Low-imageability Words Research Articles

Noun imageability and the processing of sensory-based information.

The aim of this study was to test whether the availability of internal imagery elicited by words is related to ratings of word imageability. Participants are presented with target words and, after a delay allowing for processing of the word, answer questions regarding the size or weight of the word referents. Target words differ with respect to imageability. Results show faster responses to questions for high imageability words than for low imageability words. The type of question (size/weight) modulates reaction times suggesting a dominance of the visual domain over the physical-experience domain in concept representation. Results hold across two different languages (Czech/German). These findings provide further insights into the representations underlying word meaning and the role of word imageability in language acquisition and processing.

Predicting the Structure of a Lexical Environment from Properties of Verbal Working Memory

We analyzed a Japanese lexical database to investigate the structure of the lexical environment based on the hypothesis that the lexical environment is optimized for the functioning of verbal working memory. Our prediction was that, as a consequence of the cultural transmission of language, low-imageable meanings tend to be represented by frequent phonological patterns in the current vocabulary rather than infrequent phonological patterns. This prediction was based on two findings of previous laboratory studies on verbal working memory. (1) The quality of phonological (phonemic and accent) representations in verbal working memory depends on phonological regularity knowledge; therefore, short-term phonological representations are less robust for words with infrequent phonological patterns. (2) Phonological representations are underpinned by contributions from semantic knowledge; therefore, phonological representations of highly imageable words are more robust than those for low-imageable words. Our database analyses show that nouns with less imageable meanings tend to be associated with more frequent phonological patterns in Japanese vocabulary. This lexical structure can maintain the quality of phonological representations in verbal working memory through contributions of semantic and phonological regularity knowledge. Larger semantic contributions compensate for the less robust phonological representations of infrequent phonological forms. The quality of phonological representations is preserved by phonological regularity knowledge when larger semantic contributions are not expected.

‘My daughter is no angel’: impairments in nominal metaphor comprehension by aphasic patients (‘Mi hija no es un tesoro’: alteraciones en la comprensión de metáforas nominales en personas con afasia)

ABSTRACT This study explored possible impairments in the comprehension of nominal metaphors in five aphasic patients with semantic deficits and two with difficulties in lexical access. To this end, a set of four novel tasks was designed: two oral paraphrasing and two forced-choice tasks. The results support the claims of the Class-Inclusion Model and the Graded Salience Hypothesis, and showed that difficulties in the comprehension of these types of expressions are sensitive to certain features of metaphor vehicles, especially their ambiguity, level of conventionality and degree of semantic opacity. Similarly, they confirmed that metaphors understood as categorization statements require the undamaged processing of low-imageability words, as opposed to analogical metaphors, which comply with the assumptions of the Structural Mapping Model. Generally, patients with lexical impairments do not show difficulties in the processing of metaphorical expressions, while the performance of patients with semantic deficit is affected in accordance with their inability to understand abstract and low-frequency words.

Comparative Effects of Picture Symbol With Paired Text and Text-Only Augmentative and Alternative Communication Representations on Communication From Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Purpose Technology features that maximize communicative benefit while minimizing learning demands must be identified and prioritized to amplify the efficiency and effectiveness of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention. Picture symbols with paired text are a common representation feature in AAC systems for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who are preliterate, yet little research about their comparative benefit exists. Method Four school-age children with ASD and limited speech who were preliterate participated in two single-subject studies. In one study, communication of high imageability words (e.g., nouns) on an AAC app during a book-reading activity was compared across two representation conditions: picture symbols with paired text and text only. In the second study, communication of low imageability words (e.g., verbs) was compared. Both studies had baseline, intervention, generalization, and maintenance phases. Results Prior to intervention, participants communicated across both representation conditions at low rates except two participants who were relatively successful using picture symbol with paired text representations of high imageability words. In response to intervention, all participants demonstrated increases in communication across representation conditions and maintained the increases. Participants demonstrated generalization in the text-only representation condition. Conclusions Children with ASD who were preliterate acquired communication at comparable rates regardless of whether an AAC app utilized picture symbol with paired text or text-only representation. Therefore, while larger scale research is needed, clinicians and technology developers could consider increasing the use of text in AAC representation given the inherent value associated with learning to recognize written words. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13661357.

Text-only communications may offer a research springboard for learning more complex communications and literacy skills for individuals with autism spectrum disorders utilizing AAC

Q 1) Prior to instruction, are there differential effects of picture symbol with paired text and text-only representations on communicating high and low imageability words through an AAC app for sc...

