Presentations

Abstract

This study aims to test recent theoretical frameworks in speech motor control which claim that speech production targets are specified in auditory terms. According to such frameworks, people with better auditory acuity should have more precise speech targets. Participants performed speech perception and production tasks in a counterbalanced order. Speech perception acuity was assessed using an adaptive speech discrimination task, where participants discriminated between stimuli on a /ɪ/-/ɛ/ and a /ɑ/-/ɔ/ continuum. To assess variability in speech production, participants performed a pseudo-word reading task; formant values were measured for each recording of the vowels /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ in 288 pseudowords (18 per vowel, each of which was repeated 4 times). We predicted that speech production variability would correlate inversely with discrimination performance. Results confirmed this prediction as better discriminators had more distinctive vowel production targets. In addition, participants with higher auditory acuity produced vowels with smaller within-phoneme variability but spaced farther apart in vowel space. This study highlights the importance of individual differences in the study of speech motor control, and sheds light on speech production-perception interactions.

Abstract

This study aims to test a prediction of recent
theoretical frameworks in speech motor control: if
speech production targets are specified in auditory
terms, people with better auditory acuity should
have more precise speech targets.
To investigate this, we had participants perform
speech perception and production tasks in a
counterbalanced order. To assess speech perception
acuity, we used an adaptive speech discrimination
task. To assess variability in speech production,
participants performed a pseudo-word reading task;
formant values were measured for each recording.
We predicted that speech production variability to
correlate inversely with discrimination performance.
The results suggest that people do vary in their
production and perceptual abilities, and that better
discriminators have more distinctive vowel
production targets, confirming our prediction. This
study highlights the importance of individual
differences in the study of speech motor control, and
sheds light on speech production-perception
interaction.

Abstract

In investigations of feedback control during speech production, researchers have focused on two different kinds of responses to erroneous or unexpected auditory feedback. Compensation refers to online, feedback-based corrections of articulations. In contrast, adaptation refers to long-term changes in the speech production system after exposure to erroneous/unexpected feedback, which may last even after feedback is normal again. In the current study, we aimed to compare both types of feedback responses by investigating the conditions under which the system starts adapting in addition to merely compensating. Participants vocalized long vowels while they were exposed to either consistently altered auditory feedback, or to feedback that was unpredictably either altered or normal. Participants were not aware of the manipulation of auditory feedback. We predicted that both conditions would elicit compensation, whereas adaptation would be stronger when the altered feedback was consistent across trials. The results show that although there seems to be somewhat more adaptation for the consistently altered feedback condition, a substantial amount of individual variability led to statistically unreliable effects at the group level. The results stress the importance of taking into account individual differences and show that people vary widely in how they respond to altered auditory feedback.

Abstract

A recurring criticism in the field of psycholinguistics and is the lack of ecological validity of experimental designs. For example, many experiments on sentence comprehension are conducted enclosed booths, where sentences are presented word by word on a computer screen. In addition, very often participants are instructed to make judgments that relate directly to the experimental manipulation. Thus, the contexts in which these processes are studied is quite restricted, which calls into question the generalizability of the results to more naturalistic environments. A possible solution to this problem is the use of virtual reality (VR) in psycholinguistic experiments. By immersing participants into a virtual environment, ecological validity can be increased while experimental control is maintained.
In the current experiment we combine electroencephalography (EEG) and VR to look at semantic processing in a more naturalistic setting. During the experiment, participants move through a visually rich virtual restaurant. Tables and avatars are placed in the restaurant and participants are instructed to stop at each table and look at the object (e.g. a plate with a steak) in front of the avatar. Then, the avatar will produce an utterance to accompany the object (e.g. “I think this steak is very nice”), in which the noun will either match (e.g. steak) or mismatch (e.g. mandarin) with the item on the table. Based on previous research, we predict a modulation of the N400, which should be larger in the mismatch than the match condition. Implications of the use of virtual reality for experimental research will be discussed.

