Concreteness in word processing: ERP and behavioral effects in a lexical decision task

Affective, semantic, frequency, and descriptive norms for 107 face emojis

We introduce a novel dataset of affective, semantic, and descriptive norms for all facial emojis at the point of data collection. We gathered and examined subjective ratings of emojis from 138 German speakers along five essential dimensions: valence, arousal, familiarity, clarity, and visual complexity. Additionally, we provide absolute frequency counts of emoji use, drawn from an extensive Twitter corpus, as well as a much smaller WhatsApp database. Our results replicate the well-established quadratic relationship between arousal and valence of lexical items, also known for words. We also report associations among the variables: for example, the subjective familiarity of an emoji is strongly correlated with its usage frequency, and positively associated with its emotional valence and clarity of meaning. We establish the meanings associated with face emojis, by asking participants for up to three descriptions for each emoji. Using this linguistic data, we computed vector embeddings for each emoji, enabling an exploration of their distribution within the semantic space. Our description-based emoji vector embeddings not only capture typical meaning components of emojis, such as their valence, but also surpass simple definitions and direct emoji2vec models in reflecting the semantic relationship between emojis and words. Our dataset stands out due to its robust reliability and validity. This new semantic norm for face emojis impacts the future design of highly controlled experiments focused on the cognitive processing of emojis, their lexical representation, and their linguistic properties.

Neural Representations of Concreteness and Concrete Concepts Are Specific to the Individual

Different people listening to the same story may converge upon a largely shared interpretation while still developing idiosyncratic experiences atop that shared foundation. What linguistic properties support this individualized experience of natural language? Here, we investigate how the "concrete-abstract" axis-the extent to which a word is grounded in sensory experience-relates to within- and across-subject variability in the neural representations of language. Leveraging a dataset of human participants of both sexes who each listened to four auditory stories while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrate that neural representations of "concreteness" are both reliable across stories and relatively unique to individuals, while neural representations of "abstractness" are variable both within individuals and across the population. Using natural language processing tools, we show that concrete words exhibit similar neural representations despite spanning larger distances within a high-dimensional semantic space, which potentially reflects an underlying representational signature of sensory experience-namely, imageability-shared by concrete words but absent from abstract words. Our findings situate the concrete-abstract axis as a core dimension that supports both shared and individualized representations of natural language.

The differential illusion memory for high-associated abstract concepts (DIM-HA) effect

A vast body of evidence has shown that concrete concepts are processed faster and more accurately than abstract concepts in a variety of cognitive tasks. This phenomenon is widely known as the concreteness effect, and explanations for its occurrence seem to reflect differences in processing and organization for both types of representations. While there is considerable evidence to support this concreteness effect, the nature of these differences is still controversial. In developing an explanation, we have proposed a relatively different approach from a false memory perspective using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. To explore the implications of the association in creating false memories, we explore behavioral and electrophysiologically the false memory effect, where targets were manipulated according to their association strength and their concreteness. Results showed that false recognition rates differed significantly between concrete and abstract critical words when they were associated strongly with their respective lists, which led to a higher proportion of abstract false alarms both in behavioral and electrophysiological experiments. The principal outcome, which was called the DIM-HA effect, was discussed in terms of theories of associative activation and qualitatively different representation.

Prediction in reading: A review of predictability effects, their theoretical implications, and beyond

Historically, prediction during reading has been considered an inefficient and cognitively expensive processing mechanism given the inherently generative nature of language, which allows upcoming text to unfold in an infinite number of possible ways. This article provides an accessible and comprehensive review of the psycholinguistic research that, over the past 40 or so years, has investigated whether readers are capable of generating predictions during reading, typically via experiments on the effects of predictability (i.e., how well a word can be predicted from its prior context). Five theoretically important issues are addressed: What is the best measure of predictability? What is the functional relationship between predictability and processing difficulty? What stage(s) of processing does predictability affect? Are predictability effects ubiquitous? What processes do predictability effects actually reflect? Insights from computational models of reading about how predictability manifests itself to facilitate the reading of text are also discussed. This review concludes by arguing that effects of predictability can, to a certain extent, be taken as demonstrating evidence that prediction is an important but flexible component of real-time language comprehension, in line with broader predictive accounts of cognitive functioning. However, converging evidence, especially from concurrent eye-tracking and brain-imaging methods, is necessary to refine theories of prediction.

An ERP investigation of perceptual vs motoric iconicity in sign production

The type of form-meaning mapping for iconic signs can vary. For perceptually-iconic signs there is a correspondence between visual features of a referent (e.g., the beak of a bird) and the form of the sign (e.g., extended thumb and index finger at the mouth for the American Sign Language (ASL) sign BIRD). For motorically-iconic signs there is a correspondence between how an object is held/manipulated and the form of the sign (e.g., the ASL sign FLUTE depicts how a flute is played). Previous studies have found that iconic signs are retrieved faster in picture-naming tasks, but type of iconicity has not been manipulated. We conducted an ERP study in which deaf signers and a control group of English speakers named pictures that targeted perceptually-iconic, motorically-iconic, or non-iconic ASL signs. For signers (unlike the control group), naming latencies varied by iconicity type: perceptually-iconic < motorically-iconic < non-iconic signs. A reduction in the N400 amplitude was only found for the perceptually-iconic signs, compared to both non-iconic and motorically-iconic signs. No modulations of N400 amplitudes were observed for the control group. We suggest that this pattern of results arises because pictures eliciting perceptually-iconic signs can more effectively prime lexical access due to greater alignment between features of the picture and the semantic and phonological features of the sign. We speculate that naming latencies are facilitated for motorically-iconic signs due to later processes (e.g., faster phonological encoding via cascading activation from semantic features). Overall, the results indicate that type of iconicity plays role in sign production when elicited by picture-naming tasks.

How does emotional content influence visual word recognition? A meta-analysis of valence effects

Research on the interplay between language and emotion has shown evidence that the affective content of words influences their recognition. However, the direction of the effects is not clear, as there are mixed findings regarding the role of positive and, especially, negative valence. We conducted a Bayesian multi-level meta-analysis to examine the role of valence in visual word recognition, focusing on the lexical decision task. The results revealed a facilitative effect of positive valence on lexical decision times. That is, positive words led to faster responses than both negative and neutral words. In contrast, negative valence did not have any effect, although the analysis of several moderator variables suggested that there might be a facilitative effect in some cases, specifically, when negative words elicit very strong and intense emotions. These results shed light on the complexities of emotional word processing. They also point to the need for psycholinguistic models to take affective information into account, and thus provide a complete view of visual word recognition.

