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The present study presents a standardized database of 348 affective in the Greek language, including pleasant and unpleasant nouns and adjectives, and neutral adjectives in Greek language. The norms are based on the ratings made by 229 native Greek speaking young adults on affective (emotionality, valence, arousal, dominance) and psycho-linguistic dimensions (ambiguity, abstraction, imageability, familiarity) of the words. The words were selected and translated from four different sources, including the Affective Norms for English words (Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1999). Affective norms for English words (ANEW): Instruction manual and affective ratings. Technical report C-1, the center for research in psychophysiology), the Affective Norms for Polish words (Imbir, Behavior Research Methods 47:860-870, 2015), the Norms of valence and arousal for English words (Warriner et al., Behavior Research Methods 45:1191-1207, 2013) and from the Greek lexicon of New Greek Language (Mpampiniotis, Leksiko tis Neas Ellinikis Glossas (Dictionary of the Contemporary Greek Language), Kentro Leksikologias, Athens, 2002). The participants assessed an average of 70 words through an online survey procedure. Results present the affective and psycholinguistic features of the words. Also, results provide associations between affective and psycholinguistic aspects of the word stimuli. Hence, the study produces insights on the effects of psycho-linguistic parameters of word stimuli on the affective ones and their interactions, by combining evaluations of valence and arousal and/or including ratings for affective and psycholinguistic dimensions of the words. As such, the current study offers a valuable resource that enables researchers working with Greek speaking populations to control or manipulate the affective or psycho-linguistic dimensions of words in different experimental paradigms, adjust them to specific experimental questions or issues of interest, and extract more accurate findings and conclusions. The newly developed database is freely available for researchers and can be found here: http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.5079, Author(s): Potheini Vaiouli [sup.1] , Maria Panteli [sup.1] , Georgia Panayiotou [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.6603.3, 0000000121167908, Department of Psychology and Center for Applied Neuroscience, University of Cyprus, , New [...]

Purpose: The graphic symbol is the foundation of augmentative and alternative communication (AaC) for many preliterate individuals; however, research has focused primarily on static graphic symbol sequences despite mainstream commercial technologies such as animation. The goal of this study was to compare static and animated symbol sequences across receptive communication outcome measures and psycholinguistic features (e.g., word frequency). Method: A counterbalanced, 2 * 2 * 2 mixed design was used to investigate the effects of symbol format (animated and static), first condition (animated or static), and first experimental task (identification or labeling) on identification accuracy and labeling accuracy of graphic symbol sequences (five symbols) in 24 children with typical development ages 7 and 8 years old. Additionally, three 2 * 2 repeated-measures analyses of variance were conducted using symbol format (animated and static) and (a) word frequency (low, high), (b) imageability (low, high), and (c) concreteness (low, high). Results: In addition to superior identification and labeling accuracy of animated sequences, a significant interaction between symbol format and the first condition was observed for both experimental tasks. When the animation format was the first condition, then the children's performance improved in the subsequent static condition. Finally, word frequency, imageability, and concreteness ratings for all verbs and prepositions had significant effects on labeling accuracy of verbs and prepositions. Significant interactions between symbol format and psycholinguistic features were also found. For example, highly imageable, animated verbs were labeled with greater accuracy when compared with all other variables. Conclusions: Animation technology appears to alleviate some of the burden associated with word- and sentence-level outcomes in children with typical development. Moreover, animation appears to reduce the effects of psycholinguistic features such as word frequency and imageability by increasing the transparency of the symbol. Given the increase in research in this area, speech-language pathologists may consider adopting animated graphic symbols on a case-by-case basis as a tool to augment the learning of word classes in which movement is integral to comprehension., It is estimated that 7.6% of children with developmental disabilities have a communication and/or intellectual impairment so severe that they require an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system to replace [...]

The present article exhibits the use of a linguistic multiple-choice questionnaire format for evoking relational triangulation performances while examining whether between-subject variability in such performances might be adequate to relate to variability in other perspective-taking performances and proclivities. Verbally competent adults (N = 32) were administered a pilot nine-item linguistic relational triangulation questionnaire (RTQ-MST9) with three three-item subscales pertaining to triangulations of material, spatial, and temporal perspectives. Nonlinguistic behavioral measures of perspective-taking training fluency and derivation performances were drawn from an operant, match-to-sample (MTS), visuospatial relational triangulation perspective-taking protocol (RT-PTP). Participants also completed the linguistic Barnes-Holmes Perspective Taking Protocol (BH-PTP) to evoke verbal perspective taking performances in terms of deictic relational framing. Participants furthermore completed the linguistic Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), a widely used self-report measure of general perspective taking proclivities. Whereas the material subscale of the RTQ-MST9 did not evidence associations in correlational analyses, the spatial and temporal subscales were associated with certain aspects of perspective taking on the RT-PTP, BH-PTP, and IRI. The number of observed significant correlations was reliably above what would be expected on the basis of chance alone. However, it must be cautioned that the particular correlational results of this study should be held lightly as the present sample size is limited and there were no corrections for familywise error rate. Instead, the findings suggest in general terms that linguistic questionnaires of relational triangulation may be a viable methodology for evoking and measuring variable performances in verbal perspective taking in future studies. Keywords perspective taking * theory of mind * deixis * relational triangulation * derived relations * relational frame theory, The relational triangulation (RT) framework (Guinther, 2017, 2018a, 2018b, 2021) is an account of verbal perspective taking based in relational frame theory (RFT; Hayes, Barnes-Holmes et al., 2001). As described [...]

The purpose of this study was to determine if Bloom-based Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP) instruction could enhance EFL learners' use of the speech act of request. Based on their OQPT scores, 43 students were assigned to a control group (n=23) and a treatment group (n=20). A written discourse completion task (WDCT) was developed to measure participants' use of the speech act of request before and after the intervention. The results pointed to a significant difference between the performance of the treatment group in which Bloom-based treatment supported by Vygotskian scaffolding was employed and the control group which received no explicit ILP instruction. The treatment group also yielded significant gains from the pretest to posttest and to delayed posttest, while no significant improvement was observed in the performance of the control group. In-depth examination of the participants' WDCT performance indicated that the four pragmatics factors (correct use of speech acts, type of expressions, amount of information, and degree of politeness) measured in this study, improved significantly, but differentially, from the pretest to delayed posttest. Comparison of the pretest and posttest data suggested that the component of degree of politeness enjoyed the highest degree of gain followed by amount of information, correct use of speech acts and type of expression., Author(s): Shiva Kaivanpanah [sup.1] , Mostafa Taghizadeh Langari [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.46072.37, 0000 0004 0612 7950, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University [...]

