Publications

Abstract

Research on spoken word production has been approached from two angles. In one research tradition, the analysis of spontaneous or induced speech errors led to models that can account for speech error distributions. In another tradition, the measurement of picture naming latencies led to chronometric models accounting for distributions of reaction times in word production. Both kinds of models are, however, dealing with the same underlying processes: (1) the speaker’s selection of a word that is semantically and syntactically appropriate; (2) the retrieval of the word’s phonological properties; (3) the rapid syllabification of the word in context; and (4) the preparation of the corresponding articulatory gestures. Models of both traditions explain these processes in terms of activation spreading through a localist, symbolic network. By and large, they share the main levels of representation: conceptual/semantic, syntactic, phonological and phonetic. They differ in various details, such as the amount of cascading and feedback in the network. These research traditions have begun to merge in recent years, leading to highly constructive experimentation. Currently, they are like two similar knives honing each other. A single pair of scissors is in the making.

Abstract

The topic of this paper is the way in which speakers order information in discourse. I will refer to this issue with the term "linearization", and will begin with two types of general remarks. The first one concerns the scope and relevance of the problem with reference to some existing literature. The second set of general remarks will be about the place of linearization in a theory of the speaker. The following, and main part of this paper, will be a summary report of research of linearization in a limited, but well-defined domain of discourse, namely the description of spatial networks.

Abstract

In recent decades, psychologists have become increasingly interested in our ability to speak. This paper sketches the present theoretical perspective on this most complex skill of homo sapiens. The generation of fluent speech is based on the interaction of various processing components. These mechanisms are highly specialized, dedicated to performing specific subroutines, such as retrieving appropriate words, generating morpho-syntactic structure, computing the phonological target shape of syllables, words, phrases and whole utterances, and creating and executing articulatory programmes. As in any complex skill, there is a self-monitoring mechanism that checks the output. These component processes are targets of increasingly sophisticated experimental research, of which this paper presents a few salient examples.

Abstract

Recent work on sentence recognition suggests that listeners use their knowledge of the language to directly infer deep structure syntactic relations from surface structure markers. Suffixes may be such clues, especially in agglutinative languages. A cross-language (Dutch-Finnish) experiment is reported, designed to investigate whether the suffix structure of Finnish words (as opposed to suffixless Dutch words) can facilitate prompted recall of sentences in case these suffixes differentiate between possible deep structures. The experiment, in which 80 subjects recall sentences at the occasion of prompt words, gives only slight confirmatory evidence. Meanwhile, another prompted recall effect (Blumenthal's) could not be replicated.

Abstract

Speakers tend to repeat materials from previous talk. This tendency is experimentally established and manipulated in various question-answering situations. It is shown that a question's surface form can affect the format of the answer given, even if this form has little semantic or conversational consequence, as in the pair Q: (At) what time do you close. A: “(At)five o'clock.” Answerers tend to match the utterance to the prepositional (nonprepositional) form of the question. This “correspondence effect” may diminish or disappear when, following the question, additional verbal material is presented to the answerer. The experiments show that neither the articulatory buffer nor long-term memory is normally involved in this retention of recent speech. Retaining recent speech in working memory may fulfill a variety of functions for speaker and listener, among them the correct production and interpretation of surface anaphora. Reusing recent materials may, moreover, be more economical than regenerating speech anew from a semantic base, and thus contribute to fluency. But the realization of this strategy requires a production system in which linguistic formulation can take place relatively independent of, and parallel to, conceptual planning.

Abstract

It has been hypothesised that human reasoning has a non-linguistic foundation, but is nevertheless influenced by the formal means available in a language. For example, Western logic is transparently related to European sentential connectives (e.g., and, if … then, or, not), some of which cannot be unambiguously expressed in other languages. The questionnaire explores reasoning tools and practices through investigating translation equivalents of English sentential connectives and collecting examples of “reasoned arguments”.

Abstract

Demonstratives are key items in understanding how a language constructs and interprets spatial relationships. They are also multi-functional, with applications to non-spatial deictic fields such as time, perception, person and discourse, and uses in anaphora and affect marking. This item consists of an overview of theoretical distinctions in demonstrative systems, followed by a set of practical queries and elicitation suggestions for demonstratives in “table top” space, wider spatial fields, and naturalistic data.

Abstract

This commentary raises two issues: (1) Language processing is hastened not only by internal pressures but also externally by turntaking in language use; (2) the theory requires nested levels of processing, but linguistic levels do not fully nest; further, it would seem to require multiple memory buffers, otherwise there’s no obvious treatment for discontinuous structures, or for verbatim recall.

Abstract

The world’s languages encode a diverse range of topological relations. However, cross-linguistic investigation suggests that the relations IN, AT and ON are especially fundamental to the grammaticised expression of space. The purpose of this questionnaire is to collect information about adpositions, case markers, and spatial nominals that are involved in the expression of core IN/AT/ON meanings. The task explores the more general parts of a language’s topological system, with a view to testing certain hypotheses about the packaging of spatial concepts. The questionnaire consists of target translation sentences that focus on a number of dimensions including animacy, caused location and motion.

Abstract

Languages differ widely in terms of how they encode the fundamental concepts of location and position. For some languages, verbs have an important role to play in describing situations (e.g., whether a bottle is standing or lying on the table); for others, verbs are not used in describing location at all. This item outlines certain hypotheses concerning four “types” of languages: those that have verbless basic locatives; those that use a single verb; those that have several verbs available to express location; and those that use positional verbs. The document was originally published as an appendix to the 'Picture series for positional verbs' (https://doi.org/10.17617/2.2573831).

Abstract

Most language usage is interactive, involving rapid turn-taking. The turn-taking system has a number of striking properties: turns are short and responses are remarkably rapid, but turns are of varying length and often of very complex construction such that the underlying cognitive processing is highly compressed. Although neglected in cognitive science, the system has deep implications for language processing and acquisition that are only now becoming clear. Appearing earlier in ontogeny than linguistic competence, it is also found across all the major primate clades. This suggests a possible phylogenetic continuity, which may provide key insights into language evolution.

