It has been shown that the left and right cerebral hemispheres (LH and RH) respectively process qualitative or "categorical" spatial relations and metric or "coordinate" spatial relations. However, categorical spatial information could be thought as divided into two types: semantically-coded and visuospatially-coded categorical information. We…

In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to evaluate the contribution of surface color and color knowledge information in object identification. We constructed two color-object verification tasks--a surface and a knowledge verification task--using high color diagnostic objects; both typical and atypical color versions of the same…

While numbers generally cue processing of quantity or order, they can also contain semantic information, as in the case of historic years (e.g., "1492" calls forth associations of Columbus sailing the ocean blue). Whether these dates are processed as quantities or events may depend on the context in which they occur. We examined such "ambiguous…

This experiment examined invariance in object representations through measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) to pictures in a masked repetition priming paradigm. Pairs of pictures were presented where the prime was either the same size or half the size of the target object and the target was either presented in a normal orientation or was a…

Repetition priming (RP) has been employed as a measure of implicit processing in patients suffering from a breakdown of semantic memory, as in the case of semantic dementia (SD), a subtype of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Here, we investigated face-name representation in a case of SD using a paradigm of within- and cross-domain…

Conceptual knowledge of our world is represented in semantic memory in terms of concepts and semantic relations between concepts. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the cortical regions underlying the processing of sequential and taxonomic relations. Participants were presented verbal cues and performed three tasks:…

Using a procedure of Hay and Jacoby [Hay, J. F., & Jacoby, L. L. (1999). "Separating habit and recollection in young and older adults: Effects of elaborative processing and distinctiveness." "Psychology and Aging," 14, 122-134], Korsakoff patients' capacity to encode and retrieve elaborative, semantic information was investigated. Habits were…

The issue of the relationship between semantic features and semantic categories has been raised by Warrington and colleagues, who claimed that sensory and functional-associative features are differentially important in determining the meaning of living and nonliving things (Warrington & McCarthy, 1983, 1987; Warrington & Shallice, 1984). In the…

Current controversy exists regarding the role of episodic representations in the formation of long-term semantic memories. Using the drug "midazolam" to induce temporary amnesia we tested participants' memories for newly learned facts in a semantic cue condition or an episodic and semantic cue condition. Following midazolam administration, memory…

The effect of second language experience and vocabulary ability was investigated in a semantic priming experiment with weakly related English word pairs (e.g., "city"-"grass"). Participants made lexical decisions to targets preceded by unrelated or weakly related primes or to nonword targets preceded by words. Reliable priming was found for…