Publications

Abstract

Listeners vary in the perception and interpretation of speech prosody (the variations in intonation, loudness, and rhythm of spoken language). The source of this variability is unknown. We investigated whether the ability to recognise and classify prosodic structure is related to working memory (WM) capacity. This hypothesis stems from the tight connection between prosodic and syntactic (grammatical) structure, while processing syntax is known to relate to WN capacity. Healthy adult speakers of Dutch judged prosodic structures in a gating paradigm. The phrases contained early and late intonational cues that signalled whether the phrases contained an internal grouping or not. Listeners also took part in WM (digit span) and processing speed (letter comparison) tasks. There was an interaction between performance in the prosody judgement and WM tasks: high-WM listeners were better at classifying prosodic structure and required less prosodic information to detect the correct structure. The results demonstrate a close relationship between prosody processing and WM abilities, implying that WM is an important component of prosody processing.

Abstract

Background

Facial emotion processing deficits and atypical eye gaze are often described in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and those with conduct disorder (CD) and high callous unemotional (CU) traits. Yet, the underlying neural mechanisms of these deficits are still unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate if eye gaze can partially account for the differences in brain activation in youth with ASD, with CD, and typically developing youth (TD).

Methods

In total, 105 adolescent participants (NCD = 39, NASD = 27, NTD = 39; mean age = 15.59 years) underwent a brain functional imaging session including eye tracking during an implicit emotion processing task while parents/caregivers completed questionnaires. Group differences in gaze behavior (number of fixations to the eye and mouth regions) for different facial expressions (neutral, fearful, angry) presented in the task were investigated using Bayesian analyses. Full-factorial models were used to investigate group differences in brain activation with and without including gaze behavior parameters and focusing on brain regions underlying facial emotion processing (insula, amygdala, and medial prefrontal cortex).

Results

Youth with ASD showed increased fixations on the mouth compared to TD and CD groups. CD participants with high CU traits tended to show fewer fixations to the eye region compared to TD for all emotions. Brain imaging results show higher right anterior insula activation in the ASD compared with the CD group when angry faces were presented. The inclusion of gaze behavior parameters in the model reduced the size of that cluster.

Conclusions

Differences in insula activation may be partially explained by gaze behavior. This implies an important role of gaze behavior in facial emotion processing, which should be considered for future brain imaging studies. In addition, our results suggest that targeting gaze behavior in interventions might be potentially beneficial for disorders showing impairments associated with the processing of emotional faces. The relation between eye gaze, CU traits, and neural function in different diagnoses needs further clarification in larger samples.

Abstract

Prediction in language is often about objects in the language users’ visual surroundings. Previous research suggests that linguistic working memory limitations in such task environments constrain language-mediated anticipatory eye movements. In this study, we investigated the effects of visuospatial cognitive load on language-mediated predictive eye gaze behaviour in a diverse group of L2 English speakers using the visual-world paradigm. Participants completed three levels of an increasingly difficult visuospatial working memory task before hearing either semantically constraining or unconstraining sentences, choosing an object best fitting the sentence, and completing the working memory task. Evidence of L2 anticipatory eye gaze was observed in all conditions. Importantly, a significant effect of difficulty, especially in the higher-load condition, suggests that increasing visuospatial working memory reduces anticipatory eye gaze. We close by discussing the importance of (visual) working memory in visual world studies and highlight the inherently integrative nature of predictive processing during language-vision interactions.

Abstract

Semantic knowledge is a defining property of human cognition, profoundly influenced by cultural experiences. In this study, we investigated whether literacy enhances lexical-semantic processing independently of schooling. Three groups of neurotypical adults - unschooled illiterates, unschooled ex-illiterates, and schooled literates - from the same residential and socioeconomic background in Portugal were tested on serial rapid automatized naming (RAN) and on discrete naming of everyday objects (concrete concepts) and basic color patches (abstract concepts). The performance of readers, whether schooled literate or unschooled exilliterate, was not affected by stimulus category, whereas illiterates were much slower on color than object naming, irrespective of task. This naming advantage promoted by literacy was not significantly mediated by vocabulary size. We conclude that literacy per se, regardless of schooling, contributes to faster naming of depicted concepts, particularly those of more abstract categories. Our findings provide further evidence that literacy influences cognition beyond the mere accumulation of knowledge: Literacy enhances the quality and efficiency of lexical-semantic representations and processing.

Abstract

Humans acquire word knowledge through producing and comprehending spoken and written language. Word learning continues into adulthood and knowledge accumulates across the lifespan. Therefore, receptive vocabulary size is often conceived of as a proxy for linguistic experience and plays a central role in assessing individuals’ language proficiency. There is currently no valid open access test available for assessing receptive vocabulary size in German-speaking adults. We addressed this gap and developed the German Auditory and Image Vocabulary Test (GAudI). In the GAudI, participants are presented with spoken test words and have to indicate their meanings by selecting the corresponding picture from a set of four alternatives. Here we describe the development of the test and provide evidence for its validity. Specifically, we report a study in which 168 German-speaking participants completed the GAudI and five other tests tapping into linguistic experience: one test measuring print exposure, two tests measuring productive vocabulary, one test assessing knowledge of book language grammar, and a test of receptive vocabulary that was normed in adolescents. The psychometric properties of the GAudI and its relationships to the other tests demonstrate that it is a suitable tool for measuring receptive vocabulary size. We offer an open-access digital test environment that can be used for research purposes, accessible via https://ems13.mpi.nl/bq4_customizable_de/researchers_welcome.php.

Abstract

Individuals vary substantially in their language skills. The Individual Differences in Language Skills Test Battery (IDLaS) is a tool to assess variability in (1) linguistic experience, (2) general cognitive skills implicated in language, including nonverbal processing speed, working memory, and nonverbal reasoning, and (3) linguistic processing skills, including word- and sentence-level production and comprehension. The test battery was initially developed for Dutch language users. Building on this work, we recently developed a German version (IDLaS-DE). IDLaS-DE consists of 30 behavioral tests that have been validated in a large group of German speakers, aged between 18 and 30 years. In addition, we have developed a web platform that researchers interested in assessing language and general cognitive skills can use for their research purposes. Here, we provide a guide for creating and running customized studies online via this platform. The IDLaS-DE web platform and all its services are free of charge and accessible at https://www.mpi.nl/idlas-de.

Abstract

Top-down effects of larger-grained linguistic chunks on their smaller-grained constituent parts have been established in both reading and speaking. However, typing as a domain of language production has been less thoroughly investigated in this regard. In the current paper, we present a copy task in which participants were shown a stimulus and asked to type it. Their keystrokes were recorded, allowing insight into both typing fluency (in interkey intervals, or IKIs) and latency to typing onset (in response times, or RTs). Critically, stimuli varied in both lexical status (words vs. non-words) and collocational status (frequently co-occurring vs. novel word pairs). As expected, non-words were reacted to and typed more slowly than words. At the group level, collocated word pairs were initiated and typed slightly faster than non-collocated pairs, but this effect was not statistically significant. However, evidence emerged for considerable individual differences in the trade-off between RTs and IKIs, suggesting that typers differ in the stage at which they benefit from top-down facilitation when typing collocated word pairs. This complements previous research on top-down effects and is consistent with the view that the mental processing blocks supporting written language production and comprehension may align—though the extent and timing of such alignment appear to vary across individuals.

Abstract

When faced with an ambiguous novel word such as ‘ranana’, how do listeners decide whether they heard a mispronunciation of a familiar target (‘banana’) or a label for an unfamiliar novel item? We examined this question by combining visual-world eye-tracking with an offline forced-choice judgment paradigm. In two studies, we show evidence that participants entertain repair and novel label interpretations of novel words that were created by editing a familiar target word in multiple phonetic features (Experiment 1) or a single phonetic feature (Experiment 2). Repair (‘ranana’ = a banana) and learning (‘ranana’ = a novel referent) were both common interpretation strategies, and learning was strongly associated with visual attention to the novel image after it was referred to in a sentence. This indicates that repair and learning are both valid strategies for understanding novel words that depend upon a set of similar mechanisms, and suggests that attention during listening is causally related to whether one learns or repairs.

Abstract

Human communication is inherently multimodal. Auditory speech, but also visual cues can be used to understand another talker. Most studies of audiovisual speech perception have focused on the perception of speech segments (i.e., speech sounds). However, less is known about the influence of visual information on the perception of suprasegmental aspects of speech like lexical stress. In two experiments, we investigated the influence of different visual cues (e.g., facial articulatory cues and beat gestures) on the audiovisual perception of lexical stress. We presented auditory lexical stress continua of disyllabic Dutch stress pairs together with videos of a speaker producing stress on the first or second syllable (e.g., articulating VOORnaam or voorNAAM). Moreover, we combined and fully crossed the face of the speaker producing lexical stress on either syllable with a gesturing body producing a beat gesture on either the first or second syllable. Results showed that people successfully used visual articulatory cues to stress in muted videos. However, in audiovisual conditions, we were not able to find an effect of visual articulatory cues. In contrast, we found that the temporal alignment of beat gestures with speech robustly influenced participants' perception of lexical stress. These results highlight the importance of considering suprasegmental aspects of language in multimodal contexts.

Abstract

Speech is inherently variable, requiring listeners to apply adaptation mechanisms to deal with the variability. A proposed perceptual adaptation mechanism is recalibration, whereby listeners learn to adjust cognitive representations of speech sounds based on disambiguating contextual information. Most studies on the role of recalibration in speech perception have focused on variability in particular speech segments (e.g., consonants/vowels), and speech has mostly been studied with a focus on talking heads. However, speech is often accompanied by visual bodily signals like hand gestures, and is thus multimodal. Moreover, variability in speech extends beyond segmental aspects alone and also affects prosodic aspects, like lexical stress. We currently do not understand well how listeners adjust their representations of lexical stress patterns to different speakers. In four experiments, we investigated recalibration of lexical stress perception, driven by lexico-orthographical information (Experiment 1) and by manual beat gestures (Experiments 2–4). Across experiments, we observed that these two types of disambiguating information (presented in an audiovisual exposure phase) led listeners to adjust their representations of lexical stress, with lasting consequences for subsequent spoken word recognition (in an audio-only test phase). However, evidence for generalization of this recalibration to new words was only found in the third experiment, suggesting that generalization may be limited. These results highlight that recalibration is a plausible mechanism for suprasegmental speech adaption in everyday communication and show that even the timing of simple hand gestures can have a lasting effect on auditory speech perception.

