Publications

Abstract

Variability in children's language acquisition is likely due to a number of cognitive and social variables. The current study investigated whether individual differences in statistical learning (SL), which has been implicated in language acquisition, independently predicted 6- to 8-year-old's comprehension of syntax. Sixty-eight (N = 68) English-speaking children completed a test of comprehension of four syntactic structures, a test of SL utilizing nonlinguistic visual stimuli, and several additional control measures. The results revealed that SL independently predicted comprehension of two syntactic structures that show considerable variability in this age range: passives and object relative clauses. These data suggest that individual differences in children's capacity for SL are associated with the acquisition of the syntax of natural languages.

Abstract

Languages are strong markers of social identity. Multiple features of language and speech, from accent to lexis to grammatical constructions, mark speakers as members of specific cultural groups. In the current article, we present two confederate-scripted studies that investigated the social effects of the Australian hypocoristic use (e.g., uggie, uni, derro)—a lexical category emblematic of Australian culture. Participants took turns with a confederate directing each other through locations on a map. In their directions, the confederate used either hypocoristic (e.g., uni) or standard forms (e.g., university). The confederate’s cultural group membership and member prototypicality were manipulated by ethnic background and accent: In a highly prototypical in-group condition, the confederate had an Anglo-Celtic background and Australian English (AusE) accent; in a low prototypical in-group condition, the confederate had an Asian background and AusE accent; and in the out-group condition, the confederate had an Asian background and non-AusE accent. Hypocoristic use resulted in significantly higher participant-rated perceived common ground with the confederate when the confederate was an in-group but not an out-group member, which in some instances was moderated by in-group identification. The results suggest that like accents, culturally significant lexical categories function as markers of in-group identity, which influence perceived social closeness during interaction.

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

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

This task investigates the expression of “enter” and “exit” events, and is a supplement to the Motion Elicitation task (https://doi.org/10.17617/2.3003391). Consultants are asked to describe a series of animated clips where a man moves into or out of a house. The clips focus on contrasts to do with perspective (e.g., whether the man appears to move away or towards the viewer) and transitional movement (e.g., whether the man walks or “teleports” into his new location).

Abstract

Do our hands 'speak the same language' across cultures? Gesture is the silent partner of spoken languages in face-to-face interaction, but we still have a lot to learn about gesture practices in different speech communities. The primary purpose of this task is to collect data in naturalistic settings that can be used to investigate the linguistic and cultural relativity of gesture performance, especially spatially indicative gestures. It involves video-recording pairs of speakers in both free conversation and more structured communication tasks (e.g., describing film plots).

Please note: the stimuli mentioned in this entry are available elsewhere: 'The Pear Story', a short film made at the University of California at Berkeley; "Frog, where are you?" from the original Mayer (1969) book, as published in the Appendix of Berman & Slobin (1994).

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

During the last 25 years, second language acquisition (SLA) research hasmade considerable progress, but is still far from proving a solid basis for foreign language teaching, or from a general theory of SLA. In addition, its status within the linguistic disciplines is still very low. I argue this has not much to do with low empirical or theoretical standards in the field—in this regard, SLA research is fully competitive—but with a particular perspective on the acquisition process: SLA researches learners' utterances as deviations from a certain target, instead of genuine manifestations of underlying language capacity; it analyses them in terms of what they are not rather than what they are. For some purposes such a "target deviation perspective" makes sense, but it will not help SLA researchers to substantially and independently contribute to a deeper understanding of the structure and function of the human language faculty. Therefore, these findings will remain of limited interest to other scientists until SLA researchers consider learner varieties a normal, in fact typical, manifestation of this unique human capacity.

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of speech rate on spoken word recognition across the adult life span. Contrary to previous studies, conversational materials with a natural variation in speech rate were used rather than lab-recorded stimuli that are subsequently artificially time-compressed. It was investigated whether older adults' speech recognition is more adversely affected by increased speech rate compared to younger and middle-aged adults, and which individual listener characteristics (e.g., hearing, fluid cognitive processing ability) predict the size of the speech rate effect on recognition performance. In an eye-tracking experiment, participants indicated with a mouse-click which visually presented words they recognized in a conversational fragment. Click response times, gaze, and pupil size data were analyzed. As expected, click response times and gaze behavior were affected by speech rate, indicating that word recognition is more difficult if speech rate is faster. Contrary to earlier findings, increased speech rate affected the age groups to the same extent. Fluid cognitive processing ability predicted general recognition performance, but did not modulate the speech rate effect. These findings emphasize that earlier results of age by speech rate interactions mainly obtained with artificially speeded materials may not generalize to speech rate variation as encountered in conversational speech.

