Displaying 1 - 100 of 101
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Coopmans, C. W., De Hoop, H., Hagoort, P., & Martin, A. E. (2024). Neural source dynamics of predictive and integratory structure building during natural story listening. Poster presented at the Highlights in the Language Sciences Conference 2024, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Martin, A. E. (2024). Neural dynamics encode the structure and statistics of language [keynote]. Talk presented at the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2024). Rotterdam, The Netherlands. 2024-07-24 - 2024-07-27.
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Tang, M., Martin, A. E., & Chen, Y. (2024). Exploring the distinct neural encodings of Mandarin Tone and Tone Sandhi. Poster presented at the Highlights in the Language Sciences Conference 2024, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Tezcan, F., & Martin, A. E. (2024). Exploring the dynamics of neural tracking in language comprehension: A cross-linguistic study among Dutch and Chinese participants. Poster presented at the Highlights in the Language Sciences Conference 2024, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Weissbart, H., & Martin, A. E. (2024). The structure and statistics of language jointly shape cross-frequency dynamics during spoken language comprehension. Poster presented at the Highlights in the Language Sciences Conference 2024, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Woensdregt, M., Blokpoel, M., Van Rooij, I., & Martin, A. E. (2024). Challenges for a computational explanation of flexible linguistic inference. Poster presented at the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2024), Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
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Coopmans, C. W., De Hoop, H., Hagoort, P., & Martin, A. E. (2023). Neural source dynamics of predictive and integratory structure building during natural story listening. Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2023), Marseille, France.
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Ding, R., Ten Oever, S., & Martin, A. E. (2023). Pronoun resolution via reinstatement of referent-related activity in the delta band. Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2023), Marseille, France.
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Mai, A., & Martin, A. E. (2023). Coordination of statistical and linguistic information during spoken language comprehension. Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2023), Marseille, France.
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Mainetto, E., Den Ouden, H. E. M., Merkx, D., Horstman, L. I., De Haas, A. N., Garvert, M. M., Martin, A. E., Cools, R., & Zheng, X. Y. (2023). Quantifying the flexibility of knowledge structures in language. Poster presented at the 19th NVP Winter Conference on Brain and Cognition, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands.
Abstract
Knowledge structures are flexible. This is exemplified by language. The sentence “She got cash from the bank” does not make us think about the bank of a river. Our brains must house representations of word meaning that are constrained by the stable form of the word, but also by flexibly changing contexts. Here, we quantified the effect of flexibly changing sentential context on word representations relative to that of stored word form.
Participants learned to associate symbols with homonyms, where they derived the homonym’s meaning from its sentence context (e.g.,“she got cash from the [bank]”). Word meaning flexibility was estimated with: (1) a spatial multi-arrangement task, where participants positioned the symbols in a space based on their associated word meaning, and (2) a repetition priming task, where participants made speeded judgements about a sequence of symbols.
The spatial multi-arrangement task successfully captured the flexibility of word meaning, showing larger distances between symbols associated with homonyms (e.g., river- vs cash-bank) than between isonyms (e.g., river- vs river-bank). This effect was as large as that of stable word-form (e.g., “bank” vs “chair”). Ongoing fMRI work will address the role of hippocampus-medial frontal circuitry in representing these flexible context-dependent versus stored word-form representations. -
Martin, A. E. (2023). The lacunae of language models in the neuroscience of language. Talk presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2023): Symposium "Can we investigate linguistic modularity in the brain with non-modular NLP systems?". Marseille, France. 2023-10-24 - 2023-10-26. doi:10.17617/2.3548403.
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Slaats, S., Meyer, A. S., & Martin, A. E. (2023). Do surprisal and entropy affect delta-band signatures of syntactic processing?. Poster presented at the 29th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLaP 2023), Donostia–San Sebastián, Spain.
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Slaats, S., Meyer, A. S., & Martin, A. E. (2023). Do surprisal and entropy affect delta-band signatures of syntactic processing?. Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2023), Marseille, France.
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Tezcan, F., Weissbart, H., & Martin, A. E. (2023). A tradeoff between acoustic and linguistic feature encoding in spoken language comprehension. Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2023), Marseille, France.
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Tezcan, F., Weissbart, H., & Martin, A. E. (2023). A tradeoff between acoustic and linguistic feature encoding in spoken language comprehension. Poster presented at the 19th NVP Winter Conference on Brain and Cognition, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands.
Abstract
When we comprehend language from speech, the phase of the neural response aligns with particular features of the speech input, resulting in a phenomenon referred to as neural tracking. In recent years, a large body of work has demonstrated the tracking of the acoustic and linguistic units at the phoneme and word levels, and beyond. However, the degree to which speech tracking is driven by acoustic edges of the signal or by internally-generated linguistic units, or by the interplay of both, remains contentious. We used naturalistic story-listening to investigate whether phoneme-level features are tracked over and above acoustic edges and whether word entropy, which can reflect sentence- and discourse-level constraints, impacted the encoding of acoustic and phoneme-level features of a first language (Dutch) compared to a statistically-familiar but uncomprehended language (French). We show that encoding models with phoneme-level linguistic features uncovered an increased neural tracking response; this signal was further amplified in a comprehended language, putatively reflecting the transformation of acoustic features into internally-generated phoneme-level representations. Phonemes were tracked more strongly in a comprehended language, suggesting that language comprehension functions as a neural filter over acoustic edges of the speech signal as it transforms sensory signals into abstract linguistic units. -
Weissbart, H., & Martin, A. E. (2023). Phase-amplitude coupling for the integration of predictive and structural cues during language comprehension. Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2023), Marseille, France.
