Conceptual Familiarity Research Articles

Prior familiarity enhances recognition memory of faces, not just images of faces, when accompanied by conceptual information.

A recent paper reported that recognition discriminability was improved for faces that were familiarized prior to study, but only if that familiarization protocol included conceptual information, like a name (Akan & Benjamin, Journal of Memory and Language,131, 104,433, 2023). In those experiments, familiarity with each facial identity was gained through exposures to the same facial image prior to study, and memory for each facial identity was tested using the same images across study and test. That design characteristic has a serious constraint on generality, since it is possible that prior conceptual information enhances memory for images (of faces), but not for the representation of the face itself. Here we evaluated whether this finding generalizes to a paradigm in which each exposure of a face is a novel image. In two experiments, faces were familiarized with orienting tasks that induced more perceptual or more conceptual processing prior to study and test phases. Results from recognition tests replicated the results from Akan and Benjamin (2023): (1) Discriminability was enhanced when prior familiarity involved conceptual processing but not when it involved perceptual processing, and (2) familiarity gained through either perceptual or conceptual processing led to an increase in both correct and false identifications. This successful replication in a design with exclusively novel images indicates that the discriminability advantage provided by conceptual familiarity goes beyond memory for facial images and applies to memory for faces. These findings have implications in practical contexts, such as eyewitness identification situations involving suspects who are previously known or familiar to the witness.

'Do I know you?' Categorizing individuals on the basis of familiarity in kea (Nestor notabilis).

Categorizing individuals on the basis of familiarity is an adaptive way of dealing with the complexity of the social environment. It requires the use of conceptual familiarity and is considered higher order learning. Although, it is common among many species, ecological need might require and facilitate individual differentiation among heterospecifics. This may be true for laboratory populations just as much as for domesticated species and those that live in urban contexts. However, with the exception of a few studies, populations of laboratory animals have generally been given less attention. The study at hand, therefore, addressed the question whether a laboratory population of kea parrots (Nestor notabilis) were able to apply the concept of familiarity to differentiate between human faces in a two-choice discrimination task on the touchscreen. The results illustrated that the laboratory population of kea were indeed able to differentiate between familiar and unfamiliar human faces in a two-choice discrimination task. The results provide novel empirical evidence on abstract categorization capacities in parrots while at the same time providing further evidence of representational insight in kea.

How to build Theories of Change for transdisciplinary research: Guidance and considerations

A Theory of Change (ToC) is a set of testable hypotheses that model how an intervention will contribute to a change process. ToC development and use can help in the design of transdisciplinary research to build trust and accountability in the research process. We present an online process for ToC facilitation and offer guidance to collaboratively build a ToC for transdisciplinary research.Transdisciplinary research (TDR) aims to solve problems in complex systems by drawing from a range of methods and expertise to contribute to change processes. Theories of Change (ToCs) are well-suited to support TDR design and implementation, but they rarely achieve their full potential. In practice, ToCs are often compromised by insufficient engagement with the context, weak theoretical bases, poor articulation, and a lack of iteration. This paper presents a process for ToC design based on the authors’ experience facilitating ToC development for research planning and evaluation. We illustrate the process using an in-progress TDR example on patient-oriented cancer care research. The approach begins by framing the social and research problems and then identifies activities and outputs, key actors, outcomes, and underlying causal assumptions. Skilled facilitation and strong conceptual familiarity are key to effectively mobilize ToC concepts into a cohesive and testable model to refine a strategy with TDR stakeholders. Key considerations and resources are offered to enhance ToC development planning and facilitation.

Hope in the Age of Dystopia: The Ghost in the Machine in Øyvind Rimbereid's Solaris korrigert

Hope in the Age of Dystopia: The Ghost in the Machine in Øyvind Rimbereid's <i>Solaris korrigert</i>

A Standardized Set of 380 Pictures for Lebanese Arabic: Norms for Name Agreement, Conceptual Familiarity, Imageability, and Subjective Frequency.

