Displaying 1 - 100 of 125
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Allison, C., Fernandez, L., Huettig, F., & Lachmann, T. (2024). Semantic predictions are not fully automatic in L2 speakers: Evidence from anticipatory eye movements. Poster presented at the 29th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLaP 2024), Edinburgh, Scotland.
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Funk, J., Huettig, F., & Hintz, F. (2024). The role of presentational timing in acquiring novel written and spoken word forms. Poster presented at the Highlights in the Language Sciences Conference 2024, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Jubran, O., Lachmann, T., & Huettig, F. (2024). Target uncertainty and self-correction of prediction error are revealed by the tracking of hand-reaching movements during L2 predictive language processing. Poster presented at the 29th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLaP 2024), Edinburgh, Scotland.
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Karaca, F., Brouwer, S., Unsworth, S., & Huettig, F. (2024). How does language proficiency mediate prediction skills of early bilingual children and adults?. Poster presented at the 5th International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children (ISBPAC 2024), Swansea, UK.
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Chen, X., Hu, J., Huettig, F., & Özyürek, A. (2023). The effect of iconic gestures on linguistic prediction in Mandarin Chinese: a visual world paradigm study. Poster presented at the 29th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLaP 2023), Donostia–San Sebastián, Spain.
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Karaca, F., Brouwer, S., Unsworth, S., & Huettig, F. (2022). Role of language experience in predictive processing. Poster presented at the 4th International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children (ISBPAC 2022), Tromsø, Norway.
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Hervais-Adelman, A., Kumar, U., Mishra, R. K., Tripathi, V. N., Guleria, A., Singh, J. P., & Huettig, F. (2021). Learning to write shapes literate speech perception. Poster presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2021), online.
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Karaca, F., Brouwer, S. M., Unsworth, S., & Huettig, F. (2021). Individual differences in predictive processing: Evidence from Turkish-speaking monolingual adults. Poster presented at the 27th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLaP 2021), (virtual conference).
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Ostarek, M., Vukovic, N., Van Paridon, J., Shtyrov, Y., & Huettig, F. (2020). Comprehension of spatially-related words relies on direction-specific processes in the spatial attention network. Poster presented at the 27th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2020), online.
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Favier, S., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2019). Does literacy predict individual differences in syntactic processing?. Talk presented at the International Workshop on Literacy and Writing systems: Cultural, Neuropsychological and Psycholinguistic Perspectives. Haifa, Israel. 2019-02-18 - 2019-02-20.
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Favier, S., Wright, A., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2019). Proficiency modulates between- but not within-language structural priming. Poster presented at the 21st Meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP 2019), Tenerife, Spain.
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Hintz, F., Ostarek, M., De Nijs, M., Joosen, D., & Huettig, F. (2019). N’Sync or A’Sync? The role of timing when acquiring spoken and written word forms in a tonal language. Poster presented at the 21st Meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP 2019), Tenerife, Spain.
Abstract
Theories of reading propose that the quality of word form representations affects reading comprehension. One claim is that synchronous retrieval of orthographic and phonological representations leads to better performance than asynchronous retrieval. Based on this account, one may hypothesize that synchronous rather than asynchronous presentation of orthographic and phonological forms should be beneficial when establishing the mapping between both, as it should lead to tighter couplings. We tested this hypothesis in two multi-session experiments, where participants studied isolated words of a tonal language unknown to them, Chinese. During study, written (using Pinyin transcription) and spoken word forms were presented simultaneously or in asynchronous fashion (audio-first, written-first). In both experiments, we observed an advantage for asynchronous over synchronous presentation at test, with audio-first presentation being most beneficial. These results suggest that the timing of written and spoken word forms has profound effects on the ease of learning a new tonal language. -
Huettig, F. (2019). Six challenges for embodiment research [keynote]. Talk presented at the 12th annual Conference on Embodied and Situated Language Processing and the sixth AttLis (ESLP/AttLis 2019). Berlin, Germany. 2019-08-28 - 2019-08-30.
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Ostarek, M., Alday, P. M., Gawel, O., Wolfgruber, J., Knudsen, B., Mantegna, F., & Huettig, F. (2019). Is neural entrainment a basic mechanism for structure building?. Poster presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2019), Helsinki, Finland.
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Ostarek, M., & Huettig, F. (2019). Towards a unified theory of semantic cognition. Talk presented at the 21st Meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP 2019). Tenerife, Spain. 2019-09-25 - 2019-09-28.
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Favier, S., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2018). Does literacy predict individual differences in the syntactic processing of spoken language?. Poster presented at the 1st Workshop on Cognitive Science of Culture, Lisbon, Portugal.
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Favier, S., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2018). Does reading ability predict individual differences in spoken language syntactic processing?. Poster presented at the International Meeting of the Psychonomics Society 2018, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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Favier, S., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2018). How does literacy influence syntactic processing in spoken language?. Talk presented at Psycholinguistics in Flanders (PiF 2018). Gent, Belgium. 2018-06-04 - 2018-06-05.
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Garrido Rodriguez, G., Huettig, F., Norcliffe, E., Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2018). Participant assignment to thematic roles in Tzeltal: Eye tracking evidence from sentence comprehension in a verb-initial language. Talk presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2018). Berlin, Germany. 2018-09-06 - 2018-09-08.
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Huettig, F. (2018). How learning to read changes mind and brain [keynote]. Talk presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing-Asia (AMLaP-Asia 2018). Telangana, India. 2018-02-01 - 2018-02-03.
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Ostarek, M., Van Paridon, J., Hagoort, P., & Huettig, F. (2018). Multi-voxel pattern analysis reveals conceptual flexibility and invariance in language. Poster presented at the 10th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2018), Québec City, Canada.
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Garrido Rodriguez, G., Huettig, F., Norcliffe, E., Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2017). Participant assignment to thematic roles in Tzeltal: Eye tracking evidence from sentence comprehension in a verb-initial language. Poster presented at the workshop 'Event Representations in Brain, Language & Development' (EvRep), Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Ostarek, M., Van Paridon, J., & Huettig, F. (2017). Conceptual processing of up/down words (cloud/grass) recruits cortical oculomotor areas central for planning and executing saccadic eye movements. Talk presented at the 10th Embodied and Situated Language Processing Conference. Moscow, Russia. 2017-09-10 - 2017-09-12.
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Ostarek, M., & Huettig, F. (2017). Grounding language in vision [Invited talk]. Talk presented at the University of California Davis. Davis, CA, USA.
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Ostarek, M., Van Paridon, J., Evans, S., & Huettig, F. (2017). Processing of up/down words recruits the cortical oculomotor network. Poster presented at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, USA.
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Araújo, S., Huettig, F., & Meyer, A. S. (2016). What's the nature of the deficit underlying impaired naming? An eye-tracking study with dyslexic readers. Talk presented at IWORDD - International Workshop on Reading and Developmental Dyslexia. Bilbao, Spain. 2016-05-05 - 2016-05-07.
Abstract
Serial naming deficits have been identified as core symptoms of developmental dyslexia. A prominent hypothesis is that naming delays are due to inefficient phonological encoding, yet the exact nature of this underlying impairment remains largely underspecified. Here we used recordings of eye movements and word onset latencies to examine at what processing level the dyslexic naming deficit emerges: localized at an early stage of lexical encoding or rather later at the level of phonetic or motor planning. 23 dyslexic and 25 control adult readers were tested on a serial object naming task for 30 items and an analogous reading task, where phonological neighborhood density and word-frequency were manipulated. Results showed that both word properties influenced early stages of phonological activation (first fixation and first-pass duration) equally in both groups of participants. Moreover, in the control group any difficulty appeared to be resolved early in the reading process, while for dyslexic readers a processing disadvantage for low-frequency words and for words with sparse neighborhood also emerged in a measure that included late stages of output planning (eye-voice span). Thus, our findings suggest suboptimal phonetic and/or articulatory planning in dyslexia. -
Eisner, F., Kumar, U., Mishra, R. K., Nand Tripathi, V., Guleria, A., Prakash Singh, J., & Huettig, F. (2016). Literacy acquisition drives hemispheric lateralization of reading. Talk presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2016). Bilbao, Spain. 2016-09-01 - 2016-09-03.
