Stress Priming in Reading and the Selective Modulation of Lexical and Sub-Lexical Pathways

Four experiments employed a priming methodology to investigate different mechanisms of stress assignment and how they are modulated by lexical and sub-lexical mechanisms in reading aloud in Italian. Lexical stress is unpredictable in Italian, and requires lexical look-up. The most frequent stress pattern (Dominant) is on the penultimate syllable [laVOro (work)], while stress on the antepenultimate syllable [MAcchina (car)] is relatively less frequent (non-Dominant). Word and pseudoword naming responses primed by words with non-dominant stress – which require whole-word knowledge to be read correctly – were compared to those primed by nonwords. Percentage of errors to words and percentage of dominant stress responses to nonwords were measured. In Experiments 1 and 2 stress errors increased for non-dominant stress words primed by nonwords, as compared to when they were primed by words. The results could be attributed to greater activation of sub-lexical codes, and an associated tendency to assign the dominant stress pattern by default in the nonword prime condition. Alternatively, they may have been the consequence of prosodic priming, inducing more errors on trials in which the stress pattern of primes and targets was not congruent. The two interpretations were investigated in Experiments 3 and 4. The results overall suggested a limited role of the default metrical pattern in word pronunciation, and showed clear effect of prosodic priming, but only when the sub-lexical mechanism prevailed

Does Sleep Improve Your Grammar? : Preferential Consolidation of Arbitrary Components of New Linguistic Knowledge

We examined the role of sleep-related memory consolidation processes in learning new form-meaning mappings. Specifically, we examined a Complementary Learning Systems account, which implies that sleep-related consolidation should be more beneficial for new hippocampally dependent arbitrary mappings (e.g. new vocabulary items) relative to new systematic mappings (e.g. grammatical regularities), which can be better encoded neocortically. The hypothesis was tested using a novel language with an artificial grammatical gender system. Stem-referent mappings implemented arbitrary aspects of the new language, and determiner/suffix+natural gender mappings implemented systematic aspects (e.g. tib scoiffesh + ballerina, tib mofeem + bride; ked jorool + cowboy, ked heefaff + priest). Importantly, the determiner-gender and the suffix-gender mappings varied in complexity and salience, thus providing a range of opportunities to detect beneficial effects of sleep for this type of mapping. Participants were trained on the new language using a word-picture matching task, and were tested after a 2-hour delay which included sleep or wakefulness. Participants in the sleep group outperformed participants in the wake group on tests assessing memory for the arbitrary aspects of the new mappings (individual vocabulary items), whereas we saw no evidence of a sleep benefit in any of the tests assessing memory for the systematic aspects of the new mappings: Participants in both groups extracted the salient determiner-natural gender mapping, but not the more complex suffix-natural gender mapping. The data support the predictions of the complementary systems account and highlight the importance of the arbitrariness/systematicity dimension in the consolidation process for declarative memories

Achilles Assistance Device as a Passive Ankle Foot Orthosis for Achilles Tendon Injuries

An Achilles tendon injury can be devastating. Surgical methods to bring the muscle to full strength are not always available. Proposed is an ankle foot orthosis (AFO) that is entirely passive (does not add energy to the system) and uses the mechanical advantages provided by the walking gait of a person to decrease the energy exerted by the Achilles tendon during locomotion. The device is an exoskeleton consisting of two eccentric cams located near the knee joint that connect to extension springs. A lever arm extending horizontally from the ankle loads and unloads the springs through a lightweight twine. The main advantages of this AFO can be seen in cost, manufacturability, and adaptability. The AFO will be constructed from off-the-shelf parts purchasable through worldwide distributors and from rigid plastic components fabricated through additive manufacturing processes. This allows for a low cost, easily constructible exoskeleton that can be “printed” in any location. Furthermore, the spring/cam system mimics the advantages found in compound bows. The spring is extended during the locomotion phase where gravity and forward momentum are the driving loading forces. The result is a system that provides force in parallel with the Achilles tendon when its force exertion is at a maximum. All parameters of the device can be adjusted to fit any sized person and any severity Achilles injury. This Achilles assistance device bridges the gap between expensive conservative solutions and lengthy rehabilitation processes for Achilles tendon injuries

Are morphological effects modulated by semantic similarity?A study of priming in Quebec French

Graded effects in morphological processing have beenshown in lexical decision tasks in English (e.g.,Gonnerman et al., 2007; Quémart et al., 2017).However, most studies in other languages support adecomposition view of the processing of complexwords (e.g., Longtin and Meunier, 2005). To determinewhether graded priming effects for morphologicallycomplex words can be found in other languages,Quebec French speakers participated in a cross-modallexical decision task in which auditory primes varied indegree of semantic similarity with visual targets (e.g.,bergerie-berge; infirmerie-infirme; fromagerie-fromage). Results indicate that morphological primingrequires the prime and target to be both semanticallyand phonologically similar, with semantic similaritymodulating priming effects in morphologically relatedwords. This pattern of results is similar to gradedmorphological priming previously reported for Englishand supports an emergentist view of morphologicalprocessing (Gonnerman et al., 2007)

Graded morphological processing in French

Understanding how morphologically complex words are processed is crucial to understanding the structure of the mental lexicon. Decomposition accounts of morphological processing receive the most support within the psycholinguistic literature, although some of these accounts have difficulty with words where the morphological status is unclear (e.g., hardly; grocer). These issues of murky morphology may be better accounted for by learning models of processing such as emergentist or discriminative models that derive morphological relationships from semantic and phonologically consistent regularities among words. Graded morphological priming effects have been demonstrated in English which support learning accounts of lexical processing (Gonnerman et al., 2007; Quémart et al., 2018). In this study, we examine semantic similarity and processing of morphologically complex words in Quebec French to determine whether graded effects can be found in other languages, and in particular in a language with a richer morphological system than English. Results reveal graded semantic similarity and graded morphological priming effects supporting an emergentist account of lexical processing

Improving Philosophical Dialogue Interventions to Better Resolve Problematic Value Pluralism in Collaborative Environmental Science

Environmental problems often outstrip the abilities of any single scientist to understand, much less address them. As a result, collaborations within, across, and beyond the environmental sciences are an increasingly important part of the environmental science landscape. Here, we explore an insufficiently recognized and particularly challenging barrier to collaborative environmental science: value pluralism, the presence of non-trivial differences in the values that collaborators bring to bear on project decisions. We argue that resolving the obstacles posed by value pluralism to collaborative environmental science requires detecting and coordinating the underlying problematic value differences. We identify five ways that a team might coordinate their problematic value differences and argue that, whichever mode is adopted, it ought to be governed by participatory virtues, pragmatic resolve, and moral concern. Relying on our experiences with the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative, as well as with other dialogical approaches that support team inquiry, we defend the claim that philosophical dialogue among collaborators can go a long way towards helping teams of environmental scientists and fellow travelers detect their problematic value differences. Where dialogical approaches fare less well is in helping teams coordinate these differences. We close by describing several principles for augmenting philosophical dialogue with other methods, and we list several of these methods in an appendix with brief descriptions and links for further learning. Overall, the article makes three main contributions to the research collaboration and values in science literatures: (1) It deepens our understanding of problematic value pluralism in team science; (2) It provides actionable guidance and methods for improving values-oriented philosophical dialogue interventions; and (3) It demonstrates one way of doing engaged philosophy