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It has been demonstrated that acute vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) improves word recognition memory in epilepsy patients. Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has gained interest as a non-invasive alternative to improve cognition. In this prospective randomized cross-over study, we investigated the effect of both invasive VNS and taVNS on verbal memory performance in 15 patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. All patients conducted a word recognition memory paradigm in 3 conditions: VNS ON, VNS OFF and taVNS (3-period 3-treatment cross-over study design). For each condition, patients memorized 21 highlighted words from text paragraphs. Afterwards, the intervention was delivered for 30 s. Immediate recall and delayed recognition scores were obtained for each condition. This memory paradigm was repeated after 6 weeks of VNS therapy in 2 conditions: VNS ON and VNS OFF (2-period 2-treatment cross-over study design). Acute VNS and taVNS did not improve verbal memory performance. Immediate recall and delayed recognition scores were significantly improved after 6 weeks of VNS treatment irrespective of the acute intervention. We can conclude that the previously described positive effects of invasive VNS on verbal memory performance could not be replicated with invasive VNS and taVNS. An improved verbal memory performance was seen after 6 weeks of VNS treatment, suggesting that longer and more repetitive stimulation of the vagal pathway is required to modulate verbal memory performance.Clinical trial registration number: NCT05031208.

Clinical psychology emerged in the United States during the first decades of the 20th century. Although they focused on intelligence tests, starting around 1905 certain clinical psychologists pursued personality assessment through a specific, nonintellectual kind of test: the word association test as devised by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) at the Burghölzli psychiatric clinic in Zurich. The test was a key device in the professionalization of North American psychiatry and psychology during the early 20th century: from 1905 onward it was acknowledged, discussed, and applied by experimental and clinical psychologists. However, Jung's original experiments and the development of the test itself have received only superficial or casual attention by historians of science. This article attempts to provide a critical, streamlined, and detailed account on the origin, development, and substance of the Zurich word association experiments. By drawing on heretofore overlooked primary sources, I offer a new, critical perspective on the emergence and development of Jung's test while engaging with its main theoretical and methodological aspects. I show that the test was neither Jung's sole creation nor did it consist of a simple, straightforward set of tasks. Contrarily, it was the result of a highly collaborative, multilayered institutionalized research program on linguistic and mental associations. The program, its data and its assumptions fueled several debates and data-driven discussions at Zurich, precluding the test from achieving a stable, standardized character. As a result, the history of Jung's program reflects both the advances and the limitations of early 20th-century personality testing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

We conducted a preliminary test of a novel implicit association test for body dissatisfaction (BD-IAT). We predicted that BD-IAT would correlate with self-reported BD and predict later eating disorder (ED) attitudes. Female undergraduates (N = 145) self-reported BD and ED attitudes. In the BD-IAT, participants sorted words related to "satisfaction" and "dissatisfaction" to opposite sides of a computer screen. Participants categorized pictures of themselves to the side of the screen with the word "Me," which appeared with the "satisfied" or "dissatisfied" category in separate blocks. The BD-IAT measured the strength of the association between a participant's own body and dissatisfaction. The BD-IAT correlated positively with the EDI-BD (r = 0.21, p 0.05), supporting its convergent validity. The BD-IAT predicted ED attitudes at one-week follow-up, controlling for explicit BD and baseline ED (b = 0.58, SE = 0.23, t = 2.57, p = .01); IAT scores uniquely accounted for 4.7 % of the variance in ED at one-week follow-up. These results provide preliminary evidence for the BD-IAT as an implicit measure of BD and suggest that it may predict future ED attitudes above and beyond explicit BD. Directions for future work aimed at continued development of this task are discussed.

Self-report questionnaires can only yield information that people are able and willing to report, but implicit assessment methods are not commonly used in mainstream personality research. The Questionnaire-based Implicit Association Test (qIAT) was designed to address the limitations associated with the conventional self-concept IAT, and it enables an indirect assessment that is based on the items of standard self-reports. The present studies examined the psychometric properties of the qIAT across two personality constructs. Study 1 (N = 528) provided support for the internal consistency, test-retest reliability and convergent and discriminant validity of the qIAT that measured extraversion. Study 2 (N = 164) supported the reliability and validity of the qIAT assessment of conscientiousness, which predicted who returned to complete the second session of the study two weeks later, for which participants were paid in advance. This same prediction effect was marginally significant in Study 3 (N = 200), and across both Studies 2 and 3 the qIAT prediction of the criterion behavior was incremental to the parallel self-report questionnaire. Taken together, findings support the reliability and validity of the qIAT, which enables the indirect measurement of a wide variety of distinct personality constructs, currently measured only by self-report scales.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between sustainability and food, and other possible associations with the socio-demographic characteristics and consumer segmentation, as well as to identify the characteristics of sustainable and unsustainable foods and the sustainable diet concept from a consumer perspective. One hundred and fifty consumers responded a questionnaire with word association, free listing, and sentence completion tasks. A thematic analysis was used to analyze the terms. Sustainability and food were associated with the categories health, food of plant origin, and organic food. Healthy was considered the main characteristic of a sustainable food and degradation to the environment was the characteristic of unsustainable food. Regarding the sustainable diet concept, the terms healthy diet and sustainable production stood out. Individuals of higher educational level associated food and sustainability with natural resource preservation and reuse, while individuals with lower educational levels reported the association with healthy food, nutrition, and food of plant origin. The present findings can help designing strategies to integrate food and nutrition education and formulation of public policies, as well as identifying the target market and understanding how the product or service can meet the consumer's needs.

China’s basic education and higher education are currently facing policies aimed at reducing and increasing the academic burden, respectively. In this context, we first review and assess the methods of measuring students’ academic burden and then apply the implicit association test for the first time to the academic burden of Chinese students from primary school to university under a unified framework. The results demonstrates that students’ academic burden increases with the school stage, and thus university students face a greater burden than primary and high school students, and that learning attitude fully mediates the relationship between objective and subjective views of academic burden. These results suggest the three policy approaches of implementing a management system for classifying academic burden, considering how to improve students’ learning quality, and developing their mental health education, thus providing a reference and inspiration for research and practice in the field of academic burden.

