Language and vertical space: on the automaticity of language action interconnections.

Grounded models of language processing propose a strong connection between language and sensorimotor processes (Barsalou, 1999, 2008; Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002). However, it remains unclear how functional and automatic these connections are for understanding diverse sets of words (Ansorge, Kiefer, Khalid, Grassl, & König, 2010). Here, we investigate whether words referring to entities with a typical location in the upper or lower visual field (e.g., sun, ground) automatically influence subsequent motor responses even when language-processing levels are kept minimal. The results show that even subliminally presented words influence subsequent actions, as can be seen in a reversed compatibility effect. These finding have several implications for grounded language processing models. Specifically, these results suggest that language-action interconnections are not only the result of strategic language processes, but already play an important role during pre-attentional language processing stages.

Keep your hands crossed: the valence-by-left/right interaction is related to hand, not side, in an incongruent hand-response key assignment.

The body-specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009) associates positive emotional valence and the space surrounding the dominant hand, and negative valence and the space surrounding the non-dominant hand. This effect has not only been found for manual responses, but also for the left and right side. In the present study, we investigated whether this compatibility effect still shows when hand and side carry incongruent information, and whether it is then related to hand or to side. We conducted two experiments which used an incongruent hand-response key assignment, that is, participants had their hands crossed. Participants were instructed to respond with their right vs. left hand (Experiment 1) or with the right vs. left key (Experiment 2). In both experiments, a compatibility effect related to hand emerged, indicating that the association between hand and valence overrides the one between side and valence when hand and side carry contradicting information.

When up-words meet down-sentences: evidence for word- or sentence-based compatibility effects?

Participants were presented with sentences mentioning an entity with a typical location in the upper or lower vertical space (e.g., roof vs. root). Sentences supported or reversed the typical location of the target entity. Sensibility judgments requiring upwards or downwards responses were faster when the response matched rather than mismatched the target entity's typical location. This compatibility effect was independent of whether the sentence context supported or reversed the target entity's typical location. The results, therefore, provide clear evidence for word-based but no evidence for sentence-based simulation processes.

From top to bottom: spatial shifts of attention caused by linguistic stimuli.

Interacting with the world around us involves dealing with constant information input. Thus, humans must selectively filter and focus attention on relevant aspects for the current situation. The current study investigates orientations of attention after words that do not convey spatial information in their meaning (e.g. cloud, shoe). The current study minimizes both the linguistic demands by simply presenting task-irrelevant words and the visual processing demands by implementing a simple target detection task. According to automatic response biases in the motor domain (Lachmair et al. 2011), we hypothesized that words such as cloud produce attention shifts in the direction of the typical location of the word's referent in the world (e.g. cloud up in the sky). Indeed, target detection was facilitated if target location matched the typical location of the word's referent. These findings are strong evidence for the important role of space during language processing, showing that vertical attention is modulated even by task-irrelevant verbal cues.

Do task-irrelevant direction-associated motion verbs affect action planning? Evidence from a Stroop paradigm.

Does simply seeing a word such as rise activate upward responses? The present study is concerned with bottom-up activation of motion-related experiential traces. Verbs referring to an upward or downward motion (e.g., rise/fall) were presented in one of four colors. Participants had to perform an upward or downward hand movement (experiments 1 and 2a/2b) or a stationary up or down located keypress response (experiment 3) according to font color. In all experiments, responding was faster if the word's immanent motion direction matched the response (e.g., upward/up response in case of rise); however, this effect was strongest in the experiments requiring an actual upward or downward response movement (experiments 1 and 2a/2b). These findings suggest bottom-up activation of motion-related experiential traces, even if the task does not demand lexical access or focusing on a word's meaning.

Emotional valence and physical space: limits of interaction.

