Publications

Abstract

Children who hear large amounts of diverse speech learn language more quickly than children who do not. However, high correlations between the amount and the diversity of the input in speech samples makes it difficult to isolate the influence of each. We overcame this problem by controlling the input to a computational model so that amount of exposure to linguistic input (quantity) and the quality of that input (lexical diversity) were independently manipulated. Sublexical, lexical, and multi-word knowledge were charted across development (Study 1), showing that while input quantity may be important early in learning, lexical diversity is ultimately more crucial, a prediction confirmed against children’s data (Study 2). The model trained on a lexically diverse input also performed better on nonword repetition and sentence recall tests (Study 3) and was quicker to learn new words over time (Study 4). A language input that is rich in lexical diversity outperforms equivalent richness in quantity for learned sublexical and lexical knowledge, for well-established language tests, and for acquiring words that have never been encountered before.

Abstract

Sustained attention has previously been shown as a requirement for language production. However, this is mostly evident for difficult conditions, such as a dual-task situation. The current study provides corroborating evidence that this relationship holds even for simple picture naming. Sustained attention ability, indexed both by participants’ reaction times and individuals’ hit rate (the proportion of correctly detected targets) on a digit discrimination task, correlated with picture naming latencies. Individuals with poor sustained attention were consistently slower and their RT distributions were more positively skewed when naming pictures compared to individuals with better sustained attention. Additionally, the need to sustain attention was manipulated by changing the speed of stimulus presentation. Research has suggested that fast event rates tax sustained attention resources to a larger degree than slow event rates. However, in this study the fast event rate did not result in increased difficulty, neither for the picture naming task nor for the sustained attention task. Instead, the results point to a speed-accuracy trade-off in the sustained attention task (lower accuracy but faster responses in the fast than in the slow event rate), and to a benefit for faster rates in the picture naming task (shorter naming latencies with no difference in accuracy). Performance on both tasks was largely comparable, supporting previous findings that sustained attention is called upon during language production

Abstract

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have problems not only with language performance but also with sustained attention, which is the ability to maintain alertness over an extended period of time. Although there is consensus that this ability is impaired with respect to processing stimuli in the auditory perceptual modality, conflicting evidence exists concerning the visual modality.
Aims

To address the outstanding issue whether the impairment in sustained attention is limited to the auditory domain, or if it is domain-general. Furthermore, to test whether children's sustained attention ability relates to their word-production skills.
Methods & Procedures

Groups of 7–9 year olds with SLI (N = 28) and typically developing (TD) children (N = 22) performed a picture-naming task and two sustained attention tasks, namely auditory and visual continuous performance tasks (CPTs).
Outcomes & Results

Children with SLI performed worse than TD children on picture naming and on both the auditory and visual CPTs. Moreover, performance on both the CPTs correlated with picture-naming latencies across developmental groups.
Conclusions & Implications

These results provide evidence for a deficit in both auditory and visual sustained attention in children with SLI. Moreover, the study indicates there is a relationship between domain-general sustained attention and picture-naming performance in both TD and language-impaired children. Future studies should establish whether this relationship is causal. If attention influences language, training of sustained attention may improve language production in children from both developmental groups.

Abstract

Theories of conversation propose that in order to have smooth transitions from one turn to the next, speakers already plan their response while listening to their interlocutor. Moreover, it has been argued that speakers align their linguistic representations (i.e. prime each other), thereby reducing the processing costs associated with concurrent listening and speaking. In two experiments, we assessed how identity and associative priming from spoken words onto picture naming were affected by a concurrent speech planning task. In a baseline (no name) condition, participants heard prime words that were identical, associatively related, or unrelated to target pictures presented two seconds after prime onset. Each prime was accompanied by a non-target picture and followed by its recorded name. The participant did not name the non-target picture. In the plan condition, the participants first named the non-target picture, instead of listening to the recording, and then the target. In Experiment 1, where the plan- and no-plan conditions were tested between participants, priming effects of equal strength were found in the plan and no-plan condition. In Experiment 2, where the two conditions were tested within participants, the identity priming effect was maintained, but the associative priming effect was only seen in the no-plan but not in the plan condition. In this experiment, participant had to decide at the onset of each trial whether or not to name the non-target picture, rendering the task more complex than in Experiment 1. These decision processes may have interfered with the processing of the primes. Thus, associative priming can take place during speech planning, but only if the cognitive load is not too high.

Abstract

Spontaneous language learning both in children learning their mother tongue and in adults learning a second language shows that language development proceeds in a stage-wise manner. Given that a developmental stage is defined as a coherent linguistic system, utterances of language learners can be accounted for in terms of what (Selinker, Larry. 1972. Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics 10. 209-231) referred to with the term Interlanguage. This paper is a study on the early interlanguage systems of children learning Dutch and German as their mother tongue. The present child learner systems, so it is claimed, are coherent lexical systems based on types of verb-argument structure that are either agentive (as in Dutch: kannie bal pakke 'cannot ball get', or German: mag nich nase putzen 'like not nose clean') or non-agentive (as in Dutch: popje valt bijna 'doll falls nearly', or in German: ente fällt 'duck falls'). At this lexical stage, functional morphology (e. g. morphological finiteness, tense), function words (e. g. auxiliary verbs, determiners) and word order variation are absent. For these typically developing children, both in Dutch and in German, it is claimed that developmental progress is driven by the acquisition of the formal properties of topicalization. It is, furthermore, argued that this feature seems to serve as the driving force in the instantiation of the functional, i. e. informational linguistic properties of the target-language system

Abstract

There is evidence that the human cerebellum is involved not only in motor control but also in other cognitive functions. Several studies have shown that language-related activation is lateralized toward the right cerebellar hemisphere in most people, in accordance with leftward cerebral cortical lateralization for language and a general contralaterality of cerebral–cerebellar activations. In terms of behavior, hand use elicits asymmetrical activation in the cerebellum, while hand preference is weakly associated with language lateralization. However, it is not known how, or whether, these functional relations are reflected in anatomy. We investigated volumetric gray matter asymmetries of cerebellar lobules in an MRI data set comprising 2226 subjects. We tested these cerebellar asymmetries for associations with handedness, and for correlations with cerebral cortical anatomical asymmetries of regions important for language or hand motor control, as defined by two different automated image analysis methods and brain atlases, and supplemented with extensive visual quality control. No significant associations of cerebellar asymmetries to handedness were found. Some significant associations of cerebellar lobular asymmetries to cerebral cortical asymmetries were found, but none of these correlations were greater than 0.14, and they were mostly method-/atlas-dependent. On the basis of this large and highly powered study, we conclude that there is no overt structural manifestation of cerebellar functional lateralization and connectivity, in respect of hand motor control or language laterality

