Publications

Abstract

This study examines whether heritage speakers of Turkish in the Netherlands interpret focus in written Dutch sentences differently from L1 speakers of Dutch (controls). Where most previous studies examined effects from the dominant L2 on the heritage language, we investigated whether there are effects from the weaker heritage language on the dominant L2. Dutch and Turkish differ in focus marking. Dutch primarily uses prosody to encode focus, whereas Turkish uses prosody and syntax, with a preverbal area for focused information and a postverbal area for background information. In written sentences no explicit prosody is available, which possibly enhances the role of syntactic cues in interpreting focus. An eye-tracking experiment suggests that, unlike the controls, the bilinguals associate the preverbal area with focus and the postverbal area with background information. These findings are in line with transfer from the weaker L1 to the dominant L2 at the syntax–discourse interface.

Abstract

Studies on heritage speakers generally reveal effects from the dominant L2 on the weaker L1, but it is less clear whether cross-linguistic transfer also occurs in the other direction: from the L1 to the dominant L2. This study explores whether the Dutch prosody of heritage speakers of Turkish in the Netherlands differs from that of L1 speakers of Dutch who do not speak Turkish, and whether observed differences could be attributed to an effect of Turkish. The experiment elicited semi-spontaneous sentences in broad and contrastive focus. The analysis included f0 movements, peak alignment, and duration. Although both participant groups used prosody to mark focus (e.g., time-compressed f0 movements for contrastive focus), there were also differences between the groups. For instance, while the L1 speakers of Dutch showed declination, the bilinguals remained at the same pitch level throughout the sentence. Ipek (2015) and Kamalı (2011) also noted a limited pitch range in the prenuclear area in Turkish. We argue that the prosodic differences could be due to an effect of Turkish on Dutch prosody, suggesting that the weaker L1 in Turkish heritage speakers may affect the dominant L2 in the prosodic domain.

Abstract

The human brain contains cortical areas specialized in representing object categories. Visual experience is known to change the responses in these category-selective areas of the brain. However, little is known about how category training specifically affects cortical category selectivity. Here, we investigated the experience-dependent formation of object categories using an fMRI adaptation paradigm. Outside the scanner, subjects were trained to categorize artificial bird types into arbitrary categories (jungle birds and desert birds). After training, neuronal populations in the occipito-temporal cortex, such as the fusiform and the lateral occipital gyrus, were highly sensitive to perceptual stimulus differences. This sensitivity was not present for novel birds, indicating experience-related changes in neuronal representations. Neurons in STS showed category selectivity. A release from adaptation in STS was only observed when two birds in a pair crossed the category boundary. This dissociation could not be explained by perceptual similarities because the physical difference between birds from the same side of the category boundary and between birds from opposite sides of the category boundary was equal. Together, the occipito-temporal cortex and the STS have the properties suitable for a system that can both generalize across stimuli and discriminate between them.

Abstract

Kemmer (1993) argues that middle voice markers almost always arise diachronically through the semantic extension of a reflexive marker to other semantic uses related to reflexive. In this paper I will argue for an alternative diachronic path that has led to the development of the middle marker in Yurakaré (unclassified, Bolivia): through ideophone-verb constructions. Taking this perspective helps explain a number of synchronic peculiarities of the middle marker in Yurakaré, and it introduces a previously unnoticed channel for middle voice markers to arise.

Abstract

Investigating phenotypic heterogeneity in aggression and understanding the molecular biological basis of aggression subtypes may lead to new prevention and treatment options. In the current study, we evaluated the taxonomy of aggression and examined specific genetic mechanisms underlying aggression subtypes in healthy males and females. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to replicate a recently reported three-factor model of the Reactive Proactive Questionnaire (RPQ) in healthy adults (n=661; median age 24.0 years; 41% male). Gene-set association analysis, aggregating common genetic variants within (a combination of) three molecular pathways previously implicated in aggression, i.e. serotonergic, dopaminergic, and neuroendocrine signaling, was conducted with MAGMA software in males and females separately (total n=395) for aggression subtypes. We replicate the three-factor CFA model of the RPQ, and found males to score significantly higher on one of these factors compared to females: proactive aggression. The genetic association analysis showed a female-specific association of genetic variation in the combined gene-set with a different factor of the RPQ; reactive aggression due to internal frustration. Both the neuroendocrine and serotonergic gene-sets contributed significantly to this association. Our genetic findings are subtype- and sex-specific, stressing the value of efforts to reduce heterogeneity in research of aggression etiology. Importantly, subtype- and sex-differences in the underlying pathophysiology of aggression suggest that optimal treatment options will have to be tailored to the individual patient. Male and female needs of intervention might differ, stressing the need for sex-specific further research of aggression. Our work highlights opportunities for sample size maximization offered by population-based studies of aggression.

Abstract

In the typology of motion lexicalization, two types of languages have traditionally been distinguished: satellite-framed and verb-framed. Serializing languages are difficult to fit into this typology and have been claimed to belong to a third type: equipollently framed. In this paper I use grammatical criteria to show that Avatime, a serializing language, should indeed be classified as equipollently framed. I also study motion descriptions in narratives. Avatime is similar to other serializing languages with respect to path elaboration, but unlike other serializing languages, it has low manner saliency. Equipollently framed languages thus do not behave as a single type.

Abstract

In an ERP experiment, we examined whether listeners, when making sense of spoken utterances, take into account the meaning of spurious words that are embedded in longer words, either at their onsets (e. g., pie in pirate) or at their offsets (e. g., pain in champagne). In the experiment, Dutch listeners heard Dutch words with initial or final embeddings presented in a sentence context that did or did not support the meaning of the embedded word, while equally supporting the longer carrier word. The N400 at the carrier words was modulated by the semantic fit of the embedded words, indicating that listeners briefly relate the meaning of initial-and final-embedded words to the sentential context, even though these words were not intended by the speaker. These findings help us understand the dynamics of initial sense-making and its link to lexical activation. In addition, they shed new light on the role of lexical competition and the debate concerning the lexical activation of final-embedded words.

