Cross-modal Lexical Decision Task Research Articles

Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: Vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections

This study is concerned with how vowel alternation, in combination with and without orthographic reflection of the vowel change, affects lexical access and the discrimination of morphologically related forms. Bengali inflected verb forms provide an ideal test case, since present tense verb forms undergo phonologically conditioned, predictable vowel raising. The mid-to-high alternations, but not the low-to-mid ones, are represented in the orthography. This results in three different cases: items with no change (NoDiff), items with a phonological change not represented in the orthography (PronDiff) and items for which both phonology and orthography change (OrthPronDiff).To determine whether these three cases differ in terms of lexical access and discrimination, we conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 was a cross-modal lexical decision task with auditory primes (1stperson and 3rdperson forms, e.g. [lekhe] or [likhi]) and visual targets (verbal noun; e.g. [lekha]). Experiment 2 uses eye tracking in a fragment completion task, in which auditory fragments (first syllable of 1st or 3rdperson form, e.g. [le-] from [lekhe]) were to be matched to one of two visual targets (full 1st and 3rdperson forms, [lekhe] vs. [likhi] in Bengali script).While the lexical decision task, a global measure of lexical access, did not show a difference between the cases, the eye-tracking experiment revealed effects of both phonology and orthography. Discrimination accuracy in the OrthPronDiff condition (vowel alternation represented in the orthography) was high. In the PronDiff condition, where phonologically differing forms are represented by the same graphemes, manual responses were at chance, although eye movements revealed that match and non-match were discriminated. Thus, our results indicate that phonological alternations which are not represented in spelling are difficult to process, whereas having orthographically distinct forms boosts discrimination performance, implying orthographically influenced mental phonological representations.

Does stress matter?

Abstract This study investigates the effect of stress change during compound processing in Modern Greek. Twenty-five native speakers were tested in a cross-modal lexical decision task and a naming task in order to test for performance differences across stress-change vs. non-stress-change compounds. No statistically significant difference was found for the lexical decision task. However, the naming task showed a significant effect of stress change in compound processing, with the production of non-stress-change compounds showing facilitation. These results indicate that stress change is reflected in compound processing in Greek and underscore the importance of considering the interplay between specific tasks and the computational role of linguistic features.

Can you tell it by the prime? A study of metaphorical priming in high-functioning autism in comparison with matched controls.

Problems with pragmatic aspects of language are well attested in individuals on the autism spectrum. It remains unclear, however, whether figurative language skills improve with language status and whether problems in figurative language are no longer present in highly verbal individuals with autism. To investigate whether highly verbal individuals with autism perform similarly as age-, intelligence- and verbal comprehension-matched controls on the processing of one of the most common types of figurative language, metaphors. The goal was to establish whether the participants with autism are primed similarly to controls by figurative expressions (metaphors) presented in different conditions. The experiment was designed as a cross-modal lexical-decision task where metaphors served as primes for target words related to their figurative or literal meaning. Our findings show that both ASD and control participants made very few errors in the experimental task. However, the participants with ASD presented with problems in performance on the task, reflected in significantly slower reaction times compared with the typically developing peer groups. The similar response speed observed between the younger typical control children and the adult ASD participants suggests that the mechanisms underlying metaphor processing (e.g., selection of metaphorical versus literal interpretation) are still developing in high-functioning autism, very much like in typical children. These results may suggest that metaphor processing requires more than adequate language competences. The findings are also suggestive of a delay in developing sensitivity to figurative language, rather than sheer inability. This suggests that a timely training programme can be implemented to improve figurative language abilities in ASD.

