Interactive Activation Framework Research Articles

Word or morpheme? Investigating the representation units of L1 and L2 Chinese compound words in mental lexicon using a repetition priming paradigm

ABSTRACT The present study used a repetition priming paradigm to investigate the basic morphological units stored in mental lexicon for Chinese as second language learners (L2) and Chinese native speakers (L1). Meanwhile, the modulation of Chinese morpheme property (bound or free) in lexical processing was examined. The results revealed that for intermediate-level L2 learners, Chinese words could be accessed through either whole-words or morphemes, while advanced-level learners and Chinese natives might employ a whole-word pathway. This might suggest that as language proficiency and reading experience develops, learners tend to rely more on whole-words as a processing strategy. Regarding the morpheme property effect, bound morphemes reported a greater priming effect than free morphemes in lexical decision tasks for both L1 and L2 speakers, which was interpreted with an interactive-activation framework.

An integrated model of word processing and eye-movement control during Chinese reading.

In the Chinese writing system, there are no interword spaces to mark word boundaries. To understand how Chinese readers conquer this challenge, we constructed an integrated model of word processing and eye-movement control during Chinese reading (CRM). The model contains a word-processing module and an eye-movement control module. The word-processing module perceives new information within the perceptual span around a fixation. The model uses the interactive activation framework (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981) to simulate word processing, but some new assumptions were made to address the word segmentation problem in Chinese reading. All the words supported by characters in the perceptual span are activated and they compete for a winner. When one word wins the competition, it is identified and it is simultaneously segmented from text. The eye-movement control module makes the decision regarding when and where to move the eyes using the activation information of word units and character units provided by the word-processing module. The model estimates how many characters can be processed during a fixation, and then makes a saccade to somewhere beyond this point. The model successfully simulated important findings on the relation between word processing and eye-movement control, how Chinese readers choose saccade targets, how Chinese readers segment words with ambiguous boundaries, and how Chinese readers process information with parafoveal vision during Chinese sentence reading. The current model thus provides insights on how Chinese readers address some important challenges, such as word segmentation and saccade-target selection. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The temporal dynamics of first and second language processing: ERPs to spoken words in Mandarin-English bilinguals

The dynamics of bilingual spoken word recognition remain poorly characterized, especially for individuals who speak two languages that are highly dissimilar in their phonological and morphological structure. The present study compared first language (L1) and second language (L2) spoken word processing within a group of adult Mandarin-English bilinguals (N = 34; ages 18–25). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants completed the same cross-modal matching task separately in their L1 Mandarin and L2 English. This task consisted of deciding whether spoken words matched pictures of items. Pictures and spoken words either matched (e.g., Mandarin: TANG2-tang2; English: BELL-bell), or differed in word-initial phonemes (e.g., Mandarin: TANG2-lang2; English: BELL-shell), word-final phonemes (e.g., Mandarin: TANG2-tao2; English: BELL-bed), or whole words (e.g., Mandarin: TANG2-xia1: English: BELL-ham). Each mismatch type was associated with a pattern of modulation of the Phonological Mapping Negativity, the N400, and the Late N400 that was distinct from those of the other mismatch types yet similar between the two languages. This was interpreted as evidence of incremental processing with similar temporal dynamics in both languages. These findings support models of spoken word recognition in bilingual individuals that adopt an interactive-activation framework for both L1 and L2 processing.

Value-based decision making: An interactive activation perspective.