Abstract

A central question regarding predictive language processing concerns the extent to which linguistic experience modulates the process. We approached this question by investigating sentence processing in advanced second language (L2) users with different native language (L1) backgrounds. Using a visual world eye tracking paradigm, we investigated to what extent L1 and L2 participants showed anticipatory eye movements to objects while listening to Dutch placement event descriptions. L2 groups differed in the degree of similarity between Dutch and their L1 with respect to placement verb semantics: German, like Dutch, specifies object position in placement verbs (put.STAND vs. put.LIE), whereas English and French typically leave position underspecified (put). Results showed that German L2 listeners, like native Dutch listeners, anticipate objects that match the verbally encoded position immediately upon encountering the verb. French/English L2 participants, however, did not show any prediction effects, despite proper understanding of Dutch placement verbs. Our findings suggest that prior experience with a specific semantic contrast in one’s L1 facilitates prediction in L2, and hence adds to the evidence that linguistic experience modulates predictive sentence processing

Abstract

Experimental pragmatics asks how people construct contextualized meaning in communication. So what does it mean for this field to add neuroas a prefix to its name? After analyzing the options for any subfield of cognitive science, I argue that neuropragmatics can and occasionally should go beyond the instrumental use of EEG or fMRI and beyond mapping classic theoretical distinctions onto Brodmann areas. In particular, if experimental pragmatics ‘goes neuro’, it should take into account that the brain evolved as a control system that helps its bearer negotiate a highly complex, rapidly changing and often not so friendly environment. In this context, the ability to predict current unknowns, and to rapidly tell good from bad, are essential ingredients of processing. Using insights from non-linguistic areas of cognitive neuroscience as well as from EEG research on utterance comprehension, I argue that for a balanced development of experimental pragmatics, these two characteristics of the brain cannot be ignored.

Abstract

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

Abstract

Navigating through space is fundamental to human nature and requires the ability to retrieve relevant information from the remote past. With the passage of time, some memories become generic, capturing only a sense of familiarity. Yet, others maintain precision, even when acquired decades ago. Understanding the dynamics of memory consolidation is a major challenge to neuroscientists. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we systematically examined the effects of time and spatial context on the neural representation of landmark recognition memory. An equal number of male and female subjects (males N = 10, total N = 20) watched a route through a large-scale virtual environment. Landmarks occurred at navigationally relevant and irrelevant locations along the route. Recognition memory for landmarks was tested directly following encoding, 24 h later and 30 days later. Surprisingly, changes over time in the neural representation of navigationally relevant landmarks differed between males and females. In males, relevant landmarks selectively engaged the parahippocampal gyrus (PHG) regardless of the age of the memory. In females, the response to relevant landmarks gradually diminished with time in the PHG but strengthened progressively in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Based on what is known about the functioning of the PHG and IFG, the findings of this study suggest that males maintain access to the initially formed spatial representation of landmarks whereas females become strongly dependent on a verbal representation of landmarks with time. Our findings yield a clear objective for future studies

Abstract

In the contextual cueing paradigm, Endo and Takeda (in Percept Psychophys 66:293–302, 2004) provided evidence that implicit learning involves selection of the aspect of a structure that is most useful to one’s task. The present study attempted to replicate this finding in artificial grammar learning to investigate whether or not implicit learning commonly involves such a selection. Participants in Experiment 1 were presented with an induction task that could be facilitated by several characteristics of the exemplars. For some participants, those characteristics included a perfectly predictive feature. The results suggested that the aspect of the structure that was most useful to the induction task was selected and learned implicitly. Experiment 2 provided evidence that, although salience affected participants’ awareness of the perfectly predictive feature, selection for implicit learning was mainly based on usefulness.

Abstract

Background: In synaesthesia, sensations in a particular modality cause additional experiences in a second, unstimulated modality (e.g., letters elicit colour). Understanding how synaesthesia is mediated in the brain can help to understand normal processes of perceptual awareness and multisensory integration. In several neuroimaging studies, enhanced brain activity for grapheme-colour synaesthesia has been found in ventral-occipital areas that are also involved in real colour processing. Our question was whether the neural correlates of synaesthetically induced colour and real colour experience are truly shared. Methodology/Principal Findings: First, in a free viewing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, we located main effects of synaesthesia in left superior parietal lobule and in colour related areas. In the left superior parietal lobe, individual differences between synaesthetes (projector-associator distinction) also influenced brain activity, confirming the importance of the left superior parietal lobe for synaesthesia. Next, we applied a repetition suppression paradigm in fMRI, in which a decrease in the BOLD (blood-oxygenated-level-dependent) response is generally observed for repeated stimuli. We hypothesized that synaesthetically induced colours would lead to a reduction in BOLD response for subsequently presented real colours, if the neural correlates were overlapping. We did find BOLD suppression effects induced by synaesthesia, but not within the colour areas. Conclusions/Significance: Because synaesthetically induced colours were not able to suppress BOLD effects for real colour, we conclude that the neural correlates of synaesthetic colour experience and real colour experience are not fully shared. We propose that synaesthetic colour experiences are mediated by higher-order visual pathways that lie beyond the scope of classical, ventral-occipital visual areas. Feedback from these areas, in which the left parietal cortex is likely to play an important role, may induce V4 activation and the percept of synaesthetic colour.

Abstract

ct For the first time, chimpanzees have been observed using tools to clean the corpse of a deceased group member. A female chimpanzee sat down at the dead body of a young male, selected a firm stem of grass, and started to intently remove debris from his teeth. This report contributes novel behaviour to the chimpanzee's ethogram, and highlights how crucial information for reconstructing the evolutionary origins of human mortuary practices may be missed by refraining from developing adequate observation techniques to capture non-human animals' death responses

Abstract

A major goal in the early years of elementary school is learning to read, a process in which children show substantial individual differences. To shed light on the underlying processes of early literacy, this study investigates the interrelations among four known precursors to literacy: phonological short-term memory, vocabulary size, rhyme awareness, and trainability in the phonological specificity of lexical representations, by means of structural equation modelling, in a group of 101 4-year-old children. Trainability in lexical specificity was assessed by teaching children pairs of new phonologically-similar words. Standardized tests of receptive vocabulary, short-term memory, and rhyme awareness were used. The best-fitting model showed that trainability in lexical specificity partially mediated between short-term memory and both vocabulary size and rhyme awareness. These results demonstrate that individual differences in the ability to learn phonologically-similar new words are related to individual differences in vocabulary size and rhyme awareness.

Abstract

In spite of the well-established idea that language contact is fundamental for explaining language change, this aspect has been remarkably absent in most studies of color term evolution. This paper discusses the changes in the color system of Yurakaré (unclassified, Bolivia) that have occurred during the last 200 years, as a result of intensive contact with Spanish language and culture. Developing the new theoretical concept of ‘updating’, we will show that different contexts have resulted in qualitatively different changes to the color system of the language.

Abstract

To test the BIA+ and Multilink models’ accounts of how bilinguals process words with different degrees of cross-linguistic orthographic and semantic overlap, we conducted two experiments manipulating stimulus list composition. Dutch-English late bilinguals performed two English lexical decision tasks including the same set of cognates, interlingual homographs, English control words, and pseudowords. In one task, half of the pseudowords were replaced with Dutch words, requiring a ‘no’ response. This change from pure to mixed language list context was found to turn cognate facilitation effects into inhibition. Relative to control words, larger effects were found for cognate pairs with an increasing cross-linguistic form overlap. Identical cognates produced considerably larger effects than non-identical cognates, supporting their special status in the bilingual lexicon. Response patterns for different item types are accounted for in terms of the items’ lexical representation and their binding to ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses in pure vs mixed lexical decision.

