Evidence for early morphological decomposition: Combining masked priming with magnetoencephalography
TL;DR: Data regarding the transitional probability from stem to affix in a post hoc comparison is presented, which suggests that this factor may modulate early morphological decomposition, particularly for opaque words.
Abstract: Are words stored as morphologically structured representations? If so, when during word recognition are morphological pieces accessed? Recent masked priming studies support models that assume early decomposition of (potentially) morphologically complex words. The electrophysiological evidence, however, is inconsistent. We combined masked morphological priming with magneto-encephalography (MEG), a technique particularly adept at indexing processes involved in lexical access. The latency of an MEG component peaking, on average, 220 msec post-onset of the target in left occipito-temporal brain regions was found to be sensitive to the morphological prime-target relationship under masked priming conditions in a visual lexical decision task. Shorter latencies for related than unrelated conditions were observed both for semantically transparent (cleaner-CLEAN) and opaque (corner-CORN) prime-target pairs, but not for prime-target pairs with only an orthographic relationship (brothel-BROTH). These effects are likely to reflect a prelexical level of processing where form-based representations of stems and affixes are represented and are in contrast to models positing no morphological structure in lexical representations. Moreover, we present data regarding the transitional probability from stem to affix in a post hoc comparison, which suggests that this factor may modulate early morphological decomposition, particularly for opaque words. The timing of a robust MEG component sensitive to the morphological relatedness of prime-target pairs can be used to further understand the neural substrates and the time course of lexical processing.
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01 Jan 1985
TL;DR: This paper discusses one aspect of the lexicon, namely its morphological organization, and describes this kind of lexicon system as most suited for describing suffixing languages with a comparatively high degree of agglutination.
Abstract: 1. In trod u otion In this paper, I w ill discuss one aspect of the lexicon, namely its morphological organization. For about two years I have been working with Koakenniemi's twolevel model (Koakenniemi 1983)i on a Polish two-level description. In this work, I have become more and more Interested in the formalism it s e l f , something that has tended to push work on the language description into the background. It seems to be the case that in moat concrete two-level descriptions, the rule component is forced to carry too heavy a burden in comparison with the lexicon, perhaps because the lexicon is very simple as to its implementation. Like many other lexical systems in computer applications i t is implemented as a tree, with a root node and leaves, from which the lexical entries eire retrieved when the analysts routine has traversed the tree. The twolevel lexicon la a bit more sophisticated than th is , however, in that there la not only one, but several lexicon trees, the so called minilexicons. The user links the mlnilexicona into a whole, moat often into a root lexicon and a number of su ffix lexicons. In Hockett'a terminology, we could apeak of an Itern-and-Arrangement (lA) model (Hockett 1958, pp 386ff). Elsewhere I have characterized this kind of lexicon system as most suited for describing suffixing languages with a comparatively high degree of agglutination (Borin 1985f p 35); This is mainly due to the fact that the system works according to what Blåberg (1984, p 6 l) aptly has termed the "forget-where-you-came-from"
261 citations
TL;DR: The data support a model of word recognition in which decomposition is attempted, and possibly utilized, for complex words containing bound roots as well as free word-stems, and find evidence of decomposition for both free stems and bound roots at the M170 stage in processing.
Abstract: We employ a single-trial correlational MEG analysis technique to investigate early processing in the visual recognition of morphologically complex words. Three classes of affixed words were presented in a lexical decision task: free stems (e.g., taxable), bound roots (e.g., tolerable), and unique root words (e.g., vulnerable, the root of which does not appear elsewhere). Analysis was focused on brain responses within 100-200 msec poststimulus onset in the previously identified letter string and visual word-form areas. MEG data were analyzed using cortically constrained minimum-norm estimation. Correlations were computed between activity at functionally defined ROIs and continuous measures of the words' morphological properties. ROIs were identified across subjects on a reference brain and then morphed back onto each individual subject's brain (n = 9). We find evidence of decomposition for both free stems and bound roots at the M170 stage in processing. The M170 response is shown to be sensitive to morphological properties such as affix frequency and the conditional probability of encountering each word given its stem. These morphological properties are contrasted with orthographic form features (letter string frequency, transition probability from one string to the next), which exert effects on earlier stages in processing (â¼130 msec). We find that effects of decomposition at the M170 can, in fact, be attributed to morphological properties of complex words, rather than to purely orthographic and form-related properties. Our data support a model of word recognition in which decomposition is attempted, and possibly utilized, for complex words containing bound roots as well as free word-stems.
129 citations
TL;DR: The view that learning to appreciate morphological relationships may be a vital part of acquiring a direct mapping between printed words and their meanings, represented in the ventral brain pathway of the reading network is developed.
91 citations
TL;DR: This work uses MEG to provide evidence for the temporally-differentiated stages of the Full Decomposition model, and demonstrates an early effect of derivational family entropy, corresponding to the stem lookup stage, and a late effect of a novel statistical measure, semantic coherence, which quantifies the gradient semantic well-formedness of complex words.
68 citations
Cites background from "Evidence for early morphological de..."
...Taking advantage of the temporal resolution of MEG, here we separately examine both the hypothesized earlier derivational family entropy effect on lexical access for a stem, as well as the hypothesized later surface frequency effect on recombination of stem and affix....
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...Using MEG, Lehtonen, Monahan, and Poeppel (2011) found similar effects for regular derived words at a latency of !...
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References
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TL;DR: A strong modulation of the N400 and three earlier ERP components (P150, N250, and the P325) that the authors propose reflect sequential overlapping steps in the processing of printed words are shown.