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Zioga, I., Zhou, Y. J., Weissbart, H., Lewis, A. G., Martin, A. E., & Haegens, S. (2023). Alpha and beta oscillations differentially support linguistic demands in a rule-switching task. Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2023), Marseille, France.
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Zioga, I., Zhou, Y. J., Weissbart, H., Lewis, A. G., Martin, A. E., & Haegens, S. (2023). Alpha and beta oscillations differentially support linguistic demands in a rule-switching task. Poster presented at Neuroscience 2023, Washington, D.C, USA.
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Zioga, I., Weissbart, H., Lewis, A. G., Haegens, S., & Martin, A. E. (2023). Naturalistic spoken language comprehension is supported by alpha and beta oscillations. Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2023), Marseille, France.
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Bai, F., Meyer, A. S., & Martin, A. E. (2022). The role of transitional probability in cortical tracking of hierarchical linguistic structures. Poster presented at the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) Meeting, Keele, UK.
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Coopmans, C. W., Kaushik, K., & Martin, A. E. (2022). Hierarchical structure in language and action. Talk presented at the Segregation and overlap between action and language: Neurobiological and theoretical perspectives workshop at the Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE). Kanazawa, Japan. 2022-09-05 - 2022-09-08.
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Law, R., Kaufeld, G., Bosker, H. R., & Martin, A. E. (2022). Cortical tracking of linguistic units at different speech rate. Poster presented at the 18th NVP Winter Conference on Brain and Cognition, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands.
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Mainetto, E., Merkx, D. G. M., De Haas, A. N., Garvert, M. M., Martin, A. E., Cools, R., Den Ouden, H. E. M., & Zheng, X. (2022). Mental representation of word meaning in a sentence context. Poster presented at the 18th NVP Winter Conference on Brain and Cognition, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands.
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Slaats, S., Weissbart, H., Schoffelen, J.-M., Meyer, A. S., & Martin, A. E. (2022). Sentential embedding modulates the low-frequency neural response to words. Poster presented at the 18th NVP Winter Conference on Brain and Cognition, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands.
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Ten Oever, S., & Martin, A. E. (2022). What and when interactions during speech tracking. Poster presented at the 18th NVP Winter Conference on Brain and Cognition, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands.
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Titone, L., Ten Oever, S., Martin, A. E., Nikulin, V. V., & Meyer, L. (2022). Distinct neural circuits for tracking prosodic and statistical regularities in speech?. Poster presented at the 4th International Conference on Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning, San Sebastian, Spain.
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Zioga, I., Weissbart, H., Zhou, Y. J., Haegens, S., & Martin, A. E. (2024). Alpha and beta dynamics support task-based word production. Poster presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2024), Toronto.
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Coopmans, C. W., De Hoop, H., Hagoort, P., & Martin, A. E. (2021). Cortical tracking and the relationship between structure and meaning. Poster presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2021), online.
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Law, R., Kaufeld, G., Bosker, H. R., & Martin, A. E. (2021). Cortical tracking of linguistic units at different speech rates. Poster presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2021), online.
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Martin, A. E. (2021). Language in the brain must stay faithful to formal and physiological principles. Talk presented at the Neurobiology of Language: Key Issues and Ways Forward. online. 2021-04-08 - 2021-04-09.
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Slaats, S., Weissbart, H., Schoffelen, J.-M., Meyer, A. S., & Martin, A. E. (2021). Sentences modulate the low-frequency neural encoding of words. Poster presented at the 27th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLaP 2021), (virtual conference).
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Slaats, S., Weissbart, H., Schoffelen, J.-M., & Martin, A. E. (2021). Do sentences modulate the low-frequency neural response to words?. Poster presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2021), online.
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Ten Oever, S., & Martin, A. E. (2021). When and when interactions during speech tracking. Poster presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2021), online.
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Doumas, L. A. A., Martin, A. E., & Hummel, J. E. (2020). Relation learning in a neurocomputational architecture supports cross-domain transfer. Talk presented at the 42nd Annual Virtual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2020). Toronto, Canada. 2020-07-29 - 2020-08-01.
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Martin, A. E. (2020). Towards a model of language processing in a neurophysiological system [keynote]. Talk presented at the 26th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLap 2020). Potsdam, Germany. 2020-09-03 - 2020-09-05.
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Brennan, J. R., & Martin, A. E. (2019). Delta-gamma phase-locking indexes composition of predicates. Poster presented at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2019), San Francisco, CA, USA.
