Publications

Displaying 101 - 200 of 411
  • Fisher, V. J. (2021). Embodied songs: Insights into the nature of cross-modal meaning-making within sign language informed, embodied interpretations of vocal music. Frontiers in Psychology, 12: 624689. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.624689.

    Abstract

    Embodied song practices involve the transformation of songs from the acoustic modality into an embodied-visual form, to increase meaningful access for d/Deaf audiences. This goes beyond the translation of lyrics, by combining poetic sign language with other bodily movements to embody the para-linguistic expressive and musical features that enhance the message of a song. To date, the limited research into this phenomenon has focussed on linguistic features and interactions with rhythm. The relationship between bodily actions and music has not been probed beyond an assumed implication of conformance. However, as the primary objective is to communicate equivalent meanings, the ways that the acoustic and embodied-visual signals relate to each other should reveal something about underlying conceptual agreement. This paper draws together a range of pertinent theories from within a grounded cognition framework including semiotics, analogy mapping and cross-modal correspondences. These theories are applied to embodiment strategies used by prominent d/Deaf and hearing Dutch practitioners, to unpack the relationship between acoustic songs, their embodied representations, and their broader conceptual and affective meanings. This leads to the proposition that meaning primarily arises through shared patterns of internal relations across a range of amodal and cross-modal features with an emphasis on dynamic qualities. These analogous patterns can inform metaphorical interpretations and trigger shared emotional responses. This exploratory survey offers insights into the nature of cross-modal and embodied meaning-making, as a jumping-off point for further research.
  • Fodor, J. A., & Cutler, A. (1981). Semantic focus and sentence comprehension. Cognition, 7, 49-59. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(79)90010-6.

    Abstract

    Reaction time to detect a phoneme target in a sentence was found to be faster when the word in which the target occurred formed part of the semantic focus of the sentence. Focus was determined by asking a question before the sentence; that part of the sentence which comprised the answer to the sentence was assumed to be focussed. This procedure made it possible to vary position offocus within the sentence while holding all acoustic aspects of the sentence itself constant. It is argued that sentence understanding is facilitated by rapid identification of focussed information. Since focussed words are usually accented, it is further argued that the active search for accented words demonstrated in previous research should be interpreted as a search for semantic focus.
  • Frances, C., Navarra-Barindelli, E., & Martin, C. D. (2021). Inhibitory and facilitatory effects of phonological and orthographic similarity on L2 word recognition across modalities in bilinguals. Scientific Reports, 11: 12812. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-92259-z.

    Abstract

    Language perception studies on bilinguals often show that words that share form and meaning across languages (cognates) are easier to process than words that share only meaning. This facilitatory phenomenon is known as the cognate effect. Most previous studies have shown this effect visually, whereas the auditory modality as well as the interplay between type of similarity and modality remain largely unexplored. In this study, highly proficient late Spanish–English bilinguals carried out a lexical decision task in their second language, both visually and auditorily. Words had high or low phonological and orthographic similarity, fully crossed. We also included orthographically identical words (perfect cognates). Our results suggest that similarity in the same modality (i.e., orthographic similarity in the visual modality and phonological similarity in the auditory modality) leads to improved signal detection, whereas similarity across modalities hinders it. We provide support for the idea that perfect cognates are a special category within cognates. Results suggest a need for a conceptual and practical separation between types of similarity in cognate studies. The theoretical implication is that the representations of items are active in both modalities of the non-target language during language processing, which needs to be incorporated to our current processing models.

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    supplementary information
  • Frances, C., Navarra-Barindelli, E., & Martin, C. D. (2021). Inhibitory and facilitatory effects of phonological and orthographic similarity on L2 word recognition across modalities in bilinguals. Scientific Reports, 11: 12812. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-92259-z.

    Abstract

    Language perception studies on bilinguals often show that words that share form and meaning across
    languages (cognates) are easier to process than words that share only meaning. This facilitatory
    phenomenon is known as the cognate effect. Most previous studies have shown this effect visually,
    whereas the auditory modality as well as the interplay between type of similarity and modality
    remain largely unexplored. In this study, highly proficient late Spanish–English bilinguals carried out
    a lexical decision task in their second language, both visually and auditorily. Words had high or low
    phonological and orthographic similarity, fully crossed. We also included orthographically identical
    words (perfect cognates). Our results suggest that similarity in the same modality (i.e., orthographic
    similarity in the visual modality and phonological similarity in the auditory modality) leads to
    improved signal detection, whereas similarity across modalities hinders it. We provide support for
    the idea that perfect cognates are a special category within cognates. Results suggest a need for a
    conceptual and practical separation between types of similarity in cognate studies. The theoretical
    implication is that the representations of items are active in both modalities of the non‑target
    language during language processing, which needs to be incorporated to our current processing
    models.
  • Friedrich, P., Forkel, S. J., Amiez, C., Balsters, J. H., Coulon, O., Fan, L., Goulas, A., Hadj-Bouziane, F., Hecht, E. E., Heuer, K., Jiang, T., Latzman, R. D., Liu, X., Loh, K. K., Patil, K. R., Lopez-Persem, A., Procyk, E., Sallet, J., Toro, R., Vickery, S. Friedrich, P., Forkel, S. J., Amiez, C., Balsters, J. H., Coulon, O., Fan, L., Goulas, A., Hadj-Bouziane, F., Hecht, E. E., Heuer, K., Jiang, T., Latzman, R. D., Liu, X., Loh, K. K., Patil, K. R., Lopez-Persem, A., Procyk, E., Sallet, J., Toro, R., Vickery, S., Weis, S., Wilson, C., Xu, T., Zerbi, V., Eickoff, S. B., Margulies, D., Mars, R., & Thiebaut de Schotten, M. (2021). Imaging evolution of the primate brain: The next frontier? NeuroImage, 228: 117685. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117685.

    Abstract

    Evolution, as we currently understand it, strikes a delicate balance between animals' ancestral history and adaptations to their current niche. Similarities between species are generally considered inherited from a common ancestor whereas observed differences are considered as more recent evolution. Hence comparing species can provide insights into the evolutionary history. Comparative neuroimaging has recently emerged as a novel subdiscipline, which uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify similarities and differences in brain structure and function across species. Whereas invasive histological and molecular techniques are superior in spatial resolution, they are laborious, post-mortem, and oftentimes limited to specific species. Neuroimaging, by comparison, has the advantages of being applicable across species and allows for fast, whole-brain, repeatable, and multi-modal measurements of the structure and function in living brains and post-mortem tissue. In this review, we summarise the current state of the art in comparative anatomy and function of the brain and gather together the main scientific questions to be explored in the future of the fascinating new field of brain evolution derived from comparative neuroimaging.
  • Frost, R. L. A., & Casillas, M. (2021). Investigating statistical learning of nonadjacent dependencies: Running statistical learning tasks in non-WEIRD populations. In SAGE Research Methods Cases. doi:10.4135/9781529759181.

    Abstract

    Language acquisition is complex. However, one thing that has been suggested to help learning is the way that information is distributed throughout language; co-occurrences among particular items (e.g., syllables and words) have been shown to help learners discover the words that a language contains and figure out how those words are used. Humans’ ability to draw on this information—“statistical learning”—has been demonstrated across a broad range of studies. However, evidence from non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies is critically lacking, which limits theorizing on the universality of this skill. We extended work on statistical language learning to a new, non-WEIRD linguistic population: speakers of Yélî Dnye, who live on a remote island off mainland Papua New Guinea (Rossel Island). We performed a replication of an existing statistical learning study, training adults on an artificial language with statistically defined words, then examining what they had learnt using a two-alternative forced-choice test. Crucially, we implemented several key amendments to the original study to ensure the replication was suitable for remote field-site testing with speakers of Yélî Dnye. We made critical changes to the stimuli and materials (to test speakers of Yélî Dnye, rather than English), the instructions (we re-worked these significantly, and added practice tasks to optimize participants’ understanding), and the study format (shifting from a lab-based to a portable tablet-based setup). We discuss the requirement for acute sensitivity to linguistic, cultural, and environmental factors when adapting studies to test new populations.

  • Garcia, R., Garrido Rodriguez, G., & Kidd, E. (2021). Developmental effects in the online use of morphosyntactic cues in sentence processing: Evidence from Tagalog. Cognition, 216: 104859. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104859.

    Abstract

    Children must necessarily process their input in order to learn it, yet the architecture of the developing parsing system and how it interfaces with acquisition is unclear. In the current paper we report experimental and corpus data investigating adult and children's use of morphosyntactic cues for making incremental online predictions of thematic roles in Tagalog, a verb-initial symmetrical voice language of the Philippines. In Study 1, Tagalog-speaking adults completed a visual world eye-tracking experiment in which they viewed pictures of causative actions that were described by transitive sentences manipulated for voice and word order. The pattern of results showed that adults process agent and patient voice differently, predicting the upcoming noun in the patient voice but not in the agent voice, consistent with the observation of a patient voice preference in adult sentence production. In Study 2, our analysis of a corpus of child-directed speech showed that children heard more patient voice- than agent voice-marked verbs. In Study 3, 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old children completed a similar eye-tracking task as used in Study 1. The overall pattern of results suggested that, like the adults in Study 1, children process agent and patient voice differently in a manner that reflects the input distributions, with children developing towards the adult state across early childhood. The results are most consistent with theoretical accounts that identify a key role for input distributions in acquisition and language processing

    Additional information

    1-s2.0-S001002772100278X-mmc1.docx
  • Garnham, A., Shillcock, R. C., Brown, G. D. A., Mill, A. I. D., & Cutler, A. (1981). Slips of the tongue in the London-Lund corpus of spontaneous conversation. Linguistics, 19, 805-817.
  • Gau, R., Noble, S., Heuer, K., Bottenhorn, K. L., Bilgin, I. P., Yang, Y.-F., Huntenburg, J. M., Bayer, J. M., Bethlehem, R. A., Rhoads, S. A., Vogelbacher, C., Borghesani, V., Levitis, E., Wang, H.-T., Van Den Bossche, S., Kobeleva, X., Legarreta, J. H., Guay, S., Atay, S. M., Varoquaux, G. P. Gau, R., Noble, S., Heuer, K., Bottenhorn, K. L., Bilgin, I. P., Yang, Y.-F., Huntenburg, J. M., Bayer, J. M., Bethlehem, R. A., Rhoads, S. A., Vogelbacher, C., Borghesani, V., Levitis, E., Wang, H.-T., Van Den Bossche, S., Kobeleva, X., Legarreta, J. H., Guay, S., Atay, S. M., Varoquaux, G. P., Huijser, D. C., Sandström, M. S., Herholz, P., Nastase, S. A., Badhwar, A., Dumas, G., Schwab, S., Moia, S., Dayan, M., Bassil, Y., Brooks, P. P., Mancini, M., Shine, J. M., O’Connor, D., Xie, X., Poggiali, D., Friedrich, P., Heinsfeld, A. S., Riedl, L., Toro, R., Caballero-Gaudes, C., Eklund, A., Garner, K. G., Nolan, C. R., Demeter, D. V., Barrios, F. A., Merchant, J. S., McDevitt, E. A., Oostenveld, R., Craddock, R. C., Rokem, A., Doyle, A., Ghosh, S. S., Nikolaidis, A., Stanley, O. W., Uruñuela, E., Anousheh, N., Arnatkeviciute, A., Auzias, G., Bachar, D., Bannier, E., Basanisi, R., Basavaraj, A., Bedini, M., Bellec, P., Benn, R. A., Berluti, K., Bollmann, S., Bollmann, S., Bradley, C., Brown, J., Buchweitz, A., Callahan, P., Chan, M. Y., Chandio, B. Q., Cheng, T., Chopra, S., Chung, A. W., Close, T. G., Combrisson, E., Cona, G., Constable, R. T., Cury, C., Dadi, K., Damasceno, P. F., Das, S., De Vico Fallani, F., DeStasio, K., Dickie, E. W., Dorfschmidt, L., Duff, E. P., DuPre, E., Dziura, S., Esper, N. B., Esteban, O., Fadnavis, S., Flandin, G., Flannery, J. E., Flournoy, J., Forkel, S. J., Franco, A. R., Ganesan, S., Gao, S., García Alanis, J. C., Garyfallidis, E., Glatard, T., Glerean, E., Gonzalez-Castillo, J., Gould van Praag, C. D., Greene, A. S., Gupta, G., Hahn, C. A., Halchenko, Y. O., Handwerker, D., Hartmann, T. S., Hayot-Sasson, V., Heunis, S., Hoffstaedter, F., Hohmann, D. M., Horien, C., Ioanas, H.-I., Iordan, A., Jiang, C., Joseph, M., Kai, J., Karakuzu, A., Kennedy, D. N., Keshavan, A., Khan, A. R., Kiar, G., Klink, P. C., Koppelmans, V., Koudoro, S., Laird, A. R., Langs, G., Laws, M., Licandro, R., Liew, S.-L., Lipic, T., Litinas, K., Lurie, D. J., Lussier, D., Madan, C. R., Mais, L.-T., Mansour L, S., Manzano-Patron, J., Maoutsa, D., Marcon, M., Margulies, D. S., Marinato, G., Marinazzo, D., Markiewicz, C. J., Maumet, C., Meneguzzi, F., Meunier, D., Milham, M. P., Mills, K. L., Momi, D., Moreau, C. A., Motala, A., Moxon-Emre, I., Nichols, T. E., Nielson, D. M., Nilsonne, G., Novello, L., O’Brien, C., Olafson, E., Oliver, L. D., Onofrey, J. A., Orchard, E. R., Oudyk, K., Park, P. J., Parsapoor, M., Pasquini, L., Peltier, S., Pernet, C. R., Pienaar, R., Pinheiro-Chagas, P., Poline, J.-B., Qiu, A., Quendera, T., Rice, L. C., Rocha-Hidalgo, J., Rutherford, S., Scharinger, M., Scheinost, D., Shariq, D., Shaw, T. B., Siless, V., Simmonite, M., Sirmpilatze, N., Spence, H., Sprenger, J., Stajduhar, A., Szinte, M., Takerkart, S., Tam, A., Tejavibulya, L., Thiebaut de Schotten, M., Thome, I., Tomaz da Silva, L., Traut, N., Uddin, L. Q., Vallesi, A., VanMeter, J. W., Vijayakumar, N., di Oleggio Castello, M. V., Vohryzek, J., Vukojević, J., Whitaker, K. J., Whitmore, L., Wideman, S., Witt, S. T., Xie, H., Xu, T., Yan, C.-G., Yeh, F.-C., Yeo, B. T., & Zuo, X.-N. (2021). Brainhack: Developing a culture of open, inclusive, community-driven neuroscience. Neuron, 109(11), 1769-1775. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2021.04.001.