Abstract

Oscillatory neural dynamics have been steadily receiving more attention as a robust and temporally precise signature of network activity related to language processing. We have recently proposed that oscillatory dynamics in the beta and gamma frequency ranges measured during sentence-level comprehension might be best explained from a predictive coding perspective. Under our proposal we related beta oscillations to both the maintenance/change of the neural network configuration responsible for the construction and representation of sentence-level meaning, and to top–down predictions about upcoming linguistic input based on that sentence-level meaning. Here we zoom in on these particular aspects of our proposal, and discuss both old and new supporting evidence. Finally, we present some preliminary magnetoencephalography data from an experiment comparing Dutch subject- and object-relative clauses that was specifically designed to test our predictive coding framework. Initial results support the first of the two suggested roles for beta oscillations in sentence-level language comprehension.

Abstract

For native speakers, many studies suggest a link between oscillatory neural activity in the beta frequency range and syntactic processing. For late second language (L2) learners on the other hand, the extent to which the neural architecture supporting syntactic processing is similar to or different from that of native speakers is still unclear. In a series of four experiments, we used electroencephalography to investigate the link between beta oscillatory activity and the processing of grammatical gender agreement in Dutch determiner-noun pairs, for Dutch native speakers, and for German L2 learners of Dutch. In Experiment 1 we show that for native speakers, grammatical gender agreement violations are yet another among many syntactic factors that modulate beta oscillatory activity during sentence comprehension. Beta power is higher for grammatically acceptable target words than for those that mismatch in grammatical gender with their preceding determiner. In Experiment 2 we observed no such beta modulations for L2 learners, irrespective of whether trials were sorted according to objective or subjective syntactic correctness. Experiment 3 ruled out that the absence of a beta effect for the L2 learners in Experiment 2 was due to repetition of the target nouns in objectively correct and incorrect determiner-noun pairs. Finally, Experiment 4 showed that when L2 learners are required to explicitly focus on grammatical information, they show modulations of beta oscillatory activity, comparable to those of native speakers, but only when trials are sorted according to participants’ idiosyncratic lexical representations of the grammatical gender of target nouns. Together, these findings suggest that beta power in L2 learners is sensitive to violations of grammatical gender agreement, but only when the importance of grammatical information is highlighted, and only when participants' subjective lexical representations are taken into account.

Abstract

This article is about whether the factors which drive online sharing of non-scholarly content also apply to academic journal titles. It uses Altmetric scores as a measure of online attention to articles from Frontiers in Psychology published in 2013 and 2014. Article titles with result-oriented positive framing and more interesting phrasing receive higher Altmetric scores, i.e., get more online attention. Article titles with wordplay and longer article titles receive lower Altmetric scores. This suggests that the same factors that affect how widely non-scholarly content is shared extend to academia, which has implications for how academics can make their work more likely to have more impact.

Abstract

Sound symbolism is increasingly understood as involving iconicity, or perceptual analogies and cross-modal correspondences between form and meaning, but the search for its functional and neural correlates is ongoing. Here we study how people learn sound-symbolic words, using behavioural, electrophysiological and individual difference measures. Dutch participants learned Japanese ideophones —lexical sound-symbolic words— with a translation of either the real meaning (in which form and meaning show cross-modal correspondences) or the opposite meaning (in which form and meaning show cross-modal clashes). Participants were significantly better at identifying the words they learned in the real condition, correctly remembering the real word pairing 86.7% of the time, but the opposite word pairing only 71.3% of the time. Analysing event-related potentials (ERPs) during the test round showed that ideophones in the real condition elicited a greater P3 component and late positive complex than ideophones in the opposite condition. In a subsequent forced choice task, participants were asked to guess the real translation from two alternatives. They did this with 73.0% accuracy, well above chance level even for words they had encountered in the opposite condition, showing that people are generally sensitive to the sound-symbolic cues in ideophones. Individual difference measures showed that the ERP effect in the test round of the learning task was greater for participants who were more sensitive to sound symbolism in the forced choice task. The main driver of the difference was a lower amplitude of the P3 component in response to ideophones in the opposite condition, suggesting that people who are more sensitive to sound symbolism may have more difficulty to suppress conflicting cross-modal information. The findings provide new evidence that cross-modal correspondences between sound and meaning facilitate word learning, while cross-modal clashes make word learning harder, especially for people who are more sensitive to sound symbolism.

Abstract

The existence of sound-symbolism (or a non-arbitrary link between form and meaning) is well-attested. However, sound-symbolism has mostly been investigated with nonwords in forced choice tasks, neither of which are representative of natural language. This study uses ideophones, which are naturally occurring sound-symbolic words that depict sensory information, to investigate how sensitive Dutch speakers are to sound-symbolism in Japanese in a learning task. Participants were taught 2 sets of Japanese ideophones; 1 set with the ideophones’ real meanings in Dutch, the other set with their opposite meanings. In Experiment 1, participants learned the ideophones and their real meanings much better than the ideophones with their opposite meanings. Moreover, despite the learning rounds, participants were still able to guess the real meanings of the ideophones in a 2-alternative forced-choice test after they were informed of the manipulation. This shows that natural language sound-symbolism is robust beyond 2-alternative forced-choice paradigms and affects broader language processes such as word learning. In Experiment 2, participants learned regular Japanese adjectives with the same manipulation, and there was no difference between real and opposite conditions. This shows that natural language sound-symbolism is especially strong in ideophones, and that people learn words better when form and meaning match. The highlights of this study are as follows: (a) Dutch speakers learn real meanings of Japanese ideophones better than opposite meanings, (b) Dutch speakers accurately guess meanings of Japanese ideophones, (c) this sensitivity happens despite learning some opposite pairings, (d) no such learning effect exists for regular Japanese adjectives, and (e) this shows the importance of sound-symbolism in scaffolding language learning

Abstract

The anticipation of the forthcoming behaviour of social interaction partners is a useful ability supporting interaction and communication between social partners. Associations and prediction based on the production system (in line with views that listeners use the production system covertly to anticipate what the other person might be likely to say) are two potential factors, which have been proposed to be involved in anticipatory language processing. We examined the influence of both factors on the degree to which listeners predict upcoming linguistic input. Are listeners more likely to predict book as an appropriate continuation of the sentence “The boy reads a”, based on the strength of the association between the words read and book (strong association) and read and letter (weak association)? Do more proficient producers predict more? What is the interplay of these two influences on prediction? The results suggest that associations influence language-mediated anticipatory eye gaze in two-year-olds and adults only when two thematically appropriate target objects compete for overt attention but not when these objects are presented separately. Furthermore, children’s prediction abilities are strongly related to their language production skills when appropriate target objects are presented separately but not when presented together. Both influences on prediction in language processing thus appear to be context-dependent. We conclude that multiple factors simultaneously influence listeners’ anticipation of upcoming linguistic input and that only such a dynamic approach to prediction can capture listeners’ prowess at predictive language processing.

