Publications

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the time resolution of different methods for the computation of event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS), including one based on Hilbert transform. Methods: In order to better understand the time resolution of ERD/ERS, which is a function of factors such as the exact computation method, the frequency under study, the number of trials, and the sampling frequency, we simulated sudden changes in oscillation amplitude as well as very short and closely spaced events. Results: Hilbert-based ERD yields very similar results to ERD integrated over predefined time intervals (block ERD), if the block length is half the period length of the studied frequency. ERD predicts the onset of a change in oscillation amplitude with an error margin of only 10–30 ms. On the other hand, the time the ERD response needs to climb to its full height after a sudden change in oscillation amplitude is quite long, i.e. between 200 and 500 ms. With respect to sensitivity to short oscillatory events, the ratio between sampling frequency and electroencephalographic frequency band plays a major role. Conclusions: (1) The optimal time interval for the computation of block ERD is half a period of the frequency under investigation. (2) Due to the slow impulse response, amplitude effects in the ERD may in reality be caused by duration differences. (3) Although ERD based on the Hilbert transform does not yield any significant advantages over classical ERD in terms of time resolution, it has some important practical advantages.

Abstract

Rules of behavior are fundamental to human sociality. Whether on the road, at the dinner table, or during a game, people monitor one another’s behavior for conformity to rules and may take action to rectify violations. In this study, we examine two ways in which rules are enforced during games: instructions and reminders. Building on prior research, we identify instructions as actions produced to rectify violations based on another’s lack of knowledge of the relevant rule; knowledge that the instruction is designed to impart. In contrast to this, the actions we refer to as reminders are designed to enforce rules presupposing the transgressor’s competence and treating the violation as the result of forgetfulness or oversight. We show that instructing and reminding actions differ in turn design, sequential development, the epistemic stances taken by transgressors and enforcers, and in how the action affects the progressivity of the interaction. Data are in German and Italian from the Parallel European Corpus of Informal Interaction (PECII).

Abstract

In order to investigate conflicts between semantics and syntax, we recorded ERPs, while participants read Dutch sentences. Sentences containing conflicts between syntax and semantics (Fred eats in a sandwich…/ Fred eats a restaurant…) elicited an N400. These results show that conflicts between syntax and semantics not necessarily lead to P600 effects and are in line with the processing competition account. According to this parallel account the syntactic and semantic processing streams are fully interactive and information from one level can influence the processing at another level. The relative strength of the cues of the processing streams determines which level is affected most strongly by the conflict. The processing competition account maintains the distinction between the N400 as index for semantic processing and the P600 as index for structural processing.

Abstract

During listening, brain activity tracks the rhythmic structures of speech signals. Here, we directly dissociated the contribution of neural envelope tracking in the processing of speech acoustic cues from that related to linguistic processing. We examined the neural changes associated with the comprehension of Noise-Vocoded (NV) speech using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Participants listened to NV sentences in a 3-phase training paradigm: (1) pre-training, where NV stimuli were barely comprehended, (2) training with exposure of the original clear version of speech stimulus, and (3) post-training, where the same stimuli gained intelligibility from the training phase. Using this paradigm, we tested if the neural responses of a speech signal was modulated by its intelligibility without any change in its acoustic structure. To test the influence of spectral degradation on neural envelope tracking independently of training, participants listened to two types of NV sentences (4-band and 2-band NV speech), but were only trained to understand 4-band NV speech. Significant changes in neural tracking were observed in the delta range in relation to the acoustic degradation of speech. However, we failed to find a direct effect of intelligibility on the neural tracking of speech envelope in both theta and delta ranges, in both auditory regions-of-interest and whole-brain sensor-space analyses. This suggests that acoustics greatly influence the neural tracking response to speech envelope, and that caution needs to be taken when choosing the control signals for speech-brain tracking analyses, considering that a slight change in acoustic parameters can have strong effects on the neural tracking response.

Abstract

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

Abstract

As in the case of other non-English languages, the study of the acquisition of Turkish has mostly focused on aspects of grammatical morphology and syntax, largely neglecting the study of the effect of interactional factors on child morphosyntax. This paper reviews indications from past research that studying input and adult-child discourse can facilitate the study of the acquisition of morphosyntax in the Turkish language. It also provides some recent studies of Turkish child language on the relationship of child-directed speech to the early acquisition of morphosyntax, and on the pragmatic features of a certain kind of discourse form in child-directed speech called variation sets.

Abstract

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), present in 2 out of every 30 children, affects primarily oral language abilities and development in the absence of associated biomedical conditions. We report the first experimental study that examines relative clause (RC) comprehension accuracy and processing (via looking preference) in Cantonese-speaking children with and without DLD, testing the predictions from competing domain-specific versus domain-general theoretical accounts. We compared children with DLD (N = 22) with their age-matched typically-developing (TD) children (AM-TD, N = 23) aged 6;6–9;7 and language-matched (and younger) TD children (YTD, N = 21) aged 4;7–7;6, using a referent selection task. Within-subject factors were: RC type (subject-RCs (SRCs) versus object-RCs (ORCs); relativizer (classifier (CL) versus relative marker ge3 RCs). Accuracy measures and looking preference to the target were analyzed using generalized linear mixed effects models. Results indicated Cantonese children with DLD scored significantly lower than their AM-TD peers in accuracy and processed RCs significantly slower than AM-TDs, but did not differ from the YTDs on either measure. Overall, while the results revealed evidence of a SRC advantage in the accuracy data, there was no indication of additional difficulty associated with ORCs in the eye-tracking data. All children showed a processing advantage for the frequent CL relativizer over the less frequent ge3 relativizer. These findings pose challenges to domain-specific representational deficit accounts of DLD, which primarily explain the disorder as a syntactic deficit, and are better explained by domain-general accounts that explain acquisition and processing as emergent properties of multiple converging linguistic and non-linguistic processes.

Abstract

Daily conversations contain many repetitions of identical and similar word forms. For bilinguals, the words can even come from the same or different languages. How do such repetitions affect the human word recognition system? The Bilingual Interactive Activation Plus (BIA+) model provides a theoretical and computational framework for understanding word recognition and word repetition in bilinguals. The model assumes that both phenomena involve a language non-selective process that is sensitive to the task context. By means of computer simulations, the model can specify both qualitatively and quantitatively how bilingual lexical processing in one language is affected by the other language. Our review discusses how BIA+ handles cross-linguistic repetition and masked orthographic priming data from two key empirical studies. We show that BIA+ can account for repetition priming effects within- and between-languages through the manipulation of resting-level activations of targets and neighbors (words sharing all but one letter with the target). The model also predicts cross-linguistic performance on within- and between-trial orthographic priming without appealing to conscious strategies or task schema competition as an explanation. At the end of the paper, we briefly evaluate the model and indicate future developments.

Abstract

The present study investigates hemispheric specialisation in the use of space in communicative gestures. For this purpose, we investigate split-brain patients in whom spontaneous and distinct right hand gestures can only be controlled by the left hemisphere and vice versa, the left hand only by the right hemisphere. On this anatomical basis, we can infer hemispheric specialisation from the performances of the right and left hands. In contrast to left hand dyspraxia in tasks that require language processing, split-brain patients utilise their left hands in a meaningful way in visuo-constructive tasks such as copying drawings or block-design. Therefore, we conjecture that split-brain patients are capable of using their left hands for the communication of the content of visuo-spatial animations via gestural demonstration. On this basis, we further examine the use of space in communicative gestures by the right and left hands. McNeill and Pedelty (1995) noted for the split-brain patient N.G. that her iconic right hand gestures were exclusively displayed in the right personal space. The present study investigates systematically if there is indication for neglect of the left personal space in right hand gestures in split-brain patients.

Abstract

The present study investigates hemispheric specialisation in the use of space in communicative gestures. For this purpose, we investigate split-brain patients in whom spontaneous and distinct right hand gestures can only be controlled by the left hemisphere and vice versa, the left hand only by the right hemisphere. On this anatomical basis, we can infer hemispheric specialisation from the performances of the right and left hands. In contrast to left hand dyspraxia in tasks that require language processing, split-brain patients utilise their left hands in a meaningful way in visuo-constructive tasks such as copying drawings or block-design. Therefore, we conjecture that split-brain patients are capable of using their left hands for the communication of the content of visuo-spatial animations via gestural demonstration. On this basis, we further examine the use of space in communicative gestures by the right and left hands. McNeill and Pedelty (1995) noted for the split-brain patient N.G. that her iconic right hand gestures were exclusively displayed in the right personal space. The present study investigates systematically if there is indication for neglect of the left personal space in right hand gestures in split-brain patients.

