Emoji use validates the potential for meaning standardization among ideographic symbols.

Technological innovations for online communication reduce the impact of signal transience on meaning standardization while boosting access to reliable patterning across multiple linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts - both asynchronous and synchronous. We classify emojis as ideographic symbols, examine their interdependence with surrounding words when reading/writing, and argue that emoji use validates the potential for meaning standardization in ideographs.

Are emojis processed like words?: Eye movements reveal the time course of semantic processing for emojified text.

Emojis have many functions that support reading. Most obviously, they convey semantic information and support reading comprehension (Lo, CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11[5], 595-597, 2008; Riordan, Computers in Human Behavior, 76, 75-86, 2017b). However, it is undetermined whether emojis recruit the same perceptual and cognitive processes for identification and integration during reading as do words. To investigate whether emojis are processed like words, we used eye tracking to examine the time course of semantic processing of emojis during reading. Materials consisted of sentences containing a target word (e.g., coffee in the sentence "My tall coffee is just the right temperature") when there was no emoji present and when there was a semantically congruent (i.e., synonymous) emoji (e.g., the cup of coffee emoji, ) or an incongruent emoji (e.g., the beer mug emoji, ) present at the end of the sentence. Similar to congruency effects with words, congruent emojis were fixated for shorter periods and were less likely to be refixated than were incongruent emojis. In addition, congruent emojis were more frequently skipped than incongruent emojis, which suggests that semantic aspects of emoji processing begin in the parafovea. Finally, the presence of an emoji, relative to its absence increased target-word skipping rates and reduced total time on target words. We discuss the implications of our findings for models of eye-movement control during reading.

The dynamics of negative stereotypes as revealed by tweeting behavior in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack.

We describe the evolution of a stereotype as it emerged in tweets about the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris in early 2015. Our focus is on terms associated with the Muslim community and the Islamic world. The data (400k tweets) were collected via Twitter streaming API and consisted of tweets that contained at least one of 16 hashtags associated with the Charlie Hebdo attack (e.g., #JeSuisCharlie, #IAmCharlie, #ParisAttacks), collected between January 14th and February 9th. From these data, we generated pairwise co-occurrence frequencies between key words such as "Islam", "Muslim(s)", "Arab(s)", and "The Prophet" and possible associates such as: "terrorism", "terror", "terrorist(s)", "kill(ed)", "free", "freedom" and "love". We use changes in frequency of co-occurring words to define ways in which acute negative and positive stereotypes towards Muslims and Islam arise and evolve in three phases during the period of interest. We identify a positively-valenced backlash in a subset of tweets associated with the "origins of Islam". Results depict the emergence and transformation of implicit online stereotypes related to Islam from naturally occurring social media data and how pro-as well as anti-Islam online small-world networks evolve in response to a terrorist attack.

Discrimination in lexical decision.

In this study we present a novel set of discrimination-based indicators of language processing derived from Naive Discriminative Learning (ndl) theory. We compare the effectiveness of these new measures with classical lexical-distributional measures-in particular, frequency counts and form similarity measures-to predict lexical decision latencies when a complete morphological segmentation of masked primes is or is not possible. Data derive from a re-analysis of a large subset of decision latencies from the English Lexicon Project, as well as from the results of two new masked priming studies. Results demonstrate the superiority of discrimination-based predictors over lexical-distributional predictors alone, across both the simple and primed lexical decision tasks. Comparable priming after masked corner and cornea type primes, across two experiments, fails to support early obligatory segmentation into morphemes as predicted by the morpho-orthographic account of reading. Results fit well with ndl theory, which, in conformity with Word and Paradigm theory, rejects the morpheme as a relevant unit of analysis. Furthermore, results indicate that readers with greater spelling proficiency and larger vocabularies make better use of orthographic priors and handle lexical competition more efficiently.

Emoticons in text may function like gestures in spoken or signed communication.

