This priming study investigates the role of conceptual structure during language production, probing how English speakers encode information about motion events. Participants read prime sentences aloud before describing dynamic motion events. Primes differed in 1) syntactic frame, 2) distribution of manner and path elements within frames, and 3) degree of conceptual overlap with target events. ...

We examined whether input modality and individual differences in attention motivation influence second language (L2) learning via syntactic priming. In an online study, we compared the primed production of English passives by 235 L2 native speakers reading-to-writing versus listening-to-writing conditions. measured immediate priming (producing immediately after exposure to passives) short- long...

The present study investigated cross-language influences in the processing of binomial expressions ( knife and fork ), from a first language (L1) to second (L2) L2 L1. Two groups unbalanced bilinguals (Chinese/L1-English/L2 English/L1-Chinese/L2) control group English monolinguals performed visual lexical decision task that incorporated unmasked priming. To assess influences, we used three type...

Unconventional discourse is a noteworthy feature in schizophrenia. Semantic priming methodology underlies the influential theory that abnormalities accessing semantic representations — through spreading activation within a network — are the core mechanism for subsequent problems forming meaningful and coherent speech (Goldberg and Weinberger, 2000). These tasks demonstrate faster responses to w...

The semantic priming task is a valuable tool in the investigation of semantic memory impairments in patients with acquired disorders of language. This is because priming performance reflects automatic or implicit access to semantic information, unlike most other tests of semantic knowledge, which rely on explicit, voluntary access. Priming results are important for two main reasons: First, norm...

There are conflicting views in the literature as to the role of listener-adaptive processes in language production in general and articulatory reduction in particular. We present two novel pieces of corpus evidence that corroborate the hypothesis that non-lexical variation of durations is related to the speed of retrieval of stored motor code chunks and durational reduction is the result of fac...

In recent years, functional neuroimaging and cortical stimulation methods have been used to explore neural organization of the bilingual brain, and one of the areas that has received considerable attention is the bilingual conceptual system. While some studies have provided evidence for distinct, non-overlapping representations between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) (e.g.,...

Repetition priming has been successfully employed to examine stages of processing in a wide variety of cognitive domains including language, object recognition and memory. This study uses a novel repetition priming paradigm in the context of a categorization task to explore early stages in the processing of American Sign Language signs and self-grooming gestures. Specifically, we investigated t...