Displaying 301 - 400 of 805
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Heinrich, T., Ravignani, A., & Hanke, F. H. (2020). Visual timing abilities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) and a South African fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) for sub- and supra-second time intervals. Animal Cognition, 23(5), 851-859. doi:10.1007/s10071-020-01390-3.
Abstract
Timing is an essential parameter influencing many behaviours. A previous study demonstrated a high sensitivity of a phocid, the harbour seal (Phoca vitulina), in discriminating time intervals. In the present study, we compared the harbour seal’s timing abilities with the timing abilities of an otariid, the South African fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus). This comparison seemed essential as phocids and otariids differ in many respects and might, thus, also differ regarding their timing abilities. We determined time difference thresholds for sub- and suprasecond time intervals marked by a white circle on a black background displayed for a specific time interval on a monitor using a staircase method. Contrary to our expectation, the timing abilities of the fur seal and the harbour seal were comparable. Over a broad range of time intervals, 0.8–7 s in the fur seal and 0.8–30 s in the harbour seal, the difference thresholds followed Weber’s law. In this range, both animals could discriminate time intervals differing only by 12 % and 14 % on average. Timing might, thus be a fundamental cue for pinnipeds in general to be used in various contexts, thereby complementing information provided by classical sensory systems. Future studies will help to clarify if timing is indeed involved in foraging decisions or the estimation of travel speed or distance.Additional information
supplementary material -
Henson, R. N., Suri, S., Knights, E., Rowe, J. B., Kievit, R. A., Lyall, D. M., Chan, D., Eising, E., & Fisher, S. E. (2020). Effect of apolipoprotein E polymorphism on cognition and brain in the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience cohort. Brain and Neuroscience Advances, 4: 2398212820961704. doi:10.1177/2398212820961704.
Abstract
Polymorphisms in the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene have been associated with individual differences in cognition, brain structure and brain function. For example, the ε4 allele has been associated with cognitive and brain impairment in old age and increased risk of dementia, while the ε2 allele has been claimed to be neuroprotective. According to the ‘antagonistic pleiotropy’ hypothesis, these polymorphisms have different effects across the lifespan, with ε4, for example, postulated to confer benefits on cognitive and brain functions earlier in life. In this stage 2 of the Registered Report – https://osf.io/bufc4, we report the results from the cognitive and brain measures in the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience cohort (www.cam-can.org). We investigated the antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis by testing for allele-by-age interactions in approximately 600 people across the adult lifespan (18–88 years), on six outcome variables related to cognition, brain structure and brain function (namely, fluid intelligence, verbal memory, hippocampal grey-matter volume, mean diffusion within white matter and resting-state connectivity measured by both functional magnetic resonance imaging and magnetoencephalography). We found no evidence to support the antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis. Indeed, Bayes factors supported the null hypothesis in all cases, except for the (linear) interaction between age and possession of the ε4 allele on fluid intelligence, for which the evidence for faster decline in older ages was ambiguous. Overall, these pre-registered analyses question the antagonistic pleiotropy of APOE polymorphisms, at least in healthy adults.Additional information
supplementary material -
Heritage, J., Elliott, M. N., Stivers, T., Richardson, A., & Mangione-Smith, R. (2010). Reducing inappropriate antibiotics prescribing: The role of online commentary on physical examination findings. Patient Education and Counseling, 81, 119-125. doi:10.1016/j.pec.2009.12.005.
Abstract
Objective: This study investigates the relationship of ‘online commentary’(contemporaneous physician comments about physical examination [PE] findings) with (i) parent questioning of the treatment recommendation and (ii) inappropriate antibiotic prescribing. Methods: A nested cross-sectional study of 522 encounters motivated by upper respiratory symptoms in 27 California pediatric practices (38 pediatricians). Physicians completed a post-visit survey regarding physical examination findings, diagnosis, treatment, and whether they perceived the parent as expecting an antibiotic. Taped encounters were coded for ‘problem’ online commentary (PE findings discussed as significant or clearly abnormal) and ‘no problem’ online commentary (PE findings discussed reassuringly as normal or insignificant). Results: Online commentary during the PE occurred in 73% of visits with viral diagnoses (n = 261). Compared to similar cases with ‘no problem’ online commentary, ‘problem’ comments were associated with a 13% greater probability of parents uestioning a non-antibiotic treatment plan (95% CI 0-26%, p = .05,) and a 27% (95% CI: 2-52%, p < .05) greater probability of an inappropriate antibiotic prescription. Conclusion: With viral illnesses, problematic online comments are associated with more pediatrician-parent conflict over non-antibiotic treatment recommendations. This may increase inappropriate antibiotic prescribing. Practice implications: In viral cases, physicians should consider avoiding the use of problematic online commentary. -
Hestvik, A., Shinohara, Y., Durvasula, K., Verdonschot, R. G., & Sakai, H. (2020). Abstractness of human speech sound representations. Brain Research, 1732: 146664. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2020.146664.
Abstract
We argue, based on a study of brain responses to speech sound differences in Japanese, that memory encoding of functional speech sounds-phonemes-are highly abstract. As an example, we provide evidence for a theory where the consonants/p t k b d g/ are not only made up of symbolic features but are underspecified with respect to voicing or laryngeal features, and that languages differ with respect to which feature value is underspecified. In a previous study we showed that voiced stops are underspecified in English [Hestvik, A., & Durvasula, K. (2016). Neurobiological evidence for voicing underspecification in English. Brain and Language], as shown by asymmetries in Mismatch Negativity responses to /t/ and /d/. In the current study, we test the prediction that the opposite asymmetry should be observed in Japanese, if voiceless stops are underspecified in that language. Our results confirm this prediction. This matches a linguistic architecture where phonemes are highly abstract and do not encode actual physical characteristics of the corresponding speech sounds, but rather different subsets of abstract distinctive features. -
Hildebrand, M. S., Jackson, V. E., Scerri, T. S., Van Reyk, O., Coleman, M., Braden, R., Turner, S., Rigbye, K. A., Boys, A., Barton, S., Webster, R., Fahey, M., Saunders, K., Parry-Fielder, B., Paxton, G., Hayman, M., Coman, D., Goel, H., Baxter, A., Ma, A. and 11 moreHildebrand, M. S., Jackson, V. E., Scerri, T. S., Van Reyk, O., Coleman, M., Braden, R., Turner, S., Rigbye, K. A., Boys, A., Barton, S., Webster, R., Fahey, M., Saunders, K., Parry-Fielder, B., Paxton, G., Hayman, M., Coman, D., Goel, H., Baxter, A., Ma, A., Davis, N., Reilly, S., Delatycki, M., Liégeois, F. J., Connelly, A., Gecz, J., Fisher, S. E., Amor, D. J., Scheffer, I. E., Bahlo, M., & Morgan, A. T. (2020). Severe childhood speech disorder: Gene discovery highlights transcriptional dysregulation. Neurology, 94(20), e2148-e2167. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000009441.
Abstract
Objective
Determining the genetic basis of speech disorders provides insight into the neurobiology of
human communication. Despite intensive investigation over the past 2 decades, the etiology of
most speech disorders in children remains unexplained. To test the hypothesis that speech
disorders have a genetic etiology, we performed genetic analysis of children with severe speech
disorder, specifically childhood apraxia of speech (CAS).
Methods
Precise phenotyping together with research genome or exome analysis were performed on
children referred with a primary diagnosis of CAS. Gene coexpression and gene set enrichment
analyses were conducted on high-confidence gene candidates.
Results
Thirty-four probands ascertained for CAS were studied. In 11/34 (32%) probands, we identified
highly plausible pathogenic single nucleotide (n = 10; CDK13, EBF3, GNAO1, GNB1,
DDX3X, MEIS2, POGZ, SETBP1, UPF2, ZNF142) or copy number (n = 1; 5q14.3q21.1 locus)
variants in novel genes or loci for CAS. Testing of parental DNA was available for 9 probands
and confirmed that the variants had arisen de novo. Eight genes encode proteins critical for
regulation of gene transcription, and analyses of transcriptomic data found CAS-implicated
genes were highly coexpressed in the developing human brain.
Conclusion
We identify the likely genetic etiology in 11 patients with CAS and implicate 9 genes for the first
time. We find that CAS is often a sporadic monogenic disorder, and highly genetically heterogeneous.
Highly penetrant variants implicate shared pathways in broad transcriptional
regulation, highlighting the key role of transcriptional regulation in normal speech development.
CAS is a distinctive, socially debilitating clinical disorder, and understanding its
molecular basis is the first step towards identifying precision medicine approaches. -
Hill, C. (2010). Emergency language documentation teams: The Cape York Peninsula experience. In J. Hobson, K. Lowe, S. Poetsch, & M. Walsh (
Eds. ), Re-awakening languages: Theory and practice in the revitalisation of Australia’s Indigenous languages (pp. 418-432). Sydney: Sydney University Press. -
Hill, C. (2010). [Review of the book Discourse and Grammar in Australian Languages ed. by Ilana Mushin and Brett Baker]. Studies in Language, 34(1), 215-225. doi:10.1075/sl.34.1.12hil.
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Hintz, F., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2020). Visual context constrains language-mediated anticipatory eye movements. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73(3), 458-467. doi:10.1177/1747021819881615.
Abstract
Contemporary accounts of anticipatory language processing assume that individuals predict upcoming information at multiple levels of representation. Research investigating language-mediated anticipatory eye gaze typically assumes that linguistic input restricts the domain of subsequent reference (visual target objects). Here, we explored the converse case: Can visual input restrict the dynamics of anticipatory language processing? To this end, we recorded participants’ eye movements as they listened to sentences in which an object was predictable based on the verb’s selectional restrictions (“The man peels a banana”). While listening, participants looked at different types of displays: The target object (banana) was either present or it was absent. On target-absent trials, the displays featured objects that had a similar visual shape as the target object (canoe) or objects that were semantically related to the concepts invoked by the target (monkey). Each trial was presented in a long preview version, where participants saw the displays for approximately 1.78 seconds before the verb was heard (pre-verb condition), and a short preview version, where participants saw the display approximately 1 second after the verb had been heard (post-verb condition), 750 ms prior to the spoken target onset. Participants anticipated the target objects in both conditions. Importantly, robust evidence for predictive looks to objects related to the (absent) target objects in visual shape and semantics was found in the post-verb but not in the pre-verb condition. These results suggest that visual information can restrict language-mediated anticipatory gaze and delineate theoretical accounts of predictive processing in the visual world.Additional information
Supplemental Material -
Hintz, F., Meyer, A. S., & Huettig, F. (2020). Activating words beyond the unfolding sentence: Contributions of event simulation and word associations to discourse reading. Neuropsychologia, 141: 107409. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107409.
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that during comprehension readers activate words beyond the unfolding sentence. An open question concerns the mechanisms underlying this behavior. One proposal is that readers mentally simulate the described event and activate related words that might be referred to as the discourse further unfolds. Another proposal is that activation between words spreads in an automatic, associative fashion. The empirical support for these proposals is mixed. Therefore, theoretical accounts differ with regard to how much weight they place on the contributions of these sources to sentence comprehension. In the present study, we attempted to assess the contributions of event simulation and lexical associations to discourse reading, using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Participants read target words, which were preceded by associatively related words either appearing in a coherent discourse event (Experiment 1) or in sentences that did not form a coherent discourse event (Experiment 2). Contextually unexpected target words that were associatively related to the described events elicited a reduced N400 amplitude compared to contextually unexpected target words that were unrelated to the events (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, a similar but reduced effect was observed. These findings support the notion that during discourse reading event simulation and simple word associations jointly contribute to language comprehension by activating words that are beyond contextually congruent sentence continuations. -
Hintz*, F., Jongman*, S. R., Dijkhuis, M., Van 't Hoff, V., McQueen, J. M., & Meyer, A. S. (2020). Shared lexical access processes in speaking and listening? An individual differences study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 46(6), 1048-1063. doi:10.1037/xlm0000768.
