Publications

Displaying 301 - 400 of 1101
  • Floyd, S. (2013). Semantic transparency and cultural calquing in the Northwest Amazon. In P. Epps, & K. Stenzel (Eds.), Upper Rio Negro: Cultural and linguistic interaction in northwestern Amazonia (pp. 271-308). Rio de Janiero: Museu do Indio. Retrieved from http://www.museunacional.ufrj.br/ppgas/livros_ele.html.

    Abstract

    The ethnographic literature has sometimes described parts of the northwest Amazon as areas of shared culture across linguistic groups. This paper illustrates how a principle of semantic transparency across languages is a key means of establishing elements of a common regional culture through practices like the calquing of ethnonyms and toponyms so that they are semantically, but not phonologically, equivalent across languages. It places the upper Rio Negro area of the northwest Amazon in a general discussion of cross-linguistic naming practices in South America and considers the extent to which a preference for semantic transparency can be linked to cases of widespread cultural ‘calquing’, in which culturally-important meanings are kept similar across different linguistic systems. It also addresses the principle of semantic transparency beyond specific referential phrases and into larger discourse structures. It concludes that an attention to semiotic practices in multilingual settings can provide new and more complex ways of thinking about the idea of shared culture.
  • Forkel, S. J., Rogalski, E., Drossinos Sancho, N., D'Anna, L., Luque Laguna, P., Sridhar, J., Dell'Acqua, F., Weintraub, S., Thompson, C., Mesulam, M.-M., & Catani, M. (2020). Anatomical evidence of an indirect pathway for word repetition. Neurology, 94, e594-e606. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000008746.

    Abstract



    Objective: To combine MRI-based cortical morphometry and diffusion white matter tractography to describe the anatomical correlates of repetition deficits in patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA).

    Methods: The traditional anatomical model of language identifies a network for word repetition that includes Wernicke and Broca regions directly connected via the arcuate fasciculus. Recent tractography findings of an indirect pathway between Wernicke and Broca regions suggest a critical role of the inferior parietal lobe for repetition. To test whether repetition deficits are associated with damage to the direct or indirect pathway between both regions, tractography analysis was performed in 30 patients with PPA (64.27 ± 8.51 years) and 22 healthy controls. Cortical volume measurements were also extracted from 8 perisylvian language areas connected by the direct and indirect pathways.

    Results: Compared to healthy controls, patients with PPA presented with reduced performance in repetition tasks and increased damage to most of the perisylvian cortical regions and their connections through the indirect pathway. Repetition deficits were prominent in patients with cortical atrophy of the temporo-parietal region with volumetric reductions of the indirect pathway.

    Conclusions: The results suggest that in PPA, deficits in repetition are due to damage to the temporo-parietal cortex and its connections to Wernicke and Broca regions. We therefore propose a revised language model that also includes an indirect pathway for repetition, which has important clinical implications for the functional mapping and treatment of neurologic patients.
  • Forkel, S. J., & Thiebaut de Schotten, M. (2020). Towards metabolic disconnection – symptom mapping. Brain, 143(3), 718-721. doi:10.1093/brain/awaa060.

    Abstract

    This scientific commentary refers to ‘Metabolic lesion-deficit mapping of human cognition’ by Jha etal.
  • Fox, E. (2020). Literary Jerry and justice. In M. E. Poulsen (Ed.), The Jerome Bruner Library: From New York to Nijmegen. Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Fox, N. P., Leonard, M., Sjerps, M. J., & Chang, E. F. (2020). Transformation of a temporal speech cue to a spatial neural code in human auditory cortex. eLife, 9: e53051. doi:10.7554/eLife.53051.

    Abstract

    In speech, listeners extract continuously-varying spectrotemporal cues from the acoustic signal to perceive discrete phonetic categories. Spectral cues are spatially encoded in the amplitude of responses in phonetically-tuned neural populations in auditory cortex. It remains unknown whether similar neurophysiological mechanisms encode temporal cues like voice-onset time (VOT), which distinguishes sounds like /b/ and/p/. We used direct brain recordings in humans to investigate the neural encoding of temporal speech cues with a VOT continuum from /ba/ to /pa/. We found that distinct neural populations respond preferentially to VOTs from one phonetic category, and are also sensitive to sub-phonetic VOT differences within a population’s preferred category. In a simple neural network model, simulated populations tuned to detect either temporal gaps or coincidences between spectral cues captured encoding patterns observed in real neural data. These results demonstrate that a spatial/amplitude neural code underlies the cortical representation of both spectral and temporal speech cues.

    Additional information

    Data and code
  • Fradera, A., & Sauter, D. (2004). Make yourself happy. In T. Stafford, & M. Webb (Eds.), Mind hacks: tips & tools for using your brain (pp. 325-327). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.

    Abstract

    Turn on your affective system by tweaking your face muscles - or getting an eyeful of someone else doing the same.
  • Fradera, A., & Sauter, D. (2004). Reminisce hot and cold. In T. Stafford, & M. Webb (Eds.), Mind hacks: tips & tools for using your brain (pp. 327-331). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.

    Abstract

    Find the fire that's cooking your memory systems.
  • Fradera, A., & Sauter, D. (2004). Signal emotion. In T. Stafford, & M. Webb (Eds.), Mind hacks: tips & tools for using your brain (pp. 320-324). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.

    Abstract

    Emotions are powerful on the inside but often displayed in subtle ways on the outside. Are these displays culturally dependent or universal?
  • Frances, C., De Bruin, A., & Duñabeitia, J. A. (2020). The influence of emotional and foreign language context in content learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 42(4), 891-903.
  • Frances, C., Martin, C. D., & Andoni, D. J. (2020). The effects of contextual diversity on incidental vocabulary learning in the native and a foreign language. Scientific Reports, 10: 13967. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-70922-1.

    Abstract

    Vocabulary learning occurs throughout the lifespan, often implicitly. For foreign language learners,
    this is particularly challenging as they must acquire a large number of new words with little exposure.
    In the present study, we explore the effects of contextual diversity—namely, the number of texts a
    word appears in—on native and foreign language word learning. Participants read several texts that
    had novel pseudowords replacing high-frequency words. The total number of encounters with the
    novel words was held constant, but they appeared in 1, 2, 4, or 8 texts. In addition, some participants
    read the texts in Spanish (their native language) and others in English (their foreign language). We
    found that increasing contextual diversity improved recall and recognition of the word, as well as the
    ability to match the word with its meaning while keeping comprehension unimpaired. Using a foreign
    language only affected performance in the matching task, where participants had to quickly identify
    the meaning of the word. Results are discussed in the greater context of the word learning and foreign
    language literature as well as their importance as a teaching tool.
  • Frances, C., Pueyo, S., Anaya, V., & Dunabeitia Landaburu, J. A. (2020). Interpreting foreign smiles: language context and type of scale in the assessment of perceived happiness and sadness. Psicológica, 41, 21-38. doi:10.2478/psicolj-2020-0002.

    Abstract

    The current study focuses on how different scales with varying demands can
    affect our subjective assessments. We carried out 2 experiments in which we
    asked participants to rate how happy or sad morphed images of faces looked.
    The two extremes were the original happy and original sad faces with 4
    morphs in between. We manipulated language of the task—namely, half of
    the participants carried it out in their native language, Spanish, and the other
    half in their foreign language, English—and type of scale. Within type of
    scale, we compared verbal and brightness scales. We found that, while
    language did not have an effect on the assessment, type of scale did. The
    brightness scale led to overall higher ratings, i.e., assessing all faces as
    somewhat happier. This provides a limitation on the foreign language effect,
    as well as evidence for the influence of the cognitive demands of a scale on
    emotionality assessments.
  • Frances, C., De Bruin, A., & Duñabeitia, J. A. (2020). The effects of language and emotionality of stimuli on vocabulary learning. PLoS One, 15(10): e0240252. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0240252.

    Abstract

    Learning new content and vocabulary in a foreign language can be particularly difficult. Yet,
    there are educational programs that require people to study in a language they are not
    native speakers of. For this reason, it is important to understand how these learning processes work and possibly differ from native language learning, as well as to develop strategies to ease this process. The current study takes advantage of emotionality—operationally
    defined as positive valence and high arousal—to improve memory. In two experiments, the
    present paper addresses whether participants have more difficulty learning the names of
    objects they have never seen before in their foreign language and whether embedding them
    in a positive semantic context can help make learning easier. With this in mind, we had participants (with a minimum of a B2 level of English) in two experiments (43 participants in
    Experiment 1 and 54 in Experiment 2) read descriptions of made-up objects—either positive
    or neutral and either in their native or a foreign language. The effects of language varied
    with the difficulty of the task and measure used. In both cases, learning the words in a positive context improved learning. Importantly, the effect of emotionality was not modulated by
    language, suggesting that the effects of emotionality are independent of language and could
    potentially be a useful tool for improving foreign language vocabulary learning.

    Additional information

    Supporting information
  • Francks, C., Paracchini, S., Smith, S. D., Richardson, A. J., Scerri, T. S., Cardon, L. R., Marlow, A. J., MacPhie, I. L., Walter, J., Pennington, B. F., Fisher, S. E., Olson, R. K., DeFries, J. C., Stein, J. F., & Monaco, A. P. (2004). A 77-kilobase region of chromosome 6p22.2 is associated with dyslexia in families from the United Kingdom and from the United States. American Journal of Human Genetics, 75(6), 1046-1058. doi:10.1086/426404.

    Abstract

    Several quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that influence developmental dyslexia (reading disability [RD]) have been mapped to chromosome regions by linkage analysis. The most consistently replicated area of linkage is on chromosome 6p23-21.3. We used association analysis in 223 siblings from the United Kingdom to identify an underlying QTL on 6p22.2. Our association study implicates a 77-kb region spanning the gene TTRAP and the first four exons of the neighboring uncharacterized gene KIAA0319. The region of association is also directly upstream of a third gene, THEM2. We found evidence of these associations in a second sample of siblings from the United Kingdom, as well as in an independent sample of twin-based sibships from Colorado. One main RD risk haplotype that has a frequency of ∼12% was found in both the U.K. and U.S. samples. The haplotype is not distinguished by any protein-coding polymorphisms, and, therefore, the functional variation may relate to gene expression. The QTL influences a broad range of reading-related cognitive abilities but has no significant impact on general cognitive performance in these samples. In addition, the QTL effect may be largely limited to the severe range of reading disability.
  • Frank, S. L. (2004). Computational modeling of discourse comprehension. PhD Thesis, Tilburg University, Tilburg.
  • Friedrich, P., Thiebaut de Schotten, M., Forkel, S. J., Stacho, M., & Howells, H. (2020). An ancestral anatomical and spatial bias for visually guided behavior. PNAS, 117(5), 2251-2252. doi:10.1073/pnas.1918402117.

    Abstract

    Human behavioral asymmetries are commonly studied in the context of structural cortical and connectional asymmetries. Within this framework, Sreenivasan and Sridharan (1) provide intriguing evidence of a relationship between visual asymmetries and the lateralization of superior colliculi connections—a phylogenetically older mesencephalic structure. Specifically, response facilitation for cued locations (i.e., choice bias) in the contralateral hemifield was associated with differences in the connectivity of the superior colliculus. Given that the superior colliculus has a structural homolog—the optic tectum—which can be traced across all Vertebrata, these results may have meaningful evolutionary ramifications.
  • Friedrich, P., Forkel, S. J., & Thiebaut de Schotten, M. (2020). Mapping the principal gradient onto the corpus callosum. NeuroImage, 223: 117317. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117317.

    Abstract

    Gradients capture some of the variance of the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) signal. Amongst these, the principal gradient depicts a functional processing hierarchy that spans from sensory-motor cortices to regions of the default-mode network. While the cortex has been well characterised in terms of gradients little is known about its underlying white matter. For instance, comprehensive mapping of the principal gradient on the largest white matter tract, the corpus callosum, is still missing. Here, we mapped the principal gradient onto the midsection of the corpus callosum using the 7T human connectome project dataset. We further explored how quantitative measures and variability in callosal midsection connectivity relate to the principal gradient values. In so doing, we demonstrated that the extreme values of the principal gradient are located within the callosal genu and the posterior body, have lower connectivity variability but a larger spatial extent along the midsection of the corpus callosum than mid-range values. Our results shed light on the relationship between the brain's functional hierarchy and the corpus callosum. We further speculate about how these results may bridge the gap between functional hierarchy, brain asymmetries, and evolution.