Effects of Lexical Competition and Dialect Exposure on Phonological Priming

A cross-modal lexical decision task was used to explore the effects of lexical competition and dialect exposure on phonological form priming. Relative to unrelated auditory primes, matching real word primes facilitated lexical decision for visual real word targets, whereas competing minimal pair primes inhibited lexical decision. These effects were robust across two English vowel pairs (mid-front and low-front) and for two listener groups (mono-dialectal and multi-dialectal). However, both the most robust facilitation and the most robust inhibition were observed for the mid-front vowel words with few phonological competitors for the mono-dialectal listener group. The mid-front vowel targets were acoustically more distinct than the low-front vowel targets, suggesting that acoustic-phonetic similarity leads to stronger lexical competition and less robust facilitation and inhibition. The multi-dialectal listeners had more prior exposure to multiple different dialects than the mono-dialectal group, suggesting that long-term exposure to linguistic variability contributes to a more flexible processing strategy in which lexical competition extends over a longer period of time, leading to less robust facilitation and inhibition.

The effect of iconicity in the mental lexicon of hearing non-signers and proficient signers: evidence of cross-modal priming

The present study investigated the priming effect of iconic signs in the mental lexicon of hearing adults. Non-signers and proficient British Sign Language (BSL) users took part in a cross-modal lexical decision task. The results indicate that iconic signs activated semantically related words in non-signers' lexicon. Activation occurred regardless of the type of referent because signs depicting actions and perceptual features of an object yielded the same response times. The pattern of activation was different in proficient signers because only action signs led to cross-modal activation. We suggest that non-signers process iconicity in signs in the same way as they do gestures, but after acquiring a sign language, there is a shift in the mechanisms used to process iconic manual structures.

Processing light verb constructions

Henry gave Elsa a kiss give kiss give a kiss We test two approaches to light verb constructions: (1) joint predication in light verb constructions is stored as pre-specified, and their high frequency predicts less processing cost. (2) Joint predication in light verb constructions is built in real-time. The entailed extra-syntactic composition predicts greater cost. Results from a cross-modal lexical decision task show delayed, higher reaction times for light verb constructions, supporting (2), which is consistent with a linguistic architecture that has partly autonomous lexico-semantic storage and processing.

The effects of inter-stimulus interval and prime modality in a semantic priming task

Background: Semantic priming studies are employed in order to examine how various semantic contexts can influence visual word recognition processes. Although research has shown numerous factors can have an influence on the magnitude of the semantic priming effects found in lexical decision tasks, the majority of these factors have been related to the prime–target relationship itself. However, other factors have also been shown to alter the priming effect. Two such factors are the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) and presentation modality. The inter-stimulus interval may be used to independently assess automatic and strategic processes, whereas presentation modality is typically used to assess the different processing time courses that occur with spoken or written words. These factors have not been adequately investigated in the normal population. A more in-depth understanding of the relationships between prime modality, inter-stimulus interval, and word recognition processes in a sample of individuals with typical language abilities may provide valuable when examining lexical access and storage in language disordered populations such as those with aphasia. Aims: The focus of the present study was to examine the impact of relatively short and long inter-stimulus intervals on processing time in a visual and cross-modal lexical decision task. Previous research has not fully addressed whether convergent processes occur during cross-modal tasks or if an amodal semantic system exists. The utilisation of slow and fast inter-stimulus intervals should allow for a clearer distinction relative to processing. Methods & Procedures: A series of four lexical decision tasks was used to investigate reaction time and accuracy. The four tasks resulted from the combination of the independent variables ISI (0 ms or 400 ms) and prime modality (auditory or visual). Outcomes & Results: Results indicated that participants exhibited a larger priming effect when stimuli were presented in the 0 ms condition. Results also indicated that participants responded more accurately when the target word was presented auditorily. Conclusions: It was concluded that automatic spreading activation occurred in both the visual and auditory modalities, providing further evidence of an amodal semantic system. These observations are helpful in developing a clearer understanding of lexical storage and access in language impairments such as aphasia.

Regularity re-revisited: Modality matters

The issue of regular–irregular past tense formation was examined in a cross-modal lexical decision task in Modern Greek, a language where the orthographic and phonological overlap between present and past tense stems is the same for both regular and irregular verbs. The experiment described here is a follow-up study of previous visual lexical decision experiments ( Tsapkini, Kehayia, & Jarema, 2002) that also addressed the regular–irregular distinction in Greek. In the present experiment, we investigated the effect of input modality in lexical processing and compared different types of regular and irregular verbs. In contrast to our previous intra-modal (visual–visual) priming experiments, in this cross-modal (auditory–visual) priming study, we found that regular verbs with an orthographically salient morphemic aspectual marker elicited the same facilitation as those without an orthographically salient marker. However, irregular verbs did not exhibit a different priming pattern with respect to modality. We interpret these results in the framework of a two-level lexical processing approach with modality-specific access representations at a surface level and modality-independent morphemic representations at a deeper level.