Objectives It is well known that age differentially impacts aspects of long-term episodic memory (EM): Whereas a binding deficit indicates that older adults are less capable than younger adults to encode or retrieve associations between information (e.g., the pairing between two memoranda, such as lock – race), item memory is relatively intact (e.g., recognizing lock without its original pairing). Method We tested whether this deficit could be corrected by facilitating establishment of the bindings in working memory (WM) through adapting the semantic relatedness of studied pairs according to participants’ ongoing performance (Experiments 1 and 2). We also examined whether this was evident for the long-term retention of pairs that were not tested in WM (Experiment 2). Results The results revealed matched binding and item memory in WM and EM between age groups. Most importantly, older adults required increased semantic strength between word pairs to achieve similar performance to that of younger adults, regardless of whether pairs were immediately tested during the WM task. Discussion These findings indicate that relying on their superior semantic memory can correct the commonly exhibited profound deficit in binding memory in older age.

The study of how the cognitive system encodes letter identities from the visual input has received much attention in models of visual word recognition but it has typically been overlooked in models of eye movement control in reading. Here we examined how visual letter similarity affects early word processing during reading using Rayner's (1975) boundary change technique in which the parafoveal preview of the target word was either identical (e.g., frito-frito [fried]) or a one-letter-different nonword (e.g., frjto-frito vs. frgto-frito). Critically, the substituted letter in the nonword was visually similar (based on letter confusability norms) or visually dissimilar. Results showed shorter viewing times on the target word when the parafoveal preview was visually similar than when it was visually dissimilar. Thus, visual letter similarity modulates the integration of parafoveal and foveal information during sentence reading. Future implementations of models of eye movement control in reading should incorporate a more developed orthographic-lexical module to capture these effects.

We study correlations between the structure and properties of a free association network of the English language, and solutions of psycholinguistic Remote Association Tests (RATs). We show that average hardness of individual RATs is largely determined by relative positions of test words (stimuli and response) on the free association network. We argue that the solution of RATs can be interpreted as a first passage search problem on a network whose vertices are words and links are associations between words. We propose different heuristic search algorithms and demonstrate that in "easily-solving" RATs (those that are solved in 15 seconds by more than 64\% subjects) the solution is governed by "strong" network links (i.e. strong associations) directly connecting stimuli and response, and thus the efficient strategy consist in activating such strong links. In turn, the most efficient mechanism of solving medium and hard RATs consists of preferentially following sequence of "moderately weak" associations., 16 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables (article is substantially revised)

Rodd et al. (2016) report that recreational rowers’ acquisition of sport-related terminology affected their interpretation of words that have both rowing-related and non-rowing-related meanings (e.g., crab). The extent to which the rowing- and non-rowing-related meanings were accessible to the participants depended on experiential factors, such as how long the participant had been a rower, and how long it had been since they last rowed. We present two experiments that attempt to replicate these findings with another group of hobbyists, namely video game players. Experiment 1 examined the differences in word meaning choice between gamers and non-gamers. Participation in video-gaming lead to participants generating more gaming-related word meanings in a word association task. Experiment 2 further examined the effects of video gaming experience on the lexical representation of gaming-related words. Participants who had spent more years as gamers were more likely to produce gaming-related word meanings in a word association task. The effect of time spent gaming was no longer significant when we took into account whether the participant engaged with video-game related media (such as YouTube channels or gaming-related message boards). This finding helps us to refine our understanding of the results reported by Rodd et al. (2016), suggesting that it may not be the time spent in an activity that affects the interpretation of ambiguous words, but rather the specific exposure to activity-related vocabulary.

Similar to sleeping after learning, a brief period of wakeful resting after encoding new information supports memory retention in contrast to task-related cognition. Recent evidence suggests that working memory capacity (WMC) is related to sleep-dependent declarative memory consolidation. We tested whether WMC moderates the effect of a brief period of wakeful resting compared to performing a distractor task subsequent to encoding a word list. Participants encoded and immediately recalled a word list followed by either an 8 min wakeful resting period (eyes closed, relaxed) or by performing an adapted version of the d2 test of attention for 8 min. At the end of the experimental session (after 12–24 min) and again, after 7 days, participants were required to complete a surprise free recall test of both word lists. Our results show that interindividual differences in WMC are a central moderating factor for the effect of post-learning activity on memory retention. The difference in word retention between a brief period of wakeful resting versus performing a selective attention task subsequent to encoding increased in higher WMC individuals over a retention interval of 12–24 min, as well as over 7 days. This effect was reversed in lower WMC individuals. Our results extend findings showing that WMC seems not only to moderate sleep-related but also wakeful resting-related memory consolidation.

Visual acuity can be measured in many different ways, including with letters and Vernier offsets. Prior psychophysical work has suggested that the two acuities are strongly linked given that they both depend strongly on retinal eccentricity and both are similarly affected in amblyopia. Here we used high-density EEG recordings to ask whether the underlying neural sources are common as suggested by the psychophysics or distinct. To measure visual acuity for letters, we recorded evoked potentials to 3 Hz alternations between intact and scrambled text comprised of letters of varying size. To measure visual acuity for Vernier offsets, we recorded evoked potentials to 3 Hz alternations between bar gratings with and without a set of Vernier offsets. Both alternation types elicited robust activity at the 3 Hz stimulus frequency that scaled in amplitude with both letter and offset size, starting near threshold. Letter and Vernier offset responses differed in both their scalp topography and temporal dynamics. The earliest evoked responses to letters occurred on lateral occipital visual areas, predominantly over the left hemisphere. Later responses were measured at electrodes over early visual cortex, suggesting that letter structure is first extracted in second-tier extra-striate areas and that responses over early visual areas are due to feedback. Responses to Vernier offsets, by contrast, occurred first at medial occipital electrodes, with responses at later time-points being more broadly distributed—consistent with feedforward pathway mediation. The previously observed commonalities between letter and Vernier acuity may be due to common bottlenecks in early visual cortex but not because the two tasks are subserved by a common network of visual areas.

