Publications

Abstract

Rapid advances over the last decade in DNA sequencing and statistical genetics enable us to investigate the genomic makeup of individuals throughout history. In a recent notable study, Begg et al.1 used Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair strands for genome sequencing and explored genetic predispositions for some of his documented medical issues. Given that it was arguably Beethoven’s skills as a musician and composer that made him an iconic figure in Western culture, we here extend the approach and apply it to musicality. We use this as an example to illustrate the broader challenges of individual-level genetic predictions.

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

Participants were unknowingly exposed to complex regularities in a working memory task. The existence of implicit knowledge was subsequently inferred from a preference for stimuli with similar grammatical regularities. Several affective traits have been shown to influence
AGL performance positively, many of which are related to a tendency for automatic responding. We therefore tested whether the mindfulness trait predicted a reduction of grammatically congruent preferences, and used emotional primes to explore the influence of affect. Mindfulness was shown to correlate negatively with grammatically congruent responses. Negative primes were shown to result in faster and more negative evaluations.
We conclude that grammatically congruent preference ratings rely on habitual responses, and that our findings provide empirical evidence for the non-reactive disposition of the mindfulness trait.

Abstract

Iconic words and signs are characterized by a perceived resemblance between aspects of their form and aspects of their meaning. For example, in English, iconic words include peep and crash, which mimic the sounds they denote, and wiggle and zigzag, which mimic motion. As a semiotic property of words and signs, iconicity has been demonstrated to play a role in word learning, language processing, and language evolution. This paper presents the results of a large-scale norming study for more than 14,000 English words conducted with over 1400 American English speakers. We demonstrate the utility of these ratings by replicating a number of existing findings showing that iconicity ratings are related to age of acquisition, sensory modality, semantic neighborhood density, structural markedness, and playfulness. We discuss possible use cases and limitations of the rating dataset, which is made publicly available.

Abstract

We investigated how the strength of a foreign accent and varying types of experience with foreign-accented speech influence the recognition of accented words. In Experiment 1, native Dutch listeners with limited or extensive prior experience with German-accented Dutch completed a cross-modal priming experiment with strongly, medium, and weakly accented words. Participants with limited experience were primed by the medium and weakly accented words, but not by the strongly accented words. Participants with extensive experience were primed by all accent types. In Experiments 2 and 3, Dutch listeners with limited experience listened to a short story before doing the cross-modal priming task. In Experiment 2, the story was spoken by the priming task speaker and either contained strongly accented words or did not. Strongly accented exposure led to immediate priming by novel strongly accented words, while exposure to the speaker without strongly accented tokens led to priming only in the experiment’s second half. In Experiment 3, listeners listened to the story with strongly accented words spoken by a different German-accented speaker. Listeners were primed by the strongly accented words, but again only in the experiment’s second half. Together, these results show that adaptation to foreign-accented speech is rapid but depends on accent strength and on listener familiarity with those strongly accented words.

Abstract

For bilinguals, speaking in a second language (L2) compared to the native language (L1) is usually more difficult. In this study we asked whether the difficulty in L2 production reflects increased demands imposed on domain-general or core language mechanisms. We compared the brain response to speech production in L1 and L2 within two functionally-defined networks in the brain: the Multiple Demand (MD) network and the language network. We found that speech production in L2 was linked to a widespread increase of brain activity in the domain-general MD network. The language network did not show a similarly robust differences in processing speech in the two languages, however, we found increased response to L2 production in the language-specific portion of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). To further explore our results, we have looked at domain-general and language-specific response within the brain structures postulated to form a Bilingual Language Control (BLC) network. Within this network, we found a robust increase in response to L2 in the domain-general, but also in some language-specific voxels including in the left IFG. Our findings show that L2 production strongly engages domain-general mechanisms, but only affects language sensitive portions of the left IFG. These results put constraints on the current model of bilingual language control by precisely disentangling the domain-general and language-specific contributions to the difficulty in speech production in L2.

Abstract

When bilingual speakers switch back to speaking in their native language (L1) after having used their second language (L2), they often experience difficulty in retrieving words in their L1. This phenomenon is referred to as the L2 after-effect. We used the L2 after-effect as a lens to explore the neural bases of bilingual language control mechanisms. Our goal was twofold: first, to explore whether bilingual language control draws on domain-general or language-specific mechanisms; second, to investigate the precise mechanism(s) that drive the L2 after-effect. We used a precision fMRI approach based on functional localizers to measure the extent to which the brain activity that reflects the L2 after-effect overlaps with the language network (Fedorenko et al., 2010) and the domain-general multiple demand network (Duncan, 2010), as well as three task-specific networks that tap into interference resolution, lexical retrieval, and articulation. Forty-two Polish–English bilinguals participated in the study. Our results show that the L2 after-effect reflects increased engagement of domain-general but not language-specific resources. Furthermore, contrary to previously proposed interpretations, we did not find evidence that the effect reflects increased difficulty related to lexical access, articulation, and the resolution of lexical interference. We propose that difficulty of speech production in the picture naming paradigm—manifested as the L2 after-effect—reflects interference at a nonlinguistic level of task schemas or a general increase of cognitive control engagement during speech production in L1 after L2.

