Changing Verbal Label Assignments Selects the Memory System for Responses in an Immediate Visual Recognition Task

The dual system hypothesis posits the existence of two neural systems for memory and learning in the mammalian brain: the habit system and the improvisational system. This study sought to determine whether both systems are involved in a visual recognition task originally outlined in Sternberg (1966) and whether each system could be selectively engaged on the basis of response assignment. Seventeen undergraduate students participated in an immediate visual recognition task where they responded whether or not a test consonant was present in a previous study sequence of one to six consonants by pressing one key for same or another key for different. When the different response was assigned to the spatially right “J” key, reaction time for targets and lures was a function of the study sequence size, indicating that the study sequence was serially scanned and compared with the test item by the habit system. However, when the same response was assigned to the spatially right “J” key, reaction time was not a function of study sequence size, indicating that the test item was not compared with the study sequence and responses were instead determined by perceived recency/novelty of the test item by the improvisational system. Differences in reaction time depending on response assignment suggest the selection of one memory system over the other based on verbal labels assigned to response keys in different spatial locations. Verbal label refers to the label of same or different assigned to the response keys in the experiment instructions. Results expand upon Sternberg (1966)—which used the same visual recognition task design as this study but did not account for response assignment, obscuring evidence of contributions from both memory systems—and provide more evidence for the dual-system hypothesis by demonstrating the involvement of both memory systems in immediate visual recognition.

Verbally Induced Olfactory Illusions Are Not Caused by Visual Processing: Evidence From Early and Late Blindness

Olfactory perception is malleable and easily modulated by top-down processes such as those induced by visual and verbal information. A classic example of this is olfactory illusions where the perceived pleasantness of an odor is manipulated by the valence of a verbal label that is either visually or auditorily presented together with the odor. The mechanism behind this illusion is still unknown, and it is not clear if it is driven only by verbal information or if there is an interaction between language functions and visual mental imagery processes. One way to test this directly is to study early blind individuals who have little or no experience of visual information or visual mental imagery. Here, we did this by testing early blind, late blind, and sighted individuals in a classical paradigm where odors were presented with negative, neutral, and positive labels via speech. In contrast to our hypothesis—that the lack of visual imagery would render early blind individuals less susceptible to the olfactory illusion—early and late blind participants showed more amplified illusions than sighted. These findings demonstrate that the general mechanism underlying verbally induced olfactory illusions is not caused by visual processing and visual mental imagery per se.

On the Conception of the Modern Political Labels Dictionary

The article aims to describe the conception of the Modern Political Labels Dictionary being developed at the Siberian Federal University. The creation of such a dictionary is relevant owing to the development of political lexicography which allows revealing the state and features of modern political language development. It is also noted that political labels remain largely unstudied despite their wide and quite long-term use in media. The authors of both the dictionary and the article believe that it can be useful not only for specialists focused on conducting linguistic examinations of conflictogenic texts, but also for those who are interested in politics. The Modern Political Labels Dictionary makers see the main purpose of its creation in characterizing modern political discourse verbal labels used as a tool of information-psychological confrontation as completely as possible. The concept of the dictionary is based on the following definition of the term “political verbal label”: it is a nominative ideologeme (word and phrase) tending to stereotypization. It is a linear negative myth used to discredit socially and politically significant objects. A political verbal label is characterized by exaggerated pejorative connotations and weakened denotative components. The dictionary being developed is explanatory and illustrative. It also includes derivations and (optional) philological commentaries. The selection of speech samples for the dictionary was mainly based on a linguo-ideological analysis following the methodology proposed by N.A. Kupina that assumes the identification of key ideologeme labels in a text and analysis of their com-patibility to reveal semantic, axiological, and aesthetic additives that reflect an author’s point of view on certain political events. The article also characterizes the dictionary structure including a theoretical introduction, dictionary entries, a glossary, and a list of abbreviations; examples of dictionary entries are provided. The words and phrases se-lected for the glossary passed verification procedure acting as Yandex, Google and Russian Language National Corpus search query to confirm their non-unity (usability): the existence of at least 3 to 5 contexts from different sources in which the selected unit is used with the same meaning was considered sufficient. It is noted in the description of a dictionary entry that it contains both mandatory (head unit; interpretation of its semantics in compliance with the principle of unification of interpretation models; speech samples from texts of various styles and genres created in post-Soviet and modern periods) and optional (commentaries on the functioning specifics of a political label: its origin, use periods, productivity and role in text; variations; synonyms and derivatives) components. It is concluded that the work on the dictionary made it possible to clarify the definition of the political labels phenomenon; identify the most common political labels, and expand the notion of their paradigmatic (synonymous, opposing) connec-tions, word-formation capabilities, functioning specifics in modern public speech; and present the meta-reactions of society to their use. The above-mentioned makes it possible to fill the current gap in the theory of political linguistics.

Explanations of an Unfamiliar Phenomenon Based on Categorical Names and Metaphors

A study by Giffin and colleagues (2017) found the effect of a verbal label on the explanation of an unfamiliar phenomenon: when a name is used, people's judgments are more likely to express the belief that the phenomenon has an objective cause. This effect was demonstrated in behavior descriptions of a mental disorder that was either labeled with the fictional name “depataphy” or left unlabeled. In the present study, we replicated this effect (N = 110) and added new conditions in order to assess whether another linguistic form, a metaphor, could cause the same effect. A separate group (N = 119) evaluated two conditions wherein, instead of a verbal label, we informed participants that the internal state of the person behaving abnormally can be compared to some other event (e.g., a fire). One condition (the so-called nonconventional metaphor) emphasized that this comparison is made by the character of the story himself, and the second condition emphasized other people with a similar behavioral disorder (the so-called conventional metaphor). According to our hypothesis, only the conventional metaphor could affect the formation of explanations, because the conventionality would give the metaphor the status of a category name. The hypothesis was partially confirmed: in the condition with a nonconventional metaphor no significant effect was found, and in the condition with a conventional metaphor it was found in the answers to only one question. The results of the study are generally consistent with the interpretation by Giffin and colleagues that judgments are primarily influenced by a category label rather than other linguistic forms.