Abstract

When you compare the behavior of two different age groups which are trying to master the same sensori-motor or cognitive skill, you are likely to discover varying learning routes: different stages, different intervals between stages, or even different orderings of stages. Such heterogeneous learning trajectories may be caused by at least six different types of factors: (1) Initial state: the kinds and levels of skills the learners have available at the onset of the learning episode. (2) Learning mechanisms: rule-based, inductive, connectionist, parameter setting, and so on. (3) Input and feedback characteristics: learning stimuli, information about success and failure. (4) Information processing mechanisms: capacity limitations, attentional biases, response preferences. (5) Energetic variables: motivation, emotional reactions. (6) Final state: the fine-structure of kinds and levels of subskills at the end of the learning episode. This applies to language acquisition as well. First and second language learners probably differ on all six factors. Nevertheless, the debate between advocates and opponents of the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis concerning L1 and L2 acquisition have looked almost exclusively at the first two factors. Those who believe that L1 learners have access to Universal Grammar whereas L2 learners rely on language processing strategies, postulate different learning mechanisms (UG parameter setting in L1, more general inductive strategies in L2 learning). Pienemann opposes this view and, based on his Processability Theory, argues that L1 and L2 learners start out from different initial states: they come to the grammar learning task with different structural hypotheses (SOV versus SVO as basic word order of German).

Abstract

Previous work has shown that Dutch listeners use prosodic information in the speech signal to optimise morphological processing: Listeners are sensitive to prosodic differences between a noun stem realised in isolation and a noun stem realised as part of a plural form (in which the stem is followed by an unstressed syllable). The present study, employing a lexical decision task, provides an additional demonstration of listeners' sensitivity to prosodic cues in the stem. This sensitivity is shown for two languages that differ in morphological productivity: Dutch and English. The degree of morphological productivity does not correlate with listeners' sensitivity to prosodic cues in the stem, but it is reflected in differential sensitivities to the word-specific log odds ratio of encountering an unshortened stem (i.e., a stem in isolation) versus encountering a shortened stem (i.e., a stem followed by a suffix consisting of one or more unstressed syllables). In addition to being sensitive to the prosodic cues themselves, listeners are also sensitive to the probabilities of occurrence of these prosodic cues.

Abstract

It has recently been shown that listeners use systematic differences in vowel length and intonation to resolve ambiguities between onset-matched simple words (Davis, Marslen-Wilson, & Gaskell, 2002; Salverda, Dahan, & McQueen, 2003). The present study shows that listeners also use prosodic information in the speech signal to optimize morphological processing. The precise acoustic realization of the stem provides crucial information to the listener about the morphological context in which the stem appears and attenuates the competition between stored inflectional variants. We argue that listeners are able to make use of prosodic information, even though the speech signal is highly variable within and between speakers, by virtue of the relative invariance of the duration of the onset. This provides listeners with a baseline against which the durational cues in a vowel and a coda can be evaluated. Furthermore, our experiments provide evidence for item-specific prosodic effects.

Abstract

In this article, we examine gaze direction in responses to polar questions using both quantitative and conversation analytic (CA) methods. The data come from a novel corpus of conversations in which participants wore eye-tracking glasses to obtain direct measures of their eye movements. The results show that while most preferred responses are produced with gaze toward the questioner, most dispreferred responses are produced with gaze aversion. We further demonstrate that gaze aversion by respondents can occasion self-repair by questioners in the transition space between turns, indicating that the relationship between gaze direction and preference is more than a mere statistical association. We conclude that gaze direction in responses to polar questions functions as a signal of response preference. Data are in American, British, and Canadian English.

Abstract

Two Event-Related Potential (ERP) studies contrast the processing of locally ambiguous sentences in the visual and the auditory modality. These sentences are disambiguated by a lexical element. Before this element appears in a sentence, the sentence can also be disambiguated by a boundary marker: a comma in the visual modality, or a prosodic break in the auditory modality. Previous studies have shown that a specific ERP component, the Closure Positive Shift (CPS), can be elicited by these markers. The results of the present studies show that both the comma and the prosodic break disambiguate the ambiguous sentences before the critical lexical element, despite the fact that a clear CPS is only found in the auditory modality. Comma and prosodic break thus have parallel functions irrespective of whether they do or do not elicit a CPS.

Abstract

In Dutch, high-frequency words with the suffix -lijk are often highly reduced in spontaneous unscripted speech. This study addressed socio-geographic variation in the reduction of such words against the backdrop of the variation in their use in written and spoken Dutch. Multivariate analyses of the frequencies with which the words were used in a factorially contrasted set of subcorpora revealed signi ficant variation involving the speaker's country, sex, and education level for spoken Dutch, and involving country and register for written Dutch. Acoustic analyses revealed that Dutch men reduced most often, while Flemish highly educated women reduced least. Two linguistic context effects emerged, one prosodic, and the other pertaining to the flow of information. Words in sentence final position showed less reduction, while words that were better predictable from the preceding word in the sentence(based on mutual information) tended to be reduced more often. The increased probability of reduction for forms that are more predictable in context, combined with the loss of the suffix in the more extremely reduced forms, suggests that highfrequency words in -lijk are undergoing a process of erosion that causes them to gravitate towards monomorphemic function words.

Abstract

Functional imaging studies have demonstrated involvement of the anterior temporal cortex in sentence comprehension. It is unclear, however, whether the anterior temporal cortex is essential for this function.We studied two aspects of sentence comprehension, namely syntactic and prosodic comprehension in temporal lobe epilepsy patients who were candidates for resection of the anterior temporal lobe. Methods: Temporal lobe epilepsy patients (n = 32) with normal (left) language dominance were tested on syntactic and prosodic comprehension before and after removal of the anterior temporal cortex. The prosodic comprehension test was also compared with performance of healthy control subjects (n = 47) before surgery. Results: Overall, temporal lobe epilepsy patients did not differ from healthy controls in syntactic and prosodic comprehension before surgery. They did perform less well on an affective prosody task. Post-operative testing revealed that syntactic and prosodic comprehension did not change after removal of the anterior temporal cortex. Discussion: The unchanged performance on syntactic and prosodic comprehension after removal of the anterior temporal cortex suggests that this area is not indispensable for sentence comprehension functions in temporal epilepsy patients. Potential implications for the postulated role of the anterior temporal lobe in the healthy brain are discussed.

