Word naming slows picture naming but does not affect cumulative semantic interference

Two experiments are reported which investigate the effect of processing words prior to naming target pictures. In Experiment 1, participants named (read aloud) sequences of five printed prime words and five target pictures from the same semantic category, and also sequences of five prime words from a different unrelated semantic category to the five related target pictures. Picture and words were interleaved, with two unrelated filler stimuli in between prime and target stimuli (i.e. a lag of 3 between primes and targets). Results showed that across the five target picture naming trials (i.e. across ordinal position of picture), picture naming times increased linearly, replicating the cumulative semantic interference (CSI) effect (e.g., Howard, Nickels, Coltheart, & Cole-Virtue, 2006). Related prime words slowed picture naming, replicating the effects found in paired word prime and picture target studies (e.g., Tree & Hirsh, 2003). However, the naming of the five related prime words did not modify the picture naming CSI effect, with this null result converging with findings from a different word and picture design (e.g., Navarrete, Mahon, & Caramazza, 2010). In Experiment 2, participants categorised the prime word stimuli as manmade versus natural, so that words were more fully processed at a conceptual level. The interaction between word prime relatedness and ordinal position of the named target picture was significant. These results are consistent with adjustments at the conceptual level (Belke, 2013; Roelofs, 2018) which last over several trials at least. By contrast, we conclude that the distinct word-to-picture naming interference effect from Experiment 1 must originate outside of the conceptual level and outside of the mappings between semantics and lexical representations. We discuss the results with reference to recent theoretical accounts of the CSI picture naming effect and word naming models

A Trade-Off between Somatosensory and Auditory Related Brain Activity during Object Naming But Not Reading.

The parietal operculum, particularly the cytoarchitectonic area OP1 of the secondary somatosensory area (SII), is involved in somatosensory feedback. Using fMRI with 58 human subjects, we investigated task-dependent differences in SII/OP1 activity during three familiar speech production tasks: object naming, reading and repeatedly saying "1-2-3." Bilateral SII/OP1 was significantly suppressed (relative to rest) during object naming, to a lesser extent when repeatedly saying "1-2-3" and not at all during reading. These results cannot be explained by task difficulty but the contrasting difference between naming and reading illustrates how the demands on somatosensory activity change with task, even when motor output (i.e., production of object names) is matched. To investigate what determined SII/OP1 deactivation during object naming, we searched the whole brain for areas where activity increased as that in SII/OP1 decreased. This across subject covariance analysis revealed a region in the right superior temporal sulcus (STS) that lies within the auditory cortex, and is activated by auditory feedback during speech production. The tradeoff between activity in SII/OP1 and STS was not observed during reading, which showed significantly more activation than naming in both SII/OP1 and STS bilaterally. These findings suggest that, although object naming is more error prone than reading, subjects can afford to rely more or less on somatosensory or auditory feedback during naming. In contrast, fast and efficient error-free reading places more consistent demands on both types of feedback, perhaps because of the potential for increased competition between lexical and sublexical codes at the articulatory level

Knowing about and Performing Professionalism: Developing Professionalism in Interprofessional Healthcare Education

Professionalism, and the ways in which it can be developed and maintained, has a high profile in today's health and social care climate. It is becoming increasingly important that higher education institutions develop ways of making teaching about the concept explicit; yet, teaching professionalism can be challenging for a number of reasons. Constructs of professionalism frequently represent character traits and attitudes rather than behaviours, which by definition makes them difficult to teach and potentially problematic to learn. Students of the School of Rehabilitation Sciences (RSC) within the University of East Anglia (UEA) have been using a Professionalism Charter since 2011. The purpose of the charter is to define the construct of professionalism for RSC students, to provide a tangible framework around which professionalism can be structured, to enable students to map changes in their professional attitudes, behaviours, knowledge and skills and to highlight areas for development. Evaluation of the charter has demonstrated that it is helpful in providing a reference point for best practice. Refinements are necessary, but the indications are that it has the potential to facilitate students' understanding of (knowing about) professionalism and provides them with opportunities to actively engage (perform) in practice