Abstract
- * indicates joint first authorship - Lexical access is a core component of word processing. In order to produce or comprehend a word, language users must access word forms in their mental lexicon. However, despite its involvement in both tasks, previous research has often studied lexical access in either production or comprehension alone. Therefore, it is unknown to which extent lexical access processes are shared across both tasks. Picture naming and auditory lexical decision are considered good tools for studying lexical access. Both of them are speeded tasks. Given these commonalities, another open question concerns the involvement of general cognitive abilities (e.g., processing speed) in both linguistic tasks. In the present study, we addressed these questions. We tested a large group of young adults enrolled in academic and vocational courses. Participants completed picture naming and auditory lexical decision tasks as well as a battery of tests assessing non-verbal processing speed, vocabulary, and non-verbal intelligence. Our results suggest that the lexical access processes involved in picture naming and lexical decision are related but less closely than one might have thought. Moreover, reaction times in picture naming and lexical decision depended as least as much on general processing speed as on domain-specific linguistic processes (i.e., lexical access processes). -
Hintz, F., Dijkhuis, M., Van 't Hoff, V., McQueen, J. M., & Meyer, A. S. (2020). A behavioural dataset for studying individual differences in language skills. Scientific Data, 7: 429. doi:10.1038/s41597-020-00758-x.
Abstract
This resource contains data from 112 Dutch adults (18–29 years of age) who completed the Individual Differences in Language Skills test battery that included 33 behavioural tests assessing language skills and domain-general cognitive skills likely involved in language tasks. The battery included tests measuring linguistic experience (e.g. vocabulary size, prescriptive grammar knowledge), general cognitive skills (e.g. working memory, non-verbal intelligence) and linguistic processing skills (word production/comprehension, sentence production/comprehension). Testing was done in a lab-based setting resulting in high quality data due to tight monitoring of the experimental protocol and to the use of software and hardware that were optimized for behavioural testing. Each participant completed the battery twice (i.e., two test days of four hours each). We provide the raw data from all tests on both days as well as pre-processed data that were used to calculate various reliability measures (including internal consistency and test-retest reliability). We encourage other researchers to use this resource for conducting exploratory and/or targeted analyses of individual differences in language and general cognitive skills. -
Hintz, F. (2010). Speech and speaker recognition in dyslexic individuals. Bachelor Thesis, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Leipzig)/University of Leipzig.
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Hoeksema, N., Villanueva, S., Mengede, J., Salazar-Casals, A., Rubio-García, A., Curcic-Blake, B., Vernes, S. C., & Ravignani, A. (2020). Neuroanatomy of the grey seal brain: Bringing pinnipeds into the neurobiological study of vocal learning. In A. Ravignani, C. Barbieri, M. Flaherty, Y. Jadoul, E. Lattenkamp, H. Little, M. Martins, K. Mudd, & T. Verhoef (
Eds. ), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference (Evolang13) (pp. 162-164). Nijmegen: The Evolution of Language Conferences. -
Hoeksema, N., Wiesmann, M., Kiliaan, A., Hagoort, P., & Vernes, S. C. (2020). Bats and the comparative neurobiology of vocal learning. In A. Ravignani, C. Barbieri, M. Flaherty, Y. Jadoul, E. Lattenkamp, H. Little, M. Martins, K. Mudd, & T. Verhoef (
Eds. ), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference (Evolang13) (pp. 165-167). Nijmegen: The Evolution of Language Conferences. -
Hofer, E., Roshchupkin, G. V., Adams, H. H. H., Knol, M. J., Lin, H., Li, S., Zare, H., Ahmad, S., Armstrong, N. J., Satizabal, C. L., Bernard, M., Bis, J. C., Gillespie, N. A., Luciano, M., Mishra, A., Scholz, M., Teumer, A., Xia, R., Jian, X., Mosley, T. H. and 79 moreHofer, E., Roshchupkin, G. V., Adams, H. H. H., Knol, M. J., Lin, H., Li, S., Zare, H., Ahmad, S., Armstrong, N. J., Satizabal, C. L., Bernard, M., Bis, J. C., Gillespie, N. A., Luciano, M., Mishra, A., Scholz, M., Teumer, A., Xia, R., Jian, X., Mosley, T. H., Saba, Y., Pirpamer, L., Seiler, S., Becker, J. T., Carmichael, O., Rotter, J. I., Psaty, B. M., Lopez, O. L., Amin, N., Van der Lee, S. J., Yang, Q., Himali, J. J., Maillard, P., Beiser, A. S., DeCarli, C., Karama, S., Lewis, L., Harris, M., Bastin, M. E., Deary, I. J., Witte, A. V., Beyer, F., Loeffler, M., Mather, K. A., Schofield, P. R., Thalamuthu, A., Kwok, J. B., Wright, M. J., Ames, D., Trollor, J., Jiang, J., Brodaty, H., Wen, W., Vernooij, M. W., Hofman, A., Uitterlinden, A. G., Niessen, W. J., Wittfeld, K., Bülow, R., Völker, U., Pausova, Z., Pike, G. B., Maingault, S., Crivello, F., Tzourio, C., Amouyel, P., Mazoyer, B., Neale, M. C., Franz, C. E., Lyons, M. J., Panizzon, M. S., Andreassen, O. A., Dale, A. M., Logue, M., Grasby, K. L., Jahanshad, N., Painter, J. N., Colodro-Conde, L., Bralten, J., Hibar, D. P., Lind, P. A., Pizzagalli, F., Stein, J. L., Thompson, P. M., Medland, S. E., ENIGMA-consortium, Sachdev, P. S., Kremen, W. S., Wardlaw, J. M., Villringer, A., Van Duijn, C. M., Grabe, H. J., Longstreth, W. T., Fornage, M., Paus, T., Debette, S., Ikram, M. A., Schmidt, H., Schmidt, R., & Seshadri, S. (2020). Genetic correlations and genome-wide associations of cortical structure in general population samples of 22,824 adults. Nature Communications, 11: 4796. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-18367-y.
Additional information
supplementary information -
Holler, J. (2010). Speakers’ use of interactive gestures to mark common ground. In S. Kopp, & I. Wachsmuth (
Eds. ), Gesture in embodied communication and human-computer interaction. 8th International Gesture Workshop, Bielefeld, Germany, 2009; Selected Revised Papers (pp. 11-22). Heidelberg: Springer Verlag. -
Hörpel, S. G., & Firzlaff, U. (2020). Post-natal development of the envelope following response to amplitude modulated sounds in the bat Phyllostomus discolor. Hearing Research, 388: 107904. doi:10.1016/j.heares.2020.107904.
Abstract
Bats use a large repertoire of calls for social communication, which are often characterized by temporal amplitude and frequency modulations. As bats are considered to be among the few mammalian species capable of vocal learning, the perception of temporal sound modulations should be crucial for juvenile bats to develop social communication abilities. However, the post-natal development of auditory processing of temporal modulations has not been investigated in bats, so far. Here we use the minimally invasive technique of recording auditory brainstem responses to measure the envelope following response (EFR) to sinusoidally amplitude modulated noise (range of modulation frequencies: 11–130 Hz) in three juveniles (p8-p72) of the bat, Phyllostomus discolor. In two out of three animals, we show that although amplitude modulation processing is basically developed at p8, EFRs maturated further over a period of about two weeks until p33. Maturation of the EFR generally took longer for higher modulation frequencies (87–130 Hz) than for lower modulation frequencies (11–58 Hz). -
Hostetter, A. B., Pouw, W., & Wakefield, E. M. (2020). Learning from gesture and action: An investigation of memory for where objects went and how they got there. Cognitive Science, 44(9): e12889. doi:10.1111/cogs.12889.
Abstract
Speakers often use gesture to demonstrate how to perform actions—for example, they might show how to open the top of a jar by making a twisting motion above the jar. Yet it is unclear whether listeners learn as much from seeing such gestures as they learn from seeing actions that physically change the position of objects (i.e., actually opening the jar). Here, we examined participants' implicit and explicit understanding about a series of movements that demonstrated how to move a set of objects. The movements were either shown with actions that physically relocated each object or with gestures that represented the relocation without touching the objects. Further, the end location that was indicated for each object covaried with whether the object was grasped with one or two hands. We found that memory for the end location of each object was better after seeing the physical relocation of the objects, that is, after seeing action, than after seeing gesture, regardless of whether speech was absent (Experiment 1) or present (Experiment 2). However, gesture and action built similar implicit understanding of how a particular handgrasp corresponded with a particular end location. Although gestures miss the benefit of showing the end state of objects that have been acted upon, the data show that gestures are as good as action in building knowledge of how to perform an action. -
Houwing, D. J., Schuttel, K., Struik, E. L., Arling, C., Ramsteijn, A. S., Heinla, I., & Olivier, J. D. (2020). Perinatal fluoxetine treatment and dams’ early life stress history alter affective behavior in rat offspring depending on serotonin transporter genotype and sex. Behavioural Brain Research, 392: 112657. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2020.112657.
Abstract
Many women diagnosed with a major depression continue or initiate antidepressant treatment during pregnancy. Both maternal stress and selective serotonin inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant treatment during pregnancy have been associated with changes in offspring behavior, including increased anxiety and depressive-like behavior. Our aim was to investigate the effects of the SSRI fluoxetine (FLX), with and without the presence of a maternal depression, on affective behavior in male and female rat offspring. As reduced serotonin transporter (SERT) availability has been associated with altered behavioral outcome, both offspring with normal (SERT+/+) and reduced (SERT+/−) SERT expression were included. For our animal model of maternal depression, SERT+/− dams exposed to early life stress were used. Perinatal FLX treatment and early life stress in dams (ELSD) had sex- and genotype-specific effects on affective behavior in the offspring. In female offspring, perinatal FLX exposure interacted with SERT genotype to increase anxiety and depressive-like behavior in SERT+/+, but not SERT+/−, females. In male offspring, ELSD reduced anxiety and interacted with SERT genotype to decrease depressive-like behavior in SERT+/−, but not SERT+/+, males. Altogether, SERT+/+ female offspring appear to be more sensitive than SERT+/− females to the effects of perinatal FLX exposure, while SERT+/− male offspring appear more sensitive than SERT+/+ males to the effects of ELSD on affective behavior. Our data suggest a role for offspring SERT genotype and sex in FLX and ELSD-induced effects on affective behavior, thereby contributing to our understanding of the effects of perinatal SSRI treatment on offspring behavior later in life. -
Howarth, H., Sommer, V., & Jordan, F. (2010). Visual depictions of female genitalia differ depending on source. Medical Humanities, 36, 75-79. doi:10.1136/jmh.2009.003707.
Abstract
Very little research has attempted to describe normal human variation in female genitalia, and no studies have compared the visual images that women might use in constructing their ideas of average and acceptable genital morphology to see if there are any systematic differences. Our objective was to determine if visual depictions of the vulva differed according to their source so as to alert medical professionals and their patients to how these depictions might capture variation and thus influence perceptions of "normality". We conducted a comparative analysis by measuring (a) published visual materials from human anatomy textbooks in a university library, (b) feminist publications (both print and online) depicting vulval morphology, and (c) online pornography, focusing on the most visited and freely accessible sites in the UK. Post-hoc tests showed that labial protuberance was significantly less (p < .001, equivalent to approximately 7 mm) in images from online pornography compared to feminist publications. All five measures taken of vulval features were significantly correlated (p < .001) in the online pornography sample, indicating a less varied range of differences in organ proportions than the other sources where not all measures were correlated. Women and health professionals should be aware that specific sources of imagery may depict different types of genital morphology and may not accurately reflect true variation in the population, and consultations for genital surgeries should include discussion about the actual and perceived range of variation in female genital morphology. -
Howe, L. J., Hemani, G., Lesseur, C., Gaborieau, V., Ludwig, K. U., Mangold, E., Brennan, P., Ness, A. R., St Pourcain, B., Smith, G. D., & Lewis, S. J. (2020). Evaluating shared genetic influences on nonsyndromic cleft lip/palate and oropharyngeal neoplasms. Genetic Epidemiology, 44(8), 924-933. doi:10.1002/gepi.22343.
