Publications

Abstract

Where native speakers supposedly are fluent by default, non-native speakers often have to strive hard to achieve a native-like fluency level. However, disfluencies (such as pauses, fillers, repairs, etc.) occur in both native and non-native speech and it is as yet unclear ow luency raters weigh the fluency characteristics of native and non-native speech. Two rating experiments compared the way raters assess the luency of native and non-native speech. The fluency characteristics of native and non- native speech were controlled by using phonetic anipulations in pause (Experiment 1) and speed characteristics (Experiment 2). The results show that the ratings on manipulated native and on-native speech were affected in a similar fashion. This suggests that there is no difference in the way listeners weigh the fluency haracteristics of native and non-native speakers.

Abstract

Relational grammar was proposed in Suppes (1976) as a semantical grammar for natural language. Fragments considered so far are restricted to distributive notions. In this article, relational grammar is extended to collective notions.

Abstract

In recent theorizing about language acquisition, children have often been credited with innate knowledge of rules that link thematic roles such as agent and patient to syntactic functions such as subject and direct object. These rules form the basis for the hypothesis that phrase-structure rules are established through 'semantic bootstrapping', and they are also invoked to explain the acquisition of verb subcategorization frames (for example, Pinker 1984). This study examines two versions of the hypothesis that linking rules are innate, pitting them against the alternative hypothesis that linking patterns are learned (as proposed, for example, by Foley and Van Valin 1984). The first version specifies linking rules through paired thematicsyntactic role hierarchies, and the second characterizes them as a function of verb semantic structure. When predictions of the two approaches are drawn out and tested against longitudinal spontaneous speech data from two children learning English, no support is found for the hypothesis that knowledge of linking is innate; ironically, in fact, the children had more trouble with verbs that should be easy to link than with those that should be more difficult. In contrast, the hypothesis that linking rules are learned is supported: at a relatively advanced age, the children began to produce errors that are best interpreted as overregularizations of a statistically predominant linking pattern to which they had become sensitive through linguistic experience.

Abstract

This thematic issue contains 11 papers first presented at a conference on The Structure of the Simple Clause in Language Acquisition', held at the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen from November 9-13, 1987. The issue concentrates on first-language acquisition. Papers on developmental dysphasia. creolization, and adult language acquisition were also presented at the conference and are being published elsewhere.

Abstract

This study reports three experiments on how children learning Mandarin Chinese comprehend and use aspect markers. These experiments examine the role of lexical aspect in children's acquisition of grammatical aspect. Results provide converging evidence for children's early sensitivity to (1) the association between atelic verbs and the imperfective aspect markers zai, -zhe, and -ne, and (2) the association between telic verbs and the perfective aspect marker -le. Children did not show a sensitivity in their use or understanding of aspect markers to the difference between stative and activity verbs or between semelfactive and activity verbs. These results are consistent with Slobin's (1985) basic child grammar hypothesis that the contrast between process and result is important in children's early acquisition of temporal morphology. In contrast, they are inconsistent with Bickerton's (1981, 1984) language bioprogram hypothesis that the distinctions between state and process and between punctual and nonpunctual are preprogrammed into language learners. We suggest new ways of looking at the results in the light of recent probabilistic hypotheses that emphasize the role of input, prototypes and connectionist representations.

Abstract

In this study, we systematically review the scientific literature on the effect of color on object recognition. Thirty-five independent experiments, comprising 1535 participants, were included in a meta-analysis. We found a moderate effect of color on object recognition (d = 0.28). Specific effects of moderator variables were analyzed and we found that color diagnosticity is the factor with the greatest moderator effect on the influence of color in object recognition; studies using color diagnostic objects showed a significant color effect (d = 0.43), whereas a marginal color effect was found in studies that used non-color diagnostic objects (d = 0.18). The present study did not permit the drawing of specific conclusions about the moderator effect of the object recognition task; while the meta-analytic review showed that color information improves object recognition mainly in studies using naming tasks (d = 0.36), the literature review revealed a large body of evidence showing positive effects of color information on object recognition in studies using a large variety of visual recognition tasks. We also found that color is important for the ability to recognize artifacts and natural objects, to recognize objects presented as types (line-drawings) or as tokens (photographs), and to recognize objects that are presented without surface details, such as texture or shadow. Taken together, the results of the meta-analysis strongly support the contention that color plays a role in object recognition. This suggests that the role of color should be taken into account in models of visual object recognition.

Abstract

In the present study, the authors explore in detail the level of visual object recognition at which perceptual color information improves the recognition of color diagnostic and noncolor diagnostic objects. To address this issue, 3 object recognition tasks, with different cognitive demands, were designed: (a) an object verification task; (b) a category verification task; and (c) a name verification task. They found that perceptual color information improved color diagnostic object recognition mainly in tasks for which access to the semantic knowledge about the object was necessary to perform the task; that is, in category and name verification. In contrast, the authors found that perceptual color information facilitates noncolor diagnostic object recognition when access to the object’s structural description from long-term memory was necessary—that is, object verification. In summary, the present study shows that the role of perceptual color information in object recognition is dependent on color diagnosticity

Abstract

A study was conducted to test the effect of two different forms of real-time visual feedback on expressive percussion performance. Conservatory percussion students performed imitations of recorded teacher performances while receiving either high-level feedback on the expressive style of their performances, low-level feedback on the timing and dynamics of the performed notes, or no feedback. The high-level feedback was based on a Bayesian analysis of the performances, while the low-level feedback was based on the raw participant timing and dynamics data. Results indicated that neither form of feedback led to significantly smaller timing and dynamics errors. However, high-level feedback did lead to a higher proficiency in imitating the expressive style of the target performances, as indicated by a probabilistic measure of expressive style. We conclude that, while potentially disruptive to timing processes involved in music performance due to extraneous cognitive load, high-level visual feedback can improve participant imitations of expressive performance features.

Abstract

It has been fifty years since Levelt’s monograph On Binocular Rivalry (1965) was published, but its four propositions that describe the relation between stimulus strength and the phenomenology of binocular rivalry remain a benchmark for theorists and experimentalists even today. In this review, we will revisit the original conception of the four propositions and the scientific landscape in which this happened. We will also provide a brief update concerning distributions of dominance durations, another aspect of Levelt’s monograph that has maintained a prominent presence in the field. In a critical evaluation of Levelt’s propositions against current knowledge of binocular rivalry we will then demonstrate that the original propositions are not completely compatible with what is known today, but that they can, in a straightforward way, be modified to encapsulate the progress that has been made over the past fifty years. The resulting modified, propositions are shown to apply to a broad range of bistable perceptual phenomena, not just binocular rivalry, and they allow important inferences about the underlying neural systems. We argue that these inferences reflect canonical neural properties that play a role in visual perception in general, and we discuss ways in which future research can build on the work reviewed here to attain a better understanding of these properties

Abstract

It is acknowledged that contrast plays an important role in understanding discourse and information structure. While it is commonly assumed that contrast can be marked by intonation only, our understanding of the intonational realization of contrast is limited. For German there is mainly introspective evidence that the rising theme accent (or topic accent) is realized differently when signaling contrast than when not. In this article, the acoustic basis for the reported impressionistic differences is investigated in terms of the scaling (height) and alignment (positioning) of tonal targets.

Subjects read target sentences in a contrastive and a noncontrastive context (Experiment 1). Prosodic annotation revealed that thematic accents were not realized with different accent types in the two contexts but acoustic comparison showed that themes in contrastive context exhibited a higher and later peak. The alignment and scaling of accents can hence be controlled in a linguistically meaningful way, which has implications for intonational phonology. In Experiment 2, nonlinguists' perception of a subset of the production data was assessed. They had to choose whether, in a contrastive context, the presumed contrastive or noncontrastive realization of a sentence was more appropriate. For some sentence pairs only, subjects had a clear preference. For Experiment 3, a group of linguists annotated the thematic accents of the contrastive and noncontrastive versions of the same data as used in Experiment 2. There was considerable disagreement in labels, but different accent types were consistently used when the two versions differed strongly in F0 excursion. Although themes in contrastive contexts were clearly produced differently than themes in noncontrastive contexts, this difference is not easily perceived or annotated.

Abstract

This study investigates whether listeners' familiarity with an intonation contour affects speech processing. In three experiments, Dutch participants heard Dutch sentences with normal intonation contours and with unfamiliar ones and performed word-monitoring, lexical decision, or semantic categorisation tasks (the latter two with cross-modal identity priming). The unfamiliar intonation contour slowed down participants on all tasks, which demonstrates that an unfamiliar intonation contour has a robust detrimental effect on speech processing. Since cross-modal identity priming with a lexical decision task taps into lexical access, this effect obtained in this task suggests that an unfamiliar intonation contour hinders lexical access. Furthermore, results from the semantic categorisation task show that the effect of an uncommon intonation contour is long-lasting and hinders subsequent processing. Hence, intonation not only contributes to utterance meaning (emotion, sentence type, and focus), but also affects crucial aspects of the speech comprehension process and is more important than previously thought.

