Publications

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  • Van Schouwenburg, M. R., Onnink, A. M. H., Ter Huurne, N., Kan, C. C., Zwiers, M. P., Hoogman, M., Franke, B., Buitelaar, J. K., & Cools, R. (2014). Cognitive flexibility depends on white matter microstructure of the basal ganglia. Neuropsychologia, 53, 171-177. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.11.015.

    Abstract

    Ample evidence shows that the basal ganglia play an important role in cognitive flexibility. However, traditionally, cognitive processes have most commonly been associated with the prefrontal cortex. Indeed, current theoretical models of basal ganglia function suggest the basal ganglia interact with the prefrontal cortex and thalamus, via anatomical fronto-striato-thalamic circuits, to implement cognitive flexibility. Here we aimed to assess this hypothesis in humans by associating individual differences in cognitive flexibility with white matter microstructure of the basal ganglia. To this end we employed an attention switching paradigm in adults with ADHD and controls, leading to a broad range in task performance. Attention switching performance could be predicted based on individual differences in white matter microstructure in/around the basal ganglia. Crucially, local white matter showing this association projected to regions in the prefrontal cortex and thalamus. Our findings highlight the crucial role of the basal ganglia and the fronto-striato-thalamic circuit for cognitive flexibility.
  • Van Leeuwen, T. M., Petersson, K. M., Langner, O., Rijpkema, M., & Hagoort, P. (2014). Color specificity in the human V4 complex: An fMRI repetition suppression study. In T. D. Papageorgiou, G. I. Cristopoulous, & S. M. Smirnakis (Eds.), Advanced Brain Neuroimaging Topics in Health and Disease - Methods and Applications (pp. 275-295). Rijeka, Croatia: Intech. doi:10.5772/58278.
  • Van Geenhoven, V. (1999). A before-&-after picture of when-, before-, and after-clauses. In T. Matthews, & D. Strolovitch (Eds.), Proceedings of the 9th Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference (pp. 283-315). Ithaca, NY, USA: Cornell University.
  • Van Berkum, J. J. A., & Nieuwland, M. S. (2019). A cognitive neuroscience perspective on language comprehension in context. In P. Hagoort (Ed.), Human language: From genes and brain to behavior (pp. 429-442). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Van der Lugt, A. (1999). From speech to words. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen. doi:10.17617/2.2057645.
  • Van Goch, M., McQueen, J. M., & Verhoeven, L. (2014). Learning phonologically specific new words fosters rhyme awareness in Dutch preliterate children. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(3), 155-172. doi:10.1080/10888438.2013.827199.

    Abstract

    How do children use phonological knowledge about spoken language in acquiring literacy? Phonological precursors of literacy include phonological awareness, speech decoding skill, and lexical specificity (i.e., the richness of phonological representations in the mental lexicon). An intervention study investigated whether early literacy skills can be enhanced by training lexical specificity. Forty-two prereading 4-year-olds were randomly assigned to either an experimental group that was taught pairs of new words that differed minimally or a control group that received numeracy training. The experimental group gained on a rhyme awareness task, suggesting that learning phonologically specific new words fosters phonological awareness.
  • Van de Weijer, J. (1999). Language input for word discovery. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen. doi:10.17617/2.2057670.
  • Van Donselaar, W., Kuijpers, C. T., & Cutler, A. (1999). Facilitatory effects of vowel epenthesis on word processing in Dutch. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 59-77. doi:10.1006/jmla.1999.2635.

    Abstract

    We report a series of experiments examining the effects on word processing of insertion of an optional epenthetic vowel in word-final consonant clusters in Dutch. Such epenthesis turns film, for instance, into film. In a word-reversal task listeners treated words with and without epenthesis alike, as monosyllables, suggesting that the variant forms both activate the same canonical representation, that of a monosyllabic word without epenthesis. In both lexical decision and word spotting, response times to recognize words were significantly faster when epenthesis was present than when the word was presented in its canonical form without epenthesis. It is argued that addition of the epenthetic vowel makes the liquid consonants constituting the first member of a cluster more perceptible; a final phoneme-detection experiment confirmed that this was the case. These findings show that a transformed variant of a word, although it contacts the lexicon via the representation of the canonical form, can be more easily perceptible than that canonical form.
  • Van Rijswijk, R., Muntendam, A., & Dijkstra, T. (2017). Focus in Dutch reading: an eye-tracking experiment with heritage speakers of Turkish. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 32, 984-1000. doi:10.1080/23273798.2017.1279338.

    Abstract

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

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  • Van Rijswijk, R., Muntendam, A., & Dijkstra, T. (2017). Focus marking in Dutch by heritage speakers of Turkish and Dutch L1 speakers. Journal of Phonetics, 61, 48-70. doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2017.01.003.

    Abstract

    Studies on heritage speakers generally reveal effects from the dominant L2 on the weaker L1, but it is less clear whether cross-linguistic transfer also occurs in the other direction: from the L1 to the dominant L2. This study explores whether the Dutch prosody of heritage speakers of Turkish in the Netherlands differs from that of L1 speakers of Dutch who do not speak Turkish, and whether observed differences could be attributed to an effect of Turkish. The experiment elicited semi-spontaneous sentences in broad and contrastive focus. The analysis included f0 movements, peak alignment, and duration. Although both participant groups used prosody to mark focus (e.g., time-compressed f0 movements for contrastive focus), there were also differences between the groups. For instance, while the L1 speakers of Dutch showed declination, the bilinguals remained at the same pitch level throughout the sentence. Ipek (2015) and Kamalı (2011) also noted a limited pitch range in the prenuclear area in Turkish. We argue that the prosodic differences could be due to an effect of Turkish on Dutch prosody, suggesting that the weaker L1 in Turkish heritage speakers may affect the dominant L2 in the prosodic domain.
  • Van Leeuwen, E. J. C., Call, J., & Haun, D. (2014). Human children rely more on social information than chimpanzees do. Biology Letters, 10(11): 20140487. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2014.0487.

    Abstract

    Human societies are characterized by more cultural diversity than chimpanzee communities. However, it is currently unclear what mechanism might be driving this difference. Because reliance on social information is a pivotal characteristic of culture, we investigated individual and social information reliance in children and chimpanzees. We repeatedly presented subjects with a reward-retrieval task on which they had collected conflicting individual and social information of equal accuracy in counterbalanced order. While both species relied mostly on their individual information, children but not chimpanzees searched for the reward at the socially demonstrated location more than at a random location. Moreover, only children used social information adaptively when individual knowledge on the location of the reward had not yet been obtained. Social information usage determines information transmission and in conjunction with mechanisms that create cultural variants, such as innovation, it facilitates diversity. Our results may help explain why humans are more culturally diversified than chimpanzees

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  • Van Gijn, R., Hammond, J., Matić, D., Van Putten, S., & Galucio, A. V. (Eds.). (2014). Information structure and reference tracking in complex sentences. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This volume is dedicated to exploring the crossroads where complex sentences and information management – more specifically information structure and reference tracking – come together. Complex sentences are a highly relevant but understudied domain for studying notions of IS and RT. On the one hand, a complex sentence can be studied as a mini-unit of discourse consisting of two or more elements describing events, situations, or processes, with its own internal information-structural and referential organization. On the other hand, complex sentences can be studied as parts of larger discourse structures, such as narratives or conversations, in terms of how their information-structural characteristics relate to this wider context. The book offers new perspectives for the study of the interaction between complex sentences and information management, and moreover adds typological breadth by focusing on lesser studied languages from several parts of the world.
  • Van Putten, S. (2014). Information structure in Avatime. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Van Geenhoven, V., & Warner, N. (Eds.). (1999). Max-Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics: Annual report 1999. Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Van de Velde, M., Meyer, A. S., & Konopka, A. E. (2014). Message formulation and structural assembly: Describing "easy" and "hard" events with preferred and dispreferred syntactic structures. Journal of Memory and Language, 71(1), 124-144. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2013.11.001.

    Abstract

    When formulating simple sentences to describe pictured events, speakers look at the referents they are describing in the order of mention. Accounts of incrementality in sentence production rely heavily on analyses of this gaze-speech link. To identify systematic sources of variability in message and sentence formulation, two experiments evaluated differences in formulation for sentences describing “easy” and “hard” events (more codable and less codable events) with preferred and dispreferred structures (actives and passives). Experiment 1 employed a subliminal cuing manipulation and a cumulative priming manipulation to increase production of passive sentences. Experiment 2 examined the influence of event codability on formulation without a cuing manipulation. In both experiments, speakers showed an early preference for looking at the agent of the event when constructing active sentences. This preference was attenuated by event codability, suggesting that speakers were less likely to prioritize encoding of a single character at the outset of formulation in “easy” events than in “harder” events. Accessibility of the agent influenced formulation primarily when an event was “harder” to describe. Formulation of passive sentences in Experiment 1 also began with early fixations to the agent but changed with exposure to passive syntax: speakers were more likely to consider the patient as a suitable sentential starting point after cumulative priming. The results show that the message-to-language mapping in production can vary with the ease of encoding an event structure and of generating a suitable linguistic structure.
  • Van Putten, S. (2017). Motion in serializing languages revisited: The case of Avatime. STUF - Language Typology and Universals, 70(2), 303-329. doi:10.1515/stuf-2017-0016.

    Abstract

    In the typology of motion lexicalization, two types of languages have traditionally been distinguished: satellite-framed and verb-framed. Serializing languages are difficult to fit into this typology and have been claimed to belong to a third type: equipollently framed. In this paper I use grammatical criteria to show that Avatime, a serializing language, should indeed be classified as equipollently framed. I also study motion descriptions in narratives. Avatime is similar to other serializing languages with respect to path elaboration, but unlike other serializing languages, it has low manner saliency. Equipollently framed languages thus do not behave as a single type.
  • Van Putten, S. (2014). Left-dislocation and subordination in Avatime (Kwa). In R. Van Gijn, J. Hammond, D. Matic, S. van Putten, & A.-V. Galucio (Eds.), Information Structure and Reference Tracking in Complex Sentences. (pp. 71-98). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Left dislocation is characterized by a sentence-initial element which is crossreferenced in the remainder of the sentence, and often set off by an intonation break. Because of these properties, left dislocation has been analyzed as an extraclausal phenomenon. Whether or not left dislocation can occur within subordinate clauses has been a matter of debate in the literature, but has never been checked against corpus data. This paper presents data from Avatime, a Kwa (Niger-Congo) language spoken in Ghana, showing that left dislocation occurs within subordinate clauses in spontaneous discourse. This poses a problem for the extraclausal analysis of left dislocation. I show that this problem can best be solved by assuming that Avatime allows the embedding of units larger than a clause
  • Van der Zande, P., Jesse, A., & Cutler, A. (2014). Hearing words helps seeing words: A cross-modal word repetition effect. Speech Communication, 59, 31-43. doi:10.1016/j.specom.2014.01.001.

