Imageability and semantic association in the representation and processing of event verbs

Abstract

This study examined the relative salience of imageability (the degree to which a word evokes mental imagery) versus semantic association (the density of semantic network in which a word is embedded) in the representation and processing of four types of event verbs: sensory, cognitive, speech, and motor verbs. ERP responses were recorded, while 34 university students performed on a lexical decision task. Analysis focused primarily on amplitude differences across verb conditions within the N400 time window where activities are considered representing meaning activation. Variation in N400 amplitude across four types of verbs was found significantly associated with the level of imageability, but not the level of semantic association. The findings suggest imageability as a more salient factor relative to semantic association in the processing of these verbs. The role of semantic association and the representation of speech verbs are also discussed.

Does the motor cortex want the full story? The influence of sentence context on corticospinal excitability in action language processing

“…The action effect observed in the present study is consistent with several studies that have shown the involvement of the motor cortex during the reading of action verbs using fMRI [10,33], EEG [25,32,34], behavioral measures [13][14][15][16]25] and TMS [29,[35][36][37][38].…”

“…The same applies to action language, such that semantic information referring to an action would engage the sensory motor system. To better understand this link, researchers have probed the involvement of the motor system during action language processing using various methodologies, such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) (Hauk et al 2004; Pulvermüller et al 2005; Aziz-Zadeh et al 2006; Van Dam, Rueschemeyer, and Bekkering 2010; although for critical views see: de Zubicaray et al 2013; Wurm and Caramazza 2019), electroencephalogram (EEG) (Kellenbach et al, 2002; Pulvermüller et al, 2001; Xu et al, 2016), behavioral measures (Andres et al, 2015; Klepp et al, 2019; Pulvermüller et al, 2001; Rabahi et al, 2012, 2013) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) (Papeo et al 2009, 2015; Labruna et al 2011; Scorolli et al 2012; Innocenti et al 2014; see review: Papeo et al 2013). Specifically, Hauk et al (2004) using fMRI reported that silent reading of action words leads to somatotopic activation of the effector-related representation within the primary motor cortex.…”

Age of acquisition ratings for 19,716 simplified Chinese words

“…These collections of ratings provide important psycholinguistic information about Chinese words, but are limited in scale relative to resources available in other languages. This leaves researchers to collect their own AoA ratings for whatever is needed in their individual research projects (e.g., Bai, Ma, Dunlap, & Chen, 2013;Chen, Dent, You, & Wu, 2009;Crepaldi, Che, Su, & Luzzatti, 2012;Law & Yeung, 2010;Xu, Kang, & Guo, 2016;Yu, Law, Han, Zhu, & Bi, 2011) and certainly weakens comparability across studies. To fill the void, the present study reports AoA ratings for 19,716 simplified Chinese words.…”

Concreteness/abstractness ratings for two-character Chinese words in MELD-SCH

“…Both Yao et al [31] and Yee [32] had collected imageability ratings. Xu, Kang, and Guo [40] also collected imageability ratings for a set of two-character Chinese words stimuli. Correlation coefficients between concreteness and imageability ratings are presented in Table 2.…”