Publications

Abstract

We report the results of a cross-cultural investigation of person-body reasoning in the United Kingdom and northern Brazilian Amazon (Marajo´ Island). The study provides evidence that directly bears upon divergent theoretical claims in cognitive psychology and anthropology, respectively, on the cognitive origins and cross-cultural incidence of mind-body dualism. In a novel reasoning task, we found that participants across the two sample populations parsed a wide range of capacities similarly in terms of the capacities’ perceived anchoring to bodily function. Patterns of reasoning concerning the respective roles of physical and biological properties in sustaining various capacities did vary between sample populations, however. Further, the data challenge prior ad-hoc categorizations in the empirical literature on the developmental origins of and cognitive constraints on psycho-physical reasoning (e.g., in afterlife concepts). We suggest cross-culturally validated categories of ‘‘Body Dependent’’ and ‘‘Body Independent’’ items for future developmental and cross-cultural research in this emerging area.

Abstract

In three experiments, listeners detected vowel or consonant targets in lists of CV syllables constructed from five vowels and five consonants. Responses were faster in a predictable context (e.g., listening for a vowel target in a list of syllables all beginning with the same consonant) than in an unpredictable context (e.g., listening for a vowel target in a list of syllables beginning with different consonants). In Experiment 1, the listeners’ native language was Dutch, in which vowel and consonant repertoires are similar in size. The difference between predictable and unpredictable contexts was comparable for vowel and consonant targets. In Experiments 2 and 3, the listeners’ native language was Spanish, which has four times as many consonants as vowels; here effects of an unpredictable consonant context on vowel detection were significantly greater than effects of an unpredictable vowel context on consonant detection. This finding suggests that listeners’ processing of phonemes takes into account the constitution of their language’s phonemic repertoire and the implications that this has for contextual variability.

Abstract

The issue addressed in this study is whether propositional integration and world-knowledge inference can be distinguished as separate processes during the comprehension of Dutch omdat (because) sentences. “Propositional integration” refers to the process by which the reader establishes the type of relation between two clauses or sentences. “World-knowledge inference” refers to the process of deriving the general causal relation and checking it against the reader's world knowledge. An eye-tracking experiment showed that the presence of the conjunction speeds up the processing of the words immediately following the conjunction, and slows down the processing of the sentence final words in comparison to the absence of the conjunction. A second, subject-paced reading experiment replicated the reading time findings, and the results of a verification task confirmed that the effect at the end of the sentence was due to inferential processing. The findings evidence integrative processing and inferential processing, respectively.

Abstract

Several theoretical accounts have been proposed with respect to the issue how quickly the implicit causality verb bias affects the understanding of sentences such as “John beat Pete at the tennis match, because he had played very well”. They can be considered as instances of two viewpoints: the focusing and the integration account. The focusing account claims that the bias should be manifest soon after the verb has been processed, whereas the integration account claims that the interpretation is deferred until disambiguating information is encountered. Up to now, this issue has remained unresolved because materials or methods have failed to address it conclusively. We conducted two experiments that exploited the visual world paradigm and ambiguous pronouns in subordinate because clauses. The first experiment presented implicit causality sentences with the task to resolve the ambiguous pronoun. To exclude strategic processing, in the second experiment, the task was to answer simple comprehension questions and only a minority of the sentences contained implicit causality verbs. In both experiments, the implicit causality of the verb had an effect before the disambiguating information was available. This result supported the focusing account.

Abstract

A current theoretical view proposes that infants converge on the speech categories of their native language by attending to frequency distributions that occur in the acoustic input. To date, the only empirical support for this statistical learning hypothesis comes from studies where a single, salient dimension was manipulated. Additional evidence is sought here, by introducing a less salient pair of categories supported by multiple cues. We exposed English-learning infants to a multi-cue bidimensional grid ranging between retroflex and alveolopalatal sibilants in prevocalic position. This contrast is substantially more difficult according to previous cross-linguistic and perceptual research, and its perception is driven by cues in both the consonantal and the following vowel portions. Infants heard one of two distributions (flat, or with two peaks), and were tested with sounds varying along only one dimension. Infants' responses differed depending on the familiarization distribution, and their performance was equally good for the vocalic and the frication dimension, lending some support to the statistical hypothesis even in this harder learning situation. However, learning was restricted to the retroflex category, and a control experiment showed that lack of learning for the alveolopalatal category was not due to the presence of a competing category. Thus, these results contribute fundamental evidence on the extent and limitations of the statistical hypothesis as an explanation for infants' perceptual tuning.

Abstract

Within the debate on the mechanisms underlying infants’ perceptual acquisition, one hypothesis proposes that infants’ perception is directly affected by the acoustic implementation of sound categories in the speech they hear. In consonance with this view, the present study shows that individual variation in fine-grained, subphonemic aspects of the acoustic realization of /s/ in caregivers’ speech predicts infants’ discrimination of this sound from the highly similar /∫/, suggesting that learning based on acoustic cue distributions may indeed drive natural phonological acquisition.

Abstract

Adults' phonotactic learning is affected by perceptual biases. One such bias concerns learning of constraints affecting groups of sounds: all else being equal, learning constraints affecting a natural class (a set of sounds sharing some phonetic characteristic) is easier than learning a constraint affecting an arbitrary set of sounds. This perceptual bias could be a given, for example, the result of innately guided learning; alternatively, it could be due to human learners’ experience with sounds. Using artificial grammars, we investigated whether such a bias arises in development, or whether it is present as soon as infants can learn phonotactics. Seven-month-old English-learning infants fail to generalize a phonotactic pattern involving fricatives and nasals, which does not form a coherent phonetic group, but succeed with the natural class of oral and nasal stops. In this paper, we report an experiment that explored whether those results also follow in a cohort of 4-month-olds. Unlike the older infants, 4-month-olds were able to generalize both groups, suggesting that the perceptual bias that makes phonotactic constraints on natural classes easier to learn is likely the effect of experience.

Abstract

The mother-offspring bond is one of the strongest and most essential social bonds. Following is a detailed behavioral report of a female chimpanzee two days after her 16-month-old infant died, on the first day that the mother is observed to create distance between her and the corpse. A series of repeated approaches and retreats to and from the body are documented, along with detailed accounts of behaviors directed toward the dead infant by the mother and other group members. The behavior of the mother toward her dead infant not only highlights the maternal contribution to the mother-infant relationship but also elucidates the opportunities chimpanzees have to learn about the sensory cues associated with death, and the implications of death for the social environment.

Abstract

Native American English and non-native(Dutch)listeners identified either the consonant or the vowel in all possible American English CV and VC syllables. The syllables were embedded in multispeaker babble at three signal-to-noise ratios(0, 8, and 16 dB). The phoneme identification
performance of the non-native listeners was less accurate than that of the native listeners. All listeners were adversely affected by noise. With these isolated syllables, initial segments were harder to identify than final segments. Crucially, the effects of language background and noise did not interact; the performance asymmetry between the native and non-native groups was not significantly different across signal-to-noise ratios. It is concluded that the frequently reported disproportionate difficulty of non-native listening under disadvantageous conditions is not due to a disproportionate increase in phoneme misidentifications.

Abstract

Because stress can occur in any position within an Eglish word, lexical prosody could serve as a minimal distinguishing feature between pairs of words. However, most pairs of English words with stress pattern opposition also differ vocalically: OBject an obJECT, CONtent and content have different vowels in their first syllables an well as different stress patters. To test whether prosodic information is made use in auditory word recognition independently of segmental phonetic information, it is necessary to examine pairs like FORbear – forBEAR of TRUSty – trusTEE, semantically unrelated words which echbit stress pattern opposition but no segmental difference. In a cross-modal priming task, such words produce the priming effects characteristic of homophones, indicating that lexical prosody is not used in the same was as segmental structure to constrain lexical access.