Sensitivity to prosodic structure in left- and right-hemisphere-damaged individuals

An experiment was conducted in order to determine whether left- (LHD) and right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) patients exhibit sensitivity to prosodic information that is used in syntactic disambiguation. Following the work of Marslen-Wilson, Tyler, Warren, Grenier, and Lee, and Lee (1992)1992, a cross-modal lexical decision task was performed by LHD and RHD subjects, as well as by adults without brain pathology (NC). Subjects listened to sentences with attachment ambiguities with either congruent or incongruent prosody, while performing a visual lexical decision task. Results showed that each of the unilaterally damaged populations differed from each other, as well as from the NCs in terms of sensitivity regarding prosodic cues. Specifically, the RHD group was insensitive to sentence prosody as a whole. This was in contrast to the LHD patients, who responded to the prosodic manipulation, but in the unexpected direction. Results are discussed in terms of current hypotheses regarding the hemispheric lateralization of prosodic cues.

The resolution of lexical ambiguity with reference to context in dementia of the Alzheimer's type.

The present study investigated how a dementing illness such as Alzheimer's disease, might affect an individual's recourse to higher order contextual information in the access and integration of lexical material in on-line discourse comprehension. More specifically, the experiment investigated the priming of homophones in a discourse context, by use of a cross-modal lexical decision task, and compared the performances of a group of six subjects with mild to moderate dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) with those of a matched control group. The subjects listened to 2-sentence paragraphs and performed a lexical decision on visually presented targets that followed ambiguous prime words (or homophones) at two inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs): 330 and 1000 msec. When the target was a word, it was either an associate of the prime word, a probable inference suggested by the discourse, or an unrelated word. The control subjects primed both the discourse-appropriate and discourse-inappropriate associate of the homophone at short (330 msec) ISIs (but not an appropriate inference word), a finding which supports the exhaustive access model of ambiguity resolution. As the ISI was lengthened to 1000 msec, however, the discourse-appropriate inference word was primed, and reflects the operation of attention-dependent integrative strategies. The subjects with DAT primed both appropriate associates and inference words at the short ISI. At ISI of 1000 msec, the DAT subjects primed the appropriate associate and showed substantial inhibition priming of the inappropriate associate. These results point to disturbances in the selective automatic activation of lexical material, and in the conscious integration and elaboration of lexical material in ongoing discourse comprehension in persons with DAT.

Verb preference effects in the sentence comprehension of fluent aphasic individuals

This investigation examined sentence processing of fluent aphasic subjects with varying severity levels. Subjects performed a cross-modal lexical decision task for transitive and intransitive verbs in preferred and non-preferred frameworks. Verb processing was measured by reaction times during on-line sentence comprehension. Reaction times to the cross-modal lexical decision (CMLD) task indicated that the subjects with aphasia were insensitive to preference information associated with the processing of verbs in sentences. Severity level did not alter the pattern observed regarding verb type and preferences.

The effects of word association and meaning frequency in a cross-modal lexical decision task: Is the priming due to "semantic" activation?

