Publications

Abstract

Frames of reference are coordinate systems used to compute and specify the location of objects with respect to other objects. These have long been thought of as innate concepts, built into our neurocognition. However, recent work shows that the use of such frames in language, cognition and gesture varies crossculturally, and that children can acquire different systems with comparable ease. We argue that language can play a significant role in structuring, or restructuring, a domain as fundamental as spatial cognition. This suggests we need to rethink the relation between the neurocognitive underpinnings of spatial cognition and the concepts we use in everyday thinking, and, more generally, to work out how to account for cross-cultural cognitive diversity in core cognitive domains.

Abstract

Emotion scientists often take an ambivalent stance concerning the role of language in a science of emotion. However, it is important for emotion researchers to contemplate some of the consequences of current practices
for their theory building. There is a danger of an overreliance on the English language as a transparent window into emotion categories. More consideration has to be given to cross-linguistic comparison in the future so that models of language acquisition and of the language–cognition interface fit better the extant variation found in today’s peoples.

Abstract

This Research Topic explores the question: what is the relationship between representations of time and space in cultures around the world? This question touches on the broader issue of how humans come to represent and reason about abstract entities – things we cannot see or touch. Time is a particularly opportune domain to investigate this topic. Across cultures, people use spatial representations for time, for example in graphs, time-lines, clocks, sundials, hourglasses, and calendars. In language, time is also heavily related to space, with spatial terms often used to describe the order and duration of events. In English, for example, we might move a meeting forward, push a deadline back, attend a long concert or go on a short break. People also make consistent spatial gestures when talking about time, and appear to spontaneously invoke spatial representations when processing temporal language. A large body of evidence suggests a close correspondence between temporal and spatial language and thought. However, the ways that people spatialize time can differ dramatically across languages and cultures. This research topic identifies and explores some of the sources of this variation, including patterns in spatial thinking, patterns in metaphor, gesture and other cultural systems. This Research Topic explores how speakers of different languages talk about time and space and how they think about these domains, outside of language. The Research Topic invites papers exploring the following issues: 1. Do the linguistic representations of space and time share the same lexical and morphosyntactic resources? 2. To what extent does the conceptualization of time follow the conceptualization of space?

Abstract

Are there individual differences in children’s prediction of upcoming linguistic input and what do these differences reflect? Using a variant of the preferential looking paradigm (Golinkoff et al., 1987), we found that, upon hearing a sentence like “The boy eats a big cake”, two-year-olds fixate edible objects in a visual scene (a cake) soon after they hear the semantically constraining verb, eats, and prior to hearing the word, cake. Importantly, children’s prediction skills were significantly correlated with their productive vocabulary size – Skilled producers (i.e., children with large production vocabularies) showed evidence of predicting upcoming linguistic input while low producers did not. Furthermore, we found that children’s prediction ability is tied specifically to their production skills and not to their comprehension skills. Prediction is really a piece of cake, but only for skilled producers.

Abstract

Successful language use requires access to products of past processing within an evolving discourse. A central issue for any neurocognitive theory of language then concerns the role of memory variables during language processing. Under a cue-based retrieval account of language comprehension, linguistic dependency resolution (e.g., retrieving antecedents) is subject to interference from other information in the sentence, especially information that occurs between the words that form the dependency (e.g., between the antecedent and the retrieval site). Retrieval interference may then shape processing complexity as a function of the match of the information at retrieval with the antecedent versus other recent or similar items in memory. To address these issues, we studied the online processing of ellipsis in Castilian Spanish, a language with morphological gender agreement. We recorded event-related brain potentials while participants read sentences containing noun-phrase ellipsis indicated by the determiner otro/a (‘another’). These determiners had a grammatically correct or incorrect gender with respect to their antecedent nouns that occurred earlier in the sentence. Moreover, between each antecedent and determiner, another noun phrase occurred that was structurally unavailable as an antecedent and that matched or mismatched the gender of the antecedent (i.e., a local agreement attractor). In contrast to extant P600 results on agreement violation processing, and inconsistent with predictions from neurocognitive models of sentence processing, grammatically incorrect determiners evoked a sustained, broadly distributed negativity compared to correct ones between 400 and 1000 ms after word onset, possibly related to sustained negativities as observed for referential processing difficulties. Crucially, this effect was modulated by the attractor: an increased negativity was observed for grammatically correct determiners that did not match the gender of the attractor, suggesting that structurally unavailable noun phrases were at least temporarily considered for grammatically correct ellipsis. These results constitute the first ERP evidence for cue-based retrieval interference during comprehension of grammatical sentences.

Abstract

Even though assertion has held centre stage in much philosophical and linguistic theorising on language, Mark Jary’s ‘Assertion’ represents the first book-length treatment of the topic. The content of the book is aptly described by the author himself: ''This book has two aims. One is to bring together and discuss in a systematic way a range of perspectives on assertion: philosophical, linguistic and psychological. [...] The other is to present a view of the pragmatics of assertion, with particular emphasis on the contribution of the declarative mood to the process of utterance interpretation.'' (p. 1). The promise contained in this introductory note is to a large extent fulfilled: the first seven chapters of the book discuss many of the relevant philosophical and linguistic approaches to assertion and at the same time provide the background for the presentation of Jary's own view on the pragmatics of declaratives, presented in the last (and longest) chapter.

Abstract

An eye-tracking experiment examined contextual flexibility in speech processing in response to distortions in spoken input. Dutch participants heard Dutch sentences containing critical words and saw four-picture displays. The name of one picture either had the same onset phonemes as the critical word or had a different first phoneme and rhymed. Participants fixated onset-overlap more than rhyme-overlap pictures, but this tendency varied with speech quality. Relative to a baseline with noise-free sentences, participants looked less at onset-overlap and more at rhyme-overlap pictures when phonemes in the sentences (but not in the critical words) were replaced by noises like those heard on a badly-tuned AM radio. The position of the noises (word-initial or word-medial) had no effect. Noises elsewhere in the sentences apparently made evidence about the critical word less reliable: Listeners became less confident of having heard the onset-overlap name but also less sure of having not heard the rhyme-overlap name. The same acoustic information has different effects on spoken-word recognition as the probability of distortion changes.

Abstract

Children hear new words from many different talkers; to learn words most efficiently, they should be able to represent them independently of talker-specific pronunciation detail. However, do children know what the component sounds of words should be, and can they use that knowledge to deal with different talkers' phonetic realizations? Experiment 1 replicated prior studies on lexically guided retuning of speech perception in adults, with a picture-verification methodology suitable for children. One participant group heard an ambiguous fricative ([s/f]) replacing /f/ (e.g., in words like giraffe); another group heard [s/f] replacing /s/ (e.g., in platypus). The first group subsequently identified more tokens on a Simpie-[s/f]impie-Fimpie toy-name continuum as Fimpie. Experiments 2 and 3 found equivalent lexically guided retuning effects in 12- and 6-year-olds. Children aged 6 have all that is needed for adjusting to talker variation in speech: detailed and abstract phonological representations and the ability to apply them during spoken-word recognition.

Abstract

This study investigates how speakers of Dutch compute and produce relative time expressions. Naming digital clocks (e.g., 2:45, say ‘‘quarter to three’’) requires conceptual operations on the minute and hour information for the correct relative time expression. The interplay of these conceptual operations was investigated using a repetition priming paradigm. Participants named analog clocks (the primes) directly before naming digital clocks (the targets). The targets referred to the hour (e.g., 2:00), half past the hour (e.g., 2:30), or the coming hour (e.g., 2:45). The primes differed from the target in one or two hour and in five or ten minutes. Digital clock naming latencies were shorter with a five- than with a ten-min difference between prime and target, but the difference in hour had no effect. Moreover, the distance in minutes had only an effect for half past the hour and the coming hour, but not for the hour. These findings suggest that conceptual facilitation occurs when conceptual transformations are shared between prime and target in telling time.

Abstract

This paper aims to determine whether iconic tracing gestures produced while speaking constitute part of the speaker’s communicative intention. We used a picture description task in which speakers must communicate the spatial and color information of each picture to an interlocutor. By establishing the necessary minimal content of an intended message, we determined whether speech produced with concurrent gestures is less explicit than speech without gestures. We argue that a gesture must be communicatively intended if it expresses necessary information that was nevertheless omitted from speech. We found that speakers who produced iconic gestures representing spatial relations omitted more required spatial information from their descriptions than speakers who did not gesture. These results provide evidence that speakers intend these gestures to communicate. The results have implications for the cognitive architectures that underlie the production of gesture and speech.

Abstract

Differences in the oscillatory EEG dynamics of reading open class (OC) and closed class (CC) words have previously been found (Bastiaansen et al., 2005) and are thought to reflect differences in lexical-semantic content between these word classes. In particular, the theta-band (4–7 Hz) seems to play a prominent role in lexical-semantic retrieval. We tested whether this theta effect is robust in an older population of subjects. Additionally, we examined how the context of a word can modulate the oscillatory dynamics underlying retrieval for the two different classes of words. Older participants (mean age 55) read words presented in either syntactically correct sentences or in a scrambled order (“scrambled sentence”) while their EEG was recorded. We performed time–frequency analysis to examine how power varied based on the context or class of the word. We observed larger power decreases in the alpha (8–12 Hz) band between 200–700 ms for the OC compared to CC words, but this was true only for the scrambled sentence context. We did not observe differences in theta power between these conditions. Context exerted an effect on the alpha and low beta (13–18 Hz) bands between 0 and 700 ms. These results suggest that the previously observed word class effects on theta power changes in a younger participant sample do not seem to be a robust effect in this older population. Though this is an indirect comparison between studies, it may suggest the existence of aging effects on word retrieval dynamics for different populations. Additionally, the interaction between word class and context suggests that word retrieval mechanisms interact with sentence-level comprehension mechanisms in the alpha-band.

