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While we have traditionally understood the hippocampus to be involved in memory and navigation, it also appears that it has a role in language processing, creation and prediction. An obvious explanation for this is that language is impossible if linguistic signs cannot be remembered and retrieved. Because linguistic signs are definitionally biologically neutral or arbitrary, we must use the brain's apparatus for learning and storing information from the external world to store and retrieve them. Although plausible, this explanation fails to take into account the hippocampus' role in navigation as a contributing element in the processing, storage and retrieval of linguistic signs. Because the hippocampus also represents non-physical spaces through the same basic cognitive mechanisms with which it represents physical space, it is possible that the semantic content of linguistic signs is encoded in a fundamentally similar way to how navigational information is encoded. If true, this could have implications for education in general, and second language acquisition specifically. These experiments test whether there might be a learning benefit to presenting information in consistent spatial locations by having participants learn word associations in a 3-dimensional virtual environment. The experiments found that this was not the case. These findings have implications for education. Some educational paradigms stress learning in relevant contexts. These results suggest that physical location may not be an important component of a learning environment.

In Chinese, a large percentage of the vocabulary consists of compound words where exemplars in the same taxonomic category often share the same head noun (Chen & Chen, 2006; Chow, McBride-Chang, Cheung, & Chow, 2008). This structural characteristic may facilitate an early understanding of the noun taxonomy. The current study aims to investigate taxonomic development in a group of Mandarin-English speaking children in the United States. A contrast association task (i.e., "A dog is not a ____") and a category association task (i.e., "A dog is a kind of ____") were used to elicit responses from different levels of the taxonomic hierarchy (e.g., coordinates, superordinates). Participants were 25 bilingual children aged 3 to 8 and 25 English monolingual age matches. It was predicted that the bilingual group would produce more task-specific taxonomic responses (i.e., coordinates in contrast association; superordinates in category association) than their monolingual counterparts. The results, however, were somewhat opposite to this prediction. Monolinguals were found to, in general, perform better in the category association tasks and the two groups performed similarly in the contrast association task. When English vocabulary size was taken into consideration, there was no statistically significant difference between the monolingual and bilingual children on the category association task. Factors which possibly explain such a difference between the two language groups in the two tasks, or the absence of a significant difference when vocabulary size was incorporated as a covariate are discussed. / text

The overall purpose of this study is to investigate lexical semantic representation in bilinguals who speak typologically different languages, specifically, Mandarin and English. Three questions are posed about semantic representation: 1) Do bilingual speakers demonstrate greater heterogeneity in semantic knowledge than monolingual speakers; 2) To what extent do bilingual speakers use paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations to organize their semantic knowledge; and 3) What is the cross- linguistic overlap in bilingual speakers' semantic representation. Thirty Mandarin- English bilingual adults and 30 monolingual English-speaking adults participated in a repeated word association task and generated three associations to each of 36 stimuli. The bilingual speakers completed the same task in their two languages on two different days whereas the monolingual speakers responded to the same 36 stimuli on two different days. Results indicated that 1) the bilingual speakers produced a more heterogeneous set of responses in English than monolingual speakers; heterogeneity was greater in English than Mandarin among the bilingual speakers; 2) the bilingual speakers produced more paradigmatic associations (e.g., happy-sad, spoon-chopsticks, catch-throw) and fewer syntagmatic associations (e.g., happy-smile, spoon-eat, catch-ball) than the monolingual speakers; and 3) approximately 48% of the bilingual speakers' responses were cross- linguistic synonyms, whereas approximately 76% of the monolingual speakers' responses were identical from session 1 to session 2. These findings suggest that late bilinguals (second language learners) use categorical relations to organize their semantic knowledge to a greater extent than monolingual speakers and that reduced experience with a second language can lead to greater heterogeneity in semantic knowledge in that language. The findings also suggest that bilingual speakers have more distributed semantic representations than monolingual speakers. Additional research is needed to explore the areas of heterogeneity, categorical organization, and cross-linguistic overlap in order to further our understanding of bilingual speakers' semantic knowledge representation. / text

Dissertation (Ed.D.)--Boston University, 1970. / The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not semantic flexibility as a language characteristic of teachers in training could be used as a predictor of the teacher's ability to receive and transmit information. The Guilford Word Association Test, designed by J. P. Guilford to measure convergent and divergent thinking, was selected as the instrument for measuring semantic flexibility and was administered to 201 students enrolled in the block methods course at Boston University. The students were all juniors, scheduled to student teach the following semester. The Guilford Word Association Test was also administered to 154 sixth grade children enrolled in the Boston Public Schools in the South End and Roxbury and to 182 sixth grade children enrolled in the Newton Public Schools. The two groups of children were designated as the urban and suburban samples, respectively. From the populations tested four high Guilford teachers and four low Guilford teachers were selected. From each of the urban and suburban classes four high Guilford and four low Guilford children were selected. Each teacher had eight pupils assigned to her and for the purposes of data analysis, the children were categorized first as high and low Guilford scorers and then as urban or suburban children. In total there were eight teachers and sixty-four children in this experiment. [truncated]

