Publications

Abstract

Experiments 1 and 2 examined the time-course of retrieval of phonological, visual-shape and semantic knowledge as Dutch participants listened to sentences and looked at displays of four pictures. Given a sentence with beker, `beaker', for example, the display contained phonological (a beaver, bever), shape (a bobbin, klos), and semantic (a fork, vork) competitors. When the display appeared at sentence onset, fixations to phonological competitors preceded fixations to shape and semantic competitors. When display onset was 200 ms before (e.g.) beker, fixations were directed to shape and then semantic competitors, but not phonological competitors. In Experiments 3 and 4, displays contained the printed names of the previously-pictured entities; only phonological competitors were fixated preferentially. These findings suggest that retrieval of phonological, shape and semantic knowledge in the spoken-word and picture-recognition systems is cascaded, and that visual attention shifts are co-determined by the time-course of retrieval of all three knowledge types and by the nature of the information in the visual environment.

Abstract

Visual attention can be directed immediately, as a spoken word unfolds, towards conceptually related but nonassociated objects, even if they mismatch on other dimensions that would normally determine which objects in the scene were appropriate referents for the unfolding word (Huettig & Altmann, 2005). Here we demonstrate that the mapping between language and concurrent visual objects can also be mediated by visual-shape relations. On hearing "snake", participants directed overt attention immediately, within a visual display depicting four objects, to a picture of an electric cable, although participants had viewed the visual display with four objects for approximately 5 s before hearing the target word - sufficient time to recognize the objects for what they were. The time spent fixating the cable correlated significantly with ratings of the visual similarity between snakes in general and this particular cable. Importantly, with sentences contextually biased towards the concept snake, participants looked at the snake well before the onset of "snake", but they did not look at the visually similar cable until hearing "snake". Finally, we demonstrate that such activation can, under certain circumstances (e.g., during the processing of dominant meanings of homonyms), constrain the direction of visual attention even when it is clearly contextually inappropriate. We conclude that language-mediated attention can be guided by a visual match between spoken words and visual objects, but that such a match is based on lexical input and may not be modulated by contextual appropriateness.

Abstract

This paper reports on ongoing research on the role of various kinds of potential substrate languages in the development of the semantic structures of Ndyuka (Eastern Suriname Creole). A set of 100 senses of noun, verb, and other lexemes in Ndyuka were compared with senses of corresponding lexemes in three kinds of languages of the former Slave Coast and Gold Coast areas, and immediately adjoining hinterland: (a) Gbe languages; (b) other Kwa languages, specifically Akan and Ga; (c) non-Kwa Niger-Congo languages. The results of this process provide some evidence for the importance of the Gbe languages in the formation of the Suriname creoles, but also for the importance of other languages, and for the areal nature of some of the collocations studied, rendering specific identification of a single substrate source impossible and inappropriate. These results not only provide information about the role of Gbe and other languages in the formation of Ndyuka, but also give evidence for effects of substrate languages spoken by late arrivals some time after the "founders" of a given creole-speaking society. The conclusions are extrapolated beyond Suriname to creole genesis generally.

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis of the relevant imaging literature on word production (82 experiments). In addition to the spatial overlap of activated regions, we also analyzed the available data on the time course of activations. The analysis specified regions and time windows of activation for the core processes of word production: lexical selection, phonological code retrieval, syllabification, and phonetic/articulatory preparation. A comparison of the word production results with studies on auditory word/non-word perception and reading showed that the time course of activations in word production is, on the whole, compatible with the temporal constraints that perception processes impose on the production processes they affect in picture/word interference paradigms.

Abstract

Following up on an earlier positron emission tomography (PET) experiment (Indefrey et al., 2001), we used a scene description paradigm to investigate whether a posterior inferior frontal region subserving syntactic encoding for speaking is also involved in syntactic parsing during listening. In the language production part of the experiment, subjects described visually presented scenes
using either sentences, sequences of noun phrases, or sequences of syntactically unrelated words. In the language comprehension part of the experiment, subjects were auditorily presented with the same kinds of utterances and judged whether they matched the visual scenes. We were able to replicate the previous finding of a region in caudal Broca s area that is sensitive to the complexity of
syntactic encoding in language production. In language comprehension, no hemodynamic activation differences due to syntactic complexity were found. Given that correct performance in the judgment task did not require syntactic processing of the auditory stimuli, the results suggest that the degree to which listeners recruit syntactic processing resources in language comprehension may be a function of the syntactic demands of the task or the stimulus material.

Abstract

Models of cognitive processes often include simplifications, idealisations, and fictionalisations, so how should we learn about cognitive processes from such models? Particularly in cognitive science, when many features of the target system are unknown, it is not always clear which simplifications, idealisations, and so on, are appropriate for a research question, and which are highly misleading. Here we use a case-study from studies of language evolution, and ideas from philosophy of science, to illustrate a robustness approach to learning from models. Robust properties are those that arise across a range of models, simulations and experiments, and can be used to identify key causal structures in the models, and the phenomenon, under investigation. For example, in studies of language evolution, the emergence of compositional structure is a robust property across models, simulations and experiments of cultural transmission, but only under pressures for learnability and expressivity. This arguably illustrates the principles underlying real cases of language evolution. We provide an outline of the robustness approach, including its limitations, and suggest that this methodology can be productively used throughout cognitive science. Perhaps of most importance, it suggests that different modelling frameworks should be used as tools to identify the abstract properties of a system, rather than being definitive expressions of theories.

Abstract

Thesaurus alignment is important for efficient access to heterogeneous Cultural Heritage data. Current ontology alignment techniques provide solutions, but with limited value in practice, because the requirements from usage scenarios are rarely taken in account. In this paper, we start from particular requirements for book re-indexing and investigate possible ways of developing, deploying and evaluating thesaurus alignment techniques in this context. We then compare different aspects of this scenario with others from a more general perspective.