    Abstract

    Social factors play a crucial role in the advancement of science. New findings are discussed and theories emerge through social interactions, which usually take place within local research groups and at academic events such as conferences, seminars, or workshops. This system tends to amplify the voices of a select subset of the community—especially more established researchers—thus limiting opportunities for the larger community to contribute and connect. Brainhack (https://brainhack.org/) events (or Brainhacks for short) complement these formats in neuroscience with decentralized 2- to 5-day gatherings, in which participants from diverse backgrounds and career stages collaborate and learn from each other in an informal setting. The Brainhack format was introduced in a previous publication (Cameron Craddock et al., 2016; Figures 1A and 1B). It is inspired by the hackathon model (see glossary in Table 1), which originated in software development and has gained traction in science as a way to bring people together for collaborative work and educational courses. Unlike many hackathons, Brainhacks welcome participants from all disciplines and with any level of experience—from those who have never written a line of code to software developers and expert neuroscientists. Brainhacks additionally replace the sometimes-competitive context of traditional hackathons with a purely collaborative one and also feature informal dissemination of ongoing research through unconferences.

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  • Geipel, I., Lattenkamp, E. Z., Dixon, M. M., Wiegrebe, L., & Page, R. A. (2021). Hearing sensitivity: An underlying mechanism for niche differentiation in gleaning bats. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118: e2024943118. doi:10.1073/pnas.2024943118.

    Abstract

    Tropical ecosystems are known for high species diversity. Adaptations permitting niche differentiation enable species to coexist. Historically, research focused primarily on morphological and behavioral adaptations for foraging, roosting, and other basic ecological factors. Another important factor, however, is differences in sensory capabilities. So far, studies mainly have focused on the output of behavioral strategies of predators and their prey preference. Understanding the coexistence of different foraging strategies, however, requires understanding underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms. In this study, we investigate hearing in bats and how it shapes bat species coexistence. We present the hearing thresholds and echolocation calls of 12 different gleaning bats from the ecologically diverse Phyllostomid family. We measured their auditory brainstem responses to assess their hearing sensitivity. The audiograms of these species had similar overall shapes but differed substantially for frequencies below 9 kHz and in the frequency range of their echolocation calls. Our results suggest that differences among bats in hearing abilities contribute to the diversity in foraging strategies of gleaning bats. We argue that differences in auditory sensitivity could be important mechanisms shaping diversity in sensory niches and coexistence of species.
  • Ghatan, P. H., Hsieh, J. C., Petersson, K. M., Stone-Elander, S., & Ingvar, M. (1998). Coexistence of attention-based facilitation and inhibition in the human cortex. NeuroImage, 7, 23-29.

    Abstract

    A key function of attention is to select an appropriate subset of available information by facilitation of attended processes and/or inhibition of irrelevant processing. Functional imaging studies, using positron emission tomography, have during different experimental tasks revealed decreased neuronal activity in areas that process input from unattended sensory modalities. It has been hypothesized that these decreases reflect a selective inhibitory modulation of nonrelevant cortical processing. In this study we addressed this question using a continuous arithmetical task with and without concomitant disturbing auditory input (task-irrelevant speech). During the arithmetical task, irrelevant speech did not affect task-performance but yielded decreased activity in the auditory and midcingulate cortices and increased activity in the left posterior parietal cortex. This pattern of modulation is consistent with a top down inhibitory modulation of a nonattended input to the auditory cortex and a coexisting, attention-based facilitation of taskrelevant processing in higher order cortices. These findings suggest that task-related decreases in cortical activity may be of functional importance in the understanding of both attentional mechanisms and taskrelated information processing.
  • Gialluisi, A., Andlauer, T. F. M., Mirza-Schreiber, N., Moll, K., Becker, J., Hoffmann, P., Ludwig, K. U., Czamara, D., St Pourcain, B., Honbolygó, F., Tóth, D., Csépe, V., Huguet, H., Chaix, Y., Iannuzzi, S., Demonet, J.-F., Morris, A. P., Hulslander, J., Willcutt, E. G., DeFries, J. C. and 29 moreGialluisi, A., Andlauer, T. F. M., Mirza-Schreiber, N., Moll, K., Becker, J., Hoffmann, P., Ludwig, K. U., Czamara, D., St Pourcain, B., Honbolygó, F., Tóth, D., Csépe, V., Huguet, H., Chaix, Y., Iannuzzi, S., Demonet, J.-F., Morris, A. P., Hulslander, J., Willcutt, E. G., DeFries, J. C., Olson, R. K., Smith, S. D., Pennington, B. F., Vaessen, A., Maurer, U., Lyytinen, H., Peyrard-Janvid, M., Leppänen, P. H. T., Brandeis, D., Bonte, M., Stein, J. F., Talcott, J. B., Fauchereau, F., Wilcke, A., Kirsten, H., Müller, B., Francks, C., Bourgeron, T., Monaco, A. P., Ramus, F., Landerl, K., Kere, J., Scerri, T. S., Paracchini, S., Fisher, S. E., Schumacher, J., Nöthen, M. M., Müller-Myhsok, B., & Schulte-Körne, G. (2021). Genome-wide association study reveals new insights into the heritability and genetic correlates of developmental dyslexia. Molecular Psychiatry, 26, 3004-3017. doi:10.1038/s41380-020-00898-x.

    Abstract

    Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a learning disorder affecting the ability to read, with a heritability of 40–60%. A notable part of this heritability remains unexplained, and large genetic studies are warranted to identify new susceptibility genes and clarify the genetic bases of dyslexia. We carried out a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on 2274 dyslexia cases and 6272 controls, testing associations at the single variant, gene, and pathway level, and estimating heritability using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. We also calculated polygenic scores (PGSs) based on large-scale GWAS data for different neuropsychiatric disorders and cortical brain measures, educational attainment, and fluid intelligence, testing them for association with dyslexia status in our sample. We observed statistically significant (p  < 2.8 × 10−6) enrichment of associations at the gene level, for LOC388780 (20p13; uncharacterized gene), and for VEPH1 (3q25), a gene implicated in brain development. We estimated an SNP-based heritability of 20–25% for DD, and observed significant associations of dyslexia risk with PGSs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (at pT = 0.05 in the training GWAS: OR = 1.23[1.16; 1.30] per standard deviation increase; p  = 8 × 10−13), bipolar disorder (1.53[1.44; 1.63]; p = 1 × 10−43), schizophrenia (1.36[1.28; 1.45]; p = 4 × 10−22), psychiatric cross-disorder susceptibility (1.23[1.16; 1.30]; p = 3 × 10−12), cortical thickness of the transverse temporal gyrus (0.90[0.86; 0.96]; p = 5 × 10−4), educational attainment (0.86[0.82; 0.91]; p = 2 × 10−7), and intelligence (0.72[0.68; 0.76]; p = 9 × 10−29). This study suggests an important contribution of common genetic variants to dyslexia risk, and novel genomic overlaps with psychiatric conditions like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and cross-disorder susceptibility. Moreover, it revealed the presence of shared genetic foundations with a neural correlate previously implicated in dyslexia by neuroimaging evidence.
  • Gordon, R. L., Ravignani, A., Hyland Bruno, J., Robinson, C. M., Scartozzi, A., Embalabala, R., Niarchou, M., 23andMe Research Team, Cox, N. J., & Creanza, N. (2021). Linking the genomic signatures of human beat synchronization and learned song in birds. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 376: 20200329. doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0329.

    Abstract

    The development of rhythmicity is foundational to communicative and social behaviours in humans and many other species, and mechanisms of synchrony could be conserved across species. The goal of the current paper is to explore evolutionary hypotheses linking vocal learning and beat synchronization through genomic approaches, testing the prediction that genetic underpinnings of birdsong also contribute to the aetiology of human interactions with musical beat structure. We combined state-of-the-art-genomic datasets that account for underlying polygenicity of these traits: birdsong genome-wide transcriptomics linked to singing in zebra finches, and a human genome-wide association study of beat synchronization. Results of competitive gene set analysis revealed that the genetic architecture of human beat synchronization is significantly enriched for birdsong genes expressed in songbird Area X (a key nucleus for vocal learning, and homologous to human basal ganglia). These findings complement ethological and neural evidence of the relationship between vocal learning and beat synchronization, supporting a framework of some degree of common genomic substrates underlying rhythm-related behaviours in two clades, humans and songbirds (the largest evolutionary radiation of vocal learners). Future cross-species approaches investigating the genetic underpinnings of beat synchronization in a broad evolutionary context are discussed.

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  • Goriot, C., Unsworth, S., Van Hout, R. W. N. M., Broersma, M., & McQueen, J. M. (2021). Differences in phonological awareness performance: Are there positive or negative effects of bilingual experience? Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 11(3), 425-460. doi:10.1075/lab.18082.gor.

    Abstract

    Children who have knowledge of two languages may show better phonological awareness than their monolingual peers (e.g. Bruck & Genesee, 1995). It remains unclear how much bilingual experience is needed for such advantages to appear, and whether differences in language or cognitive skills alter the relation between bilingualism and phonological awareness. These questions were investigated in this cross-sectional study. Participants (n = 294; 4–7 year-olds, in the first three grades of primary school) were Dutch-speaking pupils attending mainstream monolingual Dutch primary schools or early-English schools providing English lessons from grade 1, and simultaneous Dutch-English bilinguals. We investigated phonological awareness (rhyming, phoneme blending, onset phoneme identification, and phoneme deletion) and its relation to age, Dutch vocabulary, English vocabulary, working memory and short-term memory, and the balance between Dutch and English vocabulary. Small significant (α < .05) effects of bilingualism were found on onset phoneme identification and phoneme deletion, but post-hoc comparisons revealed no robust pairwise differences between the groups. Furthermore, effects of bilingualism sometimes disappeared when differences in language or memory skills were taken into account. Learning two languages simultaneously is not beneficial to – and importantly, also not detrimental to – phonological awareness.

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  • Goriot, C., Van Hout, R., Broersma, M., Lobo, V., McQueen, J. M., & Unsworth, S. (2021). Using the peabody picture vocabulary test in L2 children and adolescents: Effects of L1. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 24(4), 546-568. doi:10.1080/13670050.2018.1494131.

    Abstract

    This study investigated to what extent the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test
    (PPVT-4) is a reliable tool for measuring vocabulary knowledge of English as
    a second language (L2), and to what extent L1 characteristics affect test
    outcomes. The PPVT-4 was administered to Dutch pupils in six different
    age groups (4-15 years old) who were or were not following an English
    educational programme at school. Our first finding was that the PPVT-4
    was not a reliable measure for pupils who were correct on maximally 24
    items, but it was reliable for pupils who performed better. Second, both
    primary-school and secondary-school pupils performed better on items
    for which the phonological similarity between the English word and its
    Dutch translation was higher. Third, young unexperienced L2 learners’
    scores were predicted by Dutch lexical frequency, while older more
    experienced pupils’ scores were predicted by English frequency. These
    findings indicate that the PPVT may be inappropriate for use with L2
    learners with limited L2 proficiency. Furthermore, comparisons of PPVT
    scores across learners with different L1s are confounded by effects of L1
    frequency and L1-L2 similarity. The PPVT-4 is however a suitable measure
    to compare more proficient L2 learners who have the same L1.
  • Greenfield, M. D., Honing, H., Kotz, S. A., & Ravignani, A. (2021). Synchrony and rhythm interaction: From the brain to behavioural ecology. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 376: 20200324. doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0324.

    Abstract

    This theme issue assembles current studies that ask how and why precise synchronization and related forms of rhythm interaction are expressed in a wide range of behaviour. The studies cover human activity, with an emphasis on music, and social behaviour, reproduction and communication in non-human animals. In most cases, the temporally aligned rhythms have short—from several seconds down to a fraction of a second—periods and are regulated by central nervous system pacemakers, but interactions involving rhythms that are 24 h or longer and originate in biological clocks also occur. Across this spectrum of activities, species and time scales, empirical work and modelling suggest that synchrony arises from a limited number of coupled-oscillator mechanisms with which individuals mutually entrain. Phylogenetic distribution of these common mechanisms points towards convergent evolution. Studies of animal communication indicate that many synchronous interactions between the signals of neighbouring individuals are specifically favoured by selection. However, synchronous displays are often emergent properties of entrainment between signalling individuals, and in some situations, the very signallers who produce a display might not gain any benefit from the collective timing of their production.
  • De Gregorio, C., Valente, D., Raimondi, T., Torti, V., Miaretsoa, L., Friard, O., Giacoma, C., Ravignani, A., & Gamba, M. (2021). Categorical rhythms in a singing primate. Current Biology, 31, R1363-R1380. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.09.032.

    Abstract

    What are the origins of musical rhythm? One approach to the biology and evolution of music consists in finding common musical traits across species. These similarities allow biomusicologists to infer when and how musical traits appeared in our species1
    . A parallel approach to the biology and evolution of music focuses on finding statistical universals in human music2
    . These include rhythmic features that appear above chance across musical cultures. One such universal is the production of categorical rhythms3
    , defined as those where temporal intervals between note onsets are distributed categorically rather than uniformly2
    ,4
    ,5
    . Prominent rhythm categories include those with intervals related by small integer ratios, such as 1:1 (isochrony) and 1:2, which translates as some notes being twice as long as their adjacent ones. In humans, universals are often defined in relation to the beat, a top-down cognitive process of inferring a temporal regularity from a complex musical scene1
    . Without assuming the presence of the beat in other animals, one can still investigate its downstream products, namely rhythmic categories with small integer ratios detected in recorded signals. Here we combine the comparative and statistical universals approaches, testing the hypothesis that rhythmic categories and small integer ratios should appear in species showing coordinated group singing3
    . We find that a lemur species displays, in its coordinated songs, the isochronous and 1:2 rhythm categories seen in human music, showing that such categories are not, among mammals, unique to humans3

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  • Guest, O., & Martin, A. E. (2021). How computational modeling can force theory building in psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(4), 789-802. doi:10.1177/1745691620970585.

    Abstract

    Psychology endeavors to develop theories of human capacities and behaviors on the basis of a variety of methodologies and dependent measures. We argue that one of the most divisive factors in psychological science is whether researchers choose to use computational modeling of theories (over and above data) during the scientific-inference process. Modeling is undervalued yet holds promise for advancing psychological science. The inherent demands of computational modeling guide us toward better science by forcing us to conceptually analyze, specify, and formalize intuitions that otherwise remain unexamined—what we dub open theory. Constraining our inference process through modeling enables us to build explanatory and predictive theories. Here, we present scientific inference in psychology as a path function in which each step shapes the next. Computational modeling can constrain these steps, thus advancing scientific inference over and above the stewardship of experimental practice (e.g., preregistration). If psychology continues to eschew computational modeling, we predict more replicability crises and persistent failure at coherent theory building. This is because without formal modeling we lack open and transparent theorizing. We also explain how to formalize, specify, and implement a computational model, emphasizing that the advantages of modeling can be achieved by anyone with benefit to all.
  • Hagoort, P. (1981). Sociale wetenschappen op het kruispunt van binnenweg en heirbaan: de ontwikkeling van sociale wetenschappen in het interbellum. Grafiet, (1), 14-71.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). De electrofysiologie van taal: Wat hersenpotentialen vertellen over het menselijk taalvermogen. Neuropraxis, 2, 223-229.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). De spreker als sprinter. Psychologie, 17, 48-49.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). Hersenen en taal in onderzoek en praktijk. Neuropraxis, 6, 204-205.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). The shadows of lexical meaning in patients with semantic impairments. In B. Stemmer, & H. Whitaker (Eds.), Handbook of neurolinguistics (pp. 235-248). New York: Academic Press.
  • Hahn, L. E., Benders, T., Fikkert, P., & Snijders, T. M. (2021). Infants’ implicit rhyme perception in child songs and its relationship with vocabulary. Frontiers in Psychology, 12: 680882. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.680882.

    Abstract

    Rhyme perception is an important predictor for future literacy. Assessing rhyme
    abilities, however, commonly requires children to make explicit rhyme judgements on
    single words. Here we explored whether infants already implicitly process rhymes in
    natural rhyming contexts (child songs) and whether this response correlates with later
    vocabulary size. In a passive listening ERP study, 10.5 month-old Dutch infants were
    exposed to rhyming and non-rhyming child songs. Two types of rhyme effects were
    analysed: (1) ERPs elicited by the first rhyme occurring in each song (rhyme sensitivity)
    and (2) ERPs elicited by rhymes repeating after the first rhyme in each song (rhyme
    repetition). Only for the latter a tentative negativity for rhymes from 0 to 200 ms
    after the onset of the rhyme word was found. This rhyme repetition effect correlated
    with productive vocabulary at 18 months-old, but not with any other vocabulary
    measure (perception at 10.5 or 18 months-old). While awaiting future replication, the
    study indicates precursors of phonological awareness already during infancy and with
    ecologically valid linguistic stimuli.
  • Harmon, Z., & Kapatsinski, V. (2021). A theory of repetition and retrieval in language production. Psychological Review, 128, 1112-1144. doi:10.1037/rev0000305.

    Abstract

    Repetition appears to be part of error correction and action preparation in all domains that involve producing an action sequence. The present work contends that the ubiquity of repetition is due to its role in resolving a problem inherent to planning and retrieval of action sequences: the Problem of Retrieval. Repetitions occur when the production to perform next is not activated enough to be executed. Repetitions are helpful in this situation because the repeated action sequence activates the likely continuation. We model a corpus of natural speech using a recurrent network, with words as units of production. We show that repeated material makes upcoming words more predictable, especially when more than one word is repeated. Speakers are argued to produce multiword repetitions by using backward associations to reactivate recently produced words. The existence of multiword repetitions means that speakers must decide where to reinitiate execution from. We show that production restarts from words that have seldom occurred in a predictive preceding-word context and have often occurred utterance-initially. These results are explained by competition between preceding-context and top-down cues over the course of language learning. The proposed theory improves on structural accounts of repetition disfluencies, and integrates repetition disfluencies in language production with repetitions observed in other domains of skilled action.
  • Hartung, F., Wang, Y., Mak, M., Willems, R. M., & Chatterjee, A. (2021). Aesthetic appraisals of literary style and emotional intensity in narrative engagement are neurally dissociable. Communications Biology, 4: 1401. doi:10.1038/s42003-021-02926-0.

    Abstract

    Humans are deeply affected by stories, yet it is unclear how. In this study, we explored two aspects of aesthetic experiences during narrative engagement - literariness and narrative fluctuations in appraised emotional intensity. Independent ratings of literariness and emotional intensity of two literary stories were used to predict blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal changes in 52 listeners from an existing fMRI dataset. Literariness was associated with increased activation in brain areas linked to semantic integration (left angular gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and precuneus), and decreased activation in bilateral middle temporal cortices, associated with semantic representations and word memory. Emotional intensity correlated with decreased activation in a bilateral frontoparietal network that is often associated with controlled attention. Our results confirm a neural dissociation in processing literary form and emotional content in stories and generate new questions about the function of and interaction between attention, social cognition, and semantic systems during literary engagement and aesthetic experiences.
  • Healthy Brain Study Consortium, Aarts, E., Akkerman, A., Altgassen, M., Bartels, R., Beckers, D., Bevelander, K., Bijleveld, E., Blaney Davidson, E., Boleij, A., Bralten, J., Cillessen, T., Claassen, J., Cools, R., Cornelissen, I., Dresler, M., Eijsvogels, T., Faber, M., Fernández, G., Figner, B., Fritsche, M. and 67 moreHealthy Brain Study Consortium, Aarts, E., Akkerman, A., Altgassen, M., Bartels, R., Beckers, D., Bevelander, K., Bijleveld, E., Blaney Davidson, E., Boleij, A., Bralten, J., Cillessen, T., Claassen, J., Cools, R., Cornelissen, I., Dresler, M., Eijsvogels, T., Faber, M., Fernández, G., Figner, B., Fritsche, M., Füllbrunn, S., Gayet, S., Van Gelder, M. M. H. J., Van Gerven, M., Geurts, S., Greven, C. U., Groefsema, M., Haak, K., Hagoort, P., Hartman, Y., Van der Heijden, B., Hermans, E., Heuvelmans, V., Hintz, F., Den Hollander, J., Hulsman, A. M., Idesis, S., Jaeger, M., Janse, E., Janzing, J., Kessels, R. P. C., Karremans, J. C., De Kleijn, W., Klein, M., Klumpers, F., Kohn, N., Korzilius, H., Krahmer, B., De Lange, F., Van Leeuwen, J., Liu, H., Luijten, M., Manders, P., Manevska, K., Marques, J. P., Matthews, J., McQueen, J. M., Medendorp, P., Melis, R., Meyer, A. S., Oosterman, J., Overbeek, L., Peelen, M., Popma, J., Postma, G., Roelofs, K., Van Rossenberg, Y. G. T., Schaap, G., Scheepers, P., Selen, L., Starren, M., Swinkels, D. W., Tendolkar, I., Thijssen, D., Timmerman, H., Tutunji, R., Tuladhar, A., Veling, H., Verhagen, M., Verkroost, J., Vink, J., Vriezekolk, V., Vrijsen, J., Vyrastekova, J., Van der Wal, S., Willems, R. M., & Willemsen, A. (2021). Protocol of the Healthy Brain Study: An accessible resource for understanding the human brain and how it dynamically and individually operates in its bio-social context. PLoS One, 16(12): e0260952. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0260952.

    Abstract

    The endeavor to understand the human brain has seen more progress in the last few decades than in the previous two millennia. Still, our understanding of how the human brain relates to behavior in the real world and how this link is modulated by biological, social, and environmental factors is limited. To address this, we designed the Healthy Brain Study (HBS), an interdisciplinary, longitudinal, cohort study based on multidimensional, dynamic assessments in both the laboratory and the real world. Here, we describe the rationale and design of the currently ongoing HBS. The HBS is examining a population-based sample of 1,000 healthy participants (age 30-39) who are thoroughly studied across an entire year. Data are collected through cognitive, affective, behavioral, and physiological testing, neuroimaging, bio-sampling, questionnaires, ecological momentary assessment, and real-world assessments using wearable devices. These data will become an accessible resource for the scientific community enabling the next step in understanding the human brain and how it dynamically and individually operates in its bio-social context. An access procedure to the collected data and bio-samples is in place and published on https://www.healthybrainstudy.nl/en/data-and-methods.

    https://www.trialregister.nl/trial/7955

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  • Heidlmayr, K., Ferragne, E., & Isel, F. (2021). Neuroplasticity in the phonological system: The PMN and the N400 as markers for the perception of non-native phonemic contrasts by late second language learners. Neuropsychologia, 156: 107831. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107831.

    Abstract

    Second language (L2) learners frequently encounter persistent difficulty in perceiving certain non-native sound contrasts, i.e., a phenomenon called “phonological deafness”. However, if extensive L2 experience leads to neuroplastic changes in the phonological system, then the capacity to discriminate non-native phonemic contrasts should progressively improve. Such perceptual changes should be attested by modifications at the neurophysiological level. We designed an EEG experiment in which the listeners’ perceptual capacities to discriminate second language phonemic contrasts influence the processing of lexical-semantic violations. Semantic congruency of critical words in a sentence context was driven by a phonemic contrast that was unique to the L2, English (e.g.,/ɪ/-/i:/, ship – sheep). Twenty-eight young adult native speakers of French with intermediate proficiency in English listened to sentences that contained either a semantically congruent or incongruent critical word (e.g., The anchor of the ship/*sheep was let down) while EEG was recorded. Three ERP effects were found to relate to increasing L2 proficiency: (1) a left frontal auditory N100 effect, (2) a smaller fronto-central phonological mismatch negativity (PMN) effect and (3) a semantic N400 effect. No effect of proficiency was found on oscillatory markers. The current findings suggest that neuronal plasticity in the human brain allows for the late acquisition of even hard-wired linguistic features such as the discrimination of phonemic contrasts in a second language. This is the first time that behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for the critical role of neural plasticity underlying L2 phonological processing and its interdependence with semantic processing has been provided. Our data strongly support the idea that pieces of information from different levels of linguistic processing (e.g., phonological, semantic) strongly interact and influence each other during online language processing.

