Publications

Abstract

We meta‐analyzed the effectiveness of incidental second language word learning from spoken input. Our sample contained 105 effect sizes from 32 primary studies employing meaning‐focused word‐learning activities with 1,964 participants with typical cognitive functioning. The random‐effects meta‐analysis yielded a mean effect size of g = 1.05, reflecting generally large vocabulary gains from spoken input in meaning‐focused activities. A meta‐regression with three substantive and two methodological predictors also revealed that adult participants outperformed children in terms of word learning and that interactive learning tasks were more effective than noninteractive ones. Furthermore, learning scores were higher when measured with recognition than with recall tests. Methodologically, the use of a no‐input control group seemed to protect against an overestimation of learning effects, evidenced by smaller effect sizes. Finally, whether a pretest–posttest design was used did not influence effect sizes. All data and the analysis script are publicly available.

Abstract

Noticing the hole (NTH) occurs when speakers want to say something, but realise they do not know the right word(s). Such awareness of lacking knowledge supposedly facilitates the acquisition of the unknown word(s) from later input (Swain, 1993). We tested this claim by experimentally inducing NTH in a second language (L2) for some participants (experimental), but not others (control). Then, in a price comparison game, all participants were exposed to spoken L2 input containing the to-be-learned words. They were unaware of taking part in an L2 study. Post-tests showed that participants who had noticed holes in their vocabulary had indeed learned more words compared to participants who had not. This held both for the experimental group as well as those participants in the control group who later reported to have noticed holes. Thus, when we become aware of vocabulary holes, the first step to improve our vocabulary is already taken.

Abstract

Metaphors occur frequently in literary texts. Deliberate Metaphor Theory (DMT; e.g., Steen, 2017) proposes that metaphors that serve a communicative function as metaphor are radically different from metaphors that do not have this function. We investigated differences in processing between deliberate and non-deliberate metaphors, compared to non-metaphorical words in literary reading. Using the Deliberate Metaphor Identification Procedure (Reijnierse et al., 2018), we identified metaphors in two literary stories. Then, eye-tracking was used to investigate participants’ (N = 72) reading behavior. Deliberate metaphors were read slower than non-deliberate metaphors, and both metaphor types were read slower than non-metaphorical words. Differences were controlled for several psycholinguistic variables. Differences in reading behavior were related to individual differences in reading experience and absorption and appreciation of the story. These results are in line with predictions from DMT and underline the importance of distinguishing between metaphor types in the experimental study of literary reading.

Abstract

The present study investigated the interplay between selective inhibition (the ability to suppress specific competing responses) and nonselective inhibition (the ability to suppress any inappropriate response) during single word production. To this end, we combined two well-established research paradigms: the picture-word interference task and the stop-signal task. Selective inhibition was assessed by instructing participants to name target pictures (e.g., dog) in the presence of semantically related (e.g., cat) or unrelated (e.g., window) distractor words. Nonselective inhibition was tested by occasionally presenting a visual stop-signal, indicating that participants should withhold their verbal response. The stop-signal was presented early (250 ms) aimed at interrupting the lexical selection stage, and late (325 ms) to influence the word-encoding stage of the speech production process. We found longer naming latencies for pictures with semantically related distractors than with unrelated distractors (semantic interference effect). The results further showed that, at both delays, stopping latencies (i.e., stop-signal RTs) were prolonged for naming pictures with semantically related distractors compared to pictures with unrelated distractors. Taken together, our findings suggest that selective and nonselective inhibition, at least partly, share a common inhibitory mechanism during different stages of the speech production process.

Abstract

The distribution of energy across the noise spectrum provides the primary cues for the identification of a fricative. Formant transitions have been reported to play a role in identification of some fricatives, but the combined results so far are conflicting. We report five experiments testing the hypothesis that listeners differ in their use of formant transitions as a function of the presence of spectrally similar fricatives in their native language. Dutch, English, German, Polish, and Spanish native listeners performed phoneme monitoring experiments with pseudowords containing either coherent or misleading formant transitions for the fricatives / s / and / f /. Listeners of German and Dutch, both languages without spectrally similar fricatives, were not affected by the misleading formant transitions. Listeners of the remaining languages were misled by incorrect formant transitions. In an untimed labeling experiment both Dutch and Spanish listeners provided goodness ratings that revealed sensitivity to the acoustic manipulation. We conclude that all listeners may be sensitive to mismatching information at a low auditory level, but that they do not necessarily take full advantage of all available systematic acoustic variation when identifying phonemes. Formant transitions may be most useful for listeners of languages with spectrally similar fricatives.

Abstract

Readers and listeners actively predict upcoming words during language processing. These predictions might serve to support the unification of incoming words into sentence context and thus rely on interactions between areas in the language network. In the current magnetoencephalography study, participants read sentences that varied in contextual constraints so that the predictability of the sentence-final words was either high or low. Before the sentence-final words, we observed stronger alpha power suppression for the highly compared with low constraining sentences in the left inferior frontal cortex, left posterior temporal region, and visual word form area. Importantly, the temporal and visual word form area alpha power correlated negatively with left frontal gamma power for the highly constraining sentences. We suggest that the correlation between alpha power decrease in temporal language areas and left prefrontal gamma power reflects the initiation of an anticipatory unification process in the language network.

Abstract

Using magnetoencephalography, the current study examined gamma activity associated with language prediction. Participants read high- and low-constraining sentences in which the final word of the sentence was either expected or unexpected. Although no consistent gamma power difference induced by the sentence-final words was found between the expected and unexpected conditions, the correlation of gamma power during the prediction and activation intervals of the sentence-final words was larger when the presented words matched with the prediction compared with when the prediction was violated or when no prediction was available. This suggests that gamma magnitude relates to the match between predicted and perceived words. Moreover, the expected words induced activity with a slower gamma frequency compared with that induced by unexpected words. Overall, the current study establishes that prediction is related to gamma power correlations and a slowing of the gamma frequency.

Abstract

The blocked cyclic naming paradigm has been increasingly employed to investigate the mechanisms underlying spoken word production. Semantic homogeneity typically elicits longer naming latencies than heterogeneity; however, it is debated whether competitive lexical selection or incremental learning underlies this effect. The current study manipulated both semantic and phonological homogeneity and used behavioural and electrophysiological measurements to provide evidence that can distinguish between the two accounts. Results show that naming latencies are longer in semantically homogeneous blocks, but shorter in phonologically homogeneous blocks, relative to heterogeneity. The semantic factor significantly modulates electrophysiological waveforms from 200 ms and the phonological factor from 350 ms after picture presentation. A positive component was demonstrated in both manipulations, possibly reflecting a task-related top-down bias in performing blocked cyclic naming. These results provide novel insights into the neural correlates of blocked cyclic naming and further contribute to the understanding of spoken word production.

Abstract

Neurodevelopmental disorders have a strong genetic component, but despite widespread efforts, the specific genetic factors underlying these disorders remain undefined for a large proportion of affected individuals. Given the accessibility of exome-sequencing, this problem has thus far been addressed from a protein-centric standpoint; however, protein-coding regions only make up ∼1-2% of the human genome. With the advent of whole-genome sequencing we are in the midst of a paradigm shift as it is now possible to interrogate the entire sequence of the human genome (coding and non-coding) to fill in the missing heritability of complex disorders. These new technologies bring new challenges, as the number of non-coding variants identified per individual can be overwhelming, making it prudent to focus on non-coding regions of known function, for which the effects of variation can be predicted and directly tested to assess pathogenicity. The 3’UTRome is a region of the non-coding genome that perfectly fulfils these criteria and is of high interest when searching for pathogenic variation related to complex neurodevelopmental disorders. Herein, we review the regulatory roles of the 3’UTRome as binding sites for microRNAs, RNA binding proteins or during alternative polyadenylation. We detail existing evidence that these regions contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders and outline strategies for identification and validation of novel putatively pathogenic variation in these regions. This evidence suggests that studying the 3’UTRome will lead to the identification of new risk factors, new candidate disease genes and a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms contributing to NDDs.

Abstract

This study, following up on work on Dutch by Warner, Jongman, Sereno, and Kemps (2004. Journal of Phonetics, 32, 251–276), investigates the influence of orthographic distinctions and underlying morphological distinctions on the small sub-phonemic durational differences that have been called incomplete neutralization. One part of the previous work indicated that an orthographic geminate/singleton distinction could cause speakers to produce an incomplete neutralization effect. However, one interpretation of the materials in that experiment is that they contain an underlying difference in the phoneme string at the level of concatenation of morphemes, rather than just an orthographic difference. Thus, the previous effect might simply be another example of incomplete neutralization of a phonemic distinction. The current experiment, also on Dutch, uses word pairs which have the same underlying morphological contrast, but do not differ in orthography. These new materials show no incomplete neutralization, and thus support the hypothesis that orthography, but not underlying morphological differences, can cause incomplete neutralization effects.

