Publications

Displaying 1 - 100 of 648
  • Abdel Rahman, R., Sommer, W., & Schweinberger, S. R. (2002). Brain potential evidence for the time course of access to biographical facts and names of familiar persons. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28(2), 366-373. doi:10.1037//0278-7393.28.2.366.

    Abstract

    On seeing familiar persons, biographical (semantic) information is typically retrieved faster and more accurately than name information. Serial stage models explain this pattern by suggesting that access to the name follows the retrieval of semantic information. In contrast, interactive activation and competition (IAC) models hold that both processes start together but name retrieval is slower because of structural peculiarities. With a 2-choice go/no-go procedure based on a semantic and a name-related classification, the authors tested differential predictions of the 2 alternative models for reaction times (RTs) and lateralized readiness potentials (LRP). Both LRP (Experiment 1) and RT (Experiment 2) results are in line with IAC models of face identification and naming.
  • Acheson, D. J., Ganushchak, L. Y., Christoffels, I. K., & Hagoort, P. (2012). Conflict monitoring in speech production: Physiological evidence from bilingual picture naming. Brain and Language, 123, 131 -136. doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2012.08.008.

    Abstract

    Self-monitoring in production is critical to correct performance, and recent accounts suggest that such monitoring may occur via the detection of response conflict. The error-related negativity (ERN) is a response-locked event-related potential (ERP) that is sensitive to response conflict. The present study examines whether response conflict is detected in production by exploring a situation where multiple outputs are activated: the bilingual naming of form-related equivalents (i.e. cognates). ERPs were recorded while German-Dutch bilinguals named pictures in their first and second languages. Although cognates were named faster than non-cognates, response conflict was evident in the form of a larger ERN-like response for cognates and adaptation effects on naming, as the magnitude of cognate facilitation was smaller following the naming of cognates. Given that signals of response conflict are present during correct naming, the present results suggest that such conflict may serve as a reliable signal for monitoring in speech production.
  • Acheson, D. J., Wells, J. B., & MacDonald, M. C. (2008). New and updated tests of print exposure and reading abilities in college students. Behavior Research Methods, 40(1), 278-289. doi:10.3758/BRM.40.1.278.

    Abstract

    The relationship between print exposure and measures of reading skill was examined in college students (N=99, 58 female; mean age=20.3 years). Print exposure was measured with several new self-reports of reading and writing habits, as well as updated versions of the Author Recognition Test and the Magazine Recognition Test (Stanovich & West, 1989). Participants completed a sentence comprehension task with syntactically complex sentences, and reading times and comprehension accuracy were measured. An additional measure of reading skill was provided by participants’ scores on the verbal portions of the ACT, a standardized achievement test. Higher levels of print exposure were associated with higher sentence processing abilities and superior verbal ACT performance. The relative merits of different print exposure assessments are discussed.
  • Adank, P., Noordzij, M. L., & Hagoort, P. (2012). The role of planum temporale in processing accent variation in spoken language comprehension. Human Brain Mapping, 33, 360-372. doi:10.1002/hbm.21218.

    Abstract

    A repetition-suppression functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm was used to explore the neuroanatomical substrates of processing two types of acoustic variation—speaker and accent—during spoken sentence comprehension. Recordings were made for two speakers and two accents: Standard Dutch and a novel accent of Dutch. Each speaker produced sentences in both accents. Participants listened to two sentences presented in quick succession while their haemodynamic responses were recorded in an MR scanner. The first sentence was spoken in Standard Dutch; the second was spoken by the same or a different speaker and produced in Standard Dutch or in the artificial accent. This design made it possible to identify neural responses to a switch in speaker and accent independently. A switch in accent was associated with activations in predominantly left-lateralized areas including posterior temporal regions, including superior temporal gyrus, planum temporale (PT), and supramarginal gyrus, as well as in frontal regions, including left pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). A switch in speaker recruited a predominantly right-lateralized network, including middle frontal gyrus and prenuneus. It is concluded that posterior temporal areas, including PT, and frontal areas, including IFG, are involved in processing accent variation in spoken sentence comprehension
  • Adank, P., Davis, M. H., & Hagoort, P. (2012). Neural dissociation in processing noise and accent in spoken language comprehension. Neuropsychologia, 50, 77-84. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.10.024.

    Abstract

    We investigated how two distortions of the speech signal–added background noise and speech in an unfamiliar accent - affect comprehension of speech using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Listeners performed a speeded sentence verification task for speech in quiet in Standard Dutch, in Standard Dutch with added background noise, and for speech in an unfamiliar accent of Dutch. The behavioural results showed slower responses for both types of distortion compared to clear speech, and no difference between the two distortions. The neuroimaging results showed that, compared to clear speech, processing noise resulted in more activity bilaterally in Inferior Frontal Gyrus, Frontal Operculum, while processing accented speech recruited an area in left Superior Temporal Gyrus/Sulcus. It is concluded that the neural bases for processing different distortions of the speech signal dissociate. It is suggested that current models of the cortical organisation of speech are updated to specifically associate bilateral inferior frontal areas with processing external distortions (e.g., background noise) and left temporal areas with speaker-related distortions (e.g., accents).

    Additional information

    Adank_2012_Suppl_Info.doc
  • Ahlenius, H., Devaraju, K., Monni, E., Oki, K., Wattananit, S., Darsalia, V., Iosif, R. E., Torper, O., Wood, J. C., Braun, S., Jagemann, L., Nuber, U. A., Englund, E., Jacobsen, S.-E.-W., Lindvall, O., & Kokaia, Z. (2012). Adaptor Protein LNK Is a Negative Regulator of Brain Neural Stem Cell Proliferation after Stroke. The Journal of Neuroscience, 32(15), 5151-5164. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0474-12.2012.

    Abstract

    Ischemic stroke causes transient increase of neural stem and progenitor cell (NSPC) proliferation in the subventricular zone (SVZ), and migration of newly formed neuroblasts toward the damaged area where they mature to striatal neurons. The molecular mechanisms regulating this plastic response, probably involved in structural reorganization and functional recovery, are poorly understood. The adaptor protein LNK suppresses hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal, but its presence and role in the brain are poorly understood. Here we demonstrate that LNK is expressed in NSPCs in the adult mouse and human SVZ. Lnk−/− mice exhibited increased NSPC proliferation after stroke, but not in intact brain or following status epilepticus. Deletion of Lnk caused increased NSPC proliferation while overexpression decreased mitotic activity of these cells in vitro. We found that Lnk expression after stroke increased in SVZ through the transcription factors STAT1/3. LNK attenuated insulin-like growth factor 1 signaling by inhibition of AKT phosphorylation, resulting in reduced NSPC proliferation. Our findings identify LNK as a stroke-specific, endogenous negative regulator of NSPC proliferation, and suggest that LNK signaling is a novel mechanism influencing plastic responses in postischemic brain.
  • Ahrenholz, B., Bredel, U., Klein, W., Rost-Roth, M., & Skiba, R. (Eds.). (2008). Empirische Forschung und Theoriebildung: Beiträge aus Soziolinguistik, Gesprochene-Sprache- und Zweitspracherwerbsforschung: Festschrift für Norbert Dittmar. Frankfurt am Main: Lang.
  • El Aissati, A., McQueen, J. M., & Cutler, A. (2012). Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels. Cognition, 124, 79-84. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.006.

    Abstract

    Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring win in twin because t cannot be a word). However, the constraint would be counter-productive in certain languages that allow stand-alone vowelless open-class words. One such language is Berber (where t is indeed a word). Berber listeners here detected words affixed to nonsense contexts with or without vowels. Length effects seen in other languages replicated in Berber, but in contrast to prior findings, word detection was not hindered by vowelless contexts. When words can be vowelless, otherwise universal constraints disfavoring vowelless words do not feature in spoken-word recognition.

    Additional information

    mmc1.pdf
  • Allen, S. E. M. (1998). Categories within the verb category: Learning the causative in Inuktitut. Linguistics, 36(4), 633-677.
  • Ambridge, B., Rowland, C. F., & Pine, J. M. (2008). Is structure dependence an innate constraint? New experimental evidence from children's complex-question production. Cognitive Science, 32(1), 222-255. doi:10.1080/03640210701703766.

    Abstract

    According to Crain and Nakayama (1987), when forming complex yes/no questions, children do not make errors such as Is the boy who smoking is crazy? because they have innate knowledge of structure dependence and so will not move the auxiliary from the relative clause. However, simple recurrent networks are also able to avoid such errors, on the basis of surface distributional properties of the input (Lewis & Elman, 2001; Reali & Christiansen, 2005). Two new elicited production studies revealed that (a) children occasionally produce structure-dependence errors and (b) the pattern of children's auxiliary-doubling errors (Is the boy who is smoking is crazy?) suggests a sensitivity to surface co-occurrence patterns in the input. This article concludes that current data do not provide any support for the claim that structure dependence is an innate constraint, and that it is possible that children form a structure-dependent grammar on the basis of exposure to input that exhibits this property.
  • Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., Rowland, C. F., & Young, C. R. (2008). The effect of verb semantic class and verb frequency (entrenchment) on children’s and adults’ graded judgements of argument-structure overgeneralization errors. Cognition, 106(1), 87-129. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2006.12.015.

    Abstract

    Participants (aged 5–6 yrs, 9–10 yrs and adults) rated (using a five-point scale) grammatical (intransitive) and overgeneralized (transitive causative)1 uses of a high frequency, low frequency and novel intransitive verb from each of three semantic classes [Pinker, S. (1989a). Learnability and cognition: the acquisition of argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press]: “directed motion” (fall, tumble), “going out of existence” (disappear, vanish) and “semivoluntary expression of emotion” (laugh, giggle). In support of Pinker’s semantic verb class hypothesis, participants’ preference for grammatical over overgeneralized uses of novel (and English) verbs increased between 5–6 yrs and 9–10 yrs, and was greatest for the latter class, which is associated with the lowest degree of direct external causation (the prototypical meaning of the transitive causative construction). In support of Braine and Brooks’s [Braine, M.D.S., & Brooks, P.J. (1995). Verb argument strucure and the problem of avoiding an overgeneral grammar. In M. Tomasello & W. E. Merriman (Eds.), Beyond names for things: Young children’s acquisition of verbs (pp. 352–376). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum] entrenchment hypothesis, all participants showed the greatest preference for grammatical over ungrammatical uses of high frequency verbs, with this preference smaller for low frequency verbs, and smaller again for novel verbs. We conclude that both the formation of semantic verb classes and entrenchment play a role in children’s retreat from argument-structure overgeneralization errors.
  • Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., & Rowland, C. F. (2012). Semantics versus statistics in the retreat from locative overgeneralization errors. Cognition, 123(2), 260-279. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2012.01.002.

    Abstract

    The present study investigated how children learn that some verbs may appear in the figure-locative but not the ground-locative construction (e.g., Lisa poured water into the cup; *Lisa poured the cup with water), with some showing the opposite pattern (e.g., *Bart filled water into the cup; Bart filled the cup with water), and others appearing in both (Lisa sprayed water onto the flowers; Lisa sprayed the flowers with water). Grammatical acceptability judgments were obtained for the use of each of 142 locative verbs (60 for children) in each sentence type. Overall, and for each age group individually, the judgment data were best explained by a model that included ratings of the extent to which each verb exhibits both the broad- and narrow-range semantic properties of the figure- and ground-locative constructions (relating mainly to manner and end-state respectively; Pinker, 1989) and the statistical-learning measure of overall verb frequency (entrenchment; Braine & Brooks, 1995). A second statistical-learning measure, frequency in each of the two locative constructions (pre-emption; Goldberg, 1995), was found to have no additional dissociable effect. We conclude by drawing together various theoretical proposals to arrive at a possible account of how semantics and statistics interact in the retreat from overgeneralization.
  • Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., Rowland, C. F., & Chang, F. (2012). The roles of verb semantics, entrenchment, and morphophonology in the retreat from dative argument-structure overgeneralization errors. Language, 88(1), 45-81. doi:10.1353/lan.2012.0000.

