Publications

Displaying 501 - 589 of 589
  • Sollis, E., Den Hoed, J., Quevedo, M., Estruch, S. B., Vino, A., Dekkers, D. H. W., Demmers, J. A. A., Poot, R., Derizioti, P., & Fisher, S. E. (2023). Characterization of the TBR1 interactome: Variants associated with neurodevelopmental disorders disrupt novel protein interactions. Human Molecular Genetics, 32(9): ddac311, pp. 1497-1510. doi:10.1093/hmg/ddac311.

    Abstract

    TBR1 is a neuron-specific transcription factor involved in brain development and implicated in a neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) combining features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), intellectual disability (ID) and speech delay. TBR1 has been previously shown to interact with a small number of transcription factors and co-factors also involved in NDDs (including CASK, FOXP1/2/4 and BCL11A), suggesting that the wider TBR1 interactome may have a significant bearing on normal and abnormal brain development. Here we have identified approximately 250 putative TBR1-interaction partners by affinity purification coupled to mass spectrometry. As well as known TBR1-interactors such as CASK, the identified partners include transcription factors and chromatin modifiers, along with ASD- and ID-related proteins. Five interaction candidates were independently validated using bioluminescence resonance energy transfer assays. We went on to test the interaction of these candidates with TBR1 protein variants implicated in cases of NDD. The assays uncovered disturbed interactions for NDD-associated variants and identified two distinct protein-binding domains of TBR1 that have essential roles in protein–protein interaction.
  • Sønderby, I. E., Ching, C. R. K., Thomopoulos, S. I., Van der Meer, D., Sun, D., Villalon‐Reina, J. E., Agartz, I., Amunts, K., Arango, C., Armstrong, N. J., Ayesa‐Arriola, R., Bakker, G., Bassett, A. S., Boomsma, D. I., Bülow, R., Butcher, N. J., Calhoun, V. D., Caspers, S., Chow, E. W. C., Cichon, S. and 84 moreSønderby, I. E., Ching, C. R. K., Thomopoulos, S. I., Van der Meer, D., Sun, D., Villalon‐Reina, J. E., Agartz, I., Amunts, K., Arango, C., Armstrong, N. J., Ayesa‐Arriola, R., Bakker, G., Bassett, A. S., Boomsma, D. I., Bülow, R., Butcher, N. J., Calhoun, V. D., Caspers, S., Chow, E. W. C., Cichon, S., Ciufolini, S., Craig, M. C., Crespo‐Facorro, B., Cunningham, A. C., Dale, A. M., Dazzan, P., De Zubicaray, G. I., Djurovic, S., Doherty, J. L., Donohoe, G., Draganski, B., Durdle, C. A., Ehrlich, S., Emanuel, B. S., Espeseth, T., Fisher, S. E., Ge, T., Glahn, D. C., Grabe, H. J., Gur, R. E., Gutman, B. A., Haavik, J., Håberg, A. K., Hansen, L. A., Hashimoto, R., Hibar, D. P., Holmes, A. J., Hottenga, J., Hulshoff Pol, H. E., Jalbrzikowski, M., Knowles, E. E. M., Kushan, L., Linden, D. E. J., Liu, J., Lundervold, A. J., Martin‐Brevet, S., Martínez, K., Mather, K. A., Mathias, S. R., McDonald‐McGinn, D. M., McRae, A. F., Medland, S. E., Moberget, T., Modenato, C., Monereo Sánchez, J., Moreau, C. A., Mühleisen, T. W., Paus, T., Pausova, Z., Prieto, C., Ragothaman, A., Reinbold, C. S., Reis Marques, T., Repetto, G. M., Reymond, A., Roalf, D. R., Rodriguez‐Herreros, B., Rucker, J. J., Sachdev, P. S., Schmitt, J. E., Schofield, P. R., Silva, A. I., Stefansson, H., Stein, D. J., Tamnes, C. K., Tordesillas‐Gutiérrez, D., Ulfarsson, M. O., Vajdi, A., Van 't Ent, D., Van den Bree, M. B. M., Vassos, E., Vázquez‐Bourgon, J., Vila‐Rodriguez, F., Walters, G. B., Wen, W., Westlye, L. T., Wittfeld, K., Zackai, E. H., Stefánsson, K., Jacquemont, S., Thompson, P. M., Bearden, C. E., Andreassen, O. A., the ENIGMA-CNV Working Group, & the ENIGMA 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome Working Group (2022). Effects of copy number variations on brain structure and risk for psychiatric illness: Large‐scale studies from the ENIGMAworking groups on CNVs. Human Brain Mapping, 43(1), 300-328. doi:10.1002/hbm.25354.

    Abstract

    The Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta‐Analysis copy number variant (ENIGMA‐CNV) and 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome Working Groups (22q‐ENIGMA WGs) were created to gain insight into the involvement of genetic factors in human brain development and related cognitive, psychiatric and behavioral manifestations. To that end, the ENIGMA‐CNV WG has collated CNV and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from ~49,000 individuals across 38 global research sites, yielding one of the largest studies to date on the effects of CNVs on brain structures in the general population. The 22q‐ENIGMA WG includes 12 international research centers that assessed over 533 individuals with a confirmed 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, 40 with 22q11.2 duplications, and 333 typically developing controls, creating the largest‐ever 22q11.2 CNV neuroimaging data set. In this review, we outline the ENIGMA infrastructure and procedures for multi‐site analysis of CNVs and MRI data. So far, ENIGMA has identified effects of the 22q11.2, 16p11.2 distal, 15q11.2, and 1q21.1 distal CNVs on subcortical and cortical brain structures. Each CNV is associated with differences in cognitive, neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric traits, with characteristic patterns of brain structural abnormalities. Evidence of gene‐dosage effects on distinct brain regions also emerged, providing further insight into genotype–phenotype relationships. Taken together, these results offer a more comprehensive picture of molecular mechanisms involved in typical and atypical brain development. This “genotype‐first” approach also contributes to our understanding of the etiopathogenesis of brain disorders. Finally, we outline future directions to better understand effects of CNVs on brain structure and behavior.
  • Stärk, K., Kidd, E., & Frost, R. L. A. (2022). Word segmentation cues in German child-directed speech: A corpus analysis. Language and Speech, 65(1), 3-27. doi:10.1177/0023830920979016.

    Abstract

    To acquire language, infants must learn to segment words from running speech. A significant body of experimental research shows that infants use multiple cues to do so; however, little research has comprehensively examined the distribution of such cues in naturalistic speech. We conducted a comprehensive corpus analysis of German child-directed speech (CDS) using data from the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) database, investigating the availability of word stress, transitional probabilities (TPs), and lexical and sublexical frequencies as potential cues for word segmentation. Seven hours of data (~15,000 words) were coded, representing around an average day of speech to infants. The analysis revealed that for 97% of words, primary stress was carried by the initial syllable, implicating stress as a reliable cue to word onset in German CDS. Word identity was also marked by TPs between syllables, which were higher within than between words, and higher for backwards than forwards transitions. Words followed a Zipfian-like frequency distribution, and over two-thirds of words (78%) were monosyllabic. Of the 50 most frequent words, 82% were function words, which accounted for 47% of word tokens in the entire corpus. Finally, 15% of all utterances comprised single words. These results give rich novel insights into the availability of segmentation cues in German CDS, and support the possibility that infants draw on multiple converging cues to segment their input. The data, which we make openly available to the research community, will help guide future experimental investigations on this topic.

    Additional information

    Supplemental material via OSF
  • Stärk, K., Kidd, E., & Frost, R. L. A. (2022). The effect of children's prior knowledge and language abilities on their statistical learning. Applied Psycholinguistics, 43(5), 1045-1071. doi:10.1017/S0142716422000273.

    Abstract

    Statistical learning (SL) is assumed to lead to long-term memory representations. However, the way that those representations influence future learning remains largely unknown. We studied how children’s existing distributional linguistic knowledge influences their subsequent SL on a serial recall task, in which 49 German-speaking seven- to nine-year-old children repeated a series of six-syllable sequences. These contained either (i) bisyllabic words based on frequently occurring German syllable transitions (naturalistic sequences), (ii) bisyllabic words created from unattested syllable transitions (non-naturalistic sequences), or (iii) random syllable combinations (unstructured foils). Children demonstrated learning from naturalistic sequences from the beginning of the experiment, indicating that their implicit memory traces derived from their input language informed learning from the very early stages onward. Exploratory analyses indicated that children with a higher language proficiency were more accurate in repeating the sequences and improved most throughout the study compared to children with lower proficiency.
  • Stärk, K., Kidd, E., & Frost, R. L. A. (2023). Close encounters of the word kind: Attested distributional information boosts statistical learning. Language Learning, 73(2), 341-373. doi:10.1111/lang.12523.

    Abstract

    Statistical learning, the ability to extract regularities from input (e.g., in language), is likely supported by learners’ prior expectations about how component units co-occur. In this study, we investigated how adults’ prior experience with sublexical regularities in their native language influences performance on an empirical language learning task. Forty German-speaking adults completed a speech repetition task in which they repeated eight-syllable sequences from two experimental languages: one containing disyllabic words comprised of frequently occurring German syllable transitions (naturalistic words) and the other containing words made from unattested syllable transitions (non-naturalistic words). The participants demonstrated learning from both naturalistic and non-naturalistic stimuli. However, learning was superior for the naturalistic sequences, indicating that the participants had used their existing distributional knowledge of German to extract the naturalistic words faster and more accurately than the non-naturalistic words. This finding supports theories of statistical learning as a form of chunking, whereby frequently co-occurring units become entrenched in long-term memory.

    Additional information

    accessible summary appendix S1
  • Stivers, T., Rossi, G., & Chalfoun, A. (2023). Ambiguities in action ascription. Social Forces, 101(3), 1552-1579. doi:10.1093/sf/soac021.

    Abstract

    In everyday interactions with one another, speakers not only say things but also do things like offer, complain, reject, and compliment. Through observation, it is possible to see that much of the time people unproblematically understand what others are doing. Research on conversation has further documented how speakers’ word choice, prosody, grammar, and gesture all help others to recognize what actions they are performing. In this study, we rely on spontaneous naturally occurring conversational data where people have trouble making their actions understood to examine what leads to ambiguous actions, bringing together prior research and identifying recurrent types of ambiguity that hinge on different dimensions of social action. We then discuss the range of costs and benefits for social actors when actions are clear versus ambiguous. Finally, we offer a conceptual model of how, at a microlevel, action ascription is done. Actions in interaction are building blocks for social relations; at each turn, an action can strengthen or strain the bond between two individuals. Thus, a unified theory of action ascription at a microlevel is an essential component for broader theories of social action and of how social actions produce, maintain, and revise the social world.
  • Stivers, T. (1998). Prediagnostic commentary in veterinarian-client interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 31(2), 241-277. doi:10.1207/s15327973rlsi3102_4.
  • Stoehr, A., Benders, T., Van Hell, J. G., & Fikkert, P. (2022). Feature generalization in Dutch–German bilingual and monolingual children’s speech production. First Language, 42(1), 101-123. doi:10.1177/01427237211058937.

    Abstract

    Dutch and German employ voicing contrasts, but Dutch lacks the ‘voiced’ dorsal plosive /ɡ/. We exploited this accidental phonological gap, measuring the presence of prevoicing and voice onset time durations during speech production to determine (1) whether preliterate bilingual Dutch–German and monolingual Dutch-speaking children aged 3;6–6;0 years generalized voicing to /ɡ/ in Dutch; and (2) whether there was evidence for featural cross-linguistic influence from Dutch to German in bilingual children, testing monolingual German-speaking children as controls. Bilingual and monolingual children’s production of /ɡ/ provided partial evidence for feature generalization: in Dutch, both bilingual and monolingual children either recombined Dutch voicing and place features to produce /ɡ/, suggesting feature generalization, or resorted to producing familiar /k/, suggesting segment-level adaptation within their Dutch phonological system. In German, bilingual children’s production of /ɡ/ was influenced by Dutch although the Dutch phoneme inventory lacks /ɡ/. This suggests that not only segments but also voicing features can exert cross-linguistic influence. Taken together, phonological features appear to play a crucial role in aspects of bilingual and monolingual children’s speech production.

    Additional information

    supplemental material
  • Strauß, A., Wu, T., McQueen, J. M., Scharenborg, O., & Hintz, F. (2022). The differential roles of lexical and sublexical processing during spoken-word recognition in clear and in noise. Cortex, 151, 70-88. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2022.02.011.

    Abstract

    Successful spoken-word recognition relies on an interplay between lexical and sublexical processing. Previous research demonstrated that listeners readily shift between more lexically-biased and more sublexically-biased modes of processing in response to the situational context in which language comprehension takes place. Recognizing words in the presence of background noise reduces the perceptual evidence for the speech signal and – compared to the clear – results in greater uncertainty. It has been proposed that, when dealing with greater uncertainty, listeners rely more strongly on sublexical processing. The present study tested this proposal using behavioral and electroencephalography (EEG) measures. We reasoned that such an adjustment would be reflected in changes in the effects of variables predicting recognition performance with loci at lexical and sublexical levels, respectively. We presented native speakers of Dutch with words featuring substantial variability in (1) word frequency (locus at lexical level), (2) phonological neighborhood density (loci at lexical and sublexical levels) and (3) phonotactic probability (locus at sublexical level). Each participant heard each word in noise (presented at one of three signal-to-noise ratios) and in the clear and performed a two-stage lexical decision and transcription task while EEG was recorded. Using linear mixed-effects analyses, we observed behavioral evidence that listeners relied more strongly on sublexical processing when speech quality decreased. Mixed-effects modelling of the EEG signal in the clear condition showed that sublexical effects were reflected in early modulations of ERP components (e.g., within the first 300 ms post word onset). In noise, EEG effects occurred later and involved multiple regions activated in parallel. Taken together, we found evidence – especially in the behavioral data – supporting previous accounts that the presence of background noise induces a stronger reliance on sublexical processing.
  • Sumer, B., & Özyürek, A. (2022). Cross-modal investigation of event component omissions in language development: A comparison of signing and speaking children. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 37(8), 1023-1039. doi:10.1080/23273798.2022.2042336.

    Abstract

    Language development research suggests a universal tendency for children to be under- informative in narrating motion events by omitting components such as Path, Manner or Ground. However, this assumption has not been tested for children acquiring sign language. Due to the affordances of the visual-spatial modality of sign languages for iconic expression, signing children might omit event components less frequently than speaking children. Here we analysed motion event descriptions elicited from deaf children (4–10 years) acquiring Turkish Sign Language (TİD) and their Turkish-speaking peers. While children omitted all types of event components more often than adults, signing children and adults encoded more Path and Manner in TİD than their peers in Turkish. These results provide more evidence for a general universal tendency for children to omit event components as well as a modality bias for sign languages to encode both Manner and Path more frequently than spoken languages.
  • Sumer, B., & Özyürek, A. (2022). Language use in deaf children with early-signing versus late-signing deaf parents. Frontiers in Communication, 6: 804900. doi:10.3389/fcomm.2021.804900.