Abstract
Reading functions beyond early visual precessing are known to be lateralized to the left hemisphere, but how left-lateralization arises during literacy acquisition is an open question. Bilateral processing or rightward asymmetries have previously been associated with developmental dyslexia. However, it is unclear at present to what extent this lack of left-lateralization reflects differences in reading ability. In this study, a group of illiterate adults in rural India (N=29) participated in a literacy training program over the course of six months. fMRI measures were obtained before and after training on a number of different visual stimulus categories, including written sentences, false fonts, and object categories such as houses and faces. This training group was matched on demographic and socioeconomic variables to an illiterate no-training group and to low- and highly-literate control groups, who were also scanned twice but received no training (total N=90). In a cross-sectional analysis before training, reading ability was positively correlated with increased BOLD responses in a left-lateralized network including the dorsal and ventral visual streams for text and false fonts, but not for other types of visual stimuli. A longitudinal analysis of learning effects in the training group showed that beginning readers engage bilateral networks more than proficient readers. Lateralization of BOLD responses was further examined by calculating laterality indices in specific regions. We observed training-related changes in lateralization for processing written stimuli in a number of subregions in the dorsal and ventral visual streams, as well as in the cerebellum. Together with the cross-sectional results, these data suggest a causal relationship between reading ability and the degree of hemispheric asymmetry in processing written materials. -
Eisner, F., Kumar, U., Mishra, R. K., Nand Tripathi, V., Guleria, A., Prakash Singh, J., & Huettig, F. (2016). Literacy acquisition drives hemispheric lateralization of reading. Poster presented at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2016), London, UK.
Abstract
Reading functions beyond early visual precessing are known to be lateralized to the left hemisphere, but how left-lateralization arises during literacy acquisition is an open question. Bilateral processing or rightward asymmetries have previously been associated with developmental dyslexia. However, it is unclear at present to what extent this lack of left-lateralization reflects differences in reading ability. In this study, a group of illiterate adults in rural India (N=29) participated in a literacy training program over the course of six months. fMRI measures were obtained before and after training on a number of different visual stimulus categories, including written sentences, false fonts, and object categories such as houses and faces. This training group was matched on demographic and socioeconomic variables to an illiterate no-training group and to low- and highly-literate control groups, who were also scanned twice but received no training (total N=90). In a cross-sectional analysis before training, reading ability was positively correlated with increased BOLD responses in a left-lateralized network including the dorsal and ventral visual streams for text and false fonts, but not for other types of visual stimuli. A longitudinal analysis of learning effects in the training group showed that beginning readers engage bilateral networks more than proficient readers. Lateralization of BOLD responses was further examined by calculating laterality indices in specific regions. We observed training-related changes in lateralization for processing written stimuli in a number of subregions in the dorsal and ventral visual streams, as well as in the cerebellum. Together with the cross-sectional results, these data suggest a causal relationship between reading ability and the degree of hemispheric asymmetry in processing written materials. -
Eisner, F., Kumar, U., Mishra, R. K., Nand Tripathi, V., Guleria, A., Prakash Singh, J., & Huettig, F. (2016). Literacy acquisition drives hemispheric lateralization of reading. Talk presented at the 31st International Congress of Psychology (ICP2016). Yokohoma, Japan. 2016-07-24 - 2016-07-29.
Abstract
Reading functions beyond early visual precessing are known to be lateralized to the left hemisphere, but how left-lateralization arises during literacy acquisition is an open question. Bilateral processing or rightward asymmetries have previously been associated with developmental dyslexia. However, it is unclear at present to what extent this lack of left-lateralization reflects differences in reading ability. In this study, a group of illiterate adults in rural India (N=29) participated in a literacy training program over the course of six months. fMRI measures were obtained before and after training on a number of different visual stimulus categories, including written sentences, false fonts, and object categories such as houses and faces. This training group was matched on demographic and socioeconomic variables to an illiterate no-training group and to low- and highly-literate control groups, who were also scanned twice but received no training (total N=90). In a cross-sectional analysis before training, reading ability was positively correlated with increased BOLD responses in a left-lateralized network including the dorsal and ventral visual streams for text and false fonts, but not for other types of visual stimuli. A longitudinal analysis of learning effects in the training group showed that beginning readers engage bilateral networks more than proficient readers. Lateralization of BOLD responses was further examined by calculating laterality indices in specific regions. We observed training-related changes in lateralization for processing written stimuli in a number of subregions in the dorsal and ventral visual streams, as well as in the cerebellum. Together with the cross-sectional results, these data suggest a causal relationship between reading ability and the degree of hemispheric asymmetry in processing written materials. -
Huettig, F., Kumar, U., Mishra, R., Tripathi, V. N., Guleria, A., Prakash Singh, J., Eisner, F., & Skeide, M. A. (2016). Learning to read alters intrinsic cortico-subcortical cross-talk in the low-level visual system. Poster presented at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2016), London, UK.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION fMRI findings have revealed the important insight that literacy-related learning triggers cognitive adaptation mechanisms manifesting themselves in increased BOLD responses during print processing tasks (Brem et al., 2010; Carreiras et al., 2009; Dehaene et al., 2010). It remains elusive, however, if the cortical plasticity effects of reading acquisition also lead to an intrinsic functional reorganization of neural circuits. METHODS Here, we used resting-state fMRI as a measure of domain-specific spontaneous neuronal activity to capture the impact of reading acquisition on the functional connectome (Honey et al., 2007; Lohmann et al., 2010; Raichle et al., 2001). In a controlled longitudinal intervention study, we taught 21 illiterate adults from Northern India for 6 months how to read Hindi scripts and compared their resting-state fMRI data with those acquired from a sample of 9 illiterates, matched for demographic and socioeconomic variables, that did not undergo such instruction. RESULTS Initially, we investigated at the whole-brain level, if the experience of becoming literate modifies network nodes of spontaneous hemodynamic activity. Therefore, we compared training-related differences in the degree centrality of BOLD signals between the groups (Zuo et al., 2012). A significant group by time interaction (tmax = 4.17, p < 0.005, corrected for cluster size) was found in a cluster extending from the right superior colliculus of the brainstem (+6, -30, -3) to the bilateral pulvinar nuclei of the thalamus (+6, -18, -3; -6, -21, -3). This interaction was characterized by a significant mean degree centrality increase in the trained group (t(1,20) = 8.55, p < 0.001) that did not appear in the untrained group which remained at its base level (t(1,8) = 0.14, p = 0.893). The cluster obtained from the degree centrality analysis was then used as a seed region in a voxel-wise functional connectivity analysis (Biswal et al., 1995). A significant group by time interaction (tmax = 4.45, p < 0.005, corrected for cluster size) emerged in the right occipital cortex (+24, -81, +15; +24, -93, +12; +33, -90, +3). The cortico-subcortical mean functional connectivity got significantly stronger in the group that took part in the reading program (z = 3.77, p < 0.001) but not in the group that remained illiterate (z = 0.77, p = 0.441). Individual slopes of cortico-subcortical connectivity were significantly associated with the improvement in letter knowledge (r = 0.40, p = 0.014) and with the improvement word reading ability (r = 0.38, p = 0.018). CONCLUSION Intrinsic hemodynamic activity changes driven by literacy occurred in subcortical low-level relay stations of the visual pathway and their functional connections to the occipital cortex. Accordingly, the visual system of beginning readers appears to go through fundamental modulations at earlier processing stages than suggested by previous event-related fMRI experiments. Our results add a new dimension to current concepts of the brain basis of reading and raise novel questions regarding the neural origin of developmental dyslexia. -
Huettig, F. (2016). Is prediction necessary to understand language?. Talk presented at the RefNet Round Table conference. Aberdeen, Scotland. 2016-01-15 - 2016-01-16.