    Additional information

    supplementary file
  • Frost, R. L. A., Dunn, K., Christiansen, M. H., Gómez, R. L., & Monaghan, P. (2020). Exploring the "anchor word" effect in infants: Segmentation and categorisation of speech with and without high frequency words. PLoS One, 15(12): e0243436. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0243436.

    Abstract

    High frequency words play a key role in language acquisition, with recent work suggesting they may serve both speech segmentation and lexical categorisation. However, it is not yet known whether infants can detect novel high frequency words in continuous speech, nor whether they can use them to help learning for segmentation and categorisation at the same time. For instance, when hearing “you eat the biscuit”, can children use the high-frequency words “you” and “the” to segment out “eat” and “biscuit”, and determine their respective lexical categories? We tested this in two experiments. In Experiment 1, we familiarised 12-month-old infants with continuous artificial speech comprising repetitions of target words, which were preceded by high-frequency marker words that distinguished the targets into two distributional categories. In Experiment 2, we repeated the task using the same language but with additional phonological cues to word and category structure. In both studies, we measured learning with head-turn preference tests of segmentation and categorisation, and compared performance against a control group that heard the artificial speech without the marker words (i.e., just the targets). There was no evidence that high frequency words helped either speech segmentation or grammatical categorisation. However, segmentation was seen to improve when the distributional information was supplemented with phonological cues (Experiment 2). In both experiments, exploratory analysis indicated that infants’ looking behaviour was related to their linguistic maturity (indexed by infants’ vocabulary scores) with infants with high versus low vocabulary scores displaying novelty and familiarity preferences, respectively. We propose that high-frequency words must reach a critical threshold of familiarity before they can be of significant benefit to learning.

    Additional information

    data
  • Frost, R. L. A., Jessop, A., Durrant, S., Peter, M. S., Bidgood, A., Pine, J. M., Rowland, C. F., & Monaghan, P. (2020). Non-adjacent dependency learning in infancy, and its link to language development. Cognitive Psychology, 120: 101291. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101291.

    Abstract

    To acquire language, infants must learn how to identify words and linguistic structure in speech. Statistical learning has been suggested to assist both of these tasks. However, infants’ capacity to use statistics to discover words and structure together remains unclear. Further, it is not yet known how infants’ statistical learning ability relates to their language development. We trained 17-month-old infants on an artificial language comprising non-adjacent dependencies, and examined their looking times on tasks assessing sensitivity to words and structure using an eye-tracked head-turn-preference paradigm. We measured infants’ vocabulary size using a Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) concurrently and at 19, 21, 24, 25, 27, and 30 months to relate performance to language development. Infants could segment the words from speech, demonstrated by a significant difference in looking times to words versus part-words. Infants’ segmentation performance was significantly related to their vocabulary size (receptive and expressive) both currently, and over time (receptive until 24 months, expressive until 30 months), but was not related to the rate of vocabulary growth. The data also suggest infants may have developed sensitivity to generalised structure, indicating similar statistical learning mechanisms may contribute to the discovery of words and structure in speech, but this was not related to vocabulary size.

    Additional information

    Supplementary data
  • Frost, R. L. A., & Monaghan, P. (2020). Insights from studying statistical learning. In C. F. Rowland, A. L. Theakston, B. Ambridge, & K. E. Twomey (Eds.), Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: How children use their environment to learn (pp. 65-89). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/tilar.27.03fro.

    Abstract

    Acquiring language is notoriously complex, yet for the majority of children this feat is accomplished with remarkable ease. Usage-based accounts of language acquisition suggest that this success can be largely attributed to the wealth of experience with language that children accumulate over the course of language acquisition. One field of research that is heavily underpinned by this principle of experience is statistical learning, which posits that learners can perform powerful computations over the distribution of information in a given input, which can help them to discern precisely how that input is structured, and how it operates. A growing body of work brings this notion to bear in the field of language acquisition, due to a developing understanding of the richness of the statistical information contained in speech. In this chapter we discuss the role that statistical learning plays in language acquisition, emphasising the importance of both the distribution of information within language, and the situation in which language is being learnt. First, we address the types of statistical learning that apply to a range of language learning tasks, asking whether the statistical processes purported to support language learning are the same or distinct across different tasks in language acquisition. Second, we expand the perspective on what counts as environmental input, by determining how statistical learning operates over the situated learning environment, and not just sequences of sounds in utterances. Finally, we address the role of variability in children’s input, and examine how statistical learning can accommodate (and perhaps even exploit) this during language acquisition.
  • Fueller, C., Loescher, J., & Indefrey, P. (2013). Writing superiority in cued recall. Frontiers in Psychology, 4: 764. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00764.

    Abstract

    In list learning paradigms with free recall, written recall has been found to be less susceptible to intrusions of related concepts than spoken recall when the list items had been visually presented. This effect has been ascribed to the use of stored orthographic representations from the study phase during written recall (Kellogg, 2001). In other memory retrieval paradigms, by contrast, either better recall for modality-congruent items or an input-independent writing superiority effect have been found (Grabowski, 2005). In a series of four experiments using a paired associate learning paradigm we tested (a) whether output modality effects on verbal recall can be replicated in a paradigm that does not involve the rejection of semantically related intrusion words, (b) whether a possible superior performance for written recall was due to a slower response onset for writing as compared to speaking in immediate recall, and (c) whether the performance in paired associate word recall was correlated with performance in an additional episodic memory recall task. We observed better written recall in the first half of the recall phase, irrespective of the modality in which the material was presented upon encoding. An explanation for this effect based on longer response latencies for writing and hence more time for memory retrieval could be ruled out by showing that the effect persisted in delayed response versions of the task. Although there was some evidence that stored additional episodic information may contribute to the successful retrieval of associate words, this evidence was only found in the immediate response experiments and hence is most likely independent from the observed output modality effect. In sum, our results from a paired associate learning paradigm suggest that superior performance for written vs. spoken recall cannot be (solely) explained in terms of additional access to stored orthographic representations from the encoding phase. Our findings rather suggest a general writing-superiority effect at the time of memory retrieval.
  • Gaby, A. R. (2004). Extended functions of Thaayorre body part terms. Papers in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 24-34.
  • Galbiati, A., Sforza, M., Poletti, M., Verga, L., Zucconi, M., Ferini-Strambi, L., & Castronovo, V. (2020). Insomnia patients with subjective short total sleep time have a boosted response to cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia despite residual symptoms. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 18(1), 58-67. doi:10.1080/15402002.2018.1545650.

    Abstract

    Background: Two distinct insomnia disorder (ID) phenotypes have been proposed, distinguished on the basis of an objective total sleep time less or more than 6 hr. In particular, it has been recently reported that patients with objective short sleep duration have a blunted response to cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). The aim of this study was to investigate the differences of CBT-I response in two groups of ID patients subdivided according to total sleep time. Methods: Two hundred forty-six ID patients were subdivided into two groups, depending on their reported total sleep time (TST) assessed by sleep diaries. Patients with a TST greater than 6 hr were classified as “normal sleepers” (NS), while those with a total sleep time less than 6 hr were classified as “short sleepers” (SS). Results: The delta between Insomnia Severity Index scores and sleep efficiency at the beginning as compared to the end of the treatment was significantly higher for SS in comparison to NS, even if they still exhibit more insomnia symptoms. No difference was found between groups in terms of remitters; however, more responders were observed in the SS group in comparison to the NS group. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that ID patients with reported short total sleep time had a beneficial response to CBT-I of greater magnitude in comparison to NS. However, these patients may still experience the presence of residual insomnia symptoms after treatment.
  • Gallotto, S., Duecker, F., Ten Oever, S., Schuhmann, T., De Graaf, T. A., & Sack, A. T. (2020). Relating alpha power modulations to competing visuospatial attention theories. NeuroImage, 207: 116429. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116429.

    Abstract

    Visuospatial attention theories often propose hemispheric asymmetries underlying the control of attention. In general support of these theories, previous EEG/MEG studies have shown that spatial attention is associated with hemispheric modulation of posterior alpha power (gating by inhibition). However, since measures of alpha power are typically expressed as lateralization scores, or collapsed across left and right attention shifts, the individual hemispheric contribution to the attentional control mechanism remains unclear. This is, however, the most crucial and decisive aspect in which the currently competing attention theories continue to disagree. To resolve this long-standing conflict, we derived predictions regarding alpha power modulations from Heilman's hemispatial theory and Kinsbourne's interhemispheric competition theory and tested them empirically in an EEG experiment. We used an attention paradigm capable of isolating alpha power modulation in two attentional states, namely attentional bias in a neutral cue condition and spatial orienting following directional cues. Differential alpha modulations were found for both hemispheres across conditions. When anticipating peripheral visual targets without preceding directional cues (neutral condition), posterior alpha power in the left hemisphere was generally lower and more strongly modulated than in the right hemisphere, in line with the interhemispheric competition theory. Intriguingly, however, while alpha power in the right hemisphere was modulated by both, cue-directed leftward and rightward attention shifts, the left hemisphere only showed modulations by rightward shifts of spatial attention, in line with the hemispatial theory. This suggests that the two theories may not be mutually exclusive, but rather apply to different attentional states.
  • Ganushchak, L. Y., Krott, A., Frisson, S., & Meyer, A. S. (2013). Processing words and Short Message Service shortcuts in sentential contexts: An eye movement study. Applied Psycholinguistics, 34, 163-179. doi:10.1017/S0142716411000658.

    Abstract

    The present study investigated whether Short Message Service shortcuts are more difficult to process in sentence context than the spelled-out word equivalent and, if so, how any additional processing difficulty arises. Twenty-four student participants read 37 Short Message Service shortcuts and word equivalents embedded in semantically plausible and implausible contexts (e.g., He left/drank u/you a note) while their eye movements were recorded. There were effects of plausibility and spelling on early measures of processing difficulty (first fixation durations, gaze durations, skipping, and first-pass regression rates for the targets), but there were no interactions of plausibility and spelling. Late measures of processing difficulty (second run gaze duration and total fixation duration) were only affected by plausibility but not by spelling. These results suggest that shortcuts are harder to recognize, but that, once recognized, they are integrated into the sentence context as easily as ordinary words.
  • Garcia, R., Roeser, J., & Höhle, B. (2020). Children’s online use of word order and morphosyntactic markers in Tagalog thematic role assignment: An eye-tracking study. Journal of Child Language, 47(3), 533-555. doi:10.1017/S0305000919000618.

    Abstract

    We investigated whether Tagalog-speaking children incrementally interpret the first noun
    as the agent, even if verbal and nominal markers for assigning thematic roles are given
    early in Tagalog sentences. We asked five- and seven-year-old children and adult
    controls to select which of two pictures of reversible actions matched the sentence they
    heard, while their looks to the pictures were tracked. Accuracy and eye-tracking data
    showed that agent-initial sentences were easier to comprehend than patient-initial
    sentences, but the effect of word order was modulated by voice. Moreover, our eyetracking
    data provided evidence that, by the first noun phrase, seven-year-old children
    looked more to the target in the agent-initial compared to the patient-initial conditions,
    but this word order advantage was no longer observed by the second noun phrase. The
    findings support language processing and acquisition models which emphasize the role
    of frequency in developing heuristic strategies (e.g., Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006).
  • Garcia, R., & Kidd, E. (2020). The acquisition of the Tagalog symmetrical voice system: Evidence from structural priming. Language Learning and Development, 16(4), 399-425. doi:10.1080/15475441.2020.1814780.

