http://www.mpi.nl daily 1 2009-04-03T14:23:38Z http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/phd-defence-caroline-junge-on-november-17 Infants learn their mother tongue remarkably easily and at an incredible speed. But if they cannot recognise words within continuous speech, they will be hindered in building up a vocabulary, according to Caroline Junge of MPI's Neurobiology of Language Department. She will defend her thesis 'The relevance of early word recognition: Insights from the infant brain' on November 17 at 15:30, in the Radboud University aula. No publisher myrtin 2012-02-03T12:44:52Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/phd-defence-francisco-torreira-on-november-14 Francisco Torreira will defend his thesis 'Speech reduction in spontaneous French and Spanish' on November 14 at 13:30, in the Radboud University aula. The researcher from MPI's Language and Cognition Department found, among other things, that speech reduction can vary greatly across languages. No publisher myrtin 2012-01-24T08:07:35Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/succesful-phd-defence-marco-van-de-ven On November 2, Marco van de Ven successfully defended his thesis 'The role of acoustic detail and context in the comprehension of reduced pronunciation variants'. In his dissertation, he investigated which types of information contribute to the recognition of words in everyday listening situations, and to what extent. No publisher myrtin 2011-12-22T10:58:48Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/preschool-children-conform-to-peer-pressure Children are sensitive to the opinion and behaviour of adults from a young age. Researchers from the Max Planck Institutes for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen and Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig have found that four-year-old children are also subject to pressure from their peers. The study, from Daniel Haun and Michael Tomasello, was published in the journal Child Development on October 24. No publisher myrtin 2011-12-20T13:57:39Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/understanding-emotions-without-language Does understanding emotions depend on the language we speak, or is our perception the same regardless of language and culture? According to a new study by researchers from the MPI for Psycholinguistics and the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, you don't need to have words for emotions to understand them. The results of the study were published online on October 17 in Emotion, a journal of the American Psychological Association. The study provides new evidence that the perception of emotional signals is not driven by language, supporting the view that emotions constitute a set of biologically evolved mechanisms, says lead researcher Disa Sauter. No publisher myrtin 2011-12-06T10:57:28Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/phd-defence-mark-dingemanse-on-october-24 Ideophones are words like kerplop or hippety-hoppety in English or sinisinisini ‘closely woven’, nyɛnɛnɛ ‘sensation of shivering’, and gelegelegele ‘shiny appearance’ in Siwu. They can be recognised by their marked forms and vivid sensory meanings. While in English they are marginal and low in number, some languages have hundreds or thousands of them, says Mark Dingemanse, MPI researcher at the Language and Cognition department. He studied these sensory words in Siwu, a language spoken in Ghana. On October 24 at 15:30, in the Radboud University aula, Dingemanse will defend his thesis 'The meaning and use of ideophones in Siwu'. No publisher myrtin 2011-12-02T10:53:24Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/chimpanzees From a young age, human children prefer to work together in solving a problem rather than on their own. Chimpanzees, however, show no such preference, according to researchers from the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) and the MPI for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen) in a study that was reported in the October 13th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. No publisher myrtin 2011-11-25T15:34:48Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/official-opening-of-language-archive-in-berlin Languages evolve, change and expire. Due to globalisation, migration and innovation, languages are rapidly disappearing. To prevent the loss of valuable data for linguistic and cultural research, a language archive has been developed, containing 80 Terabytes of data from more than 200 languages across the world. On October 11, a new unit called The Language Archive (TLA) will be officially opened at the Berlin Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (BBAW) to intensify the efforts. No publisher myrtin 2011-11-16T07:56:05Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/phd-defence-lin-wang-on-october-11 How do people make use of information structure to guide their communication? Or, how does information structure influence the depth of semantic and syntactic aspects of language processing? People seem to recruit more attentional resources to the most relevant (focused) information, Lin Wang discovered during her dissertation research at MPI's Neurobiology of Language Department. On October 11 at 15:30, in the Radboud University aula she will defend her thesis 'The influence of information structure on language comprehension: A neurocognitive perspective'. No publisher myrtin 2011-11-14T09:08:17Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/phd-defence-sonja-gipper-on-september-23 Evidentiality is still one of the least understood grammatical categories. MPI researcher Sonja Gipper specialises in the evidential system in Yurakaré, an endangered language spoken in Central Bolivia. On September 23 at 10:30, in the Radboud University aula she will defend her thesis 'Evidentiality and intersubjectivity in Yurakaré: An interactional account'. No publisher myrtin 2011-11-10T16:46:29Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/symposium-at-knaw-for-100-years-max-planck-society On September 15, the MPI for Psycholinguistics organised a symposium at the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Max Planck Society. Ten of more than 80 German institutes are currently headed by Dutch directors. They were individually portrayed in short videos, followed by panel discussions about the relations between German and Dutch science, and the ample possibilities of the MPS for young researchers. No publisher myrtin 2011-11-07T08:10:12Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/erc-starting-grant-for-mirjam-ernestus How do learners of a foreign language understand spontaneous speech in that language? For years, Mirjam Ernestus (RU and MPI) has been studying the language comprehension process, especially the way people understand the ubiquitous phenomenon known as reduced speech. The European Research Council recently awarded her a Starting Grant of 1,5 million euro for her research. No publisher myrtin 2011-11-02T12:08:06Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/infrastructure The areas of the brain that are involved in the linguistic processes underlying speaking and listening overlap to a large extent, neuroscientists at the MPI for Psycholinguistics and the Donders Institute have recently discovered. They were the first to have succesfully investigated the potential overlap in neuronal infrastructure using fMRI. Pyschological Science online published their striking results in August, 2011. No publisher myrtin 2011-10-28T20:25:26Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/speaking-and-writing-one-processing-mechanism Contrary to popular belief, our cognitive system contains only one mechanism for grammatical encoding and decoding, as shown in a MPI/Leiden University study that was recently published in the journal Language and Cognitive Processes. Is it time to revise all theories of language performance that presuppose separate mechanisms for the grammatical aspects of language production and language comprehension? Parmenides of Elea would think so! No publisher myrtin 2011-10-21T11:24:37Z News Item http://www.mpi.nl/news/news-archive/a-gene-implicated-in-speech-regulates-connectivity-of-the-developing-brain Foxp2, a gene involved in speech and language, helps regulate the wiring of neurons in the brain, according to a study led by Sonja C. Vernes and Simon E. Fisher (Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford and MPI, Nijmegen). The study was published on July 7th in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. The researchers identified this functional link by first uncovering the genetic programmes downstream of Foxp2 in developing brain tissue and then analysing its functional effects in neurons. No publisher myrtin 2011-10-13T21:59:40Z News Item