Presentations

Abstract

The use of subject pronouns by bilingual speakers using both a pro-drop and a non-pro-drop language (e.g. Spanish heritage speakers in the USA) is a well-studied topic in research on cross-linguistic influence in language contact situations. Previous studies looking at bilinguals with different proficiency levels have yielded conflicting results on whether there is transfer from the non-pro-drop patterns to the pro-drop language. Additionally, previous research has focused on speech patterns only. In this paper, we study the two modalities of language, speech and gesture, and ask whether and how they reveal cross-linguistic influence on the use of subject pronouns in discourse. We focus on elicited narratives from heritage speakers of Turkish in the Netherlands, in both Turkish (pro-drop) and Dutch (non-pro-drop), as well as from monolingual control groups. The use of pronouns was not very common in monolingual Turkish narratives and was constrained by the pragmatic contexts, unlike in Dutch. Furthermore, Turkish pronouns were more likely to be accompanied by localized gestures than Dutch pronouns, presumably because pronouns in Turkish are pragmatically marked forms. We did not find any cross-linguistic influence in bilingual speech or gesture patterns, in line with studies (speech only) of highly proficient bilinguals. We therefore suggest that speech and gesture parallel each other not only in monolingual but also in bilingual production. Highly proficient heritage speakers who have been exposed to diverse linguistic and gestural patterns of each language from early on maintain monolingual patterns of pragmatic constraints on the use of pronouns multimodally.

Abstract

Previous studies show that during discourse narrations, speakers use fuller forms in speech (e.g. full noun phrase (NP) and gesture more while referring back to already introduced referents and use reduced forms in speech (e.g. overt pronoun and null pronoun) and gesture less while maintaining referents (Gullberg, 2006; Yoshioko, 2008; Debreslioska et al., 2013; Perniss & Özyürek, 2015). Thus, quantity of coding material in speech and co-speech gesture shows parallelism. However, those studies focus mostly on Indo-European languages and we do not know much about whether the parallel relation between speech and co-speech gesture during discourse narration is generalizable to languages with different pronominal systems. Furthermore, these studies have not taken into account whether a language is used in a rich or low gesture culture as a possible modulating factor. Aiming to fill this gap, we directly compare multimodal discourse narrations in Turkish and Dutch; two languages that have different constraints on the use of overt pronoun (preferred in Dutch) versus null pronoun (preferred in Turkish) and vary in terms of whether gender is marked in the pronouns (Dutch) or not (Turkish). We elicited discourse narrations in Turkey and Netherlands from 40 speakers (20 Dutch; 20 Turkish) using 2 short silent videos. Each speaker was paired with a naive addressee during data collection. We first divided the discourse into main clauses. We then coded each animate subject referring expressions for the linguistic type (i.e., NP, pronoun, null pronoun) and the co-reference context (i.e., re-introduction, maintenance). As for the co-speech gesture data, we first coded all types of gestures in order to determine whether Turkish and Dutch cultures show difference in terms of the overall gesture rate (per clause). Later we focused on the abstract deictic gestures to space that temporally align with the subject referent of each main clause to calculate the proportion of gesturally marked subject referents. Our gesture rate analyses reveal that Turkish speakers overall produce more gestures than Dutch speakers (p<.001) suggesting that Turkish is a relatively high-gesture culture compared to Dutch. Our speech analyses show that both Turkish and Dutch speakers use mainly NPs to re-introduce subject referents and reduced forms for maintained referents (null pronoun for Turkish and overt pronoun for Dutch). Our gesture analyses show that both Turkish and Dutch speakers gestured more with re-introduced subject referents when compared to maintained subject referents (p<001). However, Turkish speakers gestured more frequently with pronouns than Dutch speakers. All results put together, we show that speakers of both languages organize information structure in discourse in similar manner and vary the quantity of coding material in their speech and gesture in parallel to mark the co-reference context, a discourse strategy independent of whether the speakers are from a relatively high or low gesture culture and regardless of the differences in the pronominal system of their languages. As a novel contribution, however, we show that pragmatics interacts with contextual and linguistic factors modulating gestures: Pragmatically marked forms in speech are more likely to be marked with gestures as well (more gestures with pronouns but not with NPs in Turkish compared to Dutch).