Abstract
It has been hypothesised that nonsyndromic cleft lip/palate (nsCL/P) and cancer may share aetiological risk factors. Population studies have found inconsistent evidence for increased incidence of cancer in nsCL/P cases, but several genes (e.g.,CDH1,AXIN2) have been implicated in the aetiologies of both phenotypes. We aimed to evaluate shared genetic aetiology between nsCL/P and oral cavity/oropharyngeal cancers (OC/OPC), which affect similar anatomical regions. Using a primary sample of 5,048 OC/OPC cases and 5,450 controls of European ancestry and a replication sample of 750 cases and 336,319 controls from UK Biobank, we estimate genetic overlap using nsCL/P polygenic risk scores (PRS) with Mendelian randomization analyses performed to evaluate potential causal mechanisms. In the primary sample, we found strong evidence for an association between a nsCL/P PRS and increased odds of OC/OPC (per standard deviation increase in score, odds ratio [OR]: 1.09; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.04, 1.13;p = .000053). Although confidence intervals overlapped with the primary estimate, we did not find confirmatory evidence of an association between the PRS and OC/OPC in UK Biobank (OR 1.02; 95% CI: 0.95, 1.10;p = .55). Mendelian randomization analyses provided evidence that major nsCL/P risk variants are unlikely to influence OC/OPC. Our findings suggest possible shared genetic influences on nsCL/P and OC/OPC.Additional information
Supporting information -
Howells, H., Puglisi, G., Leonetti, A., Vigano, L., Fornia, L., Simone, L., Forkel, S. J., Rossi, M., Riva, M., Cerri, G., & Bello, L. (2020). The role of left fronto-parietal tracts in hand selection: Evidence from neurosurgery. Cortex, 128, 297-311. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2020.03.018.
Abstract
Strong right-hand preference on the population level is a uniquely human feature, although its neural basis is still not clearly defined. Recent behavioural and neuroimaging literature suggests that hand preference may be related to the orchestrated function and size of fronto-parietal white matter tracts bilaterally. Lesions to these tracts induced during tumour resection may provide an opportunity to test this hypothesis. In the present study, a cohort of seventeen neurosurgical patients with left hemisphere brain tumours were recruited to investigate whether resection of certain white matter tracts affects the choice of hand selected for the execution of a goal-directed task (assembly of jigsaw puzzles). Patients performed the puzzles, but also tests for basic motor ability, selective attention and visuo-constructional ability, preoperatively and one month after surgery. An atlas-based disconnectome analysis was conducted to evaluate whether resection of tracts was significantly associated with changes in hand selection. Diffusion tractography was also used to dissect fronto-parietal tracts (the superior longitudinal fasciculus) and the corticospinal tract. Results showed a shift in hand selection despite the absence of any motor or cognitive deficits, which was significantly associated with frontal and parietal resections rather than other lobes. In particular, the shift in hand selection was significantly associated with the resection of dorsal rather than ventral fronto-parietal white matter connections. Dorsal white matter pathways contribute bilaterally to control of goal-directed hand movements. We show that unilateral lesions, that may unbalance the cooperation of the two hemispheres, can alter the choice of hand selected to accomplish movements. -
Hoymann, G. (2010). Questions and responses in ╪Ākhoe Hai||om. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(10), 2726-2740. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.04.008.
Abstract
This paper examines ╪Ākhoe Hai||om, a Khoe language of the Khoisan family spoken in Northern Namibia. I document the way questions are posed in natural conversation, the actions the questions are used for and the manner in which they are responded to. I show that in this language speakers rely most heavily on content questions. I also find that speakers of ╪Ākhoe Hai||om address fewer questions to a specific individual than would be expected from prior research on Indo European languages. Finally, I discuss some possible explanations for these findings. -
Hubers, F., Redl, T., De Vos, H., Reinarz, L., & De Hoop, H. (2020). Processing prescriptively incorrect comparative particles: Evidence from sentence-matching and eye-tracking. Frontiers in Psychology, 11: 186. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00186.
Abstract
Speakers of a language sometimes use particular constructions which violate prescriptive grammar rules. Despite their prescriptive ungrammaticality, they can occur rather frequently. One such example is the comparative construction in Dutch and similarly in German, where the equative particle is used in comparative constructions instead of the prescriptively correct comparative particle (Dutch beter als Jan and German besser wie Jan ‘lit. better as John’). From a theoretical linguist’s point of view, these so-called grammatical norm violations are perfectly grammatical, even though they are not part of the language’s prescriptive grammar. In a series of three experiments using sentence-matching and eye-tracking methodology, we investigated whether grammatical norm violations are processed as truly grammatical, as truly ungrammatical, or whether they fall in between these two. We hypothesized that the latter would be the case. We analyzed our data using linear mixed effects models in order to capture possible individual differences. The results of the sentence-matching experiments, which were conducted in both Dutch and German, showed that the grammatical norm violation patterns with ungrammatical sentences in both languages. Our hypothesis was therefore not borne out. However, using the more sensitive eye-tracking method on Dutch speakers only, we found that the ungrammatical alternative leads to higher reading times than the grammatical norm violation. We also found significant individual variation regarding this very effect. We furthermore replicated the processing difference between the grammatical norm violation and the prescriptively correct variant. In summary, we conclude that while the results of the more sensitive eye-tracking experiment suggest that grammatical norm violations are not processed on a par with ungrammatical sentences, the results of all three experiments clearly show that grammatical norm violations cannot be considered grammatical, either.Additional information
Supplementary Material -
Hubers, F., Trompenaars, T., Collin, S., De Schepper, K., & De hoop, H. (2020). Hypercorrection as a by-product of education. Applied Linguistics, 41(4), 552-574. doi:10.1093/applin/amz001.
Abstract
Prescriptive grammar rules are taught in education, generally to ban the use of certain frequently encountered constructions in everyday language. This may lead to hypercorrection, meaning that the prescribed form in one construction is extended to another one in which it is in fact prohibited by prescriptive grammar. We discuss two such cases in Dutch: the hypercorrect use of the comparative particle dan ‘than’ in equative constructions, and the hypercorrect use of the accusative pronoun hen ‘them’ for a dative object. In two experiments, high school students of three educational levels were tested on their use of these hypercorrect forms (nexp1 = 162, nexp2 = 159). Our results indicate an overall large amount of hypercorrection across all levels of education, including pre-university level students who otherwise perform better in constructions targeted by prescriptive grammar rules. We conclude that while teaching prescriptive grammar rules to high school students seems to increase their use of correct forms in certain constructions, this comes at a cost of hypercorrection in others. -
Hubers, F. (2020). Two of a kind: Idiomatic expressions by native speakers and second language learners. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
Additional information
full text via Radboud Repository -
Huettig, F., Guerra, E., & Helo, A. (2020). Towards understanding the task dependency of embodied language processing: The influence of colour during language-vision interactions. Journal of Cognition, 3(1): 41. doi:10.5334/joc.135.
Abstract
A main challenge for theories of embodied cognition is to understand the task dependency of embodied language processing. One possibility is that perceptual representations (e.g., typical colour of objects mentioned in spoken sentences) are not activated routinely but the influence of perceptual representation emerges only when context strongly supports their involvement in language. To explore this question, we tested the effects of colour representations during language processing in three visual- world eye-tracking experiments. On critical trials, participants listened to sentence- embedded words associated with a prototypical colour (e.g., ‘...spinach...’) while they inspected a visual display with four printed words (Experiment 1), coloured or greyscale line drawings (Experiment 2) and a ‘blank screen’ after a preview of coloured or greyscale line drawings (Experiment 3). Visual context always presented a word/object (e.g., frog) associated with the same prototypical colour (e.g. green) as the spoken target word and three distractors. When hearing spinach participants did not prefer the written word frog compared to other distractor words (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, colour competitors attracted more overt attention compared to average distractors, but only for the coloured condition and not for greyscale trials. Finally, when the display was removed at the onset of the sentence, and in contrast to the previous blank-screen experiments with semantic competitors, there was no evidence of colour competition in the eye-tracking record (Experiment 3). These results fit best with the notion that the main role of perceptual representations in language processing is to contextualize language in the immediate environment.Additional information
Data files and script -
Huettig, F., Chen, J., Bowerman, M., & Majid, A. (2010). Do language-specific categories shape conceptual processing? Mandarin classifier distinctions influence eye gaze behavior, but only during linguistic processing. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 10(1/2), 39-58. doi:10.1163/156853710X497167.
Abstract
In two eye-tracking studies we investigated the influence of Mandarin numeral classifiers - a grammatical category in the language - on online overt attention. Mandarin speakers were presented with simple sentences through headphones while their eye-movements to objects presented on a computer screen were monitored. The crucial question is what participants look at while listening to a pre-specified target noun. If classifier categories influence Mandarin speakers' general conceptual processing, then on hearing the target noun they should look at objects that are members of the same classifier category - even when the classifier is not explicitly present (cf. Huettig & Altmann, 2005). The data show that when participants heard a classifier (e.g., ba3, Experiment 1) they shifted overt attention significantly more to classifier-match objects (e.g., chair) than to distractor objects. But when the classifier was not explicitly presented in speech, overt attention to classifier-match objects and distractor objects did not differ (Experiment 2). This suggests that although classifier distinctions do influence eye-gaze behavior, they do so only during linguistic processing of that distinction and not in moment-to-moment general conceptual processing. -
Huettig, F., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2010). Listening to yourself is like listening to others: External, but not internal, verbal self-monitoring is based on speech perception. Language and Cognitive Processes, 3, 347 -374. doi:10.1080/01690960903046926.
Abstract
Theories of verbal self-monitoring generally assume an internal (pre-articulatory) monitoring channel, but there is debate about whether this channel relies on speech perception or on production-internal mechanisms. Perception-based theories predict that listening to one's own inner speech has similar behavioral consequences as listening to someone else's speech. Our experiment therefore registered eye-movements while speakers named objects accompanied by phonologically related or unrelated written words. The data showed that listening to one's own speech drives eye-movements to phonologically related words, just as listening to someone else's speech does in perception experiments. The time-course of these eye-movements was very similar to that in other-perception (starting 300 ms post-articulation), which demonstrates that these eye-movements were driven by the perception of overt speech, not inner speech. We conclude that external, but not internal monitoring, is based on speech perception. -
Huizeling, E., Wang, H., Holland, C., & Kessler, K. (2020). Age-related changes in attentional refocusing during simulated driving. Brain sciences, 10(8): 530. doi:10.3390/brainsci10080530.
Abstract
We recently reported that refocusing attention between temporal and spatial tasks becomes more difficult with increasing age, which could impair daily activities such as driving (Callaghan et al., 2017). Here, we investigated the extent to which difficulties in refocusing attention extend to naturalistic settings such as simulated driving. A total of 118 participants in five age groups (18–30; 40–49; 50–59; 60–69; 70–91 years) were compared during continuous simulated driving, where they repeatedly switched from braking due to traffic ahead (a spatially focal yet temporally complex task) to reading a motorway road sign (a spatially more distributed task). Sequential-Task (switching) performance was compared to Single-Task performance (road sign only) to calculate age-related switch-costs. Electroencephalography was recorded in 34 participants (17 in the 18–30 and 17 in the 60+ years groups) to explore age-related changes in the neural oscillatory signatures of refocusing attention while driving. We indeed observed age-related impairments in attentional refocusing, evidenced by increased switch-costs in response times and by deficient modulation of theta and alpha frequencies. Our findings highlight virtual reality (VR) and Neuro-VR as important methodologies for future psychological and gerontological research.Additional information
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Hulten, A., Laaksonen, H., Vihla, M., Laine, M., & Salmelin, R. (2010). Modulation of brain activity after learning predicts long-term memory for words. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(45), 15160-15164. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1278-10.2010.
Abstract
The acquisition and maintenance of new language information, such as picking up new words, is a critical human ability that is needed throughout the life span. Most likely you learned the word “blog” quite recently as an adult, whereas the word “kipe,” which in the 1970s denoted stealing, now seems unfamiliar. Brain mechanisms underlying the long-term maintenance of new words have remained unknown, albeit they could provide important clues to the considerable individual differences in the ability to remember words. After successful training of a set of novel object names we tracked, over a period of 10 months, the maintenance of this new vocabulary in 10 human participants by repeated behavioral tests and magnetoencephalography measurements of overt picture naming. When namingrelated activation in the left frontal and temporal cortex was enhanced 1 week after training, compared with the level at the end of training, the individual retained a good command of the new vocabulary at 10 months; vice versa, individuals with reduced activation at 1 week posttraining were less successful in recalling the names at 10 months. This finding suggests an individual neural marker for memory, in the context of language. Learning is not over when the acquisition phase has been successfully completed: neural events during the access to recently established word representations appear to be important for the long-term outcome of learning. -
Hulten, A. (2010). Sanan tuottaminen [Word production]. In Kieli ja aivot [Language and the Brain - Textbook series] (pp. 106-116).
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Iacozza, S., Meyer, A. S., & Lev-Ari, S. (2020). How in-group bias influences the level of detail of speaker-specific information encoded in novel lexical representations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 46(5), 894-906. doi:10.1037/xlm0000765.