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  • Hellwig, B., Defina, R., Kidd, E., Allen, S. E. M., Davidson, L., & Kelly, B. F. (2021). Child language documentation: The sketch acquisition project. In G. Haig, S. Schnell, & F. Seifart (Eds.), Doing corpus-based typology with spoken language data: State of the art (pp. 29-58). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

    Abstract

    This paper reports on an on-going project designed to collect comparable corpus data on child language and child-directed language in under-researched languages. Despite a long history of cross-linguistic research, there is a severe empirical bias within language acquisition research: Data is available for less than 2% of the world's languages, heavily skewed towards the larger and better-described languages. As a result, theories of language development tend to be grounded in a non-representative sample, and we know little about the acquisition of typologically-diverse languages from different families, regions, or sociocultural contexts. It is very likely that the reasons are to be found in the forbidding methodological challenges of constructing child language corpora under fieldwork conditions with their strict requirements on participant selection, sampling intervals, and amounts of data. There is thus an urgent need for proposals that facilitate and encourage language acquisition research across a wide variety of languages. Adopting a language documentation perspective, we illustrate an approach that combines the construction of manageable corpora of natural interaction with and between children with a sketch description of the corpus data – resulting in a set of comparable corpora and comparable sketches that form the basis for cross-linguistic comparisons.
  • Henry, M. J., Cook, P. F., de Reus, K., Nityananda, V., Rouse, A. A., & Kotz, S. A. (2021). An ecological approach to measuring synchronization abilities across the animal kingdom. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 376: 20200336. doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0336.

    Abstract

    In this perspective paper, we focus on the study of synchronization abilities across the animal kingdom. We propose an ecological approach to studying nonhuman animal synchronization that begins from observations about when, how and why an animal might synchronize spontaneously with natural environmental rhythms. We discuss what we consider to be the most important, but thus far largely understudied, temporal, physical, perceptual and motivational constraints that must be taken into account when designing experiments to test synchronization in nonhuman animals. First and foremost, different species are likely to be sensitive to and therefore capable of synchronizing at different timescales. We also argue that it is fruitful to consider the latent flexibility of animal synchronization. Finally, we discuss the importance of an animal's motivational state for showcasing synchronization abilities. We demonstrate that the likelihood that an animal can successfully synchronize with an environmental rhythm is context-dependent and suggest that the list of species capable of synchronization is likely to grow when tested with ecologically honest, species-tuned experiments.
  • Hersh, T. A., Gero, S., Rendell, L., & Whitehead, H. (2021). Using identity calls to detect structure in acoustic datasets. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 12(9), 1668-1678. doi:10.1111/2041-210X.13644.

    Abstract

    Acoustic analyses can be powerful tools for illuminating structure within and between populations, especially for cryptic or difficult to access taxa. Acoustic repertoires are often compared using aggregate similarity measures across all calls of a particular type, but specific group identity calls may more clearly delineate structure in some taxa.
    2. We present a new method—the identity call method—that estimates the number of acoustically distinct subdivisions in a set of repertoires and identifies call types that characterize those subdivisions. The method uses contaminated mixture models to identify call types, assigning each call a probability of belonging to each type. Repertoires are hierarchically clustered based on similarities in call type usage, producing a dendrogram with ‘identity clades’ of repertoires and the
    ‘identity calls’ that best characterize each clade. We validated this approach using acoustic data from sperm whales, grey-breasted wood-wrens and Australian field crickets, and ran a suite of tests to assess parameter sensitivity.
    3. For all taxa, the method detected diagnostic signals (identity calls) and structure (identity clades; sperm whale subpopulations, wren subspecies and cricket species) that were consistent with past research. Some datasets were more sensitive to parameter variation than others, which may reflect real uncertainty or biological variability in the taxa examined. We recommend that users perform comparative analyses of different parameter combinations to determine which portions of the dendrogram warrant careful versus confident interpretation.
    4. The presence of group-characteristic identity calls does not necessarily mean animals perceive them as such. Fine-scale experiments like playbacks are a key next step to understand call perception and function. This method can help inform such studies by identifying calls that may be salient to animals and are good candidates for investigation or playback stimuli. For cryptic or difficult to access taxa with group-specific calls, the identity call method can aid managers in quantifying behavioural diversity and/or identifying putative structure within and between
    populations, given that acoustic data can be inexpensive and minimally invasive to collect.
  • Heyselaar, E., Peeters, D., & Hagoort, P. (2021). Do we predict upcoming speech content in naturalistic environments? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 36(4), 440-461. doi:10.1080/23273798.2020.1859568.

    Abstract

    The ability to predict upcoming actions is a hallmark of cognition. It remains unclear, however, whether the predictive behaviour observed in controlled lab environments generalises to rich, everyday settings. In four virtual reality experiments, we tested whether a well-established marker of linguistic prediction (anticipatory eye movements) replicated when increasing the naturalness of the paradigm by means of immersing participants in naturalistic scenes (Experiment 1), increasing the number of distractor objects (Experiment 2), modifying the proportion of predictable noun-referents (Experiment 3), and manipulating the location of referents relative to the joint attentional space (Experiment 4). Robust anticipatory eye movements were observed for Experiments 1–3. The anticipatory effect disappeared, however, in Experiment 4. Our findings suggest that predictive processing occurs in everyday communication if the referents are situated in the joint attentional space. Methodologically, our study confirms that ecological validity and experimental control may go hand-in-hand in the study of human predictive behaviour.
  • Hoeksema, N., Verga, L., Mengede, J., Van Roessel, C., Villanueva, S., Salazar-Casals, A., Rubio-Garcia, A., Curcic-Blake, B., Vernes, S. C., & Ravignani, A. (2021). Neuroanatomy of the grey seal brain: Bringing pinnipeds into the neurobiological study of vocal learning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 376: 20200252. doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0252.

    Abstract

    Comparative studies of vocal learning and vocal non-learning animals can increase our understanding of the neurobiology and evolution of vocal learning and human speech. Mammalian vocal learning is understudied: most research has either focused on vocal learning in songbirds or its absence in non-human primates. Here we focus on a highly promising model species for the neurobiology of vocal learning: grey seals. We provide a neuroanatomical atlas (based on dissected brain slices and magnetic resonance images), a labelled MRI template, a 3D model with volumetric measurements of brain regions, and histological cortical stainings. Four main features of the grey seal brain stand out. (1) It is relatively big and highly convoluted. (2) It hosts a relatively large temporal lobe and cerebellum, structures which could support developed timing abilities and acoustic processing. (3) The cortex is similar to humans in thickness and shows the expected six-layered mammalian structure. (4) Expression of FoxP2 - a gene involved in vocal learning and spoken language - is present in deeper layers of the cortex. Our results could facilitate future studies targeting the neural and genetic underpinnings of mammalian vocal learning, thus bridging the research gap from songbirds to humans and non-human primates.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.
  • Hoey, E., Hömke, P., Löfgren, E., Neumann, T., Schuerman, W. L., & Kendrick, K. H. (2021). Using expletive insertion to pursue and sanction in interaction. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 25(1), 3-25. doi:10.1111/josl.12439.

    Abstract

    This article uses conversation analysis to examine constructions like who the fuck is that—sequence‐initiating actions into which an expletive like the fuck has been inserted. We describe how this turn‐constructional practice fits into and constitutes a recurrent sequence of escalating actions. In this sequence, it is used to pursue an adequate response after an inadequate one was given, and sanction the recipient for that inadequate response. Our analysis contributes to sociolinguistic studies of swearing by offering an account of swearing as a resource for social action.
  • Holler, J., Alday, P. M., Decuyper, C., Geiger, M., Kendrick, K. H., & Meyer, A. S. (2021). Competition reduces response times in multiparty conversation. Frontiers in Psychology, 12: 693124. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.693124.

    Abstract

    Natural conversations are characterized by short transition times between turns. This holds in particular for multi-party conversations. The short turn transitions in everyday conversations contrast sharply with the much longer speech onset latencies observed in laboratory studies where speakers respond to spoken utterances. There are many factors that facilitate speech production in conversational compared to laboratory settings. Here we highlight one of them, the impact of competition for turns. In multi-party conversations, speakers often compete for turns. In quantitative corpus analyses of multi-party conversation, the fastest response determines the recorded turn transition time. In contrast, in dyadic conversations such competition for turns is much less likely to arise, and in laboratory experiments with individual participants it does not arise at all. Therefore, all responses tend to be recorded. Thus, competition for turns may reduce the recorded mean turn transition times in multi-party conversations for a simple statistical reason: slow responses are not included in the means. We report two studies illustrating this point. We first report the results of simulations showing how much the response times in a laboratory experiment would be reduced if, for each trial, instead of recording all responses, only the fastest responses of several participants responding independently on the trial were recorded. We then present results from a quantitative corpus analysis comparing turn transition times in dyadic and triadic conversations. There was no significant group size effect in question-response transition times, where the present speaker often selects the next one, thus reducing competition between speakers. But, as predicted, triads showed shorter turn transition times than dyads for the remaining turn transitions, where competition for the floor was more likely to arise. Together, these data show that turn transition times in conversation should be interpreted in the context of group size, turn transition type, and social setting.
  • Horan Skilton, A., & Peeters, D. (2021). Cross-linguistic differences in demonstrative systems: Comparing spatial and non-spatial influences on demonstrative use in Ticuna and Dutch. Journal of Pragmatics, 180, 248-265. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2021.05.001.

    Abstract

    In all spoken languages, speakers use demonstratives – words like this and that – to refer to entities in their immediate environment. But which factors determine whether they use one demonstrative (this) or another (that)? Here we report the results of an experiment examining the effects of referent visibility, referent distance, and addressee location on the production of demonstratives by speakers of Ticuna (isolate; Brazil, Colombia, Peru), an Amazonian language with four demonstratives, and speakers of Dutch (Indo-European; Netherlands, Belgium), which has two demonstratives. We found that Ticuna speakers’ use of demonstratives displayed effects of addressee location and referent distance, but not referent visibility. By contrast, under comparable conditions, Dutch speakers displayed sensitivity only to referent distance. Interestingly, we also observed that Ticuna speakers consistently used demonstratives in all referential utterances in our experimental paradigm, while Dutch speakers strongly preferred to use definite articles. Taken together, these findings shed light on the significant diversity found in demonstrative systems across languages. Additionally, they invite researchers studying exophoric demonstratives to broaden their horizons by cross-linguistically investigating the factors involved in speakers’ choice of demonstratives over other types of referring expressions, especially articles.
  • Hörpel, S. G., Baier, L., Peremans, H., Reijniers, J., Wiegrebe, L., & Firzlaff, U. (2021). Communication breakdown: Limits of spectro-temporal resolution for the perception of bat communication calls. Scientific Reports, 11: 13708. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-92842-4.

    Abstract

    During vocal communication, the spectro‑temporal structure of vocalizations conveys important
    contextual information. Bats excel in the use of sounds for echolocation by meticulous encoding of
    signals in the temporal domain. We therefore hypothesized that for social communication as well,
    bats would excel at detecting minute distortions in the spectro‑temporal structure of calls. To test
    this hypothesis, we systematically introduced spectro‑temporal distortion to communication calls of
    Phyllostomus discolor bats. We broke down each call into windows of the same length and randomized
    the phase spectrum inside each window. The overall degree of spectro‑temporal distortion in
    communication calls increased with window length. Modelling the bat auditory periphery revealed
    that cochlear mechanisms allow discrimination of fast spectro‑temporal envelopes. We evaluated
    model predictions with experimental psychophysical and neurophysiological data. We first assessed
    bats’ performance in discriminating original versions of calls from increasingly distorted versions of
    the same calls. We further examined cortical responses to determine additional specializations for
    call discrimination at the cortical level. Psychophysical and cortical responses concurred with model
    predictions, revealing discrimination thresholds in the range of 8–15 ms randomization‑window
    length. Our data suggest that specialized cortical areas are not necessary to impart psychophysical
    resilience to temporal distortion in communication calls.

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  • Huisman, J. L. A., van Hout, R., & Majid, A. (2021). Patterns of semantic variation differ across body parts: evidence from the Japonic languages. Cognitive Linguistics, 32, 455-486. doi:10.1515/cog-2020-0079.

    Abstract

    The human body is central to myriad metaphors, so studying the conceptualisation of the body itself is critical if we are to understand its broader use. One essential but understudied issue is whether languages differ in which body parts they single out for naming. This paper takes a multi-method approach to investigate body part nomenclature within a single language family. Using both a naming task (Study 1) and colouring-in task (Study 2) to collect data from six Japonic languages, we found that lexical similarity for body part terminology was notably differentiated within Japonic, and similar variation was evident in semantics too. Novel application of cluster analysis on naming data revealed a relatively flat hierarchical structure for parts of the face, whereas parts of the body were organised with deeper hierarchical structure. The colouring data revealed that bounded parts show more stability across languages than unbounded parts. Overall, the data reveal there is not a single universal conceptualisation of the body as is often assumed, and that in-depth, multi-method explorations of under-studied languages are urgently required.
  • Huizeling, E., Wang, H., Holland, C., & Kessler, K. (2021). Changes in theta and alpha oscillatory signatures of attentional control in older and middle age. European Journal of Neuroscience, 54(1), 4314-4337. doi:10.1111/ejn.15259.