Abstract

If listening in adverse conditions is hard, then listening in a foreign language is doubly so: non-native listeners have to cope with both imperfect signals and imperfect knowledge. Comparison of native and non-native listener performance in speech-in-noise tasks helps to clarify the role of prior linguistic experience in speech perception, and, more directly, contributes to an understanding of the problems faced by language learners in everyday listening situations. This article reviews experimental studies on non-native listening in adverse conditions, organised around three principal contributory factors: the task facing listeners, the effect of adverse conditions on speech, and the differences among listener populations. Based on a comprehensive tabulation of key studies, we identify robust findings, research trends and gaps in current knowledge.

Abstract

There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating that executive function (EF) abilities are positively associated with language development during the preschool years, such that children with good executive functions also have larger vocabularies. However, why this is the case remains to be discovered. In this study, we focused on the hypothesis that sentence processing abilities mediate the association between EF skills and receptive vocabulary knowledge, in that the speed of language acquisition is at least partially dependent on a child’s processing ability, which is itself dependent on executive control. We tested this hypothesis in longitudinal data from a cohort of 3- and 4-year-old children at three age points (37, 43, and 49 months). We found evidence, consistent with previous research, for a significant association between three EF skills (cognitive flexibility, working memory [as measured by the Backward Digit Span], and inhibition) and receptive vocabulary knowledge across this age range. However, only one of the tested sentence processing abilities (the ability to maintain multiple possible referents in mind) significantly mediated this relationship and only for one of the tested EFs (inhibition). The results suggest that children who are better able to inhibit incorrect responses are also better able to maintain multiple possible referents in mind while a sentence unfolds, a sophisticated sentence processing ability that may facilitate vocabulary learning from complex input.

Abstract

Normative ratings are a means to control for the effects of confounding variables in psycholinguistic experiments. This paper introduces a new dataset of normative ratings for Swedish encompassing 111 concrete nouns and the corresponding picture stimuli in the MultiPic database (Duñabeitia et al. 2017). The norms for name agreement, category typicality, age of acquisition and subjective frequency were collected using online surveys among native speakers of the Finland-Swedish variety of Swedish. The paper discusses the inter-correlations between these variables and compares them against available ratings for other languages. In doing so, the paper argues that ratings for age of acquisition and subjective frequency collected for other languages may be applied to psycholinguistic studies on Finland-Swedish, at least with respect to concrete and highly imageable nouns. In contrast, norms for name agreement should be collected from speakers of the same language variety as represented by the subjects in the actual experiments.

Abstract

Emotional words have consistently been shown to be processed differently than neutral words. However, few studies have examined individual variability in emotion word processing with longer, ecologically valid stimuli (beyond isolated words, sentences, or paragraphs). In the current study, we re-analysed eye-tracking data collected during story reading to reveal how individual differences in need for affect and narrative absorption impact the speed of emotion word reading. Word emotionality was indexed by affective-aesthetic potentials (AAP) calculated by a sentiment analysis tool. We found that individuals with higher levels of need for affect and narrative absorption read positive words more slowly. On the other hand, these individual differences did not influence the reading time of more negative words, suggesting that high need for affect and narrative absorption are characterised by a positivity bias only. In general, unlike most previous studies using more isolated emotion word stimuli, we observed a quadratic (U-shaped) effect of word emotionality on reading speed, such that both positive and negative words were processed more slowly than neutral words. Taken together, this study emphasises the importance of taking into account individual differences and task context when studying emotion word processing.

Abstract

The expansion of the cerebral cortex is one of the most distinctive changes in the evolution of the human brain. Cortical expansion and related increases in cortical folding may have contributed to emergence of our capacities for high-order cognitive abilities. Molecular analysis of humans, archaic hominins, and non-human primates has allowed identification of chromosomal regions showing evolutionary changes at different points of our phylogenetic history. In this study, we assessed the contributions of genomic annotations spanning 30 million years to human sulcal morphology measured via MRI in more than 18,000 participants from the UK Biobank. We found that variation within brain-expressed human gained enhancers, regulatory genetic elements that emerged since our last common ancestor with Old World monkeys, explained more trait heritability than expected for the left and right calloso-marginal posterior fissures and the right central sulcus. Intriguingly, these are sulci that have been previously linked to the evolution of locomotion in primates and later on bipedalism in our hominin ancestors.

Abstract

Non-native speech is harder to understand than native speech. We demonstrate that this “processing
difficulty” causes non-native speakers to sound less credible. People judged trivia statements such as “Ants
don't sleep” as less true when spoken by a non-native than a native speaker. When people were made aware
of the source of their difficulty they were able to correct when the accent was mild but not when it was
heavy. This effect was not due to stereotypes of prejudice against foreigners because it occurred even though
speakers were merely reciting statements provided by a native speaker. Such reduction of credibility may
have an insidious impact on millions of people, who routinely communicate in a language which is not their
native tongue

Abstract

This commentary on Alario et al. (2002) addresses two issues: (1) Different from what the authors suggest, there are no theories of production claiming the phonological word to be the upper bound of advance planning before the onset of articulation; (2) Their picture naming study of word frequency effects on speech onset is inconclusive by lack of a crucial control, viz., of object recognition latency. This is a perennial problem in picture naming studies of word frequency and age of acquisition effects

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

Li and Gleitman (Turning the tables: language and spatial reasoning. Cognition, in press) seek to undermine a large-scale cross-cultural comparison of spatial language and cognition which claims to have demonstrated that language and conceptual coding in the spatial domain covary (see, for example, Space in language and cognition: explorations in linguistic diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, in press; Language 74 (1998) 557): the most plausible interpretation is that different languages induce distinct conceptual codings. Arguing against this, Li and Gleitman attempt to show that in an American student population they can obtain any of the relevant conceptual codings just by varying spatial cues, holding language constant. They then argue that our findings are better interpreted in terms of ecologically-induced distinct cognitive styles reflected in language. Linguistic coding, they argue, has no causal effects on non-linguistic thinking – it simply reflects antecedently existing conceptual distinctions. We here show that Li and Gleitman did not make a crucial distinction between frames of spatial reference relevant to our line of research. We report a series of experiments designed to show that they have, as a consequence, misinterpreted the results of their own experiments, which are in fact in line with our hypothesis. Their attempts to reinterpret the large cross-cultural study, and to enlist support from animal and infant studies, fail for the same reasons. We further try to discern exactly what theory drives their presumption that language can have no cognitive efficacy, and conclude that their position is undermined by a wide range of considerations.

Abstract

Jones's system of constraints promises interesting insights into the typology of kin term systems. Three problems arise: (1) the conflation of categories with algorithms that assign them threatens to weaken the typological predictions; (2) OT-type constraints have little psychological plausibility; (3) the conflation of kin-term systems and kinship systems may underplay the "utility function" character of real kinship in action.

Abstract

A corpus of 350 naturally-occurring questions in videotaped interaction shows that questions and their responses in Yélî Dnye (the Papuan language of Rossel Island) both conform to clear universal expectations but also have a number of language-specific peculiarities. They conform in that polar and wh-questions are unrelated in form, wh-questions have the usual sort of special forms, and responses show the same priorities as in other languages (for fast cooperative, adequate answers). But, less expected perhaps, Yélî Dnye polar questions (excepting tags) are unmarked in both morphosyntax and prosody, and the responses include conventional facial expressions, conforming to the propositional response system type (so that assent to ‘He didn’t come?’ means ‘no, he didn’t’). These visual signals are facilitated by high levels of mutual gaze making rapid early responses possible. Tags can occur with non-interrogative illocutionary forces, and could be held to perform speech acts of their own. Wh-questions utilize about a dozen wh-forms, which are only optionally fronted, and there are some interesting specializations of forms (e.g. ‘who’ for any named entities other than places). Most questions of all types are genuinely information seeking, with 27% (mostly tags) seeking confirmation, 19% requesting repair.

