Nonaphasic speakers are known to take longer to name pictures when they are blocked by semantic category and repeated multiple times. We replicated this ''semantic blocking effect'' in older controls and showed that in aphasia, the effect is manifested in increased error rates when naming semantically homogeneous, compared to mixed blocks. We…

Twenty preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI) and 20 age matches with normal language (NL) participated in a study to determine whether phonological memory or semantic knowledge predicted word-learning success. Poor learners' performance was analyzed to investigate whether phonology or semantics contributed more to word-learning…

We explored the possibility of using automatic techniques to analyze the use of backward causal connectives in large Dutch newspaper corpora. With the help of 2 techniques, Latent Semantic Analysis and Thematic Text Analysis, the contexts of more than 14,000 connectives were studied. The method of analysis is described. We found that differences…

Evidence from neurologically normal subjects suggests that repetition priming (RP) is independent of semantic processing. Therefore, we may expect patients with a selective deficit to conceptual knowledge to exhibit RP for words regardless of the integrity of their semantic representations. We tested six patients with semantic dementia (SD) on a…

This paper explores the issues involved in the linguistic characterisation of disordered discourse and the ways in which a Systemic Functional Linguistic framework addresses these issues. For many years, language disorders were described in terms of formal grammars, with "breakdown" discussed in terms of one or more of the traditional levels of…

Memory for familiar people is essential to understand their identity and guide social interaction. Nevertheless, we know surprisingly little about the structure of such memory. Previous research has assumed that semantic memory for people has a categorical structure, but recently it was proposed that memory for people consists only of associations…

We report evidence for dissociation between explicit and implicit access to word representations in a deep dyslexic patient (JO). JO read aloud a series of ambiguous (e.g., bank) and unambiguous (e.g., food) words and performed a lexical decision task using these same items. When required to explicitly access the items (i.e., naming), JO showed…

In this study, we looked at priming effects produced by a short presentation (47ms) of morphologically complex pseudowords in French. In Experiment 1, we used as primes semantically interpretable pseudowords made of the grammatical combination of a root and a suffix, such as rapidifier ''to quickify.'' In Experiment 2, we used non-morphological…

Semantic substitution errors (e.g., saying "arm" when "leg" is intended) are among the most common types of errors occurring during spontaneous speech. It has been shown that grammatical gender of German target nouns is preserved in the errors (E. Mane, 1999). In 3 experiments, the authors explored different accounts of the grammatical gender…

Using a priming procedure, 4 experiments were carried out to investigate the effects of a short preexposure of a prime that was a radical or contained radicals identical to the target. Significant facilitation was found when the target contained the prime as a radical, although only for low-frequency targets which did not arise merely as a result…

An ambiguity disadvantage (slower responses for ambiguous words, e.g., bank, than for unambiguous words) has been reported in semantic tasks (L. R. Gottlob, S. D. Goldinger, G. O. Stone, & G. C. Van Orden, 1999; Y. Hino, S. J. Lupker, & P. M. Pexman, 2002; C. D. Piercey & S. Joordens, 2000) and has been attributed to the meaning activation…

Previous research studies examining the effects of graphic organizers on reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities (LD) are reviewed. An extensive search of the professional literature between 1963 and June 2001 yielded a total of 21 group design intervention studies that met the criteria for inclusion in the synthesis. Using…

Assessments of lexical acquisition are often limited to preschool children on forced-choice comprehension measures. This study assessed the nature of the understandings 30 school-age children (mean age = 6;7) acquired about the science term eclipse following a naturalistic exposure to a solar eclipse. The knowledge children acquired about eclipses…

In this paper, we investigate the interplay between phonological facilitation and semantic interference effects in picture naming. We use a double distractor variant of the classic picture-word interference paradigm to investigate whether the reported interaction between these effects is dependent on the two types of related information being…

The majority of the models which attempt to explain category-specific deficits are based on the assumption that the conceptual knowledge is represented in a permanent way in memory (abstractive view). Carbonnel, Charnallet, David, and Pellat (1997) showed that a non-abstractive view would be more suitable to account for some of these cases. The…