Abstract The effects of by ambiguous, auditorily presented word primes were examined. In related conditions, primes were followed by either associatively related or semantically related but associatively unrelated targets. When the targets were presented at prime (Experiment 1), effects were observed only for associatively related targets, independent of meaning frequency (i.e., whether the target was related to the dominant or subordinate meaning of the ambiguous prime). When the targets were presented after a 700 ms delay (Experiment 2), however, effects were observed only for targets related to the prime's dominant meaning, regardless of the nature of the prime-target relation. These results raise the strong possibility that previously reported differences in the nature of effects that had been ascribed to meaning frequency might actually be due to differences in associative strength. These results are discussed in terms of Fodor's (1983; 1990) anti-semantic modularity view. It is a well-established finding that the speed of responding to a target word can be influenced by the nature of the preceding context. For example, when a target word is semantically associated to the prime word that precedes it (e.g., NURSE-DOCTOR, where DOCTOR is the target and NURSE is the prime), responses to the target are facilitated relative to when target and prime are unassociated (e.g., BUTTER-DOCTOR) (Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971; Neely, 1977; Lupker, 1984; Seidenberg, Waters, Sanders, & Langer, 1984; see Neely, 1991, for a review). This has come to be referred to as priming and, as Neely (1991) has documented, the basic semantic paradigm has proven to be quite useful for investigating a number of issues important to cognitive psychologists. It was also the primary tool used in the present investigation. The main focus of the present investigation was the process of lexical ambiguity resolution. That is, some words in English are ambiguous (e.g., HORN, BANK) in the sense that they possess more than one meaning, yet readers and listeners report little difficulty understanding the intended meaning of these words. The process by which readers and listeners accomplish this has received a great deal of attention in recent years. One technique often used in studying this process is a specific version of the semantic paradigm referred to as cross-modal priming. In this paradigm, an ambiguous word prime is presented auditorily and the target is presented visually. The subjects' task is to respond to the target, typically by making a lexical decision. If a target word is related to the activated meaning(s) of an ambiguous word prime, a semantic should be observed. By noting what types of prime-target relations produce semantic effects, this paradigm presumably enables one to gain information about the nature of the meaning retrieval process for auditorily-presented ambiguous words. In one of the first studies of this nature, Swinney (1979) used the cross-modal paradigm to examine the effects of sentential context on the process of resolving lexical ambiguity. Ambiguous words (e.g., BUG) were embedded in a spoken passage and presented through headphones. A visual target was then presented either at the of the ambiguous word or three syllables later. The critical targets were words related to the contextually appropriate meaning of the ambiguous words (e.g., INSECT) or words related to the contextually inappropriate meaning of the ambiguous words (e.g., sPY). Swinney found a multiple effect when the targets were presented at the of the ambiguous word (the offset condition). That is, lexical decision latencies to both contextually appropriate and contextually inappropriate targets were facilitated relative to unrelated control targets. When the targets were presented three syllables after the of the ambiguous word prime, however, a selective effect was observed: Facilitation was found only for the targets related to the contextually appropriate meaning of the ambiguous word. …

Sentential context effects on lexical decisions with a cross-modal instead of an all-visual procedure.

J. L. Nicol and D. Swinney (1989) reported facilitation in a cross-modal lexical-decision task as evidence that implicit objects of verbs (WH-traces) are reinstated during comprehension. G. McKoon and R. Ratcliff (1994) found the same priming effects in the absence of implicit objects, suggesting that the effects are attributable to some factor other than a syntactic process that would fill in implicit objects. J. L. Nicol, J. D. Fodor, and D. Swinney (1994) questioned the relevance of McKoon and Ratcliff's findings because they were obtained with all-visual rather than cross-modal presentation. In 2 experiments, the authors replicated McKoon and Ratcliff's results using cross-modal lexical decision.

Using cross-modal lexical decision tasks to investigate sentence processing.

Recent investigations of sentence processing have used the cross-modal lexical decision task to show that the antecedent of a phonologically empty noun phrase (specifically, WH-trace) is reactivated at the trace position. G. McKoon, R. Ratcliff, and G. Ward (1994) claimed that (a) a design feature concerning the choice of related and unrelated targets is a possible confound in this work and (b) the conclusions drawn from this previous research are therefore called into question. These claims are considered in light of both McKoon et al.'s experimental findings and results of our own experiments in which we test their linguistic materials. We argue that their results may be due to the nature of their materials. Additionally, we argue that a follow-up experiment reported by G. McKoon and R. Ratcliff (1994) used a technique that is not comparable to the cross-modal lexical decision task. It is concluded that current evidence supports the claim that structural information is using during on-line sentence processing and that the cross-modal technique is sensitive to this.

