Neural correlates of retrieval practice with feedback in foreign vocabulary learning: An fNIRS study.

Retrieval practice (i.e., practice testing) enhances recall relative to other study methods, but it is still unclear when it helps most. Here, we ask if testing is more beneficial for weakly or strongly related word pairs. Participants studied word pairs with either low or high semantic relatedness, then practiced them using either test-with-feedback or restudy. We gave a final cued-recall test 24 hours later. Rather than relying on an ANOVA interaction on proportion correct, which can be hard to interpret when the link between latent memory strength and accuracy is unknown, we evaluated performance using a principled reference model and used cumulative distribution matching. Testing improved recall in both groups, but its benefit was 26% smaller for highly related pairs. This pattern was not explained by ceiling constraints, either across participants or at the item level. The model's characteristic quadratic relation between test and restudy performance held, but the high-relatedness data showed a systematic reduction in the incremental gain from testing. One interpretation consistent with the model is that study and test memory strengths become positively correlated for highly related materials. These results clarify how semantic structure shapes the testing effect and when practice testing is likely to pay off most.

This study investigated perceptual dereverberation in normal-hearing (NH) adults and cochlear implant (CI) users. Perceptual dereverberation refers to a reduction in the detrimental effect of reverberation on target speech recognition when preceding speech that causes the reverberation is included in the presentation. Recognition was compared between conditions with identical, equally reverberated target stimuli, with the preceding reverberant stimuli either included or omitted. The first experiment demonstrated perceptual dereverberation in NH listeners using a within-subject repeated measures design. Speech recognition was assessed using digit triplet and consonant-vowel-consonant word tasks in simulated reverberation and noise conditions. Digit triplets and word pairs were reverberated and presented either in their entirety or with only the final word or digit(s) included. Recognition of the last digit improved by 26.5 RAU, or 1.5 dB SNR79 when the entire digit triplet was presented compared to presentation of only the last digit. For words, the improvement was 9.0 RAU. To explore whether the observed improvement was different to adaptation to noise, a second experiment was conducted. Recognition improvements were larger in reverberation compared to masking noise. In a third experiment, CI users showed that final digit recognition improved by 18.6 RAU when the digit triplet was presented as a whole. However, it cannot be ruled out that other effects, such as the abrupt start of the presentations, may have contributed to this finding in CI users. Our results suggest that normal-hearing listeners are able to utilize perceptual dereverberation to enhance speech recognition in reverberant environments.

ABSTRACT Introduction: This study investigated the associations between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and patterns of attentional and cognitive biases in trauma survivors. Method: Participants were assessed for trauma and completed two self-report measures to assess depression and PTSD severity. Participants completed an eye-tracking task where 45 sentence stems and 45 plausible word pair endings (one positive and one dysphoric) were presented. Sentences were related to either one’s beliefs about the world or the self. Eyelink 2000® measured the amount of time participants looked at the dysphoric ending (indexing attention) and verbal endorsements of ending type were recorded (indexing cognitive interpretations). Results: Severity of PTSD and depression were highly correlated with dwell time to negative stimuli and negative verbal endorsements in world- and self-related trials. However, when entered into simultaneous regression models, differences emerged between attentional and interpretative biases. PTSD symptoms were significantly associated with dwell time to negative endings across self- and world-related stimuli. In comparison, verbal endorsements were content- and symptom-specific, with depression more strongly associated with negative interpretations of the self and PTSD more strongly associated with negative views of the world. Conclusions: This study confirmed distinct patterns of attentional and cognitive biases in trauma survivors. While PTSD symptoms were associated with attentional patterns across stimuli content (indicating a general, negative attentional bias), cognitive biases were differentiated by symptom profile (depression vs. PTSD) and stimuli content (world vs. self). Specifically, trauma survivors with more severe depression symptoms showed more negative views of the self while those with more severe PTSD symptoms showed negative views of the world. Taken together, these findings suggest that the attentional and cognitive biases after trauma differ based on the prominence of posttraumatic versus depressive symptoms and indicate the importance of distinguishing between attentional and interpretive processes in trauma-exposed populations.

