Publications

Abstract

Literacy affects many aspects of cognitive and linguistic processing. Among them, it increases the salience of words as units of linguistic processing. Here, we explored the impact of literacy acquisition on children’s learning of an artifical language. Recent accounts of L1–L2 differences relate adults’ greater difficulty with language learning to their smaller reliance on multiword units. In particular, multiword units are claimed to be beneficial for learning opaque grammatical relations like grammatical gender. Since literacy impacts the reliance on words as units of processing, we ask if and how acquiring literacy may change children’s language-learning results. We looked at children’s success in learning novel noun labels relative to their success in learning article-noun gender agreement, before and after learning to read. We found that preliterate first graders were better at learning agreement (larger units) than at learning nouns (smaller units), and that the difference between the two trial types significantly decreased after these children acquired literacy. In contrast, literate third graders were as good in both trial types. These findings suggest that literacy affects not only language processing, but also leads to important differences in language learning. They support the idea that some of children’s advantage in language learning comes from their previous knowledge and experience with language—and specifically, their lack of experience with written texts.

Abstract

Objective
The aim was to assess whether loci associated with metabolic traits also have a significant role in BMI and mental traits/disorders
Methods
We first assessed the number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with genome-wide significance for human metabolism (NHGRI-EBI Catalog). These 516 SNPs (216 independent loci) were looked-up in genome-wide association studies for association with body mass index (BMI) and the mental traits/disorders educational attainment, neuroticism, schizophrenia, well-being, anxiety, depressive symptoms, major depressive disorder, autism-spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Alzheimer's disease, bipolar disorder, aggressive behavior, and internalizing problems. A strict significance threshold of p < 6.92 × 10−6 was based on the correction for 516 SNPs and all 14 phenotypes, a second less conservative threshold (p < 9.69 × 10−5) on the correction for the 516 SNPs only.
Results
19 SNPs located in nine independent loci revealed p-values < 6.92 × 10−6; the less strict criterion was met by 41 SNPs in 24 independent loci. BMI and schizophrenia showed the most pronounced genetic overlap with human metabolism with three loci each meeting the strict significance threshold. Overall, genetic variation associated with estimated glomerular filtration rate showed up frequently; single metabolite SNPs were associated with more than one phenotype. Replications in independent samples were obtained for BMI and educational attainment.
Conclusions
Approximately 5–10% of the regions involved in the regulation of blood/urine metabolite levels seem to also play a role in BMI and mental traits/disorders and related phenotypes. If validated in metabolomic studies of the respective phenotypes, the associated blood/urine metabolites may enable novel preventive and therapeutic strategies.

Abstract

We advance the hypothesis here that the higher-than-average vocal pitch (FO) found for speech of Broca's aphasics in experimental settings is due, in part, to increased psychological stress. Two experiments were conducted which manipulated conversational constraints and the sentence forms to be produced by aphasic patients. Our study revealed significant differences between changes in vocal pitch of agrammatic Broca's aphasics versus those of Wernicke's aphasics and normal controls. It is suggested that the greater psychological stress experienced by the Broca's aphasics, but not by the Wernicke's aphasics, accounts for these observed differences.

Abstract

Background
Autism and different neurodevelopmental conditions frequently co-occur, as do their symptoms at sub-diagnostic threshold levels. Overlapping traits and shared genetic liability are potential explanations.

Methods
In the population-based Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort study (MoBa), we leverage item-level data to explore the phenotypic factor structure and genetic architecture underlying neurodevelopmental traits at age 3 years (N = 41,708–58,630) using maternal reports on 76 items assessing children’s motor and language development, social functioning, communication, attention, activity regulation, and flexibility of behaviors and interests.

Results
We identified 11 latent factors at the phenotypic level. These factors showed associations with diagnoses of autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions. Most shared genetic liabilities with autism, ADHD, and/or schizophrenia. Item-level GWAS revealed trait-specific genetic correlations with autism (items rg range = − 0.27–0.78), ADHD (items rg range = − 0.40–1), and schizophrenia (items rg range = − 0.24–0.34). We find little evidence of common genetic liability across all neurodevelopmental traits but more so for several genetic factors across more specific areas of neurodevelopment, particularly social and communication traits. Some of these factors, such as one capturing prosocial behavior, overlap with factors found in the phenotypic analyses. Other areas, such as motor development, seemed to have more heterogenous etiology, with specific traits showing a less consistent pattern of genetic correlations with each other.

Conclusions
These exploratory findings emphasize the etiological complexity of neurodevelopmental traits at this early age. In particular, diverse associations with neurodevelopmental conditions and genetic heterogeneity could inform follow-up work to identify shared and differentiating factors in the early manifestations of neurodevelopmental traits and their relation to autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions. This in turn could have implications for clinical screening tools and programs.

Abstract

In the present electroencephalographical study, we asked to which extent executive control processes are shared by both the language and motor domain. The rationale was to examine whether executive control processes whose efficiency is reinforced by the frequent use of a second language can lead to a benefit in the control of eye movements, i.e. a non-linguistic activity. For this purpose, we administrated to 19 highly proficient late French-German bilingual participants and to a control group of 20 French monolingual participants an antisaccade task, i.e. a specific motor task involving control. In this task, an automatic saccade has to be suppressed while a voluntary eye movement in the opposite direction has to be carried out. Here, our main hypothesis is that an advantage in the antisaccade task should be observed in the bilinguals if some properties of the control processes are shared between linguistic and motor domains. ERP data revealed clear differences between bilinguals and monolinguals. Critically, we showed an increased N2 effect size in bilinguals, thought to reflect better efficiency to monitor conflict, combined with reduced effect sizes on markers reflecting inhibitory control, i.e. cue-locked positivity, the target-locked P3 and the saccade-locked presaccadic positivity (PSP). Moreover, effective connectivity analyses (dynamic causal modelling; DCM) on the neuronal source level indicated that bilinguals rely more strongly on ACC-driven control while monolinguals rely on PFC-driven control. Taken together, our combined ERP and effective connectivity findings may reflect a dynamic interplay between strengthened conflict monitoring, associated with subsequently more efficient inhibition in bilinguals. Finally, L2 proficiency and immersion experience constitute relevant factors of the language background that predict efficiency of inhibition. To conclude, the present study provided ERP and effective connectivity evidence for domain-general executive control involvement in handling multiple language use, leading to a control advantage in bilingualism.

Abstract

The search for molecular underpinnings of human vocal communication has focused on genes encoding forkhead-box transcription factors, as rare disruptions of FOXP1, FOXP2, and FOXP4 have been linked to disorders involving speech and language deficits. In male songbirds, an animal model for vocal learning, experimentally altered expression levels of these transcription factors impair song production learning. The relative contributions of auditory processing, motor function or auditory-motor integration to the deficits observed after different FoxP manipulations in songbirds are unknown. To examine the potential effects on auditory learning and development, we focused on female zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) that do not sing but develop song memories, which can be assayed in operant preference tests. We tested whether the relatively high levels of FoxP1 expression in forebrain areas implicated in female song preference learning are crucial for the development and/or maintenance of this behavior. Juvenile and adult female zebra finches received FoxP1 knockdowns targeted to HVC (proper name) or to the caudomedial mesopallium (CMM). Irrespective of target site and whether the knockdown took place before (juveniles) or after (adults) the sensitive phase for song memorization, all groups preferred their tutor’s song. However, adult females with FoxP1 knockdowns targeted at HVC showed weaker motivation to hear song and weaker song preferences than sham-treated controls, while no such differences were observed after knockdowns in CMM or in juveniles. In summary, FoxP1 knockdowns in the cortical song nucleus HVC were not associated with impaired tutor song memory but reduced motivation to actively request tutor songs.

Abstract

Rare disruptions of the transcription factor FOXP1 are implicated in a human neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by autism and/or intellectual disability with prominent problems in speech and language abilities. Avian orthologues of this transcription factor are evolutionarily conserved and highly expressed in specific regions of songbird brains, including areas associated with vocal production learning and auditory perception. Here, we investigated possible contributions of FoxP1 to song discrimination and auditory perception in juvenile and adult female zebra finches. They received lentiviral knockdowns of FoxP1 in one of two brain areas involved in auditory stimulus processing, HVC (proper name) or CMM (caudomedial mesopallium). Ninety-six females, distributed over different experimental and control groups were trained to discriminate between two stimulus songs in an operant Go/Nogo paradigm and subsequently tested with an array of stimuli. This made it possible to assess how well they recognized and categorized altered versions of training stimuli and whether localized FoxP1 knockdowns affected the role of different features during discrimination and categorization of song. Although FoxP1 expression was significantly reduced by the knockdowns, neither discrimination of the stimulus songs nor categorization of songs modified in pitch, sequential order of syllables or by reversed playback were affected. Subsequently, we analyzed the full dataset to assess the impact of the different stimulus manipulations for cue weighing in song discrimination. Our findings show that zebra finches rely on multiple parameters for song discrimination, but with relatively more prominent roles for spectral parameters and syllable sequencing as cues for song discrimination.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY In humans, mutations of the transcription factor FoxP1 are implicated in speech and language problems. In songbirds, FoxP1 has been linked to male song learning and female preference strength. We found that FoxP1 knockdowns in female HVC and caudomedial mesopallium (CMM) did not alter song discrimination or categorization based on spectral and temporal information. However, this large dataset allowed to validate different cue weights for spectral over temporal information for song recognition.

Abstract

This special publication aims to build a renewed enthusiasm for collecting acquisition data across many languages, including those facing endangerment and loss. It presents a guide for documenting and describing child language and child-directed language in diverse languages and cultures, as well as a collection of acquisition sketches based on this guide. The guide is intended for anyone interested in working across child language and language documentation, including, for example, field linguists and language documenters, community language workers, child language researchers or graduate students.

Abstract

Neural oscillations are thought to support speech and language processing. They may not only inherit acoustic rhythms, but might also impose endogenous rhythms onto processing. In support of this, we here report that human (both male and female) eye movements during naturalistic reading exhibit rhythmic patterns that show frequency-selective coherence with the EEG, in the absence of any stimulation rhythm. Periodicity was observed in two distinct frequency bands: First, word-locked saccades at 4-5 Hz display coherence with whole-head theta-band activity. Second, fixation durations fluctuate rhythmically at ∼1 Hz, in coherence with occipital delta-band activity. This latter effect was additionally phase-locked to sentence endings, suggesting a relationship with the formation of multi-word chunks. Together, eye movements during reading contain rhythmic patterns that occur in synchrony with oscillatory brain activity. This suggests that linguistic processing imposes preferred processing time scales onto reading, largely independent of actual physical rhythms in the stimulus.