Abstract

Other-initiated repair is an essential interactional practice to secure mutual understanding in everyday interaction. This article presents evidence from a large conversational corpus of a sign language, showing that signers of Argentine Sign Language (Lengua de Señas Argentina or ‘LSA’), like users of spoken languages, use a systematic set of linguistic formats and practices to indicate troubles of signing, seeing and understanding. The general aim of this article is to provide a general overview of the different visual-gestural linguistic patterns of other-initiated repair sequences in LSA. It also describes the quantitative distribution of other-initiated repair formats based on a collection of 213 cases. It describes the multimodal components of open and restricted types of repair initiators, and reports a previously undescribed implicit practice to initiate repair in LSA in comparison to explicitly produced formats. Part of a special issue presenting repair systems across a range of languages, this article contributes to a better understanding of the phenomenon of other-initiated repair in terms of visual and gestural practices in human interaction in both signed and spoken languages

Abstract

I argue that cue integration, a psychophysiological mechanism from vision and multisensory perception, offers a computational linking hypothesis between psycholinguistic theory and neurobiological models of language. I propose that this mechanism, which incorporates probabilistic estimates of a cue's reliability, might function in language processing from the perception of a phoneme to the comprehension of a phrase structure. I briefly consider the implications of the cue integration hypothesis for an integrated theory of language that includes acquisition, production, dialogue and bilingualism, while grounding the hypothesis in canonical neural computation.

Abstract

This commentary on Gow and Olson [2015. Sentential influences on acoustic-phonetic processing: A Granger causality analysis of multimodal imaging data. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. doi:10.1080/23273798.2015.1029498] questions in three ways their conclusion that speech perception is based on interactive processing. First, it is not clear that the data presented by Gow and Olson reflect normal speech recognition. Second, Gow and Olson's conclusion depends on still-debated assumptions about the functions performed by specific brain regions. Third, the results are compatible with feedforward models of speech perception and appear inconsistent with models in which there are online interactions about phonological content. We suggest that progress in the neuroscience of speech perception requires the generation of testable hypotheses about the function(s) performed by inter-regional connections

Abstract

Several models of spoken word recognition postulate that recognition is achieved via a process of competition between lexical hypotheses. Competition not only provides a mechanism for isolated word recognition, it also assists in continuous speech recognition, since it offers a means of segmenting continuous input into individual words. We present statistics on the pattern of occurrence of words embedded in the polysyllabic words of the English vocabulary, showing that an overwhelming majority (84%) of polysyllables have shorter words embedded within them. Positional analyses show that these embeddings are most common at the onsets of the longer word. Although both phonological and syntactic constraints could rule out some embedded words, they do not remove the problem. Lexical competition provides a means of dealing with lexical embedding. It is also supported by a growing body of experimental evidence. We present results which indicate that competition operates both between word candidates that begin at the same point in the input and candidates that begin at different points (McQueen, Norris, & Cutler, 1994, Noms, McQueen, & Cutler, in press). We conclude that lexical competition is an essential component in models of continuous speech recognition.

Abstract

In 5 experiments, listeners heard words and nonwords, some cross-spliced so that they contained acoustic-phonetic mismatches. Performance was worse on mismatching than on matching items. Words cross-spliced with words and words cross-spliced with nonwords produced parallel results. However, in lexical decision and 1 of 3 phonetic decision experiments, performance on nonwords cross-spliced with words was poorer than on nonwords cross-spliced with nonwords. A gating study confirmed that there were misleading coarticulatory cues in the cross-spliced items; a sixth experiment showed that the earlier results were not due to interitem differences in the strength of these cues. Three models of phonetic decision making (the Race model, the TRACE model, and a postlexical model) did not explain the data. A new bottom-up model is outlined that accounts for the findings in terms of lexical involvement at a dedicated decision-making stage.

Abstract

The production and interpretation of pronouns involves the identification of a mental referent and, in connected speech or text, a discourse antecedent. One of the few overt signals of the relationship between a pronoun and its antecedent is agreement in features such as number and grammatical gender. To examine how speakers create these signals, two experiments tested conceptual, lexical. and morphophonological accounts of pronoun production in Dutch. The experiments employed sentence completion and continuation tasks with materials containing noun phrases that conflicted or agreed in grammatical gender. The noun phrases served as the antecedents for demonstrative pronouns tin Experiment 1) and relative pronouns tin Experiment 2) that required gender marking. Gender errors were used to assess the nature of the processes that established the link between pronouns and antecedents. There were more gender errors when candidate antecedents conflicted in grammatical gender, counter to the predictions of a pure conceptual hypothesis. Gender marking on candidate antecedents did not change the magnitude of this interference effect, counter to the predictions of an overt-morphology hypothesis. Mirroring previous findings about pronoun comprehension, the results suggest that speakers of gender-marking languages call on specific linguistic information about antecedents in order to select pronouns and that the information consists of specifications of grammatical gender associated with the lemmas of words.

Abstract

A series of experiments was carried out investigating the time course of phonological encoding in language production, i.e., the question of whether all parts of the phonological form of a word are created in parallel, or whether they are created in a specific order. a speech production task was used in which the subjects in each test trial had to say one out of three or five response words as quickly as possible. In one condition, information was provided about part of the forms of the words to be uttered, in another condition this was not the case. The production of disyllabic words was speeded by information about their first syllable, but not by information about their second syllable. Experiments using trisyllabic words showed that a facilitatory effect could be obtained from information about the second syllable of the words, provided that the first syllable was also known. These findings suggest that the syllables of a word must be encoded strictly sequentially, according to their order in the word.

