Papers by Gabriella Vigliocco
Cognitive Science
The contents and structure of semantic memory have been the focus of much recent research, with m... more The contents and structure of semantic memory have been the focus of much recent research, with major advances in the development of distributional models, which use word co-occurrence information as a window into the semantics of language. In parallel, connectionist modeling has extended our knowledge of the processes engaged in semantic activation. However, these two lines of investigation have rarely been brought together. Here, we describe a processing model based on distributional semantics in which activation spreads throughout a semantic network, as dictated by the patterns of semantic similarity between words. We show that the activation profile of the network, measured at various time points, can successfully account for response times in lexical and semantic decision tasks, as well as for subjective concreteness and imageability ratings. We also show that the dynamics of the network is predictive of performance in relational semantic tasks, such as similarity/relatedness rating. Our results indicate that bringing together distributional semantic networks and spreading of activation provides a good fit to both automatic lexical processing (as indexed by lexical and semantic decisions) as well as more deliberate processing (as indexed by ratings), above and beyond what has been reported for previous models that take into account only similarity resulting from network structure.
Topics in cognitive science, Jul 1, 2018
The paper describes two plausible hypotheses concerning the learning of abstract words and concep... more The paper describes two plausible hypotheses concerning the learning of abstract words and concepts. According to a first hypothesis, children would learn abstract words by extracting co-occurrences among words in linguistic input, using, for example, mechanisms as described by models of Distributional Semantics. According to a second hypothesis, children would exploit the fact that abstract words tend to have more emotional associations than concrete words to infer that they refer to internal/mental states. Each hypothesis makes specific predictions with regards to when and which abstract words are more likely to be learned; also they make different predictions concerning the impact of developmental disorders. We start by providing a review of work characterizing how abstract words and concepts are learned in development, especially between the ages of 6 and 12. Second, we review some work from our group that tests the two hypotheses above. This work investigates typically developi...
Developmental science, Mar 21, 2017
There is considerable lack of evidence concerning the linguistic and cognitive skills underpinnin... more There is considerable lack of evidence concerning the linguistic and cognitive skills underpinning abstract vocabulary acquisition. The present study considers the role of emotional valence in providing an embodied learning experience in which to anchor abstract meanings. First, analyses of adult ratings of age-of-acquisition, concreteness and valence demonstrate that abstract words acquired early tend to be emotionally valenced. Second, auditory Lexical Decision accuracies of children aged 6-7, 8-9, and 10-11 years (n = 20 per group) complement these analyses, demonstrating that emotional valence facilitates processing of abstract words, but not concrete. These findings provide the first evidence that young, school-aged children are sensitive to emotional valence and that this facilitates acquisition of abstract words.
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS, May 1, 2017
A wealth of studies provide evidence for action simulation during language comprehension. Recent ... more A wealth of studies provide evidence for action simulation during language comprehension. Recent research suggests such action simulations might be sensitive to fine-grained information, such as speed. Here, we present a crucial test for action simulation of speed in language by assessing speed comprehension in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Based on the patients' motor deficits, we hypothesized that the speed of motion described in language would modulate their performance in semantic tasks. Specifically, they would have more difficulty processing language about relatively fast speed than language about slow speed. We conducted a semantic similarity judgment task on fast and slow action verbs in patients with PD and age-matched healthy controls. Participants had to decide which of two verbs most closely matched a target word. Compared to controls, PD patients were slower making judgments about fast action verbs, but not for judgments about slow action verbs, sugges...
Developmental science, Mar 12, 2017
Most research on the mechanisms underlying referential mapping has assumed that learning occurs i... more Most research on the mechanisms underlying referential mapping has assumed that learning occurs in ostensive contexts, where label and referent co-occur, and that form and meaning are linked by arbitrary convention alone. In the present study, we focus on iconicity in language, that is, resemblance relationships between form and meaning, and on non-ostensive contexts, where label and referent do not co-occur. We approach the question of language learning from the perspective of the language input. Specifically, we look at child-directed language (CDL) in British Sign Language (BSL), a language rich in iconicity due to the affordances of the visual modality. We ask whether child-directed signing exploits iconicity in the language by highlighting the similarity mapping between form and referent. We find that CDL modifications occur more often with iconic signs than with non-iconic signs. Crucially, for iconic signs, modifications are more frequent in non-ostensive contexts than in ost...
Brain and Language, 2017
Grounded cognition accounts of semantic representation posit that brain regions traditionally lin... more Grounded cognition accounts of semantic representation posit that brain regions traditionally linked to perception and action play a role in grounding the semantic content of words and sentences.
Cognitive Science, 2016
Previous studies show that reading sentences about actions leads to specific motor activity assoc... more Previous studies show that reading sentences about actions leads to specific motor activity associated with actually performing those actions. We investigate how sign language input may modulate motor activation, using British Sign Language (BSL) sentences, some of which explicitly encode direction of motion, vs. written English, where motion is only implied. We find no evidence of action simulation in BSL comprehension (Experiments 1-3), but find effects of action simulation in comprehension of written English sentences by deaf native BSL signers (Experiment 4). These results provide constraints on the nature of mental simulations involved in comprehending action sentences referring to transfer events, suggesting that the richer contextual information provided by BSL sentences vs.