Abstract

The interaction between C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) and its cognate ligand C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 12 (CXCL12) plays a critical role in regulating hematopoietic stem cell activation and subsequent cellular mobilization. Extensive studies of these genes have been conducted in mammals, but much less is known about the expression and function of CXCR4 and CXCL12 in non-mammalian vertebrates. In the present study, we identify simultaneous expression of CXCR4 and CXCL12 orthologs in the epigonal organ (the primary hematopoietic tissue) of the little skate, Leucoraja erinacea. Genetic and phylogenetic analyses were functionally supported by significant mobilization of leukocytes following administration of Plerixafor, a CXCR4 antagonist and clinically important drug. Our results provide evidence that, as in humans, Plerixafor disrupts CXCR4/CXCL12 binding in the little skate, facilitating release of leukocytes into the bloodstream. Our study illustrates the value of the little skate as a model organism, particularly in studies of hematopoiesis and potentially for preclinical research on hematological and vascular disorders.

Abstract

Rhythmicity in the millisecond to second range is a fundamental building block of communication and coordinated movement. But how widespread are rhythmic capacities across species, and how did they evolve under different environmental pressures? Comparative research is necessary to answer these questions but has been hindered by limited crosstalk and comparability among results from different study species.
Most acoustics studies do not explicitly focus on characterising or quantifying rhythm, but many are just a few scrapes away from contributing to and advancing the field of comparative rhythm research. Here, we present an eight-level rhythm reporting framework which details actionable steps researchers can take to report rhythm-relevant metrics. Levels fall into two categories: metric reporting and data sharing. Metric reporting levels include defining rhythm-relevant metrics, providing point estimates of temporal interval variability, reporting interval distributions, and conducting rhythm analyses. Data sharing levels are: sharing audio recordings, sharing interval durations, sharing sound element start and end times, and sharing audio recordings with sound element start/end times.
Using sounds recorded from a sperm whale as a case study, we demonstrate how each reporting framework level can be implemented on real data. We also highlight existing best practice examples from recent research spanning multiple species. We clearly detail how engagement with our framework can be tailored case-by-case based on how much time and effort researchers are willing to contribute. Finally, we illustrate how reporting at any of the suggested levels will help advance comparative rhythm research.
This framework will actively facilitate a comparative approach to acoustic rhythms while also promoting cooperation and data sustainability. By quantifying and reporting rhythm metrics more consistently and broadly, new avenues of inquiry and several long-standing, big picture research questions become more tractable. These lines of research can inform not only about the behavioural ecology of animals but also about the evolution of rhythm-relevant phenomena and the behavioural neuroscience of rhythm production and perception. Rhythm is clearly an emergent feature of life; adopting our framework, researchers from different fields and with different study species can help understand why.

Abstract

While rhythm can facilitate and enhance many aspects of behavior, its evolutionary trajectory in vocal communication systems remains enigmatic. We can trace evolutionary processes by investigating rhythmic abilities in different species, but research to date has largely focused on songbirds and primates. We present evidence that cetaceans—whales, dolphins, and porpoises—are a missing piece of the puzzle for understanding why rhythm evolved in vocal communication systems. Cetaceans not only produce rhythmic vocalizations but also exhibit behaviors known or thought to play a role in the evolution of different features of rhythm. These behaviors include vocal learning abilities, advanced breathing control, sexually selected vocal displays, prolonged mother–infant bonds, and behavioral synchronization. The untapped comparative potential of cetaceans is further enhanced by high interspecific diversity, which generates natural ranges of vocal and social complexity for investigating various evolutionary hypotheses. We show that rhythm (particularly isochronous rhythm, when sounds are equally spaced in time) is prevalent in cetacean vocalizations but is used in different contexts by baleen and toothed whales. We also highlight key questions and research areas that will enhance understanding of vocal rhythms across taxa. By coupling an infraorder-level taxonomic assessment of vocal rhythm production with comparisons to other species, we illustrate how broadly comparative research can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the prevalence, evolution, and possible functions of rhythm in animal communication.

Abstract

The multilingual brain implements mechanisms that serve to select the appropriate language as a function of the communicative environment. Engaging these mechanisms on a regular basis appears to have consequences for brain structure and function. Studies have implicated the caudate nuclei as important nodes in polyglot language control processes, and have also shown structural differences in the caudate nuclei in bilingual compared to monolingual populations. However, the majority of published work has focused on the categorical differences between monolingual and bilingual individuals, and little is known about whether these findings extend to multilingual individuals, who have even greater language control demands. In the present paper, we present an analysis of the volume and morphology of the caudate nuclei, putamen, pallidum and thalami in 75 multilingual individuals who speak three or more languages. Volumetric analyses revealed a significant relationship between multilingual experience and right caudate volume, as well as a marginally significant relationship with left caudate volume. Vertex-wise analyses revealed a significant enlargement of dorsal and anterior portions of the left caudate nucleus, known to have connectivity with executive brain regions, as a function of multilingual expertise. These results suggest that multilingual expertise might exercise a continuous impact on brain structure, and that as additional languages beyond a second are acquired, the additional demands for linguistic and cognitive control result in modifications to brain structures associated with language management processes.

Abstract

A commentary on
Broca Pars Triangularis Constitutes a “Hub” of the Language-Control Network during Simultaneous Language Translation

by Elmer, S. (2016). Front. Hum. Neurosci. 10:491. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00491

Elmer (2016) conducted an fMRI investigation of “simultaneous language translation” in five participants. The article presents group and individual analyses of German-to-Italian and Italian-to-German translation, confined to a small set of anatomical regions previously reported to be involved in multilingual control. Here we take the opportunity to discuss concerns regarding certain aspects of the study.

Abstract

Epilepsy is a frequent feature of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), but little is known about genetic differences between NDDs with and without epilepsy. We analyzed de novo variants (DNVs) in 6,753 parent–offspring trios ascertained to have different NDDs. In the subset of 1,942 individuals with NDDs with epilepsy, we identified 33 genes with a significant excess of DNVs, of which SNAP25 and GABRB2 had previously only limited evidence of disease association. Joint analysis of all individuals with NDDs also implicated CACNA1E as a novel disease-associated gene. Comparing NDDs with and without epilepsy, we found missense DNVs, DNVs in specific genes, age of recruitment, and severity of intellectual disability to be associated with epilepsy. We further demonstrate the extent to which our results affect current genetic testing as well as treatment, emphasizing the benefit of accurate genetic diagnosis in NDDs with epilepsy.

Abstract

Participants’ performance differs when conducting a task in the presence of a secondary individual, moreover the opinion the participant has of this individual also plays a role. Using EEG, we investigated how previous interactions with, and evaluations of, an avatar in virtual reality subsequently influenced attentional allocation to the face of that avatar. We focused on changes in the alpha activity as an index of attentional allocation. We found that the onset of an avatar’s face whom the participant had developed a rapport with induced greater alpha suppression. This suggests greater attentional resources are allocated to the interacted-with avatars. The evaluative ratings of the avatar induced a U-shaped change in alpha suppression, such that participants paid most attention when the avatar was rated as average. These results suggest that attentional allocation is an important element of how behaviour is altered in the presence of a secondary individual and is modulated by our opinion of that individual.

Abstract

During conversation, people integrate information from co-speech hand gestures with information in spoken language. For example, after hearing the sentence, "A piece of the log flew up and hit Carl in the face" while viewing a gesture directed at the nose, people tend to later report that the log hit Carl in the nose (information only in gesture) rather than in the face (information in speech). The cognitive and neural mechanisms that support the integration of gesture with speech are unclear. One possibility is that the hippocampus known for its role in relational memory and information integration is necessary for integrating gesture and speech. To test this possibility, we examined how patients with hippocampal amnesia and healthy and brain-damaged comparison participants express information from gesture in a narrative retelling task. Participants watched videos of an experimenter telling narratives that included hand gestures that contained supplementary information. Participants were asked to retell the narratives and their spoken retellings were assessed for the presence of information from gesture. For features that had been accompanied by supplementary gesture, patients with amnesia retold fewer of these features overall and fewer retellings that matched the speech from the narrative. Yet their retellings included features that contained information that had been present uniquely in. gesture in amounts that were not reliably different from comparison groups. Thus, a functioning hippocampus is not necessary for gesture-speech integration over short timescales. Providing unique information in gesture may enhance communication for individuals with declarative memory impairment, possibly via non-declarative memory mechanisms.

Abstract

Many studies have shown that a supportive context facilitates language comprehension. A currently influential view is that language production may support prediction in language comprehension. Experimental evidence for this, however, is relatively sparse. Here we explored whether encouraging prediction in a language production task encourages the use of predictive contexts in an interleaved comprehension task. In Experiment 1a, participants listened to the first part of a sentence and provided the final word by naming aloud a picture. The picture name was predictable or not predictable from the sentence context. Pictures were named faster when they could be predicted than when this was not the case. In Experiment 1b the same sentences, augmented by a final spill-over region, were presented in a self-paced reading task. No difference in reading times for predictive vs. non-predictive sentences was found. In Experiment 2, reading and naming trials were intermixed. In the naming task, the advantage for predictable picture names was replicated. More importantly, now reading times for the spill-over region were considerable faster for predictive vs. non-predictive sentences. We conjecture that these findings fit best with the notion that prediction in the service of language production encourages the use of predictive contexts in comprehension. Further research is required to identify the exact mechanisms by which production exerts its influence on comprehension.

Abstract

In face-to-face discourse, listeners exploit cues in the input to generate predictions about upcoming words. Moreover, in addition to speech, speakers produce a multitude of visual signals, such as iconic gestures, which listeners readily integrate with incoming words. Previous studies have shown that processing of target words is facilitated when these are embedded in predictable compared to non-predictable discourses and when accompanied by iconic compared to meaningless gestures. In the present study, we investigated the interaction of both factors. We recorded electroencephalogram from 60 Dutch adults while they were watching videos of an actress producing short discourses. The stimuli consisted of an introductory and a target sentence; the latter contained a target noun. Depending on the preceding discourse, the target noun was either predictable or not. Each target noun was paired with an iconic gesture and a gesture that did not convey meaning. In both conditions, gesture presentation in the video was timed such that the gesture stroke slightly preceded the onset of the spoken target by 130 ms. Our ERP analyses revealed independent facilitatory effects for predictable discourses and iconic gestures. However, the interactive effect of both factors demonstrated that target processing (i.e., gesture-speech integration) was facilitated most when targets were part of predictable discourses and accompanied by an iconic gesture. Our results thus suggest a strong intertwinement of linguistic predictability and non-verbal gesture processing where listeners exploit predictive discourse cues to pre-activate verbal and non-verbal representations of upcoming target words.

