Publications

Abstract

This book examines parent-physician conversations in detail, showing how parents put pressure on doctors in largely covert ways, for instance in specific communication practices for explaining why they have brought their child to the doctor or answering a history-taking question. This book also shows how physicians yield to this seemingly subtle pressure evidencing that apparently small differences in wording have important consequences for diagnosis and treatment recommendations. Following parents use of these interactional practices, physicians are more likely to make concessions, alter their diagnosis or alter their treatment recommendation. This book also shows how small changes in the way physicians present their findings and recommendations can decrease parent pressure for antibiotics. This book carefully documents the important and observable link between micro social interaction and macro public health domains.

Abstract

Spoken language comprehension requires rapid integration of information from multiple linguistic sources. In the present study we addressed the temporal aspects of this integration process by focusing on the time course of the selection of the appropriate meaning of lexical ambiguities (“bank”) in sentence contexts. Successful selection of the contextually appropriate meaning of the ambiguous word is dependent upon the rapid binding of the contextual information in the sentence to the appropriate meaning of the ambiguity. We used the N400 to identify the time course of this binding process. The N400 was measured to target words that followed three types of context sentences. In the concordant context, the sentence biased the meaning of the sentence-final ambiguous word so that it was related to the target. In the discordant context, the sentence context biased the meaning so that it was not related to the target. In the unrelated control condition, the sentences ended in an unambiguous noun that was unrelated to the target. Half of the concordant sentences biased the dominant meaning, and the other half biased the subordinate meaning of the sentence-final ambiguous words. The ISI between onset of the target word and offset of the sentence-final word of the context sentence was 100 ms in one version of the experiment, and 1250 ms in the second version. We found that (i) the lexically dominant meaning is always partly activated, independent of context, (ii) initially both dominant and subordinate meaning are (partly) activated, which suggests that contextual and lexical factors both contribute to sentence interpretation without context completely overriding lexical information, and (iii) strong lexical influences remain present for a relatively long period of time.

Abstract

This study investigates whether spoken sentence comprehension deficits in Broca's aphasics results from their inability to access the subordinate meaning of ambiguous words (e.g. bank), or alternatively, from a delay in their selection of the contextually appropriate meaning. Twelve Broca's aphasics and twelve elderly controls were presented with lexical ambiguities in three context conditions, each followed by the same target words. In the concordant condition, the sentence context biased the meaning of the sentence final ambiguous word that was related to the target. In the discordant condition, the sentence context biased the meaning of the sentence final ambiguous word that was incompatible with the target.In the unrelated condition, the sentence-final word was unambiguous and unrelated to the target. The task of the subjects was to listen attentively to the stimuli The activational status of the ambiguous sentence-final words was inferred from the amplitude of the N399 to the targets at two inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) (100 ms and 1250 ms). At the short ISI, the Broca's aphasics showed clear evidence of activation of the subordinate meaning. In contrast to elderly controls, however, the Broca's aphasics were not successful at selecting the appropriate meaning of the ambiguity in the short ISI version of the experiment. But at the long ISI, in accordance with the performance of the elderly controls, the patients were able to successfully complete the contextual selection process. These results indicate that Broca's aphasics are delayed in the process of contextual selection. It is argued that this finding of delayed selection is compatible with the idea that comprehension deficits in Broca's aphasia result from a delay in the process of integrating lexical information.

Abstract

This volume on Inuit speech follows the evolution of a native language of the North American Arctic, from its historical roots to its present-day linguistic structure and patterns of use from Alaska to Greenland. Drawing on a wide range of research from the fields of linguistics, anthropology, and sociology, Dorais integrates these diverse perspectives in a comprehensive view of native language development, maintenance, and use under conditions of marginalization due to social transition.

Abstract

Although infants show remarkable sensitivity to linguistically relevant phonetic variation in speech, young children sometimes appear not to make use of this sensitivity. Here, children's knowledge of the sound-forms of familiar words was assessed using a visual fixation task. Dutch 19-month-olds were shown pairs of pictures and heard correct pronunciations and mispronunciations of familiar words naming one of the pictures. Mispronunciations were word-initial in Experiment 1 and word-medial in Experiment 2, and in both experiments involved substituting one segment with [d] (a common sound in Dutch) or [g] (a rare sound). In both experiments, word recognition performance was better for correct pronunciations than for mispronunciations involving either substituted consonant. These effects did not depend upon children's knowledge of lexical or nonlexical phonological neighbors of the tested words. The results indicate the encoding of phonetic detail in words at 19 months.

Abstract

In two experiments, 1.5-year-olds were taught novel words whose sound patterns were phonologically similar to familiar words (novel neighbors) or were not (novel nonneighbors). Learning was tested using a picture-fixation task. In both experiments, children learned the novel nonneighbors but not the novel neighbors. In addition, exposure to the novel neighbors impaired recognition performance on familiar neighbors. Finally, children did not spontaneously use phonological differences to infer that a novel word referred to a novel object. Thus, lexical competition—inhibitory interaction among words in speech comprehension—can prevent children from using their full phonological sensitivity in judging words as novel. These results suggest that word learning in young children, as in adults, relies not only on the discrimination and identification of phonetic categories, but also on evaluating the likelihood that an utterance conveys a new word.

