Publications

Abstract

In a within-subject design we investigated the levels-of-processing (LOP) effect using visual material in a behavioral and a corresponding PET study. In the behavioral study we characterize a generalized LOP effect, using pleasantness and graphical quality judgments in the encoding situation, with two types of visual material, figurative and nonfigurative line drawings. In the PET study we investigate the related pattern of brain activations along these two dimensions. The behavioral results indicate that instruction and material contribute independently to the level of recognition performance. Therefore the LOP effect appears to stem both from the relative relevance of the stimuli (encoding opportunity) and an altered processing of stimuli brought about by the explicit instruction (encoding mode). In the PET study, encoding of visual material under the pleasantness (deep) instruction yielded left lateralized frontoparietal and anterior temporal activations while surface-based perceptually oriented processing (shallow instruction) yielded right lateralized frontoparietal, posterior temporal, and occipitotemporal activations. The result that deep encoding was related to the left prefrontal cortex while shallow encoding was related to the right prefrontal cortex, holding the material constant, is not consistent with the HERA model. In addition, we suggest that the anterior medial superior frontal region is related to aspects of self-referential semantic processing and that the inferior parts of the anterior cingulate as well as the medial orbitofrontal cortex is related to affective processing, in this case pleasantness evaluation of the stimuli regardless of explicit semantic content. Finally, the left medial temporal lobe appears more actively engaged by elaborate meaning-based processing and the complex response pattern observed in different subregions of the MTL lends support to the suggestion that this region is functionally segregated.

Abstract

It has been suggested that placebo analgesia involves both higher order cognitive networks and endogenous opioid systems. The rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) and the brainstem are implicated in opioid analgesia, suggesting a similar role for these structures in placebo analgesia. Using positron emission tomography, we confirmed that both opioid and placebo analgesia are associated with increased activity in the rACC. We also observed a covariation between the activity in the rACC and the brainstem during both opioid and placebo analgesia, but not during the pain-only condition. These findings indicate a related neural mechanism in placebo and opioid analgesia.

Abstract

It has been suggested that placebo analgesia involves both higher order cognitive networks and endogenous opioid systems. The rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) and the brainstem are implicated in opioid analgesia, suggesting a similar role for these structures in placebo analgesia. Using positron emission tomography, we confirmed that both opioid and placebo analgesia are associated with increased activity in the rACC. We also observed a covariation between the activity in the rACC and the brainstem during both opioid and placebo analgesia, but not during the pain-only condition. These findings indicate a related neural mechanism in placebo and opioid analgesia.

Abstract

Several functional imaging studies of pain, using a number of different experimental paradigms and a variety of reference states, have failed to detect activations in the somatosensory cortices, while other imaging studies of pain have reported significant activations in these regions. The role of the somatosensory areas in pain processing has therefore been debated. In the present study the left hand was immersed in painfully cold water (standard cold pressor test) and in nonpainfully cold water during 2 min, and PET-scans were obtained either during the first or the second minute of stimulation. We observed no significant increase of activity in the somatosensory regions when the painful conditions were directly compared with the control conditions. In order to better understand the role of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) in pain processing we used a regression analysis to study the relation between a ROI (region of interest) in the somatotopic S1-area for the stimulated hand and other regions known to be involved in pain processing. We hypothesized that although no increased activity was observed in the S1 during pain, this region would change its covariation pattern during noxious input as compared to the control stimulation if it is involved in or affected by the processing of pain. In the nonpainful cold conditions widespread regions of the ipsilateral and contralateral somatosensory cortex showed a positive covariation with the activity in the S1-ROI. However, during the first and second minute of pain this regression was significantly attenuated. During the second minute of painful stimulation there was a significant positive covariation between the activity in the S1-ROI and the other regions that are known to be involved in pain processing. Importantly, this relation was significantly stronger for the insula and the orbitofrontal cortex bilaterally when compared to the nonpainful state. The results indicate that the S1-cortex may be engaged in or affected by the processing of pain although no differential activity is observed when pain is compared with the reference condition.