Abstract

Two bodies of recent research from experimental psycholinguistics are summarised, each of which is centred upon a concept from phonology: LEXICAL STRESS and the SYLLABLE. The evidence indicates that neither construct plays a role in prelexical representations during speech recog- nition. Both constructs, however, are well supported by other performance evidence. Testing phonological claims against performance evidence from psycholinguistics can be difficult, since the results of studies designed to test processing models are often of limited relevance to phonological theory.

Abstract

Four studies are reported in which young children’s response time to detect word targets was measured. Children under about six years of age did not show response time advantage for accented target words which adult listeners show. When semantic focus of the target word was manipulated independently of accent, children of about five years of age showed an adult-like response time advantage for focussed targets, but children younger than five did not. Id is argued that the processing advantage for accented words reflect the semantic role of accent as an expression of sentence focus. Processing advantages for accented words depend on the prior development of representations of sentence semantic structure, including the concept of focus. The previous literature on the development of prosodic competence shows an apparent anomaly in that young children’s productive skills appear to outstrip their receptive skills; however, this anomaly disappears if very young children’s prosody is assumed to be produced without an underlying representation of the relationship between prosody and semantics.

Abstract

Language production and comprehension are intimately interrelated; and models of production and comprehension should, we argue, be constrained by common architectural guidelines. Levelt et al.'s target article adopts as guiding principle Ockham's razor: the best model of production is the simplest one. We recommend adoption of the same principle in comprehension, with consequent simplification of some well-known types of models.

Abstract

Three experiments addressed the question of whether pitch-accent information may be exploited in the process of recognizing spoken words in Tokyo Japanese. In a two-choice classification task, listeners judged from which of two words, differing in accentual structure, isolated syllables had been extracted ~e.g., ka from baka HL or gaka LH!; most judgments were correct, and listeners’ decisions were correlated with the fundamental frequency characteristics of the syllables. In a gating experiment, listeners heard initial fragments of words and guessed what the words were; their guesses overwhelmingly had the same initial accent structure as the gated word even when only the beginning CV of the stimulus ~e.g., na- from nagasa HLL or nagashi LHH! was presented. In addition, listeners were more confident in guesses with the same initial accent structure as the stimulus than in guesses with different accent. In a lexical decision experiment, responses to spoken words ~e.g., ame HL! were speeded by previous presentation of the same word ~e.g., ame HL! but not by previous presentation of a word differing only in accent ~e.g., ame LH!. Together these findings provide strong evidence that accentual information constrains the activation and selection of candidates for spoken-word recognition.

Abstract

Speech segmentation procedures may differ in speakers of different languages. Earlier work based on French speakers listening to French words suggested that the syllable functions as a segmentation unit in speech processing. However, while French has relatively regular and clearly bounded syllables, other languages, such as English, do not. No trace of syllabifying segmentation was found in English listeners listening to English words, French words, or nonsense words. French listeners, however, showed evidence of syllabification even when they were listening to English words. We conclude that alternative segmentation routines are available to the human language processor. In some cases speech segmentation may involve the operation of more than one procedure

Abstract

One of a listener's major tasks in understanding continuous speech is segmenting the speech signal into separate words. When listening conditions are difficult, speakers can help listeners by deliberately speaking more clearly. In four experiments, we examined how word boundaries are produced in deliberately clear speech. In an earlier report we showed that speakers do indeed mark word boundaries in clear speech, by pausing at the boundary and lengthening pre-boundary syllables; moreover, these effects are applied particularly to boundaries preceding weak syllables. In English, listeners use segmentation procedures which make word boundaries before strong syllables easier to perceive; thus marking word boundaries before weak syllables in clear speech will make clear precisely those boundaries which are otherwise hard to perceive. The present report presents supplementary data, namely prosodic analyses of the syllable following a critical word boundary. More lengthening and greater increases in intensity were applied in clear speech to weak syllables than to strong. Mean F0 was also increased to a greater extent on weak syllables than on strong. Pitch movement, however, increased to a greater extent on strong syllables than on weak. The effects were, however, very small in comparison to the durational effects we observed earlier for syllables preceding the boundary and for pauses at the boundary.

Abstract

The authors used 2 “visual-world” eye-tracking experiments to examine lexical access using Dutch constructions in which the verb did or did not place semantic constraints on its subsequent subject noun phrase. In Experiment 1, fixations to the picture of a cohort competitor (overlapping with the onset of the referent’s name, the subject) did not differ from fixations to a distractor in the constraining-verb condition. In Experiment 2, cross-splicing introduced phonetic information that temporarily biased the input toward the cohort competitor. Fixations to the cohort competitor temporarily increased in both the neutral and constraining conditions. These results favor models in which mapping from the input onto meaning is continuous over models in which contextual effects follow access of an initial form-based competitor set.

Abstract

In the present article we provide evidence for the occurrence of transfer of conceptualization patterns in narratives of two German-Turkish bilingual groups. All bilingual participants grew up in Germany, but only one group is still resident in Germany (n = 49). The other, the returnees, moved back to Turkey after having lived in Germany for thirteen years (n = 35). The study is based on the theoretical framework for conceptual transfer outlined in Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008) and on the typology of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages developed by Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000a, b) and Slobin (1987, 1996, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006). In the present study we provide evidence for the hypothesis that language structure affects the organization of information structure at the level of the Conceptualizer, and show that bilingual speakers’ conceptualization of motion events is influenced by the dominant linguistic environment in both languages (German for the group in Germany and Turkish for the returnees). The returnees follow the Turkish blueprints for the conceptualization of motion, in both Turkish and German event construals, whereas the German-resident bilinguals follow the German blueprints, when speaking German as well as Turkish. We argue that most of the patterns found are the result of transfer of conceptualization patterns from the dominant language of the environment.

Abstract

Researchers interested in face processing have recently debated whether access to the name of a known person occurs in parallel with retrieval of semantic-biographical codes, rather than in a sequential fashion. Recently, Schweinberger, Burton, and Kelly (2001) took a failure to obtain a semantic context effect in a manual syllable judgment task on names of famous faces as support for this position. In two experiments, we compared the effects of visually presented categorically related prime words with either objects (e.g. prime: animal; target: dog) or faces of celebrities (e.g. prime: actor; target: Bruce Willis) as targets. Targets were either manually categorized with regard to the number of syllables (as in Schweinberger et al.), or they were overtly named. For neither objects nor faces was semantic priming obtained in syllable decisions; crucially, however, priming was obtained when objects and faces were overtly named. These results suggest that both face and object naming are susceptible to semantic context effects

Abstract

Many children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) show impairments in discriminating auditorily presented stimuli. The present study investigates whether these discrimination problems are speech specific or of a general auditory nature. This was studied by using a linguistic and nonlinguistic contrast that were matched for acoustic complexity in an active behavioral task and a passive ERP paradigm, known to elicit the mismatch negativity (MMN). In addition, attention skills and a variety of language skills were measured. Participants were 25 five-year-old Dutch children with SLI having receptive as well as productive language problems and 25 control children with typical speechand language development. At the behavioral level, the SLI group was impaired in discriminating the linguistic contrast as compared to the control group, while both groups were unable to distinguish the non-linguistic contrast. Moreover, the SLI group tended to have impaired attention skills which correlated with performance on most of the language tests. At the neural level, the SLI group, in contrast to the control group, did not show an MMN in response to either the linguistic or nonlinguistic contrast. The MMN data are consistent with an account that relates the symptoms in children with SLI to non-speech processing difficulties.

Abstract

Cognitive control involves not only the ability to manage competing task demands, but also the ability to adapt task performance during learning. This study investigated how violation-, response-, and feedback-related electrophysiological (EEG) activity changes over time during language learning. Twenty-two Dutch learners of German classified short prepositional phrases presented serially as text. The phrases were initially presented without feedback during a pre-test phase, and then with feedback in a training phase on two separate days spaced 1 week apart. The stimuli included grammatically correct phrases, as well as grammatical violations of gender and declension. Without feedback, participants' classification was near chance and did not improve over trials. During training with feedback, behavioral classification improved and violation responses appeared to both types of violation in the form of a P600. Feedback-related negative and positive components were also present from the first day of training. The results show changes in the electrophysiological responses in concert with improving behavioral discrimination, suggesting that the activity is related to grammar learning.

