Task-domain and hemisphere-asymmetry effects in cisgender and transmale individuals

The present research examined the extent to which transmale individuals’ functional brain organization resembles that of their assigned sex or gender identity. Cisgender-female, cisgender-male, and transmale participants, who were assigned female sex but did not have a female gender identity, were compared in terms of effects that have been observed in cisgender individuals: task-domain effects, in which males perform better than females on spatial tasks and females perform better than males on verbal tasks; and hemisphere-asymmetry effects, in which males show larger differences between the left and right hemispheres than females. In addition, the present research measured participants’ intelligence in order to control for potential moderating effects. Participants performed spatial (mental rotation) and verbal (lexical decision) tasks presented to each hemisphere using a divided-visual field paradigm, and then completed an intelligence assessment. In the mental-rotation task, cismale and transmale participants performed better than cisfemale participants, however this group difference was explained by intelligence scores, with higher scores predicting better performance. In the lexical-decision task, cismale and transmale participants exhibited a greater left-hemisphere advantage than cisfemales, and this difference was not affected by intelligence scores. Taken together, results do not support task-domain effects when intelligence is accounted for; however, they do demonstrate a hemisphere-asymmetry effect in the verbal domain that is moderated by gender identity and not assigned sex.

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Effects of Pinyin and Script Type on Verbal Processing: Comparisons of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong Experience

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1177/016502549101400405 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 429-448 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

May Jane Chen ◽

Joseph Chak-Kau Yuen

Keyword(s):

Hong Kong ◽

Lexical Decision ◽

Visual Information ◽

The Other ◽

Chinese Script ◽

Decision Task ◽

Verbal Processing ◽

Republic Of China ◽

Similarity Judgement ◽

Better Than

Children in the People's Republic of China (PRC) learn to read Chinese using a simplified script by pinyin, an alphabetic system. Taiwanese children learn Chinese using traditional characters and pinyin, Hong Kong children also learn Chinese with traditional characters, but without pinyin. The effects of these experiences were assessed by comparing children's performance on three tasks relevant to verbal processing. This study involved groups of children from each of the three places, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Three tasks were used: pseudohomophone naming, similarity judgement, and lexical decision. The results showed that the PRC children and Taiwanese children performed better than the Hong Kong children in the naming of pseudohomophones. In the similarity judgement task, the children were required to choose between two response words, one of which was similar to the target word in pronunciation and the other in appearance. The PRC children tended to choose the visually similar reponse words more often than did the Taiwanese and Hong Kong children. In the lexical decision task, the PRC children were far less accurate than the other children in rejecting nonwords as real words. These results suggest that pinyin training helps readers pronounce unfamiliar words by facilitating the extraction of phonological information for pronunciation and that the PRC children's experience in learning the simplified Chinese script has made them more responsive to visual information but less precise in word recognition.

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Effects of the relationships between forms within and across paradigms on lexical processing and representation

The Mental Lexicon ◽

10.1075/ml.18013.par ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 285-310

Author(s):

Jeff Parker

Keyword(s):

Lexical Decision ◽

Lexical Decision Task ◽

Lexical Access ◽

Lexical Processing ◽

Decision Task ◽

Theoretical Studies ◽

Priming Task ◽

Word Forms ◽

Better Than ◽

Visual Lexical Decision

Abstract The frequency and distribution of forms within a lexeme’s paradigm affect how quickly forms are accessed (e.g., Kostić, 1991; Milin, Filipović Đurđević, & Moscoso del Prado Martín, 2009; Moscoso del Prado Martı́n, Kostić, & Baayen, 2004). The distribution of forms across paradigms, in contrast, has received little experimental attention. Theoretical studies investigate the distribution of forms across paradigms because forms vary in how predictive they are of other (unknown) forms. Such investigations have uncovered typological tendencies (e.g., Ackerman & Malouf, 2013; Stump & Finkel, 2013) and contribute to explanations of language-specific phenomena (e.g., Sims, 2015; Parker & Sims, To appear). The intersection of these research approaches raises questions about how the distribution of forms within and across paradigms affects lexical access and representation. Based on forms of Russian nouns representing two morphosyntactic property sets and lexemes from three inflection classes, it is shown that speakers are sensitive to differences in form and morphosyntactic property set in a visual lexical decision task. In a priming task, nominative forms prime locative forms better than vice versa regardless of suffix, despite differences between the same forms in the lexical decision task. These results suggest that speakers make generalizations about forms across classes, including at the level of word forms and morphosyntactic property sets.

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Interhemispheric transfer evaluation in multiple sclerosis 1The authors would like to thank Claude-Alain Hauert and Christoph Michel for their assistance in the evaluation of motor tapping and Michel Habib for his suggestions and comments. This work was supported by a grant from the Swiss Society of Multiple Sclerosis.