ABSTRACT Judgments of learning (JOLs) can improve memory for cue-target word pairs (i.e., JOL reactivity). Prior research suggests that this effect does not extend to text passage learning, especially when memory is assessed using short-answer tests (e.g., Ariel, R., Karpicke, J. D., Witherby, A. E., & Tauber, S. K. (2021). Do judgments of learning directly enhance learning of educational materials? Educational Psychology Review, 33(2), 693–712. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09556-8). However, JOL reactivity is often moderated by test format and JOL phrasing, and recent findings suggest that reactivity effects are greater when recognition tests are used. We tested whether global and term-specific JOLs would improve text passage learning when memory was assessed using short-answer (Experiment 1) and multiple-choice tests (Experiments 2 and 3). Across test formats, global JOLs were non-reactive. However, term-specific JOLs produced negative reactivity on short-answer tests (Experiment 1) but positive reactivity on multiple-choice tests (Experiments 2 and 3). This positive reactivity effect was greater in Experiment 3 when term-specific JOLs used a target-present phrasing. Importantly, this effect was also observed relative to a restudy group, suggesting that positive JOL reactivity was not solely driven by increased exposure to the target information. Taken together, JOLs can improve text passage learning, but their effectiveness is linked to test format and JOL phrasing.

Introduction When listening to speech in one language, bilinguals have been shown to activate word candidates from both their languages, which then compete for recognition. Similarity between the auditory input and the mental representations is a crucial factor for activation of a candidate. However, similarity is usually defined in terms of phoneme overlap, which might not be fine-grained enough to capture the reality of lexical co-activation and subsequent competition. The present study investigates how subphonemic differences between phonemically identical German–English word pairs influence their co-activation. Methods In a Lexical Decision (LD) experiment with cross-linguistic priming, L1-German learners of English heard an English prime word, followed by a written German target word or non-word and indicated whether the target was a German word or a non-word. Primes and targets showed either no phonemic overlap (Unrelated condition), partial overlap (Similar condition) or full phonemic overlap (Identical condition). In the critical Identical condition, English primes and German targets were phonemically identical—either cognates (e.g., /nεst/“nest”) or Interlingual Homophones (ILHs; e.g., /gɪft/, English “gift” /German “poison”)—but varied in their phonetic similarity due to phonetic differences between the languages. Results A comparison of reaction times (RTs) across all priming conditions revealed opposing effects for cognates and ILHs on the phonemic level: For cognate targets, there was facilitation the more phoneme overlap there was between prime and target, while ILH targets were subject to inhibition with more phoneme overlap between prime and target. A comparison of RTs to items of varying phonetic similarity within the Identical condition revealed similar facilitation effects for cognates and ILHs on the phonetic level: RTs to both decreased as a function of phonetic similarity between prime and target. Discussion These findings suggest differential roles of phonemic and phonetic similarity during the processes of (co-)activation and competition and complex interactions between levels. Implications for models of bilingual speech comprehension are discussed.

