Publications

Abstract

The authors report six implicit priming experiments that examined the production of inflected forms. Participants produced words out of small sets in response to prompts. The words differed in form or shared word-initial segments, which allowed for preparation. In constant inflectional sets, the words had the same number of inflectional suffixes, whereas in variable sets the number of suffixes differed. In the experiments, preparation effects were obtained, which were larger in the constant than in the variable sets. Control experiments showed that this difference in effect was not due to syntactic class or phonological form per se. The results are interpreted in terms of a slot-and-filler model of word production, in which inflectional frames, on the one hand, and stems and affixes, on the other hand, are independently spelled out on the basis of an abstract morpho-syntactic specification of the word, which is followed by morpheme-to-frame association.

Abstract

As people find their way through their environment, objects at navigationally relevant locations can serve as crucial landmarks. The parahippocampal gyrus has previously been shown to be involved in object and scene recognition. In the present study, we investigated the neural representation of navigationally relevant locations. Healthy human adults viewed a route through a virtual museum with objects placed at intersections (decision points) or at simple turns (non-decision points). Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired during subsequent recognition of the objects in isolation. Neural activity in the parahippocampal gyrus reflected the navigational relevance of an object's location in the museum. Parahippocampal responses were selectively increased for objects that occurred at decision points, independent of attentional demands. This increase occurred for forgotten as well as remembered objects, showing implicit retrieval of navigational information. The automatic storage of relevant object location in the parahippocampal gyrus provides a part of the neural mechanism underlying successful navigation.

Abstract

Successful navigation is facilitated by the presence of landmarks. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidence indicated that the human parahippocampal gyrus automatically distinguishes between landmarks placed at navigationally relevant (decision points) and irrelevant locations (nondecision points). This storage of navigational relevance can provide a neural mechanism underlying successful navigation. However, an efficient wayfinding mechanism requires that important spatial information is learned quickly and maintained over time. The present study investigates whether the representation of navigational relevance is modulated by time and practice. Participants learned 2 film sequences through virtual mazes containing objects at decision and at nondecision points. One maze was shown one time, and the other maze was shown 3 times. Twenty-four hours after study, event-related fMRI data were acquired during recognition of the objects. The results showed that activity in the parahippocampal gyrus was increased for objects previously placed at decision points as compared with objects placed at nondecision points. The decision point effect was not modulated by the number of exposures to the mazes and independent of explicit memory functions. These findings suggest a persistent representation of navigationally relevant information, which is stable after only one exposure to an environment. These rapidly induced and long-lasting changes in object representation provide a basis for successful wayfinding.

Abstract

The human brain distinguishes between landmarks placed at navigationally relevant and irrelevant locations. However, to provide a successful wayfinding mechanism not only landmarks but also the routes between them need to be stored. We examined the neural representation of a memory for route direction and a memory for relevant landmarks. Healthy human adults viewed objects along a route through a virtual maze. Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired during a subsequent subliminal priming recognition task. Prime-objects either preceded or succeeded a target-object on a preciously learned route. Our results provide evidence that the parahippocampal gyri distinguish between relevant and irrelevant landmarks whereas the inferior parietal gyrus, the anterior cingulate gyrus as well as the right caudate nucleus are involved in the coding of route direction. These data show that separated memory systems store different spatial information. A memory for navigationally relevant object information and a memory for route direction exist.

Abstract

Visual cues to the individual segments of speech and to sentence prosody guide speech recognition. The present study tested whether visual suprasegmental cues to the stress patterns of words can also constrain recognition. Dutch listeners use acoustic suprasegmental cues to lexical stress (changes in duration, amplitude, and pitch) in spoken-word recognition. We asked here whether they can also use visual suprasegmental cues. In two categorization experiments, Dutch participants saw a speaker say fragments of word pairs that were segmentally identical but differed in their stress realization (e.g., 'ca-vi from cavia "guinea pig" vs. 'ka-vi from kaviaar "caviar"). Participants were able to distinguish between these pairs from seeing a speaker alone. Only the presence of primary stress in the fragment, not its absence, was informative. Participants were able to distinguish visually primary from secondary stress on first syllables, but only when the fragment-bearing target word carried phrase-level emphasis. Furthermore, participants distinguished fragments with primary stress on their second syllable from those with secondary stress on their first syllable (e.g., pro-'jec from projector "projector" vs. 'pro-jec from projectiel "projectile"), independently of phrase-level emphasis. Seeing a speaker thus contributes to spoken-word recognition by providing suprasegmental information about the presence of primary lexical stress.

Abstract

We investigate differences of cerebral activation in 12 right-handed and left-handed participants, respectively, using a sentence-processing task. Functional MRI shows activation of left-frontal and inferior-parietal speech areas (BA 44, BA9, BA 40) in both groups, but a stronger bilateral activation in left-handers. Direct group comparison reveals a stronger activation in right-frontal cortex (BA 47, BA 6) and left cerebellum in left-handers. Laterality indices for the inferior-frontal cortex are less asymmetric in left-handers and are not related to the degree of handedness. Thus, our results show that sentence-processing induced enhanced activation involving a bilateral network in left-handed participants.

Abstract

Purpose: Factors affecting the efficacy of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAb) directed to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) remain relatively unknown, especially in glioma. Experimental Design: We examined the efficacy of two EGFR-specific mAbs (mAbs 806 and 528) against U87MG-derived glioma xenografts expressing EGFR variants. Using this approach allowed us to change the form of the EGFR while keeping the genetic background constant. These variants included the de2-7 EGFR (or EGFRvIII), a constitutively active mutation of the EGFR expressed in glioma. Results: The efficacy of the mAbs correlated with EGFR number; however, the most important factor was receptor activation. Whereas U87MG xenografts expressing the de2-7 EGFR responded to therapy, those exhibiting a dead kinase de2-7 EGFR were refractory. A modified de2-7 EGFR that was kinase active but autophosphorylation deficient also responded, suggesting that these mAbs function in de2-7 EGFR–expressing xenografts by blocking transphosphorylation. Because de2-7 EGFR–expressing U87MG xenografts coexpress the wild-type EGFR, efficacy of the mAbs was also tested against NR6 xenografts that expressed the de2-7 EGFR in isolation. Whereas mAb 806 displayed antitumor activity against NR6 xenografts, mAb 528 therapy was ineffective, suggesting that mAb 528 mediates its antitumor activity by disrupting interactions between the de2-7 and wild-type EGFR. Finally, genetic disruption of Src in U87MG xenografts expressing the de2-7 EGFR dramatically enhanced mAb 806 efficacy. Conclusions: The effective use of EGFR-specific antibodies in glioma will depend on identifying tumors with activated EGFR. The combination of EGFR and Src inhibitors may be an effective strategy for the treatment of glioma.

Abstract

In this study, we use the association between various measures of the morphological family and decision latencies to reveal the way in which the components of Dutch and English compounds are processed. The results show that for constituents of concatenated compounds in both languages, a position-related token count of the morphological family plays a role, whereas English open compounds show an effect of a type count, similar to the effect of family size for simplex words. When Dutch compounds are written with an artificial space, they reveal no effect of type count, which shows that the differential effect for the English open compounds is not superficial. The final experiment provides converging evidence for the lexical consequences of the space in English compounds. Decision latencies for English simplex words are better predicted from counts of the morphological family that include concatenated and hyphenated but not open family members.