Abstract

Fluctuations in pupil size have been shown to reflect variations in processing demands during language
comprehension. Increases in pupil diameter have been observed as a consequence of syntactic anomalies
(Schluroff 1982), increased syntactic complexity (Just & Carpenter 1993) and lexical ambiguity (Ben-
Nun 1986). An issue that has not received attention is whether pupil size also varies due to pragmatic
manipulations. In a pupillometry experiment, we investigated whether pupil diameter is sensitive to
increased processing demands as a result of comprehending an indirect request versus a statement. During
natural conversation, communication is often indirect. For example, in an appropriate context, ''It'' cold in
here'' is a request to shut the window, rather than a statement about room temperature (Holtgraves 1994).
We tested 49 Dutch participants (mean age = 20.8). They were presented with 120 picture-sentence
combinations that could either be interpreted as an indirect request (a picture of a window with the
sentence ''it's hot here'') or as a statement (a picture of a window with the sentence ''it's nice here''). The
indirect requests were non-conventional, i.e. they did not contain directive propositional content and were
not directly related to the underlying felicity conditions (Holtgraves 2002). In order to verify that the
indirect requests were recognized, participants were asked to decide after each combination whether or
not they heard a request. Based on the hypothesis that understanding this type of indirect utterances
requires additional inferences to be made on the part of the listener (e.g., Holtgraves 2002; Searle 1975;
Van Ackeren et al. 2012), we predicted a larger pupil diameter for indirect requests than statements. The
data were analyzed using linear mixed-effects models in R, which allow for simultaneous inclusion of
participants and items as random factors (Baayen, Davidson, & Bates 2008). The results revealed a larger
mean pupil size and a larger peak pupil size for indirect requests as compared to statements. In line with
previous studies on pupil size and language comprehension (e.g., Just & Carpenter 1993), this difference
was observed within a 1.5 second window after critical word onset. We suggest that the increase in pupil
size reflects additional on-line processing demands for the comprehension of non-conventional indirect
requests as compared to statements. This supports the idea that comprehending this type of indirect
request requires capacity demanding inferencing on the part of the listener. In addition, this study
demonstrates the usefulness of pupillometry as a tool for experimental research in pragmatics.

Abstract

Fluctuations in pupil size have been shown to reflect variations in processing demands during language
comprehension. Increases in pupil diameter have been observed as a consequence of syntactic anomalies
(Schluroff 1982), increased syntactic complexity (Just & Carpenter 1993) and lexical ambiguity (Ben-
Nun 1986). An issue that has not received attention is whether pupil size also varies due to pragmatic
manipulations. In a pupillometry experiment, we investigated whether pupil diameter is sensitive to
increased processing demands as a result of comprehending an indirect request versus a statement. During
natural conversation, communication is often indirect. For example, in an appropriate context, ''It'' cold in
here'' is a request to shut the window, rather than a statement about room temperature (Holtgraves 1994).
We tested 49 Dutch participants (mean age = 20.8). They were presented with 120 picture-sentence
combinations that could either be interpreted as an indirect request (a picture of a window with the
sentence ''it's hot here'') or as a statement (a picture of a window with the sentence ''it's nice here''). The
indirect requests were non-conventional, i.e. they did not contain directive propositional content and were
not directly related to the underlying felicity conditions (Holtgraves 2002). In order to verify that the
indirect requests were recognized, participants were asked to decide after each combination whether or
not they heard a request. Based on the hypothesis that understanding this type of indirect utterances
requires additional inferences to be made on the part of the listener (e.g., Holtgraves 2002; Searle 1975;
Van Ackeren et al. 2012), we predicted a larger pupil diameter for indirect requests than statements. The
data were analyzed using linear mixed-effects models in R, which allow for simultaneous inclusion of
participants and items as random factors (Baayen, Davidson, & Bates 2008). The results revealed a larger
mean pupil size and a larger peak pupil size for indirect requests as compared to statements. In line with
previous studies on pupil size and language comprehension (e.g., Just & Carpenter 1993), this difference
was observed within a 1.5 second window after critical word onset. We suggest that the increase in pupil
size reflects additional on-line processing demands for the comprehension of non-conventional indirect
requests as compared to statements. This supports the idea that comprehending this type of indirect
request requires capacity demanding inferencing on the part of the listener. In addition, this study
demonstrates the usefulness of pupillometry as a tool for experimental research in pragmatics.