Abstract

Philosophers, psychologists, and linguists have argued that spatial conception is pivotal to cognition in general, providing a general, egocentric, and universal framework for cognition as well as metaphors for conceptualizing many other domains. But in an aboriginal community in Northern Queensland, a system of cardinal directions informs not only language, but also memory for arbitrary spatial arrays and directions. This work suggests that fundamental cognitive parameters, like the system of coding spatial locations, can vary cross-culturally, in line with the language spoken by a community. This opens up the prospect of a fruitful dialogue between anthropology and the cognitive sciences on the complex interaction between cultural and universal factors in the constitution of mind.

Abstract

This paper argues that the language sciences are on the brink of major changes in primary data, methods and theory. Reactions to ‘The myth of language universals’ ([Evans and Levinson, 2009a] and [Evans and Levinson, 2009b]) divide in response to these new challenges. Chomskyan-inspired ‘C-linguists’ defend a status quo, based on intuitive data and disparate universalizing abstract frameworks, reflecting 30 years of changing models. Linguists driven by interests in richer data and linguistic diversity, ‘D-linguists’, though more responsive to the new developments, have tended to lack an integrating framework. Here we outline such an integrative framework of the kind we were presupposing in ‘Myth’, namely a coevolutionary model of the interaction between mind and cultural linguistic traditions which puts variation central at all levels – a model that offers the right kind of response to the new challenges. In doing so we traverse the fundamental questions raised by the commentary in this special issue: What constitutes the data, what is the place of formal representations, how should linguistic comparison be done, what counts as explanation, what is the source of design in language? Radical changes in data, methods and theory are upon us. The future of the discipline will depend on responses to these changes: either the field turns in on itself and atrophies, or it modernizes, and tries to capitalize on the way language lies at the intersection of all the disciplines interested in human nature.

Abstract

Human communication displays a striking contrast between the diversity of languages and the universality of the principles underlying their use in conversation. Despite the importance of this interactional base, it is not obvious that it heavily imprints the structure of languages. However, a deep-time perspective suggests that early hominin communication was gestural, in line with all the other Hominidae. This gestural phase of early language development seems to have left its traces in the way in which spatial concepts, implemented in the hippocampus, provide organizing principles at the heart of grammar.

Abstract

This article argues for a gradient approach to word order, which treats word order preferences, both within and across languages, as a continuous variable. Word order variability should be regarded as a basic assumption, rather than as something exceptional. Although this approach follows naturally from the emergentist usage-based view of language, we argue that it can be beneficial for all frameworks and linguistic domains, including language acquisition, processing, typology, language contact, language evolution and change, and formal approaches. Gradient approaches have been very fruitful in some domains, such as language processing, but their potential is not fully realized yet. This may be due to practical reasons. We discuss the most pressing methodological challenges in corpus-based and experimental research of word order and propose some practical solutions.

Abstract

There remains some debate about whether beta power effects observed during sentence comprehension reflect ongoing syntactic unification operations (beta-syntax hypothesis), or instead reflect maintenance or updating of the sentence-level representation (beta-maintenance hypothesis). In this study, we used magnetoencephalography to investigate beta power neural dynamics while participants read relative clause sentences that were initially ambiguous between a subject- or an object-relative reading. An additional condition included a grammatical violation at the disambiguation point in the relative clause sentences. The beta-maintenance hypothesis predicts a decrease in beta power at the disambiguation point for unexpected (and less preferred) object-relative clause sentences and grammatical violations, as both signal a need to update the sentence-level representation. While the beta-syntax hypothesis also predicts a beta power decrease for grammatical violations due to a disruption of syntactic unification operations, it instead predicts an increase in beta power for the object-relative clause condition because syntactic unification at the point of disambiguation becomes more demanding. We observed decreased beta power for both the agreement violation and object-relative clause conditions in typical left hemisphere language regions, which provides compelling support for the beta-maintenance hypothesis. Mid-frontal theta power effects were also present for grammatical violations and object-relative clause sentences, suggesting that violations and unexpected sentence interpretations are registered as conflicts by the brain's domain-general error detection system.

Abstract

For shared book reading to be effective for language development, the adult and child need to be highly engaged. The current paper adopted a mixed-methods approach to investigate caregiver’s language-boosting behaviours and children’s engagement during shared book reading. The results revealed there were more instances of joint attention and caregiver’s use of prompts during moments of higher engagement. However, instances of most language-boosting behaviours were similar across episodes of higher and lower engagement. Qualitative analysis assessing the link between children’s engagement and caregiver’s use of speech acts, revealed that speech acts do seem to contribute to high engagement, in combination with other aspects of the interaction.

Abstract

Smoking is a leading global cause of disease and mortality. We established the Oxford-GlaxoSmithKline study (Ox-GSK) to perform a genome-wide meta-analysis of SNP association with smoking-related behavioral traits. Our final data set included 41,150 individuals drawn from 20 disease, population and control cohorts. Our analysis confirmed an effect on smoking quantity at a locus on 15q25 (P = 9.45 x 10(-19)) that includes CHRNA5, CHRNA3 and CHRNB4, three genes encoding neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunits. We used data from the 1000 Genomes project to investigate the region using imputation, which allowed for analysis of virtually all common SNPs in the region and offered a fivefold increase in marker density over HapMap2 (ref. 2) as an imputation reference panel. Our fine-mapping approach identified a SNP showing the highest significance, rs55853698, located within the promoter region of CHRNA5. Conditional analysis also identified a secondary locus (rs6495308) in CHRNA3.

Abstract

This study examined the development of declarative and procedural memory longitudinally in primary school-aged children. At present, although there is a general consensus that age-related improvements during this period can be found for declarative memory, there are conflicting data on the developmental trajectory of the procedural memory system. At Time 1 children aged around 5½ years were presented with measures of declarative and procedural memory. The tasks were then administered 12 months later. Performance on the declarative memory task was found to improve at a faster rate in comparison to the procedural memory task. The findings of the study support the view that multiple memory systems reach functional maturity at different points in development.

Abstract

The intergenerational stability of auditory symbolic systems, such as music, is thought to rely on brain processes that allow the faithful transmission of complex sounds. Little is known about the functional and structural aspects of the human brain which support this ability, with a few studies pointing to the bilateral organization of auditory networks as a putative neural substrate. Here, we further tested this hypothesis by examining the role of left–right neuroanatomical asymmetries between auditory cortices. We collected neuroanatomical images from a large sample of participants (nonmusicians) and analyzed them with Freesurfer’s surface-based morphometry method. Weeks after scanning, the same individuals participated in a laboratory experiment that simulated music transmission: the signaling games. We found that high accuracy in the intergenerational transmission of an artificial tone system was associated with reduced rightward asymmetry of cortical thickness in Heschl’s sulcus. Our study suggests that the high-fidelity copying of melodic material may rely on the extent to which computational neuronal resources are distributed across hemispheres. Our data further support the role of interhemispheric brain organization in the cultural transmission and evolution of auditory symbolic systems.

Abstract

The study investigated the neuronal basis of the retrieval of words from the mental lexicon. The semantic category interference effect was used to locate lexical retrieval processes in time and space. This effect reflects the finding that, for overt naming, volunteers are slower when naming pictures out of a sequence of items from the same semantic category than from different categories. Participants named pictures blockwise either in the context of same- or mixedcategory items while the brain response was registered using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Fifteen out of 20 participants showed longer response latencies in the same-category compared to the mixed-category condition. Event-related MEG signals for the participants demonstrating the interference effect were submitted to a current source density (CSD) analysis. As a new approach, a principal component analysis was applied to decompose the grand average CSD distribution into spatial subcomponents (factors). The spatial factor indicating left temporal activity revealed significantly different activation for the same-category compared to the mixedcategory condition in the time window between 150 and 225 msec post picture onset. These findings indicate a major involvement of the left temporal cortex in the semantic interference effect. As this effect has been shown to take place at the level of lexical selection, the data suggest that the left temporal cortex supports processes of lexical retrieval during production.