Research on language processing requires language-specific norms of pictorial and linguistic experimental stimuli across different psycholinguistic variables. Such normative data have not yet been collected for Lebanese Arabic (LA), an Arabic dialect. Arabic languages are characterized by diglossia: while modern standard Arabic is their common means of formal communication, Arabic dialects are the medium of oral communication within each community. This claims for specific dialectal norms. Thus, the main goal of the present study was to collect normative LA data for 380 pictures taken from Cykowicz, Friedman, Rothstein, and Snodgrass (The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A 50(3):560-585; including the 260 pictures of Snodgrass & Vanderwart in Journal of experimental psychology: Human learning and memory 6(2):174-215, 1980) using a sample of 248 native LA speakers. Norms are reported for name agreement, conceptual familiarity, imageability and subjective frequency, together with word length in number of letters and syllables. We compared the obtained norms with the normative data of other Arabic dialects (Levantine, Tunisian and Gulf Arabic) and with English, French and Spanish. Results showed the distinction of LA from the other Arabic dialects. This provides support of specific dialectal Arabic norms and will allow researchers to rigorously select the stimuli to investigate language processing in LA-speaking populations.

Analysis of Posters for Informing the Population via Social Media during Covid-19: Ukrainian Network

Objective. This study aims to determine the extent to which psycholinguistic variables are included in the analysis of the quality of directive posters on social media during Covid-19. &#x0D; Methods. The methods used in the study include analysis of the relevant scientific literature on the identification of psycholinguistic categories and variables relevant to the study; expert assessment of qualitative parameters of posters published on Facebook by official organizations; methods of descriptive statistics. &#x0D; Results. The analysis of 298 unique works conducted through Ukrainian network on Facebook revealed that the overall average quality of the publications is on the borderline between medium and high levels – 69.3% (by text parameters – 70.0%, graphic parameters – 68.6%).&#x0D; Conclusions. The study revealed that psycholinguistic variables such as readability, imageability, concreteness, conceptual familiarity, semantic size, name agreement, image agreement, visual complexity, typicality, image variability, authenticity of texts, processing fluency, etc. penetrate deeply related research on the creolized texts in various forms and interpretations. The quality of the posters on Facebook made by the official institutions operating in the field of health care is at the borderline between medium and high levels. These indicators are most in need of improvement on text parameters such as “Emphasis” and “Call to action”, as well as on graphical parameters such as “Presence of interactive graphic links” and “Understandability of illustration message without text”.

Psycholinguistic norms for a set of 506 French compound words.

Compounds are morphologically complex words made of different linguistic parts. They are very prevalent in a number of languages such as French. Different psycholinguistic characteristics of compounds have been used in certain studies to investigate the mechanisms involved in compound processing (see Table 7). We provide psycholinguistic norms for a set of 506 French compound words. The words were normed on seven characteristics: lexeme meaning dominance, semantic transparency, sensory experience, conceptual familiarity, imageability, age of acquisition (AoA) and subjective frequency. Reliability measures were computed for the collected norms. Descriptive statistical analyses, and correlational and multiple regression analyses were performed. We also report some comparisons made between our normative data and certain norms obtained in other similar studies. The entire set of norms, which will be very useful to researchers investigating the processing of compounds, is available as Supplemental Material.

Perceptual and Interoceptive Strength Norms for 270 French Words.

Perceptual experience through the five modalities (i.e., vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell) has demonstrated its key role in semantics. Researchers also highlighted the role of interoceptive information in the grounded representation of concepts. However, to this day, there is no available data across these modalities in the French language. Therefore, the aim of this study was to circumvent this caveat. Participants aged between 18 and 50 completed an online survey in which we recorded scores of perceptual strength (PS), interoceptive information, imageability, concreteness, conceptual familiarity, and age of acquisition of 270 words of the French language. We also analysed the relationships between perceptual modalities and psycholinguistic variables. Results showed that vast majority of concepts were visually-dominant. Correlation analyses revealed that the five PS variables were strongly correlated with imageability, concreteness, and conceptual familiarity and highlight that PS variables index one aspect of the semantic representations of a word. On the other hand, high interoceptive scores were highlighted only for the less imageable and less concrete words, emphasizing their importance for the grounding of abstract concepts. Future research could use these norms in the investigation of the role of perceptual experience in the representation of concepts and their impact on word processing.

