Publications

Abstract

Widespread minority language shift in Early Modern Europe is often ascribed to restrictive language policies and the migration of both majority- and minority-language speakers. However, without a sociohistorically credible account of the mechanisms through which these events caused a language shift, these policies lack explanatory power. Inspired by research on 'language histories from below,' we present an integrated sociohistorical and linguistic account that can shed light on the procresses taking place during a case of language shift in the 17th and 18th centuries. We present and analyze demographic data on the immigration and integration of French speakers in previously Dutch-speaking Dunkirk in this period, showing how moderate intermarriage of immigrants and locals could have represented a motive and a mechanism for language shift against a backdrop of larger language-political processes. We then discuss the modern language-shift dialect of Dunkirk in comparison with different dialects of French. The linguistic data suggests a large influence from the dialects of migrants, underlining their role in the language shift process. The combination of sociohistorical and linguistic evidence gives us a better understanding of language shift in this period, showing the value of an integrated 'from below' approach.

Abstract

Much of human communication and collaboration is predicated on making predictions about others’ actions. Humans frequently use predictions about others’ action mistakes to correct others and spare them mistakes. Such anticipatory correcting reveals a social motivation for unsolicited helping. Cognitively, it requires forward inferences about others’ actions through mental attributions of goal and reality representations. The current study shows that infants spontaneously intervene when an adult is mistaken about the location of an object she is about to retrieve. Infants pointed out a correct location for an adult before she was about to commit a mistake. Infants did not intervene in control conditions when the adult had witnessed the misplacement, or when she did not intend to retrieve the misplaced object. Results suggest that preverbal infants anticipate a person’s mistaken action through mental attributions of both her goal and reality representations, and correct her proactively by spontaneously providing unsolicited information.

Abstract

This study employed a new “anticipatory intervening” paradigm to tease apart false belief and ignorance-based interpretations of 18-month-olds’ helpful informing. We investigated in three experiments whether 18-month-old infants inform an adult selectively about one of the two locations depending on the adult’s belief about which of the two locations held her toy. In experiments 1 and 2, the adult falsely believed that one of the locations held her toy. In experiment 3, the adult was ignorant about which of the two locations held her toy. In all cases, however, the toy had been removed from the locations and the locations contained instead materials which the adult wanted to avoid. In experiments 1 and 2, infants spontaneously and selectively informed the adult about the aversive material in the location the adult falsely believed to hold her toy. In contrast, in experiment 3, infants informed the ignorant adult about both locations equally. Results reveal that infants expected the adult to commit a specific action mistake when she held a false belief, but not when she was ignorant. Further, infants were motivated to intervene proactively. Findings reveal a predictive action-based usage of “theory-of-mind” skills at 18 months of age.

Abstract

The aim of the study was to compare 3- to 8-year-old children’s propensity to antici- pate a comfortable hand posture at the end of a grasping movement ( end-state comfort effect ) between two different object manipulation tasks, the bar-transport task, and the overturned-glass task. In the bar-transport task, participants were asked to insert a verti- cally positioned bar into a small opening of a box. In the overturned-glass task, participants were asked to put an overturned-glass right-side-up on a coaster. Half of the participants experienced action effects (lights) as a consequence of their movements (AE groups), while the other half of the participants did not (No-AE groups). While there was no differ- ence between the AE and No-AE groups, end-state comfort performance differed across age as well as between tasks. Results revealed a significant increase in end-state comfort performance in the bar-transport task from 13% in the 3-year-olds to 94% in the 8-year- olds. Interestingly, the number of children grasping the bar according to end-state comfort doubled from 3 to 4 years and from 4 to 5 years of age. In the overturned-glass task an increase in end-state comfort performance from already 63% in the 3-year-olds to 100% in the 8-year-olds was significant as well. When comparing end-state comfort performance across tasks, results showed that 3- and 4-year-old children were better at manipulating the glass as compared to manipulating the bar, most probably, because children are more familiar with manipulating glasses. Together, these results suggest that preschool years are an important period for the development of motor planning in which the familiarity with the object involved in the task plays a significant role in children’s ability to plan their movements according to end-state comfort.

Abstract

To compare abstract structural and lexicalist accounts of syntactic processes in sentence formulation, we examined the effectiveness of nonidiomatic and idiomatic phrasal verbs in inducing structural generalizations. Three experiments made use of a syntactic priming paradigm in which participants recalled sentences they had read in rapid serial visual presentation. Prime and target sentences contained phrasal verbs with particles directly following the verb (pull off a sweatshirt) or following the direct object (pull a sweatshirt off). Idiomatic primes used verbs whose figurative meaning cannot be straightforwardly derived from the literal meaning of the main verb (e.g., pull off a robbery) and are commonly treated as stored lexical units. Particle placement in sentences was primed by both nonidiomatic and idiomatic verbs. Experiment 1 showed that the syntax of idiomatic and nonidiomatic phrasal verbs is amenable to priming, and Experiments 2 and 3 compared the priming patterns created by idiomatic and nonidiomatic primes. Despite differences in idiomaticity and structural flexibility, both types of phrasal verbs induced structural generalizations and differed little in their ability to do so. The findings are interpreted in terms of the role of abstract structural processes in language production.

Abstract

Source monitoring can be influenced by information that is external to the study context, such as beliefs and general knowledge (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993). We investigated the extent to which metamnemonic judgments predict memory for items and sources when schematic information about the sources is or is not provided at encoding. Participants made judgments of learning (JOLs) to statements presented by two speakers and were informed of the occupation of each speaker either before or after the encoding session. Replicating earlier work, prior knowledge decreased participants' tendency to erroneously attribute statements to schematically consistent but episodically incorrect speakers. The origin of this effect can be understood by examining the relationship between JOLs and performance: JOLs were equally predictive of item and source memory in the absence of prior knowledge, but were exclusively predictive of source memory when participants knew of the relationship between speakers and statements during study. Background knowledge determines the information that people solicit in service of metamnemonic judgments, suggesting that these judgments reflect control processes during encoding that reduce schematic errors.

Abstract

The scope of linguistic planning, i.e., the amount of linguistic information that speakers prepare in advance for an utterance they are about to produce, is highly variable. Distinguishing between possible sources of this variability provides a way to discriminate between production accounts that assume structurally incremental and lexically incremental sentence planning. Two picture-naming experiments evaluated changes in speakers’ planning scope as a function of experience with message structure, sentence structure, and lexical items. On target trials participants produced sentences beginning with two semantically related or unrelated objects in the same complex noun phrase. To manipulate familiarity with sentence structure, target displays were preceded by prime displays that elicited the same or different sentence structures. To manipulate ease of lexical retrieval, target sentences began either with the higher-frequency or lower-frequency member of each semantic pair. The results show that repetition of sentence structure can extend speakers’ scope of planning from one to two words in a complex noun phrase, as indexed by the presence of semantic interference in structurally primed sentences beginning with easily retrievable words. Changes in planning scope tied to experience with phrasal structures favor production accounts assuming structural planning in early sentence formulation.

Abstract

Recognizing word boundaries in continuous speech requires detailed knowledge of the native language. In the first year of life, infants acquire considerable word segmentation abilities. Infants at this early stage in word segmentation rely to a large extent on the metrical pattern of their native language, at least in stress-based languages. In Dutch and English (both languages with a preferred trochaic stress pattern), segmentation of strong-weak words develops rapidly between 7 and 10 months of age. Nevertheless, trochaic languages contain not only strong-weak words but also words with a weak-strong stress pattern. In this article, we present electrophysiological evidence of the beginnings of weak-strong word segmentation in Dutch 10-month-olds. At this age, the ability to combine different cues for efficient word segmentation does not yet seem to be completely developed. We provide evidence that Dutch infants still largely rely on strong syllables, even for the segmentation of weak-strong words.

Abstract

The paper investigates the use of manner verbs (e.g. marcher 'to walk', courir 'to run') with so-called locative prepositions (e.g. dans 'in', sous 'under') in the descriptions of motion in French, as in Il a couru dans le bureau 'He ran in (to) the office', to explore the type of events such constructions express and the factors that influence their interpretation. Based on an extensive corpus survey, the study shows that, contrary to the general claim according to which such constructions express typically motion in some location, they are also frequently used to express change of location. The study discusses the interplay of various factors that contribute to the interpretation of these constructions, including semantic, aspectual and pragmatic factors.

