Publications

Abstract

The present study investigates the effects of late sign language exposure on narrative development in Turkish Sign Language (TİD) by focusing on the introductions of main characters and the linguistic strategies used in these introductions. We study these domains by comparing narrations produced by native and late signers in TİD. The results of our study reveal that late sign language exposure does not hinder the acquisition of linguistic devices to introduce main characters in narrations. Thus, their acquisition seems to be resilient to the effects of late language exposure. Our study further suggests that a two-year exposure to sign language facilitates the acquisition of these skills in signing children even in the case of late language exposure, thus providing further support for the importance of sign language exposure to develop linguistic skills for signing children.

Abstract

Many perception and processing effects of the lexical status of tone have been found in behavioral, psycholinguistic, and neuroscientific research, often pitting varieties of tonal Chinese against non-tonal Germanic languages. While the linguistic and cognitive evidence for lexical tone is therefore beyond dispute, the word prosodic systems of many languages continue to escape the categorizations of typologists. One controversy concerns the existence of a typological class of “pitch accent languages,” another the underlying phonological nature of surface tone contrasts, which in some cases have been claimed to be metrical rather than tonal. We address the question whether the Sequence Recall Task (SRT), which has been shown to discriminate between languages with and without word stress, can distinguish languages with and without lexical tone. Using participants from non-tonal Indonesian, semi-tonal Swedish, and two varieties of tonal Mandarin, we ran SRTs with monosyllabic tonal contrasts to test the hypothesis that high performance in a tonal SRT indicates the lexical status of tone. An additional question concerned the extent to which accuracy scores depended on phonological and phonetic properties of a language’s tone system, like its complexity, the existence of an experimental contrast in a language’s phonology, and the phonetic salience of a contrast. The results suggest that a tonal SRT is not likely to discriminate between tonal and non-tonal languages within a typologically varied group, because of the effects of specific properties of their tone systems. Future research should therefore address the first hypothesis with participants from otherwise similar tonal and non-tonal varieties of the same language, where results from a tonal SRT may make a useful contribution to the typological debate on word prosody.

Abstract

Previous research has set out to quantify the syntactic capacity of BERTje (the Dutch equivalent of BERT) in the context of phenomena such as control verb nesting and verb raising in Dutch. Another complex language phenomenon is ellipsis, where a constituent is omitted from a sentence and can be recovered using context. Like verb raising and control verb nesting, ellipsis is suitable for evaluating BERTje’s linguistic capacity since it requires the processing of syntactic and lexical cues to recover the elided phrases. This work outlines an approach to identify subject-verb dependencies in Dutch sentences with verb phrase and noun phrase ellipsis using BERTje. Results will inform about BERTje’s capability of capturing syntactic information and its ability to capture ellipsis in particular. Understanding more about how computational models process ellipsis and how it can be improved is crucial for boosting the performance of language models, as natural language contains many instances of ellipsis. Using training data from Lassy, converted to contextualized embeddings using BERTje, a probe model is trained to identify subject-verb dependencies. The model is tested on sentences generated using a Context Free Grammar (CFG), which is designed to generate sentences containing ellipsis. These sentences are also converted to contextualized representations using BERTje. Results show that BERTje’s syntactic abilities are lacking, shown by accuracy drops compared to baseline measures.

Abstract

Claims that neuroscientific data do not contribute to our understanding of psychological functions have been made recently. Here I argue that these criticisms are solely based on an analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. However, fMRI is only one of the methods in the toolkit of cognitive neuroscience. I provide examples from research on event-related brain potentials (ERPs) that have contributed to our understanding of the cognitive architecture of human language functions. In addition, I provide evidence of (possible) contributions from fMRI measurements to our understanding of the functional architecture of language processing. Finally, I argue that a neurobiology of human language that integrates information about the necessary genetic and neural infrastructures will allow us to answer certain questions that are not answerable if all we have is evidence from behavior.

Abstract

This paper focuses on what electrical and magnetic recordings of human brain activity reveal about spoken language understanding. Based on the high temporal resolution of these recordings, a fine-grained temporal profile of different aspects of spoken language comprehension can be obtained. Crucial aspects of speech comprehension are lexical access, selection and semantic integration. Results show that for words spoken in context, there is no ‘magic moment’ when lexical selection ends and semantic integration begins. Irrespective of whether words have early or late recognition points, semantic integration processing is initiated before words can be identified on the basis of the acoustic information alone. Moreover, for one particular event-related brain potential (ERP) component (the N400), equivalent impact of sentence- and discourse-semantic contexts is observed. This indicates that in comprehension, a spoken word is immediately evaluated relative to the widest interpretive domain available. In addition, this happens very quickly. Findings are discussed that show that often an unfolding word can be mapped onto discourse-level representations well before the end of the word. Overall, the time course of the ERP effects is compatible with the view that the different information types (lexical, syntactic, phonological, pragmatic) are processed in parallel and influence the interpretation process incrementally, that is as soon as the relevant pieces of information are available. This is referred to as the immediacy principle.

Abstract

In an event-related potential experiment with Chinese discourses as material, we investigated how and when accentuation influences spoken discourse comprehension in relation to the different information states of the critical words. These words could either provide new or old information. It was shown that variation of accentuation influenced the amplitude of the N400, with a larger amplitude for accented than deaccented words. In addition, there was an interaction between accentuation and information state. The N400 amplitude difference between accented and deaccented new information was smaller than that between accented and deaccented old information. The results demonstrate that, during spoken discourse comprehension, listeners rapidly extract the semantic consequences of accentuation in relation to the previous discourse context. Moreover, our results show that the N400 amplitude can be larger for correct (new,accented words) than incorrect (new, deaccented words) information. This, we argue, proves that the N400 does not react to semantic anomaly per se, but rather to semantic integration load, which is higher for new information.

Abstract

This study tests the recent claim that Broca’s aphasics are impaired in automatic lexical access, including the retrieval of word meaning. Subjects are required to perform a lexical decision on visually presented prime target pairs. Half of the word targets are preceded by a related word, half by an unrelated word. Primes and targets are presented with a long stimulus-onset-asynchrony (SOA) of 1400 msec and with a short SOA of 300 msec. Normal priming effects are observed in Broca’s aphasics for both SOAs. This result is discussed in the context of the claim that Broca’s aphasics suffer from an impairment in the automatic access of lexical–semantic information. It is argued that none of the current priming studies provides evidence supporting this claim, since with short SOAs priming effects have been reliably obtained in Broca’s aphasics. The results are more compatible with the claim that in many Broca’s aphasics the functional locus of their comprehension deficit is at the level of postlexical integration processes.

Abstract

Beim Sprechen und beim Sprachverstehen findet man die Wortbedeutung im Gedächtnis auf und kombiniert sie zu größeren Einheiten (Unifikation). Solche Unifikations-Operationen laufen auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen der Sprachverarbeitung ab. In diesem Beitrag wird ein Rahmen vorgeschlagen, in dem psycholinguistische Modelle mit neurobiologischer Sprachbetrachtung in Verbindung gebracht werden. Diesem Vorschlag zufolge spielt der linke inferiore frontale Gyrus (LIFG) eine bedeutende Rolle bei der Unifi kation

Abstract

The Possible-Word Constraint (PWC; Norris, McQueen, Cutler, and Butterfield 1997) suggests that segmentation of continuous speech operates with a universal constraint that feasible words should contain a vowel. Single consonants, because they do not constitute syllables, are treated as non-viable residues. Two word-spotting experiments are reported that investigate whether the PWC really is a language-universal principle. According to the PWC, Slovak listeners should, just like Germans, be slower at spotting words in single consonant contexts (not feasible words) as compared to syllable contexts (feasible words)—even if single consonants can be words in Slovak. The results confirm the PWC in German but not in Slovak.

