Holistic processing and left-side bias are both behavioral markers of expert face recognition. In contrast, expertise in Chinese character recognition involves left-side bias but reduced holistic processing (Hsiao & Cottrell, 2009). Here I hypothesized that this reduction in holistic processing may be related to writing rather than reading experience. In Experiment 1, I tested Chinese literates who could read and write Chinese characters fluently (Writers), and Chinese literates who had limited writing practices and thus had reading performance far exceeding their writing ability (Limited-writers). I found that Writers perceived Chinese characters less holistically than Limited-writers. In contrast to what previous research suggested, reduction in holistic processing in Chinese readers depended on writing experience instead of reading performance. In addition, reading performance was affected by font familiarity and context for Limited-writers but not Writers. Writing experience seems to enhance analytic processing and awareness of orthographic components of Chinese characters, which may in turn facilitate reading in unfamiliar fonts. By contrast, both Writers and Limited-writers showed a similar level of left-side bias in processing symmetric Chinese characters, suggesting that left-side bias is a consistent expertise marker for orthographic processing uninfluenced by writing experience. In Experiment 2, I investigate the developmental trend of holistic processing in Chinese character recognition and its relationship with reading and writing abilities by testing Chinese children who were learning Chinese at a public elementary school in Hong Kong on these abilities. I found that the holistic processing effect of Chinese characters in children was reduced as they reached higher grades; this reduction was driven by enhanced Chinese literacy rather than age. In addition, I found that writing performance predicts reading performance through reduced holistic processing as a mediator. Overall, the results of this study suggest that writing hones analytic processing, which is essential for expert Chinese character recognition, and in turn facilitates learning to read in Chinese. This study is also the first to identify Limited-writers as a window onto basic processes of reading. / HKU 3 Minute Thesis Award, 2nd Runner-up (2012) / published_or_final_version / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

Word order universals constitute a well-known problem in language typology, first outlined in Greenberg (1963). It has been firmly established in databases of over 1500 languages that languages with verb-object ordering are very likely to have prepositions and noun-genitive ordering, while languages with object-verb ordering are very likely to have postpositions and genitive-noun ordering (Dryer and Haspelmath 2011). This thesis attempts to give a historical explanation for these facts in terms of the origin of syntactic categories: adpositions have historically developed from nouns and verbs (Givon 1984, Aristar 1991); and verbs often develop from nominalizations used with a genitive object. These types of grammaticalization can explain why adpositions retain the ordering of their source nouns or verbs, and why verb/object ordering often parallels noun/genitive ordering. This historical explanation is elaborated on, with data from different language families. Examples of verbs grammaticalizing from nominalizations used with genitive objects are given, drawing on historical work such as Salanova (2007) on Brazilian Jê languages and Starosta, Pawley and Reid (1982) on Austronesian. Different languages show varying degrees of 'nominalism', the morphosyntactic resemblance between verb forms and noun phrases/nominalizations. Other languages show a less developed distinction between adpositions and verbs/nouns. These examples of gradience in syntactic categories are argued to be behind resemblances in word orderings. Language contact is responsible for preserving word order types, when languages undergo change in more than one word order (e.g. Greenberg 1969); and the difference in rates of word order change across constructions is argued to be behind hierarchies such as Hawkins (1983)'s Prepositional Noun Modifier Hierarchy. This explanation of word order universals contrasts with more mainstream accounts such as Hawkins (1994) in terms of processing efficiency, and Kirby and Christiansen (2003) in terms of learnability. While these explanations are perhaps compatible with the historical explanation, they are argued to be redundant; grammaticalization arguably is not driven or constrained by learnability and processing efficiency, with memetics, 'typological poise' (Enfield 2003) and language contact given as alternatives. Instead of reflecting functional biases, word order patterns are argued to reflect language history, both the history of language contact, and the history of syntactic categories developing through grammaticalization. / published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