Prominent theories of value-based decision making have assumed that choices are made via the maximization of some objective function (e.g., expected value) and that the process of decision making is serial and unfolds across modular subprocesses (e.g., perception, valuation, and action selection). However, the influence of a large number of contextual variables that are not related to expected value in any direct way and the ubiquitous reciprocity among variables thought to belong to different subprocesses suggest that these assumptions may not always hold. Here, we propose an interactive activation framework for value-based decision making that does not assume that objective function maximization is the only consideration affecting choice or that processing is modular or serial. Our framework holds that processing takes place via the interactive propagation of activation in a set of simple, interconnected processing elements. We use our framework to simulate a broad range of well-known empirical phenomena-primarily focusing on decision contexts that feature nonoptimal decision making and/or interactive (i.e., not serial or modular) processing. Our approach is constrained at Marr's (1982) algorithmic and implementational levels rather than focusing strictly on considerations of optimality at the computational theory level. It invites consideration of the possibility that choice is emergent and that its computation is distributed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Pre-lexical phonological processing in reading Chinese characters: An ERP study

Abstract Sinograms (i.e., Chinese characters) are usually composed of radicals which do not correspond to phonemes; instead, some radicals can occur as freestanding sinograms and have their own pronunciations. Previous research has demonstrated that the pronunciations of both radicals and sinograms are activated in reading low-frequency sinograms. However, the relative timing of activation between sinogram pronunciation and radical pronunciation has not been addressed. We examine this issue by comparing the interference effects exerted by two types of primes on the targets in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment: RADICAL-RELATED primes, which are homophonic with a radical embedded in the targets; and SINOGRAM-RELATED primes, which are homophonic with the targets. A radical interference effect is found for N170, P200 and N400 responses, whereas a sinogram interference effect is found only for N400. Our findings demonstrate that the pronunciations of radicals are activated pre-lexically, i.e., prior to those of their host sinograms. The role of this early sub-lexical phonology is discussed within an interactive activation framework, wherein two types of pronunciations—(1) the radical pronunciations and (2) the set of pronunciations associated with the sinogram’s orthographical neighbors—are both present and operate interactively.

Temporal- and Stimulus-Based Constraints to Interactive Activation During Visual Word Recognition in Adult Readers

In models of visual word recognition that incorporate an interactive activation framework, activation spreads from orthographic and phonological units to semantic units and from semantic units back to phonological and orthographic units. The present research examined whether semantic feedback changes over the time course of lexical processing and as a function of stimulus quality. Using a mediated priming paradigm, prime-target word pairs were associatively related (frog-toad), homophonically mediated (frog-towed), or orthographically mediated (frog-told). Evidence of semantic feedback to both orthography and phonology was found when the prime duration was 146 ms (Experiment 1) and only to phonology when the prime duration was 253 ms (Experiment 2a). However, when the prime duration was 253 ms and target words were degraded (Experiment 2b), feedback spread only to orthography. The results suggest that the dynamics of semantic feedback change as the function of processing demands in the visual word recognition system.

An ERP investigation of visual word recognition in syllabary scripts.

The bimodal interactive-activation model has been successfully applied to understanding the neurocognitive processes involved in reading words in alphabetic scripts, as reflected in the modulation of ERP components in masked repetition priming. In order to test the generalizability of this approach, in the present study we examined word recognition in a different writing system, the Japanese syllabary scripts hiragana and katakana. Native Japanese participants were presented with repeated or unrelated pairs of Japanese words in which the prime and target words were both in the same script (within-script priming, Exp. 1) or were in the opposite script (cross-script priming, Exp. 2). As in previous studies with alphabetic scripts, in both experiments the N250 (sublexical processing) and N400 (lexical-semantic processing) components were modulated by priming, although the time course was somewhat delayed. The earlier N/P150 effect (visual feature processing) was present only in "Experiment 1: Within-script priming", in which the prime and target words shared visual features. Overall, the results provide support for the hypothesis that visual word recognition involves a generalizable set of neurocognitive processes that operate in similar manners across different writing systems and languages, as well as pointing to the viability of the bimodal interactive-activation framework for modeling such processes.