Sub-Lexical Processing of Chinese-English Bilinguals: An ERP Analysis

Previous research has established that bilinguals automatically activate lexical items in both of their languages in a nonselectivemanner, even when processing linguistic information in the second language (L2) alone. However, whether this co-activation extends to the sub-lexical level remains debated. In this study, we investigate whether bilinguals access sub-lexical information while processing in their L2. Thirty-two Chinese-English bilinguals and thirty-one English monolinguals completed an EEG-based semantic relatedness task, during which they judged whether pairs of English words were related in meaning or not (±S). Unbeknownst to the participants, the form (±F) of the Chinese translations in half of the pairs shared a sub-lexical semantic radical. This leads to four conditions: +S+F, +S-F, -S+F, and -S-F. This design, along with the comparison to English monolinguals, allows us to examine if bilinguals' native language is activated at the sub-lexical level when they are exposed only to L2. The results revealed that both groups showed sensitivity to semantic relatedness, as evidenced by a greater N400 for semantic unrelated pairs than related pairs, with monolinguals eliciting a more pronounced difference. Bilinguals, on the other hand, exhibited a greater P200 difference compared to monolinguals, indicating greater sensitivity to the hidden Chinese radical/form manipulation. These results suggest that highly proficient bilinguals automatically engage in lexical co-activation of their native language during L2 processing. Crucially, this co-activation extends to the sub-lexical semantic radical level.

An ERP study on the late stage of Chinese metaphor processing

Psycholinguistic models of metaphor processing remain a subject of debate. A prime-probe design using Chinese materials with a specific time span (300 ms) was applied to test the mechanisms of metaphor processing. Conventional and familiarized metaphors were designed as primes, followed by a probe word semantically related to the prime metaphor (MT), a probe word related to the literal meaning of the final word of the prime metaphor (LT), control/unrelated probe word (UT), or non-word. Event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by the probes were recorded to examine metaphor processing. In N400, results revealed that UT and LT elicited significantly more negative waveforms than MT in both primes. MTs and LTs showed no difference between conventional and familiarized metaphors, suggesting that metaphorical meaning may be accessed directly, regardless of whether conventional or familiarized metaphors. The results were generally compatible with the direct processing model.

The electrophysiology of lexical prediction of emoji and text

As emoji often appear naturally alongside text in utterances, they provide a way to study how prediction unfolds in multimodal sentences in direct comparison to unimodal sentences. In this experiment, participants (N = 40) read sentences in which the sentence-final noun appeared in either word form or emoji form, a between-subjects manipulation. The experiment featured both high constraint sentences and low constraint sentences to examine how the lexical processing of emoji interacts with prediction processes in sentence comprehension. Two well-established ERP components linked to lexical processing and prediction - the N400 and the Late Frontal Positivity - are investigated for sentence-final words and emoji to assess whether, to what extent, and in what linguistic contexts emoji are processed like words. Results indicate that the expected effects, namely an N400 effect to an implausible lexical item compared to a plausible one and an LFP effect to an unexpected lexical item compared to an expected one, emerged for both words and emoji. This paper discusses the similarities and differences between the stimulus types and constraint conditions, contextualized within theories of linguistic prediction, ERP components, and a multimodal lexicon.

The concrete processing of Chinese action metaphors: an ERP study

The present research adopts ERP (Event-Related Potentials) technology to investigate whether there exists a concreteness effect in the processing of Chinese action verbs within metaphorical context. The mean amplitudes of N400 activated by action metaphors were compared with those activated by literal verbs and abstract verbs. The findings indicated that the Met verbs evoked a significantly larger N400 response at frontal brain region compared to the Abs verbs at a time window 200-500 ms, while the Met verbs elicited a notably greater N400 amplitude specifically at the posterior brain region in comparison to the Lit verbs at 300-500 ms time window. These results may be interpreted as indicating that the comprehension of the Met verbs is based on the concrete action semantics.

Using Monte-Carlo simulation to test predictions about the time-course of semantic and lexical access in reading

One of the main theoretical distinctions between reading models is how and when they predict semantic processing occurs. Some models assume semantic activation occurs after word-form is retrieved. Other models assume there is no-word form, and that what people think of as word-form is actually just semantics. These models thus predict semantic effects should occur early in reading. Results showing words with inconsistent spelling-sound correspondences are faster to read aloud if they are imageable/concrete compared to if they are abstract have been used as evidence supporting this prediction, although null-effects have also been reported. To investigate this, I used Monte-Carlo simulation to create a large set of simulated experiments from RTs taken from different databases. The results showed significant main effects of concreteness and spelling-sound consistency, as well as age-of-acquisition, a variable that can potentially confound the results. Alternatively, simulations showing a significant interaction between spelling-sound consistency and concreteness did not occur above chance, even without controlling for age-of-acquisition. These results support models that use lexical form. In addition, they suggest significant interactions from previous experiments may have occurred due to idiosyncratic items affecting the results and random noise causing the occasional statistical error.

Neural manifolds carry reactivation of phonetic representations during semantic processing

Traditional models of speech perception posit that neural activity encodes speech through a hierarchy of cognitive processes, from low-level representations of acoustic and phonetic features to high-level semantic encoding. Yet it remains unknown how neural representations are transformed across levels of the speech hierarchy. Here, we analyzed unique microelectrode array recordings of neuronal spiking activity from the human left anterior superior temporal gyrus, a brain region at the interface between phonetic and semantic speech processing, during a semantic categorization task and natural speech perception. We identified distinct neural manifolds for semantic and phonetic features, with a functional separation of the corresponding low-dimensional trajectories. Moreover, phonetic and semantic representations were encoded concurrently and reflected in power increases in the beta and low-gamma local field potentials, suggesting top-down predictive and bottom-up cumulative processes. Our results are the first to demonstrate mechanisms for hierarchical speech transformations that are specific to neuronal population dynamics.

Neurocognitive correlates of semantic memory navigation in Parkinson's disease

Cognitive studies on Parkinson's disease (PD) reveal abnormal semantic processing. Most research, however, fails to indicate which conceptual properties are most affected and capture patients' neurocognitive profiles. Here, we asked persons with PD, healthy controls, and individuals with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD, as a disease control group) to read concepts (e.g., 'sun') and list their features (e.g., hot). Responses were analyzed in terms of ten word properties (including concreteness, imageability, and semantic variability), used for group-level comparisons, subject-level classification, and brain-behavior correlations. PD (but not bvFTD) patients produced more concrete and imageable words than controls, both patterns being associated with overall cognitive status. PD and bvFTD patients showed reduced semantic variability, an anomaly which predicted semantic inhibition outcomes. Word-property patterns robustly classified PD (but not bvFTD) patients and correlated with disease-specific hypoconnectivity along the sensorimotor and salience networks. Fine-grained semantic assessments, then, can reveal distinct neurocognitive signatures of PD.

