Academic literature on the topic 'Phonological facilitation'

Research on nonnative auditory word recognition makes use of a lexical decision task with phonological priming to explore the role of phonological form in nonnative lexical access. In a medium-lag lexical decision task with phonological priming, nonnative speakers treat minimal pairs of words differentiated by a difficult phonological contrast as a repetition of the same word. While native speakers show facilitation in medium-lag priming only for identical word pairs, nonnative speakers also show facilitation for minimal pairs. In short-lag phonological priming, when the prime and the target have phonologically overlapping onsets, nonnative speakers show facilitation, while native speakers show inhibition. This review discusses two possible reasons for facilitation in nonnative phonological priming: reduced sensitivity to nonnative phonological contrasts, and reduced lexical competition of nonnative words with underdifferentiated, or fuzzy phonolexical representations. Nonnative words may be processed sublexically, which leads to sublexical facilitation instead of the inhibition resulting from lexical competition.

Abstract. A long-standing debate in the Stroop literature concerns whether the way we respond to the color dimension determines how we process the irrelevant dimension, or whether word processing is purely stimulus driven. Models and findings in the Stroop literature differ in their predictions about how response modes (e.g., responding manually vs. vocally) affect how the irrelevant word is processed (i.e., phonologically, semantically) and the interference and facilitation that results, with some predicting qualitatively different Stroop effects. Here, we investigated whether response mode modifies phonological facilitation produced by the irrelevant word. In a fully within-subject design, we sought evidence for the use of a serial print-to-speech prelexical phonological processing route when using manual and vocal responses by testing for facilitating effects of phonological overlap between the irrelevant word and the color name at the initial and final phoneme positions. The results showed phoneme overlap leads to facilitation with both response modes, a result that is inconsistent with qualitative differences between the two response modes.

ABSTRACTOne important finding with the picture–word interference paradigm is that picture-naming performance is facilitated by the presentation of a distractor (e.g., CAP) formally related to the picture name (e.g., “cat”). In two picture-naming experiments we investigated the nature of such form facilitation effect with Mandarin Chinese, separating the effects of phonology and orthography. Significant facilitation effects were observed both when distractors were only orthographically or only phonologically related to the targets. The orthographic effect was overall stronger than the phonological effect. These findings suggest that the classic form facilitation effect in picture–word interference is a mixed effect with multiple loci: it cannot be attributed merely to the nonlexical activation of the target phonological segments from the visual input of the distractor. It seems instead that orthographically only related distractors facilitate the lexical selection process of picture naming, and phonologically only related distractors facilitate the retrieval of target phonological segments.

Abstract Producing multi-word utterances is a complex, yet relatively effortless process. Research with the picture-word interference paradigm has shown that speakers can plan all elements of such utterances up to the phonological level before initiating speech, yet magnitude and direction of this phonological priming effect (i.e. facilitative vs. inhibitory) differ between but also within studies. We investigated possible sources for variability in the phonological advance planning scope. In two experiments, participants produced bare nouns (“monkey”) and complex noun phrases (“the small red monkey”) while ignoring distractor words phonologically (un)related to the noun. For low- and high-working memory capacity speakers as well as fast and slow speakers, we found phonological facilitation effects for the bare noun, but no distractor effects for the complex noun phrases. However, looking at individual distractor effects for utterance-final elements revealed a large variability between speakers. We conclude that phonological advance planning cannot be summarised as an overall effect, but should take into account inter- and intraindividual variability.