Introduction: Tinnitus is a central auditory disorder in which different processing systems are involved as a network. One of these networks is memory. Previous studies have demonstrated some deficits in various types of memory in chronic tinnitus. Objectives: The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the semantic memory, which is not yet investigated in the tinnitus population. Methods: In this case–control study, 15 subjects with chronic tinnitus and 16 matched healthy controls were included. 40 semantically related and 40 semantically unrelated word pairs were presented to the participants in a counter-balanced fashion. They were asked to make decision about their semantic relatedness. Then the participants’ reaction times and the accuracy of responses were calculated. Results: Mean of reaction times were significantly longer in the tinnitus group (M = 1034 ms, SD = 0.31) compared to the control group (Mean = 1016 ms, SD = 0.13), p

Objective. This article explored and compared social representations of nurses held by incoming and outgoing Nursing students in the Technical Nursing Program in San Juan, Argentina. Methods. Our research was descriptive and utilized the prototypicality method of analysis for social representations, from a structural approach. The sample was made up of 194 students (104 incoming and 90 outgoing), to whom we applied the word association technique for the term “nurse”. Results. Differences were found in the representations that incoming and outgoing students had. i) For incoming students: we observe a wide and general concept of a nurse, expressed in non-specific terms such as “health” in the central core, while for outgoing students the term “care” emerged; ii) We infer distancing from the hegemonic medical model on the part of outgoing students, as well as an emphasis on the relational, as terms such as “vocation”, “humanization”, “love” and “empathy” are evoked, while the term “illness” decreases; iii) We understand that outgoing students highlight their autonomy with respect to doctors and nursing as a profession with the term “professional” with no mention of “assistance”, “help” and “assistant”, terms which did appear with incoming students; iv) Outgoing students convey a sense of a nurse’s diverse roles that go beyond the hospital setting, as instead of mentioning “hospital” and “injection” like incoming students, they mention “prevention” and “research”. Conclusion. The comparison of representative structures held by incoming and outgoing students suggests a transformation of self-image through a process of academic education. Resumo Objetivo. Este estudo investigou e comparou as representações sociais sobre o enfermeiro de estudantes que ingressaram ou saíram do Curso Superior de Enfermagem, em San Juan, Argentina. Métodos. A pesquisa foi descritiva e utilizou o método de análise prototípica de representações sociais, a partir da abordagem estrutural. A amostra constituiu 194 alunos (104 participantes e 90 de graduação), aos quais a técnica de associação de palavras foi aplicada contra o termo indutor “enfermeiro”. Resultados. Diferenças nas representações do enfermeiro são encontradas entre os estudantes que entram e saem: i) Nos participantes, observa-se uma concepção ampla e geral do enfermeiro, expressa em termos inespecíficos como “saúde” no núcleo central, enquanto nos que estão se formando "cuidado" emerge; ii) Infere-se um afastamento do modelo médico hegemônico por parte dos graduados e uma ênfase no relacional, evocando "vocação", "humanização", "amor" e "empatia" e diminuindo a aparência de "doença" ; iii) entende-se que os estudantes de graduação destacam sua autonomia perante o médico e a enfermagem como profissão, evocando "profissional" e sem mencionar "assistência", "ajuda" e "auxiliar", assim como os participantes; iv) os estudantes que se formaram expressam a diversidade de papéis do enfermeiro além do ambiente hospitalar, em vez de evocar “hospital” e “injeção” como participantes, mencionam “prevenção” e “pesquisa”. Conclusão. A comparação das estruturas representativas dos estudantes que entram e saem sugere uma transformação da auto-imagem através do processo de formação acadêmica. Resumen Objetivo. Indagar y comparar las representaciones sociales sobre el enfermero que de ello tienen los estudiantes que ingresan o con respeto a los que egresan de la carrera Tecnicatura Universitaria en Enfermería, en San Juan, Argentina. Métodos. Investigación tipo descriptiva. Se utilizó el método de análisis prototípico de las representaciones sociales, desde el enfoque estructural. Constituyeron la muestra 194 estudiantes (104 ingresantes y 90 por egresar), a quienes se les aplicó la técnica de asociación de palabras frente al término inductor “enfermero/a”. Resultados. Se encuentran diferencias en cuanto a las representaciones del enfermero entre estudiantes ingresantes y por egresar: i) En ingresantes se observa una concepción amplia y general del enfermero, expresada en términos inespecíficos como “salud” en el núcleo central, mientras que en los que van a egresar emerge “cuidados”; ii) Se infiere un alejamiento del modelo médico hegemónico por parte de aquellos por egresar y un énfasis en lo relacional, en tanto se evoca “vocación”, “humanización”, “amor” y “empatía” y disminuye la aparición de “enfermedad”; iii) se entiende que los estudiantes por egresar destacan su autonomía ante el médico y a la enfermería como profesión al evocar “profesional” y al no mencionar “asistencia”, “ayuda” y “auxiliar” como sí lo hicieron los ingresantes; iv) los estudiantes por egresar manifiestan la diversidad de roles del enfermero más allá del ámbito hospitalario y mencionan “prevención” e “investigación”, en lugar de evocar “hospital” e “inyección” como los ingresantes. Conclusión. La comparación de las estructuras representativas de los estudiantes ingresantes y por egresar sugiere una transformación de la autoimagen en el proceso de formación académica.

