scholarly journals Visual Recognition of Graphic Variants of Amharic Letters: Psycholinguistic Experiments

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Feda Negesse ◽  
Derib Ado
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Visual Recognition ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Single Letter ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Clear Pattern ◽  
Recognition Time ◽  
Frequency Counts ◽  
Psychological Experiments

One of the problems of Amharic orthography is a lack of consistency where the four Amharic sounds (/h/, /ʔ/, /s/ and /s’/) are mapped onto more than a single letter. The objective of these psychological experiments was to investigate the visual recognition of the graphic variants of the letters, both in isolation and within words. The experiments involved computation of the frequency counts of the letters in the Ten Ten Corpus for Amharic and the result revealed that there is a clear pattern of preference for the letters: the letters representing /h/ had the pattern , the letters representing /ʔ/ had the pattern , the letters representing /s/ had the pattern , and the letters representing /s’/ had the pattern in descending order of frequency. Similarly, the experiments indicated that frequency counts are significantly related to visual recognition of a letter, with the more frequent letters recognized faster with fewer errors. It was also observed that the target letters were recognized with a shorter reaction time when they were paired with themselves, but the recognition time was longer when they occurred with their graphic variants. Moreover, significantly higher percentage of errors were made when the target letters were matched with their graphic variants or their distractors in the alphabet recognition task. Similar patterns were also observed in the lexical decision task when the target letters were presented in words and pseudo-words. More rigorous psycholinguistic experiments, which will involve a large number of participants, are recommended to validate the results of the current experiments.

Activation of syllable units during visual recognition of French words in Grade 2

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 883-894 ◽  
Author(s):  
FABIENNE CHETAIL ◽  
STEPHANIE MATHEY
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Visual Recognition ◽  
Second Graders ◽  
Reading Level ◽  
Beginning Readers ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Good Readers ◽  
French Words

ABSTRACTThe aim of the study was to investigate the syllable activation hypothesis in French beginning readers. Second graders performed a lexical decision task in which bisyllabic words were presented in two colours that either matched the syllable boundaries or not. The data showed that the children were sensitive to syllable match and to syllable complexity. In addition, good readers were slowed down while poor readers were speeded up by syllable match. These findings suggest that syllables are functional units of lexical access in children and that syllable activation is influenced by reading level.

scholarly journals Abstract, emotional and concrete concepts and the activation of mouth-hand effectors.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Mazzuca ◽  
Luisa Lugli ◽  
Roberto Nicoletti ◽  
Anna M Borghi
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Emotional Words ◽  
Processing Level ◽  
Concreteness Effect ◽  
Abstract Words ◽  
Concrete Concepts ◽  
Emotional Concepts

According to embodied and grounded theories concepts are grounded in sensorimotor systems. The majority of evidence supporting these views concerns concepts referring to objects or actions, while evidence on abstract concepts is more scarce. Explaining how abstract concepts, as “freedom”, are represented, would however be pivotal for grounded theories. According to some recent proposals, abstract concepts are grounded evoking both sensorimotor and linguistic experience, thus activating the mouth motor system more than concrete concepts. Two experiments are reported, aimed at verifying whether abstract, concrete and emotional words activate the mouth and hand effectors. In both experiments participants performed first a lexical decision, then a recognition task. In Experiment 1 participants responded by pressing a button either with the mouth or with the hand, in Experiment 2 responses were given with the foot, while a button held either in the mouth or in the hand was used to respond to catch-trials. Abstract words were slower to process in both tasks (concreteness effect). Across the tasks and experiments, emotional concepts had instead a fluctuating pattern, different from those of both concrete and abstract concepts, suggesting that they cannot be considered as a subset of abstract concepts. The interaction between kind of concept (abstract, concrete and emotional) and effector (mouth, hand) was not significant in the lexical decision task, likely because it emerged only with tasks implying a deeper processing level. It reached significance, instead, in the accuracy analyses of the recognition tasks. In both experiments abstract concepts yielded less errors in the mouth than in the hand condition, supporting our main prediction. Emotional concepts had instead a more variable pattern. Overall, our findings indicate that different kinds of concepts differently activate the mouth and hand effectors, but they also suggests that concepts activate effectors in a flexible and task-dependent way.

scholarly journals The Mechanism Underlying Backward Priming in a Lexical Decision Task: Spreading Activation versus Semantic Matching

1998 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothee J. Chwilla ◽  
Peter Hagoort ◽  
C.M. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Semantic Priming ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Spreading Activation ◽  
Semantic Matching ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Manipulation Experiment

Koriat (1981) demonstrated that an association from the target to a preceding prime, in the absence of an association from the prime to the target, facilitates lexical decision and referred to this effect as “backward priming”. Backward priming is of relevance, because it can provide information about the mechanism underlying semantic priming effects. Following Neely (1991), we distinguish three mechanisms of priming: spreading activation, expectancy, and semantic matching/ integration. The goal was to determine which of these mechanisms causes backward priming, by assessing effects of backward priming on a language-relevant ERP component, the N400, and reaction time (RT). Based on previous work, we propose that the N400 priming effect reflects expectancy and semantic matching/ integration, but in contrast with RT does not reflect spreading activation. Experiment 1 shows a backward priming effect that is qualitatively similar for the N400 and RT in a lexical decision task. This effect was not modulated by an ISI manipulation. Experiment 2 clarifies that the N400 backward priming effect reflects genuine changes in N400 amplitude and cannot be ascribed to other factors. We will argue that these backward priming effects cannot be due to expectancy but are best accounted for in terms of semantic matching/integration.

