LaDEP: A large database of English pseudo-compounds.

The Large Database of English Pseudo-compounds (LaDEP) contains nearly 7500 English words which mimic, but do not truly possess, a compound morphemic structure. These pseudo-compounds can be parsed into two free morpheme constituents (e.g., car-pet), but neither constituent functions as a morpheme within the overall word structure. The items were manually coded as pseudo-compounds, further coded for features related to their morphological structure (e.g., presence of multiple affixes, as in ruler-ship), and summarized using common psycholinguistic variables (e.g., length, frequency). This paper also presents an example analysis comparing the lexical decision response times between compound words, pseudo-compound words, and monomorphemic words. Pseudo-compounds and monomorphemic words did not differ in response time, and both groups had slower response times than compound words. This analysis replicates the facilitatory effect of compound constituents during lexical processing, and demonstrates the need to emphasize the pseudo-constituent structure of pseudo-compounds to parse their effects. Further applications of LaDEP include both psycholinguistic studies investigating the nature of human word processing or production and educational or clinical settings evaluating the impact of linguistic features on language learning and impairments. Overall, the items within LaDEP provide a varied and representative sample of the population of English pseudo-compounds which may be used to facilitate further research related to morphological decomposition, lexical access, meaning construction, orthographical influences, and much more.

Influence of the constituent morpheme boundary on compound word access.

Embedded morphemes are thought to become available during the processing of multi-morphemic words, and impact access to the whole word. According to the edge-aligned embedded word activation theory Grainger & Beyersmann, (2017), embedded morphemes receive activation when the whole word can be decomposed into constituent morphemes. Thus, interfering with morphological decomposition also interferes with access to the embedded morphemes. Numerous studies have examined the effects of interfering with boundary and constituent-internal letters on morphological decomposition by comparing the effect of transposing letters at the morphemic boundary to constituent-internal letters. These studies, which report inconsistent findings, have typically used derived multi-morphemic words (e.g., cleaner), and sometimes use a control replacement letter condition that is not matched to the transposed letter conditions in terms of location. Across five experiments, we test the edge-aligned activation theory by examining the effects of replacing and transposing boundary and constituent-internal letters of compounds. Our findings suggest that replacing boundary letters interferes with access to both embedded constituents, while replacing constituent-internal letters still allows for access to the unaltered constituent, thus compensating for the interference in the altered constituent. Our findings are consistent with the edge-aligned theory with respect to letter replacement, and also imply that letter replacement must match the position of letter transposition when it is used as a control condition.

Carport and carpet: Effects of compound and pseudocompound word structures on typing.

Typing slows at the middle of the word. The exact nature of the slowdown is still disputed. Research on attentional and motoric effects in typing suggests that the slowdown is purely a function of chunking of letters in creating the motor output; this approach posits no further influence of linguistic information during output. Research from a psycholinguistic perspective does posit lexical and sublexical effects during output and explains the midword slowing as a function of slowdowns at the boundaries of sublexical units. Across four experiments, using three different typing tasks, we investigated the typing of compound (schoolteacher) and pseudocompound (carpet) words. Typing at the midword region is sensitive to the morphological structure of the word and to linguistic properties of the word and its (pseudo)constituents (e.g., linguistic information about school and teacher affects schoolteacher, and car and pet affects carpet). These findings suggest that typing compounds involves a hierarchical plan consisting of two separate motor plans for each constituent executed sequentially such that the output of letters is sensitive to the number of letters within that plan, the position of the sequence in the hierarchy (e.g., first vs. second constituent), and the morphemic structure of the to-be-typed word. Surprisingly, given that pseudocompound lexical representations should not include the pseudoconstituents and given that our tasks in the first three experiments demand full access to the lexical representation before typing, pseudocompound typing is also sensitive to the pseudoconstituent characteristics, suggesting that, during typing, the system attempts to build a compound-like structure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Constituent processing in compound and pseudocompound words.

