical knowledge bases such as UMLS. As a result, the meaning of those mentions is unambiguously and explicitly defined, and thus made readily available for automated processing. This process is widely known as semantic annotation, and the tools that perform it are known as semantic annotators.Over the last dozen years, the biomedical research community has invested significant efforts in the development of biomedical semantic annotation technology. Aiming to establish grounds for further developments in this area, we review a selected set of state of the art biomedical semantic annotators, focusing particularly on general purpose annotators, that is, semantic annotation tools that can be customized to work with texts from any area of biomedicine. We also examine potential directions for further improvements of today's annotators which could make them even more capable of meeting the needs of real-world applications. To motivate and encourage further developments in this area, along the suggested and/or related directions, we review existing and potential practical applications and benefits of semantic annotators.

  9. Effect of Perceptual Load on Semantic Access by Speech in Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jerger, Susan; Damian, Markus F.; Mills, Candice; Bartlett, James; Tye-Murray, Nancy; Abdi, Herve

    2013-01-01

    Purpose: To examine whether semantic access by speech requires attention in children. Method: Children ("N" = 200) named pictures and ignored distractors on a cross-modal (distractors: auditory-no face) or multimodal (distractors: auditory-static face and audiovisual- dynamic face) picture word task. The cross-modal task had a low load,…

  10. 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

  11. The role of the left anterior temporal lobe in semantic composition vs. semantic memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Westerlund, Masha; Pylkkänen, Liina

    2014-05-01

    The left anterior temporal lobe (LATL) is robustly implicated in semantic processing by a growing body of literature. However, these results have emerged from two distinct bodies of work, addressing two different processing levels. On the one hand, the LATL has been characterized as a 'semantic hub׳ that binds features of concepts across a distributed network, based on results from semantic dementia and hemodynamic findings on the categorization of specific compared to basic exemplars. On the other, the LATL has been implicated in combinatorial operations in language, as shown by increased activity in this region associated with the processing of sentences and of basic phrases. The present work aimed to reconcile these two literatures by independently manipulating combination and concept specificity within a minimal MEG paradigm. Participants viewed simple nouns that denoted either low specificity (fish) or high specificity categories (trout) presented in either combinatorial (spotted fish/trout) or non-combinatorial contexts (xhsl fish/trout). By combining these paradigms from the two literatures, we directly compared the engagement of the LATL in semantic memory vs. semantic composition. Our results indicate that although noun specificity subtly modulates the LATL activity elicited by single nouns, it most robustly affects the size of the composition effect when these nouns are adjectivally modified, with low specificity nouns eliciting a much larger effect. We conclude that these findings are compatible with an account in which the specificity and composition effects arise from a shared mechanism of meaning specification. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Preservation of episodic memory in semantic dementia: The importance of regions beyond the medial temporal lobes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Irish, Muireann; Bunk, Steffie; Tu, Sicong; Kamminga, Jody; Hodges, John R; Hornberger, Michael; Piguet, Olivier

    2016-01-29

    Episodic memory impairment represents one of the hallmark clinical features of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) attributable to the degeneration of medial temporal and parietal regions of the brain. In contrast, a somewhat paradoxical profile of relatively intact episodic memory, particularly for non-verbal material, is observed in semantic dementia (SD), despite marked atrophy of the hippocampus. This retrospective study investigated the neural substrates of episodic memory retrieval in 20 patients with a diagnosis of SD and 21 disease-matched cases of AD and compared their performance to that of 35 age- and education-matched healthy older Controls. Participants completed the Rey Complex Figure and the memory subscale of the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-Revised as indices of visual and verbal episodic recall, respectively. Relative to Controls, AD patients showed compromised memory performance on both visual and verbal memory tasks. In contrast, memory deficits in SD were modality-specific occurring exclusively on the verbal task. Controlling for semantic processing ameliorated these deficits in SD, while memory impairments persisted in AD. Voxel-based morphometry analyses revealed significant overlap in the neural correlates of verbal episodic memory in AD and SD with predominantly anteromedial regions, including the bilateral hippocampus, strongly implicated. Controlling for semantic processing negated this effect in SD, however, a distributed network of frontal, medial temporal, and parietal regions was implicated in AD. Our study corroborates the view that episodic memory deficits in SD arise very largely as a consequence of the conceptual loading of traditional tasks. We propose that the functional integrity of frontal and parietal regions enables new learning to occur in SD in the face of significant hippocampal and anteromedial temporal lobe pathology, underscoring the inherent complexity of the episodic memory circuitry. Copyright © 2015

