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- P-ISSN1226-9654
- E-ISSN2733-466X
- KCI
ISSN : 1226-9654
Vol.23 No.3
Abstract
Previous studies on syllabic neighborhood effects had not considered the effects of morphological family size which could reduce inhibitory effects that take place as the size of syllabic neighborhood increases. The present study investigated whether the large morphological family size reduces the neighborhood size effect in phonological syllables or in orthographic syllables. Two lexical decision tasks were conducted to examine this issue. The result of Experiment 1 revealed that large morphological family size led to the decrease in inhibitory effects as the size of phonological syllable neighborhoods increased. However, in Experiment 2, while the morphological family size had no effect in the reduction of lexical decision latency, the lexical decision latency increased for large orthographic syllable neighborhoods. The implications of different morphological family size influence on phonological and orthographic neighborhood size effects are discussed in the present study.
Abstract
In this study, we develop Mindfulness for Pregnant Women (MPW) Program which aims to enhance psychological and physical well-being of pregnant women who are vulnerable to stress, anxiety and negative affect but limited to pharmacist treatment. We present the result of a pilot study of n=22 pregnant women participating in MPW for 10 weeks. We compare and analyse the difference between the experimental group of 22 pregnant women who participate in MPW and the control group of 22 pregnant women who does not participate in MPW. We work out the difference between the two groups by using such measures as SCL-90-R, BDI, STAI, PANAS and K-MAAS, prior to and immediately after 10-week MPW program training. The results are as follows. First, the experimental group shows its significant decreases in obsessive symptoms and depressive symptoms in SCL-90-R(Symptom Checklist-90-Revised), while the control group does not. Second, the experimental group shows its significant decreases in depression in BDI(Beck Depression Inventory), while the control group does not. Third, in STAI(State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) there is not any significant difference between the two groups with regard to state anxiety, but trait anxiety is significantly decreased among the experimental group, not among the control group. Fourth, the experimental group, in comparison to the control group shows its significant decreases in negative affects in PANAS(the Positive and. Negative Affect Scale). Fifth, the experimental group, in comparison to the control group shows its significant increases in attentive self-awareness in K-MAAS(Korean Mindful Attention Awareness Scale). In short, MPW program helps pregnant women to lessen depression, trait anxiety, obsessive symptoms and negative affection, but, on the other hand, to promote attentive self-awareness. MPW could be utilized as a useful tool to promote psychological well-being of pregnant women and their attentive awareness. In the end, we suggest the future research will focus on MPW's effects on birth outcomes, child development outcomes.
Abstract
This study examined benefits of voluntary task switching compared to non-voluntary task switching. Participants(N=33) performed number tasks, in which they decided whether a number is bigger than 5. In the condition of voluntary task switching, two numbers were always presented simultaneously in English and in Korean. The participants needed to choose just one number voluntarily. In the condition of non-voluntary task switching, the participants were required to react only to the cued number of the two presented numbers. We hypothesized that no asymmetric switch costs would be observed in the voluntary task switching, if the selection of random task sequences inhibits the interference from the previously performed task. In addition, we examined relationships between working memory capacities and switch costs. The results showed that no asymmetric switch costs for error rates were observed in the voluntary task switching, while asymmetric costs for error rates were found to be significant in the non-voluntary task switching. Additionally, the working memory capacities and switch costs were negatively correlated, which indicated the importance of inhibition of irrelevant information for effective multitasking. Implications of the outcomes for task switching are discussed.
Abstract
Prior exposure to a specific gender changes perception of subsequent gender in face perception (gender aftereffects). The current study investigated the nature of gender aftereffects from visual imagery. We found that the ambiguous faces were categorized as male more often after visualizing male faces than after visualizing female faces. Seemingly this result suggests that imagery adaptation has the opposite effects as compared to perceptual adaptation. However, when individual data was separately analyzed, each participant was categorized into four distinctive groups depending on the direction of aftereffects. Specifically, some participants showed imagery aftereffects just like perceptual aftereffects, whereas others showed the opposite trends. This result suggests that the effects of imagery adaptation can be different depending on individual's ability to visualize. Therefore, individual differences should be considered when measuring the effects of imagery adaptation.