Abstract

The ISOcat Data Category Registry provides a community computing environment for creating, storing, retrieving, harmonizing and standardizing data category specifications (DCs), used to register linguistic terms used in various fields. This chapter recounts the history of DC documentation in TC 37, beginning from paper-based lists created for lexicographers and terminologists and progressing to the development of a web-based resource for a much broader range of users. While describing the considerable strides that have been made to collect a very large comprehensive collection of DCs, it also outlines difficulties that have arisen in developing a fully operative web-based computing environment for achieving consensus on data category names, definitions, and selections and describes efforts to overcome some of the present shortcomings and to establish positive working procedures designed to engage a wide range of people involved in the creation of language resources.

Abstract

Im ISOcat-Datenkategorie-Register (Data Category Registry, www.isocat.org) des Technischen Komitees ISO/TC 37 (Terminology and other language and content resources) werden Feldnamen und Werte für Sprachressourcen beschrieben. Empfohlene Feldnamen und zuverlässige Definitionen sollen dazu beitragen, dass Sprachdaten unabhängig von Anwendungen, Plattformen und Communities of Practice (CoP) wiederverwendet werden können. Datenkategorie-Gruppen (Data Category Selections) können eingesehen, ausgedruckt, exportiert und nach kostenloser Registrierung auch neu erstellt werden.

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

Although sign language-using communities exist in all areas of the world, few sign languages have been documented in detail. Sign languages occur in a variety of sociocultural contexts, ranging from sign languages used in closed village communities to officially recognized national sign languages. They may be grouped into language families on historical grounds or may participate in various language contact situations. Systematic cross-linguistic comparison reveals both significant structural similarities and important typological differences between sign languages. Focusing on information from non-Western countries, this article provides an overview of the sign languages of the world.

Abstract

This article presents data on cardinal numerals in three sign languages from small-scale communities with hereditary deafness. The unusual features found in these data considerably extend the known range of typological variety across sign languages. Some features, such as non-decimal numeral bases, are unattested in sign languages, but familiar from spoken languages, while others, such as subtractive sub-systems, are rare in sign and speech. We conclude that for a complete typological appraisal of a domain, an approach to cross-modal typology, which includes a typologically diverse range of sign languages in addition to spoken languages, is both instructive and feasible.

Abstract

This article reports on several sub-projects of research and development related to the use of Indian Sign Language in educational settings. In many countries around the world, sign languages are now recognised as the legitimate, full-fledged languages of the deaf communities that use them. In India, the development of sign language resources and their application in educational contexts, is still in its initial stages. The work reported on here, is the first principled and comprehensive effort of establishing educational programmes in Indian Sign Language at a national level. Programmes are of several types: a) Indian Sign Language instruction for hearing people; b) sign language teacher training programmes for deaf people; and c) educational materials for use in schools for the Deaf. The conceptual approach used in the programmes for deaf students is known as bilingual education, which emphasises the acquisition of a first language, Indian Sign Language, alongside the acquisition of spoken languages, primarily in their written form.

Abstract

There is substantial evidence that infants prefer infant-directed speech (IDS) to adult-directed speech (ADS). The strongest evidence for this claim has come from two large-scale investigations: i) a community-augmented meta-analysis of published behavioral studies and ii) a large-scale multi-lab replication study. In this paper, we aim to improve our understanding of the IDS preference and its boundary conditions by combining and comparing these two data sources across key population and design characteristics of the underlying studies. Our analyses reveal that both the meta-analysis and multi-lab replication show moderate effect sizes (d ≈ 0.35 for each estimate) and that both of these effects persist when relevant study-level moderators are added to the models (i.e., experimental methods, infant ages, and native languages). However, while the overall effect size estimates were similar, the two sources diverged in the effects of key moderators: both infant age and experimental method predicted IDS preference in the multi-lab replication study, but showed no effect in the meta-analysis. These results demonstrate that the IDS preference generalizes across a variety of experimental conditions and sampling characteristics, while simultaneously identifying key differences in the empirical picture offered by each source individually and pinpointing areas where substantial uncertainty remains about the influence of theoretically central moderators on IDS preference. Overall, our results show how meta-analyses and multi-lab replications can be used in tandem to understand the robustness and generalizability of developmental phenomena.