  13. Brain processing of task-relevant and task-irrelevant emotional words: an ERP study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    González-Villar, Alberto J; Triñanes, Yolanda; Zurrón, Montserrat; Carrillo-de-la-Peña, María T

    2014-09-01

    Although there is evidence for preferential perceptual processing of written emotional information, the effects of attentional manipulations and the time course of affective processing require further clarification. In this study, we attempted to investigate how the emotional content of words modulates cerebral functioning (event-related potentials, ERPs) and behavior (reaction times, RTs) when the content is task-irrelevant (emotional Stroop Task, EST) or task-relevant (emotional categorization task, ECT), in a sample of healthy middle-aged women. In the EST, the RTs were longer for emotional words than for neutral words, and in the ECT, they were longer for neutral and negative words than for positive words. A principal components analysis of the ERPs identified various temporospatial factors that were differentially modified by emotional content. P2 was the first emotion-sensitive component, with enhanced factor scores for negative nouns across tasks. The N2 and late positive complex had enhanced factor scores for emotional relative to neutral information only in the ECT. The results reinforce the idea that written emotional information has a preferential processing route, both when it is task-irrelevant (producing behavioral interference) and when it is task-relevant (facilitating the categorization). After early automatic processing of the emotional content, late ERPs become more emotionally modulated as the level of attention to the valence increases.

  14. Response-related potentials during semantic priming: the effect of a speeded button response task on ERPs.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marijn van Vliet

    Full Text Available This study examines the influence of a button response task on the event-related potential (ERP in a semantic priming experiment. Of particular interest is the N400 component. In many semantic priming studies, subjects are asked to respond to a stimulus as fast and accurately as possible by pressing a button. Response time (RT is recorded in parallel with an electroencephalogram (EEG for ERP analysis. In this case, the response occurs in the time window used for ERP analysis and response-related components may overlap with stimulus-locked ones such as the N400. This has led to a recommendation against such a design, although the issue has not been explored in depth. Since studies keep being published that disregard this issue, a more detailed examination of influence of response-related potentials on the ERP is needed. Two experiments were performed in which subjects pressed one of two buttons with their dominant hand in response to word-pairs with varying association strength (AS, indicating a personal judgement of association between the two words. In the first experiment, subjects were instructed to respond as fast and accurately as possible. In the second experiment, subjects delayed their button response to enforce a one second interval between the onset of the target word and the button response. Results show that in the first experiment a P3 component and motor-related potentials (MRPs overlap with the N400 component, which can cause a misinterpretation of the latter. In order to study the N400 component, the button response should be delayed to avoid contamination of the ERP with response-related components.

  15. Episodic grammar: a computational model of the interaction between episodic and semantic memory in language processing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Borensztajn, G.; Zuidema, W.; Carlson, L.; Hoelscher, C.; Shipley, T.F.

    2011-01-01

    We present a model of the interaction of semantic and episodic memory in language processing. Our work shows how language processing can be understood in terms of memory retrieval. We point out that the perceived dichotomy between rule-based versus exemplar-based language modelling can be

  16. Semantic Advertising

    OpenAIRE

    Zamanzadeh, Ben; Ashish, Naveen; Ramakrishnan, Cartic; Zimmerman, John

    2013-01-01

    We present the concept of Semantic Advertising which we see as the future of online advertising. Semantic Advertising is online advertising powered by semantic technology which essentially enables us to represent and reason with concepts and the meaning of things. This paper aims to 1) Define semantic advertising, 2) Place it in the context of broader and more widely used concepts such as the Semantic Web and Semantic Search, 3) Provide a survey of work in related areas such as context matchi...

  17. Altered structure-function relations of semantic processing in youths with high-functioning autism: a combined diffusion and functional MRI study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lo, Yu-Chun; Chou, Tai-Li; Fan, Li-Ying; Gau, Susan Shur-Fen; Chiu, Yen-Nan; Tseng, Wen-Yih Isaac

    2013-12-01

    Deficits in language and communication are among the core symptoms of autism, a common neurodevelopmental disorder with long-term impairment. Despite the striking nature of the autistic language impairment, knowledge about its corresponding alterations in the brain is still evolving. We hypothesized that the dual stream language network is altered in autism, and that this alteration could be revealed by changes in the relationships between microstructural integrity and functional activation. The study recruited 20 right-handed male youths with autism and 20 carefully matched individually, typically developing (TD) youths. Microstructural integrity of the left dorsal and left ventral pathways responsible for language processing and the functional activation of the connected brain regions were investigated by using diffusion spectrum imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging of a semantic task, respectively. Youths with autism had significantly poorer language function, and lower functional activation in left dorsal and left ventral regions of the language network, compared with TD youths. The TD group showed a significant correlation of the functional activation of the left dorsal region with microstructural integrity of the left ventral pathway, whereas the autism group showed a significant correlation of the functional activation of the left ventral region with microstructural integrity of the left dorsal pathway, and moreover verbal comprehension index was correlated with microstructural integrity of the left ventral pathway. These altered structure-function relationships in autism suggest possible involvement of the dual pathways in supporting deficient semantic processing. © 2013 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  18. The impact of auditory white noise on semantic priming.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angwin, Anthony J; Wilson, Wayne J; Copland, David A; Barry, Robert J; Myatt, Grace; Arnott, Wendy L

    2018-04-10

    It has been proposed that white noise can improve cognitive performance for some individuals, particularly those with lower attention, and that this effect may be mediated by dopaminergic circuitry. Given existing evidence that semantic priming is modulated by dopamine, this study investigated whether white noise can facilitate semantic priming. Seventy-eight adults completed an auditory semantic priming task with and without white noise, at either a short or long inter-stimulus interval (ISI). Measures of both direct and indirect semantic priming were examined. Analysis of the results revealed significant direct and indirect priming effects at each ISI in noise and silence, however noise significantly reduced the magnitude of indirect priming. Analyses of subgroups with higher versus lower attention revealed a reduction to indirect priming in noise relative to silence for participants with lower executive and orienting attention. These findings suggest that white noise focuses automatic spreading activation, which may be driven by modulation of dopaminergic circuitry. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Not all reading is alike: Task modulation of magnetic evoked response to visual word

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pavlova A. A.

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Background. Previous studies have shown that brain response to a written word depends on the task: whether the word is a target in a version of lexical decision task or should be read silently. Although this effect has been interpreted as an evidence for an interaction between word recognition processes and task demands, it also may be caused by greater attention allocation to the target word. Objective. We aimed to examine the task effect on brain response evoked by non- target written words. Design. Using MEG and magnetic source imaging, we compared spatial-temporal pattern of brain response elicited by a noun cue when it was read silently either without additional task (SR or with a requirement to produce an associated verb (VG. Results.The task demands penetrated into early (200-300 ms and late (500-800 ms stages of a word processing by enhancing brain response under VG versus SR condition. The cortical sources of the early response were localized to bilateral inferior occipitotemporal and anterior temporal cortex suggesting that more demanding VG task required elaborated lexical-semantic analysis. The late effect was observed in the associative auditory areas in middle and superior temporal gyri and in motor representation of articulators. Our results suggest that a remote goal plays a pivotal role in enhanced recruitment of cortical structures underlying orthographic, semantic and sensorimotor dimensions of written word perception from the early processing stages. Surprisingly, we found that to fulfil a more challenging goal the brain progressively engaged resources of the right hemisphere throughout all stages of silent reading. Conclusion. Our study demonstrates that a deeper processing of linguistic input amplifies activation of brain areas involved in integration of speech perception and production. This is consistent with theories that emphasize the role of sensorimotor integration in speech understanding.

  20. Grammaticalization and Semantic Maps: Evidence from Artificial Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Remi van Trijp

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Semantic maps have offered linguists an appealing and empirically rooted methodology for describing recurrent structural patterns in language development and the multifunctionality of grammatical categories. Although some researchers argue that semantic maps are universal and given, others provide evidence that there are no fixed or universal maps. This paper takes the position that semantic maps are a useful way to visualize the grammatical evolution of a language (particularly the evolution of semantic structuring but that this grammatical evolution is a consequence of distributed processes whereby language users shape and reshape their language. So it is a challenge to find out what these processes are and whether they indeed generate the kind of semantic maps observed for human languages. This work takes a design stance towards the question of the emergence of linguistic structure and investigates how grammar can be formed in populations of autonomous artificial ?agents? that play ?language games? with each other about situations they perceive through a sensori-motor embodiment. The experiments reported here investigate whether semantic maps for case markers could emerge through grammaticalization processes without the need for a universal conceptual space.

  1. Classification with an edge: Improving semantic image segmentation with boundary detection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marmanis, D.; Schindler, K.; Wegner, J. D.; Galliani, S.; Datcu, M.; Stilla, U.

