Publications

Abstract

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

Abstract

We investigated 4- and 5-year-old children’s mapping strategies in a spatial task. Children were required to find a picture in an array of three identical cups after observing another picture being hidden in another array of three cups. The arrays were either aligned one behind the other in two rows or placed side by side forming one line. Moreover, children were rewarded for two different mapping strategies. Half of the children needed to choose a cup that held the same relative position as the rewarded cup in the other array; they needed to map left–left, middle–middle, and right–right cups together (aligned mapping), which required encoding and mapping of two relations (e.g., the cup left of the middle cup and left of the right cup). The other half needed to map together the cups that held the same relation to the table’s spatial features—the cups at the edges, the middle cups, and the cups in the middle of the table (landmark mapping)—which required encoding and mapping of one relation (e.g., the cup at the table’s edge). Results showed that children’s success was constellation dependent; performance was higher when the arrays were aligned one behind the other in two rows than when they were placed side by side. Furthermore, children showed a preference for landmark mapping over aligned mapping.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

The experimental investigation of language-mediated visual attention is a promising way to study the interaction of the cognitive systems involved in language, vision, attention, and memory. Here we highlight four challenges for a mechanistic account of this oculomotor behavior: the levels of representation at which language-derived and vision-derived representations are integrated; attentional mechanisms; types of memory; and the degree of individual and group differences. Central points in our discussion are (a) the possibility that local microcircuitries involving feedforward and feedback loops instantiate a common representational substrate of linguistic and non-linguistic information and attention; and (b) that an explicit working memory may be central to explaining interactions between language and visual attention. We conclude that a synthesis of further experimental evidence from a variety of fields of inquiry and the testing of distinct, non-student, participant populations will prove to be critical.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

Being ostracized or excluded, even briefly and by strangers, is painful and threatens fundamental needs. Recent work by Zhong and Leonardelli (2008) found that excluded individuals perceive the room as cooler and that they desire warmer drinks. A perspective that many rely on in embodiment is the theoretical idea that people use metaphorical associations to understand social exclusion (see Landau, Meier, & Keefer, 2010). We suggest that people feel colder because they are colder. The results strongly support the idea that more complex metaphorical understandings of social relations are scaffolded onto literal changes in bodily temperature: Being excluded in an online ball tossing game leads to lower finger temperatures (Study 1), while the negative affect typically experienced after such social exclusion is alleviated after holding a cup of warm tea (Study 2). The authors discuss further implications for the interaction between body and social relations specifically, and for basic and cognitive systems in general.

Abstract

During aging, intracranial volume remains unchanged and represents maximally attained brain size, while various interacting biological phenomena lead to brain volume loss. Consequently, intracranial volume and brain volume in late life reflect different genetic influences. Our genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 8,175 community-dwelling elderly persons did not reveal any associations at genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10(-8)) for brain volume. In contrast, intracranial volume was significantly associated with two loci: rs4273712 (P = 3.4 × 10(-11)), a known height-associated locus on chromosome 6q22, and rs9915547 (P = 1.5 × 10(-12)), localized to the inversion on chromosome 17q21. We replicated the associations of these loci with intracranial volume in a separate sample of 1,752 elderly persons (P = 1.1 × 10(-3) for 6q22 and 1.2 × 10(-3) for 17q21). Furthermore, we also found suggestive associations of the 17q21 locus with head circumference in 10,768 children (mean age of 14.5 months). Our data identify two loci associated with head size, with the inversion at 17q21 also likely to be involved in attaining maximal brain size.

Abstract

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

Abstract

Infectious diseases exert a constant evolutionary pressure on the innate immunity genes. TLR4, an important member of the Toll-like receptors family, specifically recognizes conserved structures of various infectious pathogens. Two functional TLR4 polymorphisms, Asp299Gly and Thr399Ile, modulate innate host defense against infections, and their prevalence between various populations has been proposed to be influenced by local infectious pressures. If this assumption is true, strong local infectious pressures would lead to a homogeneous pattern of these ancient TLR4 polymorphisms in geographically close populations, while a weak selection or genetic drift may result in a diverse pattern. We evaluated TLR4 polymorphisms in 15 ethnic groups of Iran, to assess whether infections exerted selective pressures on different haplotypes containing these variants. The Iranian subpopulations displayed a heterogeneous pattern of TLR4 polymorphisms, comprising various percentages of Asp299Gly and Thr399Ile alone or in combination. The Iranian sample as a whole showed an intermediate mixed pattern when compared with commonly found patterns in Africa, Europe, Eastern Asia and Americas. These findings suggest a weak or absent selection pressure on TLR4 polymorphisms in the Middle-East, that does not support the assumption of an important role of these polymorphisms in the host defence against local pathogens.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

