Similar Priming Effects Research Articles

Masked cognate translation priming with Arabic-English bilinguals: Further support for the morphological account

The aim of this study is to test the two accounts that have been posited as how cognates are represented in the bilingual mind: the mophological account and the phonological account. More specifically, this study exploits the uique feature of pluralization in Arabic (i.e., concatenative vs. non-concatenative process of pluralization) to invetigate how cognates are represented in the bilingual mind of different-script bilinguals (Arabic-English bilinguals) using the masked priming technique. Two types of cognates were used: cognates that are pluralized concatenatively and cognates that pluralized non-concatenatively in Arabic. In concatenative pluralization, the phonology of the singualr form is intact such as هرمون /hormōn/ (hormone in English), which is pluralized as هرمونات/hormōnat/ (hormones in English). On the other hand, in non-concatenative pluralization, the phonology of the singular form is broken when a word is plualized non-concatenatively as in ترم /tirm/ (term in English) and أترام atrām/ (terms in English). The results show a comparable priming effect for both types of pluralizations indicating that cognates in Arabic-English bilinguals may have a shared morphological representation since the magnitude of priming was not affected by the type of pluralization. This similar priming effect for concatenative and non-concatenative pluralization indicates that cognates may share a special kind of morphological representation as suggested by the morphological account. Author: Alhassan Alzahrani 0000-0003-4547-6582 aajzahrani@bu.edu.sa

Where is mirror invariance? Masked priming effects by mirrored and rotated transformations of reversible and nonreversible letters

The cognitive mechanism underpinning mirror priming effects for letters (e.g., IDEA primed by ibea) is still unclear: it could be about mirror invariance (perceptual equivalence of mirror images - d and b - which does not extend to other orientation contrasts like plane rotations - d and p) or about visual similarity (b, d, and p share the same visual features and shape). To enlighten it and investigate the modulatory role of task and orthographic context (words vs single letters), we manipulated letter (nonreversible; reversible) and prime condition (identity, mirrored, rotated, control) in four masked priming experiments: lexical decision with conventional and sandwich paradigms (Experiments 1 and 2), same-different task on words and single letters (Experiments 3 and 4). All experiments replicated the differential mirror priming effect: inhibitory for reversible letters, facilitatory for nonreversible letters. Notably, similar priming effects were found for plane rotations. Regardless of task or orthographic context, a reliably larger orientation cost was found for reversible than nonreversible letters for both mirror images and plane rotations. These results suggest that the underlying mechanism is not mirror invariance, but rather visual similarity allied with prelexical dynamics.

Social Stimulation by the Owner Increases Dogs' (Canis familiaris) Social Susceptibility in a Food Choice Task-The Possible Effect of Endogenous Oxytocin Release.

Simple SummaryIntranasal administration of oxytocin has been proposed to be an effective way of improving several socio-cognitive skills in humans. There is evidence that dogs show human-analogue social behaviours and socio-cognitive capacities. Furthermore, recent studies have demonstrated that the oxytocin system is related to human-directed social behaviour in dogs. Some human studies suggest that pre-treatment with social stimuli (eye contact, touch) has similar behavioural effects because these cues stimulate oxytocin release. In the present study, we show that both social stimulation by the owner as well as intranasal oxytocin administration increases dogs’ social susceptibility in a food choice task. This means that dogs after both treatments (as compared to control conditions) were more prone to conforming to a human demonstrator’s counterproductive choice (smaller amount of food), giving up their natural preference. These results highlight important mechanisms of social tuning between dogs and humans.Recent evidence suggests a human-like susceptibility to social influence in dogs. For example, dogs tend to ignore their ‘natural’ preference for the larger amount of food after having seen a human’s explicit preference for a smaller quantity. However, it is still unclear whether this tendency to conform to the partner’s behaviour can be influenced by social stimuli and/or the neurohormone oxytocin as primers to prosocial predispositions. In Experiment I, eighty two dogs were tested using Prato-Previde et al.’s food quantity preference task. In Experiment I, we investigated in a 2 × 2 design how (i) a 10-minute-long social stimulation by the owner versus a socially ignoring pre-treatment as well as (ii) on-line ostensive communications versus no communication during task demonstration affect dogs’ (N = 82) choices in the abovementioned food choice task. Results indicate that the owners’ pre-treatment with social stimuli (eye contact, petting) increased dogs’ susceptibility to the experimenter’s food preference, but the salient ostensive addressing signals accompanying human demonstration masked this social priming effect. In Experiment II, N = 32 dogs from the subjects of Experiment I were retested after oxytocin (OT) or placebo (PL) pre-treatments. This experiment aimed to study whether intranasal administration of oxytocin as compared to placebo treatment would similarly increase dogs’ tendency to re-enact the human demonstrator’s counterproductive choice in the same task. Results showed an increased susceptibility to the human preference in the OT group, suggesting that both socially stimulating pre-treatment and the intranasal administration of oxytocin have similar priming effects on dogs’ social susceptibility.