    Abstract

    Watching a speaker say words benefits subsequent auditory recognition of the same words. In this study, we tested whether hearing words also facilitates subsequent phonological processing from visual speech, and if so, whether speaker repetition influences the magnitude of this word repetition priming. We used long-term cross-modal repetition priming as a means to investigate the underlying lexical representations involved in listening to and seeing speech. In Experiment 1, listeners identified auditory-only words during exposure and visual-only words at test. Words at test were repeated or new and produced by the exposure speaker or a novel speaker. Results showed a significant effect of cross-modal word repetition priming but this was unaffected by speaker changes. Experiment 2 added an explicit recognition task at test. Listeners’ lipreading performance was again improved by prior exposure to auditory words. Explicit recognition memory was poor, and neither word repetition nor speaker repetition improved it. This suggests that cross-modal repetition priming is neither mediated by explicit memory nor improved by speaker information. Our results suggest that phonological representations in the lexicon are shared across auditory and visual processing, and that speaker information is not transferred across modalities at the lexical level.
  • Van Gijn, R., Hammarström, H., Van de Kerke, S., Krasnoukhova, O., & Muysken, P. (2017). Linguistic Areas, Linguistic Convergence and River Systems in South America. In R. Hickey (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics (pp. 964-996). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781107279872.034.
  • Van Valin Jr., R. D., & Mairal Usón, R. (2014). Interfacing the lexicon and an ontology in a linking system. In M. d. l. Á. Gómez González, F. J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, & F. Gonzálvez-García (Eds.), Theory and practice in functional-cognitive space (pp. 205-228). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    The aim of this paper is to discuss the repercussions of a conceptual orientation on two crucial parts of the Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) linking algorithm, that is, semantic representation and constructional schemas. Firstly, it is argued that adopting FunGramKB’s notion of conceptual logical structure (CLS) over standard RRG logical structures (LSs) has numerous advantages since meaning has now access to conceptual knowledge and therefore a CLS provides a format that goes beyond those aspects that are syntactically visible. The second part introduces the notion of the grammaticon, the component where constructional schemas actually reside. RRG constructional schemas are analyzed within a conceptual framework like that provided in FunGramKB. In essence, it is shown that a conceptual orientation to the RRG linking system by the addition of CLSs enriches the semantic representations in it substantially
  • Van den Stock, J., Tamietto, M., Zhan, M. Y., Heinecke, A., Hervais-Adelman, A., Legrand, L. B., Pegna, A. J., & de Gelder, B. (2014). Neural correlates of body and face perception following bilateral destruction of the primary visual cortices. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 8: 30. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00030.

    Abstract

    Non-conscious visual processing of different object categories was investigated in a rare patient with bilateral destruction of the visual cortex (V1) and clinical blindness over the entire visual field. Images of biological and non-biological object categories were presented consisting of human bodies, faces, butterflies, cars, and scrambles. Behaviorally, only the body shape induced higher perceptual sensitivity, as revealed by signal detection analysis. Passive exposure to bodies and faces activated amygdala and superior temporal sulcus. In addition, bodies also activated the extrastriate body area, insula, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and cerebellum. The results show that following bilateral damage to the primary visual cortex and ensuing complete cortical blindness, the human visual system is able to process categorical properties of human body shapes. This residual vision may be based on V1-independent input to body-selective areas along the ventral stream, in concert with areas involved in the representation of bodily states, like insula, OFC, and cerebellum.
  • Van Leeuwen, T. M., Lamers, M. J. A., Petersson, K. M., Gussenhoven, C., Poser, B., & Hagoort, P. (2014). Phonological markers of information structure: An fMRI study. Neuropsychologia, 58(1), 64-74. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.03.017.

    Abstract

    In this fMRI study we investigate the neural correlates of information structure integration during sentence comprehension in Dutch. We looked into how prosodic cues (pitch accents) that signal the information status of constituents to the listener (new information) are combined with other types of information during the unification process. The difficulty of unifying the prosodic cues into overall sentence meaning was manipulated by constructing sentences in which the pitch accent did (focus-accent agreement), and sentences in which the pitch accent did not (focus-accent disagreement) match the expectations for focus constituents of the sentence. In case of a mismatch, the load on unification processes increases. Our results show two anatomically distinct effects of focus-accent disagreement, one located in the posterior left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG, BA6/44), and one in the more anterior-ventral LIFG (BA 47/45). Our results confirm that information structure is taken into account during unification, and imply an important role for the LIFG in unification processes, in line with previous fMRI studies.

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  • Van Bergen, G., & Flecken, M. (2017). Putting things in new places: Linguistic experience modulates the predictive power of placement verb semantics. Journal of Memory and Language, 92, 26-42. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2016.05.003.

    Abstract

    A central question regarding predictive language processing concerns the extent to which linguistic experience modulates the process. We approached this question by investigating sentence processing in advanced second language (L2) users with different native language (L1) backgrounds. Using a visual world eye tracking paradigm, we investigated to what extent L1 and L2 participants showed anticipatory eye movements to objects while listening to Dutch placement event descriptions. L2 groups differed in the degree of similarity between Dutch and their L1 with respect to placement verb semantics: German, like Dutch, specifies object position in placement verbs (put.STAND vs. put.LIE), whereas English and French typically leave position underspecified (put). Results showed that German L2 listeners, like native Dutch listeners, anticipate objects that match the verbally encoded position immediately upon encountering the verb. French/English L2 participants, however, did not show any prediction effects, despite proper understanding of Dutch placement verbs. Our findings suggest that prior experience with a specific semantic contrast in one’s L1 facilitates prediction in L2, and hence adds to the evidence that linguistic experience modulates predictive sentence processing
  • Van Bergen, G., Flecken, M., & Wu, R. (2019). Rapid target selection of object categories based on verbs: Implications for language-categorization interactions. Psychophysiology, 56(9): e13395. doi:10.1111/psyp.13395.

    Abstract

    Although much is known about how nouns facilitate object categorization, very little is known about how verbs (e.g., posture verbs such as stand or lie) facilitate object categorization. Native Dutch speakers are a unique population to investigate this issue with because the configurational categories distinguished by staan (to stand) and liggen (to lie) are inherent in everyday Dutch language. Using an ERP component (N2pc), four experiments demonstrate that selection of posture verb categories is rapid (between 220–320 ms). The effect was attenuated, though present, when removing the perceptual distinction between categories. A similar attenuated effect was obtained in native English speakers, where the category distinction is less familiar, and when category labels were implicit for native Dutch speakers. Our results are among the first to demonstrate that category search based on verbs can be rapid, although extensive linguistic experience and explicit labels may not be necessary to facilitate categorization in this case.

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  • Van Leeuwen, E. J. C., Cronin, K. A., & Haun, D. B. M. (2019). Reply to Farine and Aplin: Chimpanzees choose their association and interaction partners. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(34), 16676-16677. doi:10.1073/pnas.1905745116.

    Abstract

    Farine and Aplin (1) question the validity of our study reporting group-specific social dynamics in chimpanzees (2). As alternative to our approach, Farine and Aplin advance a “prenetwork permutation” methodology that tests against random assortment (3). We appreciate Farine and Aplin’s interest and applied their suggested approaches to our data. The new analyses revealed highly similar results to those of our initial approach. We further dispel Farine and Aplin’s critique by outlining its incompatibility to our study system, methodology, and analysis.First, when we apply the suggested prenetwork permutation to our proximity dataset, we again find significant population-level differences in association rates, while controlling for population size [as derived from Farine and Aplin’s script (4); original result, P < 0.0001; results including prenetwork permutation, P < 0.0001]. Furthermore, when we … ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: ejcvanleeuwen{at}gmail.com.
  • Van de Geer, J. P., Levelt, W. J. M., & Plomp, R. (1962). The connotation of musical consonance. Acta Psychologica, 20, 308-319.

    Abstract

    As a preliminary to further research on musical consonance an explanatory investigation was made on the different modes of judgment of musical intervals. This was done by way of a semantic differential. Subjects rated 23 intervals against 10 scales. In a factor analysis three factors appeared: pitch, evaluation and fusion. The relation between these factors and some physical characteristics has been investigated. The scale consonant-dissonant showed to be purely evaluative (in opposition to Stumpf's theory). This evaluative connotation is not in accordance with the musicological meaning of consonance. Suggestions to account for this difference have been given.
  • Van Ekert, J., Wegman, J., Jansen, C., Takashima, A., & Janzen, G. (2017). The dynamics of memory consolidation of landmarks. Hippocampus, 27(4), 303-404. doi:10.1002/hipo.22698.

    Abstract

    Navigating through space is fundamental to human nature and requires the ability to retrieve relevant information from the remote past. With the passage of time, some memories become generic, capturing only a sense of familiarity. Yet, others maintain precision, even when acquired decades ago. Understanding the dynamics of memory consolidation is a major challenge to neuroscientists. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we systematically examined the effects of time and spatial context on the neural representation of landmark recognition memory. An equal number of male and female subjects (males N = 10, total N = 20) watched a route through a large-scale virtual environment. Landmarks occurred at navigationally relevant and irrelevant locations along the route. Recognition memory for landmarks was tested directly following encoding, 24 h later and 30 days later. Surprisingly, changes over time in the neural representation of navigationally relevant landmarks differed between males and females. In males, relevant landmarks selectively engaged the parahippocampal gyrus (PHG) regardless of the age of the memory. In females, the response to relevant landmarks gradually diminished with time in the PHG but strengthened progressively in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Based on what is known about the functioning of the PHG and IFG, the findings of this study suggest that males maintain access to the initially formed spatial representation of landmarks whereas females become strongly dependent on a verbal representation of landmarks with time. Our findings yield a clear objective for future studies
  • Van den Boomen, C., Fahrenfort, J. J., Snijders, T. M., & Kemner, C. (2019). Slow segmentation of faces in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Neuropsychologia, 127, 1-8. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.02.005.

    Abstract

    Atypical visual segmentation, affecting object perception, might contribute to face processing problems in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The current study investigated impairments in visual segmentation of faces in ASD. Thirty participants (ASD: 16; Control: 14) viewed texture-defined faces, houses, and homogeneous images, while electroencephalographic and behavioral responses were recorded. The ASD group showed slower face-segmentation related brain activity and longer segmentation reaction times than the control group, but no difference in house-segmentation related activity or behavioral performance. Furthermore, individual differences in face-segmentation but not house-segmentation correlated with score on the Autism Quotient. Segmentation is thus selectively impaired for faces in ASD, and relates to the degree of ASD traits. Face segmentation relates to recurrent connectivity from the fusiform face area (FFA) to the visual cortex. These findings thus suggest that atypical connectivity from the FFA might contribute to delayed face processing in ASD.

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  • Van Es, M. W. J., & Schoffelen, J.-M. (2019). Stimulus-induced gamma power predicts the amplitude of the subsequent visual evoked response. NeuroImage, 186, 703-712. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.11.029.

    Abstract

    The efficiency of neuronal information transfer in activated brain networks may affect behavioral performance.
    Gamma-band synchronization has been proposed to be a mechanism that facilitates neuronal processing of
    behaviorally relevant stimuli. In line with this, it has been shown that strong gamma-band activity in visual
    cortical areas leads to faster responses to a visual go cue. We investigated whether there are directly observable
    consequences of trial-by-trial fluctuations in non-invasively observed gamma-band activity on the neuronal
    response. Specifically, we hypothesized that the amplitude of the visual evoked response to a go cue can be
    predicted by gamma power in the visual system, in the window preceding the evoked response. Thirty-three
    human subjects (22 female) performed a visual speeded response task while their magnetoencephalogram
    (MEG) was recorded. The participants had to respond to a pattern reversal of a concentric moving grating. We
    estimated single trial stimulus-induced visual cortical gamma power, and correlated this with the estimated single
    trial amplitude of the most prominent event-related field (ERF) peak within the first 100 ms after the pattern
    reversal. In parieto-occipital cortical areas, the amplitude of the ERF correlated positively with gamma power, and
    correlated negatively with reaction times. No effects were observed for the alpha and beta frequency bands,
    despite clear stimulus onset induced modulation at those frequencies. These results support a mechanistic model,
    in which gamma-band synchronization enhances the neuronal gain to relevant visual input, thus leading to more
    efficient downstream processing and to faster responses.
  • Van Goch, M. M., Verhoeven, L., & McQueen, J. M. (2019). Success in learning similar-sounding words predicts vocabulary depth above and beyond vocabulary breadth. Journal of Child Language, 46(1), 184-197. doi:10.1017/S0305000918000338.