Abstract

Although the pitch of the human voice is continuously variable, some linguists contend that intonation in speech is restricted to a small, limited set of patterns. This claim is tested by asking subjects to mimic a block of 100 randomly generated intonation contours and then to imitate themselves in several successive sessions. The produced f0 contours gradually converge towards a limited set of distinct, previously recognized basic English intonation patterns. These patterns are "attractors" in the space of possible intonation English contours. The convergence does not occur immediately. Seven of the ten participants show continued convergence toward their attractors after the first iteration. Subjects retain and use information beyond phonological contrasts, suggesting that intonational phonology is not a complete description of their mental representation of intonation.

Abstract

Despite their relatedness, Dutch and German differ in the interpretation of a particular intonation contour, the hat pattern. In the literature, this contour has been described as neutral for Dutch, and as contrastive for German. A recent study supports the idea that Dutch listeners interpret this contour neutrally, compared to the contrastive interpretation of a lexically identical utterance realised with a double peak pattern. In particular, this study showed shorter lexical decision latencies to visual targets (e.g., PELIKAAN, “pelican”) following a contrastively related prime (e.g., flamingo, “flamingo”) only when the primes were embedded in sentences with a contrastive double peak contour, not in sentences with a neutral hat pattern. The present study replicates Experiment 1a of Braun and Tagliapietra (2009) with German learners of Dutch. Highly proficient learners of Dutch differed from Dutch natives in that they showed reliable priming effects for both intonation contours. Thus, the interpretation of intonational meaning in L2 appears to be fast, automatic, and driven by the associations learned in the native language.

Abstract

This paper investigated how foreign-accented stress cues affect on-line speech comprehension in British speakers of English. While unstressed English vowels are usually reduced to /@/, Dutch speakers of English only slightly centralize them. Speakers of both languages differentiate stress by suprasegmentals (duration and intensity). In a cross-modal priming experiment, English listeners heard sentences ending in monosyllabic prime fragments—produced by either an English or a Dutch speaker of English—and performed lexical decisions on visual targets. Primes were either stress-matching (“ab” excised from absurd), stress-mismatching (“ab” from absence), or unrelated (“pro” from profound) with respect to the target (e.g., ABSURD). Results showed a priming effect for stress-matching primes only when produced by the English speaker, suggesting that vowel quality is a more important cue to word stress than suprasegmental information. Furthermore, for visual targets with word-initial secondary stress that do not require vowel reduction (e.g., CAMPAIGN), resembling the Dutch way of realizing stress, there was a priming effect for both speakers. Hence, our data suggest that Dutch-accented English is not harder to understand in general, but it is in instances where the language-specific implementation of lexical stress differs across languages.

Abstract

The IMDI Framework offers next to a suitable set of metadata descriptors for language resources, a set of tools and an infrastructure to use these. This paper gives an overview of all these aspects and at the end describes the intentions and hopes for ensuring the interoperability of the IMDI framework within more general ones in development. An evaluation of the current state of the IMDI Framework is presented with an analysis of the benefits and more problematic issues. Finally we describe work on issues of long-term stability for IMDI by linking up to the work done within the ISO TC37/SC4 subcommittee (TC37/SC4).

Abstract

Automated processing of large amounts of scientific data, especially across domains, requires that the data can be selected and parsed without human intervention. Precise characterization of that data, as in typing, is needed once the processing goes beyond the realm of domain specific or local research group assumptions. The Research Data Alliance (RDA) Data Type Registries Working Group (DTR-WG) was assembled to address this issue through the creation of a Data Type Registry methodology, data model, and prototype. The WG was approved by the RDA Council during March of 2013 and will complete its work in mid-2014, in between the third and fourth RDA Plenaries.

Abstract

Introduction Increasingly often research in the humanities is based on data. This change in attitude and research practice is driven to a large extent by the availability of small and cheap yet high-quality recording equipment (video cameras, audio recorders) as well as advances in information technology (faster networks, larger data storage, larger computation power, suitable software). In some institutes such as the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, already in the 90s a clear trend towards an all-digital domain could be identified, making use of state-of-the-art technology for research purposes. This change of habits was one of the reasons for the Volkswagen Foundation to establish the DoBeS program in 2000 with a clear focus on language documentation based on recordings as primary material.

Abstract

In this article the triggering hypothesis for codeswitching proposed by Michael Clyne is discussed and tested. According to this hypothesis, cognates can facilitate codeswitching of directly preceding or following words. It is argued that the triggering hypothesis in its original form is incompatible with language production models, as it assumes that language choice takes place at the surface structure of utterances, while in bilingual production models language choice takes place along with lemma selection. An adjusted version of the triggering hypothesis is proposed in which triggering takes place during lemma selection and the scope of triggering is extended to basic units in language production. Data from a Dutch–Moroccan Arabic corpus are used for a statistical test of the original and the adjusted triggering theory. The codeswitching patterns found in the data support part of the original triggering hypothesis, but they are best explained by the adjusted triggering theory.

Abstract

Spoken-word recognition in a nonnative language is particularly difficult where it depends on discrimination between confusable phonemes. Four experiments here examine whether this difficulty is in part due to phantom competition from “near-words” in speech. Dutch listeners confuse English /aelig/ and /ε/, which could lead to the sequence daf being interpreted as deaf, or lemp being interpreted as lamp. In auditory lexical decision, Dutch listeners indeed accepted such near-words as real English words more often than English listeners did. In cross-modal priming, near-words extracted from word or phrase contexts (daf from DAFfodil, lemp from eviL EMPire) induced activation of corresponding real words (deaf; lamp) for Dutch, but again not for English, listeners. Finally, by the end of untruncated carrier words containing embedded words or near-words (definite; daffodil) no activation of the real embedded forms (deaf in definite) remained for English or Dutch listeners, but activation of embedded near-words (deaf in daffodil) did still remain, for Dutch listeners only. Misinterpretation of the initial vowel here favoured the phantom competitor and disfavoured the carrier (lexically represented as containing a different vowel). Thus, near-words compete for recognition and continue competing for longer than actually embedded words; nonnative listening indeed involves phantom competition.

Abstract

This paper presents experimental evidence that cognates can trigger codeswitching. In two picture naming experiments, Dutch-English bilinguals switched between Dutch and English. Crucial words followed either a cognate or a non-cognate. In Experiment 1, response language was indicated by a color cue, and crucial trials always required a switch. Crucial trials had shorter reaction times after a cognate than after a non-cognate. In Experiment 2, response language was not cued and participants switched freely between the languages. Words after cognates were switched more often than words after non-cognates, for switching from L1 to L2 only. Both experiments thus showed that cognates facilitated language switching of the following word. The results extend evidence for triggered codeswitching from natural speech analyses.

Abstract

This study examined the influence of background language variation on speech recognition. English listeners performed an English sentence recognition task in either “pure” background conditions in which all trials had either English or Dutch background babble or in mixed background conditions in which the background language varied across trials (i.e., a mix of English and Dutch or one of these background languages mixed with quiet trials). This design allowed the authors to compare performance on identical trials across pure and mixed conditions. The data reveal that speech-in-speech recognition is sensitive to contextual variation in terms of the target-background language (mis)match depending on the relative ease/difficulty of the test trials in relation to the surrounding trials.

Abstract

This study examined the temporal dynamics of spoken word recognition in noise and background speech. In two visual-world experiments, English participants listened to target words while looking at four pictures on the screen: a target (e.g. candle), an onset competitor (e.g. candy), a rhyme competitor (e.g. sandal), and an unrelated distractor (e.g. lemon). Target words were presented in quiet, mixed with broadband noise, or mixed with background speech. Results showed that lexical competition changes throughout the observation window as a function of what is presented in the background. These findings suggest that, rather than being strictly sequential, stream segregation and lexical competition interact during spoken word recognition

Abstract

Typological differences in expressions of motion are argued to have consequences for event conceptualization. In SLA, studies generally find transfer of L1 expressions and accompanying event construals, suggesting resistance to the restructuring of event conceptualization. The current study tackles such restructuring in SLA within the context of bidirectional cross-linguistic influence, focusing on expressions of Path in English and Japanese. We probe the effects of lexicalization patterns on event construal by focusing on different Path components: Source, Via and Goal. Crucially, we compare the same speakers performing both in the L1 and L2 to ascertain whether the languages influence each other. We argue for the potential for restructuring, even at modest levels of L2 proficiency, by showing that not only do L1 patterns shape construal in the L2, but that L2 patterns may subtly and simultaneously broaden construal in the L1 within an individual learner.