Demographic corrections (e.g., sex, education, race, ethnicity) are often applied when assessing cognition in adults; however, these corrections have significant limitations (e.g., using years of education does not capture the quality of, or access to, education). It is therefore critical to develop novel assessment options that are less susceptible to demographic factors. This study compared demographic effects on a verbal memory test and a performance-based test of cognition and daily functioning in older adults. Based on prior work, we hypothesized the performance-based tests would be less susceptible to demographic factors than paired associates learning. Data from 1326 participants (mean±SD age=61.9±10.9 yrs; Female = 1066, 80%) were collected through the MindCrowd electronic cohort, with 79 (6%) non-White, 109 (8.2%) identifying as Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, and 327 (25%) reporting education as less than a college degree. Paired associates learning is a well-established measure of medial temporal lobe-dependent learning and memory through recall of word-pairs, scored as the number of correct word pairs entered out of 36 possible. The performance-based test involved functional upper-extremity movement, specifically transporting beans to target cups in a repeating sequence (a task also shown to be dependent on the medial temporal lobe), scored as the intraindividual variability (standard deviation) in trial time across four consecutive trials. As hypothesized, linear regression analysis showed that PAL was significantly affected by sex, education, race (particularly Black/African American), and ethnicity, whereas the performance-based test was affected only by sex and with a much smaller effect size than that of PAL. Performance-based assessments may be an equitable approach to evaluating cognition without requiring score corrections, particularly for diverse populations.

Cognitive models propose that insomnia is maintained in part by selective attention to sleep-related information, yet reaction-time indices alone offer limited mechanistic specificity. We investigated sleep-related attentional bias in adolescents and young adults with insomnia disorder (n = 201; aged 15-24 years; DSM-5) using a sleep-related dot-probe task with sleep-related and neutral Cantonese Chinese word pairs. Trial-level responses were analysed with Hierarchical Drift Diffusion Modelling (HDDM) to estimate drift rate (v), the speed of evidence accumulation for probe response choices and to examine moderation by anxiety symptoms. Drift rates were higher on congruent than incongruent trials (q = 0.036), indicating faster evidence accumulation when the probe appeared in the location of sleep-related words, consistent with sleep-related attentional bias indexed indirectly via probe responses. Higher anxiety was associated with faster drift rates across both trial types (q = 0.023 and q = 0.024), consistent with generalised hyperarousal rather than selective enhancement of sleep-related bias. The congruency × anxiety interaction was not significant (95% HDI [-0.10, 0.31]). These findings provide computational evidence consistent with sleep-related attentional bias in young people with insomnia and suggest that comorbid anxiety is associated with broadly increased evidence accumulation rather than cue-specific amplification.

Slow-wave activity (0.5-4Hz electroencephalographic activity) during non-rapid eye movement sleep is consistently associated with better cognitive performance in older adults. Slow-wave activity is known to regulate synaptic plasticity and may thereby mitigate excitotoxicity and accumulation of Alzheimer's pathology. Paradoxically, longer total sleep times in older adults are often associated with poorer cognition and general health. Conventional behavioral sleep treatments robustly increase sleep efficiency and sleep time, but do not consistently enhance slow-wave activity and have shown only subtle effects on cognition. Thus, enhancement of slow-wave activity may be a critical target for sleep-based cognitive enhancement. The Alzheimer's Pathways Sleep Study (ALPS) uses a novel time-in-bed (TiB) restriction intervention designed to increase slow-wave activity through homeostatic sleep drive and assesses improvements in measures of excitotoxic hippocampal hyperactivation, plasma levels of amyloid beta (Aβ), and overnight memory retention. ALPS is a randomized controlled trial designed to increase slow-wave activity behaviorally in older adults with poor sleep. Target enrollment is 116 participants aged 65-85. Participants are randomized to a TiB restriction intervention or an attention-matched control intervention. Participants randomized to TiB restriction follow a sleep schedule restricting their TiB to 85% of their habitual TiB for 4 weeks. The control group follows their habitual TiB for 4 weeks. Both groups are monitored with diary, actigraphy, check-in calls, and sleepiness ratings over the 4weeks. The primary outcomes for four specific aims are (1) absolute power in the slow oscillation (0.5-1Hz) range during non-rapid eye movement sleep, (2) hippocampal activation during memory encoding, (3) plasma Aβ1-42, and (4) overnight word pair memory retention. Here we describe how the ALPS intervention is administered, the protocols and scripts implemented to maximize adherence and safety, and outcomes measured to test the proposed conceptual model linking slow-wave activity with excitotoxic hyperactivation, Alzheimer's pathophysiology, and memory performance. Behavioral enhancement of homeostatic sleep drive through TiB restriction is a promising approach to improve memory performance and Alzheimer's pathophysiology. Safety measures, as described here, should be implemented to minimize risks associated with TiB restriction. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05138848. Registered on December 1, 2021.