    Abstract

    Children (aged five-to-six and nine-to-ten years) and adults rated the acceptability of well-formed sentences and argument-structure overgeneralization errors involving the prepositional-object and double-object dative constructions (e.g. Marge pulled the box to Homer/*Marge pulled Homer the box). In support of the entrenchment hypothesis, a negative correlation was observed between verb frequency and the acceptability of errors, across all age groups. Adults additionally displayed sensitivity to narrow-range semantic constraints on the alternation, rejecting double-object dative uses of novel verbs consistent with prepositional-dative-only classes and vice versa. Adults also provided evidence for the psychological validity of a proposed morphophonological constraint prohibiting Latinate verbs from appearing in the double-object dative. These findings are interpreted in the light of a recent account of argument-structure acquisition, under which children retreat from error by incrementally learning the semantic, phonological, and pragmatic properties associated with particular verbs and particular construction slots.*
  • Ameka, F. K., & Kropp Dakubu, M. E. (Eds.). (2008). Aspect and modality in Kwa Languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This book explores the thesis that in the Kwa languages of West Africa, aspect and modality are more central to the grammar of the verb than tense. Where tense marking has emerged it is invariably in the expression of the future, and therefore concerned with the impending actualization or potentiality of an event, hence with modality, rather than the purely temporal sequencing associated with tense. The primary grammatical contrasts are perfective versus imperfective. The main languages discussed are Akan, Dangme, Ewe, Ga and Tuwuli while Nzema-Ahanta, Likpe and Eastern Gbe are also mentioned. Knowledge about these languages has deepened considerably during the past decade or so and ideas about their structure have changed. The volume therefore presents novel analyses of grammatical forms like the so-called S-Aux-O-V-Other or “future” constructions, and provides empirical data for theorizing about aspect and modality. It should be of considerable interest to Africanist linguists, typologists, and creolists interested in substrate issues.
  • Ameka, F. K. (2002). Cultural scripting of body parts for emotions: On 'jealousy' and related emotions in Ewe. Pragmatics and Cognition, 10(1-2), 27-55. doi:10.1075/pc.10.12.03ame.

    Abstract

    Different languages present a variety of ways of talking about emotional experience. Very commonly, feelings are described through the use of ‘body image constructions’ in which they are associated with processes in, or states of, specific body parts. The emotions and the body parts that are thought to be their locus and the kind of activity associated with these body parts vary cross-culturally. This study focuses on the meaning of three ‘body image constructions’ used to describe feelings similar to, but also different from, English ‘jealousy’, ‘envy’, and ‘covetousness’ in the West African language Ewe. It is demonstrated that a ‘moving body’, a pychologised eye, and red eyes are scripted for these feelings. It is argued that the expressions are not figurative and that their semantics provide good clues to understanding the cultural construction of emotions both emotions and the body.
  • Ameka, F. K., & Osam, E. K. (2002). New directions in Ghanaian linguistics: Essays in honour of the 3Ds: M.E. Kropp Dakubu, Florence Abena Dolphyne, Alan Stewart Duthie. Accra: Black Mask Ltd.
  • Ameka, F. K. (2012). Ewe: Its grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices. München: LINCOM EUROPA.

    Abstract

    his work offers a modern description of Ewe(GBE), a Kwa (Niger-Congo) language of West Africa. It assumes that the “essence of linguistics is the quest for meaning” (Whorf) and investigates the meanings of grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices representing them in Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) style explications. The explications account for the range of use of the constructions suggested by data from diversified mediated discourse: television and radio interviews and drama, written plays and fiction as well as insider knowledge of and observed behaviour both as participant and observer in Ewe communities of practice. The author draws ecumenically on insights from functional and formal linguistic approaches. The work opens with an overview of Ewe structural grammar. The rest of the work is divided into three parts. Part II concentrates on property denoting expressions, imperfective aspect constructions and possession. Part III examines the grammatical resources available to the Ewe speaker for packaging information in a clause: scene-setting constructions, a “capability passive” construction and experiential constructions. In Part IV illocutionary devices such as formulaic and routine expressions, address terms and interjections are described paying attention to their socio-cultural dimensions of use. This work is of interest to Africanists and linguists interested in grammatical description, typology, semantics and pragmatics as well as anthropologists interested in ethnography of communication and the relation between language and culture.
  • Ameka, F. K. (1998). Particules énonciatives en Ewe. Faits de langues, 6(11/12), 179-204.

    Abstract

    Particles are little words that speakers use to signal the illocutionary force of utterances and/or express their attitude towards elements of the communicative situation, e.g. the addresses. This paper presents an overview of the classification, meaning and use of utterance particles in Ewe. It argues that they constitute a grammatical word class on functional and distributional grounds. The paper calls for a cross-cultural investigation of particles, especially in Africa, where they have been neglected for far too long.
  • Araújo, S., Bramão, I., Faísca, L., Petersson, K. M., & Reis, A. (2012). Electrophysiological correlates of impaired reading in dyslexic pre-adolescent children. Brain and Cognition, 79, 79-88. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2012.02.010.

    Abstract

    In this study, event related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the extent to which dyslexics (aged 9–13 years) differ from normally reading controls in early ERPs, which reflect prelexical orthographic processing, and in late ERPs, which reflect implicit phonological processing. The participants performed an implicit reading task, which was manipulated in terms of letter-specific processing, orthographic familiarity, and phonological structure. Comparing consonant- and symbol sequences, the results showed significant differences in the P1 and N1 waveforms in the control but not in the dyslexic group. The reduced P1 and N1 effects in pre-adolescent children with dyslexia suggest a lack of visual specialization for letter-processing. The P1 and N1 components were not sensitive to the familiar vs. less familiar orthographic sequence contrast. The amplitude of the later N320 component was larger for phonologically legal (pseudowords) compared to illegal (consonant sequences) items in both controls and dyslexics. However, the topographic differences showed that the controls were more left-lateralized than the dyslexics. We suggest that the development of the mechanisms that support literacy skills in dyslexics is both delayed and follows a non-normal developmental path. This contributes to the hemispheric differences observed and might reflect a compensatory mechanism in dyslexics.
  • Ashby, J., & Martin, A. E. (2008). Prosodic phonological representations early in visual word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34(1), 224-236. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.34.1.224.

    Abstract

    Two experiments examined the nature of the phonological representations used during visual word recognition. We tested whether a minimality constraint (R. Frost, 1998) limits the complexity of early representations to a simple string of phonemes. Alternatively, readers might activate elaborated representations that include prosodic syllable information before lexical access. In a modified lexical decision task (Experiment 1), words were preceded by parafoveal previews that were congruent with a target's initial syllable as well as previews that contained 1 letter more or less than the initial syllable. Lexical decision times were faster in the syllable congruent conditions than in the incongruent conditions. In Experiment 2, we recorded brain electrical potentials (electroencephalograms) during single word reading in a masked priming paradigm. The event-related potential waveform elicited in the syllable congruent condition was more positive 250-350 ms posttarget compared with the waveform elicited in the syllable incongruent condition. In combination, these experiments demonstrate that readers process prosodic syllable information early in visual word recognition in English. They offer further evidence that skilled readers routinely activate elaborated, speechlike phonological representations during silent reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
  • Baayen, R. H., Davidson, D. J., & Bates, D. M. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language, 59(4), 390-412. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2007.12.005.

    Abstract

    This paper provides an introduction to mixed-effects models for the analysis of repeated measurement data with subjects and items as crossed random effects. A worked-out example of how to use recent software for mixed-effects modeling is provided. Simulation studies illustrate the advantages offered by mixed-effects analyses compared to traditional analyses based on quasi-F tests, by-subjects analyses, combined by-subjects and by-items analyses, and random regression. Applications and possibilities across a range of domains of inquiry are discussed.
  • Baggio, G., & Fonseca, A. (2012). Complex dynamics of semantic memory access in reading. Interface: Journal of the Royal Society, 9, 328-338. doi:10.1098/rsif.2011.0289.

    Abstract

    Understanding a word in context relies on a cascade of perceptual and conceptual processes, starting with modality-specific input decoding, and leading to the unification of the word's meaning into a discourse model. One critical cognitive event, turning a sensory stimulus into a meaningful linguistic sign, is the access of a semantic representation from memory. Little is known about the changes that activating a word's meaning brings about in cortical dynamics. We recorded the electroencephalogram (EEG) while participants read sentences that could contain a contextually unexpected word, such as ‘cold’ in ‘In July it is very cold outside’. We reconstructed trajectories in phase space from single-trial EEG time series, and we applied three nonlinear measures of predictability and complexity to each side of the semantic access boundary, estimated as the onset time of the N400 effect evoked by critical words. Relative to controls, unexpected words were associated with larger prediction errors preceding the onset of the N400. Accessing the meaning of such words produced a phase transition to lower entropy states, in which cortical processing becomes more predictable and more regular. Our study sheds new light on the dynamics of information flow through interfaces between sensory and memory systems during language processing.
  • Baggio, G., Van Lambalgen, M., & Hagoort, P. (2008). Computing and recomputing discourse models: An ERP study. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 36-53. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2008.02.005.

    Abstract

    While syntactic reanalysis has been extensively investigated in psycholinguistics, comparatively little is known about reanalysis in the semantic domain. We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to keep track of semantic processes involved in understanding short narratives such as ‘The girl was writing a letter when her friend spilled coffee on the paper’. We hypothesize that these sentences are interpreted in two steps: (1) when the progressive clause is processed, a discourse model is computed in which the goal state (a complete letter) is predicted to hold; (2) when the subordinate clause is processed, the initial representation is recomputed to the effect that, in the final discourse structure, the goal state is not satisfied. Critical sentences evoked larger sustained anterior negativities (SANs) compared to controls, starting around 400 ms following the onset of the sentence-final word, and lasting for about 400 ms. The amplitude of the SAN was correlated with the frequency with which participants, in an offline probe-selection task, responded that the goal state was not attained. Our results raise the possibility that the brain supports some form of non-monotonic recomputation to integrate information which invalidates previously held assumptions.
  • Baggio, G. (2012). Selective alignment of brain responses by task demands during semantic processing. Neuropsychologia, 50, 655-665. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.01.002.

    Abstract

    The way the brain binds together words to form sentences may depend on whether and how the arising cognitive representation is to be used in behavior. The amplitude of the N400 effect in event-related brain potentials is inversely correlated with the degree of fit of a word's meaning into a semantic representation of the preceding discourse. This study reports a double dissociation in the latency characteristics of the N400 effect depending on task demands. When participants silently read words in a sentence context, without issuing a relevant overt response, greater temporal alignment over recording sites occurs for N400 onsets than peaks. If however a behavior is produced – here pressing a button in a binary probe selection task – exactly the opposite pattern is observed, with stronger alignment of N400 peaks than onsets. The peak amplitude of the N400 effect correlates best with the latency characteristic showing less temporal dispersion. These findings suggest that meaning construction in the brain is subtly affected by task demands, and that there is complex functional integration between semantic combinatorics and control systems handling behavioral goals.
  • Bai, C., Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., Wang, L., Hung, Y.-C., Schlesewsky, M., & Burkhardt, P. (2008). Semantic composition engenders an N400: Evidence from Chinese compounds. NeuroReport, 19(6), 695-699. doi:10.1097/WNR.0b013e3282fc1eb7.