Abstract

In early Dutch learner varieties, there is no evidence of finiteness being a functional category. There is no V2nd: no correlation between inflectional morphology and movement. Initially, learners express the illocutive function of finiteness through the use of illocutive markers, with the non-use of an illocutive marker expressing the default illocutive function of assertion. Illocutive markers are functioning as adjuncts with scope over the predicate. Illocutive markers become re-analysed as functional elements.The driving force is the acquisition of the auxiliary verbs that occur with past participles. It leads to a reanalysis of illocutive markers as two separate elements: an auxiliary verb and a scope adverb. The (modal) auxiliary carries illocutive function. Lexical verb-argument structure (including the external argument) occurs within the domain of the auxiliary verb. The predicate as the focus constituent occurs within the domain of a scope adverb. This reanalysis establishes a position for the external argument within the domain of AUX. The acquisition of AUX causes the acquisition of a (hierarchical) structure with a complement as a constituent which represents an underlying verb-argument structure, a predicate as the domain of elements that are in focus, and an external (specifier) position as a landing site for elements with topic function.

Abstract

Recent behavioral and electrophysiological evidence has highlighted the long-term importance for language skills of an early ability to recognize words in continuous speech. We here present further tests of this long-term link in the form of follow-up studies conducted with two (separate) groups of infants who had earlier participated in speech segmentation tasks. Each study extends prior follow-up tests: Study 1 by using a novel follow-up measure that taps into online processing, Study 2 by assessing language performance relationships over a longer time span than previously tested. Results of Study 1 show that brain correlates of speech segmentation ability at 10 months are positively related to 16-month-olds’ target fixations in a looking-while-listening task. Results of Study 2 show that infant speech segmentation ability no longer directly predicts language profiles at the age of five. However, a meta-analysis across our results and those of similar studies (Study 3) reveals that age at follow-up does not moderate effect size. Together, the results suggest that infants’ ability to recognize words in speech certainly benefits early vocabulary development; further observed relationships of later language skills to early word recognition may be consequent upon this vocabulary size effect.

Abstract

Most words that infants hear occur within fluent speech. To compile a vocabulary, infants therefore need to segment words from speech contexts. This study is the first to investigate whether infants (here: 10-month-olds) can recognize words when both initial exposure and test presentation are in continuous speech. Electrophysiological evidence attests that this indeed occurs: An increased extended negativity (word recognition effect) appears for familiarized target words relative to control words. This response proved constant at the individual level: Only infants who showed this negativity at test had shown such a response, within six repetitions after first occurrence, during familiarization.

Abstract

The relocation of animals can induce stress when animals are placed in novel environmental conditions. The movement of captive animals among facilities is common, especially for non-human primates used in research. The stress response begins with the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis which results in the release of glucocorticoid hormones (GC), which at chronic levels could lead to deleterious physiological effects. There is a substantial body of data concerning GC levels affecting reproduction, and rank and aggression in primates. However, the effect of transport has received much less attention. Fecal samples from eight (four male and four female) captive-bred cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) were collected at four different time points (two pre-transport and two post-transport). The fecal samples were analyzed using an immunoassay to determine GC levels. A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) demonstrated that GC levels differed among transport times (p = 0.009), but not between sexes (p = 0.963). Five of the eight tamarins exhibited an increase in GC levels after transport. Seven of the eight tamarins exhibited a decrease in GC levels from three to six days post-transport to three weeks post-transport. Most values returned to pre-transport levels after three weeks. The results indicate that these tamarins experienced elevated GC levels following transport, but these increases were of short duration. This outcome would suggest that the negative effects of elevated GC levels were also of short duration.

Abstract

One of the major challenges in acquiring a language is being able to use morphology as an adult would, and thus, a considerable amount of acquisition research has focused on morphological production and comprehension. Most of this research, however, has focused on the acquisition of morphology in isolating languages, or languages (such as English) with limited inflectional morphology. The nature of the learning task is different, and potentially more challenging, when the child is learning a polysynthetic language – a language in which words are highly morphologically complex, expressing in a single word what in English takes a multi-word clause. To date, there has been no cross-linguistic survey of how children approach this puzzle and learn polysynthetic languages. This paper aims to provide such a survey, including a discussion of some of the general findings in the literature regarding the acquisition of polysynthetic systems

Abstract

We hypothesized that bone resorption acts to increase bone strength through stimulation of periosteal expansion. Hence, we examined whether bone resorption, as reflected by serum β-C-telopeptides of type I collagen (CTX), is positively associated with periosteal circumference (PC), in contrast to inverse associations with parameters related to bone remodeling such as cortical bone mineral density (BMDC ). CTX and mid-tibial peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) scans were available in 1130 adolescents (mean age 15.5 years) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Analyses were adjusted for age, gender, time of sampling, tanner stage, lean mass, fat mass, and height. CTX was positively related to PC (β=0.19 [0.13, 0.24]) (coefficient=SD change per SD increase in CTX, 95% confidence interval)] but inversely associated with BMDC (β=-0.46 [-0.52,-0.40]) and cortical thickness [β=-0.11 (-0.18, -0.03)]. CTX was positively related to bone strength as reflected by the strength-strain index (SSI) (β=0.09 [0.03, 0.14]). To examine the causal nature of this relationship, we then analyzed whether single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within key osteoclast regulatory genes, known to reduce areal/cortical BMD, conversely increase PC. Fifteen such genetic variants within or proximal to genes encoding receptor activator of NF-κB (RANK), RANK ligand (RANKL), and osteoprotegerin (OPG) were identified by literature search. Six of the 15 alleles that were inversely related to BMD were positively related to CTX (p<}0.05 cut-off) (n=2379). Subsequently, we performed a meta-analysis of associations between these SNPs and PC in ALSPAC (n=3382), Gothenburg Osteoporosis and Obesity Determinants (GOOD) (n=938), and the Young Finns Study (YFS) (n=1558). Five of the 15 alleles that were inversely related to BMD were positively related to PC (p{<0.05 cut-off). We conclude that despite having lower BMD, individuals with a genetic predisposition to higher bone resorption have greater bone size, suggesting that higher bone resorption is permissive for greater periosteal expansion.

