Publications

Abstract

At present, more than one-fifth of humanity is unable to read and write. We critically examine experimental evidence and theories of how (il)literacy affects the human mind. In our discussion we show that literacy has significant cognitive consequences that go beyond the processing of written words and sentences. Thus, cultural inventions such as reading shape general cognitive processing in non-trivial ways. We suggest that this has important implications for educational policy and guidance as well as research into cognitive processing and brain functioning.

Abstract

Stimulus-related changes in cerebral blood oxygenation were measured using high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging sequentially covering visual occipital areas in contiguous sections. During dynamic imaging, healthy subjects silently viewed pseudowords, single false fonts, or length-matched strings of the same false fonts. The paradigm consisted of a sixfold alternation of an activation and a control task. With pseudowords as activation vs single false fonts as control, responses were seen mainly in medial occipital cortex. These responses disappeared when pseudowords were alternated with false font strings as the control and reappeared when false font strings instead of pseudowords served as activation and were alternated with single false fonts. The string-length contrast alone, therefore, is sufficient to account for the activation pattern observed in medial visual cortex when word-like stimuli are contrasted with single characters.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss an inherent difficulty of PET (and fMRI) research in language production. On the one hand, language production presupposes some degree of freedom for the subject, on the other hand, interpretability of results presupposes restrictions of this freedom. This difficulty is reflected in the existing PET literature in some neglect of the general principle to design experiments in such a way that the results do not allow for alternative interpretations. It is argued that by narrowing down the scope of experiments a gain in interpretability can be achieved.

Abstract

Clahsen's characterization of nondefault inflection as based exclusively on lexical entries does not capture the full range of empirical data on German inflection. In the verb system differential effects of lexical frequency seem to be input-related rather than affecting morphological production. In the noun system, the generalization properties of -n and -e plurals exceed mere analogy-based productivity.

Abstract

Hickok's enterprise to unify psycholinguistic and motor control models is highly stimulating. Nonetheless, there are problems of the model with respect to the time course of neural activation in word production, the flexibility for continuous speech, and the need for non-motor feedback.

Abstract

Many older listeners report difficulties in understanding speech in noisy situations. Working memory and other cognitive skills may modulate, however, older listeners’ ability to use context information to alleviate the effects of noise on spoken-word recognition. In the present study, we investigated whether working memory predicts older adults’ ability to immediately use context information in the recognition of words embedded in sentences, presented in different listening conditions. In a phoneme-monitoring task, older adults were asked to detect as fast and as accurately as possible target phonemes in sentences spoken by a target speaker. Target speech was presented without noise, with fluctuating speech-shaped noise, or with competing speech from a single distractor speaker. The gradient measure of contextual probability (derived from a separate offline rating study) mainly affected the speed of recognition, with only a marginal effect on detection accuracy. Contextual facilitation was modulated by older listeners’ working memory and age across listening conditions. Working memory and age, as well as hearing loss, were also the most consistent predictors of overall listening performance. Older listeners’ immediate benefit from context in spoken-word recognition thus relates to their ability to keep and update a semantic representation of the sentence content in working memory.

Abstract

Visual cues to the individual segments of speech and to sentence prosody guide speech recognition. The present study tested whether visual suprasegmental cues to the stress patterns of words can also constrain recognition. Dutch listeners use acoustic suprasegmental cues to lexical stress (changes in duration, amplitude, and pitch) in spoken-word recognition. We asked here whether they can also use visual suprasegmental cues. In two categorization experiments, Dutch participants saw a speaker say fragments of word pairs that were segmentally identical but differed in their stress realization (e.g., 'ca-vi from cavia "guinea pig" vs. 'ka-vi from kaviaar "caviar"). Participants were able to distinguish between these pairs from seeing a speaker alone. Only the presence of primary stress in the fragment, not its absence, was informative. Participants were able to distinguish visually primary from secondary stress on first syllables, but only when the fragment-bearing target word carried phrase-level emphasis. Furthermore, participants distinguished fragments with primary stress on their second syllable from those with secondary stress on their first syllable (e.g., pro-'jec from projector "projector" vs. 'pro-jec from projectiel "projectile"), independently of phrase-level emphasis. Seeing a speaker thus contributes to spoken-word recognition by providing suprasegmental information about the presence of primary lexical stress.