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Brennan, J. R., Martin, A. E., Dunagan, D., Meyer, L., & Hale, J. (2019). Resolving dependencies during naturalistic listening. Poster presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2019), Helsinki, Finland.
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Coopmans, C. W., Martin, A. E., De Hoop, H., & Hagoort, P. (2019). The interpretation of noun phrases and their structure: Views from constituency vs. dependency grammars. Talk presented at the workshop 'Doing experiments with theoretical linguistics'. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 2019-04-04.
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Coopmans, C. W., Martin, A. E., De Hoop, H., & Hagoort, P. (2019). The interpretation of noun phrases and their structure: Views from constituency vs. dependency grammars. Poster presented at Crossing the Boundaries: Language in Interaction Symposium, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Cutter, M. G., Martin, A. E., & Sturt, P. (2019). Do readers skip predictable words more than unpredictable words in syntactically illegal positions: An eye-tracking study. Talk presented at the Experimental Psychology Society Summer Meeting. Bournemouth, UK. 2019-07-10 - 2019-07-12.
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Cutter, M. G., Martin, A. E., & Sturt, P. (2019). Do readers skip predictable words more than unpredictable words in syntactically illegal positions: An eye-tracking study. Talk presented at the 20th European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM 2019). Alicante, Spain. 2019-08-18 - 2019-08-22.
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Cutter, M. G., Martin, A. E., & Sturt, P. (2019). Perceptual information from word n+2 does not affect the skipping of word n+1. Poster presented at the 32nd Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Boulder, CO, USA.
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Kaufeld, G., Bosker, H. R., Alday, P. M., Meyer, A. S., & Martin, A. E. (2019). A timescale-specific hierarchy in cortical oscillations during spoken language comprehension. Poster presented at Language and Music in Cognition: Integrated Approaches to Cognitive Systems (Spring School 2019), Cologne, Germany.
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Kaufeld, G., Bosker, H. R., Alday, P. M., Meyer, A. S., & Martin, A. E. (2019). Structure and meaning entrain neural oscillations: A timescale-specific hierarchy. Poster presented at the 26th Annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2019), San Francisco, CA, USA.
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Martin, A. E. (2019). Computing (de)compositional linguistic representations within the constraints of neurophysiology. Talk presented at the Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago. Chicago, IL, USA. 2019-01-17.
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Martin, A. E. (2019). Computing structure in brains and machines. Talk presented at the Foundations of Cognitive Lectures Series, Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University. Nijmegen, The Netherlands. 2019-06-07.
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Martin, A. E. (2019). Memory, parsing, and the computational architecture of the language system: The view from ellipsis. Talk presented at the Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago. Chicago, IL, USA. 2019-01-18.
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Martin, A. E. (2019). On neural systems, oscillations, and compositionality. Talk presented at the Neural Dynamics Forum, University of Bristol. Bristol, UK. 2019-05-10.
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Sturt, P., Cutter, M. G., & Martin, A. E. (2019). Integrating syntactic expectations with para-foveal visual information during reading. Talk presented at the 20th European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM 2019). Alicante, Spain. 2019-08-18 - 2019-08-22.
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Cutter, M. G., Martin, A. E., & Sturt, P. (2018). Readers utilise proper noun capitalisation to determine syntactic class prior to direct fixation. Poster presented at the 31st Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Davis, CA, USA.
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Cutter, M. G., Martin, A. E., & Sturt, P. (2018). Readers utilise proper noun capitalisation to determine syntactic class prior to direct fixation: Evidence for syntactic parafoveal-on-foveal effects. Talk presented at a meeting of the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS). Leicester, UK. 2018-04-20.
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Kaufeld, G., Naumann, W., Ravenschlag, A., Martin, A. E., & Bosker, H. R. (2018). Contextual speech rate influences morphosyntactic prediction and integration. Talk presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2018). Berlin, Germany. 2018-09-06 - 2018-09-08.
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Kaufeld, G., Naumann, W., Martin, A. E., & Bosker, H. R. (2018). Contextual speech rate influences morphosyntactic prediction and integration. Poster presented at LabPhon16 - Variation, development and impairment: Between phonetics and phonology, Lisbon, Portugal.
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Martin, A. E. (2018). Computing structure in brains and machines. Talk presented at a ERC-Advanced grant funded workshop organized by Professor Jeffrey Bowers, University of Bristol. Bristol, UK. 2018-05-21 - 2018-05-25.
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Martin, A. E. (2018). Linking language and oscillations through rhythmic computation. Talk presented at the 25th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2018). Boston, MA, USA. 2018-03-24 - 2018-03-27.
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Martin, A. E. (2018). On the sufficiency of operators for compositionality: Where tensors fail [keynote]. Talk presented at the International Symposium Towards Mechanistic Models of Meaning Composition. Trondheim, Norway. 2018-10-11 - 2018-10-12.
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Martin, A. E. (2018). Rhythmic computation of linguistic structure [keynote]. Talk presented at the 31st Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing. Davis, CA, USA. 2018-03-16.