Abstract

Heritability of bone mineral density (BMD) varies across skeletal sites, reflecting different relative contributions of genetic and environmental influences. To quantify the degree to which common genetic variants tag and environmental factors influence BMD, at different sites, we estimated the genetic (rg) and residual (re) correlations between BMD measured at the upper limbs (UL-BMD), lower limbs (LL-BMD) and skull (SK-BMD), using total-body DXA scans of ∼ 4,890 participants recruited by the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and their Children (ALSPAC). Point estimates of rg indicated that appendicular sites have a greater proportion of shared genetic architecture (LL-/UL-BMD rg = 0.78) between them, than with the skull (UL-/SK-BMD rg = 0.58 and LL-/SK-BMD rg = 0.43). Likewise, the residual correlation between BMD at appendicular sites (r(e) = 0.55) was higher than the residual correlation between SK-BMD and BMD at appendicular sites (r(e) = 0.20-0.24). To explore the basis for the observed differences in rg and re, genome-wide association meta-analyses were performed (n ∼ 9,395), combining data from ALSPAC and the Generation R Study identifying 15 independent signals from 13 loci associated at genome-wide significant level across different skeletal regions. Results suggested that previously identified BMD-associated variants may exert site-specific effects (i.e. differ in the strength of their association and magnitude of effect across different skeletal sites). In particular, variants at CPED1 exerted a larger influence on SK-BMD and UL-BMD when compared to LL-BMD (P = 2.01 × 10(-37)), whilst variants at WNT16 influenced UL-BMD to a greater degree when compared to SK- and LL-BMD (P = 2.31 × 10(-14)). In addition, we report a novel association between RIN3 (previously associated with Paget's disease) and LL-BMD (rs754388: β = 0.13, SE = 0.02, P = 1.4 × 10(-10)). Our results suggest that BMD at different skeletal sites is under a mixture of shared and specific genetic and environmental influences. Allowing for these differences by performing genome-wide association at different skeletal sites may help uncover new genetic influences on BMD.

Abstract

When you compare the behavior of two different age groups which are trying to master the same sensori-motor or cognitive skill, you are likely to discover varying learning routes: different stages, different intervals between stages, or even different orderings of stages. Such heterogeneous learning trajectories may be caused by at least six different types of factors: (1) Initial state: the kinds and levels of skills the learners have available at the onset of the learning episode. (2) Learning mechanisms: rule-based, inductive, connectionist, parameter setting, and so on. (3) Input and feedback characteristics: learning stimuli, information about success and failure. (4) Information processing mechanisms: capacity limitations, attentional biases, response preferences. (5) Energetic variables: motivation, emotional reactions. (6) Final state: the fine-structure of kinds and levels of subskills at the end of the learning episode. This applies to language acquisition as well. First and second language learners probably differ on all six factors. Nevertheless, the debate between advocates and opponents of the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis concerning L1 and L2 acquisition have looked almost exclusively at the first two factors. Those who believe that L1 learners have access to Universal Grammar whereas L2 learners rely on language processing strategies, postulate different learning mechanisms (UG parameter setting in L1, more general inductive strategies in L2 learning). Pienemann opposes this view and, based on his Processability Theory, argues that L1 and L2 learners start out from different initial states: they come to the grammar learning task with different structural hypotheses (SOV versus SVO as basic word order of German).

Abstract

A new cognitive architecture is proposed for the syntactic aspects of human sentence processing. The architecture, called Unification Space, is biologically inspired but not based on neural nets. Instead it relies on biosynthesis as a basic metaphor. We use simulated annealing as an optimization technique which searches for the best configuration of isolated syntactic segments or subtrees in the final parse tree. The gradually decaying activation of individual syntactic nodes determines the ‘global excitation level’ of the system. This parameter serves the function of ‘computational temperature’ in simulated annealing. We have built a computer implementation of the architecture which simulates well-known sentence understanding phenomena. We report successful simulations of the psycholinguistic effects of clause embedding, minimal attachment, right association and lexical ambiguity. In addition, we simulated impaired sentence understanding as observable in agrammatic patients. Since the Unification Space allows for contextual (semantic and pragmatic) influences on the syntactic tree formation process, it belongs to the class of interactive sentence processing models.

Abstract

Remarques sur les facteurs intervenant dans le processus de formulation des énoncés.

Abstract

The study develops a neurocomputational architecture for grammatical processing in language production and language comprehension (grammatical encoding and decoding, respectively). It seeks to answer two questions. First, how is online syntactic structure formation of the complexity required by natural-language grammars possible in a fixed, preexisting neural network without the need for online creation of new connections or associations? Second, is it realistic to assume that the seemingly disparate instantiations of syntactic structure formation in grammatical encoding and grammatical decoding can run on the same neural infrastructure? This issue is prompted by accumulating experimental evidence for the hypothesis that the mechanisms for grammatical decoding overlap with those for grammatical encoding to a considerable extent, thus inviting the hypothesis of a single “grammatical coder.” The paper answers both questions by providing the blueprint for a syntactic structure formation mechanism that is entirely based on prewired circuitry (except for referential processing, which relies on the rapid learning capacity of the hippocampal complex), and can subserve decoding as well as encoding tasks. The model builds on the “Unification Space” model of syntactic parsing developed by Vosse & Kempen (2000, 2008, 2009). The design includes a neurocomputational mechanism for the treatment of an important class of grammatical movement phenomena.

Abstract

The psychology of language as developed by Wilhelm Wundt in his fundamental work Die Sprache (1900) has a strongly mentalistic character. The dominating positions held by behaviorism in psychology and structuralism in linguistics have overruled Wundt’s language theory to the effect that it has remained relatively unknown. This situation has changed recently under the influence of transformational linguistics and cognitive psychology. The paper discusses how Wundt applied the basic psychological concepts of apperception and association to language behavior, in particular to the construction and production of sentences during unprepared speech. The final part of the paper is devoted to the work, published in 1917, of the Dutch linguistic scholar Jacques van Ginneken, who elaborated Wundt’s ideas towards an explanation of some syntactic phenomena during the language acquisition of children.

Abstract

Listeners cannot recognize highly reduced word forms in isolation, but they can do so when these forms are presented in context (Ernestus, Baayen, & Schreuder, 2002). This suggests that not all possible surface forms of words have equal status in the mental lexicon. The present study shows that the reduced forms are linked to the canonical representations in the mental lexicon, and that these latter representations induce reconstruction processes. Listeners restore suffixes that are partly or completely missing in reduced word forms. A series of phoneme-monitoring experiments reveals the nature of this restoration: the basis for suffix restoration is mainly phonological in nature, but orthography has an influence as well.

Abstract

Written information is often of limited accessibility to deaf people who use sign language. The eSign project was undertaken as a response to the need for technologies enabling efficient production and distribution over the Internet of sign language content. By using an avatar-independent scripting notation for signing gestures and a client-side web browser plug-in to translate this notation into motion data for an avatar, we achieve highly efficient delivery of signing, while avoiding the inflexibility of video or motion capture. Tests with members of the deaf community have indicated that the method can provide an acceptable quality of signing.

Abstract

Speech is structured into parts by syntactic and prosodic breaks. In locally syntactic ambiguous sentences, the detection of a syntactic break necessarily follows detection of a corresponding prosodic break, making an investigation of the immediate interplay of syntactic and prosodic information impossible when studying sentences in isolation. This problem can be solved, however, by embedding sentences in a discourse context that induces the expectation of either the presence or the absence of a syntactic break right at a prosodic break. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were compared to acoustically identical sentences in these different contexts. We found in two experiments that the closure positive shift, an ERP component known to be elicited by prosodic breaks, was reduced in size when a prosodic break was aligned with a syntactic break. These results establish that the brain matches prosodic information against syntactic information immediately.

