The processing of semantic radicals in Chinese character identification: evidence from ERP studies

Symposium 9 - Character and word processing: 3According to Weekes and Chen (2004) and Chen et al. (2006), semantic knowledge encoded in the radical (subcomponents) influences Chinese character identification. A series of three investigations addressed the effects of semantic radical properties on the time course of character processing during ...postprintThe 13th International Conference on the Processing of East Asian Languages (ICPEAL), Beijing, China, 9-11 October 2009. In Program Book of the 13th ICPEAL, 2009, p. 45-4

Emotion word processing: effects of emotional valence and arousal on behavioural and electrophysiological measures

The Conference program & abstracts' website is located at http://www.psycholinguistics.com/amlap/schedule/files/NEW_____AMLAP_PROG%20NEW.pdfInteractions Beyond Language - O31Emotion is characterised by a two-dimensional structure: valence describes the extent to which an emotion is positive or negative, whereas arousal refers to the intensity of an emotion, how exciting or calming it is. It is known that the emotional content of verbal material influences cognitive processing during lexical decision, naming, emotional Stroop task and many others (see Citron et al., 2009). Converging findings showed that emotionally valenced words (positive or negative) are processed faster than neutral words, as shown by reaction time and ERP measures, suggesting a prioritisation of emotional stimuli (Scott et al., 2009). Other studies report slower recognition of negative words compared to positive words suggesting an additional effect of automatic vigilance (Algom et al., 2004). These latter studies, though, failed to control for important lexical and semantic features of single words (Larsen et al., 2006). Furthermore, few studies have considered the effects of emotional arousal on word recognition and the relationship between emotional valence and arous…postprin

Semantic radical consistency and character transparency effects in Chinese: an ERP study

BACKGROUND: This event-related potential (ERP) study aims to investigate the representation and temporal dynamics of Chinese orthography-to-semantics mappings by simultaneously manipulating character transparency and semantic radical consistency. Character components, referred to as radicals, make up the building blocks used dur...postprin

Memory for serial order in bilingual children

Poster: no. 10Recent studies have suggested that phonological short-term memory (STM) capacity is important for language acquisition. In both, children and grownups, reliable correlations have been obtained between digit span, nonword repetition ability, and vocabulary achievement while factoring out other possible factors like age and nonverbal intelligence (Gathercole, Service, Hitch, Adams, & Martin, 1999; Gathercole, Willis, Emslie, & Baddeley, 1992; Gupta, 2003). Majerus et al. (Majerus, Poncelet, Van der Linden, & Weekes, 2008) found that serial order memory was the most important predictor for new word learning. No evidence was found for item short-term memory as a predictor. Majerus et al. therefore suggested that order short-term memory and phonological awareness are independent predictors of new word learning. Our aim was to investigate the memory for serial order in mono- and bilingual language processing to elicit ERP correlates of item and order STM, during encoding, maintenance and retrieval stages. 25 monolingual native English speakers …postprintThe International Conference on Neurobilingualism, Bangor University, Wales, U.K., 19-20 September 2009

The role of phonology in visual word recognition: evidence from Chinese

Posters - Letter/Word Processing V: abstract no. 5024The hypothesis of bidirectional coupling of orthography and phonology predicts that phonology plays a role in visual word recognition, as observed in the effects of feedforward and feedback spelling to sound consistency on lexical decision. However, because orthography and phonology are closely related in alphabetic languages (homophones in alphabetic languages are usually orthographically similar), it is difficult to exclude an influence of orthography on phonological effects in visual word recognition. Chinese languages contain many written homophones that are orthographically dissimilar, allowing a test of the claim that phonological effects can be independent of orthographic similarity. We report a study of visual word recognition in Chinese based on a mega-analysis of lexical decision performance with 500 characters. The results from multiple regression analyses, after controlling for orthographic frequency, stroke number, and radical frequency, showed main effects of feedforward and feedback consistency, as well as interactions between these variables and phonological frequency and number of homophones. Implications of these results for resonance models of visual word recognition are discussed.postprin

