Publications

Abstract

The central topic of this study is to investigate three- and four-place predicate in Yaqui, which are characterized by having multiple object arguments. As with other Southern Uto-Aztecan languages, it has been said that Yaqui follows the Primary/Secondary Object pattern (Dryer 1986). Actually, Yaqui presents three patterns: verbs like nenka ‘sell’ follow the direct–indirect object pattern, verbs like miika ‘give’ follow the primary object pattern, and verbs like chijakta ‘sprinkle’ follow the locative alternation pattern; the primary object pattern is the exclusive one found with derived verbs. This paper shows that the contrast between direct object and primary object languages is not absolute but rather one of degree, and hence two “object” selection principles are needed to explain this mixed system. The two principles are not limited to Yaqui but are found in other languages as well, including English.

Abstract

Psychology endeavors to develop theories of human capacities and behaviors on the basis of a variety of methodologies and dependent measures. We argue that one of the most divisive factors in psychological science is whether researchers choose to use computational modeling of theories (over and above data) during the scientific-inference process. Modeling is undervalued yet holds promise for advancing psychological science. The inherent demands of computational modeling guide us toward better science by forcing us to conceptually analyze, specify, and formalize intuitions that otherwise remain unexamined—what we dub open theory. Constraining our inference process through modeling enables us to build explanatory and predictive theories. Here, we present scientific inference in psychology as a path function in which each step shapes the next. Computational modeling can constrain these steps, thus advancing scientific inference over and above the stewardship of experimental practice (e.g., preregistration). If psychology continues to eschew computational modeling, we predict more replicability crises and persistent failure at coherent theory building. This is because without formal modeling we lack open and transparent theorizing. We also explain how to formalize, specify, and implement a computational model, emphasizing that the advantages of modeling can be achieved by anyone with benefit to all.

Abstract

All accounts of communicative behaviour in general, and communicative strategies in particular, mention gesture1 in relation to language acquisition (cf. Faerch & Kasper 1983 for an overview). However, few attempts have been made to investigate how spoken language and spontaneous gesture combine to determine discourse referents. Referential gesture and referential discourse will be of particular interest, since communicative strategies in second language discourse often involve labelling problems.

This paper will focus on two issues:

1) Within a cognitive account of communicative strategies, gesture will be seen to be part of conceptual or analysis-based strategies, in that relational features in the referents are exploited;

2) It will be argued that communication strategies can be seen in terms of cue manipulation in the same sense as sentence processing has been analysed in terms of competing cues. Strategic behaviour, and indeed the process of referring in general, are seen in terms of cues, combining or competing to determine discourse referents. Gesture can then be regarded as being such a cue at the discourse level, and as a cue-based communicative strategy, in that gesture functions by exploiting physically based cues which can be recognised as being part of the referent. The question of iconicity and motivation vs. the arbitrary qualities of gesture as a strategic cue will be addressed in connection with this.

Abstract

In this study, event-related brain potential ffects of speech processing are obtained and compared to similar effects in sentence reading. In two experiments sentences were presented that contained three different types of grammatical violations. In one experiment sentences were presented word by word at a rate of four words per second. The grammatical violations elicited a Syntactic Positive Shift (P600/SPS), 500 ms after the onset of the word that rendered the sentence ungrammatical. The P600/SPS consisted of two phases, an early phase with a relatively equal anterior-posterior distribution and a later phase with a strong posterior distribution. We interpret the first phase as an indication of structural integration complexity, and the second phase as an indication of failing parsing operations and/or an attempt at reanalysis. In the second experiment the same syntactic violations were presented in sentences spoken at a normal rate and with normal intonation. These violations elicited a P600/SPS with the same onset as was observed for the reading of these sentences. In addition two of the three violations showed a preceding frontal negativity, most clearly over the left hemisphere.

Abstract

In this study, event-related brain potential effects of speech processing are obtained and compared to similar effects insentence reading. In two experiments spoken sentences were presented with semantic violations in sentence-signal or mid-sentence positions. For these violations N400 effects were obtained that were very similar to N400 effects obtained in reading. However, the N400 effects in speech were preceded by an earlier negativity (N250). This negativity is not commonly observed with written input. The early effect is explained as a manifestation of a mismatch between the word forms expected on the basis of the context, and the actual cohort of activated word candidates that is generated on the basis of the speech signal.

Abstract

A central and influential idea among researchers of language is that our language faculty is organized according to Fregean compositionality, which states that the meaning of an utterance is a function of the meaning of its parts and of the syntactic rules by which these parts are combined. Since the domain of syntactic rules is the sentence, the implication of this idea is that language interpretation takes place in a two-step fashion. First, the meaning of a sentence is computed. In a second step, the sentence meaning is integrated with information from prior discourse, world knowledge, information about the speaker and semantic information from extra-linguistic domains such as co-speech gestures or the visual world. Here, we present results from recordings of event-related brain potentials that are inconsistent with this classical two-step model of language interpretation. Our data support a one-step model in which knowledge about the context and the world, concomitant information from other modalities, and the speaker are brought to bear immediately, by the same fast-acting brain system that combines the meanings of individual words into a message-level representation. Underlying the one-step model is the immediacy assumption, according to which all available information will immediately be used to co-determine the interpretation of the speaker's message. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data that we collected indicate that Broca's area plays an important role in semantic unification. Language comprehension involves the rapid incorporation of information in a 'single unification space', coming from a broader range of cognitive domains than presupposed in the standard two-step model of interpretation.

Abstract

Although the sentences that we hear or read have meaning, this does not necessarily mean that they are also true. Relatively little is known about the critical brain structures for, and the relative time course of, establishing the meaning and truth of linguistic expressions. We present electroencephalogram data that show the rapid parallel integration of both semantic and world
knowledge during the interpretation of a sentence. Data from functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that the left inferior prefrontal cortex is involved in the integration of both meaning and world knowledge. Finally, oscillatory brain responses indicate that the brain keeps a record of what makes a sentence hard to interpret.

Abstract

Rhyme perception is an important predictor for future literacy. Assessing rhyme
abilities, however, commonly requires children to make explicit rhyme judgements on
single words. Here we explored whether infants already implicitly process rhymes in
natural rhyming contexts (child songs) and whether this response correlates with later
vocabulary size. In a passive listening ERP study, 10.5 month-old Dutch infants were
exposed to rhyming and non-rhyming child songs. Two types of rhyme effects were
analysed: (1) ERPs elicited by the first rhyme occurring in each song (rhyme sensitivity)
and (2) ERPs elicited by rhymes repeating after the first rhyme in each song (rhyme
repetition). Only for the latter a tentative negativity for rhymes from 0 to 200 ms
after the onset of the rhyme word was found. This rhyme repetition effect correlated
with productive vocabulary at 18 months-old, but not with any other vocabulary
measure (perception at 10.5 or 18 months-old). While awaiting future replication, the
study indicates precursors of phonological awareness already during infancy and with
ecologically valid linguistic stimuli.

Abstract

In an ERP experiment we investigated how the recruitment and integration of world knowledge information relate to the integration of information within a current discourse context. Participants were presented with short discourse contexts which were followed by a sentence that contained a critical word that was correct or incorrect based on general world knowledge and the supporting discourse context, or was more or less acceptable based on the combination of general world knowledge and the specific local discourse context. Relative to the critical word in the correct world knowledge sentences following a neutral discourse, all other critical words elicited an N400 effect that began at about 300 ms after word onset. However, the magnitude of the N400 effect varied in a way that suggests an interaction between world knowledge and discourse context. The results indicate that both world knowledge and discourse context have an effect on sentence interpretation, but neither overrides the other.

Abstract

Written language comprehension at the word and the sentence level was analysed by the combination of spatial and temporal analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Spatial analysis was performed via general linear modelling (GLM). Concerning the temporal analysis, local differences in neurovascular coupling may confound a direct comparison of blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) response estimates between regions. To avoid this problem, we parametrically varied linguistic task demands and compared only task-induced within-region BOLD response differences across areas. We reasoned that, in a hierarchical processing system, increasing task demands at lower processing levels induce delayed onset of higher-level processes in corresponding areas. The flow of activation is thus reflected in the size of task-induced delay increases. We estimated BOLD response delay and duration for each voxel and each participant by fitting a model function to the event-related average BOLD response. The GLM showed increasing activations with increasing linguistic demands dominantly in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the left superior temporal gyrus (STG). The combination of spatial and temporal analysis allowed a functional differentiation of IFG subregions involved in written language comprehension. Ventral IFG region (BA 47) and STG subserve earlier processing stages than two dorsal IFG regions (BA 44 and 45). This is in accordance with the assumed early lexical semantic and late syntactic processing of these regions and illustrates the complementary information provided by spatial and temporal fMRI data analysis of the same data set.