Abstract

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

Abstract

When assessing dangerousness of mentally ill persons with the objective of making a decision on civil commitment, medical and legal experts use information typically belonging to their professional frame of reference. This is investigated in two studies of the commitment decision. It is hypothesized that an ‘expertise bias’ may explain differences between the medical and the legal expert in defining the dangerousness concept (study 1), and in assessing the seriousness of the danger (study 2). Judges define dangerousness more often as harming others, whereas psychiatrists more often include harm to self in the definition. In assessing the seriousness of the danger, experts tend to be more tolerant with regard to false negatives, as the type of behavior is more familiar to them. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Abstract

Participants performed an artificial grammar learning task, in which the standard finite
state grammar (J. Verb. Learn. Verb. Behavior 6 (1967) 855) was extended with a recursive
rule generating self-embedded sequences. We studied the learnability of such a rule in two experiments.
The results verify the general hypothesis that recursivity can be learned in an artificial
grammar learning task. However this learning seems to be rather based on recognising
chunks than on abstract rule induction. First, performance was better for strings with more
than one level of self-embedding in the sequence, uncovering more clearly the self-embedding
pattern. Second, the infinite repeatability of the recursive rule application was not spontaneously
induced from the training, but it was when an additional cue about this possibility was
given. Finally, participants were able to verbalise their knowledge of the fragments making up
the sequences––especially in the crucial front and back positions––, whereas knowledge of the
underlying structure, to the extent it was acquired, was not articulatable. The results are discussed
in relation to previous studies on the implicit learnability of complex and abstract rules.

Abstract

Negation in a number of Austronesian and Papuan languages with SVO order is expressed by a rather rigid clause-final position of the negative adverb. Some typological generalizations for negation are reviewed and the distribution of this trait in languages of different stocks is discussed, arguing that it most likely originates in Papuan languages. Some proposals for different types of negation, such as whether it is a verbal (or VP) operator, a constituent operator or a sentential operator are considered. The problem of determining the scope of negation is discussed, with the conclusion that hard and fast semantic meanings for NEG at different structural levels cannot be posited, suggesting that perhaps a solution can be found in the application of some universal pragmatic principles.

Abstract

The objectives of this article are to characterize the performance and to discuss the performance differences between literate and illiterate participants in a well-defined study population.We describe the participant-selection procedure used to investigate this population. Three groups with similar sociocultural backgrounds living in a relatively homogeneous fishing community in southern Portugal were characterized in terms of socioeconomic and sociocultural background variables and compared on a simple neuropsychological test battery; specifically, a literate group with more than 4 years of education (n = 9), a literate group with 4 years of education (n = 26), and an illiterate group (n = 31) were included in this study.We compare and discuss our results with other similar studies on the effects of literacy and illiteracy. The results indicate that naming and identification of real objects, verbal fluency using ecologically relevant semantic criteria, verbal memory, and orientation are not affected by literacy or level of formal education. In contrast, verbal working memory assessed with digit span, verbal abstraction, long-term semantic memory, and calculation (i.e., multiplication) are significantly affected by the level of literacy. We indicate that it is possible, with proper participant-selection procedures, to exclude general cognitive impairment and to control important sociocultural factors that potentially could introduce bias when studying the specific effects of literacy and level of formal education on cognitive brain function.

Abstract

Is there a relation between socioeconomic factors and aphasia severity and recovery? Connor, Obler, Tocco, Fitzpatrick, and Albert (2001) describe correlations between the educational level and socioeconomic status of aphasic subjects with aphasia severity and subsequent recovery. As stated in the introduction by Connor et al. (2001), studies of the influence of educational level and literacy (or illiteracy) on aphasia severity have yielded conflicting results, while no significant link between socioeconomic status and aphasia severity and recovery has been established. In this brief note, we will comment on their findings and conclusions, beginning first with a brief review of literacy and aphasia research, and complexities encountered in these fields of investigation. This serves as a general background to our specific comments on Connor et al. (2001), which will be focusing on methodological issues and the importance of taking normative values in consideration when subjects with different socio-cultural or socio-economic backgrounds are assessed.