Animacy effects in memory correspond to the observation that animates (e.g., cow) are remembered better than inanimates (e.g., pencil). Although the ultimate explanation of these effects seems to be well-documented, clear evidence that would support one or other of the proximate explanations of animacy effects has proven difficult to obtain. Here, we focused on the richness-of-encoding account of animacy effects in memory, which assumes that animates are recalled better than inanimates because the former are encoded with many more distinct associations with other items (i.e., richer memory traces) than the latter. Our goal was to provide further evidence for this account by replicating and extending the analyses of Meinhardt, Bell, Buchner, and Röer (2020) showing that more ideas are generated in response to animate than inanimate words and, importantly, that this generation process mediates the better recall of animates over inanimates. In line with the richness-of-encoding account, we successfully replicated the finding that more ideas were produced in response to animates than inanimates. Even though there is some evidence that the generation of ideas mediates animacy effects in memory, we also report findings from reanalyses of previous studies (Bonin et al., Experimental Psychology, 62, 371-384, Bonin et al., 2015 (See CR9); Gelin et al., Memory, 25, 2-18, Gelin et al., 2017 (See CR18); Gelin et al., Memory, 27, 209-223, Gelin et al., 2019 (See CR19)) which-although supporting mediation-show that the number of ideas generated in response to animate and inanimate words cannot reliably predict memory of these words when they are learned in different encoding contexts., Author(s): Patrick Bonin [sup.1] , Gaëtan Thiebaut [sup.1] , Aurélia Bugaiska [sup.1] , Alain Méot [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.493090.7, 0000 0004 4910 6615, Univ. Bourgogne Franche-Comté, LEAD-CNRS UMR5022, , [...]

Purpose: It is well recognized that adding the visual to the acoustic speech signal improves recognition when the acoustic signal is degraded, but how that visual signal affects postrecognition processes is not so well understood. This study was designed to further elucidate the relationships among auditory and visual codes in working memory, a postrecognition process. Design: In a main experiment, 80 young adults with normal hearing were tested using an immediate serial recall paradigm. Three types of signals were presented (unprocessed speech, vocoded speech, and environmental sounds) in three conditions (audio-only, audio-video with dynamic visual signals, and audio-picture with static visual signals). Three dependent measures were analyzed: (a) magnitude of the recency effect, (b) overall recall accuracy, and (c) response times, to assess cognitive effort. In a follow-up experiment, 30 young adults with normal hearing were tested largely using the same procedures, but with a slight change in order of stimulus presentation. Results: The main experiment produced three major findings: (a) unprocessed speech evoked a recency effect of consistent magnitude across conditions; vocoded speech evoked a recency effect of similar magnitude to unprocessed speech only with dynamic visual (lipread) signals; environmental sounds never showed a recency effect. (b) Dynamic and static visual signals enhanced overall recall accuracy to a similar extent, and this enhancement was greater for vocoded speech and environmental sounds than for unprocessed speech. (c) All visual signals reduced cognitive load, except for dynamic visual signals with environmental sounds. The follow-up experiment revealed that dynamic visual (lipread) signals exerted their effect on the vocoded stimuli by enhancing phonological quality. Conclusions: Acoustic and visual signals can combine to enhance working memory operations, but the source of these effects differs for phonological and nonphonological signals. Nonetheless, visual information can support better postrecognition processes for patients with hearing loss., By now, it is quite apparent that the visual speech signal can support the detection of acoustic speech signals at poorer signal-to-noise levels than is possible when it is not [...]

Purpose: The bouba-kiki (BK) effect refers to associations between visual shapes and auditory pseudonames. Thus, when tested, people tend to associate the pseudowords bouba and kiki with round or spiky shapes, respectively. This association requires cross-modal sensory integration. The ability to integrate information from different sensory modalities is crucial for speech development. A clinical population that may be impaired in cross-modal sensory integration is children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). The purpose of this study was to examine the involvement of cross-modal sensory integration in children with (CAS). Method: The BK effect was assessed in participants with CAS (n = 18) and two control groups: One control group was composed of children with developmental language disorder (DLD), also termed specific language impairment (n = 15), and a second group included typically developing (TD) children (n = 22). The children were presented with 14 pairs of novel visual displays and nonwords. All the children were asked to state which shape and nonword correspond to one another. In addition, background cognitive (Leiter-3) and language measures (Hebrew PLS-4) were determined for all children. Results: Children in the CAS group were less successful in associating between visual shapes and corresponding auditory pseudonames (e.g., associating the spoken word 'bouba' with a round shape; the spoken word 'kiki' with a spiky shape). Thus, children with CAS demonstrated a statistically significant reduced BK effect compared with participants with TD and participants with DLD. No significant difference was found between the TD group and the DLD group. Conclusions: The reduced BK effect in children with CAS supports the notion that cross-modal sensory integration may be altered in these children. Cross-modal sensory integration is the basis for speech production. Thus, difficulties in sensory integration may contribute to speech difficulties in CAS., In the bouba-kiki (BK) task, participants are presented with two novel shapes, one round and one spiky (e.g., Rogers & Ross, 1975). Their task is to match the two shapes [...]

With the prevalence of online shopping, product presentation tactics, especially text descriptions, are particularly significant in attracting consumers. Of current text description styles, pallid and vivid styles predominate. However, it is not entirely clear how these description styles affect consumer utilitarian attitude and purchase intention. Addressing this gap, two online experiments were conducted to support a moderated mediation model based on the elaboration likelihood model. The results reveal that the effect of text description style on utilitarian attitude is contingent upon message involvement and that utilitarian attitude in turn affects purchase intention. Compared to pallid text description, vivid text description has a more positive effect on consumer utilitarian attitude and subsequent purchase intention in low message involvement conditions. However, pallid description has a greater influence on consumer utilitarian attitude and subsequent purchase intention in high message involvement scenarios. Demonstrating the critical role of message involvement in the effectiveness of different text description styles, this study discusses both the theoretical and managerial applications of these results., Author(s): Fei-Si Yao [sup.1] , Jing-Bo Shao [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.19373.3f, 0000 0001 0193 3564, School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, , 13 Fayuan Street, Nangang District, Harbin, [...]

