Publications

Abstract

The ”download first, then process paradigm” is still the predominant working method amongst the research community. The web-based paradigm, however, offers many advantages from a tool development and data management perspective as they allow a quick adaptation to changing research environments. Moreover, new ways of combining tools and data are increasingly becoming available and will eventually enable a true web-based workflow approach, thus challenging the ”download first, then process” paradigm. The necessary infrastructure for managing, exploring and enriching language resources via the Web will need to be delivered by projects like CLARIN and DARIAH

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a unifying approach to tackle data heterogeneity issues for lexica and related resources. We present LEXUS, our software that implements the Lexical Markup Framework (LMF) to uniformly describe and manage lexica of different structures. LEXUS also makes use of a central Data Category Registry (DCR) to address terminological issues with regard to linguistic concepts as well as the handling of working and object languages. Finally, we report on ViCoS, a LEXUS extension, providing support for the definition of arbitrary semantic relations between lexical entries or parts thereof.

Abstract

To achieve true interoperability for valuable linguistic resources different levels of variation need to be addressed. ISO Technical Committee 37, Terminology and other language and content resources, is developing a Data Category Registry. This registry will provide a reusable set of data categories. A new implementation, dubbed ISOcat, of the registry is currently under construction. This paper shortly describes the new data model for data categories that will be introduced in this implementation. It goes on with a sketch of the standardization process. Completed data categories can be reused by the community. This is done by either making a selection of data categories using the ISOcat web interface, or by other tools which interact with the ISOcat system using one of its various Application Programming Interfaces. Linguistic resources that use data categories from the registry should include persistent references, e.g. in the metadata or schemata of the resource, which point back to their origin. These data category references can then be used to determine if two or more resources share common semantics, thus providing a level of interoperability close to the source data and a promising layer for semantic alignment on higher levels

Abstract

Two Event-Related Potential (ERP) studies contrast the processing of locally ambiguous sentences in the visual and the auditory modality. These sentences are disambiguated by a lexical element. Before this element appears in a sentence, the sentence can also be disambiguated by a boundary marker: a comma in the visual modality, or a prosodic break in the auditory modality. Previous studies have shown that a specific ERP component, the Closure Positive Shift (CPS), can be elicited by these markers. The results of the present studies show that both the comma and the prosodic break disambiguate the ambiguous sentences before the critical lexical element, despite the fact that a clear CPS is only found in the auditory modality. Comma and prosodic break thus have parallel functions irrespective of whether they do or do not elicit a CPS.

Abstract

Functional imaging studies have demonstrated involvement of the anterior temporal cortex in sentence comprehension. It is unclear, however, whether the anterior temporal cortex is essential for this function.We studied two aspects of sentence comprehension, namely syntactic and prosodic comprehension in temporal lobe epilepsy patients who were candidates for resection of the anterior temporal lobe. Methods: Temporal lobe epilepsy patients (n = 32) with normal (left) language dominance were tested on syntactic and prosodic comprehension before and after removal of the anterior temporal cortex. The prosodic comprehension test was also compared with performance of healthy control subjects (n = 47) before surgery. Results: Overall, temporal lobe epilepsy patients did not differ from healthy controls in syntactic and prosodic comprehension before surgery. They did perform less well on an affective prosody task. Post-operative testing revealed that syntactic and prosodic comprehension did not change after removal of the anterior temporal cortex. Discussion: The unchanged performance on syntactic and prosodic comprehension after removal of the anterior temporal cortex suggests that this area is not indispensable for sentence comprehension functions in temporal epilepsy patients. Potential implications for the postulated role of the anterior temporal lobe in the healthy brain are discussed.

Abstract

The present article reports on an investigation of one child's acquisition of the multiple senses of the preposition with from 2;0–4;0. Two competing claims regarding children's early representation and subsequent acquisition of with were investigated. The “multiple meanings” hypothesis predicts that children form individual form-meaning pairings for with as separate lexical entries. The “monosemy approach” (McKercher 2001) claims that children apply a unitary meaning by abstracting core features early in acquisition. The child's (“Brian”) speech and his input were coded according to eight distinguishable senses of with. The results showed that Brian first acquired the senses that were most frequent in the input (accompaniment, attribute, and instrument). Less common senses took much longer to emerge. A detailed analysis of the input showed that a variety of clues are available that potentially enable the child to distinguish among high frequency senses. The acquisition data suggested that the child initially applied a restricted one-to-one form-meaning mapping for with, which is argued to reflect the spatial properties of the preposition. On the basis of these results it is argued that neither the monosemy nor the multiple meanings approach can fully explain the data, but that the results are best explained by a combination of word learning principles and children's ability to categorize the contextual properties of each sense's use in the ambient language.

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to investigate the effectiveness of a language-focused professional development programme on the knowledge and behaviour of preschool practitioners (sometimes called early years practitioners) in the UK. In Study 1 we determined whether the training received by practitioners is effective in improving their knowledge of how to support children’s language and communicative development. In Study 2 we tested whether trained practitioners, and practitioners from centres with embedded Language Champions, were able to implement the techniques they had been taught. For this, we video-recorded practitioners interacting, one to one, with 2- and 3–4-year-old children in their centres. We conclude that (1) practitioners retain the knowledge they have been taught, both about how children learn and about how to promote this learning, and that (2), in some respects, this knowledge translates well into practice; practitioners in centres with embedded Language Champions and trained practitioners used language-enriching behaviours when interacting with children more often than did untrained practitioners. We discuss how the translation of some techniques into overt behaviour could be made more effective

Abstract

Hartshorne and Ullman (2006) presented naturalistic language data from 25 children (15 boys, 10 girls) and showed that girls produced more past tense overregularization errors than did boys. In particular, girls were more likely to overregularize irregular verbs whose stems share phonological similarities with regular verbs. It was argued that the result supported the Declarative/Procedural model of language, a neuropsychological analogue of the dual-route approach to language. In the current study we present experimental data that are inconsistent with these naturalistic data. Eighty children (40 males, 40 females) aged 5;0–6;9 completed a past tense elicitation task, a test of declarative memory, and a test of non-verbal intelligence. The results revealed no sex differences on any of the measures. Instead, the best predictors of overregularization rates were item-level features of the test verbs. We discuss the results within the context of dual versus single route debate on past tense acquisition

