Publications

Abstract

Philosophers, psychologists, and linguists have argued that spatial conception is pivotal to cognition in general, providing a general, egocentric, and universal framework for cognition as well as metaphors for conceptualizing many other domains. But in an aboriginal community in Northern Queensland, a system of cardinal directions informs not only language, but also memory for arbitrary spatial arrays and directions. This work suggests that fundamental cognitive parameters, like the system of coding spatial locations, can vary cross-culturally, in line with the language spoken by a community. This opens up the prospect of a fruitful dialogue between anthropology and the cognitive sciences on the complex interaction between cultural and universal factors in the constitution of mind.

Abstract

The theory of basic color terms was a crucial factor in the demise of linguistic relativity. The theory is now once again under scrutiny and fundamental revision. This article details a case study that undermines one of the central claims of the classical theory, namely that languages universally treat color as a unitary domain, to be exhaustively named. Taken together with other cases, the study suggests that a number of languages have only an incipient color terminology, raising doubts about the linguistic universality of such terminology.

Abstract

This Element tries to discern the known unknowns in the field
of pragmatics, the ‘Dark Matter’ of the title. We can identify a key
bottleneck in human communication, the sheer limitation on the speed
of speech encoding: pragmatics occupies the niche nestled between
slow speech encoding and fast comprehension. Pragmatic strategies
are tricks for evading this tight encoding bottleneck by meaning more
than you say. Five such tricks are reviewed, which are all domains where
we have made considerable progress. We can then ask for each of these
areas, where have we neglected to push the frontier forward? These are
the known unknowns of pragmatics, key areas, and topics for future
research. The Element thus offers a brief review of some central areas of
pragmatics, and a survey of targets for future research.

Abstract

Cognitive anthropology is in need of a theory that extends beyond cultural model theory and explains both how culture has transformed human cognition and the curious ontology of culture itself, for, as Durkheim insisted, culture cannot be reduced to psychology. This chapter promotes a framework that deals with both the evolutionary question and the ontological problem. It is argued that at least a central part of culture should be conceived of in terms of cognitive technology. Beginning with obvious examples of cognitive artifacts, like those used in measurement, way-finding, time-reckoning and numerical calculation, the chapter goes on to consider extensions to our communication systems, emotion-modulating systems and the cognitive division of labor. Cognitive artifacts form ‘coupled systems’ that amplify individual psychology, lying partly outside the head, and are honed by cultural evolution. They make clear how culture gave human cognition an evolutionary edge.

Abstract

Our study contributes to the less explored domain of lexical typology, focusing on semantic prosody and connotation. Semantic derogation, or pejoration of nouns referring to women, whereby such words acquire connotations and further denotations of social pejoration, immorality and/or loose sexuality, has been a very prominent question in studies on gender and language (change). It has been argued that pejoration emerges due to the general derogatory attitudes toward female referents. However, the evidence for systematic differences in connotations of female- vs. male-related words is fragmentary and often fairly impressionistic; moreover, many researchers argue that expressed sentiments toward women (as well as men) often are ambivalent. One should also expect gender differences in connotations to have decreased in the recent years, thanks to the advances of feminism and social progress. We test these ideas in a study of positive and negative connotations of feminine and masculine term pairs such as woman - man, girl - boy, wife - husband, etc. Sentences containing these words were sampled from diachronic corpora of English, Chinese and Russian, and sentiment scores for every word were obtained using two systems for Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis: PyABSA, and OpenAI’s large language model GPT-3.5. The Generalized Linear Mixed Models of our data provide no indications of significantly more negative sentiment toward female referents in comparison with their male counterparts. However, some of the models suggest that female referents are more infrequently associated with neutral sentiment than male ones. Neither do our data support the hypothesis of the diachronic convergence between the genders. In sum, results suggest that pejoration is unlikely to be explained simply by negative attitudes to female referents in general.

Abstract

The past year has seen a steep rise in generative AI systems that claim to be open. But how open are they really? The question of what counts as open source in generative AI is poised to take on particular importance in light of the upcoming EU AI Act that regulates open source systems differently, creating an urgent need for practical openness assessment. Here we use an evidence-based framework that distinguishes 14 dimensions of openness, from training datasets to scientific and technical documentation and from licensing to access methods. Surveying over 45 generative AI systems (both text and text-to-image), we find that while the term open source is widely used, many models are `open weight' at best and many providers seek to evade scientific, legal and regulatory scrutiny by withholding information on training and fine-tuning data. We argue that openness in generative AI is necessarily composite (consisting of multiple elements) and gradient (coming in degrees), and point out the risk of relying on single features like access or licensing to declare models open or not. Evidence-based openness assessment can help foster a generative AI landscape in which models can be effectively regulated, model providers can be held accountable, scientists can scrutinise generative AI, and end users can make informed decisions.

Abstract

Measures of ‘humanness’, ‘coherence’ or ‘fluency’ are the mainstay of dialogue system evaluation, but they don’t target system capabilities and rarely offer actionable feedback. Reviewing recent work in this domain, we identify an opportunity for evaluation at the level of action sequences, rather than the more commonly targeted levels of whole conversations or single responses. We introduce interactive probes, an evaluation framework inspired by empirical work on social interaction that can help to systematically probe the capabilities of dialogue systems. We sketch some first probes in the domains of tellings and repair, two sequence types ubiquitous in human interaction and challenging for dialogue systems. We argue interactive probing can offer the requisite flexibility to keep up with developments in interactive language technologies and do justice to the open-endedness of action formation and ascription in interaction.

Abstract

* These authors contributed equally/shared first author
Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) are able to partially predict brain activity during object categorization tasks, but factors contributing to this predictive power are not fully understood. Our study aimed to investigate the factors contributing to the predictive power of DCNNs in object categorization tasks. We compared the activity of four DCNN architectures with EEG recordings obtained from 62 human participants during an object categorization task. Previous physiological studies on object categorization have highlighted the importance of figure-ground segregation—the ability to distinguish objects from their backgrounds. Therefore, we investigated whether figure-ground segregation could explain the predictive power of DCNNs. Using a stimulus set consisting of identical target objects embedded in different backgrounds, we examined the influence of object background versus object category within both EEG and DCNN activity. Crucially, the recombination of naturalistic objects and experimentally controlled backgrounds creates a challenging and naturalistic task, while retaining experimental control. Our results showed that early EEG activity (< 100 msec) and early DCNN layers represent object background rather than object category. We also found that the ability of DCNNs to predict EEG activity is primarily influenced by how both systems process object backgrounds, rather than object categories. We demonstrated the role of figure-ground segregation as a potential prerequisite for recognition of object features, by contrasting the activations of trained and untrained (i.e., random weights) DCNNs. These findings suggest that both human visual cortex and DCNNs prioritize the segregation of object backgrounds and target objects to perform object categorization. Altogether, our study provides new insights into the mechanisms underlying object categorization as we demonstrated that both human visual cortex and DCNNs care deeply about object background.

Abstract

This study aims to advance our understanding of the nature and source(s) of individual differences in pragmatic language behavior over the adult lifespan. Across four story continuation experiments, we probed adults’ (N = 496 participants, ages 18–82) choice of referential forms (i.e., names vs. pronouns to refer to the main character). Our manipulations were based on Fossard et al.’s (2018) scale of referential complexity which varies according to the visual properties of the scene: low complexity (one character), intermediate complexity (two characters of different genders), and high complexity (two characters of the same gender). Since pronouns signal topic continuity (i.e., that the discourse will continue to be about the same referent), the use of pronouns is expected to decrease as referential complexity increases. The choice of names versus pronouns, therefore, provides insight into participants’ perception of the topicality of a referent, and whether that varies by age and cognitive capacity. In Experiment 1, we used the scale to test the association between referential choice, aging, and cognition, identifying a link between older adults’ switching skills and optimal referential choice. In Experiments 2–4, we tested novel manipulations that could impact the scale and found both the timing of a competitor referent’s presence and emphasis placed on competitors modulated referential choice, leading us to refine the scale for future use. Collectively, Experiments 1–4 highlight what type of contextual information is prioritized at different ages, revealing older adults’ preserved sensitivity to (visual) scene complexity but reduced sensitivity to linguistic prominence cues, compared to younger adults.