Abstract

Speech comprehension involves more than just identifying speech sounds. It also requires the use of prosodic cues, which can be conveyed auditorily (e.g., intonation), but also visually (e.g., prominence-lending beat gestures). Prior studies on unimodal speech emphasize the critical role of prosody in comprehension, in higher level processing (e.g., pragmatics), and even in lexical access. For instance, people are faster at identifying a word when it is prosodically accented than when it is unaccented. This study tested whether beat gestures, serving as visual prominence cues, can similarly aid lexical access even in situations where other cues are already highly supportive of word recognition (e.g., semantically constraining sentences). Moreover, we investigated if this facilitation effect would be modulated by the (mis)alignment of the beat gesture with the word-internal prominence (i.e., stressed syllables). To answer this question, we presented participants with videos of a talker producing semantically constraining sentences containing a critical disyllabic sentence-final target in a lexical decision task. The target was either produced without a gesture or accompanied by a beat gesture aligned to the stressed or unstressed syllable. Response times showed that participants were generally faster when the target was presented together with a beat gesture, regardless of its within-word alignment. Moreover, we found that this facilitatory effect was larger for words than pseudowords. These results provide evidence that beat gestures—even when they are not essential for successful speech comprehension—affect lexical access in highly constraining contexts.

Abstract

To produce a word, speakers need to decide which concept to express, select an appropriate item from the mental lexicon and spell out its phonological form. The temporal dynamics of these processes remain a subject of debate. We investigated the time course of lexical access in picture naming with electroencephalography (EEG). Thirty participants (23 female) named pictures using simple nouns. The pictures varied in conceptual category (animate or inanimate), stress pattern (first or second syllable), and the structure of the first syllable (open or closed). Using time-resolved multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), we decoded the time course in which each dimension was available during speech preparation. The results demonstrated above-chance decoding of animacy within 100 ms after picture onset, confirming early access to conceptual information. This was followed by stress pattern and syllable structure, at around 150 and 250 ms after picture onset, respectively. These results suggest that a word’s stress pattern can be retrieved before syllable structure information becomes available. An exploratory analysis demonstrated the availability of the word-initial phoneme within 100 ms after picture onset. This result hints at the possibility that during picture naming conceptual, phonological and phonetic information may be accessed rapidly and in parallel.

Abstract

Current theories of speaking suggest that the structure of the lexicon is flexible and changes with exposure. We tested this claim in two experiments that investigated whether the word frequency effect was moderated by item repetition within and across experimental sessions. Participants named high frequency (HF) and low frequency (LF) pictures (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2) six times. In both experiments, participants were faster to name HF than LF pictures or words, but this effect was eliminated with repetition. Importantly, this word frequency effect was still absent when participants returned up to 2 weeks later and named old HF and LF pictures, whose names they had produced before, together with new HF and LF pictures, whose names they had not produced. These findings suggest that producing a word multiple times in short succession alters its long-term accessibility, making it easier to produce later.

Abstract

Name agreement (NA) refers to the degree to which speakers agree on a picture’s name. A robust finding is that speakers are faster to name pictures with high agreement (HA) than those with low agreement (LA). This NA effect is thought to occur because LA pictures strongly activate several names, and so speakers need time to select one. HA pictures, in contrast, strongly activate a single name and so there is no need to select one name out of several alternatives. Recent models of lexical access suggest that the structure of the mental lexicon changes with experience. Thus, speakers should consider a range of names when naming LA pictures, but the extent to which they consider each of these names should change with experience. We tested these hypotheses in two picture-naming experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were faster to name LA than HA pictures when they named each picture once. Importantly, they were faster to produce modal names (provided by most participants) than alternative names for LA pictures, consistent with the view that speakers activate multiple names for LA pictures. In Experiment 2, participants were familiarised with the modal name before the experiment and named each picture three times. Although there was still an NA effect when participants named the pictures the first time, it was reduced in comparison to Experiment 1 and was further reduced with each picture repetition.Thus, familiarisation and repetition reduced the NA effect, but did not eliminate it, suggesting speakers activate a range of plausible names.

Abstract

Word frequency (WF) and name agreement (NA) affect a word’s accessibility during speech production. Speakers are faster to name pictures with high-frequency (e.g. dog) compared to low-frequency names (e.g. rhinoceros) and those that a group of speakers tend to agree on the name of (high NA; e.g. arm) than those that they do not (low NA; e.g. sofa, couch). Recent accounts of lexical access suggest that the structure of the mental lexicon is flexible and changes with exposure. Consistent with this view, repetition priming studies have shown that low-frequency and low NA items benefit from repetition more than high-frequency and high NA items. But there is little evidence that repetition has long-term effects on WF and NA. We tested this issue in a two-session (online) picture naming study. In Session 1, participants named pictures varying in WF and NA three times each, and so we could test the short-term effects of repetition on WF and NA. We tested long-term effects of repetition by having participants name the same old items 1 week later in Session 2, together with new items that they had not named previously. In Session 1 the WF effect was eliminated by repetition, while the NA effect was reduced but still present. Thus, previous naming affected both the WF and NA effects. However, both effects reappeared in Session 2. These findings suggest that previous naming can reduce the WF and NA effect, thus affecting how easy it is to produce a word, but these effects are relatively short-lived.

Abstract

Speech error monitoring recruits the medial frontal cortex (MFC) region in the human brain. Error monitoring-related activity in the MFC has been interpreted both in terms of conflict monitoring and feedback-driven control, but as similar regions of the MFC are implicated in various levels of behavioral control ranging from basic motor movement control to high-level cognitive control functions, a more comprehensive account is needed. Moreover, as speech errors and other actions that involve varying control demands engage a widespread yet partially overlapping set of regions of the MFC, such an account should ideally explain the anatomical distribution of error-related functional activations within the MFC. Here we wanted to assess the hypothesis that the MFC has a similar role in the evaluation of action outcomes for motor and mental actions, operating along a rostral-caudal gradient of higher-lower degree of cognitive control demands involving prediction errors from both sensory and epistemic sources. To this end, we conducted an individual-specific annotation of task-fMRI BOLD activation peaks related to overt speech error monitoring (i.e. that involve the largest degree of cognitive control demands, Study I and II), tongue movement monitoring (i.e. that involve an intermediate degree of cognitive control demands) and tongue movement (i.e. that involve the lowest degree of cognitive control demands, Study II) in the MFC region. Results revealed overlapping clusters across the three contrasts across the MFC, but importantly both the number of peaks and their relative position along the rostral caudal axis were consistent with a hierarchical rostral caudal processing gradient in the MFC. While tongue movement showed more caudal activation in the MFC, overt speech error monitoring showed more rostral activation, and tongue movement monitoring patterned in between. Furthermore, the combined results of both studies suggested that activation peaks were located more dorsally for participants that had a paracingulate gyrus, replicating a previously documented effect for movement and further supporting a common functional role of the MFC across very distinct actions.

Abstract

We report four experiments investigating the effect of prosody on listening comprehension in 11-13-year-old children. Across all experiments, participants listened to short object descriptions and answered content-based questions about said objects. In Experiments 1-3, the descriptions were read in an emotionally positive or neutral tone of voice. In Experiment 4, the descriptions were read by a neutral human voice or by text-to-speech software. The results from Experiments 1-3 consistently showed higher accuracy (i.e. more correct answers to the questions) when the descriptions were read using positive prosody. Experiment 4 found higher accuracy for the human voice compared to the text-to-speech recordings. The human voice was also rated as more pleasant and easier to understand than the text-to-speech voice. In sum, this study found that positive, compared to neutral, prosody, and a human voice, compared to artificial speech synthesis, can improve listening comprehension, showcasing the role of prosody in listening comprehension.

Abstract

The human brain must add information to the acoustic speech signal in order to understand language. Many accounts propose that the prosodic structure of utterances (including their syllabic rhythm and speech melody), in combination with stored lexical knowledge, cue and interact with higher order abstract semantic and syntactic information. While cortical rhythms, particularly in the delta and theta band, synchronize to quasi-rhythmic low-level acoustic speech features, it remains unclear how the human brain encodes abstract speech properties in neural rhythms in the absence of an acoustic signal, i.e. when speakers hold planned sentences in working memory. This study disentangles the contributions of prosodic and syntactic features in cortical rhythms during delayed sentence repetition. Using high-resolution ECoG during awake tumor surgery in the left perisylvian cortex in nine patients (five female), we show that the phase of neural rhythms with frequencies ranging from 1-48 Hz and the broadband gamma power envelope code both low-level acoustic and abstract syntactic speech features during sentence processing and retention. Syntax and prosody coding occurred in the same frequency bands, which argues against the assumption of different frequency channels for processing and representing these speech features. Our data suggest the brain leverages the phase of various neural rhythms to code both acoustic and abstract linguistic features.

Abstract

When language abilities in aphasia are assessed in clinical and research settings, the standard practice is to examine each language of a multilingual person separately. But many multilingual individuals, with and without aphasia, mix their languages regularly when they communicate with other speakers who share their languages. We applied a novel approach to scoring language production of a multilingual person with aphasia. Our aim was to discover whether the assessment outcome would differ meaningfully when we count accurate responses in only the target language of the assessment session versus when we apply a translanguaging framework, that is, count all accurate responses, regardless of the language in which they were produced. The participant is a Farsi-German-English speaking woman with chronic moderate aphasia. We examined the participant’s performance on two picture-naming tasks, an answering wh-question task, and an elicited narrative task. The results demonstrated that scores in English, the participant’s third-learned and least-impaired language did not differ between the two scoring methods. Performance in German, the participant’s moderately impaired second language benefited from translanguaging-based scoring across the board. In Farsi, her weakest language post-CVA, the participant’s scores were higher under the translanguaging-based scoring approach in some but not all of the tasks. Our findings suggest that whether a translanguaging-based scoring makes a difference in the results obtained depends on relative language abilities and on pragmatic constraints, with additional influence of the linguistic distances between the languages in question.

Abstract

Individual differences in using language are prevalent in our daily lives. Language skills are often assessed in vocational (predominantly written language) and diagnostic contexts. Not much is known, however, about individual differences in spoken language skills. The lack of research is in part due to the lack of suitable test instruments. We introduce the Individual Differences in Language Skills (IDLaS-NL) test battery, a set of 31 behavioural tests that can be used to capture variability in language and relevant general cognitive skills in adult speakers of Dutch. The battery was designed to measure word and sentence production and comprehension skills, linguistic knowledge, nonverbal processing speed, working memory, and nonverbal reasoning. The present article outlines the structure of the battery, describes the materials and procedure of each test, and evaluates the battery’s factor structure based on the results of a sample of 748 Dutch adults, aged between 18 and 30 years, most of them students. The analyses demonstrate that the battery has good construct validity and can be reliably administered both in the lab and via the internet. We therefore recommend the battery as a valuable new tool to assess individual differences in language knowledge and skills; this future work may include linking language skills to other aspects of human cognition and life outcomes.