Social priming for nonnative-accented speech

Prior work indicates that a speaker’s race/ethnicity can prime a listener to expect native versus nonnative (foreign) accents. In the present study, we replicate the findings of McGowan (2015) and then address novel topics including the effect of social primes on perceptual adaptation. Using a matched-guise design, we examined the effect of race information on the perception of, and adaptation to, Mandarin Chinese-accented English in babble. Subjects randomly assigned an East Asian female’s face during the speech perception task showed an advantage over subjects assigned a White female’s face or a silhouette (control) face (as measured by transcription accuracy). Performance across trials indicated that although subjects in the control group initially perform worse than those in the East Asian prime group, they perceptually adapt more rapidly to the Mandarin accent, eventually reaching a similar level of performance. Subjects in the White prime group, however, do not adapt as rapidly as those in the control group. In a second experiment, we aim to expand on this work by examining similar priming effects for Arabic-accented English (with Middle Eastern, White, or control primes), and uncommon combinations of minority race/ethnicity primes with nonnative accents (e.g., an East Asian face with an Arabic accent).

Dissociable effects of averted “gaze” on the priming of bodily representations and motor actions

Gaze direction is an important stimulus that signals key details about social (dis)engagement and objects in our physical environment. Here, we explore how gaze direction influences the perceiver's processing of bodily information. Specifically, we examined how averted versus direct gaze modifies the operation of effector-centered representations (i.e., specific fingers) versus movement-centered representations (i.e., finger actions). Study 1 used a stimulus-response compatibility paradigm that tested the priming of a relevant effector or relevant movement, after observing videos of direct or averted gaze. We found a selective priming of relevant effectors, but only after averted gaze videos. Study 2 found similar priming effects with symbolic direction cues (averted arrows). Study 3 found that averted gaze cues do not influence generic spatial compatibility effects, and thus, are specific to body representations. In sum, this research suggests that both human and symbolic averted cues selectively prime relevant body-part representations, highlighting the dynamic interplay between our bodies, minds, and environments.

Effects of spacing on contextual vocabulary learning: Spacing facilitates the acquisition of explicit, but not tacit, vocabulary knowledge

Studies examining decontextualized associative vocabulary learning have shown that long spacing between encounters with an item facilitates learning more than short or no spacing, a phenomenon known as distributed practice effect. However, the effect of spacing on learning words in context is less researched and the results, so far, are inconsistent. In this study, we compared the effect of massed and spaced distributions on second language vocabulary learning from reading. Japanese speakers of English encountered 48 novel vocabulary items embedded in informative English sentences, inferred their meanings from contexts, and received feedback in the form of English synonyms and Japanese translation equivalents. To test the hypothesis that the effects of spacing might differentially affect the development of explicit or tacit word knowledge, spacing effects were measured using semantic priming as well as a meaning recall and a meaning–form matching posttest. Results showed an advantage of spaced over massed learning on the meaning recall and meaning–form matching posttests. However, a similar semantic priming effect was observed irrespective of whether an item was encountered in the massed or spaced distribution. These results suggest that the spacing effect holds in contextual word learning for the development of explicit vocabulary knowledge, but massing appears to be as effective as spacing for the acquisition of tacit semantic knowledge.