Abstract

This study investigated how adults over the lifespan flexibly adapt their use of prosocial speech acts when conveying bad news to communicative partners. Experiment 1a (N = 100 Scottish adults aged 18–72 years) assessed whether participants’ use of prosocial speech acts varied according to audience design considerations (i.e., whether or not the recipient of the news was directly affected). Experiment 1b (N = 100 Scottish adults aged 19–70 years) assessed whether participants adjusted for whether the bad news was more or less severe (an index of general knowledge). Younger adults displayed more flexible adaptation to the recipient manipulation, while no age differences were found for severity. These findings are consistent with prior work showing age-related decline in audience design but not in the use of general knowledge during language production. Experiment 2 further probed younger adults (N = 40, Scottish, aged 18–37 years) and older adults’ (N = 40, Scottish, aged 70–89 years) prosocial linguistic behavior by investigating whether health (vs. nonhealth-related) matters would affect responses. While older adults used prosocial speech acts to a greater extent than younger adults, they did not distinguish between conditions. Our results suggest that prosocial linguistic behavior is likely influenced by a combination of differences in audience design and communicative styles at different ages. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of situating prosocial speech acts within the pragmatics and aging literature, allowing us to uncover the factors modulating prosocial linguistic behavior at different developmental stages.

Abstract

Speakers and listeners show an informativity bias in the use and interpretation of color modifiers. For example, speakers use color more often when referring to objects that vary in color than to objects with a prototypical color. Likewise, listeners look away from objects with prototypical colors upon hearing that color mentioned. Here we test whether speakers and listeners account for another factor related to informativity: the strength of the association between lexical categories and color. Our results demonstrate that speakers and listeners' choices are indeed influenced by this factor; as such, it should be integrated into current pragmatic theories of informativity and computational models of color reference.

Abstract

The lack of diversity in the language sciences has increasingly been criticized as it holds the potential for producing flawed theories. Research on (i) geographically diverse language communities and (ii) on sign languages is necessary to corroborate, sharpen, and extend existing theories. This study contributes a case study of adapting a well-established paradigm to study the acquisition of sign phonology in Kata Kolok, a sign language of rural Bali, Indonesia. We conducted an experiment modeled after the familiarization paradigm with child signers of Kata Kolok. Traditional analyses of looking time did not yield significant differences between signing and non-signing children. Yet, additional behavioral analyses (attention, eye contact, hand behavior) suggest that children who are signers and those who are non-signers, as well as those who are hearing and those who are deaf, interact differently with the task. This study suggests limitations of the paradigm due to the ecology of sign languages and the sociocultural characteristics of the sample, calling for a mixed-methods approach. Ultimately, this paper aims to elucidate the diversity of adaptations necessary for experimental design, procedure, and analysis, and to offer a critical reflection on the contribution of similar efforts and the diversification of the field.

Abstract

Minimal expressions are at the heart of interaction: Interjections like "Huh?" and "Mhm" keep conversations flowing by establishing and reinforcing intersubjectivity among interlocutors. Crosslinguistic research has identified that similar interactional pressures can yield structurally similar words (e.g., to initiate repair across languages). While crosslinguistic comparisons that include signed languages remain uncommon, recent work has revealed similarities in discourse management strategies among signers and speakers that share much of their cultural background. This study contributes a crossmodal comparison of repair initiators and continuers in speakers of English and signers of British Sign Language (BSL). We combine qualitative and quantitative analyses of data from sixteen English speakers and sixteen BSL signers, resulting in the following: First, the interactional infrastructure drawn upon by speakers and signers overwhelmingly relies on behaviors of the head, face, and body; these are used alone or sometimes in combination with verbal elements (i.e., spoken words or manual signs), while verbal strategies alone are rare. Second, discourse management strategies are remarkably similar in form across the two languages: A held eye gaze or freeze-look is the predominant repair initiator and head nodding the main continuer. These results suggest a modality-agnostic preference for visual strategies that do not occupy the primary articulators, one that we propose is founded in recipiency; people maintain the flow of communication following principles of minimal effort and minimal interruption.

Abstract

Spoken language comprehension requires abstraction of linguistic information from speech, but the interaction between auditory and linguistic processing of speech remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate the nature of this abstraction using neural responses recorded intracranially while participants listened to conversational English speech. Capitalizing on multiple, language-specific patterns where phonological and acoustic information diverge, we demonstrate the causal efficacy of the phoneme as a unit of analysis and dissociate the unique contributions of phonemic and spectrographic information to neural responses. Quantitive higher-order response models also reveal that unique contributions of phonological information are carried in the covariance structure of the stimulus-response relationship. This suggests that linguistic abstraction is shaped by neurobiological mechanisms that involve integration across multiple spectro-temporal features and prior phonological information. These results link speech acoustics to phonology and morphosyntax, substantiating predictions about abstractness in linguistic theory and providing evidence for the acoustic features that support that abstraction.

Abstract

Human conversations are inherently multimodal, including auditory speech, visual articulatory cues, and hand gestures. Recent studies demonstrated that the timing of a simple up-and-down hand movement, known as a beat gesture, can affect speech perception. A beat gesture falling on the first syllable of a disyllabic word induces a bias to perceive a strong-weak stress pattern (i.e., “CONtent”), while a beat gesture falling on the second syllable combined with the same acoustics biases towards a weak-strong stress pattern (“conTENT”). This effect, termed the “manual McGurk effect”, has been studied in both in-lab and online studies, employing standard experimental sessions lasting approximately forty minutes. The present work tests whether the manual McGurk effect can be observed in an online short version (“mini-test”) of the original paradigm, lasting only ten minutes. Additionally, we employ two different response modalities, namely a two-alternative forced choice and a visual analog scale. A significant manual McGurk effect was observed with both response modalities. Overall, the present study demonstrates the feasibility of employing a ten-minute manual McGurk mini-test to obtain a measure of gesture-speech integration. As such, it may lend itself for inclusion in large-scale test batteries that aim to quantify individual variation in language processing.

Abstract

Classical galactosaemia (CG) is a hereditary disease in galactose metabolism that despite dietary treatment is characterized by a wide range of cognitive deficits, among which is language production. CG brain functioning has been studied with several neuroimaging techniques, which revealed both structural and functional atypicalities. In the present study, for the first time, we compared the oscillatory dynamics, especially the power spectrum and time–frequency representations (TFR), in the electroencephalography (EEG) of CG patients and healthy controls while they were performing a language production task. Twenty-one CG patients and 19 healthy controls described animated scenes, either in full sentences or in words, indicating two levels of complexity in syntactic planning. Based on previous work on the P300 event related potential (ERP) and its relation with theta frequency, we hypothesized that the oscillatory activity of patients and controls would differ in theta power and TFR. With regard to behavior, reaction times showed that patients are slower, reflecting the language deficit. In the power spectrum, we observed significant higher power in patients in delta (1–3 Hz), theta (4–7 Hz), beta (15–30 Hz) and gamma (30–70 Hz) frequencies, but not in alpha (8–12 Hz), suggesting an atypical oscillatory profile. The time-frequency analysis revealed significantly weaker event-related theta synchronization (ERS) and alpha desynchronization (ERD) in patients in the sentence condition. The data support the hypothesis that CG language difficulties relate to theta–alpha brain oscillations.

Abstract

Although word boundaries are rarely clearly marked, listeners can rapidly recognize the individual words of spoken sentences. Some theories explain this in terms of competition between multiply activated lexical hypotheses; others invoke sensitivity to prosodic structure. We describe a connectionist model, SHORTLIST, in which recognition by activation and competition is successful with a realistically sized lexicon. Three experiments are then reported in which listeners detected real words embedded in nonsense strings, some of which were themselves the onsets of longer words. Effects both of competition between words and of prosodic structure were observed, suggesting that activation and competition alone are not sufficient to explain word recognition in continuous speech. However, the results can be accounted for by a version of SHORTLIST that is sensitive to prosodic structure.