Abstract

Social interaction relies on the ability to react to communication signals. Although cortical sensory–motor “mirror” networks are thought to play a key role in visual aspects of primate communication, evidence for a similar generic role for auditory–motor interaction in primate nonverbal communication is lacking. We demonstrate that a network of human premotor cortical regions activated during facial movement is also involved in auditory processing of affective nonverbal vocalizations. Within this auditory–motor mirror network, distinct functional subsystems respond preferentially to emotional valence and arousal properties of heard vocalizations. Positive emotional valence enhanced activation in a left posterior inferior frontal region involved in representation of prototypic actions, whereas increasing arousal enhanced activation in presupplementary motor area cortex involved in higher-order motor control. Our findings demonstrate that listening to nonverbal vocalizations can automatically engage preparation of responsive orofacial gestures, an effect that is greatest for positive-valence and high-arousal emotions. The automatic engagement of responsive orofacial gestures by emotional vocalizations suggests that auditory–motor interactions provide a fundamental mechanism for mirroring the emotional states of others during primate social behavior. Motor facilitation by positive vocal emotions suggests a basic neural mechanism for establishing cohesive bonds within primate social groups.

Abstract

The establishment of a reliable model for the study of Purkinje cells in vitro is of particular importance, given their central role in cerebellar function and pathology. Recent advances in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology offer the opportunity to generate multiple neuronal subtypes for study in vitro. However, to date, only a handful of studies have generated Purkinje cells from human pluripotent stem cells, with most of these protocols proving challenging to reproduce. Here, we describe a simplified method for the reproducible generation of Purkinje cells from human iPSCs. After 21 days of treatment with factors selected to mimic the self-inductive properties of the isthmic organiser—insulin, fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), and the transforming growth factor β (TGFβ)-receptor blocker SB431542—hiPSCs could be induced to form En1-positive cerebellar progenitors at efficiencies of up to 90%. By day 35 of differentiation, subpopulations of cells representative of the two cerebellar germinal zones, the rhombic lip (Atoh1-positive) and ventricular zone (Ptf1a-positive), could be identified, with the latter giving rise to cells positive for Purkinje cell progenitor-specific markers, including Lhx5, Kirrel2, Olig2 and Skor2. Further maturation was observed following dissociation and co-culture of these cerebellar progenitors with mouse cerebellar cells, with 10% of human cells staining positive for the Purkinje cell marker calbindin by day 70 of differentiation. This protocol, which incorporates modifications designed to enhance cell survival and maturation and improve the ease of handling, should serve to make existing models more accessible, in order to enable future advances in the field.

Abstract

Margulies et al. (2016) demonstrated the existence of at least five independent functional connectivity gradients in the human brain. However, it is unclear how these functional gradients might link to anatomy. The dual origin theory proposes that differences in cortical cytoarchitecture originate from two trends of progressive differentiation between the different layers of the cortex, referred to as the hippocampocentric and olfactocentric systems. When conceptualising the functional connectivity gradients within the evolutionary framework of the Dual Origin theory, the first gradient likely represents the hippocampocentric system anatomically. Here we expand on this concept and demonstrate that the fifth gradient likely links to the olfactocentric system. We describe the anatomy of the latter as well as the evidence to support this hypothesis. Together, the first and fifth gradients might help to model the Dual Origin theory of the human brain and inform brain models and pathologies.

Abstract

In two eye-tracking experiments the role of contrastive pitch accents during the on-line determination of referents was examined. In both experiments, German listeners looked earlier at the picture of a referent belonging to a contrast pair (red scissors, given purple scissors) when instructions to click on it carried a contrastive accent on the color adjective (L + H*) than when the adjective was not accented. In addition to this prosodic facilitation, a general preference to interpret adjectives contrastively was found in Experiment 1: Along with the contrast pair, a noncontrastive referent was displayed (red vase) and listeners looked more often at the contrastive referent than at the noncontrastive referent even when the adjective was not focused. Experiment 2 differed from Experiment 1 in that the first member of the contrast pair (purple scissors) was introduced with a contrastive accent, thereby strengthening the salience of the contrast. In Experiment 2, listeners no longer preferred a contrastive interpretation of adjectives when the accent in a subsequent instruction was not contrastive. In sum, the results support both an early role for prosody in reference determination and an interpretation of contrastive focus that is dependent on preceding prosodic context.

Abstract

Highly proficient German users of English as a second language, and native speakers of American English, listened to nonsense sequences and responded whenever they detected an embedded English word. The responses of both groups were equivalently facilitated by preceding context that both by English and by German phonotactic constraints forced a boundary at word onset (e.g., lecture was easier to detect in moinlecture than in gorklecture, and wish in yarlwish than in plookwish. The American L1 speakers’ responses were strongly facilitated, and the German listeners’ responses almost as strongly facilitated, by contexts that forced a boundary in English but not in German thrarshlecture, glarshwish. The German listeners’ responses were significantly facilitated also by contexts that forced a boundary in German but not in English )moycelecture, loitwish, while L1 listeners were sensitive to acoustic boundary cues in these materials but not to the phonotactic sequences. The pattern of results suggests that proficient L2 listeners can acquire the phonotactic probabilities of an L2 and use them to good effect in segmenting continuous speech, but at the same time they may not be able to prevent interference from L1 constraints in their L2 listening.