Language and Arithmetic: A Failure to Find Cross Cognitive Domain Semantic Priming Between Exception Phrases and Subtraction or Addition.

We examined cross-domain semantic priming effects between arithmetic and language. We paired subtractions with their linguistic equivalent, exception phrases (EPs) with positive quantifiers (e.g., “everybody except John”) while pairing additions with their own linguistic equivalent, EPs with negative quantifiers (e.g., “nobody except John”; Moltmann, 1995). We hypothesized that EPs with positive quantifiers prime subtractions and inhibit additions while EPs with negative quantifiers prime additions and inhibit subtractions. Furthermore, we expected similar priming and inhibition effects from arithmetic into semantics. Our design allowed for a bidirectional analysis by using one trial's target as the prime for the next trial. Two experiments failed to show significant priming effects in either direction. Implications and possible shortcomings are explored in the general discussion.

Abstract LB-122: Significant cytotoxic and immumomodulatory effects of continuous low dose intravesical gemcitabine in rodent bladder tumor models

Abstract Traditional gemcitabine bladder instillations (40 mg/mL) exhibit limited efficacy possibly due to micturition and saturable nucleotide uptake limiting tumor exposure. The present study investigates gemcitabine's anti-tumor and immunomodulatory effects after continuous low dose intravesical administration to enhance bladder tumor exposure. The direct effects of low dose gemcitabine at nominal bladder urine concentrations of 0, 20, 40, or 80 µg/ml were studied in athymic nude rats with human MIBC cells, T24-TurboFP635, injected into the bladder. After 3 days tumor growth, gemcitabine or vehicle was perfused into the bladder over 5 days, N=6 per group. Tumor bioluminescence was measured on day 5. A companion study in immunocompetent Wistar rats inoculated with syngeneic NBTII bladder tumors provided tumors for immunocyte analysis. A significant reduction in bladder tumor bioluminescence of 47.6%, 70.5% and 91.2% vs control was observed in the 20, 40, and 80 µg/ml groups, respectively. Flow cytometric analysis of residual tumors in immunocompetent rats demonstrated a significant decrease of 85.2% in the proportion of tumor T regulatory cells to T effector cells. Gemcitabine immunogenicity was studied in immunocompetent rats with NBTII cells injected into the bladder and subcutaneous flank tissue; flank tumors were implanted either simultaneously with bladder tumors or 14 days after bladder tumor implantation. Control groups received only flank tumors, N=15, or bladder and flank tumors with vehicle perfusion, N=10. Treatment groups, N=10, received two 5-day bladder perfusions, yielding gemcitabine urine concentrations of 10, 20, and 40 µg/ml which were separated by 7 days. Flank tumor growth was similar with tumor doubling times of 4.5 days after subcutaneous injections of 1.0, 2.5, or 5.0 x 106 cells and was unchanged with concomitant bladder tumor implantation and vehicle perfusion. During the first gemcitabine perfusion cycle, flank tumor growth was fully arrested, with tumor sizes averaging only 50% of controls in rats with concomitant bladder tumors; this effect was maintained during the 7-day drug free period in the 60 µg/ml group. Initiation of the second perfusion resulted in rapid flank tumor ablation in all but one animal completing the study. A similar priming effect was observed in the 15 and 30 ug/ml groups. Delaying flank tumor implantation to 3 days before the second perfusion not only prevented tumor growth but completely ablated all tumors. The results suggest continuous low dose intravesical gemcitabine inhibits bladder tumor growth, shifts the tumor microenvironment toward effector T cell dominance and induces a systemic immune response sufficient to suppress distant disease. Perhaps for the first time, the results also demonstrate a cytotoxic agent can induce a significant abscopal response when administered under proper conditions. Citation Format: Dennis H. Giesing, Don Reynolds, Vikas Agarwal, Chris Cutie, Balaji Ramachandran, Aravindakshan Jayaprakash, Satheesh Rajendiran, Purnand Sarma. Significant cytotoxic and immumomodulatory effects of continuous low dose intravesical gemcitabine in rodent bladder tumor models [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-122.

