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The mental representation of singular and plural nouns in Algerian Arabic as revealed through auditory priming in agrammatic aphasic patients.

Working within the theoretical framework of prosodic nonconcatenative morphology developed by McCarthy (1975) for Semitic languages, we addressed, in the present paper, the issues of lexical representation, morphological relatedness, and modes of access in Algerian Arabic--a dialect of Standard Arabic--in an auditory morphological priming experiment. More specifically, we investigated the process of word recognition of singular and plural nouns in the performance of 24 non-brain-damaged subjects and 2 Algerian-speaking agrammatic aphasics. Plurals in Arabic involve either suffixation as in the sound plural (e.g., lbas "dress"/lbasat "dresses"), or stem-internal changes as in the broken plurals (e.g., kursi "chair"/krasa "chairs"). Our findings reveal a differential processing of the two forms, indicating whole word access for broken plurals and decomposition into word and suffix for suffixed plurals. Further, the evidence suggests for Algerian Arabic an architecture of the lexicon reflecting a family-like organization which takes into account language-specific features.

Adult↗

A Bayesian network coding scheme for annotating biomedical information presented to genetic counseling clients.

We developed a Bayesian network coding scheme for annotating biomedical content in layperson-oriented clinical genetics documents. The coding scheme supports the representation of probabilistic and causal relationships among concepts in this domain, at a high enough level of abstraction to capture commonalities among genetic processes and their relationship to health. We are using the coding scheme to annotate a corpus of genetic counseling patient letters as part of the requirements analysis and knowledge acquisition phase of a natural language generation project. This paper describes the coding scheme and presents an evaluation of intercoder reliability for its tag set. In addition to giving examples of use of the coding scheme for analysis of discourse and linguistic features in this genre, we suggest other uses for it in analysis of layperson-oriented text and dialogue in medical communication.

Artificial Intelligence↗

Fuzzy support vector machines for adaptive Morse code recognition.

Morse code is now being harnessed for use in rehabilitation applications of augmentative-alternative communication and assistive technology, facilitating mobility, environmental control and adapted worksite access. In this paper, Morse code is selected as a communication adaptive device for persons who suffer from muscle atrophy, cerebral palsy or other severe handicaps. A stable typing rate is strictly required for Morse code to be effective as a communication tool. Therefore, an adaptive automatic recognition method with a high recognition rate is needed. The proposed system uses both fuzzy support vector machines and the variable-degree variable-step-size least-mean-square algorithm to achieve these objectives. We apply fuzzy memberships to each point, and provide different contributions to the decision learning function for support vector machines. Statistical analyses demonstrated that the proposed method elicited a higher recognition rate than other algorithms in the literature.

Algorithms↗

COBrA: a bio-ontology editor.

COBrA is a Java-based ontology editor for bio-ontologies that distinguishes itself from other editors by supporting the linking of concepts between two ontologies, and providing sophisticated analysis and verification functions. In addition to the Gene Ontology and Open Biology Ontologies formats, COBrA can import and export ontologies in the Semantic Web formats RDF, RDFS and OWL.

Cell Physiological Phenomena↗

The influence of semantic category membership on syntactic decisions: a study using event-related brain potentials.

An event-related brain potentials (ERP) experiment was carried out to investigate the influence of semantic category membership on syntactic decision-making. Native speakers of German viewed a series of words that were semantically marked or unmarked for gender and made go/no-go decisions about the grammatical gender of those words. The electrophysiological results indicated that participants could make a gender decision earlier when words were semantically gender-marked than when they were semantically gender-unmarked. Our data provide evidence for the influence of semantic category membership on the decision of the syntactic gender of a visually presented German noun. More specifically, our results support models of language comprehension in which semantic information processing of words is initiated prior to syntactic information processing is finalized.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Developmental, crosslinguistic perspectives on visual word recognition.

