Volume #12, 1, 2019

Background. Sound symbolism (SS) refers to the direct association between the sound and the meaning of a word. The results of  cross-linguistic research prove that SS is universal for different languages and cultures. Thirty percent of all natural languages consist of SS words. But despite the large number of psychosemantic studies which have been conducted, the cognitive mechanisms of the perception of SS words still remain unclear.

Objective. The aim of this study was to determine how Russian-speaking subjects perceive visually presented English and Russian words, as measured by  the Lexical decision method.

Design. The study sample consisted of 148 subjects of ages ranging from 13 to 78. The study was conducted in two stages. During the first stage, the perception of visually-presented English SS words by Russian learners of English, with three different levels of language proficiency, was studied. During the second stage, the perception of visually-presented Russian SS words by Russian native speakers from three different age groups was studied.

The stimuli material was selected according to the following criteria: 1) Each word was monosyllabic; 2) Each SS word corresponded to a single arbitrary (non-SS) word of the same pronunciation type; and 3) Each word corresponded to a non-word, formed from it by replacing letters according to the phonotactic rules of English and Russian. At each stage of the study, each subject was given 80 stimuli consisting of 20 SS words, 20 non-SS words, and 40 non-words. An analysis of contingency tables (Chi-square test), comparison of averages (Student's t-test), and analyses of variances (ANOVA) were applied to the data.

Results. The visually-presented SS words were identified more slowly and with more errors than the non-SS words, regardless of the language (Russian or English), the subjects’ age, and their English language proficiency. 

Conclusions. The observed delay effect in the cognitive processing of visually-presentedSSwords is due to the cognitive complexity of the task, which leads to the activation of cross-modal interaction system, besides, interfering systems of information processing are assumed to exist.

Background. This study is based on large samples of language-data collected during the formative period of language acquisition (9–62 months) from free dialogues of English and French children. Analysis of the longitudinal development of children’s vocabularies expressed in terms of Parts of Speech showed that their acquisition develops surprisingly differentlyin these two languages. The hypothesis of the study is that first-language acquisition should respect identical principles, independently of the language acquired.

Objective. To analyze the observed properties of language acquisition data based on a general model of concept formation and information processing.

Design. Two models were applied: (a) Model of information processing based on reasoning concerning information, entropy, energy optimization, and evolution; and (b) Model of native semantic roles, based on the psychological approach of grounded cognition. The common factor in the reasoning applied in these models is that the process of concept formation is based on information generated by the biological system itself.

Results. A joint formal representation is obtained using these two models. The derived mathematical formalism showed remarkable agreement with the sample data. It explains the gradual acquisition of the two languages as one and the same process.The formal description suggests that the acquisition of verbs is accomplished with reference to the concept of Self as Actor, acting in the Environment.

Conclusion. The performed analysis is in support of the hypothesis that there exist inborn mechanisms of concept formation. The investigation of the joint model suggests that the concept of Self plays a central role in the language faculty.

Objective. The aim of this study was to evaluate the degree of conformity of  generation frequency scores for semantic categories between native (L1) and foreign languages (L2). 

Design. Sixty-eight native Russian-speaking students were asked to list words belonging to different semantic categories in the Russian and English languages.  Their generation frequency was calculated for each word in both languages. Hellinger Affinity scores were used to measure the conformity of the generation frequency norms between the Russian and English language. 

Results. For culture-dependent categories, the level of conformity between the category frequencies in the Russian and English languages was greater than the conformity with North American norms. For culture-independent categories there were no significant differences in the level of conformity between the native and foreign languages as compared with North American frequencies. Furthermore, the number of concepts with significantly different levels of frequency between the Russian and English language was greater for culture-dependent categories than for culture independent-categories.

Conclusion. The low level of similarity for some categories can be explained by the subjects’ different levels of experience using native and foreign languages in the context of these categories. A low level of category frequency accordance can be also explained by the fact that when subjects switch to a foreign language, they tend to name the concepts which are representative of the culture of this language. The strong level of similarity for other categories suggests that the vocabulary of these categories is less affected by cross-cultural and cross-linguistic diversity.

Background. The search for reliable means of establishing relations between sensory qualia and their conceptualization in language has given rise to several approaches, both philosophical and psychophysical. This paper gives a short account of today’s approaches to the problem and presents a frame-based approach, which may be superior to other methods. 

Objective. To evaluate the effectiveness of the frame-based approach to the conceptualization of sensory qualia in language. The semantic field “Loud” in the Italian language is analyzed, as it offers a unique case: Italian does not have a lexeme whose main meaning would be translated into English as “loud” or into Russian as “громкий” (gromkiĭ). 

Design. In the field “Loud”, nine adjectives were analyzed by means of  dictionary definitions, frequency in the Italian language corpus, and native speakers’ usage. 