Abstract

For real-time and embedded systems, limiting the consumption of time and memory resources is often an important part of the requirements. Being able to predict bounds on the consumption of such resources during the development process of the code can be of great value. In this paper, we focus mainly on memory-related bounds. Recent research results have advanced the state of the art of resource consumption analysis. In this paper, we present a toolset that makes it possible to apply these research results in practice for (real-time) systems enabling JAVA developers to analyse symbolic loop bounds, symbolic bounds on heap size and both symbolic and numeric bounds on stack size. We describe which theoretical additions were needed in order to achieve this. We give an overview of the capabilities of the RESANA (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands) toolset that is the result of this effort. The toolset can not only perform generally applicable analyses, but it also contains a part of the analysis that is dedicated to the developers' (real-time) virtual machine, such that the results apply directly to the actual development environment that is used in practice

Abstract

Children must possess some ability to process input in a meaningful manner to acquire language. The present study reports on data from an experiment investigating 3- to 5-year-old English-speaking children's understanding of restrictive relative clauses manipulated for embeddedness and focus. The results of the study showed that English-speaking children acquire right-branching before center-embedded structures. Comparisons made with data from Portuguese-speaking children suggest general-cognitive and language-specific constraints on development, and with respect to English, a “clause expansion” approach to processing in development

Abstract

Drozd's critique of Crain & Thornton's (C&T) (1998) book Investigations in Universal Grammar (IUG) raises many issues concerning theory and experimental design within generative approaches to language acquisition. I focus here on one of the strongest theoretical claims of the Modularity Matching Model (MMM): continuity of processing. For reasons different to Drozd, I argue that the assumption is tenuous. Furthermore, I argue that the focus of the MMM and the methodological prescriptions contained in IUG are too narrow to capture language acquisition.

Abstract

This paper reports on two studies investigating children's and adults' processing of sentences containing ambiguity of prepositional phrase (PP) attachment. Study 1 used corpus data to investigate whether cues argued to be used by adults to resolve PP-attachment ambiguities are available in child-directed speech. Study 2 was an on-line reaction time study investigating the role of lexical and referential biases in syntactic ambiguity resolution by children and adults. Forty children (mean age 8;4) and 37 adults listened to V-NP-PP sentences containing temporary ambiguity of PP-attachment. The sentences were manipulated for (i) verb semantics, (ii) the definiteness of the object NP, and (iii) PP-attachment site. The children and adults did not differ qualitatively from each other in their resolution of the ambiguity. A verb semantics by attachment interaction suggested that different attachment analyses were pursued depending on the semantics of the verb. There was no influence of the definiteness of the object NP in either children's or adults' parsing preferences. The findings from the on-line task matched up well with the corpus data, thus identifying a role for the input in the development of parsing strategies.

Abstract

We present the results from four studies, two corpora and two experimental, which suggest that English- and German-speaking children (3;1–4;9 years) use multiple constraints to process and produce object relative clauses. Our two corpora studies show that children produce object relatives that reflect the distributional and discourse regularities of the input. Specifically, the results show that when children produce object relatives they most often do so with (a) an inanimate head noun, and (b) a pronominal relative clause subject. Our experimental findings show that children use these constraints to process and produce this construction type. Moreover, when children were required to repeat the object relatives they most often use in naturalistic speech, the subject-object asymmetry in processing of relative clauses disappeared. We also report cross-linguistic differences in children's rate of acquisition which reflect properties of the input language. Overall, our results suggest that children are sensitive to the same constraints on relative clause processing as adults.

Abstract

Pauses during continuous speech, particularly those that occur within clauses, are thought to reflect the planning of forthcoming verbal output. We used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to examine their neural correlates. Six volunteers were scanned while describing seven Rorschach inkblots, producing 3 min of speech per inkblot. In an event-related design, the level of blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) contrast during brief speech pauses (mean duration 1.3 s, SD 0.3 s) during overt speech was contrasted with that during intervening periods of articulation. We then examined activity associated with pauses that occurred within clauses and pauses that occurred between grammatical junctions. Relative to articulation during speech, pauses were associated with activation in the banks of the left superior temporal sulcus (BA 39/22), at the temporoparietal junction. Continuous speech was associated with greater activation bilaterally in the inferior frontal (BA 44/45), middle frontal (BA 8) and anterior cingulate (BA 24) gyri, the middle temporal sulcus (BA 21/22), the occipital cortex and the cerebellum. Left temporal activation was evident during pauses that occurred within clauses but not during pauses at grammatical junctions. In summary, articulation during continuous speech involved frontal, temporal and cerebellar areas, while pausing was associated with activity in the left temporal cortex, especially when this occurred within a clause. The latter finding is consistent with evidence that within-clause pauses are a correlate of speech planning and in particular lexical retrieval.

Abstract

Gestures that accompany speech are known to be tightly coupled with speech production. However little is known about the cognitive processes that underlie this link. Previous cross-linguistic research has provided preliminary evidence for online interaction between the two systems based on the systematic co-variation found between how different languages syntactically package Manner and Path information of a motion event and how gestures represent Manner and Path. Here we elaborate on this finding by testing whether speakers within the same language gesturally express Manner and Path differently according to their online choice of syntactic packaging of Manner and Path, or whether gestural expression is pre-determined by a habitual conceptual schema congruent with the linguistic typology. Typologically congruent and incongruent syntactic structures for expressing Manner and Path (i.e., in a single clause or multiple clauses) were elicited from English speakers. We found that gestural expressions were determined by the online choice of syntactic packaging rather than by a habitual conceptual schema. It is therefore concluded that speech and gesture production processes interface online at the conceptual planning phase. Implications of the findings for models of speech and gesture production are discussed

Abstract

Since Battison (1978), it has been noted in many signed languages that the Symmetry Condition constrains the form of two-handed signs in which two hands move independently. The Condition states that the form features (e.g., the handshapes and movements) of the two hands are 'symmetrical'. The Symmetry Condition has been regarded in the literature as a part of signed language phonology. In this study, we examine the linguistic status of the Symmetry Condition by comparing the degree of symmetry in signs from Sign Language of the Netherlands and speech-accompanying representational gestures produced by Dutch speakers. Like signed language, such gestures use hand movements to express concepts, but they do not constitute a linguistic system in their own right. We found that the Symmetry Condition holds equally well for signs and spontaneous gestures. This indicates that this condition is a general cognitive constraint, rather than a constraint specific to language. We suggest that the Symmetry Condition is a manifestation of the mind having one active 'mental articulator' when expressing a concept with hand movements

Abstract

In a way, the entire history of linguistic thought from the Antiquity to present days is a series of variations on two key themes: 1. In a certain sense, language and cognition are the same, and 2. In a certain sense, all languages are the same. What varies is the way in which “in a certain sense” is spelled out. Interpretations oscillate between radical positions such as the idea that thinking without speaking is impossible to the idea that it is just language which vexes our cognition and hence makes it rather impossible, and similarly between the idea that all differences between natural languages are nothing but irrelevant variations in the “vox”, the “external form” to the idea that it our thought is massively shaped by the particular structural features of the language we happen to speak. It is remarkable how little agreement has been reached on these issues after more than 2500 years of discussion. This, it is argued, has mainly two reasons: (a) The entire argument is largely confined to a few lexical and morphological properties of human languages, and (b) the discussion is rarely based on empirical research on “language at work” - how do we manage to solve those many little tasks for which human languages are designed in the first place.

