Publications

Abstract

The Japanese kana syllabary has 2 allographic forms, hiragana and katakana. As with other allographic variants like the uppercase and lowercase letters of the Roman alphabet, they show robust formindependent priming effects in the allograph match task (e.g., Kinoshita. Schubert. & Verdonschot, 2019). suggesting that they share abstract character-level representations. In direct contradiction, Perea. Nakayama, and Lupker (2017) argued that hiragana and katakana do not share character-level representations. based on their finding of reduced priming with identity prime containing a mix of hiragana and katakana (the mixed-kana prime) relative to the all-katakana identity prime in a lexical-decision task with loanword targets written in katakana. Here we sought to reconcile these seemingly contradictory claims, using mixed-kana. hiragana, and katakana primes in lexical decision. The mixed-kana prime and hiragana prime produced priming effects that are indistinguishable, and both were reduced in size relative to the priming effect produced by the katakana identity prime. Furthermore, this pattern was unchanged when the target was presented in hiragana. The findings are interpreted in terms of the assumption that the katakana format is specified in the orthographic representation of loanwords in Japanese readers. Implications of the account for the universality across writing systems is discussed.

Abstract

Gestures that spontaneously accompany speech convey information coordinated with the concurrent speech. There has been considerable theoretical disagreement about the process by which this informational coordination is achieved. Some theories predict that the information encoded in gesture is not influenced by how information is verbally expressed. However, others predict that gestures encode only what is encoded in speech. This paper investigates this issue by comparing informational coordination between speech and gesture across different languages. Narratives in Turkish, Japanese, and English were elicited using an animated cartoon as the stimulus. It was found that gestures used to express the same motion events were influenced simultaneously by (1) how features of motion events were expressed in each language, and (2) spatial information in the stimulus that was never verbalized. From this, it is concluded that gestures are generated from spatio-motoric processes that interact on-line with the speech production process. Through the interaction, spatio-motoric information to be expressed is packaged into chunks that are verbalizable within a processing unit for speech formulation. In addition, we propose a model of speech and gesture production as one of a class of frameworks that are compatible with the data.

Abstract

In a Turing test, a judge decides whether their conversation partner is either a machine or human. What cues does the judge use to determine this? In particular, are presumably unique features of human language actually perceived as humanlike? Participants rated the humanness of a set of sentences that were manipulated for grammatical construction: linear right-branching or hierarchical center-embedded and their plausibility with regard to world knowledge.

We found that center-embedded sentences are perceived as less humanlike than right-branching sentences and more plausible sentences are regarded as more humanlike. However, the effect of plausibility of the sentence on perceived humanness is smaller for center-embedded sentences than for right-branching sentences.

Participants also rated a conversation with either correct or incorrect use of the context by the agent. No effect of context use was found. Also, participants rated a full transcript of either a real human or a real chatbot, and we found that chatbots were reliably perceived as less humanlike than real humans, in line with our expectation. We did, however, find individual differences between chatbots and humans.

Abstract

In the first, critical part of this study, a small sample of simple German sentences with their empirically determined pitch contours is used to demonstrate the incorrectness of numerous currently hold views of German sentence intonation. In the second, more constructive part, several interrogative sentence types are analysed and an attempt is made to show that intonation, besides other functions, indicates the permantently changing 'thematic score' in on-going discourse as well as certain validity claims.

Abstract

The German Perfekt has two quite different temporal readings, as illustrated by the two possible continuations of the sentence Peter hat gearbeitet in i, ii, respectively: (i) Peter hat gearbeitet und ist müde. Peter has worked and is tired. (ii) Peter hat gearbeitet und wollte nicht gestört werden. Peter has worked and wanted not to be disturbed. The first reading essentially corresponds to the English present perfect; the second can take a temporal adverbial with past time reference ('yesterday at five', 'when the phone rang', and so on), and an English translation would require a past tense ('Peter worked/was working'). This article shows that the Perfekt has a uniform temporal meaning that results systematically from the interaction of its three components-finiteness marking, auxiliary and past participle-and that the two readings are the consequence of a structural ambiguity. This analysis also predicts the properties of other participle constructions, in particular the passive in German.

Abstract

Chinese has a number of particles such as le, guo, zai and zhe that add a particular aspectual value to the verb to which they are attached. There have been many characterisations of this value in the literature. In this paper, we review several existing influential accounts of these particles, including those in Li and Thompson (1981), Smith (1991), and Mangione and Li (1993). We argue that all these characterisations are intuitively plausible, but none of them is precise.We propose that these particles serve to mark which part of the sentence''s descriptive content is asserted, and that their aspectual value is a consequence of this function. We provide a simple and precise definition of the meanings of le, guo, zai and zhe in terms of the relationship between topic time and time of situation, and show the consequences of their interaction with different verb expressions within thisnew framework of interpretation.

Abstract

During the last 25 years, second language acquisition (SLA) research hasmade considerable progress, but is still far from proving a solid basis for foreign language teaching, or from a general theory of SLA. In addition, its status within the linguistic disciplines is still very low. I argue this has not much to do with low empirical or theoretical standards in the field—in this regard, SLA research is fully competitive—but with a particular perspective on the acquisition process: SLA researches learners' utterances as deviations from a certain target, instead of genuine manifestations of underlying language capacity; it analyses them in terms of what they are not rather than what they are. For some purposes such a "target deviation perspective" makes sense, but it will not help SLA researchers to substantially and independently contribute to a deeper understanding of the structure and function of the human language faculty. Therefore, these findings will remain of limited interest to other scientists until SLA researchers consider learner varieties a normal, in fact typical, manifestation of this unique human capacity.

Abstract

Neurons of the neocortex are organized into six radial layers, which have appeared at different times during evolution, with the superficial layers representing a more recent acquisition. Input to the neocortex predominantly reaches superficial layers (SL, i.e., layers (L) 2-4), while output is generated in deep layers (DL, i.e., L5-6) [1]. Intracortical connections, which bridge input and output pathways, are key components of cortical circuits because they allow the propagation and processing of information within the neocortex. Two main types of intracortically projecting neurons (ICPN) can be distinguished by their axonal features: L4 spiny stellate neurons (SSN) with short axons projecting locally within cortical columns [2, 3, 4, 5], and SL and DL long-range projection neurons, including callosally projecting neurons (CPNSL and CPNDL) [5, 6]. Here, we investigate the molecular hallmarks that distinguish SSN, CPNSL, and CPNDL and relate their transcriptional signatures with their output connectivity. Specifically, taking advantage of the presence of CPN in both SL and DL, we identify lamina-independent genetic hallmarks of a constant projection motif (i.e., interhemispheric projection). By performing unbiased transcriptomic comparisons between CPNSL, CPNDL and SSN, we provide specific molecular profiles for each of these populations and show that target identity supersedes laminar position in defining ICPN transcriptional diversity. Together, these findings reveal a projection-based organization of transcriptional programs across cortical layers, which we propose reflects conserved strategy to protect canonical circuit structure (and hence function) across a diverse range of neuroanatomies.

