Publications

Abstract

If motor imagery uses neural structures involved in action execution, then the neural correlates of imagining an action should differ between individuals who tend to execute the action differently. Here we report fMRI data showing that motor imagery is influenced by the way people habitually perform motor actions with their particular bodies; that is, motor imagery is ‘body-specific’ (Casasanto, 2009). During mental imagery for complex hand actions, activation of cortical areas involved in motor planning and execution was left-lateralized in right-handers but right-lateralized in left-handers. We conclude that motor imagery involves the generation of an action plan that is grounded in the participant’s motor habits, not just an abstract representation at the level of the action’s goal. People with different patterns of motor experience form correspondingly different neurocognitive representations of imagined actions.

Abstract

Does language comprehension depend, in part, on neural systems for action? In previous studies, motor areas of the brain were activated when people read or listened to action verbs, but it remains unclear whether such activation is functionally relevant for comprehension. In the experiments reported here, we used off-line theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation to investigate whether a causal relationship exists between activity in premotor cortex and action-language understanding. Right-handed participants completed a lexical decision task, in which they read verbs describing manual actions typically performed with the dominant hand (e.g., “to throw,” “to write”) and verbs describing nonmanual actions (e.g., “to earn,” “to wander”). Responses to manual-action verbs (but not to nonmanual-action verbs) were faster after stimulation of the hand area in left premotor cortex than after stimulation of the hand area in right premotor cortex. These results suggest that premotor cortex has a functional role in action-language understanding.

Abstract

We investigated how visual and linguistic information interact in the perception of emotion. We borrowed a phenomenon from film theory which states that presentation of an as such neutral visual scene intensifies the percept of fear or suspense induced by a different channel of information, such as language. Our main aim was to investigate how neutral visual scenes can enhance responses to fearful language content in parts of the brain involved in the perception of emotion. Healthy participants’ brain activity was measured (using functional magnetic resonance imaging) while they read fearful and less fearful sentences presented with or without a neutral visual scene. The main idea is that the visual scenes intensify the fearful content of the language by subtly implying and concretizing what is described in the sentence. Activation levels in the right anterior temporal pole were selectively increased when a neutral visual scene was paired with a fearful sentence, compared to reading the sentence alone, as well as to reading of non-fearful sentences presented with the same neutral scene. We conclude that the right anterior temporal pole serves a binding function of emotional information across domains such as visual and linguistic information.

Abstract

Several studies indicate that both posterior superior temporal sulcus/middle temporal gyrus (pSTS/MTG) and left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) are involved in integrating information from different modalities. Here we investigated the respective roles of these two areas in integration of action and language information. We exploited the fact that the semantic relationship between language and different forms of action (i.e. co-speech gestures and pantomimes) is radically different. Speech and co-speech gestures are always produced together, and gestures are not unambiguously understood without speech. On the contrary, pantomimes are not necessarily produced together with speech and can be easily understood without speech. We presented speech together with these two types of communicative hand actions in matching or mismatching combinations to manipulate semantic integration load. Left and right pSTS/MTG were only involved in semantic integration of speech and pantomimes. Left IFG on the other hand was involved in integration of speech and co-speech gestures as well as of speech and pantomimes. Effective connectivity analyses showed that depending upon the semantic relationship between language and action, LIFG modulates activation levels in left pSTS.

This suggests that integration in pSTS/MTG involves the matching of two input streams for which there is a relatively stable common object representation, whereas integration in LIFG is better characterized as the on-line construction of a new and unified representation of the input streams. In conclusion, pSTS/MTG and LIFG are differentially involved in multimodal integration, crucially depending upon the semantic relationship between the input streams.

Abstract

A debated issue in the relationship between language and thought is how our linguistic abilities are involved in understanding the intentions of others (‘mentalizing’). The results of both theoretical and empirical work have been used to argue that linguistic, and more specifically, grammatical, abilities are crucial in representing the mental states of others. Here we contribute to this debate by investigating how damage to the language system influences the generation and understanding of intentional communicative behaviors. Four patients with pervasive language difficulties (severe global or agrammatic aphasia) engaged in an experimentally controlled non-verbal communication paradigm, which required signaling and understanding a communicative message. Despite their profound language problems they were able to engage in recipient design as well as intention recognition, showing similar indicators of mentalizing as have been observed in the neurologically healthy population. Our results show that aspects of the ability to communicate remain present even when core capacities of the language system are dysfunctional

