Publications

Abstract

The Noir Marron communities are the direct descendants of African slaves brought to the Guianas during the four centuries (16th to 19th) of the Atlantic slave trade. Among them, three major ethnic groups have been studied: the Aluku, the Ndjuka and the Saramaka. Their history led them to share close relationships with Europeans and Amerindians, as largely documented in their cultural records. The study of Gm polymorphisms of immunoglobulins may help to estimate the amount of gene flow linked to these cultural exchanges. Surprisingly, very low levels of European contribution (2.6%) and Amerindian contribution (1.7%) are detected in the Noir Marron gene pool. On the other hand, an African contribution of 95.7% redraws their origin to West Africa (FSTless-than-or-equals, slant0.15). This highly preserved African gene pool of the Noir Marron is unique in comparison to other African American populations of Latin America, who are notably more admixed

Abstract

Background Retracing the genetic histories of the descendant populations of the Slave Trade (16th-19th centuries) is particularly challenging due to the diversity of African ethnic groups involved and the different hybridisation processes with Europeans and Amerindians, which have blurred their original genetic inheritances. The Noir Marron in French Guiana are the direct descendants of maroons who escaped from Dutch plantations in the current day Surinam. They represent an original ethnic group with a highly blended culture. Uniparental markers (mtDNA and NRY) coupled with HTLV-1 sequences (env and LTR) were studied to establish the genetic relationships linking them to African American and African populations. Results All genetic systems presented a high conservation of the African gene pool (African ancestry: mtDNA = 99.3%; NRY = 97.6%; HTLV-1 env = 20/23; HTLV-1 LTR = 6/8). Neither founder effect nor genetic drift was detected and the genetic diversity is within a range commonly observed in Africa. Higher genetic similarities were observed with the populations inhabiting the Bight of Benin (from Ivory Coast to Benin). Other ancestries were identified but they presented an interesting sex-bias. Whilst male origins spread throughout the north of the bight (from Benin to Senegal), female origins were spread throughout the south (from the Ivory Coast to Angola). Conclusions The Noir Marron are unique in having conserved their African genetic ancestry, despite major cultural exchanges with Amerindians and Europeans through inhabiting the same region for four centuries. Their maroon identity and the important number of slaves deported in this region have maintained the original African diversity. All these characteristics permit to identify a major origin located in the former region of the Gold Coast and the Bight of Benin; regions highly impacted by slavery, from which goes a sex-biased longitudinal gradient of ancestry.

Abstract

The recently disclosed plasticity properties of adult-derived stem cells, their ability to be reprogrammed by defined factors into pluripotent stem cells and the comprehension of “epi”-genetic mechanisms underlying stem cells differentiation process has opened unexpected avenues to attempt regeneration of tissues affected by degenerative disorders and prompted the birth of the new “regenerative medicine” concept. Regeneration of the vascular and myocardial tissues is considered a primary endpoint to limit the consequences of acute and chronic ischemic heart disorders. Cellular therapy of the ischemic heart has been attempted in more than 1000 patients worldwide and the results of the first meta-analysis studies have been recently made available. In several cases, the results did not fulfill the expectations. In fact, they unpredictably indicated modest, yet significant, clinical benefits in patients compared to the outstanding results using stem cells in animal models of ischemic heart and peripheral disease. Several interpretations have been raised to explain these discrepancies. These include lifestyle and risk factor-associated modifications of the stem cell biological activity, but also procedural problems in the translation of cells from bench to bedside. The present review will cover light and shaded areas in the cardiovascular cellular therapy field, and will discuss about recent advances and related patents designed to enhance efficiency of stem cell therapy in patients with cardiovascular disease. These advancements will be discussed in the light of the most advanced issues that have been introduced worldwide by Regulatory Agencies. - See more at: http://www.eurekaselect.com/85525/article#sthash.lEuaE1A5.dpuf

Abstract

This paper reports tentatively some features of Semnam, a Central Aslian language spoken by some 250 people in the Perak valley, Peninsular Malaysia. It outlines the unusually rich phonemic system of this hitherto undescribed language (e.g. a vowel system comprising 36 distinctive nuclei), and proposes a practical orthography for it. It also includes the c. 1,250- item wordlist on which the analysis is based, collected intermittently in the field 2006-2008.

Abstract

Neighbours have been found to influence each other’s behaviour (contagion effect). However, little is known about the influence on sport club membership. This while increasing interest has risen for the social role of sport clubs. Sport clubs could bring people from different backgrounds together. A mixed composition is a key element in this social role. Individual characteristics are strong predictors of sport club membership. Western high educated men are more likely to be members. In contrast to people with a non-Western migration background. The neighbourhood is a more fixed meeting place, which provides unique opportunities for people from different backgrounds to interact. This study aims to gain more insight into the influence of neighbours on sport club membership. This research looks especially at the composition of neighbour’s migration background, since they tend to be more or less likely to be members and therefore could encourage of inhibit each other. A population database including the only registry data of all Dutch inhabitants was merged with data of 11 sport unions. The results show a cross-level effect of neighbours on sport club membership. We find a contagion effect of neighbours’ migration background; having a larger proportion of neighbours with a migration background from a non-Western country reduces the odds, as expected. However, this contagion effect was not found for people with a Moroccan or Turkish background.

Abstract

This study examines whether the production of words with two phonological variants involves single or multiple lexical phonological representations. Three production experiments investigated the roles of the relative frequencies of the two pronunciation variants of French words with schwa: the schwa variant (e.g., Image ) and the reduced variant (e.g., Image ). In two naming tasks and in a symbol–word association learning task, variants with higher relative frequencies were produced faster. This suggests that the production lexicon keeps a frequency count for each variant and hence that schwa words are represented in the production lexicon with two different lexemes. In addition, the advantage for schwa variants over reduced variants in the naming tasks but not in the learning task and the absence of a variant relative frequency effect for schwa variants produced in isolation support the hypothesis that context affects the variants’ lexical activation and modulates the effect of variant relative frequency.

Abstract

From the earliest months of life, infants prefer listening to and learn better from infant-directed speech (IDS) than adult-directed speech (ADS). Yet, IDS differs within communities, across languages, and across cultures, both in form and in prevalence. This large-scale, multi-site study used the diversity of bilingual infant experiences to explore the impact of different types of linguistic experience on infants’ IDS preference. As part of the multi-lab ManyBabies project, we compared lab-matched samples of 333 bilingual and 385 monolingual infants’ preference for North-American English IDS (cf. ManyBabies Consortium, in press (MB1)), tested in 17 labs in 7 countries. Those infants were tested in two age groups: 6–9 months (the younger sample) and 12–15 months (the older sample). We found that bilingual and monolingual infants both preferred IDS to ADS, and did not differ in terms of the overall magnitude of this preference. However, amongst bilingual infants who were acquiring North-American English (NAE) as a native language, greater exposure to NAE was associated with a stronger IDS preference, extending the previous finding from MB1 that monolinguals learning NAE as a native language showed a stronger preference than infants unexposed to NAE. Together, our findings indicate that IDS preference likely makes a similar contribution to monolingual and bilingual development, and that infants are exquisitely sensitive to the nature and frequency of different types of language input in their early environments.

Abstract

The present study investigates the development of am in the speech of one English-speaking child, Scarlett (aged 4;6–5;6). We show that am is infrequent in the speech addressed to children; the acquisition of this form of BE presents a unique insight into the processes underlying language development because children have little evidence regarding its correct use. Scarlett produced a pervasive error where she overextended are to first-person singular contexts where am was required (e.g., I'm are trying, When are I'm finished?). Am gradually emerged in her speech on what appears to be a construction-specific basis. The findings of the study are used in support of a usage-based, constructivisit approach to language development.

Abstract

Eyetracking facilities are typically restricted to monitoring a single person viewing static images or pre-recorded video. In the present article, we describe a system that makes it possible to study visual attention in coordination with other activity during joint action. The software links two eyetracking systems in parallel and provides an on-screen task. By locating eye movements against dynamic screen regions, it permits automatic tracking of moving on-screen objects. Using existing SR technology, the system can also cross-project each participant's eyetrack and mouse location onto the other's on-screen work space. Keeping a complete record of eyetrack and on-screen events in the same format as subsequent human coding, the system permits the analysis of multiple modalities. The software offers new approaches to spontaneous multimodal communication: joint action and joint attention. These capacities are demonstrated using an experimental paradigm for cooperative on-screen assembly of a two-dimensional model. The software is available under an open source license.

Abstract

Rapid response to danger holds an evolutionary advantage. In this positron emission tomography study, phobics were exposed to masked visual stimuli with timings that either allowed awareness or not of either phobic, fear-relevant (e.g., spiders to snake phobics), or neutral images. When the timing did not permit awareness, the amygdala responded to both phobic and fear-relevant stimuli. With time for more elaborate processing, phobic stimuli resulted in an addition of an affective processing network to the amygdala activity, whereas no activity was found in response to fear-relevant stimuli. Also, right prefrontal areas appeared deactivated, comparing aware phobic and fear-relevant conditions. Thus, a shift from top-down control to an affectively driven system optimized for speed was observed in phobic relative to fear-relevant aware processing.

