Publications

Abstract

The multilingual brain implements mechanisms that serve to select the appropriate language as a function of the communicative environment. Engaging these mechanisms on a regular basis appears to have consequences for brain structure and function. Studies have implicated the caudate nuclei as important nodes in polyglot language control processes, and have also shown structural differences in the caudate nuclei in bilingual compared to monolingual populations. However, the majority of published work has focused on the categorical differences between monolingual and bilingual individuals, and little is known about whether these findings extend to multilingual individuals, who have even greater language control demands. In the present paper, we present an analysis of the volume and morphology of the caudate nuclei, putamen, pallidum and thalami in 75 multilingual individuals who speak three or more languages. Volumetric analyses revealed a significant relationship between multilingual experience and right caudate volume, as well as a marginally significant relationship with left caudate volume. Vertex-wise analyses revealed a significant enlargement of dorsal and anterior portions of the left caudate nucleus, known to have connectivity with executive brain regions, as a function of multilingual expertise. These results suggest that multilingual expertise might exercise a continuous impact on brain structure, and that as additional languages beyond a second are acquired, the additional demands for linguistic and cognitive control result in modifications to brain structures associated with language management processes.

Abstract

Bilingual listeners comprehend speech-in-noise better in their native than non-native language. This native-language benefit is thought to arise from greater use of top-down linguistic information to assist degraded speech comprehension. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we recently showed that left angular gyrus activation is modulated when semantic context is used to assist native language speech-in-noise comprehension (Golestani, Hervais-Adelman, Obleser, & Scott, 2013). Here, we extend the previous work, by reanalyzing the previous data alongside the results obtained in the non-native language of the same late bilingual participants. We found a behavioral benefit of semantic context in processing speech-in-noise in the native language only, and the imaging results also revealed a native language context effect in the left angular gyrus. We also find a complementary role of lower-level auditory regions during stimulus-driven processing. Our findings help to elucidate the neural basis of the established native language behavioral benefit of speech-in-noise processing. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Abstract

A commentary on
Broca Pars Triangularis Constitutes a “Hub” of the Language-Control Network during Simultaneous Language Translation

by Elmer, S. (2016). Front. Hum. Neurosci. 10:491. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00491

Elmer (2016) conducted an fMRI investigation of “simultaneous language translation” in five participants. The article presents group and individual analyses of German-to-Italian and Italian-to-German translation, confined to a small set of anatomical regions previously reported to be involved in multilingual control. Here we take the opportunity to discuss concerns regarding certain aspects of the study.

Abstract

Learning to read is associated with the appearance of an orthographically sensitive brain region known as the visual word form area. It has been claimed that development of this area proceeds by impinging upon territory otherwise available for the processing of culturally relevant stimuli such as faces and houses. In a large-scale functional magnetic resonance imaging study of a group of individuals of varying degrees of literacy (from completely illiterate to highly literate), we examined cortical responses to orthographic and nonorthographic visual stimuli. We found that literacy enhances responses to other visual input in early visual areas and enhances representational similarity between text and faces, without reducing the extent of response to nonorthographic input. Thus, acquisition of literacy in childhood recycles existing object representation mechanisms but without destructive competition.

Abstract

Superiority in visual search for individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a well-reported finding. We administered two visual search tasks to individuals with ASD and matched controls. One showed no difference between the groups, and one did show the expected superior performance for individuals with ASD. These results offer an explanation, formulated in terms of load theory. We suggest that there is a limit to the superiority in visual search for individuals with ASD, related to the perceptual load of the stimuli. When perceptual load becomes so high that no additional task-(ir)relevant information can be processed, performance will be based on single stimulus identification, in which no differences between individuals with ASD and controls have been demonstrated

Abstract

Epilepsy is a frequent feature of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), but little is known about genetic differences between NDDs with and without epilepsy. We analyzed de novo variants (DNVs) in 6,753 parent–offspring trios ascertained to have different NDDs. In the subset of 1,942 individuals with NDDs with epilepsy, we identified 33 genes with a significant excess of DNVs, of which SNAP25 and GABRB2 had previously only limited evidence of disease association. Joint analysis of all individuals with NDDs also implicated CACNA1E as a novel disease-associated gene. Comparing NDDs with and without epilepsy, we found missense DNVs, DNVs in specific genes, age of recruitment, and severity of intellectual disability to be associated with epilepsy. We further demonstrate the extent to which our results affect current genetic testing as well as treatment, emphasizing the benefit of accurate genetic diagnosis in NDDs with epilepsy.

Abstract

Participants’ performance differs when conducting a task in the presence of a secondary individual, moreover the opinion the participant has of this individual also plays a role. Using EEG, we investigated how previous interactions with, and evaluations of, an avatar in virtual reality subsequently influenced attentional allocation to the face of that avatar. We focused on changes in the alpha activity as an index of attentional allocation. We found that the onset of an avatar’s face whom the participant had developed a rapport with induced greater alpha suppression. This suggests greater attentional resources are allocated to the interacted-with avatars. The evaluative ratings of the avatar induced a U-shaped change in alpha suppression, such that participants paid most attention when the avatar was rated as average. These results suggest that attentional allocation is an important element of how behaviour is altered in the presence of a secondary individual and is modulated by our opinion of that individual.

Abstract

We investigate the type of attention (domain-general or language-specific) used during
syntactic processing. We focus on syntactic priming: In this task, participants listen to a
sentence that describes a picture (prime sentence), followed by a picture the participants need
to describe (target sentence). We measure the proportion of times participants use the
syntactic structure they heard in the prime sentence to describe the current target sentence as a
measure of syntactic processing. Participants simultaneously conducted a motion-object
tracking (MOT) task, a task commonly used to tax domain-general attentional resources. We
manipulated the number of objects the participant had to track; we thus measured
participants’ ability to process syntax while their attention is not-, slightly-, or overly-taxed.
Performance in the MOT task was significantly worse when conducted as a dual-task
compared to as a single task. We observed an inverted U-shaped curve on priming magnitude
when conducting the MOT task concurrently with prime sentences (i.e., memory encoding),
but no effect when conducted with target sentences (i.e., memory retrieval). Our results
illustrate how, during the encoding of syntactic information, domain-general attention
differentially affects syntactic processing, whereas during the retrieval of syntactic
information domain-general attention does not influence syntactic processing

Abstract

During conversation, people integrate information from co-speech hand gestures with information in spoken language. For example, after hearing the sentence, "A piece of the log flew up and hit Carl in the face" while viewing a gesture directed at the nose, people tend to later report that the log hit Carl in the nose (information only in gesture) rather than in the face (information in speech). The cognitive and neural mechanisms that support the integration of gesture with speech are unclear. One possibility is that the hippocampus known for its role in relational memory and information integration is necessary for integrating gesture and speech. To test this possibility, we examined how patients with hippocampal amnesia and healthy and brain-damaged comparison participants express information from gesture in a narrative retelling task. Participants watched videos of an experimenter telling narratives that included hand gestures that contained supplementary information. Participants were asked to retell the narratives and their spoken retellings were assessed for the presence of information from gesture. For features that had been accompanied by supplementary gesture, patients with amnesia retold fewer of these features overall and fewer retellings that matched the speech from the narrative. Yet their retellings included features that contained information that had been present uniquely in. gesture in amounts that were not reliably different from comparison groups. Thus, a functioning hippocampus is not necessary for gesture-speech integration over short timescales. Providing unique information in gesture may enhance communication for individuals with declarative memory impairment, possibly via non-declarative memory mechanisms.

Abstract

Theories of embodied language comprehension have proposed that language is understood through perceptual simulation of the sensorimotor characteristics of its meaning. Strong support for this claim requires demonstration of encoding-based activation of sensorimotor representations that is distinct from task-related or goal-driven processes. Participants in 3 eye-tracking experiments were presented with triplets of either numbers or object and animal names. In Experiment 1, participants indicated whether the size of the referent of the middle object or animal name was in between the size of the 2 outer items. In Experiment 2, the object and animal names were encoded for an immediate recognition memory task. In Experiment 3, participants completed the same comparison task of Experiment 1 for both words and numbers. During the comparison tasks, word and number decision times showed a symbolic distance effect, such that response time was inversely related to the size difference between the items. A symbolic distance effect was also observed for animal and object encoding times in cases where encoding time likely reflected some goal-driven processes as well. When semantic size was irrelevant to the task (Experiment 2), it had no effect on word encoding times. Number encoding times showed a numerical distance priming effect: Encoding time increased with numerical difference between items. Together these results suggest that while activation of numerical magnitude representations is encoding-based as well as goal-driven, activation of size information associated with words is goal-driven and does not occur automatically during encoding. This conclusion challenges strong theories of embodied cognition which claim that language comprehension consists of activation of analog sensorimotor representations irrespective of higher level processes related to context or task-specific goals

Abstract

Two eye-tracking experiments were conducted in which the manual response mode typically used in lexical decision tasks (LDTs) was replaced with an eye-movement response through a sequence of 3 words. This ocular LDT combines the explicit control of task goals found in LDTs with the highly practiced ocular response used in reading text. In Experiment 1, forward saccades indicated an affirmative lexical decision (LD) on each word in the triplet. In Experiment 2, LD responses were delayed until all 3 letter strings had been read. The goal of the study was to evaluate the contribution of task goals and response mode to semantic priming. Semantic priming is very robust in tasks that involve recognition of words in isolation, such as LDT, but limited during text reading, as measured using eye movements. Gaze durations in both experiments showed robust semantic priming even though ocular response times were much shorter than manual LDs for the same words in the English Lexicon Project. Ex-Gaussian distribution fits revealed that the priming effect was concentrated in estimates of tau (τ), meaning that priming was most pronounced in the slow tail of the distribution. This pattern shows differential use of the prime information, which may be more heavily recruited in cases in which the LD is difficult, as indicated by longer response times. Compared with the manual LD responses, ocular LDs provide a more sensitive measure of this task-related influence on word recognition as measured by the LDT.

