Although it is well established that stress can disrupt complex cognitive functions, relatively l... more Although it is well established that stress can disrupt complex cognitive functions, relatively little is known about how it influences visual processing, especially in terms of visual selective attention. In the current study, we used highly aversive images, taken from the International Affective Picture System, to induce acute, low-intensity stress while participants performed a visual discrimination task. Consistent with prior research, we found that anticipation of aversive stimuli increased overall amplitude of the N170, suggesting an increase in early sensory gain. More importantly, we found that stress disrupted visual selective attention. While in no-stress blocks, the amplitude of the face-sensitive N170 was higher when participants attended to faces rather than scenes in face-scene overlay images; this effect was absent under stress. This was because of an increase in N170 amplitude in the scene-attend condition under stress. We interpret these findings as suggesting that even low-intensity acute stress can impair participants' ability to filter out task-irrelevant information. We discuss our findings in relation to how even brief exposure to low-intensity stress may adversely impact both healthy and clinical populations.
• In two experiments we determined whether animacy based preferences in argument processing are (... more • In two experiments we determined whether animacy based preferences in argument processing are (a) based on the animacy hierarchy (AH), ie a preference of animate before inanimate arguments (cf. Aissen, 2003), or (b) based on the biases associated with specific Thematic Roles, eg Agents being animate and Themes being inanimate.• 48 participants (24 per experiment), age 18-25
Agents consistently appear prior to Patients in sentences, manual signs, and drawings, and Agents... more Agents consistently appear prior to Patients in sentences, manual signs, and drawings, and Agents are responded to faster when presented in visual depictions of events. We hypothesized that this “Agent advantage” reflects Agents’ role in event structure. We investigated this question by manipulating the depictions of Agents and Patients in preparatory actions in wordless visual narratives. We found that Agents elicited a greater degree of predictions regarding upcoming events than Patients, that Agents are viewed longer than Patients, independent of serial order, and that visual depictions of actions are processed more quickly following the presentation of an Agent vs. a Patient. Taken together these findings support the notion that Agents initiate the building of event representation. We suggest that Agent First orders facilitate the interpretation of events as they unfold and that the saliency of Agents within visual representations of events is driven by anticipation of upcoming events.
Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, the comprehension o... more Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, the comprehension of sequential images must also use a cognitive system to distinguish coherent narrative sequences from random strings of images. We conducted experiments analogous to two classic studies of language processing to examine the contributions of narrative structure and semantic relatedness to processing sequential images. We compared four types of comic strips: (1) Normal sequences with both structure and meaning, (2) Semantic Only sequences (in which the panels were related to a common semantic theme, but had no narrative structure), (3) Structural Only sequences (narrative structure but no semantic relatedness), and (4) Scrambled sequences of randomly-ordered panels. In Experiment 1, participants monitored for target panels in sequences presented panel-by-panel. Reaction times were slowest to panels in Scrambled sequences, intermediate in both Structural Only and Semantic Only sequences, and fastest in Normal sequences. This suggests that both semantic relatedness and narrative structure offer advantages to processing. Experiment 2 measured ERPs to all panels across the whole sequence. The N300/N400 was largest to panels in both the Scrambled and Structural Only sequences, intermediate in Semantic Only sequences and smallest in the Normal sequences. This implies that a combination of narrative structure and semantic relatedness can facilitate semantic processing of upcoming panels (as reflected by the N300/N400). Also, panels in the Scrambled sequences evoked a larger left-lateralized anterior negativity than panels in the Structural Only sequences. This localized effect was distinct from the N300/N400, and appeared despite the fact that these two sequence types were matched on local semantic relatedness between individual panels. These findings suggest that sequential image comprehension uses a narrative structure that may be independent of semantic relatedness. Altogether, we argue that the comprehension of visual narrative is guided by an interaction between structure and meaning.
Agents consistently appear prior to Patients in sentences, manual signs, and drawings, and Agents... more Agents consistently appear prior to Patients in sentences, manual signs, and drawings, and Agents are responded to faster when presented in visual depictions of events. We hypothesized that this "Agent advantage" reflects Agents' role in event structure. We investigated this question by manipulating the depictions of Agents and Patients in preparatory actions in wordless visual narratives. We found that Agents elicited a greater degree of predictions regarding upcoming events than Patients, that Agents are viewed longer than Patients, independent of serial order, and that visual depictions of actions are processed more quickly following the presentation of an Agent vs. a Patient. Taken together these findings support the notion that Agents initiate the building of event representation. We suggest that Agent First orders facilitate the interpretation of events as they unfold and that the saliency of Agents within visual representations of events is driven by anticipation of upcoming events.