Abstract

Primate visual cortex is hierarchically organized. Bottom-up and top-down influences are exerted through distinct frequency channels, as was recently revealed in macaques by correlating inter-areal influences with laminar anatomical projection patterns. Because this anatomical data cannot be obtained in human subjects, we selected seven homologous macaque and human visual areas, and we correlated the macaque laminar projection patterns to human inter-areal directed influences as measured with magnetoencephalography. We show that influences along feedforward projections predominate in the gamma band, whereas influences along feedback projections predominate in the alpha-beta band. Rhythmic inter-areal influences constrain a functional hierarchy of the seven homologous human visual areas that is in close agreement with the respective macaque anatomical hierarchy. Rhythmic influences allow an extension of the hierarchy to 26 human visual areas including uniquely human brain areas. Hierarchical levels of ventral- and dorsal-stream visual areas are differentially affected by inter-areal influences in the alpha-beta band.

Abstract

Objective To elucidate the influence of common genetic variants on childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, to identify genetic variants that explain its high heritability, and to investigate the genetic overlap of ADHD symptom scores with ADHD diagnosis. Method Within the EArly Genetics and Lifecourse Epidemiology (EAGLE) consortium, genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and ADHD symptom scores were available for 17,666 children (< 13 years) from nine population-based cohorts. SNP-based heritability was estimated in data from the three largest cohorts. Meta-analysis based on genome-wide association (GWA) analyses with SNPs was followed by gene-based association tests, and the overlap in results with a meta-analysis in the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) case-control ADHD study was investigated. Results SNP-based heritability ranged from 5% to 34%, indicating that variation in common genetic variants influences ADHD symptom scores. The meta-analysis did not detect genome-wide significant SNPs, but three genes, lying close to each other with SNPs in high linkage disequilibrium (LD), showed a gene-wide significant association (p values between 1.46×10-6 and 2.66×10-6). One gene, WASL, is involved in neuronal development. Both SNP- and gene-based analyses indicated overlap with the PGC meta-analysis results with the genetic correlation estimated at 0.96. Conclusion The SNP-based heritability for ADHD symptom scores indicates a polygenic architecture and genes involved in neurite outgrowth are possibly involved. Continuous and dichotomous measures of ADHD appear to assess a genetically common phenotype. A next step is to combine data from population-based and case-control cohorts in genetic association studies to increase sample size and improve statistical power for identifying genetic variants.

Abstract

Can recent second language (L2) exposure affect what we judge to be similar events? Using a priming paradigm, we manipulated whether native Swedish adult learners of L2 Spanish were primed to use path or manner during L2 descriptions of scenes depicting caused motion events (encoding phase). Subsequently, participants engaged in a nonverbal task, arranging events on the screen according to similarity (test phase). Path versus manner priming affected how participants judged event similarity during the test phase. The effects we find support the hypotheses that (a) speakers create or select ad hoc conceptual categories that are based on linguistic knowledge to carry out nonverbal tasks, and that (b) short-term, recent L2 experience can affect this ad hoc process. These findings further suggest that cognition can flexibly draw on linguistic categories that have been implicitly highlighted during recent exposure.

Abstract

The inhibitory mechanisms that prevent gene expression programs from one tissue to be expressed in another are poorly understood. Foxp1/2/4 are forkhead transcription factors that repress gene expression and are individually important for endoderm development. We show that combined loss of all three Foxp1/2/4 family members in the developing anterior foregut endoderm leads to a loss of lung endoderm lineage commitment and subsequent development. Foxp1/2/4 deficient lungs express high levels of transcriptional regulators not normally expressed in the developing lung, including Pax2, Pax8, Pax9 and the Hoxa9-13 cluster. Ectopic expression of these transcriptional regulators is accompanied by decreased expression of lung restricted transcription factors including Nkx2-1, Sox2, and Sox9. Foxp1 binds to conserved forkhead DNA binding sites within the Hoxa9-13 cluster, indicating a direct repression mechanism. Thus, Foxp1/2/4 are essential for promoting lung endoderm development by repressing expression of non-pulmonary transcription factors

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a study on the prosodic marking of broad and contrastive focus in three language varieties of which two are in contact: bilingual Peruvian Spanish, Quechua and Peninsular Spanish. An interactive communicative task revealed that the prosodic marking of contrastive focus was limited in all three language varieties. No systematic correspondence was observed between specific contour/accent types and focus, and the phonetic marking of contrastive focus was weak and restricted to phrase-final position. Interestingly, we identified two contours for bilingual Peruvian Spanish that were present in Quechua, but not in Peninsular Spanish, providing evidence for a prosodic transfer from Quechua to Spanish in Quechua-Spanish bilinguals.

Abstract

Objectives: Metallic compounds present in the oral and maxillofacial regions (OMRs) cause large artefacts during MR scanning. We quantitatively assessed these artefacts embedded within a phantom according to standards set by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM).
Methods: Seven metallic dental materials (each of which was a 10-mm(3) cube embedded within a phantom) were scanned [i.e. aluminium (Al), silver alloy (Ag), type IV gold alloy (Au), gold-palladium-silver alloy (Au-Pd-Ag), titanium (Ti), nickel-chromium alloy (NC) and cobalt-chromium alloy (CC)] and compared with a reference image. Sequences included gradient echo (GRE), fast spin echo (FSE), gradient recalled acquisition in steady state (GRASS), a spoiled GRASS (SPGR), a fast SPGR (FSPGR), fast imaging employing steady state (FIESTA) and echo planar imaging (EPI; axial/sagittal planes). Artefact areas were determined according to the ASTM-F2119 standard, and artefact volumes were assessed using OsiriX MD software (Pixmeo, Geneva, Switzerland).
Results: Tukey-Kramer post hoc tests were used for statistical comparisons. For most materials, scanning sequences eliciting artefact volumes in the following (ascending) order FSE-T-1/FSE-T-2 < FSPGR/SPGR < GRASS/GRE < FIESTA < EPI. For all scanning sequences, artefact volumes containing Au, Al, Ag and Au-Pd-Ag were significantly smaller than other materials (in which artefact volume size increased, respectively, from Ti < NC < CC). The artefact-specific shape (elicited by the cubic sample) depended on the scanning plane (i.e. a circular pattern for the axial plane and a "clover-like" pattern for the sagittal plane).
Conclusions: The availability of standardized information on artefact size and configuration during MRI will enhance diagnosis when faced with metallic compounds in the OMR.

