Use of semantic context by patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Used semantic-priming procedures to examine limitations in the use of semantic context by 18 patients (mean age 68.9 yrs) with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to determine whether any such contextual effects were mediated solely through automatic processes or whether attentional processes were also involved. Three tasks were applied to examine the effect of semantic context on the performance of 18 normal elderly Ss (mean age 67.2 yrs), 18 normal young Ss (mean age 24.1 yrs), and the AD Ss. When normal and AD Ss were asked to decide whether a given item was a member of a certain category, their response times were equally affected by the item's dominance in the category. The time that AD Ss took to recognize a word was actually affected more by the semantic context provided by a priming sentence than was that of normal Ss. When asked to generate the final word of an incomplete sentence, AD Ss performed very poorly unless potential responses were highly constrained by sentence context. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of training in sentence construction on the comprehension of learning disabled children.

30 learning-disabled Hispanic, White, and Black children (mean IQ 88.60 and mean age 11.73 yrs) were randomly assigned to 2 conditions focusing on sentence comprehension: a sentence anagram/word grouping treatment and a more traditional sentence study treatment. With age, IQ, and pretest comprehension (Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests) controlled, Ss in the sentence anagram/word grouping condition had significantly higher cloze scores than Ss in the sentence study group. The greatest achievement benefits associated with the anagram treatment, however, accrued to Ss with higher initial reading achievement. As level of pretreatment achievement decreased, the magnitude of the treatment differences also tended to decrease. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of disturbing and neutral words through the autokinetic word technique.

Disturbing and neutral words were selected individually for Ss by means of a word association test. It was then suggested to these Ss that an apparently moving but actually motionless point of light in a completely darkened room (autokinetic effect) would write a sentence containing a given word. The given word was either a disturbing or neutral word. The Ss reported perceiving fewer of the disturbing words. Those disturbing words that were perceived had a greater latency than perceived neutral words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fast priming during eye fixations in reading.

Near-threshold primes were "flashed" in a target location prior to the onset of a target word while Ss read. The type and duration of the prime were manipulated. In Exp 1, identical, related, and unrelated primes were presented for 60, 45, or 30 msec from onset of an eye fixation. The prime was then replaced with the target word, which remained in place while Ss finished reading the sentence. Fixation time on the target word was measured. Exp 2 replicated Exp 1, with 2 exceptions: A random letter string replaced the identical prime condition, and prime durations of 39, 30, or 21 msec were used. In both experiments, significant priming effects (related vs unrelated) were obtained when the prime was presented for 30 msec. Results are discussed with regard to subliminal priming effects. Applications to the study of word recognition processes are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of syntactic expectations during reading.

Two experiments examined the effects of knowing the syntactic structure of a sentence before reading it. In Exp I, 24 college students were required to remember a sequence of numbers before reading a sentence displayed at a constant rate. When the syntactic structure was known beforehand, Ss were able to devote more effort to rehearsing the numbers while reading the sentence. Consequently, their recall of the number sequence was superior. In Exp II, 8 undergraduates were timed while reading individual sentences. When the syntactic structure was known beforehand, reading times decreased. Results are explained in terms of linguistic decisions, memory storage during reading, and reading as an interactive process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coregistration of eye movements and EEG in natural reading: Analyses and review.

Brain-electric correlates of reading have traditionally been studied with word-by-word presentation, a condition that eliminates important aspects of the normal reading process and precludes direct comparisons between neural activity and oculomotor behavior. In the present study, we investigated effects of word predictability on eye movements (EM) and fixation-related brain potentials (FRPs) during natural sentence reading. Electroencephalogram (EEG) and EM (via video-based eye tracking) were recorded simultaneously while subjects read heterogeneous German sentences, moving their eyes freely over the text. FRPs were time-locked to first-pass reading fixations and analyzed according to the cloze probability of the currently fixated word. We replicated robust effects of word predictability on EMs and the N400 component in FRPs. The data were then used to model the relation among fixation duration, gaze duration, and N400 amplitude, and to trace the time course of EEG effects relative to effects in EM behavior. In an extended Methodological Discussion section, we review 4 technical and data-analytical problems that need to be addressed when FRPs are recorded in free-viewing situations (such as reading, visual search, or scene perception) and propose solutions. Results suggest that EEG recordings during normal vision are feasible and useful to consolidate findings from EEG and eye-tracking studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading strategies for children and adults: A quantitative model.

