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People take longer to determine that metaphoric sentences (e.g., some birds are flutes) are literally false compared to anomalous sentences (e.g., some birds are pickles). This metaphor interference effect (MIE) shows that metaphorical interpretations are automatically computed even in contexts and tasks that only require literal interpretations. Although a well-replicated finding, the MIE has only been investigated in sentence stimuli in which the metaphoric composition is explicitly stated (such that birds are asserted to be flutes). This raises questions about the generalizability of the MIE because (a) A is B metaphors are rare in discourse and (b) other metaphor variants, such as flute bird, are unspecified in their metaphoric composition (i.e., do not specifically assert which concept, if any, is metaphorical). In this experiment, we investigated whether metaphoric modifier-noun phrases such as flute bird and creamy sky produce a MIE. In addition, we explored if word-level semantic variables (semantic neighborhood density and concreteness) play a role in the MIE. We asked participants to determine if modifier-noun phrases refer to things that literally exist or not. We found a MIE in which metaphoric phrases (e.g., flute bird, creamy sky) took longer to judge as literally false relative to scrambled counterparts (e.g., flute sky, creamy bird). Moreover, we found that word-level semantic variables affect the magnitude of the MIE only for adjective-noun phrases. Therefore, metaphoric meaning can be automatically extracted from metaphoric compounds, suggesting that the MIE is more robust than previously demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countless conceptual metaphors related to human experience (e.g., LIFE IS A JOURNEY) have been identified and discussed in the literature. In most conceptual metaphors, a concrete, experiential source domain (e.g., JOURNEY) is used as a basis for partially structuring a more abstract target domain (e.g., LIFE). However, in some conceptual metaphors, concrete source domains (e.g., FLUID) structure target domains that are also concrete (e.g., LIGHT). Such concrete conceptual metaphors are relatively infrequent and have generally received less attention in the literature compared to abstract conceptual metaphors. In this paper, we argue that AIR is metaphorically understood in terms of another experiential domain; namely, WATER. This hydro-aero mapping we introduce is characterized by three particular conceptual metaphors; AIR MOTION IS WATER MOTION, MOVING IN AIR IS MOVING IN WATER, and AIR TRAVEL IS SEA TRAVEL. Furthermore, the hydro-aero mapping is instantiated by numerous compound and non-compound words. We show how the hydro-aero mapping can be historically traced in the English language by using the Oxford English Dictionary. Finally, we describe how the hydro-aero mapping, along with other concrete mappings, is critical for communication, aligns with theoretical approaches to metaphorical cognition, and raises considerable questions regarding the nature of metaphorical structuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three experiments using a spelling error detection task investigated the extent to which morphemes and pseudomorphemes affect word processing. We compared the processing of transparent compound words (e.g., doorbell), pseudocompound words (e.g., carpet), and matched control words (e.g., tomato). In half of the compound and pseudocompound words, spelling errors were created by transposing adjacent letters and in half of the control words, errors were created by transposing letters at the same location as the matched compound or pseudocompound words. Correctly spelled compound words were more easily processed than matched control words, but this advantage was removed when letter transpositions were introduced at the morpheme boundary. In contrast, misspelled pseudocompound words showed a processing deficit relative to their matched control words when letter transpositions were introduced at the (pseudo)morpheme boundary. The results strongly suggest that morphological processing is attempted obligatorily when the orthography indicates that morphological structure is present. However, the outcomes of the morphological processing attempts are different for compounds and pseudocompounds, as might be expected, given that only the compounds have a morphological structure that matches the structure suggested by the orthography. The findings reflect 2 effects: an orthographic effect that is facilitatory and not sensitive to morphological structure of the whole word, and a morphemic effect that is facilitatory for compounds but inhibitory for pseudocompounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Large Database of English Pseudo-compounds (LaDEP) contains nearly 7500 English words which mimic, but do not truly possess, a compound morphemic structure. These pseudo-compounds can be parsed into two free morpheme constituents (e.g., car-pet), but neither constituent functions as a morpheme within the overall word structure. The items were manually coded as pseudo-compounds, further coded for features related to their morphological structure (e.g., presence of multiple affixes, as in ruler-ship), and summarized using common psycholinguistic variables (e.g., length, frequency). This paper also presents an example analysis