Controlling for homophone polarity and prime-target relatedness in the cross-modal lexical decision task

Access of alternative meanings of ambiguous words was investigated with a cross-modal lexical decision task. We considered two factors that may have been inadequately controlled in previous experiments, homophone polarity and prime-target relatedness. We used both nonpolar homophones with two nearly equiprobable senses and polar homophones with one clearly dominant sense. Polarity ratings were derived from homophone familiarity norms obtained by Kreuz (1987). We also equated prime-target relatedness across items for dominant and subordinate meanings of the homophones using norms that we collected. Sentence contexts biased the dominant meanings of the homophones. Under these conditions, there was a small but significant priming effect, and priming of the subordinate meaning was not significantly affected by homophone polarity.

On the conditions necessary for obtaining argument structure complexity effects.

Schmauder (1991), studying eye movements during reading, cross-modal naming, and cross-modal lexical decision (CMLD) tasks, failed to find evidence of verb argument structure complexity as Shapiro, Zurif, and Grimshaw (1987) had reported for the CMLD task. Shapiro, Brookins, Gordon, and Nagel (1991) suggested that Schmauder did not detect the effect in the CMLD task because the monosyllabic secondary lexical decision (LD) probes she used did not produce enough processing load to detect an effect of argument structure complexity. The present experiment compared the LD probes used by Schmauder with the LD probes used by Shapiro et al. (1987) and failed to find any evidence for the argument structure complexity effect for either type of probe.

Asymmetries in infant cross-modal transfer

The issue of regular–irregular past tense formation was examined in a cross-modal lexical decision task in Modern Greek, a language where the orthographic and phonological overlap between present and past tense stems is the same for both regular and irregular verbs. The experiment described here is a follow-up study of previous visual lexical decision experiments (Tsapkini, Kehayia, & Jarema, 2002) that also addressed the regular–irregular distinction in Greek. In the present experiment, we investigated the effect of input modality in lexical processing and compared different types of regular and irregular verbs. In contrast to our previous intra-modal (visual–visual) priming experiments, in this cross-modal (auditory–visual) priming study, we found that regular verbs with an orthographically salient morphemic aspectual marker elicited the same facilitation as those without an orthographically salient marker. However, irregular verbs did not exhibit a different priming pattern with respect to modality. We interpret these results in the framework of a two-level lexical processing approach with modality-specific access representations at a surface level and modality-independent morphemic representations at a deeper level.

Context effects in word identification

Word identification comprises both sense activation and sense selection. It is hypothesized that sense activation is affected by associative relationships among words, but not by the thematic context of a discourse. Experiment I confirms this prediction using a crossmodal lexical decision task. Subjects listened to a discourse containing a target word and made a word/nonword decision to a visually presented test string. If the target word was a homograph, test words that were associates of the homograph were primed irrespective of the thematic context. On the other hand, thematically appropriate test words that were not associatively related to the target word were not primed. This result was confirmed in a second experiment where the text was presented visually at a very rapid rate. In contrast, when subjects were given enough time to process each word (Experiment 3), only thematically appropriate associates were primed. No priming effects at all were obtained in a final experiment using a rapid presentation rate where the test word was separated from the target word by two other, interfering words. It is concluded that sense activation functions as a module independent of thematic context.

Semantic facilitation across sensory modalities in the processing of individual words and sentences.

The effect of semantic priming upon lexical decisions made for words in isolation (Experiment 1) and during sentence comprehension (Experiment 2) was investigated using a cross-modal lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, subjects made lexical decisions to both auditory and visual stimuli. Processing auditorily presented words facilitated subsequent lexical decisions on semantically related visual words. In Experiment 2, subjects comprehended auditorily presented sentences while simultaneously making lexical decisions for visually presented stimuli. Lexical decisions were facilitated when a visual word appeared immediately following a related word in the sentential material. Lexical decisions were also facilitated when the visual word appeared three syllables following closure of the clause containing the related material. Arguments are made for autonomy of semantic priming during sentence comprehension.