Distributional analyses in the picture-word interference paradigm: Exploring the semantic interference and the distractor frequency effects.

he present study explores the distributional features of two important effects within the picture-word interference paradigm: the semantic interference and the distractor frequency effects. These two effects display different and specific distributional profiles. Semantic interference appears greatly reduced in faster response times, while it reaches its full magnitude only in slower responses. This can be interpreted as a sign of fluctuant attentional efficiency in resolving response conflict. In contrast, the distractor frequency effect is mediated mainly by a distributional shift, with low frequency distractors uniformly shifting reaction times distribution towards a slower range of latencies. This finding fits with the idea that distractor frequency exerts its effect by modulating the point in time in which operations required to discard the distractor can start. Taken together, these results are congruent with current theoretical accounts of both the semantic interference and distractor frequency effects. Critically, distributional analyses highlight and further describe the different cognitive dynamics underlying these two effects, suggesting that this analytical tool is able to offer important insights about lexical access during speech productio

The Manipulability Effect in Object Naming

Seeing objects triggers activation of motor areas. The implications of this motor activation in tasks that do not require object-use is still a matter of debate in cognitive sciences. Here we test whether motor activation percolates into the linguistic system by exploring the effect of object manipulability in a speech production task. Italian native speakers name the set of photographs provided by Gu\ue9rard, Lagac\ue8 and Brodeur (Beh Res Meth, 2015). Photographs varied on four motor dimensions concerning on how easily the represented objects can be grasped, moved, or pantomimed, and the number of actions that can be performed with them. The results show classical psycholinguistic phenomena such as the effect of age of acquisition and name agreement in naming latencies. Critically, linear mixed-effects models show an effect of three motor predictors over and above the psycholinguistic effects (replicating, in part, previous findings, Gu\ue9rard et al., 2015). Further research is needed to address how, and at which level, the manipulability effect emerges in the course of word production

China: ¿motor o freno del crecimiento global?

ResumenQuizá con mayor atención de la que se otorga a cualquiera otra, la coyuntura económica de China se disecta –trimestre a trimestre, mes a mes y, casi, día a día. Este inusitado interés, que por cierto se explica con facilidad, no siempre contribuye a un mejor entendimiento de la contribución de esa economía, la segunda mayor en el mundo, al crecimiento global. Este texto discute tal coyuntura a principios de 2014 y atiende tanto a los factores internos– los objetivos y políticas del gobierno chino que inició sus funciones el año pasado –como a las circunstancias externas– aún determinadas en buena medida por las secuelas de la Gran Recesión. Sostiene que, por la vía de las importaciones y la inversión en el exterior, China seguirá actuando como uno de los factores de impulso de la actividad económica a escala mundial, quizá el más importante en lo que resta de este segundo decenio del siglo.AbstractPerhaps more than any other, China's economic juncture is observed and discussed –quarter to quarter, month to month, even day to day. It's easy to understand why, being the world's second largest economy. But this uncommon interest not always allows a better understanding of China's contribution to global growth. This article discusses the juncture of China at the start of 2014, considering both the domestic factors– the economic goals and policy decisions of the Chinese government, which came to power last year –as the external environment– still dominated by the aftereffects of the Great Recession. It concludes that –through increasing imports and direct investment abroad– China will continue acting as one of the mayor tail-wind factors for world's economic activity, perhaps the most significant in the second half of the present decade: the flat teens

Phonological activation of non-produced words. The dynamics of lexical access in speech production