Abstract

Listeners frequently recognize spoken words in the presence of background noise. Previous research has shown that noise reduces phoneme intelligibility and hampers spoken-word recognition—especially for non-native listeners. In the present study, we investigated how noise influences lexical competition in both the non-native and the native language, reflecting the degree to which both languages are co-activated. We recorded the eye movements of native Dutch participants as they listened to English sentences containing a target word while looking at displays containing four objects. On target-present trials, the visual referent depicting the target word was present, along with three unrelated distractors. On target-absent trials, the target object (e.g., wizard) was absent. Instead, the display contained an English competitor, overlapping with the English target in phonological onset (e.g., window), a Dutch competitor, overlapping with the English target in phonological onset (e.g., wimpel, pennant), and two unrelated distractors. Half of the sentences was masked by speech-shaped noise; the other half was presented in quiet. Compared to speech in quiet, noise delayed fixations to the target objects on target-present trials. For target-absent trials, we observed that the likelihood for fixation biases towards the English and Dutch onset competitors (over the unrelated distractors) was larger in noise than in quiet. Our data thus show that the presence of background noise increases lexical competition in the task-relevant non-native (English) and in the task-irrelevant native (Dutch) language. The latter reflects stronger interference of one’s native language during non-native spoken-word recognition under adverse conditions.

Abstract

Using language requires access to domain-specific linguistic representations, but also draws on domain-general cognitive skills. A key issue in current psycholinguistics is to situate linguistic processing in the network of human cognitive abilities. Here, we focused on spoken word recognition and used an individual differences approach to examine the links of scores in word recognition tasks with scores on tasks capturing effects of linguistic experience, general processing speed, working memory, and non-verbal reasoning. 281 young native speakers of Dutch completed an extensive test battery assessing these cognitive skills. We used psychometric network analysis to map out the direct links between the scores, that is, the unique variance between pairs of scores, controlling for variance shared with the other scores. The analysis revealed direct links between word recognition skills and processing speed. We discuss the implications of these results and the potential of psychometric network analysis for studying language processing and its embedding in the broader cognitive system.

Abstract

We introduce the Individual Differences in Language Skills (IDLaS-NL) web platform, which enables users to run studies on individual differences in Dutch language skills via the internet. IDLaS-NL consists of 35 behavioral tests, previously validated in participants aged between 18 and 30 years. The platform provides an intuitive graphical interface for users to select the tests they wish to include in their research, to divide these tests into different sessions and to determine their order. Moreover, for standardized administration the platform
provides an application (an emulated browser) wherein the tests are run. Results can be retrieved by mouse click in the graphical interface and are provided as CSV-file output via email. Similarly, the graphical interface enables researchers to modify and delete their study configurations. IDLaS-NL is intended for researchers, clinicians, educators and in general anyone conducting fundaental research into language and general cognitive skills; it is not intended for diagnostic purposes. All platform services are free of charge. Here, we provide a
description of its workings as well as instructions for using the platform. The IDLaS-NL platform can be accessed at www.mpi.nl/idlas-nl.

Abstract

How do conversational participants continue with turn-by-turn talk after a momentary lapse? If all participants forgo the option to speak at possible sequence completion, an extended silence may emerge that can indicate a lack of anything to talk about next. For the interaction to proceed recognizably as a conversation, the postlapse turn needs to implicate more talk. Using conversation analysis, I examine three practical alternatives regarding sequentially implicative postlapse turns: Participants may move to end the interaction, continue with some prior matter, or start something new. Participants are shown using resources grounded in the interaction’s overall structural organization, the materials from the interaction-so-far, the mentionables they bring to interaction, and the situated environment itself. Comparing these alternatives, there’s suggestive quantitative evidence for a preference for continuation. The analysis of lapse resolution shows lapses as places for the management of multiple possible courses of action. Data are in U.S. and UK English.

Abstract

The importance of high quality teacher–student relationships for students' well-being has been long documented. Nonetheless, most studies focus either on teachers' perceptions of provided support or on students' perceptions of support. The degree to which teachers and students agree is often neither measured nor taken into account. In the current study, we will therefore use a dyadic analysis strategy called the one-with-many design. This design takes into account the nestedness of the data and looks at the importance of reciprocity when examining the influence of teacher support for students' academic and social functioning. Two samples of teachers and their students from Grade 4 (age 9–10 years) have been recruited in primary schools, located in Turkey and Romania. By using the one-with-many design we can first measure to what degree teachers' perceptions of support are in line with students' experiences. Second, this level of consensus is taken into account when examining the influence of teacher support for students' social well-being and academic functioning.

Abstract

The home of human language use is face-to-face interaction, a context in which communicative exchanges are characterised not only by bodily signals accompanying what is being said but also by a pattern of alternating turns at talk. This transition between turns is astonishingly fast—typically a mere 200-ms elapse between a current and a next speaker’s contribution—meaning that comprehending, producing, and coordinating conversational contributions in time is a significant challenge. This begs the question of whether the additional information carried by bodily signals facilitates or hinders language processing in this time-pressured environment. We present analyses of multimodal conversations revealing that bodily signals appear to profoundly influence language processing in interaction: Questions accompanied by gestures lead to shorter turn transition times—that is, to faster responses—than questions without gestures, and responses come earlier when gestures end before compared to after the question turn has ended. These findings hold even after taking into account prosodic patterns and other visual signals, such as gaze. The empirical findings presented here provide a first glimpse of the role of the body in the psycholinguistic processes underpinning human communication

Abstract

In face-to-face communication, recurring intervals of mutual gaze allow listeners to provide speakers with visual feedback (e.g. nodding). Here, we investigate the potential feedback function of one of the subtlest of human movements—eye blinking. While blinking tends to be subliminal, the significance of mutual gaze in human interaction raises the question whether the interruption of mutual gaze through blinking may also be communicative. To answer this question, we developed a novel, virtual reality-based experimental paradigm, which enabled us to selectively manipulate blinking in a virtual listener, creating small differences in blink duration resulting in ‘short’ (208 ms) and ‘long’ (607 ms) blinks. We found that speakers unconsciously took into account the subtle differences in listeners’ blink duration, producing substantially shorter answers in response to long listener blinks. Our findings suggest that, in addition to physiological, perceptual and cognitive functions, listener blinks are also perceived as communicative signals, directly influencing speakers’ communicative behavior in face-to-face communication. More generally, these findings may be interpreted as shedding new light on the evolutionary origins of mental-state signaling, which is a crucial ingredient for achieving mutual understanding in everyday social interaction.

Abstract

In an online experiment among native speakers of Dutch we measured addressees' responses to emails written in the informal pronoun T or the formal pronoun V in HR communication. 172 participants (61 male, mean age 37 years) read either the V-versions or the T-versions of two invitation emails and two rejection emails by four different fictitious recruiters. After each email, participants had to score their appreciation of the company and the recruiter on five different scales each, such as The recruiter who wrote this email seems … [scale from friendly to unfriendly]. We hypothesized that (i) the V-pronoun would be more appreciated in letters of rejection, and the T-pronoun in letters of invitation, and (ii) older people would appreciate the V-pronoun more than the T-pronoun, and the other way around for younger people. Although neither of these hypotheses was supported, we did find a small effect of pronoun: Emails written in V were more highly appreciated than emails in T, irrespective of type of email (invitation or rejection), and irrespective of the participant's age, gender, and level of education. At the same time, we observed differences in the strength of this effect across different scales.

Abstract

Stroke is common, and its consequent brain damage can cause various cognitive impairments. Associations between where and how much brain lesion damage a patient has suffered, and the particular impairments that injury has caused (lesion-symptom associations) offer potentially compelling insights into how the brain implements cognition.1 A better understanding of those associations can also fill a gap in current stroke medicine by helping us to predict how individual patients might recover from post-stroke impairments.2 Most recent work in this area employs machine learning models trained with data from stroke patients whose mid-to-long-term outcomes are known.2-4 These machine learning models are tested by predicting new outcomes—typically scores on standardized tests of post-stroke impairment—for patients whose data were not used to train the model. Traditionally, these validation results have been shared in peer-reviewed publications describing the model and its training. But recently, and for the first time in this field (as far as we know), one of these pre-trained models has been made public—The Disconnectome Symptom Discoverer model (DSD) which draws its predictors from structural disconnection information inferred from stroke patients’ brain MRI.5

Here, we test the DSD model on wholly independent data, never seen by the model authors, before they published it. Specifically, we test whether its predictive performance is just as accurate as (i.e. not significantly worse than) that reported in the original (Washington University) dataset, when predicting new patients’ outcomes at a similar time post-stroke (∼1 year post-stroke) and also in another independent sample tested later (5+ years) post-stroke. A failure to generalize the DSD model occurs if it performs significantly better in the Washington data than in our data from patients tested at a similar time point (∼1 year post-stroke). In addition, a significant decrease in predictive performance for the more chronic sample would be evidence that lesion-symptom associations differ at ∼1 year post-stroke and >5 years post-stroke.

Abstract

Purpose:
To our knowledge, there are no data examining the agreement between self-reported and clinician-rated stuttering severity. In the era of big data, self-reported ratings have great potential utility for large-scale data collection, where cost and time preclude in-depth assessment by a clinician. Equally, there is increasing emphasis on the need to recognize an individual's experience of their own condition. Here, we examined the agreement between self-reported stuttering severity compared to clinician ratings during a speech assessment. As a secondary objective, we determined whether self-reported stuttering severity correlated with an individual's subjective impact of stuttering.

Method:
Speech-language pathologists conducted face-to-face speech assessments with 195 participants (137 males) aged 5–84 years, recruited from a cohort of people with self-reported stuttering. Stuttering severity was rated on a 10-point scale by the participant and by two speech-language pathologists. Participants also completed the Overall Assessment of the Subjective Experience of Stuttering (OASES). Clinician and participant ratings were compared. The association between stuttering severity and the OASES scores was examined.

Results:
There was a strong positive correlation between speech-language pathologist and participant-reported ratings of stuttering severity. Participant-reported stuttering severity correlated weakly with the four OASES domains and with the OASES overall impact score.