Abstract

It is generally accepted that the relationship between human genes
and language is very complex and multifaceted. This has its roots in the
“regular” complexity governing the interplay among genes and between genes
and environment for most phenotypes, but with the added layer of supraontogenetic
and supra-individual processes defining culture. At the coarsest
level, focusing on the species, it is clear that human-specific—but not necessarily
faculty-specific—genetic factors subtend our capacity for language and a
currently very productive research program is aiming at uncovering them. At the
other end of the spectrum, it is uncontroversial that individual-level variations in
different aspects related to speech and language have an important genetic
component and their discovery and detailed characterization have already started
to revolutionize the way we think about human nature. However, at the
intermediate, glossogenetic/population level, the relationship becomes controversial,
partly due to deeply ingrained beliefs about language acquisition and
universality and partly because of confusions with a different type of genelanguages
correlation due to shared history. Nevertheless, conceptual, mathematical
and computational models—and, recently, experimental evidence from
artificial languages and songbirds—have repeatedly shown that genetic biases
affecting the acquisition or processing of aspects of language and speech can be
amplified by population-level intergenerational cultural processes and made
manifest either as fixed “universal” properties of language or as structured
linguistic diversity. Here, I review several such models as well as the recently
proposed case of a causal relationship between the distribution of tone languages
and two genes related to brain growth and development, ASPM and Microcephalin,
and I discuss the relevance of such genetic biasing for language
evolution, change, and diversity.

Abstract

Language is a hallmark of our species and understanding linguistic diversity is an area of major interest. Genetic factors influencing the cultural transmission of language provide a powerful and elegant explanation for aspects of the present day linguistic diversity and a window into the emergence and evolution of language. In particular, it has recently been proposed that linguistic tone—the usage of voice pitch to convey lexical and grammatical meaning—is biased by two genes involved in brain growth and development, ASPM and Microcephalin. This hypothesis predicts that tone is a stable characteristic of language because of its ‘genetic anchoring’. The present paper tests this prediction using a Bayesian phylogenetic framework applied to a large set of linguistic features and language families, using multiple software implementations, data codings, stability estimations, linguistic classifications and outgroup choices. The results of these different methods and datasets show a large agreement, suggesting that this approach produces reliable estimates of the stability of linguistic data. Moreover, linguistic tone is found to be stable across methods and datasets, providing suggestive support for the hypothesis of genetic influences on its distribution.

Abstract

* Deriziotis, P., André, R., and Smith. D.M. contributed equally to this work * - Prion diseases are associated with the conversion of cellular prion protein (PrP(C)) to toxic β-sheet isoforms (PrP(Sc)), which are reported to inhibit the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). Accordingly, UPS substrates accumulate in prion-infected mouse brains, suggesting impairment of the 26S proteasome. A direct interaction between its 20S core particle and PrP isoforms was demonstrated by immunoprecipitation. β-PrP aggregates associated with the 20S particle, but did not impede binding of the PA26 complex, suggesting that the aggregates do not bind to its ends. Aggregated β-PrP reduced the 20S proteasome's basal peptidase activity, and the enhanced activity induced by C-terminal peptides from the 19S ATPases or by the 19S regulator itself, including when stimulated by polyubiquitin conjugates. However, the 20S proteasome was not inhibited when the gate in the α-ring was open due to a truncation mutation or by association with PA26/PA28. These PrP aggregates inhibit by stabilising the closed conformation of the substrate entry channel. A similar inhibition of substrate entry into the proteasome may occur in other neurodegenerative diseases where misfolded β-sheet-rich proteins accumulate.

Abstract

This article explores language, culture, and the perceptual world as reflected in a particular linguistic device: ideophones, marked words that depict sensory imagery. Data from a range of elicitation tasks shows that ideophones are a key resource in talking about sensory perception in Siwu. Their use in everyday conversations underlines their communicative versatility while at the same time showing that people delight in their expressiveness. In ideophones, we have an expressive resource that combines sheer playfulness with extraordinary precision

Abstract

We previously reported an association with a putative functional variant in the ADAMTSL3 gene, just below genome-wide significance in a genome-wide association study of schizophrenia. As variants impacting the function of ADAMTSL3 (a disintegrin-like and metalloprotease domain with thrombospondin type I motifs-like-3) could illuminate a novel disease mechanism and a potentially specific target, we have used complementary approaches to further evaluate the association. We imputed genotypes and performed high density association analysis using data from the HapMap and 1000 genomes projects. To review all variants that could potentially cause the association, and to identify additional possible pathogenic rare variants, we sequenced ADAMTSL3 in 92 schizophrenics. A total of 71 ADAMTSL3 variants were identified by sequencing, many were also seen in the 1000 genomes data, but 26 were novel. None of the variants identified by re-sequencing was in strong linkage disequilibrium (LD) with the associated markers. Imputation analysis refined association between ADAMTSL3 and schizophrenia, and highlighted additional common variants with similar levels of association. We evaluated the functional consequences of all variants identified by sequencing, or showing direct or imputed association. The strongest evidence for function remained with the originally associated variant, rs950169, suggesting that this variant may be causal of the association. Rare variants were also identified with possible functional impact. Our study confirms ADAMTSL3 as a candidate for further investigation in schizophrenia, using the variants identified here. The utility of imputation analysis is demonstrated, and we recommend wider use of this method to re-evaluate the existing canon of suggestive schizophrenia associations.

Abstract

The cortical regions of the brain traditionally associated with the comprehension of language are Wernicke's area and Broca's area. However, recent evidence suggests that other brain regions might also be involved in this complex process. This paper describes the opportunity to evaluate a large number of brain-injured patients to determine which lesioned brain areas might affect language comprehension. Sixty-four chronic left hemisphere stroke patients were evaluated on 11 subtests of the Curtiss–Yamada Comprehensive Language Evaluation – Receptive (CYCLE-R; Curtiss, S., & Yamada, J. (1988). Curtiss–Yamada Comprehensive Language Evaluation. Unpublished test, UCLA). Eight right hemisphere stroke patients and 15 neurologically normal older controls also participated. Patients were required to select a single line drawing from an array of three or four choices that best depicted the content of an auditorily-presented sentence. Patients' lesions obtained from structural neuroimaging were reconstructed onto templates and entered into a voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM; Bates, E., Wilson, S., Saygin, A. P., Dick, F., Sereno, M., Knight, R. T., & Dronkers, N. F. (2003). Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping. Nature Neuroscience, 6(5), 448–450.) analysis along with the behavioral data. VLSM is a brain–behavior mapping technique that evaluates the relationships between areas of injury and behavioral performance in all patients on a voxel-by-voxel basis, similar to the analysis of functional neuroimaging data. Results indicated that lesions to five left hemisphere brain regions affected performance on the CYCLE-R, including the posterior middle temporal gyrus and underlying white matter, the anterior superior temporal gyrus, the superior temporal sulcus and angular gyrus, mid-frontal cortex in Brodmann's area 46, and Brodmann's area 47 of the inferior frontal gyrus. Lesions to Broca's and Wernicke's areas were not found to significantly alter language comprehension on this particular measure. Further analysis suggested that the middle temporal gyrus may be more important for comprehension at the word level, while the other regions may play a greater role at the level of the sentence. These results are consistent with those seen in recent functional neuroimaging studies and offer complementary data in the effort to understand the brain areas underlying language comprehension.