Developed an additive model to account for reading times for 2 different reading tasks (reading for retention and reading for comprehension). The reading strategies of 48 college students and 64 5th graders and individual differences between fast and slow readers were examined. Ss were assumed to have processors that handle the lexical, structural, and meaning information in sentences. The various task, age, and reading speed groups were hypothesized to use the 3 processors for differing amounts of time. The model was supported by word-by-word reading times for 80 sentences and by 9 empirical indices of lexical, structural, and meaning attributes of text. Results show that for skilled adult Ss, relatively more time was spent processing structure in the retention task, and meaning in the comprehension task. Fifth graders had not fully mastered the connection between task demands and linguistic processors shown by adults, and thus used mixtures of the adult strategies. (101 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parafoveal preview during reading: Effects of sentence position.

Two experiments examined parafoveal preview for words located in the middle of sentences and at sentence boundaries. Parafoveal processing was shown to occur for words at sentence-initial, mid-sentence, and sentence-final positions. Both Experiments 1 and 2 showed reduced effects of preview on regressions out for sentence-initial words. In addition, Experiment 2 showed reduced preview effects on first-pass reading times for sentence-initial words. These effects of sentence position on preview could result from either reduced parafoveal processing for sentence-initial words or other processes specific to word reading at sentence boundaries. In addition to the effects of preview, the experiments also demonstrate variability in the effects of sentence wrap-up on different reading measures, indicating that the presence and time course of wrap-up effects may be modulated by text-specific factors. We also report simulations of Experiment 2 using version 10 of E-Z Reader (Reichle, Warren, & McConnell, 2009), designed to explore the possible mechanisms underlying parafoveal preview at sentence boundaries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Episodically enhanced comprehension fluency.

Explored fluent reading comprehension in 6 experiments involving sentences presented in normal and inverted typography. 226 college students served as Ss. Sentences read in a test phase had been read earlier in exactly the same form or in versions that were created by altering the word order within sentences to create randomly ordered word strings or exchanging causally related clauses to form new meaningful sentences. Variation increased the time taken to read the test sentences, and these effects were evident over retention intervals ranging from 1 day to 4 mo. Results support an episodic view of the basis for rereading fluency in which comprehension processes responsible for constructing and integrating propositions are automatically recruited and reapplied when a sentence is reread. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Component processes in text comprehension and some of their interactions.

58 college students read 12 passages word by word in the moving-window method. Word reading times (WRTs) were analyzed in multiple-regression analyses. 16 attributes of the stimulus materials were quantified as measures of specific component processes. WRTs were predicted by most of the 16 attributes. There were significant effects for such word-level attributes as length, frequency, and repetition, presumed to reflect processes involved in word identification. Such sentence-level (SL) attributes as sentence imagery and the number of new concepts in the sentence, considered indicators of integration and abstraction of the sentence gist, had a significant effect on WRTs, particularly at the sentence-final word. In addition, WRTs of sentence-final words increased linearly with the number of new concepts in the sentence. The text-level attributes that significantly influenced WRTs were the serial position of the sentence in the passage and the genre of the passage. These attributes were considered indicators of topic identification and intersentence integration, respectively. Word-level variables, word length and word frequency, interacted with the load or complexity of processes at the SL and at the text level. Similarly, SL variables interacted with the complexity of text-level variables. These interactions are consistent with models of reading that assume that lower-level processes interact with higher-level processes. (97 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Event-related potential indicators of text integration across sentence boundaries.