In this paper, we argue that a complete understanding of language processing, in this case word-recognition processes, requires consideration both of multiple languages and of developmental processes. To illustrate these goals, we will summarize a 10-year research program exploring word-recognition processes in Korean adults and children. We describe the particular issue to which this research is directed (the relationship between print and the sound system of the language), and describe the characteristics of the Korean writing system that are relevant to this issue. We then outline our research examining the use of lexical and sublexical processes in recognizing Korean words. We use these studies to argue that cross-linguistic and developmental investigations may constrain models of language processes, and must be considered for a complete understanding of word-recognition and reading processes.

Adult↗

Detecting phonemes and letters in text: interactions between different types and levels of processes.

In six experiments, subjects detected phonemes or letters in text presented auditorily or visually. Experiments 1 and 2 provided support for the hypothesis that a mismatch between the phoneme and letter representations of a target leads to detection errors. In addition, visual word unitization processes were implicated. Experiments 3 and 4 provided support for the hypothesis that the Gestalt goodness of pattern affected detection errors when subjects searched for letters. Experiments 5 and 6 demonstrated that the effects of unitization on the detection of letters in common words were decreased by altering the familiar configuration of the test words. The combined results of all six experiments lead to the conclusion that both visual and phonetic processes influence letter detection, that these processes communicate through a type of cross-checking, and that there are at least two levels of visual (and perhaps of phonetic) processing involved in the letter detection task.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Selective processing of eating and body words in restricting-type anorexics, binge-eating-type anorexics, bulimics, and control subjects.

A French adaptation of the Stroop colour-naming task was used to investigate selective processing of information related to eating and the body in 92 female subjects: 18 with restricting-type anorexia nervosa (RAs), 25 with binge-eating-type anorexia (BAs), 20 with bulimia nervosa (BNs), and 29 controls (Cs). All participants were significantly slower in colour-naming words related to eating and the body. This suggests that eating and body Stroop effects were not diagnostic category effects. Eating Stroop effect was significantly stronger in eating disordered patients than in Cs, but very similar in RAs, BAs, and BNs. It did not correlate with the body mass index nor with Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) scores. Body Stroop effect did not differ significantly between groups. However some of our results suggested a tendency for this effect to be higher in BNs, corroborating previous literature data. Body Stroop effect correlated with EDI score in RAs, and with the "body dissatisfaction" subscale score in BNs and BAs. It did not correlate with the body mass index. Further studies are currently being carried out to determine whether inpatient treatment for anorexia nervosa induces significant changes in eating and/or body Stroop effect, and whether such changes might be predictive of clinical outcome.

Adult↗

Representing written vowels in university students with dyslexia compared with normal Hebrew readers.

The study investigates dyslexic and normal Hebrew readers' perception of words containing a vowel letter in different orthographic and morphological contexts. In the first experiment, 72 undergraduate education students (half diagnosed with reading disabilities and half normal readers) were asked to judge pointed words with different morphological structures with and without the grapheme W. Half of the words had consistent (obligatory) W and half had inconsistent (optional) W. In the second experiment, the same procedure was repeated using the same words without pointing marks. Response latencies and accuracy were measured. In both experiments, dyslexic readers did less well than normal readers, they had lower scores on accurate lexical decisions, and they took more time over these decisions. They also exhibited some deviant patterns indicating that they cannot make use of orthographic and morphological cues which are available to normal readers, especially in the pointed experiment. Processing pointed words placed a heavier cognitive burden on the dyslexic readers. These findings are in line with other studies of adult dyslexic reader/writers, and support a reading / spelling processing model, which claims that internal orthographic representations of words are increasingly strengthened with each exposure during reading, but not all graphemes are strengthened equally. The general implication is that the ambiguities that exist in the relationships between orthography, phonology and morphology underlie spelling knowledge and are particularly difficult for dyslexic readers.

Adolescent↗

Accessing words in speech production: stages, processes and representations.