    Abstract

    We report on two experiments that investigated the acquisition of the Tagalog symmetrical voice system, a typologically rare feature of Western Austronesian languages in which there are more than one basic transitive construction and no preference for agents to be syntactic subjects. In the experiments, 3-, 5-, and 7-year-old Tagalog-speaking children and adults completed a structural priming task that manipulated voice and word order, with the uniqueness of Tagalog allowing us to tease apart priming of thematic role order from that of syntactic roles. Participants heard a description of a picture showing a transitive action, and were then asked to complete a sentence of an unrelated picture using a voice-marked verb provided by the experimenter. Our results show that children gradually acquire an agent-before-patient preference, instead of having a default mapping of the agent to the first noun position. We also found an earlier mastery of the patient voice verbal and nominal marker configuration (patient is the subject), suggesting that children do not initially map the agent to the subject. Children were primed by thematic role but not syntactic role order, suggesting that they prioritize mapping of the thematic roles to sentence positions.
  • Garcia, M., & Ravignani, A. (2020). Acoustic allometry and vocal learning in mammals. Biology Letters, 16: 20200081. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2020.0081.

    Abstract

    Acoustic allometry is the study of how animal vocalisations reflect their body size. A key aim of this research is to identify outliers to acoustic allometry principles and pinpoint the evolutionary origins of such outliers. A parallel strand of research investigates species capable of vocal learning, the experience-driven ability to produce novel vocal signals through imitation or modification of existing vocalisations. Modification of vocalizations is a common feature found when studying both acoustic allometry and vocal learning. Yet, these two fields have only been investigated separately to date. Here, we review and connect acoustic allometry and vocal learning across mammalian clades, combining perspectives from bioacoustics, anatomy and evolutionary biology. Based on this, we hypothesize that, as a precursor to vocal learning, some species might have evolved the capacity for volitional vocal modulation via sexual selection for ‘dishonest’ signalling. We provide preliminary support for our hypothesis by showing significant associations between allometric deviation and vocal learning in a dataset of 164 mammals. Our work offers a testable framework for future empirical research linking allometric principles with the evolution of vocal learning.
  • Garcia, M., Theunissen, F., Sèbe, F., Clavel, J., Ravignani, A., Marin-Cudraz, T., Fuchs, J., & Mathevon, N. (2020). Evolution of communication signals and information during species radiation. Nature Communications, 11: 4970. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-18772-3.

    Abstract

    Communicating species identity is a key component of many animal signals. However, whether selection for species recognition systematically increases signal diversity during clade radiation remains debated. Here we show that in woodpecker drumming, a rhythmic signal used during mating and territorial defense, the amount of species identity information encoded remained stable during woodpeckers’ radiation. Acoustic analyses and evolutionary reconstructions show interchange among six main drumming types despite strong phylogenetic contingencies, suggesting evolutionary tinkering of drumming structure within a constrained acoustic space. Playback experiments and quantification of species discriminability demonstrate sufficient signal differentiation to support species recognition in local communities. Finally, we only find character displacement in the rare cases where sympatric species are also closely related. Overall, our results illustrate how historical contingencies and ecological interactions can promote conservatism in signals during a clade radiation without impairing the effectiveness of information transfer relevant to inter-specific discrimination.
  • Gauvin, H. S., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Huettig, F. (2013). Speech monitoring and phonologically-mediated eye gaze in language perception and production: A comparison using printed word eye-tracking. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7: 818. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00818.

    Abstract

    The Perceptual Loop Theory of speech monitoring assumes that speakers routinely inspect their inner speech. In contrast, Huettig and Hartsuiker (2010) observed that listening to one’s own speech during language production drives eye-movements to phonologically related printed words with a similar time-course as listening to someone else’s speech does in speech perception experiments. This suggests that speakers listen to their own overt speech, but not to their inner speech. However, a direct comparison between production and perception with the same stimuli and participants is lacking so far. The current printed word eye-tracking experiment therefore used a within-subjects design, combining production and perception. Displays showed four words, of which one, the target, either had to be named or was presented auditorily. Accompanying words were phonologically related, semantically related, or unrelated to the target. There were small increases in looks to phonological competitors with a similar time-course in both production and perception. Phonological effects in perception however lasted longer and had a much larger magnitude. We conjecture that this difference is related to a difference in predictability of one’s own and someone else’s speech, which in turn has consequences for lexical competition in other-perception and possibly suppression of activation in self-perception.
  • Gavin, M., Botero, C. A., Bowern, C., Colwell, R. K., Dunn, M., Dunn, R. R., Gray, R. D., Kirby, K. R., McCarter, J., Powell, A., Rangel, T. F., Steppe, J. R., Trautwein, M., Verdolin, J. L., & Yanega, G. (2013). Towards a mechanistic understanding of linguistic diversity. Bioscience, 63, 524-535. doi:10.1525/bio.2013.63.7.6.

    Abstract

    Our species displays remarkable linguistic diversity. While the uneven distribution of this diversity demands explanation, the drivers of these patterns have not been conclusively determined. We address this issue in two steps. First, we review previous empirical studies that have suggested environmental, geographical, and socio-cultural drivers of linguistic diversification. However, contradictory results and methodological variation make it difficult to draw general conclusions. Second, we outline a program for future research. We suggest that future analyses should account for interactions among causal factors, lack of spatial and phylogenetic independence of data, and transitory patterns. Recent analytical advances in biogeography and evolutionary biology, such as simulation modeling of diversity patterns, hold promise for testing four key mechanisms of language diversification proposed here: neutral change, population movement, contact, and selection. Future modeling approaches should also evaluate how the outcomes of these processes are influenced by demography, environmental heterogeneity, and time.
  • Geambasu, A., Toron, L., Ravignani, A., & Levelt, C. C. (2020). Rhythmic recursion? Human sensitivity to a Lindenmayer grammar with self-similar structure in a musical task. Music & Science. doi:10.1177%2F2059204320946615.

    Abstract

    Processing of recursion has been proposed as the foundation of human linguistic ability. Yet this ability may be shared with other domains, such as the musical or rhythmic domain. Lindenmayer grammars (L-systems) have been proposed as a recursive grammar for use in artificial grammar experiments to test recursive processing abilities, and previous work had shown that participants are able to learn such a grammar using linguistic stimuli (syllables). In the present work, we used two experimental paradigms (a yes/no task and a two-alternative forced choice) to test whether adult participants are able to learn a recursive Lindenmayer grammar composed of drum sounds. After a brief exposure phase, we found that participants at the group level were sensitive to the exposure grammar and capable of distinguishing the grammatical and ungrammatical test strings above chance level in both tasks. While we found evidence of participants’ sensitivity to a very complex L-system grammar in a non-linguistic, potentially musical domain, the results were not robust. We discuss the discrepancy within our results and with the previous literature using L-systems in the linguistic domain. Furthermore, we propose directions for future music cognition research using L-system grammars.
  • Gebre, B. G., Wittenburg, P., & Heskes, T. (2013). Automatic sign language identification. In Proceeding of the 20th IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) (pp. 2626-2630).

    Abstract

    We propose a Random-Forest based sign language identification system. The system uses low-level visual features and is based on the hypothesis that sign languages have varying distributions of phonemes (hand-shapes, locations and movements). We evaluated the system on two sign languages -- British SL and Greek SL, both taken from a publicly available corpus, called Dicta Sign Corpus. Achieved average F1 scores are about 95% - indicating that sign languages can be identified with high accuracy using only low-level visual features.
  • Gebre, B. G., Wittenburg, P., & Heskes, T. (2013). Automatic signer diarization - the mover is the signer approach. In Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW), 2013 IEEE Conference on (pp. 283-287). doi:10.1109/CVPRW.2013.49.

    Abstract

    We present a vision-based method for signer diarization -- the task of automatically determining "who signed when?" in a video. This task has similar motivations and applications as speaker diarization but has received little attention in the literature. In this paper, we motivate the problem and propose a method for solving it. The method is based on the hypothesis that signers make more movements than their interlocutors. Experiments on four videos (a total of 1.4 hours and each consisting of two signers) show the applicability of the method. The best diarization error rate (DER) obtained is 0.16.
  • Gebre, B. G., Zampieri, M., Wittenburg, P., & Heskes, T. (2013). Improving Native Language Identification with TF-IDF weighting. In Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (pp. 216-223).

    Abstract

    This paper presents a Native Language Identification (NLI) system based on TF-IDF weighting schemes and using linear classifiers - support vector machines, logistic regressions and perceptrons. The system was one of the participants of the 2013 NLI Shared Task in the closed-training track, achieving 0.814 overall accuracy for a set of 11 native languages. This accuracy was only 2.2 percentage points lower than the winner's performance. Furthermore, with subsequent evaluations using 10-fold cross-validation (as given by the organizers) on the combined training and development data, the best average accuracy obtained is 0.8455 and the features that contributed to this accuracy are the TF-IDF of the combined unigrams and bigrams of words.
  • Gebre, B. G., Wittenburg, P., & Heskes, T. (2013). The gesturer is the speaker. In Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2013) (pp. 3751-3755).

    Abstract

    We present and solve the speaker diarization problem in a novel way. We hypothesize that the gesturer is the speaker and that identifying the gesturer can be taken as identifying the active speaker. We provide evidence in support of the hypothesis from gesture literature and audio-visual synchrony studies. We also present a vision-only diarization algorithm that relies on gestures (i.e. upper body movements). Experiments carried out on 8.9 hours of a publicly available dataset (the AMI meeting data) show that diarization error rates as low as 15% can be achieved.
  • Gentner, D., Ozyurek, A., Gurcanli, O., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2013). Spatial language facilitates spatial cognition: Evidence from children who lack language input. Cognition, 127, 318-330. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.01.003.

    Abstract

    Does spatial language influence how people think about space? To address this question, we observed children who did not know a conventional language, and tested their performance on nonlinguistic spatial tasks. We studied deaf children living in Istanbul whose hearing losses prevented them from acquiring speech and whose hearing parents had not exposed them to sign. Lacking a conventional language, the children used gestures, called homesigns, to communicate. In Study 1, we asked whether homesigners used gesture to convey spatial relations, and found that they did not. In Study 2, we tested a new group of homesigners on a Spatial Mapping Task, and found that they performed significantly worse than hearing Turkish children who were matched to the deaf children on another cognitive task. The absence of spatial language thus went hand-in-hand with poor performance on the nonlinguistic spatial task, pointing to the importance of spatial language in thinking about space.
  • Gerakaki, S. (2020). The moment in between: Planning speech while listening. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Ghatan, P. H., Hsieh, J. C., Petersson, K. M., Stone-Elander, S., & Ingvar, M. (1998). Coexistence of attention-based facilitation and inhibition in the human cortex. NeuroImage, 7, 23-29.

    Abstract

    A key function of attention is to select an appropriate subset of available information by facilitation of attended processes and/or inhibition of irrelevant processing. Functional imaging studies, using positron emission tomography, have during different experimental tasks revealed decreased neuronal activity in areas that process input from unattended sensory modalities. It has been hypothesized that these decreases reflect a selective inhibitory modulation of nonrelevant cortical processing. In this study we addressed this question using a continuous arithmetical task with and without concomitant disturbing auditory input (task-irrelevant speech). During the arithmetical task, irrelevant speech did not affect task-performance but yielded decreased activity in the auditory and midcingulate cortices and increased activity in the left posterior parietal cortex. This pattern of modulation is consistent with a top down inhibitory modulation of a nonattended input to the auditory cortex and a coexisting, attention-based facilitation of taskrelevant processing in higher order cortices. These findings suggest that task-related decreases in cortical activity may be of functional importance in the understanding of both attentional mechanisms and taskrelated information processing.
  • Gialluisi, A., Incollu, S., Pippucci, T., Lepori, M. B., Zappu, A., Loudianos, G., & Romeo, G. (2013). The homozygosity index (HI) approach reveals high allele frequency for Wilson disease in the Sardinian population. European Journal of Human Genetics, 21, 1308-1311. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2013.43.