A phonological priming experiment reports inhibition for Russian prime-target pairs with onset overlap in native speakers. When preceded by the phonological prime /kabɨla/, the target /kabak/ ( кобыла – КАБАК, mare – PUB) takes longer to respond than the same target preceded by a phonologically unrelated word. English-speaking late learners of Russian also show inhibition, but only for high-frequency prime-target pairs. Conversely, they show facilitation for low-frequency pairs. In semantic priming (e.g. carnation – DAISY), facilitation is observed for the same two lexical frequency ranges both in native speakers and learners of Russian, suggesting that the primes and targets in the low-frequency range are familiar to the nonnative participants. We interpret nonnative phonological facilitation for low-frequency words as evidence for sublexical processing of less familiar words that is accompanied by reduced lexical competition in nonnative lexical access. We posit that low lexical competition is due to unfaithful, or fuzzy phonolexical representations: nonnative speakers are unsure about the exact phonological form of low-frequency words. Such unfaithful representations are not strongly engaged in lexical competition and selection. High reliance on sublexical rather than lexical processing may be a general property of nonnative word recognition in case when the words are less familiar and have a low level of entrenchment.

We present a critical examination of phonological effects in a picture–word interference task. Using a methodology minimizing stimulus repetition, English/Spanish and Spanish/English bilinguals named pictures in either L1 or L2 (blocked contexts) or in both (mixed contexts) while ignoring word distractors in L1 or L2. Distractors were either phonologically related to the picture name (direct; FISH–fist), or related through translation to the picture name (TT; LEG–milk–leche), or they were unrelated (bear–peach). Results demonstrate robust activation of phonological representations by translation equivalents of word distractors. Although both direct and TT distractors facilitated naming, TT facilitation was more consistent in L2 naming and under mixed contexts.

Research demonstrates that the facilitation of phonological awareness is an important component of intervention programs for children at-risk for reading disabilities. In this paper, the principles and techniques that should be considered in designing a phonological awareness training program are discussed. It is argued that speech-language pathologists have the training and clinical expertise, as well as the opportunity to play an integral role in the development and implementation of these programs.

Phonologically similar items (mell, rell, gell) are more difficult to remember than dissimilar items (shen, floy, stap), likely because of mutual interference of the items in the phonological store. Low-frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), guided by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to disrupt this phonological confusion by stimulation of the left inferior parietal (LIP) lobule. Subjects received TMS or placebo stimulation while remembering sets of phonologically similar or dissimilar pseudo-words. Consistent with behavioral performance of patients with neurological damage, memory for phonologically similar, but not dissimilar, items was enhanced following TMS relative to placebo stimulation. Stimulation of a control region of the brain did not produce any changes in memory performance. These results provide new insights into how the brain processes verbal information by establishing the necessity of the inferior parietal region for optimal phonological storage. A mechanism is proposed for how TMS reduces phonological confusion and leads to facilitation of phonological memory.