Hereditary mixed polyposis syndrome (HMPS) is characterized by apparent autosomal dominant inheritance of multiple types of colorectal polyp, with colorectal carcinoma occurring in a high proportion of affected individuals. Here, we use genetic mapping, copy-number analysis, exclusion of mutations by high-throughput sequencing, gene expression analysis and functional assays to show that HMPS is caused by a duplication spanning the 3' end of the SCG5 gene and a region upstream of the GREM1 locus. This unusual mutation is associated with increased allele-specific GREM1 expression. Whereas GREM1 is expressed in intestinal subepithelial myofibroblasts in controls, GREM1 is predominantly expressed in the epithelium of the large bowel in individuals with HMPS. The HMPS duplication contains predicted enhancer elements; some of these interact with the GREM1 promoter and can drive gene expression in vitro. Increased GREM1 expression is predicted to cause reduced bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) pathway activity, a mechanism that also underlies tumorigenesis in juvenile polyposis of the large bowel.

Abstract

In this study, older adults monitored for pre-assigned target sounds in a target talker's speech in a quiet (no noise) condition and in a condition with competing-talker noise. The question was to which extent the impact of the competing-talker noise on performance could be predicted from individual hearing loss and from a cognitive measure of inhibitory abilities, i.e., a measure of Stroop interference. The results showed that the non-auditory measure of Stroop interference predicted the impact of distraction on performance, over and above the effect of hearing loss. This suggests that individual differences in inhibitory abilities among older adults relate to susceptibility to distracting speech.

Abstract

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

Abstract

Microarrays provide a powerful analytical tool for the simultaneous detection of multiple pathogens. We developed diagnostic suspension microarrays for sensitive and specific detection of the biothreat pathogens Bacillus anthracis, Yersinia pestis, Francisella tularensis and Coxiella burnetii. Two assay chemistries for amplification and labeling were developed, one method using direct hybridization and the other using target-specific primer extension, combined with hybridization to universal arrays. Asymmetric PCR products for both assay chemistries were produced by using a multiplex asymmetric PCR amplifying 16 DNA signatures (16-plex). The performances of both assay chemistries were compared and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The developed microarrays detected multiple signature sequences and an internal control which made it possible to confidently identify the targeted pathogens and assess their virulence potential. The microarrays were highly specific and detected various strains of the targeted pathogens. Detection limits for the different pathogen signatures were similar or slightly higher compared to real-time PCR. Probit analysis showed that even a few genomic copies could be detected with 95% confidence. The microarrays detected DNA from different pathogens mixed in different ratios and from spiked or naturally contaminated samples. The assays that were developed have a potential for application in surveillance and diagnostics. © 2012 Janse et al.