Abstract

Purpose
To point out the advantages and drawbacks of high-dose rate brachytherapy in the treatment of mobile tongue cancer and indicate the clinical importance of modular lead-lined spacers when applying this technique to patients.
Methods
First, all basic steps to construct the modular spacer are shown. Second, we simulate and evaluate the dose rate reduction for a wide range of spacer configurations.
Results
With increasing distance to the source absorbed doses dropped considerably. Significantly more shielding was obtained when lead was added to the spacer and this effect was most pronounced on shorter (i.e. more clinically relevant) distances to the source.
Conclusions
The modular spacer represents an important addition to the planning and treatment stages of mobile tongue cancer using HDR-ISBT.

Abstract

Recent research has revealed that the way phonology is constructed during word production differs across languages. Dutch and English native speakers are suggested to incrementally insert phonemes into a metrical frame, whereas Mandarin Chinese speakers use syllables and Japanese speakers use a unit called the mora (often a CV cluster such as "ka" or "ki"). The present study is concerned with the question how bilinguals construct phonology in their L2 when the phonological unit size differs from the unit in their L1. Japanese English bilinguals of varying proficiency read aloud English words preceded by masked primes that overlapped in just the onset (e.g., bark-BENCH) or the onset plus vowel corresponding to the mora-sized unit (e.g., bell-BENCH). Low proficient Japanese English bilinguals showed CV priming but did not show onset priming, indicating that they use their L1 phonological unit when reading L2 English words. In contrast, high-proficient Japanese English bilinguals showed significant onset priming. The size of the onset priming effect was correlated with the length of time spent in English-speaking countries, which suggests that extensive exposure to L2 phonology may play a key role in the emergence of a language-specific phonological unit in L2 word production.

Abstract

Do negative quantifiers like “few” reduce people’s ability to rapidly evaluate incoming language with respect to world knowledge? Previous research has addressed this question by examining whether online measures of quantifier comprehension match the “final” interpretation reflected in verification judgments. However, these studies confounded quantifier valence with its impact on the unfolding expectations for upcoming words, yielding mixed results. In the current event-related potentials study, participants read negative and positive quantifier sentences matched on cloze probability and on truth-value (e.g., “Most/Few gardeners plant their flowers during the spring/winter for best results”). Regardless of whether participants explicitly verified the sentences or not, true-positive quantifier sentences elicited reduced N400s compared with false-positive quantifier sentences, reflecting the facilitated semantic retrieval of words that render a sentence true. No such facilitation was seen in negative quantifier sentences. However, mixed-effects model analyses (with cloze value and truth-value as continuous predictors) revealed that decreasing cloze values were associated with an interaction pattern between truth-value and quantifier, whereas increasing cloze values were associated with more similar truth-value effects regardless of quantifier. Quantifier sentences are thus understood neither always in 2 sequential stages, nor always in a partial-incremental fashion, nor always in a maximally incremental fashion. Instead, and in accordance with prediction-based views of sentence comprehension, quantifier sentence comprehension depends on incorporation of quantifier meaning into an online, knowledge-based prediction for upcoming words. Fully incremental quantifier interpretation occurs when quantifiers are incorporated into sufficiently strong online predictions for upcoming words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Abstract

Can studying left- and right-handers inform us about cognition? In this chapter, we give an overview of research showing that studying left- and right-handers is informative for understanding the way the brain is organized (i.e., lateralized), as there appear to be differences between left- and right-handers in this respect, but also on the behavioral level handedness studies can provide new insights. According to theories of embodied cognition, our body can influence cognition. Given that left- and right-handers use their bodies differently, this might reflect their performance on an array of cognitive tasks. Indeed, handedness can have an influence on, for instance, what side of space we judge as more positive, the way we gesture, how we remember things, and how we learn new words. Laterality research can, therefore, provide valuable information as to how we act and why

Abstract

Recent proposals hold that the cognitive systems underlying language production exhibit computational properties that facilitate communicative efficiency, i.e., an efficient trade-off between production ease and robust information transmission. We contribute to the cross-linguistic evaluation of the communicative efficiency hypothesis by investigating speakers’ preferences in the production of a typologically rare head-marking alternation that occurs in relative clause constructions in Yucatec Maya. In a sentence recall study, we find that speakers of Yucatec Maya prefer to use reduced forms of relative clause verbs when the relative clause is more contextually expected. This result is consistent with communicative efficiency and thus supports its typological generalizability. We compare two types of cue to the presence of a relative clause, pragmatic cues previously investigated in other languages and a highly predictive morphosyntactic cue specific to Yucatec. We find that Yucatec speakers’ preferences for a reduced verb form are primarily conditioned on the more informative cue. This demonstrates the role of both general principles of language production and their language-specific realizations.

Abstract

Spoken utterances contain few reliable cues to word boundaries, but listeners nonetheless experience little difficulty identifying words in continuous speech. The authors present data and simulations that suggest that this ability is best accounted for by a model of spoken-word recognition combining competition between alternative lexical candidates and sensitivity to prosodic structure. In a word-spotting experiment, stress pattern effects emerged most clearly when there were many competing lexical candidates for part of the input. Thus, competition between simultaneously active word candidates can modulate the size of prosodic effects, which suggests that spoken-word recognition must be sensitive both to prosodic structure and to the effects of competition. A version of the Shortlist model ( D. G. Norris, 1994b) incorporating the Metrical Segmentation Strategy ( A. Cutler & D. Norris, 1988) accurately simulates the results using a lexicon of more than 25,000 words.

Abstract

Speech perception involves prediction, but how is that prediction implemented? In cognitive models prediction has often been taken to imply that there is feedback of activation from lexical to pre-lexical processes as implemented in interactive-activation models (IAMs). We show that simple activation feedback does not actually improve speech recognition. However, other forms of feedback can be beneficial. In particular, feedback can enable the listener to adapt to changing input, and can potentially help the listener to recognise unusual input, or recognise speech in the presence of competing sounds. The common feature of these helpful forms of feedback is that they are all ways of optimising the performance of speech recognition using Bayesian inference. That is, listeners make predictions about speech because speech recognition is optimal in the sense captured in Bayesian models.