Abstract

In order to separate the cognitive processes associated with phonological encoding and the use of a visual word form lexicon in reading, it is desirable to compare the processing of words presented in a visually familiar form with words in a visually unfamiliar form. Japanese Kana orthography offers this possibility. Two phonologically equivalent but visually dissimilar syllabaries allow the writing of, for example, foreign loanwords in two ways, only one of which is visually familiar. Familiarly written words, unfamiliarly written words, and pseudowords were presented in both Kana syllabaries (yielding six conditions in total) to participants during an fMRI measurement with a silent articulation task (Experiment 1) and a phonological lexical decision task (Experiment 2) using an event-related design. Consistent over two experimental tasks, the three different stimulus types (familiar, unfamiliar, and pseudoword) were found to activate selectively different brain regions previously associated with phonological encoding and word retrieval or meaning. Compatible with the predictions of the dual-route model for reading, pseudowords and visually unfamiliar words, which have to be read using phonological assembly, caused an increase in brain activity in left inferior frontal regions (BA 44/47), as compared to visually familiar words. Visually familiar and unfamiliar words were found to activate a range of areas associated with lexico-semantic processing more strongly than pseudowords, such as the left and right temporo-parietal region (BA 39/40), a region in the left middle/inferior temporal gyrus (BA 20/21), and the posterior cingulate (BA 31).

Abstract

This study investigates how listeners cope with gradient forms of deletion of word-final /t/ when recognising words in a phonological context that makes /t/-deletion viable. A corpus study confirmed a high incidence of /t/-deletion in an /st#b/ context in Dutch. A discrimination study showed that differences between released /t/, unreleased /t/ and fully deleted /t/ in this specific /st#b/ context were salient. Two on-line experiments were carried out to investigate whether lexical activation might be affected by this form variation. Even though unreleased and released variants were processed equally fast by listeners, a detailed analysis of the unreleased condition provided evidence for gradient activation. Activating a target ending in /t/ is slowest for the most reduced variant because phonological context has to be taken into account. Importantly, activation for a target with /t/ in the absence of cues for /t/ is reduced if there is a surface-matching lexical competitor.

Abstract

In this study we investigated to what extent a meaningful sentence context facilitates spoken word processing in young and older listeners if listening is made taxing by time-compressing the speech. Even though elderly listeners have been shown to benefit more from sentence context in difficult listening conditions than young listeners, time compression of speech may interfere with semantic comprehension, particularly in older listeners because of cognitive slowing. The results of a target detection experiment showed that, unlike young listeners who showed facilitation by context at both rates, elderly listeners showed context facilitation at the intermediate, but not at the fastest rate. This suggests that semantic interpretation lags behind target identification.

Abstract

Listeners find it relatively difficult to recognize words that are similar-sounding to other known words. In contrast, when asked to identify spoken nonwords, listeners perform better when the nonwords are similar to many words in their language. These effects of sound similarity have been assessed in multiple ways, and both sublexical (phonotactic probability) and lexical (neighborhood) effects have been reported, leading to models that incorporate multiple stages of processing. One prediction that can be derived from these models is that there may be differences among individuals in the size of these similarity effects as a function of working memory abilities. This study investigates how item-individual characteristics of nonwords (both phonotactic probability and neighborhood density) interact with listener-individual characteristics (such as cognitive abilities and hearing sensitivity) in the perceptual identification of nonwords. A set of nonwords was used in which neighborhood density and phonotactic probability were not correlated. In our data, neighborhood density affected identification more reliably than did phonotactic probability. The first study, with young adults, showed that higher neighborhood density particularly benefits nonword identification for those with poorer attention-switching control. This suggests that it may be easier to focus attention on a novel item if it activates and receives support from more similar-sounding neighbors. A similar study on nonword identification with older adults showed increased neighborhood density effects for those with poorer hearing, suggesting that activation of long-term linguistic knowledge is particularly important to back up auditory representations that are degraded as a result of hearing loss.

Abstract

Natural fast speech differs from normal-rate speech with respect to its temporal pattern. Previous results showed that word intelligibility of heavily artificially time-compressed speech could not be improved by making its temporal pattern more similar to that of natural fast speech. This might have been due to the extrapolation of timing rules for natural fast speech to rates that are much faster than can be attained by human speakers. The present study investigates whether, at a speech rate that human speakers can attain, artificially time-compressed speech is easier to process if its timing pattern is similar to that of naturally produced fast speech. Our first experiment suggests, however, that word processing speed was slowed down, relative to linear compression. In a second experiment, word processing of artificially time-compressed speech was compared with processing of naturally produced fast speech. Even when naturally produced fast speech is perfectly intelligible, its less careful articulation, combined with the changed timing pattern, slows down processing, relative to linearly time-compressed speech. Furthermore, listeners preferred artificially time-compressed speech over naturally produced fast speech. These results suggest that linearly time-compressed speech has both a temporal and a segmental advantage over natural fast speech.

Abstract

In this study we investigate whether speakers, in line with the predictions of the Hyper- and Hypospeech theory, speed up most during the least informative parts and less during the more informative parts, when they are asked to speak faster. We expected listeners to benefit from these changes in timing, and our main goal was to find out whether making the temporal organisation of artificially time-compressed speech more like that of natural fast speech would improve intelligibility over linear time compression. Our production study showed that speakers reduce unstressed syllables more than stressed syllables, thereby making the prosodic pattern more pronounced. We extrapolated fast speech timing to even faster rates because we expected that the more salient prosodic pattern could be exploited in difficult listening situations. However, at very fast speech rates, applying fast speech timing worsens intelligibility. We argue that the non-uniform way of speeding up may not be due to an underlying communicative principle, but may result from speakers’ inability to speed up otherwise. As both prosodic and segmental information contribute to word recognition, we conclude that extrapolating fast speech timing to extremely fast rates distorts this balance between prosodic and segmental information.

Abstract

This study investigated the encoding of syllable boundary information during speech production in Dutch. Based on Levelt's model of phonological encoding, we hypothesized segments and syllable boundaries to be encoded in an incremental way. In a selfmonitoring experiment, decisions about the syllable affiliation (first or second syllable) of a pre-specified consonant, which was the third phoneme in a word, were required (e.g., ka.No canoe vs. kaN.sel pulpit ; capital letters indicate pivotal consonants, dots mark syllable boundaries). First syllable responses were faster than second syllable responses, indicating the incremental nature of segmental encoding and syllabification during speech production planning. The results of the experiment are discussed in the context of Levelt 's model of phonological encoding.