Abstract

We investigated comprehension of and adaptation to speech in an unfamiliar accent in older adults. Participants performed a speeded sentence verification task for accented sentences: one group upon auditory-only presentation, and the other group upon audiovisual presentation. Our questions were whether audiovisual presentation would facilitate adaptation to the novel accent, and which cognitive and linguistic measures would predict adaptation. Participants were therefore tested on a range of background tests: hearing acuity, auditory verbal short-term memory, working memory, attention-switching control, selective attention, and vocabulary knowledge. Both auditory-only and audiovisual groups showed improved accuracy and decreasing response times over the course of the experiment, effectively showing accent adaptation. Even though the total amount of improvement was similar for the auditory-only and audiovisual groups, initial rate of adaptation was faster in the audiovisual group. Hearing sensitivity and short-term and working memory measures were associated with efficient processing of the novel accent. Analysis of the relationship between accent comprehension and the background tests revealed furthermore that selective attention and vocabulary size predicted the amount of adaptation over the course of the experiment. These results suggest that vocabulary knowledge and attentional abilities facilitate the attention-shifting strategies proposed to be required for perceptual learning.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigates a crucial parameter in spatial description, namely variants in the frame of reference chosen. Two frames of reference are available in European languages for the description of small-scale assemblages, namely the intrinsic (or object-oriented) frame and the relative (or egocentric) frame. We showed participants a sentence such as “the ball is in front of the man”, ambiguous between the two frames, and then a picture of a scene with a ball and a man – participants had to respond by indicating whether the picture did or did not match the sentence. There were two blocks, in which we induced each frame of reference by feedback. Thus for the crucial test items, participants saw exactly the same sentence and the same picture but now from one perspective, now the other. Using this method, we were able to precisely pinpoint the pattern of neural activation associated with each linguistic interpretation of the ambiguity, while holding the perceptual stimuli constant. Increased brain activity in bilateral parahippocampal gyrus was associated with the intrinsic frame of reference whereas increased activity in the right superior frontal gyrus and in the parietal lobe was observed for the relative frame of reference. The study is among the few to show a distinctive pattern of neural activation for an abstract yet specific semantic parameter in language. It shows with special clarity the nature of the neural substrate supporting each frame of spatial reference

Abstract

The QWERTY keyboard mediates communication for millions of language users. Here, we investigated whether differences in the way words are typed correspond to differences in their meanings. Some words are spelled with more letters on the right side of the keyboard and others with more letters on the left. In three experiments, we tested whether asymmetries in the way people interact with keys on the right and left of the keyboard influence their evaluations of the emotional valence of the words. We found the predicted relationship between emotional valence and QWERTY key position across three languages (English, Spanish, and Dutch). Words with more right-side letters were rated as more positive in valence, on average, than words with more left-side letters: the QWERTY effect. This effect was strongest in new words coined after QWERTY was invented and was also found in pseudowords. Although these data are correlational, the discovery of a similar pattern across languages, which was strongest in neologisms, suggests that the QWERTY keyboard is shaping the meanings of words as people filter language through their fingers. Widespread typing introduces a new mechanism by which semanntic changes in language can arise.

Abstract

Curiosity is one of the most basic biological drives in both animals and humans, and has been identified as a key motive for learning and discovery. Despite the importance of curiosity and related behaviors, the topic has been largely neglected in human neuroscience; hence little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms underlying curiosity. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate what happens in our brain during the induction and subsequent relief of perceptual curiosity. Our core findings were that (1) the induction of perceptual curiosity, through the presentation of ambiguous visual input, activated the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), brain regions sensitive to conflict and arousal; (2) the relief of perceptual curiosity, through visual disambiguation, activated regions of the striatum that have been related to reward processing; and (3) the relief of perceptual curiosity was associated with hippocampal activation and enhanced incidental memory. These findings provide the first demonstration of the neural basis of human perceptual curiosity. Our results provide neurobiological support for a classic psychological theory of curiosity, which holds that curiosity is an aversive condition of increased arousal whose termination is rewarding and facilitates memory.

Abstract

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

Abstract

Older listeners are more affected than younger listeners in their recognition of speech in adverse conditions, such as when they also hear a single-competing speaker. In the present study, we investigated with a speeded response task whether older listeners with various degrees of hearing loss benefit under such conditions from also seeing the speaker they intend to listen to. We also tested, at the same time, whether older adults need postperceptual processing to obtain an audiovisual benefit. When tested in a phoneme-monitoring task with single-talker noise present, older (and younger) listeners detected target phonemes more reliably and more rapidly in meaningful sentences uttered by the target speaker when they also saw the target speaker. This suggests that older adults processed audiovisual speech rapidly and efficiently enough to benefit already during spoken sentence processing. Audiovisual benefits for older adults were similar in size to those observed for younger adults in terms of response latencies, but smaller for detection accuracy. Older adults with more hearing loss showed larger audiovisual benefits. Attentional abilities predicted the size of audiovisual response time benefits in both age groups. Audiovisual benefits were found in both age groups when monitoring for the visually highly distinct phoneme /p/ and when monitoring for the visually less distinct phoneme /k/. Visual speech thus provides segmental information about the target phoneme, but also provides more global contextual information that helps both older and younger adults in this adverse listening situation.