Abstract

This paper reports on an investigation of children's (aged 3;5–9;8) comprehension of sentences containing ambiguity of prepositional phrase (PP) attachment. Results from a picture selection study (N=90) showed that children use verb semantics and preposition type to resolve the ambiguity, with older children also showing sensitivity to the definiteness of the object NP as a cue to interpretation. Study 2 investigated three- and five-year-old children's (N=47) ability to override an instrumental interpretation of ambiguous PPs in order to process attributes of the referential scene. The results showed that while five-year-olds are capable of incorporating aspects of the referential scene into their interpretations, three-year-olds are not as successful. Overall, the results suggest that children are attuned very early to the lexico-semantic co-occurrences that have been shown to aid ambiguity resolution in adults, but that more diffuse cues to interpretation are used only later in development

Abstract

The present article reports on an investigation of one child's acquisition of the multiple senses of the preposition with from 2;0–4;0. Two competing claims regarding children's early representation and subsequent acquisition of with were investigated. The “multiple meanings” hypothesis predicts that children form individual form-meaning pairings for with as separate lexical entries. The “monosemy approach” (McKercher 2001) claims that children apply a unitary meaning by abstracting core features early in acquisition. The child's (“Brian”) speech and his input were coded according to eight distinguishable senses of with. The results showed that Brian first acquired the senses that were most frequent in the input (accompaniment, attribute, and instrument). Less common senses took much longer to emerge. A detailed analysis of the input showed that a variety of clues are available that potentially enable the child to distinguish among high frequency senses. The acquisition data suggested that the child initially applied a restricted one-to-one form-meaning mapping for with, which is argued to reflect the spatial properties of the preposition. On the basis of these results it is argued that neither the monosemy nor the multiple meanings approach can fully explain the data, but that the results are best explained by a combination of word learning principles and children's ability to categorize the contextual properties of each sense's use in the ambient language.

Abstract

Hartshorne and Ullman (2006) presented naturalistic language data from 25 children (15 boys, 10 girls) and showed that girls produced more past tense overregularization errors than did boys. In particular, girls were more likely to overregularize irregular verbs whose stems share phonological similarities with regular verbs. It was argued that the result supported the Declarative/Procedural model of language, a neuropsychological analogue of the dual-route approach to language. In the current study we present experimental data that are inconsistent with these naturalistic data. Eighty children (40 males, 40 females) aged 5;0–6;9 completed a past tense elicitation task, a test of declarative memory, and a test of non-verbal intelligence. The results revealed no sex differences on any of the measures. Instead, the best predictors of overregularization rates were item-level features of the test verbs. We discuss the results within the context of dual versus single route debate on past tense acquisition

Abstract

To segment continuous speech into its component words, listeners make use of language rhythm; because rhythm differs across languages, so do the segmentation procedures which listeners use. For each of stress-, syllable-and mora-based rhythmic structure, perceptual experiments have led to the discovery of corresponding segmentation procedures. In the case of mora-based rhythm, similar segmentation has been demonstrated in the otherwise unrelated languages Japanese and Telugu; segmentation based on syllable rhythm, however, has been previously demonstrated only for European languages from the Romance family. We here report two target detection experiments in which Korean listeners, presented with speech in Korean and in French, displayed patterns of segmentation like those previously observed in analogous experiments with French listeners. The Korean listeners' accuracy in detecting word-initial target fragments in either language was significantly higher when the fragments corresponded exactly to a syllable in the input than when the fragments were smaller or larger than a syllable. We conclude that Korean and French listeners can call on similar procedures for segmenting speech, and we further propose that perceptual tests of speech segmentation provide a valuable accompaniment to acoustic analyses for establishing languages' rhythmic class membership.

Abstract

We report three studies (one corpus, two experimental) that investigated the acquisition of relative clauses (RCs) in Finnish-speaking children. Study 1 found that Finnish children's naturalistic exposure to RCs predominantly consists of non-subject relatives (i.e. oblique, object) which typically have inanimate head nouns. Study 2 tested children's comprehension of subject, object, and two types of oblique relatives. No difference was found in the children's performance on different structures, including a lack of previously widely reported asymmetry between subject and object relatives. However, children's comprehension was modulated by animacy of the head referent. Study 3 tested children's production of the same RC structures using sentence repetition. Again we found no subject–object asymmetry. The pattern of results suggested that distributional frequency patterns and the relative complexity of the relativizer contribute to the difficulty associated with particular RC structures.

Abstract

Pretence and creativity are often regarded as ubiquitous characteristics of childhood, yet not all education systems value or promote these attributes to the same extent. Different pedagogies and practices are evident within the UK National Curriculum, Steiner and Montessori schools. In this study, 20 children participated from each of these school systems (N = 60, aged 6;10–8;11) completing the test of creative thinking—drawing production (TCT-DP; K. K. Urban, & H. G. Jellen, 1996) and a pretend actions task (W. F. Overton & J. P. Jackson, 1973). Overall, Steiner pupils performed significantly higher on the TCT-DP than both the Montessori and National Curriculum pupils who performed similarly. Steiner pupils also performed significantly better on the pretend actions task than the Montessori pupils, but no other significant differences were found. Overall, there was also a significant positive correlation between pretence and creativity in the current sample, supporting previous research suggesting that these skills are related (e.g., A.S. Kaugars & S. W. Russ, 2009; P. Y. Mullineaux & L. F. Dilalla, 2009).

