Publications

Abstract

Many studies have used test batteries for the evaluation of affective behavior in rodents. This has the advantage that treatment effects can be examined on different aspects of the affective domain. However, the behavior in one test may affect the behavior in following test. The present study examined possible order effects in rats that were tested in three different tests: Open Field (OF), Zero Maze (ZM) and Forced Swim Test (FST). The data of the present study indicated that the behavior in ZM was the least affected by the order of testing. In contrast, the behavior in the FST (and to a less extend the OF) was dependent on the order of the test in the test battery. Repeated testing in the same test did not change the behavior in the ZM. However, the behavior in the OF and FST changed with repeated testing. The present study indicates that the performance of rats in a test can be dependent on the order in a test battery. Consequently, these data caution the interpretation of treatment effects in studies in which test batteries are used. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Just as interlocutors can manipulate physical objects for performing certain types of social action, they can also perform different social actions by manipulating symbolic objects. A kinship system can be thought of as an abstract collection of lexical mappings and associated cultural conventions. It is a sort of cognitive object that can be readily manipulated for special purposes. For example, the relationship between pairs of individuals can be momentarily re-construed in constructing jokes or teases. Murriny Patha speakers associate certain parts of the body with particular classes of kin. When a group of Murriny Patha women witness a cultural outsider performing a forearm-holding gesture that is characteristically associated with brothers-in-law, they re-associate the gesture to the husband–wife relationship, thus setting up an extended teasing episode. Many of these teases call on gestural resources. Although the teasing is at times repetitive, and the episode is only thinly populated with the telltale “off-record” markers that characterize teasing proposals as non-serious, the proposal is sufficiently far-fetched as to ensure that the teases come off as more bonding than biting.

Abstract

Social exclusion results in lowered satisfaction of basic needs and shapes behavior in subsequent social situations. We investigated
participants’ immediate behavioral response during exclusion from an interaction that consisted of establishing eye contact. A
newly developed eye-tracker-based ‘‘looking game’’ was employed; participants exchanged looks with two virtual partners in an
exchange where the player who had just been looked at chose whom to look at next. While some participants received as many
looks as the virtual players (included), others were ignored after two initial looks (excluded). Excluded participants reported lower
basic need satisfaction, lower evaluation of the interaction, and devaluated their interaction partners more than included
participants, demonstrating that people are sensitive to epistemic ostracism. In line with William’s need-threat model,
eye-tracking results revealed that excluded participants did not withdraw from the unfavorable interaction, but increased the
number of looks to the player who could potentially reintegrate them.

Abstract

Language is the result of two concurrent evolutionary processes: Biological and cultural inheritance. An influential evolutionary hypothesis known as the moving target problem implies inherent limitations on the interactions between our two inheritance streams that result from a difference in pace: The speed of cultural evolution is thought to rule out cognitive adaptation to culturally evolving aspects of language. We examine this hypothesis formally by casting it as as a problem of adaptation in time-varying environments. We present a mathematical model of biology-culture co-evolution in finite populations: A generalisation of the Moran process, treating co-evolution as coupled non-independent Markov processes, providing a general formulation of the moving target hypothesis in precise probabilistic terms. Rapidly varying culture decreases the probability of biological adaptation. However, we show that this effect declines with population size and with stronger links between biology and culture: In realistically sized finite populations, stochastic effects can carry cognitive specialisations to fixation in the face of variable culture, especially if the effects of those specialisations are amplified through cultural evolution. These results support the view that language arises from interactions between our two major inheritance streams, rather than from one primary evolutionary process that dominates another. © 2018 The Author(s).

Abstract

We present two arguments why physical adaptations for vocalization may be as important as neural adaptations. First, fine control over vocalization is not easy for physical reasons, and modern humans may be exceptional. Second, we present an example of a gorilla that shows rudimentary voluntary control over vocalization, indicating that some neural control is already shared with great apes.

Abstract

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 16TH WORLD CONGRESS OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY of the International Organization of Psychophysiology (IOP) Pisa, Italy September 13-17, 2012

Abstract

Rapid response latencies in conversation suggest that responders start planning before the ongoing turn is finished. Indeed, an earlier EEG study suggests that listeners start planning their responses to questions as soon as they can (Bögels, S., Magyari, L., & Levinson, S. C. (2015). Neural signatures of response planning occur midway through an incoming question in conversation. Scientific Reports, 5, 12881). The present study aimed to (1) replicate this early planning effect and (2) investigate whether such early response planning incurs a cost on participants’ concurrent comprehension of the ongoing turn. During the experiment participants answered questions from a confederate partner. To address aim (1), the questions were designed such that response planning could start either early or late in the turn. Our results largely replicate Bögels et al. (2015) showing a large positive ERP effect and an oscillatory alpha/beta reduction right after participants could have first started planning their verbal response, again suggesting an early start of response planning. To address aim (2), the confederate's questions also contained either an expected word or an unexpected one to elicit a differential N400 effect, either before or after the start of response planning. We hypothesized an attenuated N400 effect after response planning had started. In contrast, the N400 effects before and after planning did not differ. There was, however, a positive correlation between participants' response time and their N400 effect size after planning had started; quick responders showed a smaller N400 effect, suggesting reduced attention to comprehension and possibly reduced anticipatory processing. We conclude that early response planning can indeed impact comprehension processing.