    Abstract

    Wilson disease (WD) is an autosomal recessive disorder resulting in pathological progressive copper accumulation in liver and other tissues. The worldwide prevalence (P) is about 30/million, while in Sardinia it is in the order of 1/10 000. However, all of these estimates are likely to suffer from an underdiagnosis bias. Indeed, a recent molecular neonatal screening in Sardinia reported a WD prevalence of 1:2707. In this study, we used a new approach that makes it possible to estimate the allelic frequency (q) of an autosomal recessive disorder if one knows the proportion between homozygous and compound heterozygous patients (the homozygosity index or HI) and the inbreeding coefficient (F) in a sample of affected individuals. We applied the method to a set of 178 Sardinian individuals (3 of whom born to consanguineous parents), each with a clinical and molecular diagnosis of WD. Taking into account the geographical provenance of the parents of every patient within Sardinia (to make F computation more precise), we obtained a q=0.0191 (F=7.8 × 10-4, HI=0.476) and a corresponding prevalence P=1:2732. This result confirms that the prevalence of WD is largely underestimated in Sardinia. On the other hand, the general reliability and applicability of the HI approach to other autosomal recessive disorders is confirmed, especially if one is interested in the genetic epidemiology of populations with high frequency of consanguineous marriages.
  • Gialluisi, A., Dediu, D., Francks, C., & Fisher, S. E. (2013). Persistence and transmission of recessive deafness and sign language: New insights from village sign languages. European Journal of Human Genetics, 21, 894-896. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2012.292.

    Abstract

    First paragraph: The study of the transmission of sign languages can give novel insights into the transmission of spoken languages1 and, more generally, into gene–culture coevolution. Over the years, several papers related to the persistence of sign language have been
    reported.2–6 All of these studies have emphasized the role of assortative (non-random) mating by deafness state (ie, a tendency for deaf individuals to partner together) for increasing the frequency of recessive deafness, and hence for the persistence of sign language in a population.
  • Gijssels, T., Bottini, R., Rueschemeyer, S.-A., & Casasanto, D. (2013). Space and time in the parietal cortex: fMRI Evidence for a meural asymmetry. In M. Knauff, M. Pauen, N. Sebanz, & I. Wachsmuth (Eds.), Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2013) (pp. 495-500). Austin,TX: Cognitive Science Society. Retrieved from http://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2013/papers/0113/index.html.

    Abstract

    How are space and time related in the brain? This study contrasts two proposals that make different predictions about the interaction between spatial and temporal magnitudes. Whereas ATOM implies that space and time are symmetrically related, Metaphor Theory claims they are asymmetrically related. Here we investigated whether space and time activate the same neural structures in the inferior parietal cortex (IPC) and whether the activation is symmetric or asymmetric across domains. We measured participants’ neural activity while they made temporal and spatial judgments on the same visual stimuli. The behavioral results replicated earlier observations of a space-time asymmetry: Temporal judgments were more strongly influenced by irrelevant spatial information than vice versa. The BOLD fMRI data indicated that space and time activated overlapping clusters in the IPC and that, consistent with Metaphor Theory, this activation was asymmetric: The shared region of IPC was activated more strongly during temporal judgments than during spatial judgments. We consider three possible interpretations of this neural asymmetry, based on 3 possible functions of IPC.
  • Gilbers, S., Hoeksema, N., De Bot, K., & Lowie, W. (2020). Regional variation in West and East Coast African-American English prosody and rap flows. Language and Speech, 63(4), 713-745. doi:10.1177/0023830919881479.

    Abstract

    Regional variation in African-American English (AAE) is especially salient to its speakers involved with hip-hop culture, as hip-hop assigns great importance to regional identity and regional accents are a key means of expressing regional identity. However, little is known about AAE regional variation regarding prosodic rhythm and melody. In hip-hop music, regional variation can also be observed, with different regions’ rap performances being characterized by distinct “flows” (i.e., rhythmic and melodic delivery), an observation which has not been quantitatively investigated yet. This study concerns regional variation in AAE speech and rap, specifically regarding the United States’ East and West Coasts. It investigates how East Coast and West Coast AAE prosody are distinct, how East Coast and West Coast rap flows differ, and whether the two domains follow a similar pattern: more rhythmic and melodic variation on the West Coast compared to the East Coast for both speech and rap. To this end, free speech and rap recordings of 16 prominent African-American members of the East Coast and West Coast hip-hop communities were phonetically analyzed regarding rhythm (e.g., syllable isochrony and musical timing) and melody (i.e., pitch fluctuation) using a combination of existing and novel methodological approaches. The results mostly confirm the hypotheses that East Coast AAE speech and rap are less rhythmically diverse and more monotone than West Coast AAE speech and rap, respectively. They also show that regional variation in AAE prosody and rap flows pattern in similar ways, suggesting a connection between rhythm and melody in language and music.
  • Gisselgard, J., Petersson, K. M., & Ingvar, M. (2004). The irrelevant speech effect and working memory load. NeuroImage, 22, 1107-1116. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.02.031.

    Abstract

    Irrelevant speech impairs the immediate serial recall of visually presented material. Previously, we have shown that the irrelevant speech effect (ISE) was associated with a relative decrease of regional blood flow in cortical regions subserving the verbal working memory, in particular the superior temporal cortex. In this extension of the previous study, the working memory load was increased and an increased activity as a response to irrelevant speech was noted in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. We suggest that the two studies together provide some basic insights as to the nature of the irrelevant speech effect. Firstly, no area in the brain can be ascribed as the single locus of the irrelevant speech effect. Instead, the functional neuroanatomical substrate to the effect can be characterized in terms of changes in networks of functionally interrelated areas. Secondly, the areas that are sensitive to the irrelevant speech effect are also generically activated by the verbal working memory task itself. Finally, the impact of irrelevant speech and related brain activity depends on working memory load as indicated by the differences between the present and the previous study. From a brain perspective, the irrelevant speech effect may represent a complex phenomenon that is a composite of several underlying mechanisms, which depending on the working memory load, include top-down inhibition as well as recruitment of compensatory support and control processes. We suggest that, in the low-load condition, a selection process by an inhibitory top-down modulation is sufficient, whereas in the high-load condition, at or above working memory span, auxiliary adaptive cognitive resources are recruited as compensation
  • Glaser, Y. G., Martin, R. C., Van Dyke, J. A., Hamilton, A. C., & Tan, Y. (2013). Neural basis of semantic and syntactic interference in sentence comprehension. Brain and Language, 126(3), 314-326. doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2013.06.006.

    Abstract

    According to the cue-based parsing approach (Lewis, Vasishth, & Van Dyke, 2006), sentence comprehension difficulty derives from interference from material that partially matches syntactic and semantic retrieval cues. In a 2 (low vs. high semantic interference) × 2 (low vs. high syntactic interference) fMRI study, greater activation was observed in left BA44/45 for high versus low syntactic interference conditions following sentences and in left BA45/47 for high versus low semantic interference conditions following comprehension questions. A conjunction analysis showed BA45 associated with both types of interference, while BA47 was associated with only semantic interference. Greater activation was also observed in the left STG in the high interference conditions. Importantly, the results for the LIFG could not be attributed to greater working memory capacity demands for high interference conditions. The results favor a fractionation of the LIFG wherein BA45 is associated with post-retrieval selection and BA47 with controlled retrieval of semantic information.
  • Goldsborough, Z., Van Leeuwen, E. J. C., Kolff, K. W. T., De Waal, F. B. M., & Webb, C. E. (2020). Do chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) console a bereaved mother? Primates, 61: 20190695, pp. 93-102. doi:10.1007/s10329-019-00752-x.

    Abstract

    Comparative thanatology encompasses the study of death-related responses in non-human animals and aspires to elucidate the evolutionary origins of human behavior in the context of death. Many reports have revealed that humans are not the only species affected by the death of group members. Non-human primates in particular show behaviors such as congregating around the deceased, carrying the corpse for prolonged periods of time (predominantly mothers carrying dead infants), and inspecting the corpse for signs of life. Here, we extend the focus on death-related responses in non-human animals by exploring whether chimpanzees are inclined to console the bereaved: the individual(s) most closely associated with the deceased. We report a case in which a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) mother experienced the loss of her fully developed infant (presumed stillborn). Using observational data to compare the group members’ behavior before and after the death, we found that a substantial number of group members selectively increased their affiliative expressions toward the bereaved mother. Moreover, on the day of the death, we observed heightened expressions of species-typical reassurance behaviors toward the bereaved mother. After ruling out several alternative explanations, we propose that many of the chimpanzees consoled the bereaved mother by means of affiliative and selective empathetic expressions.
  • Golestani, N., Hervais-Adelman, A., Obleser, J., & Scott, S. K. (2013). Semantic versus perceptual interactions in neural processing of speech-in-noise. NeuroImage, 79, 52-61. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.04.049.

    Abstract

    Native listeners make use of higher-level, context-driven semantic and linguistic information during the perception of speech-in-noise. In a recent behavioral study, using a new paradigm that isolated the semantic level of speech by using words, we showed that this native-language benefit is at least partly driven by semantic context (Golestani et al., 2009). Here, we used the same paradigm in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to study the neural bases of speech intelligibility, as well as to study the neural bases of this semantic context effect in the native language. A forced-choice recognition task on the first of two auditorily presented semantically related or unrelated words was employed, where the first, 'target' word was embedded in different noise levels. Results showed that activation in components of the brain language network, including Broca's area and the left posterior superior temporal sulcus, as well as brain regions known to be functionally related to attention and task difficulty, was modulated by stimulus intelligibility. In line with several previous studies examining the role of linguistic context in the intelligibility of degraded speech at the sentence level, we found that activation in the angular gyrus of the left inferior parietal cortex was modulated by the presence of semantic context, and further, that this modulation depended on the intelligibility of the speech stimuli. Our findings help to further elucidate neural mechanisms underlying the interaction of context-driven and signal-driven factors during the perception of degraded speech, and this specifically at the semantic level. (c) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
  • González Alonso, J., Alemán Bañón, J., DeLuca, V., Miller, D., Pereira Soares, S. M., Puig-Mayenco, E., Slaats, S., & Rothman, J. (2020). Event related potentials at initial exposure in third language acquisition: Implications from an artificial mini-grammar study. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 56: 100939. doi:10.1016/j.jneuroling.2020.100939.

    Abstract

    The present article examines the proposal that typology is a major factor guiding transfer selectivity in L3/Ln acquisition. We tested first exposure in L3/Ln using two artificial languages (ALs) lexically based in English and Spanish, focusing on gender agreement between determiners and nouns, and between nouns and adjectives. 50 L1 Spanish-L2 English speakers took part in the experiment. After receiving implicit training in one of the ALs (Mini-Spanish, N = 26; Mini-English, N = 24), gender violations elicited a fronto-lateral negativity in Mini-English in the earliest time window (200–500 ms), although this was not followed by any other differences in subsequent periods. This effect was highly localized, surfacing only in electrodes of the right-anterior region. In contrast, gender violations in Mini-Spanish elicited a broadly distributed positivity in the 300–600 ms time window. While we do not find typical indices of grammatical processing such as the P600 component, we believe that the between-groups differential appearance of the positivity for gender violations in the 300–600 ms time window reflects differential allocation of attentional resources as a function of the ALs’ lexical similarity to English or Spanish. We take these differences in attention to be precursors of the processes involved in transfer source selection in L3/Ln.
  • Gonzalez da Silva, C., Petersson, K. M., Faísca, L., Ingvar, M., & Reis, A. (2004). The effects of literacy and education on the quantitative and qualitative aspects of semantic verbal fluency. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 26(2), 266-277. doi:10.1076/jcen.26.2.266.28089.

    Abstract

    Semantic verbal fluency tasks are commonly used in neuropsychological assessment. Investigations of the influence of level of literacy have not yielded consistent results in the literature. This prompted us to investigate the ecological relevance of task specifics, in particular, the choice of semantic criteria used. Two groups of literate and illiterate subjects were compared on two verbal fluency tasks using different semantic criteria. The performance on a food criterion (supermarket fluency task), considered more ecologically relevant for the two literacy groups, and an animal criterion (animal fluency task) were compared. The data were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative measures. The quantitative analysis indicated that the two literacy groups performed equally well on the supermarket fluency task. In contrast, results differed significantly during the animal fluency task. The qualitative analyses indicated differences between groups related to the strategies used, especially with respect to the animal fluency task. The overall results suggest that there is not a substantial difference between literate and illiterate subjects related to the fundamental workings of semantic memory. However, there is indication that the content of semantic memory reflects differences in shared cultural background - in other words, formal education –, as indicated by the significant interaction between level of literacy and semantic criterion.
  • Goodhew, S. C., & Kidd, E. (2020). Bliss is blue and bleak is grey: Abstract word-colour associations influence objective performance even when not task relevant. Acta Psychologica, 206: 103067. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103067.

