Dividing lines at the word boundary position helps reading in Chinese

Unlike in English, the Chinese printing and writing systems usually do not respect a word boundary when they split lines; thus, characters belonging to a word can be on two different lines. In this study, we examined whether dividing a word across two lines interferes with Chinese reading and found that reading times were shorter when characters belonging to a word were on a single line rather than on adjacent lines. Eye movement data indicated that gaze durations in a region around the word boundary were longer and fixations were closer to the beginnings and ends of the lines when words were split across lines. These results suggest that words are processed as a whole in Chinese reading, so that word boundaries should be respected when deciding how to split lines in the Chinese writing system. They also suggest that the length of return sweeps in reading can be cognitively guided.</p

The theory-of-mind network in support of action verb comprehension: Evidence from an fMRI study

The theory-of-mind (TOM) network refers to a specific group of brain regions implicated in the thinking of people&#39;s mental states. It remains unclear how this network contributes to verb comprehension. In the present study, we compared brain activations evoked by verbs that refer to social actions, private actions, and nonhuman events. All classic regions of the ToM network, including the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) whose activation during word comprehension is typically interpreted as the processing of motion properties, showed stronger activations to social action verbs than the others. These findings indicate that the ToM network is involved in the processing of social/mental knowledge of verb meanings. Furthermore, the activation of the pSTS during word comprehension mainly reflects the processing of social/mental properties but not that of biological-motion properties. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Sex differences in the association of abdominal adipose tissue and anthropometric data with untreated hypertension in a Chinese population.

BackgroundThere are inconsistent interpretations of the interrelationship of adiposity, anthropometric indices, and blood pressure (BP) in hypertensive patients. Additionally, whether these relationships differ between sexes is unknown. We aimed to elucidate the associations of adiposity indices measured using quantitative computed tomography (QCT) with BP and hypertension and to determine the effect of sex on the interrelationship of these parameters in a Chinese population.MethodsAbdominal adipose fat, including the visceral adipose tissue (VAT) area and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) area, was measured by QCT in 1488 patients (514 men, 974 women). Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), and systolic (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) were measured. Pearson correlation coefficients, multivariate analyses, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to assess the relationship and potential of adiposity indices to BP and risk of hypertension within sex groups.ResultsMen had significantly greater VAT area but less SAT area than women in hypertensive group. VAT, SAT, and WC were more highly correlated with SBP in men than in women. After controlling for body weight, height, and age, VAT area and WC were positively associated with SBP (VAT: β = 0.309, p &lt; 0.001; WC: β = 0.148, p = 0.001) and DBP (VAT: β = 0.099, p = 0.034; WC: β = 0.198, p = 0.001) in women. VAT area was positively associated with SBP (β = 0.444, p &lt; 0.001) and DBP (β = 0.146, p = 0.021) in men. WC had a significant correlation with an increased risk of hypertension in women but a borderline association in men (p = 0.059) when adjusted for VAT area and SAT area.ConclusionsThe association of abdominal adiposity with hypertension differs qualitatively by sex. WC may be an important determinant of hypertension and may be used for risk stratification for hypertension among Chinese individuals

Premotor Cortex Activation Elicited during Word Comprehension Relies on Access of Specific Action Concepts

The relationship between the lexical-semantic and sensory-motor systems is an important topic in cognitive neuroscience. An important finding indicating that these two systems interact is that reading action verbs activates the motor system of the human brain. Two constraints have been proposed to modulate this activation: the effector information associated with the action concepts and statistical regularities between sublexical features and grammatical classes. Using fMRI, we examined whether these two types of information can activate the motor system in the absence of specific motor-semantic content by manipulating the existence of a sublexical cue, called the hand radical, which strongly indicates the semantic feature &quot;hand-related&quot; and grammatical class &quot;verb.&quot; Although hand radical characters referring to specific manual actions evoked stronger activation in the premotor cortex than the control characters, hand radical pseudocharacters did not evoke specific activation within the motor system. These results indicated that activation of the premotor cortex during word reading relies on the access of specific action concepts.</p

The phonological congruency modulated long-term form priming of Chinese characters

Elucidating the interaction between lexical processing and word learning is essential for a complete understanding of the underlying mechanisms of each of them. Long-term priming for words reflects an interplay between lexical processing and word learning. Although robust long-term priming effects have been found between two occurrences of the same word and between semantically similar words, it remains unclear whether long-term priming between orthographically similar words (i.e., long-term form priming) is a reliable effect. Following the theoretical analysis based on the connectionist framework, we articulated the possibility that long-term form priming might be modulated by the phonological congruency between the prime and target words, and that if this modulator was under control, reliable effects of long-term form priming would emerge. However, this hypothesis has not been adequately tested empirically. The present study tested this hypothesis by using Chinese phonograms and the phonetic radicals embedded in them as the prime and target items. In three experiments that varied in the types of stimuli and testing tasks, we consistently found that when the prime and target had the same phonology, naming the prime facilitated later processing of the target, while when they had different phonologies, the priming effect was inhibitory. These observations were consistent with the connectionist account of long-term priming for words. Our findings help confirm the reliability, generalizability, and robustness of long-term form priming and elucidate its underlying mechanisms, and suggesting promising future directions on the interactions between lexical processing and word learning

The phonological congruency modulated long-term form priming of Chinese characters

Elucidating the interaction between lexical processing and word learning is essential for a complete understanding of the underlying mechanisms of each of them. Long-term priming for words reflects an interplay between lexical processing and word learning. Although robust long-term priming effects have been found between two occurrences of the same word and between semantically similar words, it remains unclear whether long-term priming between orthographically similar words (i.e., long-term form priming) is a reliable effect. Following the theoretical analysis based on the connectionist framework, we articulated the possibility that long-term form priming might be modulated by the phonological congruency between the prime and target words, and that if this modulator was under control, reliable effects of long-term form priming would emerge. However, this hypothesis has not been adequately tested empirically. The present study tested this hypothesis by using Chinese phonograms and the phonetic radicals embedded in them as the prime and target items. In three experiments that varied in the types of stimuli and testing tasks, we consistently found that when the prime and target had the same phonology, naming the prime facilitated later processing of the target, while when they had different phonologies, the priming effect was inhibitory. These observations were consistent with the connectionist account of long-term priming for words. Our findings help confirm the reliability, generalizability, and robustness of long-term form priming and elucidate its underlying mechanisms, and suggesting promising future directions on the interactions between lexical processing and word learning.</p

Fine Subdivisions of the Semantic Network Supporting Social and Sensory–Motor Semantic Processing

Neuroimaging studies have consistently indicated that semantic processing involves a brain network consisting of multimodal cortical regions distributed in the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes. However, little is known about how semantic information is organized and processed within the network. Some recent studies have indicated that sensorymotor semantic information modulates the activation of this network. Other studies have indicated that this network responds more to social semantic information than to other information. Using fMRI, we collectively investigated the brain activations evoked by social and sensory-motor semantic information by manipulating the sociality and imageability of verbs in a word comprehension task. We detected 2 subgroups of brain regions within the network showing sociality and imageability effects, respectively. The 2 subgroups of regions are distinct but overlap in bilateral angular gyri and adjacent middle temporal gyri. A follow-up analysis of resting-state functional connectivity showed that dissociation of the 2 subgroups of regions is partially associated with their intrinsic functional connectivity differences. Additionally, an interaction effect of sociality and imageability was observed in the left anterior temporal lobe. Our findings indicate that the multimodal cortical semantic network has fine subdivisions that process and integrate social and sensory- motor semantic information