Neutral Baseline Research Articles

Bilingual Speakers in the Lab: Psychophysiological Measures of Emotional Reactivity

Bilingual speakers report experiencing stronger emotions when speaking and hearing their first language compared to their second. Does this occur even when a second language is learned early and becomes the dominant language? Spanish—English bilinguals who had grown up in the USA (early learners) or those who were first exposed to English during middle childhood while residing in a Latin American country (late learners) listened to words and phrases while skin conductance was monitored. Stimuli included taboo words, sexual terms, childhood reprimands ('Go to your room!') and single words which functioned as a neutral baseline. Consistent with the hypothesis that a second language is less emotional for the late learners, emotional expressions (i.e.reprimands) presented in the first language elicited larger skin conductance responses than comparable expressions in the second language. For the early learners, no such difference was obtained, indicating that age of acquisition of the second language and proficiency modulate speakers' physiological reaction to emotional language.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Neutrality: Broad Principles, Formalism, and the Establishment Clause

In recent years the landscape of Establishment Clause jurisprudence has changed dramatically. Landmark decisions, such as Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, have placed significant emphasis on the concept of neutrality, specifically formal neutrality. Yet claims of neutrality cannot be proven. There is no independent neutral truth or baseline to which they can be tethered. This article addresses the inherent problems with the principle of neutrality in Establishment Clause cases. The principle sounds good in theory, but since there is no neutral baseline from which we can gauge claims of neutrality, it is an empty concept. Yet, the Court has been increasingly gravitating toward neutrality, specifically formal neutrality, as the centerpiece of its Establishment Clause doctrine. While this shift has not taken place in every context to which the Establishment Clause can be applied, it has become dominant in government aid and equal access cases. This move is dangerous not because of its results, but because the Court has gone from using neutrality as a broad and vague principle that needs other principles such as separation or accommodation in order to function, to both the means and ends of Establishment Clause analysis. As an alternative to neutrality (and other broad principles), this article recommends looking beneath broad principles to narrower ones, which may be applied separately or in tandem to issues under the Establishment Clause. Relying on Douglas Laycock's concept of substantive neutrality, divorced from any claim to neutrality, the article proposes a test that is focused upon whether government activity facilitates or discourages religion. The test is not formalistic like the current Court's formal neutrality approach, but it is better able to address the highly complex and contextually bound issues that arise under the Establishment Clause.

Facilitatory and inhibitory effects of grammatical agreement: Evidence from readers’ eye fixation patterns

The study examined how grammatical agreement affects reading in Finnish. Readers’ eye fixation patterns were recorded when they read one of three alternative versions of the same sentences, where the critical difference was the type of preceding word of the target nouns. The preceding word was (a) an agreeing modifier (mainioksi orkesteriksi=‘for an excellent orchestra’), (b) a non-agreeing modifier that was grammatical, unambiguous and synonymous to the agreeing modifier (kelpo orkesteriksi=‘for an excellent orchestra’), or (c) a baseline condition without a modifier (orkesteriksi=‘for an orchestra’). Two different types of agreement were used, a modifier-head agreement and a possessive agreement. The results showed that the agreeing modifiers facilitate and the non-agreeing modifiers inhibit the reading of the target nouns compared to the neutral baseline condition. These effects appeared in the second-pass reading. The pattern was similar between the two agreement structures.

Automatic vigilance for task-related information: perseverance after failure and inhibition after success.

In three experiments, the influence of failure and success on persistent automatic vigilance task-related information was investigated. Participants first had to work on a series of synonym selection problems for which negative and positive feedback was given independently of their performance. In the second part of the experiments, words from the synonym selection problems were presented as distractors in a dual task with speeded responses. Interference effects of the distractors served as a measure of automatic vigilance for the previous synonym selection problems that was unbiased by strategic processes. Interference effects were stronger for words from failure tasks than for words from success tasks. Comparing the success and failure conditions against a neutral baseline suggested that this difference was due to both a perseverance of automatic vigilance for failure tasks and an inhibition of cognitive accessibility after success.

Examining the time course of facilitation and inhibition with simultaneous onset and offset cues.

