Lexico-semantic Activation of Translation Equivalents During the Attentional Blink.

The attentional blink (AB) refers to the impaired identification of the second target (T2) when presented within approximately 500ms after the first target (T1). Although the AB is eliminated when two targets can be integrated into a single compound word, it remains unclear whether the lexico-semantic organization of translation equivalents modulates the magnitude of the AB. In the present study, we examined consecutive targets' processing in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm using Chinese-English translation equivalents and non-translation equivalents. The results demonstrated that an overall presence of the AB effect was observed when T1 and T2 were non-translation equivalents. However, the AB effect disappeared completely when the two target words were translation equivalents. Taken together, these findings suggest that Chinese-English bilinguals are translating intentionally between Mandarin and English, which facilitates lexical access to word meaning from the two languages at the initial stages of visual word processing. Furthermore, such lexico-semantic activation of translation equivalents attributes to the elimination of the AB.

[Clinical observational study on the treatment of oligozoospermia with Shizi Sanhua decoction combined with Nuoyu].

OBJECTIVE: To study the clinical therapeutic effect as well as drug effectiveness and safety of Shizi Sanhua decoction combined with Nuoyu in the treatment of oligozoospermia in men. METHODS: 102 patients with oligozoospermia diagnosed at Longhua Hospital of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine from February 2022 to March 2023 were selected and randomly divided into 3 groups. The treatment group was treated with Shizi Sanhua Decoction + Nuoyu; the traditional Chinese medicine group was treated with Shizi Sanhua Decoction; and the Nuoyu nutrient group was treated with Nuoyu nutrient. A review assessment and record were made after one course of treatment (3 months). RESULTS: A total of 102 patients completed the trial due to the treatment process. There were 34 cases in each of the traditional Chinese medicine group, the Nuoyu nutrient group, and the treatment group. Clinical efficacy: total effective rate of 52.94% in the traditional Chinese medicine group; 58.82% in the Nuoyu nutrient group; 82.35% in the treatment group. The clinical efficacy of the treatment group was better than that of the traditional Chinese medicine group and the Nuoyu nutrient group (P<0.05), which was statistically significant. Semen routine: the treatment group was better than the traditional Chinese medicine group and Nuoyu nutrient group in improving the total number of sperm and sperm concentration. CONCLUSION: The semen concentration and forward sperm count of patients with oligozoospermia treated with Shizi Sanhua Decoction combined with Nuoyu improved more significantly, and the clinical efficacy was remarkable. And the clinical efficacy is not affected by age and disease duration. It can be popularized and applied as a treatment for oligozoospermia.

An ERP investigation of morpheme transposition in rapid serial visual presentation.

The present study investigated the electrophysiological correlates of morpheme transposition in two-character Chinese compound words (canonical words and transposed words) and pseudowords at a very short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 83 ms, employing a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Event-related potential (ERP) results showed that, relative to pseudowords, canonical words elicited increased positivity or decreased negativity in ERP amplitudes beginning with the 200-300 ms (P200) and continuing through the 300-450 ms (N400) into the late time window of 450-600 ms (late positive component, LPC). Critically, the morpheme transposition effects were found on the N400 component and LPC, with larger N400 and smaller LPC amplitudes in the transposed words than in the canonical words. Taken together, these results demonstrated that morpheme transposition hindered the semantic extraction and combinatorial processing of the whole word entities in very rapid succession, as reflected by the modulations of N400 and LPC.

Electrophysiological correlates of masked orthographic and phonological priming in Chinese-English bilinguals.

Extensive behavioral and electrophysiological evidence has demonstrated that native translations are automatically activated when bilinguals read non-native words. The present study investigated the impact of cross-language orthography and phonology on Chinese-English bilingual lexicons with a masked priming paradigm. The masked primes and targets were either translation equivalents (TE), orthographically related through translation (OR), phonologically related through translation (PR), or unrelated control (UC). Participants retained the targets in memory and decided whether the delayed catch words matched the targets. ERP data showed significant masked translation priming effects, as reflected by decreased ERP amplitudes in the TE condition in the 300-600 ms time window from frontal to parietal electrode clusters. Importantly, compared with the UC condition, the PR rather than OR condition elicited less negative ERP waveforms in the 300-500 ms time window with a frontal distribution. Taken together, these temporal and spatial dynamics suggested an automatic cross-language co-activation at the phonological and semantic levels for different-script bilinguals.

Electrophysiological Correlates of Character Transposition in the Left and Right Visual Fields.

This study examined the brain activity elicited by the hemispheric asymmetries and morpheme transposition of two-character Chinese words (canonical and transposed word) and pseudowords using event-related potentials (ERPs) with a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Electrophysiological results showed facilitation effects for canonical words with centrally presented visual field (CVF) and right visual field (RVF) presentations but not with left visual field (LVF) presentations, as reflected by less negative N400 amplitudes. Moreover, more positive late positive component (LPC) amplitudes were observed for both canonical words and transposed words irrespective of the visual fields. More importantly, transposed words elicited a more negative N400 amplitude and a less positive LPC amplitude compared with the amplitudes elicited by canonical words for CVF and RVF presentations. For LVF presentations, transposed words elicited a less negative N250 amplitude compared with canonical words, and there was no significant difference between canonical words and transposed words in the N400 effect. Taken together, we concluded that character transposition facilitated the mapping of whole-word orthographic representation to semantic information in the LVF, as reflected by the N250 component, and such morpheme transposition influenced whole-word semantic processing in CVF and RVF presentations, as reflected by N400 and LPC components.