Abstract

The Acceptable Noise Level (ANL) test, in which individuals indicate what level of noise they are willing to put up with while following speech, has been used to guide hearing aid fitting decisions and has been found to relate to prospective hearing aid use. Unlike objective measures of speech perception ability, ANL outcome is not related to individual hearing loss or age, but rather reflects an individual's inherent acceptance of competing noise while listening to speech. As such, the measure may predict aspects of hearing aid success. Crucially, however, recent studies have questioned its repeatability (test-retest reliability). The first question for this study was whether the inconsistent results regarding the repeatability of the ANL test may be due to differences in speech material types used in previous studies. Second, it is unclear whether meaningfulness and semantic coherence of the speech modify ANL outcome. To investigate these questions, we compared ANLs obtained with three types of materials: the International Speech Test Signal (ISTS), which is non-meaningful and semantically non-coherent by definition, passages consisting of concatenated meaningful standard audiology sentences, and longer fragments taken from conversational speech. We included conversational speech as this type of speech material is most representative of everyday listening. Additionally, we investigated whether ANL outcomes, obtained with these three different speech materials, were associated with self-reported limitations due to hearing problems and listening effort in everyday life, as assessed by a questionnaire. ANL data were collected for 57 relatively good-hearing adult participants with an age range representative for hearing aid users. Results showed that meaningfulness, but not semantic coherence of the speech material affected ANL. Less noise was accepted for the non-meaningful ISTS signal than for the meaningful speech materials. ANL repeatability was comparable across the speech materials. Furthermore, ANL was found to be associated with the outcome of a hearing-related questionnaire. This suggests that ANL may predict activity limitations for listening to speech-in-noise in everyday situations. In conclusion, more natural speech materials can be used in a clinical setting as their repeatability is not reduced compared to more standard materials.

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

A steady accumulation of experimental data argues that protein synthesis in neurons is not merely restricted to the somatic compartment, but also occurs in several discrete cellular micro-domains. Local protein synthesis is critical for the establishment of synaptic plasticity in mature dendrites and in directing the growth cones of immature axons, and has been associated with cognitive impairment in mice and humans. Although in recent years a number of important mechanisms governing this process have been described, it remains technically challenging to precisely monitor local protein synthesis in individual neuronal cell parts independent from the soma. This report presents the utility of employing microfluidic chambers for the isolation and treatment of single neuronal cellular compartments. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that a protein synthesis assay, based on fluorescent non-canonical amino acid tagging (FUNCAT), can be combined with this cell culture system to label nascent proteins within a discrete structural and functional domain of the neuron. Together, these techniques could be employed for the detection of protein synthesis within developing and mature neurites, offering an effective approach to elucidate novel mechanisms controlling synaptic maintenance and plasticity.

Abstract

During speech listening, the brain parses a continuous acoustic stream of information into computational units (e.g. syllables or words) necessary for speech comprehension. Recent neuroscientific hypotheses propose that neural oscillations contribute to speech parsing, but whether they do so on the basis of acoustic cues (bottom-up acoustic parsing) or as a function of available linguistic representations (top-down linguistic parsing) is unknown. In this magnetoencephalography study, we contrasted acoustic and linguistic parsing using bistable speech sequences. While listening to the speech sequences, participants were asked to maintain one of the two possible speech percepts through volitional control. We predicted that the tracking of speech dynamics by neural oscillations would not only follow the acoustic properties but also shift in time according to the participant’s conscious speech percept. Our results show that the latency of high-frequency activity (specifically, beta and gamma bands) varied as a function of the perceptual report. In contrast, the phase of low-frequency oscillations was not strongly affected by top-down control. While changes in low-frequency neural oscillations were compatible with the encoding of pre-lexical segmentation cues, high-frequency activity specifically informed on an individual’s conscious speech percept.

Abstract

In various applications of forensic phonetics the question arises as to how far aural-perceptual speaker recognition performance is reliable. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the relationship between speaker recognition results and human perception/production abilities like musicality or speech sensitivity. In this study, performance in a speaker recognition experiment and a speech sensitivity test are correlated. The results show a moderately significant positive correlation between the two tasks. Generally, performance in the speaker recognition task was better than in the speech sensitivity test. Professionals in speech and singing yielded a more homogeneous correlation than non-experts. Training in speech as well as choir-singing seems to have a positive effect on performance in speaker recognition. It may be concluded, firstly, that in cases where the reliability of voice line-up results or the credibility of a testimony have to be considered, the speech sensitivity test could be a useful indicator. Secondly, the speech sensitivity test might be integrated into the canon of possible procedures for the accreditation of forensic phoneticians. Both tests may also be used in combination.