An event-related potentials (ERPs) study examined word-to-text integration processes across sentence boundaries. In a two-sentence passage, the accessibility of a referent for the first content word of the second sentence (the target word) was varied by the wording of the first sentence in one of the following ways: lexically (explicitly using a form of the target word); conceptually (using a paraphrase of the target word), and situationally (encouraging an inference concerning the referent of the target word). A baseline condition had no coreference between the two sentences. ERP results on the target word indicated multiple effects related to word identification and word-to-referent mapping processes. Both the explicit and paraphrase conditions, but not the inference condition, showed a reduced N400 relative to the baseline condition, consistent with immediate integration by lexico-semantic processes. A 300-ms effect (P300) was found in the paraphrase condition. The results were consistent with an immediate integration hypothesis and furthermore differentiated a lexical (N200), a conceptual (P300), and a situational (N400) component for this integration. The conceptual basis appears not to extend to predictive inferences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When are social judgments made? Evidence for the spontaneousness of trait inferences.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 50(2) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2008-10962-001). There are errors in the labeling of Figure 1 on p. 244. The ordinate percentages should be three times greater than indicated. In addition, the algebraic formula in the note for Table 2 on p. 245 is incorrect. The correct ordinate percentages and the correct algebraic formula are provided in the erratum.] Adapted E. Tulving and D. M. Thomson's (see record 2005-09647-002) encoding specificity paradigm for 2 recall experiments with 153 undergraduates to investigate whether Ss would make trait inferences without intentions or instructions at the encoding stage of processing behavioral information. Under memory instructions only, Ss read sentences describing people performing actions that implied traits. Later, Ss recalled each sentence under 1 of 3 cuing conditions: a dispositional cue (e.g., generous); a strong, nondispositional semantic associate to an important sentence word; or no cue. Results show that recall was best when cued by the disposition words. Ss were unaware of having made trait inferences. Interpreted in terms of encoding specificity, findings indicate that Ss unintentionally made trait inferences at encoding. It is suggested that attributions are made spontaneously, as part of the routine comprehension of social events. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"When are social judgments made? Evidence for the spontaneousness of trait inferences": Correction to Winter and Uleman.

Reports an error in "When are social judgments made? Evidence for the spontaneousness of trait inferences" by Laraine Winter and James S. Uleman (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1984[Aug], Vol 47[2], 237-252). There are errors in the labeling of Figure 1 on p. 244. The ordinate percentages should be three times greater than indicated. In addition, the algebraic formula in the note for Table 2 on p. 245 is incorrect. The correct ordinate percentages and the correct algebraic formula are provided in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1985-01259-001.) Adapted E. Tulving and D. M. Thomson's (see record 2005-09647-002) encoding specificity paradigm for 2 recall experiments with 153 undergraduates to investigate whether Ss would make trait inferences without intentions or instructions at the encoding stage of processing behavioral information. Under memory instructions only, Ss read sentences describing people performing actions that implied traits. Later, Ss recalled each sentence under 1 of 3 cuing conditions: a dispositional cue (e.g., generous); a strong, nondispositional semantic associate to an important sentence word; or no cue. Results show that recall was best when cued by the disposition words. Ss were unaware of having made trait inferences. Interpreted in terms of encoding specificity, findings indicate that Ss unintentionally made trait inferences at encoding. It is suggested that attributions are made spontaneously, as part of the routine comprehension of social events. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the implicit learning of novel associations by amnesic patients and normal subjects.