Abstract

A substantial tradition of linguistic inquiry has framed the knowledge of native speakers in terms of their ability to determine the grammatical acceptability of language forms that they encounter for the first time. In the domain of morphology, the productivity framework of Dressler (CLASNET Working papers 7, 1997) has emphasized the importance of this ability in terms of the graded potentiality of non-existing multimorphemic forms. The goal of this study was to investigate what role the notion of potentiality plays in online lexical well-formedness judgment among children who are native speakers of Austrian German. A total of 114 children between the ages of six and ten and a total of 40 adults between the ages of 18 and 30 (as a comparison group) participated in an online well-formedness judgment task which focused on pluralized German nouns. Concrete, picturable, high frequency German nouns were presented in three pluralized forms: (a) actual existing plural form, (b) morphologically illegal plural form, (c) potential (but not existing) plural form. Participants were shown pictures of the nouns (as a set of three identical items) and simultaneously heard one of three pluralized forms for each noun. Response latency and judgment type served as dependent variables. Results indicate that both children and adults are sensitive to the distinction between illegal and potential forms (neither of which they would have encountered). For all participants, plural frequency (rather than frequency of the singular form) affected responses for both existing and non-existing words. Other factors increasing acceptability were the presence of supplementary umlaut in addition to suffixation and homophony with existing words or word forms.

Abstract

The genetic FOXP2-CNTNAP2 pathway has been shown to be involved in the language capacity. We investigated whether a common variant of CNTNAP2 (rs7794745) is relevant for syntactic and semantic processing in the general population by using a visual sentence processing paradigm while recording ERPs in 49 healthy adults. While both AA homozygotes and T-carriers showed a standard N400 effect to semantic anomalies, the response to subject-verb agreement violations differed across genotype groups. T-carriers displayed an anterior negativity preceding the P600 effect, whereas for the AA group only a P600 effect was observed. These results provide another piece of evidence that the neuronal architecture of the human faculty of language is shaped differently by effects that are genetically determined.

Abstract

It is well-known that, within ERP paradigms of sentence processing, semantically anomalous words elicit N400 effects. Less clear, however, is what happens after the N400. In some cases N400 effects are followed by Late Positive Complexes (LPC), whereas in other cases such effects are lacking. We investigated several factors which could affect the LPC, such as contextual constraint, inter-individual variation and working memory. Seventy-two participants read sentences containing a semantic manipulation (Whipped cream tastes sweet/anxious and creamy). Neither contextual constraint nor working memory correlated with the LPC. Inter-individual variation played a substantial role in the elicitation of the LPC with about half of the participants showing a negative response and the other half showing an LPC. This individual variation correlated with a syntactic ERP as well as an alternative semantic manipulation. In conclusion, our results show that inter-individual variation plays a large role in the elicitation of the LPC and this may account for the diversity in LPC findings in language research.

Abstract

In natural environments, sensory information is embedded in temporally contiguous streams of events. This is typically the case when seeing and listening to a speaker or when engaged in scene analysis. In such contexts, two mechanisms are needed to single out and build a reliable representation of an event (or object): the temporal parsing of information and the selection of relevant information in the stream. It has previously been shown that rhythmic events naturally build temporal expectations that improve sensory processing at predictable points in time. Here, we asked to which extent temporal regularities can improve the detection and identification of events across sensory modalities. To do so, we used a dynamic visual conjunction search task accompanied by auditory cues synchronized or not with the color change of the target (horizontal or vertical bar). Sounds synchronized with the visual target improved search efficiency for temporal rates below 1.4 Hz but did not affect efficiency above that stimulation rate. Desynchronized auditory cues consistently impaired visual search below 3.3 Hz. Our results are interpreted in the context of the Dynamic Attending Theory: specifically, we suggest that a cognitive operation structures events in time irrespective of the sensory modality of input. Our results further support and specify recent neurophysiological findings by showing strong temporal selectivity for audiovisual integration in the auditory-driven improvement of visual search efficiency.

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

Little is known about the genetic contribution to individual differences in neural networks subserving cognition function. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) twin study, we found a significant genetic influence on brain activation in neural networks supporting digit working memory tasks. Participants activating frontal-parietal networks responded faster than individuals relying more on language-related brain networks.There were genetic influences on brain activation in language-relevant brain circuits that were atypical for numerical working memory tasks as such. This suggests that differences in cognition might be related to brain activation patterns that differ qualitatively among individuals.

Abstract

Heterozygous mutations of the human FOXP2 transcription factor gene cause the best-described examples of monogenic speech and language disorders. Acquisition of proficient spoken language involves auditory-guided vocal learning, a specialized form of sensory-motor association learning. The impact of etiological Foxp2 mutations on learning of auditory-motor associations in mammals has not been determined yet. Here, we directly assess this type of learning using a newly developed conditioned avoidance paradigm in a shuttle-box for mice. We show striking deficits in mice heterozygous for either of two different Foxp2 mutations previously implicated in human speech disorders. Both mutations cause delays in acquiring new motor skills. The magnitude of impairments in association learning, however, depends on the nature of the mutation. Mice with a missense mutation in the DNA-binding domain are able to learn, but at a much slower rate than wild type animals, while mice carrying an early nonsense mutation learn very little. These results are consistent with expression of Foxp2 in distributed circuits of the cortex, striatum and cerebellum that are known to play key roles in acquisition of motor skills and sensory-motor association learning, and suggest differing in vivo effects for distinct variants of the Foxp2 protein. Given the importance of such networks for the acquisition of human spoken language, and the fact that similar mutations in human FOXP2 cause problems with speech development, this work opens up a new perspective on the use of mouse models for understanding pathways underlying speech and language disorders.

Abstract

Heterozygous mutations of the human FOXP2 gene cause a developmental disorder involving impaired learning and production of fluent spoken language. Previous investigations of its aetiology have focused on disturbed function of neural circuits involved in motor control. However, Foxp2 expression has been found in the cochlea and auditory brain centers and deficits in auditory processing could contribute to difficulties in speech learning and production. Here, we recorded auditory brainstem responses (ABR) to assess two heterozygous mouse models carrying distinct Foxp2 point mutations matching those found in humans with FOXP2-related speech/language impairment. Mice which carry a Foxp2-S321X nonsense mutation, yielding reduced dosage of Foxp2 protein, did not show systematic ABR differences from wildtype littermates. Given that speech/language disorders are observed in heterozygous humans with similar nonsense mutations (FOXP2-R328X), our findings suggest that auditory processing deficits up to the midbrain level are not causative for FOXP2-related language impairments. Interestingly, however, mice harboring a Foxp2-R552H missense mutation displayed systematic alterations in ABR waves with longer latencies (significant for waves I, III, IV) and smaller amplitudes (significant for waves I, IV) suggesting that either the synchrony of synaptic transmission in the cochlea and in auditory brainstem centers is affected, or fewer auditory nerve fibers and fewer neurons in auditory brainstem centers are activated compared to wildtypes. Therefore, the R552H mutation uncovers possible roles for Foxp2 in the development and/or function of the auditory system. Since ABR audiometry is easily accessible in humans, our data call for systematic testing of auditory functions in humans with FOXP2 mutations.

Abstract

When people see a snake, they are likely to activate both affective information (e.g., dangerous) and non-affective information about its ontological category (e.g., animal). According to the Affective Primacy Hypothesis, the affective information has priority, and its activation can precede identification of the ontological category of a stimulus. Alternatively, according to the Cognitive Primacy Hypothesis, perceivers must know what they are looking at before they can make an affective judgment about it. We propose that neither hypothesis holds at all times. Here we show that the relative speed with which affective and non-affective information gets activated by pictures and words depends upon the contexts in which stimuli are processed. Results illustrate that the question of whether affective information has processing priority over ontological information (or vice versa) is ill posed. Rather than seeking to resolve the debate over Cognitive vs. Affective Primacy in favor of one hypothesis or the other, a more productive goal may be to determine the factors that cause affective information to have processing priority in some circumstances and ontological information in others. Our findings support a view of the mind according to which words and pictures activate different neurocognitive representations every time they are processed, the specifics of which are co-determined by the stimuli themselves and the contexts in which they occur.

Abstract

We present a coding system combined with an annotation tool for the analysis of gestural behavior. The NEUROGES coding system consists of three modules that progress from gesture kinetics to gesture function. Grounded on empirical neuropsychological and psychological studies, the theoretical assumption behind NEUROGES is that its main kinetic and functional movement categories are differentially associated with specific cognitive, emotional, and interactive functions. ELAN is a free, multimodal annotation tool for digital audio and video media. It supports multileveled transcription and complies with such standards as XML and Unicode. ELAN allows gesture categories to be stored with associated vocabularies that are reusable by means of template files. The combination of the NEUROGES coding system and the annotation tool ELAN creates an effective tool for empirical research on gestural behavior.

