All languages employ certain phonetic contrasts when distinguishing words. Infant speech perception is rapidly attuned to these contrasts before many words are learned, thus phonetic attunement is ...thought to proceed independently of lexical and referential knowledge. Here, evidence to the contrary is provided. Ninety-eight 9-month-old English-learning infants were trained to perceive a non-native Cantonese tone contrast. Two object–tone audiovisual pairings were consistently presented, which highlighted the target contrast (Object A with Tone X; Object B with Tone Y). Tone discrimination was then assessed. Results showed improved tone discrimination if object–tone pairings were perceived as being referential word labels, although this effect was modulated by vocabulary size. Results suggest how lexical and referential knowledge could play a role in phonetic attunement.
Given the fact that the process of engaging and interacting with the text is not only the function of a reader but also the text itself, the current study attempts to examine the role of the type of ...the word in the attentional engagement. More specifically, the present investigation aims to verify the interplay of sensorimotor information, emotions, and the linguistic information in the word processing. In so doing, for the scale validation, a sample of 220 Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners from different language institutes were requested to complete the newly designed Persian and English lexical involvement scales. The results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) supported the factor structure and the reliability of the measures. Moreover, using Emotional Stroop task in the experimental set up, the results revealed that there is a strong positive relationship between lexical involvement and visual attentional engagement in L1(Persian). The association was conversely negative in L2 (English). Finally, the statistical analysis indicates that the lexical stimuli differ regarding their magnitude of lexical involvement in L1 and L2.
► Four-year-olds and adults described transitive events in a syntactic priming experiment. ► The experimenter produced short passive and full active prime descriptions. ► Participants produced more ...full passives after short passives than after actives. ► Shared abstract syntax underlies four-year-olds’ (and adults’) short and full passives.
In a syntactic priming paradigm, three- and four-year-old children and adults described transitive events after hearing thematically and lexically unrelated active and short passive prime descriptions. Both groups were more likely to produce full passive descriptions (
the king is being scratched by the tiger) following short passive primes (
the girls are being shocked) than active primes (
the sheep is shocking the girl). These results suggest that by four, children have (shared) abstract syntactic representations for both short and full passives, contrary to previous proposals (e.g.,
Horgan, 1978).
The causality implicit in traits Kressel, Laura M.; Uleman, James S.
Journal of experimental social psychology,
March 2015, 2015-03-00, 20150301, Letnik:
57
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Are personality trait concepts merely descriptive of behaviors or do they describe causes? Social psychologists have differing views. Thus we looked at lexical decision response times (RTs) in a list ...context paradigm, which presents prime–target pairs embedded in lists of different contexts. In lists of associated pairs, traits did not affect RTs to related behaviors. But in lists of causally related pairs, traits primed RTs to behavioral words. Causality was never mentioned, and RTs were short enough to suggest automatic processing. This is consistent with other research on priming thematic relations. It also indicates that traits are implicit causes rather than mere descriptions of behavior, at least among Western participants. This challenges some current formulations in the social psychology of impression formation.
•Traits are ambiguously descriptions of behaviors or persons, or causes of behaviors.•Past research suggests traits function as causes, when people judge causal relations.•But would this occur if “causality” were not explicit in the instructions.•Lexical decisions were faster for behaviors primed by traits in causal lists.•Results suggest automatic activation of causal relations between traits and behaviors.•Traits’ meanings implicitly include causing behaviors.
Currently feminitives (feminatives) appear to be one of the actively discussed lexico-semantic groups. This discussion has gone far beyond the community of researchers. Especially heated discussions ...are held in the internet-mediated communication involving the so called netizens, or netenauts – active Internet users. They not merely express their attitude towards the feminitives that already exist in the language but also propose their own auctorial feminitives. The authors denote these units by the term neofeminitives. The term feminitive has narrow and broad meanings. In its narrow meaning the term feminitive is understood to be a denomination of a woman in accordance with her social role, for instance: studentka (college girl), uchitelnitsa (schoolmistress), kassirsha (paymistress). The feminine suffexes -ess(a), -is(a), -k(a), -sh(a) and others serve as determinants expressing the notion of femininity. Nowadays, the most productive suffixes are -k(a) and -sh(a). The units newly formed with the help of them enter into the relations of derivational competition. The article shows this phenomenon on the vast illustrative material. The term feminitive in its broad meaning is used to denote nouns having semantics of femininity and expressed by the inflection -a, for instance: mama (mom), tyotya (aunt), etc. The extension of the notion of femininity and, correspondingly, the expansion of the scope of the lexico-semantic group of “feminitives” appear as consequence of activization of the processes of borrowing. The group of “feminitives” has accepted some words that have only lexical feature of femininity, cf.: biznesvumen, shouvumen, biznesledi, gerlskaut, kolgerl, pleymeyt and others. The activity of penetration of such foreignisms serves as an evidence for their being urgent and proves that they should be regarded as the so called actual neologisms (Marinova). Meanwhile, the Russian language, being an inflectional language open to new loan words, actively adopts borrowings, adjusting them to the established system. This is manifested through creating neofiminitives with the derivational determinants of femininity, cf.: biznesvumensha – biznesvumenikha, gerlskautka – gerlskautsha, pleymetsha – pleymeytikha. These neofeminitives enter into the relationship of derivational competition, which is one of the active derivational processes in the modern Russian language. As the results of this neofeminitives analyses, the authors draw a conclusion that they accomplish a twofold function. Firstly, neofeminiteves accomplish a differentiating function, as they denote the gender of the named object, but this act of naming is almost always stylistically marked because of some particular qualities of the feminine suffixes. For this reason, one may state with confidence, that Internet neofeminitives also accopmlish a perlocutionary function. The scientific novelty of the study is seen in the proof of the position on the role of word formation in the study of the linguistic picture of the world in relation to the group of neofeminitives.
From the point of view of the historical sciences, inventories of movable property constitute a particularly interesting type of text since they include more detailed information of the material ...realities of past epochs. The lexical study of 14th-century Venetian inventories carried out in the present paper provides relevant new evidence for Italian historical lexicography.
The author in this research article analyses the names of witnesses in the period from Ancient Russia to the end of the 17th century. Vocabulary is analysed from the point of view of origin, ...semantics and sphere of usage. Russkaya Pravda (Rus' Justice), birch bark manuscripts and business documents of the 15-17 centuries were used as research sources.
Masked Inhibitory Priming in English Davis, Colin J; Lupker, Stephen J
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance,
06/2006, Letnik:
32, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Predictions derived from the interactive activation (IA) model were tested in 3
experiments using the masked priming technique in the lexical decision task. Experiment 1
showed a strong effect of ...prime lexicality: Classifications of target words were
facilitated by orthographically related nonword primes (relative to unrelated nonword
primes) but were inhibited by orthographically related word primes (relative to unrelated
word primes). Experiment 2 confirmed IA's prediction that inhibitory priming effects are
greater when the prime and target share a neighbor. Experiment 3 showed a minimal effect
of target word neighborhood size (N) on inhibitory priming but a trend toward greater
inhibition when nonword foils were high-N than when they were low-N. Simulations of 3
different versions of the IA model showed that the best fit to the data is produced when
lexical inhibition is selective and when masking leads to reset of letter activities.
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