    Abstract

    This study provides evidence for the role of semantic composition in compound word processing. We examined the online processing of isolated two meaning unit compounds in Chinese, a language that uses compounding to ‘disambiguate’ meaning. Using auditory presentation, we manipulated the semantic meaning and syntactic category of the two meaning units forming a compound. Event-related brain potential-recordings revealed a significant influence of semantic information, which was reflected in an N400 signature for compounds whose meaning differed from the constituent meanings. This finding suggests that the combination of distinct constituent meanings to form an overall compound meaning consumes processing resources. By contrast, no comparable difference was observed based on syntactic category information. Our findings indicate that combinatory semantic processing at the word level correlates with N400 effects.
  • Bailey, A., Hervas, A., Matthews, N., Palferman, S., Wallace, S., Aubin, A., Michelotti, J., Wainhouse, C., Papanikolaou, K., Rutter, M., Maestrini, E., Marlow, A., Weeks, D. E., Lamb, J., Francks, C., Kearsley, G., Scudder, P., Monaco, A. P., Baird, G., Cox, A. and 46 moreBailey, A., Hervas, A., Matthews, N., Palferman, S., Wallace, S., Aubin, A., Michelotti, J., Wainhouse, C., Papanikolaou, K., Rutter, M., Maestrini, E., Marlow, A., Weeks, D. E., Lamb, J., Francks, C., Kearsley, G., Scudder, P., Monaco, A. P., Baird, G., Cox, A., Cockerill, H., Nuffield, F., Le Couteur, A., Berney, T., Cooper, H., Kelly, T., Green, J., Whittaker, J., Gilchrist, A., Bolton, P., Schönewald, A., Daker, M., Ogilvie, C., Docherty, Z., Deans, Z., Bolton, B., Packer, R., Poustka, F., Rühl, D., Schmötzer, G., Bölte, S., Klauck, S. M., Spieler, A., Poustka., A., Van Engeland, H., Kemner, C., De Jonge, M., Den Hartog, I., Lord, C., Cook, E., Leventhal, B., Volkmar, F., Pauls, D., Klin, A., Smalley, S., Fombonne, E., Rogé, B., Tauber, M., Arti-Vartayan, E., Fremolle-Kruck., J., Pederson, L., Haracopos, D., Brondum-Nielsen, K., & Cotterill, R. (1998). A full genome screen for autism with evidence for linkage to a region on chromosome 7q. International Molecular Genetic Study of Autism Consortium. Human Molecular Genetics, 7(3), 571-578. doi:10.1093/hmg/7.3.571.

    Abstract

    Autism is characterized by impairments in reciprocal social interaction and communication, and restricted and sterotyped patterns of interests and activities. Developmental difficulties are apparent before 3 years of age and there is evidence for strong genetic influences most likely involving more than one susceptibility gene. A two-stage genome search for susceptibility loci in autism was performed on 87 affected sib pairs plus 12 non-sib affected relative-pairs, from a total of 99 families identified by an international consortium. Regions on six chromosomes (4, 7, 10, 16, 19 and 22) were identified which generated a multipoint maximum lod score (MLS) > 1. A region on chromosome 7q was the most significant with an MLS of 3.55 near markers D7S530 and D7S684 in the subset of 56 UK affected sib-pair families, and an MLS of 2.53 in all 87 affected sib-pair families. An area on chromosome 16p near the telomere was the next most significant, with an MLS of 1.97 in the UK families, and 1.51 in all families. These results are an important step towards identifying genes predisposing to autism; establishing their general applicability requires further study.
  • Barendse, M. T., Oort, F. J., Werner, C. S., Ligtvoet, R., & Schermelleh-Engel, K. (2012). Measurement bias detection through factor analysis. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 19(4), 561-579. doi:10.1080/10705511.2012.713261.

    Abstract

    Measurement bias is defined as a violation of measurement invariance, which can be investigated through multigroup factor analysis (MGFA), by testing across-group differences in intercepts (uniform bias) and factor loadings (nonuniform bias). Restricted factor analysis (RFA) can also be used to detect measurement bias. To also enable nonuniform bias detection, we extend RFA with latent moderated structures (LMS) or use a random slope parameterization (RSP). In a simulation study we compare the MGFA, RFA/LMS, and RFA/RSP methods in detecting measurement bias, varying type of bias (uniform, nonuniform), type of the variable that violates measurement invariance (dichotomous, continuous), and its relationship with the trait that we want to measure (independent, dependent). For each condition, 500 sets of data are generated and analyzed with each of the three detection methods, in single run and in an iterative procedure. The RFA methods outperform MGFA when the violating variable is continuous.
  • Bastiaansen, M. C. M., Van Berkum, J. J. A., & Hagoort, P. (2002). Syntactic processing modulates the θ rhythm of the human EEG. NeuroImage, 17, 1479-1492. doi:10.1006/nimg.2002.1275.

    Abstract

    Changes in oscillatory brain dynamics can be studied by means of induced band power (IBP) analyses, which quantify event-related changes in amplitude of frequency-specific EEG rhythms. Such analyses capture EEG phenomena that are not part of traditional event-related potential measures. The present study investigated whether IBP changes in the δ, θ, and α frequency ranges are sensitive to syntactic violations in sentences. Subjects read sentences that either were correct or contained a syntactic violation. The violations were either grammatical gender agreement violations, where a prenominal adjective was not appropriately inflected for the head noun's gender, or number agreement violations, in which a plural quantifier was combined with a singular head noun. IBP changes of the concurrently measured EEG were computed in five frequency bands of 2-Hz width, individually adjusted on the basis of subjects' α peak, ranging approximately from 2 to 12 Hz. Words constituting a syntactic violation elicited larger increases in θ power than the same words in a correct sentence context, in an interval of 300–500 ms after word onset. Of all the frequency bands studied, this was true for the θ frequency band only. The scalp topography of this effect was different for different violations: following number violations a left-hemispheric dominance was found, whereas gender violations elicited a right-hemisphere dominance of the θ power increase. Possible interpretations of this effect are considered in closing.
  • Bastiaansen, M. C. M., Posthuma, D., Groot, P. F. C., & De Geus, E. J. C. (2002). Event-related alpha and theta responses in a visuo-spatial working memory task. Clinical Neurophysiology, 113(12), 1882-1893. doi:10.1016/S1388-2457(02)00303-6.

    Abstract

    Objective: To explore the reactivity of the theta and alpha rhythms during visuo-spatial working memory. Methods: One hundred and seventy-four subjects performed a delayed response task. They had to remember the spatial location of a target stimulus on a computer screen for a 1 or a 4 s retention interval. The target either remained visible throughout the entire interval (sensory trials) or disappeared after 150 ms (memory trials). Changes in induced band power (IBP) in the electroencephalogram (EEG) were analyzed in 4 narrow, individually adjusted frequency bands between 4 and 12 Hz. Results: After presentation of the target stimulus, a phasic power increase was found, irrespective of condition and delay interval, in the lower (roughly, 4–8 Hz) frequency bands, with a posterior maximum. During the retention interval, sustained occipital–parietal alpha power increase and frontal theta power decrease were found. Most importantly, the memory trials showed larger IBP decreases in the theta band over frontal electrodes than the sensory trials. Conclusions: The phasic power increase following target onset is interpreted to reflect encoding of the target location. The sustained theta decrease, which is larger for memory trials, is tentatively interpreted to reflect visuo-spatial working memory processes.
  • Bastiaansen, M. C. M., Van Berkum, J. J. A., & Hagoort, P. (2002). Event-related theta power increases in the human EEG during online sentence processing. Neuroscience Letters, 323(1), 13-16. doi:10.1016/S0304-3940(01)02535-6.

    Abstract

    By analyzing event-related changes in induced band power in narrow frequency bands of the human electroencephalograph, the present paper explores a possible functional role of the alpha and theta rhythms during the processing of words and of sentences. The results show a phasic power increase in the theta frequency range, together with a phasic power decrease in the alpha frequency range, following the presentation of words in a sentence. These effects may be related to word processing, either lexical or in relation to sentence context. Most importantly, there is a slow and highly frequency-specific increase in theta power as a sentence unfolds, possibly related to the formation of an episodic memory trace, or to incremental verbal working memory load.
  • Bastiaansen, M. C. M., Böcker, K. B. E., & Brunia, C. H. M. (2002). ERD as an index of anticipatory attention? Effects of stimulus degradation. Psychophysiology, 39(1), 16-28. doi:10.1111/1469-8986.3910016.

    Abstract

    Previous research has suggested that the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) is largely independent of stimulus modality. In contrast, the scalp topography of the event related desynchronization (ERD) related to the anticipation of stimuli providing knowledge of results (KR) is modality dependent. These findings, combined with functional SPN research, lead to the hypothesis that anticipatory ERD reflects anticipatory attention, whereas the SPN mainly depends on the affective-motivational properties of the anticipated stimulus. To further investigate the prestimulus ERD, and compare this measure with the SPN, 12 participants performed a time-estimation task, and were informed about the quality of their time estimation by an auditory or a visual stimulus providing KR. The KR stimuli could be either intact or degraded. Auditory degraded KR stimuli were less effective than other KR stimuli in guiding subsequent behavior, and were preceded by a larger SPN. There were no effects of degradation on the SPN in the visual modality. Preceding auditory KR stimuli no ERD was present, whereas preceding visual stimuli an occipital ERD was found. However, contrary to expectation, the latter was larger preceding intact than preceding degraded stimuli. It is concluded that the data largely agree with an interpretation of the pre-KR SPN as a reflection of the anticipation of the affective-motivational value of KR stimuli, and of the prestimulus ERD as a perceptual anticipatory attention process.
  • Bastiaansen, M. C. M., Oostenveld, R., Jensen, O., & Hagoort, P. (2008). I see what you mean: Theta power increases are involved in the retrieval of lexical semantic information. Brain and Language, 106(1), 15-28. doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2007.10.006.

    Abstract

    An influential hypothesis regarding the neural basis of the mental lexicon is that semantic representations are neurally implemented as distributed networks carrying sensory, motor and/or more abstract functional information. This work investigates whether the semantic properties of words partly determine the topography of such networks. Subjects performed a visual lexical decision task while their EEG was recorded. We compared the EEG responses to nouns with either visual semantic properties (VIS, referring to colors and shapes) or with auditory semantic properties (AUD, referring to sounds). A time–frequency analysis of the EEG revealed power increases in the theta (4–7 Hz) and lower-beta (13–18 Hz) frequency bands, and an early power increase and subsequent decrease for the alpha (8–12 Hz) band. In the theta band we observed a double dissociation: temporal electrodes showed larger theta power increases in the AUD condition, while occipital leads showed larger theta responses in the VIS condition. The results support the notion that semantic representations are stored in functional networks with a topography that reflects the semantic properties of the stored items, and provide further evidence that oscillatory brain dynamics in the theta frequency range are functionally related to the retrieval of lexical semantic information.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1998). Impersonal verbs in Italic. Their development from an Indo-European perspective. Journal of Indo-European Studies, 26, 91-120.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1998). Language loss in Gaul: Socio-historical and linguistic factors in language conflict. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 15, 23-44.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (2002). Variability in word order: Adjectives and comparatives in Latin, Romance, and Germanic. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 20, 19-50.
  • Becker, A., & Klein, W. (2008). Recht verstehen: Wie Laien, Juristen und Versicherungsagenten die "Riester-Rente" interpretieren. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
  • Behne, T., Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Twelve-month-olds’ comprehension and production of pointing. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 30, 359-375. doi:10.1111/j.2044-835X.2011.02043.x.

    Abstract

    This study explored whether infants aged 12 months already recognize the communicative function of pointing gestures. Infants participated in a task requiring them to comprehend an adult’s informative pointing gesture to the location of a hidden toy. They mostly succeeded in this task, which required them to infer that the adult was attempting to direct their attention to a location for a reason – because she wanted them to know that a toy was hidden there. Many of the infants also reversed roles and produced appropriate pointing gestures for the adult in this same game, and indeed there was a correlation such that comprehenders were for the most part producers. These findings indicate that by 12 months of age infants are beginning to show a bidirectional understanding of communicative pointing.
  • Belke, E., Humphreys, G. W., Watson, D. G., Meyer, A. S., & Telling, A. L. (2008). Top-down effects of semantic knowledge in visual search are modulated by cognitive but not perceptual load. Perception & Psychophysics, 70, 1444-1458. doi:10.3758/PP.70.8.1444.

    Abstract

    Moores, Laiti, and Chelazzi (2003) found semantic interference from associate competitors during visual object search, demonstrating the existence of top-down semantic influences on the deployment of attention to objects. We examined whether effects of semantically related competitors (same-category members or associates) interacted with the effects of perceptual or cognitive load. We failed to find any interaction between competitor effects and perceptual load. However, the competitor effects increased significantly when participants were asked to retain one or five digits in memory throughout the search task. Analyses of eye movements and viewing times showed that a cognitive load did not affect the initial allocation of attention but rather the time it took participants to accept or reject an object as the target. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of conceptual short-term memory and visual attention.
  • Belke, E., & Meyer, A. S. (2002). Tracking the time course of multidimensional stimulus discrimination: Analyses of viewing patterns and processing times during "same''-"different'' decisions. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 14(2), 237-266. doi:10.1080/09541440143000050.