Abstract
Many psycholinguistic experiments suggest that prediction is an important characteristic of language processing. Some recent theoretical accounts in the cognitive sciences (e.g., Clark, 2013; Friston, 2010) and psycholinguistics (e.g., Dell & Chang, 2014) appear to suggest that prediction is even necessary to understand language. I will evaluate this proposal. I will first discuss several arguments that may appear to be in line with the notion that prediction is necessary for language processing. These arguments include that prediction provides a unified theoretical principle of the human mind and that it pervades cortical function. We discuss whether evidence of human abilities to detect statistical regularities is necessarily evidence for predictive processing and evaluate suggestions that prediction is necessary for language learning. Five arguments are then presented that question the claim that all language processing is predictive in nature. I point out that not all language users appear to predict language and that suboptimal input makes prediction often very challenging. Prediction, moreover, is strongly context-dependent and impeded by resource limitations. I will also argue that it may be problematic that most experimental evidence for predictive language processing comes from 'prediction-encouraging' experimental set-ups. Finally, I will discuss possible ways that may lead to a further resolution of this debate. We conclude that languages can be learned and understood in the absence of prediction. Claims that all language processing is predictive in nature are premature. -
Huettig, F. (2016). The effect of learning to read on the neural systems for vision and language: A longitudinal approach with illiterate participants. Talk presented at the Psychology Department, University of Brussels. Brussels, Belgium. 2016-10.
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Huettig, F., Kumar, U., Mishra, R. K., Tripathi, V., Guleria, A., Prakash Singh, J., & Eisner, F. (2016). The effect of learning to read on the neural systems for vision and language: A longitudinal approach with illiterate participants. Talk presented at the International meeting of the Psychonomic Society. Granada, Spain. 2016-05-05 - 2016-05-08.
Abstract
How do human cultural inventions such as reading result in neural re-organization? In this first longitudinal study with young completely illiterate adult participants, we measured brain responses to speech, text, and other categories of visual stimuli with fMRI before and after a group of illiterate participants in India completed a literacy training program in which they learned to read and write Devanagari script. A literate and an illiterate no-training control group were matched to the training group in terms of socioeconomic background and were recruited from the same societal community in two villages of a rural area near Lucknow, India. This design permitted investigating effects of literacy cross-sectionally across groups before training (N=86) as well as longitudinally (training group N=25). The two analysis approaches yielded converging results: Literacy was associated with enhanced, left-lateralized responses to written text along the ventral stream (including lingual gyrus, fusiform gyrus, and parahippocampal gyrus), dorsal stream (intraparietal sulcus), and (pre-) motor systems (pre-central sulcus, supplementary motor area) and thalamus (pulvinar). Significantly reduced responses were observed bilaterally in the superior parietal lobe (precuneus) and in the right angular gyrus. These effects corroborate and extend previous findings from cross-sectional studies. However, effects of literacy were specific to written text and (to a lesser extent) to false fonts. We did not find any evidence for effects of literacy on responses in the auditory cortex in our Hindi-speaking participants. This raises questions about the extent to which phonological representations are altered by literacy acquisition. -
Ostarek, M., Ishag, A., & Huettig, F. (2016). Language comprehension does not require perceptual simulation. Poster presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2016), New York, NY, USA.
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Ostarek, M., & Huettig, F. (2016). Sensory representations are causally involved in cognition but only when the task requires it. Talk presented at the 3rd Attentive Listener in the Visual World (AttLis) workshop. Potsdam, Germany. 2016-05-10 - 2016-05-11.
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Ostarek, M., & Huettig, F. (2016). Spoken words can make the invisible visible: Testing the involvement of low-level visual representations in spoken word processing. Poster presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2016), Bilbao, Spain.
Abstract
The notion that processing spoken (object) words involves activation of category-specific representations in visual cortex is a key prediction of modality-specific theories of representation that contrasts with theories assuming dedicated conceptual representational systems abstracted away from sensorimotor systems. Although some neuroimaging evidence is consistent with such a prediction (Desai et al., 2009; Hwang et al., 2009; Lewis & Poeppel, 2014), these findings do not tell us much about the nature of the representations that were accessed. In the present study, we directly tested whether low-level visual cortex is involved in spoken word processing. Using continuous flash suppression we show that spoken words activate behaviorally relevant low-level visual representations and pin down the time-course of this effect to the first hundreds of milliseconds after word onset. We investigated whether participants (N=24) can detect otherwise invisible objects (presented for 400ms) when they are presented with the corresponding spoken word 200ms before the picture appears. We implemented a design in which all cue words appeared equally often in picture-present (50%) and picture-absent trials (50%). In half of the picture-present trials, the spoken word was congruent with the target picture ("bottle" -> picture of a bottle), while on the other half it was incongruent ("bottle" -> picture of a banana). All picture stimuli were evenly distributed over the experimental conditions to rule out low-level differences that can affect detectability regardless of the prime words. Our results showed facilitated detection for congruent vs. incongruent pictures in terms of hit rates (z=-2.33, p=0.02) and d'-scores (t=3.01, p<0.01). A second experiment (N=33) investigated the time-course of the effect by manipulating the timing of picture presentation relative to word onset and revealed that it arises as soon as 200-400ms after word onset and decays at around word offset. Together, these data strongly suggest that spoken words can rapidly activate low-level category-specific visual representations that affect the mere detection of a stimulus, i.e. what we see. More generally our findings fit best with the notion that spoken words activate modality-specific visual representations that are low-level enough to provide information related to a given token and at the same time abstract enough to be relevant not only for previously seen tokens (a signature of episodic memory) but also for generalizing to novel exemplars one has never seen before. -
Ostarek, M., & Huettig, F. (2016). Spoken words can make the invisible visible: Testing the involvement of low-level visual representations in spoken word processing. Poster presented at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL 2016), London, UK.
Abstract
The notion that processing spoken (object) words involves activation of category-specific representations in visual cortex is a key prediction of modality-specific theories of representation that contrasts with theories assuming dedicated conceptual representational systems abstracted away from sensorimotor systems. Although some neuroimaging evidence is consistent with such a prediction (Desai et al., 2009; Hwang et al., 2009; Lewis & Poeppel, 2014), these findings do not tell us much about the nature of the representations that were accessed. In the present study, we directly tested whether low-level visual cortex is involved in spoken word processing. Using continuous flash suppression we show that spoken words activate behaviorally relevant low-level visual representations and pin down the time-course of this effect to the first hundreds of milliseconds after word onset. We investigated whether participants (N=24) can detect otherwise invisible objects (presented for 400ms) when they are presented with the corresponding spoken word 200ms before the picture appears. We implemented a design in which all cue words appeared equally often in picture-present (50%) and picture-absent trials (50%). In half of the picture-present trials, the spoken word was congruent with the target picture ("bottle" -> picture of a bottle), while on the other half it was incongruent ("bottle" -> picture of a banana). All picture stimuli were evenly distributed over the experimental conditions to rule out low-level differences that can affect detectability regardless of the prime words. Our results showed facilitated detection for congruent vs. incongruent pictures in terms of hit rates (z=-2.33, p=0.02) and d'-scores (t=3.01, p<0.01). A second experiment (N=33) investigated the time-course of the effect by manipulating the timing of picture presentation relative to word onset and revealed that it arises as soon as 200-400ms after word onset and decays at around word offset. Together, these data strongly suggest that spoken words can rapidly activate low-level category-specific visual representations that affect the mere detection of a stimulus, i.e. what we see. More generally our findings fit best with the notion that spoken words activate modality-specific visual representations that are low-level enough to provide information related to a given token and at the same time abstract enough to be relevant not only for previously seen tokens (a signature of episodic memory) but also for generalizing to novel exemplars one has never seen before. -
Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2016). Testing alternative architectures for multimodal integration during spoken language processing in the visual world. Poster presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2016), Bilbao, Spain.