Abstract

So far, studies that investigated interference effects of post-learning processes on episodic memory consolidation in humans have used tasks involving only complex and meaningful information. Such tasks require reallocation of general or encoding-specific resources away from consolidation-relevant activities. The possibility that interference can be elicited using a task that heavily taxes our limited brain resources, but has low semantic and hippocampal related long-term memory processing demands, has never been tested. We address this question by investigating whether consolidation could persist in parallel with an active, encoding-irrelevant, minimally semantic task, regardless of its high resource demands for cognitive processing. We distinguish the impact of such a task on consolidation based on whether it engages resources that are: (1) general/executive, or (2) specific/overlapping with the encoding modality. Our experiments compared subsequent memory performance across two post-encoding consolidation periods: quiet wakeful rest and a cognitively demanding n-Back task. Across six different experiments (total N = 176), we carefully manipulated the design of the n-Back task to target general or specific resources engaged in the ongoing consolidation process. In contrast to previous studies that employed interference tasks involving conceptual stimuli and complex processing demands, we did not find any differences between n-Back and rest conditions on memory performance at delayed test, using both recall and recognition tests. Our results indicate that: (1) quiet, wakeful rest is not a necessary prerequisite for episodic memory consolidation; and (2) post-encoding cognitive engagement does not interfere with memory consolidation when task-performance has minimal semantic and hippocampally-based episodic memory processing demands. We discuss our findings with reference to resource and reactivation-led interference theories

Abstract

1. Introduction Despite a large literature on Dutch children’s pronoun interpretation, relatively little is known about their production. In this study we elicited pronouns in two syntactic environments: object pronouns and quantitative er (Q-er). The goal was to see how different types of pronouns develop, in particular, whether acquisition depends on their different syntactic properties. Our Dutch data add another type of language to the acquisition literature on object clitics in the Romance languages. Moreover, we present another angle on this discussion by comparing object pronouns and Q-er.

Abstract

An ongoing debate in the speech production literature suggests that the initial building block to build up speech sounds differs between languages. That is, Germanic languages are suggested to use the phoneme, but Japanese and Chinese are proposed to use the mora or syllable, respectively. Several studies investigated this matter from a chronometric perspective (i.e., RTs and accuracy). However, a less attention has been paid to the actual acoustic utterances. The current study investigated the verbal responses of two Japanese-English bilingual groups of different proficiency levels (i.e., high and low) when naming English words and found that the presence or absence of vowel epenthesis depended on proficiency. The results indicate that: (1) English word pronunciation by low-proficient Japanese English bilinguals is likely based on their L1 (Japanese) building block and (2) that future studies would benefit from analyzing the acoustic data as well when making inferences from chronometric data.

Abstract

The process of reading aloud bare nouns in alphabetic languages is immune to semantic context effects from pictures. This is accounted for by assuming that words in alphabetic languages can be read aloud relatively fast through a sub-lexical grapheme-phoneme conversion (GPC) route or by a direct route from orthography to word form. We examined semantic context effects in a word-naming task in two languages with logographic scripts for which GPC cannot be applied: Japanese kanji and Chinese hanzi. We showed that reading aloud bare nouns is sensitive to semantically related context pictures in Japanese, but not in Chinese. The difference between these two languages is attributed to processing costs caused by multiple pronunciations for Japanese kanji. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract

A major challenge in second language acquisition is to build up new vocabulary. How is it possible to identify the meaning of a new word among several possible referents? Adult learners typically use contextual information, which reduces the number of possible referents a new word can have. Alternatively, a social partner may facilitate word learning by directing the learner’s attention toward the correct new word meaning. While much is known about the role of this form of ‘joint attention’ in first language acquisition, little is known about its efficacy in second language acquisition. Consequently, we introduce and validate a novel visual word learning game to evaluate how joint attention affects the contextual learning of new words in a second language. Adult learners either acquired new words in a constant or variable sentence context by playing the game with a knowledgeable partner, or by playing the game alone on a computer. Results clearly show that participants who learned new words in social interaction (i) are faster in identifying a correct new word referent in variable sentence contexts, and (ii) temporally coordinate their behavior with a social partner. Testing the learned words in a post-learning recall or recognition task showed that participants, who learned interactively, better recognized words originally learned in a variable context. While this result may suggest that interactive learning facilitates the allocation of attention to a target referent, the differences in the performance during recognition and recall call for further studies investigating the effect of social interaction on learning performance. In summary, we provide first evidence on the role joint attention in second language learning. Furthermore, the new interactive learning game offers itself to further testing in complex neuroimaging research, where the lack of appropriate experimental set-ups has so far limited the investigation of the neural basis of adult word learning in social interaction.

Abstract

Congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDG) are a group of clinically and genetically heterogeneous metabolic disorders. Over 150 CDG types have been described. Most CDG types are ultrarare disorders. CDG types affecting N-glycosylation are the most common type of CDG with emerging therapeutic possibilities. This review is an update on the available therapies for disorders affecting the N-linked glycosylation pathway. In the first part of the review, we highlight the clinical presentation, general principles of management, and disease-specific therapies for N-linked glycosylation CDG types, organized by organ system. The second part of the review focuses on the therapeutic strategies currently available and under development. We summarize the successful (pre-) clinical application of nutritional therapies, transplantation, activated sugars, gene therapy, and pharmacological chaperones and outline the anticipated expansion of the therapeutic possibilities in CDG. We aim to provide a comprehensive update on the treatable aspects of CDG types involving N-linked glycosylation, with particular emphasis on disease-specific treatment options for the involved organ systems; call for natural history studies; and present current and future therapeutic strategies for CDG.

Abstract

In an experimental study we explored the role of word frequency and orthographic constraints in the reading of Dutch bisyllabic words. Although Dutch orthography is highly regular, several deviations from a one-to-one correspondence occur. In polysyllabic words, the grapheme E may represent three different vowels: /ε /, /e/, or /œ /. In the experiment, skilled adult readers were presented lists of bisyllabic words containing the vowel E in the initial syllable and the same grapheme or another vowel in the second syllable. We expected word frequency to be related to word latency scores. On the basis of general word frequency data, we also expected the interpretation of the initial syllable as a stressed /e/ to be facilitated as compared to the interpretation of an unstressed /œ /. We found a strong negative correlation between word frequency and latency scores. Moreover, for words with E in either syllable we found a preference for a stressed /e/ interpretation, indicating a lexical frequency effect. The results are discussed with reference to a parallel dual-route model of word decoding.

Abstract

The comparative approach can provide insight into the evolution of human speech, language and social communication by studying relevant traits in animal systems. Bats are emerging as a model system with great potential to shed light on these processes given their learned vocalizations, close social interactions, and mammalian brains and physiology. A recent framework outlined the multiple levels of investigation needed to understand vocal learning across a broad range of non-human species, including cetaceans, pinnipeds, elephants, birds and bats. Here, we apply this framework to the current state-of-the-art in bat research. This encompasses our understanding of the abilities bats have displayed for vocal learning, what is known about the timing and social structure needed for such learning, and current knowledge about the prevalence of the trait across the order. It also addresses the biology (vocal tract morphology, neurobiology and genetics) and evolution of this trait. We conclude by highlighting some key questions that should be answered to advance our understanding of the biological encoding and evolution of speech and spoken communication. This article is part of the theme issue 'What can animal communication teach us about human language?'

Abstract

Understanding the biological foundations of language is vital to gaining insight into how the capacity for language may have evolved in humans. Animal models can be exploited to learn about the biological underpinnings of shared human traits, and although no other animals display speech or language, a range of behaviors found throughout the animal kingdom are relevant to speech and spoken language. To date, such investigations have been dominated by studies of our closest primate relatives searching for shared traits, or more distantly related species that are sophisticated vocal communicators, like songbirds. Herein I make the case for turning our attention to the Chiropterans, to shed new light on the biological encoding and evolution of human language-relevant traits. Bats employ complex vocalizations to facilitate navigation as well as social interactions, and are exquisitely tuned to acoustic information. Furthermore, bats display behaviors such as vocal learning and vocal turn-taking that are directly pertinent for human spoken language. Emerging technologies are now allowing the study of bat vocal communication, from the behavioral to the neurobiological and molecular level. Although it is clear that no single animal model can reflect the complexity of human language, by comparing such findings across diverse species we can identify the shared biological mechanisms likely to have influenced the evolution of human language. Keywords

Abstract

Previous studies have identified several brain regions that appear to be involved in the acquisition of novel word forms. Standard word-by-word presentation is often used although exposure to a new language normally occurs in a natural, real world situation. In the current experiment we investigated naturalistic language exposure and applied a model-free analysis for hemodynamic-response data. Functional connectivity, temporal correlations between hemodynamic activity of different areas, was assessed during rest before and after presentation of a movie of a weather report in Mandarin Chinese to Dutch participants. We hypothesized that learning of novel words might be associated with stronger functional connectivity of regions that are involved in phonological processing. Participants were divided into two groups, learners and non-learners, based on the scores on a post hoc word recognition task. The learners were able to recognize Chinese target words from the weather report, while the non-learners were not. In the first resting state period, before presentation of the movie, stronger functional connectivity was observed for the learners compared to the non-learners between the left supplementary motor area and the left precentral gyrus as well as the left insula and the left rolandic operculum, regions that are important for phonological rehearsal. After exposure to the weather report, functional connectivity between the left and right supramarginal gyrus was stronger for learners than for non-learners. This is consistent with a role of the left supramarginal gyrus in the storage of phonological forms. These results suggest both pre-existing and learning-induced differences between the two groups.

Abstract

This electrophysiological study asked whether the brain processes grammatical gender
violations in casual speech differently than in careful speech. Native speakers of Dutch were
presented with utterances that contained adjective-noun pairs in which the adjective was either
correctly inflected with a word-final schwa (e.g. een spannende roman “a suspenseful novel”) or
incorrectly uninflected without that schwa (een spannend roman). Consistent with previous
findings, the uninflected adjectives elicited an electrical brain response sensitive to syntactic
violations when the talker was speaking in a careful manner. When the talker was speaking in a
casual manner, this response was absent. A control condition showed electrophysiological responses
for carefully as well as casually produced utterances with semantic anomalies, showing that
listeners were able to understand the content of both types of utterance. The results suggest that
listeners take information about the speaking style of a talker into account when processing the
acoustic-phonetic information provided by the speech signal. Absent schwas in casual speech are
effectively not grammatical gender violations. These changes in syntactic processing are evidence
of contextually-driven neural flexibility.

Abstract

Semantic substitution errors (e.g., saying "arm" when "leg" is intended) are among the most common types of errors occurring during spontaneous speech. It has been shown that grammatical gender of German target nouns is preserved in the errors (E. Marx, 1999). In 3 experiments, the authors explored different accounts of the grammatical gender preservation effect in German. In all experiments, semantic substitution errors were induced using a continuous naming paradigm. In Experiment 1, it was found that gender preservation disappeared when speakers produced bare nouns. Gender preservation was found when speakers produced phrases with determiners marked for gender (Experiment 2) but not when the produced determiners were not marked for gender (Experiment 3). These results are discussed in the context of models of lexical retrieval during production.

Abstract

Navigation through familiar environments can rely upon distinct neural representations that are related to different memory systems with either the hippo-campus or the caudate nucleus at their core. However,it is a fundamental question whether and how these systems interact during route recognition. To address this issue, we combined a functional neuroimaging approach with a naturally occurring, well-controlled humanmodel of caudate nucleus dysfunction (i.e., pre-clinical and early-stage Huntington’s disease). Our results reveal a noncompetitive interaction so that the hippocampus compensates for gradual caudate nucleus dysfunction with a gradual activity increase,maintaining normal behavior. Furthermore, we revealed an interaction between medial temporal and caudate activity in healthy subjects, which was adaptively modified in Huntington patients to allow compensatory hippocampal processing. Thus, the two memory systems contribute in a noncompetitive, co operative manner to route recognition, which enables Polthe hippocampus to compensate seamlessly for the functional degradation of the caudate nucleus

Abstract

A controversial issue in psycholinguistics is the degree to which speakers employ audience design during language production. Hypothesising that a consideration of the listener’s needs is particularly relevant when the listener is under cognitive load, we had speakers describe objects for a listener performing an easy or a difficult simulated driving task. We predicted that speakers would introduce more redundancy in their descriptions in the difficult driving task, thereby accommodating the listener’s reduced cognitive capacity. The results showed that speakers did not adapt their descriptions to a change in the listener’s cognitive load. However, speakers who had experienced the driving task themselves before and who were presented with the difficult driving task first were more redundant than other speakers. These findings may suggest that speakers only consider the listener’s needs in the presence of strong enough cues, and do not update their beliefs about these needs during the task.

Abstract

Cross-linguistically, both subjects and topical information tend to be placed at the beginning of a sentence. Subjects are generally highly topical, causing both tendencies to converge on the same word order. However, subjects that lack prototypical topic properties may give rise to an incongruence between the preference to start a sentence with the subject and the preference to start a sentence with the most accessible information. We present a corpus study in which we investigate in what syntactic position (preverbal or postverbal) such low-accessible subjects are typically found in Dutch natural language. We examine the effects of both discourse accessibility (definiteness) and inherent accessibility (animacy). Our results show that definiteness and animacy interact in determining subject position in Dutch. Non-referential (bare) subjects are less likely to occur in preverbal position than definite subjects, and this tendency is reinforced when the subject is inanimate. This suggests that these two properties that make the subject less accessible together can ‘gang up’ against the subject first preference. The results support a probabilistic multifactorial account of syntactic variation.

Abstract

Autoinflammatory disorders (AID) are a heterogeneous group of diseases, characterized by an unprovoked innate immune response, resulting in recurrent or ongoing systemic inflammation and fever1-3. Inflammasomes are protein complexes with an essential role in pyroptosis and the caspase-1-mediated activation of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-17 and IL-18.

Abstract

Photoparoxysmal response (PPR) is characterized by abnormal visual sensitivity of the brain to photic stimulation. Frequently associated with idiopathic generalized epilepsies (IGEs), it might be an endophenotype for cortical excitability. Transient receptor potential cation (TRPC) channels are involved in the generation of epileptiform discharges, and TRPC4 constitutes the main TRPC channel in the central nervous system. The present study investigated an association of PPR with sequence variations of the TRPC4 gene. Thirty-five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) within TRPC4 were genotyped in 273 PPR probands and 599 population controls. Association analyses were performed for the broad PPR endophenotype (PPR types I-IV; n = 273), a narrow model of affectedness (PPR types III and IV; n = 214) and PPR associated with IGE (PPR/IGE; n = 106) for each SNP and for corresponding haplotypes. Association was found between the intron 5 SNP rs10507456 and PPR/IGE both for single markers (P = 0.005) and haplotype level (P = 0.01). Three additional SNPs (rs1535775, rs10161932 and rs7338118) within the same haplotype block were associated with PPR/IGE at P < 0.05 (uncorrected) as well as two more markers (rs10507457, rs7329459) located in intron 3. Again, the corresponding haplotype also showed association with PPR/IGE. Results were not significant following correction for multiple comparisons by permutation analysis for single markers and Bonferroni-Holm for haplotypes. No association was found between variants in TRPC4 and other phenotypes. Our results showed a trend toward association of TRPC4 variants and PPR/IGE. Further studies including larger samples of photosensitive probands are required to clarify the relevance of TRPC4 for PPR and IGE.

Abstract

We investigated whether the language of instruction (Dutch or English) influenced the study success of 614 Dutch and German first-year psychology students in the Netherlands. The Dutch students who were instructed in Dutch studied in their native language (L1), the other students in a second language (L2). In addition, only the Dutch students studied in their home country. Both these variables could potentially influence study success, operationalised as the number of European Credits (ECs) the students obtained, their grades, and drop-out rates. The L1 group outperformed the three L2 groups with respect to grades, but there were no significant differences in ECs and drop-out rates (although descriptively, the L1 group still performed best). In conclusion, this study shows an advantage of studying in the L1 when it comes to grades, and thereby contributes to the current debate in the Dutch media regarding the desirability of offering degrees taught in English.

Abstract

Hoe is de complexe taal van de mens ontstaan? Geleidelijk door natuurlijke selectie, omdat groeiende grammaticale vermogens voor de mens een evolutionair voordeel opleverden? Of plotseling, als onbedoeld bijproduct of neveneffect van een genetische mutatie, zonder dat er sprake is van een adaptief proces? In dit artikel zet ik de argumenten van Pinker en Bloom voor de eerste stelling tegenover argumenten van Chomsky en Gould voor de tweede stelling. Vervolgens laat ik zien dat deze twee extreme standpunten ruimte bieden voor andere opties, die nader onderzoek waard zijn. Zo kan genetisch onderzoek in de komende decennia informatie opleveren, die nuancering van beide standpunten noodzakelijk maakt.

Abstract

Artificial grammar learning constitutes a well-established model for the acquisition of grammatical knowledge in a natural setting. Previous neuroimaging studies demonstrated that Broca's area (left BA 44/45) is similarly activated by natural syntactic processing and artificial grammar learning. The current study was conducted to investigate the causal relationship between Broca's area and learning of an artificial grammar by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Thirty-eight healthy subjects participated in a between-subject design, with either anodal tDCS (20 min, 1 mA) or sham stimulation, over Broca's area during the acquisition of an artificial grammar. Performance during the acquisition phase, presented as a working memory task, was comparable between groups. In the subsequent classification task, detecting syntactic violations, and specifically, those where no cues to superficial similarity were available, improved significantly after anodal tDCS, resulting in an overall better performance. A control experiment where 10 subjects received anodal tDCS over an area unrelated to artificial grammar learning further supported the specificity of these effects to Broca's area. We conclude that Broca's area is specifically involved in rule-based knowledge, and here, in an improved ability to detect syntactic violations. The results cannot be explained by better tDCS-induced working memory performance during the acquisition phase. This is the first study that demonstrates that tDCS may facilitate acquisition of grammatical knowledge, a finding of potential interest for rehabilitation of aphasia.

Abstract

Recently, an increasing number of studies have suggested a role for the basal ganglia and related dopamine inputs in procedural learning, specifically when learning occurs through trial-by-trial feedback (Shohamy, Myers, Kalanithi, & Gluck. (2008). Basal ganglia and dopamine contributions to probabilistic category learning. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 32, 219–236). A necessary relationship has however only been demonstrated in patient studies. In the present study, we show for the first time that increasing dopamine levels in the brain improves the gradual acquisition of complex information in healthy participants. We implemented two artificial-grammar-learning tasks, one with and one without performance feedback. Learning was improved after levodopa intake for the feedback-based learning task only, suggesting that dopamine plays a specific role in trial-by-trial feedback-based learning. This provides promising directions for future studies on dopaminergic modulation of cognitive functioning.

Abstract

Previous research has shown that inertial cues resulting from passive transport through a large environment do not necessarily facilitate acquiring knowledge about its layout. Here we examine whether the additional body-based cues that result from active movement facilitate the acquisition of spatial knowledge. Three groups of participants learned locations along an 840-m route. One group walked the route during learning, allowing access to body-based cues (i.e., vestibular, proprioceptive, and efferent information). Another group learned by sitting in the laboratory, watching videos made from the first group. A third group watched a specially made video that minimized potentially confusing head-on-trunk rotations of the viewpoint. All groups were tested on their knowledge of directions in the environment as well as on its configural properties. Having access to body-based information reduced pointing error by a small but significant amount. Regardless of the sensory information available during learning, participants exhibited strikingly common biases.