Abstract

This paper describes the different kinds of nominalizations and the main forms used in subordination in Awetí, a Tupian language spoken by ca. 150 people in central Bra-zil in the Upper Xingu area. Awetí does not belong to, but is arguably the closest rela-tive of the well-known Tupí-Guaraní subfamily, the largest branch of the Tupí stock. In our analysis, subordination in Awetí is achieved by means of forms which may have developed from nominalizations, but which are synchronously possibly best classified as verbal moods, belonging into the verbal paradigm. On the other hand, nouns (and in particular nouns derived from verbs) often appear as predicates, especially in equality and cleft sentences.

Abstract

This paper describes the distribution and phonetic properties of accentuation of word forms in Awetí, a Tupian language spoken by ca. 150 people in central Brazil in the Upper Xingu area. Awetí does not belong to, but is arguably the closest relative of the better known Tupí-Guaraní subfamily, the largest branch of the Tupí stock. After a short overview over the word classes and general phonotactics of Awetí (sec-tion 2), we briefly discuss the notion ‘word accent’ and show that, in Awetí, it is generally located on the last syllable of the stem in morphologically simple forms (section 3). We then discuss regular and isolated exceptions to this rule (section 4). In section 5, we describe the distribution of the word accent when inflectional or deriva-tional suffixes are present – usually, the word accent of the word form with suffixes continues to be on the last syllable of the stem. After this descriptive part, we present a preliminary study of the acoustic-phonetic details of the manifestation of the word accent, observing word forms in isolation (section 6) and in different syntactic con-texts (section 7). The results are briefly summarized in the conclusion (section 8)

Abstract

Investigating human cognitive faculties such as language, attention, and memory most often relies on testing small and homogeneous groups of volunteers coming to research facilities where they are asked to participate in behavioral experiments. We show that this limitation and sampling bias can be overcome by using smartphone technology to collect data in cognitive science experiments from thousands of subjects from all over the world. This mass coordinated use of smartphones creates a novel and powerful scientific ‘‘instrument’’ that yields the data necessary to test universal theories of cognition. This increase in power represents a potential revolution in cognitive science

Abstract

This paper analyzes newly collected lexical data from 26 languages of the Aslian subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family using computational phylogenetic methods. We show the most likely topology of the Aslian family tree, discuss rooting and external relationships to other Austroasiatic languages, and investigate differences in the rates of diversification of different branches. Evidence is given supporting the classification of Jah Hut as a fourth top level subgroup of the family. The phylogenetic positions of known geographic and linguistic outlier languages are clarified, and the relationships of the little studied Aslian languages of Southern Thailand to the rest of the family are explored.

Abstract

Languages vary widely but not without limit. The central goal of linguistics is to describe the diversity of human languages and explain the constraints on that diversity. Generative linguists following Chomsky have claimed that linguistic diversity must be constrained by innate parameters that are set as a child learns a language1, 2. In contrast, other linguists following Greenberg have claimed that there are statistical tendencies for co-occurrence of traits reflecting universal systems biases3, 4, 5, rather than absolute constraints or parametric variation. Here we use computational phylogenetic methods to address the nature of constraints on linguistic diversity in an evolutionary framework6. First, contrary to the generative account of parameter setting, we show that the evolution of only a few word-order features of languages are strongly correlated. Second, contrary to the Greenbergian generalizations, we show that most observed functional dependencies between traits are lineage-specific rather than universal tendencies. These findings support the view that—at least with respect to word order—cultural evolution is the primary factor that determines linguistic structure, with the current state of a linguistic system shaping and constraining future states.

Abstract

Impaired understanding of others' sensations and emotions as well as abnormal experience of their own emotions and sensations is frequently reported in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). It is hypothesized that these abnormalities are based on altered connectivity within “shared” neural networks involved in emotional awareness of self and others. The insula is considered a central brain region in a network underlying these functions, being located at the transition of information about bodily arousal and the physiological state of the body to subjective feelings. The present study investigated the intrinsic functional connectivity properties of the insula in 14 high-functioning participants with ASD (HF-ASD) and 15 typically developing (TD) participants in the age range between 12 and 20 years by means of “resting state” or “nontask” functional magnetic resonance imaging. Essentially, a distinction was made between anterior and posterior regions of the insular cortex. The results show a reduced functional connectivity in the HF-ASD group, compared with the TD group, between anterior as well as posterior insula and specific brain regions involved in emotional and sensory processing. It is suggested that functional abnormalities in a network involved in emotional and interoceptive awareness might be at the basis of altered emotional experiences and impaired social abilities in ASD, and that these abnormalities are partly based on the intrinsic functional connectivity properties of such a network.

Abstract

In two experiments, we investigated whether body posture influences people’s estimation of quantities. According to the mental-number-line theory, people mentally represent numbers along a line with smaller numbers on the left and larger numbers on the right. We hypothesized that surreptitiously making people lean to the right or to the left would affect their quantitative estimates. Participants answered estimation questions while standing on a Wii Balance Board. Posture was manipulated within subjects so that participants answered some questions while they leaned slightly to the left, some questions while they leaned slightly to the right, and some questions while they stood upright. Crucially, participants were not aware of this manipulation. Estimates were significantly smaller when participants leaned to the left than when they leaned to the right.

Abstract

This article presents a description of two sequences of talk by urban speakers of Lao (a southwestern Tai language spoken in Laos) in which co-speech gesture plays a central role in explanations of kinship relations and terminology. The speakers spontaneously use hand gestures and gaze to spatially diagram relationships that have no inherent spatial structure. The descriptive sections of the article are prefaced by a discussion of the semiotic complexity of illustrative gestures and gesture diagrams. Gestured signals feature iconic, indexical, and symbolic components, usually in combination, as well as using motion and three-dimensional space to convey meaning. Such diagrams show temporal persistence and structural integrity despite having been projected in midair by evanescent signals (i.e., handmovements anddirected gaze). Speakers sometimes need or want to revise these spatial representations without destroying their structural integrity. The need to "edit" gesture diagrams involves such techniques as hold-and-drag, hold-and-work-with-free-hand, reassignment-of-old-chunk-tonew-chunk, and move-body-into-new-space.

Abstract

Words such as what -d'you-call-it raise issues at the heart of the semantics/pragmatics interface. Expressions of this kind are conventionalised and have meanings which, while very general, are explicitly oriented to the interactional nature of the speech context, drawing attention to a speaker's assumption that the listener can figure out what the speaker is referring to. The details of such meanings can account for functional contrast among similar expressions, in a single language as well as cross-linguistically. The English expressions what -d'you-call-it and you-know-what are compared, along with a comparable Lao expression meaning, roughly, ‘that thing’. Proposed definitions of the meanings of these expressions account for their different patterns of use. These definitions include reference to the speech act participants, a point which supports the view that what -d'you-call-it words can be considered deictic. Issues arising from the descriptive section of this paper include the question of how such terms are derived, as well as their degree of conventionality.

Abstract

Reviewed work(s): Dying Words: Endangered Languages and What They Have to Tell Us. By Nicholas Evans. Indianapolis: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. On the Death and Life of Languages. By Claude Hagège, translated by Jody Gladding. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.