RESULTS: Verbs in the LVCs evoked a larger negativity than in the non-LVCs. This negativity start... more RESULTS: Verbs in the LVCs evoked a larger negativity than in the non-LVCs. This negativity started about 300ms after verb onset and continued for at least 1000ms. The effect was widely distributed over the scalp surface. Both features differ from the usual form of the N400 [11]. Verbs in anomalous LVCs evoke an anteriorly distributed negativity, which showed an earlier peak and was of shorter duration than that observed in the plausible LVCs.
Abstract Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, sequential... more Abstract Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, sequential images must also use a cognitive system to distinguish coherent narratives from random strings of images. We conducted experiments analogous to two classic psycholinguistic studies to examine structure and semantics in sequential images. We compared Normal comic strips with both structure and meaning to sequences with Semantics Only, Structure Only, or randomly Scrambled panels.
Page 1. Results Conclusions Introduction Critical Word Design Stimuli: Fred had a meal because he... more Page 1. Results Conclusions Introduction Critical Word Design Stimuli: Fred had a meal because he was hungry that afternoon. Fred had a meal and so he was hungry that afternoon. Does the sentence make sense?
• Kutas & Hillyard (1980) were first to report the N400 effect to words that were semantically un... more • Kutas & Hillyard (1980) were first to report the N400 effect to words that were semantically unexpected given the preceding context. Widely studied over the past twenty-five years, this waveform has been consistently found to index semantic processing and to be influenced by a variety of factors, including lexico-semantic association.• Osterhout & Holcomb (1992) found a late positivity, the P600, to verbs that were syntactically unexpected.
Page 1. Building A Light Verb Construction Verbal Argument Structure Alternations References [1] ... more Page 1. Building A Light Verb Construction Verbal Argument Structure Alternations References [1] Family, N. (2009). In M. Vanhove (Ed.), From polysemy to semantic change: Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations. Amsterdam: Benjamins. [2] Brugman, C. (2001). Language Sciences 23, 551-578. [3] Wittenberg, E. & Piñango, MM (forthc.). Processing Light Verb Constructions.The Mental Lexicon. [4] Piñango, MM, J. Mack & Jackendoff, R. (forthc.)..
Understanding discourse involves going beyond what is explicitly stated in text. Readers draw inf... more Understanding discourse involves going beyond what is explicitly stated in text. Readers draw inferences to establish causal, referential, spatial, and temporal coherence. Causal coherence involves establishing cause and effect relationships between events. Electrophysiologically, the cost of establishing coherence during online comprehension is reflected by a larger N400 to words that are unrelated (compared to related) to their preceding discourse context.
Several studies have demonstrated that mood states influence the number of associations formed be... more Several studies have demonstrated that mood states influence the number of associations formed between remotely related concepts. Someone in a neutral or negative mood might draw the association between cold and hot, whereas someone in a positive mood might spontaneously form the more distant association between cold and sneeze. Could the reverse be true, that generating increasingly broad or narrow associations will put someone in a more or less positive mood? We test this possibility by using verbal free association tasks, and asking whether the breadth of semantic associativity between cue words and generated responses might predict resulting mood states. Two experiments show that generating broader associations, regardless of their valence, changes mood; specifically, broader associations lowered negative affect and marginally increased positive affect over time. These findings carry implications for theories positing interactions between brain areas mediating associative processing and affect, and may hold promise for enhancing affect in clinical contexts.
We aimed to determine whether semantic relatedness between an incoming word and its preceding con... more We aimed to determine whether semantic relatedness between an incoming word and its preceding context can override expectations based on two types of stored knowledge: real-world knowledge about the specific events and states conveyed by a verb, and the verb's broader selection restrictions on the animacy of its argument. We recorded event-related potentials on post-verbal Agent arguments as participants read and made plausibility judgments about passive English sentences. The N400 evoked by incoming animate Agent arguments that violated expectations based on real-world event/state knowledge, was strongly attenuated when they were semantically related to the context. In contrast, semantic relatedness did not modulate the N400 evoked by inanimate Agent arguments that violated the preceding verb’s animacy selection restrictions. These findings suggest that, under these task and experimental conditions, semantic relatedness can facilitate processing of post-verbal animate arguments that violate specific expectations based on real-world event/state knowledge, but only when the semantic features of these arguments match the coarser- grained animacy restrictions of the verb. Animacy selection restriction violations also evoked a P600 effect, which was not modulated by semantic relatedness, suggesting that it was triggered by propositional impossibility. Together, these data indicate that the brain distinguishes between real-world event/state knowledge and animacy-based selection restrictions during online processing.