Theories of multimorphemic word recognition generally posit that constituent representations are involved in accessing the whole multimorphemic word. Gagné et al. (2018) found that pseudoconstituents and constituents become available when processing pseudocompound and compound masked primes (e.g., sea is activated in season and seabird). Across four experiments, we examine whether readers access the semantic information of such pseudoconstituents and constituents. Experiments 1 and 2 show that masked pseudocompound and compound primes do not influence lexical decision responses to semantic associates of their pseudoconstituents or constituents (e.g., seabird and season do not influence processing of ocean, an associate of sea). Experiments 3 and 4 show that an associate of the first constituent does not influence processing of the pseudocompound but does facilitate processing of the compound (e.g., ocean facilitates processing of seabird but not of season). While compounds have been found to be sensitive to the activation of their constituents via semantic priming (e.g., El-Bialy et al., 2013; Sandra, 1990), our findings suggest that primarily morphological, rather than semantic, activation of the constituents occurs in a masked priming paradigm. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Writing direction and language activation affect how Arabic-English bilingual speakers map time onto space.

We investigated whether writing direction and language activation influence how bilingual speakers map time onto space. More specifically, we investigated how Arabic-English bilingual speakers conceived where (e.g., on the left or on the right) different time periods (e.g., past, present, future) were located, depending on whether they were tested in Arabic (a language that is written from right to left) or in English (a language that is written from left to right). To analyze this, participants were given a task that involved arranging cards depicting different scenes of a story in chronological order. Results show that, when tested in Arabic, participants were significantly more likely to use right-to-left arrangements (following the Arabic writing direction), compared to when tested in English.

Flute birds and creamy skies: The metaphor interference effect in modifier-noun phrases.

People take longer to determine that metaphoric sentences (e.g., some birds are flutes) are literally false compared to anomalous sentences (e.g., some birds are pickles). This metaphor interference effect (MIE) shows that metaphorical interpretations are automatically computed even in contexts and tasks that only require literal interpretations. Although a well-replicated finding, the MIE has only been investigated in sentence stimuli in which the metaphoric composition is explicitly stated (such that birds are asserted to be flutes). This raises questions about the generalizability of the MIE because (a) A is B metaphors are rare in discourse and (b) other metaphor variants, such as flute bird, are unspecified in their metaphoric composition (i.e., do not specifically assert which concept, if any, is metaphorical). In this experiment, we investigated whether metaphoric modifier-noun phrases such as flute bird and creamy sky produce a MIE. In addition, we explored if word-level semantic variables (semantic neighborhood density and concreteness) play a role in the MIE. We asked participants to determine if modifier-noun phrases refer to things that literally exist or not. We found a MIE in which metaphoric phrases (e.g., flute bird, creamy sky) took longer to judge as literally false relative to scrambled counterparts (e.g., flute sky, creamy bird). Moreover, we found that word-level semantic variables affect the magnitude of the MIE only for adjective-noun phrases. Therefore, metaphoric meaning can be automatically extracted from metaphoric compounds, suggesting that the MIE is more robust than previously demonstrated. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The interplay between inhibitory control and metaphor conventionality.

When a metaphor is first encountered (lawyers are sharks), several meanings are activated, but the literal ones (lawyers have fins) need to be inhibited to successfully compute the figurative meaning (lawyers are aggressive). With repeated exposure that metaphor becomes conventionalized, and its figurative meaning may be easily accessible without the need to inhibit the corresponding literal meaning. Thus, a central question in the field, and the objective of the current project, relates to how metaphor conventionality and inhibitory control contribute to metaphor comprehension. Participants completed a sense-nonsense task in which they indicated whether metaphorical and literal phrases had sensible meanings. In Experiment 1, participants also completed an inhibitory control task that assessed their ability to inhibit task-irrelevant responses. Participants with lower inhibitory control were slower at responding to more novel metaphors and faster at responding to more conventional metaphors compared with participants with higher inhibitory control. In Experiment 2, we used a dual-task paradigm to reduce participants' inhibitory control resources while performing the sense-nonsense task. Participants completed the sense-nonsense task concurrently with a different secondary task. This assessed their ability to evaluate phrases under low and high inhibitory load conditions. Performance on the sense-nonsense task was higher when processing more conventional than more novel metaphors when participants' inhibitory control processes were taxed in the high load condition. These findings suggest that inhibitory control does play a role in metaphor comprehension-the less conventional a metaphor, the more inhibitory skills are required to compute the figurative meaning.

Detecting spelling errors in compound and pseudocompound words.