Abstract

Dialogue requires speakers to coordinate. According to the model of dialogue as joint action, interlocutors achieve this coordination by corepresenting their own and each other’s task share in a functionally equivalent manner. In two experiments, we investigated this corepresentation account using an interactive joint naming task in which pairs of participants took turns naming sets of objects on a shared display. Speaker A named the first, or the first and third object, and Speaker B named the second object. In control conditions, Speaker A named one, two, or all three objects and Speaker B remained silent. We recorded the timing of the speakers’ utterances and Speaker A’s eye movements. Interturn pause durations indicated that the speakers effectively coordinated their utterances in time. Speaker A’s speech onset latencies depended on the number of objects they named, but were unaffected by Speaker B’s naming task. This suggests speakers were not fully incorporating their partner’s task into their own speech planning. Moreover, Speaker A’s eye movements indicated that they were much less likely to attend to objects their partner named than to objects they named themselves. When speakers did inspect their partner’s objects, viewing times were too short to suggest that speakers were retrieving these object names as if they were planning to name the objects themselves. These results indicate that speakers prioritized planning their own responses over attending to their interlocutor’s task and suggest that effective coordination can be achieved without full corepresentation of the partner’s task.

Abstract

How do conversational participants continue with turn-by-turn talk after a momentary lapse? If all participants forgo the option to speak at possible sequence completion, an extended silence may emerge that can indicate a lack of anything to talk about next. For the interaction to proceed recognizably as a conversation, the postlapse turn needs to implicate more talk. Using conversation analysis, I examine three practical alternatives regarding sequentially implicative postlapse turns: Participants may move to end the interaction, continue with some prior matter, or start something new. Participants are shown using resources grounded in the interaction’s overall structural organization, the materials from the interaction-so-far, the mentionables they bring to interaction, and the situated environment itself. Comparing these alternatives, there’s suggestive quantitative evidence for a preference for continuation. The analysis of lapse resolution shows lapses as places for the management of multiple possible courses of action. Data are in U.S. and UK English.

Abstract

Participants in interaction routinely orient to gaze, bodily comportment, and nonlexical vocalizations as salient for developing an analysis of the unfolding course of action. In this article, I address the respiratory phenomenon of sighing, the aim being to describe sighing as a situated practice that contributes to the achievement of particular actions in interaction. I report on the various actions sighs implement or construct and how their positioning and delivery informs participants’ understandings of their significance for interaction. Data are in American English

Abstract

Background: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their parents demonstrate impaired performance in rapid automatized naming (RAN), a task that recruits a variety of linguistic and executive processes. Though the basic processes that contribute to RAN differences remain unclear, eye-voice relationships, as measured through eye tracking, can provide insight into cognitive and perceptual processes contributing to RAN performance. For example, in RAN, eye-voice span (EVS), the distance ahead the eyes are when articulation of a target item's label begins, is an indirect measure of automaticity of the processes underlying RAN. The primary objective of this study was to investigate automaticity in naming processes, as indexed by EVS during RAN. The secondary objective was to characterize RAN difficulties in individuals with ASD and their siblings. Methods: Participants (aged 15 – 33 years) included 21 individuals with ASD, 23 siblings of individuals with ASD, and 24 control subjects, group-matched on chronological age. Naming time, frequency of errors, and EVS were measured during a RAN task and compared across groups. Results: A stepwise pattern of RAN performance was observed, with individuals with ASD demonstrating the slowest naming across all RAN conditions, controls demonstrating the fastest naming, and siblings demonstrating intermediate performance. Individuals with ASD exhibited smaller EVSs than controls on all RAN conditions, and siblings exhibited smaller EVSs during number naming (the most highly automatized type of naming). EVSs were correlated with naming times in controls only, and only in the more automatized conditions. Conclusions: These results suggest that reduced automaticity in the component processes of RAN may underpin differences in individuals with ASD and their siblings. These findings also provide further support that RAN abilities are impacted by genetic liability to ASD. This study has important implications for understanding the underlying skills contributing to language-related deficits in ASD.

Abstract

Multiple layers of visual (and vocal) signals, plus their different onsets and offsets, represent a significant semantic and temporal binding problem during face-to-face conversation.
Despite this complex unification process, multimodal messages appear to be processed faster than unimodal messages.

Multimodal gestalt recognition and multilevel prediction are proposed to play a crucial role in facilitating multimodal language processing.

The basis of the processing mechanisms involved in multimodal language comprehension is hypothesized to be domain general, coopted for communication, and refined with domain-specific characteristics.
A new, situated framework for understanding human language processing is called for that takes into consideration the multilayered, multimodal nature of language and its production and comprehension in conversational interaction requiring fast processing.

Abstract

The home of human language use is face-to-face interaction, a context in which communicative exchanges are characterised not only by bodily signals accompanying what is being said but also by a pattern of alternating turns at talk. This transition between turns is astonishingly fast—typically a mere 200-ms elapse between a current and a next speaker’s contribution—meaning that comprehending, producing, and coordinating conversational contributions in time is a significant challenge. This begs the question of whether the additional information carried by bodily signals facilitates or hinders language processing in this time-pressured environment. We present analyses of multimodal conversations revealing that bodily signals appear to profoundly influence language processing in interaction: Questions accompanied by gestures lead to shorter turn transition times—that is, to faster responses—than questions without gestures, and responses come earlier when gestures end before compared to after the question turn has ended. These findings hold even after taking into account prosodic patterns and other visual signals, such as gaze. The empirical findings presented here provide a first glimpse of the role of the body in the psycholinguistic processes underpinning human communication

Abstract

In human face-to-face communication, language comprehension is a multi-modal, situated activity. However, little is known about how we combine information from different modalities during comprehension, and how perceived communicative intentions, often signaled through visual signals, influence this process. We explored this question by simulating a multi-party communication context in which a speaker alternated her gaze between two recipients. Participants viewed speech-only or speech + gesture object-related messages when being addressed (direct gaze) or unaddressed (gaze averted to other participant). They were then asked to choose which of two object images matched the speaker’s preceding message. Unaddressed recipients responded significantly more slowly than addressees for speech-only utterances. However, perceiving the same speech accompanied by gestures sped unaddressed recipients up to a level identical to that of addressees. That is, when unaddressed recipients’ speech processing suffers, gestures can enhance the comprehension of a speaker’s message. We discuss our findings with respect to two hypotheses attempting to account for how social eye gaze may modulate multi-modal language comprehension.

Abstract

In face-to-face communication, recurring intervals of mutual gaze allow listeners to provide speakers with visual feedback (e.g. nodding). Here, we investigate the potential feedback function of one of the subtlest of human movements—eye blinking. While blinking tends to be subliminal, the significance of mutual gaze in human interaction raises the question whether the interruption of mutual gaze through blinking may also be communicative. To answer this question, we developed a novel, virtual reality-based experimental paradigm, which enabled us to selectively manipulate blinking in a virtual listener, creating small differences in blink duration resulting in ‘short’ (208 ms) and ‘long’ (607 ms) blinks. We found that speakers unconsciously took into account the subtle differences in listeners’ blink duration, producing substantially shorter answers in response to long listener blinks. Our findings suggest that, in addition to physiological, perceptual and cognitive functions, listener blinks are also perceived as communicative signals, directly influencing speakers’ communicative behavior in face-to-face communication. More generally, these findings may be interpreted as shedding new light on the evolutionary origins of mental-state signaling, which is a crucial ingredient for achieving mutual understanding in everyday social interaction.

Abstract

The FOXP2 transcription factor is one of the most well-known genes to have been implicated in developmental speech and language disorders. Rare mutations disrupting the function of this gene have been described in different families and cases. In a large three-generation family carrying a missense mutation, neuroimaging studies revealed significant effects on brain structure and function, most notably in the inferior frontal gyrus, caudate nucleus and cerebellum. After the identification of rare disruptive FOXP2 variants impacting on brain structure, several reports proposed that common variants at this locus may also have detectable effects on the brain, extending beyond disorder into normal phenotypic variation. These neuroimaging genetics studies used groups of between 14 and 96 participants. The current study assessed effects of common FOXP2 variants on neuroanatomy using voxel-based morphometry and volumetric techniques in a sample of >1300 people from the general population. In a first targeted stage we analyzed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) claimed to have effects in prior smaller studies (rs2253478, rs12533005, rs2396753, rs6980093, rs7784315, rs17137124, rs10230558, rs7782412, rs1456031), beginning with regions proposed in the relevant papers, then assessing impact across the entire brain. In the second gene-wide stage, we tested all common FOXP2 variation, focusing on volumetry of those regions most strongly implicated from analyses of rare disruptive mutations. Despite using a sample that is more than ten times that used for prior studies of common FOXP2 variation, we found no evidence for effects of SNPs on variability in neuroanatomy in the general population. Thus, the impact of this gene on brain structure may be largely limited to extreme cases of rare disruptive alleles. Alternatively, effects of common variants at this gene exist but are too subtle to be detected with standard volumetric techniques

Abstract

Form-priming effects from sublexical (syllabic or segmental) primes in masked priming can be accounted for in two ways. One is the sublexical pre-activation view according to which segments are pre-activated by the prime, and at the time the form-related target is to be produced, retrieval/assembly of those pre-activated segments is faster compared to an unrelated situation. However, it has also been argued that form-priming effects from sublexical primes might be due to lexical pre-activation. When the sublexical prime is presented, it activates all form-related words (i.e., cohorts) in the lexicon, necessarily including the form-related target, which—as a consequence—is produced faster than in the unrelated case. Note, however, that this lexical pre-activation account makes previous pre-lexical activation of segments necessary. This study reports a nonword naming experiment to investigate whether or not sublexical pre-activation is involved in masked form priming with sublexical primes. The results demonstrated a priming effect suggesting a nonlexical effect. However, this does not exclude an additional lexical component in form priming.

Abstract

There is increasing evidence that genetic risk variants for non-syndromic cleft lip/palate (nsCL/P) are also associated with normal-range variation in facial morphology. However, previous analyses are mostly limited to candidate SNPs and findings have not been consistently replicated. Here, we used polygenic risk scores (PRS) to test for genetic overlap between nsCL/P and seven biologically relevant facial phenotypes. Where evidence was found of genetic overlap, we used bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) to test the hypothesis that genetic liability to nsCL/P is causally related to implicated facial phenotypes. Across 5,804 individuals of European ancestry from two studies, we found strong evidence, using PRS, of genetic overlap between nsCL/P and philtrum width; a 1 S.D. increase in nsCL/P PRS was associated with a 0.10 mm decrease in philtrum width (95% C.I. 0.054, 0.146; P = 2x10-5). Follow-up MR analyses supported a causal relationship; genetic variants for nsCL/P homogeneously cause decreased philtrum width. In addition to the primary analysis, we also identified two novel risk loci for philtrum width at 5q22.2 and 7p15.2 in our Genome-wide Association Study (GWAS) of 6,136 individuals. Our results support a liability threshold model of inheritance for nsCL/P, related to abnormalities in development of the philtrum.