Abstract

A class of semantic theories defines concepts in terms of statistical distributions of lexical items, basing meaning on vectors of word co-occurrence frequencies. A different approach emphasizes abstract hierarchical taxonomic relationships among concepts. However, the functional relevance of these different accounts and how they capture information-encoding of meaning in the brain still remains elusive.

We investigated to what extent distributional and taxonomic models explained word-elicited neural responses using cross-validated representational similarity analysis (RSA) of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and novel model comparisons.

Our findings show that the brain encodes both types of semantic similarities, but in distinct cortical regions. Posterior middle temporal regions reflected word links based on hierarchical taxonomies, along with the action-relatedness of the semantic word categories. In contrast, distributional semantics best predicted the representational patterns in left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG, BA 47). Both representations coexisted in angular gyrus supporting semantic binding and integration. These results reveal that neuronal networks with distinct cortical distributions across higher-order association cortex encode different representational properties of word meanings. Taxonomy may shape long-term lexical-semantic representations in memory consistently with sensorimotor details of semantic categories, whilst distributional knowledge in the LIFG (BA 47) enable semantic combinatorics in the context of language use.

Our approach helps to elucidate the nature of semantic representations essential for understanding human language.

Abstract

When we talk we communicate our intentions. Although the origin of intentional action is debated in cognitive neuroscience, the question of how the brain generates the intention in speech remains still open. Using magnetoencephalography, we investigated the cortical dynamics engaged when healthy subjects attended to either their intention to speak or their actual speech. We found that activity in the right and left parietal cortex increased before subjects became aware of intending to speak. Within the time window of parietal activation, we also observed a transient left frontal activity in Broca's area, a crucial region for inner speech. During attention to speech, neural activity was detected in left prefrontal and temporal areas and in the temporoparietal junction. In agreement with previous results, our findings suggest that the parietal cortex plays a multimodal role in monitoring intentional mechanisms in both action and language. The coactivation of parietal regions and Broca's area may constitute the cortical circuit specific for controlling intentional processes during speech.

Abstract

Dyslexia is a common heritable developmental disorder involving impaired reading abilities. Its genetic underpinnings are thought to be complex and heterogeneous, involving common and rare genetic variation. Multigenerational families segregating apparent monogenic forms of language-related disorders can provide useful entrypoints into biological pathways. In the present study, we performed a genome-wide linkage scan in a three-generational family in which dyslexia affects 14 of its 30 members and seems to be transmitted with an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance. We identified a locus on chromosome 7q21.11 which cosegregated with dyslexia status, with the exception of two cases of phenocopy (LOD = 2.83). Whole-genome sequencing of key individuals enabled the assessment of coding and noncoding variation in the family. Two rare single-nucleotide variants (rs144517871 and rs143835534) within the first intron of the SEMA3C gene cosegregated with the 7q21.11 risk haplotype. In silico characterization of these two variants predicted effects on gene regulation, which we functionally validated for rs144517871 in human cell lines using luciferase reporter assays. SEMA3C encodes a secreted protein that acts as a guidance cue in several processes, including cortical neuronal migration and cellular polarization. We hypothesize that these intronic variants could have a cis-regulatory effect on SEMA3C expression, making a contribution to dyslexia susceptibility in this family.

Abstract

Do people with different kinds of bodies think differently? According to the body-specificity hypothesis, people who interact with their physical environments in systematically different ways should form correspondingly different mental representations. In a test of this hypothesis, 5 experiments investigated links between handedness and the mental representation of abstract concepts with positive or negative valence (e.g., honesty, sadness, intelligence). Mappings from spatial location to emotional valence differed between right- and left-handed participants. Right-handers tended to associate rightward space with positive ideas and leftward space with negative ideas, but left-handers showed the opposite pattern, associating rightward space with negative ideas and leftward with positive ideas. These contrasting mental metaphors for valence cannot be attributed to linguistic experience, because idioms in English associate good with right but not with left. Rather, right- and left-handers implicitly associated positive valence more strongly with the side of space on which they could act more fluently with their dominant hands. These results support the body-specificity hypothesis and provide evidence for the perceptuomotor basis of even the most abstract ideas.

Abstract

Can simple motor actions affect how efficiently people retrieve emotional memories, and influence what they choose to remember? In Experiment 1, participants were prompted to retell autobiographical memories with either positive or negative valence, while moving marbles either upward or downward. They retrieved memories faster when the direction of movement was congruent with the valence of the memory (upward for positive, downward for negative memories). Given neutral-valence prompts in Experiment 2, participants retrieved more positive memories when instructed to move marbles up, and more negative memories when instructed to move them down, demonstrating a causal link from motion to emotion. Results suggest that positive and negative life experiences are implicitly associated with schematic representations of upward and downward motion, consistent with theories of metaphorical mental representation. Beyond influencing the efficiency of memory retrieval, the direction of irrelevant, repetitive motor actions can also partly determine the emotional content of the memories people retrieve: moving marbles upward (an ostensibly meaningless action) can cause people to think more positive thoughts.

Abstract

According to the body-specificity hypothesis, people with different bodily characteristics should form correspondingly different mental representations, even in highly abstract conceptual domains. In a previous test of this proposal, right- and left-handers were found to associate positive ideas like intelligence, attractiveness, and honesty with their dominant side and negative ideas with their non-dominant side. The goal of the present study was to determine whether ‘body-specific’ associations of space and valence can be observed beyond the laboratory in spontaneous behavior, and whether these implicit associations have visible consequences.

Abstract

What is the relationship between space and time in the human mind? Studies in adults show an asymmetric relationship between mental representations of these basic dimensions of experience: Representations of time depend on space more than representations of space depend on time. Here we investigated the relationship between space and time in the developing mind. Native Greek-speaking children watched movies of two animals traveling along parallel paths for different distances or durations and judged the spatial and temporal aspects of these events (e.g., Which animal went for a longer distance, or a longer time?). Results showed a reliable cross-dimensional asymmetry. For the same stimuli, spatial information influenced temporal judgments more than temporal information influenced spatial judgments. This pattern was robust to variations in the age of the participants and the type of linguistic framing used to elicit responses. This finding demonstrates a continuity between space-time representations in children and adults, and informs theories of analog magnitude representation.

Abstract

The rate at which young children are directly spoken to varies due to many factors, including (a) caregiver ideas about children as conversational partners and (b) the organization of everyday life. Prior work suggests cross-cultural variation in rates of child-directed speech is due to the former factor, but has been fraught with confounds in comparing postindustrial and subsistence farming communities. We investigate the daylong language environments of children (0;0–3;0) on Rossel Island, Papua New Guinea, a small-scale traditional community where prior ethnographic study demonstrated contingency-seeking child interaction styles. In fact, children were infrequently directly addressed and linguistic input rate was primarily affected by situational factors, though children’s vocalization maturity showed no developmental delay. We compare the input characteristics between this community and a Tseltal Mayan one in which near-parallel methods produced comparable results, then briefly discuss the models and mechanisms for learning best supported by our findings.

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

Eye gaze is a ubiquitous cue in child-caregiver interactions and infants are highly attentive to eye gaze from very early on. However, the question of why infants show gaze-sensitive behavior, and what role this sensitivity to gaze plays in their language development, is not yet well-understood. To gain a better understanding of the role of eye gaze in infants’ language learning, we conducted a broad systematic review of the developmental literature for all studies that investigate the role of eye gaze in infants’ language development. Across 77 peer-reviewed articles containing data from typically-developing human infants (0-24 months) in the domain of language development we identified two broad themes. The first tracked the effect of eye gaze on four developmental domains: (1) vocabulary development, (2) word-object mapping, (3) object processing, and (4) speech processing. Overall, there is considerable evidence that infants learn more about objects and are more likely to form word-object mappings in the presence of eye gaze cues, both of which are necessary for learning words. In addition, there is good evidence for longitudinal relationships between infants’ gaze following abilities and later receptive and expressive vocabulary. However, many domains (e.g. speech processing) are understudied; further work is needed to decide whether gaze effects are specific to tasks such as word-object mapping, or whether they reflect a general learning enhancement mechanism. The second theme explored the reasons why eye gaze might be facilitative for learning, addressing the question of whether eye gaze is treated by infants as a specialized socio-cognitive cue. We concluded that the balance of evidence supports the idea that eye gaze facilitates infants’ learning by enhancing their arousal, memory and attentional capacities to a greater extent than other low-level attentional cues. However, as yet, there are too few studies that directly compare the effect of eye gaze cues and non-social, attentional cues for strong conclusions to be drawn. We also suggest there might be a developmental effect, with eye gaze, over the course of the first two years of life, developing into a truly ostensive cue that enhances language learning across the board.