Abstract

People spontaneously produce gestures during speaking and thinking. The authors focus here on gestures that depict or indicate information related to the contents of concurrent speech or thought (i.e., representational gestures). Previous research indicates that such gestures have not only communicative functions, but also self-oriented cognitive functions. In this article, the authors propose a new theoretical framework, the gesture-for-conceptualization hypothesis, which explains the self-oriented functions of representational gestures. According to this framework, representational gestures affect cognitive processes in 4 main ways: gestures activate, manipulate, package, and explore spatio-motoric information for speaking and thinking. These four functions are shaped by gesture's ability to schematize information, that is, to focus on a small subset of available information that is potentially relevant to the task at hand. The framework is based on the assumption that gestures are generated from the same system that generates practical actions, such as object manipulation; however, gestures are distinct from practical actions in that they represent information. The framework provides a novel, parsimonious, and comprehensive account of the self-oriented functions of gestures. The authors discuss how the framework accounts for gestures that depict abstract or metaphoric content, and they consider implications for the relations between self-oriented and communicative functions of gestures

Abstract

There are two core phenomena which any empirical investigation of beauty must account for: the existence of aesthetical experience, and the enormous variability of this experience across times, cultures, people. Hence, it would seem a hopeless enterprise to determine ‘the very nature’ of beauty, and in fact, none of the many attempts from the Antiquity to present days found general acceptance. But what we should be able to investigate and understand is how properties of people, for example their varying cultural experiences, are correlated with the properties of objects which we evaluate. Beauty is neither only in the eye of the observer nor only in the objects which it sees - it is in the way in which specific observers see specific objects.

Abstract

In the first, critical part of this study, a small sample of simple German sentences with their empirically determined pitch contours is used to demonstrate the incorrectness of numerous currently hold views of German sentence intonation. In the second, more constructive part, several interrogative sentence types are analysed and an attempt is made to show that intonation, besides other functions, indicates the permantently changing 'thematic score' in on-going discourse as well as certain validity claims.

Abstract

All disciplines depend on language; but two of them also have language as an object – literary studies and linguistics. Their objectives are not the same – but they are sufficiently similar to invite close cooperation. This is not what we find; in fact, the development of research over the last decades has led to a relationship which is, in the typical case, characterised by friendly, and sometimes less friendly, ignorance and indifference. This article discusses some of the reasons for this development, and it suggests some conditions under which both sides would benefit from more cooperation.

Abstract

Neurodevelopmental disorders are defined by highly heritable problems during development and brain growth. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), and intellectual disability (ID) are frequent neurodevelopmental disorders, with common comorbidity among them. Imaging genetics studies on the role of disease-linked genetic variants on brain structure and function have been performed to unravel the etiology of these disorders. Here, we reviewed imaging genetics literature on these disorders attempting to understand the mechanisms of individual disorders and their clinical overlap. For ADHD and ASD, we selected replicated candidate genes implicated through common genetic variants. For ID, which is mainly caused by rare variants, we included genes for relatively frequent forms of ID occurring comorbid with ADHD or ASD. We reviewed case-control studies and studies of risk variants in healthy individuals. Imaging genetics studies for ADHD were retrieved for SLC6A3/DAT1, DRD2, DRD4, NOS1, and SLC6A4/5HTT. For ASD, studies on CNTNAP2, MET, OXTR, and SLC6A4/5HTT were found. For ID, we reviewed the genes FMR1, TSC1 and TSC2, NF1, and MECP2. Alterations in brain volume, activity, and connectivity were observed. Several findings were consistent across studies, implicating, for example, SLC6A4/5HTT in brain activation and functional connectivity related to emotion regulation. However, many studies had small sample sizes, and hypothesis-based, brain region-specific studies were common. Results from available studies confirm that imaging genetics can provide insight into the link between genes, disease-related behavior, and the brain. However, the field is still in its early stages, and conclusions about shared mechanisms cannot yet be drawn.

Abstract

During the last 25 years, second language acquisition (SLA) research hasmade considerable progress, but is still far from proving a solid basis for foreign language teaching, or from a general theory of SLA. In addition, its status within the linguistic disciplines is still very low. I argue this has not much to do with low empirical or theoretical standards in the field—in this regard, SLA research is fully competitive—but with a particular perspective on the acquisition process: SLA researches learners' utterances as deviations from a certain target, instead of genuine manifestations of underlying language capacity; it analyses them in terms of what they are not rather than what they are. For some purposes such a "target deviation perspective" makes sense, but it will not help SLA researchers to substantially and independently contribute to a deeper understanding of the structure and function of the human language faculty. Therefore, these findings will remain of limited interest to other scientists until SLA researchers consider learner varieties a normal, in fact typical, manifestation of this unique human capacity.

Abstract

The interaction of action-related language processing with actual movement is an indicator of the functional role of motor cortical involvement in language understanding. This paper describes two experiments using single action verb stimuli. Motor responses were performed with the hand or the foot. To test the double dissociation of language-motor facilitation effects within subjects, Experiments 1 and 2 used a priming procedure where both hand and foot reactions had to be performed in response to different geometrical shapes, which were preceded by action verbs. In Experiment 1, the semantics of the verbs could be ignored whereas Experiment 2 included semantic decisions. Only Experiment 2 revealed a clear double dissociation in reaction times: reactions were facilitated when preceded by verbs describing actions with the matching effector. In Experiment 1, by contrast, there was an interaction between verb-response congruence and a semantic variable related to motor features of the verbs. Thus, the double dissociation paradigm of semantic motor priming was effective, corroborating the role of the motor system in action-related language processing. Importantly, this effect was body part specific.

Abstract

Spatial navigation is a crucial ability for living. Previous animal studies have shown that the S100B gene is causally related to spatial navigation performance in mice. However, the genetic factors influencing human navigation and its neural substrates remain unclear. Here, we provided the first evidence that the S100B gene modulates neural processing of navigationally relevant scenes in humans. First, with a novel protocol, we demonstrated that the spatial pattern of S100B gene expression in postmortem brains was associated with brain activation pattern for spatial navigation in general, and for scene processing in particular. Further, in a large fMRI cohort of healthy adults of Han Chinese (N = 202), we found that S100B gene polymorphisms modulated scene selectivity in the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) and parahippocampal place area. Finally, the serum levels of S100B protein mediated the association between S100B gene polymorphism and scene selectivity in the RSC. Our study takes the first step toward understanding the neurogenetic mechanism of human spatial navigation and suggests a novel approach to discover candidate genes modulating cognitive functions.