Abstract

An important question in predictive language processing is the extent to which prediction effects can reliably be measured on pre-nominal material (e.g. articles before nouns). Here, we present a large sample (N = 58) close replication of a study by Otten and van Berkum (2009). They report ERP modulations in relation to the predictability of nouns in sentences, measured on gender-marked Dutch articles. We used nearly identical materials, procedures, and data analysis steps. We fail to replicate the original effect, but do observe a pattern consistent with the original data. Methodological differences between our replication and the original study that could potentially have contributed to the diverging results are discussed. In addition, we discuss the suitability of Dutch gender-marked determiners as a test-case for future studies of pre-activation of lexical items.

Abstract

Objective The aim of the study was to perform a systematic literature search and meta-analysis to reveal the most effective mouthwash for head and neck cancer patients who are experiencing radiation therapy-induced mucositis. Methods Using two electronic databases, a literature search and data interpretation were systematically performed as follows: (i) problem specification, (ii) devising of a literature search plan, (iii) literature search and retrieval of publications, and (iv) meta-analysis and data interpretation. The main problem was specified as follows: what mouthwash is effective in alleviating oral mucositis for head and neck cancer patients who are undergoing radiotherapy? Results The literature search yielded 354 titles and abstracts. After reviewing the extracted literature, 25 publications met the inclusion criteria for this study and 17 of 25 were eventually evaluated in the meta-analysis. Conclusion The results of the meta-analysis indicated that the use of a mouthwash that includes anti-inflammatory properties contributes the most to alleviating oral mucositis in patients who are undergoing radiotherapy to treat head and neck cancer.

Abstract

An important dimension of linguistic variation is formality. This study investigates the role of social distance between interlocutors. Twenty-five native Dutch speakers retold eight short films to confederates, who acted either formally or informally. Speakers were familiarized with the informal confederates, whereas the formal confederates remained strangers. Results show that the two types of interlocutors elicited different versions of the same stories. Formal interlocutors (large social distance) elicited lower articulation rates, and more nouns and prepositions, both indicators of explicit information. Speakers addressing interlocutors to whom social distance was small, however, provided more explicit information with an involved character (i.e. adjectives with subjective meanings). They also used the word and more often as a gap filler or as a way to keep the floor. Furthermore, they were more likely to laugh and to use more interjections, first-person pronouns and direct speech, which are all indicators of involvement, empathy and subjectivity.

Abstract

In various applications of forensic phonetics the question arises as to how far aural-perceptual speaker recognition performance is reliable. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the relationship between speaker recognition results and human perception/production abilities like musicality or speech sensitivity. In this study, performance in a speaker recognition experiment and a speech sensitivity test are correlated. The results show a moderately significant positive correlation between the two tasks. Generally, performance in the speaker recognition task was better than in the speech sensitivity test. Professionals in speech and singing yielded a more homogeneous correlation than non-experts. Training in speech as well as choir-singing seems to have a positive effect on performance in speaker recognition. It may be concluded, firstly, that in cases where the reliability of voice line-up results or the credibility of a testimony have to be considered, the speech sensitivity test could be a useful indicator. Secondly, the speech sensitivity test might be integrated into the canon of possible procedures for the accreditation of forensic phoneticians. Both tests may also be used in combination.

Abstract

Hand preference is a conspicuous variation in human behaviour, with a worldwide proportion of around 90% of people preferring to use the right hand for many tasks, and 10% the left hand. We used the large cohort of the UK biobank (~500,000 participants) to study possible relations between early life factors and adult hand preference. The probability of being left-handed was affected by the year and location of birth, likely due to cultural effects. In addition, hand preference was affected by birthweight, being part of a multiple birth, season of birth, breastfeeding, and sex, with each effect remaining significant after accounting for all others. Analysis of genome-wide genotype data showed that left-handedness was very weakly heritable, but shared no genetic basis with birthweight. Although on average left-handers and right-handers differed for a number of early life factors, all together these factors had only a minimal predictive value for individual hand preference.

Abstract

Objective:

Asymmetry is a subtle but pervasive aspect of the human brain, and it may be altered in several psychiatric conditions. MRI studies have shown subtle differences of brain anatomy between people with major depressive disorder and healthy control subjects, but few studies have specifically examined brain anatomical asymmetry in relation to this disorder, and results from those studies have remained inconclusive. At the functional level, some electroencephalography studies have indicated left fronto-cortical hypoactivity and right parietal hypoactivity in depressive disorders, so aspects of lateralized anatomy may also be affected. The authors used pooled individual-level data from data sets collected around the world to investigate differences in laterality in measures of cortical thickness, cortical surface area, and subcortical volume between individuals with major depression and healthy control subjects.
Methods:

The authors investigated differences in the laterality of thickness and surface area measures of 34 cerebral cortical regions in 2,256 individuals with major depression and 3,504 control subjects from 31 separate data sets, and they investigated volume asymmetries of eight subcortical structures in 2,540 individuals with major depression and 4,230 control subjects from 32 data sets. T1-weighted MRI data were processed with a single protocol using FreeSurfer and the Desikan-Killiany atlas. The large sample size provided 80% power to detect effects of the order of Cohen’s d=0.1.
Results:

The largest effect size (Cohen’s d) of major depression diagnosis was 0.085 for the thickness asymmetry of the superior temporal cortex, which was not significant after adjustment for multiple testing. Asymmetry measures were not significantly associated with medication use, acute compared with remitted status, first episode compared with recurrent status, or age at onset.
Conclusions:

Altered brain macro-anatomical asymmetry may be of little relevance to major depression etiology in most cases.

Abstract

Hand preference is a prominent behavioural trait linked to human brain asymmetry. A handful of genetic variants have been reported to associate with hand preference or quantitative measures related to it. Most of these reports were on the basis of limited sample sizes, by current standards for genetic analysis of complex traits. Here we performed a genome-wide association analysis of hand preference in the large, population-based UK Biobank cohort (N = 331,037). We used gene-set enrichment analysis to investigate whether genes involved in visceral asymmetry are particularly relevant to hand preference, following one previous report. We found no evidence supporting any of the previously suggested variants or genes, nor that genes involved in visceral laterality have a role in hand preference. It remains possible that some of the previously reported genes or pathways are relevant to hand preference as assessed in other ways, or else are relevant within specific disorder populations. However, some or all of the earlier findings are likely to be false positives, and none of them appear relevant to hand preference as defined categorically in the general population. Our analysis did produce a small number of novel, significant associations, including one implicating the microtubule-associated gene MAP2 in handedness.