Purpose: Morse code as a form of communication became widely used for telegraphy, radio and maritime communication, and military operations, and remains popular with ham radio operators. Some skilled users of Morse code are able to comprehend a full sentence as they listen to it, while others must first transcribe the sentence into its written letter sequence. Morse thus provides an interesting opportunity to examine comprehension differences in the context of skilled acoustic perception. Measures of comprehension and short-term memory show a strong correlation across multiple forms of communication. This study tests whether this relationship holds for Morse and investigates its underlying basis. Our analyses examine Morse and speech immediate serial recall, focusing on established markers of echoic storage, phonological-articulatory coding, and lexical-semantic support. We show a relationship between Morse short-term memory and Morse comprehension that is not explained by Morse perceptual fluency. In addition, we find that poorer serial recall for Morse compared to speech is primarily due to poorer item memory for Morse, indicating differences in lexical-semantic support. Interestingly, individual differences in speech item memory are also predictive of individual differences in Morse comprehension. Conclusions: We point to a psycholinguistic framework to account for these results, concluding that Morse functions like 'reading for the ears' (Maier et al., 2004) and that underlying differences in the integration of phonological and lexical-semantic knowledge impact both short-term memory and comprehension. The results provide insight into individual differences in the comprehension of degraded speech and strategies that build comprehension through listening experience. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16451868, Humans are born with the ability to acquire a spoken language. They extend this capacity by learning to use culturally instructed symbols to represent units of speech or meaning, for [...]

In 1986, Nils Christie proposed that the ideal victim is worthy of sympathy because he or she possesses specific characteristics. Since that time, numerous social scientists have used his ideal victim construct to guide their research. However, few empirical studies have explored whether laypersons use the ideal victim construct to guide their thinking about victims. This study collected and analyzed victim descriptions to empirically explore how people conceptualize victims. Participants were asked to describe either legitimate or illegitimate victims. Then, linguistic analyses were conducted on these descriptions. Legitimate victim descriptions closely aligned with Christie's ideal victim construct, focusing on concepts such as innocence, vulnerability, experiencing harm, and helplessness. Sympathy-laden language was used in legitimate victim descriptions. Illegitimate victims were described as individuals who failed to be true victims or as phonies. This study provides insight into how laypeople think about victims and provides data-driven support for the ideal victim construct., Author(s): Jerome A. Lewis [sup.1] , James C. Hamilton [sup.2] , J. Dean Elmore [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.441585.9, 0000 0000 9766 3468, Bellevue University, , Bellevue, NE, USA (2) [...]

The current study used artificial intelligence to create a personality profile of pseudocommandos based on language used in their writings. Pseudocommandos are mass murderers who are obsessed with weapons and meticulously plan their attack. The data source was the writings of 11 male pseudocommandos from the United States, of whom 7 committed suicide at the time of the attack. Manifestos and other writing samples by pseudocommandos were collected online in the public domain and analysed using IBM Watson Personality Insights. Results indicated pseudocommandos scored higher than the general population on Openness to experience, and lower than the general population on Extraversion and Agreeableness. No difference was found between pseudocommandos and the general population on Neuroticism or Conscientiousness. Facet-level analysis generally indicated a similar direction of results. This study lays foundations for a novel, post hoc approach to examining this previously unknowable group., Author(s): Madeline Kop [sup.1] , Paul Read [sup.1] , Benjamin R. Walker [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1002.3, 0000 0004 1936 7857, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, , Melbourne, Australia [...]

Purpose: Pupillary responses captured via pupillometry (measurement of pupillary dilation and constriction during the performance of a cognitive task) are psychophysiological indicators of cognitive effort, attention, arousal, and resource engagement. Pupillometry may be a promising tool for enhancing our understanding of the relationship between cognition and language in people with and without aphasia. Interpretation of pupillary responses is complex. This study was designed as a stepping-stone for future pupillometric studies involving people with aphasia. Asking comprehension questions is common in language processing research involving people with and without aphasia. However, the influence of comprehension questions on pupillometric indices of task engagement (tonic responses) and cognitive effort (task-evoked responses of the pupil [TERPs]) is unknown. We tested whether asking comprehension questions influenced pupillometric results of adults without aphasia during a syntactic processing task. Method: Forty adults without aphasia listened to easy (canonical) and difficult (noncanonical) sentences in two conditions: one that contained an explicit comprehension task (question condition) and one that did not (no-question condition). The influence of condition and canonicity on pupillary responses was examined. Results: The influence of canonicity was only significant in the question condition: TERPs for difficult sentences were larger than TERPs for easy sentences. Tonic responses did not differ between conditions. Conclusions: Although participants had similar levels of attentiveness in both conditions, increases in indices of cognitive effort during syntactic processing were significant only when participants expected comprehension questions. Results contribute to a body of evidence indicating the importance of task design and careful linguistic stimulus control when using pupillometry to study language processing. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha. 13480368, Pupillometry--the measurement of pupil dilation and constriction during the performance of a cognitive task--has been used for decades to index cognitive effort (Beatty & Lucero-Wagoner, 2000; Laeng et al., 2007; [...]

Byline: Nagabushan. Hesarur, Mainak. Bardhan, AshokVardhanReddy. Taallapalli, Saraswati. Nashi, Gautham. Udupi, Girish. Kulkarni Sir, Studies pointing toward an advantage of animate words over inanimate words (animacy effect), indicative of evolutionary-based [...]