Abstract

Using a referent detection paradigm, we examined whether listeners can determine the object speakers are referring to by using the temporal alignment between the motion speakers impose on objects and their labeling utterances. Stimuli were created by videotaping speakers labeling a novel creature. Without being explicitly instructed to do so, speakers moved the creature during labeling. Trajectories of these motions were used to animate photographs of the creature. Participants in subsequent perception studies heard these labeling utterances while seeing side-by-side animations of two identical creatures in which only the target creature moved as originally intended by the speaker. Using the cross-modal temporal relationship between speech and referent motion, participants identified which creature the speaker was labeling, even when the labeling utterances were low-pass filtered to remove their semantic content or replaced by tone analogues. However, when the prosodic structure was eliminated by reversing the speech signal, participants no longer detected the referent as readily. These results provide strong support for a prosodic cross-modal alignment hypothesis. Speakers produce a perceptible link between the motion they impose upon a referent and the prosodic structure of their speech, and listeners readily use this prosodic cross-modal relationship to resolve referential ambiguity in word-learning situations.

Abstract

Although the human brain may have evolutionarily adapted to face-to-face communication, other modes of communication, e.g., telephone and e-mail, increasingly dominate our modern daily life. This study examined the neural difference between face-to-face communication and other types of communication by simultaneously measuring two brains using a hyperscanning approach. The results showed a significant increase in the neural synchronization in the left inferior frontal cortex during a face-to-face dialog between partners but none during a back-to-back dialog, a face-to-face monologue, or a back-to-back monologue. Moreover, the neural synchronization between partners during the face-to-face dialog resulted primarily from the direct interactions between the partners, including multimodal sensory information integration and turn-taking behavior. The communicating behavior during the face-to-face dialog could be predicted accurately based on the neural synchronization level. These results suggest that face-to-face communication, particularly dialog, has special neural features that other types of communication do not have and that the neural synchronization between partners may underlie successful face-to-face communication.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

Around their first birthday infants begin to talk, yet they comprehend words long before. This study investigated the event-related potentials (ERP) responses of nine-month-olds on basic level picture-word pairings. After a familiarization phase of six picture-word pairings per semantic category, comprehension for novel exemplars was tested in a picture-word matching paradigm. ERPs time-locked to pictures elicited a modulation of the Negative Central (Nc) component, associated with visual attention and recognition. It was attenuated by category repetition as well as by the type-token ratio of picture context. ERPs time-locked to words in the training phase became more negative with repetition (N300-600), but there was no influence of picture type-token ratio, suggesting that infants have identified the concept of each picture before a word was presented. Results from the test phase provided clear support that infants integrated word meanings with (novel) picture context. Here, infants showed different ERP responses for words that did or did not align with the picture context: a phonological mismatch (N200) and a semantic mismatch (N400). Together, results were informative of visual categorization, word recognition and word-to-world-mappings, all three crucial processes for vocabulary construction.

Abstract

Infants’ ability to recognize words in continuous speech is vital for building a vocabulary.We here examined the amount and type
of exposure needed for 10-month-olds to recognize words. Infants first heard a word, either embedded within an utterance or in
isolation, then recognition was assessed by comparing event-related potentials to this word versus a word that they had not heard
directly before. Although all 10-month-olds showed recognition responses to words first heard in isolation, not all infants showed
such responses to words they had first heard within an utterance. Those that did succeed in the latter, harder, task, however,
understood more words and utterances when re-tested at 12 months, and understood more words and produced more words at
24 months, compared with those who had shown no such recognition response at 10 months. The ability to rapidly recognize the
words in continuous utterances is clearly linked to future language development.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

Hand gestures combine with speech to form a single integrated system of meaning during language comprehension (Kelly et al., 2010). However, it is unknown whether gesture is uniquely integrated with speech or is processed like any other manual action. Thirty-one participants watched videos presenting speech with gestures or manual actions on objects. The relationship between the speech and gesture/action was either complementary (e.g., “He found the answer,” while producing a calculating gesture vs. actually using a calculator) or incongruent (e.g., the same sentence paired with the incongruent gesture/action of stirring with a spoon). Participants watched the video (prime) and then responded to a written word (target) that was or was not spoken in the video prime (e.g., “found” or “cut”). ERPs were taken to the primes (time-locked to the spoken verb, e.g., “found”) and the written targets. For primes, there was a larger frontal N400 (semantic processing) to incongruent vs. congruent items for the gesture, but not action, condition. For targets, the P2 (phonemic processing) was smaller for target words following congruent vs. incongruent gesture, but not action, primes. These findings suggest that hand gestures are integrated with speech in a privileged fashion compared to manual actions on objects.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