Abstract

The semantics of simple (i.e. two-term) systems of demonstratives have in general hitherto been treated as inherently spatial and as marking a symmetrical opposition of distance (‘proximal’ versus ‘distal’), assuming the speaker as a point of origin. More complex systems are known to add further distinctions, such as visibility or elevation, but are assumed to build on basic distinctions of distance. Despite their inherently context-dependent nature, little previous work has based the analysis of demonstratives on evidence of their use in real interactional situations. In this article, video recordings of spontaneous interaction among speakers of Lao (Southwestern Tai, Laos) are examined in an analysis of the two Lao demonstrative determiners nii4 and nan4. A hypothesis of minimal encoded semantics is tested against rich contextual information, and the hypothesis is shown to be consistent with the data. Encoded conventional meanings must be kept distinct from contingent contextual information and context-dependent pragmatic implicatures. Based on examples of the two Lao demonstrative determiners in exophoric uses, the following claims are made. The term nii4 is a semantically general demonstrative, lacking specification of ANY spatial property (such as location or distance). The term nan4 specifies that the referent is ‘not here’ (encoding ‘location’ but NOT ‘distance’). Anchoring the semantic specification in a deictic primitive ‘here’ allows a strictly discrete intensional distinction to be mapped onto an extensional range of endless elasticity. A common ‘proximal’ spatial interpretation for the semantically more general term nii4 arises from the paradigmatic opposition of the two demonstrative determiners. This kind of analysis suggests a reappraisal of our general understanding of the semantics of demonstrative systems universally. To investigate the question in sufficient detail, however, rich contextual data (preferably collected on video) is necessary

Abstract

This article examines vocabulary for taste and flavor in two neighboring but unrelated languages (Lao and Kri) spoken in Laos, Southeast Asia. There are very close similarities in underlying semantic distinctions made in the taste/flavor domain in these two languages, not just in the set of basic tastes distinguished (sweet, salty, bitter, sour, umami or glutamate), but in a series of further basic terms for flavors, specifying texture and other sensations in the mouth apart from pure taste (e.g. starchy, dry in the mouth, minty, tingly, spicy). After presenting sets of taste/flavor vocabulary in the two languages and showing their high degree of convergence, the article discusses some methodological and theoretical issues that arise from the observation of close convergence in semantic structure across languages, in particular the issue of how much inter-speaker variation is possible not only across apparently highly convergent systems, but also within languages. The final section raises possible causes for the close convergence of semantic structure in the two languages. The conclusion is that the likely cause of this convergence is historical social contact between speech communities in the area, although the precise mode of influence (e.g. direction of transmission) is unknown.

Abstract

Among the most fascinating data for phonology are those showing how speakers incorporate new words and foreign words into their language system, since these data provide cues to the actual principles underlying language. In this article, we address how speakers deal with neutralized obstruents in new words. We formulate four hypotheses and test them on the basis of Dutch word-final obstruents, which are neutral for [voice]. Our experiments show that speakers predict the characteristics ofneutralized segments on the basis ofphonologically similar morphemes stored in the mental lexicon. This effect of the similar morphemes can be modeled in several ways. We compare five models, among them STOCHASTIC OPTIMALITY THEORY and ANALOGICAL MODELING OF LANGUAGE; all perform approximately equally well, but they differ in their complexity, with analogical modeling oflanguage providing the most economical explanation.

Abstract

Words are often pronounced very differently in formal speech than in everyday conversations. In conversational speech, they may contain weaker segments, fewer sounds, and even fewer syllables. The English word yesterday, for instance, may be pronounced as [j epsilon integral eI]. This article forms an introduction to the phenomenon of reduced pronunciation variants and to the eight research articles in this issue on the characteristics, production, and comprehension of these variants. We provide a description of the phenomenon, addressing its high frequency of occurrence in casual conversations in various languages, the gradient nature of many reduction processes, and the intelligibility of reduced variants to native listeners. We also describe the relevance of research on reduced variants for linguistic and psychological theories as well as for applications in speech technology and foreign language acquisition. Since reduced variants occur more often in spontaneous than in formal speech, they are hard to study in the laboratory under well controlled conditions. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of possible solutions, including the research methods employed in the articles in this special issue, based on corpora and experiments. This article ends with a short overview of the articles in this issue.

Abstract

This paper discusses four experiments on Dutch which show that distinctive phonological features differ in their relevance for word recognition. The relevance of a feature for word recognition depends on its phonological stability, that is, the extent to which that feature is generally realized in accordance with its lexical specification in the relevant word position. If one feature value is uninformative, all values of that feature are less relevant for word recognition, with the least informative feature being the least relevant. Features differ in their relevance both in spoken and written word recognition, though the differences are more pronounced in auditory lexical decision than in self-paced reading.

Abstract

This study addresses the question to what extent the production of regular past tense forms in Dutch is a¤ected by analogical processes. We report an experiment in which native speakers of Dutch listened to existing regular verbs over headphones, and had to indicate which of the past tense allomorphs, te or de, was appropriate for these verbs. According to generative analyses, the choice between the two su‰xes is completely regular and governed by the underlying [voice]-specification of the stem-final segment. In this approach, no analogical e¤ects are expected. In connectionist and analogical approaches, by contrast, the phonological similarity structure in the lexicon is expected to a¤ect lexical processing. Our experimental results support the latter approach: all participants created more nonstandard past tense forms, produced more inconsistency errors, and responded more slowly for verbs with stronger analogical support for the nonstandard form.

Abstract

Langerin mediates the carbohydrate-dependent uptake of pathogens by Langerhans cells in the first step of antigen presentation to the adaptive immune system. Langerin binds to an unusually diverse number of endogenous and pathogenic cell surface carbohydrates, including mannose-containing O-specific polysaccharides derived from bacterial lipopolysaccharides identified here by probing a microarray of bacterial polysaccharides. Crystal structures of the carbohydrate-recognition domain from human langerin bound to a series of oligomannose compounds, the blood group B antigen, and a fragment of β-glucan reveal binding to mannose, fucose, and glucose residues by Ca(2+) coordination of vicinal hydroxyl groups with similar stereochemistry. Oligomannose compounds bind through a single mannose residue, with no other mannose residues contacting the protein directly. There is no evidence for a second Ca(2+)-independent binding site. Likewise, a β-glucan fragment, Glcβ1-3Glcβ1-3Glc, binds to langerin through the interaction of a single glucose residue with the Ca(2+) site. The fucose moiety of the blood group B trisaccharide Galα1-3(Fucα1-2)Gal also binds to the Ca(2+) site, and selective binding to this glycan compared to other fucose-containing oligosaccharides results from additional favorable interactions of the nonreducing terminal galactose, as well as of the fucose residue. Surprisingly, the equatorial 3-OH group and the axial 4-OH group of the galactose residue in 6SO(4)-Galβ1-4GlcNAc also coordinate Ca(2+), a heretofore unobserved mode of galactose binding in a C-type carbohydrate-recognition domain bearing the Glu-Pro-Asn signature motif characteristic of mannose binding sites. Salt bridges between the sulfate group and two lysine residues appear to compensate for the nonoptimal binding of galactose at this site.

Abstract

This study investigates the way adult second language (L2) learners of English resolve relative clause attachment ambiguities in sentences such as The dean liked the secretary of the professor who was reading a letter. Two groups of advanced L2 learners of English with Greek or German as their first language participated in a set of off-line and on-line tasks. The results indicate that the L2 learners do not process ambiguous sentences of this type in the same way as adult native speakers of English do. Although the learners’ disambiguation preferences were influenced by lexical–semantic properties of the preposition linking the two potential antecedent noun phrases (of vs. with), there was no evidence that they applied any phrase structure–based ambiguity resolution strategies of the kind that have been claimed to influence sentence processing in monolingual adults. The L2 learners’ performance also differs markedly from the results obtained from 6- to 7-year-old monolingual English children in a parallel auditory study, in that the children’s attachment preferences were not affected by the type of preposition at all. We argue that children, monolingual adults, and adult L2 learners differ in the extent to which they are guided by phrase structure and lexical–semantic information during sentence processing.

Abstract

Family and twin studies of developmental dyslexia have consistently shown that there is a significant heritable component for this disorder. However, any genetic basis for the trait is likely to be complex, involving reduced penetrance, phenocopy, heterogeneity and oligogenic inheritance. This complexity results in reduced power for traditional parametric linkage analysis, where specification of the correct genetic model is important. One strategy is to focus on large multigenerational pedigrees with severe phenotypes and/or apparent simple Mendelian inheritance, as has been successfully demonstrated for speech and language impairment. This approach is limited by the scarcity of such families. An alternative which has recently become feasible due to the development of high-throughput genotyping techniques is the analysis of large numbers of sib-pairs using allele-sharing methodology. This paper outlines our strategy for conducting a systematic genome-wide search for genes involved in dyslexia in a large number of affected sib-pair familites from the UK. We use a series of psychometric tests to obtain different quantitative measures of reading deficit, which should correlate with different components of the dyslexia phenotype, such as phonological awareness and orthographic coding ability. This enable us to use QTL (quantitative trait locus) mapping as a powerful tool for localising genes which may contribute to reading and spelling disability.