Abstract

In Yukatek Maya, event types are lexicalized in verb roots and stems that fall into a number of different form classes on the basis of (a) patterns of aspect-mood marking and (b) priviledges of undergoing valence-changing operations. Of particular interest are the intransitive classes in the light of Perlmutter’s (1978) Unaccusativity hypothesis. In the spirit of Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995) [L&RH], Van Valin (1990), Zaenen (1993), and others, this paper investigates whether (and to what extent) the association between formal predicate classes and event types is determined by argument structure features such as ‘agentivity’ and ‘control’ or features of lexical aspect such as ‘telicity’ and ‘durativity’. It is shown that mismatches between agentivity/control and telicity/durativity are even more extensive in Yukatek than they are in English (Abusch 1985; L&RH, Van Valin & LaPolla 1997), providing new evidence against Dowty’s (1979) reconstruction of Vendler’s (1967) ‘time schemata of verbs’ in terms of argument structure configurations. Moreover, contrary to what has been claimed in earlier studies of Yukatek (Krämer & Wunderlich 1999, Lucy 1994), neither agentivity/control nor telicity/durativity turn out to be good predictors of verb class membership. Instead, the patterns of aspect-mood marking prove to be sensitive only to the presence or absense of state change, in a way that supports the unified analysis of all verbs of gradual change proposed by Kennedy & Levin (2001). The presence or absence of ‘internal causation’ (L&RH) may motivate the semantic interpretation of transitivization operations. An explicit semantics for the valence-changing operations is proposed, based on Parsons’s (1990) Neo-Davidsonian approach.

Abstract

Landscape terms reflect the relationship between geographic reality and human cognition. Are ‘mountains’, ‘rivers, ‘lakes’ and the like universally recognised in languages as naturally salient objects to be named? The landscape subproject is concerned with the interrelation between language, cognition and geography. Specifically, it investigates issues relating to how landforms are categorised cross-linguistically as well as the characteristics of place naming.

Abstract

Variation in plasma levels of cortisol, an essential hormone in the stress response, is associated in population-based studies with cardio-metabolic, inflammatory and neuro-cognitive traits and diseases. Heritability of plasma cortisol is estimated at 30-60% but no common genetic contribution has been identified. The CORtisol NETwork (CORNET) consortium undertook genome wide association meta-analysis for plasma cortisol in 12,597 Caucasian participants, replicated in 2,795 participants. The results indicate that <1% of variance in plasma cortisol is accounted for by genetic variation in a single region of chromosome 14. This locus spans SERPINA6, encoding corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG, the major cortisol-binding protein in plasma), and SERPINA1, encoding α1-antitrypsin (which inhibits cleavage of the reactive centre loop that releases cortisol from CBG). Three partially independent signals were identified within the region, represented by common SNPs; detailed biochemical investigation in a nested sub-cohort showed all these SNPs were associated with variation in total cortisol binding activity in plasma, but some variants influenced total CBG concentrations while the top hit (rs12589136) influenced the immunoreactivity of the reactive centre loop of CBG. Exome chip and 1000 Genomes imputation analysis of this locus in the CROATIA-Korcula cohort identified missense mutations in SERPINA6 and SERPINA1 that did not account for the effects of common variants. These findings reveal a novel common genetic source of variation in binding of cortisol by CBG, and reinforce the key role of CBG in determining plasma cortisol levels. In turn this genetic variation may contribute to cortisol-associated degenerative diseases.

Abstract

Alphabetic orthographies show more or less ambiguous relations between spelling and sound patterns. In transparent orthographies, like Italian, the pronunciation can be predicted from the spelling and vice versa. Opaque orthographies, like English, often display unpredictable spelling–sound correspondences. In this paper we present a computational analysis of word-initial bi-directional spelling–sound correspondences for Dutch, English, French, German, and Hungarian, stated in entropy values for various grain sizes. This allows us to position the five languages on the continuum from opaque to transparent orthographies, both in spelling-to-sound and sound-to-spelling directions. The analysis is based on metrics derived from information theory, and therefore independent of any specific theory of visual word recognition as well as of any specific theoretical approach of orthography.

Abstract

This psychoacoustic study provides behavioral evidence that neural entrainment in the theta range (3-9 Hz) causally shapes speech perception. Adopting the ‘rate normalization’ paradigm (presenting compressed carrier sentences followed by uncompressed target words), we show that uniform compression of a speech carrier to syllable rates inside the theta range influences perception of subsequent uncompressed targets, but compression outside theta range does not. However, the influence of carriers – compressed outside theta range – on target perception is salvaged when carriers are ‘repackaged’ to have a packet rate inside theta. This suggests that the brain can only successfully entrain to syllable/packet rates within theta range, with a causal influence on the perception of subsequent speech, in line with recent neuroimaging data. Thus, this study points to a central role for sustained theta entrainment in rate normalization and contributes to our understanding of the functional role of brain oscillations in speech perception.