Abstract

Three experiments are reported that examined whether stem complexity plays a role in inflecting polymorphemic words in language production. Experiment 1 showed that preparation effects for words with polymorphemic stems are larger when they are produced among words with constant inflectional structures compared to words with variable inflectional structures and simple stems. This replicates earlier findings for words with monomorphemic stems (Janssen et al., 2002). Experiments 2 and 3 showed that when inflectional structure is held constant, the preparation effects are equally large with simple and compound stems, and with compound and complex adjectival stems. These results indicate that inflectional encoding is blind to the complexity of the stem, which suggests that specific inflectional rather than generic morphological frames guide the generation of inflected forms in speaking words.

Abstract

As people find their way through their environment, objects at navigationally relevant locations can serve as crucial landmarks. The parahippocampal gyrus has previously been shown to be involved in object and scene recognition. In the present study, we investigated the neural representation of navigationally relevant locations. Healthy human adults viewed a route through a virtual museum with objects placed at intersections (decision points) or at simple turns (non-decision points). Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired during subsequent recognition of the objects in isolation. Neural activity in the parahippocampal gyrus reflected the navigational relevance of an object's location in the museum. Parahippocampal responses were selectively increased for objects that occurred at decision points, independent of attentional demands. This increase occurred for forgotten as well as remembered objects, showing implicit retrieval of navigational information. The automatic storage of relevant object location in the parahippocampal gyrus provides a part of the neural mechanism underlying successful navigation.

Abstract

Successful navigation is facilitated by the presence of landmarks. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidence indicated that the human parahippocampal gyrus automatically distinguishes between landmarks placed at navigationally relevant (decision points) and irrelevant locations (nondecision points). This storage of navigational relevance can provide a neural mechanism underlying successful navigation. However, an efficient wayfinding mechanism requires that important spatial information is learned quickly and maintained over time. The present study investigates whether the representation of navigational relevance is modulated by time and practice. Participants learned 2 film sequences through virtual mazes containing objects at decision and at nondecision points. One maze was shown one time, and the other maze was shown 3 times. Twenty-four hours after study, event-related fMRI data were acquired during recognition of the objects. The results showed that activity in the parahippocampal gyrus was increased for objects previously placed at decision points as compared with objects placed at nondecision points. The decision point effect was not modulated by the number of exposures to the mazes and independent of explicit memory functions. These findings suggest a persistent representation of navigationally relevant information, which is stable after only one exposure to an environment. These rapidly induced and long-lasting changes in object representation provide a basis for successful wayfinding.

Abstract

The human brain distinguishes between landmarks placed at navigationally relevant and irrelevant locations. However, to provide a successful wayfinding mechanism not only landmarks but also the routes between them need to be stored. We examined the neural representation of a memory for route direction and a memory for relevant landmarks. Healthy human adults viewed objects along a route through a virtual maze. Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired during a subsequent subliminal priming recognition task. Prime-objects either preceded or succeeded a target-object on a preciously learned route. Our results provide evidence that the parahippocampal gyri distinguish between relevant and irrelevant landmarks whereas the inferior parietal gyrus, the anterior cingulate gyrus as well as the right caudate nucleus are involved in the coding of route direction. These data show that separated memory systems store different spatial information. A memory for navigationally relevant object information and a memory for route direction exist.

Abstract

A. Caramazza, A. Costa, M. Miozzo, and Y. Bi(2001) reported a series of experiments demonstrating that the ease of producing a word depends only on the frequency of that specific word but not on the frequency of a homophone twin. A. Caramazza, A. Costa, et al. concluded that homophones have separate word form representations and that the absence of frequency-inheritance effects for homophones undermines an important argument in support of 2-stage models of lexical access, which assume that syntactic (lemma) representations mediate between conceptual and phonological representations. The authors of this article evaluate the empirical basis of this conclusion, report 2 experiments demonstrating a frequency-inheritance effect, and discuss other recent evidence. It is concluded that homophones share a common word form and that the distinction between lemmas and word forms should be upheld.

Abstract

Listeners use lexical knowledge to adjust their prelexical representations of speech sounds in response to the idiosyncratic pronunciations of particular speakers. We used an exposure-test paradigm to investigate whether this type of perceptual learning transfers across syllabic positions. No significant learning effect was found in Experiment 1, where exposure sounds were onsets and test sounds were codas. Experiments 2-4 showed that there was no learning even when both exposure and test sounds were onsets. But a trend was found when exposure sounds were codas and test sounds were onsets (Experiment 5). This trend was smaller than the robust effect previously found for the coda-to-coda case. These findings suggest that knowledge about idiosyncratic pronunciations may be position specific: Knowledge about how a speaker produces sounds in one position, if it can be acquired at all, influences perception of sounds in that position more strongly than of sounds in another position.

Abstract

Words repeated in the same voice are better recognized than when they are repeated in a different voice. Such findings have been taken as evidence for the storage of talker-specific lexical episodes. But results on perceptual learning suggest that talker-specific adjustments concern sublexical representations. This study thus investigates whether voice-specific repetition effects in auditory lexical decision are lexical or sublexical. The same critical set of items in Block 2 were, depending on materials in Block 1, either same-voice or different-voice word repetitions, new words comprising re-orderings of phonemes used in the same voice in Block 1, or new words with previously unused phonemes. Results show a benefit for words repeated by the same talker, and a smaller benefit for words consisting of phonemes repeated by the same talker. Talker-specific information thus appears to influence word recognition at multiple representational levels.

Abstract

Listeners use suprasegmental auditory lexical stress information to resolve the competition words engage in during spoken-word recognition. The present study investigated whether (a) visual speech provides lexical stress information, and, more importantly, (b) whether this visual lexical stress information is used to resolve lexical competition. Dutch word pairs that differ in the lexical stress realization of their first two syllables, but not segmentally (e.g., 'OCtopus' and 'okTOber'; capitals marking primary stress) served as auditory-only, visual-only, and audiovisual speech primes. These primes either matched (e.g., 'OCto-'), mismatched (e.g., 'okTO-'), or were unrelated to (e.g., 'maCHI-') a subsequent printed target (octopus), which participants had to make a lexical decision to. To the degree that visual speech contains lexical stress information, lexical decisions to printed targets should be modulated through the addition of visual speech. Results show, however, no evidence for a role of visual lexical stress information in audiovisual spoken-word recognition.