Abstract
Current cognitive models of spoken word recognition and comprehension are underspecified with respect to when and how multimodal information interacts. We compare two computational models both of which permit the integration of concurrent information within linguistic and non-linguistic processing streams, however their architectures differ critically in the level at which multimodal information interacts. We compare the predictions of the Multimodal Integration Model (MIM) of language processing (Smith, Monaghan & Huettig, 2014), which implements full interactivity between modalities, to a model in which interaction between modalities is restricted to lexical representations which we represent by an extended multimodal version of the TRACE model of spoken word recognition (McClelland & Elman, 1986). Our results demonstrate that previous visual world data sets involving phonological onset similarity are compatible with both models, whereas our novel experimental data on rhyme similarity is able to distinguish between competing architectures. The fully interactive MIM system correctly predicts a greater influence of visual and semantic information relative to phonological rhyme information on gaze behaviour, while by contrast a system that restricts multimodal interaction to the lexical level overestimates the influence of phonological rhyme, thereby providing an upper limit for when information interacts in multimodal tasks -
Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2016). The multimodal nature of spoken word processing in the visual world: Testing the predictions of alternative models of multimodal integration. Poster presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2016), Bilbao, Spain.
Abstract
Current cognitive models of spoken word recognition and comprehension are underspecified with respect to when and how multimodal information interacts. We compare two computational models both of which permit the integration of concurrent information within linguistic and non-linguistic processing streams, however their architectures differ critically in the level at which multimodal information interacts. We compare the predictions of the Multimodal Integration Model (MIM) of language processing (Smith, Monaghan & Huettig, 2014), which implements full interactivity between modalities, to a model in which interaction between modalities is restricted to lexical representations which we represent by an extended multimodal version of the TRACE model of spoken word recognition (McClelland & Elman, 1986). Our results demonstrate that previous visual world data sets involving phonological onset similarity are compatible with both models, whereas our novel experimental data on rhyme similarity is able to distinguish between competing architectures. The fully interactive MIM system correctly predicts a greater influence of visual and semantic information relative to phonological rhyme information on gaze behaviour, while by contrast a system that restricts multimodal interaction to the lexical level overestimates the influence of phonological rhyme, thereby providing an upper limit for when information interacts in multimodal tasks. -
Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2016). The multimodal nature of spoken word processing in the visual world: Testing the predictions of alternative models of multimodal integration. Talk presented at the 15th Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop: Contemporary Neural Network Models (NCPW15). Philadelphia, PA, USA. 2016-08-08 - 2016-08-09.
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Speed, L., Chen, J., Huettig, F., & Majid, A. (2016). Do classifier categories affect or reflect object concepts?. Talk presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2016). Philadelphia, PA, USA. 2016-08-10 - 2016-08-13.
Abstract
We conceptualize objects based on sensory and motor information gleaned from real-world experience. But to what extent is such conceptual information structured according to higher level linguistic features too? Here we investigate whether classifiers, a grammatical category, shape the conceptual representations of objects. In three experiments native Mandarin speakers (speakers of a classifier language) and native Dutch speakers (speakers of a language without classifiers) judged the similarity of a target object (presented as a word or picture) with four objects (presented as words or pictures). One object shared a classifier with the target, the other objects did not, serving as distractors. Across all experiments, participants judged the target object as more similar to the object with the shared classifier than distractor objects. This effect was seen in both Dutch and Mandarin speakers, and there was no difference between the two languages. Thus, even speakers of a non-classifier language are sensitive to object similarities underlying classifier systems, and using a classifier system does not exaggerate these similarities. This suggests that classifier systems simply reflect, rather than affect, conceptual structure. -
Eisner, F., Kumar, U., Mishra, R. K., Nand Tripathi, V., Guleria, A., Singh, P., & Huettig, F. (2015). The effect of literacy acquisition on cortical and subcortical networks: A longitudinal approach. Talk presented at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language. Chicago, US. 2015-10-15 - 2015-10-17.
Abstract
How do human cultural inventions such as reading result in neural re-organization? Previous cross-sectional studies have reported extensive effects of literacy on the neural systems for vision and language (Dehaene et al [2010, Science], Castro-Caldas et al [1998, Brain], Petersson et al [1998, NeuroImage], Carreiras et al [2009, Nature]). In this first longitudinal study with completely illiterate participants, we measured brain responses to speech, text, and other categories of visual stimuli with fMRI before and after a group of illiterate participants in India completed a literacy training program in which they learned to read and write Devanagari script. A literate and an illiterate no-training control group were matched to the training group in terms of socioeconomic background and were recruited from the same societal community in two villages of a rural area near Lucknow, India. This design permitted investigating effects of literacy cross-sectionally across groups before training (N=86) as well as longitudinally (training group N=25). The two analysis approaches yielded converging results: Literacy was associated with enhanced, mainly left-lateralized responses to written text along the ventral stream (including lingual gyrus, fusiform gyrus, and parahippocampal gyrus), dorsal stream (intraparietal sulcus), and (pre-) motor systems (pre-central sulcus, supplementary motor area), thalamus (pulvinar), and cerebellum. Significantly reduced responses were observed bilaterally in the superior parietal lobe (precuneus) and in the right angular gyrus. These positive effects corroborate and extend previous findings from cross-sectional studies. However, effects of literacy were specific to written text and (to a lesser extent) to false fonts. Contrary to previous research, we found no direct evidence of literacy affecting the processing of other types of visual stimuli such as faces, tools, houses, and checkerboards. Furthermore, unlike in some previous studies, we did not find any evidence for effects of literacy on responses in the auditory cortex in our Hindi-speaking participants. We conclude that learning to read has a specific and extensive effect on the processing of written text along the visual pathways, including low-level thalamic nuclei, high-level systems in the intraparietal sulcus and the fusiform gyrus, and motor areas. The absence of an effect of literacy on responses in the auditory cortex in particular raises questions about the extent to which phonological representations in the auditory cortex are altered by literacy acquisition or recruited online during reading. -
de Groot, F., Huettig, F., & Olivers, C. N. (2015). Semantic influences on visual attention. Talk presented at the 15th NVP Winter Conference. Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands. 2015-12-17 - 2015-12-19.
Abstract
To what extent is visual attention driven by the semantics of individual objects, rather than by their visual appearance? To investigate this we continuously measured eye movements, while observers searched through displays of common objects for an aurally instructed target. On crucial trials, the target was absent, but the display contained object s that were either semantically or visually related to the target. We hypothesized that timing is crucial in the occurrence and strength of semantic influences on visual orienting, and therefore presented the target instruction either before, during, or af ter (memory - based search) picture onset. When the target instruction was presented before picture onset we found a substantial, but delayed bias in orienting towards semantically related objects as compared to visually related objects. However, this delay disappeared when the visual information was presented before the target instruction. Furthermore, the temporal dynamics of the semantic bias did not change in the absence of visual competition. These results po int to cascadic but independent influences of semantic and visual representations on attention. In addition. the results of the memory - based search studies suggest that visual and semantic biases only arise when the visual stimuli are present. Although we consistent ly found that people fixate at locat ions previously occupied by the target object (a replication of earlier findings), we did not find such biases for visually or semantically related objects. Overall, our studies show that the question whether visual orienting is driven by semantic c ontent is better rephrased as when visual orienting is driven by semantic content. -
de Groot, F., Huettig, F., & Olivers, C. (2015). When meaning matters: The temporal dynamics of semantic influences on visual attention. Poster presented at the 19th Meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP 2015), Paphos, Cyprus.
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De Groot, F., Huettig, F., & Olivers, C. (2015). When meaning matters: The temporal dynamics of semantic influences on visual attention. Poster presented at the Psychonomic Society's 56th Annual Meeting, Chicago, USA.
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de Groot, F., Huettig, F., & Olivers, C. (2015). When meaning matters: The temporal dynamics of semantic influences on visual attention. Talk presented at the 23rd Annual Workshop on Object Perception, Attention, and Memory. Chigaco, USA. 2015-10-19.
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Hintz, F., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2015). Context-dependent employment of mechanisms in anticipatory language processing. Talk presented at the 15th NVP Winter Conference. Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands. 2015-12-17 - 2015-12-19.
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Hintz, F., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2015). Doing a production task encourages prediction: Evidence from interleaved object naming and sentence reading. Poster presented at the 28th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Los Angeles (CA, USA).
Abstract
Prominent theories of predictive language processing assume that language production processes are used to anticipate upcoming linguistic input during comprehension (Dell & Chang, 2014; Pickering & Garrod, 2013). Here, we explored the converse case: Does a task set including production in addition to comprehension encourage prediction, compared to a task only including comprehension? To test this hypothesis, participants carried out a cross-modal naming task (Exp 1a), a self-paced reading task (Exp1 b) that did not include overt production, and a task (Exp 1c) in which naming and reading trials were evenly interleaved. We used the same predictable (N = 40) and non-predictable (N = 40) sentences in all three tasks. The sentences consisted of a fixed agent, a transitive verb and a predictable or non-predictable target word (The man breaks a glass vs. The man borrows a glass). The mean cloze probability in the predictable sentences was .39 (ranging from .06 to .8; zero in the non-predictable sentences). A total of 162 volunteers took part in the experiment which was run in a between-participants design. In Exp 1a, fifty-four participants listened to recordings of the sentences which ended right before the spoken target word. Coinciding with the end of the playback, a picture of the target word was shown which the participants were asked to name as fast as possible. Analyses of their naming latencies revealed a statistically significant naming advantage of 108 ms on predictable over non-predictable trials. Moreover, we found that the objects’ naming advantage was predicted by the target words’ cloze probability in the sentences (r = .347, p = .038). In Exp 1b, 54 participants were asked to read the same sentences in a self-paced fashion. To allow for testing of potential spillover effects, we added a neutral prepositional phrase (breaks a glass from the collection/borrows a glass from the neighbor) to each sentence. The sentences were read word-by-word, advancing by pushing the space bar. On 30% of the trials, comprehension questions were used to keep up participants' focus on comprehending the sentences. Analyses of their spillover region reading times revealed a numerical advantage (8 ms; tspillover = -1.1, n.s.) in the predictable as compared to the non-predictable condition. Importantly, the analysis of participants' responses to the comprehension questions, showed that they understood the sentences (mean accuracy = 93%). In Exp 1c, the task comprised 50% naming trials and 50% reading trials which appeared in random order. Fifty-four participants named and read the same objects and sentences as in the previous versions. The results showed a naming advantage on predictable over non-predictable items (99 ms) and a positive correlation between the items’ cloze probability and their naming advantage (r = .322, p = .055). Crucially, the post-target reading time analysis showed that with naming trials and reading trials interleaved, there was also a statistically reliable prediction effect on reading trials. Participants were 19 ms faster at reading the spillover region on predictable relative to non-predictable items (tspillover = -2.624). To summarize, although we used the same sentences in all sub-experiments, we observed effects of prediction only when the task set involved production. In the reading only experiment (Exp 1b), no evidence for anticipation was obtained although participants clearly understood the sentences and the same sentences yielded reading facilitation when interleaved with naming trials (Exp 1c). This suggests that predictive language processing can be modulated by the comprehenders’ task set. When the task set involves language production, as is often the case in natural conversation, comprehenders appear to engage in prediction to a stronger degree than in pure comprehension tasks. In our discussion, we will discuss the notion that language production may engage prediction, because being able to predict words another person is about to say might optimize the comprehension process and enable smooth turn-taking. -
Hintz, F., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2015). Event knowledge and word associations jointly influence predictive processing during discourse comprehension. Poster presented at the 28th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Los Angeles (CA, USA).
Abstract
A substantial body of literature has shown that readers and listeners often anticipate information. An open question concerns the mechanisms underlying predictive language processing. Multiple mechanisms have been suggested. One proposal is that comprehenders use event knowledge to predict upcoming words. Other theoretical frameworks propose that predictions are made based on simple word associations. In a recent EEG study, Metusalem and colleagues reported evidence for the modulating influence of event knowledge on prediction. They examined the degree to which event knowledge is activated during sentence comprehension. Their participants read two sentences, establishing an event scenario, which were followed by a final sentence containing one of three target words: a highly expected word, a semantically unexpected word that was related to the described event, or a semantically unexpected and event-unrelated word (see Figure, for an example). Analyses of participants’ ERPs elicited by the target words revealed a three-way split with regard to the amplitude of the N400 elicited by the different types of target: the expected targets elicited the smallest N400, the unexpected and event-unrelated targets elicited the largest N400. Importantly, the amplitude of the N400 elicited by the unexpected but event-related targets was significantly attenuated relative to the amplitude of the N400 elicited by the unexpected and event-unrelated targets. Metusalem et al. concluded that event knowledge is immediately available to constrain on-line language processing. Based on a post-hoc analysis, the authors rejected the possibility that the results could be explained by simple word associations. In the present study, we addressed the role of simple word associations in discourse comprehension more directly. Specifically, we explored the contribution of associative priming to the graded N400 pattern seen in Metusalem et al’s study. We conducted two EEG experiments. In Experiment 1, we reran Metusalem and colleagues’ context manipulation and closely replicated their results. In Experiment 2, we selected two words from the event-establishing sentences which were most strongly associated with the unexpected but event-related targets in the final sentences. Each of the two associates was then placed in a neutral carrier sentence. We controlled that none of the other words in these carrier sentences was associatively related to the target words. Importantly, the two carrier sentences did not build up a coherent event. We recorded EEG while participants read the carrier sentences followed by the same final sentences as in Experiment 1. The results showed that as in Experiment 1 the amplitude of the N400 elicited by both types of unexpected target words was larger than the N400 elicited by the highly expected target. Moreover, we found a global tendency towards the critical difference between event-related and event-unrelated unexpected targets which reached statistical significance only at parietal electrodes over the right hemisphere. Because the difference between event-related and event-unrelated conditions was larger when the sentences formed a coherent event compared to when they did not, our results suggest that associative priming alone cannot account for the N400 pattern observed in our Experiment 1 (and in the study by Metusalem et al.). However, because part of the effect remained, probably due to associative facilitation, the findings demonstrate that during discourse reading both event knowledge activation and simple word associations jointly contribute to the prediction process. The results highlight that multiple mechanisms underlie predictive language processing. -
Huettig, F. (2015). Cause or effect? What commonalities between illiterates and individuals with dyslexia can tell us about dyslexia. Talk presented at the Reading in the Forest workshop. Annweiler, Germany. 2015-10-26 - 2015-10-28.
Abstract
I will discuss recent research with illiterates and individuals with dyslexia which suggests that many cognitive ‚defi ciencies‘ proposed as possible causes of dyslexia are simply a consequence of decreased reading experience. I will argue that in order to make further progress towards an understanding of the causes of dyslexia it is necessary to appropriately distinguish between cause and effect. -
Huettig, F. (2015). Effekte der Literalität auf die Kognition. Talk presented at Die Abschlußtagung des Verbundprojekts Alpha plus Job. Bamberg, Germany. 2015-01.
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Huettig, F., & Guerra, E. (2015). Testing the limits of prediction in language processing: Prediction occurs but far from always. Poster presented at the 21st Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2015), Valetta, Malta.
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Huettig, F. (2015). The effect of learning to read on the neural systems for vision and language: A longitudinal approach with illiterate participants. Talk presented at the Individual differences in language processing across the adult life span workshop. Nijmegen, The Netherlands. 2015-12-10 - 2015-12-11.
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Huettig, F. (2015). The effect of learning to read on the neural systems for vision and language: A longitudinal approach with illiterate participants. Talk presented at the Psychology Department, University of York. York, UK. 2015-11.
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Huettig, F. (2015). The effect of learning to read on the neural systems for vision and language: A longitudinal approach with illiterate participants. Talk presented at the Psychology Department, University of Leeds. Leeds, UK. 2015-11.
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Huettig, F. (2015). The effect of learning to read on the neural systems for vision and language: A longitudinal approach with illiterate participants. Talk presented at the Psychology Department, University of Glasgow. Glasgow, Scotland. 2015-11.
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Huettig, F. (2015). The effect of learning to read on the neural systems for vision and language: A longitudinal approach with illiterate participants. Talk presented at the Psychology Department, University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh, Scotland. 2015-09.