Abstract

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) remains the leading cause of mortality worldwide. Mortality rates associated with CAD have shown an exceptional increase particularly in fast developing economies like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Over the past twenty years, CAD has become the leading cause of death in KSA and has reached epidemic proportions. This rise is undoubtedly caused by fast urbanization that is associated with a life-style that promotes CAD. However, the question remains whether genetics play a significant role and whether genetic susceptibility is increased in KSA compared to the well-studied Western European populations. Therefore, we performed an Exome-wide association study (EWAS) in 832 patients and 1,076 controls of Saudi Arabian origin to test whether population specific, strong genetic risk factors for CAD exist, or whether the polygenic risk score for known genetic risk factors for CAD, lipids, and Type 2 Diabetes show evidence for an enriched genetic burden. Our results do not show significant associations for a single genetic locus. However, the heritability estimate for CAD for this population was high (h2 = 0.53, S.E. = 0.1, p = 4e-12) and we observed a significant association of the polygenic risk score for CAD that demonstrates that the population of KSA, at least in part, shares the genetic risk associated to CAD in Western populations.

Abstract

Background Many genes are candidates for involvement in epileptic encephalopathy (EE) because one or a few possibly pathogenic variants have been found in patients, but insufficient genetic or functional evidence exists for a definite annotation. Methods To increase the number of validated EE genes, we sequenced 26 known and 351 candidate genes for EE in 360 patients. Variants in 25 genes known to be involved in EE or related phenotypes were followed up in 41 patients. We pri- oritized the candidate genes, and followed up 31 variants in this prioritized subset of candidate genes. Results Twenty-nine genotypes in known genes for EE (19) or related diseases (10), dominant as well as recessive or X-linked, were classified as likely pathogenic variants. Among those, likely pathogenic de novo variants were found in EE genes that act dominantly, including the recently identified genes EEF1A2, KCNB1 and the X-linked gene IQSEC2 .A de novo frameshift variant in candi- date gene HNRNPU was the only de novo variant found among the followed- up candidate genes, and the patient’s phenotype was similar to a few recent publication

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

Only relatively recently have theories of speech production concerned themselves with the part idioms and other multi-word lexical items (MLIs) play in the processes of speech production. Two theories of speech production which attempt to account for the accessing of idioms in speech production are those of Cutting and Bock (1997) and superlemma theory (Sprenger, 2003; Sprenger, Levelt, & Kempen, 2006). Much of the data supporting theories of speech production comes either from time course experiments or from slips of the tongue (Bock & Levelt, 1994). The latter are of two kinds: experimentally induced (Baars, 1992) or naturally observed (Fromkin, 1980). Cutting and Bock use experimentally induced speech errors while Sprenger et al. use time course experiments. The missing data type that has a bearing on speech production involving MLIs is that of naturally occurring slips. In this study the impact of data taken from naturally observed slips involving English and Dutch MLIs are brought to bear on these theories. The data are taken initially from a corpus of just over 1000 naturally observed English slips involving MLIs (the Tuggy corpus). Our argument proceeds as follows. First we show that slips occur independent of whether or not there are MLIs involved. In other words, speech production proceeds in certain of its aspects as though there were no MLI present. We illustrate these slips from the Tuggy data. Second we investigate the predictions of superlemma theory. Superlemma theory (Sprenger et al., 2006) accounts for the selection of MLIs and how their properties enter processes of speech production. It predicts certain activation patterns dependent on a MLI being selected. Each such pattern might give rise to slips of the tongue. This set of predictions is tested against the Tuggy data. Each of the predicted activation patterns yields a significant number of slips. These findings are therefore compatible with a view of MLIs as single units in so far as their activation by lexical concepts goes. However, the theory also predicts that some slips are likely not to occur. We confirm that such slips are not present in the data. These findings are further corroborated by reference a second smaller dataset of slips involving Dutch MLIs (the Kempen corpus). We then use slips involving irreversible binomials to distinguish between the predictions of superlemma theory which are supported by slips involving irreversible binomials and the Cutting and Bock model's predictions for slips involving these MLIs which are not

Abstract

Counterfactual thought allows people to consider alternative worlds they know to be false. Communicating these thoughts through language poses a social-communicative challenge because listeners typically expect a speaker to produce true utterances, but counterfactuals per definition convey information that is false. Listeners must therefore incorporate overt linguistic cues (subjunctive mood, such as in If I loved you then) in a rapid way to infer the intended counterfactual meaning. The present EEG study focused on the comprehension of such counterfactual antecedents and investigated if pragmatic ability—the ability to apply knowledge of the social-communicative use of language in daily life—predicts the online generation of counterfactual worlds. This yielded two novel findings: (1) Words that are consistent with factual knowledge incur a semantic processing cost, as reflected in larger N400 amplitude, in counterfactual antecedents compared to hypothetical antecedents (If sweets were/are made of sugar). We take this to suggest that counterfactuality is quickly incorporated during language comprehension and reduces online expectations based on factual knowledge. (2) Individual scores on the Autism Quotient Communication subscale modulated this effect, suggesting that individuals who are better at understanding the communicative intentions of other people are more likely to reduce knowledge-based expectations in counterfactuals. These results are the first demonstration of the real-time pragmatic processes involved in creating possible worlds.

