Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity Modulate Electrophysiological Correlates of Semantic Negative Priming From Single Words

In the present study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were registered during a semantic negative priming (NP) task in participants with higher and lower working memory capacity (WMC). On each trial participants had to actively ignore a briefly presented single prime word, which was followed either immediately or after a delay by a mask. Thereafter, either a semantically related or an unrelated target word was presented, to which participants made a semantic categorization judgment. The ignored prime produced a behavioral semantic NP in delayed (but not in immediate) masking trials, and only for participants with a higher-WMC. Both masking type and WMC also modulated ERP priming effects. When the ignored prime was immediately followed by a mask (which impeded its conscious identification) a reliable N400 modulation was found irrespective of participants’ WMC. However, when the mask onset following the prime was delayed (thus allowing its conscious identification), an attenuation of a late positive ERP (LPC) was observed in related compared to unrelated trials, but only in the higher-WMC group showing reliable behavioral NP. The present findings demonstrate for the first time that individual differences in WMC modulate both behavioral measures and electrophysiological correlates of semantic NP.

Evaluating the relative effects of cognitive approach with 3D content and non-cognitive approach on the development of EFL learners’ knowledge about the different degrees of sureness

The present pilot study compared the effects of cognitive and non-cognitive approaches on the development of Japanese learners’ knowledge about the different degrees of sureness attached to certain, probable, and possible items. The results showed that the cognitive approach group outperformed the non-cognitive approach and control groups in writing and comparison judgment tests, and that both the cognitive and non-cognitive approach groups performed better than the control group in the categorization judgment test. These results suggest that the cognitive approach with 3D image content through computers can promote L2 language learning because it may have made the target structures more salient and also enabled the participants to connect spatial concepts with different degrees of sureness attached to the certain, probable, and possible items, thereby facilitating deep processing of form-meaning pairings.