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Huettig, F., Kumar, U., Mishra, R. K., Tripathi, V., Guleria, A., Prakash Singh, J., & Eisner, F. (2015). The effect of learning to read on the neural systems for vision and language: A longitudinal approach with illiterate participants. Talk presented at the 21st Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2015). Valetta, Malta. 2015-09-03 - 2015-09-05.
Abstract
How do human cultural inventions such as reading result in neural re-organization? In this first longitudinal study with young completely illiterate adult participants, we measured brain responses to speech, text, and other categories of visual stimuli with fMRI before and after a group of illiterate participants in India completed a literacy training program in which they learned to read and write Devanagari script. A literate and an illiterate no-training control group were matched to the training group in terms of socioeconomic background and were recruited from the same societal community in two villages of a rural area near Lucknow, India. This design permitted investigating effects of literacy cross-sectionally across groups before training (N=86) as well as longitudinally (training group N=25). The two analysis approaches yielded converging results: Literacy was associated with enhanced, left-lateralized responses to written text along the ventral stream (including lingual gyrus, fusiform gyrus, and parahippocampal gyrus), dorsal stream (intraparietal sulcus), and (pre-) motor systems (pre-central sulcus, supplementary motor area) and thalamus (pulvinar). Significantly reduced responses were observed bilaterally in the superior parietal lobe (precuneus) and in the right angular gyrus. These effects corroborate and extend previous findings from cross-sectional studies. However, effects of literacy were specific to written text and (to a lesser extent) to false fonts. We did not find any evidence for effects of literacy on responses in the auditory cortex in our Hindi-speaking participants. This raises questions about the extent to which phonological representations are altered by literacy acquisition. -
Huettig, F., Kumar, U., Mishra, R. K., Tripathi, V., Guleria, A., Prakash Singh, J., & Eisner, F. (2015). The effect of learning to read on the neural systems for vision and language: A longitudinal approach with illiterate participants. Talk presented at the 19th Meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP 2015). Paphos, Cyprus. 2015-09-17 - 2015-09-20.
Abstract
How do human
cultural
inventions
such as reading
result
in neural
re-organization?
In this first longitudinal
study
with young
completely
illiterate
adult
participants,
we measured
brain
responses
to speech,
text, and other
categories
of visual
stimuli
with fMRI
before
and after a group
of
illiterate
participants
in India
completed
a literacy
training
program
in which
they learned
to read and write
Devanagari
script.
A literate
and an illiterate
no-training
control
group
were
matched
to the
training
group
in terms
of socioeconomic
background
and were
recruited
from
the same
societal
community
in two villages
of a
rural area near Lucknow,
India.
This design
permitted
investigating
effects
of literacy
cross-sectionally
across
groups
before
training
(N=86)
as well as longitudinally
(training
group
N=25).
The two
analysis
approaches
yielded
converging
results:
Literacy
was
associated
with enhanced,
left-lateralized
responses
to written
text
along
the ventral
stream
(including
lingual
gyrus,
fusiform
gyrus,
and parahippocampal
gyrus),
dorsal
stream
(intraparietal
sulcus),
and (pre-)
motor
systems
(pre-central
sulcus,
supplementary
motor
area)
and thalamus
(pulvinar).
Significantly
reduced
responses
were observed
bilaterally
in the superior
parietal
lobe (precuneus)
and in the right angular
gyrus.
These
effects
corroborate
and extend
previous
findings
from
cross-sectional
studies.
However,
effects
of literacy
were
specific
to written
text and (to a lesser
extent)
to
false fonts.
We did not find any evidence
for effects
of literacy
on
responses
in the auditory
cortex
in our Hindi-speaking
participants.
This
raises
questions
about
the extent
to which
phonological
representations are altered by literacy acquisition.
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Mani, N., Daum, M., & Huettig, F. (2015). “Pro-active” in Many Ways: Evidence for Multiple Mechanisms in Prediction. Talk presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD 2015). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. 2015-03-19 - 2015-03-21.
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Ostarek, M., & Huettig, F. (2015). Grounding language in the visual system: Visual noise interferes more with concrete than abstract word processing. Poster presented at the 19th Meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP 2015), Paphos, Cyprus.
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Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2016). The effects of orthographic transparency on the reading system: Insights from a computational model of reading development. Talk presented at the Experimental Psychology Society, London Meeting. London, U.K. 2016-01-06 - 2016-01-08.
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Hintz, F., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2014). Mechanisms underlying predictive language processing. Talk presented at the 56. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen [TeaP, Conference on Experimental Psychology]. Giessen, Germany. 2014-03-31 - 2014-04-02.
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Hintz, F., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2014). Prediction using production or production engaging prediction?. Poster presented at the 20th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLAP 2014), Edinburgh (UK).
Abstract
Prominent theories of predictive language processing assume that language production processes are used to anticipate upcoming linguistic input during comprehension (Dell & Chang, 2014; Pickering & Garrod, 2013). Here, we explore the converse case: Does a task set including production in addition to comprehension encourage prediction, compared to a task only including comprehension? To test this hypothesis, we conducted a cross-modal naming experiment (Experiment 1) including an object naming task and a self-paced reading experiment (Experiment 2) that did not include overt production. We used the same predictable (N = 40) and non-predictable (N = 40) sentences in both experiments. The sentences consisted of a fixed agent, a transitive verb and a predictable or non-predictable target word (The man drinks a beer vs. The man buys a beer). Most of the empirical work on prediction used sentences in which the target words were highly predictable (often with a mean cloze probability > .8) and thus it is little surprising that participants engaged in predictive language processing very easily. In the current sentences, the mean cloze probability in the predictable sentences was .39 (ranging from .06 to .8; zero in the non-predictable sentences). If comprehenders are more likely to engage in predictive processing when the task set involves production, we should observe more pronounced effects of prediction in Experiment 1 as compared to Experiment 2. If production does not enhance prediction, we should observe similar effects of prediction in both experiments. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 54) listened to recordings of the sentences which ended right before the spoken target word. Coinciding with the end of the playback, a picture of the target word was shown which the participants were asked to name as fast as possible. Analyses of their naming latencies revealed a statistically significant naming advantage of 106 ms on predictable over non-predictable trials. Moreover, we found that the objects’ naming advantage was predicted by the target words’ cloze probability in the sentences (r = .411, p = .016). In Experiment 2, the same sentences were used in a self-paced reading experiment. To allow for testing of potential spill-over effects, we added a neutral prepositional phrase (buys a beer from the bar keeper/drinks a beer from the shop) to each sentence. Participants (N = 54) read the sentences word-by-word, advancing by pushing the space bar. On 30% of the trials, comprehension questions were used to keep up participants' focus on comprehending the sentences. Analyses of participants’ target and post-target reading times revealed numerical advantages of 6 ms and 20 ms, respectively, in the predictable as compared to the non-predictable condition. However, in both cases, this difference was not statistically reliable (t = .757, t = 1.43) and the significant positive correlation between an item’s naming advantage and its cloze probability as seen in Experiment 1 was absent (r = .037, p = .822). Importantly, the analysis of participants' responses to the comprehension questions, showed that they understood the sentences (mean accuracy = 93%). To conclude, although both experiments used the same sentences, we observed effects of prediction only when the task included production. In Experiment 2, no evidence for anticipation was found although participants clearly understood the sentences and the method has previously been shown to be sensitive to measure prediction effects (Van Berkum et al., 2005). Our results fit with a recent study by Gollan et al. (2011) who found only a small processing advantage of predictive over non-predictive sentences in reading (using highly predictable sentences with a cloze probability > . 87) but a strong prediction effect when participants read the same sentences and carried out an additional object naming task (see also Griffin & Bock, 1998). Taken together, the studies suggest that the comprehenders' task set exerts a powerful influence on the likelihood and magnitude of predictive language processing. When the task set involves language production, as is often the case in natural conversation, comprehenders might engage in prediction to a stronger degree than in pure comprehension tasks. Being able to predict words another person is about to say might optimize the comprehension process and enable smooth turn-taking. -
Hintz, F., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2014). The influence of verb-specific featural restrictions, word associations, and production-based mechanisms on language-mediated anticipatory eye movements. Talk presented at the 27th annual CUNY conference on human sentence processing. Ohio State University, Columbus/Ohio (US). 2014-03-13 - 2014-03-15.
