Semantic Activation Research Articles

Lexical processing of Chinese sub-character components: Semantic activation of phonetic radicals as revealed by the Stroop effect

Most Chinese characters are compounds consisting of a semantic radical indicating semantic category and a phonetic radical cuing the pronunciation of the character. Controversy surrounds whether radicals also go through the same lexical processing as characters and, critically, whether phonetic radicals involve semantic activation since they can also be characters when standing alone. Here we examined these issues using the Stroop task whereby participants responded to the ink color of the character. The key finding was that Stroop effects were found when the character itself had a meaning unrelated to color, but contained a color name phonetic radical (e.g., “guess”, with the phonetic radical “cyan”, on the right) or had a meaning associated with color (e.g., “pity”, with the phonetic radical “blood” on the right which has a meaning related to “red”). Such Stroop effects from the phonetic radical within a character unrelated to color support that Chinese character recognition involves decomposition of characters into their constituent radicals; with each of their meanings including phonetic radicals activated independently, even though it would inevitably interfere with that of the whole character. Compared with the morphological decomposition in English whereby the semantics of the morphemes are not necessarily activated, the unavoidable semantic activation of phonetic radicals represents a unique feature in Chinese character processing.

The effect of associative strength on semantic priming in schizophrenia

The present research was designed to investigate the pattern of semantic priming in schizophrenia as a function of strength of association (or semantic distance between concepts in the semantic network). Thirty schizophrenia patients, without formal thought disorder, and twenty-nine healthy controls participated in a lexical decision task in which prime-target associative strength (strong, weak and not related) and stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA: 250ms and 750ms) were manipulated. Patients and controls showed the same associative strength effect on RTs. In the short SOA condition priming effects were obtained for both strong and weak prime-target associative conditions. However in the long SOA priming was only significant for strongly associated pairs. This pattern of priming effects was similar in both groups, with higher priming on the short SOA and strong association conditions. Altogether results suggest that automatic semantic spreading activation is unimpaired in schizophrenia patients without formal thought disorder. These results are in line with the general evidence of impaired implicit priming observed only in patients with formal thought disorder. At the same time patients use context as controls to facilitate word processing. Finally, these findings evidence that, prime-target associative strength could moderate results in studies of semantic memory deficits in schizophrenia.

Gender Stereotype Activation versus Lexical Semantic Activation: An ERP Study

ABSTRACTIt is an open question whether social stereotype activation can be distinguished from nonsocial semantic activation. To address this question, gender stereotype activation (GSA) and lexical semantic activation (LSA) were directly compared. EEGs were recorded in 20 participants as they identified the congruence between prime-target word pairs under four different conditions (stereotype congruent, stereotype incongruent, semantic congruent, and semantic incongruent). We found that congruent targets elicited faster and more accurate responses and reduced N400 amplitudes irrespective of priming category types. The N400 congruency effect (i.e., the difference between incongruity and congruity) started earlier and had greater amplitude for GSA than for LSA. Moreover, gender category priming induced a smaller N400 and a larger P600 than lexical category priming. These findings suggest that the brain is not only sensitive to both stereotype and semantic violation in the post-perceptual processing stage but can also differentiate these two information processes. Further, the findings suggest superior processing (i.e., faster and deeper processing) when the words are associated with social category and convey stereotype knowledge.

Neuroimaging of decoding and language comprehension in young very low birth weight (VLBW) adolescents: Indications for compensatory mechanisms.