Abstract

This article reports on research which seeks to compare and measure the similarities between phonetic transcriptions in the analysis of relationships between varieties of English. It addresses the question of whether these varieties have been converging, diverging, or maintaining equilibrium as a result of endogenous and exogenous phonetic and phonological changes. We argue that it is only possible to identify such patterns of change by the simultaneous comparison of a wide range of varieties of a language across a data set that has not been specifically selected to highlight those changes that are believed to be important. Our analysis suggests that although there has been an obvious reduction in regional variation with the loss of traditional dialects of English and Scots, there has not been any significant convergence (or divergence) of regional accents of English in recent decades, despite the rapid spread of a number of features such as TH-fronting.

Abstract

The linguistic and cognitive sciences have severely underestimated the degree of linguistic diversity in the world. Part of the reason for this is that we have projected assumptions based on English and familiar languages onto the rest. We focus on some distortions this has introduced, especially in the study of semantics.

Abstract

In previous research it has been shown that subject relative clauses are easier to process than object relative clauses. Several theories have been proposed that explain the difference on the basis of different theoretical perspectives. However, previous research tested relative clauses only with animate protagonists. In a corpus study of Dutch and German newspaper texts, we show that animacy is an important determinant of the distribution of subject and object relative clauses. In two experiments in Dutch, in which the animacy of the object of the relative clause is varied, no difference in reading time is obtained between subject and object relative clauses when the object is inanimate. The experiments show that animacy influences the processing difficulty of relative clauses. These results can only be accounted for by current major theories of relative clause processing when additional assumptions are introduced, and at the same time show that the possibility of semantically driven analysis can be considered as a serious alternative.

Abstract

Mental simulation is an important aspect of narrative reading. In a previous study, we found that gaze durations are differentially impacted by different kinds of mental simulation. Motor simulation, perceptual simulation, and mentalizing as elicited by literary short stories influenced eye movements in distinguishable ways (Mak & Willems, 2019). In the current study, we investigated the existence of a common neural locus for these different kinds of simulation. We additionally investigated whether individual differences during reading, as indexed by the eye movements, are reflected in domain-specific activations in the brain. We found a variety of brain areas activated by simulation-eliciting content, both modality-specific brain areas and a general simulation area. Individual variation in percent signal change in activated areas was related to measures of story appreciation as well as personal characteristics (i.e., transportability, perspective taking). Taken together, these findings suggest that mental simulation is supported by both domain-specific processes grounded in previous experiences, and by the neural mechanisms that underlie higher-order language processing (e.g., situation model building, event indexing, integration).

Abstract

The goal of the study was to examine whether speakers naming pairs of objects would retrieve the names of the objects in parallel or in equence. To this end, we recorded the speakers’ eye movements and determined whether the difficulty of retrieving the name of the 2nd object affected the duration of the gazes to the 1st object. Two experiments, which differed in the spatial arrangement of the objects, showed that the speakers looked longer at the 1st object when the name of the 2nd object was easy than when it was more difficult to retrieve. Thus, the easy 2nd-object names interfered more with the processing of the 1st object than the more difficult 2nd-object names. In the 3rd experiment, the processing of the 1st object was rendered more difficult by presenting it upside down. No effect of 2nd-object difficulty on the gaze duration for the 1st object was found. These results suggest that speakers can retrieve the names of a foveated and an extrafoveal object in parallel, provided that the processing of the foveated object is not too demanding

Abstract

The human experience is shaped by information from different perceptual channels, but it is still debated whether and how differential experience influences language use. To address this, we compared congenitally blind, blindfolded, and sighted people's descriptions of the same motion events experienced auditorily by all participants (i.e., via sound alone) and conveyed in speech and gesture. Comparison of blind and sighted participants to blindfolded participants helped us disentangle the effects of a lifetime experience of being blind versus the task-specific effects of experiencing a motion event by sound alone. Compared to sighted people, blind people's speech focused more on path and less on manner of motion, and encoded paths in a more segmented fashion using more landmarks and path verbs. Gestures followed the speech, such that blind people pointed to landmarks more and depicted manner less than sighted people. This suggests that visual experience affects how people express spatial events in the multimodal language and that blindness may enhance sensitivity to paths of motion due to changes in event construal. These findings have implications for the claims that language processes are deeply rooted in our sensory experiences.

Abstract

Each sensory modality has different affordances: vision has higher spatial acuity than audition, whereas audition has better temporal acuity. This may have consequences for the encoding of events and its subsequent multimodal language production—an issue that has received relatively little attention to date. In this study, we compared motion events presented as audio-only, visual-only, or multimodal (visual + audio) input and measured speech and co-speech gesture depicting path and manner of motion in Turkish. Input modality affected speech production. Speakers with audio-only input produced more path descriptions and fewer manner descriptions in speech compared to speakers who received visual input. In contrast, the type and frequency of gestures did not change across conditions. Path-only gestures dominated throughout. Our results suggest that while speech is more susceptible to auditory vs. visual input in encoding aspects of motion events, gesture is less sensitive to such differences.

Abstract

We investigated cross-modal influences between speech and sign in hearing bimodal bilinguals, proficient in a spoken and a sign language, and its consequences on visual attention during message preparation using eye-tracking. We focused on spatial expressions in which sign languages, unlike spoken languages, have a modality-driven preference to mention grounds (big objects) prior to figures (smaller objects). We compared hearing bimodal bilinguals’ spatial expressions and visual attention in Dutch and Dutch Sign Language (N = 18) to those of their hearing non-signing (N = 20) and deaf signing peers (N = 18). In speech, hearing bimodal bilinguals expressed more ground-first descriptions and fixated grounds more than hearing non-signers, showing influence from sign. In sign, they used as many ground-first descriptions as deaf signers and fixated grounds equally often, demonstrating no influence from speech. Cross-linguistic influence of word order preference and visual attention in hearing bimodal bilinguals appears to be one-directional modulated by modality-driven differences.

Abstract

We describe a family-based sample of individuals with reading disability collected as part of a quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping study. Eighty-nine nuclear families (135 independent sib-pairs) were identified through a single proband using a traditional discrepancy score of predicted/actual reading ability and a known family history. Eight correlated psychometric measures were administered to each sibling, including single word reading, spelling, similarities, matrices, spoonerisms, nonword and irregular word reading, and a pseudohomophone test. Summary statistics for each measure showed a reduced mean for the probands compared to the co-sibs, which in turn was lower than that of the population. This partial co-sib regression back to the mean indicates that the measures are influenced by familial factors and therefore, may be suitable for a mapping study. The variance of each of the measures remained largely unaffected, which is reassuring for the application of a QTL approach. Multivariate genetic analysis carried out to explore the relationship between the measures identified a common factor between the reading measures that accounted for 54% of the variance. Finally the familiality estimates (range 0.32–0.73) obtained for the reading measures including the common factor (0.68) supported their heritability. These findings demonstrate the viability of this sample for QTL mapping, and will assist in the interpretation of any subsequent linkage findings in an ongoing genome scan.

Abstract

Episodic memory, as defined by Tulving, can be described in terms of behavioural elements (what, where and when information) but it is also accompained by an awareness of one’s past (chronesthesia) and a subjective conscious experience (autonoetic awareness). Recent experiments have shown that corvids and rodents recall the where, what and when of an event. This capability has been called episodic-like memory because it only fulfils the behavioural criteria for episodic memory. We tested seven chimpanzees, three orangutans and two bonobos of various ages by adapting two paradigms, originally developed by Clayton and colleagues to test scrub jays. In Experiment 1, subjects were fed preferred but perishable food (frozen juice) and less preferred but non-perishable food (grape). After the food items were hidden, subjects could choose one of them either after 5 min or 1 h. The frozen juice was still available after 5 min but melted after 1 h and became unobtainable. Apes chose the frozen juice significantly more after 5 min and the grape after 1 h. In Experiment 2, subjects faced two baiting events happening at different times, yet they formed an integrated memory for the location and time of the baiting event for particular food items. We also included a memory task that required no temporal encoding. Our results showed that apes remember in an integrated fashion what, where and when (i.e., how long ago) an event happened; that is, apes distinguished between different events in which the same food items were hidden in different places at different times. The temporal control of their choices was not dependent on the familiarity of the platforms where the food was hidden. Chimpanzees’ and bonobos’ performance in the temporal encoding task was age-dependent, following an inverted U-shaped distribution. The age had no effect on the performance of the subjects in the task that required no temporal encoding.