Abstract

We investigate differences of cerebral activation in 12 right-handed and left-handed participants, respectively, using a sentence-processing task. Functional MRI shows activation of left-frontal and inferior-parietal speech areas (BA 44, BA9, BA 40) in both groups, but a stronger bilateral activation in left-handers. Direct group comparison reveals a stronger activation in right-frontal cortex (BA 47, BA 6) and left cerebellum in left-handers. Laterality indices for the inferior-frontal cortex are less asymmetric in left-handers and are not related to the degree of handedness. Thus, our results show that sentence-processing induced enhanced activation involving a bilateral network in left-handed participants.

Abstract

Purpose: Factors affecting the efficacy of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAb) directed to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) remain relatively unknown, especially in glioma. Experimental Design: We examined the efficacy of two EGFR-specific mAbs (mAbs 806 and 528) against U87MG-derived glioma xenografts expressing EGFR variants. Using this approach allowed us to change the form of the EGFR while keeping the genetic background constant. These variants included the de2-7 EGFR (or EGFRvIII), a constitutively active mutation of the EGFR expressed in glioma. Results: The efficacy of the mAbs correlated with EGFR number; however, the most important factor was receptor activation. Whereas U87MG xenografts expressing the de2-7 EGFR responded to therapy, those exhibiting a dead kinase de2-7 EGFR were refractory. A modified de2-7 EGFR that was kinase active but autophosphorylation deficient also responded, suggesting that these mAbs function in de2-7 EGFR–expressing xenografts by blocking transphosphorylation. Because de2-7 EGFR–expressing U87MG xenografts coexpress the wild-type EGFR, efficacy of the mAbs was also tested against NR6 xenografts that expressed the de2-7 EGFR in isolation. Whereas mAb 806 displayed antitumor activity against NR6 xenografts, mAb 528 therapy was ineffective, suggesting that mAb 528 mediates its antitumor activity by disrupting interactions between the de2-7 and wild-type EGFR. Finally, genetic disruption of Src in U87MG xenografts expressing the de2-7 EGFR dramatically enhanced mAb 806 efficacy. Conclusions: The effective use of EGFR-specific antibodies in glioma will depend on identifying tumors with activated EGFR. The combination of EGFR and Src inhibitors may be an effective strategy for the treatment of glioma.

Abstract

Mutations of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene are found at a relatively high frequency in glioma, with the most common being the de2-7 EGFR (or EGFRvIII). This mutation arises from an in-frame deletion of exons 2-7, which removes 267 amino acids from the extracellular domain of the receptor. Despite being unable to bind ligand, the de2-7 EGFR is constitutively active at a low level. Transfection of human glioma cells with the de2-7 EGFR has little effect in vitro, but when grown as tumor xenografts this mutated receptor imparts a dramatic growth advantage. We mapped the phosphorylation pattern of de2-7 EGFR, both in vivo and in vitro, using a panel of antibodies specific for different phosphorylated tyrosine residues. Phosphorylation of de2-7 EGFR was detected constitutively at all tyrosine sites surveyed in vitro and in vivo, including tyrosine 845, a known target in the wild-type EGFR for src kinase. There was a substantial upregulation of phosphorylation at every yrosine residue of the de2-7 EGFR when cells were grown in vivo compared to the receptor isolated from cells cultured in vitro. Upregulation of phosphorylation at tyrosine 845 could be stimulated in vitro by the addition of specific components of the ECM via an integrindependent mechanism. These observations may partially explain why the growth enhancement mediated by de2-7 EGFR is largely restricted to the in vivo environment

Abstract

An audio and video corpus of speech addressed to 28 11-month-olds is described. The corpus allows comparisons between adult speech directed towards infants, familiar adults and unfamiliar adult addressees, as well as of caregivers’ word teaching strategies across word classes. Summary data show that infant-directed speech differed more from speech to unfamiliar than familiar adults; that word teaching strategies for nominals versus verbs and adjectives differed; that mothers mostly addressed infants with multi-word utterances; and that infants’ vocabulary size was unrelated to speech rate, but correlated positively with predominance of continuous caregiver speech (not of isolated words) in the input.

Abstract

The Possible Word Constraint limits the number of lexical candidates considered in speech recognition by stipulating that input should be parsed into a string of lexically viable chunks. For instance, an isolated single consonant is not a feasible word candidate. Any segmentation containing such a chunk is disfavored. Five experiments using the head-turn preference procedure investigated whether, like adults, 12-month-olds observe this constraint in word recognition. In Experiments 1 and 2, infants were familiarized with target words (e.g., rush), then tested on lists of nonsense items containing these words in “possible” (e.g., “niprush” [nip + rush]) or “impossible” positions (e.g., “prush” [p + rush]). The infants listened significantly longer to targets in “possible” versus “impossible” contexts when targets occurred at the end of nonsense items (rush in “prush”), but not when they occurred at the beginning (tan in “tance”). In Experiments 3 and 4, 12-month-olds were similarly familiarized with target words, but test items were real words in sentential contexts (win in “wind” versus “window”). The infants listened significantly longer to words in the “possible” condition regardless of target location. Experiment 5 with targets at the beginning of isolated real words (e.g., win in “wind”) replicated Experiment 2 in showing no evidence of viability effects in beginning position. Taken together, the findings suggest that, in situations in which 12-month-olds are required to rely on their word segmentation abilities, they give evidence of observing lexical viability constraints in the way that they parse fluent speech.

Abstract

Second language (L2) research often involves analyses of acoustic measures of fluency. The studies investigating fluency, however, have been difficult to compare because the measures of fluency that were used differed widely. One of the differences between studies concerns the lower cut-off point for silent pauses, which has been set anywhere between 100 ms and 1000 ms. The goal of this paper is to find an optimal cut-off point. We calculate acoustic measures of fluency using different pause thresholds and then relate these measures to a measure of L2 proficiency and to ratings on fluency.

Abstract

This special issue “Evolutionary Approaches to Cross-Cultural Anthropology” brings together scholars from the fields of behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and cultural evolution whose cross-cultural work draws on evolutionary theory and methods. The papers here are a subset of those presented at a symposium we organized for the 2011 meeting of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research held in Charleston, South Carolina. Collectively, our authors show how an engagement with cultural variation has enriched evolutionary anthropology, and these papers showcase how cross-cultural research can benefit from the theoretical and methodological contributions of an evolutionary approach.