Abstract

What would your ideas about language evolution be if there was only one language left on earth? Fortunately, our investigation need not be that impoverished. In the present article, we survey the state of knowledge regarding the kinds of language found among humans, the language inventory, population sizes, time depth, grammatical variation, and other relevant issues that a theory of language evolution should minimally take into account

Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis is the most common systematic autoimmune disease and its etiology is believed to have both strong genetic and environmental components. We demonstrate the utility of including genetic and clinical phenotypes as covariates within a linkage analysis framework to search for rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility loci. The raw genotypes of 1302 affected relative pairs were combined from four large family-based samples (North American Rheumatoid Arthritis Consortium, United Kingdom, European Consortium on Rheumatoid Arthritis Families, and Canada). The familiality of the clinical phenotypes was assessed. The affected relative pairs were subjected to autosomal multipoint affected relative-pair linkage analysis. Covariates were included in the linkage analysis to take account of heterogeneity within the sample. Evidence of familiality was observed with age at onset (p <} 0.001) and rheumatoid factor (RF) IgM (p {< 0.001), but not definite erosions (p = 0.21). Genome-wide significant evidence for linkage was observed on chromosome 6. Genome-wide suggestive evidence for linkage was observed on chromosomes 13 and 20 when conditioning on age at onset, chromosome 15 conditional on gender, and chromosome 19 conditional on RF IgM after allowing for multiple testing of covariates.

Abstract

Introduction: Navigation is a fundamental and multidimensional cognitive function that individuals rely on to move around the environment. In this study, we investigated the neural basis of human spatial navigation ability. Methods: A large cohort of participants (N > 200) was examined on their navigation ability behaviorally and structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were then used to explore the corresponding neural basis of spatial navigation. Results: The gray matter volume (GMV) of the bilateral parahippocampus (PHG), retrosplenial complex (RSC), entorhinal cortex (EC), hippocampus (HPC), and thalamus (THAL) was correlated with the participants’ self-reported navigational ability in general, and their sense of direction in particular. Further fMRI studies showed that the PHG, RSC, and EC selectively responded to visually presented scenes, whereas the HPC and THAL showed no selectivity, suggesting a functional division of labor among these regions in spatial navigation. The resting-state functional connectivity analysis further revealed a hierarchical neural network for navigation constituted by these regions, which can be further categorized into three relatively independent components (i.e., scene recognition component, cognitive map component, and the component of heading direction for locomotion, respectively). Conclusions: Our study combined multi-modality imaging data to illustrate that multiple brain regions may work collaboratively to extract, integrate, store, and orientate spatial information to guide navigation behaviors.

Abstract

Repetition appears to be part of error correction and action preparation in all domains that involve producing an action sequence. The present work contends that the ubiquity of repetition is due to its role in resolving a problem inherent to planning and retrieval of action sequences: the Problem of Retrieval. Repetitions occur when the production to perform next is not activated enough to be executed. Repetitions are helpful in this situation because the repeated action sequence activates the likely continuation. We model a corpus of natural speech using a recurrent network, with words as units of production. We show that repeated material makes upcoming words more predictable, especially when more than one word is repeated. Speakers are argued to produce multiword repetitions by using backward associations to reactivate recently produced words. The existence of multiword repetitions means that speakers must decide where to reinitiate execution from. We show that production restarts from words that have seldom occurred in a predictive preceding-word context and have often occurred utterance-initially. These results are explained by competition between preceding-context and top-down cues over the course of language learning. The proposed theory improves on structural accounts of repetition disfluencies, and integrates repetition disfluencies in language production with repetitions observed in other domains of skilled action.

Abstract

Humans are deeply affected by stories, yet it is unclear how. In this study, we explored two aspects of aesthetic experiences during narrative engagement - literariness and narrative fluctuations in appraised emotional intensity. Independent ratings of literariness and emotional intensity of two literary stories were used to predict blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal changes in 52 listeners from an existing fMRI dataset. Literariness was associated with increased activation in brain areas linked to semantic integration (left angular gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and precuneus), and decreased activation in bilateral middle temporal cortices, associated with semantic representations and word memory. Emotional intensity correlated with decreased activation in a bilateral frontoparietal network that is often associated with controlled attention. Our results confirm a neural dissociation in processing literary form and emotional content in stories and generate new questions about the function of and interaction between attention, social cognition, and semantic systems during literary engagement and aesthetic experiences.

Abstract

Personal pronouns have been shown to influence cognitive perspective taking during comprehension. Studies using single sentences found that 3rd person pronouns facilitate the construction of a mental model from an observer’s perspective, whereas 2nd person pronouns support an actor’s perspective. The direction of the effect for 1st person pronouns seems to depend on the situational context. In the present study, we investigated how personal pronouns influence discourse comprehension when people read fiction stories and if this has consequences for affective components like emotion during reading or appreciation of the story. We wanted to find out if personal pronouns affect immersion and arousal, as well as appreciation of fiction. In a natural reading paradigm, we measured electrodermal activity and story immersion, while participants read literary stories with 1st and 3rd person pronouns referring to the protagonist. In addition, participants rated and ranked the stories for appreciation. Our results show that stories with 1st person pronouns lead to higher immersion. Two factors—transportation into the story world and mental imagery during reading—in particular showed higher scores for 1st person as compared to 3rd person pronoun stories. In contrast, arousal as measured by electrodermal activity seemed tentatively higher for 3rd person pronoun stories. The two measures of appreciation were not affected by the pronoun manipulation. Our findings underscore the importance of perspective for language processing, and additionally show which aspects of the narrative experience are influenced by a change in perspective.

Abstract

The endeavor to understand the human brain has seen more progress in the last few decades than in the previous two millennia. Still, our understanding of how the human brain relates to behavior in the real world and how this link is modulated by biological, social, and environmental factors is limited. To address this, we designed the Healthy Brain Study (HBS), an interdisciplinary, longitudinal, cohort study based on multidimensional, dynamic assessments in both the laboratory and the real world. Here, we describe the rationale and design of the currently ongoing HBS. The HBS is examining a population-based sample of 1,000 healthy participants (age 30-39) who are thoroughly studied across an entire year. Data are collected through cognitive, affective, behavioral, and physiological testing, neuroimaging, bio-sampling, questionnaires, ecological momentary assessment, and real-world assessments using wearable devices. These data will become an accessible resource for the scientific community enabling the next step in understanding the human brain and how it dynamically and individually operates in its bio-social context. An access procedure to the collected data and bio-samples is in place and published on https://www.healthybrainstudy.nl/en/data-and-methods.

https://www.trialregister.nl/trial/7955

Abstract

We advance the hypothesis here that the higher-than-average vocal pitch (FO) found for speech of Broca's aphasics in experimental settings is due, in part, to increased psychological stress. Two experiments were conducted which manipulated conversational constraints and the sentence forms to be produced by aphasic patients. Our study revealed significant differences between changes in vocal pitch of agrammatic Broca's aphasics versus those of Wernicke's aphasics and normal controls. It is suggested that the greater psychological stress experienced by the Broca's aphasics, but not by the Wernicke's aphasics, accounts for these observed differences.

Abstract

Second language (L2) learners frequently encounter persistent difficulty in perceiving certain non-native sound contrasts, i.e., a phenomenon called “phonological deafness”. However, if extensive L2 experience leads to neuroplastic changes in the phonological system, then the capacity to discriminate non-native phonemic contrasts should progressively improve. Such perceptual changes should be attested by modifications at the neurophysiological level. We designed an EEG experiment in which the listeners’ perceptual capacities to discriminate second language phonemic contrasts influence the processing of lexical-semantic violations. Semantic congruency of critical words in a sentence context was driven by a phonemic contrast that was unique to the L2, English (e.g.,/ɪ/-/i:/, ship – sheep). Twenty-eight young adult native speakers of French with intermediate proficiency in English listened to sentences that contained either a semantically congruent or incongruent critical word (e.g., The anchor of the ship/*sheep was let down) while EEG was recorded. Three ERP effects were found to relate to increasing L2 proficiency: (1) a left frontal auditory N100 effect, (2) a smaller fronto-central phonological mismatch negativity (PMN) effect and (3) a semantic N400 effect. No effect of proficiency was found on oscillatory markers. The current findings suggest that neuronal plasticity in the human brain allows for the late acquisition of even hard-wired linguistic features such as the discrimination of phonemic contrasts in a second language. This is the first time that behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for the critical role of neural plasticity underlying L2 phonological processing and its interdependence with semantic processing has been provided. Our data strongly support the idea that pieces of information from different levels of linguistic processing (e.g., phonological, semantic) strongly interact and influence each other during online language processing.

