Carlos J. Álvarez

Syllables and morphemes: contrasting frequency effects in Spanish.

Three types of sublexical units were studied in Spanish visual word recognition: the syllable, the basic orthographic syllabic structure (BOSS), and the root morpheme. In Experiment 1, using a lexical-decision task, a typical inhibitory effect of the first-syllable frequency was found (while keeping constant the BOSS frequency) as well as the word-frequency effect. Experiment 2 examined the role of both the BOSS frequency and the word frequency, also in a lexical-decision task. Syllable frequency was controlled. Both the BOSS frequency and the word frequency showed facilitatory effects. However, in Experiments 3A and 3B, a facilitatory effect of the root frequency (when controlling for BOSS frequency) and a null effect of BOSS frequency (when controlling for root frequency) were found, suggesting that the BOSS effect is in fact reflecting a morpheme effect. A review of the current models shows that it is difficult to integrate syllables and morphemes in a unique model.

Are syllables phonological units in visual word recognition

A number of studies have shown that syllables play an important role in visual word recognition in Spanish. We report three lexical decision experiments with a masked priming technique that examined whether syllabic effects are phonological or orthographic in nature. In all cases, primes were nonwords. In Experiment 1, latencies to CV words were faster when primes and targets shared the first syllable (ju.nas-JU.NIO) than when they shared the initial letters but not the first syllable (jun.tu-JU.NIO). In Experiment 2, this syllabic overlap could be phonological+orthographical (vi.rel-VI.RUS) or just phonological (bi.rel-VI.RUS). A syllable priming effect was found for CV words in both the phonological+orthographical and the phonological condition. In Experiment 3 we compared a “phonological-syllable” condition (bi.rel-VI.RUS) with two control conditions (fi.rel-VI.RUS and vir.ga-VI.RUS). We found faster latencies for the phonological-syllabic condition than for the control conditions. These results suggest that syllabic effects are phonological in nature.

Syllables as Processing Units in Handwriting Production.

This research focused on the syllable as a processing unit in handwriting. Participants wrote, in uppercase letters, words that had been visually presented. The interletter intervals provide information on the timing of motor production. In Experiment 1, French participants wrote words that shared the initial letters but had different syllable boundaries. In Experiment 2, French- and Spanish-speaking participants wrote cognates and pseudowords with a letter sequence that was always intrasyllabic in French and intersyllabic in Spanish. In Experiment 3, French-Spanish bilinguals wrote the cognates and pseudowords with the same type of sequences. In the 3 experiments, the critical interletter intervals were longer between syllables than within syllables, indicating that word syllable structure constrains motor production both in French and Spanish.

Writing dictated words and picture names: Syllabic boundaries affect execution in Spanish

Two experiments examined the role of syllables in writing Spanish words. In Experiment 1, participants had to write single words that were aurally presented. The interletter intervals (ILIs) between critical letters were measured. Longer ILIs were found in the intersyllabic than the intrasyllabic condition. In Experiment 2, the inputs were pictures to remove any potential phonological bias stemming from the input stimulus. Results suggested that the linguistic nature of the input is not determining the output. Post hoc analyses revealed that other characteristics of the stimuli cannot explain the results. These results indicate that syllables are essential units of processing in writing Spanish and that central processes related to spelling and the graphemic buffer affect peripheral processes at movement execution.

Nuclear 11.3 μm PAH emission in local active galactic nuclei

We present Gran Telescopio CANARIAS CanariCam 8.7 μm imaging and 7.5–13 μm spectroscopy of six local systems known to host an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and have nuclear star formation. Our main goal is to investigate whether the molecules responsible for the 11.3 μm polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) feature are destroyed in the close vicinity of an AGN. We detect 11.3 μm PAH feature emission in the nuclear regions of the galaxies as well as extended PAH emission over a few hundred parsecs. The equivalent width (EW) of the feature shows a minimum at the nucleus but increases with increasing radial distances, reaching typical star-forming values a few hundred parsecs away from the nucleus. The reduced nuclear EWs are interpreted as due to increased dilution from the AGN continuum rather than destruction of the PAH molecules. We conclude that at least those molecules responsible for the 11.3 μm PAH feature survive in the nuclear environments as close as 10 pc from the AGN and for Seyfert-like AGN luminosities. We propose that material in the dusty tori, nuclear gas discs, and/or host galaxies of AGN is likely to provide the column densities necessary to protect the PAH molecules from the AGN radiation field.

Phonological effects in handwriting production: evidence from the implicit priming paradigm.

In the present article, we report 3 experiments using the odd-man-out variant of the implicit priming paradigm, aimed at determining the role played by phonological information during the handwriting process. Participants were asked to write a small set of words learned in response to prompts. Within each block, response words could share initial segments (constant homogeneous) or not (heterogeneous). Also, 2 variable homogeneous blocks were created by including a response word that did not share orthographic onset with the other response (odd-man-out). This odd-man-out could be phonologically related to the targets or not. Experiment 1 showed a preparation effect in the constant homogeneous condition, which disappeared (spoil effect) in the variable condition not phonologically related. However, no spoil effect was found when the odd-man-out shared the phonological initial segment with the targets. In Experiment 2, we obtained a spoil effect in the variable phonologically related condition, but it was significantly smaller than in the variable not phonologically related condition. The effects observed in Experiment 2 vanished in Experiment 3 under articulatory suppression, suggesting that they originated at a sublexical level. These findings suggest that phonological sublexical information is used during handwriting and provide evidence that the implicit priming paradigm (and the odd-man-out version of this) is a suitable tool for handwriting production research.

Mid-IR Spectra of Type Ia SN 2014J in M82 Spanning the First 4 Months

We present a time series of 8 - 13

A mid-infrared spectroscopic atlas of local active galactic nuclei on sub-arcsecond resolution using GTC/CanariCam

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Processing prefixes and suffixes in handwriting production.

m spectra and photometry for SN 2014J obtained 57, 81, 108, and 137 d after the explosion using CanariCam on the Gran Telescopio Canarias. This is the first mid-IR time series ever obtained for a Type Ia supernova. These observations can be understood within the framework of the delayed detonation model and the production of

A mid-infrared view of the inner parsecs of the Seyfert galaxy Mrk 1066 using CanariCam/GTC

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