Cognate facilitation priming effect is modulated by writing system: Evidence from Chinese-English bilinguals

Aims: The present study aims to examine the cross-script cognate facilitation effect that cognates have processing advantages over non-cognates and this effect is strong evidence supporting the non-selective access hypothesis for bilinguals. Methodology: By adopting a masked translation priming paradigm, Experiment 1 used 48 Chinese–English cognates (Chinese words) and 48 non-cognates (Chinese words) as primes and their English translation equivalences as targets. Chinese–English bilinguals were instructed to judge whether the target stimuli were real words or not. In Experiment 2, another group of participants took the same lexical decision task as in Experiment 1, except that English–Chinese cognates and non-cognates (English words) served as primes and their Chinese translation equivalences were targets. Data and analysis: Response latency and accuracy data were submitted to a repeated-measures analysis of variance. Findings/conclusions: Experiment 1 showed that Chinese–English cognates (Chinese words) and non-cognates (Chinese words) produced similar priming effect, while Experiment 2 revealed that English–Chinese cognates (English words) generated a significant priming effect, whereas non-cognates (English words) failed to induce any priming effect. Overall, Chinese words did not show cognate advantage, while English words produced a significant cognate facilitation effect. These results might be attributed to different mappings from orthography to phonology in English and Chinese. Opaque mapping from orthography to phonology in Chinese hindered phonological activation and reduced Chinese–English cognate phonological priming effect. However, English–Chinese cognates benefited from transparent mapping from sound to print and thus generated a significant phonological priming effect. Implications of the current findings for bilingual word recognition models were discussed. Originality: The present study is the first to investigate the cross-script cognate facilitation effect by ensuring both the heterogeneity of primes and targets (English and Chinese) and the homogeneity of primes (Chinese or English). The results indicated that the writing systems of the primes constrained the cross-script cognate priming effect.

Similar, but different: structurally related azelaic acid and hexanoic acid trigger differential metabolomic and transcriptomic responses in tobacco cells

BackgroundPlants respond to various stress stimuli by activating an enhanced broad-spectrum defensive ability. The development of novel resistance inducers represents an attractive, alternative crop protection strategy. In this regard, hexanoic acid (Hxa, a chemical elicitor) and azelaic acid (Aza, a natural signaling compound) have been proposed as inducers of plant defense, by means of a priming mechanism. Here, we investigated both the mode of action and the complementarity of Aza and Hxa as priming agents in Nicotiana tabacum cells in support of enhanced defense.ResultsMetabolomic analyses identified signatory biomarkers involved in the establishment of a pre-conditioned state following Aza and Hxa treatment. Both inducers affected the metabolomes in a similar manner and generated common biomarkers: caffeoylputrescine glycoside, cis-5-caffeoylquinic acid, feruloylglycoside, feruloyl-3-methoxytyramine glycoside and feruloyl-3-methoxytyramine conjugate. Subsequently, quantitative real time-PCR was used to investigate the expression of inducible defense response genes: phenylalanine ammonia lyase, hydroxycinnamoyl CoA quinate transferase and hydroxycinnamoyl transferase to monitor activation of the early phenylpropanoid pathway and chlorogenic acids metabolism, while ethylene response element-binding protein, small sar1 GTPase, heat shock protein 90, RAR1, SGT1, non-expressor of PR genes 1 and thioredoxin were analyzed to report on signal transduction events. Pathogenesis-related protein 1a and defensin were quantified to investigate the activation of defenses regulated by salicylic acid and jasmonic acid respectively. The qPCR results revealed differential expression kinetics and, in general (except for NPR1, Thionin and PR1a), the relative gene expression ratios observed in the Hxa-treated cells were significantly greater than the expression observed in the cells treated with Aza.ConclusionsThe results indicate that Aza and Hxa have a similar priming effect through activation of genes involved in the establishment of systemic acquired resistance, associated with enhanced synthesis of hydroxycinnamic acids and related conjugates.