Abstract

Certain categories of language learners need feedback on the grammatical structure of sentences they wish to produce. In contrast with the usual NLP approach to this problem—parsing student-generated texts—we propose a generation-based approach aiming at preventing errors (“scaffolding”). In our ICALL system, students construct sentences by composing syntactic trees out of lexically anchored “treelets” via a graphical drag&drop user interface. A natural-language generator computes all possible grammatically well-formed sentences entailed by the student-composed tree, and intervenes immediately when the latter tree does not belong to the set of well-formed alternatives. Feedback is based on comparisons between the student-composed tree and the well-formed set. Frequently occurring errors are handled in terms of “malrules.” The system (implemented in JAVA and C++) currently focuses constituent order in German as L2.

Abstract

Human infants imitate not only to acquire skill, but also as a fundamental part of social interaction [1] , [2] and [3] . They recognise when they are being imitated by showing increased visual attention to imitators (implicit recognition) and by engaging in so-called testing behaviours (explicit recognition). Implicit recognition affords the ability to recognize structural and temporal contingencies between actions across agents, whereas explicit recognition additionally affords the ability to understand the directional impact of one's own actions on others' actions [1] , [2] and [3] . Imitation recognition is thought to foster understanding of social causality, intentionality in others and the formation of a concept of self as different from other [3] , [4] and [5] . Pigtailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) implicitly recognize being imitated [6], but unlike chimpanzees [7], they show no sign of explicit imitation recognition. We investigated imitation recognition in 11 individuals from the four species of non-human great apes. We replicated results previously found with a chimpanzee [7] and, critically, have extended them to the other great ape species. Our results show a general prevalence of imitation recognition in all great apes and thereby demonstrate important differences between great apes and monkeys in their understanding of contingent social interactions.

Abstract

Human joint action is inherently cooperative, manifested in the collaborative efforts of participants to minimize communicative trouble through interactive repair. Although interactive repair requires sophisticated cognitive abilities,
it can be dissected into basic building blocks shared with non-human animal species. A review of the primate literature shows that interactionally contingent signal sequences are at least common among species of nonhuman great apes, suggesting a gradual evolution of repair. To pioneer a cross-species assessment of repair this paper aims at (i) identifying necessary precursors of human interactive repair; (ii) proposing a coding framework for its comparative study in humans and non-human species; and (iii) using this framework to analyse examples of interactions of humans (adults/children) and non-human great apes. We hope this paper will serve as a primer for cross-species comparisons of communicative breakdowns and how they are repaired.

Abstract

Understanding spoken language requires transforming ambiguous acoustic streams into a hierarchy of representations, from phonemes to meaning. It has been suggested that the brain uses prediction to guide the interpretation of incoming input. However, the role of prediction in language processing remains disputed, with disagreement about both the ubiquity and representational nature of predictions. Here, we address both issues by analyzing brain recordings of participants listening to audiobooks, and using a deep neural network (GPT-2) to precisely quantify contextual predictions. First, we establish that brain responses to words are modulated by ubiquitous predictions. Next, we disentangle model-based predictions into distinct dimensions, revealing dissociable neural signatures of predictions about syntactic category (parts of speech), phonemes, and semantics. Finally, we show that high-level (word) predictions inform low-level (phoneme) predictions, supporting hierarchical predictive processing. Together, these results underscore the ubiquity of prediction in language processing, showing that the brain spontaneously predicts upcoming language at multiple levels of abstraction.

Abstract

Culture, a pillar of the remarkable ecological success of humans, is increasingly recognized as a powerful force structuring nonhuman animal populations. A key gap between these two types of culture is quantitative evidence of symbolic markers—seemingly arbitrary traits that function as reliable indicators of cultural group membership to conspecifics. Using acoustic data collected from 23 Pacific Ocean locations, we provide quantitative evidence that certain sperm whale acoustic signals exhibit spatial patterns consistent with a symbolic marker function. Culture segments sperm whale populations into behaviorally distinct clans, which are defined based on dialects of stereotyped click patterns (codas). We classified 23,429 codas into types using contaminated mixture models and hierarchically clustered coda repertoires into seven clans based on similarities in coda usage; then we evaluated whether coda usage varied with geographic distance within clans or with spatial overlap between clans. Similarities in within-clan usage of both “identity codas” (coda types diagnostic of clan identity) and “nonidentity codas” (coda types used by multiple clans) decrease as space between repertoire recording locations increases. However, between-clan similarity in identity, but not nonidentity, coda usage decreases as clan spatial overlap increases. This matches expectations if sympatry is related to a measurable pressure to diversify to make cultural divisions sharper, thereby providing evidence that identity codas function as symbolic markers of clan identity. Our study provides quantitative evidence of arbitrary traits, resembling human ethnic markers, conveying cultural identity outside of humans, and highlights remarkable similarities in the distributions of human ethnolinguistic groups and sperm whale clans.

Abstract

Previous research suggests that literacy, specifically learning alphabetic letter-to-phoneme mappings, modifies online speech processing, and enhances brain responses, as indexed by the blood-oxygenation level dependent signal (BOLD), to speech in auditory areas associated with phonological processing (Dehaene et al., 2010). However, alphabets are not the only orthographic systems in use in the world, and hundreds of millions of individuals speak languages that are not written using alphabets. In order to make claims that literacy per se has broad and general consequences for brain responses to speech, one must seek confirmatory evidence from non-alphabetic literacy. To this end, we conducted a longitudinal fMRI study in India probing the effect of literacy in Devanagari, an abugida, on functional connectivity and cerebral responses to speech in 91 variously literate Hindi-speaking male and female human participants. Twenty-two completely illiterate participants underwent six months of reading and writing training. Devanagari literacy increases functional connectivity between acoustic-phonetic and graphomotor brain areas, but we find no evidence that literacy changes brain responses to speech, either in cross-sectional or longitudinal analyses. These findings shows that a dramatic reconfiguration of the neurofunctional substrates of online speech processing may not be a universal result of learning to read, and suggest that the influence of writing on speech processing should also be investigated.

Abstract

Speech comprehension is resistant to acoustic distortion in the input, reflecting listeners' ability to adjust perceptual processes to match the speech input. This adjustment is reflected in improved comprehension of distorted speech with experience. For noise vocoding, a manipulation that removes spectral detail from speech, listeners' word report showed a significantly greater improvement over trials for listeners that heard clear speech presentations before rather than after hearing distorted speech (clear-then-distorted compared with distorted-then-clear feedback, in Experiment 1). This perceptual learning generalized to untrained words suggesting a sublexical locus for learning and was equivalent for word and nonword training stimuli (Experiment 2). These findings point to the crucial involvement of phonological short-term memory and top-down processes in the perceptual learning of noise-vocoded speech. Similar processes may facilitate comprehension of speech in an unfamiliar accent or following cochlear implantation.

Abstract

Alexithymia concerns a difficulty identifying and communicating one’s own emotions, and a tendency towards externally-oriented thinking. Recent work argues that such alexithymic traits are due to altered arousal response and poor subjective awareness of “objective” arousal responses. Although there are individual differences within the general population in identifying and describing emotions, extant research has focused on highly alexithymic individuals. Here we investigated whether mean arousal and concordance between subjective and objective arousal underpin individual differences in alexithymic traits in a general population sample. Participants rated subjective arousal responses to 60 images from the International Affective Picture System whilst their skin conductance was recorded. The Autism Quotient was employed to control for autistic traits in the general population. Analysis using linear models demonstrated that mean arousal significantly predicted Toronto Alexithymia Scale scores above and beyond autistic traits, but concordance scores did not. This indicates that, whilst objective arousal is a useful predictor in populations that are both above and below the cut-off values for alexithymia, concordance scores between objective and subjective arousal do not predict variation in alexithymic traits in the general population.

Abstract

Humans differ greatly in their ability to use language. Contemporary psycholinguistic theories assume that individual differences in language skills arise from variability in linguistic experience and in general cognitive skills. While much previous research has tested the involvement of select verbal and non-verbal variables in select domains of linguistic processing, comprehensive characterizations of the relationships among the skills underlying language use are rare. We contribute to such a research program by re-analyzing a publicly available set of data from 112 young adults tested on 35 behavioral tests. The tests assessed nine key constructs reflecting linguistic processing skills, linguistic experience and general cognitive skills. Correlation and hierarchical clustering analyses of the test scores showed that most of the tests assumed to measure the same construct correlated moderately to strongly and largely clustered together. Furthermore, the results suggest important roles of processing speed in comprehension, and of linguistic experience in production.

Abstract

Height-pitch associations are claimed to be universal and independent of language, but this claim remains controversial. The present study sheds new light on this debate with a multimodal analysis of individual sound and melody descriptions obtained in an interactive communication paradigm with speakers of Dutch and Farsi. The findings reveal that, in contrast to Dutch speakers, Farsi speakers do not use a height-pitch metaphor consistently in speech. Both Dutch and Farsi speakers’ co-speech gestures did reveal a mapping of higher pitches to higher space and lower pitches to lower space, and this gesture space-pitch mapping tended to co-occur with corresponding spatial words (high-low). However, this mapping was much weaker in Farsi speakers than Dutch speakers. This suggests that cross-linguistic differences shape the conceptualization of pitch and further calls into question the universality of height-pitch associations.

Abstract

The view put forward here is that visual bodily signals play a core role in human communication and the coordination of minds. Critically, this role goes far beyond referential and propositional meaning. The human communication system that we consider to be the explanandum in the evolution of language thus is not spoken language. It is, instead, a deeply multimodal, multilayered, multifunctional system that developed—and survived—owing to the extraordinary flexibility and adaptability that it endows us with. Beyond their undisputed iconic power, visual bodily signals (manual and head gestures, facial expressions, gaze, torso movements) fundamentally contribute to key pragmatic processes in modern human communication. This contribution becomes particularly evident with a focus that includes non-iconic manual signals, non-manual signals and signal combinations. Such a focus also needs to consider meaning encoded not just via iconic mappings, since kinematic modulations and interaction-bound meaning are additional properties equipping the body with striking pragmatic capacities. Some of these capacities, or its precursors, may have already been present in the last common ancestor we share with the great apes and may qualify as early versions of the components constituting the hypothesized interaction engine.

Abstract

The given-new contract entails that speakers must distinguish for their addressee whether references are new or already part of their dialogue. Past research had found that, in a monologue to a listener, speakers shortened repeated words. However, the notion of the given-new contract is inherently dialogic, with an addressee and the availability of co-speech gestures. Here, two face-to-face dialogue experiments tested whether gesture duration also follows the given-new contract. In Experiment 1, four experimental sequences confirmed that when speakers repeated their gestures, they shortened the duration significantly. Experiment 2 replicated the effect with spontaneous gestures in a different task. This experiment also extended earlier results with words, confirming that speakers shortened their repeated words significantly in a multimodal dialogue setting, the basic form of language use. Because words and gestures were not necessarily redundant, these results offer another instance in which gestures and words independently serve pragmatic requirements of dialogue.

Abstract

Abstract Neuroimaging has been extensively used to study brain structure and function in individuals with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) over the past decades. Two of the main shortcomings of the neuroimaging literature of these disorders are the small sample sizes employed and the heterogeneity of methods used. In 2013 and 2014, the ENIGMA-ADHD and ENIGMA-ASD working groups were respectively, founded with a common goal to address these limitations. Here, we provide a narrative review of the thus far completed and still ongoing projects of these working groups. Due to an implicitly hierarchical psychiatric diagnostic classification system, the fields of ADHD and ASD have developed largely in isolation, despite the considerable overlap in the occurrence of the disorders. The collaboration between the ENIGMA-ADHD and -ASD working groups seeks to bring the neuroimaging efforts of the two disorders closer together. The outcomes of case–control studies of subcortical and cortical structures showed that subcortical volumes are similarly affected in ASD and ADHD, albeit with small effect sizes. Cortical analyses identified unique differences in each disorder, but also considerable overlap between the two, specifically in cortical thickness. Ongoing work is examining alternative research questions, such as brain laterality, prediction of case–control status, and anatomical heterogeneity. In brief, great strides have been made toward fulfilling the aims of the ENIGMA collaborations, while new ideas and follow-up analyses continue that include more imaging modalities (diffusion MRI and resting-state functional MRI), collaborations with other large databases, and samples with dual diagnoses.

Abstract

Two eyetracking experiments tested for activation of category coordinate and perceptually related concepts when speakers prepare the name of an object. Speakers saw four visual objects in a 2 × 2 array and identified and named a target picture on the basis of either category (e.g., "What is the name of the musical instrument?") or visual-form (e.g., "What is the name of the circular object?") instructions. There were more fixations on visual-form competitors and category coordinate competitors than on unrelated objects during name preparation, but the increased overt attention did not affect naming latencies. The data demonstrate that eye movements are a sensitive measure of the overlap between the conceptual (including visual-form) information that is accessed in preparation for word production and the conceptual knowledge associated with visual objects. Furthermore, these results suggest that semantic activation of competitor concepts does not necessarily affect lexical selection, contrary to the predictions of lexical-selection-by-competition accounts (e.g., Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999).

Abstract

A recent trend in psycholinguistic research has been to posit prediction as an essential function of language processing. The present paper develops a linguistic perspective on viewing prediction in terms of pre-activation. We describe what predictions are and how they are produced. Our basic premises are that (a) no prediction can be made without knowledge to support it; and (b) it is therefore necessary to characterize the precise form of that knowledge, as revealed by a suitable theory of linguistic representations. We describe the Parallel Architecture (PA: Jackendoff, 2002; Jackendoff and Audring, 2020), which makes explicit our commitments about linguistic representations, and we develop an account of processing based on these representations. Crucial to our account is that what have been traditionally treated as derivational rules of grammar are formalized by the PA as lexical items, encoded in the same format as words. We then present a theory of prediction in these terms: linguistic input activates lexical items whose beginning (or incipit) corresponds to the input encountered so far; and prediction amounts to pre-activation of the as yet unheard parts of those lexical items (the remainder). Thus the generation of predictions is a natural byproduct of processing linguistic representations. We conclude that the PA perspective on pre-activation provides a plausible account of prediction in language processing that bridges linguistic and psycholinguistic theorizing.

Abstract

Typical adults read remarkably quickly. Such fast reading is facilitated by brain processes that are sensitive to both word frequency and contextual constraints. It is debated as to whether these attributes have additive or interactive effects on language processing in the brain. We investigated this issue by analysing existing magnetoencephalography data from 99 participants reading intact and scrambled sentences. Using a cross-validated model comparison scheme, we found that lexical frequency predicted the word-by-word elicited MEG signal in a widespread cortical network, irrespective of sentential context. In contrast, index (ordinal word position) was more strongly encoded in sentence words, in left front-temporal areas. This confirms that frequency influences word processing independently of predictability, and that contextual constraints affect word-by-word brain responses. With a conservative multiple comparisons correction, only the interaction between lexical frequency and surprisal survived, in anterior temporal and frontal cortex, and not between lexical frequency and entropy, nor between lexical frequency and index. However, interestingly, the uncorrected index*frequency interaction revealed an effect in left frontal and temporal cortex that reversed in time and space for intact compared to scrambled sentences. Finally, we provide evidence to suggest that, in sentences, lexical frequency and predictability may independently influence early (<150ms) and late stages of word processing, but interact during later stages of word processing (>150-250ms), thus helping to converge previous contradictory eye-tracking and electrophysiological literature. Current neuro-cognitive models of reading would benefit from accounting for these differing effects of lexical frequency and predictability on different stages of word processing.

Abstract

Traditional experiments indicate that prediction is important for efficient speech processing. In three virtual reality visual world paradigm experiments, we tested whether such findings hold in naturalistic settings (Experiment 1) and provided novel insights into whether disfluencies in speech (repairs/hesitations) inform one’s predictions in rich environments (Experiments 2–3). Experiment 1 supports that listeners predict upcoming speech in naturalistic environments, with higher proportions of anticipatory target fixations in predictable compared to unpredictable trials. In Experiments 2–3, disfluencies reduced anticipatory fixations towards predicted referents, compared to conjunction (Experiment 2) and fluent (Experiment 3) sentences. Unexpectedly, Experiment 2 provided no evidence that participants made new predictions from a repaired verb. Experiment 3 provided novel findings that fixations towards the speaker increase upon hearing a hesitation, supporting current theories of how hesitations influence sentence processing. Together, these findings unpack listeners’ use of visual (objects/speaker) and auditory (speech/disfluencies) information when predicting upcoming words.

Abstract

Recent studies have detailed a remarkable degree of genetic and linguistic diversity in Northern Island Melanesia. Here we utilize that diversity to examine two models of genetic and linguistic coevolution. The first model predicts that genetic and linguistic correspondences formed following population splits and isolation at the time of early range expansions into the region. The second is analogous to the genetic model of isolation by distance, and it predicts that genetic and linguistic correspondences formed through continuing genetic and linguistic exchange between neighboring populations. We tested the predictions of the two models by comparing observed and simulated patterns of genetic variation, genetic and linguistic trees, and matrices of genetic, linguistic, and geographic distances. The data consist of 751 autosomal microsatellites and 108 structural linguistic features collected from 33 Northern Island Melanesian populations. The results of the tests indicate that linguistic and genetic exchange have erased any evidence of a splitting and isolation process that might have occurred early in the settlement history of the region. The correlation patterns are also inconsistent with the predictions of the isolation by distance coevolutionary process in the larger Northern Island Melanesian region, but there is strong evidence for the process in the rugged interior of the largest island in the region (New Britain). There we found some of the strongest recorded correlations between genetic, linguistic, and geographic distances. We also found that, throughout the region, linguistic features have generally been less likely to diffuse across population boundaries than genes. The results from our study, based on exceptionally fine-grained data, show that local genetic and linguistic exchange are likely to obscure evidence of the early history of a region, and that language barriers do not particularly hinder genetic exchange. In contrast, global patterns may emphasize more ancient demographic events, including population splits associated with the early colonization of major world regions.

Abstract

Time is a fundamental aspect of human cognition and action. All languages have developed rich means to express various facets of time, such as bare time spans, their position on the time line, or their duration. The articles in this volume give an overview of what we know about the neural and cognitive representations of time that speakers can draw on in language. Starting with an overview of the main devices used to encode time in natural language, such as lexical elements, tense and aspect, the research presented in this volume addresses the relationship between temporal language, culture, and thought, the relationship between verb aspect and mental simulations of events, the development of temporal concepts, time perception, the storage and retrieval of temporal information in autobiographical memory, and neural correlates of tense processing and sequence planning. The psychological and neurobiological findings presented here will provide important insights to inform and extend current studies of time in language and in language acquisition.

Abstract

Time is a fundamental aspect of human cognition and action. All languages have developed rich means to express various facets of time, such as bare time spans, their position on the time line, or their duration. The articles in this volume give an overview of what we know about the neural and cognitive representations of time that speakers can draw on in language. Starting with an overview of the main devices used to encode time in natural language, such as lexical elements, tense and aspect, the research presented in this volume addresses the relationship between temporal language, culture, and thought, the relationship between verb aspect and mental simulations of events, the development of temporal concepts, time perception, the storage and retrieval of temporal information in autobiographical memory, and neural correlates of tense processing and sequence planning. The psychological and neurobiological findings presented here will provide important insights to inform and extend current studies of time in language and in language acquisition.

Abstract

Stimulus-related changes in cerebral blood oxygenation were measured using high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging sequentially covering visual occipital areas in contiguous sections. During dynamic imaging, healthy subjects silently viewed pseudowords, single false fonts, or length-matched strings of the same false fonts. The paradigm consisted of a sixfold alternation of an activation and a control task. With pseudowords as activation vs single false fonts as control, responses were seen mainly in medial occipital cortex. These responses disappeared when pseudowords were alternated with false font strings as the control and reappeared when false font strings instead of pseudowords served as activation and were alternated with single false fonts. The string-length contrast alone, therefore, is sufficient to account for the activation pattern observed in medial visual cortex when word-like stimuli are contrasted with single characters.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss an inherent difficulty of PET (and fMRI) research in language production. On the one hand, language production presupposes some degree of freedom for the subject, on the other hand, interpretability of results presupposes restrictions of this freedom. This difficulty is reflected in the existing PET literature in some neglect of the general principle to design experiments in such a way that the results do not allow for alternative interpretations. It is argued that by narrowing down the scope of experiments a gain in interpretability can be achieved.

Abstract

Thesaurus alignment plays an important role in realising efficient access to heterogeneous Cultural Heritage data. Current ontology alignment techniques, however, provide only limited value for such access as they consider little if any requirements from realistic use cases or application scenarios. In this paper, we focus on two real-world scenarios in a library context: thesaurus merging and book re-indexing. We identify their particular requirements and describe our approach of deploying and evaluating thesaurus alignment techniques in this context. We have applied our approach for the Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative, and report on the performance evaluation of participants’ tools wrt. the application scenario at hand. It shows that evaluations of tools requires significant effort, but when done carefully, brings many benefits.

Abstract

How individuals learn complex regularities in the environment and generalize them to new instances is a key question in cognitive science. Although previous investigations have advocated the idea that learning and generalizing depend upon separate processes, the same basic learning mechanisms may account for both. In language learning experiments, these mechanisms have typically been studied in isolation of broader cognitive phenomena such as memory, perception, and attention. Here, we show how learning and generalization in language is embedded in these broader theories by testing learners on their ability to chunk nonadjacent dependencies—a key structure in language but a challenge to theories that posit learning through the memorization of structure. In two studies, adult participants were trained and tested on an artificial language containing nonadjacent syllable dependencies, using a novel chunking-based serial recall task involving verbal repetition of target sequences (formed from learned strings) and scrambled foils. Participants recalled significantly more syllables, bigrams, trigrams, and nonadjacent dependencies from sequences conforming to the language’s statistics (both learned and generalized sequences). They also encoded and generalized specific nonadjacent chunk information. These results suggest that participants chunk remote dependencies and rapidly generalize this information to novel structures. The results thus provide further support for learning-based approaches to language acquisition, and link statistical learning to broader cognitive mechanisms of memory.

Abstract

Two studies were carried out to investigate the effects of presentation of primes showing partial (word-initial) or full overlap on processing of spoken target words. The first study investigated whether time compression would interfere with lexical processing so as to elicit aphasic-like performance in non-brain-damaged subjects. The second study was designed to compare effects of item overlap and item repetition in aphasic patients of different diagnostic types. Time compression did not interfere with lexical deactivation for the non-brain-damaged subjects. Furthermore, all aphasic patients showed immediate inhibition of co-activated candidates. These combined results show that deactivation is a fast process. Repetition effects, however, seem to arise only at the longer term in aphasic patients. Importantly, poor performance on diagnostic verbal STM tasks was shown to be related to lexical decision performance in both overlap and repetition conditions, which suggests a common underlying deficit.

Abstract

Rhythmic stimulation can be applied to modulate neuronal oscillations. Such ‘entrainment’ is optimized when stimulation frequency is individually calibrated based on magneto/encephalography markers. It remains unknown how consistent such individual markers are across days/sessions, within a session, or across cognitive states, hemispheres and estimation methods, especially in a realistic, practical, lab setting. We here estimated individual alpha frequency (IAF) repeatedly from short electroencephalography (EEG) measurements at rest or during an attention task (cognitive state), using single parieto-occipital electrodes in 24 participants on 4 days (between-sessions), with multiple measurements over an hour on 1 day (within-session). First, we introduce an algorithm to automatically reject power spectra without a sufficiently clear peak to ensure unbiased IAF estimations. Then we estimated IAF via the traditional ‘maximum’ method and a ‘Gaussian fit’ method. IAF was reliable within- and between-sessions for both cognitive states and hemispheres, though task-IAF estimates tended to be more variable. Overall, the ‘Gaussian fit’ method was more reliable than the ‘maximum’ method. Furthermore, we evaluated how far from an approximated ‘true’ task-related IAF the selected ‘stimulation frequency’ was, when calibrating this frequency based on a short rest-EEG, a short task-EEG, or simply selecting 10 Hz for all participants. For the ‘maximum’ method, rest-EEG calibration was best, followed by task-EEG, and then 10 Hz. For the ‘Gaussian fit’ method, rest-EEG and task-EEG-based calibration were similarly accurate, and better than 10 Hz. These results lead to concrete recommendations about valid, and automated, estimation of individual oscillation markers in experimental and clinical settings.

Abstract

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) can be used to study causal contributions of oscillatory brain mechanisms to cognition and behavior. For instance, individual alpha frequency (IAF) tACS was reported to enhance alpha power and impact visuospatial attention performance. Unfortunately, such results have been inconsistent and difficult to replicate. In tACS, stimulation generally involves one frequency, sometimes individually calibrated to a peak value observed in an M/EEG power spectrum. Yet, the ‘peak’ actually observed in such power spectra often contains a broader range of frequencies, raising the question whether a biologically calibrated tACS protocol containing this fuller range of alpha-band frequencies might be more effective. Here, we introduce ‘Broadband-alpha-tACS’, a complex individually calibrated electrical stimulation protocol. We band-pass filtered left posterior resting-state EEG data around the IAF (+/- 2 Hz), and converted that time series into an electrical waveform for tACS stimulation of that same left posterior parietal cortex location. In other words, we stimulated a brain region with a ‘replay’ of its own alpha-band frequency content, based on spontaneous activity. Within-subjects (N=24), we compared to a sham tACS session the effects of broadband-alpha tACS, power-matched spectral inverse (‘alpha-removed’) control tACS, and individual alpha frequency tACS, on EEG alpha power and performance in an endogenous attention task previously reported to be affected by alpha tACS. Broadband-alpha-tACS significantly modulated attention task performance (i.e., reduced the rightward visuospatial attention bias in trials without distractors, and reduced attention benefits). Alpha-removed tACS also reduced the rightward visuospatial attention bias. IAF-tACS did not significantly modulate attention task performance compared to sham tACS, but also did not statistically significantly differ from broadband-alpha-tACS. This new broadband-alpha tACS approach seems promising, but should be further explored and validated in future studies.

Abstract

Landmarks play an important role in successful navigation. To successfully find your way around an environment, navigationally relevant information needs to be stored and become available at later moments in time. Evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies shows that the human parahippocampal gyrus encodes the navigational relevance of landmarks. In the present event-related fMRI experiment, we investigated memory consolidation of navigationally relevant landmarks in the medial temporal lobe after route learning. Sixteen right-handed volunteers viewed two film sequences through a virtual museum with objects placed at locations relevant (decision points) or irrelevant (nondecision points) for navigation. To investigate consolidation effects, one film sequence was seen in the evening before scanning, the other one was seen the following morning, directly before scanning. Event-related fMRI data were acquired during an object recognition task. Participants decided whether they had seen the objects in the previously shown films. After scanning, participants answered standardized questions about their navigational skills, and were divided into groups of good and bad navigators, based on their scores. An effect of memory consolidation was obtained in the hippocampus: Objects that were seen the evening before scanning (remote objects) elicited more activity than objects seen directly before scanning (recent objects). This increase in activity in bilateral hippocampus for remote objects was observed in good navigators only. In addition, a spatial-specific effect of memory consolidation for navigationally relevant objects was observed in the parahippocampal gyrus. Remote decision point objects induced increased activity as compared with recent decision point objects, again in good navigators only. The results provide initial evidence for a connection between memory consolidation and navigational ability that can provide a basis for successful navigation.

Abstract

A foundational assumption of human communication is that speakers should say as much as necessary, but no more. Yet, people routinely produce redundant adjectives and their propensity to do so varies cross-linguistically. Here, we propose a computational theory, whereby speakers create referential expressions designed to facilitate listeners’ reference resolution, as they process words in real time. We present a computational model of our account, the Incremental Collaborative Efficiency (ICE) model, which generates referential expressions by considering listeners’ real-time incremental processing and reference identification. We apply the ICE framework to physical reference, showing that listeners construct expressions designed to minimize listeners’ expected visual search effort during online language processing. Our model captures a number of known effects in the literature, including cross-linguistic differences in speakers’ propensity to over-specify. Moreover, the ICE model predicts graded acceptability judgments with quantitative accuracy, systematically outperforming an alternative, brevity-based model. Our findings suggest that physical reference production is best understood as driven by a collaborative goal to help the listener identify the intended referent, rather than by an egocentric effort to minimize utterance length.

Abstract

Adult-to-child interactions are often characterized by prosodically-exaggerated speech accompanied by visually captivating co-speech gestures. In a series of adult studies, we have shown that these gestures are linked in a sophisticated manner to the prosodic structure of adults' utterances. In the current study, we use the Preferential Looking Paradigm to demonstrate that two-year-olds can use the alignment of these gestures to speech to deduce the meaning of words.

Abstract

Language sometimes requires tracking the same participant in different thematic roles across multiple visual events (e.g., The girl that another girl pushed chased a third girl). To better understand how vision and language interact in role tracking, participants described videos of multiple randomly moving circles where two push events were presented. A circle might have the same role in both push events (e.g., agent) or different roles (e.g., agent of one push and patient of other push). The first three studies found higher production accuracy for the same role conditions compared to the different role conditions across different linguistic structure manipulations. The last three studies compared a featural account, where role information was associated with particular circles, or a relational account, where role information was encoded with particular push events. These studies found no interference between different roles, contrary to the predictions of the featural account. The foil was manipulated in these studies to increase the saliency of the second push and it was found that this changed the accuracy in describing the first push. The results suggest that language-related thematic role processing uses a relational representation that can encode multiple events.

Abstract

Each clause and phrase boundary necessarily aligns with a word boundary. Thus, infants’ attention to the edges of clauses and phrases may help them learn some of the language-specific cues defining word boundaries. Attention to prosodically wellformed clauses and phrases may also help infants begin to extract information important for learning the grammatical structure of their language. Despite the potentially important role that the perception of large prosodic units may play in early language acquisition, there has been little work investigating the extraction of these units from fluent speech by infants learning languages other than English. We report 2 experiments investigating Dutch learners’ clause segmentation abilities.In these studies, Dutch-learning 6-month-olds readily extract clauses from speech. However, Dutch learners differ from English learners in that they seem to be more reliant on pauses to detect clause boundaries. Two closely related explanations for this finding are considered, both of which stem from the acoustic differences in clause boundary realizations in Dutch versus English.

Abstract

Expressing Left-Right relations is challenging for speaking-children. Yet, this challenge was absent for signing-children, possibly due to iconicity in the visual-spatial modality of expression. We investigate whether there is also a modality advantage when speaking-children’s co-speech gestures are considered. Eight-year-old child and adult hearing monolingual Turkish speakers and deaf signers of Turkish-Sign-Language described pictures of objects in various spatial relations. Descriptions were coded for informativeness in speech, sign, and speech-gesture combinations for encoding Left-Right relations. The use of co-speech gestures increased the informativeness of speakers’ spatial expressions compared to speech-only. This pattern was more prominent for children than adults. However, signing-adults and children were more informative than child and adult speakers even when co-speech gestures were considered. Thus, both speaking- and signing-children benefit from iconic expressions in visual modality. Finally, in each modality, children were less informative than adults, pointing to the challenge of this spatial domain in development.

Abstract

Oral communication often takes place in noisy environments, which challenge spoken-word recognition. Previous research has suggested that the presence of background noise extends the number of candidate words competing with the target word for recognition and that this extension affects the time course and accuracy of spoken-word recognition. In this study, we further investigated the temporal dynamics of competition processes in the presence of background noise, and how these vary in listeners with different language proficiency (i.e., native and non-native) using computational modeling. We developed ListenIN (Listen-In-Noise), a neural-network model based on an autoencoder architecture, which learns to map phonological forms onto meanings in two languages and simulates native and non-native spoken-word comprehension. Simulation A established that ListenIN captures the effects of noise on accuracy rates and the number of unique misperception errors of native and non-native listeners in an offline spoken-word identification task (Scharenborg et al., 2018). Simulation B showed that ListenIN captures the effects of noise in online task settings and accounts for looking preferences of native (Hintz & Scharenborg, 2016) and non-native (new data collected for this study) listeners in a visual-world paradigm. We also examined the model’s activation states during online spoken-word recognition. These analyses demonstrated that the presence of background noise increases the number of competitor words which are engaged in phonological competition and that this happens in similar ways intra- and interlinguistically and in native and non-native listening. Taken together, our results support accounts positing a ‘many-additional-competitors scenario’ for the effects of noise on spoken-word recognition.

Abstract

Developmental stuttering is a fluency disorder that adversely affect many aspects of a person's life. Recent transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) studies have shown promise to improve fluency in people who stutter. To date, bihemispheric tDCS has not been investigated in this population. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the effects of single-session bihemispheric and unihemispheric cathodal tDCS on fluency in adults who stutter. We predicted that bihemispheric tDCS with anodal stimulation to the left IFG and cathodal stimulation to the right IFG would improve fluency better than the sham and cathodal tDCS to the right IFG. Seventeen adults who stutter completed this single-blind, crossover, sham-controlled tDCS experiment. All participants received 20 min of tDCS alongside metronome-timed speech during intervention sessions. Three tDCS interventions were administered: bihemispheric tDCS with anodal stimulation to the left IFG and cathodal stimulation to the right IFG, unihemispheric tDCS with cathodal stimulation to the right IFG, and sham stimulation. Speech fluency during reading and conversation was assessed before, immediately after, and one week after each intervention session. There was no significant fluency improvement in conversation for any tDCS interventions. Reading fluency improved following both bihemispheric and cathodal tDCS interventions. tDCS montages were not significantly different in their effects on fluency.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting closure of daycare centers worldwide, led to unprecedented changes in children’s learning environments. This period of increased time at home with caregivers, with limited access to external sources (e.g., daycares) provides a unique opportunity to examine the associations between the caregiver-child activities and children’s language development. The vocabularies of 1742 children aged8-36 months across 13 countries and 12 languages were evaluated at the beginning and end of the first lockdown period in their respective countries(from March to September 2020). Children who had less passive screen exposure and whose caregivers read more to them showed larger gains in vocabulary development during lockdown, after controlling for SES and other caregiver-child activities. Children also gained more words than expected (based on normative data) during lockdown; either caregivers were more aware of their child’s development or vocabulary development benefited from intense caregiver-child interaction during lockdown.

Abstract

Day-to-day interpretations of “space” are enmeshed in specific cultural and linguistic practices. For example, many cultures have an association between vertical height and social standing; more powerful people may be placed literally higher than others at social gatherings, and be spoken of as having higher status. This questionnaire is a guide for exploring relationships between space, language, and social structure. The goal is to better understand how space is organised in the focus community, and to investigate the extent to which space is used as a model for reproducing social forms.