Abstract

Do people use sensori-motor cortices to understand language? Here we review neurocognitive studies of language comprehension in healthy adults and evaluate their possible contributions to theories of language in the brain. We start by sketching the minimal predictions that an embodied theory of language understanding makes for empirical research, and then survey studies that have been offered as evidence for embodied semantic representations. We explore four debated issues: first, does activation of sensori-motor cortices during action language understanding imply that action semantics relies on mirror neurons? Second, what is the evidence that activity in sensori-motor cortices plays a functional role in understanding language? Third, to what extent do responses in perceptual and motor areas depend on the linguistic and extra-linguistic context? And finally, can embodied theories accommodate language about abstract concepts? Based on the available evidence, we conclude that sensori-motor cortices are activated during a variety of language comprehension tasks, for both concrete and abstract language. Yet, this activity depends on the context in which perception and action words are encountered. Although modality-specific cortical activity is not a sine qua non of language processing even for language about perception and action, sensori-motor regions of the brain appear to make functional contributions to the construction of meaning, and should therefore be incorporated into models of the neurocognitive architecture of language.

Abstract

It has been argued that we map observed actions onto our own motor system. Here we added to this issue by investigating whether hand preference influences the neural correlates of action observation of simple, essentially meaningless hand actions. Such an influence would argue for an intricate neural coupling between action production and action observation, which goes beyond effects of motor repertoire or explicit motor training, as has been suggested before. Indeed, parts of the human motor system exhibited a close coupling between action production and action observation. Ventral premotor and inferior and superior parietal cortices showed differential activation for left- and right-handers that was similar during action production as well as during action observation. This suggests that mapping observed actions onto the observer's own motor system is a core feature of action observation - at least for actions that do not have a clear goal or meaning. Basic differences in the way we act upon the world are not only reflected in neural correlates of action production, but can also influence the brain basis of action observation.

Abstract

Marr and Poggio’s levels of description are one of the most well-known theoretical constructs of twentieth century cognitive science. It entails that behavior can and should be considered at three different levels: computation, algorithm, and implementation. In this contribution focus is on the computational level of description, the level that describes the “why” of cognition. I argue that the computational level should be taken as a starting point in devising experiments in cognitive (neuro)science. Instead, the starting point in empirical practice often is a focus on the stimulus or on some capacity of the cognitive system. The “why” of cognition tends to be ignored when designing research, and is not considered in subsequent inference from experimental results. The overall aim of this manuscript is to show how re-appreciation of the computational level of description as a starting point for experiments can lead to more informative experimentation.

Abstract

Iconic words and signs are characterized by a perceived resemblance between aspects of their form and aspects of their meaning. For example, in English, iconic words include peep and crash, which mimic the sounds they denote, and wiggle and zigzag, which mimic motion. As a semiotic property of words and signs, iconicity has been demonstrated to play a role in word learning, language processing, and language evolution. This paper presents the results of a large-scale norming study for more than 14,000 English words conducted with over 1400 American English speakers. We demonstrate the utility of these ratings by replicating a number of existing findings showing that iconicity ratings are related to age of acquisition, sensory modality, semantic neighborhood density, structural markedness, and playfulness. We discuss possible use cases and limitations of the rating dataset, which is made publicly available.

Abstract

Vocal learning is a behavioral trait in which the social and acoustic environment shapes the vocal repertoire of individuals. Over the past century, the study of vocal learning has progressed at the intersection of ecology, physiology, neuroscience, molecular biology, genomics, and evolution. Yet, despite the complexity of this trait, vocal learning is frequently described as a binary trait, with species being classified as either vocal learners or vocal non-learners. As a result, studies have largely focused on a handful of species for which strong evidence for vocal learning exists. Recent studies, however, suggest a continuum in vocal learning capacity across taxa. Here, we further suggest that vocal learning is a multi-component behavioral phenotype comprised of distinct yet interconnected modules. Discretizing the vocal learning phenotype into its constituent modules would facilitate integration of findings across a wider diversity of species, taking advantage of the ways in which each excels in a particular module, or in a specific combination of features. Such comparative studies can improve understanding of the mechanisms and evolutionary origins of vocal learning. We propose an initial set of vocal learning modules supported by behavioral and neurobiological data and highlight the need for diversifying the field in order to disentangle the complexity of the vocal learning phenotype.