Role of Affective Factors and Concreteness on the Processing of Idioms

In this study, we asked how the emotional status, i.e., valence and arousal, and concreteness of idioms contribute to their processing. Additionally, we asked whether the contribution of emotional factors and concreteness is modulated by other linguistic constraints, specifically idiom familiarity and decomposability, that has been shown to impact idiom processing. Participants read short idiomatic phrases (e.g., he kicked the bucket), word-by-word and for comprehension while their reaction time was recorded. The results showed that the emotional status of idioms contribute to their processing and this contribution is modulated by familiarity and decomposability levels of idioms in different ways. In particular, the impact of valence (i.e., the degree an idiom is pleasant/unpleasant) was modulated by familiarity, and the impact of arousal was modulated by decomposability. We did not find strong evidence for the contribution of concreteness for idiom processing. Our findings are aligned with theories of semantic representation, which suggest that besides linguistic information, sensory-motor and affective information are fundamental in representing meaning.

An eye on semantics: a study on the influence of concreteness and predictability on early fixation durations

We used eye-tracking during natural reading to study how semantic control and representation mechanisms interact for the successful comprehension of sentences, by manipulating sentence context and single-word meaning. Specifically, we examined whether a word's semantic characteristic (concreteness) affects first fixation and gaze durations (FFDs and GDs) and whether it interacts with the predictability of a word. We used a linear mixed effects model including several possible psycholinguistic covariates. We found a small but reliable main effect of concreteness and replicated a predictability effect on FFDs, but we found no interaction between the two. The results parallel previous findings of additive effects of predictability (context) and frequency (lexical level) in fixation times. Our findings suggest that the semantics of a word and the context created by the preceding words additively influence early stages of word processing in natural sentence reading.

Brain Signatures of Embodied Semantics and Language: A Consensus Paper

According to embodied theories (including embodied, embedded, extended, enacted, situated, and grounded approaches to cognition), language representation is intrinsically linked to our interactions with the world around us, which is reflected in specific brain signatures during language processing and learning. Moving on from the original rivalry of embodied vs. amodal theories, this consensus paper addresses a series of carefully selected questions that aim at determining when and how rather than whether motor and perceptual processes are involved in language processes. We cover a wide range of research areas, from the neurophysiological signatures of embodied semantics, e.g., event-related potentials and fields as well as neural oscillations, to semantic processing and semantic priming effects on concrete and abstract words, to first and second language learning and, finally, the use of virtual reality for examining embodied semantics. Our common aim is to better understand the role of motor and perceptual processes in language representation as indexed by language comprehension and learning. We come to the consensus that, based on seminal research conducted in the field, future directions now call for enhancing the external validity of findings by acknowledging the multimodality, multidimensionality, flexibility and idiosyncrasy of embodied and situated language and semantic processes.

Specificity ratings for Italian data

Abstraction enables us to categorize experience, learn new information, and form judgments. Language arguably plays a crucial role in abstraction, providing us with words that vary in specificity (e.g., highly generic: tool vs. highly specific: muffler). Yet, human-generated ratings of word specificity are virtually absent. We hereby present a dataset of specificity ratings collected from Italian native speakers on a set of around 1K Italian words, using the Best-Worst Scaling method. Through a series of correlation studies, we show that human-generated specificity ratings have low correlation coefficients with specificity metrics extracted automatically from WordNet, suggesting that WordNet does not reflect the hierarchical relations of category inclusion present in the speakers' minds. Moreover, our ratings show low correlations with concreteness ratings, suggesting that the variables Specificity and Concreteness capture two separate aspects involved in abstraction and that specificity may need to be controlled for when investigating conceptual concreteness. Finally, through a series of regression studies we show that specificity explains a unique amount of variance in decision latencies (lexical decision task), suggesting that this variable has theoretical value. The results are discussed in relation to the concept and investigation of abstraction.

The influence of word concreteness on acquired positive emotion association: An event-related potential study

The ability to acquire positive emotions from words is essential to psychological well-being. How word concreteness affects the process of positive emotion acquisition remains unknown. Here, using an evaluation conditioning paradigm, participants learned the association between pseudowords and concrete/abstract and positive/neutral words. Behavior and event-related potential data were recorded while participants performed emotional recognition tasks. Behavioral results showed that, for neutral words, concrete words were more accurate than abstract words, whereas for positive words, abstract words were more accurate than concrete words. Moreover, N1 and P2 amplitudes in the pseudowords were modulated by interacting word emotion and concreteness. Specifically, pseudowords associated with neutral concrete words elicited larger N1 and P2 amplitudes than pseudowords associated with neutral abstract words. Conversely, N1 and P2 amplitudes in pseudowords associated with positive abstract words were not significant compared to those in positive concrete words. Additionally, an emotional effect was observed when pseudowords were associated with abstract words, showing higher P3 amplitude for the pseudowords associated with positive abstract words than neutral abstract words. No significant effects were found for the pseudowords associated with positive abstract or concrete words. These findings suggest that association learning may influence the early attention processing of emotion acquisition from words, and emotional information of positive abstract words might boost positive emotion acquisition, thereby eliminating the acquisition advantage from positive concrete words.

Strong versus weak embodiment: Spatial iconicity in physical, abstract, and social semantic categories

BACKGROUND

Perceptual and action systems seem to be related to complex cognitive processes, but the scope of grounded or embodied cognition has been questioned. Zwaan and Yaxley (2003) proposed that cognitive processes of making semantic relatedness judgments can be facilitated when word pairs are presented in ways that their referents maintain their iconic configuration rather than their reverse-iconic configuration (the spatial iconicity effect). This effect has been observed in different semantic categories using specific experiments, but it is known that embodiment is highly dependent on task demands.

METHOD

The present study analyzed the spatial iconicity effect in three semantic categories (physical, abstract, and social) using the same experimental criteria to determine the scope of embodied cognition. In this reaction-time experiment, 75 participants judged the semantic relatedness of 384 word pairs whose experimental items were presented in their iconic or reverse-iconic configurations.

RESULTS

Two mixed-effects models with crossed random effects revealed that the interaction between word meaning and spatial position was present only for physical concepts but neither for abstract nor social concepts.

CONCLUSIONS

Within the framework of strong and weak embodiment theories, the data support weak embodiment theory as the most explicative one.