In preterm children with very low birth weight (VLBW ≤ 1500 g), reading problems are often observed. Reading comprehension is dependent on word decoding and language comprehension. We investigated neural activation–within brain regions important for reading–related to components of reading comprehension in young VLBW adolescents in direct comparison to normal birth weight (NBW) term-born peers, with the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We hypothesized that the decoding mechanisms will be affected by VLBW, and expect to see increased neural activity for VLBW which may be modulated by task performance and cognitive ability. The study investigated 13 (11 included in fMRI) young adolescents (ages 12 to 14 years) born preterm with VLBW and in 13 NBW controls (ages 12–14 years) for performance on the Block Design and Vocabulary subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children; and for semantic, orthographic, and phonological processing during an fMRI paradigm. The VLBW group showed increased phonological activation in left inferior frontal gyrus, decreased orthographic activation in right supramarginal gyrus, and decreased semantic activation in left inferior frontal gyrus. Block Design was related to altered right-hemispheric activation, and VLBW showed lower WISC Block Design scores. Left angular gyrus showed activation increase specific for VLBW with high accuracy on the semantic test. Young VLBW adolescents showed no accuracy and reaction time performance differences on our fMRI language tasks, but they did exhibit altered neural activation during these tasks. This altered activation for VLBW was observed as increased activation during phonological decoding, and as mainly decreased activation during orthographic and semantic processing. Correlations of neural activation with accuracy on the semantic fMRI task and with decreased WISC Block Design performance were specific for the VLBW group. Together, results suggest compensatory mechanisms by recruiting additional brain regions upon altered neural development of decoding for VLBW.

ERP and behavioral effects of semantic ambiguity in a lexical decision task

Abstract In the present study we examined electrophysiological and behavioral correlates of ambiguous word processing. In a lexical decision task, participants were presented with ambiguous words with unrelated meanings (i.e., homonyms; e.g., bat), ambiguous words with related meanings (i.e., polysemes; e.g., newspaper), and unambiguous words (e.g., guitar). Ambiguous words elicited larger N400 amplitudes than unambiguous words and showed an advantage in RTs. Importantly, no differences were found between homonyms and polysemes, on either N400 amplitudes or in RTs. These results suggest that ambiguous words, regardless of the relatedness between their meanings, benefit from enhanced semantic activation in comparison to unambiguous words during word recognition.

EFFECT OF ASYMMETRY OF SEMANTIC ACTIVATION IN UNCONSCIOUS AWARENESS OF AMBIGUOUS LEXIS

The article addresses the issue of perception and processing of ambiguous information. Experimental effects of understanding of polysemantic stimuli (homonyms, reversed figures) on conscious and unconscious levels have been analyzed. It is shown that implicit awareness of several meanings occurs before the explication of one meaning of stimulus take place. The aim of the current research is to discover the effect of asymmetry of semantic activation in unconscious perception of ambiguous information (in homonyms). The procedures and results of the two conducted studies are fully described. In Experiment 1, technique of priming was used, in which ambiguous words were used as prime stimuli. Participants were randomly divided into four groups (two experimental and two control groups). Unconscious primes with visual mask were demonstrated to participants of experimental groups. Then, two words were demonstrated, only one of which had semantic relation to one meaning of the prime stimulus. The sets of stimuli in the experimental groups differed only in the words that were semantically related to the meaning of the ambiguous prime. The words that were not semantically related to the prime stimuli were identical. Then all partici pants (including participants in control groups) were told to choose as quickly as they could one word of two, using keys “left” or “right”. The results supported the hypothesis about the asymmetry of semantic activation in general. Participants did choose words related to particular meaning of prime stimuli more often.In Experiment 2, participants were asked to write down associations with the same words that were used as primes in Experiment 1. The results have shown that stronger association between prime and ambiguous stimuli facilitates priming-effect, while weaker association makes priming-effect insignificant.The present research supports the proposition that all alternative meanings of ambiguous words are more or less actualized implicitly, which influences further cognitive activity. The described phenomenon was labeled as the effect of semantic activation asymmetry. On the unconscious level, this asymmetry shows up as quantitative difference between priming-effects. On the conscious level, this asymmetry shows up as easiness and accessibility of verbal associations on corresponding meaning of the ambiguous word.

Rapid short-term reorganization in the language network.

