Incongruent Contexts Research Articles

Lexical and contextual emotional valence in foreign language vocabulary retention

Abstract Studies suggest that not only words per se but also surrounding contexts play significant roles in foreign language vocabulary retention. This study investigated how different conditions of lexical and contextual emotional valence differently affect foreign language vocabulary retention. The target words were either positive (LexVal+), neutral (LexVal=), or negative (LexVal−) in meaning. Each visually enhanced target word was embedded in a sentence either positive (CtxVal+), neutral (CtxVal=), or negative (CtxVal−) in meaning. Sentences with different combinations of lexical valence and contextual valence were presented in the Study Session, which were later incidentally recalled in the Test Session. It was revealed that positive and negative words were remembered more often than neutral words and that negative contexts resulted in better retention of the embedded words than neutral contexts. These findings are in accordance with the predictions of the emotionally enhanced memory, the Emotion-Involved Processing Hypothesis, and the role of affect in the Modular Cognition Framework. Further, even if the target item is not emotional, embedding it in emotional context may result in better retention, a finding with potential pedagogical implications. Interestingly, words embedded in emotionally congruent contexts were not learned better than those in incongruent contexts, a finding contrary to expectation. The result may be explainable via the Deep Epistemic Emotion Hypothesis, calling for more empirical study.

Tracking the time-course of spoken word recognition of Cantonese Chinese in sentence context: Evidence from eye movements.

In this study, we conducted an eye-tracking experiment to investigate the effects of sentence context and tonal information on spoken word recognition processes in Cantonese Chinese. We recruited 60 native Cantonese listeners to participate in the eye-tracking experiment. The target words (phonologically similar words) were manipulated to either (1) a congruent context or (2) an incongruent context in the experiment. The resulting eye-movement patterns in the incongruent context condition clearly revealed that (1) sentence context produced a garden-path effect in the initial stage of the spoken word recognition processes and then (2) the lexical tone of the word (bottom-up information) overrode the contextual effects to help listeners to discriminate between different similar-sounding words during lexical access. In conclusion, the patterns of eye-tracking data show the interactive processes between the lexical tone (an acoustic cue within a Cantonese word) and sentence context played in different phases to the spoken word recognition of Cantonese Chinese.

People Wear Masks when they Ski: Comparing Congruent and Incongruent Behavioral Context Appeals

When advocating for a behavior, persuasive messaging typically focuses on the context that behavior is performed in, such as mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, situating the advocated behavior in a different context, termed an incongruent context appeal, may persuade by increasing attention, novelty, and memorability. The current study tested this supposition in a message experiment. Participants (N = 324) were randomized to view an incongruent context (e.g. skiing) or a congruent context (i.e. COVID-19) appeal advocating for mask wearing. The incongruence appeal had a direct, positive effect on mask wearing intentions and indirect, positive effects via two serial mediation pathways: time spent with the message increased attention through novelty and memorability. Findings suggest that an incongruent context appeal is an effective strategy for persuading audiences in information-saturated environments like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Subjective perception of objects depends on the interaction between the validity of context-based expectations and signal reliability

Predictive coding theories of visual perception assume that expectations based on prior knowledge modulate the processing of information. However, the underlying mechanisms remain debated. Some accounts propose that expectations enhance the perception of expected relative to unexpected stimuli while others assume the opposite. Recently, the opposing process theory suggested that enhanced perception of expected vs. unexpected stimuli may occur alternatively depending upon the reliability of the visual signal. When the signal is noisy, perception would be biassed toward what is expected since anything else may be too noisy to be resolved. When the signal is unambiguous, perception would be biassed toward what diverges from expectations and is more informative. Our study tested this hypothesis, using a perceptual matching task to investigate the influence of expectations on the perceived sharpness of objects in context. Participants saw two blurred images depicting the same object and had to adjust the blur level of one object to match the blur level of the other one. We manipulated the validity of expectations about objects by varying their scene context (congruent or incongruent context leading to valid or invalid expectations about the object). We also manipulated the reliability of the visual signal by varying the initial blur level of object pairs. Results showed that expectations validity differentially affected the perception of objects depending on signal reliability. Perception of validly expected objects was enhanced (sharpened) relative to unexpected objects when visual inputs were unreliable while this effect reversed to the benefit of unexpected objects when the signal was more reliable.