Abstract

Spatial navigation is a crucial ability for living. Previous work has revealed multiple distributed brain regions associated with human navigation. However, little is known about how these regions work together as a network (referred to as navigation network) to support flexible navigation. In a novel protocol, we combined neuroimaging meta-analysis, and functional connectivity and behavioral data from the same subjects. Briefly, we first constructed the navigation network for each participant, by combining a large-scale neuroimaging meta-analysis (with the Neurosynth) and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Then, we investigated multiple topological properties of the navigation networks, including small-worldness, modularity, and highly connected hubs. Finally, we explored the behavioral relevance of these intrinsic properties in a large sample of healthy young adults (N = 190). We found that navigation networks showed small-world and modular organization at global level. More importantly, we found that increased small-worldness and modularity of the navigation network were associated with better navigation ability. Finally, we found that the right retrosplenial complex (RSC) acted as one of the hubs in the navigation network, and that higher betweenness of this region correlated with better navigation ability, suggesting a critical role of the RSC in modulating the navigation network in human brain. Our study takes one of the first steps toward understanding the underlying organization of the navigation network. Moreover, these findings suggest the potential applications of the novel approach to investigating functionally meaningful networks in human brain and their relations to the behavioral impairments in the aging and psychiatric patients.

Abstract

Spatial navigation is a crucial ability for living. Previous studies have shown that males are better at navigation than females, but little is known about the neural basis underlying the sex differences. In this study, we investigated whether cortical scene processing in three well-established scene-selective regions was sexually different, by examining sex differences in scene selectivity and its behavioral relevance to navigation. To do this, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the parahippocampal place area (PPA), retrosplenial complex (RSC), and occipital place area (OPA) in a large cohort of healthy young adults viewing navigationally relevant scenes (N = 202), and correlated their neural selectivity to scenes with their self-reported navigational ability. Behaviorally, we replicated the previous finding that males were better at navigation than females. Neurally, we found that the scene selectivity in the bilateral PPA, not in the RSC or OPA, was significantly higher in males than females. Such differences could not be explained by confounding factors including brain size and fMRI data quality. Importantly, males, not females, with stronger scene selectivity in the left PPA possessed better navigational ability. This brain-behavior association could not be accounted for by non-navigational abilities (i.e., intelligence and mental rotation ability). Overall, our study provides novel empirical evidence demonstrating sex differences in the brain activity, inviting further studies on sex differences in the neural network for spatial navigation.

Abstract

Children begin to talk at about age one. The vocabulary they need to do so must be built on perceptual evidence and, indeed, infants begin to recognize spoken words long before they talk. Most of the utterances infants hear, however, are continuous, without pauses between words, so constructing a vocabulary requires them to decompose continuous speech in order to extract the individual words. Here, we present electrophysiological evidence that 10-month-old infants recognize two-syllable words they have previously heard only in isolation when these words are presented anew in continuous speech. Moreover, they only need roughly the first syllable of the word to begin doing this. Thus, prelinguistic infants command a highly efficient procedure for segmentation and recognition of spoken words in the absence of an existing vocabulary, allowing them to tackle effectively the problem of bootstrapping a lexicon out of the highly variable, continuous speech signals in their environment.

Abstract

In the last decade, the involvement of neural oscillatory mechanisms in speech comprehension has been increasingly investigated. Current evidence suggests that low-frequency and high-frequency neural entrainment to the acoustic dynamics of speech are linked to its analysis. One crucial question is whether acoustical processing primarily modulates neural entrainment, or whether entrainment instead reflects linguistic processing. Here, we review studies investigating the effect of linguistic manipulations on neural oscillatory activity. In light of the current findings, we argue that theta (3–8 Hz) entrainment may primarily reflect the analysis of the acoustic features of speech. In contrast, recent evidence suggests that delta (1–3 Hz) and high-frequency activity (>40 Hz) are reliable indicators of perceived linguistic representations. The interdependence between low-frequency and high-frequency neural oscillations, as well as their causal role on speech comprehension, is further discussed with regard to neurophysiological models of speech processing

Abstract

In various applications of forensic phonetics the question arises as to how far aural-perceptual speaker recognition performance is reliable. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the relationship between speaker recognition results and human perception/production abilities like musicality or speech sensitivity. In this study, performance in a speaker recognition experiment and a speech sensitivity test are correlated. The results show a moderately significant positive correlation between the two tasks. Generally, performance in the speaker recognition task was better than in the speech sensitivity test. Professionals in speech and singing yielded a more homogeneous correlation than non-experts. Training in speech as well as choir-singing seems to have a positive effect on performance in speaker recognition. It may be concluded, firstly, that in cases where the reliability of voice line-up results or the credibility of a testimony have to be considered, the speech sensitivity test could be a useful indicator. Secondly, the speech sensitivity test might be integrated into the canon of possible procedures for the accreditation of forensic phoneticians. Both tests may also be used in combination.

Abstract

Background

Left-right asymmetry is a fundamental organizing feature of the human brain, and neuro-psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia sometimes involve alterations of brain asymmetry. As early as 8 weeks post conception, the majority of human fetuses move their right arms more than their left arms, but because nerve fibre tracts are still descending from the forebrain at this stage, spinal-muscular asymmetries are likely to play an important developmental role.
Methods

We used RNA sequencing to measure gene expression levels in the left and right spinal cords, and left and right hindbrains, of 18 post-mortem human embryos aged 4-8 weeks post conception. Genes showing embryonic lateralization were tested for an enrichment of signals in genome-wide association data for schizophrenia.
Results

The left side of the embryonic spinal cord was found to mature faster than the right side. Both sides transitioned from transcriptional profiles associated with cell division and proliferation at earlier stages, to neuronal differentiation and function at later stages, but the two sides were not in synchrony (p = 2.2 E-161). The hindbrain showed a left-right mirrored pattern compared to the spinal cord, consistent with the well-known crossing over of function between these two structures. Genes that showed lateralization in the embryonic spinal cord were enriched for association signals with schizophrenia (p = 4.3 E-05).
Conclusions
These are the earliest-stage left-right differences of human neural development ever reported. Disruption of the lateralised developmental programme may play a role in the genetic susceptibility to schizophrenia.