The adaptive potential of the language network to compensate for lesions remains elusive. We show that perturbation of a semantic region in the healthy brain induced suppression of activity in a large semantic network and upregulation of neighbouring phonological areas. After perturbation, the disrupted area increased its inhibitory influence on another semantic key node. The inhibitory influence predicted the individual delay in response speed, indicating that inhibition at remote nodes is functionally relevant. Individual disruption predicted the upregulation of semantic activity in phonological regions. In contrast, perturbation over a phonological region suppressed activity in the network and disrupted behaviour without inducing upregulation. The beneficial contribution of a neighbouring network might thus depend on the level of functional disruption and may be interpreted to reflect a differential compensatory potential of distinct language networks. These results might reveal generic mechanisms of plasticity in cognitive networks and inform models of language reorganization.

Which Differences in Priming Effect Between Neglect and Hemianopia? A Case Description of a Bilateral Brain-Lesioned Patient

ABSTRACTIt is widely known that visuospatial neglect and hemianopia maybe superimposed. We considered the differences in implicit information processing which is effective in patients with neglect but not with hemianopia. We then hypothesize that a prime-word in the neglected field should determine a semantic activation effect but not in a blind hemifield. Moreover eye movements could provide further details. In this work we considered a patient with a bilateral with the presence of either a left visual neglect and a right homonymous hemianopia. Our results supported implicit information processing in the space affected by neglect but not by hemianopia.

Do emotion-induced blindness and the attentional blink share underlying mechanisms? An event-related potential study of emotionally-arousing words.

When two targets are presented within approximately 500ms of each other in the context of rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), participants' ability to report the second target is reduced compared to when the targets are presented further apart in time. This phenomenon is known as the attentional blink (AB). The AB is increased in magnitude when the first target is emotionally arousing. Emotionally arousing stimuli can also capture attention and create an AB-like effect even when these stimuli are presented as to-be-ignored distractor items in a single-target RSVP task. This phenomenon is known as emotion-induced blindness (EIB). The phenomenological similarity in the behavioral results associated with the AB with an emotional T1 and EIB suggest that these effects may result from similar underlying mechanisms - a hypothesis that we tested using event-related electrical brain potentials (ERPs). Behavioral results replicated those reported previously, demonstrating an enhanced AB following an emotionally arousing target and a clear EIB effect. In both paradigms highly arousing taboo/sexual words resulted in an increased early posterior negativity (EPN) component that has been suggested to represent early semantic activation and selection for further processing in working memory. In both paradigms taboo/sexual words also produced an increased late positive potential (LPP) component that has been suggested to represent consolidation of a stimulus in working memory. Therefore, ERP results provide evidence that the EIB and emotion-enhanced AB effects share a common underlying mechanism.

Event-related potential parameters related to typicality effects during category-based induction

Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies investigating the typicality effects during category-based reasoning were conducted during the deduction and induction phases by comparing typical and atypical conclusion categories, without property inference processes. In the present study, the ERP responses to both conclusion typicality effects (strengthening of the inference from “durian has the novel property X1” to “apple has the novel property X1” [a typical conclusion]was stronger than the inference from “durian has the novel property X1” to “Chinese date has the novel property X1 [an atypical conclusion], experiment 1) and premise typicality effects (strengthening of the inference from “apple has the novel property X1”[a typical premise]to “durian has the novel property X1” was stronger than the inference from “Chinese date has the novel property X1”[an atypical premise] to “durian has the novel property X1”, experiment 2) during category-based induction were measured by separately presenting the conclusion categories and conclusion properties. The results of both the experiments showed that, during the conclusion-category stage, typical conditions elicited larger P2 responses than atypical conditions, suggesting increased semantic feature activity in typical conditions. Additionally, atypical conditions elicited larger N400 responses than typical conditions, suggesting the increased cognitive effort related to semantic integration in atypical conditions than in typical conditions. During the conclusion-property stage, when participants accepted the inferences, both the experiments showed that typical conditions elicited larger P3b responses than atypical conditions, reflecting the higher degree of expected satisfaction during reasoning. Therefore, when the inferences were positive during category-based induction, N400 responses indexed the typicality effects during the conclusion-category stage, whereas P3b responses indexed the typicality effects during the conclusion-property stage.