Abstract

Recent application of nonparametric-linkage analysis to reading disability has implicated a putative quantitative-trait locus (QTL) on the short arm of chromosome 6. In the present study, we use QTL methods to evaluate linkage to the 6p25-21.3 region in a sample of 181 sib pairs from 82 nuclear families that were selected on the basis of a dyslexic proband. We have assessed linkage directly for several quantitative measures that should correlate with different components of the phenotype, rather than using a single composite measure or employing categorical definitions of subtypes. Our measures include the traditional IQ/reading discrepancy score, as well as tests of word recognition, irregular-word reading, and nonword reading. Pointwise analysis by means of sib-pair trait differences suggests the presence, in 6p21.3, of a QTL influencing multiple components of dyslexia, in particular the reading of irregular words (P=.0016) and nonwords (P=.0024). A complementary statistical approach involving estimation of variance components supports these findings (irregular words, P=.007; nonwords, P=.0004). Multipoint analyses place the QTL within the D6S422-D6S291 interval, with a peak around markers D6S276 and D6S105 consistently identified by approaches based on trait differences (irregular words, P=.00035; nonwords, P=.0035) and variance components (irregular words, P=.007; nonwords, P=.0038). Our findings indicate that the QTL affects both phonological and orthographic skills and is not specific to phoneme awareness, as has been previously suggested. Further studies will be necessary to obtain a more precise localization of this QTL, which may lead to the isolation of one of the genes involved in developmental dyslexia.

Abstract

A significant number of individuals have unexplained difficulties with acquiring normal speech and language, despite adequate intelligence and environmental stimulation. Although developmental disorders of speech and language are heritable, the genetic basis is likely to involve several, possibly many, different risk factors. Investigations of a unique three-generation family showing monogenic inheritance of speech and language deficits led to the isolation of the first such gene on chromosome 7, which encodes a transcription factor known as FOXP2. Disruption of this gene causes a rare severe speech and language disorder but does not appear to be involved in more common forms of language impairment. Recent genome-wide scans have identified at least four chromosomal regions that may harbor genes influencing the latter, on chromosomes 2, 13, 16, and 19. The molecular genetic approach has potential for dissecting neurological pathways underlying speech and language disorders, but such investigations are only just beginning.

Abstract

Between 2 and 5% of children who are otherwise unimpaired have significant difficulties in acquiring expressive and/or receptive language, despite adequate intelligence and opportunity. While twin studies indicate a significant role for genetic factors in developmental disorders of speech and language, the majority of families segregating such disorders show complex patterns of inheritance, and are thus not amenable for conventional linkage analysis. A rare exception is the KE family, a large three-generation pedigree in which approximately half of the members are affected with a severe speech and language disorder which appears to be transmitted as an autosomal dominant monogenic trait. This family has been widely publicised as suffering primarily from a defect in the use of grammatical suffixation rules, thus supposedly supporting the existence of genes specific to grammar. The phenotype, however, is broader in nature, with virtually every aspect of grammar and of language affected. In addition, affected members have a severe orofacial dyspraxia, and their speech is largely incomprehensible to the naive listener. We initiated a genome-wide search for linkage in the KE family and have identified a region on chromosome 7 which co-segregates with the speech and language disorder (maximum lod score = 6.62 at theta = 0.0), confirming autosomal dominant inheritance with full penetrance. Further analysis of microsatellites from within the region enabled us to fine map the locus responsible (designated SPCH1) to a 5.6-cM interval in 7q31, thus providing an important step towards its identification. Isolation of SPCH1 may offer the first insight into the molecular genetics of the developmental process that culminates in speech and language.

Abstract

The present study addresses questions concerning bilinguals’ attainment in the two languages by investigating the extent to which early bilinguals manage to apply the information structure required in each language when producing a complex text. In re-narrating the content of a film, speakers have to break down the perceived series of dynamic situations and structure relevant information into units that are suited for linguistic expression. The analysis builds on typological studies of Germanic and Romance languages which investigate the role of grammaticized concepts in determining core features in information structure. It takes a global perspective in that it focuses on factors that determine information selection and information structure that hold in macrostructural terms for the text as a whole (factors driving information selection, the temporal frame used to locate events on the time line, and the means used in reference management). A first comparison focuses on Dutch and German monolingual native speakers and shows that despite overall typological similarities, there are subtle though systematic differences between the two languages in the aforementioned areas of information structure. The analyses of the bilinguals focus on their narratives in both languages, and compares the patterns found to those found in the monolingual narratives. Findings show that the method used provides insights into the individual bilingual’s attainment in the two languages and identifies either balanced levels of attainment, patterns showing higher degrees of conformity with one of the languages, as well as bilingual-specific patterns of performance.

Abstract

This experimental study investigates event construal by early Dutch–German bilinguals, as reflected in their oral depiction of everyday events shown in video clips. The starting point is the finding that the expression of an aspectual perspective (progressive aspect), and its consequences for event construal, is dependent on the extent to which means are grammaticalized, as in English (e.g., progressive aspect) or not, as in German (von Stutterheim & Carroll, 2006). The present study shows that although speakers of Dutch and German have comparable means to mark this aspectual concept, at a first glance at least, they differ markedly both in the contexts as well as in the extent to which this aspectual perspective is selected, being highly frequent in specific contexts in Dutch, but not in German. The present experimental study investigates factors that lead to the use of progressive aspect by early bilinguals, using video clips (with different types of events varied along specific dimensions on a systematic basis). The study includes recordings of eye movements, and examines how far an aspectual perspective drives allocation of attention during information intake while viewing the stimulus material, both for and while speaking. Although the bilinguals have acquired the means to express progressive aspect in Dutch, their use shows a pattern that differs from monolingual Dutch speakers. Interestingly, these differences are reflected in different patterns in the direction of attention (eye movements) when verbalizing information on events.

Abstract

This paper focuses on native speaker judgments of a construction in Dutch that functions as a progressive aspectual marker (aan het X zijn, referred to as aan het-construction) and represents an event as in progression at the time of speech. The method was chosen in order to investigate how native speakers assess the scope and conditions of use of a construction which is in the process of grammaticalization. It allows for the inclusion of a large group of participants of different age groups and an investigation of potential age-related differences. The study systematically covers a range of temporal variables that were shown to be relevant in elicitation and corpus-based studies on the grammaticalization of progressive aspect constructions. The results provide insights into the selectional preferences and constraints of the aan het-construction in contemporary Dutch, as judged by native speakers, and the extent to which they correlate with production tasks.

Abstract

This article describes the adjective class in Quechua, countering many previous accounts of the language as a linguistic type with no adjective/noun distinction. It applies a set of common crosslinguistic criteria for distinguishing adjectives to data from several dialects of Ecuadorian Highland Quechua (EHQ), analyzing examples from a natural speech audio/video corpus, speaker intuitions of grammaticality, and controlled elicitation exercises. It is concluded that by virtually any standard Quechua shows clear evidence for a distinct class of attributive noun modifiers, and that in the future Quechua should not be considered a “flexible” noun/adjective language for the purposes of crosslinguistic comparison.

Abstract

The first objective of this study was to compare the brain network engaged by preference classification and the standard grammaticality classification after implicit artificial syntax acquisition by re-analyzing previously reported event-related fMRI data. The results show that preference and grammaticality classification engage virtually identical brain networks, including Broca’s region, consistent with previous behavioral findings. Moreover, the results showed that the effects related to artificial syntax in Broca’s region were essentially the same when masked with variability related to natural syntax processing in the same participants. The second objective was to explore CNTNAP2-related effects in implicit artificial syntax learning by analyzing behavioral and event-related fMRI data from a subsample. The CNTNAP2 gene has been linked to specific language impairment and is controlled by the FOXP2 transcription factor. CNTNAP2 is expressed in language related brain networks in the developing human brain and the FOXP2–CNTNAP2 pathway provides a mechanistic link between clinically distinct syndromes involving disrupted language. Finally, we discuss the implication of taking natural language to be a neurobiological system in terms of bounded recursion and suggest that the left inferior frontal region is a generic on-line sequence processor that unifies information from various sources in an incremental and recursive manner.