Abstract

In this study, 1.5-year-olds were taught a novel word. Some children were familiarized with the word's phonological form before learning the word's meaning. Fidelity of phonological encoding was tested in a picture-fixation task using correctly pronounced and mispronounced stimuli. Only children with additional exposure in familiarization showed reduced recognition performance given slight mispronunciations relative to correct pronunciations; children with fewer exposures did not. Mathematical modeling of vocabulary exposure indicated that children may hear thousands of words frequently enough for accurate encoding. The results provide evidence compatible with partial failure of phonological encoding at 19 months of age, demonstrate that this limitation in learning does not always hinder word recognition, and show the value of infants' word-form encoding in early lexical development.

Abstract

Two experiments examined the nature of access, storage, and comprehension of idiomatic phrases. In both studies a Phrase Classification Task was utilized. In this, reaction times to determine whether or not word strings constituted acceptable English phrases were measured. Classification times were significantly faster to idiom than to matched control phrases. This effect held under conditions involving different categories of idioms, different transitional probabilities among words in the phrases, and different levels of awareness of the presence of idioms in the materials. The data support a Lexical Representation Hypothesis for the processing of idioms.

Abstract

Spaced learning with time to consolidate leads to more stabile memory traces. However, little is known about the neural correlates of trace stabilization, especially in humans. The present fMRI study contrasted retrieval activity of two well-learned sets of face-location associations, one learned in a massed style and tested on the day of learning (i.e., labile condition) and another learned in a spaced scheme over the course of one week (i.e., stabilized condition). Both sets of associations were retrieved equally well, but the retrieval of stabilized association was faster and accompanied by large-scale changes in the network supporting retrieval. Cued recall of stabilized as compared with labile associations was accompanied by increased activity in the precuneus, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the bilateral temporal pole, and left temporo–parietal junction. Conversely, memory representational areas such as the fusiform gyrus for faces and the posterior parietal cortex for locations did not change their activity with stabilization. The changes in activation in the precuneus, which also showed increased connectivity with the fusiform area, are likely to be related to the spatial nature of our task. The activation increase in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, might reflect a general function in stabilized memory retrieval. This area might succeed the hippocampus in linking distributed neocortical representations.

Abstract

The medial temporal lobe (MTL) is crucial for declarative memory formation, but the function of its subcomponents in associative memory formation remains controversial. Most functional imaging studies on this topic are based on a stepwise approach comparing a condition with and one without associative encoding. Extending this approach we applied additionally a parametric analysis by varying the amount of associative memory formation. We found a hippocampal subsequent memory effect of almost similar magnitude regardless of the amount of associations formed. By contrast, subsequent memory effects in rhinal and parahippocampal cortices were parametrically and positively modulated by the amount of associations formed. Our results indicate that the parahippocampal region supports associative memory formation as tested here and the hippocampus adds a general mnemonic operation. This pattern of results might suggest a new interpretation. Instead of having either a fixed division of labor between the hippocampus (associative memory formation) and the rhinal cortex (non-associative memory formation) or a functionally unitary MTL system, in which all substructures are contributing to memory formation in a similar way, we propose that the location where associations are formed within the MTL depends on the kind of associations bound: If visual single-dimension associations, as used here, can already be integrated within the parahippocampal region, the hippocampus might add a general purpose mnemonic operation only. In contrast, if associations have to be formed across widely distributed neocortical representations, the hippocampus may provide a binding operation in order to establish a coherent memory.

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of an orthography for the Touo language (Solomon Islands). Various orthographies have been proposed for this language in the past, and the paper discusses why they are perceived by the community to have failed. Current opinion about orthography development within the Touo-speaking community is divided along religious, political, and geographical grounds; and the development of a successful orthography must take into account a variety of opinions. The paper examines the social, historical, and linguistic obstacles that have hitherto prevented the development of an accepted Touo orthography, and presents a new proposal which has thus far gained acceptance with community leaders. The fundamental issue is that creating an orthography for a language takes place in a social, political, and historical context; and for an orthography to be acceptable for the speakers of a language, all these factors must be taken into account.

Abstract

This work presents a salvage grammar of the Biri language of Eastern Central Queensland, a Pama-Nyungan language belonging to the large Maric subgroup. As the language is no longer used, the grammatical description is based on old written sources and on recordings made by linguists in the 1960s and 1970s. Biri is in many ways typical of the Pama-Nyungan languages of Southern Queensland. It has split case marking systems, marking nouns according to an ergative/absolutive system and pronouns according to a nominative/accusative system. Unusually for its area, Biri also has bound pronouns on its verb, cross-referencing the person, number and case of core participants. As far as it is possible, the grammatical discussion is ‘theory neutral’. The first four chapters deal with the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the language. The last two chapters contain a substantial discussion of Biri’s place in the Pama-Nyungan family. In chapter 6 the numerous dialects of the Biri language are discussed. In chapter 7 the close linguistic relationship between Biri and the surrounding languages is examined.