The influence of emotional orthographic neighbourhood in visual word recognition

The aim was to investigate the activation spread between the orthographic lexicon and the affective system by means of emotional orthographic neighbourhood. Target words with a neutral emotional valence (e.g., tenace, fuseau) were selected so that they had only one higher-frequency orthographic neighbour with either a negative valence (e.g., menace) or a neutral valence (e.g., fuseau). All target words were presented in a primed lexical decision task, either preceded by their neighbour or by a control prime during 66 or 166 ms. The main finding was the inhibitory effect of negative emotional orthographic neighbourhood. Target word responses were delayed when the valence of the neighbour was negative rather than neutral. The data also indicated an inhibitory orthographic neighbourhood priming effect that was enhanced by prime duration. The results are discussed within an interactive-activation framework of visual word recognition adapted to affective processing.

Simulating syllable frequency effects within an interactive activation framework

Simulation data are presented for a novel computational model of visual word recognition containing syllabic representation units. The model is based on the multiple readout model MROM (Grainger & Jacobs, 1996) and it was used to simulate data from a syllable frequency experiment. The model successfully simulates the inhibitory syllable frequency effect in lexical decision obtained so far in Spanish, German, and French. In addition, this model, fully representing the principles of interactive activation between the three representation layers of letter, syllable, and word units, proved successful in correctly parsing all presented stimuli contained in its lexicon with different types of syllabic structures. Multiple regression analyses on the model's output and on human data confirmed the model's ability to still account for effects of word frequency and orthographic neighbourhood like the original MROM (Grainger & Jacobs, 1996) it was derived from.

The Effect of the Balance of Orthographic Neighborhood Distribution in Visual Word Recognition

The present study investigated whether the balance of neighborhood distribution (i.e., the way orthographic neighbors are spread across letter positions) influences visual word recognition. Three word conditions were compared. Word neighbors were either concentrated on one letter position (e.g.,nasse/basse-lasse-tasse-masse) or were unequally spread across two letter positions (e.g.,pelle/celle-selle-telle-perle), or were equally spread across two letter positions (e.g.,litre/titre-vitre-libre-livre). Predictions based on the interactive activation model [McClelland & Rumelhart (1981). Psychological Review, 88, 375-401] were generated by running simulations and were confirmed in the lexical decision task. Data showed that words were more rapidly identified when they had spread neighbors rather than concentrated neighbors. Furthermore, within the set of spread neighbors, words were more rapidly recognized when they had equally rather than unequally spread neighbors. The findings are explained in terms of activation and inhibition processes in the interactive activation framework.

La distribution du voisinage influence l'amorçage orthographique non masqué des mots écrits

The aim of the present research is to study whether orthographic neighbourhood distribution influences unmasked orthographic priming. Two word conditions were compared in the lexical decision task. All word targets had two higher frequency neighbours that were either spread across two letter positions ( SINGE/ linge-s onge) or concentrated on a single letter position (R UCHE/r iche-r oche). Results showed an inhibitory effect of unmasked orthographic priming. Furthermore, this priming effect was influenced by the target neighbourhood distribution. Priming was only found when the word targets had two neighbours that were spread across two letter positions. These data are discussed within an interactive activation framework in terms of prime activation (Versace and Nevers, 2003).

“PHONOLOGICAL” DYSPHASIA: A CROSS-MODAL PHONOLOGICAL IMPAIRMENT AFFECTING REPETITION, PRODUCTION, AND COMPREHENSION

In this paper we describe an aphasic patient, MS, who is impaired across a wide range of auditory input processing and spoken word production tasks. MS's performance on all these tasks shows phonological features: (1) his performance is poorest on auditory tasks with a strong phonological component, such as phoneme discrimination, auditory lexical decision, and word-picture matching featuring phono-logically related distractors; and (2) in spoken word production tasks, his errors are mainly phonemic and formal paraphasias. MS's single word repetition is particularly poor and exhibits some of the features of deep dysphasia, including lexicality effects (MS is unable to repeat nonwords) and image-ability effects. However, unlike in deep dysphasia, there are no semantic errors. We show that MS's condition, although apparently heterogeneous when viewed from a functional architecture perspective, can be described quite elegantly within an interactive-activation framework by proposing a single abnormality—a pathologically fast rate of decay within phonological representations.