We draw parallels between emoticons in textual communication and gesture in signed language with respect to the interdependence of codes by describing two contexts under which the behavior of emoticons in textual communication resembles that of gesture in speech. Generalizing from those findings, we propose that gesture is likely characterized by a nuanced interdependence with language whether signed, spoken or texted.

If priming is graded rather than all-or-none, can reactivating abstract structures be the underlying mechanism?

In our commentary on Branigan & Pickering (B&P), we start by arguing that the authors implicitly adopt several assumptions, the consequence of which is to make further claims necessary and/or sufficient. Crucially, the authors assume the existence of discrete units at various levels of linguistic granularity that then must be operated upon by combinatorial mechanisms and rules (i.e., decomposition/recomposition). They further argue that structural priming provides a powerful tool to study abstract, structural representations. We provide evidence that priming effects in production are characterized better as graded than as all-or-none and that priming need not arise from a mechanism that (re)activates a shared but abstract internal structure.

Does a focus on universals represent a new trend in word recognition?

Comparisons across languages have long been a means to investigate universal properties of the cognitive system. Although differences between languages may be salient, it is the underlying similarities that have advanced our understanding of language processing. Frost is not unique in emphasizing that the interaction among linguistic codes reinforces the inadequacy of constructing a model of word recognition where orthographic processes operate in isolation.

Semantic similarity influences early morphological priming in Serbian: a challenge to form-then-meaning accounts of word recognition.

Semantically similar (e.g., coolant-COOL) primes have produced greater facilitation than have form-similar but semantically dissimilar (e.g., rampant-RAMP) primes when English words have appeared in the forward-masked primed lexical decision task (Feldman, O'Connor, & Moscoso del Prado Martín, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 16: 684-691, 2009). These results challenge claims that form-based, semantically blind activation underlies early morphological facilitation. Some have argued that the English materials in previous studies were not ideally constructed, insofar as the types of spelling changes to affixed stems differed in the semantically similar and dissimilar pairs. The present study exploited Serbian's bialphabetism, rich morphology, and homographic (form-identical) stems to replicate early effects of semantic similarity. Furthermore, it incorporated within-target manipulations of prime type and of alphabet, such that the alphabets of the prime-target pairs matched in Experiment 1a and alternated in Experiment 1b. Importantly, no letter or phoneme changes occurred between the stems of the primes and targets. These results revealed significant effects of semantic similarity that are comparable with and without alphabet alternation. The semantic effects in Serbian replicated almost exactly those in English (Feldman et al., Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 16: 684-691, 2009), which suggests that even early in the course of processing, morphemes are units of meaning as well as of form. The results failed to support models of lexical processing that postulate sequential access, first to the morphological form, and then to the semantic aspects of words.

Morphological facilitation for regular and irregular verb formations in native and non-native speakers: Little evidence for two distinct mechanisms.

The authors compared performance on two variants of the primed lexical decision task to investigate morphological processing in native and non-native speakers of English. They examined patterns of facilitation on present tense targets. Primes were regular (billed-bill) past tense formations and two types of irregular past tense forms that varied on preservation of target length (fell-fall; taught-teach). When a forward mask preceded the prime (Exp. 1), language and prime type interacted. Native speakers showed reliable regular and irregular length preserved facilitation relative to orthographic controls. Non-native speakers' latencies after morphological and orthographic primes did not differ reliably except for regulars. Under cross-modal conditions (Exp. 2), language and prime type interacted. Native but not non-native speakers showed inhibition following orthographically similar primes. Collectively, reliable facilitation for regulars and patterns across verb type and task provided little support for a processing dichotomy (decomposition, non-combinatorial association) based on inflectional regularity in either native or non-native speakers of English.

Early morphological processing is morphosemantic and not simply morpho-orthographic: a violation of form-then-meaning accounts of word recognition.