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Martin, A. E. (2018). The rhythms of computation. Talk presented at the Insitute of Musicology, University of Cologne. Cologne, Germany. 2018-11-22.
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Martin, A. E. (2018). The rhythms of computation: A combinatorial mechanism for language production and comprehension. Talk presented at the Department of Linguistics, Leiden University. Leiden, The Netherlands. 2018-09-03.
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Alday, P. M., & Martin, A. E. (2017). Decoding linguistic structure building in the time-frequency domain. Poster presented at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2017), San Francisco, CA, USA.
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Alday, P. M., & Martin, A. E. (2017). Decoding linguistic structure building in the time-frequency domain. Poster presented at the 30th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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Alday, P. M., & Martin, A. E. (2017). Stress-timing via oscillatory phase-locking in naturalistic language. Poster presented at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2017), Baltimore, MD, USA.
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Martin, A. E. (2017). Brain Rhythms and Cortical Computation (BryCoCo) [Keynote lecture]. Talk presented at the University Geneva. Geneva, Switzerland. 2017-10.
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Martin, A. E., & Doumas, L. A. A. (2017). A mechanism for the cortical computation of hierarchical linguistic structure. Poster presented at the 30th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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Martin, A. E., & Doumas, L. A. A. (2017). A mechanism for the cortical computation of hierarchical linguistic structure. Poster presented at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2017), San Francisco, CA, USA.
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Martin, A. E., & Doumas, L. A. A. (2017). A mechanism for the cortical computation of hierarchical linguistic structure. Talk presented at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2017) Data Blitz Session. San Francisco, CA, USA. 2017-03-25 - 2017-03-28.
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Martin, A. E. (2017). Learning, representing, and inferring a symbolic system from neural representations distributed across time and frequency. Talk presented at the Workshop Key Questions and New Methods in the Language Sciences. Berg en Dal, The Netherlands. 2017-06-14 - 2017-06-17.
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Martin, A. E. (2017). Linking linguistic and cortical computation via hierarchy and time. Talk presented at the Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Leipzig, Germany. 2017-11-15.
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Martin, A. E. (2017). Linking linguistic and cortical computation via hierarchy and time. Talk presented at the Psychology Department, University of Amsterdam. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 2017-10-26.
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Martin, A. E. (2017). Linking linguistic and cortical computation via hierarchy and time [Keynote lecture]. Talk presented at the Workshop "The Neural Oscillations of Speech and Language Processing". Berlin, Germany. 2017-05-29.
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Doumas, L. A., & Martin, A. E. (2016). Abstraction in time: Finding hierarchical linguistic structure in a model of relational processing. Talk presented at the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2016). Philadelphia, PA. 2016-08-10 - 2016-08-13.
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Martin, A. E., & Doumas, L. A. A. (2016). A mechanism for the cortical computation of syntax. Poster presented at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2016), London, UK.
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Martin, A. E., & Doumas, L. A. A. (2016). A mechanism for the cortical computation of syntax. Poster presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2016), Bilbao, Spain.
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Martin, A. E. (2016). Retrieval cues in language comprehension: Interference effects in monologue but not dialogue. Poster presented at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2016), London.
Abstract
Language production and comprehension require us to integrate incoming linguistic representations with past input, often across intervening words and phrases (Miller & Chomsky, 1963). In recent years, the cue-based retrieval framework has amassed evidence that interference is the main determinant of processing difficulty during long-distance dependency resolution (Lewis et al., 2006; Lewis & Vasishth, 2005; McElree et al., 2003; McElree, 2006; Van Dyke & McElree, 2006, 2011). Yet, little is known about the representations that function of cues in language processing. Furthermore, most of the aforementioned data comes from experiments on silent reading, a form of monologue. But, the computational challenge of dependency resolution is actually most potent in dialogue, where representations are often omitted, compressed, reduced, or elided, and where production and comprehension must occur dynamically between two brains. Previous event-related brain potential (ERP) studies of ellipsis in silent reading have shown interference effects from different types of relevant linguistic representations (Martin et al., 2012, 2014). The current study presents ERP data from a dialogue-overhearing paradigm where the distance between antecedent and ellipsis site was manipulated. Thirty-six native speakers of British English listened to 120 spoken discourses that were spoken either by one speaker (Monologue) or split over two speakers (Dialogue). The second factor, the recency of the antecedent compared to the ellipsis site (Antecedent: Recent, Distant), yielded a 2x2 Dialogue x Recency design: Dialogue, Recent antecedent A: After reading the exposé on the MP, Jane filed a complaint. B: I don’t remember about what_. Perhaps about job shortages. Dialogue, Distant antecedent A: Jane filed a complaint after reading the exposé on the MP. B: I don’t remember about what_. Perhaps about job shortages. Monologue, Recent antecedent A: After reading the exposé on the MP, Jane filed a complaint. A: I don’t remember about what_. Perhaps about job shortages. Monologue, Distant Antecedent A: Jane filed a complaint after reading the exposé on the MP. A: I don’t remember about what_. Perhaps about job shortages. All stimuli were grammatical, and listeners answered a comprehension question on 25% of trials. A Dialogue x Recency interaction was observed on a frontal late, positive-going component that was maximal between 800-1000msec, starting ~400msec post-CW onset. The interaction was driven by the reliable difference between the Monologue Distant condition and the Monologue Recent condition, whereby the former was more positive compared to the latter. This interaction pattern suggests that interference effects can be ameliorated by speaker-related cues in dialogue listening. That suggests, minimally, that interference patterns in ellipsis resolution differ as a function of speaker information. If speaker-related cues are relevant during linguistic dependency resolution, then retrieval cues must be composite in nature, containing both speaker information and grammatical information. Such an architecture would mean that a wider range of information types might interact incrementally during in online language comprehension ‘in the wild.’ -
Martin, A. E. (2016). Retrieval cues in language comprehension: Interference effects in monologue but not dialogue. Poster presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2016), Bilbao, Spain.