Abstract

Examines the basic constituent order (BCO) on the transitive sentences in the Tenejapa dialect of Tzeltal. Concept of the basic word order; Patterns of constituent order of the transitive clauses; Consideration of VOA as the BCO.

Abstract

Santiago, MacKay, Palma, and Rho (2000) report two picture naming experiments examining the role of syllable onset complexity and number of syllables in spoken word production. Experiment 1 showed that naming latencies are longer for words with two syllables (e.g., demon ) than one syllable (e.g., duck ), and longer for words beginning with a consonant cluster (e.g., drill ) than a single consonant (e.g., duck ). Experiment 2 replicated these findings and showed that the complexity of the syllable nucleus and coda has no effect. These results are taken to support MacKay's (1987) Node Structure theory and to refute models such as WEAVER++ (Roelofs, 1997a) that predict effects of word length but not of onset complexity and number of syllables per se. In this comment, I show that a re-analysis of the data of Santiago et al. that takes word length into account leads to the opposite conclusion. The observed effects of onset complexity and number of syllables appear to be length effects, supporting WEAVER++ and contradicting the Node Structure theory.

Abstract

Four form-preparation experiments investigated whether aspects of phonological encoding processes and representations are shared between languages in bilingual speakers. The participants were Dutch--English bilinguals. Experiment 1 showed that the basic rightward incrementality revealed in studies for the first language is also observed for second-language words. In Experiments 2 and 3, speakers were given words to produce that did or did not share onset segments, and that came or did not come from different languages. It was found that when onsets were shared among the response words, those onsets were prepared, even when the words came from different languages. Experiment 4 showed that preparation requires prior knowledge of the segments and that knowledge about their phonological features yields no effect. These results suggest that both first- and second-language words are phonologically planned through the same serial order mechanism and that the representations of segments common to the languages are shared.

Abstract

Minimalist theories of spoken language planning hold that articulation starts when the first
speech segment has been planned, whereas non-minimalist theories assume larger units (e.g.,
Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999a). Three experiments are reported, which were designed to distinguish
between these views using a newhybrid task that factorially manipulated preparation and
auditory priming of spoken language production. Minimalist theories predict no effect from
priming of non-initial segments when the initial segment of an utterance is already prepared;
observing such a priming effect would support non-minimalist theories. In all three experiments,
preparation and priming yielded main effects, and together their effects were additive. Preparation
of initial segments does not eliminate priming effects for later segments. These results challenge
the minimalist view. The findings are simulated by WEAVER++ (Roelofs, 1997b), which
employs the phonological word as the lower limit for articulation initiation.

Abstract

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

Abstract

The control of language use has in its simplest form perhaps been most intensively studied using the color–word Stroop task. The authors review chronometric and neuroimaging evidence on Stroop task performance to evaluate two prominent, implemented models of control in naming and reading: GRAIN and WEAVER++. Computer simulations are reported, which reveal that WEAVER++ offers a more satisfactory account of the data than GRAIN. In particular, we report WEAVER++ simulations of the BOLD response in anterior cingulate cortex during Stroop performance. Aspects of single-word production and perception in the Stroop task are discussed in relation to the wider problem of the control of language use.

Abstract

This article presents a new account of the color-word Stroop phenomenon ( J. R. Stroop, 1935) based on an implemented model of word production, WEAVER++ ( W. J. M. Levelt, A. Roelofs, & A. S. Meyer, 1999b; A. Roelofs, 1992, 1997c). Stroop effects are claimed to arise from processing interactions within the language-production architecture and explicit goal-referenced control. WEAVER++ successfully simulates 16 classic data sets, mostly taken from the review by C. M. MacLeod (1991), including incongruency, congruency, reverse-Stroop, response-set, semantic-gradient, time-course, stimulus, spatial, multiple-task, manual, bilingual, training, age, and pathological effects. Three new experiments tested the account against alternative explanations. It is shown that WEAVER++ offers a more satisfactory account of the data than other models.