Abstract

A major finding in studies of early vocabulary acquisition has been that children tend to learn a lot of nouns early but make do with relatively few verbs, among which semantically general-purpose verbs like do, make, get, have, give, come, go, and be play a prominent role. The preponderance of nouns is explained in terms of nouns labelling concrete objects beings “easier” to learn than verbs, which label relational categories. Nouns label “natural categories” observable in the world, verbs label more linguistically and culturally specific categories of events linking objects belonging to such natural categories (Gentner 1978, 1982; Clark 1993). This view has been challenged recently by data from children learning certain non-Indo-European languges like Korean, where children have an early verb explosion and verbs dominate in early child utterances. Children learning the Mayan language Tzeltal also acquire verbs early, prior to any noun explosion as measured by production. Verb types are roughly equivalent to noun types in children’s beginning production vocabulary and soon outnumber them. At the one-word stage children’s verbs mostly have the form of a root stripped of affixes, correctly segmented despite structural difficulties. Quite early (before the MLU 2.0 point) there is evidence of productivity of some grammatical markers (although they are not always present): the person-marking affixes cross-referencing core arguments, and the completive/incompletive aspectual distinctions. The Tzeltal facts argue against a natural-categories explanation for childre’s early vocabulary, in favor of a view emphasizing the early effects of language-specific properties of the input. They suggest that when and how a child acquires a “verb” category is centrally influenced by the structural properties of the input, and that the semantic structure of the language - where the referential load is concentrated - plays a fundamental role in addition to distributional facts.

Abstract

When Tzeltal children in the Mayan community of Tenejapa, in southern Mexico, begin speaking, their production vocabulary consists predominantly of verb roots, in contrast to the dominance of nouns in the initial vocabulary of first‐language learners of Indo‐European languages. This article proposes that a particular Tzeltal conversational feature—known in the Mayanist literature as "dialogic repetition"—provides a context that facilitates the early analysis and use of verbs. Although Tzeltal babies are not treated by adults as genuine interlocutors worthy of sustained interaction, dialogic repetition in the speech the children are exposed to may have an important role in revealing to them the structural properties of the language, as well as in socializing the collaborative style of verbal interaction adults favor in this community.

Abstract

The surge of research activity focussing on children's acquisition of verbs (e.g., Tomasello and Merriman 1996) addresses some fundamental questions: Just how variable across languages, and across individual children, is the process of verb learning? How specific are arguments to particular verbs in early child language? How does the grammatical category 'Verb' develop? The position of Universal Grammar, that a verb category is early, contrasts with that of Tomasello (1992), Pine and Lieven and their colleagues (1996, in press), and many others, that children develop a verb category slowly, gradually building up subcategorizations of verbs around pragmatic, syntactic, and semantic properties of the language they are exposed to. On this latter view, one would expect the language which the child is learning, the cultural milieu and the nature of the interactions in which the child is engaged, to influence the process of acquiring verb argument structures. This paper explores these issues by examining the development of argument representation in the Mayan language Tzeltal, in both its lexical and verbal cross-referencing forms, and analyzing the semantic and pragmatic factors influencing the form argument representation takes. Certain facts about Tzeltal (the ergative/ absolutive marking, the semantic specificity of transitive and positional verbs) are proposed to affect the representation of arguments. The first 500 multimorpheme combinations of 3 children (aged between 1;8 and 2;4) are examined. It is argued that there is no evidence of semantically light 'pathbreaking' verbs (Ninio 1996) leading the way into word combinations. There is early productivity of cross-referencing affixes marking A, S, and O arguments (although there are systematic omissions). The paper assesses the respective contributions of three kinds of factors to these results - structural (regular morphology), semantic (verb specificity) and pragmatic (the nature of Tzeltal conversational interaction).

Abstract

Within a given language and culture, distinct sensory modalities are often given differential linguistic treatment in ways reflecting cultural ideas about, and uses for, the senses. This article reports on sensory expressions in the Mayan language Tzeltal, spoken in southeastern Mexico. Drawing both on data derived from Tzeltal consultants’ responses to standardized sensory elicitation stimuli and on sensory descriptions produced in more natural contexts, I examine words characterizing sensations in the domains of color and taste. In just these two domains, a limited set of basic terms along with productive word-formation processes of compounding and reduplication are used in analogous ways to produce words that distinguish particular complex sensations or gestalts: e.g. in the color domain, yax-boj-boj (yax ‘grue’ + boj ‘cut’), of mouth stained green from eating green vegetables, or, in the taste domain, chi’-pik-pik (chi’ ‘sweet/salty’ + pik ‘touch’) of a slightly prickly salty taste. I relate the semantics of crossmodal compounds to material technologies involving color and taste (weaving, food production), and to ideas about “hot”/“cold” categories, which provide a cultural rationale for eating practices and medical interventions. I argue that language plays a role in promoting crossmodal associations, resulting in a (partially) culture-specific construction of sensory experience.

Abstract

This is an appropriate moment to review the state of the art in cognitive anthropology, construed broadly as the comparative study of human cognition in its linguistic and cultural context. In reaction to the dominance of universalism in the 1970s and '80s, there have recently been a number of reappraisals of the relation between language and cognition, and the field of cognitive anthropology is flourishing in several new directions in both America and Europe. This is partly due to a renewal and re-evaluation of approaches to the question of linguistic relativity associated with Whorf, and partly to the inspiration of modern developments in cognitive science. This review briefly sketches the history of cognitive anthropology and surveys current research on both sides of the Atlantic. The focus is on assessing current directions, considering in particular, by way of illustration, recent work in cultural models and on spatial language and cognition. The review concludes with an assessment of how cognitive anthropology could contribute directly both to the broader project of cognitive science and to the anthropological study of how cultural ideas and practices relate to structures and processes of human cognition.

Abstract

This paper surveys the lexical and grammatical resources for talking about spatial relations in the Mayan language Tzeltal - for describing where things are located, where they are moving, and how they are distributed in space. Six basic sets of spatial vocabulary are presented: i. existential locative expressions with ay ‘exist’, ii. deictics (demonstratives, adverbs, presentationals), iii. dispositional adjectives, often in combination with (iv) and (v), iv. body part relational noun locatives, v. absolute (‘cardinal’) directions, and vi. motion verbs, directionals and auxiliaries. The first two are used in minimal locative descriptions, while the others constitute the core resources for specifying in detail the location, disposition, orientation, or motion of a Figure in relation to a Ground. We find that Tzeltal displays a relative de-emphasis on deixis and left/right asymmetry, and a detailed attention to the spatial properties of objects.

Abstract

This paper addresses the vexed questions of how language relates to culture, and what kind of notion of culture is important for linguistic explanation. I first sketch five perspectives - five different construals - of culture apparent in linguistics and in cognitive science more generally. These are: (i) culture as ethno-linguistic group, (ii) culture as a mental module, (iii) culture as knowledge, (iv) culture as context, and (v) culture as a process emergent in interaction. I then present my own work on spatial language and cognition in a Mayan languge and culture, to explain why I believe a concept of culture is important for linguistics. I argue for a core role for cultural explanation in two domains: in analysing the semantics of words embedded in cultural practices which color their meanings (in this case, spatial frames of reference), and in characterizing thematic and functional links across different domains in the social and semiotic life of a particular group of people.

Abstract

This paper compares some features of the interactional details of a Tenejapan (Mexico) court case with the features of social interaction characteristic of ordinary, casual encounters in this society. It is suggested that courtroom behaviour in Tenejapa is a very special form of interaction, in a context that uniquely allows for direct face-to-face confrontation in a society where a premium is placed on interactional restraint. Courtroom speech in Tenejapa directly contraverts norms and conventions that operate in other contexts, and women’s conventionalized polite ‘ways of putting things’ are here used sarcastically to be impolite. Thus, in this society, gender operates across contexts as a ‘master status’, but with gender meanings transformed in the different contexts: forms associated with superficial cooperation and agreement being used to emphasize lack of cooperation, disagreement, and hostility. The implications of this Tenejapan phenomenon for our understanding of the nature of relations between language and gender are explored.

Abstract

The systematic study of kinesics, gaze, and gestural aspects of communication in Central American cultures is a recent phenomenon, most of it focussing on the Mayan cultures of southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. This article surveys ethnographic observations and research reports on bodily aspects of speaking in three domains: gaze and kinesics in social interaction, indexical pointing in adult and caregiver-child interactions, and co-speech gestures associated with “absolute” (geographically-based) systems of spatial reference. In addition, it reports how the indigenous co-speech gesture repertoire has provided the basis for developing village sign languages in the region. It is argued that studies of the embodied aspects of speech in the Mayan areas of Mexico and Central America have contributed to the typology of gestures and of spatial frames of reference. They have refined our understanding of how spatial frames of reference are invoked, communicated, and switched in conversational interaction and of the importance of co-speech gestures in understanding language use, language acquisition, and the transmission of culture-specific cognitive styles.

Abstract

This is a Spanish translation of Brown 1997.