Abstract

Educational attainment is strongly influenced by social and other environmental factors, but genetic factors are estimated to account for at least 20% of the variation across individuals. Here we report the results of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for educational attainment that extends our earlier discovery sample of 101,069 individuals to 293,723 individuals, and a replication study in an independent sample of 111,349 individuals from the UK Biobank. We identify 74 genome-wide significant loci associated with the number of years of schooling completed. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with educational attainment are disproportionately found in genomic regions regulating gene expression in the fetal brain. Candidate genes are preferentially expressed in neural tissue, especially during the prenatal period, and enriched for biological pathways involved in neural development. Our findings demonstrate that, even for a behavioural phenotype that is mostly environmentally determined, a well-powered GWAS identifies replicable associated genetic variants that suggest biologically relevant pathways. Because educational attainment is measured in large numbers of individuals, it will continue to be useful as a proxy phenotype in efforts to characterize the genetic influences of related phenotypes, including cognition and neuropsychiatric diseases

Abstract

The sense of smell has widely been viewed as inferior to the other senses. This is reflected in the lack of treatment of olfaction in ethnographies and linguistic descriptions. We present novel data
from the olfactory lexicon of Seri, a language isolate of Mexico, which sheds new light onto the possibilities for olfactory terminologies. We also present the Seri smellscape, highlighting the cultural significance of odors in Seri culture which, along with the olfactory language, is now
under threat as globalization takes hold and traditional ways of life are transformed.

Abstract

Two recent studies (Coulson et al., 1998;Osterhout et al., 1996)examined the
relationship between the event-related brain potential (ERP) responses to linguistic syntactic anomalies (P600/SPS) and domain-general unexpected events (P300). Coulson et al. concluded that these responses are highly similar, whereas Osterhout et al. concluded that they are distinct. In this comment, we evaluate the relativemerits of these claims. We conclude that the available evidence indicates that the ERP response to syntactic anomalies is at least partially distinct from the ERP response to unexpected anomalies that do not involve a grammatical violation

Abstract

Two experiments examined the processing of Tokyo Japanese pitchaccent distinctions by native speakers of Japanese from two accentlessvariety areas. In both experiments, listeners were presented with Tokyo Japanese speech materials used in an earlier study with Tokyo Japanese listeners, who clearly exploited the pitch-accent information in spokenword recognition. In the "rst experiment, listeners judged from which of two words, di!ering in accentual structure, isolated syllables had been extracted. Both new groups were, overall, as successful at this task as Tokyo Japanese speakers had been, but their response patterns differed from those of the Tokyo Japanese, for instance in that a bias towards H judgments in the Tokyo Japanese responses was weakened in the present groups' responses. In a second experiment, listeners heard word fragments and guessed what the words were; in this task, the speakers from accentless areas again performed significantly above chance, but their responses showed less sensitivity to the information in the input, and greater bias towards vocabulary distribution frequencies, than had been observed with the Tokyo Japanese listeners. The results suggest that experience with a local accentless dialect affects the processing of accent for word recognition in Tokyo Japanese, even for listeners with extensive exposure to Tokyo Japanese.

Abstract

Individual differences in aggressive behavior emerge in early childhood and predict persisting behavioral problems and disorders. Studies of antisocial and severe aggression in adulthood indicate substantial underlying biology. However, little attention has been given to genome-wide approaches of aggressive behavior in children. We analyzed data from nine population-based studies and assessed aggressive behavior using well-validated parent-reported questionnaires. This is the largest sample exploring children's aggressive behavior to date (N = 18,988), with measures in two developmental stages (N = 15,668 early childhood and N = 16,311 middle childhood/early adolescence). First, we estimated the additive genetic variance of children's aggressive behavior based on genome-wide SNP information, using genome-wide complex trait analysis (GCTA). Second, genetic associations within each study were assessed using a quasi-Poisson regression approach, capturing the highly right-skewed distribution of aggressive behavior. Third, we performed meta-analyses of genome-wide associations for both the total age-mixed sample and the two developmental stages. Finally, we performed a gene-based test using the summary statistics of the total sample. GCTA quantified variance tagged by common SNPs (10–54%). The meta-analysis of the total sample identified one region in chromosome 2 (2p12) at near genome-wide significance (top SNP rs11126630, P = 5.30 × 10−8). The separate meta-analyses of the two developmental stages revealed suggestive evidence of association at the same locus. The gene-based analysis indicated association of variation within AVPR1A with aggressive behavior. We conclude that common variants at 2p12 show suggestive evidence for association with childhood aggression. Replication of these initial findings is needed, and further studies should clarify its biological meaning.

Abstract

"Event realisation" refers to the normal final state of the affected entity of an activity described by a verb. For example, the sentence John killed the mosquito entails that the mosquito is afterwards dead – this is the full realisation of a killing event. By contrast, a sentence such as John hit the mosquito does not entail the mosquito’s death (even though we might assume this to be a likely result). In using a certain verb, which features of event realisation are entailed and which are just likely? This questionnaire supports cross-linguistic exploration of event realisation for a range of event types.

Abstract

In the present PET study we explore some functional aspects of the interaction between attentional/control processes and learning/memory processes. The network of brain regions supporting recall of abstract designs were studied in a less practiced and in a well practiced state. The results indicate that automaticity, i.e., a decreased dependence on attentional and working memory resources, develops as a consequence of practice. This corresponds to the practice related decreases of activity in the prefrontal, anterior cingulate, and posterior parietal regions. In addition, the activity of the medial temporal regions decreased as a function of practice. This indicates an inverse relation between the strength of encoding and the activation of the MTL during retrieval. Furthermore, the pattern of practice related increases in the auditory, posterior insular-opercular extending into perisylvian supra marginal region, and the right mid occipito-temporal region, may reflect a lower degree of inhibitory attentional modulation of task irrelevant processing and more fully developed representations of the abstract designs, respectively. We also suggest that free recall is dependent on bilateral prefrontal processing, in particular non-automatic free recall. The present results cofirm previous functional neuroimaging studies of memory retrieval indicating that recall is subserved by a network of interacting brain regions. Furthermore, the results indicate that some components of the neural network subserving free recall may have a dynamic role and that there is a functional restructuring of the information processing networks during the learning process.