    Abstract

    Humans associate abstract words with physical stimulus dimensions, such as linking upward locations with positive concepts (e.g., happy = up). These associations manifest both via subjective reports of associations and on objective performance metrics. Humans also report subjective associations between colours and abstract words (e.g., joy is linked to yellow). Here we tested whether such associations manifest on objective task performance, even when not task-relevant. Across three experiments, participants were presented with abstract words in physical colours that were either congruent with previously-reported subjective word-colour associations (e.g., victory in red and unhappy in blue), or were incongruent (e.g., victory in blue and unhappy in red). In Experiment 1, participants' task was to identify the valence of words. This congruency manipulation systematically affected objective task performance. In Experiment 2, participants completed two blocks, a valence-identification and a colour-identification task block. Both tasks produced congruency effects on performance, however, the results of the colour identification block could have reflected learning effects (i.e., associating the more common congruent colour with the word). This issue was rectified in Experiment 3, whereby participants completed the same two tasks as Experiment 2, but now matched congruent and incongruent pairs were used for both tasks. Again, both tasks produced reliable congruency effects. Item analyses in each experiment revealed that these effects demonstrated a degree of item specificity. Overall, there was clear evidence that at least some abstract word-colour pairings can systematically affect behaviour.
  • Gordon, J. K., & Clough, S. (2020). How fluent? Part B. Underlying contributors to continuous measures of fluency in aphasia. Aphasiology, 34(5), 643-663. doi:10.1080/02687038.2020.1712586.

    Abstract

    Background: While persons with aphasia (PwA) are often dichotomised as fluent or nonfluent, agreement that fluency is not an all-or-nothing construct has led to the use of continuous variables as a way to quantify fluency, such as multi-dimensional rating scales, speech rate, and utterance length. Though these measures are often used in research, they provide little information about the underlying fluency deficit.
    Aim: The aim of the study was to identify how well commonly used continuous measures of fluency capture variability in spontaneous speech variables at lexical, grammatical, and speech production levels. Methods & Procedures: Speech samples of 254 English-speaking PwA from the AphasiaBank database were analyzed to examine the distributions of four continuous measures of fluency: the WAB-R fluency scale, utterance length, retracing, and speech rate. Linear regression was used to identify spontaneous speech predictors contributing to each fluency outcome measure.
    Outcomes & Results: All the outcome measures reflected the influence of multiple underlying dimensions, although the predictors varied. The WAB-R fluency scale, speech rate, and retracing were influenced by measures of grammatical competence, lexical retrieval, and speech production, whereas utterance length was influenced only by measures of grammatical competence and lexical retrieval. The strongest predictor of WAB-R fluency was aphasia severity, whereas the strongest predictor for all other fluency proxy measures was grammatical complexity.
    Conclusions: Continuous measures allow a variety of ways to objectively quantify speech fluency; however, they reflect superficial manifestations of fluency that may be affected by multiple underlying deficits. Furthermore, the deficits underlying different measures vary, which may reduce the reliability of fluency diagnoses. Capturing these differences at the individual level is critical to accurate diagnosis and appropriately targeted therapy.
  • Goregliad Fjaellingsdal, T., Schwenke, D., Scherbaum, S., Kuhlen, A. K., Bögels, S., Meekes, J., & Bleichner, M. G. (2020). Expectancy effects in the EEG during joint and spontaneous word-by-word sentence production in German. Scientific Reports, 10: 5460. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-62155-z.

    Abstract

    Our aim in the present study is to measure neural correlates during spontaneous interactive sentence production. We present a novel approach using the word-by-word technique from improvisational theatre, in which two speakers jointly produce one sentence. This paradigm allows the assessment of behavioural aspects, such as turn-times, and electrophysiological responses, such as event-related-potentials (ERPs). Twenty-five participants constructed a cued but spontaneous four-word German sentence together with a confederate, taking turns for each word of the sentence. In 30% of the trials, the confederate uttered an unexpected gender-marked article. To complete the sentence in a meaningful way, the participant had to detect the violation and retrieve and utter a new fitting response. We found significant increases in response times after unexpected words and – despite allowing unscripted language production and naturally varying speech material – successfully detected significant N400 and P600 ERP effects for the unexpected word. The N400 EEG activity further significantly predicted the response time of the subsequent turn. Our results show that combining behavioural and neuroscientific measures of verbal interactions while retaining sufficient experimental control is possible, and that this combination provides promising insights into the mechanisms of spontaneous spoken dialogue.
  • Goriot, C., McQueen, J. M., Unsworth, S., & Van Hout, R. (2020). Perception of English phonetic contrasts by Dutch children: How bilingual are early-English learners? PLoS One, 15(3): e0229902. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0229902.

    Abstract

    The aim of this study was to investigate whether early-English education benefits the perception
    of English phonetic contrasts that are known to be perceptually confusable for Dutch
    native speakers, comparing Dutch pupils who were enrolled in an early-English programme
    at school from the age of four with pupils in a mainstream programme with English instruction
    from the age of 11, and English-Dutch early bilingual children. Children were 4-5-yearolds
    (start of primary school), 8-9-year-olds, or 11-12-year-olds (end of primary school).
    Children were tested on four contrasts that varied in difficulty: /b/-/s/ (easy), /k/-/ɡ/ (intermediate),
    /f/-/θ/ (difficult), /ε/-/æ/ (very difficult). Bilingual children outperformed the two other
    groups on all contrasts except /b/-/s/. Early-English pupils did not outperform mainstream
    pupils on any of the contrasts. This shows that early-English education as it is currently
    implemented is not beneficial for pupils’ perception of non-native contrasts.

    Additional information

    Supporting information
  • De Graaf, T. A., Thomson, A., Janssens, S. E. W., Van Bree, S., Ten Oever, S., & Sack, A. T. (2020). Does alpha phase modulate visual target detection? Three experiments with tACS-phase-based stimulus presentation. European Journal of Neuroscience, 51(11), 2299-2313. doi:10.1111/ejn.14677.

    Abstract

    In recent years, the influence of alpha (7–13 Hz) phase on visual processing has received a lot of attention. Magneto‐/encephalography (M/EEG) studies showed that alpha phase indexes visual excitability and task performance. Studies with transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) aim to modulate oscillations and causally impact task performance. Here, we applied right occipital tACS (O2 location) to assess the functional role of alpha phase in a series of experiments. We presented visual stimuli at different pre‐determined, experimentally controlled, phases of the entraining tACS signal, hypothesizing that this should result in an oscillatory pattern of visual performance in specifically left hemifield detection tasks. In experiment 1, we applied 10 Hz tACS and used separate psychophysical staircases for six equidistant tACS‐phase conditions, obtaining contrast thresholds for detection of visual gratings in left or right hemifield. In experiments 2 and 3, tACS was at EEG‐based individual peak alpha frequency. In experiment 2, we measured detection rates for gratings with (pseudo‐)fixed contrast. In experiment 3, participants detected brief luminance changes in a custom‐built LED device, at eight equidistant alpha phases. In none of the experiments did the primary outcome measure over phase conditions consistently reflect a one‐cycle sinusoid. However, post hoc analyses of reaction times (RT) suggested that tACS alpha phase did modulate RT for specifically left hemifield targets in both experiments 1 and 2 (not measured in experiment 3). This observation requires future confirmation, but is in line with the idea that alpha phase causally gates visual inputs through cortical excitability modulation.

    Additional information

    Supporting Information
  • Grabe, E. (1998). Comparative intonational phonology: English and German. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen. doi:10.17617/2.2057683.
  • Graham, S. A., & Fisher, S. E. (2013). Decoding the genetics of speech and language. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 23, 43-51. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2012.11.006.