“Embodied” language processing: Mental motor imagery aptitude predicts word-definition skill for high but not for low imageable words in adolescents

Our study was designed to test a recent proposal by Cayol and Nazir (2020), according to which language processing takes advantage of motor system “emulators”. An emulator is a brain mechanism that learns the causal relationship between an action and its sensory consequences. Emulators predict the outcome of a motor command in terms of its sensory reafference and serve monitoring ongoing movements. For the purpose of motor planning/learning, emulators can “run offline”, decoupled from sensory input and motor output. Such offline simulations are equivalent to mental imagery (Grush, 2004). If language processing can profit from the associative-memory network of emulators, mental-imagery-aptitude should predict language skills. However, this should hold only for language content that is imageable. We tested this assumption in typically developing adolescents using two motor-imagery paradigms. One that measured participant’s error in estimating their motor ability, and another that measured the time to perform a mental simulation. When the time to perform a mental simulation is taken as measure, mental-imagery-aptitude does indeed selectively predict word-definition performance for high imageable words. These results provide an alternative position relative to the question of why language processes recruit modality-specific brain regions and support the often-hypothesized link between language and motor skills.

The varying nature of semantic effects in working memory

Several studies have demonstrated an influence of semantic knowledge on verbal working memory (WM) performance, such as shown by the observation of semantic relatedness (related vs. unrelated words) and word imageability (high vs. low imageability words) effects in working memory. The present study extends these observations by examining in four experiments the extent to which semantic knowledge can protect WM representations against interference. We assessed immediate serial recall performance for semantically related vs. unrelated word lists and for high vs. low imageability word lists, with memory lists being followed by an interfering task after encoding or not. Results show that semantic relatedness leads to a stronger protective effect against interference than word imageability at the item level. Furthermore, the semantic relatedness had a stronger impact on WM performance than word imageability; this was further supported by a meta-analysis of all relevant studies in the field. These results suggest that inter-item associative semantic knowledge can protect WM content against interference, but less so item-level semantic knowledge. This protective effect may result from between-item recurrent reactivation or from reduced cognitive load via the compression of memoranda into conceptual units, as further supported by a series of computational simulations.

Concreteness and imageability and their influences on Chinese two-character word recognition

To compare the influences of concreteness and imageability on Chinese two-character (2C) word recognition, two experiments were conducted in a primed task on a cohort of skilled readers. In addition to PRIME (2C words or their transposed constituent characters) and DIRECTION (forward or backward collocations between prime words and targets), CONCRETENESS (prime words of high or low level of concreteness) and IMAGEABILITY (prime words of high or low imageability) were manipulated in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. The results consistently confirmed that 2C words can be perceived both as whole entities and according to their constituent characters, that high-concreteness/-imageability words are easier to recognize than low-concreteness/-imageability ones, and that bigger amounts facilitation are available when the prime and target form a forward than when they form a backward collocation. However, different patterns of interactions were revealed in participants’ performance between the variables in Experiments 1 and 2. It is concluded that concreteness is different from imageability to indicate the extent of semantic consistence between 2C words and their constituent characters. These two semantic features should be distinguished from each other in terms of their influences on 2C word recognition.

Adaptive use of semantic representations and phonological representations in verbal memory maintenance

Abstract Findings from serial recall tasks, such as a recall disadvantage for long words (known as the word length effect or WLE), have suggested that individuals rely on phonological representations to perform immediate serial order recall of words. Findings from synonym recognition tasks suggest that individuals can also use semantic representations in immediate memory. This leads to the idea that individuals can switch from relying on phonological representations to relying on semantic representations according to demands of ongoing cognitive activities. This study investigated the WLE under articulatory suppression and when following the semantic instruction in serial recall of words of high and low imageability. In addition, the study investigated whether the WLE is affected by individual differences in capacity for maintaining semantic representations that are measured by the synonym recognition task. The results demonstrated that the WLE disappeared when maintaining highly imageable words but was still observed when maintaining words of low imageability under articulatory suppression. Moreover, the semantic instruction eliminated the WLE only in individuals who could perform the synonym recognition task well. These results provide clues to understanding the adaptive use of semantic and phonological representations in verbal working memory.

On the role of retrieval processes in the survival processing effect: Evidence from ROC and ERP analyses.