Abstract

Reprint of Brown, P. (2002). Everyone has to lie in Tzeltal. In S. Blum-Kulka, & C. E. Snow (Eds.), Talking to adults: The contribution of multiparty discourse to language acquisition (pp. 241-275). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. In a famous paper Harvey Sacks (1974) argued that the sequential properties of greeting conventions, as well as those governing the flow of information, mean that 'everyone has to lie'. In this paper I show this dictum to be equally true in the Tzeltal Mayan community of Tenejapa, in southern Mexico, but for somewhat different reasons. The phenomenon of interest is the practice of routine fearsome threats to small children. Based on a longitudinal corpus of videotaped and tape-recorded naturally-occurring interaction between caregivers and children in five Tzeltal families, the study examines sequences of Tzeltal caregivers' speech aimed at controlling the children's behaviour and analyzes the children's developing pragmatic skills in handling such controlling utterances, from prelinguistic infants to age five and over. Infants in this society are considered to be vulnerable, easily scared or shocked into losing their 'souls', and therefore at all costs to be protected and hidden from outsiders and other dangers. Nonetheless, the chief form of control (aside from physically removing a child from danger) is to threaten, saying things like "Don't do that, or I'll take you to the clinic for an injection," These overt scare-threats - rarely actually realized - lead Tzeltal children by the age of 2;6 to 3;0 to the understanding that speech does not necessarily convey true propositions, and to a sensitivity to the underlying motivations for utterances distinct from their literal meaning. By age 4;0 children perform the same role to their younger siblings;they also begin to use more subtle non-true (e.g. ironic) utterances. The caretaker practice described here is related to adult norms of social lying, to the sociocultural context of constraints on information flow, social control through gossip, and the different notion of 'truth' that arises in the context of non-verifiability characteristic of a small-scale nonliterate society.

Abstract

How new social members are enculturated into the interactional practices of the society they grow up in is crucial to an understanding of social interaction, as well as to an understanding of the role of culture in children's social-cognitive development. Modern theories of infant development (e.g., Bruner 1982, Elman et al 1996, Tomasello 1999, Masataka 2003) emphasize the influence of particular interactional practices in the child's developing communicative skills. But interactional practices with infants - behaviors like prompting, pointing, turn-taking routines, and interacting over objects - are culturally shaped by beliefs about what infants need and what they can understand; these practices therefore vary across cultures in both quantity and quality. What effect does this variation have on children's communicative development? This article focuses on one aspect of cultural practice, the interactional organization of attention and how it is socialized in prelinguistic infants. It surveys the literature on the precursors to attention coordination in infancy, leading up to the crucial development of 'joint attention' and pointing behavior around the age of 12 months, and it reports what is known about cultural differences in related interactional practices of adults. It then considers the implications of such differences for infant-caregiver interaction prior to the period when infants begin to speak. I report on my own work on the integration of gaze and pointing in infant/caregiver interaction in two different cultures. One is a Mayan society in Mexico, where interaction with infants during their first year is relatively minimal; the other is on Rossel Island (Papua New Guinea), where interaction with infants is characterized by intensive face-to-face communicative behaviors from shortly after the child's birth. Examination of videotaped naturally-occurring interactions in both societies for episodes of index finger point following and production, and the integration of gaze and vocalization with pointing, reveals that despite the differences in interactional style with infants, pointing for joint attention emerges in infants in both cultures in the 9 -15 month period. However, a comparative perspective on cultural practices in caregiver-infant interactions allows us to refine our understanding of joint attention and its role in the process of learning to become a communicative partner.

Abstract

This is an encyclopedia entry surveying theoretical approaches to politeness phenomena in language usage.

Abstract

In this paper I take up the idea that human thinking is systematically biased in the direction of interactive thinking (E. Goody's anticipatory interactive planning), that is, that humans are peculiarly good at, and inordinately prone to, attributing intentions and goals to one other (as well as to non-humans), and that they routinely orient to presumptions about each other's intentions in what they say and do. I explore the implications of that idea for an understanding of politeness in interaction, taking as a starting point the Brown and Levinson (1987) model of politeness, which assumes interactive thinking, a notion implicit in the formulation of politeness as strategic orientation to face. Drawing on an analysis of the phenomenon of conventionalized ‘irony’ in Tzeltal, I emphasize that politeness does not inhere in linguistic form per se but is a matter of conveying a polite intention, and argue that Tzeltal irony provides a prime example of one way in which humans' highly-developed intellectual machinery for inferring alter's intentions is put to the service of social relationships.

Abstract

This article is a reprint of chapter 1, the introduction to Brown and Levinson, 1987, Politeness: Some universals in language usage (Cambridge University Press).

Abstract

Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press from: Brown, P. and Levinson, S. E. (1987) Politeness, (©) 1978, 1987, CUP.

Abstract

This paper addresses the theories of Eve Clark about how children learn word meanings in western middle-class interactional contexts by examining child language data from a Tzeltal Maya society in southern Mexico where interaction patterns are radically different. Through examples of caregiver interactions with children 12-30 months old, I ask what lessons we can learn from how the details of these interactions unfold in this non-child-centered cultural context, and specifically, what aspects of the Tzeltal linguistic and interactional context might help to focus children’s attention on the meanings and the conventional forms of words being used around them.

Abstract

This article describes research investigating the on-line processing of language in unscripted conversational settings. In particular, we focus on the process of formulating and interpreting definite referring expressions. Within this domain we present results of two eye-tracking experiments addressing the problem of how speakers interrogate the referential domain in preparation to speak, how they select an appropriate expression for a given referent, and how addressees interpret these expressions. We aim to demonstrate that it is possible, and indeed fruitful, to examine unscripted, conversational language using modified experimental designs and standard hypothesis testing procedures.

Abstract

Speaking begins with the formulation of an intended preverbal message and linguistic encoding of this information. The transition from thought to speech occurs incrementally, with cascading planning at subsequent levels of production. In this article, we aim to specify the mechanisms that support incremental message preparation. We contrast two hypotheses about the mechanisms responsible for incorporating message-level information into a linguistic plan. According to the Initial Preparation view, messages can be encoded as fluent utterances if all information is ready before speaking begins. By contrast, on the Continuous Incrementality view, messages can be continually prepared and updated throughout the production process, allowing for fluent production even if new information is added to the message while speaking is underway. Testing these hypotheses, eye-tracked speakers in two experiments produced unscripted, conjoined noun phrases with modifiers. Both experiments showed that new message elements can be incrementally incorporated into the utterance even after articulation begins, consistent with a Continuous Incrementality view of message planning, in which messages percolate to linguistic encoding immediately as that information becomes available in the mind of the speaker. We conclude by discussing the functional role of incremental message planning in conversational speech and the situations in which this continuous incremental planning would be most likely to be observed

Abstract

Genes of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) have recently been shown to have neuronal functions in the thalamus and hippocampus. Common genetic variants in the Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA) region, human homologue of the MHC locus, are associated with small effects on susceptibility to schizophrenia, while volumetric changes of the thalamus and hippocampus have also been linked to schizophrenia. We therefore investigated whether common variants of the HLA would affect volumetric variation of the thalamus and hippocampus. We analyzed thalamus and hippocampus volumes, as measured using structural magnetic resonance imaging, in 1.265 healthy participants. These participants had also been genotyped using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays. We imputed genotypes for single nucleotide polymorphisms at high density across the HLA locus, as well as HLA allotypes and HLA amino acids, by use of a reference population dataset that was specifically targeted to the HLA region. We detected a significant association of the SNP rs17194174 with thalamus volume (nominal P=0.0000017, corrected P=0.0039), as well as additional SNPs within the same region of linkage disequilibrium. This effect was largely lateralized to the left thalamus and is localized within a genomic region previously associated with schizophrenia. The associated SNPs are also clustered within a potential regulatory element, and a region of linkage disequilibrium that spans genes expressed in the thalamus, including HLA-A. Our data indicate that genetic variation within the HLA region influences the volume and asymmetry of the human thalamus. The molecular mechanisms underlying this association may relate to HLA influences on susceptibility to schizophrenia

Abstract

Epigenetic effects on psychiatric traits remain relatively under-studied, and it remains unclear what the sizes of individual epigenetic effects may be, or how they vary between different clinical populations. The gene LRRTM1 (chromosome 2p12) has previously been linked and associated with schizophrenia in a parent-of-origin manner in a set of affected siblings (LOD = 4.72), indirectly suggesting a disruption of paternal imprinting at this locus in these families. From the same set of siblings that originally showed strong linkage at this locus, we analyzed 99 individuals using 454-bisulfite sequencing, from whole blood DNA, to measure the level of DNA methylation in the promoter region of LRRTM1. We also assessed seven additional loci that would be informative to compare. Paternal identity-by-descent sharing at LRRTM1, within sibling pairs, was linked to their similarity of methylation at the gene's promoter. Reduced methylation at the promoter showed a significant association with schizophrenia. Sibling pairs concordant for schizophrenia showed more similar methylation levels at the LRRTM1 promoter than diagnostically discordant pairs. The alleles of common SNPs spanning the locus did not explain this epigenetic linkage, which can therefore be considered as largely independent of DNA sequence variation and would not be detected in standard genetic association analysis. Our data suggest that hypomethylation at the LRRTM1 promoter, particularly of the paternally inherited allele, was a risk factor for the development of schizophrenia in this set of siblings affected with familial schizophrenia, and that had previously showed linkage at this locus in an affected-sib-pair context.