The experiment conducted examined the effect of simultaneously presented onset and offset cues on the orienting of attention in the visual field. Subjects were presented with a display that consisted of four placeholder boxes around a central fixation point. An onset and an offset cue appeared simultaneously in two of the locations, and the other two locations provided a neutral baseline condition. Reaction times were measured in a simple target detection task with stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs) that ranged from 100 ms to 1,000 ms. As expected, the onset cue produced early facilitation and later occurring inhibition of return (IOR). The offset cue produced significant inhibition at all but the earliest SOA. These results suggest that simultaneously presented onset and offset cues both capture attention, but that attention is rapidly disengaged from the location of the offset cue, resulting in earlier occurring IOR. For the onset cues, attention is allocated for a longer period of time, producing the typical pattern of early facilitation and later occurring IOR. The differing time course of attention at each location may reflect separate facilitatory and inhibitory processes, and the priority given to the onset of a stimulus by the attentional system.

No go on neutrals? An interhemispheric account of semantic category priming

In a divided-visual-field priming paradigm, participants made manual lexical decisions performing either go no-go responses, or yes-no responses, to related prime-target word pairs that were nonassociated, category members (DEER-PONY). Half of each response group received unrelated (ATTIC-PONY) baselines and half received neutral (BLANK-PONY) baselines. In the go no-go response, small but reliable priming was obtained in both target visual fields and there was a reliable slowing of response time in the right visual field/left hemisphere for participants receiving the neutral baseline. In the yes-no response, greater priming was obtained from a neutral baseline, as compared to an unrelated baseline. We show that under appropriate conditions priming for these stimuli occurs in both visual fields. We also report that cross-visual-field advantages emerged as cognitive task load increased across combinations of baseline and response variables. We conclude that task load may be as important a factor in priming asymmetries as SOA or type of semantic relationship.

Do Identical Priming and Word Frequency Truly Interact in Picture Naming When a Neutral Baseline is Used?

Do Identical Priming and Word Frequency Truly Interact in Picture Naming When a Neutral Baseline is Used?

Noxious cold evokes multiple sensations with distinct time courses

A noxious cold stimulus can evoke multiple sensations each occurring with a different time course. We have performed psychophysical studies to identify the time course of five sensations evoked by a noxious cold stimulus applied to the hand. Subjects continuously rated either pain, ache, cold, heat or prickle sensations throughout repeated presentations of a noxious cold stimulus (3°C) from a neutral (32°C) baseline. Separate runs were used to assess each of the five types of sensation. Cold was reported throughout the period of cooling. The time course of pain and ache sensations were similar. However, prickle and heat sensations had time courses that could be distinguished from each other, and from ache and pain. Identification of these temporal profiles could provide clues to their underlying mechanisms. The temporal dissociation of these sensations will also enable neuroimaging studies of the cortical mechanisms associated with these sensations. Thus our results constitute a first step toward identifying the distinct modes of neural activity associated with different types of pain sensation.

The Representation of Polysemous Words

Words that have a number of related senses are polysemous. For example, paper refers to both a substance and a publication printed on that substance. Five experiments investigated whether different senses are represented distinctly in the lexicon or if there is a common, core meaning. In all experiments, a polysemous word was used twice, in phrases that selected the same or different senses. Experiment 1 showed that sense consistency aided memory for the polysemous word. Experiment 2 extended this result to a timed sensicality judgment task. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the effects for polysemous words were very similar to those for homonyms. Experiment 4 ruled out the possibility of modifier-modifier priming. Experiment 5 showed that sense consistency facilitates comprehension relative to a neutral baseline, while sense inconsistency inhibits comprehension. These experiments provide evidence that polysemous words have separate representations for each sense and that any core meaning is minimal.

The myth of ballistic processing: evidence from Stroop's paradigm.

The Stroop effect is widely considered to be compelling evidence that skilled readers cannot prevent themselves from reading the irrelevant word or even delay such processing. In contrast, several reports indicate that the Stroop effect can be eliminated by various simple manipulations. These reports have been criticized on several grounds, among them that the baseline condition is suspect. These criticisms are addressed by showing that when (1) a neutral baseline is replaced by congruent trials, (2) single letter cuing and coloring manipulations are combined, (3) attentional window conditions are blocked, and (4) the congruent/incongruent trial ratio is 20/80, the Stroop effect is eliminated. A second major finding is that despite no Stroop effect, negative priming is observed, consistent with the hypothesis that a distinct but delayed perceptual act processes the word. The default set may be to process to the highest level (semantics), but these reading processes are (contextually) controlled rather than ballistic.

Processing of grammatical gender in a three-gender system: experimental evidence from Russian.