Abstract

To segment continuous speech into its component words, listeners make use of language rhythm; because rhythm differs across languages, so do the segmentation procedures which listeners use. For each of stress-, syllable-and mora-based rhythmic structure, perceptual experiments have led to the discovery of corresponding segmentation procedures. In the case of mora-based rhythm, similar segmentation has been demonstrated in the otherwise unrelated languages Japanese and Telugu; segmentation based on syllable rhythm, however, has been previously demonstrated only for European languages from the Romance family. We here report two target detection experiments in which Korean listeners, presented with speech in Korean and in French, displayed patterns of segmentation like those previously observed in analogous experiments with French listeners. The Korean listeners' accuracy in detecting word-initial target fragments in either language was significantly higher when the fragments corresponded exactly to a syllable in the input than when the fragments were smaller or larger than a syllable. We conclude that Korean and French listeners can call on similar procedures for segmenting speech, and we further propose that perceptual tests of speech segmentation provide a valuable accompaniment to acoustic analyses for establishing languages' rhythmic class membership.

Abstract

The phonological Stroop task, in which the participant names the color of written distractors, is being used increasingly to study the phonological encoding process in speech production. A brief review of experimental paradigms used to study the phonological encoding process indicated that currently it is not known whether the onset overlap benefit (faster color naming when the distractor shares the onset segment with the color name) in a phonological Stroop task is due to phonology or orthography. The present paper investigated this question using a picture variant of the phonological Stroop task. Participants named a small set of line drawings of animals (e.g., camel) with a pseudoword distractor printed on it. Picture naming was facilitated when the distractor shared the onset segment with the picture name regardless of orthographic overlap (CUST–camel = KUST–camel < NUST–camel). We conclude that the picture variant of the phonological Stroop task is a useful tool to study the phonological encoding process, free of orthographic influence.

Abstract

Are letters with a diacritic (e.g., a) recognized as a variant of the base letter (e.g., a), or as a separate letter identity? Two recent masked priming studies, one in French and one in Spanish, investigated this question, concluding that this depends on the language-specific linguistic function served by the diacritic. Experiment 1 tested this linguistic function hypothesis using Japanese kana, in which diacritics signal consonant voicing, and like French and unlike Spanish, provide lexical contrast. Contrary to the hypothesis, Japanese kana yielded the pattern of diacritic priming like Spanish. Specifically, for a target kana with a diacritic (e.g., (sic), /ga/), the kana prime without the diacritic (e.g., (sic), /ka/) facilitated recognition almost as much as the identity prime (e.g., (sic) = (sic)), whereas for a target kana without a diacritic, the kana prime with the diacritic produced less facilitation than the identity prime (e.g., (sic) < (sic)). We suggest that the pattern of diacritic priming has little to do with linguistic function, and instead it stems from a general property of visual object recognition. Experiment 2 tested this hypothesis using visually similar letters of the Latin alphabet that differ in the presence/absence of a visual feature (e.g., O and Q). The same asymmetry in priming was observed. These findings are consistent with the noisy channel model of letter/word recognition (Norris & Kinoshita, Psychological Review, 119, 517-545, 2012a).

Abstract

Counterfactuals such as If the world did not exist, we would not notice it have been a challenge for philosophers and linguists since antiquity. There is no generally accepted semantic analysis. The prevalent view, developed in varying forms by Robert Stalnaker, David Lewis, and others, enriches the idea of strict implication by the idea of a “minimal revision” of the actual world. Objections mainly address problems of maximal similarity between worlds. In this paper, I will raise several problems of a different nature and draw attention to several phenomena that are relevant for counterfactuality but rarely discussed in that context. An alternative analysis that is very close to the linguistic facts is proposed. A core notion is the “situation talked about”: it makes little sense to discuss whether an assertion is true or false unless it is clear which situation is talked about. In counterfactuals, this situation is marked as not belonging to the actual world. Typically, this is done in the form of the finite verb in the main clause. The if-clause is optional and has only a supportive role: it provides information about the world to which the situation talked about belongs. Counterfactuals only speak about some nonactual world, of which we only know what results from the protasis. In order to judge them as true or false, an additional assumption is required: they are warranted according to the same criteria that warrant the corresponding indicative assertion. Overall similarity between worlds is irrelevant.

Abstract

There are two core phenomena which any empirical investigation of beauty must account for: the existence of aesthetical experience, and the enormous variability of this experience across times, cultures, people. Hence, it would seem a hopeless enterprise to determine ‘the very nature’ of beauty, and in fact, none of the many attempts from the Antiquity to present days found general acceptance. But what we should be able to investigate and understand is how properties of people, for example their varying cultural experiences, are correlated with the properties of objects which we evaluate. Beauty is neither only in the eye of the observer nor only in the objects which it sees - it is in the way in which specific observers see specific objects.

Abstract

All disciplines depend on language; but two of them also have language as an object – literary studies and linguistics. Their objectives are not the same – but they are sufficiently similar to invite close cooperation. This is not what we find; in fact, the development of research over the last decades has led to a relationship which is, in the typical case, characterised by friendly, and sometimes less friendly, ignorance and indifference. This article discusses some of the reasons for this development, and it suggests some conditions under which both sides would benefit from more cooperation.

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.