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024//1421-0185.59.3.150 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 59 (3) ◽

pp. 150-158 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Nadia Ortiz ◽

Michael Reicherts ◽

Alan J. Pegna ◽

Encarni Garran ◽

Michel Chofflon ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Multiple Sclerosis ◽

Corpus Callosum ◽

Lexical Decision ◽

Dichotic Listening ◽

Neurological Impairment ◽

Interhemispheric Transfer ◽

Decision Task ◽

Swiss Society ◽

Listening Test ◽

Relapsing Remitting

Patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) have frequently been found to suffer from damage to callosal fibers. Investigations have shown that this damage is associated with signs of hemisphere disconnections. The aim of our study was to provide evidence for the first signs of interhemispheric dysfunction in a mildly disabled MS population. Therefore, we explored whether the Interhemispheric Transfer (IT) deficit is multi-modal and sought to differentiate two MS evolution forms, on the basis of an interhemispheric disconnection index. Twenty-two patients with relapsing-remitting form of MS (RRMS) and 14 chronic-progressive (CPMS) were compared with matched controls on four tasks: a tachistoscopic verbal and non-verbal decision task, a dichotic listening test, cross tactile finger localization and motor tapping. No overall impairment was seen. The dichotic listening and lexical decision tasks were the most sensitive to MS. In addition, CPMS patients' IT was more impaired and was related to the severity of neurological impairment. The different sizes of the callosal fibers, which determine their vulnerability, may explain the heterogeneity of transfer through the Corpus Callosum. Therefore, evaluation of IT may be of value as an index of evolution in MS.

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Effect of Emotions in a Lexical Decision Task

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000193 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 76 (2) ◽

pp. 71-79 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hélène Maire ◽

Renaud Brochard ◽

Jean-Luc Kop ◽

Vivien Dioux ◽

Daniel Zagar

Keyword(s):

Lexical Decision ◽

Lexical Decision Task ◽

Emotional State ◽

Control Group ◽

Decision Task ◽

Attentional Orienting ◽

Emotional States ◽

Sequence Effect ◽

Emotion Induction ◽

Before And After

Abstract. This study measured the effect of emotional states on lexical decision task performance and investigated which underlying components (physiological, attentional orienting, executive, lexical, and/or strategic) are affected. We did this by assessing participants’ performance on a lexical decision task, which they completed before and after an emotional state induction task. The sequence effect, usually produced when participants repeat a task, was significantly smaller in participants who had received one of the three emotion inductions (happiness, sadness, embarrassment) than in control group participants (neutral induction). Using the diffusion model ( Ratcliff, 1978 ) to resolve the data into meaningful parameters that correspond to specific psychological components, we found that emotion induction only modulated the parameter reflecting the physiological and/or attentional orienting components, whereas the executive, lexical, and strategic components were not altered. These results suggest that emotional states have an impact on the low-level mechanisms underlying mental chronometric tasks.

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Are Emotions Abstract or Concrete?

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000374 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 64 (5) ◽

pp. 315-324 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Xu Xu ◽

Chunyan Kang ◽

Kaia Sword ◽

Taomei Guo

Keyword(s):

Lexical Decision ◽

Lexical Decision Task ◽

Well Being ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Decision Task ◽

N400 Amplitude ◽

Abstract Nouns ◽

Concrete Nouns ◽

Emotion Concepts ◽

Healthy Participants

Abstract. The ability to identify and communicate emotions is essential to psychological well-being. Yet research focusing exclusively on emotion concepts has been limited. This study examined nouns that represent emotions (e.g., pleasure, guilt) in comparison to nouns that represent abstract (e.g., wisdom, failure) and concrete entities (e.g., flower, coffin). Twenty-five healthy participants completed a lexical decision task. Event-related potential (ERP) data showed that emotion nouns elicited less pronounced N400 than both abstract and concrete nouns. Further, N400 amplitude differences between emotion and concrete nouns were evident in both hemispheres, whereas the differences between emotion and abstract nouns had a left-lateralized distribution. These findings suggest representational distinctions, possibly in both verbal and imagery systems, between emotion concepts versus other concepts, implications of which for theories of affect representations and for research on affect disorders merit further investigation.

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Automatic Stereotype Activation Is Context Dependent

Social Psychology ◽

10.1027/1864-9335/a000019 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 41 (3) ◽

pp. 131-136 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Catharina Casper ◽

Klaus Rothermund ◽

Dirk Wentura

Keyword(s):

Lexical Decision ◽

Context Information ◽

Decision Task ◽

Social Categories ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Stereotype Activation ◽

Social Stereotypes ◽

Priming Paradigm ◽

Automatic Activation ◽

Mental Schemas

Processes involving an automatic activation of stereotypes in different contexts were investigated using a priming paradigm with the lexical decision task. The names of social categories were combined with background pictures of specific situations to yield a compound prime comprising category and context information. Significant category priming effects for stereotypic attributes (e.g., Bavarians – beer) emerged for fitting contexts (e.g., in combination with a picture of a marquee) but not for nonfitting contexts (e.g., in combination with a picture of a shop). Findings indicate that social stereotypes are organized as specific mental schemas that are triggered by a combination of category and context information.

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