IMABASE: A new set of 313 colourised line drawings standardised in French for name agreement, image agreement, conceptual familiarity, age-of-acquisition, and imageability.

We provide normative data for a new set of 313 colourised line drawings. The drawings were standardised on name agreement (N = 60 participants), image agreement (N = 34), conceptual familiarity (N = 36), age of acquisition (N = 35), and imageability (N = 35). Objective visual complexity measures are given for the pictures, and objective word frequencies are provided for the modal names of the drawings. Reliability measures for the collected norms are very high. There are high levels of agreement between the names given by the participants and the drawings and comparative analyses indicate that the distribution of name agreement scores is very similar in both our own database and the MultiPic database (Duñabeitia et al., 2018). A novel "picture-choice task" used to assess name-image agreement (N = 30) reveals that the great majority of the IMABASE pictures that are also present in MultiPic are rated as providing better pictorial representations of the corresponding concepts. Finally, most of the correlations are comparable with those reported in other normative studies on colourised drawings. The whole set of pictures is freely available from https://leadserv.u-bourgogne.fr/~lead/imabase/ and the norms are available as Supplementary Material.

Norms for a Pictographic System: The Aragonese Portal of Augmentative/Alternative Communication (ARASAAC) System.

Different systems are used to facilitate communication for people with speech problems. Among these, pictographic systems offer an extraordinary solution for many people with severe communication disorders; for example, people with autism spectrum disorders, aphasia, cognitive impairment, cerebral palsy, etc. The pictographic system called Aragonese Portal of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ARASAAC http://arasaac.org), freely distributed under the Creative Commons License (BY-NC-SA), is an important reference in many countries. Although these images are widely used, there are no previous studies on their reliability and validity. In order to obtain a useful tool in the clinical context, scores of name agreement, H index, tip-of-the-tongue responses, conceptual familiarity, image agreement, visual complexity, and response times were collected for the 295 most frequent images in the ARASAAC dataset. The psychometric analyses showed adequate validity and reliability values. The regression analysis indicated that naming times were explained by picture-name agreement, age of acquisition, and conceptual familiarity, while the tip-of-the-tongue states were mainly predicted by picture-name agreement and name agreement. In conclusion, these norms from the ARASAAC dataset offer a valuable tool for clinical intervention as well as for psycholinguistic research.

The Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Used by Penetration Testers: Results of Interviews with Cybersecurity Professionals in Vulnerability Assessment and Management

There is a growing need for cybersecurity professionals with the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) necessary for risk and vulnerability analysis of security incidents. Currently, little is known about the relative importance of KSAs or tools used in vulnerability assessment and management, which leads to inefficiencies in education, personnel selection, and research. We interviewed 38 cybersecurity professionals to determine which KSAs are most important in Vulnerability Assessment and Management work. Of the 31 KSAs, 12 were rated as being significantly important to Vulnerability Assessment and Management work and indicate that four key areas should be prioritized in education, recruitment, and research: 1) knowledge of and skills in identifying vulnerabilities and robustness of systems and applications; 2) conceptual familiarity with classes of attacks and attack stages; 3) knowledge of and skills in penetration testing principles and tools; and 4) knowledge of network traffic and network protocols.

Mirror neuron system activation differs in experienced golfers compared to controls watching videos of golf compared to novel sports depending on conceptual versus motor familiarity.

Mirror neuron system activation differs in experienced golfers compared to controls watching videos of golf compared to novel sports depending on conceptual versus motor familiarity.

Norms of conceptual familiarity for 3,596 French nouns and their contribution in lexical decision.