Objective. To know the social representations of female sex workers about their sexuality. Methods. Qualitative study based on the Theory of Social Representations. Thirty-nine women from a health region of Alto Sertão Produtivo Baiano - Brazil agreed to participate. For the production of empirical data, the techniques of Free Word Association and in-depth interviews were used. The answers were analyzed based on Constellation Target Content Analysis and Semantic Content Analysis. Results. Two thematic categories emerged: “negative representation of sexuality”; “my pleasure is the money”. Therefore, the theme sexuality and meanings derived from the social representations elaborated by the sex workers about sexuality, based on their experiences and daily life, showed that the work involved a negative representation of sexuality when associated with sexual satisfaction with the client, in addition to the allusion to sex as a source of income. Conclusion. The social representations about sexuality constructed by sex workers are linked to the feeling of denial of pleasure and obtaining money for subsistence. Reflecting on sexuality points out ways to rethink the care to be provided for a stigmatized and vulnerable group. Resumen Objetivo. Apreender las representaciones sociales de las trabajadoras sexuales sobre su sexualidad. Métodos. Estudio cualitativo, basado en la Teoría de las Representaciones Sociales. Aceptaron participar 69 mujeres de una región productiva bahiana de salud en el Sertão (Brasil). Para la producción de los datos empíricos, se utilizaron las técnicas de Asociación Libre de Palabras y entrevistas a profundidad. Las respuestas se analizaron a partir del Análisis de Contenido por Objetivo de Constelación o de Contenido Semántico. Resultados. Surgieron dos categorías temáticas: "Representación negativa de la sexualidad" y "Mi placer es el dinero". Para las trabajadoras sexuales, la sexualidad tiene una representación negativa cuando se asocia con la satisfacción sexual con el cliente, además de la alusión al sexo como fuente de ingreso económico. Conclusión. Las representaciones sociales de la sexualidad construidas por las trabajadoras sexuales se refieren al sentimiento de negación del placer y a la obtención de dinero para la subsistencia. Reflexionar sobre la sexualidad aporta caminos para repensar el cuidado a un grupo estigmatizado por la sociedad y con alta vulnerabilidad social Resumo Objetivo. Apreender as representações sociais de trabalhadoras sexuais sobre sua sexualidade. Métodos. Estudo qualitativo, fundamentado na Teoria das Representações Sociais. Aceitaram participar 69 mulheres de uma região de saúde do Sertão Produtivo Baiana (Brasil). Para a produção dos dados empíricos utilizou-se as técnicas de Associação Livre de Palavras, e a entrevista em profundidade. As respostas foram analisadas a partir da Análise de Conteúdo por Alvo de Constelação e de Conteúdo Semântica. Resultados. Surgiram duas categorias temáticas: “representação negativa da sexualidade” e “meu prazer é o dinheiro”. Para as trabalhadoras sexuais, a sexualidade envolve a representação negativa quando associado à satisfação sexual com o cliente, além da alusão ao sexo como fonte de renda. Conclusão. As representações sociais sobre a sexualidade construídas por trabalhadoras sexuais remetem ao sentimento de negação do prazer e a obtenção do dinheiro para a subsistência. Refletir sobre a sexualidade apontam caminhos para repensar o cuidado a um grupo estigmatizado e de vulnerabilidade pela sociedade.

It is widely accepted that sleep aids in the encoding, consolidation, and retrieval processes involved in memory processing; however, the conditions under which sleep influences memory may be substantially constrained. In a meta-analysis, we examined the effects that sleep has on both veridical (accurate) and false memory consolidation, in studies using the Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm for memory of thematically related words. The meta-analysis revealed that, whereas there was no overall effect of sleep on either accurate or false memories, the effect of sleep on overall memories was moderated by two constraints. First, sleep effects were influenced by the number of words within each themed word list, relating to differences in processing of the associative network of related words. Second, sleep effects were greater in recall than in recognition tests. Thus, whether sleep consolidation increased or decreased DRM veridical or false memory effects depended on the specific features of the memory task.

Abstract. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a popular tool for measuring attitudes. We suggest that performing an IAT could, however, also change attitudes via analogical learning. For instance, when performing an IAT in which participants categorize (previously unknown) Chinese characters, flowers, positive words, and negative words, participants could infer that Chinese characters relate to flowers as negative words relate to positive words. This analogy would imply that Chinese characters are opposite to flowers in terms of valence and thus that they are negative. Results from three studies (N = 602) confirmed that evaluative learning can occur when completing an IAT, and suggest that this effect can be described as analogical. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on analogy and research on the IAT as a measure of attitudes.

Executive deficits and impulsiveness are extensively reported in juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME). Previous literature suggests that intelligence may mediate these deficits. In this study, we evaluated and compared the performance of adults with JME with high and low intelligence quotient (IQ) and controls on tasks for executive function (EF) and impulsive traits. We investigated the neuropsychological performance of 53 adults with JME and below average IQ (57% women; 26.9 [± 7.88] years; mean IQ: 89.8 [± 5.1]), 26 adults with JME and average or above average IQ (53.8% women; 28.2 [± 9.33] years; mean IQ: 110.7 [± 8.3]), 38 controls with below average IQ (55% women; 28.4 [± 8.4] years; mean IQ: 90.1 [± 5.8]), and 31 controls with average or above average IQ (61.3% women; 32.20 [± 11.3] years; mean IQ: 111.6 [± 10.5]) with a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests that measure executive/attentional function. Impulsive traits were assessed using the Cloninger et al.'s Temperament and Character Inventory (novelty seeking (NS) domain). The group with JME with higher IQ presented worse performance compared with controls with higher IQ on Controlled Oral Word Association (COWA) and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) (errors). This group showed worse performance than controls with lower IQ on Stroop Color–Word Test (SCT) 1, Trail Making (TM) A, COWA, and WCST (errors). Patients with lower IQ showed worse performance than controls with higher IQ on Digit Span Forward (DSF), Digit Span Backward (DSB), SCT1, SCT2, SCT3, TM A, COWA, and WCST (errors and failure to maintain set). Patients with lower IQ showed worse performance than controls with lower IQ on DSF, DSB, SCT1, SCT2, SCT3, TM A, TM B, COWA, and WCST (errors and failure to maintain set). Patients from groups with low and high IQ showed higher scores than controls with higher and lower IQ on impulsivity for NS1 and NS2 (except for patients with higher IQ versus controls with lower IQ). Adults with JME and higher IQ show less evidence of EF deficits compared with those with JME and below average IQ, suggesting that a higher degree of intellectual efficiency may act as a compensatory mechanism. However, it does not minimize some aspects of impulsive traits. Patients with JME and higher cognitive reserve may create strategies to dodge their cognitive obstacles. In this context, intelligence may protect and, at the same time, “mask” impairments that could be detected earlier.