Abstract

Cognitive and linguistic theories of counterfactual language comprehension assume that counterfactuals convey a dual meaning. Subjunctive-counterfactual conditionals (e.g., ‘If Tom had studied hard, he would have passed the test’) express a supposition while implying the factual state of affairs (Tom has not studied hard and failed). The question of how counterfactual dual meaning plays out during language processing is currently gaining interest in psycholinguistics. Whereas numerous studies using offline measures of language processing consistently support counterfactual dual meaning, evidence coming from online studies is less conclusive. Here, we review the available studies that examine online counterfactual language comprehension through behavioural measurement (self-paced reading times, eye-tracking) and neuroimaging (electroencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging). While we argue that these studies do not offer direct evidence for the online computation of counterfactual dual meaning, they provide valuable information about the way counterfactual meaning unfolds in time and influences successive information processing. Further advances in research on counterfactual comprehension require more specific predictions about how counterfactual dual meaning impacts incremental sentence processing.

Abstract

The Profile of Music Perception Skills (PROMS) is a recently developed measure of perceptual music skills which has been shown to have promising psychometric properties. In this paper we extend the evaluation of its brief version to three kinds of validity using an individual difference approach. The brief PROMS displays good discriminant validity with working memory, given that it does not correlate with backward digit span (r = .04). Moreover, it shows promising criterion validity (association with musical training (r = .45), musicianship status (r = .48), and self-rated musical talent (r = .51)). Finally, its convergent validity, i.e. relation to an unrelated measure of music perception skills, was assessed by correlating the brief PROMS to harmonic closure judgment accuracy. Two independent samples point to good convergent validity of the brief PROMS (r = .36; r = .40). The same association is still significant in one of the samples when including self-reported music skill in a partial correlation (rpartial = .30; rpartial = .17). Overall, the results show that the brief version of the PROMS displays a very good pattern of construct validity. Especially its tuning subtest stands out as a valuable part for music skill evaluations in Western samples. We conclude by briefly discussing the choice faced by music cognition researchers between different musical aptitude measures of which the brief PROMS is a well evaluated example.

Abstract

Many studies have revealed shared music–language processing resources by finding an influence of music harmony manipulations on concurrent language processing. However, the nature of the shared resources has remained ambiguous. They have been argued to be syntax specific and thus due to shared syntactic integration resources. An alternative view regards them as related to general attention and, thus, not specific to syntax. The present experiments evaluated these accounts by investigating the influence of language on music. Participants were asked to provide closure judgements on harmonic sequences in order to assess the appropriateness of sequence endings. At the same time participants read syntactic garden-path sentences. Closure judgements revealed a change in harmonic processing as the result of reading a syntactically challenging word. We found no influence of an arithmetic control manipulation (experiment 1) or semantic garden-path sentences (experiment 2). Our results provide behavioural evidence for a specific influence of linguistic syntax processing on musical harmony judgements. A closer look reveals that the shared resources appear to be needed to hold a harmonic key online in some form of syntactic working memory or unification workspace related to the integration of chords and words. Overall, our results support the syntax specificity of shared music–language processing resources.

Abstract

Recently, many psychological effects have been surprisingly difficult to reproduce. This article asks why, and investigates whether conceptually replicating an effect in the original publication is related to the success of independent, direct replications. Two prominent accounts of low reproducibility make different predictions in this respect. One account suggests that psychological phenomena are dependent on unknown contexts that are not reproduced in independent replication attempts. By this account, internal replications indicate that a finding is more robust and, thus, that it is easier to independently replicate it. An alternative account suggests that researchers employ questionable research practices (QRPs), which increase false positive rates. By this account, the success of internal replications may just be the result of QRPs and, thus, internal replications are not predictive of independent replication success. The data of a large reproducibility project support the QRP account: replicating an effect in the original publication is not related to independent replication success. Additional analyses reveal that internally replicated and internally unreplicated effects are not very different in terms of variables associated with replication success. Moreover, social psychological effects in particular appear to lack any benefit from internal replications. Overall, these results indicate that, in this dataset at least, the influence of QRPs is at the heart of failures to replicate psychological findings, especially in social psychology. Variable, unknown contexts appear to play only a relatively minor role. I recommend practical solutions for how QRPs can be avoided.