Abstract

In early Dutch learner varieties, there is no evidence of finiteness being a functional category. There is no V2nd: no correlation between inflectional morphology and movement. Initially, learners express the illocutive function of finiteness through the use of illocutive markers, with the non-use of an illocutive marker expressing the default illocutive function of assertion. Illocutive markers are functioning as adjuncts with scope over the predicate. Illocutive markers become re-analysed as functional elements.The driving force is the acquisition of the auxiliary verbs that occur with past participles. It leads to a reanalysis of illocutive markers as two separate elements: an auxiliary verb and a scope adverb. The (modal) auxiliary carries illocutive function. Lexical verb-argument structure (including the external argument) occurs within the domain of the auxiliary verb. The predicate as the focus constituent occurs within the domain of a scope adverb. This reanalysis establishes a position for the external argument within the domain of AUX. The acquisition of AUX causes the acquisition of a (hierarchical) structure with a complement as a constituent which represents an underlying verb-argument structure, a predicate as the domain of elements that are in focus, and an external (specifier) position as a landing site for elements with topic function.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Cognitive consequences at school age associated with prenatal methylmercury (MeHg) exposure may need to take into account nutritional and sociodemographic cofactors as well as relevant genetic polymorphisms. METHODS: A subsample (n = 1,311) of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (Bristol, UK) was selected, and mercury (Hg) concentrations were measured in freeze-dried umbilical cord tissue as a measure of MeHg exposure. A total of 1135 children had available data on 247 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within relevant genes, as well as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scores at age 8 years. Multivariate regression models were used to assess the associations between MeHg exposure and IQ and to determine possible gene-environment interactions. RESULTS: Hg concentrations indicated low background exposures (mean = 26 ng/g, standard deviation = 13). Log10-transformed Hg was positively associated with IQ, which attenuated after adjustment for nutritional and sociodemographic cofactors. In stratified analyses, a reverse association was found in higher social class families (for performance IQ, P value for interaction = 0.0013) among whom there was a wider range of MeHg exposure. Among 40 SNPs showing nominally significant main effects, MeHg interactions were detected for rs662 (paraoxonase 1) and rs1042838 (progesterone receptor) (P <} 0.05) and for rs3811647 (transferrin) and rs2049046 (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) (P {< 0.10). CONCLUSIONS: In this population with a low level of MeHg exposure, there were only equivocal associations between MeHg exposure and adverse neuropsychological outcomes. Heterogeneities in several relevant genes suggest possible genetic predisposition to MeHg neurotoxicity in a substantial proportion of the population. Future studies need to address this possibility.

Abstract

The current study investigates auditory-motor coupling in musically trained participants using a Stroop-type task that required the execution of simple finger sequences according to aurally presented number sequences (e.g., "2," " 4," "5," "3," "1"). Digital remastering was used to manipulate the pitch contour of the number sequences such that they were either congruent or incongruent with respect to the resulting action sequence. Conservatoire-level violinists showed a strong effect of congruency manipulation (increased response time for incongruent vs. congruent trials), in comparison to a control group of non-musicians. In Experiment 2, this paradigm was used to determine whether pedagogical background would influence this effect in a group of young violinists. Suzuki-trained violinists differed significantly from those with no musical background, while traditionally-trained violinists did not. The findings extend previous research in this area by demonstrating that obligatory audio-motor coupling is directly related to a musicians' expertise on their instrument of study and is influenced by pedagogy.

Abstract

Both emotion and reward are primary modulators of cognition: Emotional word content enhances word processing, and reward expectancy similarly amplifies cognitive processing from the perceptual up to the executive control level. Here, we investigate how these primary regulators of cognition interact. We studied how the anticipation of gain or loss modulates the neural time course (event-related potentials, ERPs) related to processing of emotional words. Participants performed a semantic categorization task on emotional and neutral words, which were preceded by a cue indicating that performance could lead to monetary gain or loss. Emotion-related and reward-related effects occurred in different time windows, did not interact statistically, and showed different topographies. This speaks for an independence of reward expectancy and the processing of emotional word content. Therefore, privileged processing given to emotionally valenced words seems immune to short-term modulation of reward. Models of language comprehension should be able to incorporate effects of reward and emotion on language processing, and the current study argues for an architecture in which reward and emotion do not share a common neurobiological mechanism

Abstract

In a recent Cognition paper (Cognition 85 (2002) B21), Bornkessel, Schlesewsky, and Friederici report ERP data that they claim “show that online processing difficulties induced by word order variations in German cannot be attributed to the relative infrequency of the constructions in question, but rather appear to reflect the application of grammatical principles during parsing” (p. B21). In this commentary we demonstrate that the posited contrast between grammatical principles and construction (in)frequency as sources of parsing problems is artificial because it is based on factually incorrect assumptions about the grammar of German and on inaccurate corpus frequency data concerning the German constructions involved.

Abstract

Remarques sur les facteurs intervenant dans le processus de formulation des énoncés.

Abstract

The psychology of language as developed by Wilhelm Wundt in his fundamental work Die Sprache (1900) has a strongly mentalistic character. The dominating positions held by behaviorism in psychology and structuralism in linguistics have overruled Wundt’s language theory to the effect that it has remained relatively unknown. This situation has changed recently under the influence of transformational linguistics and cognitive psychology. The paper discusses how Wundt applied the basic psychological concepts of apperception and association to language behavior, in particular to the construction and production of sentences during unprepared speech. The final part of the paper is devoted to the work, published in 1917, of the Dutch linguistic scholar Jacques van Ginneken, who elaborated Wundt’s ideas towards an explanation of some syntactic phenomena during the language acquisition of children.

Abstract

Listeners cannot recognize highly reduced word forms in isolation, but they can do so when these forms are presented in context (Ernestus, Baayen, & Schreuder, 2002). This suggests that not all possible surface forms of words have equal status in the mental lexicon. The present study shows that the reduced forms are linked to the canonical representations in the mental lexicon, and that these latter representations induce reconstruction processes. Listeners restore suffixes that are partly or completely missing in reduced word forms. A series of phoneme-monitoring experiments reveals the nature of this restoration: the basis for suffix restoration is mainly phonological in nature, but orthography has an influence as well.