Abstract

Speech comprehension involves extensive use of prediction. Linguistic prediction may be guided by the semantics or syntax, but also by the performance characteristics of the speech signal, such as disfluency. Previous studies have shown that listeners, when presented with the filler uh, exhibit a disfluency bias for discourse-new or unknown referents, drawing inferences about the source of the disfluency. The goal of the present study is to study the contrast between native and non-native disfluencies in speech comprehension. Experiment 1 presented listeners with pictures of high-frequency (e.g., a hand) and low-frequency objects (e.g., a sewing machine) and with fluent and disfluent instructions. Listeners were found to anticipate reference to low-frequency objects when encountering disfluency, thus attributing disfluency to speaker trouble in lexical retrieval. Experiment 2 showed that, when participants listened to disfluent non-native speech, no anticipation of low-frequency referents was observed. We conclude that listeners can adapt their predictive strategies to the (non-native) speaker at hand, extending our understanding of the role of speaker identity in speech comprehension.

Abstract

Recently, the world’s attention was caught by an audio clip that was perceived as “Laurel” or “Yanny”. Opinions were sharply split: many could not believe others heard something different from their perception. However, a crowd-source experiment with >500 participants shows that it is possible to make people hear Laurel, where they previously heard Yanny, by manipulating preceding acoustic context. This study is not only the first to reveal within-listener variation in Laurel/Yanny percepts, but also to demonstrate contrast effects for global spectral information in larger frequency regions. Thus, it highlights the intricacies of human perception underlying these social media phenomena.

Abstract

Speakers adjust their voice when talking in noise (known as Lombard speech), facilitating speech comprehension. Recent neurobiological models of speech perception emphasize the role of amplitude modulations in speech-in-noise comprehension, helping neural oscillators to ‘track’ the attended speech. This study tested whether talkers produce more pronounced amplitude modulations in noise. Across four different corpora, modulation spectra showed greater power in amplitude modulations below 4 Hz in Lombard speech compared to matching plain speech. This suggests that noise-induced speech contains more pronounced amplitude modulations, potentially helping the listening brain to entrain to the attended talker, aiding comprehension.

Abstract

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

Abstract

Disfluency is a common characteristic of spontaneously produced speech. Disfluencies (e.g., silent pauses, filled pauses [uh’s and uhm’s], corrections, repetitions, etc.) occur in both native and non-native speech. There appears to be an apparent contradiction between claims from the evaluative and cognitive approach to fluency. On the one hand, the evaluative approach shows that non-native disfluencies have a negative effect on listeners’ subjective fluency impressions. On the other hand, the cognitive approach reports beneficial effects of native disfluencies on cognitive processes involved in speech comprehension, such as prediction and attention.

This dissertation aims to resolve this apparent contradiction by combining the evaluative and cognitive approach. The reported studies target both the evaluation (Chapters 2 and 3) and the processing of fluency (Chapters 4 and 5) in native and non-native speech. Thus, it provides an integrative account of native and non-native fluency perception, informative to both language testing practice and cognitive psycholinguists. The proposed account of fluency perception testifies to the notion that speech performance matters: communication through spoken language does not only depend on what is said, but also on how it is said and by whom.

Abstract

A central motif in neuronal networks is convergence, linking several input neurons to one target neuron. In visual cortex, convergence renders target neurons responsive to complex stimuli. Yet, convergence typically sends multiple stimuli to a target, and the behaviorally relevant stimulus must be selected. We used two stimuli, activating separate electrocorticographic V1 sites, and both activating an electrocorticographic V4 site equally strongly. When one of those stimuli activated one V1 site, it gamma synchronized (60-80 Hz) to V4. When the two stimuli activated two V1 sites, primarily the relevant one gamma synchronized to V4. Frequency bands of gamma activities showed substantial overlap containing the band of interareal coherence. The relevant V1 site had its gamma peak frequency 2-3 Hz higher than the irrelevant V1 site and 4-6 Hz higher than V4. Gamma-mediated interareal influences were predominantly directed from V1 to V4. We propose that selective synchronization renders relevant input effective, thereby modulating effective connectivity.

Abstract

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

Abstract

The notion of relational grammar is extented to ternary relations and illustrated by a fragment of English. Some of Peirce's terms for ternary relations are shown to be incorrect and corrected.

Abstract

There are two competing hypotheses for the origin of the Indo-European language family. The conventional view places the homeland in the Pontic steppes about 6000 years ago. An alternative hypothesis claims that the languages spread from Anatolia with the expansion of farming 8000 to 9500 years ago. We used Bayesian phylogeographic approaches, together with basic vocabulary data from 103 ancient and contemporary Indo-European languages, to explicitly model the expansion of the family and test these hypotheses. We found decisive support for an Anatolian origin over a steppe origin. Both the inferred timing and root location of the Indo-European language trees fit with an agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8000 to 9500 years ago. These results highlight the critical role that phylogeographic inference can play in resolving debates about human prehistory.

Abstract

Attempts to explain children's grammatical development often assume a close initial match between units of meaning and units of form; for example, agents are said to map to sentence-subjects and actions to verbs. The meanings themselves, according to this view, are not influenced by language, but reflect children's universal non-linguistic way of understanding the world. This paper argues that, contrary to this position, meaning as it is expressed in children's early sentences is, from the beginning, organized on the basis of experience with the grammar and lexicon of a particular language. As a case in point, children learning English and Korean are shown to express meanings having to do with directed motion according to language-specific principles of semantic and grammatical structuring from the earliest stages of word combination.