Although it is well established that stress can disrupt complex cognitive functions, relatively l... more Although it is well established that stress can disrupt complex cognitive functions, relatively little is known about how it influences visual processing, especially in terms of visual selective attention. In the current study, we used highly aversive images, taken from the International Affective Picture System, to induce acute, low-intensity stress while participants performed a visual discrimination task. Consistent with prior research, we found that anticipation of aversive stimuli increased overall amplitude of the N170, suggesting an increase in early sensory gain. More importantly, we found that stress disrupted visual selective attention. While in no-stress blocks, the amplitude of the face-sensitive N170 was higher when participants attended to faces rather than scenes in face-scene overlay images; this effect was absent under stress. This was because of an increase in N170 amplitude in the scene-attend condition under stress. We interpret these findings as suggesting that even low-intensity acute stress can impair participants' ability to filter out task-irrelevant information. We discuss our findings in relation to how even brief exposure to low-intensity stress may adversely impact both healthy and clinical populations.
• In two experiments we determined whether animacy based preferences in argument processing are (... more • In two experiments we determined whether animacy based preferences in argument processing are (a) based on the animacy hierarchy (AH), ie a preference of animate before inanimate arguments (cf. Aissen, 2003), or (b) based on the biases associated with specific Thematic Roles, eg Agents being animate and Themes being inanimate.• 48 participants (24 per experiment), age 18-25
Agents consistently appear prior to Patients in sentences, manual signs, and drawings, and Agents... more Agents consistently appear prior to Patients in sentences, manual signs, and drawings, and Agents are responded to faster when presented in visual depictions of events. We hypothesized that this “Agent advantage” reflects Agents’ role in event structure. We investigated this question by manipulating the depictions of Agents and Patients in preparatory actions in wordless visual narratives. We found that Agents elicited a greater degree of predictions regarding upcoming events than Patients, that Agents are viewed longer than Patients, independent of serial order, and that visual depictions of actions are processed more quickly following the presentation of an Agent vs. a Patient. Taken together these findings support the notion that Agents initiate the building of event representation. We suggest that Agent First orders facilitate the interpretation of events as they unfold and that the saliency of Agents within visual representations of events is driven by anticipation of upcoming events.
Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, the comprehension o... more Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, the comprehension of sequential images must also use a cognitive system to distinguish coherent narrative sequences from random strings of images. We conducted experiments analogous to two classic studies of language processing to examine the contributions of narrative structure and semantic relatedness to processing sequential images. We compared four types of comic strips: (1) Normal sequences with both structure and meaning, (2) Semantic Only sequences (in which the panels were related to a common semantic theme, but had no narrative structure), (3) Structural Only sequences (narrative structure but no semantic relatedness), and (4) Scrambled sequences of randomly-ordered panels. In Experiment 1, participants monitored for target panels in sequences presented panel-by-panel. Reaction times were slowest to panels in Scrambled sequences, intermediate in both Structural Only and Semantic Only sequences, and fastest in Normal sequences. This suggests that both semantic relatedness and narrative structure offer advantages to processing. Experiment 2 measured ERPs to all panels across the whole sequence. The N300/N400 was largest to panels in both the Scrambled and Structural Only sequences, intermediate in Semantic Only sequences and smallest in the Normal sequences. This implies that a combination of narrative structure and semantic relatedness can facilitate semantic processing of upcoming panels (as reflected by the N300/N400). Also, panels in the Scrambled sequences evoked a larger left-lateralized anterior negativity than panels in the Structural Only sequences. This localized effect was distinct from the N300/N400, and appeared despite the fact that these two sequence types were matched on local semantic relatedness between individual panels. These findings suggest that sequential image comprehension uses a narrative structure that may be independent of semantic relatedness. Altogether, we argue that the comprehension of visual narrative is guided by an interaction between structure and meaning.
Agents consistently appear prior to Patients in sentences, manual signs, and drawings, and Agents... more Agents consistently appear prior to Patients in sentences, manual signs, and drawings, and Agents are responded to faster when presented in visual depictions of events. We hypothesized that this "Agent advantage" reflects Agents' role in event structure. We investigated this question by manipulating the depictions of Agents and Patients in preparatory actions in wordless visual narratives. We found that Agents elicited a greater degree of predictions regarding upcoming events than Patients, that Agents are viewed longer than Patients, independent of serial order, and that visual depictions of actions are processed more quickly following the presentation of an Agent vs. a Patient. Taken together these findings support the notion that Agents initiate the building of event representation. We suggest that Agent First orders facilitate the interpretation of events as they unfold and that the saliency of Agents within visual representations of events is driven by anticipation of upcoming events.