Abstract

We introduce a new method for measuring prediction and language-vision interactions: tracking the trajectories of hand-reaching movements in Virtual Reality (VR) environments. Spatiotemporal trajectory tracking of hand-reaching movements in VR offers an ecologically valid yet controlled medium for conducting experiments in an environment that mirrors characteristics of real-world behaviors. Importantly, it enables tracking the continuous dynamics of processing on a single-trial level. In an exploratory experiment L2 speakers heard predictive or non-predictive sentences (e.g., “The barber cuts the hair” vs. “The coach remembers the hair”). Participants’ task was to move their hands as quickly and as accurately as possible towards the object most relevant to the sentence. We measured reaction times (RTs) and hand-reaching trajectories as indicators of predictive behavior. There was a main effect of predictability: Predictable items were touched faster than unpredictable ones. Importantly, uncertainty was captured using spatiotemporal survival analysis by prolonged fluctuations in upward and downward vertical hand movements before making a final move to target or distractor. Self-correction of prediction errors was revealed by participants switching the direction of hand-reaching movements mid-trial. We conclude that the Virtual Hand Paradigm enables measuring the onset and dynamics of predictive behavior in real time in single and averaged trial data and captures (un)certainty about target objects and the self-correction of prediction error online in ‘close to real-world’ experimental settings. The new method has great potential to provide additional insights about time-course and intermediate states of processing, provisional interpretations and partial target commitments that go beyond other state-of-the-art methods.

Abstract

Although the term Visual World Paradigm (henceforth VWP) is used to refer to the broad class of studies in which participants eye movements are measured as they listen to language, that is about a circumscribed visual display (henceforth the visual world), there are, in fact, two broadly used variants of the paradigm. The first, introduced by researchers at Rochester in the mid-1990s, typically used the visual world as a type of workspace that participants interact with, for example following instructions to perform an action or sequence of actions (e.g., “Put the apple on the towel in the box”; “Put the big candle into the trash. Now put the small tie into the blue square.”). The second, introduced by Gerry Altmann and colleagues, typically narrates an event or sequence of events, using a display with depicted objects and people (e.g., “The boy will eat the cake.”; “Donald is bringing some mail to Mickey while a violent storm is beginning. He's carrying an umbrella…”) without asking participants to perform an accompanying action. While the approaches are often used to address similar questions, there are some, often implicit, differences between the assumptions that motivate the different approaches. But what are these assumptions? Are there types of questions for which one of the approaches is better suited than the other? Does the choice of approach affect linking hypotheses? We address these issues in a paper that takes the form of a dialogue, with MKT making the case for including tasks with actions and FH making the case for experiments without an additional action. After responding to each other’s arguments, we conclude by: (1) separating principled differences from associations that are tied to the types of questions that were first addressed in some of the foundational studies; (2) making suggestions for factors that should guide researchers’ choice of approach; and (3) proposing new avenues of research.

Abstract

In the present paper we describe the Enhanced Literate Mind (ELM) hypothesis. As individuals learn to read and write, they are, from then on, exposed to extensive written-language input and become literate. We propose that acquisition and proficient processing of written language (‘literacy’) leads to, both, increased language knowledge as well as enhanced language and non-language (perceptual and cognitive) skills. We also suggest that all neurotypical native language users, including illiterate, low literate, and high literate individuals, share a Basic Language Cognition (BLC) in the domain of oral informal language. Finally, we discuss the possibility that the acquisition of ELM leads to some degree of ‘knowledge parallelism’ between BLC and ELM in literate language users, which has implications for empirical research on individual and situational differences in spoken language processing.

Abstract

Driven by the transformative idea that the brain operates as a predictive engine, this book offers a rigorous yet accessible introduction to predictive processing's core concepts while navigating major theories with depth and critical evaluation. Huettig incorporates historical contexts and maintains a critical stance, shedding light on the pros and cons of various approaches across the many academic disciplines that investigate future-oriented behavior. Looking Ahead is indispensable reading for early students of the science of prediction in psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence and computer science, experts in related fields, and for anyone who has ever wondered why, as a species, we take so much interest in what lies ahead.

Abstract

Interlocutors often use the semantics of comprehended speech to inform the semantics of planned speech. Do representations of the comprehension and planning stimuli interact? In this EEG study, we used rapid invisible frequency tagging (RIFT) to better understand the attentional distribution to representations of comprehension and speech planning stimuli, and how they interact in the neural signal. To do this, we leveraged the picture-word interference (PWI) paradigm with delayed naming, where participants simultaneously comprehend auditory distractors (auditory [f1]; tagged at 54 Hz) while preparing to name related or unrelated target pictures (visual [f2]; tagged at 68 Hz). RIFT elicits steady-state evoked potentials, which reflect allocation of attention to the tagged stimuli. When representations of the tagged stimuli interact, increased power has been observed at the intermodulation frequency resulting from an interaction of the base frequencies (f2 ± f1; Drijvers et al., 2021). Our results showed clear power increases at 54 Hz and 68 Hz during the tagging window, but no power difference between the related and unrelated condition. Interestingly, we observed a larger power difference in the intermodulation frequency (compared to baseline) in the unrelated compared to the related condition (68 Hz − 54 Hz: 14 Hz), indicating stronger interaction between unrelated auditory and visual representations. Our results go beyond standard PWI results by showing that participants’ difficulties in the related condition do not arise from allocating attention to the pictures or distractors. Instead, processing difficulties arise during interaction of the concepts or lemmas invoked by the two stimuli, thus, we conclude, that interaction might be downregulated in the related condition.

Abstract

In conversation, future speakers often plan speech simultaneously with comprehension, which means that they must divide attentional resources between these processes. In this EEG study, we used responses to linguistic attention probes (i.e., syllable “BA” presented during spoken sentences) to track temporal variations in attention to comprehension. Participants were asked to listen to prerecorded sentences with expected or unexpected sentence-final words. Each sentence was presented twice, once with and once without the attention probe starting 100 msec after the target word onset. Participants saw a picture 50 msec before the target word. Depending on the test block (picture naming or button press), participants either named the picture or pressed the space bar, both after an 850-msec delay. The probes elicited a negative potential approximately 100 msec after probe onset (i.e., an attention probe effect) in all probe conditions. Unexpectedly, neither word expectancy nor speech planning influenced the timing or strength of the attention probe effect. This indicates that expectancy of words in Dutch does not affect the allocation of attention toward these words 100 msec after their onset (i.e., the time of the probe presentation). Interestingly, engaging in speech planning does not seem to divert attentional resources away from comprehension at the moment of probe presentation. These findings imply that listeners are able to effectively distribute their attentional resources between comprehension and speech planning and carry out these processes at the same time. Considering these unexpected findings, using attention probes might not be the best approach to capture variations in temporal attention in dual-task paradigms.

Abstract

We examined the morphosyntactic prediction ability of child heritage speakers and the role of reading skills and language experience in predictive processing. Using visual world eye-tracking, we focused on predictive use of case-marking cues in Turkish with monolingual (N=49, Mage=83 months) and heritage children, who were early bilinguals of Turkish and Dutch (N=30, Mage=90 months). We found quantitative differences in magnitude of the prediction ability of monolingual and heritage children; however, their overall prediction ability was on par. The heritage speakers’ prediction ability was facilitated by their reading skills in Dutch, but not in Turkish as well as by their heritage language exposure, but not by engagement in literacy activities. These findings emphasize the facilitatory role of reading skills and spoken language experience in predictive processing. This study is the first to show that in a developing bilingual mind, effects of reading-on-prediction can take place across modalities and across languages.

Abstract

Cochlear implants (CIs) are neural prostheses that restore some level of hearing capacity, albeit conveying a less fine-grained speech signal than normal hearing conditions. For example, CIs convey altered fundamental frequency (F0) information, resulting in atypical lexical stress perception (e.g., distinguishing between the noun CONtent and the adjective conTENT) in languages in which this feature rests on F0 modulations. CI users can compensate for the degraded nature of the acoustic input by exploiting the audiovisual affordances of human communication, weighing more heavily the visual information provided by speakers (e.g., lip movements and gestures). Recent studies showed that, in individuals with normal hearing, the timing of simple up-and-down movements of the hand (i.e., beat gestures) biases lexical stress perception. The present study tested if the timing of beat gestures produced by an avatar can bias Dutch lexical stress perception in vocoded speech, which limits the reliability of F0 information in a way that mimics CI-hearing conditions. The effect of gestures in vocoded speech was particularly pronounced when hearing an ambiguous or the least frequent stress pattern in Dutch. These results suggest that (even artificially generated) beat gestures can support the perception of vocoded speech, especially when processing less frequent prosodic features.

Abstract

Experimental psychologists and psycholinguists increasingly turn to online research for data collection due to the ease of sampling many diverse participants in parallel. Online research has shown promising validity and consistency, but is it suitable for all paradigms? Specifically, is it reliable enough for individual differences research? The current paper reports performance on 15 tasks from a psycholinguistic individual differences battery, including timed and untimed assessments of linguistic abilities, as well as domain-general skills. From a demographically homogenous sample of young Dutch people, 149 participants participated in the lab study, and 515 participated online. Our results indicate that there is no reason to assume that participants tested online will underperform compared to lab-based testing, though they highlight the importance of motivation and the potential for external help (e.g., through looking up answers) online. Overall, we conclude that there is reason for optimism in the future of online research into individual differences.

Abstract

Online experimentation has become an essential tool in cognitive psychology, offering access to diverse participant samples. However, remote testing introduces variability in stimulus presentation and response timing due to differences in participant hardware, browsers, and internet conditions. To ensure the validity of online studies, it is crucial to assess the timing precision of experimental software. The present study evaluates the Individual Differences in Dutch Language Skills (IDLaS-NL) test battery, a collection of online tests designed to measure linguistic experience, domain-general cognitive skills, and linguistic processing. Implemented using Frinex, a programming environment developed at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, IDLaS-NL allows researchers to customize test selections via a web platform. We conducted two studies to assess the timing precision of five chronometric tests within the battery. In Study 1, we evaluated the initial implementation of the tests, analyzing differences between expected and recorded stimulus presentation times, response latencies, and recording delays using the custom-made Web Experiment Analyzer (WEA). The results indicated imprecisions in some measures, particularly for reaction time and audio recording onset. Visual stimulus presentation, on the other hand, was fairly accurate. Study 2 introduced refined timing mechanisms in Frinex, incorporating specialized triggers for stimulus presentation and response registration. These adjustments improved timing precision, especially for speech production tasks. Overall, our findings confirm that Frinex achieves timing precision comparable to other widely used experimental platforms. While some variability in stimulus presentation and response timing is inherent to online testing, the results provide researchers with useful estimates of expected precision levels when using Frinex. This study contributes to the growing body of research on online testing methodologies by offering empirical insights into timing accuracy in web-based experiments.

Abstract

Speakers sometimes produce lexical errors, such as saying “salt” instead of “pepper.” This study aimed to better understand the origin of lexical errors by assessing whether they arise from a hasty selection and premature decision to speak (premature selection hypothesis) or from momentary attentional disengagement from the task (attentional lapse hypothesis). We analyzed data from a speeded picture naming task (Lampe et al., 2023) and investigated whether lexical errors are produced as fast as target (i.e., correct) responses, thus arising from premature selection, or whether they are produced more slowly than target responses, thus arising from lapses of attention. Using ex-Gaussian analyses, we found that lexical errors were slower than targets in the tail, but not in the normal part of the response time distribution, with the tail effect primarily resulting from errors that were not coordinates, that is, members of the target’s semantic category. Moreover, we compared the coordinate errors and target responses in terms of their word-intrinsic properties and found that they were overall more frequent, shorter, and acquired earlier than targets. Given the present findings, we conclude that coordinate errors occur due to a premature selection but in the context of intact attentional control, following the same lexical constraints as targets, while other errors, given the variability in their nature, may vary in their origin, with one potential source being lapses of attention.