Conclusions:
Participants were able to accurately rate their stuttering severity during a speech assessment using a simple one-item question. This finding indicates that self-report stuttering severity is a suitable method for large-scale data collection. Findings also support the collection of self-report subjective experience data using questionnaires, such as the OASES, which add vital information about the participants' experience of stuttering that is not captured by overt speech severity ratings alone.

Abstract

There is increasing evidence that genetic risk variants for non-syndromic cleft lip/palate (nsCL/P) are also associated with normal-range variation in facial morphology. However, previous analyses are mostly limited to candidate SNPs and findings have not been consistently replicated. Here, we used polygenic risk scores (PRS) to test for genetic overlap between nsCL/P and seven biologically relevant facial phenotypes. Where evidence was found of genetic overlap, we used bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) to test the hypothesis that genetic liability to nsCL/P is causally related to implicated facial phenotypes. Across 5,804 individuals of European ancestry from two studies, we found strong evidence, using PRS, of genetic overlap between nsCL/P and philtrum width; a 1 S.D. increase in nsCL/P PRS was associated with a 0.10 mm decrease in philtrum width (95% C.I. 0.054, 0.146; P = 2x10-5). Follow-up MR analyses supported a causal relationship; genetic variants for nsCL/P homogeneously cause decreased philtrum width. In addition to the primary analysis, we also identified two novel risk loci for philtrum width at 5q22.2 and 7p15.2 in our Genome-wide Association Study (GWAS) of 6,136 individuals. Our results support a liability threshold model of inheritance for nsCL/P, related to abnormalities in development of the philtrum.

Abstract

Common genetic variation has been associated with multiple symptoms in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, our knowledge of shared genetic factor structures contributing to this highly heterogeneous neurodevelopmental condition is limited. Here, we developed a structural equation modelling framework to directly model genome-wide covariance across core and non-core ASD phenotypes, studying autistic individuals of European descent using a case-only design. We identified three independent genetic factors most strongly linked to language/cognition, behaviour and motor development, respectively, when studying a population-representative sample (N=5,331). These analyses revealed novel associations. For example, developmental delay in acquiring personal-social skills was inversely related to language, while developmental motor delay was linked to self-injurious behaviour. We largely confirmed the three-factorial structure in independent ASD-simplex families (N=1,946), but uncovered simplex-specific genetic overlap between behaviour and language phenotypes. Thus, the common genetic architecture in ASD is multi-dimensional and contributes, in combination with ascertainment-specific patterns, to phenotypic heterogeneity.

Abstract

The functional region of interest (fROI) approach has increasingly become a favored methodology in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) because it can circumvent inter-subject anatomical and functional variability, and thus increase the sensitivity and functional resolution of fMRI analyses. The standard fROI method requires human experts to meticulously examine and identify subject-specific fROIs within activation clusters. This process is time-consuming and heavily dependent on experts’ knowledge. Several algorithmic approaches have been proposed for identifying subject-specific fROIs; however, these approaches cannot easily incorporate prior knowledge of inter-subject variability. In the present study, we improved the multi-atlas labeling approach for defining subject-specific fROIs. In particular, we used a classifier-based atlas-encoding scheme and an atlas selection procedure to account for the large spatial variability across subjects. Using a functional atlas database for face recognition, we showed that with these two features, our approach efficiently circumvented inter-subject anatomical and functional variability and thus improved labeling accuracy. Moreover, in comparison with a single-atlas approach, our multi-atlas labeling approach showed better performance in identifying subject-specific fROIs.

Abstract

Native speakers of Dutch do not always adhere to prescriptive grammar rules in their daily speech. These grammatical norm violations can elicit emotional reactions in language purists, mostly high-educated people, who claim that for them these constructions are truly ungrammatical. However, linguists generally assume that grammatical norm violations are in fact truly grammatical, especially when they occur frequently in a language. In an fMRI study we investigated the processing of grammatical norm violations in the brains of language purists, and compared them with truly grammatical and truly ungrammatical sentences. Grammatical norm violations were found to be unique in that their processing resembled not only the processing of truly grammatical sentences (in left medial Superior Frontal Gyrus and Angular Gyrus), but also that of truly ungrammatical sentences (in Inferior Frontal Gyrus), despite what theories of grammar would usually lead us to believe

Abstract

Introduction to the special issue 'The Effects of Literacy on Cognition and Brain Functioning'

Abstract

The cause of developmental dyslexia is still unknown despite decades of intense research. Many causal explanations have been proposed, based on the range of impairments displayed by affected individuals. Here we draw attention to the fact that many of these impairments are also shown by illiterate individuals who have not received any or very little reading instruction. We suggest that this fact may not be coincidental and that the performance differences of both illiterates and individuals with dyslexia compared to literate controls are, to a substantial extent, secondary consequences of either reduced or suboptimal reading experience or a combination of both. The search for the primary causes of reading impairments will make progress if the consequences of quantitative and qualitative differences in reading experience are better taken into account and not mistaken for the causes of reading disorders. We close by providing four recommendations for future research.

Abstract

It is now well established that anticipation of up-coming input is a key characteristic of spoken language comprehension. Several mechanisms of predictive language processing have been proposed. The possible influence of mediating factors such as working memory and processing speed however has hardly been explored. We sought to find evidence for such an influence using an individual differences approach. 105 participants from 32 to 77 years of age received spoken instructions (e.g., "Kijk naar deCOM afgebeelde pianoCOM" - look at the displayed piano) while viewing four objects. Articles (Dutch “het” or “de”) were gender-marked such that the article agreed in gender only with the target. Participants could thus use gender information from the article to predict the upcoming target object. The average participant anticipated the target objects well in advance of the critical noun. Multiple regression analyses showed that working memory and processing speed had the largest mediating effects: Enhanced working memory abilities and faster processing speed supported anticipatory spoken language processing. These findings suggest that models of predictive language processing must take mediating factors such as working memory and processing speed into account. More generally, our results are consistent with the notion that working memory grounds language in space and time, linking linguistic and visual-spatial representations.

Abstract

Many psycholinguistic experiments suggest that prediction is an important characteristic of language processing. Some recent theoretical accounts in the cognitive sciences (e.g., Clark, 2013; Friston, 2010) and psycholinguistics (e.g., Dell & Chang, 2014) appear to suggest that prediction is even necessary to understand language. In the present opinion paper we evaluate this proposal. We first critically discuss several arguments that may appear to be in line with the notion that prediction is necessary for language processing. These arguments include that prediction provides a unified theoretical principle of the human mind and that it pervades cortical function. We discuss whether evidence of human abilities to detect statistical regularities is necessarily evidence for predictive processing and evaluate suggestions that prediction is necessary for language learning. Five arguments are then presented that question the claim that all language processing is predictive in nature. We point out that not all language users appear to predict language and that suboptimal input makes prediction often very challenging. Prediction, moreover, is strongly context-dependent and impeded by resource limitations. We also argue that it may be problematic that most experimental evidence for predictive language processing comes from 'prediction-encouraging' experimental set-ups. Finally, we discuss possible ways that may lead to a further resolution of this debate. We conclude that languages can be learned and understood in the absence of prediction. Claims that all language processing is predictive in nature are premature.

Abstract

Prediction appears to be an important characteristic of the human mind. It has also been suggested that prediction is a core difference of autistic children. Past research exploring language-mediated anticipatory eye movements in autistic children, however, has been somewhat contradictory, with some studies finding normal anticipatory processing in autistic children with low levels of autistic traits but others observing weaker prediction effects in autistic children with less receptive language skills. Here we investigated language-mediated anticipatory eye movements in young children who differed in the severity of their level of autistic traits and were in professional institutional care in Hangzhou, China. We chose the same spoken sentences (translated into Mandarin Chinese) and visual stimuli as a previous study which observed robust prediction effects in young children (Mani & Huettig, 2012) and included a control group of typically-developing children. Typically developing but not autistic children showed robust prediction effects. Most interestingly, autistic children with lower communication, motor, and (adaptive) behavior scores exhibited both less predictive and non-predictive visual attention behavior. Our results raise the possibility that differences in language-mediated anticipatory eye movements in autistic children with higher levels of autistic traits may be differences in visual attention in disguise, a hypothesis that needs further investigation.

Abstract

We argue that the educational and psychological sciences must embrace the diversity of reading rather than chase the phantom of normal reading behavior. We critically discuss the research practice of asking participants in experiments to read “normally”. We then draw attention to the large cross-cultural and linguistic diversity around the world and consider the enormous diversity of reading situations and goals. Finally, we observe that people bring a huge diversity of brains and experiences to the reading task. This leads to certain implications. First, there are important lessons for how to conduct psycholinguistic experiments. Second, we need to move beyond Anglo-centric reading research and produce models of reading that reflect the large cross-cultural diversity of languages and types of writing systems. Third, we must acknowledge that there are multiple ways of reading and reasons for reading, and none of them is normal or better or a “gold standard”. Finally, we must stop stigmatizing individuals who read differently and for different reasons, and there should be increased focus on teaching the ability to extract information relevant to the person’s goals. What is important is not how well people decode written language and how fast people read but what people comprehend given their own stated goals.

Abstract

In the present paper we describe the Enhanced Literate Mind (ELM) hypothesis. As individuals learn to read and write, they are, from then on, exposed to extensive written-language input and become literate. We propose that acquisition and proficient processing of written language (‘literacy’) leads to, both, increased language knowledge as well as enhanced language and non-language (perceptual and cognitive) skills. We also suggest that all neurotypical native language users, including illiterate, low literate, and high literate individuals, share a Basic Language Cognition (BLC) in the domain of oral informal language. Finally, we discuss the possibility that the acquisition of ELM leads to some degree of ‘knowledge parallelism’ between BLC and ELM in literate language users, which has implications for empirical research on individual and situational differences in spoken language processing.