Abstract

Recent event-related FMRI studies indicate that the prefrontal (PFC) and the medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions are more active during effective encoding than during ineffective encoding. The within-subject design and the use of well-educated young college students in these studies makes it important to replicate these results in other study populations. In this PET study, we used an auditory word-pair association cued-recall paradigm and investigated a group of healthy upper middle-aged/older illiterate women. We observed a positive correlation between cued-recall success and the regional cerebral blood flow of the left inferior PFC (BA 47) and the MTLs. Specifically, we used the cuedrecall success as a covariate in a general linear model and the results confirmed that the left inferior PFC and the MTLare more active during effective encoding than during ineffective encoding. These effects were observed during encoding of both semantically and phonologically related word pairs, indicating that these effects are robust in the studied population, that is, reproducible within group. These results generalize the results of Brewer et al. (1998, Science 281, 1185– 1187) and Wagner et al. (1998, Science 281, 1188–1191) to an upper middle aged/older illiterate population. In addition, the present study indicates that effective relational encoding correlates positively with the activity of the anterior medial temporal lobe regions.

Abstract

A fundamental problem in the study of learning is that learning-related changes may be confounded by nonspecific time effects. There are several strategies for handling this problem. This problem may be of greater significance in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) compared to positron emission tomography (PET). Using the general linear model, we describe, compare, and discuss two approaches for separating learning-related from nonspecific time effects. The first approach makes assumptions on the general behavior of nonspecific effects and explicitly models these effects, i.e., nonspecific time effects are incorporated as a linear or nonlinear confounding covariate in the statistical model. The second strategy makes no a priori assumption concerning the form of nonspecific time effects, but implicitly controls for nonspecific effects using an interaction approach, i.e., learning effects are assessed with an interaction contrast. The two approaches depend on specific assumptions and have specific limitations. With certain experimental designs, both approaches may be used and the results compared, lending particular support to effects that are independent of the method used. A third and perhaps better approach that sometimes may be practically unfeasible is to use a completely temporally balanced experimental design. The choice of approach may be of particular importance when learning related effects are studied with fMRI.

Abstract

In a shooting video game we investigated whether increased distance reduces moral conflict. We measured and analyzed the event related potential (ERP), including the N2 component, which has previously been linked to cognitive conflict from competing decision tendencies. In a modified Go/No-go task designed to trigger moral conflict participants had to shoot suddenly appearing human like avatars in a virtual reality scene. The scene was seen either from an ego perspective with targets appearing directly in front of the participant or from a bird's view, where targets were seen from above and more distant. To control for low level visual features, we added a visually identical control condition, where the instruction to shoot was replaced by an instruction to detect. ERP waveforms showed differences between the two tasks as early as in the N1 time-range, with higher N1 amplitudes for the close perspective in the shoot task. Additionally, we found that pre-stimulus alpha power was significantly decreased in the ego, compared to the bird's view only for the shoot but not for the detect task. In the N2 time window, we observed main amplitude effects for response (No-go > Go) and distance (ego > bird perspective) but no interaction with task type (shoot vs. detect). We argue that the pre-stimulus and N1 effects can be explained by reduced attention and arousal in the distance condition when people are instructed to shoot. These results indicate a reduced moral engagement for increased distance. The lack of interaction in the N2 across tasks suggests that at that time point response execution dominates. We discuss potential implications for real life shooting situations, especially considering recent developments in drone shootings which are per definition of a distant view.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the central processing of dynamic mechanical allodynia in patients with mononeuropathy. Regional cerebral bloodflow, as an indicator of neuronal activity, was measured with positron emission tomography. Paired comparisons were made between three different states; rest, allodynia during brushing the painful skin area, and brushing of the homologous contralateral area. Bilateral activations were observed in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) and the secondary somatosensory cortex (S2) during allodynia compared to rest. The S1 activation contralateral to the site of the stimulus was more expressed during allodynia than during innocuous touch. Significant activations of the contralateral posterior parietal cortex, the periaqueductal gray (PAG), the thalamus bilaterally and motor areas were also observed in the allodynic state compared to both non-allodynic states. In the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) there was only a suggested activation when the allodynic state was compared with the non-allodynic states. In order to account for the individual variability in the intensity of allodynia and ongoing spontaneous pain, rCBF was regressed on the individually reported pain intensity, and significant covariations were observed in the ACC and the right anterior insula. Significantly decreased regional blood flow was observed bilaterally in the medial and lateral temporal lobe as well as in the occipital and posterior cingulate cortices when the allodynic state was compared to the non-painful conditions. This finding is consistent with previous studies suggesting attentional modulation and a central coping strategy for known and expected painful stimuli. Involvement of the medial pain system has previously been reported in patients with mononeuropathy during ongoing spontaneous pain. This study reveals a bilateral activation of the lateral pain system as well as involvement of the medial pain system during dynamic mechanical allodynia in patients with mononeuropathy.

Abstract

Rey et al. (2012) present data from a study with baboons that they interpret in support of the idea that center-embedded structures in human language have their origin in low level memory mechanisms and associative learning. Critically, the authors claim that the baboons showed a behavioral preference that is consistent with center-embedded sequences over other types of sequences. We argue that the baboons’ response patterns suggest that two mechanisms are involved: first, they can be trained to associate a particular response with a particular stimulus, and, second, when faced with two conditioned stimuli in a row, they respond to the most recent one first, copying behavior they had been rewarded for during training. Although Rey et al. (2012) ‘experiment shows that the baboons’ behavior is driven by low level mechanisms, it is not clear how the animal behavior reported, bears on the phenomenon of Center Embedded structures in human syntax. Hence, (1) natural language syntax may indeed have been shaped by low level mechanisms, and (2) the baboons’ behavior is driven by low level stimulus response learning, as Rey et al. propose. But is the second evidence for the first? We will discuss in what ways this study can and cannot give evidential value for explaining the origin of Center Embedded recursion in human grammar. More generally, their study provokes an interesting reflection on the use of animal studies in order to understand features of the human linguistic system.

Abstract

This experiment shows that recent experience in one language influences subsequent processing of the same word-forms in a different language. Dutch–English bilinguals read Dutch sentences containing Dutch–English cognates and interlingual homographs, which were presented again 16 minutes later in isolation in an English lexical decision task. Priming produced faster responses for the cognates but slower responses for the interlingual homographs. These results show that language switching can influence bilingual speakers at the level of individual words, and require models of bilingual word recognition (e.g., BIA+) to allow access to word meanings to be modulated by recent experience.