Abstract

When talking, speakers naturally produce hand movements (co-speech gestures) that contribute to communication. Evidence in Dutch suggests that the timing of simple up-and-down, non-referential “beat” gestures influences spoken word recognition: the same auditory stimulus was perceived as CONtent (noun, capitalized letters indicate stressed syllables) when a beat gesture occurred on the first syllable, but as conTENT (adjective) when the gesture occurred on the second syllable. However, these findings were based on a small number of minimal pairs in Dutch, limiting the generalizability of the findings. We therefore tested this effect in Spanish, where lexical stress is highly relevant in the verb conjugation system, distinguishing bailo, “I dance” with word-initial stress from bailó, “she danced” with word-final stress. Testing a larger sample (N = 100), we also assessed whether individual differences in working memory capacity modulated how much individuals relied on the gestures in spoken word recognition. The results showed that, similar to Dutch, Spanish participants were biased to perceive lexical stress on the syllable that visually co-occurred with a beat gesture, with the effect being strongest when the acoustic stress cues were most ambiguous. No evidence was found for by-participant effect sizes to be influenced by individual differences in phonological or visuospatial working memory. These findings reveal gestural-speech coordination impacts lexical stress perception in a language where listeners are regularly confronted with such lexical stress contrasts, highlighting the impact of gestures’ timing on prominence perception and spoken word recognition.

Abstract

Speech is highly variable in rate, challenging the perception of sound contrasts that are dependent on duration. Listeners deal with such variability by perceiving incoming speech relative to the rate in the surrounding context. For instance, the same ambiguous vowel is more likely to be perceived as being long when embedded in a fast sentence, but as short when embedded in a slow sentence. However, it is still debated to what extent domain-general and domain-specific mechanisms (i.e., language- or speech-specific mechanisms) contribute to rate-dependent perception. Here we examined the role of domain-specific mechanisms in an implicit rate-normalization task in which we manipulated linguistic knowledge about how many syllables words have. Dutch participants were presented with lists of Dutch words that were acoustically ambiguous with regard to having one or two syllables (e.g., /k?ˈlɔm/ can be monosyllabic klom, /klɔm/, or bisyllabic kolom, /ko.ˈlɔm/). While being presented with these ambiguous word lists, they saw monosyllabic or bisyllabic transcriptions of the lists on the screen. We predicted that the same acoustic stimulus would be perceived as faster (more syllables per second) when combined with bisyllabic orthography compared to monosyllabic orthography. In turn, this would lead to downstream influences on vowel length perception in target words embedded within the word lists (rate-dependent perception of Dutch /ɑ/ vs./ /aː/). Despite evidence of successful orthographic disambiguation of the ambiguous word lists, we did not find evidence that linguistic knowledge influenced participants’ rate-dependent perception. Our results are best accounted for by a domain-general account of rate-dependent perception.

Abstract

In the computational and experimental psycholinguistic literature, the mechanisms behind syntactic structure building (e.g., combining words into phrases and sentences) are the subject of considerable debate. Much experimental work has shown that surprisal is a good predictor of human behavioral and neural data. These findings have led some authors to model language comprehension in a purely probabilistic way. In this paper, we use simulation to exemplify why surprisal works so well to model human data and to illustrate why exclusive reliance on it can be problematic for the development of mechanistic theories of language comprehension, particularly those with emphasis on meaning composition. Rather than arguing for the importance of structural or probabilistic information to the exclusion or exhaustion of the other, we argue more emphasis should be placed on understanding how the brain leverages both types of information (viz., statistical and structured). We propose that probabilistic information is an important cue to the structure in the message, but is not a substitute for the structure itself—neither computationally, formally, nor conceptually. Surprisal and other probabilistic metrics must play a key role as theoretical objects in any explanatory mechanistic theory of language processing, but that role remains in the service of the brain’s goal of constructing structured meaning from sensory input.

Abstract

Dealing with text is crucial in modern societies. However, not everyone acquires sufficient literacy skills during school education. This systematic review summarizes and synthesizes research on adults with low literacy skills (ALLS) in alphabetic writing systems, includes results from behavioral and neurobiological studies, and compares these findings with those on developmental dyslexia given that this developmental disorder is one possible explanation for low literacy skills in adulthood. Twenty-seven studies focusing on the cognitive profile of ALLS met the three predefined criteria of reading level, age, and education. Results showed that ALLS performed worse than literate adults in various tasks at skill and information processing level, and exhibited structural and functional differences at the neurobiological level. The cognitive profile of ALLS was closer to that of primary school children than of literate adults. However, relative to children, ALLS’ literacy skills relied less on phonological and more on orthographic strategies. A narrative comparison of results with meta-analyses on developmental dyslexia showed large, though not complete, overlap in the cognitive profiles. The present results helps to better understand the literacy skills and reading-related cognitive functions of ALLS and may support the development of tailored interventions directed to the specific cognitive difficulties ALLS have.

Abstract

Bilinguals use languages strategically and make decisions differently depending on the language context. Here, we explored whether verbal feedback modulates language use and risk-taking in bilinguals engaged in a coin-drawing game that incentivises lying. In the game, participants announced bets in Chinese or English, and feedback on the outcome of the current bet was given in the same language. They selected Chinese over English after receiving positive feedback in Chinese, and no language difference was found when feedback was provided in English. They also tended to take more risks after receiving positive than negative feedback. Furthermore, participants were more likely to switch from one language to the other following negative feedback as compared to positive feedback, and when telling the truth, they were faster after negative than positive feedback. Thus, the language in which bilinguals receive feedback constrains language use, which may have implications for understanding interactions in multilingual communities.

Abstract

When we communicate with others, we often repeat aspects of each other's communicative behavior such as sentence structures and words. Such behavioral alignment has been mostly studied for speech or text. Yet, language use is mostly multimodal, flexibly using speech and gestures to convey messages. Here, we explore the use of alignment in speech (words) and co-speech gestures (iconic gestures) in a referential communication task aimed at finding labels for novel objects in interaction. In particular, we investigate how people flexibly use lexical and gestural alignment to create shared labels for novel objects and whether alignment in speech and gesture are related over time. The present study shows that interlocutors establish shared labels multimodally, and alignment in words and iconic gestures are used throughout the interaction. We also show that the amount of lexical alignment positively associates with the amount of gestural alignment over time, suggesting a close relationship between alignment in the vocal and manual modalities.

Abstract

Previous studies, using the Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS) paradigm, observed that (Western) university students are better able to detect otherwise invisible pictures of objects when they are presented with the corresponding spoken word shortly before the picture appears. Here we attempted to replicate this effect with non-Western university students in Goa (India). A second aim was to explore the performance of (non-Western) meditators practicing Sudarshan Kriya Yoga in Goa in the same task. Some previous literature suggests that meditators may excel in some tasks that tap visual attention, for example by exercising better endogenous and exogenous control of visual awareness than non-meditators. The present study replicated the finding that congruent spoken cue words lead to significantly higher detection sensitivity than incongruent cue words in non-Western university students. Our exploratory meditator group also showed this detection effect but both frequentist and Bayesian analyses suggest that the practice of meditation did not modulate it. Overall, our results provide further support for the notion that spoken words can activate low-level category-specific visual features that boost the basic capacity to detect the presence of a visual stimulus that has those features. Further research is required to conclusively test whether meditation can modulate visual detection abilities in CFS and similar tasks.

Abstract

To answer a question, speakers must determine their response and formulate it in words. But do they decide on a response before formulation, or do they formulate different potential answers before selecting one? We addressed this issue in a verbal question-answering experiment. Participants answered questions more quickly when they had one potential answer (e.g., Which tourist attraction in Paris is very tall?) than when they had multiple potential answers (e.g., What is the name of a Shakespeare play?). Participants also answered more quickly when the set of potential answers were on average short rather than long, regardless of whether there was only one or multiple potential answers. Thus, participants were not affected by the linguistic complexity of unselected but plausible answers. These findings suggest that participants select a single answer before formulation.

Abstract

Research suggests that interlocutors manage the timing demands of conversation by preparing what they want to say early. In three experiments, we used a verbal question-answering task to investigate what aspects of their response speakers prepare early. In all three experiments, participants answered more quickly when the critical content (here, barks) necessary for answer preparation occurred early (e.g., Which animal barks and is also a common household pet?) rather than late (e.g., Which animal is a common household pet and also barks?). In the individual experiments, we found no convincing evidence that participants were slower to produce longer answers, consisting of multiple words, than shorter answers, consisting of a single word. There was also no interaction between these two factors. A combined analysis of the first two experiments confirmed this lack of interaction, and demonstrated that participants were faster to answer questions when the critical content was available early rather than late and when the answer was short rather than long. These findings provide tentative evidence for an account in which interlocutors prepare the content of their answer as soon as they can, but sometimes do not prepare its length (and thus form) until they are ready to speak.

Abstract

In natural communication, we typically both see and hear our conversation partner. Speech comprehension thus requires the integration of auditory and visual information from the speech signal. This is for instance evidenced by the Manual McGurk effect, where the perception of lexical stress is biased towards the syllable that has a beat gesture aligned to it. However, there is considerable individual variation in how heavily gestural timing is weighed as a cue to stress. To assess within-individualconsistency, this study investigated the test-retest reliability of the Manual McGurk effect. We reran an earlier Manual McGurk experiment with the same participants, over 1.5 years later. At the group level, we successfully replicated the Manual McGurk effect with a similar effect size. However, a correlation of the by-participant effect sizes in the two identical experiments indicated that there was only a weak correlation between both tests, suggesting that the weighing of gestural information in the perception of lexical stress is stable at the group level, but less so in individuals. Findings are discussed in comparison to other measures of audiovisual integration in speech perception. Index Terms: Audiovisual integration, beat gestures, lexical stress, test-retest reliability

Abstract

Children and adults are excellent word learners. Increasing evidence suggests that the neural mechanisms that allow us to learn words change with age. In a recent fMRI study from our group, several brain regions exhibited age-related differences when accessing newly learned words in a second language (L2; Takashima et al. Dev Cogn Neurosci 37, 2019). Namely, while the Teen group (aged 14–16 years) activated more left frontal and parietal regions, the Young group (aged 8–10 years) activated right frontal and parietal regions. In the current study we analyzed the structural connectivity data from the aforementioned study, examining the white matter connectivity of the regions that showed age-related functional activation differences. Age group differences in streamline density as well as correlations with L2 word learning success and their interaction were examined. The Teen group showed stronger connectivity than the Young group in the right arcuate fasciculus (AF). Furthermore, white matter connectivity and memory for L2 words across the two age groups correlated in the left AF and the right anterior thalamic radiation (ATR) such that higher connectivity in the left AF and lower connectivity in the right ATR was related to better memory for L2 words. Additionally, connectivity in the area of the right AF that exhibited age-related differences predicted word learning success. The finding that across the two age groups, stronger connectivity is related to better memory for words lends further support to the hypothesis that the prolonged maturation of the prefrontal cortex, here in the form of structural connectivity, plays an important role in the development of memory.