    Abstract

    Previous research has shown that spatial language is sensitive to the effects of delayed language exposure. Locative encodings of late-signing deaf adults varied from those of early-signing deaf adults in the preferred types of linguistic forms. In the current study, we investigated whether such differences would be found in spatial language use of deaf children with deaf parents who are either early or late signers of Turkish Sign Language (TİD). We analyzed locative encodings elicited from these two groups of deaf children for the use of different linguistic forms and the types of classifier handshapes. Our findings revealed differences between these two groups of deaf children in their preferred types of linguistic forms, which showed parallels to differences between late versus early deaf adult signers as reported by earlier studies. Deaf children in the current study, however, were similar to each other in the type of classifier handshapes that they used in their classifier constructions. Our findings have implications for expanding current knowledge on to what extent variation in language input (i.e., from early vs. late deaf signers) is reflected in children’s productions as well as the role of linguistic input on language development in general.
  • Swaab, T., Brown, C. M., & Hagoort, P. (1995). Delayed integration of lexical ambiguities in Broca's aphasics: Evidence from event-related potentials. Brain and Language, 51, 159-161. doi:10.1006/brln.1995.1058.
  • Swaab, T. Y., Brown, C. M., & Hagoort, P. (1998). Understanding ambiguous words in sentence contexts: Electrophysiological evidence for delayed contextual selection in Broca's aphasia. Neuropsychologia, 36(8), 737-761. doi:10.1016/S0028-3932(97)00174-7.

    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.
  • Swift, M. (1998). [Book review of LOUIS-JACQUES DORAIS, La parole inuit: Langue, culture et société dans l'Arctique nord-américain]. Language in Society, 27, 273-276. doi:10.1017/S0047404598282042.

    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.
  • Szilagyi, I. A., Waarsing, J. H., Schiphof, D., Van Meurs, J. B. J., & Bierma-Zeinstra, S. M. A. (2022). Towards sex-specific osteoarthritis risk models: evaluation of risk factors for knee osteoarthritis in males and females. Rheumatology, 61(2), 648-657. doi:10.1093/rheumatology/keab378.

    Abstract

    Objectives

    The aim of this study was to identify sex-specific prevalence and strength of risk factors for the incidence of radiographic knee OA (incRKOA).
    Methods

    Our study population consisted of 10 958 Rotterdam Study participants free of knee OA in one or both knees at baseline. One thousand and sixty-four participants developed RKOA after a median follow-up time of 9.6 years. We estimated the association between each available risk factor and incRKOA using sex stratified multivariate regression models with generalized estimating equations. Subsequently, we statistically tested sex differences between risk estimates and calculated the population attributable fractions (PAFs) for modifiable risk factors.
    Results

    The prevalence of the investigated risk factors was, in general, higher in women compared with men, except that alcohol intake and smoking were higher in men and high BMI showed equal prevalence. We found significantly different risk estimates between men and women: high level of physical activity [relative risk (RR) 1.76 (95% CI: 1.29–2.40)] or a Kellgren and Lawrence score 1 at baseline [RR 5.48 (95% CI: 4.51–6.65)] was higher in men. Among borderline significantly different risk estimates was BMI ≥27, associated with higher risk for incRKOA in women [RR 2.00 (95% CI: 1.74–2.31)]. The PAF for higher BMI was 25.6% in women and 19.3% in men.
    Conclusion

    We found sex-specific differences in both presence and relative risk of several risk factors for incRKOA. Especially BMI, a modifiable risk factor, impacts women more strongly than men. These risk factors can be used in the development of personalized prevention strategies and in building sex-specific prediction tools to identify high risk profile patients.

    Additional information

    supplementary tables
  • Szuba, A., Redl, T., & De Hoop, H. (2022). Are second person masculine generics easier to process for men than for women? Evidence from Polish. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 51(4), 819-845. doi:10.1007/s10936-022-09859-7.

    Abstract

    In Polish, it is obligatory to mark feminine or masculine grammatical gender on second-person singular past tense verbs (e.g., Dostałaś list ‘You received-F a letter’). When the addressee’s gender is unknown or unspecified, masculine but never feminine gender marking may be used. The present self-paced reading experiment aims to determine whether this practice creates a processing disadvantage for female addressees in such contexts. We further investigated how men process being addressed with feminine-marked verbs, which constitutes a pragmatic violation. To this end, we presented Polish native speakers with short narratives. Each narrative contained either a second-person singular past tense verb with masculine or feminine gender marking, or a gerund verb with no gender marking as a baseline. We hypothesised that both men and women would read the verbs with gender marking mismatching their own gender more slowly than the gender-unmarked gerund verbs. The results revealed that the gender-mismatching verbs were read equally fast as the gerund verbs, and that the verbs with gender marking matching participant gender were read faster. While the relatively high reading time of the gender-unmarked baseline was unexpected, the pattern of results nevertheless shows that verbs with masculine marking were more difficult to process for women compared to men, and vice versa. In conclusion, even though masculine gender marking in the second person is commonly used with a gender-unspecific intention, it created similar processing difficulties for women as the ones that men experienced when addressed through feminine gender marking. This study is the first one, as far as we are aware, to provide evidence for the male bias of second-person masculine generics during language processing.
  • Tamaoka, K., Sakai, H., Miyaoka, Y., Ono, H., Fukuda, M., Wu, Y., & Verdonschot, R. G. (2023). Sentential inference bridging between lexical/grammatical knowledge and text comprehension among native Chinese speakers learning Japanese. PLoS One, 18(4): e0284331. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0284331.

    Abstract

    The current study explored the role of sentential inference in connecting lexical/grammatical knowledge and overall text comprehension in foreign language learning. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), causal relationships were examined between four latent variables: lexical knowledge, grammatical knowledge, sentential inference, and text comprehension. The study analyzed 281 Chinese university students learning Japanese as a second language and compared two causal models: (1) the partially-mediated model, which suggests that lexical knowledge, grammatical knowledge, and sentential inference concurrently influence text comprehension, and (2) the wholly-mediated model, which posits that both lexical and grammatical knowledge impact sentential inference, which then further affects text comprehension. The SEM comparison analysis supported the wholly-mediated model, showing sequential causal relationships from lexical knowledge to sentential inference and then to text comprehension, without significant contribution from grammatical knowledge. The results indicate that sentential inference serves as a crucial bridge between lexical knowledge and text comprehension.
  • Tamaoka, K., Zhang, J., Koizumi, M., & Verdonschot, R. G. (2023). Phonological encoding in Tongan: An experimental investigation. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76(10), 2197-2430. doi:10.1177/17470218221138770.

    Abstract

    This study is the first to report chronometric evidence on Tongan language production. It has been speculated that the mora plays an important role during Tongan phonological encoding. A mora follows the (C)V form, so /a/ and /ka/ (but not /k/) denote a mora in Tongan. Using a picture-word naming paradigm, Tongan native speakers named pictures containing superimposed non-word distractors. This task has been used before in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese to investigate the initially selected unit during phonological encoding (IPU). Compared to control distractors, both onset and mora overlapping distractors resulted in faster naming latencies. Several alternative explanations for the pattern of results - proficiency in English, knowledge of Latin script, and downstream effects - are discussed. However, we conclude that Tongan phonological encoding likely natively uses the phoneme, and not the mora, as the IPU..

    Additional information

    supplemental material
  • Tatsumi, T., & Sala, G. (2023). Learning conversational dependency: Children’s response usingunin Japanese. Journal of Child Language, 50(5), 1226-1244. doi:10.1017/S0305000922000344.

    Abstract

    This study investigates how Japanese-speaking children learn interactional dependencies in conversations that determine the use of un, a token typically used as a positive response for yes-no questions, backchannel, and acknowledgement. We hypothesise that children learn to produce un appropriately by recognising different types of cues occurring in the immediately preceding turns. We built a set of generalised linear models on the longitudinal conversation data from seven children aged 1 to 5 years and their caregivers. Our models revealed that children not only increased their un production, but also learned to attend relevant cues in the preceding turns to understand when to respond by producing un. Children increasingly produced un when their interlocutors asked a yes-no question or signalled the continuation of their own speech. These results illustrate how children learn the probabilistic dependency between adjacent turns, and become able to participate in conversational interactions.
  • Ten Oever, S., Carta, S., Kaufeld, G., & Martin, A. E. (2022). Neural tracking of phrases in spoken language comprehension is automatic and task-dependent. eLife, 11: e77468. doi:10.7554/eLife.77468.

    Abstract

    Linguistic phrases are tracked in sentences even though there is no one-to-one acoustic phrase marker in the physical signal. This phenomenon suggests an automatic tracking of abstract linguistic structure that is endogenously generated by the brain. However, all studies investigating linguistic tracking compare conditions where either relevant information at linguistic timescales is available, or where this information is absent altogether (e.g., sentences versus word lists during passive listening). It is therefore unclear whether tracking at phrasal timescales is related to the content of language, or rather, results as a consequence of attending to the timescales that happen to match behaviourally relevant information. To investigate this question, we presented participants with sentences and word lists while recording their brain activity with magnetoencephalography (MEG). Participants performed passive, syllable, word, and word-combination tasks corresponding to attending to four different rates: one they would naturally attend to, syllable-rates, word-rates, and phrasal-rates, respectively. We replicated overall findings of stronger phrasal-rate tracking measured with mutual information for sentences compared to word lists across the classical language network. However, in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) we found a task effect suggesting stronger phrasal-rate tracking during the word-combination task independent of the presence of linguistic structure, as well as stronger delta-band connectivity during this task. These results suggest that extracting linguistic information at phrasal rates occurs automatically with or without the presence of an additional task, but also that IFG might be important for temporal integration across various perceptual domains.
  • Ten Oever, S., Kaushik, K., & Martin, A. E. (2022). Inferring the nature of linguistic computations in the brain. PLoS Computational Biology, 18(7): e1010269. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010269.

    Abstract

    Sentences contain structure that determines their meaning beyond that of individual words. An influential study by Ding and colleagues (2016) used frequency tagging of phrases and sentences to show that the human brain is sensitive to structure by finding peaks of neural power at the rate at which structures were presented. Since then, there has been a rich debate on how to best explain this pattern of results with profound impact on the language sciences. Models that use hierarchical structure building, as well as models based on associative sequence processing, can predict the neural response, creating an inferential impasse as to which class of models explains the nature of the linguistic computations reflected in the neural readout. In the current manuscript, we discuss pitfalls and common fallacies seen in the conclusions drawn in the literature illustrated by various simulations. We conclude that inferring the neural operations of sentence processing based on these neural data, and any like it, alone, is insufficient. We discuss how to best evaluate models and how to approach the modeling of neural readouts to sentence processing in a manner that remains faithful to cognitive, neural, and linguistic principles.
  • Ter Bekke, M., Özyürek, A., & Ünal, E. (2022). Speaking but not gesturing predicts event memory: A cross-linguistic comparison. Language and Cognition, 14(3), 362-384. doi:10.1017/langcog.2022.3.

    Abstract

    Every day people see, describe, and remember motion events. However, the relation between multimodal encoding of motion events in speech and gesture, and memory is not yet fully understood. Moreover, whether language typology modulates this relation remains to be tested. This study investigates whether the type of motion event information (path or manner) mentioned in speech and gesture predicts which information is remembered and whether this varies across speakers of typologically different languages. Dutch- and Turkish-speakers watched and described motion events and completed a surprise recognition memory task. For both Dutch- and Turkish-speakers, manner memory was at chance level. Participants who mentioned path in speech during encoding were more accurate at detecting changes to the path in the memory task. The relation between mentioning path in speech and path memory did not vary cross-linguistically. Finally, the co-speech gesture did not predict memory above mentioning path in speech. These findings suggest that how speakers describe a motion event in speech is more important than the typology of the speakers’ native language in predicting motion event memory. The motion event videos are available for download for future research at https://osf.io/p8cas/.

    Additional information

    S1866980822000035sup001.docx
  • Tezcan, F., Weissbart, H., & Martin, A. E. (2023). A tradeoff between acoustic and linguistic feature encoding in spoken language comprehension. eLife, 12: e82386. doi:10.7554/eLife.82386.

    Abstract

    When we comprehend language from speech, the phase of the neural response aligns with particular features of the speech input, resulting in a phenomenon referred to as neural tracking. In recent years, a large body of work has demonstrated the tracking of the acoustic envelope and abstract linguistic units at the phoneme and word levels, and beyond. However, the degree to which speech tracking is driven by acoustic edges of the signal, or by internally-generated linguistic units, or by the interplay of both, remains contentious. In this study, we used naturalistic story-listening to investigate (1) whether phoneme-level features are tracked over and above acoustic edges, (2) whether word entropy, which can reflect sentence- and discourse-level constraints, impacted the encoding of acoustic and phoneme-level features, and (3) whether the tracking of acoustic edges was enhanced or suppressed during comprehension of a first language (Dutch) compared to a statistically familiar but uncomprehended language (French). We first show that encoding models with phoneme-level linguistic features, in addition to acoustic features, uncovered an increased neural tracking response; this signal was further amplified in a comprehended language, putatively reflecting the transformation of acoustic features into internally generated phoneme-level representations. Phonemes were tracked more strongly in a comprehended language, suggesting that language comprehension functions as a neural filter over acoustic edges of the speech signal as it transforms sensory signals into abstract linguistic units. We then show that word entropy enhances neural tracking of both acoustic and phonemic features when sentence- and discourse-context are less constraining. When language was not comprehended, acoustic features, but not phonemic ones, were more strongly modulated, but in contrast, when a native language is comprehended, phoneme features are more strongly modulated. Taken together, our findings highlight the flexible modulation of acoustic, and phonemic features by sentence and discourse-level constraint in language comprehension, and document the neural transformation from speech perception to language comprehension, consistent with an account of language processing as a neural filter from sensory to abstract representations.
  • Thiebaut de Schotten, M., & Forkel, S. J. (2022). The emergent properties of the connected brain. Science, 378(6619), 505-510. doi:10.1126/science.abq2591.

    Abstract

    There is more to brain connections than the mere transfer of signals between brain regions. Behavior and cognition emerge through cortical area interaction. This requires integration between local and distant areas orchestrated by densely connected networks. Brain connections determine the brain’s functional organization. The imaging of connections in the living brain has provided an opportunity to identify the driving factors behind the neurobiology of cognition. Connectivity differences between species and among humans have furthered the understanding of brain evolution and of diverging cognitive profiles. Brain pathologies amplify this variability through disconnections and, consequently, the disintegration of cognitive functions. The prediction of long-term symptoms is now preferentially based on brain disconnections. This paradigm shift will reshape our brain maps and challenge current brain models.
  • Tielbeek, J. J., Uffelmann, E., Williams, B. S., Colodro-Conde, L., Gagnon, É., Mallard, T. T., Levitt, B., Jansen, P. R., Johansson, A., Sallis, H. M., Pistis, G., Saunders, G. R. B., Allegrini, A. G., Rimfeld, K., Konte, B., Klein, M., Hartmann, A. M., Salvatore, J. E., Nolte, I. M., Demontis, D. and 63 moreTielbeek, J. J., Uffelmann, E., Williams, B. S., Colodro-Conde, L., Gagnon, É., Mallard, T. T., Levitt, B., Jansen, P. R., Johansson, A., Sallis, H. M., Pistis, G., Saunders, G. R. B., Allegrini, A. G., Rimfeld, K., Konte, B., Klein, M., Hartmann, A. M., Salvatore, J. E., Nolte, I. M., Demontis, D., Malmberg, A., Burt, S. A., Savage, J., Sugden, K., Poulton, R., Harris, K. M., Vrieze, S., McGue, M., Iacono, W. G., Mota, N. R., Mill, J., Viana, J. F., Mitchell, B. L., Morosoli, J. J., Andlauer, T., Ouellet-Morin, I., Tremblay, R. E., Côté, S., Gouin, J.-P., Brendgen, M., Dionne, G., Vitaro, F., Lupton, M. K., Martin, N. G., COGA Consortium, Spit for Science Working Group, Castelao, E., Räikkönen, K., Eriksson, J., Lahti, J., Hartman, C. A., Oldehinkel, A. J., Snieder, H., Liu, H., Preisig, M., Whipp, A., Vuoksimaa, E., Lu, Y., Jern, P., Rujescu, D., Giegling, I., Palviainen, T., Kaprio, J., Harden, K. P., Munafò, M. R., Morneau-Vaillancourt, G., Plomin, R., Viding, E., Boutwell, B. B., Aliev, F., Dick, D., Popma, A., Faraone, S. V., Børglum, A. D., Medland, S. E., Franke, B., Boivin, M., Pingault, J.-B., Glennon, J. C., Barnes, J. C., Fisher, S. E., Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Polderman, T. J., & Posthuma, D. (2022). Uncovering the genetic architecture of broad antisocial behavior through a genome-wide association study meta-analysis. Molecular Psychiatry, 27(11), 4453-4463. doi:10.1038/s41380-022-01793-3.

    Abstract

    Despite the substantial heritability of antisocial behavior (ASB), specific genetic variants robustly associated with the trait have not been identified. The present study by the Broad Antisocial Behavior Consortium (BroadABC) meta-analyzed data from 28 discovery samples (N = 85,359) and five independent replication samples (N = 8058) with genotypic data and broad measures of ASB. We identified the first significant genetic associations with broad ASB, involving common intronic variants in the forkhead box protein P2 (FOXP2) gene (lead SNP rs12536335, p = 6.32 × 10−10). Furthermore, we observed intronic variation in Foxp2 and one of its targets (Cntnap2) distinguishing a mouse model of pathological aggression (BALB/cJ strain) from controls (BALB/cByJ strain). Polygenic risk score (PRS) analyses in independent samples revealed that the genetic risk for ASB was associated with several antisocial outcomes across the lifespan, including diagnosis of conduct disorder, official criminal convictions, and trajectories of antisocial development. We found substantial genetic correlations of ASB with mental health (depression rg = 0.63, insomnia rg = 0.47), physical health (overweight rg = 0.19, waist-to-hip ratio rg = 0.32), smoking (rg = 0.54), cognitive ability (intelligence rg = −0.40), educational attainment (years of schooling rg = −0.46) and reproductive traits (age at first birth rg = −0.58, father’s age at death rg = −0.54). Our findings provide a starting point toward identifying critical biosocial risk mechanisms for the development of ASB.
  • Tkalcec, A., Bierlein, M., Seeger‐Schneider, G., Walitza, S., Jenny, B., Menks, W. M., Felhbaum, L. V., Borbas, R., Cole, D. M., Raschle, N., Herbrecht, E., Stadler, C., & Cubillo, A. (2023). Empathy deficits, callous‐unemotional traits and structural underpinnings in autism spectrum disorder and conduct disorder youth. Autism Research, 16(10), 1946-1962. doi:10.1002/aur.2993.

    Abstract

    Distinct empathy deficits are often described in patients with conduct disorder (CD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) yet their neural underpinnings and the influence of comorbid Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits are unclear. This study compares the cognitive (CE) and affective empathy (AE) abilities of youth with CD and ASD, their potential neuroanatomical correlates, and the influence of CU traits on empathy. Adolescents and parents/caregivers completed empathy questionnaires (N = 148 adolescents, mean age = 15.16 years) and T1 weighted images were obtained from a subsample (N = 130). Group differences in empathy and the influence of CU traits were investigated using Bayesian analyses and Voxel-Based Morphometry with Threshold-Free Cluster Enhancement focusing on regions involved in AE (insula, amygdala, inferior frontal gyrus and cingulate cortex) and CE processes (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, superior temporal gyrus, and precuneus). The ASD group showed lower parent-reported AE and CE scores and lower self-reported CE scores while the CD group showed lower parent-reported CE scores than controls. When accounting for the influence of CU traits no AE deficits in ASD and CE deficits in CD were found, but CE deficits in ASD remained. Across all participants, CU traits were negatively associated with gray matter volumes in anterior cingulate which extends into the mid cingulate, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and precuneus. Thus, although co-occurring CU traits have been linked to global empathy deficits in reports and underlying brain structures, its influence on empathy aspects might be disorder-specific. Investigating the subdimensions of empathy may therefore help to identify disorder-specific empathy deficits.
  • Tomasek, M., Ravignani, A., Boucherie, P. H., Van Meyel, S., & Dufour, V. (2023). Spontaneous vocal coordination of vocalizations to water noise in rooks (Corvus frugilegus): An exploratory study. Ecology and Evolution, 13(2): e9791. doi:10.1002/ece3.9791.

    Abstract

    The ability to control one's vocal production is a major advantage in acoustic communication. Yet, not all species have the same level of control over their vocal output. Several bird species can interrupt their song upon hearing an external stimulus, but there is no evidence how flexible this behavior is. Most research on corvids focuses on their cognitive abilities, but few studies explore their vocal aptitudes. Recent research shows that crows can be experimentally trained to vocalize in response to a brief visual stimulus. Our study investigated vocal control abilities with a more ecologically embedded approach in rooks. We show that two rooks could spontaneously coordinate their vocalizations to a long-lasting stimulus (the sound of their small bathing pool being filled with a water hose), one of them adjusting roughly (in the second range) its vocalizations as the stimuli began and stopped. This exploratory study adds to the literature showing that corvids, a group of species capable of cognitive prowess, are indeed able to display good vocal control abilities.
  • Trujillo, J. P., Levinson, S. C., & Holler, J. (2022). A multi-scale investigation of the human communication system's response to visual disruption. Royal Society Open Science, 9(4): 211489. doi:10.1098/rsos.211489.

    Abstract

    In human communication, when the speech is disrupted, the visual channel (e.g. manual gestures) can compensate to ensure successful communication. Whether speech also compensates when the visual channel is disrupted is an open question, and one that significantly bears on the status of the gestural modality. We test whether gesture and speech are dynamically co-adapted to meet communicative needs. To this end, we parametrically reduce visibility during casual conversational interaction and measure the effects on speakers' communicative behaviour using motion tracking and manual annotation for kinematic and acoustic analyses. We found that visual signalling effort was flexibly adapted in response to a decrease in visual quality (especially motion energy, gesture rate, size, velocity and hold-time). Interestingly, speech was also affected: speech intensity increased in response to reduced visual quality (particularly in speech-gesture utterances, but independently of kinematics). Our findings highlight that multi-modal communicative behaviours are flexibly adapted at multiple scales of measurement and question the notion that gesture plays an inferior role to speech.

    Additional information

    supplemental material
  • Trujillo, J. P., Özyürek, A., Kan, C., Sheftel-Simanova, I., & Bekkering, H. (2022). Differences in functional brain organization during gesture recognition between autistic and neurotypical individuals. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 17(11), 1021-1034. doi:10.1093/scan/nsac026.

    Abstract

    Persons with and without autism process sensory information differently. Differences in sensory processing are directly relevant to social functioning and communicative abilities, which are known to be hampered in persons with autism. We collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 25 autistic individuals and 25 neurotypical individuals while they performed a silent gesture recognition task. We exploited brain network topology, a holistic quantification of how networks within the brain are organized to provide new insights into how visual communicative signals are processed in autistic and neurotypical individuals. Performing graph theoretical analysis, we calculated two network properties of the action observation network: local efficiency, as a measure of network segregation, and global efficiency, as a measure of network integration. We found that persons with autism and neurotypical persons differ in how the action observation network is organized. Persons with autism utilize a more clustered, local-processing-oriented network configuration (i.e., higher local efficiency), rather than the more integrative network organization seen in neurotypicals (i.e., higher global efficiency). These results shed new light on the complex interplay between social and sensory processing in autism.

    Additional information

    nsac026_supp.zip
  • Trujillo, J. P., & Holler, J. (2023). Interactionally embedded gestalt principles of multimodal human communication. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(5), 1136-1159. doi:10.1177/17456916221141422.

    Abstract

    Natural human interaction requires us to produce and process many different signals, including speech, hand and head gestures, and facial expressions. These communicative signals, which occur in a variety of temporal relations with each other (e.g., parallel or temporally misaligned), must be rapidly processed as a coherent message by the receiver. In this contribution, we introduce the notion of interactionally embedded, affordance-driven gestalt perception as a framework that can explain how this rapid processing of multimodal signals is achieved as efficiently as it is. We discuss empirical evidence showing how basic principles of gestalt perception can explain some aspects of unimodal phenomena such as verbal language processing and visual scene perception but require additional features to explain multimodal human communication. We propose a framework in which high-level gestalt predictions are continuously updated by incoming sensory input, such as unfolding speech and visual signals. We outline the constituent processes that shape high-level gestalt perception and their role in perceiving relevance and prägnanz. Finally, we provide testable predictions that arise from this multimodal interactionally embedded gestalt-perception framework. This review and framework therefore provide a theoretically motivated account of how we may understand the highly complex, multimodal behaviors inherent in natural social interaction.
  • Trujillo, J. P., Dideriksen, C., Tylén, K., Christiansen, M. H., & Fusaroli, R. (2023). The dynamic interplay of kinetic and linguistic coordination in Danish and Norwegian conversation. Cognitive Science, 47(6): e13298. doi:10.1111/cogs.13298.

    Abstract

    In conversation, individuals work together to achieve communicative goals, complementing and aligning language and body with each other. An important emerging question is whether interlocutors entrain with one another equally across linguistic levels (e.g., lexical, syntactic, and semantic) and modalities (i.e., speech and gesture), or whether there are complementary patterns of behaviors, with some levels or modalities diverging and others converging in coordinated fashions. This study assesses how kinematic and linguistic entrainment interact with one another across levels of measurement, and according to communicative context. We analyzed data from two matched corpora of dyadic interaction between—respectively—Danish and Norwegian native speakers engaged in affiliative conversations and task-oriented conversations. We assessed linguistic entrainment at the lexical, syntactic, and semantic level, and kinetic alignment of the head and hands using video-based motion tracking and dynamic time warping. We tested whether—across the two languages—linguistic alignment correlates with kinetic alignment, and whether these kinetic-linguistic associations are modulated either by the type of conversation or by the language spoken. We found that kinetic entrainment was positively associated with low-level linguistic (i.e., lexical) entrainment, while negatively associated with high-level linguistic (i.e., semantic) entrainment, in a cross-linguistically robust way. Our findings suggest that conversation makes use of a dynamic coordination of similarity and complementarity both between individuals as well as between different communicative modalities, and provides evidence for a multimodal, interpersonal synergy account of interaction.
  • Trupp, M. D., Bignardi, G., Chana, K., Specker, E., & Pelowski, M. (2022). Can a brief interaction with online, digital art improve wellbeing? A comparative study of the impact of online art and culture presentations on mood, state-anxiety, subjective wellbeing, and loneliness. Frontiers in Psychology, 13: 782033. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.782033.

    Abstract

    When experienced in-person, engagement with art has been associated—in a growing body of evidence—with positive outcomes in wellbeing and mental health. This represents an exciting new field for psychology, curation, and health interventions, suggesting a widely-accessible, cost-effective, and non-pharmaceutical means of regulating factors such as mood or anxiety. However, can similar impacts be found with online presentations? If so, this would open up positive outcomes to an even-wider population—a trend accelerating due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Despite its promise, this question, and the underlying mechanisms of art interventions and impacts, has largely not been explored. Participants (N = 84) were asked to engage with one of two online exhibitions from Google Arts and Culture (a Monet painting or a similarly-formatted display of Japanese culinary traditions). With just 1–2 min exposure, both improved negative mood, state-anxiety, loneliness, and wellbeing. Stepdown analysis suggested the changes can be explained primarily via negative mood, while improvements in mood correlated with aesthetic appraisals and cognitive-emotional experience of the exhibition. However, no difference was found between exhibitions. We discuss the findings in terms of applications and targets for future research.

    Additional information

    supplementary materials
  • Trupp, M. D., Bignardi, G., Specker, E., Vessel, E. A., & Pelowski, M. (2023). Who benefits from online art viewing, and how: The role of pleasure, meaningfulness, and trait aesthetic responsiveness in computer-based art interventions for well-being. Computers in Human Behavior, 145: 107764. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2023.107764.

    Abstract

    When experienced in-person, engagement with art has been associated with positive outcomes in well-being and mental health. However, especially in the last decade, art viewing, cultural engagement, and even ‘trips’ to museums have begun to take place online, via computers, smartphones, tablets, or in virtual reality. Similarly, to what has been reported for in-person visits, online art engagements—easily accessible from personal devices—have also been associated to well-being impacts. However, a broader understanding of for whom and how online-delivered art might have well-being impacts is still lacking. In the present study, we used a Monet interactive art exhibition from Google Arts and Culture to deepen our understanding of the role of pleasure, meaning, and individual differences in the responsiveness to art. Beyond replicating the previous group-level effects, we confirmed our pre-registered hypothesis that trait-level inter-individual differences in aesthetic responsiveness predict some of the benefits that online art viewing has on well-being and further that such inter-individual differences at the trait level were mediated by subjective experiences of pleasure and especially meaningfulness felt during the online-art intervention. The role that participants' experiences play as a possible mechanism during art interventions is discussed in light of recent theoretical models.

    Additional information

    supplementary material
  • Udden, J., Hulten, A., Schoffelen, J.-M., Lam, N. H. L., Harbusch, K., Van den Bosch, A., Kempen, G., Petersson, K. M., & Hagoort, P. (2022). Supramodal sentence processing in the human brain: fMRI evidence for the influence of syntactic complexity in more than 200 participants. Neurobiology of Language, 3(4), 575-598. doi:10.1162/nol_a_00076.

    Abstract

    This study investigated two questions. One is: To what degree is sentence processing beyond single words independent of the input modality (speech vs. reading)? The second question is: Which parts of the network recruited by both modalities is sensitive to syntactic complexity? These questions were investigated by having more than 200 participants read or listen to well-formed sentences or series of unconnected words. A largely left-hemisphere frontotemporoparietal network was found to be supramodal in nature, i.e., independent of input modality. In addition, the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LpMTG) were most clearly associated with left-branching complexity. The left anterior temporal lobe (LaTL) showed the greatest sensitivity to sentences that differed in right-branching complexity. Moreover, activity in LIFG and LpMTG increased from sentence onset to end, in parallel with an increase of the left-branching complexity. While LIFG, bilateral anterior temporal lobe, posterior MTG, and left inferior parietal lobe (LIPL) all contribute to the supramodal unification processes, the results suggest that these regions differ in their respective contributions to syntactic complexity related processing. The consequences of these findings for neurobiological models of language processing are discussed.

    Additional information

    supporting information
  • Ünal, E., Manhardt, F., & Özyürek, A. (2022). Speaking and gesturing guide event perception during message conceptualization: Evidence from eye movements. Cognition, 225: 105127. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105127.

    Abstract

    Speakers’ visual attention to events is guided by linguistic conceptualization of information in spoken language
    production and in language-specific ways. Does production of language-specific co-speech gestures further guide
    speakers’ visual attention during message preparation? Here, we examine the link between visual attention and
    multimodal event descriptions in Turkish. Turkish is a verb-framed language where speakers’ speech and gesture
    show language specificity with path of motion mostly expressed within the main verb accompanied by path
    gestures. Turkish-speaking adults viewed motion events while their eye movements were recorded during non-
    linguistic (viewing-only) and linguistic (viewing-before-describing) tasks. The relative attention allocated to path
    over manner was higher in the linguistic task compared to the non-linguistic task. Furthermore, the relative
    attention allocated to path over manner within the linguistic task was higher when speakers (a) encoded path in
    the main verb versus outside the verb and (b) used additional path gestures accompanying speech versus not.
    Results strongly suggest that speakers’ visual attention is guided by language-specific event encoding not only in
    speech but also in gesture. This provides evidence consistent with models that propose integration of speech and
    gesture at the conceptualization level of language production and suggests that the links between the eye and the
    mouth may be extended to the eye and the hand.
  • Ünal, E., Mamus, E., & Özyürek, A. (2023). Multimodal encoding of motion events in speech, gesture, and cognition. Language and Cognition. Advance online publication. doi:10.1017/langcog.2023.61.