Abstract

Previous studies of Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) word-order variations have demonstrated the human processing system’s tendency to interpret a sentence-initial (case-) ambiguous argument as the subject of the clause (“subject preference”). The electroencephalogram study motivating the current report revealed earlier reanalysis effects for object-subject compared to subject-object sentences, in particular, before the start of the movement of the agreement marking sign. The effects were bound to time points prior to when both arguments were referenced in space and/or the transitional hand movement prior to producing the disambiguating sign. Due to the temporal proximity of these time points, it was not clear which visual cues led to disambiguation; that is, whether non-manual markings (body/shoulder/head shift towards the subject position) or the transitional hand movement resolved ambiguity. The present gating study further supports that disambiguation in ÖGS is triggered by cues occurring before the movement of the disambiguating sign. Further, the present study also confirms the presence of the subject preference in ÖGS, showing again that signers and speakers draw on similar strategies during language processing independent of language modality. Although the ultimate role of the visual cues leading to disambiguation (i.e., non-manual markings and transitional movements) requires further investigation, the present study shows that they contribute crucial information about argument structure during online processing. This finding provides strong support for granting these cues some degree of linguistic status (at least in ÖGS).

Abstract

It has been hypothesized that schizophrenia is characterized by overly broad automatic activity within lexico-semantic networks. We used two complementary neuroimaging techniques, Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), in combination with a highly automatic indirect semantic priming paradigm, to spatiotemporally localize this abnormality in the brain.

Eighteen people with schizophrenia and 20 demographically-matched control participants viewed target words (“bell”) preceded by directly related (“church”), indirectly related (“priest”), or unrelated (“pants”) prime words in MEG and fMRI sessions. To minimize top-down processing, the prime was masked, the target appeared only 140ms after prime onset, and participants simply monitored for words within a particular semantic category that appeared in filler trials.

Both techniques revealed a significantly larger automatic indirect priming effect in people with schizophrenia than in control participants. MEG temporally localized this enhanced effect to the N400 time window (300-500ms) — the critical stage of accessing meaning from words. fMRI spatially localized the effect to the left temporal fusiform cortex, which plays a role in mapping of orthographic word-form on to meaning. There was no evidence of an enhanced automatic direct semantic priming effect in the schizophrenia group.

These findings provide converging neural evidence for abnormally broad highly automatic lexico-semantic activity in schizophrenia. We argue that, rather than arising from an unconstrained spread of automatic activation across semantic memory, this broader automatic lexico-semantic activity stems from looser connections between the form and meaning of words.

Abstract

Disruption of FOXP2, a gene encoding a forkhead-domain transcription factor, causes a severe developmental disorder of verbal communication, involving profound articulation deficits, accompanied by linguistic and grammatical impairments. Investigation of the neural basis of this disorder has been limited previously to neuroimaging of affected children and adults. The discovery of the gene responsible, FOXP2, offers a unique opportunity to explore the relevant neural mechanisms from a molecular perspective. In the present study, we have determined the detailed spatial and temporal expression pattern of FOXP2 mRNA in the developing brain of mouse and human. We find expression in several structures including the cortical plate, basal ganglia, thalamus, inferior olives and cerebellum. These data support a role for FOXP2 in the development of corticostriatal and olivocerebellar circuits involved in motor control. We find intriguing concordance between regions of early expression and later sites of pathology suggested by neuroimaging. Moreover, the homologous pattern of FOXP2/Foxp2 expression in human and mouse argues for a role for this gene in development of motor-related circuits throughout mammalian species. Overall, this study provides support for the hypothesis that impairments in sequencing of movement and procedural learning might be central to the FOXP2-related speech and language disorder.

Abstract

The KE family is a large three-generation pedigree in which half the members are affected with a severe speech and language disorder that is transmitted as an autosomal dominant monogenic trait. In previously published work, we localized the gene responsible (SPCH1) to a 5.6-cM region of 7q31 between D7S2459 and D7S643. In the present study, we have employed bioinformatic analyses to assemble a detailed BAC-/PAC-based sequence map of this interval, containing 152 sequence tagged sites (STSs), 20 known genes, and >7.75 Mb of completed genomic sequence. We screened the affected chromosome 7 from the KE family with 120 of these STSs (average spacing <100 kb), but we did not detect any evidence of a microdeletion. Novel polymorphic markers were generated from the sequence and were used to further localize critical recombination breakpoints in the KE family. This allowed refinement of the SPCH1 interval to a region between new markers 013A and 330B, containing ∼6.1 Mb of completed sequence. In addition, we have studied two unrelated patients with a similar speech and language disorder, who have de novo translocations involving 7q31. Fluorescence in situ hybridization analyses with BACs/PACs from the sequence map localized the t(5;7)(q22;q31.2) breakpoint in the first patient (CS) to a single clone within the newly refined SPCH1 interval. This clone contains the CAGH44 gene, which encodes a brain-expressed protein containing a large polyglutamine stretch. However, we found that the t(2;7)(p23;q31.3) breakpoint in the second patient (BRD) resides within a BAC clone mapping >3.7 Mb distal to this, outside the current SPCH1 critical interval. Finally, we investigated the CAGH44 gene in affected individuals of the KE family, but we found no mutations in the currently known coding sequence. These studies represent further steps toward the isolation of the first gene to be implicated in the development of speech and language.

Abstract

Dance is an icon of human expression. Despite astounding diversity around the world’s cultures and dazzling abundance of reminiscent animal systems, the evolution of dance in the human clade remains obscure. Dance requires individuals to interactively synchronize their whole-body tempo to their partner’s, with near-perfect precision. This capacity is motorically-heavy, engaging multiple neural circuitries, but also dependent on an acute socio-emotional bond between partners. Hitherto, these factors helped explain why no dance forms were present amongst nonhuman primates. Critically, evidence for conjoined full-body rhythmic entrainment in great apes that could help reconstruct possible proto-stages of human dance is still lacking. Here, we report an endogenously-effected case of ritualized dance-like behaviour between two captive chimpanzees – synchronized bipedalism. We submitted video recordings to rigorous time-series analysis and circular statistics. We found that individual step tempo was within the genus’ range of “solo” bipedalism. Between-individual analyses, however, revealed that synchronisation between individuals was non-random, predictable, phase concordant, maintained with instantaneous centi-second precision and jointly regulated, with individuals also taking turns as “pace-makers”. No function was apparent besides the behaviour’s putative positive social affiliation. Our analyses show a first case of spontaneous whole-body entrainment between two ape peers, thus providing tentative empirical evidence for phylogenies of human dance. Human proto-dance, we argue, may have been rooted in mechanisms of social cohesion among small groups that might have granted stress-releasing benefits via gait-synchrony and mutual-touch. An external sound/musical beat may have been initially uninvolved. We discuss dance evolution as driven by ecologically-, socially- and/or culturally-imposed “captivity”.

Abstract

We contrast two related hypotheses of the evolution of dance: H1: Maternal bipedal walking influenced the fetal experience of sound and associated movement patterns; H2: The human transition to bipedal gait produced more isochronous/predictable locomotion sound resulting in early music-like behavior associated with the acoustic advantages conferred by moving bipedally in pace. The cadence of walking is around 120 beats per minute, similar to the tempo of dance and music. Human walking displays long-term constancies. Dyads often subconsciously synchronize steps. The major amplitude component of the step is a distinctly produced beat. Human locomotion influences, and interacts with, emotions, and passive listening to music activates brain motor areas. Across dance-genres the footwork is most often performed in time to the musical beat. Brain development is largely shaped by early sensory experience, with hearing developed from week 18 of gestation. Newborns reacts to sounds, melodies, and rhythmic poems to which they have been exposed in utero. If the sound and vibrations produced by footfalls of a walking mother are transmitted to the fetus in coordination with the cadence of the motion, a connection between isochronous sound and rhythmical movement may be developed. Rhythmical sounds of the human mother locomotion differ substantially from that of nonhuman primates, while the maternal heartbeat heard is likely to have a similar isochronous character across primates, suggesting a relatively more influential role of footfall in the development of rhythmic/musical abilities in humans. Associations of gait, music, and dance are numerous. The apparent absence of musical and rhythmic abilities in nonhuman primates, which display little bipedal locomotion, corroborates that bipedal gait may be linked to the development of rhythmic abilities in humans. Bipedal stimuli in utero may primarily boost the ontogenetic development. The acoustical advantage hypothesis proposes a mechanism in the phylogenetic development.

Abstract

Commonly known for their ability to echolocate, bats also use a wide variety of social vocalizations to communicate with one another. However, the full vocal repertoires of relatively few bat species have been studied thus far. The present study examined the vocal repertoire of the pale spear-nosed bat, Phyllostomus discolor, in a social roosting context. Based on visual examination of spectrograms and subsequent quantitative analysis of syllables, eight distinct syllable classes were defined, and their prevalence in different behavioral contexts was examined. Four more syllable classes were observed in low numbers and are described here as well. These results show that P. discolor possesses a rich vocal repertoire, which includes vocalizations comparable to previously reported repertoires of other bat species as well as vocalizations previously undescribed. Our data provide detailed information about the temporal and spectral characteristics of syllables emitted by P. discolor, allowing for a better understanding of the communicative system and related behaviors of this species. Furthermore, this vocal repertoire will serve as a basis for future research using P. discolor as a model organism for vocal communication and vocal learning and it will allow for comparative studies between bat species.

Abstract

Investigations of left hand praxis in imitation and object use in patients with callosal disconnection have yielded divergent results, inducing a debate between two theoretical positions. Whereas Liepmann suggested that the left hemisphere is motor dominant, others maintain that both hemispheres have equal motor competences and propose that left hand apraxia in patients with callosal disconnection is secondary to left hemispheric specialization for language or other task modalities. The present study aims to gain further insight into the motor competence of the right hemisphere by investigating pantomime of object use in split-brain patients. Three patients with complete callosotomy and, as control groups, five patients with partial callosotomy and nine healthy subjects were examined for their ability to pantomime object use to visual object presentation and demonstrate object manipulation. In each condition, 11 objects were presented to the subjects who pantomimed or demonstrated the object use with either hand. In addition, six object pairs were presented to test bimanual coordination. Two independent raters evaluated the videotaped movement demonstrations. While object use demonstrations were perfect in all three groups, the split-brain patients displayed apraxic errors only with their left hands in the pantomime condition. The movement analysis of concept and execution errors included the examination of ipsilateral versus contralateral motor control. As the right hand/left hemisphere performances demonstrated retrieval of the correct movement concepts, concept errors by the left hand were taken as evidence for right hemisphere control. Several types of execution errors reflected a lack of distal motor control indicating the use of ipsilateral pathways. While one split-brain patient controlled his left hand predominantly by ipsilateral pathways in the pantomime condition, the error profile in the other two split-brain patients suggested that the right hemisphere controlled their left hands. In the object use condition, in all three split-brain patients fine-graded distal movements in the left hand indicated right hemispheric control. Our data show left hand apraxia in split-brain patients is not limited to verbal commands, but also occurs in pantomime to visual presentation of objects. As the demonstration with object in hand was unimpaired in either hand, both hemispheres must contain movement concepts for object use. However, the disconnected right hemisphere is impaired in retrieving the movement concept in response to visual object presentation, presumably because of a deficit in associating perceptual object representation with the movement concepts.

Abstract

Since some patients with right hemisphere damage or with spontaneous callosal disconnection neglect the left half of space, it has been suggested that the left cerebral hemisphere predominantly attends to the right half of space. However, clinical investigations of patients having undergone surgical callosal section have not shown neglect when the hemispheres are tested separately. These observations question the validity of theoretical models that propose a left hemispheric specialisation for attending to the right half of space. The present study aims to investigate neglect and the use of space by either hand in gestural demonstrations in three split-brain patients as compared to five patients with partial callosotomy and 11 healthy subjects. Subjects were asked to demonstrate with precise gestures and without speaking the content of animated scenes with two moving objects. The results show that in the absence of primary perceptual or representational neglect, split-brain patients neglect left personal space in right-handed gestural demonstrations. Since this neglect of left personal space cannot be explained by directional or spatial akinesia, it is suggested that it originates at the conceptual level, where the spatial coordinates for right-hand gestures are planned. The present findings are at odds with the position that the separate left hemisphere possesses adequate mechanisms for acting in both halves of space and neglect results from right hemisphere suppression of this potential. Rather, the results provide support for theoretical models that consider the left hemisphere as specialised for processing the right half of space during the execution of descriptive gestures.

Abstract

The present study investigates the hand choice in iconic gestures that accompany speech. In 10 right-handed subjects gestures were elicited by verbal narration and by silent gestural demonstrations of animations with two moving objects. In both conditions, the left-hand was used as often as the right-hand to display iconic gestures. The choice of the right- or left-hands was determined by semantic aspects of the message. The influence of hemispheric language lateralization on the hand choice in co-speech gestures appeared to be minor. Instead, speaking seemed to induce a sequential organization of the iconic gestures.

Abstract

Prediction of upcoming words facilitates language processing. Individual differences in social experience, however, might influence prediction ability by influencing input variability and representativeness. This paper explores how individual differences in social network size influence prediction and how this influence differs across linguistic levels. In Experiment 1, participants predicted likely sentence completions from several plausible endings differing in meaning or only form (e.g. work vs. job). In Experiment 2, participants’ pupil size was measured as they listened to sentences whose ending was the dominant one or deviated from it in either meaning or form. Both experiments show that people with larger social networks are better at predicting upcoming meanings but not the form they would take. The results thus show that people with different social experience process language differently, and shed light on how social dynamics interact with the structure of the linguistic level to influence learning of linguistic patterns.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to relate a psycholinguistic processing model of picture naming to the dynamics of cortical activation during picture naming. The activation was recorded from eight Dutch subjects with a whole-head neuromagnetometer. The processing model, based on extensive naming latency studies, is a stage model. In preparing a picture's name, the speaker performs a chain of specific operations. They are, in this order, computing the visual percept, activating an appropriate lexical concept, selecting the target word from the mental lexicon, phonological encoding, phonetic encoding, and initiation of articulation. The time windows for each of these operations are reasonably well known and could be related to the peak activity of dipole sources in the individual magnetic response patterns. The analyses showed a clear progression over these time windows from early occipital activation, via parietal and temporal to frontal activation. The major specific findings were that (1) a region in the left posterior temporal lobe, agreeing with the location of Wernicke's area, showed prominent activation starting about 200 msec after picture onset and peaking at about 350 msec, (i.e., within the stage of phonological encoding), and (2) a consistent activation was found in the right parietal cortex, peaking at about 230 msec after picture onset, thus preceding and partly overlapping with the left temporal response. An interpretation in terms of the management of visual attention is proposed.