Abstract

Tense is traditionally assumed to express temporal relations between the time of the event and the moment of speech, whereas aspect expresses various views on one and the same event. In Klein (1994), it was argued that the intuitions which underlie this viewing metaphor can be made precise by a time-relational analysis as well. In his article “Aspect vs. relative tense: the case reopened”, Jürgen Bohnemeyer challenges one important point of this analysis, the equation of aspect and relative tense in the English perfect and in temporal forms of few other languages. In the present comment, it is argued that this is indeed a simplification, which does not speak, however, against a time-relational analysis of aspect in general. The main lines of such an analysis for the English perfect are sketched. It is shown that it naturally accounts for differences between the simple past and the present perfect, as well as for the oddity of constructions such as Einstein has visited Princeton or Ira has left yesterday at five.

Abstract

Language acquisition is the transition between the language faculty, with which we are born as a part of our genetic endowment, to the mastery of one or more linguistic systems. There is a plethora of findings about this process; but these findings still do not form a coherent picture of the principles which underlie this process. There are at least six reasons for this situation. First, there is an enormous variability in the conditions under which this process occurs. Second, the learning capacity does not remain constant over time. Third, the process extends over many years and is therefore hard to study. Fourth, especially the investigation of the meaning side is problem-loaded. Fifth, many skills and types of knowledge must be learned in a more or less synchronised way. And sixth, our understanding of the functioning of linguistic systems is still very limited. Nevertheless, there are a few overarching results, three of which are discussed here: (1) There are salient differences between child and adult learners: While children normally end up with perfect mastery of the language to be learned, this is hardly ever the case for adults. On the hand, it could be shown for each linguistic property examined so far, that adults are in principle able to learn it up to perfection. So, adults can learn everything perfectly well, they just don’t. (2) Within childhood, age of onset plays no essential role for ultimate attainment. (3) Children care much more for formal correctness than adults - they are just better in mimicking existing systems. It is argued that age does not affect the „construction capacity”- the capacity to build up linguistic systems - but the „copying faculty”, i.e., the faculty to imitate an existing system.

Abstract

Nobel's legacy, or the metamorphosis of what is idealistic Ever since the first Nobel prize in literature was awarded to Prudhomme in 1901, the decisions of the Swedish Academy have been subject to criticism. What is surprising in the changing decision policy as well as in its criticism is the fact that Alfred Nobel's original intentions are hardly ever taken into account: the Nobel prize is a philanthropic prize, it is not meant to select and honour the most eminent literary work but the work with maximal benefit to human beings. What is even more surprising is the fact that no one seems to care that the donator's Last Will is regularly broken.

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the implications of the fact that adult second language learners (outside the classroom) universally develop a well-structured, efficient and simple form of language–the Basic Variety (BV). Three questions are asked as to (1) the structural properties of the BV, (2) the status of these properties and (3) why some structural properties of ‘fully fledged’ languages are more complex. First, we characterize the BV in four respects: its lexical repertoire, the principles according to which utterances are structured, and temporality and spatiality expressed. The organizational principles proposed are small in number, and interact. We analyse this interaction, describing how the BV is put to use in various complex verbal tasks, in order to establish both what its communicative potentialities are, and also those discourse contexts where the constraints come into conflict and where the variety breaks down. This latter phenomenon provides a partial answer to the third question,concerning the relative complexity of ‘fully fledged’ languages–they have devices to deal with such cases. As for the second question, it is argued firstly that the empirically established continuity of the adult acquisition process precludes any assignment of the BV to a mode of linguistic expression (e.g., ‘protolanguage’) distinct from that of ‘fully fledged’ languages and, moreover, that the organizational constraints of the BV belong to the core attributes of the human language capacity, whereas a number of complexifications not attested in the BV are less central properties of this capacity. Finally, it is shown that the notion of feature strength, as used in recent versions of Generative Grammar, allows a straightforward characterization of the BV as a special case of an I-language, in the sense of this theory. Under this perspective, the acquisition of an Ilanguage beyond the BV can essentially be described as a change in feature strength.

Abstract

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

Abstract

In John has left London, it is clear that the event in question, John's leaving London, has occurred in the past, for example yesterday at ten. Why is it impossible, then, to make this the event time more explicit by such an adverbial, as in Yesterday at ten, John has left London? Any solution of this puzzle crucially hinges on the meaning assigned to the perfect, and the present perfect in particular. Two such solutions, a scope solution and the 'current relevance'-solution, are discussed and shown to be inadequate. A new, strictly compositional analysis of the English perfect is suggested, and it is argued that the imcompatibility of the present perfect and most past tense adverbials has neither syntactic nor semantic reasons but follows from a simple pragmatical constraint, called here the 'position-definiteness constraint'. It is the very same constraint, which also makes an utterance such as At ten, John had left at nine pragmatically odd, even if John indeed had left at nine, and hence the utterance is true.

Abstract

The vocal development of cranes (Gruidae) has attracted scientific interest due to a
special stage, so-called voice breaking. During voice breaking, chicks produce both
adult low-frequency and juvenile high-frequency vocalizations. The triggers that affect voice breaking are unknown. For the first time, we study the vocal development of the Demoiselle Crane (Anthropoides virgo). We describe the age and possible drivers of
the onset of voice breaking. We analyse the calls of 21 Demoiselle Crane chicks, and
compare them with the calls of six adult birds, noting the day when adult low-frequency calls are first recorded as the day when voice breaking begins. The age of voice
breaking onset does not depend on hatching date, clutch order or chick body mass. Thus, there is no correlation between body growth and the onset of voice breaking for individual Demoiselle Crane chicks. However, there is a strong relationship between body mass and voice breaking among different crane species. Demoiselle Cranes stop intense body growth at the age of 2 months and start voice breaking at 70 ^ 46 days. By way of comparison, Red-crowned Cranes finish the period of intense body growth at the age of 7 months and start voice breaking at 211 ^ 60 days. Thus, we show that the Demoiselle Crane has a sudden vocal development, similar to other crane species, and we suggest that the end of intense body growth is the trigger for the onset of voice breaking in cranes.

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the time resolution of different methods for the computation of event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS), including one based on Hilbert transform. Methods: In order to better understand the time resolution of ERD/ERS, which is a function of factors such as the exact computation method, the frequency under study, the number of trials, and the sampling frequency, we simulated sudden changes in oscillation amplitude as well as very short and closely spaced events. Results: Hilbert-based ERD yields very similar results to ERD integrated over predefined time intervals (block ERD), if the block length is half the period length of the studied frequency. ERD predicts the onset of a change in oscillation amplitude with an error margin of only 10–30 ms. On the other hand, the time the ERD response needs to climb to its full height after a sudden change in oscillation amplitude is quite long, i.e. between 200 and 500 ms. With respect to sensitivity to short oscillatory events, the ratio between sampling frequency and electroencephalographic frequency band plays a major role. Conclusions: (1) The optimal time interval for the computation of block ERD is half a period of the frequency under investigation. (2) Due to the slow impulse response, amplitude effects in the ERD may in reality be caused by duration differences. (3) Although ERD based on the Hilbert transform does not yield any significant advantages over classical ERD in terms of time resolution, it has some important practical advantages.