Abstract

The authors report a study in Dutch that used an on-line preparation paradigm to test the issue of semantic
dependency versus morphological autonomy in the production of polymorphemic words. Semantically
transparent complex words (like input in English) and semantically opaque complex words
(like invoice) showed clear evidence of morphological structure in word-form encoding, since both exhibited
an equally large preparation effect that was much greater than that for morphologically simple
words (like insect). These results suggest that morphemes may be planning units in the production of
complex words, without making a semantic contribution, thereby supporting the autonomy view. Language
production establishes itself as a domain in which morphology may operate “by itself” (Aronoff,
1994) without recourse to meaning.

Abstract

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

Abstract

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

Abstract

Accounts that specify semantic and/or syntactic complexity as the primary determinant of the order in which children acquire particular words or grammatical constructions have been highly influential in the literature on question acquisition. One explanation of wh-question acquisition in particular suggests that the order in which English speaking children acquire wh-questions is determined by two interlocking linguistic factors; the syntactic function of the wh-word that heads the question and the semantic generality (or ‘lightness’) of the main verb (Bloom, Merkin & Wootten, 1982; Bloom, 1991). Another more recent view, however, is that acquisition is influenced by the relative frequency with which children hear particular wh-words and verbs in their input (e.g. Rowland & Pine, 2000). In the present study over 300 hours of naturalistic data from twelve two- to three-year-old children and their mothers were analysed in order to assess the relative contribution of complexity and input frequency to wh-question acquisition. The analyses revealed, first, that the acquisition order of wh-questions could be predicted successfully from the frequency with which particular wh-words and verbs occurred in the children's input and, second, that syntactic and semantic complexity did not reliably predict acquisition once input frequency was taken into account. These results suggest that the relationship between acquisition and complexity may be a by-product of the high correlation between complexity and the frequency with which mothers use particular wh-words and verbs. We interpret the results in terms of a constructivist view of language acquisition.

Abstract

Van Valin (Journal of Child Language29, 2002, 161–75) presents a critique of Rowland & Pine (Journal of Child Language27, 2000, 157–81) and argues that the wh-question data from Adam (in Brown, A first language, Cambridge, MA, 1973) cannot be explained in terms of input frequencies as we suggest. Instead, he suggests that the data can be more successfully accounted for in terms of Role and Reference Grammar. In this note we re-examine the pattern of inversion and uninversion in Adam's wh-questions and argue that the RRG explanation cannot account for some of the developmental facts it was designed to explain.

Abstract

In this article, we present the spatial logistics task (SLOT) platform for investigating multimodal communication between 2 human participants. Presented are the SLOT communication task and the software and hardware that has been developed to run SLOT experiments and record the participants’ multimodal behavior. SLOT offers a high level of flexibility in varying the context of the communication and is particularly useful in studies of the relationship between pen gestures and speech. We illustrate the use of the SLOT platform by discussing the results of some early experiments. The first is an experiment on negotiation with a one-way mirror between the participants, and the second is an exploratory study of automatic recognition of spontaneous pen gestures. The results of these studies demonstrate the usefulness of the SLOT platform for conducting multimodal communication research in both human– human and human–computer interactions.

Abstract

Participants' eye movements were monitored as they heard sentences and saw four pictured objects on a computer screen. Participants were instructed to click on the object mentioned in the sentence. There were more transitory fixations to pictures representing monosyllabic words (e.g. ham) when the first syllable of the target word (e.g. hamster) had been replaced by a recording of the monosyllabic word than when it came from a different recording of the target word. This demonstrates that a phonemically identical sequence can contain cues that modulate its lexical interpretation. This effect was governed by the duration of the sequence, rather than by its origin (i.e. which type of word it came from). The longer the sequence, the more monosyllabic-word interpretations it generated. We argue that cues to lexical-embedding disambiguation, such as segmental lengthening, result from the realization of a prosodic boundary that often but not always follows monosyllabic words, and that lexical candidates whose word boundaries are aligned with prosodic boundaries are favored in the word-recognition process.