Abstract

We investigated the behavioral and brain responses (ERPs) of bilingual word recognition to three fundamental psycholinguistic factors, frequency, morphology, and lexicality, in early bilinguals vs. monolinguals. Earlier behavioral studies have reported larger frequency effects in bilingualś nondominant vs. dominant language and in some studies also when compared to corresponding monolinguals. In ERPs, language processing differences between bilinguals vs. monolinguals have typically been found in the N400 component. In the present study, highly proficient Finnish-Swedish bilinguals who had acquired both languages during childhood were compared to Finnish monolinguals during a visual lexical decision task and simultaneous ERP recordings. Behaviorally, we found that the response latencies were overall longer in bilinguals than monolinguals, and that the effects for all three factors, frequency, morphology, and lexicality were also larger in bilinguals even though they had acquired both languages early and were highly proficient in them. In line with this, the N400 effects induced by frequency, morphology, and lexicality were larger for bilinguals than monolinguals. Furthermore, the ERP results also suggest that while most inflected Finnish words are decomposed into stem and suffix, only monolinguals have encountered high frequency inflected word forms often enough to develop full-form representations for them. Larger behavioral and neural effects in bilinguals in these factors likely reflect lower amount of exposure to words compared to monolinguals, as the language input of bilinguals is divided between two languages.

Abstract

The increasing number of experimental studies on second language (L2) processing, frequently with English as the L2, calls for a practical and valid measure of English vocabulary knowledge and proficiency. In a large-scale study with Dutch and Korean speakers of L2 English, we tested whether LexTALE, a 5-min vocabulary test, is a valid predictor of English vocabulary knowledge and, possibly, even of general English proficiency. Furthermore, the validity of LexTALE was compared with that of self-ratings of proficiency, a measure frequently used by L2 researchers. The results showed the following in both speaker groups: (1) LexTALE was a good predictor of English vocabulary knowledge; 2) it also correlated substantially with a measure of general English proficiency; and 3) LexTALE was generally superior to self-ratings in its predictions. LexTALE, but not self-ratings, also correlated highly with previous experimental data on two word recognition paradigms. The test can be carried out on or downloaded from www.lextale.com.

Abstract

The human cerebellum plays an important role in language, amongst other cognitive and motor functions [1], but a unifying theoretical framework about cerebellar language function is lacking. In an established model of motor control, the cerebellum is seen as a predictive machine, making short-term estimations about the outcome of motor commands. This allows for flexible control, on-line correction, and coordination of movements [2]. The homogeneous cytoarchitecture of the cerebellar cortex suggests that similar computations occur throughout the structure, operating on different input signals and with different output targets [3]. Several authors have therefore argued that this ‘motor’ model may extend to cerebellar nonmotor functions [3], [4] and [5], and that the cerebellum may support prediction in language processing [6]. However, this hypothesis has never been directly tested. Here, we used the ‘Visual World’ paradigm [7], where on-line processing of spoken sentence content can be assessed by recording the latencies of listeners' eye movements towards objects mentioned. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) was used to disrupt function in the right cerebellum, a region implicated in language [8]. After cerebellar rTMS, listeners showed delayed eye fixations to target objects predicted by sentence content, while there was no effect on eye fixations in sentences without predictable content. The prediction deficit was absent in two control groups. Our findings support the hypothesis that computational operations performed by the cerebellum may support prediction during both motor control and language processing.

Abstract

The language of non-native speakers is less reliable than the language of native
speakers in conveying the speaker’s intentions. We propose that listeners expect
such reduced reliability and that this leads them to adjust the manner in which they
process and represent non-native language by representing non-native language
in less detail. Experiment 1 shows that when people listen to a story, they are
less able to detect a word change with a non-native than with a native speaker.
This suggests they represent the language of a non-native speaker with fewer
details. Experiment 2 shows that, above a certain threshold, the higher participants’
working memory is, the less they are able to detect the change with a non-native
speaker. This suggests that adjustment to non-native speakers depends on working
memory. This research has implications for the role of interpersonal expectations
in the way people process language.

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

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

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

Language and communication are central to shaping concepts such as kinship categories.

Abstract

This article explores the relation between language and cognition by examining the case of "absolute" (cardinal direction) spatial description in the Australian aboriginal language Guugu Yimithirr. This kind of spatial description is incongruent with the "relative" (e.g., left/right/front/back) spatial description familiar in European languages. Building on Haviland's 1993 analysis of Guugu Yimithirr directionals in speech and gesture, a series of informal experiments were developed. It is shown that Guugu Yimithirr speakers predominantly code for nonverbal memory in "absolute" concepts congruent with their language, while a comparative sample of Dutch speakers do so in "relative" concepts. Much anecdotal evidence also supports this. The conclusion is that Whorfian effects may in fact be demonstrable in the spatial domain.

Abstract

This short report draws attention to an interesting kind of configuration in the lexicon that seems to have escaped theoretical or systematic descriptive attention. These configurations, which we dub SEMPLATES, consist of an abstract structure or template, which is recurrently instantiated in a number of lexical sets, typically of different form classes. A number of examples from different language families are adduced, and generalizations made about the nature of semplates, which are contrasted to other, perhaps similar, phenomena

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

Classical cognitive science was launched on the premise that the architecture of human cognition is uniform and universal across the species. This premise is biologically impossible and is being actively undermined by, for example, imaging genomics. Anthropology (including archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics, and cultural anthropology) is, in contrast, largely concerned with the diversification of human culture, language, and biology across time and space—it belongs fundamentally to the evolutionary sciences. The new cognitive sciences that will emerge from the interactions with the biological sciences will focus on variation and diversity, opening the door for rapprochement with anthropology.

Abstract

Computational methods have revolutionized evolutionary biology. In this paper we explore the impact these methods are now having on our understanding of the forces that both affect the diversification of human languages and shape human cognition. We show how these methods can illuminate problems ranging from the nature of constraints on linguistic variation to the role that social processes play in determining the rate of linguistic change. Throughout the paper we argue that the cognitive sciences should move away from an idealized model of human cognition, to a more biologically realistic model where variation is central.

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to elucidate the relevance of cross-species comparisons for the investigation of human behavior and its development. The focus is on the comparison of human children and another group of primates, the non-human great apes, with special attention to their cognitive skills. Integrating a comparative and developmental perspective, we argue, can provide additional answers to central and elusive questions about human behavior in general and its development in particular: What are the heritable predispositions of the human mind? What cognitive traits are uniquely human? In this sense, Developmental Science would benefit from results of Comparative Psychology.

Abstract

We propose that the choice between the auxiliaries hebben 'have' and zijn 'be' in Dutch is determined by a particular semantic feature of verbs. In particular we propose a feature of meaning [IEPS] for 'inferable eventual position or state' that characterizes whether the action denoted by the verb allows us to determine the eventual position or state of the verb's highest argument. It is argued that only verbs which exhibit the feature [+IEPS] or which obtain the feature compositionally in the syntax select zijn as their auxiliary. Our analysis is then compared to a number of other analyses of auxiliary selection in Dutch.

Abstract

Most neuroimaging studies are performed using one imaging method only, either functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), or magnetoencephalography (MEG). Information on both location and timing has been sought by recording fMRI and EEG, simultaneously, or MEG and fMRI in separate sessions. Such approaches assume similar active areas whether detected via hemodynamic or electrophysiological signatures. Direct comparisons, after independent analysis of data from each imaging modality, have been conducted primarily on low-level sensory processing. Here, we report MEG (timing and location) and fMRI (location) results in 11 subjects when they named pictures that depicted an action or an object. The experimental design was exactly the same for the two imaging modalities. The MEG data were analyzed with two standard approaches: a set of equivalent current dipoles and a distributed minimum norm estimate. The fMRI blood-oxygenlevel dependent (BOLD) data were subjected to the usual random-effect contrast analysis. At the group level, MEG and fMRI data showed fairly good convergence, with both overall activation patterns and task effects localizing to comparable cortical regions. There were some systematic discrepancies, however, and the correspondence was less compelling in the individual subjects. The present analysis should be helpful in reconciling results of fMRI and MEG studies on high-level cognitive functions

Abstract

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have known impairments in social and motor skills. Identifying putative underlying mechanisms of these impairments could lead to improved understanding of the etiology of core social/communicative deficits in ASDs, and identification of novel intervention targets. The ability to perceptually integrate one's physical capacities with one's environment (affordance perception) may be such a mechanism. This ability has been theorized to be impaired in ASDs, but this question has never been directly tested. Crucially, affordance perception has shown to be amenable to learning; thus, if it is implicated in deficits in ASDs, it may be a valuable unexplored intervention target. The present study compared affordance perception in adolescents and adults with ASDs to typically developing (TD) controls. Two groups of individuals (adolescents and adults) with ASDs and age-matched TD controls completed well-established action capability estimation tasks (reachability, graspability, and aperture passability). Their caregivers completed a measure of their lifetime social/communicative deficits. Compared with controls, individuals with ASDs showed unprecedented gross impairments in relating information about their bodies' action capabilities to visual information specifying the environment. The magnitude of these deficits strongly predicted the magnitude of social/communicative impairments in individuals with ASDs. Thus, social/communicative impairments in ASDs may derive, at least in part, from deficits in basic perceptual–motor processes (e.g. action capability estimation). Such deficits may impair the ability to maintain and calibrate the relationship between oneself and one's social and physical environments, and present fruitful, novel, and unexplored target for intervention.