Abstract

Traditionally, language processing has been thought of in terms of complete processing of the input. In contrast to this, Ferreira and colleagues put forth the idea of good enough processing. The proposal was that during everyday processing, ambiguities remain unresolved, we rely on heuristics instead of full analyses, and we carry out deep processing only if we need to for the task at hand. This idea has gathered substantial traction since its conception. In the current work, I review the papers that have tested the three key claims of good enough processing: ambiguities remain unresolved and underspecified, we use heuristics to parse sentences, and deep processing is only carried out if required by the task. I find mixed evidence for these claims and conclude with an appeal to further refinement of the claims and predictions of the theory.

Abstract

Earlier work has explored spoken word production during irrelevant background speech such as intelligible and unintelligible word lists. The present study compared how different types of irrelevant background speech (word lists vs. sentences) influenced spoken word production relative to a quiet control condition, and whether the influence depended on the intelligibility of the background speech. Experiment 1 presented native Dutch speakers with Chinese word lists and sentences. Experiment 2 presented a similar group with Dutch word lists and sentences. In both experiments, the lexical selection demands in speech production were manipulated by varying name agreement (high vs. low) of the to-be-named pictures. Results showed that background speech, regardless of its intelligibility, disrupted spoken word production relative to a quiet condition, but no effects of word lists versus sentences in either language were found. Moreover, the disruption by intelligible background speech compared with the quiet condition was eliminated when planning low name agreement pictures. These findings suggest that any speech, even unintelligible speech, interferes with production, which implies that the disruption of spoken word production is mainly phonological in nature. The disruption by intelligible background speech can be reduced or eliminated via top–down attentional engagement.

Abstract

The neural representations for compositional processing have so far been mostly studied during sentence comprehension. In an fMRI study of sentence production, we investigated the brain representations for compositional processing during speaking. We used a rapid serial visual presentation sentence recall paradigm to elicit sentence production from the conceptual memory of an event. With voxel-wise encoding models, we probed the specificity of the compositional structure built during the production of each sentence, comparing an unstructured model of word meaning without relational information with a model that encodes abstract thematic relations and a model encoding event-specific relational structure. Whole-brain analyses revealed that sentence meaning at different levels of specificity was encoded in a large left frontal-parietal-temporal network. A comparison with semantic structures composed during the comprehension of the same sentences showed similarly distributed brain activity patterns. An ROI analysis over left fronto-temporal language parcels showed that event-specific relational structure above word-specific information was encoded in the left inferior frontal gyrus. Overall, we found evidence for the encoding of sentence meaning during sentence production in a distributed brain network and for the encoding of event-specific semantic structures in the left inferior frontal gyrus.

Abstract

Using language requires access to domain-specific linguistic representations, but also draws on domain-general cognitive skills. A key issue in current psycholinguistics is to situate linguistic processing in the network of human cognitive abilities. Here, we focused on spoken word recognition and used an individual differences approach to examine the links of scores in word recognition tasks with scores on tasks capturing effects of linguistic experience, general processing speed, working memory, and non-verbal reasoning. 281 young native speakers of Dutch completed an extensive test battery assessing these cognitive skills. We used psychometric network analysis to map out the direct links between the scores, that is, the unique variance between pairs of scores, controlling for variance shared with the other scores. The analysis revealed direct links between word recognition skills and processing speed. We discuss the implications of these results and the potential of psychometric network analysis for studying language processing and its embedding in the broader cognitive system.

Abstract

Individuals exhibit massive variability in general cognitive skills that affect language processing. This variability is partly developmental. Here, we recruited a large sample of participants (N = 487), ranging from 9 to 90 years of age, and examined the involvement of nonverbal processing speed (assessed using visual and auditory reaction time tasks) and working memory (assessed using forward and backward Digit Span tasks) in a visual world task. Participants saw two objects on the screen and heard a sentence that referred to one of them. In half of the sentences, the target object could be predicted based on verb-selectional restrictions. We observed evidence for anticipatory processing on predictable compared to non-predictable trials. Visual and auditory processing speed had main effects on sentence comprehension and facilitated predictive processing, as evidenced by an interaction. We observed only weak evidence for the involvement of working memory in predictive sentence comprehension. Age had a nonlinear main effect (younger adults responded faster than children and older adults), but it did not differentially modulate predictive and non-predictive processing, nor did it modulate the involvement of processing speed and working memory. Our results contribute to delineating the cognitive skills that are involved in language-vision interactions.

Abstract

We introduce the Individual Differences in Language Skills (IDLaS-NL) web platform, which enables users to run studies on individual differences in Dutch language skills via the internet. IDLaS-NL consists of 35 behavioral tests, previously validated in participants aged between 18 and 30 years. The platform provides an intuitive graphical interface for users to select the tests they wish to include in their research, to divide these tests into different sessions and to determine their order. Moreover, for standardized administration the platform
provides an application (an emulated browser) wherein the tests are run. Results can be retrieved by mouse click in the graphical interface and are provided as CSV-file output via email. Similarly, the graphical interface enables researchers to modify and delete their study configurations. IDLaS-NL is intended for researchers, clinicians, educators and in general anyone conducting fundaental research into language and general cognitive skills; it is not intended for diagnostic purposes. All platform services are free of charge. Here, we provide a
description of its workings as well as instructions for using the platform. The IDLaS-NL platform can be accessed at www.mpi.nl/idlas-nl.

Abstract

Literacy is in decline in many parts of the world, accompanied by drops in associated cognitive skills (including IQ) and an increasing susceptibility to fake news. It is possible that the recent explosive growth and widespread deployment of Large Language Models (LLMs) might exacerbate this trend, but there is also a chance that LLMs can help turn things around. We argue that cognitive science is ideally suited to help steer future literacy development in the right direction by challenging and informing current educational practices and policy. Cognitive scientists have the right interdisciplinary skills to study, analyze, evaluate, and change LLMs to facilitate their critical use, to encourage turn-taking that promotes rather than hinders literacy, to support literacy acquisition in diverse and equitable ways, and to scaffold potential future changes in what it means to be literate. We urge cognitive scientists to take up this mantle—the future impact of LLMs on human literacy skills is too important to be left to the large, predominately US-based tech companies.

Abstract

We investigated prediction skills of adult heritage speakers and the role of written and spoken language experience on predictive processing. Using visual world eye-tracking, we focused on predictive use of case-marking cues in verb-medial and verb-final sentences in Turkish with adult Turkish heritage speakers (N = 25) and Turkish monolingual speakers (N = 24). Heritage speakers predicted in verb-medial sentences (when verb-semantic and case-marking cues were available), but not in verb-final sentences (when only case-marking cues were available) while monolinguals predicted in both. Prediction skills of heritage speakers were modulated by their spoken language experience in Turkish and written language experience in both languages. Overall, these results strongly suggest that verb-semantic information is needed to scaffold the use of morphosyntactic cues for prediction in heritage speakers. The findings also support the notion that both spoken and written language experience play an important role in predictive spoken language processing.

Abstract

In this study, we explored the relationship between developmental differences in gray matter structure and grammar learning ability in 159 Dutch-speaking individuals (8 to 25 yr). The data were collected as part of a recent large-scale functional MRI study (Menks WM, Ekerdt C, Lemhöfer K, Kidd E, Fernández G, McQueen JM, Janzen G. Developmental changes in brain activation during novel grammar learning in 8–25-year-olds. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2024;66:101347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2024.101347) in which participants implicitly learned Icelandic morphosyntactic rules and performed a grammaticality judgment task in the scanner. Behaviorally, Menks et al. (2024) showed that grammaticality judgment task performance increased steadily from 8 to 15.4 yr, after which age had no further effect. We show in the current study that this age-related grammaticality judgment task performance was negatively related to cortical gray matter volume and cortical thickness in many clusters throughout the brain. Hippocampal volume was positively related to age-related grammaticality judgment task performance and L2 (English) vocabulary knowledge. Furthermore, we found that grammaticality judgment task performance, L2 grammar proficiency, and L2 vocabulary knowledge were positively related to gray matter maturation within parietal regions, overlapping with the functional MRI clusters that were reported previously in Menks et al. (2024) and which showed increased brain activation in relation to grammar learning. We propose that this overlap in functional and structural results indicates that brain maturation in parietal regions plays an important role in second language learning.

Abstract

While it is well established that grammar learning success varies with age, the cause of this developmental change is largely unknown. This study examined functional MRI activation across a broad developmental sample of 165 Dutch-speaking individuals (8-25 years) as they were implicitly learning a new grammatical system. This approach allowed us to assess the direct effects of age on grammar learning ability while exploring its neural correlates. In contrast to the alleged advantage of children language learners over adults, we found that adults outperformed children. Moreover, our behavioral data showed a sharp discontinuity in the relationship between age and grammar learning performance: there was a strong positive linear correlation between 8 and 15.4 years of age, after which age had no further effect. Neurally, our data indicate two important findings: (i) during grammar learning, adults and children activate similar brain regions, suggesting continuity in the neural networks that support initial grammar learning; and (ii) activation level is age-dependent, with children showing less activation than older participants. We suggest that these age-dependent processes may constrain developmental effects in grammar learning. The present study provides new insights into the neural basis of age-related differences in grammar learning in second language acquisition.

Abstract

* These two authors contributed equally to this study
Statistical learning – the ability to extract distributional regularities from input – is suggested to be key to language acquisition. Yet, evidence for the human capacity for statistical learning comes mainly from studies conducted in carefully controlled settings without auditory distraction. While such conditions permit careful examination of learning, they do not reflect the naturalistic language learning experience, which is replete with auditory distraction – including competing talkers. Here, we examine how statistical language learning proceeds in a virtual cocktail party environment, where the to-be-learned input is presented alongside a competing speech stream with its own distributional regularities. During exposure, participants in the Dual Talker group concurrently heard two novel languages, one produced by a female talker and one by a male talker, with each talker virtually positioned at opposite sides of the listener (left/right) using binaural acoustic manipulations. Selective attention was manipulated by instructing participants to attend to only one of the two talkers. At test, participants were asked to distinguish words from part-words for both the attended and the unattended languages. Results indicated that participants’ accuracy was significantly higher for trials from the attended vs. unattended
language. Further, the performance of this Dual Talker group was no different compared to a control group who heard only one language from a single talker (Single Talker group). We thus conclude that statistical learning is modulated by selective attention, being relatively robust against the additional cognitive load provided by competing speech, emphasizing its efficiency in naturalistic language learning situations.