    Abstract

    How people communicate about motion events and how this is shaped by language typology are mostly studied with a focus on linguistic encoding in speech. Yet, human communication typically involves an interactional exchange of multimodal signals, such as hand gestures that have different affordances for representing event components. Here, we review recent empirical evidence on multimodal encoding of motion in speech and gesture to gain a deeper understanding of whether and how language typology shapes linguistic expressions in different modalities, and how this changes across different sensory modalities of input and interacts with other aspects of cognition. Empirical evidence strongly suggests that Talmy’s typology of event integration predicts multimodal event descriptions in speech and gesture and visual attention to event components prior to producing these descriptions. Furthermore, variability within the event itself, such as type and modality of stimuli, may override the influence of language typology, especially for expression of manner.
  • Uzbas, F., & O’Neill, A. (2023). Spatial Centrosome Proteomic Profiling of Human iPSC-derived Neural Cells. BIO-PROTOCOL, 13(17): e4812. doi:10.21769/BioProtoc.4812.

    Abstract

    The centrosome governs many pan-cellular processes including cell division, migration, and cilium formation.
    However, very little is known about its cell type-specific protein composition and the sub-organellar domains where
    these protein interactions take place. Here, we outline a protocol for the spatial interrogation of the centrosome
    proteome in human cells, such as those differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), through co-
    immunoprecipitation of protein complexes around selected baits that are known to reside at different structural parts
    of the centrosome, followed by mass spectrometry. The protocol describes expansion and differentiation of human
    iPSCs to dorsal forebrain neural progenitors and cortical projection neurons, harvesting and lysis of cells for protein
    isolation, co-immunoprecipitation with antibodies against selected bait proteins, preparation for mass spectrometry,
    processing the mass spectrometry output files using MaxQuant software, and statistical analysis using Perseus
    software to identify the enriched proteins by each bait. Given the large number of cells needed for the isolation of
    centrosome proteins, this protocol can be scaled up or down by modifying the number of bait proteins and can also
    be carried out in batches. It can potentially be adapted for other cell types, organelles, and species as well.
  • Vachon, F., Hersh, T. A., Rendell, L., Gero, S., & Whitehead, H. (2022). Ocean nomads or island specialists? Culturally driven habitat partitioning contrasts in scale between geographically isolated sperm whale populations. Royal Society Open Science, 9(5): 211737. doi:10.1098/rsos.211737.

    Abstract

    The sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) is a deep-diving cetacean with a global distribution and a multi-leveled, culturally segregated, social structure. While sperm whales have previously been described as ‘ocean nomads’, this might not be universal. We conducted surveys of sperm whales along the Lesser Antilles to document the acoustic repertoires, movements and distributions of Eastern Caribbean (EC) sperm whale cultural groups (called vocal clans). In addition to documenting a potential third vocal clan in the EC, we found strong evidence of fine-scale habitat partitioning between vocal clans with scales of horizontal movements an order of magnitude smaller than from comparable studies on Eastern Tropical Pacific sperm whales. These results suggest that sperm whales can display cultural ecological specialization and habitat partitioning on flexible spatial scales according to local conditions and broadens our perception of the ecological flexibility of the species. This study highlights the importance of incorporating multiple temporal and spatial scales to understand the impact of culture on ecological adaptability, as well as the dangers of extrapolating results across geographical areas and cultural groups.

    Additional information

    supplemental material
  • Vagliano, I., Galke, L., & Scherp, A. (2022). Recommendations for item set completion: On the semantics of item co-occurrence with data sparsity, input size, and input modalities. Information Retrieval Journal, 25(3), 269-305. doi:10.1007/s10791-022-09408-9.

    Abstract

    We address the problem of recommending relevant items to a user in order to "complete" a partial set of items already known. We consider the two scenarios of citation and subject label recommendation, which resemble different semantics of item co-occurrence: relatedness for co-citations and diversity for subject labels. We assess the influence of the completeness of an already known partial item set on the recommender performance. We also investigate data sparsity through a pruning parameter and the influence of using additional metadata. As recommender models, we focus on different autoencoders, which are particularly suited for reconstructing missing items in a set. We extend autoencoders to exploit a multi-modal input of text and structured data. Our experiments on six real-world datasets show that supplying the partial item set as input is helpful when item co-occurrence resembles relatedness, while metadata are effective when co-occurrence implies diversity. This outcome means that the semantics of item co-occurrence is an important factor. The simple item co-occurrence model is a strong baseline for citation recommendation. However, autoencoders have the advantage to enable exploiting additional metadata besides the partial item set as input and achieve comparable performance. For the subject label recommendation task, the title is the most important attribute. Adding more input modalities sometimes even harms the result. In conclusion, it is crucial to consider the semantics of the item co-occurrence for the choice of an appropriate recommendation model and carefully decide which metadata to exploit.
  • Van der Meer, H. A., Sheftel‑Simanova, I., Kan, C. C., & Trujillo, J. P. (2022). Translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and validation of a Dutch version of the actions and feelings questionnaire in autistic and neurotypical adult. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 52, 1771-1777. doi:10.1007/s10803-021-05082-w.

    Abstract

    The actions and feelings questionnaire (AFQ) provides a short, self-report measure of how well someone uses and understands visual communicative signals such as gestures. The objective of this study was to translate and cross-culturally adapt the AFQ into Dutch (AFQ-NL) and validate this new version in neurotypical and autistic populations. Translation and adaptation of the AFQ consisted of forward translation, synthesis, back translation, and expert review. In order to validate the AFQ-NL, we assessed convergent and divergent validity. We additionally assessed internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha. Validation and reliability outcomes were all satisfactory. The AFQ-NL is a valid adaptation that can be used for both autistic and neurotypical populations in the Netherlands.

    Additional information

    supplementary file 1
  • Van der Werf, O. J., Ten Oever, S., Schuhmann, T., & Sack, A. T. (2022). No evidence of rhythmic visuospatial attention at cued locations in a spatial cuing paradigm, regardless of their behavioural relevance. European Journal of Neuroscience, 55(11-12), 3100-3116. doi:10.1111/ejn.15353.

    Abstract

    Recent evidence suggests that visuospatial attentional performance is not stable over time but fluctuates in a rhythmic fashion. These attentional rhythms allow for sampling of different visuospatial locations in each cycle of this rhythm. However, it is still unclear in which paradigmatic circumstances rhythmic attention becomes evident. First, it is unclear at what spatial locations rhythmic attention occurs. Second, it is unclear how the behavioural relevance of each spatial location determines the rhythmic sampling patterns. Here, we aim to elucidate these two issues. Firstly, we aim to find evidence of rhythmic attention at the predicted (i.e. cued) location under moderately informative predictor value, replicating earlier studies. Secondly, we hypothesise that rhythmic attentional sampling behaviour will be affected by the behavioural relevance of the sampled location, ranging from non-informative to fully informative. To these aims, we used a modified Egly-Driver task with three conditions: a fully informative cue, a moderately informative cue (replication condition), and a non-informative cue. We did not find evidence of rhythmic sampling at cued locations, failing to replicate earlier studies. Nor did we find differences in rhythmic sampling under different predictive values of the cue. The current data does not allow for robust conclusions regarding the non-cued locations due to the absence of a priori hypotheses. Post-hoc explorative data analyses, however, clearly indicate that attention samples non-cued locations in a theta-rhythmic manner, specifically when the cued location bears higher behavioural relevance than the non-cued locations.
  • Van der Spek, J., Den Hoed, J., Snijders Blok, L., Dingemans, A. J. M., Schijven, D., Nellaker, C., Venselaar, H., Astuti, G. D. N., Barakat, T. S., Bebin, E. M., Beck-Wödl, S., Beunders, G., Brown, N. J., Brunet, T., Brunner, H. G., Campeau, P. M., Čuturilo, G., Gilissen, C., Haack, T. B., Hüning, I. and 26 moreVan der Spek, J., Den Hoed, J., Snijders Blok, L., Dingemans, A. J. M., Schijven, D., Nellaker, C., Venselaar, H., Astuti, G. D. N., Barakat, T. S., Bebin, E. M., Beck-Wödl, S., Beunders, G., Brown, N. J., Brunet, T., Brunner, H. G., Campeau, P. M., Čuturilo, G., Gilissen, C., Haack, T. B., Hüning, I., Husain, R. A., Kamien, B., Lim, S. C., Lovrecic, L., Magg, J., Maver, A., Miranda, V., Monteil, D. C., Ockeloen, C. W., Pais, L. S., Plaiasu, V., Raiti, L., Richmond, C., Rieß, A., Schwaibold, E. M. C., Simon, M. E. H., Spranger, S., Tan, T. Y., Thompson, M. L., De Vries, B. B., Wilkins, E. J., Willemsen, M. H., Francks, C., Vissers, L. E. L. M., Fisher, S. E., & Kleefstra, T. (2022). Inherited variants in CHD3 show variable expressivity in Snijders Blok-Campeau syndrome. Genetics in Medicine, 24(6), 1283-1296. doi:10.1016/j.gim.2022.02.014.

    Abstract

    Purpose

    Common diagnostic next-generation sequencing strategies are not optimized to identify inherited variants in genes associated with dominant neurodevelopmental disorders as causal when the transmitting parent is clinically unaffected, leaving a significant number of cases with neurodevelopmental disorders undiagnosed.
    Methods

    We characterized 21 families with inherited heterozygous missense or protein-truncating variants in CHD3, a gene in which de novo variants cause Snijders Blok-Campeau syndrome.
    Results

    Computational facial and Human Phenotype Ontology–based comparisons showed that the phenotype of probands with inherited CHD3 variants overlaps with the phenotype previously associated with de novo CHD3 variants, whereas heterozygote parents are mildly or not affected, suggesting variable expressivity. In addition, similarly reduced expression levels of CHD3 protein in cells of an affected proband and of healthy family members with a CHD3 protein-truncating variant suggested that compensation of expression from the wild-type allele is unlikely to be an underlying mechanism. Notably, most inherited CHD3 variants were maternally transmitted.
    Conclusion

    Our results point to a significant role of inherited variation in Snijders Blok-Campeau syndrome, a finding that is critical for correct variant interpretation and genetic counseling and warrants further investigation toward understanding the broader contributions of such variation to the landscape of human disease.
  • Van den Heuvel, O. A., Boedhoe, P. S., Bertolin, S., Bruin, W. B., Francks, C., Ivanov, I., Jahanshad, N., Kong, X., Kwon, J. S., O'Neill, J., Paus, T., Patel, Y., Piras, F., Schmaal, L., Soriano-Mas, C., Spalletta, G., Van Wingen, G. A., Yun, J.-Y., Vriend, C., Simpson, H. B. and 43 moreVan den Heuvel, O. A., Boedhoe, P. S., Bertolin, S., Bruin, W. B., Francks, C., Ivanov, I., Jahanshad, N., Kong, X., Kwon, J. S., O'Neill, J., Paus, T., Patel, Y., Piras, F., Schmaal, L., Soriano-Mas, C., Spalletta, G., Van Wingen, G. A., Yun, J.-Y., Vriend, C., Simpson, H. B., Van Rooij, D., Hoexter, M. Q., Hoogman, M., Buitelaar, J. K., Arnold, P., Beucke, J. C., Benedetti, F., Bollettini, I., Bose, A., Brennan, B. P., De Nadai, A. S., Fitzgerald, K., Gruner, P., Grünblatt, E., Hirano, Y., Huyser, C., James, A., Koch, K., Kvale, G., Lazaro, L., Lochner, C., Marsh, R., Mataix-Cols, D., Morgado, P., Nakamae, T., Nakao, T., Narayanaswamy, J. C., Nurmi, E., Pittenger, C., Reddy, Y. J., Sato, J. R., Soreni, N., Stewart, S. E., Taylor, S. F., Tolin, D., Thomopoulos, S. I., Veltman, D. J., Venkatasubramanian, G., Walitza, S., Wang, Z., Thompson, P. M., Stein, D. J., & ENIGMA-OCD working (2022). An overview of the first 5 years of the ENIGMA obsessive–compulsive disorder working group: The power of worldwide collaboration. Human Brain Mapping, 43(1), 23-36. doi:10.1002/hbm.24972.

    Abstract

    Abstract Neuroimaging has played an important part in advancing our understanding of the neurobiology of obsessive?compulsive disorder (OCD). At the same time, neuroimaging studies of OCD have had notable limitations, including reliance on relatively small samples. International collaborative efforts to increase statistical power by combining samples from across sites have been bolstered by the ENIGMA consortium; this provides specific technical expertise for conducting multi-site analyses, as well as access to a collaborative community of neuroimaging scientists. In this article, we outline the background to, development of, and initial findings from ENIGMA's OCD working group, which currently consists of 47 samples from 34 institutes in 15 countries on 5 continents, with a total sample of 2,323 OCD patients and 2,325 healthy controls. Initial work has focused on studies of cortical thickness and subcortical volumes, structural connectivity, and brain lateralization in children, adolescents and adults with OCD, also including the study on the commonalities and distinctions across different neurodevelopment disorders. Additional work is ongoing, employing machine learning techniques. Findings to date have contributed to the development of neurobiological models of OCD, have provided an important model of global scientific collaboration, and have had a number of clinical implications. Importantly, our work has shed new light on questions about whether structural and functional alterations found in OCD reflect neurodevelopmental changes, effects of the disease process, or medication impacts. We conclude with a summary of ongoing work by ENIGMA-OCD, and a consideration of future directions for neuroimaging research on OCD within and beyond ENIGMA.
  • Van Dooren, A., Dieuleveut, A., Cournane, A., & Hacquard, V. (2022). Figuring out root and epistemic uses of modals: The role of the input. Journal of Semantics, 39(4), 581-616. doi:10.1093/jos/ffac010.

    Abstract

    This paper investigates how children figure out that modals like must can be used to express both epistemic and “root” (i.e. non epistemic) flavors. The existing acquisition literature shows that children produce modals with epistemic meanings up to a year later than with root meanings. We conducted a corpus study to examine how modality is expressed in speech to and by young children, to investigate the ways in which the linguistic input children hear may help or hinder them in uncovering the flavor flexibility of modals. Our results show that the way parents use modals may obscure the fact that they can express epistemic flavors: modals are very rarely used epistemically. Yet, children eventually figure it out; our results suggest that some do so even before age 3. To investigate how children pick up on epistemic flavors, we explore distributional cues that distinguish roots and epistemics. The semantic literature argues they differ in “temporal orientation” (Condoravdi, 2002): while epistemics can have present or past orientation, root modals tend to be constrained to future orientation (Werner 2006; Klecha, 2016; Rullmann & Matthewson, 2018). We show that in child-directed speech, this constraint is well-reflected in the distribution of aspectual features of roots and epistemics, but that the signal might be weak given the strong usage bias towards roots. We discuss (a) what these results imply for how children might acquire adult-like modal representations, and (b) possible learning paths towards adult-like modal representations.
  • van der Burght, C. L., Numssen, O., Schlaak, B., Goucha, T., & Hartwigsen, G. (2023). Differential contributions of inferior frontal gyrus subregions to sentence processing guided by intonation. Human Brain Mapping, 44(2), 585-598. doi:10.1002/hbm.26086.