In addition to its well-known association with mental effort, pupil dilation provides insight into the cognitive and neurobiological basis of episodic memory. Notably, pupil responses during retrieval are influenced by the encoding conditions under which the information was originally learned. In our study, we manipulated encoding by presenting participants with word pairs either once or twice, and then examined pupil responses during subsequent retrieval tasks that employed either a recognition or a cued recall paradigm. Repeated encoding led to higher accuracy and faster response times, confirming enhanced memory performance across both tasks. Critically, however, the strengthening of memory traces was accompanied by reduced pupil dilation only in the cued recall task, suggesting that stronger memories required less cognitive effort during the demanding recall process. In contrast, during the recognition task, despite a robust pupil old/new effect (e.g. increased pupil responses to correct "old" responses relative to correct "new" responses) the magnitude of pupil dilation was not modulated by memory trace strength. This implies that, in recognition decisions, pupil responses may primarily reflect the recollection-familiarity dichotomy rather than memory trace strength. Overall, our findings demonstrate that the type of memory test influences how effectively pupillometry can assess memory trace strength.

To navigate the world, we store knowledge about relationships between concepts and retrieve this information flexibly to suit our goals. The semantic control network, comprising left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), is thought to orchestrate this flexible retrieval by modulating sensory inputs. However, interactions between semantic control and input regions are not sufficiently understood. Moreover, pMTG's well-formed structural connections to IFG and visual cortex suggest it as a candidate region to integrate control and input processes. We used magnetoencephalography to investigate oscillatory dynamics during semantic decisions to pairs of words, when participants (both sexes) did or did not know the type of semantic relation between them. IFG showed increases and decreases in oscillatory activity to prior task knowledge, while pMTG only showed positive task knowledge effects. Furthermore, IFG provided sustained feedback to pMTG when task goals were known, while in the absence of goals this feedback was delayed until receiving bottom-up input from the second word. This goal-dependent feedback coincided with an earlier onset of feedforward signaling from visual cortex to pMTG, indicating rapid retrieval of task-relevant features. This pattern supports a model of semantic cognition in which pMTG integrates top-down control from IFG with bottom-up input from visual cortex to activate task-relevant semantic representations. Our findings elucidate the separate roles of anterior and posterior components of the semantic control network and reveal the spectro-temporal cascade of interactions between semantic and visual regions that underlie our ability to flexibly adapt cognition to the current goals.

A reminder of the past can trigger the involuntary retrieval of an unwanted memory. Yet, we can intentionally stop this process and thus prevent the memory from entering awareness. Such suppression not only transiently hinders the retrieval of the memory, it can also induce forgetting. Neuroimaging has implicated the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in initiating this process. Specifically, this region seems to downregulate activity in brain systems that would otherwise support memory reinstatement. Here, we probed the causal contribution of the right dlPFC to suppression by combining the think/no-think task with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Participants first learned pairs of cue and target words and then repeatedly recalled some of the targets (think condition) and suppressed others (no-think condition). We applied 10-Hz rTMS bursts to the right dlPFC during the suppression of half the no-think items and to the contralateral primary motor area (M1) as an active control site during the other half. As hypothesized, participants experienced less success at keeping the memories out of awareness with concurrent dlPFC than M1 stimulation. Similarly, a memory test yielded evidence for suppression-induced forgetting (SIF) following M1 but not dlPFC stimulation. However, the difference in forgetting between the stimulation conditions was not significant. The study thus provides causal evidence for the role of the dlPFC in preventing retrieval. Future work will need to conclusively establish the relationship between this transient effect and SIF.