Abstract

The first part of this paper describes an unusual system of anaphoric reference tracking in Lavukaleve, a Papuan language of the Solomon Islands. Lavukaleve has two demonstrative pronouns which can be used to make anaphoric reference in narratives. One of these demonstrative pronouns is used to make anaphoric reference to a semi-activated participant, and the other to an activated participant. The second part of the paper situates Lavukaleve's activation-based system of reference tracking in a general typology of reference tracking. Other languages which have reference tracking systems based on the cognitive status of the referent are discussed, and the close connection between these and obviation systems is pointed out.

Abstract

The extent to which linguistic borrowing can be used to shed light on the existence and nature of early contact between Papuan and Oceanic speakers is examined. The question is addressed by taking one Papuan language, Lavukaleve, spoken in the Russell Islands, central Solomon Islands and examining lexical borrowings between it and nearby Oceanic languages, and with reconstructed forms of Proto Oceanic. Evidence from ethnography, culture history and archaeology, when added to the linguistic evidence provided in this study, indicates long-standing cultural links between other (non-Russell) islands. The composite picture is one of a high degree of cultural contact with little linguistic mixing, i.e., little or no changes affecting the structure of the languages and actually very little borrowed vocabulary.

Abstract

This study investigates the role of performance limitations in children's early acquisition of verb-argument structure. Valian (1991) claims that intransitive frames are easier for children to produce early in development than transitive frames because they do not require a direct object argument. Children who understand this distinction are expected to produce a lower proportion of transitive verb utterances early in development in comparison with later stages of development and to omit direct objects much more frequently with mixed verbs (where direct objects are optional) than with transitive verbs. To test these claims, data from nine children aged between 1;10.7 and 2;0.25 matched with Valian's subjects on MLU were examined. When analysed in terms of abstract syntactic structures Valian's findings are supported. However, a detailed lexical analysis of the data suggests that the children were not selecting argument structure on the basis of syntactic complexity. Instead, a clear predictor of the frames used by the children with specific verbs was the frames used by the children's mothers with those same verbs, regardless of whether they were transitive or intransitive. This suggests that the most important determinant of the children's use of verb frame was the specific patterns of verb use in the input rather than abstract grammatical knowledge constrained by performance limitations. The implications of these findings for performance-based explanations for children's early errors and early patterns of language use are discussed.

Abstract

The current article proposes a new theory of infant pointing involving multiple layers of intentionality and shared intentionality. In the context of this theory, evidence is presented for a rich interpretation of prelinguistic communication, that is, one that posits that when 12-month-old infants point for an adult they are in some sense trying to influence her mental states. Moreover, evidence is also presented for a deeply social view in which infant pointing is best understood—on many levels and in many ways—as depending on uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation and shared intentionality (e.g., joint intentions and attention with others). Children's early linguistic skills are built on this already existing platform of prelinguistic communication.

Abstract

Repeated exposure to objects improves our ability to identify and name them, even after a long delay. Previous brain imaging studies have demonstrated that this experience-related facilitation of object naming is associated with neural changes in distinct brain regions. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the modulation of neural activity in the object naming system as a function of experience and time. Pictures of common objects were presented repeatedly for naming at different time intervals (1 h, 6 h and 3 days) before scanning, or at 30 s intervals during scanning. The results revealed that as objects became more familiar with experience, activity in occipitotemporal and left inferior frontal regions decreased while activity in the left insula and basal ganglia increased. In posterior regions, reductions in activity as a result of multiple repetitions did not interact with time, whereas in left inferior frontal cortex larger decreases were observed when repetitions were spaced out over time. This differential modulation of activity in distinct brain regions provides support for the idea that long-lasting object priming is mediated by two neural mechanisms. The first mechanism may involve changes in object-specific representations in occipitotemporal cortices, the second may be a form of procedural learning involving a reorganization in brain circuitry that leads to more efficient name retrieval.

Abstract

In two ERP experiments, we assessed the impact of discourse-level information on the processing of an unfolding spoken sentence. Subjects listened to sentences like Jane told her brother that he was exceptionally quick/slow, designed such that the alternative critical words were equally acceptable within the local sentence context. In Experiment 1, these sentences were embedded in a discourse that rendered one of the critical words anomalous (e.g. because Jane’s brother had in fact done something very quickly). Relative to the coherent alternative, these discourse-anomalous words elicited a standard N400 effect that started at 150–200 ms after acoustic word onset. Furthermore, when the same sentences were heard in isolation in Experiment 2, the N400 effect disappeared. The results demonstrate that our listeners related the unfolding spoken words to the wider discourse extremely rapidly, after having heard the first two or three phonemes only, and in many cases well before the end of the word. In addition, the identical nature of discourse- and sentence-dependent N400 effects suggests that from the perspective of the word-elicited comprehension process indexed by the N400, the interpretive context delineated by a single unfolding sentence and a larger discourse is functionally identical.