Abstract

A realtime online learning system with capacity limits needs to gradually forget old information in order to avoid catastrophic forgetting. This can be achieved by allowing new information to overwrite old, as in a so-called palimpsest memory. This paper describes an incremental learning rule based on the Bayesian confidence propagation neural network that has palimpsest properties when employed in an attractor neural network. The network does not suffer from catastrophic forgetting, has a capacity dependent on the learning time constant and exhibits faster convergence for newer patterns.

Abstract

The structure of relative clauses has attracted considerable attention in recent years, and a number of authors have carried out analyses of the syntax of relativization. In our investigation of syntactic structure and change in New Guinea Tok Pisin, we find that the basic processes involved in relativization have much broader discourse functions, and that relativization is only a special instance of the application of general ‘bracketing’ devices used in the organization of information. Syntactic structure, in this case, can be understood as a component of, and derivative from, discourse structure.

Abstract

This letter evaluates potential benefits of combining human speech recognition ~HSR! and automatic speech recognition by building a joint model of an automatic phone recognizer ~APR! and a computational model of HSR, viz., Shortlist @Norris, Cognition 52, 189–234 ~1994!#. Experiments based on ‘‘real-life’’ speech highlight critical limitations posed by some of the simplifying assumptions made in models of human speech recognition. These limitations could be overcome by avoiding hard phone decisions at the output side of the APR, and by using a match between the input and the internal lexicon that flexibly copes with deviations from canonical phonemic representations.

Abstract

In this paper, we present an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system based on the combination of an automatic phone recogniser and a computational model of human speech recognition – SpeM – that is capable of computing ‘word activations’ during the recognition process, in addition to doing normal speech recognition, a task in which conventional ASR architectures only provide output after the end of an utterance. We explain the notion of word activation and show that it can be used for ‘early recognition’, i.e. recognising a word before the end of the word is available. Our ASR system was tested on 992 continuous speech utterances, each containing at least one target word: a city name of at least two syllables. The results show that early recognition was obtained for 72.8% of the target words that were recognised correctly. Also, it is shown that word activation can be used as an effective confidence measure.

Abstract

Two experiments investigate the effect of number congruency using picture–word interference. Native German participants were required to name pictures of single objects (Nase ‘nose’) or two instances of the same object (Nasen ‘noses’) while ignoring simultaneously presented distractor words. Distractor words either had the same number or were different in number. In addition, the type of plural formation (same or different inflectional plural suffix) and the semantic relationship (same or different semantic category) between target and distractor were varied in Experiments 1 and 2. Results showed no effect of number congruency in either experiment. Furthermore, the type of inflectional suffix did not exert an influence on naming latencies in Experiment 1, but semantic relationship led to a significant interference effect in Experiment 2. The results indicate that selection of the number feature diacritic in noun production is not a competitive process. The implications of the results for models of lexical access are discussed.

Abstract

During language production and comprehension, information about a word's syntactic properties is sometimes needed. While the decision about the grammatical gender of a word requires access to syntactic knowledge, it has also been hypothesized that semantic (i.e., biological gender) or phonological information (i.e., sound regularities) may influence this decision. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while native speakers of German processed written words that were or were not semantically and/or phonologically marked for gender. Behavioral and ERP results showed that participants were faster in making a gender decision when words were semantically and/or phonologically gender marked than when this was not the case, although the phonological effects were less clear. In conclusion, our data provide evidence that even though participants performed a grammatical gender decision, this task can be influenced by semantic and phonological factors.

