The effects of aging and degree of association on the semantic priming of lexical decisions

Previous cross-modal priming studies showed that lexical decisions to words after a pronoun were facilitated when these words were semantically related to the pronoun's antecedent. These studies suggested that semantic priming effectively measured antecedent retrieval during coreference. We examined whether these effects extended to implicit reading comprehension using the N400 response. The results of three experiments did not yield strong evidence of semantic facilitation due to coreference. Further, the comparison with two additional experiments showed that N400 facilitation effects were reduced in sentences (vs. word pair paradigms) and were modulated by the case morphology of the prime word. We propose that priming effects in cross-modal experiments may have resulted from task-related strategies. More generally, the impact of sentence context and morphological information on semantic facilitation effects suggests that they may depend on the extent to which the upcoming input is predicted, rather than automatic spreading activation between semantically related words.

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Effects of aging on axon terminals in the dentate molecular layer

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100128924 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 45 ◽

pp. 928-929

Author(s):

K. Cullen-Dockstader ◽

E. Fifkova

Keyword(s):

Granule Cells ◽

Molecular Layer ◽

Age Groups ◽

Long Term Potentiation ◽

Male Rats ◽

Perforant Path ◽

Axon Terminals ◽

Fischer 344 ◽

Spatial Memory Deficit ◽

Effects Of Aging

Normal aging results in a pronounced spatial memory deficit associated with a rapid decay of long-term potentiation at the synapses between the perforant path and spines in the medial and distal thirds of the dentate molecular layer (DML), suggesting the alteration of synaptic transmission in the dentate fascia. While the number of dentate granule cells remains unchanged, and there are no obvious pathological changes in these cells associated with increasing age, the density of their axospinous contacts has been shown to decrease. There are indications that the presynaptic element is affected by senescence before the postsynaptic element, yet little attention has been given to the fine structure of the remaining axon terminals. Therefore, we studied the axon terminals of the perforant path in the DML across three age groups.5 Male rats (Fischer 344) of each age group (3, 24 and 30 months), were perfused through the aorta.

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Effects of Aging on the Subcortical Encoding of Stop Consonants

American Journal of Audiology ◽

10.1044/2020_aja-19-00044 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 391-403

Author(s):

Dania Rishiq ◽

Ashley Harkrider ◽

Cary Springer ◽

Mark Hedrick

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Repeated Measures ◽

Mixed Model ◽

Auditory Brainstem ◽

Auditory Brainstem Responses ◽

Aging Effects ◽

Formant Frequency ◽

Place Of Articulation ◽

Second Formant ◽

Effects Of Aging

Purpose The main purpose of this study was to evaluate aging effects on the predominantly subcortical (brainstem) encoding of the second-formant frequency transition, an essential acoustic cue for perceiving place of articulation. Method Synthetic consonant–vowel syllables varying in second-formant onset frequency (i.e., /ba/, /da/, and /ga/ stimuli) were used to elicit speech-evoked auditory brainstem responses (speech-ABRs) in 16 young adults ( M age = 21 years) and 11 older adults ( M age = 59 years). Repeated-measures mixed-model analyses of variance were performed on the latencies and amplitudes of the speech-ABR peaks. Fixed factors were phoneme (repeated measures on three levels: /b/ vs. /d/ vs. /g/) and age (two levels: young vs. older). Results Speech-ABR differences were observed between the two groups (young vs. older adults). Specifically, older listeners showed generalized amplitude reductions for onset and major peaks. Significant Phoneme × Group interactions were not observed. Conclusions Results showed aging effects in speech-ABR amplitudes that may reflect diminished subcortical encoding of consonants in older listeners. These aging effects were not phoneme dependent as observed using the statistical methods of this study.

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Effects of Aging on Response Criteria in Speech-Recognition Tasks

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jshr.2902.155 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 155-162 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Sandra Gordon-Salant

Keyword(s):

Speech Recognition ◽

Response Criteria ◽

Effects Of Aging

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Items’ Cross-Category Associations as a Confounding Factor in the Implicit Association Test

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1026//0949-3946.48.2.123 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 48 (2) ◽

pp. 123-134 ◽

Cited By ~ 57

Author(s):

Melanie C. Steffens ◽

Inga Plewe

Keyword(s):

Implicit Association Test ◽

Confounding Factor ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Association Test ◽

The Other ◽

Reaction Time Difference ◽

Implicit Association ◽

Male And Female ◽

Research Activities ◽

Degree Of Association

Abstract. The introduction of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998 ) has stimulated numerous research activities. The IAT is supposed to measure the degree of association between concepts. Instances have to be assigned to these concepts by pressing appropriate keys as quickly as possible. The reaction time difference between certain conditions, termed the IAT effect, is used as an indicator of the degree of the concepts’ association. We tested the hypothesis that the degree of association between one concept (or category) and the instances of the other presented concept also influences reaction times. In our experiment, the instances in the target categories, male and female names, were kept constant. The adjectives in the evaluative categories were manipulated: Either the pleasant adjectives were female-associated and the unpleasant adjectives were male-associated, or vice versa. These stereotypic associations were indeed found to exert a substantial influence on the size of the IAT effect. This finding casts doubt on the assumption that the IAT effect may be interpreted as a pure measure of the degree of association between concepts.

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Combining the Post-Cue Task and the Perceptual Identification Task to Assess Parallel Activation and Mutual Facilitation of Related Primes and Targets

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000396 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 65 (2) ◽

pp. 84-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Demian Scherer ◽

Dirk Wentura

Keyword(s):

Semantic Priming ◽

Stimulus Onset ◽

The Other ◽

Perceptual Identification ◽

Identification Task ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Priming Paradigm ◽

Parallel Activation ◽

Prime Target

Abstract. Recent theories assume a mutual facilitation in case of semantic overlap for concepts being activated simultaneously. We provide evidence for this claim using a semantic priming paradigm. To test for mutual facilitation of related concepts, a perceptual identification task was employed, presenting prime-target pairs briefly and masked, with an SOA of 0 ms (i.e., prime and target were presented concurrently, one above the other). Participants were instructed to identify the target. In Experiment 1, a cue defining the target was presented at stimulus onset, whereas in Experiment 2 the cue was not presented before the offset of stimuli. Accordingly, in Experiment 2, a post-cue task was merged with the perceptual identification task. We obtained significant semantic priming effects in both experiments. This result is compatible with the view that two concepts can both be activated in parallel and can mutually facilitate each other if they are related.

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