A new cognitive architecture is proposed for the syntactic aspects of human sentence processing. The architecture, called Unification Space, is biologically inspired but not based on neural nets. Instead it relies on biosynthesis as a basic metaphor. We use simulated annealing as an optimization technique which searches for the best configuration of isolated syntactic segments or subtrees in the final parse tree. The gradually decaying activation of individual syntactic nodes determines the ‘global excitation level’ of the system. This parameter serves the function of ‘computational temperature’ in simulated annealing. We have built a computer implementation of the architecture which simulates well-known sentence understanding phenomena. We report successful simulations of the psycholinguistic effects of clause embedding, minimal attachment, right association and lexical ambiguity. In addition, we simulated impaired sentence understanding as observable in agrammatic patients. Since the Unification Space allows for contextual (semantic and pragmatic) influences on the syntactic tree formation process, it belongs to the class of interactive sentence processing models.

Abstract

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

Abstract

Grammatical encoding and grammatical decoding (in sentence production and comprehension, respectively) are often portrayed as independent modalities of grammatical performance that only share declarative resources: lexicon and grammar. The processing resources subserving these modalities are supposed to be distinct. In particular, one assumes the existence of two workspaces where grammatical structures are assembled and temporarily maintained—one for each modality. An alternative theory holds that the two modalities share many of their processing resources and postulates a single mechanism for the online assemblage and short-term storage of grammatical structures: a shared workspace. We report two experiments with a novel “grammatical multitasking” paradigm: the participants had to read (i.e., decode) and to paraphrase (encode) sentences presented in fragments, responding to each input fragment as fast as possible with a fragment of the paraphrase. The main finding was that grammatical constraints with respect to upcoming input that emanate from decoded sentence fragments are immediately replaced by grammatical expectations emanating from the structure of the corresponding paraphrase fragments. This evidences that the two modalities have direct access to, and operate upon, the same (i.e., token-identical) grammatical structures. This is possible only if the grammatical encoding and decoding processes command the same, shared grammatical workspace. Theoretical implications for important forms of grammatical multitasking—self-monitoring, turn-taking in dialogue, speech shadowing, and simultaneous translation—are explored.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

This article reports on an individual differences study that investigated the role of implicit statistical learning in the acquisition of syntax in children. One hundred children ages 4 years 5 months through 6 years 11 months completed a test of implicit statistical learning, a test of explicit declarative learning, and standardized tests of verbal and nonverbal ability. They also completed a syntactic priming task, which provided a dynamic index of children's facility to detect and respond to changes in the input frequency of linguistic structure. The results showed that implicit statistical learning ability was directly associated with the long-term maintenance of the primed structure. The results constitute the first empirical demonstration of a direct association between implicit statistical learning and syntactic acquisition in children.

Abstract

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

Abstract

Humans differ in innumerable ways, with considerable variation observable at every level of description, from the molecular to the social. Traditionally, linguistic and psycholinguistic theory has downplayed the possibility of meaningful differences in language across individuals. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that there is
significant variation among speakers at any age as well as across the lifespan. In this paper, we review recent research in psycholinguistics, and argue that a focus on individual differences provides a crucial source of evidence that bears strongly upon core issues in theories of the acquisition and processing of language; specifically, the role of experience in language acquisition, processing, and attainment, and the architecture of the language faculty.