Memory is enhanced for words encoded in the context of an imagined survival scenario, an effect modulated by word imageability or concreteness. However, the mechanisms underlying this "survival processing effect" are still controversial. To address this issue, we used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the recognition retrieval processes associated with words previously encoded in either a survival or a control scenario. More specifically, we investigated how recollection- and familiarity-based retrieval are influenced by survival processing of high- and low-imageability words. Participants incidentally encoded words and then completed a surprise recognition test while their EEG was recorded. The encoding of concrete, high-imageability words in a survival context lead to improved recognition memory compared to the control context, and this improvement was associated with an increase in both the ROC and ERP measures of recollection-based memory retrieval. Survival processing was also associated with an increase in the ERP familiarity signal for these words, but the ROC analysis indicated that recognition judgments relied upon recollection rather than familiarity. These findings provide evidence that survival processing increases elaboration during encoding, leading to greater recollection at retrieval and, in turn, enhanced memory.

Duality of Function: Activation for Meaningless Nonwords and Semantic Codes in the Same Brain Areas

Studies of the neural substrates of semantic (word meaning) processing have typically focused on semantic manipulations, with less consideration for potential differences in difficulty across conditions. While the idea that particular brain regions can support multiple functions is widely accepted, studies of specific cognitive domains rarely test for co-location with other functions. Here we start with standard univariate analyses comparing words to meaningless nonwords, replicating our recent finding that this contrast can activate task-positive regions for words, and default-mode regions in the putative semantic network for nonwords, pointing to difficulty effects. Critically, this was followed up with a multivariate analysis to test whether the same areas activated for meaningless nonwords contained semantic information sufficient to distinguish high- from low-imageability words. Indeed, this classification was performed reliably better than chance at 75% accuracy. This is compatible with two non-exclusive interpretations. Numerous areas in the default-mode network are task-negative in the sense of activating for less demanding conditions, and the same areas contain information supporting semantic cognition. Therefore, while areas of the default mode network have been hypothesized to support semantic cognition, we offer evidence that these areas can respond to both domain-general difficulty effects, and to specific aspects of semantics.

The non-strategic nature of linguistic long-term memory effects in verbal short-term memory

Abstract The contribution of lexical and semantic knowledge to verbal short-term memory (vSTM) span is explained by language-based models, assuming that vSTM is deeply grounded within the linguistic system with to-be-remembered items being activated in a non-strategic and automatic manner. However, direct evidence for a non-strategic account of lexical and semantic contributions to vSTM span is scarce. In this study, we assessed the influence of several types of long-term linguistic knowledge (lexicality, lexical frequency, semantic similarity and imageability) on vSTM using a fast encoding running span procedure preventing any strategic processes during encoding. We observed reliable effects of lexicality (words vs. nonwords, Experiment 1), lexical frequency (high vs. low frequency words, Experiment 2) and semantic similarity (related vs. unrelated lists, Experiment 3) on running span performance. However, word imageability (high vs. low imageability words, Experiment 4) did not consistently impact running span performance. Experiment 5 showed that the imageability effect only appears in standard immediate serial recall conditions which do not prevent list-strategic encoding. This study provides novel evidence for linguistic accounts of vSTM by demonstrating a robust impact of lexical and surface-level semantic knowledge on vSTM in non-strategic, fast-encoding conditions.

Seeing the Meaning: Top-Down Effects on Letter Identification.

Most models of reading agree that visual word recognition is underpinned by a highly interactive network in which both bottom–up and top–down processes contribute. What remains unknown is whether evidence of top–down effects upon letter processing are restricted to word-form level information, or whether meaning-level information also plays a role. Here we sought to investigate top–down semantic influences upon letter detection using semantic manipulations of real word imageability and semantic priming, as well as a manipulation of nonword orthographic and phonological composition which varied degree of similarity to real words. A continuous adaptive staircase procedure was used, allowing us to assess the exposure duration needed for accurate letter perception in different stimulus types. Results revealed that in terms of both exposure duration and decision reaction times, words showed an advantage over pseudohomophones and pseudowords, which in turn showed advantages over consonant strings. High imageability words were processed more efficiently than low imageability words, both in terms of the exposure duration required for accurate letter identification and also decision reaction times. The presence of a related as opposed to unrelated semantic prime significantly shortened exposure duration, but also lengthened decision reaction times. This inhibitory semantic priming effect in reaction time was attributed to the interference at the decision stage by stronger activation of the prime letters in the case of related relative to unrelated trials. Taken together, the present results establish for the first time that the semantic dimensions of imageability and semantic priming exert significant effects on letter identification, indicating meaning-level influences on the very earliest stages of written word recognition.