Abstract

Emergentist approaches to language acquisition identify a core role for language-specific experience and give primacy to other factors like function and domain-general learning mechanisms in syntactic development. This directly contrasts with a nativist structurally oriented approach, which predicts that grammatical development is guided by Universal Grammar and that structural factors constrain acquisition. Cantonese relative clauses (RCs) offer a good opportunity to test these perspectives because its typologically rare properties decouple the roles of frequency and complexity in subject- and object-RCs in a way not possible in European languages. Specifically, Cantonese object RCs of the classifier type are frequently attested in children’s linguistic experience and are isomorphic to frequent and early-acquired simple SVO transitive clauses, but according to formal grammatical analyses Cantonese subject RCs are computationally less demanding to process. Thus, the two opposing theories make different predictions: the emergentist approach predicts a specific preference for object RCs of the classifier type, whereas the structurally oriented approach predicts a subject advantage. In the current study we revisited this issue. Eighty-seven monolingual Cantonese children aged between 3;2 and 3;11 (Mage: 3;6) participated in an elicited production task designed to elicit production of subject- and object- RCs. The children were very young and most of them produced only noun phrases when RCs were elicited. Those (nine children) who did produce RCs produced overwhelmingly more object RCs than subject RCs, even when animacy cues were controlled. The majority of object RCs produced were the frequent classifier-type RCs. The findings concur with our hypothesis from the emergentist perspectives that input frequency and formal and functional similarity to known structures guide acquisition.

Abstract

Theories from the psychology of communication may be applicable in understanding why hand-off communication is inherently problematic. The purpose of this study was to assess whether postcall pediatric interns can correctly estimate the patient care information and rationale received by on-call interns during hand-off communication. METHODS: Pediatric interns at the University of Chicago were interviewed about the hand-off. Postcall interns were asked to predict what on-call interns would report as the important pieces of information communicated during the hand-off about each patient, with accompanying rationale. Postcall interns also guessed on-call interns' rating of how well the hand-offs went. Then, on-call interns were asked to list the most important pieces of information for each patient that postcall interns communicated during the hand-off, with accompanying rationale. On-call interns also rated how well the hand-offs went. Interns had access to written hand-offs during the interviews. RESULTS: We conducted 52 interviews, which constituted 59% of eligible interviews. Seventy-two patients were discussed. The most important piece of information about a patient was not successfully communicated 60% of the time, despite the postcall intern's believing that it was communicated. Postcall and on-call interns did not agree on the rationales provided for 60% of items. In addition, an item was more likely to be effectively communicated when it was a to-do item (65%) or an item related to anticipatory guidance (69%) compared with a knowledge item (38%). Despite the lack of agreement on content and rationale of information communicated during hand-offs, peer ratings of hand-off quality were high. CONCLUSIONS: Pediatric interns overestimated the effectiveness of their hand-off communication. Theories from communication psychology suggest that miscommunication is caused by egocentric thought processes and a tendency for the speaker to overestimate the receiver's understanding. This study demonstrates that systematic causes of miscommunication may play a role in hand-off quality.

Abstract

Adopting an eyetracking paradigm, we investigated the role of H*L, L*HL, L*H, H*LH, and deaccentuation at the intonational phrase-final position in online processing of information status in British English in natural speech. The role of H*L, L*H and deaccentuation was also examined in diphonesynthetic speech. It was found that H*L and L*HL create a strong bias towards newness, whereas L*H, like deaccentuation, creates a strong bias towards givenness. In synthetic speech, the same effect was found for H*L, L*H and deaccentuation, but it was delayed. The delay may not be caused entirely by the difference in the segmental quality between synthetic and natural speech. The pitch accent H*LH, however, appears to bias participants' interpretation to the target word, independent of its information status. This finding was explained in the light of the effect of durational information at the segmental level on word recognition.

Abstract

Non-protein-coding RNAs represent a large proportion of transcribed sequences in eukaryotes. These RNAs often function in large RNA–protein complexes, which are catalysts in various RNA-processing pathways. As RNA processing has become an increasingly important area of research, numerous non-messenger RNAs have been uncovered in all the model eukaryotic organisms. However, knowledge on RNA processing in deep-branching eukaryotes is still limited. This study focuses on the identification of non-protein-coding RNAs from the diplomonad parasite Giardia intestinalis, showing that a combined experimental and computational search strategy is a fast method of screening reduced or compact genomes. The analysis of our Giardia cDNA library has uncovered 31 novel candidates, including C/D-box and H/ACA box snoRNAs, as well as an unusual transcript of RNase P, and double-stranded RNAs. Subsequent computational analysis has revealed additional putative C/D-box snoRNAs. Our results will lead towards a future understanding of RNA metabolism in the deep-branching eukaryote Giardia, as more ncRNAs are characterized.

Abstract

Abstract Mandarin categorizes cutting and breaking events on the basis of fine semantic distinctions in the causal action and the caused result. I demonstrate the semantics of Mandarin C&B verbs from the perspective of event encoding and categorization as well as argument structure alternations. Three semantically different types of predicates can be identified: verbs denoting the C&B action subevent, verbs encoding the C&B result subevent, and resultative verb compounds (RVC) that encode both the action and the result subevents. The first verb of an RVC is basically dyadic, whereas the second is monadic. RVCs as a whole are also basically dyadic, and do not undergo detransitivization.

Abstract

This study examines the perception of paralinguistic intonational meanings deriving from Ohala’s Frequency Code (Experiment 1) and Gussenhoven’s Effort Code (Experiment 2) in British English and Dutch. Native speakers of British English and Dutch listened to a number of stimuli in their native language and judged each stimulus on four semantic scales deriving from these two codes: SELF-CONFIDENT versus NOT SELF-CONFIDENT, FRIENDLY versus NOT FRIENDLY (Frequency Code); SURPRISED versus NOT SURPRISED, and EMPHATIC versus NOT EMPHATIC (Effort Code). The stimuli, which were lexically equivalent across the two languages, differed in pitch contour, pitch register and pitch span in Experiment 1, and in pitch register, peak height, peak alignment and end pitch in Experiment 2. Contrary to the traditional view that the paralinguistic usage of intonation is similar across languages, it was found that British English and Dutch listeners differed considerably in the perception of “confident,” “friendly,” “emphatic,” and “surprised.” The present findings support a theory of paralinguistic meaning based on the universality of biological codes, which however acknowledges a languagespecific component in the implementation of these codes.

Abstract

RNA interference (RNAi) is a set of mechanisms which regulate gene expression in eukaryotes. Key elements of RNAi are small sense and antisense RNAs from 19 to 26 nucleotides generated from double-stranded RNAs. miRNAs are a major type of RNAi-associated small RNAs and are found in most eukaryotes studied to date. To investigate whether small RNAs associated with RNAi appear to be present in all eukaryotic lineages, and therefore present in the ancestral eukaryote, we studied two deep-branching protozoan parasites, Giardia intestinalis and Trichomonas vaginalis. Little is known about endogenous small RNAs involved in RNAi of these organisms. Using Illumina Solexa sequencing and genome-wide analysis of small RNAs from these distantly related deep-branching eukaryotes, we identified 10 strong miRNA candidates from Giardia and 11 from Trichomonas. We also found evidence of Giardia siRNAs potentially involved in the expression of variant-specific-surface proteins. In addition, 8 new snoRNAs from Trichomonas are identified. Our results indicate that miRNAs are likely to be general in ancestral eukaryotes, and therefore are likely to be a universal feature of eukaryotes.

Abstract

This paper investigates L2 learners’ use of intonation in reference maintenance in comparison to native speakers at three longitudinal points. Nominal referring expressions were elicited from two untutored Turkish learners of Dutch and five native speakers of Dutch via a film retelling task, and were analysed in terms of pitch span and word duration. Effects of two types of change in information states were examined, between new and given and between new and accessible. We found native-like use of word duration in both types of change early on but different performances between learners and development over time in one learner in the use of pitch span. Further, the use of morphosyntactic devices had different effects on the two learners. The inter-learner differences and late systematic use of pitch span, in spite of similar use of pitch span in learners’ L1 and L2, suggest that learning may play a role in the acquisition of intonation as a device for reference maintenance.

Abstract

This article aims to clarify misunderstandings over the relation between production and comprehension in the acquisition of the focus-to-accentuation mapping and shed new light on this issue on the basis of experimental data obtained from Dutch-speaking children. The reanalysis of recent production data on children's and adult's intonational marking of focus reveals that 4- to 5-year-olds can use accentuation to mark non-contrastive narrow focus in question–answer dialogues, although they accent the focal noun slightly less frequently than adults in both sentence-initial and sentence-final positions and tend to accent the noun in sentence-final position to seek confirmation. Regarding comprehension, the processing of accentuation as a cue to non-contrastive narrow focus was examined in question–answer dialogues by means of the RT technique. It was found that 4- to 5-year-olds can process the mapping of non-contrastive narrow focus to accentuation although they need longer processing time than adults. Based on these results, it is argued that children's comprehension is similar to their production at the age of 4 or 5, contra the earlier claim that production precedes comprehension in the acquisition of the focus-to-accentuation mapping. In both production and comprehension, children exhibit similar patterns to adults but are not yet fully adult-like. However, the difference between adults and children is mainly of a gradient nature.