Abstract

Although the syntactic priming methodology is a promising tool for language acquisition researchers, using the technique with children raises issues that are not problematic in adult research. The current paper reports on an individual differences study that addressed some of these outstanding issues. (a) Does priming purely reflect syntactic knowledge, or are other processes involved? (b) How can we explain individual differences, which are the norm rather than the exception? (c) Do priming effects in developmental populations reflect the same mechanisms thought to be responsible for priming in adults? One hundred twenty-two (N = 122) children aged 4 years, 5 months (4;5)–6;11 (mean = 5;7) completed a syntactic priming task that aimed to prime the English passive construction, in addition to standardized tests of vocabulary, grammar, and nonverbal intelligence. The results confirmed the widely held assumption that syntactic priming reflects the presence of syntactic knowledge, but not in every instance. However, they also suggested that nonlinguistic processes contribute significantly to priming. Priming was in no way related to age. Finally, the children's linguistic knowledge and nonverbal ability determined the manner in which they were primed. The results provide a clearer picture of what it means to be primed in acquisition.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

How do Dutch and Korean listeners use acoustic–phonetic information when learning words in an artificial language? Dutch has a voiceless ‘unaspirated’ stop, produced with shortened Voice Onset Time (VOT) in prosodic strengthening environments (e.g., in domain-initial position and under prominence), enhancing the feature {−spread glottis}; Korean has a voiceless ‘aspirated’ stop produced with lengthened VOT in similar environments, enhancing the feature {+spread glottis}. Given this cross-linguistic difference, two competing hypotheses were tested. The phonological-superiority hypothesis predicts that Dutch and Korean listeners should utilize shortened and lengthened VOTs, respectively, as cues in artificial-language segmentation. The phonetic-superiority hypothesis predicts that both groups should take advantage of the phonetic richness of longer VOTs (i.e., their enhanced auditory–perceptual robustness). Dutch and Korean listeners learned the words of an artificial language better when word-initial stops had longer VOTs than when they had shorter VOTs. It appears that language-specific phonological knowledge can be overridden by phonetic richness in processing an unfamiliar language. Listeners nonetheless performed better when the stimuli were based on the speech of their native languages, suggesting that the use of richer phonetic information was modulated by listeners' familiarity with the stimuli.

Abstract

We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the timecourse of interactions between lexical-semantic and sub-lexical visual word-form processing during word recognition. Participants read sentence-embedded pseudowords that orthographically resembled a contextually-supported real word (e.g., “She measured the flour so she could bake a ceke …”) or did not (e.g., “She measured the flour so she could bake a tont …”) along with nonword consonant strings (e.g., “She measured the flour so she could bake a srdt …”). Pseudowords that resembled a contextually-supported real word (“ceke”) elicited an enhanced positivity at 130 msec (P130), relative to real words (e.g., “She measured the flour so she could bake a cake …”). Pseudowords that did not resemble a plausible real word (“tont”) enhanced the N170 component, as did nonword consonant strings (“srdt”). The effect pattern shows that the visual word recognition system is, perhaps counterintuitively, more rapidly sensitive to minor than to flagrant deviations from contextually-predicted inputs. The findings are consistent with rapid interactions between lexical and sub-lexical representations during word recognition, in which rapid lexical access of a contextually-supported word (CAKE) provides top-down excitation of form features (“cake”), highlighting the anomaly of an unexpected word “ceke”.

Abstract

The artificial language learning paradigm was used to investigate to what extent the use of prosodic features is universally applicable or specifically language driven in learning an unfamiliar language, and how nonnative prosodic patterns can be learned. Listeners of unrelated languages—Dutch (n = 100) and Korean (n = 100)—participated. The words to be learned varied with prosodic cues: no prosody, fundamental frequency (F0) rise in initial and final position, final lengthening, and final lengthening plus F0 rise. Both listener groups performed well above chance level with the final lengthening cue, confirming its crosslinguistic use. As for final F0 rise, however, Dutch listeners did not use it until the second exposure session, whereas Korean listeners used it at initial exposure. Neither group used initial F0 rise. On the basis of these results, F0 and durational cues appear to be universal in the sense that they are used across languages for their universally applicable auditory-perceptual saliency, but how they are used is language specific and constrains the use of available prosodic cues in processing a nonnative language. A discussion on how these findings bear on theories of second language (L2) speech perception and learning is provided.