Abstract
An important issue in theories of word learning is how abstract or context-specific representations of novel words are. One aspect of this broad issue is how well learners maintain information about the source of novel words. We investigated whether listeners’ source memory was better for words learned from members of their in-group (students of their own university) than it is for words learned from members of an out-group (students from another institution). In the first session, participants saw 6 faces and learned which of the depicted students attended either their own or a different university. In the second session, they learned competing labels (e.g., citrus-peller and citrus-schiller; in English, lemon peeler and lemon stripper) for novel gadgets, produced by the in-group and out-group speakers. Participants were then tested for source memory of these labels and for the strength of their in-group bias, that is, for how much they preferentially process in-group over out-group information. Analyses of source memory accuracy demonstrated an interaction between speaker group membership status and participants’ in-group bias: Stronger in-group bias was associated with less accurate source memory for out-group labels than in-group labels. These results add to the growing body of evidence on the importance of social variables for adult word learning. -
Iacozza, S. (2020). Exploring social biases in language processing. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
Additional information
full text via Radboud Repository -
Indefrey, P., & Gullberg, M. (2010). Foreword. Language Learning, 60(S2), v. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2010.00596.x.
Abstract
The articles in this volume are the result of an invited conference entitled "The Earliest Stages of Language Learning" held at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, in October 2009. -
Indefrey, P., & Gullberg, M. (2010). The earliest stages of language learning: Introduction. Language Learning, 60(S2), 1-4. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2010.00597.x.
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Indefrey, P., & Gullberg, M. (2010). The earliest stages of language learning: Introduction. In M. Gullberg, & P. Indefrey (
Eds. ), The earliest stages of language learning (pp. 1-4). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. -
Ingason, A., Giegling, I., Cichon, S., Hansen, T., Rasmussen, H. B., Nielsen, J., Jurgens, G., Muglia, P., Hartmann, A. M., Strengman, E., Vasilescu, C., Muhleisen, T. W., Djurovic, S., Melle, I., Lerer, B., Möller, H.-J., Francks, C., Pietilainen, O. P. H., Lonnqvist, J., Suvisaari, J. and 20 moreIngason, A., Giegling, I., Cichon, S., Hansen, T., Rasmussen, H. B., Nielsen, J., Jurgens, G., Muglia, P., Hartmann, A. M., Strengman, E., Vasilescu, C., Muhleisen, T. W., Djurovic, S., Melle, I., Lerer, B., Möller, H.-J., Francks, C., Pietilainen, O. P. H., Lonnqvist, J., Suvisaari, J., Tuulio-Henriksson, A., Walshe, M., Vassos, E., Di Forti, M., Murray, R., Bonetto, C., Tosato, S., Cantor, R. M., Rietschel, M., Craddock, N., Owen, M. J., Andreassen, O. A., Nothen, M. M., Peltonen, L., St. Clair, D., Ophoff, R. A., O’Donovan, M. C., Collier, D. A., Werge, T., & Rujescu, D. (2010). A large replication study and meta-analysis in European samples provides further support for association of AHI1 markers with schizophrenia. Human Molecular Genetics, 19(7), 1379-1386. doi:10.1093/hmg/ddq009.
Abstract
The Abelson helper integration site 1 (AHI1) gene locus on chromosome 6q23 is among a group of candidate loci for schizophrenia susceptibility that were initially identified by linkage followed by linkage disequilibrium mapping, and subsequent replication of the association in an independent sample. Here, we present results of a replication study of AHI1 locus markers, previously implicated in schizophrenia, in a large European sample (in total 3907 affected and 7429 controls). Furthermore, we perform a meta-analysis of the implicated markers in 4496 affected and 18,920 controls. Both the replication study of new samples and the meta-analysis show evidence for significant overrepresentation of all tested alleles in patients compared with controls (meta-analysis; P = 8.2 x 10(-5)-1.7 x 10(-3), common OR = 1.09-1.11). The region contains two genes, AHI1 and C6orf217, and both genes-as well as the neighbouring phosphodiesterase 7B (PDE7B)-may be considered candidates for involvement in the genetic aetiology of schizophrenia.Additional information
http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/7/1379/suppl/DC1 -
Isbilen, E. S., McCauley, S. M., Kidd, E., & Christiansen, M. H. (2020). Statistically induced chunking recall: A memory‐based approach to statistical learning. Cognitive Science, 44(7): e12848. doi:10.1111/cogs.12848.
Abstract
The computations involved in statistical learning have long been debated. Here, we build on work suggesting that a basic memory process, chunking , may account for the processing of statistical regularities into larger units. Drawing on methods from the memory literature, we developed a novel paradigm to test statistical learning by leveraging a robust phenomenon observed in serial recall tasks: that short‐term memory is fundamentally shaped by long‐term distributional learning. In the statistically induced chunking recall (SICR) task, participants are exposed to an artificial language, using a standard statistical learning exposure phase. Afterward, they recall strings of syllables that either follow the statistics of the artificial language or comprise the same syllables presented in a random order. We hypothesized that if individuals had chunked the artificial language into word‐like units, then the statistically structured items would be more accurately recalled relative to the random controls. Our results demonstrate that SICR effectively captures learning in both the auditory and visual modalities, with participants displaying significantly improved recall of the statistically structured items, and even recall specific trigram chunks from the input. SICR also exhibits greater test–retest reliability in the auditory modality and sensitivity to individual differences in both modalities than the standard two‐alternative forced‐choice task. These results thereby provide key empirical support to the chunking account of statistical learning and contribute a valuable new tool to the literature. -
Jackson, C., & Roberts, L. (2010). Animacy affects the processing of subject–object ambiguities in the second language: Evidence from self-paced reading with German second language learners of Dutch. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31(4), 671-691. doi:10.1017/S0142716410000196.
Abstract
The results of a self-paced reading study with German second language (L2) learners of Dutch showed that noun animacy affected the learners' on-line commitments when comprehending relative clauses in their L2. Earlier research has found that German L2 learners of Dutch do not show an on-line preference for subject–object word order in temporarily ambiguous relative clauses when no disambiguating material is available prior to the auxiliary verb. We investigated whether manipulating the animacy of the ambiguous noun phrases would push the learners to make an on-line commitment to either a subject- or object-first analysis. Results showed they performed like Dutch native speakers in that their reading times reflected an interaction between topichood and animacy in the on-line assignment of grammatical roles -
Jacoby, N., Margulis, E. H., Clayton, M., Hannon, E., Honing, H., Iversen, J., Klein, T. R., Mehr, S. A., Pearson, L., Peretz, I., Perlman, M., Polak, R., Ravignani, A., Savage, P. E., Steingo, G., Stevens, C. J., Trainor, L., Trehub, S., Veal, M., & Wald-Fuhrmann, M. (2020). Cross-cultural work in music cognition: Challenges, insights, and recommendations. Music Perception, 37(3), 185-195. doi:10.1525/mp.2020.37.3.185.
Abstract
Many foundational questions in the psychology of music require cross-cultural approaches, yet the vast majority of work in the field to date has been conducted with Western participants and Western music. For cross-cultural research to thrive, it will require collaboration between people from different disciplinary backgrounds, as well as strategies for overcoming differences in assumptions, methods, and terminology. This position paper surveys the current state of the field and offers a number of concrete recommendations focused on issues involving ethics, empirical methods, and definitions of “music” and “culture.” -
Janse, E., De Bree, E., & Brouwer, S. (2010). Decreased sensitivity to phonemic mismatch in spoken word processing in adult developmental dyslexia. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39(6), 523-539. doi:10.1007/s10936-010-9150-2.
Abstract
Initial lexical activation in typical populations is a direct reflection of the goodness of fit between the presented stimulus and the intended target. In this study, lexical activation was investigated upon presentation of polysyllabic pseudowords (such as procodile for crocodile) for the atypical population of dyslexic adults to see to what extent mismatching phonemic information affects lexical activation in the face of overwhelming support for one specific lexical candidate. Results of an auditory lexical decision task showed that sensitivity to phonemic mismatch was less in the dyslexic population, compared to the respective control group. However, the dyslexic participants were outperformed by their controls only for word-initial mismatches. It is argued that a subtle speech decoding deficit affects lexical activation levels and makes spoken word processing less robust against distortion. -
Janse, E. (2010). Spoken word processing and the effect of phonemic mismatch in aphasia. Aphasiology, 24(1), 3-27. doi:10.1080/02687030802339997.
Abstract
Background: There is evidence that, unlike in typical populations, initial lexical activation upon hearing spoken words in aphasic patients is not a direct reflection of the goodness of fit between the presented stimulus and the intended target. Earlier studies have mainly used short monosyllabic target words. Short words are relatively difficult to recognise because they are not highly redundant: changing one phoneme will often result in a (similar-sounding) different word. Aims: The present study aimed to investigate sensitivity of the lexical recognition system in aphasia. The focus was on longer words that contain more redundancy, to investigate whether aphasic adults might be impaired in deactivation of strongly activated lexical candidates. This was done by studying lexical activation upon presentation of spoken polysyllabic pseudowords (such as procodile) to see to what extent mismatching phonemic information leads to deactivation in the face of overwhelming support for one specific lexical candidate. Methods & Procedures: Speeded auditory lexical decision was used to investigate response time and accuracy to pseudowords with a word-initial or word-final phonemic mismatch in 21 aphasic patients and in an age-matched control group. Outcomes & Results: Results of an auditory lexical decision task showed that aphasic participants were less sensitive to phonemic mismatch if there was strong evidence for one particular lexical candidate, compared to the control group. Classifications of patients as Broca's vs Wernicke's or as fluent vs non-fluent did not reveal differences in sensitivity to mismatch between aphasia types. There was no reliable relationship between measures of auditory verbal short-term memory and lexical decision performance. Conclusions: It is argued that the aphasic results can best be viewed as lexical “overactivation” and that a verbal short-term memory account is less appropriate. -
Järvikivi, J., & Pyykkönen, P. (2010). Lauseiden ymmärtäminen [Engl. Sentence comprehension]. In P. Korpilahti, O. Aaltonen, & M. Laine (
Eds. ), Kieli ja aivot: Kommunikaation perusteet, häiriöt ja kuntoutus (pp. 117-125). Turku: Turku yliopisto.Abstract
Kun kuuntelemme puhetta tai luemme tekstiä, alamme välittömästi rakentaa koherenttia tulkintaa. Toisin kuin lukemisessa, puheen havaitsemisessa kuulija voi harvoin kontrolloida nopeutta, jolla hänelle puhutaan. Huolimatta hyvin nopeasta syötteestä - noin 4-7 tavua sekunnissa - ihmiset kykenevät tulkitsemaan puhetta hyvin vaivattomasti. Lauseen ymmärtämisen tutkimuksessa selvitetäänkin, miten tällainen nopea ja useimmiten vaivaton tulkintaprosessi tapahtuu, mitkä kognitiiviset prosessit osallistuvat reaaliaikaiseen tulkintaan ja millaista informaatiota missäkin vaiheessa prosessointia ihminen käyttää hyväkseen johdonmukaisen tulkinnan muodostamiseksi. Tämä kappale on katsaus lauseen ymmärtämisen prosesseihin ja niiden tutkimukseen. Käsittelemme lyhyesti prosessointimalleja, aikuisten ja lasten kielen suhdetta, lauseen sisäisten ja välisten viittaussuhteiden tulkintaa ja sensorisen ympäristön sekä motorisen toiminnan roolia lauseiden tulkintaprosessissa. -
Järvikivi, J., Vainio, M., & Aalto, D. (2010). Real-time correlates of phonological quantity reveal unity of tonal and non-tonal languages. Plos One, 5(9), e12603. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0012603.
Abstract
Discrete phonological phenomena form our conscious experience of language: continuous changes in pitch appear as distinct tones to the speakers of tone languages, whereas the speakers of quantity languages experience duration categorically. The categorical nature of our linguistic experience is directly reflected in the traditionally clear-cut linguistic classification of languages into tonal or non-tonal. However, some evidence suggests that duration and pitch are fundamentally interconnected and co-vary in signaling word meaning in non-tonal languages as well. We show that pitch information affects real-time language processing in a (non-tonal) quantity language. The results suggest that there is no unidirectional causal link from a genetically-based perceptual sensitivity towards pitch information to the appearance of a tone language. They further suggest that the contrastive categories tone and quantity may be based on simultaneously co-varying properties of the speech signal and the processing system, even though the conscious experience of the speakers may highlight only one discrete variable at a time. -
Jasmin, K., & Casasanto, D. (2010). Stereotyping: How the QWERTY keyboard shapes the mental lexicon [Abstract]. In Proceedings of the 16th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing [AMLaP 2010] (pp. 159). York: University of York.