Abstract

Science is currently under-utilized as a tool for effective policy and program design. A key part of this research-to-practice gap lies in the ineffectiveness of current models of science translation. Drawing on theory and methods from anthropology and cognitive linguistics, this study explores the role of cultural models and metaphor in the practice of science communication and translation. Qualitative interviews and group sessions, along with quantitative framing experiments, were used to design and test the effectiveness of a set of explanatory metaphors in translating the science of executive function. Developmental and cognitive scientists typically define executive function as a multi-dimensional set of related abilities that include working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. The study finds one metaphor in particular—the brain's air traffic control system—to be effective in bridging gaps between expert and public understandings on this issue and in so doing improving the accessibility of scientific information to members of the public as they reason about public policy issues. Findings suggest both a specific tool that can be used in efforts to translate the science of executive function and a theory and methodology that can be employed to design and test metaphors as communication devices on other science and social issues.

Abstract

Written information is often of limited accessibility to deaf people who use sign language. The eSign project was undertaken as a response to the need for technologies enabling efficient production and distribution over the Internet of sign language content. By using an avatar-independent scripting notation for signing gestures and a client-side web browser plug-in to translate this notation into motion data for an avatar, we achieve highly efficient delivery of signing, while avoiding the inflexibility of video or motion capture. Tests with members of the deaf community have indicated that the method can provide an acceptable quality of signing.

Abstract

Speech is structured into parts by syntactic and prosodic breaks. In locally syntactic ambiguous sentences, the detection of a syntactic break necessarily follows detection of a corresponding prosodic break, making an investigation of the immediate interplay of syntactic and prosodic information impossible when studying sentences in isolation. This problem can be solved, however, by embedding sentences in a discourse context that induces the expectation of either the presence or the absence of a syntactic break right at a prosodic break. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were compared to acoustically identical sentences in these different contexts. We found in two experiments that the closure positive shift, an ERP component known to be elicited by prosodic breaks, was reduced in size when a prosodic break was aligned with a syntactic break. These results establish that the brain matches prosodic information against syntactic information immediately.

Abstract

Why do languages have the categories they do? It has been argued that spatial terms in the world’s languages reflect categories that support highly informative communication, and that this accounts for the spatial categories found across languages. However, this proposal has been tested against only nine languages, and in a limited fashion. Here, we consider two new languages: Maijɨki, an under-documented language of Peruvian Amazonia, and English. We analyze spatial data from these two new languages and the original nine, using thorough and theoretically targeted computational tests. The results support the hypothesis that spatial terms across dissimilar languages enable near-optimally informative communication, over an influential competing hypothesis

Abstract

Drozd's critique of Crain & Thornton's (C&T) (1998) book Investigations in Universal Grammar (IUG) raises many issues concerning theory and experimental design within generative approaches to language acquisition. I focus here on one of the strongest theoretical claims of the Modularity Matching Model (MMM): continuity of processing. For reasons different to Drozd, I argue that the assumption is tenuous. Furthermore, I argue that the focus of the MMM and the methodological prescriptions contained in IUG are too narrow to capture language acquisition.

Abstract

This paper reports on two studies investigating children's and adults' processing of sentences containing ambiguity of prepositional phrase (PP) attachment. Study 1 used corpus data to investigate whether cues argued to be used by adults to resolve PP-attachment ambiguities are available in child-directed speech. Study 2 was an on-line reaction time study investigating the role of lexical and referential biases in syntactic ambiguity resolution by children and adults. Forty children (mean age 8;4) and 37 adults listened to V-NP-PP sentences containing temporary ambiguity of PP-attachment. The sentences were manipulated for (i) verb semantics, (ii) the definiteness of the object NP, and (iii) PP-attachment site. The children and adults did not differ qualitatively from each other in their resolution of the ambiguity. A verb semantics by attachment interaction suggested that different attachment analyses were pursued depending on the semantics of the verb. There was no influence of the definiteness of the object NP in either children's or adults' parsing preferences. The findings from the on-line task matched up well with the corpus data, thus identifying a role for the input in the development of parsing strategies.

Abstract

We present the results from four studies, two corpora and two experimental, which suggest that English- and German-speaking children (3;1–4;9 years) use multiple constraints to process and produce object relative clauses. Our two corpora studies show that children produce object relatives that reflect the distributional and discourse regularities of the input. Specifically, the results show that when children produce object relatives they most often do so with (a) an inanimate head noun, and (b) a pronominal relative clause subject. Our experimental findings show that children use these constraints to process and produce this construction type. Moreover, when children were required to repeat the object relatives they most often use in naturalistic speech, the subject-object asymmetry in processing of relative clauses disappeared. We also report cross-linguistic differences in children's rate of acquisition which reflect properties of the input language. Overall, our results suggest that children are sensitive to the same constraints on relative clause processing as adults.

Abstract

Eisenberg (2002) presents data from an experiment investigating three- and four-year-old children's comprehension of restrictive relative clauses (RC). From the results she argues, contrary to Hamburger & Crain (1982), that children do not have discourse knowledge of the felicity conditions of RCs before acquiring the syntax of relativization. This note evaluates this conclusion on the basis of the methodology used, and proposes that an account of syntactic development needs to be sensitive to the real-time processing requirements acquisition places on the learner.

Abstract

This article reviews research that has investigated the role of verbal working memory (VWM) in sentence comprehension in both typical and atypical developmental populations. Two theoretical approaches that specify different roles for VWM in sentence comprehension are considered: (i) capacity-limit approaches, which treat VWM as a theoretical primitive that causally constrains language processing and acquisition, and (ii) the experience-based approach, which argues that VWM is an emergent property of long-term linguistic knowledge. The empirical literature relevant to these different approaches is then reviewed. Although there has been considerable recent research on the topic, it is concluded that the current role of working memory in sentence comprehension in development is unclear, calling for a greater number of controlled systematic developmental studies on the topic.