Abstract

This study investigated the time course of phonological encoding during speech production planning. Previous research has shown that conceptual/semantic information precedes syntactic information in the planning of speech production and that syntactic information is available earlier than phonological information. Here, we studied the relative time courses of the two different processes within phonological encoding, i.e. metrical encoding and syllabification. According to one prominent theory of language production, metrical encoding involves the retrieval of the stress pattern of a word, while syllabification is carried out to construct the syllabic structure of a word. However, the relative timing of these two processes is underspecified in the theory. We employed an implicit picture naming task and recorded event-related brain potentials to obtain fine-grained temporal information about metrical encoding and syllabification. Results revealed that both tasks generated effects that fall within the time window of phonological encoding. However, there was no timing difference between the two effects, suggesting that they occur approximately at the same time.

Abstract

In this study, we investigated grammatical feature selection during noun phrase production in German and Dutch. More specifically, we studied the conditions under which different grammatical genders select either the same or different determiners or suffixes. Pictures of one or two objects paired with a gender-congruent or a gender-incongruent distractor word were presented. Participants named the pictures using a singular or plural noun phrase with the appropriate determiner and/or adjective in German or Dutch. Significant effects of gender congruency were only obtained in the singular condition where the selection of determiners is governed by the target’s gender, but not in the plural condition where the determiner is identical for all genders. When different suffixes were to be selected in the gender-incongruent condition, no gender congruency effect was obtained. The results suggest that the so-called gender congruency effect is really a determiner congruency effect. The overall pattern of results is interpreted as indicating that grammatical feature selection is an automatic consequence of lexical node selection and therefore not subject to interference from other grammatical features. This implies that lexical node and grammatical feature selection operate with distinct principles.

Abstract

To investigate the role of the syllable in Dutch speech production, five experiments were carried out to examine the effect of visually masked syllable primes on the naming latencies for written words and pictures. Targets had clear syllable boundaries and began with a CV syllable (e.g., ka.no) or a CVC syllable (e.g., kak.tus), or had ambiguous syllable boundaries and began with a CV[C] syllable (e.g., ka[pp]er). In the syllable match condition, bisyllabic Dutch nouns or verbs were preceded by primes that were identical to the target’s first syllable. In the syllable mismatch condition, the prime was either shorter or longer than the target’s first syllable. A neutral condition was also included. None of the experiments showed a syllable priming effect. Instead, all related primes facilitated the naming of the targets. It is concluded that the syllable does not play a role in the process of phonological encoding in Dutch. Because the amount of facilitation increased with increasing overlap between prime and target, the priming effect is accounted for by a segmental overlap hypothesis.

Abstract

The basic idea behind this task is to find out how languages encode basic shape distinctions such as dimensionality, axial geometry, relative size, etc. More specifically, we want to find out (i) which formal means are used cross linguistically to encode basic shape distinctions, and (ii) which are the semantic distinctions that are made in this domain. In languages with many shape-classifiers, these distinctions are encoded (at least partially) in classifiers. In other languages, positional verbs, descriptive modifiers, such as “flat”, “round”, or nouns such as “cube”, “ball”, etc. might be the preferred means. In this context, we also want to investigate what other “grammatical work” shapeencoding expressions possibly do in a given language, e.g. unitization of mass nouns, or anaphoric uses of shape-encoding classifiers, etc. This task further seeks to determine the role of shape-related parameters which underlie the design of objects in the semantics of the system under investigation.

Abstract

This article discusses how the Trobriand Islanders speak about body and mind. It addresses the following questions: do the linguistic datafit into theories about lexical universals of body-part terminology? Can we make inferences about the Trobrianders' conceptualization of psychological and physical states on the basis of these data? If a Trobriand Islander sees these idioms as external manifestations of inner states, then can we interpret them as a kind of ethnopsychological theory about the body and its role for emotions, knowledge, thought, memory, and so on? Can these idioms be understood as representation of Trobriand ethnopsychological theory?

Abstract

This project aims to investigate how speakers of various languages in indigenous cultures verbally reason about moral issues. The ways in which a solution for a moral problem is found, phrased and justified will be taken as the basis for researching reasoning processes that manifest themselves verbally in the speakers’ arguments put forward to solve a number of moral problems which will be presented to them in the form of unfinished story plots or scenarios that ask for a solution. The plots chosen attempt to present common problems in human society and human behaviour. They should function to elicit moral discussion and/or moral arguments in groups of consultants of at least three persons.

