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Vol.32 No.4

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Abstract

Participants who ask for conducting lexical decisions tend to respond more slowly when the presented word have higher frequency syllabic neighbors rather than lower frequency syllabic neighbors. The inhibitory effect is called as the syllable frequency effect. The syllable frequency effect has played an important role in enhancing visual word recognition models. Although the position of the syllable frequency effect is very important in verifying the validity of visual word recognition model, amount of studies using Korean is very low as compared by other languages. The present article explained the role of syllable frequency effect in visual word recognition model and introduced Korean studies dealing with the syllable frequency effect. Moreover, the present paper explained some reasons of why the syllable frequency effect in Korean were not clear even though Korean has clear syllabic boundaries and grapheme to phoneme matching, and the several features of Korean word that the previous model could not account.

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Abstract

In this study, we examined the effects of spatial attention on visual word recognition. A valid cue was presented at the location where target stimuli would appear (valid trials) and an invalid cue was presented at the location where target stimuli would not appear (invalid trials). As an index of spatial attention, the cuing effect was calculated as the difference in the performance of word recognition between the valid trials and the invalid trials. We investigated whether the cuing effects appeared in visual word recognition tasks, such as naming and lexical decision tasks and whether the magnitude of the cuing effects varies depending on word frequency. As a result, the cuing effects were observed both in the naming and lexical decision tasks, and the magnitude of the effects was similar across the tasks. It indicates that spatial attention affects visual word recognition. The cuing effects were greater in the accuracy of low-frequency words than in those of high-frequency words. That is, the effects of spatial attention were more pronounced in low-frequency words. The results were discussed in terms of the word processing model.

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Abstract

The switch cost, which represents cognitive flexibility, is known to be caused by task-set reconfiguration and task-set inertia. This study aimed to specifically evaluate the contributions of these two cognitive processes to switch costs in cued and voluntary task switching paradigms by excluding additional cost induced from cue- and task-selection processes. For this purpose, we developed experimental tasks that required participants to respond both to the task cue and choice cue, and the task-set inertia and preparation times were manipulated based on the cue responses. Results showed that the switch cost in the voluntary task switching decreased as preparation times increased whereas it was unrelated with task-set inertia. Reversely, the switch cost in the cued task switching decreased when task-set inertia decreased but it was not associated with preparation times. This study suggests that different aspects of cognitive flexibility can be identified through the two task switching procedures.

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Abstract

It was investigated whether the effects due to facing types were related to the automatic perceptual process and whether emotion could be involved in it. We looked into what the kind of relationship was between facial emotion and types of facing in the object-feature comparison task performance. In experiment 1, the gender identification task, and in experiments 2 and 3, the emotion identification tasks were used for object-feature comparison. In experiments 1 and 2, responses were the fastest under the facing each other condition, and the slowest under the facing away condition, opposite to the hypothesis that the automatic grouping process slows down identifying the individual features. We conjectured that the distance difference created by two facing conditions, facing each other vs. facing away, might cause the performance difference. In experiment 3, the distance between the two faces was controlled, so that the analysis was made on the trial conditions with the same facial distance. It was obtained that the response time under the facing each other condition was slower than facing away condition. And there was no interaction significantly between emotion and facing types, but only the main effects of facing types and emotions were significant, separately. It is suggested that the explanation that the automatic grouping process due to confronted faces bind individuals into groups results in slowing down the identifying features process, and is independent of facial emotion.

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Abstract

The central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) contains a group of cells that produce a neuropeptide, corticotropin releasing factor (CRF). The literature suggests that CRF in the CeA has a negative effect on behavior, such as increased anxiety and fear. However recent studies reported a conflicting result showing a rewarding effect of CRF. To understand how CRF lead to different behavioral effects, CRF neurons in the CeA were genetically manipulated to express a light-activated cation channel, channelrhodopsin-2, using CRF-cre mice. When the animals were initially tested to press a lever for light delivery in an operant conditioning (OP) and to visit one of two compartment for light presentation in a real-time place preference task (RTPP), CRF activation did not alter animals’ behavior at all. Stimulation of CRF neurons also failed to change animals’ anxiety levels compared to their control group in an elevated plus maze (EPM). After experiencing a lever press for food rewards for 5 days, however, CRF activation in the same mice induced rewarding effects in both OP and RTPP. Using a different set of mice, it was also examined whether CRF activation after forming fear memory resulted in negative effects on behavior. Indeed, CRF activation did not produce any effects before fear conditioning, but the same manipulation significantly elevated anxiety levels in EPM and induced aversive effects in RTPP after fear conditioning. These results demonstrate that CRF neurons can exert either positive or negative impacts on behavior depending on prior experiences.

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Abstract

Studies have shown that stimulus representations interact in visual working memory (VWM). Using Gestalt grouping cues, we investigated how VWM representations of individual stimuli interact in grouping contexts. Two closely located colored circles (proximity) were connected or separated by a line (connectedness). These pairs were shown in memory and test arrays. Participants performed color change detection tasks in which they were asked not only to detect changes but also to locate the changed items. Color change was made to one (Experiment 1) or two (Experiment 2) item(s) in each test array. In Experiment 1, individual items grouped by both proximity and connectedness showed lower detection performance than those only by proximity. In Experiment 2, the colors of two stimuli changed in the same group (intragroup) or across different groups (intergroup). As in Experiment 1, the same grouping effect was observed in the intragroup-change condition. In addition, the change detections were better in the intragroup- than intergroup-change condition. This effect was reversed when data obtained from correctly detected (not necessarily located) trials were analyzed. Collectively, change detections of individual items differed depending on grouping strength, group membership status, and levels of data analysis, suggesting that items represented in VWM affect one another in a hierarchical structure.

The Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology