Publications

Abstract

Listeners rely on native-language rhythm in segmenting speech; in different languages, stress-, syllable- or mora-based rhythm is exploited. The rhythmic similarity hypothesis holds that where two languages have similar rhythm, listeners of each language should segment their own and the other language similarly. Such similarity in listening was previously observed only for related languages (English-Dutch; French-Spanish). We now report three experiments in which speakers of Telugu, a Dravidian language unrelated to Japanese but similar to it in crucial aspects of rhythmic structure, heard speech in Japanese and in their own language, and Japanese listeners heard Telugu. For the Telugu listeners, detection of target sequences in Japanese speech was harder when target boundaries mismatched mora boundaries, exactly the pattern that Japanese listeners earlier exhibited with Japanese and other languages. The same results appeared when Japanese listeners heard Telugu speech containing only codas permissible in Japanese. Telugu listeners' results with Telugu speech were mixed, but the overall pattern revealed correspondences between the response patterns of the two listener groups, as predicted by the rhythmic similarity hypothesis. Telugu and Japanese listeners appear to command similar procedures for speech segmentation, further bolstering the proposal that aspects of language phonological structure affect listeners' speech segmentation.

Abstract

Two construals of agency are evaluated as possible innate biases guiding case-marking in children. A BROAD construal treats agentive arguments of multi-participant and single-participant events as being similar. A NARROWER construal is restricted to agents of multi-participant events. In Hindi, ergative case-marking is associated with agentive participants of multi-participant, perfective actions. Children relying on a broad or narrow construal of agent are predicted to overextend ergative case-marking to agentive participants of transitive imperfective actions and/or intransitive actions. Longitudinal data from three children acquiring Hindi (1;7 to 3;9) reveal no overextension errors, suggesting early sensitivity to distributional patterns in the input.

Abstract

This issue investigates the linguistic encoding of events with three or more participants from the perspectives of language typology and acquisition. Such “multiple-participant events” include (but are not limited to) any scenario involving at least three participants, typically encoded using transactional verbs like 'give' and 'show', placement verbs like 'put', and benefactive and applicative constructions like 'do (something for someone)', among others. There is considerable crosslinguistic and withinlanguage variation in how the participants (the Agent, Causer, Theme, Goal, Recipient, or Experiencer) and the subevents involved in multipleparticipant situations are encoded, both at the lexical and the constructional levels

Abstract

Tamil and Hindi verbs of cutting, breaking, and tearing are shown to have a high degree of overlap in their extensions. However, there are also differences in the lexicalization patterns of these verbs in the two languages with regard to their category boundaries, and the number of verb types that are available to make finer-grained distinctions. Moreover, differences in the extensional ranges of corresponding verbs in the two languages can be motivated in terms of the properties of the instrument and the theme object.

Abstract

An influential claim in the child language literature posits that children use structural cues in the input language to acquire verb meaning (Gleitman, 1990). One such cue is the number of arguments co-occurring with the verb, which provides an indication as to the event type associated with the verb (Fisher, 1995). In some languages however (e.g. Hindi), verb arguments are ellipted relatively freely, subject to certain discourse-pragmatic constraints. In this paper, we address three questions: Is the pervasive argument ellipsis characteristic of adult Hindi also found in Hindi-speaking caregivers’ input ? If so, do children consequently make errors in verb transitivity? How early do children learning a split-ergative language, such as Hindi, exhibit sensitivity to discourse-pragmatic influences on argument realization? We show that there is massive argument ellipsis in caregivers’ input to 3–4 year-olds. However, children acquiring Hindi do not make transitivity errors in their own speech. Nor do they elide arguments randomly. Rather, even at this early age, children appear to be sensitive to discourse-pragmatics in their own spontaneous speech production. These findings in a split-ergative language parallel patterns of argument realization found in children acquiring both nominative-accusative languages (e.g. Korean) and ergative-absolutive languages (e.g. Tzeltal, Inuktitut).

Abstract

This introduction to a special issue of the journal Linguistics sketches the challenges that multiple-participant events pose for linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, and summarizes the articles in the volume.

Abstract

In an event-related fMRI study, we examined the cortical networks involved in establishing reference during language comprehension. We compared BOLD responses to sentences containing referentially ambiguous pronouns (e.g., “Ronald told Frank that he…”), referentially failing pronouns (e.g., “Rose told Emily that he…”) or coherent pronouns. Referential ambiguity selectively recruited medial prefrontal regions, suggesting that readers engaged in problem-solving to select a unique referent from the discourse model. Referential failure elicited activation increases in brain regions associated with morpho-syntactic processing, and, for those readers who took failing pronouns to refer to unmentioned entities, additional regions associated with elaborative inferencing were observed. The networks activated by these two referential problems did not overlap with the network activated by a standard semantic anomaly. Instead, we observed a double dissociation, in that the systems activated by semantic anomaly are deactivated by referential ambiguity, and vice versa. This inverse coupling may reflect the dynamic recruitment of semantic and episodic processing to resolve semantically or referentially problematic situations. More generally, our findings suggest that neurocognitive accounts of language comprehension need to address not just how we parse a sentence and combine individual word meanings, but also how we determine who's who and what's what during language comprehension.

Abstract

In this event-related brain potentials (ERPs) study, we explored the possibility to selectively track referential ambiguity during spoken discourse comprehension. Earlier ERP research has shown that referentially ambiguous nouns (e.g., “the girl” in a two-girl context) elicit a frontal, sustained negative shift relative to unambiguous control words. In the current study, we examined whether this ERP effect reflects “deep” situation model ambiguity or “superficial” textbase ambiguity. We contrasted these different interpretations by investigating whether a discourse-level semantic manipulation that prevents referential ambiguity also averts the elicitation of a referentially induced ERP effect. We compared ERPs elicited by nouns that were referentially nonambiguous but were associated with two discourse entities (e.g., “the girl” with two girls introduced in the context, but one of which has died or left the scene), with referentially ambiguous and nonambiguous control words. Although temporally referentially ambiguous nouns elicited a frontal negative shift compared to control words, the “double bound” but referentially nonambiguous nouns did not. These results suggest that it is possible to selectively track referential ambiguity with ERPs at the level that is most relevant to discourse comprehension, the situation model.

Abstract

In general, language comprehension is surprisingly reliable. Listeners very rapidly extract meaning from the unfolding speech signal, on a word-by-word basis, and usually successfully. Research on ‘semantic illusions’ however suggests that under certain conditions, people fail to notice that the linguistic input simply doesn't make sense. In the current event-related brain potentials (ERP) study, we examined whether listeners would, under such conditions, spontaneously detect an anomaly in which a human character central to the story at hand (e.g., “a tourist”) was suddenly replaced by an inanimate object (e.g., “a suitcase”). Because this replacement introduced a very powerful coherence break, we expected listeners to immediately notice the anomaly and generate the standard ERP effect associated with incoherent language, the N400 effect. However, instead of the standard N400 effect, anomalous words elicited a positive ERP effect from about 500–600 ms onwards. The absence of an N400 effect suggests that subjects did not immediately notice the anomaly, and that for a few hundred milliseconds the comprehension system has converged on an apparently coherent but factually incorrect interpretation. The presence of the later ERP effect indicates that subjects were processing for comprehension and did ultimately detect the anomaly. Therefore, we take the absence of a regular N400 effect as the online manifestation of a temporary semantic illusion. Our results also show that even attentive listeners sometimes fail to notice a radical change in the nature of a story character, and therefore suggest a case of short-lived ‘semantic change deafness’ in language comprehension.

Abstract

The reading process depends both on the text and on the reader. When we read a text, propositions in the current input are matched to propositions in the memory representation of the previous discourse but also to knowledge structures in long‐term memory. Therefore, memory‐based text processing refers both to the bottom‐up processing of the text and to the top‐down activation of the reader's knowledge. In this article, we focus on the role of cognitive structures in the reader's knowledge. We argue that causality is an important category in structuring human knowledge and that this property has consequences for text processing. Some research is discussed that illustrates that the more the information in the text reflects causal categories, the more easily the information is processed.

Abstract

The central thesis of the target article was that feedback is never necessary in spoken word recognition. The commentaries present no new data and no new theoretical arguments which lead us to revise this position. In this response we begin by clarifying some terminological issues which have lead to a number of significant misunderstandings. We provide some new arguments to support our case that the feedforward model Merge is indeed more parsimonious than the interactive alternatives, and that it provides a more convincing account of the data than alternative models. Finally, we extend the arguments to deal with new issues raised by the commentators such as infant speech perception and neural architecture.

Abstract

Top-down feedback does not benefit speech recognition; on the contrary, it can hinder it. No experimental data imply that feedback loops are required for speech recognition. Feedback is accordingly unnecessary and spoken word recognition is modular. To defend this thesis, we analyse lexical involvement in phonemic decision making. TRACE (McClelland & Elman 1986), a model with feedback from the lexicon to prelexical processes, is unable to account for all the available data on phonemic decision making. The modular Race model (Cutler & Norris 1979) is likewise challenged by some recent results, however. We therefore present a new modular model of phonemic decision making, the Merge model. In Merge, information flows from prelexical processes to the lexicon without feedback. Because phonemic decisions are based on the merging of prelexical and lexical information, Merge correctly predicts lexical involvement in phonemic decisions in both words and nonwords. Computer simulations show how Merge is able to account for the data through a process of competition between lexical hypotheses. We discuss the issue of feedback in other areas of language processing and conclude that modular models are particularly well suited to the problems and constraints of speech recognition.

Abstract

Present approaches to the semantics of the German prepositions auf an and unter draw on two propositions: First, that spatial prepositions in general specify a region in the surrounding of the relatum object. Second, that in the case of auf an and unter, these regions are to be defined with concepts like the vertical and/or the topological surfa¬ce (the whole surrounding exterior of an object). The present paper argues that the first proposition is right and that the second is wrong. That is, while it is true that prepositions specify regions, the regions specified by auf, an and unter should rather be defined in terms of everyday concepts like SURFACE, SIDE and UNDERSIDE. This idea is suggested by the fact that auf an and unter refer to different regions in different kinds of relatum objects, and that these regions are the same as the regions called surfaces, sides and undersides. Furthermore, reading and usage preferences of auf an and unter can be explained by a corresponding salience of the surfaces, sides and undersides of the relatum objects in question. All in all, therefore, a close look at the use of auf an and unter with different classes of relatum objects reveals problems for a semantic approach that draws on concepts like the vertical, while it suggests mea¬nings of these prepositions that refer to the surface, side and underside of an object.

Abstract

Memorializes Martin D. S. Braine, whose research on child language acquisition and on both child and adult thinking and reasoning had a major influence on modern cognitive psychology. Addressing meaning as well as position, Braine argued that children start acquiring language by learning narrow-scope positional formulas that map components of meaning to positions in the utterance. These proposals were critical in starting discussions of the possible universality of the pivot-grammar stage and of the role of syntax, semantics,and pragmatics in children's early grammar and were pivotal to the rise of approaches in which cognitive development in language acquisition is stressed.

Abstract

Typological descriptions of understudied languages reveal intriguing crosslinguistic variation in descriptions of events of object separation and destruction. In Lowland Chontal of Oaxaca, verbs of cutting and breaking lexicalize event perspectives that range from the common to the quite unusual, from the tearing of cloth to the snapping apart on the cross-grain of yarn. This paper describes the semantic and syntactic criteria that characterize three verb classes in this semantic domain, examines patterns of event construal, and takes a look at likely changes in these event descriptions from the perspective of endangered language recovery.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

A discourse context provides a reader with a great deal of information that can provide constraints for further language processing, at several different levels. In this experiment we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore whether discourse-generated contextual constraints are based on the precise message of the discourse or, more `loosely', on the scenario suggested by one or more content words in the text. Participants read constraining stories whose precise message rendered a particular word highly predictable ("The manager thought that the board of directors should assemble to discuss the issue. He planned a...[meeting]") as well as non-constraining control stories that were only biasing in virtue of the scenario suggested by some of the words ("The manager thought that the board of directors need not assemble to discuss the issue. He planned a..."). Coherent words that were inconsistent with the message-level expectation raised in a constraining discourse (e.g., "session" instead of "meeting") elicited a classic centroparietal N400 effect. However, when the same words were only inconsistent with the scenario loosely suggested by earlier words in the text, they elicited a different negativity around 400 ms, with a more anterior, left-lateralized maximum. The fact that the discourse-dependent N400 effect cannot be reduced to scenario-mediated priming reveals that it reflects the rapid use of precise message-level constraints in comprehension. At the same time, the left-lateralized negativity in non-constraining stories suggests that, at least in the absence of strong message-level constraints, scenario-mediated priming does also rapidly affect comprehension.

Abstract

Background Recently several studies have shown that people use contextual information to make predictions about the rest of the sentence or story as the text unfolds. Using event related potentials (ERPs) we tested whether these on-line predictions are based on a message-based representation of the discourse or on simple automatic activation by individual words. Subjects heard short stories that were highly constraining for one specific noun, or stories that were not specifically predictive but contained the same prime words as the predictive stories. To test whether listeners make specific predictions critical nouns were preceded by an adjective that was inflected according to, or in contrast with, the gender of the expected noun. Results When the message of the preceding discourse was predictive, adjectives with an unexpected gender-inflection evoked a negative deflection over right-frontal electrodes between 300 and 600 ms. This effect was not present in the prime control context, indicating that the prediction mismatch does not hinge on word-based priming but is based on the actual message of the discourse. Conclusions When listening to a constraining discourse people rapidly make very specific predictions about the remainder of the story, as the story unfolds. These predictions are not simply based on word-based automatic activation, but take into account the actual message of the discourse.

Abstract

Disagreement exists about how speakers monitor their internal speech. Production-based accounts assume that self-monitoring mechanisms exist within the production system, whereas comprehension-based accounts assume that monitoring is achieved through the speech comprehension system. Comprehension-based accounts predict perception-specific effects, like the perceptual uniqueness-point effect, in the monitoring of internal speech. We ran an extensive experiment testing this prediction using internal phoneme monitoring and picture naming tasks. Our results show an effect of the perceptual uniqueness point of a word in internal phoneme monitoring in the absence of such an effect in picture naming. These results support comprehension-based accounts of the monitoring of internal speech.

Abstract

During language comprehension, listeners use the global semantic representation from previous sentence or discourse context to immediately integrate the meaning of each upcoming word into the unfolding message-level representation. Here we investigate whether communicative gestures that often spontaneously co-occur with speech are processed in a similar fashion and integrated to previous sentence context in the same way as lexical meaning. Event-related potentials were measured while subjects listened to spoken sentences with a critical verb (e.g., knock), which was accompanied by an iconic co-speech gesture (i.e., KNOCK). Verbal and/or gestural semantic content matched or mismatched the content of the preceding part of the sentence. Despite the difference in the modality and in the specificity of meaning conveyed by spoken words and gestures, the latency, amplitude, and topographical distribution of both word and gesture mismatches are found to be similar, indicating that the brain integrates both types of information simultaneously. This provides evidence for the claim that neural processing in language comprehension involves the simultaneous incorporation of information coming from a broader domain of cognition than only verbal semantics. The neural evidence for similar integration of information from speech and gesture emphasizes the tight interconnection between speech and co-speech gestures.

Abstract

What are the relations between linguistic encoding and gestural representations of events during online speaking? The few studies that have been conducted on this topic have yielded somewhat incompatible results with regard to whether and how gestural representations of events change with differences in the preferred semantic and syntactic encoding possibilities of languages. Here we provide large scale semantic, syntactic and temporal analyses of speech- gesture pairs that depict 10 different motion events from 20 Turkish and 20 English speakers. We find that the gestural representations of the same events differ across languages when they are encoded by different syntactic frames (i.e., verb-framed or satellite-framed). However, where there are similarities across languages, such as omission of a certain element of the event in the linguistic encoding, gestural representations also look similar and omit the same content. The results are discussed in terms of what gestures reveal about the influence of language specific encoding on on-line thinking patterns and the underlying interactions between speech and gesture during the speaking process.

Abstract

In this paper we follow two beginning learners of English, Andrea and Santo, over a period of 2 years as they develop means to structure the declarative utterances they produce in various production tasks, and then we look at the following problem: In the early stages of acquisition, both learners develop a common learner variety; during these stages, we see a picture of two learner varieties developing similar regularities determined by the minimal requirements of the tasks we examine. Andrea subsequently develops further morphosyntactic means to achieve greater cohesion in his discourse. But Santo does not. Although we can identify contexts where the grammaticalization of Andrea's production allows him to go beyond the initial constraints of his variety, it is much more difficult to ascertain why Santo, faced with the same constraints in the same contexts, does not follow this path. Some lines of investigation into this problem are then suggested.

Abstract

Maximum margin clustering (MMC) is a relatively new and promising kernel method. In this paper, we apply MMC to the task of unsupervised speech segmentation. We present three automatic speech segmentation methods based on MMC, which are tested on TIMIT and evaluated on the level of phoneme boundary detection. The results show that MMC is highly competitive with existing unsupervised methods for the automatic detection of phoneme boundaries. Furthermore, initial analyses show that MMC is a promising method for the automatic detection of sub-phonetic information in the speech signal.

Abstract

Spatial coherence in discourse relies on the use of devices that provide information about where referents are and where events take place. In signed language, two primary devices for achieving and maintaining spatial coherence are the use of classifier forms and signing perspective. This paper gives a unified account of the relationship between perspective and classifiers, and divides the range of possible correspondences between these two devices into prototypical and non-prototypical alignments. An analysis of German Sign Language narratives of complex events investigates the role of different classifier-perspective constructions in encoding spatial information about location, orientation, action and motion, as well as size and shape of referents. In particular, I show how non-prototypical alignments, including simultaneity of perspectives, contribute to the maintenance of spatial coherence, and provide functional explanations in terms of efficiency and informativeness constraints on discourse.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

The current understanding of hemispheric interaction is limited. Functional hemispheric specialization is likely to depend on both genetic and environmental factors. In the present study we investigated the importance of one factor, literacy, for the functional lateralization in the inferior parietal cortex in two independent samples of literate and illiterate subjects. The results show that the illiterate group are consistently more right-lateralized than their literate controls. In contrast, the two groups showed a similar degree of left-right differences in early speech-related regions of the superior temporal cortex. These results provide evidence suggesting that a cultural factor, literacy, influences the functional hemispheric balance in reading and verbal working memory-related regions. In a third sample, we investigated grey and white matter with voxel-based morphometry. The results showed differences between literacy groups in white matter intensities related to the mid-body region of the corpus callosum and the inferior parietal and parietotemporal regions (literate > illiterate). There were no corresponding differences in the grey matter. This suggests that the influence of literacy on brain structure related to reading and verbal working memory is affecting large-scale brain connectivity more than grey matter per se.

Abstract

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

Abstract

We present two simple arguments for the potential relevance of a neurobiological analogue of the finite-state architecture. The first assumes the classical cognitive framework, is wellknown, and is based on the assumption that the brain is finite with respect to its memory organization. The second is formulated within a general dynamical systems framework and is based on the assumption that the brain sustains some level of noise and/or does not utilize infinite precision processing. We briefly review the classical cognitive framework based on Church–Turing computability and non-classical approaches based on analog processing in dynamical systems. We conclude that the dynamical neurobiological analogue of the finitestate architecture appears to be relevant, at least at an implementational level, for cognitive brain systems

Abstract

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

Abstract

It has previously been suggested that the activity in sensory regions of the brain can be modulated by attentional mechanisms during parallel cognitive processing. To investigate whether such attention-related modulations are present in the processing of pain, the regional cerebral blood ¯ow was measured using [15O]butanol and positron emission tomography in conditions involving both pain and parallel cognitive demands. The painful stimulus consisted of the standard cold pressor test and the cognitive task was a computerised perceptual maze test. The activations during the maze test reproduced findings in previous studies of the same cognitive task. The cold pressor test evoked signi®cant activity in the contralateral S1, and bilaterally in the somatosensory association areas (including S2), the ACC and the mid-insula. The activity in the somatosensory association areas and periaqueductal gray/midbrain were significantly modified, i.e. relatively decreased, when the subjects also were performing the maze task. The altered activity was accompanied with significantly lower ratings of pain during the cognitive task. In contrast, lateral orbitofrontal regions showed a relative increase of activity during pain combined with the maze task as compared to only pain, which suggests the possibility of the involvement of frontal cortex in modulation of regions processing pain

Abstract

Much work in psycholinguistics and social psychology has investigated the notion of implicit causality associated with verbs. Crinean and Garnham (2006) relate implicit causality to another phenomenon, implicit consequentiality. We argue that they and other researchers have confused the meanings of events and the reasons for those events, so that particular thematic roles (e.g., Agent, Patient) are taken to be causes or consequences of those events by definition. In accord with Garvey and Caramazza (1974), we propose that implicit causality and consequentiality are probabilistic notions that are straightforwardly related to the explicit causes and consequences of events and are analogous to other biases investigated in psycholinguistics.

Abstract

In this study data from the first six months of 12 children s multiword speech were used to test the validity of Valian's (1991) syntactic perfor-mance-limitation account and Tomasello s (1992) verb-island account of early multiword speech with particular reference to the development of the English verb category. The results provide evidence for appropriate use of verb morphology, auxiliary verb structures, pronoun case marking, and SVO word order from quite early in development. However, they also demonstrate a great deal of lexical specificity in the children's use of these systems, evidenced by a lack of overlap in the verbs to which different morphological markers were applied, a lack of overlap in the verbs with which different auxiliary verbs were used, a disproportionate use of the first person singular nominative pronoun I, and a lack of overlap in the lexical items that served as the subjects and direct objects of transitive verbs. These findings raise problems for both a syntactic performance-limitation account and a strong verb-island account of the data and suggest the need to develop a more general lexiealist account of early multiword speech that explains why some words come to function as "islands" of organization in the child's grammar and others do not.

Abstract

One of the most influential recent accounts of pronoun case-marking errors in young children's speech is Schütze & Wexler's (1996) Agreement/Tense Omission Model (ATOM). The ATOM predicts that the rate of agreeing verbs with non-nominative subjects will be so low that such errors can be reasonably disregarded as noise in the data. The present study tests this prediction on data from 12 children between the ages of 1;8.22 and 3;0.10. This is done, first, by identifying children who produced a reasonably large number of non-nominative 3psg subjects; second, by estimating the expected rate of agreeing verbs with masculine and feminine non-nominative subjects in these children's speech; and, third, by examining the actual rate at which agreeing verb forms occurred with non-nominative subjects in those areas of the data in which the expected error rate was significantly greater than 10%. The results show, first, that only three of the children produced enough non-nominative subjects to allow a reasonable test of the ATOM to be made; second, that for all three of these children, the only area of the data in which the expected frequency of agreeing verbs with non-nominative subjects was significantly greater than 10% was their use of feminine case-marked subjects; and third, that for all three of these children, the rate of agreeing verbs with non-nominative feminine subjects was over 30%. These results raise serious doubts about the claim that children's use of non-nominative subjects can be explained in terms of AGR optionality, and suggest the need for a model of pronoun case-marking error that can explain why some children produce agreeing verb forms with non-nominative subjects as often as they do.

Abstract

Firstly, theories are reviewed on the explanation of tonal consonance as the singular nature of tone intervals with frequency ratios corresponding with small integer numbers. An evaluation of these explanations in the light of some experimental studies supports the hypothesis, as promoted by von Helmholtz, that the difference between consonant and dissonant intervals is related to beats of adjacent partials. This relation was studied more fully by experiments in which subjects had to judge simple-tone intervals as a function of test frequency and interval width. The results may be considered as a modification of von Helmholtz's conception and indicate that, as a function of frequency, the transition range between consonant and dissonant intervals is related to critical bandwidth. Simple-tone intervals are evaluated as consonant for frequency differences exceeding this bandwidth. whereas the most dissonant intervals correspond with frequency differences of about a quarter of this bandwidth. On the base of these results, some properties of consonant intervals consisting of complex tones are explained. To answer the question whether critical bandwidth also plays a rôle in music, the chords of two compositions (parts of a trio sonata of J. S. Bach and of a string quartet of A. Dvorák) were analyzed by computing interval distributions as a function of frequency and number of harmonics taken into account. The results strongly suggest that, indeed, critical bandwidth plays an important rôle in music: for a number of harmonics representative for musical instruments, the "density" of simultaneous partials alters as a function of frequency in the same way as critical bandwidth does.

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between word repetition, predictability from neighbouring words, and articulatory reduction in Dutch. For the seven most frequent words ending in the adjectival suffix -lijk, 40 occurrences were randomly selected from a large database of face-to-face conversations. Analysis of the selected tokens showed that the degree of articulatory reduction (as measured by duration and number of realized segments) was affected by repetition, predictability from the previous word and predictability from the following word. Interestingly, not all of these effects were significant across morphemes and target words. Repetition effects were limited to suffixes, while effects of predictability from the previous word were restricted to the stems of two of the seven target words. Predictability from the following word affected the stems of all target words equally, but not all suffixes. The implications of these findings for models of speech production are discussed.

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of lexical frequency on the durational reduction of morphologically complex words in spoken Dutch. The hypothesis that high-frequency words are more reduced than low-frequency words was tested by comparing the durations of affixes occurring in different carrier words. Four Dutch affixes were investigated, each occurring in a large number of words with different frequencies. The materials came from a large database of face-to-face conversations. For each word containing a target affix, one token was randomly selected for acoustic analysis. Measurements were made of the duration of the affix as a whole and the durations of the individual segments in the affix. For three of the four affixes, a higher frequency of the carrier word led to shorter realizations of the affix as a whole, individual segments in the affix, or both. Other relevant factors were the sex and age of the speaker, segmental context, and speech rate. To accommodate for these findings, models of speech production should allow word frequency to affect the acoustic realizations of lower-level units, such as individual speech sounds occurring in affixes.

Abstract

In this paper hypothesis‐testing behaviour is compared to risk‐taking behaviour. It is proposed that choosing a suitable test for a given hypothesis requires making a preposterior analysis of two aspects of such a test: the probability of obtaining supporting evidence and the evidential value of this evidence. This consideration resembles the one a gambler makes when choosing among bets, each having a probability of winning and an amount to be won. A confirmatory testing strategy can be defined within this framework as a strategy directed at maximizing either the probability or the value of a confirming outcome. Previous theories on testing behaviour have focused on the human tendency to maximize the probability of a confirming outcome. In this paper, two experiments are presented in which participants tend to maximize the confirming value of the test outcome. Motivational factors enhance this tendency dependent on the context of the testing situation. Both this result and the framework are discussed in relation to other studies in the field of testing behaviour.

Abstract

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

Abstract

This paper addresses the validity of the segmental anchoring hypothesis for tonal landmarks (henceforth, SAH) as described in recent work by (among others) Ladd, Faulkner, D., Faulkner, H., & Schepman [1999. Constant ‘segmental’ anchoring of f0 movements under changes in speech rate. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 106, 1543–1554], Ladd [2003. Phonological conditioning of f0 target alignment. In: M. J. Solé, D. Recasens, & J. Romero (Eds.), Proceedings of the XVth international congress of phonetic sciences, Vol. 1, (pp. 249–252). Barcelona: Causal Productions; in press. Segmental anchoring of pitch movements: Autosegmental association or gestural coordination? Italian Journal of Linguistics, 18 (1)]. The alignment of LH* prenuclear peaks with segmental landmarks in controlled speech materials in Peninsular Spanish is analyzed as a function of syllable structure type (open, closed) of the accented syllable, segmental composition, and speaking rate. Contrary to the predictions of the SAH, alignment was affected by syllable structure and speech rate in significant and consistent ways. In: CV syllables the peak was located around the end of the accented vowel, and in CVC syllables around the beginning-mid part of the sonorant coda, but still far from the syllable boundary. With respect to the effects of rate, peaks were located earlier in the syllable as speech rate decreased. The results suggest that the accent gestures under study are synchronized with the syllable unit. In general, the longer the syllable, the longer the rise time. Thus the fundamental idea of the anchoring hypothesis can be taken as still valid. On the other hand, the tonal alignment patterns reported here can be interpreted as the outcome of distinct modes of gestural coordination in syllable-initial vs. syllable-final position: gestures at syllable onsets appear to be more tightly coordinated than gestures at the end of syllables [Browman, C. P., & Goldstein, L.M. (1986). Towards an articulatory phonology. Phonology Yearbook, 3, 219–252; Browman, C. P., & Goldstein, L. (1988). Some notes on syllable structure in articulatory phonology. Phonetica, 45, 140–155; (1992). Articulatory Phonology: An overview. Phonetica, 49, 155–180; Krakow (1999). Physiological organization of syllables: A review. Journal of Phonetics, 27, 23–54; among others]. Intergestural timing can thus provide a unifying explanation for (1) the contrasting behavior between the precise synchronization of L valleys with the onset of the syllable and the more variable timing of the end of the f0 rise, and, more specifically, for (2) the right-hand tonal pressure effects and ‘undershoot’ patterns displayed by peaks at the ends of syllables and other prosodic domains.

Abstract

To assign lexical stress when reading, the Greek reader can potentially rely on lexical information (knowledge of the word), visual–orthographic information (processing of the written diacritic), or a default metrical strategy (penultimate stress pattern). Previous studies with secondary education children have shown strong lexical effects on stress assignment and have provided evidence for a default pattern. Here we report two experiments with adult readers, in which we disentangle and quantify the effects of these three potential sources using nonword materials. Stimuli either resembled or did not resemble real words, to manipulate availability of lexical information; and they were presented with or without a diacritic, in a word-congruent or word-incongruent position, to contrast the relative importance of the three sources. Dual-task conditions, in which cognitive load during nonword reading was increased with phonological retention carrying a metrical pattern different from the default, did not support the hypothesis that the default arises from cumulative lexical activation in working memory.

Abstract

Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we identified brain regions involved in storing associations of events discontinuous in time into long-term memory. Participants were scanned while memorizing item-triplets including simultaneous and discontinuous associations. Subsequent memory tests showed that participants remembered both types of associations equally well. First, by constructing the contrast between the subsequent memory effects for discontinuous associations and simultaneous associations, we identified the left posterior parahippocampal region, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the basal ganglia, posterior midline structures, and the middle temporal gyrus as being specifically involved in transforming discontinuous associations into episodic memory. Second, we replicated that the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal lobe (MTL) especially the hippocampus are involved in associative memory formation in general. Our findings provide evidence for distinct neural operation(s) that supports the binding and storing discontinuous associations in memory. We suggest that top-down signals from the prefrontal cortex and MTL may trigger reactivation of internal representation in posterior midline structures of the first event, thus allowing it to be associated with the second event. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex together with basal ganglia may support this encoding operation by executive and binding processes within working memory, and the posterior parahippocampal region may play a role in binding and memory formation.

Abstract

Previous research suggests that learning an alphabetic written language influences aspects of the auditory-verbal language system. In this study, we examined whether literacy influences the notion of words as phonological units independent of lexical semantics in literate and illiterate subjects. Subjects had to decide which item in a word- or pseudoword pair was phonologically longest. By manipulating the relationship between referent size and phonological length in three word conditions (congruent, neutral, and incongruent) we could examine to what extent subjects focused on form rather than meaning of the stimulus material. Moreover, the pseudoword condition allowed us to examine global phonological awareness independent of lexical semantics. The results showed that literate performed significantly better than illiterate subjects in the neutral and incongruent word conditions as well as in the pseudoword condition. The illiterate group performed least well in the incongruent condition and significantly better in the pseudoword condition compared to the neutral and incongruent word conditions and suggest that performance on phonological word length comparisons is dependent on literacy. In addition, the results show that the illiterate participants are able to perceive and process phonological length, albeit less well than the literate subjects, when no semantic interference is present. In conclusion, the present results confirm and extend the finding that illiterate subjects are biased towards semantic-conceptual-pragmatic types of cognitive processing.

Abstract

It has recently been reported that words containing a multiletter grapheme are processed slower than are words composed of single-letter graphemes (Rastle & Coltheart, 1998; Rey, Jacobs, Schmidt-Weigand, & Ziegler, 1998). In the present study, using a perceptual identification task, we found in Experiment 1 that this graphemic complexity effect can be observed while controlling for multiple print-to-sound associations, indexed by regularity or consistency. In Experiment 2, we obtained cumulative effects of graphemic complexity and regularity. These effects were replicated in Experiment 3 in a naming task. Overall, these results indicate that graphemic complexity and multiple print-to-sound associations effects are independent and should be accounted for in different ways by models of written word processing.

Abstract

The present study examines whether children reactivate a moved constituent at its gap position and how children’s more limited working memory span affects the way they process filler-gap dependencies. 46 5–7 year-old children and 54 adult controls participated in a cross-modal picture priming experiment and underwent a standardized working memory test. The results revealed a statistically significant interaction between the participants’ working memory span and antecedent reactivation: High-span children (n = 19) and high-span adults (n = 22) showed evidence of antecedent priming at the gap site, while for low-span children and adults, there was no such effect. The antecedent priming effect in the high-span participants indicates that in both children and adults, dislocated arguments access their antecedents at gap positions. The absence of an antecedent reactivation effect in the low-span participants could mean that these participants required more time to integrate the dislocated constituent and reactivated the filler later during the sentence.

Abstract

Second language (L2) acquisition researchers have always been concerned with what L2 learners know about the grammar of the target language but more recently there has been growing interest in how L2 learners put this knowledge to use in real-time sentence comprehension. In order to investigate real-time L2 sentence processing, the types of constructions studied and the methods used are often borrowed from the field of monolingual processing, but the overall issues are familiar from traditional L2 acquisition research. These cover questions relating to L2 learners’ native-likeness, whether or not L1 transfer is in evidence, and how individual differences such as proficiency and language experience might have an effect. The aim of this paper is to provide for those unfamiliar with the field, an overview of the findings of a selection of behavioral studies that have investigated such questions, and to offer a picture of how L2 learners and bilinguals may process sentences in real time.

Abstract

The author contests several claims of La Heij, Starreveld, and Kuipers (this issue) concerning the modelling of spoken word planning. The claims are about the relevance of error findings, the interaction between semantic and phonological factors, the explanation of word-word findings, the semantic relatedness paradox, and production rules.

Abstract

Four experiments examined crossmodal versions of the Stroop task in order (1) to look for Stroop asymmetries in color naming, spoken-word naming, and written-word naming and to evaluate the time course of these asymmetries, and (2) to compare these findings to current models of the Stroop effect. Participants named color patches while ignoring spoken color words presented with an onset varying from 300 msec before to 300 msec after the onset of the color (Experiment 1), or they named the spoken words and ignored the colors (Experiment 2). A secondary visual detection task assured that the participants looked at the colors in both tasks. Spoken color words yielded Stroop effects in color naming, but colors did not yield an effect in spoken-word naming at any stimulus onset asynchrony. This asymmetry in effects was obtained with equivalent color- and spoken-word-naming latencies. Written color words yielded a Stroop effect in naming spoken words (Experiment 3), and spoken color words yielded an effect in naming written words (Experiment 4). These results were interpreted as most consistent with an architectural account of the color-word Stroop asymmetry, in contrast with discriminability and pathway strength accounts.

Abstract

In a recent series of papers, Caramazza and Miozzo [Caramazza, A., 1997. How many levels of processing are there in lexical access? Cognitive Neuropsychology 14, 177-208; Caramazza, A., Miozzo, M., 1997. The relation between syntactic and phonological knowledge in lexical access: evidence from the 'tip-of-the-tongue' phenomenon. Cognition 64, 309-343; Miozzo, M., Caramazza, A., 1997. On knowing the auxiliary of a verb that cannot be named: evidence for the independence of grammatical and phonological aspects of lexical knowledge. Journal of Cognitive Neuropsychology 9, 160-166] argued against the lemma/lexeme distinction made in many models of lexical access in speaking, including our network model [Roelofs, A., 1992. A spreading-activation theory of lemma retrieval in speaking. Cognition 42, 107-142; Levelt, W.J.M., Roelofs, A., Meyer, A.S., 1998. A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, (in press)]. Their case was based on the observations that grammatical class deficits of brain-damaged patients and semantic errors may be restricted to either spoken or written forms and that the grammatical gender of a word and information about its form can be independently available in tip-of-the-tongue stales (TOTs). In this paper, we argue that though our model is about speaking, not taking position on writing, extensions to writing are possible that are compatible with the evidence from aphasia and speech errors. Furthermore, our model does not predict a dependency between gender and form retrieval in TOTs. Finally, we argue that Caramazza and Miozzo have not accounted for important parts of the evidence motivating the lemma/lexeme distinction, such as word frequency effects in homophone production, the strict ordering of gender and pho neme access in LRP data, and the chronometric and speech error evidence for the production of complex morphology.

Abstract

Simple name-retrieval models of spoken word planning (Bloem & La Heij, 2003; Starreveld & La Heij, 1996) maintain (1) that there are two levels in word planning, a conceptual and a lexical phonological level, and (2) that planning a word in both object naming and oral reading involves the selection of a lexical phonological representation. Here, the name retrieval models are compared to more complex models with respect to their ability to account for relevant data. It appears that the name retrieval models cannot easily account for several relevant findings, including some speech error biases, types of morpheme errors, and context effects on the latencies of responding to pictures and words. New analyses of the latency distributions in previous studies also pose a challenge. More complex models account for all these findings. It is concluded that the name retrieval models are too simple and that the greater complexity of the other models is warranted

Abstract

The trigger for shifting gaze between stimuli requiring vocal and manual responses was examined. Participants were presented with picture–word stimuli and left- or right-pointing arrows. They vocally named the picture (Experiment 1), read the word (Experiment 2), or categorized the word (Experiment 3) and shifted their gaze to the arrow to manually indicate its direction. The experiments showed that the temporal coordination of vocal responding and gaze shifting depends on the vocal task and, to a lesser extent, on the type of relationship between picture and word. There was a close temporal link between gaze shifting and manual responding, suggesting that the gaze shifts indexed shifts of attention between the vocal and manual tasks. Computer simulations showed that a simple extension of WEAVER++ [Roelofs, A. (1992). A spreading-activation theory of lemma retrieval in speaking. Cognition, 42, 107–142.; Roelofs, A. (2003). Goal-referenced selection of verbal action: modeling attentional control in the Stroop task. Psychological Review, 110, 88–125.] with assumptions about attentional control in the coordination of vocal responding, gaze shifting, and manual responding quantitatively accounts for the key findings.

Abstract

In 4 chronometric experiments, influences of spoken word planning on speech recognition were examined. Participants were shown pictures while hearing a tone or a spoken word presented shortly after picture onset. When a spoken word was presented, participants indicated whether it contained a prespecified phoneme. When the tone was presented, they indicated whether the picture name contained the phoneme (Experiment 1) or they named the picture (Experiment 2). Phoneme monitoring latencies for the spoken words were shorter when the picture name contained the prespecified phoneme compared with when it did not. Priming of phoneme monitoring was also obtained when the phoneme was part of spoken nonwords (Experiment 3). However, no priming of phoneme monitoring was obtained when the pictures required no response in the experiment, regardless of monitoring latency (Experiment 4). These results provide evidence that an internal phonological pathway runs from spoken word planning to speech recognition and that active phonological encoding is a precondition for engaging the pathway. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)

Abstract

According to most models of speech production, the planning of spoken words involves the independent retrieval of segments and metrical frames followed by segment-to-frame association. In some models, the metrical frame includes a specification of the number and ordering of consonants and vowels, but in the word-form encoding by activation and verification (WEAVER) model (A. Roelofs, 1997), the frame specifies only the stress pattern across syllables. In 6 implicit priming experiments, on each trial, participants produced 1 word out of a small set as quickly as possible. In homogeneous sets, the response words shared word-initial segments, whereas in heterogeneous sets, they did not. Priming effects from shared segments depended on all response words having the same number of syllables and stress pattern, but not on their having the same number of consonants and vowels. No priming occurred when the response words had only the same metrical frame but shared no segments. Computer simulations demonstrated that WEAVER accounts for the findings.

Abstract

This article reports 7 experiments investigating whether utterances are planned in a parallel or rightward incremental fashion during language production. The experiments examined the role of linear order, length, frequency, and repetition in producing Dutch verb–particle combinations. On each trial, participants produced 1 utterance out of a set of 3 as quickly as possible. The responses shared part of their form or not. For particle-initial infinitives, facilitation was obtained when the responses shared the particle but not when they shared the verb. For verb-initial imperatives, however, facilitation was obtained for the verbs but not for the particles. The facilitation increased with length, decreased with frequency, and was independent of repetition. A simple rightward incremental model accounts quantitatively for the results.

Abstract

The ability to explain the occurrence of errors in children’s speech is an essential component of successful theories of language acquisition. The present study tested some generativist and constructivist predictions about error on the questions produced by ten English-learning children between 2 and 5 years of age. The analyses demonstrated that, as predicted by some generativist theories [e.g. Santelmann, L., Berk, S., Austin, J., Somashekar, S. & Lust. B. (2002). Continuity and development in the acquisition of inversion in yes/no questions: dissociating movement and inflection, Journal of Child Language, 29, 813–842], questions with auxiliary DO attracted higher error rates than those with modal auxiliaries. However, in wh-questions, questions with modals and DO attracted equally high error rates, and these findings could not be explained in terms of problems forming questions with why or negated auxiliaries. It was concluded that the data might be better explained in terms of a constructivist account that suggests that entrenched item-based constructions may be protected from error in children’s speech, and that errors occur when children resort to other operations to produce questions [e.g. Dąbrowska, E. (2000). From formula to schema: the acquisition of English questions. Cognitive Liguistics, 11, 83–102; Rowland, C. F. & Pine, J. M. (2000). Subject-auxiliary inversion errors and wh-question acquisition: What children do know? Journal of Child Language, 27, 157–181; Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press]. However, further work on constructivist theory development is required to allow researchers to make predictions about the nature of these operations.

Abstract

The present paper reports an analysis of correct wh-question production and subject–auxiliary inversion errors in one child's early wh-question data (age 2; 3.4 to 4; 10.23). It is argued that two current movement rule accounts (DeVilliers, 1991; Valian, Lasser & Mandelbaum, 1992) cannot explain the patterning of early wh-questions. However, the data can be explained in terms of the child's knowledge of particular lexically-specific wh-word+auxiliary combinations, and the pattern of inversion and uninversion predicted from the relative frequencies of these combinations in the mother's speech. The results support the claim that correctly inverted wh-questions can be produced without access to a subject–auxiliary inversion rule and are consistent with the constructivist claim that a distributional learning mechanism that learns and reproduces lexically-specific formulae heard in the input can explain much of the early multi-word speech data. The implications of these results for movement rule-based and constructivist theories of grammatical development are discussed.

Abstract

Many current generativist theorists suggest that young children possess the grammatical principles of inversion required for question formation but make errors because they find it difficult to learn language-specific rules about how inversion applies. The present study analyzed longitudinal spontaneous sampled data from twelve 2–3-year-old English speaking children and the intensive diary data of 1 child (age 2;7 [years;months] to 2;11) in order to test some of these theories. The results indicated significantly different rates of error use across different auxiliaries. In particular, error rates differed across 2 forms of the same auxiliary subtype (e.g., auxiliary is vs. are), and auxiliary DO and modal auxiliaries attracted significantly higher rates of errors of inversion than other auxiliaries. The authors concluded that current generativist theories might have problems explaining the patterning of errors seen in children's questions, which might be more consistent with a constructivist account of development. However, constructivists need to devise more precise predictions in order to fully explain the acquisition of questions.

Abstract

Various accounts of metaphor interpretation propose that it involves constructing an ad hoc concept on the basis of the concept encoded by the metaphor vehicle (i.e. the expression used for conveying the metaphor). This paper discusses some of the differences between these theories and investigates their main empirical prediction: that metaphor interpretation involves enhancing properties of the metaphor vehicle that are relevant for interpretation, while suppressing those that are irrelevant. This hypothesis was tested in a cross-modal lexical priming study adapted from early studies on lexical ambiguity. The different patterns of suppression of irrelevant meanings observed in disambiguation studies and in the experiment on metaphor reported here are discussed in terms of differences between meaning selection and meaning construction.

Abstract

In this paper, I compare three different assumptions about the relationship between speech, thought and gesture. These assumptions have profound consequences for theories about the representations and processing involved in gesture and speech production. I associate these assumptions with three simplified processing architectures. In the Window Architecture, gesture provides us with a 'window into the mind'. In the Language Architecture, properties of language have an influence on gesture. In the Postcard Architecture, gesture and speech are planned by a single process to become one multimodal message. The popular Window Architecture is based on the assumption that gestures come, as it were, straight out of the mind. I argue that during the creation of overt imagistic gestures, many processes, especially those related to (a) recipient design, and (b) effects of language structure, cause an observable gesture to be very different from the original thought that it expresses. The Language Architecture and the Postcard Architecture differ from the Window Architecture in that they both incorporate a central component which plans gesture and speech together, however they differ from each other in the way they align gesture and speech. The Postcard Architecture assumes that the process creating a multimodal message involving both gesture and speech has access to the concepts that are available in speech, while the Language Architecture relies on interprocess communication to resolve potential conflicts between the content of gesture and speech.

Abstract

Eye movements were monitored as participants followed spoken instructions to manipulate one of four objects pictured on a computer screen. Target words occurred in utterance-medial (e.g., Put the cap next to the square) or utterance-final position (e.g., Now click on the cap). Displays consisted of the target picture (e.g., a cap), a monosyllabic competitor picture (e.g., a cat), a polysyllabic competitor picture (e.g., a captain) and a distractor (e.g., a beaker). The relative proportion of fixations to the two types of competitor pictures changed as a function of the position of the target word in the utterance, demonstrating that lexical competition is modulated by prosodically conditioned phonetic variation.

Abstract

Capacity limited memory systems need to gradually forget old information in order to avoid catastrophic forgetting where all stored information is lost. This can be achieved by allowing new information to overwrite old, as in the so-called palimpsest memory. This paper describes a new such learning rule employed in an attractor neural network. The network does not exhibit catastrophic forgetting, has a capacity dependent on the learning time constant and exhibits recency e!ects in retrieval

Abstract

Several theorists have proposed that distinctions are needed between different positive emotional states, and that these discriminations may be particularly useful in the domain of vocal signals (Ekman, 1992b, Cognition and Emotion, 6, 169–200; Scherer, 1986, Psychological Bulletin, 99, 143–165). We report an investigation into the hypothesis that positive basic emotions have distinct vocal expressions (Ekman, 1992b, Cognition and Emotion, 6, 169–200). Non-verbal vocalisations are used that map onto five putative positive emotions: Achievement/Triumph, Amusement, Contentment, Sensual Pleasure, and Relief. Data from categorisation and rating tasks indicate that each vocal expression is accurately categorised and consistently rated as expressing the intended emotion. This pattern is replicated across two language groups. These data, we conclude, provide evidence for the existence of robustly recognisable expressions of distinct positive emotions.

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of recognizing a vocabulary of over 50,000 city names in a telephone access spoken dialogue system. We adopt a two-stage framework in which only major cities are represented in the first stage lexicon. We rely on an unknown word model encoded as a phone loop to detect OOV city names (referred to as ‘rare city’ names). We use SpeM, a tool that can extract words and word-initial cohorts from phone graphs from a large fallback lexicon, to provide an N-best list of promising city name hypotheses on the basis of the phone graph corresponding to the OOV. This N-best list is then inserted into the second stage lexicon for a subsequent recognition pass. Experiments were conducted on a set of spontaneous telephone-quality utterances; each containing one rare city name. It appeared that SpeM was able to include nearly 75% of the correct city names in an N-best hypothesis list of 3000 city names. With the names found by SpeM to extend the lexicon of the second stage recognizer, a word accuracy of 77.3% could be obtained. The best one-stage system yielded a word accuracy of 72.6%. The absolute number of correctly recognized rare city names almost doubled, from 62 for the best one-stage system to 102 for the best two-stage system. However, even the best two-stage system recognized only about one-third of the rare city names retrieved by SpeM. The paper discusses ways for improving the overall performance in the context of an application.

Abstract

Humans are able to recognise a word before its acoustic realisation is complete. This in contrast to conventional automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems, which compute the likelihood of a number of hypothesised word sequences, and identify the words that were recognised on the basis of a trace back of the hypothesis with the highest eventual score, in order to maximise efficiency and performance. In the present paper, we present an ASR system, SpeM, based on principles known from the field of human word recognition that is able to model the human capability of ‘early recognition’ by computing word activation scores (based on negative log likelihood scores) during the speech recognition process. Experiments on 1463 polysyllabic words in 885 utterances showed that 64.0% (936) of these polysyllabic words were recognised correctly at the end of the utterance. For 81.1% of the 936 correctly recognised polysyllabic words the local word activation allowed us to identify the word before its last phone was available, and 64.1% of those words were already identified one phone after their lexical uniqueness point. We investigated two types of predictors for deciding whether a word is considered as recognised before the end of its acoustic realisation. The first type is related to the absolute and relative values of the word activation, which trade false acceptances for false rejections. The second type of predictor is related to the number of phones of the word that have already been processed and the number of phones that remain until the end of the word. The results showed that SpeM’s performance increases if the amount of acoustic evidence in support of a word increases and the risk of future mismatches decreases.

Abstract

Although researchers studying human speech recognition (HSR) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) share a common interest in how information processing systems (human or machine) recognize spoken language, there is little communication between the two disciplines. We suggest that this lack of communication follows largely from the fact that research in these related fields has focused on the mechanics of how speech can be recognized. In Marr's (1982) terms, emphasis has been on the algorithmic and implementational levels rather than on the computational level. In this article, we provide a computational-level analysis of the task of speech recognition, which reveals the close parallels between research concerned with HSR and ASR. We illustrate this relation by presenting a new computational model of human spoken-word recognition, built using techniques from the field of ASR that, in contrast to current existing models of HSR, recognizes words from real speech input.

Abstract

The fields of human speech recognition (HSR) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) both investigate parts of the speech recognition process and have word recognition as their central issue. Although the research fields appear closely related, their aims and research methods are quite different. Despite these differences there is, however, lately a growing interest in possible cross-fertilisation. Researchers from both ASR and HSR are realising the potential benefit of looking at the research field on the other side of the ‘gap’. In this paper, we provide an overview of past and present efforts to link human and automatic speech recognition research and present an overview of the literature describing the performance difference between machines and human listeners. The focus of the paper is on the mutual benefits to be derived from establishing closer collaborations and knowledge interchange between ASR and HSR. The paper ends with an argument for more and closer collaborations between researchers of ASR and HSR to further improve research in both fields.