Information load dynamically modulates functional brain connectivity during narrative listening

Narratives are paradigmatic examples of natural language, where nouns represent a proxy of information. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies revealed the recruitment of temporal cortices during noun processing and the existence of a noun-specific network at rest. Yet, it is unclear whether, in narratives, changes in noun density influence the brain functional connectivity, so that the coupling between regions correlates with information load. We acquired fMRI activity in healthy individuals listening to a narrative with noun density changing over time and measured whole-network and node-specific degree and betweenness centrality. Network measures were correlated with information magnitude with a time-varying approach. Noun density correlated positively with the across-regions average number of connections and negatively with the average betweenness centrality, suggesting the pruning of peripheral connections as information decreased. Locally, the degree of the bilateral anterior superior temporal sulcus (aSTS) was positively associated with nouns. Importantly, aSTS connectivity cannot be explained by changes in other parts of speech (e.g., verbs) or syllable density. Our results indicate that the brain recalibrates its global connectivity as a function of the information conveyed by nouns in natural language. Also, using naturalistic stimulation and network metrics, we corroborate the role of aSTS in noun processing.

The influence of conceptual concreteness on the reading acquisition and integration of novel words into semantic memory via thematic relations

Plenty of studies have been conducted to reveal neurocognitive underpinnings of conceptual representation. Compared with that of concrete concepts, the neurocognitive correlates of abstract concepts remain elusive. The current study aimed to investigate the influence of conceptual concreteness on the reading acquisition and integration of novel words into semantic memory. We constructed two-sentence contexts in which two-character pseudowords were embedded as novel words. Participants read the contexts to infer the meaning of novel words which were either concrete or abstract, and then performed a lexical decision task and a cued-recall memory task. In lexical decision task, primed by the learned novel words, their corresponding concepts, thematically related or unrelated words as well as unlearned pseudowords were judged whether they were words or not. In memory task, participants were presented with the novel words and asked to write down their meaning. The contextual reading and memory test can demonstrate the modulation of conceptual concreteness on novel word learning and the lexical decision task can reveal whether concrete and abstract novel words are integrated into semantic memory similarly or not. During contextual reading, abstract novel words presented for the first time elicited a larger N400 than concrete ones. In memory task, the meaning of concrete novel words was recollected better than abstract novel words. These results indicate that abstract novel words are more difficult to acquire during contextual reading, and to retain afterwards. For lexical decision task behavioral and ERPs were graded, with the longest reaction time, the lowest accuracy and the largest N400s for the unrelated words, then the thematically related words and finally the corresponding concepts of the novel words, regardless of conceptual concreteness. The results suggest that both concrete and abstract novel words can be integrated into semantic memory via thematic relations. These findings are discussed in terms of differential representational framework which posits that concrete words connect with each other via semantic similarities, and abstract ones via thematic relations.

How (and why) does iconicity effect lexical access: An electrophysiological study of American sign language

Prior research has found that iconicity facilitates sign production in picture-naming paradigms and has effects on ERP components. These findings may be explained by two separate hypotheses: (1) a task-specific hypothesis that suggests these effects occur because visual features of the iconic sign form can map onto the visual features of the pictures, and (2) a semantic feature hypothesis that suggests that the retrieval of iconic signs results in greater semantic activation due to the robust representation of sensory-motor semantic features compared to non-iconic signs. To test these two hypotheses, iconic and non-iconic American Sign Language (ASL) signs were elicited from deaf native/early signers using a picture-naming task and an English-to-ASL translation task, while electrophysiological recordings were made. Behavioral facilitation (faster response times) and reduced negativities were observed for iconic signs (both prior to and within the N400 time window), but only in the picture-naming task. No ERP or behavioral differences were found between iconic and non-iconic signs in the translation task. This pattern of results supports the task-specific hypothesis and provides evidence that iconicity only facilitates sign production when the eliciting stimulus and the form of the sign can visually overlap (a picture-sign alignment effect).

The temporal mechanism of contextual emotions’ effects on novel abstract and concrete word learning

While previous studies have explored the neurocognitive mechanism of novel word learning under sentential contexts, few studies have probed the potential effects of contextual emotions. The current study used behavioral methods and electroencephalography to elucidate the dynamic influences of contextual emotions while encoding abstract or concrete novel words on subsequent retrieval of the learned meanings. Enhanced N400 and smaller late positive components (LPC) were elicited when encoding abstract words in the positive context. Furthermore, negative contexts were found to hinder both abstract and concrete word learning, while positive contexts had a greater inhibitory effect on learning abstract words than concrete words. Taken together, these findings suggest that the effects of contextual emotions on novel word learning depend on the concreteness of the learned word and occur during the early and late processing stages while mapping abstract and concrete semantic concepts to novel words.

When a Sunny Day Gives You Butterflies: An Electrophysiological Investigation of Concreteness and Context Effects in Semantic Word Processing

Theories on controlled semantic cognition assume that word concreteness and linguistic context interact during semantic word processing. Methodological approaches and findings on how this interaction manifests at the electrophysiological and behavioral levels are heterogeneous. We measured ERPs and RTs applying a validated cueing paradigm with 19 healthy participants, who performed similarity judgments on concrete or abstract words (e.g., "butterfly" or "tolerance") after reading contextual and irrelevant sentential cues. Data-driven analyses showed that concreteness increased and context decreased negative-going deflections in broadly distributed bilateral clusters covering the N400 and N700/late positive component time range, whereas both reduced RTs. Crucially, within a frontotemporal cluster in the N400 time range, contextual (vs. irrelevant) information reduced negative-going amplitudes in response to concrete but not abstract words, whereas a contextual cue reduced RTs only in response to abstract but not concrete words. The N400 amplitudes did not explain additional variance in the RT data, which showed a stronger contextual facilitation for abstract than concrete words. Our results support separate but interacting effects of concreteness and context on automatic and controlled stages of contextual semantic processing and suggest that effects on the electrophysiological versus behavioral level obtained with this paradigm are dissociated.

Dual-Language Testing of Emotional Verbal Fluency: A Closer Look at "Joy," "Sadness," "Fear," "Anger," and "Disgust"

OBJECTIVE

Assessing neuropsychological functions of dual-language speakers with semantic verbal fluency should consider the impact of language proficiency. Much evidence for the proficiency effect is found in tasks targeting neutral words. The proficiency effect on emotional verbal fluency (Emo-VF) that targets emotional word retrieval, however, is far from conclusive. This study aimed to clarify the proficiency effect on Emo-VF, specifically the extent to which language proficiency impacted positive and negative word retrieval comparably. In addition, the study examined the extent to which dual-languages speakers produced duplicated items and unique, non-duplicated items in each of two languages tested.