    Abstract

    We investigated the time course of conjunctive ''same''-''different'' judgements for visually presented object pairs by means of combined reaction time and on-line eye movement measurements. The analyses of viewing patterns, viewing times, and reaction times showed that participants engaged in a parallel self-terminating search for differences. In addition, the results obtained for objects differing in only one dimension suggest that processing times may depend on the relative codability of the stimulus dimensions. The results are reviewed in a broader framework in view of higher-order processes. We propose that overspecifications of colour, often found in object descriptions, may have an ''early'' visual rather than a ''late'' linguistic origin. In a parallel assessment of the detection materials, participants overspecified the objects' colour substantially more often than their size. We argue that referential overspecifications of colour are largely attributable to mechanisms of visual discrimination.
  • Benazzo, S., Flecken, M., & Soroli, E. (2012). Typological perspectives on second language acquisition: ‘Thinking for Speaking’ in L2. Language Interaction and Acquisition, 3(2), 163-172.
  • Benders, T., Escudero, P., & Sjerps, M. J. (2012). The interrelation between acoustic context effects and available response categories in speech sound categorization. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 131, 3079-3087. doi:10.1121/1.3688512.

    Abstract

    In an investigation of contextual influences on sound categorization, 64 Peruvian Spanish listeners categorized vowels on an /i/ to /e/ continuum. First, to measure the influence of the stimulus range (broad acoustic context) and the preceding stimuli (local acoustic context), listeners were presented with different subsets of the Spanish /i/-/e/ continuum in separate blocks. Second, the influence of the number of response categories was measured by presenting half of the participants with /i/ and /e/ as responses, and the other half with /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/, and /u/. The results showed that the perceptual category boundary between /i/ and /e/ shifted depending on the stimulus range and that the formant values of locally preceding items had a contrastive influence. Categorization was less susceptible to broad and local acoustic context effects, however, when listeners were presented with five rather than two response options. Vowel categorization depends not only on the acoustic properties of the target stimulus, but also on its broad and local acoustic context. The influence of such context is in turn affected by the number of internal referents that are available to the listener in a task.
  • Bercelli, F., Rossano, F., & Viaro, M. (2008). Different place, different action: Clients' personal narratives in psychotherapy. Text and Talk, 28(3), 283-305. doi:10.1515/TEXT.2008.014.

    Abstract

    This paper deals with clients' personal narratives in psychotherapy. Using the method of conversation analysis, we focus on actions and tasks accomplished through clients' narratives. We identify, within the overall structural organization of therapeutic talk in our corpus, two different sequential placements of clients' narratives and describe some of their distinctive features. When they are placed within an inquiry phase of the session and are solicited by therapists' questions, the clients' narratives mainly provide information for therapists in the service of their inquiring agenda. When placed within an elaboration phase of the session, personal narratives are regularly volunteered by clients and produced as responses to therapists' reinterpretations, i.e., statements working up clients' circumstances as previously described by clients. In this latter placement, they mainly offer further evidence relevant to the therapists' reinterpretations, and thus show how clients understand therapists' reinterpretations and what they make of them. The import of these findings, for both an explication of therapeutic techniques and a better understanding of the therapeutic process, is also discussed.

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  • Bergmann, C., Paulus, M., & Fikkert, P. (2012). Preschoolers’ comprehension of pronouns and reflexives: The impact of the task. Journal of Child Language, 39, 777-803. doi:10.1017/S0305000911000298.

    Abstract

    Pronouns seem to be acquired in an asymmetrical way, where children confuse the meaning of pronouns with reflexives up to the age of six, but not vice versa. Children’s production of the same referential expressions is appropriate at the age of four. However, response-based tasks, the usual means to investigate child language comprehension, are very demanding given children’s limited cognitive resources. Therefore, they might affect performance. To assess the impact of the task, we investigated learners of Dutch (three- and four-year-olds) using both eye-tracking, a non-demanding on-line method, and a typical response-based task. Eye-tracking results show an emerging ability to correctly comprehend pronouns at the age of four. A response-based task fails to indicate this ability across age groups, replicating results of earlier studies. Additionally, biases seem to influence the outcome of the response-based task. These results add new evidence to the ongoing debate of the asymmetrical acquisition of pronouns and reflexives and suggest that there is less of an asymmetry than previously assumed.
  • Berrettini, W., Yuan, X., Tozzi, F., Song, K., Francks, C., Chilcoat, H., Waterworth, D., Muglia, P., & Mooser, V. (2008). Alpha-5/alpha-3 nicotinic receptor subunit alleles increase risk for heavy smoking. Molecular Psychiatry, 13, 368-373. doi:10.1038/sj.mp.4002154.

    Abstract

    Twin studies indicate that additive genetic effects explain most of the variance in nicotine dependence (ND), a construct emphasizing habitual heavy smoking despite adverse consequences, tolerance and withdrawal. To detect ND alleles, we assessed cigarettes per day (CPD) regularly smoked, in two European populations via whole genome association techniques. In these approximately 7500 persons, a common haplotype in the CHRNA3-CHRNA5 nicotinic receptor subunit gene cluster was associated with CPD (nominal P=6.9 x 10(-5)). In a third set of European populations (n= approximately 7500) which had been genotyped for approximately 6000 SNPs in approximately 2000 genes, an allele in the same haplotype was associated with CPD (nominal P=2.6 x 10(-6)). These results (in three independent populations of European origin, totaling approximately 15 000 individuals) suggest that a common haplotype in the CHRNA5/CHRNA3 gene cluster on chromosome 15 contains alleles, which predispose to ND.

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  • Bien, N., Ten Oever, S., Goebel, R., & Sack, A. T. (2012). The sound of size: Crossmodal binding in pitch-size synesthesia: A combined TMS, EEG and psychophysics study. NeuroImage, 59(1), 663-672. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.06.095.

    Abstract

    Crossmodal binding usually relies on bottom-up stimulus characteristics such as spatial and temporal correspondence. However, in case of ambiguity the brain has to decide whether to combine or segregate sensory inputs. We hypothesise that widespread, subtle forms of synesthesia provide crossmodal mapping patterns which underlie and influence multisensory perception. Our aim was to investigate if such a mechanism plays a role in the case of pitch-size stimulus combinations. Using a combination of psychophysics and ERPs, we could show that despite violations of spatial correspondence, the brain specifically integrates certain stimulus combinations which are congruent with respect to our hypothesis of pitch-size synesthesia, thereby impairing performance on an auditory spatial localisation task (Ventriloquist effect). Subsequently, we perturbed this process by functionally disrupting a brain area known for its role in multisensory processes, the right intraparietal sulcus, and observed how the Ventriloquist effect was abolished, thereby increasing behavioural performance. Correlating behavioural, TMS and ERP results, we could retrace the origin of the synesthestic pitch-size mappings to a right intraparietal involvement around 250 ms. The results of this combined psychophysics, TMS and ERP study provide evidence for shifting the current viewpoint on synesthesia more towards synesthesia being at the extremity of a spectrum of normal, adaptive perceptual processes, entailing close interplay between the different sensory systems. Our results support this spectrum view of synesthesia by demonstrating that its neural basis crucially depends on normal multisensory processes. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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  • Blokland, A., Ten Oever, S., Van Gorp, D., Van Draanen, M., Schmidt, T., Nguyen, E., Krugliak, A., Napoletano, A., Keuter, S., & Klinkenberg, I. (2012). The use of a test battery assessing affective behavior in rats: Order effects. Behavioural Brain Research, 228(1), 16-21. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2011.11.042.

    Abstract

    Many studies have used test batteries for the evaluation of affective behavior in rodents. This has the advantage that treatment effects can be examined on different aspects of the affective domain. However, the behavior in one test may affect the behavior in following test. The present study examined possible order effects in rats that were tested in three different tests: Open Field (OF), Zero Maze (ZM) and Forced Swim Test (FST). The data of the present study indicated that the behavior in ZM was the least affected by the order of testing. In contrast, the behavior in the FST (and to a less extend the OF) was dependent on the order of the test in the test battery. Repeated testing in the same test did not change the behavior in the ZM. However, the behavior in the OF and FST changed with repeated testing. The present study indicates that the performance of rats in a test can be dependent on the order in a test battery. Consequently, these data caution the interpretation of treatment effects in studies in which test batteries are used. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
  • Blythe, J. (2012). From passing-gesture to ‘true’ romance: Kin-based teasing in Murriny Patha conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 508-528. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2011.11.005.

    Abstract

    Just as interlocutors can manipulate physical objects for performing certain types of social action, they can also perform different social actions by manipulating symbolic objects. A kinship system can be thought of as an abstract collection of lexical mappings and associated cultural conventions. It is a sort of cognitive object that can be readily manipulated for special purposes. For example, the relationship between pairs of individuals can be momentarily re-construed in constructing jokes or teases. Murriny Patha speakers associate certain parts of the body with particular classes of kin. When a group of Murriny Patha women witness a cultural outsider performing a forearm-holding gesture that is characteristically associated with brothers-in-law, they re-associate the gesture to the husband–wife relationship, thus setting up an extended teasing episode. Many of these teases call on gestural resources. Although the teasing is at times repetitive, and the episode is only thinly populated with the telltale “off-record” markers that characterize teasing proposals as non-serious, the proposal is sufficiently far-fetched as to ensure that the teases come off as more bonding than biting.
  • Bögels, S., Schriefers, H., Vonk, W., Chwilla, D., & Kerkhofs, R. (2012). Are superfluous prosodic breaks harder to process than missing ones? ERP data on auditory sentence comprehension [Abstract]. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 85(3), 352. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.06.167.

    Abstract

    PROCEEDINGS OF THE 16TH WORLD CONGRESS OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY of the International Organization of Psychophysiology (IOP) Pisa, Italy September 13-17, 2012
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (2002). The grammar of time reference in Yukatek Maya. Munich: LINCOM.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (2002). [Review of the book Explorations in linguistic relativity ed. by Martin Pütz and Marjolijn H. Verspoor]. Language in Society, 31(3), 452-456. doi:DOI: 10.1017.S004740502020316502020316.
  • Bohnemeyer, J., Kelly, A., & Abdel Rahman, R. (2002). Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics: Annual Report 2002. Nijmegen: MPI for Psycholinguistics.
  • Bordulk, D., Dalak, N., Tukumba, M., Bennett, L., Bordro Tingey, R., Katherine, M., Cutfield, S., Pamkal, M., & Wightman, G. (2012). Dalabon plants and animals: Aboriginal biocultural knowledge from southern Arnhem Land, north Australia. Palmerston, NT, Australia: Department of Land and Resource Management, Northern Territory Government.
  • Bosman, C., Schoffelen, J.-M., Brunet, N., Oostenveld, R., Bastos, A., Womelsdorf, T., Rubehn, B., Stieglitz, T., De Weerd, P., & Fries, P. (2012). Attentional stimulus selection through selective synchronization between monkey visual areas. Neuron, 75(5), 875-888. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.06.037.

    Abstract

    A central motif in neuronal networks is convergence, linking several input neurons to one target neuron. In visual cortex, convergence renders target neurons responsive to complex stimuli. Yet, convergence typically sends multiple stimuli to a target, and the behaviorally relevant stimulus must be selected. We used two stimuli, activating separate electrocorticographic V1 sites, and both activating an electrocorticographic V4 site equally strongly. When one of those stimuli activated one V1 site, it gamma synchronized (60-80 Hz) to V4. When the two stimuli activated two V1 sites, primarily the relevant one gamma synchronized to V4. Frequency bands of gamma activities showed substantial overlap containing the band of interareal coherence. The relevant V1 site had its gamma peak frequency 2-3 Hz higher than the irrelevant V1 site and 4-6 Hz higher than V4. Gamma-mediated interareal influences were predominantly directed from V1 to V4. We propose that selective synchronization renders relevant input effective, thereby modulating effective connectivity.
  • Böttner, M. (1998). A collective extension of relational grammar. Logic Journal of the IGPL, 6(2), 175-793. doi:10.1093/jigpal/6.2.175.