Results. The findings reveal a frame structure of the field consisting of 11 frames, which can be grouped into two large entities: sounds proper and objects that emit sounds. The parameters that underpin the frame structure are vocal/non-vocal, intentional/spontaneous, explosive/non-explosive, one source/multiple sources, and natural/artificial. Another important result is a more accurate description of lexemes involved in the current field (the main adjectives are alto, forte,and rumoroso).

Conclusion. The frame-based approach provides an effective means of studying the relationship between sensory qualia and their conceptualization in language.

Background. The empirical studies in visual word recognition done over the past years have been focused on the influence of contextual, lexical, and semantic properties. Researchers also have taken into consideration the role of individual differences in the word recognition process, e.g., vocabulary knowledge.

Objective. This study focuses on the cognitive strategies used by expert and novice language learners in a visual semantic search task. Our hypothesis is that the level of ESL (English as a Second Language) mastery would influence the word recognition and oculomotor patterns applied by the participants.

Design. The participants–native Russian speakers–were divided into three groups according to their level of English language mastery. The experimental task involved a search for horizontally- or vertically-oriented English words in letter matrices (15*15); the frequency and length of the words varied.Performance measures (number and orientation of the found words) were registered, along with the participants’ eye movements.

Results. Word search efficiency depended on the frequency, length, and orientation of the words and the participant’s language mastery; however, these factors did not interact.Thedata show that oculomotor events are denserin experts’ results. Learners with different levels of language mastery use different information-processing patterns, which are reflected in the proportions of fixation and saccade durations. Two complementary trends were found: word search efficiency is effected, first, by a longer gaze scan path, and second, by the focal mode of visual information-processing, manifested in a combination of longer fixations and shorter saccades.

Conclusion. The registration of eye-movement patterns in visual semantic search tasks reveals the characteristics of effective and non-effective cognitive strategies used by ESL students at different levels of language competence.

Background. Alexandria R. Luria’s classic neurorehabilitation methods (“restorative learning”) have now been successfully applied in clinical settings for more than seventy years. It is of interest how Luria’s methods relate to contemporary strategic approaches to effective rehabilitation. One such framework is the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF)—a comprehensive WHO framework for measuring health and disability for diagnostic and rehabilitation purposes.

Objective. To compare Luria’s procedure of restorative learning in aphasia and the ICF. Such a comparison may facilitate the use of the ICF in the work of multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams for diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation of rehabilitation programs.

Design. A systematic comparison of ICF components with specific rehabilitation procedures developed by Luria aimed at speech understanding and production.

Results. Luria’s speech rehabilitation methods pertain to the ICF component “Body Functions and Structures”. Specific correspondences between Luria’s rehabilitation procedures and ICF categories are found, especially for afferent and efferent aphasias. For the aphasias related to speech understanding (sensory and semantic aphasia), such correspondences are rare. This reflects an insufficient differentiation in the understanding of higher cognitive functions in current neurorehabilitation. Luria’s concern for patients’ personality and social status is also explicated.

Conclusion. Although Luria’s “restorative learning” is realized within the ICF domain of “Body Functions and Structures”, his approach also focuses on the rehabilitation of the personal and social status of the patient. This approach is an important condition for clinical and psychological rehabilitation in the ICF domains of “Activities” and “Participation”.

Background. Mastering a first language at school is mediated by the regulatory abilities of pupils. An open question is how the executive functions implementing conscious self-regulation are related to language competences.

Objective. To study the relationship between basic executive functions (switching, inhibition, working memory updating, and error correction) and language competences.

Design. A sample of 104 Russian middle school children (aged 13–15 years) performed three cognitive tasks assessing basic executive functions and two tasks assessing language competences in the areas of punctuation, spelling, morphology, syntax, semantics, vocabulary, and style.

Results. Inhibitionwas mostly related to punctuation, spelling, and morphology competences and was most important in the first competences task, requiring the recognition of errors. Switchingwas mostly related to the competences in syntax, reflecting the importance of switching attention between alternative syntactic structures. Working memory updatingwas the most important executive function related to language competences, with a heavy focus on higher-level lexical, semantic, and stylistic competences. The role of updating was especially important in the second competences task, which required generation of well-formed sentences. Error correctionwas mostly relevant for the recognition of language errors.

Conclusion. While inhibition and switching affect aspects of constructing the surface form of a sentence, working memory is preferentially related to the construction of semantically appropriate sentences. Error monitoring and correction are generally related to the recognition of language errors. Conscious self-regulation and its cognitive mechanisms are systematically related to the development of native language competences in middle school.