Competition in context: response selection within the supervisory attentional system model

ABSTRACT We examined the effects of context bias and target exposure duration on error rates (ERR) and response times (RTs) in letter choice task within context. Surface Electromyography (sEMG) was recorded in both hands during context presentation, as a measure of readiness to respond. The goal was to affect the outcome of the task by manipulating relative schemata activation levels prior to target onset, as per the Supervisory Attentional System model. At short exposures, context bias and sEMG activity affected ERR, whereas at longer durations, RTs were affected. Context bias mediated the effect of sEMG activity. Increasing activity in both hands led to higher ERR and RTs in incongruent context. Non-increasing activity in the non-responding lead to lack of relationship between sEMG activity and behavior, irrespective of context. sEMG activity in both hands was found to be interrelated and context-sensitive. These results conform to the predictions of the Supervisory Attentional Model.

Food Desires and Hedonic Discrimination in Virtual Reality Varying in Product–Context Appropriateness among Older Consumers

Immersive virtual reality (VR) videos can replicate complex real-life situations in a systematic, repeatable and versatile manner. New product development trajectories should consider the complexities of daily life eating situations. The creation of immersive contexts of a product with varying levels of appropriateness could be a useful tool for product developers in evaluating the extent to which context may influence food acceptance and eating behavior. This study explored virtual reality (VR) as an efficient context-enhancing technology through evaluations of protein-enriched rye breads and compared the effects of a VR-simulated congruent (VR restaurant) and incongruent (VR cinema) contexts on the acceptance in older consumers. A total of 70 participants were immersed in the two VR contexts and a neutral control context in a randomized order. The responses indicating the desire and liking for rye breads were measured, and the extent of immersion during context exposure was assessed by levels of the sense of presence and engagement. Immersive VR induced positive sensations of presence and a heightened level of engagement. The VR restaurant and neutral contexts were perceived as more appropriate for consuming rye breads and induced higher desire and liking for rye breads, which supported the notion of the alignment of congruent contexts with food desire and liking. The study provides new perspectives, practical methodologies, and discoveries in regard to the creation and application of VR-immersed contexts in food product evaluation. Moreover, it focused on a consumer segment (older consumers) that has seldom been investigated in previous relevant studies. The findings suggest that immersive VR technology, as a tool for evaluating contextual factors, is important for new product development. The good user experience among older consumers further indicated the potential value of VR as a context-enhancing tool for product development.

Gender Stereotyping and the Electoral Success of Women Candidates: New Evidence from Local Elections in the United States

AbstractResearch shows that voters often use gender stereotypes to evaluate candidates, which should help women in some electoral contexts and hurt them in others. Yet, most research examines a single context at a time—usually US national elections, where partisanship is strong—and employs surveys and experiments, raising concerns that citizens’ responses may not reflect how they actually vote. By analyzing returns from thousands of nonpartisan local elections, we test whether patterns of women's win rates relative to men's match expectations for how the electoral effects of gender stereotyping should vary by context. We find women have greater advantages over men in city council than mayoral races, still greater advantages in school board races, and decreasing advantages in more conservative constituencies. Thus, women fare better in stereotype-congruent contexts and worse in incongruent contexts. These effects are most pronounced during on-cycle elections, when voters tend to know less about local candidates.

Exploring strategies to promote health services online: The role of contextual priming, digital ad type, and health threat orientation in determining the effectiveness of health service ads

Contextual congruence, health threat orientation, and digital advertisement type can influence the effectiveness of online health service ads. To examine these effects, a 2 × 2 × 2 online experiment was conducted with contextual similarity as a within-subjects factor. Results suggest that contextual similarity was positively associated with both attitude toward ads and purchase intention. The data also revealed an interaction effect between digital advertising type and health threat orientation: health ads to address issues of immediate concerns enhanced purchase intention, but only in the incongruent context. Implications of the study were also discussed.

Effects of Dispositional and Instructional Time Perspective on Academic Performance and Motivations Among Primary School Students: A Concordance Hypothesis