Abstract

Importance Knowing the range of symptoms seen in patients with a missense or loss-of-function variant in KCNB1 and how these symptoms correlate with the type of variant will help clinicians with diagnosis and prognosis when treating new patients. Objectives To investigate the clinical spectrum associated with KCNB1 variants and the genotype-phenotype correlations. Design, Setting, and Participants This study summarized the clinical and genetic information of patients with a presumed pathogenic variant in KCNB1.Patients were identified in research projects or during clinical testing. Information on patients from previously published articles was collected and authors contacted if feasible. All patients were seen at a clinic at one of the participating institutes because of presumed genetic disorder. They were tested in a clinical setting or included in a research project. Main Outcomes and Measures The genetic variant and its inheritance and information on the patient's symptoms and characteristics in a predefined format. All variants were identified with massive parallel sequencing and confirmed with Sanger sequencing in the patient. Absence of the variant in the parents could be confirmed with Sanger sequencing in all families except one. Results Of 26 patients (10 female, 15 male, 1 unknown; mean age at inclusion, 9.8 years; age range, 2-32 years) with developmental delay, 20 (77%) carried a missense variant in the ion channel domain of KCNB1, with a concentration of variants in region S5 to S6. Three variants that led to premature stops were located in the C-terminal and 3 in the ion channel domain. Twenty-one of 25 patients (84%) had seizures, with 9 patients (36%) starting with epileptic spasms between 3 and 18 months of age. All patients had developmental delay, with 17 (65%) experiencing severe developmental delay; 14 (82%) with severe delay had behavioral problems. The developmental delay was milder in 4 of 6 patients with stop variants and in a patient with a variant in the S2 transmembrane element rather than the S4 to S6 region. Conclusions and Relevance De novo KCNB1 missense variants in the ion channel domain and loss-of-function variants in this domain and the C-terminal likely cause neurodevelopmental disorders with or without seizures. Patients with presumed pathogenic variants in KCNB1 have a variable phenotype. However, the type and position of the variants in the protein are (imperfectly) correlated with the severity of the disorder.

Abstract

In this exploratory study we test the hypothesis that the retrieval from memory of proper noun Agents (PNAs) under processing pressure causes a greater proportion of such semantic arguments to be placed to the right of the initial position in a clause than would be the case if such retrieval from memory were not necessary. This effect is manifest in sports commentary. Processing pressure on sports commentators is modulated by the speed at which the sport is played and reported. Non-initial placement is also facilitated by formulae which have slots in non-initial position. It follows that the non-initial placement of PNAs is not always semantically or pragmatically motivated. This finding therefore runs counter to a strong form of the functionalist hypothesis that syntactic choices available in the systemic structure of the syntax of a language offer solely semantic or pragmatic choices. It is an open question in a weak functionalist account of language and language use how processing and communicative functions interact in general.

Abstract

Many natural auditory signals, including music and language, change periodically. The effect of such auditory rhythms on the brain is unclear however. One widely held view, dynamic attending theory, proposes that the attentional system entrains to the rhythm and increases attention at moments of rhythmic salience. In support, 2 experiments reported here show reduced response times to visual letter strings shown at auditory rhythm peaks, compared with rhythm troughs. However, we argue that an account invoking the entrainment of general attention should further predict rhythm entrainment to also influence memory for visual stimuli. In 2 pseudoword memory experiments we find evidence against this prediction. Whether a pseudoword is shown during an auditory rhythm peak or not is irrelevant for its later recognition memory in silence. Other attention manipulations, dividing attention and focusing attention, did result in a memory effect. This raises doubts about the suggested attentional nature of rhythm entrainment. We interpret our findings as support for auditory rhythm perception being based on auditory-motor entrainment, not general attention entrainment.

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between the acoustic duration of phonemic sequences and their frequencies of occurrence. The data were obtained from large (sub)corpora of spontaneous speech in Dutch, English, German, and Italian. Acoustic duration of an n-phone is shown to codetermine the n-phone's frequency of use, such that languages preferentially use diphones and triphones that are neither very long nor very short. The observed distributions are well approximated by a theoretical function that quantifies the concurrent action of the self-regulatory processes of minimization of articulatory effort and minimization of perception effort

Abstract

The current electroencephalography study investigated the relationship between the motor and (language) comprehension systems by simultaneously measuring mu and N400 effects. Specifically, we examined whether the pattern of motor activation elicited by verbs depends on the larger sentential context. A robust N400 congruence effect confirmed the contextual manipulation of action plausibility, a form of semantic congruency. Importantly, this study showed that: (1) Action verbs elicited more mu power decrease than non-action verbs when sentences described plausible actions. Action verbs thus elicited more motor activation than non-action verbs. (2) In contrast, when sentences described implausible actions, mu activity was present but the difference between the verb types was not observed. The increased processing associated with a larger N400 thus coincided with mu activity in sentences describing implausible actions. Altogether, context-dependent motor activation appears to play a functional role in deriving context-sensitive meaning

Abstract

How humans understand the intention of others’ actions remains controversial. Some authors have suggested that intentions are recognized by means of a motor simulation of the observed action with the mirror-neuron system [1–3]. Others emphasize that intention recognition is an inferential process, often called ‘‘mentalizing’’ or employing a ‘‘theory of mind,’’ which activates areas well outside the motor system [4–6]. Here, we assessed the contribution of brain regions involved in motor simulation and mentalizing for understanding action intentions via functional brain imaging. Results show that the inferior frontal gyrus (part of the mirror-neuron system) processes the intentionality of an observed action on the basis of the visual properties of the action, irrespective of whether the subject paid attention to the intention or not. Conversely, brain areas that are part of a ‘‘mentalizing’’ network become active when subjects reflect about the intentionality of an observed action, but they are largely insensitive to the visual properties of the observed action. This supports the hypothesis that motor simulation and mentalizing have distinct but complementary functions for the recognition of others’ intentions.

Abstract

The chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a disabling disorder of unknown etiology. The symptomatology of CFS (central fatigue, impaired concentration, attention and memory) suggests that this disorder could be related to alterations at the level of the central nervous system. In this study, we have used an automated and unbiased morphometric technique to test whether CFS patients display structural cerebral abnormalities. We mapped structural cerebral morphology and volume in two cohorts of CFS patients (in total 28 patients) and healthy controls (in total 28 controls) from high-resolution structural magnetic resonance images, using voxel-based morphometry. Additionally, we recorded physical activity levels to explore the relation between severity of CFS symptoms and cerebral abnormalities. We observed significant reductions in global gray matter volume in both cohorts of CFS patients, as compared to matched control participants. Moreover, the decline in gray matter volume was linked to the reduction in physical activity, a core aspect of CFS. These findings suggest that the central nervous system plays a key role in the pathophysiology of CFS and point to a new objective and quantitative tool for clinical diagnosis of this disabling disorder.