RESULTS: Verbs in the LVCs evoked a larger negativity than in the non-LVCs. This negativity start... more RESULTS: Verbs in the LVCs evoked a larger negativity than in the non-LVCs. This negativity started about 300ms after verb onset and continued for at least 1000ms. The effect was widely distributed over the scalp surface. Both features differ from the usual form of the N400 [11]. Verbs in anomalous LVCs evoke an anteriorly distributed negativity, which showed an earlier peak and was of shorter duration than that observed in the plausible LVCs.
Abstract Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, sequential... more Abstract Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, sequential images must also use a cognitive system to distinguish coherent narratives from random strings of images. We conducted experiments analogous to two classic psycholinguistic studies to examine structure and semantics in sequential images. We compared Normal comic strips with both structure and meaning to sequences with Semantics Only, Structure Only, or randomly Scrambled panels.
Page 1. Results Conclusions Introduction Critical Word Design Stimuli: Fred had a meal because he... more Page 1. Results Conclusions Introduction Critical Word Design Stimuli: Fred had a meal because he was hungry that afternoon. Fred had a meal and so he was hungry that afternoon. Does the sentence make sense?
• Kutas & Hillyard (1980) were first to report the N400 effect to words that were semantically un... more • Kutas & Hillyard (1980) were first to report the N400 effect to words that were semantically unexpected given the preceding context. Widely studied over the past twenty-five years, this waveform has been consistently found to index semantic processing and to be influenced by a variety of factors, including lexico-semantic association.• Osterhout & Holcomb (1992) found a late positivity, the P600, to verbs that were syntactically unexpected.
Page 1. Building A Light Verb Construction Verbal Argument Structure Alternations References [1] ... more Page 1. Building A Light Verb Construction Verbal Argument Structure Alternations References [1] Family, N. (2009). In M. Vanhove (Ed.), From polysemy to semantic change: Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations. Amsterdam: Benjamins. [2] Brugman, C. (2001). Language Sciences 23, 551-578. [3] Wittenberg, E. & Piñango, MM (forthc.). Processing Light Verb Constructions.The Mental Lexicon. [4] Piñango, MM, J. Mack & Jackendoff, R. (forthc.)..
Understanding discourse involves going beyond what is explicitly stated in text. Readers draw inf... more Understanding discourse involves going beyond what is explicitly stated in text. Readers draw inferences to establish causal, referential, spatial, and temporal coherence. Causal coherence involves establishing cause and effect relationships between events. Electrophysiologically, the cost of establishing coherence during online comprehension is reflected by a larger N400 to words that are unrelated (compared to related) to their preceding discourse context.
Several studies have demonstrated that mood states influence the number of associations formed be... more Several studies have demonstrated that mood states influence the number of associations formed between remotely related concepts. Someone in a neutral or negative mood might draw the association between cold and hot, whereas someone in a positive mood might spontaneously form the more distant association between cold and sneeze. Could the reverse be true, that generating increasingly broad or narrow associations will put someone in a more or less positive mood? We test this possibility by using verbal free association tasks, and asking whether the breadth of semantic associativity between cue words and generated responses might predict resulting mood states. Two experiments show that generating broader associations, regardless of their valence, changes mood; specifically, broader associations lowered negative affect and marginally increased positive affect over time. These findings carry implications for theories positing interactions between brain areas mediating associative processing and affect, and may hold promise for enhancing affect in clinical contexts.
We aimed to determine whether semantic relatedness between an incoming word and its preceding con... more We aimed to determine whether semantic relatedness between an incoming word and its preceding context can override expectations based on two types of stored knowledge: real-world knowledge about the specific events and states conveyed by a verb, and the verb's broader selection restrictions on the animacy of its argument. We recorded event-related potentials on post-verbal Agent arguments as participants read and made plausibility judgments about passive English sentences. The N400 evoked by incoming animate Agent arguments that violated expectations based on real-world event/state knowledge, was strongly attenuated when they were semantically related to the context. In contrast, semantic relatedness did not modulate the N400 evoked by inanimate Agent arguments that violated the preceding verb’s animacy selection restrictions. These findings suggest that, under these task and experimental conditions, semantic relatedness can facilitate processing of post-verbal animate arguments that violate specific expectations based on real-world event/state knowledge, but only when the semantic features of these arguments match the coarser- grained animacy restrictions of the verb. Animacy selection restriction violations also evoked a P600 effect, which was not modulated by semantic relatedness, suggesting that it was triggered by propositional impossibility. Together, these data indicate that the brain distinguishes between real-world event/state knowledge and animacy-based selection restrictions during online processing.
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