Abstract

Understanding speech usually seems easy, but it can become noticeably harder when the speaker has a foreign accent. This is because foreign accents add considerable variation to speech. Research on foreign-accented speech shows that participants are able to adapt quickly to this type of variation. Less is known, however, about longer-term maintenance of adaptation. The current study focused on long-term adaptation by exposing native listeners to foreign-accented speech on Day 1, and testing them on comprehension of the accent one day later. Comprehension was thus not tested immediately, but only after a 24 hour period. On Day 1, native Dutch listeners listened to the speech of a Hebrew learner of Dutch while performing a phoneme monitoring task that did not depend on the talker’s accent. In particular, shortening of the long vowel /i/ into /ɪ/ (e.g., lief [li:f], ‘sweet’, pronounced as [lɪf]) was examined. These mispronunciations did not create lexical ambiguities in Dutch. On Day 2, listeners participated in a cross-modal priming task to test their comprehension of the accent. The results will be contrasted with results from an experiment without delayed testing and related to accounts of how listeners maintain adaptation to foreign-accented speech.

Abstract

Foreign-accented speech is often perceived as more difficult to understand than native speech. What causes this potential difficulty, however, remains unknown. In the present study, we compared acoustic similarity and accent ratings of American-accented Dutch with a cross-modal priming task designed to measure online speech processing. We focused on two Dutch diphthongs: ui and ij. Though both diphthongs deviated from standard Dutch to varying degrees and perceptually varied in accent strength, native Dutch listeners recognized words containing the diphthongs easily. Thus, not all foreign-accented speech hinders comprehension, and acoustic similarity and perceived accentedness are not always predictive of processing difficulties.

Abstract

A new psycholinguistically motivated and neural network based model of human word recognition is presented. In contrast to earlier models it uses real speech as input. At the word layer acoustical and temporal information is stored by sequences of connected sensory neurons which pass on sensor potentials to a word neuron. In experiments with a small lexicon which includes groups of very similar word forms, the model meets high standards with respect to word recognition and simulates a number of wellknown psycholinguistical effects.

Abstract

It is unknown whether modality affects the efficiency with which humans learn novel word forms and their meanings, with previous studies reporting both written and auditory advantages. The current study implements controls whose absence in previous work likely offers explanation for such contradictory findings. In two novel word learning experiments, participants were trained and tested on pseudoword - novel object pairs, with controls on: modality of test, modality of meaning, duration of exposure and transparency of word form. In both experiments word forms were presented in either their written or spoken form, each paired with a pictorial meaning (novel object). Following a 20-minute filler task, participants were tested on their ability to identify the picture-word form pairs on which they were trained. A between subjects design generated four participant groups per experiment 1) written training, written test; 2) written training, spoken test; 3) spoken training, written test; 4) spoken training, spoken test. In Experiment 1 the written stimulus was presented for a time period equal to the duration of the spoken form. Results showed that when the duration of exposure was equal, participants displayed a written training benefit. Given words can be read faster than the time taken for the spoken form to unfold, in Experiment 2 the written form was presented for 300 ms, sufficient time to read the word yet 65% shorter than the duration of the spoken form. No modality effect was observed under these conditions, when exposure to the word form was equivalent. These results demonstrate, at least for proficient readers, that when exposure to the word form is controlled across modalities the efficiency with which word form-meaning associations are learnt does not differ. Our results therefore suggest that, although we typically begin as aural-only word learners, we ultimately converge on developing learning mechanisms that learn equally efficiently from both written and spoken materials.

Abstract

This study aimed to increase our understanding on the relationship between reading and listening comprehension. Both in comprehension theory and in educational practice, reading and listening comprehension are often seen as interchangeable, overlooking modality-specific aspects of them separately. Three questions were addressed. First, it was examined to what extent reading and listening comprehension comprise modality-specific, distinct skills or an overlapping, domain-general skill in terms of the amount of explained variance in one comprehension type by the opposite comprehension type. Second, general and modality-unique subskills of reading and listening comprehension were sought by assessing the contributions of the foundational skills word reading fluency, vocabulary, memory, attention, and inhibition to both comprehension types. Lastly, the practice of using either listening comprehension or vocabulary as a proxy of general comprehension was investigated. Reading and listening comprehension tasks with the same format were assessed in 85 second and third grade children. Analyses revealed that reading comprehension explained 34% of the variance in listening comprehension, and listening comprehension 40% of reading comprehension. Vocabulary and word reading fluency were found to be shared contributors to both reading and listening comprehension. None of the other cognitive skills contributed significantly to reading or listening comprehension. These results indicate that only part of the comprehension process is indeed domain-general and not influenced by the modality in which the information is provided. Especially vocabulary seems to play a large role in this domain-general part. The findings warrant a more prominent focus of modality-specific aspects of both reading and listening comprehension in research and education.