Abstract

The possibility to combine smaller units of meaning (e.g., words) to create new and more complex meanings (e.g., phrases and sentences) is a fundamental feature of human language. In the present project, we investigated how the brain supports the semantic and syntactic composition of two-word adjective-noun phrases in Dutch, using magnetoencephalography (MEG). The present investigation followed up on previous studies reporting a composition effect in the left anterior temporal lobe (LATL) when comparing neural activity at nouns combined with adjectives, as opposed to nouns in a non-compositional context. The first aim of the present study was to investigate whether this effect, as well as its modulation by noun specificity and adjective class, can also be observed in Dutch. A second aim was to investigate to what extent these effects may be driven by syntactic composition rather than primarily by semantic composition as was previously proposed. To this end, a novel condition was administered in which participants saw nouns combined with pseudowords lacking meaning but agreeing with the nouns in terms of grammatical gender, as real adjectives would. We failed to observe a composition effect or its modulation in both a confirmatory analysis (focused on the cortical region and time-window where it has previously been reported) and in exploratory analyses (where we tested multiple regions and an extended potential time-window of the effect). A syntactically driven composition effect was also not observed in our data. We do, however, successfully observe an independent, previously reported effect on single word processing in our data, confirming that our MEG data processing pipeline does meaningfully capture language processing activity by the brain. The failure to observe the composition effect in LATL is surprising given that it has been previously reported in multiple studies. Reviewing all previous studies investigating this effect, we propose that materials and a task involving imagery might be necessary for this effect to be observed. In addition, we identified substantial variability in the regions of interest analyzed in previous studies, which warrants additional checks of robustness of the effect. Further research should identify limits and conditions under which this effect can be observed. The failure to observe specifically a syntactic composition effect in such minimal phrases is less surprising given that it has not been previously reported in MEG data.

Abstract

The human cerebral hemispheres show a left–right asymmetrical torque pattern, which has been claimed to be absent in chimpanzees. The functional significance and developmental mechanisms are unknown. Here, we carried out the largest-ever analysis of global brain shape asymmetry in magnetic resonance imaging data. Three population datasets were used, UK Biobank (N = 39 678), Human Connectome Project (N = 1113), and BIL&GIN (N = 453). At the population level, there was an anterior and dorsal skew of the right hemisphere, relative to the left. Both skews were associated independently with handedness, and various regional gray and white matter metrics oppositely in the two hemispheres, as well as other variables related to cognitive functions, sociodemographic factors, and physical and mental health. The two skews showed single nucleotide polymorphisms-based heritabilities of 4–13%, but also substantial polygenicity in causal mixture model analysis, and no individually significant loci were found in genome-wide association studies for either skew. There was evidence for a significant genetic correlation between horizontal brain skew and autism, which requires future replication. These results provide the first large-scale description of population-average brain skews and their inter-individual variations, their replicable associations with handedness, and insights into biological and other factors which associate with human brain asymmetry.

Abstract

Objectives The aim of this study was to observe the dental condition in a group of elderly patients over a period of 10 years in order to clarify important risk factors. Materials and methods Participants were elderly patients (in their eighties) who took panoramic radiographs between 2015 and 2016, and for whom panoramic radiographs taken around 10 year earlier were also available. The number of remaining and lost teeth, the Eichner Index, the presence or absence of molar occlusion, the respective condition of dental pulp, dental crowns, alveolar bone resorption, as well as periapical lesions were investigated through the analysis of panoramic radiographs. Additionally, other important variables were collected from patients' medical records. From the obtained panoramic radiograph sets, the patients' dental condition was investigated, and a systematic comparison was conducted. Results The analysis of the panoramic radiographs showed that the number of remaining teeth decreased from an average of 20.8-15.5, and the percentage of patients with 20 or more teeth decreased from 69.2 to 26.9%. A factor analysis investigating tooth loss risk suggested that tooth loss was associated with the bridge, P2 or greater resorption of the alveolar bone, and apical lesions, and gender (with males having a higher risk compared to females). Conclusions Teeth showing P2 or greater alveolar bone resorption, bridge, and apical lesions on panoramic radiographs are most likely to be lost in an elderly patient's near future. Consequently, this group should be encouraged to visit their dental clinics regularly and receive comprehensive instruction on individual self-care methods.

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the visual characteristics of tongue lesion images obtained through intraoral ultrasonographic examination and the occurrence of late cervical lymph node metastasis in patients with tongue cancer.
Patients and Methods: This study investigated patients with primary tongue cancer who were examined using intraoral ultrasonography at Hiroshima University Hospital between January 2014 and December 2017. The inclusion criteria were squamous cell carcinoma, curative treatment administration, lateral side of tongue, surgery or brachytherapy alone, no cervical lymph node or distant metastasis as primary treatment, and treatment in our hospital. The exclusion criteria were carcinoma in situ, palliative treatment, dorsum of tongue, and multiple primary cancers. The follow-up period was more than 1 year. The primary endpoint was the occurrence of late cervical lymph node metastasis, and the primary predictor variables were age, gender, longest diameter, thickness, margin or border shapes of the lesion, and treatment methods. The relationship between the occurrence of late cervical lymph node metastasis and the longest diameter, thickness, margin types, and border types as evaluated through intraoral ultrasonography were assessed. The data were collected through a retrospective chart review.
Results: Fifty-four patients were included in this study. The analysis indicated that irregular lesion margins were significantly associated with the occurrence of late cervical lymph node metastasis (P < .0001). The cutoff value for late cervical lymph node metastasis was 21.2 mm for the longest diameter and 3.9 mm for the thickness.
Conclusions: The results of this study indicates that the irregular lesion margin assessed using intraoral ultrasonography may serve as an effective predictor of late cervical lymph node metastasis in N0 cases. (C) 2020 American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons

Abstract

It is often challenging to determine the accurate size and shape of oral lesions through computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) when they are very small or obscured by metallic artifacts, such as dental prostheses. Intraoral ultrasonography (IUS) has been shown to be beneficial in obtaining precise information about total tumor extension, as well as the exact location and guiding the insertion of catheters during interstitial brachytherapy. We evaluated the role of IUS in assessing the clinical outcomes of interstitial brachytherapy with 198Au grains in tongue cancer through a retrospective medical chart review. The data from 45 patients with T1 (n = 21) and T2 (n = 24) tongue cancer, who were mainly treated with 198Au grain implants between January 2005 and April 2019, were included in this study. 198Au grain implantations were carried out, and positioning of the implants was confirmed by IUS, to ensure that 198Au grains were appropriately placed for the deep border of the tongue lesion. The five-year local control rates of T1 and T2 tongue cancers were 95.2% and 95.5%, respectively. We propose that the use of IUS to identify the extent of lesions and the position of implanted grains is effective when performing brachytherapy with 198Au grains.