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Nieuwland, M. S., & Martin, A. E. (2016). A neural oscillatory signature of reference. Poster presented at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, London.
Abstract
The ability to use linguistic representations to refer to the world is a vital mechanism that gives human language its communicative power. In particular, the anaphoric use of words to refer to previously mentioned concepts (antecedents) is what allows dialogue to be coherent and meaningful. Psycholinguistic theory posits that anaphor comprehension involves reactivating an episodic memory representation of the antecedent [1-2]. Whereas this implies the involvement of memory structures, the neural processes for reference resolution are largely unknown. Here, we report time-frequency analysis of four EEG experiments [3-6], revealing the increased coupling of functional neural systems associated with coherent referring expressions compared to referentially ambiguous expressions. We performed time-frequency analysis on data from four experiments in which referentially ambiguous expressions elicited a sustained negativity in the ERP waveform compared to coherent expressions. In Experiment 1, 32 participants read 120 correct Dutch sentences with coherent or ambiguous pronouns. In Experiment 2, 31 participants listened to 90 naturally spoken Dutch mini-stories containing coherent or ambiguous NP anaphora. In Experiment 3, 22 participants each read 60 Spanish sentences with a coherent or ambiguous ellipsis determiner. In Experiment 4, 19 participants each read 180 grammatically correct English sentences containing coherent or ambiguous pronouns. Analysis was performed with Fieldtrip [7], separately for low frequency (2-30 Hz) and high frequency (25-90 Hz) activity. Power-changes per trial were computed as a relative change from a pre-CW baseline interval, average power changes were computed per subject for coherent and ambiguous conditions separately. Statistical tests used cluster-based random permutation [8]. Despite varying in modality, language and type of expression, all experiments showed larger gamma-band power around 80 Hz for coherence compared to ambiguity, within a similar time range. No differences were observed in low frequencies. In high-density EEG Experiment 4, an additional short-duration gamma-increase was observed around 40 Hz, around 300-500 ms after pronoun-onset, which was localised using Beamformer analysis [9] to left posterior parietal cortex (PPC). The 80 Hz power increase around 600-1200 ms after word onset was localised to left inferior frontal-temporal cortex. We argue that the observed gamma-band power increases reflect successful referential binding and resolution, linking incoming information to previously encountered concepts and integrates that information into the unfolding discourse representation. Specifically, we argue that this involves antecedent reactivation in the PPC episodic memory network [10-11], interacting with unification processes in the frontal-temporal language network [12]. Based on these results, and on results of patient [13] and fMRI [14] research on pronoun comprehension, we propose an initial neurobiological account of reference, by bridging the psycholinguistics of anaphora with the neurobiology of language and of episodic memory. [1] Dell et al., 1983 [2] Gerrig & McKoon, 1998 [3] Nieuwland & Van Berkum, 2006 [4] Nieuwland et al., 2007a [5] Martin et al., 2012 [6] Nieuwland, 2014 [7] Oostenveld et al., 2011 [8] Maris & Oostenveld, 2007 [9] Gross et al., 2001 [10] Shannon & Buckner, 2004 [11] Wager et al., 2005 [12] Hagoort & Indefrey, 2014 [13] Kurczek et al., 2013 [14] Nieuwland et al., 2007b -
Nieuwland, M. S., & Martin, A. E. (2016). A neural oscillatory signature of reference. Talk presented at the Architectures and mechanisms for language processing (AMLaP2016). Bilbao, Spain. 2016-09-01 - 2016-09-03.