Abstract

We investigated whether augmenting instructional animations with a body analogy (BA) would improve 10- to 13-year-old children’s learning about class-1 levers. Children with a lower level of general math skill who learned with an instructional animation that provided a BA of the physical system, showed higher accuracy on a lever problem-solving reaction time task than children studying the instructional animation without this BA. Additionally, learning with a BA led to a higher speed–accuracy trade-off during the transfer task for children with a lower math skill, which provided additional evidence that especially this group is likely to be affected by learning with a BA. However, overall accuracy and solving speed on the transfer task was not affected by learning with or without this BA. These results suggest that providing children with a BA during animation study provides a stepping-stone for understanding mechanical principles of a physical system, which may prove useful for instructional designers. Yet, because the BA does not seem effective for all children, nor for all tasks, the degree of effectiveness of body analogies should be studied further. Future research, we conclude, should be more sensitive to the necessary degree of analogous mapping between the body and physical systems, and whether this mapping is effective for reasoning about more complex instantiations of such physical systems.

Abstract

Previous research indicates that sensori‐motor experience with physical systems can have a positive effect on learning. However, it is not clear whether this effect is caused by mere bodily engagement or the intrinsically meaningful information that such interaction affords in performing the learning task. We investigated (N = 74), through the use of a Wii Balance Board, whether different forms of physical engagement that was either meaningfully, non‐meaningfully, or minimally related to the learning content would be beneficial (or detrimental) to learning about the workings of seesaws from instructional animations. The results were inconclusive, indicating that motoric competency on lever problem solving did not significantly differ between conditions, nor were response speed and transfer performance affected. These findings suggest that adult's implicit and explicit knowledge about physical systems is stable and not easily affected by (contradictory) sensori‐motor experiences. Implications for embodied learning are discussed.

Abstract

Two broad approaches have dominated the literature on the production of speech-accompanying gestures. On the one hand, there are approaches that aim to explain the origin of gestures by specifying the mental processes that give rise to them. On the other, there are approaches that aim to explain the cognitive function that gestures have for the gesturer or the listener. In the present paper we aim to reconcile both approaches in one single perspective that is informed by a recent sea change in cognitive science, namely, Predictive Processing Perspectives (PPP; Clark 2013b; 2015). We start with the idea put forth by the Gesture as Simulated Action (GSA) framework (Hostetter, Alibali 2008). Under this view, the mental processes that give rise to gesture are re-enactments of sensori-motor experiences (i.e., simulated actions). We show that such anticipatory sensori-motor states and the constraints put forth by the GSA framework can be understood as top-down kinesthetic predictions that function in a broader predictive machinery as proposed by PPP. By establishing this alignment, we aim to show how gestures come to fulfill a genuine cognitive function above and beyond the mental processes that give rise to gesture.

Abstract

Non-communicative hand gestures have been found to benefit problem-solving performance. These gestures seem to compensate for limited internal cognitive capacities, such as visual working memory capacity. Yet, it is not clear how gestures might perform this cognitive function. One hypothesis is that gesturing is a means to spatially index mental simulations, thereby reducing the need for visually projecting the mental simulation onto the visual presentation of the task. If that hypothesis is correct, less eye movements should be made when participants gesture during problem solving than when they do not gesture. We therefore used mobile eye tracking to investigate the effect of co-thought gesturing and visual working memory capacity on eye movements during mental solving of the Tower of Hanoi problem. Results revealed that gesturing indeed reduced the number of eye movements (lower saccade counts), especially for participants with a relatively lower visual working memory capacity. Subsequent problem-solving performance was not affected by having (not) gestured during the mental solving phase. The current findings suggest that our understanding of gestures in problem solving could be improved by taking into account eye movements during gesturing.

Abstract

This study investigated characteristics of motor cortex activation and response generation in Parkinson's disease with measures of electrocortical activity (lateralized readiness potential [LRP]), electromyographic activity (EMG), and isometric force in a noise-compatibility task. When presented with stimuli consisting of incompatible target and distracter elements asking for responses of opposite hands, patients were less able than control subjects to suppress activation of the motor cortex controlling the wrong response hand. This was manifested in the pattern of reaction times and in an incorrect lateralization of the LRP. Onset latency and rise time of the LRP did not differ between patients and control subjects, but EMG and response force developed more slowly in patients. Moreover, in patients but not in control subjects, the rate of development of EMG and response force decreased as reaction time increased. We hypothesize that this dissociation between electrocortical activity and peripheral measures in Parkinson's disease is the result of changes in motor cortex function that alter the relation between signal-related and movement-related neural activity in the motor cortex. In the LRP, this altered balance may obscure an abnormal development of movement-related neural activity.

Abstract

Linguistic communication builds on prelinguistic communicative gestures, but the ontogenetic origins and complexities of these prelinguistic gestures are not well known. The current study tested whether 8-month-olds, who do not yet point communicatively, use instrumental actions for communicative purposes. In two experiments, infants reached for objects when another person was present and when no one else was present; the distance to the objects was varied. When alone, the infants reached for objects within their action boundaries and refrained from reaching for objects out of their action boundaries; thus, they knew about their individual action efficiency. However, when a parent (Experiment 1) or a less familiar person (Experiment 2) sat next to them, the infants selectively increased their reaching for out-of-reach objects. The findings reveal that before they communicate explicitly through pointing gestures, infants use instrumental actions with the apparent expectation that a partner will adopt and complete their goals.

Abstract

Music exhibits some cross-cultural similarities, despite its variety across the world. Evidence from a broad range of human cultures suggests the existence of musical universals1, here defined as strong regularities emerging across cultures above chance. In particular, humans demonstrate a general proclivity for rhythm2, although little is known about why music is particularly rhythmic and why the same structural regularities are present in rhythms around the world. We empirically investigate the mechanisms underlying musical universals for rhythm, showing how music can evolve culturally from randomness. Human participants were asked to imitate sets of randomly generated drumming sequences and their imitation attempts became the training set for the next participants in independent transmission chains. By perceiving and imitating drumming sequences from each other, participants turned initially random sequences into rhythmically structured patterns. Drumming patterns developed into rhythms that are more structured, easier to learn, distinctive for each experimental cultural tradition and characterized by all six statistical universals found among world music1; the patterns appear to be adapted to human learning, memory and cognition. We conclude that musical rhythm partially arises from the influence of human cognitive and biological biases on the process of cultural evolution.