    Abstract

    Relational grammar was proposed in Suppes (1976) as a semantical grammar for natural language. Fragments considered so far are restricted to distributive notions. In this article, relational grammar is extended to collective notions.
  • Bouckaert, R., Lemey, P., Dunn, M., Greenhill, S. J., Alekseyenko, A. V., Drummond, A. J., Gray, R. D., Suchard, M. A., & Atkinson, Q. D. (2012). Mapping the origins and expansion of the Indo-European language family. Science, 337(6097), 957-960. doi:10.1126/science.1219669.

    Abstract

    There are two competing hypotheses for the origin of the Indo-European language family. The conventional view places the homeland in the Pontic steppes about 6000 years ago. An alternative hypothesis claims that the languages spread from Anatolia with the expansion of farming 8000 to 9500 years ago. We used Bayesian phylogeographic approaches, together with basic vocabulary data from 103 ancient and contemporary Indo-European languages, to explicitly model the expansion of the family and test these hypotheses. We found decisive support for an Anatolian origin over a steppe origin. Both the inferred timing and root location of the Indo-European language trees fit with an agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8000 to 9500 years ago. These results highlight the critical role that phylogeographic inference can play in resolving debates about human prehistory.
  • Bowerman, M., & Brown, P. (Eds.). (2008). Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Abstract

    This book offers an interdisciplinary perspective on verb argument structure and its role in language acquisition. Much contemporary work in linguistics and psychology assumes that argument structure is strongly constrained by a set of universal principles, and that these principles are innate, providing children with certain “bootstrapping” strategies that help them home in on basic aspects of the syntax and lexicon of their language. Drawing on a broad range of crosslinguistic data, this volume shows that languages are much more diverse in their argument structure properties than has been realized. This diversity raises challenges for many existing proposals about language acquisition, affects the range of solutions that can be considered plausible, and highlights new acquisition puzzles that until now have passed unnoticed. The volume is the outcome of an integrated research project and comprises chapters by both specialists in first language acquisition and field linguists working on a variety of lesser-known languages. The research draws on original fieldwork and on adult data, child data, or both from thirteen languages from nine different language families. Some chapters offer typological perspectives, examining the basic structures of a given language with language-learnability issues in mind. Other chapters investigate specific problems of language acquisition in one or more languages. Taken as a whole, the volume illustrates how detailed work on crosslinguistic variation is critical to the development of insightful theories of language acquisition.
  • Bowerman, M. (1974). Learning the structure of causative verbs: A study in the relationship of cognitive, semantic, and syntactic development. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 8, 142-178.
  • Li, P., & Bowerman, M. (1998). The acquisition of lexical and grammatical aspect in Chinese. First Language, 18, 311-350. doi:10.1177/014272379801805404.

    Abstract

    This study reports three experiments on how children learning Mandarin Chinese comprehend and use aspect markers. These experiments examine the role of lexical aspect in children's acquisition of grammatical aspect. Results provide converging evidence for children's early sensitivity to (1) the association between atelic verbs and the imperfective aspect markers zai, -zhe, and -ne, and (2) the association between telic verbs and the perfective aspect marker -le. Children did not show a sensitivity in their use or understanding of aspect markers to the difference between stative and activity verbs or between semelfactive and activity verbs. These results are consistent with Slobin's (1985) basic child grammar hypothesis that the contrast between process and result is important in children's early acquisition of temporal morphology. In contrast, they are inconsistent with Bickerton's (1981, 1984) language bioprogram hypothesis that the distinctions between state and process and between punctual and nonpunctual are preprogrammed into language learners. We suggest new ways of looking at the results in the light of recent probabilistic hypotheses that emphasize the role of input, prototypes and connectionist representations.
  • Bramão, I., Francisco, A., Inácio, F., Faísca, L., Reis, A., & Petersson, K. M. (2012). Electrophysiological evidence for colour effects on the naming of colour diagnostic and noncolour diagnostic objects. Visual Cognition, 20, 1164-1185. doi:10.1080/13506285.2012.739215.

    Abstract

    In this study, we investigated the level of visual processing at which surface colour information improves the naming of colour diagnostic and noncolour diagnostic objects. Continuous electroencephalograms were recorded while participants performed a visual object naming task in which coloured and black-and-white versions of both types of objects were presented. The black-and-white and the colour presentations were compared in two groups of event-related potentials (ERPs): (1) The P1 and N1 components, indexing early visual processing; and (2) the N300 and N400 components, which index late visual processing. A colour effect was observed in the P1 and N1 components, for both colour and noncolour diagnostic objects. In addition, for colour diagnostic objects, a colour effect was observed in the N400 component. These results suggest that colour information is important for the naming of colour and noncolour diagnostic objects at different levels of visual processing. It thus appears that the visual system uses colour information, during naming of both object types, at early visual stages; however, for the colour diagnostic objects naming, colour information is also recruited during the late visual processing stages.
  • Bramão, I., Faísca, L., Forkstam, C., Inácio, F., Araújo, S., Petersson, K. M., & Reis, A. (2012). The interaction between surface color and color knowledge: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. Brain and Cognition, 78, 28-37. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2011.10.004.

    Abstract

    In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to evaluate the contribution of surface color and color knowledge information in object identification. We constructed two color-object verification tasks – a surface and a knowledge verification task – using high color diagnostic objects; both typical and atypical color versions of the same object were presented. Continuous electroencephalogram was recorded from 26 subjects. A cluster randomization procedure was used to explore the differences between typical and atypical color objects in each task. In the color knowledge task, we found two significant clusters that were consistent with the N350 and late positive complex (LPC) effects. Atypical color objects elicited more negative ERPs compared to typical color objects. The color effect found in the N350 time window suggests that surface color is an important cue that facilitates the selection of a stored object representation from long-term memory. Moreover, the observed LPC effect suggests that surface color activates associated semantic knowledge about the object, including color knowledge representations. We did not find any significant differences between typical and atypical color objects in the surface color verification task, which indicates that there is little contribution of color knowledge to resolve the surface color verification. Our main results suggest that surface color is an important visual cue that triggers color knowledge, thereby facilitating object identification.
  • Brandmeyer, A., Desain, P. W., & McQueen, J. M. (2012). Effects of native language on perceptual sensitivity to phonetic cues. Neuroreport, 23, 653-657. doi:10.1097/WNR.0b013e32835542cd.

    Abstract

    The present study used electrophysiological and behavioral measures to investigate the perception of an English stop consonant contrast by native English listeners and by native Dutch listeners who were highly proficient in English. A /ba/-/pa/ continuum was created from a naturally produced /pa/ token by removing successive periods of aspiration, thus reducing the voice onset time. Although aspiration is a relevant cue for distinguishing voiced and unvoiced labial stop consonants (/b/ and /p/) in English, prevoicing is the primary cue used to distinguish between these categories in Dutch. In the electrophysiological experiment, participants listened to oddball sequences containing the standard /pa/ stimulus and one of three deviant stimuli while the mismatch-negativity response was measured. Participants then completed an identification task on the same stimuli. The results showed that native English participants were more sensitive to reductions in aspiration than native Dutch participants, as indicated by shifts in the category boundary, by differing within-group patterns of mismatch-negativity responses, and by larger mean evoked potential amplitudes in the native English group for two of the three deviant stimuli. This between-group difference in the sensorineural processing of aspiration cues indicates that native language experience alters the way in which the acoustic features of speech are processed in the auditory brain, even following extensive second-language training.

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  • Broersma, M., & Cutler, A. (2008). Phantom word activation in L2. System, 36(1), 22-34. doi:10.1016/j.system.2007.11.003.

    Abstract

    L2 listening can involve the phantom activation of words which are not actually in the input. All spoken-word recognition involves multiple concurrent activation of word candidates, with selection of the correct words achieved by a process of competition between them. L2 listening involves more such activation than L1 listening, and we report two studies illustrating this. First, in a lexical decision study, L2 listeners accepted (but L1 listeners did not accept) spoken non-words such as groof or flide as real English words. Second, a priming study demonstrated that the same spoken non-words made recognition of the real words groove, flight easier for L2 (but not L1) listeners, suggesting that, for the L2 listeners only, these real words had been activated by the spoken non-word input. We propose that further understanding of the activation and competition process in L2 lexical processing could lead to new understanding of L2 listening difficulty.
  • Broersma, M. (2008). Flexible cue use in nonnative phonetic categorization (L). Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 124(2), 712-715. doi:10.1121/1.2940578.

    Abstract

    Native and nonnative listeners categorized final /v/ versus /f/ in English nonwords. Fricatives followed phonetically long originally /v/-preceding or short originally /f/-preceding vowels. Vowel duration was constant for each participant and sometimes mismatched other voicing cues. Previous results showed that English but not Dutch listeners whose L1 has no final voicing contrast nevertheless used the misleading vowel duration for /v/-/f/ categorization. New analyses showed that Dutch listeners did use vowel duration initially, but quickly reduced its use, whereas the English listeners used it consistently throughout the experiment. Thus, nonnative listeners adapted to the stimuli more flexibly than native listeners did.
  • Broersma, M. (2012). Increased lexical activation and reduced competition in second-language listening. Language and Cognitive Processes, 27(7-8), 1205-1224. doi:10.1080/01690965.2012.660170.

    Abstract

    This study investigates how inaccurate phoneme processing affects recognition of partially onset-overlapping pairs like DAFFOdil-DEFIcit and of minimal pairs like flash-flesh in second-language listening. Two cross-modal priming experiments examined differences between native (L1) and second-language (L2) listeners at two stages of lexical processing: first, the activation of intended and mismatching lexical representations and second, the competition between those lexical representations. Experiment 1 shows that truncated primes like daffo- and defi- activated lexical representations of mismatching words (either deficit or daffodil) more for L2 listeners than for L1 listeners. Experiment 2 shows that for minimal pairs, matching primes (prime: flash, target: FLASH) facilitated recognition of visual targets for L1 and L2 listeners alike, whereas mismatching primes (flesh, FLASH) inhibited recognition consistently for L1 listeners but only in a minority of cases for L2 listeners; in most cases, for them, primes facilitated recognition of both words equally strongly. Thus, L1 and L2 listeners' results differed both at the stages of lexical activation and competition. First, perceptually difficult phonemes activated mismatching words more for L2 listeners than for L1 listeners, and second, lexical competition led to efficient inhibition of mismatching competitors for L1 listeners but in most cases not for L2 listeners.
  • Brookshire, G., & Casasanto, D. (2012). Motivation and motor control: Hemispheric specialization for approach motivation reverses with handedness. PLoS One, 7(4), e36036. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036036.

    Abstract

    Background: According to decades of research on affective motivation in the human brain, approach motivational states are supported primarily by the left hemisphere and avoidance states by the right hemisphere. The underlying cause of this specialization, however, has remained unknown. Here we conducted a first test of the Sword and Shield Hypothesis (SSH), according to which the hemispheric laterality of affective motivation depends on the laterality of motor control for the dominant hand (i.e., the "sword hand," used preferentially to perform approach actions) and the nondominant hand (i.e., the "shield hand," used preferentially to perform avoidance actions). Methodology/Principal Findings: To determine whether the laterality of approach motivation varies with handedness, we measured alpha-band power (an inverse index of neural activity) in right- and left-handers during resting-state electroencephalography and analyzed hemispheric alpha-power asymmetries as a function of the participants' trait approach motivational tendencies. Stronger approach motivation was associated with more left-hemisphere activity in right-handers, but with more right-hemisphere activity in left-handers. Conclusions: The hemispheric correlates of approach motivation reversed between right- and left-handers, consistent with the way they typically use their dominant and nondominant hands to perform approach and avoidance actions. In both right- and left-handers, approach motivation was lateralized to the same hemisphere that controls the dominant hand. This covariation between neural systems for action and emotion provides initial support for the SSH
  • Brouwer, S., Mitterer, H., & Huettig, F. (2012). Speech reductions change the dynamics of competition during spoken word recognition. Language and Cognitive Processes, 27(4), 539-571. doi:10.1080/01690965.2011.555268.

