Developmental consistency in the use of subphonemic information during real-time sentence processing.

Apparently homophonous sequences contain acoustic information that differentiates their meanings (Gahl, 2008; Quené, 1992). Adults use this information to segment embedded homophones (e.g.

Change detection for real-world objects in perihand space.

Recent evidence has demonstrated that observers experience visual-processing biases in perihand space that may be tied to the hands' relevance for grasping actions. Our previous work suggested that when the hands are positioned to afford a power-grasp action, observers show increased temporal sensitivity that could aid with fast and forceful action, whereas when the hands are instead at the ready to perform a precision-grasp action, observers show enhanced spatial sensitivity that benefits delicate and detail-oriented actions. In the present investigation we seek to extend these previous findings by examining how object affordances may interact with hand positioning to shape visual biases in perihand space.

The early processing of metaphors and similes: Evidence from eye movements.

This eye movement study examined how people read nominal metaphors and similes in order to investigate how the surface form, or wording, of these expressions affected early processing. Participants silently read metaphors (knowledge is a river) and similes (knowledge is like a river). The identical words were used in the topic-vehicle pair (knowledge-river) in both conditions.

Phonological activation of word meanings in grade 5 readers.

Three experiments examined the role of phonology in the activation of word meanings in Grade 5 students. In Experiment 1, homophone and spelling control errors were embedded in a story context and participants performed a proofreading task as they read for meaning. For both good and poor readers, more homophone errors went undetected than spelling control errors.

Auditory and motion metaphors have different scalp distributions: an ERP study.

While many links have been established between sensory-motor words used literally (kick the ball) and sensory-motor regions of the brain, it is less clear whether metaphorically used words (kick the habit) also show such signs of "embodiment." Additionally, not much is known about the timing or nature of the connection between language and sensory-motor neural processing. We used stimuli divided into three figurativeness conditions-literal, metaphor, and anomalous-and two modality conditions-auditory (Her limousine was a privileged snort) and motion (The editorial was a brass-knuckle punch).