Abstract

In speaking, semantic encoding is the conversion of a non-verbal mental representation (the reference) into a semantic structure suitable for expression (the sense). In this fMRI study on sentence production we investigate how the speaking brain accomplishes this transition from non-verbal to verbal representations. In an overt picture description task, we manipulated repetition of sense (the semantic structure of the sentence) and reference (the described situation) separately. By investigating brain areas showing response adaptation to repetition of each of these sentence properties, we disentangle the neuronal infrastructure for these two components of semantic encoding. We also performed a control experiment with the same stimuli and design but without any linguistic task to identify areas involved in perception of the stimuli per se. The bilateral inferior parietal lobes were selectively sensitive to repetition of reference, while left inferior frontal gyrus showed selective suppression to repetition of sense. Strikingly, a widespread network of areas associated with language processing (left middle frontal gyrus, bilateral superior parietal lobes and bilateral posterior temporal gyri) all showed repetition suppression to both sense and reference processing. These areas are probably involved in mapping reference onto sense, the crucial step in semantic encoding. These results enable us to track the transition from non-verbal to verbal representations in our brains.

Abstract

Models of speaking distinguish producing meaning, words and syntax as three different linguistic components of speaking. Nevertheless, little is known about the brain’s integrated neuronal infrastructure for speech production. We investigated semantic, lexical and syntactic aspects of speaking using fMRI. In a picture description task, we manipulated repetition of sentence meaning, words, and syntax separately. By investigating brain areas showing response adaptation to repetition of each of these sentence properties, we disentangle the neuronal infrastructure for these processes. We demonstrate that semantic, lexical and syntactic processes are carried out in partly overlapping and partly distinct brain networks and show that the classic left-hemispheric dominance for language is present for syntax but not semantics.

Abstract

The interactive-alignment account of dialogue proposes that interlocutors achieve conversational success by aligning their understanding of the situation under discussion. Such alignment occurs because they prime each other at different levels of representation (e.g., phonology, syntax, semantics), and this is possible because these representations are shared across production and comprehension. In this paper, we briefly review the behavioral evidence, and then consider how findings from cognitive neuroscience might lend support to this account, on the assumption that alignment of neural activity corresponds to alignment of mental states. We first review work supporting representational parity between production and comprehension, and suggest that neural activity associated with phonological, lexical, and syntactic aspects of production and comprehension are closely related. We next consider evidence for the neural bases of the activation and use of situation models during production and comprehension, and how these demonstrate the activation of non-linguistic conceptual representations associated with language use. We then review evidence for alignment of neural mechanisms that are specific to the act of communication. Finally, we suggest some avenues of further research that need to be explored to test crucial predictions of the interactive alignment account.

Abstract

Spatial memory deficits are core features of aging-related changes in cognitive abilities. The neural correlates of these deficits are largely unknown. In the present study, we investigated the neural underpinnings of age-related differences in spatial memory by functional MRI using a navigational memory task with route encoding and route recognition conditions. We investigated 20 healthy young (18 - 29 years old) and 20 healthy old adults (53 - 78 years old) in a random effects analysis. Old subjects showed slightly poorer performance than young subjects. Compared to the control condition, route encoding and route recognition showed activation of the dorsal and ventral visual processing streams and the frontal eye fields in both groups of subjects. Compared to old adults, young subjects showed during route encoding stronger activations in the dorsal and the ventral visual processing stream (supramarginal gyrus and posterior fusiform/parahippocampal areas). In addition, young subjects showed weaker anterior parahippocampal activity during route recognition compared to the old group. In contrast, old compared to young subjects showed less suppressed activity in the left perisylvian region and the anterior cingulate cortex during route encoding. Our findings suggest that agerelated navigational memory deficits might be caused by less effective route encoding based on reduced posterior fusiform/parahippocampal and parietal functionality combined with diminished inhibition of perisylvian and anterior cingulate cortices correlated with less effective suppression of task-irrelevant information. In contrast, age differences in neural correlates of route recognition seem to be rather subtle. Old subjects might show a diminished familiarity signal during route recognition in the anterior parahippocampal region.

Abstract

In deze bijdrage wordt een modulair model van zinsproductie besproken. De planningsprocessen, die aan de productie van een zin voorafgaan, kunnen in twee hoofdcomponenten onderverdeeld worden: deconceptualisering (het bedenken van de inhoud van de uiting) en de formulering (het vastleggen van de linguïstische vorm). Het formuleringsproces bestaat weer uit twee componenten, te weten de grammatische en fonologische codering. Ook deze componenten bestaan elk weer uit een aantal subcomponenten. Dit artikel beschrijft wat de specifieke taak van iedere component is, hoe deze uitgevoerd wordt en hoe de componenten samenwerken. Tevens worden enkele belangrijke methoden van taalproductie-onderzoek besproken.

Abstract

Earlier studies had shown that speakers naming several objects typically look at each object until they have retrieved the phonological form of its name and therefore look longer at objects with long names than at objects with shorter names. We examined whether this tight eye-to-speech coordination was maintained at different speech rates and after increasing amounts of practice. Participants named the same set of objects with monosyllabic or disyllabic names on up to 20 successive trials. In Experiment 1, they spoke as fast as they could, whereas in Experiment 2 they had to maintain a fixed moderate or faster speech rate. In both experiments, the durations of the gazes to the objects decreased with increasing speech rate, indicating that at higher speech rates, the speakers spent less time planning the object names. The eye-speech lag (the time interval between the shift of gaze away from an object and the onset of its name) was independent of the speech rate but became shorter with increasing practice. Consistent word length effects on the durations of the gazes to the objects and the eye speech lags were only found in Experiment 2. The results indicate that shifts of eye gaze are often linked to the completion of phonological encoding, but that speakers can deviate from this default coordination of eye gaze and speech, for instance when the descriptive task is easy and they aim to speak fast.

Abstract

Earlier work has shown that speakers naming several objects usually look at each of them before naming them (e.g., Meyer, Sleiderink, & Levelt, 1998). In the present study, participants saw pictures and described them in utterances such as "The chair next to the cross is brown", where the colour of the first object was mentioned after another object had been mentioned. In Experiment 1, we examined whether the speakers would look at the first object (the chair) only once, before naming the object, or twice (before naming the object and before naming its colour). In Experiment 2, we examined whether speakers about to name the colour of the object would look at the object region again when the colour or the entire object had been removed while they were looking elsewhere. We found that speakers usually looked at the target object again before naming its colour, even when the colour was not displayed any more. Speakers were much less likely to fixate upon the target region when the object had been removed from view. We propose that the object contours may serve as a memory cue supporting the retrieval of the associated colour information. The results show that a speaker's eye movements in a picture description task, far from being random, depend on the available visual information and the content and structure of the planned utterance.

Abstract

Four experiments investigated the span of advance planning for phrases and short sentences. Dutch subjects were presented with pairs of objects, which they named using noun-phrase conjunctions (e.g., the translation equivalent of ''the arrow and the bag'') or sentences (''the arrow is next to the bag''). Each display was accompanied by an auditory distracter, which was related in form or meaning to the first or second noun of the utterance or unrelated to both. For sentences and phrases, the mean speech onset time was longer when the distracter was semantically related to the first or second noun and shorter when it was phonologically related to the first noun than when it was unrelated. No phonological facilitation was found for the second noun. This suggests that before utterance onset both target lemmas and the first target form were selected.

Abstract

Eye movements have been shown to reflect word recognition and language comprehension processes occurring during reading and auditory language comprehension. The present study examines whether the eye movements speakers make during object naming similarly reflect speech planning processes. In Experiment 1, speakers named object pairs saying, for instance, 'scooter and hat'. The objects were presented as ordinary line drawings or with partly dele:ed contours and had high or low frequency names. Contour type and frequency both significantly affected the mean naming latencies and the mean time spent looking at the objects. The frequency effects disappeared in Experiment 2, in which the participants categorized the objects instead of naming them. This suggests that the frequency effects of Experiment 1 arose during lexical retrieval. We conclude that eye movements during object naming indeed reflect linguistic planning processes and that the speakers' decision to move their eyes from one object to the next is contingent upon the retrieval of the phonological form of the object names.

Abstract

Refers to Yasuyo Minagawa-Kawai, Alejandrina Cristià, Emmanuel Dupoux "Cerebral lateralization and early speech acquisition: A developmental scenario" Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 1, Issue 3, July 2011, Pages 217-232

Abstract

We investigated whether levels of reading ability attained through formal literacy are related to anticipatory language-mediated eye movements. Indian low and high literates listened to simple spoken sentences containing a target word (e.g., "door") while at the same time looking at a visual display of four objects (a target, i.e. the door, and three distractors). The spoken sentences were constructed in such a way that participants could use semantic, associative, and syntactic information from adjectives and particles (preceding the critical noun) to anticipate the visual target objects. High literates started to shift their eye gaze to the target objects well before target word onset. In the low literacy group this shift of eye gaze occurred only when the target noun (i.e. "door") was heard, more than a second later. Our findings suggest that formal literacy may be important for the fine-tuning of language-mediated anticipatory mechanisms, abilities which proficient language users can then exploit for other cognitive activities such as spoken language-mediated eye
gaze. In the conclusion, we discuss three potential mechanisms of how reading acquisition and practice may contribute to the differences in predictive spoken language processing between low and high literates.

Abstract

Our knowledge of speech perception is largely based on experiments conducted with carefully recorded clear speech presented under good listening conditions to undistracted listeners - a near-ideal situation, in other words. But the reality poses a set of different challenges. First of all, listeners may need to divide their attention between speech comprehension and another task (e.g., driving). Outside the laboratory, the speech signal is often slurred by less than careful pronunciation and the listener has to deal with background noise. Moreover, in a globalized world, listeners need to understand speech in more than their native language. Relatedly, the speakers we listen to often have a different language background so we have to deal with a foreign or regional accent we are not familiar with. Finally, outside the laboratory, speech perception is not an end in itself, but rather a mean to contribute to a conversation. Listeners do not only need to understand the speech they are hearing, they also need to use this information to plan and time their own responses. For this special topic, we invite papers that address any of these ecological aspects of speech perception.