Abstract

Alcohol use is correlated within spouse-pairs, but it is difficult to disentangle effects of alcohol consumption on mate-selection from social factors or the shared spousal environment. We hypothesised that genetic variants related to alcohol consumption may, via their effect on alcohol behaviour, influence mate selection. Here, we find strong evidence that an individual’s self-reported alcohol consumption and their genotype at rs1229984, a missense variant in ADH1B, are associated with their partner’s self-reported alcohol use. Applying Mendelian randomization, we estimate that a unit increase in an individual’s weekly alcohol consumption increases partner’s alcohol consumption by 0.26 units (95% C.I. 0.15, 0.38; P = 8.20 × 10−6). Furthermore, we find evidence of spousal genotypic concordance for rs1229984, suggesting that spousal concordance for alcohol consumption existed prior to cohabitation. Although the SNP is strongly associated with ancestry, our results suggest some concordance independent of population stratification. Our findings suggest that alcohol behaviour directly influences mate selection.

Abstract

Aim: To determine if nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (nsCL/P) genetic risk variants influence liability to nsCL/P through gene regulation pathways, such as those involving DNA methylation. Materials & methods: nsCL/P genetic summary data and methylation data from four studies were used in conjunction with Mendelian randomization and joint likelihood mapping to investigate potential mediation of nsCL/P genetic variants. Results & conclusion: Evidence was found at VAX1 (10q25.3), LOC146880 (17q23.3) and NTN1 (17p13.1), that liability to nsCL/P and variation in DNA methylation might be driven by the same genetic variant, suggesting that genetic variation at these loci may increase liability to nsCL/P by influencing DNA methylation. Follow-up analyses using different tissues and gene expression data provided further insight into possible biological mechanisms.

Abstract

When people process language, they can use context to predict upcoming information,
influencing processing and comprehension as seen in both behavioral and neural
measures. Although numerous studies have shown immediate facilitative effects
of confirmed predictions, the downstream consequences of prediction have been
less explored. In the current study, we examined those consequences by probing
participants’ recognition memory for words after they read sets of sentences.
Participants read strongly and weakly constraining sentences with expected or
unexpected endings (“I added my name to the list/basket”), and later were tested on
their memory for the sentence endings while EEG was recorded. Critically, the memory
test contained words that were predictable (“list”) but were never read (participants
saw “basket”). Behaviorally, participants showed successful discrimination between old
and new items, but false alarmed to the expected-item lures more often than to new
items, showing that predicted words or concepts can linger, even when predictions
are disconfirmed. Although false alarm rates did not differ by constraint, event-related
potentials (ERPs) differed between false alarms to strongly and weakly predictable words.
Additionally, previously unexpected (compared to previously expected) endings that
appeared on the memory test elicited larger N1 and LPC amplitudes, suggesting greater
attention and episodic recollection. In contrast, highly predictable sentence endings that
had been read elicited reduced LPC amplitudes during the memory test. Thus, prediction
can facilitate processing in the moment, but can also lead to false memory and reduced
recollection for predictable information.

Abstract

The processing of idiomatic expressions is a topical issue in empirical research. Various factors have been found to influence idiom processing, such as idiom familiarity and idiom transparency. Information on these variables is usually obtained through norming studies. Studies investigating the effect of various properties on idiom processing have led to ambiguous results. This may be due to the variability of operationalizations of the idiom properties across norming studies, which in turn may affect the reliability of the subjective judgements. However, not all studies that collected normative data on idiomatic expressions investigated their reliability, and studies that did address the reliability of subjective ratings used various measures and produced mixed results. In this study, we investigated the reliability of subjective judgements, the relation between subjective and objective idiom frequency, and the impact of these dimensions on the participants’ idiom knowledge by collecting normative data of five subjective idiom properties (Frequency of Exposure, Meaning Familiarity, Frequency of Usage, Transparency, and Imageability) from 390 native speakers and objective corpus frequency for 374 Dutch idiomatic expressions. For reliability, we compared measures calculated in previous studies, with the D-coefficient, a metric taken from Generalizability Theory. High reliability was found for all subjective dimensions. One reliability metric, Krippendorff’s alpha, generally produced lower values, while similar values were obtained for three other measures (Cronbach’s alpha, Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, and the D-coefficient). Advantages of the D-coefficient are that it can be applied to unbalanced research designs, and to estimate the minimum number of raters required to obtain reliable ratings. Slightly higher coefficients were observed for so-called experience-based dimensions (Frequency of Exposure, Meaning Familiarity, and Frequency of Usage) than for content-based dimensions (Transparency and Imageability). In addition, fewer raters were required to obtain reliable ratings for the experience-based dimensions. Subjective and objective frequency appeared to be poorly correlated, while all subjective idiom properties and objective frequency turned out to affect idiom knowledge. Meaning Familiarity, Subjective and Objective Frequency of Exposure, Frequency of Usage, and Transparency positively contributed to idiom knowledge, while a negative effect was found for Imageability. We discuss these relationships in more detail, and give methodological recommendations with respect to the procedures and the measure to calculate reliability.

Abstract

Introduction to the special issue 'The Effects of Literacy on Cognition and Brain Functioning'

Abstract

Literacy has many obvious benefits—it exposes the reader to a wealth of new information and enhances syntactic knowledge. However, we argue that literacy has an additional, often overlooked, benefit: it enhances people’s ability to predict spoken language thereby aiding comprehension. Readers are under pressure to process information more quickly than listeners, and reading provides excellent conditions, in particular a stable environment, for training the predictive system. It also leads to increased awareness of words as linguistic units, and more fine-grained phonological and additional orthographic representations, which sharpen lexical representations and facilitate predicted representations to be retrieved. Thus, reading trains core processes and representations involved in language prediction that are common to both reading and listening.

Abstract

There is a consensus among language researchers that people can predict upcoming language. But do people always predict when comprehending language? Notions that “brains … are essentially prediction machines” certainly suggest so. In three eye-tracking experiments we tested this view. Participants listened to simple Dutch sentences (‘Look at the displayed bicycle’) while viewing four objects (a target, e.g. a bicycle, and three unrelated distractors). We used the identical visual stimuli and the same spoken sentences but varied speech rates, preview time, and participant instructions. Target nouns were preceded by definite gender-marked determiners, which allowed participants to predict the target object because only the targets but not the distractors agreed in gender with the determiner. In Experiment 1, participants had four seconds preview and sentences were presented either in a slow or a normal speech rate. Participants predicted the targets as soon as they heard the determiner in both conditions. Experiment 2 was identical except that participants were given only a one second preview. Participants predicted the targets only in the slow speech condition. Experiment 3 was identical to Experiment 2 except that participants were explicitly told to predict. This led only to a small prediction effect in the normal speech condition. Thus, a normal speech rate only afforded prediction if participants had an extensive preview. Even the explicit instruction to predict the target resulted in only a small anticipation effect with a normal speech rate and a short preview. These findings are problematic for theoretical proposals that assume that prediction pervades cognition.

Abstract

The cause of developmental dyslexia is still unknown despite decades of intense research. Many causal explanations have been proposed, based on the range of impairments displayed by affected individuals. Here we draw attention to the fact that many of these impairments are also shown by illiterate individuals who have not received any or very little reading instruction. We suggest that this fact may not be coincidental and that the performance differences of both illiterates and individuals with dyslexia compared to literate controls are, to a substantial extent, secondary consequences of either reduced or suboptimal reading experience or a combination of both. The search for the primary causes of reading impairments will make progress if the consequences of quantitative and qualitative differences in reading experience are better taken into account and not mistaken for the causes of reading disorders. We close by providing four recommendations for future research.

Abstract

At present, more than one-fifth of humanity is unable to read and write. We critically examine experimental evidence and theories of how (il)literacy affects the human mind. In our discussion we show that literacy has significant cognitive consequences that go beyond the processing of written words and sentences. Thus, cultural inventions such as reading shape general cognitive processing in non-trivial ways. We suggest that this has important implications for educational policy and guidance as well as research into cognitive processing and brain functioning.

Abstract

People from Western societies generally find it difficult to name odors. In trying to explain this, the olfactory literature has proposed several theories that focus heavily on properties of the odor itself but rarely discuss properties of the label used to describe it. However, recent studies show speakers of languages with dedicated smell lexicons can name odors with relative ease. Has the role of the lexicon been overlooked in the olfactory literature? Word production studies show properties of the label, such as word frequency and semantic context, influence naming; but this field of research focuses heavily on the visual domain. The current study combines methods from both fields to investigate word production for olfaction in two experiments. In the first experiment, participants named odors whose veridical labels were either high-frequency or low-frequency words in Dutch, and we found that odors with high-frequency labels were named correctly more often. In the second experiment, edibility was used for manipulating semantic context in search of a semantic interference effect, presenting the odors in blocks of edible and inedible odor source objects to half of the participants. While no evidence was found for a semantic interference effect, an effect of word frequency was again present. Our results demonstrate psycholinguistic variables—such as word frequency—are relevant for olfactory naming, and may, in part, explain why it is difficult to name odors in certain languages. Olfactory researchers cannot afford to ignore properties of an odor’s label.

Abstract

Like the transfer of genetic variation through gene flow, language changes constantly as a result of its use in human interaction. Contact between speakers is most likely to happen when they are close in space, time, and social setting. Here, we investigated the role of geographical configuration in this process by studying linguistic diversity in Japan, which comprises a large connected mainland (less isolation, more potential contact) and smaller island clusters of the Ryukyuan archipelago (more isolation, less potential contact). We quantified linguistic diversity using dialectometric methods, and performed regression analyses to assess the extent to which distance in space and time predict contemporary linguistic diversity. We found that language diversity in general increases as geographic distance increases and as time passes—as with biodiversity. Moreover, we found that (I) for mainland languages, linguistic diversity is most strongly related to geographic distance—a so-called isolation-by-distance pattern, and that (II) for island languages, linguistic diversity reflects the time since varieties separated and diverged—an isolation-by-colonisation pattern. Together, these results confirm previous findings that (linguistic) diversity is shaped by distance, but also goes beyond this by demonstrating the critical role of geographic configuration.

Abstract

Human language processing involves combinatorial operations that make human communication stand out in the animal kingdom. These operations rely on a dynamic interplay between the inferior frontal and the posterior temporal cortices. Using source reconstructed magnetoencephalography, we tracked language processing in the brain, in order to investigate how individual words are interpreted when part of sentence context. The large sample size in this study (n = 68) allowed us to assess how event-related activity is associated across distinct cortical areas, by means of inter-areal co-modulation within an individual. We showed that, within 500 ms of seeing a word, the word's lexical information has been retrieved and unified with the sentence context. This does not happen in a strictly feed-forward manner, but by means of co-modulation between the left posterior temporal cortex (LPTC) and left inferior frontal cortex (LIFC), for each individual word. The co-modulation of LIFC and LPTC occurs around 400 ms after the onset of each word, across the progression of a sentence. Moreover, these core language areas are supported early on by the attentional network. The results provide a detailed description of the temporal orchestration related to single word processing in the context of ongoing language.

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that the pupillary light response (PLR) is modulated by higher cognitive functions, presumably through activity in visual sensory brain areas. Here we use the PLR to test the involvement of sensory areas in visual working memory (VWM). In two experiments, participants memorized either bright or dark stimuli. We found that pupils were smaller when a prestimulus cue indicated that a bright stimulus should be memorized; this reflects a covert shift of attention during encoding of items into VWM. Crucially, we obtained the same result with a poststimulus cue, which shows that internal shifts of attention within VWM affect pupil size as well. Strikingly, the effect of VWM content on pupil size was most pronounced immediately after the poststimulus cue, and then dissipated. This suggests that a shift of attention within VWM momentarily activates an "active" memory representation, but that this representation quickly transforms into a "hidden" state that does not rely on sensory areas.

Abstract

Individuals rapidly extract information about others’ social identity, including whether or not they belong to their in-group. Group membership status has been shown to affect how attentively people encode information conveyed by those others. These findings are highly relevant for the field of psycholinguistics where there exists an open debate on how words are represented in the mental lexicon and how abstract or context-specific these representations are. Here, we used a novel word learning paradigm to test our proposal that the group membership status of speakers also affects how speaker-specific representations of novel words are. Participants learned new words from speakers who either attended their own university (in-group speakers) or did not (out-group speakers) and performed a task to measure their individual in-group bias. Then, their source memory of the new words was tested in a recognition test to probe the speaker-specific content of the novel lexical representations and assess how it related to individual in-group biases. We found that speaker group membership and participants’ in-group bias affected participants’ decision biases. The stronger the in-group bias, the more cautious participants were in their decisions. This was particularly applied to in-group related decisions. These findings indicate that social biases can influence recognition threshold. Taking a broader scope, defining how information is represented is a topic of great overlap between the fields of memory and psycholinguistics. Nevertheless, researchers from these fields tend to stay within the theoretical and methodological borders of their own field, missing the chance to deepen their understanding of phenomena that are of common interest. Here we show how methodologies developed in the memory field can be implemented in language research to shed light on an important theoretical issue that relates to the composition of lexical representations.

Abstract

This study investigates the implicit sequence learning abilities of dyslexic children using an artificial grammar learning task with an extended exposure period. Twenty children with developmental dyslexia participated in the study and were matched with two control groups—one matched for age and other for reading skills. During 3 days, all participants performed an acquisition task, where they were exposed to colored geometrical forms sequences with an underlying grammatical structure. On the last day, after the acquisition task, participants were tested in a grammaticality classification task. Implicit sequence learning was present in dyslexic children, as well as in both control groups, and no differences between groups were observed. These results suggest that implicit learning deficits per se cannot explain the characteristic reading difficulties of the dyslexics.

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis of the relevant imaging literature on word production (82 experiments). In addition to the spatial overlap of activated regions, we also analyzed the available data on the time course of activations. The analysis specified regions and time windows of activation for the core processes of word production: lexical selection, phonological code retrieval, syllabification, and phonetic/articulatory preparation. A comparison of the word production results with studies on auditory word/non-word perception and reading showed that the time course of activations in word production is, on the whole, compatible with the temporal constraints that perception processes impose on the production processes they affect in picture/word interference paradigms.

Abstract

Following up on an earlier positron emission tomography (PET) experiment (Indefrey et al., 2001), we used a scene description paradigm to investigate whether a posterior inferior frontal region subserving syntactic encoding for speaking is also involved in syntactic parsing during listening. In the language production part of the experiment, subjects described visually presented scenes
using either sentences, sequences of noun phrases, or sequences of syntactically unrelated words. In the language comprehension part of the experiment, subjects were auditorily presented with the same kinds of utterances and judged whether they matched the visual scenes. We were able to replicate the previous finding of a region in caudal Broca s area that is sensitive to the complexity of
syntactic encoding in language production. In language comprehension, no hemodynamic activation differences due to syntactic complexity were found. Given that correct performance in the judgment task did not require syntactic processing of the auditory stimuli, the results suggest that the degree to which listeners recruit syntactic processing resources in language comprehension may be a function of the syntactic demands of the task or the stimulus material.

Abstract

Hickok's enterprise to unify psycholinguistic and motor control models is highly stimulating. Nonetheless, there are problems of the model with respect to the time course of neural activation in word production, the flexibility for continuous speech, and the need for non-motor feedback.

Abstract

Mirror-sensory synaesthetes mirror the pain or touch that they observe in other people on their own bodies. This type of synaesthesia has been associated with enhanced empathy. We investigated whether the enhanced empathy of people with mirror-sensory synesthesia influences the experience of situations involving touch or pain and whether it affects their prosocial decision making. Mirror-sensory synaesthetes (N = 18, all female), verified with a touch-interference paradigm, were compared with a similar number of age-matched control individuals (all female). Participants viewed arousing images depicting pain or touch; we recorded subjective valence and arousal ratings, and physiological responses, hypothesizing more extreme reactions in synaesthetes. The subjective impact of positive and negative images was stronger in synaesthetes than in control participants; the stronger the reported synaesthesia, the more extreme the picture ratings. However, there was no evidence for differential physiological or hormonal responses to arousing pictures. Prosocial decision making was assessed with an economic game assessing altruism, in which participants had to divide money between themselves and a second player. Mirror-sensory synaesthetes donated more money than non-synaesthetes, showing enhanced prosocial behaviour, and also scored higher on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index as a measure of empathy. Our study demonstrates the subjective impact of mirror-sensory synaesthesia and its stimulating influence on prosocial behaviour.

Abstract

In order to separate the cognitive processes associated with phonological encoding and the use of a visual word form lexicon in reading, it is desirable to compare the processing of words presented in a visually familiar form with words in a visually unfamiliar form. Japanese Kana orthography offers this possibility. Two phonologically equivalent but visually dissimilar syllabaries allow the writing of, for example, foreign loanwords in two ways, only one of which is visually familiar. Familiarly written words, unfamiliarly written words, and pseudowords were presented in both Kana syllabaries (yielding six conditions in total) to participants during an fMRI measurement with a silent articulation task (Experiment 1) and a phonological lexical decision task (Experiment 2) using an event-related design. Consistent over two experimental tasks, the three different stimulus types (familiar, unfamiliar, and pseudoword) were found to activate selectively different brain regions previously associated with phonological encoding and word retrieval or meaning. Compatible with the predictions of the dual-route model for reading, pseudowords and visually unfamiliar words, which have to be read using phonological assembly, caused an increase in brain activity in left inferior frontal regions (BA 44/47), as compared to visually familiar words. Visually familiar and unfamiliar words were found to activate a range of areas associated with lexico-semantic processing more strongly than pseudowords, such as the left and right temporo-parietal region (BA 39/40), a region in the left middle/inferior temporal gyrus (BA 20/21), and the posterior cingulate (BA 31).

Abstract

Phosphomannomutase 2 deficiency, or PMM2-CDG, is the most common congenital disorder of glycosylation and affects over 1000 patients globally. There are no approved drugs that treat the symptoms or root cause of PMM2-CDG. To identify clinically actionable compounds that boost human PMM2 enzyme function, we performed a multispecies drug repurposing screen using a novel worm model of PMM2-CDG, followed by PMM2 enzyme functional studies in PMM2-CDG patient fibroblasts. Drug repurposing candidates from this study, and drug repurposing candidates from a previously published study using yeast models of PMM2-CDG, were tested for their effect on human PMM2 enzyme activity in PMM2-CDG fibroblasts. Of the 20 repurposing candidates discovered in the worm-based phenotypic screen, 12 were plant-based polyphenols. Insights from structure-activity relationships revealed epalrestat, the only antidiabetic aldose reductase inhibitor approved for use in humans, as a first-in-class PMM2 enzyme activator. Epalrestat increased PMM2 enzymatic activity in four PMM2-CDG patient fibroblast lines with genotypes R141H/F119L, R141H/E139K, R141H/N216I and R141H/F183S. PMM2 enzyme activity gains ranged from 30% to 400% over baseline, depending on genotype. Pharmacological inhibition of aldose reductase by epalrestat may shunt glucose from the polyol pathway to glucose-1,6-bisphosphate, which is an endogenous stabilizer and coactivator of PMM2 homodimerization. Epalrestat is a safe, oral and brain penetrant drug that was approved 27 years ago in Japan to treat diabetic neuropathy in geriatric populations. We demonstrate that epalrestat is the first small molecule activator ofPMM2 enzyme activity with the potential to treat peripheral neuropathy and correct the underlying enzyme deficiency in a majority of pediatric and adult PMM2-CDG patients.

Abstract

This study uses a sentence completion task with Swedish and Chinese L2 English speakers to investigate how L1 morphosyntax and L2 proficiency influence L2 English subject-verb agreement production. Chinese has limited nominal and verbal number morphology, while Swedish has robust noun phrase (NP) morphology but does not number-mark verbs. Results showed that like L1 English speakers, both L2 groups used grammatical and conceptual number to produce subject-verb agreement. However, only L1 Chinese speakers—and less-proficient speakers in both L2 groups—were similarly influenced by grammatical and conceptual number when producing the subject NP. These findings demonstrate how L2 proficiency, perhaps combined with cross-linguistic differences, influence L2 production and underscore that encoding of noun and verb number are not independent.

Abstract

Fiction is vital to our being. Many people enjoy engaging with fiction every day. Here we focus on literary reading as 1 instance of fiction consumption from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. The brain processes which play a role in the mental construction of fiction worlds and the related engagement with fictional characters, remain largely unknown. The authors discuss the neurocognitive poetics model (Jacobs, 2015a) of literary reading specifying the likely neuronal correlates of several key processes in literary reading, namely inference and situation model building, immersion, mental simulation and imagery, figurative language and style, and the issue of distinguishing fact from fiction. An overview of recent work on these key processes is followed by a discussion of methodological challenges in studying the brain bases of fiction processing

Abstract

This paper introduces Parselmouth, an open-source Python library that facilitates access to core functionality of Praat in Python, in an efficient and programmer-friendly way. We introduce and motivate the package, and present simple usage examples. Specifically, we focus on applications in data visualisation, file manipulation, audio manipulation, statistical analysis, and integration of Parselmouth into a Python-based experimental design for automated, in-the-loop manipulation of acoustic data. Parselmouth is available at https://github.com/YannickJadoul/Parselmouth.

Abstract

Natural fast speech differs from normal-rate speech with respect to its temporal pattern. Previous results showed that word intelligibility of heavily artificially time-compressed speech could not be improved by making its temporal pattern more similar to that of natural fast speech. This might have been due to the extrapolation of timing rules for natural fast speech to rates that are much faster than can be attained by human speakers. The present study investigates whether, at a speech rate that human speakers can attain, artificially time-compressed speech is easier to process if its timing pattern is similar to that of naturally produced fast speech. Our first experiment suggests, however, that word processing speed was slowed down, relative to linear compression. In a second experiment, word processing of artificially time-compressed speech was compared with processing of naturally produced fast speech. Even when naturally produced fast speech is perfectly intelligible, its less careful articulation, combined with the changed timing pattern, slows down processing, relative to linearly time-compressed speech. Furthermore, listeners preferred artificially time-compressed speech over naturally produced fast speech. These results suggest that linearly time-compressed speech has both a temporal and a segmental advantage over natural fast speech.

Abstract

Many older listeners report difficulties in understanding speech in noisy situations. Working memory and other cognitive skills may modulate, however, older listeners’ ability to use context information to alleviate the effects of noise on spoken-word recognition. In the present study, we investigated whether working memory predicts older adults’ ability to immediately use context information in the recognition of words embedded in sentences, presented in different listening conditions. In a phoneme-monitoring task, older adults were asked to detect as fast and as accurately as possible target phonemes in sentences spoken by a target speaker. Target speech was presented without noise, with fluctuating speech-shaped noise, or with competing speech from a single distractor speaker. The gradient measure of contextual probability (derived from a separate offline rating study) mainly affected the speed of recognition, with only a marginal effect on detection accuracy. Contextual facilitation was modulated by older listeners’ working memory and age across listening conditions. Working memory and age, as well as hearing loss, were also the most consistent predictors of overall listening performance. Older listeners’ immediate benefit from context in spoken-word recognition thus relates to their ability to keep and update a semantic representation of the sentence content in working memory.

Abstract

This study investigated the encoding of syllable boundary information during speech production in Dutch. Based on Levelt's model of phonological encoding, we hypothesized segments and syllable boundaries to be encoded in an incremental way. In a selfmonitoring experiment, decisions about the syllable affiliation (first or second syllable) of a pre-specified consonant, which was the third phoneme in a word, were required (e.g., ka.No canoe vs. kaN.sel pulpit ; capital letters indicate pivotal consonants, dots mark syllable boundaries). First syllable responses were faster than second syllable responses, indicating the incremental nature of segmental encoding and syllabification during speech production planning. The results of the experiment are discussed in the context of Levelt 's model of phonological encoding.

Abstract

Three experiments are reported that examined whether stem complexity plays a role in inflecting polymorphemic words in language production. Experiment 1 showed that preparation effects for words with polymorphemic stems are larger when they are produced among words with constant inflectional structures compared to words with variable inflectional structures and simple stems. This replicates earlier findings for words with monomorphemic stems (Janssen et al., 2002). Experiments 2 and 3 showed that when inflectional structure is held constant, the preparation effects are equally large with simple and compound stems, and with compound and complex adjectival stems. These results indicate that inflectional encoding is blind to the complexity of the stem, which suggests that specific inflectional rather than generic morphological frames guide the generation of inflected forms in speaking words.

Abstract

Research Findings: The present study compared effects of explicit instruction on and practice with the phonological form of words (form-focused instruction) versus explicit instruction on and practice with the meaning of words (meaning-focused instruction). Instruction was given via interactive storybook reading in the kindergarten classroom of children learning Dutch. We asked whether the 2 types of instruction had different effects on vocabulary development and 2 precursors of reading ability—phonological awareness and letter knowledge—and we examined effects on these measures of the ability to learn new words with minimal acoustic-phonetic differences. Learners showed similar receptive target-word vocabulary gain after both types of instruction, but learners who received form-focused vocabulary instruction showed more gain in semantic knowledge of target vocabulary, phonological awareness, and letter knowledge than learners who received meaning-focused vocabulary instruction. Level of ability to learn pairs of words with minimal acoustic-phonetic differences predicted gain in semantic knowledge of target vocabulary and in letter knowledge in the form-focused instruction group only. Practice or Policy: A focus on the form of words during instruction appears to have benefits for young children learning vocabulary.

Abstract

People vary at most levels, from the molecular to the cognitive, and the shape of the hard palate (the bony roof of the mouth) is no exception. The patterns of variation in the hard palate are important for the forensic sciences and (palaeo)anthropology, and might also play a role in speech production, both in pathological cases and normal variation. Here we describe a method based on Bézier curves, whose main aim is to generate possible shapes of the hard palate in humans for use in computer simulations of speech production and language evolution. Moreover, our method can also capture existing patterns of variation using few and easy-to-interpret parameters, and fits actual data obtained from MRI traces very well with as little as two or three free parameters. When compared to the widely-used Principal Component Analysis (PCA), our method fits actual data slightly worse for the same number of degrees of freedom. However, it is much better at generating new shapes without requiring a calibration sample, its parameters have clearer interpretations, and their ranges are grounded in geometrical considerations. © 2018 Janssen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

The influence of larynx position on vowel articulation is an important topic in understanding speech production, the present-day distribution of linguistic diversity and the evolution of speech and language in our lineage. We introduce here a realistic computer model of the vocal tract, constructed from actual human MRI data, which can learn, using machine learning techniques, to control the articulators in such a way as to produce speech sounds matching as closely as possible to a given set of target vowels. We systematically control the vertical position of the larynx and we quantify the differences between the target and produced vowels for each such position across multiple replications. We report that, indeed, larynx height does affect the accuracy of reproducing the target vowels and the distinctness of the produced vowel system, that there is a “sweet spot” of larynx positions that are optimal for vowel production, but that nevertheless, even extreme larynx positions do not result in a collapsed or heavily distorted vowel space that would make speech unintelligible. Together with other lines of evidence, our results support the view that the vowel space of human languages is influenced by our larynx position, but that other positions of the larynx may also be fully compatible with speech.

Abstract

As people find their way through their environment, objects at navigationally relevant locations can serve as crucial landmarks. The parahippocampal gyrus has previously been shown to be involved in object and scene recognition. In the present study, we investigated the neural representation of navigationally relevant locations. Healthy human adults viewed a route through a virtual museum with objects placed at intersections (decision points) or at simple turns (non-decision points). Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired during subsequent recognition of the objects in isolation. Neural activity in the parahippocampal gyrus reflected the navigational relevance of an object's location in the museum. Parahippocampal responses were selectively increased for objects that occurred at decision points, independent of attentional demands. This increase occurred for forgotten as well as remembered objects, showing implicit retrieval of navigational information. The automatic storage of relevant object location in the parahippocampal gyrus provides a part of the neural mechanism underlying successful navigation.

Abstract

Visual cues to the individual segments of speech and to sentence prosody guide speech recognition. The present study tested whether visual suprasegmental cues to the stress patterns of words can also constrain recognition. Dutch listeners use acoustic suprasegmental cues to lexical stress (changes in duration, amplitude, and pitch) in spoken-word recognition. We asked here whether they can also use visual suprasegmental cues. In two categorization experiments, Dutch participants saw a speaker say fragments of word pairs that were segmentally identical but differed in their stress realization (e.g., 'ca-vi from cavia "guinea pig" vs. 'ka-vi from kaviaar "caviar"). Participants were able to distinguish between these pairs from seeing a speaker alone. Only the presence of primary stress in the fragment, not its absence, was informative. Participants were able to distinguish visually primary from secondary stress on first syllables, but only when the fragment-bearing target word carried phrase-level emphasis. Furthermore, participants distinguished fragments with primary stress on their second syllable from those with secondary stress on their first syllable (e.g., pro-'jec from projector "projector" vs. 'pro-jec from projectiel "projectile"), independently of phrase-level emphasis. Seeing a speaker thus contributes to spoken-word recognition by providing suprasegmental information about the presence of primary lexical stress.