Bilingualism and Lexical Representation

1980 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Kirsner ◽  
Heather L. Brown ◽  
S. Abrol ◽  
N. K. Chadha ◽  
N. K. Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Letter String ◽  
Lexical Representation ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
New Words ◽  
Factorial Combination ◽  
Repeated Words

Forty-eight Hindi-English bilinguals completed two blocks of trials where each trial involved presentation of a letter string requiring a lexical decision. In the first block subjects were exposed to 22 words and 11 non-words in either English or Hindi. In the second block the original words were repeated in either the same language or in the alternative language. In this block the old (repeated) words were mixed with 22 new words, and 22 non-words. Twelve subjects were included in each of the four groups given by the factorial combination of blocks and languages. Reaction time in the lexical decision task was facilitated when words were repeated in the same language (109 and 125 ms in the English-English and Hindi-Hindi groups respectively), but little or no facilitation was observed in the inter-lingual conditions (-22 and 23 ms in the Hindi-English and English-Hindi conditions respectively). The results support the view that lexical representation in bilinguals is language-specific.

scholarly journals T-value and mutual information as measures of the association strength in Serbian language

Psihologija ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Lisac ◽  
Petar Milin
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Mutual Information ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Association Strength ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Response Latencies

Since the study of Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971), a large number of researches have shown facilitation effect in cognitive processing of a given word when it is preceded by a semantically (i.e. associatively) related word. In this study, we examined influence of association strength between context and target on visual word processing in Serbian language. Primary goal was to test cognitive relevance of the t-value and mutual information (MI) as measures of the association strength. The results showed that the mutual information affects response latencies in the visual lexical decision task: the higher the mutual information for two words (bigram), the shorter the reaction time. Contrariwise, cognitive relevance of the t-value as a measure of the words' association strength was not confirmed.

The Influence of Negative Orthographic Neighborhood in the Lexical Decision Task: Valence and Arousal Contributions

2021 ◽  
pp. 002383092110610
Author(s):  
Anna-Malika Camblats ◽  
Pamela Gobin ◽  
Stéphanie Mathey
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Interaction Effect ◽  
Visual Recognition ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Neutral Stimulus ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Orthographic Neighbor ◽  
Valence And Arousal ◽  
Affective System

This study investigated whether the visual recognition of neutral words might be influenced by the emotional dimensions (i.e., valence and arousal) of orthographically similar lexical representations, and whether this might also depend on emotional-related traits of participants (i.e., alexithymia). To this end, 108 participants performed a lexical decision task with 80 neutral words with a higher frequency orthographic neighbor that varied in valence (from neutral to negative) and arousal (from low to high). The main finding was the expected interaction effect between the valence and arousal of the neighbor on the lexical decision times of neutral stimulus words. Longer reaction times were found when the valence score of the neighbor decreased from neutral to negative for words with a low-arousal orthographic neighbor while this emotional neighbor effect was reversed for words with a high-arousal negative neighbor. This combined influence of the valence and arousal of the neighbor was interpreted in terms of increased lexical competition processes and direct influence of the affective system on the participant’s response. Moreover, this interaction effect was smaller when the level of alexithymia of the participants increased, suggesting that people with a higher level of alexithymia are less sensitive to the emotional content of the neighbor. The results are discussed within an interactive activation model of visual word recognition incorporating an affective system with valence and arousal dimensions, with regard to the role of the alexithymia level of participants.

scholarly journals Perception of Unfamiliar English Phonemes by Native Mandarin Speakers

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-38
Author(s):  
Gabriela Holko ◽  
Matthew C. Kelley ◽  
Scott James Perry ◽  
Benjamin V. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Increase Reaction Time ◽  
Auditory Lexical Decision ◽  
First Case ◽  
Mandarin Speakers

In second language acquisition, speech sounds, or phonemes, not present in a learner’s native language often pose an extra challenge for speech production. When hearing one of these unfamiliar phonemes, the learner either maps it to a similar native phoneme, perceives it as a completely foreign sound, or does not perceive it as speech at all. In the first case, the learner is unable to perceive a difference between the unfamiliar phoneme and the native phoneme to which it is mapped. This mapping difficulty potentially creates problems for the learner during word recognition. The present research investigated the extent to which English phonemes absent from the Mandarin phonological inventory impact processing of native Mandarin speakers in an auditory lexical decision task. Results of this research will expand the understanding of second language perception, especially within the context of auditory lexical decision tasks. A list of ten phonemes—/ɪ/, /æ/, /ʊ/, /ɛ/, /v/, /z/, /ʒ/, /ɵ/, /ð/, /ʤ/—present in the English phonological inventory but absent from that of Mandarin were identified as unfamiliar to native Mandarin speakers. Data from the Massive Auditory Lexical Decision (MALD) database, in which participants decided whether recorded utterances were English words or made-up words, were utilized. The effects of the proportion of unfamiliar phonemes, proportion of unfamiliar vowels, and proportion of unfamiliar consonants on reaction time, representative of processing difficulty, were then calculated using statistical techniques. It was found that the proportion of all unfamiliar phonemes in an utterance had no significant effect on the reaction time of the native Mandarin speakers. However, when the list of unfamiliar phonemes was divided into vowels and consonants, a greater proportion of unfamiliar vowels was noticed to increase reaction time, while a greater proportion of unfamiliar consonants was found to decrease reaction time. Further research in this area is required to determine a concrete explanation for these results. Interestingly, when the same analysis was performed on the data of native English speakers, similar results were observed. This may reflect a common language processing mechanism in second language learners and native speakers.

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