Abstract

How similar are the event concepts encoded by different languages? So far, few event domains have been investigated in any detail. The PUT project extends the systematic cross-linguistic exploration of event categorisation to a new domain, that of placement events (putting things in places and removing them from places). The goal of this task is to explore cross-linguistic universality and variability in the semantic categorisation of placement events (e.g., ‘putting a cup on the table’).

Abstract

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

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the level of visual processing at which surface colour information improves the naming of colour diagnostic and noncolour diagnostic objects. Continuous electroencephalograms were recorded while participants performed a visual object naming task in which coloured and black-and-white versions of both types of objects were presented. The black-and-white and the colour presentations were compared in two groups of event-related potentials (ERPs): (1) The P1 and N1 components, indexing early visual processing; and (2) the N300 and N400 components, which index late visual processing. A colour effect was observed in the P1 and N1 components, for both colour and noncolour diagnostic objects. In addition, for colour diagnostic objects, a colour effect was observed in the N400 component. These results suggest that colour information is important for the naming of colour and noncolour diagnostic objects at different levels of visual processing. It thus appears that the visual system uses colour information, during naming of both object types, at early visual stages; however, for the colour diagnostic objects naming, colour information is also recruited during the late visual processing stages.

Abstract

The cognitive processes involved in object recognition remain a mystery to the cognitive
sciences. We know that the visual system recognizes objects via multiple features, including
shape, color, texture, and motion characteristics. However, the way these features are
combined to recognize objects is still an open question. The purpose of this contribution is to
review the research about the specific role of color information in object recognition. Given
that the human brain incorporates specialized mechanisms to handle color perception in the
visual environment, it is a fair question to ask what functional role color might play in
everyday vision.

Abstract

In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to evaluate the contribution of surface color and color knowledge information in object identification. We constructed two color-object verification tasks – a surface and a knowledge verification task – using high color diagnostic objects; both typical and atypical color versions of the same object were presented. Continuous electroencephalogram was recorded from 26 subjects. A cluster randomization procedure was used to explore the differences between typical and atypical color objects in each task. In the color knowledge task, we found two significant clusters that were consistent with the N350 and late positive complex (LPC) effects. Atypical color objects elicited more negative ERPs compared to typical color objects. The color effect found in the N350 time window suggests that surface color is an important cue that facilitates the selection of a stored object representation from long-term memory. Moreover, the observed LPC effect suggests that surface color activates associated semantic knowledge about the object, including color knowledge representations. We did not find any significant differences between typical and atypical color objects in the surface color verification task, which indicates that there is little contribution of color knowledge to resolve the surface color verification. Our main results suggest that surface color is an important visual cue that triggers color knowledge, thereby facilitating object identification.

Abstract

Learning a language involves learning how to map specific forms onto their associated meanings. Such mappings can utilise arbitrariness and non-arbitrariness, yet, our understanding of how these two systems operate at different stages of vocabulary development is still not fully understood. The Sound-Symbolism Bootstrapping Hypothesis (SSBH) proposes that sound-symbolism is essential for word learning to commence, but empirical evidence of exactly how sound-symbolism influences language learning is still sparse. It may be the case that sound-symbolism supports acquisition of categories of meaning, or that it enables acquisition of individualized word meanings. In two Experiments where participants learned form-meaning mappings from either sound-symbolic or arbitrary languages, we demonstrate the changing roles of sound-symbolism and arbitrariness for different vocabulary sizes, showing that sound-symbolism provides an advantage for learning of broad categories, which may then transfer to support learning individual words, whereas an arbitrary language impedes acquisition of categories of sound to meaning.

Abstract

n casual conversations, words often lack segments. This study investigates whether listeners rely on their experience with reduced word pronunciation variants during the processing of single segment reduction. We tested three groups of listeners in a lexical decision experiment with French words produced either with or without word-medial schwa (e.g., /ʀəvy/ and /ʀvy/ for revue). Participants also rated the relative frequencies of the two pronunciation variants of the words. If the recognition accuracy and reaction times for a given listener group correlate best with the frequencies of occurrence holding for that given listener group, recognition is influenced by listeners’ exposure to these variants. Native listeners' relative frequency ratings correlated well with their accuracy scores and RTs. Dutch advanced learners' accuracy scores and RTs were best predicted by their own ratings. In contrast, the accuracy and RTs from Dutch beginner learners of French could not be predicted by any relative frequency rating; the rating task was probably too difficult for them. The participant groups showed behaviour reflecting their difference in experience with the pronunciation variants. Our results strongly suggest that listeners store the frequencies of occurrence of pronunciation variants, and consequently the variants themselves

Abstract

Natural language contains many examples of sound‐symbolism, where the form of the word carries information about its meaning. Such systematicity is more prevalent in the words children acquire first, but arbitrariness dominates during later vocabulary development. Furthermore, systematicity appears to promote learning category distinctions, which may become more important as the vocabulary grows. In this study, we tested the relative costs and benefits of sound‐symbolism for word learning as vocabulary size varies. Participants learned form‐meaning mappings for words which were either congruent or incongruent with regard to sound‐symbolic relations. For the smaller vocabulary, sound‐symbolism facilitated learning individual words, whereas for larger vocabularies sound‐symbolism supported learning category distinctions. The changing properties of form‐meaning mappings according to vocabulary size may reflect the different ways in which language is learned at different stages of development.