Examined whether amnesic patients and normal Ss can acquire novel associations implicitly and whether such learning can occur rapidly in a single trial. In 2 experiments, Ss studied novel word pairs either once or multiple times and were then asked to read old, new, and recombined word pairs as quickly as possible. In this paradigm, the learning of novel associations would be indicated by slower reading times for recombined word pairs than for old word pairs. In a 3rd experiment, a perceptual identification paradigm was used to assess implicit learning of new associations. One-trial learning of new associations was not observed in the 1st 2 experiments, but learning of new associations did occur after multiple learning trials. An advantage of old vs recombined word pairs was obtained after a single trial only in Exp 3 (using perceptual identification) when the results were combined across S groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Word perception and misperception in context.

When reading lists of words and nonwords at 100 msec/word, Ss reported words accurately but frequently converted nonwords such as dack into similarly spelled words such as duck or deck. In sentences, both nonwords and anomalous words were misread as appropriate words, but the bias was greater for nonwords. Word associations in lists (e.g., sailor–dack–vessel) produced a similar bias, but when sentence meaning was pitted against such associations the lexical effect was largely overridden. Sentences in which biasing context appeared only after the critical item reduced but did not eliminate the context effect, suggesting that multiple word candidates remained active while at least the next 3 words were processed. These results support a 2-stage modular interactive model: The 1st stage is stimulus driven and emits multiple weighted candidates that are combined interactively with contextual information in a 2nd stage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Locus of interpretive and inference processes during text comprehension: A comparison of gaze durations and word reading times.

Investigated the locus of interpretive and inference processes during text comprehension. Two positions were contrasted: the buffer-integrate-purge position, which assumes that text-level interpretive and inference processes operate at sentence or clause boundaries, and the immediacy position, which assumes that interpretive and inference processes operate as soon as possible. Two methods of collecting word reading times were contrasted: gaze durations and self-paced word reading times. In simple narrative passages, there was an increase in word reading times for end-of-clause words when self-paced reading times were collected, but there was a decrease when gaze durations were measured with eye tracking equipment. The data indicate that interpretive and inference processes operate immediately and that buffering is to some extent an artifact of the self-paced moving window method. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Normes de complétion pour 744 contextes linguistiques fran?ais de différents formats.

Discusses the significance of the N400 component in event-related brain potentials and in testing models derived from psycholinguistic research. Most previous research has been conducted in English and has used standardized materials which allow comparison between results obtained in different labs. This study provides such materials in French. 744 sentences were construced and presented to 52 native French speakers. The last word of each sentence was omitted, and Ss completed the sentence context with the 1st word that came to mind. The Cloze probability was computed for each sentence. Results are presented as a function of the number of words per sentence. Three sets of sentences were created depending on the terminal word's Cloze probability. The use of these sentences in experiments on the electrophysiology of language processing and as a database in psycholinguistics and cognitive neuropsychology is discussed. (French & English abstracts) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of long-term vocabulary instruction on lexical access and reading comprehension.

To examine the relationship between knowledge of word meanings and semantic processes, 27 4th-grade children were taught 104 words over a 5-mo period. Following instruction, Ss performed tasks designed to require semantic processes ranging from single word semantic decisions to simple sentence verification and memory for connected text. On all these tasks, instructed Ss performed at a significantly higher level than controls matched on pre-instruction vocabulary knowledge and comprehension. Thus, instructed Ss gave evidence both of learning word meanings taught by the program and of being able to process instructed words more efficiently in tasks more reflective of comprehension. Implications for vocabulary instruction and the role of individual word meanings in comprehension are discussed. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of humor on sentence memory.

Memory for humorous and nonhumorous versions of sentences was compared. Humorous sentences were better remembered than the nonhumorous sentences on both free- and cued-recall tests and on measures of sentence recall and word recall. These effects persisted when Ss were warned that they were about to read a humorous sentence but were attenuated in incidental learning and limited to within-Ss manipulations. In incidental learning, recall was also scored as a function of subjective ratings of humor. Subjective humor affected memory in both within- and between-Ss designs. Attention, arousal, rehearsal, retrieval, and surprise explanations were explored. Results suggest that humorous material receives both increased attention and rehearsal relative to nonhumorous material. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)