Abstract

The results of a word-spotting experiment are presented in which Dutch listeners tried to spot different types of bisyllabic Dutch words embedded in different types of nonsense contexts. Embedded verbs were not reliably harder to spot than embedded nouns; this suggests that nouns and verbs are recognised via the same basic processes. Iambic words were no harder to spot than trochaic words, suggesting that trochaic words are not in principle easier to recognise than iambic words. Words were harder to spot in consonantal contexts (i.e., contexts which themselves could not be words) than in longer contexts which contained at least one vowel (i.e., contexts which, though not words, were possible words of Dutch). A control experiment showed that this difference was not due to acoustic differences between the words in each context. The results support the claim that spoken-word recognition is sensitive to the viability of sound sequences as possible words.

Abstract

Lexical knowledge influences how human listeners make decisions about speech sounds. Positive lexical effects (faster responses to target sounds in words than in nonwords) are robust across several laboratory tasks, while negative effects (slower responses to targets in more word-like nonwords than in less word-like nonwords) have been found in phonetic decision tasks but not phoneme monitoring tasks. The present experiments tested whether negative lexical effects are therefore a task-specific consequence of the forced choice required in phonetic decision. We compared phoneme monitoring and phonetic decision performance using the same Dutch materials in each task. In both experiments there were positive lexical effects, but no negative lexical effects. We observe that in all studies showing negative lexical effects, the materials were made by cross-splicing, which meant that they contained perceptual evidence supporting the lexically-consistent phonemes. Lexical knowledge seems to influence phonemic decision-making only when there is evidence for the lexically-consistent phoneme in the speech signal.

Abstract

We briefly describe the Merge model of phonemic decision-making, and, in the light of general arguments about the possible role of feedback in spoken-word recognition, defend Merge's feedforward structure. Merge not only accounts adequately for the data, without invoking feedback connections, but does so in a parsimonious manner.

Abstract

Recent work has claimed that (non-tonal) phonological patterns are subregular (Heinz 2011a,b, 2018; Heinz and Idsardi 2013), occupying a delimited proper subregion of the regular functions—the weakly deterministic (WD) functions (Heinz and Lai 2013; Jardine 2016). Whether or not it is correct (McCollum et al. 2020a), this claim can only be properly assessed given a complete and accurate definition of WD functions. We propose such a definition in this article, patching unintended holes in Heinz and Lai’s (2013) original definition that we argue have led to the incorrect classification of some phonological patterns as WD. We start from the observation that WD patterns share a property that we call unbounded semiambience, modeled after the analogous observation by Jardine (2016) about non-deterministic (ND) patterns and their unbounded circumambience. Both ND and WD functions can be broken down into compositions of deterministic (subsequential) functions (Elgot and Mezei 1965; Heinz and Lai 2013) that read an input string from opposite directions; we show that WD functions are those for which these deterministic composands do not interact in a way that is familiar from the theoretical phonology literature. To underscore how this concept of interaction neatly separates the WD class of functions from the strictly more expressive ND class, we provide analyses of the vowel harmony patterns of two Eastern Nilotic languages, Maasai and Turkana, using bimachines, an automaton type that represents unbounded bidirectional dependencies explicitly. These analyses make clear that there is interaction between deterministic composands when (and only when) the output of a given input element of a string is simultaneously dependent on information from both the left and the right: ND functions are those that involve interaction, while WD functions are those that do not.

Abstract

Scientific convergence is a phenomenon where the distance between hitherto distinct scientific fields narrows and the fields gradually overlap over time. It is creating important potential for research, development, and innovation. Although scientific convergence is crucial for the development of radically new technology, the identification of emerging scientific convergence is particularly difficult since the underlying knowledge flows are rather fuzzy and unstable in the early convergence stage. Nevertheless, novel scientific publications emerging at the intersection of different knowledge fields may reflect convergence processes. Thus, in this article, we exploit the growing number of research and digital libraries providing bibliographic metadata to propose an automated analysis of science dynamics. We utilize and adapt machine-learning methods (DeepWalk) to automatically learn a similarity measure between scientific fields from graphs constructed on bibliographic metadata. With a time-based perspective, we apply our approach to analyze the trajectories of evolving similarities between scientific fields. We validate the learned similarity measure by evaluating it within the well-explored case of cholesterol-lowering ingredients in which scientific convergence between the distinct scientific fields of nutrition and pharmaceuticals has partially taken place. Our results confirm that the similarity trajectories learned by our approach resemble the expected behavior, indicating that our approach may allow researchers and practitioners to detect and predict scientific convergence early.

Abstract

While it is well established that grammar learning success varies with age, the cause of this developmental change is largely unknown. This study examined functional MRI activation across a broad developmental sample of 165 Dutch-speaking individuals (8-25 years) as they were implicitly learning a new grammatical system. This approach allowed us to assess the direct effects of age on grammar learning ability while exploring its neural correlates. In contrast to the alleged advantage of children language learners over adults, we found that adults outperformed children. Moreover, our behavioral data showed a sharp discontinuity in the relationship between age and grammar learning performance: there was a strong positive linear correlation between 8 and 15.4 years of age, after which age had no further effect. Neurally, our data indicate two important findings: (i) during grammar learning, adults and children activate similar brain regions, suggesting continuity in the neural networks that support initial grammar learning; and (ii) activation level is age-dependent, with children showing less activation than older participants. We suggest that these age-dependent processes may constrain developmental effects in grammar learning. The present study provides new insights into the neural basis of age-related differences in grammar learning in second language acquisition.

Abstract

A comparison of Merge, a model of comprehension, and WEAVER, a model of production, raises five issues: (1) merging models of comprehension and production necessarily creates feedback; (2) neither model is a comprehensive account of word processing; (3) the models are incomplete in different ways; (4) the models differ in their handling of competition; (5) as opposed to WEAVER, Merge is a model of metalinguistic behavior.

Abstract

Recently, a new theory of timing in sentence production has been proposed by Ferreira (1993). This theory assumes that at the phonological level, each syllable of an utterance is assigned one or more abstract timing units depending on its position in the prosodic structure. The number of timing units associated with a syllable determines the time interval between its onset and the onset of the next syllable. An interesting prediction from the theory, which was confirmed in Ferreira's experiments with speakers of American English, is that the time intervals between syllable onsets should only depend on the syllables' positions in the prosodic structure, but not on their segmental content. However, in the present experiments, which were carried out in Dutch, the intervals between syllable onsets were consistently longer for phonetically long syllables than for short syllables. The implications of this result for models of timing in sentence production are discussed.

Abstract

Eye movements have been shown to reflect word recognition and language comprehension processes occurring during reading and auditory language comprehension. The present study examines whether the eye movements speakers make during object naming similarly reflect speech planning processes. In Experiment 1, speakers named object pairs saying, for instance, 'scooter and hat'. The objects were presented as ordinary line drawings or with partly dele:ed contours and had high or low frequency names. Contour type and frequency both significantly affected the mean naming latencies and the mean time spent looking at the objects. The frequency effects disappeared in Experiment 2, in which the participants categorized the objects instead of naming them. This suggests that the frequency effects of Experiment 1 arose during lexical retrieval. We conclude that eye movements during object naming indeed reflect linguistic planning processes and that the speakers' decision to move their eyes from one object to the next is contingent upon the retrieval of the phonological form of the object names.