Abstract

Several cognitive accounts of human communication argue for a language-independent, prelinguistic basis of human communication and language. The current study provides evidence for the universality of a prelinguistic gestural basis for human communication. We used a standardized, semi-natural elicitation procedure in seven very different cultures around the world to test for the existence of preverbal pointing in infants and their caregivers. Results were that by 10–14 months of age, infants and their caregivers pointed in all cultures in the same basic situation with similar frequencies and the same proto-typical morphology of the extended index finger. Infants’ pointing was best predicted by age and caregiver pointing, but not by cultural group. Further analyses revealed a strong relation between the temporal unfolding of caregivers’ and infants’ pointing events, uncovering a structure of early prelinguistic gestural conversation. Findings support the existence of a gestural, language-independent universal of human communication that forms a culturally shared, prelinguistic basis for diversified linguistic communication.

Abstract

One of the defining features of human language is displacement, the ability to make reference to absent entities. Here we show that prelinguistic, 12-month-old infants already can use a nonverbal pointing gesture to make reference to absent entities. We also show that chimpanzees—who can point for things they want humans to give them—do not point to refer to absent entities in the same way. These results demonstrate that the ability to communicate about absent but mutually known entities depends not on language, but rather on deeper social-cognitive skills that make acts of linguistic reference possible in the first place. These nonlinguistic skills for displaced reference emerged apparently only after humans' divergence from great apes some 6 million years ago.

Abstract

Mutations of the renal-specific chloride channel (CLCN5) gene, which is located on chromosome Xp11.22, are associated with hypercalciuric nephrolithiasis (kidney stones) in the Northern European and Japanese populations. CLCN5 encodes a 746 amino acid channel (CLC-5) that has approximately 12 transmembrane domains, and heterologous expression of wild-type CLC-5 in Xenopus oocytes has yielded outwardly rectifying chloride currents that were markedly reduced or abolished by these mutations. In order to assess further the structural and functional relationships of this recently cloned chloride channel, additional CLCN5 mutations have been identified in five unrelated families with this disorder. Three of these mutations were missense (G57V, G512R and E527D), one was a nonsense (R648Stop) and one was an insertion (30:H insertion). In addition, two of the mutations (30:H insertion and E527D) were demonstrated to be de novo, and the G57V and E527D mutations were identified in families of Afro-American and Indian origin, respectively. The G57V and 30:H insertion mutations represent the first CLCN5 mutations to be identified in the N-terminus region, and the R648Stop mutation, which has been observed previously in an unrelated family, suggests that this codon may be particularly prone to mutations. Heterologous expression of the mutations resulted in a marked reduction or abolition of the chloride currents, thereby establishing their functional importance. These results help to elucidate further the structure-function relationships of this renal chloride channel.

Abstract

Although not native to Germany, fallow deer (Dama dama) are commonly found today, but their origin as well as the genetic structure of the founding members is still unclear. In order to address these aspects, we sequenced ~400 bp of the mitochondrial d-loop of 365 animals from 22 locations in nine German Federal States. Nine new haplotypes were detected and archived in GenBank. Our data produced evidence for a Turkish origin of the German founders. However, German fallow deer populations have complex patterns of mtDNA variation. In particular, three distinct clusters were identified: Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg/Hesse/Rhineland and Saxony/lower Saxony/Mecklenburg/Westphalia/Anhalt. Signatures of recent demographic expansions were found for the latter two. An overall pattern of reduced genetic variation was therefore accompanied by a relatively strong genetic structure, as highlighted by an overall Phict value of 0.74 (P < 0.001).

Abstract

Now more than ever animal studies have the potential to test hypotheses regarding how cognition evolves. Comparative psychologists have developed new techniques to probe the cognitive mechanisms underlying animal behavior, and they have become increasingly skillful at adapting methodologies to test multiple species. Meanwhile, evolutionary biologists have generated quantitative approaches to investigate the phylogenetic distribution and function of phenotypic traits, including cognition. In particular, phylogenetic methods can quantitatively (1) test whether specific cognitive abilities are correlated with life history (e.g., lifespan), morphology (e.g., brain size), or socio-ecological variables (e.g., social system), (2) measure how strongly phylogenetic relatedness predicts the distribution of cognitive skills across species, and (3) estimate the ancestral state of a given cognitive trait using measures of cognitive performance from extant species. Phylogenetic methods can also be used to guide the selection of species comparisons that offer the strongest tests of a priori predictions of cognitive evolutionary hypotheses (i.e., phylogenetic targeting). Here, we explain how an integration of comparative psychology and evolutionary biology will answer a host of questions regarding the phylogenetic distribution and history of cognitive traits, as well as the evolutionary processes that drove their evolution.

Abstract

During conversation listeners have to perform several tasks simultaneously. They have to comprehend their interlocutor’s turn, while also having to prepare their own next turn. Moreover, a careful analysis of the timing of natural conversation reveals that next speakers also time their turns very precisely. This is possible only if listeners can predict accurately when the speaker’s turn is going to end. But how are people able to predict when a turn-ends? We propose that people know when a turn-ends, because they know how it ends. We conducted a gating study to examine if better turn-end predictions coincide with more accurate anticipation of the last words of a turn. We used turns from an earlier button-press experiment where people had to press a button exactly when a turn-ended. We show that the proportion of correct guesses in our experiment is higher when a turn’s end was estimated better in time in the button-press experiment. When people were too late in their anticipation in the button-press experiment, they also anticipated more words in our gating study. We conclude that people made predictions in advance about the upcoming content of a turn and used this prediction to estimate the duration of the turn. We suggest an economical model of turn-end anticipation that is based on anticipation of words and syntactic frames in comprehension.

Abstract

When researchers think about the interaction between language and emotion, they typically focus on descriptive emotion words. This review demonstrates that emotion can interact with language at many levels of structure, from the sound patterns of a language to its lexicon and grammar, and beyond to how it appears in conversation and discourse. Findings are considered from diverse subfields across the language sciences, including cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and conversation analysis. Taken together, it is clear that emotional expression is finely tuned to language-specific structures. Future emotion research can better exploit cross-linguistic variation to unravel possible universal principles operating between language and emotion.

Abstract

Emotion scientists often take an ambivalent stance concerning the role of language in a science of emotion. However, it is important for emotion researchers to contemplate some of the consequences of current practices
for their theory building. There is a danger of an overreliance on the English language as a transparent window into emotion categories. More consideration has to be given to cross-linguistic comparison in the future so that models of language acquisition and of the language–cognition interface fit better the extant variation found in today’s peoples.

Abstract

This Research Topic explores the question: what is the relationship between representations of time and space in cultures around the world? This question touches on the broader issue of how humans come to represent and reason about abstract entities – things we cannot see or touch. Time is a particularly opportune domain to investigate this topic. Across cultures, people use spatial representations for time, for example in graphs, time-lines, clocks, sundials, hourglasses, and calendars. In language, time is also heavily related to space, with spatial terms often used to describe the order and duration of events. In English, for example, we might move a meeting forward, push a deadline back, attend a long concert or go on a short break. People also make consistent spatial gestures when talking about time, and appear to spontaneously invoke spatial representations when processing temporal language. A large body of evidence suggests a close correspondence between temporal and spatial language and thought. However, the ways that people spatialize time can differ dramatically across languages and cultures. This research topic identifies and explores some of the sources of this variation, including patterns in spatial thinking, patterns in metaphor, gesture and other cultural systems. This Research Topic explores how speakers of different languages talk about time and space and how they think about these domains, outside of language. The Research Topic invites papers exploring the following issues: 1. Do the linguistic representations of space and time share the same lexical and morphosyntactic resources? 2. To what extent does the conceptualization of time follow the conceptualization of space?