Abstract

Natural speech involves repair. These repairs are often highlighted through prosodic marking (Levelt & Cutler, 1983). Prosodic marking usually entails an increase in pitch, loudness, and/or duration that draws attention to the corrected word. While it is established that natural self-repairs typically elicit prosodic marking, the exact cause of this is unclear. This study investigates whether producing a prosodic marking emerges from an automatic correction process or has a communicative purpose. In the current study, we elicit corrections to test whether all self-corrections elicit prosodic marking. Participants carried out a picture-naming task in which they described two images presented on-screen. To prompt self-correction, the second image was altered in some cases, requiring participants to abandon their initial utterance and correct their description to match the new image. This manipulation was compared to a control condition in which only the orientation of the object would change, eliciting no self-correction while still presenting a visual change. We found that the replacement of the item did not elicit a prosodic marking, regardless of the type of change. Theoretical implications and research directions are discussed, in particular theories of prosodic planning.

Abstract

It has been shown that when speakers produce hand gestures, addressees are attentive towards these gestures, using them to facilitate speech processing. Even relatively simple “beat” gestures are taken into account to help process aspects of speech such as prosodic prominence. In fact, recent evidence suggests that the timing of a beat gesture can influence spoken word recognition. Termed the manual McGurk Effect, Dutch participants, when presented with lexical stress minimal pair continua in Dutch, were biased to hear lexical stress on the syllable that coincided with a beat gesture. However, little is known about how this manual McGurk effect would surface in languages other than Dutch, with different acoustic cues to prominence, and variable gestures. Therefore, this study tests the effect in Spanish where lexical stress is arguably even more important, being a contrastive cue in the regular verb conjugation system. Results from 24 participants corroborate the effect in Spanish, namely that when given the same auditory stimulus, participants were biased to perceive lexical stress on the syllable that visually co-occurred with a beat gesture. These findings extend the manual McGurk effect to a different language, emphasizing the impact of gestures' timing on prosody perception and spoken word recognition.

Abstract

Recent research on multimodal language production has revealed that prominence in speech and gesture go hand-in-hand. Specifically, peaks in gesture (i.e., the apex) seem to closely coordinate with peaks in fundamental frequency (F0). The nature of this relationship may also be bi-directional, as it has also been shown that the production of gesture directly affects speech acoustics. However, most studies on the topic have largely focused on stress-based languages, where fundamental frequency has a prominence-lending function. Less work has been carried out on lexical tone languages such as Mandarin, where F0 is lexically distinctive. In this study, four native Mandarin speakers were asked to produce single monosyllabic CV words, taken from minimal lexical tone triplets (e.g., /pi1/, /pi2/, /pi3/), either with or without a beat gesture. Our analyses of the timing of the gestures showed that the gesture apex most stably occurred near vowel onset, with consonantal duration being the strongest predictor of apex placement. Acoustic analyses revealed that words produced with gesture showed raised F0 contours, greater intensity, and shorter durations. These findings further our understanding of gesture-speech alignment in typologically diverse languages, and add to the discussion about multimodal prominence.

Abstract

Studies investigating language commonly isolate one modality or process, focusing on comprehension or production. Here, we present a framework for a paradigm that combines both: the Concise Language Paradigm (CLaP), tapping into comprehension and production within one trial. The trial structure is identical across conditions, presenting a sentence followed by a picture to be named. We tested 21 healthy speakers with EEG to examine three time periods during a trial (sentence, pre-picture interval, picture onset), yielding contrasts of sentence comprehension, contextually and visually guided word retrieval, object recognition, and naming. In the CLaP, sentences are presented auditorily (constrained, unconstrained, reversed), and pictures appear as normal (constrained, unconstrained, bare) or scrambled objects. Imaging results revealed different evoked responses after sentence onset for normal and time-reversed speech. Further, we replicated the context effect of alpha-beta power decreases before picture onset for constrained relative to unconstrained sentences, and could clarify that this effect arises from power decreases following constrained sentences. Brain responses locked to picture-onset differed as a function of sentence context and picture type (normal vs. scrambled), and naming times were fastest for pictures in constrained sentences, followed by scrambled picture naming, and equally fast for bare and unconstrained picture naming. Finally, we also discuss the potential of the CLaP to be adapted to different focuses, using different versions of the linguistic content and tasks, in combination with electrophysiology or other imaging methods. These first results of the CLaP indicate that this paradigm offers a promising framework to investigate the language system.

Abstract

Different talkers speak differently, even within the same homogeneous group. These differences lead to acoustic variability in speech, causing challenges for correct perception of the intended message. Because previous descriptions of this acoustic variability have focused mostly on segments, talker variability in prosodic structures is not yet well documented. The present study therefore examined acoustic between-talker variability in word stress in Dutch. We recorded 40 native Dutch talkers from a participant sample with minimal dialectal variation and balanced gender, producing segmentally overlapping words (e.g., VOORnaam vs. voorNAAM; ‘first name’ vs. ‘respectable’, capitalization indicates lexical stress), and measured different acoustic cues to stress. Each individual participant’s acoustic measurements were analyzed using Linear Discriminant Analyses, which provide coefficients for each cue, reflecting the strength of each cue in a talker’s productions. On average, talkers primarily used mean F0, intensity, and duration. Moreover, each participant also employed a unique combination of cues, illustrating large prosodic variability between talkers. In fact, classes of cue-weighting tendencies emerged, differing in which cue was used as the main cue. These results offer the most comprehensive acoustic description, to date, of word stress in Dutch, and illustrate that large prosodic variability is present between individual talkers.

Abstract

When we understand language, we recognize words and combine them into sentences. In this article, we explore the hypothesis that listeners use probabilistic information about words to build syntactic structure. Recent work has shown that lexical probability and syntactic structure both modulate the delta-band (<4 Hz) neural signal. Here, we investigated whether the neural encoding of syntactic structure changes as a function of the distributional properties of a word. To this end, we analyzed MEG data of 24 native speakers of Dutch who listened to three fairytales with a total duration of 49 min. Using temporal response functions and a cumulative model-comparison approach, we evaluated the contributions of syntactic and distributional features to the variance in the delta-band neural signal. This revealed that lexical surprisal values (a distributional feature), as well as bottom-up node counts (a syntactic feature) positively contributed to the model of the delta-band neural signal. Subsequently, we compared responses to the syntactic feature between words with high- and low-surprisal values. This revealed a delay in the response to the syntactic feature as a consequence of the surprisal value of the word: high-surprisal values were associated with a delayed response to the syntactic feature by 150–190 ms. The delay was not affected by word duration, and did not have a lexical origin. These findings suggest that the brain uses probabilistic information to infer syntactic structure, and highlight an importance for the role of time in this process.

Abstract

The human brain deals with the infinite variability of speech through multiple mechanisms. Some of them rely solely on information in the speech input (i.e., signal-driven) whereas some rely on linguistic or real-world knowledge (i.e., knowledge-driven). Many signal-driven perceptual processes rely on the enhancement of acoustic differences between incoming speech sounds, producing contrastive adjustments. For instance, when an ambiguous voiceless fricative is preceded by a high fundamental frequency (f0) sentence, the fricative is perceived as having lower a spectral center of gravity (CoG). However, it is not clear whether knowledge of a talker’s typical f0 can lead to similar contrastive effects. This study investigated a possible talker f0 effect on fricative CoG perception. In the exposure phase, two groups of participants (N=16 each) heard the same talker at high or low f0 for 20 minutes. Later, in the test phase, participants rated fixed-f0 /?ɔk/ tokens as being /sɔk/ (i.e., high CoG) or /ʃɔk/ (i.e., low CoG), where /?/ represents a fricative from a 5-step /s/-/ʃ/ continuum. Surprisingly, the data revealed the opposite of our contrastive hypothesis, whereby hearing high f0 instead biased perception towards high CoG. Thus, we demonstrated that talker f0 information affects fricative CoG perception.

Abstract

Contrastive pitch accents can mark sentence elements occupying parallel roles. In “Mary kissed John, not Peter”, a pitch accent on Mary or John cues the implied syntactic role of Peter. Van der Burght, Friederici, Goucha, and Hartwigsen (2021) showed that listeners can build expectations concerning syntactic and semantic properties of upcoming words, derived from pitch accent information they heard previously. To further explore these expectations, we attempted a partial replication of the original German study in Dutch. In the experimental sentences “Yesterday, the police officer arrested the thief, not the inspector/murderer”, a pitch accent on subject or object cued the subject/object role of the ellipsis clause. Contrasting elements were additionally cued by the thematic role typicality of the nouns. Participants listened to sentences in which the ellipsis clause was omitted and selected the most plausible sentence-final noun (presented visually) via button press. Replicating the original study results, listeners based their sentence-final preference on the pitch accent information available in the sentence. However, as in the original study, individual differences between listeners were found, with some following prosodic information and others relying on a structural bias. The results complement the literature on ellipsis resolution and on interindividual variability in cue weighting.

Abstract

Using a novel version of the picture-word interference paradigm, Momma, Buffinton, Slevc, and Phillips (2020, Cognition) showed that word class constrained which words competed with each other for lexical selection. Specifically, in speakers of American English, action verbs (as in she’s singing) competed with semantically related action verbs (as in she’s whistling), but not with semantically related action nouns (as in her whistling). Similarly, action nouns only competed with semantically related action nouns, but not with action verbs. As this pattern has important implications for models of lexical access and sentence generation, we conducted a conceptual replication in Dutch. We found a semantic interference effect, however, contrary to the original study, no evidence for a word class constraint. Together, the results of the two studies argue for graded rather than categorical word class constraints on lexical selection.

Abstract

This present study identified an optimal model representing the relationship between orthography and phonology in Chinese handwritten production using dynamic causal modeling, and further explored how this model was modulated by word frequency and syllable frequency. Each model contained five volumes of interest in the left hemisphere (angular gyrus [AG], inferior frontal gyrus [IFG], middle frontal gyrus [MFG], superior frontal gyrus [SFG], and supramarginal gyrus [SMG]), with the IFG as the driven input area. Results showed the superiority of a model in which both the MFG and the AG connected with the IFG, supporting the orthography autonomy hypothesis. Word frequency modulated the AG → SFG connection (information flow from the orthographic lexicon to the orthographic buffer), and syllable frequency affected the IFG → MFG connection (information transmission from the semantic system to the phonological lexicon). This study thus provides new insights into the connectivity architecture of neural substrates involved in writing.

Abstract

Prosodic prominence can enhance memory for the prominent words. This mnemonic benefit has been linked to listeners’ allocation of attention and deeper processing, which leads to more robust semantic representations. We investigated whether, in addition to the well-established effect at the semantic level, there was a memory benefit for prominent words at the phonological level. To do so, participants (48 native speakers of Dutch), first performed an accent judgement task, where they had to discriminate accented from unaccented words, and accented from unaccented pseudowords. All stimuli were presented in lists. They then performed an old/new recognition task for the stimuli. Accuracy in the accent judgement task was equally high for words and pseudowords. In the recognition task, performance was, as expected, better for words than pseudowords. More importantly, there was an interaction of accent with word type, with a significant advantage for accented compared to unaccented words, but not for pseudowords. The results confirm the memory benefit for accented compared to unaccented words seen in earlier studies, and they are consistent with the view that prominence primarily affects the semantic encoding of words. There was no evidence for an additional memory benefit arising at the phonological level.