People differ in how quickly they learn information and how long they remember it, yet individual differences in learning abilities within healthy adults have been relatively neglected. In two studies, we examined the relation between learning rate and subsequent retention using a new foreign-language paired-associates task (the learning-efficiency task), which was designed to eliminate ceiling effects that often accompany standardized tests of learning and memory in healthy adults. A key finding was that quicker learners were also more durable learners (i.e., exhibited better retention across a delay), despite studying the material for less time. Additionally, measures of learning and memory from this task were reliable in Study 1 ( N = 281) across 30 hr and Study 2 ( N = 92; follow-up n = 46) across 3 years. We conclude that people vary in how efficiently they learn, and we describe a reliable and valid method for assessing learning efficiency within healthy adults.

A central issue in visual and spoken word recognition is the lexical representation of complex words-in particular, whether the lexical representation of complex words depends on semantic transparency: Is a complex verb like understand lexically represented as a whole word or via its base stand, given that its meaning is not transparent from the meanings of its parts? To study this issue, a number of stimulus characteristics are of interest that are not yet available in public databases of German. This article provides semantic association ratings, lexical paraphrases, and vector-based similarity measures for German verbs, measuring (a) the semantic transparency between 1,259 complex verbs and their bases, (b) the semantic relatedness between 1,109 verb pairs with 432 different bases, and (c) the vector-based similarity measures of 846 verb pairs. Additionally, we include the verb regularity of all verbs and two counts of verb family size for 184 base verbs, as well as estimates of age of acquisition and age of reading for 200 verbs. Together with lemma and type frequencies from public lexical databases, all measures can be downloaded along with this article. Statistical analyses indicate that verb family size, morphological complexity, frequency, and verb regularity affect the semantic transparency and relatedness ratings as well as the age of acquisition estimates, indicating that these are relevant variables in psycholinguistic experiments. Although lexical paraphrases, vector-based similarity measures, and semantic association ratings may deliver complementary information, the interrater reliability of the semantic association ratings for each verb pair provides valuable information when selecting stimuli for psycholinguistic experiments.

This study explored the relation between general knowledge and the hemispheric processing of metaphoric expressions in college age students. We hypothesized that prior knowledge influences how the hemispheres process metaphors in these individuals. In this study, 97 young (college-aged) adults completed a general knowledge and vocabulary test, and were then divided into high-knowledge/high-vocabulary and low-knowledge/low-vocabulary groups. Next, participants viewed word pairs consisting of conventional metaphors, novel metaphors, word pairs with a literal meaning, and unrelated word pairs. The first word in each pair was presented centrally, and the second was presented to the right visual field-left hemisphere (rvf-LH) or the left visual field-right hemisphere (lvf-RH), and participants indicated whether each pair was a meaningful expression. Accuracy results showed an interaction between general knowledge and visual-field hemisphere. Low-knowledge participants were more accurate for metaphors presented to the rvf-LH than the lvf-RH, whereas high-knowledge participants showed no accuracy differences between the hemispheres. We also found an interaction between vocabulary and visual field-hemisphere for conventional metaphors. Specifically, low-vocabulary participants showed a left-hemisphere accuracy advantage, but high-vocabulary participants showed similar accuracy patterns in both hemispheres. These results suggest that young adult readers who have more general knowledge process conventional metaphors similarly in both hemispheres, whereas young adult readers who have less general knowledge may rely more heavily on left-hemisphere processes during conventional metaphor comprehension.

Background The influence of subtotal resection (STR) on neurocognitive function (NCF), quality of life, and symptom burden in glioblastoma is unknown. If bevacizumab preferentially benefits patients with STR is unknown. Objective To examine these uncertainties. Methods NCF and patient reported outcomes (PRO) were prospectively collected in NRG Oncology RTOG 0525 and 0825. Changes in NCF and PRO measures from baseline to prespecified times were examined by Wilcoxon test, and mixed effects longitudinal modeling, to assess differences between patients who received STR vs gross-total resection. Changes were also compared among STR patients on 0825 receiving placebo vs bevacizumab to assess for a preferential therapeutic effect. Overall survival between STR and gross-total resection patients was compared using the Kaplan-Meier method. Results A total of 427 patients were eligible with STR present in 37%. At baseline, patients with STR had worse NCF, worse MD Anderson Symptom Inventory Brain Tumor Neurological Factor ratings (P = .004), and European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (P = .002). Longitudinal multivariate analysis associated STR with worse NCF (Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised Delayed Recognition [P = .048], Trail Making Test Part A [P = .035], and Controlled Oral Word Association [P = .049]). One hundred eighty-three STR patients from 0825 were analyzed (89 bevacizumab, 94 placebo); bevacizumab failed to demonstrate improvement in select NCF or PRO measures. Conclusion STR patients had worse NCF and PROs before therapy. During adjuvant therapy, STR patients had worse objective NCF, despite accounting for tumor location. STR did not result in a detriment to OS. The addition of bevacizumab did not preferentially improve PRO or NCF outcomes in STR patients.

Retrieving information enhances learning more than restudying. One explanation of this effect is based on the role of mediators (e.g., sand-castle can be mediated by beach). Retrieval is hypothesised to activate mediators more than restudying, but existing tests of this hypothesis have had mixed results [Carpenter, S. K. (2011). Semantic information activated during retrieval contributes to later retention: Support for the mediator effectiveness hypothesis of the testing effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37(6), 1547-1552. doi: 10.1037/a0024140 ; Lehman, M., & Karpicke, J. D. (2016). Elaborative retrieval: Do semantic mediators improve memory? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 42(10), 1573-1591. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000267 ]. The present experiments explored an explanation of the conflicting results, testing whether mediator activation during a retrieval attempt depends on the accessibility of the target information. A target was considered less versus more accessible when fewer versus more cues were given during retrieval practice (Experiments 1 and 2), when the target had been studied once versus three times initially (Experiment 3), or when the target could not be recalled versus could be recalled during retrieval practice (Experiments 1-3). A mini meta-analysis of all three experiments revealed a small effect such that retrieval activated mediators more than presentation, but mediator activation was not reliably related to target accessibility. Thus, retrieval may enhance learning by activating mediators, in part, but these results suggest the role of other processes, too.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of regional diversity aspects related to consumers' perceptions of coalho cheese, with Brazilian Northeast and Southeast consumers (n=400, divided equally in each area) using Word Association (WA) task. Different perceptions were detected for both Northeast and Southeast consumers, and among 17 categories elicited for describing coalho cheese, only 7 categories (positive feeling, social aspects, sensory characteristic, dairy product technology, negative feeling, and lack of quality standard) presented significant differences in the frequency of mention according to chi-square per cell approach. The application of the discriminant technique Partial Least Square Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) indicated that the categories "Social", "Accompaniment", "Manufacturing method" were the main responsible for differentiating consumers' perceptions of both areas. Overall, the main dimensions involved in the consumers' perceptions of coalho cheese from different Brazilian regions were identified, thus obtaining comprehensive insights that can be used as a guideline for coalho cheese producers to develop marketing strategies considering the intra-cultural differences.