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Jebb, D., Huang, Z., Pippel, M., Hughes, G. M., Lavrichenko, K., Devanna, P., Winkler, S., Jermiin, L. S., Skirmuntt, E. C., Katzourakis, A., Burkitt-Gray, L., Ray, D. A., Sullivan, K. A. M., Roscito, J. G., Kirilenko, B. M., Dávalos, L. M., Corthals, A. P., Power, M. L., Jones, G., Ransome, R. D. and 9 moreJebb, D., Huang, Z., Pippel, M., Hughes, G. M., Lavrichenko, K., Devanna, P., Winkler, S., Jermiin, L. S., Skirmuntt, E. C., Katzourakis, A., Burkitt-Gray, L., Ray, D. A., Sullivan, K. A. M., Roscito, J. G., Kirilenko, B. M., Dávalos, L. M., Corthals, A. P., Power, M. L., Jones, G., Ransome, R. D., Dechmann, D., Locatelli, A. G., Puechmaille, S. J., Fedrigo, O., Jarvis, E. D., Hiller, M., Vernes, S. C., Myers, E. W., & Teeling, E. C. (2020). Six reference-quality genomes reveal evolution of bat adaptations. Nature, 583, 578-584. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2486-3.
Abstract
Bats possess extraordinary adaptations, including flight, echolocation, extreme longevity and unique immunity. High-quality genomes are crucial for understanding the molecular basis and evolution of these traits. Here we incorporated long-read sequencing and state-of-the-art scaffolding protocols1 to generate, to our knowledge, the first reference-quality genomes of six bat species (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, Rousettus aegyptiacus, Phyllostomus discolor, Myotis myotis, Pipistrellus kuhlii and Molossus molossus). We integrated gene projections from our ‘Tool to infer Orthologs from Genome Alignments’ (TOGA) software with de novo and homology gene predictions as well as short- and long-read transcriptomics to generate highly complete gene annotations. To resolve the phylogenetic position of bats within Laurasiatheria, we applied several phylogenetic methods to comprehensive sets of orthologous protein-coding and noncoding regions of the genome, and identified a basal origin for bats within Scrotifera. Our genome-wide screens revealed positive selection on hearing-related genes in the ancestral branch of bats, which is indicative of laryngeal echolocation being an ancestral trait in this clade. We found selection and loss of immunity-related genes (including pro-inflammatory NF-κB regulators) and expansions of anti-viral APOBEC3 genes, which highlights molecular mechanisms that may contribute to the exceptional immunity of bats. Genomic integrations of diverse viruses provide a genomic record of historical tolerance to viral infection in bats. Finally, we found and experimentally validated bat-specific variation in microRNAs, which may regulate bat-specific gene-expression programs. Our reference-quality bat genomes provide the resources required to uncover and validate the genomic basis of adaptations of bats, and stimulate new avenues of research that are directly relevant to human health and diseaseAdditional information
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Jesse, A., Reinisch, E., & Nygaard, L. C. (2010). Learning of adjectival word meaning through tone of voice [Abstract]. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 128, 2475.
Abstract
Speakers express word meaning through systematic but non-canonical acoustic variation of tone of voice (ToV), i.e., variation of speaking rate, pitch, vocal effort, or loudness. Words are, for example, pronounced at a higher pitch when referring to small than to big referents. In the present study, we examined whether listeners can use ToV to learn the meaning of novel adjectives (e.g., “blicket”). During training, participants heard sentences such as “Can you find the blicket one?” spoken with ToV representing hot-cold, strong-weak, and big-small. Participants’ eye movements to two simultaneously shown objects with properties representing the relevant two endpoints (e.g., an elephant and an ant for big-small) were monitored. Assignment of novel adjectives to endpoints was counterbalanced across participants. During test, participants heard the sentences spoken with a neutral ToV, while seeing old or novel picture pairs varying along the same dimensions (e.g., a truck and a car for big-small). Participants had to click on the adjective’s referent. As evident from eye movements, participants did not infer the intended meaning during first exposure, but learned the meaning with the help of ToV during training. At test listeners applied this knowledge to old and novel items even in the absence of informative ToV. -
Jesse, A., & Massaro, D. W. (2010). Seeing a singer helps comprehension of the song's lyrics. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17, 323-328.
Abstract
When listening to speech, we often benefit when also seeing the speaker talk. If this benefit is not domain-specific for speech, then the recognition of sung lyrics should likewise benefit from seeing the singer. Nevertheless, previous research failed to obtain a substantial improvement in that domain. Our study shows that this failure was not due to inherent differences between singing and speaking but rather to less informative visual presentations. By presenting a professional singer, we found a substantial audiovisual benefit of about 35% improvement for lyrics recognition. This benefit was further robust across participants, phrases, and repetition of the test materials. Our results provide the first evidence that lyrics recognition just like speech and music perception is a multimodal process. -
Jesse, A., & Massaro, D. W. (2010). The temporal distribution of information in audiovisual spoken-word identification. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 72(1), 209-225. doi:10.3758/APP.72.1.209.
Abstract
In the present study, we examined the distribution and processing of information over time in auditory and visual speech as it is used in unimodal and bimodal word recognition. English consonant—vowel—consonant words representing all possible initial consonants were presented as auditory, visual, or audiovisual speech in a gating task. The distribution of information over time varied across and within features. Visual speech information was generally fully available early during the phoneme, whereas auditory information was still accumulated. An audiovisual benefit was therefore already found early during the phoneme. The nature of the audiovisual recognition benefit changed, however, as more of the phoneme was presented. More features benefited at short gates rather than at longer ones. Visual speech information plays, therefore, a more important role early during the phoneme rather than later. The results of the study showed the complex interplay of information across modalities and time, since this is essential in determining the time course of audiovisual spoken-word recognition. -
Jessop, A., & Chang, F. (2020). Thematic role information is maintained in the visual object-tracking system. Quarterly journal of experimental psychology, 73(1), 146-163. doi:10.1177%2F1747021819882842.
Abstract
Thematic roles characterise the functions of participants in events, but there is no agreement on how these roles are identified in the real world. In three experiments, we examined how role identification in push events is supported by the visual object-tracking system. Participants saw one to three push events in visual scenes with nine identical randomly moving circles. After a period of random movement, two circles from one of the push events and a foil object were given different colours and the participants had to identify their roles in the push with an active sentence, such as red pushed blue. It was found that the participants could track the agent and patient targets and generate descriptions that identified their roles at above chance levels, even under difficult conditions, such as when tracking multiple push events (Experiments 1–3), fixating their gaze (Experiment 1), performing a concurrent speeded-response task (Experiment 2), and when tracking objects that were temporarily invisible (Experiment 3). The results were consistent with previous findings of an average tracking capacity limit of four objects, individual differences in this capacity, and the use of attentional strategies. The studies demonstrated that thematic role information can be maintained when tracking the identity of visually identical objects, then used to map role fillers (e.g., the agent of a push event) into their appropriate sentence positions. This suggests that thematic role features are stored temporarily in the visual object-tracking system. -
Johnson, E. K., & Tyler, M. (2010). Testing the limits of statistical learning for word segmentation. Developmental Science, 13, 339-345. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00886.x.
Abstract
Past research has demonstrated that infants can rapidly extract syllable distribution information from an artificial language and use this knowledge to infer likely word boundaries in speech. However, artificial languages are extremely simplified with respect to natural language. In this study, we ask whether infants’ ability to track transitional probabilities between syllables in an artificial language can scale up to the challenge of natural language. We do so by testing both 5.5- and 8-month-olds’ ability to segment an artificial language containing four words of uniform length (all CVCV) or four words of varying length (two CVCV, two CVCVCV). The transitional probability cues to word boundaries were held equal across the two languages. Both age groups segmented the language containing words of uniform length, demonstrating that even 5.5-month-olds are extremely sensitive to the conditional probabilities in their environment. However, either age group succeeded in segmenting the language containing words of varying length, despite the fact that the transitional probability cues defining word boundaries were equally strong in the two languages. We conclude that infants’ statistical learning abilities may not be as robust as earlier studies have suggested. -
Jongman, S. R., Roelofs, A., & Lewis, A. G. (2020). Attention for speaking: Prestimulus motor-cortical alpha power predicts picture naming latencies. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 32(5), 747-761. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_01513.
Abstract
There is a range of variability in the speed with which a single speaker will produce the same word from one instance to another. Individual differences studies have shown that the speed of production and the ability to maintain attention are related. This study investigated whether fluctuations in production latencies can be explained by spontaneous fluctuations in speakers' attention just prior to initiating speech planning. A relationship between individuals' incidental attentional state and response performance is well attested in visual perception, with lower prestimulus alpha power associated with faster manual responses. Alpha is thought to have an inhibitory function: Low alpha power suggests less inhibition of a specific brain region, whereas high alpha power suggests more inhibition. Does the same relationship hold for cognitively demanding tasks such as word production? In this study, participants named pictures while EEG was recorded, with alpha power taken to index an individual's momentary attentional state. Participants' level of alpha power just prior to picture presentation and just prior to speech onset predicted subsequent naming latencies. Specifically, higher alpha power in the motor system resulted in faster speech initiation. Our results suggest that one index of a lapse of attention during speaking is reduced inhibition of motor-cortical regions: Decreased motor-cortical alpha power indicates reduced inhibition of this area while early stages of production planning unfold, which leads to increased interference from motor-cortical signals and longer naming latencies. This study shows that the language production system is not impermeable to the influence of attention. -
Jongman, S. R., Piai, V., & Meyer, A. S. (2020). Planning for language production: The electrophysiological signature of attention to the cue to speak. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 35(7), 915-932. doi:10.1080/23273798.2019.1690153.
Abstract
In conversation, speech planning can overlap with listening to the interlocutor. It has been
postulated that once there is enough information to formulate a response, planning is initiated
and the response is maintained in working memory. Concurrently, the auditory input is
monitored for the turn end such that responses can be launched promptly. In three EEG
experiments, we aimed to identify the neural signature of phonological planning and monitoring
by comparing delayed responding to not responding (reading aloud, repetition and lexical
decision). These comparisons consistently resulted in a sustained positivity and beta power
reduction over posterior regions. We argue that these effects reflect attention to the sequence
end. Phonological planning and maintenance were not detected in the neural signature even
though it is highly likely these were taking place. This suggests that EEG must be used cautiously
to identify response planning when the neural signal is overridden by attention effects -
Jordan, F., & Dunn, M. (2010). Kin term diversity is the result of multilevel, historical processes [Comment on Doug Jones]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 388. doi:10.1017/S0140525X10001962.
Abstract
Explanations in the domain of kinship can be sought on several different levels: Jones addresses online processing, as well as issues of origins and innateness. We argue that his framework can more usefully be applied at the levels of developmental and historical change, the latter especially. A phylogenetic approach to the diversity of kinship terminologies is most urgently required. -
Jordanoska, I. (2020). The pragmatics of sentence final and second position particles in Wolof. PhD Thesis, University of Vienna, Vienna.
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Junge, C., Hagoort, P., Kooijman, V., & Cutler, A. (2010). Brain potentials for word segmentation at seven months predict later language development. In K. Franich, K. M. Iserman, & L. L. Keil (
Eds. ), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Volume 1 (pp. 209-220). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. -
Junge, C., Cutler, A., & Hagoort, P. (2010). Ability to segment words from speech as a precursor of later language development: Insights from electrophysiological responses in the infant brain. In M. Burgess, J. Davey, C. Don, & T. McMinn (
Eds. ), Proceedings of 20th International Congress on Acoustics, ICA 2010. Incorporating Proceedings of the 2010 annual conference of the Australian Acoustical Society (pp. 3727-3732). Australian Acoustical Society, NSW Division. -
Kastens, K. (2020). The Jerome Bruner Library treasure. In M. E. Poulsen (
Ed. ), The Jerome Bruner Library: From New York to Nijmegen (pp. 29-34). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. -
Kaufeld, G., Naumann, W., Meyer, A. S., Bosker, H. R., & Martin, A. E. (2020). Contextual speech rate influences morphosyntactic prediction and integration. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 35(7), 933-948. doi:10.1080/23273798.2019.1701691.