METHOD

Thirty-two adult participants completed Emo-VF tasks that targeted a comprehensive set of basic emotions ("joy," "sadness," "fear," "anger," "disgust") in English and Spanish in two sessions separated by at least 72 h. All participants exhibited greater proficiency in English than in Spanish according to subjective and objective measures of language proficiency.

RESULTS

Verbal productivity was comparably lowered for all emotions in the less proficient language. Differences among categories were consistent between languages, with "joy" eliciting more words than other emotions, and "fear" yielding the highest productivity among negative emotions. Finally, dual-language speakers produced a significant number of unique items in different languages, especially for "fear."

CONCLUSION

Language proficiency exerts a general effect on positive and negative word retrieval. The study extends previous work by revealing differences between "fear" and other negative categories in addition to replicating positivity biases in unbalanced dual-language speakers. Dual-language testing is valuable in capturing the richness of emotional word repertoire associated with different languages.

Context matters: How do task demands modulate the recruitment of sensorimotor information during language processing?

Many theories of semantic representation propose that simulations of sensorimotor experience contribute to language processing. This can be seen in the body-object interaction effect (BOI; how easily the human body can interact with a word's referent). Words with high BOI ratings (e.g., ball) are processed more quickly than words with low BOI ratings (e.g., cloud) in various language tasks. This effect can be modulated by task demands. Previous research established that when asked to decide if a word is an object (entity condition), a BOI effect is observed, but when asked to decide if a word is an action (action condition), there is no BOI effect. It is unclear whether the null behavioral effect in the action condition reflects top-down modulation of task-relevant sensorimotor information or the absence of bottom-up activation of sensorimotor simulations. We investigated this question using EEG. In Experiment 1 we replicated the previous behavioral findings. In Experiment 2, 50 participants were assigned to either the entity or action conditions and responded to the same word stimuli. In both conditions we observed differences in ERP components related to the BOI effect. In the entity condition the P2 mean amplitude was significantly more positive for high compared to low BOI words. In the action condition the N400 peak latency was significantly later for high compared to low BOI words. Our findings suggest that BOI information is generated bottom-up regardless of task demands and modulated by top-down processes that recruit sensorimotor information relevant to the task decision.

N400 differences between physical and mental metaphors: The role of Theories of Mind

Whether Theory of Mind (ToM) contributes to metaphor understanding has been largely investigated in language acquisition and decay. Yet we know very little about the role of ToM in real-time processing of metaphors in neurotypical adults. Here, we tested the relationship between ToM and metaphor through Event Related Potentials (ERPs) by capitalizing on the difference between metaphors inviting inferences on physical (Boxers are pandas) vs. mental aspects (Teachers are books). Physical metaphors involved a larger and sustained negativity compared to mental ones. This pattern resembled concreteness effects and suggests that physical metaphors may benefit from both verbal and perceptual information. Moreover, higher scores in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), but not in the Animation task, were associated with a reduction of the N400 amplitude for both physical and mental metaphors. When exploring the ERP temporal trajectory with Generalized Additive Mixed Modeling, earlier differences between metaphors characterized individuals with higher RMET scores. Among the various ToM components, thus, emotion recognition seems to be involved in the processing of metaphors in general, with an earlier impact on the mental type. These findings highlight the multifaceted nature of metaphor, at the crossroad of language, social and perceptual experience.

Can you touch the N400? The interactive effects of body-object interaction and task demands on N400 amplitudes and decision latencies

The effects of semantic richness on N400 amplitudes remain unclear. Some studies have reported semantic richness evoking greater N400s, whereas others have reported the opposite effect. Moreover, N400 effects of some semantic richness variables, such as body-object interaction (BOI), have yet to be demonstrated. BOI quantifies the degree to which a word's referent is easy to interact with; words such as bicycle are high-BOI whereas words such as butterfly are low-BOI. We examined BOI effects on N400 amplitudes and decision latencies in two semantic tasks. We found that in a touchable/untouchable task, low-BOI words (e.g., butterfly) evoked greater N400s than high-BOI words (e.g., bicycle), but there was no difference in decision latencies. Conversely, in a concrete/abstract task, high and low-BOI words evoked similar N400s, but decision latencies were shorter for high-BOI than for low-BOI words. Our results show that semantic richness upstream and downstream effects are dissociable and task dependent.

Tracking Lexical Access and Code-Switching in Multilingual Participants with Different Degrees of Simultaneous Interpretation Expertise

With the worldwide increase in people speaking more than one language, a better understanding of the behavioural and neural mechanisms governing lexical selection, lexical access in multiple languages and code switching has attracted widespread interest from several disciplines. Previous studies documented higher costs when processing a non‐native (L2) than a native (L1) language or when switching from L2 to L1. However, studies on auditory language reception are still scarce and did not take into account the degree of switching experience. Accordingly, in the present study, we combined behavioural and electrophysiological measurements to assess lexical access in L1 and L2 as well as code switching in professional simultaneous interpreters, trainee interpreters, foreign language teachers and Anglistics students, while the participants performed a bilingual auditory lexical decision task. The purpose of this study was to expand the knowledge on code switching in auditory language processing and examine whether the degree of simultaneous interpretation experience might reduce switching costs. As a main result, we revealed that L2 compared to L1 trials, as well as switch compared to non‐switch trials, generally resulted in lower accuracies, longer reaction times and increased N400 amplitudes in all groups of participants. Otherwise, we did not reveal any influence of switching direction and interpretation expertise on N400 parameters. Taken together, these results suggest that a late age of L2 acquisition leads to switching costs, irrespective of proficiency level. Furthermore, we provided first evidence that simultaneous interpretation training does not diminish switching costs, at least when focusing on lexical access.