Brain Lang 105 175 184, Jun 1, 2008
The double dissociation between noun and verb processing, well documented in the neuropsychologic... more The double dissociation between noun and verb processing, well documented in the neuropsychological literature, has not been supported in imaging studies. Recent imaging studies, in fact, suggest that once confounding with semantics is eliminated, grammatical class effects only emerge as a consequence of building frames. Here we assess this hypothesis behaviorally in two visual word recognition experiments. In Experiment 1, participants made lexical decisions on verb targets. We manipulated the grammatical class of the prime words (either nouns or verbs and always introduced in a minimal phrasal context, i.e., ''the + N'' or ''to + V''), and their semantic similarity to a target (related vs. unrelated). We found reliable effects of grammatical class, and no interaction with semantic similarity. Experiment 2 further explored this grammatical class effect, using verb targets preceded by semantically unrelated verb vs. noun primes. In one condition, prime words were presented as bare words; in the other, they were presented in the minimal phrasal context used in Experiment 1. Grammatical class effects only arose in the latter but not in the former condition thus providing evidence that word recognition does not recruit grammatical class information unless it is provided to the system.
Previous studies show that reading sentences about actions leads to specific motor activity assoc... more Previous studies show that reading sentences about actions leads to specific motor activity associated with actually performing those actions. We investigate how sign language input may modulate motor activation, using British Sign Language (BSL) materials, some of which explicitly encode direction of motion, vs. written English, where motion is only implied. We find no evidence of action simulation in BSL comprehension, but replicate effects of action simulation in comprehension of written English. The results suggest that the perception of motor articulation in the language input interferes with mental simulation that involves the motor system.
Current Biology 18 R732 R733, 2008
Cognition 94 B91 B100, 2005
Trends Cogn Sci 8 5 7, 2004
B Psychonomic Soc 29 494 494, Nov 1, 1991
Japanese Language Education Around the Globe 17 53 78, 2007
The relation between word form and meaning is considered arbitrary; however, Japanese mimetic wor... more The relation between word form and meaning is considered arbitrary; however, Japanese mimetic words, giseigo and gitaigo, are exceptions. For giseigo words mimicking voices , there is a direct resemblance iconicity between the sound of the word and the sound it refers to; for gitaigo words that mimic manners/states there is a symbolic relationship sound symbolism between the sound and the manner/state to which the word refers. While native speakers intuitively recognize these relationships, it is questionable whether speakers of other languages are able to access the meaning of Japanese mimetic words from their sounds. In the current study, we asked native English speakers with no prior experience with the Japanese language to listen to Japanese mimetic words for laughing giseigo and for walking gitaigo , and rate each word s meaning on semantic differential scales e.g. GRACEFUL-VULGAR laughing , GRACEFUL-CLUMSY walking . We compared English and Japanese speakers ratings and found that English speakers construed many of the features of laughing in a similar manner as Japanese native speakers e.g., words containing /a/ were rated as more amused, cheerful, nice and pleasant laughs . They differed only with regard to a few sound-meaning relationships of an evaluative nature e.g., words for laughing containing /u/ were rated as more feminine and graceful, and those containing /e/ were rated as less graceful and unpleasant . In contrast, for the words referring to walking, English speakers ratings differed greatly from native Japanese speakers . Native Japanese speakers rated words beginning with voiced consonants as referring to a big person walking with big strides, and words beginning with voiceless consonants as more even-paced, feminine and formal walking; English speakers were sensitive only to the relation between voiced consonants and a big person walking. Hence, some sound-meaning associations were language-specific. This study also confirmed the more conventional and lexicalized nature of the mimetic words of manner.
Two experiments assessed whether grammatical gender of Italian nouns referring to animals and too... more Two experiments assessed whether grammatical gender of Italian nouns referring to animals and tools affects conceptual representations of the corresponding objects, comparing results from Italian and English. In the first experiment, we elicited semantic substitution errors (e.g., saying "hammer" when "axe" is intended), finding language-specific gender effects (more errors in Italian than English for words sharing gender) for words referring to animals but not for words referring to tools. In the second experiment, words sharing gender were judged as more similar in meaning by Italian speakers than English speakers, again only for animals and not for tools. Moreover, no such gender effect was observed for pictures of the same animals.
In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2007
... different spoken or written texts2 In previous literature, it has been repeatedly demon-strat... more ... different spoken or written texts2 In previous literature, it has been repeatedly demon-strated that semantic representations can be learned from either attributional data alone, eg McRae, Sa, and Seidenberg (1997); Vigliocco, Vinson, Lewis, and Garrett (2004); McClelland and ...
In Proceedings of the 27th Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2005
In recent studies of semantic representation, two distinct sources of information from which we c... more In recent studies of semantic representation, two distinct sources of information from which we can learn word meanings have been described. We refer to these as attributional and distributional information sources. Attributional information describes the attributes or features associated with referents of words, and is acquired from our interactions with the world. Distributional information describes the distribution of words across different linguistic contexts, and is acquired through our use of language. While previous work has concentrated on the role of one source, to the exclusion of the other, in this paper we study the role of both sources in combination. We describe a general framework based on probabilistic generative models for modelling both sources of information, and how they can be integrated to learn semantic representation. We provide examples comparing the learned structures of each of three models: attributional information alone, distributional information alone, and both sources combined.
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Papers by Gabriella Vigliocco