Language production is one of the most complex cognitive – motor skills developed by homo sapiens throughout evolution to allow inter-personal and intra-personal communication (Indefrey and Levelt, 2000). A great number of cortical regions have adapted to support this high-speed combination of muscular and mental processes, in order to correctly generate the intended utterances in different contexts and situations. The neural organization of language processing is a thorny matter, that in the last decades has been investigated with a number of different methods ranging from functional imaging (fMRI, PET; see Gernsbacher & Kashack, 2003; Price, 2010; 2012 for reviews) neurophysiology (EEG, ERP, MEG, see Ganushchak et al., 2011 for a review), lesion studies (for a review see Turkeltaub et al., 2011) and non-invasive brain stimulation (such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS, and transcranial direct current stimulation, tDCS, Devlin and Watkins, 2007; Monti et al., 2012 for reviews). Overall these studies have identified specific areas differently involved in language sub-processes (for a review see Price, 2012; Indefrey, 2011). As a new methodology to investigate the relationship between cortical areas and behavioural performance in cognitive tasks, including language, tDCS has been increasingly used in the last decade (Vallar & Bolognini, 2011). This technique relies on a sub-threshold polarization or de-polarization of neurons that leads to a modulation of cortical excitability and plasticity (Nitsche & Paulus, 2011). Due to its ease of application even in clinical settings, the potential of this tool in neuro-scientific investigation seems wide, but there is no precise knowledge of its mechanisms and effects on cognitive functions. The aim of the present study is to test tDCS effects on language production, to explore when this technique can be applied and to deeply investigate the mechanisms that lead to behavioural changes. In particular, since one of the classification criteria in aphasia is verbal fluency, in study 10 1 I investigated the effects of anodal tDCS on a verbal fluency task, aiming at developing a possible protocol to apply on clinical populations. To assess whether stimulation could modulate language production, healthy subjects performed a verbal fluency task both on phonemic and semantic cue immediately after real or sham stimulation. Since this requires the activity of a distributed network, including, among others, the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), the left pre-motor cortex (LPMC), the left inferior and superior temporal gyri (LITG, LSTG) and the bilateral occipital-temporal sulci (Birn et al., 2010), and given that widespread effects of tDCS on functional networks need further clarification, in study 2 I investigated how electrical non-invasive brain stimulation affects cortical excitability by means of a TMS- EEG and tDCS combination, assessing how tDCS modulates cortical excitability and, accordingly, behavioural performance on verbal fluency. An open issue, indeed, is how stimulation enhances the activity of functional networks during task execution. Few recent studies addressed this question, but they generally rely on imaging data (Meinzer et al., 2012, 2013; Holland et al., 2011;). Hence, I tested how cortical excitability is modified after anodal tDCS applied over the LIFG in a functionally connected area, namely the LPMC (BA6) and in a region not involved in verbal fluency, the left superior parietal lobe (LSPL, BA7), and whether these changes could explain the effects of tDCS on task performance. Then, in study 3 and 4 and 5, I tested whether tDCS could be a useful tool to investigate language processes in healthy subjects. In particular, in study 3 and 4 I focused on semantic and phonological interference in picture naming tasks. The functional locus of the semantic interference (SI) effect, indeed, is still not clear (Finkbeiner and Caramazza, 2006; Schnur et al., 2006; 2009; Schnurr and Martin, 2012) and the role of the LIFG and LSTG in this effect is still under debate (Schnur et al., 2006; 2009). To test the different hypotheses underlying SI effect, I investigated the effects of anodal stimulation on the two aforementioned areas in a naming task in which 11 semantic context was manipulated (“blocked naming task”, Belke et al., 2005). Similarly, frontal and temporal regions seem to be involved in the phonological facilitation (PF) effect observed in naming (De Zubicaray et al., 2002; De Zubicaray and McMahon, 2009; Zhao et al., 2012; Damian & Bowers, 2009; Meyer and Schriefers, 1991; Scrhiefers et al., 1990). A picture word interference paradigm (PWI) was then administered after anodal stimulation of the LIFG and LSTG, and the effect of stimulation on PF was assessed. Finally, since proper name retrieval decreases with aging (Evrard et al., 2002), it would be of high interest to develop protocols improving this ability: this is the topic of study 5.

Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) often present with difficulties in learning new words compared to age-matched children with typical language development. These difficulties may affect the acquisition, storage, or retrieval of new words. Word-learning deficits impact on children’s vocabulary development and impede their language and literacy development. Findings from a wide range of studies investigating word-learning in children with SLI demonstrated that semantic and phonological knowledge are crucial to the word-learning process. However, intervention studies designed to improve the word-learning abilities in children with SLI are sparse. The experiments described in this thesis addressed this need to understand the effects of interventions on word-learning abilities. Further, the thesis describes the first investigation of word-learning abilities of New Zealand school-aged children with SLI. Specifically, the following three broad questions are asked: 1. What are the word-learning skills of New Zealand school-aged children with SLI compared to children with typical language development and which underlying language skills influence word-learning? 2. What are the immediate and longer term effects of phonological awareness and semantic intervention on word-learning and language skills in children with SLI? 3. What are the error patterns of children with SLI compared to children with typical language development when learning to produce new words and do these patterns change following phonological awareness and semantic intervention? The first experiment compared the word-learning abilities of 19 school-aged children with SLI (aged 6;2 to 8;3) to age-matched children with typical language development and revealed that children with SLI presented with significant difficulties to produce and to comprehend new words. After repeated exposure, children with SLI caught up to the performances of children with typical language development in learning to comprehend new words, but not on production of new words. Correlation analyses demonstrated that there were no correlations between the word-learning skills and other language measures for children with SLI, whereas the word-learning abilities of children with typical language development were correlated to their phonological awareness, semantic, and general language skills. In the second experiment, it was investigated whether there were also qualitative differences during word-learning between children with and without SLI additionally to the quantitative differences as revealed in the first experiment. Children’s erroneous responses during the word-learning tasks were categorised into phonological, semantic, substitution or random errors. A comparison of the children’s error patterns revealed that children with SLI presented with a different error pattern and made significantly more random errors than children with typical language development. However, after repeated exposure, children with SLI demonstrated a similar error pattern as children without SLI. Furthermore, it was examined whether a specific combination of phonological and semantic cues facilitated children’s learning of new words or whether there were word-specific features that facilitated children’s word-learning. No facilitative word-specific features could be identified. Analysis revealed that there were no significant effects of cueing on learning new words, but specific patterns could be derived for children with SLI. Children with SLI learned to comprehend more words that were presented with two semantic cues or one phonological and one semantic cue and learned to produce more words that were presented with two phonological cues. In the third experiment, the effectiveness of a combined phonological awareness and semantic intervention to advance children’s word-learning abilities was examined. Nineteen children with SLI (same participants as in experiment 1) participated in this intervention study that implemented an alternating treatment group design with random assignment of the participants. Children in group A received phonological awareness intervention followed by semantic intervention, whereas children in group B received the same interventions in the reverse order. Children’s word-learning abilities were assessed at pre-test, prior to the intervention, at mid-test after intervention phase 1, and at post-test, immediately following the completion of the second intervention phase. Each intervention itself was effective in significantly improving children’s fast mapping skills, however, gains in children’s word-learning abilities were only found for children in group A for production of new words. Extending the findings of the intervention effectiveness of phonological awareness and semantic intervention on word-learning as reported in experiment 3, it was investigated in experiment 4, whether the implemented intervention additionally influenced the error patterns of children with SLI. The erroneous responses of children with SLI on all word-learning probes at pre-, mid-, and post-test were categorised into the same error groups as described in the second experiment (semantic, phonological, substitution, and random errors). The error analyses revealed that children’s error profiles changed during the course of intervention and treatment specific effects on children’s erroneous responses were found. Post-intervention, children who received phonological awareness followed by semantic intervention displayed the same error patterns as children with typical language development, whereas children who received the same interventions in the reverse order maintained the same error pattern as displayed at pre-test. The final experiment examined the longer-term effects of the combined phonological awareness and semantic intervention reported in experiment 3 on the language and literacy development of children with SLI. Eighteen of the 19 children with SLI, who received the intervention reported in experiment 3, were available for re-assessment 6 months after the completion of the intervention. The children (aged 7;1 to 9;2 years) were re-assessed on a range of standardised and experimental measures. Data analysis revealed that 6 months post-intervention, all children were able to maintain their gains in phonological awareness, semantic, and decoding skills as displayed immediately after the intervention. Children’s general language and reading skills significantly improved following the intervention; however, children who received phonological awareness intervention followed by semantic intervention displayed significantly better reading outcomes than the children who received the same interventions in the reverse order. This thesis revealed that a combination of phonological awareness and semantic intervention can enhance the word-learning abilities of children with SLI. The combined intervention approach was also effective in additionally improving children’s general language skills and the reading of single non-words and real words, as well as connected text. The immediate and longer-term intervention effects provide evidence that advancing the semantic and phonological awareness skills is an effective intervention approach to support children with SLI in their word-learning and to furthermore promote their language and literacy development. However, the order of the implemented interventions played a significant role: Children in the current study profited most when they received phonological awareness intervention first, followed by semantic intervention.

Thesis (M.S.)--East Tennessee State University, 2004.
Title from electronic submission form. ETSU ETD database URN: etd-0309104-222655. Includes bibliographical references. Also available via Internet at the UMI web site.