Background. Although the Big Five model (BFM) of personality has been the dominant paradigm in personality research since the mid-1990s, it has recently been challenged by the HEXACO model, which contains an additional factor called Honesty-Humility. Since both these models of personality were developed using the same factor analytic techniques, there has been an ongoing but inconclusive debate about the relative merits of these competing models. 

Objective. This paper assesses the robustness of the Honesty-Humility trait using a technique based on the semantic relationships between personality trait adjectives.

Design. Trait marker adjectives for the HEXACO Honesty-Humility and BFM Agreeableness and Neuroticism personality domains in the English language are translated into, and back-translated from, six Asian languages to generate lists of closely related trait terms known as schedonyms. The numbers of schedonyms found within and across the three personality domains are then compared, to determine whether the HEXACO Honesty-Humility factor is semantically distinct from the BFM traits of Agreeableness and Neuroticism.

Results. Our findings indicate that the Honesty-Humility trait domain is semantically distinct from the BFM traits of Agreeableness and Neuroticism, and therefore that there is at least one more personality trait beyond the BFM. The implications of these findings, and the potential applications of this semantically-based technique for establishing the universal structure of the human personality, are briefly discussed.

Conclusion. Our semantic analysis provides clear evidence that there is an Honesty-Humility trait domain in addition to the Agreeableness and Neuroticism traits, and therefore that HEXACO provides a better description of human personality than the BFM.

Objective. To detect possible dysfunctions of subcortical brain structures in children with severe disorders of language development and to study the association of such dysfunctions with linguistic and cognitive development, particularly the development of nonverbal intelligence on the level of the norm.

Design. 45 children with severe speech disorders, aged 4 to 7 years, took part in the study: 9 girls and 36 boys who were patients at the Prognoz neurological clinic for children (Saint Petersburg). The diagnoses according to ICD-10 were the following: F.80.1 – expressive speech disorder – 35 children; F.80.2 – receptive speech disorder – 10 children. The functional state of the brain stem was assessed by the auditory brain stem response (ABR) method. A modified stimulus was used to register peak VI, that is, a short tone burst with a frequency of 4,000 Hz, plateau duration of 0.5 ms, initial front of 0.5 ms, and intensity of 70 dB above the hearing threshold.

Results. Analysis of the evoked potentials gave the following results: Deceleration of vestibular and/or auditory information conduction on the level of brain stem structures was detected in 98% of the children. Deceleration of vestibular information conduction was manifested in increased latency of the positive wave P13 cVEMP in comparison with the normative value. Deceleration of auditory information conduction was shown in an increase of the peak intervals of ABRs in comparison with normative values.

Conclusions. All the children displayed conduction disturbances in the auditory and vestibular systems. Conduction disturbances in the auditory system were directly connected with the severity of their speech problems. Conduction disturbances in the vestibular system were associated with lower nonverbal intelligence.

Background. The color and emotional systems are classical research objects in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, but the interrelations between them, especially at the semantic level, are poorly understood. The multidimensional approach, developed in E.N. Sokolov’s “vector psychophysiology” school of thought, permits the solution of this important problem.

Background. The critical importance of lexical concreteness and embodied sensorimotor processes for language comprehension is often assumed to be beyond doubt. Hungarian grammar is unique in that it expresses certain verb arguments using spatial suffixes, which sometimes create ambiguity between literal spatial adjuncts and abstract verb arguments.

Objective. In the present study, our goal was to investigate the role and perhaps primacy of concrete spatial meaning when generating the abstract sense of arguments of mental verbs. 

Design. Towards that end, we embedded ambiguous verb-noun constructs with both a possible locative adjunct reading (i.e. spatial, literal) and a verb argument reading (i.e. abstract, figurative), with a continuously varying preference for one or the other, in disambiguating sentence contexts. Using a self-paced reading paradigm, we measured reading times of verbs and sentence final nouns of the ambiguous constructs.

Results. We found no difference in the reaction times to verbs, which suggests that their argument frames were obligatorily activated regardless of sentential context. Nouns were read more slowly in the argument contexts, yet the slower pace was driven by constructs that had a preferred locative reading.

Conclusion. This pattern of results contradicts strong embodiment explanations, and can be better accounted for by dual coding theory. Our findings demonstrate the importance of studying the role of concreteness and metaphoricity in linguistic meaning construction in the context of syntax and sentence processing.

Background. The color and emotional systems are classical research objects in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, but the interrelations between them, especially at the semantic level, are poorly understood. The multidimensional approach, developed in E.N. Sokolov’s “vector psychophysiology” school of thought, permits the solution of this important problem.

Objective. To carry out a psychophysical study of the interaction between color and emotions at the semantic level, through the analysis of subjective multidimensional spaces.