Phonological neighborhood effects in aphasic speech errors: spontaneous and structured contexts

The current study investigates the influence of phonological neighborhoods on the accuracy of speech production in aphasia by examining errors produced in both spontaneous and structured speech tasks. Characteristics of the phonological neighborhoods of spontaneously produced aphasic errors are compared to the neighborhood characteristics of correctly produced targets in a picture description task. Accuracy of picture naming is also examined with reference to the phonological neighborhood characteristics of the stimuli. Results show that frequency of occurrence and neighborhood density play a facilitative role in speech production, replicating findings from recent studies with normal subjects. It is argued that the results are most parsimoniously explained within an interactive activation framework of lexical access.

Constituent‐morpheme priming: Implications from the morphology of two‐kanji compound words

The diversity in the morphological structure of two-kanji compound words is a matter of special concern for models of the Japanese mental lexicon. This study discusses two proposals for models of the Japanese mental lexicon - Hirose's (1992, 1994, 1996) hypotheses and a Japanese lemma-unit version of the multilevel interactive-activation framework - in terms of their ability to cope with this diversity. As the proposals make different predictions concerning constituent-morpheme priming, patterns of facilitation were examined in two experiments with five word-formation principles as experimental condi- tions. Experiment 1, using the long stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 3000 ms employed by Hirose (1992), only found significant differences between the first- and second-element conditions in one of the word-formation conditions. Experiment 2, using a short SOA of 250 ms, confirmed the pattern of priming obtained in Experiment 1. These results are more consistent with the prediction from the Japanese lemma-unit model.

L'influence du voisinage orthographique lors de la reconnaissance des mots écrits.

This paper reviews the main research that has been conducted on the role of orthographic neighbourhood in visual word recognition. We focus here on the traditionally defined neighbourhood, that is corresponding to the set of words of the same length sharing all but one letter with the stimulus. Two major theoretical frameworks, namely the activation verification and the interactive activation models, assume that orthographic neighbours are activated when a written word is presented. Predictions formulated by both models for words and pseudowords on the effects of neighbourhood size (N), neighbourhood frequency (NF), and neighbourhood distribution (P), are examined in order to assess the plausibility of serial versus interactive processes. Findings from 27 empirical studies including more than 80 experiments suggest that neighbourhood effects depend on the neighbourhood indexes (N, NF, and P), on the particular tasks (lexical decision, naming, semantic categorization, perceptual identification, and reading), and on the languages (English, French, Spanish, and Dutch) that are used. The results for words can be summarized as follows: (1) In the lexical decision task, the N effect is facilitatory. The NF effect is rather inhibitory, particularly in French and Spanish experiments. The P effect is rather inhibitory in English studies, whereas the P effect for higher frequency neighbours is facilitatory in French. (2) In the perceptual identification task with a single identification response, N and NF effects are inhibitory whatever the language. (3) In the naming task, N and NF effects are facilitatory whatever the language. (4) In the semantic categorization task, an interaction effect between N and NF is found in both English and Spanish. (5) In eye movement studies, the NF effect is inhibitory in both English and French. The issue of lexical versus task-specific processes underlying neighbourhood effects in lexical identification tasks is also examined. On the whole, facilitatory N effects are usually attributed to nonlexical processes of the lexical decision task and of the naming task, whereas inhibitory neighbourhood frequency effects are usually attributed to lexical processes, at least in lexical-decision experiments and in eye-movement studies on normal reading. The distribution of higher frequency neighbours which is found to have a facilitatory effect on French words in lexical-decision experiments can be attributed to lexical processes in the interactive activation framework. The theoretical implications of the data are discussed in light of the original activation verification and interactive activation models and in recently extended versions of these models. We conclude that the lexical inhibition hypothesis which is central in the interactive activation framework is the most appropriate to account for the role of orthographic neighbourhoods in visual word recognition.