Abstract

In the present electroencephalographical study, we asked to which extent executive control processes are shared by both the language and motor domain. The rationale was to examine whether executive control processes whose efficiency is reinforced by the frequent use of a second language can lead to a benefit in the control of eye movements, i.e. a non-linguistic activity. For this purpose, we administrated to 19 highly proficient late French-German bilingual participants and to a control group of 20 French monolingual participants an antisaccade task, i.e. a specific motor task involving control. In this task, an automatic saccade has to be suppressed while a voluntary eye movement in the opposite direction has to be carried out. Here, our main hypothesis is that an advantage in the antisaccade task should be observed in the bilinguals if some properties of the control processes are shared between linguistic and motor domains. ERP data revealed clear differences between bilinguals and monolinguals. Critically, we showed an increased N2 effect size in bilinguals, thought to reflect better efficiency to monitor conflict, combined with reduced effect sizes on markers reflecting inhibitory control, i.e. cue-locked positivity, the target-locked P3 and the saccade-locked presaccadic positivity (PSP). Moreover, effective connectivity analyses (dynamic causal modelling; DCM) on the neuronal source level indicated that bilinguals rely more strongly on ACC-driven control while monolinguals rely on PFC-driven control. Taken together, our combined ERP and effective connectivity findings may reflect a dynamic interplay between strengthened conflict monitoring, associated with subsequently more efficient inhibition in bilinguals. Finally, L2 proficiency and immersion experience constitute relevant factors of the language background that predict efficiency of inhibition. To conclude, the present study provided ERP and effective connectivity evidence for domain-general executive control involvement in handling multiple language use, leading to a control advantage in bilingualism.

Abstract

In this perspective paper, we focus on the study of synchronization abilities across the animal kingdom. We propose an ecological approach to studying nonhuman animal synchronization that begins from observations about when, how and why an animal might synchronize spontaneously with natural environmental rhythms. We discuss what we consider to be the most important, but thus far largely understudied, temporal, physical, perceptual and motivational constraints that must be taken into account when designing experiments to test synchronization in nonhuman animals. First and foremost, different species are likely to be sensitive to and therefore capable of synchronizing at different timescales. We also argue that it is fruitful to consider the latent flexibility of animal synchronization. Finally, we discuss the importance of an animal's motivational state for showcasing synchronization abilities. We demonstrate that the likelihood that an animal can successfully synchronize with an environmental rhythm is context-dependent and suggest that the list of species capable of synchronization is likely to grow when tested with ecologically honest, species-tuned experiments.

Abstract

Acoustic analyses can be powerful tools for illuminating structure within and between populations, especially for cryptic or difficult to access taxa. Acoustic repertoires are often compared using aggregate similarity measures across all calls of a particular type, but specific group identity calls may more clearly delineate structure in some taxa.
2. We present a new method—the identity call method—that estimates the number of acoustically distinct subdivisions in a set of repertoires and identifies call types that characterize those subdivisions. The method uses contaminated mixture models to identify call types, assigning each call a probability of belonging to each type. Repertoires are hierarchically clustered based on similarities in call type usage, producing a dendrogram with ‘identity clades’ of repertoires and the
‘identity calls’ that best characterize each clade. We validated this approach using acoustic data from sperm whales, grey-breasted wood-wrens and Australian field crickets, and ran a suite of tests to assess parameter sensitivity.
3. For all taxa, the method detected diagnostic signals (identity calls) and structure (identity clades; sperm whale subpopulations, wren subspecies and cricket species) that were consistent with past research. Some datasets were more sensitive to parameter variation than others, which may reflect real uncertainty or biological variability in the taxa examined. We recommend that users perform comparative analyses of different parameter combinations to determine which portions of the dendrogram warrant careful versus confident interpretation.
4. The presence of group-characteristic identity calls does not necessarily mean animals perceive them as such. Fine-scale experiments like playbacks are a key next step to understand call perception and function. This method can help inform such studies by identifying calls that may be salient to animals and are good candidates for investigation or playback stimuli. For cryptic or difficult to access taxa with group-specific calls, the identity call method can aid managers in quantifying behavioural diversity and/or identifying putative structure within and between
populations, given that acoustic data can be inexpensive and minimally invasive to collect.

Abstract

The ability to predict upcoming actions is a hallmark of cognition. It remains unclear, however, whether the predictive behaviour observed in controlled lab environments generalises to rich, everyday settings. In four virtual reality experiments, we tested whether a well-established marker of linguistic prediction (anticipatory eye movements) replicated when increasing the naturalness of the paradigm by means of immersing participants in naturalistic scenes (Experiment 1), increasing the number of distractor objects (Experiment 2), modifying the proportion of predictable noun-referents (Experiment 3), and manipulating the location of referents relative to the joint attentional space (Experiment 4). Robust anticipatory eye movements were observed for Experiments 1–3. The anticipatory effect disappeared, however, in Experiment 4. Our findings suggest that predictive processing occurs in everyday communication if the referents are situated in the joint attentional space. Methodologically, our study confirms that ecological validity and experimental control may go hand-in-hand in the study of human predictive behaviour.

Abstract

Many studies have shown that a supportive context facilitates language comprehension. A currently influential view is that language production may support prediction in language comprehension. Experimental evidence for this, however, is relatively sparse. Here we explored whether encouraging prediction in a language production task encourages the use of predictive contexts in an interleaved comprehension task. In Experiment 1a, participants listened to the first part of a sentence and provided the final word by naming aloud a picture. The picture name was predictable or not predictable from the sentence context. Pictures were named faster when they could be predicted than when this was not the case. In Experiment 1b the same sentences, augmented by a final spill-over region, were presented in a self-paced reading task. No difference in reading times for predictive vs. non-predictive sentences was found. In Experiment 2, reading and naming trials were intermixed. In the naming task, the advantage for predictable picture names was replicated. More importantly, now reading times for the spill-over region were considerable faster for predictive vs. non-predictive sentences. We conjecture that these findings fit best with the notion that prediction in the service of language production encourages the use of predictive contexts in comprehension. Further research is required to identify the exact mechanisms by which production exerts its influence on comprehension.

Abstract

Comparative studies of vocal learning and vocal non-learning animals can increase our understanding of the neurobiology and evolution of vocal learning and human speech. Mammalian vocal learning is understudied: most research has either focused on vocal learning in songbirds or its absence in non-human primates. Here we focus on a highly promising model species for the neurobiology of vocal learning: grey seals. We provide a neuroanatomical atlas (based on dissected brain slices and magnetic resonance images), a labelled MRI template, a 3D model with volumetric measurements of brain regions, and histological cortical stainings. Four main features of the grey seal brain stand out. (1) It is relatively big and highly convoluted. (2) It hosts a relatively large temporal lobe and cerebellum, structures which could support developed timing abilities and acoustic processing. (3) The cortex is similar to humans in thickness and shows the expected six-layered mammalian structure. (4) Expression of FoxP2 - a gene involved in vocal learning and spoken language - is present in deeper layers of the cortex. Our results could facilitate future studies targeting the neural and genetic underpinnings of mammalian vocal learning, thus bridging the research gap from songbirds to humans and non-human primates.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.

Abstract

This article uses conversation analysis to examine constructions like who the fuck is that—sequence‐initiating actions into which an expletive like the fuck has been inserted. We describe how this turn‐constructional practice fits into and constitutes a recurrent sequence of escalating actions. In this sequence, it is used to pursue an adequate response after an inadequate one was given, and sanction the recipient for that inadequate response. Our analysis contributes to sociolinguistic studies of swearing by offering an account of swearing as a resource for social action.

Abstract

The importance of high quality teacher–student relationships for students' well-being has been long documented. Nonetheless, most studies focus either on teachers' perceptions of provided support or on students' perceptions of support. The degree to which teachers and students agree is often neither measured nor taken into account. In the current study, we will therefore use a dyadic analysis strategy called the one-with-many design. This design takes into account the nestedness of the data and looks at the importance of reciprocity when examining the influence of teacher support for students' academic and social functioning. Two samples of teachers and their students from Grade 4 (age 9–10 years) have been recruited in primary schools, located in Turkey and Romania. By using the one-with-many design we can first measure to what degree teachers' perceptions of support are in line with students' experiences. Second, this level of consensus is taken into account when examining the influence of teacher support for students' social well-being and academic functioning.