Abstract

Speakers use differential referring expressions in pragmatically appropriate ways to produce coherent narratives. Languages, however, differ in a) whether REs as arguments can be dropped and b) whether personal pronouns encode gender. We examine two languages that differ from each other in these two aspects and ask whether the co-reference context and the gender encoding options affect the use of REs differentially. We elicited narratives from Dutch and Turkish speakers about two types of three-person events, one including people of the same and the other of mixed-gender. Speakers re-introduced referents into the discourse with fuller forms (NPs) and maintained them with reduced forms (overt or null pronoun). Turkish speakers used pronouns mainly to mark emphasis and only Dutch speakers used pronouns differentially across the two types of videos. We argue that linguistic possibilities available in languages tune speakers into taking different principles into account to produce pragmatically coherent narratives

Abstract

Face-to-face communication involves the integration of speech and visual information, such as iconic co-speech gestures. Especially iconic gestures, that illustrate object attributes, actions and space, can enhance speech comprehension in adverse listening conditions (e.g. Holle et al., 2010). Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we aimed at identifying the networks and the neuronal dynamics associated with enhancing (degraded) speech comprehension by gestures. Our central hypothesis was that gestures enhance degraded speech comprehension, and that decreases in alpha and beta power reflect engagement, whereas increases in gamma reflect active processing in task relevant networks (Jensen & Mazaheri, 2010; Jokisch & Jensen, 2007). Participants (n = 30) were presented with videos of an actress uttering Dutch action verbs. Speech was presented clear or degraded by applying noise-vocoding (6-band), and accompanied by videos of an actor performing iconic gesture depicting actions (clear speech+ gesture; C-SG, degraded speech+gesture; D-SG) or no gesture (clear speech only; C-S, degraded speech only; D-S). We quantified changes in time-frequency representations of oscillatory power as the video unfolded. The sources of the task-specific modulations were identified using a beamformer approach. Gestural enhancement, calculated by comparing (D-SG vs DS) to (C-SG vs CS), revealed significant interactions between the occurrence of a gesture and degraded speech particularly in the alpha, beta and gamma band. Gestural enhancement was reflected by a beta decrease in motor areas indicative of engagement of the motor system during gesture observation, especially when speech was degraded. A beta band decrease was also observed in the language network including left inferior frontal gyrus, a region involved in semantic unification operations, and left superior temporal regions. This suggests a higher semantic unification load when a gesture is presented together with degraded versus clear speech. We also observed a gestural enhancement effect in the alpha band in visual areas. This suggests that visual areas are more engaged when a gesture is present, most likely reflecting the allocation of visual attention, especially when speech is degraded, which is in line with the functional inhibition hypothesis (see Jensen & Mazaheri, 2010). Finally we observed gamma band effects in left-temporal areas suggesting facilitated binding of speech and gesture into a unified representation, especially when speech is degraded. In conclusion, our results support earlier claims on the recruitment of a left-lateralized network including motor areas, STS/MTG and LIFG in speech-gesture integration and gestural enhancement of speech (see Ozyurek, 2014). Our findings provide novel insight into the neuronal dynamics associated with speech-gesture integration: decreases in alpha and beta power reflect the engagement of respectively the visual and language/motor networks, whereas a gamma band increase reflects the integrations in left prefrontal cortex. In future work we will characterize the interaction between these networks by means of functional connectivity analysis.