Interactive effects of orthography and semantics in Chinese picture naming

Posters - Language Production/Writing: abstract no. 4035Picture-naming performance in English and Dutch is enhanced by presentation of a word that is similar in form to the picture name. However, it is unclear whether facilitation has an orthographic or a phonological locus. We investigated the loci of the facilitation effect in Cantonese Chinese speakers by manipulating—at three SOAs (2100, 0, and 1100 msec)—semantic, orthographic, and phonological similarity. We identified an effect of orthographic facilitation that was independent of and larger than phonological facilitation across all SOAs. Semantic interference was also found at SOAs of 2100 and 0 msec. Critically, an interaction of semantics and orthography was observed at an SOA of 1100 msec. This interaction suggests that independent effects of orthographic facilitation on picture naming are located either at the level of semantic processing or at the lemma level and are not due to the activation of picture name segments at the level of phonological retrieval.postprin

Inhibition and language processing deficits in different types of aphasia

INTRODUCTION: The relation between executive control and language processing deficits in aphasia need further investigation (Murray, 2012; McNeil & Hula , 2008). It has been shown that language comprehension difficulties are associated with impaired inhibition (Martin & Allen, 2008). The current study had three main objectives: (1) to measure inhibition deficit in adults with fluent and nonfluent aphasia as well as in the healthy controls; (2) to investigate the ...postprin

Acquired Dyslexia in a Transparent Orthography: An Analysis of Acquired Disorders of Reading in the Slovak Language

The first reports of phonological, surface and deep dyslexia come from orthographies containing quasi-regular mappings between orthography and phonology including English and French. Slovakian is a language with a relatively transparent orthography and hence a mostly regular script. The aim of this study was to investigate impaired oral reading in Slovakian. A novel diagnostic procedure was devised to determine whether disorders of Slovakian reading resemble characteristics in other languages. Slovakian speaking aphasics showed symptoms similar to phonological dyslexia and deep dyslexia in English and French, but there was no evidence of surface dyslexia. The findings are discussed in terms of the orthographic depth hypothesis. © 2012 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

The Russian version of the Oxford Cognitive Screen: validation study on stroke survivors

OBJECTIVE:The Oxford Cognitive Screen (OCS) is a screening tool for the assessment of poststroke deficits in attention, memory, praxis, language, and number processing. The goal of the present study was to develop a Russian version of the OCS (Rus-OCS) via translation of the original battery, its cultural and linguistic adaptations, and reporting preliminary findings on its psychometric properties. METHOD: All parts of OCS were translated by native Russian-speaking neuropsychologists. Russian-speaking stroke patients (N = 205) were assessed with the Rus-OCS. Their performance was compared with performance of 60 healthy Russian-speaking adults aged between the ages of 18 and 91 years. The performance of 15 stroke patients and 42 healthy adults were assessed with a parallel version within 7 days of first testing. Convergent validity of the Rus-OCS was established via correlations with comparable tasks. Performance of three stroke groups with different lesion lateralization (right, left, and bilateral) was compared on language and visual attention subtasks. Preliminary normative data based on 5th to 95th percentile were also reported. RESULTS: Measures of internal consistency and test-retest reliability ranged from acceptable to very good and estimates of convergent validity ranged from moderate to high. Sensitivity and specificity was found to range from .56 to 1 and from .73 to 1, respectively. Significant differences in performance between stroke and healthy groups on all subtasks confirmed the discriminative power of the Rus-OCS was good. CONCLUSIONS: Rus-OCS is a promising cognitive screening instrument for Russian-speaking patients. However, further validation is needed. Constraints of socioeconomic differences between Russian speakers in the wider population should be considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

Reading between Eye Saccades

Background: Skilled adult readers, in contrast to beginners, show no or little increase in reading latencies as a function of the number of letters in words up to seven letters. The information extraction strategy underlying such efficiency in word identification is still largely unknown, and methods that allow tracking of the letter information extraction through time between eye saccades are needed to fully address this question. Methodology/Principal Findings: The present study examined the use of letter information during reading, by means of the Bubbles technique. Ten participants each read 5,000 five-letter French words sampled in space-time within a 200 ms window. On the temporal dimension, our results show that two moments are especially important during the information extraction process. On the spatial dimension, we found a bias for the upper half of words. We also show for the first time that letter positions four, one, and three are particularly important for the identification of five-letter words. Conclusions/Significance: Our findings are consistent with either a partially parallel reading strategy or an optimal serial reading strategy. We show using computer simulations that this serial reading strategy predicts an absence of a wordlength effect for words from four- to seven letters in length. We believe that the Bubbles technique will play an importan