Abstract

Natural conversations are characterized by short transition times between turns. This holds in particular for multi-party conversations. The short turn transitions in everyday conversations contrast sharply with the much longer speech onset latencies observed in laboratory studies where speakers respond to spoken utterances. There are many factors that facilitate speech production in conversational compared to laboratory settings. Here we highlight one of them, the impact of competition for turns. In multi-party conversations, speakers often compete for turns. In quantitative corpus analyses of multi-party conversation, the fastest response determines the recorded turn transition time. In contrast, in dyadic conversations such competition for turns is much less likely to arise, and in laboratory experiments with individual participants it does not arise at all. Therefore, all responses tend to be recorded. Thus, competition for turns may reduce the recorded mean turn transition times in multi-party conversations for a simple statistical reason: slow responses are not included in the means. We report two studies illustrating this point. We first report the results of simulations showing how much the response times in a laboratory experiment would be reduced if, for each trial, instead of recording all responses, only the fastest responses of several participants responding independently on the trial were recorded. We then present results from a quantitative corpus analysis comparing turn transition times in dyadic and triadic conversations. There was no significant group size effect in question-response transition times, where the present speaker often selects the next one, thus reducing competition between speakers. But, as predicted, triads showed shorter turn transition times than dyads for the remaining turn transitions, where competition for the floor was more likely to arise. Together, these data show that turn transition times in conversation should be interpreted in the context of group size, turn transition type, and social setting.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate cognitive outcome in adult survivors of bacterial meningitis. Methods: Data from three prospective multicentre studies were pooled and reanalysed, involving 155 adults surviving bacterial meningitis (79 after pneumococcal and 76 after meningococcal meningitis) and 72 healthy controls. Results: Cognitive impairment was found in 32% of patients and this proportion was similar for survivors of pneumococcal and meningococcal meningitis. Survivors of pneumococcal meningitis performed worse on memory tasks (p<0.001) and tended to be cognitively slower than survivors of meningococcal meningitis (p = 0.08). We found a diffuse pattern of cognitive impairment in which cognitive speed played the most important role. Cognitive performance was not related to time since meningitis; however, there was a positive association between time since meningitis and self-reported physical impairment (p<0.01). The frequency of cognitive impairment and the numbers of abnormal test results for patients with and without adjunctive dexamethasone were similar. Conclusions: Adult survivors of bacterial meningitis are at risk of cognitive impairment, which consists mainly of cognitive slowness. The loss of cognitive speed is stable over time after bacterial meningitis; however, there is a significant improvement in subjective physical impairment in the years after bacterial meningitis. The use of dexamethasone was not associated with cognitive impairment.

Abstract

In all spoken languages, speakers use demonstratives – words like this and that – to refer to entities in their immediate environment. But which factors determine whether they use one demonstrative (this) or another (that)? Here we report the results of an experiment examining the effects of referent visibility, referent distance, and addressee location on the production of demonstratives by speakers of Ticuna (isolate; Brazil, Colombia, Peru), an Amazonian language with four demonstratives, and speakers of Dutch (Indo-European; Netherlands, Belgium), which has two demonstratives. We found that Ticuna speakers’ use of demonstratives displayed effects of addressee location and referent distance, but not referent visibility. By contrast, under comparable conditions, Dutch speakers displayed sensitivity only to referent distance. Interestingly, we also observed that Ticuna speakers consistently used demonstratives in all referential utterances in our experimental paradigm, while Dutch speakers strongly preferred to use definite articles. Taken together, these findings shed light on the significant diversity found in demonstrative systems across languages. Additionally, they invite researchers studying exophoric demonstratives to broaden their horizons by cross-linguistically investigating the factors involved in speakers’ choice of demonstratives over other types of referring expressions, especially articles.

Abstract

Form-priming effects from sublexical (syllabic or segmental) primes in masked priming can be accounted for in two ways. One is the sublexical pre-activation view according to which segments are pre-activated by the prime, and at the time the form-related target is to be produced, retrieval/assembly of those pre-activated segments is faster compared to an unrelated situation. However, it has also been argued that form-priming effects from sublexical primes might be due to lexical pre-activation. When the sublexical prime is presented, it activates all form-related words (i.e., cohorts) in the lexicon, necessarily including the form-related target, which—as a consequence—is produced faster than in the unrelated case. Note, however, that this lexical pre-activation account makes previous pre-lexical activation of segments necessary. This study reports a nonword naming experiment to investigate whether or not sublexical pre-activation is involved in masked form priming with sublexical primes. The results demonstrated a priming effect suggesting a nonlexical effect. However, this does not exclude an additional lexical component in form priming.

Abstract

During vocal communication, the spectro‑temporal structure of vocalizations conveys important
contextual information. Bats excel in the use of sounds for echolocation by meticulous encoding of
signals in the temporal domain. We therefore hypothesized that for social communication as well,
bats would excel at detecting minute distortions in the spectro‑temporal structure of calls. To test
this hypothesis, we systematically introduced spectro‑temporal distortion to communication calls of
Phyllostomus discolor bats. We broke down each call into windows of the same length and randomized
the phase spectrum inside each window. The overall degree of spectro‑temporal distortion in
communication calls increased with window length. Modelling the bat auditory periphery revealed
that cochlear mechanisms allow discrimination of fast spectro‑temporal envelopes. We evaluated
model predictions with experimental psychophysical and neurophysiological data. We first assessed
bats’ performance in discriminating original versions of calls from increasingly distorted versions of
the same calls. We further examined cortical responses to determine additional specializations for
call discrimination at the cortical level. Psychophysical and cortical responses concurred with model
predictions, revealing discrimination thresholds in the range of 8–15 ms randomization‑window
length. Our data suggest that specialized cortical areas are not necessary to impart psychophysical
resilience to temporal distortion in communication calls.

Abstract

Dutch-learning and English-learning 9-month-olds were tested, using the Headturn Preference Procedure, for their ability to segment Dutch words with strong/weak stress patterns from fluent Dutch speech. This prosodic pattern is highly typical for words of both languages. The infants were familiarized with pairs of words and then tested on four passages, two that included the familiarized words and two that did not. Both the Dutch- and the English-learning infants gave evidence of segmenting the targets from the passages, to an equivalent degree. Thus, English-learning infants are able to extract words from fluent speech in a language that is phonetically different from English. We discuss the possibility that this cross-language segmentation ability is aided by the similarity of the typical rhythmic structure of Dutch and English words.

Abstract

The functional region of interest (fROI) approach has increasingly become a favored methodology in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) because it can circumvent inter-subject anatomical and functional variability, and thus increase the sensitivity and functional resolution of fMRI analyses. The standard fROI method requires human experts to meticulously examine and identify subject-specific fROIs within activation clusters. This process is time-consuming and heavily dependent on experts’ knowledge. Several algorithmic approaches have been proposed for identifying subject-specific fROIs; however, these approaches cannot easily incorporate prior knowledge of inter-subject variability. In the present study, we improved the multi-atlas labeling approach for defining subject-specific fROIs. In particular, we used a classifier-based atlas-encoding scheme and an atlas selection procedure to account for the large spatial variability across subjects. Using a functional atlas database for face recognition, we showed that with these two features, our approach efficiently circumvented inter-subject anatomical and functional variability and thus improved labeling accuracy. Moreover, in comparison with a single-atlas approach, our multi-atlas labeling approach showed better performance in identifying subject-specific fROIs.

Abstract

Native speakers of Dutch do not always adhere to prescriptive grammar rules in their daily speech. These grammatical norm violations can elicit emotional reactions in language purists, mostly high-educated people, who claim that for them these constructions are truly ungrammatical. However, linguists generally assume that grammatical norm violations are in fact truly grammatical, especially when they occur frequently in a language. In an fMRI study we investigated the processing of grammatical norm violations in the brains of language purists, and compared them with truly grammatical and truly ungrammatical sentences. Grammatical norm violations were found to be unique in that their processing resembled not only the processing of truly grammatical sentences (in left medial Superior Frontal Gyrus and Angular Gyrus), but also that of truly ungrammatical sentences (in Inferior Frontal Gyrus), despite what theories of grammar would usually lead us to believe

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

It is now well established that anticipation of up-coming input is a key characteristic of spoken language comprehension. Several mechanisms of predictive language processing have been proposed. The possible influence of mediating factors such as working memory and processing speed however has hardly been explored. We sought to find evidence for such an influence using an individual differences approach. 105 participants from 32 to 77 years of age received spoken instructions (e.g., "Kijk naar deCOM afgebeelde pianoCOM" - look at the displayed piano) while viewing four objects. Articles (Dutch “het” or “de”) were gender-marked such that the article agreed in gender only with the target. Participants could thus use gender information from the article to predict the upcoming target object. The average participant anticipated the target objects well in advance of the critical noun. Multiple regression analyses showed that working memory and processing speed had the largest mediating effects: Enhanced working memory abilities and faster processing speed supported anticipatory spoken language processing. These findings suggest that models of predictive language processing must take mediating factors such as working memory and processing speed into account. More generally, our results are consistent with the notion that working memory grounds language in space and time, linking linguistic and visual-spatial representations.

Abstract

Many psycholinguistic experiments suggest that prediction is an important characteristic of language processing. Some recent theoretical accounts in the cognitive sciences (e.g., Clark, 2013; Friston, 2010) and psycholinguistics (e.g., Dell & Chang, 2014) appear to suggest that prediction is even necessary to understand language. In the present opinion paper we evaluate this proposal. We first critically discuss several arguments that may appear to be in line with the notion that prediction is necessary for language processing. These arguments include that prediction provides a unified theoretical principle of the human mind and that it pervades cortical function. We discuss whether evidence of human abilities to detect statistical regularities is necessarily evidence for predictive processing and evaluate suggestions that prediction is necessary for language learning. Five arguments are then presented that question the claim that all language processing is predictive in nature. We point out that not all language users appear to predict language and that suboptimal input makes prediction often very challenging. Prediction, moreover, is strongly context-dependent and impeded by resource limitations. We also argue that it may be problematic that most experimental evidence for predictive language processing comes from 'prediction-encouraging' experimental set-ups. Finally, we discuss possible ways that may lead to a further resolution of this debate. We conclude that languages can be learned and understood in the absence of prediction. Claims that all language processing is predictive in nature are premature.