Word Imageability Enhances Association-memory by Increasing Hippocampal Engagement

The hippocampus is thought to support association-memory, particularly when tested with cued recall. One of the most well-known and studied factors that influences accuracy of verbal association-memory is imageability; participants remember pairs of high-imageability words better than pairs of low-imageability words. High-imageability words are also remembered better in tests of item-memory. However, we previously found that item-memory effects could not explain the enhancement in cued recall, suggesting that imageability enhances association-memory strength. Here we report an fMRI study designed to ask, what is the role of the hippocampus in the memory advantage for associations due to imageability? We tested two alternative hypotheses: (1) Recruitment Hypothesis: High-imageability pairs are remembered better because they recruit the underlying hippocampal association-memory function more effectively. Alternatively, (2) Bypassing Hypothesis: Imageability functions by making the association-forming process easier, enhancing memory in a way that bypasses the hippocampus, as has been found, for example, with explicit unitization imagery strategies. Results found, first, hippocampal BOLD signal was greater during study and recall of high- than low-imageability word pairs. Second, the difference in activity between recalled and forgotten pairs showed a main effect, but no significant interaction with imageability, challenging the bypassing hypothesis, but consistent with the predictions derived from the recruitment hypothesis. Our findings suggest that certain stimulus properties, like imageability, may leverage, rather than avoid, the associative function of the hippocampus to support superior association-memory.

Effects of semantic context on access to words of low imageability in deep-phonological dysphasia: a treatment case study

ABSTRACTBackground: Deep dysphasia is a relatively rare subcategory of aphasia, characterised by word repetition impairment and a profound auditory-verbal short-term memory (STM) limitation. Repetition of words is better than nonwords (lexicality effect) and better for high-image than low-image words (imageability effect). Another related language impairment profile is phonological dysphasia, which includes all of the characteristics of deep dysphasia except for the occurrence of semantic errors in single word repetition. The overlap in symptoms of deep and phonological dysphasia has led to the hypothesis that they share the same root cause, impaired maintenance of activated representation of words, but that they differ in severity of that impairment, with deep dysphasia being more severe.Aims: We report a single-subject multiple baseline, multiple probe treatment study of a person who presented with a pattern of repetition that was consistent with the continuum of deep-phonological dysphasia: imageability and lexicality effects in repetition of single and multiple words and semantic errors in repetition of multiple-word utterances. The aim of this treatment study was to improve access to and repetition of low-imageability words by embedding them in modifier-noun phrases that enhanced their imageability.Methods & Procedures: The treatment involved repetition of abstract noun pairs. We created modifier-abstract noun phrases that increased the semantic and syntactic cohesiveness of the words in the pair. For example, the phrases “long distance” and “social exclusion” were developed to improve repetition of the abstract pair “distance-exclusion”. The goal of this manipulation was to increase the probability of accessing lexical and semantic representations of abstract words in repetition by enriching their semantic -syntactic context. We predicted that this increase in accessibility would be maintained when the words were repeated as pairs, but without the contextual phrase.Outcomes & Results: Treatment outcomes indicated that increasing the semantic and syntactic cohesiveness of low-imageability and low-frequency words later improved this participant’s ability to repeat those words when presented in isolation.Conclusions: This treatment approach to improving access to abstract word pairs for repetition was successful for our participant with phonological dysphasia. The approach exemplifies the potential value in manipulating linguistic characteristics of stimuli in ways that improve access between phonological and lexical-semantic levels of representation. Additionally, this study demonstrates how principles of a cognitive model of word processing can be used to guide treatment of word processing impairments in aphasia.