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between the acoustic duration of phonemic sequences and their frequencies of occurrence. The data were obtained from large (sub)corpora of spontaneous speech in Dutch, English, German, and Italian. Acoustic duration of an n-phone is shown to codetermine the n-phone's frequency of use, such that languages preferentially use diphones and triphones that are neither very long nor very short. The observed distributions are well approximated by a theoretical function that quantifies the concurrent action of the self-regulatory processes of minimization of articulatory effort and minimization of perception effort

Abstract

Like Einstein's general theory of relativity is concerned with explaining the basics of an observable experience – i.e., gravity – most people take for granted that Chomsky's theory of generative grammar (GG) is concerned with the basic nature of language. This chapter highlights a mere subset of central constructs in GG, showing how they have featured prominently and thus shaped formal linguistic studies in multilingualism. Because multilingualism includes a wide range of nonmonolingual populations, the constructs are divided across child bilingualism and adult third language for greater coverage. In the case of the former, the chapter examines how poverty of the stimulus has been investigated. Using the nascent field of L3/Ln acquisition as the backdrop, it discusses how the GG constructs of I-language versus E-language sit at the core of debates regarding the very notion of what linguistic transfer and mental representations should be taken to be.

Abstract

How humans understand the intention of others’ actions remains controversial. Some authors have suggested that intentions are recognized by means of a motor simulation of the observed action with the mirror-neuron system [1–3]. Others emphasize that intention recognition is an inferential process, often called ‘‘mentalizing’’ or employing a ‘‘theory of mind,’’ which activates areas well outside the motor system [4–6]. Here, we assessed the contribution of brain regions involved in motor simulation and mentalizing for understanding action intentions via functional brain imaging. Results show that the inferior frontal gyrus (part of the mirror-neuron system) processes the intentionality of an observed action on the basis of the visual properties of the action, irrespective of whether the subject paid attention to the intention or not. Conversely, brain areas that are part of a ‘‘mentalizing’’ network become active when subjects reflect about the intentionality of an observed action, but they are largely insensitive to the visual properties of the observed action. This supports the hypothesis that motor simulation and mentalizing have distinct but complementary functions for the recognition of others’ intentions.

Abstract

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a disabling disorder, characterized by persistent or relapsing fatigue. Recent studies have detected a decrease in cortical grey matter volume in patients with CFS, but it is unclear whether this cerebral atrophy constitutes a cause or a consequence of the disease. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an effective behavioural intervention for CFS, which combines a rehabilitative approach of a graded increase in physical activity with a psychological approach that addresses thoughts and beliefs about CFS which may impair recovery. Here, we test the hypothesis that cerebral atrophy may be a reversible state that can ameliorate with successful CBT. We have quantified cerebral structural changes in 22 CFS patients that underwent CBT and 22 healthy control participants. At baseline, CFS patients had significantly lower grey matter volume than healthy control participants. CBT intervention led to a significant improvement in health status, physical activity and cognitive performance. Crucially, CFS patients showed a significant increase in grey matter volume, localized in the lateral prefrontal cortex. This change in cerebral volume was related to improvements in cognitive speed in the CFS patients. Our findings indicate that the cerebral atrophy associated with CFS is partially reversed after effective CBT. This result provides an example of macroscopic cortical plasticity in the adult human brain, demonstrating a surprisingly dynamic relation between behavioural state and cerebral anatomy. Furthermore, our results reveal a possible neurobiological substrate of psychotherapeutic treatment.

Abstract

Vocal production learning (VPL) is the capacity to learn to produce new vocalizations, which is a rare ability in the animal kingdom and thus far has only been identified in a handful of mammalian taxa and three groups of birds. Over the last few decades, approaches to the demonstration of VPL have varied among taxa, sound production systems and functions. These discrepancies strongly impede direct comparisons between studies. In the light of the growing number of experimental studies reporting VPL, the need for comparability is becoming more and more pressing. The comparative evaluation of VPL across studies would be facilitated by unified and generalized reporting standards, which would allow a better positioning of species on any proposed VPL continuum. In this paper, we specifically highlight five factors influencing the comparability of VPL assessments: (i) comparison to an acoustic baseline, (ii) comprehensive reporting of acoustic parameters, (iii) extended reporting of training conditions and durations, (iv) investigating VPL function via behavioural, perception-based experiments and (v) validation of findings on a neuronal level. These guidelines emphasize the importance of comparability between studies in order to unify the field of vocal learning.

Abstract

Human vocal development and speech learning require acoustic feedback, and
humans who are born deaf do not acquire a normal adult speech capacity. Most
other mammals display a largely innate vocal repertoire. Like humans, bats are
thought to be one of the few taxa capable of vocal learning as they can acquire
new vocalizations by modifying vocalizations according to auditory experiences.
We investigated the effect of acoustic deafening on the vocal development of the
pale spear-nosed bat. Three juvenile pale spear-nosed bats were deafened, and
their vocal development was studied in comparison with an age-matched, hear-
ing control group. The results show that during development the deafened bats
increased their vocal activity, and their vocalizations were substantially altered,
being much shorter, higher in pitch, and more aperiodic than the vocalizations
of the control animals. The pale spear-nosed bat relies on auditory feedback
for vocal development and, in the absence of auditory input, species-atypical
vocalizations are acquired. This work serves as a basis for further research
using the pale spear-nosed bat as a mammalian model for vocal learning, and
contributes to comparative studies on hearing impairment across species.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Vocal learning in animals and
humans’.