Abstract

The goal of this study is to examine how the degree of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation varies as a function of prosodic factors such as nuclear-pitch accent (accented vs. unaccented), level of prosodic boundary (Prosodic Word vs. Intermediate Phrase vs. Intonational Phrase), and position-in-prosodic-domain (initial vs. final). It is hypothesized that vowels in prosodically stronger locations (e.g., in accented syllables and at a higher prosodic boundary) are not only coarticulated less with their neighboring vowels, but they also exert a stronger influence on their neighbors. Measurements of tongue position for English /a i/ over time were obtained with Carsten’s electromagnetic articulography. Results showed that vowels in prosodically stronger locations are coarticulated less with neighboring vowels, but do not exert a stronger influence on the articulation of neighboring vowels. An examination of the relationship between coarticulation and duration revealed that (a) accent-induced coarticulatory variation cannot be attributed to a duration factor and (b) some of the data with respect to boundary effects may be accounted for by the duration factor. This suggests that to the extent that prosodically conditioned coarticulatory variation is duration-independent, there is no absolute causal relationship from duration to coarticulation. It is proposed that prosodically conditioned V-to-V coarticulatory reduction is another type of strengthening that occurs in prosodically strong locations. The prosodically driven coarticulatory patterning is taken to be part of the phonetic signatures of the hierarchically nested structure of prosody.

Abstract

We explore the role of the acoustic consequences of domain-initial strengthening in spoken-word recognition. In two cross-modal identity-priming experiments, listeners heard sentences and made lexical decisions to visual targets, presented at the onset of the second word in two-word sequences containing lexical ambiguities (e.g., bus tickets, with the competitor bust). These sequences contained Intonational Phrase (IP) or Prosodic Word (Wd) boundaries, and the second word's initial Consonant and Vowel (CV, e.g., [tI]) was spliced from another token of the sequence in IP- or Wd-initial position. Acoustic analyses showed that IP-initial consonants were articulated more strongly than Wd-initial consonants. In Experiment 1, related targets were post-boundary words (e.g., tickets). No strengthening effect was observed (i.e., identity priming effects did not vary across splicing conditions). In Experiment 2, related targets were pre-boundary words (e.g., bus). There was a strengthening effect (stronger priming when the post-boundary CVs were spliced from IP-initial than from Wd-initial position), but only in Wd-boundary contexts. These were the conditions where phonetic detail associated with domain-initial strengthening could assist listeners most in lexical disambiguation. We discuss how speakers may strengthen domain-initial segments during production and how listeners may use the resulting acoustic correlates of prosodic strengthening during word recognition.

Abstract

English and Korean differ in how they lexicalize the components of motionevents. English characteristically conflates Motion with Manner, Cause, or Deixis, and expresses Path separately. Korean, in contrast, conflates Motion with Path and elements of Figure and Ground in transitive clauses for caused Motion, but conflates motion with Deixis and spells out Path and Manner separately in intransitive clauses for spontaneous motion. Children learningEnglish and Korean show sensitivity to language-specific patterns in the way they talk about motion from as early as 17–20 months. For example, learners of English quickly generalize their earliest spatial words — Path particles like up, down, and in — to both spontaneous and caused changes of location and, for up and down, to posture changes, while learners of Korean keep words for spontaneous and caused motion strictly separate and use different words for vertical changes of location and posture changes. These findings challenge the widespread view that children initially map spatial words directly to nonlinguistic spatial concepts, and suggest that they are influenced by the semantic organization of their language virtually from the beginning. We discuss how input and cognition may interact in the early phases of learning to talk about space.

Abstract

Models of speech production assume that syllables play a functional role in the process of word-form encoding in speech production. In this study, we investigate this claim and specifically provide evidence about the level at which syllables come into play. We report two studies using an odd-man-out variant of the implicit priming paradigm to examine the role of the syllable during the process of word formation. Our results show that this modified version of the implicit priming paradigm can trace the emergence of syllabic structure during spoken word generation. Comparing these results to prior syllable priming studies, we conclude that syllables emerge at the interface between phonological and phonetic encoding. The results are discussed in terms of the WEAVER++ model of lexical access.

Abstract

In the current paper, we asked at what level in the speech planning process speakers retrieve stored syllables. There is evidence that syllable structure plays an essential role in the phonological encoding of words (e.g., online syllabification and phonological word formation). There is also evidence that syllables are retrieved as whole units. However, findings that clearly pinpoint these effects to specific levels in speech planning are scarce. We used a naming variant of the implicit priming paradigm to contrast voice onset latencies for frequency-manipulated disyllabic Dutch pseudo-words. While prior implicit priming studies only manipulated the item's form and/or syllable structure overlap we introduced syllable frequency as an additional factor. If the preparation effect for syllables obtained in the implicit priming paradigm proceeds beyond phonological planning, i.e., includes the retrieval of stored syllables, then the preparation effect should differ for high- and low frequency syllables. The findings reported here confirm this prediction: Low-frequency syllables benefit significantly more from the preparation than high-frequency syllables. Our findings support the notion of a mental syllabary at a post-lexical level, between the levels of phonological and phonetic encoding.

Abstract

Speakers use external auditory feedback to monitor their own speech. Feedback distortion has been found to increase activity in the superior temporal areas. Using fMRI, the present study investigates the neural correlates of processing verbal feedback without distortion. In a blocked design, the following conditions were presented: (1) overt picture-naming, (2) overt picture-naming while pink noise was presented to mask external feedback, (3) covert picture-naming, (4) listening to the picture names (previously recorded from participants' own voices), and (5) listening to pink noise. The results show that auditory feedback processing involves a network of different areas related to general performance monitoring and speech-motor control. These include the cingulate cortex and the bilateral insula, supplementary motor area, bilateral motor areas, cerebellum, thalamus and basal ganglia. Our findings suggest that the anterior cingulate cortex, which is often implicated in error-processing and conflict-monitoring, is also engaged in ongoing speech monitoring. Furthermore, in the superior temporal gyrus, we found a reduced response to speaking under normal feedback conditions. This finding is interpreted in the framework of a forward model according to which, during speech production, the sensory consequence of the speech-motor act is predicted to attenuate the sensitivity of the auditory cortex. Hum Brain Mapp 2007. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Abstract

This study addressed how bilingual speakers switch between their first and second language when speaking. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and naming latencies were measured while unbalanced German (L1)-Dutch (L2) speakers performed a picture-naming task. Participants named pictures either in their L1 or in their L2 (blocked language conditions), or participants switched between their first and second language unpredictably (mixed language condition). Furthermore, form similarity between translation equivalents (cognate status) was manipulated. A cognate facilitation effect was found for L1 and L2 indicating phonological activation of the non-response language in blocked and mixed language conditions. The ERP data also revealed small but reliable effects of cognate status. Language switching resulted in equal switching costs for both languages and was associated with a modulation in the ERP waveforms (time windows 275-375 ms and 375-475 ms). Mixed language context affected especially the L1, both in ERPs and in latencies, which became slower in L1 than L2. It is suggested that sustained and transient components of language control should be distinguished. Results are discussed in relation to current theories of bilingual language processing.

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

Some Trobriand Islands string figures by Stephan Claassen, Best, the Netherlands, and Joseph D'Antoni, Queens, New York, USA, in cooperation with Gunter Senft, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands (pages 72-128) - The construction and execution of fourteen string figures from the Trobriand Islands is given, along with accompanying chants (in the original, and in translation) and comparative notes. The figures were made during a 1984 string figure performance by two ladies in the village of Tauwema, on the island of Kaile’una. The performance was filmed by a team of German researchers. One of the figures appears to be not recorded before, and the construction method of another figure was hitherto unknown. Some of the other figures have their own peculiarities.

Abstract

Previous research has shown significant effects of race and accent on children’s developing social preferences. Accounts of the primacy of accent biases in the evolution and ontogeny of discriminant cooperation have been proposed, but lack systematic cross-cultural investigation. We report three controlled studies conducted with 5−10 year old children across four towns in the Brazilian Amazon, selected for their variation in racial and accent homogeneity/heterogeneity. Study 1 investigated participants’ (N = 289) decisions about friendship and sharing across color-contrasted pairs of target individuals: Black-White, Black-Pardo (Brown), Pardo-White. Study 2 (N = 283) investigated effects of both color and accent (Local vs Non-Local) on friendship and sharing decisions. Overall, there was a significant bias toward the lighter colored individual. A significant preference for local accent mitigates but does not override the color bias, except in the site characterized by both racial and accent heterogeneity. Results also vary by participant age and color. Study 3 (N = 235) reports results of an accent discrimination task that shows an overall increase in accuracy with age. The research suggests that cooperative preferences based on accent and race develop differently in response to locally relevant parameters of racial and linguistic variation.

