Are there qualitative differences in the representation of abstract and concrete words? Within-language and cross-language evidence from the semantic priming paradigm.

The different organizational frameworks theory proposes that there is a qualitative difference between the representation of concrete and abstract words in memory: Concrete concepts would be primarily organized in terms of semantic similarity whereas abstract concepts would be mainly organized by their association with other concepts. Evidence in support of this proposal has been mostly obtained with neuropsychological populations and, to a lesser extent, with healthy participants. In the present work, we tested the different organizational frameworks theory by using, for the first time, a semantic priming paradigm both within language and across languages. The results revealed that there was priming for both semantically similar and associative relations when words were concrete. However, with abstract words, priming was only observed when pairs and targets were associated. These results do not support the proposal of Crutch and coworkers, suggesting that the experimental paradigm as well as the type of relations tested may modulate the pattern of effects obtained with concrete and abstract words.

Facilitative effect of cognate words vanishes when reducing the orthographic overlap: The role of stimuli list composition.

Recent research has shown that cognate word processing is modulated by variables such as degree of orthographic and phonological overlap of cognate words and task requirements in such a way that the typical preferential processing observed in the literature for cognate words relative to non-cognate words can be annulled or even reversed (Comesaña et al., 2012; Dijkstra, Miwa, Brummelhuis, Sappelli, & Baayen, 2010). These findings beg the question about the precise representation and processing of identical cognates (e.g., plata-plata, silver in Spanish and Catalan, respectively) and non-identical cognates (e.g., braç-brazo [arm]). The aim of the present study was to further explore this issue by manipulating for the 1st time cross-linguistic similarities of identical and non-identical cognate words as well as stimuli list composition. Proficient balanced Catalan-Spanish bilinguals performed a lexical decision task in Spanish. In Experiment 1 identical and non-identical cognates along with non-cognates made up the experimental list, whereas in Experiment 2 identical cognates were excluded from the list. Results showed modulations in cognate processing as a function of their degree of orthographic and phonological overlap. These results confirm prior findings regarding the processing of cognates when cross-linguistic similarities are taken into account. Most important, the direction of the cognate effect was affected by the stimuli list composition (i.e., the preferential processing for cognate words was restricted to the list containing identical cognates). Results have important implications for the Bilingual Interactive Activation Plus model (BIA+; Dijkstra & van Heuven, 2002), especially regarding identical and non-identical cognate word representation.

Masked and unmasked priming effects as a function of semantic relatedness and associative strength.

The study presented in this paper aimed to investigate the pattern of semantic priming effects, under masked and unmasked conditions, in the lexical decision task, manipulating type of semantic relation and associative strength. Three different kinds of word relations were examined in two experiments: only-semantically related words [e.g., codo (elbow)-rodilla (knee)] and semantic/associative related words with strong [e.g., mesa (table)-silla (chair) and weak association strength [e.g., sapo (toad)-rana (frog)]. In Experiment 1 a masked priming procedure was used with a prime duration of 56 ms, and in Experiment 2, the prime was presented unmasked for 150 ms. The results showed that there were masked priming effects with strong associates, but no evidence of these effects was found with weak associates or only-semantic related word pairs. When the prime was presented unmasked, the three types of relations produced significant priming effects and they were not influenced by association strength.

Masked and unmasked priming effects as a function of semantic relatedness and associative strength

The study presented in this paper aimed to investigate the pattern of semantic priming effects, under masked and unmasked conditions, in the lexical decision task, manipulating type of semantic relation and associative strength. Three different kinds of word relations were examined in two experiments: only-semantically related words [e.g., codo (elbow)-rodilla (knee)] and semantic/associative related words with strong [e.g., mesa (table)-silla (chair) and weak association strength [e.g., sapo (toad)-rana (frog)]. In Experiment 1 a masked priming procedure was used with a prime duration of 56 ms, and in Experiment 2, the prime was presented unmasked for 150 ms. The results showed that there were masked priming effects with strong associates, but no evidence of these effects was found with weak associates or only-semantic related word pairs. When the prime was presented unmasked, the three types of relations produced significant priming effects and they were not influenced by association strength (AU)

El presente estudio tenía como objetivo investigar el patrón de efectos de priming enmascarado y no enmascarado en la tarea de decisión léxica, manipulando el tipo de relación semántica y la fuerza asociativa entre prime y target. Se llevaron a cabo dos experimentos donde se examinaron tres tipos de relaciones: palabras relacionadas solo semánticamente [e.g., codo (elbow)-rodilla (knee)], palabras semánticamente relacionadas con una asociación fuerte [e.g., mesa (table)-silla (chair)] y palabras con una relación semántica asociativa débil [e.g., sapo (toad)-rana (frog)]. En el Experimento 1 se utilizó un procedimiento de priming enmascarado con una duración del prime de 57 ms, y en el Experimento 2, un procedimiento no enmascarado presentándose el prime durante 150 ms. Los resultados mostraron efectos de priming enmascarado significativos con pares de palabras que eran asociados fuertes pero no cuando eran asociados débiles o tenían una relación sólo semántica (no asociativa). Cuando el prime se presentaba en condiciones no enmascaradas, los tres tipos de relaciones produjeron efectos de priming significativos y no se vieron influidos por la fuerza asociativa (AU)