Abstract

We examined whether assortative mating for educational attainment (“like marries like”) can be detected in the genomes of ~ 1600 UK spouse pairs of European descent. Assortative mating on heritable traits like educational attainment increases the genetic variance and heritability of the trait in the population, which may increase social inequalities. We test for genetic assortative mating in the UK on educational attainment, a phenotype that is indicative of socio-economic status and has shown substantial levels of assortative mating. We use genome-wide allelic effect sizes from a large genome-wide association study on educational attainment (N ~ 300 k) to create polygenic scores that are predictive of educational attainment in our independent sample (r = 0.23, p < 2 × 10− 16). The polygenic scores significantly predict partners' educational outcome (r = 0.14, p = 4 × 10− 8 and r = 0.19, p = 2 × 10− 14, for prediction from males to females and vice versa, respectively), and are themselves significantly correlated between spouses (r = 0.11, p = 7 × 10− 6). Our findings provide molecular genetic evidence for genetic assortative mating on education in the UK

Abstract

The human body is central to myriad metaphors, so studying the conceptualisation of the body itself is critical if we are to understand its broader use. One essential but understudied issue is whether languages differ in which body parts they single out for naming. This paper takes a multi-method approach to investigate body part nomenclature within a single language family. Using both a naming task (Study 1) and colouring-in task (Study 2) to collect data from six Japonic languages, we found that lexical similarity for body part terminology was notably differentiated within Japonic, and similar variation was evident in semantics too. Novel application of cluster analysis on naming data revealed a relatively flat hierarchical structure for parts of the face, whereas parts of the body were organised with deeper hierarchical structure. The colouring data revealed that bounded parts show more stability across languages than unbounded parts. Overall, the data reveal there is not a single universal conceptualisation of the body as is often assumed, and that in-depth, multi-method explorations of under-studied languages are urgently required.

Abstract

Recent behavioural research has reported age-related changes in the costs of refocusing attention from a temporal (rapid serial visual presentation) to a spatial (visual search) task. Using magnetoencephalography, we have now compared the neural signatures of attention refocusing between three age groups (19–30, 40–49 and 60+ years) and found differences in task-related modulation and cortical localisation of alpha and theta oscillations. Efficient, faster refocusing in the youngest group compared to both middle age and older groups was reflected in parietal theta effects that were significantly reduced in the older groups. Residual parietal theta activity in older individuals was beneficial to attentional refocusing and could reflect preserved attention mechanisms. Slowed refocusing of attention, especially when a target required consolidation, in the older and middle-aged adults was accompanied by a posterior theta deficit and increased recruitment of frontal (middle-aged and older groups) and temporal (older group only) areas, demonstrating a posterior to anterior processing shift. Theta but not alpha modulation correlated with task performance, suggesting that older adults' stronger and more widely distributed alpha power modulation could reflect decreased neural precision or dedifferentiation but requires further investigation. Our results demonstrate that older adults present with different alpha and theta oscillatory signatures during attentional control, reflecting cognitive decline and, potentially, also different cognitive strategies in an attempt to compensate for decline.

Abstract

-* indicates joint senior authors - Parkinson’s disease impairs motor function and cognition, which together affect language and
communication. Co-speech gestures are a form of language-related actions that provide imagistic
depictions of the speech content they accompany. Gestures rely on visual and motor imagery, but
it is unknown whether gesture representations require the involvement of intact neural sensory
and motor systems. We tested this hypothesis with a fine-grained analysis of co-speech action
gestures in Parkinson’s disease. 37 people with Parkinson’s disease and 33 controls described
two scenes featuring actions which varied in their inherent degree of bodily motion. In addition
to the perspective of action gestures (gestural viewpoint/first- vs. third-person perspective), we
analysed how Parkinson’s patients represent manner (how something/someone moves) and path
information (where something/someone moves to) in gesture, depending on the degree of bodily
motion involved in the action depicted. We replicated an earlier finding that people with
Parkinson’s disease are less likely to gesture about actions from a first-person perspective – preferring instead to depict actions gesturally from a third-person perspective – and show that
this effect is modulated by the degree of bodily motion in the actions being depicted. When
describing high motion actions, the Parkinson’s group were specifically impaired in depicting
manner information in gesture and their use of third-person path-only gestures was significantly
increased. Gestures about low motion actions were relatively spared. These results inform our
understanding of the neural and cognitive basis of gesture production by providing
neuropsychological evidence that action gesture production relies on intact motor network
function.

Abstract

A combination of impaired motor and cognitive function in Parkinson’s disease (PD) can impact on language and communication, with patients exhibiting a particular difficulty processing action verbs. Co-speech gestures embody a link between action and language and contribute significantly to communication in healthy people. Here, we investigated how co-speech gestures depicting actions are affected in PD, in particular with respect to the visual perspective—or the viewpoint – they depict. Gestures are closely related to mental imagery and motor simulations, but people with PD may be impaired in the way they simulate actions from a first-person perspective and may compensate for this by relying more on third-person visual features. We analysed the action-depicting gestures produced by mild-moderate PD patients and age-matched controls on an action description task and examined the relationship between gesture viewpoint, action naming, and performance on an action observation task (weight judgement). Healthy controls produced the majority of their action gestures from a first-person perspective, whereas PD patients produced a greater proportion of gestures produced from a third-person perspective. We propose that this reflects a compensatory reliance on third-person visual features in the simulation of actions in PD. Performance was also impaired in action naming and weight judgement, although this was unrelated to gesture viewpoint. Our findings provide a more comprehensive understanding of how action-language impairments in PD impact on action communication, on the cognitive underpinnings of this impairment, as well as elucidating the role of action simulation in gesture production

Abstract

Retrieval from semantic memory of conceptual and lexical information is essential for producing speech. It is unclear whether there are differences in the neural mechanisms of conceptual and lexical retrieval when spreading activation through semantic memory is initiated by verbal or nonverbal settings. The same twenty participants took part in two EEG experiments. The first experiment examined conceptual and lexical retrieval following nonverbal settings, whereas the second experiment was a replication of previous studies examining conceptual and lexical retrieval following verbal settings. Target pictures were presented after constraining and nonconstraining contexts. In the nonverbal settings, contexts were provided as two priming pictures (e.g., constraining: nest, feather; nonconstraining: anchor, lipstick; target picture: BIRD). In the verbal settings, contexts were provided as sentences (e.g., constraining: “The farmer milked a...”; nonconstraining: “The child drew a...”; target picture: COW). Target pictures were named faster following constraining contexts in both experiments, indicating that conceptual preparation starts before target picture onset in constraining conditions. In the verbal experiment, we replicated the alpha-beta power decreases in constraining relative to nonconstraining conditions before target picture onset. No such power decreases were found in the nonverbal experiment. Power decreases in constraining relative to nonconstraining conditions were significantly different between experiments. Our findings suggest that participants engage in conceptual preparation following verbal and nonverbal settings, albeit differently. The retrieval of a target word, initiated by verbal settings, is associated with alpha-beta power decreases. By contrast, broad conceptual preparation alone, prompted by nonverbal settings, does not seem enough to elicit alpha-beta power decreases. These findings have implications for theories of oscillations and semantic memory.

Abstract

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

Abstract

This paper examines how gesturers and signers use their bodies to express concepts such as instrumentality and humanness. Comparing across eight sign languages (American, Japanese, German, Israeli, and Kenyan Sign Languages, Ha Noi Sign Language of Vietnam, Central Taurus Sign Language of Turkey, and Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language of Israel) and the gestures of American non-signers, we find recurring patterns for naming entities in three semantic categories (tools, animals, and fruits & vegetables). These recurring patterns are captured in a classification system that identifies iconic strategies based on how the body is used together with the hands. Across all groups, tools are named with manipulation forms, where the head and torso represent those of a human agent. Animals tend to be identified with personification forms, where the body serves as a map for a comparable non-human body. Fruits & vegetables tend to be identified with object forms, where the hands act independently from the rest of the body to represent static features of the referent. We argue that these iconic patterns are rooted in using the body for communication, and provide a basis for understanding how meaningful communication emerges quickly in gesture and persists in emergent and established sign languages.