Abstract

We examined whether assortative mating for educational attainment (“like marries like”) can be detected in the genomes of ~ 1600 UK spouse pairs of European descent. Assortative mating on heritable traits like educational attainment increases the genetic variance and heritability of the trait in the population, which may increase social inequalities. We test for genetic assortative mating in the UK on educational attainment, a phenotype that is indicative of socio-economic status and has shown substantial levels of assortative mating. We use genome-wide allelic effect sizes from a large genome-wide association study on educational attainment (N ~ 300 k) to create polygenic scores that are predictive of educational attainment in our independent sample (r = 0.23, p < 2 × 10− 16). The polygenic scores significantly predict partners' educational outcome (r = 0.14, p = 4 × 10− 8 and r = 0.19, p = 2 × 10− 14, for prediction from males to females and vice versa, respectively), and are themselves significantly correlated between spouses (r = 0.11, p = 7 × 10− 6). Our findings provide molecular genetic evidence for genetic assortative mating on education in the UK

Abstract

People from Western societies generally find it difficult to name odors. In trying to explain this, the olfactory literature has proposed several theories that focus heavily on properties of the odor itself but rarely discuss properties of the label used to describe it. However, recent studies show speakers of languages with dedicated smell lexicons can name odors with relative ease. Has the role of the lexicon been overlooked in the olfactory literature? Word production studies show properties of the label, such as word frequency and semantic context, influence naming; but this field of research focuses heavily on the visual domain. The current study combines methods from both fields to investigate word production for olfaction in two experiments. In the first experiment, participants named odors whose veridical labels were either high-frequency or low-frequency words in Dutch, and we found that odors with high-frequency labels were named correctly more often. In the second experiment, edibility was used for manipulating semantic context in search of a semantic interference effect, presenting the odors in blocks of edible and inedible odor source objects to half of the participants. While no evidence was found for a semantic interference effect, an effect of word frequency was again present. Our results demonstrate psycholinguistic variables—such as word frequency—are relevant for olfactory naming, and may, in part, explain why it is difficult to name odors in certain languages. Olfactory researchers cannot afford to ignore properties of an odor’s label.

Abstract

Semantic variation in the cutting and breaking domain has been shown to be constrained across languages in a previous typological study, but it was unclear whether Japanese was an outlier in this domain. Here we revisit cutting and breaking in the Japonic language area by collecting new naming data for 40 videoclips depicting cutting and breaking events in Standard Japanese, the highly divergent Tohoku dialects, as well as four related Ryukyuan languages (Amami, Okinawa, Miyako and Yaeyama). We find that the Japonic languages recapitulate the same semantic dimensions attested in the previous typological study, confirming that semantic variation in the domain of cutting and breaking is indeed cross-linguistically constrained. We then compare our new Japonic data to previously collected Germanic data and find that, in general, related languages resemble each other more than unrelated languages, and that the Japonic languages resemble each other more than the Germanic languages do. Nevertheless, English resembles all of the Japonic languages more than it resembles Swedish. Together, these findings show that the rate and extent of semantic change can differ between language families, indicating the existence of lineage-specific developments on top of universal cross-linguistic constraints.

Abstract

EEG and eye-tracking provide complementary information when investigating language comprehension. Evidence that speech processing may be facilitated by speech prediction comes from the observation that a listener's eye gaze moves towards a referent before it is mentioned if the remainder of the spoken sentence is predictable. However, changes to the trajectory of anticipatory fixations could result from a change in prediction or an attention shift. Conversely, N400 amplitudes and concurrent spectral power provide information about the ease of word processing the moment the word is perceived. In a proof-of-principle investigation, we combined EEG and eye-tracking to study linguistic prediction in naturalistic, virtual environments. We observed increased processing, reflected in theta band power, either during verb processing - when the verb was predictive of the noun - or during noun processing - when the verb was not predictive of the noun. Alpha power was higher in response to the predictive verb and unpredictable nouns. We replicated typical effects of noun congruence but not predictability on the N400 in response to the noun. Thus, the rich visual context that accompanied speech in virtual reality influenced language processing compared to previous reports, where the visual context may have facilitated processing of unpredictable nouns. Finally, anticipatory fixations were predictive of spectral power during noun processing and the length of time fixating the target could be predicted by spectral power at verb onset, conditional on the object having been fixated. Overall, we show that combining EEG and eye-tracking provides a promising new method to answer novel research questions about the prediction of upcoming linguistic input, for example, regarding the role of extralinguistic cues in prediction during language comprehension.

Abstract

A combination of impaired motor and cognitive function in Parkinson’s disease (PD) can impact on language and communication, with patients exhibiting a particular difficulty processing action verbs. Co-speech gestures embody a link between action and language and contribute significantly to communication in healthy people. Here, we investigated how co-speech gestures depicting actions are affected in PD, in particular with respect to the visual perspective—or the viewpoint – they depict. Gestures are closely related to mental imagery and motor simulations, but people with PD may be impaired in the way they simulate actions from a first-person perspective and may compensate for this by relying more on third-person visual features. We analysed the action-depicting gestures produced by mild-moderate PD patients and age-matched controls on an action description task and examined the relationship between gesture viewpoint, action naming, and performance on an action observation task (weight judgement). Healthy controls produced the majority of their action gestures from a first-person perspective, whereas PD patients produced a greater proportion of gestures produced from a third-person perspective. We propose that this reflects a compensatory reliance on third-person visual features in the simulation of actions in PD. Performance was also impaired in action naming and weight judgement, although this was unrelated to gesture viewpoint. Our findings provide a more comprehensive understanding of how action-language impairments in PD impact on action communication, on the cognitive underpinnings of this impairment, as well as elucidating the role of action simulation in gesture production

Abstract

n conversations, interlocutors concurrently perform two related processes: speech comprehension and speech planning. We investigated effects of speech planning on comprehension using EEG. Dutch speakers listened to sentences that ended with expected or unexpected target words. In addition, a picture was presented two seconds after target onset (Experiment 1) or 50 ms before target onset (Experiment 2). Participants’ task was to name the picture or to stay quiet depending on the picture category. In Experiment 1, we found a strong N400 effect in response to unexpected compared to expected target words. Importantly, this N400 effect was reduced in Experiment 2 compared to Experiment 1. Unexpectedly, the N400 effect was not smaller in the naming compared to categorization condition. This indicates that conceptual preparation or the decision whether to speak (taking place in both task conditions of Experiment 2) rather than processes specific to word planning interfere with comprehension.

Abstract

This paper examines how gesturers and signers use their bodies to express concepts such as instrumentality and humanness. Comparing across eight sign languages (American, Japanese, German, Israeli, and Kenyan Sign Languages, Ha Noi Sign Language of Vietnam, Central Taurus Sign Language of Turkey, and Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language of Israel) and the gestures of American non-signers, we find recurring patterns for naming entities in three semantic categories (tools, animals, and fruits & vegetables). These recurring patterns are captured in a classification system that identifies iconic strategies based on how the body is used together with the hands. Across all groups, tools are named with manipulation forms, where the head and torso represent those of a human agent. Animals tend to be identified with personification forms, where the body serves as a map for a comparable non-human body. Fruits & vegetables tend to be identified with object forms, where the hands act independently from the rest of the body to represent static features of the referent. We argue that these iconic patterns are rooted in using the body for communication, and provide a basis for understanding how meaningful communication emerges quickly in gesture and persists in emergent and established sign languages.

Abstract

Background Peripartum depression is a common cause of pregnancy- and postpartum-related morbidity. The production of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) from the placenta alters the profile of hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis hormones and may be associated with postpartum depression. The purpose of this study was to assess, in nondepressed pregnant women, the possible association between CRH levels in pregnancy and depressive symptoms postpartum. Methods A questionnaire containing demographic data and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was filled in gestational weeks 17 and 32, and 6 week postpartum. Blood samples were collected in week 17 for assessment of CRH. A logistic regression model was constructed, using postpartum EPDS score as the dependent variable and log-transformed CRH levels as the independent variable. Confounding factors were included in the model. Subanalyses after exclusion of study subjects with preterm birth, newborns small for gestational age (SGA), and women on corticosteroids were performed. Results Five hundred thirty-five women without depressive symptoms during pregnancy were included. Logistic regression showed an association between high CRH levels in gestational week 17 and postpartum depressive symptoms, before and after controlling for several confounders (unadjusted OR = 1.11, 95% CI 1.01–1.22; adjusted OR = 1.13, 95% CI 1.02–1.26; per 0.1 unit increase in log CRH). Exclusion of women with preterm birth and newborns SGA as well as women who used inhalation corticosteroids during pregnancy did not alter the results. Conclusions This study suggests an association between high CRH levels in gestational week 17 and the development of postpartum depressive symptoms, among women without depressive symptoms during pregnancy.

Abstract

This study investigates the implicit sequence learning abilities of dyslexic children using an artificial grammar learning task with an extended exposure period. Twenty children with developmental dyslexia participated in the study and were matched with two control groups—one matched for age and other for reading skills. During 3 days, all participants performed an acquisition task, where they were exposed to colored geometrical forms sequences with an underlying grammatical structure. On the last day, after the acquisition task, participants were tested in a grammaticality classification task. Implicit sequence learning was present in dyslexic children, as well as in both control groups, and no differences between groups were observed. These results suggest that implicit learning deficits per se cannot explain the characteristic reading difficulties of the dyslexics.

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

We used ERPs to investigate the pre-activation of form and meaning in language comprehension. Participants read high-cloze sentence contexts (e.g., “The student is going to the library to borrow a…”), followed by a word that was predictable (book), form-related (hook) or semantically related (page) to the predictable word, or unrelated (sofa). At a 500 ms SOA (Experiment 1), semantically related words, but not form-related words, elicited a reduced N400 compared to unrelated words. At a 700 ms SOA (Experiment 2), semantically related words and form-related words elicited reduced N400 effects, but the effect for form-related words occurred in very high-cloze sentences only. At both SOAs, form-related words elicited an enhanced, post-N400 posterior positivity (Late Positive Component effect). The N400 effects suggest that readers can pre-activate meaning and form information for highly predictable words, but form pre-activation is more limited than meaning pre-activation. The post-N400 LPC effect suggests that participants detected the form similarity between expected and encountered input. Pre-activation of word forms crucially depends upon the time that readers have to make predictions, in line with production-based accounts of linguistic prediction.

Abstract

This study uses a sentence completion task with Swedish and Chinese L2 English speakers to investigate how L1 morphosyntax and L2 proficiency influence L2 English subject-verb agreement production. Chinese has limited nominal and verbal number morphology, while Swedish has robust noun phrase (NP) morphology but does not number-mark verbs. Results showed that like L1 English speakers, both L2 groups used grammatical and conceptual number to produce subject-verb agreement. However, only L1 Chinese speakers—and less-proficient speakers in both L2 groups—were similarly influenced by grammatical and conceptual number when producing the subject NP. These findings demonstrate how L2 proficiency, perhaps combined with cross-linguistic differences, influence L2 production and underscore that encoding of noun and verb number are not independent.