Abstract

The evolution of speech and language has been a returning topic in the language sciences since the so-called “cognitive revolution.”

Abstract

This commentary discusses whether abstract metrical frames are stored. For stress-assigning languages (e.g., Dutch and English), which have a dominant stress pattern, metrical frames are stored only for words that deviate from the default stress pattern. The majority of the words in these languages are produced without retrieving any independent syllabic or metrical frame.

Abstract

In their comment, Dell and O'Seaghdha (1991) adduced any effect on phonological probes for semantic alternatives to the activation of these probes in the lexical network. We argue that that interpretation is false and, in addition, that the model still cannot account for our data. Furthermore, and different from Dell and O'seaghda, we adduce semantic rebound to the lemma level, where it is so substantial that it should have shown up in our data. Finally, we question the function of feedback in a lexical network (other than eliciting speech errors) and discuss Dell's (1988) notion of a unified production-comprehension system.

Abstract

This paper considers the AGL literature from a psycholinguistic perspective. It first presents a taxonomy of the experimental familiarization test procedures used, which is followed by a consideration of shortcomings and potential improvements of the empirical methodology. It then turns to reconsidering the issue of grammar learning from the point of view of acquiring constraints, instead of the traditional AGL approach in terms of acquiring sets of rewrite rules. This is, in particular, a natural way of handling long‐distance dependences. The final section addresses an underdeveloped issue in the AGL literature, namely how to detect latent hierarchical structure in AGL response patterns.

Abstract

In this article, we present an account of developmental data regarding the acquisition of syllable types. The data come from a longitudinal corpus of phonetically transcribed speech of 12 children acquiring Dutch as their first language. A developmental order of acquisition of syllable types was deduced by aligning the syllabified data on a Guttman scale. This order could be analyzed as following from an initial ranking and subsequent rerankings in the grammar of the structural constraints ONSET, NO-CODA, *COMPLEX-O, and *COMPLEX-C; some local conjunctions of these constraints; and a faithfulness constraint FAITH. The syllable type frequencies in the speech surrounding the language learner are also considered. An interesting correlation is found between the frequencies and the order of development of the different syllable types.

Abstract

Speakers tend to repeat materials from previous talk. This tendency is experimentally established and manipulated in various question-answering situations. It is shown that a question's surface form can affect the format of the answer given, even if this form has little semantic or conversational consequence, as in the pair Q: (At) what time do you close. A: “(At)five o'clock.” Answerers tend to match the utterance to the prepositional (nonprepositional) form of the question. This “correspondence effect” may diminish or disappear when, following the question, additional verbal material is presented to the answerer. The experiments show that neither the articulatory buffer nor long-term memory is normally involved in this retention of recent speech. Retaining recent speech in working memory may fulfill a variety of functions for speaker and listener, among them the correct production and interpretation of surface anaphora. Reusing recent materials may, moreover, be more economical than regenerating speech anew from a semantic base, and thus contribute to fluency. But the realization of this strategy requires a production system in which linguistic formulation can take place relatively independent of, and parallel to, conceptual planning.

Abstract

The core issue in the 19-century sources of psycholinguistics was the question, "Where does language come from?'' This genetic perspective unified the study of the ontogenesis, the phylogenesis, the microgenesis, and to some extent the neurogenesis of language. This paper makes the point that this original perspective is still a valid and attractive one. It is exemplified by a discussion of the genesis of spoken words.

Abstract

It is quite normal for us to produce one or two million word tokens every year. Speaking is a dear occupation and producing words is at the core of it. Still, producing even a single word is a highly complex affair. Recently, Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer (1999) reviewed their theory of lexical access in speech production, which dissects the word-producing mechanism as a staged application of various dedicated operations. The present paper begins by presenting a bird eye's view of this mechanism. We then square the complexity by asking how speakers control multiple access in generating simple utterances such as a table and a chair. In particular, we address two issues. The first one concerns dependency: Do temporally contiguous access procedures interact in any way, or do they run in modular fashion? The second issue concerns temporal alignment: How much temporal overlap of processing does the system tolerate in accessing multiple content words, such as table and chair? Results from picture-word interference and eye tracking experiments provide evidence for restricted cases of dependency as well as for constraints on the temporal alignment of access procedures.

Abstract

This is a translation of Levinson and Brown (1994).

Abstract

Most approaches to spatial language have assumed that the simplest spatial notions are (after Piaget) topological and universal (containment, contiguity, proximity, support, represented as semantic primitives suchas IN, ON, UNDER, etc.). These concepts would be coded directly in language, above all in small closed classes suchas adpositions—thus providing a striking example of semantic categories as language-specific projections of universal conceptual notions. This idea, if correct, should have as a consequence that the semantic categories instantiated in spatial adpositions should be essentially uniform crosslinguistically. This article attempts to verify this possibility by comparing the semantics of spatial adpositions in nine unrelated languages, with the help of a standard elicitation procedure, thus producing a preliminary semantic typology of spatial adpositional systems. The differences between the languages turn out to be so significant as to be incompatible withstronger versions of the UNIVERSAL CONCEPTUAL CATEGORIES hypothesis. Rather, the language-specific spatial adposition meanings seem to emerge as compact subsets of an underlying semantic space, withcertain areas being statistical ATTRACTORS or FOCI. Moreover, a comparison of systems withdifferent degrees of complexity suggests the possibility of positing implicational hierarchies for spatial adpositions. But such hierarchies need to be treated as successive divisions of semantic space, as in recent treatments of basic color terms. This type of analysis appears to be a promising approachfor future work in semantic typology.

Abstract

Philosophers, psychologists, and linguists have argued that spatial conception is pivotal to cognition in general, providing a general, egocentric, and universal framework for cognition as well as metaphors for conceptualizing many other domains. But in an aboriginal community in Northern Queensland, a system of cardinal directions informs not only language, but also memory for arbitrary spatial arrays and directions. This work suggests that fundamental cognitive parameters, like the system of coding spatial locations, can vary cross-culturally, in line with the language spoken by a community. This opens up the prospect of a fruitful dialogue between anthropology and the cognitive sciences on the complex interaction between cultural and universal factors in the constitution of mind.

Abstract

In an earlier article (Levinson, 1987b), I raised the possibility that a Gricean theory of implicature might provide a systematic partial reduction of the Binding Conditions; the briefest of outlines is given in Section 2.1 below but the argumentation will be found in the earlier article. In this article I want, first, to show how that account might be further justified and extended, but then to introduce a radical alternative. This alternative uses the same pragmatic framework, but gives an account better adjusted to some languages. Finally, I shall attempt to show that both accounts can be combined by taking a diachronic perspective. The attraction of the combined account is that, suddenly, many facts about long-range reflexives and their associated logophoricity fall into place.

