Three studies were conducted in an attempt to replicate previous research concluding that semantic meaning is accessed in the absence of conscious awareness. A pattern mask was used to interrupt the processing of stimulus words after 30 milliseconds; at this duration subjects were not able to identify the stimulus words or even to determine…

A study examined the effect of variation in category dominance on retrieval latencies (and errors) from semantic memory. Subjects, 66 students enrolled in an introductory psychology course, were required to perform 6 successive retrievals from each of 18 conceptual categories. The six retrievals consisted of two successive blocks of three from…

This study investigates whether words differing in a single contrastive semantic feature (positive/negative) can be discriminated by auditory evoked responses (AERs). Ten right-handed college students were provided with auditory stimuli consisting of 20 relational words (more/less; high/low, etc.) spoken with a middle American accent and computer…

This report discusses three studies of 2- to 5-year-old children's interpretations of facial expressions in terms of (1) the structure of the emotional domain and (2) prototypic example, overlap, and range of emotion categories. In the first study, 78 children were asked to make similarity judgments about 10 photographed facial expressions by…

A survey of 99 female and 78 male college students regarding their attitudes toward titles of address for men (Mr.) and women (Miss, Mrs., and Ms.) had the students rate 10 concepts on 15 bipolar semantic differential scales. Nine of the concepts were neutral to the study's objectives, and the tenth was the concept of differential address for men…

In spite of being very similar, the metaphorical models of anger in English and Spanish exhibit some differences too. These have been analyzed along a number of parameters: existence of the mapping in the language, degree of conceptual elaboration, degree of linguistic conventionalization and degree of linguistic exploitation. A number of examples…

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that a semantic differential instrument can serve as a functional affective measuring device. (Author)

Attempts to develop a critical thinking model which will teach students to cope effectively with advertising. (RB)

English teachers should give most attention to counteracting the tendency for public language to become an unreliable instrument of communication. (JH)

This article presents a novel AAC communication aid based on semantic rather than syntactic schema, leading to more natural message construction. Users interact with a two-dimensional spatially organized image schema, which depicts the semantic structure and contents of the message. An overview of the interface design is presented followed by…

Describes a study to determine whether instruction in general semantics would reduce ethnic prejudice in high school students and to create a course of study in general semantics which would cause a reduction of ethnic prejudice. (TO)