The presented research was conducted in order to investigate the connections between developmental dyslexia and the functioning of verbatim and gist memory traces-assumed in the fuzzy-trace theory. The participants were 71 high school students (33 with dyslexia and 38 without learning difficulties). The modified procedure and multinomial model of Stahl and Klauer (simplified conjoint recognition model) was used to collect and analyze data. Results showed statistically significant differences in four of the model parameters: (a) the probability of verbatim trace recollection upon presentation of orthographically similar stimulus was higher in the control than dyslexia group, (b) the probability of verbatim trace recollection upon presentation of semantically similar stimulus was higher in the control than dyslexia group, (c) the probability of gist trace retrieval upon presentation of semantically similar stimulus was higher in the dyslexia than control group, and (d) the probability of gist trace retrieval upon target stimulus presentation (in the semantic condition) was higher in the control than dyslexia group. The obtained results suggest differences of memory functioning in terms of verbatim and gist trace retrieval between people with and without dyslexia on specific, elementary cognitive processes postulated by the fuzzy-trace theory. These can indicate new approaches in the education of persons with developmental dyslexia, focused on specific impairments and the strengths of their memory functioning.

"Updating with incorporation occurs when people learn previously unstudied (newer) information with the intention of adding it to a body of previously studied (older) information. Testing information usually leads to better recall later, even when exposure time is matched equally with the restudy group. However, in a specific paradigm which has participants review older information immediately before learning newer information, testing produces costs - poorer recall of the newer items - which outweigh the benefits - better recall of the older items. I propose that in this paradigm, testing the older information just before learning the newer information influences meta-cognitions and can encourage rehearsing older information at the cost of studying newer information. While my manipulations were successful, I did not find that increasing confidence about older learned information by manipulating test difficulty (Experiment 1 and 3) or word fluency (Experiment 2) diminished the costs and benefits. The costs and benefits are influenced by more than just participants' confidence. Post hoc evidence suggests participants only need moderate confidence while restudying older information to move on to studying newer information. Failure to replicate the costs and benefits with unassociated items hints at the importance of word association in producing this pattern of results."--Abstract from author supplied metadata

Relational information about items in memory is thought to be represented in our brain thanks to an internal comprehensive model, also referred to as a "cognitive map". In the human neuroimaging literature, two signatures of bi-dimensional cognitive maps have been reported: the grid-like code and the distance-dependent code. While these kinds of representation were previously observed during spatial navigation and, more recently, during processing of perceptual stimuli, it is still an open question whether they also underlie the representation of the most basic items of language: words. Here we taught human participants the meaning of novel words as arbitrary labels for a set of audiovisual objects varying orthogonally in size and sound. The novel words were therefore conceivable as points in a navigable 2D map of meaning. While subjects performed a word comparison task, we recorded their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). By applying a combination of representational similarity and fMRI-adaptation analyses, we found evidence of (i) a grid-like code, in the right postero-medial entorhinal cortex, representing the relative angular positions of words in the word space, and (ii) a distance-dependent code, in medial prefrontal, orbitofrontal, and mid-cingulate cortices, representing the Euclidean distance between words. Additionally, we found evidence that the brain also separately represents the single dimensions of word meaning: their implied size, encoded in visual areas, and their implied sound, in Heschl's gyrus/Insula. These results support the idea that the meaning of words, when they are organized along two dimensions, is represented in the human brain across multiple maps of different dimensionality. SIGNIFICANT STATEMENT: How do we represent the meaning of words and perform comparative judgements on them in our brain? According to influential theories, concepts are conceivable as points of an internal map (where distance represents similarity) that, as the physical space, can be mentally navigated. Here we use fMRI to show that when humans compare newly learnt words, they recruit a grid-like and a distance code, the same types of neural codes that, in mammals, represent relations between locations in the environment and support physical navigation between them.

Objectives Refreshing, or the act of briefly foregrounding recently presented but now perceptually absent representations, has been identified as a possible source of age differences in working memory and episodic memory. We investigated whether the refreshing deficit contributes to the well-known age-related deficit for retrieving nonsemantic associations, but has no impact on existing semantic associations. Method Younger and older adults judged the relatedness of stimulus word pairs (e.g., pink–blue or pink–cop) after repeating or refreshing one of the words. During a later source recognition memory test, participants determined whether each item recognized as old was presented on the left or right (nonsemantic source memory) and presented in a related or unrelated pair (semantic source memory). The data were analyzed using a hierarchical Bayesian implementation of a multinomial model of multidimensional source memory. Results Neither age group exhibited a refreshing benefit to nonsemantic or semantic source memory parameters. There was a large age difference in nonsemantic source memory, but no age difference in semantic source memory. Discussion The study suggests that the nature of the association is most important to episodic memory performance in older age, irrespective of refreshing, such that source memory is unimpaired for semantically meaningful information.