Abstract

Talkers are recognized more accurately if they are speaking the listeners’ native language rather than an unfamiliar language. This “language familiarity effect” has been shown not to depend upon comprehension and must instead involve language sound patterns. We further examine the level of sound-pattern processing involved, by comparing talker recognition in foreign languages versus two varieties of English, by (a) English speakers of one variety, (b) English speakers of the other variety, and (c) non-native listeners (more familiar with one of the varieties). All listener groups performed better with native than foreign speech, but no effect of language variety appeared: Native listeners discriminated talkers equally well in each, with the native variety never outdoing the other variety, and non-native listeners discriminated talkers equally poorly in each, irrespective of the variety's familiarity. The results suggest that this talker recognition effect rests not on simple familiarity, but on an abstract level of phonological processing

Abstract

In early Dutch learner varieties, there is no evidence of finiteness being a functional category. There is no V2nd: no correlation between inflectional morphology and movement. Initially, learners express the illocutive function of finiteness through the use of illocutive markers, with the non-use of an illocutive marker expressing the default illocutive function of assertion. Illocutive markers are functioning as adjuncts with scope over the predicate. Illocutive markers become re-analysed as functional elements.The driving force is the acquisition of the auxiliary verbs that occur with past participles. It leads to a reanalysis of illocutive markers as two separate elements: an auxiliary verb and a scope adverb. The (modal) auxiliary carries illocutive function. Lexical verb-argument structure (including the external argument) occurs within the domain of the auxiliary verb. The predicate as the focus constituent occurs within the domain of a scope adverb. This reanalysis establishes a position for the external argument within the domain of AUX. The acquisition of AUX causes the acquisition of a (hierarchical) structure with a complement as a constituent which represents an underlying verb-argument structure, a predicate as the domain of elements that are in focus, and an external (specifier) position as a landing site for elements with topic function.

Abstract

Recent behavioral and electrophysiological evidence has highlighted the long-term importance for language skills of an early ability to recognize words in continuous speech. We here present further tests of this long-term link in the form of follow-up studies conducted with two (separate) groups of infants who had earlier participated in speech segmentation tasks. Each study extends prior follow-up tests: Study 1 by using a novel follow-up measure that taps into online processing, Study 2 by assessing language performance relationships over a longer time span than previously tested. Results of Study 1 show that brain correlates of speech segmentation ability at 10 months are positively related to 16-month-olds’ target fixations in a looking-while-listening task. Results of Study 2 show that infant speech segmentation ability no longer directly predicts language profiles at the age of five. However, a meta-analysis across our results and those of similar studies (Study 3) reveals that age at follow-up does not moderate effect size. Together, the results suggest that infants’ ability to recognize words in speech certainly benefits early vocabulary development; further observed relationships of later language skills to early word recognition may be consequent upon this vocabulary size effect.

Abstract

Most words that infants hear occur within fluent speech. To compile a vocabulary, infants therefore need to segment words from speech contexts. This study is the first to investigate whether infants (here: 10-month-olds) can recognize words when both initial exposure and test presentation are in continuous speech. Electrophysiological evidence attests that this indeed occurs: An increased extended negativity (word recognition effect) appears for familiarized target words relative to control words. This response proved constant at the individual level: Only infants who showed this negativity at test had shown such a response, within six repetitions after first occurrence, during familiarization.

Abstract

Objective. The aims of this study were to compare the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) retrodiscal tissue T2 relaxation times between patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) and asymptomatic volunteers and to assess the diagnostic potential of this approach.
Study Design. Patients with TMD (n = 173) and asymptomatic volunteers (n = 17) were examined by using a 1.5-T magnetic resonance scanner. The imaging protocol consisted of oblique sagittal, T2-weighted, 8-echo fast spin echo sequences in the closed mouth position. Retrodiscal tissue T2 relaxation times were obtained. Additionally, disc location and reduction, disc configuration, joint effusion, osteoarthritis, and bone edema or osteonecrosis were classified using MRI scans. The T2 relaxation times of each group were statistically compared.
Results. Retrodiscal tissue T2 relaxation times were significantly longer in patient groups than in asymptomatic volunteers (P < .01). T2 relaxation times were significantly longer in all of the morphologic categories. The most important variables affecting retrodiscal tissue T2 relaxation times were disc configuration, joint effusion, and osteoarthritis.
Conclusion. Retrodiscal tissue T2 relaxation times of patients with TMD were significantly longer than those of healthy volunteers. This finding may lead to the development of a diagnostic marker to aid in the early detection of TMDs.

Abstract

The mutual exclusivity (ME) assumption is proposed to facilitate early word learning by guiding infants to map novel words to novel referents. This study assessed the emergence and use of ME to both disambiguate and retain the meanings of novel words across development in 18‐month‐old monolingual and bilingual children (Experiment 1; N = 58), and in a sub‐group of these children again at 24 months of age (Experiment 2: N = 32). Both monolinguals and bilinguals employed ME to select the referent of a novel label to a similar extent at 18 and 24 months. At 18 months, there were also no differences in novel word retention between the two language‐background groups. However, at 24 months, only monolinguals showed the ability to retain these label–object mappings. These findings indicate that the development of the ME assumption as a reliable word‐learning strategy is shaped by children's individual language exposure and experience with language use.

Abstract

Is visual reinterpretation of bistable figures (e.g., duck/rabbit figure) in visual imagery possible? Current consensus suggests that it is in principle possible because of converging evidence of quasi-pictorial functioning of visual imagery. Yet, studies that have directly tested and found evidence for reinterpretation in visual imagery, allow for the possibility that reinterpretation was already achieved during memorization of the figure(s). One study resolved this issue, providing evidence for reinterpretation in visual imagery (Mast and Kosslyn, Cognition 86:57-70, 2002). However, participants in that study performed reinterpretations with aid of visual cues. Hence, reinterpretation was not performed with mental imagery alone. Therefore, in this study we assessed the possibility of reinterpretation without visual support. We further explored the possible role of haptic cues to assess the multimodal nature of mental imagery. Fifty-three participants were consecutively presented three to be remembered bistable 2-D figures (reinterpretable when rotated 180 degrees), two of which were visually inspected and one was explored hapticly. After memorization of the figures, a visually bistable exemplar figure was presented to ensure understanding of the concept of visual bistability. During recall, 11 participants (out of 36; 30.6%) who did not spot bistability during memorization successfully performed reinterpretations when instructed to mentally rotate their visual image, but additional haptic cues during mental imagery did not inflate reinterpretation ability. This study validates previous findings that reinterpretation in visual imagery is possible.

Abstract

In two experiments, we examined the role of gesture in reinterpreting a mental image. In Experiment 1, we found that participants gestured more about a figure they had learned through manual exploration than about a figure they had learned through vision. This supports claims that gestures emerge from the activation of perception-relevant actions during mental imagery. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether such gestures have a causal role in affecting the quality of mental imagery. Participants were randomly assigned to gesture, not gesture, or engage in a manual interference task as they attempted to reinterpret a figure they had learned through manual exploration. We found that manual interference significantly impaired participants' success on the task. Taken together, these results suggest that gestures reflect mental imaginings of interactions with a mental image and that these imaginings are critically important for mental manipulation and reinterpretation of that image. However, our results suggest that enacting the imagined movements in gesture is not critically important on this particular task.

Abstract

In this article, we review research on child–robot interaction (CRI) to discuss how social robots can be used to scaffold language learning in young children. First we provide reasons why robots can be useful for teaching first and second languages to children. Then we review studies on CRI that used robots to help children learn vocabulary and produce language. The studies vary in first and second languages and demographics of the learners (typically developing children and children with hearing and communication impairments). We conclude that, although social robots are useful for teaching language to children, evidence suggests that robots are not as effective as human teachers. However, this conclusion is not definitive because robots that tutor students in language have not been evaluated rigorously and technology is advancing rapidly. We suggest that CRI offers an opportunity for research and list possible directions for that work.

Abstract

Intergroup variation (IGV) refers to variation between different groups of the same species. While its existence in the behavioural realm has been expected and evidenced, the potential effects of IGV are rarely considered in studies that aim to shed light on the evolutionary origins of human socio-cognition, especially in our closest living relatives—the great apes. Here, by taking chimpanzees as a point of reference, we argue that (i) IGV could plausibly explain inconsistent research findings across numerous topics of inquiry (experimental/behavioural studies on chimpanzees), (ii) understanding the evolutionary origins of behaviour requires an accurate assessment of species' modes of behaving across different socio-ecological contexts, which necessitates a reliable estimation of variation across intraspecific groups, and (iii) IGV in the behavioural realm is increasingly likely to be expected owing to the progressive identification of non-human animal cultures. With these points, and by extrapolating from chimpanzees to generic guidelines, we aim to encourage researchers to explicitly consider IGV as an explanatory variable in future studies attempting to understand the socio-cognitive and evolutionary determinants of behaviour in group-living animals.

Abstract

The relocation of animals can induce stress when animals are placed in novel environmental conditions. The movement of captive animals among facilities is common, especially for non-human primates used in research. The stress response begins with the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis which results in the release of glucocorticoid hormones (GC), which at chronic levels could lead to deleterious physiological effects. There is a substantial body of data concerning GC levels affecting reproduction, and rank and aggression in primates. However, the effect of transport has received much less attention. Fecal samples from eight (four male and four female) captive-bred cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) were collected at four different time points (two pre-transport and two post-transport). The fecal samples were analyzed using an immunoassay to determine GC levels. A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) demonstrated that GC levels differed among transport times (p = 0.009), but not between sexes (p = 0.963). Five of the eight tamarins exhibited an increase in GC levels after transport. Seven of the eight tamarins exhibited a decrease in GC levels from three to six days post-transport to three weeks post-transport. Most values returned to pre-transport levels after three weeks. The results indicate that these tamarins experienced elevated GC levels following transport, but these increases were of short duration. This outcome would suggest that the negative effects of elevated GC levels were also of short duration.