Abstract

Anecdotal evidence suggests that learning a new foreign language (FL) makes you forget previously learned FLs. To seek empirical evidence for this claim, we tested whether learning words in a previously unknown L3 hampers subsequent retrieval of their L2 translation equivalents. In two experiments, Dutch native speakers with knowledge of English (L2), but not Spanish (L3), first completed an English vocabulary test, based on which 46 participant-specific, known English words were chosen. Half of those were then learned in Spanish. Finally, participants’ memory for all 46 English words was probed again in a picture naming task. In Experiment 1, all tests took place within one session. In Experiment 2, we separated the English pre-test from Spanish learning by a day and manipulated the timing of the English post-test (immediately after learning vs. 1 day later). By separating the post-test from Spanish learning, we asked whether consolidation of the new Spanish words would increase their interference strength. We found significant main effects of interference in naming latencies and accuracy: Participants speeded up less and were less accurate to recall words in English for which they had learned Spanish translations, compared with words for which they had not. Consolidation time did not significantly affect these interference effects. Thus, learning a new language indeed comes at the cost of subsequent retrieval ability in other FLs. Such interference effects set in immediately after learning and do not need time to emerge, even when the other FL has been known for a long time.

Abstract

With the recent advancements in the field of robotics and the increased focus on having general-purpose robots widely available to the general public, it has become increasingly necessary to pursue research into Human-robot interaction (HRI). While there have been a lot of works discussing frameworks for teaching HRI in educational institutions with a few institutions already offering courses to students, a consensus on the course content still eludes the field. In this work, we highlight a few challenges and opportunities while designing an HRI course from an Indian perspective. These topics warrant further deliberations as they have a direct impact on the design of HRI courses and wider implications for the entire field.

Abstract

Statistical learning ability has been found to relate to children’s reading skills. Yet, statistical learning is also known to be vital for developing oral language skills, and oral language and reading skills relate strongly. These connections raise the question of whether statistical learning ability affects reading via oral language or directly. Statistical learning is multifaceted, and so different aspects of statistical learning might influence oral language and reading skills distinctly. In a longitudinal study, we determined how two aspects of statistical learning from an artificial language tested on 70 17-month-old infants—segmenting sequences from speech and generalizing the sequence structure—related to oral language skills measured at 54 months and reading skills measured at approximately 75 months. Statistical learning segmentation did not relate significantly to oral language or reading, whereas statistical learning generalization related to oral language, but only indirectly related to reading. Our results showed that children’s early statistical learning ability was associated with learning to read via the children’s oral language skills.

Abstract

Background

Forced switching between languages poses demands on control abilities, which may be difficult to meet for bilinguals with aphasia. Freely choosing languages has been shown to increase naming efficiency in healthy bilinguals, and lexical accessibility was found to be a predictor for language choice. The overlap between bilingual language switching and other types of switching is yet unclear.

Aims

This study aimed to examine the benefits of free language choice for bilinguals with aphasia and to investigate the overlap of between- and within-language switching abilities.

Methods & Procedures

Seventeen bilinguals with aphasia completed a questionnaire and four web-based picture naming tasks: single-language naming in the first and second language separately; voluntary switching between languages; cued and predictable switching between languages; cued and predictable switching between phrase types in the first language. Accuracy and naming latencies were analysed using (generalised) linear mixed-effects models.

Outcomes & Results

The results showed higher accuracy and faster naming for the voluntary switching condition compared to single-language naming and cued switching. Both voluntary and cued language switching yielded switch costs, and voluntary switch costs were larger. Ease of lexical access was a reliable predictor for voluntary language choice. We obtained no statistical evidence for differences or associations between switch costs in between- and within-language switching.

Conclusions

Several results point to benefits of voluntary language switching for bilinguals with aphasia. Freely mixing languages improved naming accuracy and speed, and ease of lexical access affected language choice. There was no statistical evidence for overlap of between- and within-language switching abilities. This study highlights the benefits of free language choice for bilinguals with aphasia.

Abstract

The human language processor is conceived as a system that consists of several interrelated subsystems. Each subsystem performs a specific task in the complex process of language comprehension and production. A subsystem receives a particular input, performs certain specific operations on this input and yields a particular output. The subsystems can be characterized in terms of the transformations that relate the input representations to the output representations. An important issue in describing the language processing system is to identify the subsystems and to specify the relations between the subsystems. These relations can be conceived in two different ways. In one conception the subsystems are autonomous. They are related to each other only by the input-output channels. The operations in one subsystem are not affected by another system. The subsystems are modular, that is they are independent. In the other conception, the different subsystems influence each other. A subsystem affects the processes in another subsystem. In this conception there is an interaction between the subsystems.

Abstract

The reading process depends both on the text and on the reader. When we read a text, propositions in the current input are matched to propositions in the memory representation of the previous discourse but also to knowledge structures in long‐term memory. Therefore, memory‐based text processing refers both to the bottom‐up processing of the text and to the top‐down activation of the reader's knowledge. In this article, we focus on the role of cognitive structures in the reader's knowledge. We argue that causality is an important category in structuring human knowledge and that this property has consequences for text processing. Some research is discussed that illustrates that the more the information in the text reflects causal categories, the more easily the information is processed.

Abstract

This paper describes recent experimental evidence which shows that models of spoken word recognition must incorporate both inhibition between competing lexical candidates and a sensitivity to metrical cues to lexical segmentation. A new version of the Shortlist [1][2] model incorporating the Metrical Segmentation Strategy [3] provides a detailed simulation of the data.

Abstract

The central thesis of the target article was that feedback is never necessary in spoken word recognition. The commentaries present no new data and no new theoretical arguments which lead us to revise this position. In this response we begin by clarifying some terminological issues which have lead to a number of significant misunderstandings. We provide some new arguments to support our case that the feedforward model Merge is indeed more parsimonious than the interactive alternatives, and that it provides a more convincing account of the data than alternative models. Finally, we extend the arguments to deal with new issues raised by the commentators such as infant speech perception and neural architecture.

Abstract

Top-down feedback does not benefit speech recognition; on the contrary, it can hinder it. No experimental data imply that feedback loops are required for speech recognition. Feedback is accordingly unnecessary and spoken word recognition is modular. To defend this thesis, we analyse lexical involvement in phonemic decision making. TRACE (McClelland & Elman 1986), a model with feedback from the lexicon to prelexical processes, is unable to account for all the available data on phonemic decision making. The modular Race model (Cutler & Norris 1979) is likewise challenged by some recent results, however. We therefore present a new modular model of phonemic decision making, the Merge model. In Merge, information flows from prelexical processes to the lexicon without feedback. Because phonemic decisions are based on the merging of prelexical and lexical information, Merge correctly predicts lexical involvement in phonemic decisions in both words and nonwords. Computer simulations show how Merge is able to account for the data through a process of competition between lexical hypotheses. We discuss the issue of feedback in other areas of language processing and conclude that modular models are particularly well suited to the problems and constraints of speech recognition.

Abstract

Two word-spotting experiments are reported that examine whether the Possible-Word Constraint (PWC) [1] is a language-specific or language-universal strategy for the segmentation of continuous speech. The PWC disfavours parses which leave an impossible residue between the end of a candidate word and a known boundary. The experiments examined cases where the residue was either a CV syllable with a lax vowel, or a CVC syllable with a schwa. Although neither syllable context is a possible word in English, word-spotting in both contexts was easier than with a context consisting of a single consonant. The PWC appears to be language-universal rather than language-specific.

Abstract

Simulations explored the inability of the TRACE model of spoken-word recognition to model the effects on human listening of subcategorical mismatch in word forms. The source of TRACE's failure lay not in interactive connectivity, not in the presence of inter-word competition, and not in the use of phonemic representations, but in the need for continuously optimised interpretation of the input. When an analogue of TRACE was allowed to cycle to asymptote on every slice of input, an acceptable simulation of the subcategorical mismatch data was achieved. Even then, however, the simulation was not as close as that produced by the Merge model, which has inter-word competition, phonemic representations and continuous optimisation (but no interactive connectivity).

