Cultural universals: Measuring the semantic structure of emotion terms in English and Japanese

Research is presented on the semantic structure of 15 emotion terms as measured by judged-similarity tasks for monolingual English-speaking and monolingual and bilingual Japanese subjects. A major question is the relative explanatory power of a single shared model for English and Japanese versus culture-specific models for each language. The data support a shared model for the semantic structure of emotion terms even though some robust and significant differences are found between English and Japanese structures. The Japanese bilingual subjects use a model more like English when performing tasks in English than when performing the same task in Japanese.

Role of left inferior prefrontal cortex in retrieval of semantic knowledge: A reevaluation

A number of neuroimaging findings have been interpreted as evidence that the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) subserves retrieval of semantic knowledge. We provide a fundamentally different interpretation, that it is not retrieval of semantic knowledge per se that is associated with left IFG activity but rather selection of information among competing alternatives from semantic memory. Selection demands were varied across three semantic tasks in a single group of subjects. Functional magnetic resonance imaging signal in overlapping regions of left IFG was dependent on selection demands in all three tasks. In addition, the degree of semantic processing was varied independently of selection demands in one of the tasks. The absence of left IFG activity for this comparison counters the argument that the effects of selection can be attributed solely to variations in degree of semantic retrieval. Our findings suggest that it is selection, not retrieval, of semantic knowledge that drives activity in the left IFG.

Statistical methods for characterizing similarities and differences between semantic structures

This paper describes a variety of statistical methods for obtaining precise quantitative estimates of the similarities and differences in the structures of semantic domains in different languages. The methods include comparing mean correlations within and between groups, principal components analysis of interspeaker correlations, and analysis of variance of speaker by question data. Methods for graphical displays of the results are also presented. The methods give convergent results that are mutually supportive and equivalent under suitable interpretation. The methods are illustrated on the semantic domain of emotion terms in a comparison of the semantic structures of native English and native Japanese speaking subjects. We suggest that, in comparative studies concerning the extent to which semantic structures are universally shared or culture-specific, both similarities and differences should be measured and compared rather than placing total emphasis on one or the other polar position.