Abstract

For bilinguals, speaking in a second language (L2) compared to the native language (L1) is usually more difficult. In this study we asked whether the difficulty in L2 production reflects increased demands imposed on domain-general or core language mechanisms. We compared the brain response to speech production in L1 and L2 within two functionally-defined networks in the brain: the Multiple Demand (MD) network and the language network. We found that speech production in L2 was linked to a widespread increase of brain activity in the domain-general MD network. The language network did not show a similarly robust differences in processing speech in the two languages, however, we found increased response to L2 production in the language-specific portion of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). To further explore our results, we have looked at domain-general and language-specific response within the brain structures postulated to form a Bilingual Language Control (BLC) network. Within this network, we found a robust increase in response to L2 in the domain-general, but also in some language-specific voxels including in the left IFG. Our findings show that L2 production strongly engages domain-general mechanisms, but only affects language sensitive portions of the left IFG. These results put constraints on the current model of bilingual language control by precisely disentangling the domain-general and language-specific contributions to the difficulty in speech production in L2.

Abstract

When bilingual speakers switch back to speaking in their native language (L1) after having used their second language (L2), they often experience difficulty in retrieving words in their L1. This phenomenon is referred to as the L2 after-effect. We used the L2 after-effect as a lens to explore the neural bases of bilingual language control mechanisms. Our goal was twofold: first, to explore whether bilingual language control draws on domain-general or language-specific mechanisms; second, to investigate the precise mechanism(s) that drive the L2 after-effect. We used a precision fMRI approach based on functional localizers to measure the extent to which the brain activity that reflects the L2 after-effect overlaps with the language network (Fedorenko et al., 2010) and the domain-general multiple demand network (Duncan, 2010), as well as three task-specific networks that tap into interference resolution, lexical retrieval, and articulation. Forty-two Polish–English bilinguals participated in the study. Our results show that the L2 after-effect reflects increased engagement of domain-general but not language-specific resources. Furthermore, contrary to previously proposed interpretations, we did not find evidence that the effect reflects increased difficulty related to lexical access, articulation, and the resolution of lexical interference. We propose that difficulty of speech production in the picture naming paradigm—manifested as the L2 after-effect—reflects interference at a nonlinguistic level of task schemas or a general increase of cognitive control engagement during speech production in L1 after L2.

Abstract

Set is widely used as a kind of basic data structure. However, when it is used for large scale data set the cost of storage, search and transport is overhead. The bloom filter uses a fixed size bit string to represent elements in a static set, which can reduce storage space and search cost that is a fixed constant. The time-space efficiency is achieved at the cost of a small probability of false positive in membership query. However, for many applications the space savings and locating time constantly outweigh this drawback. Dynamic bloom filter (DBF) can support concisely representation and approximate membership queries of dynamic set instead of static set. It has been proved that DBF not only possess the advantage of standard bloom filter, but also has better features when dealing with dynamic set. This paper proposes a time-dependent multiple bit-strings bloom filter (TMBF) which roots in the DBF and targets on dynamic incremental set. TMBF uses multiple bit-strings in time order to present a dynamic increasing set and uses backward searching to test whether an element is in a set. Based on the system logs from a real P2P file sharing system, the evaluation shows a 20% reduction in searching cost compared to DBF.