Abstract

This study explores the effects of informational redundancy, as carried by a word's morphological paradigmatic structure, on acoustic duration in read aloud speech. The hypothesis that the more predictable a linguistic unit is, the less salient its realization, was tested on the basis of the acoustic duration of interfixes in Dutch compounds in two datasets: One for the interfix -s- (1155 tokens) and one for the interfix -e(n)- (742 tokens). Both datasets show that the more probable the interfix is, given the compound and its constituents, the longer it is realized. These findings run counter to the predictions of information-theoretical approaches and can be resolved by the Paradigmatic Signal Enhancement Hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that whenever selection of an element from alternatives is probabilistic, the element's duration is predicted by the amount of paradigmatic support for the element: The most likely alternative in the paradigm of selection is realized longer.

Abstract

This study addressed prosodic effects on the duration of and amount of glottal vibration in German word-initial fricatives /f, v, z/ in assimilatory and non-assimilatory devoicing contexts. Fricatives following /small schwa/ (non-assimilation context) were longer and were produced with less glottal vibration after higher prosodic boundaries, reflecting domain-initial prosodic strengthening. After /t/ (assimilation context), lenis fricatives (/v, z/) were produced with less glottal vibration than after /small schwa/, due to assimilatory devoicing. This devoicing was especially strong across lower prosodic boundaries, showing the influence of prosodic structure on sandhi processes. Reduction in glottal vibration made lenis fricatives more fortis-like (/f, s/). Importantly, fricative duration, another major cue to the fortis-lenis distinction, was affected by initial lengthening, but not by assimilation. Hence, at smaller boundaries, fricatives were more devoiced (more fortis-like), but also shorter (more lenis-like). As a consequence, the fortis and lenis fricatives remained acoustically distinct in all prosodic and segmental contexts. Overall, /z/ was devoiced to a greater extent than /v/. Since /z/ does not have a fortis counterpart in word-initial position, these findings suggest that phonotactic restrictions constrain phonetic processes. The present study illuminates a complex interaction of prosody, sandhi processes, and phonotactics, yielding systematic phonetic cues to prosodic structure and phonological distinctions.

Abstract

Research on prediction in language processing has focused predominantly on the function of predictive context and less on the potential contribution of the predicted word. The present study investigated how meaning that is not immediately prominent in the contents of predictions but is part of the predicted words influences sentence processing. We used emotional meaning to address this question. Participants read emotional and neutral words embedded in highly predictive and non-predictive sentential contexts, with the two sentential contexts rated similarly for their emotional ratings. Event Related Potential (ERP) effects of prediction and emotion both started at ~200 ms. Confirmed predictions elicited larger P200s than violated predictions when the target words were non-emotional (neutral), but such effect was absent when the target words were emotional. Likewise, emotional words elicited larger P200s than neutral words when the target words were non-predictive, but such effect were absent when the contexts were predictive. We conjecture that the prediction and emotion effects at ~200 ms may share similar neural process(es). We suggest that such process(es) could be affective, where confirmed predictions and word emotion give rise to ‘aha’ or reward feelings, and/or cognitive, where both prediction and word emotion quickly engage attention

Abstract

We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to explore the spatio-temporal dynamics of neural oscillations associated with sentence processing, in 102 participants. We quantified changes in oscillatory power as the sentence unfolded, and in response to individual words in the sentence. For words early in a sentence compared to those late in the same sentence, we observed differences in left temporal and frontal areas, and bilateral frontal and right parietal regions for the theta, alpha, and beta frequency bands. The neural response to words in a sentence differed from the response to words in scrambled sentences in left-lateralized theta, alpha, beta, and gamma. The theta band effects suggest that a sentential context facilitates lexical retrieval, and that this facilitation is stronger for words late in the sentence. Effects in the alpha and beta band may reflect the unification of semantic and syntactic information, and are suggestive of easier unification late in a sentence. The gamma oscillations are indicative of predicting the upcoming word during sentence processing. In conclusion, changes in oscillatory neuronal activity capture aspects of sentence processing. Our results support earlier claims that language (sentence) processing recruits areas distributed across both hemispheres, and extends beyond the classical language regions

Abstract

Background Mutations in the KIAA2022 gene have been reported in male patients with X-linked intellectual disability, and related female carriers were unaffected. Here, we report 14 female patients who carry a heterozygous de novo KIAA2022 mutation and share a phenotype characterised by intellectual disability and epilepsy.