Semantic priming over unrelated trials: evidence for different effects in word and picture naming

Two naming experiments are reported that replicated previous findings of semantic interference as a result of naming related word or picture primes three trials before picture targets. We also examined whether semantic interference occurred when the materials were reversed and picture or word primes were named before word targets. The interest in semantic interference during word naming followed a suggestion made by Humphreys, Lloyd-Jones, and Fias (1995) that word naming, like picture naming, may be reliant on a semantic route to name retrieval when the two stimuli are mixed. In contrast to their findings, we found no evidence for semantic interference during target word naming; in fact, we found facilitation from related picture primes. No priming was found for the related word prime and word target condition. The data allow us to rule out the possibility that word naming is reliant on a semantic route when mixed with pictures in this priming paradigm and to conclude that there is no clear evidence of semantic activation during word naming. We also conclude, in line with other research, that word naming and picture naming involve different processes

Temporal characteristics of semantic perseverations induced by blocked-cyclic picture naming

When unimpaired participants name pictures quickly, they produce many perseverations that bear a semantic relation to the target, especially when the pictures are blocked by category. Evidence suggests that the temporal properties of these "semantic perseverations" may differ from typical lexical perseverations in aphasia. To explore this, we studied semantic perseverations generated by participants with aphasia on a naming task with semantic blocking [Schnur, T. T., Schwartz, M. F., Brecher, A., & Hodgson, C. (2006). Semantic interference during blocked-cyclic naming: Evidence from aphasia. Journal of Memory and Language, 54, 199-227]. The properties of these perseverations were investigated by analyzing how often they occurred at each lag (distance from prior occurrence) and how time (response-stimulus interval) influenced the lag function. Chance data sets were created by reshuffling stimulus-response pairs in a manner that preserved unique features of the blocking design. We found that the semantic blocking manipulation did not eliminate the expected bias for short-lag perseverations (recency bias). However, immediate (lag 1) perseverations were not invariably the most frequent, which hints at a source of inconsistency within and across studies. Importantly, there was not a reliable difference between the lag functions for perseverations generated with a 5 s, compared to 1 s, responsestimulus interval. The combination of recency bias and insensitivity to elapsed time indicates that the perseveratory impetus in a named response does not passively decay with time but rather is diminished by interference from related trials. We offer an incremental learning account of these findings

Remembering 'zeal' but not 'thing':reverse frequency effects as a consequence of deregulated semantic processing

More efficient processing of high frequency (HF) words is a ubiquitous finding in healthy individuals, yet frequency effects are often small or absent in stroke aphasia. We propose that some patients fail to show the expected frequency effect because processing of HF words places strong demands on semantic control and regulation processes, counteracting the usual effect. This may occur because HF words appear in a wide range of linguistic contexts, each associated with distinct semantic information. This theory predicts that in extreme circumstances, patients with impaired semantic control should show an outright reversal of the normal frequency effect. To test this prediction, we tested two patients with impaired semantic control with a delayed repetition task that emphasised activation of semantic representations. By alternating HF and low frequency (LF) trials, we demonstrated a significant repetition advantage for LF words, principally because of perseverative errors in which patients produced the previous LF response in place of the HF target. These errors indicated that HF words were more weakly activated than LF words. We suggest that when presented with no contextual information, patients generate a weak and unstable pattern of semantic activation for HF words because information relating to many possible contexts and interpretations is activated. In contrast, LF words tend are associated with more stable patterns of activation because similar semantic information is activated whenever they are encountered

Does normal processing provide evidence of specialised semantic subsystems?