Abstract

In normal conversation, speakers translate thoughts into words at high speed. To enable this speed, the retrieval of distinct types of linguistic knowledge has to be orchestrated with millisecond precision. The nature of this orchestration is still largely unknown. This report presents dynamic measures of the real-time activation of two basic types of linguistic knowledge, syntax and phonology. Electrophysiological data demonstrate that during noun-phrase production speakers retrieve the syntactic gender of a noun before its abstract phonological properties. This two-step process operates at high speed: the data show that phonological information is already available 40 milliseconds after syntactic properties have been retrieved.

Abstract

An event-related brain potential experiment was carried out to investigate the time course of contextual influences on spoken-word recognition. Subjects were presented with spoken sentences that ended with a word that was either (a) congruent, (b) semantically anomalous, but beginning with the same initial phonemes as the congruent completion, or (c) semantically anomalous beginning with phonemes that differed from the congruent completion. In addition to finding an N400 effect in the two semantically anomalous conditions, we obtained an early negative effect in the semantically anomalous condition where word onset differed from that of the congruent completions. It was concluded that the N200 effect is related to the lexical selection process, where word-form information resulting from an initial phonological analysis and content information derived from the context interact.

Abstract

An introductory study of the perception of stochastically specified events is reported. The initial problem was to determine whether the perceiver can split visual input data of this kind into random and determined components. The inability of subjects to do so with the stimulus material used (a filmlike sequence of dot patterns), led to the more general question of how subjects code this kind of visual material. To meet the difficulty of defining the subjects' responses, two experiments were designed. In both, patterns were presented as a rapid sequence of dots on a screen. The patterns were more or less disturbed by “noise,” i.e. the dots did not appear exactly at their proper places. In the first experiment the response was a rating on a semantic scale, in the second an identification from among a set of alternative patterns. The results of these experiments give some insight in the coding systems adopted by the subjects. First, noise appears to be detrimental to pattern recognition, especially to patterns with little spread. Second, this shows connections with the factors obtained from analysis of the semantic ratings, e.g. easily disturbed patterns show a large drop in the semantic regularity factor, when only a little noise is added.

Abstract

In two experiments, we explored the use of event-related brain potentials to selectively track the processes that establish reference during spoken language comprehension. Subjects listened to stories in which a particular noun phrase like "the girl" either uniquely referred to a single referent mentioned in the earlier discourse, or ambiguously referred to two equally suitable referents. Referentially ambiguous nouns ("the girl" with two girls introduced in the discourse context) elicited a frontally dominant and sustained negative shift in brain potentials, emerging within 300–400 ms after acoustic noun onset. The early onset of this effect reveals that reference to a discourse entity can be established very rapidly. Its morphology and distribution suggest that at least some of the processing consequences of referential ambiguity may involve an increased demand on memory resources. Furthermore, because this referentially induced ERP effect is very different from that of well-known ERP effects associated with the semantic (N400) and syntactic (e.g., P600/SPS) aspects of language comprehension, it suggests that ERPs can be used to selectively keep track of three major processes involved in the comprehension of an unfolding piece of discourse.

Abstract

The electrophysiology of language comprehension has long been dominated by research on syntactic and semantic integration. However, to understand expressions like "he did it" or "the little girl", combining word meanings in accordance with semantic and syntactic constraints is not enough--readers and listeners also need to work out what or who is being referred to. We review our event-related brain potential research on the processes involved in establishing reference, and present a new experiment in which we examine when and how the implicit causality associated with specific interpersonal verbs affects the interpretation of a referentially ambiguous pronoun. The evidence suggests that upon encountering a singular noun or pronoun, readers and listeners immediately inspect their situation model for a suitable discourse entity, such that they can discriminate between having too many, too few, or exactly the right number of referents within at most half a second. Furthermore, our implicit causality findings indicate that a fragment like "David praised Linda because..." can immediately foreground a particular referent, to the extent that a subsequent "he" is at least initially construed as a syntactic error. In all, our brain potential findings suggest that referential processing is highly incremental, and not necessarily contingent upon the syntax. In addition, they demonstrate that we can use ERPs to relatively selectively keep track of how readers and listeners establish reference.

Abstract

An eye-movement reading experiment investigated whether the ease with which pronouns are processed is affected by the lexical frequency of their antecedent. Reading times following pronouns with infrequent antecedents were faster than following pronouns with frequent antecedents. We argue that this is consistent with a saliency account, according to which infrequent antecedents are more salient than frequent antecedents. The results are not predicted by accounts which claim that readers access all or part of the lexical properties of the antecedent during the processing of pronouns.