Background:Dispositional future time perspective (FTP) has been acknowledged for its benefits on academic outcomes. Lacking in the literature are 1) understanding of FTP in children, 2) experimental studies, and 3) evidence for time perspective concordance (i.e., matching between dispositional and instructional FTP yield favorable outcomes).Aims:Therefore, this study examined whether dispositional FTP, instructional FTP, and their interaction were associated with academic outcomes including reading performance and academic motivations among primary school students.Sample:The participants were grade-2 or grade-3 Hong Kong students (N= 92; Age:M= 8.05,SD= 0.72; 45% girls).Methods:The participants rated their dispositional FTP and were randomly assigned to draw a picture of their future or present self with the assumption that they study hard. The students then completed a reading task and rated their intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation.Results:Better reading scores were found in future-oriented students who drew a future self and those less future-oriented who drew a present self. No concordance effects were found on motivations. Nevertheless, the future-drawing task led to a greater extrinsic motivation than the present-drawing task.Conclusions:Some children may have developed FTP in their middle childhood. Academic motivations may be more malleable at a younger age. When facing incongruent instructional context, more cognitive resources may be drained to resolve the dissonance and, thus, compromise the cognitive performance. Rather than a predominant focus on future achievements, a balanced emphasis on present and future or a temporally tailored instructional context for individuals may be considered in primary education.

Bilingual Language Control Flexibly Adapts to Cultural Context.

How does bilingual language control adapt to the cultural context? We address this question by looking at the pattern of switch cost and reversed language dominance effect, which are suggested to separately reflect reactive and proactive language control mechanisms, in the contexts with culturally-neutral pictures (i. e., baseline context) or culturally-biased pictures (i.e., congruent context where culture matched the language to be spoken or incongruent context where culture mismatched the language to be spoken). Results showed an asymmetric switch cost with larger costs for L2 in the congruent context as compared with the baseline and incongruent contexts, but the reversed language dominance effect was not changed across contexts, suggesting that cultural context plays a critical role in modulating reactive but not proactive language control. These findings reveal the dynamic nature of language control in bilinguals and have important implications for the current models of bilingual language control.

Virtual sound source distance evaluation in acoustically and visually incongruent contexts

Visual and acoustic environment may influence the perception of auditory distance. In the context of Audio-only augmented reality (AAR), the coherence of the perceived virtual sound sources with the apparent room geometry and acoustics cannot always be guaranteed. The perceptual consequences of these incoherences are not well known. We conducted two online perceptual studies with a sound distance rendering model based on measured spatial room impulse responses (SRIR). A first study evaluated the perceptual performances of the model in incongruent visual contexts. The incongruent environment-related visual cues (spatial visual boundary and room volume) demonstrated a significant effect on the auditory distance perception (ADP) of virtual sound sources, through a calibration effect. A second study evaluated the impact of acoustical incongruence. Virtual sound sources distances were judged after the participant listened to distracting sound sources conveying distance cues relative to a different acoustical environment. When this distracting sound sources corresponded to a larger room than the one reproduced by the model, a higher compression effect was observed on the ADP of virtual sound sources. However, when the intensity cue conveyed by the distracting sound sources were coherent with the acoustical environment simulated by the model, their distracting effect were negligible.

The context effect in facial emotion perception increases with age

AbstractBackgroundThere is evidence that age and context (e.g. stimuli presentation) influence the way we perceive emotions (Barrett, Mesquita & Gendron, 2011; Stanley & Isaacowitz, 2015). We investigated whether there is an age‐dependent context effect on the perception of static facial emotions.MethodIn this cross‐sectional study, 240 cognitively and psychically healthy subjects (50% female), evenly distributed between 34 and 90 years old, participated. Two facial emotion intensity perception tasks (Chiu et al., 2016; Chui et al., 2018) comprising different stimuli presentations, were administered: In the congruent context, facial emotions (i.e., anger, fear, disgust, happiness and sadness) were rated on a seven point Likert scale in terms of intensity from 'not perceived' to 'very strongly perceived'. In the incongruent context each facial stimulus was shown consecutively five times and had to be rated not only on the congruent emotion, but also on the other four incongruent emotions (e.g., rating on happiness, anger, disgust, fear and sadness when a happy face was shown). Congruent scores of the two tasks were used to investigate the potential context effect on emotion perception.We performed a linear mixed effects analysis of each emotion, entering the interaction term age x context, sex and gender of the stimulus as fixed effects; subjects were treated as random effects.ResultWith increasing age, subjects perceived happiness (t(345) = 3.04, p < 0.01), disgust (t(717) = ‐6.42, p < 0.001, sadness (t(717) = ‐2.81, p < 0.001) and fear (t(717) = ‐2.13, p< 0.05) less intensely in the incongruent compared to the congruent context. In contrast, we found no age‐dependent context effect in the perception of anger.ConclusionWe found a significant age‐dependent context effect in the perception of happiness, disgust, sadness and fear. Older subjects were more prone to context in terms of varying stimuli presentation than younger subjects, possibly also due to a decrease of cognitive functions in older age e.g., mental flexibility (Mather, 2016). Our results contribute to a better understanding of influential factors on emotion perception, which is critical when interpreting patients’ scores on an emotion perception task.