Methods Reported females were selected for genetic testing because of substantial developmental problems and/or epilepsy. X-inactivation and expression studies were performed when possible.

Results All mutations were predicted to result in a frameshift or premature stop. 12 out of 14 patients had intractable epilepsy with myoclonic and/or absence seizures, and generalised in 11. Thirteen patients had mild to severe intellectual disability. This female phenotype partially overlaps with the reported male phenotype which consists of more severe intellectual disability, microcephaly, growth retardation, facial dysmorphisms and, less frequently, epilepsy. One female patient showed completely skewed X-inactivation, complete absence of RNA expression in blood and a phenotype similar to male patients. In the six other tested patients, X-inactivation was random, confirmed by a non-significant twofold to threefold decrease of RNA expression in blood, consistent with the expected mosaicism between cells expressing mutant or normal KIAA2022 alleles.

Conclusions Heterozygous loss of KIAA2022 expression is a cause of intellectual disability in females. Compared with its hemizygous male counterpart, the heterozygous female disease has less severe intellectual disability, but is more often associated with a severe and intractable myoclonic epilepsy.

Abstract

We describe the calls of Stumpffia be Köhler, Vences, D’Cruze & Glaw, 2010. This is the first call description made for a species belonging to the large-bodied northern Madagascan radiation of Stumpffia Boettger, 1881. Stumpffia is a genus of small (~9–28 mm) microhylid frogs in the Madagascar-endemic subfamily Cophylinae Cope. Little is known about their reproductive strategies. Most species are assumed to lay their eggs in foam nests in the leaf litter of Madagascar’s humid and semi-humid forests (Glaw & Vences 1994; Klages et al. 2013). They exhibit some degree of parental care, with the males guarding the nest after eggs are laid (Klages et al. 2013). The bioacoustic repertoire of these frogs is thought to be limited, and there are two distinct call structures known for the genus: the advertisement call of the type species, S. psologlossa Boettger, 1881, is apparently unique in being a trill of notes repeated in short succession. All other species from which calls are known emit single, whistling or chirping notes (Vences & Glaw 1991; Vences et al. 2006).

Abstract

Although there is broad agreement that top-down expectations can facilitate lexical-semantic processing, the mechanisms driving these effects are still unclear. In particular, while previous electroencephalography (EEG) research has demonstrated a reduction in the N400 response to words in a supportive context, it is often challenging to dissociate facilitation due to bottom-up spreading activation from facilitation due to top-down expectations. The goal of the current study was to specifically determine the cortical areas associated with facilitation due to top-down prediction, using magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings supplemented by EEG and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a semantic priming paradigm. In order to modulate expectation processes while holding context constant, we manipulated the proportion of related pairs across 2 blocks (10 and 50% related). Event-related potential results demonstrated a larger N400 reduction when a related word was predicted, and MEG source localization of activity in this time-window (350-450 ms) localized the differential responses to left anterior temporal cortex. fMRI data from the same participants support the MEG localization, showing contextual facilitation in left anterior superior temporal gyrus for the high expectation block only. Together, these results provide strong evidence that facilitatory effects of lexical-semantic prediction on the electrophysiological response 350-450 ms postonset reflect modulation of activity in left anterior temporal cortex.

Abstract

As visual media spread to all domains of public and scientific life, nonverbal behavior is taking its place as an important form of communication alongside the written and spoken word. An objective and reliable method of analysis for hand movement behavior and gesture is therefore currently required in various scientific disciplines, including psychology, medicine, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and computer science. However, no adequate common methodological standards have been developed thus far. Many behavioral gesture-coding systems lack objectivity and reliability, and automated methods that register specific movement parameters often fail to show validity with regard to psychological and social functions. To address these deficits, we have combined two methods, an elaborated behavioral coding system and an annotation tool for video and audio data. The NEUROGES–ELAN system is an effective and user-friendly research tool for the analysis of hand movement behavior, including gesture, self-touch, shifts, and actions. Since its first publication in 2009 in Behavior Research Methods, the tool has been used in interdisciplinary research projects to analyze a total of 467 individuals from different cultures, including subjects with mental disease and brain damage. Partly on the basis of new insights from these studies, the system has been revised methodologically and conceptually. The article presents the revised version of the system, including a detailed study of reliability. The improved reproducibility of the revised version makes NEUROGES–ELAN a suitable system for basic empirical research into the relation between hand movement behavior and gesture and cognitive, emotional, and interactive processes and for the development of automated movement behavior recognition methods.