    Abstract

    Auditory sentence comprehension involves processing content (semantics), grammar (syntax), and intonation (prosody). The left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is involved in sentence comprehension guided by these different cues, with neuroimaging studies preferentially locating syntactic and semantic processing in separate IFG subregions. However, this regional specialisation and its functional relevance has yet to be confirmed. This study probed the role of the posterior IFG (pIFG) for syntactic processing and the anterior IFG (aIFG) for semantic processing with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in a task that required the interpretation of the sentence’s prosodic realisation. Healthy participants performed a sentence completion task with syntactic and semantic decisions, while receiving 10 Hz rTMS over either left aIFG, pIFG, or vertex (control). Initial behavioural analyses showed an inhibitory effect on accuracy without task-specificity. However, electrical field simulations revealed differential effects for both subregions. In the aIFG, stronger stimulation led to slower semantic processing, with no effect of pIFG stimulation. In contrast, we found a facilitatory effect on syntactic processing in both aIFG and pIFG, where higher stimulation strength was related to faster responses. Our results provide first evidence for the functional relevance of left aIFG in semantic processing guided by intonation. The stimulation effect on syntactic responses emphasises the importance of the IFG for syntax processing, without supporting the hypothesis of a pIFG-specific involvement. Together, the results support the notion of functionally specialised IFG subregions for diverse but fundamental cues for language processing.

    Additional information

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  • Van Hoey, T., Thompson, A. L., Do, Y., & Dingemanse, M. (2023). Iconicity in ideophones: Guessing, memorizing, and reassessing. Cognitive Science, 47(4): e13268. doi:10.1111/cogs.13268.

    Abstract

    Iconicity, or the resemblance between form and meaning, is often ascribed to a special status and contrasted with default assumptions of arbitrariness in spoken language. But does iconicity in spoken language have a special status when it comes to learnability? A simple way to gauge learnability is to see how well something is retrieved from memory. We can further contrast this with guessability, to see (1) whether the ease of guessing the meanings of ideophones outperforms the rate at which they are remembered; and (2) how willing participants’ are to reassess what they were taught in a prior task—a novel contribution of this study. We replicate prior guessing and memory tasks using ideophones and adjectives from Japanese, Korean, and Igbo. Our results show that although native Cantonese speakers guessed ideophone meanings above chance level, they memorized both ideophones and adjectives with comparable accuracy. However, response time data show that participants took significantly longer to respond correctly to adjective–meaning pairs—indicating a discrepancy in a cognitive effort that favored the recognition of ideophones. In a follow-up reassessment task, participants who were taught foil translations were more likely to choose the true translations for ideophones rather than adjectives. By comparing the findings from our guessing and memory tasks, we conclude that iconicity is more accessible if a task requires participants to actively seek out sound-meaning associations.
  • Van Wonderen, E., & Nieuwland, M. S. (2023). Lexical prediction does not rationally adapt to prediction error: ERP evidence from pre-nominal articles. Journal of Memory and Language, 132: 104435. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2023.104435.

    Abstract

    People sometimes predict upcoming words during language comprehension, but debate remains on when and to what extent such predictions indeed occur. The rational adaptation hypothesis holds that predictions develop with expected utility: people predict more strongly when predictions are frequently confirmed (low prediction error) rather than disconfirmed. However, supporting evidence is mixed thus far and has only involved measuring responses to supposedly predicted nouns, not to preceding articles that may also be predicted. The current, large-sample (N = 200) ERP study on written discourse comprehension in Dutch therefore employs the well-known ‘pre-nominal prediction effect’: enhanced N400-like ERPs for articles that are unexpected given a likely upcoming noun’s gender (i.e., the neuter gender article ‘het’ when people expect the common gender noun phrase ‘de krant’, the newspaper) compared to expected articles. We investigated whether the pre-nominal prediction effect is larger when most of the presented stories contain predictable article-noun combinations (75% predictable, 25% unpredictable) compared to when most stories contain unpredictable combinations (25% predictable, 75% unpredictable). Our results show the pre-nominal prediction effect in both contexts, with little evidence to suggest that this effect depended on the percentage of predictable combinations. Moreover, the little evidence suggesting such a dependence was primarily observed for unexpected, neuter-gender articles (‘het’), which is inconsistent with the rational adaptation hypothesis. In line with recent demonstrations (Nieuwland, 2021a,b), our results suggest that linguistic prediction is less ‘rational’ or Bayes optimal than is often suggested.
  • Van Turennout, M., Hagoort, P., & Brown, C. M. (1998). Brain activitity during speaking: From syntax to phonology in 40 milliseconds. Science, 280, 572-574.

    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.
  • Van Turennout, M., Hagoort, P., & Brown, C. M. (1998). Brain activity during speaking: From syntax to phonology in 40 milliseconds. Science, 280(5363), 572-574. doi:10.1126/science.280.5363.572.
  • Van Berkum, J. J. A. (1986). De cognitieve psychologie op zoek naar grondslagen. Kennis en Methode: Tijdschrift voor wetenschapsfilosofie en methodologie, X, 348-360.
  • Van Wijk, C., & Kempen, G. (1982). De ontwikkeling van syntactische formuleervaardigheid bij kinderen van 9 tot 16 jaar. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Psychologie en haar Grensgebieden, 37(8), 491-509.

    Abstract

    An essential phenomenon in the development towards syntactic maturity after early childhood is the increasing use of so-called sentence-combining transformations. Especially by using subordination, complex sentences are produced. The research reported here is an attempt to arrive at a more adequate characterization and explanation. Our starting point was an analysis of 280 texts written by Dutch-speaking pupils of the two highest grades of the primary school and the four lowest grades of three different types of secondary education. It was examined whether systematic shifts in the use of certain groups of so-called function words could be traced. We concluded that the development of the syntactic formulating ability can be characterized as an increase in connectivity: the use of all kinds of function words which explicitly mark logico-semantic relations between propositions. This development starts by inserting special adverbs and coordinating conjunctions resulting in various types of coordination. In a later stage, the syntactic patterning of the sentence is affected as well (various types of subordination). The increase in sentence complexity is only one aspect of the entire development. An explanation for the increase in connectivity is offered based upon a distinction between narrative and expository language use. The latter, but not the former, is characterized by frequent occurrence of connectives. The development in syntactic formulating ability includes a high level of skill in expository language use. Speed of development is determined by intensity of training, e.g. in scholastic and occupational settings.
  • Van Berkum, J. J. A. (1986). Doordacht gevoel: Emoties als informatieverwerking. De Psycholoog, 21(9), 417-423.
  • Van de Geer, J. P., & Levelt, W. J. M. (1963). Detection of visual patterns disturbed by noise: An exploratory study. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 15, 192-204. doi:10.1080/17470216308416324.

    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.
  • Van Wijk, C., & Kempen, G. (1982). Syntactische formuleervaardigheid en het schrijven van opstellen. Pedagogische Studiën, 59, 126-136.

    Abstract

    Meermalen is getracht om syntactische formuleenuuirdigheid direct en objectief te meten aan de hand van gesproken of geschreven teksten. Uitgangspunt hierbij vormde in de regel de syntactische complexiteit van de geproduceerde taaluitingen. Dit heeft echter niet geleid tot een plausibele, duidelijk omschreven en praktisch bruikbare index. N.a.v. een kritische bespreking van de notie complexiteit wordt in dit artikel als nieuw criterium voorgesteld de connectiviteit van de taaluitingen; de expliciete aanduiding van logiscli-scmantische relaties tussen proposities. Connectiviteit is gemakkelijk scoorbaar aan de hand van functiewoorden die verschillende vormen van nevenschikkend en onderschikkend zinsverband markeren. Deze nieuwe index ondetrangt de kritiek die op complexiteit gegeven kon worden, blijkt duidelijk te discrimineren tussen groepen leerlingen die van elkaar verschillen naar leeftijd en opleidingsniveau, en sluit aan bij recente taalpsychologische en sociolinguïstische theorie. Tot besluit worden enige onderwijskundige implicaties aangegeven.
  • Van der Werf, O. J., Schuhmann, T., De Graaf, T., Ten Oever, S., & Sack, A. T. (2023). Investigating the role of task relevance during rhythmic sampling of spatial locations. Scientific Reports, 13: 12707. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-38968-z.

    Abstract

    Recently it has been discovered that visuospatial attention operates rhythmically, rather than being stably employed over time. A low-frequency 7–8 Hz rhythmic mechanism coordinates periodic windows to sample relevant locations and to shift towards other, less relevant locations in a visual scene. Rhythmic sampling theories would predict that when two locations are relevant 8 Hz sampling mechanisms split into two, effectively resulting in a 4 Hz sampling frequency at each location. Therefore, it is expected that rhythmic sampling is influenced by the relative importance of locations for the task at hand. To test this, we employed an orienting task with an arrow cue, where participants were asked to respond to a target presented in one visual field. The cue-to-target interval was systematically varied, allowing us to assess whether performance follows a rhythmic pattern across cue-to-target delays. We manipulated a location’s task relevance by altering the validity of the cue, thereby predicting the correct location in 60%, 80% or 100% of trials. Results revealed significant 4 Hz performance fluctuations at cued right visual field targets with low cue validity (60%), suggesting regular sampling of both locations. With high cue validity (80%), we observed a peak at 8 Hz towards non-cued targets, although not significant. These results were in line with our hypothesis suggesting a goal-directed balancing of attentional sampling (cued location) and shifting (non-cued location) depending on the relevance of locations in a visual scene. However, considering the hemifield specificity of the effect together with the absence of expected effects for cued trials in the high valid conditions we further discuss the interpretation of the data.

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    supplementary information
  • Van Dijk, C. N., Van Wonderen, E., Koutamanis, E., Kootstra, G. J., Dijkstra, T., & Unsworth, S. (2022). Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children: A meta-analysis. Journal of Child Language, 49(5), 897-929. doi:10.1017/S0305000921000337.

    Abstract

    Although cross-linguistic influence at the level of morphosyntax is one of the most intensively studied topics in child bilingualism, the circumstances under which it occurs remain unclear. In this meta-analysis, we measured the effect size of cross-linguistic influence and systematically assessed its predictors in 750 simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children in 17 unique language combinations across 26 experimental studies. We found a significant small to moderate average effect size of cross-linguistic influence, indicating that cross-linguistic influence is part and parcel of bilingual development. Language dominance, operationalized as societal language, was a significant predictor of cross-linguistic influence, whereas surface overlap, language domain and age were not. Perhaps an even more important finding was that definitions and operationalisations of cross-linguistic influence and its predictors varied considerably between studies. This could explain the absence of a comprehensive theory in the field. To solve this issue, we argue for a more uniform method of studying cross-linguistic influence.
  • van der Burght, C. L., Friederici, A. D., Maran, M., Papitto, G., Pyatigorskaya, E., Schroen, J., Trettenbrein, P., & Zaccarella, E. (2023). Cleaning up the brickyard: How theory and methodology shape experiments in cognitive neuroscience of language. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 35(12), 2067-2088. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_02058.

    Abstract

    The capacity for language is a defining property of our species, yet despite decades of research evidence on its neural basis is still mixed and a generalized consensus is difficult to achieve. We suggest that this is partly caused by researchers defining “language” in different ways, with focus on a wide range of phenomena, properties, and levels of investigation. Accordingly, there is very little agreement amongst cognitive neuroscientists of language on the operationalization of fundamental concepts to be investigated in neuroscientific experiments. Here, we review chains of derivation in the cognitive neuroscience of language, focusing on how the hypothesis under consideration is defined by a combination of theoretical and methodological assumptions. We first attempt to disentangle the complex relationship between linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience in the field. Next, we focus on how conclusions that can be drawn from any experiment are inherently constrained by auxiliary assumptions, both theoretical and methodological, on which the validity of conclusions drawn rests. These issues are discussed in the context of classical experimental manipulations as well as study designs that employ novel approaches such as naturalistic stimuli and computational modelling. We conclude by proposing that a highly interdisciplinary field such as the cognitive neuroscience of language requires researchers to form explicit statements concerning the theoretical definitions, methodological choices, and other constraining factors involved in their work.
  • Vanden Bosch der Nederlanden, C. M., Joanisse, M. F., Grahn, J. A., Snijders, T. M., & Schoffelen, J.-M. (2022). Familiarity modulates neural tracking of sung and spoken utterances. NeuroImage, 252: 119049. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119049.

    Abstract

    Music is often described in the laboratory and in the classroom as a beneficial tool for memory encoding and retention, with a particularly strong effect when words are sung to familiar compared to unfamiliar melodies. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this memory benefit, especially for benefits related to familiar music are not well understood. The current study examined whether neural tracking of the slow syllable rhythms of speech and song is modulated by melody familiarity. Participants became familiar with twelve novel melodies over four days prior to MEG testing. Neural tracking of the same utterances spoken and sung revealed greater cerebro-acoustic phase coherence for sung compared to spoken utterances, but did not show an effect of familiar melody when stimuli were grouped by their assigned (trained) familiarity. When participant's subjective ratings of perceived familiarity during the MEG testing session were used to group stimuli, however, a large effect of familiarity was observed. This effect was not specific to song, as it was observed in both sung and spoken utterances. Exploratory analyses revealed some in-session learning of unfamiliar and spoken utterances, with increased neural tracking for untrained stimuli by the end of the MEG testing session. Our results indicate that top-down factors like familiarity are strong modulators of neural tracking for music and language. Participants’ neural tracking was related to their perception of familiarity, which was likely driven by a combination of effects from repeated listening, stimulus-specific melodic simplicity, and individual differences. Beyond simply the acoustic features of music, top-down factors built into the music listening experience, like repetition and familiarity, play a large role in the way we attend to and encode information presented in a musical context.

    Additional information

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  • Verdonschot, R. G., Phu'o'ng, H. T. L., & Tamaoka, K. (2022). Phonological encoding in Vietnamese: An experimental investigation. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 75(7), 1355-1366. doi:10.1177/17470218211053244.

    Abstract

    In English, Dutch, and other Germanic languages the initial phonological unit used in word production has been shown to be the phoneme; conversely, others have revealed that in Chinese this is the atonal syllable and in Japanese the mora. The current paper is, to our knowledge, the first to report chronometric data on Vietnamese phonological encoding. Vietnamese, a tonal language, is of interest as, despite its Austroasiatic roots, it has clear similarities with Chinese through extended contact over a prolonged period. Four experiments (i.e., masked priming, phonological Stroop, picture naming with written distractors, picture naming with auditory distractors) have been conducted to investigate Vietnamese phonological encoding. Results show that in all four experiments both onset effects as well as whole syllable effects emerge. This indicates that the fundamental phonological encoding unit during Vietnamese language production is the phoneme despite its apparent similarities to Chinese. This result might have emerged due to tone assignment being a qualitatively different process in Vietnamese compared to Chinese.
  • Verga, L., D’Este, G., Cassani, S., Leitner, C., Kotz, S. A., Ferini-Strambi, L., & Galbiati, A. (2023). Sleeping with time in mind? A literature review and a proposal for a screening questionnaire on self-awakening. PLoS One, 18(3): e0283221. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0283221.