This paper introduces a special issue of Cognition on lexical access in speech production. Over the last quarter century, the psycholinguistic study of speaking, and in particular of accessing words in speech, received a major new impetus from the analysis of speech errors, dysfluencies and hesitations, from aphasiology, and from new paradigms in reaction time research. The emerging theoretical picture partitions the accessing process into two subprocesses, the selection of an appropriate lexical item (a "lemma") from the mental lexicon, and the phonological encoding of that item, that is, the computation of a phonetic program for the item in the context of utterance. These two theoretical domains are successively introduced by outlining some core issues that have been or still have to be addressed. The final section discusses the controversial question whether phonological encoding can affect lexical selection. This partitioning is also followed in this special issue as a whole. There are, first, four papers on lexical selection, then three papers on phonological encoding, and finally one on the interaction between selection and phonological encoding.

Female↗

The role of discourse context in the processing of a flexible word-order language.

On-line comprehension studies of flexible word-order languages find that noncanonical ('scrambled') structures induce more difficulty than canonical structures [e.g., Hyona & Hujanen, Q. J. Exp. Psychol. 50A (1997) 841-858], with this difference being attributed to the structural complexity/infrequency of these forms. However, by presenting sentences in isolation, most existing studies have not examined the extent to which processing patterns can be explained by discourse factors. In Finnish, an articleless flexible word-order language with canonical SVO order, word order can be used to encode the given/new distinctions: OVS marks the object as given and the subject as new; SVO is more flexible, being used in multiple contexts. Thus, the observed dispreference for noncanonical orders in previous work may arise from additional presuppositions needed to understand them out of context [cf. Crain & Steedman, Natural Language Parsing, (1985), 320-358]. Two experiments were conducted to examine these issues in Finnish. Experiment 1 used a self-paced reading task to show that the usual difficulty associated with noncanonical constructions is partially alleviated in the presence of appropriate discourse contexts. In Experiment 2, the eye gaze of listeners was tracked as they heard spoken descriptions of scenes, so as to test whether specific on-line referential processes are involved in SVO/OVS comprehension: Upon hearing an OV... sequence, Finnish listeners should expect the upcoming noun to be discourse-new, whereas an SV... sequence makes no such prediction. The results confirmed these predictions. As compared to SVO, OVS sentences showed anticipatory eye movements to a discourse-new referent at the second noun onset, even before participants had enough acoustic information to recognize this word. Our findings illustrate that in a flexible word-order language, a noncanonical order can result in anticipatory processes regarding the discourse status of a yet-to-be-heard constituent.

Eye Movements↗

Lexical decision and visual hemifield: an examination of the RT-accuracy relationship.

Visual hemifield, stimulus duration and angle of eccentricity were manipulated using a lexical decision paradigm (discrimination of words from non-words). Lexical decision was measured by several dependent variables: reaction time, (RT); accuracy, d'; and beta. The results support the generalization of RVF superiority in a lexical decision task for parafoveal stimulation for three dependent variables, RT, accuracy and d'. No significant effect of any stimulus manipulation was found for beta. When RT is plotted as a function of accuracy, the data separate into two groups (one for words, one for non-words) each best described by a linear equation with negative slope. The implication of this analysis is discussed, and the hypothesis offered that the same basic process discriminates words from non-words in a lexical decision task, regardless of visual field, parafoveal angle of eccentricity or stimulus duration. Visual field is processed no differently from the other stimulus manipulations.

Adult↗

Effects of subphonetic and syllable structure variation on word recognition.

This study explored whether natural acoustic variations as exemplified by either subphonetic changes or syllable structure changes affect word recognition processes. Subphonetic variations were realized by differences in the voice-onset time (VOT) value of initial voiceless stop consonants, and syllable structure variations were realized by vowel deletion in initial unstressed syllables in multisyllable words. An auditory identity priming paradigm was used to determine whether the amount of facilitation obtained to a target stimulus in a lexical decision task was affected by the presence of these acoustic variations in a prime stimulus. Results revealed different patterns for the two types of variability as a function of lexical status. In the case of subphonetic variations, shortening of VOT resulted in reduced facilitation for words but not for nonwords, whereas in the case of syllable structure variation, vowel deletion in an unstressed syllable resulted in reduced facilitation for nonwords and increased facilitation for words. These findings indicate that subphonetic variability interferes with word recognition, whereas syllable structure variability does not, and that this effect is independent of the magnitude of the acoustic difference between a citation form and its variant. Furthermore, the results suggest that the lexical status of the target item plays a crucial role in the processing of both types of variability. Results are considered in relation to current models of word recognition.