Abstract

In response to DNA damage or replication stress, the protein kinase ATR is activated and subsequently transduces genotoxic signals to cell cycle control and DNA repair machinery through phosphorylation of a number of downstream substrates. Very little is known about the molecular mechanism by which ATR is activated in response to genotoxic insults. In this report, we demonstrate that protein phosphatase 5 (PP5) is required for the ATR-mediated checkpoint activation. PP5 forms a complex with ATR in a genotoxic stress-inducible manner. Interference with the expression or the activity of PP5 leads to impairment of the ATR-mediated phosphorylation of hRad17 and Chk1 after UV or hydroxyurea treatment. Similar results are obtained in ATM-deficient cells, suggesting that the observed defect in checkpoint signaling is the consequence of impaired functional interaction between ATR and PP5. In cells exposed to UV irradiation, PP5 is required to elicit an appropriate S-phase checkpoint response. In addition, loss of PP5 leads to premature mitosis after hydroxyurea treatment. Interestingly, reduced PP5 activity exerts differential effects on the formation of intranuclear foci by ATR and replication protein A, implicating a functional role for PP5 in a specific stage of the checkpoint signaling pathway. Taken together, our results suggest that PP5 plays a critical role in the ATR-mediated checkpoint activation.

Abstract

Statistical learning (SL) is postulated to play an important role in the process of language acquisition as well as in other cognitive functions. It was found to enable learning of various types of statistical patterns across different sensory modalities. However, few studies have distinguished distributional SL (DSL) from sequential and spatial SL, or examined DSL across modalities using comparable tasks. Considering the relevance of such findings to the nature of SL, the current study investigated the modality- and stimulus-specificity of DSL. Using a within-subject design we compared DSL performance in auditory and visual modalities. For each sensory modality, two stimulus types were used: linguistic versus non-linguistic auditory stimuli and temporal versus spatial visual stimuli. In each condition, participants were exposed to stimuli that varied in their length as they were drawn from two categories (short versus long). DSL was assessed using a categorization task and a production task. Results showed that learners’ performance was only correlated for tasks in the same sensory modality. Moreover, participants were better at categorizing the temporal signals in the auditory conditions than in the visual condition, where in turn an advantage of the spatial condition was observed. In the production task participants exaggerated signal length more for linguistic signals than non-linguistic signals. Together, these findings suggest that DSL is modality- and stimulus-sensitive.

Abstract

Research into the role of brain oscillations in basic perceptual and cognitive functions has suggested that the alpha rhythm reflects functional inhibition while the beta rhythm reflects neural ensemble (re)activation. However, little is known regarding the generalization of these proposed fundamental operations to linguistic processes, such as speech comprehension and production. Here, we recorded magnetoencephalography in participants performing a novel rule-switching paradigm. Specifically, Dutch native speakers had to produce an alternative exemplar from the same category or a feature of a given target word embedded in spoken sentences (e.g., for the word “tuna”, an exemplar from the same category—“seafood”—would be “shrimp”, and a feature would be “pink”). A cue indicated the task rule—exemplar or feature—either before (pre-cue) or after (retro-cue) listening to the sentence. Alpha power during the working memory delay was lower for retro-cue compared with that for pre-cue in the left hemispheric language-related regions. Critically, alpha power negatively correlated with reaction times, suggestive of alpha facilitating task performance by regulating inhibition in regions linked to lexical retrieval. Furthermore, we observed a different spatiotemporal pattern of beta activity for exemplars versus features in the right temporoparietal regions, in line with the proposed role of beta in recruiting neural networks for the encoding of distinct categories. Overall, our study provides evidence for the generalizability of the role of alpha and beta oscillations from perceptual to more “complex, linguistic processes” and offers a novel task to investigate links between rule-switching, working memory, and word production.

Abstract

This paper reports on an exploration of the ways in which multiple entities are expressed in Turkish Sign Language (TİD). The (descriptive and quantitative) analyses provided are based on a corpus of both spontaneous data and specifically elicited data, in order to provide as comprehensive an account as possible. We have found several devices in TİD for expression of multiple entities, in particular localization, spatial plural predicate inflection, and a specific form used to express multiple entities that are side by side in the same configuration (not reported for any other sign language to date), as well as numerals and quantifiers. In contrast to some other signed languages, TİD does not appear to have a productive system of plural reduplication. We argue that none of the devices encountered in the TİD data is a genuine plural marking device and that the plural interpretation of multiple entity localizations and plural predicate inflections is a by-product of the use of space to indicate the existence or the involvement in an event of multiple entities.