    Abstract

    Researchers are beginning to uncover the neurogenetic pathways that underlie our unparalleled capacity for spoken language. Initial clues come from identification of genetic risk factors implicated in developmental language disorders. The underlying genetic architecture is complex, involving a range of molecular mechanisms. For example, rare protein-coding mutations of the FOXP2 transcription factor cause severe problems with sequencing of speech sounds, while common genetic risk variants of small effect size in genes like CNTNAP2, ATP2C2 and CMIP are associated with typical forms of language impairment. In this article, we describe how investigations of these and other candidate genes, in humans, animals and cellular models, are unravelling the connections between genes and cognition. This depends on interdisciplinary research at multiple levels, from determining molecular interactions and functional roles in neural cell-biology all the way through to effects on brain structure and activity.
  • Grasby, K. L., Jahanshad, N., Painter, J. N., Colodro-Conde, L., Bralten, J., Hibar, D. P., Lind, P. A., Pizzagalli, F., Ching, C. R. K., McMahon, M. A. B., Shatokhina, N., Zsembik, L. C. P., Thomopoulos, S. I., Zhu, A. H., Strike, L. T., Agartz, I., Alhusaini, S., Almeida, M. A. A., Alnæs, D., Amlien, I. K. and 341 moreGrasby, K. L., Jahanshad, N., Painter, J. N., Colodro-Conde, L., Bralten, J., Hibar, D. P., Lind, P. A., Pizzagalli, F., Ching, C. R. K., McMahon, M. A. B., Shatokhina, N., Zsembik, L. C. P., Thomopoulos, S. I., Zhu, A. H., Strike, L. T., Agartz, I., Alhusaini, S., Almeida, M. A. A., Alnæs, D., Amlien, I. K., Andersson, M., Ard, T., Armstrong, N. J., Ashley-Koch, A., Atkins, J. R., Bernard, M., Brouwer, R. M., Buimer, E. E. L., Bülow, R., Bürger, C., Cannon, D. M., Chakravarty, M., Chen, Q., Cheung, J. W., Couvy-Duchesne, B., Dale, A. M., Dalvie, S., De Araujo, T. K., De Zubicaray, G. I., De Zwarte, S. M. C., Den Braber, A., Doan, N. T., Dohm, K., Ehrlich, S., Engelbrecht, H.-R., Erk, S., Fan, C. C., Fedko, I. O., Foley, S. F., Ford, J. M., Fukunaga, M., Garrett, M. E., Ge, T., Giddaluru, S., Goldman, A. L., Green, M. J., Groenewold, N. A., Grotegerd, D., Gurholt, T. P., Gutman, B. A., Hansell, N. K., Harris, M. A., Harrison, M. B., Haswell, C. C., Hauser, M., Herms, S., Heslenfeld, D. J., Ho, N. F., Hoehn, D., Hoffmann, P., Holleran, L., Hoogman, M., Hottenga, J.-J., Ikeda, M., Janowitz, D., Jansen, I. E., Jia, T., Jockwitz, C., Kanai, R., Karama, S., Kasperaviciute, D., Kaufmann, T., Kelly, S., Kikuchi, M., Klein, M., Knapp, M., Knodt, A. R., Krämer, B., Lam, M., Lancaster, T. M., Lee, P. H., Lett, T. A., Lewis, L. B., Lopes-Cendes, I., Luciano, M., Macciardi, F., Marquand, A. F., Mathias, S. R., Melzer, T. R., Milaneschi, Y., Mirza-Schreiber, N., Moreira, J. C. V., Mühleisen, T. W., Müller-Myhsok, B., Najt, P., Nakahara, S., Nho, K., Olde Loohuis, L. M., Orfanos, D. P., Pearson, J. F., Pitcher, T. L., Pütz, B., Quidé, Y., Ragothaman, A., Rashid, F. M., Reay, W. R., Redlich, R., Reinbold, C. S., Repple, J., Richard, G., Riedel, B. C., Risacher, S. L., Rocha, C. S., Mota, N. R., Salminen, L., Saremi, A., Saykin, A. J., Schlag, F., Schmaal, L., Schofield, P. R., Secolin, R., Shapland, C. Y., Shen, L., Shin, J., Shumskaya, E., Sønderby, I. E., Sprooten, E., Tansey, K. E., Teumer, A., Thalamuthu, A., Tordesillas-Gutiérrez, D., Turner, J. A., Uhlmann, A., Vallerga, C. L., Van der Meer, D., Van Donkelaar, M. M. J., Van Eijk, L., Van Erp, T. G. M., Van Haren, N. E. M., Van Rooij, D., Van Tol, M.-J., Veldink, J. H., Verhoef, E., Walton, E., Wang, M., Wang, Y., Wardlaw, J. M., Wen, W., Westlye, L. T., Whelan, C. D., Witt, S. H., Wittfeld, K., Wolf, C., Wolfers, T., Wu, J. Q., Yasuda, C. L., Zaremba, D., Zhang, Z., Zwiers, M. P., Artiges, E., Assareh, A. A., Ayesa-Arriola, R., Belger, A., Brandt, C. L., Brown, G. G., Cichon, S., Curran, J. E., Davies, G. E., Degenhardt, F., Dennis, M. F., Dietsche, B., Djurovic, S., Doherty, C. P., Espiritu, R., Garijo, D., Gil, Y., Gowland, P. A., Green, R. C., Häusler, A. N., Heindel, W., Ho, B.-C., Hoffmann, W. U., Holsboer, F., Homuth, G., Hosten, N., Jack Jr., C. R., Jang, M., Jansen, A., Kimbrel, N. A., Kolskår, K., Koops, S., Krug, A., Lim, K. O., Luykx, J. J., Mathalon, D. H., Mather, K. A., Mattay, V. S., Matthews, S., Mayoral Van Son, J., McEwen, S. C., Melle, I., Morris, D. W., Mueller, B. A., Nauck, M., Nordvik, J. E., Nöthen, M. M., O’Leary, D. S., Opel, N., Paillère Martinot, M.-L., Pike, G. B., Preda, A., Quinlan, E. B., Rasser, P. E., Ratnakar, V., Reppermund, S., Steen, V. M., Tooney, P. A., Torres, F. R., Veltman, D. J., Voyvodic, J. T., Whelan, R., White, T., Yamamori, H., Adams, H. H. H., Bis, J. C., Debette, S., Decarli, C., Fornage, M., Gudnason, V., Hofer, E., Ikram, M. A., Launer, L., Longstreth, W. T., Lopez, O. L., Mazoyer, B., Mosley, T. H., Roshchupkin, G. V., Satizabal, C. L., Schmidt, R., Seshadri, S., Yang, Q., Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, CHARGE Consortium, EPIGEN Consortium, IMAGEN Consortium, SYS Consortium, Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative, Alvim, M. K. M., Ames, D., Anderson, T. J., Andreassen, O. A., Arias-Vasquez, A., Bastin, M. E., Baune, B. T., Beckham, J. C., Blangero, J., Boomsma, D. I., Brodaty, H., Brunner, H. G., Buckner, R. L., Buitelaar, J. K., Bustillo, J. R., Cahn, W., Cairns, M. J., Calhoun, V., Carr, V. J., Caseras, X., Caspers, S., Cavalleri, G. L., Cendes, F., Corvin, A., Crespo-Facorro, B., Dalrymple-Alford, J. C., Dannlowski, U., De Geus, E. J. C., Deary, I. J., Delanty, N., Depondt, C., Desrivières, S., Donohoe, G., Espeseth, T., Fernández, G., Fisher, S. E., Flor, H., Forstner, A. J., Francks, C., Franke, B., Glahn, D. C., Gollub, R. L., Grabe, H. J., Gruber, O., Håberg, A. K., Hariri, A. R., Hartman, C. A., Hashimoto, R., Heinz, A., Henskens, F. A., Hillegers, M. H. J., Hoekstra, P. J., Holmes, A. J., Hong, L. E., Hopkins, W. D., Hulshoff Pol, H. E., Jernigan, T. L., Jönsson, E. G., Kahn, R. S., Kennedy, M. A., Kircher, T. T. J., Kochunov, P., Kwok, J. B. J., Le Hellard, S., Loughland, C. M., Martin, N. G., Martinot, J.-L., McDonald, C., McMahon, K. L., Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Michie, P. T., Morey, R. A., Mowry, B., Nyberg, L., Oosterlaan, J., Ophoff, R. A., Pantelis, C., Paus, T., Pausova, Z., Penninx, B. W. J. H., Polderman, T. J. C., Posthuma, D., Rietschel, M., Roffman, J. L., Rowland, L. M., Sachdev, P. S., Sämann, P. G., Schall, U., Schumann, G., Scott, R. J., Sim, K., Sisodiya, S. M., Smoller, J. W., Sommer, I. E., St Pourcain, B., Stein, D. J., Toga, A. W., Trollor, J. N., Van der Wee, N. J. A., van 't Ent, D., Völzke, H., Walter, H., Weber, B., Weinberger, D. R., Wright, M. J., Zhou, J., Stein, J. L., Thompson, P. M., & Medland, S. E. (2020). The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex. Science, 367(6484): eaay6690. doi:10.1126/science.aay6690.

    Abstract

    The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson’s disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
  • Gregersen, P. K., Kowalsky, E., Lee, A., Baron-Cohen, S., Fisher, S. E., Asher, J. E., Ballard, D., Freudenberg, J., & Li, W. (2013). Absolute pitch exhibits phenotypic and genetic overlap with synesthesia. Human Molecular Genetics, 22, 2097-2104. doi:10.1093/hmg/ddt059.

    Abstract

    Absolute pitch and synesthesia are two uncommon cognitive traits that reflect increased neuronal connectivity and have been anecdotally reported to occur together in a same individual. Here we systematically evaluate the occurrence of syesthesia in a population of 768 subjects with documented absolute pitch. Out of these 768 subjects, 151(20.1%) reported synesthesia, most commonly with color. These self-reports of synesthesia were validated in a subset of 21 study subjects using an established methodology. We further carried out combined linkage analysis of 53 multiplex families with absolute pitch and 36 multiplex families with synesthesia. We observed a peak NPL LOD=4.68 on chromosome 6q, as well as evidence of linkage on chromosome 2 using a dominant model. These data establish the close phenotypic and genetic relationship between absolute pitch and synesthesia. The chromosome 6 linkage region contains 73 genes; several leading candidate genes involved in neurodevelopment were investigated by exon resequencing. However, further studies will be required to definitively establish the identity of the causative gene(s) in the region.
  • Gretsch, P. (2004). What does finiteness mean to children? A cross-linguistic perspective onroot infinitives. Linguistics, 42(2), 419-468. doi:10.1515/ling.2004.014.

    Abstract

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

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  • Gross, J., Baillet, S., Barnes, G. R., Henson, R. N., Hillebrand, A., Jensen, O., Jerbi, K., Litvak, V., Maess, B., Oostenveld, R., Parkkonen, L., Taylor, J. R., Van Wassenhove, V., Wibral, M., & Schoffelen, J.-M. (2013). Good practice for conducting and reporting MEG research. NeuroImage, 65, 349-363. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.001.

    Abstract

    Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings are a rich source of information about the neural dynamics underlying cognitive processes in the brain, with excellent temporal and good spatial resolution. In recent years there have been considerable advances in MEG hardware developments as well as methodological developments. Sophisticated analysis techniques are now routinely applied and continuously improved, leading to fascinating insights into the intricate dynamics of neural processes. However, the rapidly increasing level of complexity of the different steps in a MEG study make it difficult for novices, and sometimes even for experts, to stay aware of possible limitations and caveats. Furthermore, the complexity of MEG data acquisition and data analysis requires special attention when describing MEG studies in publications, in order to facilitate interpretation and reproduction of the results. This manuscript aims at making recommendations for a number of important data acquisition and data analysis steps and suggests details that should be specified in manuscripts reporting MEG studies. These recommendations will hopefully serve as guidelines that help to strengthen the position of the MEG research community within the field of neuroscience, and may foster discussion within the community in order to further enhance the quality and impact of MEG research.
  • Guarin, A., Haun, D. B. M., & Messner, D. (2013). Behavioral dimensions of international cooperation. Duisburg: Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2361423.
  • Guerrero, L., & Van Valin Jr., R. D. (2004). Yaqui and the analysis of primary object languages. International Journal of American Linguistics, 70(3), 290-319. doi:10.1086/425603.

    Abstract

    The central topic of this study is to investigate three- and four-place predicate in Yaqui, which are characterized by having multiple object arguments. As with other Southern Uto-Aztecan languages, it has been said that Yaqui follows the Primary/Secondary Object pattern (Dryer 1986). Actually, Yaqui presents three patterns: verbs like nenka ‘sell’ follow the direct–indirect object pattern, verbs like miika ‘give’ follow the primary object pattern, and verbs like chijakta ‘sprinkle’ follow the locative alternation pattern; the primary object pattern is the exclusive one found with derived verbs. This paper shows that the contrast between direct object and primary object languages is not absolute but rather one of degree, and hence two “object” selection principles are needed to explain this mixed system. The two principles are not limited to Yaqui but are found in other languages as well, including English.
  • Guest, O., Caso, A., & Cooper, R. P. (2020). On simulating neural damage in connectionist networks. Computational Brain & Behavior, 3, 289-321. doi:10.1007/s42113-020-00081-z.

    Abstract

    A key strength of connectionist modelling is its ability to simulate both intact cognition and the behavioural effects of neural damage. We survey the literature, showing that models have been damaged in a variety of ways, e.g. by removing connections, by adding noise to connection weights, by scaling weights, by removing units and by adding noise to unit activations. While these different implementations of damage have often been assumed to be behaviourally equivalent, some theorists have made aetiological claims that rest on nonequivalence. They suggest that related deficits with different aetiologies might be accounted for by different forms of damage within a single model. We present two case studies that explore the effects of different forms of damage in two influential connectionist models, each of which has been applied to explain neuropsychological deficits. Our results indicate that the effect of simulated damage can indeed be sensitive to the way in which damage is implemented, particularly when the environment comprises subsets of items that differ in their statistical properties, but such effects are sensitive to relatively subtle aspects of the model’s training environment. We argue that, as a consequence, substantial methodological care is required if aetiological claims about simulated neural damage are to be justified, and conclude more generally that implementation assumptions, including those concerning simulated damage, must be fully explored when evaluating models of neurological deficits, both to avoid over-extending the explanatory power of specific implementations and to ensure that reported results are replicable.
  • Güldemann, T., & Hammarström, H. (2020). Geographical axis effects in large-scale linguistic distributions. In M. Crevels, & P. Muysken (Eds.), Language Dispersal, Diversification, and Contact. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Gullberg, M. (2004). [Review of the book Pointing: Where language, culture and cognition meet ed. by Sotaro Kita]. Gesture, 4(2), 235-248. doi:10.1075/gest.4.2.08gul.
  • Gullberg, M. (1998). Gesture as a communication strategy in second language discourse: A study of learners of French and Swedish. Lund: Lund University Press.

    Abstract

    Gestures are often regarded as the most typical compensatory device used by language learners in communicative trouble. Yet gestural solutions to communicative problems have rarely been studied within any theory of second language use. The work pre­sented in this volume aims to account for second language learners’ strategic use of speech-associated gestures by combining a process-oriented framework for communi­cation strategies with a cognitive theory of gesture. Two empirical studies are presented. The production study investigates Swedish lear­ners of French and French learners of Swedish and their use of strategic gestures. The results, which are based on analyses of both individual and group behaviour, contradict popular opinion as well as theoretical assumptions from both fields. Gestures are not primarily used to replace speech, nor are they chiefly mimetic. Instead, learners use gestures with speech, and although they do exploit mimetic gestures to solve lexical problems, they also use more abstract gestures to handle discourse-related difficulties and metalinguistic commentary. The influence of factors such as proficiency, task, culture, and strategic competence on gesture use is discussed, and the oral and gestural strategic modes are compared. In the evaluation study, native speakers’ assessments of learners’ gestures, and the potential effect of gestures on evaluations of proficiency are analysed and discussed in terms of individual communicative style. Compensatory gestures function at multiple communicative levels. This has implica­tions for theories of communication strategies, and an expansion of the existing frameworks is discussed taking both cognitive and interactive aspects into account.
  • Gussenhoven, C., & Zhou, W. (2013). Revisiting pitch slope and height effects on perceived duration. In Proceedings of INTERSPEECH 2013: 14th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (pp. 1365-1369).