Abstract

The present paper describes the development of the languagesindanger.eu interactive website as an example of including multimedia language resources to disseminate knowledge and create educational material on less-resourced languages. The website is a product of INNET (Innovative networking in infrastructure for endangered languages), European FP7 project. Its main functions can be summarized as related to the three following areas: (1) raising students' awareness of language endangerment and arouse their interest in linguistic diversity, language maintenance and language documentation; (2) informing both students and teachers about these topics and show ways how they can enlarge their knowledge further with a special emphasis on information about language archives; (3) helping teachers include these topics into their classes. The website has been localized into five language versions with the intention to be accessible to both scientific and non-scientific communities such as (primarily) secondary school teachers and students, beginning university students of linguistics, journalists, the interested public, and also members of speech communities who speak minority languages

Abstract

Recent behavioral and electrophysiological evidence has highlighted the long-term importance for language skills of an early ability to recognize words in continuous speech. We here present further tests of this long-term link in the form of follow-up studies conducted with two (separate) groups of infants who had earlier participated in speech segmentation tasks. Each study extends prior follow-up tests: Study 1 by using a novel follow-up measure that taps into online processing, Study 2 by assessing language performance relationships over a longer time span than previously tested. Results of Study 1 show that brain correlates of speech segmentation ability at 10 months are positively related to 16-month-olds’ target fixations in a looking-while-listening task. Results of Study 2 show that infant speech segmentation ability no longer directly predicts language profiles at the age of five. However, a meta-analysis across our results and those of similar studies (Study 3) reveals that age at follow-up does not moderate effect size. Together, the results suggest that infants’ ability to recognize words in speech certainly benefits early vocabulary development; further observed relationships of later language skills to early word recognition may be consequent upon this vocabulary size effect.

Abstract

Most words that infants hear occur within fluent speech. To compile a vocabulary, infants therefore need to segment words from speech contexts. This study is the first to investigate whether infants (here: 10-month-olds) can recognize words when both initial exposure and test presentation are in continuous speech. Electrophysiological evidence attests that this indeed occurs: An increased extended negativity (word recognition effect) appears for familiarized target words relative to control words. This response proved constant at the individual level: Only infants who showed this negativity at test had shown such a response, within six repetitions after first occurrence, during familiarization.

Abstract

The relocation of animals can induce stress when animals are placed in novel environmental conditions. The movement of captive animals among facilities is common, especially for non-human primates used in research. The stress response begins with the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis which results in the release of glucocorticoid hormones (GC), which at chronic levels could lead to deleterious physiological effects. There is a substantial body of data concerning GC levels affecting reproduction, and rank and aggression in primates. However, the effect of transport has received much less attention. Fecal samples from eight (four male and four female) captive-bred cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) were collected at four different time points (two pre-transport and two post-transport). The fecal samples were analyzed using an immunoassay to determine GC levels. A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) demonstrated that GC levels differed among transport times (p = 0.009), but not between sexes (p = 0.963). Five of the eight tamarins exhibited an increase in GC levels after transport. Seven of the eight tamarins exhibited a decrease in GC levels from three to six days post-transport to three weeks post-transport. Most values returned to pre-transport levels after three weeks. The results indicate that these tamarins experienced elevated GC levels following transport, but these increases were of short duration. This outcome would suggest that the negative effects of elevated GC levels were also of short duration.

Abstract

One of the major challenges in acquiring a language is being able to use morphology as an adult would, and thus, a considerable amount of acquisition research has focused on morphological production and comprehension. Most of this research, however, has focused on the acquisition of morphology in isolating languages, or languages (such as English) with limited inflectional morphology. The nature of the learning task is different, and potentially more challenging, when the child is learning a polysynthetic language – a language in which words are highly morphologically complex, expressing in a single word what in English takes a multi-word clause. To date, there has been no cross-linguistic survey of how children approach this puzzle and learn polysynthetic languages. This paper aims to provide such a survey, including a discussion of some of the general findings in the literature regarding the acquisition of polysynthetic systems