글 없는 그림책을 활용한 의미지도 그리기 언어활동이 유아의 읽기능력과 창의성에 미치는 효과

글 없는 그림책을 활용한 의미지도 그리기 언어활동이 유아의 읽기능력과 창의성에 미치는 효과

The effects of neighborhood size and category consistency of the semantic radical on semantic radical's semantic activation under radical priming paradigm

The effects of neighborhood size and category consistency of the semantic radical on semantic radical's semantic activation under radical priming paradigm

A Model-Driven Based Methodology for the Generation of Context-Aware Medical Interfaces from Open EHR Archetypes

Purpose: Different medical computer science standards, such as ISO\EN 13606, openEHR and HL7 CDA, use the dual model approach to support interoperability between medical information systems. However, use of these standards encounters some obstacles: (i) lack methodological tools to facilitate design of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems in accordance to two conceptual levels, (ii) Lack of methodologies to perform semantic activities on EHR content in the semantic web environment, and (iii) Absence of models to adapt medical knowledge, modelled by means of archetypes, in different contexts of use. This paper presents a model-driven based methodology for the generation of context-aware medical interfaces. This methodology, entitled OpenEHR modelling Methodology: OpenEHR-MM includes concepts, models, rules, processes and tools aimed to assist EHR designer in the generation process of context-aware medical interfaces. Methods: OpenEHR-MM is based on the use of the model driven architecture technological space, and it includes the following four steps: 1. Analysis and specification of requirements: This first step aims to guide EHR interface designer in the definition of users’ needs. 2. Conceptualization: This step aims to define tools, concepts and approaches that assist EHR designer in the two conceptual levels modelling process. At this step, we define an approach to provide the context information modelling. 3. Ontologization: This step aims to assist the designer to integrate the semantic dimension in the EHR systems modeled in accordance to the dual model approach. 4. Implementation: Finally, OpenEHR-MM provides an adaptive approach to enable medical interface configuration with respect to contexts settings. Results: A model driven-based methodology for context-aware medical interfaces generation process. The experimentation of this methodology is performed on the EHR related to patients affected by cerebral palsy.

A Novelty Approach to Enhance Activity Modeling

Objectives: Cognition-driven activity recognition is a very challenging study domain. There are two main approaches to enhance activity modelings such as context knowledge and sensor dataset. Methods: The existing system used cognition- driven tool to annotate sensor activity dataset. It used Semantic Activity Annotation algorithm to annotate dataset. This produced perfect and wrong activity paradigm. It does not found frequent activity sequences. Findings: A novel technique is used to enhance cognition-driven activity paradigm by using the data-driven method. The methodology consists of clustering activity where basic partial activity models established through management technologies. By using this find out action cluster that denotes activities and accumulates recent actions. A learning activity is next formed to study and designing alternating methods of activities after obtain new finalize and specialized activity paradigms. This can be tested with sensor dataset and sensor dataset with noisy. Applications: It is mainly applicable for home-based rehabilitation, monitoring human activity and security-based applications.

Towards Modeling False Memory With Computational Knowledge Bases.

One challenge to creating realistic cognitive models of memory is the inability to account for the vast common-sense knowledge of human participants. Large computational knowledge bases such as WordNet and DBpedia may offer a solution to this problem but may pose other challenges. This paper explores some of these difficulties through a semantic network spreading activation model of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory task. In three experiments, we show that these knowledge bases only capture a subset of human associations, while irrelevant information introduces noise and makes efficient modeling difficult. We conclude that the contents of these knowledge bases must be augmented and, more important, that the algorithms must be refined and optimized, before large knowledge bases can be widely used for cognitive modeling.

Is semantic activation from print capacity limited? Evidence from the psychological refractory period paradigm.

A widely accepted belief across a range of subfields in psychology is that print activates semantics "automatically" in some sense. One such sense is that activating semantics does not require capacity. This view is assessed here in the context of the Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) paradigm because it provides a way of determining whether semantic activation requires a form of capacity. Task 1 was tone classification. Task 2 was Stroop color naming. The distractors consisted of color words on some trials (e.g., BLUE), and semantic associates on others (e.g., TOMATO). Both types of distractors yielded a pattern of data inconsistent with the widespread view that semantic activation is capacity free.