Abstract

Differences in auditory perception between species are influenced by phylogenetic origin and the perceptual challenges imposed by the natural environment, such as detecting prey- or predator-generated sounds and communication signals. Bats are well suited for comparative studies on auditory perception since they predominantly rely on echolocation to perceive the world, while their social calls and most environmental sounds have low frequencies. We tested if hearing sensitivity and stimulus level coding in bats differ between high and low-frequency ranges by measuring auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) of 86 bats belonging to 11 species. In most species, auditory sensitivity was equally good at both high- and low-frequency ranges, while amplitude was more finely coded for higher frequency ranges. Additionally, we conducted a phylogenetic comparative analysis by combining our ABR data with published data on 27 species. Species-specific peaks in hearing sensitivity correlated with peak frequencies of echolocation calls and pup isolation calls, suggesting that changes in hearing sensitivity evolved in response to frequency changes of echolocation and social calls. Overall, our study provides the most comprehensive comparative assessment of bat hearing capacities to date and highlights the evolutionary pressures acting on their sensory perception.

Abstract

In the neurobiology of language, a fundamental challenge is deconfounding syntax from semantics. Changes in syntactic structure usually correlate with changes in meaning. We approached this challenge from a new angle. We deployed word lists, which are usually the unstructured control in studies of syntax, as both the test and the control stimulus. Three-noun lists (lamps, dolls, guitars) were embedded in sentences (The eccentric man hoarded lamps, dolls, guitars…) and in longer lists (forks, pen, toilet, rodeo, graves, drums, mulch, lamps, dolls, guitars…). This allowed us to perfectly control both lexical characteristics and local combinatorics: the same words occurred in both conditions and in neither case did the list items locally compose into phrases (e.g. ‘lamps’ and ‘dolls’ do not form a phrase). But in one case, the list partakes in a syntactic tree, while in the other, it does not. Being embedded inside a syntactic tree increased source-localized MEG activity at ~250-300ms from word onset in the left inferior frontal cortex, at ~300-350ms in the left anterior temporal lobe and, most reliably, at ~330-400ms in left posterior temporal cortex. In contrast, effects of semantic association strength, which we also varied, localized in left temporo-parietal cortex, with high associations increasing activity at around 400ms. This dissociation offers a novel characterization of the structure vs. meaning contrast in the brain: The fronto-temporal network that is familiar from studies of sentence processing can be driven by the sheer presence of global sentence structure, while associative semantics has a more posterior neural signature.

Abstract

Kanazawa (2007) proposes the ‘evolutionary psychological imagination’ (p.7) as an authoritative framework for understanding complex social and public issues. As a case study of this approach, Kanazawa addresses acts of international terrorism, specifically suicide bombings committed by Muslim men. It is proposed that a comprehensive explanation of such acts can be gained from taking an evolutionary perspective armed with only three points of cultural knowledge: 1. Muslims are exceptionally polygynous, 2. Muslim men believe they will gain reproductive access to 72 virgins if they die as a martyr and 3. Muslim men have limited access to pornography, which might otherwise relieve the tension built up from intra-sexual competition. We agree with Kanazawa that evolutionary models of human behaviour can contribute to our understanding of even the most complex social issues. However, Kanazawa’s case study, of what he refers to as ‘World War III’, rests on a flawed theoretical argument, lacks empirical backing, and holds little in the way of explanatory power.

Abstract

Findings from corpus (e.g. Diessel, 2004) and comprehension (e.g. De Ruiter et al., 2018) studies show that children produce the adverbial connectives because and if long before they seem able to understand them. However, although children's comprehension is typically tested on sentences expressing the pragmatic relationship which Sweetser (1990) calls “Content”, children also hear and produce sentences expressing “Speech–Act” relationships (e.g. De Ruiter et al., 2021; Kyratzis et al., 1990). To better understand the possible influence of pragmatic variation on 2- to 4- year-old children's acquisition of these connectives, we coded the because and if Speech–Act sentences of 14 British English-speaking mother-child dyads for the type of illocutionary act they contained, as well as the phrasing following the connective. Analyses revealed that children's because Speech–Act sentences were primarily explanations of Statements/Claims, while their if Speech–Act sentences typically related to permission and politeness. While children's because-sentences showed a great deal of individuality, their if-sentences closely resembled their mothers’, containing a high proportion of recurring phrases which appear to be abstracted from input. We discuss how these patterns might help shape children's understanding of each connective and contribute to the children's overall difficulty with because and if.

Abstract

Digital processing of medical images has helped physicians and patients during past years by allowing examination and diagnosis on a very precise level. Nowadays possibly the biggest deal of support it can offer for modern healthcare is the use of high performance computing architectures to treat the huge amounts of data that can be collected by modern acquisition devices. This paper presents a parallel processing implementation of an image segmentation algorithm that operates on a computer cluster equipped with 10 processing units. Thanks to well-organized distribution of the workload we manage to significantly shorten the execution time of the developed algorithm and reach a performance gain very close to linear.

Abstract

Contains: Vol. 1 An introduction to the theory of formal languages and automata Vol. 2 Applications in linguistic theory Vol. 3 Psycholinguistic applications

Abstract

It is argued that the dominantly successive nature of language is largely mode-independent and holds equally for sign and for spoken language. A preliminary distinction is made between what is simultaneous or successive in the signal, and what is in the process; these need not coincide, and it is the successiveness of the process that is at stake. It is then discussed extensively for the word/sign level, and in a more preliminary fashion for the clause and discourse level that online processes are parallel in that they can simultaneously draw on various sources of knowledge (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic), but successive in that they can work at the interpretation of only one unit at a time. This seems to hold for both sign and spoken language. In the final section, conjectures are made about possible evolutionary explanations for these properties of language processing.

Abstract

This paper describes the descriptive landscape and seascape terminology of an isolate language, Yélî Dnye, spoken on a remote island off Papua New Guinea. The terminology reveals an ontology of landscape terms fundamentally mismatching that in European languages, and in current GIS applications. These landscape terms, and a rich set of seascape terms, provide the ontological basis for toponyms across subdomains. Considering what motivates landscape categorization, three factors are considered: perceptual salience, human affordance and use, and cultural ideas. The data show that cultural ideas and practices are the major categorizing force: they directly impact the ecology with environmental artifacts, construct religious ideas which play a major role in the use of the environment and its naming, and provide abstract cultural templates which organize large portions of vocabulary across subdomains.

Abstract

Chinese translation of the 2003 publication.