    Abstract

    The shape of pitch contours has been shown to have an effect on the perceived duration of vowels. For instance, vowels with high level pitch and vowels with falling contours sound longer than vowels with low level pitch. Depending on whether the
    comparison is between level pitches or between level and dynamic contours, these findings have been interpreted in two ways. For inter-level comparisons, where the duration results are the reverse of production results, a hypercorrection strategy in production has been proposed [1]. By contrast, for comparisons between level pitches and dynamic contours, the
    longer production data for dynamic contours have been held responsible. We report an experiment with Dutch and Chinese listeners which aimed to show that production data and perception data are each other’s opposites for high, low, falling and rising contours. We explain the results, which are consistent with earlier findings, in terms of the compensatory listening strategy of [2], arguing that the perception effects are due to a perceptual compensation of articulatory strategies and
    constraints, rather than that differences in production compensate for psycho-acoustic perception effects.
  • De Haan, E., & Hagoort, P. (2004). Het brein in beeld. In B. Deelman, P. Eling, E. De Haan, & E. Van Zomeren (Eds.), Klinische neuropsychologie (pp. 82-98). Amsterdam: Boom.
  • Haan, E. H. F., Seijdel, N., Kentridge, R. W., & Heywood, C. A. (2020). Plasticity versus chronicity: Stable performance on category fluency 40 years post‐onset. Journal of Neuropsychology, 14(1), 20-27. doi:10.1111/jnp.12180.

    Abstract

    What is the long‐term trajectory of semantic memory deficits in patients who have suffered structural brain damage? Memory is, per definition, a changing faculty. The traditional view is that after an initial recovery period, the mature human brain has little capacity to repair or reorganize. More recently, it has been suggested that the central nervous system may be more plastic with the ability to change in neural structure, connectivity, and function. The latter observations are, however, largely based on normal learning in healthy subjects. Here, we report a patient who suffered bilateral ventro‐medial damage after presumed herpes encephalitis in 1971. He was seen regularly in the eighties, and we recently had the opportunity to re‐assess his semantic memory deficits. On semantic category fluency, he showed a very clear category‐specific deficit performing better that control data on non‐living categories and significantly worse on living items. Recent testing showed that his impairments have remained unchanged for more than 40 years. We suggest cautiousness when extrapolating the concept of brain plasticity, as observed during normal learning, to plasticity in the context of structural brain damage.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). De electrofysiologie van taal: Wat hersenpotentialen vertellen over het menselijk taalvermogen. Neuropraxis, 2, 223-229.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). De spreker als sprinter. Psychologie, 17, 48-49.
  • Hagoort, P. (2004). Er is geen behoefte aan trompetten als gordijnen. In H. Procee, H. Meijer, P. Timmerman, & R. Tuinsma (Eds.), Bij die wereld wil ik horen! Zesendertig columns en drie essays over de vorming tot academicus (pp. 78-80). Amsterdam: Boom.
  • Hagoort, P., Hald, L. A., Bastiaansen, M. C. M., & Petersson, K. M. (2004). Integration of word meaning and world knowledge in language comprehension. Science, 304(5669), 438-441. doi:10.1126/science.1095455.

    Abstract

    Although the sentences that we hear or read have meaning, this does not necessarily mean that they are also true. Relatively little is known about the critical brain structures for, and the relative time course of, establishing the meaning and truth of linguistic expressions. We present electroencephalogram data that show the rapid parallel integration of both semantic and world
    knowledge during the interpretation of a sentence. Data from functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that the left inferior prefrontal cortex is involved in the integration of both meaning and world knowledge. Finally, oscillatory brain responses indicate that the brain keeps a record of what makes a sentence hard to interpret.
  • Hagoort, P. (2004). Het zwarte gat tussen brein en bewustzijn. In N. Korteweg (Ed.), De oorsprong: Over het ontstaan van het leven en alles eromheen (pp. 107-124). Amsterdam: Boom.
  • Hagoort, P. (2013). MUC (Memory, Unification, Control) and beyond. Frontiers in Psychology, 4: 416. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00416.

    Abstract

    A neurobiological model of language is discussed that overcomes the shortcomings of the classical Wernicke-Lichtheim-Geschwind model. It is based on a subdivision of language processing into three components: Memory, Unification, and Control. The functional components as well as the neurobiological underpinnings of the model are discussed. In addition, the need for extension of the model beyond the classical core regions for language is shown. Attentional networks as well as networks for inferential processing are crucial to realize language comprehension beyond single word processing and beyond decoding propositional content. It is shown that this requires the dynamic interaction between multiple brain regions.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). Hersenen en taal in onderzoek en praktijk. Neuropraxis, 6, 204-205.
  • Hagoort, P. (2020). Taal. In O. Van den Heuvel, Y. Van der Werf, B. Schmand, & B. Sabbe (Eds.), Leerboek neurowetenschappen voor de klinische psychiatrie (pp. 234-239). Amsterdam: Boom Uitgevers.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). The shadows of lexical meaning in patients with semantic impairments. In B. Stemmer, & H. Whitaker (Eds.), Handbook of neurolinguistics (pp. 235-248). New York: Academic Press.
  • Hagoort, P., & Poeppel, D. (2013). The infrastructure of the language-ready brain. In M. A. Arbib (Ed.), Language, music, and the brain: A mysterious relationship (pp. 233-255). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter sketches in very general terms the cognitive architecture of both language comprehension and production, as well as the neurobiological infrastructure that makes the human brain ready for language. Focus is on spoken language, since that compares most directly to processing music. It is worth bearing in mind that humans can also interface with language as a cognitive system using sign and text (visual) as well as Braille (tactile); that is to say, the system can connect with input/output processes in any sensory modality. Language processing consists of a complex and nested set of subroutines to get from sound to meaning (in comprehension) or meaning to sound (in production), with remarkable speed and accuracy. The fi rst section outlines a selection of the major constituent operations, from fractionating the input into manageable units to combining and unifying information in the construction of meaning. The next section addresses the neurobiological infrastructure hypothesized to form the basis for language processing. Principal insights are summarized by building on the notion of “brain networks” for speech–sound processing, syntactic processing, and the construction of meaning, bearing in mind that such a neat three-way subdivision overlooks important overlap and shared mechanisms in the neural architecture subserving language processing. Finally, in keeping with the spirit of the volume, some possible relations are highlighted between language and music that arise from the infrastructure developed here. Our characterization of language and its neurobiological foundations is necessarily selective and brief. Our aim is to identify for the reader critical questions that require an answer to have a plausible cognitive neuroscience of language processing.
  • Hagoort, P., & Meyer, A. S. (2013). What belongs together goes together: the speaker-hearer perspective. A commentary on MacDonald's PDC account. Frontiers in Psychology, 4: 228. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00228.

    Abstract

    First paragraph:
    MacDonald (2013) proposes that distributional properties of language and processing biases in language comprehension can to a large extent be attributed to consequences of the language production process. In essence, the account is derived from the principle of least effort that was formulated by Zipf, among others (Zipf, 1949; Levelt, 2013). However, in Zipf's view the outcome of the least effort principle was a compromise between least effort for the speaker and least effort for the listener, whereas MacDonald puts most of the burden on the production process.
  • Hahn, L. E., Ten Buuren, M., Snijders, T. M., & Fikkert, P. (2020). Learning words in a second language while cycling and listening to children’s songs: The Noplica Energy Center. International Journal of Music in Early Childhood, 15(1), 95-108. doi:10.1386/ijmec_00014_1.

    Abstract

    Children’s songs are a great source for linguistic learning. Here we explore whether children can acquire novel words in a second language by playing a game featuring children’s songs in a playhouse. The playhouse is designed by the Noplica foundation (www.noplica.nl) to advance language learning through unsupervised play. We present data from three experiments that serve to scientifically proof the functionality of one game of the playhouse: the Energy Center. For this game, children move three hand-bikes mounted on a panel within the playhouse. Once the children cycle, a song starts playing that is accompanied by musical instruments. In our experiments, children executed a picture-selection task to evaluate whether they acquired new vocabulary from the songs presented during the game. Two of our experiments were run in the field, one at a Dutch and one at an Indian pre-school. The third experiment features data from a more controlled laboratory setting. Our results partly confirm that the Energy Center is a successful means to support vocabulary acquisition in a second language. More research with larger sample sizes and longer access to the Energy Center is needed to evaluate the overall functionality of the game. Based on informal observations at our test sites, however, we are certain that children do pick up linguistic content from the songs during play, as many of the children repeat words and phrases from the songs they heard. We will pick up upon these promising observations during future studies.
  • Hahn, L. E., Benders, T., Snijders, T. M., & Fikkert, P. (2020). Six-month-old infants recognize phrases in song and speech. Infancy, 25(5), 699-718. doi:10.1111/infa.12357.

    Abstract

    Infants exploit acoustic boundaries to perceptually organize phrases in speech. This prosodic parsing ability is well‐attested and is a cornerstone to the development of speech perception and grammar. However, infants also receive linguistic input in child songs. This study provides evidence that infants parse songs into meaningful phrasal units and replicates previous research for speech. Six‐month‐old Dutch infants (n = 80) were tested in the song or speech modality in the head‐turn preference procedure. First, infants were familiarized to two versions of the same word sequence: One version represented a well‐formed unit, and the other contained a phrase boundary halfway through. At test, infants were presented two passages, each containing one version of the familiarized sequence. The results for speech replicated the previously observed preference for the passage containing the well‐formed sequence, but only in a more fine‐grained analysis. The preference for well‐formed phrases was also observed in the song modality, indicating that infants recognize phrase structure in song. There were acoustic differences between stimuli of the current and previous studies, suggesting that infants are flexible in their processing of boundary cues while also providing a possible explanation for differences in effect sizes.

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  • Hall, S., Rumney, L., Holler, J., & Kidd, E. (2013). Associations among play, gesture and early spoken language acquisition. First Language, 33, 294-312. doi:10.1177/0142723713487618.

    Abstract

    The present study investigated the developmental interrelationships between play, gesture use and spoken language development in children aged 18–31 months. The children completed two tasks: (i) a structured measure of pretend (or ‘symbolic’) play and (ii) a measure of vocabulary knowledge in which children have been shown to gesture. Additionally, their productive spoken language knowledge was measured via parental report. The results indicated that symbolic play is positively associated with children’s gesture use, which in turn is positively associated with spoken language knowledge over and above the influence of age. The tripartite relationship between gesture, play and language development is discussed with reference to current developmental theory.
  • Hammarström, H., & O'Connor, L. (2013). Dependency sensitive typological distance. In L. Borin, & A. Saxena (Eds.), Approaches to measuring linguistic differences (pp. 337-360). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Hammarström, H. (2013). Noun class parallels in Kordofanian and Niger-Congo: Evidence of genealogical inheritance? In T. C. Schadeberg, & R. M. Blench (Eds.), Nuba Mountain Language Studies (pp. 549-570). Köln: Köppe.
  • Hanique, I., Aalders, E., & Ernestus, M. (2013). How robust are exemplar effects in word comprehension? The mental lexicon, 8, 269-294. doi:10.1075/ml.8.3.01han.

    Abstract

    This paper studies the robustness of exemplar effects in word comprehension by means of four long-term priming experiments with lexical decision tasks in Dutch. A prime and target represented the same word type and were presented with the same or different degree of reduction. In Experiment 1, participants heard only a small number of trials, a large proportion of repeated words, and stimuli produced by only one speaker. They recognized targets more quickly if these represented the same degree of reduction as their primes, which forms additional evidence for the exemplar effects reported in the literature. Similar effects were found for two speakers who differ in their pronunciations. In Experiment 2, with a smaller proportion of repeated words and more trials between prime and target, participants recognized targets preceded by primes with the same or a different degree of reduction equally quickly. Also, in Experiments 3 and 4, in which listeners were not exposed to one but two types of pronunciation variation (reduction degree and speaker voice), no exemplar effects arose. We conclude that the role of exemplars in speech comprehension during natural conversations, which typically involve several speakers and few repeated content words, may be smaller than previously assumed.
  • Hanique, I., Ernestus, M., & Schuppler, B. (2013). Informal speech processes can be categorical in nature, even if they affect many different words. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 133, 1644-1655. doi:10.1121/1.4790352.