Abstract

Casual speech processes, such as /t/-reduction, make word recognition harder. Additionally, word-recognition is also harder in a second language (L2). Combining these challenges, we investigated whether L2 learners have recourse to knowledge from their native language (L1) when dealing with casual-speech processes in their L2. In three experiments, production and perception of /t/-reduction was investigated. An initial production experiment showed that /t/-reduction occurred in both languages and patterned similarly in proper nouns but differed when /t/ was a verbal inflection. Two perception experiments compared the performance of German learners of Dutch with that of native speakers for nouns and verbs. Mirroring the production patterns, German learners' performance strongly resembled that of native Dutch listeners when the reduced /t/ was part of a word stem, but deviated where /t/ was a verbal inflection. These results suggest that a casual speech process in a second language is problematic for learners when the process is not known from the leaner's native language, similar to what has been observed for phoneme contrasts.

Abstract

In this study we introduce an information-theoretical formulation of the emergence of type- and token-based effects in morphological processing. We describe a probabilistic measure of the informational complexity of a word, its information residual, which encompasses the combined influences of the amount of information contained by the target word and the amount of information carried by its nested morphological paradigms. By means of re-analyses of previously published data on Dutch words we show that the information residual outperforms the combination of traditional token- and type-based counts in predicting response latencies in visual lexical decision, and at the same time provides a parsimonious account of inflectional, derivational, and compounding processes.

Abstract

In this paper, we show that both token and type-based effects in lexical processing can result from a single, token-based, system, and therefore, do not necessarily reflect different levels of processing. We report three Simple Recurrent Networks modeling Dutch past-tense formation. These networks show token-based frequency effects and type-based analogical effects closely matching the behavior of human participants when producing past-tense forms for both existing verbs and pseudo-verbs. The third network covers the full vocabulary of Dutch, without imposing predefined linguistic structure on the input or output words.

Abstract

Finnish has a very productive morphology in which a stem can give rise to several thousand words. This study presents a visual lexical decision experiment addressing the processing consequences of the huge productivity of Finnish morphology. The authors observed that in Finnish words with larger morphological families elicited shorter response latencies. However, in contrast to Dutch and Hebrew, it is not the complete morphological family of a complex Finnish word that codetermines response latencies but only the subset of words directly derived from the complex word itself. Comparisons with parallel experiments using translation equivalents in Dutch and Hebrew showed substantial cross-language predictivity of family size between Finnish and Dutch but not between Finnish and Hebrew, reflecting the different ways in which the Hebrew and Finnish morphological systems contribute to the semantic organization of concepts in the mental lexicon.

Abstract

Sensorimotor areas activate to action- and object-related words, but their role in abstract meaning processing is still debated. Abstract emotion words denoting body internal states are a critical test case because they lack referential links to objects. If actions expressing emotion are crucial for learning correspondences between word forms and emotions, emotion word–evoked activity should emerge in motor brain systems controlling the face and arms, which typically express emotions. To test this hypothesis, we recruited 18 native speakers and used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activation evoked by abstract emotion words to that by face- and arm-related action words. In addition to limbic regions, emotion words indeed sparked precentral cortex, including body-part–specific areas activated somatotopically by face words or arm words. Control items, including hash mark strings and animal words, failed to activate precentral areas. We conclude that, similar to their role in action word processing, activation of frontocentral motor systems in the dorsal stream reflects the semantic binding of sign and meaning of abstract words denoting emotions and possibly other body internal states.

Abstract

We describe the phenomenon of schwa-deletion in Hindi and how it is handled in the pronunciation component of a multilingual concatenative text-to-speech system. Each of the consonants in written Hindi is associated with an “inherent” schwa vowel which is not represented in the orthography. For instance, the Hindi word pronounced as [namak] (’salt’) is represented in the orthography using the consonantal characters for [n], [m], and [k]. Two main factors complicate the issue of schwa pronunciation in Hindi. First, not every schwa following a consonant is pronounced within the word. Second, in multimorphemic words, the presence of a morpheme boundary can block schwa deletion where it might otherwise occur. We propose a model for schwa-deletion which combines a general purpose schwa-deletion rule proposed in the linguistics literature (Ohala, 1983), with additional morphological analysis necessitated by the high frequency of compounds in our database. The system is implemented in the framework of finite-state transducer technology.

Abstract

Specific language impairment (SLI) is defined as an unexplained failure to acquire normal language skills despite adequate intelligence and opportunity. We have reported elsewhere a full-genome scan in 98 nuclear families affected by this disorder, with the use of three quantitative traits of language ability (the expressive and receptive tests of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals and a test of nonsense word repetition). This screen implicated two quantitative trait loci, one on chromosome 16q (SLI1) and a second on chromosome 19q (SLI2). However, a second independent genome screen performed by another group, with the use of parametric linkage analyses in extended pedigrees, found little evidence for the involvement of either of these regions in SLI. To investigate these loci further, we have collected a second sample, consisting of 86 families (367 individuals, 174 independent sib pairs), all with probands whose language skills are ⩾1.5 SD below the mean for their age. Haseman-Elston linkage analysis resulted in a maximum LOD score (MLS) of 2.84 on chromosome 16 and an MLS of 2.31 on chromosome 19, both of which represent significant linkage at the 2% level. Amalgamation of the wave 2 sample with the cohort used for the genome screen generated a total of 184 families (840 individuals, 393 independent sib pairs). Analysis of linkage within this pooled group strengthened the evidence for linkage at SLI1 and yielded a highly significant LOD score (MLS = 7.46, interval empirical P<.0004). Furthermore, linkage at the same locus was also demonstrated to three reading-related measures (basic reading [MLS = 1.49], spelling [MLS = 2.67], and reading comprehension [MLS = 1.99] subtests of the Wechsler Objectives Reading Dimensions).

Abstract

The aim of this event-related fMRI study was to investigate the cortical networks involved in case processing, an operation that is crucial to language comprehension yet whose neural underpinnings are not well-understood. What is the relationship of these networks to those that serve other aspects of syntactic and semantic processing? Participants read Basque sentences that contained case violations, number agreement violations or semantic anomalies, or that were both syntactically and semantically correct. Case violations elicited activity increases, compared to correct control sentences, in a set of parietal regions including the posterior cingulate, the precuneus, and the left and right inferior parietal lobules. Number agreement violations also elicited activity increases in left and right inferior parietal regions, and additional activations in the left and right middle frontal gyrus. Regions-of-interest analyses showed that almost all of the clusters that were responsive to case or number agreement violations did not differentiate between these two. In contrast, the left and right anterior inferior frontal gyrus and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex were only sensitive to semantic violations. Our results suggest that whereas syntactic and semantic anomalies clearly recruit distinct neural circuits, case, and number violations recruit largely overlapping neural circuits and that the distinction between the two rests on the relative contributions of parietal and prefrontal regions, respectively. Furthermore, our results are consistent with recently reported contributions of bilateral parietal and dorsolateral brain regions to syntactic processing, pointing towards potential extensions of current neurocognitive theories of language. Hum Brain Mapp, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Abstract

What makes a proposition true or false has traditionally played an essential role in philosophical and linguistic theories of meaning. A comprehensive neurobiological theory of language must ultimately be able to explain the combined contributions of real-world truth-value and discourse context to sentence meaning. This fMRI study investigated the neural circuits that are sensitive to the propositional truth-value of sentences about counterfactual worlds, aiming to reveal differential hemispheric sensitivity of the inferior prefrontal gyri to counterfactual truth-value and real-world truth-value. Participants read true or false counterfactual conditional sentences (“If N.A.S.A. had not developed its Apollo Project, the first country to land on the moon would be Russia/America”) and real-world sentences (“Because N.A.S.A. developed its Apollo Project, the first country to land on the moon has been America/Russia”) that were matched on contextual constraint and truth-value. ROI analyses showed that whereas the left BA 47 showed similar activity increases to counterfactual false sentences and to real-world false sentences (compared to true sentences), the right BA 47 showed a larger increase for counterfactual false sentences. Moreover, whole-brain analyses revealed a distributed neural circuit for dealing with propositional truth-value. These results constitute the first evidence for hemispheric differences in processing counterfactual truth-value and real-world truth-value, and point toward additional right hemisphere involvement in counterfactual comprehension.

Abstract

Propositional truth-value can be a defining feature of a sentence’s relevance to the unfolding discourse, and establishing propositional truth-value in context can be key to successful interpretation. In the current study, we investigate its role in the comprehension of counterfactual conditionals, which describe imaginary consequences of hypothetical events, and are thought to require keeping in mind both what is true and what is false. Pre-stored real-world knowledge may therefore intrude upon and delay counterfactual comprehension, which is predicted by some accounts of discourse comprehension, and has been observed during online comprehension. The impact of propositional truth-value may thus be delayed in counterfactual conditionals, as also claimed for sentences containing other types of logical operators (e.g., negation, scalar quantifiers). In an event-related potential (ERP) experiment, we investigated the impact of propositional truth-value when described consequences are both true and predictable given the counterfactual premise. False words elicited larger N400 ERPs than true words, in negated counterfactual sentences (e.g., “If N.A.S.A. had not developed its Apollo Project, the first country to land on the moon would have been Russia/America”) and real-world sentences (e.g., “Because N.A.S.A. developed its Apollo Project, the first country to land on the moon was America/Russia”) alike. These indistinguishable N400 effects of propositional truth-value, elicited by opposite word pairs, argue against disruptions by real-world knowledge during counterfactual comprehension, and suggest that incoming words are mapped onto the counterfactual context without any delay. Thus, provided a sufficiently constraining context, propositional truth-value rapidly impacts ongoing semantic processing, be the proposition factual or counterfactual.