Adolescent↗

Distinct prefrontal activations in processing sequence at the sentence and script level: an fMRI study.

Neuropsychological studies have shown that the prefrontal cortex is important in planning and monitoring everyday behaviour. In this study, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated whether specific prefrontal regions are involved in processing a sequence of actions. Subjects were required to perform two different tasks: Script-event order and Sentence-word order. Script sequence and word sequence processing were found to activate partially overlapping areas which are known to be implicated in language processing. In addition, the Script-task activated a large area in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area 6 and 8, BA 6 and 8), in both the left and right hemispheres, as well as the left supplementary motor area and left angular gyrus (BA 39). Our results suggest that these prefrontal areas may be more specifically involved in the process of analysing sequential links in the action domain.

Adult↗

A production limitation in syllable number: a longitudinal study of one child's early vocabulary.

The present paper reports on the phonological form of one child's productive vocabulary from age 0;10 to 1;8 with primary focus on his production of multisyllabic targets. A large percentage of his multisyllabic vocabulary was produced as one syllable until the age of 1;6. This limitation was not due to a tendency to extract only single syllables from the speech stream, but rather due primarily to a limitation on production. While some portion of his one-syllable productions could be interpreted as the result of single syllable extraction, a sizeable portion affirmed that he extracted the target size correctly by his inclusion of first and final target phonemes in his productions (e.g. [po] for piano and [kiz] for candies). The resolution of this limitation coincides with his move toward two-word speech. We conclude that there is a developmental and perhaps maturational limitation in the capacity to carry out the processes underlying word and sentence production.

Child Language↗

Similarity neighborhoods of spoken two-syllable words: retroactive effects on multiple activation.

This research examines the recognition of two-syllable spoken words and the means by which the auditory word recognition process deals with ambiguous stimulus information. The experiments reported here investigate the influence of individual syllables within two-syllable words on the recognition of each other. Specifically, perceptual identification of two-syllable words comprised of two monosyllabic words (spondees) was examined. Individual syllables within a spondee were characterized as either "easy" or "hard" depending on the syllable's neighborhood characteristics; an easy syllable was defined as a high-frequency word in a sparse neighborhood of low-frequency words, and a hard syllable as a low-frequency word in a high-density, high-frequency neighborhood. In Experiment 1, stimuli were created by splicing together recordings of the component syllables of the spondee, thus equating for syllable stress. Additional experiments tested the perceptual identification of naturally produced spondees, spliced nonwords, and monosyllables alone. Neighborhood structure had a strong effect on identification in all experiments. In addition, identification performance for spondees with a hard-easy syllable pattern was higher than for spondees with an easy-hard syllable pattern, indicating a primarily retroactive pattern of influence in spoken word recognition. Results strongly suggest that word recognition involves multiple activation and delayed commitment, thus ensuring accurate and efficient recognition.

Adult↗

Web servicing the biological office.

UNLABELLED: Biologists routinely use Microsoft Office applications for standard analysis tasks. Despite ubiquitous internet resources, information needed for everyday work is often not directly and seamlessly available. Here we describe a very simple and easily extendable mechanism using Web Services to enrich standard MS Office applications with internet resources. We demonstrate its capabilities by providing a Web-based thesaurus for biological objects, which maps names to database identifiers and vice versa via an appropriate synonym list. The client application ProTag makes these features available in MS Office applications using Smart Tags and Add-Ins. AVAILABILITY: http://services.bio.ifi.lmu.de/prothesaurus/

Computational Biology↗