Abstract

Q fever, caused by Coxiella burnetii, is a zoonosis with a worldwide distribution. A large rural area in the southeast of the Netherlands was heavily affected by Q fever between 2007 and 2009. This initiated the development of a robust and internally controlled multiplex quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay for the detection of C. burnetii DNA in veterinary and environmental matrices on suspected Q fever-affected farms. The qPCR detects three C. burnetii targets (icd, com1, and IS1111) and one Bacillus thuringiensis internal control target (cry1b). Bacillus thuringiensis spores were added to samples to control both DNA extraction and PCR amplification. The performance of the qPCR assay was investigated and showed a high efficiency; a limit of detection of 13.0, 10.6, and 10.4 copies per reaction for the targets icd, com1, and IS1111, respectively; and no crossreactivity with the nontarget organisms tested. Screening for C. burnetii DNA on 29 suspected Q fever-affected farms during the Q fever epidemic in 2008 showed that swabs from dust-accumulating surfaces contained higher levels of C. burnetii DNA than vaginal swabs from goats or sheep. PCR inhibition by coextracted substances was observed in some environmental samples, and 10- or 100-fold dilutions of samples were sufficient to obtain interpretable signals for both the C. burnetii targets and the internal control. The inclusion of an internal control target and three C. burnetii targets in one multiplex qPCR assay showed that complex veterinary and environmental matrices can be screened reliably for the presence of C. burnetii DNA during an outbreak. © 2011, American Society for Microbiology.

Abstract

Several neurodevelopmental disorders are associated with preference for routine and challenging behavior following changes to routines. We examine individuals with Prader–Willi syndrome, who show elevated levels of this behavior, to better understand how previous experience of a routine can affect challenging behavior elicited by disruption to that routine. Play based challenges exposed 16 participants to routines, which were either adhered to or changed. Temper outburst behaviors, heart rate and movement were measured. As participants were exposed to routines for longer before a change (between 10 and 80 min; within participants), more temper outburst behaviors were elicited by changes. Increased emotional arousal was also elicited, which was indexed by heart rate increases not driven by movement. Further study will be important to understand whether current intervention approaches that limit exposure to changes, may benefit from the structured integration of flexibility to ensure that the opportunity for routine establishment is also limited.

Abstract

Use of peripheral blood- or bone marrow-derived progenitors for ischemic heart repair is a feasible option to induce neo-vascularization in ischemic tissues. These cells, named Endothelial Progenitors Cells (EPCs), have been extensively characterized phenotypically and functionally. The clinical efficacy of cardiac repair by EPCs cells remains, however, limited, due to cell autonomous defects as a consequence of risk factors. The devise of “enhancement” strategies has been therefore sought to improve repair ability of these cells and increase the clinical benefit

Abstract

This article explores the lexicon of body part terms in Jahai, a Mon-Khmer language spoken by a group of hunter–gatherers in the Malay Peninsula. It provides an extensive inventory of body part terms and describes their structural and semantic properties. The Jahai body part lexicon pays attention to fine anatomical detail but lacks labels for major, ‘higher-level’ categories, like ‘trunk’, ‘limb’, ‘arm’ and ‘leg’. In this lexicon it is therefore sometimes difficult to discern a clear partonomic hierarchy, a presumed universal of body part terminology.

Abstract

The cognitive- and neurosciences have supposed that the perceptual world of the individual is dominated by vision, followed closely by audition, but that olfaction is merely vestigial. Aslian-speaking communities (Austroasiatic, Malay Peninsula) challenge this view. For the Jahai - a small group of rainforest foragers - odor plays a central role in both culture and language. Jahai ideology revolves around a complex set of beliefs that structures the human relationship with the supernatural. Central to this relationship are hearing, vision, and olfaction. In Jahai language, olfaction also receives special attention. There are at least a dozen or so abstract descriptive odor categories that are basic, everyday terms. This lexical elaboration of odor is not unique to the Jahai but can be seen across many contemporary Austroasiatic languages and transcends major cultural and environmental boundaries. These terms appear to be inherited from ancestral language states, suggesting a longstanding preoccupation with odor in this part of the world. Contrary to the prevailing assumption in the cognitive sciences, these languages and cultures demonstrate that odor is far from vestigial in humans.

Abstract

This work explores the linguistic encoding of reciprocal events in Jahai (Aslian, Mon-Khmer, Malay Peninsula) on the basis of linguistic descriptions of the video stimuli of the ‘Reciprocal constructions and situation type’ task (Evans et al. 2004). Reciprocal situation types find expression in three different constructions: distributive verb forms, reciprocal verb forms, and adjunct phrases containing a body part noun. Distributives represent the dominant strategy, reciprocal forms and body part adjuncts being highly restricted across event types and consultants. The distributive and reciprocal morphemes manifest intricate morphological processes typical of Aslian languages. The paper also addresses some analytical problems raised by the data, such as structural ambiguity and restrictions on derivation, as well as individual variation.

Abstract

This study presents an analysis of over 4000 tokens of words produced as variants with and without schwa in a French corpus of radio-broadcasted speech. In order to determine which of the many variables mentioned in the literature influence variant choice, 17 predictors were tested in the same analysis. Only five of these variables appeared to condition variant choice. The question of the processing stage, or locus, of this alternation process is also addressed in a comparison of the variables that predict variant choice with the variables that predict the acoustic duration of schwa in variants with schwa. Only two variables predicting variant choice also predict schwa duration. The limited overlap between the predictors for variant choice and for schwa duration, combined with the nature of these variables, suggest that the variants without schwa do not result from a phonetic process of reduction; that is, they are not the endpoint of gradient schwa shortening. Rather, these variants are generated early in the production process, either during phonological encoding or word-form retrieval. These results, based on naturally produced speech, provide a useful complement to on-line production experiments using artificial speech tasks.

Abstract

Heschl's gyrus (HG) is a core region of the auditory cortex whose morphology is highly variable across individuals. This variability has been linked to sound perception ability in both speech and music domains. Previous studies show that variations in morphological features of HG, such as cortical surface area and thickness, are heritable. To identify genetic variants that affect HG morphology, we conducted a genome-wide association scan (GWAS) meta-analysis in 3054 healthy individuals using HG surface area and thickness as quantitative traits. None of the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) showed association P values that would survive correction for multiple testing over the genome. The most significant association was found between right HG area and SNP rs72932726 close to gene DCBLD2 (3q12.1; P=2.77x10(-7)). This SNP was also associated with other regions involved in speech processing. The SNP rs333332 within gene KALRN (3q21.2; P=2.27x10(-6)) and rs143000161 near gene COBLL1 (2q24.3; P=2.40x10(-6)) were associated with the area and thickness of left HG, respectively. Both genes are involved in the development of the nervous system. The SNP rs7062395 close to the X-linked deafness gene POU3F4 was associated with right HG thickness (Xq21.1; P=2.38x10(-6)). This is the first molecular genetic analysis of variability in HG morphology

Abstract

This study examined whether musical training, ethnicity, and experience with a natural tone language influenced sensitivity to tone while listening to an artificial tone language. The language was designed with three tones, modeled after level-tone African languages. Participants listened to a 15-min random concatenation of six 3-syllable words. Sensitivity to tone was assessed using minimal pairs differing only in one syllable (nonword task: e.g., to-kà-su compared to ca-fí-to) or only in tone (tone task: e.g., to-kà-su compared to to-ká-su). Proficiency in an East Asian heritage language was the strongest predictor of success on the tone task. Asians without tone language experience were no better than other ethnic groups. We conclude by considering implications for research on second language learning, especially as approached through artificial language learning.

Abstract

Pediatric myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is a heterogeneous disease covering a spectrum ranging from aplasia (RCC) to myeloproliferation (RAEB(t)). In adult-type MDS there is increasing evidence for abnormal function of the bone-marrow microenvironment. Here, we extensively studied the mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) derived from children with MDS. MSCs were expanded from the bone-marrow of 17 MDS patients (RCC: n = 10 and advanced MDS: n = 7) and pediatric controls (n = 10). No differences were observed with respect to phenotype, differentiation capacity, immunomodulatory capacity or hematopoietic support. mRNA expression analysis by Deep-SAGE revealed increased IL-6 expression in RCC- and RAEB(t)-MDS. RCC-MDS MSC expressed increased levels of DKK3, a protein associated with decreased apoptosis. RAEB(t)-MDS revealed increased CRLF1 and decreased DAPK1 expressions. This pattern has been associated with transformation in hematopoietic malignancies. Genes reported to be differentially expressed in adult MDS-MSC did not differ between MSC of pediatric MDS and controls. An altered mRNA expression profile, associated with cell survival and malignant transformation, of MSC derived from children with MDS strengthens the hypothesis that the micro-environment is of importance in this disease. Our data support the understanding that pediatric and adult MDS are two different diseases. Further evaluation of the pathways involved might reveal additional therapy targets.