Abstract
Understanding spoken language requires the integration and weighting of multiple cues, and may call on cue integration mechanisms that have been studied in other areas of perception. In the current study, we used eye-tracking (visual-world paradigm) to examine how contextual speech rate (a lower-level, perceptual cue) and morphosyntactic knowledge (a higher-level, linguistic cue) are iteratively combined and integrated. Results indicate that participants used contextual rate information immediately, which we interpret as evidence of perceptual inference and the generation of predictions about upcoming morphosyntactic information. Additionally, we observed that early rate effects remained active in the presence of later conflicting lexical information. This result demonstrates that (1) contextual speech rate functions as a cue to morphosyntactic inferences, even in the presence of subsequent disambiguating information; and (2) listeners iteratively use multiple sources of information to draw inferences and generate predictions during speech comprehension. We discuss the implication of these demonstrations for theories of language processing -
Kaufeld, G., Ravenschlag, A., Meyer, A. S., Martin, A. E., & Bosker, H. R. (2020). Knowledge-based and signal-based cues are weighted flexibly during spoken language comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 46(3), 549-562. doi:10.1037/xlm0000744.
Abstract
During spoken language comprehension, listeners make use of both knowledge-based and signal-based sources of information, but little is known about how cues from these distinct levels of representational hierarchy are weighted and integrated online. In an eye-tracking experiment using the visual world paradigm, we investigated the flexible weighting and integration of morphosyntactic gender marking (a knowledge-based cue) and contextual speech rate (a signal-based cue). We observed that participants used the morphosyntactic cue immediately to make predictions about upcoming referents, even in the presence of uncertainty about the cue’s reliability. Moreover, we found speech rate normalization effects in participants’ gaze patterns even in the presence of preceding morphosyntactic information. These results demonstrate that cues are weighted and integrated flexibly online, rather than adhering to a strict hierarchy. We further found rate normalization effects in the looking behavior of participants who showed a strong behavioral preference for the morphosyntactic gender cue. This indicates that rate normalization effects are robust and potentially automatic. We discuss these results in light of theories of cue integration and the two-stage model of acoustic context effects -
Kaufeld, G., Bosker, H. R., Ten Oever, S., Alday, P. M., Meyer, A. S., & Martin, A. E. (2020). Linguistic structure and meaning organize neural oscillations into a content-specific hierarchy. The Journal of Neuroscience, 49(2), 9467-9475. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0302-20.2020.
Abstract
Neural oscillations track linguistic information during speech comprehension (e.g., Ding et al., 2016; Keitel et al., 2018), and are known to be modulated by acoustic landmarks and speech intelligibility (e.g., Doelling et al., 2014; Zoefel & VanRullen, 2015). However, studies investigating linguistic tracking have either relied on non-naturalistic isochronous stimuli or failed to fully control for prosody. Therefore, it is still unclear whether low frequency activity tracks linguistic structure during natural speech, where linguistic structure does not follow such a palpable temporal pattern. Here, we measured electroencephalography (EEG) and manipulated the presence of semantic and syntactic information apart from the timescale of their occurrence, while carefully controlling for the acoustic-prosodic and lexical-semantic information in the signal. EEG was recorded while 29 adult native speakers (22 women, 7 men) listened to naturally-spoken Dutch sentences, jabberwocky controls with morphemes and sentential prosody, word lists with lexical content but no phrase structure, and backwards acoustically-matched controls. Mutual information (MI) analysis revealed sensitivity to linguistic content: MI was highest for sentences at the phrasal (0.8-1.1 Hz) and lexical timescale (1.9-2.8 Hz), suggesting that the delta-band is modulated by lexically-driven combinatorial processing beyond prosody, and that linguistic content (i.e., structure and meaning) organizes neural oscillations beyond the timescale and rhythmicity of the stimulus. This pattern is consistent with neurophysiologically inspired models of language comprehension (Martin, 2016, 2020; Martin & Doumas, 2017) where oscillations encode endogenously generated linguistic content over and above exogenous or stimulus-driven timing and rhythm information. -
Kelly, S. D., Ozyurek, A., & Maris, E. (2010). Two sides of the same coin: Speech and gesture mutually interact to enhance comprehension. Psychological Science, 21, 260-267. doi:10.1177/0956797609357327.
Abstract
Gesture and speech are assumed to form an integrated system during language production. Based on this view, we propose the integrated‐systems hypothesis, which explains two ways in which gesture and speech are integrated—through mutual and obligatory interactions—in language comprehension. Experiment 1 presented participants with action primes (e.g., someone chopping vegetables) and bimodal speech and gesture targets. Participants related primes to targets more quickly and accurately when they contained congruent information (speech: “chop”; gesture: chop) than when they contained incongruent information (speech: “chop”; gesture: twist). Moreover, the strength of the incongruence affected processing, with fewer errors for weak incongruities (speech: “chop”; gesture: cut) than for strong incongruities (speech: “chop”; gesture: twist). Crucial for the integrated‐systems hypothesis, this influence was bidirectional. Experiment 2 demonstrated that gesture’s influence on speech was obligatory. The results confirm the integrated‐systems hypothesis and demonstrate that gesture and speech form an integrated system in language comprehension. -
Kempen, G., & Kolk, H. (1980). Apentaal, een kwestie van intelligentie, niet van taalaanleg. Cahiers Biowetenschappen en Maatschappij, 6, 31-36.
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Kempen, G., & Van Wijk, C. (1980). Leren formuleren: Hoe uit opstellen een objektieve index voor formuleervaardigheid afgeleid kan worden. De Psycholoog, 15, 609-621.
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Kemps-Snijders, M., Koller, T., Sloetjes, H., & Verweij, H. (2010). LAT bridge: Bridging tools for annotation and exploration of rich linguistic data. In N. Calzolari, B. Maegaard, J. Mariani, J. Odjik, K. Choukri, S. Piperidis, M. Rosner, & D. Tapias (
Eds. ), Proceedings of the Seventh conference on International Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'10) (pp. 2648-2651). European Language Resources Association (ELRA).Abstract
We present a software module, the LAT Bridge, which enables bidirectionalcommunication between the annotation and exploration tools developed at the MaxPlanck Institute for Psycholinguistics as part of our Language ArchivingTechnology (LAT) tool suite. These existing annotation and exploration toolsenable the annotation, enrichment, exploration and archive management oflinguistic resources. The user community has expressed the desire to usedifferent combinations of LAT tools in conjunction with each other. The LATBridge is designed to cater for a number of basic data interaction scenariosbetween the LAT annotation and exploration tools. These interaction scenarios(e.g. bootstrapping a wordlist, searching for annotation examples or lexicalentries) have been identified in collaboration with researchers at ourinstitute.We had to take into account that the LAT tools for annotation and explorationrepresent a heterogeneous application scenario with desktop-installed andweb-based tools. Additionally, the LAT Bridge has to work in situations wherethe Internet is not available or only in an unreliable manner (i.e. with a slowconnection or with frequent interruptions). As a result, the LAT Bridge’sarchitecture supports both online and offline communication between the LATannotation and exploration tools. -
Kendrick, K. H., Brown, P., Dingemanse, M., Floyd, S., Gipper, S., Hayano, K., Hoey, E., Hoymann, G., Manrique, E., Rossi, G., & Levinson, S. C. (2020). Sequence organization: A universal infrastructure for social action. Journal of Pragmatics, 168, 119-138. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2020.06.009.
Abstract
This article makes the case for the universality of the sequence organization observable in informal human conversational interaction. Using the descriptive schema developed by Schegloff (2007), we examine the major patterns of action-sequencing in a dozen nearly all unrelated languages. What we find is that these patterns are instantiated in very similar ways for the most part right down to the types of different action sequences. There are also some notably different cultural exploitations of the patterns, but the patterns themselves look strongly universal. Recent work in gestural communication in the great apes suggests that sequence organization may have been a crucial route into the development of language. Taken together with the fundamental role of this organization in language acquisition, sequential behavior of this kind seems to have both phylogenetic and ontogenetic priority, which probably puts substantial functional pressure on language form.Additional information
Supplementary data -
Khan, M., & Cremers, F. P. (2020). ABCA4-Associated Stargardt Disease. Klinische Monatsblätter für Augenheilkunde, 237, 267-274. doi:10.1055/a-1057-9939.
Abstract
Autosomal recessive Stargardt disease (STGD1) is associated with variants in the ABCA4 gene. The phenotypes range from early-onset STGD1, that clinically resembles severe cone-rod dystrophy, to intermediate STGD1 and late-onset STGD1. These different phenotypes can be correlated with different combinations of ABCA4 variants which can be classified according to their degree of severity. A significant fraction of STGD1 cases, particularly late-onset STGD1 cases, were shown to carry only a single ABCA4 variant. A frequent coding variant (p.Asn1868Ile) was recently identified which – in combination with a severe ABCA4 variant – is generally associated with late-onset STGD1. In addition, an increasing number of rare deep-intronic variants have been found and some of these are also associated with late-onset STGD1. The effect of these and other variants on ABCA4 RNA was tested using in vitro assays in human kidney cells using specially designed midigenes. With stem cells and photoreceptor progenitor cells derived from patient skin or blood cells, retina-specific splice defects can be assessed. With expert clinical examination to distinguish STGD1 cases from other maculopathies, as well as in-depth genomics and transcriptomics data, it is now possible to identify both mutant ABCA4 alleles in > 95% of cases. -
Khan, M., Cornelis, S. S., Sangermano, R., Post, I. J. M., Janssen Groesbeek, A., Amsu, J., Gilissen, C., Garanto, A., Collin, R. W. J., & Cremers, F. P. M. (2020). In or out? New insights on exon recognition through splice-site interdependency. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 21: 2300. doi:10.3390/ijms21072300.
Abstract
Noncanonical splice-site mutations are an important cause of inherited diseases. Based on in vitro and stem-cell-based studies, some splice-site variants show a stronger splice defect than expected based on their predicted effects, suggesting that other sequence motifs influence the outcome. We investigated whether splice defects due to human-inherited-disease-associated variants in noncanonical splice-site sequences in ABCA4, DMD, and TMC1 could be rescued by strengthening the splice site on the other side of the exon. Noncanonical 5′- and 3′-splice-site variants were selected. Rescue variants were introduced based on an increase in predicted splice-site strength, and the effects of these variants were analyzed using in vitro splice assays in HEK293T cells. Exon skipping due to five variants in noncanonical splice sites of exons in ABCA4, DMD, and TMC1 could be partially or completely rescued by increasing the predicted strengths of the other splice site of the same exon. We named this mechanism “splicing interdependency”, and it is likely based on exon recognition by splicing machinery. Awareness of this interdependency is of importance in the classification of noncanonical splice-site variants associated with disease and may open new opportunities for treatments -
Khetarpal, N., Majid, A., Malt, B. C., Sloman, S., & Regier, T. (2010). Similarity judgments reflect both language and cross-language tendencies: Evidence from two semantic domains. In S. Ohlsson, & R. Catrambone (
Eds. ), Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 358-363). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.Abstract
Many theories hold that semantic variation in the world’s languages can be explained in terms of a universal conceptual space that is partitioned differently by different languages. Recent work has supported this view in the semantic domain of containers (Malt et al., 1999), and assumed it in the domain of spatial relations (Khetarpal et al., 2009), based in both cases on similarity judgments derived from pile-sorting of stimuli. Here, we reanalyze data from these two studies and find a more complex picture than these earlier studies suggested. In both cases we find that sorting is similar across speakers of different languages (in line with the earlier studies), but nonetheless reflects the sorter’s native language (in contrast with the earlier studies). We conclude that there are cross-culturally shared conceptual tendencies that can be revealed by pile-sorting, but that these tendencies may be modulated to some extent by language. We discuss the implications of these findings for accounts of semantic variation. -
Khoe, Y. H., Tsoukala, C., Kootstra, G. J., & Frank, S. L. (2020). Modeling cross-language structural priming in sentence production. In T. C. Stewart (
Ed. ), Proceedings of the 18th Annual Meeting of the International Conference on Cognitive Modeling (pp. 131-137). University Park, PA, USA: The Penn State Applied Cognitive Science Lab.Abstract
A central question in the psycholinguistic study of multilingualism is how syntax is shared across languages. We implement a model to investigate whether error-based implicit learning can provide an account of cross-language structural priming. The model is based on the Dual-path model of
sentence-production (Chang, 2002). We implement our model using the Bilingual version of Dual-path (Tsoukala, Frank, & Broersma, 2017). We answer two main questions: (1) Can structural priming of active and passive constructions occur between English and Spanish in a bilingual version of the Dual-
path model? (2) Does cross-language priming differ quantitatively from within-language priming in this model? Our results show that cross-language priming does occur in the model. This finding adds to the viability of implicit learning as an account of structural priming in general and cross-language
structural priming specifically. Furthermore, we find that the within-language priming effect is somewhat stronger than the cross-language effect. In the context of mixed results from
behavioral studies, we interpret the latter finding as an indication that the difference between cross-language and within-
language priming is small and difficult to detect statistically. -
Kidd, E., & Donnelly, S. (2020). Individual differences in first language acquisition. Annual Review of Linguistics, 6, 319-340. doi:10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011619-030326.
