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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Costs and benefits of orthographic inconsistency in reading:evidence from a cross-linguistic comparison

We compared reading acquisition in English and Italian children up to late primary school analyzing RTs and errors as a function of various psycholinguistic variables and changes due to experience. Our results show that reading becomes progressively more reliant on larger processing units with age, but that this is modulated by consistency of the language. In English, an inconsistent orthography, reliance on larger units occurs earlier on and it is demonstrated by faster RTs, a stronger effect of lexical variables and lack of length effect (by fifth grade). However, not all English children are able to master this mode of processing yielding larger inter-individual variability. In Italian, a consistent orthography, reliance on larger units occurs later and it is less pronounced. This is demonstrated by larger length effects which remain significant even in older children and by larger effects of a global factor (related to speed of orthographic decoding) explaining changes of performance across ages. Our results show the importance of considering not only overall performance, but inter-individual variability and variability between conditions when interpreting cross-linguistic differences

Contribution of discourse and morphosyntax skills to reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic and typically developing children

This study aimed at identifying important skills for reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic children and their typically developing counterparts matched on age (CA controls) or reading level (RL controls). The children were assessed on Chinese reading comprehension, cognitive, and reading-related skills. Results showed that the dyslexic children performed significantly less well than the CA controls but similarly to RL controls in most measures. Results of multiple regression analyses showed that word-level reading-related skills like oral vocabulary and word semantics were found to be strong predictors of reading comprehension among typically developing junior graders and dyslexic readers of senior grades, whereas morphosyntax, a text-level skill, was most predictive for typically developing senior graders. It was concluded that discourse and morphosyntax skills are particularly important for reading comprehension in the non-inflectional and topic-prominent Chinese system