Dans cet article, nous analysons, à partir de notre pratique dans la cadre d'un cours intitulé << Introduction aux études européennes >>, comment l'exploitation interactive de l'exposé oral contribue à la réalisation des objectifs du cours de français spécialisé. Ces objectifs sont l'acquisition des connaissances sur l'Union européenne et des compétences interculturelles au profit du développement de l'esprit critique des étudiants. Nous proposons quelques pistes de réflexions sur l'optimisation de cette pratique, notamment pour des cours de FLE mettant l'accent sur l'acquisition des compétences autres que linguistiques. Mots-clés : exposé oral, exploitation interactive, acquisition des connaissances, compétences interculturelles, esprit critique Based on our practice in the course 'Introduction to European Studies', this paper analyses how the interactive exploitation of oral presentation contributes to the achievement of the goals of the course about specialized French. Those goals are the acquirement of knowledge about the European Union, and the formation of intercultural competencies for the development of students' critical thinking. In the end, we propose some reflections on the optimization of this exercise, especially in the teaching of foreign languages that emphasizes the knowledge other than languages. Keywords: oral presentation, interactive exploitation, acquirements of knowledge, intercultural competences, critical thinking, Introduction Introduit dans les classes de FLE de l'Université des langues étrangères de Beijing depuis presque 20 ans, l'exposé oral est conçu comme un outil pédagogique pouvant servir différents objectifs [...]

Emotional load assessment of the written words has gained considerable interest in psycholinguistics, semantics, and analysis of psychophysiological and electrophysiological correlates of emotional processing. Considering the lack of a publicly available database with affective ratings of contemporary verbal stimuli obtained from native Turkish speakers, we present the affective norms for two datasets of Turkish words carefully adapted from the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) database. The valence and arousal ratings are obtained from 61 college-aged participants for 127 highly arousing, emotionally-loaded words in the Adapted Turkish Affective List (ATAL). The ATAL ratings show a tendency of classifying fewer words as positive compared to the original list of stimuli, significantly higher arousal levels for positively rated Turkish stimuli compared to the negative and neutral words, and more congruence in arousal levels of positively exciting words. For the medium to high arousing 508 words in the Expanded Turkish Affective List (ETAL) that cover the whole 9-point spectrum of the valence dimension, 136 Turkish respondents from a wider age, education, and occupation background show higher excitability towards highly unpleasant words. Strong cross-linguistic correlations of + 0.968 between the valence ratings of ANEW and ATAL and + 0.878 for ANEW and ETAL demonstrate the ease of transferring and perceiving the valence levels across English and Turkish. The medium correlation of roughly + 0.450 between the English and Turkish arousal ratings account for lower excitation levels perceived by the native Turkish speakers and indicate the arousal dimension is similar to familiarity and originality in exhibiting more variations between different cultures. These findings demonstrate that this expanded database of partial affective normative ratings can be used as the ground truth for emotional and neurocognitive assessments, and that the presented methodology can be utilized for developing a comprehensive Turkish affective lexicon. The utilized word selection criteria also enable a cross-cultural analysis of adapted words in Turkish and other languages. Detailed normative ratings of this Turkish adaptation are included in the supplementary materials., Author(s): Mastaneh Torkamani-Azar [sup.1] , Sumeyra Demir Kanik [sup.1] , Ayse Tuba Vardan [sup.1] [sup.2] , Cagla Aydin [sup.3] , Mujdat Cetin [sup.1] [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0004 0637 [...]

This study examined facial expressions produced during a British Sign Language (BSL) narrative task (Herman et al., International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 49(3):343-353, 2014) by typically developing deaf children and deaf children with autism spectrum disorder. The children produced BSL versions of a video story in which two children are seen to enact a language-free scenario where one tricks the other. This task encourages elicitation of facial acts signalling intention and emotion, since the protagonists showed a range of such expressions during the events portrayed. Results showed that typically developing deaf children produced facial expressions which closely aligned with native adult signers' BSL narrative versions of the task. Children with ASD produced fewer targeted expressions and showed qualitative differences in the facial actions that they produced., Author(s): Tanya Denmark [sup.1] [sup.2] , Joanna Atkinson [sup.2] , Ruth Campbell [sup.2] , John Swettenham [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000000121901201, grid.83440.3b, Division of Psychology and Language Science, Department of [...]

Abstract. We study how misaligned language between the investor and the firm contributes to the underweighting of foreign securities in an international portfolio. In particular, we document a significant U.S. [...]

Purpose: Bilinguals tend to produce cognates (e.g., telephone in English and telefono in Spanish) more accurately than they produce noncognates (table/mesa). We tested whether the same holds for bilingual children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Participants included Spanish-English bilingual children (aged 5;0 to 9;11 [years;months]), 25 with SLI and 92 without, who had comparable language experience. Cognate and noncognate items were taken from English and Spanish versions of the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (Brownell, 2000, 2001). Results: Although bilingual children with language impairment named fewer items correctly overall, they accurately named cognates more often than noncognates, as did typically developing children. Independent of language ability, accurate naming of a cognate in one language strongly predicted accurate naming in the other language. Conclusion: Language impairment appears unrelated to the mechanism that produces a cognate advantage in naming accuracy. Given that correct performance for a difficult word in one language is associated with knowing its cognate in another, cognates may be particularly viable targets for language intervention in bilingual children with SLI., Cognates are translation equivalents that overlap in semantic meaning and phonological form (e.g., telephone in English and telefono in Spanish). Bilinguals generally perform better on tasks involving cognates compared to [...]

Responding by exclusion, usually investigated using a baseline of auditory-visual conditional discriminations for which auditory samples are names, is a robust phenomenon; however, it lacks generality to other lexical word classes. This study had two purposes: (1) to assess the generality of learning by exclusion to word-object property relations, and (2) to evaluate the effect of additive exclusion trials on learning outcomes. Children (aged 24 to 29 months) were taught auditory-visual baselines for three object name-object relations (Noun condition) and/or three adjective (emotion) names-facial expressions relations (Adjective condition). Each baseline and its associated tests were presented sequentially; the order was counterbalanced across participants. After baseline performance met criterion, exclusion, control, and learning outcome trials in extinction were intermixed with reinforced baseline trials, and followed by additive reinforced exclusion trials and learning outcome tests. More trials to criterion were required to establish the Adjective baseline, but the exclusion and learning outcome results of both conditions were comparable, suggesting that responding and learning by exclusion have generality across stimulus (lexical) types. Additive exclusion trials increased learning outcomes, especially for one type of learning probe. The necessary and sufficient tests to determine learning outcomes of exclusion responding still deserve discussion and investigation. Keywords Exclusion responding * Learning by exclusion * Adjectives * Young children, The presence of a novel stimulus amidst other familiar stimuli is one condition that can potentially facilitate word learning (Carey & Bartlett, 1978; Vincent-Smith, Bricker, & Bricker, 1974). Over the [...]