Abstract

The highly polygenic and pleiotropic nature of behavioural traits, psychiatric disorders and structural and functional brain phenotypes complicate mechanistic interpretation of related genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals, thereby obscuring underlying causal biological processes. We propose genomic principal and independent component analysis (PCA, ICA) to decompose a large set of univariate GWAS statistics of multimodal brain traits into more interpretable latent genomic components. Here we introduce and evaluate this novel methods various analytic parameters and reproducibility across independent samples. Two UK Biobank GWAS summary statistic releases of 2240 imaging-derived phenotypes (IDPs) were retrieved. Genome-wide beta-values and their corresponding standard-error scaled z-values were decomposed using genomic PCA/ICA. We evaluated variance explained at multiple dimensions up to 200. We tested the inter-sample reproducibility of output of dimensions 5, 10, 25 and 50. Reproducibility statistics of the respective univariate GWAS served as benchmarks. Reproducibility of 10-dimensional PCs and ICs showed the best trade-off between model complexity and robustness and variance explained (PCs: |rz − max| = 0.33, |rraw − max| = 0.30; ICs: |rz − max| = 0.23, |rraw − max| = 0.19). Genomic PC and IC reproducibility improved substantially relative to mean univariate GWAS reproducibility up to dimension 10. Genomic components clustered along neuroimaging modalities. Our results indicate that genomic PCA and ICA decompose genetic effects on IDPs from GWAS statistics with high reproducibility by taking advantage of the inherent pleiotropic patterns. These findings encourage further applications of genomic PCA and ICA as fully data-driven methods to effectively reduce the dimensionality, enhance the signal to noise ratio and improve interpretability of high-dimensional multitrait genome-wide analyses.

Abstract

Memorializes Martin D. S. Braine, whose research on child language acquisition and on both child and adult thinking and reasoning had a major influence on modern cognitive psychology. Addressing meaning as well as position, Braine argued that children start acquiring language by learning narrow-scope positional formulas that map components of meaning to positions in the utterance. These proposals were critical in starting discussions of the possible universality of the pivot-grammar stage and of the role of syntax, semantics,and pragmatics in children's early grammar and were pivotal to the rise of approaches in which cognitive development in language acquisition is stressed.

Abstract

Animal vocal communication often relies on call sequences. The temporal patterns of such sequences can be adjusted to other callers, follow complex rhythmic structures or exhibit a metronome-like pattern (i.e., isochronous). How regular are the temporal patterns in animal signals, and what influences their precision? If present, are rhythms already there early in ontogeny? Here, we describe an exploratory study of Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) barks—a vocalisation type produced across many pinniped species in rhythmic, percussive bouts. This study is the first quantitative description of barking in Cape fur seal pups. We analysed the rhythmic structures of spontaneous barking bouts of pups and adult females from the breeding colony in Cape Cross, Namibia. Barks of adult females exhibited isochrony, that is they were produced at fairly regular points in time. Instead, intervals between pup barks were more variable, that is skipping a bark in the isochronous series occasionally. In both age classes, beat precision, that is how well the barks followed a perfect template, was worse when barking at higher rates. Differences could be explained by physiological factors, such as respiration or arousal. Whether, and how, isochrony develops in this species remains an open question. This study provides evidence towards a rhythmic production of barks in Cape fur seal pups and lays the groundwork for future studies to investigate the development of rhythm using multidimensional metrics.

Abstract

A database is presented of relative familiarity ratings for 24 sets of Japanese words, each set comprising words overlapping in the initial portions. These ratings are useful for the generation of material sets for research in the recognition of spoken words.

Abstract

Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: (i) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and (ii) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six preregistered predictions, five were strongly supported: Relative to speech, songs use (i) higher pitch, (ii) slower temporal rate, and (iii) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar (iv) pitch interval size and (v) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech.

Abstract

Across the animal kingdom, neural responses in the auditory cortex are suppressed during vocalization, and humans are no exception. A common hypothesis is that suppression increases sensitivity to auditory feedback, enabling the detection of vocalization errors. This hypothesis has been previously confirmed in non-human primates, however a direct link between auditory suppression and sensitivity in human speech monitoring remains elusive. To address this issue, we obtained intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) recordings from 35 neurosurgical participants during speech production. We first characterized the detailed topography of auditory suppression, which varied across superior temporal gyrus (STG). Next, we performed a delayed auditory feedback (DAF) task to determine whether the suppressed sites were also sensitive to auditory feedback alterations. Indeed, overlapping sites showed enhanced responses to feedback, indicating sensitivity. Importantly, there was a strong correlation between the degree of auditory suppression and feedback sensitivity, suggesting suppression might be a key mechanism that underlies speech monitoring. Further, we found that when participants produced speech with simultaneous auditory feedback, posterior STG was selectively activated if participants were engaged in a DAF paradigm, suggesting that increased attentional load can modulate auditory feedback sensitivity.

Abstract

* These two authors contributed equally to this study
Statistical learning – the ability to extract distributional regularities from input – is suggested to be key to language acquisition. Yet, evidence for the human capacity for statistical learning comes mainly from studies conducted in carefully controlled settings without auditory distraction. While such conditions permit careful examination of learning, they do not reflect the naturalistic language learning experience, which is replete with auditory distraction – including competing talkers. Here, we examine how statistical language learning proceeds in a virtual cocktail party environment, where the to-be-learned input is presented alongside a competing speech stream with its own distributional regularities. During exposure, participants in the Dual Talker group concurrently heard two novel languages, one produced by a female talker and one by a male talker, with each talker virtually positioned at opposite sides of the listener (left/right) using binaural acoustic manipulations. Selective attention was manipulated by instructing participants to attend to only one of the two talkers. At test, participants were asked to distinguish words from part-words for both the attended and the unattended languages. Results indicated that participants’ accuracy was significantly higher for trials from the attended vs. unattended
language. Further, the performance of this Dual Talker group was no different compared to a control group who heard only one language from a single talker (Single Talker group). We thus conclude that statistical learning is modulated by selective attention, being relatively robust against the additional cognitive load provided by competing speech, emphasizing its efficiency in naturalistic language learning situations.

Abstract

Natural speech involves repair. These repairs are often highlighted through prosodic marking (Levelt & Cutler, 1983). Prosodic marking usually entails an increase in pitch, loudness, and/or duration that draws attention to the corrected word. While it is established that natural self-repairs typically elicit prosodic marking, the exact cause of this is unclear. This study investigates whether producing a prosodic marking emerges from an automatic correction process or has a communicative purpose. In the current study, we elicit corrections to test whether all self-corrections elicit prosodic marking. Participants carried out a picture-naming task in which they described two images presented on-screen. To prompt self-correction, the second image was altered in some cases, requiring participants to abandon their initial utterance and correct their description to match the new image. This manipulation was compared to a control condition in which only the orientation of the object would change, eliciting no self-correction while still presenting a visual change. We found that the replacement of the item did not elicit a prosodic marking, regardless of the type of change. Theoretical implications and research directions are discussed, in particular theories of prosodic planning.

Abstract

The present study uses electroencephalography (EEG) with an N-back task (0-, 1-, and 2-back) to investigate if and how individual bilingual experiences modulate brain activity and cognitive processes. The N-back is an especially appropriate task given recent proposals situating bilingual effects on neurocognition within the broader attentional control system (Bialystok & Craik, 2022). Beyond its working memory component, the N-Back task builds in complexity incrementally, progressively taxing the attentional system. EEG, behavioral and language/social background data were collected from 60 bilinguals. Two cognitive loads were calculated: low (1-back minus 0-back) and high (2-back minus 0-back). Behavioral performance and brain recruitment were modeled as a function of individual differences in bilingual engagement. We predicted task performance as modulated by bilingual engagement would reflect cognitive demands of increased complexity: slower reaction times and lower accuracy, and increase in theta, decrease in alpha and modulated N2/P3 amplitudes. The data show no modulation of the expected behavioral effects by degree of bilingual engagement. However, individual differences analyses reveal significant correlations between non-societal language use in Social contexts and alpha in the low cognitive load condition and age of acquisition of the L2/2L1 with theta in the high cognitive load. These findings lend some initial support to Bialystok & Craik (2022), showing how certain adaptations at the brain level take place in order to deal with the cognitive demands associated with variations in bilingual language experience and increases in attentional load. Furthermore, the present data highlight how these effects can play out differentially depending on cognitive testing/modalities – that is, effects were found at the TFR level but not behaviorally or in the ERPs, showing how the choice of analysis can be deterministic when investigating bilingual effects.