Abstract

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at 10 Hz has been shown to modulate spatial attention. However, the frequency-specificity and the oscillatory changes underlying this tACS effect are still largely unclear. Here, we applied high-definition tACS at individual alpha frequency (IAF), two control frequencies (IAF+/-2Hz) and sham to the left posterior parietal cortex and measured its effects on visuospatial attention performance and offline alpha power (using electroencephalography, EEG). We revealed a behavioural and electrophysiological stimulation effect relative to sham for IAF but not control frequency stimulation conditions: there was a leftward lateralization of alpha power for IAF tACS, which differed from sham for the first out of three minutes following tACS. At a high value of this EEG effect (moderation effect), we observed a leftward attention bias relative to sham. This effect was task-specific, i.e., it could be found in an endogenous attention but not in a detection task. Only in the IAF tACS condition, we also found a correlation between the magnitude of the alpha lateralization and the attentional bias effect. Our results support a functional role of alpha oscillations in visuospatial attention and the potential of tACS to modulate it. The frequency-specificity of the effects suggests that an individualization of the stimulation frequency is necessary in heterogeneous target groups with a large variation in IAF.

Abstract

Visuospatial attention can either be voluntarily directed (endogenous/top-down attention) or automatically triggered (exogenous/bottom-up attention). Recent research showed that dorsal parietal transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at alpha frequency modulates the spatial attentional bias in an endogenous but not in an exogenous visuospatial attention task. Yet, the reason for this task-specificity remains unexplored. Here, we tested whether this dissociation relates to the proposed differential role of the dorsal attention network (DAN) and ventral attention network (VAN) in endogenous and exogenous attention processes respectively. To that aim, we targeted the left and right dorsal parietal node of the DAN, as well as the left and right ventral temporoparietal node of the VAN using tACS at the individual alpha frequency. Every participant completed all four stimulation conditions and a sham condition in five separate sessions. During tACS, we assessed the behavioral visuospatial attention bias via an endogenous and exogenous visuospatial attention task. Additionally, we measured offline alpha power immediately before and after tACS using electroencephalography (EEG). The behavioral data revealed an effect of tACS on the endogenous but not exogenous attention bias, with a greater leftward bias during (sham-corrected) left than right hemispheric stimulation. In line with our hypothesis, this effect was brain area-specific, i.e., present for dorsal parietal but not ventral temporoparietal tACS. However, contrary to our expectations, there was no effect of ventral temporoparietal tACS on the exogenous visuospatial attention bias. Hence, no double dissociation between the two targeted attention networks. There was no effect of either tACS condition on offline alpha power. Our behavioral data reveal that dorsal parietal but not ventral temporoparietal alpha oscillations steer endogenous visuospatial attention. This brain-area specific tACS effect matches the previously proposed dissociation between the DAN and VAN and, by showing that the spatial attention bias effect does not generalize to any lateral posterior tACS montage, renders lateral cutaneous and retinal effects for the spatial attention bias in the dorsal parietal condition unlikely. Yet the absence of tACS effects on the exogenous attention task suggests that ventral temporoparietal alpha oscillations are not functionally relevant for exogenous visuospatial attention. We discuss the potential implications of this finding in the context of an emerging theory on the role of the ventral temporoparietal node.

Abstract

We present an overview of several corpus studies we carried out into the frequencies of argument NP orderings in the midfield of subordinate and main clauses of German. Comparing the corpus frequencies with grammaticality ratings published by Keller’s (2000), we observe a “grammaticality–frequency gap”: Quite a few argument orderings with zero corpus frequency are nevertheless assigned medium–range grammaticality ratings. We propose an explanation in terms of a two-factor theory. First, we hypothesize that the grammatical induction component needs a sufficient number of exposures to a syntactic pattern to incorporate it into its repertoire of more or less stable rules of grammar. Moderately to highly frequent argument NP orderings are likely have attained this status, but not their zero-frequency counterparts. This is why the latter argument sequences cannot be produced by the grammatical encoder and are absent from the corpora. Secondly, we assumed that an extraneous (nonlinguistic) judgment process biases the ratings of moderately grammatical linear order patterns: Confronted with such structures, the informants produce their own “ideal delivery” variant of the to-be-rated target sentence and evaluate the similarity between the two versions. A high similarity score yielded by this judgment then exerts a positive bias on the grammaticality rating—a score that should not be mistaken for an authentic grammaticality rating. We conclude that, at least in the linearization domain studied here, the goal of gaining a clear view of the internal grammar of language users is best served by a combined strategy in which grammar rules are founded on structures that elicit moderate to high grammaticality ratings and attain at least moderate usage frequencies.

Abstract

Comments on a study by Frazier and others on Dutch-language lexical processing. Claims that the control condition in the experiment was inadequate and that an assumption made by Frazier about closed class verbal items is inaccurate, and proposes an alternative account of a subset of the data from the experiment

Abstract

Raises objections to L. Frazier et al's (see record 1994-32229-001) report of an experimental study intended to test Schreuder's (1990) Morphological Integration (MI) model concerning the processing of separable and inseparable verbs and shows that the logic of the experiment is flawed. The problem is rooted in the notion of a separable complex verb. The conclusion is drawn that Frazier et al's experimental data cannot be taken as evidence for the theoretical propositions they develop about the MI model.

Abstract

Four probe latency experiments show that the ‘constituent boundary effect’ (transitions between constituents are more difficult than within constituents) is a retrieval and not a storage phenomenon. The experimental logic used is called paraphrastic reproduction: after verbatim memorization of some sentences, subjects were instructed to reproduce them both in their original wording and in the form of sentences that, whilst preserving the original meaning, embodied different syntactic constructions. Syntactic constructions are defined as pairs which consist of a pattern of conceptual information and a syntactic scheme, i.e. a sequence of syntactic word categories and function words. For example, the sequence noun + finite intransitive main verb (‘John runs’) expresses a conceptual actor-action relationship. It is proposed that for each overlearned and simple syntactic construction there exists a retrieval plan which does the following. It searches through the long-term memory information that has been designated as the conceptual content of the utterance(s) to be produced, looking for a token of its conceptual pattern. The retrieved information is then cast into the format of its syntactic scheme. The organization of such plans is held responsible for the constituent boundary effect.

Abstract

[Seven one-page psycholinguistic sketches]

Abstract

The ”download first, then process paradigm” is still the predominant working method amongst the research community. The web-based paradigm, however, offers many advantages from a tool development and data management perspective as they allow a quick adaptation to changing research environments. Moreover, new ways of combining tools and data are increasingly becoming available and will eventually enable a true web-based workflow approach, thus challenging the ”download first, then process” paradigm. The necessary infrastructure for managing, exploring and enriching language resources via the Web will need to be delivered by projects like CLARIN and DARIAH

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a unifying approach to tackle data heterogeneity issues for lexica and related resources. We present LEXUS, our software that implements the Lexical Markup Framework (LMF) to uniformly describe and manage lexica of different structures. LEXUS also makes use of a central Data Category Registry (DCR) to address terminological issues with regard to linguistic concepts as well as the handling of working and object languages. Finally, we report on ViCoS, a LEXUS extension, providing support for the definition of arbitrary semantic relations between lexical entries or parts thereof.