According to the body-specificity hypothesis, people associate positive things with the side of space that corresponds to their dominant hand and negative things with the side corresponding to their nondominant hand. Our aim was to find out whether this association holds also true for a response time study using linguistic stimuli, and whether such an association is activated automatically. Four experiments explored this association using positive and negative words. In Exp. 1, right-handers made a lexical judgment by pressing a left or right key. Attention was not explicitly drawn to the valence of the stimuli. No valence-by-side interaction emerged. In Exp. 2 and 3, right-handers and left-handers made a valence judgment by pressing a left or a right key. A valence-by-side interaction emerged: For positive words, responses were faster when participants responded with their dominant hand, whereas for negative words, responses were faster for the nondominant hand. Exp. 4 required a valence judgment without stating an explicit mapping of valence and side. No valence-by-side interaction emerged. The experiments provide evidence for an association between response side and valence, which, however, does not seem to be activated automatically but rather requires a task with an explicit response mapping to occur.

Root versus roof: automatic activation of location information during word processing.

In four experiments, participants were presented with nouns referring to entities that are associated with an up or down location (e.g., roof, root). The required response either was compatible with the referent location or was not (e.g., upward vs. downward movement after reading roof). Across experiments, we manipulated whether the experimental task required word reading or not, as well as whether the response involved a movement or was stationary. In all experiments, participants' responses were significantly faster in the compatible than in the incompatible condition. This strongly suggests that location information is automatically activated when nouns are being processed.

Event-related potential correlates of negation in a sentence-picture verification paradigm.

In a sentence-picture verification paradigm, participants were presented in a rapid-serial-visual-presentation paradigm with affirmative or negative sentences (e.g., "In the front of the tower there is a/no ghost") followed by a matching or mismatching picture. Response latencies and event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured during reading and verification. An enhanced negative shift in the ERPs for the subject noun (i.e., "ghost") in negative, compared to affirmative sentences, was found during reading. We relate this ERP deflection to enhanced processing demands required by the negative particle no. Although this effect suggests a direct impact of negation on language processing, results for picture processing reveal that negation is not immediately integrated into sentence meaning. When the delay of picture presentation was short (250 msec), verification latencies and ERPs evoked by the picture showed a priming effect independent of whether the sentence contained a negation. Unprimed pictures (foreground object not mentioned in the sentence) led to longer latencies and higher N400 amplitudes than primed pictures (foreground object mentioned in the sentence). Main effects of negation showed up only in a late positive-going ERP effect. In contrast, when the delay was long (1500 msec), we observed main effects of truth value and negation in addition to the priming effect already in the N400 time window, that is, negation is fully integrated into sentence meaning only at a later point in the comprehension process. When negation has not yet been integrated, verification decisions appear to be modulated by additional time-consuming reanalysis processes.

Prognostic value of pre-discharge exercise testing and serum C-reactive protein in patients with unstable angina.

BACKGROUND: Both exercise testing and C-reactive protein (CRP) serum levels have been shown to predict clinical events in patients with unstable angina. However, no previous study carefully compared their relative prognostic value in this clinical setting. METHODS: We reviewed data of 96 consecutive patients with unstable angina (77 males, 19 females, mean age 63.1 +/- 9.5 years), who were free from clinical events during hospital stay. A symptom/sign-limited treadmill exercise test had been performed and CRP serum levels had been measured prior to discharge in all patients. RESULTS: During an average follow-up of 2.5 years (range 0.5-5 years), there were 8 major cardiac events (death or myocardial infarction) and 11 patients had recurrent unstable angina. Both exercise-induced myocardial ischemia [relative risk (RR) 3.02, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.58-15.5, p = 0.29], and CRP levels > or = 10 mg/l (RR 2.4, 95% CI 0.51-11.2, p = 0.25) showed a non significant association with major cardiac events. Low workload ischemia, however, was significantly associated with major cardiac events (RR 8.58, 95% CI 1.66-44.2, p = 0.01) and was also the only predictive variable for the combined endpoint of major events and recurrent angina (RR 2.57, 95% CI 1.02-4.44, p = 0.045). Among patients with low workload ischemia, the occurrence of major events was higher in those with high, compared to those with low, CRP levels, but the difference was not significant (28.6 vs 15.4%, p = 0.64). CONCLUSIONS: In this study, pre-discharge myocardial ischemia at low workload was the single most important predictor of major cardiac events during long-term follow-up among patients with stabilized unstable angina. Increased serum CRP levels did not add further significant prognostic information in this specific group of patients with unstable angina, although this issue needs to be addressed in larger studies.