Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Lucia Vieitez, Juan Haro, Pilar Ferre, Isabel Padron, Isabel Fraga
Summary: This study aimed to investigate the role of arousal in unpleasant word recognition, finding that arousal affects the cognitive process of unpleasant words and dictates whether negative valence effects are present or not.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Xuemei Tang, Lexian Shen, Peng Yang, Yanhong Huang, Shaojuan Huang, Min Huang, Wei Ren
Summary: This study investigated the processing of scientific metaphors in a speaker's native language (L1) and their second language (L2) using event-related potential experimentation. The findings suggest that L2 scientific metaphor comprehension requires more cognitive effort and may involve decreased automaticity and sensitivity to metaphorical meanings compared to L1.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Yuanyue Zhang, Xuefeng Yang, Lijuan Liang, Baoguo Chen
Summary: This study used event-related potential technique to investigate the impact of learning new meanings on previously learned meanings. Results showed that learning new meaning interferes with accessing the previously learned meaning, and this interference effect is modulated by semantic similarity.
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Neslihan Caliskan, Sara Milligan, Elizabeth R. Schotter
Summary: Readers generate predictions about upcoming words in constraining sentences, which also influence their predictions about orthographic form. We investigated whether readers are sensitive to lexicality in low constraint sentences, and found that in the absence of strong expectations, readers adopt a different reading strategy to scrutinize the structure of words more in depth. This suggests that reading strategies can be influenced by sentence context and expectations.
BRAIN AND LANGUAGE
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Anna Czypionka, Mariya Kharaman, Carsten Eulitz
Summary: This study provides evidence for access to the semantic properties of constituents in German noun-noun compounds by manipulating the animacy of compound modifiers and heads. The results show additive effects of constituent animacy, with a higher number of animate constituents leading to gradually attenuated N400 amplitudes. The implications of these findings for current models of complex word recognition and stimulus construction practices in psycho- and neurolinguistic research are discussed.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Harm Brouwer, Francesca Delogu, Matthew W. Crocker
Summary: ERPs provide insight into neurocognitive processing in real-time. The typical approach to ERPs, WCS, often results in inconsistent findings. By using rERP estimation, it is possible to model the underlying LCS and explain the inconsistencies in WCS results.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Education & Educational Research
Daisy Lei, Yushuang Liu, Janet G. van Hell
Summary: This study examined the impact of images on novel word learning and consolidation. The results showed that learning novel word meanings through definitions and images strengthened behavioral outcomes but did not affect ERP signatures of learning and consolidation.
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Harm Brouwer, Francesca Delogu, Noortje J. Venhuizen, Matthew W. Crocker
Summary: Research has found that expectation-based theories of language comprehension, particularly Surprisal Theory, are effective in explaining the behavioral correlates of word-by-word processing difficulty. However, there is still uncertainty about which component(s) of the Event-Related brain Potential (ERP) signal reflects Surprisal and how these electrophysiological correlates are related to behavioral processing indices. By establishing a neurocomputational model and experimental design, a close link between Surprisal and the P600 component has been identified, providing an integrated explanation for processing difficulty in language comprehension.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Reza Pishghadam, Haniyeh Jajarmi, Shaghayegh Shayesteh, Azin Khodaverdi, Hossein Nassaji
Summary: This study investigated the effect of audio-visual vocabulary repetition on L2 sentence comprehension. The results showed that repetition of instructed words did not significantly impact sentence comprehension under multisensory instruction.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
M. Conrad, S. Ullrich, D. Schmidtke, S. A. Kotz
Summary: Recent research suggests that language might code affective meaning sublexically. This study found that affective phonological iconicity extracted from the lexicon impacts the extraction of lexical word meaning.