The current study examined delays in syntax and morphology, and vocabulary, in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children ages 4-6 years with ASD (n = 21) and typical development (n = 21), matched on nonverbal mental age, completed five language tasks. The ASD group had significant delays in both syntax and morphology, and vocabulary measures, with significant within-group heterogeneity; furthermore, syntactic and morphological measures were impaired even for subgroups matched on vocabulary. Children in the ASD group without early language delay showed syntactic and morphological impairment, with intact performance on vocabulary and sentence repetition. Findings indicate that syntactic and morphological impairments are a significant concern for high-functioning children with ASD, and may be overlooked if language evaluation focuses exclusively on vocabulary., Author(s): Cecilia Brynskov [sup.1] , Inge-Marie Eigsti [sup.2] , Meta Jørgensen [sup.3] , Sanne Lemcke [sup.3] , Ocke-Schwen Bohn [sup.4] [sup.5] , Peter Krøjgaard [sup.1] [sup.5] Author Affiliations: (1) 0000 [...]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess cortical hemodynamic response patterns in 3- to 7-year-old children listening to two speech modes: normally vocalized and whispered speech. Understanding whispered speech requires processing of the relatively weak, noisy signal, as well as the cognitive ability to understand the speaker's reason for whispering. Method: Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to assess changes in cortical oxygenated hemoglobin from 16 typically developing children. Results: A profound difference in oxygenated hemoglobin levels between the speech modes was found over left ventral sensorimotor cortex. In particular, over areas that represent speech articulatory body parts and motion, such as the larynx, lips, and jaw, oxygenated hemoglobin was higher for whisper than for normal speech. The weaker stimulus, in terms of sound energy, thus induced the more profound hemodynamic response. This, moreover, occurred over areas involved in speech articulation, even though the children did not overtly articulate speech during measurements. Conclusion: Because whisper is a special form of communication not often used in daily life, we suggest that the hemodynamic response difference over left ventral sensorimotor cortex resulted from inner (covert) practice or imagination of the different articulatory actions necessary to produce whisper as opposed to normal speech., Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to assess cortical hemodynamics in 3- to 7-year-old children who listened to two speech modes: normal speech and whispered speech. NIRS has the advantage over [...]

Purpose: This study explored the role of time and retrieval experience in the consolidation of word forms. Method: Participants were 106 adults trained on 16 novel word-referent pairs, then tested immediately and 24 hr later for recognition and recall of word forms. In the interim, tests were repeated 2 hr or 12 hr after training, or not at all, thus varying the amount and timing of retrieval experience. Results: Recognition accuracy was stable and speed improved over the 24-hr period. But these manifestations of consolidation did not depend on interim retrieval experience; in fact, the 2-hr interim test interfered with improvements in speed. In contrast, the number of word forms recalled increased only with interim retrieval experiences, and the 12-hr interim test was more advantageous to recall than the 2-hr test. Conclusions: After a word form is encoded, it can become stronger with time. Retrieval experience can also strengthen the trace, but, if retrieval occurs when the memory is still labile, it can be disruptive. This complex interplay between retrieval experience and time holds implications for measuring learning outcomes and for scheduling practice in classrooms and clinics. Key Words: language, memory, development, Learners of all ages take part in vocabulary instruction. In the early years of formal schooling, children receive vocabulary lessons to promote reading comprehension, spelling ability, and general content knowledge. [...]

Purpose: To investigate sensitivity to prosodic and semantic cues to emotion in individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA). Method: Emotional prosody and semantics were independently manipulated to assess the relative influence of prosody versus semantics on speech processing. A sample of 10-year-old typically developing children (n = 10) and children with hFA (n = 10) were asked to repeat words that were either emotionally congruent or incongruent in form and content (Experiment 1A). In a second task (Experiment 1B), the same participants were asked to classify stimuli on the basis of emotional prosody. A final experiment (Experiment 2) focused on sensitivity to congruence in a non-emotional source of variation: talker gender. Results: The results revealed a selective impairment in spontaneous integration of prosodic and semantic cues to emotion in HFA; however, the same participants were able to categorize emotions on the basis of prosody under reduced task demands. Individuals with HFA were highly sensitive to another surface characteristic in speech: talker gender. Conclusions: The study reveals impairment in the spontaneous integration of prosodic and semantic cues to emotion in HFA; however, insensitivity to surface detail, such as prosody, in HFA appears to be highly task dependent and selective to the domain of emotion. Key Words: autism, prosody, development, Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with two primary areas of impairment: (a) deficits in social communication and interaction and (b) orientation toward repetitive and restrictive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, [...]

Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated adult word learning to determine how neighborhood density and practice across phonologically related training sets influence online learning from input during training versus offline memory evolution during no-training gaps. Method: Sixty-one adults were randomly assigned to learn low- or high-density nonwords. Within each density condition, participants were trained on one set of words and then were trained on a second set of words, consisting of phonological neighbors of the first set. Learning was measured in a picture-naming test. Data were analyzed using multilevel modeling and spline regression. Results: Steep learning during input was observed, with new words from dense neighborhoods and new words that were neighbors of recently learned words (i.e., second-set words) being learned better than other words. In terms of memory evolution, large and significant forgetting was observed during 1-week gaps in training. Effects of density and practice during memory evolution were opposite of those during input. Specifically, forgetting was greater for high-density and second-set words than for low-density and first-set words. Conclusion: High phonological similarity, regardless of source (i.e., known words or recent training), appears to facilitate online learning from input but seems to impede offline memory evolution. Key Words: vocabulary, word learning, adults, neighborhood density, input, memory evolution, People typically learn new words through exposure. The prevailing assumption is that words are learned from the input that a person hears. That is, learning a word is at least [...]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine listeners' ability to learn talker identity from speech produced with an electrolarynx, explore source and filter differentiation in talker identification, and describe acoustic-phonetic changes associated with electrolarynx use. Method: Healthy adult control listeners learned to identify talkers from speech recordings produced using talkers' normal laryngeal vocal source or an electrolarynx. Listeners' abilities to identify talkers from the trained vocal source (Experiment 1) and generalize this knowledge to the untrained source (Experiment 2) were assessed. Acoustic-phonetic measurements of spectral differences between source mechanisms were performed. Additional listeners attempted to match recordings from different source mechanisms to a single talker (Experiment 3). Results: Listeners successfully learned talker identity from electrolarynx speech but less accurately than from laryngeal speech. Listeners were unable to generalize talker identity to the untrained source mechanism. Electrolarynx use resulted in vowels with higher F1 frequencies compared with laryngeal speech. Listeners matched recordings from different sources to a single talker better than chance. Conclusions: Electrolarynx speech, although lacking individual differences in voice quality, nevertheless conveys sufficient indexical information related to the vocal filter and articulation for listeners to identify individual talkers. Psychologically, perception of talker identity arises from a 'gestalt' of the vocal source and filter. Key Words: voice, speech, social communication, augmentative and alternative communication, The voice plays many important roles in human social behavior, beyond being the principal acoustic source for speech communication. In particular, listeners are sensitive to the individually distinctive properties of [...]