Abstract

One of the major challenges in acquiring a language is being able to use morphology as an adult would, and thus, a considerable amount of acquisition research has focused on morphological production and comprehension. Most of this research, however, has focused on the acquisition of morphology in isolating languages, or languages (such as English) with limited inflectional morphology. The nature of the learning task is different, and potentially more challenging, when the child is learning a polysynthetic language – a language in which words are highly morphologically complex, expressing in a single word what in English takes a multi-word clause. To date, there has been no cross-linguistic survey of how children approach this puzzle and learn polysynthetic languages. This paper aims to provide such a survey, including a discussion of some of the general findings in the literature regarding the acquisition of polysynthetic systems

Abstract

We hypothesized that bone resorption acts to increase bone strength through stimulation of periosteal expansion. Hence, we examined whether bone resorption, as reflected by serum β-C-telopeptides of type I collagen (CTX), is positively associated with periosteal circumference (PC), in contrast to inverse associations with parameters related to bone remodeling such as cortical bone mineral density (BMDC ). CTX and mid-tibial peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) scans were available in 1130 adolescents (mean age 15.5 years) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Analyses were adjusted for age, gender, time of sampling, tanner stage, lean mass, fat mass, and height. CTX was positively related to PC (β=0.19 [0.13, 0.24]) (coefficient=SD change per SD increase in CTX, 95% confidence interval)] but inversely associated with BMDC (β=-0.46 [-0.52,-0.40]) and cortical thickness [β=-0.11 (-0.18, -0.03)]. CTX was positively related to bone strength as reflected by the strength-strain index (SSI) (β=0.09 [0.03, 0.14]). To examine the causal nature of this relationship, we then analyzed whether single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within key osteoclast regulatory genes, known to reduce areal/cortical BMD, conversely increase PC. Fifteen such genetic variants within or proximal to genes encoding receptor activator of NF-κB (RANK), RANK ligand (RANKL), and osteoprotegerin (OPG) were identified by literature search. Six of the 15 alleles that were inversely related to BMD were positively related to CTX (p<}0.05 cut-off) (n=2379). Subsequently, we performed a meta-analysis of associations between these SNPs and PC in ALSPAC (n=3382), Gothenburg Osteoporosis and Obesity Determinants (GOOD) (n=938), and the Young Finns Study (YFS) (n=1558). Five of the 15 alleles that were inversely related to BMD were positively related to PC (p{<0.05 cut-off). We conclude that despite having lower BMD, individuals with a genetic predisposition to higher bone resorption have greater bone size, suggesting that higher bone resorption is permissive for greater periosteal expansion.

Abstract

Heritability of bone mineral density (BMD) varies across skeletal sites, reflecting different relative contributions of genetic and environmental influences. To quantify the degree to which common genetic variants tag and environmental factors influence BMD, at different sites, we estimated the genetic (rg) and residual (re) correlations between BMD measured at the upper limbs (UL-BMD), lower limbs (LL-BMD) and skull (SK-BMD), using total-body DXA scans of ∼ 4,890 participants recruited by the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and their Children (ALSPAC). Point estimates of rg indicated that appendicular sites have a greater proportion of shared genetic architecture (LL-/UL-BMD rg = 0.78) between them, than with the skull (UL-/SK-BMD rg = 0.58 and LL-/SK-BMD rg = 0.43). Likewise, the residual correlation between BMD at appendicular sites (r(e) = 0.55) was higher than the residual correlation between SK-BMD and BMD at appendicular sites (r(e) = 0.20-0.24). To explore the basis for the observed differences in rg and re, genome-wide association meta-analyses were performed (n ∼ 9,395), combining data from ALSPAC and the Generation R Study identifying 15 independent signals from 13 loci associated at genome-wide significant level across different skeletal regions. Results suggested that previously identified BMD-associated variants may exert site-specific effects (i.e. differ in the strength of their association and magnitude of effect across different skeletal sites). In particular, variants at CPED1 exerted a larger influence on SK-BMD and UL-BMD when compared to LL-BMD (P = 2.01 × 10(-37)), whilst variants at WNT16 influenced UL-BMD to a greater degree when compared to SK- and LL-BMD (P = 2.31 × 10(-14)). In addition, we report a novel association between RIN3 (previously associated with Paget's disease) and LL-BMD (rs754388: β = 0.13, SE = 0.02, P = 1.4 × 10(-10)). Our results suggest that BMD at different skeletal sites is under a mixture of shared and specific genetic and environmental influences. Allowing for these differences by performing genome-wide association at different skeletal sites may help uncover new genetic influences on BMD.

Abstract

In Dutch and German, the canonical order of subject, object(s) and finite verb is ‘verb-second’ (V2) in main but ‘verb-final’ (VF) in subordinate clauses. This occasionally leads to the production of noncanonical word orders. Familiar examples are causative and argumentative clauses introduced by a subordinating conjunction (Du. omdat, Ger. weil ‘because’): the omdat/weil-V2 phenomenon. Such clauses may also be introduced by coordinating conjunctions (Du. want, Ger. denn), which license V2 exclusively. However, want/denn-VF structures are unknown. We present the results of a corpus study on the incidence of omdat-V2 in spoken Dutch, and compare them to published data on weil-V2 in spoken German. Basic findings: omdat-V2 is much less frequent than weil-V2 (ratio almost 1:8); and the frequency relations between coordinating and subordinating conjunctions are opposite (want >> omdat; denn << weil). We propose that conjunction selection and V2/VF selection proceed partly independently, and sometimes miscommunicate—e.g. yielding omdat/weil paired with V2. Want/denn-VF pairs do not occur because want/denn clauses are planned as autonomous sentences, which take V2 by default. We sketch a simple feedforward neural network with two layers of nodes (representing conjunctions and word orders, respectively) that can simulate the observed data pattern through inhibition-based competition of the alternative choices within the node layers.

Abstract

When you compare the behavior of two different age groups which are trying to master the same sensori-motor or cognitive skill, you are likely to discover varying learning routes: different stages, different intervals between stages, or even different orderings of stages. Such heterogeneous learning trajectories may be caused by at least six different types of factors: (1) Initial state: the kinds and levels of skills the learners have available at the onset of the learning episode. (2) Learning mechanisms: rule-based, inductive, connectionist, parameter setting, and so on. (3) Input and feedback characteristics: learning stimuli, information about success and failure. (4) Information processing mechanisms: capacity limitations, attentional biases, response preferences. (5) Energetic variables: motivation, emotional reactions. (6) Final state: the fine-structure of kinds and levels of subskills at the end of the learning episode. This applies to language acquisition as well. First and second language learners probably differ on all six factors. Nevertheless, the debate between advocates and opponents of the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis concerning L1 and L2 acquisition have looked almost exclusively at the first two factors. Those who believe that L1 learners have access to Universal Grammar whereas L2 learners rely on language processing strategies, postulate different learning mechanisms (UG parameter setting in L1, more general inductive strategies in L2 learning). Pienemann opposes this view and, based on his Processability Theory, argues that L1 and L2 learners start out from different initial states: they come to the grammar learning task with different structural hypotheses (SOV versus SVO as basic word order of German).

Abstract

We report a hitherto unknown statistical relationship between the corpus frequency of finite verbs and their fixed linear positions (early vs. late) in finite clauses of English, Dutch, and German. Compared to the overall frequency distribution of verb lemmas in the corpora, high-frequency finite verbs are overused in main clauses, at the expense of nonfinite verbs. This finite versus nonfinite split of high-frequency verbs is basically absent from subordinate clauses. Furthermore, this “main-clause bias” (MCB) of high-frequency verbs is more prominent in German and Dutch (SOV languages) than in English (an SVO language). We attribute the MCB and its varying effect sizes to faster accessibility of high-frequency finite verbs, which (1) increases the probability for these verbs to land in clauses mandating early verb placement, and (2) boosts the activation of clause plans that assign verbs to early linear positions (in casu: clauses with SVO as opposed to SOV order).

Abstract

The study develops a neurocomputational architecture for grammatical processing in language production and language comprehension (grammatical encoding and decoding, respectively). It seeks to answer two questions. First, how is online syntactic structure formation of the complexity required by natural-language grammars possible in a fixed, preexisting neural network without the need for online creation of new connections or associations? Second, is it realistic to assume that the seemingly disparate instantiations of syntactic structure formation in grammatical encoding and grammatical decoding can run on the same neural infrastructure? This issue is prompted by accumulating experimental evidence for the hypothesis that the mechanisms for grammatical decoding overlap with those for grammatical encoding to a considerable extent, thus inviting the hypothesis of a single “grammatical coder.” The paper answers both questions by providing the blueprint for a syntactic structure formation mechanism that is entirely based on prewired circuitry (except for referential processing, which relies on the rapid learning capacity of the hippocampal complex), and can subserve decoding as well as encoding tasks. The model builds on the “Unification Space” model of syntactic parsing developed by Vosse & Kempen (2000, 2008, 2009). The design includes a neurocomputational mechanism for the treatment of an important class of grammatical movement phenomena.

Abstract

A series of experiments is reported in which subjects describe simple visual scenes by means of both sentential and non-sentential responses. The data support the following statements about the lexicalization (word finding) process. (1) Words used by speakers in overt naming or sentence production responses are selected by a sequence of two lexical retrieval processes, the first yielding abstract pre-phonological items (Ll -items), the second one adding their phonological shapes (L2-items). (2) The selection of several Ll-items for a multi-word utterance can take place simultaneously. (3) A monitoring process is watching the output of Ll-lexicalization to check if it is in keeping with prevailing constraints upon utterance format. (4) Retrieval of the L2-item which corresponds with a given LI-item waits until the Ld-item has been checked by the monitor, and all other Ll-items needed for the utterance under construction have become available. A coherent picture of the lexicalization process begins to emerge when these characteristics are brought together with other empirical results in the area of naming and sentence production, e.g., picture naming reaction times (Seymour, 1979), speech errors (Garrett, 1980), and word order preferences (Bock, 1982).

Abstract

Listeners cannot recognize highly reduced word forms in isolation, but they can do so when these forms are presented in context (Ernestus, Baayen, & Schreuder, 2002). This suggests that not all possible surface forms of words have equal status in the mental lexicon. The present study shows that the reduced forms are linked to the canonical representations in the mental lexicon, and that these latter representations induce reconstruction processes. Listeners restore suffixes that are partly or completely missing in reduced word forms. A series of phoneme-monitoring experiments reveals the nature of this restoration: the basis for suffix restoration is mainly phonological in nature, but orthography has an influence as well.