Abstract

There is ample evidence that individuals with dyslexia have a phonological deficit. A growing body of research also suggests that individuals with dyslexia have problems with categorical perception, as evidenced by weaker discrimination of between-category differences and better discrimination of within-category differences compared to average readers. Whether the categorical perception problems of individuals with dyslexia are a result of their reading problems or a cause has yet to be determined. Whether the observed perception deficit relates to a more general auditory deficit or is specific to speech also has yet to be determined. To shed more light on these issues, the categorical perception abilities of children at risk for dyslexia and chronological age controls were investigated before and after the onset of formal reading instruction in a longitudinal study. Both identification and discrimination data were collected using identical paradigms for speech and non-speech stimuli. Results showed the children at risk for dyslexia to shift from an allophonic mode of perception in kindergarten to a phonemic mode of perception in first grade, while the control group showed a phonemic mode already in kindergarten. The children at risk for dyslexia thus showed an allophonic perception deficit in kindergarten, which was later suppressed by phonemic perception as a result of formal reading instruction in first grade; allophonic perception in kindergarten can thus be treated as a clinical marker for the possibility of later reading problems.

Abstract

Learning to read is a complex process that develops normally in the majority of children and requires the mapping of graphemes to their corresponding phonemes. Problems with the mapping process nevertheless occur in about 5% of the population and are typically attributed to poor phonological representations, which are — in turn — attributed to underlying speech processing difficulties. We examined auditory discrimination of speech sounds in 6-year-old beginning readers with a familial risk of dyslexia (n=31) and no such risk (n=30) using the mismatch negativity (MMN). MMNs were recorded for stimuli belonging to either the same phoneme category (acoustic variants of/bə/) or different phoneme categories (/bə/vs./də/). Stimuli from different phoneme categories elicited MMNs in both the control and at-risk children, but the MMN amplitude was clearly lower in the at-risk children. In contrast, the stimuli from the same phoneme category elicited an MMN in only the children at risk for dyslexia. These results show children at risk for dyslexia to be sensitive to acoustic properties that are irrelevant in their language. Our findings thus suggest a possible cause of dyslexia in that they show 6-year-old beginning readers with at least one parent diagnosed with dyslexia to have a neural sensitivity to speech contrasts that are irrelevant in the ambient language. This sensitivity clearly hampers the development of stable phonological representations and thus leads to significant reading impairment later in life.

Abstract

The reading process depends both on the text and on the reader. When we read a text, propositions in the current input are matched to propositions in the memory representation of the previous discourse but also to knowledge structures in long‐term memory. Therefore, memory‐based text processing refers both to the bottom‐up processing of the text and to the top‐down activation of the reader's knowledge. In this article, we focus on the role of cognitive structures in the reader's knowledge. We argue that causality is an important category in structuring human knowledge and that this property has consequences for text processing. Some research is discussed that illustrates that the more the information in the text reflects causal categories, the more easily the information is processed.

Abstract

Incidental learning of phonological structures through repeated exposure is an important component of native and foreign-language vocabulary acquisition that is not well understood at the neurophysiological level. It is also not settled when this type of learning occurs at the level of word forms as opposed to phoneme sequences. Here, participants listened to and repeated back foreign phonological forms (Korean words) and new native-language word forms (Finnish pseudowords) on two days. Recognition performance was improved, repetition latency became shorter and repetition accuracy increased when phonological forms were encountered multiple times. Cortical magnetoencephalography responses occurred bilaterally but the experimental effects only in the left hemisphere. Superior temporal activity at 300–600 ms, probably reflecting acoustic-phonetic processing, lasted longer for foreign phonology than for native phonology. Formation of longer-term auditory-motor representations was evidenced by a decrease of a spatiotemporally separate left temporal response and correlated increase of left frontal activity at 600–1200 ms on both days. The results point to item-level learning of novel whole-word representations.

Abstract

Memorializes Martin D. S. Braine, whose research on child language acquisition and on both child and adult thinking and reasoning had a major influence on modern cognitive psychology. Addressing meaning as well as position, Braine argued that children start acquiring language by learning narrow-scope positional formulas that map components of meaning to positions in the utterance. These proposals were critical in starting discussions of the possible universality of the pivot-grammar stage and of the role of syntax, semantics,and pragmatics in children's early grammar and were pivotal to the rise of approaches in which cognitive development in language acquisition is stressed.

Abstract

We completed fine mapping of nine positional candidate regions for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in an extended population sample of 308 affected sibling pairs (ASPs), constituting the largest linkage sample of families with ADHD published to date. The candidate chromosomal regions were selected from all three published genomewide scans for ADHD, and fine mapping was done to comprehensively validate these positional candidate regions in our sample. Multipoint maximum LOD score (MLS) analysis yielded significant evidence of linkage on 6q12 (MLS 3.30; empiric P=.024) and 17p11 (MLS 3.63; empiric P=.015), as well as suggestive evidence on 5p13 (MLS 2.55; empiric P=.091). In conjunction with the previously reported significant linkage on the basis of fine mapping 16p13 in the same sample as this report, the analyses presented here indicate that four chromosomal regions—5p13, 6q12, 16p13, and 17p11—are likely to harbor susceptibility genes for ADHD. The refinement of linkage within each of these regions lays the foundation for subsequent investigations using association methods to detect risk genes of moderate effect size.

Abstract

This study investigated the development of second language online auditory processing with ab initio German learners of Dutch. We assessed the influence of different levels of background noise and different levels of semantic and syntactic target word predictability on word-monitoring latencies. There was evidence of syntactic, but not lexical-semantic, transfer from the L1 to the L2 from the onset of L2 learning. An initial stronger adverse effect of noise on syntactic compared to phonological processing disappeared after two weeks of learning Dutch suggesting a change towards more robust syntactic processing. At the same time the L2 learners started to exploit semantic constraints predicting upcoming target words. The use of semantic predictability remained less efficient compared to native speakers until the end of the observation period. The improvement and the persistent problems in semantic processing we found were independent of noise and rather seem to reflect the need for more context information to build up online semantic representations in L2 listening.

Abstract

Nasal consonants in syllabic coda position in Japanese assimilate to the place of articulation of a following consonant. The resulting forms may be perceived as different realizations of a single underlying unit, and indeed the kana orthographies represent them with a single character. In the present study, Japanese listeners' response time to detect nasal consonants was measured. Nasals in coda position, i.e., moraic nasals, were detected faster and more accurately than nonmoraic nasals, as reported in previous studies. The place of articulation with which moraic nasals were realized affected neither response time nor accuracy. Non-native subjects who knew no Japanese, given the same materials with the same instructions, simply failed to respond to moraic nasals which were realized bilabially. When the nasals were cross-spliced across place of articulation contexts the Japanese listeners still showed no significant place of articulation effects, although responses were faster and more accurate to unspliced than to cross-spliced nasals. When asked to detect the phoneme following the (cross-spliced) moraic nasal, Japanese listeners showed effects of mismatch between nasal and context, but non-native listeners did not. Together, these results suggest that Japanese listeners are capable of very rapid abstraction from phonetic realization to a unitary representation of moraic nasals; but they can also use the phonetic realization of a moraic nasal effectively to obtain anticipatory information about following phonemes.

Abstract

This study investigates how children of different ages talk about a conversation that they have witnessed. 48 Turkish children, five, nine and thirteen years in age, saw a televised dialogue between two Sesame Street characters (Bert and Ernie). Afterward, they narrated what they had seen and heard. Their reports were analysed for the development of linguistic devices used to orient their listeners to the relevant properties of a conversational exchange. Each utterance in the child's narrative was analysed as to its conversational role: (1) whether the child used direct or indirect quotation frames; (2) whether the child marked the boundaries of conversational turns using speakers' names and (3) whether the child used a marker for pairing of utterances made by different speakers (agreement-disagreement, request-refusal, questioning-answering). Within pairings, children's use of (a) the temporal and evaluative connectivity markers and (b) the kind of verb of saying were identified. The data indicate that there is a developmental change in children's ability to use appropriate linguistic means to orient their listeners to the different properties of a conversation. The development and use of these linguistic means enable the child to establish different social roles in a narrative interaction. The findings are interpreted in terms of the child's social-communicative development from being a ' character' to becoming a ' narrator' and ' author' of the reported conversation in the narrative situation.

Abstract

Craniofacial morphology is highly heritable, but little is known about which genetic variants influence normal facial variation in the general population. We aimed to identify genetic variants associated with normal facial variation in a population-based cohort of 15-year-olds from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. 3D high-resolution images were obtained with two laser scanners, these were merged and aligned, and 22 landmarks were identified and their x, y, and z coordinates used to generate 54 3D distances reflecting facial features. 14 principal components (PCs) were also generated from the landmark locations. We carried out genome-wide association analyses of these distances and PCs in 2,185 adolescents and attempted to replicate any significant associations in a further 1,622 participants. In the discovery analysis no associations were observed with the PCs, but we identified four associations with the distances, and one of these, the association between rs7559271 in PAX3 and the nasion to midendocanthion distance (n-men), was replicated (p = 4 × 10−7). In a combined analysis, each G allele of rs7559271 was associated with an increase in n-men distance of 0.39 mm (p = 4 × 10−16), explaining 1.3% of the variance. Independent associations were observed in both the z (nasion prominence) and y (nasion height) dimensions (p = 9 × 10−9 and p = 9 × 10−10, respectively), suggesting that the locus primarily influences growth in the yz plane. Rare variants in PAX3 are known to cause Waardenburg syndrome, which involves deafness, pigmentary abnormalities, and facial characteristics including a broad nasal bridge. Our findings show that common variants within this gene also influence normal craniofacial development.