Abstract

Das wichtigste und zugleich komplexeste Organ im menschlichen Körper ist das Gehirn.
Es ist beteiligt an allem, was uns lieb und teuer ist. Ohne Gehirn kein Gedächtnis, kein Gefühl, keine Sprache oder Wahrnehmung, so Dr. Peter Hagoort, Professor am Donders Centre for Cognition an der Radboud Universität. Der Nimweger Wissenschaftler beschäftigt sich mit den revolutionären Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet der Scanbildtechnologie.

Abstract

Human face-to-face communication is a multi-modal activity. Recent research has shown that, during comprehension, recipients integrate information from speech with that contained in co-speech gestures (e.g., Kelly et al., 2010). The current studies take this research one step further by investigating the influence of another modality, namely eye gaze, on speech and gesture comprehension, to advance our understanding of language processing in more situated contexts. In spite of the large body of literature on processing of eye gaze, very few studies have investigated its processing in the context of communication (but see, e.g., Staudte & Crocker, 2011 for an exception). In two studies we simulated a triadic communication context in which a speaker alternated their gaze between our participant and another (alleged) participant. Participants thus viewed speech-only or speech + gesture utterances either in the role of addressee (direct gaze) or in the role of unaddressed recipient (averted gaze). In Study 1, participants (N = 32) viewed video-clips of a speaker producing speech-only (e.g. “she trained the horse”) or speech+gesture utterances conveying complementary information (e.g. “she trained the horse”+WHIPPING gesture). Participants were asked to judge whether a word displayed on screen after each video-clip matched what the speaker said or not. In half of the cases, the word matched a previously uttered word, requiring a “yes” answer. In all other cases, the word matched the meaning of the gesture the actor had performed, thus requiring a ‘no’ answer.

Abstract

During reading, people not only retrieve meaning from individual words, they also combine words into multi-word meaning representation and derive inference from it. In single word studies, action verb meaning (kick) is understood through the activation of motor areas, typically interpreted as showing the necessity of these sensori motor regions as part of a semantic circuit for language comprehension (Pulvermüller & Fadiga, 2010). But it remains unclear how this association-based theory scales up to understanding sentence meaning and how the semantic circuit subserves inference
making at the sentence level.

Abstract

Words’ meanings vary with context. When do context effects arise? The answer to this is critical for deciding between theories assuming that meanings are accessed from a stable mental lexicon and theories that suggest meanings are constructed ad hoc. On the first view, a word form activates an invariant semantic representation, which is subsequently tailored to fit the context (e.g., Evans, 2009; Machery, 2010). On an alternative view, word forms are cues to construct meaning; the information that gets activated is always co-determined by the word and its context (Elman, 2004; 2009; Lai, Hagoort, & Casasanto, 2011).

Abstract

An important property of language is that it can be used exophorically, for instance in referring to entities in the extra-linguistic context of a conversation using demonstratives such as “this” and “that”. Despite large-scale cross-linguistic descriptions of demonstrative systems, the mechanisms underlying the comprehension of such referential acts are poorly understood. Therefore, we investigated the neural mechanisms underlying demonstrative comprehension in situated contexts. Twenty-three participants were presented on a computer screen with pictures containing a speaker and two similar objects. One of the objects was close to the speaker, whereas the other was either distal from the speaker but optically close to the participant (“sagittal orientation”), or distal from both (“lateral orientation”). The speaker pointed to one object, and participants heard sentences spoken by the speaker containing a proximal (“this”) or distal (“that”) demonstrative, and a correct or incorrect noun-label (i.e., a semantic violation). EEG was recorded continuously and time-locked to the onset of demonstratives and nouns. Semantic violations on the noun-label yielded a significant, wide-spread N400 effect, regardless of the objects’ orientation. Comparing the comprehension of proximal to distal demonstratives in the sagittal orientation yielded a similar N400 effect, both for the close and the far referent. Interestingly, no demonstrative effect was found when objects were oriented laterally. Our findings suggest a similar time-course for demonstrative and noun-label processing. However, the comprehension of demonstratives depends on the spatial orientation of potential referents, whereas noun-label comprehension does not. These findings reveal new insights about the mechanisms underlying everyday demonstrative comprehension.