Abstract

The present study used electrophysiological and behavioral measures to investigate the perception of an English stop consonant contrast by native English listeners and by native Dutch listeners who were highly proficient in English. A /ba/-/pa/ continuum was created from a naturally produced /pa/ token by removing successive periods of aspiration, thus reducing the voice onset time. Although aspiration is a relevant cue for distinguishing voiced and unvoiced labial stop consonants (/b/ and /p/) in English, prevoicing is the primary cue used to distinguish between these categories in Dutch. In the electrophysiological experiment, participants listened to oddball sequences containing the standard /pa/ stimulus and one of three deviant stimuli while the mismatch-negativity response was measured. Participants then completed an identification task on the same stimuli. The results showed that native English participants were more sensitive to reductions in aspiration than native Dutch participants, as indicated by shifts in the category boundary, by differing within-group patterns of mismatch-negativity responses, and by larger mean evoked potential amplitudes in the native English group for two of the three deviant stimuli. This between-group difference in the sensorineural processing of aspiration cues indicates that native language experience alters the way in which the acoustic features of speech are processed in the auditory brain, even following extensive second-language training.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION It is nowadays well established that spoken sentence processing is achieved in an incremental manner. As a sentence unfolds over time, listeners rapidly process incoming information to eliminate local ambiguity and make predictions on the most plausible interpretation of the sentence. Previous research has shown that these predictions are based on all kinds of linguistic information, explicitly or implicitly in combination with world knowledge.1 A substantial amount of evidence comes from studies on online referential processing conducted in the visual-world paradigm (Cooper 1974; Eberhard, Spivey-Knowlton, Sedivy, and Tanenhaus 1995; Tanenhaus, Sedivy- Knowlton, Eberhard, and Sedivy 1995; Sedivy, Tanenhaus, Chambers, Carlson 1999).

Abstract

This chapter focuses on connectionist modeling in language production, highlighting how
core principles of connectionism provide coverage for empirical observations about
representation and selection at the phonological, lexical, and sentence levels. The first
section focuses on the connectionist principles of localist representations and spreading
activation. It discusses how these two principles have motivated classic models of speech
production and shows how they cover results of the picture-word interference paradigm,
the mixed error effect, and aphasic naming errors. The second section focuses on how
newer connectionist models incorporate the principles of learning and distributed
representations through discussion of syntactic priming, cumulative semantic
interference, sequencing errors, phonological blends, and code-switching

Abstract

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

Abstract

Although the possibility of referring or citing on-line data from publications is seen at least theoretically as an important means to provide immediate testable proof or simple illustration of a line of reasoning, the practice has not been wide-spread yet and no extensive experience has been gained about the possibilities and problems of referring to raw data-sets. This paper makes a case to investigate the possibility and need of persistent data visualization services that facilitate the inspection and evaluation of the cited data.

Abstract

This paper describes the status of the standardization efforts of a Component Metadata approach for describing Language Resources with metadata. Different linguistic and Language & Technology communities as CLARIN, META-SHARE and NaLiDa use this component approach and see its standardization of as a matter for cooperation that has the possibility to create a large interoperable domain of joint metadata. Starting with an overview of the component metadata approach together with the related semantic interoperability tools and services as the ISOcat data category registry and the relation registry we explain the standardization plan and efforts for component metadata within ISO TC37/SC4. Finally, we present information about uptake and plans of the use of component metadata within the three mentioned linguistic and L&T communities.

Abstract

This study investigates how inaccurate phoneme processing affects recognition of partially onset-overlapping pairs like DAFFOdil-DEFIcit and of minimal pairs like flash-flesh in second-language listening. Two cross-modal priming experiments examined differences between native (L1) and second-language (L2) listeners at two stages of lexical processing: first, the activation of intended and mismatching lexical representations and second, the competition between those lexical representations. Experiment 1 shows that truncated primes like daffo- and defi- activated lexical representations of mismatching words (either deficit or daffodil) more for L2 listeners than for L1 listeners. Experiment 2 shows that for minimal pairs, matching primes (prime: flash, target: FLASH) facilitated recognition of visual targets for L1 and L2 listeners alike, whereas mismatching primes (flesh, FLASH) inhibited recognition consistently for L1 listeners but only in a minority of cases for L2 listeners; in most cases, for them, primes facilitated recognition of both words equally strongly. Thus, L1 and L2 listeners' results differed both at the stages of lexical activation and competition. First, perceptually difficult phonemes activated mismatching words more for L2 listeners than for L1 listeners, and second, lexical competition led to efficient inhibition of mismatching competitors for L1 listeners but in most cases not for L2 listeners.