Abstract

There is a robust positive relationship between reading skills and the time to name aloud an array of letters, digits, objects, or colors as quickly as possible. A convincing and complete explanation for the direction and locus of this association remains, however, elusive. In this study we investigated rapid automatized naming (RAN) of every-day objects and basic color patches in neurotypical illiterate and literate adults. Literacy acquisition and education enhanced RAN performance for both conceptual categories but this advantage was much larger for (abstract) colors than every-day objects. This result suggests that (i) literacy/education may be causal for serial rapid naming ability of non-alphanumeric items, (ii) differences in the lexical quality of conceptual representations can underlie the reading-related differential RAN performance.

Abstract

While listening to meaningful speech, auditory input is processed more rapidly near the end (vs. beginning) of sentences. Although several studies have shown such word-to-word changes in auditory input processing, it is still unclear from which processing level these word-to-word dynamics originate. We investigated whether predictions derived from sentential context can result in auditory word-processing dynamics during sentence tracking. We presented healthy human participants with auditory stimuli consisting of word sequences, arranged into either predictable (coherent sentences) or less predictable (unstructured, random word sequences) 42-Hz amplitude-modulated speech, and a continuous 25-Hz amplitude-modulated distractor tone. We recorded RTs and frequency-tagged neuroelectric responses 1(auditory steady-state responses) to individual words at multiple temporal positions within the sentences, and quantified sentential context effects at each position while controlling for individual word characteristics (i.e., phonetics, frequency, and familiarity). We found that sentential context increasingly facilitates auditory word processing as evidenced by accelerated RTs and increased auditory steady-state responses to later-occurring words within sentences. These purely top–down contextually driven auditory word-processing dynamics occurred only when listeners focused their attention on the speech and did not transfer to the auditory processing of the concurrent distractor tone. These findings indicate that auditory word-processing dynamics during sentence tracking can originate from sentential predictions. The predictions depend on the listeners' attention to the speech, and affect only the processing of the parsed speech, not that of concurrently presented auditory streams.

Abstract

During dialog, interlocutors take turns at speaking with little gap or overlap between their contributions. But language production in monolog is comparatively slow. Theories of dialog tend to agree that interlocutors manage these timing demands by planning a response early, before the current speaker reaches the end of their turn. In the first half of this chapter, I review experimental research supporting these theories. But this research also suggests that planning a response early, while simultaneously comprehending, is difficult. Does response planning need to be this difficult during dialog? In other words, is early-planning always necessary? In the second half of this chapter, I discuss research that suggests the answer to this question is no. In particular, corpora of natural conversation demonstrate that speakers do not directly respond to the immediately preceding utterance of their partner—instead, they continue an utterance they produced earlier. This parallel talk likely occurs because speakers are highly incremental and plan only part of their utterance before speaking, leading to pauses, hesitations, and disfluencies. As a result, speakers do not need to engage in extensive advance planning. Thus, laboratory studies do not provide a full picture of language production in dialog, and further research using naturalistic tasks is needed.

Abstract

Word frequency plays a key role in theories of lexical access, which assume that the word frequency effect (WFE, faster access to high-frequency than low-frequency words) occurs as a result of differences in the representation and processing of the words. In a seminal paper, Jescheniak and Levelt (1994) proposed that the WFE arises during the retrieval of word forms, rather than the retrieval of their syntactic representations (their lemmas) or articulatory commands. An important part of Jescheniak and Levelt's argument was that they found a stable WFE in a picture naming task, which requires complete lexical access, but not in a gender decision task, which only requires access to the words' lemmas and not their word forms. We report two attempts to replicate this pattern, one with new materials, and one with Jescheniak and Levelt's orginal pictures. In both studies we found a strong WFE when the pictures were shown for the first time, but much weaker effects on their second and third presentation. Importantly these patterns were seen in both the picture naming and the gender decision tasks, suggesting that either word frequency does not exclusively affect word form retrieval, or that the gender decision task does not exclusively tap lemma access.

Abstract

Although previous research has demonstrated that language comprehension can be egocentric, there is little evidence for egocentricity during prediction. In particular, comprehenders do not appear to predict egocentrically when the context makes it clear what the speaker is likely to refer to. But do comprehenders predict egocentrically when the context does not make it clear? We tested this hypothesis using a visual-world eye-tracking paradigm, in which participants heard sentences containing the gender-neutral pronoun They (e.g. They would like to wear…) while viewing four objects (e.g. tie, dress, drill, hairdryer). Two of these objects were plausible targets of the verb (tie and dress), and one was stereotypically compatible with the participant's gender (tie if the participant was male; dress if the participant was female). Participants rapidly fixated targets more than distractors, but there was no evidence that participants ever predicted egocentrically, fixating objects stereotypically compatible with their own gender. These findings suggest that participants do not fall back on their own egocentric perspective when predicting, even when they know that context does not make it clear what the speaker is likely to refer to.

Abstract

Comprehenders predict what a speaker is likely to say when listening to non-native (L2) and native (L1) utterances. But what are the characteristics of L2 prediction, and how does it relate to L1 prediction? We addressed this question in a visual-world eye-tracking experiment, which tested when L2 English comprehenders integrated perspective into their predictions. Male and female participants listened to male and female speakers producing sentences (e.g., I would like to wear the nice…) about stereotypically masculine (target: tie; distractor: drill) and feminine (target: dress; distractor: hairdryer) objects. Participants predicted associatively, fixating objects semantically associated with critical verbs (here, the tie and the dress). They also predicted stereotypically consistent objects (e.g., the tie rather than the dress, given the male speaker). Consistent predictions were made later than associative predictions, and were delayed for L2 speakers relative to L1 speakers. These findings suggest prediction involves both automatic and non-automatic stages.

Abstract

Most psycholinguistic studies on morphological processing have examined the role of morphological structure in the visual modality. This chapter discusses morphological processing in the auditory modality, which is an area of research that has only recently received more attention. It first discusses why results in the visual modality cannot straightforwardly be applied to the processing of spoken words, stressing the importance of acknowledging potential modality effects. It then gives a brief overview of the existing research on the role of morphology in the auditory modality, for which an increasing number of studies report that listeners show sensitivity to morphological structure. Finally, the chapter highlights insights gained by looking at morphological processing not only in reading, but also in listening, and it discusses directions for future research

Abstract

Our understanding of dual-process models of cognition may benefit from a consideration of language processing, as language comprehension involves fast and slow processes analogous to those used for reasoning. More specifically, De Neys's criticisms of the exclusivity assumption and the fast-to-slow switch mechanism are consistent with findings from the literature on the construction and revision of linguistic interpretations.

Abstract

We present a visual world eye-tracking study on Tseltal (a Mayan language) and investigate whether verbal information can be used to anticipate an upcoming referent. Basic word order in transitive sentences in Tseltal is Verb-Object-Subject (VOS). The verb is usually encountered first, making argument structure and syntactic information available at the outset, which should facilitate anticipation of the post-verbal arguments. Tseltal speakers listened to verb-initial sentences with either an object-predictive verb (e.g., ‘eat’) or a general verb (e.g., ‘look for’) (e.g., “Ya slo’/sle ta stukel on te kereme”, Is eating/is looking (for) by himself the avocado the boy/ “The boy is eating/is looking (for) an avocado by himself”) while seeing a visual display showing one potential referent (e.g., avocado) and three distractors (e.g., bag, toy car, coffee grinder). We manipulated verb type (predictive vs. general) and recorded participants' eye-movements while they listened and inspected the visual scene. Participants’ fixations to the target referent were analysed using multilevel logistic regression models. Shortly after hearing the predictive verb, participants fixated the target object before it was mentioned. In contrast, when the verb was general, fixations to the target only started to increase once the object was heard. Our results suggest that Tseltal hearers pre-activate semantic features of the grammatical object prior to its linguistic expression. This provides evidence from a verb-initial language for online incremental semantic interpretation and anticipatory processing during language comprehension. These processes are comparable to the ones identified in subject-initial languages, which is consistent with the notion that different languages follow similar universal processing principles.

Abstract

Listeners frequently recognize spoken words in the presence of background noise. Previous research has shown that noise reduces phoneme intelligibility and hampers spoken-word recognition—especially for non-native listeners. In the present study, we investigated how noise influences lexical competition in both the non-native and the native language, reflecting the degree to which both languages are co-activated. We recorded the eye movements of native Dutch participants as they listened to English sentences containing a target word while looking at displays containing four objects. On target-present trials, the visual referent depicting the target word was present, along with three unrelated distractors. On target-absent trials, the target object (e.g., wizard) was absent. Instead, the display contained an English competitor, overlapping with the English target in phonological onset (e.g., window), a Dutch competitor, overlapping with the English target in phonological onset (e.g., wimpel, pennant), and two unrelated distractors. Half of the sentences was masked by speech-shaped noise; the other half was presented in quiet. Compared to speech in quiet, noise delayed fixations to the target objects on target-present trials. For target-absent trials, we observed that the likelihood for fixation biases towards the English and Dutch onset competitors (over the unrelated distractors) was larger in noise than in quiet. Our data thus show that the presence of background noise increases lexical competition in the task-relevant non-native (English) and in the task-irrelevant native (Dutch) language. The latter reflects stronger interference of one’s native language during non-native spoken-word recognition under adverse conditions.

Abstract

In face-to-face discourse, listeners exploit cues in the input to generate predictions about upcoming words. Moreover, in addition to speech, speakers produce a multitude of visual signals, such as iconic gestures, which listeners readily integrate with incoming words. Previous studies have shown that processing of target words is facilitated when these are embedded in predictable compared to non-predictable discourses and when accompanied by iconic compared to meaningless gestures. In the present study, we investigated the interaction of both factors. We recorded electroencephalogram from 60 Dutch adults while they were watching videos of an actress producing short discourses. The stimuli consisted of an introductory and a target sentence; the latter contained a target noun. Depending on the preceding discourse, the target noun was either predictable or not. Each target noun was paired with an iconic gesture and a gesture that did not convey meaning. In both conditions, gesture presentation in the video was timed such that the gesture stroke slightly preceded the onset of the spoken target by 130 ms. Our ERP analyses revealed independent facilitatory effects for predictable discourses and iconic gestures. However, the interactive effect of both factors demonstrated that target processing (i.e., gesture-speech integration) was facilitated most when targets were part of predictable discourses and accompanied by an iconic gesture. Our results thus suggest a strong intertwinement of linguistic predictability and non-verbal gesture processing where listeners exploit predictive discourse cues to pre-activate verbal and non-verbal representations of upcoming target words.