Speaking can be considered a goal-directed behavior because speakers have to retrieve the appropriate words and phonemes from their mental lexicon. However, observational and experimental evidence suggests that during the lexical and phonological retrieval processes other words than the intended ones are activated to some degree. Under this scenario, it is necessary to postulate selection mechanisms in charge of determining, among the activated representations, which ones will be prioritized and further processed in order to finally utter the speech signal. How does the control mechanism work that allows speakers to focus on the appropriate set of representations and reject the non-appropriate ones? It is generally agreed that the most relevant parameter that guides word and phoneme selection is the level of activation of the corresponding representations, in the sense that the most activated representations at a specific moment will be the ones selected. In addition, theories of speech production agree that the selection mechanisms also take into account the activation level of other non-target representations, in the sense that the selection of one representation is more difficult the more activated other competing representations are. According to these two assumptions, the selection of a word would depend on two parameters: a) the amount of activation that this word receives from the conceptual system and b) the level of activation of other representations at the moment of selection. In order to have a clear understanding of the mechanisms that speakers employ to decide which representations to select, we first need to specify under which circumstances this selection mechanism takes place. In particular, this dissertation tries to describe the pattern of activation during lexical access. Specifically, which words and phonemes are activated during the lexicalization process of the intended concept? This is an important issue because the types of processes in charge of encoding/selecting information at each level of the system may differ depending on what other information is available at a particular moment. For instance, the selection of the word ‘car’ and its corresponding phonemes may depend on whether other words and phonemes are also activated or not. The main purpose of this dissertation is to explore whether concepts outside of the communicative goal of the speaker are nevertheless activated in the process of language production. We assess whether there is lexical and phonological activation of these concepts. We take an experimental approach and measure speakers’ performance in different naming contexts. In particular, participants were instructed to name target stimuli while ignoring the presentation of distractor pictures. The semantic and phonological manipulations between target and distractor names allowed us to analyze whether participants have lexicalized the distractor picture and to what degree. In the next chapter we introduce the functional architecture of the speech production system. In the first section we describe the architecture of the system and then we focus on describing how information is propagated between the different levels of the system. This is the main topic of the dissertation and in the rest of the chapter we introduce three theoretical proposals about the propagation of the information and also some experimental evidence. Chapter three contains the main aim and specific objectives of the thesis. Chapters four, five, six and seven contain the experimental part. Finally, in chapters eight and nine we discuss the theoretical implications that follow from our experiments.Hablar es, sin duda alguna, una de las capacidades más asombrosas que los seres humanos adquieren. Una de las cuestiones que más interesa a los psicólogos que estudian la producción oral del lenguaje es la descripción de los procesos y mecanismos mediante los cuales el hablante recupera las palabras de su memoria. La presente tesis está relacionada con esta cuestión. La producción del habla implica el acceso a representaciones léxicas y fonológicas muy concretas. Evidencia observacionale y experimental sugiere que durante el acceso léxico y fonológico otras palabras pueden estar activadas y llegar incluso a interferir. Por lo tanto, parece necesario postular un mecanismo que permita al hablante acceder a las palabras adecuadas y rechazar aquellas que, pese a no formar parte de la intención comunicativa, hayan podido ser activadas. Los modelos de producción coinciden en postular que el parámetro que guía la selección léxica y fonológica es el nivel de activación de las representaciones, en el sentido de que la representación más activada en un determinado momento es la que finalmente resulta seleccionada. Los modelos también consideran que esta selección depende del nivel de activación de otras representaciones, en el sentido de que resulta más difícil seleccionar una representación cuanto más activadas están otras representaciones ajenas a la intención comunicativa. Esta tesis describe las circunstancias en las que se produce la selección léxica y la recuperación fonológica durante la producción del habla. Concretamente, ¿qué palabras y fonemas están activados durante el proceso de lexicalización del mensaje comunicativo? En la tesis analizamos si conceptos que no forman parte del mensaje preverbal del hablante llegan a activar sus correspondientes representaciones léxicas y fonológicas. En los experimentos de esta tesis, los participantes nombran un estímulo a la vez que ignoran la presencia de dibujos distractores. La manipulación de la relación semántica y fonológica entre el nombre del estímulo y el distractor permite analizar hasta qué punto se ha lexicalizado el dibujo distractor

The iconicity advantage in sign production: The case of bimodal bilinguals

Recent evidence demonstrates that pictures corresponding to iconic signs are named faster than pictures corresponding to non-iconic signs. The present study investigates the locus of the iconicity advantage in hearing bimodal bilinguals. A naming experiment with iconic and noniconic pictures in Italian Sign Language (LIS) was conducted. Bimodal bilinguals named the pictures either using a noun construction that involved the production of the sign corresponding to the picture or using a marked demonstrative pronoun construction replacing the picture sign. In this last condition, the pictures were colored and participants were instructed to name the pronoun together with the color. The iconicity advantage was reliable in the noun utterance but not in the marked demonstrative pronoun utterance. In a third condition, the colored pictures were presented as distractor stimuli and participants required to name the color. In this last condition, distractor pictures with iconic signs elicited faster naming latencies than non-iconic signs. The results suggest that the advantage of iconic signs in production arises at the level of semantic-tophonological links. In addition, we conclude that bimodal bilinguals and native signers do not differ in terms of the activation flow within the sign production system