Three experiments using a spelling error detection task investigated the extent to which morphemes and pseudomorphemes affect word processing. We compared the processing of transparent compound words (e.g., doorbell), pseudocompound words (e.g., carpet), and matched control words (e.g., tomato). In half of the compound and pseudocompound words, spelling errors were created by transposing adjacent letters and in half of the control words, errors were created by transposing letters at the same location as the matched compound or pseudocompound words. Correctly spelled compound words were more easily processed than matched control words, but this advantage was removed when letter transpositions were introduced at the morpheme boundary. In contrast, misspelled pseudocompound words showed a processing deficit relative to their matched control words when letter transpositions were introduced at the (pseudo)morpheme boundary. The results strongly suggest that morphological processing is attempted obligatorily when the orthography indicates that morphological structure is present. However, the outcomes of the morphological processing attempts are different for compounds and pseudocompounds, as might be expected, given that only the compounds have a morphological structure that matches the structure suggested by the orthography. The findings reflect 2 effects: an orthographic effect that is facilitatory and not sensitive to morphological structure of the whole word, and a morphemic effect that is facilitatory for compounds but inhibitory for pseudocompounds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

If Birds Have Sesamoid Bones, Do Blackbirds Have Sesamoid Bones? The Modification Effect With Known Compound Words.

Three experiments investigate how people infer properties of compound words from the unmodified head. Concepts license inference of properties true of the concept to instances or sub-types of that concept: Knowing that birds generally fly, one infers that a new type of bird flies. However, different names are also believed to reflect real underlying differences. Hence, a different name creates the expectation that a new bird differs from birds in general, and this might impact property inference. In these experiments, participants were told, Almost all (Some, Almost no) birds have sesamoid bones, and then asked, What percentage of blackbirds (birds) have sesamoid bones? The results indicate both inference and contrast effects. People infer properties as less common of the compound than the head when the property is true of the head, but they infer them as more common of the compound than the head when the property is not true of the head. In addition, inferences about properties true of the head are affected by the semantic similarity between the head and the compound, but properties not true of the head do not show any semantic similarity effect, but only a small, consistent effect of contrast. Finally, the presentation format (Open vs. Closed compounds) affects the pattern of effects only when the spacing suggests the existence of a permanent name.

LADEC: The Large Database of English Compounds.

The Large Database of English Compounds (LADEC) consists of over 8,000 English words that can be parsed into two constituents that are free morphemes, making it the largest existing database specifically for use in research on compound words. Both monomorphemic (e.g., wheel) and multimorphemic (e.g., teacher) constituents were used. The items were selected from a range of sources, including CELEX, the English Lexicon Project, the British Lexicon Project, the British National Corpus, and Wordnet, and were hand-coded as compounds (e.g., snowball). Participants rated each compound in terms of how predictable its meaning is from its parts, as well as the extent to which each constituent retains its meaning in the compound. In addition, we obtained linguistic characteristics that might influence compound processing (e.g., frequency, family size, and bigram frequency). To show the usefulness of the database in investigating compound processing, we conducted a number of analyses that showed that compound processing is consistently affected by semantic transparency, as well as by many of the other variables included in LADEC. We also showed that the effects of the variables associated with the two constituents are not symmetric. In short, LADEC provides the opportunity for researchers to investigate a number of questions about compounds that have not been possible to investigate in the past, due to the lack of sufficiently large and robust datasets. In addition to directly allowing researchers to test hypotheses using the information included in LADEC, the database will contribute to future compound research by allowing better stimulus selection and matching.

Conceptual relations compete during auditory and visual compound word recognition.

Previous research has shown that compound word recognition involves selecting a relational meaning (e.g., 'box for letters' for letterbox) out of a set of competing relational meanings for the same compound. We conducted five experiments to investigate the role of competition between relational meanings across visual and auditory compound word processing. In Experiment 1 conceptual relations judgments were collected for 604 English compound words. From this database we computed an information-theoretic measure of competition between conceptual relations - entropy of conceptual relations. Experiments 2 and 3 report that greater entropy (i.e., increased competition) among a set of conceptual relations leads to longer latencies for compounds in auditory lexical decision. Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrate the same result in two visual lexical decision studies. These findings provide evidence that relational meanings are constructed and evaluated during compound recognition, regardless of whether compounds are recognized via auditory or visual input.

Language experience shapes relational knowledge of compound words.