    2018-01-01

    We present an end-to-end trainable deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) for semantic segmentation with built-in awareness of semantically meaningful boundaries. Semantic segmentation is a fundamental remote sensing task, and most state-of-the-art methods rely on DCNNs as their workhorse. A major reason for their success is that deep networks learn to accumulate contextual information over very large receptive fields. However, this success comes at a cost, since the associated loss of effective spatial resolution washes out high-frequency details and leads to blurry object boundaries. Here, we propose to counter this effect by combining semantic segmentation with semantically informed edge detection, thus making class boundaries explicit in the model. First, we construct a comparatively simple, memory-efficient model by adding boundary detection to the SEGNET encoder-decoder architecture. Second, we also include boundary detection in FCN-type models and set up a high-end classifier ensemble. We show that boundary detection significantly improves semantic segmentation with CNNs in an end-to-end training scheme. Our best model achieves >90% overall accuracy on the ISPRS Vaihingen benchmark.

  2. Latent semantic analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evangelopoulos, Nicholas E

    2013-11-01

    This article reviews latent semantic analysis (LSA), a theory of meaning as well as a method for extracting that meaning from passages of text, based on statistical computations over a collection of documents. LSA as a theory of meaning defines a latent semantic space where documents and individual words are represented as vectors. LSA as a computational technique uses linear algebra to extract dimensions that represent that space. This representation enables the computation of similarity among terms and documents, categorization of terms and documents, and summarization of large collections of documents using automated procedures that mimic the way humans perform similar cognitive tasks. We present some technical details, various illustrative examples, and discuss a number of applications from linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, education, information science, and analysis of textual data in general. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:683-692. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1254 CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  3. A Machine Learning Based Analytical Framework for Semantic Annotation Requirements

    OpenAIRE

    Hamed Hassanzadeh; MohammadReza Keyvanpour

    2011-01-01

    The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning. The perspective of Semantic Web is to promote the quality and intelligence of the current web by changing its contents into machine understandable form. Therefore, semantic level information is one of the cornerstones of the Semantic Web. The process of adding semantic metadata to web resources is called Semantic Annotation. There are many obstacles against the Semantic Annotation, such as ...

  4. 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.

  5. The Influence of Semantic Neighbours on Visual Word Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    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…

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  8. Examining lateralized semantic access using pictures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lovseth, Kyle; Atchley, Ruth Ann

    2010-03-01

    A divided visual field (DVF) experiment examined the semantic processing strategies employed by the cerebral hemispheres to determine if strategies observed with written word stimuli generalize to other media for communicating semantic information. We employed picture stimuli and vary the degree of semantic relatedness between the picture pairs. Participants made an on-line semantic relatedness judgment in response to sequentially presented pictures. We found that when pictures are presented to the right hemisphere responses are generally more accurate than the left hemisphere for semantic relatedness judgments for picture pairs. Furthermore, consistent with earlier DVF studies employing words, we conclude that the RH is better at accessing or maintaining access to information that has a weak or more remote semantic relationship. We also found evidence of faster access for pictures presented to the LH in the strongly-related condition. Overall, these results are consistent with earlier DVF word studies that argue that the cerebral hemispheres each play an important and separable role during semantic retrieval. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. The semantic representation of prejudice and stereotypes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bhatia, Sudeep

    2017-07-01

    We use a theory of semantic representation to study prejudice and stereotyping. Particularly, we consider large datasets of newspaper articles published in the United States, and apply latent semantic analysis (LSA), a prominent model of human semantic memory, to these datasets to learn representations for common male and female, White, African American, and Latino names. LSA performs a singular value decomposition on word distribution statistics in order to recover word vector representations, and we find that our recovered representations display the types of biases observed in human participants using tasks such as the implicit association test. Importantly, these biases are strongest for vector representations with moderate dimensionality, and weaken or disappear for representations with very high or very low dimensionality. Moderate dimensional LSA models are also the best at learning race, ethnicity, and gender-based categories, suggesting that social category knowledge, acquired through dimensionality reduction on word distribution statistics, can facilitate prejudiced and stereotyped associations. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. Towards Semantic Interpretation of Movement Behavior

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Baglioni, M.; Macedo, J.; Renso, C.; Trasarti, R.; Wachowicz, M.