Four experiments investigated the effect of grammatical gender on lexical access in Russian. Adjective-noun pairs were presented auditorily, using a cued-shadowing technique in which subjects must repeat the second word (the target noun), following adjectives that are either concordant or discordant with the noun's gender. Experiment 1 demonstrates gender priming with unambiguous adjectives and phonologically transparent masculine or feminine nouns. Experiment 2 examines priming for transparent nouns against a neutral baseline (possible only for feminines and neuters), revealing that priming is due primarily to inhibition from discordant gender. Experiment 3 demonstrates gender priming with phonologically opaque masculine and feminine nouns. Experiment 4 returns to transparent masculine and feminine nouns with a different kind of baseline, using three versions of a single word root (prost--simple, in the feminine adjectival form prostaja, masculine adjectival form prostoj, and the adverbial form prosto), and shows that gender can also facilitate lexical access, at least for feminine nouns. We conclude that Russian listeners can exploit gender agreement cues "on-line," helping them to predict the identity of an upcoming word.

Differential Age Effects on Semantic and Syntactic Priming

Adult age differences in the processing of semantic and syntactic information during language comprehension were investigated in a lexical decision task in which the target word was preceded by a sentence fragment. Sentence fragment and target were presented visually and made up either a correct or an incorrect sentence containing either a semantic violation (selectional restriction violation) or a syntactic violation (subcategorisation violation). Experiment 1 revealed a differential age effect for the processing of syntactic, but not for the processing of semantic violations. Experiment 2, using visually degraded targets, demonstrated that this differential effect was independent of peripheral processing aspects, such as visual encoding. Experiment 3 including a neutral baseline condition revealed that the differential age effect on syntactic processing was due to controlled rather than to automatic aspects of priming, as it was observed for the cost component, but not for the bene”t component. Experiment 4 revealed that this effect was independent of the timing parameters used for stimulus presentation. It appears that age can have differential effects on specific cognitive domains, such as syntax and semantics. This may be attributable to the amount of controlled processes involved in syntactic and semantic priming.

Stature loss from sustained gentle body loading.

The effects of low levels of loading on spinal creep have been investigated in nine young men aged between 19 and 24 years. The stimulus for the project was an interest in the potential use of stadiometry in evaluating selected classes of patients with spinal disorders. Underlying the experiment was the view that if gentle spinal loadings cannot be differentiated sensitively in normal young adults then the feasibility of using stadiometric measurements to identify patients with decreased lability is questionable. Subjects were measured on a precision stadiometer before and after 25 minutes of free standing and quiet walking, and the resultant stature losses compared with the more substantial losses observed following steady running. All measurements were made following the same presession routine, at exactly the same time on three separate mornings. It was observed that while no appreciable stature loss followed standing (mean = 0.01 mm; SE = 0.65 mm; p > 0.05) even quiet walking had a measurable and statistically significant effect (mean = 1.82 mm; SE = 0.49 mm; p < 0.01). Compared with these, steady running produced almost 2 1/2 times as great a loss (mean = 4.32 mm; SE = 0.83 mm; p < 0.01). It is concluded: (a) that erect standing provides a useful neutral baseline from which the changes associated with spinal loading and unloading may be measured; (b) that the effects of even gentle spinal loadings may be differentiated sensitively by precision stadiometry; and (c) that easy walking is one such gentle stimulus with detectable effects in normal young men.

Do abrupt-onset peripheral cues attract attention automatically?

The proportion of peripheral cues that predicted at which of two locations a discrimination target would occur was manipulated in three experiments. Near cues occurred adjacent to the target and far cues occurred adjacent to the other location. In Experiment 1, near and far cues were presented in separate blocks so each predicted target location. Both types of cue produced benefit relative to a neutral baseline. In Experiment 2 expectancy for near versus far cues was manipulated. In one group, 80% of the peripheral cues were near; in another, only 20% were near; in a third, near and far cues occurred randomly. Near cures always produced benefit. Far cues produced benefit when they were expected, had no effect in the random group, and sometimes produced cost when they were unexpected. Experiment 3 repeated the near-expected and far-expected conditions, but target duration was shortened to 50 msec. A similar pattern emerged, except that near cues produced less benefit at longer SOAs when they were unexpected. The data suggest that peripheral, abrupt-onset cues may produce benefit via an automatic process, but that such a process is more like location priming than the capture of attention. Expectancy determines whether and where attentional resources will be allocated in response to the cue.

Exposure to successful women: Antidote to sex discrimination in applicant screening decisions?

This research is designed to examine the proposition that exposure to the successes of women in traditionally male occupations will mitigate against subsequent sex bias in selection decisions. Prior to making initial screening decisions about a male or female applicant for a traditionally male job, i.e., finance manager trainee, 147 college students read an editorial documenting the successful performance of an individual woman or a group of women employed in a nontraditional job that either was or was not related to the job about which the personnel recommendations were to be made. A neutral information group read an editorial unrelated to women or work. As predicted, the discrepant ratings of male and female applicants in the neutral baseline condition were significantly reduced only when the information presented concerned a group of women and there also was a direct connection between the occupation in which they were successful and the occupation for which the screening decision was being made. Additional analyses supported the idea that this effect was due to the lessening of the stereotypie attributes used to characterize the female applicants. These results suggest that although exposure to successful women in heretofore male dominated occupations can reduce sex bias in personnel selection decisions, the conditions under which this is likely to occur are very limited. The implications of these results, both theoretical and practical, are discussed.

Context effects in retrospective judgments of personal experiences

Are retrospective judgments regarding the affect associated with personal experiences influenced by organismic and cognitive factors prevailing at the time such events are recalled? This experiment examined whether contrast and assimilation effects analogous to those obtained for social and perceptual judgments could be produced in memory judgments of affect. The contribution of two factors was assessed: current activation level and cognitive context. Memories of personal experiences were elicited by a prompt-word method (cf. Robinson, 1976). Activation level was assessed by a self-report measure (Thayer, 1967). Cognitive contexts biased toward highly affecting experiences or toward moderately affecting experiences were induced with special questionnaires. Nonevaluative features of personal memories (e.g., event age) were not affected by the judgment conditions. Judgments of affect intensity were shifted relative to a neutral baseline condition by the high-intensity cognitive context. The direction of judgmental shift was dependent upon activation level. Confidence rating indicated that subjects were not aware of the biasing effects of the recall conditions.

Direct Comparison of Three Isotopic Release Microtoxicity Assays as Measures of Cell-Mediated Immunity to Gross Virus-Induced Lymphomas in Rats

Three isotopic release microtoxicity assays--[125I]5-iodo-2'-deoxyuridine release assay (IRA), 51Cr release assay (CRA), and [3H]proline release assay (PRA)--have been utilized to measure cell-mediated immunity to (C58NT)D, a Gross virus-induced lymphoma in rats. These studies were designed so that all three assays were done under physical conditions as comparable as possible between the assays. A considerable difference was noted in the ability of one or another target cell to function well in each assay. The tissue culture line of (C58NT)D proved an excellent target cell in the long-term assays, whereas the ascites line was inadequate in these same long-term assays. The monolayer Gross virus-induced tumor cell line ERTh/G was resistant to lysis in the short-term CRA but functioned well in the long-term assays. The autologous and thymus cell controls utilized in these studies were reasonably neutral baseline controls for the evaluation of both normal and immune activity. Although all three assays were capable of measuring both natural and immune activity in this systemthe PRA appeared more sensitive at 24 hours and the IRA at 48 hours, whereas the CRA activity with these target cells was only useful in the short-term assays.

Biorhythm—your personal three‐phase cycle

The biorhythm theory, first developed in Switzerland, is based on the belief that the human body operates on three constantly‐recurring cycles — the physical, which is a 23‐day cycle; the sensitivity (or emotional) cycle of 28 days; and the intellectual (33 days). The physical rhythm influences resistance to disease, strength, co‐ordination, speed, and physiology. The emotional rhythm influences creativity, sensitivity, mental health, and general mood. Intellectually the influence is on memory, alertness, logical and analytical functions. At birth each cycle starts at a neutral baseline, or zero point. From there it begins to rise in a positive phase, during which the energies and abilities associated with each cycle are high. For the first half of its duration the cycle rises gradually to a peak, then goes into a decline.

Neurotic anxiety, pronoun usage and stress.

The use of the pronoun "I" when a speaker refers to his own actions, thoughts, or emotions is appropriate. Omission of the pronoun or the use of "you" or "it" may be taken as an indicant of psychological distantiation. This study examines the effects of stress and neurotic anxiety on pronoun usage. Forty-five male and female undergraduate Ss enrolled at Virginia Commonwealth University were selected randomly from 172 volunteers assessed for neurotic anxiety level as measured by the Maudsley Personality Inventory and Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale. Treatment consisted of asking 20 emotionally charged questions, 10 of which were neutral baseline questions and the other 10 were either negative, neutral, or positive in stress. Responses were tape recorded and transcribed. It was found that negative stress interacting with medium level anxiety neurotics significantly increased distantiation above baseline levels. A hypothesis to explain the results was offered.