    Abstract

    In lexical development, the specificity of phonological representations is important. The ability to build phonologically specific lexical representations predicts the number of words a child knows (vocabulary breadth), but it is not clear if it also fosters how well words are known (vocabulary depth). Sixty-six children were studied in kindergarten (age 5;7) and first grade (age 6;8). The predictive value of the ability to learn phonologically similar new words, phoneme discrimination ability, and phonological awareness on vocabulary breadth and depth were assessed using hierarchical regression. Word learning explained unique variance in kindergarten and first-grade vocabulary depth, over the other phonological factors. It did not explain unique variance in vocabulary breadth. Furthermore, even after controlling for kindergarten vocabulary breadth, kindergarten word learning still explained unique variance in first-grade vocabulary depth. Skill in learning phonologically similar words appears to predict knowledge children have about what words mean.
  • Van de Velde, M., & Meyer, A. S. (2014). Syntactic flexibility and planning scope: The effect of verb bias on advance planning during sentence recall. Frontiers in Psychology, 5: 1174. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01174.

    Abstract

    In sentence production, grammatical advance planning scope depends on contextual factors (e.g., time pressure), linguistic factors (e.g., ease of structural processing), and cognitive factors (e.g., production speed). The present study tests the influence of the availability of multiple syntactic alternatives (i.e., syntactic flexibility) on the scope of advance planning during the recall of Dutch dative phrases. We manipulated syntactic flexibility by using verbs with a strong bias or a weak bias toward one structural alternative in sentence frames accepting both verbs (e.g., strong/weak bias: De ober schotelt/serveert de klant de maaltijd [voor] “The waiter dishes out/serves the customer the meal”). To assess lexical planning scope, we varied the frequency of the first post-verbal noun (N1, Experiment 1) or the second post-verbal noun (N2, Experiment 2). In each experiment, 36 speakers produced the verb phrases in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm. On each trial, they read a sentence presented one word at a time, performed a short distractor task, and then saw a sentence preamble (e.g., De ober…) which they had to complete to form the presented sentence. Onset latencies were compared using linear mixed effects models. N1 frequency did not produce any effects. N2 frequency only affected sentence onsets in the weak verb bias condition and especially in slow speakers. These findings highlight the dependency of planning scope during sentence recall on the grammatical properties of the verb and the frequency of post-verbal nouns. Implications for utterance planning in everyday speech are discussed.
  • Van Valin Jr., R. D. (2014). Role and Reference Grammar. In A. Carnie, Y. Sato, & D. Siddiqi (Eds.), Routledge handbook of syntax (pp. 579-603). London: Routledge.
  • Van Berkum, J. J. A., Hagoort, P., & Brown, C. M. (1999). Semantic integration in sentences and discourse: Evidence from the N400. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11(6), 657-671. doi:10.1162/089892999563724.

    Abstract

    In two ERP experiments we investigated how and when the language comprehension system relates an incoming word to semantic representations of an unfolding local sentence and a wider discourse. In experiment 1, subjects were presented with short stories. The last sentence of these stories occasionally contained a critical word that, although acceptable in the local sentence context, was semantically anomalous with respect to the wider discourse (e.g., "Jane told the brother that he was exceptionally slow" in a discourse context where he had in fact been very quick). Relative to coherent control words (e.g., "quick"), these discourse-dependent semantic anomalies elicited a large N400 effect that began at about 200-250 ms after word onset. In experiment 2, the same sentences were presented without their original story context. Although the words that had previously been anomalous in discourse still elicited a slightly larger average N400 than the coherent words, the resulting N400 effect was much reduced, showing that the large effect observed in stories was related to the wider discourse. In the same experiment, single sentences that contained a clear local semantic anomaly elicited a standard sentence-dependent N400 effect (e.g., Kutas & Hillyard, 1980). The N400 effects elicited in discourse and in single sentences had the same time course, overall morphology, and scalp distribution. We argue that these findings are most compatible with models of language processing in which there is no fundamental distinction between the integration of a word in its local (sentence-level) and its global (discourse-level) semantic context.
  • Van Rijswijk, R., & Muntendam, A. (2014). The prosody of focus in the Spanish of Quechua-Spanish bilinguals: A case study on noun phrases. International Journal of Bilingualism, 18(6), 614-632. doi:10.1177/1367006912456103.

    Abstract

    This study examines the prosody of focus in the Spanish of 16 Quechua-Spanish bilinguals near Cusco, Peru. Data come from a dialogue game that involved noun phrases consisting of a noun and an adjective. The questions in the game elicited broad focus, contrastive focus on the noun (non-final position) and contrastive focus on the adjective (final position). The phonetic analysis in Praat included peak alignment, peak height, local range and duration of the stressed syllable and word. The study revealed that Cusco Spanish differs from other Spanish varieties. In other Spanish varieties, contrastive focus is marked by early peak alignment, whereas broad focus involves a late peak on the non-final word. Furthermore, in other Spanish varieties contrastive focus is indicated by a higher F0 maximum, a wider local range, post-focal pitch reduction and a longer duration of the stressed syllable/word. For Cusco Spanish no phonological contrast between early and late peak alignment was found. However, peak alignment on the adjective in contrastive focus was significantly earlier than in the two other contexts. For women, similar results were found for the noun in contrastive focus. An additional prominence-lending feature marking contrastive focus concerned duration of the final word. Furthermore, the results revealed a higher F0 maximum for broad focus than for contrastive focus. The findings suggest a prosodic change, which is possibly due to contact with Quechua. The study contributes to research on information structure, prosody and contact-induced language change.
  • Van Rhijn, J. R. (2019). The role of FoxP2 in striatal circuitry. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Van Berkum, J. J. A., Brown, C. M., & Hagoort, P. (1999). When does gender constrain parsing? Evidence from ERPs. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 28(5), 555-566. doi:10.1023/A:1023224628266.

    Abstract

    We review the implications of recent ERP evidence for when and how grammatical gender agreement constrains sentence parsing. In some theories of parsing, gender is assumed to immediately and categorically block gender-incongruent phrase structure alternatives from being pursued. In other theories, the parser initially ignores gender altogether. The ERP evidence we discuss suggests an intermediate position, in which grammatical gender does not immediately block gender-incongruent phrase structures from being considered, but is used to dispose of them shortly thereafter.
  • Van Turennout, M., Hagoort, P., & Brown, C. M. (1999). The time course of grammatical and phonological processing during speaking: evidence from event-related brain potentials. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 28(6), 649-676. doi:10.1023/A:1023221028150.

    Abstract

    Motor-related brain potentials were used to examine the time course of grammatical and phonological processes during noun phrase production in Dutch. In the experiments, participants named colored pictures using a no-determiner noun phrase. On half of the trials a syntactic-phonological classification task had to be performed before naming. Depending on the outcome of the classifications, a left or a right push-button response was given (go trials), or no push-button response was given (no-go trials). Lateralized readiness potentials (LRPs) were derived to test whether syntactic and phonological information affected the motor system at separate moments in time. The results showed that when syntactic information determined the response-hand decision, an LRP developed on no-go trials. However, no such effect was observed when phonological information determined response hand. On the basis of the data, it can be estimated that an additional period of at least 40 ms is needed to retrieve a word's initial phoneme once its lemma has been retrieved. These results provide evidence for the view that during speaking, grammatical processing precedes phonological processing in time.
  • Van Gijn, R. (2014). Yurakaré. In M. Crevels, & P. C. Muysken (Eds.), Las lenguas de Bolivia. Vol. 3: Oriente (pp. 135-174). La Paz: Plural Editores.
  • Van Leeuwen, E. J. C., Cronin, K. A., & Haun, D. B. M. (2017). Tool use for corpse cleaning in chimpanzees. Scientific Reports, 7: 44091. doi:10.1038/srep44091.

    Abstract

    ct For the first time, chimpanzees have been observed using tools to clean the corpse of a deceased group member. A female chimpanzee sat down at the dead body of a young male, selected a firm stem of grass, and started to intently remove debris from his teeth. This report contributes novel behaviour to the chimpanzee's ethogram, and highlights how crucial information for reconstructing the evolutionary origins of human mortuary practices may be missed by refraining from developing adequate observation techniques to capture non-human animals' death responses
  • Van Goch, M. M., Verhoeven, L., & McQueen, J. M. (2017). Trainability in lexical specificity mediates between short-term memory and both vocabulary and rhyme awareness. Learning and Individual Differences, 57, 163-169. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2017.05.008.

    Abstract

    A major goal in the early years of elementary school is learning to read, a process in which children show substantial individual differences. To shed light on the underlying processes of early literacy, this study investigates the interrelations among four known precursors to literacy: phonological short-term memory, vocabulary size, rhyme awareness, and trainability in the phonological specificity of lexical representations, by means of structural equation modelling, in a group of 101 4-year-old children. Trainability in lexical specificity was assessed by teaching children pairs of new phonologically-similar words. Standardized tests of receptive vocabulary, short-term memory, and rhyme awareness were used. The best-fitting model showed that trainability in lexical specificity partially mediated between short-term memory and both vocabulary size and rhyme awareness. These results demonstrate that individual differences in the ability to learn phonologically-similar new words are related to individual differences in vocabulary size and rhyme awareness.
  • Van Herpt, C., Van der Meulen, M., & Redl, T. (2019). Voorbeeldzinnen kunnen het goede voorbeeld geven. Levende Talen Magazine, 106(4), 18-21.
  • Vanlangendonck, F. (2017). Finding common ground: On the neural mechanisms of communicative language production. PhD Thesis, Radboud University, Nijmegen.
  • Varma, S., Takashima, A., Fu, L., & Kessels, R. P. C. (2019). Mindwandering propensity modulates episodic memory consolidation. Aging Clinical and Experimental Research, 31(11), 1601-1607. doi:10.1007/s40520-019-01251-1.

    Abstract

    Research into strategies that can combat episodic memory decline in healthy older adults has gained widespread attention over the years. Evidence suggests that a short period of rest immediately after learning can enhance memory consolidation, as compared to engaging in cognitive tasks. However, a recent study in younger adults has shown that post-encoding engagement in a working memory task leads to the same degree of memory consolidation as from post-encoding rest. Here, we tested whether this finding can be extended to older adults. Using a delayed recognition test, we compared the memory consolidation of word–picture pairs learned prior to 9 min of rest or a 2-Back working memory task, and examined its relationship with executive functioning and mindwandering propensity. Our results show that (1) similar to younger adults, memory for the word–picture associations did not differ when encoding was followed by post-encoding rest or 2-Back task and (2) older adults with higher mindwandering propensity retained more word–picture associations encoded prior to rest relative to those encoded prior to the 2-Back task, whereas participants with lower mindwandering propensity had better memory performance for the pairs encoded prior to the 2-Back task. Overall, our results indicate that the degree of episodic memory consolidation during both active and passive post-encoding periods depends on individual mindwandering tendency.

    Additional information

    Supplementary material
  • Varma, S., Takashima, A., Krewinkel, S., Van Kooten, M., Fu, L., Medendorp, W. P., Kessels, R. P. C., & Daselaar, S. M. (2017). Non-interfering effects of active post-encoding tasks on episodic memory consolidation in humans. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 11: 54. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00054.