Abstract

This study investigates the lexical representation of second-language words that contain difficult to distinguish phonemes. Dutch and English listeners' perception of partially onset-overlapping word pairs like DAFFOdil-DEFIcit and minimal pairs like flash-flesh, was assessed with two cross-modal priming experiments, examining two stages of lexical processing: activation of intended and mismatching lexical representations (Exp.1) and competition between those lexical representations (Exp.2). Exp.1 shows that truncated primes like daffo- and defi- activated lexical representations of mismatching words (either deficit or daffodil) more for L2 than L1 listeners. Exp.2 shows that for minimal pairs, matching primes (prime: flash, target: FLASH) facilitated recognition of visual targets for L1 and L2 listeners alike, whereas mismatching primes (flesh, FLASH) inhibited recognition consistently for L1 listeners but only in a minority of cases for L2 listeners; in most cases, for them, primes facilitated recognition of both words equally strongly. Importantly, all listeners experienced a combination of facilitation and inhibition (and all items sometimes caused facilitation and sometimes inhibition). These results suggest that for all participants, some of the minimal pairs were represented with separate, native-like lexical representations, whereas other pairs were stored as homophones. The nature of the L2 lexical representations thus varied strongly even within listeners.

Abstract

Background: According to decades of research on affective motivation in the human brain, approach motivational states are supported primarily by the left hemisphere and avoidance states by the right hemisphere. The underlying cause of this specialization, however, has remained unknown. Here we conducted a first test of the Sword and Shield Hypothesis (SSH), according to which the hemispheric laterality of affective motivation depends on the laterality of motor control for the dominant hand (i.e., the "sword hand," used preferentially to perform approach actions) and the nondominant hand (i.e., the "shield hand," used preferentially to perform avoidance actions). Methodology/Principal Findings: To determine whether the laterality of approach motivation varies with handedness, we measured alpha-band power (an inverse index of neural activity) in right- and left-handers during resting-state electroencephalography and analyzed hemispheric alpha-power asymmetries as a function of the participants' trait approach motivational tendencies. Stronger approach motivation was associated with more left-hemisphere activity in right-handers, but with more right-hemisphere activity in left-handers. Conclusions: The hemispheric correlates of approach motivation reversed between right- and left-handers, consistent with the way they typically use their dominant and nondominant hands to perform approach and avoidance actions. In both right- and left-handers, approach motivation was lateralized to the same hemisphere that controls the dominant hand. This covariation between neural systems for action and emotion provides initial support for the SSH

Abstract

Three eye-tracking experiments investigated how phonological reductions (e.g., ‘‘puter’’ for ‘‘computer’’) modulate phonological competition. Participants listened to sentences extracted from a pontaneous speech corpus and saw four printed words: a target (e.g., ‘‘computer’’), a competitor similar to the canonical form (e.g., ‘‘companion’’), one similar to the reduced form (e.g.,
‘‘pupil’’), and an unrelated distractor. In Experiment 1, we presented canonical and reduced forms in a syllabic and in a sentence context. Listeners directed
their attention to a similar degree to both competitors independent of the
target’s spoken form. In Experiment 2, we excluded reduced forms and
presented canonical forms only. In such a listening situation, participants
showed a clear preference for the ‘‘canonical form’’ competitor. In Experiment 3, we presented canonical forms intermixed with reduced forms in a sentence context and replicated the competition pattern of Experiment 1. These data suggest that listeners penalize acoustic mismatches less strongly when listeningto reduced speech than when listening to fully articulated speech. We conclude
that flexibility to adjust to speech-intrinsic factors is a key feature of the spoken word recognition system.

Abstract

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

Abstract

In listeners' daily communicative exchanges, they most often hear casual speech, in which words are often produced with fewer segments, rather than the careful speech used in most psycholinguistic experiments. Three experiments examined phonological competition during the recognition of reduced forms such as [pjutər] for computer using a target-absent variant of the visual world paradigm. Listeners' eye movements were tracked upon hearing canonical and reduced forms as they looked at displays of four printed words. One of the words was phonologically similar to the canonical pronunciation of the target word, one word was similar to the reduced pronunciation, and two words served as unrelated distractors. When spoken targets were presented in isolation (Experiment 1) and in sentential contexts (Experiment 2), competition was modulated as a function of the target word form. When reduced targets were presented in sentential contexts, listeners were probabilistically more likely to first fixate reduced-form competitors before shifting their eye gaze to canonical-form competitors. Experiment 3, in which the original /p/ from [pjutər] was replaced with a “real” onset /p/, showed an effect of cross-splicing in the late time window. We conjecture that these results fit best with the notion that speech reductions initially activate competitors that are similar to the phonological surface form of the reduction, but that listeners nevertheless can exploit fine phonetic detail to reconstruct strongly reduced forms to their canonical counterparts.

Abstract

In traditional theories of language comprehension, syntactic and semantic processing are inextricably linked. This assumption has been challenged by the ‘Semantic Illusion Effect’ found in studies using Event Related brain Potentials. Semantically anomalous sentences did not produce the expected increase in N400 amplitude but rather one in P600 amplitude. To explain these findings, complex models have been devised in which an independent semantic processing stream can arrive at a sentence interpretation that may differ from the interpretation prescribed by the syntactic structure of the sentence. We review five such multi-stream models and argue that they do not account for the full range of relevant results because they assume that the amplitude of the N400 indexes some form of semantic integration. Based on recent evidence we argue that N400 amplitude might reflect the retrieval of lexical information from memory. On this view, the absence of an N400-effect in Semantic Illusion sentences can be explained in terms of priming. Furthermore, we suggest that semantic integration, which has previously been linked to the N400 component, might be reflected in the P600 instead. When combined, these functional interpretations result in a single-stream account of language processing that can explain all of the Semantic Illusion data.