Abstract

The direction of object enumeration reflects children’s enculturation but previous work on the development of such spatial preferences has been inconsistent. Therefore, we documented directional preferences in finger counting, object counting, and picture naming for children (4 groups from 3 to 6 years, N = 104) and adults (N = 56). We found a right-side preference for finger counting in 3- to 6-year-olds and a left-side preference for counting objects and naming pictures by 6 years of age. Children were consistent in their special preferences when comparing object counting and picture naming, but not in other task pairings. Finally, spatial preferences were not related to cardinality comprehension. These results, together with other recent work, suggest a gradual development of spatial-numerical associations from early non-directional mappings into culturally constrained directional mappings.

Abstract

Diffusion-weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DW-MRI) has emerged as the most popular neuroimaging technique used to depict the biological microstructural properties of human brain white matter. However, like other MRI techniques, traditional DW-MRI data remains subject to head motion artifacts during scanning. For example, previous studies have indicated that, with traditional DW-MRI data, head motion artifacts significantly affect the evaluation of diffusion metrics. Actually, DW-MRI data scanned with higher sampling rate are important for accurately evaluating diffusion metrics because it allows for full-brain coverage through the acquisition of multiple slices simultaneously and more gradient directions. Here, we employed a publicly available multiband DW-MRI dataset to investigate the association between motion and diffusion metrics with the standard pipeline, tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). The diffusion metrics used in this study included not only the commonly used metrics (i.e., FA and MD) in DW-MRI studies, but also newly proposed inter-voxel metric, local diffusion homogeneity (LDH). We found that the motion effects in FA and MD seems to be mitigated to some extent, but the effect on MD still exists. Furthermore, the effect in LDH is much more pronounced. These results indicate that researchers shall be cautious when conducting data analysis and interpretation. Finally, the motion-diffusion association is discussed.

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides valuable data for understanding the human mind and brain disorders, but in-scanner head motion introduces systematic and spurious biases. For example, differences in MRI measures (e.g., network strength, white matter integrity) between patient and control groups may be due to the differences in their head motion. To determine whether head motion is an important variable in itself, or just simply a confounding variable, we explored individual differences in psychological traits that may predispose some people to move more than others during an MRI scan. In the first two studies, we demonstrated in both children (N  =  245) and adults (N  =  581) that head motion, estimated from resting-state functional MRI and diffusion tensor imaging, was reliably correlated with impulsivity scores. Further, the difference in head motion between children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and typically developing children was largely due to differences in impulsivity. Finally, in the third study, we confirmed the observation that the regression approach, which aims to deal with motion issues by regressing out motion in the group analysis, would underestimate the effect of interest. Taken together, the present findings provide empirical evidence that links in-scanner head motion to psychological traits.

Abstract

Background Although local features of brain morphology have been widely investigated in neuroscience, the inter-regional relations in brain morphology have rarely been investigated, especially not for individual participants. New method In this paper, we proposed a novel framework for investigating this relation based on an individual's magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. The key idea was to estimate the probability density function (PDF) of local morphological features within a brain region to provide a global description of this region. Then, the inter-regional relations were quantified by calculating the similarity of the PDFs for pairs of regions based on the Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence. Results For illustration, we applied this approach to a pre-post intervention study to investigate the longitudinal changes in morphological relations after long-term sleep deprivation. The results suggest the potential application of this new method for studies on individual differences in brain structure. Comparison with existing methods The current method can be employed to estimate individual morphological relations between regions, which have been largely ignored by previous studies. Conclusions Our morphological relation metric, as a novel quantitative biomarker, can be used to investigate normal individual variability and even within-individual alterations/abnormalities in brain structure.

Abstract

Sentence production requires mapping preverbal messages onto linguistic structures. Because sentences are normally built incrementally, the information encoded in a sentence-initial increment is critical for explaining how the mapping process starts and for predicting its timecourse. Two experiments tested whether and when speakers prioritize encoding of different types of information at the outset of formulation by comparing production of descriptions of transitive events (e.g., A dog is chasing the mailman) that differed on two dimensions: the ease of naming individual characters and the ease of apprehending the event gist (i.e., encoding the relational structure of the event). To additionally manipulate ease of encoding, speakers described the target events after receiving lexical primes (facilitating naming; Experiment 1) or structural primes (facilitating generation of a linguistic structure; Experiment 2). Both properties of the pictured events and both types of primes influenced the form of target descriptions and the timecourse of formulation: character-specific variables increased the probability of speakers encoding one character with priority at the outset of formulation, while the ease of encoding event gist and of generating a syntactic structure increased the likelihood of early encoding of information about both characters. The results show that formulation is flexible and highlight some of the conditions under which speakers might employ different planning strategies.

Abstract

Does the naming of clocks always require conceptual preparation? To examine this question, speakers were presented with analog and digital clocks that had to be named in Dutch using either a relative (e.g., “quarter to four”) or an absolute (e.g., “three forty-five”) clock time expression format. Naming latencies showed evidence of conceptual preparation when speakers produced relative time expressions to analog and digital clocks, but not when they used absolute time expressions. These findings indicate that conceptual mediation is not always mandatory for telling time, but instead depends on clock time expression format, supporting a multiple-route account of Dutch clock time naming.

Abstract

ime perception is a critical component of conscious experience. To be in synchrony with the environment, the brain must deal not only with differences in the speed of light and sound but also with its computational and neural transmission delays. Here, we asked whether the brain could actively compensate for temporal delays by changing its processing time. Specifically, can changes in neural timing or in the phase of neural oscillation index perceived timing? For this, a lag-adaptation paradigm was used to manipulate participants' perceived audiovisual (AV) simultaneity of events while they were recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG). Desynchronized AV stimuli were presented rhythmically to elicit a robust 1 Hz frequency-tagging of auditory and visual cortical responses. As participants' perception of AV simultaneity shifted, systematic changes in the phase of entrained neural oscillations were observed. This suggests that neural entrainment is not a passive response and that the entrained neural oscillation shifts in time. Crucially, our results indicate that shifts in neural timing in auditory cortices linearly map participants' perceived AV simultaneity. To our knowledge, these results provide the first mechanistic evidence for active neural compensation in the encoding of sensory event timing in support of the emergence of time awareness.