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Huettig, F., & Guerra, E. (2014). Context-dependent mapping of linguistic and color representations challenges strong forms of embodiment. Talk presented at the 20th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLAP 2014). Edinburgh, UK. 2014-09-03 - 2014-09-06.
Abstract
A central claim of embodied theories of cognition is that sensory representations are
routinely activated and influence language processing even in the absence of relevant
sensory input (cf. Pulvermüller, 2005; Wassenburg & Zwaan, 2010). We tested the influence
of color representations during language processing in three visual world eye tracking
experiments. The method is particularly well suited to investigate this issue because the
availability of relevant visual input can be manipulated.
We made use of the phenomena that when participants hear a word that refers to a
visual object or printed word they quickly direct their eye gaze to objects or printed words
which are similar (e.g. semantically or visually) to the heard word. We used a look and listen
task which previously has been shown to be sensitive to such relationships between spoken
words and visual items. In Experiment 1, on experimental trials, participants listened to
sentences containing a critical target word associated with a prototypical color (e.g.
'...spinach...') as they inspected a visual display with four words printed in black font. One of
the four printed words was associated with the same prototypical color (e.g. green) as the
spoken target word (e.g. FROG). On experimental trials, the spoken target word did not have
a printed word counterpart (SPINACH was not present in the display). In filler trials (70% of
trials) the target was present in the display and attracted significantly more overt attention
than the unrelated distractors. In experimental trials color competitors were not looked at
more than the distractors. In Experiment 2 the printed words were replaced with line
drawings of the objects. In order to direct the attentional focus of our participants toward
color features we used a within-participants counter-balanced design and alternated color
and greyscale trials randomly throughout the experiment. Therefore, on one trial our
participants heard a word such as 'spinach' and saw a frog (colored in green) in the visual
display. On the next trial however they saw a banana (in greyscale) on hearing 'canary'
(bananas and canaries are typically yellow), etc. The presence (or absence) of color was
thus a salient property of the experiment. Participants looked more at color competitors than
unrelated distractors on hearing the target word in the color trials but not in the greyscale
trials, i.e. on hearing 'spinach' they looked at the green frog but not the greyscale frog.
Experiment 3 was identical to Experiment 2, except that the visual display was removed at
the sentence onset, after a longer preview. This experiment examined whether the continued
presence of color in the immediate visual environment was necessary for the observation of
color-mediated eye movements. Eye movements directed towards the now blank screen
were recorded as the sentence unfolded (cf. Spivey & Geng, 2001). In the filler trials,
participants looked significantly more at the locations where the targets, rather than the
distractors, had been previously presented as the target words acoustically unfolded. In the
experimental trials, the locations where the color competitors had previously been presented
did not attract increased attention (neither in color nor greyscale trials).
These data demonstrate that language-mediated eye movements are only influenced
by color relations between spoken words and visually displayed items if color is present in the immediate visual environment. We conclude that color representations are unlikely to be
routinely activated in language processing. Our findings provide strong constraints for
embodied theories of cognition which assume that sensory representations influence language processing even in the absence of relevant sensory input. These results fit best with the notion that the main role of sensory representations in language processing is a different one, namely to contextualize language in the immediate environment, connecting language to the here and now. -
Huettig, F. (2015). Does prediction in language comprehension involve language production?. Talk presented at the Comprehension=Production? workshop. Nijmegen, the Netherlands. 2015-03-26 - 2015-03-28.
Abstract
The notion that predicting upcoming linguistic information in language comprehension makes use of the production system has recently received much attention (e.g., Chang et al., 2006; Dell & Chang, 2014; Federmeier, 2007; Pickering & Garrod, 2007, 2013; Van Berkum et al., 2005). So far there has been little experimental evidence for a relation between prediction and production. I will discuss the results of several recent eye-tracking experiments with toddlers (Mani & Huettig, 2012) and adults (Rommers et al. submitted, Hintz et al., in prep.) which provide some support for the view that production abilities are linked to language-mediated anticipatory eye movements. These data however also indicate that production-based prediction is situation-dependent and only one of many mechanisms supporting prediction. Taken together, these results suggest that multiple-mechanism accounts are required to provide a complete picture of anticipatory language processing. -
Huettig, F. (2014). How embodied is language processing?. Talk presented at the 2nd Attentive Listener in the Visual World workshop. Hyderabad, India. 2014-11-03 - 2014-11-05.
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Huettig, F. (2014). How literacy acquisition affects the illiterate mind. Talk presented at the Low Educated Second Language and Literacy Acquisition (LESLLA). Nijmegen, Netherlands. 2014-08-28 - 2014-08-30.
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Huettig, F. (2014). Literacy influences on predictive language processing and visual search. Talk presented at the Priming across Modalities: The Influence of Orthography on Sign and Spoken Language Processing workshop. Haifa, Israel. 2014-04.
-
Huettig, F. (2014). The context-dependent influence of colour representations during language-vision interactions constrains theories of conceptual processing. Talk presented at the Color in Concepts workshop. Düsseldorf, Germany. 2014-06-02 - 2014-06-03.
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Rommers, J., & Huettig, F. (2014). Limits to cross-modal semantic and object shape priming in sentence context. Poster presented at the Society for the Neurobiology of Language [SNL 2014], Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
-
Rommers, J., & Huettig, F. (2014). Limits to cross-modal semantic and object shape priming in sentence context. Poster presented at the 20th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLAP 2014), Edinburgh, UK.
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Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2014). A comprehensive model of spoken word recognition must be multimodal: Evidence from studies of language mediated visual attention. Talk presented at the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society [CogSci 2014]. Quebec, Canada. 2014-07-23 - 2014-07-26.
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Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2014). Examining strains and symptoms of the ‘Literacy Virus’: The effects of orthographic transparency on phonological processing in a connectionist model of reading. Talk presented at the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society [CogSci 2014]. Quebec, Canada. 2014-07-23 - 2014-07-26.
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Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2014). Examining the effects of orthographic transparency on phonological and semantic processing within a connectionist implementation of the triangle model of reading. Talk presented at the 14th Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop [NCPW 14]. Lancaster, U.K. 2014-08-21 - 2014-08-23.
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Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2014). Strains and symptoms of the ‘literacy virus’: Modelling the effects of orthographic transparency on phonological processing. Poster presented at the 20th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLAP 2014), Edinburgh, UK.
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Huettig, F. (2013). Anticipatory eye movements and predictive language processing. Talk presented at the ZiF research group on "Competition and Priority Control in Mind and Brain. Bielefeld, Germany. 2013-07.
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Huettig, F., Mani, N., Mishra, R. K., & Brouwer, S. (2013). Literacy as a proxy for experience: Reading ability predicts anticipatory language processing in children, low literate adults, and adults with dyslexia. Poster presented at The 19th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2013), Marseille, France.
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Huettig, F., Mishra, R. K., Kumar, U., Singh, J. P., Guleria, A., & Tripathi, V. (2013). Phonemic and syllabic awareness of adult literates and illiterates in an Indian alphasyllabic language. Talk presented at the Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen [TeaP 2013]. Vienna, Austria. 2013-03-24 - 2013-03-27.
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Huettig, F., Mani, N., Mishra, R. K., & Brouwer, S. (2013). Reading ability predicts anticipatory language processing in children, low literate adults, and adults with dyslexia. Talk presented at the 11th International Symposium of Psycholinguistics. Tenerife, Spain. 2013-03-20 - 2013-03-23.
Abstract
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Huettig, F., Mani, N., Mishra, R. K., & Brouwer, S. (2013). Reading ability predicts anticipatory language processing in children, low literate adults, and adults with dyslexia. Talk presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society. Toronto, Canada. 2013-11-14 - 2013-11-17.
Abstract
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Janse, E., Huettig, F., & Jesse, A. (2013). Working memory modulates the immediate use of context for recognizing words in sentences. Talk presented at the 5th Workshop on Speech in Noise: Intelligibility and Quality. Vitoria, Spain. 2013-01-10 - 2013-01-11.