Abstract

Several quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that influence developmental dyslexia (reading disability [RD]) have been mapped to chromosome regions by linkage analysis. The most consistently replicated area of linkage is on chromosome 6p23-21.3. We used association analysis in 223 siblings from the United Kingdom to identify an underlying QTL on 6p22.2. Our association study implicates a 77-kb region spanning the gene TTRAP and the first four exons of the neighboring uncharacterized gene KIAA0319. The region of association is also directly upstream of a third gene, THEM2. We found evidence of these associations in a second sample of siblings from the United Kingdom, as well as in an independent sample of twin-based sibships from Colorado. One main RD risk haplotype that has a frequency of ∼12% was found in both the U.K. and U.S. samples. The haplotype is not distinguished by any protein-coding polymorphisms, and, therefore, the functional variation may relate to gene expression. The QTL influences a broad range of reading-related cognitive abilities but has no significant impact on general cognitive performance in these samples. In addition, the QTL effect may be largely limited to the severe range of reading disability.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Recent research has provided evidence for a genetically mediated association between language or reading-related cognitive deficits and impaired motor coordination. Other studies have identified relationships between lateralization of hand skill and cognitive abilities. With a large sample, the authors aimed to investigate genetic relationships between measures of reading-related cognition, hand motor skill, and hand skill lateralization.

METHOD: The authors applied univariate and bivariate correlation and familiality analyses to a range of measures. They also performed genomewide linkage analysis of hand motor skill in a subgroup of 195 sibling pairs.

RESULTS: Hand motor skill was significantly familial (maximum heritability=41%), as were reading-related measures. Hand motor skill was weakly but significantly correlated with reading-related measures, such as nonword reading and irregular word reading. However, these correlations were not significantly familial in nature, and the authors did not observe linkage of hand motor skill to any chromosomal regions implicated in susceptibility to dyslexia. Lateralization of hand skill was not correlated with reading or cognitive ability.

CONCLUSIONS: The authors confirmed a relationship between lower motor ability and poor reading performance. However, the genetic effects on motor skill and reading ability appeared to be largely or wholly distinct, suggesting that the correlation between these traits may have arisen from environmental influences. Finally, the authors found no evidence that reading disability and/or low general cognitive ability were associated with ambidexterity.

Abstract

Schizophrenia and non-right-handedness are moderately associated, and both traits are often accompanied by abnormalities of asymmetrical brain morphology or function. We have found linkage previously of chromosome 2p12-q11 to a quantitative measure of handedness, and we have also found linkage of schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder to this same chromosomal region in a separate study. Now, we have found that in one of our samples (191 reading-disabled sibling pairs), the relative hand skill of siblings was correlated more strongly with paternal than maternal relative hand skill. This led us to re-analyse 2p12-q11 under parent-of-origin linkage models. We found linkage of relative hand skill in the RD siblings to 2p12-q11 with P=0.0000037 for paternal identity-by-descent sharing, whereas the maternally inherited locus was not linked to the trait (P>0.2). Similarly, in affected-sib-pair analysis of our schizophrenia dataset (241 sibling pairs), we found linkage to schizophrenia for paternal sharing with LOD=4.72, P=0.0000016, within 3 cM of the peak linkage to relative hand skill. Maternal linkage across the region was weak or non-significant. These similar paternal-specific linkages suggest that the causative genetic effects on 2p12-q11 are related. The linkages may be due to a single maternally imprinted influence on lateralized brain development that contains common functional polymorphisms.

Abstract

A computational model of inference during story comprehension is presented, in which story situations are represented distributively as points in a high-dimensional “situation-state space.” This state space organizes itself on the basis of a constructed microworld description. From the same description, causal/temporal world knowledge is extracted. The distributed representation of story situations is more flexible than Golden and Rumelhart’s [Discourse Proc 16 (1993) 203] localist representation. A story taking place in the microworld corresponds to a trajectory through situation-state space. During the inference process, world knowledge is applied to the story trajectory. This results in an adjusted trajectory, reflecting the inference of propositions that are likely to be the case. Although inferences do not result from a search for coherence, they do cause story coherence to increase. The results of simulations correspond to empirical data concerning inference, reading time, and depth of processing. An extension of the model for simulating story retention shows how coherence is preserved during retention without controlling the retention process. Simulation results correspond to empirical data concerning story recall and intrusion.

Abstract

This study addressed the question as to whether grammatical properties of a first language are transferred to a second language. Dutch-English bilinguals classified Dutch words in white print according to their grammatical gender and colored words (i.e. Dutch common and neuter words, and their English translations) according to their color. Both the classifications were made with the same hand (congruent trials) or different hands (incongruent trials). Performance was more erroneous and the error-elated negativity was enhanced on incongruent compared with congruent trials. This effect was independent of the language in which words were presented. These results provide evidence for the fact thatbilinguals may transfer grammatical characteristics oftheir first language to a second language, even when such characteristics are absent in the grammar of the latter.

Abstract

Speech production long avoided electrophysiological experiments due to the suspicion that potential artifacts caused by muscle activity of overt speech may lead to a bad signal-to-noise ratio in the measurements. Therefore, researchers have sought to assess speech production by using indirect speech production tasks, such as tacit or implicit naming, delayed naming, or metalinguistic tasks, such as phoneme monitoring. Covert speech may, however, involve different processes than overt speech production. Recently, overt speech has been investigated using EEG. As the number of papers published is rising steadily, this clearly indicates the increasing interest and demand for overt speech research within the field of cognitive neuroscience of language. Our main goal here is to review all currently available results of overt speech production involving EEG measurements, such as picture naming, Stroop naming, and reading aloud. We conclude that overt speech production can be successfully studied using electrophysiological measures, for instance, event-related brain potentials (ERPs). We will discuss possible relevant components in the ERP waveform of speech production and aim to address the issue of how to interpret the results of ERP research using overt speech, and whether the ERP components in language production are comparable to results from other fields.

Abstract

The methylation of cytosines in CpG dinucleotides is essential for cellular differentiation and the progression of many cancers, and it plays an important role in gametic imprinting. To assess variation and inheritance of genome-wide patterns of DNA methylation simultaneously in humans, we applied reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) to somatic DNA from six members of a three-generation family. We observed that 8.1% of heterozygous SNPs are associated with differential methylation in cis, which provides a robust signature for Mendelian transmission and relatedness. The vast majority of differential methylation between homologous chromosomes (>92%) occurs on a particular haplotype as opposed to being associated with the gender of the parent of origin, indicating that genotype affects DNA methylation of far more loci than does gametic imprinting. We found that 75% of genotype-dependent differential methylation events in the family are also seen in unrelated individuals and that overall genotype can explain 80% of the variation in DNA methylation. These events are under-represented in CpG islands, enriched in intergenic regions, and located in regions of low evolutionary conservation. Even though they are generally not in functionally constrained regions, 22% (twice as many as expected by chance) of genes harboring genotype-dependent DNA methylation exhibited allele-specific gene expression as measured by RNA-seq of a lymphoblastoid cell line, indicating that some of these events are associated with gene expression differences. Overall, our results demonstrate that the influence of genotype on patterns of DNA methylation is widespread in the genome and greatly exceeds the influence of imprinting on genome-wide methylation patterns.