Abstract

Gene duplication events can drive evolution by providing genetic material for new gene functions, and they create opportunities for diverse developmental strategies to emerge between species. To study the contribution of duplicated genes to human early development, we examined the evolution and function of NANOGP1, a tandem duplicate of the transcription factor NANOG. We found that NANOGP1 and NANOG have overlapping but distinct expression profiles, with high NANOGP1 expression restricted to early epiblast cells and naïve-state pluripotent stem cells. Sequence analysis and epitope-tagging revealed that NANOGP1 is protein coding with an intact homeobox domain. The duplication that created NANOGP1 occurred earlier in primate evolution than previously thought and has been retained only in great apes, whereas Old World monkeys have disabled the gene in different ways, including homeodomain point mutations. NANOGP1 is a strong inducer of naïve pluripotency; however, unlike NANOG, it is not required to maintain the undifferentiated status of human naïve pluripotent cells. By retaining expression, sequence and partial functional conservation with its ancestral copy, NANOGP1 exemplifies how gene duplication and subfunctionalisation can contribute to transcription factor activity in human pluripotency and development.

Abstract

Two eye-monitoring studies examined when unexpressed schematic participant information specified by verbs is used during sentence processing. Experiment 1 compared the processing of sentences with passive and intransitive verbs hypothesized to introduce or not introduce, respectively, an agent when their main clauses were preceded by either agent-dependent rationale clauses or adverbial clause controls. While there were no differences in the processing of passive clauses following rationale and control clauses, intransitive verb clauses elicited anomaly effects following agent-dependent rationale clauses. To determine whether the source of this immediately available schematic participant information is lexically specified or instead derived solely from conceptual sources associated with verbs, Experiment 2 compared the processing of clauses with passive and middle verbs following rationale clauses (e.g., To raise money for the charity, the vase was/had sold quickly…). Although both passive and middle verb forms denote situations that logically require an agent, middle verbs, which by hypothesis do not lexically specify an agent, elicited longer processing times than passive verbs in measures of early processing. These results demonstrate that participants access and interpret lexically encoded schematic participant information in the process of recognizing a verb.

Abstract

We present a protocol to study naturalistic human communication using dual-EEG and audio-visual recordings. We describe preparatory steps for data collection including setup preparation, experiment design, and piloting. We then describe the data collection process in detail which consists of participant recruitment, experiment room preparation, and data collection. We also outline the kinds of research questions that can be addressed with the current protocol, including several analysis possibilities, from conversational to advanced time-frequency analyses.
For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Drijvers and Holler (2022).

Abstract

Cognitive approaches to religious phenomena have attracted considerable interdisciplinary attention since their emergence a couple of decades ago. Proponents offer explanatory accounts of the content and transmission of religious thought and behavior in terms of underlying cognition. A central claim is that the cross-cultural recurrence and historical persistence of religion is attributable to the cognitive naturalness of religious ideas, i.e., attributable to the readiness, the ease, and the speed with which human minds acquire and process popular religious representations. In this article, we primarily provide an introductory summary of foundational questions, assumptions, and hypotheses in this field, including some discussion of features distinguishing cognitive science approaches to religion from established psychological approaches. Relevant ethnographic and experimental evidence illustrate and substantiate core claims. Finally, we briefly consider the broader implications of these cognitive approaches for the appropriateness of ‘religion’ as an explanatorily useful category in the social sciences.

Abstract

Individual differences in cognitive abilities are ubiquitous across the spectrum of proficient language users. Although speakers differ with regard to their memory capacity, ability for inhibiting distraction, and ability to shift between different processing levels, comprehension is generally successful. However, this does not mean it is identical across individuals; listeners and readers may rely on different processing strategies to exploit distributional information in the service of efficient understanding. In the following psycholinguistic reading experiment, we investigate potential sources of individual differences in the processing of co-occurring words. Participants read modifier-noun bigrams like absolute silence in a self-paced reading task. Backward transition probability (BTP) between the two lexemes was used to quantify the prominence of the bigram as a whole in comparison to the frequency of its parts. Of five individual difference measures (processing speed, verbal working memory, cognitive inhibition, global-local scope shifting, and personality), two proved to be significantly associated with the effect of BTP on reading times. Participants who could inhibit a distracting global environment in order to more efficiently retrieve a single part and those that preferred the local level in the shifting task showed greater effects of the co-occurrence probability of the parts. We conclude that some participants are more likely to retrieve bigrams via their parts and their co-occurrence statistics whereas others more readily retrieve the two words together as a single chunked unit.

Abstract

The extent to which variation in chromatin structure and transcription factor binding may influence gene expression, and thus underlie or contribute to variation in phenotype, is unknown. To address this question, we cataloged both individual-to-individual variation and differences between homologous chromosomes within the same individual (allele-specific variation) in chromatin structure and transcription factor binding in lymphoblastoid cells derived from individuals of geographically diverse ancestry. Ten percent of active chromatin sites were individual-specific; a similar proportion were allele-specific. Both individual-specific and allele-specific sites were commonly transmitted from parent to child, which suggests that they are heritable features of the human genome. Our study shows that heritable chromatin status and transcription factor binding differ as a result of genetic variation and may underlie phenotypic variation in humans.

Abstract

Iconicity in language is receiving increased attention from many fields, but our understanding of iconicity is only as good as the measures we use to quantify it. We collected iconicity measures for 304 Japanese words from English-speaking participants, using rating and guessing tasks. The words included ideophones (structurally marked depictive words) along with regular lexical items from similar semantic domains (e.g., fuwafuwa ‘fluffy’, jawarakai ‘soft’). The two measures correlated, speaking to their validity. However, ideophones received consistently higher iconicity ratings than other items, even when guessed at the same accuracies, suggesting the rating task is more sensitive to cues like structural markedness that frame words as iconic. These cues did not always guide participants to the meanings of ideophones in the guessing task, but they did make them more confident in their guesses, even when they were wrong. Consistently poor guessing results reflect the role different experiences play in shaping construals of iconicity. Using multiple measures in tandem allows us to explore the interplay between iconicity and these external factors. To facilitate this, we introduce a reproducible workflow for creating rating and guessing tasks from standardised wordlists, while also making improvements to the robustness, sensitivity and discriminability of previous approaches.

Abstract

Luthra, Peraza-Santiago, Beeson, Saltzman, Crinnion, and Magnuson (2021) present data from the lexically mediated compensation for coarticulation paradigm that they claim provides conclusive evidence in favor of top-down processing in speech perception. We argue here that this evidence does not support that conclusion. The findings are open to alternative explanations, and we give data in support of one of them (that there is an acoustic confound in the materials). Lexically mediated compensation for coarticulation thus remains elusive, while prior data from the paradigm instead challenge the idea that there is top-down processing in online speech recognition.

Abstract

The ratio of the lengths of an individual's second to fourth digit (2D:4D) is commonly used as a noninvasive retrospective biomarker for prenatal androgen exposure. In order to identify the genetic determinants of 2D:4D, we applied a genome-wide association approach to 1507 11-year-old children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) in whom 2D:4D ratio had been measured, as well as a sample of 1382 12- to 16-year-olds from the Brisbane Adolescent Twin Study. A meta-analysis of the two scans identified a single variant in the LIN28B gene that was strongly associated with 2D:4D (rs314277: p = 4.1 x 10(-8)) and was subsequently independently replicated in an additional 3659 children from the ALSPAC cohort (p = 1.53 x 10(-6)). The minor allele of the rs314277 variant has previously been linked to increased height and delayed age at menarche, but in our study it was associated with increased 2D:4D in the direction opposite to that of previous reports on the correlation between 2D:4D and age at menarche. Our findings call into question the validity of 2D:4D as a simplistic retrospective biomarker for prenatal testosterone exposure.