Abstract

Explanatory accounts of the emergence, spread, storage, persistence, and transformation of knowledge face numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. This paper argues that although anthropologists are uniquely positioned to address some of these challenges, joint engagement with relevant research in neighbouring disciplines holds considerable promise for advancement in the area. Researchers across the human and social sciences are increasingly recognizing the importance of conjointly operative and mutually contingent bodily, cognitive, neural, and social mechanisms informing the generation and communication of knowledge. Selected cognitive scientific work, in particular, is reviewed here and used to illustrate how anthropology may potentially richly contribute not only to descriptive and interpretive endeavours, but to the development and substantiation of explanatory accounts also. Résumé Les comptes-rendus portant sur l'émergence, la diffusion, la conservation, la persistance et la transformation des connaissances se heurtent à de nombreuses difficultés théoriques et méthodologiques. Bien que les anthropologues soient particulièrement bien placés pour affronter ces défis, des progrès considérables pourraient être réalisés en la matière dans le cadre d'une approche conjointe avec des disciplines voisines menant des recherches connexes. Les adeptes du décloisonnement des sciences humaines et sociales reconnaissent de plus en plus l'importance des interactions et interdépendances entre mécanismes physiques, cognitifs, neurologiques et sociaux dans la production et la communication des connaissances. Des travaux scientifiques choisis, en matière de cognition en particulier, sont examinés et utilisés pour illustrer la manière dont l'anthropologie pourrait apporter une riche contribution non seulement aux tâches descriptives et interprétatives, mais aussi à l'élaboration et la mise à l'épreuve de comptes-rendus explicatifs.

Abstract

Physical exercise is known to stimulate the release of endorphins, creating a mild sense of euphoria that has rewarding properties. Using pain tolerance (a conventional non-invasive
assay for endorphin release), we show that synchronized training in a college rowing crew creates a heightened endorphin surge compared
with a similar training regime carried out alone. This heightened effect from synchronized activity may explain the sense of euphoria experienced
during other social activities (such as
laughter, music-making and dancing) that are involved in social bonding in humans and possibly other vertebrates

Abstract

Our knowledge of RNA biology within eukaryotes has exploded over the last five years. Within new research we see that some features that were once thought to be part of multicellular life have now been identified in several protist lineages. Hence, it is timely to ask which features of eukaryote RNA biology are ancestral to all eukaryotes. We focus on RNA-based regulation and epigenetic mechanisms that use small regulatory ncRNAs and long ncRNAs, to highlight some of the many questions surrounding eukaryotic ncRNA evolution.

Abstract

Processing speech in a non-native language requires listeners to cope with influences from their first language and to overcome the effects of limited exposure and experience. These factors may be particularly important when listening in adverse conditions. However,native listeners also suffer in noise, and the intelligibility of speech in noise clearly depends on factors which are independent of a listener’s first language. The current study explored the issue of language-independence by comparing the responses of eight listener groups differing in native language when confronted with the task of identifying English intervocalic consonants in three masker backgrounds, viz.stationary speech-shaped noise, temporally-modulated speech-shaped noise and competing English speech. The study analysed the effects of (i) noise type, (ii) speaker, (iii) vowel context, (iv) consonant, (v) phonetic feature classes, (vi) stress position, (vii) gender and (viii) stimulus onset relative to noise onset. A significant degree of similarity in the response to many of these factors was evident across all eight language groups, suggesting that acoustic and auditory considerations play a large role in determining intelligibility. Language- specific influences were observed in the rankings of individual consonants and in the masking effect of competing speech relative to speech-modulated noise.

Abstract

In three experiments, listeners detected vowel or consonant targets in lists of CV syllables constructed from five vowels and five consonants. Responses were faster in a predictable context (e.g., listening for a vowel target in a list of syllables all beginning with the same consonant) than in an unpredictable context (e.g., listening for a vowel target in a list of syllables beginning with different consonants). In Experiment 1, the listeners’ native language was Dutch, in which vowel and consonant repertoires are similar in size. The difference between predictable and unpredictable contexts was comparable for vowel and consonant targets. In Experiments 2 and 3, the listeners’ native language was Spanish, which has four times as many consonants as vowels; here effects of an unpredictable consonant context on vowel detection were significantly greater than effects of an unpredictable vowel context on consonant detection. This finding suggests that listeners’ processing of phonemes takes into account the constitution of their language’s phonemic repertoire and the implications that this has for contextual variability.

Abstract

In this study we test the hypothesis that symbolic play represents a fertile context for language acquisition because its inherent ambiguity elicits communicative behaviours that positively influence development. Infant-caregiver dyads (N = 54) participated in two 20-minute play sessions six months apart (Time 1 = 18 months, Time 2 = 24 months). During each session the dyads played with two sets of toys that elicited either symbolic or functional play. The sessions were transcribed and coded for several features of dyadic interaction and speech; infants’ linguistic proficiency was measured via parental report. The two play contexts resulted in different communicative and linguistic behaviour. Notably, the symbolic play condition resulted in significantly greater conversational turn-taking than functional play, and also resulted in the greater use of questions and mimetics in infant-directed speech (IDS). In contrast, caregivers used more imperative clauses in functional play. Regression analyses showed that unique properties of symbolic play (i.e., turn-taking, yes-no questions, mimetics) positively predicted children’s language proficiency, whereas unique features of functional play (i.e., imperatives in IDS) negatively predicted proficiency. The results provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that symbolic play is a fertile context for language development, driven by the need to negotiate meaning.

Abstract

Recent constituent priming experiments show that Dutch and German prefixed verbs prime their stem, regardless of semantic transparency (e.g. Smolka et al. [(2014). ‘Verstehen’ (‘understand’) primes ‘stehen’ (‘stand’): Morphological structure overrides semantic compositionality in the lexical representation of German complex verbs. Journal of Memory and Language, 72, 16–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2013.12.002]). We examine whether the processing of opaque verbs (e.g. herhalen “repeat”) involves the retrieval of only the whole-word meaning, or whether the lexical-semantic meaning of the stem (halen as “take/get”) is retrieved as well. We report the results of an auditory semantic priming experiment with Dutch prefixed verbs, testing whether the recognition of a semantic associate to the stem (BRENGEN “bring”) is facilitated by the presentation of an opaque prefixed verb. In contrast to prior visual studies, significant facilitation after semantically opaque primes is found, which suggests that the lexical-semantic meaning of stems in opaque words is retrieved. We examine the implications that these findings have for auditory word recognition, and for the way in which different types of meanings are represented and processed.

Abstract

In the previous decade, dozens of studies involving thousands of children across several research disciplines have made use of a combined daylong audio-recorder and automated algorithmic analysis called the LENAⓇ system, which aims to assess children’s language environment. While the system’s prevalence in the language acquisition domain is steadily growing, there are only scattered validation efforts on only some of its key characteristics. Here, we assess the LENAⓇ system’s accuracy across all of its key measures: speaker classification, Child Vocalization Counts (CVC), Conversational Turn Counts (CTC), and Adult Word Counts (AWC). Our assessment is based on manual annotation of clips that have been randomly or periodically sampled out of daylong recordings, collected from (a) populations similar to the system’s original training data (North American English-learning children aged 3-36 months), (b) children learning another dialect of English (UK), and (c) slightly older children growing up in a different linguistic and socio-cultural setting (Tsimane’ learners in rural Bolivia). We find reasonably high accuracy in some measures (AWC, CVC), with more problematic levels of performance in others (CTC, precision of male adults and other children). Statistical analyses do not support the view that performance is worse for children who are dissimilar from the LENAⓇ original training set. Whether LENAⓇ results are accurate enough for a given research, educational, or clinical application depends largely on the specifics at hand. We therefore conclude with a set of recommendations to help researchers make this determination for their goals.

Abstract

The hypothesis that vocalic categories are enhanced in infant-directed speech (IDS) has received a great deal of attention and support. In contrast, work focusing on the acoustic implementation of consonantal categories has been scarce, and positive, negative, and null results have been reported. However, interpreting this mixed evidence is complicated by the facts that the definition of phonetic enhancement varies across articles, that small and heterogeneous groups have been studied across experiments, and further that the categories chosen are likely affected by other characteristics of IDS. Here, an analysis of the English sibilants /s/ and /ʃ/ in a large corpus of caregivers’ speech to another adult and to their infant suggests that consonantal categories are indeed enhanced, even after controlling for typical IDS prosodic characteristics.

Abstract

This study tested the hypothesis that cooperative breeding facilitates the emergence of prosocial behavior by presenting cottontop tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) with the option to provide food rewards to pair-bonded mates. In Experiment 1, tamarins could provide rewards to mates at no additional cost while obtaining rewards for themselves. Contrary to the hypothesis, tamarins did not demonstrate a preference to donate rewards, behaving similar to chimpanzees in previous studies. In Experiment 2, the authors eliminated rewards for the donor for a stricter test of prosocial behavior, while reducing separation distress and food preoccupation. Again, the authors found no evidence for a donation preference. Furthermore, tamarins were significantly less likely to deliver rewards to mates when the mate displayed interest in the reward. The results of this study contrast with those recently reported for cooperatively breeding common marmosets, and indicate that prosocial preferences in a food donation task do not emerge in all cooperative breeders. In previous studies, cottontop tamarins have cooperated and reciprocated to obtain food rewards; the current findings sharpen understanding of the boundaries of cottontop tamarins’ food-provisioning behavior.

