Semantic interference and orthographic facilitation in definition naming.

Semantic interference and orthographic facilitation are common findings in Stroop-like color and picture-naming tasks. The authors investigated whether these context effects are also obtained when, instead of colors or pictures, definitions are used as target stimuli. In Exp 1, both effects were obtained when definitions of colors such as "the color of tomatoes?" had to be named. This finding was replicated in Exp 2, in which the definitions were taken from a larger set of semantic categories. The remaining 4 experiments showed that the semantic interference effect cannot be attributed to a strategic match or nonmatch decision (Exp 3) and does not show up when the distractor word precedes the definition (Exps 4, 5, and 6). The findings are discussed in relation to accounts of context effects in naming tasks and in relation to word-retrieval problems in the tip-of-the-tongue state. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structural and optical properties of chlorinated plasma polymers

Amorphous hydrogenated chlorinated carbon (a-C:H:Cl) films were produced by the plasma polymerization of chloroform–acetylene–argon mixtures in a radiofrequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition system. The main parameter of interest was the proportion of chloroform in the feed, R_C, which was varied from 0 to 80%. Deposition rates of 80 nm min^? 1 were typical for the chlorinated films. Infrared reflection–absorption spectroscopy revealed the presence of C–Cl groups in all the films produced with chloroform in the feed. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed this finding, and revealed a saturation of the chlorine content at ~ 47 at.% for R_C ≥ 40%. The refractive index and optical gap, E₀₄, of the films were roughly in the 1.6 to 1.7, and the 2.8 to 3.7 eV range. These values were calculated from transmission ultraviolet–visible-near infrared spectra. Chlorination leads to an increase in the water surface contact angle from ~ 40° to ~ 77°.