Background Both positive expectancies regarding the effects of alcohol and internalizing problems, including negative emotionality and deficits in emotion regulation, are known risk factors for alcohol use disorder (AUD). The current study is the first to investigate how neural response to emotional stimuli may impact alcohol expectancies and risk for AUD. Methods Functional neuroimaging data was collected during an emotional word task from 168 emerging adults (M age = 19.65; 66% male). Activation to negative versus neutral words and positive versus neutral words was extracted for analyses. Participants also reported on their alcohol expectancies and information regarding alcohol use and problems was collected prospectively throughout adolescence and into adulthood (up to age 30). Results Decreased activation in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) to negative versus neutral words was associated with increased post-scan alcohol consumption, measured as average drinks per year. There was a significant indirect effect of positive alcohol expectancies on the association between IFG activation and post-scan alcohol consumption, even when controlling for quantity of alcohol consumption prior to the scan. Conclusions These results are the first to provide evidence that positive alcohol expectancies account for variance shared between brain regions associated with emotion processing and increased drinking behaviors. Alcohol expectancies may provide a modifiable target for treatments to decrease the link between deficits in emotion regulation and increased alcohol use.

Purpose Individuals with neurogenic speech disorders require ongoing therapeutic support to achieve functional communication goals. Alternative methods for service delivery, such as tablet-based speech therapy applications, may help bridge the gap and bring therapeutic interventions to the patient in an engaging way. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an iPad-based speech therapy app that uses automatic speech recognition (ASR) software to provide feedback on speech accuracy to determine the ASR's accuracy against human judgment and whether participants' speech improved with this ASR-based feedback. Method Five participants with apraxia of speech plus aphasia secondary to stroke completed an intensive 4-week at-home therapy program using a novel word training app with built-in ASR. Multiple baselines across participants and behaviors designs were employed, with weekly probes and follow-up at 1 month posttreatment. Four sessions a week of 100 practice trials each were prescribed, with 1 being clinician-run and the remainder done independently. Dependent variables of interest were ASR–human agreement on accuracy during practice trials and human-judged word production accuracy over time in probes. Also, user experience surveys were completed immediately posttreatment. Results ASR–human agreement on accuracy averaged ~80%, which is a common threshold applied for interrater agreement. All participants demonstrated improved word production accuracy over time with the ASR-based feedback and maintenance of gains after 1 month. All participants reported enjoying using the app with support of a speech pathologist. Conclusion For these participants with apraxia of speech plus aphasia due to stroke, satisfactory gains were made in word production accuracy with an app-based therapy program providing ASR-based feedback on accuracy. Findings support further testing of this ASR-based approach as a supplement to clinician-run sessions to assist clients with similar profiles in achieving higher amount and intensity of practice as well as empowering them to manage their own therapy program. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.8206628

Beauty is the single most frequently and most broadly used aesthetic virtue term. The present study aimed at providing higher conceptual resolution to the broader notion of beauty by comparing it with three closely related aesthetically evaluative concepts which are likewise lexicalized across many languages: elegance, grace(fulness), and sexiness. We administered a variety of questionnaires that targeted perceptual qualia, cognitive and affective evaluations, as well as specific object properties that are associated with beauty, elegance, grace, and sexiness in personal looks, movements, objects of design, and other domains. This allowed us to reveal distinct and highly nuanced profiles of how a beautiful, elegant, graceful, and sexy appearance is subjectively perceived. As aesthetics is all about nuances, the fine-grained conceptual analysis of the four target concepts of our study provides crucial distinctions for future research.

An extensive empirical and theoretical literature has characterized anticipatory/expectancy processes as integral to motivation, including motivation to consume alcohol. To examine whether these processes could be probed on a moment to moment basis as they activate to motivate near term drinking, we sampled future-oriented expectancy verbal associates (i.e., self-generated words) using an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) paradigm every 3 hr on 3 days of the week (2 days of likely drinking and 1 of low drinking likelihood). Expectancy associates were chosen because cognitive psychologists consider verbal items collected in this manner a part-way approach to measurement of automatic/implicit processes. Consistent with predictions, more positively valenced alcohol expectancies activated within a few hours preceding increased alcohol consumption, and this activation could be statistically distinguished from the influence of a wide array of other variables known to predict consumption, including autocorrelation. As previously observed, more positively valenced alcohol expectancies were activated in alcohol-related environments. These findings provide further evidence that anticipatory information processing is engaged for the direction of future behavior, and that probing expectancies in real-time can be useful for predicting near-term alcohol consumption. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

In contrast to most memory systems that decline with age, semantic memory tends to remain relatively stable across the life span. However, what exactly is stable remains unclear. Is it the quantity of information available or the organization of semantic memory, i.e., the connections between semantic items? Even less is known about semantic memory for celebrities, a subsystem of semantic memory. In the present study, we studied the organization of person-specific semantic memory and its stability in aging.We designed a word association task based on a previous study, which consisted in providing the first word that came to the mind of the participants (15 participants for each age group 20-30, 40-50 and 60-70 years old) for 144 celebrities. We developed a new taxonomy of associated responses as the responses associated with celebrities name could in principle be very varied.We found that most responses (90%) could be grouped into five categories (subjective; superordinate general; superordinate specific; imagery and activities). The elderly group did not differ from the other two groups in term of errors or reaction time suggesting they performed the task well. However, they also provided associations that were less precise and less based on imagery. In contrast, the middle-age group provided the most precise associations.These results support the idea of a durable person-specific semantic memory in aging but show changes in the type of associations that elders provide. Future work should aim at studying patients with early semantic impairment, as they could be different from the healthy elders on such semantic association task.

Purpose The current article presents data from 2 studies on clinical groups of children referred for speech assessment. The aims of these studies are to validate the Computer Articulation Instrument (CAI) with the known-group validation method and to determine the differential diagnostic power of the resulting speech profiles. Method Study 1 examined known-group validity by comparing the scores of 93 children diagnosed with speech-language difficulties on the picture naming (PN) task of the CAI with intelligibility judgments given by speech-language pathologists. In Study 2, the speech profiles of 41 children diagnosed with speech sound disorders (SSDs), consisting of 4–6 factor scores extracted from the 4 tasks of the CAI, namely, PN, nonword imitation (NWI), word and nonword repetition, and maximum repetition rate (MRR), were validated against clinical judgments of severity of the SSD given by speech-language pathologists. Results In Study 1, a repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed a significant effect of intelligibility level on the PN performance of the CAI and there were highly significant correlations between intelligibility and PN performance in the expected direction. Neither intelligibility level nor PN performance was related to nonverbal intelligence and language scores. The analysis of variance and a series of t tests in Study 2 revealed significant differences between the moderate and severe groups for the CAI factors based on PN and NWI and the bisyllabic and trisyllabic sequences of MRR, but not for the factor word and nonword proportion of whole-word variability based on word and nonword repetition, and the monosyllabic sequences of MRR. These results suggest that, especially, the tasks PN, NWI, and the bisyllabic and trisyllabic sequences of MRR are most sensitive for diagnosing SSDs. Conclusions The findings of these 2 studies support the known-group validity of the CAI. Together with the results of a previous study of our group on reliability and validity ( van Haaften et al., 2019 ), we can conclude that the CAI is a reliable and valid tool for assessment of children with SSDs.