Terrorism and conflict is ongoing, and in today’s world it appears to be increasing, however, numerous people have blamed the swell in violence on specific sources. In regards to September 11 and similar terrorist incidents, for example, it is quite easy for the media, as well as other sources, to place responsibility in the hands of a specific group or religion. In this case, Islam, Arabs or the Middle East region seems to be connected to these violent incidents. The reality of the situation may place responsibility in some sources within this region, however, an overgeneralization in regards to a diverse religion and culture may be occurring due to “overall, ideological judgments” by various entities including the news media. According to numerous perspectives, it has become possible for a few carefully chosen words within the media to trigger racially-driven prejudices and actions by agencies, institutions, and the public. Our language seems to be powerful enough to let a single phrase spin a news story into a national warning against a certain group. In other words, the power of association, in particular here between words and perceptions, allows the public to believe in their mind something that may or may not be true. In this case, various studies have shown the tendency for the public to associate Arabs with violence, particularly terrorism. The combination of negative media framing and common ethnic schemas of Arabs and Muslims have resulted in a long history of socialization and activation in the American and perhaps, wider culture. Therefore, this study will mainly focus on an assumed semantic implication of word associations in the media based on shared ideological and socially shared knowledge, rather than measure any explicit statements of racial and ethnic schemas. / Master of Arts

On the basis of the MMPI R Factor Scale, 16 subjects were classified as high repressed and 14 as low repressed. Subjects were compared on patterns of bilateral differences in skin conductance as a function of three cognitive tasks intended to produce specific manipulations in the relative activation of the two cerebral hemispheres. Tasks 1 and 2 examined the effects of Verbal (left hemisphere) and Spatial (right hemisphere) tasks on amplitudes of electrodermal responses. Task 3 examined the effects of the presentation of double-entendre and asexual stimulus words (designed to produce an emotional stimulus) on the high and low repressed groups. Results showed no tasks were accompanied by significant bilateral differences in electrodermal activity although high repressed subjects showed a consistent tendency toward greater amplitudes in both hands to the sexual portion of the word task. These findings are in direct contradiction to research suggesting that hemisphere activation is task dependent, but support the theoretical postulation of ''hemisphericity" (the individual preference for the use of one hemisphere or the other). Subsequent to the tasks, each subject completed a Sexual Activity Questionnaire to determine categories of orgasmic or non-orgasmic. These data proved to be highly related to the personality variables of high and low repression. All subjects self-reported to be orgasmic (n = 3) scored in the low repressed group. Of 16 subjects self-reported to be non-orgasmic, 11 (69%) scored in the high repressed group. These findings argue strongly that sexual conflicts in high repressors leads to psychosomatic sexual dysfunctions as postulated by traditional psychoanalytic theory. Present findings were discussed in terms of the relationships between personality, repression, and sexual conflict and how these .variables influence electrodermal functioning. Implications for future research and theoretical complexities in the interpretation of the present results suggesting support for the "hemisphericity" postulation were also discussed.

There are different types of psycholinguistic approaches which attempt to examine the quality and the organization of the human mental lexicon; the word association experiment is one of them. The word association experiment can be used to probe the development of human vocabulary. The current investigation was carried out in order to trace the influence of the cultural background and L2 knowledge on the mental lexicon of the undergraduate Pakistani L2 learners of English. It was hypothesized that the individual‟s culture and knowledge of L2 bear direct relation with their mental lexicon. Influenced by the culture, they may connect different words with attitudinal bonds, whereas L2 knowledge is accountable for the growth of vocabulary. The motivation stems from the fact that none of the previous studies has targeted Pakistani L2 learners for the word association test in order to investigate their mental lexicon. The data was gathered through a word association test. The results supported the hypothesis. A considerable amount of attitudinal responses emerged in their responses, and the number of paradigmatic responses found in the data was the highest of all. Therefore, it was concluded that Pakistani L2 learners‟ vocabulary was considerably influenced by their cultural milieu due to the presence of attitudinal responses to the stimulus words, and their vocabulary is patterning toward native-like since the number of paradigmatic relations with the stimulus words was the highest of other types of relations. The findings carry important implications for didactics.