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study is to establish which specific cognitive abilities are phenotypically related to reading skill in adolescence and determine whether this phenotypic correlation is explained by polygenetic overlap.

Method

In an Australian population sample of twins and non-twin siblings of European ancestry (734 ≤ N ≤ 1542 [50.7% < F < 66%], mean age = 16.7, range = 11–28 years) from the Brisbane Adolescent Twin Study, mixed-effects models were used to test the association between a dyslexia polygenic score (based on genome-wide association results from a study of 51,800 dyslexics versus >1 million controls) and quantitative cognitive measures. The variance in the cognitive measure explained by the polygenic score was compared to that explained by a reading difficulties phenotype (scores that were lower than 1.5 SD below the mean reading skill) to derive the proportion of the association due to genetic influences.

Results

The strongest phenotypic correlations were between poor reading and verbal tests (R2 up to 6.2%); visuo-spatial working memory was the only measure that did not show association with poor reading. Dyslexia polygenic scores could completely explain the phenotypic covariance between poor reading and most working memory tasks and were most predictive of performance on a test of arithmetic (R2=2.9%).

Conclusion

Shared genetic pathways are thus highlighted for the commonly found association between reading and mathematics abilities, and for the verbal short-term/working memory deficits often observed in dyslexia.

Abstract

It has previously been suggested that the activity in sensory regions of the brain can be modulated by attentional mechanisms during parallel cognitive processing. To investigate whether such attention-related modulations are present in the processing of pain, the regional cerebral blood ¯ow was measured using [15O]butanol and positron emission tomography in conditions involving both pain and parallel cognitive demands. The painful stimulus consisted of the standard cold pressor test and the cognitive task was a computerised perceptual maze test. The activations during the maze test reproduced findings in previous studies of the same cognitive task. The cold pressor test evoked signi®cant activity in the contralateral S1, and bilaterally in the somatosensory association areas (including S2), the ACC and the mid-insula. The activity in the somatosensory association areas and periaqueductal gray/midbrain were significantly modified, i.e. relatively decreased, when the subjects also were performing the maze task. The altered activity was accompanied with significantly lower ratings of pain during the cognitive task. In contrast, lateral orbitofrontal regions showed a relative increase of activity during pain combined with the maze task as compared to only pain, which suggests the possibility of the involvement of frontal cortex in modulation of regions processing pain

Abstract

In animals, the rhythmical properties of calls are known to be shaped by physical constraints and the necessity of conveying information. As a consequence, investigating rhythmical properties in relation to different environmental conditions can help to shed light on the relationship between environment and species behavior from an evolutionary perspective. Sciaena umbra (fam. Sciaenidae) male fish emit reproductive calls characterized by a simple isochronous, i.e., metronome-like rhythm (the so-called R-pattern). Here, S. umbra R-pattern rhythm properties were assessed and compared between four different sites located along the Mediterranean basin (Mallorca, Venice, Trieste, Crete); furthermore, for one location, two datasets collected 10 years apart were available. Recording sites differed in habitat types, vessel density and acoustic richness; despite this, S. umbra R-calls were isochronous across all locations. A degree of variability was found only when considering the beat frequency, which was temporally stable, but spatially variable, with the beat frequency being faster in one of the sites (Venice). Statistically, the beat frequency was found to be dependent on the season (i.e. month of recording) and potentially influenced by the presence of soniferous competitors and human-generated underwater noise. Overall, the general consistency in the measured rhythmical properties (isochrony and beat frequency) suggests their nature as a fitness-related trait in the context of the S. umbra reproductive behavior and calls for further evaluation as a communicative cue.

Abstract

In this study data from the first six months of 12 children s multiword speech were used to test the validity of Valian's (1991) syntactic perfor-mance-limitation account and Tomasello s (1992) verb-island account of early multiword speech with particular reference to the development of the English verb category. The results provide evidence for appropriate use of verb morphology, auxiliary verb structures, pronoun case marking, and SVO word order from quite early in development. However, they also demonstrate a great deal of lexical specificity in the children's use of these systems, evidenced by a lack of overlap in the verbs to which different morphological markers were applied, a lack of overlap in the verbs with which different auxiliary verbs were used, a disproportionate use of the first person singular nominative pronoun I, and a lack of overlap in the lexical items that served as the subjects and direct objects of transitive verbs. These findings raise problems for both a syntactic performance-limitation account and a strong verb-island account of the data and suggest the need to develop a more general lexiealist account of early multiword speech that explains why some words come to function as "islands" of organization in the child's grammar and others do not.

Abstract

This study examines online processing and offline judgments of subject-verb person agreement with a focus on how this is impacted by markedness in heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian. To this end, 54 adult HSs living in Germany and 40 homeland Italian speakers completed a self-paced reading task (SPRT) and a grammaticality judgment task (GJT). Markedness was manipulated by probing agreement with both first-person (marked) and third-person (unmarked) subjects. Agreement was manipulated by crossing first-person marked subjects with third-person unmarked verbs and vice versa. Crucially, person violations with 1st person subjects (e.g., io *suona la chitarra “I plays-3rd-person the guitar”) yielded significantly shorter RTs in the SPRT and higher accuracy in the GJT than the opposite error type (e.g., il giornalista *esco spesso “the journalist go-1st-person out often”). This effect is consistent with the claim that when the first element in the dependency is marked (first person), the parser generates stronger predictions regarding upcoming agreeing elements. These results nicely align with work from the same populations investigating the impact of morphological markedness on grammatical gender agreement, suggesting that markedness impacts agreement similarly in two distinct grammatical domains and that sensitivity to markedness is more prevalent for HSs.

Abstract

Over the last decade, there has been a slow but steady accumulation of psycholinguistic research focusing on typologically diverse languages. In this review, we provide an overview of the psycholinguistic research on Philippine languages at the sentence level. We first discuss the grammatical features of these languages that figure prominently in existing research. We identify four linguistic domains that have received attention from language researchers and summarize the empirical terrain. We advance two claims that emerge across these different domains: (a) The agent-first pressure plays a central role in many of the findings, and (b) the generalization that the patient argument is the syntactically privileged argument cannot be reduced to frequency, but instead is an emergent phenomenon caused by the alignment of competing pressures toward an optimal candidate. We connect these language-specific claims to language-general theories of sentence processing.

Abstract

In this paper hypothesis‐testing behaviour is compared to risk‐taking behaviour. It is proposed that choosing a suitable test for a given hypothesis requires making a preposterior analysis of two aspects of such a test: the probability of obtaining supporting evidence and the evidential value of this evidence. This consideration resembles the one a gambler makes when choosing among bets, each having a probability of winning and an amount to be won. A confirmatory testing strategy can be defined within this framework as a strategy directed at maximizing either the probability or the value of a confirming outcome. Previous theories on testing behaviour have focused on the human tendency to maximize the probability of a confirming outcome. In this paper, two experiments are presented in which participants tend to maximize the confirming value of the test outcome. Motivational factors enhance this tendency dependent on the context of the testing situation. Both this result and the framework are discussed in relation to other studies in the field of testing behaviour.