    Abstract

    So far, studies that investigated interference effects of post-learning processes on episodic memory consolidation in humans have used tasks involving only complex and meaningful information. Such tasks require reallocation of general or encoding-specific resources away from consolidation-relevant activities. The possibility that interference can be elicited using a task that heavily taxes our limited brain resources, but has low semantic and hippocampal related long-term memory processing demands, has never been tested. We address this question by investigating whether consolidation could persist in parallel with an active, encoding-irrelevant, minimally semantic task, regardless of its high resource demands for cognitive processing. We distinguish the impact of such a task on consolidation based on whether it engages resources that are: (1) general/executive, or (2) specific/overlapping with the encoding modality. Our experiments compared subsequent memory performance across two post-encoding consolidation periods: quiet wakeful rest and a cognitively demanding n-Back task. Across six different experiments (total N = 176), we carefully manipulated the design of the n-Back task to target general or specific resources engaged in the ongoing consolidation process. In contrast to previous studies that employed interference tasks involving conceptual stimuli and complex processing demands, we did not find any differences between n-Back and rest conditions on memory performance at delayed test, using both recall and recognition tests. Our results indicate that: (1) quiet, wakeful rest is not a necessary prerequisite for episodic memory consolidation; and (2) post-encoding cognitive engagement does not interfere with memory consolidation when task-performance has minimal semantic and hippocampally-based episodic memory processing demands. We discuss our findings with reference to resource and reactivation-led interference theories
  • Veenstra, A., Acheson, D. J., Bock, K., & Meyer, A. S. (2014). Effects of semantic integration on subject–verb agreement: Evidence from Dutch. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 29(3), 355-380. doi:10.1080/01690965.2013.862284.

    Abstract

    The generation of subject–verb agreement is a central component of grammatical encoding. It is sensitive to conceptual and grammatical influences, but the interplay between these factors is still not fully understood. We investigate how semantic integration of the subject noun phrase (‘the secretary of/with the governor’) and the Local Noun Number (‘the secretary with the governor/governors’) affect the ease of selecting the verb form. Two hypotheses are assessed: according to the notional hypothesis, integration encourages the assignment of the singular notional number to the noun phrase and facilitates the choice of the singular verb form. According to the lexical interference hypothesis, integration strengthens the competition between nouns within the subject phrase, making it harder to select the verb form when the nouns mismatch in number. In two experiments, adult speakers of Dutch completed spoken preambles (Experiment 1) or selected appropriate verb forms (Experiment 2). Results showed facilitatory effects of semantic integration (fewer errors and faster responses with increasing integration). These effects did not interact with the effects of the Local Noun Number (slower response times and higher error rates for mismatching than for matching noun numbers). The findings thus support the notional hypothesis and a model of agreement where conceptual and lexical factors independently contribute to the determination of the number of the subject noun phrase and, ultimately, the verb.
  • Veenstra, A., Acheson, D. J., & Meyer, A. S. (2014). Keeping it simple: Studying grammatical encoding with lexically-reduced item sets. Frontiers in Psychology, 5: 783. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00783.

    Abstract

    Compared to the large body of work on lexical access, little research has been done on grammatical encoding in language production. An exception is the generation of subject-verb agreement. Here, two key findings have been reported: (1) Speakers make more agreement errors when the head and local noun of a phrase mismatch in number than when they match (e.g., the key to the cabinet(s)); and (2) this attraction effect is asymmetric, with stronger attraction for singular than for plural head nouns. Although these findings are robust, the cognitive processes leading to agreement errors and their significance for the generation of correct agreement are not fully understood. We propose that future studies of agreement, and grammatical encoding in general, may benefit from using paradigms that tightly control the variability of the lexical content of the material. We report two experiments illustrating this approach. In both of them, the experimental items featured combinations of four nouns, four color adjectives, and two prepositions. In Experiment 1, native speakers of Dutch described pictures in sentences such as the circle next to the stars is blue. In Experiment 2, they carried out a forced-choice task, where they read subject noun phrases (e.g., the circle next to the stars) and selected the correct verb-phrase (is blue or are blue) with a button press. Both experiments showed an attraction effect, with more errors after subject phrases with mismatching, compared to matching head and local nouns. This effect was stronger for singular than plural heads, replicating the attraction asymmetry. In contrast, the response times recorded in Experiment 2 showed similar attraction effects for singular and plural head nouns. These results demonstrate that critical agreement phenomena can be elicited reliably in lexically-reduced contexts. We discuss the theoretical implications of the findings and the potential and limitations of studies using lexically simple materials.
  • Veenstra, A. (2014). Semantic and syntactic constraints on the production of subject-verb agreement. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Verdonschot, R. G., Tokimoto, S., & Miyaoka, Y. (2019). The fundamental phonological unit of Japanese word production: An EEG study using the picture-word interference paradigm. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 51, 184-193. doi:10.1016/j.jneuroling.2019.02.004.

    Abstract

    It has been shown that in Germanic languages (e.g. English, Dutch) phonemes are the primary (or proximate) planning units during the early stages of phonological encoding. Contrastingly, in Chinese and Japanese the phoneme does not seem to play an important role but rather the syllable (Chinese) and mora (Japanese) are essential. However, despite the lack of behavioral evidence, neurocorrelational studies in Chinese suggested that electrophysiological brain responses (i.e. preceding overt responses) may indicate some significance for the phoneme. We investigated this matter in Japanese and our data shows that unlike in Chinese (for which the literature shows mixed effects), in Japanese both the behavioral and neurocorrelational data indicate an important role only for the mora (and not the phoneme) during the early stages of phonological encoding.
  • Verga, L., & Kotz, S. A. (2017). Help me if I can't: Social interaction effects in adult contextual word learning. Cognition, 168, 76-90. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2017.06.018.

    Abstract

    A major challenge in second language acquisition is to build up new vocabulary. How is it possible to identify the meaning of a new word among several possible referents? Adult learners typically use contextual information, which reduces the number of possible referents a new word can have. Alternatively, a social partner may facilitate word learning by directing the learner’s attention toward the correct new word meaning. While much is known about the role of this form of ‘joint attention’ in first language acquisition, little is known about its efficacy in second language acquisition. Consequently, we introduce and validate a novel visual word learning game to evaluate how joint attention affects the contextual learning of new words in a second language. Adult learners either acquired new words in a constant or variable sentence context by playing the game with a knowledgeable partner, or by playing the game alone on a computer. Results clearly show that participants who learned new words in social interaction (i) are faster in identifying a correct new word referent in variable sentence contexts, and (ii) temporally coordinate their behavior with a social partner. Testing the learned words in a post-learning recall or recognition task showed that participants, who learned interactively, better recognized words originally learned in a variable context. While this result may suggest that interactive learning facilitates the allocation of attention to a target referent, the differences in the performance during recognition and recall call for further studies investigating the effect of social interaction on learning performance. In summary, we provide first evidence on the role joint attention in second language learning. Furthermore, the new interactive learning game offers itself to further testing in complex neuroimaging research, where the lack of appropriate experimental set-ups has so far limited the investigation of the neural basis of adult word learning in social interaction.
  • Verga, L., & Kotz, S. A. (2019). Putting language back into ecological communication contexts. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 34(4), 536-544. doi:10.1080/23273798.2018.1506886.

    Abstract

    Language is a multi-faceted form of communication. It is not until recently though that language research moved on from simple stimuli and protocols toward a more ecologically valid approach, namely “shifting” from words and simple sentences to stories with varying degrees of contextual complexity. While much needed, the use of ecologically valid stimuli such as stories should also be explored in interactive rather than individualistic experimental settings leading the way to an interactive neuroscience of language. Indeed, mounting evidence suggests that cognitive processes and their underlying neural activity significantly differ between social and individual experiences. We aim at reviewing evidence, which indicates that the characteristics of linguistic and extra-linguistic contexts may significantly influence communication–including spoken language comprehension. In doing so, we provide evidence on the use of new paradigms and methodological advancements that may enable the study of complex language features in a truly interactive, ecological way.
  • Verga, L., & Kotz, S. A. (2019). Spatial attention underpins social word learning in the right fronto-parietal network. NeuroImage, 195, 165-173. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.03.071.

    Abstract

    In a multi- and inter-cultural world, we daily encounter new words. Adult learners often rely on a situational context to learn and understand a new word's meaning. Here, we explored whether interactive learning facilitates word learning by directing the learner's attention to a correct new word referent when a situational context is non-informative. We predicted larger involvement of inferior parietal, frontal, and visual cortices involved in visuo-spatial attention during interactive learning. We scanned participants while they played a visual word learning game with and without a social partner. As hypothesized, interactive learning enhanced activity in the right Supramarginal Gyrus when the situational context provided little information. Activity in the right Inferior Frontal Gyrus during interactive learning correlated with post-scanning behavioral test scores, while these scores correlated with activity in the Fusiform Gyrus in the non-interactive group. These results indicate that attention is involved in interactive learning when the situational context is minimal and suggest that individual learning processes may be largely different from interactive ones. As such, they challenge the ecological validity of what we know about individual learning and advocate the exploration of interactive learning in naturalistic settings.
  • Vergani, F., Mahmood, S., Morris, C., Mitchell, P., & Forkel, S. J. (2014). Intralobar fibres of the occipital lobe: A post mortem dissection study. Cortex, 56, 145-156. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2014.03.002.

    Abstract

    Introduction

    The atlas by Heinrich Sachs (1892) provided an accurate description of the intralobar fibres of the occipital lobe, with a detailed representation of the short associative tracts connecting different parts of the lobe. Little attention has been paid to the work of Sachs since its publication. In this study, we present the results of the dissection of three hemispheres, performed according to the Klingler technique (1935). Our anatomical findings are then compared to the original description of the occipital fibres anatomy as detailed by Sachs.
    Methods

    Three hemispheres were dissected according to Klingler's technique (1935). Specimens were fixed in 10% formalin and frozen at −15 °C for two weeks. After defreezing, dissection of the white matter fibres was performed with blunt dissectors. Coronal sections were obtained according to the cuts originally described by Sachs. In addition, medial to lateral and lateral to medial dissection of the white matter of the occipital lobe was also performed.

    Results

    A network of short association fibres was demonstrated in the occipital lobe, comprising intralobar association fibres and U-shaped fibres, which are connecting neighbouring gyri. Lateral to the ventricles, longitudinal fibres of the stratum sagittale were also identified that are arranged as external and internal layers. Fibres of the forceps major were also found to be in direct contact with the ventricular walls. We were able to replicate all tracts originally described by Sachs. In addition, a previously unrecognised tract, connecting the cuneus to the lingual gyrus, was identified. This tract corresponds to the “sledge runner”, described in tractography studies.

    Conclusions

    The occipital lobe shows a rich network of intralobar fibres, arranged around the ventricular wall. Good concordance was observed between the Klingler dissection technique and the histological preparations of Sachs.
  • Verhoef, E., Demontis, D., Burgess, S., Shapland, C. Y., Dale, P. S., Okbay, A., Neale, B. M., Faraone, S. V., iPSYCH-Broad-PGC ADHD Consortium, Stergiakouli, E., Davey Smith, G., Fisher, S. E., Borglum, A., & St Pourcain, B. (2019). Disentangling polygenic associations between Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, educational attainment, literacy and language. Translational Psychiatry, 9: 35. doi:10.1038/s41398-018-0324-2.

