Facilitated Integration of Homonym Subordinate Meanings into Sentence Context for Bilingual Readers

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin G. Lauro ◽  
Ana I. Schwartz
2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (8) ◽  
pp. 1259-1274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietmar Roehm ◽  
Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky ◽  
Frank Rösler ◽  
Matthias Schlesewsky

We report a series of event-related potential experiments designed to dissociate the functionally distinct processes involved in the comprehension of highly restricted lexical-semantic relations (antonyms). We sought to differentiate between influences of semantic relatedness (which are independent of the experimental setting) and processes related to predictability (which differ as a function of the experimental environment). To this end, we conducted three ERP studies contrasting the processing of antonym relations (black-white) with that of related (black-yellow) and unrelated (black-nice) word pairs. Whereas the lexical-semantic manipulation was kept constant across experiments, the experimental environment and the task demands varied: Experiment 1 presented the word pairs in a sentence context of the form The opposite of X is Y and used a sensicality judgment. Experiment 2 used a word pair presentation mode and a lexical decision task. Experiment 3 also examined word pairs, but with an antonymy judgment task. All three experiments revealed a graded N400 response (unrelated > related > antonyms), thus supporting the assumption that semantic associations are processed automatically. In addition, the experiments revealed that, in highly constrained task environments, the N400 gradation occurs simultaneously with a P300 effect for the antonym condition, thus leading to the superficial impression of an extremely “reduced” N400 for antonym pairs. Comparisons across experiments and participant groups revealed that the P300 effect is not only a function of stimulus constraints (i.e., sentence context) and experimental task, but that it is also crucially influenced by individual processing strategies used to achieve successful task performance.


1995 ◽  
Vol 80 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1075-1082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore De Marco ◽  
Roxanne M. Harrell

A comparative study was undertaken to assess the relative magnitude of the effects of linguistic context on the perception of word-juncture boundaries in 30 young school-aged children, 30 older school-aged children, and 30 adults. Minimally contrasted two-word phrases differing in word-juncture boundaries were embedded in a meaningful sentence context, nonmeaningful sentence context, and in neutral phrase context. Groups performed similarly in the neutral phrase context, and two older groups performed better than the young group in the meaningful context. The poorest performances occurred during the nonmeaningful context, with a significant difference among age groups. Heavier reliance upon top-down processing and less developed linguistic and metalinguistic competence may account for the observed differences among groups.


Author(s):  
Yen Na Yum ◽  
Sam-Po Law

Abstract The literature has mixed reports on whether the N170, an early visual ERP response to words, signifies orthographic and/or phonological processing, and whether these effects are moderated by script and language expertise. In this study, native Chinese readers, Japanese–Chinese, and Korean–Chinese bilingual readers performed a one-back repetition detection task with single Chinese characters that differed in phonological regularity status. Results using linear mixed effects models showed that Korean–Chinese readers had bilateral N170 response, while native Chinese and Japanese–Chinese groups had left-lateralized N170, with stronger left lateralization in native Chinese than Japanese–Chinese readers. Additionally, across groups, irregular characters had bilateral increase in N170 amplitudes compared to regular characters. These results suggested that visual familiarity to a script rather than orthography-phonology mapping determined the left lateralization of the N170 response, while there was automatic access to sublexical phonology in the N170 time window in native and non-native readers alike.


Author(s):  
Alexandre Chauvin ◽  
Shari Baum ◽  
Natalie A. Phillips

Purpose Speech perception in noise becomes difficult with age but can be facilitated by audiovisual (AV) speech cues and sentence context in healthy older adults. However, individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) may present with deficits in AV integration, potentially limiting the extent to which they can benefit from AV cues. This study investigated the benefit of these cues in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), individuals with AD, and healthy older adult controls. Method This study compared auditory-only and AV speech perception of sentences presented in noise. These sentences had one of two levels of context: high (e.g., “Stir your coffee with a spoon”) and low (e.g., “Bob didn't think about the spoon”). Fourteen older controls ( M age = 72.71 years, SD = 9.39), 13 individuals with MCI ( M age = 79.92 years, SD = 5.52), and nine individuals with probable Alzheimer's-type dementia ( M age = 79.38 years, SD = 3.40) completed the speech perception task and were asked to repeat the terminal word of each sentence. Results All three groups benefited (i.e., identified more terminal words) from AV and sentence context. Individuals with MCI showed a smaller AV benefit compared to controls in low-context conditions, suggesting difficulties with AV integration. Individuals with AD showed a smaller benefit in high-context conditions compared to controls, indicating difficulties with AV integration and context use in AD. Conclusions Individuals with MCI and individuals with AD do benefit from AV speech and semantic context during speech perception in noise (albeit to a lower extent than healthy older adults). This suggests that engaging in face-to-face communication and providing ample context will likely foster more effective communication between patients and caregivers, professionals, and loved ones.


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