Abstract

The cooperative breeding hypothesis posits that cooperatively breeding species are motivated to act prosocially, that is, to behave in ways that provide benefits to others, and that cooperative breeding has played a central role in the evolution of human prosociality. However, investigations of prosocial behaviour in cooperative breeders have produced varying results and the mechanisms contributing to this variation are unknown. We investigated whether reciprocity would facilitate prosocial behaviour among cottontop tamarins, a cooperatively breeding primate species likely to engage in reciprocal altruism, by comparing the number of food rewards transferred to partners who had either immediately previously provided or denied rewards to the subject. Subjects were also tested in a non-social control condition. Overall, results indicated that reciprocity increased food transfers. However, temporal analyses revealed that when the tamarins' behaviour was evaluated in relation to the non-social control, results were best explained by (i) an initial depression in the transfer of rewards to partners who recently denied rewards, and (ii) a prosocial effect that emerged late in sessions independent of reciprocity. These results support the cooperative breeding hypothesis, but suggest a minimal role for positive reciprocity, and emphasize the importance of investigating proximate temporal mechanisms underlying prosocial behaviour.

Abstract

Handedness has been extensively studied because of its relationship with language and the over-representation of left-handers in some neurodevelopmental disorders. Using data from the UK Biobank, 23andMe and the International Handedness Consortium, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of handedness (N = 1,766,671). We found 41 loci associated (P < 5 × 10−8) with left-handedness and 7 associated with ambidexterity. Tissue-enrichment analysis implicated the CNS in the aetiology of handedness. Pathways including regulation of microtubules and brain morphology were also highlighted. We found suggestive positive genetic correlations between left-handedness and neuropsychiatric traits, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Furthermore, the genetic correlation between left-handedness and ambidexterity is low (rG = 0.26), which implies that these traits are largely influenced by different genetic mechanisms. Our findings suggest that handedness is highly polygenic and that the genetic variants that predispose to left-handedness may underlie part of the association with some psychiatric disorders.

Abstract

Native American English and non-native(Dutch)listeners identified either the consonant or the vowel in all possible American English CV and VC syllables. The syllables were embedded in multispeaker babble at three signal-to-noise ratios(0, 8, and 16 dB). The phoneme identification
performance of the non-native listeners was less accurate than that of the native listeners. All listeners were adversely affected by noise. With these isolated syllables, initial segments were harder to identify than final segments. Crucially, the effects of language background and noise did not interact; the performance asymmetry between the native and non-native groups was not significantly different across signal-to-noise ratios. It is concluded that the frequently reported disproportionate difficulty of non-native listening under disadvantageous conditions is not due to a disproportionate increase in phoneme misidentifications.

Abstract

Listeners learn from their past experience of listening to spoken words, and use this learning to maximise the efficiency of future word recognition. This paper summarises evidence that the facilitatory effects of drawing on past experience are mediated by abstraction, enabling learning to be generalised across new words and new listening situations. Phoneme category retuning, which allows adaptation to speaker-specific articulatory characteristics, is generalised on the basis of relatively brief experience to words previously unheard from that speaker. Abstract knowledge of prosodic regularities is applied to recognition even of novel words for which these regularities were violated. Prosodic word-boundary regularities drive segmentation of speech into words independently of the membership of the lexical candidate set resulting from the segmentation operation. Each of these different cases illustrates how abstraction from past listening experience has contributed to the efficiency of lexical recognition.

Abstract

Languages differ in the constitution of their phonemic repertoire and in the relative distinctiveness of phonemes within the repertoire. In the present study, we asked whether such differences constrain spoken-word recognition, via two word reconstruction experiments, in which listeners turned non-words into real words by changing single sounds. The experiments were carried out in Dutch (which has a relatively balanced vowel-consonant ratio and many similar vowels) and in Spanish (which has many more consonants than vowels and high distinctiveness among the vowels). Both Dutch and Spanish listeners responded significantly faster and more accurately when required to change vowels as opposed to consonants; when allowed to change any phoneme, they more often altered vowels than consonants. Vowel information thus appears to constrain lexical selection less tightly (allow more potential candidates) than does consonant information, independent of language-specific phoneme repertoire and of relative distinctiveness of vowels.

Abstract

Spraak is continu, er zijn geen betrouwbare signalen waardoor de luisteraar weet waar het ene woord eindigt en het volgende begint. Voor volwassen luisteraars is het segmenteren van gesproken taal in afzonderlijke woorden dus niet onproblematisch, maar voor een kind dat nog geen woordenschat bezit, vormt de continuïteit van spraak een nog grotere uitdaging. Desalniettemin produceren de meeste kinderen hun eerste herkenbare woorden rond het begin van het tweede levensjaar. Aan deze vroege spraakproducties gaat een formidabele perceptuele prestatie vooraf. Tijdens het eerste levensjaar - met name gedurende de tweede helft - ontwikkelt de spraakperceptie zich van een algemeen fonetisch discriminatievermogen tot een selectieve gevoeligheid voor de fonologische contrasten die in de moedertaal voorkomen. Recent onderzoek heeft verder aangetoond dat kinderen, lang voordat ze ook maar een enkel woord kunnen zeggen, in staat zijn woorden die kenmerkend zijn voor hun moedertaal te onderscheiden van woorden die dat niet zijn. Bovendien kunnen ze woorden die eerst in isolatie werden aangeboden herkennen in een continue spraakcontext. Het dagelijkse taalaanbod aan een kind van deze leeftijd maakt het in zekere zin niet gemakkelijk, bijvoorbeeld doordat de meeste woorden niet in isolatie voorkomen. Toch wordt het kind ook wel houvast geboden, onder andere doordat het woordgebruik beperkt is.

Abstract

English listeners largely disregard suprasegmental cues to stress in recognizing words. Evidence for this includes the demonstration of Fear et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 97, 1893–1904 (1995)] that cross-splicings are tolerated between stressed and unstressed full vowels (e.g., au- of autumn, automata). Dutch listeners, however, do exploit suprasegmental stress cues in recognizing native-language words. In this study, Dutch listeners were presented with English materials from the study of Fear et al. Acceptability ratings by these listeners revealed sensitivity to suprasegmental mismatch, in particular, in replacements of unstressed full vowels by higher-stressed vowels, thus evincing greater sensitivity to prosodic goodness than had been shown by the original native listener group.

Abstract

The phoneme detection task is widely used in spoken-word recognition research. Alphabetically literate participants, however, are more used to explicit representations of letters than of phonemes. The present study explored whether phoneme detection is sensitive to how target phonemes are, or may be, orthographically realized. Listeners detected the target sounds [b, m, t, f, s, k] in word-initial position in sequences of isolated English words. Response times were faster to the targets [b, m, t], which have consistent word-initial spelling, than to the targets [f, s, k], which are inconsistently spelled, but only when spelling was rendered salient by the presence in the experiment of many irregularly spelled filler words. Within the inconsistent targets [f, s, k], there was no significant difference between responses to targets in words with more usual (foam, seed, cattle) versus less usual (phone, cede, kettle) spellings. Phoneme detection is thus not necessarily sensitive to orthographic effects; knowledge of spelling stored in the lexical representations of words does not automatically become available as word candidates are activated. However, salient orthographic manipulations in experimental input can induce such sensitivity. We attribute this to listeners' experience of the value of spelling in everyday situations that encourage phonemic decisions (such as learning new names)

Abstract

Adverse listening conditions always make the perception of speech harder, but their deleterious effect is far greater if the speech we are trying to understand is in a non-native language. An imperfect signal can be coped with by recourse to the extensive knowledge one has of a native language, and imperfect knowledge of a non-native language can still support useful communication when speech signals are high-quality. But the combination of imperfect signal and imperfect knowledge leads rapidly to communication breakdown. This phenomenon is undoubtedly well known to every reader of Speech Communication from personal experience. Many readers will also have a professional interest in explaining, or remedying, the problems it produces. The journal’s readership being a decidedly interdisciplinary one, this interest will involve quite varied scientific approaches, including (but not limited to) modelling the interaction of first and second language vocabularies and phonemic repertoires, developing targeted listening training for language learners, and redesigning the acoustics of classrooms and conference halls. In other words, the phenomenon that this special issue deals with is a well-known one, that raises important scientific and practical questions across a range of speech communication disciplines, and Speech Communication is arguably the ideal vehicle for presentation of such a breadth of approaches in a single volume. The call for papers for this issue elicited a large number of submissions from across the full range of the journal’s interdisciplinary scope, requiring the guest editors to apply very strict criteria to the final selection. Perhaps unique in the history of treatments of this topic is the combination represented by the guest editors for this issue: a phonetician whose primary research interest is in second-language speech (MLGL), an engineer whose primary research field is the acoustics of masking in speech processing (MC), and a psychologist whose primary research topic is the recognition of spoken words (AC). In the opening article of the issue, these three authors together review the existing literature on listening to second-language speech under adverse conditions, bringing together these differing perspectives for the first time in a single contribution. The introductory review is followed by 13 new experimental reports of phonetic, acoustic and psychological studies of the topic. The guest editors thank Speech Communication editor Marc Swerts and the journal’s team at Elsevier, as well as all the reviewers who devoted time and expert efforts to perfecting the contributions to this issue.