The Effect of Animate-Inanimate Soundscapes and Framing on Environments’ Evaluation and Predicted Recreation Time

In this research, we investigated whether soundscapes’ animateness and the framing of environments affect participants’ assessment of the surroundings and their predicted recreation time. In an online study, we showed the participants six stimuli, each consisting of an animate or inanimate soundscape recording and of a verbal label of a natural or urban environment. We asked them to (a) imagine visiting the presented locations while mentally fatigued, in company or alone; (b) to visualize spending time there while engaged in recreational activities; and (c) to assess the environment and the predicted recreation time. We found that environments with animate soundscapes were rated as having a higher degree of naturalness and were favored in the urban condition. Environments with inanimate soundscapes, meanwhile, were preferred in the natural condition. Furthermore, natural-framed soundscapes were evaluated as having a higher degree of naturalness and were preferred over urban-framed soundscapes. Social context did not affect the results; however, we discovered the indirect effect of natural labels on the recreation time through the naturalness of the environments, both for the environments with animate and inanimate soundscapes. Overall, our findings demonstrate the influence of soundscapes’ animateness and framing on the settings’ evaluations and on recreation time.

Linguistic Overhypotheses in Category Learning: Explaining the Label Advantage Effect

When learning to partition the world into categories, people rely on a set of assumptions (overhypotheses) about possible category structures. Here we propose that the nature of these overhypotheses depends on the presence of a verbal label associated with a given category. We describe a computational model that demonstrates how labels can either accelerate or hinder category learning, depending on whether or not the prior beliefs imposed by their presence align with the true category structure. This account provides an explanation for the phenomena described in prior experimental work (Lupyan, Rakison, & McClelland, 2007; Brojde, Porter, & Colunga, 2011) that have remained unexplained by other models. Based on these results, we argue that the overhypothesis theory of label effects provides a way to formalize and quantify the effect of language on category learning and to develop a more precise delineation between linguistic and non-linguistic thought.

24-month-olds use conceptual similarity to solve new problems after a delay

In this experiment, we used the deferred imitation paradigm to assess 24-month-olds’ ability to use conceptual similarity to solve new problems after a delay. Infants in the experimental condition participated in four sessions that were each separated by 24 h. In Session 1, the experimenter modeled three target actions using one set of stimuli and in Session 2, infants were tested with a novel set of stimuli that could be used to perform the same target actions. To emphasize the functional similarity of the two sets of stimuli, the experimenter provided the same unique verbal label for them during the demonstration (Session 1) and the test (Session 2). In Session 3, the experimenter modeled three new target actions with another new set of stimuli, and in Session 4, infants were tested with a novel set of stimuli that could be used to perform these same target actions. No verbal cues were provided during Sessions 3 and 4. Infants in the experimental condition exhibited excellent imitation during Session 4 even though they were tested with completely different stimuli in the absence of verbal cues. The performance of the control groups illustrated that imitation in Session 4 was not based on prior successful imitation alone or on exposure to multiple stimuli across successive sessions. Instead, we conclude that infants used the conceptual relation between the imitation problems as a basis of knowledge transfer.

Do iconic gestures pave the way for children's early verbs?

ABSTRACTChildren produce a deictic gesture for a particular object (point at dog) approximately 3 months before they produce the verbal label for that object (“dog”; Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Gesture thus paves the way for children's early nouns. We ask here whether the same pattern of gesture preceding and predicting speech holds for iconic gestures. In other words, do gestures that depict actions precede and predict early verbs? We observed spontaneous speech and gestures produced by 40 children (22 girls, 18 boys) from age 14 to 34 months. Children produced their first iconic gestures 6 monthslaterthan they produced their first verbs. Thus, unlike the onset of deictic gestures, the onset of iconic gestures conveying action meanings followed, rather than preceded, children's first verbs. However, iconic gestures increased in frequency at the same time as verbs did and, at that time, began to convey meanings not yet expressed in speech. Our findings suggest that children can use gesture to expand their repertoire of action meanings, but only after they have begun to acquire the verb system underlying their language.

Synaesthesia and the SNARC effect

In number-form synaesthesia, numbers become explicitly mapped onto portions of space in the mind’s eye or around the body. However, non-synaesthetes are also known to map number onto space, though in an implicit way. For example, those who are literate in a language that is written in a left-to-right direction are likely to assign small numbers to the left side of space and large numbers to the right side of space (e.g., Dehaene et al., 1993). In non-synaesthetes, this mapping is flexible (e.g., numbers map onto a circular form if the participant is primed to do so by the appearance of a clock-face), which has been interpreted as a response to task demands (e.g., Bächtold et al., 1998) or as evidence of a linguistically-mediated, rather than a direct, link between number and space (e.g., Proctor and Cho, 2006). We investigated whether synaesthetes’ number forms show the same flexibility during an odd-or-even judgement task that tapped linguistic associations between number and space (following Gevers et al., 2010). Synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes alike mapped small numbers to the verbal label ‘left’ and large numbers to the verbal label ‘right’. This surprising result may indicate that synaesthetes’ number forms are also the result of a linguistic link between number and space, instead of a direct link between the two, or that performance on tasks such as these is not mediated by the number form.