Evaluation of Episodic and Lexical Metamemory and Executive Function in Healthy Older Adults

In older adults, it is important to maintain awareness of memory as well as memory performance. However, it is not clear whether the awareness of episodic and lexical memory changes with age and is related to self-evaluation of memory and executive function. Here age-related changes and the relationship between metamemory, executive function, and metamemory scale were investigated. Healthy old (n=40) and young (n=34) groups participated in this study. In the episodic memory task, participants were asked to memorize ten Kanji words and to estimate the number of words they could recall after ten minutes. In the lexical memory task, they rated the likelihood that they could write a target Kanji word written in hiragana and then wrote them down. They were also asked to complete the metamemory in adulthood(MIA) and the position stroop task. In the episodic and lexical memory and the position stroop task and MIA subscales, the performances of the younger group were significantly better than those of the older group. In the episodic memory task, there were correlations between the metamemory and MIA subscales in both groups, but in the lexical memory task, only in the old group. No correlation was found between the results of both memory tasks and the stroop test. These results suggest that older people overestimate memory performances in the episodic and lexical memory tasks and metamemory performances may be associated with self-evaluation of memory. In addition, metamemory might not be related to frontal lobe function as shown in executive function tasks.

Phonetic and lexical encoding of tone in Cantonese heritage speakers

Heritage speakers contend with at least two languages: the less dominant L1 (heritage language), and the more dominant L2. Maintaining the heritage language allows heritage speakers to communicate with members of their community. In some cases, their L1 and L2 bear striking phonological differences. In the current study, we investigate this in the context of Toronto-born Cantonese heritage speakers and their maintenance of Cantonese lexical tone, a linguistic feature that is absent from English, the more dominant L2. Across two experiments, Cantonese heritage speakers were tested on their phonetic/phonological and lexical encoding of tone in Cantonese. Experiment 1 was an AX discrimination task with varying inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs), which revealed that heritage speakers discriminated tone pairs with distinct pitch contours better than those with shared contours. Experiment 2 was a medium-term repetition priming experiment, designed to extend the findings of Experiment 1 by examining tone representations at the lexical level. We observed a positive correlation between tone minimal pair priming and English dominance. Thus, while increased English dominance does not affect heritage speakers' phonological-level representations, tasks that require lexical access suggest that heritage Cantonese speakers may not robustly and fully distinctively encode Cantonese tone in lexical memory.

Chunk Meets Image

This study investigated the optimal conditions under which foreign language learning takes place using a smartphone. The authors proposed that two factors, chunking and imagery, would increase language learning. On the basis of previous findings, they formulated three hypotheses: (a) the use of images will have a positive effect on learning English sentences; (b) the use of chunks will have a positive effect on learning English sentences; and (c) the combined use of images and chunks will have a greater positive effect on learning English sentences than either feature alone. A total of 92 Korean seventh graders participated in this study. To examine the learning effect of chunking (i.e., sentence segmentation unit) and imagery (i.e., visual aid) in an experimental setting, they produced a smartphone learning application that incorporated the two methods. The authors measured learning effect with respect to lexical memory retention (i.e., word retrieval ability) and word order composition (i.e., ability to arrange words according to standard English syntax). The results show that the main effects of both chunking and imagery were significant and that the interaction effect between the two on lexical memory retention was also significant. The interaction effect was greater in the delayed effect measurement than in the immediate effect measurement. These findings suggest optimal conditions for designing a smartphone-based, self-learning application.