Abstract

An eye-tracking experiment examined whether prosodic cues can affect the interpretation of grammatical functions in the absence of clear morphological information. German listeners were presented with scenes depicting three potential referents while hearing temporarily ambiguous SVO and OVS sentences. While case marking on the first noun phrase (NP) was ambiguous, clear case marking on the second NP disambiguated sentences towards SVO or OVS. Listeners interpreted caseambiguous NP1s more often as Subject, and thus expected an Object as upcoming argument, only when sentence beginnings carried an SVO-type intonation. This was revealed by more anticipatory eye movements to suitable Patients (Objects) than Agents (Subjects) in the visual scenes. No such preference was found when sentence beginnings had a clearly OVS-type intonation. Prosodic cues were integrated rapidly enough to affect listeners’ interpretation of grammatical function before disambiguating case information was available. We conclude that in addition to manipulating attachment ambiguities, prosody can influence the interpretation of constituent order ambiguities.

Abstract

Reports of an advantage of bilingualism on brain structure in young adult participants
are inconsistent. Abutalebi et al. (2012) reported more efficient monitoring of conflict during the
Flanker task in young bilinguals compared to young monolingual speakers. The present study
compared young adult (mean age = 24) Cantonese-English bilinguals in Hong Kong and young
adult monolingual speakers. We expected (a) differences in metabolites in neural tissue to result
from bilingual experience, as measured by 1H-MRS at 3T, (b) correlations between metabolic
levels and Flanker conflict and interference effects (c) different associations in bilingual and
monolingual speakers. We found evidence of metabolic differences in the ACC due to bilingualism,
specifically in metabolites Cho, Cr, Glx and NAA. However, we found no significant correlations
between metabolic levels and conflict and interference effects and no significant evidence of
differential relationships between bilingual and monolingual speakers. Furthermore, we found no
evidence of significant differences in the mean size of conflict and interference effects between
groups i.e. no bilingual advantage. Lower levels of Cho, Cr, Glx and NAA in bilingual adults
compared to monolingual adults suggest that the brains of bilinguals develop greater adaptive
control during conflict monitoring because of their extensive bilingual experience.

Abstract

This paper provides a description of body part terminology used in Savosavo, a Papuan language of the Solomon Islands. The first part of the paper lists the known terms and discusses their meanings. This is followed by an analysis of their structural properties. Finally, the paper discusses partonomic relations in Savosavo and argues that it is difficult to structure the body part terminology hierarchically, because there is no linguistic evidence for part–whole relations between body parts.

Abstract

This follow-up study of the European Dexamethasone Study was designed to examine the potential harmful effect of adjunctive dexamethasone treatment on long-term neuropsychological outcome in adults with bacterial meningitis. METHODS: Neurological, audiological, and neuropsychological examinations were performed in adults who survived pneumococcal or meningococcal meningitis. RESULTS: Eighty-seven of 99 (88%) eligible patients were included in the follow-up study; 46 (53%) were treated with dexamethasone and 41 (47%) with placebo. Median time between meningitis and testing was 99 months. Neuropsychological evaluation showed no significant differences between patients treated with dexamethasone and placebo. The proportions of patients with persisting neurological sequelae or hearing loss were similar in the dexamethasone and placebo groups. The overall rate of cognitive dysfunction did not differ significantly between patients and control subjects; however, patients after pneumococcal meningitis had a higher rate of cognitive dysfunction (21 vs 6%; p = 0.05) and experienced more impairment of everyday functioning due to physical problems (p = 0.05) than those after meningococcal meningitis. INTERPRETATION: Treatment with adjunctive dexamethasone is not associated with an increased risk for long-term cognitive impairment. Adults who survive pneumococcal meningitis are at significant risk for long-term neuropsychological abnormalities.

Abstract

Objectives To assess cognitive outcome and quality of life in patients with moderate disability after bacterial meningitis as compared to patients with good recovery. Methods Neuropsychological evaluation was performed in 40 adults after pneumococcal meningitis; 20 patients with moderate disability at discharge on the glasgow outcome scale (GOS score 4) and 20 with good recovery (GOS score 5). Results Patients with GOS score 4 had similar test results as compared to patients with GOS score 5 for the neuropsychological domains ‘intelligence’, ‘memory’ and ‘attention and executive functioning’. Patients with GOS score 4 showed less cognitive slowness than patients with GOS score 5. In a linear regression analysis cognitive speed was related to current intelligence, years of education and time since meningitis. Overall performance on the speed composite score correlated significantly with time since meningitis (−0.62; P<0.001). Therefore, difference between both groups may have been related to a longer time between meningitis and testing for GOS four patients (29 vs. 12 months; P<0.001). Conclusions Patients with moderate disability after bacterial meningitis are not at higher risk for neuropsychological abnormalities than patients with good recovery. In addition, cognitive slowness after bacterial meningitis may be reversible in time.