Abstract

The three Olutec stories from Oluta, Veracruz, werenarrated by Antonio Asistente Maldonado. Roberto Zavala presents amorpheme-by-morpheme analysis of the texts with a sketch of the majorgrammatical and typological features of this language. Olutec is spoken bythree dozen speakers. The grammatical structure of this language has not beendescribed before. The sketch contains information on verb and noun morphology,verb dasses, clause types, inverse/direct patterns, grammaticalizationprocesses, applicatives, incorporation, word order type, and discontinuousexpressions. The stories presented here are the first Olutec texts everpublished. The motifs of the stories are well known throughout Middle America.The story of "the Rabbit who wants to be big" explains why one of the mainprotagonists of Middle American folktales acquired long ears. The story of "theDevil who is inebriated by the people of a village" explains how theinhabitants of a village discover the true identity of a man who likes to dancehuapango and decide to get rid of him. Finally the story of "theshit-sellers" presents two compadres, one who is lazy and the otherone who works hard. The hard-worker asks the lazy compadre how he surviveswithout working. The latter lies to to him that he sells shit in theneighboring village. The hard-working compadre decides to become a shit-sellerand in the process realizes that the lazy compadre deceived him. However, he islucky and meets with the Devil who offers him money in compensation for havingbeen deceived. When the lazy compadre realizes that the hard-working compadrehas become rich, he tries to do the same business but gets beaten in theprocess.

Abstract

Indo-Pakistani Sign Language (IPSL) is the sign language used by deaf communities in a large region across India and Pakistan. This visual-gestural language has a dedicated construction for specifically expressing reciprocal relationships, which can be applied to agreement verbs and to auxiliaries. The reciprocal construction relies on a change in the movement pattern of the signs it applies to. In addition, IPSL has a number of other strategies which can have a reciprocal interpretation, and the IPSL lexicon includes a good number of inherently reciprocal signs. All reciprocal expressions can be modified in complex ways that rely on the grammatical use of the sign space. Considering grammaticalisation and lexicalisation processes linking some of these constructions is also important for a better understanding of reciprocity in IPSL.

Abstract

There is substantial evidence that infants prefer infant-directed speech (IDS) to adult-directed speech (ADS). The strongest evidence for this claim has come from two large-scale investigations: i) a community-augmented meta-analysis of published behavioral studies and ii) a large-scale multi-lab replication study. In this paper, we aim to improve our understanding of the IDS preference and its boundary conditions by combining and comparing these two data sources across key population and design characteristics of the underlying studies. Our analyses reveal that both the meta-analysis and multi-lab replication show moderate effect sizes (d ≈ 0.35 for each estimate) and that both of these effects persist when relevant study-level moderators are added to the models (i.e., experimental methods, infant ages, and native languages). However, while the overall effect size estimates were similar, the two sources diverged in the effects of key moderators: both infant age and experimental method predicted IDS preference in the multi-lab replication study, but showed no effect in the meta-analysis. These results demonstrate that the IDS preference generalizes across a variety of experimental conditions and sampling characteristics, while simultaneously identifying key differences in the empirical picture offered by each source individually and pinpointing areas where substantial uncertainty remains about the influence of theoretically central moderators on IDS preference. Overall, our results show how meta-analyses and multi-lab replications can be used in tandem to understand the robustness and generalizability of developmental phenomena.

Abstract

Word learning happens in everyday contexts with many words and many potential referents for those words in view at the same time. It is challenging for young learners to find the correct referent upon hearing an unknown word at the moment. This problem of referential uncertainty has been deemed as the crux of early word learning (Quine, 1960). Recent empirical and computational studies have found support for a statistical solution to the problem termed cross-situational learning. Cross-situational learning allows learners to acquire word meanings across multiple exposures, despite each individual exposure is referentially uncertain. Recent empirical research shows that infants, children and adults rely on cross-situational learning to learn new words (Smith & Yu, 2008; Suanda, Mugwanya, & Namy, 2014; Yu & Smith, 2007). However, researchers have found evidence supporting two very different theoretical accounts of learning mechanisms: Hypothesis Testing (Gleitman, Cassidy, Nappa, Papafragou, & Trueswell, 2005; Markman, 1992) and Associative Learning (Frank, Goodman, & Tenenbaum, 2009; Yu & Smith, 2007). Hypothesis Testing is generally characterized as a form of learning in which a coherent hypothesis regarding a specific word-object mapping is formed often in conceptually constrained ways. The hypothesis will then be either accepted or rejected with additional evidence. However, proponents of the Associative Learning framework often characterize learning as aggregating information over time through implicit associative mechanisms. A learner acquires the meaning of a word when the association between the word and the referent becomes relatively strong. In this chapter, we consider these two psychological theories in the context of cross-situational word-referent learning. By reviewing recent empirical and cognitive modeling studies, our goal is to deepen our understanding of the underlying word learning mechanisms by examining and comparing the two theoretical learning accounts.

