Working memory influences on cross-language activation during bilingual lexical disambiguation

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANA B. ARÊAS DA LUZ FONTES ◽  
ANA I. SCHWARTZ
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Control Word ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Lexical Disambiguation ◽  
Subordinate Meaning ◽  
Language Activation ◽  
Cross Language

This study investigated the role of verbal working memory on bilingual lexical disambiguation. Spanish–English bilinguals read sentences that ended in either a cognate or noncognate homonym or a control word. Participants decided whether follow-up target words were related in meaning to the sentences. On critical trials, sentences biased the subordinate meaning of a homonym and were followed by targets related to the dominant meaning. Bilinguals with high span were faster at rejecting unrelated targets when the sentences ended in a homonym, whereas bilinguals with low span were slower. Furthermore, error rates for bilinguals with low span showed cognate inhibition, while bilinguals with high span showed no effects of cross-language activation. Results demonstrated that bilinguals with high span benefit from shared lexical codes whether these converge on to a single semantic representation (cognates) or not (homonyms). Conversely, bilinguals with low span showed inhibition from the competing lexical codes, even when they converge onto a single semantic representation.

scholarly journals Maintenance Mechanisms in Children’s Verbal Working Memory

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Laure Oftinger ◽  
Valerie Camos
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Concurrent Task ◽  
Verbal Information ◽  
Complex Span ◽  
Span Tasks ◽  
Joint Contribution

<p>Previous research in adults has indicated two maintenance mechanisms of verbal information in working memory, i.e., articulatory rehearsal and attentional refreshing. However, only three studies have examined their joint contribution to children’s verbal working memory. The present study aimed at extending this line of research by investigating the developmental changes occurring from 6 to 9 years old. In two experiments using complex span tasks, children of three different age groups maintained letters or words while performing a concurrent task. The opportunity for attentional refreshing was manipulated by varying the attentional demand of the concurrent task. Moreover, this task was performed either silently by pressing keys or aloud, the latter inducing a concurrent articulation. As expected, recall performance increased strongly with age. More interestingly, concurrent articulation had a detrimental effect on recall even in 6-year-old children. Similarly, introducing a concurrent attention-demanding task impaired recall performance at all ages. Finally, the effect of the availability of rehearsal and of attentional refreshing never interacted at any age. This suggested an independence of the two mechanisms in the maintenance of verbal information in children’s working memory. Implications for the development of rehearsal use and for the role of attention in working memory are discussed.</p>

scholarly journals The Inferior Frontal Gyrus and Phonological Processing: An Investigation using rTMS

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Nixon ◽  
Jenia Lazarova ◽  
Iona Hodinott-Hill ◽  
Patricia Gough ◽  
Richard Passingham
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Posterior Part ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Normal Operation ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Language Areas

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) offers a powerful new technique for investigating the distinct contributions of the cortical language areas. We have used this method to examine the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in phonological processing and verbal working memory. Functional neuroimaging studies have implicated the posterior part of the left IFG in both phonological decision making and subvocal rehearsal mechanisms, but imaging is a correlational method and it is therefore necessary to determine whether this region is essential for such processes. In this paper we present the results of two experiments in which rTMS was applied over the frontal operculum while subjects performed a delayed phonological matching task. We compared the effects of disrupting this area either during the delay (memory) phase or at the response (decision) phase of the task. Delivered at a time when subjects were required to remember the sound of a visually presented word, rTMS impaired the accuracy with which they subsequently performed the task. However, when delivered later in the trial, as the subjects compared the remembered word with a given pseudoword, rTMS did not impair accuracy. Performance by the same subjects on a control task that required the processing of nonverbal visual stimuli was unaffected by the rTMS. Similarly, performance on both tasks was unaffected by rTMS delivered over a more anterior site (pars triangularis). We conclude that the opercular region of the IFG is necessary for the normal operation of phonologically based working memory mechanisms. Furthermore, this study shows that rTMS can shed further light on the precise role of cortical language areas in humans.

scholarly journals Visuospatial working memory and the construction of a spatial situation model in listening comprehension: An examination using a spatial tapping task

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yun Lin ◽  
Norio Matsumi
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Situation Model ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Concurrent Task ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Impaired Performance ◽  
Dual Task Performance