Category-specific disorders are frequently explained by suggesting that living and non-living things are processed in separate subsystems (e.g. Caramazza & Shelton, 1998). If subsystems exist, there should be benefits for normal processing, beyond the influence of structural similarity. However, no previous study has separated the relative influences of similarity and semantic category. We created novel examples of living and non-living things so category and similarity could be manipulated independently. Pre-tests ensured that our images evoked appropriate semantic information and were matched for familiarity. Participants were trained to associate names with the images and then performed a name-verification task under two levels of time pressure. We found no significant advantage for living things alongside strong effects of similarity. Our results suggest that similarity rather than category is the key determinant of speed and accuracy in normal semantic processing. We discuss the implications of this finding for neuropsychological studies. © 2005 Psychology Press Ltd

Long-term repetition priming and semantic interference in a lexical-semantic matching task: tapping the links between object names and colors

Using a novel paradigm to engage the long-term mappings between object names and the prototypical colours for objects, we investigated the retrieval of object-colour knowledge as indexed by long-term priming (the benefit in performance from a prior encounter with the same or a similar stimulus); a process about which little is known. We examined priming from object naming on a lexical-semantic matching task. In the matching task participants encountered a visually presented object name (Experiment 1) or object shape (Experiment 2) paired with either a colour patch or colour name. The pairings could either match whereby both were consistent with a familiar object (e.g., strawberry and red) or mismatch (strawberry and blue). We used the matching task to probe knowledge about familiar objects and their colours pre-activated during object naming. In particular, we examined whether the retrieval of object-colour information was modality-specific and whether this influenced priming. Priming varied with the nature of the retrieval process: object-colour priming arose for object names but not object shapes and beneficial effects of priming were observed for colour patches whereas inhibitory priming arose with colour names. These findings have implications for understanding how object knowledge is retrieved from memory and modified by learning

Time for a quick word? The striking benefits of training speed and accuracy of word retrieval in post-stroke aphasia

One-third of stroke survivors experience deficits in word retrieval as a core characteristic of their aphasia, which is frustrating, socially limiting and disabling for their professional and everyday lives. The, as yet, undiscovered ‘holy grail’ of clinical practice is to establish a treatment that not only improves item naming, but also generalizes to patients’ connected speech. Speech production in healthy participants is a remarkable feat of cognitive processing being both rapid (at least 120 words per minute) and accurate (∼one error per 1000 words). Accordingly, we tested the hypothesis that word-finding treatment will only be successful and generalize to connected speech if word retrieval is both accurate and quick. This study compared a novel combined speed- and accuracy-focused intervention—‘repeated, increasingly-speeded production’—to standard accuracy-focused treatment. Both treatments were evaluated for naming, connected speech outcomes, and related to participants’ neuropsychological and lesion profiles. Twenty participants with post-stroke chronic aphasia of varying severity and subtype took part in 12 computer-based treatment sessions over 6 weeks. Four carefully matched word sets were randomly allocated either to the speed- and accuracy-focused treatment, standard accuracy-only treatment, or untreated (two control sets). In the standard treatment, sound-based naming cues facilitated naming accuracy. The speed- and accuracy-focused treatment encouraged naming to become gradually quicker, aiming towards the naming time of age-matched controls. The novel treatment was significantly more effective in improving and maintaining picture naming accuracy and speed (reduced latencies). Generalization of treated vocabulary to connected speech was significantly increased for all items relative to the baseline. The speed- and accuracy-focused treatment generated substantial and significantly greater deployment of targeted items in connected speech. These gains were maintained at 1-month post-intervention. There was a significant negative correlation for the speed- and accuracy-focused treatment between the patients’ phonological scores and the magnitude of the therapy effect, which may have reflected the fact that the substantial beneficial effect of the novel treatment generated a ceiling effect in the milder patients. Maintenance of the speed- and accuracy-treatment effect correlated positively with executive skills. The neural correlate analyses revealed that participants with the greatest damage to the posterior superior temporal gyrus extending into the white matter of the inferior longitudinal fasciculus, showed the greatest speed- and accuracy treatment benefit. The novel treatment was well tolerated by participants across the range of severity and aphasia subtype, indicating that this type of intervention has considerable clinical utility and broad applicability