Prior studies of noun-noun compound word processing have provided insight into the human capacity for conceptual combination (Gagné and Shoben Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23(1), 71 1997; Spalding, Gagné, Mullaly & Ji Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft, 17, 283-315 2010). These studies conclude that relational interpretations of compound words are proposed and appraised by the language system during online word recognition. However, little is known about how the capacity for creating new meanings from existing conceptual units develops within an individual mind. Though current theories imply that individual relational knowledge about the combinability of concepts develops as language experience accumulates, this hypothesis has not been previously tested experimentally. Here, we addressed this hypothesis in a task that assesses individual relational knowledge of English compound words. We report that greater experience with printed language shapes relational knowledge of compound words in two ways. Firstly, individuals with more experience with printed language were able to select a greater number of possible relational meanings for individual compound words. Secondly, individuals with greater experience with printed language were also more precise about which relational meaning was the most semantically plausible out of all possible meanings. Our results confirm that language experience affects an individual's ability to use relational knowledge in order to combine conceptual units. Our findings offer further support for the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti, 2007), which states that lexical representations of words become simultaneously more flexible and precise as a result of repeated exposure to their orthographic forms in language usage.

Compounding as Abstract Operation in Semantic Space: Investigating relational effects through a large-scale, data-driven computational model.

In many languages, compounding is a fundamental process for the generation of novel words. When this process is productive (as, e.g., in English), native speakers can juxtapose two words to create novel compounds that can be readily understood by other speakers. The present paper proposes a large-scale, data-driven computational system for compound semantic processing based on distributional semantics, the CAOSS model (Compounding as Abstract Operation in Semantic Space). In CAOSS, word meanings are represented as vectors encoding their lexical co-occurrences in a reference corpus. Given two constituent words, their composed representation (the compound) is computed by using matrices representing the abstract properties of constituent roles (modifier vs. head). The matrices are also induced through examples of language usage. The model is then validated against behavioral results concerning the processing of novel compounds, and in particular relational effects on response latencies. The effects of relational priming and relational dominance are considered. CAOSS predictions are shown to pattern with previous results, in terms of both the impact of relational information and the dissociations related to the different constituent roles. The simulations indicate that relational information is implicitly reflected in language usage, suggesting that human speakers can learn these aspects from language experience and automatically apply them to the processing of new word combinations. The present model is flexible enough to emulate this procedure, suggesting that relational effects might emerge as a by-product of nuanced operations across distributional patterns.

Effects of morphology and semantic transparency on typing latencies in english compound and pseudocompound words.

We used a typing task to measure the written production of compounds, pseudocompounds, and monomorphemic words on a letter-by-letter basis to determine whether written production (as measured by interletter typing speed) was affected by morphemic structure and semantic transparency of the constituents. Semantic transparency was analyzed using a dichotomous classification (opaque vs. transparent) as well as participant ratings. Our results indicate that written production is sensitive to morphemic structure and to the semantic transparency of the first constituent. (PsycINFO Database Record

Competition between conceptual relations affects compound recognition: the role of entropy.

Previous research has suggested that the conceptual representation of a compound is based on a relational structure linking the compound's constituents. Existing accounts of the visual recognition of modifier-head or noun-noun compounds posit that the process involves the selection of a relational structure out of a set of competing relational structures associated with the same compound. In this article, we employ the information-theoretic metric of entropy to gauge relational competition and investigate its effect on the visual identification of established English compounds. The data from two lexical decision megastudies indicates that greater entropy (i.e., increased competition) in a set of conceptual relations associated with a compound is associated with longer lexical decision latencies. This finding indicates that there exists competition between potential meanings associated with the same complex word form. We provide empirical support for conceptual composition during compound word processing in a model that incorporates the effect of the integration of co-activated and competing relational information.

Property attribution in combined concepts.

Recent research shows that the judged likelihood of properties of modified nouns (baby ducks have webbed feet) is reduced relative to judgments for unmodified nouns (ducks have webbed feet). This modification effect has been taken as evidence both for and against the idea that combined concepts automatically inherit properties from their constituent concepts. Experiments 1 and 2 replicate this effect and demonstrate a reversed modification effect with false properties. That is, false properties are judged more likely with modification (e.g., purple candles have teeth is judged more likely than candles have teeth). These experiments also show that properties that are neither generically true nor false are unaffected by modification. Experiments 3 and 4 manipulate participants' expectation of contrast by showing modified and unmodified nouns that either match or mismatch in terms of a property and show that the judged likelihood of properties depends on the expectations of contrast set up by the manipulation. These results show that the modification effect is primarily driven by participants' understanding of the relation of subcategories to categories, rather than by the features of the concepts being combined, suggesting that the process of property attribution in combined concepts is strongly affected by pragmatic factors and is less strongly dependent on conceptual content than most theories of conceptual combination would suggest.

