Falk Huettig

Presentations

Displaying 1 - 35 of 35
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Ostarek, M., & Huettig, F. (2017). Grounding language in vision [Invited talk]. Talk presented at the University of California Davis. Davis, CA, USA.
  • 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. Talk presented at the 23rd Annual Workshop on Object Perception, Attention, and Memory. Chigaco, USA. 2015-10-19.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Huettig, F., & McQueen, J. M. (2009). AM radio noise changes the dynamics of spoken word recognition. Talk presented at 15th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2009). Barcelona, Spain. 2009-09-09.

    Abstract

    Language processing does not take place in isolation from the sensory environment. Listeners are able to recognise spoken words in many different situations, ranging from carefully articulated and noise-free laboratory speech, through casual conversational speech in a quiet room, to degraded conversational speech in a busy train-station. For listeners to be able to recognize speech optimally in each of these listening situations, they must be able to adapt to the constraints of each situation. We investigated this flexibility by comparing the dynamics of the spoken-word recognition process in clear speech and speech disrupted by radio noise. In Experiment 1, Dutch participants listened to clearly articulated spoken Dutch sentences which each included a critical word while their eye movements to four visual objects presented on a computer screen were measured. There were two critical conditions. In the first, the objects included a cohort competitor (e.g., parachute, “parachute”) with the same onset as the critical spoken word (e.g., paraplu, “umbrella”) and three unrelated distractors. In the second condition, a rhyme competitor (e.g., hamer, “hammer”) of the critical word (e.g., kamer, “room”) was present in the display, again with three distractors. To maximize competitor effects pictures of the critical words themselves were not present in the displays on the experimental trials (e.g.,there was no umbrella in the display with the 'paraplu' sentence) and a passive listening task was used (Huettig McQueen, 2007). Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1 except that phonemes in the spoken sentences were replaced with radio-signal noises (as in AM radio listening conditions). In each sentence, two,three or four phonemes were replaced with noises. The sentential position of these replacements was unpredictable, but the adjustments were always made to onset phonemes. The critical words (and the immediately surrounding words) were not changed. The question was whether listeners could learn that, under these circumstances, onset information is less reliable. We predicted that participants would look less at the cohort competitors (the initial match to the competitor is less good) and more at the rhyme competitors (the initial mismatch is less bad). We observed a significant experiment by competitor type interaction. In Experiment 1 participants fixated both kinds competitors more than unrelated distractors, but there were more and earlier looks to cohort competitors than to rhyme competitors (Allopenna et al., 1998). In Experiment 2 participants still fixated cohort competitors more than rhyme competitors but the early cohort effect was reduced and the rhyme effect was stronger and occurred earlier. These results suggest that AM radio noise changes the dynamics of spoken word recognition. The well-attested finding of stronger reliance on word onset overlap in speech recognition appears to be due in part to the use of clear speech in most experiments. When onset information becomes less reliable, listeners appear to depend on it less. A core feature of the speech-recognition system thus appears to be its flexibility. Listeners are able to adjust the perceptual weight they assign to different parts of incoming spoken language.
  • Huettig, F. (2009). Language-mediated visual search. Talk presented at Invited talk at VU Amsterdam. Amsterdam.
  • Huettig, F. (2009). On the use of distributional models of semantic space to investigate human cognition. Talk presented at Distributional Semantics beyond Concrete Concepts (Workshop at Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2009). Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 2009-07-29 - 2009-01-08.
  • Huettig, F. (2009). The role of colour during language-vision interactions. Talk presented at International Conference on Language-Cognition Interface 2009. Allahabad, India. 2009-12-06 - 2009-12-09.

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