Morpheme Transposition of Two-Character Chinese Words in Vertical Visual Fields.

The present study explored the morpheme transposition process of two-character Chinese words in the upper and lower visual fields by adopting a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation paradigm. The results showed that the identification accuracy of canonical words was better in the lower visual field, whereas the accuracy of transposed words was almost identical in the upper and lower visual fields. Furthermore, there was no significant difference between canonical and transposed words at 0°, 2°, 4°, and 6° eccentricities in the upper visual field. However, the accuracy of canonical words was markedly higher than that of transposed words at 2°, 4°, and 6° eccentricities in the lower visual field. Finally, the character order errors mainly occurred at 0°eccentricity with a duration of 100 ms in vertical visual fields. These findings, taken together, indicated that the character transposition affected the lexical process of two-character Chinese words in the lower visual field but not in the upper visual field, and the character order of words was more likely to be reversed at 0° eccentricity and the initial stage of visual word processing in vertical reading.

Resilience and Cognitive Bias in Chinese Male Medical Freshmen.

BACKGROUND: Psychological resilience has become a hot issue in positive psychology research. However, little is known about cognitive bias difference of individuals with different resilience levels. This study aimed to explore the characteristics of cognitive bias and its role in Chinese medical freshmen with different resilience levels. METHODS: 312 Chinese medical freshmen were surveyed by the Chinese version of Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, 92 of whom were, respectively, allocated into high (n = 46) and low (n = 46) resilient group to complete computerized tests using an attentional shifting task and an emotional picture recognition task. RESULTS: All participants had the highest recognition accuracy toward negative pictures compared to neutral and positive ones. By comparison, it was found that the high-resilient group had a longer recognition response time toward positive emotional pictures, but a shorter response time toward negative emotional pictures, while the low-resilient group had a longer response time toward negative emotional pictures. CONCLUSION: This study pointed to the association between resilience and cognitive bias. Medical freshmen with different resilience levels showed significant differences in the cognitive bias toward emotional pictures, suggesting that reducing negative cognitive bias and promoting positive cognitive bias could be important targets to increase resilience.

Character Decomposition and Transposition Processes of Chinese Compound Words in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation.

Character order information is encoded at the initial stage of Chinese word processing, however, its time course remains underspecified. In this study, we assess the exact time course of the character decomposition and transposition processes of two-character Chinese compound words (canonical, transposed, or reversible words) compared with pseudowords using dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of stimuli appearing at 30 ms per character with no inter-stimulus interval. The results indicate that Chinese readers can identify words with character transpositions in rapid succession; however, a transposition cost is involved in identifying transposed words compared to canonical words. In RSVP reading, character order of words is more likely to be reversed during the period from 30 to 180 ms for canonical and reversible words, but the period from 30 to 240 ms for transposed words. Taken together, the findings demonstrate that the holistic representation of the base word is activated, however, the order of the two constituent characters is not strictly processed during the very early stage of visual word processing.

Character Decomposition and Transposition of Chinese Compound Words in the Right and Left Visual Fields.

This study investigated the character decomposition and transposition processes of Chinese two-character compound words (canonical and transposed words) and pseudowords in the right and left visual fields using a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation paradigm. The results confirmed a right visual field superiority for canonical words, but this advantage vanished for transposed words. The findings further indicated that the same quality of lexical processing could be obtained from the foveal and parafoveal regions of the right and left visual fields, regardless of the character order, but not in the periphery of the right visual field. Moreover, the proportion of order reversals peaked at the central position and the shortest exposure time, but it declined with increasing eccentricity and time interval. We concluded that the character transposition of Chinese compound words was significantly sensitive in the periphery of the right visual field. Furthermore, the character order errors were mainly encoded in the foveal vision with a duration of 100 ms, which suggested that the order of the foveally presented Chinese characters was more likely to be reversed at the early stage of visual word processing.

Attentional blink is hierarchically modulated by phonological, morphological, semantic and lexical connections between two Chinese characters.

The ability to identify the second of two targets (T2) is impaired if that target is presented less than ∼500 ms after the first (T1). This transient deficit is known as attentional blink (AB). Previous studies have suggested that the magnitude of the AB effect can be modulated by manipulating the allocation of attentional resources to T1 or T2. However, few experiments have used Chinese characters and words to explore this phenomenon. The existence of lexical, semantic, phonological and morphological connections between Chinese characters has been well established, and understanding these connections may improve our knowledge of reading Chinese. In this study, we employed varying connections between T1 and T2 and examined how these connections modulate the AB effect. We found that the strongest AB was observed when the two Chinese characters were completely unrelated, while the AB was reduced when T1 and T2 were phonologically, orthographically or semantically related and was almost completely eliminated when T1 and T2 were united in a lexical phrase. The order of activation between Chinese characters was identified as follows: (a) lexical phrases, (b) semantic connection, (c) morphological connection, (d) phonological connection and (e) unrelated words.