Two mechanisms of constructive recollection: Perceptual recombination and conceptual fluency.

Recollection is constructive and prone to distortion, but the mechanisms through which recollections can become embellished with rich yet illusory details are still debated. According to the conceptual fluency hypothesis, abstract semantic or conceptual activation increases the familiarity of a nonstudied event, causing one to falsely attribute imagined features to actual perception. In contrast, according to the perceptual recombination hypothesis, details from actually perceived events are partially recollected and become erroneously bound to a nonstudied event, again causing a detailed yet false recollection. Here, we report the first experiments aimed at disentangling these 2 mechanisms. Participants imagined pictures of common objects, and then they saw an actual picture of some of the imagined objects. We next presented misinformation associated with these studied items, designed to increase conceptual fluency (i.e., semantically related words) or perceptual recombination (i.e., perceptually similar picture fragments). Finally, we tested recollection for the originally seen pictures using verbal labels as retrieval cues. Consistent with conceptual fluency, processing-related words increased false recollection of pictures that were never seen, and consistent with perceptual recombination, processing picture fragments further increased false recollection. We also found that conceptual fluency was more short-lived than perceptual recombination, further dissociating these 2 mechanisms. These experiments provide strong evidence that conceptual fluency and perceptual recombination independently contribute to the constructive aspects of recollection. (PsycINFO Database Record

Semantic activation of phonetic radicals in Chinese

ABSTRACTThe phonetic radical of a Chinese character is typically considered as a sublexical unit providing clues to pronunciation. This tradition was challenged by a previous study showing that the meanings of phonetic radicals affected character naming speed. Three experiments were conducted to further investigate this issue. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the meanings of phonetic radicals could be activated in the primed character decision and semantic categorisation tasks, indicating that the semantic activation of phonetic radicals is robust in different tasks. Moreover, Experiment 1 also showed that the meanings of phonetic radicals could be as strongly activated as whole characters. Experiment 3 adopted a multi-prime procedure and showed that the semantic activation of phonetic radicals could be eliminated when a prior context was supportive to whole-character meanings. These results are discussed with reference to the nature of sublexical processing in Chinese and how context influences character recognition.

Spoken-word recognition in 2-year-olds: The tug of war between phonological and semantic activation

Abstract Previous studies demonstrate that while toddlers can match words with their referent before the age of one, they only begin to extract phonologically- and semantically-related information from speech later in the second year. However, the order and manner in which this information is extracted remains unresolved. In two experiments, we adapted the adult four-picture Visual World Paradigm (VWP) (Huettig & McQueen, 2007) for toddler testing: toddlers hear a spoken word and see pictures that are phonologically-related, semantically-related or unrelated to the spoken-word. We demonstrate that, similar to adults, 24- to 30-month-old toddlers attended to a phonological match faster than a semantic match, and that these differences hold irrespective of whether the semantic match is taxonomic or thematic in character. Our findings suggest that language shapes toddlers’ cognition by biasing their selective attention to relevant information in the visual world, which is likely to enhance the efficiency of mental activities, such as learning and making analogical inferences.

Brand priming effect on consumers’ financial risk taking behavior

Taking the perspective of brand priming theory, this study proposes that brands associated with an audacious personality trait may influence consumers to be take more risks in making subsequent decisions. Two experiments, run in sport brands contexts, showed that individuals exposed to brands with high (vs. low) audacity traits demonstrated a higher rate of risk taking in financial decisions. The studies also showed that this effect is moderated by individuals’ experience with the financial market. This moderation suggests that there was an activation of a goal not just semantic activation, but through the brand priming. This research provides insights into how today's consumers deal with brand priming effects in risky choice settings. From a managerial perspective, it can help managers to understand the likely effects of brand priming on behavior and better predict the probability of risk aversion or risk seeking outcomes.