Abstract

Survey article

Abstract

This entry contains: 1. An invitation to think about to what extent the grammar of space and time share lexical and morphosyntactic resources − the suggestions here are only prompts, since it would take a long questionnaire to fully explore this; 2. A suggestion about how to collect gestural data that might show us to what extent the spatial and temporal domains, have a psychological continuity. This is really the goal − but you need to do the linguistic work first or in addition. The goal of this task is to explore the extent to which time is conceptualised on a spatial basis.

Abstract

Cross-linguistic studies focus on inverse correlations (trade-offs) between linguistic variables that reflect different cues to linguistic meanings. For example, if a language has no case marking, it is likely to rely on word order as a cue for identification of grammatical roles. Such inverse correlations are interpreted as manifestations of language users’ tendency to use language efficiently. The present study argues that this interpretation is problematic. Linguistic variables, such as the presence of case, or flexibility of word order, are aggregate properties, which do not represent the use of linguistic cues in context directly. Still, such variables can be useful for circumscribing the potential role of communicative efficiency in language evolution, if we move from cross-linguistic trade-offs to multivariate causal networks. This idea is illustrated by a case study of linguistic variables related to four types of Subject and Object cues: case marking, rigid word order of Subject and Object, tight semantics and verb-medial order. The variables are obtained from online language corpora in thirty languages, annotated with the Universal Dependencies. The causal model suggests that the relationships between the variables can be explained predominantly by sociolinguistic factors, leaving little space for a potential impact of efficient linguistic behavior.

Abstract

Over the last few years, there has been a growing interest in communicative efficiency. It has been argued that language users act efficiently, saving effort for processing and articulation, and that language structure and use reflect this tendency. The emergence of new corpus data has brought to life numerous studies on efficient language use in the lexicon, in morphosyntax, and in discourse and phonology in different languages. In this introductory paper, we discuss communicative efficiency in human languages, focusing on evidence of efficient language use found in multilingual corpora. The evidence suggests that efficiency is a universal feature of human language. We provide an overview of different manifestations of efficiency on different levels of language structure, and we discuss the major questions and findings so far, some of which are addressed for the first time in the contributions in this special collection.

Abstract

In the current study we investigated whether 12-month-old infants gesture appropriately for knowledgeable versus ignorant partners, in order to provide them with needed information. In two experiments we found that in response to a searching adult, 12-month-olds pointed more often to an object whose location the adult did not know and thus needed information to find (she had not seen it fall down just previously) than to an object whose location she knew and thus did not need information to find (she had watched it fall down just previously). These results demonstrate that, in contrast to classic views of infant communication, infants’ early pointing at 12 months is already premised on an understanding of others’ knowledge and ignorance, along with a prosocial motive to help others by providing needed information.

Abstract

This paper investigates the social-cognitive and motivational complexities underlying prelinguistic infants' gestural communication. With regard to deictic referential gestures, new and recent experimental evidence shows that infant pointing is a complex communicative act based on social-cognitive skills and cooperative motives. With regard to infant representational gestures, findings suggest the need to re-interpret these gestures as initially non-symbolic gestural social acts. Based on the available empirical evidence, the paper argues that deictic referential communication emerges as a foundation of human communication first in gestures, already before language. Representational symbolic communication, instead, emerges as a transformation of deictic communication first in the vocal modality and, perhaps, in gestures through non-symbolic, socially situated routines.

Abstract

We hypothesize that contrast perception works as a visual heuristic, such that when speakers perceive a significant degree of contrast in a visual context, they tend to produce the corresponding adjective to describe a referent. The contrast perception heuristic supports efficient audience design, allowing speakers to produce referential expressions with minimum expenditure of cognitive resources, while facilitating the listener's visual search for the referent. We tested the perceptual contrast hypothesis in three language-production experiments. Experiment 1 revealed that speakers overspecify color adjectives in polychrome displays, whereas in monochrome displays they overspecified other properties that were contrastive. Further support for the contrast perception hypothesis comes from a re-analysis of previous work, which confirmed that color contrast elicits color overspecification when detected in a given display, but not when detected across monochrome trials. Experiment 2 revealed that even atypical colors (which are often overspecified) are only mentioned if there is color contrast. In Experiment 3, participants named a target color faster in monochrome than in polychrome displays, suggesting that the effect of color contrast is not analogous to ease of production. We conclude that the tendency to overspecify color in polychrome displays is not a bottom-up effect driven by the visual salience of color as a property, but possibly a learned communicative strategy. We discuss the implications of our account for pragmatic theories of referential communication and models of audience design, challenging the view that overspecification is a form of egocentric behavior.

Abstract

Similes require two different pragmatic skills: appreciating the intended similarity and deriving a scalar implicature (e.g., “Lucy is like a parrot” normally implies that Lucy is not a parrot), but previous studies overlooked this second skill. In Experiment 1, preschoolers (N = 48; ages 3–5) understood “X is like a Y” as an expression of similarity. In Experiment 2 (N = 99; ages 3–6, 13) and Experiment 3 (N = 201; ages 3–5 and adults), participants received metaphors (“Lucy is a parrot”) or similes (“Lucy is like a parrot”) as clues to select one of three images (a parrot, a girl or a parrot-looking girl). An early developmental trend revealed that 3-year-olds started deriving the implicature “X is not a Y,” whereas 5-year-olds performed like adults.

Abstract

Finding the structure of a sentence — the way its words hold together to convey meaning — is a fundamental step in language comprehension. Several brain regions, including the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left posterior superior temporal gyrus, and the left anterior temporal pole, are supposed to support this operation. The exact role of these areas is nonetheless still debated. In this paper we investigate the hypothesis that different brain regions could be sensitive to different kinds of syntactic computations. We compare the fit of phrase-structure and dependency structure descriptors to activity in brain areas using fMRI. Our results show a division between areas with regard to the type of structure computed, with the left ATP and left IFG favouring dependency structures and left pSTG favouring phrase structures.