Abstract

This study examined whether speech-on-speech masking is sensitive to variation in the degree of similarity between the target and the masker speech. Three experiments investigated whether speech-in-speech recognition varies across different background speech languages (English vs Dutch) for both English and Dutch targets, as well as across variation in the semantic content of the background speech (meaningful vs semantically anomalous sentences), and across variation in listener status vis-à-vis the target and masker languages (native, non-native, or unfamiliar). The results showed that the more similar the target speech is to the masker speech (e.g., same vs different language, same vs different levels of semantic content), the greater the interference on speech recognition accuracy. Moreover, the listener’s knowledge of the target and the background language modulate the size of the release from masking. These factors had an especially strong effect on masking effectiveness in highly unfavorable listening conditions. Overall this research provided evidence that that the degree of target-masker similarity plays a significant role in speech-in-speech recognition. The results also give insight into how listeners assign their resources differently depending on whether they are listening to their first or second language

Abstract

How are events framed in narrative? Speakers of English (a 'satellite-framed' language), when 'reading' Mercer Mayer's wordless picture book 'Frog, Where Are You?', find the story self-evident: a boy has a dog and a pet frog; the frog escapes and runs away; the boy and dog look for it across hill and dale, through woods and over a cliff, until they find it and return home with a baby frog child of the original pet frog. In Tzeltal, as spoken in a Mayan community in southern Mexico, the story is somewhat different, because the language structures event descriptions differently. Tzeltal is in part a 'verb-framed' language with a set of Path-encoding motion verbs, so that the bare bones of the Frog story can consist of verbs translating as 'go'/'pass by'/'ascend'/ 'descend'/ 'arrive'/'return'. But Tzeltal also has satellite-framing adverbials, grammaticized from the same set of motion verbs, which encode the direction of motion or the orientation of static arrays. Furthermore, motion is not generally encoded barebones, but vivid pictorial detail is provided by positional verbs which can describe the position of the Figure as an outcome of a motion event; motion and stasis are thereby combined in a single event description. (For example: jipot jawal "he has been thrown (by the deer) lying¬_face_upwards_spread-eagled". This paper compares the use of these three linguistic resources in frog narratives from 14 Tzeltal adults and 21 children, looks at their development in the narratives of children between the ages of 4-12, and considers the results in relation to those from Berman and Slobin's (1996) comparative study of adult and child Frog stories.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

A study is presented on the effects of discourse–semantic and lexical–syntactic information during spoken sentence processing. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were registered while subjects listened to discourses that ended in a sentence with a temporary syntactic ambiguity. The prior discourse–semantic information biased toward one analysis of the temporary ambiguity, whereas the lexical-syntactic information allowed only for the alternative analysis. The ERP results show that discourse–semantic information can momentarily take precedence over syntactic information, even if this violates grammatical gender agreement rules.

Abstract

Two experiments are reported that provide evidence on task-induced effects during
visual lexical processing in a primetarget semantic priming paradigm. The research focuses on target expectancy effects by manipulating the proportion of semantically related and unrelated word pairs. In Experiment 1, a lexical decision task was used and reaction times (RTs) and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were obtained. In Experiment 2, subjects silently read the stimuli, without any additional task demands, and ERPs were recorded. The RT and ERP results of Experiment 1 demonstrate that an expectancy mechanism contributed to the priming effect when a high proportion of related word pairs was presented. The ERP results of Experiment 2 show that in the absence of extraneous task requirements, an expectancy mechanism is not active. However, a standard ERP semantic priming effect was obtained in Experiment 2. The combined results show that priming effects due to relatedness proportion are induced by task demands and are not a standard aspect of online lexical processing.

Abstract

How are events framed in narrative? Speakers of English (a 'satellite-framed' language), when 'reading' Mercer Mayer's wordless picture book 'Frog, Where Are You?', find the story self-evident: a boy has a dog and a pet frog; the frog escapes and runs away; the boy and dog look for it across hill and dale, through woods and over a cliff, until they find it and return home with a baby frog child of the original pet frog. In Tzeltal, as spoken in a Mayan community in southern Mexico, the story is somewhat different, because the language structures event descriptions differently. Tzeltal is in part a 'verb-framed' language with a set of Path-encoding motion verbs, so that the bare bones of the Frog story can consist of verbs translating as 'go'/'pass by'/'ascend'/ 'descend'/ 'arrive'/'return'. But Tzeltal also has satellite-framing adverbials, grammaticized from the same set of motion verbs, which encode the direction of motion or the orientation of static arrays. Furthermore, vivid pictorial detail is provided by positional verbs which can describe the position of the Figure as an outcome of a motion event; motion and stasis are thereby combined in a single event description. (For example:  jipot jawal "he has been thrown (by the deer) lying­_face_upwards_spread-eagled". This paper compares the use of these three linguistic resources in Frog Story narratives from  Tzeltal adults and children, looks at their development in the narratives of children, and considers the results in relation to those from Berman and Slobin's (1996) comparative study of adult and child Frog stories.