Abstract

We hypothesized that bone resorption acts to increase bone strength through stimulation of periosteal expansion. Hence, we examined whether bone resorption, as reflected by serum β-C-telopeptides of type I collagen (CTX), is positively associated with periosteal circumference (PC), in contrast to inverse associations with parameters related to bone remodeling such as cortical bone mineral density (BMDC ). CTX and mid-tibial peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) scans were available in 1130 adolescents (mean age 15.5 years) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Analyses were adjusted for age, gender, time of sampling, tanner stage, lean mass, fat mass, and height. CTX was positively related to PC (β=0.19 [0.13, 0.24]) (coefficient=SD change per SD increase in CTX, 95% confidence interval)] but inversely associated with BMDC (β=-0.46 [-0.52,-0.40]) and cortical thickness [β=-0.11 (-0.18, -0.03)]. CTX was positively related to bone strength as reflected by the strength-strain index (SSI) (β=0.09 [0.03, 0.14]). To examine the causal nature of this relationship, we then analyzed whether single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within key osteoclast regulatory genes, known to reduce areal/cortical BMD, conversely increase PC. Fifteen such genetic variants within or proximal to genes encoding receptor activator of NF-κB (RANK), RANK ligand (RANKL), and osteoprotegerin (OPG) were identified by literature search. Six of the 15 alleles that were inversely related to BMD were positively related to CTX (p<}0.05 cut-off) (n=2379). Subsequently, we performed a meta-analysis of associations between these SNPs and PC in ALSPAC (n=3382), Gothenburg Osteoporosis and Obesity Determinants (GOOD) (n=938), and the Young Finns Study (YFS) (n=1558). Five of the 15 alleles that were inversely related to BMD were positively related to PC (p{<0.05 cut-off). We conclude that despite having lower BMD, individuals with a genetic predisposition to higher bone resorption have greater bone size, suggesting that higher bone resorption is permissive for greater periosteal expansion.

Abstract

Heritability of bone mineral density (BMD) varies across skeletal sites, reflecting different relative contributions of genetic and environmental influences. To quantify the degree to which common genetic variants tag and environmental factors influence BMD, at different sites, we estimated the genetic (rg) and residual (re) correlations between BMD measured at the upper limbs (UL-BMD), lower limbs (LL-BMD) and skull (SK-BMD), using total-body DXA scans of ∼ 4,890 participants recruited by the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and their Children (ALSPAC). Point estimates of rg indicated that appendicular sites have a greater proportion of shared genetic architecture (LL-/UL-BMD rg = 0.78) between them, than with the skull (UL-/SK-BMD rg = 0.58 and LL-/SK-BMD rg = 0.43). Likewise, the residual correlation between BMD at appendicular sites (r(e) = 0.55) was higher than the residual correlation between SK-BMD and BMD at appendicular sites (r(e) = 0.20-0.24). To explore the basis for the observed differences in rg and re, genome-wide association meta-analyses were performed (n ∼ 9,395), combining data from ALSPAC and the Generation R Study identifying 15 independent signals from 13 loci associated at genome-wide significant level across different skeletal regions. Results suggested that previously identified BMD-associated variants may exert site-specific effects (i.e. differ in the strength of their association and magnitude of effect across different skeletal sites). In particular, variants at CPED1 exerted a larger influence on SK-BMD and UL-BMD when compared to LL-BMD (P = 2.01 × 10(-37)), whilst variants at WNT16 influenced UL-BMD to a greater degree when compared to SK- and LL-BMD (P = 2.31 × 10(-14)). In addition, we report a novel association between RIN3 (previously associated with Paget's disease) and LL-BMD (rs754388: β = 0.13, SE = 0.02, P = 1.4 × 10(-10)). Our results suggest that BMD at different skeletal sites is under a mixture of shared and specific genetic and environmental influences. Allowing for these differences by performing genome-wide association at different skeletal sites may help uncover new genetic influences on BMD.

Abstract

Human speakers often produce sentences incrementally. They can start speaking having in mind only a fragmentary idea of what they want to say, and while saying this they refine the contents underlying subsequent parts of the utterance. This capability imposes a number of constraints on the design of a syntactic processor. This paper explores these constraints and evaluates some recent computational sentence generators from the perspective of incremental production.

Abstract

The study develops a neurocomputational architecture for grammatical processing in language production and language comprehension (grammatical encoding and decoding, respectively). It seeks to answer two questions. First, how is online syntactic structure formation of the complexity required by natural-language grammars possible in a fixed, preexisting neural network without the need for online creation of new connections or associations? Second, is it realistic to assume that the seemingly disparate instantiations of syntactic structure formation in grammatical encoding and grammatical decoding can run on the same neural infrastructure? This issue is prompted by accumulating experimental evidence for the hypothesis that the mechanisms for grammatical decoding overlap with those for grammatical encoding to a considerable extent, thus inviting the hypothesis of a single “grammatical coder.” The paper answers both questions by providing the blueprint for a syntactic structure formation mechanism that is entirely based on prewired circuitry (except for referential processing, which relies on the rapid learning capacity of the hippocampal complex), and can subserve decoding as well as encoding tasks. The model builds on the “Unification Space” model of syntactic parsing developed by Vosse & Kempen (2000, 2008, 2009). The design includes a neurocomputational mechanism for the treatment of an important class of grammatical movement phenomena.