Abstract

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder in childhood and likely represents an extreme of normal behavior. ADHD significantly impacts learning in school-age children and leads to impaired functioning throughout the life span. There is strong evidence for a genetic etiology of the disorder, although putative alleles, principally in dopamine-related pathways suggested by candidate-gene studies, have very small effect sizes. We use affected-sib-pair analysis in 203 families to localize the first major susceptibility locus for ADHD to a 12-cM region on chromosome 16p13 (maximum LOD score 4.2; P=.000005), building upon an earlier genomewide scan of this disorder. The region overlaps that highlighted in three genome scans for autism, a disorder in which inattention and hyperactivity are common, and physically maps to a 7-Mb region on 16p13. These findings suggest that variations in a gene on 16p13 may contribute to common deficits found in both ADHD and autism.

Abstract

We present the results of a large-scale study on speech perception, assessing the number and type of perceptual hypotheses which listeners entertain about possible phoneme sequences in their language. Dutch listeners were asked to identify gated fragments of all 1179 diphones of Dutch, providing a total of 488 520 phoneme categorizations. The results manifest orderly uptake of acoustic information in the signal. Differences across phonemes in the rate at which fully correct recognition was achieved arose as a result of whether or not potential confusions could occur with other phonemes of the language ~long with short vowels, affricates with their initial components, etc.!. These data can be used to improve models of how acoustic phonetic information is mapped onto the mental lexicon during speech comprehension.

Abstract

A quantitative model of human categorization behavior is proposed, which can be applied to 4-alternative forced-choice categorization data involving two binary classifications. A number of processing dependencies between the two classifications are explicitly formulated, such as the dependence of the location, orientation, and steepness of the class boundary for one classification on the outcome of the other classification. The significance of various types of dependencies can be tested statistically. Analyses of a data set from the literature shows that interesting dependencies in human speech recognition can be uncovered using the model.

Abstract

Spoken word recognition involves automatic activation of lexical candidates compatible with the perceived input. In running speech, words abut one another without intervening gaps, and syllable boundaries can mismatch with word boundaries. For instance, liaison in ’petit agneau’ creates a syllable beginning with a consonant although ’agneau’ begins with a vowel. In two cross-modal priming experiments we investigate how French listeners recognise words in liaison environments. These results suggest that the resolution of liaison in part depends on acoustic cues which distinguish liaison from non-liaison consonants, and in part on the availability of lexical support for a liaison interpretation.

Abstract

Spoken language comprehension requires rapid integration of information from multiple linguistic sources. In the present study we addressed the temporal aspects of this integration process by focusing on the time course of the selection of the appropriate meaning of lexical ambiguities (“bank”) in sentence contexts. Successful selection of the contextually appropriate meaning of the ambiguous word is dependent upon the rapid binding of the contextual information in the sentence to the appropriate meaning of the ambiguity. We used the N400 to identify the time course of this binding process. The N400 was measured to target words that followed three types of context sentences. In the concordant context, the sentence biased the meaning of the sentence-final ambiguous word so that it was related to the target. In the discordant context, the sentence context biased the meaning so that it was not related to the target. In the unrelated control condition, the sentences ended in an unambiguous noun that was unrelated to the target. Half of the concordant sentences biased the dominant meaning, and the other half biased the subordinate meaning of the sentence-final ambiguous words. The ISI between onset of the target word and offset of the sentence-final word of the context sentence was 100 ms in one version of the experiment, and 1250 ms in the second version. We found that (i) the lexically dominant meaning is always partly activated, independent of context, (ii) initially both dominant and subordinate meaning are (partly) activated, which suggests that contextual and lexical factors both contribute to sentence interpretation without context completely overriding lexical information, and (iii) strong lexical influences remain present for a relatively long period of time.