Abstract

Earlier research has established that speakers usually fixate the objects they name and that the viewing time for an object depends on the time necessary for object recognition and for the retrieval of its name. In three experiments, speakers produced pronouns and noun phrases to refer to new objects and to objects already known. Speakers looked less frequently and for shorter periods at the objects to be named when they had very recently seen or heard of these objects than when the objects were new. Looking rates were higher and viewing times longer in preparation of noun phrases than in preparation of pronouns. If it is assumed that there is a close relationship between eye gaze and visual attention, these results reveal (1) that speakers allocate less visual attention to given objects than to new ones and (2) that they allocate visual attention both less often and for shorter periods to objects they will refer to by a pronoun than to objects they will name in a full noun phrase. The experiments suggest that linguistic processing benefits, directly or indirectly, from allocation of visual attention to the referent object.

Abstract

Progesterone, or rather its neuroactive metabolite allopregnanolone, modulates amygdala activity and thereby influences anxiety. Cognition and, in particular, memory are also altered by allopregnanolone. In the present study, we investigated whether allopregnanolone modulates memory for biologically salient stimuli by influencing amygdala activity, which in turn may affect neural processes in other brain regions. A single progesterone dose was administered orally to healthy young women in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design, and participants were asked to memorize and recognize faces while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Progesterone decreased recognition accuracy without affecting reaction times. The imaging results show that the amygdala, hippocampus, and fusiform gyrus supported memory formation. Importantly, progesterone decreased responses to faces in the amygdala and fusiform gyrus duringmemoryencoding, whereas it increased hippocampal responses. The progesterone-induced decrease in neural activity in the amygdala and fusiform gyrus predicted the decrease in memory performance across subjects. However, progesterone did not modulate the differential activation between subsequently remembered and subsequently forgotten faces in these areas. A similar pattern of results was observed in the fusiform gyrus and prefrontal cortex during memory retrieval. These results suggest that allopregnanolone impairs memory by reducing the recruitment of those brain regions that support memory formation and retrieval. Given the important role of the amygdala in the modulation of memory, these results suggest that allopregnanolone alters memory by influencing amygdala activity, which in turn may affect memory processes in other brain regions

Abstract

As a preliminary to further research on musical consonance an explanatory investigation was made on the different modes of judgment of musical intervals. This was done by way of a semantic differential. Subjects rated 23 intervals against 10 scales. In a factor analysis three factors appeared: pitch, evaluation and fusion. The relation between these factors and some physical characteristics has been investigated. The scale consonant-dissonant showed to be purely evaluative (in opposition to Stumpf's theory). This evaluative connotation is not in accordance with the musicological meaning of consonance. Suggestions to account for this difference have been given.

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of the different status that typology has in American linguistics as opposed to European linguistics. The historical roots of the difference lie in both structural and generative linguistics, in the contrasts between post-Bloomfieldian structuralism in the US vs. Praguean structuralism in Europe, and in the extent of the influence of generative grammar on the two continents.

Abstract

Sentential context effects on the identification of the Dutch function words te (to) and de (the) were examined. In Experiment 1, listeners labeled words on a [tә]-[dә] continuum more often as te when the context was te biased (Ik probeer [?ә] schieten [I try to/the shoot]) than when it was de biased (Ik probeer [?ә] schoenen [I try to/the shoes]). The effect was weaker in slower responses. In Experiment 2, disambiguation began later, in the second word after [?ә]. There was a weak context effect only in the slower responses. In Experiments 3 and 4, disambiguation occurred on the word before [?ә]: There was no context effect when one set of sentences was used, but there was an effect (larger in the faster responses) when more sentences were used. Syntactic processing affects word identification only within a limited time frame. It appears to do so not by influencing lexical access processes through feedback but, instead, by biasing decision making.

Abstract

Over the past ten years Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have evolved from a highly specialised niche technology to one that is used daily by a wide range of people. This article describes geographic browsing of language archives, which provides intuitive exploration of resources and permits integration and correlation of information from different archives, even across different research disciplines. In order to facilitate both exploration and management of resources, digital language archives are organised according to criteria such as language name, research topic, project information, researchers, countries, or genres. A set of such criteria can form a tree-like classification scheme, such as in the MPI-IMDI archive, which in turn forms the main method of searching and querying the archive resources. Searching for information can be difficult for occasional users because effective use of these search-fields typically requires specialised knowledge. We assume that many non-specialist users of language resources will search by language name, language family, or geographic area, so that geographic navigation would offer a very powerful search method. We also assume that such users are familiar with maps, and that geographic browsing is more intuitive than browsing classification trees, so these users would prefer to start with a large scale map and then zoom in to find the data that interests them. Therefore, classification trees and geographic maps provide complementary methods for accessing language resources to meet the needs of different user groups. We selected Google Earth (GE) as a geographic browsing system and overlaid it with linguistic information. GE was chosen because it is available via the web, it has good navigation controls, it is familiar to many web users, and because the overlaid linguistic information can be formulated in XML, making it comparatively easy to interchange with other geographic systems.