Is the Processing of Chinese Verbal Metaphors Simulated or Abstracted? Evidence From an ERP Study

The theory of embodied semantics holds that verbal metaphors are strongly grounded in sensorimotor experience. Many studies have proven that besides sensorimotor simulation, the comprehension of verbal metaphors also requires semantic abstraction. But the interaction between simulation and abstraction, as well as the time course of metaphorical meaning integration, is not well understood. In the present study, we aimed to investigate whether embodiment or abstraction, or both, is employed in the processing of Chinese verbal metaphor. Participants were asked to read subject-verb metaphorical, verb-object metaphorical, literal-concrete and literal-abstract sentences, and the target words were measured at the verb and the object of each sentence. The results revealed that a similar N400 effect was elicited by the target verbs in the verb-object metaphorical and the literal-concrete sentences, and a similar P600/LPC effect was induced by the target verbs in the subject-verb metaphorical and the literal-abstract sentences, reflecting that the verb-object metaphors trigger a simulation process, while the subject-verb metaphors trigger an abstraction process in the verb processing stage. Moreover, the subject-verb metaphors elicited a stronger P600/LPC effect by the target verbs than the verb-object metaphors, but there was no difference of the P600/LPC caused by the target objects between the two kinds of metaphors, revealing that the metaphorical meaning of a subject-verb metaphor is integrated in the verb processing stage, while that of a verb-object metaphor is reanalyzed in the object processing stage. These results suggest that a verbal metaphor is processed both by simulation and abstraction, and the metaphorical meaning is integrated immediately with the unfolding of the sentence meaning. The position where the semantic conflict lies in a sentence (verb vs. object) modulates the time course of metaphor sentence comprehension.

Event related potential exploration of the organizational structure of abstract versus concrete words in neurologically intact younger adults

The purpose of this study was to test the effects of concreteness and relationship type (similarity vs. association) on semantic processing using event-related potentials (ERP). Neurophysiological evidence has been found for the concreteness effect and for an effect of relationship type. This study replicated and extended these findings by investigating the interaction of concreteness and relationship type. Twenty-four neurologically healthy young adults performed lexical decision and semantic relatedness tasks while continuous scalp EEG was recorded. Larger N400 effects were found for concrete words in associative relationships than for concrete words in similarity relationships and abstract words in either type of relationship. The results are discussed in relation to the different representational frameworks account for abstract and concrete word processing.

ERPs reveal an iconic relation between sublexical phonology and affective meaning

Classical linguistic theory assumes that formal aspects, like sound, are not internally related to the meaning of words. However, recent research suggests language might code affective meaning such as threat and alert sublexically. Positing affective phonological iconicity as a systematic organization principle of the German lexicon, we calculated sublexical affective values for sub-syllabic phonological word segments from a large-scale affective lexical German database by averaging valence and arousal ratings of all words any phonological segment appears in. We tested word stimuli with either consistent or inconsistent mappings between lexical affective meaning and sublexical affective values (negative-valence/high-arousal vs. neutral-valence/low-arousal) in an EEG visual-lexical-decision task. A mismatch between sublexical and lexical affective values elicited an increased N400 response. These results reveal that systematic affective phonological iconicity - extracted from the lexicon - impacts the extraction of lexical word meaning during reading.

Dutch sensory modality norms

Many words are strongly connected to the senses, such as vision, taste, and touch. In order to facilitate research on language and the senses, large sets of linguistic stimuli and their corresponding measures of sensory associations should be available. To aid in such investigations, we present a new set of sensory modality norms for over 24,000 Dutch words. The sensory norms comprise perceptual strength ratings in six perceptual modalities: audition, gustation, haptics, olfaction, vision, and interoception. The new norms improve on existing Dutch sensory norms in three ways: 1) they significantly expand on the number of words rated; 2) they include multiple word classes; 3) they add a new perceptual modality: interoception. We show that the sensory norms are able to predict word processing behavior and outperform existing ratings of sensory experience: concreteness and imageability. The data are available via the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/ubvy2 ) and serve as a valuable resource for research into the relationship between language and perception.

Masked Translation Priming With Concreteness of Cross-Script Cognates in Visual Word Recognition by Chinese Learners of English: An ERP Study

Translation equivalents for cognates in different script systems share the same meaning and phonological similarity but are different orthographically. Event-related potentials were recorded during the visual recognition of cross-script cognates and non-cognates together with concreteness factors while Chinese learners of English performed a lexical decision task with the masked translation priming paradigm in Experiment 1 (forward translation: L1–L2) and Experiment 2 (backward translation: L2–L1). N400 effect was found to be closely related to priming effects of cross-script cognate status and concreteness in Experiment 1; and in Experiment 2, N150 and N400 effects were related to priming effects of cross-script cognate status and concreteness, and greater priming effects of cross-script cognate status in cognates than in non-cognates for abstract words were found in the time window of 100–200 ms. Meanwhile, the asymmetry of translation directions was observed in smaller priming effects in forward translation than in backward translation in the time window of 100–200 ms for abstract cognates, and in larger priming effects in forward translation than in backward translation in the time window of 350–550 ms for each type of words. We discussed the roles of phonological activation and concreteness effects in view of the function of N150 and N400 components as well as the relevant models, mainly the Distributed Feature Model and Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA+) model.

The effects of multiple linguistic variables on picture naming in American Sign Language

Picture-naming tasks provide critical data for theories of lexical representation and retrieval and have been performed successfully in sign languages. However, the specific influences of lexical or phonological factors and stimulus properties on sign retrieval are poorly understood. To examine lexical retrieval in American Sign Language (ASL), we conducted a timed picture-naming study using 524 pictures (272 objects and 251 actions). We also compared ASL naming with previous data for spoken English for a subset of 425 pictures. Deaf ASL signers named object pictures faster and more consistently than action pictures, as previously reported for English speakers. Lexical frequency, iconicity, better name agreement, and lower phonological complexity each facilitated naming reaction times (RT)s. RTs were also faster for pictures named with shorter signs (measured by average response duration). Target name agreement was higher for pictures with more iconic and shorter ASL names. The visual complexity of pictures slowed RTs and decreased target name agreement. RTs and target name agreement were correlated for ASL and English, but agreement was lower for ASL, possibly due to the English bias of the pictures. RTs were faster for ASL, which we attributed to a smaller lexicon. Overall, the results suggest that models of lexical retrieval developed for spoken languages can be adopted for signed languages, with the exception that iconicity should be included as a factor. The open-source picture-naming data set for ASL serves as an important, first-of-its-kind resource for researchers, educators, or clinicians for a variety of research, instructional, or assessment purposes.

New Perspectives on the Neurobiology of Sign Languages

The first 40 years of research on the neurobiology of sign languages (1960-2000) established that the same key left hemisphere brain regions support both signed and spoken languages, based primarily on evidence from signers with brain injury and at the end of the 20th century, based on evidence from emerging functional neuroimaging technologies (positron emission tomography and fMRI). Building on this earlier work, this review focuses on what we have learned about the neurobiology of sign languages in the last 15-20 years, what controversies remain unresolved, and directions for future research. Production and comprehension processes are addressed separately in order to capture whether and how output and input differences between sign and speech impact the neural substrates supporting language. In addition, the review includes aspects of language that are unique to sign languages, such as pervasive lexical iconicity, fingerspelling, linguistic facial expressions, and depictive classifier constructions. Summary sketches of the neural networks supporting sign language production and comprehension are provided with the hope that these will inspire future research as we begin to develop a more complete neurobiological model of sign language processing.