Abstract

The theory of basic color terms was a crucial factor in the demise of linguistic relativity. The theory is now once again under scrutiny and fundamental revision. This article details a case study that undermines one of the central claims of the classical theory, namely that languages universally treat color as a unitary domain, to be exhaustively named. Taken together with other cases, the study suggests that a number of languages have only an incipient color terminology, raising doubts about the linguistic universality of such terminology.

Abstract

The present paper discusses the benefits and challenges of token-based typology, which takes into account the frequencies of words and constructions in language use. This approach makes it possible to introduce new criteria for language classification, which would be difficult or impossible to achieve with the traditional, type-based approach. This point is illustrated by several quantitative studies of word order variation, which can be measured as entropy at different levels of granularity. I argue that this variation can be explained by general functional mechanisms and pressures, which manifest themselves in language use, such as optimization of processing (including avoidance of ambiguity) and grammaticalization of predictable units occurring in chunks. The case studies are based on multilingual corpora, which have been parsed using the Universal Dependencies annotation scheme.

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a common and complex mental disorder with neuroimaging alterations. Recent neuroanatomical pattern recognition studies attempted to distinguish individuals with schizophrenia by structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). 1, 2 Applications of cutting-edge machine learning approaches in structural neuroimaging studies have revealed potential pathways to classification of schizophrenia based on regional gray matter volume (GMV) or density or cortical thickness. 3–5 Additionally, cortical folding may have high discriminatory value in correctly identifying symptom severity in schizophrenia. 6 Regional GMV and cortical thickness have also been combined in attempts to differentiate individuals with schizophrenia from healthy controls (HCs). 7 Applications of machine learning algorithms to diffusion imaging data analysis to predict individuals with first-episode schizophrenia (FES) have achieved encouraging accuracy. 8–10 White matter (WM) abnormalities in schizophrenia as estimated by DTI appear to be present in the early stage of the disorder, most likely reflecting the developmental stage of the sample of interest.

Abstract

Identifying data-driven biotypes of major depressive disorder (MDD) has promise for the clarification of diagnostic heterogeneity. However, few studies have focused on white-matter abnormalities for MDD subtyping. This study included 116 patients with MDD and 118 demographically-matched healthy controls assessed by diffusion tensor imaging and neurocognitive evaluation. Hierarchical clustering was applied to the major fiber tracts, in conjunction with tract-based spatial statistics, to reveal white-matter alterations associated with MDD. Clinical and neurocognitive differences were compared between identified subgroups and healthy controls. With fractional anisotropy extracted from 20 fiber tracts, cluster analysis revealed 3 subgroups based on the patterns of abnormalities. Patients in each subgroup versus healthy controls showed a stepwise pattern of white-matter alterations as follows: subgroup 1 (25.9% of patient sample), widespread white-matter disruption; subgroup 2 (43.1% of patient sample), intermediate and more localized abnormalities in aspects of the corpus callosum and left cingulate; and subgroup 3 (31.0% of patient sample), possible mild alterations, but no statistically significant tract disruption after controlling for family-wise error. The neurocognitive impairment in each subgroup accompanied the white-matter alterations: subgroup 1, deficits in sustained attention and delayed memory; subgroup 2, dysfunction in delayed memory; and subgroup 3, no significant deficits. Three subtypes of white-matter abnormality exist in individuals with major depression, those having widespread abnormalities suffering more neurocognitive impairments, which may provide evidence for parsing the heterogeneity of the disorder and help optimize type-specific treatment approaches.

Abstract

The posterior medial parietal cortex and the left prefrontal cortex have both been implicated in the recollection of past episodes. In order to clarify their functional significance, we performed this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, which employed event-related source memory and item recognition retrieval of words paired with corresponding imagined or viewed pictures. Our results suggest that episodic source memory is related to a functional network including the posterior precuneus and the left lateral prefrontal cortex. This network is activated during explicit retrieval of imagined pictures and results from the retrieval of item-context associations. This suggests that previously imagined pictures provide a context with which encoded words can be more strongly associated.

Abstract

Physiological data from a range of human populations living in different environments can provide valuable information for testing evolutionary hypotheses about human adaptation. By taking into account the effects of population history, phylogenetic comparative methods can help us determine whether variation results from selection due to particular environmental variables. These selective forces could even be due to cultural traits-which means that gene-culture co-evolution may be occurring. In this paper, we outline two examples of the use of these approaches to test adaptive hypotheses that explain global variation in two physiological traits: the first is lactose digestion capacity in adults, and the second is population sex-ratio at birth. We show that lower than average sex ratio at birth is associated with high fertility, and argue that global variation in sex ratio at birth has evolved as a response to the high physiological costs of producing boys in high fertility populations.

Abstract

The time course of spoken word recognition depends largely on the frequencies of a word and its competitors, or neighbors (similar-sounding words). However, variability in natural lexicons makes systematic analysis of frequency and neighbor similarity difficult. Artificial lexicons were used to achieve precise control over word frequency and phonological similarity. Eye tracking provided time course measures of lexical activation and competition (during spoken instructions to perform visually guided tasks) both during and after word learning, as a function of word frequency, neighbor type, and neighbor frequency. Apparent shifts from holistic to incremental competitor effects were observed in adults and neural network simulations, suggesting such shifts reflect general properties of learning rather than changes in the nature of lexical representations.

Abstract

People engage in simulation when reading literary narratives. In this study, we tried to pinpoint how different kinds of simulation (perceptual and motor simulation, mentalising) affect reading behaviour. Eye-tracking (gaze durations, regression probability) and questionnaire data were collected from 102 participants, who read three literary short stories. In a pre-test, 90 additional participants indicated which parts of the stories were high in one of the three kinds of simulation-eliciting content. The results show that motor simulation reduces gaze duration (faster reading), whereas perceptual simulation and mentalising increase gaze duration (slower reading). Individual differences in the effect of simulation on gaze duration were found, which were related to individual differences in aspects of story world absorption and story appreciation. These findings suggest fundamental differences between different kinds of simulation and confirm the role of simulation in absorption and appreciation.

Abstract

Prediction of upcoming input is thought to be a main characteristic of language processing (e.g. Altmann & Mirkovic, 2009; Dell & Chang, 2014; Federmeier, 2007; Ferreira & Chantavarin, 2018; Pickering & Gambi, 2018; Hale, 2001; Hickok, 2012; Huettig 2015; Kuperberg & Jaeger, 2016; Levy, 2008; Norris, McQueen, & Cutler, 2016; Pickering & Garrod, 2013; Van Petten & Luka, 2012). One of the main pillars of experimental support for this notion comes from studies that have attempted to measure electrophysiological markers of prediction when participants read or listened to sentences ending in highly predictable words. The N400, a negative-going and centro-parietally distributed component of the ERP occurring approximately 400ms after (target) word onset, has been frequently interpreted as indexing prediction of the word (or the semantic representations and/or the phonological form of the predicted word, see Kutas & Federmeier, 2011; Nieuwland, 2019; Van Petten & Luka, 2012; for review). A major difficulty for interpreting N400 effects in language processing however is that it has been difficult to establish whether N400 target word modulations conclusively reflect prediction rather than (at least partly) ease of integration. In the present exploratory study, we attempted to distinguish lexical prediction (i.e. ‘top-down’ activation) from lexical integration (i.e. ‘bottom-up’ activation) accounts of ERP N400 modulations in language processing.

