Age-of-acquisition, imagery, concreteness, familiarity, and ambiguity measures for 1,944 words

Gilhooly, K. J.; Logie, Robert H.

doi:10.3758/bf03201693

Cited by 769 publications

(667 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Stimuli were matched for relevant lexical variables including word frequency, length in letters, number of syllables, bi-and trigram frequency (Table 1). Word age-of-acquisition was also controlled using empirical ratings performed by 15 volunteers (who did not participate in the experiment) on a seven-point scale (1 = [0-2 years] and 7 = [older than 13 years]; Gilhooly & Logie, 1980). Word imageability was estimated following the same procedure by another 15 volunteers (who did not participate in the experiment; with 0 = impossible and 6 = very easy to generate a mental image of the word).…”

Section: Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Subliminal display of action words interferes with motor planning: A combined EEG and kinematic study

Boulenger

Silber

Roy

et al. 2008

Journal of Physiology-Paris

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Recent evidence has shown that processing action-related language and motor action share common neural representations to a point that the two processes can interfere when performed concurrently. To support the assumption that language-induced motor activity contributes to action word understanding, the present study aimed at ruling out that this activity results from mental imagery of the movements depicted by the words. For this purpose, we examined cross-talk between action word processing and an arm reaching movement, using words that were presented too fast to be consciously perceived (subliminally). Encephalogram (EEG) and movement kinematics were recorded. EEG recordings of the "Readiness Potential" ("RP", indicator of motor preparation) revealed that subliminal displays of action verbs during movement preparation reduced the RP and affected the subsequent reaching movement. The finding that motor processes were modulated by language processes despite the fact that words were not consciously perceived, suggests that cortical structures that serve the preparation and execution of motor actions are indeed part of the (action) language processing network.

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Section: Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Subliminal display of action words interferes with motor planning: A combined EEG and kinematic study

Boulenger

Silber

Roy

et al. 2008

Journal of Physiology-Paris

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“…These types of words were used in previous similar studies. Details of the imagibility rating are in Gilhooly and Logie (1980). The number of letters in the pseudowords was matched to the number of letters in the words.…”

Section: Visual Word Discrimination Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

An fMRI study of language processing in people at high genetic risk for schizophrenia

Li¹,

Branch²,

Bertisch³

et al. 2007

Schizophrenia Research

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Background-Abnormalities in language processing and the related brain structures have been reported in people with schizophrenia. It has been proposed that the brain pathways for language processing are anomalous in these individuals and form the underlying basis for the positive symptoms of the illness. If language pathway abnormalities can be detected early in people at highrisk for schizophrenia prior to the onset of symptoms, early treatment can ensue.

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“…One popular method for estimating dominance is via the classification of the free associates generated for a given homonym on the basis of the meaning of the word to which they are related (Geis & Winograd, 1974;Gilhooly & Logie, 1980a, 1980bGorfein, Viviani, & Leddo, 1982;Kausler & Kollasch, 1970;Mirman et al, 2010;Nelson, McEvoy, Walling, & Wheeler, 1980;Twilley et al, 1994), which is related to similar methods of classifying generated definitions (Warren, Bresnick, & Green, 1977), generated sentences (Wollen, Cox, Coahran, Shea, & Kirby, 1980), or sentence completions (Yates, 1978). These methods involve two steps: (1) Participants are provided with an ambiguous word (e.g., BANK) and generate an associate (or other similar response; e.g., MONEY), and (2) a separate group of raters classify these responses on the basis of their intuitions regarding the meanings to which these associates are related (e.g., the <financial> vs. < edge of a river> meanings of BANK).…”

Section: Issues With Existing Norming Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

eDom: Norming software and relative meaning frequencies for 544 English homonyms

2012

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Words that are homonyms-that is, for which a single written and spoken form is associated with multiple, unrelated interpretations, such as COMPOUND, which can denote an or a meaning-are an invaluable class of items for studying word and discourse comprehension. When using homonyms as stimuli, it is critical to control for the relative frequencies of each interpretation, because this variable can drastically alter the empirical effects of homonymy. Currently, the standard method for estimating these frequencies is based on the classification of free associates generated for a homonym, but this approach is both assumption-laden and resourcedemanding. Here, we outline an alternative norming methodology based on explicit ratings of the relative meaning frequencies of dictionary definitions. To evaluate this method, we collected and analyzed data in a norming study involving 544 English homonyms, using the eDom norming software that we developed for this purpose. Dictionary definitions were generally sufficient to exhaustively cover word meanings, and the methods converged on stable norms with fewer data and less effort on the part of the experimenter. The predictive validity of the norms was demonstrated in analyses of lexical decision data from the English Lexicon Project (Balota et al., Behavior Research Methods, 39, 445-459, 2007), and from Armstrong and Plaut (Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, [2223][2224][2225][2226][2227][2228] 2011). On the basis of these results, our norming method obviates relying on the unsubstantiated assumptions involved in estimating relative meaning frequencies on the basis of classification of free associates. Additional details of the norming procedure, the meaning frequency norms, and the source code, standalone binaries, and user manual for the software are available at http:// edom.cnbc.cmu.edu.Keywords Semantic ambiguity . Homonyms . Relative meaning frequency . Norming methods . Rating dictionary definitions . Free associate classification . Homonymy disadvantageThe vast majority of words in English and many other languages are semantically ambiguous-that is, they are associated with multiple distinct interpretations. For example, the word COMPOUND can denote either an or a meaning, depending on the context (hereafter denoted as / COMPOUND; Britton, 1978;Klein & Murphy, 2001). As a result, developing an account of semantic ambiguity resolution is a critical component of any theory of word and discourse comprehension, and this has been a key objective in a considerable body of research over the past several decades (e.g

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Age-of-acquisition, imagery, concreteness, familiarity, and ambiguity measures for 1,944 words

Cited by 769 publications

References 13 publications

Subliminal display of action words interferes with motor planning: A combined EEG and kinematic study

Subliminal display of action words interferes with motor planning: A combined EEG and kinematic study

An fMRI study of language processing in people at high genetic risk for schizophrenia

eDom: Norming software and relative meaning frequencies for 544 English homonyms

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