    Abstract

    Interpreting polygenic overlap between ADHD and both literacy-related and language-related impairments is challenging as genetic associations might be influenced by indirectly shared genetic factors. Here, we investigate genetic overlap between polygenic ADHD risk and multiple literacy-related and/or language-related abilities (LRAs), as assessed in UK children (N ≤ 5919), accounting for genetically predictable educational attainment (EA). Genome-wide summary statistics on clinical ADHD and years of schooling were obtained from large consortia (N ≤ 326,041). Our findings show that ADHD-polygenic scores (ADHD-PGS) were inversely associated with LRAs in ALSPAC, most consistently with reading-related abilities, and explained ≤1.6% phenotypic variation. These polygenic links were then dissected into both ADHD effects shared with and independent of EA, using multivariable regressions (MVR). Conditional on EA, polygenic ADHD risk remained associated with multiple reading and/or spelling abilities, phonemic awareness and verbal intelligence, but not listening comprehension and non-word repetition. Using conservative ADHD-instruments (P-threshold < 5 × 10−8), this corresponded, for example, to a 0.35 SD decrease in pooled reading performance per log-odds in ADHD-liability (P = 9.2 × 10−5). Using subthreshold ADHD-instruments (P-threshold < 0.0015), these effects became smaller, with a 0.03 SD decrease per log-odds in ADHD risk (P = 1.4 × 10−6), although the predictive accuracy increased. However, polygenic ADHD-effects shared with EA were of equal strength and at least equal magnitude compared to those independent of EA, for all LRAs studied, and detectable using subthreshold instruments. Thus, ADHD-related polygenic links with LRAs are to a large extent due to shared genetic effects with EA, although there is evidence for an ADHD-specific association profile, independent of EA, that primarily involves literacy-related impairments.

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    41398_2018_324_MOESM1_ESM.docx
  • Verkerk, A. (2014). Diachronic change in Indo-European motion event encoding. Journal of Historical Linguistics, 4, 40-83. doi:10.1075/jhl.4.1.02ver.

    Abstract

    There are many different syntactic constructions that languages can use to encode motion events. In recent decades, great advances have been made in the description and study of these syntactic constructions from languages spoken around the world (Talmy 1985, 1991, Slobin 1996, 2004). However, relatively little attention has been paid to historical change in these systems (exceptions are Vincent 1999, Dufresne, Dupuis & Tremblay 2003, Kopecka 2006 and Peyraube 2006). In this article, diachronic change of motion event encoding systems in Indo-European is investigated using the available historical–comparative data and phylogenetic comparative methods adopted from evolutionary biology. It is argued that Proto-Indo-European was not satellite-framed, as suggested by Talmy (2007) and Acedo Matellán and Mateu (2008), but had a mixed motion event encoding system, as is suggested by the available historical–comparative data
  • Verkerk, A. (2014). The correlation between motion event encoding and path verb lexicon size in the Indo-European language family. Folia Linguistica Historica, 35, 307-358. doi:10.1515/flih.2014.009.

    Abstract

    There have been opposing views on the possibility of a relationship between motion event encoding and the size of the path verb lexicon. Özçalışkan (2004) has proposed that verb-framed and satellite-framed languages should approximately have the same number of path verbs, whereas a review of some of the literature suggests that verb-framed languages typically have a bigger path verb lexicon than satelliteframed languages. In this article I demonstrate that evidence for this correlation can be found through phylogenetic comparative analysis of parallel corpus data from twenty Indo-European languages.
  • Verkerk, A. (2014). The evolutionary dynamics of motion event encoding. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Verkerk, A. (2014). Where Alice fell into: Motion events from a parallel corpus. In B. Szmrecsanyi, & B. Wälchli (Eds.), Aggregating dialectology, typology, and register analysis: Linguistic variation in text and speech (pp. 324-354). Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Vernes, S. C. (2014). Genome wide identification of fruitless targets suggests a role in upregulating genes important for neural circuit formation. Scientific Reports, 4: 4412. doi:10.1038/srep04412.

    Abstract

    The fruitless gene (fru) encodes a set of transcription factors (Fru) that display sexually dimorphic gene expression in the brain of the fruit-fly;Drosophila melanogaster . Behavioural studies have demonstrated that fru isessentialforcourtshipbehaviour inthemale flyandisthoughttoact bydirectingthe development of sex-specific neural circuitry that encodes this innate behavioural response. This study reports the identification of direct regulatory targets of the sexually dimorphic isoforms of the Fru protein using an in vitro model system. Genome wide binding sites were identified for each of the isoforms using Chromatin Immunoprecipitation coupled to deep sequencing (ChIP-Seq). Putative target genes were found to be involved in processes such as neurotransmission, ion-channel signalling and neuron development. All isoforms showed asignificant bias towards genes located on the X-chromosome,which may reflect a specific role for Fru in regulating x-linked genes. Taken together with expression analysis carried out in Fru positive neurons specifically isolated from the male fly brain, it appears that the Fru protein acts as a transcriptional activator. Understanding the regulatory cascades induced by Fru will help to shed light on the molecular mechanisms that are important for specification of neural circuitry underlying complex behaviour
  • Vernes, S. C. (2019). Neuromolecular approaches to the study of language. In P. Hagoort (Ed.), Human language: From genes and brain to behavior (pp. 577-593). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Vernes, S. C. (2017). What bats have to say about speech and language. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24(1), 111-117. doi:10.3758/s13423-016-1060-3.

    Abstract

    Understanding the biological foundations of language is vital to gaining insight into how the capacity for language may have evolved in humans. Animal models can be exploited to learn about the biological underpinnings of shared human traits, and although no other animals display speech or language, a range of behaviors found throughout the animal kingdom are relevant to speech and spoken language. To date, such investigations have been dominated by studies of our closest primate relatives searching for shared traits, or more distantly related species that are sophisticated vocal communicators, like songbirds. Herein I make the case for turning our attention to the Chiropterans, to shed new light on the biological encoding and evolution of human language-relevant traits. Bats employ complex vocalizations to facilitate navigation as well as social interactions, and are exquisitely tuned to acoustic information. Furthermore, bats display behaviors such as vocal learning and vocal turn-taking that are directly pertinent for human spoken language. Emerging technologies are now allowing the study of bat vocal communication, from the behavioral to the neurobiological and molecular level. Although it is clear that no single animal model can reflect the complexity of human language, by comparing such findings across diverse species we can identify the shared biological mechanisms likely to have influenced the evolution of human language. Keywords
  • Versace, E., Rogge, J. R., Shelton-May, N., & Ravignani, A. (2019). Positional encoding in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus). Animal Cognition, 22, 825-838. doi:10.1007/s10071-019-01277-y.

    Abstract

    Strategies used in artificial grammar learning can shed light into the abilities of different species to extract regularities from the environment. In the A(X)nB rule, A and B items are linked, but assigned to different positional categories and separated by distractor items. Open questions are how widespread is the ability to extract positional regularities from A(X)nB patterns, which strategies are used to encode positional regularities and whether individuals exhibit preferences for absolute or relative position encoding. We used visual arrays to investigate whether cotton-top tamarins (Saguinusoedipus) can learn this rule and which strategies they use. After training on a subset of exemplars, two of the tested monkeys successfully generalized to novel combinations. These tamarins discriminated between categories of tokens with different properties (A, B, X) and detected a positional relationship between non-adjacent items even in the presence of novel distractors. The pattern of errors revealed that successful subjects used visual similarity with training stimuli to solve the task and that successful tamarins extracted the relative position of As and Bs rather than their absolute position, similarly to what has been observed in other species. Relative position encoding appears to be favoured in different tasks and taxa. Generalization, though, was incomplete, since we observed a failure with items that during training had always been presented in reinforced arrays, showing the limitations in grasping the underlying positional rule. These results suggest the use of local strategies in the extraction of positional rules in cotton-top tamarins.

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    Supplementary file
  • Verspeek, J., Staes, N., Van Leeuwen, E. J. C., Eens, M., & Stevens, J. M. G. (2019). Bonobo personality predicts friendship. Scientific Reports, 9: 19245. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-55884-3.

    Abstract

    In bonobos, strong bonds have been documented between unrelated females and between mothers
    and their adult sons, which can have important fitness benefits. Often age, sex or kinship similarity
    have been used to explain social bond strength variation. Recent studies in other species also stress
    the importance of personality, but this relationship remains to be investigated in bonobos. We used
    behavioral observations on 39 adult and adolescent bonobos housed in 5 European zoos to study the
    role of personality similarity in dyadic relationship quality. Dimension reduction analyses on individual
    and dyadic behavioral scores revealed multidimensional personality (Sociability, Openness, Boldness,
    Activity) and relationship quality components (value, compatibility). We show that, aside from
    relatedness and sex combination of the dyad, relationship quality is also associated with personality
    similarity of both partners. While similarity in Sociability resulted in higher relationship values, lower
    relationship compatibility was found between bonobos with similar Activity scores. The results of this
    study expand our understanding of the mechanisms underlying social bond formation in anthropoid
    apes. In addition, we suggest that future studies in closely related species like chimpanzees should
    implement identical methods for assessing bond strength to shed further light on the evolution of this
    phenomenon.

    Additional information

    Supplementary material
  • Viebahn, M., Ernestus, M., & McQueen, J. M. (2017). Speaking style influences the brain’s electrophysiological response to grammatical errors in speech comprehension. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 29(7), 1132-1146. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_01095.

    Abstract

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

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  • Vogels, J., & Van Bergen, G. (2017). Where to place inaccessible subjects in Dutch: The role of definiteness and animacy. Corpus linguistics and linguistic theory, 13(2), 369-398. doi:10.1515/cllt-2013-0021.

    Abstract

    Cross-linguistically, both subjects and topical information tend to be placed at the beginning of a sentence. Subjects are generally highly topical, causing both tendencies to converge on the same word order. However, subjects that lack prototypical topic properties may give rise to an incongruence between the preference to start a sentence with the subject and the preference to start a sentence with the most accessible information. We present a corpus study in which we investigate in what syntactic position (preverbal or postverbal) such low-accessible subjects are typically found in Dutch natural language. We examine the effects of both discourse accessibility (definiteness) and inherent accessibility (animacy). Our results show that definiteness and animacy interact in determining subject position in Dutch. Non-referential (bare) subjects are less likely to occur in preverbal position than definite subjects, and this tendency is reinforced when the subject is inanimate. This suggests that these two properties that make the subject less accessible together can ‘gang up’ against the subject first preference. The results support a probabilistic multifactorial account of syntactic variation.
  • Volker-Touw, C. M., de Koning, H. D., Giltay, J., De Kovel, C. G. F., van Kempen, T. S., Oberndorff, K., Boes, M., van Steensel, M. A., van Well, G. T., Blokx, W. A., Schalkwijk, J., Simon, A., Frenkel, J., & van Gijn, M. E. (2017). Erythematous nodes, urticarial rash and arthralgias in a large pedigree with NLRC4-related autoinflammatory disease, expansion of the phenotype. British Journal of Dermatology, 176(1), 244-248. doi:10.1111/bjd.14757.

    Abstract

    Autoinflammatory disorders (AID) are a heterogeneous group of diseases, characterized by an unprovoked innate immune response, resulting in recurrent or ongoing systemic inflammation and fever1-3. Inflammasomes are protein complexes with an essential role in pyroptosis and the caspase-1-mediated activation of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-17 and IL-18.
  • De Vos, C. (2014). Absolute spatial deixis and proto-toponyms in Kata Kolok. NUSA: Linguistic studies of languages in and around Indonesia, 56, 3-26.

    Abstract

    This paper presents an overview of spatial deictic structures in Kata Kolok, a sign language which is indigenous to a Balinese village community. Sociolinguistic surveys and lexicographic comparisons have indicated that Kata Kolok is unrelated to the signing varieties in other parts of Bali and should be considered a sign language isolate as such. Kata Kolok emerged five generations ago and has been in intimate contact with spoken Balinese from its incipience. The findings from this paper suggest that this cross-modal contact has led to an absolute construction of the signing space, which is radically different in comparison to spatial deixis in other sign languages. Furthermore, Kata Kolok does not seem to have a class of true toponyms, but rather deploys deictic proto-toponyms. The Kata Kolok system on the whole does not exhibit any related linguistic forms or direct calques from spoken Balinese, and this suggests that the conceptual overlap between these two languages may have been facilitated by shared cultural practices as well as gestural communication rather than direct borrowings. Ultimately, this analysis challenges the very notion of a sign language isolate and suggests that Kata Kolok and other emergent signing varieties should be considered in light of the broader semiotic context in which they have evolved.