Abstract

Prediction appears to be an important characteristic of the human mind. It has also been suggested that prediction is a core difference of autistic children. Past research exploring language-mediated anticipatory eye movements in autistic children, however, has been somewhat contradictory, with some studies finding normal anticipatory processing in autistic children with low levels of autistic traits but others observing weaker prediction effects in autistic children with less receptive language skills. Here we investigated language-mediated anticipatory eye movements in young children who differed in the severity of their level of autistic traits and were in professional institutional care in Hangzhou, China. We chose the same spoken sentences (translated into Mandarin Chinese) and visual stimuli as a previous study which observed robust prediction effects in young children (Mani & Huettig, 2012) and included a control group of typically-developing children. Typically developing but not autistic children showed robust prediction effects. Most interestingly, autistic children with lower communication, motor, and (adaptive) behavior scores exhibited both less predictive and non-predictive visual attention behavior. Our results raise the possibility that differences in language-mediated anticipatory eye movements in autistic children with higher levels of autistic traits may be differences in visual attention in disguise, a hypothesis that needs further investigation.

Abstract

We argue that the educational and psychological sciences must embrace the diversity of reading rather than chase the phantom of normal reading behavior. We critically discuss the research practice of asking participants in experiments to read “normally”. We then draw attention to the large cross-cultural and linguistic diversity around the world and consider the enormous diversity of reading situations and goals. Finally, we observe that people bring a huge diversity of brains and experiences to the reading task. This leads to certain implications. First, there are important lessons for how to conduct psycholinguistic experiments. Second, we need to move beyond Anglo-centric reading research and produce models of reading that reflect the large cross-cultural diversity of languages and types of writing systems. Third, we must acknowledge that there are multiple ways of reading and reasons for reading, and none of them is normal or better or a “gold standard”. Finally, we must stop stigmatizing individuals who read differently and for different reasons, and there should be increased focus on teaching the ability to extract information relevant to the person’s goals. What is important is not how well people decode written language and how fast people read but what people comprehend given their own stated goals.

Abstract

n conversations, interlocutors concurrently perform two related processes: speech comprehension and speech planning. We investigated effects of speech planning on comprehension using EEG. Dutch speakers listened to sentences that ended with expected or unexpected target words. In addition, a picture was presented two seconds after target onset (Experiment 1) or 50 ms before target onset (Experiment 2). Participants’ task was to name the picture or to stay quiet depending on the picture category. In Experiment 1, we found a strong N400 effect in response to unexpected compared to expected target words. Importantly, this N400 effect was reduced in Experiment 2 compared to Experiment 1. Unexpectedly, the N400 effect was not smaller in the naming compared to categorization condition. This indicates that conceptual preparation or the decision whether to speak (taking place in both task conditions of Experiment 2) rather than processes specific to word planning interfere with comprehension.

Abstract

Turn-taking in everyday conversation is fast, with median latencies in corpora of conversational speech often reported to be under 300 ms. This seems like magic, given that experimental research on speech planning has shown that speakers need much more time to plan and produce even the shortest of utterances. This paper reviews how language scientists have combined linguistic analyses of conversations and experimental work to understand the skill of swift turn-taking and proposes a tentative solution to the riddle of fast turn-taking.

Abstract

While recent laboratory studies suggest that the use of competing languages is a driving force in foreign language (FL) attrition (i.e. forgetting), research on “real” attriters has failed to demonstrate
such a relationship. We addressed this issue in a large-scale longitudinal study, following German students throughout a study abroad in Spain and their first six months back in Germany. Monthly,
percentage-based frequency of use measures enabled a fine-grained description of language use.
L3 Spanish forgetting rates were indeed predicted by the quantity and quality of Spanish use, and
correlated negatively with L1 German and positively with L2 English letter fluency. Attrition rates
were furthermore influenced by prior Spanish proficiency, but not by motivation to maintain
Spanish or non-verbal long-term memory capacity. Overall, this study highlights the importance
of language use for FL retention and sheds light on the complex interplay between language
use and other determinants of attrition.

Abstract

Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques are popular tools to investigate brain function in health and disease. Although transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is widely used in cognitive neuroscience research to probe causal structure-function relationships, studies often yield inconclusive results. To improve the effectiveness of TMS studies, we argue that the cognitive neuroscience community needs to revise the stimulation focality principle – the spatial resolution with which TMS can differentially stimulate cortical regions. In the motor domain, TMS can differentiate between cortical muscle representations of adjacent fingers. However, this high degree of spatial specificity cannot be obtained in all cortical regions due to the influences of cortical folding patterns on the TMS-induced electric field. The region-dependent focality of TMS should be assessed a priori to estimate the experimental feasibility. Post-hoc simulations allow modeling of the relationship between cortical stimulation exposure and behavioral modulation by integrating data across stimulation sites or subjects.

Abstract

Speech is perceived relative to the speech rate in the context. It is unclear, however, what information listeners use to compute speech rate. The present study examines whether listeners use the number of
syllables per unit time (i.e., syllable rate) as a measure of speech rate, as indexed by subsequent vowel perception. We ran two rate-normalization experiments in which participants heard duration-matched word lists that contained either monosyllabic
vs. bisyllabic words (Experiment 1), or monosyllabic vs. trisyllabic pseudowords (Experiment 2). The participants’ task was to categorize an /ɑ-aː/ continuum that followed the word lists. The monosyllabic condition was perceived as slower (i.e., fewer /aː/ responses) than the bisyllabic and
trisyllabic condition. However, no difference was observed between bisyllabic and trisyllabic contexts. Therefore, while syllable rate is used in perceiving speech rate, other factors, such as fast speech processes, mean F0, and intensity, must also influence rate normalization.

Abstract

When recognizing spoken words, listeners are confronted by variability in the speech signal caused by talker differences. Previous research has focused on segmental talker variability; less is known about how suprasegmental variability is handled. Here we investigated the use of perceptual learning to deal with between-talker differences in lexical stress. Two groups of participants heard Dutch minimal stress pairs (e.g., VOORnaam vs. voorNAAM, “first name” vs. “respectable”) spoken by two male talkers. Group 1 heard Talker 1 use only F0 to signal stress (intensity and duration values were ambiguous), while Talker 2 used only intensity (F0 and duration were ambiguous). Group 2 heard the reverse talker-cue mappings. After training, participants were tested on words from both talkers containing conflicting stress cues (“mixed items”; e.g., one spoken by Talker 1 with F0 signaling initial stress and intensity signaling final stress). We found that listeners used previously learned information about which talker used which cue to interpret the mixed items. For example, the mixed item described above tended to be interpreted as having initial stress by Group 1 but as having final stress by Group 2. This demonstrates that listeners learn how individual talkers signal stress and use that knowledge in spoken-word recognition.

Abstract

To understand language, we need to recognize words and combine them into phrases and sentences. During this process, responses to the words themselves are changed. In a step towards understanding how the brain builds sentence structure, the present study concerns the neural readout of this adaptation. We ask whether low-frequency neural readouts associated with words change as a function of being in a sentence. To this end, we analyzed an MEG dataset by Schoffelen et al. (2019) of 102 human participants (51 women) listening to sentences and word lists, the latter lacking any syntactic structure and combinatorial meaning. Using temporal response functions and a cumulative model-fitting approach, we disentangled delta- and theta-band responses to lexical information (word frequency), from responses to sensory- and distributional variables. The results suggest that delta-band responses to words are affected by sentence context in time and space, over and above entropy and surprisal. In both conditions, the word frequency response spanned left temporal and posterior frontal areas; however, the response appeared later in word lists than in sentences. In addition, sentence context determined whether inferior frontal areas were responsive to lexical information. In the theta band, the amplitude was larger in the word list condition around 100 milliseconds in right frontal areas. We conclude that low-frequency responses to words are changed by sentential context. The results of this study speak to how the neural representation of words is affected by structural context, and as such provide insight into how the brain instantiates compositionality in language.

Abstract

Distinct empathy deficits are often described in patients with conduct disorder (CD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) yet their neural underpinnings and the influence of comorbid Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits are unclear. This study compares the cognitive (CE) and affective empathy (AE) abilities of youth with CD and ASD, their potential neuroanatomical correlates, and the influence of CU traits on empathy. Adolescents and parents/caregivers completed empathy questionnaires (N = 148 adolescents, mean age = 15.16 years) and T1 weighted images were obtained from a subsample (N = 130). Group differences in empathy and the influence of CU traits were investigated using Bayesian analyses and Voxel-Based Morphometry with Threshold-Free Cluster Enhancement focusing on regions involved in AE (insula, amygdala, inferior frontal gyrus and cingulate cortex) and CE processes (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, superior temporal gyrus, and precuneus). The ASD group showed lower parent-reported AE and CE scores and lower self-reported CE scores while the CD group showed lower parent-reported CE scores than controls. When accounting for the influence of CU traits no AE deficits in ASD and CE deficits in CD were found, but CE deficits in ASD remained. Across all participants, CU traits were negatively associated with gray matter volumes in anterior cingulate which extends into the mid cingulate, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and precuneus. Thus, although co-occurring CU traits have been linked to global empathy deficits in reports and underlying brain structures, its influence on empathy aspects might be disorder-specific. Investigating the subdimensions of empathy may therefore help to identify disorder-specific empathy deficits.

Abstract

Over the course of a conversation, interlocutors sound more and more like each other in a process called convergence. However, the automaticity and grain size of convergence are not well established. This study therefore examined whether female native Dutch speakers converge to large yet sub-phonemic shifts in the F2 of the vowel /e/. Participants first performed a short reading task to establish baseline F2s for the vowel /e/, then shadowed 120 target words (alongside 360 fillers) which contained one instance of a manipulated vowel /e/ where the F2 had been shifted down to that of the vowel /ø/. Consistent exposure to large (sub-phonemic) downward shifts in F2 did not result in convergence. The results raise issues for theories which view convergence as a product of automatic integration between perception and production.

Abstract

Auditory sentence comprehension involves processing content (semantics), grammar (syntax), and intonation (prosody). The left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is involved in sentence comprehension guided by these different cues, with neuroimaging studies preferentially locating syntactic and semantic processing in separate IFG subregions. However, this regional specialisation and its functional relevance has yet to be confirmed. This study probed the role of the posterior IFG (pIFG) for syntactic processing and the anterior IFG (aIFG) for semantic processing with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in a task that required the interpretation of the sentence’s prosodic realisation. Healthy participants performed a sentence completion task with syntactic and semantic decisions, while receiving 10 Hz rTMS over either left aIFG, pIFG, or vertex (control). Initial behavioural analyses showed an inhibitory effect on accuracy without task-specificity. However, electrical field simulations revealed differential effects for both subregions. In the aIFG, stronger stimulation led to slower semantic processing, with no effect of pIFG stimulation. In contrast, we found a facilitatory effect on syntactic processing in both aIFG and pIFG, where higher stimulation strength was related to faster responses. Our results provide first evidence for the functional relevance of left aIFG in semantic processing guided by intonation. The stimulation effect on syntactic responses emphasises the importance of the IFG for syntax processing, without supporting the hypothesis of a pIFG-specific involvement. Together, the results support the notion of functionally specialised IFG subregions for diverse but fundamental cues for language processing.