    Abstract

    Some people report being able to spontaneously “time” the end of their sleep. This ability to self-awaken challenges the idea of sleep as a passive cognitive state. Yet, current evidence on this phenomenon is limited, partly because of the varied definitions of self-awakening and experimental approaches used to study it. Here, we provide a review of the literature on self-awakening. Our aim is to i) contextualise the phenomenon, ii) propose an operating definition, and iii) summarise the scientific approaches used so far. The literature review identified 17 studies on self-awakening. Most of them adopted an objective sleep evaluation (76%), targeted nocturnal sleep (76%), and used a single criterion to define the success of awakening (82%); for most studies, this corresponded to awakening occurring in a time window of 30 minutes around the expected awakening time. Out of 715 total participants, 125 (17%) reported to be self-awakeners, with an average age of 23.24 years and a slight predominance of males compared to females. These results reveal self-awakening as a relatively rare phenomenon. To facilitate the study of self-awakening, and based on the results of the literature review, we propose a quick paper-and-pencil screening questionnaire for self-awakeners and provide an initial validation for it. Taken together, the combined results of the literature review and the proposed questionnaire help in characterising a theoretical framework for self-awakenings, while providing a useful tool and empirical suggestions for future experimental studies, which should ideally employ objective measurements.
  • Verga, L., Sroka, M. G. U., Varola, M., Villanueva, S., & Ravignani, A. (2022). Spontaneous rhythm discrimination in a mammalian vocal learner. Biology Letters, 18: 20220316. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2022.0316.

    Abstract

    Rhythm and vocal production learning are building blocks of human music and speech. Vocal learning has been hypothesized as a prerequisite for rhythmic capacities. Yet, no mammalian vocal learner but humans have shown the capacity to flexibly and spontaneously discriminate rhythmic patterns. Here we tested untrained rhythm discrimination in a mammalian vocal learning species, the harbour seal (Phoca vitulina). Twenty wild-born seals were exposed to music-like playbacks of conspecific call sequences varying in basic rhythmic properties. These properties were called length, sequence regularity, and overall tempo. All three features significantly influenced seals' reaction (number of looks and their duration), demonstrating spontaneous rhythm discrimination in a vocal learning mammal. This finding supports the rhythm–vocal learning hypothesis and showcases pinnipeds as promising models for comparative research on rhythmic phylogenies.
  • Verga, L., Kotz, S. A., & Ravignani, A. (2023). The evolution of social timing. Physics of Life Reviews, 46, 131-151. doi:10.1016/j.plrev.2023.06.006.

    Abstract

    Sociality and timing are tightly interrelated in human interaction as seen in turn-taking or synchronised dance movements. Sociality and timing also show in communicative acts of other species that might be pleasurable, but also necessary for survival. Sociality and timing often co-occur, but their shared phylogenetic trajectory is unknown: How, when, and why did they become so tightly linked? Answering these questions is complicated by several constraints; these include the use of divergent operational definitions across fields and species, the focus on diverse mechanistic explanations (e.g., physiological, neural, or cognitive), and the frequent adoption of anthropocentric theories and methodologies in comparative research. These limitations hinder the development of an integrative framework on the evolutionary trajectory of social timing and make comparative studies not as fruitful as they could be. Here, we outline a theoretical and empirical framework to test contrasting hypotheses on the evolution of social timing with species-appropriate paradigms and consistent definitions. To facilitate future research, we introduce an initial set of representative species and empirical hypotheses. The proposed framework aims at building and contrasting evolutionary trees of social timing toward and beyond the crucial branch represented by our own lineage. Given the integration of cross-species and quantitative approaches, this research line might lead to an integrated empirical-theoretical paradigm and, as a long-term goal, explain why humans are such socially coordinated animals.
  • Vernes, S. C., Devanna, P., Hörpel, S. G., Alvarez van Tussenbroek, I., Firzlaff, U., Hagoort, P., Hiller, M., Hoeksema, N., Hughes, G. M., Lavrichenko, K., Mengede, J., Morales, A. E., & Wiesmann, M. (2022). The pale spear‐nosed bat: A neuromolecular and transgenic model for vocal learning. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1517, 125-142. doi:10.1111/nyas.14884.

    Abstract

    Vocal learning, the ability to produce modified vocalizations via learning from acoustic signals, is a key trait in the evolution of speech. While extensively studied in songbirds, mammalian models for vocal learning are rare. Bats present a promising study system given their gregarious natures, small size, and the ability of some species to be maintained in captive colonies. We utilize the pale spear-nosed bat (Phyllostomus discolor) and report advances in establishing this species as a tractable model for understanding vocal learning. We have taken an interdisciplinary approach, aiming to provide an integrated understanding across genomics (Part I), neurobiology (Part II), and transgenics (Part III). In Part I, we generated new, high-quality genome annotations of coding genes and noncoding microRNAs to facilitate functional and evolutionary studies. In Part II, we traced connections between auditory-related brain regions and reported neuroimaging to explore the structure of the brain and gene expression patterns to highlight brain regions. In Part III, we created the first successful transgenic bats by manipulating the expression of FoxP2, a speech-related gene. These interdisciplinary approaches are facilitating a mechanistic and evolutionary understanding of mammalian vocal learning and can also contribute to other areas of investigation that utilize P. discolor or bats as study species.

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  • Vessel, E. A., Pasqualette, L., Uran, C., Koldehoff, S., Bignardi, G., & Vinck, M. (2023). Self-relevance predicts the aesthetic appeal of real and synthetic artworks generated via neural style transfer. Psychological Science, 34(9), 1007-1023. doi:10.1177/09567976231188107.

    Abstract

    What determines the aesthetic appeal of artworks? Recent work suggests that aesthetic appeal can, to some extent, be predicted from a visual artwork’s image features. Yet a large fraction of variance in aesthetic ratings remains unexplained and may relate to individual preferences. We hypothesized that an artwork’s aesthetic appeal depends strongly on self-relevance. In a first study (N = 33 adults, online replication N = 208), rated aesthetic appeal for real artworks was positively predicted by rated self-relevance. In a second experiment (N = 45 online), we created synthetic, self-relevant artworks using deep neural networks that transferred the style of existing artworks to photographs. Style transfer was applied to self-relevant photographs selected to reflect participant-specific attributes such as autobiographical memories. Self-relevant, synthetic artworks were rated as more aesthetically appealing than matched control images, at a level similar to human-made artworks. Thus, self-relevance is a key determinant of aesthetic appeal, independent of artistic skill and image features.

    Additional information

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  • Vingerhoets, G., Verhelst, H., Gerrits, R., Badcock, N., Bishop, D. V. M., Carey, D., Flindall, J., Grimshaw, G., Harris, L. J., Hausmann, M., Hirnstein, M., Jäncke, L., Joliot, M., Specht, K., Westerhausen, R., & LICI consortium (2023). Laterality indices consensus initiative (LICI): A Delphi expert survey report on recommendations to record, assess, and report asymmetry in human behavioural and brain research. Laterality, 28(2-3), 122-191. doi:10.1080/1357650X.2023.2199963.

    Abstract

    Laterality indices (LIs) quantify the left-right asymmetry of brain and behavioural variables and provide a measure that is statistically convenient and seemingly easy to interpret. Substantial variability in how structural and functional asymmetries are recorded, calculated, and reported, however, suggest little agreement on the conditions required for its valid assessment. The present study aimed for consensus on general aspects in this context of laterality research, and more specifically within a particular method or technique (i.e., dichotic listening, visual half-field technique, performance asymmetries, preference bias reports, electrophysiological recording, functional MRI, structural MRI, and functional transcranial Doppler sonography). Experts in laterality research were invited to participate in an online Delphi survey to evaluate consensus and stimulate discussion. In Round 0, 106 experts generated 453 statements on what they considered good practice in their field of expertise. Statements were organised into a 295-statement survey that the experts then were asked, in Round 1, to independently assess for importance and support, which further reduced the survey to 241 statements that were presented again to the experts in Round 2. Based on the Round 2 input, we present a set of critically reviewed key recommendations to record, assess, and report laterality research for various methods.

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  • Visser, I., Bergmann, C., Byers-Heinlein, K., Dal Ben, R., Duch, W., Forbes, S., Franchin, L., Frank, M., Geraci, A., Hamlin, J. K., Kaldy, Z., Kulke, L., Laverty, C., Lew-Williams, C., Mateu, V., Mayor, J., Moreau, D., Nomikou, I., Schuwerk, T., Simpson, E. and 8 moreVisser, I., Bergmann, C., Byers-Heinlein, K., Dal Ben, R., Duch, W., Forbes, S., Franchin, L., Frank, M., Geraci, A., Hamlin, J. K., Kaldy, Z., Kulke, L., Laverty, C., Lew-Williams, C., Mateu, V., Mayor, J., Moreau, D., Nomikou, I., Schuwerk, T., Simpson, E., Singh, L., Soderstrom, M., Sullivan, J., Van den Heuvel, M. I., Westermann, G., Yamada, Y., Zaadnoordijk, L., & Zettersten, M. (2022). Improving the generalizability of infant psychological research: The ManyBabies model. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 45: e35. doi:10.1017/S0140525X21000455.

    Abstract

    Yarkoni’s analysis clearly articulates a number of concerns limiting the generalizability and explanatory power of psychological findings, many of which are compounded in infancy research. ManyBabies addresses these concerns via a radically collaborative, large-scale and open approach to research that is grounded in theory-building, committed to diversification, and focused on understanding sources of variation.
  • Vogelezang, S., Bradfield, J. P., the Early Growth Genetics Consortium, Grant, S. F. A., Felix, J. F., & Jaddoe, V. W. V. (2022). Genetics of early-life head circumference and genetic correlations with neurological, psychiatric and cognitive outcomes. BMC Medical Genomics, 15: 124. doi:10.1186/s12920-022-01281-1.

    Abstract

    Background

    Head circumference is associated with intelligence and tracks from childhood into adulthood.
    Methods

    We performed a genome-wide association study meta-analysis and follow-up of head circumference in a total of 29,192 participants between 6 and 30 months of age.
    Results

    Seven loci reached genome-wide significance in the combined discovery and replication analysis of which three loci near ARFGEF2, MYCL1, and TOP1, were novel. We observed positive genetic correlations for early-life head circumference with adult intracranial volume, years of schooling, childhood and adult intelligence, but not with adult psychiatric, neurological, or personality-related phenotypes.
    Conclusions

    The results of this study indicate that the biological processes underlying early-life head circumference overlap largely with those of adult head circumference. The associations of early-life head circumference with cognitive outcomes across the life course are partly explained by genetics.
  • De Vos, C., Casillas, M., Uittenbogert, T., Crasborn, O., & Levinson, S. C. (2022). Predicting conversational turns: Signers’ and non-signers’ sensitivity to language-specific and globally accessible cues. Language, 98(1), 35-62. doi:10.1353/lan.2021.0085.

    Abstract

    Precision turn-taking may constitute a crucial part of the human endowment for communication. If so, it should be implemented similarly across language modalities, as in signed vs. spoken language. Here in the first experimental study of turn-end prediction in sign language, we find support for the idea that signed language, like spoken language, involves turn-type prediction and turn-end anticipation. In both cases, turns eliciting specific responses like questions accelerate anticipation. We also show remarkable cross-modality predictive capacity: non-signers anticipate sign turn-ends surprisingly well. Finally, we show that despite non-signers’ ability to intuitively predict signed turn-ends, early native signers do it much better by using their access to linguistic signals (here, question markers). As shown in prior work, question formation facilitates prediction, and age of sign language acquisition affects accuracy. The study thus sheds light on the kind of features that may facilitate turn-taking universally, and those that are language-specific.

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  • Wang, M., Shao, Z., Verdonschot, R. G., Chen, Y., & Schiller, N. O. (2023). Orthography influences spoken word production in blocked cyclic naming. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 30, 383-392. doi:10.3758/s13423-022-02123-y.

    Abstract

    Does the way a word is written influence its spoken production? Previous studies suggest that orthography is involved only when the orthographic representation is highly relevant during speaking (e.g., in reading-aloud tasks). To address this issue, we carried out two experiments using the blocked cyclic picture-naming paradigm. In both experiments, participants were asked to name pictures repeatedly in orthographically homogeneous or heterogeneous blocks. In the naming task, the written form was not shown; however, the radical of the first character overlapped between the four pictures in this block type. A facilitative orthographic effect was found when picture names shared part of their written forms, compared with the heterogeneous condition. This facilitative effect was independent of the position of orthographic overlap (i.e., the left, the lower, or the outer part of the character). These findings strongly suggest that orthography can influence speaking even when it is not highly relevant (i.e., during picture naming) and the orthographic effect is less likely to be attributed to strategic preparation.
  • Wanner-Kawahara, J., Yoshihara, M., Lupker, S. J., Verdonschot, R. G., & Nakayama, M. (2022). Morphological priming effects in L2 English verbs for Japanese-English bilinguals. Frontiers in Psychology, 13: 742965. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.742965.

    Abstract

    For native (L1) English readers, masked presentations of past-tense verb primes (e.g., fell and looked) produce faster lexical decision latencies to their present-tense targets (e.g., FALL and LOOK) than orthographically related (e.g., fill and loose) or unrelated (e.g., master and bank) primes. This facilitation observed with morphologically related prime-target pairs (morphological priming) is generally taken as evidence for strong connections based on morphological relationships in the L1 lexicon. It is unclear, however, if similar, morphologically based, connections develop in non-native (L2) lexicons. Several earlier studies with L2 English readers have reported mixed results. The present experiments examine whether past-tense verb primes (both regular and irregular verbs) significantly facilitate target lexical decisions for Japanese-English bilinguals beyond any facilitation provided by prime-target orthographic similarity. Overall, past-tense verb primes facilitated lexical decisions to their present-tense targets relative to both orthographically related and unrelated primes. Replicating previous masked priming experiments with L2 readers, orthographically related primes also facilitated target recognition relative to unrelated primes, confirming that orthographic similarity facilitates L2 target recognition. The additional facilitation from past-tense verb primes beyond that provided by orthographic primes suggests that, in the L2 English lexicon, connections based on morphological relationships develop in a way that is similar to how they develop in the L1 English lexicon even though the connections and processing of lower level, lexical/orthographic information may differ. Further analyses involving L2 proficiency revealed that as L2 proficiency increased, orthographic facilitation was reduced, indicating that there is a decrease in the fuzziness in orthographic representations in the L2 lexicon with increased proficiency.

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  • Wheeldon, L. R., & Levelt, W. J. M. (1995). Monitoring the time course of phonological encoding. Journal of Memory and Language, 34(3), 311-334. doi:10.1006/jmla.1995.1014.

    Abstract

    Three experiments examined the time course of phonological encoding in speech production. A new methodology is introduced in which subjects are required to monitor their internal speech production for prespecified target segments and syllables. Experiment 1 demonstrated that word initial target segments are monitored significantly faster than second syllable initial target segments. The addition of a concurrent articulation task (Experiment 1b) had a limited effect on performance, excluding the possibility that subjects are monitoring a subvocal articulation of the carrier word. Moreover, no relationship was observed between the pattern of monitoring latencies and the timing of the targets in subjects′ overt speech. Subjects are not, therefore, monitoring an internal phonetic representation of the carrier word. Experiment 2 used the production monitoring task to replicate the syllable monitoring effect observed in speech perception experiments: responses to targets were faster when they corresponded to the initial syllable of the carrier word than when they did not. We conclude that subjects are monitoring their internal generation of a syllabified phonological representation. Experiment 3 provides more detailed evidence concerning the time course of the generation of this representation by comparing monitoring latencies to targets within, as well as between, syllables. Some amendments to current models of phonological encoding are suggested in light of these results.
  • Whelan, L., Dockery, A., Stephenson, K. A. J., Zhu, J., Kopčić, E., Post, I. J. M., Khan, M., Corradi, Z., Wynne, N., O’ Byrne, J. J., Duignan, E., Silvestri, G., Roosing, S., Cremers, F. P. M., Keegan, D. J., Kenna, P. F., & Farrar, G. J. (2023). Detailed analysis of an enriched deep intronic ABCA4 variant in Irish Stargardt disease patients. Scientific Reports, 13: 9380. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-35889-9.