Separate Brain Circuits Support Integrative and Semantic Priming in the Human Language System

Semantic priming is a crucial phenomenon to study the organization of semantic memory. A novel type of priming effect, integrative priming, has been identified behaviorally, whereby a prime word facilitates recognition of a target word when the 2 concepts can be combined to form a unitary representation. We used both functional and anatomical imaging approaches to investigate the neural substrates supporting such integrative priming, and compare them with those in semantic priming. Similar behavioral priming effects for both semantic (Bread-Cake) and integrative conditions (Cherry-Cake) were observed when compared with an unrelated condition. However, a clearly dissociated brain response was observed between these 2 types of priming. The semantic-priming effect was localized to the posterior superior temporal and middle temporal gyrus. In contrast, the integrative-priming effect localized to the left anterior inferior frontal gyrus and left anterior temporal cortices. Furthermore, fiber tractography showed that the integrative-priming regions were connected via uncinate fasciculus fiber bundle forming an integrative circuit, whereas the semantic-priming regions connected to the posterior frontal cortex via separated pathways. The results point to dissociable neural pathways underlying the 2 distinct types of priming, illuminating the neural circuitry organization of semantic representation and integration.

The L2 decomposition of transparent derived verbs - Is it 'morphological'? A commentary on De Grauwe, Lemhöfer, Willems, & Schriefers (2014).

The L2 decomposition of transparent derived verbs - Is it 'morphological'? A commentary on De Grauwe, Lemhöfer, Willems, & Schriefers (2014).

Inhibitory stroke neighbour priming in character recognition and reading in Chinese.

In alphabetic languages, prior exposure to a target word's orthographic neighbour influences word recognition in masked priming experiments and the process of word identification that occurs during normal reading. We investigated whether similar neighbour priming effects are observed in Chinese in 4 masked priming experiments (employing a forward mask and 33-ms, 50-ms, and 67-ms prime durations) and in an experiment that measured eye movements while reading. In these experiments, the stroke neighbour of a Chinese character was defined as any character that differed by the addition, deletion, or substitution of one or two strokes. Prime characters were either stroke neighbours or stroke non-neighbours of the target character, and each prime character had either a higher or a lower frequency of occurrence in the language than its corresponding target character. Frequency effects were observed in all experiments, demonstrating that the manipulation of character frequency was successful. In addition, a robust inhibitory priming effect was observed in response times for target characters in the masked priming experiments and in eye fixation durations for target characters in the reading experiment. This stroke neighbour priming was not modulated by the relative frequency of the prime and target characters. The present findings therefore provide a novel demonstration that inhibitory neighbour priming shown previously for alphabetic languages is also observed for nonalphabetic languages, and that neighbour priming (based on stroke overlap) occurs at the level of the character in Chinese.

Economic principles in communication: An experimental study

This paper experimentally investigates how economic principles affect communication. In a simple sender–receiver game with common interests over payoffs, the sender can send a signal without a pre-given meaning in an infrequent or frequent state of the world. When the signal is costly, several theories (focal point theory, the intuitive criterion, evolutionary game theory) predict an efficient separating equilibrium, where the signal is sent in the infrequent state of the world (also referred to as Horn׳s rule). To analyze whether Horn׳s rule applies, and if so, which theory best explains it, we develop and test variants of the sender–receiver game where the theories generate discriminatory hypotheses. In costly signaling variants, our participants follow Horn׳s rule most of the time, in a manner that is best explained by focal point theory. In costless signaling variants, evolutionary game theory best explains our results. Here participants coordinate significantly more (less) often on a separating equilibrium where the signal is sent in the frequent state if they are primed to associate the absence of a signal with the infrequent (frequent) state of the world. We also find indications that a similar priming effect applies to costly signals. Thus, while the frequency with which participants follow Horn׳s rule in costly signaling variants is best explained by Horn׳s rule, the priming effect shows that some of our participants׳ behavior is best explained by evolutionary game theory even when signals are costly.

Response interference in touch, vision, and crossmodally: beyond the spatial dimension.