Abstract

For real-time and embedded systems, limiting the consumption of time and memory resources is often an important part of the requirements. Being able to predict bounds on the consumption of such resources during the development process of the code can be of great value. In this paper, we focus mainly on memory-related bounds. Recent research results have advanced the state of the art of resource consumption analysis. In this paper, we present a toolset that makes it possible to apply these research results in practice for (real-time) systems enabling JAVA developers to analyse symbolic loop bounds, symbolic bounds on heap size and both symbolic and numeric bounds on stack size. We describe which theoretical additions were needed in order to achieve this. We give an overview of the capabilities of the RESANA (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands) toolset that is the result of this effort. The toolset can not only perform generally applicable analyses, but it also contains a part of the analysis that is dedicated to the developers' (real-time) virtual machine, such that the results apply directly to the actual development environment that is used in practice

Abstract

English speakers have been shown to map abstract concepts in space, which occurs on both the vertical and horizontal dimensions. For example, words such as God are associated with up and right spatial locations, and words such as Satan with down and left. If the tendency to map concepts in space is a universal property of human cognition, then it is likely that such mappings may be at least partly culturally-specific, since many concepts are themselves language-specific and therefore cultural conventions. Here we investigated whether Mandarin speakers report spatial mapping of concepts, and how these mappings compare with English speakers (i.e. are words with the same meaning associated with the same spatial locations). Across two studies, results showed that both native English and Mandarin speakers reported spatial mapping of concepts, and that the distribution of mappings was highly similar for the two groups. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Abstract

We report a large‐scale electrophysiological study of infant speech segmentation, in which over 100 English‐acquiring 9‐month‐olds were exposed to unfamiliar bisyllabic words embedded in sentences (e.g., He saw a wild eagle up there), after which their brain responses to either the just‐familiarized word (eagle) or a control word (coral) were recorded. When initial exposure occurs in continuous speech, as here, past studies have reported that even somewhat older infants do not reliably recognize target words, but that successful segmentation varies across children. Here, we both confirm and further uncover the nature of this variation. The segmentation response systematically varied across individuals and was related to their vocabulary development. About one‐third of the group showed a left‐frontally located relative negativity in response to familiar versus control targets, which has previously been described as a mature response. Another third showed a similarly located positive‐going reaction (a previously described immature response), and the remaining third formed an intermediate grouping that was primarily characterized by an initial response delay. A fine‐grained group‐level analysis suggested that a developmental shift to a lexical mode of processing occurs toward the end of the first year, with variation across individual infants in the exact timing of this shift.

Abstract

Humans differ in innumerable ways, with considerable variation observable at every level of description, from the molecular to the social. Traditionally, linguistic and psycholinguistic theory has downplayed the possibility of meaningful differences in language across individuals. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that there is
significant variation among speakers at any age as well as across the lifespan. In this paper, we review recent research in psycholinguistics, and argue that a focus on individual differences provides a crucial source of evidence that bears strongly upon core issues in theories of the acquisition and processing of language; specifically, the role of experience in language acquisition, processing, and attainment, and the architecture of the language faculty.

Abstract

Drozd's critique of Crain & Thornton's (C&T) (1998) book Investigations in Universal Grammar (IUG) raises many issues concerning theory and experimental design within generative approaches to language acquisition. I focus here on one of the strongest theoretical claims of the Modularity Matching Model (MMM): continuity of processing. For reasons different to Drozd, I argue that the assumption is tenuous. Furthermore, I argue that the focus of the MMM and the methodological prescriptions contained in IUG are too narrow to capture language acquisition.

Abstract

We investigate whether grammatical information is accessed in processing noun phrase ellipsis (NPE) and other anaphoric constructions. The first experiment used an agreement attraction paradigm to reveal that ungrammatical plural verbs following NPE with an antecedent containing a plural modifier (e.g. Derek’s key to the boxes … and Mary’s_ probably *are safe in the drawer) show similar facilitation to non-elided NPs. The second experiment used the same paradigm to examine a coordination construction without anaphoric elements, and the third examined anaphoric one. Agreement attraction was not observed in either experiment, suggesting that processing NPE is different from processing non-anaphoric coordination constructions or anaphoric one. Taken together, the results indicate that the parser is sensitive to grammatical distinctions at the ellipsis site where it prioritises and retrieves the head at the initial stage of processing and retrieves the local noun within the modifier phrase only when it is necessary in parsing NPE.

Abstract

It is well-established that allographs like the uppercase and lowercase forms of the Roman alphabet (e.g., a and A) map onto the same "abstract letter identity," orthographic representations that are independent of the visual form. Consistent with this, in the allograph match task ("Are 'a' and 'A' the same letter?"), priming by a masked letter prime is equally robust for visually dissimilar prime-target pairs (e.g., d and D) and similar pairs (e.g., c and C). However, in principle this pattern of priming is also consistent with the possibility that allograph priming is purely phonological, based on the letter name. Because different allographic forms of the same letter, by definition, share a letter name, it is impossible to rule out this possibility a priori. In the present study, we investigated the influence of shared letter names by taking advantage of the fact that Japanese is written in two distinct writing systems, syllabic kana-that has two parallel forms, hiragana and katakana-and logographic kanji. Using the allograph match task, we tested whether a kanji prime with the same pronunciation as the target kana (e.g., both pronounced /i/) produces the same amount of priming as a kana prime in the opposite kana form (e.g.,). We found that the kana primes produced substantially greater priming than the phonologically identical kanji prime. which we take as evidence that allograph priming is based on abstract kana identity, not purely phonology.

Abstract

The Japanese kana syllabary has 2 allographic forms, hiragana and katakana. As with other allographic variants like the uppercase and lowercase letters of the Roman alphabet, they show robust formindependent priming effects in the allograph match task (e.g., Kinoshita. Schubert. & Verdonschot, 2019). suggesting that they share abstract character-level representations. In direct contradiction, Perea. Nakayama, and Lupker (2017) argued that hiragana and katakana do not share character-level representations. based on their finding of reduced priming with identity prime containing a mix of hiragana and katakana (the mixed-kana prime) relative to the all-katakana identity prime in a lexical-decision task with loanword targets written in katakana. Here we sought to reconcile these seemingly contradictory claims, using mixed-kana. hiragana, and katakana primes in lexical decision. The mixed-kana prime and hiragana prime produced priming effects that are indistinguishable, and both were reduced in size relative to the priming effect produced by the katakana identity prime. Furthermore, this pattern was unchanged when the target was presented in hiragana. The findings are interpreted in terms of the assumption that the katakana format is specified in the orthographic representation of loanwords in Japanese readers. Implications of the account for the universality across writing systems is discussed.

Abstract

Pauses during continuous speech, particularly those that occur within clauses, are thought to reflect the planning of forthcoming verbal output. We used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to examine their neural correlates. Six volunteers were scanned while describing seven Rorschach inkblots, producing 3 min of speech per inkblot. In an event-related design, the level of blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) contrast during brief speech pauses (mean duration 1.3 s, SD 0.3 s) during overt speech was contrasted with that during intervening periods of articulation. We then examined activity associated with pauses that occurred within clauses and pauses that occurred between grammatical junctions. Relative to articulation during speech, pauses were associated with activation in the banks of the left superior temporal sulcus (BA 39/22), at the temporoparietal junction. Continuous speech was associated with greater activation bilaterally in the inferior frontal (BA 44/45), middle frontal (BA 8) and anterior cingulate (BA 24) gyri, the middle temporal sulcus (BA 21/22), the occipital cortex and the cerebellum. Left temporal activation was evident during pauses that occurred within clauses but not during pauses at grammatical junctions. In summary, articulation during continuous speech involved frontal, temporal and cerebellar areas, while pausing was associated with activity in the left temporal cortex, especially when this occurred within a clause. The latter finding is consistent with evidence that within-clause pauses are a correlate of speech planning and in particular lexical retrieval.

Abstract

Since Battison (1978), it has been noted in many signed languages that the Symmetry Condition constrains the form of two-handed signs in which two hands move independently. The Condition states that the form features (e.g., the handshapes and movements) of the two hands are 'symmetrical'. The Symmetry Condition has been regarded in the literature as a part of signed language phonology. In this study, we examine the linguistic status of the Symmetry Condition by comparing the degree of symmetry in signs from Sign Language of the Netherlands and speech-accompanying representational gestures produced by Dutch speakers. Like signed language, such gestures use hand movements to express concepts, but they do not constitute a linguistic system in their own right. We found that the Symmetry Condition holds equally well for signs and spontaneous gestures. This indicates that this condition is a general cognitive constraint, rather than a constraint specific to language. We suggest that the Symmetry Condition is a manifestation of the mind having one active 'mental articulator' when expressing a concept with hand movements

Abstract

Sentence-final particles (SFPs) as bound morphemes in Japanese have no obvious effect on the truth conditions of a sentence. However, they encompass a diverse range of usages, from typical to atypical, according to the context and the interpersonal relationships in the specific situation. The most frequent particle,-ne, is typically used after addressee-oriented propositions for information sharing, while another frequent particle,-yo, is typically used after addresser-oriented propositions to elicit a sense of strength. This study sheds light on individual differences among native speakers in flexibly understanding such linguistic markers based on their mentalizing ability (i.e., the ability to infer the mental states of others). Two experiments employing electroencephalography (EEG) consistently showed enhanced early posterior negativities (EPN) for atypical SFP usage compared to typical usage, especially when understanding-ne compared to -yo, in both an SFP appropriateness judgment task and a content comprehension task. Importantly, the amplitude of the EPN for atypical usages of-ne was significantly higher in participants with lower mentalizing ability than in those with a higher mentalizing ability. This effect plausibly reflects low-ability mentalizers' stronger sense of strangeness toward atypical-ne usage. While high-ability mentalizers may aptly perceive others' attitudes via their various usages of-ne, low-ability mentalizers seem to adopt a more stereotypical understanding. These results attest to the greater degree of difficulty low-ability mentalizers have in establishing a smooth regulation of interpersonal distance during social encounters.

Abstract

In a Turing test, a judge decides whether their conversation partner is either a machine or human. What cues does the judge use to determine this? In particular, are presumably unique features of human language actually perceived as humanlike? Participants rated the humanness of a set of sentences that were manipulated for grammatical construction: linear right-branching or hierarchical center-embedded and their plausibility with regard to world knowledge.

We found that center-embedded sentences are perceived as less humanlike than right-branching sentences and more plausible sentences are regarded as more humanlike. However, the effect of plausibility of the sentence on perceived humanness is smaller for center-embedded sentences than for right-branching sentences.

Participants also rated a conversation with either correct or incorrect use of the context by the agent. No effect of context use was found. Also, participants rated a full transcript of either a real human or a real chatbot, and we found that chatbots were reliably perceived as less humanlike than real humans, in line with our expectation. We did, however, find individual differences between chatbots and humans.