Abstract
The ability to use words to refer to the world is a vital mechanism that gives human language its communicative power. In particular, the use of words to refer to previously mentioned concepts (anaphora) is what allows dialogue to be coherent and meaningful. Psycholinguistic theory posits that anaphor comprehension involves reactivating a memory representation of the antecedent. Whereas this implies the involvement of episodic memory, the neural processes for reference resolution are largely unknown. Here, we report time-frequency analysis of four EEG experiments to reveal the increased coupling of functional neural systems associated with referring expressions that can be straightforwardly understood compared to those that cannot (referential coherence or ambiguity). Despite varying in modality, language and type of referential expression, all experiments showed larger gamma-band power for coherence compared to ambiguity. In high-density EEG Experiment 4, Beamformer analysis localised this increase to the posterior parietal cortex around 300-500 ms after onset of the anaphor and to frontal-temporal cortex around 500-1000 ms. We argue that the observed gamma-band power increases reflect successful referential binding and resolution, which links incoming information to previously encountered concepts through an interaction between the episodic memory network and the frontal-temporal language network. -
Sturt, P., & Martin, A. E. (2016). Using grammatical features to forecast incoming structure: The processing of Across-the-board extraction. Poster presented at The 29th CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
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Corley, M., Pickering, M., Martin, A. E., & Nieuwland, M. S. (2015). Predicting form and meaning: Evidence from ERPs. Poster presented at the 28th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
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Ito, A., Corley, M., Pickering, M. J., Martin, A. E., & Nieuwland, M. S. (2015). Prediction of form and meaning? Evidence from brain potentials. Talk presented at the 28th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing. Los Angeles, CA. 2015-03-19 - 2015-03-21.
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Martin, A. E., & Doumas, L. (2015). A mechanism for the cortical computation of syntax. Poster presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2015), Malta.
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Martin, A. E., & Doumas, L. (2016). A neurocomputational mechanism for parsing: Finding hierarchical linguistic structure in a model of relational processing. Poster presented at the 8th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2016), London, UK.
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Martin, A. E. (2015). Cue-based interference from illicit attractor: ERP Evidence from VP Ellipsis. Poster presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2015), Malta.
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Martin, A. E. (2015). Retrieval cues in language comprehension: Interference effects in monologue but not dialogue. Poster presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2015), Malta.
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Schoknecht, P., Lüll, S., Schiffer, L., Schmuck, N., Alday, P. M., Schlesewsky, M., Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., & Martin, A. E. (2015). P3 amplitude indexes the degree of similarity-based interference in memory retrieval during sentence comprehension. Poster presented at the 28th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Abstract
Unitary memory models postulate a direct content-addressable (cuebased) retrieval in working and longterm memory Cue-based retrieval suffers from similarity-based interference. It increases with increasing cue overlap. The P300 effect correlates with memory retrieval in non-linguistic tasks. Amplitude is modulated by the number of involved features. The present study: is the P300 amplitude sensitive to the degree of similarity-based interference in memory retrieval during language comprehension? 2 ERP experiments investigated interference in memory retrieval in sluicing constructions -
Martin, A. E., & Nieuwland, M. S. (2014). Similarity-based interference during comprehension of noun phrases: Evidence from ERPs. Poster presented at the 20th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLAP 2014), Edinburgh, UK.
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Martin, A. E., & Nieuwland, M. S. (2014). Similarity-based interference during comprehension of noun phrases: Evidence from ERPs. Poster presented at the 6h conference of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Abstract
Current accounts of sentence comprehension invoke the notion of retrieval interference as a primary determinant of difficulty during processing [1-2]. Specifically, similarity between constituents (e.g., NP feature-overlap) has been argued to interfere when people resolve subject-verb or anaphoric dependencies [3-7]. We ask whether similarity-based interference effects arise as a function of multiple NPs in the discourse that overlap in gender and/or number. We take a novel approach by examining interference effects at the second NP rather than downstream after “maintaining” multiple NPs [6- 8], using ERPs to establish quantitative and qualitative processing consequences. We used the empty category PRO to introduce two NPs, only the second NP could be PRO controller (e.g., “While [PRO] talking to the waitresses, the man/men/woman/women inspected the menu”). If feature overlap affects processing of the second NP, most interference should occur under gender- and number-matching NPs. Because this interference crosses the subject-object distinction, we predicted that interference would elicit a P600 effect, the effect most reliably associated with syntactic processing difficulties [9]. Methods: During EEG