    Additional information

    http://hdl.handle.net/11372/VC-1001
  • De Vos, J., Schriefers, H., Bosch, L. t., & Lemhöfer, K. (2019). Interactive L2 vocabulary acquisition in a lab-based immersion setting. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 34(7), 916-935. doi:10.1080/23273798.2019.1599127.

    Abstract

    ABSTRACTWe investigated to what extent L2 word learning in spoken interaction takes place when learners are unaware of taking part in a language learning study. Using a novel paradigm for approximating naturalistic (but not necessarily non-intentional) L2 learning in the lab, German learners of Dutch were led to believe that the study concerned judging the price of objects. Dutch target words (object names) were selected individually such that these words were unknown to the respective participant. Then, in a dialogue-like task with the experimenter, the participants were first exposed to and then tested on the target words. In comparison to a no-input control group, we observed a clear learning effect especially from the first two exposures, and better learning for cognates than for non-cognates, but no modulating effect of the exposure-production lag. Moreover, some of the acquired knowledge persisted over a six-month period.
  • De Vos, J. (2019). Naturalistic word learning in a second language. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • De Vries, B., Eising, E., Broos, L. A. M., Koelewijn, S. C., Todorov, B., Frants, R. R., Boer, J. M., Ferraro, M. D., Thoen, P. A. C., & Van Den Maagdenberg, A. (2014). RNA expression profiling in brains of familial hemiplegic migraine type 1 knock-in mice. Cephalalgia, 34(3), 174-182. doi:10.1177/0333102413502736.

    Abstract

    Background Various CACNA1A missense mutations cause familial hemiplegic migraine type 1 (FHM1), a rare monogenic subtype of migraine with aura. FHM1 mutation R192Q is associated with pure hemiplegic migraine, whereas the S218L mutation causes hemiplegic migraine, cerebellar ataxia, seizures, and mild head trauma-induced brain edema. Transgenic knock-in (KI) migraine mouse models were generated that carried either the FHM1 R192Q or the S218L mutation and were shown to exhibit increased CaV2.1 channel activity. Here we investigated their cerebellar and caudal cortical transcriptome. Methods Caudal cortical and cerebellar RNA expression profiles from mutant and wild-type mice were studied using microarrays. Respective brain regions were selected based on their relevance to migraine aura and ataxia. Relevant expression changes were further investigated at RNA and protein level by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and/or immunohistochemistry, respectively. Results Expression differences in the cerebellum were most pronounced in S218L mice. Particularly, tyrosine hydroxylase, a marker of delayed cerebellar maturation, appeared strongly upregulated in S218L cerebella. In contrast, only minimal expression differences were observed in the caudal cortex of either mutant mice strain. Conclusion Despite pronounced consequences of migraine gene mutations at the neurobiological level, changes in cortical RNA expression in FHM1 migraine mice compared to wild-type are modest. In contrast, pronounced RNA expression changes are seen in the cerebellum of S218L mice and may explain their cerebellar ataxia phenotype
  • Wagner, M. A., Broersma, M., McQueen, J. M., & Lemhöfer, K. (2019). Imitating speech in an unfamiliar language and an unfamiliar non-native accent in the native language. In S. Calhoun, P. Escudero, M. Tabain, & P. Warren (Eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 20195) (pp. 1362-1366). Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc.

    Abstract

    This study concerns individual differences in speech imitation ability and the role that lexical representations play in imitation. We examined 1) whether imitation of sounds in an unfamiliar language (L0) is related to imitation of sounds in an unfamiliar
    non-native accent in the speaker’s native language (L1) and 2) whether it is easier or harder to imitate speech when you know the words to be imitated. Fifty-nine native Dutch speakers imitated words with target vowels in Basque (/a/ and /e/) and Greekaccented
    Dutch (/i/ and /u/). Spectral and durational
    analyses of the target vowels revealed no relationship between the success of L0 and L1 imitation and no difference in performance between tasks (i.e., L1
    imitation was neither aided nor blocked by lexical knowledge about the correct pronunciation). The results suggest instead that the relationship of the vowels to native phonological categories plays a bigger role in imitation
  • Walsh Dickey, L. (1999). Syllable count and Tzeltal segmental allomorphy. In J. Rennison, & K. Kühnhammer (Eds.), Phonologica 1996. Proceedings of the 8th International Phonology Meeting (pp. 323-334). Holland Academic Graphics.

    Abstract

    Tzeltal, a Mayan language spoken in southern Mexico, exhibits allo-morphy of an unusual type. The vowel quality of the perfective suffix is determined by the number of syllables in the stem to which it is attaching. This paper presents previously unpublished data of this allomorphy and demonstrates that a syllable-count analysis of the phenomenon is the proper one. This finding is put in a more general context of segment-prosody interaction in allomorphy.
  • Ward, M. E., McMahon, G., St Pourcain, B., Evans, D. M., Rietveld, C. A., Benjamin, D. J., Koellinger, P. D., Cesarini, D., Smith, G. D., Timpson, N. J., & Consortium}, {. S. G. A. (2014). Genetic variation associated with differential educational attainment in adults has anticipated associations with school performance in children. PLoS ONE, 9(7): e100248. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0100248.

    Abstract

    Genome-wide association study results have yielded evidence for the association of common genetic variants with crude measures of completed educational attainment in adults. Whilst informative, these results do not inform as to the mechanism of these effects or their presence at earlier ages and where educational performance is more routinely and more precisely assessed. Single nucleotide polymorphisms exhibiting genome-wide significant associations with adult educational attainment were combined to derive an unweighted allele score in 5,979 and 6,145 young participants from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children with key stage 3 national curriculum test results (SATS results) available at age 13 to 14 years in English and mathematics respectively. Standardised (z-scored) results for English and mathematics showed an expected relationship with sex, with girls exhibiting an advantage over boys in English (0.433 SD (95%CI 0.395, 0.470), p<10-10) with more similar results (though in the opposite direction) in mathematics (0.042 SD (95%CI 0.004, 0.080), p = 0.030). Each additional adult educational attainment increasing allele was associated with 0.041 SD (95%CI 0.020, 0.063), p = 1.79×10-04 and 0.028 SD (95%CI 0.007, 0.050), p = 0.01 increases in standardised SATS score for English and mathematics respectively. Educational attainment is a complex multifactorial behavioural trait which has not had heritable contributions to it fully characterised. We were able to apply the results from a large study of adult educational attainment to a study of child exam performance marking events in the process of learning rather than realised adult end product. Our results support evidence for common, small genetic contributions to educational attainment, but also emphasise the likely lifecourse nature of this genetic effect. Results here also, by an alternative route, suggest that existing methods for child examination are able to recognise early life variation likely to be related to ultimate educational attainment.
  • Warner, N., & Cutler, A. (2017). Stress effects in vowel perception as a function of language-specific vocabulary patterns. Phonetica, 74, 81-106. doi:10.1159/000447428.

    Abstract

    Background/Aims: Evidence from spoken word recognition suggests that for English listeners, distinguishing full versus reduced vowels is important, but discerning stress differences involving the same full vowel (as in mu- from music or museum) is not. In Dutch, in contrast, the latter distinction is important. This difference arises from the relative frequency of unstressed full vowels in the two vocabularies. The goal of this paper is to determine how this difference in the lexicon influences the perception of stressed versus unstressed vowels. Methods: All possible sequences of two segments (diphones) in Dutch and in English were presented to native listeners in gated fragments. We recorded identification performance over time throughout the speech signal. The data were here analysed specifically for patterns in perception of stressed versus unstressed vowels. Results: The data reveal significantly larger stress effects (whereby unstressed vowels are harder to identify than stressed vowels) in English than in Dutch. Both language-specific and shared patterns appear regarding which vowels show stress effects. Conclusion: We explain the larger stress effect in English as reflecting the processing demands caused by the difference in use of unstressed vowels in the lexicon. The larger stress effect in English is due to relative inexperience with processing unstressed full vowels
  • Warner, N., McQueen, J. M., & Cutler, A. (2014). Tracking perception of the sounds of English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 135, 2295-3006. doi:10.1121/1.4870486.

    Abstract

    Twenty American English listeners identified gated fragments of all 2288 possible English within-word and cross-word diphones, providing a total of 538 560 phoneme categorizations. The results show orderly uptake of acoustic information in the signal and provide a view of where information about segments occurs in time. Information locus depends on each speech sound’s identity and phonological features. Affricates and diphthongs have highly localized information so that listeners’ perceptual accuracy rises during a confined time range. Stops and sonorants have more distributed and gradually appearing information. The identity and phonological features (e.g., vowel vs consonant) of the neighboring segment also influences when acoustic information about a segment is available. Stressed vowels are perceived significantly more accurately than unstressed vowels, but this effect is greater for lax vowels than for tense vowels or diphthongs. The dataset charts the availability of perceptual cues to segment identity across time for the full phoneme repertoire of English in all attested phonetic contexts.
  • Warren, C. M., Tona, K. D., Ouwekerk, L., Van Paridon, J., Poletiek, F. H., Bosch, J. A., & Nieuwenhuis, S. (2019). The neuromodulatory and hormonal effects of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation as evidenced by salivary alpha amylase, salivary cortisol, pupil diameter, and the P3 event-related potential. Brain Stimulation, 12(3), 635-642. doi:10.1016/j.brs.2018.12.224.

    Abstract

    Background

    Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) is a new, non-invasive technique being investigated as an intervention for a variety of clinical disorders, including epilepsy and depression. It is thought to exert its therapeutic effect by increasing central norepinephrine (NE) activity, but the evidence supporting this notion is limited.
    Objective

    In order to test for an impact of tVNS on psychophysiological and hormonal indices of noradrenergic function, we applied tVNS in concert with assessment of salivary alpha amylase (SAA) and cortisol, pupil size, and electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings.
    Methods

    Across three experiments, we applied real and sham tVNS to 61 healthy participants while they performed a set of simple stimulus-discrimination tasks. Before and after the task, as well as during one break, participants provided saliva samples and had their pupil size recorded. EEG was recorded throughout the task. The target for tVNS was the cymba conchae, which is heavily innervated by the auricular branch of the vagus nerve. Sham stimulation was applied to the ear lobe.
    Results

    P3 amplitude was not affected by tVNS (Experiment 1A: N=24; Experiment 1B: N=20; Bayes factor supporting null model=4.53), nor was pupil size (Experiment 2: N=16; interaction of treatment and time: p=0.79). However, tVNS increased SAA (Experiments 1A and 2: N=25) and attenuated the decline of salivary cortisol compared to sham (Experiment 2: N=17), as indicated by significant interactions involving treatment and time (p=.023 and p=.040, respectively).
    Conclusion

    These findings suggest that tVNS modulates hormonal indices but not psychophysiological indices of noradrenergic function.
  • Weber, K., Christiansen, M., Indefrey, P., & Hagoort, P. (2019). Primed from the start: Syntactic priming during the first days of language learning. Language Learning, 69(1), 198-221. doi:10.1111/lang.12327.

    Abstract

    New linguistic information must be integrated into our existing language system. Using a novel experimental task that incorporates a syntactic priming paradigm into artificial language learning, we investigated how new grammatical regularities and words are learned. This innovation allowed us to control the language input the learner received, while the syntactic priming paradigm provided insight into the nature of the underlying syntactic processing machinery. The results of the present study pointed to facilitatory syntactic processing effects within the first days of learning: Syntactic and lexical priming effects revealed participants’ sensitivity to both novel words and word orders. This suggested that novel syntactic structures and their meaning (form–function mapping) can be acquired rapidly through incidental learning. More generally, our study indicated similar mechanisms for learning and processing in both artificial and natural languages, with implications for the relationship between first and second language learning.
  • Weber, K., Micheli, C., Ruigendijk, E., & Rieger, J. (2019). Sentence processing is modulated by the current linguistic environment and a priori information: An fMRI study. Brain and Behavior, 9(7): e01308. doi:10.1002/brb3.1308.