Abstract

Words which are expected to contain the same surface string of segments may, under identical prosodic circumstances, sometimes be realized with slight differences in duration. Some researchers have attributed such effects to differences in the words’ underlying forms (incomplete neutralization), while others have suggested orthographic influence and extremely careful speech as the cause. In this paper, we demonstrate such sub-phonemic durational differences in Dutch, a language which some past research has found not to have such effects. Past literature has also shown that listeners can often make use of incomplete neutralization to distinguish apparent homophones. We extend perceptual investigations of this topic, and show that listeners can perceive even durational differences which are not consistently observed in production. We further show that a difference which is primarily orthographic rather than underlying can also create such durational differences. We conclude that a wide variety of factors, in addition to underlying form, can induce speakers to produce slight durational differences which listeners can also use in perception.

Abstract

While listeners are recognizing words from the connected speech stream, they are also parsing information from the intonational contour. This contour may contain cues to word boundaries, particularly if a language has boundary tones that occur at a large proportion of word onsets. We investigate how useful the pitch rise at the beginning of an accentual phrase (APR) would be as a potential word-boundary cue for Japanese listeners. A corpus study shows that it should allow listeners to locate approximately 40–60% of word onsets, while causing less than 1% false positives. We then present a word-spotting study which shows that Japanese listeners can, indeed, use accentual phrase boundary cues during segmentation. This work shows that the prosodic patterns that have been found in the production of Japanese also impact listeners’ processing.

Abstract

Background/Aims: Evidence from spoken word recognition suggests that for English listeners, distinguishing full versus reduced vowels is important, but discerning stress differences involving the same full vowel (as in mu- from music or museum) is not. In Dutch, in contrast, the latter distinction is important. This difference arises from the relative frequency of unstressed full vowels in the two vocabularies. The goal of this paper is to determine how this difference in the lexicon influences the perception of stressed versus unstressed vowels. Methods: All possible sequences of two segments (diphones) in Dutch and in English were presented to native listeners in gated fragments. We recorded identification performance over time throughout the speech signal. The data were here analysed specifically for patterns in perception of stressed versus unstressed vowels. Results: The data reveal significantly larger stress effects (whereby unstressed vowels are harder to identify than stressed vowels) in English than in Dutch. Both language-specific and shared patterns appear regarding which vowels show stress effects. Conclusion: We explain the larger stress effect in English as reflecting the processing demands caused by the difference in use of unstressed vowels in the lexicon. The larger stress effect in English is due to relative inexperience with processing unstressed full vowels

Abstract

This article presents electrophysiological data on on-line syntactic processing during auditory sentence comprehension in patients with Broca's aphasia. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from the scalp while subjects listened to sentences that were either syntactically correct or contained violations of subject-verb agreement. Three groups of subjects were tested: Broca patients (n = 10), nonaphasic patients with a right-hemisphere (RH) lesion (n = 5), and healthy agedmatched controls (n = 12). The healthy, control subjects showed a P600/SPS effect as response to the agreement violations. The nonaphasic patients with an RH lesion showed essentially the same pattern. The overall group of Broca patients did not show this sensitivity. However, the sensitivity was modulated by the severity of the syntactic comprehension impairment. The largest deviation from the standard P600/SPS effect was found in the patients with the relatively more severe syntactic comprehension impairment. In addition, ERPs to tones in a classical tone oddball paradigm were also recorded. Similar to the normal control subjects and RH patients, the group of Broca patients showed a P300 effect in the tone oddball condition. This indicates that aphasia in itself does not lead to a general reduction in all cognitive ERP effects. It was concluded that deviations from the standard P600/SPS effect in the Broca patients reflected difficulties with on-line maintaining of number information across clausal boundaries for establishing subject-verb agreement.

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

Four eye-tracking experiments examined lexical competition in non-native spoken-word recognition. Dutch listeners hearing English fixated longer on distractor pictures with names containing vowels that Dutch listeners are likely to confuse with vowels in a target picture name (pencil, given target panda) than on less confusable distractors (beetle, given target bottle). English listeners showed no such viewing time difference. The confusability was asymmetric: given pencil as target, panda did not distract more than distinct competitors. Distractors with Dutch names phonologically related to English target names (deksel, ‘lid,’ given target desk) also received longer fixations than distractors with phonologically unrelated names. Again, English listeners showed no differential effect. With the materials translated into Dutch, Dutch listeners showed no activation of the English words (desk, given target deksel). The results motivate two conclusions: native phonemic categories capture second-language input even when stored representations maintain a second-language distinction; and lexical competition is greater for non-native than for native listeners.

Abstract

The brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) was shown to be involved in spatial memory and spatial strategy preference. A naturally occurring single nucleotide polymorphism of the BDNF gene (Val66Met) affects activity-dependent secretion of BDNF. The current event-related fMRI study on preselected groups of ‘Met’ carriers and homozygotes of the ‘Val’ allele investigated the role of this polymorphism on encoding and retrieval in a virtual navigation task in 37 healthy volunteers. In each trial, participants navigated toward a target object. During encoding, three positional cues (columns) with directional cues (shadows) were available. During retrieval, the invisible target had to be replaced while either two objects without shadows (objects trial) or one object with a shadow (shadow trial) were available. The experiment consisted of blocks, informing participants of which trial type would be most likely to occur during retrieval. We observed no differences between genetic groups in task performance or time to complete the navigation tasks. The imaging results show that Met carriers compared to Val homozygotes activate the left hippocampus more during successful object location memory encoding. The observed effects were independent of non-significant performance differences or volumetric differences in the hippocampus. These results indicate that variations of the BDNF gene affect memory encoding during spatial navigation, suggesting that lower levels of BDNF in the hippocampus results in less efficient spatial memory processing

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

Phonological knowledge of a language involves knowledge about which segments can be combined under what conditions. Languages vary in the quantity and quality of licensed combinations, in particular sequences of consonants, with Polish being a language with a large inventory of such combinations. The present paper reports on a two-session experiment in which Polish-speaking adult participants learned nonce words with final consonant clusters. The aim was to study the role of two factors which potentially play a role in the learning of phonotactic structures: the phonological principle of sonority (ordering sound segments within the syllable according to their inherent loudness) and the (non-) existence as a usage-based phenomenon. EEG responses in two different time windows (adversely to behavioral responses) show linguistic processing by native speakers of Polish to be sensitive to both distinctions, in spite of the fact that Polish is rich in sonority-violating clusters. In particular, a general learning effect in terms of an N400 effect was found which was demonstrated to be different for sonority-obeying clusters than for sonority-violating clusters. Furthermore, significant interactions of formedness and session, and of existence and session, demonstrate that both factors, the sonority principle and the frequency pattern, play a role in the learning process.