Abstract

Pauses during continuous speech, particularly those that occur within clauses, are thought to reflect the planning of forthcoming verbal output. We used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to examine their neural correlates. Six volunteers were scanned while describing seven Rorschach inkblots, producing 3 min of speech per inkblot. In an event-related design, the level of blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) contrast during brief speech pauses (mean duration 1.3 s, SD 0.3 s) during overt speech was contrasted with that during intervening periods of articulation. We then examined activity associated with pauses that occurred within clauses and pauses that occurred between grammatical junctions. Relative to articulation during speech, pauses were associated with activation in the banks of the left superior temporal sulcus (BA 39/22), at the temporoparietal junction. Continuous speech was associated with greater activation bilaterally in the inferior frontal (BA 44/45), middle frontal (BA 8) and anterior cingulate (BA 24) gyri, the middle temporal sulcus (BA 21/22), the occipital cortex and the cerebellum. Left temporal activation was evident during pauses that occurred within clauses but not during pauses at grammatical junctions. In summary, articulation during continuous speech involved frontal, temporal and cerebellar areas, while pausing was associated with activity in the left temporal cortex, especially when this occurred within a clause. The latter finding is consistent with evidence that within-clause pauses are a correlate of speech planning and in particular lexical retrieval.

Abstract

This research investigated the developing inter-relationships between language, graphic symbolism and symbolic play both concurrently and longitudinally from the fourth to the fifth year of childhood. Sixty children (n = 60) aged between 3 and 4 years completed multiple assessments of language and assessments of graphic symbolism, symbolic play and non-verbal intelligence. A year later, 31 children (n = 31) were re-tested using the same assessments. The findings revealed that skills within each symbolic domain were inter-related during the fourth year, appearing to develop in a domain-general type fashion based upon a common underlying symbolic mechanism. However, between the fourth and the fifth years, only language had predictive validity, suggesting a shift towards the verbal mediation of symbolic play and graphic symbolism as language becomes progressively internalized (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978).

Abstract

Gestures that accompany speech are known to be tightly coupled with speech production. However little is known about the cognitive processes that underlie this link. Previous cross-linguistic research has provided preliminary evidence for online interaction between the two systems based on the systematic co-variation found between how different languages syntactically package Manner and Path information of a motion event and how gestures represent Manner and Path. Here we elaborate on this finding by testing whether speakers within the same language gesturally express Manner and Path differently according to their online choice of syntactic packaging of Manner and Path, or whether gestural expression is pre-determined by a habitual conceptual schema congruent with the linguistic typology. Typologically congruent and incongruent syntactic structures for expressing Manner and Path (i.e., in a single clause or multiple clauses) were elicited from English speakers. We found that gestural expressions were determined by the online choice of syntactic packaging rather than by a habitual conceptual schema. It is therefore concluded that speech and gesture production processes interface online at the conceptual planning phase. Implications of the findings for models of speech and gesture production are discussed

Abstract

Gestures that spontaneously accompany speech convey information coordinated with the concurrent speech. There has been considerable theoretical disagreement about the process by which this informational coordination is achieved. Some theories predict that the information encoded in gesture is not influenced by how information is verbally expressed. However, others predict that gestures encode only what is encoded in speech. This paper investigates this issue by comparing informational coordination between speech and gesture across different languages. Narratives in Turkish, Japanese, and English were elicited using an animated cartoon as the stimulus. It was found that gestures used to express the same motion events were influenced simultaneously by (1) how features of motion events were expressed in each language, and (2) spatial information in the stimulus that was never verbalized. From this, it is concluded that gestures are generated from spatio-motoric processes that interact on-line with the speech production process. Through the interaction, spatio-motoric information to be expressed is packaged into chunks that are verbalizable within a processing unit for speech formulation. In addition, we propose a model of speech and gesture production as one of a class of frameworks that are compatible with the data.

Abstract

In a way, the entire history of linguistic thought from the Antiquity to present days is a series of variations on two key themes: 1. In a certain sense, language and cognition are the same, and 2. In a certain sense, all languages are the same. What varies is the way in which “in a certain sense” is spelled out. Interpretations oscillate between radical positions such as the idea that thinking without speaking is impossible to the idea that it is just language which vexes our cognition and hence makes it rather impossible, and similarly between the idea that all differences between natural languages are nothing but irrelevant variations in the “vox”, the “external form” to the idea that it our thought is massively shaped by the particular structural features of the language we happen to speak. It is remarkable how little agreement has been reached on these issues after more than 2500 years of discussion. This, it is argued, has mainly two reasons: (a) The entire argument is largely confined to a few lexical and morphological properties of human languages, and (b) the discussion is rarely based on empirical research on “language at work” - how do we manage to solve those many little tasks for which human languages are designed in the first place.

Abstract

Language acquisition is the transition between the language faculty, with which we are born as a part of our genetic endowment, to the mastery of one or more linguistic systems. There is a plethora of findings about this process; but these findings still do not form a coherent picture of the principles which underlie this process. There are at least six reasons for this situation. First, there is an enormous variability in the conditions under which this process occurs. Second, the learning capacity does not remain constant over time. Third, the process extends over many years and is therefore hard to study. Fourth, especially the investigation of the meaning side is problem-loaded. Fifth, many skills and types of knowledge must be learned in a more or less synchronised way. And sixth, our understanding of the functioning of linguistic systems is still very limited. Nevertheless, there are a few overarching results, three of which are discussed here: (1) There are salient differences between child and adult learners: While children normally end up with perfect mastery of the language to be learned, this is hardly ever the case for adults. On the hand, it could be shown for each linguistic property examined so far, that adults are in principle able to learn it up to perfection. So, adults can learn everything perfectly well, they just don’t. (2) Within childhood, age of onset plays no essential role for ultimate attainment. (3) Children care much more for formal correctness than adults - they are just better in mimicking existing systems. It is argued that age does not affect the „construction capacity”- the capacity to build up linguistic systems - but the „copying faculty”, i.e., the faculty to imitate an existing system.

Abstract

Warning others about unexpected negative action outcomes is a paradigm case of communicative helping and prospective action understanding. The current study addressed the ontogeny of warning in infants’ gestural communication. We found that 12- and 18-month-olds (n = 84) spontaneously warned an adult by pointing out to her an aversive object hidden in her way (Problem condition). In control conditions the object was either positive (No Problem condition) or the adult had witnessed its’ placing (Problem known condition), which resulted in significantly less pointing. Results show that infants intervene spontaneously and with foresight through communication, in order to help others avoid a problem before it has occurred. These acts of warning entail an understanding of others’ negatively defined goals (to avoid an outcome) and their incorrect representations of reality. Findings support theories of altruism and social-pragmatic competencies in infancy.