    Abstract

    Over 15% of probands in a large cohort of more than 1500 inherited retinal degeneration patients present with a clinical diagnosis of Stargardt disease (STGD1), a recessive form of macular dystrophy caused by biallelic variants in the ABCA4 gene. Participants were clinically examined and underwent either target capture sequencing of the exons and some pathogenic intronic regions of ABCA4, sequencing of the entire ABCA4 gene or whole genome sequencing. ABCA4 c.4539 + 2028C > T, p.[= ,Arg1514Leufs*36] is a pathogenic deep intronic variant that results in a retina-specific 345-nucleotide pseudoexon inclusion. Through analysis of the Irish STGD1 cohort, 25 individuals across 18 pedigrees harbour ABCA4 c.4539 + 2028C > T and another pathogenic variant. This includes, to the best of our knowledge, the only two homozygous patients identified to date. This provides important evidence of variant pathogenicity for this deep intronic variant, highlighting the value of homozygotes for variant interpretation. 15 other heterozygous incidents of this variant in patients have been reported globally, indicating significant enrichment in the Irish population. We provide detailed genetic and clinical characterization of these patients, illustrating that ABCA4 c.4539 + 2028C > T is a variant of mild to intermediate severity. These results have important implications for unresolved STGD1 patients globally with approximately 10% of the population in some western countries claiming Irish heritage. This study exemplifies that detection and characterization of founder variants is a diagnostic imperative.

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  • Whitehead, H., & Hersh, T. A. (2022). Posterior probabilities of membership of repertoires in acoustic clades. PLoS One, 17(4): e0267501. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0267501.

    Abstract

    Recordings of calls may be used to assess population structure for acoustic species. This can be particularly effective if there are identity calls, produced nearly exclusively by just one population segment. The identity call method, IDcall, classifies calls into types using contaminated mixture models, and then clusters repertoires of calls into identity clades (potential population segments) using identity calls that are characteristic of the repertoires in each identity clade. We show how to calculate the Bayesian posterior probabilities that each repertoire is a member of each identity clade, and display this information as a stacked bar graph. This methodology (IDcallPP) is introduced using the output of IDcall but could easily be adapted to estimate posterior probabilities of clade membership when acoustic clades are delineated using other methods. This output is similar to that of the STRUCTURE software which uses molecular genetic data to assess population structure and has become a standard in conservation genetics. The technique introduced here should be a valuable asset to those who use acoustic data to address evolution, ecology, or conservation, and creates a methodological and conceptual bridge between geneticists and acousticians who aim to assess population structure.
  • Wierenga, L. M., Doucet, G. E., Dima, D., Agartz, I., Aghajani, M., Akudjedu, T. N., Albajes-Eizagirre, A., Alnæs, D., Alpert, K. I., Andreassen, O. A., Anticevic, A., Asherson, P., Banaschewski, T., Bargallo, N., Baumeister, S., Baur-Streubel, R., Bertolino, A., Bonvino, A., Boomsma, D. I., Borgwardt, S. and 139 moreWierenga, L. M., Doucet, G. E., Dima, D., Agartz, I., Aghajani, M., Akudjedu, T. N., Albajes-Eizagirre, A., Alnæs, D., Alpert, K. I., Andreassen, O. A., Anticevic, A., Asherson, P., Banaschewski, T., Bargallo, N., Baumeister, S., Baur-Streubel, R., Bertolino, A., Bonvino, A., Boomsma, D. I., Borgwardt, S., Bourque, J., Den Braber, A., Brandeis, D., Breier, A., Brodaty, H., Brouwer, R. M., Buitelaar, J. K., Busatto, G. F., Calhoun, V. D., Canales-Rodríguez, E. J., Cannon, D. M., Caseras, X., Castellanos, F. X., Chaim-Avancini, T. M., Ching, C. R. K., Clark, V. P., Conrod, P. J., Conzelmann, A., Crivello, F., Davey, C. G., Dickie, E. W., Ehrlich, S., Van 't Ent, D., Fisher, S. E., Fouche, J.-P., Franke, B., Fuentes-Claramonte, P., De Geus, E. J. C., Di Giorgio, A., Glahn, D. C., Gotlib, I. H., Grabe, H. J., Gruber, O., Gruner, P., Gur, R. E., Gur, R. C., Gurholt, T. P., De Haan, L., Haatveit, B., Harrison, B. J., Hartman, C. A., Hatton, S. N., Heslenfeld, D. J., Van den Heuvel, O. A., Hickie, I. B., Hoekstra, P. J., Hohmann, S., Holmes, A. J., Hoogman, M., Hosten, N., Howells, F. M., Hulshoff Pol, H. E., Huyser, C., Jahanshad, N., James, A. C., Jiang, J., Jönsson, E. G., Joska, J. A., Kalnin, A. J., Karolinska Schizophrenia Project (KaSP) Consortium, Klein, M., Koenders, L., Kolskår, K. K., Krämer, B., Kuntsi, J., Lagopoulos, J., Lazaro, L., Lebedeva, I. S., Lee, P. H., Lochner, C., Machielsen, M. W. J., Maingault, S., Martin, N. G., Martínez-Zalacaín, I., Mataix-Cols, D., Mazoyer, B., McDonald, B. C., McDonald, C., McIntosh, A. M., McMahon, K. L., McPhilemy, G., Van der Meer, D., Menchón, J. M., Naaijen, J., Nyberg, L., Oosterlaan, J., Paloyelis, Y., Pauli, P., Pergola, G., Pomarol-Clotet, E., Portella, M. J., Radua, J., Reif, A., Richard, G., Roffman, J. L., Rosa, P. G. P., Sacchet, M. D., Sachdev, P. S., Salvador, R., Sarró, S., Satterthwaite, T. D., Saykin, A. J., Serpa, M. H., Sim, K., Simmons, A., Smoller, J. W., Sommer, I. E., Soriano-Mas, C., Stein, D. J., Strike, L. T., Szeszko, P. R., Temmingh, H. S., Thomopoulos, S. I., Tomyshev, A. S., Trollor, J. N., Uhlmann, A., Veer, I. M., Veltman, D. J., Voineskos, A., Völzke, H., Walter, H., Wang, L., Wang, Y., Weber, B., Wen, W., West, J. D., Westlye, L. T., Whalley, H. C., Williams, S. C. R., Wittfeld, K., Wolf, D. H., Wright, M. J., Yoncheva, Y. N., Zanetti, M. V., Ziegler, G. C., De Zubicaray, G. I., Thompson, P. M., Crone, E. A., Frangou, S., & Tamnes, C. K. (2022). Greater male than female variability in regional brain structure across the lifespan. Human Brain Mapping, 43(1), 470-499. doi:10.1002/hbm.25204.

    Abstract

    For many traits, males show greater variability than females, with possible implications for understanding sex differences in health and disease. Here, the ENIGMA (Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta‐Analysis) Consortium presents the largest‐ever mega‐analysis of sex differences in variability of brain structure, based on international data spanning nine decades of life. Subcortical volumes, cortical surface area and cortical thickness were assessed in MRI data of 16,683 healthy individuals 1‐90 years old (47% females). We observed significant patterns of greater male than female between‐subject variance for all subcortical volumetric measures, all cortical surface area measures, and 60% of cortical thickness measures. This pattern was stable across the lifespan for 50% of the subcortical structures, 70% of the regional area measures, and nearly all regions for thickness. Our findings that these sex differences are present in childhood implicate early life genetic or gene‐environment interaction mechanisms. The findings highlight the importance of individual differences within the sexes, that may underpin sex‐specific vulnerability to disorders.
  • Wilkins, D. P., & Hill, D. (1995). When "go" means "come": Questioning the basicness of basic motion verbs. Cognitive Linguistics, 6, 209-260. doi:10.1515/cogl.1995.6.2-3.209.

    Abstract

    The purpose of this paper is to question some of the basic assumpiions concerning motion verbs. In particular, it examines the assumption that "come" and "go" are lexical universals which manifest a universal deictic Opposition. Against the background offive working hypotheses about the nature of'come" and ''go", this study presents a comparative investigation of t wo unrelated languages—Mparntwe Arrernte (Pama-Nyungan, Australian) and Longgu (Oceanic, Austronesian). Although the pragmatic and deictic "suppositional" complexity of"come" and "go" expressions has long been recognized, we argue that in any given language the analysis of these expressions is much more semantically and systemically complex than has been assumed in the literature. Languages vary at the lexical semantic level äs t o what is entailed by these expressions, äs well äs differing äs t o what constitutes the prototype and categorial structure for such expressions. The data also strongly suggest that, ifthere is a lexical universal "go", then this cannof be an inherently deictic expression. However, due to systemic Opposition with "come", non-deictic "go" expressions often take on a deictic Interpretation through pragmatic attribution. Thus, this crosslinguistic investigation of "come" and "go" highlights the need to consider semantics and pragmatics äs modularly separate.
  • Wilms, V., Drijvers, L., & Brouwer, S. (2022). The Effects of Iconic Gestures and Babble Language on Word Intelligibility in Sentence Context. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 65, 1822-1838. doi:10.1044/2022\_JSLHR-21-00387.

    Abstract

    Purpose:This study investigated to what extent iconic co-speech gestures helpword intelligibility in sentence context in two different linguistic maskers (nativevs. foreign). It was hypothesized that sentence recognition improves with thepresence of iconic co-speech gestures and with foreign compared to nativebabble.Method:Thirty-two native Dutch participants performed a Dutch word recogni-tion task in context in which they were presented with videos in which anactress uttered short Dutch sentences (e.g.,Ze begint te openen,“She starts toopen”). Participants were presented with a total of six audiovisual conditions: nobackground noise (i.e., clear condition) without gesture, no background noise withgesture, French babble without gesture, French babble with gesture, Dutch bab-ble without gesture, and Dutch babble with gesture; and they were asked to typedown what was said by the Dutch actress. The accurate identification of theaction verbs at the end of the target sentences was measured.Results:The results demonstrated that performance on the task was better inthe gesture compared to the nongesture conditions (i.e., gesture enhancementeffect). In addition, performance was better in French babble than in Dutchbabble.Conclusions:Listeners benefit from iconic co-speech gestures during commu-nication and from foreign background speech compared to native. Theseinsights into multimodal communication may be valuable to everyone whoengages in multimodal communication and especially to a public who oftenworks in public places where competing speech is present in the background.
  • Wnuk, E., Verkerk, A., Levinson, S. C., & Majid, A. (2022). Color technology is not necessary for rich and efficient color language. Cognition, 229: 105223. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105223.

    Abstract

    The evolution of basic color terms in language is claimed to be stimulated by technological development, involving technological control of color or exposure to artificially colored objects. Accordingly, technologically “simple” non-industrialized societies are expected to have poor lexicalization of color, i.e., only rudimentary lexica of 2, 3 or 4 basic color terms, with unnamed gaps in the color space. While it may indeed be the case that technology stimulates lexical growth of color terms, it is sometimes considered a sine qua non for color salience and lexicalization. We provide novel evidence that this overlooks the role of the natural environment, and people's engagement with the environment, in the evolution of color vocabulary. We introduce the Maniq—nomadic hunter-gatherers with no color technology, but who have a basic color lexicon of 6 or 7 terms, thus of the same order as large languages like Vietnamese and Hausa, and who routinely talk about color. We examine color language in Maniq and compare it to available data in other languages to demonstrate it has remarkably high consensual color term usage, on a par with English, and high coding efficiency. This shows colors can matter even for non-industrialized societies, suggesting technology is not necessary for color language. Instead, factors such as perceptual prominence of color in natural environments, its practical usefulness across communicative contexts, and symbolic importance can all stimulate elaboration of color language.
  • Yang, J., Van den Bosch, A., & Frank, S. L. (2022). Unsupervised text segmentation predicts eye fixations during reading. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, 5: 731615. doi:10.3389/frai.2022.731615.

    Abstract

    Words typically form the basis of psycholinguistic and computational linguistic studies about sentence processing. However, recent evidence shows the basic units during reading, i.e., the items in the mental lexicon, are not always words, but could also be sub-word and supra-word units. To recognize these units, human readers require a cognitive mechanism to learn and detect them. In this paper, we assume eye fixations during reading reveal the locations of the cognitive units, and that the cognitive units are analogous with the text units discovered by unsupervised segmentation models. We predict eye fixations by model-segmented units on both English and Dutch text. The results show the model-segmented units predict eye fixations better than word units. This finding suggests that the predictive performance of model-segmented units indicates their plausibility as cognitive units. The Less-is-Better (LiB) model, which finds the units that minimize both long-term and working memory load, offers advantages both in terms of prediction score and efficiency among alternative models. Our results also suggest that modeling the least-effort principle for the management of long-term and working memory can lead to inferring cognitive units. Overall, the study supports the theory that the mental lexicon stores not only words but also smaller and larger units, suggests that fixation locations during reading depend on these units, and shows that unsupervised segmentation models can discover these units.
  • Zeller, J., Bylund, E., & Lewis, A. G. (2022). The parser consults the lexicon in spite of transparent gender marking: EEG evidence from noun class agreement processing in Zulu. Cognition, 226: 105148. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105148.

    Abstract

    In sentence comprehension, the parser in many languages has the option to use both the morphological form of a noun and its lexical representation when evaluating agreement. The additional step of consulting the lexicon incurs processing costs, and an important question is whether the parser takes that step even when the formal cues alone are sufficiently reliable to evaluate agreement. Our study addressed this question using electrophysiology in Zulu, a language where both grammatical gender and number features are reliably expressed formally by noun class prefixes, but only gender features are lexically specified. We observed reduced, more topographically focal LAN, and more frontally distributed alpha/beta power effects for gender compared to number agreement violations. These differences provide evidence that for gender mismatches, even though the formal cues are reliable, the parser nevertheless takes the additional step of consulting the noun's lexical representation, a step which is not available for number.

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  • Zhang, Q., Zhou, Y., & Lou, H. (2022). The dissociation between age of acquisition and word frequency effects in Chinese spoken picture naming. Psychological Research, 86, 1918-1929. doi:10.1007/s00426-021-01616-0.

    Abstract

    This study aimed to examine the locus of age of acquisition (AoA) and word frequency (WF) effects in Chinese spoken picture naming, using a picture–word interference task. We conducted four experiments manipulating the properties of picture names (AoA in Experiments 1 and 2, while controlling WF; and WF in Experiments 3 and 4, while controlling AoA), and the relations between distractors and targets (semantic or phonological relatedness). Both Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated AoA effects in picture naming; pictures of early acquired concepts were named faster than those acquired later. There was an interaction between AoA and semantic relatedness, but not between AoA and phonological relatedness, suggesting localisation of AoA effects at the stage of lexical access in picture naming. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated WF effects: pictures of high-frequency concepts were named faster than those of low-frequency concepts. WF interacted with both phonological and semantic relatedness, suggesting localisation of WF effects at multiple levels of picture naming, including lexical access and phonological encoding. Our findings show that AoA and WF effects exist in Chinese spoken word production and may arise at related processes of lexical selection.
  • Wu, S., Zhang, D., Li, X., Zhao, J., Sun, X., Shi, L., Mao, Y., Zhang, Y., & Jiang, F. (2022). Siblings and Early Childhood Development: Evidence from a Population-Based Cohort in Preschoolers from Shanghai. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(9): 5739. doi:10.3390/ijerph19095739.