Impacto del tratado de libre comercio entre Colombia y Estados Unidos en la economía campesina boyacense, desde su entrada en vigor hasta hoy

ResumenEl presente artículo está encaminado en analizar los riesgos y oportunidades de los acuerdos de integración económica, especialmente el Tratado de Libre comercio suscrito entre Colombia y Estados Unidos en la economía campesina boyacense. La temática reviste especial importancia, ya que pretende determinar un impacto socio económico, además de proponer alternativas a un sector altamente sensible como es el sector agrícola boyacense. Constituyéndose en una oportunidad para el desarrollo y crecimiento económico tanto del país como de los pequeños productores campesinos. Además, de procurar por la seguridad y soberanía alimentaria de una región y de país.Por lo tanto, en el marco del TLC con Estados Unidos, la situación del sector agrícola boyacense motiva a reevaluar el papel de las políticas sectoriales (ayudas específicas por productos, subsidios a los insumos y protección en frontera) para garantizar el desempeño de aquellos productos agrícolas susceptibles de mayor riesgo. Por tal motivo, es necesario generar alternativas  asociativas que encaminen el desarrollo agroindustrial en favor del campo y de los pequeños productores campesinos para hacer frente a este tipo de acuerdos tanto en productividad como en competitividad.  AbstractThis article analyzes the risks and opportunities of the agreements of economical integration specially the trade free agreement between Colombia and The United States in the peasant economy in Boyaca. It pretends to determine a socio economic impact and propose alternatives to the agricultural sector in Boyaca which is already highly sensitive. It is an opportunity for the development and economic growth not only for the country but for the agricultural people. It also gives safety and food sovereignty to a region and a country.Therefore, the role of the sectorial policies (specific aid of products, government subsidies of agricultural inputs, and border area protection) must be reevaluated in the frame of the trade free agreement with the United States. This is to guarantee the achievement of the agricultural products that are more vulnerable to risks. That is why, it is necessary to give alternatives which leads to an agroindustry development in favor of the field and the small farmers to face productivity and competitiveness

La frecuencia estomática e intercambio de gases difieren en dos especies de Blechnum (Pteridophyta, Blechnaceae) con distinto rango ecológico

In Chilean temperate forest, the fern Blechnum chilense has a wide ecological breath, but occur mainly in full sun habitats,while Blechnum mochaenum is restricted only to shady sites. We evaluated if the species with different ecological breathbehave similarly in their anatomical and physiological traits. Maximal photosynthetic rate (Amax), Stomatal conductance(gs), evapotranspiration (E), and SLA (specific leaf area) were measured in situ in 20 individuals of each fern species.Additionally, we estimated the stomatal density (SD), stomatal index (SI), and stomatal size in leaves of each sampledindividual. B. mochaenum, the shade-tolerant species, had lower SD, SI, A, and E, and higher stomatal size and SLA than B.chilense. Higher stomatal frequency could result in greater gas exchange in open sites for B. chilense. The leaf physiologyof these fern species seems to depend partially on their stomatal traits.En el bosque templado de Chile, el helecho Blechnum chilense se encuentra principalmente en lugares abiertos y soleados,mientras que el helecho Blechnum mochaenum está restringido a lugares sombríos. En este estudio se evalúa si ambasespecies de Blechnum, de lugares abiertos y sombreados, se comportan de manera similar respecto de sus rasgos anatómicosy fisiológicos, y si existe diferencia en la correlación entre estos rasgos. Se midió la tasa fotosintética máxima (Amax),conductancia estomática (gs), evapotranspiración (E) y SLA (área foliar específica) in situ en 20 individuos de cada especiede helecho. Adicionalmente, se estimó la densidad estomática (SD), el índice estomático (SI) y el tamaño de los estomas enhojas de cada individuo muestreado. Blechnum mochaenum, la especies sombra-tolerante, presentó menor SD, SI, Amax yE, y mayor tamaño de estomas y SLA que B. chilense. Una frecuencia estomática mayor podría resultar en una mayor tasade intercambio de gases en los sitios abiertos para B. chilense. La fisiología de las hojas de estas especies de helechos parecedepender, en parte, de las características estomáticas