    Abstract

    Introduction
    Words are not processed in isolation but in rich contexts that are used to modulate and facilitate language comprehension. Here, we investigate distinct neural networks underlying two types of contexts, the current linguistic environment and verb‐based syntactic preferences.

    Methods
    We had two main manipulations. The first was the current linguistic environment, where the relative frequencies of two syntactic structures (prepositional object [PO] and double‐object [DO]) would either follow everyday linguistic experience or not. The second concerned the preference toward one or the other structure depending on the verb; learned in everyday language use and stored in memory. German participants were reading PO and DO sentences in German while brain activity was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

    Results
    First, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) showed a pattern of activation that integrated the current linguistic environment with everyday linguistic experience. When the input did not match everyday experience, the unexpected frequent structure showed higher activation in the ACC than the other conditions and more connectivity from the ACC to posterior parts of the language network. Second, verb‐based surprisal of seeing a structure given a verb (PO verb preference but DO structure presentation) resulted, within the language network (left inferior frontal and left middle/superior temporal gyrus) and the precuneus, in increased activation compared to a predictable verb‐structure pairing.

    Conclusion
    In conclusion, (1) beyond the canonical language network, brain areas engaged in prediction and error signaling, such as the ACC, might use the statistics of syntactic structures to modulate language processing, (2) the language network is directly engaged in processing verb preferences. These two networks show distinct influences on sentence processing.

    Additional information

    Supporting information
  • Weber, A., Di Betta, A. M., & McQueen, J. M. (2014). Treack or trit: Adaptation to genuine and arbitrary foreign accents by monolingual and bilingual listeners. Journal of phonetics, 46, 34-51. doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2014.05.002.

    Abstract

    Two cross-modal priming experiments examined two questions about word recognition in foreign-accented speech: Does accent adaptation occur only for genuine accents markers, and does adaptation depend on language experience? We compared recognition of words spoken with canonical, genuinely-accented and arbitrarily-accented vowels. In Experiment 1, an Italian speaker pronounced vowels in English prime words canonically, or by lengthening /ɪ/ as in a genuine Italian accent (*/tri:k/ for trick), or by arbitrarily shortening /i:/ (*/trɪt/ for treat). Lexical-decision times to subsequent visual target words showed different priming effects in three listener groups. Monolingual native English listeners recognized variants with lengthened but not shortened vowels. Bilingual nonnative Italian-English listeners, who could not reliably distinguish vowel length, recognized both variants. Bilingual nonnative Dutch-English listeners also recognized both variants. In Experiment 2, bilingual Dutch-English listeners recognized Dutch words with genuinely- and arbitrarily-accented vowels (spoken by a native Italian with lengthened and shortened vowels respectively), but recognized words with canonical vowels more easily than words with accented vowels. These results suggest that adaptation to genuine accent markers arises for monolingual and bilingual listeners alike and can occur in native and nonnative languages, but that bilinguals can adapt to arbitrary accent markers better than monolinguals.
  • Wegman, J., Fonteijn, H. M., van Ekert, J., Tyborowska, A., Jansen, C., & Janzen, G. (2014). Gray and white matter correlates of navigational ability in humans. Human Brain Mapping, 35(6), 2561-2572. doi:10.1002/hbm.22349.

    Abstract

    Humans differ widely in their navigational abilities. Studies have shown that self-reports on navigational abilities are good predictors of performance on navigation tasks in real and virtual environments. The caudate nucleus and medial temporal lobe regions have been suggested to subserve different navigational strategies. The ability to use different strategies might underlie navigational ability differences. This study examines the anatomical correlates of self-reported navigational ability in both gray and white matter. Local gray matter volume was compared between a group (N = 134) of good and bad navigators using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), as well as regional volumes. To compare between good and bad navigators, we also measured white matter anatomy using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and looked at fractional anisotropy (FA) values. We observed a trend toward higher local GM volume in right anterior parahippocampal/rhinal cortex for good versus bad navigators. Good male navigators showed significantly higher local GM volume in right hippocampus than bad male navigators. Conversely, bad navigators showed increased FA values in the internal capsule, the white matter bundle closest to the caudate nucleus and a trend toward higher local GM volume in the caudate nucleus. Furthermore, caudate nucleus regional volume correlated negatively with navigational ability. These convergent findings across imaging modalities are in line with findings showing that the caudate nucleus and the medial temporal lobes are involved in different wayfinding strategies. Our study is the first to show a link between self-reported large-scale navigational abilities and different measures of brain anatomy.
  • Wegman, J., Tyborowska, A., Hoogman, M., Vasquez, A. A., & Janzen, G. (2017). The brain-derived neurotrophic factor Val66Met polymorphism affects encoding of object locations during active navigation. European Journal of Neuroscience, 45(12), 1501-1511. doi:10.1111/ejn.13416.

    Abstract

    The brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) was shown to be involved in spatial memory and spatial strategy preference. A naturally occurring single nucleotide polymorphism of the BDNF gene (Val66Met) affects activity-dependent secretion of BDNF. The current event-related fMRI study on preselected groups of ‘Met’ carriers and homozygotes of the ‘Val’ allele investigated the role of this polymorphism on encoding and retrieval in a virtual navigation task in 37 healthy volunteers. In each trial, participants navigated toward a target object. During encoding, three positional cues (columns) with directional cues (shadows) were available. During retrieval, the invisible target had to be replaced while either two objects without shadows (objects trial) or one object with a shadow (shadow trial) were available. The experiment consisted of blocks, informing participants of which trial type would be most likely to occur during retrieval. We observed no differences between genetic groups in task performance or time to complete the navigation tasks. The imaging results show that Met carriers compared to Val homozygotes activate the left hippocampus more during successful object location memory encoding. The observed effects were independent of non-significant performance differences or volumetric differences in the hippocampus. These results indicate that variations of the BDNF gene affect memory encoding during spatial navigation, suggesting that lower levels of BDNF in the hippocampus results in less efficient spatial memory processing
  • Whitmarsh, S., Barendregt, H., Schoffelen, J.-M., & Jensen, O. (2014). Metacognitive awareness of covert somatosensory attention corresponds to contralateral alpha power. NeuroImage, 85(2), 803-809. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.07.031.

    Abstract

    Studies on metacognition have shown that participants can report on their performance on a wide range of perceptual, memory and behavioral tasks. We know little, however, about the ability to report on one's attentional focus. The degree and direction of somatosensory attention can, however, be readily discerned through suppression of alpha band frequencies in EEG/MEG produced by the somatosensory cortex. Such top-down attentional modulations of cortical excitability have been shown to result in better discrimination performance and decreased response times. In this study we asked whether the degree of attentional focus is also accessible for subjective report, and whether such evaluations correspond to the amount of somatosensory alpha activity. In response to auditory cues participants maintained somatosensory attention to either their left or right hand for intervals varying randomly between 5 and 32seconds, while their brain activity was recorded with MEG. Trials were terminated by a probe sound, to which they reported their level of attention on the cued hand right before probe-onset. Using a beamformer approach, we quantified the alpha activity in left and right somatosensory regions, one second before the probe. Alpha activity from contra- and ipsilateral somatosensory cortices for high versus low attention trials were compared. As predicted, the contralateral somatosensory alpha depression correlated with higher reported attentional focus. Finally, alpha activity two to three seconds before the probe-onset was correlated with attentional focus. We conclude that somatosensory attention is indeed accessible to metacognitive awareness.
  • Widlok, T., & Burenhult, N. (2014). Sehen, riechen, orientieren. Spektrum der Wissenschaft, June 2014, 76-81.
  • Wiese, R., Orzechowska, P., Alday, P. M., & Ulbrich, C. (2017). Structural Principles or Frequency of Use? An ERP Experiment on the Learnability of Consonant Clusters. Frontiers in Psychology, 7: 2005. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02005.

    Abstract

    Phonological knowledge of a language involves knowledge about which segments can be combined under what conditions. Languages vary in the quantity and quality of licensed combinations, in particular sequences of consonants, with Polish being a language with a large inventory of such combinations. The present paper reports on a two-session experiment in which Polish-speaking adult participants learned nonce words with final consonant clusters. The aim was to study the role of two factors which potentially play a role in the learning of phonotactic structures: the phonological principle of sonority (ordering sound segments within the syllable according to their inherent loudness) and the (non-) existence as a usage-based phenomenon. EEG responses in two different time windows (adversely to behavioral responses) show linguistic processing by native speakers of Polish to be sensitive to both distinctions, in spite of the fact that Polish is rich in sonority-violating clusters. In particular, a general learning effect in terms of an N400 effect was found which was demonstrated to be different for sonority-obeying clusters than for sonority-violating clusters. Furthermore, significant interactions of formedness and session, and of existence and session, demonstrate that both factors, the sonority principle and the frequency pattern, play a role in the learning process.
  • Wilkins, D. (1999). A questionnaire on motion lexicalisation and motion description. In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 96-115). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3002706.

    Abstract

    How do languages express ideas of movement, and how do they package features that can be part of motion, such as path and cause? This questionnaire is used to gain a picture of the lexical resources a language draws on for motion expressions. It targets issues of semantic conflation (i.e., what other semantic information besides motion may be encoded in a verb root) and patterns of semantic distribution (i.e., what types of information are encoded in the morphemes that come together to build a description of a motion event). It was originally designed for Australian languages, but has since been used around the world.
  • Wilkins, D. (1999). Eliciting contrastive use of demonstratives for objects within close personal space (all objects well within arm’s reach). In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 25-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.2573796.

    Abstract

    Contrastive reference, where a speaker presents or identifies one item in explicit contrast to another (I like this book but that one is boring), has special communicative and information structure properties. This can be reflected in rules of demonstrative use. For example, in some languages, terms equivalent to this and that can be used for contrastive reference in almost any spatial context. But other two-term languages stick more closely to “distance rules” for demonstratives, allowing a this-like term in close space only. This task elicits data concerning one context of contrastive reference, focusing on whether (and how) non-proximal demonstratives can be used to distinguish objects within a proximal area. The task runs like a memory game, with the consultant being asked to identify the locations of two or three hidden items arranged within arm’s reach.
  • Wilkins, D. (1999). The 1999 demonstrative questionnaire: “This” and “that” in comparative perspective. In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 1-24). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.2573775.

    Abstract

    Demonstrative terms (e.g., this and that) are key to understanding how a language constructs and interprets spatial relationships. They are tricky to pin down, typically having functions that do not match “idealized” uses, and that can become invisible in narrow elicitation settings. This questionnaire is designed to identify the range(s) of use of certain spatial demonstrative terms, and help assess the roles played by gesture, access, attention, and addressee knowledge in demonstrative use. The stimuli consist of 25 diagrammed “elicitation settings” to be created by the researcher.
  • Willems, R. M., Van der Haegen, L., Fisher, S. E., & Francks, C. (2014). On the other hand: Including left-handers in cognitive neuroscience and neurogenetics. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15, 193-201. doi:10.1038/nrn3679.

    Abstract

    Left-handers are often excluded from study cohorts in neuroscience and neurogenetics in order to reduce variance in the data. However, recent investigations have shown that the inclusion or targeted recruitment of left-handers can be informative in studies on a range of topics, such as cerebral lateralization and the genetic underpinning of asymmetrical brain development. Left-handed individuals represent a substantial portion of the human population and therefore left-handedness falls within the normal range of human diversity; thus, it is important to account for this variation in our understanding of brain functioning. We call for neuroscientists and neurogeneticists to recognize the potential of studying this often-discarded group of research subjects.
  • Willems, R. M., & Francks, C. (2014). Your left-handed brain. Frontiers for Young Minds, 2: 13. doi:10.3389/frym.2014.00013.