    Abstract

    Three eye-tracking experiments investigated how phonological reductions (e.g., ‘‘puter’’ for ‘‘computer’’) modulate phonological competition. Participants listened to sentences extracted from a pontaneous speech corpus and saw four printed words: a target (e.g., ‘‘computer’’), a competitor similar to the canonical form (e.g., ‘‘companion’’), one similar to the reduced form (e.g.,
    ‘‘pupil’’), and an unrelated distractor. In Experiment 1, we presented canonical and reduced forms in a syllabic and in a sentence context. Listeners directed
    their attention to a similar degree to both competitors independent of the
    target’s spoken form. In Experiment 2, we excluded reduced forms and
    presented canonical forms only. In such a listening situation, participants
    showed a clear preference for the ‘‘canonical form’’ competitor. In Experiment 3, we presented canonical forms intermixed with reduced forms in a sentence context and replicated the competition pattern of Experiment 1. These data suggest that listeners penalize acoustic mismatches less strongly when listeningto reduced speech than when listening to fully articulated speech. We conclude
    that flexibility to adjust to speech-intrinsic factors is a key feature of the spoken word recognition system.
  • Brouwer, S., Mitterer, H., & Huettig, F. (2012). Can hearing puter activate pupil? Phonological competition and the processing of reduced spoken words in spontaneous conversations. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65, 2193-2220. doi:10.1080/17470218.2012.693109.

    Abstract

    In listeners' daily communicative exchanges, they most often hear casual speech, in which words are often produced with fewer segments, rather than the careful speech used in most psycholinguistic experiments. Three experiments examined phonological competition during the recognition of reduced forms such as [pjutər] for computer using a target-absent variant of the visual world paradigm. Listeners' eye movements were tracked upon hearing canonical and reduced forms as they looked at displays of four printed words. One of the words was phonologically similar to the canonical pronunciation of the target word, one word was similar to the reduced pronunciation, and two words served as unrelated distractors. When spoken targets were presented in isolation (Experiment 1) and in sentential contexts (Experiment 2), competition was modulated as a function of the target word form. When reduced targets were presented in sentential contexts, listeners were probabilistically more likely to first fixate reduced-form competitors before shifting their eye gaze to canonical-form competitors. Experiment 3, in which the original /p/ from [pjutər] was replaced with a “real” onset /p/, showed an effect of cross-splicing in the late time window. We conjecture that these results fit best with the notion that speech reductions initially activate competitors that are similar to the phonological surface form of the reduction, but that listeners nevertheless can exploit fine phonetic detail to reconstruct strongly reduced forms to their canonical counterparts.
  • Brouwer, H., Fitz, H., & Hoeks, J. (2012). Getting real about semantic illusions: Rethinking the functional role of the P600 in language comprehension. Brain Research, 1446, 127-143. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2012.01.055.

    Abstract

    In traditional theories of language comprehension, syntactic and semantic processing are inextricably linked. This assumption has been challenged by the ‘Semantic Illusion Effect’ found in studies using Event Related brain Potentials. Semantically anomalous sentences did not produce the expected increase in N400 amplitude but rather one in P600 amplitude. To explain these findings, complex models have been devised in which an independent semantic processing stream can arrive at a sentence interpretation that may differ from the interpretation prescribed by the syntactic structure of the sentence. We review five such multi-stream models and argue that they do not account for the full range of relevant results because they assume that the amplitude of the N400 indexes some form of semantic integration. Based on recent evidence we argue that N400 amplitude might reflect the retrieval of lexical information from memory. On this view, the absence of an N400-effect in Semantic Illusion sentences can be explained in terms of priming. Furthermore, we suggest that semantic integration, which has previously been linked to the N400 component, might be reflected in the P600 instead. When combined, these functional interpretations result in a single-stream account of language processing that can explain all of the Semantic Illusion data.
  • Brouwer, S., Van Engen, K. J., Calandruccio, L., & Bradlow, A. R. (2012). Linguistic contributions to speech-on-speech masking for native and non-native listeners: Language familiarity and semantic content. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 131(2), 1449-1464. doi:10.1121/1.3675943.

    Abstract

    This study examined whether speech-on-speech masking is sensitive to variation in the degree of similarity between the target and the masker speech. Three experiments investigated whether speech-in-speech recognition varies across different background speech languages (English vs Dutch) for both English and Dutch targets, as well as across variation in the semantic content of the background speech (meaningful vs semantically anomalous sentences), and across variation in listener status vis-à-vis the target and masker languages (native, non-native, or unfamiliar). The results showed that the more similar the target speech is to the masker speech (e.g., same vs different language, same vs different levels of semantic content), the greater the interference on speech recognition accuracy. Moreover, the listener’s knowledge of the target and the background language modulate the size of the release from masking. These factors had an especially strong effect on masking effectiveness in highly unfavorable listening conditions. Overall this research provided evidence that that the degree of target-masker similarity plays a significant role in speech-in-speech recognition. The results also give insight into how listeners assign their resources differently depending on whether they are listening to their first or second language
  • Brown, P. (2008). Up, down, and across the land: Landscape terms and place names in Tzeltal. Language Sciences, 30(2/3), 151-181. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.003.

    Abstract

    The Tzeltal language is spoken in a mountainous region of southern Mexico by some 280,000 Mayan corn farmers. This paper focuses on landscape and place vocabulary in the Tzeltal municipio of Tenejapa, where speakers use an absolute system of spatial reckoning based on the overall uphill (southward)/downhill (northward) slope of the land. The paper examines the formal and functional properties of the Tenejapa Tzeltal vocabulary labelling features of the local landscape and relates it to spatial vocabulary for describing locative relations, including the uphill/downhill axis for spatial reckoning as well as body part terms for specifying parts of locative grounds. I then examine the local place names, discuss their semantic and morphosyntactic properties, and relate them to the landscape vocabulary, to spatial vocabulary, and also to cultural narratives about events associated with particular places. I conclude with some observations on the determinants of landscape and place terminology in Tzeltal, and what this vocabulary and how it is used reveal about the conceptualization of landscape and places.
  • Brown, P. (1998). Children's first verbs in Tzeltal: Evidence for an early verb category. Linguistics, 36(4), 713-753.

    Abstract

    A major finding in studies of early vocabulary acquisition has been that children tend to learn a lot of nouns early but make do with relatively few verbs, among which semantically general-purpose verbs like do, make, get, have, give, come, go, and be play a prominent role. The preponderance of nouns is explained in terms of nouns labelling concrete objects beings “easier” to learn than verbs, which label relational categories. Nouns label “natural categories” observable in the world, verbs label more linguistically and culturally specific categories of events linking objects belonging to such natural categories (Gentner 1978, 1982; Clark 1993). This view has been challenged recently by data from children learning certain non-Indo-European languges like Korean, where children have an early verb explosion and verbs dominate in early child utterances. Children learning the Mayan language Tzeltal also acquire verbs early, prior to any noun explosion as measured by production. Verb types are roughly equivalent to noun types in children’s beginning production vocabulary and soon outnumber them. At the one-word stage children’s verbs mostly have the form of a root stripped of affixes, correctly segmented despite structural difficulties. Quite early (before the MLU 2.0 point) there is evidence of productivity of some grammatical markers (although they are not always present): the person-marking affixes cross-referencing core arguments, and the completive/incompletive aspectual distinctions. The Tzeltal facts argue against a natural-categories explanation for childre’s early vocabulary, in favor of a view emphasizing the early effects of language-specific properties of the input. They suggest that when and how a child acquires a “verb” category is centrally influenced by the structural properties of the input, and that the semantic structure of the language - where the referential load is concentrated - plays a fundamental role in addition to distributional facts.
  • Brown, P. (1998). Conversational structure and language acquisition: The role of repetition in Tzeltal adult and child speech. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 8(2), 197-221. doi:10.1525/jlin.1998.8.2.197.

    Abstract

    When Tzeltal children in the Mayan community of Tenejapa, in southern Mexico, begin speaking, their production vocabulary consists predominantly of verb roots, in contrast to the dominance of nouns in the initial vocabulary of first‐language learners of Indo‐European languages. This article proposes that a particular Tzeltal conversational feature—known in the Mayanist literature as "dialogic repetition"—provides a context that facilitates the early analysis and use of verbs. Although Tzeltal babies are not treated by adults as genuine interlocutors worthy of sustained interaction, dialogic repetition in the speech the children are exposed to may have an important role in revealing to them the structural properties of the language, as well as in socializing the collaborative style of verbal interaction adults favor in this community.
  • Brown, A., & Gullberg, M. (2008). Bidirectional crosslinguistic influence in L1-L2 encoding of manner in speech and gesture. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30(2), 225-251. doi:10.1017/S0272263108080327.

    Abstract

    Whereas most research in SLA assumes the relationship between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) to be unidirectional, this study investigates the possibility of a bidirectional relationship. We examine the domain of manner of motion, in which monolingual Japanese and English speakers differ both in speech and gesture. Parallel influences of the L1 on the L2 and the L2 on the L1 were found in production from native Japanese speakers with intermediate knowledge of English. These effects, which were strongest in gesture patterns, demonstrate that (a) bidirectional interaction between languages in the multilingual mind can occur even with intermediate proficiency in the L2 and (b) gesture analyses can offer insights on interactions between languages beyond those observed through analyses of speech alone.
  • Brown, P. (1998). [Review of the book by A.J. Wootton, Interaction and the development of mind]. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 4(4), 816-817.
  • Brown, A. (2008). Gesture viewpoint in Japanese and English: Cross-linguistic interactions between two languages in one speaker. Gesture, 8(2), 256-276. doi:10.1075/gest.8.2.08bro.

    Abstract

    Abundant evidence across languages, structures, proficiencies, and modalities shows that properties of first languages influence performance in second languages. This paper presents an alternative perspective on the interaction between established and emerging languages within second language speakers by arguing that an L2 can influence an L1, even at relatively low proficiency levels. Analyses of the gesture viewpoint employed in English and Japanese descriptions of motion events revealed systematic between-language and within-language differences. Monolingual Japanese speakers used significantly more Character Viewpoint than monolingual English speakers, who predominantly employed Observer Viewpoint. In their L1 and their L2, however, native Japanese speakers with intermediate knowledge of English patterned more like the monolingual English speakers than their monolingual Japanese counterparts. After controlling for effects of cultural exposure, these results offer valuable insights into both the nature of cross-linguistic interactions within individuals and potential factors underlying gesture viewpoint.
  • Brown, A., & Gullberg, M. (2012). Multicompetence and native speaker variation in clausal packaging in Japanese. Second Language Research, 28, 415-442. doi:10.1177/0267658312455822.

    Abstract

    This work was supported by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO; MPI 56-384, The Dynamics of Multilingual Processing, awarded to M Gullberg and P Indefrey).
  • Brown, P. (1998). La identificación de las raíces verbales en Tzeltal (Maya): Cómo lo hacen los niños? Función, 17-18, 121-146.

    Abstract

    This is a Spanish translation of Brown 1997.
  • Brown, P. (2012). Time and space in Tzeltal: Is the future uphill? Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 212. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00212.

    Abstract

    Linguistic expressions of time often draw on spatial language, which raises the question of whether cultural specificity in spatial language and cognition is reflected in thinking about time. In the Mayan language Tzeltal, spatial language relies heavily on an absolute frame of reference utilizing the overall slope of the land, distinguishing an “uphill/downhill” axis oriented from south to north, and an orthogonal “crossways” axis (sunrise-set) on the basis of which objects at all scales are located. Does this absolute system for calculating spa-tial relations carry over into construals of temporal relations? This question was explored in a study where Tzeltal consultants produced temporal expressions and performed two different non-linguistic temporal ordering tasks. The results show that at least five distinct schemata for conceptualizing time underlie Tzeltal linguistic expressions: (i) deictic ego-centered time, (ii) time as an ordered sequence (e.g., “first”/“later”), (iii) cyclic time (times of the day, seasons), (iv) time as spatial extension or location (e.g., “entering/exiting July”), and (v) a time vector extending uphillwards into the future. The non-linguistic task results showed that the “time moves uphillwards” metaphor, based on the absolute frame of reference prevalent in Tzeltal spatial language and thinking and important as well in the linguistic expressions for time, is not strongly reflected in responses on these tasks. It is argued that systematic and consistent use of spatial language in an absolute frame of reference does not necessarily transfer to consistent absolute time conceptualization in non-linguistic tasks; time appears to be more open to alternative construals.
  • Brown-Schmidt, S., & Konopka, A. E. (2008). Little houses and casas pequenas: Message formulation and syntactic form in unscripted speech with speakers of English and Spanish. Cognition, 109(2), 274-280. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2008.07.011.