Abstract

Two experiments examined phonological priming effects on reaction times, error rates, and event-related brain potential (ERP) measures in an auditory lexical decision task. In Experiment 1 related prime-target pairs rhymed, and in Experiment 2 they alliterated (i.e., shared the consonantal onset and vowel). Event-related potentials were recorded in a delayed response task. Reaction times and error rates were obtained both for the delayed and an immediate response task. The behavioral data of Experiment 1 provided evidence for phonological facilitation of word, but not of nonword decisions. The brain potentials were more negative to unrelated than to rhyming word-word pairs between 450 and 700 msec after target onset. This negative enhancement was not present for word-nonword pairs. Thus, the ERP results match the behavioral data. The behavioral data of Experiment 2 provided no evidence for phonological Facilitation. However, between 250 and 450 msec after target onset, i.e., considerably earlier than in Experiment 1, brain potentials were more negative for unrelated than for alliterating word and word-nonword pairs. It is argued that the ERP effects in the two experiments could be modulations of the same underlying component, possibly the N400. The difference in the timing of the effects is likely to be due to the fact that the shared segments in related stimulus pairs appeared in different word positions in the two experiments.

Abstract

We welcome Enfield and Zuckerman’s (E&Z’s) rich exposition on how people congregate around shared representations. Moorings are a useful addition to our tools for thinking about signs and their uses. As public fixtures to which actions, statuses, and experiences may be tied, moorings evoke Geertz’s (1973) webs of significance, Millikan’s (2005) public conventions, and Clark’s (2015) common ground, but they add to these accounts a focus on the sign and the promise of understanding in more detail how people come to share and calibrate experiences.

Abstract

Purpose

To perform a scoping review to investigate the psychosocial impact of having an altered facial expression in five neurological diseases.
Methods

A systematic literature search was performed. Studies were on Bell’s palsy, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), Moebius syndrome, myotonic dystrophy type 1, or Parkinson’s disease patients; had a focus on altered facial expression; and had any form of psychosocial outcome measure. Data extraction focused on psychosocial outcomes.
Results

Bell’s palsy, myotonic dystrophy type 1, and Parkinson’s disease patients more often experienced some degree of psychosocial distress than healthy controls. In FSHD, facial weakness negatively influenced communication and was experienced as a burden. The psychosocial distress applied especially to women (Bell’s palsy and Parkinson’s disease), and patients with more severely altered facial expression (Bell’s palsy), but not for Moebius syndrome patients. Furthermore, Parkinson’s disease patients with more pronounced hypomimia were perceived more negatively by observers. Various strategies were reported to compensate for altered facial expression.
Conclusions

This review showed that patients with altered facial expression in four of five included neurological diseases had reduced psychosocial functioning. Future research recommendations include studies on observers’ judgements of patients during social interactions and on the effectiveness of compensation strategies in enhancing psychosocial functioning.
Implications for rehabilitation

Negative effects of altered facial expression on psychosocial functioning are common and more abundant in women and in more severely affected patients with various neurological disorders.

Health care professionals should be alert to psychosocial distress in patients with altered facial expression.

Learning of compensatory strategies could be a beneficial therapy for patients with psychosocial distress due to an altered facial expression.

Abstract

Hemispheric brain asymmetry is a basic organizational principle of the human brain and has been implicated in various psychiatric conditions, including autism spectrum disorder. Brain asymmetry is not a uniquely human feature and is observed in other species such as the mouse. Yet, asymmetry patterns are generally nuanced, and substantial sample sizes are required to detect these patterns. In this pre-registered study, we use a mouse dataset from the Province of Ontario Neurodevelopmental Network, which comprises structural MRI data from over 2000 mice, including genetic models for autism spectrum disorder, to reveal the scope and magnitude of hemispheric asymmetry in the mouse. Our findings demonstrate the presence of robust hemispheric asymmetry in the mouse brain, such as larger right hemispheric volumes towards the anterior pole and larger left hemispheric volumes toward the posterior pole, opposite to what has been shown in humans. This suggests the existence of species-specific traits. Further clustering analysis identified distinct asymmetry patterns in autism spectrum disorder models, a phenomenon that is also seen in atypically developing participants. Our study shows potential for the use of mouse models in studying the biological bases of typical and atypical brain asymmetry but also warrants caution as asymmetry patterns seem to differ between humans and mice.

Abstract

In a recent series of papers, Caramazza and Miozzo [Caramazza, A., 1997. How many levels of processing are there in lexical access? Cognitive Neuropsychology 14, 177-208; Caramazza, A., Miozzo, M., 1997. The relation between syntactic and phonological knowledge in lexical access: evidence from the 'tip-of-the-tongue' phenomenon. Cognition 64, 309-343; Miozzo, M., Caramazza, A., 1997. On knowing the auxiliary of a verb that cannot be named: evidence for the independence of grammatical and phonological aspects of lexical knowledge. Journal of Cognitive Neuropsychology 9, 160-166] argued against the lemma/lexeme distinction made in many models of lexical access in speaking, including our network model [Roelofs, A., 1992. A spreading-activation theory of lemma retrieval in speaking. Cognition 42, 107-142; Levelt, W.J.M., Roelofs, A., Meyer, A.S., 1998. A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, (in press)]. Their case was based on the observations that grammatical class deficits of brain-damaged patients and semantic errors may be restricted to either spoken or written forms and that the grammatical gender of a word and information about its form can be independently available in tip-of-the-tongue stales (TOTs). In this paper, we argue that though our model is about speaking, not taking position on writing, extensions to writing are possible that are compatible with the evidence from aphasia and speech errors. Furthermore, our model does not predict a dependency between gender and form retrieval in TOTs. Finally, we argue that Caramazza and Miozzo have not accounted for important parts of the evidence motivating the lemma/lexeme distinction, such as word frequency effects in homophone production, the strict ordering of gender and pho neme access in LRP data, and the chronometric and speech error evidence for the production of complex morphology.

Abstract

According to most models of speech production, the planning of spoken words involves the independent retrieval of segments and metrical frames followed by segment-to-frame association. In some models, the metrical frame includes a specification of the number and ordering of consonants and vowels, but in the word-form encoding by activation and verification (WEAVER) model (A. Roelofs, 1997), the frame specifies only the stress pattern across syllables. In 6 implicit priming experiments, on each trial, participants produced 1 word out of a small set as quickly as possible. In homogeneous sets, the response words shared word-initial segments, whereas in heterogeneous sets, they did not. Priming effects from shared segments depended on all response words having the same number of syllables and stress pattern, but not on their having the same number of consonants and vowels. No priming occurred when the response words had only the same metrical frame but shared no segments. Computer simulations demonstrated that WEAVER accounts for the findings.

Abstract

This article reports 7 experiments investigating whether utterances are planned in a parallel or rightward incremental fashion during language production. The experiments examined the role of linear order, length, frequency, and repetition in producing Dutch verb–particle combinations. On each trial, participants produced 1 utterance out of a set of 3 as quickly as possible. The responses shared part of their form or not. For particle-initial infinitives, facilitation was obtained when the responses shared the particle but not when they shared the verb. For verb-initial imperatives, however, facilitation was obtained for the verbs but not for the particles. The facilitation increased with length, decreased with frequency, and was independent of repetition. A simple rightward incremental model accounts quantitatively for the results.

Abstract

It has been shown that when speakers produce hand gestures, addressees are attentive towards these gestures, using them to facilitate speech processing. Even relatively simple “beat” gestures are taken into account to help process aspects of speech such as prosodic prominence. In fact, recent evidence suggests that the timing of a beat gesture can influence spoken word recognition. Termed the manual McGurk Effect, Dutch participants, when presented with lexical stress minimal pair continua in Dutch, were biased to hear lexical stress on the syllable that coincided with a beat gesture. However, little is known about how this manual McGurk effect would surface in languages other than Dutch, with different acoustic cues to prominence, and variable gestures. Therefore, this study tests the effect in Spanish where lexical stress is arguably even more important, being a contrastive cue in the regular verb conjugation system. Results from 24 participants corroborate the effect in Spanish, namely that when given the same auditory stimulus, participants were biased to perceive lexical stress on the syllable that visually co-occurred with a beat gesture. These findings extend the manual McGurk effect to a different language, emphasizing the impact of gestures' timing on prosody perception and spoken word recognition.