    Abstract

    Recent behavioural research has reported age-related changes in the costs of refocusing attention from a temporal (rapid serial visual presentation) to a spatial (visual search) task. Using magnetoencephalography, we have now compared the neural signatures of attention refocusing between three age groups (19–30, 40–49 and 60+ years) and found differences in task-related modulation and cortical localisation of alpha and theta oscillations. Efficient, faster refocusing in the youngest group compared to both middle age and older groups was reflected in parietal theta effects that were significantly reduced in the older groups. Residual parietal theta activity in older individuals was beneficial to attentional refocusing and could reflect preserved attention mechanisms. Slowed refocusing of attention, especially when a target required consolidation, in the older and middle-aged adults was accompanied by a posterior theta deficit and increased recruitment of frontal (middle-aged and older groups) and temporal (older group only) areas, demonstrating a posterior to anterior processing shift. Theta but not alpha modulation correlated with task performance, suggesting that older adults' stronger and more widely distributed alpha power modulation could reflect decreased neural precision or dedifferentiation but requires further investigation. Our results demonstrate that older adults present with different alpha and theta oscillatory signatures during attentional control, reflecting cognitive decline and, potentially, also different cognitive strategies in an attempt to compensate for decline.

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  • Humphries, S., Holler*, J., Crawford, T., & Poliakoff*, E. (2021). Cospeech gestures are a window into the effects of Parkinson’s disease on action representations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150(8), 1581-1597. doi:10.1037/xge0001002.

    Abstract

    -* indicates joint senior authors - Parkinson’s disease impairs motor function and cognition, which together affect language and
    communication. Co-speech gestures are a form of language-related actions that provide imagistic
    depictions of the speech content they accompany. Gestures rely on visual and motor imagery, but
    it is unknown whether gesture representations require the involvement of intact neural sensory
    and motor systems. We tested this hypothesis with a fine-grained analysis of co-speech action
    gestures in Parkinson’s disease. 37 people with Parkinson’s disease and 33 controls described
    two scenes featuring actions which varied in their inherent degree of bodily motion. In addition
    to the perspective of action gestures (gestural viewpoint/first- vs. third-person perspective), we
    analysed how Parkinson’s patients represent manner (how something/someone moves) and path
    information (where something/someone moves to) in gesture, depending on the degree of bodily
    motion involved in the action depicted. We replicated an earlier finding that people with
    Parkinson’s disease are less likely to gesture about actions from a first-person perspective – preferring instead to depict actions gesturally from a third-person perspective – and show that
    this effect is modulated by the degree of bodily motion in the actions being depicted. When
    describing high motion actions, the Parkinson’s group were specifically impaired in depicting
    manner information in gesture and their use of third-person path-only gestures was significantly
    increased. Gestures about low motion actions were relatively spared. These results inform our
    understanding of the neural and cognitive basis of gesture production by providing
    neuropsychological evidence that action gesture production relies on intact motor network
    function.

    Additional information

    Open data and code
  • Hustá, C., Zheng, X., Papoutsi, C., & Piai, V. (2021). Electrophysiological signatures of conceptual and lexical retrieval from semantic memory. Neuropsychologia, 161: 107988. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107988.

    Abstract

    Retrieval from semantic memory of conceptual and lexical information is essential for producing speech. It is unclear whether there are differences in the neural mechanisms of conceptual and lexical retrieval when spreading activation through semantic memory is initiated by verbal or nonverbal settings. The same twenty participants took part in two EEG experiments. The first experiment examined conceptual and lexical retrieval following nonverbal settings, whereas the second experiment was a replication of previous studies examining conceptual and lexical retrieval following verbal settings. Target pictures were presented after constraining and nonconstraining contexts. In the nonverbal settings, contexts were provided as two priming pictures (e.g., constraining: nest, feather; nonconstraining: anchor, lipstick; target picture: BIRD). In the verbal settings, contexts were provided as sentences (e.g., constraining: “The farmer milked a...”; nonconstraining: “The child drew a...”; target picture: COW). Target pictures were named faster following constraining contexts in both experiments, indicating that conceptual preparation starts before target picture onset in constraining conditions. In the verbal experiment, we replicated the alpha-beta power decreases in constraining relative to nonconstraining conditions before target picture onset. No such power decreases were found in the nonverbal experiment. Power decreases in constraining relative to nonconstraining conditions were significantly different between experiments. Our findings suggest that participants engage in conceptual preparation following verbal and nonverbal settings, albeit differently. The retrieval of a target word, initiated by verbal settings, is associated with alpha-beta power decreases. By contrast, broad conceptual preparation alone, prompted by nonverbal settings, does not seem enough to elicit alpha-beta power decreases. These findings have implications for theories of oscillations and semantic memory.

    Additional information

    1-s2.0-S0028393221002414-mmc1.pdf
  • Ille, S., Ohlerth, A.-K., Colle, D., Colle, H., Dragoy, O., Goodden, J., Robe, P., Rofes, A., Mandonnet, E., Robert, E., Satoer, D., Viegas, C., Visch-Brink, E., van Zandvoort, M., & Krieg, S. (2021). Augmented reality for the virtual dissection of white matter pathways. Acta Neurochirurgica, (4), 895-903. doi:10.1007/s00701-019-04159-x.

    Abstract

    Background The human white matter pathway network is complex and of critical importance for functionality. Thus, learning
    and understanding white matter tract anatomy is important for the training of neuroscientists and neurosurgeons. The study aims
    to test and evaluate a new method for fiber dissection using augmented reality (AR) in a group which is experienced in cadaver
    white matter dissection courses and in vivo tractography.
    Methods Fifteen neurosurgeons, neurolinguists, and neuroscientists participated in this questionnaire-based study. We presented
    five cases of patients with left-sided perisylvian gliomas who underwent awake craniotomy. Diffusion tensor imaging fiber
    tracking (DTI FT) was performed and the language-related networks were visualized separated in different tracts by color.
    Participants were able to virtually dissect the prepared DTI FTs using a spatial computer and AR goggles. The application
    was evaluated through a questionnaire with answers from 0 (minimum) to 10 (maximum).
    Results Participants rated the overall experience of AR fiber dissection with a median of 8 points (mean ± standard deviation 8.5 ± 1.4).
    Usefulness for fiber dissection courses and education in general was rated with 8 (8.3 ± 1.4) and 8 (8.1 ± 1.5) points, respectively.
    Educational value was expected to be high for several target audiences (student: median 9, 8.6 ± 1.4; resident: 9, 8.5 ± 1.8; surgeon: 9,
    8.2 ± 2.4; scientist: 8.5, 8.0 ± 2.4). Even clinical application of AR fiber dissection was expected to be of value with a median of 7
    points (7.0 ± 2.5)
  • Indefrey, P. (1998). De neurale architectuur van taal: Welke hersengebieden zijn betrokken bij het spreken. Neuropraxis, 2(6), 230-237.
  • Indefrey, P., Gruber, O., Brown, C. M., Hagoort, P., Posse, S., & Kleinschmidt, A. (1998). Lexicality and not syllable frequency determine lateralized premotor activation during the pronunciation of word-like stimuli: An fMRI study. NeuroImage, 7, S4.
  • Yu, X., Janse, E., & Schoonen, R. (2021). The effect of learning context on L2 listening development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 43(2), 329-354. doi:10.1017/S0272263120000534.

    Abstract

    Little research has been done on the effect of learning context on L2 listening development. Motivated by DeKeyser’s (2015) skill acquisition theory of second language acquisition, this study compares L2 listening development in study abroad (SA) and at home (AH) contexts from both language knowledge and processing perspectives. One hundred forty-nine Chinese postgraduates studying in either China or the United Kingdom participated in a battery of listening tasks at the beginning and at the end of an academic year. These tasks measure auditory vocabulary knowledge and listening processing efficiency (i.e., accuracy, speed, and stability of processing) in word recognition, grammatical processing, and semantic analysis. Results show that, provided equal starting levels, the SA learners made more progress than the AH learners in speed of processing across the language processing tasks, with less clear results for vocabulary acquisition. Studying abroad may be an effective intervention for L2 learning, especially in terms of processing speed.
  • Yu, X., Janse, E., & Schoonen, R. (2021). The effect of learning context on L2 listening development: Knowledge and processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 43, 329-354. doi:10.1017/S0272263120000534.

    Abstract

    Little research has been done on the effect of learning context on L2 listening development. Motivated by DeKeyser’s (2015) skill acquisition theory of second language acquisition, this study compares L2 listening development in study abroad (SA) and at home (AH) contexts from both language knowledge and processing perspectives. One hundred forty-nine Chinese postgraduates studying in either China or the United Kingdom participated in a battery of listening tasks at the beginning and at the end of an academic year. These tasks measure auditory vocabulary knowledge and listening processing efficiency (i.e., accuracy, speed, and stability of processing) in word recognition, grammatical processing, and semantic analysis. Results show that, provided equal starting levels, the SA learners made more progress than the AH learners in speed of processing across the language processing tasks, with less clear results for vocabulary acquisition. Studying abroad may be an effective intervention for L2 learning, especially in terms of processing speed.
  • Janse, E., & Andringa, S. J. (2021). The roles of cognitive abilities and hearing acuity in older adults’ recognition of words taken from fast and spectrally reduced speech. Applied Psycholinguistics, 42(3), 763-790. doi:10.1017/S0142716421000047.

    Abstract

    Previous literature has identified several cognitive abilities as predictors of individual differences in speech perception. Working memory was chief among them, but effects have also been found for processing speed. Most research has been conducted on speech in noise, but fast and unclear articulation also makes listening challenging, particularly for older listeners. As a first step toward specifying the cognitive mechanisms underlying spoken word recognition, we set up this study to determine which factors explain unique variation in word identification accuracy in fast speech, and the extent to which this was affected by further degradation of the speech signal. To that end, 105 older adults were tested on identification accuracy of fast words in unaltered and degraded conditions in which the speech stimuli were low-pass filtered. They were also tested on processing speed, memory, vocabulary knowledge, and hearing sensitivity. A structural equation analysis showed that only memory and hearing sensitivity explained unique variance in word recognition in both listening conditions. Working memory was more strongly associated with performance in the unfiltered than in the filtered condition. These results suggest that memory skills, rather than speed, facilitate the mapping of single words onto stored lexical representations, particularly in conditions of medium difficulty.
  • Jansen, N. A., Braden, R. O., Srivastava, S., Otness, E. F., Lesca, G., Rossi, M., Nizon, M., Bernier, R. A., Quelin, C., Van Haeringen, A., Kleefstra, T., Wong, M. M. K., Whalen, S., Fisher, S. E., Morgan, A. T., & Van Bon, B. W. (2021). Clinical delineation of SETBP1 haploinsufficiency disorder. European Journal of Human Genetics, 29, 1198 -1205. doi:10.1038/s41431-021-00888-9.

    Abstract

    SETBP1 haploinsufficiency disorder (MIM#616078) is caused by haploinsufficiency of SETBP1 on chromosome 18q12.3, but there has not yet been any systematic evaluation of the major features of this monogenic syndrome, assessing penetrance and expressivity. We describe the first comprehensive study to delineate the associated clinical phenotype, with findings from 34 individuals, including 24 novel cases, all of whom have a SETBP1 loss-of-function variant or single (coding) gene deletion, confirmed by molecular diagnostics. The most commonly reported clinical features included mild motor developmental delay, speech impairment, intellectual disability, hypotonia, vision impairment, attention/concentration deficits, and hyperactivity. Although there is a mild overlap in certain facial features, the disorder does not lead to a distinctive recognizable facial gestalt. As well as providing insight into the clinical spectrum of SETBP1 haploinsufficiency disorder, this reports puts forward care recommendations for patient management.

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  • Janssen, J., Díaz-Caneja, C. M., Alloza, C., Schippers, A., De Hoyos, L., Santonja, J., Gordaliza, P. M., Buimer, E. E. L., van Haren, N. E. M., Cahn, W., Arango, C., Kahn, R. S., Hulshoff Pol, H. E., & Schnack, H. G. (2021). Dissimilarity in sulcal width patterns in the cortex can be used to identify patients with schizophrenia with extreme deficits in cognitive performance. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 47(2), 552-561. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbaa131.