comparing the lexical decision response times between compound words, pseudo-compound words, and monomorphemic words. Pseudo-compounds and monomorphemic words did not differ in response time, and both groups had slower response times than compound words. This analysis replicates the facilitatory effect of compound constituents during lexical processing, and demonstrates the need to emphasize the pseudo-constituent structure of pseudo-compounds to parse their effects. Further applications of LaDEP include both psycholinguistic studies investigating the nature of human word processing or production and educational or clinical settings evaluating the impact of linguistic features on language learning and impairments. Overall, the items within LaDEP provide a varied and representative sample of the population of English pseudo-compounds which may be used to facilitate further research related to morphological decomposition, lexical access, meaning construction, orthographical influences, and much more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many languages, compounding is a fundamental process for the generation of novel words. When this process is productive (as, e.g., in English), native speakers can juxtapose two words to create novel compounds that can be readily understood by other speakers. The present paper proposes a large-scale, data-driven computational system for compound semantic processing based on distributional semantics, the CAOSS model (Compounding as Abstract Operation in Semantic Space). In CAOSS, word meanings are represented as vectors encoding their lexical co-occurrences in a reference corpus. Given two constituent words, their composed representation (the compound) is computed by using matrices representing the abstract properties of constituent roles (modifier vs. head). The matrices are also induced through examples of language usage. The model is then validated against behavioral results concerning the processing of novel compounds, and in particular relational effects on response latencies. The effects of relational priming and relational dominance are considered. CAOSS predictions are shown to pattern with previous results, in terms of both the impact of relational information and the dissociations related to the different constituent roles. The simulations indicate that relational information is implicitly reflected in language usage, suggesting that human speakers can learn these aspects from language experience and automatically apply them to the processing of new word combinations. The present model is flexible enough to emulate this procedure, suggesting that relational effects might emerge as a by-product of nuanced operations across distributional patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces various topics covered in the issue including spatial cognition, numerosity, and communication.

Theories of multimorphemic word recognition generally posit that constituent representations are involved in accessing the whole multimorphemic word. Gagné et al. (2018) found that pseudoconstituents and constituents become available when processing pseudocompound and compound masked primes (e.g., sea is activated in season and seabird). Across four experiments, we examine whether readers access the semantic information of such pseudoconstituents and constituents. Experiments 1 and 2 show that masked pseudocompound and compound primes do not influence lexical decision responses to semantic associates of their pseudoconstituents or constituents (e.g., seabird and season do not influence processing of ocean, an associate of sea). Experiments 3 and 4 show that an associate of the first constituent does not influence processing of the pseudocompound but does facilitate processing of the compound (e.g., ocean facilitates processing of seabird but not of season). While compounds have been found to be sensitive to the activation of their constituents via semantic priming (e.g., El-Bialy et al., 2013; Sandra, 1990), our findings suggest that primarily morphological, rather than semantic, activation of the constituents occurs in a masked priming paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the attractiveness of scientific realism as a philosophical underpinning providing a realist interpretation of psychology. We begin by discussing how psychology arrived at scientific realism as a kind of default position, and discuss some of the advantages of scientific realism relative to non-realist philosophical approaches to psychology. We then raise several potential problems with the naïve adoption of scientific realism for psychology. We argue that these problems show that scientific realism cannot provide a coherent and comprehensive realist underpinning for psychology, and that scientific realism, if taken seriously, has some quite pernicious effects on the field. In particular, scientific realism would divide all of psychology into the scientific and the non-scientific. However, because scientific realism has no clear criteria for what counts as scientific, this distinction, in practice, tends to collapse into a naïve materialist reductionism. We then describe Aristotelian–Thomistic (A–T) realism, and show how it might be adopted to provide a more coherent and comprehensive philosophical underpinning for psychology. We show that the A–T approach avoids the problems that we identified with scientific realism as a