Abstract

According to theories of embodied cognition, understanding a verb like throw involves unconsciously simulating the action of throwing, using areas of the brain that support motor planning. If understanding action words involves mentally simulating one’s own actions, then the neurocognitive representation of word meanings should differ for people with different kinds of bodies, who perform actions in systematically different ways. In a test of the body-specificity hypothesis, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare premotor activity correlated with action verb understanding in right- and left-handers. Righthanders preferentially activated the left premotor cortex during lexical decisions on manual-action verbs (compared with nonmanual-action verbs), whereas left-handers preferentially activated right premotor areas. This finding helps refine theories of embodied semantics, suggesting that implicit mental simulation during language processing is body specific: Right- and lefthanders, who perform actions differently, use correspondingly different areas of the brain for representing action verb meanings.

Abstract

The left-hemisphere dominance for language is a core example of the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres. The degree of left-hemisphere dominance for language depends on hand preference: Whereas the majority of right-handers show left-hemispheric language lateralization, this number is reduced in left-handers. Here, we assessed whether handedness analogously has an influence upon lateralization in the visual system. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we localized 4 more or less specialized extrastriate areas in left- and right-handers, namely fusiform face area (FFA), extrastriate body area (EBA), fusiform body area (FBA), and human motion area (human middle temporal [hMT]). We found that lateralization of FFA and EBA depends on handedness: These areas were right lateralized in right-handers but not in left-handers. A similar tendency was observed in FBA but not in hMT. We conclude that the relationship between handedness and hemispheric lateralization extends to functionally lateralized parts of visual cortex, indicating a general coupling between cerebral lateralization and handedness. Our findings indicate that hemispheric specialization is not fixed but can vary considerably across individuals even in areas engaged relatively early in the visual system.

Abstract

Although language is an effective vehicle for communication, it is unclear how linguistic and communicative abilities relate to each other. Some researchers have argued that communicative message generation involves perspective taking (mentalizing), and—crucially—that mentalizing depends on language. We employed a verbal communication paradigm to directly test whether the generation of a communicative action relies on mentalizing and whether the cerebral bases of communicative message generation are distinct from parts of cortex sensitive to linguistic variables. We found that dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, a brain area consistently associated with mentalizing, was sensitive to the communicative intent of utterances, irrespective of linguistic difficulty. In contrast, left inferior frontal cortex, an area known to be involved in language, was sensitive to the linguistic demands of utterances, but not to communicative intent. These findings show that communicative and linguistic abilities rely on cerebrally (and computationally) distinct mechanisms

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

According to embodied theories of language, people understand a verb like throw, at least in part, by mentally simulating throwing. This implicit simulation is often assumed to be similar or identical to motor imagery. Here we used fMRI totest whether implicit simulations of actions during language understanding involve the same cortical motor regions as explicit motor imagery Healthy participants were presented with verbs related to hand actions (e.g., to throw) and nonmanual actions (e.g., to kneel). They either read these verbs (lexical decision task) or actively imagined performing the actions named by the verbs (imagery task). Primary motor cortex showd effector-specific activation during imagery, but not during lexical decision. Parts of premotor cortex distinguished manual from nonmanual actions during both lexical decision and imagery, but there was no overlap or correlation between regions activated during the two tasks. These dissociations suggest that implicit simulation and explicit imagery cued by action verbs may involve different types of motor representations and that the construct of “mental simulation” should be distinguished from “mental imagery” in embodied theories of language.

Abstract

The human capacity to communicate has been hypothesized to be causally dependent upon language. Intuitively this seems plausible since most communication relies on language. Moreover, intention recognition abilities (as a necessary prerequisite for communication) and language development seem to co-develop. Here we review evidence from neuroimaging as well as from neuropsychology to evaluate the relationship between communicative and linguistic abilities. Our review indicates that communicative abilities are best considered as neurally distinct from language abilities. This conclusion is based upon evidence showing that humans rely on different cortical systems when designing a communicative message for someone else as compared to when performing core linguistic tasks, as well as upon observations of individuals with severe language loss after extensive lesions to the language system, who are still able to perform tasks involving intention understanding

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

The modality learning effect, according to Mayer (2001), proposes that learning is enhanced when information is presented in both the visual and auditory domain (e.g., pictures and spoken information), compared to presenting information solely in the visual channel (e.g., pictures and written text). Most of the evidence for this effect comes from adults in a laboratory setting. Therefore, we tested the modality effect with 80 children in the highest grade of elementary school, in a naturalistic setting. In a between-subjects design children either saw representational pictures with speech or representational pictures with text. Retention and transfer knowledge was tested at three moments: immediately after the intervention, one day after, and after one week. The present study did not find any evidence for a modality effect in children when the lesson is learner-paced. Instead, we found a reversed modality effect directly after the intervention for retention. A reversed modality effect was also found for the transfer questions one day later. This effect was robust, even when controlling for individual differences.

Abstract

Languages are among the most complex systems that evolution has created. With an unforeseen speed many of these unique results of evolution are currently disappearing: every two weeks one of the 6500 still spoken languages is dying and many are subject to extreme changes due to globalization. Experts understood the need to document the languages and preserve the cultural and linguistic treasures embedded in them for future generations. Also linguistic theory will need to consider the variation of the linguistic systems encoded in languages to improve our understanding of how human minds process language material, thus accessibility to all types of resources is increasingly crucial. Deeper insights into human language processing and a higher degree of integration and interoperability between resources will also improve our language processing technology. The DOBES programme is focussing on the documentation and preservation of language material. The Max Planck Institute developed the Language Archiving Technology to help researchers when creating, archiving and accessing language resources. The recently started CLARIN research infrastructure has as main goals to achieve a broad visibility and an easy
accessibility of language resources.

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

It is often assumed odors are associated with hot and cold temperature, since odor processing may trigger thermal sensations, such as coolness in the case of mint. It is unknown, however, whether people make consistent temperature associations for a variety of everyday odors, and, if so, what determines them. Previous work investigating the bases of cross-modal associations suggests a number of possibilities, including universal forces (e.g., perception), as well as culture-specific forces (e.g., language and cultural beliefs). In this study, we examined odor-temperature associations in three cultures—Maniq (N = 11), Thai (N = 24), and Dutch (N = 24)—who differ with respect to their cultural preoccupation with odors, their odor lexicons, and their beliefs about the relationship of odors (and odor objects) to temperature. Participants matched 15 odors to temperature by touching cups filled with hot or cold water, and described the odors in their native language. The results showed no consistent associations among the Maniq, and only a handful of consistent associations between odor and temperature among the Thai and Dutch. The consistent associations differed across the two groups, arguing against their universality. Further analysis revealed cross-modal associations could not be explained by language, but could be the result of cultural beliefs

Abstract

The cerebellar ataxias are a group of incurable brain disorders that are caused primarily by the progressive dysfunction and degeneration of cerebellar Purkinje cells. The lack of reliable disease models for the heterogeneous ataxias has hindered the understanding of the underlying pathogenic mechanisms as well as the development of effective therapies for these devastating diseases. Recent advances in the field of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology offer new possibilities to better understand and potentially reverse disease pathology. Given the neurodevelopmental phenotypes observed in several types of ataxias, iPSC-based models have the potential to provide significant insights into disease progression, as well as opportunities for the development of early intervention therapies. To date, however, very few studies have successfully used iPSC-derived cells to cerebellar ataxias. In this review, we focus on recent breakthroughs in generating human iPSC-derived Purkinje cells. We also highlight the future challenges that will need to be addressed in order to fully exploit these models for the modelling of the molecular mechanisms underlying cerebellar ataxias and the development of effective therapeutics.