    2009-01-01

    In this paper we aim at providing a model for the conceptual representation and deductive reasoning of trajectory patterns obtained from mining raw trajectories. This has been achieved by means of a semantic enrichment process, where raw trajectories are enhanced with semantic information and

  11. Deep processing activates the medial temporal lobe in young but not in old adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daselaar, Sander M; Veltman, Dick J; Rombouts, Serge A R B; Raaijmakers, Jeroen G W; Jonker, Cees

    2003-11-01

    Age-related impairments in episodic memory have been related to a deficiency in semantic processing, based on the finding that elderly adults typically benefit less than young adults from deep, semantic as opposed to shallow, nonsemantic processing of study items. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that elderly adults are not able to perform certain cognitive operations under deep processing conditions. We further hypothesised that this inability does not involve regions commonly associated with lexical/semantic retrieval processes, but rather involves a dysfunction of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) memory system. To this end, we used functional MRI on rather extensive groups of young and elderly adults to compare brain activity patterns obtained during a deep (living/nonliving) and a shallow (uppercase/lowercase) classification task. Common activity in relation to semantic classification was observed in regions that have been previously related to semantic retrieval, including mainly left-lateralised activity in the inferior prefrontal, middle temporal, and middle frontal/anterior cingulate gyrus. Although the young adults showed more activity in some of these areas, the finding of mainly overlapping activation patterns during semantic classification supports the idea that lexical/semantic retrieval processes are still intact in elderly adults. This received further support by the finding that both groups showed similar behavioural performances as well on the deep and shallow classification tasks. Importantly, though, the young revealed significantly more activity than the elderly adults in the left anterior hippocampus during deep relative to shallow classification. This finding is in line with the idea that age-related impairments in episodic encoding are, at least partly, due to an under-recruitment of the medial temporal lobe memory system.

  12. Categorizing words through semantic memory navigation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Borge-Holthoefer, J.; Arenas, A.

    2010-03-01

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

  13. Individual differences in children's memory and reading comprehension: an investigation of semantic and inhibitory deficits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cain, Kate

    2006-07-01

    Three experiments compared the verbal memory skills of children with poor reading comprehension with that of same-age good comprehenders. The aims were to determine if semantic and/or inhibitory deficits explained comprehenders' problems on measures of verbal short-term memory and verbal working memory. In Experiment 1 there were no group differences on word- and number-based measures of short-term storage and no evidence that semantic knowledge mediated word recall. In Experiment 2 poor comprehenders were impaired on word- and number-based assessments of working memory, the greatest deficit found on the word-based task. Error analysis of both word-based tasks revealed that poor comprehenders were more likely to recall items that should have been inhibited than were good comprehenders. Experiment 3 extended this finding: Poor comprehenders were less able to inhibit information that was no longer relevant. Together, these findings suggest that individual differences in inhibitory processing influence the ability to regulate the contents of working memory, which may contribute to the differential memory performance of good and poor comprehenders.

  14. Continuation-like semantics for modeling structural process anomalies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Grewe Niels

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Biomedical ontologies usually encode knowledge that applies always or at least most of the time, that is in normal circumstances. But for some applications like phenotype ontologies it is becoming increasingly important to represent information about aberrations from a norm. These aberrations may be modifications of physiological structures, but also modifications of biological processes. Methods To facilitate precise definitions of process-related phenotypes, such as delayed eruption of the primary teeth or disrupted ocular pursuit movements, I introduce a modeling approach that draws inspiration from the use of continuations in the analysis of programming languages and apply a similar idea to ontological modeling. This approach characterises processes by describing their outcome up to a certain point and the way they will continue in the canonical case. Definitions of process types are then given in terms of their continuations and anomalous phenotypes are defined by their differences to the canonical definitions. Results The resulting model is capable of accurately representing structural process anomalies. It allows distinguishing between different anomaly kinds (delays, interruptions, gives identity criteria for interrupted processes, and explains why normal and anomalous process instances can be subsumed under a common type, thus establishing the connection between canonical and anomalous process-related phenotypes. Conclusion This paper shows how to to give semantically rich definitions of process-related phenotypes. These allow to expand the application areas of phenotype ontologies beyond literature annotation and establishment of genotype-phenotype associations to the detection of anomalies in suitably encoded datasets.