Abstract

Fiction is vital to our being. Many people enjoy engaging with fiction every day. Here we focus on literary reading as 1 instance of fiction consumption from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. The brain processes which play a role in the mental construction of fiction worlds and the related engagement with fictional characters, remain largely unknown. The authors discuss the neurocognitive poetics model (Jacobs, 2015a) of literary reading specifying the likely neuronal correlates of several key processes in literary reading, namely inference and situation model building, immersion, mental simulation and imagery, figurative language and style, and the issue of distinguishing fact from fiction. An overview of recent work on these key processes is followed by a discussion of methodological challenges in studying the brain bases of fiction processing

Abstract

This paper introduces Parselmouth, an open-source Python library that facilitates access to core functionality of Praat in Python, in an efficient and programmer-friendly way. We introduce and motivate the package, and present simple usage examples. Specifically, we focus on applications in data visualisation, file manipulation, audio manipulation, statistical analysis, and integration of Parselmouth into a Python-based experimental design for automated, in-the-loop manipulation of acoustic data. Parselmouth is available at https://github.com/YannickJadoul/Parselmouth.

Abstract

To communicate, an animal's strategic timing of rhythmic signals is crucial. Evolutionary, game-theoretical, and dynamical systems models can shed light on the interaction between individuals and the associated costs and benefits of signalling at a specific time. Mathematical models that study rhythmic interactions from a strategic or evolutionary perspective are rare in animal communication research. But new inspiration may come from a recent game theory model of how group synchrony emerges from local interactions of oscillatory neurons. In the study, the authors analyse when the benefit of joint synchronization outweighs the cost of individual neurons sending electrical signals to each other. They postulate there is a benefit for pairs of neurons to fire together and a cost for a neuron to communicate. The resulting model delivers a variant of a classical dynamical system, the Kuramoto model. Here, we present an accessible overview of the Kuramoto model and evolutionary game theory, and of the 'oscillatory neurons' model. We interpret the model's results and discuss the advantages and limitations of using this particular model in the context of animal rhythmic communication. Finally, we sketch potential future directions and discuss the need to further combine evolutionary dynamics, game theory and rhythmic processes in animal communication studies.

Abstract

Objective

Researchers in animal cognition, psychophysics, and experimental psychology need to randomise the presentation order of trials in experimental sessions. In many paradigms, for each trial, one of two responses can be correct, and the trials need to be ordered such that the participant’s responses are a fair assessment of their performance. Specifically, in some cases, especially for low numbers of trials, randomised trial orders need to be excluded if they contain simple patterns which a participant could accidentally match and so succeed at the task without learning.
Results

We present and distribute a simple Python software package and tool to produce pseudorandom sequences following the Gellermann series. This series has been proposed to pre-empt simple heuristics and avoid inflated performance rates via false positive responses. Our tool allows users to choose the sequence length and outputs a .csv file with newly and randomly generated sequences. This allows behavioural researchers to produce, in a few seconds, a pseudorandom sequence for their specific experiment. PyGellermann is available at https://github.com/YannickJadoul/PyGellermann.

Abstract

Bioacoustics increasingly relies on large datasets and computational methods. The need to batch-process large amounts of data and the increased focus on algorithmic processing require software tools. To optimally assist in a bioacoustician’s workflow, software tools need to be as simple and effective as possible. Five years ago, the Python package Parselmouth was released to provide easy and intuitive access to all functionality in the Praat software. Whereas Praat is principally designed for phonetics and speech processing, plenty of bioacoustics studies have used its advanced acoustic algorithms. Here, we evaluate existing usage of Parselmouth and discuss in detail several studies which used the software library. We argue that Parselmouth has the potential to be used even more in bioacoustics research, and suggest future directions to be pursued with the help of Parselmouth.

Abstract

At the group level, children exposed to certain health and demographic risk factors, and who have delayed language in early childhood are, more likely to have language problems later in childhood. However, it is unclear whether we can use these risk factors to predict whether an individual child is likely to develop problems with language (e.g., be diagnosed with a developmental language disorder). We tested this in a sample of 146 children who took part in the UK-CDI norming project. When the children were 15–18 months old, 1,210 British parents completed: (a) the UK-CDI (a detailed assessment of vocabulary and gesture use) and (b) the Family Questionnaire (questions about health and demographic risk factors). When the children were between 4 and 6  years, 146 of the same parents completed a short questionnaire that assessed (a) whether children had been diagnosed with a disability that was likely to affect language proficiency (e.g., developmental disability, language disorder, hearing impairment), but (b) also yielded a broader measure: whether the child’s language had raised any concern, either by a parent or professional. Discriminant function analyses were used to assess whether we could use different combinations of 10 risk factors, together with early vocabulary and gesture scores, to identify children (a) who had developed a language-related disability by the age of 4–6 years (20 children, 13.70% of the sample) or (b) for whom concern about language had been expressed (49 children; 33.56%). The overall accuracy of the models, and the specificity scores were high, indicating that the measures correctly identified those children without a language-related disability and whose language was not of concern. However, sensitivity scores were low, indicating that the models could not identify those children who were diagnosed with a language-related disability or whose language was of concern. Several exploratory analyses were carried out to analyse these results further. Overall, the results suggest that it is difficult to use parent reports of early risk factors and language in the first 2 years of life to predict which children are likely to be diagnosed with a language-related disability. Possible reasons for this are discussed.

Abstract

Coevolving systems are notoriously difficult to understand. This is largely due to the Red Queen effect that dictates heterospecific fitness interdependence. In simulation studies of coevolving systems, master tournaments are often used to obtain more informed fitness measures by testing evolved individuals against past and future opponents. However, such tournaments still contain certain ambiguities. We introduce the use of a phenotypic cluster analysis to examine the distribution of opponent categories throughout an evolutionary sequence. This analysis, adopted from widespread usage in the bioinformatics community, can be applied to master tournament data. This allows us to construct behavior-based category trees, obtaining a hierarchical classification of phenotypes that are suspected to interleave during cyclic evolution. We use the cluster data to establish the existence of switching-genes that control opponent specialization, suggesting the retention of dormant genetic adaptations, that is, genetic memory. Our overarching goal is to reiterate how computer simulations may have importance to the broader understanding of evolutionary dynamics in general. We emphasize a further shift from a component-driven to an interaction-driven perspective in understanding coevolving systems. As yet, it is unclear how the sudden development of switching-genes relates to the gradual emergence of genetic adaptability. Likely, context genes gradually provide the appropriate genetic environment wherein the switching-gene effect can be exploited

Abstract

People vary at most levels, from the molecular to the cognitive, and the shape of the hard palate (the bony roof of the mouth) is no exception. The patterns of variation in the hard palate are important for the forensic sciences and (palaeo)anthropology, and might also play a role in speech production, both in pathological cases and normal variation. Here we describe a method based on Bézier curves, whose main aim is to generate possible shapes of the hard palate in humans for use in computer simulations of speech production and language evolution. Moreover, our method can also capture existing patterns of variation using few and easy-to-interpret parameters, and fits actual data obtained from MRI traces very well with as little as two or three free parameters. When compared to the widely-used Principal Component Analysis (PCA), our method fits actual data slightly worse for the same number of degrees of freedom. However, it is much better at generating new shapes without requiring a calibration sample, its parameters have clearer interpretations, and their ranges are grounded in geometrical considerations. © 2018 Janssen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

The present study describes how three now almost forgotten mid-20th-century logicians, the American Paul Jacoby and the Frenchmen Augustin Sesmat and Robert Blanché, all three ardent Catholics, tried to restore traditional predicate logic to a position of respectability by expanding the classic Square of Opposition to a hexagon of logical relations, showing the logical and cognitive advantages of such an expansion. The nature of these advantages is discussed in the context of modern research regarding the relations between logic, language, and cognition. It is desirable to call attention to these attempts, as they are, though almost totally forgotten, highly relevant against the backdrop of the clash between modern and traditional logic. It is argued that this clash was and is unnecessary, as both forms of predicate logic are legitimate, each in its own right. The attempts by Jacoby, Sesmat, and Blanché are, moreover, of interest to the history of logic in a cultural context in that, in their own idiosyncratic ways, they fit into the general pattern of the Catholic cultural revival that took place roughly between the years 1840 and 1960. The Catholic Church had put up stiff resistance to modern mathematical logic, considering it dehumanizing and a threat to Catholic doctrine. Both the wider cultural context and the specific implications for logic are described and analyzed, in conjunction with the more general philosophical and doctrinal issues involved.

Abstract

One debate in mathematical cognition centers on the single-representation model versus the two-representation model. Using an improved number Stroop paradigm (i.e., systematically manipulating physical size distance), in the present study we tested the predictions of the two models for number magnitude processing. The results supported the single-representation model and, more importantly, explained how a design problem (failure to manipulate physical size distance) and an analytical problem (failure to consider the interaction between congruity and task-irrelevant numerical distance) might have contributed to the evidence used to support the two-representation model. This study, therefore, can help settle the debate between the single-representation and two-representation models. © 2015 The Author(s)

Abstract

Open Science is becoming a mainstream scientific ideology in psychology and related fields. However, researchers, especially early-career researchers (ECRs) in developing countries, are facing significant hurdles in engaging in Open Science and moving it forward. In China, various societal and cultural factors discourage ECRs from participating in Open Science, such as the lack of dedicated communication channels and the norm of modesty. To make the voice of Open Science heard by Chinese-speaking ECRs and scholars at large, the Chinese Open Science Network (COSN) was initiated in 2016. With its core values being grassroots-oriented, diversity, and inclusivity, COSN has grown from a small Open Science interest group to a recognized network both in the Chinese-speaking research community and the international Open Science community. So far, COSN has organized three in-person workshops, 12 tutorials, 48 talks, and 55 journal club sessions and translated 15 Open Science-related articles and blogs from English to Chinese. Currently, the main social media account of COSN (i.e., the WeChat Official Account) has more than 23,000 subscribers, and more than 1,000 researchers/students actively participate in the discussions on Open Science. In this article, we share our experience in building such a network to encourage ECRs in developing countries to start their own Open Science initiatives and engage in the global Open Science movement. We foresee great collaborative efforts of COSN together with all other local and international networks to further accelerate the Open Science movement.