Chinese characters are used by about one-fifth of the world population. Each character can generally be analyzed and represented at three orthographic levels including single stroke, component and whole character. Regardless of the number of strokes a Chinese character has, it always occupies a square area. Such special spatial layout leads to a great variation in stroke density, i.e., visual complexity, among Chinese characters. Here in this thesis, the effects of visual complexity on Chinese character recognition were examined to investigate the visual processing of Chinese characters in both central and peripheral vision. Empirical findings from four psychophysical studies will be reported. First, the efficiency of detecting and recognizing Chinese characters of different complexity levels was studied. Human recognition of a more complex Chinese character was found to be generally less efficient than that of a simpler one. The relationship between efficiency and complexity had a log-log slope of approximately -1, suggesting that the basic features for recognizing a single Chinese character might be less complex than the simplest object used, which is a single stroke. Analysis results of the detection and recognition efficiency were consistent with a two-stage processing model of Chinese character recognition—feature detection followed by feature integration. Results in peripheral vision suggested that the feature integration process was adversely influenced by internal crowding. Second, the spatial frequency characteristics of recognizing Chinese characters of different complexity levels were examined. The results showed that the peak tuning frequency for recognizing a more complex Chinese character was higher and the bandwidth of the spatial tuning functions was narrower than for recognizing a simpler character. In addition, the effects of size on such spatial frequency characteristics depended on the complexity level. The comparison of human performance against the corresponding performance of a CSF-limited ideal observer model implied that the processing mechanism of recognizing simple and complex characters was different. Moreover, similar results were observed among native Chinese and non-Chinese readers, suggesting that expertise might not influence front end processing properties such as the spatial frequency characteristics of Chinese character recognition. Third, the importance of utilizing spatial frequency information of different orientations (i.e., horizontal versus vertical) in Chinese character recognition was investigated. Results showed higher efficiency in utilizing vertical than horizontal stroke information for Chinese character recognition among native Chinese readers whereas non-Chinese readers used both vertical and horizontal stroke information similarly. Fourth, the effects of the target-flanker similarity in complexity on crowding in Chinese character recognition were examined. The results suggested that the behavior of feature integration process in peripheral vision might be consistent with summation theory, which stresses on the relationship between the processing capacity of neurons and the processing demand of stimuli. The “excessive feature integration explanation” of crowding was also discussed in the context of the current findings. Building on previous research in the literature, results from the four studies in this thesis were synthesized in a proposal of a visual information processing model for Chinese character recognition. / published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The word zenzen is an adverb that is used frequently in daily conversational Japanese. From the Meiji period (1868-1912) until the early Showa period (1924-1989) the word was used together with both affirmative and negative words to form expressions. In the early Showa period the grammatical rules in education changed so that the only acceptable use was together with a negative word. From the 1990’s onward, the use together with an affirmative word has made a comeback especially among younger Japanese people. However even though the usage together with an affirmative word has made a comeback and was considered normal once in history, in today’s society it is still considered as slang and thus not recommended usage in formal situations. Foreign language learners however, tend not to learn a language only by textbooks but also by imitating the language of native Japanese speakers and Japanese popular culture. This may lead to a confusion regarding what words are acceptable to use in conversations. Therefore in this study, an online survey that examines the usage and attitudes regarding the word zenzen aimed at Japanese language learners at Swedish universities was conducted. The results of the survey showed that although a majority of the learners showed a good understanding of the usage, more than half of the learners displayed a feeling of confusion regarding the usage of the word. The gender comparison regarding the usage showed no major differences. Having lived in Japan, having Japanese friends whom you speak Japanese with regularly and length of Japanese study was associated with an increased understanding of the usage. Regular consumption of Japanese popular culture, however, was not associated with an increased understanding of the usage. A literature analysis was also conducted to examine the attitudes regarding the usage of zenzen in a variety of books with topics including business language and books aimed at Japanese language teachers. The results showed that zenzen used together with a negative word was considered as the norm while zenzen used together with an affirmative word was not recommended to be used in formal situations. When recommending proper usage of the word zenzen together with an affirmative word to foreign learners of Japanese, hijou-ni and totemo was seen as better alternatives to zenzen in a formal situation.