Abstract

Two experiments were carried out to explore the units of analysis is used by children to read Dutch bisyllabic pseudowords. Although Dutch orthography is highly regular, several deviations from a one-to-one correspondence occur. In polysyllabic words, the grapheme e may represent three different vowels:/∊/, /e/, or /λ/. In Experiment 1, Grade 6 elementary school children were presented lists of bisyllabic pseudowords containing the grapheme e in the initial syllable representing a content morpheme, a prefix, or a random string. On the basis of general word frequency data, we expected the interpretation of the initial syllable as a random string to elicit the pronunciation of a stressed /e/, the interpretation of the initial syllable as a content morpheme to elicit the pronunciation of a stressed /∊/, the interpretation of the initial syllable as a content morpheme to elicit the pronunciation of a stressed /∊/, and the interpretation as a prefix to elicit the pronunciation of an unstressed /&lamda;/. We found both the pronunciation and the stress assignment for pseudowords to depend on word type, which shows morpheme boundaries and prefixes to be identified. However, the identification of prefixes could also be explained by the correspondence of the prefix boundaries in the pseudowords to syllable boundaries. To exclude this alternative explanation, a follow-up experiment with the same group of children was conducted using bisyllabic pseudowords containing prefixes that did not coincide with syllable boundaries versus similar pseudowords with no prefix. The results of the first experiment were replicated. That is, the children identified prefixes and shifted their assignment of word stress accordingly. The results are discussed with reference to a parallel dual-route model of word decoding

Abstract

We previously discovered that mutations of the human FOXP2 gene cause a monogenic communication disorder, primarily characterized by difficulties in learning to make coordinated sequences of articulatory gestures that underlie speech. Affected people have deficits in expressive and receptive linguistic processing and display structural and/or functional abnormalities in cortical and subcortical brain regions. FOXP2 provides a unique window into neural processes involved in speech and language. In particular, its role as a transcription factor gene offers powerful functional genomic routes for dissecting critical neurogenetic mechanisms. Here, we employ chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with promoter microarrays (ChIP-chip) to successfully identify genomic sites that are directly bound by FOXP2 protein in native chromatin of human neuron-like cells. We focus on a subset of downstream targets identified by this approach, showing that altered FOXP2 levels yield significant changes in expression in our cell-based models and that FOXP2 binds in a specific manner to consensus sites within the relevant promoters. Moreover, we demonstrate significant quantitative differences in target expression in embryonic brains of mutant mice, mediated by specific in vivo Foxp2-chromatin interactions. This work represents the first identification and in vivo verification of neural targets regulated by FOXP2. Our data indicate that FOXP2 has dual functionality, acting to either repress or activate gene expression at occupied promoters. The identified targets suggest roles in modulating synaptic plasticity, neurodevelopment, neurotransmission, and axon guidance and represent novel entry points into in vivo pathways that may be disturbed in speech and language disorders.

Abstract

Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar in de Psycholinguïstiek aan de Faculteit der Letteren van de Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen op vrijdag 18 mei 2001

Abstract

A common way for researchers to model or graphically portray spatial knowledge of a large environment is by applying multidimensional scaling (MDS) to a set of pairwise distance estimations. We introduce two MDS-like techniques that incorporate people’s knowledge of directions instead of (or in addition to) their knowledge of distances. Maps of a familiar environment derived from these procedures were more accurate and were rated by participants as being more accurate than those derived from nonmetric MDS. By incorporating people’s relatively accurate knowledge of directions, these methods offer spatial cognition researchers and behavioral geographers a sharper analytical tool than MDS for studying cognitive maps.

Abstract

In processing connected speech, listeners must parse a highly variable signal. We investigate processing of a particular type of production variability, namely epenthetic stops between nasals and obstruents. Using a phoneme monitoring task and a dictation task, we test listeners' perception of epenthetic stops (which are not part of the string of segments intended by the speaker). We confirm that the epenthetic stop perceived is the one predicted by articulatory accounts of how such stops are produced, and that the likelihood of an epenthetic stop being perceived as a real stop is related to the strength of acoustic cues in the signal. We show that the probability of listeners mis-parsing epenthetic stops as real is influenced by language-specific syllable structure constraints, and depends on processing demands. We further show, through reaction time data, that even when epenthetic stops are perceived, they impose a greater processing load than stops which were intended by the speaker. These results show that processing of phonetic variability is affected by several factors, including language-specific phonology, even though the mis-timing of articulations that creates epenthetic stops is universally possible.

Abstract

In this paper, we use articulatory measures to determine whether Dutch schwa epenthesis is an abstract phonological process or a concrete phonetic process depending on articulatory timing. We examine tongue position during /l/ before underlying schwa and epenthetic schwa and in coda position. We find greater tip raising before both types of schwa, indicating light /l/ before schwa and dark /l/ in coda position. We argue that the ability of epenthetic schwa to condition the /l/ alternation shows that Dutch schwa epenthesis is an abstract phonological process involving insertion of some unit, and cannot be accounted for within Articulatory Phonology.