Abstract
The dissociation of recognition and categorization is found in brain-damaged patients at learning-transfer phase experimental paradigm. We investigated whether time delay variable that has an effect on discrimination sensitivity among instances for performance can explain dissociation of recognition and categorization within the frame of single memory system. Knowlton & Squire(1993) considered dissociation of categorization and recognition in brain-damaged patients as a primary evidence for multiple-memory system. In our study we tried to find out the possibility that the dissociation could be shown due to time delay that can have discriminative effect on categorization and recognition individually. Especially, unlike previous studies that took different tests in the transfer phase of categorization and recognition, we presented the same tasks at the transfer phase and compared the performance results directly. We added reaction time as a dependent variable besides accurate response. Participants completed the categorization and recognition test phase either immediately or after 1 week and 2 weeks delay after learning phase by using dot pattern task. As a result, accurate response rate decreased and accurate response time was also slow due to time delay. There was no interaction effect between the task and the time delay both accurate response rate and time. In other words, time delay variable didn't have distinctive effect on categorization and recognition. However, when the results were analyzed separatedly for the two tasks, categorization performance was not affected whereas recognition performance was decreased due to the time delay. The implications of these results were discussed in the final section.
Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of motor simulation during understanding of action phrases on the actual motor execution using behavior response measures and electroencephalogram (EEG). Subjects were trained to produce one of two action responses depending on the color of a cue stimulus(yellow - pressing a button, blue-stepping on a pedal). In the main experiment, the stimuli directing each action response were embedded in the action phrases, “press a button” and “step on a pedal”, or in several meaningless symbols(e.g., &&& &&&), and participants were instructed to disregard the semantic meaning of the stimuli and instead to respond according to their color. Experimental conditions consisted of congruent, incongruent, and neutral conditions regarding the correspondence of the semantic meaning of the stimuli with the action response required by their color. The analysis of behavior responses showed a typical Stroop effect with facilitation for congruent trials and interference for incongruent trials in comparison to neutral trials. For analysis of EEG data, event-related potentials(ERPs) were computed for a time window of-100 to 800ms relative to the presentation time of the stimuli. The ERP results showed that the action phrase decreased positivity during the time window 150–250ms and increased negativity from 450–550ms. Interference between the congruent condition and the incongruent condition were observed in the time window of 450-550ms. Our results indicate that motor simulation during action understanding occurs very rapidly and automatically, and then evokes facilitation and interference later according to its correspondence to the following action execution. Therefore, our results support the Embodied Cognition theories which claim that language understanding is based on the simulation of sensory-motor information, and dynamically interacts with current sensory-motor behavior.
Abstract
This study investigated whether the differences of wholistic processors and analytic processors in information processing strategies had an effect on categorization performances and whether these differences could be overcame by rule instruction. In Experiment 1, the effects of perceptual cohesiveness in categorization performances of wholistic processors and analytic processors were analyzed in detail. Results showed that perceptual cohesiveness didn't make any influence in category judgements of analytic processors. However, wholistic processors categorized highly cohesive exemplars more quickly and accurately than low cohesive exemplars in positive transfer condition, but no differences in negative transfer condition. Experiment 2 inquired whether categorization performances of wholistic processors could be improved by rule instruction in low cohesive condition. It was found that rule instruction improved categorization performances in low cohesive condition, and wholistic processors could categorize exemplars by rule extraction. But, Wholistic processors categorized highly cohesive exemplars inaccurately and slowly in negative transfer condition, which implied that wholistic processors were strongly influenced by similarity conditions in spite of rule instruction. In conclusion, analytic processors tend to learn categories by rule extraction and wholistic processors by memorizing exemplars and comparing similarities between them, bu`t the difference could be diminished by learning strategies such as rule instruction.
Abstract
The present study examined how individual differences in fluid intelligence modulates the neural mechanism of cognitive control during reasoning. A four term verbal analogical reasoning task was used with a variation in the degree to which cognitive control was needed to overcome interference from semantic relationships between words. During trials entailing strong cognitive interference, there was a stronger need for cognitive control. In Experiment 1, subjects made more errors and took longer to solve analogies when there was a greater need for cognitive control. In Experiment 2, functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to investigate the relationship between individual differences in fluid intelligence and the neural mechanism of cognitive control. Individuals with a higher fluid intelligence engaged bilateral anterior cingulate cortex, visual cortex, medial frontal pole, right lateral prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia and the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain to a greater extent when the need for cognitive control increased. These results indicate that fluid intelligence modulates the activity of the lateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex and the visual cortex which are commonly activated across various studies of cognitive control and reasoning and that individuals with higher fluid intelligence showed elevated activity levels in these regions. On the other hand, the medial prefrontal cortex which is one of the commonly deactivated regions of the brain showed less deactivation in individuals with higher fluid inteligence. This finding supports previous studies proposing that the default mode activity of the brain may be sustained during task performance in individuals with a high capacity for information processing.