Now you see it, now you don't: Flanker presence induces the word concreteness effect

Can the presence of unrelated flanker words change the way that lexical decisions are made to target words in the flankers task? Here we examined the impact of flanker presence on the effects of word concreteness. Target words had high or low concreteness ratings (e.g., fork, free) and were either presented in isolation or flanked to the left and right by an unrelated word (e.g., cold free cold) that was irrelevant for the task. Results revealed that the facilitatory effect of concreteness (faster responses to concrete words compared with abstract words) was significantly greater in the presence of flankers. A control experiment revealed the same pattern with pseudoword and nonword flankers. We conclude that the mere presence of flanking letter strings causes a greater depth of processing of target words. We further speculate that this might arise by flankers inducing a more “sentence-like” context by the presence of multiple, spatially distinct letter strings, that prohibits the use of more superficial decision processes and can be used to make lexical decisions to isolated words.

Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Strengthens Semantic Representations of Foreign Language Tone Words during Initial Stages of Learning

Difficulty perceiving phonological contrasts in a second language (L2) can impede initial L2 lexical learning. Such is the case for English speakers learning tonal languages, like Mandarin Chinese. Given the hypothesized role of reduced neuroplasticity in adulthood limiting L2 phonological perception, the current study examined whether transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS), a relatively new neuromodulatory technique, can facilitate L2 lexical learning for English speakers learning Mandarin Chinese over 2 days. Using a double-blind design, one group of participants received 10 min of continuous priming taVNS before lexical training and testing each day, a second group received 500 msec of peristimulus (peristim) taVNS preceding each to-be-learned item in the same tasks, and a third group received passive sham stimulation. Results of the lexical recognition test administered at the end of each day revealed evidence of learning for all groups, but a higher likelihood of accuracy across days for the peristim group and a greater improvement in response time between days for the priming group. Analyses of N400 ERP components elicited during the same tasks indicate behavioral advantages for both taVNS groups coincided with stronger lexico-semantic encoding for target words. Comparison of these findings to pupillometry results for the same study reported in Pandža, Phillips, Karuzis, O'Rourke, and Kuchinsky (2020) suggest that positive effects of priming taVNS (but not peristim taVNS) on lexico-semantic encoding are related to sustained attentional effort.

β-Lactolin Enhances Neural Activity, Indicated by Event-Related P300 Amplitude, in Healthy Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background:

Epidemiological studies have shown that dairy product consumption is beneficial for cognitive function in elderly individuals. β-lactolin is a Gly–Thr–Trp–Tyr lacto-tetrapeptide rich in fermented dairy products that improves memory retrieval, attention, and executive function in older adults with subjective cognitive decline and prevents the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease in rodents. There has been no study on the effects of β-lactolin on neural activity in humans.

Objective:

We investigated the effects of β-lactolin on neural activity and cognitive function in healthy adults.

Methods:

In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 30 participants (45–64 years old) consumed β-lactolin or placebo for 6 weeks. Neural activity during auditory and language tasks was measured through 64-channel electroencephalography. Moreover, verbal fluency tests were performed at baseline and after 6 weeks.

Results:

The β-lactolin group had a significantly higher P300 amplitude at the Cp2 site (a part of the parietal lobe near the center of brain, p = 0.011), and C4 site (the area between the frontal and parietal lobe, p = 0.02) during the auditory tasks after 6 weeks than the placebo group. Thus, β-lactolin supplementation promoted neural activity in the parietal area, which increases concentration and attention during auditory cognitive tasks. Compared with the placebo group, the β-lactolin group also showed significant changes in the scores of verbal fluency test after 6 weeks (p = 0.033).

Conclusion:

Our findings provide insight into the mechanisms underlying the effects of β-lactolin on attention in healthy adults.

Discovering the brain stages of lexical decision: Behavioral effects originate from a single neural decision process

Lexical decision (LD) - judging whether a sequence of letters constitutes a word - has been widely investigated. In a typical lexical decision task (LDT), participants are asked to respond whether a sequence of letters is an actual word or a nonword. Although behavioral differences between types of words/nonwords have been robustly detected in LDT, there is an ongoing discussion about the exact cognitive processes that underlie the word identification process in this task. To obtain data-driven evidence on the underlying processes, we recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) data and applied a novel machine-learning method, hidden semi-Markov model multivariate pattern analysis (HsMM-MVPA). In the current study, participants performed an LDT in which we varied the frequency of words (high, low frequency) and "wordlikeness" of non-words (pseudowords, random non-words). The results revealed that models with six processing stages accounted best for the data in all conditions. While most stages were shared, Stage 5 differed between conditions. Together, these results indicate that the differences in word frequency and lexicality effects are driven by a single cognitive processing stage. Based on its latency and topology, we interpret this stage as a Decision process during which participants discriminate between words and nonwords using activated lexical information.

Using EEG to decode semantics during an artificial language learning task

BACKGROUND

As we learn a new nonnative language (L2), we begin to build a new map of concepts onto orthographic representations. Eventually, L2 can conjure as rich a semantic representation as our native language (L1). However, the neural processes for mapping a new orthographic representation to a familiar meaning are not well understood or characterized.

METHODS

Using electroencephalography and an artificial language that maps symbols to English words, we show that it is possible to use machine learning models to detect a newly formed semantic mapping as it is acquired.

RESULTS

Through a trial-by-trial analysis, we show that we can detect when a new semantic mapping is formed. Our results show that, like word meaning representations evoked by a L1, the localization of the newly formed neural representations is highly distributed, but the representation may emerge more slowly after the onset of the symbol. Furthermore, our mapping of word meanings to symbols removes the confound of the semantics to the visual characteristics of the stimulus, a confound that has been difficult to disentangle previously.

CONCLUSION

We have shown that the L1 semantic representation conjured by a newly acquired L2 word can be detected using decoding techniques, and we give the first characterization of the emergence of that mapping. Our work opens up new possibilities for the study of semantic representations during L2 learning.