Abstract

Are there individual differences in children’s prediction of upcoming linguistic input and what do these differences reflect? Using a variant of the preferential looking paradigm (Golinkoff et al., 1987), we found that, upon hearing a sentence like “The boy eats a big cake”, two-year-olds fixate edible objects in a visual scene (a cake) soon after they hear the semantically constraining verb, eats, and prior to hearing the word, cake. Importantly, children’s prediction skills were significantly correlated with their productive vocabulary size – Skilled producers (i.e., children with large production vocabularies) showed evidence of predicting upcoming linguistic input while low producers did not. Furthermore, we found that children’s prediction ability is tied specifically to their production skills and not to their comprehension skills. Prediction is really a piece of cake, but only for skilled producers.

Abstract

Comprehension of verb-phrase ellipsis (VPE) requires reevaluation of recently processed constituents, which often necessitates retrieval of information about the elided constituent from memory. A. E. Martin and B. McElree (2008) argued that representations formed during comprehension are content addressable and that VPE antecedents are retrieved from memory via a cue-dependent direct-access pointer rather than via a search process. This hypothesis was further tested by manipulating the location of interfering material—either before the onset of the antecedent (proactive interference; PI) or intervening between antecedent and ellipsis site (retroactive interference; RI). The speed–accuracy tradeoff procedure was used to measure the time course of VPE processing. The location of the interfering material affected VPE comprehension accuracy: RI conditions engendered lower accuracy than PI conditions. Crucially, location did not affect the speed of processing VPE, which is inconsistent with both forward and backward search mechanisms. The observed time-course profiles are consistent with the hypothesis that VPE antecedents are retrieved via a cue-dependent direct-access operation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Abstract

Successful language use requires access to products of past processing within an evolving discourse. A central issue for any neurocognitive theory of language then concerns the role of memory variables during language processing. Under a cue-based retrieval account of language comprehension, linguistic dependency resolution (e.g., retrieving antecedents) is subject to interference from other information in the sentence, especially information that occurs between the words that form the dependency (e.g., between the antecedent and the retrieval site). Retrieval interference may then shape processing complexity as a function of the match of the information at retrieval with the antecedent versus other recent or similar items in memory. To address these issues, we studied the online processing of ellipsis in Castilian Spanish, a language with morphological gender agreement. We recorded event-related brain potentials while participants read sentences containing noun-phrase ellipsis indicated by the determiner otro/a (‘another’). These determiners had a grammatically correct or incorrect gender with respect to their antecedent nouns that occurred earlier in the sentence. Moreover, between each antecedent and determiner, another noun phrase occurred that was structurally unavailable as an antecedent and that matched or mismatched the gender of the antecedent (i.e., a local agreement attractor). In contrast to extant P600 results on agreement violation processing, and inconsistent with predictions from neurocognitive models of sentence processing, grammatically incorrect determiners evoked a sustained, broadly distributed negativity compared to correct ones between 400 and 1000 ms after word onset, possibly related to sustained negativities as observed for referential processing difficulties. Crucially, this effect was modulated by the attractor: an increased negativity was observed for grammatically correct determiners that did not match the gender of the attractor, suggesting that structurally unavailable noun phrases were at least temporarily considered for grammatically correct ellipsis. These results constitute the first ERP evidence for cue-based retrieval interference during comprehension of grammatical sentences.

Abstract

Understanding the lyrics of many contemporary songs is difficult, and an earlier study [Hidalgo-Barnes, M., Massaro, D.W., 2007. Read my lips: an animated face helps communicate musical lyrics. Psychomusicology 19, 3–12] showed a benefit for lyrics recognition when seeing a computer-animated talking head (Baldi) mouthing the lyrics along with hearing the singer. However, the contribution of visual information was relatively small compared to what is usually found for speech. In the current experiments, our goal was to determine why the face appears to contribute less when aligned with sung lyrics than when aligned with normal speech presented in noise. The first experiment compared the contribution of the talking head with the originally sung lyrics versus the case when it was aligned with the Festival text-to-speech synthesis (TtS) spoken at the original duration of the song’s lyrics. A small and similar influence of the face was found in both conditions. In the three experiments, we compared the presence of the face when the durations of the TtS were equated with the duration of the original musical lyrics to the case when the lyrics were read with typical TtS durations and this speech embedded in noise. The results indicated that the unusual temporally distorted durations of musical lyrics decreases the contribution of the visible speech from the face.

Abstract

Even though assertion has held centre stage in much philosophical and linguistic theorising on language, Mark Jary’s ‘Assertion’ represents the first book-length treatment of the topic. The content of the book is aptly described by the author himself: ''This book has two aims. One is to bring together and discuss in a systematic way a range of perspectives on assertion: philosophical, linguistic and psychological. [...] The other is to present a view of the pragmatics of assertion, with particular emphasis on the contribution of the declarative mood to the process of utterance interpretation.'' (p. 1). The promise contained in this introductory note is to a large extent fulfilled: the first seven chapters of the book discuss many of the relevant philosophical and linguistic approaches to assertion and at the same time provide the background for the presentation of Jary's own view on the pragmatics of declaratives, presented in the last (and longest) chapter.

Abstract

An eye-tracking experiment examined contextual flexibility in speech processing in response to distortions in spoken input. Dutch participants heard Dutch sentences containing critical words and saw four-picture displays. The name of one picture either had the same onset phonemes as the critical word or had a different first phoneme and rhymed. Participants fixated onset-overlap more than rhyme-overlap pictures, but this tendency varied with speech quality. Relative to a baseline with noise-free sentences, participants looked less at onset-overlap and more at rhyme-overlap pictures when phonemes in the sentences (but not in the critical words) were replaced by noises like those heard on a badly-tuned AM radio. The position of the noises (word-initial or word-medial) had no effect. Noises elsewhere in the sentences apparently made evidence about the critical word less reliable: Listeners became less confident of having heard the onset-overlap name but also less sure of having not heard the rhyme-overlap name. The same acoustic information has different effects on spoken-word recognition as the probability of distortion changes.

Abstract

Children hear new words from many different talkers; to learn words most efficiently, they should be able to represent them independently of talker-specific pronunciation detail. However, do children know what the component sounds of words should be, and can they use that knowledge to deal with different talkers' phonetic realizations? Experiment 1 replicated prior studies on lexically guided retuning of speech perception in adults, with a picture-verification methodology suitable for children. One participant group heard an ambiguous fricative ([s/f]) replacing /f/ (e.g., in words like giraffe); another group heard [s/f] replacing /s/ (e.g., in platypus). The first group subsequently identified more tokens on a Simpie-[s/f]impie-Fimpie toy-name continuum as Fimpie. Experiments 2 and 3 found equivalent lexically guided retuning effects in 12- and 6-year-olds. Children aged 6 have all that is needed for adjusting to talker variation in speech: detailed and abstract phonological representations and the ability to apply them during spoken-word recognition.