    Abstract

    While most people prefer to use their right hand to brush their teeth, throw a ball, or hold a tennis racket, left-handers prefer to use their left hand. This is the case for around 10 per cent of all people. There was a time (not so long ago) when left-handers were stigmatized in Western (and other) communities: it was considered a bad sign if you were left-handed, and left-handed children were often forced to write with their right hand. This is nonsensical: there is nothing wrong with being left-handed, and trying to write with the non-preferred hand is frustrating for almost everybody. As a matter of fact, science can learn from left-handers, and in this paper, we discuss how this may be the case. We review why some people are left-handed and others are not, how left-handers' brains differ from right-handers’, and why scientists study left-handedness in the first place
  • Wilson, J. J., & Little, H. (2014). Emerging languages in Esoteric and Exoteric Niches: evidence from Rural Sign Languages. In Ways to Potolanguage 3 book of abstracts (pp. 54-55).
  • Windhouwer, M., Petro, J., & Shayan, S. (2014). RELISH LMF: Unlocking the full power of the lexical markup framework. In N. Calzolari, K. Choukri, T. Declerck, H. Loftsson, B. Maegaard, J. Mariani, A. Moreno, J. Odijk, & S. Piperidis (Eds.), Proceedings of LREC 2014: 9th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (pp. 1032-1037).
  • Wirthlin, M., Chang, E. F., Knörnschild, M., Krubitzer, L. A., Mello, C. V., Miller, C. T., Pfenning, A. R., Vernes, S. C., Tchernichovski, O., & Yartsev, M. M. (2019). A modular approach to vocal learning: Disentangling the diversity of a complex behavioral trait. Neuron, 104(1), 87-99. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2019.09.036.

    Abstract

    Vocal learning is a behavioral trait in which the social and acoustic environment shapes the vocal repertoire of individuals. Over the past century, the study of vocal learning has progressed at the intersection of ecology, physiology, neuroscience, molecular biology, genomics, and evolution. Yet, despite the complexity of this trait, vocal learning is frequently described as a binary trait, with species being classified as either vocal learners or vocal non-learners. As a result, studies have largely focused on a handful of species for which strong evidence for vocal learning exists. Recent studies, however, suggest a continuum in vocal learning capacity across taxa. Here, we further suggest that vocal learning is a multi-component behavioral phenotype comprised of distinct yet interconnected modules. Discretizing the vocal learning phenotype into its constituent modules would facilitate integration of findings across a wider diversity of species, taking advantage of the ways in which each excels in a particular module, or in a specific combination of features. Such comparative studies can improve understanding of the mechanisms and evolutionary origins of vocal learning. We propose an initial set of vocal learning modules supported by behavioral and neurobiological data and highlight the need for diversifying the field in order to disentangle the complexity of the vocal learning phenotype.

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  • Wittek, A. (1999). Zustandsveränderungsverben im Deutschen - wie lernt das Kind die komplexe Semantik? In J. Meibauer, & M. Rothweiler (Eds.), Das Lexikon im Spracherwerb (pp. 278-296). Tübingen: Francke.

    Abstract

    Angelika Wittek untersuchte Zustandsveränderungsverben bei vier- bis sechsjährigen Kindern. Englischsprechende Kinder verstehen bis zum Alter von 8 Jahren diese Verben als Bewegungsverben und ignorieren, daß sie zusätzlich die Information über einen Endzustand im Sinne der Negation des Ausgangszustands beeinhalten. Wittek zeigte, daß entgegen der Erwartung transparente, morphologisch komplexe Formen (wachmachen), in denen die Partikel den Endzustand explizit macht, nicht besser verstanden werden als Simplizia (wecken). Zudem diskutierte sie, inwieweit die Verwendung des Adverbs wieder in restitutiver Lesart Hinweise auf den Erwerb dieser Verben geben kann.
  • Witteman, M. J., Weber, A., & McQueen, J. M. (2014). Tolerance for inconsistency in foreign-accented speech. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21, 512-519. doi:10.3758/s13423-013-0519-8.

    Abstract

    Are listeners able to adapt to a foreign-accented speaker who has, as is often the case, an inconsistent accent? Two groups of native Dutch listeners participated in a cross-modal priming experiment, either in a consistent-accent condition (German-accented items only) or in an inconsistent-accent condition (German-accented and nativelike pronunciations intermixed). The experimental words were identical for both groups (words with vowel substitutions characteristic of German-accented speech); additional contextual words differed in accentedness (German-accented or nativelike words). All items were spoken by the same speaker: a German native who could produce the accented forms but could also pass for a Dutch native speaker. Listeners in the consistent-accent group were able to adapt quickly to the speaker (i.e., showed facilitatory priming for words with vocalic substitutions). Listeners in the inconsistent-accent condition showed adaptation to words with vocalic substitutions only in the second half of the experiment. These results indicate that adaptation to foreign-accented speech is rapid. Accent inconsistency slows listeners down initially, but a short period of additional exposure is enough for them to adapt to the speaker. Listeners can therefore tolerate inconsistency in foreign-accented speech.
  • Wittenburg, P., Trilsbeek, P., & Wittenburg, F. (2014). Corpus archiving and dissemination. In J. Durand, U. Gut, & G. Kristoffersen (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Corpus Phonology (pp. 133-149). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Wnuk, E., & Burenhult, N. (2014). Contact and isolation in hunter-gatherer language dynamics: Evidence from Maniq phonology (Aslian, Malay Peninsula). Studies in Language, 38(4), 956-981. doi:10.1075/sl.38.4.06wnu.
  • Wnuk, E., De Valk, J. M., Huisman, J. L. A., & Majid, A. (2017). Hot and cold smells: Odor-temperature associations across cultures. Frontiers in Psychology, 8: 1373. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01373.

    Abstract

    It is often assumed odors are associated with hot and cold temperature, since odor processing may trigger thermal sensations, such as coolness in the case of mint. It is unknown, however, whether people make consistent temperature associations for a variety of everyday odors, and, if so, what determines them. Previous work investigating the bases of cross-modal associations suggests a number of possibilities, including universal forces (e.g., perception), as well as culture-specific forces (e.g., language and cultural beliefs). In this study, we examined odor-temperature associations in three cultures—Maniq (N = 11), Thai (N = 24), and Dutch (N = 24)—who differ with respect to their cultural preoccupation with odors, their odor lexicons, and their beliefs about the relationship of odors (and odor objects) to temperature. Participants matched 15 odors to temperature by touching cups filled with hot or cold water, and described the odors in their native language. The results showed no consistent associations among the Maniq, and only a handful of consistent associations between odor and temperature among the Thai and Dutch. The consistent associations differed across the two groups, arguing against their universality. Further analysis revealed cross-modal associations could not be explained by language, but could be the result of cultural beliefs
  • Wnuk, E., & Majid, A. (2014). Revisiting the limits of language: The odor lexicon of Maniq. Cognition, 131, 125-138. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.12.008.

    Abstract

    It is widely believed that human languages cannot encode odors. While this is true for English,
    and other related languages, data from some non-Western languages challenge this
    view. Maniq, a language spoken by a small population of nomadic hunter–gatherers in
    southern Thailand, is such a language. It has a lexicon of over a dozen terms dedicated
    to smell. We examined the semantics of these smell terms in 3 experiments (exemplar
    listing, similarity judgment and off-line rating). The exemplar listing task confirmed that
    Maniq smell terms have complex meanings encoding smell qualities. Analyses of the
    similarity data revealed that the odor lexicon is coherently structured by two dimensions.
    The underlying dimensions are pleasantness and dangerousness, as verified by the off-line
    rating study. Ethnographic data illustrate that smell terms have detailed semantics tapping
    into broader cultural constructs. Contrary to the widespread view that languages cannot
    encode odors, the Maniq data show odor can be a coherent semantic domain, thus shedding
    new light on the limits of language.
  • Wolf, M. C., Smith, A. C., Meyer, A. S., & Rowland, C. F. (2019). Modality effects in vocabulary acquisition. In A. K. Goel, C. M. Seifert, & C. Freksa (Eds.), Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2019) (pp. 1212-1218). Montreal, QB: Cognitive Science Society.

    Abstract

    It is unknown whether modality affects the efficiency with which humans learn novel word forms and their meanings, with previous studies reporting both written and auditory advantages. The current study implements controls whose absence in previous work likely offers explanation for such contradictory findings. In two novel word learning experiments, participants were trained and tested on pseudoword - novel object pairs, with controls on: modality of test, modality of meaning, duration of exposure and transparency of word form. In both experiments word forms were presented in either their written or spoken form, each paired with a pictorial meaning (novel object). Following a 20-minute filler task, participants were tested on their ability to identify the picture-word form pairs on which they were trained. A between subjects design generated four participant groups per experiment 1) written training, written test; 2) written training, spoken test; 3) spoken training, written test; 4) spoken training, spoken test. In Experiment 1 the written stimulus was presented for a time period equal to the duration of the spoken form. Results showed that when the duration of exposure was equal, participants displayed a written training benefit. Given words can be read faster than the time taken for the spoken form to unfold, in Experiment 2 the written form was presented for 300 ms, sufficient time to read the word yet 65% shorter than the duration of the spoken form. No modality effect was observed under these conditions, when exposure to the word form was equivalent. These results demonstrate, at least for proficient readers, that when exposure to the word form is controlled across modalities the efficiency with which word form-meaning associations are learnt does not differ. Our results therefore suggest that, although we typically begin as aural-only word learners, we ultimately converge on developing learning mechanisms that learn equally efficiently from both written and spoken materials.
  • Wolf, M. C., Muijselaar, M. M. L., Boonstra, A. M., & De Bree, E. H. (2019). The relationship between reading and listening comprehension: Shared and modality-specific components. Reading and Writing, 32(7), 1747-1767. doi:10.1007/s11145-018-9924-8.

    Abstract

    This study aimed to increase our understanding on the relationship between reading and listening comprehension. Both in comprehension theory and in educational practice, reading and listening comprehension are often seen as interchangeable, overlooking modality-specific aspects of them separately. Three questions were addressed. First, it was examined to what extent reading and listening comprehension comprise modality-specific, distinct skills or an overlapping, domain-general skill in terms of the amount of explained variance in one comprehension type by the opposite comprehension type. Second, general and modality-unique subskills of reading and listening comprehension were sought by assessing the contributions of the foundational skills word reading fluency, vocabulary, memory, attention, and inhibition to both comprehension types. Lastly, the practice of using either listening comprehension or vocabulary as a proxy of general comprehension was investigated. Reading and listening comprehension tasks with the same format were assessed in 85 second and third grade children. Analyses revealed that reading comprehension explained 34% of the variance in listening comprehension, and listening comprehension 40% of reading comprehension. Vocabulary and word reading fluency were found to be shared contributors to both reading and listening comprehension. None of the other cognitive skills contributed significantly to reading or listening comprehension. These results indicate that only part of the comprehension process is indeed domain-general and not influenced by the modality in which the information is provided. Especially vocabulary seems to play a large role in this domain-general part. The findings warrant a more prominent focus of modality-specific aspects of both reading and listening comprehension in research and education.
  • Wong, M. M. K., Watson, L. M., & Becker, E. B. E. (2017). Recent advances in modelling of cerebellar ataxia using induced pluripotent stem cells. Journal of Neurology & Neuromedicine, 2(7), 11-15. doi:10.29245/2572.942X/2017/7.1134.

    Abstract

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

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