    Abstract

    Schizophrenia is a biologically complex disorder with multiple regional deficits in cortical brain morphology. In addition, interindividual heterogeneity of cortical morphological metrics is larger in patients with schizophrenia when compared to healthy controls. Exploiting interindividual differences in the severity of cortical morphological deficits in patients instead of focusing on group averages may aid in detecting biologically informed homogeneous subgroups. The person-based similarity index (PBSI) of brain morphology indexes an individual’s morphometric similarity across numerous cortical regions amongst a sample of healthy subjects. We extended the PBSI such that it indexes the morphometric similarity of an independent individual (eg, a patient) with respect to healthy control subjects. By employing a normative modeling approach on longitudinal data, we determined an individual’s degree of morphometric dissimilarity to the norm. We calculated the PBSI for sulcal width (PBSI-SW) in patients with schizophrenia and healthy control subjects (164 patients and 164 healthy controls; 656 magnetic resonance imaging scans) and associated it with cognitive performance and cortical sulcation index. A subgroup of patients with markedly deviant PBSI-SW showed extreme deficits in cognitive performance and cortical sulcation. Progressive reduction of PBSI-SW in the schizophrenia group relative to healthy controls was driven by these deviating individuals. By explicitly leveraging interindividual differences in the severity of PBSI-SW deficits, neuroimaging-driven subgrouping of patients is feasible. As such, our results pave the way for future applications of morphometric similarity indices for subtyping of clinical populations.

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  • Jara-Ettinger, J., & Rubio-Fernández, P. (2021). Quantitative mental state attributions in language understanding. Science Advances, 7: eabj0970. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abj0970.

    Abstract

    Human social intelligence relies on our ability to infer other people’s mental states such as their beliefs, desires,and intentions. While people are proficient at mental state inference from physical action, it is unknown whether people can make inferences of comparable granularity from simple linguistic events. Here, we show that people can make quantitative mental state attributions from simple referential expressions, replicating the fine-grained inferential structure characteristic of nonlinguistic theory of mind. Moreover, people quantitatively adjust these inferences after brief exposures to speaker-specific speech patterns. These judgments matched the predictions made by our computational model of theory of mind in language, but could not be explained by a simpler qualitative model that attributes mental states deductively. Our findings show how the connection between language and theory of mind runs deep, with their interaction showing in one of the most fundamental forms of human communication: reference.

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  • Jeltema, H., Ohlerth, A.-K., de Wit, A., Wagemakers, M., Rofes, A., Bastiaanse, R., & Drost, G. (2021). Comparing navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation mapping and "gold standard" direct cortical stimulation mapping in neurosurgery: a systematic review. Neurosurgical Review, (4), 1903-1920. doi:10.1007/s10143-020-01397-x.

    Abstract

    The objective of this systematic review is to create an overview of the literature on the comparison of navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) as a mapping tool to the current gold standard, which is (intraoperative) direct cortical stimulation (DCS) mapping. A search in the databases of PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science was performed. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and recommendations were used. Thirty-five publications were included in the review, describing a total of 552 patients. All studies concerned either mapping of motor or language function. No comparative data for nTMS and DCS for other neurological functions were found. For motor mapping, the distances between the cortical representation of the different muscle groups identified by nTMS and DCS varied between 2 and 16 mm. Regarding mapping of language function, solely an object naming task was performed in the comparative studies on nTMS and DCS. Sensitivity and specificity ranged from 10 to 100% and 13.3–98%, respectively, when nTMS language mapping was compared with DCS mapping. The positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) ranged from 17 to 75% and 57–100% respectively. The available evidence for nTMS as a mapping modality for motor and language function is discussed.
  • Jones, G., Cabiddu, F., Andrews, M., & Rowland, C. F. (2021). Chunks of phonological knowledge play a significant role in children’s word learning and explain effects of neighborhood size, phonotactic probability, word frequency and word length. Journal of Memory and Language, 119: 104232. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2021.104232.

    Abstract

    A key omission from many accounts of children’s early word learning is the linguistic knowledge that the child has acquired up to the point when learning occurs. We simulate this knowledge using a computational model that learns phoneme and word sequence knowledge from naturalistic language corpora. We show how this simple model is able to account for effects of word length, word frequency, neighborhood density and phonotactic probability on children’s early word learning. Moreover, we show how effects of neighborhood density and phonotactic probability on word learning are largely influenced by word length, with our model being able to capture all effects. We then use predictions from the model to show how the ease by which a child learns a new word from maternal input is directly influenced by the phonological knowledge that the child has acquired from other words up to the point of encountering the new word. There are major implications of this work: models and theories of early word learning need to incorporate existing sublexical and lexical knowledge in explaining developmental change while well-established indices of word learning are rejected in favor of phonological knowledge of varying grain sizes.

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  • Jongman, S. R., Khoe, Y. H., & Hintz, F. (2021). Vocabulary size influences spontaneous speech in native language users: Validating the use of automatic speech recognition in individual differences research. Language and Speech, 64(1), 35-51. doi:10.1177/0023830920911079.

    Abstract

    Previous research has shown that vocabulary size affects performance on laboratory word production tasks. Individuals who know many words show faster lexical access and retrieve more words belonging to pre-specified categories than individuals who know fewer words. The present study examined the relationship between receptive vocabulary size and speaking skills as assessed in a natural sentence production task. We asked whether measures derived from spontaneous responses to every-day questions correlate with the size of participants’ vocabulary. Moreover, we assessed the suitability of automatic speech recognition for the analysis of participants’ responses in complex language production data. We found that vocabulary size predicted indices of spontaneous speech: Individuals with a larger vocabulary produced more words and had a higher speech-silence ratio compared to individuals with a smaller vocabulary. Importantly, these relationships were reliably identified using manual and automated transcription methods. Taken together, our results suggest that spontaneous speech elicitation is a useful method to investigate natural language production and that automatic speech recognition can alleviate the burden of labor-intensive speech transcription.
  • Jordens, P. (1998). Defaultformen des Präteritums. Zum Erwerb der Vergangenheitsmorphologie im Niederlänidischen. In H. Wegener (Ed.), Eine zweite Sprache lernen (pp. 61-88). Tübingen, Germany: Verlag Gunter Narr.
  • Kapteijns, B., & Hintz, F. (2021). Comparing predictors of sentence self-paced reading times: Syntactic complexity versus transitional probability metrics. PLoS One, 16(7): e0254546. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0254546.

    Abstract

    When estimating the influence of sentence complexity on reading, researchers typically opt for one of two main approaches: Measuring syntactic complexity (SC) or transitional probability (TP). Comparisons of the predictive power of both approaches have yielded mixed results. To address this inconsistency, we conducted a self-paced reading experiment. Participants read sentences of varying syntactic complexity. From two alternatives, we selected the set of SC and TP measures, respectively, that provided the best fit to the self-paced reading data. We then compared the contributions of the SC and TP measures to reading times when entered into the same model. Our results showed that both measures explained significant portions of variance in self-paced reading times. Thus, researchers aiming to measure sentence complexity should take both SC and TP into account. All of the analyses were conducted with and without control variables known to influence reading times (word/sentence length, word frequency and word position) to showcase how the effects of SC and TP change in the presence of the control variables.

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  • Karaca, F., Brouwer, S., Unsworth, S., & Huettig, F. (2021). Prediction in bilingual children: The missing piece of the puzzle. In E. Kaan, & T. Grüter (Eds.), Prediction in Second Language Processing and Learning (pp. 116-137). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    A wealth of studies has shown that more proficient monolingual speakers are better at predicting upcoming information during language comprehension. Similarly, prediction skills of adult second language (L2) speakers in their L2 have also been argued to be modulated by their L2 proficiency. How exactly language proficiency and prediction are linked, however, is yet to be systematically investigated. One group of language users which has the potential to provide invaluable insights into this link is bilingual children. In this paper, we compare bilingual children’s prediction skills with those of monolingual children and adult L2 speakers, and show how investigating bilingual children’s prediction skills may contribute to our understanding of how predictive processing works.
  • Karadöller, D. Z., Sumer, B., & Ozyurek, A. (2021). Effects and non-effects of late language exposure on spatial language development: Evidence from deaf adults and children. Language Learning and Development, 17(1), 1-25. doi:10.1080/15475441.2020.1823846.

    Abstract

    Late exposure to the first language, as in the case of deaf children with hearing parents, hinders the production of linguistic expressions, even in adulthood. Less is known about the development of language soon after language exposure and if late exposure hinders all domains of language in children and adults. We compared late signing adults and children (MAge = 8;5) 2 years after exposure to sign language, to their age-matched native signing peers in expressions of two types of locative relations that are acquired in certain cognitive-developmental order: view-independent (IN-ON-UNDER) and view-dependent (LEFT-RIGHT). Late signing children and adults differed from native signers in their use of linguistic devices for view-dependent relations but not for view-independent relations. These effects were also modulated by the morphological complexity. Hindering effects of late language exposure on the development of language in children and adults are not absolute but are modulated by cognitive and linguistic complexity.
  • Kember, H., Choi, J., Yu, J., & Cutler, A. (2021). The processing of linguistic prominence. Language and Speech, 64(2), 413-436. doi:10.1177/0023830919880217.

    Abstract

    Prominence, the expression of informational weight within utterances, can be signaled by
    prosodic highlighting (head-prominence, as in English) or by position (as in Korean edge-prominence).
    Prominence confers processing advantages, even if conveyed only by discourse manipulations. Here
    we compared processing of prominence in English and Korean, using a task that indexes processing
    success, namely recognition memory. In each language, participants’ memory was tested for target
    words heard in sentences in which they were prominent due to prosody, position, both or neither.
    Prominence produced recall advantage, but the relative effects differed across language. For Korean
    listeners the positional advantage was greater, but for English listeners prosodic and syntactic
    prominence had equivalent and additive effects. In a further experiment semantic and phonological
    foils tested depth of processing of the recall targets. Both foil types were correctly rejected,
    suggesting that semantic processing had not reached the level at which word form was no longer
    available. Together the results suggest that prominence processing is primarily driven by universal
    effects of information structure; but language-specific differences in frequency of experience prompt
    different relative advantages of prominence signal types. Processing efficiency increases in each case,
    however, creating more accurate and more rapidly contactable memory representations.
  • Kempen, G. (1981). De architectuur van het spreken. TTT: Interdisciplinair Tijdschrift voor Taal & Tekstwetenschap, 1, 110-123.
  • Kempen, G. (1998). Comparing and explaining the trajectories of first and second language acquisition: In search of the right mix of psychological and linguistic factors [Commentory]. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 29-30. doi:10.1017/S1366728998000066.

    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).
  • Kempen, G., & Van Wijk, C. (1981). Leren formuleren: Hoe uit opstellen een objektieve index voor formuleervaardigheid afgeleid kan worden. Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing, 3, 32-44.
  • Kempen, G., & Fokkema, S. (1981). Ten geleide. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Psychologie en haar Grensgebieden, 36, 345-346.
  • Kempen, G. (1998). Sentence parsing. In A. D. Friederici (Ed.), Language comprehension: A biological perspective (pp. 213-228). Berlin: Springer.
  • Kempen, G. (1981). Taalpsychologie. In H. Duijker, & P. Vroon (Eds.), Codex Psychologicus (pp. 205-221). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Kidd, L., & Rowland, C. F. (2021). The effect of language-focused professional development on the knowledge and behaviour of preschool practitioners. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 21(1), 27-59. doi:10.1177/1468798418803664.

    Abstract

    The purpose of this project was to investigate the effectiveness of a language-focused professional development programme on the knowledge and behaviour of preschool practitioners (sometimes called early years practitioners) in the UK. In Study 1 we determined whether the training received by practitioners is effective in improving their knowledge of how to support children’s language and communicative development. In Study 2 we tested whether trained practitioners, and practitioners from centres with embedded Language Champions, were able to implement the techniques they had been taught. For this, we video-recorded practitioners interacting, one to one, with 2- and 3–4-year-old children in their centres. We conclude that (1) practitioners retain the knowledge they have been taught, both about how children learn and about how to promote this learning, and that (2), in some respects, this knowledge translates well into practice; practitioners in centres with embedded Language Champions and trained practitioners used language-enriching behaviours when interacting with children more often than did untrained practitioners. We discuss how the translation of some techniques into overt behaviour could be made more effective

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  • Kinoshita, S., & Verdonschot, R. G. (2021). Phonological encoding is free from orthographic influence: evidence from a picture variant of the phonological Stroop task. Psychological Research, 85, 1340-1347. doi:10.1007/s00426-020-01315-2.

    Abstract

    The phonological Stroop task, in which the participant names the color of written distractors, is being used increasingly to study the phonological encoding process in speech production. A brief review of experimental paradigms used to study the phonological encoding process indicated that currently it is not known whether the onset overlap benefit (faster color naming when the distractor shares the onset segment with the color name) in a phonological Stroop task is due to phonology or orthography. The present paper investigated this question using a picture variant of the phonological Stroop task. Participants named a small set of line drawings of animals (e.g., camel) with a pseudoword distractor printed on it. Picture naming was facilitated when the distractor shared the onset segment with the picture name regardless of orthographic overlap (CUST–camel = KUST–camel < NUST–camel). We conclude that the picture variant of the phonological Stroop task is a useful tool to study the phonological encoding process, free of orthographic influence.

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    426_2020_1315_MOESM1_ESM.docx
  • Kinoshita, S., Yu, L., Verdonschot, R. G., & Norris, D. (2021). Letter identity and visual similarity in the processing of diacritic letters. Memory & Cognition, 49(4), 815-825. doi:10.3758/s13421-020-01125-2.