College students searched for either h or the in prose passages in which every h occurred in the test word the. In Experiment 1, passage versions differed in that the critical noun phrases were either the alone (i.e., in citation form as a noun referring to itself) or 'the definite article.' Many more detection errors occurred for letter than word target items, especially with 'the definite article.' In Experiment 2, passage versions differed in that a given noun phrase containing the test word the occurred as a subject in one version and an object in the other. Again, many more detection errors occurred when the target item was the letter h than when it was the letter sequence the. Also, with letter but not letter sequence targets, more detection errors occurred for object than subject noun phrases. In Experiment 3, passages were presented either in regular format or with all capital letters. Students made more detection errors with the regular than with the capitals format, many more errors occurred when participants searched for letters than for letter sequences, and the effect of target item was larger with regular than with capitals format. These findings suggest that accounts of detection errors in reading must include the influence of unitization and processing time or attentional allocation., In the letter detection task, participants read prose passages and circle instances of a target letter. It might be thought that detecting letters while reading distorts the process of reading [...]

Purpose: The authors explored the cognitive mechanisms involved in language processing by systematically examining the performance of children with deficits in the domains of working memory and language. Method: From a database of 370 school-age children who had completed a grammaticality judgment task, groups were identified with a co-occurring language and working memory impairment (LI-WMI; n = 18) or specific language impairment (SLI) with typical working memory skills (n = 60) and matched control groups. Correct and incorrect use of grammatical markers occurred either early or late in sentence stimuli, imposing a greater working memory load for late-marker sentences. Results: Children with SLI showed a lower preference for grammatical items than typically developing controls, regardless of error marker position. Children with LI-WMI demonstrated a performance pattern modulated by error marker position: Their preference for grammatical items was lower than typically developing controls for late but not early marker sentences. Conclusion: This pattern of results suggests that there are distinct and dissociable impacts of working memory and linguistic skills on metalinguistic functioning through a grammatical judgment task. Key Words: language disorders, language, specific language impairment, syntax, memory, The ability to learn language is influenced by various cognitive processes, including working memory and linguistic rule-based learning. Working memory refers to the ability to store and process information being [...]

Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated whether errors with subject-verb agreement in monolingual Dutch children with specific language impairment (SLI) are influenced by verb phonology. In addition, the productive and receptive abilities of Dutch acquiring children with SLI regarding agreement inflection were compared. Method: An SLI group (6-8 years old), an age-matched group with typical development, and a language-matched, younger, typically developing (TD) group participated in the study. Using an elicitation task, the authors tested use of third person singular inflection after verbs that ended in obstruents (plosive, fricative) or nonobstruents (sonorant). The authors used a self-paced listening task to test sensitivity to subject-verb agreement violations. Results: Omission was more frequent after obstruents than nonobstruents; the younger TD group used inflection less often after plosives than fricatives, unlike the SLI group. The SLI group did not detect subject-verb agreement violations if the ungrammatical structure contained a frequent error (omission), but if the ungrammatical structure contained an infrequent error (substitution), subject-verb agreement violations were noticed. Conclusions: The use of agreement inflection by children with TD or SLI is affected by verb phonology. Differential effects in the 2 groups are consistent with a delayed development in Dutch SLI. Parallels between productive and receptive abilities point to weak lexical agreement inflection representations in Dutch SLI. Key Words: specific language impairment, agreement inflection, production, processing, Specific language impairment (SLI) is a language disorder that affects approximately 7% of kindergarten children (Tomblin et al., 1997). It is generally assumed that affected children have difficulties acquiring language [...]

Purpose: The authors examine how adults use linguistic information from verbs, direct objects, and particles to interpret an event description as encoding a logical endpoint to the event described (in which case, it is telic) or not (in which case, it is atelic). Current models of aspectual composition predict that quantity-sensitive verbs combined with quantized objects produce telic predicates. Behavioral results from previous experiments have not unequivocally confirmed this prediction. The study presents a more fine-grained analysis that examines the influence of partitive verbs, resultative particles, and different determiner types on listeners' evaluations of verb phrases as telic or atelic. Method: Forty-eight English-speaking adults participated in a truth-value judgment task to determine whether they interpreted verb phrases with different types of verbs and direct objects as telic or atelic. Participants viewed short videos and responded to a yes/no question after each one. Results: The presence of partitive quantity-sensitive verbs and the presence of a definite determiner versus a cardinal number in quantized direct objects had a differential impact on listeners' interpretations of sentences as telic. Conclusion: The results indicate that actual behavioral interpretations of telicity are meaningfully influenced by the presence of partitive verbs, resultative particles, and different types of determiners. Key Words: telicity, verb aspect, verb phrase, determiner phrase, particle verbs, Verbs carry a great deal of information that needs to be stored. The representation of a verb must include not only information about its idiosyncratic meaning and form but also [...]