Abstract

Three experiments, in which Japanese listeners detected Japanese words embedded in nonsense sequences, examined the perceptual consequences of vowel devoicing in that language. Since vowelless sequences disrupt speech segmentation [Norris et al. (1997). Cognit. Psychol. 34, 191– 243], devoicing is potentially problematic for perception. Words in initial position in nonsense sequences were detected more easily when followed by a sequence containing a vowel than by a vowelless segment (with or without further context), and vowelless segments that were potential devoicing environments were no easier than those not allowing devoicing. Thus asa, “morning,” was easier in asau or asazu than in all of asap, asapdo, asaf, or asafte, despite the fact that the /f/ in the latter two is a possible realization of fu, with devoiced [u]. Japanese listeners thus do not treat devoicing contexts as if they always contain vowels. Words in final position in nonsense sequences, however, produced a different pattern: here, preceding vowelless contexts allowing devoicing impeded word detection less strongly (so, sake was detected less accurately, but not less rapidly, in nyaksake—possibly arising from nyakusake—than in nyagusake). This is consistent with listeners treating consonant sequences as potential realizations of parts of existing lexical candidates wherever possible.

Abstract

One of a listener's major tasks in understanding continuous speech is segmenting the speech signal into separate words. When listening conditions are difficult, speakers can help listeners by deliberately speaking more clearly. In four experiments, we examined how word boundaries are produced in deliberately clear speech. In an earlier report we showed that speakers do indeed mark word boundaries in clear speech, by pausing at the boundary and lengthening pre-boundary syllables; moreover, these effects are applied particularly to boundaries preceding weak syllables. In English, listeners use segmentation procedures which make word boundaries before strong syllables easier to perceive; thus marking word boundaries before weak syllables in clear speech will make clear precisely those boundaries which are otherwise hard to perceive. The present report presents supplementary data, namely prosodic analyses of the syllable following a critical word boundary. More lengthening and greater increases in intensity were applied in clear speech to weak syllables than to strong. Mean F0 was also increased to a greater extent on weak syllables than on strong. Pitch movement, however, increased to a greater extent on strong syllables than on weak. The effects were, however, very small in comparison to the durational effects we observed earlier for syllables preceding the boundary and for pauses at the boundary.

Abstract

This study evaluates whether early vocalizations develop in similar ways in children across diverse cultural contexts. We analyze data from daylong audio recordings of 49 children (1–36 months) from five different language/cultural backgrounds. Citizen scientists annotated these recordings to determine if child vocalizations contained canonical transitions or not (e.g., “ba” vs. “ee”). Results revealed that the proportion of clips reported to contain canonical transitions increased with age. Furthermore, this proportion exceeded 0.15 by around 7 months, replicating and extending previous findings on canonical vocalization development but using data from the natural environments of a culturally and linguistically diverse sample. This work explores how crowdsourcing can be used to annotate corpora, helping establish developmental milestones relevant to multiple languages and cultures. Lower inter‐annotator reliability on the crowdsourcing platform, relative to more traditional in‐lab expert annotators, means that a larger number of unique annotators and/or annotations are required, and that crowdsourcing may not be a suitable method for more fine‐grained annotation decisions. Audio clips used for this project are compiled into a large‐scale infant vocalization corpus that is available for other researchers to use in future work.

Abstract

A number of researchers have claimed that questions and other constructions with long distance dependencies (LDDs) are acquired relatively early, by age 4 or even earlier, in spite of their complexity. Analysis of LDD questions in the input available to children suggests that they are extremely stereotypical, raising the possibility that children learn lexically specific templates such as WH do you think S-GAP? rather than general rules of the kind postulated in traditional linguistic accounts of this construction. We describe three elicited imitation experiments with children aged from 4;6 to 6;9 and adult controls. Participants were asked to repeat prototypical questions (i.e., questions which match the hypothesised template), unprototypical questions (which depart from it in several respects) and declarative counterparts of both types of interrogative sentences. The children performed significantly better on the prototypical variants of both constructions, even when both variants contained exactly the same lexical material, while adults showed prototypicality e¤ects for LDD questions only. These results suggest that a general declarative complementation construction emerges quite late in development (after age 6), and that even adults rely on lexically specific templates for LDD questions.

Abstract

Two experiments examined the dynamics of lexical activation in spoken-word recognition. In both, the key materials were pairs of onset-matched picturable nouns varying in frequency. Pictures associated with these words, plus two distractor pictures were displayed. A gating task, in which participants identified the picture associated with gradually lengthening fragments of spoken words, examined the availability of discriminating cues in the speech waveforms for these pairs. There was a clear frequency bias in participants’ responses to short, ambiguous fragments, followed by a temporal window in which discriminating information gradually became available. A visual-world experiment examined speech contingent eye movements. Fixation analyses suggested that frequency influences lexical competition well beyond the point in the speech signal at which the spoken word has been fully discriminated from its competitor (as identified using gating). Taken together, these data support models in which the processing dynamics of lexical activation are a limiting factor on recognition speed, over and above the temporal unfolding of the speech signal.

Abstract

The authors used 2 “visual-world” eye-tracking experiments to examine lexical access using Dutch constructions in which the verb did or did not place semantic constraints on its subsequent subject noun phrase. In Experiment 1, fixations to the picture of a cohort competitor (overlapping with the onset of the referent’s name, the subject) did not differ from fixations to a distractor in the constraining-verb condition. In Experiment 2, cross-splicing introduced phonetic information that temporarily biased the input toward the cohort competitor. Fixations to the cohort competitor temporarily increased in both the neutral and constraining conditions. These results favor models in which mapping from the input onto meaning is continuous over models in which contextual effects follow access of an initial form-based competitor set.

Abstract

Aims Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) may represent a novel class of biomarkers; therefore, we examined whether acute myocardial infarction (MI) modulates miRNAs plasma levels in humans and mice. Methods and results Healthy donors (n = 17) and patients (n = 33) with acute ST-segment elevation MI (STEMI) were evaluated. In one cohort (n = 25), the first plasma sample was obtained 517 ± 309 min after the onset of MI symptoms and after coronary reperfusion with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI); miR-1, -133a, -133b, and -499-5p were ∼15- to 140-fold control, whereas miR-122 and -375 were ∼87–90% lower than control; 5 days later, miR-1, -133a, -133b, -499-5p, and -375 were back to baseline, whereas miR-122 remained lower than control through Day 30. In additional patients (n = 8; four treated with thrombolysis and four with PCI), miRNAs and troponin I (TnI) were quantified simultaneously starting 156 ± 72 min after the onset of symptoms and at different times thereafter. Peak miR-1, -133a, and -133b expression and TnI level occurred at a similar time, whereas miR-499-5p exhibited a slower time course. In mice, miRNAs plasma levels and TnI were measured 15 min after coronary ligation and at different times thereafter. The behaviour of miR-1, -133a, -133b, and -499-5p was similar to STEMI patients; further, reciprocal changes in the expression levels of these miRNAs were found in cardiac tissue 3–6 h after coronary ligation. In contrast, miR-122 and -375 exhibited minor changes and no significant modulation. In mice with acute hind-limb ischaemia, there was no increase in the plasma level of the above miRNAs. Conclusion Acute MI up-regulated miR-1, -133a, -133b, and -499-5p plasma levels, both in humans and mice, whereas miR-122 and -375 were lower than control only in STEMI patients. These miRNAs represent novel biomarkers of cardiac damage.

Abstract

This study focusses on the optimal paradigm for simultaneous assessment of auditory and phonemic discrimination in clinical populations. We investigated (a) whether pitch and phonemic deviants presented together in one sequence are able to elicit mismatch negativities (MMNs) in healthy adults and (b) whether MMN elicited by a change in pitch is modulated by the presence of the phonemic deviants.

Abstract

Based on recent findings showing electrophysiological changes in adult language learners after relatively short periods of training, we hypothesized that adult Dutch learners of German would show responses to German gender and adjective declension violations after brief instruction. Adjective declension in German differs from previously studied morphosyntactic regularities in that the required suffixes depend not only on the syntactic case, gender, and number features to be expressed, but also on whether or not these features are already expressed on linearly preceding elements in the noun phrase. Violation phrases and matched controls were presented over three test phases (pretest and training on the first day, and a posttest one week later). During the pretest, no electrophysiological differences were observed between violation and control conditions, and participants’ classification performance was near chance. During the training and posttest phases, classification improved, and there was a P600-like violation response to declension but not gender violations. An error-related response during training was associated with improvement in grammatical discrimination from pretest to posttest. The results show that rapid changes in neuronal responses can be observed in adult learners of a complex morphosyntactic rule, and also that error-related electrophysiological responses may relate to grammar acquisition.

Abstract

The relationship between semantic and grammatical processing in sentence comprehension was investigated by examining event-related potential (ERP) and event-related power changes in response to semantic and grammatical violations. Sentences with semantic, phrase structure, or number violations and matched controls were presented serially (1.25 words/s) to 20 participants while EEG was recorded. Semantic violations were associated with an N400 effect and a theta band increase in power, while grammatical violations were associated with a P600 effect and an alpha/beta band decrease in power. A quartile analysis showed that for both types of violations, larger average violation effects were associated with lower relative amplitudes of oscillatory activity, implying an inverse relation between ERP amplitude and event-related power magnitude change in sentence processing.