Abstract

The question of whether different linguistic patterns differentially influence semantic and conceptual representations is of central interest in cognitive science. In this paper, we investigate whether the regular encoding of shape within a nominal classification system leads to an increased salience of shape in speakers' semantic representations by comparing English, (Amazonian) Spanish, and Bora, a shape-based classifier language spoken in the Amazonian regions of Columbia and Peru. Crucially, in displaying obligatory use, pervasiveness in grammar, high discourse frequency, and phonological variability of forms corresponding to particular shape features, the Bora classifier system differs in important ways from those in previous studies investigating effects of nominal classification, thereby allowing better control of factors that may have influenced previous findings. In addition, the inclusion of Spanish monolinguals living in the Bora village allowed control for the possibility that differences found between English and Bora speakers may be attributed to their very different living environments. We found that shape is more salient in the semantic representation of objects for speakers of Bora, which systematically encodes shape, than for speakers of English and Spanish, which do not. Our results are consistent with assumptions that semantic representations are shaped and modulated by our specific linguistic experiences.

Abstract

In the present study, using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated a group of participants on a grammaticality classification task after they had been exposed to well-formed consonant strings generated from an artificial regular grammar.We used an implicit acquisition paradigm in which the participants were exposed to positive examples. The objective of this studywas to investigate whether brain regions related to language processing overlap with the brain regions activated by the grammaticality classification task used in the present study. Recent meta-analyses of functional neuroimaging studies indicate that syntactic processing is related to the left inferior frontal gyrus (Brodmann's areas 44 and 45) or Broca's region. In the present study, we observed that artificial grammaticality violations activated Broca's region in all participants. This observation lends some support to the suggestions that artificial grammar learning represents a model for investigating aspects of language learning in infants.

Abstract

The human capacity to acquire language is an outstanding scientific challenge to understand. Somehow our language capacities arise from the way the human brain processes, develops and learns in interaction with its environment. To set the stage, we begin with a summary of what is known about the neural organization of language and what our artificial grammar learning (AGL) studies have revealed. We then review the Chomsky hierarchy in the context of the theory of computation and formal learning theory. Finally, we outline a neurobiological model of language acquisition and processing based on an adaptive, recurrent, spiking network architecture. This architecture implements an asynchronous, event-driven, parallel system for recursive processing. We conclude that the brain represents grammars (or more precisely, the parser/generator) in its connectivity, and its ability for syntax is based on neurobiological infrastructure for structured sequence processing. The acquisition of this ability is accounted for in an adaptive dynamical systems framework. Artificial language learning (ALL) paradigms might be used to study the acquisition process within such a framework, as well as the processing properties of the underlying neurobiological infrastructure. However, it is necessary to combine and constrain the interpretation of ALL results by theoretical models and empirical studies on natural language processing. Given that the faculty of language is captured by classical computational models to a significant extent, and that these can be embedded in dynamic network architectures, there is hope that significant progress can be made in understanding the neurobiology of the language faculty.

Abstract

In this paper we examine the neurobiological correlates of syntax, the processing of structured sequences, by comparing FMRI results on artificial and natural language syntax. We discuss these and similar findings in the context of formal language and computability theory. We used a simple right-linear unification grammar in an implicit artificial grammar learning paradigm in 32 healthy Dutch university students (natural language FMRI data were already acquired for these participants). We predicted that artificial syntax processing would engage the left inferior frontal region (BA 44/45) and that this activation would overlap with syntax-related variability observed in the natural language experiment. The main findings of this study show that the left inferior frontal region centered on BA 44/45 is active during artificial syntax processing of well-formed (grammatical) sequence independent of local subsequence familiarity. The same region is engaged to a greater extent when a syntactic violation is present and structural unification becomes difficult or impossible. The effects related to artificial syntax in the left inferior frontal region (BA 44/45) were essentially identical when we masked these with activity related to natural syntax in the same subjects. Finally, the medial temporal lobe was deactivated during this operation, consistent with the view that implicit processing does not rely on declarative memory mechanisms that engage the medial temporal lobe. In the context of recent FMRI findings, we raise the question whether Broca’s region (or subregions) is specifically related to syntactic movement operations or the processing of hierarchically nested non-adjacent dependencies in the discussion section. We conclude that this is not the case. Instead, we argue that the left inferior frontal region is a generic on-line sequence processor that unifies information from various sources in an incremental and recursive manner, independent of whether there are any processing requirements related to syntactic movement or hierarchically nested structures. In addition, we argue that the Chomsky hierarchy is not directly relevant for neurobiological systems.

Abstract

The autonomic responses to acute pain exposure usually habituate rapidly while the subjective ratings of pain remain high for more extended periods of time. Thus, systems involved in the autonomic response to painful stimulation, for example the hypothalamus and the brainstem, would be expected to attenuate the response to pain during prolonged stimulation. This suggestion is in line with the hypothesis that the brainstem is specifically involved in the initial response to pain. To probe this hypothesis, we performed a positron emission tomography (PET) study where we scanned subjects during the first and second minute of a prolonged tonic painful cold stimulation (cold pressor test) and nonpainful cold stimulation. Galvanic skin response (GSR) was recorded during the PET scanning as an index of autonomic sympathetic response. In the main effect of pain, we observed increased activity in the thalamus bilaterally, in the contralateral insula and in the contralateral anterior cingulate cortex but no significant increases in activity in the primary or secondary somatosensory cortex. The autonomic response (GSR) decreased with stimulus duration. Concomitant with the autonomic response, increased activity was observed in brainstem and hypothalamus areas during the initial vs. the late stimulation. This effect was significantly stronger for the painful than for the cold stimulation. Activity in the brainstem showed pain-specific covariation with areas involved in pain processing, indicating an interaction between the brainstem and cortical pain networks. The findings indicate that areas in the brainstem are involved in the initial response to noxious stimulation, which is also characterized by an increased sympathetic response.

Abstract

The amygdala has been implicated in fundamental functions for the survival of the organism, such as fear and pain. In accord with this, several studies have shown increased amygdala activity during fear conditioning and the processing of fear-relevant material in human subjects. In contrast, functional neuroimaging studies of pain have shown a decreased amygdala activity. It has previously been proposed that the observed deactivations of the amygdala in these studies indicate a cognitive strategy to adapt to a distressful but in the experimental setting unavoidable painful event. In this positron emission tomography study, we show that a simple contextual manipulation, immediately preceding a painful stimulation, that increases the anticipated duration of the painful event leads to a decrease in amygdala activity and modulates the autonomic response during the noxious stimulation. On a behavioral level, 7 of the 10 subjects reported that they used coping strategies more intensely in this context. We suggest that the altered activity in the amygdala may be part of a mechanism to attenuate pain-related stress responses in a context that is perceived as being more aversive. The study also showed an increased activity in the rostral part of anterior cingulate cortex in the same context in which the amygdala activity decreased, further supporting the idea that this part of the cingulate cortex is involved in the modulation of emotional and pain networks

Abstract

This study compares words and gestures produced in a controlled experimental setting by children raised in different linguistic/cultural environments to examine the robustness of gesture use at an early stage of lexical development. Twenty-two Italian and twenty-two Japanese toddlers (age range 25–37 months) performed the same picture-naming task. Italians produced more spoken correct labels than Japanese but a similar amount of representational gestures temporally matched with words. However, Japanese gestures reproduced more closely the action represented in the picture. Results confirm that gestures are linked to motor actions similarly for all children, suggesting a common developmental stage, only minimally influenced by culture.

Abstract

Whereas it has long been assumed that competition plays a role in lexical selection in word production (e.g., Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999), recently Finkbeiner and Caramazza (2006) argued against the competition assumption on the basis of their observation that visible distractors yield semantic interference in picture naming, whereas masked distractors yield semantic facilitation. We examined an alternative account of these findings that preserves the competition assumption. According to this account, the interference and facilitation effects of distractor words reflect whether or not distractors are strong enough to exceed a threshold for entering the competition process. We report two experiments in which distractor strength was manipulated by means of coactivation and visibility. Naming performance was assessed in terms of mean response time (RT) and RT distributions. In Experiment 1, with low coactivation, semantic facilitation was obtained from clearly visible distractors, whereas poorly visible distractors yielded no semantic effect. In Experiment 2, with high coactivation, semantic interference was obtained from both clearly and poorly visible distractors. These findings support the competition threshold account of the polarity of semantic effects in naming.

Abstract

Picture–word interference is a widely employed paradigm to investigate lexical access in word production: Speakers name pictures while trying to ignore superimposed distractor words. The distractor can be congruent to the picture (pictured cat, word cat), categorically related (pictured cat, word dog), or unrelated (pictured cat, word pen). Categorically related distractors slow down picture naming relative to unrelated distractors, the so-called semantic interference. Categorically related distractors slow down picture naming relative to congruent distractors, analogous to findings in the colour–word Stroop task. The locus of semantic interference and Stroop-like effects in naming performance has recently become a topic of debate. Whereas some researchers argue for a pre-lexical locus of semantic interference and a lexical locus of Stroop-like effects, others localise both effects at the lexical selection stage. We investigated the time course of semantic and Stroop-like interference effects in overt picture naming by means of event-related potentials (ERP) and time–frequency analyses. Moreover, we employed cluster-based permutation for statistical analyses. Naming latencies showed semantic and Stroop-like interference effects. The ERP waveforms for congruent stimuli started diverging statistically from categorically related stimuli around 250 ms. Deflections for the categorically related condition were more negative-going than for the congruent condition (the Stroop-like effect). The time–frequency analysis revealed a power increase in the beta band (12–30 Hz) for categorically related relative to unrelated stimuli roughly between 250 and 370 ms (the semantic effect). The common time window of these effects suggests that both semantic interference and Stroop-like effects emerged during lexical selection.