    Abstract

    Are letters with a diacritic (e.g., a) recognized as a variant of the base letter (e.g., a), or as a separate letter identity? Two recent masked priming studies, one in French and one in Spanish, investigated this question, concluding that this depends on the language-specific linguistic function served by the diacritic. Experiment 1 tested this linguistic function hypothesis using Japanese kana, in which diacritics signal consonant voicing, and like French and unlike Spanish, provide lexical contrast. Contrary to the hypothesis, Japanese kana yielded the pattern of diacritic priming like Spanish. Specifically, for a target kana with a diacritic (e.g., (sic), /ga/), the kana prime without the diacritic (e.g., (sic), /ka/) facilitated recognition almost as much as the identity prime (e.g., (sic) = (sic)), whereas for a target kana without a diacritic, the kana prime with the diacritic produced less facilitation than the identity prime (e.g., (sic) < (sic)). We suggest that the pattern of diacritic priming has little to do with linguistic function, and instead it stems from a general property of visual object recognition. Experiment 2 tested this hypothesis using visually similar letters of the Latin alphabet that differ in the presence/absence of a visual feature (e.g., O and Q). The same asymmetry in priming was observed. These findings are consistent with the noisy channel model of letter/word recognition (Norris & Kinoshita, Psychological Review, 119, 517-545, 2012a).
  • Klein, W. (2021). Another analysis of counterfactuality: Replies. Theoretical Linguistics, 47, 313-349. doi:10.1515/tl-2021-2028.
  • Klein, W. (2021). Another way to look at counterfactuals. Theoretical Linguistics, 47, 189-226. doi:10.1515/tl-2021-2019.

    Abstract

    Counterfactuals such as If the world did not exist, we would not notice it have been a challenge for philosophers and linguists since antiquity. There is no generally accepted semantic analysis. The prevalent view, developed in varying forms by Robert Stalnaker, David Lewis, and others, enriches the idea of strict implication by the idea of a “minimal revision” of the actual world. Objections mainly address problems of maximal similarity between worlds. In this paper, I will raise several problems of a different nature and draw attention to several phenomena that are relevant for counterfactuality but rarely discussed in that context. An alternative analysis that is very close to the linguistic facts is proposed. A core notion is the “situation talked about”: it makes little sense to discuss whether an assertion is true or false unless it is clear which situation is talked about. In counterfactuals, this situation is marked as not belonging to the actual world. Typically, this is done in the form of the finite verb in the main clause. The if-clause is optional and has only a supportive role: it provides information about the world to which the situation talked about belongs. Counterfactuals only speak about some nonactual world, of which we only know what results from the protasis. In order to judge them as true or false, an additional assumption is required: they are warranted according to the same criteria that warrant the corresponding indicative assertion. Overall similarity between worlds is irrelevant.
  • Klein, W. (2021). Das „Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt Pidgin-Deutsch “und die Folgen. In B. Ahrenholz, & M. Rost-Roth (Eds.), Ein Blick zurück nach vorn: Frühe deutsche Forschung zu Zweitspracherwerb, Migration, Mehrsprachigkeit und zweitsprachbezogener Sprachdidaktik sowie ihre Bedeutung heute (pp. 50-95). Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Klein, W., & Rath, R. (1981). Automatische Lemmatisierung deutscher Flexionsformen. In R. Herzog (Ed.), Computer in der Übersetzungswissenschaft (pp. 94-142). Framkfurt am Main, Bern: Verlag Peter Lang.
  • Klein, W. (1998). Ein Blick zurück auf die Varietätengrammatik. In U. Ammon, K. Mattheier, & P. Nelde (Eds.), Sociolinguistica: Internationales Jahrbuch für europäische Soziolinguistik (pp. 22-38). Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  • Klein, W. (1981). Eine kommentierte Bibliographie zur Computerlinguistik. In R. Herzog (Ed.), Computer in der Übersetzungswissenschaft (pp. 95-142). Frankfurt am Main: Lang.
  • Klein, W. (1998). Assertion and finiteness. In N. Dittmar, & Z. Penner (Eds.), Issues in the theory of language acquisition: Essays in honor of Jürgen Weissenborn (pp. 225-245). Bern: Peter Lang.
  • Klein, W. (1967). Einführende Bibliographie zu "Mathematik und Dichtung". In H. Kreuzer, & R. Gunzenhäuser (Eds.), Mathematik und Dichtung (pp. 347-359). München: Nymphenburger.
  • Klein, W. (1981). Forschungsprojekt "Zweitspracherwerb ausländischer Arbeiter". Studium Linguistik, 11, 84-89.
  • Klein, W. (1981). Knowing a language and knowing to communicate: A case study in foreign workers' communication. In A. Vermeer (Ed.), Language problems of minority groups (pp. 75-95). Tilburg: Tilburg University.
  • Klein, W. (1981). L'acquisition des pronoms personnels allemands par des travailleurs espagnols et italiens. GRECO, 13, 19-31.
  • Klein, W. (1981). Logik der Argumentation. In Institut für deutsche Sprache (Ed.), Dialogforschung: Jahrbuch 1980 des Instituts für deutsche Sprache (pp. 226-264). Düsseldorf: Schwann.
  • Klein, W. (1998). The contribution of second language acquisition research. Language Learning, 48, 527-550. doi:10.1111/0023-8333.00057.

    Abstract

    During the last 25 years, second language acquisition (SLA) research hasmade considerable progress, but is still far from proving a solid basis for foreign language teaching, or from a general theory of SLA. In addition, its status within the linguistic disciplines is still very low. I argue this has not much to do with low empirical or theoretical standards in the field—in this regard, SLA research is fully competitive—but with a particular perspective on the acquisition process: SLA researches learners' utterances as deviations from a certain target, instead of genuine manifestations of underlying language capacity; it analyses them in terms of what they are not rather than what they are. For some purposes such a "target deviation perspective" makes sense, but it will not help SLA researchers to substantially and independently contribute to a deeper understanding of the structure and function of the human language faculty. Therefore, these findings will remain of limited interest to other scientists until SLA researchers consider learner varieties a normal, in fact typical, manifestation of this unique human capacity.
  • Klein, W. (1981). Some rules of regular ellipsis in German. In W. Klein, & W. J. M. Levelt (Eds.), Crossing the boundaries in linguistics: Studies presented to Manfred Bierwisch (pp. 51-78). Dordrecht: Reidel.
  • Klein, W., & Vater, H. (1998). The perfect in English and German. In L. Kulikov, & H. Vater (Eds.), Typology of verbal categories: Papers presented to Vladimir Nedjalkov on the occasion of his 70th birthday (pp. 215-235). Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  • Klein, W. (1998). Von der einfältigen Wißbegierde. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 112, 6-13.
  • Kochari, A. R., Lewis, A. G., Schoffelen, J.-M., & Schriefers, H. (2021). Semantic and syntactic composition of minimal adjective-noun phrases in Dutch: An MEG study. Neuropsychologia, 155: 107754. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107754.

    Abstract

    The possibility to combine smaller units of meaning (e.g., words) to create new and more complex meanings (e.g., phrases and sentences) is a fundamental feature of human language. In the present project, we investigated how the brain supports the semantic and syntactic composition of two-word adjective-noun phrases in Dutch, using magnetoencephalography (MEG). The present investigation followed up on previous studies reporting a composition effect in the left anterior temporal lobe (LATL) when comparing neural activity at nouns combined with adjectives, as opposed to nouns in a non-compositional context. The first aim of the present study was to investigate whether this effect, as well as its modulation by noun specificity and adjective class, can also be observed in Dutch. A second aim was to investigate to what extent these effects may be driven by syntactic composition rather than primarily by semantic composition as was previously proposed. To this end, a novel condition was administered in which participants saw nouns combined with pseudowords lacking meaning but agreeing with the nouns in terms of grammatical gender, as real adjectives would. We failed to observe a composition effect or its modulation in both a confirmatory analysis (focused on the cortical region and time-window where it has previously been reported) and in exploratory analyses (where we tested multiple regions and an extended potential time-window of the effect). A syntactically driven composition effect was also not observed in our data. We do, however, successfully observe an independent, previously reported effect on single word processing in our data, confirming that our MEG data processing pipeline does meaningfully capture language processing activity by the brain. The failure to observe the composition effect in LATL is surprising given that it has been previously reported in multiple studies. Reviewing all previous studies investigating this effect, we propose that materials and a task involving imagery might be necessary for this effect to be observed. In addition, we identified substantial variability in the regions of interest analyzed in previous studies, which warrants additional checks of robustness of the effect. Further research should identify limits and conditions under which this effect can be observed. The failure to observe specifically a syntactic composition effect in such minimal phrases is less surprising given that it has not been previously reported in MEG data.
  • Kong, X., Postema, M., Schijven, D., Carrion Castillo, A., Pepe, A., Crivello, F., Joliot, M., Mazoyer, B., Fisher, S. E., & Francks, C. (2021). Large-scale phenomic and genomic analysis of brain asymmetrical skew. Cerebral Cortex, 31(9), 4151-4168. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhab075.

    Abstract

    The human cerebral hemispheres show a left–right asymmetrical torque pattern, which has been claimed to be absent in chimpanzees. The functional significance and developmental mechanisms are unknown. Here, we carried out the largest-ever analysis of global brain shape asymmetry in magnetic resonance imaging data. Three population datasets were used, UK Biobank (N = 39 678), Human Connectome Project (N = 1113), and BIL&GIN (N = 453). At the population level, there was an anterior and dorsal skew of the right hemisphere, relative to the left. Both skews were associated independently with handedness, and various regional gray and white matter metrics oppositely in the two hemispheres, as well as other variables related to cognitive functions, sociodemographic factors, and physical and mental health. The two skews showed single nucleotide polymorphisms-based heritabilities of 4–13%, but also substantial polygenicity in causal mixture model analysis, and no individually significant loci were found in genome-wide association studies for either skew. There was evidence for a significant genetic correlation between horizontal brain skew and autism, which requires future replication. These results provide the first large-scale description of population-average brain skews and their inter-individual variations, their replicable associations with handedness, and insights into biological and other factors which associate with human brain asymmetry.
  • Konishi, M., Verdonschot, R. G., & Kakimoto, N. (2021). An investigation of tooth loss factors in elderly patients using panoramic radiographs. Oral Radiology, 37(3), 436-442. doi:10.1007/s11282-020-00475-6.

    Abstract

    Objectives The aim of this study was to observe the dental condition in a group of elderly patients over a period of 10 years in order to clarify important risk factors. Materials and methods Participants were elderly patients (in their eighties) who took panoramic radiographs between 2015 and 2016, and for whom panoramic radiographs taken around 10 year earlier were also available. The number of remaining and lost teeth, the Eichner Index, the presence or absence of molar occlusion, the respective condition of dental pulp, dental crowns, alveolar bone resorption, as well as periapical lesions were investigated through the analysis of panoramic radiographs. Additionally, other important variables were collected from patients' medical records. From the obtained panoramic radiograph sets, the patients' dental condition was investigated, and a systematic comparison was conducted. Results The analysis of the panoramic radiographs showed that the number of remaining teeth decreased from an average of 20.8-15.5, and the percentage of patients with 20 or more teeth decreased from 69.2 to 26.9%. A factor analysis investigating tooth loss risk suggested that tooth loss was associated with the bridge, P2 or greater resorption of the alveolar bone, and apical lesions, and gender (with males having a higher risk compared to females). Conclusions Teeth showing P2 or greater alveolar bone resorption, bridge, and apical lesions on panoramic radiographs are most likely to be lost in an elderly patient's near future. Consequently, this group should be encouraged to visit their dental clinics regularly and receive comprehensive instruction on individual self-care methods.
  • Konishi, M., Fujita, M., Shimabukuro, K., Wongratwanich, P., Verdonschot, R. G., & Kakimoto, N. (2021). Intraoral ultrasonographic features of tongue cancer and the incidence of cervical lymph node metastasis. Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, 79(4), 932-939. doi:10.1016/j.joms.2020.09.006.

    Abstract

    Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the visual characteristics of tongue lesion images obtained through intraoral ultrasonographic examination and the occurrence of late cervical lymph node metastasis in patients with tongue cancer.
    Patients and Methods: This study investigated patients with primary tongue cancer who were examined using intraoral ultrasonography at Hiroshima University Hospital between January 2014 and December 2017. The inclusion criteria were squamous cell carcinoma, curative treatment administration, lateral side of tongue, surgery or brachytherapy alone, no cervical lymph node or distant metastasis as primary treatment, and treatment in our hospital. The exclusion criteria were carcinoma in situ, palliative treatment, dorsum of tongue, and multiple primary cancers. The follow-up period was more than 1 year. The primary endpoint was the occurrence of late cervical lymph node metastasis, and the primary predictor variables were age, gender, longest diameter, thickness, margin or border shapes of the lesion, and treatment methods. The relationship between the occurrence of late cervical lymph node metastasis and the longest diameter, thickness, margin types, and border types as evaluated through intraoral ultrasonography were assessed. The data were collected through a retrospective chart review.
    Results: Fifty-four patients were included in this study. The analysis indicated that irregular lesion margins were significantly associated with the occurrence of late cervical lymph node metastasis (P < .0001). The cutoff value for late cervical lymph node metastasis was 21.2 mm for the longest diameter and 3.9 mm for the thickness.
    Conclusions: The results of this study indicates that the irregular lesion margin assessed using intraoral ultrasonography may serve as an effective predictor of late cervical lymph node metastasis in N0 cases. (C) 2020 American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
  • Konishi, M., Fujita, M., Takeuchi, Y., Kubo, K., Imano, N., Nishibuchi, I., Murakami, Y., Shimabukuro, K., Wongratwanich, P., Verdonschot, R. G., Kakimoto, N., & Nagata, Y. (2021). Treatment outcomes of real-time intraoral sonography-guided implantation technique of 198Au grain brachytherapy for T1 and T2 tongue cancer. Journal of Radiation Research, 62(5), 871-876. doi:10.1093/jrr/rrab059.