Abstract

To achieve true interoperability for valuable linguistic resources different levels of variation need to be addressed. ISO Technical Committee 37, Terminology and other language and content resources, is developing a Data Category Registry. This registry will provide a reusable set of data categories. A new implementation, dubbed ISOcat, of the registry is currently under construction. This paper shortly describes the new data model for data categories that will be introduced in this implementation. It goes on with a sketch of the standardization process. Completed data categories can be reused by the community. This is done by either making a selection of data categories using the ISOcat web interface, or by other tools which interact with the ISOcat system using one of its various Application Programming Interfaces. Linguistic resources that use data categories from the registry should include persistent references, e.g. in the metadata or schemata of the resource, which point back to their origin. These data category references can then be used to determine if two or more resources share common semantics, thus providing a level of interoperability close to the source data and a promising layer for semantic alignment on higher levels

Abstract

Two Event-Related Potential (ERP) studies contrast the processing of locally ambiguous sentences in the visual and the auditory modality. These sentences are disambiguated by a lexical element. Before this element appears in a sentence, the sentence can also be disambiguated by a boundary marker: a comma in the visual modality, or a prosodic break in the auditory modality. Previous studies have shown that a specific ERP component, the Closure Positive Shift (CPS), can be elicited by these markers. The results of the present studies show that both the comma and the prosodic break disambiguate the ambiguous sentences before the critical lexical element, despite the fact that a clear CPS is only found in the auditory modality. Comma and prosodic break thus have parallel functions irrespective of whether they do or do not elicit a CPS.

Abstract

Functional imaging studies have demonstrated involvement of the anterior temporal cortex in sentence comprehension. It is unclear, however, whether the anterior temporal cortex is essential for this function.We studied two aspects of sentence comprehension, namely syntactic and prosodic comprehension in temporal lobe epilepsy patients who were candidates for resection of the anterior temporal lobe. Methods: Temporal lobe epilepsy patients (n = 32) with normal (left) language dominance were tested on syntactic and prosodic comprehension before and after removal of the anterior temporal cortex. The prosodic comprehension test was also compared with performance of healthy control subjects (n = 47) before surgery. Results: Overall, temporal lobe epilepsy patients did not differ from healthy controls in syntactic and prosodic comprehension before surgery. They did perform less well on an affective prosody task. Post-operative testing revealed that syntactic and prosodic comprehension did not change after removal of the anterior temporal cortex. Discussion: The unchanged performance on syntactic and prosodic comprehension after removal of the anterior temporal cortex suggests that this area is not indispensable for sentence comprehension functions in temporal epilepsy patients. Potential implications for the postulated role of the anterior temporal lobe in the healthy brain are discussed.

Abstract

A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is representative of the typological diversity present in the world’s 7000 or so languages. However, languages are dying at an alarming rate, and the next 50 years represents the last chance we have to document acquisition in many of them. Here, we take stock of the last 45 years of research published in the four main child language acquisition journals: Journal of Child Language, First Language, Language Acquisition and Language Learning and Development. We coded each article for several variables, including (1) participant group (mono vs multilingual), (2) language(s), (3) topic(s) and (4) country of author affiliation, from each journal’s inception until the end of 2020. We found that we have at least one article published on around 103 languages, representing approximately 1.5% of the world’s languages. The distribution of articles was highly skewed towards English and other well-studied Indo-European languages, with the majority of non-Indo-European languages having just one paper. A majority of the papers focused on studies of monolingual children, although papers did not always explicitly report participant group status. The distribution of topics across language categories was more even. The number of articles published on non-Indo-European languages from countries outside of North America and Europe is increasing; however, this increase is driven by research conducted in relatively wealthy countries. Overall, the vast majority of the research was produced in the Global North. We conclude that, despite a proud history of crosslinguistic research, the goals of the discipline need to be recalibrated before we can lay claim to truly a representative account of child language acquisition.

Abstract

Our original target article highlighted some significant shortcomings in the current state of child language research: a large skew in our evidential base towards English and a handful of other Indo-European languages that partly has its origins in a lack of researcher diversity. In this article, we respond to the 21 commentaries on our original article. The commentaries highlighted both the importance of attention to typological features of languages and the environments and contexts in which languages are acquired, with many commentators providing concrete suggestions on how we address the data skew. In this response, we synthesise the main themes of the commentaries and make suggestions for how the field can move towards both improving data coverage and opening up to traditionally under-represented researchers.

Abstract

The present article reports on an investigation of one child's acquisition of the multiple senses of the preposition with from 2;0–4;0. Two competing claims regarding children's early representation and subsequent acquisition of with were investigated. The “multiple meanings” hypothesis predicts that children form individual form-meaning pairings for with as separate lexical entries. The “monosemy approach” (McKercher 2001) claims that children apply a unitary meaning by abstracting core features early in acquisition. The child's (“Brian”) speech and his input were coded according to eight distinguishable senses of with. The results showed that Brian first acquired the senses that were most frequent in the input (accompaniment, attribute, and instrument). Less common senses took much longer to emerge. A detailed analysis of the input showed that a variety of clues are available that potentially enable the child to distinguish among high frequency senses. The acquisition data suggested that the child initially applied a restricted one-to-one form-meaning mapping for with, which is argued to reflect the spatial properties of the preposition. On the basis of these results it is argued that neither the monosemy nor the multiple meanings approach can fully explain the data, but that the results are best explained by a combination of word learning principles and children's ability to categorize the contextual properties of each sense's use in the ambient language.

Abstract

Hartshorne and Ullman (2006) presented naturalistic language data from 25 children (15 boys, 10 girls) and showed that girls produced more past tense overregularization errors than did boys. In particular, girls were more likely to overregularize irregular verbs whose stems share phonological similarities with regular verbs. It was argued that the result supported the Declarative/Procedural model of language, a neuropsychological analogue of the dual-route approach to language. In the current study we present experimental data that are inconsistent with these naturalistic data. Eighty children (40 males, 40 females) aged 5;0–6;9 completed a past tense elicitation task, a test of declarative memory, and a test of non-verbal intelligence. The results revealed no sex differences on any of the measures. Instead, the best predictors of overregularization rates were item-level features of the test verbs. We discuss the results within the context of dual versus single route debate on past tense acquisition

Abstract

To segment continuous speech into its component words, listeners make use of language rhythm; because rhythm differs across languages, so do the segmentation procedures which listeners use. For each of stress-, syllable-and mora-based rhythmic structure, perceptual experiments have led to the discovery of corresponding segmentation procedures. In the case of mora-based rhythm, similar segmentation has been demonstrated in the otherwise unrelated languages Japanese and Telugu; segmentation based on syllable rhythm, however, has been previously demonstrated only for European languages from the Romance family. We here report two target detection experiments in which Korean listeners, presented with speech in Korean and in French, displayed patterns of segmentation like those previously observed in analogous experiments with French listeners. The Korean listeners' accuracy in detecting word-initial target fragments in either language was significantly higher when the fragments corresponded exactly to a syllable in the input than when the fragments were smaller or larger than a syllable. We conclude that Korean and French listeners can call on similar procedures for segmenting speech, and we further propose that perceptual tests of speech segmentation provide a valuable accompaniment to acoustic analyses for establishing languages' rhythmic class membership.