Abstract

The strongest support for feedback in speech perception comes from evidence of apparent lexical influence on prelexical fricative-stop compensation for coarticulation. Lexical knowledge (e.g., that the ambiguous final fricative of Christma? should be [s]) apparently influences perception of following stops. We argue that all such previous demonstrations can be explained without invoking lexical feedback. In particular, we show that one demonstration [Magnuson, J. S., McMurray, B., Tanenhaus, M. K., & Aslin, R. N. (2003). Lexical effects on compensation for coarticulation: The ghost of Christmash past. Cognitive Science, 27, 285–298] involved experimentally-induced biases (from 16 practice trials) rather than feedback. We found that the direction of the compensation effect depended on whether practice stimuli were words or nonwords. When both were used, there was no lexically-mediated compensation. Across experiments, however, there were lexical effects on fricative identification. This dissociation (lexical involvement in the fricative decisions but not in the following stop decisions made on the same trials) challenges interactive models in which feedback should cause both effects. We conclude that the prelexical level is sensitive to experimentally-induced phoneme-sequence biases, but that there is no feedback during speech perception.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Human and animal prion diseases are under genetic control, but apart from PRNP (the gene that encodes the prion protein), we understand little about human susceptibility to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) prions, the causal agent of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).METHODS: We did a genome-wide association study of the risk of vCJD and tested for replication of our findings in samples from many categories of human prion disease (929 samples) and control samples from the UK and Papua New Guinea (4254 samples), including controls in the UK who were genotyped by the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. We also did follow-up analyses of the genetic control of the clinical phenotype of prion disease and analysed candidate gene expression in a mouse cellular model of prion infection. FINDINGS: The PRNP locus was strongly associated with risk across several markers and all categories of prion disease (best single SNP [single nucleotide polymorphism] association in vCJD p=2.5 x 10(-17); best haplotypic association in vCJD p=1 x 10(-24)). Although the main contribution to disease risk was conferred by PRNP polymorphic codon 129, another nearby SNP conferred increased risk of vCJD. In addition to PRNP, one technically validated SNP association upstream of RARB (the gene that encodes retinoic acid receptor beta) had nominal genome-wide significance (p=1.9 x 10(-7)). A similar association was found in a small sample of patients with iatrogenic CJD (p=0.030) but not in patients with sporadic CJD (sCJD) or kuru. In cultured cells, retinoic acid regulates the expression of the prion protein. We found an association with acquired prion disease, including vCJD (p=5.6 x 10(-5)), kuru incubation time (p=0.017), and resistance to kuru (p=2.5 x 10(-4)), in a region upstream of STMN2 (the gene that encodes SCG10). The risk genotype was not associated with sCJD but conferred an earlier age of onset. Furthermore, expression of Stmn2 was reduced 30-fold post-infection in a mouse cellular model of prion disease. INTERPRETATION: The polymorphic codon 129 of PRNP was the main genetic risk factor for vCJD; however, additional candidate loci have been identified, which justifies functional analyses of these biological pathways in prion disease.

Abstract

Differences in the oscillatory EEG dynamics of reading open class (OC) and closed class (CC) words have previously been found (Bastiaansen et al., 2005) and are thought to reflect differences in lexical-semantic content between these word classes. In particular, the theta-band (4–7 Hz) seems to play a prominent role in lexical-semantic retrieval. We tested whether this theta effect is robust in an older population of subjects. Additionally, we examined how the context of a word can modulate the oscillatory dynamics underlying retrieval for the two different classes of words. Older participants (mean age 55) read words presented in either syntactically correct sentences or in a scrambled order (“scrambled sentence”) while their EEG was recorded. We performed time–frequency analysis to examine how power varied based on the context or class of the word. We observed larger power decreases in the alpha (8–12 Hz) band between 200–700 ms for the OC compared to CC words, but this was true only for the scrambled sentence context. We did not observe differences in theta power between these conditions. Context exerted an effect on the alpha and low beta (13–18 Hz) bands between 0 and 700 ms. These results suggest that the previously observed word class effects on theta power changes in a younger participant sample do not seem to be a robust effect in this older population. Though this is an indirect comparison between studies, it may suggest the existence of aging effects on word retrieval dynamics for different populations. Additionally, the interaction between word class and context suggests that word retrieval mechanisms interact with sentence-level comprehension mechanisms in the alpha-band.

Abstract

In speaking, semantic encoding is the conversion of a non-verbal mental representation (the reference) into a semantic structure suitable for expression (the sense). In this fMRI study on sentence production we investigate how the speaking brain accomplishes this transition from non-verbal to verbal representations. In an overt picture description task, we manipulated repetition of sense (the semantic structure of the sentence) and reference (the described situation) separately. By investigating brain areas showing response adaptation to repetition of each of these sentence properties, we disentangle the neuronal infrastructure for these two components of semantic encoding. We also performed a control experiment with the same stimuli and design but without any linguistic task to identify areas involved in perception of the stimuli per se. The bilateral inferior parietal lobes were selectively sensitive to repetition of reference, while left inferior frontal gyrus showed selective suppression to repetition of sense. Strikingly, a widespread network of areas associated with language processing (left middle frontal gyrus, bilateral superior parietal lobes and bilateral posterior temporal gyri) all showed repetition suppression to both sense and reference processing. These areas are probably involved in mapping reference onto sense, the crucial step in semantic encoding. These results enable us to track the transition from non-verbal to verbal representations in our brains.

Abstract

Models of speaking distinguish producing meaning, words and syntax as three different linguistic components of speaking. Nevertheless, little is known about the brain’s integrated neuronal infrastructure for speech production. We investigated semantic, lexical and syntactic aspects of speaking using fMRI. In a picture description task, we manipulated repetition of sentence meaning, words, and syntax separately. By investigating brain areas showing response adaptation to repetition of each of these sentence properties, we disentangle the neuronal infrastructure for these processes. We demonstrate that semantic, lexical and syntactic processes are carried out in partly overlapping and partly distinct brain networks and show that the classic left-hemispheric dominance for language is present for syntax but not semantics.

Abstract

Both local discourse and world knowledge are known to influence sentence processing. We investigated how these two sources of information conspire in language comprehension. Two types of critical sentences, correct and world knowledge anomalies, were preceded by either a neutral or a local context. The latter made the world knowledge anomalies more acceptable or plausible. We predicted that the effect of world knowledge anomalies would be weaker for the local context. World knowledge effects have previously been observed in the left inferior frontal region (Brodmann's area 45/47). In the current study, an effect of world knowledge was present in this region in the neutral context. We also observed an effect in the right inferior frontal gyrus, which was more sensitive to the discourse manipulation than the left inferior frontal gyrus. In addition, the left angular gyrus reacted strongly to the degree of discourse coherence between the context and critical sentence. Overall, both world knowledge and the discourse context affect the process of meaning unification, but do so by recruiting partly different sets of brain areas.

Abstract

The interactive-alignment account of dialogue proposes that interlocutors achieve conversational success by aligning their understanding of the situation under discussion. Such alignment occurs because they prime each other at different levels of representation (e.g., phonology, syntax, semantics), and this is possible because these representations are shared across production and comprehension. In this paper, we briefly review the behavioral evidence, and then consider how findings from cognitive neuroscience might lend support to this account, on the assumption that alignment of neural activity corresponds to alignment of mental states. We first review work supporting representational parity between production and comprehension, and suggest that neural activity associated with phonological, lexical, and syntactic aspects of production and comprehension are closely related. We next consider evidence for the neural bases of the activation and use of situation models during production and comprehension, and how these demonstrate the activation of non-linguistic conceptual representations associated with language use. We then review evidence for alignment of neural mechanisms that are specific to the act of communication. Finally, we suggest some avenues of further research that need to be explored to test crucial predictions of the interactive alignment account.

Abstract

The dendritic cell receptor DC-SIGN mediates pathogen recognition by binding to glycans characteristic of pathogen surfaces, including those found on HIV. Clustering of carbohydrate-binding sites in the receptor tetramer is believed to be critical for targeting of pathogen glycans, but the arrangement of these sites remains poorly understood. Surface force measurements between apposed lipid bilayers displaying the extracellular domain of DC-SIGN and a neoglycolipid bearing an oligosaccharide ligand provide evidence that the receptor is in an extended conformation and that glycan docking is associated with a conformational change that repositions the carbohydrate-recognition domains during ligand binding. The results further show that the lateral mobility of membrane-bound ligands enhances the engagement of multiple carbohydrate-recognition domains in the receptor oligomer with appropriately spaced ligands. These studies highlight differences between pathogen targeting by DC-SIGN and receptors in which binding sites at fixed spacing bind to simple molecular patterns

Abstract

Earlier studies had shown that speakers naming several objects typically look at each object until they have retrieved the phonological form of its name and therefore look longer at objects with long names than at objects with shorter names. We examined whether this tight eye-to-speech coordination was maintained at different speech rates and after increasing amounts of practice. Participants named the same set of objects with monosyllabic or disyllabic names on up to 20 successive trials. In Experiment 1, they spoke as fast as they could, whereas in Experiment 2 they had to maintain a fixed moderate or faster speech rate. In both experiments, the durations of the gazes to the objects decreased with increasing speech rate, indicating that at higher speech rates, the speakers spent less time planning the object names. The eye-speech lag (the time interval between the shift of gaze away from an object and the onset of its name) was independent of the speech rate but became shorter with increasing practice. Consistent word length effects on the durations of the gazes to the objects and the eye speech lags were only found in Experiment 2. The results indicate that shifts of eye gaze are often linked to the completion of phonological encoding, but that speakers can deviate from this default coordination of eye gaze and speech, for instance when the descriptive task is easy and they aim to speak fast.