Abstract

Face-to-face communication consists of integrating speech and visual input, such as co-speech gestures. Iconic gestures (e.g. a drinking gesture) can enhance speech comprehension, especially when speech is difficult to comprehend, such as in noise (e.g. Holle et al., 2010) or in non-native speech comprehension (e.g. Sueyoshi & Hardison, 2005). Previous behavioral and neuroimaging studies have argued that the integration of speech and gestures is stronger when speech intelligibility decreases (e.g. Holle et al., 2010), but that in clear speech, non-native listeners benefit more from gestures than native listeners (Dahl & Ludvigson, 2014; Sueyoshi & Hardison, 2005). So far, the neurocognitive mechanisms of how non-native speakers integrate speech and gestures in adverse listening conditions remain unknown. We investigated whether high-proficient non-native speakers of Dutch make use of iconic co-speech gestures as much as native speakers during clear and degraded speech comprehension. In an EEG study, native (n = 23) and non-native (German, n = 23) speakers of Dutch watched videos of an actress uttering Dutch action verbs. Speech was presented either as clear or degraded by applying noise-vocoding (6-band), and accompanied by a matching or mismatching iconic gesture. This allowed us to calculate both the effects of speech degradation and semantic congruency of the gesture on the N400 component. The N400 was taken as an index of semantic integration effort (Kutas & Federmeier, 2011). In native listeners, N400 amplitude was sensitive to mismatches between speech and gesture and degradation; the most pronounced N400 was found in response to degraded speech and a mismatching gesture (DMM), followed by degraded speech and a matching gesture (DM), clear speech and a mismatching gesture (CMM), and clear speech and a matching gesture (CM) (DMM>DM>CMM>CM, all p < .05). In non-native speakers, we found a difference between CMM and CM but not DMM and DM. However, degraded conditions differed from clear conditions (DMM=DM>CMM>CM, all significant comparisons p < .05). Directly comparing native to non-native speakers, the N400 effect (i.e. the difference between CMM and CM / DMM and DM) was greater for non-native speakers in clear speech, but for native speakers in degraded speech. These results provide further evidence for the claim that in clear speech, non-native speakers benefit more from gestural information than native speakers, as indexed by a larger N400 effect for mismatch manipulation. Both native and non-native speakers show integration effort during degraded speech comprehension. However, native speakers require less effort to recognize auditory cues in degraded speech than non-native speakers, resulting in a larger N400 for degraded speech and a mismatching gesture for natives than non-natives. Conversely, non-native speakers require more effort to resolve auditory cues when speech is degraded and can therefore not benefit as much from auditory cues to map the semantic information from gesture to as native speakers. In sum, non-native speakers can benefit from gestural information in speech comprehension more than native listeners, but not when speech is degraded. Our findings suggest that the native language of the listener modulates multimodal semantic integration in adverse listening conditions.

Abstract

Natural, face-to-face communication consists of an audiovisual binding that integrates speech and visual information, such as iconic co-speech gestures and lip movements. Especially in adverse listening conditions such as in noise, this visual information can enhance speech comprehension. However, the contribution of lip movements and iconic gestures to understanding speech in noise has been mostly studied separately. Here, we investigated the contribution of iconic gestures and lip movements to degraded speech comprehension in a joint context. In a free-recall task, participants watched short videos of an actress uttering an action verb. This verb could be presented in clear speech, severely degraded speech (2-band noise-vocoding) or moderately degraded speech (6-band noise-vocoding), and could view the actress with her lips blocked, with her lips visible, or with her lips visible and making an iconic co-speech gesture. Additionally, we presented these clips without audio and with just the lip movements present, or with just lip movements and gestures present, to investigate how much information listeners could get from visual input alone. Our results reveal that when listeners perceive degraded speech in a visual context, listeners benefit more from gestural information than from just lip movements alone. This benefit is larger at moderate noise levels where auditory cues are still moderately reliable than compared to severe noise levels where auditory cues are no longer reliable. As a result, listeners are only able to benefit from this additive effect of ‘double’ multimodal enhancement of iconic gestures and lip movements when there are enough auditory cues present to map lip movements to the phonological information in the speech signal