Abstract

In this study data from the first six months of 12 children s multiword speech were used to test the validity of Valian's (1991) syntactic perfor-mance-limitation account and Tomasello s (1992) verb-island account of early multiword speech with particular reference to the development of the English verb category. The results provide evidence for appropriate use of verb morphology, auxiliary verb structures, pronoun case marking, and SVO word order from quite early in development. However, they also demonstrate a great deal of lexical specificity in the children's use of these systems, evidenced by a lack of overlap in the verbs to which different morphological markers were applied, a lack of overlap in the verbs with which different auxiliary verbs were used, a disproportionate use of the first person singular nominative pronoun I, and a lack of overlap in the lexical items that served as the subjects and direct objects of transitive verbs. These findings raise problems for both a syntactic performance-limitation account and a strong verb-island account of the data and suggest the need to develop a more general lexiealist account of early multiword speech that explains why some words come to function as "islands" of organization in the child's grammar and others do not.

Abstract

Observational and checklist measures of vocabulary composition have both recently been used to look at the absolute proportion of nouns in children's early vocabularies. However, they have tended to generate rather different results. The present study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between such measures in a sample of 26 children between 1;1 and 2;1 at approximately 50 and 100 words. The results show that although observational and checklist measures are significantly correlated, there are also systematic quantitative differences between them which seem to reflect a combination of checklist, maternal-report and observational sampling biases. This suggests that, although both kinds of measure may represent good indices of differences in vocabulary size and composition across children and hence be useful as dependent variables in correlational research, neither may be ideal for estimating the absolute proportion of nouns in children's vocabularies. The implication is that questions which rely on information about the absolute proportion of particular kinds of words in children's vocabularies can only be properly addressed by detailed longitudinal studies in which an attempt is made to collect more comprehensive vocabulary records for individual children.

Abstract

A major theoretical debate in language acquisition research regards the learnability of hierarchical structures. The artificial grammar learning methodology is increasingly influential in approaching this question. Studies using an artificial centre-embedded AnBn grammar without semantics draw conflicting conclusions. This study investigates the facilitating effect of distributional biases in simple AB adjacencies in the input sample—caused in natural languages, among others, by semantic biases—on learning a centre-embedded structure. A mathematical simulation of the linguistic input and the learning, comparing various distributional biases in AB pairs, suggests that strong distributional biases might help us to grasp the complex AnBn hierarchical structure in a later stage. This theoretical investigation might contribute to our understanding of how distributional features of the input—including those caused by semantic variation—help learning complex structures in natural languages.

Abstract

Investigations of the effects of advance information on movement preparation in Parkinson's disease using reaction time (RT) measures have yielded contradictory results. In order to obtain direct information regarding the time course of movement preparation, we combined RT measurements in a movement precueing task with multi-channel recordings of movement-related potentials in the present study. Movements of the index and middle fingers of the left and right hand were either precued or not by advance information regarding the side (left or right hand) of the required response. Reaction times were slower for patients than for control subjects. Both groups benefited equally from informative precues, indicating that patients utilized the advance information as effectively as control subjects. Lateralization of the movement-preceding cerebral activity [i.e. the lateralized readiness potential (LRP)] confirmed that patients used the available partial information to prepare their responses and started this process no later than controls. In conjunction with EMG onset times, the LRP onset measures allowed for a fractionation of the RTs, which provided clues to the stages where the slowness of Parkinson's disease patients might arise. No definite abnormalities of temporal parameters were found, but differences in the distribution of the lateralized movement-preceding activity between patients and controls suggested differences in the cortical organization of movement preparation. Differences in amplitude of the contingent negative variation (CNV) and differences in the way in which the CNV was modulated by the information given by the precue pointed in the same direction. A difference in amplitude of the P300 between patients and controls suggested that preprogramming a response required more effort from. patients than from control subjects.

Abstract

This study investigated whether 15-month-old infants fast map multimodal labels, and, when given the choice of two modalities, whether they preferentially fast map one better than the other. Sixty 15-month-old infants watched films where an actress repeatedly and ostensively labeled two novel objects using a spoken word along with a representational gesture. In the test phase, infants were assigned to one of three conditions: Word, Word + Gesture, or Gesture. The objects appeared in a shelf next to the experimenter and, depending on the condition, infants were prompted with either a word, a gesture, or a multimodal word-gesture combination. Using an infant eye tracker, we determined whether infants made the correct mappings. Results revealed that only infants in the Word condition had learned the novel object labels. When the representational gesture was presented alone or when the verbal label was accompanied by a representational gesture, infants did not succeed in making the correct mappings. Results reveal that 15-month-old infants do not benefit from multimodal labeling and that they prefer words over representational gestures as object labels in multimodal utterances. Findings put into question the role of multimodal labeling in early language development.

Abstract

The present study demonstrates that children experience difficulties reaching the correct situation model of multiple events described in temporal sentences if the sentences encode language-external events in reverse chronological order. Importantly, the timing of the cue of how to organize these events is crucial: When temporal subordinate conjunctions (before/after) or converb constructions that carry information of how to organize the events were given sentence-medially, children experienced severe difficulties in arriving at the correct interpretation of event order. When this information was provided sentence-initially, children were better able to arrive at the correct situation model, even if it required them to decode the linguistic information reversely with respect to the actual language external events. This indicates that children even aged 8–12 still experience difficulties in arriving at the correct interpretation of the event structure, if the cue of how to order the events is not given immediately when they start building the representation of the situation. This suggests that children's difficulties in comprehending sequential temporal events are caused by their inability to revise the representation of the current event structure at the level of the situation model

Abstract

In languages in which nouns have a grammatical gender, word recognition can be estimated by gender decision response times. Although gender decision has yet to be used extensively, it has proved sensitive to several factors that have been shown to affect lexical access. The task is not restricted to spoken language but can be used with linguistic information from other sensory modalities.

Abstract

A complex interplay between transcription factors (TFs) and the genome regulates transcription. However, connecting variation in genome sequence with variation in TF binding and gene expression is challenging due to environmental differences between individuals and cell types. To address this problem, we measured genome-wide differential allelic occupancy of 24 TFs and EP300 in a human lymphoblastoid cell line GM12878. Overall, 5% of human TF binding sites have an allelic imbalance in occupancy. At many sites, TFs clustered in TF-binding hubs on the same homolog in especially open chromatin. While genetic variation in core TF binding motifs generally resulted in large allelic differences in TF occupancy, most allelic differences in occupancy were subtle and associated with disruption of weak or noncanonical motifs. We also measured genome-wide differential allelic expression of genes with and without heterozygous exonic variants in the same cells. We found that genes with differential allelic expression were overall less expressed both in GM12878 cells and in unrelated human cell lines. Comparing TF occupancy with expression, we found strong association between allelic occupancy and expression within 100 bp of transcription start sites (TSSs), and weak association up to 100 kb from TSSs. Sites of differential allelic occupancy were significantly enriched for variants associated with disease, particularly autoimmune disease, suggesting that allelic differences in TF occupancy give functional insights into intergenic variants associated with disease. Our results have the potential to increase the power and interpretability of association studies by targeting functional intergenic variants in addition to protein coding sequences.

Abstract

Can native listeners rapidly adapt to suprasegmental mispronunciations in foreign-accented speech? To address this question, an exposure-test paradigm was used to test whether Dutch listeners can improve their understanding of non-canonical lexical stress in Hungarian-accented Dutch. During exposure, one group of listeners heard a Dutch story with only initially stressed words, whereas another group also heard 28 words with canonical second-syllable stress (e.g., EEKhorn, "squirrel" was replaced by koNIJN "rabbit"; capitals indicate stress). The 28 words, however, were non-canonically marked by the Hungarian speaker with high pitch and amplitude on the initial syllable, both of which are stress cues in Dutch. After exposure, listeners' eye movements were tracked to Dutch target-competitor pairs with segmental overlap but different stress patterns, while they listened to new words from the same Hungarian speaker (e.g., HERsens, herSTEL, "brain," "recovery"). Listeners who had previously heard non-canonically produced words distinguished target-competitor pairs better than listeners who had only been exposed to Hungarian accent with canonical forms of lexical stress. Even a short exposure thus allows listeners to tune into speaker-specific realizations of words' suprasegmental make-up, and use this information for word recognition.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Epigenetic markings acquired in early life may have phenotypic consequences later in development through their role in transcriptional regulation with relevance to the developmental origins of diseases including obesity. The goal of this study was to investigate whether DNA methylation levels at birth are associated with body size later in childhood. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A study design involving two birth cohorts was used to conduct transcription profiling followed by DNA methylation analysis in peripheral blood. Gene expression analysis was undertaken in 24 individuals whose biological samples and clinical data were collected at a mean ± standard deviation (SD) age of 12.35 (0.95) years, the upper and lower tertiles of body mass index (BMI) were compared with a mean (SD) BMI difference of 9.86 (2.37) kg/m(2). This generated a panel of differentially expressed genes for DNA methylation analysis which was then undertaken in cord blood DNA in 178 individuals with body composition data prospectively collected at a mean (SD) age of 9.83 (0.23) years. Twenty-nine differentially expressed genes (>}1.2-fold and p{<10(-4)) were analysed to determine DNA methylation levels at 1-3 sites per gene. Five genes were unmethylated and DNA methylation in the remaining 24 genes was analysed using linear regression with bootstrapping. Methylation in 9 of the 24 (37.5%) genes studied was associated with at least one index of body composition (BMI, fat mass, lean mass, height) at age 9 years, although only one of these associations remained after correction for multiple testing (ALPL with height, p(Corrected) = 0.017). CONCLUSIONS: DNA methylation patterns in cord blood show some association with altered gene expression, body size and composition in childhood. The observed relationship is correlative and despite suggestion of a mechanistic epigenetic link between in utero life and later phenotype, further investigation is required to establish causality.

Abstract

This paper discusses some pitfalls in corpus research and suggests solutions on the basis of examples and computer simulations. We first address reliability problems in language transcriptions, agreement between transcribers, and how disagreements can be dealt with. We then show that the frequencies of occurrence obtained from a corpus cannot always be analyzed with the traditional X2 test, as corpus data are often not sequentially independent and unit independent. Next, we stress the relevance of the power of statistical tests, and the sizes of statistically significant effects. Finally, we point out that a t-test based on log odds often provides a better alternative to a X2 analysis based on frequency counts.

