We propose a neural circuit model of changes in amount of information maintained in short-term memory depending on stimuli relationships. The relationships between stimuli are represented by the synchronous firings of overlapping neuronal groups for semantically related stimuli and the excitatory mutual connections for semantically unrelated but simultaneously presented stimuli. We conduct comp...

Two experiments are reported that examine the influence of semantic contextual constraints on an individual's ability to use parafoveal visual information. Subjects were presented either a word (reptile) or a row of Xs in foveal vision along with a parafoveal nonword (snckks) centered 2.3 degrees or 5 degrees to the left or right of fixation. The subjects were asked to pronounce the parafoveal ...

This paper proposes a methodology to identify and classify the semantic relations holding among the possible different answers obtained for a certain query on DBpedia language specific chapters. The goal is to reconcile information provided by language specific DBpedia chapters to obtain a consistent results set. Starting from the identified semantic relations between two pieces of information,...

The present study aimed at determining whether the N400 effect (an ERP index of semantic processing) for spoken words occurs in comatose patients. The patients, treated in an intensive care unit, scored less than 8 points in the glasgow coma score at the time of the recording. Semantically related and unrelated spoken word pairs were delivered to patients through headphones at a rate of 1/3s. P...

It is well known that the occurrence of false memories increases with aging, but the results remain inconsistent concerning Alzheimer's disease (AD). Moreover, the mechanisms underlying the production of false memories are still unclear. Using an experimental episodic memory test with material based on the names of famous people in a procedure derived from the DRM paradigm [Roediger, H. L., III...

Numerous studies have reported subliminal repetition and semantic priming in the visual modality. We transferred this paradigm to the auditory modality. Prime awareness was manipulated by a reduction of sound intensity level. Uncategorized prime words (according to a post-test) were followed by semantically related, unrelated, or repeated target words (presented without intensity reduction) and...

In three experiments, the nature of the representations involved in written picture naming and the time course of their activation were investigated. French participants had to produce picture names while hearing distractors. In Experiment 1, distractors semantically related to the picture names yielded a semantic interference effect when a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of--150 msec, but not ...

Using a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm, both experiments of the present study investigated the link between the mental representations of iconic gestures and words. Two groups of the participants performed a primed lexical decision task where they had to discriminate between visually presented words and nonwords (e.g., flirp). Word targets (e.g., bird) were preceded by video clips depict...

Text cues facilitate the perception of spoken sentences to which they are semantically related (Zekveld, Rudner, et al., 2011). In this study, semantically related and unrelated cues preceding sentences evoked more activation in middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) than nonword cues, regardless of acoustic quality (speech in noise or speech in quiet). Larger verbal worki...