Abstract

Most individuals with congenital achromatopsia (ACHM) carry mutations that affect the retinal phototransduction pathway of cone photoreceptors, fundamental to both high acuity vision and colour perception. As the central fovea is occupied solely by cones, achromats have an absence of retinal input to the visual cortex and a small central area of blindness. Additionally, those with complete ACHM have no colour perception, and colour processing regions of the ventral cortex also lack typical chromatic signals from the cones. This study examined the cortical morphology (grey matter volume, cortical thickness, and cortical surface area) of multiple visual cortical regions in ACHM (n = 15) compared to normally sighted controls (n = 42) to determine the cortical changes that are associated with the retinal characteristics of ACHM. Surface-based morphometry was applied to T1-weighted MRI in atlas-defined early, ventral and dorsal visual regions of interest. Reduced grey matter volume in V1, V2, V3, and V4 was found in ACHM compared to controls, driven by a reduction in cortical surface area as there was no significant reduction in cortical thickness. Cortical surface area (but not thickness) was reduced in a wide range of areas (V1, V2, V3, TO1, V4, and LO1). Reduction in early visual areas with large foveal representations (V1, V2, and V3) suggests that the lack of foveal input to the visual cortex was a major driving factor in morphological changes in ACHM. However, the significant reduction in ventral area V4 coupled with the lack of difference in dorsal areas V3a and V3b suggest that deprivation of chromatic signals to visual cortex in ACHM may also contribute to changes in cortical morphology. This research shows that the congenital lack of cone input to the visual cortex can lead to widespread structural changes across multiple visual areas.

Abstract

Young children demonstrate the ability to make inferences about the preferences of other agents based on their choices. However, there exists no overarching account of what children are doing when they learn about preferences or how they use that knowledge. We use a rational model of preference learning, drawing on ideas from economics and computer science, to explain the behavior of children in several recent experiments. Specifically, we show how a simple econometric model can be extended to capture two- to four-year-olds’ use of statistical information in inferring preferences, and their generalization of these preferences.

Abstract

Sign language lexicons incorporate phonological specifications. Evidence from emerging sign languages suggests that phonological structure emerges gradually in a new language. In this study, we investigate variation in the form of signs across 20 deaf adult signers of Kata Kolok, a sign language that emerged spontaneously in a Balinese village community. Combining methods previously used for sign comparisons, we introduce a new numeric measure of variation. Our nuanced yet comprehensive approach to form variation integrates three levels (iconic motivation, surface realisation, feature differences) and allows for refinement through weighting the variation score by token and signer frequency. We demonstrate that variation in the form of signs appears in different degrees at different levels. Token frequency in a given dataset greatly affects how much variation can surface, suggesting caution in interpreting previous findings. Different sign variants have different scopes of use among the signing population, with some more widely used than others. Both frequency weightings (token and signer) identify dominant sign variants, i.e., sign forms that are produced frequently or by many signers. We argue that variation does not equal the absence of conventionalisation. Indeed, especially in micro-community sign languages, variation may be key to understanding patterns of language emergence.

Abstract

We examined how communicators can switch between speaker and listener role with such accurate timing. During conversations, the majority of role transitions happens with a gap or overlap of only a few hundred milliseconds. This suggests that listeners can predict when the turn of the current speaker is going to end. Our hypothesis is that listeners know when a turn ends because they know how it ends. Anticipating the last words of a turn can help the next speaker in predicting when the turn will end, and also in anticipating the content of the turn, so that an appropriate response can be prepared in advance. We used the stimuli material of an earlier experiment (De Ruiter, Mitterer & Enfield, 2006), in which subjects were listening to turns from natural conversations and had to press a button exactly when the turn they were listening to ended. In the present experiment, we investigated if the subjects can complete those turns when only an initial fragment of the turn is presented to them. We found that the subjects made better predictions about the last words of those turns that had more accurate responses in the earlier button press experiment.

Abstract

This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the 2009 version:
https://doi.org/10.17617/2.883570

Abstract

The cross-linguistic investigation of semantic categories has a long history, spanning many disciplines and covering many domains. But the extent to which semantic categories are universal or language-specific remains highly controversial. Focusing on the domain of events involving material destruction (“cutting and breaking” events, for short), this study investigates how speakers of different languages implicitly categorize such events through the verbs they use to talk about them. Speakers of 28 typologically, genetically and geographically diverse languages were asked to describe the events shown in a set of videoclips, and the distribution of their verbs across the events was analyzed with multivariate statistics. The results show that there is considerable agreement across languages in the dimensions along which cutting and breaking events are distinguished, although there is variation in the number of categories and the placement of their boundaries. This suggests that there are strong constraints in human event categorization, and that variation is played out within a restricted semantic space.

Abstract

Coherent covariation appears to be a powerful explanatory factor accounting for a range of phenomena in semantic cognition. But its role in accounting for the crosslinguistic facts is less clear. Variation in naming, within the same semantic domain, raises vexing questions about the necessary parameters needed to account for the basic facts underlying categorization.

Abstract

Recurrent lexicalization patterns across widely different cultural contexts can provide a window onto common conceptualizations. The cross-linguistic data support the idea that sweet, salt, sour, and bitter are basic tastes. In addition, umami and fatty are likely basic tastes, as well.

Abstract

In this task we aim to find what the best exemplars or “focal colours” of each basic colour term is in our field languages. This is an important part of the evidence we need in order to understand the colour data collected using 'The Language of Vision I: Colour'. This task consists of an experiment where participants pick out the best exemplar for the colour terms in their language. The goal is to establish language specific focal colours.

Abstract

An eye-tracking data set is described of 102 participants reading three Dutch literary short stories each (7790 words in total per participant). The pre-processed data set includes (1) Fixation report, (2) Saccade report, (3) Interest Area report, (4) Trial report (aggregated data for each page), (5) Sample report (sampling rate = 500 Hz), (6) Questionnaire data on reading experiences and participant characteristics, and (7) word characteristics for all words (with the potential of calculating additional word characteristics). It is stored on DANS, and can be used to study word characteristics or literary reading and all facets of eye movements.