Abstract

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a disabling disorder, characterized by persistent or relapsing fatigue. Recent studies have detected a decrease in cortical grey matter volume in patients with CFS, but it is unclear whether this cerebral atrophy constitutes a cause or a consequence of the disease. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an effective behavioural intervention for CFS, which combines a rehabilitative approach of a graded increase in physical activity with a psychological approach that addresses thoughts and beliefs about CFS which may impair recovery. Here, we test the hypothesis that cerebral atrophy may be a reversible state that can ameliorate with successful CBT. We have quantified cerebral structural changes in 22 CFS patients that underwent CBT and 22 healthy control participants. At baseline, CFS patients had significantly lower grey matter volume than healthy control participants. CBT intervention led to a significant improvement in health status, physical activity and cognitive performance. Crucially, CFS patients showed a significant increase in grey matter volume, localized in the lateral prefrontal cortex. This change in cerebral volume was related to improvements in cognitive speed in the CFS patients. Our findings indicate that the cerebral atrophy associated with CFS is partially reversed after effective CBT. This result provides an example of macroscopic cortical plasticity in the adult human brain, demonstrating a surprisingly dynamic relation between behavioural state and cerebral anatomy. Furthermore, our results reveal a possible neurobiological substrate of psychotherapeutic treatment.

Abstract

We have used implicit motor imagery to investigate the neural correlates of motor planning independently from actual movements. Subjects were presented with drawings of left or right hands and asked to judge the hand laterality, regardless of the stimulus rotation from its upright orientation. We paired this task with a visual imagery control task, in which subjects were presented with typographical characters and asked to report whether they saw a canonical letter or its mirror image, regardless of its rotation. We measured neurovascular activity with fast event-related fMRI, distinguishing responses parametrically related to motor imagery from responses evoked by visual imagery and other task-related phenomena. By quantifying behavioral and neurovascular correlates of imagery on a trial-by-trial basis, we could discriminate between stimulusrelated, mental rotation-related, and response-related neural activity. We found that specific portions of the posterior parietal and precentral cortex increased their activity as a function of mental rotation only during the motor imagery task. Within these regions, the parietal cortex was visually responsive, whereas the dorsal precentral cortex was not. Response- but not rotation-related activity was found around the left central sulcus (putative primary motor cortex) during both imagery tasks. Our study provides novel evidence on the topography and content of movement representations in the human brain. During intended action, the posterior parietal cortex combines somatosensory and visuomotor information, whereas the dorsal premotor cortex generates the actual motor plan, and the primary motor cortex deals with movement execution. We discuss the relevance of these results in the context of current models of action planning.

Abstract

Kanazawa (2007) proposes the ‘evolutionary psychological imagination’ (p.7) as an authoritative framework for understanding complex social and public issues. As a case study of this approach, Kanazawa addresses acts of international terrorism, specifically suicide bombings committed by Muslim men. It is proposed that a comprehensive explanation of such acts can be gained from taking an evolutionary perspective armed with only three points of cultural knowledge: 1. Muslims are exceptionally polygynous, 2. Muslim men believe they will gain reproductive access to 72 virgins if they die as a martyr and 3. Muslim men have limited access to pornography, which might otherwise relieve the tension built up from intra-sexual competition. We agree with Kanazawa that evolutionary models of human behaviour can contribute to our understanding of even the most complex social issues. However, Kanazawa’s case study, of what he refers to as ‘World War III’, rests on a flawed theoretical argument, lacks empirical backing, and holds little in the way of explanatory power.

Abstract

People learn language from their social environment. As individuals differ in their social networks, they might be exposed to input with different lexical distributions, and these might influence their linguistic representations and lexical choices. In this article we test the relation between linguistic performance and 3 social network properties that should influence input variability, namely, network size, network heterogeneity, and network density. In particular, we examine how these social network properties influence lexical prediction, lexical access, and lexical use. To do so, in Study 1, participants predicted how people of different ages would name pictures, and in Study 2 participants named the pictures themselves. In both studies, we examined how participants’ social network properties related to their performance. In Study 3, we ran simulations on norms we collected to see how age variability in one’s network influences the distribution of different names in the input. In all studies, network age heterogeneity influenced performance leading to better prediction, faster response times for difficult-to-name items, and less entropy in input distribution. These results suggest that individual differences in social network properties can influence linguistic behavior. Specifically, they show that having a more heterogeneous network is associated with better performance. These results also show that the same factors influence lexical prediction and lexical production, suggesting the two might be related.

Abstract

Speakers constantly learn language from the environment by sampling their linguistic input and adjusting their representations accordingly. Logically, people should attend more to the environment and adjust their behavior in accordance with it more the lower their success in the environment is. We test whether the learning of linguistic input follows this general principle in two studies: a corpus analysis of a TV game show, Jeopardy, and a laboratory task modeled after Go Fish. We show that lower (non-linguistic) success in the task modulates learning of and reliance on linguistic patterns in the environment. In Study 1, we find that poorer performance increases conformity with linguistic norms, as reflected by increased preference for frequent grammatical structures. In Study 2, which consists of a more interactive setting, poorer performance increases learning from the immediate social environment, as reflected by greater repetition of others’ grammatical structures. We propose that these results have implications for models of language production and language learning and for the propagation of language change. In particular, they suggest that linguistic changes might spread more quickly in times of crisis, or when the gap between more and less successful people is larger. The results might also suggest that innovations stem from successful individuals while their propagation would depend on relatively less successful individuals. We provide a few historical examples that are in line with the first suggested implication, namely, that the spread of linguistic changes is accelerated during difficult times, such as war time and an economic downturn

Abstract

Foreign-accented speech is generally harder to understand than native-accented speech. This difficulty is reduced for non-native listeners who share their first language with the non-native speaker. It is currently unclear, however, how non-native listeners deal with foreign-accented speech produced by speakers of a different language. We show that the process of (second) language acquisition is associated with an increase in the relative difficulty of processing foreign-accented speech. Therefore, experiencing greater relative difficulty with foreign-accented speech compared with native speech is a marker of language proficiency. These results contribute to our understanding of how phonological categories are acquired during second language learning.