Word Frequency Effect in Lexical Decision Task: Evidence from Khalkha Mongolian

In experimental psycholinguistics, one clue into the architecture of lexical memory comes from the presence of robust frequency effects in lexical decision task (LDT), in which subjects judge whether a written stimulus is a real word or a nonword, and processing complexity is measured by reaction time (RT). For example, in LDT the visual word recognition process is facilitated (or inhibited) by word frequency as measured from the representative corpus. Our study verifies the word frequency effect in standard (“yes/no task”) LDT performed by Khalkha Mongolian subjects. The results showed strong weight of word frequency as RTs predictor (R2 = .631, F (1, 28) = 50.57, p < .000, β = .802, t = 7.111, p < .000). Our experimental results also correspond to experimental findings on word frequency effects for Japanese Katakana (syllabic) and Kanji (logographic) words in standard LDT. Such lexical decision “script moderation” could be the actual clue for further LDT experiments (e. g., relatively “deep” Mongolian script vs. “shallow” Cyrillic Mongolian)

L2 Lexical Attrition

Thirty years of research in second language (L2) lexical attrition has focused on the question of whether L2 vocabulary attrites in a variety of situations. This research has necessarily been exploratory and descriptive, but has essentially treated the lexicon as a collection of separate words. This chapter outlines a proposal for future study of the L2 lexicon as an integrated network by introducing Meara’s constant decay hypothesis. Since lexical loss is so strongly linked with memory, classic and more recent findings on how lexical memory degrades when the words are not integrated into a cohesive lexical system is reviewed and provides a floor against which to measure attrition of integrated systems. A review of significant research results in L2 lexical attrition focuses on how attrition is affected by the factors of age of learning, length of incubation, types of words, and target language.

Chunk Meets Image

This study investigated the optimal conditions under which foreign language learning takes place using a smartphone. The authors proposed that two factors, chunking and imagery, would increase language learning. On the basis of previous findings, they formulated three hypotheses: (a) the use of images will have a positive effect on learning English sentences; (b) the use of chunks will have a positive effect on learning English sentences; and (c) the combined use of images and chunks will have a greater positive effect on learning English sentences than either feature alone. A total of 92 Korean seventh graders participated in this study. To examine the learning effect of chunking (i.e., sentence segmentation unit) and imagery (i.e., visual aid) in an experimental setting, they produced a smartphone learning application that incorporated the two methods. The authors measured learning effect with respect to lexical memory retention (i.e., word retrieval ability) and word order composition (i.e., ability to arrange words according to standard English syntax). The results show that the main effects of both chunking and imagery were significant and that the interaction effect between the two on lexical memory retention was also significant. The interaction effect was greater in the delayed effect measurement than in the immediate effect measurement. These findings suggest optimal conditions for designing a smartphone-based, self-learning application.

The Timing of Lexical Memory Retrievals in Language Production

This paper explores the time course of lexical memory retrieval by modeling fluent language production. The duration of retrievals is predicted using the ACT-R cognitive architecture. In a large-scale observational study of a spoken corpus, we find that language production at a time point preceding a word is sped up or slowed down depending on activation of that word. This computational analysis has consequences for the theoretical model of language production. The data point to interference between lexical and phonological stages as well as a quantifiable buffer for lexical information.

Information and Processes Underlying Semantic and Episodic Memory Across Tasks, Items, and Individuals

The development of memory theory has been constrained by a focus on isolated tasks rather than the processes and information that are common to situations in which memory is engaged. We present results from a study in which 453 participants took part in five different memory tasks: single-item recognition, associative recognition, cued recall, free recall, and lexical decision. Using hierarchical Bayesian techniques, we jointly analyzed the correlations between tasks within individuals—reflecting the degree to which tasks rely on shared cognitive processes—and within items—reflecting the degree to which tasks rely on the same information conveyed by the item. Among other things, we find that (a) the processes involved in lexical access and episodic memory are largely separate and rely on different kinds of information; (b) access to lexical memory is driven primarily by perceptual aspects of a word; (c) all episodic memory tasks rely to an extent on a set of shared processes which make use of semantic features to encode both single words and associations between words; (d) recall involves additional processes likely related to contextual cuing and response production. These results provide a large-scale picture of memory across different tasks which can serve to drive the development of comprehensive theories of memory.Published version now available from the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000407