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Chun-Hsien Hsu, Ya-Ning Wu, Chia-Ying Lee
Summary: Studies have shown that visually presented words are decomposed into constituents that can be mapped to language representations. This study focuses on how the orthographic processing of one constituent affects the other during word recognition tasks, specifically in Chinese phonograms. Results suggest an interaction effect between phonological consistency and semantic radical combinability on brain activity, with different impacts on the left and right hemispheres. These findings provide insights into how ERPs are involved in word recognition in Chinese characters.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Marta Vergara-Martinez, Eva Gutierrez-Sigut, Manuel Perea, Cristina Gil-Lopez, Manuel Carreiras
Summary: Behavioral studies have shown that the legibility of handwritten script can hinder visual word recognition, with lexical effects magnified in difficult handwriting conditions. In the present experiment, an early effect of word-frequency in the N170 was observed in the difficult-to-read handwritten condition, suggesting increased attentional deployment and enhanced top-down effects in visual word processing.
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Emme O'Rourke, Emily L. Coderre
Summary: The study suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder may show larger N400 responses when processing pictures compared to typically developing adults, while no significant differences were found in processing words. Furthermore, N400 amplitude was found to be modulated by age and level of autistic traits. These findings have important implications for defining and comparing groups in autism research.
JOURNAL OF AUTISM AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS
(2021)
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Anthony J. Angwin, Samuel R. Armstrong, Courtney Fisher, Paola Escudero
Summary: This study examines the rapid acquisition of novel word meanings through cross-situational statistical word learning (CSWL) using event-related potentials. The findings show that novel words and familiar words elicit similar N400 effects but with different hemispheric distributions.
BRAIN AND LANGUAGE
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Lexian Shen, Xiaoguang Li, Shaojuan Huang, Yanhong Huang, Xinyu Gao, Ziqing You, Zirun Mao, Xuemei Tang
Summary: Previous monolingual studies have extensively investigated the processing mechanisms of novel and conventional metaphors, but little attention has been given to how metaphors are processed by bilingual brains and how scientific context influences this process. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), this study investigates the electrophysiological processing of scientific metaphors in Chinese and English, finding differences in meaning integration between L1 and L2 at different stages. The results support the revised hierarchical model, demonstrating the complex dynamics of processing figurative meaning in bilingual brains.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Catharine E. Fairbairn, Dahyeon Kang, Kara D. Federmeier
Summary: Alcohol has specific effects on brain systems involved in attention, automatic auditory processing, and performance monitoring, with the effects varying based on alcohol dose. In contrast, alcohol has relatively small or nonsignificant effects in other processing domains linked to executive control and stimulus classification.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Melinh K. Lai, Joost Rommers, Kara D. Federmeier
Summary: The results of the two experiments suggest that prediction violations do not incur costs or benefits for later processing. Prediction is both powerful and flexible, facilitating processing of predictable information without causing difficulties for unexpected inputs.
Article
Neurosciences
Ryan J. Hubbard, Kara D. Federmeier
Summary: This study investigated the impact of attention on sentence processing using a novel dual-task paradigm. The results showed that under full attention, semantic access measured by the N400 component of the ERP was influenced by contextual strength and fit, while this influence was attenuated under divided attention. Predictive processes seemed to still be engaged under divided attention but may require additional resources to process unexpected information.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Kara D. Federmeier
Summary: This article discusses the core mechanism of human cognition, which is the ability to access information stored in long-term memory to respond to incoming sensory inputs. Through research findings, it is revealed that connecting and further understanding are the key steps in acquiring meaning, resulting in stable bindings in the brain to help humans perceive and understand the world.
Article
Psychology
Jakub M. Szewczyk, Emily N. Mech, Kara D. Federmeier
Summary: This study found that a single adjective can rapidly influence semantic processing of nouns during sentence processing, with positive updating having a greater effect than negative updating. N400 amplitude at the noun varies with changes in adjectives, while adjectives themselves do not cause any discernible ERP modulation.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-LEARNING MEMORY AND COGNITION
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Paul C. Bogdan, Matthew Moore, Illia Kuznietsov, Justin D. Frank, Kara D. Federmeier, Sanda Dolcos, Florin Dolcos
Summary: The study demonstrates that in the process of behavioral change, individuals are influenced by both direct feedback and social observation. Through an experiment using a role-swapping version of the Ultimatum Game, EEG data revealed different neural correlates for the two forms of behavioral change, suggesting that frontal midline theta oscillations may play a role in predicting behavioral changes linked to direct feedback.