Abstract

[Seven one-page psycholinguistic sketches]

Abstract

Requesting and offering are closely related, insofar as they are activities associated with someone’s need for assistance. It has been supposed (e.g., Schegloff 2007) that requests and offers are not equivalent actions – specifically that offers are preferred actions and requests are dispreferred. We review the evidence for this claim across a corpus of requests and offers and demonstrate that the empirical evidence does not support the claim for a putative preference for offers over requests. Further consideration of the often symbiotic relationships between requesting and offering, particularly in face-to-face interactions, reveals a more complex picture of the ways in which people recruit others to help, or in which others are mobilized to help.

Abstract

For real-time and embedded systems, limiting the consumption of time and memory resources is often an important part of the requirements. Being able to predict bounds on the consumption of such resources during the development process of the code can be of great value. In this paper, we focus mainly on memory-related bounds. Recent research results have advanced the state of the art of resource consumption analysis. In this paper, we present a toolset that makes it possible to apply these research results in practice for (real-time) systems enabling JAVA developers to analyse symbolic loop bounds, symbolic bounds on heap size and both symbolic and numeric bounds on stack size. We describe which theoretical additions were needed in order to achieve this. We give an overview of the capabilities of the RESANA (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands) toolset that is the result of this effort. The toolset can not only perform generally applicable analyses, but it also contains a part of the analysis that is dedicated to the developers' (real-time) virtual machine, such that the results apply directly to the actual development environment that is used in practice

Abstract

Since Battison (1978), it has been noted in many signed languages that the Symmetry Condition constrains the form of two-handed signs in which two hands move independently. The Condition states that the form features (e.g., the handshapes and movements) of the two hands are 'symmetrical'. The Symmetry Condition has been regarded in the literature as a part of signed language phonology. In this study, we examine the linguistic status of the Symmetry Condition by comparing the degree of symmetry in signs from Sign Language of the Netherlands and speech-accompanying representational gestures produced by Dutch speakers. Like signed language, such gestures use hand movements to express concepts, but they do not constitute a linguistic system in their own right. We found that the Symmetry Condition holds equally well for signs and spontaneous gestures. This indicates that this condition is a general cognitive constraint, rather than a constraint specific to language. We suggest that the Symmetry Condition is a manifestation of the mind having one active 'mental articulator' when expressing a concept with hand movements

Abstract

The VALID Data Archive is an open multimedia data archive (under construction) with data from speakers suffering from language impairments. We report on a pilot project in the CLARIN-NL framework in which five data resources were curated. For all data sets concerned, written informed consent from the participants or their caretakers has been obtained. All materials were anonymized. The audio files were converted into wav (linear PCM) files and the transcriptions into CHAT or ELAN format. Research data that consisted of test, SPSS and Excel files were documented and converted into CSV files. All data sets obtained appropriate CMDI metadata files. A new CMDI metadata profile for this type of data resources was established and care was taken that ISOcat metadata categories were used to optimize interoperability. After curation all data are deposited at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen where persistent identifiers are linked to all resources. The content of the transcriptions in CHAT and plain text format can be searched with the TROVA search engine

Abstract

In the first, critical part of this study, a small sample of simple German sentences with their empirically determined pitch contours is used to demonstrate the incorrectness of numerous currently hold views of German sentence intonation. In the second, more constructive part, several interrogative sentence types are analysed and an attempt is made to show that intonation, besides other functions, indicates the permantently changing 'thematic score' in on-going discourse as well as certain validity claims.

Abstract

Tense is traditionally assumed to express temporal relations between the time of the event and the moment of speech, whereas aspect expresses various views on one and the same event. In Klein (1994), it was argued that the intuitions which underlie this viewing metaphor can be made precise by a time-relational analysis as well. In his article “Aspect vs. relative tense: the case reopened”, Jürgen Bohnemeyer challenges one important point of this analysis, the equation of aspect and relative tense in the English perfect and in temporal forms of few other languages. In the present comment, it is argued that this is indeed a simplification, which does not speak, however, against a time-relational analysis of aspect in general. The main lines of such an analysis for the English perfect are sketched. It is shown that it naturally accounts for differences between the simple past and the present perfect, as well as for the oddity of constructions such as Einstein has visited Princeton or Ira has left yesterday at five.