Abstract

Previous studies have examined cross-serial and embedded complement clauses in West Germanic in order to distinguish between different types of working memory models of human sentence processing, as well as different formal language models. Here, adult plasticity in the use of these constructions is investigated by examining the response of German-speaking learners of Dutch using magnetoencephalography (MEG). In three experimental sessions spanning their initial acquisition of Dutch, participants performed a sentence-scene matching task with Dutch sentences including two different verb constituent orders (Dutch verb order, German verb order), and in addition rated similar constructions in a separate rating task. The average planar gradient of the evoked field to the initial verb within the cluster revealed a larger evoked response for the German order relative to the Dutch order between 0.2 to 0.4 s over frontal sensors after 2 weeks, but not initially. The rating data showed that constructions consistent with Dutch grammar, but inconsistent with the German grammar were initially rated as unacceptable, but this preference reversed after 3 months. The behavioural and electrophysiological results suggest that cortical responses to verb order preferences in complement clauses can change within 3 months after the onset of adult language learning, implying that this aspect of grammatical processing remains plastic into adulthood.

Abstract

Background: Previous research has found that newborn infants can match phonetic information in the lips and voice from as young as ten weeks old. There is evidence that access to visual speech is necessary for normal speech development. Although we have an understanding of this early sensitivity, very little research has investigated older children's ability to speechread whole words. Aims: The aim of this study was to identify aspects of preschool children's linguistic knowledge and processing ability that may contribute to speechreading ability. We predicted a significant correlation between receptive vocabulary and speechreading, as well as phonological working memory to be a predictor of speechreading performance. Methods & Procedures: Seventy-six children (n = 76) aged between 2;10 and 4;11 years participated. Children were given three pictures and were asked to point to the picture that they thought that the experimenter had silently mouthed (ten trials). Receptive vocabulary and phonological working memory were also assessed. The results were analysed using Pearson correlations and multiple regressions. Outcomes & Results: The results demonstrated that the children could speechread at a rate greater than chance. Pearson correlations revealed significant, positive correlations between receptive vocabulary and speechreading score, phonological error rate and age. Further correlations revealed significant, positive relationships between The Children's Test of Non-Word Repetition (CNRep) and speechreading score, phonological error rate and age. Multiple regression analyses showed that receptive vocabulary best predicts speechreading ability over and above phonological working memory. Conclusions & Implications: The results suggest that preschool children are capable of speechreading, and that this ability is related to vocabulary size. This suggests that children aged between 2;10 and 4;11 are sensitive to visual information in the form of audio-visual mappings. We suggest that current and future therapies are correct to include visual feedback as a therapeutic tool; however, future research needs to be conducted in order to elucidate further the role of speechreading in development.

Abstract

We present written naming norms from 153 young adult Dutch speakers for 1397 photographs (the BOSS set; see Brodeur, Dionne-Dostie, Montreuil, & Lepage, 2010; Brodeur, Guérard, & Bouras, 2014). From the norming study, we report the preferred (modal) name, alternative names, name agreement, and average object agreement. In addition, the data base includes Zipf frequency, word prevalence and Age of Acquisition for the modal picture names collected. Furthermore, we describe a subset of 359 photographs with very good name agreement and a subset of 35 photos with two common names. These sets may be particularly valuable for designing experiments. Though the participants typed the object names, comparisons with other datasets indicate that the collected norms are valuable for spoken naming studies as well.

Abstract

The recent Bayesian approaches to language evolution and change seem to suggest that genetic biases can impact on the characteristics of language, but, at the same time, that its cultural transmission can partially free it from these same genetic constraints. One of the current debates centres on the striking differences between sampling and a posteriori maximising Bayesian learners, with the first converging on the prior bias while the latter allows a certain freedom to language evolution. The present paper shows that this difference disappears if populations more complex than a single teacher and a single learner are considered, with the resulting behaviours more similar to the sampler. This suggests that generalisations based on the language produced by Bayesian agents in such homogeneous single agent chains are not warranted. It is not clear which of the assumptions in such models are responsible, but these findings seem to support the rising concerns on the validity of the “acquisitionist” assumption, whereby the locus of language change and evolution is taken to be the first language acquirers (children) as opposed to the competent language users (the adults).

Abstract

The correlations between interpopulation genetic and linguistic diversities are mostly noncausal (spurious), being due to historical processes and geographical factors that shape them in similar ways. Studies of such correlations usually consider allele frequencies and linguistic groupings (dialects, languages, linguistic families or phyla), sometimes controlling for geographic, topographic, or ecological factors. Here, we consider the relation between allele frequencies and linguistic typological features. Specifically, we focus on the derived haplogroups of the brain growth and development-related genes ASPM and Microcephalin, which show signs of natural selection and a marked geographic structure, and on linguistic tone, the use of voice pitch to convey lexical or grammatical distinctions. We hypothesize that there is a relationship between the population frequency of these two alleles and the presence of linguistic tone and test this hypothesis relative to a large database (983 alleles and 26 linguistic features in 49 populations), showing that it is not due to the usual explanatory factors represented by geography and history. The relationship between genetic and linguistic diversity in this case may be causal: certain alleles can bias language acquisition or processing and thereby influence the trajectory of language change through iterated cultural transmission.

Abstract

Speech errors follow the phonotactics of the language being spoken. For example, in English, if [n] is mispronounced as [n] the [n] will always appear in a syllable coda. The authors created an analogue to this phenomenon by having participants recite lists of consonant-vowel-consonant syllables in 4 sessions on different days. In the first 2 experiments, some consonants were always onsets, some were always codas, and some could be both. In a third experiment, the set of possible onsets and codas depended on vowel identity. In all 3 studies, the production errors that occurred respected the "phonotactics" of the experiment. The results illustrate the implicit learning of the sequential constraints present in the stimuli and show that the language production system adapts to recent experience.

Abstract

Understanding the mechanisms that drive variation in children’s language acquisition requires large, population-representative datasets of children’s word learning across development. Parent report measures such as the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) are commonly used to collect such data, but the traditional paper-based forms make the curation of large datasets logistically challenging. Many CDI datasets are thus gathered using convenience samples, often recruited from communities in proximity to major research institutions. Here, we introduce Web-CDI, a web-based tool which allows researchers to collect CDI data online. Web-CDI contains functionality to collect and manage longitudinal data, share links to test administrations, and download vocabulary scores. To date, over 3,500 valid Web-CDI administrations have been completed. General trends found in past norming studies of the CDI are present in data collected from Web-CDI: scores of children’s productive vocabulary grow with age, female children show a slightly faster rate of vocabulary growth, and participants with higher levels of educational attainment report slightly higher vocabulary production scores than those with lower levels of education attainment. We also report results from an effort to oversample non-white, lower-education participants via online recruitment (N = 241). These data showed similar demographic trends to the full sample but this effort resulted in a high exclusion rate. We conclude by discussing implications and challenges for the collection of large, population-representative datasets.

Abstract

The discovery of the FOXP2 transcription factor, and its implication in a rare severe human speech and language disorder, has led to two decades of empirical studies focused on uncovering its roles in the brain using a range of in vitro and in vivo methods. Here, we discuss what we have learned about the regulation of FOXP2, its downstream effectors, and its modes of action as a transcription factor in brain development and function, providing an integrated overview of what is currently known about the critical molecular networks.

Abstract

Whereas large-scale statistical analyses can robustly identify disease-gene relationships, they do not accurately capture genotype-phenotype correlations or disease mechanisms. We use multiple lines of independent evidence to show that different variant types in a single gene, SATB1, cause clinically overlapping but distinct neurodevelopmental disorders. Clinical evaluation of 42 individuals carrying SATB1 variants identified overt genotype-phenotype relationships, associated with different pathophysiological mechanisms, established by functional assays. Missense variants in the CUT1 and CUT2 DNA-binding domains result in stronger chromatin binding, increased transcriptional repression and a severe phenotype. Contrastingly, variants predicted to result in haploinsufficiency are associated with a milder clinical presentation. A similarly mild phenotype is observed for individuals with premature protein truncating variants that escape nonsense-mediated decay and encode truncated proteins, which are transcriptionally active but mislocalized in the cell. Our results suggest that in-depth mutation-specific genotype-phenotype studies are essential to capture full disease complexity and to explain phenotypic variability.

Abstract

Sex differences in development and aging of human sulcal morphology have been understudied. We charted sex differences in trajectories and inter-individual variability of global sulcal depth, width, and length, pial surface area, exposed (hull) gyral surface area, unexposed sulcal surface area, cortical thickness, and cortex volume across the lifespan in a longitudinal sample (700 scans, 194 participants two scans, 104 three scans, age range: 16-70 years) of neurotypical males and females. After adjusting for brain volume, females had thicker cortex and steeper thickness decline until age 40 years; trajectories converged thereafter. Across sexes, sulcal shortening was faster before age 40, while sulcal shallowing and widening were faster thereafter. While hull area remained stable, sulcal surface area declined and was more strongly associated with sulcal shortening than with sulcal shallowing and widening. Males showed greater variability for cortex volume and thickness and lower variability for sulcal width. Across sexes, variability decreased with age for all measures except for cortical volume and thickness. Our findings highlight the association between loss of sulcal area, notably through sulcal shortening, with cortex volume loss. Studying sex differences in lifespan trajectories may improve knowledge of individual differences in brain development and the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric conditions.