    Abstract

    It is often challenging to determine the accurate size and shape of oral lesions through computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) when they are very small or obscured by metallic artifacts, such as dental prostheses. Intraoral ultrasonography (IUS) has been shown to be beneficial in obtaining precise information about total tumor extension, as well as the exact location and guiding the insertion of catheters during interstitial brachytherapy. We evaluated the role of IUS in assessing the clinical outcomes of interstitial brachytherapy with 198Au grains in tongue cancer through a retrospective medical chart review. The data from 45 patients with T1 (n = 21) and T2 (n = 24) tongue cancer, who were mainly treated with 198Au grain implants between January 2005 and April 2019, were included in this study. 198Au grain implantations were carried out, and positioning of the implants was confirmed by IUS, to ensure that 198Au grains were appropriately placed for the deep border of the tongue lesion. The five-year local control rates of T1 and T2 tongue cancers were 95.2% and 95.5%, respectively. We propose that the use of IUS to identify the extent of lesions and the position of implanted grains is effective when performing brachytherapy with 198Au grains.
  • Köster, O., Hess, M. M., Schiller, N. O., & Künzel, H. J. (1998). The correlation between auditory speech sensitivity and speaker recognition ability. Forensic Linguistics: The international Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 5, 22-32.

    Abstract

    In various applications of forensic phonetics the question arises as to how far aural-perceptual speaker recognition performance is reliable. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the relationship between speaker recognition results and human perception/production abilities like musicality or speech sensitivity. In this study, performance in a speaker recognition experiment and a speech sensitivity test are correlated. The results show a moderately significant positive correlation between the two tasks. Generally, performance in the speaker recognition task was better than in the speech sensitivity test. Professionals in speech and singing yielded a more homogeneous correlation than non-experts. Training in speech as well as choir-singing seems to have a positive effect on performance in speaker recognition. It may be concluded, firstly, that in cases where the reliability of voice line-up results or the credibility of a testimony have to be considered, the speech sensitivity test could be a useful indicator. Secondly, the speech sensitivity test might be integrated into the canon of possible procedures for the accreditation of forensic phoneticians. Both tests may also be used in combination.
  • Krämer, I. (1998). Children's interpretations of indefinite object noun phrases. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 1998, 163-174. doi:10.1075/avt.15.15kra.
  • Kuijpers, C. T., Coolen, R., Houston, D., & Cutler, A. (1998). Using the head-turning technique to explore cross-linguistic performance differences. In C. Rovee-Collier, L. Lipsitt, & H. Hayne (Eds.), Advances in infancy research: Vol. 12 (pp. 205-220). Stamford: Ablex.
  • Kupisch, T., Pereira Soares, S. M., Puig-Mayenco, E., & Rothman, J. (2021). Multilingualism and Chomsky's Generative Grammar. In N. Allott (Ed.), A companion to Chomsky (pp. 232-242). doi:10.1002/9781119598732.ch15.

    Abstract

    Like Einstein's general theory of relativity is concerned with explaining the basics of an observable experience – i.e., gravity – most people take for granted that Chomsky's theory of generative grammar (GG) is concerned with the basic nature of language. This chapter highlights a mere subset of central constructs in GG, showing how they have featured prominently and thus shaped formal linguistic studies in multilingualism. Because multilingualism includes a wide range of nonmonolingual populations, the constructs are divided across child bilingualism and adult third language for greater coverage. In the case of the former, the chapter examines how poverty of the stimulus has been investigated. Using the nascent field of L3/Ln acquisition as the backdrop, it discusses how the GG constructs of I-language versus E-language sit at the core of debates regarding the very notion of what linguistic transfer and mental representations should be taken to be.
  • Lattenkamp, E. Z., Hörpel, S. G., Mengede, J., & Firzlaff, U. (2021). A researcher’s guide to the comparison of vocal production learning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 376: 20200237. doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0237.

    Abstract

    Vocal production learning (VPL) is the capacity to learn to produce new vocalizations, which is a rare ability in the animal kingdom and thus far has only been identified in a handful of mammalian taxa and three groups of birds. Over the last few decades, approaches to the demonstration of VPL have varied among taxa, sound production systems and functions. These discrepancies strongly impede direct comparisons between studies. In the light of the growing number of experimental studies reporting VPL, the need for comparability is becoming more and more pressing. The comparative evaluation of VPL across studies would be facilitated by unified and generalized reporting standards, which would allow a better positioning of species on any proposed VPL continuum. In this paper, we specifically highlight five factors influencing the comparability of VPL assessments: (i) comparison to an acoustic baseline, (ii) comprehensive reporting of acoustic parameters, (iii) extended reporting of training conditions and durations, (iv) investigating VPL function via behavioural, perception-based experiments and (v) validation of findings on a neuronal level. These guidelines emphasize the importance of comparability between studies in order to unify the field of vocal learning.
  • Lattenkamp, E. Z., Linnenschmidt, M., Mardus, E., Vernes, S. C., Wiegrebe, L., & Schutte, M. (2021). The vocal development of the pale spear-nosed bat is dependent on auditory feedback. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 376: 20200253. doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0253.

    Abstract

    Human vocal development and speech learning require acoustic feedback, and
    humans who are born deaf do not acquire a normal adult speech capacity. Most
    other mammals display a largely innate vocal repertoire. Like humans, bats are
    thought to be one of the few taxa capable of vocal learning as they can acquire
    new vocalizations by modifying vocalizations according to auditory experiences.
    We investigated the effect of acoustic deafening on the vocal development of the
    pale spear-nosed bat. Three juvenile pale spear-nosed bats were deafened, and
    their vocal development was studied in comparison with an age-matched, hear-
    ing control group. The results show that during development the deafened bats
    increased their vocal activity, and their vocalizations were substantially altered,
    being much shorter, higher in pitch, and more aperiodic than the vocalizations
    of the control animals. The pale spear-nosed bat relies on auditory feedback
    for vocal development and, in the absence of auditory input, species-atypical
    vocalizations are acquired. This work serves as a basis for further research
    using the pale spear-nosed bat as a mammalian model for vocal learning, and
    contributes to comparative studies on hearing impairment across species.
    This article is part of the theme issue ‘Vocal learning in animals and
    humans’.
  • Lattenkamp, E. Z., Nagy, M., Drexl, M., Vernes, S. C., Wiegrebe, L., & Knörnschild, M. (2021). Hearing sensitivity and amplitude coding in bats are differentially shaped by echolocation calls and social calls. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 288(1942): 20202600. doi:10.1098/rspb.2020.2600.

    Abstract

    Differences in auditory perception between species are influenced by phylogenetic origin and the perceptual challenges imposed by the natural environment, such as detecting prey- or predator-generated sounds and communication signals. Bats are well suited for comparative studies on auditory perception since they predominantly rely on echolocation to perceive the world, while their social calls and most environmental sounds have low frequencies. We tested if hearing sensitivity and stimulus level coding in bats differ between high and low-frequency ranges by measuring auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) of 86 bats belonging to 11 species. In most species, auditory sensitivity was equally good at both high- and low-frequency ranges, while amplitude was more finely coded for higher frequency ranges. Additionally, we conducted a phylogenetic comparative analysis by combining our ABR data with published data on 27 species. Species-specific peaks in hearing sensitivity correlated with peak frequencies of echolocation calls and pup isolation calls, suggesting that changes in hearing sensitivity evolved in response to frequency changes of echolocation and social calls. Overall, our study provides the most comprehensive comparative assessment of bat hearing capacities to date and highlights the evolutionary pressures acting on their sensory perception.

    Additional information

    data
  • Law, R., & Pylkkänen, L. (2021). Lists with and without syntax: A new approach to measuring the neural processing of syntax. The Journal of Neuroscience, 41(10), 2186-2196. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1179-20.2021.

    Abstract

    In the neurobiology of language, a fundamental challenge is deconfounding syntax from semantics. Changes in syntactic structure usually correlate with changes in meaning. We approached this challenge from a new angle. We deployed word lists, which are usually the unstructured control in studies of syntax, as both the test and the control stimulus. Three-noun lists (lamps, dolls, guitars) were embedded in sentences (The eccentric man hoarded lamps, dolls, guitars…) and in longer lists (forks, pen, toilet, rodeo, graves, drums, mulch, lamps, dolls, guitars…). This allowed us to perfectly control both lexical characteristics and local combinatorics: the same words occurred in both conditions and in neither case did the list items locally compose into phrases (e.g. ‘lamps’ and ‘dolls’ do not form a phrase). But in one case, the list partakes in a syntactic tree, while in the other, it does not. Being embedded inside a syntactic tree increased source-localized MEG activity at ~250-300ms from word onset in the left inferior frontal cortex, at ~300-350ms in the left anterior temporal lobe and, most reliably, at ~330-400ms in left posterior temporal cortex. In contrast, effects of semantic association strength, which we also varied, localized in left temporo-parietal cortex, with high associations increasing activity at around 400ms. This dissociation offers a novel characterization of the structure vs. meaning contrast in the brain: The fronto-temporal network that is familiar from studies of sentence processing can be driven by the sheer presence of global sentence structure, while associative semantics has a more posterior neural signature.

    Additional information

    Link to Preprint on BioRxiv
  • Lemen, H., Lieven, E., & Theakston, A. (2021). A comparison of the pragmatic patterns in the spontaneous because- and if-sentences produced by children and their caregivers. Journal of Pragmatics, 185, 15-34. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2021.07.016.

    Abstract

    Findings from corpus (e.g. Diessel, 2004) and comprehension (e.g. De Ruiter et al., 2018) studies show that children produce the adverbial connectives because and if long before they seem able to understand them. However, although children's comprehension is typically tested on sentences expressing the pragmatic relationship which Sweetser (1990) calls “Content”, children also hear and produce sentences expressing “Speech–Act” relationships (e.g. De Ruiter et al., 2021; Kyratzis et al., 1990). To better understand the possible influence of pragmatic variation on 2- to 4- year-old children's acquisition of these connectives, we coded the because and if Speech–Act sentences of 14 British English-speaking mother-child dyads for the type of illocutionary act they contained, as well as the phrasing following the connective. Analyses revealed that children's because Speech–Act sentences were primarily explanations of Statements/Claims, while their if Speech–Act sentences typically related to permission and politeness. While children's because-sentences showed a great deal of individuality, their if-sentences closely resembled their mothers’, containing a high proportion of recurring phrases which appear to be abstracted from input. We discuss how these patterns might help shape children's understanding of each connective and contribute to the children's overall difficulty with because and if.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1981). Déjà vu? Cognition, 10, 187-192. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(81)90044-5.
  • Levelt, W. J. M., Praamstra, P., Meyer, A. S., Helenius, P., & Salmelin, R. (1998). An MEG study of picture naming. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 10(5), 553-567. doi:10.1162/089892998562960.

    Abstract

    The purpose of this study was to relate a psycholinguistic processing model of picture naming to the dynamics of cortical activation during picture naming. The activation was recorded from eight Dutch subjects with a whole-head neuromagnetometer. The processing model, based on extensive naming latency studies, is a stage model. In preparing a picture's name, the speaker performs a chain of specific operations. They are, in this order, computing the visual percept, activating an appropriate lexical concept, selecting the target word from the mental lexicon, phonological encoding, phonetic encoding, and initiation of articulation. The time windows for each of these operations are reasonably well known and could be related to the peak activity of dipole sources in the individual magnetic response patterns. The analyses showed a clear progression over these time windows from early occipital activation, via parietal and temporal to frontal activation. The major specific findings were that (1) a region in the left posterior temporal lobe, agreeing with the location of Wernicke's area, showed prominent activation starting about 200 msec after picture onset and peaking at about 350 msec, (i.e., within the stage of phonological encoding), and (2) a consistent activation was found in the right parietal cortex, peaking at about 230 msec after picture onset, thus preceding and partly overlapping with the left temporal response. An interpretation in terms of the management of visual attention is proposed.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1962). Motion breaking and the perception of causality. In A. Michotte (Ed.), Causalité, permanence et réalité phénoménales: Etudes de psychologie expérimentale (pp. 244-258). Louvain: Publications Universitaires.

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