Abstract

Although spontaneous speech occurs more frequently in most listeners’ experience than read speech, laboratory studies of human speech recognition typically use carefully controlled materials read from a script. The phonological and prosodic characteristics of spontaneous and read speech differ considerably, however, which suggests that laboratory results may not generalize to the recognition of spontaneous and read speech materials, and their response time to detect word-initial target phonemes was measured. Response were, overall, equally fast in each speech mode. However analysis of effects previously reported in phoneme detection studies revealed significant differences between speech modes. In read speech but not in spontaneous speech, later targets were detected more rapidly than earlier targets, and targets preceded by long words were detected more rapidly than targets preceded by short words. In contrast, in spontaneous speech but not in read speech, targets were detected more rapidly in accented than unaccented words and in strong than in weak syllables. An explanation for this pattern is offered in terms of characteristic prosodic differences between spontaneous and read speech. The results support claim from previous work that listeners pay great attention to prosodic information in the process of recognizing speech.

Abstract

Argues that the Seneca accent system can be explained more simply and naturally if the foot structure is reanalyzed as trochaic. Determination of the position of the accent by the position and structure of the accented syllable and by the position and structure of the post-tonic syllable; Assignment of the pair of syllables which interact to predict where accent is assigned in different iambic feet.

Abstract

Research on the relationship between the representation of space and time has produced two contrasting proposals. ATOM posits that space and time are represented via a common magnitude system, suggesting a symmetrical relationship between space and time. According to metaphor theory, however, representations of time depend on representations of space asymmetrically. Previous findings in humans have supported metaphor theory. Here, we investigate the relationship between time and space in a nonverbal species, by testing whether non-human primates show space–time interactions consistent with metaphor theory or with ATOM. We tested two rhesus monkeys and 16 adult humans in a nonverbal task that assessed the influence of an irrelevant dimension (time or space) on a relevant dimension (space or time). In humans, spatial extent had a large effect on time judgments whereas time had a small effect on spatial judgments. In monkeys, both spatial and temporal manipulations showed large bi-directional effects on judgments. In contrast to humans, spatial manipulations in monkeys did not produce a larger effect on temporal judgments than the reverse. Thus, consistent with previous findings, human adults showed asymmetrical space–time interactions that were predicted by metaphor theory. In contrast, monkeys showed patterns that were more consistent with ATOM.

Abstract

Aging is accompanied by an impairment of associative memory. The medial temporal lobe and fronto-striatal network, both involved in associative memory, are known to decline functionally and structurally with age, leading to the so-called associative binding deficit and the resource deficit. Because the MTL and fronto-striatal network interact, they might also be able to support each other. We therefore employed an episodic memory task probing memory for sequences of object–location associations, where the demand on self-initiated processing was manipulated during encoding: either all the objects were visible simultaneously (rich environmental support) or every object became visible transiently (poor environmental support). Following the concept of resource deficit, we hypothesised that the elderly probably have difficulty using their declarative memory system when demands on self-initiated processing are high (poor environmental support). Our behavioural study showed that only the young use the rich environmental support in a systematic way, by placing the objects next to each other. With the task adapted for fMRI, we found that elderly showed stronger activity than young subjects during retrieval of environmentally richly encoded information in the basal ganglia, thalamus, left middle temporal/fusiform gyrus and right medial temporal lobe (MTL). These results indicate that rich environmental support leads to recruitment of the declarative memory system in addition to the fronto-striatal network in elderly, while the young use more posterior brain regions likely related to imagery. We propose that elderly try to solve the task by additional recruitment of stimulus-response associations, which might partly compensate their limited attentional resources.

Abstract

Eye movements have been shown to reflect word recognition and language comprehension processes occurring during reading and auditory language comprehension. The present study examines whether the eye movements speakers make during object naming similarly reflect speech planning processes. In Experiment 1, speakers named object pairs saying, for instance, 'scooter and hat'. The objects were presented as ordinary line drawings or with partly dele:ed contours and had high or low frequency names. Contour type and frequency both significantly affected the mean naming latencies and the mean time spent looking at the objects. The frequency effects disappeared in Experiment 2, in which the participants categorized the objects instead of naming them. This suggests that the frequency effects of Experiment 1 arose during lexical retrieval. We conclude that eye movements during object naming indeed reflect linguistic planning processes and that the speakers' decision to move their eyes from one object to the next is contingent upon the retrieval of the phonological form of the object names.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

Gaze cues serve an important role in facilitating human conversations and are generally considered to be one of the most important non-verbal cues. Gaze cues are used to manage turn-taking, coordinate joint attention, regulate intimacy, and signal cognitive effort. In particular, it is well established that gaze aversion is used in conversations to avoid prolonged periods of mutual gaze. Given the numerous functions of gaze cues, there has been extensive work on modelling these cues in social robots. Researchers have also tried to identify the impact of robot gaze on human participants. However, the influence of robot gaze behavior on human gaze behavior has been less explored. We conducted a within-subjects user study (N = 33) to verify if a robot’s gaze aversion influenced human gaze aversion behavior. Our results show that participants tend to avert their gaze more when the robot keeps staring at them as compared to when the robot exhibits well-timed gaze aversions. We interpret our findings in terms of intimacy regulation: humans try to compensate for the robot’s lack of gaze aversion.

Abstract

Affective behaviors enable social robots to not only establish better connections with humans but also serve as a tool for the robots to express their internal states. It has been well established that emotions are important to signal understanding in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). This work aims to harness the power of Large Language Models (LLM) and proposes an approach to control the affective behavior of robots. By interpreting emotion appraisal as an Emotion Recognition in Conversation (ERC) tasks, we used GPT-3.5 to predict the emotion of a robot’s turn in real-time, using the dialogue history of the ongoing conversation. The robot signaled the predicted emotion using facial expressions. The model was evaluated in a within-subjects user study (N = 47) where the model-driven emotion generation was compared against conditions where the robot did not display any emotions and where it displayed incongruent emotions. The participants interacted with the robot by playing a card sorting game that was specifically designed to evoke emotions. The results indicated that the emotions were reliably generated by the LLM and the participants were able to perceive the robot’s emotions. It was found that the robot expressing congruent model-driven facial emotion expressions were perceived to be significantly more human-like, emotionally appropriate, and elicit a more positive impression. Participants also scored significantly better in the card sorting game when the robot displayed congruent facial expressions. From a technical perspective, the study shows that LLMs can be used to control the affective behavior of robots reliably in real-time. Additionally, our results could be used in devising novel human-robot interactions, making robots more effective in roles where emotional interaction is important, such as therapy, companionship, or customer service.

Abstract

Events are often perceived in multiple modalities. The co-occurring proximal visual and auditory stimuli events are mostly also causally linked to the distal event. This makes it difficult to evaluate whether learned correlation or perceived causation guides binding in multisensory perception. Piano tones are an interesting exception: Piano tones are associated with seeing key strokes but are directly caused by hammers that hit strings hidden from observation. We examined the influence of seeing the hammer or the key stroke on auditory temporal order judgments (TOJ). Participants judged the temporal order of a dog bark and a piano tone, while seeing the piano stroke shifted temporally relative to its audio signal. Visual lead increased "piano-first" responses in auditory TOJ, but more so if only the associated key stroke than if the sound-producing hammer was visible, though both were equally visually salient. This provides evidence for a learning account of audiovisual perception.

Abstract

Six aryepiglottic trills with varied laryngeal parameters were recorded using high-speed laryngoscopy to investigate the nature of the oscillatory behavior of the upper margin of the epilaryngeal tube. Image analysis techniques were applied to extract data about the patterns of aryepiglottic fold oscillation, with a focus on the oscillatory frequencies of the folds. The acoustic impact of aryepiglottic trilling is also considered, along with possible interactions between the aryepiglottic vibration and vocal fold vibration during the voiced trill. Overall, aryepiglottic trilling is deemed to be correctly labeled as a trill in phonetic terms, while also acting as a means to alter the quality of voicing to be auditorily harsh. In terms of its characterization, aryepiglottic vibration is considerably irregular, but it shows indications of contributing quasi-harmonic excitation of the vocal tract, particularly noticeable under conditions of glottal voicelessness. Aryepiglottic vibrations appear to be largely independent of glottal vibration in terms of oscillatory frequency but can be increased in frequency by increasing overall laryngeal constriction. There is evidence that aryepiglottic vibration induces an alternating vocal fold vibration pattern. It is concluded that aryepiglottic trilling, like ventricular phonation, should be regarded as a complex, if highly irregular, sound source.