Abstract

Face-to-face communication involves the integration of speech and visual information, such as iconic co-speech gestures. Especially iconic gestures, that illustrate object attributes, actions and space, can enhance speech comprehension in adverse listening conditions (e.g. Holle et al., 2010). Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we aimed at identifying the networks and the neuronal dynamics associated with enhancing (degraded) speech comprehension by gestures. Our central hypothesis was that gestures enhance degraded speech comprehension, and that decreases in alpha and beta power reflect engagement, whereas increases in gamma reflect active processing in task relevant networks (Jensen & Mazaheri, 2010; Jokisch & Jensen, 2007). Participants (n = 30) were presented with videos of an actress uttering Dutch action verbs. Speech was presented clear or degraded by applying noise-vocoding (6-band), and accompanied by videos of an actor performing iconic gesture depicting actions (clear speech+ gesture; C-SG, degraded speech+gesture; D-SG) or no gesture (clear speech only; C-S, degraded speech only; D-S). We quantified changes in time-frequency representations of oscillatory power as the video unfolded. The sources of the task-specific modulations were identified using a beamformer approach. Gestural enhancement, calculated by comparing (D-SG vs DS) to (C-SG vs CS), revealed significant interactions between the occurrence of a gesture and degraded speech particularly in the alpha, beta and gamma band. Gestural enhancement was reflected by a beta decrease in motor areas indicative of engagement of the motor system during gesture observation, especially when speech was degraded. A beta band decrease was also observed in the language network including left inferior frontal gyrus, a region involved in semantic unification operations, and left superior temporal regions. This suggests a higher semantic unification load when a gesture is presented together with degraded versus clear speech. We also observed a gestural enhancement effect in the alpha band in visual areas. This suggests that visual areas are more engaged when a gesture is present, most likely reflecting the allocation of visual attention, especially when speech is degraded, which is in line with the functional inhibition hypothesis (see Jensen & Mazaheri, 2010). Finally we observed gamma band effects in left-temporal areas suggesting facilitated binding of speech and gesture into a unified representation, especially when speech is degraded. In conclusion, our results support earlier claims on the recruitment of a left-lateralized network including motor areas, STS/ MTG and LIFG in speech-gesture integration and gestural enhancement of speech (see Ozyurek, 2014). Our findings provide novel insight into the neuronal dynamics associated with speech-gesture integration: decreases in alpha and beta power reflect the engagement of respectively the visual and language/motor networks, whereas a gamma band increase reflects the integrations in left prefrontal cortex. In future work we will characterize the interaction between these networks by means of functional connectivity analysis.

Abstract

There is a long-standing assumption that gestural forms are geared by a set of modes of representation (acting, representing, drawing, moulding) with each technique expressing speakers’ focus of attention on specific aspects of a referent (Müller, 2013). However, it is just recently that the relationship between gestural forms and mode of representation has been linked to 1) the semantic categories they represent (i.e., objects, actions) and 2) the affordances of the referents. Here we investigate these relations when speakers are asked to communicate about different types of referents in pantomime. This mode of communication has revealed generalisable ordering of constituents of events across speakers of different languages (Goldin- Meadow, So, Özyürek, & Mylander, 2008) but it remains an empirical question whether it also draws on systematic patterns to distinguish different semantic categories. Twenty speakers of Dutch participated in a pantomime generation task. They had to produce a gesture that conveyed the same meaning as a word on a computer screen without speaking. Participants saw 10 words from three semantic categories: actions with objects (e.g., to drink), manipulable objects (e.g., mug), and non-manipulable objects (e.g., building). Pantomimes were categorised according to their mode of representation and also the use of deictics (pointing, showing or eye gaze). Further, ordering of different representations were noted when there were more than one gesture produced. Actions with objects elicited mainly individual gestures (mean: 1.1, range: 1-2), while manipulable objects (mean: 1.8, range: 1-4) and non-manipulable objects (mean: 1.6, range: 1-4) elicited primarily more than one pantomime as sequences of interrelated gestures. Actions with objects were mostly represented with one gesture, and through re-enactment of the action (e.g., raising a closed fist to the mouth for ‘to drink’) while manipulable objects mostly were represented through an acting gesture followed by a deictic (e.g., raising a closed fist to the mouth and then pointing at the fist). Non-manipulable objects, however, were represented through a drawing gesture followed by an acting one (e.g., tracing a rectangle and then pretending to walk through a door). In the absence of language the form of gestures is constrained by objects’ affordances (i.e., manipulable or not) and the communicative need to discriminate across semantic categories (i.e., objects or action). Gestures adopt an acting or drawing mode of representation depending on the affordances of the referent; which echoes patterns observed in the forms of co-speech gestures (Masson-Carro, Goudbeek, & Krahmer, 2015). We also show for the first time that use and ordering of deictics and the different modes of representation operate in tandem to distinguish between semantically related concepts (e.g., to drink and mug). When forced to communicate without language, participants show consistent patterns in their strategies to distinguish different semantic categories