Abstract

Background Peripartum depression is a common cause of pregnancy- and postpartum-related morbidity. The production of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) from the placenta alters the profile of hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis hormones and may be associated with postpartum depression. The purpose of this study was to assess, in nondepressed pregnant women, the possible association between CRH levels in pregnancy and depressive symptoms postpartum. Methods A questionnaire containing demographic data and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was filled in gestational weeks 17 and 32, and 6 week postpartum. Blood samples were collected in week 17 for assessment of CRH. A logistic regression model was constructed, using postpartum EPDS score as the dependent variable and log-transformed CRH levels as the independent variable. Confounding factors were included in the model. Subanalyses after exclusion of study subjects with preterm birth, newborns small for gestational age (SGA), and women on corticosteroids were performed. Results Five hundred thirty-five women without depressive symptoms during pregnancy were included. Logistic regression showed an association between high CRH levels in gestational week 17 and postpartum depressive symptoms, before and after controlling for several confounders (unadjusted OR = 1.11, 95% CI 1.01–1.22; adjusted OR = 1.13, 95% CI 1.02–1.26; per 0.1 unit increase in log CRH). Exclusion of women with preterm birth and newborns SGA as well as women who used inhalation corticosteroids during pregnancy did not alter the results. Conclusions This study suggests an association between high CRH levels in gestational week 17 and the development of postpartum depressive symptoms, among women without depressive symptoms during pregnancy.

Abstract

Background The human white matter pathway network is complex and of critical importance for functionality. Thus, learning
and understanding white matter tract anatomy is important for the training of neuroscientists and neurosurgeons. The study aims
to test and evaluate a new method for fiber dissection using augmented reality (AR) in a group which is experienced in cadaver
white matter dissection courses and in vivo tractography.
Methods Fifteen neurosurgeons, neurolinguists, and neuroscientists participated in this questionnaire-based study. We presented
five cases of patients with left-sided perisylvian gliomas who underwent awake craniotomy. Diffusion tensor imaging fiber
tracking (DTI FT) was performed and the language-related networks were visualized separated in different tracts by color.
Participants were able to virtually dissect the prepared DTI FTs using a spatial computer and AR goggles. The application
was evaluated through a questionnaire with answers from 0 (minimum) to 10 (maximum).
Results Participants rated the overall experience of AR fiber dissection with a median of 8 points (mean ± standard deviation 8.5 ± 1.4).
Usefulness for fiber dissection courses and education in general was rated with 8 (8.3 ± 1.4) and 8 (8.1 ± 1.5) points, respectively.
Educational value was expected to be high for several target audiences (student: median 9, 8.6 ± 1.4; resident: 9, 8.5 ± 1.8; surgeon: 9,
8.2 ± 2.4; scientist: 8.5, 8.0 ± 2.4). Even clinical application of AR fiber dissection was expected to be of value with a median of 7
points (7.0 ± 2.5)

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis of the relevant imaging literature on word production (82 experiments). In addition to the spatial overlap of activated regions, we also analyzed the available data on the time course of activations. The analysis specified regions and time windows of activation for the core processes of word production: lexical selection, phonological code retrieval, syllabification, and phonetic/articulatory preparation. A comparison of the word production results with studies on auditory word/non-word perception and reading showed that the time course of activations in word production is, on the whole, compatible with the temporal constraints that perception processes impose on the production processes they affect in picture/word interference paradigms.

Abstract

Following up on an earlier positron emission tomography (PET) experiment (Indefrey et al., 2001), we used a scene description paradigm to investigate whether a posterior inferior frontal region subserving syntactic encoding for speaking is also involved in syntactic parsing during listening. In the language production part of the experiment, subjects described visually presented scenes
using either sentences, sequences of noun phrases, or sequences of syntactically unrelated words. In the language comprehension part of the experiment, subjects were auditorily presented with the same kinds of utterances and judged whether they matched the visual scenes. We were able to replicate the previous finding of a region in caudal Broca s area that is sensitive to the complexity of
syntactic encoding in language production. In language comprehension, no hemodynamic activation differences due to syntactic complexity were found. Given that correct performance in the judgment task did not require syntactic processing of the auditory stimuli, the results suggest that the degree to which listeners recruit syntactic processing resources in language comprehension may be a function of the syntactic demands of the task or the stimulus material.

Abstract

In order to separate the cognitive processes associated with phonological encoding and the use of a visual word form lexicon in reading, it is desirable to compare the processing of words presented in a visually familiar form with words in a visually unfamiliar form. Japanese Kana orthography offers this possibility. Two phonologically equivalent but visually dissimilar syllabaries allow the writing of, for example, foreign loanwords in two ways, only one of which is visually familiar. Familiarly written words, unfamiliarly written words, and pseudowords were presented in both Kana syllabaries (yielding six conditions in total) to participants during an fMRI measurement with a silent articulation task (Experiment 1) and a phonological lexical decision task (Experiment 2) using an event-related design. Consistent over two experimental tasks, the three different stimulus types (familiar, unfamiliar, and pseudoword) were found to activate selectively different brain regions previously associated with phonological encoding and word retrieval or meaning. Compatible with the predictions of the dual-route model for reading, pseudowords and visually unfamiliar words, which have to be read using phonological assembly, caused an increase in brain activity in left inferior frontal regions (BA 44/47), as compared to visually familiar words. Visually familiar and unfamiliar words were found to activate a range of areas associated with lexico-semantic processing more strongly than pseudowords, such as the left and right temporo-parietal region (BA 39/40), a region in the left middle/inferior temporal gyrus (BA 20/21), and the posterior cingulate (BA 31).

Abstract

We used ERPs to investigate the pre-activation of form and meaning in language comprehension. Participants read high-cloze sentence contexts (e.g., “The student is going to the library to borrow a…”), followed by a word that was predictable (book), form-related (hook) or semantically related (page) to the predictable word, or unrelated (sofa). At a 500 ms SOA (Experiment 1), semantically related words, but not form-related words, elicited a reduced N400 compared to unrelated words. At a 700 ms SOA (Experiment 2), semantically related words and form-related words elicited reduced N400 effects, but the effect for form-related words occurred in very high-cloze sentences only. At both SOAs, form-related words elicited an enhanced, post-N400 posterior positivity (Late Positive Component effect). The N400 effects suggest that readers can pre-activate meaning and form information for highly predictable words, but form pre-activation is more limited than meaning pre-activation. The post-N400 LPC effect suggests that participants detected the form similarity between expected and encountered input. Pre-activation of word forms crucially depends upon the time that readers have to make predictions, in line with production-based accounts of linguistic prediction.

Abstract

Little research has been done on the effect of learning context on L2 listening development. Motivated by DeKeyser’s (2015) skill acquisition theory of second language acquisition, this study compares L2 listening development in study abroad (SA) and at home (AH) contexts from both language knowledge and processing perspectives. One hundred forty-nine Chinese postgraduates studying in either China or the United Kingdom participated in a battery of listening tasks at the beginning and at the end of an academic year. These tasks measure auditory vocabulary knowledge and listening processing efficiency (i.e., accuracy, speed, and stability of processing) in word recognition, grammatical processing, and semantic analysis. Results show that, provided equal starting levels, the SA learners made more progress than the AH learners in speed of processing across the language processing tasks, with less clear results for vocabulary acquisition. Studying abroad may be an effective intervention for L2 learning, especially in terms of processing speed.

Abstract

Little research has been done on the effect of learning context on L2 listening development. Motivated by DeKeyser’s (2015) skill acquisition theory of second language acquisition, this study compares L2 listening development in study abroad (SA) and at home (AH) contexts from both language knowledge and processing perspectives. One hundred forty-nine Chinese postgraduates studying in either China or the United Kingdom participated in a battery of listening tasks at the beginning and at the end of an academic year. These tasks measure auditory vocabulary knowledge and listening processing efficiency (i.e., accuracy, speed, and stability of processing) in word recognition, grammatical processing, and semantic analysis. Results show that, provided equal starting levels, the SA learners made more progress than the AH learners in speed of processing across the language processing tasks, with less clear results for vocabulary acquisition. Studying abroad may be an effective intervention for L2 learning, especially in terms of processing speed.

Abstract

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

Abstract

Previous literature has identified several cognitive abilities as predictors of individual differences in speech perception. Working memory was chief among them, but effects have also been found for processing speed. Most research has been conducted on speech in noise, but fast and unclear articulation also makes listening challenging, particularly for older listeners. As a first step toward specifying the cognitive mechanisms underlying spoken word recognition, we set up this study to determine which factors explain unique variation in word identification accuracy in fast speech, and the extent to which this was affected by further degradation of the speech signal. To that end, 105 older adults were tested on identification accuracy of fast words in unaltered and degraded conditions in which the speech stimuli were low-pass filtered. They were also tested on processing speed, memory, vocabulary knowledge, and hearing sensitivity. A structural equation analysis showed that only memory and hearing sensitivity explained unique variance in word recognition in both listening conditions. Working memory was more strongly associated with performance in the unfiltered than in the filtered condition. These results suggest that memory skills, rather than speed, facilitate the mapping of single words onto stored lexical representations, particularly in conditions of medium difficulty.