During a social interaction, speakers must consider what each other is saying to achieve mutual understanding. Since linguistic representations are believed to become more similar between speakers during an interaction to ensure successful communication, one might wonder whether word recognition can be affected when the two interlocutors are not from the same region. In this study, Northern French speakers, who merge the /e/-/ε/ contrast, engaged in an interactive map task with a Standard French speaker who produced this contrast. We measured whether Northern French speakers displayed a repetition priming effect on minimal pairs of French word forms differing in final /e/ and /ε/ phonemes, both before and after the interaction. A priming effect was found before and after the interaction, revealing that the same phonological form was still activated when recognizing French minimal pairs ending in /e/ and /ε/. This priming effect did not significantly differ before and after the interaction. Likewise, there was no significant change in /e/-/ε/ contrast production after the interaction. These findings suggest that phonological representations reflecting one's own regional variety are very robust during word recognition. The implications are discussed in light of the role of social interaction at the representational level.

A domain-specific cross-lingual semantic alignment learning model for low-resource languages.

Abstract Introduction This study investigates lexical-semantic processing in persons with aphasia (PWA) and neurologically healthy individuals (NHI). Lexical-semantic processing is critical for language comprehension and involves retrieving and integrating words within a context. The study aims to compare the performance of PWA and NHI using behavioral tasks and event-related potentials (ERPs). Method Twenty native Kannada speakers, including 10 PWA and 10 NHI, participated in lexical decision (LDT) and semantic judgment tasks (SJT). Reaction time and accuracy were measured behaviorally, and N400 ERP components were recorded to assess lexical-semantic processing. Stimuli included words and non-words for LDT and related and unrelated word pairs for SJT. Behavioral responses were recorded using DMDX software, and ERPs were captured with a Compumedics Neuroscan system. Results PWA exhibited significantly slower reaction times and lower accuracy compared to NHI in both tasks, with SJT being more challenging. N400 latency was delayed, and amplitude was less negative in PWA, indicating impaired processing. Topographical analysis revealed widespread cortical activation in PWA, suggesting neural reorganization. Discussion The findings demonstrate compromised lexical-semantic processing in PWA, with slower, less accurate responses and altered ERP patterns. The study highlights the complexity of semantic judgment tasks and the potential for neural reorganization in aphasia. Future research should include more aphasia subtypes and employ additional electrodes for comprehensive ERP analysis, enhancing understanding of recovery mechanisms.

Navigating changes is fundamental to everyday life and requires updating existing memories to incorporate new details. This study examined mechanisms underlying how reinstating an earlier event's context during a later event influences memory for both events. Two theories predict opposite outcomes. Interference theory holds that reinstating context from an existing memory while experiencing a new, overlapping event produces response competition and impairs memory for both. In contrast, integration theory predicts that context reinstatement cues retrieval of earlier memories, enabling associative encoding of past and present events that enhances memory. Prior work favors the latter, showing that reinstatement improves memory. Three experiments extended this work by directly testing roles for study-phase retrievals and change awareness during study and test. Word pairs with shared cues but changed responses (A-B, A-D) were presented with background contexts that either repeated or changed. Repeating contexts increased detection of changes and recall of earlier responses during study, both indexes of study-phase retrievals, as well as later cued recall of earlier (B) and changed (D) responses. The recall benefit was proportional to the extent of study-phase retrievals, implicating retrieval practice. Moreover, the effect was enhanced when participants remembered that changes had occurred, highlighting the role of recollecting integrated representations that included change attributes. These findings align with integration theory, suggesting that memory updating is most effective when current events cue retrieval of prior memories and engender associative encoding of past and present events, establishing elaborate representations that support subsequent recall.