Associative asymmetry of compound words.

Early verbal-memory researchers assumed participants represent memory of a pair of unrelated items with 2 independent, separately modifiable, directional associations. However, memory for pairs of unrelated words (A-B) exhibits associative symmetry: a near-perfect correlation between accuracy on forward (A →?) and backward (?← B) cued recall. This was viewed as arguing against the independent-associations hypothesis and in favor of the hypothesis that associations are remembered as holistic units. Here we test the Holistic Representation hypothesis further by examining cued recall of compound words. If we suppose preexisting words are more unitized than novel associations, the Holistic Representation hypothesis predicts compound words (e.g., ROSE BUD) will have a higher forward-backward correlation than novel compounds (e.g., BRIEF TAX). We report the opposite finding: Compound words, as well as noncompound words, exhibited less associative symmetry than novel compounds. This challenges the Holistic Representation account of associative symmetry. Moreover, preexperimental associates (positional family size) influenced associative symmetry-but asymmetrically: Increasing family size of the last constituent increasing decoupled forward and backward recall, but family size of the 1st constituent had no such effect. In short, highly practiced, meaningful associations exhibit associative asymmetry, suggesting associative symmetry is not diagnostic of holistic representations but, rather, is a characteristic of ad hoc associations. With additional learning, symmetric associations may be replaced by directional, independently modifiable associations as verbal associations become embedded within a rich knowledge structure.

Relation priming in established compounds: facilitation?

Gagné and Spalding (Brain and Language, 90, 478-486, 2004, Journal of Memory and Language, 60, 20-35, 2009) have shown that the difficulty of interpreting an established compound (e.g., snowball) can be influenced by recent exposure to a compound with the same modifier and that this influence depends on the relation linking the constituents of the compound. For example, snowball (a ball made of snow) was processed more quickly following snowfort (a fort made of snow; same relation) than following snowshovel (a shovel for snow; different relation). In three experiments, we investigated the basis of this relation-priming effect. The results indicated that the relation-priming effect in established compounds is due to slower processing in the different-relation condition rather than to faster processing in the same-relation condition. These results pose a challenge for most models of compound-word processing.

Children's preference for HAS and LOCATED relations: a word learning bias for noun-noun compounds.

The present study investigates children's bias when interpreting novel noun-noun compounds (e.g. kig donka) that refer to combinations of novel objects (kig and donka). More specifically, it investigates children's understanding of modifier-head relations of the compounds and their preference for HAS or LOCATED relations (e.g. a donka that HAS a kig or a donka that is LOCATED near a kig) rather than a FOR relation (e.g. a donka that is used FOR kigs). In a forced-choice paradigm, two- and three-year-olds preferred interpretations with HAS/LOCATED relations, while five-year-olds and adults showed no preference for either interpretation. We discuss possible explanations for this preference and its relation to another word learning bias that is based on perceptual features of the referent objects, i.e. the shape bias. We argue that children initially focus on a perceptual stability rather than a pure conceptual stability when interpreting the meaning of nouns.

How the parts relate to the whole: frequency effects on children's interpretations of novel compounds.

This study explores different frequency effects on children's interpretations of novel noun-noun compounds (e.g. egg bag as 'bag FOR eggs'). We investigated whether four- to five-year-olds and adults use their knowledge of related compounds and their modifier-head relations (e.g. sandwich bag (FOR) or egg white (PART-OF)) when explaining the meaning of novel compounds and/or whether they are affected by overall frequency of modifier-head relations in their vocabulary. Children's interpretations were affected by their experience with relations in compounds with the same head, but not by overall relation frequency. Adults' interpretations were affected by their experience with relations in compounds with the same modifier, suggesting that children and adults use similar but different knowledge to interpret compounds. Furthermore, only children's interpretations revealed an overuse of visually perceivable relations.