Abstract

Speech comprehension requires rapid online processing of a continuous acoustic signal to extract structure and meaning. Previous studies on sentence comprehension have found neural correlates of the predictability of a word given its context, as well as of the precision of such a prediction. However, they have focused on single sentences and on particular words in those sentences. Moreover, they compared neural responses to words with low and high predictability, as well as with low and high precision. However, in speech comprehension, a listener hears many successive words whose predictability and precision vary over a large range. Here, we show that cortical activity in different frequency bands tracks word surprisal in continuous natural speech and that this tracking is modulated by precision. We obtain these results through quantifying surprisal and precision from naturalistic speech using a deep neural network and through relating these speech features to EEG responses of human volunteers acquired during auditory story comprehension. We find significant cortical tracking of surprisal at low frequencies, including the delta band as well as in the higher frequency beta and gamma bands, and observe that the tracking is modulated by the precision. Our results pave the way to further investigate the neurobiology of natural speech comprehension.

Abstract

In 2001, a point mutation in the forkhead box P2 (FOXP2) coding sequence was identified as the basis of an inherited speech and language disorder suffered by members of the family known as "KE." This mini-symposium review focuses on recent findings and research-in-progress, primarily from five laboratories. Each aims at capitalizing on the FOXP2 discovery to build a neurobiological bridge between molecule and phenotype. Below, we describe genetic through behavioral techniques used currently to investigate FoxP2 in birds, rodents, and humans for discovery of the neural bases of vocal learning and language.

Abstract

People organize and convey their thoughts according to narratives. However, neuroscientists are often reluctant to incorporate narrative stimuli into their experiments. We argue that narratives deserve wider adoption in human neuroscience because they tap into the brain’s native machinery for representing the world and provide rich variability for testing hypotheses.

Abstract

Learning and processing natural language requires the ability to track syntactic relationships between words and phrases in a sentence, which are often separated by intervening material. These nonadjacent dependencies can be studied using artificial grammar learning paradigms and structured sequence processing tasks. These approaches have been used to demonstrate that human adults, infants and some nonhuman animals are able to detect and learn dependencies between nonadjacent elements within a sequence. However, learning nonadjacent dependencies appears to be more cognitively demanding than detecting dependencies between adjacent elements, and only occurs in certain circumstances. In this review, we discuss different types of nonadjacent dependencies in language and in artificial grammar learning experiments, and how these differences might impact learning. We summarize different types of perceptual cues that facilitate learning, by highlighting the relationship between dependent elements bringing them closer together either physically, attentionally, or perceptually. Finally, we review artificial grammar learning experiments in human adults, infants, and nonhuman animals, and discuss how similarities and differences observed across these groups can provide insights into how language is learned across development and how these language‐related abilities might have evolved.

Abstract

Background

The biological mechanisms of headache chronification are poorly understood. We aimed to identify changes in DNA methylation associated with the transformation from episodic to chronic headache.
Methods

Participants were recruited from the population-based Norwegian HUNT Study. Thirty-six female headache patients who transformed from episodic to chronic headache between baseline and follow-up 11 years later were matched against 35 controls with episodic headache. DNA methylation was quantified at 485,000 CpG sites, and changes in methylation level at these sites were compared between cases and controls by linear regression analysis. Data were analyzed in two stages (Stages 1 and 2) and in a combined meta-analysis.
Results

None of the top 20 CpG sites identified in Stage 1 replicated in Stage 2 after multiple testing correction. In the combined meta-analysis the strongest associated CpG sites were related to SH2D5 and NPTX2, two brain-expressed genes involved in the regulation of synaptic plasticity. Functional enrichment analysis pointed to processes including calcium ion binding and estrogen receptor pathways.
Conclusion

In this first genome-wide study of DNA methylation in headache chronification several potentially implicated loci and processes were identified. The study exemplifies the use of prospectively collected population cohorts to search for epigenetic mechanisms of disease

Abstract

Researchers have suggested that the vocabularies of languages are oriented towards the communicative needs of language users. Here, we provide evidence demonstrating that the higher frequency of visual words in a large variety of English corpora is reflected in greater lexical differentiation—a greater number of unique words—for the visual domain in the English lexicon. In comparison, sensory modalities that are less frequently talked about, particularly taste and smell, show less lexical differentiation. In addition, we show that even though sensory language can be expected to change across historical time and between contexts of use (e.g., spoken language versus fiction), the pattern of visual dominance is a stable property of the English language. Thus, we show that across the board, precisely those semantic domains that are more frequently talked about are also more lexically differentiated, for perceptual experiences. This correlation between type and token frequencies suggests that the sensory lexicon of English is geared towards communicative efficiency.