Abstract

The acquisition of the past tense has received substantial attention in the psycholinguistics literature, yet most studies report data from English or closely related Indo-European languages. We report on a past tense elicitation study on 136 4–6-year-old children that were acquiring a highly inflected Finno-Ugric (Uralic) language—Finnish. The children were tested on real and novel verbs (N = 120) exhibiting (1) productive, (2) semi-productive, or (3) non-productive inflectional processes manipulated for frequency and phonological neighbourhood density (PND). We found that Finnish children are sensitive to lemma/base frequency and PND when processing inflected words, suggesting that even though children were using suffixation processes, they were also paying attention to the item level properties of the past tense verbs. This paper contributes to the growing body of research suggesting a single analogical/associative mechanism is sufficient in processing both productive (i.e., regular-like) and non-productive (i.e., irregular-like) words. We argue that seemingly rule-like elements in inflectional morphology are an emergent property of the lexicon.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

Sentence-final particles (SFPs) as bound morphemes in Japanese have no obvious effect on the truth conditions of a sentence. However, they encompass a diverse range of usages, from typical to atypical, according to the context and the interpersonal relationships in the specific situation. The most frequent particle,-ne, is typically used after addressee-oriented propositions for information sharing, while another frequent particle,-yo, is typically used after addresser-oriented propositions to elicit a sense of strength. This study sheds light on individual differences among native speakers in flexibly understanding such linguistic markers based on their mentalizing ability (i.e., the ability to infer the mental states of others). Two experiments employing electroencephalography (EEG) consistently showed enhanced early posterior negativities (EPN) for atypical SFP usage compared to typical usage, especially when understanding-ne compared to -yo, in both an SFP appropriateness judgment task and a content comprehension task. Importantly, the amplitude of the EPN for atypical usages of-ne was significantly higher in participants with lower mentalizing ability than in those with a higher mentalizing ability. This effect plausibly reflects low-ability mentalizers' stronger sense of strangeness toward atypical-ne usage. While high-ability mentalizers may aptly perceive others' attitudes via their various usages of-ne, low-ability mentalizers seem to adopt a more stereotypical understanding. These results attest to the greater degree of difficulty low-ability mentalizers have in establishing a smooth regulation of interpersonal distance during social encounters.

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

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

Abstract

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

Widespread minority language shift in Early Modern Europe is often ascribed to restrictive language policies and the migration of both majority- and minority-language speakers. However, without a sociohistorically credible account of the mechanisms through which these events caused a language shift, these policies lack explanatory power. Inspired by research on 'language histories from below,' we present an integrated sociohistorical and linguistic account that can shed light on the procresses taking place during a case of language shift in the 17th and 18th centuries. We present and analyze demographic data on the immigration and integration of French speakers in previously Dutch-speaking Dunkirk in this period, showing how moderate intermarriage of immigrants and locals could have represented a motive and a mechanism for language shift against a backdrop of larger language-political processes. We then discuss the modern language-shift dialect of Dunkirk in comparison with different dialects of French. The linguistic data suggests a large influence from the dialects of migrants, underlining their role in the language shift process. The combination of sociohistorical and linguistic evidence gives us a better understanding of language shift in this period, showing the value of an integrated 'from below' approach.

Abstract

Much of human communication and collaboration is predicated on making predictions about others’ actions. Humans frequently use predictions about others’ action mistakes to correct others and spare them mistakes. Such anticipatory correcting reveals a social motivation for unsolicited helping. Cognitively, it requires forward inferences about others’ actions through mental attributions of goal and reality representations. The current study shows that infants spontaneously intervene when an adult is mistaken about the location of an object she is about to retrieve. Infants pointed out a correct location for an adult before she was about to commit a mistake. Infants did not intervene in control conditions when the adult had witnessed the misplacement, or when she did not intend to retrieve the misplaced object. Results suggest that preverbal infants anticipate a person’s mistaken action through mental attributions of both her goal and reality representations, and correct her proactively by spontaneously providing unsolicited information.

Abstract

This study employed a new “anticipatory intervening” paradigm to tease apart false belief and ignorance-based interpretations of 18-month-olds’ helpful informing. We investigated in three experiments whether 18-month-old infants inform an adult selectively about one of the two locations depending on the adult’s belief about which of the two locations held her toy. In experiments 1 and 2, the adult falsely believed that one of the locations held her toy. In experiment 3, the adult was ignorant about which of the two locations held her toy. In all cases, however, the toy had been removed from the locations and the locations contained instead materials which the adult wanted to avoid. In experiments 1 and 2, infants spontaneously and selectively informed the adult about the aversive material in the location the adult falsely believed to hold her toy. In contrast, in experiment 3, infants informed the ignorant adult about both locations equally. Results reveal that infants expected the adult to commit a specific action mistake when she held a false belief, but not when she was ignorant. Further, infants were motivated to intervene proactively. Findings reveal a predictive action-based usage of “theory-of-mind” skills at 18 months of age.