Abstract

This is a reprint of the Brown and Levinson 2000 article.

Abstract

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

Abstract

This task has two parts: (i) video-taped elicitation of the range of possibilities for referring to persons and places, and (ii) observations of (first) references to persons and places in video-taped natural interaction. The goal of this task is to establish the repertoires of referential terms (and other practices) used for referring to persons and to places in particular languages and cultures, and provide examples of situated use of these kinds of referential practices in natural conversation. This data will form the basis for cross-language comparison, and for formulating hypotheses about general principles underlying the deployment of such referential terms in natural language usage.

Abstract

This work was supported by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO; MPI 56-384, The Dynamics of Multilingual Processing, awarded to M Gullberg and P Indefrey).

Abstract

Interaction, for all that it has an ethological base, is culturally constituted, and how new social members are enculturated into the interactional practices of the society is of critical interest to our understanding of interaction – how much is learned, how variable is it across cultures – as well as to our understanding of the role of culture in children’s social-cognitive development. The goal of this task is to document the nature of caregiver infant interaction in different cultures, especially during the critical age of 9-15 months when children come to have an understanding of others’ intentions. This is of interest to all students of interaction; it does not require specialist knowledge of children.

Abstract

This is a Spanish translation of Brown 1997.

Abstract

How do children isolate the semantic package contained in verb roots in the Mayan language Tzeltal? One might imagine that the canonical CVC shape of roots characteristic of Mayan languages would make the job simple, but the root is normally preceded and followed by affixes which mask its identity. Pye (1983) demonstrated that, in Kiche' Mayan, prosodic salience overrides semantic salience, and children's first words in Kiche' are often composed of only the final (stressed) syllable constituted by the final consonant of the CVC root and a 'meaningless' termination suffix. Intonation thus plays a crucial role in early Kiche' morphological development. Tzeltal presents a rather different picture: The first words of children around the age of 1;6 are bare roots, children strip off all prefixes and suffixes which are obligatory in adult speech. They gradually add them, starting with the suffixes (which receive the main stress), but person prefixes are omitted in some contexts past a child's third birthday, and one obligatory aspectual prefix (x-) is systematically omitted by the four children in my longitudinal study even after they are four years old. Tzeltal children's first verbs generally show faultless isolation of the root. An account in terms of intonation or stress cannot explain this ability (the prefixes are not all syllables; the roots are not always stressed). This paper suggests that probable clues include the fact that the CVC root stays constant across contexts (with some exceptions) whereas the affixes vary, that there are some linguistic contexts where the root occurs without any prefixes (relatively frequent in the input), and that the Tzeltal discourse convention of responding by repeating with appropriate deictic alternation (e.g., "I see it." "Oh, you see it.") highlights the root.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

Linguistic expressions of time often draw on spatial language, which raises the question of whether cultural specificity in spatial language and cognition is reflected in thinking about time. In the Mayan language Tzeltal, spatial language relies heavily on an absolute frame of reference utilizing the overall slope of the land, distinguishing an “uphill/downhill” axis oriented from south to north, and an orthogonal “crossways” axis (sunrise-set) on the basis of which objects at all scales are located. Does this absolute system for calculating spa-tial relations carry over into construals of temporal relations? This question was explored in a study where Tzeltal consultants produced temporal expressions and performed two different non-linguistic temporal ordering tasks. The results show that at least five distinct schemata for conceptualizing time underlie Tzeltal linguistic expressions: (i) deictic ego-centered time, (ii) time as an ordered sequence (e.g., “first”/“later”), (iii) cyclic time (times of the day, seasons), (iv) time as spatial extension or location (e.g., “entering/exiting July”), and (v) a time vector extending uphillwards into the future. The non-linguistic task results showed that the “time moves uphillwards” metaphor, based on the absolute frame of reference prevalent in Tzeltal spatial language and thinking and important as well in the linguistic expressions for time, is not strongly reflected in responses on these tasks. It is argued that systematic and consistent use of spatial language in an absolute frame of reference does not necessarily transfer to consistent absolute time conceptualization in non-linguistic tasks; time appears to be more open to alternative construals.

Abstract

This paper examines the verbs and other spatial vocabulary used for describing events of ‘putting’ and ‘taking’ in Tzeltal (Mayan). I discuss the semantics of different ‘put’ and ‘take’ verbs, the constructions they occur in, and the extensional patterns of verbs used in ‘put’ (Goal-oriented) vs. ‘take’ (Source-oriented) descriptions. A relatively limited role for semantically general verbs was found. Instead, Tzeltal is a ‘multiverb language’ with many different verbs usable to predicate ‘put’ and ‘take’ events, with verb choice largely determined by the shape, orientation, and resulting disposition of the Figure and Ground objects. The asymmetry that has been observed in other languages, with Goal-oriented ‘put’ verbs more finely distinguished lexically than Source-oriented ‘take’ verbs, is also apparent in Tzeltal.

Abstract

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