Abstract

Institutions driving fundamental research at the cutting edge such as for example from the Max Planck Society (MPS) took steps to optimize data management and stewardship to be able to address new scientific questions. In this paper we selected three institutes from the MPS from the areas of humanities, environmental sciences and natural sciences as examples to indicate the efforts to integrate large amounts of data from collaborators worldwide to create a data space that is ready to be exploited to get new insights based on data intensive science methods. For this integration the typical challenges of fragmentation, bad quality and also social differences had to be overcome. In all three cases, well-managed repositories that are driven by the scientific needs and harmonization principles that have been agreed upon in the community were the core pillars. It is not surprising that these principles are very much aligned with what have now become the FAIR principles. The FAIR principles confirm the correctness of earlier decisions and their clear formulation identified the gaps which the projects need to address.

Abstract

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 14 (SCA14) is a subtype of the autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxias that is characterized by slowly progressive cerebellar dysfunction and neurodegeneration. SCA14 is caused by mutations in the PRKCG gene, encoding protein kinase C gamma (PKCγ). Despite the identification of 40 distinct disease-causing mutations in PRKCG, the pathological mechanisms underlying SCA14 remain poorly understood. Here we report the molecular neuropathology of SCA14 in post-mortem cerebellum and in human patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) carrying two distinct SCA14 mutations in the C1 domain of PKCγ, H36R and H101Q. We show that endogenous expression of these mutations results in the cytoplasmic mislocalization and aggregation of PKCγ in both patient iPSCs and cerebellum. PKCγ aggregates were not efficiently targeted for degradation. Moreover, mutant PKCγ was found to be hyper-activated, resulting in increased substrate phosphorylation. Together, our findings demonstrate that a combination of both, loss-of-function and gain-of-function mechanisms are likely to underlie the pathogenesis of SCA14, caused by mutations in the C1 domain of PKCγ. Importantly, SCA14 patient iPSCs were found to accurately recapitulate pathological features observed in post-mortem SCA14 cerebellum, underscoring their potential as relevant disease models and their promise as future drug discovery tools.

Abstract

This auditory lexical decision study shows that cohort entropies, conditional root uniqueness points, and morphological family size all contribute to the dynamics of the auditory comprehension of prefixed words. Three entropy measures calculated for different positions in the stem of Dutch prefixed words revealed facilitation for higher entropies, except at the point of disambiguation, where we observed inhibition. Morphological family size was also facilitatory, but only for prefixed words in which the conditional root uniqueness point coincided with the conventional uniqueness point. For words with early conditional disambiguation, in contrast, only the morphologically related words that were onset-aligned with the target word facilitated lexical decision.

Abstract

Previous studies suggest that bilinguals' lexical access is language non-selective, especially for orthographically identical translation equivalents across languages (i.e., identical cognates). The present study investigated how such words (e.g., meaning "school" in both Chinese and Japanese) are processed in the (late) Chinese - Japanese bilingual brain. Using an L2-Japanese lexical decision task, both behavioral and electrophysiological data were collected. Reaction times (RTs), as well as the N400 component, showed that cognates are more easily recognized than non-cognates. Additionally, an early component (i.e., the N250), potentially reflecting activation at the word-form level, was also found. Cognates elicited a more positive N250 than non-cognates in the frontal region, indicating that the cognate facilitation effect occurred at an early stage of word formation for languages with logographic scripts.

Abstract

A core question in language acquisition is whether children’s syntactic processing is experience-dependent and language-specific, or whether it is governed by abstract, universal syntactic machinery. We address this question by presenting corpus and on-line processing dat a from children learning Mandarin Chinese, a language that has been important in debates about the universality of parsing processes. The corpus data revealed that two different relative clause constructions in Mandarin are differentially used to modify syntactic subjects and objects. In the experiment, 4-year-old children’s eye-movements were recorded as they listened to the two RC construction types (e.g., Can you pick up the pig that pushed the sheep?). A permutation analysis showed that children’s ease of comprehension was closely aligned with the distributional frequencies, suggesting syntactic processing preferences are shaped by the input experience of these constructions.