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo realizar estudos para entender a percepção de consumidores em relação a salsichas com diferentes atributos de saudabilidade. Foram conduzidos três estudos e diferentes metodologias foram empregadas para explorar a atitude do consumidor. No primeiro estudo, a percepção dos consumidores foi avaliada através das técnicas de associação de palavras, aceitação de cada conceito (salsicha tradicional, com antioxidantes naturais, com redução de sódio, com redução de gordura, fonte de fibra alimentar e com ômega 3), grau de familiaridade com cada atributo de saudabilidade e resposta emocional. Para a salsicha tradicional, as categorias mais relevantes para os consumidores foram: modo de consumo, sabor agradável, não saudável, aparência (cor), gordura/caloria e pressão alta, já o grupo formado pelas salsichas com ômega 3, antioxidantes naturais, com redução de gordura e com redução de sódio se caracterizou principalmente pela percepção de saudabilidade. Para o segundo estudo, a relação entre a preocupação de consumidores com sua saúde e sua percepção sobre salsichas com adição de ingredientes funcionais (fibra alimentar e ômega 3) foi avaliada através do teste de completamento e da técnica de lista de compras. Não foram encontradas diferenças significativas entre os clusters (consciência em relação à saúde) para as razões apontadas pelos consumidores que incentivam (sabor agradável, praticidade, preço acessível e modo de consumo) e limitam (prejudicial à saúde, não saudável, ricas em sódio e gordura e artificial) a compra de salsichas. Os resultados do segundo estudo, ainda demonstraram que a adição de fibra alimentar e ômega 3 em salsicha gerou associações predominantemente positivas independente do nível de consciência em relação à saúde dos consumidores. Em relação ao terceiro estudo, na aplicação da técnica sorting task, termos como falta de conhecimento, natural, problemas de sabor e não atrativo caracterizaram o grupo formado pelas salsichas sem adição de fosfato e nitrito. Já as salsichas com antioxidantes naturais, fonte de fibra alimentar e com ômega 3 foram associadas a melhor qualidade nutricional e impacto positivo na saúde/organismo. Neste mesmo estudo, a técnica hard laddering revelou que os principais motivos que justificam as escolhas das salsichas com redução de sódio, com redução de gordura, com ômega 3, com antioxidantes naturais e fibra alimentar são preocupação com a saúde e vida longa. Os resultados obtidos nos três estudos demonstraram que os consumidores apresentam percepções distintas em relação aos diferentes tipos de salsicha (conceitos) avaliados, sugerindo que a indústria da carne deve considerar as particularidades identificadas ao desenvolver salsichas mais saudáveis e anunciar seus atributos. / The present paper aimed to perform studies to understand the consumers\' perception regarding frankfurter sausages with different healthiness attributes. Three studies were carried out and different methods were applied to explore the consumer\'s attitude. In the first study the consumers\' perception was evaluated through the technique of word association, acceptance of each concept (traditional frankfurter, with natural antioxidants, with reduced sodium, with reduced fat, as a source of dietary fibre, and with omega 3), level of familiarity with each attribute and emotional response. For the traditional frankfurter the most relevant categories for the consumers were: consumption mode, good flavour, unhealthy, appearance (colour), fat/calorie and high blood pressure, whereas the group formed by the frankfurters with omega 3, natural antioxidants, with reduced fat and reduced sodium was characterized especially by healthiness perception. For the second study the connection between the concern of consumer\'s with their health and their perception on frankfurters with the addition of functional ingredients (dietary fibre and omega 3) was evaluated through a completion test and the shopping list technique. No significant differences were found between the clusters (concern with health) for the reasons pointed out by the consumers that encourage (good flavour, convenience, price/cheap, and consumption mode) and restrict (harmful to health, unhealthy, rich in sodium and fat, and artificial) purchasing frankfurters. The results of the second study also demonstrated that adding dietary fibre and omega 3 in frankfurters provided predominantly positive associations regardless of consumers\' concerns with health. Regarding the third study, lack of knowledge, natural, flavour defects and not appealing characterized the group formed by frankfurters with no phosphate added and no nitrite added through the sorting task technique. The frankfurters with natural antioxidant, as a source of dietary fibre and with omega 3 were associated to a better nutritional quality and positive impact on health/organism. The hard laddering technique revealed that the main reasons that justify the choices for the frankfurters with reduced sodium, reduced fat, with omega 3, with natural antioxidants and dietary fibre are concerns with health and longevity. The results obtained through the three studies showed that the consumers present distinctive perceptions concerning different types of evaluated frankfurters (concepts), suggesting that the meat industry should consider the particularities identified to develop healthier sausages and advertise their attributes.