Abstract

Three studies investigated developmental changes in facial expression processing, between 3years-of-age and adulthood. For adults and older children, the addition of sunglasses to upright faces caused an equivalent decrement in performance to face inversion. However, younger children showed better classification of expressions of faces wearing sunglasses than children who saw the same faces un-occluded. When the mouth area was occluded with a mask, children under nine years showed no impairment in expression classification, relative to un-occluded faces. An early selective focus of attention on the eyes may be optimal for socialization, but mediate against accurate expression classification. The data support a model in which a threshold level of attentional control must be reached before children can develop adult-like configural processing skills and be flexible in their use of face- processing strategies.

Abstract

First paragraph: The topic of the workshop from which this volume comes, “Individual Differences in Second Language Learning,” is timely and important for both practical and theoretical reasons. The practical reasons are obvious: While many people have some knowledge of a second or further language, there is enormous variability in how well they know these languages. Much of this variability is, of course, likely to be due to differences in the time spent studying or being immersed in the language, but even in similar learning environments learners differ greatly in how quickly they pick up a language and in their ultimate level of proficiency.

Abstract

As is the case in traditional second language (L2) acquisition research, a major question in the field of L2 real-time sentence processing is the extent to which L2 learners process the input like native speakers. Where differences are observed, the underlying causes could be the influence of the learner's first language and/or differences (fundamental or not) in the use of processing strategies between learners and native speakers. Another factor that may account for L1–L2 differences, perhaps in combination with others, is individual variability in general levels of proficiency or in learners’ general cognitive capacities, such as working memory and processing speed. However, systematic research into the effects of such individual differences on L2 real-time sentence processing has yet to be done because researchers in the main attempt to control for individual differences in general cognitive capacities rather than to investigate them in their own right: nevertheless, a review of the current work on L2 sentence and discourse processing raises some interesting findings. An overview of this research is presented in this paper, highlighting what appear to be the circumstances under which individual differences in factors such as working memory capacity and proficiency do or do not affect L2 sentence processing. Taken together, the data suggest that it is only under certain experimental circumstances—specifically, when participants are asked to perform a metalinguistic task directing their attention to the manipulation at the same time as comprehending the input—that individual differences in such factors as insufficient L2 proficiency and/or cognitive processing limitations, like speed and working memory influence L2 learners’ real-time processing of the target input. Under these circumstances, L2 learners of for instance, a higher working memory capacity or greater proficiency are more likely to process the input like native speakers. Otherwise, learners appear to shallow process the input, irrespective of individual variability.

Abstract

Recent studies have taken advantage of newly available, large-scale, cross-linguistic data and new statistical techniques to look at the relationship between language structure and social structure. These ‘nomothetic’ approaches contrast with more traditional approaches and a tension is observed between proponents of each method. We review some nomothetic studies and point out some challenges that must be overcome. However, we argue that nomothetic approaches can contribute to our understanding of the links between social structure and language structure if they address these challenges and are taken as part of a body of mutually supporting evidence. Nomothetic studies are a powerful tool for generating hypotheses that can go on to be corroborated and tested with experimental and theoretical approaches. These studies are highlighting the effect of interaction on language.

Abstract

In this article, a survey of current psycholinguistic techniques relevant to second language acquisition (SLA) research is presented. I summarize many of the available methods and discuss their use with particular reference to two critical questions in current SLA research: (1) What does a learner’s current knowledge of the second language (L2) look like?; (2) How do learners process the L2 in real time? The aim is to show how psycholinguistic techniques that capture real-time (online) processing can elucidate such questions; to suggest methods best suited to particular research topics, and types of participants; and to offer practical information on the setting up of a psycholinguistics laboratory.

Abstract

There is a remarkable lack of research bringing together the literatures on oral reading and speaking.
As concerns phonological encoding, both models of reading and speaking assume a process of segmental
spellout for words, which is followed by serial prosodification in models of speaking (e.g., Levelt,
Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999). Thus, a natural place to merge models of reading and speaking would be
at the level of segmental spellout. This view predicts similar seriality effects in reading and object naming.
Experiment 1 showed that the seriality of encoding inside a syllable revealed in previous studies
of speaking is observed for both naming objects and reading their names. Experiment 2 showed that
both object naming and reading exhibit the seriality of the encoding of successive syllables previously
observed for speaking. Experiment 3 showed that the seriality is also observed when object naming and
reading trials are mixed rather than tested separately, as in the first two experiments. These results suggest
that a serial phonological encoding mechanism is shared between naming objects and reading
their names.

Abstract

In a recent series of papers, Caramazza and Miozzo [Caramazza, A., 1997. How many levels of processing are there in lexical access? Cognitive Neuropsychology 14, 177-208; Caramazza, A., Miozzo, M., 1997. The relation between syntactic and phonological knowledge in lexical access: evidence from the 'tip-of-the-tongue' phenomenon. Cognition 64, 309-343; Miozzo, M., Caramazza, A., 1997. On knowing the auxiliary of a verb that cannot be named: evidence for the independence of grammatical and phonological aspects of lexical knowledge. Journal of Cognitive Neuropsychology 9, 160-166] argued against the lemma/lexeme distinction made in many models of lexical access in speaking, including our network model [Roelofs, A., 1992. A spreading-activation theory of lemma retrieval in speaking. Cognition 42, 107-142; Levelt, W.J.M., Roelofs, A., Meyer, A.S., 1998. A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, (in press)]. Their case was based on the observations that grammatical class deficits of brain-damaged patients and semantic errors may be restricted to either spoken or written forms and that the grammatical gender of a word and information about its form can be independently available in tip-of-the-tongue stales (TOTs). In this paper, we argue that though our model is about speaking, not taking position on writing, extensions to writing are possible that are compatible with the evidence from aphasia and speech errors. Furthermore, our model does not predict a dependency between gender and form retrieval in TOTs. Finally, we argue that Caramazza and Miozzo have not accounted for important parts of the evidence motivating the lemma/lexeme distinction, such as word frequency effects in homophone production, the strict ordering of gender and pho neme access in LRP data, and the chronometric and speech error evidence for the production of complex morphology.

Abstract

B. Rapp and M. Goldrick (2000) claimed that the lexical and mixed error biases in picture naming by
aphasic and nonaphasic speakers argue against models that assume a feedforward-only relationship
between lexical items and their sounds in spoken word production. The author contests this claim by
showing that a feedforward-only model like WEAVER ++ (W. J. M. Levelt, A. Roelofs, & A. S. Meyer,
1999b) exhibits the error biases in word planning and self-monitoring. Furthermore, it is argued that
extant feedback accounts of the error biases and relevant chronometric effects are incompatible.
WEAVER ++ simulations with self-monitoring revealed that this model accounts for the chronometric
data, the error biases, and the influence of the impairment locus in aphasic speakers.

Abstract

WEAVER++ has no backward links in its form-production network and yet is able to explain the lexical
and mixed error biases and the mixed distractor latency effect. This refutes the claim of B. Rapp and M.
Goldrick (2000) that these findings specifically support production-internal feedback. Whether their restricted interaction account model can also provide a unified account of the error biases and latency effect remains to be shown.

Abstract

According to most models of speech production, the planning of spoken words involves the independent retrieval of segments and metrical frames followed by segment-to-frame association. In some models, the metrical frame includes a specification of the number and ordering of consonants and vowels, but in the word-form encoding by activation and verification (WEAVER) model (A. Roelofs, 1997), the frame specifies only the stress pattern across syllables. In 6 implicit priming experiments, on each trial, participants produced 1 word out of a small set as quickly as possible. In homogeneous sets, the response words shared word-initial segments, whereas in heterogeneous sets, they did not. Priming effects from shared segments depended on all response words having the same number of syllables and stress pattern, but not on their having the same number of consonants and vowels. No priming occurred when the response words had only the same metrical frame but shared no segments. Computer simulations demonstrated that WEAVER accounts for the findings.

Abstract

P. A. Starreveld and W. La Heij (1995) tested the seriality view of lexical access in speech production, according to which lexical selection and the encoding of a word's form proceed in serial order without feedback. In 2 experiments, they looked at the combined effect of semantic and orthographic relatedness of written distracter words in tasks that required conceptually driven naming. They found an interaction between semantic relatedness and orthographic relatedness and argued that the observed interaction refutes the seriality view of lexical access. In this comment, the authors argue that Starreveld and La Heij's rejection of serial access was based on an oversimplified conception of the seriality view and that interaction, rather than additivity, is predicted by existing conceptions of serial access.

Abstract

This article reports 7 experiments investigating whether utterances are planned in a parallel or rightward incremental fashion during language production. The experiments examined the role of linear order, length, frequency, and repetition in producing Dutch verb–particle combinations. On each trial, participants produced 1 utterance out of a set of 3 as quickly as possible. The responses shared part of their form or not. For particle-initial infinitives, facilitation was obtained when the responses shared the particle but not when they shared the verb. For verb-initial imperatives, however, facilitation was obtained for the verbs but not for the particles. The facilitation increased with length, decreased with frequency, and was independent of repetition. A simple rightward incremental model accounts quantitatively for the results.