Abstract: The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the time course of visual word recognition using a masked repetition priming paradigm. Participants monitored target words for occasional animal names, and ERPs were recorded to nonanimal critical items that were full repetitions, partial repetitions, or unrelated to the immediately preceding masked prime word. The results showed a strong modulation of the N400 and three earlier ERP components (P150, N250, and the P325) that we propose reflect sequential overlapping steps in the processing of printed words.
346 citations
"Evidence for early morphological de..." refers background in this paper
...The gradual pattern at the N250, a component that has earlier been associated with prelexical processing (Grainger & Holcomb, 2009; Holcomb & Grainger, 2006), was interpreted to reflect interactions between prelexical and semantic processing....
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326 citations
TL;DR: The authors showed that surface morphology alone alone can produce morphological priming effects in masked priming, while pure orthographic overlap produces marginal inhibition, and showed that only semantically transparent words facilitate the recognition of their base.
Abstract: Semantic transparency is a crucial factor in the processing of morphologically complex words, but seems to have a different impact depending on experimental conditions and languages. In English, semantic transparency is necessary to produce morphological priming in cross-modal priming, but not as clearly so in masked priming. The available reports of priming effects for opaque prime-target pairs are not as clear-cut as to rule out an explanation in terms of orthographic overlap. Experiment 1 was set out to clarify that issue in French. The novel notion of “pseudo-derivation” we introduce proved useful to show that surface morphology alone can produce priming effects in masked priming. In contrast, pure orthographic overlap produces marginal inhibition. Experiment 2 used auditory-visual cross-modal priming and showed that only semantically transparent words facilitate the recognition of their base.
306 citations
"Evidence for early morphological de..." refers background or methods or result in this paper
...Their data suggest that MEG is a promising method for probing the nature of early lexical access with masked priming and offers specific hypotheses concerning themaskedmorphological priming investigated in the present study: Following earlier behavioral studies on masked morphological priming (Rastle et al., 2004; Longtin et al., 2003), we predicted that this peak (∼225msec) would show earlier latencies for the related than unrelated condition when the prime–target relationship is semantically transparent as well as when it is opaque but not when the prime and the target are only orthographically related....
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...In contrast to Morris et al. (2007), Lavric et al. (2007) obtained results more consistent with the earlier behavioral masked priming effects found by Rastle et al. (2004) and Longtin et al. (2003)....
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...…priming investigated in the present study: Following earlier behavioral studies on masked morphological priming (Rastle et al., 2004; Longtin et al., 2003), we predicted that this peak (∼225msec) would show earlier latencies for the related than unrelated condition when the…...
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...Interestingly, such semantically opaque complex words prime their targetsʼ stems in masked priming (Rastle & Davis, 2008; Rastle et al., 2000, 2004; Longtin et al., 2003)....
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TL;DR: Orthographic (TL) priming and phonological (pseudohomophone)Priming were found to have distinct topographical distributions and different timing, with orthographic effects arising earlier than phonological effects.
Abstract: In a recent article, Ferrand and Grainger (1992) reported that briefly presented, forward-masked, nonword primes that share letters with a target word facilitate lexical decision performance at prime exposures of 33 msec, but no longer affect performance at 67-msec exposures. In the same experiment, nonword primes that were homophonic with targets did not affect performance relative to orthographic controls at 33-msec prime exposures, but produced facilitatory priming effects at prime exposures of 67 msec. In the present study, we extend these results, varying prime exposures from 17 msec to 100 msec. Orthographic facilitation was found with prime exposures from 17 msec to 50 msec, whereas phonological facilitation only started to emerge at exposures of 50 msec. The results demonstrate a distinct time course for the buildup of orthographic and phonological information during the processing of pronounceable strings of letters.
302 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that derived forms that are more frequent than their bases are significantly more likely to display symptoms of semantic drift than derived forms containing higher frequency bases, while low-frequency forms are no more prone to semantic drift.
Abstract: While it is widely assumed that high-frequency morphologically complex forms tend to display characteristics of noncompositionality, models of morphological processing do not predict a direct relationship between absolute frequency and decomposition. Rather, they predict a relationship between decomposition and the relative frequency of the derived form and the base. This paper argues that such a relative frequency effect does, indeed, exist. First, the results of a simple experiment demonstrate that subjects perceive derived forms that are more frequent than their bases to be significantly less complex than matched counterparts that are less frequent than their bases. And second, dictionary calculations reveal that derived forms that are more frequent than their bases are significantly more likely to display symptoms of semantic drift than derived forms containing higher-frequency bases. High-frequency forms, however, are no more prone to semantic drift than low-frequency forms. These results provide evidence that it is relative frequency, rather than absolute frequency, that affects the decomposability of morphologically complex words A low-frequency form is likely to be nontransparent if it is composed of even-lower-frequency parts. And a high-frequency form may be highly decomposable if the base word it contains is higher frequency still.
280 citations
"Evidence for early morphological de..." refers background or result in this paper
...The relative frequency between the complex word form and its stem has been suggested to affect the ease or difficulty of decomposition (Hay, 2001), and recent MEG studies by Lewis, Solomyak, and Marantz (2011) and Solomyak and Marantz (2010) found that the left hemisphere M170 component, which may…...
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...According to Hay (2001), words with relatively high frequent surface forms in relation to the frequency of their stems (i.e., high TP words) are generally less likely to show effects of decomposition than words with lower TP values (which are relatively low frequent forms in the family of their…...
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