In Experiments 1-3 participants heard pairs of audio clips, each corresponding to half of a phrase (linguistic or musical), in a forward direction or a backward direction, where the second half came first. They judged whether the second clip was from a familiar source or from the same source as the first clip. In both tasks participants were faster and more accurate when the dips were from the same source and faster with linguistic stimuli. Longer temporal distances impaired performance, although greater flexibility was shown with linguistic materials. In Experiment 4, single extended clips were played in temporal or scrambled order. Judgments of familiarity were slower with scrambled song melodies than with instrumental melodies, and processing of music was disrupted more than that of language when temporal order was violated. These results suggest that semantic meaning enhances processing of temporal order information and modulates access., There is much research on the similarities between the cognitive processing of music and language (e.g., Besson & Schon, 2003; Gordon, Racette, & Schon, 2006). Both have a form of [...]

The purpose of this study was to longitudinally investigate the acquisition of verbal operants in a typically developing child from 17 months to 2 years of age. Verbal responses emitted by the child and his caregivers in a natural setting were categorically analyzed based on Skinner's (1957) verbal operants. Possible interaction patterns in the acquisition of verbal behavior were investigated. The results showed an abrupt increase in the cumulative frequency of tact, mand, echoic, and intraverbal categories after 20 months of age. This increase was also simultaneously noticed in the emission of the same categories by the caregivers. The most frequent category of the child was tact, and the most frequent category emitted by the caregivers was mand. The results suggest that caregivers arrange contingencies for the acquisition of verbal operants in the repertoire of the child. Key words: verbal behavior, language acquisition, preschool children, verbal operants, In 1957, Skinner published the book Verbal Behavior, in which he proposed a new way of understanding the phenomenon that has been treated and traditionally known as 'language.' Skinner's proposal [...]

Abstract A popular theme in the literature on bilingualism is that emotions are stronger if experienced in the dominant language. Substantiation of this phenomenon, however, mostly relies on anecdotes and [...]

Purpose: The evidence of a deficit in working memory in specific language impairment (SLI) is of sufficient magnitude to suggest a primary role in developmental language disorder. However, little research has investigated memory in late talkers who recover from their early delay. Drawing on a longitudinal, community sample, this study compared the memory profiles of 3 groups of 5-year-olds: children with SLI who had been identified as late talkers, resolved late talkers (RLTs), and children with typical language development (TLD). Method: Participants were 25 children with SLI, 45 RLTs, and 32 children with TLD. Subtests from the Working Memory Test Battery for Children and the Children's Memory Scale plus recalling sentences and nonword repetition tasks were administered to test the components of Baddeley's working memory model. Results: The SLI group showed significantly poorer performance than the RLT and TLD groups on measures of the phonological loop and episodic buffer. The RLT and TLD groups scored similarly on all memory measures. Conclusions: The results support previous findings that sentence recall and nonword repetition are markers of SLI. Although residual effects of late-talking status may emerge over time, RLTs do not necessarily show memory deficits at 5 years of age despite delayed early vocabulary development. Key Words: SLI, memory, late talkers, The developmental trajectory of late-talking children is of clinical significance to practitioners providing early identification and intervention services (Roos & Ellis Weismer, 2008). Children are typically identified as late talkers [...]

Purpose: The authors investigated the influence of social environmental variables and age at implantation on language development in children with cochlear implants. Method: Participants were 25 children with cochlear implants and their parents. Age at implantation ranged from 6 months to 42 months ([M.sub.age] = 20.4 months, SD = 22.0 months). Linguistic progress was assessed at 12, 18, 24, and 30 months after implantation. At each data point, language measures were based on parental questionnaire and 45-min spontaneous speech samples. Children's language and parents' child-directed language were analyzed. Results: On all language measures, children displayed considerable vocabulary and grammatical growth over time. Although there was no overall effect of age at implantation, younger and older children had different growth patterns. Children implanted by age 24 months made the most marked progress earlier on, whereas children implanted thereafter did so later on. Higher levels of maternal education were associated with faster linguistic progress; age at implantation was not. Properties of maternal language input, mean length of utterance, and expansions were associated with children's linguistic progress independently of age at implantation. Conclusions: In children implanted within the sensitive period for language learning, children's home language environment contributes more crucially to their linguistic progress than does age at implantation. Key Words: language development, children with cochlear implants (CIs), social environment, The acquisition of spoken language in children with cochlear implants (CIs) displays wide variation among individuals, which investigators have documented for different languages (for English, see Niparko et al., 2010; [...]

Purpose: Previous research has suggested that impairments of automatic spreading activation may underlie some aphasic language deficits. The current study further investigated the status of automatic spreading activation in individuals with aphasia as compared with typical adults. Method: Participants were 21 individuals with aphasia (12 fluent, 9 nonfluent) and 31 typical adults. Reaction time data were collected on a lexical decision task with masked repetition primes, assessed at 11 different interstimulus intervals (ISIs). Masked primes were used to assess automatic spreading activation without the confound of conscious processing. The various ISIs were used to assess the time to onset and duration of priming effects. Results: The control group showed maximal priming in the 200-ms ISI condition, with significant priming at a range of ISIs surrounding that peak. Participants with both fluent and nonfluent aphasia showed maximal priming effects in the 250-ms ISI condition and primed across a smaller range of ISIs than did the control group. Conclusions: Results suggest that individuals with aphasia have slowed automatic spreading activation and impaired maintenance of activation over time, regardless of fluency classification. These findings have implications for understanding aphasic language impairment and for development of aphasia treatments designed to directly address automatic language processes. Key Words: aphasia, anomia, automatic spreading activation, masked priming, implicit processing, Language processing is generally modeled as occurring within a network of linguistic information, with a driving force of spreading activation between elements in the network (e.g., Dell, 1986; Levelt, 1999). [...]

Introduction This study examines the effect on inflection by implied irregularity through manipulation of semantic information. Old English words and non-words are used here in an effort to increase their [...]

Abstract This article aims to explore the psycholinguistic processing issues, in terms of the type of transfer that they exemplify, needed to account for in the emergence of two mixed [...]

This study explored the relationships of self-reflection and insight with individuals' performances on various language tasks. The Self-Reflection and Insight Scale (SRIS; Grant, Franklin, & Langford, 2002) assessed individual differences in three factors: engagement in reflection, need for reflection, and insight. A high need for reflection was associated with a low vocabulary level and a small number of intrusive errors on a recognition task. A high level of insight was associated with a high accuracy rate and high response speed on a sentence-sensibility judgment task. In addition, groups who differed in need for reflection and insight did not differ on a working memory test, suggesting that need for reflection and insight account for the variation in the language tasks independent of working memory capacity. The findings suggest connections between self-reflection, insight, and proficiency in language processing. Key words: self-reflection, insight, individual differences, lexical access, sentence reading, People vary in the way that they process information. This study investigated how individual differences in language processing might relate to people's tendencies to self-reflect and their levels of understanding [...]

Is language governed by formal rules or by analogy to stored exemplars? The acquisition of the English past tense has long played a central role in this debate. In the present study, children rated the acceptability of a regular and an irregular past-tense form of each of 40 novel verbs (e.g., fleeped, flept) using a 5-point scale. The novel verbs were chosen to vary continuously along the orthogonal dimensions of (a) similarity to existing regular forms and (b) similarity to existing irregular forms. A developmental progression was observed whereby the acceptability of novel regulars was shown to increase as a function of similarity to existing regulars, with the magnitude of this effect increasing with age. The acceptability of novel irregulars was shown to increase as a function of similarity to existing irregulars, with no developmental changes observed. These findings are discussed in the light of 3 current models of past-tense acquisition: the single-route model (e.g., Bybee & Moder, 1983), the dual-route model (e.g., Prasada & Pinker, 1993), and the multiple-rules model (e.g., Albright & Hayes, 2003). Keywords: language acquisition, past tense, single-route model, dual-route model, multiple-rules model DOI: 10.1037/a0020668

This paper presents a pool of Spanish sentences designed for use in cognitive research and speech processing in circumstances in which the effects of context are relevant. These lists of sentences are divided into six lists of 25 equivalent high-predictability sentences and six lists of 25 low-predictability sentences according to the extent to which the last word can be predicted by the preceding context. These lists were also equivalent in phonetic content, length and frequency of the last word. These lists are intended for use in psycholinguistic research with Spanish-speaking listeners. DOI 10.2466/28.PMS.111.5.517-529

Preschoolers' knowledge of the appearance of proper names was tested in three experiments with 25 boys and 22 girls from low-income families. Children from a Head Start program, whose parents signed a permission letter, participated. Their ages ranged from 3 yr. 6 mo. to 5 yr. 6 mo. (M=52.2 mo., SD=4.9). When shown consonant-vowel-consonant trigrams such as Rit or baF or dEg with various capitalization patterns, the children showed a tendency to recognize that CVC trigrams with the first letter capitalized or all letters capitalized were the ones most likely to representa person's name. When their own names were substituted, which typically contained more than three letters, their performance was markedly better. Children also had a strong tendency to consider trigrams of Latin letters as more likely to be a person's name than trigrams of non-Latin characters (e.g., Sanskrit). DOI 10.2466/10.11.28.PMS.111.5.447-457

Under a variety of conditions, people take longer to make judgments about odd than about even digits and digit names. In English the words 'odd' and 'even' have multiple meanings. Perhaps the multiple meanings of these words are responsible for the slowing of responses to odd stimuli. This hypothesis was tested using participants who spoke no English and ill whose native language, Polish, the words for the mathematical concepts of odd and even do not have multiple meanings. DOI: 10.2466/04.10.11.22.PR0.107.5.443-446

Embodied theories of language propose that word meaning is inextricably tied to--grounded in--mental representations of perceptual, motor, and affective experiences of the world. The four experiments described in this article demonstrate that accessing the meanings of action verbs like smile, punch, and kick requires language understanders to activate modality-specific cognitive representations responsible for performing and perceiving those same actions. The main task used is a word--image matching task, where participants see an action verb and an image depicting an action. Their task is to decide as quickly as possible whether the verb and the image depict the same action. Of critical interest is participants' behavior when the verb and image do not match, in which case the two actions can use the same effector or different effectors. In Experiment 1, we found that participants took significantly longer to reject a verb--image pair when the actions depicted by the image and denoted by the verb used the same effector than when they used different effectors. Experiment 2 yielded the same result when the order of presentation was reversed, replicating the effect in Cantonese. Experiment 3 replicated the effect in English with a verb--verb near-synonym task, and in Experiment 4, we once again replicated the effect with learners of English as a second language. This robust interference effect, whereby a shared effector slows discrimination, shows that language understanders activate effector-specific neurocognitive representations during both picture perception and action word understanding. doi: 10.3758/MC.38.7.969

We explore the adequacy of two types of similarity representation in the context of semantic concepts. To this end, we evaluate different categorization models, assuming either a geometric or a featural representation, using categorization decisions involving familiar and unfamiliar foods and animals. The study aims to assess the optimal stimulus representation as a function of the familiarity of the stimuli. For the unfamiliar stimuli, the geometric categorization models provide the best account of the categorization data, whereas for the familiar stimuli, the featural categorization models provide the best account. This pattern of results suggests that people rely on perceptual information to assign an unfamiliar stimulus to a category but rely on more elaborate conceptual knowledge when assigning a familiar stimulus. doi: 10.3758/MC.38.7.962

Performance in a lexical decision task is crucially dependent on the difficulty of the word--nonword discrimination. More wordlike nonwords cause not only a latency increase for words but also, as reported by Stone and Van Orden (1993), larger word frequency effects. Several current models of lexical decision making can explain these types of results in terms of a single mechanism, a mechanism driven by the nature of the interactions within the lexicon. In 2 experiments, we replicated Stone and Van Orden's increased frequency effect using both pseudohomophones (e.g., BEEST) and transposed-letter nonwords (e.g., JUGDE) as the more wordlike nonwords. In a 3rd experiment, we demonstrated that simply increasing word latencies without changing the difficulty of the word-nonword discrimination does not produce larger frequency effects. These results are reasonably consistent with many current models. In contrast, neither pseudohomophones nor transposed-letter nonwords altered the size of semantic priming effects across 4 additional experiments, posing a challenge to models that would attempt to explain both nonword difficulty effects and semantic priming effects in lexical decision tasks in terms of a single, lexically driven mechanism. Keywords: nonword difficulty, lexical processing, pseudohomophones, transposed-letter nonwords, frequency effects, semantic priming DOI: 10.1037/a0020125