Abstract

An aberrant interaction between hematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal stromal cells has been linked to disease and shown to contribute to the pathophysiology of hematologic malignancies in murine models. Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia is an aggressive malignant disease affecting young infants. Here we investigated the impact of juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia on mesenchymal stromal cells. Mesenchymal stromal cells were expanded from bone marrow samples of patients at diagnosis (n=9) and after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (n=7; from 5 patients) and from healthy children (n=10). Cells were characterized by phenotyping, differentiation, gene expression analysis (of controls and samples obtained at diagnosis) and in vitro functional studies assessing immunomodulation and hematopoietic support. Mesenchymal stromal cells from patients did not differ from controls in differentiation capacity nor did they differ in their capacity to support in vitro hematopoiesis. Deep-SAGE sequencing revealed differential mRNA expression in patient-derived samples, including genes encoding proteins involved in immunomodulation and cell-cell interaction. Selected gene expression normalized during remission after successful hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Whereas natural killer cell activation and peripheral blood mononuclear cell proliferation were not differentially affected, the suppressive effect on monocyte to dendritic cell differentiation was increased by mesenchymal stromal cells obtained at diagnosis, but not at time of remission. This study shows that active juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia affects the immune response-related gene expression and function of mesenchymal stromal cells. In contrast, the differential gene expression of hematopoiesis-related genes could not be supported by functional data. Decreased immune surveillance might contribute to the therapy resistance and progression in juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia.

Abstract

Modulations of occipito-parietal α-band (8–14 Hz) power that are opposite in direction (α-enhancement vs. α-suppression) and origin of generation (ipsilateral vs. contralateral to the locus of attention) are a robust correlate of anticipatory visuospatial attention. Yet, the neural generators of these α-band modulations, their interdependence across homotopic areas, and their respective contribution to subsequent perception remain unclear. To shed light on these questions, we employed magnetoencephalography, while human volunteers performed a spatially cued detection task. Replicating previous findings, we found α-power enhancement ipsilateral to the attended hemifield and contralateral α-suppression over occipitoparietal sensors. Source localization (beamforming) analysis showed that α-enhancement and suppression were generated in 2 distinct brain regions, located in the dorsal and ventral visual streams, respectively. Moreover, α-enhancement and suppression showed different dynamics and contribution to perception. In contrast to the initial and transient dorsal α-enhancement, α-suppression in ventro-lateral occipital cortex was sustained and influenced subsequent target detection. This anticipatory biasing of ventrolateral extrastriate α-activity probably reflects increased receptivity in the brain region specialized in processing upcoming target features. Our results add to current models on the role of α-oscillations in attention orienting by showing that α-enhancement and suppression can be dissociated in time, space, and perceptual relevance.

Abstract

Knowing what is going to happen next, that is, the capacity to predict upcoming events, modulates the extent to which aversive stimuli induce stress and anxiety. We explored this issue by manipulating the temporal predictability of aversive events by means of a visual cue, which was either correlated or uncorrelated with pain stimuli (electric shocks). Subjects reported lower levels of anxiety, negative valence and pain intensity when shocks were predictable. In addition to attenuate focus on danger, predictability allows for correct temporal estimation of, and selective attention to, the sensory input. With functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that predictability was related to enhanced activity in relevant sensory-discriminative processing areas, such as the primary and secondary sensory cortex and posterior insula. In contrast, the unpredictable more aversive context was correlated to brain activity in the anterior insula and the orbitofrontal cortex, areas associated with affective pain processing. This context also prompted increased activity in the posterior parietal cortex and lateral prefrontal cortex that we attribute to enhanced alertness and sustained attention during unpredictability.

Abstract

The present paper investigates the major derivational strategies underlying the formation of suffixed words in Italian, with the purpose of tackling the issue of their formalization. After having specified the theoretical cognitive premises that orient the work, the interacting component modules of the suffixation process, i.e. morphonology, morphotactics and affixal semantics, are explored empirically, by drawing ample naturally occurring data on a Corpus of written Italian. A special attention is paid to the semantic mechanisms that are involved into suffixation. Some semantic nuclei are identified for the major suffixed word types of Italian, which are due to word formation rules active at the synchronic level, and a semantic configuration of productive suffixes is suggested. A general framework is then sketched, which combines classical finite-state methods with a feature unification-based word grammar. More specifically, the semantic information specified for the affixal material is internalised into the structures of the Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG). The formal model allows us to integrate the various modules of suffixation. In particular, it treats, on the one hand, the interface between morphonology/morphotactics and semantics and, on the other hand, the interface between suffixation and inflection. Furthermore, since LFG exploits a hierarchically organised lexicon in order to structure the information regarding the affixal material, affixal co-selectional restrictions are advatageously constrained, avoiding potential multiple spurious analysis/generations.

Abstract

Do people with different kinds of bodies think differently? According to the bodyspecificity hypothesis (Casasanto 2009), they should. In this article, I review evidence that right- and left-handers, who perform actions in systematically different ways, use correspondingly different areas of the brain for imagining actions and representing the meanings of action verbs. Beyond concrete actions, the way people use their hands also influences the way they represent abstract ideas with positive and negative emotional valence like “goodness,” “honesty,” and “intelligence,” and how they communicate about them in spontaneous speech and gesture. Changing how people use their right and left hands can cause them to think differently, suggesting that motoric differences between right- and left-handers are not merely correlated with cognitive differences. Body-specific patterns of motor experience shape the way we think, communicate, and make decisions

Abstract

Right- and left-handers implicitly associate positive ideas like "goodness"and "honesty"more strongly with their dominant side
of space, the side on which they can act more fluently, and negative ideas more strongly with their nondominant side. Here we show that right-handers’ tendency to associate "good" with "right" and "bad" with "left" can be reversed as a result of both
long- and short-term changes in motor fluency. Among patients who were right-handed prior to unilateral stroke, those with disabled left hands associated "good" with "right," but those with disabled right hands associated "good" with "left,"as natural left-handers do. A similar pattern was found in healthy right-handers whose right or left hand was temporarily handicapped in the laboratory. Even a few minutes of acting more fluently with the left hand can change right-handers’ implicit associations between space and emotional valence, causing a reversal of their usual judgments. Motor experience plays a causal role in shaping abstract thought.

Abstract

A key part of learning to speak with others is figuring out when to start talking and how to hold the floor in conversation. For young children, the challenge of planning a linguistic response can slow down their response latencies, making misunderstanding, repair, and loss of the floor more likely. Like adults, children can mitigate their delays by using fillers (e.g., uh and um) at the start of their turns. In this chapter I analyze the onset and development of fillers in five children’s spontaneous speech from ages 1;6–3;6. My findings suggest that children start using fillers by 2;0, and use them to effectively mitigate delay in making a response.

Abstract

Conversation is a structured, joint action for which children need to learn a specialized set skills and conventions. Because conversation is a primary source of linguistic input, we can better grasp how children become active agents in their own linguistic development by studying their acquisition of conversational skills. In this chapter I review research on children’s turn-taking. This fundamental skill of human interaction allows children to gain feedback, make clarifications, and test hypotheses at every stage of development. I broadly review children’s conversational experiences, the types of turn-based contingency they must acquire, how they ask and answer questions, and when they manage to make timely responses

Abstract

Learning a specific skill during childhood may partly determine the functional organization of the adult brain. This hypothesis led us to study oral language processing in illiterate subjects who, for social reasons, had never entered school and had no knowledge of reading or writing. In a brain activation study using PET and statistical parametric mapping, we compared word and pseudoword repetition in literate and illiterate subjects. Our study confirms behavioural evidence of different phonological processing in illiterate subjects. During repetition of real words, the two groups performed similarly and activated similar areas of the brain. In contrast, illiterate subjects had more difficulty repeating pseudowords correctly and did not activate the same neural structures as literates. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that learning the written form of language (orthography) interacts with the function of oral language. Our results indicate that learning to read and write during childhood influences the functional organization of the adult human brain.

Abstract

Background: Functional neuroimaging supports the hypothesis that auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in schizophrenia result from altered functional connectivity between perisylvian language regions, although the extent to which AVH are also associated with an altered tract anatomy is less clear.

Methods: Twenty-eight patients with schizophrenia subdivided into 17 subjects with a history of AVH and 11 without a history of hallucinations and 59 age- and IQ-matched healthy controls were recruited. The number of streamlines, fractional anisotropy (FA), and mean diffusivity were measured along the length of the arcuate fasciculus and its medial and lateral components.

Results: Patients with schizophrenia had bilateral reduction of FA relative to controls in the arcuate fasciculi (p < .001). Virtual dissection of the subcomponents of the arcuate fasciculi revealed that these reductions were specific to connections between posterior temporal and anterior regions in the inferior frontal and parietal lobe. Also, compared with controls, the reduction in FA of these tracts was highest, and bilateral, in patients with AVH, but in patients without AVH, this reduction was reported only on the left.

Conclusions: These findings point toward a supraregional network model of AVH in schizophrenia. They support the hypothesis that there may be selective vulnerability of specific anatomical connections to posterior temporal regions in schizophrenia and that extensive bilateral damage is associated with a greater vulnerability to AVH. If confirmed by further studies, these findings may advance our understanding of the anatomical factors that are protective against AVH and predictive of a treatment response.