Abstract

This study investigates whether the mora is used in controlling timing in Japanese speech, or is instead a structural unit in the language not involved in timing. Unlike most previous studies of mora-timing in Japanese, this article investigates timing in spontaneous speech. Predictability of word duration from number of moras is found to be much weaker than in careful speech. Furthermore, the number of moras predicts word duration only slightly better than number of segments. Syllable structure also has a significant effect on word duration. Finally, comparison of the predictability of whole words and arbitrarily truncated words shows better predictability for truncated words, which would not be possible if the truncated portion were compensating for remaining moras. The results support an accumulative model of variance with a final lengthening effect, and do not indicate the presence of any compensation related to mora-timing. It is suggested that the rhythm of Japanese derives from several factors about the structure of the language, not from durational compensation.

Abstract

An event-related brain potential experiment was carried out to investigate on-line thematic role assignment during sentence–picture matching in patients with Broca's aphasia. Subjects were presented with a picture that was followed by an auditory sentence. The sentence either matched the picture or mismatched the visual information depicted. Sentences differed in complexity, and ranged from simple active semantically irreversible sentences to passive semantically reversible sentences. ERPs were recorded while subjects were engaged in sentence–picture matching. In addition, reaction time and accuracy were measured. Three groups of subjects were tested: Broca patients (N = 10), non-aphasic patients with a right hemisphere (RH) lesion (N = 8), and healthy aged-matched controls (N = 15). The results of this study showed that, in neurologically unimpaired individuals, thematic role assignment in the context of visual information was an immediate process. This in contrast to patients with Broca's aphasia who demonstrated no signs of on-line sensitivity to the picture–sentence mismatches. The syntactic contribution to the thematic role assignment process seemed to be diminished given the reduction and even absence of P600 effects. Nevertheless, Broca patients showed some off-line behavioral sensitivity to the sentence–picture mismatches. The long response latencies of Broca's aphasics make it likely that off-line response strategies were used.

Abstract

Four phoneme-detection studies tested the conclusion from recent research that spoken-language processing is inhibited by violation of obligatory assimilation processes in the listeners’ native language. In Experiment 1, native listeners of German detected a target fricative in monosyllabic Dutch nonwords, half of which violated progressive German fricative place assimilation. In contrast to the earlier findings, listeners detected the fricative more quickly when assimilation was violated than when no violation occurred. This difference was not due to purely acoustic factors, since in Experiment 2 native Dutch listeners, presented with the same materials, showed no such effect. In Experiment 3, German listeners again detected the fricative more quickly when violation occurred in both monosyllabic and bisyllabic native nonwords, further ruling out explanations based on non-native input or on syllable structure. Finally Experiment 4 tested whether the direction in which the rule operates (progressive or regressive) controls the direction of the effect on phoneme detection responses.When regressive German place assimilation for nasals was violated, German listeners detected stops more slowly, exactly as had been observed in previous studies of regressive assimilation. It is argued that a combination of low expectations in progressive assimilation and novel popout causes facilitation of processing,whereas not fulfilling high expectations in regressive assimilation causes inhibition.

Abstract

The extreme case of perceptual similarity is indiscriminability, as when two second‐language phonemes map to a single native category. An example is the English had‐head vowel contrast for Dutch listeners; Dutch has just one such central vowel, transcribed [E]. We examine whether the failure to discriminate in phonetic categorization implies indiscriminability in other—e.g., lexical—processing. Eyetracking experiments show that Dutch‐native listeners instructed in English to ‘‘click on the panda’’ look (significantly more than native listeners) at a pictured pencil, suggesting that pan‐ activates their lexical representation of pencil. The reverse, however, is not the case: ‘‘click on the pencil’’ does not induce looks to a panda, suggesting that pen‐ does not activate panda in the lexicon. Thus prelexically undiscriminated second‐language distinctions can nevertheless be maintained in stored lexical representations. The problem of mapping a resulting unitary input to two distinct categories in lexical representations is solved by allowing input to activate only one second‐language category. For Dutch listeners to English, this is English [E], as a result of which no vowels in the signal ever map to words containing [ae]. We suggest that the choice of category is here motivated by a more abstract, phonemic, metric of similarity.

Abstract

Three experiments were designed to examine the effect on picture naming of the prior production of a word related in phonological form. In Experiment 1, the latency to produce Dutch words in response to pictures (e.g., hoed , hat) was longer following the production of a form-related word (e.g., hond , dog) in response to a definition on a preceding trial, than when the preceding definition elicited an unrelated word (e.g., kerk , church). Experiment 2 demonstrated that the inhibitory effect disappears when one unrelated word is produced intervening prime and target productions (e.g., hond-kerk-hoed ). The size of the inhibitory effect was not significantly affected by the frequency of the prime words or the target picture names. In Experiment 3, facilitation was observed for word pairs that shared offset segments (e.g., kurk-jurk , cork-dress), whereas inhibition was observed for shared onset segments (e.g., bloed-bloem , blood-flower). However, no priming was observed for prime and target words with shared phonemes but no mismatching segments (e.g., oom-boom , uncle-tree; hex-hexs , fence-witch). These findings are consistent with a process of phoneme competition during phonological encoding.