Abstract
Humans vary in almost every dimension imaginable, and language is no
exception. In this article, we review the past research that has focused on
individual differences (IDs) in first language acquisition. We first consider
how different theoretical traditions in language acquisition treat IDs, and
we argue that a focus on IDs is important given its potential to reveal the
developmental dynamics and architectural constraints of the linguistic system.
We then review IDs research that has examined variation in children’s
linguistic input, early speech perception, and vocabulary and grammatical
development. In each case, we observe systematic and meaningful variation,
such that variation in one domain (e.g., early auditory and speech
processing) has meaningful developmental consequences for development
in higher-order domains (e.g., vocabulary). The research suggests a high
degree of integration across the linguistic system, in which development
across multiple linguistic domains is tightly coupled. -
Kidd, E., Arciuli, J., Christiansen, M. H., Isbilen, E. S., Revius, K., & Smithson, M. (2020). Measuring children’s auditory statistical learning via serial recall. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 200: 104964. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104964.
Abstract
Statistical learning (SL) has been a prominent focus of research in developmental and adult populations, guided by the assumption that it is a fundamental component of learning underlying higher-order cognition. In developmental populations, however, there have been recent concerns regarding the degree to which many current tasks reliably measure SL, particularly in younger children. In the current article, we present the results of two studies that measured auditory statistical learning (ASL) of linguistic stimuli in children aged 5–8 years. Children listened to 6 min of continuous syllables comprising four trisyllabic pseudowords. Following the familiarization phase, children completed (a) a two-alternative forced-choice task and (b) a serial recall task in which they repeated either target sequences embedded during familiarization or foils, manipulated for sequence length. Results showed that, although both measures consistently revealed learning at the group level, the recall task better captured learning across the full range of abilities and was more reliable at the individual level. We conclude that, as has also been demonstrated in adults, the method holds promise for future studies of individual differences in ASL of linguistic stimuli. -
Kidd, E., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2010). Lexical frequency and exemplar-based learning effects in language acquisition: evidence from sentential complements. Language Sciences, 32(1), 132-142. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2009.05.002.
Abstract
Usage-based approaches to language acquisition argue that children acquire the grammar of their target language using general-cognitive learning principles. The current paper reports on an experiment that tested a central assumption of the usage-based approach: argument structure patterns are connected to high frequency verbs that facilitate acquisition. Sixty children (N = 60) aged 4- and 6-years participated in a sentence recall/lexical priming experiment that manipulated the frequency with which the target verbs occurred in the finite sentential complement construction in English. The results showed that the children performed better on sentences that contained high frequency verbs. Furthermore, the children’s performance suggested that their knowledge of finite sentential complements relies most heavily on one particular verb – think, supporting arguments made by Goldberg [Goldberg, A.E., 2006. Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford University Press, Oxford], who argued that skewed input facilitates language learning. -
Kidd, E., Rogers, P., & Rogers, C. (2010). The personality correlates of adults who had imaginary companions in childhood. Psychological Reports, 107(1), 163-172. doi:10.2466/02.04.10.pr0.107.4.163-172.
Abstract
Two studies showed that adults who reported having an imaginary companion as a child differed from adults who did not on certain personality dimensions. The first yielded a higher mean on the Gough Creative Personality Scale for the group who had imaginary companions. Study 2 showed that such adults scored higher on the Achievement and Absorption subscales of Tellegen's Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. The results suggest that some differences reported in the developmental literature may be observed in adults -
Kidd, E., Bigood, A., Donnelly, S., Durrant, S., Peter, M. S., & Rowland, C. F. (2020). Individual differences in first language acquisition and their theoretical implications. In C. F. Rowland, A. L. Theakston, B. Ambridge, & K. E. Twomey (
Eds. ), Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: How children use their environment to learn (pp. 189-219). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/tilar.27.09kid.Abstract
Much of Lieven’s pioneering work has helped move the study of individual differences to the centre of child language research. The goal of the present chapter is to illustrate how the study of individual differences provides crucial insights into the language acquisition process. In part one, we summarise some of the evidence showing how pervasive individual differences are across the whole of the language system; from gestures to morphosyntax. In part two, we describe three causal factors implicated in explaining individual differences, which, we argue, must be built into any theory of language acquisition (intrinsic differences in the neurocognitive learning mechanisms, the child’s communicative environment, and developmental cascades in which each new linguistic skill that the child has to acquire depends critically on the prior acquisition of foundational abilities). In part three, we present an example study on the role of the speed of linguistic processing on vocabulary development, which illustrates our approach to individual differences. The results show evidence of a changing relationship between lexical processing speed and vocabulary over developmental time, perhaps as a result of the changing nature of the structure of the lexicon. The study thus highlights the benefits of an individual differences approach in building, testing, and constraining theories of language acquisition. -
Kim, N., Brehm, L., Sturt, P., & Yoshida, M. (2020). How long can you hold the filler: Maintenance and retrieval. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 35(1), 17-42. doi:10.1080/23273798.2019.1626456.
Abstract
This study attempts to reveal the mechanisms behind the online formation of Wh-Filler-Gap Dependencies (WhFGD). Specifically, we aim to uncover the way in which maintenance and retrieval work in WhFGD processing, by paying special attention to the information that is retrieved when the gap is recognized. We use the agreement attraction phenomenon (Wagers, M. W., Lau, E. F., & Phillips, C. (2009). Agreement attraction in comprehension: Representations and processes. Journal of Memory and Language, 61(2), 206-237) as a probe. The first and second experiments examined the type of information that is maintained and how maintenance is motivated, investigating the retrieved information at the gap for reactivated fillers and definite NPs. The third experiment examined the role of the retrieval, comparing reactivated and active fillers. We contend that the information being accessed reflects the extent to which the filler is maintained, where the reader is able to access fine-grained information including category information as well as a representation of both the head and the modifier at the verb.Additional information
Supplemental material -
Kita, S., Ozyurek, A., Allen, S., & Ishizuka, T. (2010). Early links between iconic gestures and sound symbolic words: Evidence for multimodal protolanguage. In A. D. Smith, M. Schouwstra, B. de Boer, & K. Smith (
Eds. ), Proceedings of the 8th International conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG 8) (pp. 429-430). Singapore: World Scientific. -
Klein, W., & Geyken, A. (2010). Das Digitale Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache (DWDS). In U. Heid, S. Schierholz, W. Schweickard, H. E. Wiegand, R. H. Gouws, & W. Wolski (
Eds. ), Lexicographica: International annual for lexicography (pp. 79-96). Berlin, New York: De Gruyter.Abstract
No area in the study of human languages has a longer history and a higher practical signifi cance than lexicography. The advent of the computer has dramaticually changed this discipline in ways which go far beyond the digitisation of materials in combination with effi cient search tools, or the transfer of an existing dictionary onto the computer. They allow the stepwise elaboration of what is called here Digital Lexical Systems, i.e., computerized systems in which the underlying data - in form of an extendable corpus - and description of lexical properties on various levels can be effi ciently combined. This paper discusses the range of these possibilities and describes the present form of the German „Digital Lexical System of the Academy“, a project of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (www.dwds.de). -
Klein, W. (2010). Der mühselige Weg zur Erforschung des Schönen. In S. Walther, G. Staupe, & T. Macho (
Eds. ), Was ist schön? Begleitbuch zur Ausstellung (pp. 124-131). Göttingen: Wallstein. -
Klein, W. (1980). Der stand der Forschung zur deutschen Satzintonation. Linguistische Berichte, 68/80, 3-33.
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Klein, W., & Winkler, S. (2010). Einleitung. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 158, 5-7.
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Klein, W., & Winkler, S. (
Eds. ). (2010). Ambiguität [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 40(158). -
Klein, W. (
Ed. ). (1980). Argumentation [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, (38/39). -
Klein, W. (1980). Argumentation und Argument. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 38/39, 9-57.
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Klein, W. (1980). Der Stand der Forschung zur deutschen Satzintonation. Linguistische Berichte, (68/80), 3-33.
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Klein, W. (2010). On times and arguments. Linguistics, 48, 1221-1253. doi:10.1515/LING.2010.040.
Abstract
Verbs are traditionally assumed to have an “argument structure”, which imposes various constraints on form and meaning of the noun phrases that go with the verb, and an “event structure”, which defines certain temporal characteristics of the “event” to which the verb relates. In this paper, I argue that these two structures should be brought together. The verb assigns descriptive properties to one or more arguments at one or more temporal intervals, hence verbs have an “argument-time structure”. This argument-time structure as well as the descriptive properties connected to it can be modified by various morphological and syntactic operations. This approach allows a relatively simple analysis of familiar but not well-defined temporal notions such as tense, aspect and Aktionsart. This will be illustrated for English. It will be shown that a few simple morphosyntactic operations on the argument-time structure might account for form and meaning of the perfect, the progressive, the passive and related constructions. -
Klein, W. (1980). Some remarks on Sanders' typology of elliptical coordinations. Linguistics, 18, 871-876.
Abstract
Starting with Ross (1970), various proposals have been made to classify elliptical coordinations and to characterize different languages according to the types of ellipses which they admit. Sanders (1977) discusses four of these proposals, shows that they are inadequate on various grounds and proposes a fifth typology whose central claim is 'evidently correct', as he states (p. 258). In the following, I shall briefly outline this typology and then show that it is inadequate, too. Since there is only one language 1 know — German — I will take all my examples from this language. Moreover, all examples will be straightforward and easy to be judged. -
Klein, W. (1980). Vorwort. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik; Metzler, Stuttgart, 10, 7-8.
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Klein, W. (2010). Typen und Konzepte des Spracherwerbs. In H. Ludger (
Ed. ), Sprachwissenschaft, ein Reader (pp. 902-924). Berlin: De Gruyter Studium. -
Klein, W. (2010). Über die zwänglerische Befolgung sprachlicher Normen. In P. Eisenberg (
Ed. ), Der Jugend zuliebe: Literarische Texte, für die Schule verändert (pp. 77-87). Göttingen: Wallstein. -
Klein, W. (1980). Verbal planning in route directions. In H. Dechert, & M. Raupach (
Eds. ), Temporal variables in speech (pp. 159-168). Den Haag: Mouton. -
Klenova, A. V., Goncharova, M. V., Kashentseva, T. A., & Naidenko, S. V. (2020). Voice breaking and its relation to body mass and testosterone level in the Siberian Crane (Leucogeranus leucogeranus). Journal of Ornithology, 161, 859-871. doi:10.1007/s10336-020-01773-w.
Abstract
Vocal development of cranes (Gruidae) has attracted scientifc interest due to its special stage, voice breaking. During voice breaking, chicks of diferent crane species produce calls with two fundamental frequencies that correspond to those in adult low-frequency and juvenile high-frequency vocalizations. However, triggers that afect voice breaking in cranes are mainly unknown. Here we studied the voice breaking in the Siberian Crane (Leucogeranus leucogeranus) and test its relation to the body mass and testosterone level. We analyzed 5846 calls, 39 body mass measurements and 60 blood samples from 11
Siberian Crane chicks in 8 ages from 2.5 to 18 months of life together with 90 body mass measurements and 61 blood samples from 24 Siberian Crane adults. The individual duration of voice breaking and dates of its onset, culmination and completion depended neither on the body mass nor on the testosterone level at various ages. But we found correlation between the testosterone level and mean deltas of percentages of the high and low frequency components in Siberian Crane calls between the closest recording sessions. We also observed some coincidence in time between the mean dates of voice breaking onset and the termination of body mass gain (at 7.5 months of age), and between the mean dates of voice breaking completion and the start of a new breeding season. Similar relations have been shown previously for some other crane species. We also showed for the frst time that the mean dates of voice breaking culmination correlated with the signifcant increase of the testosterone level (at 10.5 months of age). So, we suggest that voice breaking in cranes may be triggered by the end of chicks’ body
growth, is stimulated by the increase of testosterone level and ends soon after adult cranes stop taking care of their chicks. -
Klenova, A. V., Goncharova, M. V., & Kashentseva, T. A. (2020). Long-term stability in the vocal duets of the endangered Siberian Crane Leucogeranus leucogeranus. Polar Biology, 43, 813-823. doi:10.1007/s00300-020-02689-0.