To date, tactile distractor processing has primarily been investigated by focusing on the spatial characteristics of distractors and the impact of their presentation on the orienting of attention. In two experiments, we examined the influence of tactile distractors when the location of stimulus presentation was kept constant, thus controlling for the effects of spatial attention. A response priming paradigm was used in which two stimuli were sequentially presented from the same (fixated) direction. Typically, target responses are facilitated when the previously presented distractor (i.e., the prime) happens to map on to the same response as compared to the distractor maps on to the opposite response. Similar response priming effects were observed for tactile and visual distractors within a unimodal experimental setting (Experiments 1a and 1b). Interestingly, however, when the targets and distractors were presented in different sensory modalities, only the visual distractors exerted a crossmodal effect on the subsequent processing of vibrotactile targets (Experiment 2). These results therefore indicate that visual stimuli automatically trigger their corresponding response even when the task at hand is not visual, whereas tactile stimuli are only processed up to the level of response generation when the participants' task is tactile.

PWE-143 Sequential Oral Anti-Viral Therapy Following Pegylated-Interferon-Alpha Failure Significantly Increases Hbsag Decline

IntroductionTenofovir and Entecavir are potent oral antivirals (OAV’s) and leading agents in the treatment of Chronic Hepatitis B (CHB). Despite this, they have limited ability to reduce HBsAg, thus indefinite...

The Impact of Mispronunciations on Toddler Word Recognition: Evidence for Cascaded Activation of Semantically Related Words from Mispronunciations of Familiar Words

While the specificity of infants' early lexical representations has been studied extensively, researchers have only recently begun to investigate how words are organized in the developing lexicon and what mental representations are activated during processing of a word. Integrating these two lines of research, the current study asks how specific the phonological match between a perceived word and its stored form has to be in order to lead to (cascaded) lexical activation of related words during infant lexical processing. We presented German 24‐month‐olds with a cross‐modal semantic priming task where the prime word was either correctly or incorrectly pronounced. Results indicate that correct pronunciations and mispronunciations both elicit similar semantic priming effects, suggesting that the infant word recognition system is flexible enough to handle deviations from the correct form. This might be an important prerequisite to children's ability to cope with imperfect input and to recognize words under more challenging circumstances.

Electrophysiological Evidence for the Understanding of Maternal Speech by 9-Month-Old Infants

Early word learning in infants relies on statistical, prosodic, and social cues that support speech segmentation and the attachment of meaning to words. It is debated whether such early word knowledge represents mere associations between sound patterns and visual object features, or reflects referential understanding of words. By measuring an event-related brain potential component known as the N400, we demonstrated that 9-month-old infants can detect the mismatch between an object appearing from behind an occluder and a preceding label with which their mother introduces it. Differential N400 amplitudes have been shown to reflect semantic priming in adults, and its absence in infants has been interpreted as a sign of associative word learning. By setting up a live communicative situation for referring to objects, we demonstrated that a similar priming effect also occurs in young infants. This finding may indicate that word meaning is referential from the outset of word learning and that referential expectation drives, rather than results from, vocabulary acquisition in humans.

Event-related potentials reveal early activation of body part representations in action concept comprehension

With tasks involving action concept comprehension, many fMRI studies have reported brain activations in sensori-motor regions specific to effectors of the referent action. There is relatively less evidence whether such activations reflect early semantic access or late conceptual re-processing. Here we recorded event-related potentials when participants recognized noun–verb pairs. For Congruent pairs, the verb was the one most commonly associated with the noun (e.g., football-kick). Compared with a control condition, verbs in Congruent pairs showed priming effects in the time windows of 100–150ms and 210–260ms. Such activation seems to be specific to body part but not other aspects of the action as similar priming effect was also found when the noun and verb involved different actions though sharing the same body part (e.g., football-jump), documenting for the first time the early activation of body part representations in action concept comprehension.

What factors underlie associative and categorical memory illusions? The roles of backward associative strength and interitem connectivity.

Factors that affect categorical and associative false memory illusions were investigated in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, backward associative strength (BAS) from the list word to the critical lure and interitem connectivity were manipulated in Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) and category list types. For both recall and recognition tasks, the likelihood of producing DRM and category false memories was greater for lists with high BAS and low interitem connectivity. In Experiment 2, DRM and category lists with high BAS showed similar indirect priming effects in a word stem completion task. With low BAS, category lists, unlike DRM lists, showed no priming effect. We discuss the role of BAS, interitem connectivity, and associate-level differences in implicit and explicit measures of false memory production.