Abstract

We investigated whether learning an artificial language at 17 months was predictive of children’s natural language vocabulary and grammar skills at 54 months. Children at 17 months listened to an artificial language containing non-adjacent dependencies, and were then tested on their learning to segment and to generalise the structure of the language. At 54 months, children were then tested on a range of standardised natural language tasks that assessed receptive and expressive vocabulary and grammar. A structural equation model demonstrated that learning the artificial language generalisation at 17 months predicted language abilities – a composite of vocabulary and grammar skills – at 54 months, whereas artificial language segmentation at 17 months did not predict language abilities at this age. Artificial language learning tasks – especially those that probe grammar learning – provide a valuable tool for uncovering the mechanisms driving children’s early language development.

Abstract

Background
Heterozygous disruptions of FOXP2 were the first identified molecular cause for severe speech disorder; childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), yet few cases have been reported, limiting knowledge of the condition.

Methods
Here we phenotyped 29 individuals from 18 families with pathogenic FOXP2-only variants (13 loss-of-function, 5 missense variants; 14 males; aged 2 years to 62 years). Health and development (cognitive, motor, social domains) was examined, including speech and language outcomes with the first cross-linguistic analysis of English and German.

Results
Speech disorders were prevalent (24/26, 92%) and CAS was most common (23/26, 89%), with similar speech presentations across English and German. Speech was still impaired in adulthood and some speech sounds (e.g. ‘th’, ‘r’, ‘ch’, ‘j’) were never acquired. Language impairments (22/26, 85%) ranged from mild to severe. Comorbidities included feeding difficulties in infancy (10/27, 37%), fine (14/27, 52%) and gross (14/27, 52%) motor impairment, anxiety (6/28, 21%), depression (7/28, 25%), and sleep disturbance (11/15, 44%). Physical features were common (23/28, 82%) but with no consistent pattern. Cognition ranged from average to mildly impaired, and was incongruent with language ability; for example, seven participants with severe language disorder had average non-verbal cognition.

Conclusions
Although we identify increased prevalence of conditions like anxiety, depression and sleep disturbance, we confirm that the consequences of FOXP2 dysfunction remain relatively specific to speech disorder, as compared to other recently identified monogenic conditions associated with CAS. Thus, our findings reinforce that FOXP2 provides a valuable entrypoint for examining the neurobiological bases of speech disorder.

Abstract

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a highly prevalent disorder with substantial heritability. Heritability has been shown to be substantial and higher in the variant of MDD characterized by recurrent episodes of depression. Genetic studies have thus far failed to identify clear and consistent evidence of genetic risk factors for MDD. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in two independent datasets. The first GWAS was performed on 1022 recurrent MDD patients and 1000 controls genotyped on the Illumina 550 platform. The second was conducted on 492 recurrent MDD patients and 1052 controls selected from a population-based collection, genotyped on the Affymetrix 5.0 platform. Neither GWAS identified any SNP that achieved GWAS significance. We obtained imputed genotypes at the Illumina loci for the individuals genotyped on the Affymetrix platform, and performed a meta-analysis of the two GWASs for this common set of approximately half a million SNPs. The meta-analysis did not yield genome-wide significant results either. The results from our study suggest that SNPs with substantial odds ratio are unlikely to exist for MDD, at least in our datasets and among the relatively common SNPs genotyped or tagged by the half-million-loci arrays. Meta-analysis of larger datasets is warranted to identify SNPs with smaller effects or with rarer allele frequencies that contribute to the risk of MDD.

Abstract

Caregiver abstract talk during shared reading predicts preschool-age children’s vocabulary development. However, previous research has focused on level of abstraction with less consideration of the style of extratextual talk. Here, we investigated the relation between these two dimensions of extratextual talk, and their contributions to variance in children’s vocabulary skills. Caregiver level of abstraction was associated with an interactive reading style. Controlling for socioeconomic status and child age, high interactivity predicted children’s concurrent vocabulary skills whereas abstraction did not. Controlling for earlier vocabulary skills, neither dimension of the extratextual talk predicted later vocabulary. Theoretical and practical relevance are discussed.

Abstract

Approximately 4% of English-speaking children are affected by specific language impairment (SLI), a disorder in the development of language skills despite adequate opportunity and normal intelligence. Several studies have indicated the importance of genetic factors in SLI; a positive family history confers an increased risk of development, and concordance in monozygotic twins consistently exceeds that in dizygotic twins. However, like many behavioral traits, SLI is assumed to be genetically complex, with several loci contributing to the overall risk. We have compiled 98 families drawn from epidemiological and clinical populations, all with probands whose standard language scores fall ⩾1.5 SD below the mean for their age. Systematic genomewide quantitative-trait–locus analysis of three language-related measures (i.e., the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals–Revised [CELF-R] receptive and expressive scales and the nonword repetition [NWR] test) yielded two regions, one on chromosome 16 and one on 19, that both had maximum LOD scores of 3.55. Simulations suggest that, of these two multipoint results, the NWR linkage to chromosome 16q is the most significant, with empirical P values reaching 10−5, under both Haseman-Elston (HE) analysis (LOD score 3.55; P=.00003) and variance-components (VC) analysis (LOD score 2.57; P=.00008). Single-point analyses provided further support for involvement of this locus, with three markers, under the peak of linkage, yielding LOD scores >1.9. The 19q locus was linked to the CELF-R expressive-language score and exceeds the threshold for suggestive linkage under all types of analysis performed—multipoint HE analysis (LOD score 3.55; empirical P=.00004) and VC (LOD score 2.84; empirical P=.00027) and single-point HE analysis (LOD score 2.49) and VC (LOD score 2.22). Furthermore, both the clinical and epidemiological samples showed independent evidence of linkage on both chromosome 16q and chromosome 19q, indicating that these may represent universally important loci in SLI and, thus, general risk factors for language impairment.

Abstract

The FOXP2 gene, located on human 7q31 (at the SPCH1 locus), encodes a transcription factor containing a polyglutamine tract and a forkhead domain. FOXP2 is mutated in a severe monogenic form of speech and language impairment, segregating within a single large pedigree, and is also disrupted by a translocation in an isolated case. Several studies of autistic disorder have demonstrated linkage to a similar region of 7q (the AUTS1 locus), leading to the proposal that a single genetic factor on 7q31 contributes to both autism and language disorders. In the present study, we directly evaluate the impact of the FOXP2 gene with regard to both complex language impairments and autism, through use of association and mutation screening analyses. We conclude that coding-region variants in FOXP2 do not underlie the AUTS1 linkage and that the gene is unlikely to play a role in autism or more common forms of language impairment.

Abstract

Specific language impairment (SLI) is defined as an unexpected and persistent impairment in language ability despite adequate opportunity and intelligence and in the absence of any explanatory medical conditions. This condition is highly heritable and affects between 5% and 8% of pre-school children. Over the past few years, investigations have begun to uncover genetic factors that may contribute to susceptibility to language impairment. So far, variants in four specific genes have been associated with spoken language disorders - forkhead box P2 (FOXP2) and contactin-associated protein-like 2 (CNTNAP2) on chromosome7 and calcium-transporting ATPase 2C2 (ATP2C2) and c-MAF inducing protein (CMIP) on chromosome 16. Here, we describe the different ways in which these genes were identified as candidates for language impairment. We discuss how characterization of these genes, and the pathways in which they are involved, may enhance our understanding of language disorders and improve our understanding of the biological foundations of language acquisition.

Abstract

In two event-related potential (ERP) experiments, we determined to what extent Grice’s maxim of informativeness as well as pragmatic ability contributes to the incremental build-up of sentence meaning, by examining the impact of underinformative versus informative scalar statements (e.g. “Some people have lungs/pets, and…”) on the N400 event-related potential (ERP), an electrophysiological index of semantic processing. In Experiment 1, only pragmatically skilled participants (as indexed by the Autism Quotient Communication subscale) showed a larger N400 to underinformative statements. In Experiment 2, this effect disappeared when the critical words were unfocused so that the local underinformativeness went unnoticed (e.g., “Some people have lungs that…”). Our results suggest that, while pragmatic scalar meaning can incrementally contribute to sentence comprehension, this contribution is dependent on contextual factors, whether these are derived from individual pragmatic abilities or the overall experimental context.