Abstract
Vocal-based monitoring is increasingly being used as a non-invasive method for identifying individuals within avian populations and is promising for the Siberian Crane, Leucogeranus leucogeranus. This is a poorly studied, long-lived, secretive and critically endangered bird species that breeds in the Arctic tundra of western and eastern regions of Siberia. We assessed between- and within-year stability of individual-specific vocal features in duets of Siberian Crane and tested the effect of pair-mate change on their stability. Previous findings showed that duets are specific to different pairs of birds; however, it is still unknown how long pair-specific traits of duets remain and if they change in the course of a year or when birds re-mate. We recorded duets of 15 reproductively active pairs in the Oka Crane Breeding Centre in 2003–2006 and 2013–2017. We found that pair-specific vocal signatures remained stable both within the year and across ~ 10 years. After a change of mate, most of the variables we measured in the call did not change in any of the birds. Our data suggest that the stability of the
individually specific vocal features may enable Siberian Cranes to be reliably identified by their duets over the birds’ lifetime. We believe that our work can increase confidence in the use of acoustic recognition techniques for endangered crane monitoring programs. Our results also suggest that Siberian Cranes may use their duets to form long-term social bonds between neighbours. -
Knudsen, B., Creemers, A., & Meyer, A. S. (2020). Forgotten little words: How backchannels and particles may facilitate speech planning in conversation? Frontiers in Psychology, 11: 593671. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.593671.
Abstract
In everyday conversation, turns often follow each other immediately or overlap in time. It has been proposed that speakers achieve this tight temporal coordination between their turns by engaging in linguistic dual-tasking, i.e., by beginning to plan their utterance during the preceding turn. This raises the question of how speakers manage to co-ordinate speech planning and listening with each other. Experimental work addressing this issue has mostly concerned the capacity demands and interference arising when speakers retrieve some content words while listening to others. However, many contributions to conversations are not content words, but backchannels, such as “hm”. Backchannels do not provide much conceptual content and are therefore easy to plan and respond to. To estimate how much they might facilitate speech planning in conversation, we determined their frequency in a Dutch and a German corpus of conversational speech. We found that 19% of the contributions in the Dutch corpus, and 16% of contributions in the German corpus were backchannels. In addition, many turns began with fillers or particles, most often translation equivalents of “yes” or “no,” which are likewise easy to plan.We proposed that to generate comprehensive models of using language in conversation psycholinguists should study not only the generation and processing of content words, as is commonly done, but also consider backchannels, fillers, and particles. -
Kolinsky, R., Gabriel, R., Demoulin, C., Gregory, M. M., Saraiva de Carvalho, K., & Morais, J. (2020). The influence of age, schooling, literacy, and socioeconomic status on serial-order memory. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 4, 343-365. doi:10.1007/s41809-020-00056-3.
Abstract
We aimed at investigating whether formal schooling and literacy favor progress in verbal serial-order short-term memory (STM). In Experiment 1, we presented children varying on age, school level, and socioeconomic background with a serial-order reconstruction task and observed differences related to both age and school level. Two subsequent experiments aimed at separating schooling- and literacy-related effects from age-related ones. In Experiment 2 we compared, on the one hand, performance of children of similar age but different school levels and, on the other hand, performance of children of same school level but different ages. We observed a schooling effect but no age effect on serial-order reconstruction: the youngest first-graders outperformed age-matched kindergartners but performed similarly as older first-graders of the same literacy level. Furthermore, children’s literacy abilities were strongly correlated to their serial-order reconstruction performance, even after controlling for the effects of non-verbal reasoning and vocabulary. In Experiment 3 we examined low socio-economic background adults presenting varying (correlated) levels of schooling and literacy: some had attended school in childhood for only a few years and were either illiterate or very poor readers, whereas others had attended school for at least 12 years. In addition to serial-order memory, item STM was assessed by a delayed single nonword repetition task. The groups differed on both STM tasks, which both correlated with their literacy abilities. Thus, literacy and schooling do not impact only order memory, but more generally verbal STM. Moreover, comparison between the adults’ and children’s data strongly suggests that it is schooling and/or literacy rather than age per se that matters for serial-order memory. -
Kong, X., Tzourio-Mazoyer, N., Joliot, M., Fedorenko, E., Liu, J., Fisher, S. E., & Francks, C. (2020). Gene expression correlates of the cortical network underlying sentence processing. Neurobiology of Language, 1(1), 77-103. doi:10.1162/nol_a_00004.
Abstract
A pivotal question in modern neuroscience is which genes regulate brain circuits that underlie cognitive functions. However, the field is still in its infancy. Here we report an integrated investigation of the high-level language network (i.e., sentence processing network) in the human cerebral cortex, combining regional gene expression profiles, task fMRI, large-scale neuroimaging meta-analysis, and resting-state functional network approaches. We revealed reliable gene expression-functional network correlations using three different network definition strategies, and identified a consensus set of genes related to connectivity within the sentence-processing network. The genes involved showed enrichment for neural development and actin-related functions, as well as association signals with autism, which can involve disrupted language functioning. Our findings help elucidate the molecular basis of the brain’s infrastructure for language. The integrative approach described here will be useful to study other complex cognitive traits. -
Kong, X., Boedhoe, P. S. W., Abe, Y., Alonso, P., Ameis, S. H., Arnold, P. D., Assogna, F., Baker, J. T., Batistuzzo, M. C., Benedetti, F., Beucke, J. C., Bollettini, I., Bose, A., Brem, S., Brennan, B. P., Buitelaar, J., Calvo, R., Cheng, Y., Cho, K. I. K., Dallaspezia, S. and 71 moreKong, X., Boedhoe, P. S. W., Abe, Y., Alonso, P., Ameis, S. H., Arnold, P. D., Assogna, F., Baker, J. T., Batistuzzo, M. C., Benedetti, F., Beucke, J. C., Bollettini, I., Bose, A., Brem, S., Brennan, B. P., Buitelaar, J., Calvo, R., Cheng, Y., Cho, K. I. K., Dallaspezia, S., Denys, D., Ely, B. A., Feusner, J., Fitzgerald, K. D., Fouche, J.-P., Fridgeirsson, E. A., Glahn, D. C., Gruner, P., Gürsel, D. A., Hauser, T. U., Hirano, Y., Hoexter, M. Q., Hu, H., Huyser, C., James, A., Jaspers-Fayer, F., Kathmann, N., Kaufmann, C., Koch, K., Kuno, M., Kvale, G., Kwon, J. S., Lazaro, L., Liu, Y., Lochner, C., Marques, P., Marsh, R., Martínez-Zalacaín, I., Mataix-Cols, D., Medland, S. E., Menchón, J. M., Minuzzi, L., Moreira, P. S., Morer, A., Morgado, P., Nakagawa, A., Nakamae, T., Nakao, T., Narayanaswamy, J. C., Nurmi, E. L., O'Neill, J., Pariente, J. C., Perriello, C., Piacentini, J., Piras, F., Piras, F., Pittenger, C., Reddy, Y. J., Rus-Oswald, O. G., Sakai, Y., Sato, J. R., Schmaal, L., Simpson, H. B., Soreni, N., Soriano-Mas, C., Spalletta, G., Stern, E. R., Stevens, M. C., Stewart, S. E., Szeszko, P. R., Tolin, D. F., Tsuchiyagaito, A., Van Rooij, D., Van Wingen, G. A., Venkatasubramanian, G., Wang, Z., Yun, J.-Y., ENIGMA-OCD Working Group, Thompson, P. M., Stein, D. J., Van den Heuvel, O. A., & Francks, C. (2020). Mapping cortical and subcortical asymmetry in obsessive-compulsive disorder: Findings from the ENIGMA Consortium. Biological Psychiatry, 87(12), 1022-1034. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.04.022.
Abstract
Objective
Lateralized dysfunction has been suggested in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). However, it is currently unclear whether OCD is characterized by abnormal patterns of structural brain asymmetry. Here we carried out by far the largest study of brain structural asymmetry in OCD.
Method
We studied a collection of 16 pediatric datasets (501 OCD patients and 439 healthy controls), as well as 30 adult datasets (1777 patients and 1654 controls) from the OCD Working Group within the ENIGMA (Enhancing Neuro-Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis) consortium. Asymmetries of the volumes of subcortical structures, and of regional cortical thickness and surface area measures, were assessed based on T1-weighted MRI scans, using harmonized image analysis and quality control protocols. We investigated possible alterations of brain asymmetry in OCD patients. We also explored potential associations of asymmetry with specific aspects of the disorder and medication status.
Results
In the pediatric datasets, the largest case-control differences were observed for volume asymmetry of the thalamus (more leftward; Cohen’s d = 0.19) and the pallidum (less leftward; d = -0.21). Additional analyses suggested putative links between these asymmetry patterns and medication status, OCD severity, and/or anxiety and depression comorbidities. No significant case-control differences were found in the adult datasets.
Conclusions
The results suggest subtle changes of the average asymmetry of subcortical structures in pediatric OCD, which are not detectable in adults with the disorder. These findings may reflect altered neurodevelopmental processes in OCD. -
König, C. J., Langer, M., Fell, C. B., Pathak, R. D., Bajwa, N. u. H., Derous, E., Geißler, S. M., Hirose, S., Hülsheger, U., Javakhishvili, N., Junges, N., Knudsen, B., Lee, M. S. W., Mariani, M. G., Nag, G. C., Petrescu, C., Robie, C., Rohorua, H., Sammel, L. D., Schichtel, D. and 4 moreKönig, C. J., Langer, M., Fell, C. B., Pathak, R. D., Bajwa, N. u. H., Derous, E., Geißler, S. M., Hirose, S., Hülsheger, U., Javakhishvili, N., Junges, N., Knudsen, B., Lee, M. S. W., Mariani, M. G., Nag, G. C., Petrescu, C., Robie, C., Rohorua, H., Sammel, L. D., Schichtel, D., Titov, S., Todadze, K., von Lautz, A. H., & Ziem, M. (2020). Economic predictors of differences in interview faking between countries: Economic inequality matters, not the state of economy. Applied Psychology. doi:10.1111/apps.12278.
Abstract
Many companies recruit employees from different parts of the globe, and faking behavior by
potential employees is a ubiquitous phenomenon. It seems that applicants from some
countries are more prone to faking compared to others, but the reasons for these differences
are largely unexplored. This study relates country-level economic variables to faking
behavior in hiring processes. In a cross-national study across 20 countries, participants (N =
3839) reported their faking behavior in their last job interview. This study used the random
response technique (RRT) to ensure participants anonymity and to foster honest answers
regarding faking behavior. Results indicate that general economic indicators (gross domestic
product per capita [GDP] and unemployment rate) show negligible correlations with faking
across the countries, whereas economic inequality is positively related to the extent of
applicant faking to a substantial extent. These findings imply that people are sensitive to
inequality within countries and that inequality relates to faking, because inequality might
actuate other psychological processes (e.g., envy) which in turn increase the probability for
unethical behavior in many forms. -
Kos, M., Vosse, T. G., Van den Brink, D., & Hagoort, P. (2010). About edible restaurants: Conflicts between syntax and semantics as revealed by ERPs. Frontiers in Psychology, 1, E222. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00222.
Abstract
In order to investigate conflicts between semantics and syntax, we recorded ERPs, while participants read Dutch sentences. Sentences containing conflicts between syntax and semantics (Fred eats in a sandwich…/ Fred eats a restaurant…) elicited an N400. These results show that conflicts between syntax and semantics not necessarily lead to P600 effects and are in line with the processing competition account. According to this parallel account the syntactic and semantic processing streams are fully interactive and information from one level can influence the processing at another level. The relative strength of the cues of the processing streams determines which level is affected most strongly by the conflict. The processing competition account maintains the distinction between the N400 as index for semantic processing and the P600 as index for structural processing.
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