Abstract

We performed a resting-state functional connectivity study to investigate directly the functional correlations within the perisylvian language networks by seeding from 3 subregions of Broca's complex (pars opercularis, pars triangularis, and pars orbitalis) and their right hemisphere homologues. A clear topographical functional connectivity pattern in the left middle frontal, parietal, and temporal areas was revealed for the 3 left seeds. This is the first demonstration that a functional connectivity topology can be observed in the perisylvian language networks. The results support the assumption of the functional division for phonology, syntax, and semantics of Broca's complex as proposed by the memory, unification, and control (MUC) model and indicated a topographical functional organization in the perisylvian language networks, which suggests a possible division of labor for phonological, syntactic, and semantic function in the left frontal, parietal, and temporal areas.

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

Jedek is a previously unrecognized variety of the Northern Aslian subgroup of the Aslian branch of the Austroasiatic language family. It is spoken by c. 280 individuals in the resettlement area of Sungai Rual, near Jeli in Kelantan state, Peninsular Malaysia. The community originally consisted of several bands of foragers along the middle reaches of the Pergau river. Jedek’s distinct status first became known during a linguistic survey carried out in the DOBES project Tongues of the Semang (2005-2011). This paper describes the process leading up to its discovery and provides an overview of its typological characteristics.

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

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

Using the masked priming paradigm, we examined which phonological unit is used when naming Kanji compounds. Although the phonological unit in the Japanese language has been suggested to be the mora, Experiment 1 found no priming for mora-related Kanji prime-target pairs. In Experiment 2, significant priming was only found when Kanji pairs shared the whole sound of their initial Kanji characters. Nevertheless, when the same Kanji pairs used in Experiment 2 were transcribed into Kana, significant mora priming was observed in Experiment 3. In Experiment 4, matching the syllable structure and pitch-accent of the initial Kanji characters did not lead to mora priming, ruling out potential alternative explanations for the earlier absence of the effect. A significant mora priming effect was observed, however, when the shared initial mora constituted the whole sound of their initial Kanji characters in Experiments 5. Lastly, these results were replicated in Experiment 6. Overall, these results indicate that the phonological unit involved when naming Kanji compounds is not the mora but the whole sound of each Kanji character. We discuss how different phonological units may be involved when processing Kanji and Kana words as well as the implications for theories dealing with language production processes.

Abstract

This article reports on results from a broad crosslinguistic study based on data from thirty-five signed languages around the world. The study is the first of its kind, and the typological generalizations presented here cover the domain of interrogative structures as they appear across a wide range of geographically and genetically distinct signed languages. Manual and nonmanual ways of marking basic types of questions in signed languages are investigated. As a result, it becomes clear that the range of crosslinguistic variation is extensive for some subparameters, such as the structure of question-word paradigms, while other parameters, such as the use of nonmanual expressions in questions, show more similarities across signed languages. Finally, it is instructive to compare the findings from signed language typology to relevant data from spoken languages at a more abstract, crossmodality level.

Abstract

This article presents a typology of negative constructions across a substantial number of sign languages from around the globe. After situating the topic within the wider context of linguistic typology, the main negation strategies found across sign languages are described. Nonmanual negation includes the use of head movements and facial expressions for negation and is of great importance in sign languages as well as particularly interesting from a typological point of view. As far as manual signs are concerned, independent negative particles represent the dominant strategy, but there are also instances of irregular negation in most sign languages. Irregular negatives may take the form of suppletion, cliticisation, affixing, or internal modification of a sign. The results of the study lead to interesting generalisations about similarities and differences between negatives in signed and spoken languages.

Abstract

Scene-selective regions (SSRs), including the parahippocampal place area (PPA), retrosplenial cortex (RSC), and transverse occipital sulcus (TOS), are among the most widely characterized functional regions in the human brain. However, previous studies have mostly focused on the commonality within each SSR, providing little information on different aspects of their variability. In a large group of healthy adults (N = 202), we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate different aspects of topographical and functional variability within SSRs, including interindividual, interhemispheric, and sex differences. First, the PPA, RSC, and TOS were delineated manually for each individual. We then demonstrated that SSRs showed substantial interindividual variability in both spatial topography and functional selectivity. We further identified consistent interhemispheric differences in the spatial topography of all three SSRs, but distinct interhemispheric differences in scene selectivity. Moreover, we found that all three SSRs showed stronger scene selectivity in men than in women. In summary, our work thoroughly characterized the interindividual, interhemispheric, and sex variability of the SSRs and invites future work on the origin and functional significance of these variabilities. Additionally, we constructed the first probabilistic atlases for the SSRs, which provide the detailed anatomical reference for further investigations of the scene network.

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

Celiac disease (CD) is an intolerance to dietary proteins of wheat, barley, and rye. CD may have substantial morbidity, yet it is quite common with a prevalence of 1%-2% in Western populations. It is not clear why the CD phenotype is so prevalent despite its negative effects on human health, especially because appropriate treatment in the form of a gluten-free diet has only been available since the 1950s, when dietary gluten was discovered to be the triggering factor. The high prevalence of CD might suggest that genes underlying this disease may have been favored by the process of natural selection. We assessed signatures of selection for ten confirmed CD-associated loci in several genome-wide data sets, comprising 8154 controls from four European populations and 195 individuals from a North African population, by studying haplotype lengths via the integrated haplotype score (iHS) method. Consistent signs of positive selection for CD-associated derived alleles were observed in three loci: IL12A, IL18RAP, and SH2B3. For the SH2B3 risk allele, we also show a difference in allele frequency distribution (F(st)) between HapMap phase II populations. Functional investigation of the effect of the SH2B3 genotype in response to lipopolysaccharide and muramyl dipeptide revealed that carriers of the SH2B3 rs3184504*A risk allele showed stronger activation of the NOD2 recognition pathway. This suggests that SH2B3 plays a role in protection against bacteria infection, and it provides a possible explanation for the selective sweep on SH2B3, which occurred sometime between 1200 and 1700 years ago.

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.

Abstract

Sign language lexicography has thus far been a relatively obscure area in the world of lexicography. Therefore, this article will contain background information on signed languages and the communities in which they are used, on the lexicography of sign languages, the situation in the Netherlands as well as a review of a sign language dictionary that has recently been published in the Netherlands.