Abstract

Nobel's legacy, or the metamorphosis of what is idealistic Ever since the first Nobel prize in literature was awarded to Prudhomme in 1901, the decisions of the Swedish Academy have been subject to criticism. What is surprising in the changing decision policy as well as in its criticism is the fact that Alfred Nobel's original intentions are hardly ever taken into account: the Nobel prize is a philanthropic prize, it is not meant to select and honour the most eminent literary work but the work with maximal benefit to human beings. What is even more surprising is the fact that no one seems to care that the donator's Last Will is regularly broken.

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the implications of the fact that adult second language learners (outside the classroom) universally develop a well-structured, efficient and simple form of language–the Basic Variety (BV). Three questions are asked as to (1) the structural properties of the BV, (2) the status of these properties and (3) why some structural properties of ‘fully fledged’ languages are more complex. First, we characterize the BV in four respects: its lexical repertoire, the principles according to which utterances are structured, and temporality and spatiality expressed. The organizational principles proposed are small in number, and interact. We analyse this interaction, describing how the BV is put to use in various complex verbal tasks, in order to establish both what its communicative potentialities are, and also those discourse contexts where the constraints come into conflict and where the variety breaks down. This latter phenomenon provides a partial answer to the third question,concerning the relative complexity of ‘fully fledged’ languages–they have devices to deal with such cases. As for the second question, it is argued firstly that the empirically established continuity of the adult acquisition process precludes any assignment of the BV to a mode of linguistic expression (e.g., ‘protolanguage’) distinct from that of ‘fully fledged’ languages and, moreover, that the organizational constraints of the BV belong to the core attributes of the human language capacity, whereas a number of complexifications not attested in the BV are less central properties of this capacity. Finally, it is shown that the notion of feature strength, as used in recent versions of Generative Grammar, allows a straightforward characterization of the BV as a special case of an I-language, in the sense of this theory. Under this perspective, the acquisition of an Ilanguage beyond the BV can essentially be described as a change in feature strength.

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

Recently, the Max Planck Society founded a new Project group for Psycholinguistics. This article reviews some of the kernel issues of the group's research program. The central concern is with the context dependency of the speaker's linguistic behavior. The process of linguistically formulating depends not only on what the speaker wants to express, but also on what has been said previously (linguistic context), and on the physical and social situation (nonlinguistic context). Special attention is paid to two context-dependent phenomena.

Abstract

The vocal development of cranes (Gruidae) has attracted scientific interest due to a
special stage, so-called voice breaking. During voice breaking, chicks produce both
adult low-frequency and juvenile high-frequency vocalizations. The triggers that affect voice breaking are unknown. For the first time, we study the vocal development of the Demoiselle Crane (Anthropoides virgo). We describe the age and possible drivers of
the onset of voice breaking. We analyse the calls of 21 Demoiselle Crane chicks, and
compare them with the calls of six adult birds, noting the day when adult low-frequency calls are first recorded as the day when voice breaking begins. The age of voice
breaking onset does not depend on hatching date, clutch order or chick body mass. Thus, there is no correlation between body growth and the onset of voice breaking for individual Demoiselle Crane chicks. However, there is a strong relationship between body mass and voice breaking among different crane species. Demoiselle Cranes stop intense body growth at the age of 2 months and start voice breaking at 70 ^ 46 days. By way of comparison, Red-crowned Cranes finish the period of intense body growth at the age of 7 months and start voice breaking at 211 ^ 60 days. Thus, we show that the Demoiselle Crane has a sudden vocal development, similar to other crane species, and we suggest that the end of intense body growth is the trigger for the onset of voice breaking in cranes.

Abstract

The direction of object enumeration reflects children’s enculturation but previous work on the development of such spatial preferences has been inconsistent. Therefore, we documented directional preferences in finger counting, object counting, and picture naming for children (4 groups from 3 to 6 years, N = 104) and adults (N = 56). We found a right-side preference for finger counting in 3- to 6-year-olds and a left-side preference for counting objects and naming pictures by 6 years of age. Children were consistent in their special preferences when comparing object counting and picture naming, but not in other task pairings. Finally, spatial preferences were not related to cardinality comprehension. These results, together with other recent work, suggest a gradual development of spatial-numerical associations from early non-directional mappings into culturally constrained directional mappings.