Abstract

The temporal dynamics of processing morphologically complex words was investigated by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) when native Finnish-speakers performed a visual lexical decision task. Behaviorally, there is evidence that recognition of inflected nouns elicits a processing cost (i.e., longer reaction times and higher error rates) in comparison to matched monomorphemic words. We aimed to reveal whether the processing cost stems from decomposition at the early visual word form level or from recomposition at the later semantic–syntactic level. The ERPs showed no early effects for morphology, but revealed an interaction with word frequency at a late N400-type component, as well as a late positive component that was larger for inflected words. These results suggest that the processing cost stems mainly from the semantic–syntactic level. We also studied the features of the morphological decomposition route by investigating the recognition of pseudowords carrying real morphemes. The results showed no differences between inflected vs. uninflected pseudowords with a false stem, but differences in relation to those with a real stem, suggesting that a recognizable stem is needed to initiate the decomposition route.

Abstract

Humans are adept at understanding speech despite the fact that our natural listening environment is often filled with interference. An example of this capacity is phoneme restoration, in which part of a word is completely replaced by noise, yet listeners report hearing the whole word. The neurological basis for this unconscious fill-in phenomenon is unknown, despite being a fundamental characteristic of human hearing. Here, using direct cortical recordings in humans, we demonstrate that missing speech is restored at the acoustic-phonetic level in bilateral auditory cortex, in real-time. This restoration is preceded by specific neural activity patterns in a separate language area, left frontal cortex, which predicts the word that participants later report hearing. These results demonstrate that during speech perception, missing acoustic content is synthesized online from the integration of incoming sensory cues and the internal neural dynamics that bias word-level expectation and prediction.

Abstract

Speech perception is known to be influenced by listeners’ expectations of the speaker. This paper tests whether the demographic makeup of individuals’ communities can influence their perception of foreign sounds by influencing their expectations of the language. Using online experiments with participants from all across the U.S. and matched census data on the proportion of Spanish and other foreign language speakers in participants’ communities, this paper shows that the demo- graphic makeup of individuals’ communities influences their expectations of foreign languages to have an alveolar trill versus a tap (Experiment 1), as well as their consequent perception of these sounds (Experiment 2). Thus, the paper shows that while individuals’ expectations of foreign lan- guage to have a trill occasionally lead them to misperceive a tap in a foreign language as a trill, a higher proportion of non-trill language speakers in one’s community decreases this likelihood. These results show that individuals’ environment can influence their perception by shaping their linguistic expectations

Abstract

People differ in the size of their social network, and thus in the properties of the linguistic input they receive. This article examines whether differences in social network size influence individuals’ linguistic skills in their native language, focusing on global comprehension of evaluative language. Study 1 exploits the natural variation in social network size and shows that individuals with larger social networks are better at understanding the valence of restaurant reviews. Study 2 manipulated social network size by randomly assigning participants to learn novel evaluative words as used by two (small network) versus eight (large network) speakers. It replicated the finding from Study 1, showing that those exposed to a larger social network were better at comprehending the valence of product reviews containing the novel words that were written by novel speakers. Together, these studies show that the size of one's social network can influence success at language comprehension. They thus open the door to research on how individuals’ lifestyle and the nature of their social interactions can influence linguistic skills.

Abstract

Models of language learning often assume that we learn from all the input we receive. This assumption is particularly strong in the domain of short-term and long-term grammatical convergence, where researchers argue that grammatical convergence is mostly an automatic process insulated from social factors. This paper shows that the degree to which individuals learn from grammatical input is modulated by social and contextual factors, such as the degree to which the speaker is liked and their social standing. Furthermore, such modulation is found in experiments that test generalized learning rather than convergence during the interaction. This paper thus shows the importance of the social context in grammatical learning, and indicates that the social context should be integrated into models of language learning.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to relate a psycholinguistic processing model of picture naming to the dynamics of cortical activation during picture naming. The activation was recorded from eight Dutch subjects with a whole-head neuromagnetometer. The processing model, based on extensive naming latency studies, is a stage model. In preparing a picture's name, the speaker performs a chain of specific operations. They are, in this order, computing the visual percept, activating an appropriate lexical concept, selecting the target word from the mental lexicon, phonological encoding, phonetic encoding, and initiation of articulation. The time windows for each of these operations are reasonably well known and could be related to the peak activity of dipole sources in the individual magnetic response patterns. The analyses showed a clear progression over these time windows from early occipital activation, via parietal and temporal to frontal activation. The major specific findings were that (1) a region in the left posterior temporal lobe, agreeing with the location of Wernicke's area, showed prominent activation starting about 200 msec after picture onset and peaking at about 350 msec, (i.e., within the stage of phonological encoding), and (2) a consistent activation was found in the right parietal cortex, peaking at about 230 msec after picture onset, thus preceding and partly overlapping with the left temporal response. An interpretation in terms of the management of visual attention is proposed.