Abstract

Although generally studied in isolation, language and action often co-occur in everyday life. Here we investigated one particular form of simultaneous language and action, namely speech and gestures that speakers use in everyday communication. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we identified the neural networks involved in the integration of semantic information from speech and gestures. Verbal and/or gestural content could be integrated easily or less easily with the content of the preceding part of speech. Premotor areas involved in action observation (Brodmann area [BA] 6) were found to be specifically modulated by action information "mismatching" to a language context. Importantly, an increase in integration load of both verbal and gestural information into prior speech context activated Broca's area and adjacent cortex (BA 45/47). A classical language area, Broca's area, is not only recruited for language-internal processing but also when action observation is integrated with speech. These findings provide direct evidence that action and language processing share a high-level neural integration system.

Abstract

Co-speech gestures embody a form of manual action that is tightly coupled to the language system. As such, the co-occurrence of speech and co-speech gestures is an excellent example of the interplay between language and action. There are, however, other ways in which language and action can be thought of as closely related. In this paper we will give an overview of studies in cognitive neuroscience that examine the neural underpinnings of links between language and action. Topics include neurocognitive studies of motor representations of speech sounds, action-related language, sign language and co-speech gestures. It will be concluded that there is strong evidence on the interaction between speech and gestures in the brain. This interaction however shares general properties with other domains in which there is interplay between language and action.

Abstract

Brain processing depends on the interactions between neuronal groups. Those interactions are governed by the pattern of anatomical connections and by yet unknown mechanisms that modulate the effective strength of a given connection. We found that the mutual influence among neuronal groups depends on the phase relation between rhythmic activities within the groups. Phase relations supporting interactions between the groups preceded those interactions by a few milliseconds, consistent with a mechanistic role. These effects were specific in time, frequency, and space, and we therefore propose that the pattern of synchronization flexibly determines the pattern of neuronal interactions.

Abstract

The three Olutec stories from Oluta, Veracruz, werenarrated by Antonio Asistente Maldonado. Roberto Zavala presents amorpheme-by-morpheme analysis of the texts with a sketch of the majorgrammatical and typological features of this language. Olutec is spoken bythree dozen speakers. The grammatical structure of this language has not beendescribed before. The sketch contains information on verb and noun morphology,verb dasses, clause types, inverse/direct patterns, grammaticalizationprocesses, applicatives, incorporation, word order type, and discontinuousexpressions. The stories presented here are the first Olutec texts everpublished. The motifs of the stories are well known throughout Middle America.The story of "the Rabbit who wants to be big" explains why one of the mainprotagonists of Middle American folktales acquired long ears. The story of "theDevil who is inebriated by the people of a village" explains how theinhabitants of a village discover the true identity of a man who likes to dancehuapango and decide to get rid of him. Finally the story of "theshit-sellers" presents two compadres, one who is lazy and the otherone who works hard. The hard-worker asks the lazy compadre how he surviveswithout working. The latter lies to to him that he sells shit in theneighboring village. The hard-working compadre decides to become a shit-sellerand in the process realizes that the lazy compadre deceived him. However, he islucky and meets with the Devil who offers him money in compensation for havingbeen deceived. When the lazy compadre realizes that the hard-working compadrehas become rich, he tries to do the same business but gets beaten in theprocess.

Abstract

This article provides a first overview of some striking grammatical structures in Türk Idotscedilaret Dili (Turkish Sign Language, TID), the sign language used by the Deaf community in Turkey. The data are described with a typological perspective in mind, focusing on aspects of TID grammar that are typologically unusual across sign languages. After giving an overview of the historical, sociolinguistic and educational background of TID and the language community using this sign language, five domains of TID grammar are investigated in detail. These include a movement derivation signalling completive aspect, three types of nonmanual negation — headshake, backward head tilt, and puffed cheeks — and their distribution, cliticization of the negator NOT to a preceding predicate host sign, an honorific whole-entity classifier used to refer to humans, and a question particle, its history and current status in the language. A final evaluation points out the significance of these data for sign language research and looks at perspectives for a deeper understanding of the language and its history.

Abstract

Genome-wide association studies using thousands to hundreds of thousands of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers and region-wide association studies using a dense panel of SNPs are already in use to identify disease susceptibility genes and to predict disease risk in individuals. Because these tasks become increasingly important, three different data sets were provided for the Genetic Analysis Workshop 15, thus allowing examination of various novel and existing data mining methods for both classification and identification of disease susceptibility genes, gene by gene or gene by environment interaction. The approach most often applied in this presentation group was random forests because of its simplicity, elegance, and robustness. It was used for prediction and for screening for interesting SNPs in a first step. The logistic tree with unbiased selection approach appeared to be an interesting alternative to efficiently select interesting SNPs. Machine learning, specifically ensemble methods, might be useful as pre-screening tools for large-scale association studies because they can be less prone to overfitting, can be less computer processor time intensive, can easily include pair-wise and higher-order interactions compared with standard statistical approaches and can also have a high capability for classification. However, improved implementations that are able to deal with hundreds of thousands of SNPs at a time are required.