    Abstract

    This paper investigates the nature of reduction phenomena in informal speech. It addresses the question whether reduction processes that affect many word types, but only if they occur in connected informal speech, may be categorical in nature. The focus is on reduction of schwa in the prefixes and on word-final /t/ in Dutch past participles. More than 2000 tokens of past participles from the Ernestus Corpus of Spontaneous Dutch and the Spoken Dutch Corpus (both from the interview and read speech component) were transcribed automatically. The results demonstrate that the presence and duration of /t/ are affected by approximately the same phonetic variables, indicating that the absence of /t/ is the extreme result of shortening, and thus results from a gradient reduction process. Also for schwa, the data show that mainly phonetic variables influence its reduction, but its presence is affected by different and more variables than its duration, which suggests that the absence of schwa may result from gradient as well as categorical processes. These conclusions are supported by the distributions of the segments’ durations. These findings provide evidence that reduction phenomena which affect many words in informal conversations may also result from categorical reduction processes.
  • Hanique, I. (2013). Mental representation and processing of reduced words in casual speech. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Harmon, Z., & Kapatsinski, V. (2020). The best-laid plan of mice and men: Competition between top-down and preceding-item cues in plan execution. In S. Denison, M. Mack, Y. Xu, & B. C. Armstrong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2020) (pp. 1674-1680). Montreal, QB: Cognitive Science Society.

    Abstract

    There is evidence that the process of executing a planned utterance involves the use of both preceding-context and top-down cues. Utterance-initial words are cued only by the top-down plan. In contrast, non-initial words are cued both by top-down cues and preceding-context cues. Co-existence of both cue types raises the question of how they interact during learning. We argue that this interaction is competitive: items that tend to be preceded by predictive preceding-context cues are harder to activate from the plan without this predictive context. A novel computational model of this competition is developed. The model is tested on a corpus of repetition disfluencies and shown to account for the influences on patterns of restarts during production. In particular, this model predicts a novel Initiation Effect: following an interruption, speakers re-initiate production from words that tend to occur in utterance-initial position, even when they are not initial in the interrupted utterance.
  • Hashemzadeh, M., Kaufeld, G., White, M., Martin, A. E., & Fyshe, A. (2020). From language to language-ish: How brain-like is an LSTM representation of nonsensical language stimuli? In T. Cohn, Y. He, & Y. Liu (Eds.), Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2020 (pp. 645-655). Association for Computational Linguistics.

    Abstract

    The representations generated by many mod-
    els of language (word embeddings, recurrent
    neural networks and transformers) correlate
    to brain activity recorded while people read.
    However, these decoding results are usually
    based on the brain’s reaction to syntactically
    and semantically sound language stimuli. In
    this study, we asked: how does an LSTM (long
    short term memory) language model, trained
    (by and large) on semantically and syntac-
    tically intact language, represent a language
    sample with degraded semantic or syntactic
    information? Does the LSTM representation
    still resemble the brain’s reaction? We found
    that, even for some kinds of nonsensical lan-
    guage, there is a statistically significant rela-
    tionship between the brain’s activity and the
    representations of an LSTM. This indicates
    that, at least in some instances, LSTMs and the
    human brain handle nonsensical data similarly.
  • Haun, D. B. M., & Wertenbruch, M. (2013). Forschungen und Entwicklungen zum Konzept der Ehre als Potential für Konflikte zwischen Kulturen bzw. als Hindernis für Integration. Wien: Österreichischen Integrationsfonds.
  • Haun, D. B. M., Van Leeuwen, E. J. C., & Edelson, M. G. (2013). Majority influence in children and other animals. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 3, 61-71. doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2012.09.003.

    Abstract

    We here review existing evidence for majority influences in children under the age of ten years and comparable studies with animals ranging from fish to apes. Throughout the review, we structure the discussion surrounding majority influences by differentiating the behaviour of individuals in the presence of a majority and the underlying mechanisms and motivations. Most of the relevant research to date in both developmental psychology and comparative psychology has focused on the behavioural outcomes, where a multitude of mechanisms could be at play. We further propose that interpreting cross-species differences in behavioural patterns is difficult without considering the psychology of the individual. Some attempts at this have been made both in developmental psychology and comparative psychology. We propose that physiological measures should be used to subsidize behavioural studies in an attempt to understand the composition of mechanisms and motivations underlying majority influence. We synthesize the relevant evidence on human brain function in order to provide a framework for future investigation in this area. In addition to streamlining future research efforts, we aim to create a conceptual platform for productive exchanges across the related disciplines of developmental and comparative psychology.
  • Haun, D. B. M., & Over, H. (2013). Like me: A homophily-based account of human culture. In P. J. Richerson, & M. H. Christiansen (Eds.), Cultural Evolution: Society, technology, language, and religion (pp. 75-85). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Havron, N., Bergmann, C., & Tsuji, S. (2020). Preregistration in infant research - A primer. Infancy, 25(5), 734-754. doi:10.1111/infa.12353.

    Abstract

    Preregistration, the act of specifying a research plan in advance, is becoming more common in scientific research. Infant researchers contend with unique problems that might make preregistration particularly challenging. Infants are a hard‐to‐reach population, usually yielding small sample sizes, they can only complete a limited number of trials, and they can be excluded based on hard‐to‐predict complications (e.g., parental interference, fussiness). In addition, as effects themselves potentially change with age and population, it is hard to calculate an a priori effect size. At the same time, these very factors make preregistration in infant studies a valuable tool. A priori examination of the planned study, including the hypotheses, sample size, and resulting statistical power, increases the credibility of single studies and adds value to the field. Preregistration might also improve explicit decision making to create better studies. We present an in‐depth discussion of the issues uniquely relevant to infant researchers, and ways to contend with them in preregistration and study planning. We provide recommendations to researchers interested in following current best practices.

    Additional information

    Preprint version on OSF
  • Hayano, K. (2013). Territories of knowledge in Japanese conversation. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.

    Abstract

    This thesis focuses on one aspect of interactional competence: competence to manage knowledge distribution in conversation. In order to be considered competent in everyday interaction, participants need not only to index one another's knowledge states but also to engage in dynamic negotiation of knowledge distribution. Adopting the methodology of conversation analysis, the thesis investigates how participants' orientations to knowledge distribution, 'epistemicity', are manifested. The thesis examines three interactional environments: assessment sequences, informing sequences and polar question-answer sequences. A systematic analysis reveals that interactants orient to different aspects of knowledge in different environments, employing different grammatical resources. When they assess an object, they are concerned about who possesses 'epistemic primacy'. Japanese final particles and the practices of intensification serve together to claim epistemic primacy and provide support for the claim. It is also reported that interactants are oriented to achieve 'epistemic congruence' − consensus regarding how knowledge is distributed among them. When one provides the other with new information, the exchange commonly develops into a four-turn sequence, instead of a minimal adjacency pair. It is shown that this sequence organization allows interactants to achieve a balance between territories of experience, affiliation and empathy. In polar question-answer sequences, how (un)expected or novel a given piece of information is becomes an issue. Answers are found to be formulated such that they adopt epistemic stances that are assertive enough to match the level of (un)certainty expressed by questioners. The thesis contributes to our understanding of how social interaction is organized. It becomes clear from the findings that a wide range of aspects of language use and interactional organization are dominated by interactants' orientations to epistemicity. Participants manage knowledge distribution in everyday interaction, which may be the most fundamental means of managing their social statuses and relations.

    Additional information

    full text via Radboud Repository
  • Hayano, K. (2004). Kaiwa ni okeru ninshikiteki ken’i no koushou: Shuujoshi yo, ne, odoroki hyouji no bunpu to kinou [Negotiation of Epistemic Authority in Conversation: on the use of final particles yo, ne and surprise markers]. Studies in Pragmatics, 6, 17-28.
  • Hayano, K. (2013). Question design in conversation. In J. Sidnell, & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 395-414). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118325001.ch19.

    Abstract

    This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Questions Questioning and the Epistemic Gradient Presuppositions, Agenda Setting and Preferences Social Actions Implemented by Questions Questions as Building Blocks of Institutional Activities Future Directions
  • De Heer Kloots, M., Carlson, D., Garcia, M., Kotz, S., Lowry, A., Poli-Nardi, L., de Reus, K., Rubio-García, A., Sroka, M., Varola, M., & Ravignani, A. (2020). Rhythmic perception, production and interactivity in harbour and grey seals. In A. Ravignani, C. Barbieri, M. Flaherty, Y. Jadoul, E. Lattenkamp, H. Little, M. Martins, K. Mudd, & T. Verhoef (Eds.), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference (Evolang13) (pp. 59-62). Nijmegen: The Evolution of Language Conferences.
  • Heidlmayr, K., Kihlstedt, M., & Isel, F. (2020). A review on the electroencephalography markers of Stroop executive control processes. Brain and Cognition, 146: 105637. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105637.

    Abstract

    The present article on executive control addresses the issue of the locus of the Stroop effect by examining neurophysiological components marking conflict monitoring, interference suppression, and conflict resolution. Our goal was to provide an overview of a series of determining neurophysiological findings including neural source reconstruction data on distinct executive control processes and sub-processes involved in the Stroop task. Consistently, a fronto-central N2 component is found to reflect conflict monitoring processes, with its main neural generator being the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Then, for cognitive control tasks that involve a linguistic component like the Stroop task, the N2 is followed by a centro-posterior N400 and subsequently a late sustained potential (LSP). The N400 is mainly generated by the ACC and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and is thought to reflect interference suppression, whereas the LSP plausibly reflects conflict resolution processes. The present overview shows that ERP constitute a reliable methodological tool for tracing with precision the time course of different executive processes and sub-processes involved in experimental tasks involving a cognitive conflict. Future research should shed light on the fine-grained mechanisms of control respectively involved in linguistic and non-linguistic tasks.
  • Heidlmayr, K., Weber, K., Takashima, A., & Hagoort, P. (2020). No title, no theme: The joined neural space between speakers and listeners during production and comprehension of multi-sentence discourse. Cortex, 130, 111-126. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.035.

    Abstract

    Speakers and listeners usually interact in larger discourses than single words or even single sentences. The goal of the present study was to identify the neural bases reflecting how the mental representation of the situation denoted in a multi-sentence discourse (situation model) is constructed and shared between speakers and listeners. An fMRI study using a variant of the ambiguous text paradigm was designed. Speakers (n=15) produced ambiguous texts in the scanner and listeners (n=27) subsequently listened to these texts in different states of ambiguity: preceded by a highly informative, intermediately informative or no title at all. Conventional BOLD activation analyses in listeners, as well as inter-subject correlation analyses between the speakers’ and the listeners’ hemodynamic time courses were performed. Critically, only the processing of disambiguated, coherent discourse with an intelligible situation model representation involved (shared) activation in bilateral lateral parietal and medial prefrontal regions. This shared spatiotemporal pattern of brain activation between the speaker and the listener suggests that the process of memory retrieval in medial prefrontal regions and the binding of retrieved information in the lateral parietal cortex constitutes a core mechanism underlying the communication of complex conceptual representations.

    Additional information

    supplementary data
  • Heidlmayr, K., Moutier, S., Hemforth, B., Courtin, C., Tanzmeister, R., & Isel, F. (2013). Successive bilingualism and executive functions: The effect of second language use on inhibitory control in a behavioural Stroop Colour Wordtask. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(3), 630-645. doi:dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1366728913000539.

    Abstract

    Here we examined the role of bilingualism on cognitive inhibition using the Stroop Colour Word task. Our hypothesis was that the frequency of use of a second language (L2) in the daily life of successive bilingual individuals impacts the efficiency of their inhibitory control mechanism. Thirty-three highly proficient successive French–German bilinguals, living either in a French or in a German linguistic environment, performed a Stroop task on both French and German words. Moreover, 31 French monolingual individuals were also tested with French words. We showed that the bilingual advantage was (i) reinforced by the use of a third language, and (ii) modulated by the duration of immersion in a second language environment. This suggests that top–down inhibitory control is most involved at the beginning of immersion. Taken together, the present findings lend support to the psycholinguistic models of bilingual language processing that postulate that top–down active inhibition is involved in language control.

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