Abstract

We learn language from our social environment. In general, the more sources we have, the less informative each of them is, and the less weight we should assign it. If this is the case, people who interact with fewer others should be more susceptible to the influence of each of their interlocutors. This paper tests whether indeed people who interact with fewer other people have more malleable phonological representations. Using a perceptual learning paradigm, this paper shows that individuals who regularly interact with fewer others are more likely to change their boundary between /d/ and /t/ following exposure to an atypical speaker. It further shows that the effect of number of interlocutors is not due to differences in ability to learn the speaker’s speech patterns, but specific to likelihood of generalizing the learned pattern. These results have implications for both language learning and language change, as they suggest that individuals with smaller social networks might play an important role in propagating linguistic changes.

Abstract

The order of acquisition of Dutch syllable types by first language learners is analyzed as following from an initial ranking and subsequent rerankings of constraints in an optimality theoretic grammar. Initially, structural constraints are all ranked above faithfulness constraints, leading to core syllable (CV) productions only. Subsequently, faithfulness gradually rises to the highest position in the ranking, allowing more and more marked syllable types to appear in production. Local conjunctions of Structural constraints allow for a more detailed analysis.

Abstract

Preparing words in speech production is normally a fast and accurate process. We generate them two or three per second in fluent conversation; and overtly naming a clear picture of an object can easily be initiated within 600 msec after picture onset. The underlying process, however, is exceedingly complex. The theory reviewed in this target article analyzes this process as staged and feedforward. After a first stage of conceptual preparation, word generation proceeds through lexical selection, morphological and phonological encoding, phonetic encoding, and articulation itself. In addition, the speaker exerts some degree of output control, by monitoring of self-produced internal and overt speech. The core of the theory, ranging from lexical selection to the initiation of phonetic encoding, is captured in a computational model, called WEAVER + +. Both the theory and the computational model have been developed in interaction with reaction time experiments, particularly in picture naming or related word production paradigms, with the aim of accounting. for the real-time processing in normal word production. A comprehensive review of theory, model, and experiments is presented. The model can handle some of the main observations in the domain of speech errors (the major empirical domain for most other theories of lexical access), and the theory opens new ways of approaching the cerebral organization of speech production by way of high-temporal-resolution imaging.

Abstract

The first, theoretical part of this paper sketches a framework for phonological encoding in which the speaker successively generates phonological syllables in connected speech. The final stage of this process, phonetic encoding, consists of accessing articulatory gestural scores for each of these syllables in a "mental syllabary". The second, experimental part studies various predictions derived from this theory. The main finding is a syllable frequency effect: words ending in a high-frequent syllable are named faster than words ending in a low-frequent syllable. As predicted, this syllable frequency effect is independent of and additive to the effect of word frequency on naming latency. The effect, moreover, is not due to the complexity of the word-final syllable. In the General Discussion, the syllabary model is further elaborated with respect to phonological underspecification and activation spreading. Alternative accounts of the empirical findings in terms of core syllables and demisyllables are considered.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to relate a psycholinguistic processing model of picture naming to the dynamics of cortical activation during picture naming. The activation was recorded from eight Dutch subjects with a whole-head neuromagnetometer. The processing model, based on extensive naming latency studies, is a stage model. In preparing a picture's name, the speaker performs a chain of specific operations. They are, in this order, computing the visual percept, activating an appropriate lexical concept, selecting the target word from the mental lexicon, phonological encoding, phonetic encoding, and initiation of articulation. The time windows for each of these operations are reasonably well known and could be related to the peak activity of dipole sources in the individual magnetic response patterns. The analyses showed a clear progression over these time windows from early occipital activation, via parietal and temporal to frontal activation. The major specific findings were that (1) a region in the left posterior temporal lobe, agreeing with the location of Wernicke's area, showed prominent activation starting about 200 msec after picture onset and peaking at about 350 msec, (i.e., within the stage of phonological encoding), and (2) a consistent activation was found in the right parietal cortex, peaking at about 230 msec after picture onset, thus preceding and partly overlapping with the left temporal response. An interpretation in terms of the management of visual attention is proposed.

Abstract

Research on spoken word production has been approached from two angles. In one research tradition, the analysis of spontaneous or induced speech errors led to models that can account for speech error distributions. In another tradition, the measurement of picture naming latencies led to chronometric models accounting for distributions of reaction times in word production. Both kinds of models are, however, dealing with the same underlying processes: (1) the speaker’s selection of a word that is semantically and syntactically appropriate; (2) the retrieval of the word’s phonological properties; (3) the rapid syllabification of the word in context; and (4) the preparation of the corresponding articulatory gestures. Models of both traditions explain these processes in terms of activation spreading through a localist, symbolic network. By and large, they share the main levels of representation: conceptual/semantic, syntactic, phonological and phonetic. They differ in various details, such as the amount of cascading and feedback in the network. These research traditions have begun to merge in recent years, leading to highly constructive experimentation. Currently, they are like two similar knives honing each other. A single pair of scissors is in the making.

Abstract

This commentary discusses whether abstract metrical frames are stored. For stress-assigning languages (e.g., Dutch and English), which have a dominant stress pattern, metrical frames are stored only for words that deviate from the default stress pattern. The majority of the words in these languages are produced without retrieving any independent syllabic or metrical frame.

Abstract

Speakers tend to repeat materials from previous talk. This tendency is experimentally established and manipulated in various question-answering situations. It is shown that a question's surface form can affect the format of the answer given, even if this form has little semantic or conversational consequence, as in the pair Q: (At) what time do you close. A: “(At)five o'clock.” Answerers tend to match the utterance to the prepositional (nonprepositional) form of the question. This “correspondence effect” may diminish or disappear when, following the question, additional verbal material is presented to the answerer. The experiments show that neither the articulatory buffer nor long-term memory is normally involved in this retention of recent speech. Retaining recent speech in working memory may fulfill a variety of functions for speaker and listener, among them the correct production and interpretation of surface anaphora. Reusing recent materials may, moreover, be more economical than regenerating speech anew from a semantic base, and thus contribute to fluency. But the realization of this strategy requires a production system in which linguistic formulation can take place relatively independent of, and parallel to, conceptual planning.

Abstract

The core issue in the 19-century sources of psycholinguistics was the question, "Where does language come from?'' This genetic perspective unified the study of the ontogenesis, the phylogenesis, the microgenesis, and to some extent the neurogenesis of language. This paper makes the point that this original perspective is still a valid and attractive one. It is exemplified by a discussion of the genesis of spoken words.