Abstract

The present study investigated L1 transfer effects in L2 sentence processing and syntactic priming through comprehension in speakers of German and Italian. L1 and L2 speakers of both languages participated in a syntactic priming experiment that aimed to shift their preferred interpretation of ambiguous relative clause constructions. The results suggested that L1 transfer affects L2 processing but not the strength of structural priming, and therefore does not hinder the acquisition of L2 parsing strategies. We also report evidence that structural priming through comprehension can persist in L1 and L2 speakers over an experimental phase without further exposure to primes. Finally, we observed that priming can occur for what are essentially novel form-meaning pairings for L2 learners, suggesting that adult learners can rapidly associate existing forms with new meanings.

Abstract

Observations of alarm calling behavior in putty-nosed monkeys are suggestive of a link with human language evolution. However, as is often the case in studies of animal behavior and cognition, competing theories are underdetermined by the available data. We argue that computational modeling, and in particular the use of individual-based simulations, is an effective way to reduce the size of the pool of candidate explanations. Simulation achieves this both through the classification of evolutionary trajectories as either plausible or implausible, and by putting lower bounds on the cognitive complexity required to perform particular behaviors. A case is made for using both of these strategies to understand the extent to which the alarm calls of putty-nosed monkeys are likely to be a good model for human language evolution.

Abstract

The reading process depends both on the text and on the reader. When we read a text, propositions in the current input are matched to propositions in the memory representation of the previous discourse but also to knowledge structures in long‐term memory. Therefore, memory‐based text processing refers both to the bottom‐up processing of the text and to the top‐down activation of the reader's knowledge. In this article, we focus on the role of cognitive structures in the reader's knowledge. We argue that causality is an important category in structuring human knowledge and that this property has consequences for text processing. Some research is discussed that illustrates that the more the information in the text reflects causal categories, the more easily the information is processed.

Abstract

We know a great deal about the neurophysiological mechanisms supporting instrumental actions, i.e. actions designed to alter the physical state of the environment. In contrast, little is known about our ability to select communicative actions, i.e. actions directly designed to modify the mental state of another agent. We have recently provided novel empirical evidence for a mechanism in which a communicator selects his actions on the basis of a prediction of the communicative intentions that an addressee is most likely to attribute to those actions. The main novelty of those finding was that this prediction of intention recognition is cerebrally implemented within the intention recognition system of the communicator, is modulated by the ambiguity in meaning of the communicative acts, and not by their sensorimotor complexity. The characteristics of this predictive mechanism support the notion that human communicative abilities are distinct from both sensorimotor and linguistic processes.

Abstract

In four experiments, we examined the facilitation that occurs when spoken-word targets rhyme with preceding spoken primes. In Experiment 1, listeners’ lexical decisions were faster to words following rhyming words (e.g., ramp–LAMP) than to words following unrelated primes (e.g., pink–LAMP). No facilitation was observed for nonword targets. Targets that almost rhymed with their primes (foils; e.g., bulk–SULSH) were included in Experiment 2; facilitation for rhyming targets was severely attenuated. Experiments 3 and 4 were single-word shadowing variants of the earlier experiments. There was facilitation for both rhyming words and nonwords; the presence of foils had no significant influence on the priming effect. A major component of the facilitation in lexical decision appears to be strategic: Listeners are biased to say “yes” to targets that rhyme with their primes, unless foils discourage this strategy. The nonstrategic component of phonological facilitation may reflect speech perception processes that operate prior to lexical access.

Abstract

Previous research comparing detection times for syllables and for phonemes has consistently found that syllables are responded to faster than phonemes. This finding poses theoretical problems for strictly hierarchical models of speech recognition, in which smaller units should be able to be identified faster than larger units. However, inspection of the characteristics of previous experiments’stimuli reveals that subjects have been able to respond to syllables on the basis of only a partial analysis of the stimulus. In the present experiment, five groups of subjects listened to identical stimulus material. Phoneme and syllable monitoring under standard conditions was compared with monitoring under conditions in which near matches of target and stimulus occurred on no-response trials. In the latter case, when subjects were forced to analyze each stimulus fully, phonemes were detected faster than syllables.

Abstract

The early recognition of fundamental social actions, like questions, is crucial for understanding the speaker’s intended message and planning a timely response in conversation. Questions themselves may express more than one social action category (e.g., an information request “What time is it?”, an invitation “Will you come to my party?” or a criticism “Are you crazy?”). Although human language use occurs predominantly in a multimodal context, prior research on social actions has mainly focused on the verbal modality. This study breaks new ground by investigating how conversational facial signals may map onto the expression of different types of social actions conveyed through questions. The distribution, timing, and temporal organization of facial signals across social actions was analysed in a rich corpus of naturalistic, dyadic face-to-face Dutch conversations. These social actions were: Information Requests, Understanding Checks, Self-Directed questions, Stance or Sentiment questions, Other-Initiated Repairs, Active Participation questions, questions for Structuring, Initiating or Maintaining Conversation, and Plans and Actions questions. This is the first study to reveal differences in distribution and timing of facial signals across different types of social actions. The findings raise the possibility that facial signals may facilitate social action recognition during language processing in multimodal face-to-face interaction.

Abstract

In conversation, recognizing social actions (similar to ‘speech acts’) early is important to quickly understand the speaker’s intended message and to provide a fast response. Fast turns are typical for fundamental social actions like questions, since a long gap can indicate a dispreferred response. In multimodal face-to-face interaction, visual signals may contribute to this fast dynamic. The face is an important source of visual signalling, and previous research found that prevalent facial signals such as eyebrow movements facilitate the rapid recognition of questions. We aimed to investigate whether early eyebrow movements with natural movement intensities facilitate question identification, and whether specific intensities are more helpful in detecting questions. Participants were instructed to view videos of avatars where the presence of eyebrow movements (eyebrow frown or raise vs. no eyebrow movement) was manipulated, and to indicate whether the utterance in the video was a question or statement. Results showed higher accuracies for questions with eyebrow frowns, and faster response times for questions with eyebrow frowns and eyebrow raises. No additional effect was observed for the specific movement intensity. This suggests that eyebrow movements that are representative of naturalistic multimodal behaviour facilitate question recognition.

Abstract

Conversation is a time-pressured environment. Recognizing a social action (the ‘‘speech act,’’ such as a question requesting information) early is crucial in conversation to quickly understand the intended message and plan a timely response. Fast turns between interlocutors are especially relevant for responses to questions since a long gap may be meaningful by itself. Human language is multimodal, involving speech as well as visual signals from the body, including the face. But little is known about how conversational facial signals contribute to the communication of social actions. Some of the most prominent facial signals in conversation are eyebrow movements. Previous studies found links between eyebrow movements and questions, suggesting that these facial signals could contribute to the rapid recognition of questions. Therefore, we aimed to investigate whether early eyebrow movements (eyebrow frown or raise vs. no eyebrow movement) facilitate question identification. Participants were instructed to view videos of avatars where the presence of eyebrow movements accompanying questions was manipulated. Their task was to indicate whether the utterance was a question or a statement as accurately and quickly as possible. Data were collected using the online testing platform Gorilla. Results showed higher accuracies and faster response times for questions with eyebrow frowns, suggesting a facilitative role of eyebrow frowns for question identification. This means that facial signals can critically contribute to the communication of social actions in conversation by signaling social action-specific visual information and providing visual cues to speakers’ intentions.

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the study of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging has revealed that functional connectivity within and between networks is linked to cognitive states and pathologies. However, the white matter connections supporting this connectivity remain only partially described. We developed a method to jointly map the white and grey matter contributing to each resting-state network (RSN). Using the Human Connectome Project, we generated an atlas of 30 RSNs. The method also highlighted the overlap between networks, which revealed that most of the brain’s white matter (89%) is shared between multiple RSNs, with 16% shared by at least 7 RSNs. These overlaps, especially the existence of regions shared by numerous networks, suggest that white matter lesions in these areas might strongly impact the communication within networks. We provide an atlas and an open-source software to explore the joint contribution of white and grey matter to RSNs and facilitate the study of the impact of white matter damage to these networks. In a first application of the software with clinical data, we were able to link stroke patients and impacted RSNs, showing that their symptoms aligned well with the estimated functions of the networks.