Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of five linguistic relationships between paired associates on memory of words arising from self-generation compared with passive reading in a large #Aurora Kinase inhibitor randurls[1|1|,|CHEM1|]# sample of healthy subjects. The five linguistic relationships were association, category, opposite, rhyme, and synonym. We investigated differences in the accuracy of word production from the presented word pairs for
each relationship within the read and generate conditions, referred to as the encoding phase, and compared the recognition memory performance Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical within the five different relationships for the read and generate conditions, referred to as the recognition phase. Because of differences evidenced in studies and theories on semantic versus phonological information processing (Craik and Tulving 1975; Martin et al. 1999; Schefft et al. 2008b; Doré et al. 2009; Kircher et al. 2011), Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical we hypothesized that memory would be improved for self-generated words when compared with read words, and that this difference Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical would be mediated by the linguistic relationship of the word pairs. Methods Subjects This study was approved by the local Institutional Review Board and used data from
90 subjects enrolled in a larger ongoing study (NIH R01 NS04828). Subjects were male and female adults, ages 19–65, and were native English speakers with no history Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of neurological or psychiatric disorders. Handedness was determined using the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, with a score of 50 or greater indicating right-handedness (Oldfield 1971). Individuals participated on a voluntary basis and were compensated for time and travel. All subjects provided written informed consent prior to study participation. Materials The language
Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical paradigm used was a word-pairs task programmed and presented on a computer screen using DirectRT (Version 2008; Empirisoft, http://www.empirisoft.com). The task consisted of 60 word pairs made up of simple familiar words, each six letters or less in length (Vannest et al. 2012). Words were paired based on five different linguistic relationships, equally weighted among each of the task conditions (generate and read). The word pairs included 12 associations (e.g., “hammer–nail”), 12 synonyms (e.g., “sea–ocean”), before 12 rhymes (e.g., “mist–list”), 12 opposites (e.g., “wet–dry”), and 12 category members (e.g., “sparrow–robin”) in the total list of word pairs. Six pairs within each linguistic relationship were in the read condition and six in the generate condition. Procedure Behavioral data from the word-pairs task presentation were collected during and after functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) performed for language localization (fMRI data presented in Vannest et al. 2012).