    Abstract

    Background: The current study aims to investigate the association between the presence of a sibling and early childhood development (ECD). (2) Methods: Data were obtained from a large-scale population-based cohort in Shanghai. Children were followed from three to six years old. Based on birth order, the sample was divided into four groups: single child, younger child, elder child, and single-elder transfer (transfer from single-child to elder-child). Psychosocial well-being and school readiness were assessed with the total difficulties score from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the overall development score from the early Human Capability Index (eHCI), respectively. A multilevel model was conducted to evaluate the main effect of each sibling group and the group × age interaction effect on psychosocial well-being and school readiness. (3) Results: Across all measures, children in the younger child group presented with lower psychosocial problems (β = −0.96, 95% CI: −1.44, −0.48, p < 0.001) and higher school readiness scores (β = 1.56, 95% CI: 0.61, 2.51, p = 0.001). No significant difference, or marginally significant difference, was found between the elder group and the single-child group. Compared to the single-child group, the single-elder transfer group presented with slower development on both psychosocial well-being (Age × Group: β = 0.37, 95% CI: 0.18, 0.56, p < 0.001) and school readiness (Age × Group: β = −0.75, 95% CI: −1.10, −0.40, p < 0.001). The sibling-ECD effects did not differ between children from families of low versus high socioeconomic status. (4) Conclusion: The current study suggested the presence of a sibling was not associated with worse development outcomes in general. Rather, children with an elder sibling are more likely to present with better ECD.
  • Zhang, Y., Ding, R., Frassinelli, D., Tuomainen, J., Klavinskis-Whiting, S., & Vigliocco, G. (2023). The role of multimodal cues in second language comprehension. Scientific Reports, 13: 20824. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-47643-2.

    Abstract

    In face-to-face communication, multimodal cues such as prosody, gestures, and mouth movements can play a crucial role in language processing. While several studies have addressed how these cues contribute to native (L1) language processing, their impact on non-native (L2) comprehension is largely unknown. Comprehension of naturalistic language by L2 comprehenders may be supported by the presence of (at least some) multimodal cues, as these provide correlated and convergent information that may aid linguistic processing. However, it is also the case that multimodal cues may be less used by L2 comprehenders because linguistic processing is more demanding than for L1 comprehenders, leaving more limited resources for the processing of multimodal cues. In this study, we investigated how L2 comprehenders use multimodal cues in naturalistic stimuli (while participants watched videos of a speaker), as measured by electrophysiological responses (N400) to words, and whether there are differences between L1 and L2 comprehenders. We found that prosody, gestures, and informative mouth movements each reduced the N400 in L2, indexing easier comprehension. Nevertheless, L2 participants showed weaker effects for each cue compared to L1 comprehenders, with the exception of meaningful gestures and informative mouth movements. These results show that L2 comprehenders focus on specific multimodal cues – meaningful gestures that support meaningful interpretation and mouth movements that enhance the acoustic signal – while using multimodal cues to a lesser extent than L1 comprehenders overall.

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  • Wu, S., Zhao, J., de Villiers, J., Liu, X. L., Rolfhus, E., Sun, X. N., Li, X. Y., Pan, H., Wang, H. W., Zhu, Q., Dong, Y. Y., Zhang, Y. T., & Jiang, F. (2023). Prevalence, co-occurring difficulties, and risk factors of developmental language disorder: First evidence for Mandarin-speaking children in a population-based study. The Lancet Regional Health - Western Pacific, 34: 100713. doi:10.1016/j.lanwpc.2023.100713.

    Abstract

    Background: Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a condition that significantly affects children's achievement but has been understudied. We aim to estimate the prevalence of DLD in Shanghai, compare the co-occurrence of difficulties between children with DLD and those with typical development (TD), and investigate the early risk factors for DLD.

    Methods: We estimated DLD prevalence using data from a population-based survey with a cluster random sampling design in Shanghai, China. A subsample of children (aged 5-6 years) received an onsite evaluation, and each child was categorized as TD or DLD. The proportions of children with socio-emotional behavior (SEB) difficulties, low non-verbal IQ (NVIQ), and poor school readiness were calculated among children with TD and DLD. We used multiple imputation to address the missing values of risk factors. Univariate and multivariate regression models adjusted with sampling weights were used to estimate the correlation of each risk factor with DLD.

    Findings: Of 1082 children who were approached for the onsite evaluation, 974 (90.0%) completed the language ability assessments, of whom 74 met the criteria for DLD, resulting in a prevalence of 8.5% (95% CI 6.3-11.5) when adjusted with sampling weights. Compared with TD children, children with DLD had higher rates of concurrent difficulties, including SEB (total difficulties score at-risk: 156 [17.3%] of 900 TD vs. 28 [37.8%] of 74 DLD, p < 0.0001), low NVIQ (3 [0.3%] of 900 TD vs. 8 [10.8%] of 74 DLD, p < 0.0001), and poor school readiness (71 [7.9%] of 900 TD vs. 13 [17.6%] of 74 DLD, p = 0.0040). After accounting for all other risk factors, a higher risk of DLD was associated with a lack of parent-child interaction diversity (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 3.08, 95% CI = 1.29-7.37; p = 0.012) and lower kindergarten levels (compared to demonstration and first level: third level (aOR = 6.15, 95% CI = 1.92-19.63; p = 0.0020)).

    Interpretation: The prevalence of DLD and its co-occurrence with other difficulties suggest the need for further attention. Family and kindergarten factors were found to contribute to DLD, suggesting that multi-sector coordinated efforts are needed to better identify and serve DLD populations at home, in schools, and in clinical settings.

    Funding: The study was supported by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (No. 2022you1-2, D1502), the Innovative Research Team of High-level Local Universities in Shanghai (No. SHSMU-ZDCX20211900), Shanghai Municipal Health Commission (No.GWV-10.1-XK07), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2022YFC2705201).
  • Zhao, J., Yu, Z., Sun, X., Wu, S., Zhang, J., Zhang, D., Zhang, Y., & Jiang, F. (2022). Association between screen time trajectory and early childhood development in children in China. JAMA Pediatrics, 176(8), 768-775. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.1630.

    Abstract

    Importance: Screen time has become an integral part of children's daily lives. Nevertheless, the developmental consequences of screen exposure in young children remain unclear.

    Objective: To investigate the screen time trajectory from 6 to 72 months of age and its association with children's development at age 72 months in a prospective birth cohort.

    Design, setting, and participants: Women in Shanghai, China, who were at 34 to 36 gestational weeks and had an expected delivery date between May 2012 and July 2013 were recruited for this cohort study. Their children were followed up at 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 72 months of age. Children's screen time was classified into 3 groups at age 6 months: continued low (ie, stable amount of screen time), late increasing (ie, sharp increase in screen time at age 36 months), and early increasing (ie, large amount of screen time in early stages that remained stable after age 36 months). Cognitive development was assessed by specially trained research staff in a research clinic. Of 262 eligible mother-offspring pairs, 152 dyads had complete data regarding all variables of interest and were included in the analyses. Data were analyzed from September 2019 to November 2021.

    Exposures: Mothers reported screen times of children at 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 72 months of age.

    Main outcomes and measures: The cognitive development of children was evaluated using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 4th edition, at age 72 months. Social-emotional development was measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, which was completed by the child's mother. The study described demographic characteristics, maternal mental health, child's temperament at age 6 months, and mental development at age 12 months by subgroups clustered by a group-based trajectory model. Group difference was examined by analysis of variance.

    Results: A total of 152 mother-offspring dyads were included in this study, including 77 girls (50.7%) and 75 boys (49.3%) (mean [SD] age of the mothers was 29.7 [3.3] years). Children's screen time trajectory from age 6 to 72 months was classified into 3 groups: continued low (110 [72.4%]), late increasing (17 [11.2%]), and early increasing (25 [16.4%]). Compared with the continued low group, the late increasing group had lower scores on the Full-Scale Intelligence Quotient (β coefficient, -8.23; 95% CI, -15.16 to -1.30; P < .05) and the General Ability Index (β coefficient, -6.42; 95% CI, -13.70 to 0.86; P = .08); the early increasing group presented with lower scores on the Full-Scale Intelligence Quotient (β coefficient, -6.68; 95% CI, -12.35 to -1.02; P < .05) and the Cognitive Proficiency Index (β coefficient, -10.56; 95% CI, -17.23 to -3.90; P < .01) and a higher total difficulties score (β coefficient, 2.62; 95% CI, 0.49-4.76; P < .05).

    Conclusions and relevance: This cohort study found that excessive screen time in early years was associated with poor cognitive and social-emotional development. This finding may be helpful in encouraging awareness among parents of the importance of onset and duration of children's screen time.
  • Zimianiti, E. (2022). Is semantic memory the winning component in second language teaching with Accelerative Integrated Method (AIM)? LingUU Journal, 6(1), 54-62.

    Abstract

    This paper constitutes a research proposal based on Rousse-Malpalt’s
    (2019) dissertation, which extensively examines the effectiveness of the
    Accelerative Integrated Method (AIM) in second language (L2) learning.
    Although it has been found that AIM is a greatly effective method in comparison with non-implicit teaching methods, the reasons behind its success and effectiveness are yet unknown. As Semantic Memory (SM) is the component of memory responsible for the conceptualization and storage of knowledge, this paper sets to propose an investigation of its role in the learning process of AIM and provide with insights as to why the embodied experience of learning with AIM is more effective than others. The tasks proposed for administration take into account the factors of gestures being related to a learner’s memorization process and Semantic Memory. Lastly, this paper provides with a future research idea about the learning mechanisms of sign languages in people with hearing deficits and healthy population, aiming to indicate which brain mechanisms benefit from the teaching method of AIM and reveal important brain functions for SLA via AIM.
  • Zioga, I., Weissbart, H., Lewis, A. G., Haegens, S., & Martin, A. E. (2023). Naturalistic spoken language comprehension is supported by alpha and beta oscillations. The Journal of Neuroscience, 43(20), 3718-3732. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1500-22.2023.

    Abstract

    Brain oscillations are prevalent in all species and are involved in numerous perceptual operations. α oscillations are thought to facilitate processing through the inhibition of task-irrelevant networks, while β oscillations are linked to the putative reactivation of content representations. Can the proposed functional role of α and β oscillations be generalized from low-level operations to higher-level cognitive processes? Here we address this question focusing on naturalistic spoken language comprehension. Twenty-two (18 female) Dutch native speakers listened to stories in Dutch and French while MEG was recorded. We used dependency parsing to identify three dependency states at each word: the number of (1) newly opened dependencies, (2) dependencies that remained open, and (3) resolved dependencies. We then constructed forward models to predict α and β power from the dependency features. Results showed that dependency features predict α and β power in language-related regions beyond low-level linguistic features. Left temporal, fundamental language regions are involved in language comprehension in α, while frontal and parietal, higher-order language regions, and motor regions are involved in β. Critically, α- and β-band dynamics seem to subserve language comprehension tapping into syntactic structure building and semantic composition by providing low-level mechanistic operations for inhibition and reactivation processes. Because of the temporal similarity of the α-β responses, their potential functional dissociation remains to be elucidated. Overall, this study sheds light on the role of α and β oscillations during naturalistic spoken language comprehension, providing evidence for the generalizability of these dynamics from perceptual to complex linguistic processes.
  • Zora, H., Gussenhoven, C., Tremblay, A., & Liu, F. (2022). Editorial: Crosstalk between intonation and lexical tones: Linguistic, cognitive and neuroscience perspectives. Frontiers in Psychology, 13: 1101499. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1101499.

    Abstract

    The interplay between categorical and continuous aspects of the speech signal remains central and yet controversial in the fields of phonetics and phonology. The division between phonological abstractions and phonetic variations has been particularly relevant to the unraveling of diverse communicative functions of pitch in the domain of prosody. Pitch influences vocal communication in two major but fundamentally different ways, and lexical and intonational tones exquisitely capture these functions. Lexical tone contrasts convey lexical meanings as well as derivational meanings at the word level and are grammatically encoded as discrete structures. Intonational tones, on the other hand, signal post-lexical meanings at the phrasal level and typically allow gradient pragmatic variations. Since categorical and gradient uses of pitch are ubiquitous and closely intertwined in their physiological and psychological processes, further research is warranted for a more detailed understanding of their structural and functional characterisations. This Research Topic addresses this matter from a wide range of perspectives, including first and second language acquisition, speech production and perception, structural and functional diversity, and working with distinct languages and experimental measures. In the following, we provide a short overview of the contributions submitted to this topic

    Additional information

    also published as book chapter (2023)
  • Zora, H., Wester, J. M., & Csépe, V. (2023). Predictions about prosody facilitate lexical access: Evidence from P50/N100 and MMN components. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 194: 112262. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2023.112262.

    Abstract

    Research into the neural foundation of perception asserts a model where top-down predictions modulate the bottom-up processing of sensory input. Despite becoming increasingly influential in cognitive neuroscience, the precise account of this predictive coding framework remains debated. In this study, we aim to contribute to this debate by investigating how predictions about prosody facilitate speech perception, and to shed light especially on lexical access influenced by simultaneous predictions in different domains, inter alia, prosodic and semantic. Using a passive auditory oddball paradigm, we examined neural responses to prosodic changes, leading to a semantic change as in Dutch nouns canon [ˈkaːnɔn] ‘cannon’ vs kanon [kaːˈnɔn] ‘canon’, and used acoustically identical pseudowords as controls. Results from twenty-eight native speakers of Dutch (age range 18–32 years) indicated an enhanced P50/N100 complex to prosodic change in pseudowords as well as an MMN response to both words and pseudowords. The enhanced P50/N100 response to pseudowords is claimed to indicate that all relevant auditory information is still processed by the brain, whereas the reduced response to words might reflect the suppression of information that has already been encoded. The MMN response to pseudowords and words, on the other hand, is best justified by the unification of previously established prosodic representations with sensory and semantic input respectively. This pattern of results is in line with the predictive coding framework acting on multiple levels and is of crucial importance to indicate that predictions about linguistic prosodic information are utilized by the brain as early as 50 ms.
  • Zormpa, E., Meyer, A. S., & Brehm, L. (2023). In conversation, answers are remembered better than the questions themselves. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 49(12), 1971-1988. doi:10.1037/xlm0001292.

    Abstract

    Language is used in communicative contexts to identify and successfully transmit new information that should be later remembered. In three studies, we used question–answer pairs, a naturalistic device for focusing information, to examine how properties of conversations inform later item memory. In Experiment 1, participants viewed three pictures while listening to a recorded question–answer exchange between two people about the locations of two of the displayed pictures. In a memory recognition test conducted online a day later, participants recognized the names of pictures that served as answers more accurately than the names of pictures that appeared as questions. This suggests that this type of focus indeed boosts memory. In Experiment 2, participants listened to the same items embedded in declarative sentences. There was a reduced memory benefit for the second item, confirming the role of linguistic focus on later memory beyond a simple serial-position effect. In Experiment 3, two participants asked and answered the same questions about objects in a dialogue. Here, answers continued to receive a memory benefit, and this focus effect was accentuated by language production such that information-seekers remembered the answers to their questions better than information-givers remembered the questions they had been asked. Combined, these studies show how people’s memory for conversation is modulated by the referential status of the items mentioned and by the speaker’s roles of the conversation participants.

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