Abstract

Introduction: Prosody has been little studied in the primary progressive aphasias (PPA), a group of neurodegenerative disorders presenting with progressive language impairment. Methods: Here we conducted a systematic investigation of different dimensions of prosody processing (acoustic, linguistic and emotional) in a cohort of 19 patients with nonfluent PPA syndromes (eleven with progressive nonfluent aphasia, PNFA; five with progressive logopenic/phonological aphasia, LPA; three with progranulinassociated aphasia, GRN-PPA) compared with a group of healthy older controls. Voxel based morphometry (VBM) was used to identify neuroanatomical associations of prosodic functions. Results: Broadly comparable receptive prosodic deficits were exhibited by the PNFA, LPA and GRN-PPA subgroups, for acoustic, linguistic and affective dimensions of prosodic analysis. Discrimination of prosodic contours was significantly more impaired than discrimination of simple acoustic cues, and discrimination of intonation was significantly more impaired than discrimination of stress at phrasal level. Recognition of vocal emotions was more impaired than recognition of facial expressions for the PPA cohort, and recognition of certain emotions (in particular, disgust and fear) was relatively more impaired than others (sadness, surprise). VBM revealed atrophy associated with acoustic and linguistic prosody impairments in a distributed cortical network including areas likely to be involved in perceptual analysis of vocalisations (posterior temporal and inferior parietal cortices) and working memory (fronto-parietal circuitry). Grey matter associations of emotional prosody processing were identified for negative emotions (disgust, fear, sadness) in a broadly overlapping network of frontal, temporal, limbic and parietal areas. Conclusions: Taken together, the findings show that receptive prosody is impaired in nonfluent PPA syndromes, and suggest a generic early perceptual deficit of prosodic signal analysis with additional relatively specific deficits (recognition of particular vocal emotions).

Abstract

Purpose: Classical studies of consanguinity have taken advantage of the relationship between the gene frequency for a rare autosomal recessive disorder (q) and the proportion of offspring of consanguineous couples who are affected with the same disorder. The Swedish geneticist Gunnar Dahlberg provided the first theoretical formulation of the inverse correlation between q and the increase in frequency of consanguineous marriages among parents of affected children with respect to marriages of the same degree in the general population. Today it is possible to develop a new approach for estimating q using mutation analysis of affected offspring of consanguineous couples. The rationale of this new approach is based on the possibility that the child born of consanguineous parents carries the same mutation in double copy (true homozygosity) or alternatively carries two different mutations in the same gene (compound heterozygosity). In the latter case the two mutations must have been inherited through two different ancestors of the consanguineous parents (in this case the two mutated alleles are not ‘identical by descent’). Patients and methods: Data from the offspring of consanguineous marriages affected with different autosomal recessive disorders were collected by different molecular diagnostic laboratories in Mediterranean countries and in particular in Arab countries, where the frequencies of consanguineous marriages is high, show the validity of this approach. Results: The proportion of compound heterozygotes among children affected with a given autosomal recessive disorder, born of consanguineous parents, can be taken as an indirect indicator of the frequency of the same disorder in the general population. Identification of the responsible gene (and mutations) is the necessary condition to apply this method. Conclusion: The following paper from our group relevant for the present review is being published: Alessandro Gialluisi, Tommaso Pippucci, Yair Anikster, Ugur Ozbek, Myrna Medlej-Hashim, Andre Megarbane and Giovanni Romeo: Estimating the allele frequency of autosomal recessive disorders through mutational records and consanguinity: the homozygosity index (HI) annals of human genetics (in press; acceptance date 1 November 2011) In addition, our experimental data show that the causative mutation for a rare autosomal recessive disorder can be identified by whole exome sequencing of only two affected children of first cousins parents, as described in the following recent paper: Pippucci T, Benelli M, Magi A, Martelli PL, Magini P, Torricelli F, Casadio R, Seri M, Romeo G EX-HOM (EXome HOMozygosity): A Proof of Principle. Hum Hered 2011; 72:45-53.

Abstract

When making requests, speakers need to select from a range of alternative forms available to them. In a corpus of naturally-occurring Italian interaction, the two most common formats chosen are imperatives and an interrogative construction that includes a turn-initial dative pronoun mi “to/for me”, which I refer to as the Mi X? format. In informal contexts, both forms are used to request low-cost actions for here-and-now purposes. Building on this premise, this paper argues for a functional distinction between them. The imperative format is selected to implement bilateral requests, that is, to request actions that are integral to an already established joint project between requester and recipient. On the other hand, the Mi X? format is a vehicle for unilateral requests, which means that it is used for enlisting help in new, self-contained projects that are launched in the interest of the speaker as an individual.

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate co-speech gesture use during communication about pain. Speakers described a recent pain experience and the data were analyzed using a ‘semantic feature approach’ to determine the distribution of information across gesture and speech. This analysis revealed that a considerable proportion of pain-focused talk was accompanied by gestures, and that these gestures often contained more information about pain than speech itself. Further, some gestures represented information that was hardly represented in speech at all. Overall, these results suggest that gestures are integral to the communication of pain and need to be attended to if recipients are to obtain a fuller understanding of the pain experience and provide help and support to pain sufferers.

Abstract

Structural priming paradigms have been influential in shaping theories of adult sentence processing and theories of syntactic development. However, until recently there have been few attempts to provide an integrated account that explains both adult and developmental data. The aim of the present paper was to begin the process of integration by taking a developmental approach to structural priming. Using a dialog comprehension-to-production paradigm, we primed participants (3–4 year olds, 5–6 year olds and adults) with double object datives (Wendy gave Bob a dog) and prepositional datives (Wendy gave a dog to Bob). Half the participants heard the same verb in prime and target (e.g. gave–gave) and half heard a different verb (e.g. sent–gave). The results revealed substantial differences in the magnitude of priming across development. First, there was a small but significant abstract structural priming effect across all age groups, but this effect was larger in younger children than in older children and adults. Second, adding verb overlap between prime and target prompted a large, significant increase in the priming effect in adults (a lexical boost), a small, marginally significant increase in the older children and no increase in the youngest children. The results support the idea that abstract syntactic knowledge can develop independently of verb-specific frames. They also support the idea that different mechanisms may be needed to explain abstract structural priming and lexical priming, as predicted by the implicit learning account (Bock, K., & Griffin, Z. M. (2000). The persistence of structural priming: Transient activation or implicit learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology – General, 129(2), 177–192). Finally, the results illustrate the value of an integrative developmental approach to both theories of adult sentence processing and theories of syntax acquisition.

Abstract

Bilingualism can have widespread cognitive effects. In this article we investigate whether bilingualism might have an effect on adults' abilities to reason about other people's beliefs. In particular, we tested whether bilingual adults might have an advantage over monolingual adults in false-belief reasoning analogous to the advantage that has been observed with bilingual children. Using a traditional false-belief task coupled with an eye-tracking technique, we found that adults in general suffer interference from their own perspective when reasoning about other people's beliefs. However, bilinguals are reliably less susceptible to this egocentric bias than are monolinguals. Moreover, performance on the false-belief task significantly correlated with performance on an executive control task. We argue that bilinguals' early sociolinguistic sensitivity and enhanced executive control may account for their advantage in false-belief reasoning.

Abstract

The tradeoff hypothesis in the speech–gesture relationship claims that (a) when gesturing gets harder, speakers will rely relatively more on speech, and (b) when speaking gets harder, speakers will rely relatively more on gestures. We tested the second part of this hypothesis in an experimental collaborative referring paradigm where pairs of participants (directors and matchers) identified targets to each other from an array visible to both of them. We manipulated two factors known to affect the difficulty of speaking to assess their effects on the gesture rate per 100 words. The first factor, codability, is the ease with which targets can be described. The second factor, repetition, is whether the targets are old or new (having been already described once or twice). We also manipulated a third factor, mutual visibility, because it is known to affect the rate and type of gesture produced. None of the manipulations systematically affected the gesture rate. Our data are thus mostly inconsistent with the tradeoff hypothesis. However, the gesture rate was sensitive to concurrent features of referring expressions, suggesting that gesture parallels aspects of speech. We argue that the redundancy between speech and gesture is communicatively motivated.

Abstract

Psycholinguistic theories propose different models of inflectional processing of regular and irregular verbs: dual mechanism models assume separate modules with lexical frequency sensitivity for irregular verbs. In contradistinction, connectionist models propose a unified process in a single module.We conducted a PET study using a 2 x 2 design with verb regularity and frequency.We found significantly shorter voice onset times for regular verbs and high frequency verbs irrespective of regularity. The PET data showed activations in inferior frontal gyrus (BA 45), nucleus lentiformis, thalamus, and superior medial cerebellum for both regular and irregular verbs but no dissociation for verb regularity.Our results support common processing components for regular and irregular verb inflection.

Abstract

We describe a structured task for gathering enriched language data for descriptive, comparative, and documentary purposes, focusing on the domain of social cognition. The task involves collaborative narrative problem-solving and retelling by a pair or small group of language speakers, and was developed as an aid to investigating grammatical categories relevant to social cognition. The pictures set up a dramatic story in which participants can feel empathetic involvement with the characters, and trace individual motivations, mental and physical states, and points of view. The data-gathering task allows different cultural groups to imbue the pictures with their own experiences, concerns, and conventions, and stimulates the spontaneous use of previously under-recorded linguistic structures. We argue that stimulus-based elicitation tasks that are designed to stimulate a range of speech types (descriptions, dialogic interactions, narrative) within the single task contribute quantitatively and qualitatively to language documentation, and provide an important means of gathering spontaneous but broadly parallel, and thus comparable, linguistic data. [pictures used in these tasks are available here http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4504]

Abstract

The Highlands of Papuan New Guinea is the location of an evidential Sprachbund that includes at least fourteen languages from six language families with grammaticized evidentiality. As with other linguistic features in New Guinea, evidentiality has spread across genealogical boundaries through repeated language contact. In this paper, we examine likely paths of development of the various subsystems and the spread of evidentiality as a whole. The evidence presented here points toward the Engan language family as the most likely source for at least some of the evidential markers and distinctions found in the region, supporting previous suggestions by other researchers.

Abstract

The article presents the first survey of grammaticized evidentiality in a cluster of languages spoken in Papua New Guinea, including the Ok-Oksapmin, Duna-Bogaia, Engan, East and West Kutubuan, and Bosavi families. We compare certain features of these languages and outline how they contribute to the typological understanding of evidentiality. Findings concern the underexplored category of participatory evidentiality, the morphological form of direct versus indirect evidentials, relationships between person, information source, and time, and complex treatments of the “perceiver” role implied by evidentials. The systems of the area are rich and varied, providing great scope for further descriptive and typological work