Abstract

Recent research on multimodal language production has revealed that prominence in speech and gesture go hand-in-hand. Specifically, peaks in gesture (i.e., the apex) seem to closely coordinate with peaks in fundamental frequency (F0). The nature of this relationship may also be bi-directional, as it has also been shown that the production of gesture directly affects speech acoustics. However, most studies on the topic have largely focused on stress-based languages, where fundamental frequency has a prominence-lending function. Less work has been carried out on lexical tone languages such as Mandarin, where F0 is lexically distinctive. In this study, four native Mandarin speakers were asked to produce single monosyllabic CV words, taken from minimal lexical tone triplets (e.g., /pi1/, /pi2/, /pi3/), either with or without a beat gesture. Our analyses of the timing of the gestures showed that the gesture apex most stably occurred near vowel onset, with consonantal duration being the strongest predictor of apex placement. Acoustic analyses revealed that words produced with gesture showed raised F0 contours, greater intensity, and shorter durations. These findings further our understanding of gesture-speech alignment in typologically diverse languages, and add to the discussion about multimodal prominence.

Abstract

Studies investigating language commonly isolate one modality or process, focusing on comprehension or production. Here, we present a framework for a paradigm that combines both: the Concise Language Paradigm (CLaP), tapping into comprehension and production within one trial. The trial structure is identical across conditions, presenting a sentence followed by a picture to be named. We tested 21 healthy speakers with EEG to examine three time periods during a trial (sentence, pre-picture interval, picture onset), yielding contrasts of sentence comprehension, contextually and visually guided word retrieval, object recognition, and naming. In the CLaP, sentences are presented auditorily (constrained, unconstrained, reversed), and pictures appear as normal (constrained, unconstrained, bare) or scrambled objects. Imaging results revealed different evoked responses after sentence onset for normal and time-reversed speech. Further, we replicated the context effect of alpha-beta power decreases before picture onset for constrained relative to unconstrained sentences, and could clarify that this effect arises from power decreases following constrained sentences. Brain responses locked to picture-onset differed as a function of sentence context and picture type (normal vs. scrambled), and naming times were fastest for pictures in constrained sentences, followed by scrambled picture naming, and equally fast for bare and unconstrained picture naming. Finally, we also discuss the potential of the CLaP to be adapted to different focuses, using different versions of the linguistic content and tasks, in combination with electrophysiology or other imaging methods. These first results of the CLaP indicate that this paradigm offers a promising framework to investigate the language system.

Abstract

The present paper reports an analysis of correct wh-question production and subject–auxiliary inversion errors in one child's early wh-question data (age 2; 3.4 to 4; 10.23). It is argued that two current movement rule accounts (DeVilliers, 1991; Valian, Lasser & Mandelbaum, 1992) cannot explain the patterning of early wh-questions. However, the data can be explained in terms of the child's knowledge of particular lexically-specific wh-word+auxiliary combinations, and the pattern of inversion and uninversion predicted from the relative frequencies of these combinations in the mother's speech. The results support the claim that correctly inverted wh-questions can be produced without access to a subject–auxiliary inversion rule and are consistent with the constructivist claim that a distributional learning mechanism that learns and reproduces lexically-specific formulae heard in the input can explain much of the early multi-word speech data. The implications of these results for movement rule-based and constructivist theories of grammatical development are discussed.

Abstract

Recent studies of wh-question acquisition have tended to come from the nativist side of the language acquisition debate with little input from a constructivist perspective. The present work was designed to redress the balance, first by presenting a detailed description of young children's wh-question acquisition data, second, by providing detailed critiques of two nativist theories of wh- question acquisition, and third, by presenting a preliminary account of young children's wh-question development from a constructivist perspective. Analyses of the data from twelve 2 to 3 year old children collected over a year and of data from an older child (Adam from the Brown corpus, 1973) are described and three conclusions are drawn. First it is argued that the data suggest that children's knowledge of how to form wh-questions builds up gradually as they learn how to combine lexical items such as wh-words and auxiliaries in specific ways. Second, it is concluded that two nativist theories of grammatical development (Radford, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1996, Valian, Lasser & Mandelbaum, 1992) fail to account successfully for the wh-question data produced by the children. Third, it is asserted that the lexically-specific nature of children's early wh-questions is compatible with a lexical constructivist view of development, which proposes that the language learning mechanism learns by picking up high frequency lexical patterns from the input. The implications of these conclusions for theories of language development and future research are discussed.

Abstract

A strong predictor of children's language is performance on non-word repetition (NWR) tasks. However, the basis of this relationship remains unknown. Some suggest that NWR tasks measure phonological working memory, which then affects language growth. Others argue that children's knowledge of language/language experience affects NWR performance. A complicating factor is that most studies focus on school-aged children, who have already mastered key language skills. Here, we present a new NWR task for English-learning 2-year-olds, use it to assess the effect of NWR performance on concurrent and later vocabulary development, and compare the children's performance with that of an experience-based computational model (CLASSIC). The new NWR task produced reliable results; replicating wordlikeness effects, word-length effects, and the relationship with concurrent and later language ability we see in older children. The model also simulated all effects, suggesting that the relationship between vocabulary and NWR performance can be explained by language experience-/knowledge-based theories.

Abstract

Although it is well established that self-related information can rapidly capture our attention and bias cognitive functioning, whether this self-bias can affect language processing remains largely unknown. In addition, there is an ongoing debate as to the functional independence of language processes, notably regarding the syntactic domain. Hence, this study investigated the influence of self-related content on syntactic speech processing. Participants listened to sentences that could contain morphosyntactic anomalies while the masked face identity (self, friend, or unknown faces) was presented for 16 msec preceding the critical word. The language-related ERP components (left anterior negativity [LAN] and P600) appeared for all identity conditions. However, the largest LAN effect followed by a reduced P600 effect was observed for self-faces, whereas a larger LAN with no reduction of the P600 was found for friend faces compared with unknown faces. These data suggest that both early and late syntactic processes can be modulated by self-related content. In addition, alpha power was more suppressed over the left inferior frontal gyrus only when self-faces appeared before the critical word. This may reflect higher semantic demands concomitant to early syntactic operations (around 150–550 msec). Our data also provide further evidence of self-specific response, as reflected by the N250 component. Collectively, our results suggest that identity-related information is rapidly decoded from facial stimuli and may impact core linguistic processes, supporting an interactive view of syntactic processing. This study provides evidence that the self-reference effect can be extended to syntactic processing.

Abstract

Language and social cognition come together in communication, but their relation has been intensely contested. Here, I argue that these two distinctively human abilities are connected in a positive feedback loop, whereby the development of one cognitive skill boosts the development of the other. More specifically, I hypothesize that language and social cognition codevelop in ontogeny and coevolve in diachrony through the acquisition, mature use, and cultural evolution of reference systems (e.g., demonstratives: “this” vs. “that”; articles: “a” vs. “the”; pronouns: “I” vs. “you”). I propose to study the connection between reference systems and communicative social cognition across three parallel timescales—language acquisition, language use, and language change, as a new research program for cultural evolutionary pragmatics. Within that framework, I discuss the coevolution of language and communicative social cognition as cognitive gadgets, and introduce a new methodological approach to study how universals and cross-linguistic differences in reference systems may result in different developmental pathways to human social cognition.

Abstract

We investigated the relationship between visual experience and pragmatic development by testing the socio-communicative skills of a unique population: the Prakash children of India, who received treatment for congenital cataracts after years of visual deprivation. Using two different referential communication tasks, our study investigated Prakash' children ability to produce sufficiently informative referential expressions (e.g., ‘the green pear' or ‘the small plate') and pay attention to their interlocutor's face during the task (Experiment 1), as well as their ability to recognize a speaker's referential intent through non-verbal cues such as head turning and pointing (Experiment 2). Our results show that Prakash children have strong pragmatic skills, but do not look at their interlocutor's face as often as neurotypical children do. However, longitudinal analyses revealed an increase in face fixations, suggesting that over time, Prakash children come to utilize their improved visual skills for efficient referential communication.