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We studied the subjectivity of word maps on SU(n) and the length of the shortest elements in the central series of free group of rank 2 with some applications to almost laws in compact groups.

This work was conducted in an effort to better understand the role that activational mechanisms in memory play in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders. The affect of word stimuli characteristics, such as affective valence and semantic association with worry, on the association between inhibition and trait worry was investigated under different types of induced thought. Previous research has demonstrated that worry is associated with negative affect, and that worry may be semantically organized in memory. Based on these findings, it was hypothesized that words would be differentially inhibited in association with trait worry when worry was induced compared to neutral thought. Stimuli characteristics including the positive or negative affective valence of words, and their semantic association with common domains of worry were expected to moderate the relationship between inhibition and trait worry. In order to investigate these hypotheses, 86 undergraduate students from the University of Texas at Austin completed a series of memory tasks designed to measure inhibition for either negative or positive words, both associated and unassociated with worry. They underwent either idiopathic worry or neutral thought induction prior to completing each memory task, and completed questionnaires assessing trait worry and thought suppression. The findings provide partial support for the hypotheses. Higher levels of trait worry were associated with less inhibition of negative words, but more inhibition of positive words semantically associated with worry. Contrary to predictions, differential induction of worry did not affect the relationship between inhibition and trait worry. The research and clinical implications of these findings are discussed. / text

No description available.

Letter position plays an important role in lexical access. But are some positions more important than the others? Findings from numerous studies support the notion that in lexical access, initial letters produce strongest activation, which weakens towards the end of the word. In order to create a metric for computing the activation produced by each letter position in a correctly spelled word versus a word in which some or all letters are transposed, the formula for calculating a word's orthographic match coefficient (OMC) was developed and tested. Utilizing the masked priming paradigm and a lexical decision task, Experiments 1-5 test the accuracy and reliability of the OMC predictions, and look at neighborhood density in conjunction with different types of letter movement. Results from these experiments provide empirical support for the OMC as a reliable predictor of priming that involves transposed letters, and offer insight into possible mechanisms of word recognition.

Nous avons étudié les deux structures concessives en français moderne si p, q et même si p, q. Dans le premier chapitre, nous avons résumé certaines études antérieures sur divers sujets. La section sur la concession montre qu'il y a sous-entendue a une phrase telle que même si Jacques est la, je vais partir un rapport du genre si Jacques est Id, je ne vais pas partir; autrement dit, même si p, q implique si p,~ q (Moeschler & de Spengler, Martin, Ducrot). Par contre, une phrase telle que s'il est intelligent, il est brouillon se glose mieux par la paraphrase de Nguyen certes p, mais q: certes il est intelligent, mais il est brouillon. Dans la section sur la valeur de base des phrases en si p, q (concessives ou non concessives), on voit que si est le marqueur d'une supposition, et cette supposition sert comme cadre pour l'énonciation de q qui suit. La section sur même montre que ce mot est le marqueur d'une échelle argumentative (Ducrot), et qu'il est limite par le contexte et« ce à quoi on s'attendrait» (Lycan). Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous avons décrit notre corpus, et nous avons déterminé si les diverses structures proposées au chapitre précédent étaient présentes dans les exemples du corpus. La section sur si concessif montre que la paraphrase certes p, mais q peut toujours paraphraser les phrases concessives de la structure si p, q. Cependant, la structure si p,~ q est aussi présente, mais indirectement. Finalement, nous avons fait certaines observations sur le temps des verbes dans les deux propositions/? et q, et nous avons étudié les combinaisons présent/présent, imparfait/imparfait, passé composé/présent, et plus-que-parfait/imparfait. Les deux premières combinaisons montrent une opposition—par rapport aux si non concessifs— au niveau des temps verbaux, les deux dernières au niveau de l'aspect. La section sur les cas de même si révèle d'une part que toutes les phrases de cette structure possèdent la structure sous-entendue si p, ~ q, et d'autre part que certains exemples acceptent aussi la paraphrase de Nguyen. Ceci correspond à la distinction qu'Eriksson fait des phrases en même si portant sur des faits réels et non réels (virtuels).