recording, 24 participants read 160 grammatical sentences (40 per condition) in a 2(gender: match, mismatch) x 2(number: match, mismatch) factorial design where the first clause introduced the object-NP and had PRO as subject, and the matrix clause introduced the controller of PRO. Subject and object NPs could overlap in gender and/ or number. We fully counterbalanced 160 male/female singular/plural gender-definitional nouns as object NPs, and as critical NP always ‘woman/man/girl/boy’ (or plural form). Sentences were mixed with 156 fillers and presented word by word (300 ms duration, 200 ms blank), followed by intermittent comprehension questions (85% response accuracy). Results: Across all electrodes, a significant gender by number interaction was observed (500-800 ms window [9]; F(1,23)=6.02, p<.05), due to a robust P600 effect of number-mismatch in the gender- match conditions (M=-1.18, F(1,23)=8.04, p=.01), that did not occur in the gender-mismatch conditions (M=-.17, F(1,23)=.18, ns). No distributional effects were observed. Conclusions: The P600 effect for double-match NPs suggests that interference was driven by similarity contingent upon matching gender and number. Our results testify to the strength of gender-cues during incremental processing, consistent with memory-based accounts of discourse comprehension [2-7]. The results suggest that when features maximally overlap, the subject NP may be momentarily considered as an anaphor for the more distinctive (i.e., first-mentioned and semantically richer) object NP. Alternatively, the P600 may reflect increased discourse complexity stemming from similar NPs [10]. Our results imply a central role for interference during comprehension, even of simple grammatical sentences. References: [1] Lewis, Vasishth, Van Dyke, 2006; [2] McElree, Foraker, & Dyer, 2003; [3] Gerrig & O’Brien, 2005; [4] Gordon, Hendrick, & Johnson, 2004; [5] McKoon & Ratcliff, 1998; [6] Van Dyke & McElree, 2006; [7] Gordon, Hendrick, Johnson, & Lee, 2006; [8] Wager & Phillips, 2013; [9] Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992; [10] Kaan & Swaab, 2003 -
Martin, A. E., & Nieuwland, M. S. (2014). Similarity-based interference during comprehension of noun phrases: evidence from ERPs. Poster presented at the 6th Annual Society for the Neurobiology of Language Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Abstract
Current accounts of sentence comprehension invoke the notion of retrieval interference as a primary determinant of difficulty during processing [1-2]. Specifically, similarity between constituents (e.g., NP feature-overlap) has been argued to interfere when people resolve subject-verb or anaphoric dependencies [3-7]. We ask whether similarity-based interference effects arise as a function of multiple NPs in the discourse that overlap in gender and/or number. We take a novel approach by examining interference effects at the second NP rather than downstream after “maintaining” multiple NPs [6-8], using ERPs to establish quantitative and qualitative processing consequences. We used the empty category PRO to introduce two NPs, only the second NP could be PRO controller (e.g., “While [PRO] talking to the waitresses, the man/men/woman/women inspected the menu”). If feature overlap affects processing of the second NP, most interference should occur under gender- and number-matching NPs. Because this interference crosses the subject-object distinction, we predicted that interference would elicit a P600 effect, the effect most reliably associated with syntactic processing difficulties [9]. Methods: During EEG recording, 24 participants read 160 grammatical sentences (40 per condition) in a 2(gender: match, mismatch) x 2(number: match, mismatch) factorial design where the first clause introduced the object-NP and had PRO as subject, and the matrix clause introduced the controller of PRO. Subject and object NPs could overlap in gender and/or number. We fully counterbalanced 160 male/female singular/plural gender-definitional nouns as object NPs, and as critical NP always ‘woman/man/girl/boy’ (or plural form). Sentences were mixed with 156 fillers and presented word by word (300 ms duration, 200 ms blank), followed by intermittent comprehension questions (85% response accuracy). Results: Across all electrodes, a significant gender by number interaction was observed (500-800 ms window [9]; F(1,23)=6.02, p<.05), due to a robust P600 effect of number-mismatch in the gender-match conditions (M=-1.18, F(1,23)=8.04, p=.01), that did not occur in the gender-mismatch conditions (M=-.17, F(1,23)=.18, ns). No distributional effects were observed. Conclusions: The P600 effect for double-match NPs suggests that interference was driven by similarity contingent upon matching gender and number. Our results testify to the strength of gender-cues during incremental processing, consistent with memory-based accounts of discourse comprehension [2-7]. The results suggest that when features maximally overlap, the subject NP may be momentarily considered as an anaphor for the more distinctive (i.e., first-mentioned and semantically richer) object NP. Alternatively, the P600 may reflect increased discourse complexity stemming from similar NPs [10]. Our results imply a central role for interference during comprehension, even of simple grammatical sentences. References: [1] Lewis, Vasishth, Van Dyke, 2006; [2] McElree, Foraker, & Dyer, 2003; [3] Gerrig & O’Brien, 2005; [4] Gordon, Hendrick, & Johnson, 2004; [5] McKoon & Ratcliff, 1998; [6] Van Dyke & McElree, 2006; [7] Gordon, Hendrick, Johnson, & Lee, 2006; [8] Wager & Phillips, 2013; [9] Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992; [10] Kaan & Swaab, 2003 -
Martin, A. E., & Nieuwland, M. S. (2014). Similarity-based interference during comprehension of noun phrases: Evidence from ERPs. Talk presented at the 20th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLAP 2014). Edinburgh, Scotland. 2014-09-03 - 2014-09-06.