    Abstract

    During unscripted speech, speakers coordinate the formulation of pre-linguistic messages with the linguistic processes that implement those messages into speech. We examine the process of constructing a contextually appropriate message and interfacing that message with utterance planning in English (the small butterfly) and Spanish (la mariposa pequeña) during an unscripted, interactive task. The coordination of gaze and speech during formulation of these messages is used to evaluate two hypotheses regarding the lower limit on the size of message planning units, namely whether messages are planned in units isomorphous to entire phrases or units isomorphous to single lexical items. Comparing the planning of fluent pre-nominal adjectives in English and post-nominal adjectives in Spanish showed that size information is added to the message later in Spanish than English, suggesting that speakers can prepare pre-linguistic messages in lexically-sized units. The results also suggest that the speaker can use disfluency to coordinate the transition from thought to speech.
  • Brucato, N., Mazières, S., Guitard, E., Giscard, P.-H., Bois, É., Larrouy, G., & Dugoujon, J.-M. (2012). The Hmong diaspora: Preserved South-East Asian genetic ancestry in French Guianese Asians. Comptes Rendus Biologies, 335, 698-707. doi:10.1016/j.crvi.2012.10.003.

    Abstract

    The Hmong Diaspora is one of the widest modern human migrations. Mainly localised in South-East Asia, the United States of America, and metropolitan France, a small community has also settled the Amazonian forest of French Guiana. We have biologically analysed 62 individuals of this unique Guianese population through three complementary genetic markers: mitochondrial DNA (HVS-I/II and coding region SNPs), Y-chromosome (SNPs and STRs), and the Gm allotypic system. All genetic systems showed a high conservation of the Asian gene pool (Asian ancestry: mtDNA = 100.0%; NRY = 99.1%; Gm = 96.6%), without a trace of founder effect. When compared across various Asian populations, the highest correlations were observed with Hmong-Mien groups still living in South-East Asia (Fst < 0.05; P-value < 0.05). Despite a long history punctuated by exodus, the French Guianese Hmong have maintained their original genetic diversity.
  • Burenhult, N. (2008). Spatial coordinate systems in demonstrative meaning. Linguistic Typology, 12(1), 99-142. doi:10.1515/LITY.2008.032.

    Abstract

    Exploring the semantic encoding of a group of crosslinguistically uncommon “spatial-coordinate demonstratives”, this work establishes the existence of demonstratives whose function is to project angular search domains, thus invoking proper coordinate systems (or “frames of reference”). What is special about these distinctions is that they rely on a spatial asymmetry in relativizing a demonstrative referent (representing the Figure) to the deictic center (representing the Ground). A semantic typology of such demonstratives is constructed based on the nature of the asymmetries they employ. A major distinction is proposed between asymmetries outside the deictic Figure-Ground array (e.g., features of the larger environment) and those within it (e.g., facets of the speaker/addressee dyad). A unique system of the latter type, present in Jahai, an Aslian (Mon-Khmer) language spoken by groups of hunter-gatherers in the Malay Peninsula, is introduced and explored in detail using elicited data as well as natural conversational data captured on video. Although crosslinguistically unusual, spatial-coordinate demonstratives sit at the interface of issues central to current discourse in semantic-pragmatic theory: demonstrative function, deictic layout, and spatial frames of reference.
  • Burenhult, N. (2008). Streams of words: Hydrological lexicon in Jahai. Language Sciences, 30(2/3), 182-199. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.005.

    Abstract

    This article investigates hydrological lexicon in Jahai, a Mon-Khmer language of the Malay Peninsula. Setting out from an analysis of the structural and semantic properties as well as the indigenous vs. borrowed origin of lexicon related to drainage, it teases out a set of distinct lexical systems for reference to and description of hydrological features. These include (1) indigenous nominal labels subcategorised by metaphor, (2) borrowed nominal labels, (3) verbals referring to properties and processes of water, (4) a set of motion verbs, and (5) place names. The lexical systems, functionally diverse and driven by different factors, illustrate that principles and strategies of geographical categorisation can vary systematically and profoundly within a single language.
  • Burenhult, N., & Levinson, S. C. (2008). Language and landscape: A cross-linguistic perspective. Language Sciences, 30(2/3), 135-150. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.028.

    Abstract

    This special issue is the outcome of collaborative work on the relationship between language and landscape, carried out in the Language and Cognition Group at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. The contributions explore the linguistic categories of landscape terms and place names in nine genetically, typologically and geographically diverse languages, drawing on data from first-hand fieldwork. The present introductory article lays out the reasons why the domain of landscape is of central interest to the language sciences and beyond, and it outlines some of the major patterns that emerge from the cross-linguistic comparison which the papers invite. The data point to considerable variation within and across languages in how systems of landscape terms and place names are ontologised. This has important implications for practical applications from international law to modern navigation systems.
  • Burkhardt, P., Avrutin, S., Piñango, M. M., & Ruigendijk, E. (2008). Slower-than-normal syntactic processing in agrammatic Broca's aphasia: Evidence from Dutch. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 21(2), 120-137. doi:10.1016/j.jneuroling.2006.10.004.

    Abstract

    Studies of agrammatic Broca's aphasia reveal a diverging pattern of performance in the comprehension of reflexive elements: offline, performance seems unimpaired, whereas online—and in contrast to both matching controls and Wernicke's patients—no antecedent reactivation is observed at the reflexive. Here we propose that this difference characterizes the agrammatic comprehension deficit as a result of slower-than-normal syntactic structure formation. To test this characterization, the comprehension of three Dutch agrammatic patients and matching control participants was investigated utilizing the cross-modal lexical decision (CMLD) interference task. Two types of reflexive-antecedent dependencies were tested, which have already been shown to exert distinct processing demands on the comprehension system as a function of the level at which the dependency was formed. Our hypothesis predicts that if the agrammatic system has a processing limitation such that syntactic structure is built in a protracted manner, this limitation will be reflected in delayed interpretation. Confirming previous findings, the Dutch patients show an effect of distinct processing demands for the two types of reflexive-antecedent dependencies but with a temporal delay. We argue that this delayed syntactic structure formation is the result of limited processing capacity that specifically affects the syntactic system.
  • Buzon, V., Carbo, L. R., Estruch, S. B., Fletterick, R. J., & Estebanez-Perpina, E. (2012). A conserved surface on the ligand binding domain of nuclear receptors for allosteric control. Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, 348(2), 394-402. doi:10.1016/j.mce.2011.08.012.

    Abstract

    Nuclear receptors (NRs) form a large superfamily of transcription factors that participate in virtually every key biological process. They control development, fertility, gametogenesis and are misregulated in many cancers. Their enormous functional plasticity as transcription factors relates in part to NR-mediated interactions with hundreds of coregulatory proteins upon ligand (e.g., hormone) binding to their ligand binding domains (LBD), or following covalent modification. Some coregulator association relates to the distinct residues that shape a coactivator binding pocket termed AF-2, a surface groove that primarily determines the preference and specificity of protein–protein interactions. However, the highly conserved AF-2 pocket in the NR superfamily appears to be insufficient to account for NR subtype specificity leading to fine transcriptional modulation in certain settings. Additional protein–protein interaction surfaces, most notably on their LBD, may contribute to modulating NR function. NR coregulators and chaperones, normally much larger than the NR itself, may also bind to such interfaces. In the case of the androgen receptor (AR) LBD surface, structural and functional data highlighted the presence of another site named BF-3, which lies at a distinct but topographically adjacent surface to AF-2. AR BF-3 is a hot spot for mutations involved in prostate cancer and androgen insensitivity syndromes, and some FDA-approved drugs bind at this site. Structural studies suggested an allosteric relationship between AF-2 and BF-3, as occupancy of the latter affected coactivator recruitment to AF-2. Physiological relevant partners of AR BF-3 have not been described as yet. The newly discovered site is highly conserved among the steroid receptors subclass, but is also present in other NRs. Several missense mutations in the BF-3 regions of these human NRs are implicated in pathology and affect their function in vitro. The fact that AR BF-3 pocket is a druggable site evidences its pharmacological potential. Compounds that may affect allosterically NR function by binding to BF-3 open promising avenues to develop type-specific NR modulators.

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  • Carota, F., Moseley, R., & Pulvermüller, F. (2012). Body-part-specific Representations of Semantic Noun Categories. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24(6), 1492-1509. doi:10.1162/jocn\_a\_00219.

    Abstract

    Word meaning processing in the brain involves ventrolateral temporal cortex, but a semantic contribution of the dorsal stream, especially frontocentral sensorimotor areas, has been controversial. We here examine brain activation during passive reading of object-related nouns from different semantic categories, notably animal, food, and tool words, matched for a range of psycholinguistic features. Results show ventral stream activation in temporal cortex along with category-specific activation patterns in both ventral and dorsal streams, including sensorimotor systems and adjacent pFC. Precentral activation reflected action-related semantic features of the word categories. Cortical regions implicated in mouth and face movements were sparked by food words, and hand area activation was seen for tool words, consistent with the actions implicated by the objects the words are used to speak about. Furthermore, tool words specifically activated the right cerebellum, and food words activated the left orbito-frontal and fusiform areas. We discuss our results in the context of category-specific semantic deficits in the processing of words and concepts, along with previous neuroimaging research, and conclude that specific dorsal and ventral areas in frontocentral and temporal cortex index visual and affective–emotional semantic attributes of object-related nouns and action-related affordances of their referent objects.
  • Carota, F., & Sirigu, A. (2008). Neural Bases of Sequence Processing in Action and Language. Language Learning, 58(1), 179-199. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2008.00470.x.

    Abstract

    Real-time estimation of what we will do next is a crucial prerequisite
    of purposive behavior. During the planning of goal-oriented actions, for
    instance, the temporal and causal organization of upcoming subsequent
    moves needs to be predicted based on our knowledge of events. A forward
    computation of sequential structure is also essential for planning
    contiguous discourse segments and syntactic patterns in language. The
    neural encoding of sequential event knowledge and its domain dependency
    is a central issue in cognitive neuroscience. Converging evidence shows
    the involvement of a dedicated neural substrate, including the
    prefrontal cortex and Broca's area, in the representation and the
    processing of sequential event structure. After reviewing major
    representational models of sequential mechanisms in action and language,
    we discuss relevant neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings on the
    temporal organization of sequencing and sequence processing in both
    domains, suggesting that sequential event knowledge may be modularly
    organized through prefrontal and frontal subregions.
  • Carroll, M., Lambert, M., Weimar, K., Flecken, M., & von Stutterheim, C. (2012). Tracing trajectories: Motion event construal by advanced L2 French-English and L2 French-German speakers. Language Interaction and Acquisition, 3(2), 202-230. doi:10.1075/lia.3.2.03car.

    Abstract

    Although the typological contrast between Romance and Germanic languages as verb-framed versus satellite-framed (Talmy 1985) forms the background for many empirical studies on L2 acquisition, the inconclusive picture to date calls for more differentiated, fine-grained analyses. The present study goes beyond explanations based on this typological contrast and takes into account the sources from which spatial concepts are mainly derived in order to shape the trajectory traced by the entity in motion when moving through space: the entity in V-languages versus features of the ground in S-languages. It investigates why advanced French learners of English and German have difficulty acquiring the use of spatial concepts typical of the L2s to shape the trajectory, although relevant concepts can be expressed in their L1. The analysis compares motion event descriptions, based on the same sets of video clips, of L1 speakers of the three languages to L1 French-L2 English and L1 French-L2 German speakers, showing that the learners do not fully acquire the use of L2-specific spatial concepts. We argue that encoded concepts derived from the entity in motion vs. the ground lead to a focus on different aspects of motion events, in accordance with their compatibility with these sources, and are difficult to restructure in L2 acquisition.
  • Casasanto, D. (2008). Similarity and proximity: When does close in space mean close in mind? Memory & Cognition, 36(6), 1047-1056. doi:10.3758/MC.36.6.1047.