Abstract

As humans, our ability to communicate and use language is instantiated not only in the vocal modality but also in the visual modality. The main examples of this are sign languages and (co-speech) gestures used in spoken languages. Sign languages, the natural languages of Deaf communities, use systematic and conventionalized movements of the hands, face, and body for linguistic expression Co-speech gestures, though non-linguistic, are produced and perceived in tight semantic and temporal integration with speech. Thus, language—in its primary face-to-face context (both phylogenetically and ontogenetically) is a multimodal phenomenon. In fact visual modality seems to be a more common way of communication than speech -when we consider both deaf and hearing individuals. Most research in language, however, has focused mostly on spoken/written language and has rarely considered the visual context it is embedded in to understand our linguistic capacity. This talk give a brief review on what know so far about what the visual expressive resources of language look like in both spoken and sign languages and their role in communication and cognition- broadening our scope of language. We will argue, based on these recent findings, that our models of language need to take visual modes of communication into account and provide a unified framework for how semiotic and expressive resources of the visual modality are recruited both for spoken and sign languages and their consequences for processing-also considering their neural underpinnings

Abstract

In face-to-face interaction people adapt their multimodal message to fit their addressees’ informational needs. In doing so they are likely to mark their communicative intent by accentuating the relevant information provided by both speech and gesture. In the present study we were interested in the strategies by which speakers highlight their gestures (by means of ostensive signals like eye gaze and/or ostensive speech) for children in comparison to adults in a multimodal demonstration task. Moreover, we investigated the effectiveness of the ostensive signals to gestures and asked whether addressees shift their attention to the gestures highlighted by the speakers through different ostensive signals. Previous research has identified some of these ostensive signals (Streeck 1993; Gullberg & Kita 2009), but have not investigated how often they occur and whether they are designed for and attended to by different types of addressees. 48 Italians, born and raised in Sicily, participated in the study. 16 chosen Italian adult participants (12 female, 7 male, age range 20-30) were assigned the role of the speakers, while other 16 adults and 16 children (age range 9-10) had a role of the addressees. The task of the speaker was to describe the rules of a children’s game, which consists of using wooden blocks of different shapes to make a path without gaps. Speakers’ descriptions were coded for words and representational gestures, as well as for three types of ostensive signals highlighting the gestures – 1) eye gaze, 2) ostensive speech and 3) combination of eye gaze and ostensive speech to gesture. Addressees’ eye gaze to speakers’ gestures were coded and annotated whether eye gaze was directed to highlighted or not highlighted gesture. Overall eye gaze was the most common signal followed by ostensive speech and multimodal signals. We found that speakers were likely to highlight more gestures with children than with adults when all three types of signals were considered together. However, when treated separately, results revealed that speakers used more combined ostensive signals for children than for adults, but they were also likely to use more eye gaze towards their gestures with other adults than with children. Furthermore, both groups of addressees gazed more at gestures highlighted by the speakers in comparison to gestures that were not highlighted at all. The present study provides the first quantitative insights in regard to how speakers highlight their gestures and whether the age of the addressee influences the effectiveness of the ostensive signals. Speakers mark the communicative relevance of their gestures with different types of ostensive signals and by taking different types of addressees into account. In turn, addressees - not only adults but also children – take advantage of the provided signals to these gestures

Abstract

It has been a popular view to propose that gesture preceded and paved the way for the evolution of (spoken) language (e.g., Corballis, Tomasello, Arbib). However these views do not take into account the recent findings on the neural and cognitive infrastructure of how modern humans (adults and children) use gestures in various communicative contexts. Based on this current knowledge I will revisit gesture-first theories of language evolution and discuss alternatives more compatible with the multimodal nature of modern human language