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Suzanne R. Jongman, Kara D. Federmeier
Summary: Normal aging may have varying effects on language comprehension due to differences in dependence on network structure and network dynamics. Using EEG, this study compared the impact of neighborhood size (a measure of network structure) and repetition (a measure of processing dynamics) on single word processing in older and younger adults. Older adults showed similar effects of neighborhood size to younger adults but reduced effects of repetition. However, older adults with higher verbal fluency, print exposure, and reading comprehension exhibited stronger repetition effects, suggesting that some older adults can maintain similar processing dynamics to younger adults. These findings suggest that the organizational structure of the semantic network remains stable during normal aging, but older adults may struggle to adjust activation states within the network.
LANGUAGE COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Geriatrics & Gerontology
Suzanne R. Jongman, Allyson Copeland, Yaqi Xu, Brennan R. Payne, Kara D. Federmeier
Summary: The study finds that older adults tend not to predict and instead rely more on passive comprehension while reading. However, they also attempt to predict in some cases and engage cognitive resources to cope with prediction violations.
EXPERIMENTAL AGING RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Michelle Leckey, Melissa Troyer, Kara D. Federmeier
Summary: In two experiments, researchers measured event-related potentials (ERPs) as right-handed participants read sentences to understand the contribution of neural networks in the left and right cerebral hemispheres to language comprehension. The results showed that participants with left-handed relatives had a syntactic P600 effect when there were morphosyntactic violations, while participants without left-handed relatives showed a biphasic N400 and P600 response. In Experiment 2, the presentation of target words in the visual half-field (VF) showed asymmetry in the response patterns of morphosyntactic violations for different participant groups, providing further evidence on the differences in hemispheric contributions to syntactic processing.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Melinh K. Lai, Brennan R. Payne, Kara D. Federmeier
Summary: Language comprehension can benefit from accurate prediction of upcoming words, but the extent to which prediction is used depends on task demands. This study compared brain activity during passive comprehension and active prediction tasks to investigate the effects of prioritizing prediction. The results showed that processes related to prediction engagement remained stable across task demands, while comprehension processes could be modulated by task demands. The findings suggest that there are separate effects on brain activity after the N400, indicating different mechanisms for prediction consequences and comprehension processes.
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Yu Min W. Chung, Kara D. Federmeier
Summary: This study examined how people strategically process and remember important but complex information, specifically sentences. The results showed that people can effectively prioritize memory for sentences based on their importance, and this prioritization is influenced by the availability of value information. However, it was also found that the strategies used to prioritize sentence-level information may paradoxically result in worse memory.
MEMORY & COGNITION
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Paul C. Bogdan, Sanda Dolcos, Kara D. Federmeier, Alejandro Lleras, Hillary Schwarb, Florin Dolcos
Summary: This study aimed to investigate the impact of emotion on memory for temporal associations. The results showed that associations between negative stimuli and subsequent neutral stimuli were stronger than associations between negative stimuli and preceding neutral stimuli. This finding is important for understanding affective disorders.
COGNITION & EMOTION
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Brennan R. Payne, Shukhan Ng, Kailen Shantz, Kara D. Federmeier
ADULT AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING
(2020)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Kara D. Federmeier, Suzanne R. Jongman, Jakub M. Szewczyk
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
(2020)
Article
Education & Educational Research
Shukhan Ng, Brennan R. Payne, Xiaomei Liu, Carolyn J. Anderson, Kara D. Federmeier, Elizabeth A. L. Stine-Morrow
SCIENTIFIC STUDIES OF READING
(2020)