philosophical underpinning for psychology. Importantly, unlike scientific realism, the A–T approach maintains a clear realist orientation while providing clear principles for understanding the extent to which humans have epistemological access to reality by matching appropriate methods of inquiry for various subjects of rational inquiry, rather than elevating the scientific method to the status of a principle. Thus, we argue that the A–T approach could provide a solidly realist philosophical underpinning to the whole field of psychology that does not suffer from the defects common to the naïve acceptance of scientific realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Six lexical decision experiments were conducted to examine the influence of complex structure on the processing speed of English compounds. All experiments revealed that semantically transparent compounds (e.g., rosebud) were processed more quickly than matched monomorphemic words (e.g., giraffe). Opaque compounds (e.g., hogwash) were also processed more quickly than monomorphemic words. However, when the experimental materials and/or procedure encouraged decomposition/integration, this advantage disappeared. This research suggests that morphological decomposition initiated by the existence of complex structure results in the availability of both the lexical and semantic representations of compound constituents, regardless of whether the compounds are transparent or opaque, and that meaning composition is attempted. This meaning composition further speeds up transparent compound processing beyond lexical facilitation but slows down opaque compound processing because the computed meaning for opaque compounds conflicts with the retrieved meaning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

When a metaphor is first encountered (lawyers are sharks), several meanings are activated, but the literal ones (lawyers have fins) need to be inhibited to successfully compute the figurative meaning (lawyers are aggressive). With repeated exposure that metaphor becomes conventionalized, and its figurative meaning may be easily accessible without the need to inhibit the corresponding literal meaning. Thus, a central question in the field, and the objective of the current project, relates to how metaphor conventionality and inhibitory control contribute to metaphor comprehension. Participants completed a sense–nonsense task in which they indicated whether metaphorical and literal phrases had sensible meanings. In Experiment 1, participants also completed an inhibitory control task that assessed their ability to inhibit task-irrelevant responses. Participants with lower inhibitory control were slower at responding to more novel metaphors and faster at responding to more conventional metaphors compared with participants with higher inhibitory control. In Experiment 2, we used a dual-task paradigm to reduce participants' inhibitory control resources while performing the sense–nonsense task. Participants completed the sense–nonsense task concurrently with a different secondary task. This assessed their ability to evaluate phrases under low and high inhibitory load conditions. Performance on the sense–nonsense task was higher when processing more conventional than more novel metaphors when participants' inhibitory control processes were taxed in the high load condition. These findings suggest that inhibitory control does play a role in metaphor comprehension—the less conventional a metaphor, the more inhibitory skills are required to compute the figurative meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyzed the processing of noun-noun metaphors (e.g., velvet lips), which have been relatively understudied, compared to other types of figurative expressions, such as X is Y metaphors (e.g., Her lips are velvet) and similes (e.g., Her lips are like velvet). Experiment 1 revealed that noun-noun metaphors are semantically comparable to X is Y metaphors and similes, in the sense that the figurative meaning stays the same across these three different formats (e.g., participants agree to similar degrees that Lips are velvet, Lips are like velvetand velvet lips all mean that lips are soft). Experiment 2 showed that noun-noun metaphors behave similarly to compound words: In the same way that compound words with semantically opaque heads (e.g., jailbird) are processed slower than compounds with transparent heads (e.g., strawberry), noun-noun phrases with metaphorical heads (e.g., relationship patch) are processed slower than noun-noun phrases with literal heads and metaphorical modifiers (e.g., bandaidsolution). Experiment 3 determined that noun-noun metaphors behave similarly to X is Y metaphors: In the same way that X is Y metaphors require the inhibition of irrelevant features (e.g., Some barrels are wooden interferes with the interpretation of Some stomachs are barrels because the former activates irrelevant features of barrel that later need to be suppressed), noun-noun metaphors also involve inhibition (e.g., jean patch interferes with the interpretation of relationship patch because the former activates certain features of patch, such as being made of cloth, that are irrelevant for the proper comprehension of the noun-noun metaphor). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies of noun-noun compound word processing have provided insight into the human capacity for conceptual combination (Gagné and Shoben Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23(1), 71 1997; Spalding, Gagné, Mullaly & Ji Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft, 17, 283-315 2010). These studies conclude that relational interpretations of compound words are proposed and appraised by the language system during online word recognition. However, little is known about how the capacity for creating new meanings from existing conceptual units develops within an individual mind. Though current theories imply that individual relational knowledge about the combinability of concepts develops as language experience accumulates, this hypothesis has not been previously tested experimentally. Here, we addressed this hypothesis in a task that assesses individual relational knowledge of English compound words. We report that greater experience with printed language shapes relational knowledge of compound words in two ways. Firstly, individuals with more experience with printed language were able to select a greater number of possible relational meanings for individual compound words. Secondly, individuals with greater experience with printed language were also more precise about which relational meaning was the most semantically plausible out of all possible meanings. Our results confirm that language experience affects an individual’s ability to use relational knowledge in order to combine conceptual units. Our findings offer further support for the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti, 2007), which states that lexical representations of words become simultaneously more flexible and precise as a result of repeated exposure to their orthographic forms in language usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has suggested that the conceptual representation of a compound is based on a relational structure linking the compound's constituents. Existing accounts of the visual recognition of modifier-head or noun-noun compounds posit that the process involves the selection of a relational structure out of a set of competing relational structures associated with the same compound. In this article, we employ the information-theoretic metric of entropy to gauge relational competition and investigate its effect on the visual identification of established English compounds. The data from two lexical decision megastudies indicates that greater entropy (i.e., increased competition) in a set of conceptual relations associated with a compound is associated with longer lexical decision latencies. This finding indicates that there exists competition between potential meanings associated with the same complex word form. We provide empirical support for conceptual composition during compound word processing in a model that incorporates the effect of the integration of co-activated and competing relational information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embedded morphemes are thought to become available during the processing of multi-morphemic words, and impact access to the whole word. According to the edge-aligned embedded word activation theory Grainger & Beyersmann, (2017), embedded morphemes receive activation when the whole word can be decomposed into constituent morphemes. Thus, interfering with morphological decomposition also interferes with access to the embedded morphemes. Numerous studies have examined the effects of interfering with boundary and constituent-internal letters on morphological decomposition by comparing the effect of transposing letters at the morphemic boundary to constituent-internal letters. These studies, which report inconsistent findings, have typically used derived multi-morphemic words (e.g., cleaner), and sometimes use a control replacement letter condition that is not matched to the transposed letter conditions in terms of location. Across five experiments, we test the edge-aligned activation theory by examining the effects of replacing and transposing boundary and constituent-internal letters of compounds. Our findings suggest that replacing boundary letters interferes with access to both embedded constituents, while replacing constituent-internal letters still allows for access to the unaltered constituent, thus compensating for the interference in the altered constituent. Our findings are consistent with the edge-aligned theory with respect to letter replacement, and also imply that letter replacement must match the position of letter transposition when it is used as a control condition., (© 2023. The Psychonomic Society, Inc.)

We investigated whether writing direction and language activation influence how bilingual speakers map time onto space. More specifically, we investigated how Arabic-English bilingual speakers conceived where (e.g., on the left or on the right) different time periods (e.g., past, present, future) were located, depending on whether they were tested in Arabic (a language that is written from right to left) or in English (a language that is written from left to right). To analyze this, participants were given a task that involved arranging cards depicting different scenes of a story in chronological order. Results show that, when tested in Arabic, participants were significantly more likely to use right-to-left arrangements (following the Arabic writing direction), compared to when tested in English., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Park, Gagné and Spalding.)