Abstract

A key function of attention is to select an appropriate subset of available information by facilitation of attended processes and/or inhibition of irrelevant processing. Functional imaging studies, using positron emission tomography, have during different experimental tasks revealed decreased neuronal activity in areas that process input from unattended sensory modalities. It has been hypothesized that these decreases reflect a selective inhibitory modulation of nonrelevant cortical processing. In this study we addressed this question using a continuous arithmetical task with and without concomitant disturbing auditory input (task-irrelevant speech). During the arithmetical task, irrelevant speech did not affect task-performance but yielded decreased activity in the auditory and midcingulate cortices and increased activity in the left posterior parietal cortex. This pattern of modulation is consistent with a top down inhibitory modulation of a nonattended input to the auditory cortex and a coexisting, attention-based facilitation of taskrelevant processing in higher order cortices. These findings suggest that task-related decreases in cortical activity may be of functional importance in the understanding of both attentional mechanisms and taskrelated information processing.

Abstract

Irrelevant speech impairs the immediate serial recall of visually presented material. Previously, we have shown that the irrelevant speech effect (ISE) was associated with a relative decrease of regional blood flow in cortical regions subserving the verbal working memory, in particular the superior temporal cortex. In this extension of the previous study, the working memory load was increased and an increased activity as a response to irrelevant speech was noted in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. We suggest that the two studies together provide some basic insights as to the nature of the irrelevant speech effect. Firstly, no area in the brain can be ascribed as the single locus of the irrelevant speech effect. Instead, the functional neuroanatomical substrate to the effect can be characterized in terms of changes in networks of functionally interrelated areas. Secondly, the areas that are sensitive to the irrelevant speech effect are also generically activated by the verbal working memory task itself. Finally, the impact of irrelevant speech and related brain activity depends on working memory load as indicated by the differences between the present and the previous study. From a brain perspective, the irrelevant speech effect may represent a complex phenomenon that is a composite of several underlying mechanisms, which depending on the working memory load, include top-down inhibition as well as recruitment of compensatory support and control processes. We suggest that, in the low-load condition, a selection process by an inhibitory top-down modulation is sufficient, whereas in the high-load condition, at or above working memory span, auxiliary adaptive cognitive resources are recruited as compensation

Abstract

Positron emission tomography (PET) was performed in normal volunteers during a serial recall task under the influence of irrelevant speech comprising both single item repetition and multi-item sequences. An interaction approach was used to identify brain areas specifically related to the irrelevant speech effect. We interpreted activations as compensatory recruitment of complementary working memory processing, and decreased activity in terms of suppression of task relevant areas invoked by the irrelevant speech. The interaction between the distractors and working memory revealed a significant effect in the left, and to a lesser extent in the right, superior temporal region, indicating that initial phonological processing was relatively suppressed. Additional areas of decreased activity were observed in an a priori defined cortical network related to verbalworking memory, incorporating the bilateral superior temporal and inferior/middle frontal corticesn extending into Broca’s area on the left. We also observed a weak activation in the left inferior parietal cortex, a region suggested to reflect the phonological store, the subcomponent where the interference is assumed to take place. The results suggest that the irrelevant speech effect is correlated with and thus tentatively may be explained in terms of a suppression of components of the verbal working memory network as outlined. The results can be interpreted in terms of inhibitory top–down attentional mechanisms attenuating the influence of the irrelevant speech, although additional studies are clearly necessary to more fully characterize the nature of this phenomenon and its theoretical implications for existing short-term memory models

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Lower cognitive functioning in early childhood has been proposed as a risk factor for depression in later life but its association with depressive symptoms during adolescence has rarely been investigated. Our study examines the relationship between total intelligence quotient (IQ) score at age 8 years, and depressive symptoms at 11, 13, 14 and 17 years. METHOD: Study participants were 5250 children and adolescents from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and their Children (ALSPAC), UK, for whom longitudinal data on depressive symptoms were available. IQ was assessed with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children III, and self-reported depressive symptoms were measured with the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ). RESULTS: Multi-level analysis on continuous SMFQ scores showed that IQ at age 8 years was inversely associated with depressive symptoms at age 11 years, but the association changed direction by age 13 and 14 years (age-IQ interaction, p<}0.0001; age squared-IQ interaction, p{<}0.0001) when a higher IQ score was associated with a higher risk of depressive symptoms. This change in IQ effect was also found in relation to pubertal stage (pubertal stage-IQ interaction, 0.00049{

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Abstract

Semantic verbal fluency tasks are commonly used in neuropsychological assessment. Investigations of the influence of level of literacy have not yielded consistent results in the literature. This prompted us to investigate the ecological relevance of task specifics, in particular, the choice of semantic criteria used. Two groups of literate and illiterate subjects were compared on two verbal fluency tasks using different semantic criteria. The performance on a food criterion (supermarket fluency task), considered more ecologically relevant for the two literacy groups, and an animal criterion (animal fluency task) were compared. The data were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative measures. The quantitative analysis indicated that the two literacy groups performed equally well on the supermarket fluency task. In contrast, results differed significantly during the animal fluency task. The qualitative analyses indicated differences between groups related to the strategies used, especially with respect to the animal fluency task. The overall results suggest that there is not a substantial difference between literate and illiterate subjects related to the fundamental workings of semantic memory. However, there is indication that the content of semantic memory reflects differences in shared cultural background - in other words, formal education –, as indicated by the significant interaction between level of literacy and semantic criterion.

Abstract

The scavenger receptor C-type lectin (SRCL) is a glycan-binding receptor that has the capacity to mediate endocytosis of glycoproteins carrying terminal Lewis(x) groups (Galβ1-4(Fucα1-3)GlcNAc). A screen for glycoprotein ligands for SRCL using affinity chromatography on immobilized SRCL followed by mass spectrometry-based proteomic analysis revealed that soluble glycoproteins from secondary granules of neutrophils, including lactoferrin and matrix metalloproteinases 8 and 9, are major ligands. Binding competition and surface plasmon resonance analysis showed affinities in the low micromolar range. Comparison of SRCL binding to neutrophil and milk lactoferrin indicates that the binding is dependent on cell-specific glycosylation in the neutrophils, as the milk form of the glycoprotein is a much poorer ligand. Binding to neutrophil glycoproteins is fucose dependent and mass spectrometry-based glycomic analysis of neutrophil and milk lactoferrin was used to establish a correlation between high affinity binding to SRCL and the presence of multiple, clustered terminal Lewis(x) groups on a heterogeneous mixture of branched glycans, some with poly N-acetyllactosamine extensions. The ability of SRCL to mediate uptake of neutrophil lactoferrin was confirmed using fibroblasts transfected with SRCL. The common presence of Lewis(x) groups in granule protein glycans can thus target granule proteins for clearance by SRCL. PCR and immunohistochemical analysis confirms that SRCL is widely expressed on endothelial cells and thus represents a distributed system which could scavenge released neutrophil glycoproteins both locally at sites of inflammation or systemically when they are released in the circulation.

Abstract

The discussion on root infinitives has mainly centered around their supposed modal usage. This article aims at modelling the form-function relation of the root infinitive phenomenon by taking into account the full range of interpretational facets encountered cross-linguistically and interindividually. Following the idea of a subsequent ‘‘cell partitioning’’ in the emergence of form-function correlations, I claim that it is the major fission between [+-finite] which is central to express temporal reference different from the default here&now in tense-oriented languages. In aspectual-oriented languages, a similar opposition is mastered with the marking of early aspectual forms. It is observed that in tense-oriented languages like Dutch and German, the progression of functions associated with the infinitival form proceeds from nonmodal to modal, whereas the reverse progression holds for the Russian infinitive. Based on this crucial observation, a model of acquisition is proposed which allows for a flexible and systematic relationship between morphological forms and their respective interpretational biases dependent on their developmental context. As for early child language, I argue that children entertain only two temporal parameters: one parameter is fixed to the here&now point in time, and a second parameter relates to the time talked about, the topic time; this latter time overlaps the situation time as long as no empirical evidence exists to support the emergence of a proper distinction between tense and aspect.