Abstract

The human capacity for acquiring speech and language must derive, at least in part, from the genome. In 2001, a study described the first case of a gene, FOXP2, which is thought to be implicated in our ability to acquire spoken language. In the present article, we discuss how this gene was discovered, what it might do, how it relates to other genes, and what it could tell us about the nature of speech and language development. We explain how FOXP2 could, without being specific to the brain or to our own species, still provide an invaluable entry-point into understanding the genetic cascades and neural pathways that contribute to our capacity for speech and language.

Abstract

Replication of linkage results for complex traits has been exceedingly difficult, owing in part to the inability to measure the precise underlying phenotype, small sample sizes, genetic heterogeneity, and statistical methods employed in analysis. Often, in any particular study, multiple correlated traits have been collected, yet these have been analyzed independently or, at most, in bivariate analyses. Theoretical arguments suggest that full multivariate analysis of all available traits should offer more power to detect linkage; however, this has not yet been evaluated on a genomewide scale. Here, we conduct multivariate genomewide analyses of quantitative-trait loci that influence reading- and language-related measures in families affected with developmental dyslexia. The results of these analyses are substantially clearer than those of previous univariate analyses of the same data set, helping to resolve a number of key issues. These outcomes highlight the relevance of multivariate analysis for complex disorders for dissection of linkage results in correlated traits. The approach employed here may aid positional cloning of susceptibility genes in a wide spectrum of complex traits.

Abstract

Human thought and language have extraordinary expressive power because meaningful parts can be assembled into more complex semantic structures. This partly underlies our ability to compose meanings into endlessly novel configurations, and sets us apart from other species and current computing devices. Crucially, human behaviour, including language use and linguistic data, indicates that composing parts into complex structures does not threaten the existence of constituent parts as independent units in the system: parts and wholes exist simultaneously yet independently from one another in the mind and brain. This independence is evident in human behaviour, but it seems at odds with what is known about the brain's exquisite sensitivity to statistical patterns: everyday language use is productive and expressive precisely because it can go beyond statistical regularities. Formal theories in philosophy and linguistics explain this fact by assuming that language and thought are compositional: systems of representations that separate a variable (or role) from its values (fillers), such that the meaning of a complex expression is a function of the values assigned to the variables. The debate on whether and how compositional systems could be implemented in minds, brains and machines remains vigorous. However, it has not yet resulted in mechanistic models of semantic composition: how, then, are the constituents of thoughts and sentences put and held together? We review and discuss current efforts at understanding this problem, and we chart possible routes for future research.

Abstract

Neither neurobiological nor process models of meaning composition specify the operator through which constituent parts are bound together into compositional structures. In this paper, we argue that a neurophysiological computation system cannot achieve the compositionality exhibited in human thought and language if it were to rely on a multiplicative operator to perform binding, as the tensor product (TP)-based systems that have been widely adopted in cognitive science, neuroscience and artificial intelligence do. We show via simulation and two behavioural experiments that TPs violate variable-value independence, but human behaviour does not. Specifically, TPs fail to capture that in the statements fuzzy cactus and fuzzy penguin, both cactus and penguin are predicated by fuzzy(x) and belong to the set of fuzzy things, rendering these arguments similar to each other. Consistent with that thesis, people judged arguments that shared the same role to be similar, even when those arguments themselves (e.g., cacti and penguins) were judged to be dissimilar when in isolation. By contrast, the similarity of the TPs representing fuzzy(cactus) and fuzzy(penguin) was determined by the similarity of the arguments, which in this case approaches zero. Based on these results, we argue that neural systems that use TPs for binding cannot approximate how the human mind and brain represent compositional information during processing. We describe a contrasting binding mechanism that any physiological or artificial neural system could use to maintain independence between a role and its argument, a prerequisite for compositionality and, thus, for instantiating the expressive power of human thought and language in a neural system.

Abstract

Humans learn to represent complex structures (e.g. natural language, music, mathematics) from experience with their environments. Often such structures are latent, hidden, or not encoded in statistics about sensory representations alone. Accounts of human cognition have long emphasized the importance of structured representations, yet the majority of contemporary neural networks do not learn structure from experience. Here, we describe one way that structured, functionally symbolic representations can be instantiated in an artificial neural network. Then, we describe how such latent structures (viz. predicates) can be learned from experience with unstructured data. Our approach exploits two principles from psychology and neuroscience: comparison of representations, and the naturally occurring dynamic properties of distributed computing across neuronal assemblies (viz. neural oscillations). We discuss how the ability to learn predicates from experience, to represent information compositionally, and to extrapolate knowledge to unseen data is core to understanding and modeling the most complex human behaviors (e.g. relational reasoning, analogy, language processing, game play).

Abstract

Active communication between researchers and society is necessary for the scientific community’s involvement in developing sciencebased
policies. This need is recognized by governmental and funding agencies that compel scientists to increase their public engagement
and disseminate research findings in an accessible fashion. Storytelling techniques can help convey science by engaging people’s imagination
and emotions. Yet, many researchers are uncertain about how to approach scientific storytelling, or feel they lack the tools to
undertake it. Here we explore some of the techniques intrinsic to crafting scientific narratives, as well as the reasons why scientific
storytellingmaybe an optimal way of communicating research to nonspecialists.Wealso point out current communication gaps between
science and society, particularly in the context of neurodiverse audiences and those that include neurological and psychiatric patients.
Present shortcomings may turn into areas of synergy with the potential to link neuroscience education, research, and advocacy

Abstract

Listeners are known to track statistical regularities in speech. Yet, which temporal cues
are encoded is unclear. This study tested effects of talker-specific habitual speech rate
and talker-independent average speech rate (heard over a longer period of time) on
the perception of the temporal Dutch vowel contrast /A/-/a:/. First, Experiment 1
replicated that slow local (surrounding) speech contexts induce fewer long /a:/
responses than faster contexts. Experiment 2 tested effects of long-term habitual
speech rate. One high-rate group listened to ambiguous vowels embedded in `neutral'
speech from talker A, intermixed with speech from fast talker B. Another low-rate group
listened to the same `neutral' speech from talker A, but to talker B being slow.
Between-group comparison of the `neutral' trials showed that the high-rate group
demonstrated a lower proportion of /a:/ responses, indicating that talker A's habitual
speech rate sounded slower when B was faster. In Experiment 3, both talkers
produced speech at both rates, removing the different habitual speech rates of talker A
and B, while maintaining the average rate differing between groups. This time no
global rate effect was observed. Taken together, the present experiments show that a
talker's habitual rate is encoded relative to the habitual rate of another talker, carrying
implications for episodic and constraint-based models of speech perception.