    Abstract

    People often describe things that are similar as close and things that are dissimilar as far apart. Does the way people talk about similarity reveal something fundamental about the way they conceptualize it? Three experiments tested the relationship between similarity and spatial proximity that is encoded in metaphors in language. Similarity ratings for pairs of words or pictures varied as a function of how far apart the stimuli appeared on the computer screen, but the influence of distance on similarity differed depending on the type of judgments the participants made. Stimuli presented closer together were rated more similar during conceptual judgments of abstract entities or unseen object properties but were rated less similar during perceptual judgments of visual appearance. These contrasting results underscore the importance of testing predictions based on linguistic metaphors experimentally and suggest that our sense of similarity arises from our ability to combine available perceptual information with stored knowledge of experiential regularities.
  • Casasanto, D. (2008). Who's afraid of the big bad Whorf? Crosslinguistic differences in temporal language and thought. Language Learning, 58(suppl. 1), 63-79. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2008.00462.x.

    Abstract

    The idea that language shapes the way we think, often associated with Benjamin Whorf, has long been decried as not only wrong but also fundamentally wrong-headed. Yet, experimental evidence has reopened debate about the extent to which language influences nonlinguistic cognition, particularly in the domain of time. In this article, I will first analyze an influential argument against the Whorfian hypothesis and show that its anti-Whorfian conclusion is in part an artifact of conflating two distinct questions: Do we think in language? and Does language shape thought? Next, I will discuss crosslinguistic differences in spatial metaphors for time and describe experiments that demonstrate corresponding differences in nonlinguistic mental representations. Finally, I will sketch a simple learning mechanism by which some linguistic relativity effects appear to arise. Although people may not think in language, speakers of different languages develop distinctive conceptual repertoires as a consequence of ordinary and presumably universal neural and cognitive processes.
  • Casasanto, D., & Henetz, T. (2012). Handedness shapes children’s abstract concepts. Cognitive Science, 36, 359-372. doi:10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01199.x.

    Abstract

    Can children’s handedness influence how they represent abstract concepts like kindness and intelligence? Here we show that from an early age, right-handers associate rightward space more strongly with positive ideas and leftward space with negative ideas, but the opposite is true for left-handers. In one experiment, children indicated where on a diagram a preferred toy and a dispreferred toy should go. Right-handers tended to assign the preferred toy to a box on the right and the dispreferred toy to a box on the left. Left-handers showed the opposite pattern. In a second experiment, children judged which of two cartoon animals looked smarter (or dumber) or nicer (or meaner). Right-handers attributed more positive qualities to animals on the right, but left-handers to animals on the left. These contrasting associations between space and valence cannot be explained by exposure to language or cultural conventions, which consistently link right with good. Rather, right- and left-handers implicitly associated positive valence more strongly with the side of space on which they can act more fluently with their dominant hands. Results support the body-specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009), showing that children with different kinds of bodies think differently in corresponding ways.
  • Casasanto, D., & Boroditsky, L. (2008). Time in the mind: Using space to think about time. Cognition, 106, 579-573. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2007.03.004.

    Abstract

    How do we construct abstract ideas like justice, mathematics, or time-travel? In this paper we investigate whether mental representations that result from physical experience underlie people’s more abstract mental representations, using the domains of space and time as a testbed. People often talk about time using spatial language (e.g., a long vacation, a short concert). Do people also think about time using spatial representations, even when they are not using language? Results of six psychophysical experiments revealed that people are unable to ignore irrelevant spatial information when making judgments about duration, but not the converse. This pattern, which is predicted by the asymmetry between space and time in linguistic metaphors, was demonstrated here in tasks that do not involve any linguistic stimuli or responses. These findings provide evidence that the metaphorical relationship between space and time observed in language also exists in our more basic representations of distance and duration. Results suggest that our mental representations of things we can never see or touch may be built, in part, out of representations of physical experiences in perception and motor action.
  • Castro-Caldas, A., Petersson, K. M., Reis, A., Stone-Elander, S., & Ingvar, M. (1998). The illiterate brain: Learning to read and write during childhood influences the functional organization of the adult brain. Brain, 121, 1053-1063. doi:10.1093/brain/121.6.1053.

    Abstract

    Learning a specific skill during childhood may partly determine the functional organization of the adult brain. This hypothesis led us to study oral language processing in illiterate subjects who, for social reasons, had never entered school and had no knowledge of reading or writing. In a brain activation study using PET and statistical parametric mapping, we compared word and pseudoword repetition in literate and illiterate subjects. Our study confirms behavioural evidence of different phonological processing in illiterate subjects. During repetition of real words, the two groups performed similarly and activated similar areas of the brain. In contrast, illiterate subjects had more difficulty repeating pseudowords correctly and did not activate the same neural structures as literates. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that learning the written form of language (orthography) interacts with the function of oral language. Our results indicate that learning to read and write during childhood influences the functional organization of the adult human brain.
  • Catani, M., Dell'Acqua, F., Bizzi, A., Forkel, S. J., Williams, S. C., Simmons, A., Murphy, D. G., & Thiebaut de Schotten, M. (2012). Beyond cortical localization in clinico-anatomical correlation. Cortex, 48(10), 1262-1287. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2012.07.001.

    Abstract

    Last year was the 150th anniversary of Paul Broca's landmark case report on speech disorder that paved the way for subsequent studies of cortical localization of higher cognitive functions. However, many complex functions rely on the activity of distributed networks rather than single cortical areas. Hence, it is important to understand how brain regions are linked within large-scale networks and to map lesions onto connecting white matter tracts. To facilitate this network approach we provide a synopsis of classical neurological syndromes associated with frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal and limbic lesions. A review of tractography studies in a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders is also included. The synopsis is accompanied by a new atlas of the human white matter connections based on diffusion tensor tractography freely downloadable on http://www.natbrainlab.com. Clinicians can use the maps to accurately identify the tract affected by lesions visible on conventional CT or MRI. The atlas will also assist researchers to interpret their group analysis results. We hope that the synopsis and the atlas by allowing a precise localization of white matter lesions and associated symptoms will facilitate future work on the functional correlates of human neural networks as derived from the study of clinical populations. Our goal is to stimulate clinicians to develop a critical approach to clinico-anatomical correlative studies and broaden their view of clinical anatomy beyond the cortical surface in order to encompass the dysfunction related to connecting pathways.

    Additional information

    supplementary file
  • Chang, F., Janciauskas, M., & Fitz, H. (2012). Language adaptation and learning: Getting explicit about implicit learning. Language and Linguistics Compass, 6, 259-278. doi:10.1002/lnc3.337.

    Abstract

    Linguistic adaptation is a phenomenon where language representations change in response to linguistic input. Adaptation can occur on multiple linguistic levels such as phonology (tuning of phonotactic constraints), words (repetition priming), and syntax (structural priming). The persistent nature of these adaptations suggests that they may be a form of implicit learning and connectionist models have been developed which instantiate this hypothesis. Research on implicit learning, however, has also produced evidence that explicit chunk knowledge is involved in the performance of these tasks. In this review, we examine how these interacting implicit and explicit processes may change our understanding of language learning and processing.
  • Chen, X. S., White, W. T. J., Collins, L. J., & Penny, D. (2008). Computational identification of four spliceosomal snRNAs from the deep-branch eukaryote Giardia intestinalis. PLoS One, 3(8), e3106. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003106.

    Abstract

    RNAs processing other RNAs is very general in eukaryotes, but is not clear to what extent it is ancestral to eukaryotes. Here we focus on pre-mRNA splicing, one of the most important RNA-processing mechanisms in eukaryotes. In most eukaryotes splicing is predominantly catalysed by the major spliceosome complex, which consists of five uridine-rich small nuclear RNAs (U-snRNAs) and over 200 proteins in humans. Three major spliceosomal introns have been found experimentally in Giardia; one Giardia U-snRNA (U5) and a number of spliceosomal proteins have also been identified. However, because of the low sequence similarity between the Giardia ncRNAs and those of other eukaryotes, the other U-snRNAs of Giardia had not been found. Using two computational methods, candidates for Giardia U1, U2, U4 and U6 snRNAs were identified in this study and shown by RT-PCR to be expressed. We found that identifying a U2 candidate helped identify U6 and U4 based on interactions between them. Secondary structural modelling of the Giardia U-snRNA candidates revealed typical features of eukaryotic U-snRNAs. We demonstrate a successful approach to combine computational and experimental methods to identify expected ncRNAs in a highly divergent protist genome. Our findings reinforce the conclusion that spliceosomal small-nuclear RNAs existed in the last common ancestor of eukaryotes.
  • Chen, X. S., & Brown, C. M. (2012). Computational identification of new structured cis-regulatory elements in the 3'-untranslated region of human protein coding genes. Nucleic Acids Research, 40, 8862-8873. doi:10.1093/nar/gks684.

    Abstract

    Messenger ribonucleic acids (RNAs) contain a large number of cis-regulatory RNA elements that function in many types of post-transcriptional regulation. These cis-regulatory elements are often characterized by conserved structures and/or sequences. Although some classes are well known, given the wide range of RNA-interacting proteins in eukaryotes, it is likely that many new classes of cis-regulatory elements are yet to be discovered. An approach to this is to use computational methods that have the advantage of analysing genomic data, particularly comparative data on a large scale. In this study, a set of structural discovery algorithms was applied followed by support vector machine (SVM) classification. We trained a new classification model (CisRNA-SVM) on a set of known structured cis-regulatory elements from 3′-untranslated regions (UTRs) and successfully distinguished these and groups of cis-regulatory elements not been strained on from control genomic and shuffled sequences. The new method outperformed previous methods in classification of cis-regulatory RNA elements. This model was then used to predict new elements from cross-species conserved regions of human 3′-UTRs. Clustering of these elements identified new classes of potential cis-regulatory elements. The model, training and testing sets and novel human predictions are available at: http://mRNA.otago.ac.nz/CisRNA-SVM.
  • Cho, T., & McQueen, J. M. (2008). Not all sounds in assimilation environments are perceived equally: Evidence from Korean. Journal of Phonetics, 36, 239-249. doi:doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2007.06.001.

    Abstract

    This study tests whether potential differences in the perceptual robustness of speech sounds influence continuous-speech processes. Two phoneme-monitoring experiments examined place assimilation in Korean. In Experiment 1, Koreans monitored for targets which were either labials (/p,m/) or alveolars (/t,n/), and which were either unassimilated or assimilated to a following /k/ in two-word utterances. Listeners detected unaltered (unassimilated) labials faster and more accurately than assimilated labials; there was no such advantage for unaltered alveolars. In Experiment 2, labial–velar differences were tested using conditions in which /k/ and /p/ were illegally assimilated to a following /t/. Unassimilated sounds were detected faster than illegally assimilated sounds, but this difference tended to be larger for /k/ than for /p/. These place-dependent asymmetries suggest that differences in the perceptual robustness of segments play a role in shaping phonological patterns.
  • Cho, T. (2002). The effects of prosody on articulation in English. New York: Routledge.
  • Cho, T., Jun, S.-A., & Ladefoged, P. (2002). Acoustic and aerodynamic correlates of Korean stops and fricatives. Journal of Phonetics, 30(2), 193-228. doi:10.1006/jpho.2001.0153.

    Abstract

    This study examines acoustic and aerodynamic characteristics of consonants in standard Korean and in Cheju, an endangered Korean language. The focus is on the well-known three-way distinction among voiceless stops (i.e., lenis, fortis, aspirated) and the two-way distinction between the voiceless fricatives /s/ and /s*/. While such a typologically unusual contrast among voiceless stops has long drawn the attention of phoneticians and phonologists, there is no single work in the literature that discusses a body of data representing a relatively large number of speakers. This study reports a variety of acoustic and aerodynamic measures obtained from 12 Korean speakers (four speakers of Seoul Korean and eight speakers of Cheju). Results show that, in addition to findings similar to those reported by others, there are three crucial points worth noting. Firstly, lenis, fortis, and aspirated stops are systematically differentiated from each other by the voice quality of the following vowel. Secondly, these stops are also differentiated by aerodynamic mechanisms. The aspirated and fortis stops are similar in supralaryngeal articulation, but employ a different relation between intraoral pressure and flow. Thirdly, our study suggests that the fricative /s/ is better categorized as “lenis” rather than “aspirated”. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of Korean data for theories of the voicing contrast and their phonological representations.

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