Many studies have suggested that a word's orthographic form must be processed before its meaning becomes available. Some interpret the (null) finding of equal facilitation after semantically transparent and opaque morphologically related primes in early stages of morphological processing as consistent with this view. Recent literature suggests that morphological facilitation tends to be greater after transparent than after opaque primes, however. To determine whether the degree of semantic transparency influences parsing into a stem and a suffix (morphological decomposition) in the forward masked priming variant of the lexical decision paradigm, we compared patterns of facilitation between semantically transparent (e.g., coolant-cool) and opaque (e.g., rampant-ramp) prime-target pairs. Form properties of the stem (frequency, neighborhood size, and prime-target letter overlap), as well as related-unrelated and transparent-opaque affixes, were matched. Morphological facilitation was significantly greater for semantically transparent pairs than for opaque pairs. Ratings of prime-target relatedness predicted the magnitude of facilitation. The results limit the scope of form-then-meaning models of word recognition and demonstrate that semantic similarity can influence even early stages of morphological processing.

Multiple dimensions of relatedness among words: Conjoint effects of form and meaning in word recognition.

Words can be similar with respect to form (viz., spelling, pronunciation), meaning, or both form and meaning. In three lexical decision experiments (48 ms forward masked, 116 ms, and 250 ms SOAs), targets (e.g., FLOAT) followed prime words related by form only (e.g., COAT), meaning only (e.g., SWIM), or form and meaning (e.g., BOAT). BOAT-FLOAT and SWIM-FLOAT type pairs showed reduced target decision latencies relative to unrelated controls when primes were unmasked, but not when they were masked, and the magnitude of facilitation increased with increasing prime duration. By contrast, COAT-FLOAT type pairs produced significant inhibition at the shorter two prime durations. In all three experiments, including at the shortest SOA, (BOAT-FLOAT) pairs that shared form and meaning differed from COAT-FLOAT type pairs that shared only form. We discuss the similarity of the BOAT-FLOAT pattern to that of morphological facilitation and argue that if the same mechanism underlies both outcomes then activation of a shared morphemic representation need not underlie morphological facilitation.

List context fosters semantic processing: parallels between semantic and morphological facilitation when primes are forward masked.

The authors examined patterns of facilitation under forward-masked priming conditions across 3 list contexts (Experiments 1-3) that varied with respect to properties of filler trials -- (a) mixed (morphological, orthographic, semantic), (b) identity, and (c) semantic -- but held the relatedness proportion constant (75%). Facilitation for targets that were related morphologically to their prime occurred regardless of filler context, but facilitation for semantically related pairs occurred only in the context of identity and semantic fillers. Facilitation was absent for orthographically similar prime-target pairs in all 3 filler contexts when matching numbers of orthographically similar word-word and word-nonword prime-target pairs rendered orthographic similarity uninformative with respect to lexicality of the target. Enhanced semantic and morphological facilitation in the context of identity and semantic relative to mixed fillers support a semantically attuned, as contrasted with a purely form-based, account of early morphological processing.

Monolingual and Bilingual Recognition of Regular and Irregular English Verbs: Sensitivity to Form Similarity Varies with First Language Experience.

We used a cross-modal priming procedure to explore the processing of irregular and regular English verb forms in both monolinguals and bilinguals (Serbian-English, Chinese-English). Materials included irregular nested stem (drawn-DRAW), irregular change stem (ran-RUN), and regular past tense-present tense verb pairs that were either low (guided-GUIDE) or high (pushed-PUSH) in resonance, a measure of semantic richness. Overall, semantic richness of irregular verbs (nested and irregular change) and of regular verbs (high and low resonance) was matched. Native speakers of English revealed comparable facilitation across regularity and greater facilitation for nested than change stem irregulars. Like native speakers, Serbian, but not Chinese bilinguals matched for proficiency, showed facilitation due to form overlap between irregular past and present tense forms with a nested stem. Unlike native speakers, neither group showed reliable facilitation to stem change irregulars. Results demonstrate the influence of first language on inflectional processing in a second language.

What do graded effects of semantic transparency reveal about morphological processing?