Abstract

Speech can be produced at different rates. Listeners take this rate variation into account by normalizing vowel duration for contextual speech rate: An ambiguous Dutch word /m?t/ is perceived as short /mAt/ when embedded in a slow context, but long /ma:t/ in a fast context. Whilst some have argued that this rate normalization involves low-level automatic perceptual processing, there is also evidence that it arises at higher-level cognitive processing stages, such as decision making. Prior research on rate-dependent speech perception has only used explicit recognition tasks to investigate the phenomenon, involving both perceptual processing and decision making. This study tested whether speech rate normalization can be observed without explicit decision making, using a cross-modal repetition priming paradigm. Results show that a fast precursor sentence makes an embedded ambiguous prime (/m?t/) sound (implicitly) more /a:/-like, facilitating lexical access to the long target word "maat" in a (explicit) lexical decision task. This result suggests that rate normalization is automatic, taking place even in the absence of an explicit recognition task. Thus, rate normalization is placed within the realm of everyday spoken conversation, where explicit categorization of ambiguous sounds is rare.

Abstract

Poor recognition of other-race faces is ubiquitous around the world. We resolve a longstanding contradiction in the literature concerning whether interracial social contact improves the other-race effect. For the first time, we measure the age at which contact was experienced. taking advantage of
unusual demographics allowing dissociation of childhood from adult contact, results show sufficient childhood contact eliminated poor other-race recognition altogether (confirming inter-country adoption
studies). Critically, however, the developmental window for easy acquisition of other-race faces closed by approximately 12 years of age and social contact as an adult — even over several years and involving many other-race friends — produced no improvement. Theoretically, this pattern of developmental change in plasticity mirrors that found in language, suggesting a shared origin grounded in the
functional importance of both skills to social communication. Practically, results imply that, where parents wish to ensure their offspring develop the perceptual skills needed to recognise other-race people easily, childhood experience should be encouraged: just as an English-speaking person who moves to France as a child (but not an adult) can easily become a native speaker of French, we can easily
become “native recognisers” of other-race faces via natural social exposure obtained in childhood, but not later

Abstract

Magnuson, McMurray, Tanenhaus, and Aslin [Cogn. Sci. 27 (2003) 285] suggest that they have evidence of lexical feedback in speech perception, and that this evidence thus challenges the purely feedforward Merge model [Behav. Brain Sci. 23 (2000) 299]. This evidence is open to an alternative explanation, however, one which preserves the assumption in Merge that there is no lexical-prelexical feedback during on-line speech processing. This explanation invokes the distinction between perceptual processing that occurs in the short term, as an utterance is heard, and processing that occurs over the longer term, for perceptual learning.

Abstract

Spoken word recognition consists of two major component processes. First, at the prelexical stage, an abstract description of the utterance is generated from the information in the speech signal. Second, at the lexical stage, this description is used to activate all the words stored in the mental lexicon which match the input. These multiple candidate words then compete with each other. We review evidence which suggests that positive (match) and negative (mismatch) information of both a segmental and a suprasegmental nature is used to constrain this activation and competition process. We then ask whether, in addition to the necessary influence of the prelexical stage on the lexical stage, there is also feedback from the lexicon to the prelexical level. In two phonetic categorization experiments, Dutch listeners were asked to label both syllable-initial and syllable-final ambiguous fricatives (e.g., sounds ranging from [f] to [s]) in the word–nonword series maf–mas, and the nonword–word series jaf–jas. They tended to label the sounds in a lexically consistent manner (i.e., consistent with the word endpoints of the series). These lexical effects became smaller in listeners’ slower responses, even when the listeners were put under pressure to respond as fast as possible. Our results challenge models of spoken word recognition in which feedback modulates the prelexical analysis of the component sounds of a word whenever that word is heard

Abstract

On the basis of evidence from studies of the naming and reading of numerals, Ferrand (1999) argued that the naming of objects is slower than reading their names, due to a greater response uncertainty in naming than in reading, rather than to an obligatory conceptual preparation for naming, but not for reading. We manipulated the need for conceptual preparation, while keeping response uncertainty constant in the naming and reading of complex numerals. In Experiment 1, participants named three-digit Arabic numerals either as house numbers or clock times. House number naming latencies were determined mostly by morphophonological factors, such as morpheme frequency and the number of phonemes, whereas clock time naming latencies revealed an additional conceptual involvement. In Experiment 2, the numerals were presented in alphabetic format and had to be read aloud. Reading latencies were determined mostly by morphophonological factors in both modes. These results suggest that conceptual preparation, rather than response uncertainty, is responsible for the difference between naming and reading latencies.

Abstract

Current approaches to learning semantic representations of sentences often use prior word-level knowledge. The current study aims to leverage visual information in order to capture sentence level semantics without the need for word embeddings. We use a multimodal sentence encoder trained on a corpus of images with matching text captions to produce visually grounded sentence embeddings. Deep Neural Networks are trained to map the two modalities to a common embedding space such that for an image the corresponding caption can be retrieved and vice versa. We show that our model achieves results comparable to the current state of the art on two popular image-caption retrieval benchmark datasets: Microsoft Common Objects in Context (MSCOCO) and Flickr8k. We evaluate the semantic content of the resulting sentence embeddings using the data from the Semantic Textual Similarity (STS) benchmark task and show that the multimodal embeddings correlate well with human semantic similarity judgements. The system achieves state-of-the-art results on several of these benchmarks, which shows that a system trained solely on multimodal data, without assuming any word representations, is able to capture sentence level semantics. Importantly, this result shows that we do not need prior knowledge of lexical level semantics in order to model sentence level semantics. These findings demonstrate the importance of visual information in semantics.

Abstract

According to Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer (1999) speakers generate the phonological and phonetic representations of successive syllables of a word in sequence and only begin to speak after having fully planned at least one complete phonological word. Therefore, speech onset latencies should be longer for long than for short words. We tested this prediction in four experiments in which Dutch participants named or categorized objects with monosyllabic or disyllabic names. Experiment 1 yielded a length effect on production latencies when objects with long and short names were tested in separate blocks, but not when they were mixed. Experiment 2 showed that the length effect was not due to a difference in the ease of object recognition. Experiment 3 replicated the results of Experiment 1 using a within-participants design. In Experiment 4, the long and short target words appeared in a phrasal context. In addition to the speech onset latencies, we obtained the viewing times for the target objects, which have been shown to depend on the time necessary to plan the form of the target names. We found word length effects for both dependent variables, but only when objects with short and long names were presented in separate blocks. We argue that in pure and mixed blocks speakers used different response deadlines, which they tried to meet by either generating the motor programs for one syllable or for all syllables of the word before speech onset. Computer simulations using WEAVER++ support this view.