In the last decade, research has shown that word processing is influenced by the lexical and semantic features of words. However, norms for a crucial semantic variable-that is, conceptual familiarity-have not been available for a sizeable French database. We thus developed French Canadian conceptual familiarity norms for 3,596 nouns. This enriches Desrochers and Thompson's (2009) database, in which subjective frequency and imageability values are already available for the same words. We collected online data from 313 Canadian French speakers. The full database of conceptual familiarity ratings is freely available at http://lingualab.ca/fr/projets/normes-de-familiarite-conceptuelle . We then demonstrated the utility of these new conceptual familiarity norms by assessing their contribution to lexical decision times. We conducted a stepwise regression model with conceptual familiarity in the last step. This allowed us to assess the independent contribution of conceptual familiarity beyond the contributions of other well-known psycholinguistic variables, such as frequency, imageability, and age of acquisition. The results showed that conceptual familiarity facilitated lexical decision latencies. In sum, these ratings will help researchers select French stimuli for experiments in which conceptual familiarity must be taken into account.

Which variables should be controlled for to investigate picture naming in adults? A Bayesian meta-analysis.

Selecting items for designing psycholinguistic experiments can be a very hard and time-consuming process, because of the large number of variables that need to be controlled for. This is clearly the case for picture-naming experiments because, thanks to the collection of psycholinguistic norms on both pictures and their names, a large number of factors that affect naming speed and/or accuracy have been found. In the present study, a Bayesian meta-analysis was performed to determine the extent to which the variables that have generally been considered by researchers as important to control for are indeed worth taking into account. The meta-analysis revealed that most of the variables that are considered in picture-naming studies have a strong or very strong influence on naming speed (image agreement, name agreement, image variability/imageability, age of acquisition, and conceptual familiarity), whereas two variables that are very often taken into account (visual complexity and length) yielded null effects. The results were inconclusive for lexical frequency. At a methodological level, Bayesian meta-analyses constitute a very useful tool for guiding researchers when selecting materials for experiments.

Unravelling the contributions of motor experience and conceptual knowledge in action perception: A training study

Prior knowledge affects how we perceive the world and the sensorimotor system actively guides our perception. An ongoing dispute regards the extent to which prior motor knowledge versus conceptual knowledge modulates the observation of others’ actions. Research indicates that motor experience increases motor activation during action perception. Other research, however, has shown that conceptual familiarity with actions also modulates motor activation, i.e., increased motor activation during observation of unfamiliar, compared to conceptually familiar, actions. To begin to disentangle motor from conceptual contributions to action perception, we uniquely combined motoric and conceptual interventions into one design. We experimentally manipulated participants’ experience with both motoric skills and conceptual knowledge, via motor training of kinematically challenging actions and contextual information about the action, respectively, in a week-long training session. Measurements of the effects on motor activity measured via electroencephalography (EEG) during pre- and post-training action observation were compared. We found distinct, non-interacting effects of both manipulations: Motor training increased motor activation, whereas additional conceptual knowledge decreased motor activation. The findings indicate that both factors influence action perception in a distinct and parallel manner. This research speaks to previously irreconcilable findings and provides novel insights about the distinct roles of motor and conceptual contributions to action perception.

Distinct Neural Suppression and Encoding Effects for Conceptual Novelty and Familiarity.

Like yin and yang, novelty and familiarity are typically described as separate-yet-complementary aspects of an experience, two ends of a single continuum. However, novelty and familiarity are also multifaceted. For instance, novelty can sometimes result in enhanced mnemonic performance, whereas at other times familiarity is better remembered. As previous investigations focused primarily on the experimental aspect of novelty, the mechanisms supporting conceptual novelty (the novel combination of two previously unrelated existing concepts) remain unclear. Importantly, conceptual novelty can be recognized as such only when compared with preexperimental familiar knowledge, regardless of experimental status. Here we applied a combined repetition suppression/subsequent memory fMRI paradigm, focusing on the conceptual aspect of novelty and familiarity as the subject matter. Conceptual novelty was characterized by sustained neural activity; familiarity, on the other hand, exhibited repetition effects in multiple cortical regions, a subset of which was modulated by successful encoding. Subsequent memory of novelty was associated only with activation differences in a distinct set of regions, including the hippocampus and medial cortical regions. These results suggest that conceptual novelty (a) does not (easily) trigger the repetition suppression phenomenon but requires sustained neural recruitment and (b) activates dedicated encoding mechanisms. Conceptual familiarity, in contrast, allows rapid neural processing that depends upon existing neural representations. Overall, these findings challenge the definition of novelty as a unitary concept. Furthermore, they bear important implications for research into the neural bases of knowledge representation and recognition memory.