Modulating semantic feedback in visual word recognition

According to the interactive activation framework proposed by McClelland and Rumelhart (1981), activation spreads both forward and backward between some levels of representation during visual word recognition. An important boundary condition, however, is that the spread of activation from lower to higher levels can be prevented (e.g., explicit letter processing during prime processing eliminates the well-documented semantic priming effect). Can the spread of activation from higher to lower levels also be prevented? This question was addressed with a choice task procedure in which subjects read a prime word and then responded to a target, performing either lexical decision or letter search depending on the color of the target. A semantic context effect was observed in lexical decision, providing evidence of semantic-level activation. In contrast, there was no semantic context effect in the letter search task, despite evidence of lexical involvement: Words were searched faster than nonwords. Further evidence of lexical involvement in the letter search task appeared in Experiment 2 in the form of greater identity priming for words than for nonwords. The results of these experiments are consistent with the conclusion that feedback from the semantic level to the lexical level can be blocked. Hence, between-level activation blocks can be instantiated in both bottom-up and top-down directions.

Orthographically mediated inhibition effects: Evidence of activational feedback during visual word recognition

Models of visual word recognition that have adopted an interactive activation framework (e.g., Coltheart, Curtis, Atkins, & Haller, 1993; Grainger & Jacobs, 1996) assume that activation can spread from semantic to orthographic representations via a feedback mechanism during visual word recognition. The present study used a mediated priming paradigm to test whether such feedback exists and, if so, under what conditions. Participants named aloud targets that were preceded either by a semantically related prime (e.g., dog-cat) or by a prime that was related to the target via a mediating word (e.g., cat-[dog]-bog). Direct evidence of activational feedback was obtained in the form of orthographically mediated inhibition effects. These mediated inhibition effects are consistent with activational feedback and support models of visual word recognition that have adopted an interactive activation framework.

The neighborhood distribution effect in visual word recognition: words with single and twin neighbors.

Lexical-decision tasks were used to test the role of neighborhood distribution in visual word recognition. Predictions based on the interactive activation model were generated by running simulations. The data were compared for words with 2 higher frequency neighbors that differed in their neighborhood distribution. The neighbors were "single" when they did not share a neighborhood relationship (e.g., neighbors of flanc: flanc-blanc) or "twin" when they shared a neighborhood relationship (e.g., neighbors of firme: ferme-forme). Results show a facilitatory neighborhood distribution effect on words in Experiments 1 (easy pseudowords) and 3 (difficult pseudowords and easy pseudowords) and on pseudowords in Experiment 2. These data can be accounted for in terms of lexical inhibition in the interactive activation framework.

Kanji Lexicality Effect in Partial Repetition Priming: The Relationship between Kanji Word and Kanji Character Processing

Two experiments are described using a partial repetition priming paradigm. The prime type was whether a kanji character is used as a word by itself (word type) or not (nonword type). This property is called kanji lexicality. In Experiment 1, the effect of kanji lexicality was not confirmed, although there was a tendency in the responses for word-type primes to be slower than those for nonword-type primes. In Experiment 2, the kanji lexicality effect depended upon the target familiarity, and no facilitation was obtained for high-familiarity words with word-type primes. The results were interpreted in terms of a modified interactive-activation framework.

Processing Complex Sentences: A Cross-linguistic Study

The Competition Model is an interactive-activation framework for the study of sentence processing that is designed to handle quantitative as well as qualitative variations in performance across natural languages. Previous studies within this framework have shown that adult listeners base their interpretation of simple sentences on the most valid and reliable cues in their language (e.g. more use of word order in English and more use of subject verb agreement in Italian). Critics have argued that such effects may reflect heuristics that are only applied to simple sentences. The present study shows that these cross-linguistic differences are maintained when participants are asked to interpret complex sentences with an embedded relative clause. A comparison of “off-line” (untimed) and "on-line" (timed) versions of the same experiments shows that these effects hold up under time pressure. The on-line versions also provide new information about cross-linguistic differences in timing and demands on processing. In particular, the processing costs associated with centre embedding and non-canonical order are greater in English, which may be the price that English listeners have to pay for heavy reliance on word order information.