Tasty words: Using frame semantics to enhance consumer liking of potato chips and apples

AbstractPrevious research indicates that speakers of American English chiefly use crispy when referring to dry foods and crunchy when referring to wet foods, suggesting that these near‐synonyms have different semantic frames. The present study is the first to address how speakers of American English process crispy and crunchy by investigating whether foods with frame‐semantically (in)congruent food labels influence thoughts about and taste perception of foods. Taste tests with dry and wet foods labeled (in)congruently with regards to their water content showed that while thoughts remained unaffected, the frame‐semantically incongruent context produced significantly higher taste ratings than the frame‐semantically congruent context. Further research is necessary to explain whether and to what extent these findings can be generalized to other foods and near‐synonyms.

Group congruent labelling leads to subjective expansion of time.

Given top-down effects on perception, we examined the effect of group identity on time perception. We investigated whether the duration of an ambiguous sound clip is processed differently as a function of group congruent or incongruent source attribution. Group congruent (in-group) and incongruent (out-group) context was created by attributing the source of an identical ambiguous sound clip to Hindu or Muslim festivals. Participants from both the religious groups (Hindus and Muslims) prospectively listened to a 20 s long ambiguous sound clip and reproduced its duration (experiment 1a). Both groups reproduced significantly longer durations when the sound clip was associated with the group congruent compared to the group incongruent festival contexts. The two groups did not differ significantly in reproduced duration when the sound attributed to a non-religious common (busy city street) context (experiment 1b). With multiple durations (1, 5, 10 and 20 s), longer durations were reproduced for group congruent labelling at objectively longer durations (experiment 2). According to the internal clock model of time perception, the significant slope effect indicated that the group congruent context influences temporal experience through changes in pacemaker frequency. We argue that the duration appearing relevant to one's own group is processed differently possibly owing to differences in attentional deployment, which influences the pacemaker frequency.

Electrical brain activity and facial electromyography responses to irony in dysphoric and non-dysphoric participants

We studied irony comprehension and emotional reactions to irony in dysphoric and control participants. Electroencephalography (EEG) and facial electromyography (EMG) were measured when spoken conversations were presented with pictures that provided either congruent (non-ironic) or incongruent (ironic) contexts. In a separate session, participants evaluated the congruency and valence of the stimuli. While both groups rated ironic stimuli funnier than non-ironic stimuli, the control group rated all the stimuli funnier than the dysphoric group. N400-like activity, P600, and EMG activity indicating smiling were larger after the ironic stimuli than the non-ironic stimuli for both groups. Further, in the dysphoric group the irony modulation was evident in the electrode cluster over the right hemisphere, while no such difference in lateralization was observed in the control group. The results suggest a depression-related alteration in the P600 response associated to irony comprehension, but no alterations were found in emotional reactivity specifically related to irony.

Processing sentences with sentential and prefixal negation: an event-related potential study

ABSTRACT This study is concerned with the integration of negation in relation to two models of the processing of negation: (i) the two-step model (Lüdtke et al., 2008), according to which negation involves two representations where negation is ignored in the first representation, and (ii) the pragmatic view (Nieuwland & Kuperberg, 2008), which posits that negation can be integrated without delay if it is used in a natural context. The processing of two negated forms (not authorised and unauthorised) and an affirmative form (authorised) was studied in complex congruent and incongruent contexts. Incongruities in affirmative sentences elicited a biphasic N400–P600. In both types of negated sentences, ERP patterns associated with higher processing difficulties (anterior and central negativities) were observed. The results did not support one or the other model, suggesting that the processing of negation cannot be fully captured by either of them.

The whole is equal to the sum of its parts: Pigeons (Columba livia) and crows (Corvus macrorhynchos) do not perceive emergent configurations.