Abstract

Natural fast speech differs from normal-rate speech with respect to its temporal pattern. Previous results showed that word intelligibility of heavily artificially time-compressed speech could not be improved by making its temporal pattern more similar to that of natural fast speech. This might have been due to the extrapolation of timing rules for natural fast speech to rates that are much faster than can be attained by human speakers. The present study investigates whether, at a speech rate that human speakers can attain, artificially time-compressed speech is easier to process if its timing pattern is similar to that of naturally produced fast speech. Our first experiment suggests, however, that word processing speed was slowed down, relative to linear compression. In a second experiment, word processing of artificially time-compressed speech was compared with processing of naturally produced fast speech. Even when naturally produced fast speech is perfectly intelligible, its less careful articulation, combined with the changed timing pattern, slows down processing, relative to linearly time-compressed speech. Furthermore, listeners preferred artificially time-compressed speech over naturally produced fast speech. These results suggest that linearly time-compressed speech has both a temporal and a segmental advantage over natural fast speech.

Abstract

SETBP1 haploinsufficiency disorder (MIM#616078) is caused by haploinsufficiency of SETBP1 on chromosome 18q12.3, but there has not yet been any systematic evaluation of the major features of this monogenic syndrome, assessing penetrance and expressivity. We describe the first comprehensive study to delineate the associated clinical phenotype, with findings from 34 individuals, including 24 novel cases, all of whom have a SETBP1 loss-of-function variant or single (coding) gene deletion, confirmed by molecular diagnostics. The most commonly reported clinical features included mild motor developmental delay, speech impairment, intellectual disability, hypotonia, vision impairment, attention/concentration deficits, and hyperactivity. Although there is a mild overlap in certain facial features, the disorder does not lead to a distinctive recognizable facial gestalt. As well as providing insight into the clinical spectrum of SETBP1 haploinsufficiency disorder, this reports puts forward care recommendations for patient management.

Abstract

This study investigated the encoding of syllable boundary information during speech production in Dutch. Based on Levelt's model of phonological encoding, we hypothesized segments and syllable boundaries to be encoded in an incremental way. In a selfmonitoring experiment, decisions about the syllable affiliation (first or second syllable) of a pre-specified consonant, which was the third phoneme in a word, were required (e.g., ka.No canoe vs. kaN.sel pulpit ; capital letters indicate pivotal consonants, dots mark syllable boundaries). First syllable responses were faster than second syllable responses, indicating the incremental nature of segmental encoding and syllabification during speech production planning. The results of the experiment are discussed in the context of Levelt 's model of phonological encoding.

Abstract

Three experiments are reported that examined whether stem complexity plays a role in inflecting polymorphemic words in language production. Experiment 1 showed that preparation effects for words with polymorphemic stems are larger when they are produced among words with constant inflectional structures compared to words with variable inflectional structures and simple stems. This replicates earlier findings for words with monomorphemic stems (Janssen et al., 2002). Experiments 2 and 3 showed that when inflectional structure is held constant, the preparation effects are equally large with simple and compound stems, and with compound and complex adjectival stems. These results indicate that inflectional encoding is blind to the complexity of the stem, which suggests that specific inflectional rather than generic morphological frames guide the generation of inflected forms in speaking words.

Abstract

Coevolving systems are notoriously difficult to understand. This is largely due to the Red Queen effect that dictates heterospecific fitness interdependence. In simulation studies of coevolving systems, master tournaments are often used to obtain more informed fitness measures by testing evolved individuals against past and future opponents. However, such tournaments still contain certain ambiguities. We introduce the use of a phenotypic cluster analysis to examine the distribution of opponent categories throughout an evolutionary sequence. This analysis, adopted from widespread usage in the bioinformatics community, can be applied to master tournament data. This allows us to construct behavior-based category trees, obtaining a hierarchical classification of phenotypes that are suspected to interleave during cyclic evolution. We use the cluster data to establish the existence of switching-genes that control opponent specialization, suggesting the retention of dormant genetic adaptations, that is, genetic memory. Our overarching goal is to reiterate how computer simulations may have importance to the broader understanding of evolutionary dynamics in general. We emphasize a further shift from a component-driven to an interaction-driven perspective in understanding coevolving systems. As yet, it is unclear how the sudden development of switching-genes relates to the gradual emergence of genetic adaptability. Likely, context genes gradually provide the appropriate genetic environment wherein the switching-gene effect can be exploited

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a biologically complex disorder with multiple regional deficits in cortical brain morphology. In addition, interindividual heterogeneity of cortical morphological metrics is larger in patients with schizophrenia when compared to healthy controls. Exploiting interindividual differences in the severity of cortical morphological deficits in patients instead of focusing on group averages may aid in detecting biologically informed homogeneous subgroups. The person-based similarity index (PBSI) of brain morphology indexes an individual’s morphometric similarity across numerous cortical regions amongst a sample of healthy subjects. We extended the PBSI such that it indexes the morphometric similarity of an independent individual (eg, a patient) with respect to healthy control subjects. By employing a normative modeling approach on longitudinal data, we determined an individual’s degree of morphometric dissimilarity to the norm. We calculated the PBSI for sulcal width (PBSI-SW) in patients with schizophrenia and healthy control subjects (164 patients and 164 healthy controls; 656 magnetic resonance imaging scans) and associated it with cognitive performance and cortical sulcation index. A subgroup of patients with markedly deviant PBSI-SW showed extreme deficits in cognitive performance and cortical sulcation. Progressive reduction of PBSI-SW in the schizophrenia group relative to healthy controls was driven by these deviating individuals. By explicitly leveraging interindividual differences in the severity of PBSI-SW deficits, neuroimaging-driven subgrouping of patients is feasible. As such, our results pave the way for future applications of morphometric similarity indices for subtyping of clinical populations.

Abstract

As people find their way through their environment, objects at navigationally relevant locations can serve as crucial landmarks. The parahippocampal gyrus has previously been shown to be involved in object and scene recognition. In the present study, we investigated the neural representation of navigationally relevant locations. Healthy human adults viewed a route through a virtual museum with objects placed at intersections (decision points) or at simple turns (non-decision points). Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired during subsequent recognition of the objects in isolation. Neural activity in the parahippocampal gyrus reflected the navigational relevance of an object's location in the museum. Parahippocampal responses were selectively increased for objects that occurred at decision points, independent of attentional demands. This increase occurred for forgotten as well as remembered objects, showing implicit retrieval of navigational information. The automatic storage of relevant object location in the parahippocampal gyrus provides a part of the neural mechanism underlying successful navigation.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

Human social intelligence relies on our ability to infer other people’s mental states such as their beliefs, desires,and intentions. While people are proficient at mental state inference from physical action, it is unknown whether people can make inferences of comparable granularity from simple linguistic events. Here, we show that people can make quantitative mental state attributions from simple referential expressions, replicating the fine-grained inferential structure characteristic of nonlinguistic theory of mind. Moreover, people quantitatively adjust these inferences after brief exposures to speaker-specific speech patterns. These judgments matched the predictions made by our computational model of theory of mind in language, but could not be explained by a simpler qualitative model that attributes mental states deductively. Our findings show how the connection between language and theory of mind runs deep, with their interaction showing in one of the most fundamental forms of human communication: reference.

Abstract

The present study describes how three now almost forgotten mid-20th-century logicians, the American Paul Jacoby and the Frenchmen Augustin Sesmat and Robert Blanché, all three ardent Catholics, tried to restore traditional predicate logic to a position of respectability by expanding the classic Square of Opposition to a hexagon of logical relations, showing the logical and cognitive advantages of such an expansion. The nature of these advantages is discussed in the context of modern research regarding the relations between logic, language, and cognition. It is desirable to call attention to these attempts, as they are, though almost totally forgotten, highly relevant against the backdrop of the clash between modern and traditional logic. It is argued that this clash was and is unnecessary, as both forms of predicate logic are legitimate, each in its own right. The attempts by Jacoby, Sesmat, and Blanché are, moreover, of interest to the history of logic in a cultural context in that, in their own idiosyncratic ways, they fit into the general pattern of the Catholic cultural revival that took place roughly between the years 1840 and 1960. The Catholic Church had put up stiff resistance to modern mathematical logic, considering it dehumanizing and a threat to Catholic doctrine. Both the wider cultural context and the specific implications for logic are described and analyzed, in conjunction with the more general philosophical and doctrinal issues involved.

Abstract

The objective of this systematic review is to create an overview of the literature on the comparison of navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) as a mapping tool to the current gold standard, which is (intraoperative) direct cortical stimulation (DCS) mapping. A search in the databases of PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science was performed. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and recommendations were used. Thirty-five publications were included in the review, describing a total of 552 patients. All studies concerned either mapping of motor or language function. No comparative data for nTMS and DCS for other neurological functions were found. For motor mapping, the distances between the cortical representation of the different muscle groups identified by nTMS and DCS varied between 2 and 16 mm. Regarding mapping of language function, solely an object naming task was performed in the comparative studies on nTMS and DCS. Sensitivity and specificity ranged from 10 to 100% and 13.3–98%, respectively, when nTMS language mapping was compared with DCS mapping. The positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) ranged from 17 to 75% and 57–100% respectively. The available evidence for nTMS as a mapping modality for motor and language function is discussed.