Typing slows at the middle of the word. The exact nature of the slowdown is still disputed. Research on attentional and motoric effects in typing suggests that the slowdown is purely a function of chunking of letters in creating the motor output; this approach posits no further influence of linguistic information during output. Research from a psycholinguistic perspective does posit lexical and sublexical effects during output and explains the midword slowing as a function of slowdowns at the boundaries of sublexical units. Across four experiments, using three different typing tasks, we investigated the typing of compound (schoolteacher) and pseudocompound ( carpet ) words. Typing at the midword region is sensitive to the morphological structure of the word and to linguistic properties of the word and its (pseudo)constituents (e.g., linguistic information about school and teacher affects schoolteacher , and car and pet affects carpet ). These findings suggest that typing compounds involves a hierarchical plan consisting of two separate motor plans for each constituent executed sequentially such that the output of letters is sensitive to the number of letters within that plan, the position of the sequence in the hierarchy (e.g., first vs. second constituent), and the morphemic structure of the to-be-typed word. Surprisingly, given that pseudocompound lexical representations should not include the pseudoconstituents and given that our tasks in the first three experiments demand full access to the lexical representation before typing, pseudocompound typing is also sensitive to the pseudoconstituent characteristics, suggesting that, during typing, the system attempts to build a compound-like structure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Large Database of English Compounds (LADEC) consists of over 8,000 English words that can be parsed into two constituents that are free morphemes, making it the largest existing database specifically for use in research on compound words. Both monomorphemic (e.g., wheel) and multimorphemic (e.g., teacher) constituents were used. The items were selected from a range of sources, including CELEX, the English Lexicon Project, the British Lexicon Project, the British National Corpus, and Wordnet, and were hand-coded as compounds (e.g., snowball). Participants rated each compound in terms of how predictable its meaning is from its parts, as well as the extent to which each constituent retains its meaning in the compound. In addition, we obtained linguistic characteristics that might influence compound processing (e.g., frequency, family size, and bigram frequency). To show the usefulness of the database in investigating compound processing, we conducted a number of analyses that showed that compound processing is consistently affected by semantic transparency, as well as by many of the other variables included in LADEC. We also showed that the effects of the variables associated with the two constituents are not symmetric. In short, LADEC provides the opportunity for researchers to investigate a number of questions about compounds that have not been possible to investigate in the past, due to the lack of sufficiently large and robust datasets. In addition to directly allowing researchers to test hypotheses using the information included in LADEC, the database will contribute to future compound research by allowing better stimulus selection and matching.

We used a typing task to measure the written production of compounds, pseudocompounds, and monomorphemic words on a letter-by-letter basis to determine whether written production (as measured by interletter typing speed) was affected by morphemic structure and semantic transparency of the constituents. Semantic transparency was analyzed using a dichotomous classification (opaque vs. transparent) as well as participant ratings. Our results indicate that written production is sensitive to morphemic structure and to the semantic transparency of the first constituent. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)

Recent research shows that the judged likelihood of properties of modified nouns (baby ducks have webbed feet) is reduced relative to judgments for unmodified nouns (ducks have webbed feet). This modification effect has been taken as evidence both for and against the idea that combined concepts automatically inherit properties from their constituent concepts. Experiments 1 and 2 replicate this effect and demonstrate a reversed modification effect with false properties. That is, false properties are judged more likely with modification (e.g., purple candles have teeth is judged more likely than candles have teeth). These experiments also show that properties that are neither generically true nor false are unaffected by modification. Experiments 3 and 4 manipulate participants' expectation of contrast by showing modified and unmodified nouns that either match or mismatch in terms of a property and show that the judged likelihood of properties depends on the expectations of contrast set up by the manipulation. These results show that the modification effect is primarily driven by participants' understanding of the relation of subcategories to categories, rather than by the features of the concepts being combined, suggesting that the process of property attribution in combined concepts is strongly affected by pragmatic factors and is less strongly dependent on conceptual content than most theories of conceptual combination would suggest., ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)