We previously demonstrated that chimpanzees, like humans, showed better accuracy and faster response time in discriminating visual patterns when the patterns were presented in redundant and uninformative contexts than when they were presented alone. In the present study, we examined the effect of redundant context on pattern discrimination in pigeons (Columba livia) and large-billed crows (Corvus macrorhynchos) using the same task and stimuli as those used in our previous study on chimpanzees. Birds were trained to search for an odd target among homogenous distractors. Each stimulus was presented in one of three ways: (1) alone, (2) with identical context that resulted in emergent configuration to chimpanzees (congruent context), or (3) with identical context that did not result in emergent configuration to chimpanzees (incongruent context). In contrast to the facilitative effect of congruent contexts we previously reported in chimpanzees, the same contexts disrupted target localization performance in both pigeons and crows. These results imply that birds, unlike chimpanzees, do not perceive emergent configurations.

CINET: A Brain-Inspired Deep Learning Context-Integrating Neural Network Model for Resolving Ambiguous Stimuli.

The brain uses contextual information to uniquely resolve the interpretation of ambiguous stimuli. This paper introduces a deep learning neural network classification model that emulates this ability by integrating weighted bidirectional context into the classification process. The model, referred to as the CINET, is implemented using a convolution neural network (CNN), which is shown to be ideal for combining target and context stimuli and for extracting coupled target-context features. The CINET parameters can be manipulated to simulate congruent and incongruent context environments and to manipulate target-context stimuli relationships. The formulation of the CINET is quite general; consequently, it is not restricted to stimuli in any particular sensory modality nor to the dimensionality of the stimuli. A broad range of experiments is designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the CINET in resolving ambiguous visual stimuli and in improving the classification of non-ambiguous visual stimuli in various contextual environments. The fact that the performance improves through the inclusion of context can be exploited to design robust brain-inspired machine learning algorithms. It is interesting to note that the CINET is a classification model that is inspired by a combination of brain’s ability to integrate contextual information and the CNN, which is inspired by the hierarchical processing of information in the visual cortex.

Alcohol belongs here: Assessing alcohol-related inhibitory control with a contextual go/no-go task.

There is a growing awareness of the need to explore the social and environmental milieus that drive alcohol consumption and related cognitions. The current study examined the extent to which alcohol-congruent and incongruent drinking contexts modulate alcohol-related inhibitory control using a novel go/no-go task. One hundred and eight participants (Mage = 20 years; SD = 4.87) were instructed to inhibit their responses to visual alcoholic (alcohol/no-go condition, n = 50) or nonalcoholic stimuli (alcohol/go condition, n = 58) depicted in an alcohol-congruent (pub), incongruent (library), or context-free (control) condition. Participants in the alcohol/go condition exhibited higher false alarm rates (FAR) toward nonalcoholic stimuli and faster reaction times (RTs) to alcoholic stimuli depicted in the alcohol-congruent and incongruent context compared with the alcohol/no-go condition. In contrast, FAR toward alcoholic stimuli (alcohol/no-go condition) were not significantly affected by drinking context, but RT was faster when nonalcoholic stimuli were presented in alcohol-incongruent (i.e., library) compared with alcohol-congruent (i.e., pub) contexts. The discussion turns to potential explanations for these findings, suggesting that social drinkers might exhibit approach tendencies toward alcoholic images that translate into errors toward nonalcoholic stimuli, and that image complexity influences response inhibition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Time-dependent effects of psychosocial stress on the contextualization of neutral memories

Memories about stressful experiences need to be both specific and generalizable to adequately guide future behavior. Memory strength is influenced by emotional significance, and contextualization (i.e., encoding experiences with their contextual details) enables selective context-dependent retrieval and protects against overgeneralization. The current randomized-controlled study investigated how the early and late phase of the endogenous stress response affects the contextualization of neutral and negative information. One hundred healthy male participants were randomly divided into three experimental groups that performed encoding either 1) without stress (control), 2) immediately after acute stress (early) or 3) two hours after acute stress (late). Stress was induced via the Trier Social Stress Test and salivary alpha-amylase and cortisol levels were measured throughout the experiment. In the Memory Contextualization Task, neutral and angry faces (items) were depicted against unique context pictures during encoding. During testing 24 h later, context-dependent recognition memory of the items was assessed by presenting these in either congruent or incongruent contexts (relative to encoding). Multilevel analyses revealed that neutral information was more contextualized when encoding took place two hours after psychosocial stress, than immediately after the stressor. Results suggest that the late effects in the unique, time-dependent sequence of a healthy endogenous stress response, could complement reduced contextualization immediately after stress. The contextualization of negative information was not influenced by psychosocial stress, as opposed to earlier reported effects of exogenous hydrocortisone administration. An imbalance between the early and late effects of the endogenous stress response could increase vulnerability for stress-related psychopathology.