Abstract

Making a self-repair in speech typically proceeds in three phases. The first phase involves the monitoring of one’s own speech and the interruption of the flow of speech when trouble is detected. From an analysis of 959 spontaneous self-repairs it appears that interrupting follows detection promptly, with the exception that correct words tend to be completed. Another finding is that detection of trouble improves towards the end of constituents. The second phase is characterized by hesitation, pausing, but especially the use of so-called editing terms. Which editing term is used depends on the nature of the speech trouble in a rather regular fashion: Speech errors induce other editing terms than words that are merely inappropriate, and trouble which is detected quickly by the speaker is preferably signalled by the use of ‘uh’. The third phase consists of making the repair proper The linguistic well-formedness of a repair is not dependent on the speaker’s respecting the integriv of constituents, but on the structural relation between original utterance and repair. A bi-conditional well-formedness rule links this relation to a corresponding relation between the conjuncts of a coordination. It is suggested that a similar relation holds also between question and answer. In all three cases the speaker respects certain Istructural commitments derived from an original utterance. It was finally shown that the editing term plus the first word of the repair proper almost always contain sufficient information for the listener to decide how the repair should be related to the original utterance. Speakers almost never produce misleading information in this respect. It is argued that speakers have little or no access to their speech production process; self-monitoring is probably based on parsing one’s own inner or overt speech.

Abstract

This commentary discusses whether abstract metrical frames are stored. For stress-assigning languages (e.g., Dutch and English), which have a dominant stress pattern, metrical frames are stored only for words that deviate from the default stress pattern. The majority of the words in these languages are produced without retrieving any independent syllabic or metrical frame.

Abstract

Spontaneous self-corrections in speech pose a communication problem; the speaker must make clear to the listener not only that the original Utterance was faulty, but where it was faulty and how the fault is to be corrected. Prosodic marking of corrections - making the prosody of the repair noticeably different from that of the original utterance - offers a resource which the speaker can exploit to provide the listener with such information. A corpus of more than 400 spontaneous speech repairs was analysed, and the prosodic characteristics compared with the syntactic and semantic characteristics of each repair. Prosodic marking showed no relationship at all with the syntactic characteristics of repairs. Instead, marking was associated with certain semantic factors: repairs were marked when the original utterance had been actually erroneous, rather than simply less appropriate than the repair; and repairs tended to be marked more often when the set of items encompassing the error and the repair was small rather than when it was large. These findings lend further weight to the characterization of accent as essentially semantic in function.

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

The core issue in the 19-century sources of psycholinguistics was the question, "Where does language come from?'' This genetic perspective unified the study of the ontogenesis, the phylogenesis, the microgenesis, and to some extent the neurogenesis of language. This paper makes the point that this original perspective is still a valid and attractive one. It is exemplified by a discussion of the genesis of spoken words.

Abstract

This chapter explicates the requirement in person–reference for balancing demands for recognition, minimalization, explicitness and indirection. This is illustrated with reference to data from repair of failures of person–reference within a particular linguistic/cultural context, namely casual interaction among Rossel Islanders. Rossel Island (PNG) offers a ‘natural experiment’ for studying aspects of person reference, because of a number of special properties: 1. It is a closed universe of 4000 souls, sharing one kinship network, so in principle anyone could be recognizable from a reference. As a result no (complex) descriptions (cf. ‘ the author of Waverly’) are employed. 2. Names, however, are never uniquely referring, since they are drawn from a fixed pool. They are only used for about 25% of initial references, another 25% of initial references being done by kinship triangulation (‘that man’s father–in–law’). Nearly 50% of initial references are semantically underspecified or vague (e.g. ‘that girl’). 3. There are systematic motivations for oblique reference, e.g. kinship–based taboos and other constraints, which partly account for the underspecified references. The ‘natural experiment’ thus reveals some gneral lessons about how person–reference requires optimizing multiple conflicting constraints. Comparison with Sacks and Schegloff’s (1979) treatment of English person reference suggests a way to tease apart the universal and the culturally–particular.

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

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 paper explores verbs of cutting and breaking (C&B, hereafter) in Yeli Dnye, the Papuan language of Rossel Island. The Yeli Dnye verbs covering the C&B domain do not divide it in the expected way, with verbs focusing on special instruments and manners of action on the one hand, and verbs focusing on the resultant state on the other. Instead, just three transitive verbs and their intransitive counterparts cover most of the domain, and they are all based on 'exotic' distinctions in mode of severance[--]coherent severance with the grain vs. against the grain, and incoherent severance (regardless of grain).