Abstract

Readers experience a number of sensations during reading. They do
not – or do not only – process words and sentences in a detached, abstract
manner. Instead they “perceive” what they read about. They see descriptions of
scenery, feel what characters feel, and hear the sounds in a story. These sensa-
tions tend to be grouped under the umbrella terms “mental simulation” and
“mental imagery.” This chapter provides an overview of empirical research on
the role of mental simulation during literary reading. Our chapter also discusses
what mental simulation is and how it relates to mental imagery. Moreover, it
explores how mental simulation plays a role in leading models of literary read-
ing and investigates under what circumstances mental simulation occurs dur-
ing literature reading. Finally, the effect of mental simulation on the literary
reader’s experience is discussed, and suggestions and unresolved issues in this
field are formulated.

Abstract

We present a computational model that provides a unified account of inference, coherence, and disambiguation. It simulates how the build-up of coherence in text leads to the knowledge-based resolution of referential ambiguity. Possible interpretations of an ambiguity are represented by centers of gravity in a high-dimensional space. The unresolved ambiguity forms a vector in the same space. This vector is attracted by the centers of gravity, while also being affected by context information and world knowledge. When the vector reaches one of the centers of gravity, the ambiguity is resolved to the corresponding interpretation. The model accounts for reading time and error rate data from experiments on ambiguous pronoun resolution and explains the effects of context informativeness, anaphor type, and processing depth. It shows how implicit causality can have an early effect during reading. A novel prediction is that ambiguities can remain unresolved if there is insufficient disambiguating information.

Abstract

What drives humans around the world to converge in certain ways in their naming while diverging dramatically in others? We studied how naming patterns are constrained by investigating whether labeling of human locomotion reflects the biomechanical discontinuity between walking and running gaits. Similarity judgments of a student locomoting on a treadmill at different slopes and speeds revealed perception of this discontinuity. Naming judgments of the same clips by speakers of English, Japanese, Spanish, and Dutch showed lexical distinctions between walking and running consistent with the perceived discontinuity. Typicality judgments showed that major gait terms of the four languages share goodness-of-example gradients. These data demonstrate that naming reflects the biomechanical discontinuity between walking and running and that shared elements of naming can arise from correlations among stimulus properties that are dynamic and fleeting. The results support the proposal that converging naming patterns reflect structure in the world, not only acts of construction by observers.

Abstract

Visual and auditory channels have different affordances and
this is mirrored in what information is available for linguistic
encoding. The visual channel has high spatial acuity, whereas
the auditory channel has better temporal acuity. These
differences may lead to different conceptualizations of events
and affect multimodal language production. Previous studies of
motion events typically present visual input to elicit speech and
gesture. The present study compared events presented as audio-
only, visual-only, or multimodal (visual+audio) input and
assessed speech and co-speech gesture for path and manner of
motion in Turkish. Speakers with audio-only input mentioned
path more and manner less in verbal descriptions, compared to
speakers who had visual input. There was no difference in the
type or frequency of gestures across conditions, and gestures
were dominated by path-only gestures. This suggests that input
modality influences speakers’ encoding of path and manner of
motion events in speech, but not in co-speech gestures.

Abstract

Bimodal bilinguals are hearing individuals fluent in a sign and a spoken language. Can the two languages influence each other in such individuals despite differences in the visual (sign) and vocal (speech) modalities of expression? We investigated cross-linguistic influences on bimodal bilinguals’ expression of spatial relations. Unlike spoken languages, sign uses iconic linguistic forms that resemble physical features of objects in a spatial relation and thus expresses specific semantic information. Hearing bimodal bilinguals (n = 21) fluent in Dutch and Sign Language of the Netherlands and their hearing nonsigning and deaf signing peers (n = 20 each) described left/right relations between two objects. Bimodal bilinguals expressed more specific information about physical features of objects in speech than nonsigners, showing influence from sign language. They also used fewer iconic signs with specific semantic information than deaf signers, demonstrating influence from speech. Bimodal bilinguals’ speech and signs are shaped by two languages from different modalities.

Abstract

Interpreting a verb-phrase ellipsis (VP ellipsis) requires accessing an antecedent in memory, and then integrating a representation of this antecedent into the local context. We investigated the online interpretation of VP ellipsis in an eye-tracking experiment and four speed–accuracy tradeoff experiments. To investigate whether the antecedent for a VP ellipsis is accessed with a search or direct-access retrieval process, Experiments 1 and 2 measured the effect of the distance between an ellipsis and its antecedent on the speed and accuracy of comprehension. Accuracy was lower with longer distances, indicating that interpolated material reduced the quality of retrieved information about the antecedent. However, contra a search process, distance did not affect the speed of interpreting ellipsis. This pattern suggests that antecedent representations are content-addressable and retrieved with a direct-access process. To determine whether interpreting ellipsis involves copying antecedent information into the ellipsis site, Experiments 3–5 manipulated the length and complexity of the antecedent. Some types of antecedent complexity lowered accuracy, notably, the number of discourse entities in the antecedent. However, neither antecedent length nor complexity affected the speed of interpreting the ellipsis. This pattern is inconsistent with a copy operation, and it suggests that ellipsis interpretation may involve a pointer to extant structures in memory.

Abstract

While it is widely acknowledged that both predictive expectations and retrodictive
integration influence language processing, the individual differences that affect these
two processes and the best metrics for observing them have yet to be fully described.
The present study aims to contribute to the debate by investigating the extent to which
experienced-based variables modulate the processing of word pairs (bigrams).
Specifically, we investigate how age and reading experience correlate with lexical
anticipation and integration, and how this effect can be captured by the metrics of
forward and backward transition probability (TP). Participants read more and less
strongly associated bigrams, paired to control for known lexical covariates such as
bigram frequency and meaning (i.e., absolute control, total control, absolute silence,
total silence) in a self-paced reading (SPR) task. They additionally completed
assessments of exposure to print text (Author Recognition Test, Shipley vocabulary
assessment, Words that Go Together task) and provided their age. Results show that
both older age and lesser reading experience individually correlate with stronger TP
effects. Moreover, TP effects differ across the spillover region (the two words following
the noun in the bigram)