Abstract

In sentences like “the mouse that chased the cat was hungry”, the syntactically correct interpretation (the mouse chases the cat) is contradicted by semantic and pragmatic knowledge. Previous research has shown that L1 speakers sometimes base sentence interpretation on this type of knowledge (so-called “shallow” or “good-enough” processing). We made use of both behavioural and ERP measurements to investigate whether L2 learners differ from native speakers in the extent to which they engage in “shallow” syntactic processing. German learners of Dutch as well as Dutch native speakers read sentences containing relative clauses (as in the example above) for which the plausible thematic roles were or were not reversed, and made plausibility judgments. The results show that behaviourally, L2 learners had more difficulties than native speakers to discriminate plausible from implausible sentences. In the ERPs, we replicated the previously reported finding of a “semantic P600” for semantic reversal anomalies in native speakers, probably reflecting the effort to resolve the syntax-semantics conflict. In L2 learners, though, this P600 was largely attenuated and surfaced only in those trials that were judged correctly for plausibility. These results generally point at a more prevalent, but not exclusive occurrence of shallow syntactic processing in L2 learners.

Abstract

Statistical learning (SL) is postulated to play an important role in the process of language acquisition as well as in other cognitive functions. It was found to enable learning of various types of statistical patterns across different sensory modalities. However, few studies have distinguished distributional SL (DSL) from sequential and spatial SL, or examined DSL across modalities using comparable tasks. Considering the relevance of such findings to the nature of SL, the current study investigated the modality- and stimulus-specificity of DSL. Using a within-subject design we compared DSL performance in auditory and visual modalities. For each sensory modality, two stimulus types were used: linguistic versus non-linguistic auditory stimuli and temporal versus spatial visual stimuli. In each condition, participants were exposed to stimuli that varied in their length as they were drawn from two categories (short versus long). DSL was assessed using a categorization task and a production task. Results showed that learners’ performance was only correlated for tasks in the same sensory modality. Moreover, participants were better at categorizing the temporal signals in the auditory conditions than in the visual condition, where in turn an advantage of the spatial condition was observed. In the production task participants exaggerated signal length more for linguistic signals than non-linguistic signals. Together, these findings suggest that DSL is modality- and stimulus-sensitive.

Abstract

Semantic unification during sentence comprehension has been associated with amplitude change of the N400 in event-related potential (ERP) studies, and activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. However, the specificity of this activation to semantic unification remains unknown. To more closely examine the brain processes involved in semantic unification, we employed simultaneous EEG-fMRI to time-lock the semantic unification related N400 change, and integrated trial-by-trial variation in both N400 and BOLD change beyond the condition-level BOLD change difference measured in traditional fMRI analyses. Participants read sentences in which semantic unification load was parametrically manipulated by varying cloze probability. Separately, ERP and fMRI results replicated previous findings, in that semantic unification load parametrically modulated the amplitude of N400 and cortical activation. Integrated EEG-fMRI analyses revealed a different pattern in which functional activity in the left IFG and bilateral supramarginal gyrus (SMG) was associated with N400 amplitude, with the left IFG activation and bilateral SMG activation being selective to the condition-level and trial-level of semantic unification load, respectively. By employing the EEG-fMRI integrated analyses, this study among the first sheds light on how to integrate trial-level variation in language comprehension.

Abstract

Research into the role of brain oscillations in basic perceptual and cognitive functions has suggested that the alpha rhythm reflects functional inhibition while the beta rhythm reflects neural ensemble (re)activation. However, little is known regarding the generalization of these proposed fundamental operations to linguistic processes, such as speech comprehension and production. Here, we recorded magnetoencephalography in participants performing a novel rule-switching paradigm. Specifically, Dutch native speakers had to produce an alternative exemplar from the same category or a feature of a given target word embedded in spoken sentences (e.g., for the word “tuna”, an exemplar from the same category—“seafood”—would be “shrimp”, and a feature would be “pink”). A cue indicated the task rule—exemplar or feature—either before (pre-cue) or after (retro-cue) listening to the sentence. Alpha power during the working memory delay was lower for retro-cue compared with that for pre-cue in the left hemispheric language-related regions. Critically, alpha power negatively correlated with reaction times, suggestive of alpha facilitating task performance by regulating inhibition in regions linked to lexical retrieval. Furthermore, we observed a different spatiotemporal pattern of beta activity for exemplars versus features in the right temporoparietal regions, in line with the proposed role of beta in recruiting neural networks for the encoding of distinct categories. Overall, our study provides evidence for the generalizability of the role of alpha and beta oscillations from perceptual to more “complex, linguistic processes” and offers a novel task to investigate links between rule-switching, working memory, and word production.