Abstract

Language processing is influenced by multiple sources of information. We examined whether the performance in simultaneous interpreting would be improved when providing two sources of information, the auditory speech as well as corresponding lip-movements, in comparison to presenting the auditory speech alone. Although there was an improvement in sentence recognition when presented with visible speech, there was no difference in performance between these two presentation conditions when bilinguals simultaneously interpreted from English to German or from English to Spanish. The reason why visual speech did not contribute to performance could be the presentation of the auditory signal without noise (Massaro, 1998). This hypothesis should be tested in the future. Furthermore, it should be investigated if an effect of visible speech can be found for other contexts, when visual information could provide cues for emotions, prosody, or syntax.

Abstract

One debate in mathematical cognition centers on the single-representation model versus the two-representation model. Using an improved number Stroop paradigm (i.e., systematically manipulating physical size distance), in the present study we tested the predictions of the two models for number magnitude processing. The results supported the single-representation model and, more importantly, explained how a design problem (failure to manipulate physical size distance) and an analytical problem (failure to consider the interaction between congruity and task-irrelevant numerical distance) might have contributed to the evidence used to support the two-representation model. This study, therefore, can help settle the debate between the single-representation and two-representation models. © 2015 The Author(s)

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

A key omission from many accounts of children’s early word learning is the linguistic knowledge that the child has acquired up to the point when learning occurs. We simulate this knowledge using a computational model that learns phoneme and word sequence knowledge from naturalistic language corpora. We show how this simple model is able to account for effects of word length, word frequency, neighborhood density and phonotactic probability on children’s early word learning. Moreover, we show how effects of neighborhood density and phonotactic probability on word learning are largely influenced by word length, with our model being able to capture all effects. We then use predictions from the model to show how the ease by which a child learns a new word from maternal input is directly influenced by the phonological knowledge that the child has acquired from other words up to the point of encountering the new word. There are major implications of this work: models and theories of early word learning need to incorporate existing sublexical and lexical knowledge in explaining developmental change while well-established indices of word learning are rejected in favor of phonological knowledge of varying grain sizes.

Abstract

Previous research has shown that vocabulary size affects performance on laboratory word production tasks. Individuals who know many words show faster lexical access and retrieve more words belonging to pre-specified categories than individuals who know fewer words. The present study examined the relationship between receptive vocabulary size and speaking skills as assessed in a natural sentence production task. We asked whether measures derived from spontaneous responses to every-day questions correlate with the size of participants’ vocabulary. Moreover, we assessed the suitability of automatic speech recognition for the analysis of participants’ responses in complex language production data. We found that vocabulary size predicted indices of spontaneous speech: Individuals with a larger vocabulary produced more words and had a higher speech-silence ratio compared to individuals with a smaller vocabulary. Importantly, these relationships were reliably identified using manual and automated transcription methods. Taken together, our results suggest that spontaneous speech elicitation is a useful method to investigate natural language production and that automatic speech recognition can alleviate the burden of labor-intensive speech transcription.

Abstract

In early Dutch learner varieties, there is no evidence of finiteness being a functional category. There is no V2nd: no correlation between inflectional morphology and movement. Initially, learners express the illocutive function of finiteness through the use of illocutive markers, with the non-use of an illocutive marker expressing the default illocutive function of assertion. Illocutive markers are functioning as adjuncts with scope over the predicate. Illocutive markers become re-analysed as functional elements.The driving force is the acquisition of the auxiliary verbs that occur with past participles. It leads to a reanalysis of illocutive markers as two separate elements: an auxiliary verb and a scope adverb. The (modal) auxiliary carries illocutive function. Lexical verb-argument structure (including the external argument) occurs within the domain of the auxiliary verb. The predicate as the focus constituent occurs within the domain of a scope adverb. This reanalysis establishes a position for the external argument within the domain of AUX. The acquisition of AUX causes the acquisition of a (hierarchical) structure with a complement as a constituent which represents an underlying verb-argument structure, a predicate as the domain of elements that are in focus, and an external (specifier) position as a landing site for elements with topic function.

Abstract

When estimating the influence of sentence complexity on reading, researchers typically opt for one of two main approaches: Measuring syntactic complexity (SC) or transitional probability (TP). Comparisons of the predictive power of both approaches have yielded mixed results. To address this inconsistency, we conducted a self-paced reading experiment. Participants read sentences of varying syntactic complexity. From two alternatives, we selected the set of SC and TP measures, respectively, that provided the best fit to the self-paced reading data. We then compared the contributions of the SC and TP measures to reading times when entered into the same model. Our results showed that both measures explained significant portions of variance in self-paced reading times. Thus, researchers aiming to measure sentence complexity should take both SC and TP into account. All of the analyses were conducted with and without control variables known to influence reading times (word/sentence length, word frequency and word position) to showcase how the effects of SC and TP change in the presence of the control variables.

Abstract

Late exposure to the first language, as in the case of deaf children with hearing parents, hinders the production of linguistic expressions, even in adulthood. Less is known about the development of language soon after language exposure and if late exposure hinders all domains of language in children and adults. We compared late signing adults and children (MAge = 8;5) 2 years after exposure to sign language, to their age-matched native signing peers in expressions of two types of locative relations that are acquired in certain cognitive-developmental order: view-independent (IN-ON-UNDER) and view-dependent (LEFT-RIGHT). Late signing children and adults differed from native signers in their use of linguistic devices for view-dependent relations but not for view-independent relations. These effects were also modulated by the morphological complexity. Hindering effects of late language exposure on the development of language in children and adults are not absolute but are modulated by cognitive and linguistic complexity.

Abstract

We studied mutual influences between native and non-native vowel production during learning, i.e., before and after short-term visual articulatory feedback training with non-native sounds. Monolingual French speakers were trained to produce two non-native vowels: the Danish /ɔ/, which is similar to the French /o/, and the Russian /ɨ/, which is dissimilar from French vowels. We examined relationships between the production of French and non-native vowels before training, and the effects of training with non-native vowels on the production of French ones. We assessed for each participant the acoustic position and compactness of the trained vowels, and of the French /o/, /ø/, /y/ and /i/ vowels, which are acoustically closest to the trained vowels. Before training, the compactness of the French vowels was positively related to the accuracy and compactness in the production of non-native vowels. After training, French speakers’ accuracy and stability in the production of the two trained vowels improved on average by 19% and 37.5%, respectively. Interestingly, the production of native vowels was also affected by this learning process, with a drift towards non-native vowels. The amount of phonetic drift appears to depend on the degree of similarity between the native and non-native sounds.

Abstract

Pinpointing genes involved in non-right-handedness has the potential to clarify developmental contributions to human brain lateralization. Major-gene models have been considered for human handedness which allow for phenocopy and reduced penetrance, i.e. an imperfect correspondence between genotype and phenotype. However, a recent genome-wide association scan did not detect any common polymorphisms with substantial genetic effects. Previous linkage studies in families have also not yielded significant findings. Genetic heterogeneity and/or polygenicity are therefore indicated, but it remains possible that relatively rare, or even unique, major-genetic effects may be detectable in certain extended families with many non-right-handed members. Here we applied whole exome sequencing to 17 members from a single, large consanguineous family from Pakistan. Multipoint linkage analysis across all autosomes did not yield clear candidate genomic regions for involvement in the trait and single-point analysis of exomic variation did not yield clear candidate mutations/genes. Any genetic contribution to handedness in this unusual family is therefore likely to have a complex etiology, as at the population level.

Abstract

Prominence, the expression of informational weight within utterances, can be signaled by
prosodic highlighting (head-prominence, as in English) or by position (as in Korean edge-prominence).
Prominence confers processing advantages, even if conveyed only by discourse manipulations. Here
we compared processing of prominence in English and Korean, using a task that indexes processing
success, namely recognition memory. In each language, participants’ memory was tested for target
words heard in sentences in which they were prominent due to prosody, position, both or neither.
Prominence produced recall advantage, but the relative effects differed across language. For Korean
listeners the positional advantage was greater, but for English listeners prosodic and syntactic
prominence had equivalent and additive effects. In a further experiment semantic and phonological
foils tested depth of processing of the recall targets. Both foil types were correctly rejected,
suggesting that semantic processing had not reached the level at which word form was no longer
available. Together the results suggest that prominence processing is primarily driven by universal
effects of information structure; but language-specific differences in frequency of experience prompt
different relative advantages of prominence signal types. Processing efficiency increases in each case,
however, creating more accurate and more rapidly contactable memory representations.