The primacy of taxonomic semantic organization over thematic semantic organization during picture naming.

Different organizational structures have been argued to underlie semantic knowledge about concepts; taxonomic organization, based on shared features, and thematic organization based on co-occurrence in common scenes and scenarios. The goal of the current study is to examine which of the two organizational systems are more engaged in the semantic context of a picture naming task. To address this question, we examined the representational structure underlying the semantic space in different picture naming tasks by applying representational similarity analysis (RSA) to electroencephalography (EEG) datasets.

A dataset of behavioral measures on Chinese word production in picture naming.

Most studies of language production have been conducted with speakers of alphabetic languages, but relatively little research has examined languages with non-alphabetic scripts, such as Chinese. Moreover, most work on language word production has investigated phonological output processing (i.e.

Verbal working memory capacity modulates semantic and phonological prediction in spoken comprehension.

Mounting evidence suggests that people may use multiple cues to predict different levels of representation (e.g., semantic, syntactic, and phonological) during language comprehension.

Predicting phonological information in language comprehension: evidence from ERP representational similarity analysis and Chinese idioms.

Do comprehenders predict the meaning and even the phonological form of upcoming words during language comprehension? With a growing body of evidence suggesting that semantic representations may be predicted, the evidence for phonological prediction is less clear and largely derived from studies conducted in languages utilizing an alphabetic script. In this research, we aim to examine the prediction of phonological information in the processing of Chinese idioms through the use of ERP representational similarity analysis (RSA). The study utilizes four-character Chinese idioms, and phonological overlap was manipulated by varying the syllable at the idiom-final part between idiom pairs so that pairs of idioms share a syllable (i.

Predicting coarse-grained semantic features in language comprehension: evidence from ERP representational similarity analysis and Chinese classifier.

Existing studies demonstrate that comprehenders can predict semantic information during language comprehension. Most evidence comes from a highly constraining context, in which a specific word is likely to be predicted. One question that has been investigated less is whether prediction can occur when prior context is less constraining for predicting specific words.

Predicting phonology in language comprehension: Evidence from the visual world eye-tracking task in Mandarin Chinese.

Whereas a growing body of research demonstrates that people may predict conceptual representations during language comprehension, evidence for phonological prediction is less straightforward. Moreover, existing findings of phonological prediction come largely from studies conducted with languages with alphabetic scripts, making it difficult to dissociate the effects of phonology from orthography. In two experiments, we used the visual world paradigm to investigate whether comprehenders predict phonological information during comprehension of Chinese sentences, where phonology and orthography are largely dissociable.

A joint investigation of facilitation and interference effects of semantic and phonological similarity in a continuous naming task.

Semantic and phonological similarity effects provide critical constraints on the mechanisms underlying language production. In the present study, we jointly investigated effects of semantic and phonological similarity using the continuous naming task. In the semantic condition, Chinese Mandarin speakers named a list of pictures composed of 12 semantic category sets with 5 items from each semantic category, while in the phonological condition, they named a list of pictures from 12 phonological sets of 5 items sharing a spoken syllable.

Interference effects of phonological similarity in word production arise from competitive incremental learning.

In the blocked cyclic naming task, native Mandarin speakers named pictures with disyllabic names in small sets and blocks, with the critical manipulation whether pictures within a block shared an atonal syllable or not. We found the expected facilitation when the overlapping portion of responses was in word-initial position, but we also replicated a recent observation that with 'inconsistent' overlap (shared syllables could be either in first or second word position), form overlap causes interference. Crucially, interference also occurred when phonologically unrelated filler trials or trials which required a nonlinguistic response were interleaved with the critical pictures.

Parallel Processing of Semantics and Phonology in Spoken Production: Evidence from Blocked Cyclic Picture Naming and EEG.

Spoken language production involves lexical-semantic access and phonological encoding. A theoretically important question concerns the relative time course of these two cognitive processes. The predominant view has been that semantic and phonological codes are accessed in successive stages.

Phonological inhibition in written production.

The present study investigated the contribution of phonological relatedness on written production using the blocked cyclic naming paradigm. Participants were instructed to write down picture names in homogeneous and heterogeneous context. In the homogeneous context, items shared a syllable which corresponded to different written forms in various items.

Syllables and phonemes as planning units in Mandarin Chinese spoken word production: Evidence from ERPs.

Speakers of different languages might rely on differential phonological units when planning spoken output. In the present experiment, we investigated the role of phonemes, as well as the relative time course of syllabic vs phonemic encoding, in Mandarin Chinese word production. A form preparation task was combined with encephalography (EEG).

Co-activation of Taxonomic and Thematic Relations in Spoken Word Comprehension: Evidence From Eye Movements.

Evidence from behavior, computational linguistics, and neuroscience studies supported that semantic knowledge is represented in (at least) two semantic systems (i.e., taxonomic and thematic systems).

The role of orthography in second-language spoken word production: Evidence from Tibetan Chinese bilinguals.

Evidence suggests that spoken language production involves involuntary access to orthographic representations, both in languages with alphabetic and non-alphabetic scripts. An unexplored question is whether the role of orthography varies as a function of the language being native or non-native to the individual. Native (L1) and non-native (L2) languages differ in important aspects, that is, lexical representations in L2 might be less well established, but acquired at least partly via reading, and these unique features of non-native languages may contribute to a fundamental difference in how spelling and sound interact in production.