Abstract

Swedish morphemes are classified as prosodically specified or prosodically unspecified, depending on lexical or phonological stress, respectively. Here, we investigate the allomorphy of the suffix -(i)sk, which indicates the distinction between lexical and phonological stress; if attached to a lexically stressed morpheme, it takes a non-syllabic form (-sk), whereas if attached to a phonologically stressed morpheme, an epenthetic vowel is inserted (-isk). Using mismatch negativity (MMN), we explored the neural processing of this allomorphy across lexically stressed and phonologically stressed morphemes. In an oddball paradigm, participants were occasionally presented with congruent and incongruent derivations, created by the suffix -(i)sk, within the repetitive presentation of their monomorphemic stems. The results indicated that the congruent derivation of the lexically stressed stem elicited a larger MMN than the incongruent sequences of the same stem and the derivational suffix, whereas after the phonologically stressed stem a non-significant tendency towards an opposite pattern was observed. We argue that the significant MMN response to the congruent derivation in the lexical stress condition is in line with lexical MMN, indicating a holistic processing of the sequence of lexically stressed stem and derivational suffix. The enhanced MMN response to the incongruent derivation in the phonological stress condition, on the other hand, is suggested to reflect combinatorial processing of the sequence of phonologically stressed stem and derivational suffix. These findings bring a new aspect to the dual-system approach to neural processing of morphologically complex words, namely the specification of word stress.

Abstract

Speakers remember their own utterances better than those of their interlocutors, suggesting that language production is beneficial to memory. This may be partly explained by a generation effect: The act of generating a word is known to lead to a memory advantage (Slamecka & Graf, 1978). In earlier work, we showed a generation effect for recognition of images (Zormpa, Brehm, Hoedemaker, & Meyer, 2019). Here, we tested whether the recognition of their names would also benefit from name generation. Testing whether picture naming improves memory for words was our primary aim, as it serves to clarify whether the representations affected by generation are visual or conceptual/lexical. A secondary aim was to assess the influence of processing time on memory. Fifty-one participants named pictures in three conditions: after hearing the picture name (identity condition), backward speech, or an unrelated word. A day later, recognition memory was tested in a yes/no task. Memory in the backward speech and unrelated conditions, which required generation, was superior to memory in the identity condition, which did not require generation. The time taken by participants for naming was a good predictor of memory, such that words that took longer to be retrieved were remembered better. Importantly, that was the case only when generation was required: In the no-generation (identity) condition, processing time was not related to recognition memory performance. This work has shown that generation affects conceptual/lexical representations, making an important contribution to the understanding of the relationship between memory and language.

Abstract

The production effect (better memory for words read aloud than words read silently) and the picture superiority effect (better memory for pictures than words) both improve item memory in a picture naming task (Fawcett, J. M., Quinlan, C. K., & Taylor, T. L. (2012). Interplay of the production and picture superiority effects: A signal detection analysis. Memory (Hove, England), 20(7), 655–666. doi:10.1080/09658211.2012.693510). Because picture naming requires coming up with an appropriate label, the generation effect (better memory for generated than read words) may contribute to the latter effect. In two forced-choice memory experiments, we tested the role of generation in a picture naming task on later recognition memory. In Experiment 1, participants named pictures silently or aloud with the correct name or an unreadable label superimposed. We observed a generation effect, a production effect, and an interaction between the two. In Experiment 2, unreliable labels were included to ensure full picture processing in all conditions. In this experiment, we observed a production and a generation effect but no interaction, implying the effects are dissociable. This research demonstrates the separable roles of generation and production in picture naming and their impact on memory. As such, it informs the link between memory and language production and has implications for memory asymmetries between language production and comprehension.

Abstract

Review: User friendliness of the first dictionary of Sign Language of the Netherlands can be improved

Abstract

(Needed: staff for residential care home with good eye-hand coordination. Measuring NGT-skills.)

Abstract

The Corpus NGT

Abstract

(The Corpus NGT and the daily practice of language teaching)

Abstract

(The Corpus NGT and teacher NGT/interpreter NGT training)