For richer or poorer? Imageability effects in semantic dementia patients’ reading aloud

The degree to which a word's meaning evokes a mental image exerts an influence on performance across a variety of conceptual and linguistic tasks. In normal healthy participants, this effect takes the form of an advantage for high over low imageability words. Consideration of the influence of imageability on performance of patients with semantic dementia can provide information concerning its cognitive and neural bases. Semantic dementia patients show deficits in conceptual processing tasks, and an associated enhancement of the advantage for high over low imageability words. Semantic dementia patients also show deficits in linguistic processing tasks, including reading aloud words with inconsistent spelling–sound correspondences. This study provides the first systematic exploration of the influence of imageability on semantic dementia patients’ reading aloud performance. Over 10 cases, the imageability effect seen for inconsistent words was actually reversed in reaction times, with faster performance for low than high imageability items. The same reversal was observed for inconsistent words when the frequency of legitimate alternative reading of components errors was considered, and this reversed effect grew larger with increasing semantic impairment. This result is interpreted in terms of the development of stronger connections along the direct pathway between spelling and sound for low than high imageability items that are then revealed under diminished semantic activation. This interpretation emphasises the interaction between form and meaning that occurs throughout learning in connectionist models.

Does teaching mnemonics for vocabulary learning make a difference? Putting the keyword method and the word part technique to the test

The present research tested the effectiveness of the word part technique in comparison with the keyword method and self-strategy learning. One hundred and twenty-one Chinese year-one university students were randomly assigned to one of the three learning conditions: word part, keyword or self-strategy learning condition. Half of the target words were high imageability words and the other half low imageability words. Learning was assessed immediately after the learning phase and after a 9-day delay using three different test formats: word-form recognition, meaning recognition and translation. Results showed that the keyword method was inferior to the word part technique and self-strategy learning on the translation test format. No significant difference was observed on the form recognition test between any two of the three learning conditions.

The forgotten grammatical category: Adjective use in agrammatic aphasia.

In contrast to nouns and verbs, the use of adjectives in agrammatic aphasia has not been systematically studied. However, because of the linguistic and psycholinguistic attributes of adjectives, some of which overlap with nouns and some with verbs, analysis of adjective production is important for testing theories of word class production deficits in agrammatism. The objective of the current study was to compare adjective use in agrammatic and healthy individuals, focusing on three factors: overall adjective production rate, production of predicative and attributive adjectives, and production of adjectives with complex argument structure. Narratives elicited from 14 agrammatic and 14 control participants were coded for open class grammatical category production (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives), with each adjective also coded for its syntactic environment (attributive/predicative) and argument structure. Overall, agrammatic speakers used adjectives in proportions similar to that of cognitively healthy speakers. However, they exhibited a greater proportion of predicative adjectives and a lesser proportion of attributive adjectives, compared to controls. Additionally, agrammatic participants produced adjectives with less complex argument structure than controls. The overall normal-like frequency of adjectives produced by agrammatic speakers suggests that agrammatism does not involve an inherent difficulty with adjectives as a word class or with predication, or that it entails a deficit in processing low imageability words. However, agrammatic individuals' reduced production of attributive adjectives and adjectives with complements extends previous findings of an adjunction deficit and of impairment in complex argument structure processing, respectively, to the adjectival domain. The results suggest that these deficits are not tied to a specific grammatical category.

Imageability: now you see it again (albeit in a different form).

GENERAL COMMENTARY article Front. Psychol., 03 April 2014Sec. Language Sciences Volume 5 - 2014 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00279

Not lost in translation: generalization of the primary systems hypothesis to Japanese-specific language processes.

The emergentist-connectionist approach assumes that language processing reflects interaction between primary neural systems (Primary Systems Hypothesis). This idea offers an overarching framework that generalizes to various kinds of (English) language and nonverbal cognitive activities. The current study advances this approach with respect to language in two new and important ways. The first is the provision of a neuroanatomically constrained implementation of the theory. The second is a test of its ability to generalize to a language other than English (in this case Japanese) and, in particular, to a feature of that language (pitch accent) for which there is no English equivalent. A corpus analysis revealed the presence and distribution of typical and atypical accent forms in Japanese vocabulary, forming a quasiregular domain. Consequently, according to the Primary Systems Hypothesis, there should be a greater semantic impact on the processing of words with an atypical pitch accent. In turn, when word meaning is intrinsically less rich (e.g., abstract words), speakers should be prone to regularization errors of pitch accent. We explored these semantic-phonological interactions, first, in a neuroanatomically constrained, parallel-distributed processing model of spoken language processing. This model captured the accent typicality effect observed in nonword repetition in Japanese adults and children and exhibited the predicted semantic impact on repetition of words with atypical accent patterns. Second, also as predicted, in word repetition and immediate serial recall of spoken words, human participants exhibited reduced pitch-accent accuracy and/or slower RT for low imageability words with atypical accent patterns, and they generated accent errors reflecting the more typical accent patterns found in Japanese.