Abstract

The ultimate goal of our research is to develop a computational model of human speech recognition that is able to capture the effects of fine-grained acoustic variation on speech recognition behaviour. As part of this work we are investigating automatic feature classifiers that are able to create reliable and accurate transcriptions of the articulatory behaviour encoded in the acoustic speech signal. In the experiments reported here, we analysed the classification results from support vector machines (SVMs) and multilayer perceptrons (MLPs). MLPs have been widely and successfully used for the task of multi-value articulatory feature classification, while (to the best of our knowledge) SVMs have not. This paper compares the performance of the two classifiers and analyses the results in order to better understand the articulatory representations. It was found that the SVMs outperformed the MLPs for five out of the seven articulatory feature classes we investigated while using only 8.8–44.2% of the training material used for training the MLPs. The structure in the misclassifications of the SVMs and MLPs suggested that there might be a mismatch between the characteristics of the classification systems and the characteristics of the description of the AF values themselves. The analyses showed that some of the misclassified features are inherently confusable given the acoustic space. We concluded that in order to come to a feature set that can be used for a reliable and accurate automatic description of the speech signal; it could be beneficial to move away from quantised representations.

Abstract

To investigate the role of the syllable in Dutch speech production, five experiments were carried out to examine the effect of visually masked syllable primes on the naming latencies for written words and pictures. Targets had clear syllable boundaries and began with a CV syllable (e.g., ka.no) or a CVC syllable (e.g., kak.tus), or had ambiguous syllable boundaries and began with a CV[C] syllable (e.g., ka[pp]er). In the syllable match condition, bisyllabic Dutch nouns or verbs were preceded by primes that were identical to the target’s first syllable. In the syllable mismatch condition, the prime was either shorter or longer than the target’s first syllable. A neutral condition was also included. None of the experiments showed a syllable priming effect. Instead, all related primes facilitated the naming of the targets. It is concluded that the syllable does not play a role in the process of phonological encoding in Dutch. Because the amount of facilitation increased with increasing overlap between prime and target, the priming effect is accounted for by a segmental overlap hypothesis.

Abstract

Speakers can use pronouns when their conceptual referents are accessible from the preceding discourse, as in 'The flower is red. It turns blue'. Theories of language production agree that in order to produce a noun semantic, syntactic, and phonological information must be accessed. However, little is known about lexical access to pronouns. In this paper, we propose a model of pronoun access in German. Since the forms of German pronouns depend on the grammatical gender of the nouns they replace, the model claims that speakers must access the syntactic representation of the replaced noun (its lemma) to select a pronoun. In two experiments using the lexical decision during naming paradigm [Levelt, W.J.M., Schriefers, H., Vorberg, D., Meyer, A.S., Pechmann, T., Havinga, J., 1991a. The time course of lexical access in speech production: a study of picture naming. Psychological Review 98, 122-142], we investigated whether lemma access automatically entails the activation of the corresponding word form or whether a word form is only activated when the noun itself is produced, but not when it is replaced by a pronoun. Experiment 1 showed that during pronoun production the phonological form of the replaced noun is activated. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this phonological activation was not a residual of the use of the noun in the preceding sentence. Thus, when a pronoun is produced, the lemma and the phonological form of the replaced noun become reactivated.

Abstract

Neuronal groups can interact with each other even if they are widely separated. One group might modulate its firing rate or its internal oscillatory synchronization to influence another group. We propose that coherence between two neuronal groups is a mechanism of efficient interaction, because it renders mutual input optimally timed and thereby maximally effective. Modulations of subjects' readiness to respond in a simple reaction-time task were closely correlated with the strength of gamma-band (40 to 70 hertz) coherence between motor cortex and spinal cord neurons. This coherence may contribute to an effective corticospinal interaction and shortened reaction times.

Abstract

We have used the genome-wide marker genotypes from Genetic Analysis Workshop 15 Problem 2 to explore joint evidence for genetic linkage to rheumatoid arthritis across several samples. The data consisted of four high-density genome scans on samples selected for rheumatoid arthritis. We cleaned the data, removed intermarker linkage disequilibrium, and assembled the samples onto a common genetic map using genome sequence positions as a reference for map interpolation. The individual studies were combined first at the genotype level (mega-analysis) prior to a multipoint linkage analysis on the combined sample, and second using the genome scan meta-analysis method after linkage analysis of each sample. The two approaches were compared, and give strong support to the HLA locus on chromosome 6 as a susceptibility locus. Other regions of interest include loci on chromosomes 11, 2, and 12.

Abstract

This article discusses how the Trobriand Islanders speak about body and mind. It addresses the following questions: do the linguistic datafit into theories about lexical universals of body-part terminology? Can we make inferences about the Trobrianders' conceptualization of psychological and physical states on the basis of these data? If a Trobriand Islander sees these idioms as external manifestations of inner states, then can we interpret them as a kind of ethnopsychological theory about the body and its role for emotions, knowledge, thought, memory, and so on? Can these idioms be understood as representation of Trobriand ethnopsychological theory?

Abstract

Visiting the Trobriand Islands is advertised as being the highlight of a trip for tourists to Papua New Guinea who want, and can afford, to experience this 'ultimate adventure' with 'expeditionary cruises aboard the luxurious Melanesian Discoverer. The advertisements also promise that the tourists can 'meet the friendly people' and 'observe their unique culture, dances, and art'. During my research in Kaibola and Nuwebila, two neighbouring villages on the northern tip of Kiriwina Island, I studied and analysed the encounters of tourists with Trobriand Islanders, who sing and dance for the Europeans. The analyses of the islanders' tourist performances are based on Erving Goffman's now classic study The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, which was first published in 1959. In this study Goffmann analyses the structures of social encounters from the perspective of the dramatic performance. The situational context within which the encounter between tourists and Trobriand Islanders takes place frames the tourists as the audience and the Trobriand Islanders as a team of performers. The inherent structure of the parts of the overall performance presented in the two villages can be summarized - within the framework of Goffman's approach - in analogy with the structure of drama. We find parts that constitute the 'exposition', the 'complication', and the 'resolution' of a drama; we even observe an equivalent to the importance of the 'Second Act Curtain' in modern drama theory. Deeper analyses of this encounter show that the motives of the performers and their 'art of impression management' are to control the impression their audience receives in this encounter situation. This analysis reveals that the Trobriand Islanders sell their customers the expected images of what Malinowski (1929) once termed the '...Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia' in a staged 'illusion'. With the conscious realization of the part they as performers play in this encounter, the Trobriand Islanders are in a position that is superior to that of their audience. Their merchandise or commodity is 'not real', as it is sold 'out of its true cultural context'. It is staged - and thus cannot be taken by any customer whatsoever because it (re)presents just an 'illusion'. The Trobriand Islanders know that neither they nor the core aspects of their culture will suffer any damage within a tourist encounter that is defined by the structure and the kind of their performance. Their pride and self-confidence enable them to bring their superior position into play in their dealings with tourists. With their indigenous humour, they even use this encounter for ridiculing their visitors. It turns out that the encounter is another manifestation of the Trobriand Islanders' self-consciousness, self-confidence, and pride with which they manage to protect core aspects of their cultural identity, while at the same time using and 'selling' parts of their culture as a kind of commodity to tourists.