We examined the influence of semantic transparency on morphological facilitation in English in three lexical decision experiments. Decision latencies to visual targets (e.g., CASUALNESS) were faster after semantically transparent (e.g., CASUALLY) than semantically opaque (e.g., CASUALTY) primes whether primes were auditory and presented immediately before onset of the target (Experiment 1a) or visual with an stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 250 ms (Experiment 1b). Latencies did not differ at an SOA of 48 ms (Experiment 2) or with a forward mask at an SOA of 83 ms (Experiment 3). Generally, effects of semantic transparency among morphological relatives were evident at long but not at short SOAs with visual targets, regardless of prime modality. Moreover, the difference in facilitation after opaque and transparent primes was graded and increased with family size of the base morpheme.

Semantic aspects of morphological processing: transparency effects in Serbian.

We examined the contribution of semantics to morphological facilitation in the visual lexical decision task at two stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) with Serbian materials. Primes appeared in Roman or Cyrillic characters. Targets always were printed in Roman. When primes were presented at an SOA of 250 msec, decision latencies to verbal targets (e.g., VOLIM) showed greatest facilitation after inflectionally (e.g., VOLE) related primes, significantly less after semantically transparent derived primes (e.g., ZAVOLE), and less again after semantically opaque derived primes (e.g., PREVOLE). Latencies after semantically transparent and opaque derived target words did not differ at an SOA of 48 msec. Both were slower than after inflectionally related primes. Stated generally, effects of semantic transparency among derivationally related verb forms were evident at long SOAs, but not at short ones. Under alphabet-alternating conditions, magnitudes of facilitation were greater overall, but the pattern was similar. The outcome suggests that restricted processing time for the prime limits the contribution of semantics to morphological processing and calls into question accounts that posit a task-invariant semantic criterion for morphological decomposition within the lexicon.

Graded aspects of morphological processing: task and processing time.

Effects on targets of orthographically (O) and semantically (S) related primes were compared with morphologically related (M) primes in the lexical decision, naming, and go/no go naming tasks. The overall pattern typified the graded nature of morphological processing. Morphological relatedness produced facilitation whose magnitude varied across a range of stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs of 66-300 ms) and tasks. The effect of semantic and orthographic similarity also depended on SOA and on task. Importantly, the effects of morphological relatedness and orthographic similarity diverged along a time course that reflected semantic processing but could only be approximated by the effect of semantic relatedness between prime and target.

Does prime modality influence morphological processing?

Facilitation among morphologically related words generally is impervious to the prefixed or suffixed structure of primes and targets. A notable exception arises, however, when both primes and targets are suffixed. More specifically, when primes are auditory and targets are visual, facilitation for a suffixed target (e.g., payment) is absent when it follows a prime (e.g., payable) that is morphologically related and suffixed (Marslen-Wilson, Tyler, Waksler, & Older, 1994). To account for null facilitation (viz., the "suffix-suffix" effect), Marslen-Wilson and his colleagues posit inhibitory links between suffixes of morphological relatives. The present study assesses the generality of the "suffix-suffix" effect. When morphological facilitation is assessed relative to an orthographically related baseline, suffixed primes facilitate derivationally as well as inflectionally related morphological targets when primes are visual as well as auditory in both the lexical decision and naming tasks. The present findings call into question lexical models that posit inhibitory links between suffixes of morphological relatives.

Discrepancies between orthographic and unrelated baselines in masked priming undermine a decompositional account of morphological facilitation.

This study uses the masked priming procedure to compare the decompositionality of regular with irregular English past tense forms relative to both an unrelated baseline and a baseline matched on orthographic similarity to the morphological prime. Morphological facilitation varies with the degree of similarity between related primes and targets. Discrepancies between unrelated and orthographic baselines arise when prime and target match in length and form overlap is high. The outcome demonstrates the key role of baselines in assessments of morphological facilitation and highlights problems of interpretation when evidence of morphological decomposition depends on meeting a statistical criterion for significant morphological facilitation.