Abstract

Chunking in language comprehension is a process that segments continuous linguistic input into smaller chunks that are in the reader’s mental lexicon. Effective chunking during reading facilitates disambiguation and enhances efficiency for comprehension. However, the chunking mechanisms remain elusive, especially in reading given that information arrives simultaneously yet the written systems may not have explicit cues for labeling boundaries such as Chinese. What are the mechanisms of chunking that mediates the reading of the text that contains hierarchical information? We investigated this question by manipulating the lexical status of the chunks at distinct levels in four-character Chinese strings, including the two-character local chunk and four-character global chunk. Male and female human participants were asked to make lexical decisions on these strings in a behavioral experiment, followed by a passive reading task when their electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. The behavioral results showed that the lexical decision time of lexicalized two-character local chunks was influenced by the lexical status of the four-character global chunk, but not vice versa, which indicated the processing of global chunks possessed priority over the local chunks. The EEG results revealed that familiar lexical chunks were detected simultaneously at both levels and further processed in a different temporal order – the onset of lexical access for the global chunks was earlier than that of local chunks. These consistent results suggest a two-stage operation for chunking in reading–– the simultaneous detection of familiar lexical chunks at multiple levels around 100 ms followed by recognition of chunks with global precedence.

Abstract

Electroencephalography (EEG) provides high temporal resolution cognitive information from non-invasive recordings. However, one of the common practices-using a subset of sensors in ERP analysis is hard to provide a holistic and precise dynamic results. Selecting or grouping subsets of sensors may also be subject to selection bias, multiple comparison, and further complicated by individual differences in the group-level analysis. More importantly, changes in neural generators and variations in response magnitude from the same neural sources are difficult to separate, which limit the capacity of testing different aspects of cognitive hypotheses. We introduce EasyEEG, a toolbox that includes several multivariate analysis methods to directly test cognitive hypotheses based on topographic responses that include data from all sensors. These multivariate methods can investigate effects in the dimensions of response magnitude and topographic patterns separately using data in the sensor space, therefore enable assessing neural response dynamics. The concise workflow and the modular design provide user-friendly and programmer-friendly features. Users of all levels can benefit from the open-sourced, free EasyEEG to obtain a straightforward solution for efficient processing of EEG data and a complete pipeline from raw data to final results for publication.

Abstract

In a masked priming word-naming task, a facilitation due to the initial-segmental sound overlap for 2-character kanji prime-target pairs was affected by certain orthographic properties (Yoshihara, Nakayama, Verdonschot, & Hino, 2017). That is, the facilitation that was due to the initial mora overlap occurred only when the mora was the whole pronunciation of their initial kanji characters (i.e., match pairs; e.g., /ka-se.ki/-/ka-rjo.ku/). When the shared initial mora was only a part of the kanji characters' readings, however, there was no facilitation (i.e., mismatch pairs; e.g., /ha.tu-a.N/-/ha.ku-bu.tu/). In the present study, we used a masked priming picture-naming task to investigate whether the previous results were relevant only when the orthography of targets is visually presented. In Experiment 1. the main findings of our word-naming task were fully replicated in a picture-naming task. In Experiments 2 and 3. the absence of facilitation for the mismatch pairs were confirmed with a new set of stimuli. On the other hand, a significant facilitation was observed for the match pairs that shared the 2 initial morae (in Experiment 4), which was again consistent with the results of our word-naming study. These results suggest that the orthographic properties constrain the phonological expression of masked priming for kanji words across 2 tasks that are likely to differ in how phonology is retrieved. Specifically, we propose that orthography of a word is activated online and constrains the phonological encoding processes in these tasks.

Abstract

Bilinguals usually select the right language to speak for the particular context they are in, but sometimes the nontarget language intrudes. Despite a large body of research into language selection and language control, it remains unclear where intrusion errors originate from. These errors may be due to incorrect selection of the nontarget language at the conceptual level, or be a consequence of erroneous word selection (despite correct language selection) at the lexical level. We examined the former possibility in two language switching experiments using a manipulation that supposedly affects language selection on the conceptual level, namely whether the conversational language context was associated with the target language (congruent) or with the alternative language (incongruent) on a trial. Both experiments showed that language intrusion errors occurred more often in incongruent than in congruent contexts, providing converging evidence that language selection during concept preparation is one driving force behind language intrusion.

Abstract

Bilingual speakers have to control their languages to avoid interference, which may be achieved by enhancing the target language and/or inhibiting the nontarget language. Previous research suggests that bilinguals use inhibition (e.g., Jackson et al., 2001), which should be reflected in the N2 component of the event-related potential (ERP) in the EEG. In the current study, we investigated the dynamics of inhibitory control by measuring the N2 during language switching and repetition in bilingual picture naming. Participants had to name pictures in Dutch or English depending on the cue. A run of same-language trials could be short (two or three trials) or long (five or six trials). We assessed whether RTs and N2 changed over the course of same-language runs, and at a switch between languages. Results showed that speakers named pictures more quickly late as compared to early in a run of same-language trials. Moreover, they made a language switch more quickly after a long run than after a short run. This run-length effect was only present in the first language (L1), not in the second language (L2). In ERPs, we observed a widely distributed switch effect in the N2, which was larger after a short run than after a long run. This effect was only present in the L2, not in the L1, although the difference was not significant between languages. In contrast, the N2 was not modulated during a same-language run. Our results suggest that the nontarget language is inhibited at a switch, but not during the repeated use of the target language.