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Lai, V. T., & Huettig, F. (2013). When anticipation meets emotion: EEG evidence for distinct processing mechanisms. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, San Diego, US.
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Lai, V. T., & Huettig, F. (2013). When anticipation meets emotion: EEG evidence for distinct processing mechanisms. Poster presented at The 19th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2013), Marseille, France.
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Mani, N., & Huettig, F. (2013). Reading ability predicts anticipatory language processing in 8 year olds. Talk presented at the Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen [TeaP 2013]. Vienna, Austria. 2013-03-24 - 2013-03-27.
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Rommers, J., Meyer, A. S., Piai, V., & Huettig, F. (2013). Constraining the involvement of language production in comprehension: A comparison of object naming and object viewing in sentence context. Talk presented at the 19th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing [AMLaP 2013]. Marseille, France. 2013-09-02 - 2013-09-04.
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Rommers, J., Meyer, A. S., Praamstra, P., & Huettig, F. (2013). Anticipating references to objects during sentence comprehension. Talk presented at the Experimental Psychology Society meeting (EPS). Bangor, UK. 2013-07-03 - 2013-07-05.
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Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2013). Both phonological grain-size and general processing speed determine literacy related differences in language mediated eye gaze: Evidence from a connectionist model. Poster presented at The 18th Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology [ESCOP 2013], Budapest, Hungary.
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Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2013). Modelling the effect of literacy on multimodal interactions during spoken language processing in the visual world. Talk presented at Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen. [TEAP 2013]. Vienna, Austria. 2013-03-24 - 2013-03-27.
Abstract
Recent empirical evidence suggests that language-mediated eye gaze around the visual world varies across individuals and is partly determined by their level of formal literacy training. Huettig, Singh & Mishra (2011) showed that unlike high-literate individuals, whose eye gaze was closely time locked to phonological overlap between a spoken target word and items presented in a visual display, low-literate individuals eye gaze was not tightly locked to phonological overlap in the speech signal but instead strongly influenced by semantic relationships between items. Our present study tests the hypothesis that this behaviour is an emergent property of an increased ability to extract phonological structure from the speech signal, as in the case of high-literates, with low-literates more reliant on syllabic structure. This hypothesis was tested using an emergent connectionist model, based on the Hub-and-spoke models of semantic processing (Dilkina et al, 2008), that integrates linguistic information extracted from the speech signal with visual and semantic information within a central resource. We demonstrate that contrasts in fixation behaviour similar to those observed between high and low literates emerge when the model is trained on either a speech signal segmented by phoneme (i.e. high-literates) or by syllable (i.e. low-literates). -
Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2013). Phonological grain size and general processing speed modulates language mediated visual attention – Evidence from a connectionist model. Talk presented at The 19th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing [AMLaP 2013]. Marseille, France. 2013-09-02 - 2013-09-04.
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Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2013). Putting rhyme in context: Visual and semantic competition eliminates phonological rhyme effects in language-mediated eye gaze. Talk presented at The 18th Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology [ESCOP 2013]. Budapest, Hungary. 2013-08-29 - 2013-09-01.
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Smith, A. C., Monaghan, P., & Huettig, F. (2013). Semantic and visual competition eliminates the influence of rhyme overlap in spoken language processing. Poster presented at The 19th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing [AMLaP 2013], Marseille, France.
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De Groot, F., Huettig, F., & Olivers, C. N. L. (2012). Attentional capture by working memory content: When do words guide attention?. Poster presented at the 3rd Symposium on “Visual Search and Selective Attention” (VSSA III), Munich, Germany.
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Hintz, F., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2012). Looking at nothing facilitates memory retrieval. Poster presented at Donders Discussions 2012, Nijmegen (NL).
Abstract
When processing visual objects, we integrate visual, linguistic and spatial information to form an episodic trace. Re-activating one aspect of the episodic trace of an object re-activates the entire bundle making all integrated information available. Using the blank screen paradigm [1], researchers observed that upon processing spoken linguistic input, participants tended to make eye movements on a blank screen, fixating locations that were previously occupied by objects mentioned in the linguistic utterance or were related. Ferreira and colleagues [2] suggested that 'looking at nothing' facilitated memory retrieval. However, this claim lacks convincing empirical support. In Experiment 1, Dutch participants looked at four-object-displays. Three objects were related to a spoken target word. Given the target word 'beker' (beaker), the display featured a phonological (a bear), a shape (a bobbin), a semantic (a fork) competitor, and an unrelated distractor (an umbrella). Participants were asked to name the objects as fast as possible. Subsequently, the objects disappeared. Participants fixated the center of the screen and listened to the target word. They had to carry out a semantic judgment task (indicating in which position an object had appeared that was semantically related to the objects) or a visual shape similarity judgment (indicating the position of the object similar in shape to the target). In both conditions, we observed that participants re-fixated the empty target location before responding. The set-up of Experiment 2 was identical except that we asked participants to maintain fixating the center of the screen while listening to the spoken word and responding. Performance accuracy was significantly lower in Experiment 2 than in Experiment 1. The results indicate that memory retrieval for objects is impaired when participants are not allowed to look at relevant, though empty locations. [1] Altmann, G. (2004). Language-mediated eye movements in the absence of a visual world: the 'blank screen paradigm'. Cognition, 93(2), B79-B87. [2] Ferreira, F., Apel, J., & Henderson, J. M. (2008). Taking a new look at looking at nothing. Trends Cogn Sci, 12(11), 405-410. -
Hintz, F., & Huettig, F. (2012). Phonological word-object mapping is contingent upon the nature of the visual environment. Poster presented at the 18th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2012), Riva del Garda, Italy.
Abstract
Four eye-tracking experiments investigated the impact of the nature of the visual environment on the likelihood of word-object mapping taking place at a phonological level of representation during languagemediated visual search. Dutch participants heard single spoken target words while looking at four objects embedded in displays of different complexity and were asked to indicate the presence or absence of the target object. During filler trials the target objects were present, but during experimental trials they were absent and the display contained various competitor objects. For example, given the target word 'beaker', the display contained a phonological (a beaver, bever), a shape (a bobbin, klos), a semantic (a fork, vork) competitor, and an unrelated distractor (an umbrella, paraplu). When objects were embedded in semi-realistic scenes including four human-like characters (Experiment 1, 3, and 4a), there were no biases in looks to phonological competitors even when the objects' contours were highlighted (Experiment 3) and an object naming task was administered right before the eye-tracking experiment (Experiment 4a). In all three experiments however we observed evidence for inhibition in looks to phonological competitors, which suggests that the phonological forms of the objects had been retrieved. When objects were presented in simple four-object displays (Experiments 2 and 4b) there were clear attentional biases to phonological competitors replicating earlier research (Huettig & McQueen, 2007). These findings suggest that phonological word-object mapping is contingent upon the nature of the visual environment and add to a growing body of evidence that the nature of our visual surroundings induces particular modes of processing during language-mediated visual search. References Huettig, F., & McQueen, J. M. (2007). The tug of war between phonological, semantic and shape information in language-mediated visual search. Journal of Memory and Language, 57(4), 460-482. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2007.02.001 -
Hintz, F., & Huettig, F. (2012). Phonological word-object mapping is contingent upon the nature of the visual environment. Talk presented at Psycholinguistics in Flanders goes Dutch [PiF 2012]. Berg en Dal (NL). 2012-06-06 - 2012-06-07.
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Huettig, F., & Janse, E. (2012). Anticipatory eye movements are modulated by working memory capacity: Evidence from older adults. Poster presented at the 18th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2012), Riva del Garda, Italy.
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Huettig, F., Singh, N., Singh, S., & Mishra, R. K. (2012). Language-mediated prediction is related to reading ability and formal literacy. Talk presented at the Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen [TeaP 2012]. Mannheim, Germany. 2012-04-04 - 2012-04-06.
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Huettig, F. (2012). Literacy modulates language-mediated visual attention and prediction. Talk presented at the Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC). Bielefeld, Germany. 2012-01-12.
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