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Nieuwland, M. S., Cunnings, I., Martin, A. E., & Sturt, P. (2014). Retrieval interference during comprehension of grammatical subject-verb agreement: Evidence from ERPs. Poster presented at the 6th Annual Society for the Neurobiology of Language Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Abstract
Research on subject-verb agreement during comprehension suggests a ‘grammaticality asymmetry’ in similarity-based retrieval interference. Whereas processing costs incurred by ungrammatical subject- verb agreement are reduced in the presence of a grammatically illicit attractor noun that matches the verb in number, attractor nouns have not been found to affect the processing of grammatical sentences [1]. However, most existing studies have only included singular verbs in the grammatical conditions, and the lack of retrieval interference in such cases could be a result of the fact that singular is an unmarked feature [2]. In the current study, we tested for similarity-based interference for both singular and plural verbs in fully grammatical sentences. If plural is a marked feature, we expect to find evidence of retrieval interference for plural verbs but not singular verbs when multiple items in memory match the number of the verb. We predicted that retrieval interference would elicit a P600 effect [3-4], the effect commonly associated with syntactic processing difficulties. Methods: Participants read 120 grammatical sentences (30 per condition) belonging to a 2(subject noun: plural, singular) x 2(attractor noun: plural, singular) factorial design in which the critical verb (have/had/were/was) always agreed in number with the subject noun. PS: “The keys to the cabinet were getting very rusty”, PP: “The keys to the cabinets were getting very rusty”, SS: “The key to the cabinet was getting very rusty”, SP: “The key to the cabinets was getting very rusty”. Sentences were mixed with 280 fillers and presented word by word (300 ms duration, 200 ms blank). Intermittent yes/no comprehension questions were answered with 92% accuracy. EEG data was recorded from sixty-four channels and segmented into epochs from 200 ms before to 1000 ms verb onset. Data was baselined to 0-200 ms post-stimulus to eliminate spurious effects from pre-critical word differences (see also [3-4]). Results: Using average amplitude per condition across 16 centrally distributed EEG electrodes, repeated measures ANOVAs in the 500-700 ms time window showed an effect of attractor that was reliably different for plural and singular verbs (F(1,35)=4.8, p<.05), with a robust P600 effect elicited by plural verbs (PP minus PS voltage difference, M=.64, F(1,35) = 5.7, p < .05) but none for singular verbs (SS minus SP, M= -.22, F(1,35)=.44, ns). Conclusions: The observed P600 effect for grammatically correct, plural verbs in context of a plural attractor noun suggests that retrieval interference arises as a by-product of grammatical processing, and constitutes evidence against a grammaticality asymmetry in interference effects. References: [1] Wagers, M. W., Lau, E. F., & Phillips, C. (2009). Journal of Memory and Language [2] Bock, K., & Eberhard, K. M. (1993). Language and Cognitive Processes [3] Kaan, E. (2002). Journal of Psycholinguistic Research [4] Tanner, D., Nicol, J., Herschensohn, J., & Osterhout, L. (2012). Proceedings of the 36th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 594-606). -
Nieuwland, M. S., Cunnings, I., & Martin, A. E. (2014). Retrieval interference during comprehension of grammatical subject-verb agreement: Evidence from ERPs. Poster presented at the 20th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLAP 2014), Edinburgh, UK.
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Nieuwland, M. S., Cunnings, I., Martin, A. E., & Stuart, P. (2014). Retrieval interference during comprehension of grammatical subject-verb agreement: Evidence from ERPs. Poster presented at the 20th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLAP 2014), Edinburgh, Scotland.
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Nieuwland, M. S., Cunnings, I., & Martin, A. E. (2014). Retrieval interference during comprehension of grammatical subject-verb agreement: Evidence from ERPs. Poster presented at the 6th conference of the Society of the Neurobiology of Language, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
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Martin, A. E., Nieuwland, M. S., & Carreiras, M. (2011). Event-related brain potentials index cue-based retrieval interference during sentence comprehension. Talk presented at the 17th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2011). Paris, France. 2011-09-01 - 2011-09-03.
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Martin, A. E., Nieuwland, M. S., & Carreiras, M. (2011). Event-related brain potentials index cue-diagnosticity during sentence comprehension. Talk presented at the 18th Annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2011). San Francisco, CA, USA. 2011-04-02 - 2011-04-05.
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Martin, A. E., Nieuwland, M. S., & Carreiras, M. (2011). Event-related brain potentials index cue-diagnosticity during sentence comprehension. Talk presented at the 24th CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference (CUNY 2011). Palo Alto, CA, USA. 2011-03-24 - 2011-03-26.
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Nieuwland, M. S., Martin, A. E., & Carreiras, M. (2011). An event-related FMRI study on case and number agreement processing in native and proficient nonnative speakers of Basque. Talk presented at the 18th Annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2011). San Francisco, CA, USA. 2011-04-02 - 2011-04-05.
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Nieuwland, M. S., & Martin, A. E. (2011). If the real world were irrelevant, so to speak: An event-related potential study on counterfactual comprehension. Talk presented at the 24th CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference (CUNY 2011). Stanford, CA, USA. 2011-03-24 - 2011-03-26.
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Nieuwland, M. S., & Martin, A. E. (2013). If the real world were irrelevant, so to speak: An event-related potential study on counterfactual comprehension. Poster presented at the 17th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLAP 2011), Paris, France.
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Nieuwland, M. S., & Martin, A. E. (2011). If the real world were irrelevant, so to speak: An event-related potential study on counterfactual comprehension. Talk presented at the 17th Meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCOP). Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain. 2011-09-29 - 2011-10-02.
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