Abstract

In the present study, we used chronometric TMS to probe the time-course of 3 brain regions during a picture naming task. The left inferior frontal gyrus, left posterior middle temporal gyrus, and left posterior superior temporal gyrus were all separately stimulated in 1 of 5 time-windows (225, 300, 375, 450, and 525 ms) from picture onset. We found posterior temporal areas to be causally involved in picture naming in earlier time-windows, whereas all 3 regions appear to be involved in the later time-windows. However, chronometric TMS produces nonspecific effects that may impact behavior, and furthermore, the time-course of any given process is a product of both the involved processing stages along with individual variation in the duration of each stage. We therefore extend previous work in the field by accounting for both individual variations in naming latencies and directly testing for nonspecific effects of TMS. Our findings reveal that both factors influence behavioral outcomes at the group level, underlining the importance of accounting for individual variations in naming latencies, especially for late processing stages closer to articulation, and recognizing the presence of nonspecific effects of TMS. The paper advances key considerations and avenues for future work using chronometric TMS to study overt production.

Abstract

Talkers are recognized more accurately if they are speaking the listeners’ native language rather than an unfamiliar language. This “language familiarity effect” has been shown not to depend upon comprehension and must instead involve language sound patterns. We further examine the level of sound-pattern processing involved, by comparing talker recognition in foreign languages versus two varieties of English, by (a) English speakers of one variety, (b) English speakers of the other variety, and (c) non-native listeners (more familiar with one of the varieties). All listener groups performed better with native than foreign speech, but no effect of language variety appeared: Native listeners discriminated talkers equally well in each, with the native variety never outdoing the other variety, and non-native listeners discriminated talkers equally poorly in each, irrespective of the variety's familiarity. The results suggest that this talker recognition effect rests not on simple familiarity, but on an abstract level of phonological processing

Abstract

This special issue focuses on the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of truth-marking. The names that have been used to refer to this phenomenon include, among others, counter-assertive focus, polar(ity) focus, verum focus, emphatic polarity or simply verum. This terminological variety is suggestive of the wide range of ideas and conceptions that characterizes this research field. This collection aims to get closer to the core of what truly constitutes verum. We want to expand the empirical base and determine the common and diverging properties of truth-marking in the languages of the world. The objective is to set a theoretical and empirical baseline for future research on verum and related phenomena.

Abstract

Unilateral anterior disc displacement (uADD) has been shown to affect the contralateral joints qualitatively. This study aims to assess the quantitative T2 values of the articular disc and retrodiscal tissue of patients with uADD at 1.5 Tesla (T). The study included 65 uADD patients and 17 volunteers. The regions of interest on T2 maps were evaluated. The affected joints demonstrated significantly higher articular disc T2 values (31.5 ± 3.8 ms) than those of the unaffected joints (28.9 ± 4.5 ms) (P < 0.001). For retrodiscal tissue, T2 values of the unaffected (37.8 ± 5.8 ms) and affected joints (41.6 ± 7.1 ms) were significantly longer than those of normal volunteers (34.4 ± 3.2 ms) (P < 0.001). Furthermore, uADD without reduction (WOR) joints (43.3 ± 6.8 ms) showed statistically higher T2 values than the unaffected joints of both uADD with reduction (WR) (33.9 ± 3.8 ms) and uADDWOR (38.9 ± 5.8 ms), and the affected joints of uADDWR (35.8 ± 4.4 ms). The mean T2 value of the unaffected joints of uADDWOR was significantly longer than that of healthy volunteers (P < 0.001). These results provided quantitative evidence for the influence of the affected joints on the contralateral joints.

Abstract

The growing importance of research on bilingualism in psychology and neuroscience motivates the need for a psychometric model that can be used to understand and quantify this phenomenon. This research is the first to meet this need. We reanalyzed two data sets (N = 171 and N = 112) from relatively young adult language-unbalanced bilinguals and asked whether bilingualism is best described by the factor structure or by the network structure. The factor and network models were established on one data set and then validated on the other data set in a fully confirmatory manner. The network model provided the best fit to the data. This implies that bilingualism should be conceptualized as an emergent phenomenon arising from direct and idiosyncratic dependencies among the history of language acquisition, diverse language skills, and language-use practices. These dependencies can be reduced to neither a single universal quotient nor to some more general factors. Additional in-depth network analyses showed that the subjective perception of proficiency along with language entropy and language mixing were the most central indices of bilingualism, thus indicating that these measures can be especially sensitive to variation in the overall bilingual experience. Overall, this work highlights the great potential of psychometric network modeling to gain a more accurate description and understanding of complex (psycho)linguistic and cognitive phenomena.

Abstract

The mutual exclusivity (ME) assumption is proposed to facilitate early word learning by guiding infants to map novel words to novel referents. This study assessed the emergence and use of ME to both disambiguate and retain the meanings of novel words across development in 18‐month‐old monolingual and bilingual children (Experiment 1; N = 58), and in a sub‐group of these children again at 24 months of age (Experiment 2: N = 32). Both monolinguals and bilinguals employed ME to select the referent of a novel label to a similar extent at 18 and 24 months. At 18 months, there were also no differences in novel word retention between the two language‐background groups. However, at 24 months, only monolinguals showed the ability to retain these label–object mappings. These findings indicate that the development of the ME assumption as a reliable word‐learning strategy is shaped by children's individual language exposure and experience with language use.

Abstract

In this article, we review research on child–robot interaction (CRI) to discuss how social robots can be used to scaffold language learning in young children. First we provide reasons why robots can be useful for teaching first and second languages to children. Then we review studies on CRI that used robots to help children learn vocabulary and produce language. The studies vary in first and second languages and demographics of the learners (typically developing children and children with hearing and communication impairments). We conclude that, although social robots are useful for teaching language to children, evidence suggests that robots are not as effective as human teachers. However, this conclusion is not definitive because robots that tutor students in language have not been evaluated rigorously and technology is advancing rapidly. We suggest that CRI offers an opportunity for research and list possible directions for that work.

Abstract

We investigated prediction skills of adult heritage speakers and the role of written and spoken language experience on predictive processing. Using visual world eye-tracking, we focused on predictive use of case-marking cues in verb-medial and verb-final sentences in Turkish with adult Turkish heritage speakers (N = 25) and Turkish monolingual speakers (N = 24). Heritage speakers predicted in verb-medial sentences (when verb-semantic and case-marking cues were available), but not in verb-final sentences (when only case-marking cues were available) while monolinguals predicted in both. Prediction skills of heritage speakers were modulated by their spoken language experience in Turkish and written language experience in both languages. Overall, these results strongly suggest that verb-semantic information is needed to scaffold the use of morphosyntactic cues for prediction in heritage speakers. The findings also support the notion that both spoken and written language experience play an important role in predictive spoken language processing.

Abstract

Prior work with hearing children acquiring a spoken language as their first language shows that spatial language and cognition are related systems and spatial language use predicts spatial memory. Here, we further investigate the extent of this relationship in signing deaf children and adults and ask if late sign language exposure, as well as the frequency and the type of spatial language use that might be affected by late exposure, modulate subsequent memory for spatial relations. To do so, we compared spatial language and memory of 8-year-old late-signing children (after 2 years of exposure to a sign language at the school for the deaf) and late-signing adults to their native-signing counterparts. We elicited picture descriptions of Left-Right relations in Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili) and measured the subsequent recognition memory accuracy of the described pictures. Results showed that late-signing adults and children were similar to their native-signing counterparts in how often they encoded the spatial relation. However, late-signing adults but not children differed from their native-signing counterparts in the type of spatial language they used. However, neither late sign language exposure nor the frequency and type of spatial language use modulated spatial memory accuracy. Therefore, even though late language exposure seems to influence the type of spatial language use, this does not predict subsequent memory for spatial relations. We discuss the implications of these findings based on the theories concerning the correspondence between spatial language and cognition as related or rather independent systems.

Abstract

When learning a spoken second language (L2), words overlapping in form and meaning with one’s native language (L1) help break into the new language. When non-signing speakers learn a sign language as L2, such forms are absent because of the modality differences (L1:speech, L2:sign). In such cases, non-signing speakers might use iconic form-meaning mappings in signs or their own gestural experience as gateways into the to-be-acquired sign language. Here, we investigated how both these factors may contribute jointly to the acquisition of sign language vocabulary by hearing non-signers. Participants were presented with three types of sign in NGT (Sign Language of the Netherlands): arbitrary signs, iconic signs with high or low gesture overlap. Signs that were both iconic and highly overlapping with gestures boosted learning most at first exposure, and this effect remained the day after. Findings highlight the influence of modality-specific factors supporting the acquisition of a signed lexicon.

Abstract

The 8p23.1 duplication syndrome is a rare genetic condition with an estimated prevalence rate of 1 out of 58,000. Although the syndrome was associated with speech and language delays, a comprehensive assessment of speech and language functions has not been undertaken in this population. To address this issue, the present study reports rigorous speech and language, in addition to oral-facial and developmental, assessment of a 50-month-old Turkish-speaking boy who was diagnosed with the 8p23.1 duplication syndrome. Standardized tests of development, articulation and phonology, receptive and expressive language and a language sample analysis were administered to characterize speech and language skills in the patient. The language sample was obtained in an ecologically valid, free play and conversation context. The language sample was then analyzed and compared to a database of age-matched typically-developing children (n = 33) in terms of intelligibility, morphosyntax, semantics/vocabulary, discourse, verbal facility and percentage of errors at word and utterance levels. The results revealed mild to severe problems in articulation and phonology, receptive and expressive language skills, and morphosyntax (mean length of utterance in morphemes). Future research with larger sample sizes and employing detailed speech and language assessment is needed to delineate the speech and language profile in individuals with the 8p23.1 duplication syndrome, which will guide targeted speech and language interventions.

Abstract

We studied mutual influences between native and non-native vowel production during learning, i.e., before and after short-term visual articulatory feedback training with non-native sounds. Monolingual French speakers were trained to produce two non-native vowels: the Danish /ɔ/, which is similar to the French /o/, and the Russian /ɨ/, which is dissimilar from French vowels. We examined relationships between the production of French and non-native vowels before training, and the effects of training with non-native vowels on the production of French ones. We assessed for each participant the acoustic position and compactness of the trained vowels, and of the French /o/, /ø/, /y/ and /i/ vowels, which are acoustically closest to the trained vowels. Before training, the compactness of the French vowels was positively related to the accuracy and compactness in the production of non-native vowels. After training, French speakers’ accuracy and stability in the production of the two trained vowels improved on average by 19% and 37.5%, respectively. Interestingly, the production of native vowels was also affected by this learning process, with a drift towards non-native vowels. The amount of phonetic drift appears to depend on the degree of similarity between the native and non-native sounds.