Objectives: To capture and analyze the structure of homeless people’s social representations about self-care. Methods: Research based on the theory of social representations, with 122 people in street situation. A semistructured questionnaire and free evocation technique were applied with the inducing words “caring for myself is”. The evocations were processed by the software Evoc and Iramuteq, allowing to identify central and peripheral elements and the connection between them. Results: For the group studied, “feeding oneself, personal hygiene, protecting oneself and visiting the doctor” are actions and attitudes that represent caring for themselves. In the streets, “feeding oneself” is an essential action for living/surviving that underpins the others. Final considerations: Despite behaviors based on the biomedical model, self-care was represented by extended actions to meet basic human needs. This study offers elements of reflection to rethink care practices developed by health professionals. RESUMEN Objetivos: comprender y evaluar la estructura de las representaciones sociales de personas en situación de calle acerca del cuidado de sí. Métodos: investigación con base en la teoría de las representaciones sociales, en la cual participaron 122 personas en situación de calle. Se aplicaron un cuestionario semiestructurado y la técnica de evocaciones libres con el término inductor “cuidar de mí es”. Se procesaron las evocaciones en los softwares Evoc e Iramuteq, lo que permitió identificar los elementos centrales, periféricos y la conexión entre ellos. Resultados: para el grupo investigado, “alimentarse, tener higiene personal, prevenirse e ir al médico” son acciones y actitudes que representan el cuidado de uno mismo. En las calles, “alimentarse” es una acción esencial para la (super)vivencia que abarca las demás. Consideraciones finales: a pesar de comportamientos con base en el modelo biomédico, el cuidado de sí fue representado por acciones ampliadas para satisfacer las necesidades humanas básicas. Este estudio aporta elementos reflexivos para repensar las prácticas de cuidado desarrolladas por profesionales de la salud. RESUMO Objetivos: apreender e analisar a estrutura das representações sociais de pessoas em situação de rua sobre o cuidado de si. Métodos: pesquisa fundamentada na teoria das representações sociais, com 122 pessoas em situação de rua. Aplicou-se questionário semiestruturado e técnica de evocações livres com o termo indutor “cuidar de mim é”. As evocações foram processadas pelos softwares Evoc e Iramuteq, permitindo identificar elementos centrais, periféricos e a conexidade entre eles. Resultados: para o grupo pesquisado, “se alimentar, ter higiene pessoal, se prevenir e ir ao médico” são ações e atitudes que representam o cuidado de si. Nas ruas, “se alimentar” é uma ação essencial para (sobre)vivência que sustenta as demais. Considerações finais: apesar de comportamentos pautados no modelo biomédico, o cuidado de si foi representado por ações ampliadas para satisfazer as necessidades humanas básicas. Esse estudo oferece elementos de reflexão para repensar práticas de cuidado desenvolvidas por profissionais de saúde.

We report on developmental vowel dyslexia, a type of dyslexia that selectively affects the reading aloud of vowel letters. We identified this dyslexia in 55 Turkish-readers aged 9–10, and made an in-depth multiple-case analysis of the reading of 17 participants whose vowel dyslexia was relatively selective. These participants made significantly more vowel errors (vowel substitution, omission, migration, and addition) than age-matched controls, and significantly more errors in vowel letters than in consonants. Vowel harmony, a pivotal property of Turkish phonology, was intact and the majority of their vowel errors yielded harmonic responses. The transparent character of Turkish orthography indicates that vowel dyslexia is not related to ambiguity in vowel conversion. The dyslexia did not result from a deficit in the phonological-output stage, as the participants did not make vowel errors in nonword repetition or in repeating words they had read with a vowel error. The locus of the deficit was not in the orthographic-visual-analyzer either, as their same-different decision on words differing in vowels was intact, and so was their written-word comprehension. They made significantly more errors on nonwords than on words, indicating that their deficit was in vowel processing in the sublexical route. Given that their single-vowels conversion was intact, and that they showed an effect of the number of vowels, we conclude that their deficit is in a vowel-specific buffer in the sublexical route. They did not make vowel errors within suffixes, indicating that suffixes are converted as wholes in a separate sublexical sub-route. These results have theoretical implications for the dual-route model: they indicate that the sublexical route converts vowels and consonants separately, that the sublexical route includes a vowel buffer, and a separate morphological conversion route. The results also indicate that types of dyslexia can be detected in transparent languages given detailed error-analysis and dyslexia-relevant stimuli.

The unitization effect means a phenomenon in which familiarity can contribute to associative recognition judgments when pairs of items are treated as a single entity rather than two separate items. Cumulative evidences suggested that the unitization effect was not influenced by the type of language, and this effect could be generalized to bilinguals when they performed an associative recognition in their second language. In the present study, the influence of familiarity on cross-language associative retrieval under unitization and the underlying neurophysiological mechanism behind this effect were investigated. Participants completed two "study-test" tasks presented in intralinguistic (from Uygur to Uygur) or interlinguistic assignment (from Chinese to Uygur) respectively. The study showed that: (1) during intralinguistic assignments, both FN400 and LPC were found under unitization for balanced and unbalanced bilinguals, while an LPC but not FN400 was found under non-unitization. (2) During interlinguistic assignments, both FN400 and LPC were found under unitization for balanced bilinguals. However, an LPC but not FN400 was found under unitization for unbalanced bilinguals. Collectively, these results indicated that unitization facilitated familiarity to support cross-language retrieval. In particular, the effects of familiarity on cross-language retrieval were mediated by the second language proficiency.