Abstract

Specific language impairment (SLI), an unexpected failure to develop appropriate language skills despite adequate non-verbal intelligence, is a heterogeneous multifactorial disorder with a complex genetic basis. We identified a homozygous microdeletion of 21,379 bp in the ZNF277 gene (NM_021994.2), encompassing exon 5, in an individual with severe receptive and expressive language impairment. The microdeletion was not found in the proband’s affected sister or her brother who had mild language impairment. However, it was inherited from both parents, each of whom carries a heterozygous microdeletion and has a history of language problems. The microdeletion falls within the AUTS1 locus, a region linked to autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs). Moreover, ZNF277 is adjacent to the DOCK4 and IMMP2L genes, which have been implicated in ASD. We screened for the presence of ZNF277 microdeletions in cohorts of children with SLI or ASD and panels of control subjects. ZNF277 microdeletions were at an increased allelic frequency in SLI probands (1.1%) compared with both ASD family members (0.3%) and independent controls (0.4%). We performed quantitative RT-PCR analyses of the expression of IMMP2L, DOCK4 and ZNF277 in individuals carrying either an IMMP2L_DOCK4 microdeletion or a ZNF277 microdeletion. Although ZNF277 microdeletions reduce the expression of ZNF277, they do not alter the levels of DOCK4 or IMMP2L transcripts. Conversely, IMMP2L_DOCK4 microdeletions do not affect the expression levels of ZNF277. We postulate that ZNF277 microdeletions may contribute to the risk of language impairments in a manner that is independent of the autism risk loci previously described in this region.

Abstract

Sentence production is the process we use to create language-specific sentences that convey particular meanings. In production, there are complex interactions between meaning, words, and syntax at different points in sentences. Computational models can make these interactions explicit and connectionist learning algorithms have been useful for building such models. Connectionist models use domaingeneral mechanisms to learn internal representations and these mechanisms can also explain evidence of long-term syntactic adaptation in adult speakers. This paper will review work showing that these models can generalize words in novel ways and learn typologically-different languages like English and Japanese. It will also present modeling work which shows that connectionist learning algorithms can account for complex sentence production in children and adult production phenomena like structural priming, heavy NP shift, and conceptual/lexical accessibility.

Abstract

Lexicalized theories of syntax often assume that verb-structure regularities are mediated by lemmas, which abstract over variation in verb tense and aspect. German syntax seems to challenge this assumption, because verb position depends on tense and aspect. To examine how German speakers link these elements, a structural priming study was performed which varied syntactic structure, verb position (encoded by tense and aspect), and verb overlap. Abstract structural priming was found, both within and across verb position, but priming was larger when the verb position was the same between prime and target. Priming was boosted by verb overlap, but there was no interaction with verb position. The results can be explained by a lemma model where tense and aspect are linked to structural choices in German. Since the architecture of this lemma model is not consistent with results from English, a connectionist model was developed which could explain the cross-linguistic variation in the production system. Together, these findings support the view that language learning plays an important role in determining the nature of structural priming in different languages

Abstract

Background: Eukaryotic cells possess a complex network of RNA machineries which function in RNA-processing and cellular regulation which includes transcription, translation, silencing, editing and epigenetic control. Studies of model organisms have shown that many ncRNAs of the RNA-infrastructure are highly conserved, but little is known from non-model protists. In this study we have conducted a genome-scale survey of medium-length ncRNAs from the protozoan parasites Giardia intestinalis and Trichomonas vaginalis. Results: We have identified the previously ‘missing’ Giardia RNase MRP RNA, which is a key ribozyme involved in pre-rRNA processing. We have also uncovered 18 new H/ACA box snoRNAs, expanding our knowledge of the H/ ACA family of snoRNAs. Conclusions: Results indicate that Giardia intestinalis and Trichomonas vaginalis, like their distant multicellular relatives, contain a rich infrastructure of RNA-based processing. From here we can investigate the evolution of RNA processing networks in eukaryotes.

Abstract

Studies on children’s use of intonation in reference are few in number but are diverse in terms of theoretical frameworks and intonational parameters. In the current review, I present a re-analysis of the referents in each study, using a three-dimension approach (i.e. referential givenness-newness, relational givenness-newness, contrast), discuss the use of intonation at two levels (phonetic, phonological), and compare findings from different studies within a single framework. The patterns stemming from these studies may be limited in generalisability but can serve as initial hypotheses for future work. Furthermore, I examine the role of input as available in infant direct speech in the acquisition of intonational encoding of referents. In addition, I discuss how future research can advance our knowledge.

Abstract

1 Introduction In spoken sentence processing, listeners do not wait till the end of a sentence to decipher what message is conveyed. Rather, they make predictions on the most plausible interpretation at every possible point in the auditory signal on the basis of all kinds of linguistic information (e.g., Eberhard et al. 1995; Alman and Kamide 1999, 2007). Intonation is one such kind of linguistic information that is efficiently used in spoken sentence processing. The evidence comes primarily from recent work on online reference resolution conducted in the visual-world eyetracking paradigm (e.g., Tanenhaus et al. 1995). In this paradigm, listeners are shown a visual scene containing a number of objects and listen to one or two short sentences about the scene. They are asked to either inspect the visual scene while listening or to carry out the action depicted in the sentence(s) (e.g., 'Touch the blue square'). Listeners' eye movements directed to each object in the scene are monitored and time-locked to pre-defined time points in the auditory stimulus. Their predictions on the upcoming referent and sources for the predictions in the auditory signal are examined by analysing fixations to the relevant objects in the visual scene before the acoustic information on the referent is available

Abstract

While detecting genetic variations underlying brain structures helps reveal mechanisms of neural disorders, high data dimensionality poses a major challenge for imaging genomic association studies. In this work, we present the application of a recently proposed approach, parallel independent component analysis with reference (pICA-R), to investigate genomic factors potentially regulating gray matter variation in a healthy population. This approach simultaneously assesses many variables for an aggregate effect and helps to elicit particular features in the data. We applied pICA-R to analyze gray matter density (GMD) images (274,131 voxels) in conjunction with single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data (666,019 markers) collected from 1,256 healthy individuals of the Brain Imaging Genetics (BIG) study. Guided by a genetic reference derived from the gene GNA14, pICA-R identified a significant SNP-GMD association (r = −0.16, P = 2.34 × 10−8), implying that subjects with specific genotypes have lower localized GMD. The identified components were then projected to an independent dataset from the Mind Clinical Imaging Consortium (MCIC) including 89 healthy individuals, and the obtained loadings again yielded a significant SNP-GMD association (r = −0.25, P = 0.02). The imaging component reflected GMD variations in frontal, precuneus, and cingulate regions. The SNP component was enriched in genes with neuronal functions, including synaptic plasticity, axon guidance, molecular signal transduction via PKA and CREB, highlighting the GRM1, PRKCH, GNA12, and CAMK2B genes. Collectively, our findings suggest that GNA12 and GNA14 play a key role in the genetic architecture underlying normal GMD variation in frontal and parietal regions

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of recent studies on the use of phonological cues (accent placement and choice of accent type) to mark focus in Dutch-speaking children aged between 1;9 and 8;10. It is argued that learning to use phonological cues to mark focus is a gradual process. In the light of the findings in these studies, a first proposal is put forward on the developmental path to adult-like phonological focus-marking in Dutch.

Abstract

This study examined how four- to five-year-olds and seven- to eight-year-olds used intonation (accent placement and accent type) to encode topic and focus in Dutch. Naturally spoken declarative sentences with either sentence-initial topic and sentence-final focus or sentence-initial focus and sentence-final topic were elicited via a picture-matching game. Results showed that the four- to five-year-olds were adult-like in topic-marking, but were not yet fully adult-like in focus-marking, in particular, in the use of accent type in sentence-final focus (i.e. showing no preference for H*L). Between age five and seven, the use of accent type was further developed. In contrast to the four- to five-year-olds, the seven- to eight-year-olds showed a preference for H*L in sentence-final focus. Furthermore, they used accent type to distinguish sentence-initial focus from sentence-initial topic in addition to phonetic cues.

Abstract

We investigated how listeners of two unrelated languages, Korean and Dutch, process phonologically viable and nonviable consonants spoken in Dutch and American English. To Korean listeners, released final stops are nonviable because word-final stops in Korean are never released in words spoken in isolation, but to Dutch listeners, unreleased word-final stops are nonviable because word-final stops in Dutch are generally released in words spoken in isolation. Two phoneme monitoring experiments showed a phonological effect on both Dutch and English stimuli: Korean listeners detected the unreleased stops more rapidly whereas Dutch listeners detected the released stops more rapidly and/or more accurately. The Koreans, however, detected released stops more accurately than unreleased stops, but only in the non-native language they were familiar with (English). The results suggest that, in non-native speech perception, phonological legitimacy in the native language can be more important than the richness of phonetic information, though familiarity with phonetic detail in the non-native language can also improve listening performance.

Abstract

Two experiments examined whether perceptual recovery from Korean consonant-cluster simplification is based on language-specific phonological knowledge. In tri-consonantal C1C2C3 sequences such as /lkt/ and /lpt/ in Seoul Korean, either C1 or C2 can be completely deleted. Seoul Koreans monitored for C2 targets (/p/ or / k/, deleted or preserved) in the second word of a two-word phrase with an underlying /l/-C2-/t/ sequence. In Experiment 1 the target-bearing words had contextual lexical-semantic support. Listeners recovered deleted targets as fast and as accurately as preserved targets with both Word and Intonational Phrase (IP) boundaries between the two words. In Experiment 2, contexts were low-pass filtered. Listeners were still able to recover deleted targets as well as preserved targets in IP-boundary contexts, but better with physically-present targets than with deleted targets in Word-boundary contexts. This suggests that the benefit of having target acoustic-phonetic information emerges only when higher-order (contextual and phrase-boundary) information is not available. The strikingly efficient recovery of deleted phonemes with neither acoustic-phonetic cues nor contextual support demonstrates that language-specific phonological knowledge, rather than language-universal perceptual processes which rely on fine-grained phonetic details, is employed when the listener perceives the results of a continuous-speech process in which reduction is phonetically complete.