Design. The stimuli were the Russian names of 10 basic colors and 10 basic emotions. 102 participants used a scale from 1 to 9 to evaluate subjective differences in all possible combinations of color–color, emotion–emotion, and color–emotion. A 10×10color submatrix, 10×10emotion submatrix, and 20×20 full color–emotion matrix were processed by multidimensional scaling.

Results. The subjective spaces extracted from the color and emotion submatrices were found to be four-dimensional and spherical. The model of color semantics features two chromatic (“Red-Green” and “Blue-Yellow”) and two achromatic (“Semantic Brightness” and “Contrast Grey”) opponent axes. The model of emotional semantics features two basic (“Valence” and “Arousal”) and two social (“Dominance” and “Social Rejection”) opponent axes. The integral color-emotional space also was found to be four-dimensional and spherical, featuring combined color-emotional axes.

Conclusion. The interaction between color and emotional semantics can be described with a four-dimensional spherical model, proving that E.N. Sokolov’s universal spherical model can adequately describe the processes of intermodal integration at the semantic level.

Background. Experiences which people have and perceive personally (Skowronski et al., 1991) are interpreted in a subjective way (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) and stored in autobiographical memory along with information related to their lifetime periods, general events, and event-specific knowledge (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; Larsen & Thompson, 1995). These three specific knowledge-types are intertwined and come up together when an individual is recalling memories (Conway, 1996).

Objective. The aim of our study is to investigate how French adults process information in deceptive speech. We observed the information-types used in the three knowledge-types of autobiographical memory in monologs and answers to questions.

Method. Our data comes from videotaped spontaneous oral speeches produced by 17 French adults. The participants were given the task of producing a fake opinion paradigm on their favorite sport.

Result. Our results show discrepancies in the frequency of the three knowledge-types of autobiographical memory used in the true and deceptive speech of practitioners and viewers. We also found that certain informationtypes are linguistic-context-dependent while others are systemic. The findings highlight the fact that some information is missing and/or replaced, and other information is nuanced in deception compared to truthful speech.

Conclusion. This study can contribute to a better understanding of deceivers’ cognitive processing, as well as demonstrating the close relationship between language and cognition.

Background. Studying the concept of secondary language identity is one of the main problems in educational psychology since it involves the ability to use a foreign language effectively in various fields. Since languages don’t exist in a vacuum but are culture-bound, a person’s process of psychological transformation into having a secondary language identity entails profound psycholinguistic and psycho-sociological character changes. However, professional communication differs significantly from everyday cross-cultural communication, which means that it should be studied separately.

Objective. The aim of this paper is to propose a theoretical approach to the development of secondary language identity within professional communication.

Design. Particular interest is paid to how language is taught, and which teaching methods and techniques will ensure the development of secondary language identity in the professional context. In this article we propose that the method of foreign language teaching is one of the factors underlying the development of secondary language identity in a professional context.

Results. As professional communication is always culture-specific and culture-dependent, culture influences language teaching in two ways: linguistically and pedagogically. Linguistically, it affects the semantic, pragmatic, and discourse levels of language. Pedagogically, it influences the choice of language materials.

Conclusion. We apply the methodology of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and the use of the translation method to analyzing the development of secondary language identity in a professional context.

Background. The background of the present study includes analysis of the understanding of active and passive grammatical constructions (GCs) in Russianspeaking aphasic patients and in children aged 3, 4 and 5 years (Akhutina, 1989; Akhutina, Velichkovskiy, & Kempe, 1988). Data regarding the reorganization of the children’s strategies are further compared to GC understanding in children speaking different languages, and their interpretations.

Objective. To analyze the variable mechanisms of understanding of reversible GCs in primary-school-age children, namely, to reveal individual differences in reliance on word order or case endings.

Design. Ninety-three first-graders, 93 second-graders, and 63 third-graders underwent a neuropsychological assessment and computer-based sentence-topicture test of their understanding of reversible GCs of active/passive voice with direct/reverse word order. The “productivity” of understanding GCs (percent of correct responses) was analyzed through cluster analysis.

Results. The cluster analysis divided the children into four clusters. Cluster 1 consisted of eight children with low productivity, who were excluded from further analysis. Cluster 2 was characterized by low productivity in passive direct constructions (Group 1); Cluster 3 comprised children who had low productivity in passive reverse sentences (Group 2). Cluster 4 included children with good understanding of all GCs (Group 3). Between-group differences in productivity and time of correct responses in GCs, as well as neuropsychological indexes, were revealed.

Conclusion. The results are consistent with the following hypotheses: (a) Group 1 relies on the rule “The first noun is the agent”, whereas the other two groups use morphological marking; (b) Group 1 is the weakest neuropsychologically, and syntactic understanding processes involve a more diffuse activation of the brain in this group, compared to more successful children; (c) changes in response times from the first to the second grade are under the influence of cerebral changes induced by reading acquisition.