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Johnny Depp, Reconsidered: How Category-Relative Processing Fluency Determines the Appeal of Gender Ambiguity.

ABSTRACT: Individuals that combine features of both genders-gender blends-are sometimes appealing and sometimes not. Heretofore, this difference was explained entirely in terms of sexual selection. In contrast, we propose that part of individuals' preference for gender blends is due to the cognitive effort required to classify them, and that such effort depends on the context in which a blend is judged. In two studies, participants judged the attractiveness of male-female morphs. Participants did so after classifying each face in terms of its gender, which was selectively more effortful for gender blends, or classifying faces on a gender-irrelevant dimension, which was equally effortful for gender blends. In both studies, gender blends were disliked when, and only when, the faces were first classified by gender, despite an overall preference for feminine features in all conditions. Critically, the preferences were mediated by the effort of stimulus classification. The results suggest that the variation in attractiveness of gender-ambiguous faces may derive from context-dependent requirements to determine gender membership. More generally, the results show that the difficulty of resolving social category membership-not just attitudes toward a social category-feed into perceivers' overall evaluations toward category members.

SUBMITTER: Owen HE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4742244 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:IntroductionMany words are categorially ambiguous and can be used as a verb (to paint) or as a noun (the paint) due to the presence of unpronounced morphology or "zero morphology". On this account, the verb "paint" is derived from the noun "paint" through the addition of a silent category-changing morpheme. Past studies have uncovered the syntactic and semantic properties of these categorially ambiguous words, but no research has been conducted on how people process them during normal or impaired lexical processing. Are these two different uses of "paint" processed in the same way? Does this morphosyntactic structure have an effect on online sentence processing?MethodsThis study presents two experiments that investigate the effect of morphosyntactic complexity in categorially ambiguous words presented in isolation (experiment 1) and in a sentential context (experiment 2). The first experiment tested the ability to process categorially unambiguous and ambiguous nouns and verbs in 30 healthy older adults and 12 individuals with aphasia, using a forced choice phrasal-completion task, in which individuals choose whether the or to is most compatible with target words.ResultsHealthy controls and individuals with fluent aphasia all showed: (1) a bias toward the base category in selection rates for the and to, where the was selected more frequently for words identified to be base nouns, and to was selected more frequently for base verbs, and (2) longer reaction times for ambiguous (over unambiguous) words. However, individuals with non-fluent agrammatic aphasia showed a base-category effect only for nouns, with chance performance for verbs. The second experiment, using an eye-tracking while reading paradigm with 56 young healthy adults, showed a reading time slowdown for derived forms (to paint) compared to their base-category counterparts (the paint) in sentence contexts.DiscussionThese findings suggest that categorially ambiguous words likely share a common root, and are related by zero-derivation, and that impaired access to the base-category (i.e., verbs like to visit) precludes associated morphological processes and therefore the retrieval of the derived-category (i.e., nouns like the visit) in non-fluent agrammatic aphasia. This study provides insights into the theory of zero morphology, and the principles that need to be accounted for in models of the lexicon.

Project description:Background: Although performance on the category fluency test (CFT) is influenced by many cognitive functions (i.e., including language, executive functioning and speed of processing), item-level scoring methods of CFT performance might be a promising way to capture aspects of semantic memory that are less influenced by intervenient abilities. One such approach is based on the calculation of correlation coefficients that quantify the association between item-level features and the serial order with which words are recalled (SRO). Methods: We explored the neural underpinnings of 10 of these correlational indices in a sample of 40 healthy adults who completed a classic 1-min CFT and an MRI protocol inclusive of T1-weighted (analysed with voxel-based morphometry) and resting-state fMRI sequences for the evaluation of the default-mode network (DMN). Two sets of linear models were defined to test the association between neural maps and each correlational index: a first set in which major demographic and clinical descriptors were controlled for and a second set in which, additionally, all other 9 correlational indices were regressed out. Results: In the analysis of the DMN, 'SRO-frequency', 'SRO-dominance' and 'SRO-body-object interaction' correlational indices were all negatively associated with the anterior portion of the right temporoparietal junction. The 'SRO-frequency' correlational index was also negatively associated with the right dorsal anterior cingulate and the 'SRO-dominance' correlational index with the right lateral prefrontal cortex. From the second set of models, the 'SRO-typicality' correlational index was positively associated with the left entorhinal cortex. No association was found in relation to grey matter maps. Conclusion: The ability to retrieve more difficult words during CFT performance as measured by the correlational indices between SRO and item-level descriptors is associated with DMN expression in regions deputed to attentional reorienting and processing of salience of infrequent stimuli and dominance status. Of all item-level features, typicality appears to be that most closely linked with entorhinal functioning and may thus play a relevant role in assessing its value in testing procedures for early detection of subtle cognitive difficulties in people with suspected Alzheimer's degeneration. Although exploratory, these findings warrant further investigations in larger cohorts.

Project description:BackgroundCategory fluency is a widely used task that relies on multiple neurocognitive processes and is a sensitive assay of cortical dysfunction, including in schizophrenia. The test requires naming of as many words belonging to a certain category (e.g., animals) as possible within a short period of time. The core metrics are the overall number of words produced and the number of errors, namely non-members generated for a target category. We combine a computational linguistic approach with a candidate gene approach to examine the genetic architecture of this traditional fluency measure.MethodsIn addition to the standard metric of overall word count, we applied a computational approach to semantics, Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), to analyse the clustering pattern of the categories generated, as it likely reflects the search in memory for meanings. Also, since fluency performance probably also recruits verbal learning and recall processes, we included two standard measures of this cognitive process: the Wechsler Memory Scale and California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT). To explore the genetic architecture of traditional and LSA-derived fluency measures we employed a candidate gene approach focused on SNPs with known function that were available from a recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) of schizophrenia. The selected candidate genes were associated with language and speech, verbal learning and recall processes, and processing speed. A total of 39 coding SNPs were included for analysis in 665 subjects.Results and discussionGiven the modest sample size, the results should be regarded as exploratory and preliminary. Nevertheless, the data clearly illustrate how extracting the meaning from participants' responses, by analysing the actual content of words, generates useful and neurocognitively viable metrics. We discuss three replicated SNPs in the genes ZNF804A, DISC1 and KIAA0319, as well as the potential for computational analyses of linguistic and textual data in other genomics tasks.

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Johnny Depp, Reconsidered: How Category-Relative Processing Fluency Determines the Appeal of Gender Ambiguity.

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