How message similarity shapes the timecourse of sentence formulation

Transforming a preverbal message into an utterance (e.g., The swimmer is pushing the paparazzo) requires conceptual and linguistic encoding. Two experiments tested whether the timecourse of sentence formulation is shaped jointly or independently by message-level and sentence-level processes. Eye-tracked speakers described pictures of simple events with verb-medial (SVO/OVS) and verb-initial (VSO/aux-OVS) sentences in Dutch. To assess effects of message-level and sentence-level variables on formulation, the experiments manipulated the ease of relational encoding at both levels: target events were preceded by conceptually similar or dissimilar prime events (event primes) that increased speakers’ familiarity with the action shown in the target event (e.g., pushing), and the prime events were accompanied by recorded active or passive descriptions (structural primes) that facilitated generation of suitable linguistic structures on target trials. The results showed effects of both types of primes on the form of target descriptions and on formulation. Speakers repeated the primed structures more often when target events were conceptually similar to the prime events. Importantly, conceptual similarity constrained the effects of structural primes on the timecourse of formulation: speakers showed more consistent deployment of attention to the two characters during linguistic encoding in structurally primed than unprimed active sentences, but conceptual familiarity reduced the priming effects in eye movements. Thus familiarity with message-level information can change how speakers express their messages and, during formulation, can provide conceptual guidance that supersedes effects of sentence-level variables. Effects of the event primes were stronger in VSO sentences, where early verb placement explicitly required early encoding of relational information, suggesting that linear word order can also constrain message-level influences on formulation.

Rfor Marketing Research and Analytics

This book is another addition to Springer’s popular Use R! series. True to the scope of this series, “R for Marketing Research and Analytics” introduces the reader to carrying out statistical analyses in a marketing and business analytics context with R. The author’s selfproclaimed goal is “We are here to help you learn R for marketing research and analytics”. They have designed their book for two audiences (a) practicing marketing researchers and analysts who want to learn R and (b) students or researchers (from other fields) who want to review selected marketing topics in an R context. The preface states the prerequisites to be simply an interest in learning R for marketing and conceptual familiarity with basic statistical models. It also states that the book is particularly helpful for readers with programming experience and interest to learn R. I will come back to the intended audiences at the end of the review. The book introduces a large – not to say comprehensive – number of statistical methods and how they can be utilized in R, all within a context of marketing use cases.

A new set of 272 pictures for psycholinguistic studies: Persian norms for name agreement, image agreement, conceptual familiarity, visual complexity, and age of acquisition.

Pictures are often used in studies on memory, perception, and language; normative data are thus needed for such visual stimuli. In the present study, we aimed to obtain normative data for a set of 272 black-and-white pictures from middle-aged and elderly Persian speakers. A total of 206 volunteers were divided into two groups: a middle-aged (40-59 years old) group and an elderly (60 years old and over) group. The groups had similar characteristics in terms of education. Norms for every picture were developed to provide measures of name agreement, image agreement, conceptual familiarity, age of acquisition, and visual complexity. The results revealed that all of these measures vary with age, except for conceptual familiarity.

Russian normative data for 375 action pictures and verbs.

The present article introduces a Russian-language database of 375 action pictures and associated verbs with normative data. The pictures were normed for name agreement, conceptual familiarity, and subjective visual complexity, and measures of age of acquisition, imageability, and image agreement were collected for the verbs. Values of objective visual complexity, as well as information about verb frequency, length, argument structure, instrumentality, and name relation, are also provided. Correlations between these parameters are presented, along with a comparative analysis of the Russian name agreement norms and those collected in other languages. The full set of pictorial stimuli and the obtained norms may be freely downloaded from http://neuroling.ru/en/db.htm for use in research and for clinical purposes.