Abstract

People tend to associate the abstract concepts of “good” and “bad” with their fluent and disfluent sides of space, as determined by their natural handedness or by experimental manipulation (Casasanto, 2011). Here we investigated influences of spatial perspective taking on the spatialization of “good” and “bad.” In the first experiment, participants indicated where a schematically drawn cartoon character would locate “good” and “bad” stimuli. Right-handers tended to assign “good” to the right and “bad” to the left side of egocentric space when the character shared their spatial perspective, but when the character was rotated 180° this spatial mapping was reversed: good was assigned to the character’s right side, not the participant’s. The tendency to spatialize valence from the character’s perspective was stronger in the second experiment, when participants were shown a full-featured photograph of the character. In a third experiment, most participants not only spatialized “good” and “bad” from the character’s perspective, they also based their judgments on a salient attribute of the character’s body (an injured hand) rather than their own body. Taking another’s spatial perspective encourages people to compute space-valence mappings using an allocentric frame of reference, based on the fluency with which the other person could perform motor actions with their right or left hand. When people reason from their own spatial perspective, their judgments depend, in part, on the specifics of their bodies; when people reason from someone else’s perspective, their judgments may depend on the specifics of the other person’s body, instead. - See more at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00266

Abstract

The ability to extract word forms from continuous speech is a prerequisite for constructing a vocabulary and emerges in the first year of life. Electrophysiological (ERP) studies of speech segmentation by 9- to 12-month-old listeners in several languages have found a left-localized negativity linked to word onset as a marker of word detection. We report an ERP study showing significant evidence of speech segmentation in Dutch-learning 7-month-olds. In contrast to the left-localized negative effect reported with older infants, the observed overall mean effect had a positive polarity. Inspection of individual results revealed two participant sub-groups: a majority showing a positive-going response, and a minority showing the left negativity observed in older age groups. We retested participants at age three, on vocabulary comprehension and word and sentence production. On every test, children who at 7 months had shown the negativity associated with segmentation of words from speech outperformed those who had produced positive-going brain responses to the same input. The earlier that infants show the left-localized brain responses typically indicating detection of words in speech, the better their early childhood language skills.

Abstract

Does the naming of clocks always require conceptual preparation? To examine this question, speakers were presented with analog and digital clocks that had to be named in Dutch using either a relative (e.g., “quarter to four”) or an absolute (e.g., “three forty-five”) clock time expression format. Naming latencies showed evidence of conceptual preparation when speakers produced relative time expressions to analog and digital clocks, but not when they used absolute time expressions. These findings indicate that conceptual mediation is not always mandatory for telling time, but instead depends on clock time expression format, supporting a multiple-route account of Dutch clock time naming.

Abstract

In spoken language, pitch accent can mark certain information as focus, whereby more attentional resources are allocated to the focused information. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, this study examined whether pitch accent, used for marking focus, recruited general attention networks during sentence comprehension. In a language task, we independently manipulated the prosody and semantic/pragmatic congruence of sentences. We found that semantic/pragmatic processing affected bilateral inferior and middle frontal gyrus. The prosody manipulation showed bilateral involvement of the superior/inferior parietal cortex, superior and middle temporal cortex, as well as inferior, middle, and posterior parts of the frontal cortex. We compared these regions with attention networks localized in an auditory spatial attention task. Both tasks activated bilateral superior/inferior parietal cortex, superior temporal cortex, and left precentral cortex. Furthermore, an interaction between prosody and congruence was observed in bilateral inferior parietal regions: for incongruent sentences, but not for congruent ones, there was a larger activation if the incongruent word carried a pitch accent, than if it did not. The common activations between the language task and the spatial attention task demonstrate that pitch accent activates a domain general attention network, which is sensitive to semantic/pragmatic aspects of language. Therefore, attention and language comprehension are highly interactive.

Abstract

* Kristiansen, M., Deriziotis, P. These authors contributed equally to this work.* - The mechanism of cell death in prion disease is unknown but is associated with the production of a misfolded conformer of the prion protein. We report that disease-associated prion protein specifically inhibits the proteolytic β subunits of the 26S proteasome. Using reporter substrates, fluorogenic peptides, and an activity probe for the β subunits, this inhibitory effect was demonstrated in pure 26S proteasome and three different cell lines. By challenge with recombinant prion and other amyloidogenic proteins, we demonstrate that only the prion protein in a nonnative β sheet conformation inhibits the 26S proteasome at stoichiometric concentrations. Preincubation with an antibody specific for aggregation intermediates abrogates this inhibition, consistent with an oligomeric species mediating this effect. We also present evidence for a direct relationship between prion neuropathology and impairment of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) in prion-infected UPS-reporter mice. Together, these data suggest a mechanism for intracellular neurotoxicity mediated by oligomers of misfolded prion protein.

Abstract

This study addresses the supralexical inferential processes underlying wellformedness judgements and latencies for a specic sublexical unit that appears in Dutch compounds, the interfix. Production studies have shown that the selection of interfixes in novel Dutch compounds and the speed of
this selection is primarily determined by the distribution of interfixes in existing compounds that share the left constituent with the target compound, i.e. the ‘‘left constituent family’’. In this paper, we consider the question whether constituent families also affect wellformedness decisions of novel as well as existing Dutch compounds in comprehension. We visually presented compounds containing interfixes that were either in line with the bias of the left constituent family or not. In the case of existing compounds, we also presented variants with replaced interfixes. As in production, the bias of the left constituent family emerged as a crucial predictor for both acceptance rates and response latencies. This result supports the hypothesis that, as in production, constituent families are (co-)activated in comprehension. We argue that this co-activation is part of a supralexical inferential process, and we discuss how our data might be interpreted within sublexical and supralexical theories of morphological processing.

Abstract

This study addresses the possibility that interfixes in multiconstituent nominal compounds in German and Dutch are functional as markers of immediate constituent structure.We report a lexical statistical survey of interfixation in the lexicons of German and Dutch which shows that all interfixes of German and one interfix of Dutch are significantly more likely to appear at the major constituent boundary than expected under chance conditions. A series of experiments provides evidence that speakers of German and Dutch are sensitive to the probabilistic cues to constituent structure provided by the interfixes. Thus, our data provide evidence that probability is part and parcel of grammatical competence.