Abstract

Subjects named pictures while hearing distractor words that shared word-initial or word-final segments with the picture names or were unrelated to the picture names. The relative timing of distractor and picture presentation was varied. Compared with unrelated distractors, both types of related distractors facilitated picture naming under certain timing conditions. Begin-related distractors facilitated the naming responses if the shared segments began 150 ms before, at, or 150 ms after picture onset. By contrast, end-related distractors only facilitated the responses if the shared segments began at or 150 ms after picture onset. The results suggest that the phonological encoding of the beginning of a word is initiated before the encoding of its end.

Abstract

Eight experiments were carried out investigating whether different parts of a syllable must be phonologically encoded in a specific order or whether they can be encoded in any order. A speech production task was used in which the subjects in each test trial had to utter one out of three or five response words as quickly as possible. In the so-called homogeneous condition these words were related in form, while in the heterogeneous condition they were unrelated in form. For monosyllabic response words shorter reaction times were obtained in the homogeneous than in the heterogeneous condition when the words had the same onset, but not when they had the same rhyme. Similarly, for disyllabic response words, the reaction times were shorter in the homogeneous than in the heterogeneous condition when the words shared only the onset of the first syllable, but not when they shared only its rhyme. Furthermore, a stronger facilitatory effect was observed when the words had the entire first syllable in common than when they only shared the onset, or the onset and the nucleus, but not the coda of the first syllable. These results suggest that syllables are phonologically encoded in two ordered steps, the first of which is dedicated to the onset and the second to the rhyme.

Abstract

Eye movements have been shown to reflect word recognition and language comprehension processes occurring during reading and auditory language comprehension. The present study examines whether the eye movements speakers make during object naming similarly reflect speech planning processes. In Experiment 1, speakers named object pairs saying, for instance, 'scooter and hat'. The objects were presented as ordinary line drawings or with partly dele:ed contours and had high or low frequency names. Contour type and frequency both significantly affected the mean naming latencies and the mean time spent looking at the objects. The frequency effects disappeared in Experiment 2, in which the participants categorized the objects instead of naming them. This suggests that the frequency effects of Experiment 1 arose during lexical retrieval. We conclude that eye movements during object naming indeed reflect linguistic planning processes and that the speakers' decision to move their eyes from one object to the next is contingent upon the retrieval of the phonological form of the object names.

Abstract

Refers to Yasuyo Minagawa-Kawai, Alejandrina Cristià, Emmanuel Dupoux "Cerebral lateralization and early speech acquisition: A developmental scenario" Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 1, Issue 3, July 2011, Pages 217-232

Abstract

We investigated whether levels of reading ability attained through formal literacy are related to anticipatory language-mediated eye movements. Indian low and high literates listened to simple spoken sentences containing a target word (e.g., "door") while at the same time looking at a visual display of four objects (a target, i.e. the door, and three distractors). The spoken sentences were constructed in such a way that participants could use semantic, associative, and syntactic information from adjectives and particles (preceding the critical noun) to anticipate the visual target objects. High literates started to shift their eye gaze to the target objects well before target word onset. In the low literacy group this shift of eye gaze occurred only when the target noun (i.e. "door") was heard, more than a second later. Our findings suggest that formal literacy may be important for the fine-tuning of language-mediated anticipatory mechanisms, abilities which proficient language users can then exploit for other cognitive activities such as spoken language-mediated eye
gaze. In the conclusion, we discuss three potential mechanisms of how reading acquisition and practice may contribute to the differences in predictive spoken language processing between low and high literates.

Abstract

Our knowledge of speech perception is largely based on experiments conducted with carefully recorded clear speech presented under good listening conditions to undistracted listeners - a near-ideal situation, in other words. But the reality poses a set of different challenges. First of all, listeners may need to divide their attention between speech comprehension and another task (e.g., driving). Outside the laboratory, the speech signal is often slurred by less than careful pronunciation and the listener has to deal with background noise. Moreover, in a globalized world, listeners need to understand speech in more than their native language. Relatedly, the speakers we listen to often have a different language background so we have to deal with a foreign or regional accent we are not familiar with. Finally, outside the laboratory, speech perception is not an end in itself, but rather a mean to contribute to a conversation. Listeners do not only need to understand the speech they are hearing, they also need to use this information to plan and time their own responses. For this special topic, we invite papers that address any of these ecological aspects of speech perception.

Abstract

Understanding foreign speech is difficult, in part because of unusual mappings between sounds and words. It is known that listeners in their native language can use lexical knowledge (about how words ought to sound) to learn how to interpret unusual speech-sounds. We therefore investigated whether subtitles, which provide lexical information, support perceptual learning about foreign speech. Dutch participants, unfamiliar with Scottish and Australian regional accents of English, watched Scottish or Australian English videos with Dutch, English or no subtitles, and then repeated audio fragments of both accents. Repetition of novel fragments was worse after Dutch-subtitle exposure but better after English-subtitle exposure. Native-language subtitles appear to create lexical interference, but foreign-language subtitles assist speech learning by indicating which words (and hence sounds) are being spoken.

Abstract

Two experiments examined how Dutch listeners deal with the effects of connected-speech processes, specifically those arising from word-final /t/ reduction (e.g., whether Dutch [tas] is tas, bag, or a reduced-/t/ version of tast, touch). Eye movements of Dutch participants were tracked as they looked at arrays containing 4 printed words, each associated with a geometrical shape. Minimal pairs (e.g., tas/tast) were either both above (boven) or both next to (naast) different shapes. Spoken instructions (e.g., “Klik op het woordje tas boven de ster,” [Click on the word bag above the star]) thus became unambiguous only on their final words. Prior to disambiguation, listeners' fixations were drawn to /t/-final words more when boven than when naast followed the ambiguous sequences. This behavior reflects Dutch speech-production data: /t/ is reduced more before /b/ than before /n/. We thus argue that probabilistic knowledge about the effect of following context in speech production is used prelexically in perception to help resolve lexical ambiguities caused by continuous-speech processes.

Abstract

Casual speech processes, such as /t/-reduction, make word recognition harder. Additionally, word-recognition is also harder in a second language (L2). Combining these challenges, we investigated whether L2 learners have recourse to knowledge from their native language (L1) when dealing with casual-speech processes in their L2. In three experiments, production and perception of /t/-reduction was investigated. An initial production experiment showed that /t/-reduction occurred in both languages and patterned similarly in proper nouns but differed when /t/ was a verbal inflection. Two perception experiments compared the performance of German learners of Dutch with that of native speakers for nouns and verbs. Mirroring the production patterns, German learners' performance strongly resembled that of native Dutch listeners when the reduced /t/ was part of a word stem, but deviated where /t/ was a verbal inflection. These results suggest that a casual speech process in a second language is problematic for learners when the process is not known from the leaner's native language, similar to what has been observed for phoneme contrasts.

Abstract

World knowledge influences how we perceive the world. This study shows that this influence is at least partly mediated by declarative memory. Dutch and German participants categorized hues from a yellow-to-orange continuum on stimuli that were prototypically orange or yellow and that were also associated with these color labels. Both groups gave more “yellow” responses if an ambiguous hue occurred on a prototypically yellow stimulus. The language groups were also tested on a stimulus (traffic light) that is associated with the label orange in Dutch and with the label yellow in German, even though the objective color is the same for both populations. Dutch observers categorized this stimulus as orange more often than German observers, in line with the assumption that declarative knowledge mediates the influence of world knowledge on color categorization.

Abstract

Sensorimotor areas activate to action- and object-related words, but their role in abstract meaning processing is still debated. Abstract emotion words denoting body internal states are a critical test case because they lack referential links to objects. If actions expressing emotion are crucial for learning correspondences between word forms and emotions, emotion word–evoked activity should emerge in motor brain systems controlling the face and arms, which typically express emotions. To test this hypothesis, we recruited 18 native speakers and used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activation evoked by abstract emotion words to that by face- and arm-related action words. In addition to limbic regions, emotion words indeed sparked precentral cortex, including body-part–specific areas activated somatotopically by face words or arm words. Control items, including hash mark strings and animal words, failed to activate precentral areas. We conclude that, similar to their role in action word processing, activation of frontocentral motor systems in the dorsal stream reflects the semantic binding of sign and meaning of abstract words denoting emotions and possibly other body internal states.