Abstract

The aim of the study was to compare 3- to 8-year-old children’s propensity to antici- pate a comfortable hand posture at the end of a grasping movement ( end-state comfort effect ) between two different object manipulation tasks, the bar-transport task, and the overturned-glass task. In the bar-transport task, participants were asked to insert a verti- cally positioned bar into a small opening of a box. In the overturned-glass task, participants were asked to put an overturned-glass right-side-up on a coaster. Half of the participants experienced action effects (lights) as a consequence of their movements (AE groups), while the other half of the participants did not (No-AE groups). While there was no differ- ence between the AE and No-AE groups, end-state comfort performance differed across age as well as between tasks. Results revealed a significant increase in end-state comfort performance in the bar-transport task from 13% in the 3-year-olds to 94% in the 8-year- olds. Interestingly, the number of children grasping the bar according to end-state comfort doubled from 3 to 4 years and from 4 to 5 years of age. In the overturned-glass task an increase in end-state comfort performance from already 63% in the 3-year-olds to 100% in the 8-year-olds was significant as well. When comparing end-state comfort performance across tasks, results showed that 3- and 4-year-old children were better at manipulating the glass as compared to manipulating the bar, most probably, because children are more familiar with manipulating glasses. Together, these results suggest that preschool years are an important period for the development of motor planning in which the familiarity with the object involved in the task plays a significant role in children’s ability to plan their movements according to end-state comfort.

Abstract

Zwaan et al. mention that young researchers should conduct replications as a
small part of their portfolio. We extend this proposal and suggest that conducting and
reporting replications should become an integral part of PhD projects and be taken into
account in their assessment. We discuss how this would help not only scientific
advancement, but also PhD candidates’ careers.

Abstract

The Dravidian language family consists of about 80 varieties (Hammarström H. 2016 Glottolog 2.7) spoken by 220 million people across southern and central India and surrounding countries (Steever SB. 1998 In The Dravidian languages (ed. SB Steever), pp. 1–39: 1). Neither the geographical origin of the Dravidian language homeland nor its exact dispersal through time are known. The history of these languages is crucial for understanding prehistory in Eurasia, because despite their current restricted range, these languages played a significant role in influencing other language groups including Indo-Aryan (Indo-European) and Munda (Austroasiatic) speakers. Here, we report the results of a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of cognate-coded lexical data, elicited first hand from native speakers, to investigate the subgrouping of the Dravidian language family, and provide dates for the major points of diversification. Our results indicate that the Dravidian language family is approximately 4500 years old, a finding that corresponds well with earlier linguistic and archaeological studies. The main branches of the Dravidian language family (North, Central, South I, South II) are recovered, although the placement of languages within these main branches diverges from previous classifications. We find considerable uncertainty with regard to the relationships between the main branches.

Abstract

Hemispheric asymmetry is a cardinal feature of human brain organization. Altered brain asymmetry has also been linked to some cognitive and neuropsychiatric disorders. Here the ENIGMA consortium presents the largest ever analysis of cerebral cortical asymmetry and its variability across individuals. Cortical thickness and surface area were assessed in MRI scans of 17,141 healthy individuals from 99 datasets worldwide. Results revealed widespread asymmetries at both hemispheric and regional levels, with a generally thicker cortex but smaller surface area in the left hemisphere relative to the right. Regionally, asymmetries of cortical thickness and/or surface area were found in the inferior frontal gyrus, transverse temporal gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, and entorhinal cortex. These regions are involved in lateralized functions, including language and visuospatial processing. In addition to population-level asymmetries, variability in brain asymmetry was related to sex, age, and intracranial volume. Interestingly, we did not find significant associations between asymmetries and handedness. Finally, with two independent pedigree datasets (N = 1,443 and 1,113, respectively), we found several asymmetries showing significant, replicable heritability. The structural asymmetries identified, and their variabilities and heritability provide a reference resource for future studies on the genetic basis of brain asymmetry and altered laterality in cognitive, neurological, and psychiatric disorders.