Orthographic effects in Mandarin spoken language production.

For literate individuals, does the spoken production of language involve access to orthographic codes? Previous research has rendered mixed results, with a few positive findings contrasting with a range of null findings. In the current experiments, we chose spoken Mandarin as the target language in order to better dissociate sound from spelling. Mandarin speakers named coloured line drawings of common objects with adjective-noun phrases (e.

Visual attention shift to printed words during spoken word recognition in Chinese: The role of phonological information.

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which phonological information mediates the visual attention shift to printed Chinese words in spoken word recognition by using an eye-movement technique with a printed-word paradigm. In this paradigm, participants are visually presented with four printed words on a computer screen, which include a target word, a phonological competitor, and two distractors. Participants are then required to select the target word using a computer mouse, and the eye movements are recorded.

Orthographic effects in second-language spoken-word recognition.

Evidence from both alphabetic and nonalphabetic languages has suggested the role of orthography in the processing of spoken words in individuals' native language (L1). Less evidence has existed for such effects in nonnative (L2) spoken-word processing. Whereas in L1 orthographic representations are learned only after phonological representations have long been established, in L2 the sound and spelling of words are often learned in conjunction; this might predict stronger orthographic effects in L2 than in L1 spoken processing.

The time course of morphological processing during spoken word recognition in Chinese.

We investigated the time course of morphological processing during spoken word recognition using the printed-word paradigm. Chinese participants were asked to listen to a spoken disyllabic compound word while simultaneously viewing a printed-word display. Each visual display consisted of three printed words: a semantic associate of the first constituent of the compound word (morphemic competitor), a semantic associate of the whole compound word (whole-word competitor), and an unrelated word (distractor).

Orthographic effects in spoken word recognition: Evidence from Chinese.

Extensive evidence from alphabetic languages demonstrates a role of orthography in the processing of spoken words. Because alphabetic systems explicitly code speech sounds, such effects are perhaps not surprising. However, it is less clear whether orthographic codes are involuntarily accessed from spoken words in languages with non-alphabetic systems, in which the sound-spelling correspondence is largely arbitrary.

Tracking the time course of lexical access in orthographic production: An event-related potential study of word frequency effects in written picture naming.

Previous studies of spoken picture naming using event-related potentials (ERPs) have shown that speakers initiate lexical access within 200ms after stimulus onset. In the present study, we investigated the time course of lexical access in written, rather than spoken, word production. Chinese participants wrote target object names which varied in word frequency, and written naming times and ERPs were measured.

Semantic information mediates visual attention during spoken word recognition in Chinese: Evidence from the printed-word version of the visual-world paradigm.

In the present study, we investigated whether the activation of semantic information during spoken word recognition can mediate visual attention's deployment to printed Chinese words. We used a visual-world paradigm with printed words, in which participants listened to a spoken target word embedded in a neutral spoken sentence while looking at a visual display of printed words. We examined whether a semantic competitor effect could be observed in the printed-word version of the visual-world paradigm.

Cascadedness in Chinese written word production.

In written word production, is activation transmitted from lexical-semantic selection to orthographic encoding in a serial or cascaded fashion? Very few previous studies have addressed this issue, and the existing evidence comes from languages with alphabetic orthographic systems. We report a study in which Chinese participants were presented with colored line drawings of objects and were instructed to write the name of the color while attempting to ignore the object. Significant priming was found when on a trial, the written response shared an orthographic radical with the written name of the object.

Is handwriting constrained by phonology? Evidence from Stroop tasks with written responses and Chinese characters.

To what extent is handwritten word production based on phonological codes? A few studies conducted in Western languages have recently provided evidence showing that phonology contributes to the retrieval of graphemic properties in written output tasks. Less is known about how orthographic production works in languages with non-alphabetic scripts such as written Chinese. We report a Stroop study in which Chinese participants wrote the color of characters on a digital graphic tablet; characters were either neutral, or homophonic to the target (congruent), or homophonic to an alternative (incongruent).

Sound-sized segments are significant for Mandarin speakers.

Do speakers of all languages use segmental speech sounds when they produce words? Existing models of language production generally assume a mental representation of individual segmental units, or phonemes, but the bulk of evidence comes from speakers of European languages in which the orthographic system codes explicitly for speech sounds. By contrast, in languages with nonalphabetical scripts, such as Mandarin Chinese, individual speech sounds are not orthographically represented, raising the possibility that speakers of these languages do not use phonemes as fundamental processing units. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) combined with behavioral measurement to investigate the role of phonemes in Mandarin production.

Phonology contributes to writing: evidence from written word production in a nonalphabetic script.

Is the production of written words affected by their phonological properties? Most researchers agree that orthographic codes can be accessed directly from meaning, but the contribution of phonological codes to written word production remains controversial, mainly because studies have focused on languages with alphabetic scripts, and it is difficult to dissociate sound from spelling in such languages. We report results from a picture-word interference task in which Chinese participants wrote the names of pictures while attempting to ignore written distractor words. On some trials, the distractors were phonologically and orthographically related to the picture names; on other trials, the distractors were only phonologically related to the picture names; and on still other trials, the distractors and picture names were unrelated.