Abstract

We report a genome-wide assessment of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variants (CNVs) in schizophrenia. We investigated SNPs using 871 patients and 863 controls, following up the top hits in four independent cohorts comprising 1,460 patients and 12,995 controls, all of European origin. We found no genome-wide significant associations, nor could we provide support for any previously reported candidate gene or genome-wide associations. We went on to examine CNVs using a subset of 1,013 cases and 1,084 controls of European ancestry, and a further set of 60 cases and 64 controls of African ancestry. We found that eight cases and zero controls carried deletions greater than 2 Mb, of which two, at 8p22 and 16p13.11-p12.4, are newly reported here. A further evaluation of 1,378 controls identified no deletions greater than 2 Mb, suggesting a high prior probability of disease involvement when such deletions are observed in cases. We also provide further evidence for some smaller, previously reported, schizophrenia-associated CNVs, such as those in NRXN1 and APBA2. We could not provide strong support for the hypothesis that schizophrenia patients have a significantly greater “load” of large (>100 kb), rare CNVs, nor could we find common CNVs that associate with schizophrenia. Finally, we did not provide support for the suggestion that schizophrenia-associated CNVs may preferentially disrupt genes in neurodevelopmental pathways. Collectively, these analyses provide the first integrated study of SNPs and CNVs in schizophrenia and support the emerging view that rare deleterious variants may be more important in schizophrenia predisposition than common polymorphisms. While our analyses do not suggest that implicated CNVs impinge on particular key pathways, we do support the contribution of specific genomic regions in schizophrenia, presumably due to recurrent mutation. On balance, these data suggest that very few schizophrenia patients share identical genomic causation, potentially complicating efforts to personalize treatment regimens.

Abstract

Specific language impairment (SLI) is a common developmental disorder haracterized by difficulties in language acquisition despite otherwise normal development and in the absence of any obvious explanatory factors. We performed a high-density screen of SLI1, a region of chromosome 16q that shows highly significant and consistent linkage to nonword repetition, a measure of phonological short-term memory that is commonly impaired in SLI. Using two independent language-impaired samples, one family-based (211 families) and another selected from a population cohort on the basis of extreme language measures (490 cases), we detected association to two genes in the SLI1 region: that encoding c-maf-inducing protein (CMIP, minP = 5.5 × 10−7 at rs6564903) and that encoding calcium-transporting ATPase, type2C, member2 (ATP2C2, minP = 2.0 × 10−5 at rs11860694). Regression modeling indicated that each of these loci exerts an independent effect upon nonword repetition ability. Despite the consistent findings in language-impaired samples, investigation in a large unselected cohort (n = 3612) did not detect association. We therefore propose that variants in CMIP and ATP2C2 act to modulate phonological short-term memory primarily in the context of language impairment. As such, this investigation supports the hypothesis that some causes of language impairment are distinct from factors that influence normal language variation. This work therefore implicates CMIP and ATP2C2 in the etiology of SLI and provides molecular evidence for the importance of phonological short-term memory in language acquisition.

Abstract

The ability to design tailored messages for specific listeners is an important aspect of
human communication. The present study investigates whether a mere belief about an
addressee’s identity influences the generation and production of a communicative message in
a novel, non-verbal communication task. Participants were made to believe they were playing a game with a child or an adult partner, while a confederate acted as both child
and adult partners with matched performance and response times. The participants’ belief
influenced their behavior, spending longer when interacting with the presumed child
addressee, but only during communicative portions of the game, i.e. using time as a tool
to place emphasis on target information. This communicative adaptation attenuated with
experience, and it was related to personality traits, namely Empathy and Need for Cognition
measures. Overall, these findings indicate that novel nonverbal communicative interactions
are selected according to a socio-centric perspective, and they are strongly
influenced by participants’ traits.

Abstract

The present study discusses psycholinguistic evidence for a difference between paradigmatic and extraparadigmatic morphology by investigating the processing of Finnish inflected and cliticized words. The data are derived from three sources of Finnish: from single-word reading performance in an agrammatic deep dyslectic speaker, as well as from visual lexical decision and wordness/learnability ratings of cliticized vs. inflected items by normal Finnish speakers. The agrammatic speaker showed awareness of the suffixes in multimorphemic words, including clitics, since he attempted to fill in this slot with morphological material. However, he never produced a clitic — either as the correct response or as an error — in any morphological configuration (simplex, derived, inflected, compound). Moreover, he produced more nominative singular errors for case-inflected nouns than he did for the cliticized words, a pattern that is expected if case-inflected forms were closely associated with their lexical heads, i.e., if they were paradigmatic and cliticized words were not. Furthermore, a visual lexical decision task with normal speakers of Finnish, showed an additional processing cost (longer latencies and more errors on cliticized than on case-inflected noun forms). Finally, a rating task indicated no difference in relative wordness between these two types of words. However, the same cliticized words were judged harder to learn as L2 items than the inflected words, most probably due to their conceptual/semantic properties, in other words due to their lack of word-level translation equivalents in SAVE languages. Taken together, the present results suggest that the distinction between paradigmatic and extraparadigmatic morphology is psychologically real.

Abstract

The aim of this event-related fMRI study was to investigate the cortical networks involved in case processing, an operation that is crucial to language comprehension yet whose neural underpinnings are not well-understood. What is the relationship of these networks to those that serve other aspects of syntactic and semantic processing? Participants read Basque sentences that contained case violations, number agreement violations or semantic anomalies, or that were both syntactically and semantically correct. Case violations elicited activity increases, compared to correct control sentences, in a set of parietal regions including the posterior cingulate, the precuneus, and the left and right inferior parietal lobules. Number agreement violations also elicited activity increases in left and right inferior parietal regions, and additional activations in the left and right middle frontal gyrus. Regions-of-interest analyses showed that almost all of the clusters that were responsive to case or number agreement violations did not differentiate between these two. In contrast, the left and right anterior inferior frontal gyrus and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex were only sensitive to semantic violations. Our results suggest that whereas syntactic and semantic anomalies clearly recruit distinct neural circuits, case, and number violations recruit largely overlapping neural circuits and that the distinction between the two rests on the relative contributions of parietal and prefrontal regions, respectively. Furthermore, our results are consistent with recently reported contributions of bilateral parietal and dorsolateral brain regions to syntactic processing, pointing towards potential extensions of current neurocognitive theories of language. Hum Brain Mapp, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Abstract

What makes a proposition true or false has traditionally played an essential role in philosophical and linguistic theories of meaning. A comprehensive neurobiological theory of language must ultimately be able to explain the combined contributions of real-world truth-value and discourse context to sentence meaning. This fMRI study investigated the neural circuits that are sensitive to the propositional truth-value of sentences about counterfactual worlds, aiming to reveal differential hemispheric sensitivity of the inferior prefrontal gyri to counterfactual truth-value and real-world truth-value. Participants read true or false counterfactual conditional sentences (“If N.A.S.A. had not developed its Apollo Project, the first country to land on the moon would be Russia/America”) and real-world sentences (“Because N.A.S.A. developed its Apollo Project, the first country to land on the moon has been America/Russia”) that were matched on contextual constraint and truth-value. ROI analyses showed that whereas the left BA 47 showed similar activity increases to counterfactual false sentences and to real-world false sentences (compared to true sentences), the right BA 47 showed a larger increase for counterfactual false sentences. Moreover, whole-brain analyses revealed a distributed neural circuit for dealing with propositional truth-value. These results constitute the first evidence for hemispheric differences in processing counterfactual truth-value and real-world truth-value, and point toward additional right hemisphere involvement in counterfactual comprehension.

Abstract

Propositional truth-value can be a defining feature of a sentence’s relevance to the unfolding discourse, and establishing propositional truth-value in context can be key to successful interpretation. In the current study, we investigate its role in the comprehension of counterfactual conditionals, which describe imaginary consequences of hypothetical events, and are thought to require keeping in mind both what is true and what is false. Pre-stored real-world knowledge may therefore intrude upon and delay counterfactual comprehension, which is predicted by some accounts of discourse comprehension, and has been observed during online comprehension. The impact of propositional truth-value may thus be delayed in counterfactual conditionals, as also claimed for sentences containing other types of logical operators (e.g., negation, scalar quantifiers). In an event-related potential (ERP) experiment, we investigated the impact of propositional truth-value when described consequences are both true and predictable given the counterfactual premise. False words elicited larger N400 ERPs than true words, in negated counterfactual sentences (e.g., “If N.A.S.A. had not developed its Apollo Project, the first country to land on the moon would have been Russia/America”) and real-world sentences (e.g., “Because N.A.S.A. developed its Apollo Project, the first country to land on the moon was America/Russia”) alike. These indistinguishable N400 effects of propositional truth-value, elicited by opposite word pairs, argue against disruptions by real-world knowledge during counterfactual comprehension, and suggest that incoming words are mapped onto the counterfactual context without any delay. Thus, provided a sufficiently constraining context, propositional truth-value rapidly impacts ongoing semantic processing, be the proposition factual or counterfactual.