AbstractThe present study investigated how visuospatial working memory (VSWM) is involved in the construction of a spatial situation model for spatial passages presented auditorily. A simple spatial tapping condition, a complex tapping condition as a target-tracking task, and a control condition, were used to analyze the role of VSWM. To understand how individuals who differ in verbal working memory (VWM) capacity (determined with a listening span test) process spatial text during dual-task performance, individual differences in VWM capacity were analyzed. In two experiments, the participants listened to a spatial text at the same time as performing a spatial concurrent task or no concurrent task. The results of the free recall test in Experiment 1 showed that there were no differences between the tapping conditions in the high VWM capacity group; the low VWM capacity group had a lower performance in both spatial tapping tasks compared to the control condition. The results of the map drawing test in Experiment 2 showed that complex spatial tapping impaired performance in comparison to simple spatial tapping and the control condition in the high VWM capacity group; in the low VWM capacity group, both spatial tapping tasks impaired recall performance. In addition, the participants with high VWM capacity demonstrated better performance. Overall, the results suggest that individuals with high VWM capacity have more resources to process verbal and spatial information than those with low VWM capacity, indicating that VWM capacity is related to the degree of the involvement of VSWM.

scholarly journals A Common Neural Substrate for Language Production and Verbal Working Memory

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1358-1367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Acheson ◽  
Massihullah Hamidi ◽  
Jeffrey R. Binder ◽  
Bradley R. Postle
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Phonological Encoding ◽  
Semantic Retrieval ◽  
Retrieval Task ◽  
Lexical Semantic

Verbal working memory (VWM), the ability to maintain and manipulate representations of speech sounds over short periods, is held by some influential models to be independent from the systems responsible for language production and comprehension [e.g., Baddeley, A. D. Working memory, thought, and action. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007]. We explore the alternative hypothesis that maintenance in VWM is subserved by temporary activation of the language production system [Acheson, D. J., & MacDonald, M. C. Verbal working memory and language production: Common approaches to the serial ordering of verbal information. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 50–68, 2009b]. Specifically, we hypothesized that for stimuli lacking a semantic representation (e.g., nonwords such as mun), maintenance in VWM can be achieved by cycling information back and forth between the stages of phonological encoding and articulatory planning. First, fMRI was used to identify regions associated with two different stages of language production planning: the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) for phonological encoding (critical for VWM of nonwords) and the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) for lexical–semantic retrieval (not critical for VWM of nonwords). Next, in the same subjects, these regions were targeted with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) during language production and VWM task performance. Results showed that rTMS to the pSTG, but not the MTG, increased error rates on paced reading (a language production task) and on delayed serial recall of nonwords (a test of VWM). Performance on a lexical–semantic retrieval task (picture naming), in contrast, was significantly sensitive to rTMS of the MTG. Because rTMS was guided by language production-related activity, these results provide the first causal evidence that maintenance in VWM directly depends on the long-term representations and processes used in speech production.

scholarly journals Verbal working memory in schizophrenia from the Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia (COGS) Study: The moderating role of smoking status and antipsychotic medications

2015 ◽  
Vol 163 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 24-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junghee Lee ◽  
Michael F. Green ◽  
Monica E. Calkins ◽  
Tiffany A. Greenwood ◽  
Raquel E. Gur ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Smoking Status ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Antipsychotic Medications ◽  
Moderating Role

Lexical representation of second language words

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana I. Schwartz ◽  
Li-Hao Yeh ◽  
Moira P. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Ambiguous Word ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Lexical Representation ◽  
Dominant Meaning ◽  
Subordinate Meaning ◽  
Language Activation ◽  
Preceding Sentence

The goal of the present study was to examine whether cross-language activation of a bilingual’s native language influences the processing of lexical ambiguity within a second language. Highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals performed a semantic verification task in which sentence frames were followed by the presentation of the final word of the sentence (the prime word). Participants then decided whether a follow-up target word was related to the meaning of the sentence. On critical trials the sentences ended in a semantically ambiguous word that was either a cognate with Spanish (e.g., novel), or a noncognate control matched on frequency and length (e.g., fast). The preceding sentence context biased the subordinate meaning (e.g., new; refrain from eating) and targets were related to the irrelevant, dominant meaning (e.g., BOOK; SPEED). Mean reaction times and error rates were greater when the prime words were ambiguous cognates than when they were ambiguous noncognates. This suggests that the semantic representations from the native language were coactivated and increased the lexical competition from the shared, dominant meaning. Implications for second language vocabulary acquisition and current models of reading are discussed.

scholarly journals Effect of focus on verbal working memory: Critical role of the focus word in reading

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-571 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariko Osaka ◽  
Yukiko Nishizaki ◽  
Mie Komori ◽  
Naoyuki Osaka
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Verbal Working Memory
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