Abstract

In the speech production model proposed by [Levelt, W. J. M., Roelofs, A., Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, pp. 1-75.], syllables play a crucial role at the interface of phonological and phonetic encoding. At this interface, abstract phonological syllables are translated into phonetic syllables. It is assumed that this translation process is mediated by a so-called Mental Syllabary. Rather than constructing the motor programs for each syllable on-line, the mental syllabary is hypothesized to provide pre-compiled gestural scores for the articulators. In order to find evidence for such a repository, we investigated syllable-frequency effects: If the mental syllabary consists of retrievable representations corresponding to syllables, then the retrieval process should be sensitive to frequency differences. In a series of experiments using a symbol-position association learning task, we tested whether highfrequency syllables are retrieved and produced faster compared to low-frequency syllables. We found significant syllable frequency effects with monosyllabic pseudo-words and disyllabic pseudo-words in which the first syllable bore the frequency manipulation; no effect was found when the frequency manipulation was on the second syllable. The implications of these results for the theory of word form encoding at the interface of phonological and phonetic encoding; especially with respect to the access mechanisms to the mental syllabary in the speech production model by (Levelt et al.) are discussed.

Abstract

We investigated the role of syllables during speech planning in English by measuring syllable-frequency effects. So far, syllable-frequency effects in English have not been reported. English has poorly defined syllable boundaries, and thus the syllable might not function as a prominent unit in English speech production. Speakers produced either monosyllabic (Experiment 1) or disyllabic (Experiment 2–4) pseudowords as quickly as possible in response to symbolic cues. Monosyllabic targets consisted of either high- or low-frequency syllables, whereas disyllabic items contained either a 1st or 2nd syllable that was frequency-manipulated. Significant syllable-frequency effects were found in all experiments. Whereas previous findings for disyllables in Dutch and Spanish—languages with relatively clear syllable boundaries—showed effects of a frequency manipulation on 1st but not 2nd syllables, in our study English speakers were sensitive to the frequency of both syllables. We interpret this sensitivity as an indication that the production of English has more extensive planning scopes at the interface of phonetic encoding and articulation.

Abstract

The present study concerns individual differences in gesture production. We used correlational and multiple regression analyses to examine the relationship between individuals’ cognitive abilities and empathy levels and their gesture frequency and saliency. We chose predictor variables according to experimental evidence of the functions of gesture in speech production and communication. We examined 3 types of gestures: representational gestures, conduit gestures, and palm-revealing gestures. Higher frequency of representational gestures was related to poorer visual and spatial working memory, spatial transformation ability, and conceptualization ability; higher frequency of conduit gestures was related to poorer visual working memory, conceptualization ability, and higher levels of empathy; and higher frequency of palm-revealing gestures was related to higher levels of empathy. The saliency of all gestures was positively related to level of empathy. These results demonstrate that cognitive abilities and empathy levels are related to individual differences in gesture frequency and saliency

Abstract

People spontaneously produce gestures when they solve problems or explain their solutions to a problem. In this chapter, we will review and discuss evidence on the role of representational gestures in problem solving. The focus will be on our recent experiments (Chu & Kita, 2008), in which we used Shepard-Metzler type of mental rotation tasks to investigate how spontaneous gestures revealed the development of problem solving strategy over the course of the experiment and what role gesture played in the development process. We found that when solving novel problems regarding the physical world, adults go through similar symbolic distancing (Werner & Kaplan, 1963) and internalization (Piaget, 1968) processes as those that occur during young children’s cognitive development and gesture facilitates such processes.

Abstract

Language and action systems are highly interlinked. A critical piece of evidence is that speech and its accompanying gestures are tightly synchronized. Five experiments were conducted to test 2 hypotheses about the synchronization of speech and gesture. According to the interactive view, there is continuous information exchange between the gesture and speech systems, during both their planning and execution phases. According to the ballistic view, information exchange occurs only during the planning phases of gesture and speech, but the 2 systems become independent once their execution has been initiated. In all experiments, participants were required to point to and/or name a light that had just lit up. Virtual reality and motion tracking technologies were used to disrupt their gesture or speech execution. Participants delayed their speech onset when their gesture was disrupted. They did so even when their gesture was disrupted at its late phase and even when they received only the kinesthetic feedback of their gesture. Also, participants prolonged their gestures when their speech was disrupted. These findings support the interactive view and add new constraints on models of speech and gesture production

Abstract

Co-thought gestures are hand movements produced in silent, noncommunicative, problem-solving situations. In the study, we investigated whether and how such gestures enhance performance in spatial visualization tasks such as a mental rotation task and a paper folding task. We found that participants gestured more often when they had difficulties solving mental rotation problems Experiment 1). The gesture-encouraged group solved more mental rotation problems correctly than did the gesture-allowed and gesture-prohibited groups (Experiment 2). Gestures produced by the gesture-encouraged group enhanced performance in the very trials in which they were produced Experiments 2 & 3). Furthermore, gesture frequency decreased as the participants in the gesture-encouraged group solved more problems (Experiments 2 & 3). In addition, the advantage of the gesture-encouraged group persisted into subsequent spatial visualization problems in which gesturing was prohibited: another mental rotation block (Experiment 2) and a newly introduced paper folding task (Experiment 3). The results indicate that when people have difficulty in solving spatial visualization problems, they spontaneously produce gestures to help them, and gestures can indeed improve performance. As they solve more problems, the spatial computation supported by gestures becomes internalized, and the gesture frequency decreases. The benefit of gestures persists even in subsequent spatial visualization problems in which gesture is prohibited. Moreover, the beneficial effect of gesturing can be generalized to a different spatial visualization task when two tasks require similar spatial transformation processes. We conclude that gestures enhance performance on spatial visualization tasks by improving the internal computation of spatial transformations.

Abstract

Koriat (1981) demonstrated that an association from the target to a preceding prime, in the absence of an association from the prime to the target, facilitates lexical decision and referred to this effect as "backward priming". Backward priming is of relevance, because it can provide information about the mechanism underlying semantic priming effects. Following Neely (1991), we distinguish three mechanisms of priming: spreading activation, expectancy, and semantic matching/integration. The goal was to determine which of these mechanisms causes backward priming, by assessing effects of backward priming on a language-relevant ERP component, the N400, and reaction time (RT). Based on previous work, we propose that the N400 priming effect reflects expectancy and semantic matching/integration, but in contrast with RT does not reflect spreading activation. Experiment 1 shows a backward priming effect that is qualitatively similar for the N400 and RT in a lexical decision task. This effect was not modulated by an ISI manipulation. Experiment 2 clarifies that the N400 backward priming effect reflects genuine changes in N400 amplitude and cannot be ascribed to other factors. We will argue that these backward priming effects cannot be due to expectancy but are best accounted for in terms of semantic matching/integration.

Abstract

In a semantic priming paradigm, the effects of different levels of processing on the N400 were assessed by changing the task demands. In the lexical decision task, subjects had to discriminate between words and nonwords and in the physical task, subjects had to discriminate between uppercase and lowercase letters. The proportion of related versus unrelated word pairs differed between conditions. A lexicality test on reaction times demonstrated that the physical task was performed nonlexically. Moreover, a semantic priming reaction time effect was obtained only in the lexical decision task. The level of processing clearly affected the event-related potentials. An N400 priming effect was only observed in the lexical decision task. In contrast, in the physical task a P300 effect was observed for either related or unrelated targets, depending on their frequency of occurrence. Taken together, the results indicate that an N400 priming effect is only evoked when the task performance induces the semantic aspects of words to become part of an episodic trace of the stimulus event.

Abstract

Methods
The present study provides a systematic analysis of co-speech gestures which spontaneously accompany the description of actions in a group of PD patients (N = 23, Hoehn and Yahr Stage III or less) and age-matched healthy controls (N = 22). The analysis considers different co-speech gesture types, using established classification schemes from the field of gesture research. The analysis focuses on the rate of these gestures as well as on their qualitative nature. In doing so, the analysis attempts to overcome several methodological shortcomings of research in this area.
Results
Contrary to expectation, gesture rate was not significantly affected in our patient group, with relatively mild PD. This indicates that co-speech gestures could compensate for speech problems. However, while gesture rate seems unaffected, the qualitative precision of gestures representing actions was significantly reduced.
Conclusions
This study demonstrates the feasibility of carrying out fine-grained, detailed analyses of gestures in PD and offers insights into an as yet neglected facet of communication in patients with PD. Based on the present findings, an important next step is the closer investigation of the qualitative changes in gesture (including different communicative situations) and an analysis of the heterogeneity in co-speech gesture production in PD.