  15. Effortful semantic decision-making boosts memory performance in older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fu, Li; Maes, Joseph H R; Varma, Samarth; Kessels, Roy P C; Daselaar, Sander M

    2017-04-01

    A major concern in age-related cognitive decline is episodic memory (EM). Previous studies indicate that both resource and binding deficits contribute to EM decline. Environmental support by task manipulations encouraging stronger cognitive effort and deeper levels of processing may facilitate compensation for these two deficits. To clarify factors that can counteract age-related EM decline, we assessed effects of cognitive effort (four levels) and level of processing (LoP, shallow/deep) during encoding on subsequent retrieval. Young (YAs, N = 23) and older (OAs, N = 23) adults performed two incidental encoding tasks, deep/semantic and shallow/perceptual. Cognitive effort was manipulated by varying decision-making demands. EM performance, indexed by d-prime, was later tested using a recognition task. Results showed that regardless of LoP, increased cognitive effort caused higher d-primes in both age groups. Compared to YAs, OAs showed a lower d-prime after shallow encoding across all cognitive effort levels, and after deep encoding with low cognitive effort. Deep encoding with higher levels of cognitive effort completely eliminated these age differences. Our findings support an environmental-compensatory account of cognitive ageing and can have important therapeutic implications.

  16. Effects of Morphology and Semantic Transparency on Typing Latencies in English Compound and Pseudocompound Words

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gagné, Christina L.; Spalding, Thomas L.

    2016-01-01

    We used a typing task to measure the written production of compounds, pseudocompounds, and monomorphemic words on a letter-by-letter basis to determine whether written production (as measured by interletter typing speed) was affected by morphemic structure and semantic transparency of the constituents. Semantic transparency was analyzed using a…

  17. When Meaning Is Not Enough: Distributional and Semantic Cues to Word Categorization in Child Directed Speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feijoo, Sara; Muñoz, Carmen; Amadó, Anna; Serrat, Elisabet

    2017-01-01

    One of the most important tasks in first language development is assigning words to their grammatical category. The Semantic Bootstrapping Hypothesis postulates that, in order to accomplish this task, children are guided by a neat correspondence between semantic and grammatical categories, since nouns typically refer to objects and verbs to actions. It is this correspondence that guides children's initial word categorization. Other approaches, on the other hand, suggest that children might make use of distributional cues and word contexts to accomplish the word categorization task. According to such approaches, the Semantic Bootstrapping assumption offers an important limitation, as it might not be true that all the nouns that children hear refer to specific objects or people. In order to explore that, we carried out two studies based on analyses of children's linguistic input. We analyzed child-directed speech addressed to four children under the age of 2;6, taken from the CHILDES database. The corpora were selected from the Manchester corpus. The corpora from the four selected children contained a total of 10,681 word types and 364,196 word tokens. In our first study, discriminant analyses were performed using semantic cues alone. The results show that many of the nouns found in parents' speech do not relate to specific objects and that semantic information alone might not be sufficient for successful word categorization. Given that there must be an additional source of information which, alongside with semantics, might assist young learners in word categorization, our second study explores the availability of both distributional and semantic cues in child-directed speech. Our results confirm that this combination might yield better results for word categorization. These results are in line with theories that suggest the need for an integration of multiple cues from different sources in language development.

  18. Deep Neural Network-Based Chinese Semantic Role Labeling

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    ZHENG Xiaoqing; CHEN Jun; SHANG Guoqiang

    2017-01-01

    A recent trend in machine learning is to use deep architec-tures to discover multiple levels of features from data, which has achieved impressive results on various natural language processing (NLP) tasks. We propose a deep neural network-based solution to Chinese semantic role labeling (SRL) with its application on message analysis. The solution adopts a six-step strategy: text normalization, named entity recognition (NER), Chinese word segmentation and part-of-speech (POS) tagging, theme classification, SRL, and slot filling. For each step, a novel deep neural network - based model is designed and optimized, particularly for smart phone applications. Ex-periment results on all the NLP sub - tasks of the solution show that the proposed neural networks achieve state-of-the-art performance with the minimal computational cost. The speed advantage of deep neural networks makes them more competitive for large-scale applications or applications requir-ing real-time response, highlighting the potential of the pro-posed solution for practical NLP systems.

  19. Semantic Categorization Precedes Affective Evaluation of Visual Scenes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nummenmaa, Lauri; Hyona, Jukka; Calvo, Manuel G.

    2010-01-01

    We compared the primacy of affective versus semantic categorization by using forced-choice saccadic and manual response tasks. Participants viewed paired emotional and neutral scenes involving humans or animals flashed rapidly in extrafoveal vision. Participants were instructed to categorize the targets by saccading toward the location occupied by…

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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…