Abstract This paper introduces the concept of “Distant Poesis” as a theoretical framework for understanding a novel form of literary creation that operates at the intersection of programming, randomness, and language models. Drawing on Franco Moretti’s notion of “distant reading,” I propose that Distant Poesis involves writing programs that generate stochastic values (such as random word pairs or stylistic variables) which are then inserted into prompt templates for language models. This creates a new form of literary creation – one that operates at a distance from the text itself. By examining two specific implementations – lexical pairing and stylistic variable sampling – this study demonstrates how the meta-creative act of designing both sources of stochasticity and prompt templates constitutes a form of poesis in itself. Through analysis of poems generated via these methods, I explore how this distant approach generates both coherent individual works and diverse textual ecosystems, challenging traditional notions of authorship and creativity while expanding the conceptual territory of computational poetics.

Research literature of acoustic studies indicates that non-native speakers of English face difficulty in producing and perceiving English lexical stress contrasts due to certain factors. This study investigates how Pashto-speaking English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners produce lexical stress in English disyllabic nouns and verbs. It focuses on two key acoustic features of stress: duration and intensity. Ten pairs of disyllabic words, presented in context sentences, served as stimuli for data collection. A total of 720 tokens were created from 120 sound samples of the six Pashto-speaking EFL learners, and interactive labeling through FormantPro.praat, descriptive statistics, and One-Sample t-Test were used to analyze data. Results reveal that Pashto-speaking EFL learners tend to lengthen the second syllable and increase the intensity of the first syllable in both nouns and verbs. This pattern deviates from native English stress patterns, suggesting difficulty in acquiring and producing the correct acoustic features. Specifically, the findings indicate that these learners struggle with marking stress shifts that differentiate stressed syllables from unstressed ones in noun-verb pairs. This highlights the need for language teaching and curriculum development tailored to address the specific challenges faced by Pashto-speaking EFL learners and other multilingual communities in Pakistan.

According to Levelt's language production model, to name an object, speakers must first conceptualize and lexicalize the object before it can be named. Conceptualization is conducted through the semantic network, with concepts activating lexical items at the lemma level, i.e., lexicalization. So far, research has focused on the roles of semantic categories (i.e., semantic category interference) and single semantic features (i.e., semantic feature interference) but less so on the number of overlapping features. To investigate the role of the number of overlapping features in language production, we conducted a picture-word interference study in Mandarin Chinese, varying the semantic category and shape congruency whilst controlling for classifier congruency. We also recorded behavioural and electrophysiological responses. We observed a main effect of semantic category that was stronger than a main effect of shape (i.e., a semantic feature). That is, the reduction in naming accuracies, the increase in naming latencies, and the increase in ERP amplitudes between 275 - 575ms post-stimulus onset (N400 effect) for congruent vs. incongruent conditions were larger for semantic category than for shape. In addition, we found an interaction effect between semantic category and the semantic feature 'shape' regarding naming accuracies and also at the electrophysiological level. We conclude that, with increasing feature overlap between word pairs, there may be more spreading of activation between such pairs in word production.

Cross-situational word learning describes the process by which learners acquire new words by tracking statistical regularities obtained from ambiguous word-referent encoding encounters over time. This study measured event-related potentials and behavioural responses to assess the acquisition of written word meanings through cross-situational word learning, in which novel orthographic forms served as written names for familiar objects. During the learning phase, participants disambiguated mappings between novel written words (e.g., 'ket') and familiar objects (e.g., sword). After learning, participants performed a semantic relatedness judgement task, pairing newly learned words with familiar written words from either a related (e.g., dagger) or unrelated (e.g., harp) semantic category. To provide a control measure, the semantic judgement task also included a condition comprising semantically related and unrelated familiar word pairs. Analyses revealed an N400 effect for semantic judgements of word meaning relatedness, both for the novel-familiar and familiar-familiar word pair conditions. These findings suggest that novel written word meanings can be rapidly acquired through cross-situational learning, with neurophysiological responses that resemble those for familiar words, albeit showing a more left-hemisphere distribution for novel words and a more right-hemisphere distribution for familiar words.