Abstract

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

Abstract

Objective Recently, de novo SCN8A missense mutations have been identified as a rare dominant cause of epileptic encephalopathies. Functional studies on the first described case demonstrated gain-of-function effects of the mutation. We describe a novel de novo mutation of SCN8A in a patient with epileptic encephalopathy, and functional characterization of the mutant protein. Design Whole exome sequencing was used to discover the variant. We generated a mutant cDNA, transfected HEK293 cells, and performed Western blotting to assess protein stability. To study channel functional properties, patch-clamp experiments were carried out in transfected neuronal ND7/23 cells. Results The proband exhibited seizure onset at 6 months of age, diffuse brain atrophy, and more profound developmental impairment than the original case. The mutation p.Arg233Gly in the voltage sensing transmembrane segment D1S4 was present in the proband and absent in both parents. This mutation results in a temperature-sensitive reduction in protein expression as well as reduced sodium current amplitude and density and a relative increased response to a slow ramp stimulus, though this did not result in an absolute increased current at physiological temperatures. Conclusion The new de novo SCN8A mutation is clearly deleterious, resulting in an unstable protein with reduced channel activity. This differs from the gain-of-function attributes of the first SCN8A mutation in epileptic encephalopathy, pointing to heterogeneity of mechanisms. Since Nav1.6 is expressed in both excitatory and inhibitory neurons, a differential effect of a loss-of-function of Nav1.6 Arg223Gly on inhibitory interneurons may underlie the epilepsy phenotype in this patient.

Abstract

* Kristiansen, M., Deriziotis, P. These authors contributed equally to this work.* - The mechanism of cell death in prion disease is unknown but is associated with the production of a misfolded conformer of the prion protein. We report that disease-associated prion protein specifically inhibits the proteolytic β subunits of the 26S proteasome. Using reporter substrates, fluorogenic peptides, and an activity probe for the β subunits, this inhibitory effect was demonstrated in pure 26S proteasome and three different cell lines. By challenge with recombinant prion and other amyloidogenic proteins, we demonstrate that only the prion protein in a nonnative β sheet conformation inhibits the 26S proteasome at stoichiometric concentrations. Preincubation with an antibody specific for aggregation intermediates abrogates this inhibition, consistent with an oligomeric species mediating this effect. We also present evidence for a direct relationship between prion neuropathology and impairment of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) in prion-infected UPS-reporter mice. Together, these data suggest a mechanism for intracellular neurotoxicity mediated by oligomers of misfolded prion protein.

Abstract

This study addresses the supralexical inferential processes underlying wellformedness judgements and latencies for a specic sublexical unit that appears in Dutch compounds, the interfix. Production studies have shown that the selection of interfixes in novel Dutch compounds and the speed of
this selection is primarily determined by the distribution of interfixes in existing compounds that share the left constituent with the target compound, i.e. the ‘‘left constituent family’’. In this paper, we consider the question whether constituent families also affect wellformedness decisions of novel as well as existing Dutch compounds in comprehension. We visually presented compounds containing interfixes that were either in line with the bias of the left constituent family or not. In the case of existing compounds, we also presented variants with replaced interfixes. As in production, the bias of the left constituent family emerged as a crucial predictor for both acceptance rates and response latencies. This result supports the hypothesis that, as in production, constituent families are (co-)activated in comprehension. We argue that this co-activation is part of a supralexical inferential process, and we discuss how our data might be interpreted within sublexical and supralexical theories of morphological processing.

Abstract

This study addresses the possibility that interfixes in multiconstituent nominal compounds in German and Dutch are functional as markers of immediate constituent structure.We report a lexical statistical survey of interfixation in the lexicons of German and Dutch which shows that all interfixes of German and one interfix of Dutch are significantly more likely to appear at the major constituent boundary than expected under chance conditions. A series of experiments provides evidence that speakers of German and Dutch are sensitive to the probabilistic cues to constituent structure provided by the interfixes. Thus, our data provide evidence that probability is part and parcel of grammatical competence.

Abstract

Only relatively recently have theories of speech production concerned themselves with the part idioms and other multi-word lexical items (MLIs) play in the processes of speech production. Two theories of speech production which attempt to account for the accessing of idioms in speech production are those of Cutting and Bock (1997) and superlemma theory (Sprenger, 2003; Sprenger, Levelt, & Kempen, 2006). Much of the data supporting theories of speech production comes either from time course experiments or from slips of the tongue (Bock & Levelt, 1994). The latter are of two kinds: experimentally induced (Baars, 1992) or naturally observed (Fromkin, 1980). Cutting and Bock use experimentally induced speech errors while Sprenger et al. use time course experiments. The missing data type that has a bearing on speech production involving MLIs is that of naturally occurring slips. In this study the impact of data taken from naturally observed slips involving English and Dutch MLIs are brought to bear on these theories. The data are taken initially from a corpus of just over 1000 naturally observed English slips involving MLIs (the Tuggy corpus). Our argument proceeds as follows. First we show that slips occur independent of whether or not there are MLIs involved. In other words, speech production proceeds in certain of its aspects as though there were no MLI present. We illustrate these slips from the Tuggy data. Second we investigate the predictions of superlemma theory. Superlemma theory (Sprenger et al., 2006) accounts for the selection of MLIs and how their properties enter processes of speech production. It predicts certain activation patterns dependent on a MLI being selected. Each such pattern might give rise to slips of the tongue. This set of predictions is tested against the Tuggy data. Each of the predicted activation patterns yields a significant number of slips. These findings are therefore compatible with a view of MLIs as single units in so far as their activation by lexical concepts goes. However, the theory also predicts that some slips are likely not to occur. We confirm that such slips are not present in the data. These findings are further corroborated by reference a second smaller dataset of slips involving Dutch MLIs (the Kempen corpus). We then use slips involving irreversible binomials to distinguish between the predictions of superlemma theory which are supported by slips involving irreversible binomials and the Cutting and Bock model's predictions for slips involving these MLIs which are not

Abstract

Developmental dyslexia is often characterized by a dual deficit in both word recognition accuracy and general processing speed. While previous research into dyslexic word recognition may have suffered from speed-accuracy trade-off, the present study employed a novel eye-tracking task that is less prone to such confounds. Participants (10 dyslexics and 12 controls) were asked to look at real word stimuli, and to ignore simultaneously presented non-word stimuli, while their eye-movements were recorded. Improvements in word recognition accuracy over time were modeled in terms of a continuous non-linear function. The words' rhyme consistency and the non-words' lexicality (unpronounceable, pronounceable, pseudohomophone) were manipulated within-subjects. Speed-related measures derived from the model fits confirmed generally slower processing in dyslexics, and showed a rhyme consistency effect in both dyslexics and controls. In terms of overall error rate, dyslexics (but not controls) performed less accurately on rhyme-inconsistent words, suggesting a representational deficit for such words in dyslexics. Interestingly, neither group showed a pseudohomophone effect in speed or accuracy, which might call the task-independent pervasiveness of this effect into question. The present results illustrate the importance of distinguishing between speed- vs. accuracy-related effects for our understanding of dyslexic word recognition

Abstract

As in the case of other non-English languages, the study of the acquisition of Turkish has mostly focused on aspects of grammatical morphology and syntax, largely neglecting the study of the effect of interactional factors on child morphosyntax. This paper reviews indications from past research that studying input and adult-child discourse can facilitate the study of the acquisition of morphosyntax in the Turkish language. It also provides some recent studies of Turkish child language on the relationship of child-directed speech to the early acquisition of morphosyntax, and on the pragmatic features of a certain kind of discourse form in child-directed speech called variation sets.