Abstract

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), the prototypic severe childhood speech disorder, is characterized by motor programming and planning deficits. Genetic factors make substantive contributions to CAS aetiology, with a monogenic pathogenic variant identified in a third of cases, implicating around 20 single genes to date. Here we aimed to identify molecular causation in 70 unrelated probands ascertained with CAS. We performed trio genome sequencing. Our bioinformatic analysis examined single nucleotide, indel, copy number, structural and short tandem repeat variants. We prioritised appropriate variants arising de novo or inherited that were expected to be damaging based on in silico predictions. We identified high confidence variants in 18/70 (26%) probands, almost doubling the current number of candidate genes for CAS. Three of the 18 variants affected SETBP1, SETD1A and DDX3X, thus confirming their roles in CAS, while the remaining 15 occurred in genes not previously associated with this disorder. Fifteen variants arose de novo and three were inherited. We provide further novel insights into the biology of child speech disorder, highlighting the roles of chromatin organization and gene regulation in CAS, and confirm that genes involved in CAS are co-expressed during brain development. Our findings confirm a diagnostic yield comparable to, or even higher, than other neurodevelopmental disorders with substantial de novo variant burden. Data also support the increasingly recognised overlaps between genes conferring risk for a range of neurodevelopmental disorders. Understanding the aetiological basis of CAS is critical to end the diagnostic odyssey and ensure affected individuals are poised for precision medicine trials.

Abstract

Pinpointing genes involved in non-right-handedness has the potential to clarify developmental contributions to human brain lateralization. Major-gene models have been considered for human handedness which allow for phenocopy and reduced penetrance, i.e. an imperfect correspondence between genotype and phenotype. However, a recent genome-wide association scan did not detect any common polymorphisms with substantial genetic effects. Previous linkage studies in families have also not yielded significant findings. Genetic heterogeneity and/or polygenicity are therefore indicated, but it remains possible that relatively rare, or even unique, major-genetic effects may be detectable in certain extended families with many non-right-handed members. Here we applied whole exome sequencing to 17 members from a single, large consanguineous family from Pakistan. Multipoint linkage analysis across all autosomes did not yield clear candidate genomic regions for involvement in the trait and single-point analysis of exomic variation did not yield clear candidate mutations/genes. Any genetic contribution to handedness in this unusual family is therefore likely to have a complex etiology, as at the population level.

Abstract

In Dutch and German, the canonical order of subject, object(s) and finite verb is ‘verb-second’ (V2) in main but ‘verb-final’ (VF) in subordinate clauses. This occasionally leads to the production of noncanonical word orders. Familiar examples are causative and argumentative clauses introduced by a subordinating conjunction (Du. omdat, Ger. weil ‘because’): the omdat/weil-V2 phenomenon. Such clauses may also be introduced by coordinating conjunctions (Du. want, Ger. denn), which license V2 exclusively. However, want/denn-VF structures are unknown. We present the results of a corpus study on the incidence of omdat-V2 in spoken Dutch, and compare them to published data on weil-V2 in spoken German. Basic findings: omdat-V2 is much less frequent than weil-V2 (ratio almost 1:8); and the frequency relations between coordinating and subordinating conjunctions are opposite (want >> omdat; denn << weil). We propose that conjunction selection and V2/VF selection proceed partly independently, and sometimes miscommunicate—e.g. yielding omdat/weil paired with V2. Want/denn-VF pairs do not occur because want/denn clauses are planned as autonomous sentences, which take V2 by default. We sketch a simple feedforward neural network with two layers of nodes (representing conjunctions and word orders, respectively) that can simulate the observed data pattern through inhibition-based competition of the alternative choices within the node layers.

Abstract

In present-day spoken German, subordinate clauses introduced by the connector weil ‘because’ occur with two orders of subject, finite verb, and object(s). In addition to weil clauses with verb-final word order (“VF”; standard in subordinate clauses) one often hears weil clauses with SVO, the standard order of main clauses (“verb-second”, V2). The “weil-V2” phenomenon is restricted to sentences where the weil clause follows the main clause, and is virtually absent from formal (written, edited) German, occurring only in extemporaneous speech. Extant accounts of weil-V2 focus on the interpretation of weil-V2 clauses by the hearer, in particular on the type of discourse relation licensed by weil-V2 vs. weil-VF: causal/propositional or inferential/epistemic. Focusing instead on the production of weil clauses by the speaker, we examine a collection of about 1,000 sentences featuring a causal connector (weil, da or denn) after the main clause, all extracted from a corpus of spoken German dialogues and annotated with tags denoting major prosodic and syntactic boundaries, and various types of disfluencies (pauses, hesitations). Based on the observed frequency patterns and on known linguistic properties of the connectors, we propose that weil-V2 is caused by miscoordination between the mechanisms for lexical retrieval and grammatical encoding: Due to its high frequency, the lexical item weil is often selected prematurely, while the grammatical encoder is still working on the syntactic shape of the weil clause. Weil-V2 arises when pragmatic and processing factors drive the encoder to discontinue the current sentence, and to plan the clause following weil in the form of the main clause of an independent, new sentence. Thus, the speaker continues with a V2 clause, seemingly in violation of the VF constraint imposed by the preceding weil. We also explore implications of the model regarding the interpretation of sentences containing causal connectors.

Abstract

In this article, we examine methods that participants use to resolve troubles in the realization of practical courses of action. The concept of recruitment is developed to encompass the linguistic and embodied ways in which assistance may be sought – requested or solicited – or in which we come to perceive another’s need and offer or volunteer assistance. We argue that these methods are organized as a continuum, from explicit requests, to practices that elicit offers, to anticipations of need. We further identify a class of subsidiary actions that can precede recruitment and that publicly expose troubles and thereby create opportunities for others to assist. Data in American and British English.

Abstract

In their commentaries, both Heritage (2016/this issue) and Zinken and Rossi (2016/this issue) provide some context for our concept of and approach to recruitment in terms of previous research into requesting and offering. In doing so, they usefully consider what might be the boundaries of recruitmentwhat might be included and what might not be included or treated as recruitment. We respond here to their suggestions concerning these boundaries.

Abstract

Human communicative interaction is characterized by rapid and precise turn-taking. This is achieved by an intricate system that has been elucidated in the field of conversation analysis, based largely on the study of the auditory signal. This model suggests that transitions occur at points of possible completion identified in terms of linguistic units. Despite this, considerable evidence exists that visible bodily actions including gaze and gestures also play a role. To reconcile disparate models and observations in the literature, we combine qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse turn-taking in a corpus of multimodal interaction using eye-trackers and multiple cameras. We show that transitions seem to be inhibited when a speaker averts their gaze at a point of possible turn completion, or when a speaker produces gestures which are beginning or unfinished at such points. We further show that while the direction of a speaker's gaze does not affect the speed of transitions, the production of manual gestures does: turns with gestures have faster transitions. Our findings suggest that the coordination of transitions involves not only linguistic resources but also visual gestural ones and that the transition-relevance places in turns are multimodal in nature.

Abstract

Our analysis proceeds from the question that if grammar alone is insuffi- cient to identify the action of an imperative (e.g., offering, directing, warn- ing, begging, etc.), how can interlocutors come to recognize the specific action being performed by a given imperative? We argue that imperative directives that occur after the directed action could have first been rele- vantly performed explicitly to direct the actions of the recipient and tacitly treat the absence of the action as a failure for which the recipient is accountable. The tacit nature of the accountability orientation enables both parties to focus on restoring progressivity to the directed course of action rather than topicalizing a transgression. Data are from everyday interactions in British and American English.

Abstract

The present study investigates the developmental trajectory of abstract representations for syntactic structures in children. In a structural priming experiment on the dative alternation in German, we primed children from three different age groups (3–4 years, 5–6 years, 7–8 years) and adults with double object datives (Dora sent Boots the rabbit) or prepositional object datives (Dora sent the rabbit to Boots). Importantly, the prepositional object structure in German is dispreferred and only rarely encountered by young children. While immediate as well as cumulative structural priming effects occurred across all age groups, these effects were strongest in the 3- to 4-year-old group and gradually decreased with increasing age. These results suggest that representations in young children are less stable than in adults and, therefore, more susceptible to adaptation both immediately and across time, presumably due to stronger surprisal. Lexical boost effects, in contrast, were not present in 3- to 4-year-olds but gradually emerged with increasing age, possibly due to limited working-memory capacity in the younger child groups.

Abstract

Statistical learning (SL)—sensitivity to statistical regularities in the environment—has been postulated to support language development. While even young infants are capable of using distributional statistics to learn in linguistic and non-linguistic domains, efforts to measure SL at the level of the individual and link it to language proficiency in individual differences designs have been mixed, which has at least in part been attributed to problems with task reliability. In the current study we present the first prospective longitudinal study of the relationship between both non-linguistic SL (measured with visual stimuli) and linguistic SL (measured with auditory stimuli) and language in a group of English-speaking children. One-hundred and twenty-one (N = 121) children in their first two years of formal schooling (Mage = 6;1 years, Range: 5;2 – 7;2) completed tests of visual SL (VSL) and auditory SL (ASL) and several control variables at time 1. Both forms of SL were then measured every 6 months for the next 18 months, and at the final testing session (time 4) their language proficiency was measured using a standardised test. The results showed that the reliability of the SL tasks increased across the course of the study. A series of path analyses showed that both VSL and ASL independently predicted individual differences in language proficiency at time 4. The evidence is consistent with the suggestion that, when measured reliably, an observable relationship between SL and language proficiency exists. Theoretical and methodological issues are discussed.

Abstract

We report a large‐scale electrophysiological study of infant speech segmentation, in which over 100 English‐acquiring 9‐month‐olds were exposed to unfamiliar bisyllabic words embedded in sentences (e.g., He saw a wild eagle up there), after which their brain responses to either the just‐familiarized word (eagle) or a control word (coral) were recorded. When initial exposure occurs in continuous speech, as here, past studies have reported that even somewhat older infants do not reliably recognize target words, but that successful segmentation varies across children. Here, we both confirm and further uncover the nature of this variation. The segmentation response systematically varied across individuals and was related to their vocabulary development. About one‐third of the group showed a left‐frontally located relative negativity in response to familiar versus control targets, which has previously been described as a mature response. Another third showed a similarly located positive‐going reaction (a previously described immature response), and the remaining third formed an intermediate grouping that was primarily characterized by an initial response delay. A fine‐grained group‐level analysis suggested that a developmental shift to a lexical mode of processing occurs toward the end of the first year, with variation across individual infants in the exact timing of this shift.