Contextual Acquisition of Concrete and Abstract Words: Behavioural and Electrophysiological Evidence

Abstract and concrete words differ in their cognitive and neuronal underpinnings, but the exact mechanisms underlying these distinctions are unclear. We investigated differences between these two semantic types by analysing brain responses to newly learnt words with fully controlled psycholinguistic properties. Experimental participants learned 20 novel abstract and concrete words in the context of short stories. After the learning session, event-related potentials (ERPs) to newly learned items were recorded, and acquisition outcomes were assessed behaviourally in a range of lexical and semantic tasks. Behavioural results showed better performance on newly learnt abstract words in lexical tasks, whereas semantic assessments showed a tendency for higher accuracy for concrete words. ERPs to novel abstract and concrete concepts differed early on, ~150 ms after the word onset. Moreover, differences between novel words and control untrained pseudowords were observed earlier for concrete (~150 ms) than for abstract (~200 ms) words. Distributed source analysis indicated bilateral temporo-parietal activation underpinning newly established memory traces, suggesting a crucial role of Wernicke’s area and its right-hemispheric homologue in word acquisition. In sum, we report behavioural and neurophysiological processing differences between concrete and abstract words evident immediately after their controlled acquisition, confirming distinct neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning these types of semantics.

The scope of grammatical gender in Spanish: Transference to the conceptual level

The aim of the present study was to explore under what circumstances we could observe a transference from grammatical gender to the conceptual representation of sex in Spanish, a two-gender language. The participants performed a lexical decision task and a gender decision task in the auditory modality, including words referencing inanimate entities associated with males or females. The sex stereotype could be congruent (falda [skirt], feminine) or incongruent (corbata [tie], feminine) with the grammatical gender. If the transfer from grammatical gender to conceptual information related to sex is settled, we should observed faster access for the congruent words compared with the incongruent ones both in the gender decision task and in the lexical decision task. The results showed a facilitation while processing congruent vs. incongruent words where attention to gender was mandatory during the adapted gender decision task. However, there was a lack of transference during the lexical decision task that might have been caused by the absence of direct conceptual activation by the time the decision was made. Additionally, we found that grammatical gender and sex-related information are closely connected, such as the indexical information about the sex of the speaker primes the activation of information related to sex at the conceptual (sex stereotype) and also at the lexical level (grammatical gender). Altogether, the results indicate that gender congruency effect is magnified by direct gender activation.

How well imageability, concreteness, perceptual strength, and action strength predict recognition memory, lexical decision, and reading aloud performance

We examined how well imageability, concreteness, perceptual strength, and action strength predicted recognition memory, lexical decision, and reading aloud performance. We used our imageability estimates [Cortese, M. J., & Fugett, A. (2004). Imageability ratings for 3,000 monosyllabic words. Behavior Methods and Research, Instrumentation, & Computers, 36(3), 384-387. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195585; Schock, J., Cortese, M. J., & Khanna, M. M. (2012a). Imageability ratings for 3,000 disyllabic words. Behavior Research Methods, 44(2), 374-379. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0162-0], concreteness norms of Brysbaert and colleagues [Brysbaert, M., Warriner, A. B., & Kuperman, V. (2014). Concreteness ratings for 40 thousand generally known English lemmas. Behavior Research Methods, 46(3), 904-911. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-013-0403-5], and perceptual and action strength ratings of Lynott and colleagues [Lynott, D., Connell, L., Brysbaert, M., Brand, J., & Carney, J. (2020). The lancaster sensorimotor norms: Multidimensional measures of perceptual and action strength for 40,000 English words. Behavior Research Methods, 52(3), 1271-1291. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-019-01316-z]. Our results indicate imageability is the best predictor, but methodological differences between ratings studies may contribute to the results. Surprisingly, action strength was negatively (albeit weakly) related to recognition memory. Analyses of item zRTs from the English lexicon project indicate these variables were not strong predictors of reading aloud or lexical decision performance. However, there is a small, consistent positive relationship between concreteness and zRTs (i.e., a facilitative abstractness effect). We believe researchers should either employ or control for imageability rather than concreteness, perceptual strength, or action strength when conducting recognition memory experiments. In addition, image-based codes generated at encoding strengthen memory traces but do not provide major inputs into reading aloud and lexical decision processes. Also, the facilitative abstractness effect on lexical decision and reading aloud zRTs may reflect more robust lexical representations for abstract words than concrete words, and that these two constructs are distinct.

The Croatian psycholinguistic database: Estimates for 6000 nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs

Psycholinguistic databases containing ratings of concreteness, imageability, age of acquisition, and subjective frequency are used in psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic studies which require words as stimuli. Linguistic characteristics (e.g. word length, corpus frequency) are frequently coded, but word class is seldom systematically treated, although there are indications of its significance for imageability and concreteness. This paper presents the Croatian Psycholinguistic Database (CPD; available at: https://doi.org/10.17234/megahr.2019.hpb ), containing 6000 Croatian nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, rated for concreteness, imageability, age of acquisition, and subjective frequency. Moreover, we present computationally obtained extrapolations of concreteness and imageability to the remainder of the Croatian lexicon (available at: https://github.com/megahr/lexicon/blob/master/predictions/hr_c_i.predictions.txt ). In the two studies presented here, we explore the significance of word class for concreteness and imageability in human and computationally obtained ratings. The observed correlations in the CPD indicate correspondences between psycholinguistic measures expected from the literature. Word classes exhibit differences in subjective frequency, age of acquisition, concreteness and imageability, with significant differences between nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. In the computational study which focused on concreteness and imageability, concreteness obtained higher correlations with human ratings than imageability, and the system underpredicted the concreteness of nouns, and overpredicted the concreteness of adjectives and adverbs. Overall, this suggests that word class contains schematic conceptual and distributional information. Schematic conceptual content seems to be more significant in human ratings of concreteness and less significant in computationally obtained ratings, where distributional information seems to play a more significant role. This suggests that word class differences should be theoretically explored.

Corroborating behavioral evidence for the interplay of representational richness and semantic control in semantic word processing

This study aimed to replicate and validate concreteness and context effects on semantic word processing. In Experiment 1, we replicated the behavioral findings of Hoffman et al. (Cortex 63,250–266, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2014.09.001, 2015) by applying their cueing paradigm with their original stimuli translated into German. We found concreteness and contextual cues to facilitate word processing in a semantic judgment task with 55 healthy adults. The two factors interacted in their effect on reaction times: abstract word processing profited more strongly from a contextual cue, while the concrete words’ processing advantage was reduced but still present. For accuracy, the descriptive pattern of results suggested an interaction, which was, however, not significant. In Experiment 2, we reformulated the contextual cues to avoid repetition of the to-be-processed word. In 83 healthy adults, the same pattern of results emerged, further validating the findings. Our corroborating evidence supports theories integrating representational richness and semantic control mechanisms as complementary mechanisms in semantic word processing.