Abstract

This study explores the effects of informational redundancy, as carried by a word's morphological paradigmatic structure, on acoustic duration in read aloud speech. The hypothesis that the more predictable a linguistic unit is, the less salient its realization, was tested on the basis of the acoustic duration of interfixes in Dutch compounds in two datasets: One for the interfix -s- (1155 tokens) and one for the interfix -e(n)- (742 tokens). Both datasets show that the more probable the interfix is, given the compound and its constituents, the longer it is realized. These findings run counter to the predictions of information-theoretical approaches and can be resolved by the Paradigmatic Signal Enhancement Hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that whenever selection of an element from alternatives is probabilistic, the element's duration is predicted by the amount of paradigmatic support for the element: The most likely alternative in the paradigm of selection is realized longer.

Abstract

This study investigates the adult grammars of French simultaneous bilingual speakers (2L1s) whose other language is German. Apart from providing an example of French as heritage language in Europe, the goals of this paper are (i) to compare the acquisition of French in a minority and majority language context, (ii) to identify the relative vulnerability of individual domains, and (iii) to investigate whether 2L1s are vulnerable to language attrition when moving to their heritage country during adulthood. We include two groups of German-French 2L1s: One group grew up predominantly in France, but moved to Germany during adulthood; the other group grew up predominantly in Germany and stayed there. Performance is compared in different domains, including adjective placement, gender marking, articles, prepositions, foreign accent and voice onset time. Results indicate that differences between the two groups are minimal in morpho-syntax, but more prominent in pronunciation.

Abstract

This study addressed prosodic effects on the duration of and amount of glottal vibration in German word-initial fricatives /f, v, z/ in assimilatory and non-assimilatory devoicing contexts. Fricatives following /small schwa/ (non-assimilation context) were longer and were produced with less glottal vibration after higher prosodic boundaries, reflecting domain-initial prosodic strengthening. After /t/ (assimilation context), lenis fricatives (/v, z/) were produced with less glottal vibration than after /small schwa/, due to assimilatory devoicing. This devoicing was especially strong across lower prosodic boundaries, showing the influence of prosodic structure on sandhi processes. Reduction in glottal vibration made lenis fricatives more fortis-like (/f, s/). Importantly, fricative duration, another major cue to the fortis-lenis distinction, was affected by initial lengthening, but not by assimilation. Hence, at smaller boundaries, fricatives were more devoiced (more fortis-like), but also shorter (more lenis-like). As a consequence, the fortis and lenis fricatives remained acoustically distinct in all prosodic and segmental contexts. Overall, /z/ was devoiced to a greater extent than /v/. Since /z/ does not have a fortis counterpart in word-initial position, these findings suggest that phonotactic restrictions constrain phonetic processes. The present study illuminates a complex interaction of prosody, sandhi processes, and phonotactics, yielding systematic phonetic cues to prosodic structure and phonological distinctions.

Abstract

In spontaneous conversations between adults, words are often pronounced with fewer segments or syllables than their citation forms. The question arises whether infant-directed speech also contains phonetic reduction. If so, infants would be presented with speech input that enables them to acquire reduced variants from an early age. This study compared speech directed at 11- and 12-month-old infants with adult-directed conversational speech and adult-directed read speech. In an acoustic study, 216 tokens of the Dutch words allemaal and helemaal from speech corpora were analyzed for duration, number of syllables, and vowel quality. In a perception study, adult participants rated these same materials for reduction and provided phonetic transcriptions. The results show that these two words are frequently reduced in infant-directed speech, and that their degree of reduction is comparable with conversational adult-directed speech. These findings suggest that lexical representations for reduced pronunciation variants can be acquired early in linguistic development

Abstract

When speakers describe motion events using different languages, they subsequently classify those events in language-specific ways (Gennari, Sloman, Malt & Fitch, 2002). Here we ask if bilingual speakers flexibly shift their event classification preferences based on the language in which they verbally encode those events. English–Spanish bilinguals and monolingual controls described motion events in either Spanish or English. Subsequently they judged the similarity of the motion events in a triad task. Bilinguals tested in Spanish and Spanish monolinguals were more likely to make similarity judgments based on the path of motion versus bilinguals tested in English and English monolinguals. The effect is modulated in bilinguals by the age of acquisition of the second language. Late bilinguals based their judgments on path more often when Spanish was used to describe the motion events versus English. Early bilinguals had a path preference independent of the language in use. These findings support “thinking-for-speaking” (Slobin, 1996) in late bilinguals.

Abstract

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is characterized by a debilitating fatigue of unknown aetiology. Patients who suffer from CFS report a variety of physical complaints as well as neuropsychological complaints. Therefore, it is conceivable that the CNS plays a role in the pathophysiology of CFS. The purpose of this study was to investigate neural correlates of CFS, and specifically whether there exists a linkage between disturbances in the motor system and CFS. We measured behavioural performance and cerebral activity using rapid event-related functional MRI in 16 CFS patients and 16 matched healthy controls while they were engaged in a motor imagery task and a control visual imagery task. CFS patients were considerably slower on performance of both tasks, but the increase in reaction time with increasing task load was similar between the groups. Both groups used largely overlapping neural resources. However, during the motor imagery task, CFS patients evoked stronger responses in visually related structures. Furthermore, there was a marked between-groups difference during erroneous performance. In both groups, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex was specifically activated during error trials. Conversely, ventral anterior cingulate cortex was active when healthy controls made an error, but remained inactive when CFS patients made an error. Our results support the notion that CFS may be associated with dysfunctional motor planning. Furthermore, the between-groups differences observed during erroneous performance point to motivational disturbances as a crucial component of CFS.

Abstract

This study investigated processing of emotion words in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) using reaction times and event-related potentials (ERP). Adults with (n = 21) and without (n = 20) ASD performed a lexical decision task on emotion and neutral words while their brain activity was recorded. Both groups showed faster responses to emotion words compared to neutral, suggesting intact early processing of emotion in ASD. In the ERPs, the control group showed a typical late positive component (LPC) at 400-600 ms for emotion words compared to neutral, while the ASD group showed no LPC. The between-group difference in LPC amplitude was significant, suggesting that emotion words were processed differently by individuals with ASD, although their behavioral performance was similar to that of typical individuals

Abstract

The present study investigates hemispheric specialisation in the use of space in communicative gestures. For this purpose, we investigate split-brain patients in whom spontaneous and distinct right hand gestures can only be controlled by the left hemisphere and vice versa, the left hand only by the right hemisphere. On this anatomical basis, we can infer hemispheric specialisation from the performances of the right and left hands. In contrast to left hand dyspraxia in tasks that require language processing, split-brain patients utilise their left hands in a meaningful way in visuo-constructive tasks such as copying drawings or block-design. Therefore, we conjecture that split-brain patients are capable of using their left hands for the communication of the content of visuo-spatial animations via gestural demonstration. On this basis, we further examine the use of space in communicative gestures by the right and left hands. McNeill and Pedelty (1995) noted for the split-brain patient N.G. that her iconic right hand gestures were exclusively displayed in the right personal space. The present study investigates systematically if there is indication for neglect of the left personal space in right hand gestures in split-brain patients.