Abstract

Although bilingual speakers are very good at selectively using one language rather than another, sometimes language selection errors occur. To investigate how bilinguals monitor their speech errors and control their languages in use, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in unbalanced Dutch-English bilingual speakers in a cued language-switching task. We tested the conflict-based monitoring model of Nozari and colleagues by investigating the error-related negativity (ERN) and comparing the effects of the two switching directions (i.e., to the first language, L1 vs. to the second language, L2). Results show that the speakers made more language selection errors when switching from their L2 to the L1 than vice versa. In the EEG, we observed a robust ERN effect following language selection errors compared to correct responses, reflecting monitoring of speech errors. Most interestingly, the ERN effect was enlarged when the speakers were switching to their L2 (less conflict) compared to switching to the L1 (more conflict). Our findings do not support the conflict-based monitoring model. We discuss an alternative account in terms of error prediction and reinforcement learning.

Abstract

Although bilingual speakers are very good at selectively using one language rather than another, sometimes language selection errors occur. We examined the relative contribution of top-down cognitive control and bottom-up language priming to these errors. Unbalanced Dutch-English bilinguals named pictures and were cued to switch between languages under time pressure. We also manipulated the number of same-language trials before a switch (long vs. short runs). Results show that speakers made more language selection errors when switching from their second language (L2) to the first language (L1) than vice versa. Furthermore, they made more errors when switching to the L1 after a short compared to a long run of L2 trials. In the reverse switching direction (L1 to L2), run length had no effect. These findings are most compatible with an account of language selection errors that assigns a strong role to top-down processes of cognitive control.

Abstract

It is undisputed that presenting a rhythmic stimulus leads to a measurable brain response that follows the rhythmic structure of this stimulus. What is still debated, however, is the question whether this brain response exclusively reflects a regular repetition of evoked responses, or whether it also includes entrained oscillatory activity. Here we systematically present evidence in favor of an involvement of entrained neural oscillations in the processing of rhythmic input while critically pointing out which questions still need to be addressed before this evidence could be considered conclusive. In this context, we also explicitly discuss the potential functional role of such entrained oscillations, suggesting that these stimulus-aligned oscillations reflect, and serve as, predictive processes, an idea often only implicitly assumed in the literature.

Abstract

Change in linguistic prosody generates a mismatch negativity response (MMN), indicating neural representation of linguistic prosody, while change in affective prosody generates a positive response (P3a), reflecting its motivational salience. However, the neural response to concurrent affective and linguistic prosody is unknown. The present paper investigates the integration of these two prosodic features in the brain by examining the neural response to separate and concurrent processing by electroencephalography (EEG). A spoken pair of Swedish words—[ˈfɑ́ːsɛn] phase and [ˈfɑ̀ːsɛn] damn—that differed in emotional semantics due to linguistic prosody was presented to 16 subjects in an angry and neutral affective prosody using a passive auditory oddball paradigm. Acoustically matched pseudowords—[ˈvɑ́ːsɛm] and [ˈvɑ̀ːsɛm]—were used as controls. Following the constructionist concept of emotions, accentuating the conceptualization of emotions based on language, it was hypothesized that concurrent affective and linguistic prosody with the same valence—angry [ˈfɑ̀ːsɛn] damn—would elicit a unique late EEG signature, reflecting the temporal integration of affective voice with emotional semantics of prosodic origin. In accordance, linguistic prosody elicited an MMN at 300–350 ms, and affective prosody evoked a P3a at 350–400 ms, irrespective of semantics. Beyond these responses, concurrent affective and linguistic prosody evoked a late positive component (LPC) at 820–870 ms in frontal areas, indicating the conceptualization of affective prosody based on linguistic prosody. This study provides evidence that the brain does not only distinguish between these two functions of prosody but also integrates them based on language and experience.

Abstract

There is a rich tradition of building computational models in cognitive science, but modeling, theoretical, and experimental research are not as tightly integrated as they could be. In this paper, we show that computational techniques—even simple ones that are straightforward to use—can greatly facilitate designing, implementing, and analyzing experiments, and generally help lift research to a new level. We focus on the domain of artificial grammar learning, and we give five concrete examples in this domain for (a) formalizing and clarifying theories, (b) generating stimuli, (c) visualization, (d) model selection, and (e) exploring the hypothesis space.